the u.s. state department is taking the first steps to remove one iranian exile group from its terrorist list ahead a look at the political implications of this decision. and new york subways are about to get a bit more crowded but not with billboards our times in the next broadway hit empty jihad and they're popping up around the city is this message one that merits the marquee or is it advertising hate. plus over the years we've heard some of the grisly details about the enhanced interrogation techniques used by guantanamo bay

officials but now it appears as if the so-called approved drugs are being administered to detainees before they're questioned get to the bottom of these allegations coming up. it is monday september twenty fourth at four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching r t let's begin today with a pretty significant action taken by the u.s. state department to rebut remove a group of mujahideen a call from the u.s. government's terrorist list it's a group many americans have now heard of though many simply know it as the any k. because of the frequently played commercials the group has sponsored and that air on most cable networks. any k. is iran's democratic opposition working for a nuclear free iran founded on human rights unjustly listed a terrorist group and the k. is the victim of violence radical regime in iraq and their iraqi allies europe has

delisted m e k and in two thousand and ten a us court ordered a review iranians u.s. lawmakers and former senior officials demanded listing secretary clinton for democracy and freedom in iran d. list m e k. well it appears that will happen so the m.k. in the dozens of americans who have gone to bat for them have now gotten their wish but it is not quite as simple as you know a peaceful group wrongly put on a list of evil terrorists i want to read part of a document put forth by the bush administration in making the case for war with iraq back in two thousand and two the section is titled saddam hussein support for international terrorism it says iraq shelters terrorist groups including the mujahideen account organization which has used terrorist violence against iran and in the one nine hundred seventy s. was responsible for killing several u.s. military personnel and u.s.

civilians so this is just one of the six bullet points on the list of saddam's terror related activities and now a decade later things have changed immensely to talk more about why this is the case i'm joined by rima dia r.t. arab correspondent and rima we all know you know that the any k. is opposed to the current government of iran and for the most part so is the u.s. so is this just one of those situations the enemy of my enemy is my friend well first of all from the ads that you just aired a little bit ago it tells you whole lobbying is important in this country and what lobbying has let this country to do meaning that there delisting and make a group that was deemed terrorist just until lately just until as the document even shows just until very recently. well this is. this is an organization that the u.s. and other countries said that it's

a terrorist organization the organization is still the same it has not changed its focus it has not changed its activities it has not changed anything particularly in the only thing that changed is the political atmosphere is the political environment around it which let the u.s. to dig this position that is being. actually criticised by even u.s. . officials over former officials and u.s. journalists in the u.s. let me break down a few things that you said because you had a lot of important points in the first is that lobbying the power of lobbying in the united states of course remain you and i have lived in washington for years we see before our very eyes what lobbying and more particularly what a lobbying dollars can do however if you know if al qaeda if the taliban. was able to get a bunch of money to u.s. congress people to former you know people in the senate and the house they couldn't convince the you know our lawmakers to do that why is every case so successful

because there is iran and the focus here the whole point here is iran these this group is iran so is the u.s. government so is a lot of other governments in the region and the as they even say publicly their goal is to oust the government even to remove the iranian government and that's what they're trained to do and the listing them will help them achieve this goal this is exactly what the u.s. publicly say is that they are at they do have disagreements with iran and this is one of the groups that will help them and they did before yes certainly groups on this terrorist list u.s. citizens are forbidden from giving any sort of support whether it's advice whether it's money coming off that list means that you know people here in the u.s. people in other allied countries can safely give money and other forms of support to the group but you say that their goal is to unseat ahmadinejad to get rid of the

iranian government as it is currently what do they then want to replace it with i mean do you know do they know we've seen them do that in other countries iraq is one example of ghana's then is an example now what's going on in other arab countries they don't know who is going to. coming next that a lot of people criticize the u.s. also for its short term a short term strategy is meaning that they they're just thinking about they're just thinking of what's going on or what's going to happen if we take this decision today but not about its consequences you know a year down the road and this is exactly what happened with iraq now it's a failure a country afghanistan is a another failure a country the arab spring is a third example of what's going on maybe they don't even know what they're going to replace the iranian regime with their goal is to get rid of this regime at the moment. at least for the emmy k.

