ok there now we are an. outrage in anaheim spilled into a ninth day hundreds of protesters rally against police brutality all of this in retaliation to a string of officer involved shooting the latest from california three. and they're the images that made a movement in from this new york's finest to squaring off with occupy wall street protesters and the violence that ensued coming up we'll tell you about a new report that says the n.y.p.d. violated a basic human rights in its crackdown against those protesters. plus

nearly ten years and trillions of dollars later the war in iraq is still draining the u.s. economy as well as the patients of the iraqi people but with the amount of money taxpayer spend they expect results ahead we'll find out what was also if any have come out of our reconstruction efforts in the country. there it is monday july thirtieth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for zero and you're watching r t well when it comes to our financial woes in this country there's a common perception that only a few things are to blame. the reason why we have the national debt at the level we have is because of spending and also the dramatic expansion of entitlement programs without paying for this is a budget busting health care bill that i think is going to bankrupt our country

bottom line. we can't protect these entitlements and also the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world. well very rarely do we hear people saying defense spending needs to be cut and in fact most people are constantly saying we need more and more well here's something to think about the u.s. inspector general for iraq reconstruction now says taxpayers have been funding a two hundred million dollars program to train iraqi police that is neither wanted nor needed i doze aimed at helping it's called the police development program and it's actually the largest state department program in the world so it definitely begs the question what do we get for our money to help answer that question i'm joined now by john glaser with antiwar dot com let me ask you this i mean what's the theory how does this happen how does so much money get wasted without being questioned at least without accountability well the waste is perfectly built into

the system of how things work i mean this is just one report about one program if we go back a few months i think it was in october two thousand and eleven the wartime commission on wartime spending on iraq and afghanistan sixty billion with a b. of us war funds were lost due to waste fraud and abuse and criminal activity in corruption and so forth. later on the commission said we won't release our final details because there's sensitive information sensitive apparently meaning uncovering government waste profit could see criminality and so forth so it just seems to me if i want to go and join a gym not only do i have to fill out a bunch of forms i have to commit for a year i have to sign something that says if i get hurt it's nobody's fault but mine and this is the largest state department program and yet there is no there's nothing even in writing from the iraqi people saying they want to or willing to

take part yeah dear archy's have been very hands off they've wanted. washington's hands off of their government and their security forces for a long time but we need to think about it as well and not among all these as. being wasted on a population that doesn't want to intervening but it's also going to what has happened already is that we've propped up this security apparatus in iraq which is has no respect for human rights at all it's basically an armed force for the prime minister maliki who's crowded out sunni's in a shias and kurds. and is creeping towards dictatorship so i mean this kind of waste is is inherent in the fact that we're even giving any money to iraq at all and i know and not only are we giving it and how we given it there continues to be a cry for more and more and i know that recently assistant secretary of state carol pereira's you know told the auditors the people looking into this that you know

this commitment actually was a shirt and it was assured by the principal deputy interior minister i've done now all authority saying that iraq is committed to this program but apparently that same man told those same auditors and this is a direct quote that the program is useless. again she asked for more funding so i mean this is something simple why can't we get our facts straight here yeah it's a good question this is the way government operates i mean even the there's a woman that now works for the center for strategic international studies that used to be at the embassy in iraq so from the beginning that this was a bottomless pit for the u.s. . zol things work and you're right people keep arguing for more and more spending and the amount that we've wasted on war and defense in the past ten years is just exorbitant i mean maybe four trillion dollars but john i mean you know as well as i do there are so many people especially in the last two years in washington those

who call themselves you know members of the tea party who say that government spending especially on unnecessary programs should be cut should be questioned why can't it be questioned when it falls under the umbrella of defense. well clearly most people involved here would say that this was a wasteful program yeah i think there's two things first of all the nationalism that exists in the american ideology props up so much fervor for government spending on defense and war and sort of flag waving and stuff the other thing is that there are entrenched interests interests involved in the defense sector that really prevent much of the dialogue that you might hear about health care or transfer payments or taxes. the we spend currently. about as much as the rest of the world combined on our military six times more than china next up so so much of what we do is waste for but it puts money in the pockets of really

rich military industrial complex or organizations and corporations some of those defense contractors do seem to as you say stifle the discussion you brought up the the embassy in iraq and so not only this specific program that we're talking about the largest state department program. the u.s. embassy in iraq is also the largest and i think we have a picture of it. oh no that's not it. anyhow this embassy here it is it's absolutely huge it's going to make it so that thousands and thousands of not military troops but contractors have to stay and some troops as well what is the purpose of this if we had no intention of staying in the country well we did have an intention of staying in the country and in fact the obama administration had been pressing the maliki government for months and months and months to try and

