from there locals have been told to stay indoors while the authorities assess the situation at the cause of this mushroom cloud over the city is not known at this stage any and all information on this we will of course bring it to you. well that is how much is this news stories are shaping up for now i'll be back with all your updates at the top of the hour more r.t. program so get there start right here and moments.

greetings and. you know you live long enough talk watchers and you'll realize that the age old adage the more things change the more things stay the same couldn't be more true especially when it comes to u.s. foreign policy you see while the faces and names of u.s. presidents may change the fact list excuses for our military adventurism drone assassinations and regime change wars do not recently we've seen u.s. president donald trump and his pack of political sycophants and administration officials scrambling over their words in an effort to convince us just how justified the president was in the assassination of the iranian military leader qassam solomonic words like imminent threat exquisite exquisite intelligence were thrown around all the political talk shows in fact president trump himself took to fox news on the ingraham angle. and brazenly declared that solo money was targeting our embassies saying quote we will tell you that probably it was going to be the

embassy in baghdad i can reveal that i believe it probably would have been for embassies for embassies not one not 2 but for under imminent threat of danger. except there's always an except the president wasn't exactly telling us the truth more like his opinion based on what i do have no concept or idea at this point check out this clip of defense secretary mark us on face the nation when pressed about president trump's for embassy assassination justification well the president didn't say when there was a tangible he didn't cite a specific piece of evidence what he says he probably he believes are you saying that it wasn't one i didn't see one with regard to 4 embassies what i'm saying is i share the president's view that probably my expectation was they're going to go after our embassies. probably maybe could. you see my friends whether it was

weapons of mass destruction assad's chemical weapons attack in duma or solmonese suppose that the imminent attack on our embassies the names and places may change but the lack of facts and star-spangled spin oh they remain the same which is why we are always watching the hawks. like you that i got. to. welcome on the watching the hawks tyrrel been through and joining me today to discuss the political spin behind the united states latest efforts to regime change war in iran is called good activist and author medea benjamin medea thank you as

always for coming on and 16 i think so in recent days we've heard a lot of justifications for the assassination of mr solomon and by administration officials and members of congress even have have any of these justifications provided a shred of evidence to back them up. well we hear the democrats saying they didn't hear it we hear when republicans like mike lee and rand paul saying they didn't hear it we hear the secretary of defense basically saying he didn't hear it this is b.s. absolutely b.s. there was no imminent threat and you know eminent means you know when it's going to happen you know where it's going to happen and this thing of the embassies is just made up we also know it's made up because trump had already authorized the killing so the money 7 months ago after the iranians downed a drone a drone meaning there was nobody on it so nobody got killed your any authorized it then so this is just part of trump's war on iran that started when he ripped up

that agreement when he imposed these sanctions and trump is lucky guy man that iran hasn't responded by attacking these 4 embassies or many other things that they had and you know trump said we have 52 targets including cultural sites i'm sure the iranians have many targets many many targets because they've been preparing for this for almost 2 years now but they didn't do that and trump instead of saying thank god they didn't kill any merican zz now let's sit back let's really you know i'm going to i'm going to show that i'm grateful and i'm going to start lifting some of these sanctions he did just the opposite he said now we're going to impose even more sanctions so slap slap slap again and again it is when you see that and i understand the wrongs kind of point of view they've been targeted by the u.s. for destruction for quite some time let's go back to 1983 exactly your view how's

the u.s. news media properly pushback against the spin coming out of the white house pentagon intelligence committee especially in light with how much they dropped the ball with w m b use in the bush administration the. the media should be incensed and should help to. whip up this sentiment among the american people of stock manufacturing a crisis there was no crisis until you donald trump started making up this crisis to please who knows was it to please the saudis was it to please the israelis was it to please sheldon adelson was it to please lindsey graham mike pompei oh john bolton is no longer there who knows but it's a manufactured crisis there was a deal the europeans still want to go back to the deal the russians the chinese still want to go back to get the deal everybody is trying to pile on and say you know how can we calm this down and it all rests on one man and how he feels when he

wakes up in the morning i mean i don't know what it rests on but it infuriates me that the world is on the edge that we are on the precipice of a catastrophic war with iran and it all depends on what this guy feels like doing he doesn't give a damn about international law he doesn't give a damn about u.s. law because it is the congress that has to authorize military attacks and he doesn't give a damn about iraqi law because he's violating their you're using their their their land to do this he doesn't care about anything about what except what is good for donald trump state of the word and i want to ask you you've been at this game for a long time you've been pushing back against these kinds of agendas for a very long time what is the best way and your opinion for folks out there to cope through that spin and decipher what is fact from fiction were you see and you know got your guy with the stars on his belt or whatever your presidents all of our

