mo balder barks more charts. do you accept that the gun forces have committed war crimes against their own civilians who are fighting terrorism. to make an old post commission. perfect in pursuit of. an r t exclusive r t international sat down with the embattled syrian president bashar al assad to find out what he thinks of the civil war going on in his country up next an interview you won't see anywhere else. and with the holidays just around the corner the latest and greatest video games are set to hit shelves across the country in an attempt to make the most realistic games creators are now recruiting navy seals to help and tell you why seal team six members are being told game over. president obama may have want to second term but

what policies will change well he reach out to muslim american communities or will he left them live in the shadows we'll have some answers ahead. well everyone it's friday november ninth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for his hour and you're watching our team. we begin with a surprise move this evening in washington cia director david petraeus resigned this afternoon over an extramarital affair in a statement petraeus says he went to the white house yesterday afternoon and submitted his resignation citing personal reasons the president accepted the forestalled star general has led wars in iraq and afghanistan before transitioning last year into his role as the head of the shia ira under his leadership the cia drone program has flourished increasing both the number and location of drone

strikes despite significant evidence that these strikes injure and kill civilians targeted drone killings occurring outside war zones in places like yemen and pakistan also violate the human right to life as codified in the international covenant on civil and political rights to which the united states is a party as of now though the political establishment in washington seems far more concerned with what betray us has done in the bedroom than in the middle east. or throughout the day r.t. will be airing a long form interview an exclusive interview with syrian president bashar al assad r g correspondent so fish of our not say so down with him in damascus earlier this week and we want to play part of that interview for you now do you think that at this point they could be talks or diplomacy or we've reached a stage where only the army can do nothing i always believe in diplomacy i always believe and i will be i always believe in battle even with people who doesn't understand who doesn't believe in you have to keep trying whether you succeeded

almost think of the old with of. success you have to look for this portrait success before you put before you to the complete success but you have to be realistic you don't think that only they can make it into something because those people who called me we've got to talk to guys one of them doesn't believe in speaking with an extremist. and you had all to have been convicted by the court years ago for the cross the crisis and their natural enemy the government because they're going to be detained if you had a normal situation it is the other part of them is the people who have been supplied by the outside and they're only because they can only be committed to the people to the government who spent all pay them the money and supply them with armament they don't have a choice they don't have a decision they don't own their own decision so you have to be realistic and you

have the third part of the people whether he's made a tent or politicians who can accept the title that's why we've been in this dialogue for months now even with militant and many of them give up their armament and they went back to their normal life using their foreign invasion is imminent i think the price of this invasion if it happened is going. to be more than the whole world came for because if you have a problem in syria and god this is just a phone call of secularism and cavity in the region and coexistence with the it will have a domino effect that affect the work from the atlantic to the pacific and you know the implication or put it on the sort of i don't think. the way to going in that. regard but if they do so nobody can predict what's next. it's a present do you blame yourself for anything. normally you have to find mistakes

you do it with every different decision otherwise you're not a human what's your biggest mistake i don't remember to read frank you know but we were always but i always even before taken the decision i have to go to court to consider that part of it will be wrong but you cannot be about your mythical sometimes especially during crisis you don't see what's right and wrong until you overcome the situation that your in so it's not i wouldn't be objective to talk about mistakes because you're still in the middle of the war so you don't have regrets yet not now as it were when when everything is a clear you can talk about your mistakes but you definitely have a therapist and if today was fifteen so march two thousand and eleven that's when the protest started to escalate and grow what would you do differently what i would do or do what i did exactly say or for mark exactly to think to start to ask the different parties to for to have dialogue and to stand against the terrorist group

but i always thought it didn't start as monstrous it was the cover world umbrella was marcia's but within those motions you had militants who thought the truth in this movie and in the army at the same time maybe on the tactical level you could have done something different but as president you're not tech you can always take the decision on strategic level which is different present less how do you see yourself in ten years time continue through my country i cannot see myself i can see my country in ten years time this is where i can see myself more rose yourself in syria differently i have to be in syria the sort of all the position and i don't see myself with the president or not this is not my interest i could see myself in this country have country table country more prosperous country. and that was syrian president bashar al assad and earlier today i had the chance to speak to sophie shevardnadze about her experience of being in syria and also of sitting down

