the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. the taleban sent a clear message to donald trump an exclusive interview with. the u.s. president to rethink his decision to call off peace talks. despite moving u.s. oil exports a top democrat a few night in calling for a ban on fracking but find themselves accused of playing into this time. and the classic children's t.v. character gets fired from his job over time. those are your headlines this hour you can always read more on your comments. don't go anywhere yet though because the big picture.

in this week's show is family boeing 737 crash victims meet with the u.s. transportation secretary max remains grounded but for how long but 1st afghanistan our biggest longest war is there a success outcome in the meantime what's the real cost home and cook in washington this is the big picture on our t. america. afghans are now ready to fight against the soviets if they get weapons they say they will win what is u.s. strategy in afghanistan no strictly speaking we don't have one but we were going around that would mean 3 of the guys here bill is in money the sudden influx of

modern weaponry would draw attention drawn attention in charlie wilson's war tom hanks plays the flamboyant texas congressman who found the funds to arm the afghan resistance that drove the soviets out getting them out was one thing getting us out is another. after failed talks about having talks at camp david with the taliban americans longest ever war drags on 8 teen years later why let's ask former u.s. marine and pentagon and state department official matthew hoh now a senior fellow with the center for international policy he was part of the iraqi occupation and resigned from the government over the escalation of the war in afghanistan when his critical resignation letter was published he was shunned by official washington now he's trying to help other whistleblowers send us a certified peer support specialist for mental health and substance abuse disorder he's helping veterans to matthew welcome talk about your personal struggle i

holland thank you for having me on well my struggle is not that much different than . other veterans whether have been veterans of this war veterans of the vietnam war veterans of world wars it's really the same for veterans of any conflict throughout history. you're inundated with p.t.s.d. you have issues with depression you have issues with substance abuse what's different for i think my generation of veterans is that many of us have. traumatic brain injury which results from surviving lots of attacks that previous generations of veterans wouldn't have survived were we ride around in vehicles that can survive hits from 102-0300 pound bombs things that would have killed men and women in previous conflicts in this conflicts we tend to dust ourselves off go go forward but years later brain injuries start to appear

because of those. of those those events that we survived so my story is very similar to what many other men and women are going through right now and have gone through it's also no similar it's also no different than to for the afghans or for the iraq ease or for the libyans or the syrians people who are beset by these wars in many ways of course it's much worse for them because the wars are taking place in their countries but there are also too just to say the vietnamese have been afflicted with issues of leftover explosives in agent orange the same occurs for the iraqis and for the afghans and for the syrians the iraqis for example have maison lehi incidents of birth defects and deaths that birth due to chemicals leftover from our occupation so we see the flag draped caskets and count the bodies of fallen american troops seems to be just scratching the surface because

the folks who do make it home alive and as you mentioned the folks on the other side are really walking time bombs aren't they oh absolutely and so for those who make it home. according to the u.s. department of veterans affairs numbers about 2 iraq it afghan veterans kill themselves every day which as you do the math of that you realize well that's you know more than $700.00 a year which makes it come close to since the start of these wars we've had between $910000.00 vets. and kill themselves from these wars as well as we know the incidence of suicide rates for previous generations of veterans for example if you're a world war 2 veteran you have a your rate of suicide or potential for suicide is 4 times greater then men and women who are your age who didn't serve him war and then as you just said for those who are in these wars the civilians the people who are the suffering is immense and

it doesn't let go it doesn't stop with time. true or false we are fighting in vain here against the scourge of drugs here at home in the usa meantime we're in cahoots with the drug figure you have described as a tony soprano like figure talk about that and tell us what else we're not being told about what we're doing in afghanistan well the united states has had a long history all empires have with. illicit activities i mean certainly you look at the british empire and the opium wars in the 19th century that's for people who've been following issues in hong kong that's how britain comes to take control of hong kong but the united states vast amounts of wealth were made me united states from the china tree which was opium trade many key american families the forbes the kennedys the roosevelts the kerry's.

