the. it's a grim milestone the u.s. has been fighting the war in afghanistan for a loving years now president obama tells us will soon be leaving the country but what the legacy the u.s. will leave behind our t. questions more. free speech or hate anti islam ad that caused an uproar in new york city are now on display in another major u.s. city a look at the ads and the ruling that forced another transit agency to display the billboards that some call raises. a new report raises questions about the future of the telecom industry here in america two chinese companies want to expand into the

u.s. but a report by congress says these companies cannot be trusted to take a look at that report coming up. well good evening it's monday october eighth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching our team well this weekend the war in afghanistan turned eleven years old already america's longest war it's a war that continues to evolve as it continues to go on. shortly after the nine eleven attacks invading afghanistan was seen as the best option both to retaliate and to defend the homeland but it soon became clear that it would neither be easy nor short to complete the mission there two years ago president obama sent an additional thirty three thousand troops a surge to try to speed up and strengthen the war but today the surge troops have left and more members of the u.s.

military are dying by their own hands from suicide than by the enemy though the amount of green on blue or insider attacks also continue to rise over the weekend u.s. army sergeant michael turner who seems served three tours in afghanistan and one in iraq and is still an active duty soldier spoke out in opposition to the war i joined the armed forces when i was nineteen after i did a spell as a firefighter i fell in the fraternity and i wanted to serve with my brother's son over the army as a multimedia illustrator. in the units that i usually work with that just means that you make propaganda for the u.s. army i've had three tours in afghanistan iraq and i was in afghanistan when bin laden was killed you're kind of with each other like war is over like oh we're going home doing tours back up the whole deal. it never happens and a lot of good men died a year i feel like we were betrayed by

a government you know. like even if we were justified in the beginning everyone that we blame for nine eleven is either dead or in jail this war isn't justified there's no reason that our brothers and sisters should die in the sand. there's no reason that their children she have to go to bed at night terrified of the next drone strike or the next kick down door it's an awful thing that we're doing and we could be using that money on so much better things education or the environment. but so many people are getting rich i think they just don't i am an active duty sergeant in in my unit that i already described and so for speaking out against the u.s. government and the army. and you know deserving the army i'm probably looking at maybe like a year to two months for a felony charge and i will be turning myself into the m.p.'s soon peacefully but not quietly today sergeant turner did turn himself in to military police and his

story represents a growing frustration both with those serving and with the american people who also seem to be more and more unsure of the mission earlier i spoke with tony shaffer from the center for advanced defense studies tony is also the author of a the book operation dark heart he served as a lieutenant colonel in the u.s. army and first shared his thoughts on sergeant turner and the afghan war overall. well that i'm very impressed with the start of knowledge of the real root issues which reveal and frankly. the majority the folks we want after using authorize use of military force the you on that have been killed or captured that should have been the big indicator that it was time to think about our strategy a parent back especially one of the what we got then lot and said what you've seen is what my son jerry goyal calls combat to commerce where we've actually seen a full on use of military resources to go to vote create

a democracy for the afghan people which frankly as we're seeing right now or we step away a less ready the karzai government is just that you know and most importantly you're i think as you pointed out and this is something you can go to new york times website actually look at. we actually won this and zero two zero three that the change in policy which allowed us to start this counterinsurgency strategy is the root of the real problem and let me be very clear on this is not a bush or obama problem although i would say this administration is far worse if you look at the number of troops we put into afghanistan look at the number of acts of violence and death rots so we should have focused on what we want there to do to take take care of all kind to take out the terrorists not to create nation building and not to conduct ourselves such a way to try to simulate the afghan people the western style of living which frankly is hard to overcome two thousand years of culture not hold or do i think it's a really good point and some of the reporting the really in-depth reporting that's

been done in the last six or eight months about the people who have gone in not sort of embedded with the troops not you know writing off press releases put out by the u.s. military branches that people have really gone to the frontlines have talked to members of the taliban they say every time more troops leave afghanistan more taliban will rise up and that what at the. point tony can realistically be tackled and fixed in afghanistan well there's three things on that report first president obama created the roots of his own policy you're not looking at second third order effects of his policy first off the rapid expansion of the taleban military left it open or filtration according to ambassador ryan crocker twenty five percent of the current afghan army and police are only by on a surge or are adults and secondly never tell the enemy when you're leaving and how many troops you're going to be taking out and saying we're never told we've been in

