today on our take congress may not be able to agree on health care tax breaks or the budget but i sure can get its act together on one thing the war with iran coming up we'll tell you why the drums of war are beating louder than ever. and some call them heroes but to senator joe lieberman a government leaker or villains deserve to be punished in the worst way to tell you all about his crusade to silence whistle blowers for good. well it is monday june eighteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our t.v.

while folks we're living in a time of deep polarization among our political parties reaching across the aisle can often cost lawmakers their job so you rarely see it except when it comes to certain issues issues like war and one month ago today congress passed h r five sixty eight a resolution that seems to be designed to prepare for war with iran the u.s. house of representatives passed it four hundred one to eleven u.s. senators of both parties have also gotten together in a written a letter to the president there are meetings today in moscow with the i.a.e.a. regarding iran's nuclear policy and in this letter those senators urged president obama they say if those meetings in moscow produce no substance and agreement to re-evaluate the utility of further talks and instead focus on significantly increasing pressure on the iranian government through sanctions and making clear that a credible military option exists they remind the president of his own words that the window of diplomacy is closing. so what does this all mean are the drums of war

really being as loud as they seem to be and what's the timeline here to talk more about this i've got to mahdi policy director for the national iranian american council so let's talk about this what do you make of this letter this letter came out when it did for very clear reasons and that's because the united states and iran are in the process of negotiation right now today you are on the u.s. and the other members of the permanent five security council u.n. security council came together for the third round of negotiations aimed at achieving some short term measures that can address our most profound concerns about the iranian nuclear program the goal is to get some nearer term steps that can assure us that iran their window to potentially building a nuclear weapon is extended this letter was come out what was was presented really to undermine those talks and to set the bar so high for success that we would fail the diplomatic process would be over and we would pretty much be gearing up to take

military action against iran i mean there's talk that some people want to make clear that congress really sort of has the reins here that you know president obama doesn't necessarily have the power to make the decisions because he sort of seems to be like hey you know let's do diplomacy above all else. i have to talk a little bit about these short term fixes that's what you see that's what you call them this is one thing that a lot of people say we don't need any more short term fixes we need a long term solution well the problem is that we haven't talked to iran for thirty years there is tremendous mistrust on both sides and so in order to build towards a process where we actually can resolve all of our concerns about iran's nuclear program as well as concerns about human rights iran's regional role in order to get there we actually have to have some talks and build confidence take you know short term steps the step that experts are saying is possible right now is to get iran to

freeze its enrichment at twenty percent and agreed to to basically be enriching at a lower level that takes it further away from the level needed to potentially build a nuclear weapon now in order to get that which would be pretty significant nonproliferation when to actually get iran to scale down its enrichment in order to get that we would actually have to use some of the leverage that we've stocked up which is the sanctions that congress has so diligently passed over the past couple years and unfortunately a big part of what congress has done is to really assert that we are in control the same sions. don't you dare lift the sanctions in exchange for iranian concessions and we must demand the most maximal goals possible that are not achievable and if that doesn't work out immediately exit the diplomatic trajectory and start ramping up some of the planning for war i mean it seems so it makes sense from all that that's really what the goal is for a lot of these you know lawmakers if they want war no matter what yeah and it's really it's about constraining the president's options and i'm very concerned that

these talks that are happening in moscow are not going to go forward not necessarily because of iranian unwillingness to negotiate on some of those in terms steps but really. you know the u.s. negotiating team not having the space from congress to be able to leverage those sanctions and potentially. preventing the europeans from lifting their own saying. sions some of their sanctions the very the ones that are coming up very soon on iranian oil exports. so basically by congress presenting letters like this by warning against lifting sanctions at all. you know unlike previous times where you hear the iranians are playing for time the iranians are willing to make a deal you have to have the iranians very concerned that sanctions are about to hit at the end of the month he's very and the sanctions can be absolutely crippling on the majority of the people there don't necessarily affect those you know at the highest level of power but they are you know just brutal and really detrimental to the lives of people there yet these are the same types of saved we saw against

saddam hussein which as we all know didn't result in first of all saddam or his regime suffering his people did all of the starving and the dying when those sanctions were in place and eventually didn't topple that regime but. required military action in order to get rid of the regime in place and ten years later the u.s. has only now been able to remove itself from that war with iran we're talking about something on a far greater scale and it is looking more and more like the sanctions are in place not to use as leverage in negotiations but to use as a tool for regime change down the line and we should say it's not just the lawmakers pushing president obama to really keep the military option on the table there's also a group called the emergency committee for israel they've put out a commercial and i want to play just a little part of it now we'll talk about it iran's development of a nuclear weapon i believe is unacceptable we do want to make sure that by the end of this year we've actually seen a serious process before president obama has spent four years talking on his four

