the gold and silver investors guard. call today eight hundred two five seven goal. today an r t drone strikes in pakistan are becoming a common occurrence in the end the number of civilian deaths is adding up but despite the latest attack that left eighteen dead the u.s. refuses to slow its campaign so is america above international law plus over a week after being granted asylum in ecuador julian assad remains in legal limbo we'll bring you the latest in this case and an exclusive interview with ecuadorian president rafael correa you're only going to see on our team. and there's a hurricane brewing in tampa but i'm not talking about isaac the r. and c. is coming to town while the d.n.c. converge is in north carolina a week later and where there is politics there is protests will tell you why some protesters are being anarch at.

it's friday august twenty fourth six pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t we start off this hour taking a look at the rocky relations between pakistan and the u.s. and it's likely what happened earlier today will further strain those ties a series of american drone strikes in pakistan killed at least eighteen people a drone strikes took place here and the shah will valley up north was was the euro stand and shows the u.s. is persistence in carrying out the controversial drone campaign here's a chart that details the number of u.s. drone strikes targeting pakistan thirty three strikes in pakistan this year nine of those in north waziristan but drone strikes remain a major hurdle and the two countries mending their relations now today's developments come as one of the biggest advocates of the drone program. some self

in hot water here at home one of america's most prominent diplomats ryan crocker was recently charged with drunk driving in a hit and run in his home state of washington crocker recently returned home after serving as u.s. ambassador to afghanistan well crocker is one of the leading voices in continuing the drone campaign a campaign that pakistan says violates international law but as crocker faces charges it appears he is not above the law here in the u.s. to talk more about this i was joined by retired lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer from the center for advanced defense studies. no not at all and let's be very clear here john brennan recently stated in a little rules and center public forum he said that we would carry on the style of holding laws and our values holding our values and i mean very be very clear on why this is not first off the ministration has become almost addicted to this form of warfare it's hands off it's clean you don't see the results and frankly it's giving

this false premises a false perception of progress we're not killing the right people and by the fact we can't get the right people by the fact you're shooting through a soda straw at a target hundreds of miles away you're creating the next generation of enemies because i tell you right now i don't know this for a fact but of those eighteen folks killed probably two thirds of more innocent civilians just happen to be in the wrong place the wrong time now this is the new obama doctrine which a lot of us just don't get those who advocated don't really seem to understand the secondary and tertiary effects to the most direct secondary effect as you pointed out the pakistanis aren't happy about it now i wrote a book talking about how we need to hold pakistan more accountable and operation dark heart with that said i think that got that memo and i think they understand now that there is ways we need to move forward together this area is one of those which i agree with the pakistanis we are not being a good partner with them on i can you talk about how these strikes have field and see american sentiment over the years and frankly a lot of anti pakistani government and the vitriol against monks their own

government the reason this is been so damaging is because within the context of this conflict there were a handful of bad folks al qaeda most of them been eliminated in afghanistan or completely gone in pike pakistan or greatly reduced with that said we have ramped up we have now increased our special operations operations by five hundred percent over the past three years so if you have ramped it up you've got to do something with it so again what happens here is you have this massive force that we've brought to bear and yet the targets are fewer and fewer and so they continue to pretty. that all these mid-level managers these mid-level surgeons are somehow operatives think for yourself how many number two in al qaeda we killed over the past eighteen months this is insane so we've got to find a way to get things back focused. on not saying we should not do drone strikes i'm saying what has happened here is that we've become totally reliant on drone strikes at the expense of everything else you've got to think or hope that there is some

kind of benefit coming from this program because president obama continues to expanding use this drone program are you saying the usa is not making any gains there at the long term gains that we're seeking here is regional stability to bring regional stability you have to seek and obtain a political or diplomatic solution this is not encouraging those who we should be negotiating with the come to the negotiating table second beyond that the very folks we're after are now going against our ally the pakistani government the taleban the pakistani taliban are now destabilizing the fagots in a government these drone strikes are helping encourage that so we are helping to stabilize the very ally we're looking to have help us again the secondary effects are very clear that that they would we're destabilizing the region that we're dealing with and the government we're asking to help us there are more constructive ways of moving forward this is one of those areas where i put forward the concept and i think the pakistanis may be willing to accept it at some point the joint us

army pakistani army units working together to go after these the real insurgents because again i argue you cannot get at these guys from a drone at twenty thousand feet and pakistan has said that this drone program violates international law what do you think about that is the u.s. . you know sucking on a thin line here absolutely i was in a meeting recently on capitol hill with new pakistani ambassador was for iraq and this decision as you came up it's very clear the pakistanis are very concerned about the fact that we say one thing in public about how we we sustain and support our allies the same time our ally here said enough is enough you're hurting our own and. kernel government and governance and this is where we're not paying attention to what's important here and again it's a political year i think this is become a very easy to rule for the current white house to use to quote unquote show progress one of the fact you're going to achieve a fire a victory by the fact that this will continue to do damage to our long term relationship with paxson not reduce any of the uncertainty strength that we were

