welcome to the show where we get the real headlines with none of the mersey going to live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to talk more about military and counterterrorism training gone wrong in america yet another power point slide catches the structures preaching for a total war on islam and then as u.s. drone policy threatening fifty years of international law and how much power should the executive really have bruce fein is going to join us to help us answer both of those questions so we'll have all of that and more for you to night but first let's take a look what the mainstream media decided to miss. arias

so there is a bunch of stuff going on today a few supreme court decisions handed down some like health care and immigration we're still waiting for but who cares if they're not out yet we will still talk about it for hours that of course and of course the presidential showdown. mitt romney just one hour away from his biggest campaign appearance yet in front of us you know all the u.s. supreme court at any time justices could hand down some of the most important decisions in years looming for all americans president obama's health care law states are in a deep hole just how deep a whopping one trillion dollars according to a new study president obama has asserted the first executive privilege of his administration setting up a fight with congressional republicans who are claiming election year overreach contempt of congress recommended against the attorney general as president obama now steps in the future of the health care law and arizona's controversial immigration law both hang in the balance right now closing arguments today in the

jerry sandusky child sex abuse case brand new audio and videotapes released overnight george zimmerman in his own words the economy is headed in the wrong direction just how much money on the campaign spending jerry sandusky trial the judge has dropped three counts against him the supreme court decision on arizona's immigration policy could come through was released next week three hundred eighty seven thousand americans filing for first time jobless benefits until the election year showdown between republicans and president obama is boiling over. now there's a completely different story out there today that we just have to highlight one of the mainstream media is for the most part ignored i saw fox news talking about it for a minute or two today but nobody else wants to say that it's something that we can't predict it or assume it was going on based on precedent so it was just the other day that we were discussing the syria situation on the here on this program and the calls from people like john mccain to arm the syrian rebels now part of his

justification was that currently the u.s. is just sitting back and doing absolutely nothing which i guess jack rice discussed with us is being far from true. turkey is the place that really crosses hysteria in ways that others don't and they would absolutely not be doing this without the absolute support of the united states either the u.s. doesn't want to clearly step in the europeans don't do killer we want to step in but it seems clearly we're we're providing logistical support probably some intelligence support and we certainly don't appear to have any soldiers on the ground but from an intelligence perspective i suspect that we'll just probably others in the region who are providing some of the other support and heaters questions of the saudi arabia got or others providing actual military support in terms of weaponry that's not clear out there but my guess is that we're not simply sitting back and simply saying well you know fight it out. and so what do you know today there's a new report out the new york times coming from unnamed american officials an arab

intelligence officers that says the cia is on the ground in turkey helping allies to decide which syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the syrian government and those weapons include automatic rifles rocket propelled grenades ammunition and some anti-tank weapons while being paid for by turkey saudi arabia and qatar according to the report we still have a hand in it this despite the fact that there are reports coming out every day as usual in these situations about how we don't know who exactly all of the rebels are and what internationally nobody wants to be nobody wants to see innocent people being killed there are still a lot of questions to be answered as to whether intervention and what kind of intervention will be right or wrong what the consequences of that may be and personally i don't care who's doing it i never believe that spreading more weapons around the world isn't going to ensure peace and the thing is we have history to teach us these lessons the u.s. in particular has seen time and time to get how arming one group choosing

a side can backfire the weapons we sold or transactions that we helped facilitate or then used against us to take perhaps one of the most. obvious and depressing examples we see the effects of every day in our war in afghanistan started with things like operation cycle over the cia was arming training the afghan would you had seen during the soviet war in afghanistan and you have would you be leaders like all good and hekmatyar later who turned on the us and fought against coalition forces and of course there are also people like general abdul rashid dostum and the tories afghan war he fought the soviet backed democratic republic of afghanistan and he switched sides to fight for the region he did and a lot of people say that a switch led to the undoing of the deal and then he suddenly decided to fight with the northern alliance in two thousand and one and now he's the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the afghan national army you know the same afghan national army and the us supplies weapons too so we clearly don't discriminate in who our partners are let's just hope that he doesn't have another change of heart and of

