you know we're going to do. everything. coming up on our team new information comes out about an american fighting for the islamic state and he's not the only westerner fighting aboard their cause we'll take a look at the group's recruitment tactics and how many more may be taking up weapons crisis. and a bold law in africa we are tracking the virus as it's claimed more lives and continues to spread more on that coming up. plus a grassroots effort to help the town of ferguson missouri with the power of music we speak with organizers of a new benefit concert that comes days after a massive protest over the police shooting of an unarmed teen more on that later in

the show. it's wednesday august twenty seventh four pm in washington d.c. i'm amir a david and you're watching r.t. america and american man believed to have been killed in syria was there to fight alongside a terrorist group most likely the islamic state formally known as isis he was thirty three year old douglas mcarthur mccain originally from san diego according to an activist linked to the free syrian army which saw his body mccain was among three foreign jihadi fighting with isis who died during the battle u.s. law enforcement and intelligence officials have long expressed concern about foreign fighters joining hardline jihad is in syria as to its very but most suspect the number of fighters with western. passports is in the thousands more than one

hundred are thought to be americans officials have expressed concern that radicalized foreign fighters could one day import those influences once they were turned home in fact just last week federal authorities urge law enforcement across the country to be alert for possible attacks inside the u.s. and a joint bulletin the department of homeland security and the f.b.i. said because of the individual lies nature of the radicalization process it is difficult to predict triggers that will contribute to homegrown violent extremists attempting acts of violence they went on to say that offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt plots alright joining me to discuss this kind of radicalization and recruitment is jake deliberate to an iraq war veteran and doctoral researcher at the university of birmingham in the u.k. jake thanks for joining me as always so let's begin by looking at americans joining these radical groups we certainly know that there are people here that harbor

anti-american sentiments but what is it do you think that's actually driving these americans to get up travel to a foreign country and take up arms with a group like isis i think there's two components of this that stand out most particularly the first is you need to see the foreigners that are joining insurgent groups or doing out of a feeling of connectivity a desire to give up their lives in sacrifice for something else isis as it stands is not necessarily something that's directly related to american as an isis is a form of standing up for islamic extremism or a fundamentalist sort of islamic belief so when you see these foreigners coming to join isis it's a more of a passion and extreme desire to stand up for that fundamental extremists and have an outlet to express that and also simultaneously the second component of that is beyond. not just simply express a religious faith but express

a religious faith and demonstrate political power and political control that which is similar in any other combat whether it's in the streets of chicago of gang warfare or it's in a battle the border of america and mexico with the drug cartels and the american political control it's an outlet for an individual to express control and it's an outlet to express a religious affiliation of a religious belief even if it is manipulated by some form of extremism indeed it always goes back to power well we know that isis has quite the pub with the department can you talk about some of the techniques that they used to really recruit people so what we've seen since the development of isis as a as an organization this is post the fall out of the syrian breakup with isis and nusra isis has an extraordinary online presence this isn't geodes chat rooms this is a twitter this is with every form of social media young people who are technologically

savvy can access these chat rooms they oftentimes change their names they change their identities and it's a form of sort of social an entrepreneurial phenomenon in which people get to share ideas and they get to do it in a way that as someone sitting in a home they're able to sympathize become emotionally attached much in the same way if somebody were have a private spiritual life in their home it's the same way but however it's connecting a religious belief and a political orientation a movement to support isis finds its foreign supporters by first making a connectivity a social connection but then allowing that connectivity to fester and metastasized into action and that's why isis wants young people to do across the world and the u.s. is clearly concerned about these fighters coming back here a lot. has the f.b.i.

urged law enforcement across the country to be alert of possible attacks it officials say they have no evidence of any specific threat so how concerned should we be that we're going to see domestic terrorism well we need to make clear two components of the first is whether isis wants to strike the united states or not is not something that we have seen besides a few anecdotal pictures a few anecdotal remarks on online chat rooms that isn't what you would call a social movement like we've saw from osama bin laden during the one nine hundred ninety s. were there was a series of strikes made against the united states of tanzania embassy the u.s.s. cole in one thousand nine hundred three world trade center bombing as well so we haven't seen that sort of overall coherent strategy push forth that doesn't mean it's not coming so in order to basically put it put a cap stone and say we know a strike is coming we only know a strike is coming so far is that what we can see what isis done so far isis is

shown a regional interests a localized interest not so much a global interest that doesn't mean it's not coming but it hasn't been as forthright and planned coherently as bin laden did during the one nine hundred ninety s. just what i find so interesting is that these young men and women are even targeting muslims pacifically sunny muslims and a lot of people don't quite understand that isis is actually comprised mostly of sunday muslims that shocks me because when i think about the group i think of more you know targeting western interests so does this say that this group is just so much bigger. than what we've seen in the past is it just go beyond you know the original stated goals of some other terrorist groups well i wish we had more time to good talk at length about the diversity and the political ideology within the different sunni insurgent groups and how that relates to isis what i can do to simply narrow it down and say the reason isis is targeting sunni. generally is

