it is getting sin and sin and especially after two thousand and fifteen we have set the influx of one million. refugees migrants from north africa and i'm from sub-saharan africa and white males. and that does it for me i'll be back with headlines in about thirty minutes stay with us. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics business i'm show business i'll see you then. greetings and salutations. welcome home all talk watchers while many of us here in

the u.s. pounded burgers and beer while waving plastic u.s. plagues made in mexico as chinese fireworks lit up the sky the federal bureau of investigation was busy protecting americans from evil terrorist plots evil terrorist plots created right here in these united states of america built by hardworking americans in the f.b.i. yes the f.b.i. was doing what it does best in this year's u.s. independence day busting terror plots and terrorists that they themselves create and entrap meet demetrius pits and al haj ex-con who n.b.c. news reports was charged monday with plotting a fourth of july terrorist bombing in cleveland after a sting operation by the f.b.i. which gave him a bus pass so he could travel to scope out targets. pitts allegedly told an f.b.i. employee posing as an al qaeda sympathizer that he didn't want to have to have

anything to do with making or delivering the bomb but according to a federal complaint stated quote i'm going to be downtown when the thing go off i'm going to be somewhere because i want to see it go off. the f.b.i. caught on to this terrorist mastermind in need of a bus pass after he made alarming comments and sent disturbing messages on facebook even n.b.c. news had to admit that there is no indication that pits could have carried off any attack on his own but you see that didn't stop u.s. authorities from charging pitts with one count of providing material support to a terrorist organization. which i guess in this situation would be. because they were the ones posing as a terrorist organization who are at the madness of the federal bureau of impersonator never stops my friends when you are watching the hawks.

but you get the. real thing. at the bottom. like you that i got. this. week so. welcome aboard watching the hawks i am tyrone and i'm tabitha la. tell me please what possible justification could be f.b.i. have for this whole. sharing both sides drumming up terror plots that don't really really really exist so they can can keep getting the huge budget that they get every year to fight terror besides that one

yeah because they want to make that one about it ok so i wonder if they were going to the public ok yes or with their magical just because well stephen anthony special agent in charge of the f.b.i. is cleveland field office praised in the fed that the investigation telling the media quote law enforcement cannot sit back and wait for mr pitts to commit a violent attack we don't have the luxury of hoping an individual decides not to harm someone or get others to act oh wait so when domestic violence situations happen in which someone says hey i'm afraid this person is going to kill me because they told me they're going to kill me or they're going to hurt me but they can't do anything until the person does something wrong. but in this case you get i wish the f.b.i. cared as much about us citizens. safety more than they do magically but we can't just wait for it to happen but when you literally know

someone is a danger you do nothing because well we can't do anything to yeah it's interesting with terrorism that the with with terrorism if you mention if you practice your freedom of speech which look nobody likes terrorism no one is saying that the f.b.i. has a decent jobs over catching actual terrorists they do it's hard working people there but at the end of the day we've seen story after story after story come out ever since the war on terror started of the f.b.i. really kind of taking people who don't really have like any kind of opportunity or means they might have a motive but they don't have any opportunity or means to actually do a terrorist attack and then basically give them all the tools and give them all the means and give them all the opportunity to do it and then arrest them saying well this person is a terrible hey if this person wanted to believe you as a terrorist in his head that still legal you can do that right because it's called free speech you have free will to do that until you decide to hurt someone writes their it's really ridiculous and this is the thing that's always so strange the new

york times first reported about this yeah the f.b.i. basically became aware of this guy pitts back in like december of two thousand and fifteen when authorities claim he sent messages on facebook using the name of durai murphy to an obscure california talk show and basically told the talk show the usa will be destroy bar again this is the kind of stuff they like right three years investigating a guy because he wrote one comment. yeah you know and then he made some other comments on other people's pages and things like that but at the end of the day it's kind of like again you know many things are sat on line exactly glenn you know if every person who sent me a threatening e-mail was treated the way of abuse people are treating one comment on line or a few comments on mine. you know maybe get to work and actually go scare people who

are actually do but as this goes really even however the real connections to legit know according to court records he told the undercover agent or the undercover agent that he would wouldn't then he would have difficulty behind the car i said laughs but he would have difficulty buying a car for a curve because he would need to show a driver's license. circumcising and the f.b.i. admitted to reporters that he had no information that mr pitts no information that actually traveled overseas to meet with al qaeda that he had access to any kind of weapons any kind of explosives everything he served time in ohio. but he's not perfect but you certainly know how an eighty nine for a robbery pleaded guilty to fact and twenty seventeen and twenty sixteen the state of pennsylvania had asked ohio to extradite him as a fugitive for charges of assault robbery and that to me this looks like a low hanging fruit to make your big look what we did but if it took you three year . and a bus. something's not right. with. caring