with president assad i asked her first how she was able to land that's a high profile interview. well we've been trying to get this interview from the day conflict has started to ask later actually. we spoke to a woman who is in charge of the press ministry in syria she was here in moscow on an official visit that was about six months ago so after we interviewed her we also asked her for an interview but we never got a definite answer and then all the sudden probably a month and a half or so ago they called us from presence of ministration and they told us that if we were willing to go then they were ready to receive us so that the rest was all about figure out the dates and the duration of our stay in syria and we should point out that a german journalist jurgen towton hoffer did interview assad a few months ago and a lot of critics pointed out that they were giving you know this german journalist

was giving mr assad a platform for his propaganda what is your response to that well if you want to know my personal take on that i think no matter who goes to interview assad it's going to cause a lot of noise and a lot of uproar just because he's such a controversial figure for the rest of the world i don't think i actually saw that interview of the german gentleman and his questions very very much fact based not at all complacent to. the rest is all about do you wouldn't want to hear what our side has to say which i believe some people are definitely interested in specially when it has to do with such a complicated conflict. like in syria because things aren't as black and white as we see in the media there are just so many shades of gray so i think it's worth knowing both sides of the story and that's a really good point and that's why we wanted to talk to you as well so if you were in the room with this person did you get the feeling that mr assad is that all

conflicted or remorseful about the death and devastation that's happening right now in his country. i. i want to be able to answer that because i don't know this is a man who actually controls him very well he's very much in charge of his emotions . when i spoke to him before they into i had a chance to speak with him for ten fifteen minutes he seemed very down to earth this is not a guy who software's from megalomania like khadafi or some other leader he's definitely not crazy he's very well read and educated and i was very surprised to find that out. he's very well informed contrary to what many people may think i think. barbara walters interview for a.b.c. that was recorded probably a year ago really freaked him out because barbara was asking him precise questions about precise examples of cartoonists to guard his arms broken or finger who got his throat slashed and he really wasn't aware of those. things that

she was telling him and i think that came out so much that after that he asked to be informed of everything that's going on so i do believe he understands how complicated this situation he's do i think he's remorseful i don't know the only thing that i gathered from this in truth is that this is a man who is determined to stay there. till the death if that's what it takes you brought up the barbara walters interview and. it was a little more than a year ago and she was spoken to about another anchor on her network on a.b.c. about her experience and i want to play really quick what she said boulder of washington are you really you just think. george there were no restrictions there were no guidelines we were free to ask any questions were shot out of thought is a dictated by accident and on mild mannered top tamala just he started not just in england in front of the shop thrust into the role of the syria's leader again that was more than a little more than a year ago just goes to show sort of how much has changed both inside of syria and

of course the percent perspective around the world but barbara walters says this is a man who is mild mannered. as a dictator by accident was that your impression. i think this is a man who is the president by someone else's choice i think he never wanted to be had of syria to start with so whatever happens to him after that is not his choice i don't think he ever had a choice to start with just like now i think he's choices that he doesn't have any choice his family still in damascus his kids who are nine six and seven i think and they go to public school there. he's trying to show people that he's not running away and you know his family's with same no matter what. it's very hard for me to to tell you whether i sympathize same as a leader or not because things are so much complicated but do i think he is someone that you could talk to if you wanted to yes definitely and he's definitely damaged

in the west to what extent is the knowledge that he has you said he wanted to be made aware of everything happening in his country so if that is in fact happening if he is in fact being told of everyone killed fighting for him fighting against his government how much of that knowledge translating into you know emotion or action that he plans to take. i think he is aware of everything that's going on in this country i think he's aware of atrocities that are taking place on both sides. when i asked him personally if he accepted this fact that the government army is committing war crimes against his own civilians he said something along the lies that when you know this is war so probably there are going to be crimes committed you know we're going to do with it and prosecute people after it's all done and of course six centuries on the war crimes that the syrian free syrian army fighters are committing. i cannot watch for any part all of the scene is that when iraq to