course there's the fact that the us arms it on who same in the fight against iran and i think we all know how those weapons came in mighty handy later then more recently there's speculation of the us was arming rebels in libya now the government says that we did it john mccain says that we did but it would be that much of a stretch as nato ally france did supply the rebels there now it's over a year since the revolt started in the future for that region is still very much up in the air so while with syria if the reports are true and the weapons may not be ours is fact is facilitating weapons feels really that much better so i think these are the big questions that need to be asked all the time when the media lets pundits and politicians go on the air war monger a few historical examples wouldn't hurt to throw in as a counter to some of those statements i would say that were sponsible journalism to at least bring the issue up rather than let everybody trudge forward mindlessly based on emotions but apparently they'll be asking too much because that's what the mainstream media chooses to miss.

all right. we've got a few things to discuss with our first guest tonight first we continue on with a few points about arming people be they rebels dictators you name it and then we'll take a look at another example of training gone wrong over the last few years we've seen materials that show that so-called terrorism experts were teaching local police departments that all muslims hate america and the like and today another power point shows that even our military officers are being instructed to wage quote total war on islam and to ignore the geneva convention so joining me from our studio in new york is eli clifton national security reporter for think progress dot org eli thanks for joining us tonight and let's start with this first new york times report that i mentioned and sure it's anonymous officials at this point you know the things are are rarely ever confirmed at first but just thinking about it if indeed we are if the cia is in turkey if they're helping other allies decide who

should get weapons then i mean where are we taking part then in arming the syrian rebels. well i think the administration would probably say that no we are not directly involved in arming the syrian rebels that said the administration in the past has acknowledged that syria's neighbors are playing a role in arming various rebel groups within syria obviously we've known that a lot of those arms were coming across turkey's southern border with syria and the more more importantly i think what this shows is that this very much accurately reflects the challenge of engaging in syria in that purely a matter of understanding which rebel groups are ones that would be appropriate to even do business with ones that we would want to support or it's very hard to tell in the past two months the number of rebel groups has shot from seventy to over one hundred so i think that maybe sort of the unspoken story of this article is the

story that has been the main concern about getting involved in a place like syria which is that we simply don't know which groups or in this case al qaeda affiliated and which ones would be in the interests of syria's neighbors. or the united states to to actually want to support not just for weapons but in terms of intelligence humanitarian aid and those sorts of things are you with me that there is always seems to be this rush to arms and obviously every situation every country is unique and it's not like you can say there's a blanket formula out there but looking back at history i just need a few examples here at the top of the show but these things do have this tendency to backfire. absolutely and i think that that's probably a concern that this not just shared by us but i suspect by the administration by the obama administration as well and i think this is one actually in the case of syria which goes beyond just the obama administration we've had the romney camp pretty clearly as well state that they're unasur about what possible viability

there would be in providing arms to syrian rebels so i think we're a bit of a ways off the united states getting more directly involved in that sort of a transaction that said clearly syria's neighbors have been doing so they have been doing this for a while now so i think this is simply a reality on the ground and how we choose to engage in that from what we read in this article it seems as if the cia does have people on the ground on turkey's southern border trying to at least monitor which groups are receiving the weapons and to understand at the very least which groups are aligned and which was what i guess if you're john mccain who cares right just given weapons that always seems to be the line that he likes to take now i want to move on to. what mccain said when it's not true. mccain's case even when it's not true because he stated that we gave arms to the libyan rebels and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of evidence that was necessarily the case there you go i want to move on to this exclusive report that you and put together today at think progress and

you know like i said we've seen a lot of this information come out over the last couple of years thanks to a lot of reporting that's put out there not only when it comes to the military why it's danger and has done a lot there but also just a training local law enforcement but so tell us specifically what the case is here colonel matthew. well he's an instructor at the joint forces staff college and he is and he is at his class which he which he held it seems from at least july twentieth eleven in till recently was giving presentations on counterterrorism now obviously understanding islamic fundamentalism and radicalism is something that you would want to cover in these classes his approach however seems to be quite disturbing for a lot of us who follow this closely and now the joint chiefs of staff have stated that they feel that there was an institutional failure in some of the contents of the presentations he was delivering specifically he referred to you know setting aside the geneva convention when it came to combating islamic radicalism he has

