the situation in the middle east unrest on shaky ground as does american relations with the region and now we're starting to understand the reason ambassador stevens was in libya and his predictions of the unrest in this country a look at all of these issues coming up. iranians u.s. lawmakers and former senior officials demanded listing secretary clinton for democracy and freedom in iraq do you list i make a wish granted the u.s.

state department is taking the first steps to remove one iranian exile group from its terrorist list i had a look at the political implications of this decision. and the army came might be finally escaping to the international terror list but back home american citizens are being targeted as terrorists but with all the allegations of entrapment is the f.b.i. catching criminals or creating them. it's monday september twenty fourth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching r.t. . well let's begin with a closer look at the attack in benghazi libya that killed four american citizens including a u.s. ambassador this is become part of a much larger arab fall taking place around the region.

it turns out the fallout from that attack in libya has been detrimental when it comes to building up american intelligence efforts in the region the new york times is reporting that of the more than twenty four u.s. personnel evacuated from the area at least half of them were cia operatives and contractors so these were people whose job it was to collect information and intelligence in the area and they were removed speaking anonymously a u.s. official who spent quite a bit of time in libya told the new york times it's quote a catastrophic intelligence loss we've got our eyes poked out it's also becoming more and more clear that the u.s. state department did not even take the time to secure the area or investigate too deeply afterwards since a c.n.n. crew actually found ambassador stevens' personal journal c.n.n. reported some of the information inside the journal once it was cross confirmed and then they were scolded by the u.s. state department which said quote given the truth of how this was handled c.n.n. patting themselves on the back is disgusting but they're not owning up to is

reading in transcribing chris's diary well before bothering to tell the family or anyone else that they took it from the site of the attack now in some ways this is turned into a bitter battle between the state department and several journalists who believe that the department of state is blaming c.n.n. to in fact detract from their own culpability not having enough security on the ground not securing the site after the attacks etc c.n.n. did respond they said quote we think the public had a right to know what c.n.n. had learned from multiple sources about the fears and warnings of a terror threat before the benghazi attack which are raising questions about why the state department didn't do more to protect ambassador ambassador stevens and other u.s. personnel perhaps the real question here is why the state department is now attacking the messenger it is of course an important question and one giving way to even bigger questions about who knew what when and how to proceed from this point. the arab fall also includes the ongoing cough conflict in syria and has made many

nations in the region fearing its repercussions in neighboring lebanon people are actually starting to feel that clashes between those supporting and opposing syria's president bashar al assad have become a common sight on lebanese streets and signs are starting to point to the country being dragged into the war even further artie's lucic half enough reports. lebanon fought its own civil war on to tarion lines for fifteen years and now the syrian conflict is literally spilling across its border syrian troops have carried out incursions into lebanese territory while rebels take shelter in lebanese towns it has aggravated i'm healed wounds from the past storing fears of a new civil war it is polarized the politics of lebanon. it is resulted in conflicts that have taken place in tripoli it is resulted. that have happened in beirut lebanon is of course vulnerable to this type of sectarian

conflict lebanon sunni's mainly support syria's rebels including the powerful militant group hezbollah tend to back president bashar al assad and member of the alawite sect is divided in half between the group that support that the syrian syrian regime and those people who actually. hoping and cup the lighting on the for what they scald the free syrian army nowhere is that divide more violently visible than in tripoli on the streets of lebanon's second largest city and sunni gunmen have been battling it out we spoke to fighters on both sides who showed no willingness to disarm. ok. you know this is the leader of a sunni militia here in tripoli has bubbled to ban islam i asked him whether peace with his opponents is possible that as long as assad remains in power there won't be peace in syria lebanon or iraq or palestine there will be no peace while he is