politicians how do people bust coke through votes from assume that anybody who is pushing for were right now either has stocks in the weapons industry wants to go back to that industry and the revolving door or is beholden to another country's agenda be it israel or a saudi arabia. and don't believe a word they say of course still believe a word that comes from the white house and then the important thing is how do we fight back had we build up an anti-war movement that's been decimated since the time of brock obama and people didn't come out and protest these wars that have been going on for so long had we reach out to our friends overseas and really build a global day of action which is what we're doing on january 25th to say the world says no to war so all of your listeners were everywhere in the world go to our web site could think org look for a protest in your area if it's not there you know what you do you create one you just put it on there and be part of the global day of action general or 21st annual

always a pleasure having you on would be and keep up the great work out there thank you so much. and all of us were sitting on the edge of our seats worried about the nightmare scenario of yet another united states backed regime change or middle east of the cost of lives it could bring there were many here on the potomac and wall street who were popping bottles with the light at the news of a potential war i'm talking of course about our good friends in the defense industry yes those lovely merchants of death we're seeing dollar signs in our t. america correspondent rachel blevins joins us now with the details on those dollar signs rachel how did the markets respond to the latest tensions in the middle east well it's no secret that any time there's a chance of a new we're a chance of an escalation with an ongoing war the stocks for the top defense contractors in the united states all we seem to vallance up and to be really really happy about it and that is exactly what we have seen with the latest escalation between the united states and iran if we take a look specifically at the numbers in the days after iran in general saw

a money with killed we saw that stocks for more threat gruman were up 8 percent lockheed martin was up 4 percent and raytheon was up another q. percent and it seems to be no coincidence there that u.s. foreign policy a lot of. times act in a way that is great for the top defense contractors and we see if you look at trump's cabinet and the same way that he has a lot of officials that seem to fall right in line with wall street and have ties to wall street he also has a lot of officials that have ties to defense contractors and if we're looking at just a few from both past and present we find that former defense secretary james mattis was on the board of general dynamics both before he was in office and he has since gone right back to it and he was followed by current defense secretary mark us for who was previously a top lobbyist for raytheon then there's current acting director of national intelligence joseph mcguire who was also the former vice president for booz allen hamilton a defense contractor that has been criticized for blurring the lines between the

government's intelligence work and private enterprises and it becomes quite the conflict of interest here because these are some of the top officials who are giving trump insight into what's going on in the middle east and yet they seem to have these very strong ties to top defense contractors that make a lot of money whenever things escalate it's interesting too how no news show will ever bring up who they used to work for or where they work for now when they come on an interview that's a that's a really great information you laid out the ridge what is the latest insight our wonderful president mr trump has given the public into how the u.s. is planning on using troops in the middle east they are there's a little bit of controversy coming out of that there absolutely is and we've seen an increase in deployments in the middle east with an additional $3000.00 troops being deployed just last week and we've also seen under trump troops deployed to saudi arabia for the 1st time since 2003 and of course the u.s. comes out and they say well this is necessary because we have to deter threats from iran even though they don't give a lot of insight on what those threats may be but president trump spoke out over

the weekend when he was on fox news and he said that there's actually a very different reason take a listen we have to say oh we're sending more to saudi arabia and saudi arabia is doing a story you know we're doing something that nobody's ever done i said to somebody they live a very good relationship this. if you revisit this in your very rich country you want more troops i'm going to send them to you but you've got to pay us to paying as they've already just said if $1000000000.00 in the bank. so that is quite the claim from trump not only that u.s. troops are 1st sell but that they're being essentially sold to saudi arabia and saudi arabia has already paid $1000000000.00 that this is does that blows my mind and hurts me in so many different levels how is they tell me that someone is actually respond to this in any kind of official men women how is congress responded to trump's claim of a 1000000000 dollars for u.s. troops to saudi arabia one fortunately the majority of congress has been very silent whenever it comes to this but in the past they have tried to step up at least

a little bit when it comes to terms relationship with saudi arabia but at the same time they haven't really put a stop to all of these arms deals or to the united states working with saudi arabia when it comes to the brutal war in yemen however independent congressman justin amash did speak out and he called out for you know standing up and claiming that he's going to end the endless wars and then essentially doing the opposite and he spoke out and he said about quote he's moving troops back into iraq he's moving other troops into saudi arabia and using our forces almost as mercenaries paid mercenaries who are going to come in as long as saudi arabia pays us some money it seems to be good to go now under the trump administration we did see the largest arms deal in u.s. history signed with saudi arabia back in 2017 so no answer isn't all of these questions of is this claim that we that they are essentially paying for u.s. troops is that something that was included in the arms deal that maybe we just didn't catch or is something that congress needs to actually call out and hold trump accountable for i would hope that they would at some point reveal that was