hoping to do and we have a former ambassador ryan crocker he is now in hot water here in the u.s. got charged with the deal i parent we believe double the legal amount and the breathalyzer over there accused of being involved in this hit and run and they couldn't make any connections here i mean. when you look at his recklessness and his personal life could we draw on the connection to the decisions he makes in the political realm it's a good question and i think we need to look at his mistakes from the from the lens of the fact that he actually was fairly successful on his tour in iraq but he liked you know patrice made the mistake of thinking what worked in iraq would work in afghanistan so that's why are you saying that the tradeoffs crocket got combination show up and and failed miserably the concepts and capabilities we focused in iraq are not the same that we need for afghanistan so his mistake was believing some of his own press and secondly trying to do the same things that work in iraq and

afghanistan and afghanistan is completely different he never understood as far as i'm concerned any of the real root causes for problems in afghanistan so i mean in terms of his recent recent travels should we show that affect how we see. you know his defense policy i think that these things have a tendency to raise their head after a period of time if he's having a problem drinking now the chances are pretty good he probably had a problem sometime in the past look i'm a recovering alcoholic governs over twenty years but i know that it took a long time to get to the point where i recognize that i had a problem so this may. be his final showing of the fact that there's a pattern here i don't know but blowing three times the legal limit that's pretty bad sometimes you gotta hit rock bottom before you can bring about change. well hopefully sort that out but you know going back to the bigger picture here the us if if we continue this drone program program in afghanistan i mean how can we how

do you predict the future us pakistan relation well there may not be a pakistan to deal with i mean that's part of the problem here we're actually taking an active hand in destabilizing the government of pakistan this is started and it's not not going to blame entirely the obama white house this started in the bush white house this whole idea that we needed to do things to go after the insurgents and was it was stand in the tribal areas with the more we do things unilaterally without the pakistanis the more chance that that we do our actions will destabilize the very government a government which has nuclear weapons to fall we can't afford to do this so we've got to find a different course of action to get i'm not saying we should never do drone strikes i'm saying we've become tired of them as a centrally like a junkie is tied to their fix of crack cocaine and again it's not being productive by the fact the very government that we're looking to help us we're going to we have the potential of actually destabilizing the point falls and fails very interesting conversation want to keep it go and we are fortunately out of time tony

anthony pleasure to have you here that was retired lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer from the center for advanced defense studies we turn now to the latest on wiki leaks whistleblower julian assange right now the organization of american states is discussing his case here in washington d.c. this is the u.k. an aqua door remain in a diplomatic battle ecuadorian president rafael correa has granted a asylum but the u.k. won't allow him safe passage to the airport they've even threatened to raid the embassy to get a hold of us on she's been holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london since july nineteenth or if you get a chance to speak the president here is a look at that exclusive interview. some media have suggested that the decision to grant asylum to julian assange is nothing more than that with those attempts to improve the country's international image and what is this international image i don't know anything about it fortunately in our country seventy five to eighty

percent of the power belongs to the peoples no matter what some dishonest and immoral media trying to say that certain para groups use them to tell lies about what's going on they say the reason new freedom of speech in ecuador if there is no freedom of speech how would they be able to communicate the so idea they contradict themselves with a little world knows that latin america including ecuador is going through historical changes right now we are finally witnessing social justice equality sovereignty and dignity there are some power groups that oppose these changes mind you these groups are very influential some of them own media outlets they constantly conduct smear campaigns trying to discredit our government i want to ask you a question how many days have you been in ecuador. no more than three i think have you feel that any of your reports have been banned or since in the time you felt like that was censored shipped have you been told for example that again it's published certain stories as your excess information being restricted in any way.

of course not and this is the reality but these ballot groups both national and international are constantly campaigning against us trying to discredit our government because ecuador in latin america are changing and changing for the better thank god mr president in your interview with julian assange in his programme on our channel you said he's invited to the club of the persecuted do you feel like you're being persecuted i have prayed as i've said every day i wake up and have to guess what lies the media will cook up to deny it in ecuador there are six families that own the whole media business and there are several other major businesses the belong to them our new constitutional reform ben the media from being involved in any other business activities you know except for being the source of information as they called it infringing on freedom of the press we want to avoid the conflict of interest and that was considered infringing on freedom of