got their money from being involved in drug activity in china that extends now throughout the rest of of american history you certainly know the issues with the united states military and the cia with drugs in the vietnam war and you have the same issues in afghanistan where as the united states is complicit with the drug lords the largest drug lords i worked with man and again a stand called goal sherzai who was a tony soprano alike. figure and he controlled vast amounts of poppy fields any had not just the afghan police and army at his disposal to eliminate his competitors he had the united states army and its commandos in the united states marines as well as da to take on his competitors so we've heard often that the taliban had all are involved with the drug trade and that's true but the mortar bigger issue is that

the afghan government controls most of the drug treuer in afghanistan matthew hoh thank you for your service and your conscience and your time here on the big picture thanks i want to now let's bring in our tea defense expert longtime pentagon official michael maloof why can't we just leave afghanistan well one time we probably probably could have if we worked with folks in the region however we cannot now more so now than ever because. and isis have basically moved back in not to mention the taliban which has taken over about 50 percent of the country added to that is if we did leave just picked up and left the place would fall back into a civil war because you have tribes that are going to be fighting among and you have the rise once again of the northern alliance which we supported against the taleban sure and we had the we had defeated the taliban and then we shifted focus to iraq back in 2003 that's when we lost it. a couple of minutes ago we showed

a clip from the beginning of that movie charlie wilson's war and at the end it really looks like we dropped the ball because this guy scrounged up billions of dollars you know stinger missiles and all the other hardware and then he couldn't get a couple of 1000000 to build schools and hospitals in the beneficence bin ladin family both incorrect well that was part of it but afghanistan was his base and you had the saudis visiting him pleading with him not to attack so any arabia because the united states by then was occupying saudi arabia in preparation to go into iraq while afghanistan dragging on for so long so validate this deep state caricature we hear about from president trump's apologists how has this war survived presidents from both parties because we haven't had a policy approach we haven't included other countries the key to this problem right now i believe is pakistan pakistan created the afghan taliban they can control them

but pakistan has its own designs on afghanistan but we need our rig the regional players to come together now the russians have been trying to do that they have a standing working group and as a consequence they have invited the united states but the united states doesn't go in and talk to him because we don't like the russians we don't like the chinese we don't want to talk to the iranians but they're there in the neighborhood and as a consequence nothing's going to get done and this is allowing practice it's allowing the the taliban to flourish more and more and every day we're seeing it time and time again their ability to go in and hit and hit that government which was installed by the us it'll go away tomorrow if we leave sadly war is good for business how much of our continued presence there is about the military industrial complex eisenhower warned against well it's become a symbiotic relationship we're seeing that constantly in

a. to justify such massive fixed expenditures you have to create the crisis and in order to create the crazy go out and you have to go and create the war that's the only way we can justify that terrible expense and rather than rechannel that those funds in other directions like infrastructure construction or reconstruction this is what we should be doing but we've developed a reputation for going out and bombing rather than building so spend to be the good guys and so they're spending to be the bad guys but it's not it's not lucrative for a lot of cities and companies and consequently it's not sexy enough and i want to build roads i want to build bomb bombs absolutely wellman how about this on and off camp david foley and john bolton's exit how must the usa look to other nations friends and foes alike let alone the taliban well i don't think it

was a very popular proposal busy they came up with the united states came up with with the u.s. ambassador who helped negotiate it there was no guarantee that the taliban could give us to insure against al qaeda or isis from using afghanistan as a base they also were still refusing their reneging and wanted to talk to the u.s. installed government it was really a nonstarter trump i think was just looking for a way out of it and i think he was right but the reality on the ground today is we cannot leave in fact i wouldn't doubt that we actually increased troops as well as private military contractors going in there and and maintain that presence at one time that might have been possible but no longer if there is such a thing and the way you are talking there may not be but if there is such a thing describe us success in afghanistan. the u.s. success has been to blunt the. force of the taleban and that

shari'ah influences at one time when we had them out. afghanistan began to flourish again now a lot of countries in the neighborhood have would like to invest in afghanistan develop its resources because its resource rich why can't we get something go and have a us an issue to have to do that and steer away more and more from the from the military approach and ok talk to the taliban but again they're fractured some of them are joint isis some of them are going to fight with other tribes other clans i mean we there needs to be a stabilizing force right now it's not there can't just convene a meeting you know michael maloof thank you for stepping into the big picture thank you coming up next month it will be years since that 1st $737.00 max crash and the fleet remains grounded well that ground your holiday travel plans this is

the big picture on r.t. america. there are growing indications the west's anti russia's stance may be softening a case in point is the recent visit of france's top diplomat and defense minister or take for example the new york times editorial calling on trump to better relations with the kremlin as a way to block china an important question remains can moscow trust the west. with this manufactured consensus to public wealth. when the

