tv Headline News RT June 18, 2013 4:00pm-4:31pm EDT
4:00 pm
because i am. coming up on our t.v. obama administration might want to arm syria's rebels but there's a hitch most americans do not want those arms in the hands of opposition forces take a look at this divide between people and politicians ahead. and through a freedom of information act request the miami herald of the names of guantanamo bay detainees said to be too dangerous to release so where do we go from here we'll talk to a guantanamo bay attorney coming up. and the people of brazil fill the streets in protest by the hundreds of thousands there are voicing their concerns over government corruption police violence and more will look at the protests later in the show.
4:01 pm
it's tuesday june eighteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm not going lopez and you are watching r t well we begin this afternoon with an in-depth look at the latest polls that gauge the american public sentiment about syria in spite of the newest reports estimated that ninety three thousand syrians have died in the civil war despite the obama administration's announcement that it has a nothing evidence to conclude that president bashar all all sides were zima has used chemical weapons numerous times against rebel forces the majority of the american public does not want the u.s. to provide weapons to opposition forces a new pew poll that surveyed some fifteen hundred adults last week shows that seventy percent of the public opposes arming the rebels and only twenty percent agree now beyond that sixty eight percent of people say that the u.s. military is too involved is too already too committed and getting involved in the syria conflict. and another sixty percent believe that opposition groups may be no
4:02 pm
better or than the current government so should the u.s. get involved at all well fifty three percent of the people polled believe that it is important for us to support any groups opposing authoritarian regimes the conversation now has shifted from whether the rebels should support whether the u.s. should support the rebels and what should be done to help them. so the american public might be against the idea of arming the rebels but for the obama administration it's full steam ahead as the government tries to convince opposing nations like russia to jump on board but who exactly are the rebels while political commentator sam sacks takes a closer look at the people behind the opposition last week just before the white house announced its plans to arm the syrian rebels many of those same rebels raided a town in eastern syria and massacred sixty shiite muslims now this is nothing new the sort of violence is taking place on both sides of the fight suggesting this
4:03 pm
conflict now older than two years is less about a popular democratic uprising and more about a civil war fueled by sectarian violence that includes sectarian divisions within the syrian opposition itself and yet it's this war that the white house and a group of senators now want to pick a side in to begin providing lethal assistance to. now this is where the war stands today the areas in blue represent areas under control of the syrian opposition there is an orange are under control of the pro assad government the areas in green up here to the north are under control of the kurds who have also jumped into the fight to to go up against the pro assad government and the areas in red are still contested in the war now the areas in blue though shouldn't be just one color they shouldn't just be blue it's a common misconception that the rebels are one unified force here as saeed eric at
4:04 pm
a bureau chief with. paper describing them it is really and i clicked through all kinds of political orientation this opposition. and the old guys ation each. for people from time to time people twenty people. together so it is not a difficult to really know their identity and that is the problem that they and i think is having that they tried through so many forms to have a unified body but so far they have failed the opposition is assembled under an umbrella known as the supreme military command or is the s.m.c. which the white house says is the main fighting force on the ground that it's working with but the s.m.c. is made up of an unknown number of independent factions including the largest of them the free syrian army it also includes the syrian liberation front the syrian islamic front and roughly nine other major independent brigades it's also estimated that there is many as one thousand various armed militias operating within the
4:05 pm
opposition with different ideologies differing goals in different support structures and that doesn't include opposition faction is factions that are radicalized anti-u.s. forces including the al qaeda affiliated. which has been described as the most effective best equipped group of fighters within the syrian opposition but which the u.s. state department has labeled as a terrorist organization and this is one of the b. . challenges facing the white house how can it supply arms to some factions of the opposition that it trusts while making sure those same arms aren't supplied the more radical elements of the opposition working on behalf of al qaeda it is a very very difficult for they and i think we need to sort through who's on and who is against them found one and otherwise the united states will find on the side of that which will be running now looser has been instrumental in a number of fights against pro assad forces they're operating in several opposition held areas including in aleppo
