has had is that i was quite suspicious after i was invited to that white helmets dinner now my worst suspicions have been confirmed on the face of it it felt because of all that the white helmets were just good people doing good things but now we know they're trying to encourage the west to drop bombs or missiles illegally in the syria and last week just a day before his concert in barcelona waters was contacted by a french journalist working for the white helmets the reporter asked for a few moments on stage to deliver a message to the children of syria or says decided though that request declined story that request as well and instead hit out the activist group during the concert. boy i mean this. story. broke my solution to this is. probably. just if we with this to the top of the point of mentioning others we would be encouraged to encourage a couple of months to go and start dropping oh sure. but we have

contacted the white helmets for comment in the meantime we've spoken to the germans tonight he continued to max bream until he's the one who broke the story after waters handed him the us i've known roger waters for several several years and i reached out to him. after this incident in barcelona where he denounced the white house mitts and he provided me with these e-mails. and he also gave me comments basically warning other celebrities not to sign on to the syria campaign's efforts to promote the white helmets so waters essentially had lost his patience and has decided to go public with this warning and i think he stands apart from a lot of other celebrities who don't do their research and who want to be affiliated with feel good humanitarian campaigns so you know i hope that this is that rodgers broken the ice here but western media appears to be completely closed

off to the facts about the white helmets and i'd wonder if other celebrities will continue to sign on what a joint strike on syria led by the u.s. did come not long after president trump had been promising to pull american troops out of the country however there are now reports of any arab force being assembled in the event of a u.s. patrol not against the has moral mad to leave or to stay it's a tough one. i want to get out i want to bring our troops back home i want to start rebuilding our nation we are in syria fight isis that is our mission and the mission isn't over and we're going to complete that mission america says it wants out of syria but not before its goals are accomplished which could take a while and get real dirty what do you do well that's what friends are for we have asked our partners to take greater responsibility for securing their

home region saudi arabia it seems has volunteered for the difficult task of sending troops to sit on oil fields in eastern syria apparently saudi arabia has been volunteering pretty hard and pretty long we're in discussions with the us and have been since the beginning of the syrian crisis about sending forces into syria now here's the thing those arab troops would have to be trained the u.s. could do it but no not after what happened last time all the last times the iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. they were not outnumbered by in fact they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight they withdrew from the site we have an issue with the will of the iraqis to fight i saw and defend themselves so if the pentagon doesn't want to get

involved there's conveniently a third option erik prince mercenaries and soldier of fortune extraordinaire the founder of blackwater yes the blackwater the infamous private military company who is operations in iraq resulted in it being banned from the country only to really. and a new name but i never heard that. there were dead bodies everywhere in the city college but it's going to be with you people it's not among the dead bodies lying on the street that's. the middle of next seven years old.

prince was out of sight for a while before resurfacing under trump whom he donated a quarter of a million dollars to prince says officials in the middle east have already contacted him about assembling a force for syria and with john bolton as the new national security adviser one of the most radically militant talks in washington no one's going to care about princes shady past john bolton is here we just had a big. it's

a win win if you are unwilling to occupy a hostile desert in a country that doesn't want you there well privatized it give your buddies a chance to make a quick buck after all isn't that what friends are for i was a murder against the of their we discussed the he would prime backer for me antiwar coalition. the american government is telling the american people look we're going to go to war in syria it's imperative that we do so it's imperative that we occupy or our proxies under our guidance occupy these other countries but don't worry americans won't do any leading the suffering the bleeding will be done by others the real function of u.s. troops in northern and eastern syria or if they are replaced by a nato air of a military force the saudis so to speak organized by erik prince they will be nothing other than a trip wire allowing the u.s.

to either through bombs or missiles against any force including the sovereign syrian arab army that seemed to interfere with the american zone of influence in the northern and eastern part of syria. now the government is setting up a special russia task force comprising of sr and page that will come to the sea threats from moscow it does come amid the current diplomatic spat between the two countries a with the poisoning of a former double agent and his daughter. a small. this committee consists of very high profile u.k. politicians and at the helm of that committee is the chairman of the foreign affairs committee and his name is tom took in heart now he has not minced his words about blood emir putin in fact what he said is that the u.k. must target everybody who supports the russian president and his gangster regime during his interview he obviously just sounded like he wasn't a fan of mr putin but he did mention someone that he was

a fan of and that was the saudi prince mohammed bin salman the big change actually is that where he's trying to trying to bring women and young people into employment is trying to read it all this is really something quite impressive in a separate interview took a hard talked about his career path and his aspirations and he described a number of roles that he feels that he would be ok at including the job of the pm so it appears that he wasn't particularly fussy about what future lies ahead for him would be great to be pm yep it would be great to be foreign secretary fantastic would be great to be different secretary wonderful would it be great to be a minister and yes on a more serious note now the tensions between russia and the u.k. have been exacerbated by the script our poisoning london is insisting that moscow is behind the attack moscow is denying any involvement at all and asking u.k.

