ridiculous counterproductive and stupid three words used by former state department spokesman p.j. crowley to describe the bradley manning case that comment evidently led to his resignation we'll talk to him next. and the sky over southern california may soon be the scene of the clash a clash of drone business rivals that is straight ahead we'll explore the growing competition over drone test ranges in the u.s. . and when you hear about border drug smuggling you probably don't think of u.s. citizens but a newly released report is shedding light on the smugglers within our own borders more on that story later on in the show.

it's wednesday march twenty seventh four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t we begin today with a look at the state of transparency in the u.s. former u.s. secretary of state for public affairs p.j. crowley resigned from his job after publicly speaking out against the pretrial treatment of bradley manning the army private private is accused of the biggest military security breach in american history and many say that the military treatment of manning was harsh and can even be considered torture including crowley he called the treatment of manning quote ridiculous counterproductive and stupid. shortly after that statement he resigned to discuss this and other pressing foreign policy issues p.j. crowley joins us now and the studio mr crowley great to have you here so shortly after you spoke out about the treatment of bradley manning you were you were out of a job was that a coincidence well the first said i want to correct what you said in the teaser i was i'm actually a firm believer in the case against bradley manning his release of hundreds of

thousands of documents some of them classified you know to wiki leaks has done serious damage to the united states national security and the national interest you know that said in a pretrial setting where anyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law i did think that his treatment was excessive i spoke out on that in fact in subsequently in the pretrial hearing the judge and the court of evidently agreed with me. you had mentioned that this or at least that you do not agree with his actions that they were damaging to the united states can you elaborate on that how south shore. be information is classified for recent we can have a debate about whether there's too much information classified probably true but in the context of the state department these were. cables summarizing confidential

conversations between u.s. diplomats other diplomats around the world also conversations involving discussions with activists around the world even journalists around the world the release of the this information and in some cases the identities of these people have put those people real people at risk it has it disrupted for a time or in particular locations our ability to to do business with other governments and it you know the the reason we had developed what was called the n.c.d. the net center. database was to be able to share information broadly across government so that for example the state department knew what the pentagon was doing the pentagon knew what our diplomats were doing in the aftermath of wiki leaks information has been pulled back to some extent it's not as broadly available within government as had been and that's contrary to the psychology that we developed after nine eleven if you remember. there was

a failure to connect the dots prior to nine eleven there was a push to share information rather than hold it within you know organizational silos that now that dynamic is threatened by what occurred through wiki leaks you did come forward and speak out as you had mentioned against the treatment the pretrial treatment of bradley manning is that a statement that you stand by today absolutely and i'm sure the validation from the judge that in the trial kind of i mean it's thankfully it's a moot point at this case the aftermath of the controversy bradley manning was you was moved from quantico which was a facility that was ill philip inappropriate and ill suited for his case to move into the normal prison population in a different military brig that has not became an issue in pretrial but but hopefully the trial that's forthcoming will be about what he did not about what the government did to him i guess what i have to wait and see that's what what we have

we have learned a lot of china lie a lot a lot it's on some of the foreign policy issues things that were happening overseas that we learned through these documents that were released i want to turn now to the situation now in syria because it has just come out that the united states is allegedly training syrian levels in jordan rebels excuse me in jordan can you comment on that well the united states has expanded. the level of support to the syrian opposition on the political side it's trying to make the syrian opposition more effect. and certainly this week in an arab league meeting. the leader of the opposition al-khateeb has been seated as in the eyes of the arab league the legitimate representative of the syrian people that that's a symbolic step but they get it from a political standpoint it's an important step now the challenge is to make the opposition you know more viable prepared to govern. when the day comes that

assad. leaves power. but most importantly to be seen as a viable alternative in the eyes of the syrian people that remains ongoing challenge the i state has drawn a line where it will not provide lethal assistance to the syrian opposition but is obviously involved in a process where for those countries that are providing military assistance to make sure it goes to. those who support an inclusive tolerant future syrian society and our guards say international law is it legal to arm the syrian resistance fighters because we are kind of help aiding the rebels that more and more in the background and direct well that's i mean the united states is not providing lethal assistance as to those countries that are whether it's countries in the gulf whether it's russia that's that's

