once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. operations around the day. so why do you know eating their country in occupying a country and disturbing their country creating hundreds of thousands of refugees and suffering. military officials whole warre a necessary evil for ron paul bags to differ on the aftermath of a tragedy at the hands of a rogue us soldier two questions looming over operations in afghanistan why are we still there and how we created more problems than we've helped to solve. and there's been some research than they did about two point two million votes were lost in two thousand and eight do voter registration problems. you know the saying

every vote counts that might not be totally inaccurate in the u.s. we'll show you how ineffective the voting process really is. and speaking of election reformation several states think they may have a solution for voter fraud in the form of voter identification cards a well this really solve the problem or is it a way to stop democratic voters from getting the ballot box to be. it's tuesday march thirteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well the u.s. has apologized for the shooting rampage in afghanistan that killed sixteen people many of them women and children and thirty eight year old staff sergeant is now under arrest being held at an undisclosed location the massacre has severely

strained relations between afghans and foreign forces now u.s. officials are debating pulling out of the country sooner than planned and here at home a new poll shows that more americans are growing frustrated but the way the war's going and want the troops. comeback sixty percent say the war was not worth fighting thirty percent believe the afghan public supports the u.s. mission the u.s. mission there and fifty four percent say the u.s. should withdraw forces meanwhile president obama today said anyone involved will be held accountable and he reiterated the plants a draw down u.s. troops take a lesson the united states takes this as seriously as if it was our own citizens and our own children who are murdered. her growing over the loss of innocent life the killing of innocent civilians is outrageous and some acceptable it's not who we

are as a country and it does not represent our military. but this fight the apology is in the wake of one tragedy an embarrassment after another many afghans are pushing for the ouster of u.s. troops and with ansi american rallies igniting and the country artie's guy until he can reports the patience of the afghan people may well be running out. sixteen innocent afghan villagers slaughtered in cold blood nine of them children u.s. officials are going out of their way to present the american surgeon who apparently committed the massacre is just one bad apple and the scene shouldn't is georgia and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character for military and the respect that the united states has for the people of afghanistan. this is not who we are in no way does he represent. the ethics and morality of the

american servicemen and servicewomen and i think afghans understand it and afghans don't seem to be buying that at all. the rage and humiliation felt by afghan people appear to be way beyond what apologies can make up for a furthermore before in the last few months all too often and each one very similar to the next just weeks ago the white house apologized for the burning of the copies of the koran by u.s. troops an incident that triggered a surge of violence this was a deeply unfortunate incident that does not reflect the great respect our military has for the religious practices of the afghan people and weeks before that in january apologies again over footage showing u.s. marines urinating on dead afghans these actions do not represent the values of the vast majority of coalition forces who are some of the nation's honorably contrary to what u.s. officials say some analysts believe that those incidents are symptomatic of how the military operation in afghanistan works it is increasing the case that this is

looking like. a brutal occupation which is killing a large number of afghans were afghans film selves humiliated insulted instance like this will be regarded as a symbolic of exactly what is wrong with the american occupation it is an absolutely cynical operation to say that they don't think in afghanistan for another free how many more people will die how many more instances like this the only solution to this is to bring the troops out and then for these for these governments the sultan's of a name in countries well i have absolutely no right to intervene copious apologies handed out by the administration don't seem even to appease war critics back home let alone the afghan people but what about the whole idea of invading a country and occupying a country and disturbing their cause. tree creating hundreds of thousands of refugees suffering this is never good to

a point where apologizing about the korean is rather minor some of the other problems that we have created the taliban has vowed it will take revenge and least expect a fresh surge of violence children shot in the head we miss slaughtered it's incidents like the latest soldiers rampaging of ghana's then the extremists of all kinds used to it new people to their brains those new recruits go out to kill not even the most heartfelt apologies can change the minds of people that said on revenge it becomes a vicious circle that breeds even more danger spreading far beyond the borders of afghanistan i'm going to chicago reporting from washington. oh amid the outrage over the massacre more political leaders are questioning the u.s. presence in afghanistan u.s. officials now debating whether to speed up pulling out of the country and of on those questioning the afghan mission now g.o.p. candidates newt gingrich and rick santorum mitt romney says withdrawing forces from

the country will be based on what's happening on the ground there now these are people who have strongly advocated the war in the past but there is one candidate ron paul who has consistently questioned us involvement in the country from day one and you just saw that and i answer port there so as the other candidates come closer to saying ron paul's tonight as a new outlook on war enough to turn the g.o.p. tide well mary wilson volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter joins us from our studio and in los angeles welcome to the show mary so the latest atrocity is you think that ron paul's antiwar message will resonate with more people. yes it must unfortunately it takes an incident like this for people to come to realize ation there are actions to have consequences and ron paul has been warning us of this for a very long time that there there is a such thing that our cia has informed us is called blowback and incidences like