for firm proof as to why they are suggesting that russia is indeed behind those attacks so the accusations are continuing from the u.k. side and now that this new committee has been set up we can only see that those diplomatic relationships are probably going to go downhill even further. to the reporting you're watching r.t. more news in two months. in july twenty seventh team. set up a freelance journalist working with. militant shelling in syria. on a second fight scotty has established a solid memorial they will recognize war reporters who often risk so to say because

the truth comes through that. you can submit to your published works in a video form britain fall into a little dot com and no. one else seems wrong but. just don't call. me. just to say proud to stay active. and engaged because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. she still looks for common ground. zero again with relations between russia and the us hissing severe turbulence at the moment it seems a travel could be the latest caught in its wake the few remaining direct flights

between the countries could be grounded with russian pilots finding it increasingly difficult to get visas the reports crew members from the russian airline ara fell to facing increasing problems getting american visas to the extent where passengers could face problems getting direct flights to and from both countries and the russian foreign ministry has had the situation is getting to small. that travel between our countries may even be stopped there a flood the only airline with regular flies between russia and the united states might be forced to cancel them since the crews are experiencing growing problems with getting us visas. now this is all because of the visa application process the waiting period for an interview with the u.s. consulate in moscow has been extended and it's been extended from eighty five days to two hundred fifty days which is an eight month waiting period now in response the u.s. consulate in russia has said that the issuing of the marriage and see visas and this will be visas to russian pilots or leading athletes can be guaranteed simply

because of the lack of stuff now it's not just crew members that this is affecting it's affecting leading athletes as well for instance leading russian ballerina. was meant to perform in new york but she was denied documents at the last minute by the u.s. authorities that said that they didn't have time to arrange the documents this was also a problem as well for russian wrestling athletes the u.s. embassy in moscow didn't schedule interviews for members of the freestyle wrestling team in russia and this was simply this simply meant that they weren't able to compete in an international tournament in the u.s. but looking ahead now to the world cup russia is of course in the midst of preparations to host the fee for world cup in june and over one million tickets have been sold so far but the u.s. is the largest number of ticket sales outside of russia so many many people are looking forward to celebrating the world cup in russia and that but only last month the u.s. airline delta stops direct flights to and from moscow and of course araf losses

only the carrier operating regular flights to and from both countries but the russian foreign ministry in the statement has said that these these obstacles are regrettable and that they're happy to welcome americans and other international spectators to the world cup in russia. it's been revealed facebook is moving the bulk of its european users to be used legal reach weeks before the block plans strict new previously rules nearly one point five billion accounts will be switch from the platforms international h.q. in ireland to its main offices in california. and that means they will then come under regulations for the move affects some seventy percent of all facebook users from the regions like africa asia and also latin america the transition will come before the data protection law takes effect on may the twenty fifth the law will slap restrictions on how data risk collected and handled and introduces fines to

for collecting or using it without consent violations could mean financial penalties of up to four percent of global turnover which for facebook would mean more than a billion dollars however the social media giant is playing down the importance of the data switch with being clear that we are offering everyone who uses facebook the same previously protections controls and settings no matter where they live these updates do not change that. while the developments do come as the web site is still reeling from a massive data breach scandal involving the political research group cambridge analytical as a result eighty seven million facebook users had their personal information compromised and the company's c.e.o. was called to testify in front of congress mark zuckerberg notes from those hearings show he was advised to avoid saying the platform already complies with the new privacy law and they also didn't include any mention of the company expanding