and for them it doesn't really matter what comes afterwards because that's what's important for them now it's really interesting the timing as you say and i think it's important because the timing right now of u.s. iranian relations this is such an important issue that both governor mitt romney and president obama are going to make in the next few weeks talking about iran talking about the importance of you know in romney's case taking action making sure that israel is the first priority when it comes to iran president obama has said he wants to you know this is an option all options are on the table but there seems to be a has a tense and perhaps the desire for some sort of diplomatic attempt talk about the delisting of any k. in terms of u.s. iranian relations it's not going to get any better everyone knows that they're running government even the reformists within their right whatever means it's definitely going by a lot of at least observers

a lot of them say that it's just going to drive the relations even worse or it's going to affect their relations and such a negative way and we all know that the iranian government is not going to be happy with this decision a lot of even within the u.s. a lot of people are not happy with this decision they criticize that but we also. so how iran was was not happy when some european countries the earlier you know some years ago and it only worsened the relations with them and therefore it's only going to affect their relations negatively but when the u.s. and iran now from what i understand secretary clinton had no choice and she was sort of ordered by courts to do this that you know the enemy k. love him or hate him they have not proven to be committing any sort of terrorist activities what do you know about you know the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of secretary clinton having to make this announcement again it shows you how big lobbying how important lobbying is in this country this court decision wouldn't

have been in place if it weren't for all these efforts on the part of the. congress more than one hundred fifty some people say more than one hundred fifty members from both the senate and the congress won't we're involved in this thing to even journalists who are paid to promote and you know basically work on behalf of they make in the u.s. so let and let me for those viewers who have been following this story i do want to name some names here because it's really important to note that this is not a red or blue issue there's a long list of washington sort of a listers that have been enlisted by the m.k. by their lobbying machines to sort of help with this effort we're talking former new york mayor rudy giuliani a republican former presidential candidate howard dean a democrat from vermont. we're talking tom ridge the homeland security secretary under george w. bush we're also talking about carl bernstein you know the journalist from the

washington post you know got his fame from the watergate scandal. republicans and democrats in this town cannot work together to pass a budget they can't even work together as we saw last week to pass a veterans jobs bill what is it about the any k. a former terrorist group that's so bipartisan i mean don't you like to think that they sympathize with the group but the fact of the matter is there is around and it seems as if iran unifies unites basically the democrats and the republicans especially and you talked earlier about the timing especially now when they want both they want to prove to israel that their number one iran comes number one as well when it comes to showing how against it how anti iran their efforts will be to have a crystal ball but just last question for you i mean what do you think or are some sort of predictions in terms of what happens in the very near future after the case

officially delisted well. yes i don't have the kosovo a lot of people think that this is just going to encourage other groups we don't know how we don't know to what extent but a lot of groups will think this group has done this and this and this and that and now they're delist that because the game has changed in town and therefore it might change for us. it's only going to have a negative impact we know that's a really intended merely what i mean the what a message that this has put forth bring your money honey bring it to washington and you can get just about anything you want very interesting arabic correspondent thanks so much. also had on our team winding its way through new york's underground jihadism billboards critics say it's creating a culture of hatred and us judge though says it's free speech a look at these controversial and or times when it's coming up.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot but you sir are a fool you know what that is my other terror cells right now want us to featuring me on live from the christian point you. can see here to listen to. see how the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls a breaking news. i'm abbie martin and we're going to break the step.

to the counseling i'm lauren lyster. while today in new york city ten subway stations will begin running quote anti jihad savage ads these are billboards paid for by a conservative blogger and they say quote in any war between the civilized man and the savage support the civilized man support israel defeat jihad now as you can imagine some strong opinions about this but a federal judge says this is perfectly legal free speech or is one honest aasia

church going to take a deeper look at the ads and the controversy they're causing. these ads calling for the defeat of jihad are being put up in tents some way stations in new york miss just cost over more than six thousand dollars that come from a group that's accused of sparking hate by critics but has been given the green light by new york authorities only going up this monday the ads are already causing much debate are they too offensive to the muslim community or does freedom of speech conquer all let's find out what new yorkers have to say about this i'm shocked that that mayor bloomberg and his people are allowing it's just going to lead on to more anti anti everything it's a good idea to have an anti islamic sentiment for some reason absolutely not that just perpetuates anti people sentiment controversial of course it's controversial is poisonous in the new york city subway system you know this is a city that's been wracked by a trauma for years and years and here we are after eleven years of war still using

