tonight on r t taking the moral low ground abu ghraib and guantanamo bay aren't the only examples of u.s. human rights abuses but they do speak volumes about america's hypocrisy so what are the larger implications of this blatant disregard for international law. plus congress might not be able to agree on health care tax breaks or the budget but it sure can get its act together on one thing war coming up we'll tell you why the drums of war are beating louder than ever. good evening it's monday june eighteenth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm christine for you're watching our team. well it wasn't too long ago the u.s. and russia were celebrating an historic partnership agreement with the passing of the strategic arms reduction treaty or start it was to be a reset in u.s. russia relations as it turns out the celebrations were short lived with heightening tensions between the two countries on many levels now there's russia's anger at the u.s. being unwilling to budge on its plans to build a missile defense shield there is the u.s. is angry at russia for its refusal to approve a plan for the u.n. security council to intervene in syria but there's also a whole lot more loss to the u.s. imposed a visa ban on eleven russian officials accused of playing a role in the death of sergei magnitsky russian attorney who many believe was exposing corruption by russia's interior ministry magnitsky was arrested in two thousand and eight on embezzlement charges and spent more than a year in jail he then became very ill and was brutally beaten before he died so this move by the obama administration is to say you know human rights abusers

you're not welcome here well guess what russia is fighting back with a list also of eleven officials but from the u.s. these are officials the russian government says are also tied to human rights abuses for their role at places like wanted him obey and abu ghraib prison committing what would also undoubtedly be human rights abuses in light of the g. twenty conference kicking off today we want to talk about the way the u.s. is viewed around the world earlier i spoke to david swanson campaigner for roots action here's his take. well i think it's a sad state of affairs that we don't have an actual international body to be saying these kinds of things to every nation but i think that of course the u.s. is hypocritical there are other nations that have seen threats of prosecution and actual convictions result in the same policy italy has convicted a couple of dozen cia agents for kidnapping a man and city him off to be tortured i think it's entirely appropriate but i think

this this going back and forth between nations is a sad state of affairs and i think that there is a larger picture here where the united states' policy of the past decade has contributed hugely to a growing acceptance of torture and other abuses around the world that needs to be turned around and they would you say this going back and forth as a stat a sad state of affairs. but what's you know the answer here because of course both countries want their people how their people saying hey you know you can't just do business with russia for example to obama's and ministration you have to you know condemn this and the same thing on the russian side people saying you guys are hypocrites you know we're not going to stand for this i mean don't you think it's important that they sort of stand their ground and and make sure that this is you know out there that they don't approve of what the other one's doing. paul well i do on in both cases what both sides are hypocrites i think we need an international criminal court that's not under the thumb of the united states to prosecute

universally unfairly such abuses by anyone anywhere and at the moment we don't have that we have something worse we have the pretense of it we have an international criminal court that only acts where the united states approves and only prosecutes war making it war crimes by african sigh i think that the idea of international law has been degraded by this process and david what do you think it would take for that to happen i mean this in this idea of an international criminal court that was you know totally objective what's in a way right now of that happening. the structure of the united nations the structure of the international criminal court the power of the united states as a rogue nation that is understood to be increasingly by much of the world as a rogue nation that is sinking in the polls and respect as a model for other nations around the world i think we need to open up and

democratize the united nations so that it is not under the thumb of a handful of nuclear powers but is actually a democratic body representing nations that represent their people and that's a huge step and one that many in the united states as you know are are against i think it's an important point david to talk about this how you say you know thinking in the polls in the respect level around the world. what you think i mean a lot of people sort of look at what happened i know back in the ninety's the u.s. involvement in bosnia a lot of people you know saw that still as you know the u.s. intervening for good purposes and you know really it did a lot of good i think in some ways for the u.s. reputation do you think it has sort of been downhill from there do you think it's it's been a series of events or a couple of events that have really made it worse for the u.s. and the way this country is seen by others around the world. well there's been