those protections world wide what we discussed facebook's privacy policy with the co-founder of iceland's pirate party hooters thing that news is still not informed enough about who's really handling their data. when mark zuckerberg says that you know the users can control what they're doing it's completely a lie because people don't know about it as we have user agreements that are you know figure than the bible when you have companies that are forced and there are so paypal if they're also forced to give government data and they also sell the data or actually now they don't sell the data to sell yield you're the product you are not aware of how these things work and they're so big that they are not even in control over that it themselves then you have big problems nobody knows what's how this algorithms work who feeds them what is being put into them and i think that we need to actually instead of focusing on this current narrative of you know

a new cold war we should be focusing on how do we learn to be in this space because we are going to be in this space and how we're going to be protected and i think we need to start to break these huge corporate sectors apart because they play such a crucial role in our democracies and when you have people like mark zuckerberg and eric smith believing that all the problems you know in the world are going to be solved by algorithms we are in a trap. finally they might be relics of the space race but they are still of huge interest the you tube generation a group of which did risk arrest by breaking into the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan to take a closer look at the past. so

that brings you up to date with things that so far today here are not see i'm back with more for you in about. the first two rows of the oval office a man then moved to plant the seeds in november for sale of the upper house so that

the dog. in the zoo month it appears there are some good prospects stuff i can. feel being pretty as forward as a fast all powerful. want to stop the jumping to savage flush going to solve a you don't find me a sound to soften the sounds of ballet speech your own fault says she's ready. for the next measure that a modern. kind of there is much to be and. we all willingly accepted the risk of being shot wounded taken prisoner but none of us signed up to be friggin poisoned by our own people i've seen cells that was loose or biological and chemical products the do not truck tires all types of star

a full polystyrene batteries trucks there was a complete denial i think at all levels. that there was any connection between berm pits and what these brave soldiers were suffering from to compensate every soldier marine airman and sailor that was on the ground that are complaining about illnesses from their exposure from the burn pits would read literally send a v.a. grow and they don't want to pay it so they're waiting decades a lot of those soldiers will die in time and they won't have to pay. all zero because the middle finger the movie isn't. delayed and.

hello and welcome to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle u.s. president donald trump says he wants american troops to leave syria the foreign policy blob surrounding him says differently so what are exactly washington's goals in syria a partition war for war sake or a means to sticking it to iran and russia all or poorly thought out options. cross talking syria i'm joined by my guest gareth porter in washington he's an independent investigative journalist and historian as well as author of manufactured crisis the untold story of the iran nuclear scare and london we have danny makki he is a syria commentator and co-founder of syrian digital media group and in doha we

cross the mohammed show how he is a professor of conflict resolution at george mason university and author of what is an lightman continuity a rupture in the way. of the arab uprisings all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate dan dan let me go to you because i know you just came back from syria so you have a good feel for the lay of the land here you know i asked in my in my introduction just take zachary what do you think washington's goals are because i guess it depends on who you ask in washington these days go ahead dammit. absolutely i mean washington has really had nothing of a coherent strategic policy in syria for many years it's not just now and we've had four or five years of of washington saying that one to take the lead from behind and not not really understanding exactly where it's going with this strategy and this is been really really shown by the last events of over one hundred u.s.

tomahawk missiles striking different syrian military targets while i was in damascus for that matter and at the end of the day three or four hours later you've got. to within syria and jubilation in the streets because they know washington will not achieve their policy of regime change and that this is purely a symbolic slash limited strike on different military targets but it doesn't come with the package there is no package at the moment there is no clear consensus over what the u.s. wants to do in syria it's just bits and pieces. it in but if you read between the alliance what you've got is an administration where you sense a lot of people want to leave the want to leave syria trump really doesn't know what he wants it's all up in the air and if i was america's allies at the moment in the region especially saudi arabia i would be very worried over what the u.s. wants to do in syria you know guaranteed or maybe this is by design because there is no real reason for the united states to be in syria actually it is there

illegally under international law i also said in my introduction is this just a means of policy wedge a tool to stick it to iran and the russians well at one level you could say that it's all of the above because there are people within the national security bureaucracy who holds those those goals but at the same time you know there has been as danny just said no coherent strategy there's been no agreement on what u.s. policy should be what u.s. strategy. should be for many years and you know beginning with the original decision to intervene on behalf of the armed opposition to to assad back in two thousand and eleven when the president himself when president obama knew very well that he didn't really want to do it he felt that this was getting