damascus they were to do three terrorist acts a day first what happened two hundred meter. away from where i was standing second one when i dared to go into the city to to go to the market and you know by and by and speak to people it was time when the elementary school kids were coming on in streets and they were flooding this little narrow streets and i find that ten minutes away from where i was standing a bomb went off and killed eleven to twelve kids just like that from elementary school they were leaving from school to go home so i think. it's very one sided to say that he's committing crimes and his government forces are committing crimes and everyone else is fighting for freedom because for one thing that really mark me is how syrian people are scared that fundamentalists will come to power and it will make them leave under fundamentalist islam law because one thing that syria isn't and that's fundamentalists because it would be as always been

a secular country where lots of religious divisions and sects so we have lived alongside each other in peace and harmony and that was archie's own sophie shevardnadze. well when the designers of the video game medal of honor warfighter wanted more information about attack missions by the u.s. military they went straight to the source paying high profile members of the military for the inside scoop video game developer electronic arts even boasted that real commandos both active and retired had input in making the game here's a look.

so it turns out that the seven paid contributors are members of navy seal seal team six and one of them was actually part of that raid that killed osama bin laden but the problem is much of the material is classified and now those men have been disciplined all seven seals received letters of reprimand and will also have half their pay withheld for two months but they will remain on active duty so we want to look into this incident from a few different angles and i've got our two web producer angie blake here to help me do that all right andy so let's talk about this it's unclear exactly how it was discovered that in these sort of very insider high profile military figures have been given this information by c.b.s. reported this what has been sort of the reaction to all this whole the pentagon doesn't seem to like it at all it's weird how it seems like the pentagon at this point should really just start rethinking how they handle their public relations i

mean i guess you could go back and say that they've always had a bit of a problem but. this is something that people still want to know about where they're getting in trouble for allegedly breaking nondisclosure agreements and releasing or sharing classified information we don't know what something needed to the game it has nothing to with bin ladin apparently but something made it there in the pentagon never signed off on it so it seems we know that other information have been moderated went to hollywood already and there's already been a congressional or calls for congressional inquiry into that but it seems like the pentagon is really picking and choosing who they want to reprimand who they want to hold accountable for what i think is really good point i remember we saw a few months ago that story on sixty minutes you know those i believe there were pilots you pilots about the f. twenty two safety information they were worried that the equipment they were using was faulty they went up the chain of command in the military nothing was done about it so they felt they had no no other choice but to go to the media to say hey we

don't feel safe in our job there those guys were reprimanded they had to actually get congressional guidance they actually had to go find a lawmaker on the. to accompany them to c.b.s. to sit in and watch them speak so that they knew that they would be properly protected under whistleblower protection acts for disclosing something that was life or death i mean we have at least one confirmed death of a pilot who was in an after twenty two last oxygen crash and died in other pilots believe out of a base in alaska the base itself been shut down multiple times because there spent so many problem with these after twenty two's and the moment two pilots actually stood up and said look something has to be done the pentagon just rushed to shut them up and they sent them the same kind of reprimand letters which doesn't sound that creepy or scary unless you're really in the military but a letter of reprimand essentially can end your career in the military so now we have seven people seven seals who were sharing that we don't even know what but with a video game this wasn't going public you know even was going public with something that was life or death they shared information as creative consultants with

a video game in for that they were careers and the rest of their lives are in jeopardy even you really want to traumatize our troops any more it's better enough that we sent them over to pakistan to put a couple holes in some guy's head and they can't even talk about it i mean sure that's one thing we know that we've been told they can't talk about anything even if it's for the sake of entertainment but what about like you said that movie i think was called act of valor i know the commander of this mission in pakistan and about about pakistan william mcraven admiral mcraven he said that the you know the increased notoriety of these men as heroes in the navy seal team six this could increase increase recruitment so they wanted you know these you know i've met several army rangers and navy seals in the past and they've always sort of been like silent warriors they like to stay under the radar but with this very hope profile mission i remember almost as high profile a few years ago was the somalian pirate mission which was pretty incredible. so