maintain some contingency force there that could have been anywhere from ten thousand to thirty thousand and when the iraqis said no. washington wasn't happy about it so they're going to try and keep this embassy which is the size of the. attic and. as big as possible there's state department forces there you know number up to sixteen thousand and there's the regular u.s. troops and there's contractors they're going to try and keep it as big as possible and as influential as possible because otherwise iraq. gets outside of our sphere of influence and that is the last thing that washington wants especially after you know being there for the last ten years and putting in a whole lot of money and a whole lot of lives let's i want to broaden this a little bit and sort of talk about the iraqi reconstruction effort overall i know that at least seven hundred one thousand people have actually died as part of just the reconstruction effort there we have a breakdown of some of those numbers three hundred eighteen americans two hundred

seventy one iraqi civilians one hundred eleven third country nationals and then nineteen others that seems like a lot of people dying in a country that's no longer at war what you think you know those numbers account for what they mean well the insurgency is really ongoing in iraq and that's the sort of that's the quiet little secret in washington we've spent we spent almost a decade there trillions of dollars thousands of our men and women in uniform died hundreds of thousands probably five hundred thousand or six hundred thousand iraqis dead and the bombings on a mass scale coordinated bombings in numerous cities on the same day occur that's a regular occurrence so the inability to have true security in that country is a direct result of our interventions and the process there now with the contractors and the reconstruction efforts and all this they're no better at doing it than the u.s. military was so it just seems for

a country that's so focused on trying to get its you know fiscal house in order and wants to point fingers at you know what needs to be cut that at least you know the more money you spend on defense doesn't mean the more secure you are i think it's important for people to realize that sometimes there are smart places to cut too that are going to put anyone's help harm or safety in jeopardy and a lot of times you just don't hear that appreciate you being on the show john glaser assistant editor of antiwar dot com. all right let's go now to anaheim california where over the weekend hundreds of protesters took to the streets in response to a wave of police brutality there. this was the ninth consecutive day of protest against police initially sparked after the shooting death by police of two men twenty five year old men while diaz and another man. is a police targeted them because of their race and because of where they lived and they've been calling for systemic change ever since nine people were arrested in

those demonstrations yesterday argy course want to remember linda was at the protests and he joins me now from our studios in los angeles hey there ramon i guess to start off by describing the scene for me there over the weekend. sure christine was you mention this is the ninth straight day of protests on the streets of anaheim and when we showed up police were definitely ready to meet the demonstrators heavily armed force of officers on horseback were lines around the anaheim police station not letting anybody get anywhere near the building now hundreds of peaceful protesters turned to show their anger at the rash of police shootings now what was. most likely the most impressive part of the police presence were officers in full military style camouflage uniforms equipped with rifles and full of ammo with their non-lethal projectiles we're talking about the baghdad embassy a little a little while ago it looked like they were ready to protect the embassy in baghdad

more more than you know protecting the happiest place on earth but that was what they were able to do a group of marchers did try to go down to disneyland the road was blocked to the theme park so they weren't able to get there as you mentioned there were nine arrests we did not witness those however this our sources tell us that the protesters were peaceful eventually most of the protesters came back to the police station where they followed with chants and more marching but for the most part things did remain peaceful however things are still tense between police and the community a roman talk a little bit more about disneyland here now that we were just showing some of the signs people were holding and in terms of their anger at disney but talk a little bit about why that specific location and what it had to do with some of the violence that's been taking place in anaheim. that's right there has been a small group of protesters demonstrating there over the past few weeks and we have

to remember that in the land is the main economic driver for the city of anaheim and in large part for the county of orange county and. we're seeing a large shift in the population there in anaheim it's majority latino and a large reason for that or a partial reason for that are the low wage jobs that disneyland is able to offer so there has been brought in a large latino low income community into the city of anaheim so and the second point is that disneyland has a very strong political influence over the city's leaders and over the police force so this latino community the people who live in the lower income neighborhoods they feel that disney needs to do more as far as addressing the problems between the police and the community being that it has such powerful sway over politicians and as of right now they really haven't spoken up too much and i know ramon these

protesters have said you know it's not just about the shootings this is not isolated incidents we're talking about they are a result they say of racism and of major flaws in the system i guess going to all be a bit of detail about what they're suggesting specifically here. sure well over the last couple of decades anaheim has gone from a city which was predominantly y. to now a city where the majority of the occupy the majority of the residents are of latino descent and many of them are living in lower income neighborhoods so there are people living in this community feel that they don't have any sort of representation when it comes to the city council or when it comes to the police department and in many parts they feel that disney along with the local politicians are trying to crack down or clean up the streets and there's this feeling that you know police officers are just to find gangs in the neighborhood in order to target young latino men now in the case of monrovia as he was an arms and the family's