4:06 pm
a major city and al nusra is in control of the city of where the black flag is now reportedly fly and it's impossible at this point to cleave al nusra from the more moderate forces within the syrian opposition so then what is the end game here even if the opposition wins the next phase will be a post assad struggle for power within the opposition between more moderate forces and radical forces like al nusra both armed by the united states in other words more violence more death simply any sort of victory here is far fetched which might explain why only twenty percent of americans at this point supports arming the opposition they see what most everyone else who doesn't work in the white house and our allies with john mccain in the senate see and that's that this course of action almost certainly won't end well in washington same sex party. well syria
4:07 pm
has no doubt dominated the agenda of the g eight summit that wraps up today in northern ireland world leaders from canada france germany italy japan russia the u.k. and the u.s. have all come together to try to reach an understanding on some of the hans button issues of today the one idea that all nations seem to be able to agree about peace is an absolute must in syria it's the house that they are all still trying to figure out artie's polly boyko has more. this joint statement from all the g. eight leaders is being presented as somewhat of a triumph they managed to come together and issued a statement on syria from everybody one thing about him and putin said in a press conference is that everybody agrees that the only way full. diplomatic and diplomatic resolution to the crisis in syria they want to see all the sides around the negotiating table if they want to see the need for it to. happen as soon as possible before it has been set yet and of course we're very divided about
4:08 pm
a number of giving the point remains. russia's point of view on the syrian crisis and everybody else is one of them is chemical weapons. reiterated that russia doesn't find the evidence provided by the americans very convincing so the russian government doesn't have any proof that chemical weapons have been used in syria and he also mentioned that a number of other g eight leaders also question the claims that have been made by the u.s. government it wasn't a case of seven against one of the leaders have been questioning that information as well he said that there needs to be a full investigation into the use of chemical weapons in syria and that needs to be in order to establish the truth and that needs to be presented back to the u.n. and of course the u.s. has already said that because there is a result of these claims that bashar al assad has used chemical weapons they are now pledged to provide military support to the syrian opposition now and speaking
4:09 pm
just now in a press conference reiterated that he thinks that sending weapons to the syrian rebels will further escalate and destabilize the bloodshed taking place there already and when questioned about russia's arms sales to the syrian government this is what vladimir putin said in response. we provide supplies and. fishel contracts to the legitimate government of president assad when the possible weapons supplies to syrian rebels by european countries the british people recently witnessed an outrageous tragedy when a soldier was butchered in broad daylight in the streets of london many in the syrian opposition not all of them of course criminals like the ones that conducted that violent killing do europeans want to supply arms to these people what will happen to these weapons in the global these arms and could end up back in europe
4:10 pm
that's why we call in our partners to think twice before they take this extremely dangerous step that was artis probably boyko. well let's turn now to the newest information coming out of the n.s.a. surveillance scandal today the house permanent select committee on intelligence called a last minute hearing to get the director general of the n.s.a. keith alexander on the record about exactly what information the n.s.a. is collecting and the guidelines that the n.s.a. set for itself here's what we learned today the n.s.a. now claims that it has sworn warded it fifty terror plots in twenty countries including ten that were homeland based threats today two more a file of attacks were disclosed to the public beyond the attempted bombings of the new york stock exchange and the new york subway system take a look also david headley in the u.s. citizen living in chicago the f.b.i. received intelligence regarding his possible involvement in the two thousand and eight mumbai attacks responsible for the killing of over one hundred sixty people
4:11 pm
lastly the f.b.i. had opened an investigation shortly after nine eleven. we did not have enough information nor did we find links to terrorism so we shortly thereafter closed the investigation however the n.s.a. using the business record pfizer tipped us off that this individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas we were able to reopen this investigation identify additional individuals a legal process and were able to disrupt this terrorist activity. now as you heard deputy f.b.i. director sean joyce just say the government was able to discover these plants using the seven zero zero two authority and going through the find the courts and i say officials also promised to disclose more information about several other terror plots to lawmakers in a closed session on wednesday this was just the latest push by the n.s.a.