speech and whatever is in line with laurent ethics but is at odds with the interests of the media dictatorship that used to exist in ecuador is considered infringing on freedom of speech we would like the world to understand what is really going on in ecuador the things that the needed us here would be unacceptable in such countries as the u.k. russia the us for example the murder case in the u.k. if something similar happened in ecuador and the people responsible were brought to justice this would be called infringing on freedom of speech you have to understand that the median let in america have always been very corrupt it supported the pinochet regime the dictatorship in argentina and so on conflicting interests when every day occurrence there was even a clear pattern having become a successful businessman you set up your own channel not to keep the population in form. but to protect your business interests now everything is changing and i've become the target of daily criticism of regular smear campaigns no one believes them though when julian assange his mother came to ecuador did you have

a chance to talk to her yes of course christine is a wonderful person isn't she we gave her a warm welcome and it was a pleasure to talk to her deter visit to ecuador influence your decision to grant julian assange asylum in any way. no we didn't all decision was made in accordance with international law and was based on ecuador's traditions of humanism as well as the grounds that mr sanchez presented to support his request for political asylum we met with christine she's a very nice woman but it in no way influenced our decision. mr president it's hard to believe that julian assange had no contact with ecuadorian officials prior to requesting political asylum because he needed to be certain that there were dorrian embassy would ensure his safety did you discuss this option with him before hand. no we didn't i didn't talk to mr sands personally but if i'm not mistaken at some point the situation became suit tan's that he said he was

thinking about seeking asylum in an embassy haps even in ecuador's embassy was sure he would be allowed to stay when he entered the embassy so i think mr sands discussed it with the embassy staff since he i believe entered after hours so they must have been expecting him any person seeking asylum in ecuador has embassies will be safe we will see to their needs but after that we will consider granting them asylum with all due fairness if the person in question is a criminal we will never grant asylum to him but why do you think julian assange stalls ecuador and not another country only mr sands can answer that and the fact he did is the best response to this mia campaign and to the people who maintain we have a new freedom of speech the man whose freedom of speech personally fight requested asylum in ecuador it's the best response to organize so many countries and organizations have supported at windows decision to grant asylum to songe including

and most of the alba nations in what we did they express their backing the support we have enjoyed has been primarily due to britain's diplomatic clumsiness i hope you will excuse my language but i just cannot find another word to put it is the british threatened us with storming our embassy to arrest mr sun this is what has united all the nations in south america and other continents in their desire to stand behind ecuador confronted as it was with such a barbaric prospect such threats around acceptable have been carried out this would have constituted a violation of one of the fundamental principles of international law the inviolability of diplomatic premises it was this threats rather than our eventual asylum decision that has prompted such widespread support in our favor from the valley very an alliance of the americas and the union of south american nation. that's just part of our exclusive interview with ecuadorian president rafael correa and to see the interview in its entirety check out our youtube channel youtube dot

com slash r t america. well the public a national convention in florida just days away now the city of tampa is bracing itself for a possible hurricane and a storm of protests occupy tampa protesters are descending upon the city they find a charter in bus loads of people and it looks like the city is taking every possible precaution from clearing hundreds of jail beds to drones patrolling the sky looks like protesters will remain on close watch to discuss more about what occupiers have in store for the r. and c. and d.n.c. i spoke with jared hamill spokesperson for coalition to march on the r n c and got his reaction to the beefed up security down in tampa take a listen. well. we have folks out there supplying over. day we have the city police department searches the. great

city meanwhile we are mondays the peace affirmative march five thousand groups and i just saw today reports that for the first time ever a drone will patrol the skies and monitor what's going on on the ground surrounding the convention what you think about that well i think it goes back to what those who are basically you know we're we're just raising our we we have demand. here for village of the in peace in this city to see who we are gearing up for who are the ones who are using drones. and the wars of these. and all we're doing is having a group work every. day they know who are we were and. what they're doing is they're trying to. you know part of what

is instigating this fear is this warning or this this memo out recently from the department of homeland security want to bring up a part of that memo it states quote part of the two thousand a r. and c. an arcus extremist discuss blockading bridges and sky walks in minneapolis minnesota targeting local corporate headquarters taking over a radio station and identifying delegate lodging locations in the location of police stations and emergency routes f.b.i. and the h.s. assesses with high confidence anarchistic stream as will target similar infrastructure in tampa and charlotte with potentially significant impacts on public safety and transportation and you know jarrett the me the media the mainstream media is reacting to this memo and here's a look at the way they're covering it. tampa police and federal authorities are planning for the worst including from around the anarchist groups who may try to