years building a secret nuclear site nuclear fuel near one long range missile bomb is still talking ron as you will we're talking is it working it's trying to. i don't know about you but i'm scared now after saying that. marcel it's really frightening i mean it is that the point is not really to urge obama but to really get you know americans sort of place the fear of god about evil iran and them well this is the same organization this is foreign policy initiative it's headed by bill kristol these are the exact same people who were behind the iraq war they were it was the project for a new american century they actively drafted up the designs for invading iraq and then helped sell that by scaring the american public into thinking that there was an imminent threat that required military action and you're not the first person i've heard say that that says this is looking a lot like the initial lead up to the iraq war there are

a lot of similarities here they have the same playbook it worked in two thousand and three there's a potential have american people gotten smarter. and i'm an american lawmakers you know i think the problem here is that we need to look at this in the long term you know the commercial says for the past four years we've been talking to iran the reality is for the past four years we've been sanctioning iran ratcheting up those sanctions we've only now started to have that diplomatic process but while we were doing the same sions a lot of people said look this is a trajectory to war this is exactly what we had with saddam not necessarily right before we went to war with iraq but in the ninety's when we were ratcheting up the sanctions and creating a policy of regime change so what happened in iraq wasn't something that happened overnight it was a long process with iran you know the same sions have very much cued up this sense of inevitability that if the same don't work now we're going to have to pull the trigger and go to war i think that if this diplomatic process breaks down that's

now in place we're going to see calls like the one from e.c. i. rapidly escalate in congress in the media at some of these right wing think tanks i think that that's really dangerous talk a little bit about these meetings that are going on right now in moscow with the i.a.e.a. you say that they have the the possibility. really sort of get a few things done but that there's other forces standing in the way what do you think they could possibly get done i think in the near term that there could be a deal to freeze iraq's enrichment at twenty percent in exchange for concessions from the u.s. or the e.u. on these sanctions that are coming down the line the issue is that a lot of these folks who are running these ads are signing these letters don't actually want to see a diplomatic process that is successful and are concerned that if there is a short term deal that could queue up a longer term diplomatic process that would put bombing that whole military option could put that off for the foreseeable future so if traction isn't allowed to be

created at the talks we can immediately go to that military option so the groups that are advocating right now are really doing it to try to sabotage these talks and the letter in congress for instance was supported by you know groups like a pack as well as groups like the mujahideen in which is a you know it's a ronnie an exile group that is actually designated as a terrorist organization is the army k k there are now you know lobbying in the us in spite of the fact that they're considered a terrorist organization and working with lawmakers to craft these these letters designed to undermine the talks and clear the course for war you know you always hear though you know sort of the other side of this you always hear you know what happens if these sanctions go in place and those at the top in iran you know they decide to use those nuclear capabilities or or what if you know iran you know every day when there is we're getting closer to

a graver threat from iran towards us towards israel what is your response to people who say that there are a lot of people who really sort of believe this you know dylan you know character that we've given to iran you know a lot of the fear mongering is designed i think to short circuit some of the rational thinking that needs to be involved. fault in addressing what is a real problem there is a need for greater transparency in iran's nuclear program. but the solution to the problem of watery ron's aspirations in terms of its nuclear program doesn't involve military action if you go down the line military leaders have said if we bomb iran we're not going to be able to take out their program we can only delay it for as long as three years in that time iran would reconstitute its program and likely make the decision which they haven't yet made to actually actively pursue a nuclear weapon as it stands you know leon panetta was on sixty minutes a couple weeks ago and he made clear iran is nowhere near an imminent nuclear

weapon he's not the only one that said that a lot of top u.s. officials have said this is the consensus across the board. what groups like you see are doing is to try to make this seem like an even more imminent threat and then not actually evaluating what are the consequences of military action and leaving out the what the real solution is which is a diplomatic breakthrough that can only be achieved through robust long term diplomacy and certainly as we know when the message is in the nicu lated sometimes you get enough people without the all that knowledge behind them calling for things that could be really detrimental to a whole lot of countries appreciate your insight you certainly have a lot of good stuff here to magdy policy director for the national iranian american council. so ahead here are two it's the pinnacle of american double standards the dark shadow of guantanamo bay looms over u.s. credibility abroad so what's with the blatant hypocrisy i'll take that question to the streets of the big apple next. hour of american power continue.

