coming up on our team america several reports of ceasefire violations in syria as we hear new calls for the removal of u.s. warplanes from the country. at least forty are massacred in an afghan village with isis and the taliban reportedly to blame we've got expert analysis on that never ending the war next. new reports say north korea has developed a miniaturized warheads for its nuclear arsenal those stories and more coming up right now.

good afternoon it's tuesday august eighth four pm in washington d.c. i'm on your part and kill your watching r.t. america we begin this afternoon in syria where the country has been engulfed in war since two thousand and one there have been many efforts to deescalate but those attempts have been unsuccessful largely thanks to outside actors just recently the defense ministry of russia and downs there have been several cease fire violations in the country since a peace agreement went into effect last month now there is renewed effort to get u.s. warplanes out of that war torn country here's our t.v. correspondent ashley bangs with more on that according to the russian defense ministry most of the violations were cases of unselective firing from small arms some of those are registered in areas controlled by the terrorist organization al nusra russian defense ministry put out a statement saying quote within the last twenty four hours the russian party of the russia turkey commission on violations of the join agreement has registered

eighteen cases of firing in provinces of aleppo damas logic. the turkish side has registered three cases of cease fire violations in the provinces of damascus russia and turkey are just two countries involved in trying to deescalate the war in syria the us has also had its share of involvement as well most notably its bombing of the islamic state and the bombing of president bashar al assad's military back in april of this year after it was allegedly conducted a chemical attack against its own people many people are unhappy with the u.s. is involvement in the war some citing not only does the u.s. not have a real reason to wage a war in the country but it's also unlawful today a conference call no what u.s. warplanes over syria was held at the national press club in washington there were a total of five speakers at the conference including cia whistleblower john kiriakou and all three david swanson each gave their reasons why they support

a petition that's calling on congress and defense secretary james mattis term move all of us military aircraft in syria kiriakou said the u.s. is involvement is a legal and swanson talked about the horrible impact this war is having on the syrian people take a look there is a solution to all of this but it's not sexy or quick or easy it's something that many of us have heard about but haven't actually see it's called diplomacy. whether trump likes politics or not the only way to save that country from becoming a failed state or an ice a state is to sit at the table with all of the stakeholders including the syrians the russians and whether we like it or not the iranians we're going to have to accept the fact that assad is not going anywhere nor should he whether we like it or not his is the internationally recognized government of syria no one has given

the us legal authority to decide the fate of other nations by any means and since world war two the united states has interfered as we know in at least eighty two foreign elections though not in the bad russian way presumably and bombed over thirty countries. this is no one appointed to us to this role this is not a legal this is not enforcing law this is violating law and so it has to end the nation magazine or it's action dot org and watchdog dot net are just some organizations that are sponsoring this petition so far fifty thousand people have signed a document in hopes of ending the u.s. is involvement in the syrian war and washington national banks are. we're going to talk about this a little more now with the executive director of the institute for public accuracy and coordinate or poor redaction dot org norman solomon how are you today norman

fine thank you can you start by telling me why you participated or were here today at this event at the national press club to publicize the petition calling on congress and defense secretary mattis to remove all u.s. warplanes from syria well as americans i'm afraid we are party to an almost invisible war as far as americans are concerned and half a dozen groups got together to put forward this idea which i think is crucial syrian airspace should not be a place where u.s. planes are flying and bombing and that also includes a drone aircraft as we just heard a minute ago john kerry yaku the cia whistleblower pointed out this morning at a news conference of the national player press corps that like it or not there is an internationally recognized government there the assad regime i don't like that regime i think we should denounce that regime that doesn't change the fact that the

u.s. government has no right to fly its own planes into syrian airspace without the permission of the syrian government. and we should mention as well part of the secret war that's been waged on syria which you've described is also ground forces i mean there are u.s. military personnel training militias on the ground we know the cia ran what they've admitted now is that one billion dollar program to train and equip syrian rebels so this is a very large secret war almost norman as you say why won't the media ever talk about it or at least point out what the u.s. has done to create a situation that will in terms of u.s. media in general the mass media describe it in a fairly favorable way it's the modern equivalent of thirty years ago forty years. to go in search will america we heard the line that there were freedom fighters they were supposed to be in existence in nicaragua the cia contras then in

