state of the nation address president putin reveals russia has successfully tested a nuclear powered underwater drone also in the president's speech. when all u.s. partners have to be honest and straightforward with russia does not pose a threat to anyone or any actions we take or retaliate sharee that is to say in defense. stresses that russia doesn't pose a threat but can defend itself if necessary he also reiterated that washington must be honest with moscow and not use trumped up accusations. former acting director of the f.b.i. claimed to have lied under oath in the past is used in the media as

a credible source alleging that slew of incendiary claims against. the sensitive deal kept under wraps house democrats in the u.s. launch an investigation into alleged secret plans the white house is ready to transfer nuclear power technology to saudi arabia. the latest stories do you have over to r.t. dot com now though the democrats hoping to take trump the next. hello and welcome the cross all things considered i'm peter lavelle is america ready for a real anti-war candidate clearly the political establish. and media aren't

criticism of presidential candidates and anyone else who questions foreign policy orthodoxies is swift and unrelenting fighting for peace has never been so difficult . crosstalk in the politics of anti-war i'm joined by my guest daniel for watching in washington he's the c.e.o. of grassroots political consulting also in washington we have thomas polling he is a new planet economist and author and in percival we cross to phil drove he's a former cia counterterrorism specials who is now executive director of the counsel for the national interest all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate philip let me go to you first and personal. against it took the advent of the election of donald trump for the neo cons to invade both major political parties and basically capture of the

media because saying anything against war or foreign interventions forced regime change it's almost turned in to criminalize speech anyone that stands up and you know we had these people in two thousand and three saying it would be a walk in the park in iraq we all thought they were discredited but they're back with a vengeance almost like a stranglehold and it does concern me very much that there's a chilling effect on expressing your first first amendment rights go ahead philip. you know i absolutely have to agree with you i mean this is just. the atmosphere is very reminiscent of two thousand and one through two thousand and three just after nine eleven. the media is completely onboard those. coverage of what's going on in venezuela it's a disgrace and there are numerous indications particularly coming out of the recent warsaw conference that the united states is gathering together its.

fury mating allies to move to a military option against iran so this is it's pervasive the media is not questioning any of the premises that this war talk is based on and the. republican democratic party are basically onboard of it too so it's frightening and that's why it's interesting to see some antiwar talk actually emerging let me go to thomas in washington i mean when when donald trump announced that the u.s. troops would be withdrawing from from syria i was even i was astounded on how the media took charge and they looked for public figures to back up their narrative that trump is giving a. christmas present to putin discrediting america's position in the middle east abandoning the kurds abandoning israel here i mean this is exactly what donald trump i tried to address articulate during the campaign coming

through and he's. keeping up with his promises here i have plenty of criticisms of his foreign policy but i agree with that the war in afghanistan is a failure it's time to bring troops home every single. clear thinking person that knows anything about afghanistan knows that here but the media because it's donald trump they just want to do the opposite is that my correct in saying that. everything you say is correct and it is. truly crazy that donald trump should be the fulcrum of all that is going on that he that he should be the person who is kind of one third right on these issues and that he should be the person who somehow manages to surface the reality of the washington establishment you've got to realize the neo cons of actually been in power now for twenty twenty five years . and people need to understand what neo con mean to towards throwing around the people that it means that never again will there be

a country like the former soviet union that can challenge the united states anywhere if that's the definition i work with and it is a it's a frightening thing because it the united states now thinks that it can show up on any anywhere in the world the south china sea the ukraine border. anywhere i want to place troops and change things it's doing that right now in venezuela it wants to get its hands on the oil there and it's been put under sanctions now for ten years and now blames the collapse of the enemy on the duro and then the media goes along with that and reports none of these stories and of course more than that it's also deeply embedded in the democratic party this is something that we're that has been camouflaged and we're in denial about the democrats a lot of them voted for the iraq war they were on board for the libyan regime change they were on board for the and it illegal entry into the syrian civil war we've got they've the democrats have supported the military that has eight hundred

bases around the world in over seventy countries and none of this gets reported or talked about or what it says about ourselves and it's strange that donald trump should be the person. who is catalyzing some or some recognition of this you know it's very interesting daniel we if we could catalog for hours on this program the the catastrophes that these neo cons have brought upon the world and cost the american taxpayer it's almost impossible even to imagine the amounts of money that have been. wasted but you know they've all been failures i tend to think you know if you kind of look at the past it isn't kind of a guide to the future their plans will fail again but they might but see there's a kicker to this one year they'll fail under trump's administration so you have the double whammy right there ok you want to undermine the president's foreign policy by doing the opposite and by promoting those programs those ideas they can play fail and he has to take ownership of it good analysis or not daniel.