going on our show. might actually be time revolution. and it turns out the programmer director starbucks or the suppliers it can really hear. very good. luck and they alone until you get the real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually mattered to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . all right

so how big of an issue is one ton i'm obey the treatment of prisoners there has long been a stain on the u.s. reputation which is probably why president obama promised time and time again while complaining that he would shut it down and would do so the first year he was in office well that hasn't exactly happened so how do people feel about that laurie harkness with the resident donna asked that question to several people on the streets of new york city. even though president obama promised to close the prison at guantanamo bay or get him out it remains open why this week let's talk about that. and i think the logistics of closing it have prevented president obama from making it happen to do you think it was a mistake for him to make such a promise no i don't i think that. i think he's i think he's still committed to the

policy he's trying to roll the rock and it's a tough rock to roll i say that i'm ready to be fed up of both the u.s. imperialism you should deal your own hughes first and then you will deal we ve issue of the world after a get is one time a bad just an example of our imperialism of course it is an example you know because you want to impose democracy enos some countries and you're not even able to impose democracy in your own country i think it's an issue i think it's hard for us to you know portray as being this sort of promoter of human rights while also keeping people in prison for as long as they have without any trials or any any chance that us justice applied to them so yes i think it's an issue do you think it's fair for us to hold them indefinitely absolutely not so what does that say about the u.s. . says we're in a difficult position right now that make it ok to hold people without knowing if they're guilty of anything probably not it says that you guys want to control the world actually. and you shouldn't. and that's i don't know going to know what

you're going to turn away shouldn't exist actually some of them are very guilty and then how do you know that. they released some of them and apparently they turned and committed more outrageous so is the issue then what to do with these people if the prison is closed. yes we would not none of the states wants to take them so we send them to yemen saudi arabia and they will escape and join the forces account so i don't think the president of the united states really has the power to close guantanamo i mean what would you have to do with the people who are there yeah i have no idea which is why i'm not in politics but that is the question right a lot easier to say i'm going to close it than actually go through with that whatever you think is the reason that get my remains open the bottom line is it probably won't be closed for

a very long time. all right we're going to take a short break but coming up senator joe lieberman have got a message for whistleblowers stop leaking government secrets or suffer the consequences we'll tell you where he wants to send leakers coming up. is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

because we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old on the job with the truth. i have a confession i am a total get a friend that i love driving hip hop music and for. that he was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world with its place. well let's talk now about a subject that's near and dear to our hearts here at r.t. america whistleblowers we've been recently covering the bradley manning case extensively and despite more and more people being arrested and convicted for speaking up there are some who think we're going to easy on whistleblowers in this country here's senator joe lieberman on n.b.c.'s meet the press yesterday. and i

think we're on a slippery slope where people think there's no accountability if you leak and we've got to change that i think we've got to change the law that's applied here the last person to be convicted of a crime for leaking to the media was more than twenty five years ago we're still using in one thousand nine hundred seventeen as be an object there requires some showing of intent and knowledge that a leak would harm the security of the united states but chris if you it seems that well guess what that espionage act has actually been used by president obama more than every president before him it's been used to charge the following people thomas drake so my legal stevens in kim probably manning. jeffrey sterling and john kiriakou so i want to talk a little bit more about this i've got just national security and human rights director for the government accountability project us live is also the author of traitor the whistleblower and the american taliban i just book written about your

experience being a whistleblower yourself talking about the case of john walker lindh the american taliban first let me just ask you your reaction to senator lieberman's comments over the weekend i think he is completely out of touch with what's been going on for the last two years which is people most of whom are whistleblowers being prosecuted under the espionage act which is meant to go after spas not whistleblowers and to the extent that he may be. propelled forward by the events of the last week in terms of the house and senate intelligence committees being angry that the white house appears to be engaged in high level leaks of classified information including sources and methods and that there needs to be a greater leak law he is completely wrong and that we need a broader leak law i mean the part about because the espionage act it has to do

with intent the person being charged has to show that they intended to harm this country and it seems to me that that senator lieberman wants to take this several steps further yet he would completely dilute that and remove that intent requirement which. it i hate the espionage act but the only saving grace of it is the intent requirement that judge ellis grafted onto it during the apec cases so that it's not just that you disclosed secret information but you were actually intending to harm the u.s. or benefit a foreign nation and he would do away with that completely additionally lieberman's legislation would not apply it would just criminalize disclosures of classified information it would kerman allies disclosure of any national security information which is pretty much everything in this country right now where you can sort of connect anything to national security i know the bradley manning case is one that

we've talked about extent extensively and it's one that has proven that the information that he you know allegedly leaked to with to wiki leaks the website none of that information has caused any direct threats or you know action against the u.s. . it's talk a little bit about this mentality it is of course not just senator lieberman we put him up as a recent example a lot of people want to do away with whistleblowers what do you think is behind this well i think they want to do away with whistleblowers because they reveal government fraud waste abuse illegality mistakes embarrassment and crime so of course people in the government want to do away with failing to realize the forgetting that this country was founded on being an open and free democratic society figuring out a open and free democratic society i mean this is an issue that president obama