the language of war these ads are going up in new york subway stations today but what do you think about this. while i support israel for the safety and peace and security of israel i'm not for hate speech but at the same time we have a first amendment is there really a very fine line between freedom of speech and offending someone there is this freedom of speech there's also freedom of religion so you have to walk a fine line should be untied muslim but people still should be aware what they're doing the anti muslim ads are popping up at a time when protests continue raging in the middle east over film depicting the prophet mohammad so should new york officials have considered not just the substance but also the timing of this campaign they ought to be less this caution and just let this thing that i add as a time because they they are you know they hate us over there whenever you start speaking against religion especially when tensions are globally the way that they are yeah i think there definitely be some consequences well could see how could my things complicated. where they would have an effect on the u.s.

i'm not sure but you could use this as something against the u.s. do you think this could have a more dangerous. squints is really for the latest sure the anti islam ads will remain in new york city subway stations for a month and whether they could lead to more dire consequences than just sparking debate is exactly what remains to be seen as those who churkin are pretty new york . over the last few years there has been quite a bit of evidence that detainees at guantanamo bay have been involuntary drugged with powerful anti-psychotics and in the last few weeks the case of david hicks an australian held that get mo is bringing more and more attention to the issue and also bringing forth questions about the purpose of this the long term effects and the legality well now it appears the department of defense is trying to cover up some of these charges of drugging as suggested in d.o.d. inspector general report scott horton is a contributing editor at harper's magazine he's covered guantanamo bay for years

and joins me now from new york city. many many layers here a host of different drugs drugs used in different circumstances but what's the bigger picture from what we know so far is this even legal. whether that is the big picture i mean the big picture is whether it's consistent with the geneva conventions and other international instruments and we know that the bush administration originally set up the guantanamo bay facility with the expectation that it would be beyond the reach of laws and courts that it expected that the geneva conventions and other internet national convention since simply wouldn't apply to what was done there and this attitude seems to have inspired some medical experimentation because i think that's what we see evidence of here we see the use of psycho tropic drugs and other drugs for purposes that really don't have anything to do with health and safety of the prisoners now i think the the authorities certainly could they could take that vaccinate prisoners if they're

sick they could give them medicines to address the situation if they're making a ruckus they could be given seven tips and things of that sort so there are certain circumstances in which drugs can be used but if we look in detail into these reports we see drugs being used that don't match those circumstance where the i mean some of these drugs that we're hearing about they have the ability to cause you know increase in heart rate to cause blurred vision and also to cause hallucinations so it's very confusing i think if you're trying to get intelligence you know accurate intelligence how these mind altering drugs would help but it seems that these drugs were probably used in the preparatory stay so they are they're trying to prepare a prisoner to be interrogated they want to break the prisoner they want to free him up loosen him up to speak freely in the drugs i say

a combination of drugs and food seem to be used along with many many other things of the fact the environment the prisoner to prepare for them and i think. sorry scott we were having a couple audio issues with you but let's stay with us i mean in the now declassified guantanamo medical standard operating procedure a description lays out how the drug scope below scopolamine i think it's called was administered to all get get mowed detainees this is a drug often referred to as the quote truth drug how did they come to this designation. well that's where it is also been used for motion sickness and other things but the military in fact stopped using it for that purpose because of side effects. and we know that the intelligence community was experimenting with the drug for some period of time potentially including just in the last few years as a sort of truth serum. so i think you know that's this is another area where we

have a question clearly being presented and we have answers coming back from the department defense that really aren't satisfactory dition to what happens with the defense department want to know we also have the cia using drugs in fact sometimes many of the same drugs and we know that from criminal investigations that went on overseas so for instance with a man a german citizen they we don't masri who was held by the cia in afghanistan when he was released he was examined by criminal authorities in mexico including their doctors and they concluded that he had been drugged with the use of psychotropic drugs so i think we see a pattern that emerges there as well and that's a really sad story i know you covered that a couple years ago because from all signs point to the fact that he was a case of mistaken identity and even once that was realized they kept him there for quote knowing too much so i mean it's really crazy to think that this can go on and