they want to get these stories out there under their you know guided absolutely for the purpose of recruiting more members of the military really comes down to what the pending. and wants to and what they want to allow out into the public if it's a matter of shaking hands with hollywood and saying yes make this movie we're going to give you props we're going to give you information that's going to show you exactly how we did this that and the other thing and it's going to make millions and everyone's happy and the american military looks super duper that's one thing but apparently if you go and want to be a creative consultant to ensure the accuracy of a video game which seems kind of silly it can lose your job and that seems like something i would do like i would lose my job by consulting over a video game it doesn't really never let you lose your job thank you very much you know it's interesting because again you know it's the bottom line seems to be you know does you know going public or sharing information in what way does it harm or help the u.s. military i would almost argue that having this video i haven't played it i'm not a video game person i never even like super mario brothers but you know you. this

video game it seems to once again glorify these you know members of the military the graphics are good so i would say this could also possibly help in recruitment i don't know if it was that the whole allure of seal team six like the navy seals are supposed to be the baddest of the bad they're supposed to be the ones that are out there doing the things that no other member of the armed forces dare do like execute osama bin laden but we said we know that they didn't we're told that they didn't actually disclose information relevant to that case that is being used in the video game. however we still don't know it's been a year and what actually happened during that raid you know we have one former seals book that wasn't vetted through the cia and they kind of freaked out a little bit but they let that slide we have movies but when it comes down to what actually happened in the white house the state department the pentagon others were never really you know it's not only information about and a lot of people still have questions and it's i don't want to go start saying that

there's a conspiracy theories and we know that there are about what happened and i believe that i believe the official story you know i'm sure you know two shots dead jump. whatever sounds good to me but this was a major moment in american international history that we still only have a very limited knowledge of and the fact that they want to go and make example out of seven guys just for trying to help out with a video game makes me really think personally that the pentagon doesn't really have their priorities in order when it comes to how they should be handling situations like this all right it's just me r c web producer andrew blake it's an interesting story a lot of people are talking about and we want to get your perspective on this thanks so much yes of course thank you all right. were marked by nations fear of islam including a bitter fight over the development of an islamic center and mosque near where the attacks of nine eleven took place we have seen photos of u.s. troops urinating on the bodies of members of the taliban the accidental burning of

the qur'an and afghanistan and we have learned that according to some polls thirty percent of conservative voters in the united states believe president obama is a muslim but one thing that has been largely missing is a discussion about the rights of real instead of a madge and muslim people in this country joining me now to discuss this is the associate professor at texas was lee in school of law and the harder you are here in washington d.c. speaking with the u.s. commission for civil rights today talk a little bit about your testimony well thank you so much for inviting me to speak today about a hearing that was very very important critical to safeguarding the civil rights and civil liberties of all americans while protecting the national security needs of all americans today's hearing was about the ific you see federal civil rights engagement programs with arab and muslim communities and in my testimony i focused on the structural flaws in the program i think it's a very important program to have i think you mean are you talking about some of these surveillance programs especially like we've seen in new york with the

n.y.p.d. surveillance part programs in which sometimes police go undercover to try to get more information well i'm talking about the other side of that coin so you have on the one hand these prosecutorial overreaching where you've got surveillance you've got investigation you've got prosecutions of people that some believe were innocent until informants preyed on them and turned them essentially into. terrorist in fake plots but on the other side of the coin you have federal civil rights organizations like the civil rights the department of justice the office for civil rights a d.h.s.s. the f.b.i. believe it or not although they have the hate crimes unit and so on the one hand they're going in telling these communities look we represent you we are not your. i mean we want to help you protect your civil rights but on the other hand other groups within the same federal agencies are going in engaging in these arguably on lawful practices so it's creating this contradiction and it's creating a lot of distrust by minority communities so that was the topic of the hearing