into another sort of afghanistan type intervention which could not turn out well he made that argument we know repeatedly over the next couple of years and at the same time you had hillary clinton and david petraeus and others in his administration pushing for a much more aggressive policy that's been the pattern now for years now today you have trump as everyone knows really expressing repeatedly the desire to get out of syria and to to have a very strict time limit on the war against isis and the military saying no we can't do that and others in the administration clearly not in sympathy with it and so there's a there's a kind of uncertainty about how that's going to play out but if you look at it in the larger picture of geopolitics you know that basically

the president of united states and the president of russia are both not interested in having a war continue in syria and i think that that ultimately is going to play a big role in how this plays out in the next year let's see how this plays out mohamed let me go to you in doha it seems to me one of the reasons why the u.s. is staying there first of all doesn't like the current condition in it wants to be a power broker it wants to be part of some kind of settlement and it will in all the are always in it wants to make sure it's a settlement that it wants so. still kind of hedging its bets bets for regime change i'm sure there's pressure on from the saudis and the israelis to stay there as well but at all ties together is that it is really incoherent and we have these situations where we have these false far as i'm concerned it was a false flag operation this. chemical weapons attack i mean i guess

a lot of the regional players have to be very worried about what the u.s. is going to do because it doesn't know what it wants to do go ahead in doha. well apparently there have been mixed signals coming from the washed the white house in particular and they think it is no disagreement that president from lacks a coherent strategy or after the attack plan how to sustain the prisons or how to sustain the impact of u.s. foreign policy in the middle east could all of the region the recent homes in damascus have been ridiculed because he would raise the expectations very high by condemning in the red lie to the red line of his this is obama in two thousand and thirteen so far i think trump has trouble himself in the very same position like obama and the luck of fictive in lack

of effectiveness on the field has turned the united states into a joke no and i think now the iranians are smiling in the saudis bewildered and also most of the governments here are asking what's next and i think this is a sixty four thousand dollar question yes and i will add one more perplexity to all this danny is turkey ok the u.s. made it won't it won't let it won't cut the kurds loose this drives the turks mad ok and i've said repeatedly i think they're the turks are in syria legally under international law however i do understand their concern i can see from their position about their security issues visa v the kurds i just stand it i don't necessarily agree with it but really is what it stake here not only is there ambiguity coming from washington there is

a very serious danger to nato unity and you know it is being played out on the ground and i you know talking about red lines i don't see the turks backing down at all go ahead danny. the turks won't back down and not for one primary reason they say they believe that they have some sort of historic right to the north of syria and they've been led that way through the actions of the united states of america that if you look at the situation now between turkey and turkey in northern syria you've got the start of another very very very long war i don't think that this will end anytime soon and what the u.s. has got out of all of this is actually that it's a very weak ally of the moment one of its allies faces a problem or faces danger the u.s. just ups and leaves and pretend like nothing has happened and the kurds have only went to the russians and gone to a serb because they feel that the u.s. has betrayed them because the u.s. just left them they love turkey to literally eats up all of this kurdish territory

in the north of syria now what we're seeing in the whole country which is very different to how the previous situation was is it's a war of peripheries now if you look at it the only areas where there's conflict and there's tension is border areas you know between syria and syria and iraq syria and lebanon syria and jordan the sense the center of the country has been retaken because of the russian intervention in two thousand and fifteen and now we go back to that huge intervention without russia intervening we wouldn't have the situation the other eight and the u.s. only acting out of envy because they want to be in russia's position you know russia today russia so over the over the previous weeks as brokered a number of agreements for rebels to leave areas around damascus and call them own while the u.s. is looking on words striking one of two military targets in a very vague attack which which ultimately didn't really do the area how to chemicals weapons chemical weapons ability those strikes would not have affected it because they. gave them

a week's notice by posting it on twitter so this is the way the u.s. is running its war these days and this from his tweets and this is something he said he would never ever. her do one of his first press conferences he said i will never tell you what i'm going to do and then he telegraphs it but gareth he did that on purpose because he knows he's painted himself into a corner and his advisors are making sure that he doesn't have any maneuver room so that's why you throw these these missiles at them when i've heard a dozen different versions about how many of them made their target how many were shot down them and them didn't work ok i don't know ok but the american version doesn't stand up to much scrutiny from what i can tell go ahead gareth it was just political theater it wasn't actually a military strike it was political theater garrett i couldn't i couldn't agree more on that point and you know if you actually read.