disrupt the republican national convention the f.b.i. issued a bold benchley urging police across the country to watch out for indications that activists in their area might be planning to go to the convention to help them in the bolton is titled quote potential for violence or criminal action by anarchists extremists during the two thousand and twelve national political convention the f.b.i. and department of homeland security warned state and local law enforcement that anarchists are targeting the democratic national convention in charlotte north carolina too and they could even try to use improvised explosive devices. so there what do you think could these fears be being below out of proportion and do you think protesters as a whole are being branded are stereotyped as anarchists i think. what is being done here is that protesters are being branded a terrorist or some form of that. in this country people get together

people unify in a mass movement they are heavily repressed by the state in the police and that's exactly what they are doing now all we are demanding are people's agenda we're saying no to the one percent we're saying no to an agenda of poverty war and hate and so. not only. worsen but they're trying to say that. these people are doing their bit. and look. they're just like anybody else have real demands. and. you know proponents of this heavy handed security are going to say you know this is a huge a huge convention and there's going to be a lot of high profile people there and we need to take every necessary precaution

in the name of public safety what do you say to them. if you look at any protests. you look at any mass destruction or is the violence always something. there's always some from the police you look at two thousand the emergency rooms the same call innocent people protesters in the media were shot at by police with tear gas and rubber bullets now why. by by police we're not doing anything but just raising their voice and having cleared them in. i think the fact is that the state doesn't doesn't like it when people get together they don't like it when people are unified and they're going to do everything they can they're going to frame it as they're going to whatever. but the fact is. we're getting together on august twenty

eighth and we're going to have and. we're going to march in the national convention ok you know what the occupy protesters have in the past been criticized for not having a clear message you say that you have clear demands can you talk about what those clear demands are. voting the people. were saying no to the republicans were saying that the one percent that were demanding jobs health care affordable education equality. is something that every person in this country probably throughout the world needs and so we unified labor unions anti-war groups immigrants rights groups groups from all over the country to come down here to tampa to march against the republicans the one percent and with that we don't endorse them we don't. because the fact is.

going to go to charlotte the bone margins. all right jared so we are just days away now from the big event can you tell us more about the events you have and start. so basically on august twenty seventh people from around the country we. found samples we're going to hear from speakers. from. the new america and from there we're going to march down. and with that we're going to go. and we're going to tell the republicans. we don't want the war and then. they're going to go. because. we're being. systematically

just about every country. unless they just want to ask you you're there on the ground in tampa right now based on what your observing how do you expect things to play out. we're having a march we're going to have five thousand protesters in the streets of tampa. the great. joy of the republicans will we have a correspondent making her way over there shortly and she'll keep a close eye on how everything does play out gerri thanks for coming on the show that was jared hamill spokesperson for coalition to march on the are insane. as i mentioned both the d.n.c. an r. and c. are right around the corner back in the day conventions were meant to decide the party candidate and announce the v.p. pick today many contend it's more about partying pageantry than real politics so are the party conventions even necessary anymore larry harshness of the resident

dot net took this to the streets of the big apple to take america's political pulse . in the us republicans and democrats are about to hold their conventions to kick off the presidential elections these and so what are these conventions even do this week let's talk about that you're growing your eyes i say convention internet stuff why are you into the politics of all crooks yet but we have to choose right all crooks what are the conventions do do you think what do they do they wish a lot of money. but they do good for media purposes because they could create a lot of hype around saying condit so yes i think they do too so we really need more hype. in today's well because kind of politics. doesn't it but it has in the kind of it the purpose of the convention i would assume is to make people more

interested and give them more information about their candidate so they can vote for them do you need more information i think people already make up their minds without too much information as it is and that's one of the problems do you spend a ton of money on it just by sheer weather and every choice we can prize on the news and then it stops at a certain song and then from then on it's business as usual we don't do this where you go from state to state and i think that i think you just said the key word business i think there's a lot of money on the table in american politics and that's a bit of a worry is the truth. if they put money into an obviously they want something out of a donor i think the whole political process is crazy the amount of money they spend on ads and different things it's just ridiculous and it's not truthful the ads are generally false fake and just. you know don't really serve any purpose it's a lot of waste of money for the taxpayers yet who do you think is going to get dirty or romney or obama. romney who do you think is going to win. why. because of mitt romney he doesn't appeal there like either you don't like either

one or i think they're obama doesn't win so my point of view i think about second term in america you think he's going to end here i think you know i can he's done a good job. republican so i don't republicans sure you're going to vote for romney . no choice. that sounds relaxed then yes yes it is in whatever you choose to do whatever like president you have to choose it's going to make a huge influence on the world it's not just on the american people but it's actually on the world that we have more responsibility absolutely no matter what the conventions do or don't do the bottom line is the media is going to try to make them seem really really important so grab your popcorn and the media circus it's just about to start. that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we cover check it every

hour you tube channel you tube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our website r t dot com slash usa and you can follow me on twitter out as well back here at eight.