because the same reason that we see we saw a q why under which in iraq and mr khouri target sudanese it is the lack of political power in the region and the need to demonstrate and take over power the way that you do take over power if you're an insurgent organization is my read of the people i don't agree with you were the people who don't agree with you yes but it's also whoever's got the strongest gun whoever's got the biggest gun is the one that will maintain power and this is not nothing new herat of this wrote about this centuries ago and this is the same type of experience you see anywhere in the world where there is not political power reason isis taken actions because they want political power and they want to demonstrate control society and to glassy a lot of people look back on this and say you know this is the obama administration's fault they should have been addressed earlier before spiraling out of control in your mind is there anything the a ministration could have done to prevent. from this you know from seeing happen

what's going on right now with this this sort of remarks that are coming in and out of washington are are ranking just anti obama isms without any real coherence the reason that isis exists today in such a powerful strong form is because in two thousand and nine at the end of the u.s. counterinsurgency campaign there was a failure to develop a long term coherent political plan that incorporated all elements of of iraqi society that was able to make long term sustained political peace building from the bottom up we achieved temporary success and what we did when we defeat it well when the sunni's defeated al qaeda in two thousand and nine we essentially pushed them into the to the countryside push them into latency but that actually didn't get rid of the problem which was. old tribal differences political different ideologies and what that this task of sizing has now brought about isis to be. more

vitriolic more powerful and more dangerous than anything we've ever seen in iraq in the last decade that indeed already jake delivered to iraq war veteran and doctoral researcher at the university of birmingham in the u.k. thanks for weighing in on that if that much and now to the latest in ukraine moscow is planning to further provide humanitarian aid to the people of the donetsk and luhansk regions that's what russian president vladimir putin told german chancellor on the merkel in a phone conversation today the two sides discussed the results of the customs union member states meaning that took place in the capital of bella ruse but the focus of the media attention was of course on the first one on one meeting between putin and his ukrainian counterpart petro poroshenko artie's i read in gulu show has the details. ms clinton is the first ever here between the current president of russia and ukraine and just your onlookers hoped would herald some kind of breakthrough that's been put in said the talks went well but insisted the most pressing issue

finding a solution to the conflict in ukraine was something needs to settle but if you go there should we didn't talk in detail about it and frankly speaking russia can propose any conditions for a cease fire or speak about possible agreements between kiev and donetsk or lugansk this is ukraine's affairs we can only try to help to create an atmosphere of trust during these negotiations that are in my view very necessary. was something that is becoming a problem in the humanitarian catastrophe in cities of them is going to guns hundreds of thousands of refugees are fleeing for safety many coming over the border where there was real movement was in discussions over the gas dispute between the two countries put in promise negotiations will start in a future because it's a problem which affects the e.u. just as much as it does. the russian president was all smiles ahead of the one on

one with our shango the ukrainian leaders betrayed the fact he was probably a little less relaxed ahead of talks with a lot riding on them. it was a day of tough negotiations but the logic of the peace plan was supported by heads of state which ultimately though no real breakthrough came in attempts to end the bloody struggle in ukraine but after the events of recent months just the fact the leaders are talking is some kind of progress. r.t. minsk. as the warring parties fight for control over dramatic in eastern ukraine the country's largest chemical plant and going three thousand people has been hit with missiles landing close to pipelines and storage tanks artie's policy we are has an inside look at the damage we're at one of the largest factories in ukraine of chemicals and coal and as you can see it has come under showing you can

actually still smell in the air this smell of borning and there's also the constant fear that any moment now the ukrainian military will shell again we're trying at least to get to the center of the nets because here it is too dangerous. a show for just let me show you where. this is what is left of the show but others fear another china bowl could be on the horizon that emits krege and has nearly four thousand dangerous factories and facilities to hit on any one of them would pose a threat to the entire area and indiscriminate punishment to fighters and civilians alike we're talking about i was. told they were graded in the atmosphere. because we're talking about here which should be chlorine related. risks in most of these cases will be short sighted problems so there could be. residence nearby the plants are not taking any chances it's been more dangerous

here since the morning some houses have been hit on the edge of the neighborhood this is part of a ruckus that was fired from a grad and a solid launcher more and more these are landing here in civilian areas of course the r.t. . eastern ukraine. as the death toll continues to rise across west africa an unprecedented number of medical aid workers are themselves falling ill with the disease artie's manilla jan brings us an update in there's a growing epidemic among the very people meant to treat it. with more than twenty six hundred people infected and over four hundred deaths the recent a bull epidemic has now claimed the life of another doctor leading the fight against it dr sar rogers a prominent position in sierra leone contracted the disease most likely through contact while treating his patients just a week prior to his death dr rogers gave an interview to