i'd say this is a bit of a systemic problem since the carter administration and the green belt concept that he and brigid skee came up with but we have i'd say on this topic a systemic problem as well as a generational divide so it's part positive and negative this ystem a problem is our system was never set up for members of congress to be able to promote legislation in favor of neocon ideology and the defense apparatus in order to get not just contributions but a future lobbying job or a defense contractor that is the heart and soul of the problem of why this is promulgated to the eight hundred bases in seventy countries and allowing every president to have their war and over the last twenty years completely disregarding the war powers act and allowing even the current conflict from afghanistan to syria

to wherever else to be based upon a seventeen year old war on terror declaration declaration of war against the country so that's the systemic issue now i'd say for the electorate and for at least some semblance of anti-war talk to be able to. the head in this country the baby boomer generation that is more neo-con and will put on those yellow ribbons and raise the flag any time we have tech brown people. thank goodness they are becoming more marginalized to about thirty six to forty percent of the electorate whereas the largest voting bloc the millennial olds this is the positive side of the equation are much more on told see gabbert side yeah and so i think over it's going to take a while but over the course of years we will get there to where all of this is come into question and i believe there will be positive changes but in the meantime

president try to be establishment on both sides continue to play to the voters that they expect to show up being the baby boomer neo-con generation both sides of the aisle and this will just continue as well as that will that we have and will couple talk about the generational change in a in a minute i wanna go back to philip here another perversity in all of this is the congressional move to. the united states withdraw its efforts in supporting the torture of genocidal war on on yemen but a lot of people are in congress are doing that to actually make. a veto which i mean they're playing with this. country's fate here for for petty petty petty politics at home i mean the you know the magnitude of that catastrophe is completely most completely unknown on the american public but for members of congress it's just a it's a political ploy go ahead. you know i agree with you i mean this is essentially

characteristic of how the democrats are playing their game against donald trump they essentially are are saying that we are opposing donald trump's policy in support of saudi arabia for good humanistic reasons but of course that's not the case at all they could care less about that as they have evidence in syria and in libya and in terms of their public ozzy towards iran so they don't care about that they're just scoring against prom in hopes that this will embarrass him and so we see this playing out constantly and the fact is that what's lost in the in the game here is what is the interest or what are the interests of the american people the american people opinion polls seem to indicate they are tired of the constant wars that have gone on for the past eight years but. gabbert circus three said recently they didn't have anybody who was kind of

a spokesman for that and of course there are very powerful and well financed interests who believe that continuing with the war economy and with the war policy is very much their interest you know thomas thing about tel c.m.e. it's just been a jump in genting go ahead. well peter i think we got a short term and a structural long term problem the short term problem is how trump plays into this the neo cons of got both sides of the table covered so right now the democrats want to get rid of trump and they want to make trump the issue they get rid of him and then we finesse having a debate about the real issue which is our war our permanent war setting we finesse having a debate about globalization we make trump the issue and then the policies continue in the next presidency that's the short term problem now the long term problem is i think some of the other participants have already alluded to is the basic structure

of our politics which is money money money that way. congress cannot stand up to the money of the wall lobby on the health lobby and the many other lobbies that are out there because you need money to win if you go in and if you have so you have an incentive to take it and if you say no to them they promise to obliterate you by funding an opponent of yours and then you dig deeper into our system you've got all these fake think tanks you know the the atlantic council the german marshall fund they're putting out fake policy analysis fake national security analysis that then gets picked up by the media that treats these people as authentic you know ok i'm going to jump in here i'm going to jump in here but i am not i don't i've been on the receiving end of those people ok we're going to go to a short break gentlemen after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the politics of anti-war say with our.