4:12 pm
and the government to clear up some of the misconceptions the public has about this program however senate intelligence chairwoman dianne feinstein said that she will wait with her committee for more information to come out from the n.s.a. before holding a hearing of her own well it's day eight of wiki leaks or bradley manning's trial in fort meade maryland the court was in session for a short time today and has now recessed for the week today the court was focusing on three pieces of evidence that came from and an internet archive known as the wayback machine and two messages that wiki leaks sent out on twitter for the latest on the trial are to correspondent liz wahl was in the curate's today and she joins me now here in los what was the latest information that came out today as you had mentioned there was a lot of time spent today focused on these tweets and arguments whether debating whether or not these tweets could be considered or admitted as evidence of we could bring these tweets and question up the first one they're. tweeted by wiki leaks
4:13 pm
allegedly says that we would like a list of as many dot mil e-mail addresses as possible please contact this e-mail address added out wiki leaks dot org so this is a list essentially asking for military addresses and then the other tweet discussed today saying wiki leaks saying that they have encrypted videos of u.s. bomb strikes on civilians now the prosecution went back and forth debating these tweets and whether or not they could be admissible as evidence according to the prostitution these two tweets serve as kind of this plan this plan that manning must have seen these tweets and. and as a result it was working with the song to get this this information this secret classified information over to assad and post them ultimately on this whistleblowing website the prosecution cited forensic evidence that with testified earlier in the trial that said that there was evidence of many communicating with a songe on his laptop after that was analyzed or at least communicating with an
4:14 pm
alias believed to belong to us on these this alias name being press association and annual frank those were the two names that he supposedly he went by the defense however fired back and said you know what it's impossible to verify these tweets we don't know for a fact that this is what it looked like apa time back in two thousand and nine. we don't know with that throughout these years it could have been manipulated we don't know that that was in fact what was the present day form it reflects what was actually tweeted back in two thousand and nine and they also said that you know what there is no proof that bradley manning actually saw these tweets so. even if wiki leaks did in fact tweet sent out these tweets. according to the defense that doesn't matter because what what the intent of wiki leaks whatever their intent was that doesn't mean that that was bradley manning's intent so the defense is saying you know what the state of mind and. has nothing to do with manning so the defense
4:15 pm
clearly trying to chip away at. the prosecution's argument there so it's very interesting to see in light of all this in a safe surveillance scandal just how abundant social media is and how it can be used against you as it is being used against bradley manning but lay out the scene for us liz what was it like in the courtroom what was the deposition of bradley manning and how many media personnel were there well of according to their i mean i would say you know it's going into its third week so it's pretty structured pretty ordered we haven't heard from bradley manning yet we haven't heard him testify since the pretrial hearings but he's there he seems very. in contrast to some of the reports that we've we've heard kind of trying to paint bradley manning as kind of disturbed arranged he seemed very seems i guess in good spirits considering the circumstances he seemed to be in good health and seemed to have a pretty good working relationship with his attorney david coombs the media presence i heard on the first day it was a media frenzy
4:16 pm
a media bonanza of everybody who was there but you kind of i guess it's kind of dwindled down and there's just been kind of a handful of us today there were twelve or thirteen of us total it's pretty hard to get there it's up there at least for t.v. it's very it's very structured very ordered you got to get there at a certain time and it's very they don't make it easy for us they don't make it easy but i think guaranteed that our team will be there covering this hour to correspondent liz wahl thank you so much. well it's been over a decade since the doors of the guantanamo bay detention facility first opened up and only now we are learning the names of some of its most notorious residents the miami herald newspaper submitted a freedom of information act request last december asking for the names of the detainees who are continuing to be held under the a u m f law these are the men that fall into the third category of detainees president obama described in his foreign policy speech in may the men that have been declared it to dangerous to
4:17 pm
transfer but also cannot be tried in the court of law because of a lack of evidence or because the evidence is too tainted for the first time ever forty eight so-called indefinite detainees have been named according to the list the men. the men designated for indefinite detention are twenty six yemenis twelve afghans three saudis two kuwaitis two libyans a kenyan and a moroccan and a somali for more on this revelation i'm joined now by attorney thomas welner thomas thank you so much for joining me now the media and the public has been awaiting this information for quite some time why now well i think i don't know why now i think people realize that the information is all not all that significant and there was no reason to have a classified all this time may i say something about it there's nothing in this the media keep saying these are people who were doesn't matter for indefinite detention and they're too dangerous true at least but the evidence against them is tainted there is no indication of that in any of the information released by the government