attorney is very upfront about saying that the economic disparities and race have something to do with that shooting we also talked to the family of another man who was shot by police earlier this year his father is a vietnam veteran and he was very upfront about saying that he thinks that his appearance as a latino man with a shaved head really contributed to his grandson's death we talked to his sister earlier today this what she had to say about the ongoing tensions between police and the community person that i think that i am. you know i came on here protesting after my brother shooting you know for months prior to these recent shootings and they would have mentioned these people would still be alive today they would still be with their families you know and it's heartbreaking. you know. many others in the green say that this pattern

of tension between police and the community has been ignored in no it has finally caused what some people are describing as a fire inside of the city of anaheim and besides that police have not given too many details on on some of the shootings the however they have come out and tried to paint the shooting victims as gang members who were in drug dealing neighborhoods or who were running for police or you know trying to do something nefarious something that the neighborhood just doesn't agree with yeah certainly interesting ramon when you read about some of these interest these incidents in the mainstream media there's some different ways that their these pictures are painted for us you read about you know these people provoking police before they were shot you read they were gang members that they were not cooperating but i know witnesses there and i know you've talked to several that they tell a much different story so it there does seem to be a little bit of a discrepancy in sort of the message the story that's being told coming from these

incidents we appreciate you going down there over the weekend from uncle and our to correspondent in our los angeles studios let's take a closer look now at the occupy wall street movement and the way protesters were dealt with by authorities we all remember video footage like this. oh i guess we don't have that video right now but i'm sure you saw as you were watching videos of police officers hitting people with baton especially back in those early weeks of occupy wall street when zuccotti park was occupied. and it seemed strange for many people seeing this that this behavior could be warranted and that it was legal going turns out it wasn't a new study by researchers and researchers at n.y.u. and fordham law schools have found there was in fact a systemic effort by police to suppress those protests even when the protestors were following the laws and being peaceful the report states that in many instances police have responded aggressively to nonviolent protests and have escalated

situations through arbitrary or mis applications of the law and excessive police presence or the use of unwarranted force it goes on to say that the police response has in some cases and considered it cumulatively undermined basic assembly and expression freedoms the freedoms of course guaranteed in the constitution and yet in total there are one hundred thirty incidents of excessive force and in terms of how many of these officers have faced disciplinary action. just one officer of the officer actually covers for these women you may remember him hearing about him officer anthony bologna the pictures of course helped garner quite a bit of attention for the movement so let's talk now to the attorney for two of these women involved in this a man who she in our new york studios with the abboushi law firm thanks for being on the show today i guess let me start with your role in all of this as an attorney as someone who spent

a whole lot of time talking to some of these women what shocked you the most in terms of what happened that day. what shocked me the most is the blatant violation actually occurred. you know you understand that in policing sometimes police officers have to make a stab judgment with how to deal with the situation but in this particular situation it was clear the actions the officer took who was a high ranking police official was agreed there was no threat these ladies that were made were simply standing there exercising their constitutional rights and were subject to this brutal assault so how blatant it was is something that was really compelling to me as an attorney i mean why do you think if there have been more than one hundred incidents of excessive or unwarranted force that there's only been one disciplinary action taken against one officer i think that you know the top of the police and the officials in charge trying to make this

a quiet matter and that they don't won't go after the rank and file police officers that they put in a precarious position don't forget the majority of new york city police officers are hardworking police officers who put their lives on the line every day they're just simply taking orders so it's my understanding that the people at the top have decided not to go after these rank and file police officers for simply following orders and that's why we haven't seen more police officers being held responsible because they're not really responsible it is the people at the top that are selling setting these policies you know but on one hand i mean i think that what you say is very valid that only a few police officers are specifically to blame but that the report actually found that it's bigger than a few police officers that there's actually a systematic problem with the way the n.y.p.d. you know conducts business especially when it comes to occupy wall street. yeah and i agree it's a systematic problem but as i said earlier it's the rank and file police officers the police officers that are out there actually committing these actions are only

taking orders the police department is a military organization and they have a chain of command and when the chain of command tells them to you know use their petards to control the crowd that's what they're going to do if they fail to follow their higher ups. action then they are subject to sanctions them selves and reprimand themselves so this is a systematic problem but this is a systematic promise them from the top and not necessarily the rank and file police officers and we're showing some pretty brutal video right now from those early days of occupy wall street people with bloody faces a lot of that cars from baton and the police beating people simply for you know standing somewhere where they were told not to it's just really shocking but i know this is a little bit different from what happened with occupy protesters in oakland i know it was there that an occupy protester veteran scott olsen was critically wounded due to police but after that happened police there and city officials made an