this atrocities like this have consequences and unfortunately sadly this is not an isolated incidents things like this happen in all of our wars in all of our occupations and this is what breeds hatred and retaliation and we shouldn't be there and ron paul has been saying that all along and isn't it reprehensible that you know the other candidates will say what it ever it is that they feel you want to hear in order to get elected you know they'll sing of the tune that they think will please you in order to get elected and ron paul has been saying all along that this is not the type of policy that the that that is american we are not a preemptive you know were country we shouldn't be we weren't that's not what our founding fathers intended and that's not how the republican party was to begin with it's only now and these things have consequences and we have responsibilities here

at home and by sending trillions of dollars and all of our weapons and all of our bravest young men and women into this these battlefields and creating these wars own we're not actually making america any safer we're actually you know tearing apart our own economy our own. defenses you know ron paul's foreign policy i think you know the reason one of the main reasons why i support him it actually makes us a lot safer you know for our troops to be securing our borders you know for our ports and you know entry places to be secure i've been around the. and i've seen modern technology and readers don't have it here we're supposed to be one of the most advanced nations and you know we're going to open i think and the things that we're doing in other nations have consequences and you know these things were

left out of you know a lot of different reports but you know it is a fact and that's what the cia has been telling us that these things have consequences and i'm not only concerned liz about you know this war there we have many occupations going on many wars going on and. you know i'm really sad all of the noise i hear about going to war with iran and i had to chuckle a little bit the other day when i saw a clip of joe biden a few years back on stage campaigning with obama screaming that if if bush you know went to a preemptive war without a declaration from congress and would attack iran that he would move to have bush impeached so it's funny all the hypocrisy that goes on in these campaigns and elections and that's one of main reason why i support ron paul because he has so much integrity integrity all along he has been delivering the same message and it's surprising to me that the other candidates can try to jump on the bandwagon when

they think it serves them and that's going to be my are outraged so they can pick up on this but go ahead sorry no problem that was going to be my next question what do you make of g.o.p. candidates now changing their views when it comes to the war in afghanistan i know you just mentioned hypocrisy and some people might view that this sudden change of heart is a crackhead hypocritical on the part of these g.o.p. candidates. exactly i believe that they'll change it back bill i believe that in one room you know they'll talk to one crowd and say one thing and in the other room they'll say something else and i had a friend the other day who told me that he was considering romney and i had to debate with him about this and he said well he's singing the tune i want to hear right now as far as it was gratian is concerned i said are you kidding me like is that really the most important issue right now and ron paul's policy addresses it you know better than anyone so you know securing our borders making only legal past

immigration having visas being monitored rather than you know the way things are going right now i said in a world of you know such advanced technology it's surprising to me how many trillions of dollars were separate spending on things that we blow up that are not making us safer and ron paul has the foreign policy that makes us safer and he is the consistent candidate from day one he's been saying these things and the fact that he's the only veteran running in this election is says something in his support from the troops i mean he got more than twenty four times more support then cambridge something like fifty times more support than santorum and more than twenty times more than mitt romney and more than all of the other candidates combined actually and you know the troops march on the white house on on president's day in support of his candidacy and the mainstream media chooses not to cover it and things happen like you know people we have you know investigators come back from iran inspectors they say there is no nuclear weapon we have sixteen

different intelligence agencies telling us that and then the mainstream media has some you know lobbyists you know who's paying for you know drum beating of war and people you know seventy percent of americans believe that iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the same seventy percent now believe that iran has a weapon when we know and all of our intelligence is telling us that they don't. have so much there's so much logic and that the fact that they can be contained. they don't have a air force or a navy they don't refine their know gasoline that's why they have to export it export their oil and that's why they have to seek nuclear energy there is no nuclear weapons program even though i. says so but you know the people who go on you know fox news c m b c m s n b c these corporations that are owned their parent companies like g.e. who has our nuclear energy contracts who you know they benefit a lot from people glued to their televisions in fear and i just want to ask you one

more question there mary now that people are kind of changing their views and more seem to be more aligned with what ron paul has been saying this whole time i mean do you think it takes a tragedy something as awful as this massacre in afghanistan for people to come to this realization about the realities of war unfortunately lives this type of stuff happens all the time maybe just doesn't normally get as much press but you know it happened in iraq there was more than twenty four people a family that was shot up and the. consequences for those soldiers you know i don't think that i don't think that our leaders are being held accountable what happened the other day with sorry i'm switching topics here but for leon panetta to say that we don't need the congress to declare the war we need international authority that is not in accordance with our constitution that's