a lot more polling in the past decade or so and there was a poll this week by pew showing these trends internationally but i think it's a longstanding trend going back to the eighty's or earlier of the united states same thing as as a model as a destination for immigrants as a dream for the world and becoming a nation that is resented and feared and increasingly a nation that has experienced most directly as a set of military bases occupying other people's nations this is a this is a trend that has been developing for decades and needs to be reversed it's really interesting of course because we see every year the state department the u.s. state department put out a human rights report card countries like china venezuela you know uganda yemen they're often highlighted as some of the biggest offenders but i guess talk a little bit about and i guess this sort of goes along with what you were saying

how there isn't really an international criminal court there isn't really an international you know superintendent or take her to issue things report cards. no there is not there are nations critiquing each other almost universally with hypocrisy and yet the united states has become not just among wealthy nations the one with the greatest inequality and poverty and incarceration and environmental destruction and so forth but the nation that is exerting the most power over others is perceived as doing the most to damage the climate is perceived as doing the most just spread torture and assassination is acceptable policies and doing the most to hold down other countries development and advancement and so there is you know there's this idea that the united states is uniquely important is in some ways right but not in the way that it's often understood i think it's really interesting that when you look. it's hard for me though to really see that

this is discussed very much certainly within this country i think a lot of americans are still surprised to this day certainly the majority of americans surprised on nine eleven to know that there was you know a negative attitude towards this country still you know ten years later i think a lot of people would be surprised i mean do you think it does a disservice that this is not talked about what we're talking about here right now is not talked about more widely. well of course there was almost universally in the us corporate media resistance to asking and condemnation is treason to ask what might have motivated the crimes of nine eleven just as today people will will ask you what do you expect the president to do if there is someone evil in yemen doesn't he have the choice of killing him and anyone near him men women and children with a missile or nothing as if those are the two options and you can't talk about

legitimate criminal prosecution and you can't get back to talking about why there might be people in yemen increasingly people in yemen who are bitterly angry at the united states as if you yourself would be attacking the united states to ask that question i want to go back to you know this list that you know russia has put together with with these names of u.s. officials that we don't know who is on this list at this point but what they've said is that these people are affiliated with crimes committed you know at bob graham air base at guantanamo bay i want to talk about one hundred a really quick you know in a few months we're going to have an election here we remember the last time we did this president obama said repeatedly he made a campaign issue i am going to close guantanamo bay in the first year of my presidency we have several examples of this here we are it's year four and nothing's been done do you think this is going to be an issue do you think this is an issue that americans care about enough to vote on in twenty twelve. well yes and

no i mean those who go in for lesser evil voting calculations may still vote for obama it's not as if his opponent of the two acceptable opponents wants to engage in a different policy but you know we should understand that obama didn't want to end the policy of lawless incarceration he wanted to move one location one facility to illinois instead of cuba that it was not that sort of change that people in visions and what we have seen while obama has been president has been the further intrenchments and formalization and symptoms of these policies of lawless detention of military use in the united states of torture and rendition and increasingly of murder as an alternative which many people think of as more clean and more acceptable and i find that so utterly reprehensible that i

strongly urge everyone who are listening not to vote for either of these catastrophic really bad candidates yes but i mean a lot of people there they think that if you don't vote at all you know the people with all the money they're the ones who are going to win they're the ones who are going to have the say in what happens. yes well vote for rocky anderson vote for jill stein and act accordingly for the three days of the next two year period which are far more important then the election if elections alone changed anything as emma goldman remarked they would be banned it is not as important who you vote for vote for obama if you must but don't be obama's servant don't be the servant of your public servant the rest of the year if you can do that i'll have a little argument with you but most people can state see their their role then as being a cheerleader for one of the two teams and that's what's led to this disaster so lapse of the peace and justice movement while obama has been president and yes