students we came here where you were before you came here. death row in many us states capital punishment is still practiced convicted prisoners can spend years waiting for execution and most of the time of the victims' families they are very. but you figure that there are some people because of what they do have given up their rights as. somebody even proven innocent doctor years on death row. ratios is it going to take before we as a society realize that this is not working and we actually do something about. what politicians do. put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want. to go right to due

process this is what the three of the four people. interested in the war. welcome back across the uk were all things considered i'm peter you're discussing the politics of anti-war. ok let me go back to daniel and watch and you know one of the interesting i really like what you brought up about the. think about foreign policy and i think you're spot on their own there's some very interesting research out comparing. three generations and you know the boomers and the what i guess they're called the z's in and the millennial is and you know it when we look back at the two thousand and sixteen sixteen election the media was completely blindsided by the support that

donald trump had because well they have their values and that's what they talk about and they talk to themselves in their own group think and it seems to me that this is happening again we have. a political establishment that is completely invested in the war and the war machine and. and an interventionist foreign policy the media loves to go along with it you know a love war i mean it is such a great for their bottom line and all those beautiful missiles that was one of the worst moments in television history in my opinion but it's happening again and i and i think that this is you're seeing such a disconnect here with public opinion and if you don't ask them the right question you're not going to get the right answer or you'll just completely ignore it which i don't put past them here i think there's a growing tension here and i think this is where tulsi really taps into it though i think should be obliterated even before the primaries i mean the attacks on her are unbelievable she has flaws in my mind but every person in every politician does but

i think someone that has that kind of appeal who should be given a platform and argue her case she was on m s m b c and she was plummeted but she wasn't destroyed ok she knows what she's talking about and she showed the people that were asking her questions that they don't go ahead daniel. the lack of respect for that one instance in and of itself is unbelievable from the corporate controlled media that's another systemic issue we have we're not supposed to have protected free speech from media that trades on the stock market and has lobbyists that can influence congress and vice versa that's a whole nother conversation but told sigebert wore the uniform served in iraq has the opinion of many many soldiers that i talked to that are generation x. on to the millennial generation that have served in the middle east whether it be syria afghanistan iraq or whatnot they have a lot of the same opinion except for they're not allowed to speak it out outside of

having a beer with them but told see represents that generation that apparatus that mentality she seen combat she's worn the uniform and that blatant disrespect and disregard for her opinion from that to being a member of congress who has traveled to these areas as a member of congress received intelligence briefings and is privy to a lot of information and that example alone speaks to the problem that we have from the media itself and you'll see her absolutely excoriated by her colleagues as well in her party as she was in two thousand and sixteen when she was just a member of congress and leadership of the party trying to ban the banners and allow some of that agenda that come out at that point she was removed basically forced to resign from being the vice chair of the party at that so you know the trend continues you know philip you worked at the cia you know i'm sure you would

keep up with current and former colleagues there and probably no military personnel as well i mean when they look at her candidates see and i'm not three months support behind her i'm throwing support behind some of her words that i think need definitely to be heard and do certainly resonate with the. a lot of people that's why she's controversial that's why they pile on her because they want to stifle it and all of what we've been talking about is also an attack on the right to dissent and this is what i get i worry about every single day in touch on every single program i make go ahead philip. you know one thing i would point out that nobody's mentioned up till now was that she was incredibly courageous when she made her personal trip to syria yet to meet with the leadership who has the situation on the ground that that gets her lots of points with the with the constituency you're referring to which is former intelligence officer who are military personnel who

were knowledgeable of what's going on in the middle east and in afghanistan and i don't know a single one of my former. classmates or former army colleagues who actually supports the current policies that the guy who was pushing and most of them are very very sympathetic to what tells the government stay so i think we're seeing a groundswell which the politicians are going to be the last ones to want to recognize and but if not momentum they might have to recognize it and certainly that is what i am hoping will develop out of this we need a discussion a nationwide discussion on america's role in the world and that has long overdue well thomas it seems to me that donald trump should be a little bit worried because we do have evidence in certain convention congressional districts that current serving military personnel and veterans found

a message of anti interventionism attractive in pa and possibly the reason why they voted for him he could lose that constituency with what philip said in an article recently a real anti-war candidate here what do you think about. that thomas in washington. well peter i'm really not so interested in trump and i think i think i'm going to lose a we're ok with that but all right well let it go ahead because let me come back to tell to let me go peter peter let me come back to tell but here she's a very interesting person yes i don't think she's got any chance of getting the nomination for a lot of reasons including the relative inexperience effect comes from a small state on the other hand winning isn't everything she could in fact be the most important candidate on the list to the extent that she gets the conversation changed now i think bernie sanders understands what's going on i don't think

elizabeth warren does iowa i read her foreign policy speech at american university and i don't think she gets it if gabbert shows that there are votes here then those folks will recalibrate and come on board and that then gets to the important where are those votes coming from well i think they're actually coming potentially across the sphere we've talked about the the minutemen there the old gen x. is there they're already they are no longer very happy with our economy the american dream is dead for them so that they can't be bought off in the way of the past then you move up the generations a bit and americans are kind people they don't want to kill people nor do they want to get killed and so they are a little confused gap it begins to unpack their confusion by beginning to make them understand as of one of the speakers that america's place in the world that's what it's about and that begins to tear through some of the propaganda that begins to tear through some of the military industrial complex issues and so i think he's a very important candidate potentially perhaps even the most important but i