referred to the concept of what destroying mecca he has talked about a total war on islam and reducing it from a religion to a cult status so i think that this was something that i've been building up for a while as you said wired's danger room spencer ackerman has done a lot of really good reporting on it and actually had released sections of this power point that we released today before and these presentations i think are really disturbing when the when looked at in their totality now the thing is yeah so they're even we had the chairman of the joint chiefs martin dempsey stepping in saying that there needed to be more investigations and they said that there is there is this institutional failure but do you really think any of this would have happened in terms of investigations in terms of reviewing the materials that are being taught had journalists not actually taken the time to try to report on it and expose it. no i think this is something that has get the gotten a lot more scrutiny in the past probably over the past year. and we shouldn't just

look at the u.s. military is training i think it's also important to look at the f.b.i. training that was going on at their training facilities in quantico virginia where they too had were bringing in contractors who were offering really highly islamophobia presentations once again talking about the west being at war with islam and with all muslims and that also has has really only investigated looked at closely after journalist started to actually flag that these materials seem to be becoming increasingly common within the classes coursework and library materials at the quote the quantico facilities of the f.b.i. so this is this is a broader problem than just the u.s. military and i think you're right the journalists have really played a pivotal role in calling attention to the fact that people who supposedly are being pawned off as experts and counterterrorism experts especially in combating. the mentalism of radicalism are really nothing more than bigots and

a lot of cases and they happen to be in the case of a lot of force and that the i cashing in on it because like you said they're contractors and so really raises a lot of questions eli thanks for joining us tonight. thanks for having me. are we taking a quick break but coming up next the drone business in the u.s. is booming but is the u.s. drone program abroad breaking fifty years of international law or discussed by after the break. a lot of american power continues. might be time revolution. and if. you are very good.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you know. they're part of it and realize that everything. is a big. very good. book and they alone are so they'll get a 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 matters 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. .

to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. and we all know the drones have become an extremely popular option for the military and for law enforcement both at home and abroad and just yesterday we told you about the expanding use of the unmanned planes here at home and how proud they are to problems as artie's among glinda explains despite the privacy and the safety concerns the drone business is still booming. the drones of

today have revolutionized modern warfare and are known for their seek and destroy missions over afghanistan pakistan and yemen but the drones of tomorrow will be humming over american homes there may be as many as thirty thousand drones flying in u.s. skies spy twenty twenty which is a huge number basically you know one in every town now that congress and the president have cleared the way for spy planes to fly in u.s. skies defense and aerospace firms are pushing their way in d.c. in hopes of cashing in on the expected drone business boom right now the global markets worth about according to some estimates a little less than six billion u.s. dollars but it's supposed to double almost double to over eleven billion you know the next decade in two thousand and one the defense department had ninety drones just eleven years later it has an arsenal of more than nine thousand five hundred remotely piloted aircraft with the wars winding down overseas most of those

unmanned aircraft will be used to messick lee for surveillance and disaster assistance raising safety and privacy concerns why do you need drones against your citizens that's a military weaponry your police department is not your military and we've lost that distinction there they're the weapons manufacturers and weapons manufacturers know that we need war in order to be profitable so they buy congress defense and aerospace firms which bill drones have spent millions of dollars on lobbying over the past year those efforts have helped them secure government contracts but lobbyists are also having a very heavy influence on the legislation and regulation over these unmanned vehicles that's sort of the way it works here and they're the ones who know it best and know what they want written into the legislation so and. that's a real that can be a real problem because they obviously have