afghanistan their freedom fighters to kick out the soviet troops in the one nine hundred eighty s. and i think what needs to be adhered to and pushed for is a single standard of human rights we don't want intervention by the us by russia by any other countries to go in and bomb people who are trying to get on with their lives and as americans i think we need to face the fact that there are eight hundred plus u.s. military bases outside of this country around the world a grand total of forty military bases for all the other countries of the world outside their borders that is an indication of just how expansionist in a political geopolitical sense the u.s. government has been and the pentagon has been and we need to face that fact and then pull back on the political and military power absolutely stunning fact there you pointed out you have an only spoken out against u.s. escalation in syria you're also a vocal critic of the think sions regime recently imposed against russia signed

into law by president trump why do you think sanctions are hazardous policy well it's really an escalation towards russia and the fact is that what took place after the sanctions were approved by congress was totally predictable as a matter of fact i had a piece in usa today just before the response from vladimir putin which was to then escalate and order hundreds of diplomatic personnel off the jobs in many cases out of the country in russia and this is a spiral that involves the two nuclear superpowers on the planet so in a way it doesn't matter if people like or hate trump like or hate putin we have one planet we have thousands of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of each of those countries and it is in some sense in. sane to believe that there was something ethical about escalating the tensions we should be trying for detente we should be trying for better relations which is something trump has been lambasted for

suggesting of course these sanctions are being implemented in response to russian meddling in the last year's election according to those who support the same sions do you buy that justification well whether russia intervened in the us elections or not that doesn't change the fact that escalating towards nuclear war is an attack on the survival of the human species so i don't think that the kremlin or the white house or as pure as any driven snow we can imagine in the real world though to escalate towards nuclear conflagration is beyond irresponsible and i think it would be very helpful for people around the world and as an american i think it's especially important to get on for a very high horses stop preaching to the world and begin to curb our own imperial policies which have been and continue to be so militaristic as someone who has

dedicated their career to as a media watchdog to really hold the media accountable what do you think of the condition of the fourth estate today i mean they could be going after trump if they wanted to be critical of trump for so many things domestically if they wanted to do stories criticizing the administration but if you turn on the t.v. all you hear mostly is russia russia russia and that's been their tactic well you know donald trump unfortunately has a version to facts and he lies so often and yet when you look at his foreign policy . it's that parable that sometimes a broken clock is correct once every twenty four hours i think his statements in favor of detente are absolutely correct and in terms of foreign policy he has been hammered into announced by the us mass media. precisely for his best policies and we ought to reexamine why that is the case because there was

a tremendous war lobby in this country it's lucrative military industrial complex we've got to turn that around and turning it around may be very difficult though as you know especially with the media i mean when you hear something like a peace agreement being reached in syria what we heard is oh it means trump's putin's puppet not you know celebrating the potential deescalation of a conflict there do you see as just headed down a perilous path at this point or what are the opportunities for deescalation well it's certainly perilous i mean our news conference this morning was an effort to help turn this momentum this very dangerous destructive ominous momentum around so that when we're calling for pulling u.s. airplanes and drones out of syrian airspace we're saying that escalating and escalating some more is not pre-determined it's up to whether we can marshal the strength from the grassroots to say that what martin luther king jr called the madness of militarism must be opposed and must be stopped he said what

militarism. a raisin in the tiriel of them are that's three main drivers of us empire something he gets less credit for pointing out i think these days yes there's a lot of stuff you know what jesse jackson called the the idle dream or the mortar on the postage stamp we hear a lot about i have a dream we don't hear a lot about how martin luther king was a great peace activist targeting the military industrial complex here executive director for the institute for public accuracy and court major for its action dot org norman solomon always great to talk to you thank you. and coming up on our team at least forty are dead in afghanistan at the hands of the taliban and i says we've got that tragic story and some analysis right after this short break. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't

tell you know why because their advertisers more let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when it for peroration makes a pharmaceutical big chill speech when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses and they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. until march and i'll give you what the mainstream media can't the big picture. spend here. and when you question him or find what you're looking for this.