a local paper where he stressed the importance of hygiene as a means to prevent the spread of ebola dr rogers is only one of the medical professionals treating a bullet to have died of the disease themselves now just a few days before dr rogers death a doctor in liberia dr abraham bora-bora fell ill with ebola and he was treated with the experimental drugs remap the same drug that was given to the two americans who recovered from the virus dr kent brantly and nancy rightful while there is no known cure for the disease their recovery raised hopes that the drug could help the two americans were released from emory university hospital last week both having been the first humans to be treated with the map for dr borger his treatment apparently failed he later died following dizzy map treatment and london and germany are also seeing their first cases of ebola two health care workers have been transported out of western africa where they contracted the disease each have

now been repatriated to their respective countries for treatment now all in all the world health organization is reporting that about two hundred forty health care workers in total across liberia sierra leone and guinea have fallen ill and more than half have died from ebola and now with this growing threat to health care workers canada is now evacuating up to three hundred medical aid workers from various western african nations so if this contagion among medical professionals continue who will be left to care for the sick in west africa from washington manila chan r.t. . more water shutoffs are coming to people who are behind on their bills in detroit this comes as a moratorium on the shutting off of water expired earlier this week right now nearly forty five percent of the city's home water accounts are past due after detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation's history despite claims from some that water shutoff should be seen as human rights violations

thousands of those are sixty days behind on their bills or over more than one hundred fifty dollars have had their access to water cut disconnections are still going on in the city but thousands of customers have agreed to new payment plans so they can continue to pay off their balance and have access to clean drinking water only ten percent of past due balances are will choir to enter the payment plan that's down from thirty percent before according to the u.s. census bureau detroit is one of the poorest cities in the nation with thirty eight percent living below the poverty line. and now to ferguson where one hundred people marched in the community last night to honor the life of eighteen year old michael brown and encourage the community to heal it comes after more than two weeks of protests over the shooting death of brown by a ferguson police officer but that commemoration is not only taking the form of

protests tonight in new york city hip hop activist group rebel vias will do a benefit concert to raise money and awareness on the issue that causes this very close to home for the members of the group not too long ago they joined the protests with the residents of ferguson and got some rare insight into michael brown's family after those events front man rodriguez in a goddess known as rod stars wrote an op ed about that experience called ten important observations to know about ferguson joining me to discuss are the members themselves rod stars and gonzalo vinay guys also known as g one thank you for joining me. thank you for having us our eggs you want to start with you i want to know what was it that really come pell do you guys to get in your car and drive seventeen hours from new york to fergusson wealth to see the images of these young people in ferguson demanding justice for michael brown was very inspiring for us

were based in the bronx and in the bronx we had our own michael brown our own trayvon martin his name was ramadi graham who was murdered in his own home in front of his grandmother and his little brother a couple of years ago in the bronx to this day the officer that killed him richard haste has not been brought to justice it's a struggle that we were very much involved with in a building with the family of ramadi graham in the bronx and so when this happened for us we really felt the need to express solidarity with the community in ferguson with michael brown's family we also our collective in the bronx has a personal connection to michael brown's family also was a member of our collective grew up with michael brown's cousin and so also was very much a personal thing to be able to go and build and express solidarity with michael brown's family. a ride to you said one of the things that struck you during your visit with michael brown's family was their view of brown's final action before his death can

you talk about what they meant by that. michael brown's final action i think showed a lot about his character and we want to talk about this because you know the media's been assassinating his character and more than anything he was a selfless show that he was a selfless man what he did is basically he told the other friend that he was with dorian to run and then he turned around and surrendered and put his hands up which is why you know all the young men in ferguson have been you know doing the hands of don't shoot as a way of just saying you know like that the young people are being murdered but the act that he committed was that i think it says a lot about his character he was a young man that was college the monday after he was killed you know and more than a there was that the family was showing you know a different side of things that that's that's really need to get put out there is that is that mike brown was a good kid you know he was the family called the mike mike the gentle giant and you

know he was an innocent kid that was murdered by. them and their wilson is still free and he won when it comes to the media do you think that there was a conscious effort to characterize michael brown in a certain way or do you think he was portrayed that way just by default. absolutely absolutely the media is trying to assassinate his character for example the video you have this bogus video that comes out. and this video is based on nothing because what happens is that there was never a nine one one call to talk about a robbery because a strong armed robbery didn't happen you know when the police stopped michael brown there was no knowledge of anything that had gone on in the store i think it says a lot you know just to understand is the name make people that live in new york people that live in cities with this bodega that you have that relationship or just or there was never a robbery that may have been in a disagreement but there was never a robbery there was never a nine one one call and more or less it's an adult think that we we have a problem well done it with this nation's moral compass it we're even having