another reason why support his one policy is not weak it actually is strong and it's just constitutional it's very letting the americans decide if we want to spend all of our money and our children into a battlefield when you know right now i apologize interrupt you there were just unfortunately we're out of time thank you so much for coming on the show that was mary wilson volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter. meanwhile on the ground in afghanistan and the american sentiment is growing fears this during an already rocky relationship between the u.s. and afghanistan so how will this latest tragedy shape u.s. foreign policy to talk more about this i'm joined now by iraq war veteran kevin baker kevin was actually stationed at a joint base and lewis mcchord welcome to the show cabin so this latest this latest mastercard comes after the accidental burning of the koran the controversial video of marines peeing on the dead bodies of taliban's and and how many afghanis are

simply they they want the u.s. out is a speedy departure more likely now which you say. you know i would i would use the word it would be a victory for the u.s. incapable of winning and this is news to the american people. that it happened in this tragedy and i would like to say that the march organization our hearts go out to the families affected by this incident and the entire. nation. really the pentagon the white the all knowing all have made that winnable that this war is not going to be won and that we're going to be there for time and we know that if it's government to its own devices that it will stay there indefinitely so it's really in the hands of the american people know this is on full display for every single american to see that these wars create conflicts in the military and

then the struggle to individual soldiers trying to help. not only record. record killing sprees like that just just happened recently but in the only way to make this happen to make an immediate withdrawal of afghanistan if their people get together and organize not the government you know not a reform but demand the withdrawal of afghanistan by u.s. and nato forces and kevin to what extent do you think that something like this can help to shape the views of the u.s. military abroad. i mean this is really a tipping point for the u.s. and afghanistan as far as the u.s. . u.s. perspective is concerned this is not new to people that not new people that have lived under a decade of brutal u.s. occupation this is status quo. where the usual murder air strikes per night raids. this is not. the u.s.

military i think is a very accurate one and they have the right to demand an immediate withdrawal just because the people of the us that have been very much very very important that this is happened every day and the occupation of afghanistan is going on ten years ago this is new to the people not new afghanistan what is it that happens every day. so everything a. bridge life of the person. that made it was a day to day. really stripping them of their right to exist on a daily basis and the people of afghanistan have endured long patient for ten years we do know as you said in the beginning just over the top month. after scandal that emerged this is only what we know i mean it goes on every day with things that we

don't know from the marines urinating on the bed. that afghan men. marines posing with not. sixteen mostly children by that soldier to about a month ago were a children were torn to pieces by an apache gunship the children were simply herding sheep this is going to try to happen everything will be. the u.s. . is a tragedy for the afghan people and when something like this something of this magnitude gets out like you know somebody opening fire and attacking opening fire on innocent civilians women and children mostly it raises questions as to how something like this is able to happen how somebody with the mental health capacity why this person wasn't diagnosed and i know that you were stationed at this base i mean what are your thoughts on that having been there yourself. well i actually went through the medical discharge process myself for post-traumatic stress

disorder so i'm very familiar with the way that it works especially at joint base lewis mcchord i've had i think more people that i know commit suicide than died in combat after something to help out the military the way that the military functions in screen its personnel it's literally a check the box process it designed to convince the american people that there's a safety net established and such people that are seeking help well internally within the military it's constantly discouraged. just to quick example of how this process works you have to go see a psychologist and after this you know about a year of going to asking for help you have to battle through you know your platoon your company mocking you calling you a coward a traitor institutionalized in the military not allow people to get out all right but lastly kevin i mean if your opinion in the wake of all this what needs to be done can president obama today issued an apology is there any way to make any kind

of reparations are a way to go from here. the only way to begin making reparations to people of afghanistan is an immediate withdrawal obama's apology will fall on deaf ears in afghanistan and rightly so there needs to be an immediate withdraw the two billion dollars every single week destroying the lives of the afghan people need to be given back to them the destiny of their people back in there and you have immediate withdrawal and there should be compensation paid to help allow the afghan people to rebuild the country after we've completely destroyed it. thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing bringing your personal experience to this that with the iraq war veteran kevin baker. meanwhile several new voting laws recently enacted it in the united states throughout throughout the country as sparking controversy now here are the fourteen states where new voting laws have been passed . from barring early voting to restricting where people can vote for requiring