effort to not only apologize but to change i want to play really quick oakland mayor jean quan speaking back in october. we have her i guess we we don't have her speaking she basically said you know on behalf of the city on behalf of the police she apologized she she promised to look into what those officers were doing and she vowed to change she said that the occupy protesters should get in touch with her. a man just that is just so different from what happened in new york i mean why didn't we at least here look into it or sorry or something. well it just goes to show that this is a systematic problem that comes from the top if you look at the video of the police officers in new york city who are committing these civil rights violations you'd see not too far behind them are commanding officers that are supervising them and telling them exactly what to do what you won't see is any supervising officer saying no don't do that or hey that's illegal which all comes back to the same

conclusion that the and where you in the fordham law school reports reached that this was a systematic problem that we believe and we have credible evidence to believe that was instilled by the commissioner with him from a tour and the. backing of the mayor we didn't we didn't hear from the mayor to come out and say you know the police need to strike a better balance between forcing the law breaking it we heard silence and we just heard the mayor essentially blindly backing the police commissioner in his decisions in this policies even the city council we've had a few city council members step up and speak out against this but as a whole the city council has been quiet speaker christine quinn was also quiet about the police brutality that was going on and that using all the resources at her disposal to ensure that the police officers are enforcing the law and not breaking it now i'm going to be honest i didn't know some of these these law schools which are some of the top law schools in the nation were even going to be

looking into this they've actually spent the last eight months or or took footage and and write ups in the last eight months to really turn out this pretty in-depth report let me just ask you you know sort of broadly and i mean do you think that or why i guess do you think that this is important for our future attorneys of america to study and to really understand. well i'm a product of fordham university here in new york city and it is one of the best law schools in the country and schools like fordham and n.y.u. really challenge their students to think about the law in many different ways and i think what was compelling here is police officers that are sworn to uphold the law and the constitution are essentially violating both the law and the constitution so i think it's an interesting interplay for a budding legal scholar or someone who wants to be an attorney to figure out where you do you draw that line and how that line is drawn in and what if any consequences are at stake and i think also here is this is a fascinating incident in and of itself because it was so blatant i mean you have

police officers plainly giving protesters you have police officers masing protesters that are i believe standing by not breaking any laws and that's why i think it's so fascinating because this is one of the few times where you see where you see the rubber hits the road and now that you have a clear violation of the constitution that you're always reading about your always studying now how was it violated what are the what is the remedy and one of the recourse is from there and i think it's a very powerful pedagogical tool for the future scholars legal scholars that both these schools will in yeah as you say violating the law and violating the constitution is when i read part of this report i mean it was also a little bit shocking to see violating basic human rights posing a threat to the safety of new yorkers as you say these are people who they're sworn to protect and serve last question for you this is this report is the first in a series i think they're doing five different reports about the way police forces

handle occupy wall street and i'm wondering what you anticipate we'll see in reports about police from other cities. but once a space that will see the same sort of conduct that these reports and i thought both of these schools for taking the city on let's not forget that both of these law schools are based in new york city and. it's an interesting undertaking to study the the law enforcement agency in the city where you have your school but nonetheless i think that we'll see a mirror of these sort of policies reverberating throughout other police agencies throughout the nation particularly because it seems the n.y.p.d. was able to get away with it here i think once occupy wall street happened here everyone else in the world was watching what the response would be and once they saw that response and what then white t.v. was able to get away with i think many other jurisdictions thought ok well if n.y.p.d. is doing it then we can do it and we can get away with it and i think the next

series of research will show that there's a pattern and that the next step in the pattern is covering up and to take responsibility for the actions well certainly interesting when you read some of the findings in this report appreciate you weighing in a minute because she obviously she lost in new york city. i think coming up next on our team is the capital account let's check in with laura lister to see what is on the agenda lauren we i know we're speaking a lot today about people being held accountable for their actions and their interactions i know that's something we talk about too when we talk about the economy and wall street is that something you'll be touching on today you know christine are you psychic or maybe this is just such a recurring theme that yes it comes up in so many shows we are talking about that today because today christine is a very special day it is the birthday of sarbanes oxley that is the day the act was signed ten years ago this was a very large regulation supposed to penalize

a fraud with with jail time and that was supposed to be the big penalty but yet we haven't seen it used in the wake of the financial crisis we'll talk about that all right lauren let's to re appreciate that and for our viewers you should stay tuned that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or our website r t dot com slash usa. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. during operations around the day.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.