martin welcome back to break in the set so a lot has happened in the last two weeks chelsea manning came out as a woman egypt remains in chaos and the u.s. is gearing up to bomb syria a move that could potentially jump start world war three and all the international community is focused on a solution to syria there's another devastating situation unfolding in fukushima japan recently japan's nuclear power agency tepco reported that three hundred tons of radioactive water is being used to cool the reactors has been pouring into the pacific ocean every day since the tsunami but if that isn't bad enough it turns out that the radiation levels reported thus far are grossly underestimated tepco just admitted that radiation levels are actually teen times higher than what was reported previously in fact near the tank the levels are high enough to kill an exposed person in just four hours right now two hundred thirty million sieverts of

radiation every hour are being measured from one tank alone what does that mean one person is only allowed an annual exposure of fifty million seabirds when you do the math it doesn't look good but don't worry guys apparently that detrimental news is completely in consequential because the chairman of the nuclear regulation authority said that there's no way to stop it he said we cannot fully stop the contaminated water leaks right away so we should better assess its environmental impact let me get this straight environmental disaster threat in the fate of humanity is it enough to get media attention or bring the international community together no it seems like world leaders only unified a bomb the next country into oblivion and if this logic doesn't make sense to you you've come to the right place join me and let's break this. the bleeding they are very

hard to take at least particularly lightly yet or how exactly will that hurt their look. at least. a little. sleep. sleep sleep. at least. at least. as the syrian crisis reaches a boiling point u.s. leaders are deliberating over what's looking to be yet another military intervention in the middle east so for the last twelve years the u.s. government is use military action against afghanistan iraq libya pakistan somalia

yemen and mali now if you just broaden the scope of history to over the last thirty years you can see that the u.s. has had an enormous impact on nearly every country in the region this military takeover is largely been accomplished in the guise of democracy building and liberation it's a narrative that a story and peter coe's nikken director oliver stone dissected thoroughly in their book on a company and film series and i'm told history of the united states where they write quote the belief that the us is fundamentally different from other nations motivated only by a commitment to freedom and liberty altruistically sacrifices for mankind has reemerged in recent years a staple of right wing historical revisionism this historical revisionism permeates today throughout the media landscape and political establishment but superficial rhetoric aside just how and why did the middle east become a target for western interests. here to help me break down the true nature of u.s. foreign policy and the current conflict with a proper historical lens i'm joined now by author and historian peter because nick

thank you somebody's coming on peter it's great to have you on again peter just looking at a map of the u.s. involvement the middle east over the last thirty years is it just a coincidence that there's always a humanitarian crises in the countries that the u.s. has yet to militarily intervene or conquer most interventions and wars are justified by the idea that this a madman out there who's going to do terrible things to our friends or to us so that's usually what happens but really underneath that is this idea that you were talking about about american exceptionalism why is the united states the world's policeman who appointed us why do we play this role if you look at american policy makers going back to woodrow wilson woodrow wilson commented he says now the world will understand that the united states is the savior of the world that attitude madeline albright more recently united states if we have to use force it's because we are america where the indispensable nation we stand taller and see farther than other countries hillary clinton the same thing obama this notion of where the

indispensable nation what makes us the indispensable nation but we are the most powerful nation on basis the most powerful nation we have the atomic bombs we had a monopoly on atomic bombs what right do we have to worry about talk about other countries using weapons of mass destruction we began the process at least most serious iteration with the attack on hiroshima and nagasaki and have we apologize for that have we criticize that question that right now in outside of washington d.c. in the air and space museum next we're displaying the enola gay the plane that dropped atomic bombs on hiroshima to start the modern era of weapons of mass destruction and the head of the air and space museum said we're going to display the you know the gay and all of its glory as a magnificent technological achievement i don't know where we come off being the world's arbor. on these kinds of questions it is amazing and this rhetoric is not only just perpetuated it's congratulated i mean it's just unbelievable on the as