a vested interest with billions of dollars in contracts northrop grumman is one of the dominant players in the unmanned aircraft business spending more than four million dollars in lobbying radio and splurges nearly seven point four million on lobbying last year according to first three research while general atomics spent two point three million dollars the san diego based company has signed two hundred fifty million dollars in contracts with homeland security since two thousand and five the argument all the time by local law enforcement is these drones are very cheap and they're very effective. yet despite the huge potential for danger in the privacy realm for american citizens you know it hasn't really been proven that law enforcement can use these efficiently and safely anyways quite the opposite the office of inspector general of the department of homeland security characterized the quarter billion dollar drone program along the southern border as highly

ineffective recommending a halt to further drone purchases a one hundred seventy six million dollars navy drone recently crashed and burned in maryland right now and the navy only has five of those craft that they are using when you bring home five hundred more you're going to have more of a risk of more of the risk of crashes despite the criticisms influential leaders in congress are helping the defense and aerospace industry write the rules and cash in on the coming revolution in los angeles ramon galindo r.t. . we all know that power is easily abused and despite a system of laws meant to curtail that abuse it doesn't mean that it doesn't still happen so tonight let's look at two examples in particular first as we told you yesterday the un special rapporteur on extra extra killings and so mary are arbitrary acts. houston's heavily criticized u.s. drone policy chris heins said that u.s.

drone strikes threaten fifty years of international law and not only would they encourage other states to flout long established human rights standards but also may constitute war crimes now this drone policy belongs to president obama so his policy is not only may threaten international law but also due process here at home with the example of anwar locky and his son but the what if you take it even closer to home and the past two weeks we've seen an executive order from the president on immigration and the use of executive privilege over a congressional investigation so and all of this the big question is how much executive power is too much here to discuss it with me is bruce fein former deputy attorney general under president ronald reagan and chairman of the american freedom agenda thanks so much for joining me tonight you and i constantly talk about these things and so because there is there are quite a few issues that i want to bring up let's go through them one by one and so if we first start with u.s. drone policy abroad what hines is saying fifty years of international law now threatened by drone use is a true of course it's true in part of the problem is that we've begun to

characterize the conflict with terror as war when it really isn't because we've never before in the history of the world declared war against a tactic and the reason why that makes a difference is attacked it doesn't have any geographical limit so it makes all the planet a battlefield where military force can be used if you accept that as a war paradigm the second thing is a tactic can't be eliminated there's no surrender at tokyo bay or after maddox or anything like that which means the war is permanent and that's what i think is makes it wrong about is saying well hey he's really fighting on the battlefield no you're not you're just killing in the middle of civilian territories there's no definition of what the battlefield is and these are what customarily we call murder homicide war crimes because there's no bonafide military objective behind the killings and that's what makes the international law and now is what we decree and the other thing that's important when we're talking about executive power congress has not authorized this authority if you examine even the statute ask. nine eleven it says that the targets of the president are those who were implicated in the

actual attacks or harbored those who did now they don't exist anymore so president obama's going far beyond what coming up on this is actually let him do it the right will get more into that but that's a good point because chris heinz brings that up as well and says that how can you possibly justify in two thousand and twelve killing these people and saying that it's still related to what happened in two thousand and eleven and it's not it's a really hard sell for the international community but then at the same time when you have technology that is constantly progressing now that we have a lot of drones we're selling drones to other people have other countries are developing drones how do you create a law you know normally the law actually unfortunately is a little behind right it lags when it comes to progress in technology so what would be the right way to approach it when it comes to drone drone use around let's authorize is prohibited i mean liberty is the rule government coercion is the exception of new technology is a new cyber ability to interfere with computers and things like that in less the government is authorized to do it it can't because they say the position at least

in our philosophy of life is liberty and freedom and unless we surrender that power to the government it doesn't happen that's how it ought operate words now if our congress is saying nothing about the there is a letter out there right there a few members of congress actually want more accountability more transparency when it comes to the use of drones that for the most part our government is ok with letting the president do this and so i mean is that an argument is it with our government and if the only way our government can express approval is by passing a statute in action doesn't qualify in action is not a law and so if a member of congress since then says well he goes on television objects hey that doesn't make it ok or goes on television as i believe it's all right in our constitution says in the last congress has conferred the authority the executive can't act period it's in the constitution which is there where the congress does anything at all so if congress is. a nerd then the president doesn't have the authority and yet this president is actually taking advantage of an act of congress