a question to ask those countries are going to switch back now to the topic of the detention policy is the hunger strike is now going on in guantanamo bay today would be the fifty day mark. here wanted to quickly play we spoke to a lawyer for the detainees there explaining why the situation there is getting worse if i can take a quick listen to that. then the authorities decided to ratchet it up another notch and started searching kuranda and that's what sparked the immediate hunger strike it was the immediate spark but the underlying causes the men see no way out men can't see the end. all right so what do you have to say as a former you know high ranking u.s. diplomat about the deterioration of guantanamo bay and it seemingly grim future doesn't look like it's closing any time so first of all having worked for president obama i thought that president obama had the right policy approach when he came into office in two thousand and nine to close guantanamo within one year i mean

there are there are people at guantanamo who pose a great danger to the united states and a potential danger to other countries around the world you know they and they should be you know put on trial what about the actual closing of the well but i think as we have seen shown since. the united states civilian justice system has for decades been able to handle terrorism cases we've had a number of them in recent months and years however as the president had signed an executive order pledging to close guantanamo congress has prevented him from doing that there was a secondary effort through the state department for those. detainees who were judged to no longer to build longer pose a threat or have been mistakenly brought to judge quantum in the first place to transport those back to home countries third countries and that has simply tried that over time made the challenge smaller unfortunately the state department has

been forced because of funding issues to close that office down so it really is we unite as congress that has basically frozen you know the situation in place the president is right now unable to move forward to reduce the population close to population and obviously that's having an effect in the day tea party as of now all signs are pointing to the day it's not closing any time soon mr crowley appreciate you coming on the show that was former u.s. assistant secretary of state for public affairs p.j. crowley. it is a fifty of the hunger strikes at guantanamo bay and as health conditions worsen for the dozens of detainees on strike the military has resorted to force feeding some of them are to correspond a marine a par and has more. this hunger strike at the guantanamo bay detention center grows more dangerous spot of the day the international committee of the red cross has announced that they have sent a doctor and another delegate to the island prison

a week earlier than planned because of concerns surrounding the health of those hunger strikers participating in this protest now the i.c.r.c. representatives are scheduled to make a regular two week visit to the detention camp on april first but as we already just reported the organization says that they sent two representatives early due to issues in the concerns relating to the hunger strike now in the meantime navy captain robert the spokesman for the detention operation who we've been communicating with more than two weeks now confirms that thirty one of the one hundred sixty six give no prisoners are on hunger strike a level of the men are being force fed three of those men were hospitalized for rehydration an observation now two weeks ago when r.t. reached out to captain duran and he dismissed any reports or allegations of

a mass hunger strike taking place at the detention facility now within the past day we spoke with attorney carlos warner he recently went to go visit his clients for yes a phrase. he's been charged with war crimes but his attorney when speaking to our she read a statement from his client let's take a listen to that quote i scare myself when i look in the mirror let them kill us as we have nothing to lose we died when obama indefinitely detained us respect us or kill us it's your choice the u.s. must take off its mask mr warner said that his client has lost more than thirty pounds in a month that is. looked exhausted weak it was not just about treatment this is about the fact that these inmates of these detainee detainees have lost hope these

are men they're not animals that are people that we have grown to know many of the men the ones that are indefinitely detained they have zero hope they have no hope because of the ministration i think many of them are ready to die the question is how and when will they. know this hunger strike began according to attorneys on or around february sixth attorneys say that the prisoners went on the strike to protest the a legit confiscation of their personal items and they allege it sacrilege is handling of their comrades there's one hundred sixty six six prisoners languishing still kuantan of a book more than half of them have been cleared for either transfer or release attorneys say that by holding these men without charge without trial the united states is violating international laws of human rights. that was or to correspond a marine important iowa in new york. now to chicago where dozens of public schools

are shutting down and city officials have announced that fifty four schools which include sixty one buildings will close due to a drop in enrollment the school closures will ultimately affect thirty thousand students and their families chicago officials say the closure would save five hundred sixty million dollars over the next ten years also the biggest wave in school closings ever in the u.s. and as you can imagine many parents and teachers are angry over the shutdown and what it would mean for the city and the students for more of the chicago school closure i'm joined by mika utrecht and this is an editor at jacoby magazine and a contributing editor for in these times his book is on the chicago teachers union and free market education reform and it will be published this summer welcome micah so can you tell us. what has led to the shutdowns a lot of shut down well there have been a number of shutdowns in chicago over the years about seventy five since about the