about the environment isn't a right or left issue and to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt jihadist radio station radio angeles reported that the terrorist group al shabaab in somalia well the making some big changes in the territories under control two things will be happening immediately one indigenous trees can no longer be cut down or logged and second al shabaab led terrorist group has banned single use plastic bags because they quote pose a serious threat to the well being of humans and animals alike you know if you think the side you get at whole foods when you forget your reusable bag is bad. did not say how it would implement the bad but because of widespread fear of the group's use of violence you should be finite. no word yet on whether the militant group will be divesting from the ivory tower ivory trade see stoning women to death

or indiscriminately bombing civilians but at least they're growing green even. wow wow al qaeda group al shabaab is going green. we can't even get like a majority of congress here in the united states to go green now i mean we're only in that now that we're pulling out of the paris climate accords and al-qaeda affiliates are going you know what these plastic bags are really get right this is one of those like amazing news stories or maybe that's the key look i will just throw it out there i mean look if you really want to do damage to the godless united states maybe go green because we're not. going to get proper recycling services in our nation's capital here in d.c. so i'm a little i mean i have it not that i'm saying i don't think recycling and waste people to start like running around with rocket launchers telling me to separate my plastic and when my mother was but wow i would know this is

a really interesting when you told me this story about this story and you know. yeah it's one of those little you know i think honestly to believe because it's like wow i didn't think that that would ever come about but i'm happy to hear they're going green i don't support of a thing else that they do but hey you know every little bit counts so i guess well i think it sort of reads create it gives credence to the idea that there is a very large portion within these groups that their ultimate goal is to take care of this land and make you know make bring it back to what it was pre-war before the you know our modern wars and that the idea of like the caliphate and that is is that there is an idea that there's been so much destruction let's do something with it i mean if it's one of these small things about plastic bags i mean there are some i mean it's like we can't get congress to do that we can't get we can't look we finally got pruitt out of the e.p.a. you know i'm not happy day but you know how do you that's what it was that made

pruitt leave he woke up he heard al qaeda was going green and he was like i can't. anything other than do this now those wily why would the terrorist but this isn't actually what's really interesting with this time was that this is actually the first time that you've seen jihad is terror on the terror watch list go green no actually a yemeni branch of al qaeda heads criticize former president obama for not doing more to tackle climate change and that's our people and young men who are going through a whole lot of other things but even they're going you know what you should be doing more you should be doing more about that's twenty seventeen the taliban leader declared that afghans need to plant more trees because they played an important role environmental protection and economic development in the beautification of the earth i mean the if that doesn't send a signal to everybody look if these guys could like basically say we need to stop

using plastic bags. maybe we all need to step up and say maybe i should stop to well i mean that's what again this shows that across any political spectrum although i'm god of course i'm sure right now it'll be like all the liberals are terrorists because terrorists care about recycling. you know what its effects are you want to play it that's cool but there's this interesting idea that a love of your land is a bad thing and in this situation this love for their land and all of us this care we have for the lands of our nations are places that we should take care of them and that's a pretty universal idea everybody carol should care for your land i mean i don't i did see like the camp unredacted tonight talking about burying plastics maybe who knows maybe i should bob's like a big. you know. his big break are going to miss my toast for good to let us know what you think of the bastards would cover the vote for the better see our poll shows that our state dot com coming up

we talk about drones a fair war on terror the teaching of history. and the teaching of history would also speak really better of me sure some stay to watch. with this manufactured sentenced to the public will. when the right wing closest project themselves. with the flaming. lips and be the woman. in the middle of the room sick.

people criticize us or they question us and they want to know why we're not more critical of russia the real question is how come we're not shooting russia's horn more because they are been genius during this crisis but that would be i think a little bit you know over the top to simply point out all the good things they're constantly doing so we just try to take a more balanced middle of the road approach that's you know the fact is that they're making all these other economies look stupid by comparison. this week we celebrated the war that threw off the shackles of english rule but many in military service wish we spent

a little more time searching for truth rather than celebrating the destruction earlier we spoke with west point graduate an instructor speaker and author of ghost writers a baghdad soldier civilians in the meth of the surge major danny certain about the war on terror and the future and our past. thank you so much for coming on today and i know that you want to preface this by saying that you're not here speaking for the u.s. military this is your own views your own opinions and all of that and so that's exactly what i want to get with this first question is is your west point graduate your your soldier suv numbers too is a dirty duty you're a writer you're speaker what do you think the most important thing americans and even the world needs to know about the u.s. war on terror i think the most important things to keep in mind is that it's been an ongoing war for seventeen years that is unprecedented in american history. fifteen sixteen year old kids are going to be joining the military in