will go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture. would you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those for the face. of like you neal and what your biggest fear is in the in the hey i win so let's try that old to show you. the best part of the. fun stuff that doesn't. now i live to do due to question. welcome back to r.t. america the taliban and islamic state forces reportedly combined power to massacre

at least forty men women and children in syria pull afghanistan sunday that's according to some local officials there they said combatants captured a village and subsequently executed the shiite minority civilians who live there the taliban has yet to claim responsibility in fact they deny responsibility and the united nations has not publicly acknowledged the massacre yet however liam mcdowell from the u.n. assistance mission to afghanistan told r.t. america quote the mission's investigations into the reported incident are ongoing he wouldn't comment on the nature of the murders or the current investigation we're going to dig a little deeper into the state of affairs in afghanistan now with former marine corps captain matthew hoh just briefly if i can get your reaction to that story does it make sense the taliban would work with isis to commit an attack here no it doesn't make sense or they work with you know the islamic state group in afghanistan they haven't done so yet just the same day a taliban commander issued

a statement saying if i catch any of you referring to his subordinates talking to any islamic state members i will kill you know certainly the taliban prior to two thousand and one was engaged in very heinous atrocities against a shia minority in afghanistan but recently they have not been doing that type of sectarian slaughter that seems to be more of an islamic state type action interesting well you resigned from the foreign service in protest of the war in afghanistan two thousand and nine this week it was reported the u.s. is sending more marines in june president trump approved the transfer of four thousand more troops to the country with later reports suggesting he's a little reluctant to approve another surge are you surprised we're still waging this. for a decade since you left the obama administration i'm disappointed of course and greatly saddened i'm not surprised you know i mean the war is good money

the war is good business. you know was having a conversation about how. gentrified washington d.c. has become the price of houses the price of rents how expensive neighborhoods are in washington d.c. i mean you can tie that directly into the defense budget in the intelligence budget some washington d.c. house since two thousand and one mean exactly how the salaries that people make for working for the defense corporations how the salaries they make for all these things mean so the war is or great business so the fact that if we bomb the philippines as was reported in the washington post that will now be the eighth nation we are now bombing so no i'm not surprised that the war still continuing greatly saddling britain to the point because the afghan people or

a near fourth decade of suffering but. you know it's an interesting point you make there because i can tell you going around washington you see all these luxury apartment buildings popping up wondering who can afford them oh there is a b. a systems or booz allen hamilton office building right there i have no wonder so convenient in twenty fourteen the obama administration released a statement celebrating the end of a combat mission in afghanistan that milestone really mean anything though not really i mean we still have ten thousand troops there possibly more i mean there is discussion or there was some discussion about pulling troops out but that seems to be dead you know you know the original milestone was for a withdrawal of troops by summer of two thousand and eleven and remember the great discussion with between betray us and obama that the troops would be out within eighteen months of course that milestone was passed and then it became this continual pushing back of when the end day in afghanistan would be and then it

became two thousand and fourteen and then the president kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing and then it's then that you know it's strange that exactly and this . future of the mission in afghanistan it's apparently causing a lot of tension in this white house with reporting suggesting trump's national security adviser h.r. mcmaster and his wife out white house counsel steve bannon are actually battling over this strategy pretty brutally with mcmaster apparently supporting calls to send more troops to the country what do you think about these reports well of course the general or the former general you know master is going to want to win that's all these guys want this what does this mean that this is this is the legacy right sure these guys could actually tell you what winning is but this is their legacy this is their career this is their past this is what they want they can't defeat. so yes for them. to say that we didn't

persevered we didn't go through it that is just anathema and they can't have that now a guy like bannan he sees the world differently and see it in a better ally they make master because bannon sees the world in this with the specters of islam is in globalists and he wants erik prince to come in with army of mercenaries and subdue the awful brown people to make afghanistan ripe for the plucking of rare earth minerals so you have in one case in the white house the general who doesn't want to a myth that afghanistan was in a moral war that could never be won as a war were based were trying to occupy a people and subjugate them and we have a man in a bed in who sees global islam is and he wants a mercenary to subdue them

a great way to break it down i'm glad you brought up erik prince because he is everywhere in the media lately i don't know if you've noticed this of course his sister also happens to be education secretary but the device i want to play you something he said recently on another network. with their fuel their ammunition their parts on time that's what you need to keep the afghan forces afloat pentagon needs over fifty billion dollars more than the entire u.k. defense budget. i'm not sure if that was the correct one but essentially he's been saying all over the media that he has a plan where we can affordably go in and like you say with his private mercenaries take care of the problem in afghanistan he doesn't think we should be getting out what exactly would. prince's model or plan for afghanistan be what kind of situation would we be looking at in the country oh i think his model is to make himself money and subjugate the afghan population by brutally suppressing them i