ninety's when the schools started being shut down here. since a dozen years ago. but the current spate of closings is the biggest that has ever been seen in this city or anywhere and the district is now claiming that they're shutting down schools because of under enrollment because there are some schools that are fifty percent sixty percent utilized according to their math in the past the justification for the closings was that schools were underperforming on things like standardized tests shifted this year to say well it's not about school performance it's actually about the schools being underutilized and so how to how do you think this will affect the students and how are parents reacting to. there seems to be a pretty uniform opposition to these closing across the city i mean the city held several dozen hearings different and there are different neighborhoods in the city

to hear from parents about what they thought about the closings in the neighborhoods and the hearings i attended in all the ones i heard about there is not a single person who got up and said i understand why you need to close the schools i support you in closing the school at the end the uniform message really was there should not be any school closures and the district which had actually postponed its day for releasing the list of the the foreclosures in order to hear this kind of public input has actually said you know the sky go public school c.e.o. barbara bird bennett recently said that she would message she she took from those hearings which she didn't attend was that people understand why they are why the see why c.p.s. need to close all of these schools so they are going to be a massive obstacle in these school closures are centered in communities mostly on the south and west side almost entirely on the south and west side which are

majority ever had the color and these are neighborhoods that have suffered from disinvestment for decades in the city and schools are a really central banker in those communities and with those with those gone it's not clear. that there will be much of an anchor left students are going to have to cross over into different gang lines which is a huge issue in chicago so i mean it looks like it's going to be a pretty. not another word to use that chaos for students in this community certainly a very big change for parents and teachers and students there but mika do you think that it's kind of just a sad inevitability when you have an environment that way down and the city is struggling to to fund schools that keep schools that are in existence keep them open that it's just kind of. a necessary measure in order to in order to close the budget deficit well that's how the district has framed it that it is some fortune

maybe that there are this kind of owner roman numbers that they claim but not much that can be done about that i mean and there's two things to say about that one i mean the only reason that these neighborhoods century are under enrolled is because there have been policies of the last decade or two that have push huge numbers of people color out of the city i mean i believe the numbers are that in the last decade we stand nine percent decline in the after american population chicago has been or a large part pushed by closing of public housing and declining public portable housing a lot of neighborhoods but the second thing is that the district is actually opening or allowing the opening of charter schools in large numbers that have at the same time they're closing these traditional public schools so if the the question is about under and roman why would you be opening new schools or allowing new schools to open if the problem is under enrollment i mean it did seem clear that the reason for these closings is more that they want to have

a certain kind of school around chicago that the district is pushing for charter schools which provide an avenue for privatization of public education in c.p.s. and there hundred ten different charter schools around chicago right now of those seventy five closings that have happened in the past forty percent of those closed buildings are now privately operated most of which are done by charter so it seems like is this round of closings along with closing that have been in the past are are just a way to sort of backdoor privatization to allow charter schools to expand in the state and like a thank you appreciate you keeping us updated on the story over there in chicago that would like to you attract an assistant editor for good public magazine and contributing editor for in these times once again his book is on the chicago teachers union and free market education reform will be available this summer. the battle over drones continues and this time the fight is state versus state

thirty seven states have answered a call from the federal aviation administration to be the home of test sites for unmanned aerial vehicles looking for an economic boost these states are hoping to tap into a new market as this technology grows more prevalent at the same time state legislators are considering laws that would limit drone use and increase it and privacy argues michael lopez has more well we've heard all about the privacy concerns that both the public as well as numerous lawmakers have voiced when it comes to unmanned aerial vehicles flying in american air space but it looks like money might trump moral concerns last month the federal aviation administration put out a call to states looking for twelve science to test fly drones the plan is to see how if you avi's interact with and share air space with jetliner small aircrafts and helicopters fifty teams from thirty seven states answer the call offering air space technology and funding to help get the commercial drone program off the

ground it's basically every state that you see here in green in return the state will earn bragging rights and a huge economic boost in terms of contracts and employment so let's take a look at a couple of the states that are fighting for this program florida was once the state that helped the u.s. shoot for the stars the nasa program put florida on the map during the space race and once again this state has its eyes on the sky albeit a little closer to home at least one point four million dollars has been set aside to help accommodate a possible drone program and the sunshine state is looking to add a new locations to its map of test sites every day also in the fight for flight california the state is hoping to be as preeminent in the robotics industry as drew detroit was for cars proponents of these sorts of projects a u a v's can help track the health of crops fight wildfires conduct search and rescue operations and much much more essentially these machines will do everything that is too to dirty. dangerous or too dole for pilots but while the majority of states battle for the