really close. says protect themselves. with the famous merry go round if the one percent. we can all middle of the room say. a total of 346 people died when lie in the air flight 610 went down in october and in that ethiopian airlines crash this past march it took until may but president trump eventually ordered the $737.00 max grounded while the federal aviation agency figures out what went wrong 6 months to the day after that march crash victim's

family members met with u.s. transportation secretary elaine chao here in washington they told the media that while child valid matts would not fly again until they were certain it was safe they say she stopped short of committing to let various investigations play out for as he was recently sworn into office federal aviation administrator stephen dixon was more committal vowing that this plane will not fly in commercial service until i am completely assured that it is safe to do so f.a.a. is following no timeline in returning the aircraft to service rather we are going where the facts lead us and diligently ensuring that all technology and training is present and correct before the plane returns to passenger service although max only represents 5 percent of its fleet southwest airlines flies more of them than any

other carrier and after earlier. moving match from the schedule through november 5 they have now extended to january 5 but that is shallow consolation to those families who lost loved ones in those crashes can you imagine how they feel our next guest can jamie finch is former director for office of government public and family affairs at the national transportation safety board jamie a former title says that all too often when we hear national transportation safety board in the news it's after real bad news and after seeing those families go through what they go through it must be so frustrating if you have seen this coming boeing has a reputation for hubris here in washington well earned and well funded correct that is correct having a boeing is an 800 pound gorilla if you will in this town and has been lobbying the lawyering up since these crashes of occurred and these ongoing the ongoing

investigation is happening what has been the most disconcerting but concerning for me and many other people about this has been the fact that they have been pointing their fingers at other people all the time and constantly rather than kind of doing a more of a self analysis and being quiet while the investigation is going on and taking process well to that point jamie too often when things go wrong it's because the government let the fox guard the henhouse is boeing one of these companies that runs amok with self inspection and other authority well the entire process where the. self-serving cation was allowed by the f.a.a. was always very tenuous and in this particular situation the public trust in this in this type of dynamic was broken it was always very very delicate. both sides both the government and the public sector had a private sector had to be very very careful and honest and forthright as they went

through this sort of occasion process because the f.a.a. frankly does not have the wherewithal the financial means and technical expertise to be able to keep up with the technology like bowling or some of the other aviation manufacturers what the problem what this situation has caused not just a problem for boeing it's caused a problem for the entire aviation industry which has been allowed to sell certify these types of new types of equipment and new new pieces that they're designing and as caused a big rift within the industry itself at boeing because they're very they're very frustrated with boeing angry with boeing because they are actually putting their own self sort of occasion process in jeopardy and the government is just too small and the industry is just too big for the oversight it requires rect that's correct while politicians love to rail against big government and candidate trump promised

to cut 2 regulations for every new one is the airline industry in general under regulated. no i would say that the in general the aviation industry is one of the most regulated industries as well as should you're when you're flying people at 35000 feet in the air at 500 plus miles per hour to their destinations which is become commonplace but obviously when you start looking at that's what you're doing you need to be extremely regulate the you would not what you would not like corporations to start cutting corners to in safety and so that's why regulations are so important now you went out with the industry it was boeing this this this selzer vacation they has has put all of that question jamie you're one. of the few people i know who flies as much as i do when max flies again would you

fly on one well one stay what's the planes have been completely sort of both here in the u.s. and also tested in by the europeans and also the indians and other authorities around the world they're saying that they also want to do their own certification i think that will be fine boeing is a excellent company i would be very clear they have always been an excellent company there with the flagship companies of the united states they have run into some hiccups with this one particular design and they're going to have to to to hash this out and find out why this this problem existed for them in the leadership because this cascades down this doesn't stop in the shop the start of the shop floor this starts at the top dale and we'll see how this all plays out thank you former n.t.s.b. official jamie fancher well for the cockpit perspective let's bring in john jordan a pilot who has logged over 10000 hours up there he's an f.a.a.