you said i mean what gives us the moral authority when we have used chemical weapons routinely in modern warfare cluster bombs white phosphorus depleted uranium as toxic legacy that's worse than hiroshima i would say it's worse than hiroshima but i would say that we've done terrible things but you were mentioning before even in terms of fukushima the nuclear accident in japan who pushed japan to develop nuclear energy you know the history of this it was the united states it was eisenhower as part of eisenhower's adams for peace program why did eyes and our push the peaceful adam he thought to make it easier to justify policy based on nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare when eisenhower that we most of us my students what you know about eisenhower now say oh the farewell address warning about the military industrial complex what they don't know is that eisenhower when he took office we had about a thousand nuclear weapons when he left office we had twenty three thousand nuclear

weapons when his budgeting cycle was finished we had thirty thousand people he went . back that rhetoric to the administration look talk about it's easy to look at the middle east in a vacuum but peter why is the middle east on stable right now and really what is the u.s. how much of that has to do with the u.s. policy was the fact that there was such repressive regimes for so long had a lot to do with u.s. policy the united states armed these governments these dictatorships we supported them politically and militarily and so for years they kept a lid on the people there and all of a sudden things unraveled in such an unpredictable way this twenty six year old tunisian street vendor had had been insulted one time too many and sent him self on fire and then the middle east unraveled and it was unpredictable it was unpredictable to. american intelligence u.s. intelligence they didn't see this coming and it spread from tunisia to one country after another and there's an obviously

a yearning for some kind of freedom and dignity and economic and intellectual and political freedom in that area but the but there's not much of a tradition of civil government and there's not much of a tradition so what you've got are extremists who are oppressed for a long time and you've got military forces you've got some secular forces but they were largely repressed also right a lot of the wording of the democratic revolution and democratic process in a lot of these countries you know the syria situation is causing so many global power players and dynamics to shift that are remnants from the cold war we have least some of this so much of this with our invasion of iraq we go into situations not having any idea i mean bush for example didn't even know there was a difference between sunnis and shia i mean we go into situations where we're totally blind we did the same thing in vietnam we're going to do the same thing now in syria if obama is stupid enough to actually follow through on this policy why is syria such a linchpin for global powers and do you really think it's going blind and not

ultimately for destabilizing further in the region. i don't see how anybody's going to benefit from further destabilization in that region we've got a situation in jordan that's out of control now with with all the refugees who are there we've got a situation in iraq where there is dozens of people being killed every day we've got openings in iran we've got some real possibilities if we could think about this a little more creatively rather than this military option we have a situation where we should actually be cooperating with russia and with china the united states has created a situation of polarization hostility and maybe we look at what the russians want to look at the chinese want one of the things that the russians are very concerned about is u.s. missile defense where we've had we've had some great leaders in the past that are his. what made them great was their ability to see the world through the eyes of other countries obama hasn't had that ability he's probably had

a little bit more than bush but he hasn't really had that in most american leaders probably since carter maybe the first two years since kennedy have not had that ability and so you look at you have to say how can we bring russia and china into being part of the solution what russia what can we offer russia that might make them more trusting of the united states what we offer china what we do now is we've got what we call the asia pivot hillary clinton announced it in foreign policy magazine in november twenty two thousand and eleven and she said it was titled her article america's pacific century basically saying we're going to shift out of the middle east so we can dominate the pacific dominate asia and contain china that's been our policy maybe we could do have a very different kind of approach toward china and toward russia which could understand some of their concerns about the world as it's evolving america's nuclear domination america's economic footprint all over the world and we could probably on that basis bring them into working with us to forge

a peaceful solution in syria and the middle east but we're doing now is further antagonizing them obama's refusal to meet with putin because of what because of snowden putin did the right thing the russians did the right thing in allowing snowden what he exposed just like what assad has exposed manning has a pose is really what's underneath this empire this secret world that these people have created and they're very upset when you start to unravel that when you support you talk about the n.s.a. surveillance when you talk about just massive surveillance of american citizens we now found out that it's going on through the anti-drug efforts and even bigger scale to some extent what's going on through the n.s.a. there's a world out there of secrets and a democracy is supposed to be transparent obama ran as a transparency president he was critical of. which is secret and what are obama do he actually put more layers of secrecy around us policy more things are being