skies a few of them are trying to rein in these manless machines the small virginia city of charlottesville passed a resolution banning the use of drones against its forty three thousand residents for at least two years and charlottesville is not alone tallahassee has also passed a ban on drones and california massachusetts illinois texas washington kentucky and oregon are all thinking about putting the bosh on you avi's at least until the technology is better understood and better regulated anyway so on one hand there are huge economic benefits that this program offers and states are only now beginning to recognize the potential that these drones offer but with great power comes great responsibility a concept these states are becoming all too familiar with in washington meghan lopez r t. securing our borders or manes a hot topic as the us struggles to keep the bloody drug war in mexico from spilling into the u.s.

but you'd be surprised to find out who exactly is caught in these drug busts turns out it's not the drug lords or members of the infamous drug cartels four or five people busted by border patrol agents are u.s. citizens this according to an analysis from the center for investigative reporting for more on these findings and the latest from the border i'm joined now by the cent take out their own he is a journalist and tijuana press dot com an online publication that has been reporting on the ongoing drive war along the us mexico border welcome to saturday so i know that you've done quite a bit of reporting related to the drug trafficking and mexico does this report come as a surprise to you i'm not i'm not very popular with some of the loot and all this is done with these. views but i can tell you that probably months before we were motor seeing based on the person releases from the sunday the search for the border patrol. it was

a grim. and oh and i remembered all of the pro years ago when the word of the main reasons were there for more american well because the judges were more lenient somebody who was an american citizen and because of the overcrowding of the prison there were a lot. of there's a remote. and i do think that's kind of debunks this idea that people have i mean especially here in the u.s. that most of the people that are transporting drugs are mexican smugglers. well it is if you're right and there's a lot of hype up chrystia there's a lot of his there yeah an oversimplification of the phenomena and we in the media in both sides of the world would have a lot of. responsibility in that sense because the issue is very complex. mexicans and the second border and. you are in the u.s.

side are struggling with the economy so when somebody or person with our partners cross. the nation could be the same in both cases in both sides of the border i mean we know there's a big problem in our economy because when down and the u.s. side i mean the mexican side and so are many more tempted but sometimes is they think it's so easy to get away with it but they just get involved and we see in also in the week there's some phenomena we probably yours or we know skin color tapers were is true then for a u.s. citizen here from san diego california schools to be loads of gross mel to their bodies because in walking the president for an order crossing the building no there were more difficult to type or they thought they were less suspicious of a mexican going for the more yeah so several seven leaders from south america

including bolivian president evo morales has said that the u.s. should take responsibility when it comes to drug trafficking do you believe that u.s. foreign policy in some ways has fueled the drug war. i think the part of those we need to be really is the desert and then some are called but it's the main thing is there is a market rhythm problem and a lot of the market grows in the us guns. were in the world. market and see that now there's all this new markets in europe. are those are the goods in there or are there because there's a new market going on this is simple is it it's costly for growth. for all the more easily illness more profitable so those go to congress or the us

some of them will be more released in the post this program. mr calderon appreciate you coming on the show and telling us your perspective over there now that you've seen it kind of first hand that was the sense a calderon journalist and editor at want to press down. it's a dog eat dog world sort of it seems one news station in philadelphia got more than a bargained for when it took its news chopper out for a spin police in the f.p.g.a. are on the scene they believe eight to ten dogs are possibly in the home and this is a look at the backyard you can see the shadow of one of the dogs we've been watching there he is there's one dog there's both of the dogs that we spotted in the backyard right there in the middle of your screen. and you can see there are that one dog. chained up right now that is right instead of blowing the lid off an illegal dog fighting ring it seems n.b.c. ten and b.c. attends a local eye in the sky had a glimpse of a not so suited for

a work situation between the railway lady and the tramp despite quickly zooming out once realizing what was going down the damage had all been done. an example there of a story not quite playing out as expected and we are going to have to leave it off there but from one of the stories we covered you can always check out our you tube channel you too dot com slash artsy america we post all of our stories on line there in fall and check out our website arts columns let us say our web producers are busy working on stories we don't always have time to get you on the air and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall be right back here in a half hour. story doesn't make it a new. piece of.

technology innovation. developments. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down the line

there's still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. jason it is going to be pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of in life nobody is allowed to be driving lessons from emergency vehicles are exceptions. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.