combat with them or so that's another mistake if you're going to use the promise of maintaining a stablish in maintaining an afghan's of scaredy force i recommend they do what we did during the cold war we would actually bring units old units out of latin america out of what i'm all under a strain of the united states make them a cohesive relevant fighting force and send them back in and that way as you see we actually print surtout are absurd c n f and latin america by the fact we actually fought it in a way that actually created good governance we have not done that and. frankly what with the time we have left nato could be helpful like big old units of afghans moving into germany moving into third countries training them up as you this trying to create a real cohesion region right now that that military force in afghanistan last will and even with that the chances are very limited that will be successful but tony i mean when you talk about what happened in latin america i think it's important to point out that not everybody sort of views what happened there countries like

guatemala as you know a beautiful success story i think there's still a lot of resentment there and i think there's a group there's a lot of resentment of course in afghanistan and even with a country that we worked closely with for several years and i'm talking about pakistan. last year i know they sort of gave pakistan gave us a deadline they say you have to get your drones out of this country after that you know drone strike that killed people every time i ever since the osama bin laden raid that was done by the u.s. without knowledge or help by pakistan that relationship has certainly been very tarnished i guess i want to get your take tony on your role that drones have played the certainly means it's brought pakistan into the war it's brought a whole lot of other factions and a lot so much during this war we have found things which we can start rely on this process for example one of the issues early on that the afghans were nice. on the

face of it are not an issue that should have been negotiated away it was one technique but like so many things which were you become overly reliant on the same thing with drones drones are something that should been used sparingly they are not a surgical weapon i kissed you everything that was said especially when john brennan came out two years ago and said we're not killing civilians it's inevitable you will kill civilians and the whole insanity of that comment told me. on it there was no serious effort by this in this race to get it right so what we've seen here is these things that this is ministrations as a political expediency to quotable show progress which i think the long term consequences of which will come back and bite us and i've talked to pakistanis about this members of their media and frankly what they understand which we don't understand is that by killing innocent civilians we are destabilizing their thought is a central government and creating the next generation of terrorists will be a pool of pakistanis and that's why we have to be much more dishes in the use of

drones and frankly the way they've done it the over use of them and i think reading walter we cannot predict the consequences there are i think it's really interesting too something a lot of people aren't talking about is looking specifically what's going on with the people of afghanistan the ones who have not been killed. the way in which their lives are changing and i'll point out two headlines from today one of them says seven hundred kilograms so that's more than fifteen hundred pounds of opium with seized in afghanistan so clearly the opium trade is still alive and well afghanistan's had to produce about ninety percent of the world's opium opium which is of course the main ingredient in heroin but this is interesting it turns out another drug is becoming a sort of economic lifeline for the afghan people this headline in the guardian which says more afghan families are turning to cannabis cultivation so tony talk a little bit about this increase essentially drug farmers in afghanistan and what

we can learn from some of these numbers well first off this is something we recognize is. real issue later in the war back in two thousand and three and this was not addressed that you have. the afghan people the farmers can only really make it from these never seriously consider a green reform and actually crop replacement that's one of the things you see now so by the fact we never paid attention to the economic underpinnings of this country were somehow the result becoming the main cash crop and yet and now cannabis becomes another issue frankly this again goes to the entire strategy here to basically. simulate ourselves into the situation and not actually do the things we do now if we're a surprise why is an issue here is not been well reported nato has actually been as well as the afghan government helping move these results which is kind of insane the very people who says the stuff. dissipated and i think again that some things

that come out more and more as we brought down troops. yeah certainly some people who have served there have talked about having to have a good relationship with some of these opium farmers in order to be able to cross their land in order to be able to do some basic things in the country you sort of have to. you know work with them it's really interesting what's going on and as you said we're going to start hearing a lot more about some of these less talked about issues as this war continues tony shaffer with the center for advanced defense studies he's also the author of the book operation dark heart. well they stirred outrage in new york and now they've made their way to metro stations in the nation's capital talking about posters that critics say are anti muslim and racist r.t. as well as wall reports how some passengers consider what a federal judge ruled as free speech to be hate speech. these controversial ads now displayed in four d.c.