a discussion about whether you know the fact that somebody potentially did or did not steal some cigarillos deserves the death penalty necessarily what occurred it was an an execution of a young black man and go the test it's a testament to the fact that in this nation there on black lives are are undervalued they're devalued and becoming just a variable in an equation for profit unfortunately what we're seeing and one of the things that you also talked about in an op ed was outside agitators it was coined by authorities picked up by the media of course as well about people infiltrating ferguson from elsewhere to stir up commotion by that definition it could have included both of you being that you're from new york a white. i think that we have to be clear that social movements has historically had outside agitators and infiltrators

from the cointelpro and stuff like that so we have to understand that the enemy is always going to have that be a part of it but i think that in this case there was also i think you know an over and for some the focus put on outside agitators which i think is also a tactic to take away value from an uprising of young black people and young poor people i think that that's that's that's a that's a key thing that we have to differentiate we wouldn't even be here right now or even be having this conversation about ferguson if those young people hadn't responded the way that they did you know in two thousand and fourteen you know the government the state has a monopoly on violence and i think that just the fact that people are even talking about this response when you compare that to the police terrorism and a military occupation of a town that they were responding to or even as simple as a police murder of one of their friends i think that that's that's when you start walking you know a fine line which is something dangerous i think that for example you know the

so-called leaders of al sharpton have dictated a narrative that pits the good protester versus the bad protester and i think that that's a dangerous it's a dangerous narrative to really take part in when what we would end up doing is that it takes away the rights or almost you know it devalues the right of young people to resist the system and i think that what happened in ferguson is a tipping point in which young people you know the young man that i met that was fifteen years old that's only you know i was i was nine years old when obama became president what polls were polls racial america they talking about mean or even young man who's who talked about you know they killed trayvon last year and they get away with it they killed them on the gram in the bronx and they get away with it how do i know that i'm not next so i think the main point they were trying to make with that is that you know the there was a young rebellion that happened and i think that we need to understand. that was a response the main thing we should be talking about that this was a response it's a police murder it's a police terrorism and a military occupation of

a town of twenty thousand people so you know definitely a very very good a very good point to make indeed unfortunately we run out of time wish i could talk to you both some more but that benefit concert is tonight in new york city best of luck than a guess and gonzalo been a guest of the group rebel dia's thank you you thank. all right and here are some of the other stories we're covering that you may have missed start starting on the west coast the california senate has approved a ban on using drones for warrantless surveillance the bill attracted support on both sides of the aisle passing twenty five to eight the strict regulations require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before using drones for surveillance except for emergencies like fires or hasse's situations california joins we're ginia in idaho is the third state to pass laws to protect privacy against potential drone surveillance abuses and when obama signed on off on the end of the u.s.

military's don't ask don't tell policy some gay rights advocates thought the government had been blasted the tea in the l.g.b. tea now a new report authored by a high ranking military leaders says it's likely the u.s. will join the eighteen other nations where transgender members serve openly noting that an estimated five fifteen thousand five hundred service members currently serve in secret the report concludes that allowing transgender personnel to serve openly is administratively feasible and will not be burdensome or complicated and finally from our neighbors to the north a novel fund raising idea who needs a kick starter when you can fundraise through sex that's right though easy for a porn star in quebec has pledged to sleep with twenty five men on september fifth in order to finance her breast implants the event called the ball osan will cost attendees fifteen dollars and will take place in a trailer behind

a bar in the town of good tino where it will be filmed for later release. all right that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our web site r t dot com slash usa follow me on twitter at amir a david and stay tuned boom bust is next. leg . lifts. are last. on marinate in the financial world. to serious developments having not started it is very slowly

taking on the demand to try to get in and life there and there are but. ukraine is running out of many things money time and patience there's a growing recognition in europe that the ukrainian civil war must end through negotiations those petitions go have the political will and does washington really want peace. with the washington well as the miss. is being suggested that in the latest numbers in the media candidate former prophecy of current issues actually back to him doesn't do too much for ad revenue my own tech agriculture giant tits on a seventy six year old american farmer based in indiana fallout do you think this is going to create for the cia do you think this is what's triggering a great america is the largest economy in the world it's also the largest debtor nation in the history of breaking the set is mostly of alternatives to the status

quo but one night the real alternatives points to working for the american dream the next they were just trying to survive stein for americans and lawmakers in washington to wake up and start talking about the real cause of the problem.