in force and neighboring general must send an alawite fighter shows me the destroyed remains of his home when asked to explain the recent fighting with his sunni neighbors this was his response not the dollars just that we are defending ourselves against machines of terror and mercenaries who are being brought in from abroad. even the pope. to defend islam as most unifying figure the prophet muhammad wasn't enough to bridge lebanon's sick tarion divide in beirut separate protests against an anti islam video has been turned tens of thousands of shias to the streets days later a hardline sunni cleric who gathered his own supporters in the capital they may have been united in their outrage the protesters carried flags that left no doubt which side of the syrian divide they're on for now lebanon is holding together but some residents here wonder whether this is just the calm before the storm or this is such as are going to go. they're going to they're going to start to start

reducing the streets here that. everyone is going to like it's like that's what's going to it's going to get this shelled out building stands in beirut green line which for nearly two decades divided the city journey lebanon's bitter civil war christian communities lived over here to the east muslim communities lived across the street to the west but as the armed conflict in syria continues to escalate just across the border many here in lebanon fear that the fragile peace could yet again be shattered and that sectarian tensions could once again plunge this nation of nearly four million into another civil war for our team i'm lucy catherine of in beirut let's talk now about a pretty significant action taken by the u.s. state department to remove the group mujahedeen 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 m e k because of the frequently played commercials the group has sponsored and they air on most cable networks. let me k.

is a romance democratic opposition working for a nuclear free iran founded on human rights unjustly listed a terrorist group and became is the victim of your life radical regime and their iraqi allies you're opposed to listed in any case and in two thousand and ten a us court order to review iranians u.s. lawmakers and former senior officials demanded listing secretary clinton for democracy and freedom in iran d. list let me k. so the army kay and the dozens of americans who have gone to bat for them have now gotten their wish but it's not quite so 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 from back in two thousand and two the section of this is titled saddam hussein's support for international terrorism it says quote iraq shelters terrorist groups including mujahideen ecology which is 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 i should mention this is just one of six the bullet points in the entire 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 now by jim obviously the policy director of the national iranian american american council so this is really interesting jim all i know that your group has worked tirelessly to try to prevent this from happening why do you think it happened. you know my own words to make sure that this wasn't the delisting decision wasn't the result of a politicized process in which a designated terrorist organization uses money lobbying p.r. to pressure it's way off of the terrorist list i think of in the day this shows that the campaign that the m e k bardon worked and that paying people like rudy giuliani and howard dean to pressure the state department to take this group off

the list and it up working and it creates a really dangerous precedent for other organizations that are dangerous to u.s. interests and undermine frankly our policy regarding resolving the dispute with iran peacefully i mean you mentioned rudy giuliani and others it's not just former politicians and people who had a former role we're talking about current lawmakers ileana roslin and the chairman of the house foreign relations committee she has apparently accepted at least twenty thousand dollars in donations from iranian american groups or their leaders that went into sort of her you know political campaign war chest that's according to the center for responsive politics and. you know she's been outspoken about the need to delist and u.k. and to protect when they were living many of the members were living at camp ashraf i just wanna play a little bit of what she said the safety of the residents of camp ashraf is in jeopardy it's in jeopardy right here right now right this moment it will be in

jeopardy until the international community says this is unacceptable this cannot happen. so jamal why do you think so many you know former and current people involved in politics accepted money and sort of now go to bat for this group you know as we saw with the remarks by congressman ross leighton and there was this frankly this red herring about the situation and ashraf there is any case base inside of iraq and when the united states went in there and toppled saddam instead of dealing with this organization as it should have been dealt with which is first and foremost as a terrorist organization but second as a cult as the state department has said time and time again this is a cold in which people have been imprisoned in iraq instead of dealing with it that way and maybe separating some of the prisoners there from the cult leaders and dealing with it like that donald rumsfeld said let's hang on to these guys let's see if we can keep them there will protect them and sort of kick the can down the

road they could be useful against iran some day well and that's what we're hearing from a lot of people who support the emmy kay and wanted to see them to let us if we're hearing first of all the m.k. wants to see the iranian government toppled and in essentially in a lot of ways so does the u.s. government so you have this sort of enemy of the enemy is our friend kind of thing you also have people saying you know even if you don't like them they haven't done anything sort of terrorist related any time recently so what's your argument to that well the fact of the matter is u.s. officials and i wouldn't characterize the u.s. government as supporting this group there are certainly members of congress who do there are members of the administration who strongly oppose the organization but u.s. officials when you know public they want to n.b.c. and said i mean is working with my saud to conduct assassinations inside of iran so there is clearly at least reportedly still a paramilitary aspect to this group and they are committed to advancing their