to to do to use a lot of executive privilege is orders whatever you want to call them and so well they're different right so let's break some of them down for example when it comes to this issue with immigration and the executive order the president wanted to get passed so that now you have people that young students right that have gone to school here that have lived here for more than five years. telling them that they do not have to fear deportation they can actually get a work visa i think a lot of people cheered that decision i had people on my show the reassuring that decision because one of those girls was one of those undocumented immigrants that felt a sense of relief because it meant that she wasn't going to be deported but can we pick and choose what if congress or the executive orders no you can't pick and choose there's that's the equivalent of the president saying here's a law against homicide but people between sixteen and thirty will just say you can kill people with impunity i don't want to enforce the law if there is to be an exception to a general rule we have

a way to do it congress needs to enact the statute procedural regularity is the alpha and omega of what the rule of law is about and that means that even if we think someone is guilty we give them a trial process is indispensable here what happens the next president comes in and says well even if you're not deportable i'll decide the statutes actually broader than it is and i'll go and deport people that are authorized to be deported that's also what this sanctions so even if it's an issue like this which i think you know many would see as a human rights issue that congress is doing nothing to solve this human rights issue that exists you don't think the president should be able to of course that means the p.c. can campaign against the members of congress the voters can change the members of congress by the elections that's how you do it you can't just decide to cast aside the procedural requirements because in the short run you don't like what the results are if you adhere to the rule of law you accept it even if you don't like the result and wait and try to persuade people to your way so what about this executive privilege the president used when it came to handing over some of these

documents because they said it was a matter of principle right we can't have every communication that's going on within the white house between the justice department something that's going to be up for grabs and be disclosed in a congressional investigation and i was railing on the media yesterday because fox news was spinning this and going crazy because i think it was to their advantage to attack the president for and i said he was apologizing for the president saying that you know it. bush did it too and clinton did it too but what does executive privilege really supposed to be used for but when it really turns the whole philosophy of the constitution in our country on its head because the rule again is transparency the rules openness because it's the congress and the people pay every dollar that the executive branch uses to do anything that people as john adams said our founding fathers two hundred years ago have a right to know everything that the government is doing now sometimes it has to be in executive session confidential because it may relate to a weapons program or as a source or method that's not the case here and the fact is when i first came to

washington i helped involve an article of impeachment against president nixon for doing what define a congressional subpoena even one of our famous president woodrow wilson said the informing function of congress putting the sunshine on the executive branch is this more important even than the legislative function so the idea is internal deliberations so what if you don't want them you shouldn't be engaged in the do those deliberations if you don't want to be exposed to the sound how much worse is it gotten all the years that you've been hearing a lot you really really worse it used to be that the presumption again was congress had access to the information executive privilege really wasn't was it really wasn't used in any routine way intil the last maybe fifteen twenty years and it's accelerate for the war on terror the right for same if you want to hire a president clinton so what was the big shift it isn't a shift that happens by one particular event like nine eleven it is a steady aggrandizement of executive power and it's come up partly because of what

you were pointing out with those who were defending bush when he said harriet miers and karl rove can't testify and then switch when it now becomes. a holder and a democrat and a democrat and then the democrats were the same way the democrats insisted holder and now they all vote against holding holder in contempt and what has happened is that the members of congress have become so loyal to their. already that they will surrender the institutional requirements of their job just to give the white house a free pass in bridge bush's first years there were zero subpoenas issued by the republican congress none whatsoever no oversight at all and that is the formula for destroying the checks and balances that the heart and soul of the rule of law so once again partisanship is ruining everything there is thanks so much for joining us and i think you. are taking a break but coming up next our last show in tell ever with patrice and sandy and i will ask if the next troy davis sitting is in a cell.