people to provide government issued photo id is some voters and civil rights activists are concerned that one of america's most fundamental rights is under attack and proponents of the new rules say it will prevent voter fraud but critics say l e n a s and excludes a very significant portion of american citizens these people being mostly minorities that tend to vote democrat so what is really behind these new laws and could be potentially affect the outcome of the election well to debate the pros and cons earlier i was joined by c. in motley president of russia government and investigative journalist brad friedman i started off by asking what's the problem but there aren't people to show ideas the polls here's a grab bag. well the problem is there are millions of americans who simply do not have them and it's not equally spread among all voters in fact minorities elderly students students and so forth are far more likely to not have the type of photo id

state issued photo id that's required by these new laws these new laws have been put in place by the way in order to keep people from voting keep legal voters from casting their legal vote despite a dearth of problems with voter fraud at the polling place that's the only type of voter fraud that can be stopped by these polling place photo id restrictions so you're talking about keeping potentially tens if not hundreds of thousands of legal voters who have been able to vote without a problem for decades from being able to cast their legal votes under these restrictive new laws passed by republicans feet what do you make of that argument that this new law excluding thousands of voters here in the u.s. all of the tens of thousands almost completely made up of what we've seen time and time and time again and the acorn scandal was just the tip of the iceberg of protests down there produce them is become a nation of casting

a provisional ballot at the polling place where you don't have a photo id or you can't prove you live somewhere and then matching that up with the fraudulent registrations that acorn register and other groups of register in the tens and hundreds of thousands so that's the kind of fraud that actually transpires in large numbers and that's the kind of voter fraud that a photo id requirement. largely eliminates and that's what they've been fighting because as we know acorn was a democrat operation registering people then the then helped elect democrats so that's the partisan battle we're fighting at this point. response of yeah there's nothing partisan about this other than where you can. republicans trying to keep the voters from being able to cast their legal vote in the case of a corn we're talking about registration fraud that was carried out by a handful of acorn workers who was discovered by hand the olds and turned into

officials and though there were only those three restorations ever cast votes you've got to keep that in mind there is nomination i just said every morning that i just there as a seat and you ignored me that is what i was eight years illegal registrations do you and the mission what i was saying you're going to set your mind letting the i'm just going to jump the air i am i let me finish what i was saying there is not evidence of a single fraudulent vote ever cast roams of the an improper registry all an acorn worker this is simply a canard where is it see they were in a prosecutor they say going to moments they were a blank stare not being prosecuted for that when we went down i do want to add there is no prosecution against any case of voter fraud for any fraudulent register wrong by any court and you're wrong rather here i am here and i do want to ask how this law to be considered discriminatory if it causes apply to everybody across the board no matter who you are you're

a voter you're required to show this idea that we doesn't discriminate great and now. well great question just yesterday the department of justice objected to rejected a texas polling place photo i.d. restriction because it found that hispanic voters are anywhere from forty six percent to one hundred twenty six one hundred twenty percent more likely to be lacking the type of photo id that is required over non hispanic voters would be because they're here legally own carolina where black where black voters are twenty percent more likely to not have the type of photo id required then non african-american voters so we see this same pattern all over the country and of course republicans know this that's why they're passing these laws and go ahead back or perhaps in texas the spanish one hundred twenty to thirty percent more likely that there could be because a great many of them are here illegally and shouldn't be voting anyway this these

numbers of these are legal voters i finish these are legal voters seat no no the what they're what they're looking at is they're fudging the numbers cherry pick certain prison populations to look out for one number and they cherry pick another number to look at for a different race they're looking at registered voters there are looking at pulp total population there that i've been looking at likely voters which are the people that actually go as it is that race is even more actually is it was in races for. a is it races for doris to require i do you propose. oh ok but ok is it raises for prescription for performance fees. so that c didn't see didn't let me answer your question ok in texas we're not fudging any numbers because those are the numbers that were supplied by the state of texas to the department of justice they're going by their own numbers those are currently registered legally registered voters that we're talking about. and i was investigative journalist brad

friedman in our los angeles studio and c. and molly president of the last government here in d.c. and be sure to stay tuned for the alone a show that's coming up at the top of the hour earlier in the show you just heard us talk about the massacre of sixteen civilians by a rogue u.s. soldier in afghanistan well tonight alona we'll be digging into the matter even further with michael hastings who is a contributing editor for rolling stone and then later she will sit down with david wolman the author of a controversial new book called the end of money about whether or not paper currency and coins have any place and today's electronic world so stay tuned for all of that that's coming up and just a half hour but that's going to do it now for the news for more of the stories we covered you can head on over to our t dot com slash usa you can also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash artsy america and to find out what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news you can follow me on twitter at liz's all the

alone shows coming up at a half hour but we will see you right back here at seven. pm . people colleagues might use it for free and fair election. day and we're still reporting from the land as you can hear behind the loud explosions. at least.