couldn't agree with you more thomas and i'm glad you interrupted me that was very well said daniel one of the things that i really worry about when tulsi went to syria and had a meeting with assad i thought that was very courageous and i thought it was something that need to be done ok because american straight states. craft and diplomacy what happened to it it's gone it's missing in action here. daniel what i do worry about is the weaponization of all this is that if you talk to someone like assad in syria or you think there should be a dialogue with russia you are almost portraying your unpatriotic feelings you're a traitor treacherous behavior i mean it's gone it's gotten so weak stream that if you voice anything beyond the the mandated mainstream you are considered beyond the pale even to talk to that is not going to move the needle in the right direction for anyone go ahead daniel. yeah and that's where i talked about that hopeful

optimism of the uptick of involvement in the next election especially and we did see it in two thousand and eighteen from the millennial. showing up and turning out to vote because that is the only thing where a member of congress someone in the senate or a presidential candidate is going to really hear and feel that pressure and sent to me that that's the opposite of what they're playing to and pandering to the neo-con baby boomer generation that thirty six to forty percent of the base that really is the only thing that will break through their corruptive money that we discussed in the political process is when they feel that the voters could alice them then you'll have more conversations like should we continue to propagate the war in yemen should we continue in syria should we continue eighteen nineteen twenty more years in afghanistan and that it's really that public pressure that is the only

thing that's going to change this national conversation and hopefully we'll start to feel that and see that next year when the primary elections will come up on will we will see philip you know what another trend that is going on simultaneously is shutting down dissent on the internet knocking off websites that have. alternative news it can be either of the left or right speech is speech and we see this concerted effort the atlantic council has already been mentioned you know what there's an advisor to facebook could you imagine a worst advisor to have it i mean outsourcing. the right to express your opinion to people like that ok we're seeing it all over the place i know a lot of people in alternative media and they're being throttled that they're being disappeared and bush broad daylight there being be monetized and from what i understand from people that like to boast about their love of censorship this is

going to get more and more intense so we may not have that national conversation because the networks and legacy media certainly doesn't want to have a conversation go ahead philip you know that's absolutely correct i mean and the the interesting thing about it of course it's. it goes from left to right in political terms that people are being censored for offering alternatives explanations of what's going on. whether it's to the left until the right seems to make no difference it's a it's a bad trend there was a recent story about. that some some organizations some shattering organization was monitoring the internet discovered that the russians were very interested in tosi on what she was doing and b.s.a. recounted that n.b.c. reported that. recently and then it turned out that bill kristol and his gang organization called alliance for securing democracy is one of these new well what

is behind it so there's going to be a lot of this remember toastie has made as the centerpiece of her campaign the antiwar message and this is new this is new in american politics. since john mccarthy anyway but but i for one rare ok well i for one on this program and is going to keep on keep on this story here gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in washington and in person and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. you next time and remember crosstalk rules. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going

to do next the multiple different clips on one hand it is logical to sort of go from fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to suppressing and i saw what the experience. i'm going to talk about football not for you or else you can sink i was going to go. by the way what is it that slide here. but the thing the numbers. they've matter to us is over one trillion dollars in debt within ten white collar crime. eighty five percent of global wealth you long for the old firm grip. the six percent world market. should come with one hundred forty three for shipping

per second and if we rose to twenty thousand. china is building two point one billion dollars you don't. but don't let the numbers will be. the only number you need remembering the one you know who are going to miss one and only then but. there. are. no longer welcome two worlds apart there are so many damn mansions to the one in syria maybe it worthwhile to see it as not just one but many conflicts at once if

not the only reignited the dynamics of the original cold war beating russia against the united states but also fueled what some regional experts referred to as the arab world war and the draft yet on the relenting rivalry between iran and saudi arabia is serious still some of the balance of power in the region well to discuss that i'm now joined by iran desk director at the middle is the in-situ that i'm slim it's good to talk to you thank you very much for the child to be with you thank you now one of the most common words you use to describe the current american policy in the middle east is a profound it's about i can't even quote and they are it it starts with asked and answered show and before we discuss what drives your criticism of the trumpet ministration i wonder what warthe would you use to describe the policies of his predecessor look when it comes to the middle east.