metro stations they read in any war between the civilized man and the savage support the civilized man support israel defeat jihad they were first posted a few weeks ago in subway stations in new york city critics saw them as anti muslim and racist some voicing their freedom of speech by defacing them egyptian american journalist and activist mona eltahawy got into a tense confrontation with a woman while spray painting over the word life and its first place so pretty good and recent that police then arrest alcohol we charging her with criminal mischief but do you think judge tried to block the pro israel ads from going up calling them fighting words but a federal judge ruled that it's the group's first amendment rights to put them on. the posters come up at a tense time shortly after anti-american violence erupted in the middle east following a video mocking the prophet mohammed the district expressed concern that the ads

could add fuel to the fire blogger and political activist pamela geller is the woman behind the ads she's appeared on r t before speaking out against a mosque going up near ground zero i think i'd be more helpful if it was an academic sent a dedicated to expunging the koran of the violent text that inspired jihad i think americans would see that as real outreach and real healing most metro riders we spoke to were disappointed to see the ads who's to say what's civilized and what's uncivilized savage i think that's kind of judgment total and terrible i find it to be a fun. believe in communicating with people not to man or think it's very productive trying to keep an open mind about everything so that. it's sad to see something like this if you live in the us. whether you consider the ads free speech or hate speech will be up in d.c. metros for a month. in washington liz. still ahead on r t two

big chinese telecoms are waiting to expand their business into u.s. companies offered to be investigated by the federal government and details of that investigation are now in what the report says when we come back.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the americans call. i'm sorry i mean the dynamic here is an awful lot of these things are on our little you know what kind of mind they're terrorist cells but i don't want the usa to defeat terrorism on the on the liberal and the chris. can you believe that the. you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sensationalistic

garbage he calls it breaking news i'm abby martin and we're going to break that. decline of american power continue. things are so bad. might actually be time for a revolution. and it turns out the popular drink of starbucks has a surprising. a new report released today raises raises questions that could shape the future of the telecommunications industry in the united states to companies from china that

produce some of the top telecom equipment in the world are trying to expand their business in america and offered to be investigated while the results of that investigation basically says the companies are not to be trusted and should not be welcomed here this was all laid out in the investigative report on the u.s. national security issues posed by chinese telecommunications companies qual way and z t e that report put together by the intelligence committee in the u.s. house of representatives it says at the center of the findings a potential security threat posed by china and chinese telecommunications companies with potential ties to the chinese government our military in particular to the extent these companies are influenced by the state or provide chinese intelligence services to telecommunication networks the opportunity exists for further economic and foreign espionage by a foreign nation state already known to be a major perpetrator of cyber espionage to break down these findings of the report

and also to try to read between the lines a little bit i was joined earlier by tim carr senior director of strategy with free press. i think that the house intelligence committee looked at the the history while way in particular the founder comes out of the people's liberation army there have been mentioned before on your show there's been increased concerns about cyber security threats not only coming from iran but from china china has there been instances of hacking into u.s. government and u.s. business interests by chinese interests we believe and so while always very aggressively trying to grow their business to into the u.s. and to sell equipment here and this is apparently raised some some i think legitimate concerns about about whether or not they're being very honest about this they're not very transparent as a company they're not publicly listed on markets in a way that would allow us to investigate some of their some of their. their

findings and so you know there are these concerns are real i haven't been a i haven't looked at the full report yet but it but it sounds legitimate and i was the target of a story that aired on sixty minutes last night i want to play just a couple snippets from that and we can talk about it. in the telecommunications world once you get the camel's nose in the tent you can go anywhere and there overriding concern is this that the chinese government could exploit waterways presence on u.s. networks to intercept high level communications gather intelligence wage cyber war can shut down or disrupt critical services in times of national emergency while away is a business in the business of doing business thirty two point four billion in revenues last year across one hundred fifty different markets seventy percent of our business outside of china was not going to jeopardize its commercial success for any government period. now the spokesperson for the sixty minutes story last

night said that the media has been less than friendly to the company certainly based on the fact that it's from china there's going to be questions raised but i don't know the extent to which there is hard evidence that it would in fact spy on the american people. i don't know that there's any hard evidence of that in the report there are concerns about a lack of transparency and the military history of this company i think that there is a potential for this blowback effect on the united states you look at american companies like cisco systems which is very invested in growing its business in china usually what happens when you have these kind of international controversies if the u.s. acts against a chinese company you could very well see the chinese government act against a u.s. company on its own turf yeah that's interesting also tim in that sixty minutes report it was a part of the way did get a contract to rebuild sprint's new four g.