political agenda by using violence the problem here is that first of all the iranian people don't view it as a legitimate group this is a group that has lost all credibility the iranian people aren't they. detest the iranian regime but even the only group less popular than you know the supreme leader in the regime is the m e k and now there is this appearance that the united states is going to be behind that group and you can be sure that the iranian regime is going to use that to undermine the credibility of the united states as well as to undermine the credibility of legitimate pro-democracy and pro-human rights forces inside of iran to basically label them as being somehow affiliated with the m e k which is now somehow affiliated with the united states i think that's a really important point to make and we've certainly been traveling down this path for years some say even decades now of trying to figure out the u.s. government has been trying to figure out what to do about iran certainly we've heard from countries like israel from certain people in our own congress that the

only answer has to do with you know taking military action but you know president obama that didn't seem to be his first choice does this sort of backing of the delisting it does this sort of eliminate any chances there were if there were any chances to negotiate more diplomatically i think there could be no mistake that this campaign was a campaign to make war more likely this was part of the push for war when you have negotiations between the u.s. and iran the number one hurdle from the iranian side is this perception that the united states doesn't actually want to negotiate a resolution to the nuclear issue that this is about regime change just like on our side our number one concern is we can't trust the iranians that they don't want to nuclear weapons this adds fuel to the fire inside of iran that this is really about regime change in the united states is not going to accept any kind of diplomatic resolution would have that's the take you're saying inside of iran but do you think that the take inside the u.s.

government inside the government this makes it a lot more difficult to negotiate with the iranians because we've now taken this group off the list and here's the thing if these guys could. pressure. they're way off the terrorist list so they could pour millions of dollars into the top lobbying firms in the united states pay the top officials like giuliani like bill and like dean to speak out on their behalf and basically manufacture this campaign to achieve their political agenda here imagine what they're going to do now that the any case off the list and you have all this money that we don't know where it's coming from is swirling around and the next push is we need war with iraq so all of these politicians in the u.s. we're talking you know former pennsylvania governor ed rendell a democrat who's an m s n b c contributor we're talking as you said giuliani we're talking tom ridge the former homeland security secretary under george w. bush is it just about money or that they just being paid a ridiculous amount of money or is there something else i mean i can't imagine that you know al qaeda could come in and pay any amount of money to u.s.

politicians to get their way don't you think that they really truly believe that has been wrongfully characterized as terrorists i think that there are some people on that list who don't didn't know any better you have president obama's former national security advisor basically said he didn't know what the group was he just saw that they were opposed the iranian regime so he said hey you know free flight a free meal and twenty thousand dollars to advocate for this group that's fine by me but you have other people like for instance dana rohrbacher in the house or. who have said they actually support this group because they're willing to use violence rudy giuliani after it came out that the mccain may be behind some of the terrorist attacks inside of iran so they deserve a congressional medal of freedom for what they were doing and that this is actually the reason that the in the case should be supported not any of the red herrings about you know human rights in which we would be actually fueling the human rights crisis crisis within the camps what do you think by being taken off this list

this means as you said no longer is it for been is it illegal for u.s. citizens to give you know. support to the m.k. they can give all the advice they want and now they can give all the money they want what's the long term effect of this i think that the first thing we need to watch out for is that the congress is going to some of their supporters in congress are going to make a push to actually fund this group and actually have u.s. money funneled to this group as a means to destabilize and commit attacks inside of iran i wouldn't doubt that there's legislation actually being drafted as we speak that would do just that that's great and what about you know if they got their way if the regime was indeed toppled what would that mean for any case leadership role in iran well has a long history of very quick sadik strange ambitions and i don't think that there's any chance that that organization is going to successfully topple the iranian government the fact of the matter is you know the only way for change in iran is