i do want to talk also about the cover up a recent report with put out in response to a freedom of information request eventually says it found nothing i can find no evidence to substantiate allegations that mind altering drugs were administered to detainees so so we do we've seen evidence come out in certain cases especially straight from the horse's mouth from people who have been in guantanamo bay and say yes i was given a needle i was drugged and now there's this you know inspector general's report that says no we actually don't know of any of that happening so what's going on here. the inspector general report in this case is extremely suspicious because i think it lays out a sort of base of it from an asian and then it refuses or fails to draw obvious logical conclusions from the information that it presents but i think you can understand that the limit let let's just assume that the use of these psychotropic drugs have been approved by the government that there is level and based on

documents that we've seen come out of department justice department defense we know all these issues were to take can essentially to the top to the white house ultimately for review and approval and let's say the use of these drugs was in fact approved and that's also based on legal advice that the geneva conventions and other international agreements to in the party will they did apply then the use of these techniques would constitute a grave violation of the geneva conventions that is to say a war crime in fact something where the united states insisted adamantly on prosecutions at the end of world war two and the korean war so you've got a department defense inspector general who i would submit to does not want to put together the prosecutor's playbook for him so the report just suddenly goes silent key junctures i think it's important when we talk about this to sort of point out an irony here present here in the united states are filled to the brim with prisoners often arrested on drug charges and yet when it comes to prisons in other

countries but run by the u.s. drugging seems to be part of the protocol agatha just kind of an interesting contrast to look at and you think most americans are even aware of the earth. well know this is one of the great ironies of american culture of course that is you know we have one of the most rigorous anti-drug prohibitions in force anywhere in the world and that the same time we are one of the most drug happy cultures in the world fact strike one of we are the most drug at because you're with the highest degree of over the counter drug this dispensing and also advertising on television for prescription drugs that's one of the conflicts of the exists here and i think we see you know in that we see here attempts to use drugs for interrogation and then test gathering purposes and the and they may have fact to be useful to some extent for that purpose but you run into the problem that it's against the law now

do you think that you know obviously we started to hear about these things but you know back in two thousand and eight but there's new light being shed on the case of this us trying do you think having this come up time and time again will have an impact sort of on you know foreign relations or you know the view of this country and its practices from outside of the country. it already is in the big way i mean so for instance just about ten days ago the supreme court in italy handed them a major decision in which they upheld the conviction of twenty three cia agents for their involvement in the operation of one of these black sites and in the end that duction operation we know prosecutors in poland are aggressively pursuing think things are still not going criminal investigation in germany we know the president of egypt to say here in new york today giving remarks hasn't fact announced the way black sites were operated on the gyptian territory and called for the united states

to reform so i think we can say that this issue has turned out to be a huge irritant and u.s. relations with key allies around the world and the very strong message is being sent to the united states that's got to change its wicked ways and part occludes the use of drugs on prisoners which is really not accepted by the international community in this really not accepted by us law either yes certainly something interesting to talk about a lot of people are not writing about this though or talking about it that we appreciate you. giving us your insight and your years of research on this issue scott horton contributing editor at harper's magazine thanks so much great to be. well the capital account is up next on our team let's check in with laura list and see what is on the agenda today hello lauren a low christine happy monday today is a great day to look back a little bit in order to understand where we are today because before the great

recession christine there was a period that central bankers and economists very patting themselves on the back ask way if you will that they called the great moderation of good economic growth they thought they had succeeded in achieving is a growth and keeping inflation low and then we had the great recession the rest is history it turned out there were some bubbles that burst but now we wonder if fed policy has given way into the great levitation as said central bankers try to boost asset prices and delve into this great levitation with jim grant who is a capital account favorite he's editor and founder of grant's interest rate observer and a very well known critic of the fed and lauren i'm going to keep watching because i have a feeling that you're going to figure out some sort of way to levitate out of your chair you know i will try only anything for you all right thanks so much and for us

here on the news side that's going to do it 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 and you should definitely follow me on twitter if you're not already christine for south thanks so much. download the official ati up location himself choose a language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from matsushita t.v. is not required to watch all its food all you need is your mobile device to watch r.t. in any type of. me fifty feet it's. fifty feet.

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