4:18 pm
i mean there are three categories or thirty three people who they designated for prosecution the general down there has said that probably twelve and most will be prosecutor no other people are said that they're being held in accordance with the principles of the laws of war there's none of this characterization these are dangerous people who need to be held and there have been it's just painted i think most of the evidence here if you hold somebody in accordance with the laws of war when they. conflict and as they should be released in afghanistan conflict is about to end now meanwhile while all this is going on amnesty international zeke johnson said that the fact that this list exists at all is fundamentally flawed and that it's a violation of international human rights laws because you are either supposed to charge try and convict someone or release them on a lack of evidence so the question is where do we go from here well there are lots of things in that in seekers the wonderful guy i'm glad i got the list so i'm not
4:19 pm
going to say that violates anything and actually under the laws of war you can hold somebody during a conflict even if you don't charge him with the crown once a conflict under our law and under the constitution you can only hold somebody to detain somebody if you're going to try them prosecute them and try them and if there are. do that you need to release them and if they were acquitted you need to release them so once the war ends you can't hold people like prisoners of war there's no reason to do so it's hard to say when that so-called war is going to end though as the war on terror there's so many wars that are on your heart as i hear on terror is not a traditional war that's really a criminal enterprise anyone who goes out as a terrorist is there is a criminal other of the war in afghanistan is about and we're saying that the president said in the speech this is not a number and bring more this war will end once it ends people need to be released unless you're going to prosecute them cried them interesting it's a very interesting argument and as you said the war on terror is not
4:20 pm
a traditional war so the question becomes should we be treating people like a traditional president of war era if we are treating them like prisoners of war but let's move beyond this what do these documents actually say you say that they so very little information that can actually down the u.s. government so what do it show they really showed the reasons that what they show is one of these documents that were done there were two hundred seventy three people at guantanamo seventy one of those people have been released since there are now one hundred sixty six people at guantanamo what these documents show that is that more than half of them eighty six of them have been designated as people who can be transferred released from guantanamo there are eighty others of those about thirty will be prosecuted the others are being held in accordance with the authorization use of military force in accordance with the laws of war so i say what it shows is it doesn't say any of this stuff that these people are too dangerous to release
4:21 pm
that we should hold people indefinitely it shows that people are being held within accordance with the laws of war and others are supposed to be prosecuted let's see what happens and finally is the fact that the obama administration released this list at all proof of that we're stepping forward and rethinking our tactics when it comes to guantanamo bay and indefinite detention or is it just as caviar that was bound to happen well. bomb administration there have been some positive signs recently said that obama is appointing a new sort of bizarre to close guantanamo he's made a speech saying we need to close it but he's made speeches and he's appointed people before and what we need to see is whether they had the guts in the white house to get people out of a guantanamo eighty six of these people have been cleared he's got the authority to move them out right now he should really use his existing authority to get people out of there let's see if he acts. we'll have to see i know david remes one of the gun turnings for a bunch of the tunnel bay detainees has said that even if the doors of guantanamo
4:22 pm
bay itself closes the theoretical they will never close with indefinite detentions you don't think so he's wrong it's got a close reem should stop saying that we should close going town alone or should be done promptly it hurts the united states every day it remains open tourney thomas wilner thank you so much for coming in if you. will brazil is now experiencing the biggest nights of protests the country has seen in decades as many as two hundred thousand people have held demonstrations in cities across the country for a whole host of reasons it started off as an isolated protest in sao paulo against the increase in bus and subway fares today the public has raised a number of concerns including unemployment police violence political corruption a sluggish economy high inflation and the government's abundance this being on the stadium to host the world cup demonstrators took to the streets in eight cities across the country the major demonstrations happened in rio de janeiro cell paulo brasilia. belo horizonte and salvador during the days of hundreds during the days
4:23 pm
hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the streets at night dozens of them clashed with police forces for an in-depth look at why all of this is happening i'm joined now by mike wise brought his the co director at the center for economic and policy research and mark let's start off with i just named a bunch of reasons why we've heard of why these people are having these demonstrations can you will it down for us is the really one thing that this boils down to no i don't think so and i think it is unclear because it's a mixture of people with different demands and complaints. you know the media is against the government in brazil very much in fact president obama here could never got elected with a media that was so much against his. presidency or his party and the workers' party you know has been elected three times. in the presidency and so you know and
4:24 pm
they've also complex a lot i mean they've reduced poverty by over forty five percent the increase the minimum wage in real turned to inflation by ninety five percent. maybe increased social spending on a number of things especially the anti-poverty programs they reduced inequality so that's why you haven't seen anything like this until no because most people i mean film is approval rating still fairly high you know the words hides eighty percent recently now you've had some sluggish growth but unemployment is still near record lows levels so you know these protests i mean there it's very hard to say without being on the ground you know what are the main complaints obviously started over the bus for people on more social services so people want more spent on health care and education and not so much on these big sporting events like the world cup and the olympics those are some of the things there but the purse there is kind of i
4:25 pm
think putting more of their own spin on it they're saying things like. taxes these are this is kind of like saying the occupy protesters are upset about inflation taxes were you know when they were protesting you know it's very well let's stop you there because you have brought up a lot of the issues of the things that we are reading coming out of these protests that we are seeing happen on the streets now the first of what you brought up journalists are against the government there and the police crackdown as i understand it fifteen journalists are actually attacked by odd government forces and they said that they were attacked on purpose so that's one thing to bring up but let's talk about some of the social programs because as i understand it brazil is experiencing record lows in unemployment so it's hard to argue that the economy is really playing into this as an act well the economy has been slowed a couple. years now i mean they've had a slowdown but again point is still very low employment levels are still store very high levels so it is better than it has been and still i mean it's still
4:26 pm
a country with terrible inequality and there's still a lot of poverty and there are still people i mean you know deal herself said these are legitimate protests people young people should protest she's accepted i think that's a key difference too if you look at this you know you compared to chile where you know the government obviously there was a lot more police repression there there were some repression there but you notice today there's very little pretty police presence at the protests and some cities have already lowered their bus fares so that's how you going to see this government respond they're not afraid of protests against their government it's a popular government it's a democratic government and they're you know it's someone sure there's plenty of people to govern maybe even dilma herself welcome criticism from the left because it helps her push against the business interests and the other interests who don't want her government to do more i mean that's the kind of government they have it's a it's a government that has to compromise in some areas and we have just about
4:27 pm
a minute left behind and this comes at a very interesting time for pacelle because they're looking forward to the pope visiting them they are going through a dry run right now for the world soccer cup if not the twenty sixteen olympics and next year they have presidential elections so talk about the timing of all of this well i think the timing this spontaneous i don't think anybody organized this because they thought this was a particularly good time or geared towards it you know if you look at the polls it's seems like most of the people they are not associated with any political party i think they're almost still got a very good workers party assuming she's the kind of a in the next presidential election so i don't think these protests are going to change the political outcome of elections but they may encourage the government to do more mark weisbrot co-director at the center for economic and policy research thank you thank you and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we
4:28 pm
4:30 pm
and a good afternoon to welcome the prime interest in perry and boring in washington d.c. and here is the head by sports today. frankly one hour and that's the word from president obama who sat in an editor who would charlie rose i he's already use. a lot longer than he wanted or was supposed to but the federal reserve chairman still has a few meetings left the most recent of which today market which is the pens are expecting formal guidance tomorrow and various fed officials and not officials have a job moaning about over the last mine we're talking the fed speak with fed watcher and david chase in in just a bit and european central bank head mario draghi was and jerusalem a recently to say farewell.
53 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=112523156)