for the people of iran to be involved in it and they are not fans of the emmy kay but that does speak to what the ambition here is the ambition for the any case is not about human rights or peace in diplomacy the ambition is to install the leadership of the m e k as the new dictators of iran and to run iran the same way that they run their their camps which human rights watch the rand corporation have all documented very well how undemocratic how cult like and how abusive to fundamental human rights that any case has been towards their own members fascinating stuff something i think a lot of people are just kind of starting to take notice of appreciate you having you on the show i just policy director of the national iranian american council thanks as always thank you. well 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 on the billboard it says the following in any war between the civilized man and the savage support the civilized man support israel

defeat jihad well as you can imagine there are some strong opinions about this but a federal judge says this is perfectly legal free speech r.t. correspondent on a stasi a church going to takes 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 to new york ministers cost over more than six thousand dollars 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 over ready 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 insight into everything it's a good idea to have an anti islamic sentiment for some reason absolutely not but 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 inside 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 muhammad so should new york officials have considered not just the substance but also the timing of this campaign they ought to be less this question and just let this thing that i add as a time because 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. squids is really for the latest sure the anti islam 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. in our. new york. let's turn out of the case of two young men who allegedly plotted a terrorist attack outside of a bar in chicago a week and a half ago well it turns out the plot was also put together by the f.b.i. and involved a fake car bomb and a fake detonator the two men were reportedly encouraged for months and months by undercover agents who eventually supplied them with this fake bomb so when the day came just one of those men was still involved the other decided not to take part

after being scolded by a religious leader a local sheik but eighteen year old adel daoud who was just seventeen when the f.b.i. first contacted him now faces life in prison for punching the trigger of this fake bomb i want to talk more about this story as well as the broader implications with trevor aaronson covers the author of the terrorist factory inside the f.b.i.'s manufactured war and joins us now from florida trevor let's talk about this you know there are so many things going on here first of all the f.b.i. talking to one of these guys since he was seventeen years old where's the line here between entrapment and good police work. right this is a pretty amazing case but it's actually not the first time that the f.b.i. has pursued a target who is less than eighteen or younger than eighteen and in this case with the other one they they pursued him before he became came of age and then brought him along in a plot with you're going credible about this case in particular that as you said a religious leader counseled one of the members to not move forward in the plot but

then the f.b.i. undercover agent told the other member who did move forward hey i know the shape and he says it's ok and. you know it's ok with violence and you should move forward and this is really the first time that the f.b.i. if you islam in you know pushing a target forward in a plot yeah it's really interesting and in some ways this story out of chicago seems to turn the popular idea of terrorism on its head i mean the f.b.i. getting muslim youth involved in jihad well as sheik tells the youth to remain peaceful in your research which is more common. it's actually much more common for the f.b.i. to say in the climate there's there's there's really little evidence to suggest that there is much of a character within the muslim community you know we looked at hundreds of cases of nine eleven and in the last decade there been fifty cases where the f.b.i. took someone who was on the fringes of society you know was espousing unpopular or even violent beliefs but really had no capacity to commit violence on their own and it was the f.b.i.

undercover agent or the informant who provided the means to the targets that hey here's a bomb is the but for this plot we can make it happen but in all of these cases they never had the confessed to the crime on their own yeah let's backtrack just a little bit because we should mention the eighteen year old involved who was arrested seventeen at the time when he was confident he was contacted because he was espousing some of these these beliefs saying some pretty harsh stuff about jihad on the internet so this isn't somebody who was who was randomly grabbed this is somebody was contacted by the f.b.i. because they thought that some of the stuff he said was threatening but what you're saying is that there was never the capability to be able to carry this out how do you suggest you know how do people that you've spoken to suggest that police deal with these kind of things that are on the internet certainly the answer is not to ignore them. this is a difficult question i mean obviously from the f.b.i. perspective and when i talk about this they say hey you know what are we supposed to do here is someone who says they want to come been violent or we just spoke to