classified. so is that kind of crazy world in which any time you expose this people feel so threatened that they cracked down further we saw what happened with manning and we have a world in which if you commit war crimes you walk free like bush and cheney if you expose war crimes like a man and you spend most of your life in jail our values have been turned upside down that's what oliver and i are trying to show in our untold history in our book in our documentaries that the united states once stood for something we weren't always true to it but we once stood for something something that was other than surveillance other than drone attacks rather than targeted assassinations other than putting people in guantanamo so when the united states talks about these syrians violating international norms it reads like a satirical masterpiece it is amazing that the u.s. claims moral authority to you know provoke militarily and in such country peter resnick must see untold history the united states must see documentary film and

book everyone check it out but i need you on again to analyze so much more thank you so much for coming out you have a. still ahead team obama is getting the war drums when it comes to syria we'll talk with the panel after the break to determine what the best course of action is . i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question. i

think. they would like to do it if you did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct albus. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and i was proud cynical we've been a hydrogen right hand full of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world if we go beyond identifying the problem. and rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america if i ever feel ready to join the movement then welcome to.

the white house is making a hard sell for a military strike on syria now that congress has started to reconvene in washington today administration met with significant republicans and democrats while sending top cabinet officials to testify before congress and a meeting with congressional leaders obama went to great lengths to distinguish syria from other u.s. lot of wars he said this is not iraq and this is not afghanistan. obama also made the argument that intervention would be calculated he said it would be limited it does not involve boots on the ground and already his call for support is one the approval of speaker john boehner the most influential politicians in the house with banners backing obama's plan it speculated that we should expect for congressional consent for military intervention in the country but even if congress does approve a military strike on syria is this the right course of action joining me now to

discuss both sides of the argument was mustafa executive director for the syrian emergency task force and brian becker national coordinator for the answer coalition thank you so much both of you for coming on very tense topic was you on the ground in syria more people time since the civil war broke out two years ago in fact you're one of the liaison between the f.s.a. and this administration why does the u.s. need to strike right now well the fact is that the united states first of all i think i'm coming here not to defend previous u.s. policy or the ones now we understand now is that the european allies in the region including turkey in others in the region have all called in the president put himself in the position by calling a red line which is the use of chemical weapons use multiple times by the syrian regime has now come to a point where there is inaction of the united nations security council due to the russian veto that nobody can go around and then turn on the international media has been really pressuring him hard to do something about it so i think a strike now is important because we have seen used chemical weapons before and there was no repercussions use them again on

a much larger scale and so there is that but there's also the need for a political solution to the crisis in order to get that the assad regime's inner circle me must understand that they are not immune from international action thus pushing us to truly sitting down at the negotiating table can you explain really quickly what exactly is a proportional limited strike i think in this case it is a strike that can first of all deter him from for the use of chemical weapons to know that you cannot just use these and continue on because it looks as though just normal weapons within his arsenal not weapons that this entire planet has decided to should never be used against civilians ever and number two to help. hinder his ability to target civilians as we see every day and then all the a month ago i was back again in syria and i saw as barrels were dropped down on residential neighborhoods from russian megs that took out many civilian targets that had nothing to do with f.s.a. positions being anywhere close to them brian you've been a vocal opponent for military intervention why the ninety percent of the people in the united states oppose another war in the middle east they've seen in afghanistan they saw iraq they saw a libya and now syria the united states government doesn't go to war because

a particular government uses a particular weapon a heinous weapon chemical weapons and of course there's no proof that assad government used chemical weapons the obama administration saying well we're keeping it secret we're going to tell congress and the american people get a read acted of the evidence there is no categorical evidence but more than that the united states government does not have the right the legal right the moral life the political right to be judge jury and executioner the real reason they're going in is not for a proportional limited strike it's an escalating strategy they sent direct arms shipments to the rebels in june they've been coordinating a civil war for twenty half years now the u.s. will begin the military direct military engagement wide to take out the assad government not because of human rights not because of chemical weapons they don't want independent nationalist governments in this oil rich region of the of the world was how can we be sure that this won't be another iraq or afghanistan no first of all i would agree on the first point the american public does not want to