a year or two who were born after nine eleven so when we talk about the war on terror which is really a misnomer i mean how do you fight a war against a tactic terrorism is a tactic but what it really has been in my opinion is a war for basic many in the middle east some of it may be backed up by humanitarian impulses i don't suspect that the government necessarily fights just for oil or whatever the difference here is there is i think there's a lot of money interests who. are in the business of keeping these wars going and the american people quite frankly are disjointed from it there is no longer a draft this is a war fought by professional soldiers professional volunteers who do tour after tour after tour while the american people go to the mall which is what george bush told them to do go to disneyland check out the mall we don't pay taxes we don't increase our taxes for the war and put all the credit card and and we don't ask the people to really serve in any sense so the war on terror as far as i see it is potentially perpetual there's no end in sight and you and you served directly in

the war on terror from nine eleven on that's why i went to west point on july second of two thousand and one i thought that what i could expect was maybe a tour of kosovo maybe a little time in bosnia get to go to germany i never expected to say. in a war we haven't fought very many wars since vietnam at least not long wars the towers came down in september i was in new york or i was certainly emotionally invested in in that attack and i was excited about going to the war quite frankly i was afraid that the war would end like many of us were before i could serve and then i served and then i saw what this was really about and what it appears to be is endless. and yes i served in reconnaissance units mostly calvary scout units in iraq in two thousand and six and seven and then in afghanistan in two thousand and eleven twelve in fact both of the times i served were the surges i was in bush's surge in iraq and then obama's surge in afghanistan which i would argue in my book

argues neither of which were effective while at the numbers in another part in your writing is that you sir you said you served in iraq and what you've talked about a little bit your writing is this idea that the same people you were your mortal enemy is that you fought against those same groups are now being put into power in political political power in places like iraq you're essentially saying this whole thing come apart and in a piece you were wrote for truth to earlier this year you said fracture a society it seems that the most nefarious and well armed actors often rise to the top militia men criminal elements islamism sociopaths of various stripes. are there are let me ask you this are the ways the need of regime building worth yet so i'm of the opinion that they're not of the opinion that american regime change is actually destabilize the middle east and put many of those same nefarious and sometimes sociopathic actors in charge. this is what happens when

a revolution in that war civil wars on the east which is what happens when you topple the regime now suddenly there's no structure in charge of the society has to be rebuilt and of course the united states always wants to rebuild it in our own image or which it doesn't work what there are so many unintended consequences of regime change it's almost it's almost difficult to predict anything and so what we saw was taught all solder in the recent allowed to iraqi elections he got the majority or he got the plurality his party did a vote and i taught all solder was a militiamen who armed financed and led militia that killed about a thousand american soldiers including two of my own soldiers on generates we have to twenty fifth two thousand and seven so does that mean that solder doesn't have any right to be involved in politics i'm not saying that he's a nationalist obviously but what it shows you is. america does not control the outcome once we destabilize a society and there are more unintended consequences than there are intended ones and i would even say that if you look at history too and you see revolutions

throughout history usually the ones that actually hold that actually do the most good in the long run for any country in the world are the ones that happen internally without the real help of outside it wasn't another country coming in toppling the government and then said here run with it you know what we've done is usually something that happens internally maybe a little bit of help or support from other entities but other than that that change takes place there in that you know in history is one of the most important elements i think of of a society is the teaching of history the learning of history so you can make better informed decisions in the future yet it seems that we aren't even considering the sins of the past as our politicians planned years decades of war and you know now pointing us and direction and possibly war with iran or north korea what historical lesson do you think needs to be read taught or really learned or taught the first time before we step into another conflict i think we have to be honest about the some successes and mostly failures of our recent wars in iraq and afghanistan and

you know it's not just iraq and afghanistan while president obama was present this is not a partisan issue we were bombing six or eight countries and we're talking about libya we're talking about somalia yemen. these wars aren't really even talked about by most people i mean there was this great photo of a press conference the department of the pentagon was giving about the war in afghanistan and our new strategy we thought about twelve new strategies and there was this great shot this for reporters in the room and about fifty empty seats and so i think until we learn and teach the kind of messy history of the war in afghanistan in iraq we are apt to repeat it whether it's in iran whether it's in west africa american soldiers are dying in countries americans can't pronounce they can't find on a map and part of the problem and part of the reason for that is they're not really educated on this and nor do they need to be educated because they don't have to serve unless they choose to now of course sometimes there is

a back door draft that it's economic theories that mean a lot of people join our military from the lower strata especially rural areas but the average american is untouched by the war on terror we need to be taught in schools we have honest conversations like this and be unafraid to be critical i love the united states of america i'd love the united states army but someone has to speak and give their opinion and be critical and take a hard look at these wars as the greatest form protrudes islam is is you know question you you know question you know i'm being critical of your government and that brings me to another thing about you know being in the military and how the public sort of perceives that and how it gets used against them if it's a way to put it it's hard for people to love the military when they hate war that's always the commander being anti-war but loving the military soldiers and some people have a real problem with that when things like the n.f.l. kneeling arise and there is this idea that the military is being used shoot shut