wireless network and that is until the government stepped in and basically aspirants not to go through with the deal something not mentioned is the relationship between companies like like sprint with the u.s. government i mean do you think that this is one of the concerns that huawei would be more difficult to convince to play by certain rules. well you know it's a good point you know the concern was that that while ways too closely linked to the chinese government but here we have u.s. telecommunications companies like eighteen temporizing that were working with the u.s. government the national security administration while back to wiretap overseas phone calls without legal warrant at the time so i think when you whenever you have government and corporate interests colluding like this it's not it's not only concern for national security but it's also concern for for users consumers are privacy has often been been hacked into phone calls have been tapped so we need to watch all sorts of telecommunications companies especially ones that get too close

to to any government yeah it's almost one of those things where you don't want to adopt a misbehaving child one that won't follow the rules and you know do what all the other kids kind of you know do in terms of what that's expected last week to my attended a cyber security summit at the u.s. chamber of commerce here in d.c. and the chairman of the house intelligence committee congressman right mike rogers who was in that sixty minutes piece last night he spoke so let me just play a little bit of what he said we don't have a lot of time and what people don't realize is that we are in a war today in cyberspace it's happened in every single day in this is the biggest national security threat i can think of that we are not prepared to handle in this country today. so chairman rogers of course the author of says spot a bill that has not become law but as the chairman of the house intelligence committee this is

a common theme china russia iran they are out to get us it's time to build up the arsenal and protect ourselves so talk a little bit about you mentioned this before cyber security as it relates to some of these foreign companies wanting to to expand their businesses here well politics definitely comes into play here seen in both the romney and obama campaign in an effort to get tough against china this could very well be an outgrowth of that but also of concern is the idea of the marketplace for cyber security with their estimates that i've seen it but this is a multibillion dollar business so it's in the interest of lot of these companies to provide cyber security services to inflate the fear to to play up this idea that we are under threat of cyber warfare representative rogers is fair is very good at kind of fanning those flames because it helps businesses that sell separate security systems that sell systems that will allow us to protect against these alleged attacks it helps them make money so we need to make sure that the threat is

real because the downside is if we really heightened our cyber security system here it could infringe upon the basic right to communicate basic civil rights of internet users so we need to put it all out on the table and make sure that the threat is real and that this isn't just a lot of political and economic posturing by special interest yeah you know away already in latin america and africa and some parts of europe i'm just wondering tim if you think there's going to be a point where people in the u.s. say hey you know if it's better and faster and more efficient why can't we have a two well it's interesting to note that most computer equipment most telecommunications equipment is in fact made in china it may have a name like cisco on it just because huawei is a chinese company making a lot of the same quitman. it raises these sorts of concerns but the creasing really china is a player in the technology space and their ability to create cheap manufactured

products should pose a threat to business interests overseas business not so much a national security threat so that that does come into play in this issue so interesting it was sixty on sixty minutes last night this used to be a field dominated by companies here in the u.s. and now it's almost all foreign companies that have sort of taken over a very interesting topic should be interesting to see what comes out of this report tim carr senior director of strategy with free press thanks for joining us thank you. consumer electronic devices are getting more intelligent every year if only the same could be said about their users a recent survey shows that smartphone owners risk identity theft by failing to protect sensitive information the poll was conducted by the credit assessment for equal facts and it showed that a third of users do not log out of social media or banking websites forty two percent do not clear their browser histories and

a whopping forty five percent don't even password protect their phones this happens despite the fact that one in five store passwords pins and banking information on their phones and one in four use phones to bank unfortunately when it comes to common sense there is no up for that the poll did not say what percentage of expose users bank from their cell phones but it does highlight how fevers can take a lot more than your angry birds and they target those i phones and those droids. now onto the final frontier after signing a one point six billion dollar contract to deliver cargo and food supplies to the international space station the space exploration technologies corporation better known as space x. succeed it and going to the stars this past sunday the latest launch marks the first of twelve missions the company of such a perform in unison with nasa not all though went according to plan you may

remember despite those initial reports of a smooth launch it turns out live one of the nine ryland engines up until the cargo couple shut down one minute and one nine hundred seconds to blast up the shutdown occurred when the engine lost pressure according to the statement from space x. the other eight engines were unaffected. space x. did defend the mishap though in a statement saying quote fell to nine did exactly what it was designed to do like the saturn five which experienced engine loss on two flights fell to nine is designed to handle an engine out situation and still complete its mission. space x. founder ilan musk did try to defuse criticism further by saying that dragon was the only rocket that could have possibly continued its flight despite an engine shutdown the question is why the rocket had to prove it could survive such an issue to begin with despite the engine heck up dragon is expected to approach the

international space station in two days time so here's what happens when it gets there the crew will unload just under nine hundred pounds worth of food and supplies and they'll replace it with one thousand six hundred and seventy three pounds of cargo that will be returned to earth so will nasa have saved money for taxpayers and this public private partnership no answer yet but we'll try to keep you posted. and that is going to do it for us here for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our web site r t v dot com slash usa and you can of course follow me on twitter at christine for example for now have a great night.