don't think there's any of the model in that i mean when i first heard of this plan was several months ago and he compared it to the way the british the british used to control the indian population which was just brutal subjugation utilizing the rifle on the band and i believe that's prince's model he. laughably suggests that somehow a contractor force would be more affordable which never thing we've seen over the last however many years we know that contractors are not cheaper than the government but this is the logical extension of the neo liberal policies the last several decades i mean war is the ultimate mass the station of these near liberal policies so why we not private ties this inherently governmental function absolutely right i mean it's plain as day with the way they're discussing at but i mean you have a lot of experience then your own perspective what would you say if the goal was

stability in afghanistan or putting it back in the hands of the people there not you know permanent occupation what would a strategy be you have to achieve peace you have to have cease fires no negotiations can take place while the violence is occurring this slaughter you you open this segment with that's the madness that always occurs in war you're always going to have violence and atrocity and war so it's that's always going to happen but you must have cease fires that lead to negotiations that lead to reconciliation in order to have that you talk about negotiating with the taliban but of course absolutely of course in order to have that all parties from outside the conflict must so stop their financial and material support to parties within the conflict so no more meddling from outside parties whether it's the inept meddling. the united

states is so good at but certainly no supporting of warlords and drug lords and militias as we've been doing no supporting by pakistan or india or iran bad is what is keeping this conflict going as well as keeping this suffering of the afghans going or all these outside parties just as we see in syria and the u.n. has been there since been involved there since one thousand nine hundred eighty nine so this is been decades decades of this application all leading to this point matthew hoh former marine corps captain thank you so much for coming in today very fascinating insight thank you. analysts say north korea can now successfully produce and miniature nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles and responds to repeated threats to the united states president trump issued a grave warning to the country today take a listen they will be met with fodder of fury. like the world has never seen. meanwhile a confidential assessment conducted by the u.s.

intelligence agencies was also published in the washington post today this analysis was reportedly completed last month by the defense intelligence agency and comes on the heels of an assessment which raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in d p r k's atomic arsenal as many as sixty nuclear weapons are now controlled by north korean leader kim jong un while other independent experts say the number of bombs as much smaller according to the world nuclear stockpile report the united states has at least six thousand eight hundred nuclear weapons this comes after the obama administration committed to a thirty year one trillion dollar program to modernize the u.s. nuclear arsenal back in two thousand and sixteen and that's it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash our team america and our website our t. dot com slash america you can also always follow me on twitter at on your part until question mark.

on. your. next trip. just a year ago no one i know in real life with into politics now to just a year later and suddenly they're all expert and they have all these opinions about what's a credible news source and what's not and since i live in new york city everyone in my real life now is suddenly super into the new york times you'll name drop it in bars even say yeah i read this in the new york times the other day. and the other person will say oh yeah right the new york times of course i saw that one too it's

a whole thing now to be cool and into the new york times for all these people who did not know anything about politics last year at all on the flip side they say the words fox news as if they're spitting something gross out of their mouths they probably never even read anything on fox or watch the channel even they've only seen clips on the daily show making fun of so many of these folks who are newly in the politics don't even realize how slanted the news they're getting is they just think the new york times only presents facts not a nuanced perspective and i was reminded of that recently when mark ames exiled on twitter pointed out a pretty crazy had line the times ran last fall it read berlin one nine hundred forty five grozny two thousand aleppo twenty sixteen which is a pretty nuanced perspective allright because as mark ames exiled pointed out the not subtle implication in the headlines left is that the nazis were helpless

victims of russian aggression which is totally true because russia is the common denominator in that list insinuating to perspective that russia was the aggressor at the one nine hundred forty five battle of britain where they were ending the not for you so i laughed when i saw mark and exiled tweet but all those people new out there to politics walking around in the new york times who publish that headline they have no idea what it even meant let alone how nuanced it was and that's because the times is there is nuanced as they get the really good at it they are masters of it because a lot of them are really smart. like any news outlet the times has good stuff and they have bad stuff and they have a whole lot of perspective so if you're going to start all of a sudden reading the times you better start watching fox news too because you've got to look at all the perspectives if you want to see the whole picture where the truth really listen. or just go back to watching cat videos like you were last year

and that's fine too just either way whatever you do please just doubt namedropping the new york times at the bars i go to because i've had enough of that already. what you have for breakfast yesterday why would you pick those for. your wife. now i think if you do take.