take part in any military intervention for whatever reason you're in were included more in syria i'm agreeing with you so i'm agreeing with him but a good thing that is you are asleep i think ok and i. think you so again i agree with him i thought he was and i thought he would like to let you do that on these issues they don't want another war they don't want one in syria they don't want intervention anywhere else they don't want to petition of iraq or afghanistan i was so the syria people been very vocal opponents of the invasion of iraq and the mishandling of going to stand i think that is something important to note but iraq was not a. indigenous populist a religion that went on for eight months and i didn't remember mr becker come out once and say anything about a dictator that used gunshots and used unlawful arrests against peaceful protesters again for eight months as far as the proof of chemical weapons unequivocal evidence have been put forward the multiple uses before this specific one and on this one it's simply logic and i can present the facts but i want to answer your questions i just also well i'm sorry but i just want to answer

a question as far as if you can remind me again why is this different i mean how can we be so sure that's different why this is different this is different because first of all it is an indigenous revolution that's been going on because all of our allies are calling upon us to do this the only reason we don't have a u.n. security council resolution is the russian veto number three president obama himself i would say his policy on syria has not been exactly stellar and the reason we are here now and we are at a point where we only have terrible options look i'm a syrian you think i want cruise missiles to go towards my country that i was born in absolutely not but we are at the point where we have only terrible options and this is different because this would be a limited strike that afterwards we will not be involved in ground troops we will not be involved in an open ended conflict it will end and we will move back to the stage where we were before which hopefully is i mean this is before is double for the syrian people but again back on the path to where it's the syrian people versus the dictator completely abandoned by the international community i could see it's a very emotional issue because you are syrian and brian what do you think this war

is really about well i think it's really about domination for the u.s. over the middle east again the resource rich geo strategically important the assad government isn't isolated the assad government has a very large populace support the assad government was winning the war in syria the opponents the armed groups who actually get all their guns from saudi arabia and qatar and turkey they can't win the war the only way they could win the war is to try and western intervention what did they need to do for that they needed to have somebody say the syrian government crossed the red line why would the assad government winning the war. i mean a broad base of popular support having international allies do the one thing the one very thing that would automatically draw in u.s. and perhaps nato intervention the one thing that would cause him to lose the war we think that this is a stage provocation the united states government before it was trying to carry out regime change against assad through the agency of civil war they're now using direct military intervention saying no boots on the ground that's a terrible thing to tell the american people it's so worth it we must bomb syria

but we want to make sure the syrians are the only ones who do any leading that's a terrible example of a government that is not in fact following international law united states government is not threatened by syria not threatened by the syrian government the people the united states are not threatened now the united states government says we america because we're powerful have the arrogated to ourselves the right to decide who will be punished who will be bombed that's not the road to peace that's that's a good point because considering you know even if assad did use chemical weapons as a last time i haven't seen any evidence to prove that but even if he was behind the attack was why does the u.s. have moral authority to militarily intervene in countries when we retain we use chemical weapons during modern warfare right now i mean as i said when i first came here i'm not here to defend previous u.s. policy on stuff they're going to have been stated certain parts what i thought was false it was about the invasion of iraq based on false evidence. rhetoric you are talking to you know the thing is we cannot just simply say that anything the united states does is just going to be bad i think we need to live now in

a world where we need to rely not only on our ideology which is very important but on principles right and your national law is not using chemical weapons i mean that that's very important and i don't know when was the last time that mr baker was in syria but if you go to aleppo province it live province province northern latakia province province and i can list a few others like a province for that matter you won't find very many people but out of his popular support for the assad regime this regime is not winning the war that's a regime has been losing the war that's why he was forced to use chemical weapons on a heavily fortified. which was just that and only heavily fortified which you could not break into by the way why didn't he just allow the investigators to go in right away has nothing to hide we know that the rebels have done this and i'm going to i don't need to know what i'm going to. organize these destroying the evidence is going to vote allowing them to enter and there's nothing to hide them go right away the united nations formally requested the assad government to get access to weapons inspectors on saturday august twenty fourth within twenty four