absolutely and i guess the logical next question is what's going to come out of us . well that's a very good question. practically there will definitely be a report the u.s. commission for civil rights always produces a report after it has hold hearings the question is will that report be based on what we discussed in the hearing today will they listen to the witnesses recommendations and suggestions and highlights of the flaws in the system and then more importantly will that report assuming that it is a solid report based on the facts and not essentially just a political report that serves an agenda that in fact that report then gets acted on by congress and gets acted on by executive agencies most important of which is that this federal engagement process gets reform so the policies are actually changed instead of becoming a public relations stunt sorry we're fresh on the heels of a presidential election as you know and a lot of talk that we heard during this presidential campaign over the last several

months was the black vote the latino vote the asian vote what do you think about the fact that i certainly for one have never heard anything about the way muslims vote which is really unfortunate because muslims are very politically active particularly in some key states in florida in michigan in new jersey there's a large muslim community california and also in ohio and they have been mobilizing their communities they've been going out there and voting and participating in the political process but unfortunately they're not being they're not visible in means you know american activities the civic engagement activities instead the only press they get is when something horrible happens by one person who happens to be a muslim who is accused of engaging in terrorism but i would recommend that your viewers go to the institute for social policy and understanding because they do have a report about muslim voting patterns and how they were impacted by the obama administration

so there have been studies out there on the muslim vote. and certainly one of the organizations at the forefront of sort of talking about these issues is the council of american relations or otherwise known as care and one of their big stories that they've been telling is lately is a story of. somebody banned from flying being eroni asleep put on the no fly list i mean talk a little bit about the difficulty facing muslims you know who attempt to do every day things like boarding a plane this has been a problem for years now particularly the no fly list and the terrorist watch list the issue is data integrity people who have not done anything wrong innocent people are being erroneous li placed on these lists and it is causing very serious infringements on their civil rights to the extent that they're forcibly exiled from their country of citizenship which is a very severe sanction so he's not the first one there were a slew of them right after the december twenty fourth christmas day bombing by the

nigerian foreign national and what happens is individuals will be traveling abroad illegally and they get put on a no fly list and they only discover they're on the no fly list when they try to come home and unfortunately the only way they get off the list is when advocacy groups have to embarrass the government through the media instead of the government doing its job right from the beginning and making sure that these lists do not have mistaken identities on them and i want to go back to something you were talking about before and this is the fact that the only time we often hear about muslims in america is when they are caught in these these plots oftentimes involving agent provocateurs people who get in there they find somebody on the internet saying something on facebook or whatever and they sort of get to know them and then all of a sudden there's this you know bomb plot where these people allegedly think they're going to blow up a building all because they've been sort of coal worst by you know sort of these

undercover agents you know there needs to be a program in this country by law and. meant to make sure that people who want to do bad things are caught but how do we get to that middle ground where. you know they can do that in a way that doesn't you know that's not ridiculous. well the first and most important step is to make sure you have safeguards in the law and an investor good investigatory all guidelines that require agents when they're investigating to have to show predicate act of criminal activity and unfortunately under the bush administration and the obama administration has not fix this problem although there have been many requests to do so in two thousand and two in two thousand and eight the attorney general investigated guidelines were essentially diluted where the requirement that agents have to find a predicate act of criminal activity was removed so now agents have much of a car lot of intent and intends to act that is essentially so you can't just go on

a fishing expedition you've got to have some kind of evidence that someone is in fact engaging in illegal activity rather than they are very conservative muslims or that they don't agree with american foreign policy or that they don't like their president which is completely protected under the first amendment so that has been a fundamental problem and that is something that i don't discuss today in the hearing because it completely undermines civil rights engagement and so the government is talking out of both sides of its mouth and it needs to essentially admit that they are going to violate civil rights and they don't really care about these parts of it communities or they're serious about protecting civil rights and they're going to change policies certainly the goal should be to gain the trust to earn the trust of more muslim communities if in fact they do want to find out more as opposed to making everyone worried about something you know the f.b.i. and the undercover agents that comment so far as these associate professor for the texas was leon university school of law thanks so much for being on the show today .