said you know he wants there to be a lot more transparency because certainly remember in the final bush years it seemed like so much was just sort of swept let's classify the thoughts classify this a president obama especially on the campaign trails talked about transparency talked about wanting to be an open present. to what extent has that happened. not at all he's been very one of them he extended the bush secrecy regime beyond anything i could have imagined and he came into office pledging to protect whistleblowers and called them courageous and patriotic but he has treated them like criminals and the people he's going after i mean the drake tom great case completely imploded because he had not disclosed or retained any classified information and i think having a broad bill that would basically criminalize the disclosure of any national security information would hurt whistleblowers it would hurt ambassadors around the

world doing press briefings it would hurt journalists i mean it really would lead us down the garden path to censorship upon which this country was founded against let's talk about. kind of the timeline the evolution here of this mentality about whistleblowers i would venture to guess that nine eleven certainly has a lot to do with it or at least the excuse it brought forth the patriot act but we have come a long way and by a long way i don't mean progress i mean we've come a long way back from daniel ellsberg who you know leaked the pentagon papers he was hailed by so many as a hero not right away but over time he was looked at as someone who was brave somebody who brought about the truth of what was actually happening behind the vietnam war. that people are not seen as heroes these days at least in a lot of cases i mean young bradley manning private first class young man in his twenty's is seen you know by some as

a terrorist in this country what has happened how have we gotten to where we are today but i think bradley manning and other people who have been accused of leaking have been completely vilified you only get the government story out there until you have attorneys lie. myself who who try to explain the other side of these people who are not allowed to talk while their criminal defendants i mean they can't go on t.v. and tell their side of the story there's a ton of fear mongering by the ministration that's been going on jim stynes eleven i think if you look at that brought in to measure under clinton that was in two thousand and he vetoed it and the big difference between two thousand and now as you point out is nine eleven happened but i don't think nine eleven is a reason to do away with our democracy and we've been slowly chipping away at first amendment activity and protected speech in this country eleven curbing civil

liberties but the first amendment has taken and especially hard hit and it affects not only with simple lowers but journalists upon whom. they rely on whistleblowers for their trade and we rely on them to have an informed public debate about things of public interest and public important if you're going to have a self-governing democracy you need information that doesn't mean we need troop movements that doesn't mean i need undercover intelligence identities that's what is going to say i mean certainly as a journalist i've always been a big believer in you know having as much information out there is possible but i think what gets sticky is when you start calling for whistleblowers not to be punished so severely as you have people who say you know what then well there's going to be a lot more people just like bradley manning who will leak those troop movements those secrets that will be harmful to national security so just what's the answer here how do we make a more specific or a more defining line on what is. safe to blow the whistle on and what isn't and

on a level that you know not the government would come up with but that normal people normal americans would well i think if the obama administration were really serious about curing the wiki leaks. problem it would enact meaningful and effective whistleblower protection legislation especially for people in the national security and intelligence fields and as you pointed out earlier with bradley manning he didn't really leak anything that has been shown to harm the u.s. as ellsberg himself says that he thinks bradley manning that history will see bradley manning favorably and bradley manning did in fact. disclose allegedly war crimes no one has watched the collateral murder video and the war crimes going on there i think that's a good point so you know this is senator lieberman yesterday on meet the press

putting this out there what do you think the chances are i mean do you think that this is an idea that is held by enough lawmakers here in washington that they're going to get this passed harsher you know restrictions harsher punishments for whistleblowers you know when it came out a year ago it really didn't gain much traction at all and the new york times a mainstream media editorialized against it but in this climate which really is. a leak on steroids leak hysteria i actually think president obama could sign a measure like this which again you know would be a backdoor way of creating an official secrets act which we've lived with out in the united states for more than two hundred years how do you think this plays in november i mean as you said president obama has you know used the espionage act more times than anyone else he has not he's done the opposite of what he said in

his transparency but you know mitt romney is likely to be the same or even more stringent when it comes to the secret i mean do you think this is an issue american people will even ask about that voters will demand an answer to i think they should know i mean i think the reason the hysteria of the last week and a half was triggered was because we are in election year and suddenly there was a bipartisan it was both democrats and republicans on the house and senate intel committees were making the accusation about the white house leaking. classified information for political gain i think both candidates should be questioned about it and rigorously should be. absolutely always good to hear from you jesselyn radack national security and human rights director for the g.a.o. the g a p the government accountability project appreciate having you on thank you that's going to do it for us here.