certified flight instructor and john as a flight instructor are you horrified that boeing reckons pilots can learn the m caste system and other 737 max how to one i pads. you know i'm not so much of the actual training is done in the simulator for some of these subsystems and for some of the act academic portions in the old days it was done with books now it's done with i pads the m. cast system in terms of what pilots need to know to be safe is fairly simple and is this is a supplement to their regular sim a simulator training just specifically with regard to the m. cas so i don't think it's it's certainly not out of the ordinary we think of the sim as a video game but it's pretty serious stuff and years ago i met a nasa astronaut and event here in washington and i asked him what was your biggest surprise up there and without hesitation he answered how few surprises there were

because in his words the simulator was that good how challenging are the curve balls that the airlines throw at pilots during these periodic simulator times. why i have to go in the simulator too for my airplanes that i fly and the simulators are great teaching tools because they can do things you can do things in them that are unsafe in a real airplane that are truly dangerous and if a pilot messes up it can be frozen and backed up and discussed so it's a far far better teaching school now for airlines across the world as well as corporate jets entire certification for captains can happen in a simulator and when you're sitting in there it is really hard to tell that you are not in a real airplane it's that realistic but as a teaching tool allows you to do some really really dangerous things and complicated things and freeze it and back it up that you couldn't do in a real airplane so literally the 1st time a captain flies type could be the 1st time he's flown the type other than that he

just checked out in the cinema. it could be that way it's certainly legal to do it that way i've done it and it was the same experience that you just talked to a few surprises there were and how easy the real airplane is now the training. curriculum to answer question the trailing curriculum has to for recurrent and initial training is very realistic it's the it's the product of decades of experience in numerous accidents and different incidents being incorporated news curricula i think that the f.a.a. wants to go and should go continue to go further in the direction of having it be more scenario based and in terms of different accidents and more realistic terms of heightening pilots decision making rather than just ensuring that they have in a very predictable way these very very high end sharp skills in certain emergency situations so i think it needs to be supplemented with some decision making exercises or airplanes to automated now. they can it depends on the manufacturer air bus for example that big accident of the air of air france 447 in

off of brazil happened because they had gone away from the traditional yokes type steering wheel where one pilot moved in the other pilot side to the side sticks where either it could be moved independently and was off to the side and so one pilot couldn't see what the other one was doing and there was no tactile feedback and so that was a case of automation taking a perfectly good airplane in this case airbus from altitude all the way in the ocean and killing a whole bunch of people pilots have to be trained to fly airplanes one of the unfortunate things moderately is pilots don't actually use their stick and rudder skills as much as they should so some of those skills fall into disrepair disarray so in repeated emphasis on hand flying an airplane that disregarding the automation would also be a benefit to the flying public the pilots aboard that ill fated the ethiopian played it came out afterwards who are reportedly really inexperienced do we need to wonder if cruise flying domestic usa flights or green or if they're unfamiliar with

the hardware and software updates. well the in the united states we are still very much the gold standard of aviation training both the pilots flying every airliner. as in the united states a lot of them are x. military even the 1st officers and the hours requirements of the training requirements are very very stringent in this country now when you get to some other countries to some lower budget airlines that aren't subjected to the u.s. regulatory scheme and to the u.s. legal requirement for these companies have to be insured in their fear of lawyers and all that which even heightens the standards in this country sometimes you can get like what happened in ethiopian indonesia you know pilots with only a few 100 hours where in this country that would just be unthinkable even to be a copilot on a small corporate jet got less than a minute but i must ask the short version i know you have a story i've seen the movie sully at least 4 times what is the scariest thing that

ever happened to you up there. well the scariest thing to me and i think any flight instructor would agree with this is when you're teaching people to fly especially in some of the intermediate stages if they've learned a little bit to be dangerous and you're teaching them take offs and landings and crosswords. you know you never underestimate a human's ability to try to kill you even in a voice watch so basically all of my scary times has been teaching that dancing crab in the cross wind always gets me john jordan thank you for stepping into the big picture. and thank you for watching the big picture if you see us somewhere else you can now also find r.t. america live at youtube dot com slash r t america and on directv we are channel 321 we're live on the super cool pluto t.v. app they moved us to channel 279 and dish we're 280 and all of our shows are available any time anywhere on any device at youtube dot com slash the big picture

r.t. i'm holland cook in washington at holland cook on twitter where if you follow me i'll follow you question more or. a. little. little. little. little. little.

little. little little little. little.

and very well might continue what. yes it's the kaiser report i'm out of kaiser this is our last show in paris then we go on to other countries almost all excited you know that you've heard about it we're going to talk about it and go talk about the french economy yup they have one here. yes well in fact this is black september that is what they are promising there are also many people out there who say well nobody.