ignore them and you know think so much or out of it and i think that's something we can all empathize with i mean you don't want to be the f.b.i. agent to know we should ignore this guy and he actually does end up obtaining weapons and launching forward with an attack but with defense attorneys these men who are part of the sting stay is that in almost all of these cases had they been counseled rather than encouraged they probably never would have moved forward so and we actually see that in this case you know and in this case a religious leader said to one of them you know islam does not condone this and you should stop it then in fact he did but the other one was actually encouraged by the f.b.i. and the board and i think we can kind of draw a conclusion that you know there are going to be cases where it's up to them and men on the fringes are willing to move forward and plus but in this case one was counseled out of it and the other moved forward because he was instigated by the f.b.i. well talk about how these kind of things these kind of arrests make the muslim community feel about the f.b.i. i mean i do think it creates more tension and distrust to have this going on

absolutely you know the council on american islamic relations no longer has a relationship with the f.b.i. in part because of these aggressive type sting operation and what this ultimately creates is a silent thing about you know muslims who may be aware of someone in their community who may be interested in some sort of violence are going to be hesitant to go to the f.b.i. to report this person because they don't want to be caught up in a thing they don't want to be recruited as an informant and they're really it has become this adversarial relationship between muslim communities across the country and the f.b.i. and what we're seeing is that most of the information coming to the f.b.i. about the muslim community is coming from paid informants informants who are criminals and there's a real question about the quality of the information you know whether they're bringing in people like. who was on the fringe and may have never committed a crime but because there is such pressure to bring in. terrorism cases you know someone like that may be targeted as a result yes certainly hear it r t we have reported on a few different cases of you know f.b.i. agents going undercover inside of mosques and actually being reported by some of

the people who attend the law saying this guy's acting weird and it turned out it was an undercover agent you know maybe trying to stir things up a little too much so it's really interesting let's talk about abdel die. he has been arrested he could face life in prison talk a little bit about the severity of the charges of the possible sentencing and of this case and of entrapment really overall. when you look at previous cases like this almost all of them end up pleading guilty because the prosecution the department of justice at this point has a near perfect record of prosecution in terrorism things juries for the most part has been unwilling to you know express enough empathy to move toward any kind of entrapment defense and at the same time because of mandatory minimum sentences you know men who go to trial are looking at a minimum of thirty five years in prison so you know someone like i will tell you it may choose to take a plea to save himself from that minimum thirty five years in prison and that's

what we've seen a lot of cases like this where they end up leading out and getting fifteen years but in some cases you know there's a really good case that's coming up in oregon in january with many mamma does and a homicide and his case goes forward in january and they're arguing entrapment and it's a very similar case that this one the f.b.i. provided all of the means that there is for the senate to move forward in the plot so you're saying this case in oregon the f.b.i. could actually be held responsible held accountable for pushing this forward every indication is that the legal team in portland is going to pursue an entrapment defense is going to put on trial the f.b.i. informant programs that say these are real terrorists these men were manufactured through the very aggressive work of f.b.i. informants and f.b.i. agents how common though is that driver for the f.b.i. for these undercover agents to be held responsible or for that matter. for these types of plots to change it seems like we've heard so many stories of you know entrapment being sort of the method that's used time and time again what's the way

to sort of turn this around or suggest a better method you know really at this point it requires public outrage for any kind of change in the i mean to the federal investigation of the very slow moving slow changing bureaucracy and at this point you know the for the most part the federal you know the sort of the public has not been outraged by the and i think they should i mean these are cases where the men never had any capacity to commit their crimes and it's only because the f.b.i. made that possible and i would encourage viewers you know when they hear about terrorist plots you know and they read about them the first thing they should look at it like was there an informant involved were the defendant actually ever in contact with actual terrorist with al qaeda and in most of these cases that's not the case you know so many times the bomb plots you think of and you know you think of all terrorist these terrorist cases over the last decade most of those are actually f.b.i. terrorism it's certainly hard to have outrage when you're still the story that it was a an amazing terror plot uncovered and that's the only way.