hours they were granted access and soon as she granted the u.n. weapons inspectors access john kerry said the weapons inspection should be cancelled because the syrian government has delayed two on in other words the u.s. government really didn't want the weapons inspections and now they say and as john kerry said the other day in his speech it's irrelevant because their mission is not to apportion blame so the united states has a both ways assad is delaying the u.n. inspections but if you let them in u.n. inspections or rather never let anyone tell me that he. will be really quickly though. we're just how it is but you can address them or not you i want to move on because it was you're saying that you know of course other military interventions it's really in comparable now to talk about syria because it's so different but i mean you can't discount the fact that it's extremely hypocritical for this country to invade or militarily intervene in a country that is on the up and so what do you think this war is really about do you really think about humanitarian reasons look the united states and its national interests constantly this is the way it goes about it i mean if anybody has any

qualms sometimes in a crazy world of coincidences. the u.s. national strategic interests can happen to align with some more cold core more rules and values that this country was built upon that your previous guest was saying this country had the prince and you know this situation i think it's just absolutely and i think in kosovo and bosnia which i'm sure the russian government i wasn't quickly on board with that we have democracies now and we stopped stubbornness which was after a genocide the took place rwanda we never acted we should of are all arranged and we should definitely job is a little. john mccain and lindsey graham and these people who have never met a war that they don't like the mouthpieces for american militarism the people who always want to intervene always want to bomb and now want to bomb your country and you're in alignment with them you say that's just a temporary alliance why are you on the same side with john mccain lindsey graham and all the war makers going to people who always love want west and so it's a great question why the answer is i don't i don't use what gen mccain votes yes on or no one to make decisions and i make my decisions based on facts and reality is

really quickly we're almost out of time ryan could this strike escalate into a regional war well it is a regional war the united states is taking out the libyan government the iraqi government now they're trying to take up the syrian government of course the iranian government is next has a resistance forces in lebanon or next the united states is trying to create an american spear of influence where two thirds of the world's petroleum is known to reside if iran strikes israel if syria retaliates which in fact it has a legal right to do based on the secure the security do you want charter article fifty one if attacked you have a right to retaliate if any of that happens yes this war could go way far beyond syria and gulf the middle east it's very dangerous high divorce is far beyond syria already but as we go forward in the israel bomb syria three times not a sin was told it was by the russians your claim one question only nine percent of americans polled say that they want to military action why do you think that ninety percent of people in this country should be ignored polls have shifted now it's up

to forty percent i mean that could be discussed i mean i think people absolutely don't understand what's happening on the ground in syria i completely sympathize with them if again and i have never been against you i mean with u.s. intervention except for something like kosovo and bosnia and things like that until now so i completely understand where they're coming from but here what we demand is leadership by the people's representatives and by by the united states government to work on a strike that does not involve those in a war that we're already involved in but it helps us get to a political transition a solution last saturday the. coming saturday people in washington d.c. and all over the country are coming into the streets to tell congress listen to the american people vote no war in syria we don't want another war in the middle east we don't need another war movie going to congress to lobby thank you so much. brian becker and i really appreciate you guys coming on pre-shared it. while you guys that's a wrap for us on our first day back thank you so much at home for watching me going to break the set tomorrow.

technology innovation all the lives developments from around russia we. covered. in.

my. dreams i this is for headaches this is for sleep this is a tranquilizer too if i have any episodes xanax caused blackouts substances not just. because of which is present nightmare because. i can't get off of it. and vilified it is kind of fish. because sometimes i have episodes where i won't be able to. i think something will trigger me and which i'll just keep on working and

working and working. for like seventy two hours just so exhausted. and i can take the. show out for. something i very much. like the fridge that you gave me i could have made a lot more money out of it if i wanted to i just it depends on what we're doing to . the camp say on the news that there were rebuilding iraq you're working to rebuild iraq. i was kind of sick of hearing c.n.n. and fox news like barky each other about one say oh it's good to know the horrible things going on around iraq and i kind of want to see it for myself you know. i joined the military when i was a teenager nineteen in basic training.