certainly a lot of expectations that have not been met during the last four years with juan thanks for joining us david as a campaigner for its action all right so how big of an issue is kuantan him obey the treatment of prisoners there as we said it's long been a stain on the u.s. reputation abroad and that's probably why president obama promised time and time again while campaigning four years ago that he'd shut it down and that he do so his first year in office. well that has not happened so we want to know how people felt about that floor harshness for the president on that asked that very 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 to prevent that president obama from making it happen 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 is 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 beat. us. you should deal your own hughes first and then you will. have the world after a get is one time obey just an example of our imperialism of course it is an example you know because you want to impose democracy in 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 the u.s. just as 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. . yes 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 he shouldn't. and that's i don't know going to know what's going to turn him away shouldn't exist actually some of them are very guilty and 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 again 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 that than actually go through with 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. well we are living in a time of deep polarization among our political parties reaching across the aisle all that can often cause lawmakers there job so it rarely happens anymore except when it comes to certain issues issues like war 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 for a one to eleven u.s. senators from both parties have also gotten together and of written a letter to the president there are meetings today in moscow with the i.a.e.a. and they urge president obama that if those meetings in moscow produce no substantive agreement to re-evaluate the utility of further talks and instead focus on significantly increasing the pressure on the iranian government through sanctions and making it clear that

a credible military option does exist they remind the president of his own words that the window of diplomacy is closing so we want to talk about this letter and a whole lot more and we brought in earlier policy director for the national iranian american council take a look. 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 is time 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 that extension 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 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. 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 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 the sanctions can be absolutely crippling on the majority of the people there don't necessarily affect those that 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 type to say 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 in the dying when those same genes 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 and we'll talk about it iran's development of a nuclear weapon i believe is not acceptable 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 trying to run his four years building a secret nuclear site nuclear fuel near what. range this bomb is still talk ron as you know you will we're. working trying to. i don't know about you but i'm scared now after seeing 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 are 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 sanctions 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 the rons 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 pact as well as groups like the mujahideen which is a you know if you ronnie an exile group that is actually designated as a terrorist organization the i make a they're now you know lobbying in the u.s. 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 a lot of the fear mongering is designed i think to short circuit some of the rational thinking that needs to be involve. 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 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 manipulated 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 jim magdy policy director for the national iranian american council. well four decades ago yesterday police here in washington arrested five men for breaking into the office of the democratic national committee at the watergate hotel a little that most americans know it would become

a scandal so big it would take down a president have the time though those arrests happened with little fanfare and soon after president nixon was reelected it's what slowly unraveled after his reelection the lead to what we now simply call watergate otherwise known as the worst political scandal in history the burglary was one thing but it's not often discussed is the amount of money nixon raised just before hand about twenty million dollars which today would equal one hundred ten million dollars much of that from large corporations illegally and all of it done so early on to avoid disclosure rules that would soon go into effect now much of that came out in the hearings on capitol hill and after watergate twenty corporations were criminally convicted for illegal campaign finance activities congress then passed sweeping campaign finance reform and those remained in place for years the wounds of watergate you could say were deep enough that both lawmakers and the american people felt action was

necessary but let's fast forward to today and many of those lessons have been forgotten the law is not only done away with but made much worse by the supreme court decision in the case of the citizens of citizens united president president obama criticized it and for once senator john mccain agreed here he is on n.b.c.'s meet the press this weekend. i think there will be scandals as associated with the worst decision of the united states supreme court in the twenty first century on earth. so is there a flag on the watergate anniversary and how far we've come since then i think a better question is to ask what have we learned while some argue nothing at all dan eggen of the washington post writes for decades later there's little need for fear of fund raising or secret handoffs of cash many corporate of that executives convicted of campaign finance crimes during watergate could now simply write a check to their favorite super pac or if they want to keep it secret to

a compliant nonprofit group corporations can spend as much as they want to help their favorite candidates no longer prohibited by law from spending company cash on elections now want to give us a few things and gave us the first and only president to resign from office a bright light shone on hard core reporting an investigative journalist especially the work done by washington post reporters bob woodward and carl bernstein and of course it gave us the word gate attached to every modern day scandal today millions of dollars go to prop up the campaigns of would be office holders in secret and it's now allowed so i think it's important we talk about campaign finance scandals to consider that one of them was signed sealed and delivered by our third branch of government the united states supreme court and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at christine.