down a conversation that's about something else or this idea that the military is a monolith that you all and honestly as a as a feminist i get that same think it's like well you all do that so you know you all must be offended by this by this kneeling. why is it important that we don't drag our servicemen and women into into political social debates like the n.f.l. kneeling controversy which had nothing to do with the military and in no way was meant as a slight in any way to the military why is it important to keep things what we've found is that soldiers have become political pawns for all parties democrats republicans all different constituencies we we're not meant to be tools in every debate and we're also not meant to be political shields and that's how we're used because if people wrap themselves in the flag or they wrap themselves around the soldiers then they must be correct and we actually put soldiers on a pedestal that i think is inappropriate and if you look at polls from you know any

one of the last twenty years the congress low low approval presidency low approval supreme court no one has any faith in any public institutions except soldiers but that's damaging for a republic i'm not saying we should respect soldiers of course we should but we can't hide behind those soldiers and we can't use them as political pawns so often they're used in that way if you choose to neal because you think that you know there is still racism in america and police brutality that has nothing to do with soldiers saying that those kneeling n.f.l. players are somehow dishonoring need or dishonoring my soldiers who lived and some who died it's ludicrous it's intellectually dishonest and i think it's really damaging for an ostensible republic let me ask you this. while you were a soldier serving in those tours and survived to two thousand and twelve to you know what it what is it like from the inside looking out like how much of. you know

whether it be those protesting the wars or you know the controversy surrounding the different presidents and why that i mean does that politics filter into you know the groups of guys in there and lead you or is it a bubble that you just you know you don't get. exposed to i mean it's almost impossible to keep the the noise out the political noise when i was in iraq that was the exact period when the democrats won a landslide mid-term election there was a lot of debate about the surge we all got extended for three extra months. most soldiers really it's a platitude but they fight for each other most soldiers are actually not all that political much more outspoken to political than most officers or soldiers but they do have questions like i had soldiers asking me and i was a twenty three year old lieutenant what did i know they were saying how come we have to serve three more months how can we have to stay here for fifteen months why isn't there a draft why aren't we asking more the american people is this iraqi government even worth our time and energy because they don't appear to have much of it was he so

yeah as an officer especially field those questions for the most part the soldiers are incredibly professional they do their duty they really don't even question their duty because they have to do it it's just part of the day to day but there are some tough questions it is i will tell you this for me a turning point in my life that got me into writing they got me to speaking was the moment that i felt i couldn't look a mother in the eye or a widow in an eye in the end explain precisely what her son loved one husband died for had to have that conversation way too many times it's damaging for me personally and i think when you stop having a ready answer for that it's time to speak out it's time to think this one be honest critic of what's going on for the sake of the country. thank you so much thank you so much for talking to us about this today and really helping i think people to understand that you know soldiers are not all of this you know call

of duty mind theories and they're not you know political they do all that they're real people and that how we do things politically and facts soldiers. men and women on the battlefield not something like that's you you fight for that freedom so that so that we can help fight for you and i'm happy to be there to talk about it because that's the tool that i have left is to is to try to highlight the service of my guys and also asked a quick tough questions because the best way to honor veterans and as a lesson i say let's create less of them perverts looking for dancer thank you so much for coming on thank you very much was a pleasure. this week oct watchers we lost we here at r t and r t america lost our colleague and friend ed schultz ed was the consummate journalist and newsman he he fought for and reported the news for the working men and women both here in the united states and around the world it was an honor to

work with that he was always quick to offer advice on the many challenges one faces in this business and he never betrayed his integrity and moral character in the course of working at a job he truly loved with all of his heart and soul we truly have lost a great great journalist this week and had the heart of a true midwesterner stoic and rational but full of love for those less fortunate he cared about those people who are easily forgotten the workers the underdogs he fought for the middle and spoke up when things were wrong without a care in the world of how he was perceived he showed us all the strength it takes to be an ethical journalist at pushed us always to be better than the best in the business he was a true patriot a soldier for the working class and fairly example of what it means to truly give voice to the voiceless. remember everyone in this world we are not told we are loved enough so i tell you all. i love you i am tyrrel them to and on top of

us keep on watching those hawks and our great three and. four men are sitting in a car when the flips get shot in the head. all four different versions of what. one of them is on the death row there's no way you could have done it there's no possible way because the list did not shoot around a corner. fourteen

people are killed in an airstrike in the province of afghanistan. investigative journalist group redfish shines a light on germany's arms trade claiming that not everything is above board. the white house threatens to revoke the security clearance of former intelligence chiefs of openly criticized donald trump. well for the latest on these stories you can head to our team dot com coming up though the director of a new t.v. show about british jihadi converts is the gas so fiasco.