a brilliant piece thank you very much for the great informational reporting of what's going on there always a pleasure thank you thank you. are right everybody as we go to break don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on our social media and be sure to check out one. the hawks the podcast which is now available on spotify apple music and everywhere you listen to your favorite or not so favorite progress coming up my friends it's time to break out the cupcakes balloons and water boards as we celebrate the 18th year of the guantanamo bay detention center in cuba stay tuned for watching the box. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy people in sunday shouldn't let it be an arms race off and spearing dramatic development only mostly i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very

critical time time to sit down and talk. is your media a reflection of reality. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe. tyson nation will community. are you going the right way or are you being that. direct. what is true what's his face. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or a maybe in the shallowness. while

the month of january marks the beginning of a brand new year here in. united states it also marks the anniversary of one of the darkest chapters in u.s. history that is still being written the military prison at guantanamo bay naval base opened in january of 2002 the war on terror prison according to the a.c.l.u. was originally intended to be an island outside the law where terrorism suspects could be detained without process and interrogated without restraint almost $800.00 souls have passed through its cells during its now 18 year reign but today only $41.00 remain $41.00 prisoners who the new york times estimates cost u.s. taxpayers an average of $13.00 $1000000.00 'd per prisoner this weekend here in the united you're here in washington d.c. citizens and activists took to the streets in front of both the white house and the

trump hotel to protest the anniversary of the guantanamo bay prison calling for an end to the years of torture and human rights violations that have been reported to have taken place inside its walls daphne e.-v. a terror i'm sorry avatar of amnesty international usa sudden statement 3 united states presidents have overseen guantanamo during its shameful 18 your existence yet to come continues to remain open as people who have never been granted a trial are still detained and as they age and face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in the prison joining me now to discuss the horror of 18 years of guantanamo bay as civil rights attorney for the american arab anti-discrimination committee in one book of doom thank you so much for coming on this is this is as we were saying before we start it breaks my heart that this place is still open 18 years later know the abuses are gone tunnel bay are long and well documented yet despite all of the controversy the lawsuits and the public demand for its could closure that we've seen over those 18 years why do you believe the prison is still in operation today. well thank you so much for having me and

well. the reason the prison is still in operation is because it still pays politically i think at the end of the day having muslim men held offshore makes us americans feel better about ourselves even though of course we all know that every national security expert every person every reputable person in the military and others know that it's a great recruiting tool for armed groups so at the end of the day this is nothing but politics and has nothing to do with national security and unfortunately muslim lives just don't matter. because that's that's who is being detained there through and through i want to ask you to just so folks get a better understanding because it has been a lot of people have forgotten that it's still in operation tragically what what are some of the major abuses that have been exposed what have we actually learned over these 18 years that have taken place there is so bloodcurdling we're. so

kuantan i'm always without question one of the most notorious prisons in the world because torture was one of the instrumental central features of this prison so waterboarding holding people in stress positions sleep deprivation. humiliating people and for example. you know making fun of people's religion so the fact that they were muslim they would hear an a on koran they would unleash dogs upon the men when they were praying so i mean every every kind of torture that you could ever think of was inflicted on the men there and of course most of the men the overwhelming majority less than 10 of the men were charged with an actual crime so that's so important to mention but every kind of torture you could ever think of and of course solitary confinement holding people. by themselves 23 hours a day without access to other human beings and of course holding children is

another issue that is a very serious one. it is known for and again we know this not only through the heroic work of many attorneys who have access to them but activists and also the government itself under the bush administration released this information. saying yeah we tortured this person we can't detain them anymore we have to release them so it's just it's harrowing how has the going ton of the bay prison affected arab and muslim communities both here in the united states and around the world i mean you mentioned being in prison there that's being tortured there how has this person affected those communities thank you so much for that question i think one time away is precisely there for this reason to project fear into the hearts of americans who are arab and muslim and into the hearts of arabs across the planet and muslims across the planet we know that the number one. when i'm one demographic

there were afghans and saudis and yemenis pakistanis and algerians i happen to be algerian american but i can tell you that across the muslim majority world in the arab world people are terrified at the stigma even if you are released without charge being innocent is it sticks forever and so if you are helping once on a more you're not considered a victim of american abuse you're considered a terrorist even though it's untrue. and so that is the actual that is the primary political work that guantanamo does is it terrifies muslims and it terrifies muslim americans and it doesn't allow us to mobilize and to organize because we're scared that will be shipped to hunt on any point and so that's that's actually one of the reasons why it's such a terrible place and it needs to be shut down immediately. as an attorney what obstacles to the law as. presented to civil rights attorney or the attorneys for

the men held there. and the un even for this matter the us government's ability to actually prosecute those that they want to prosecute the original ideas we take them there they give us information about the war on terror and then we prosecute them for their crimes but we haven't been able to do that absolutely and the reason is because we tortured them and most of them have nothing for us to prosecute them on because they're not terrorists and that's the reality is that i mean we don't know if they are not because that's the problem with torture and so the problem is that we have military commissions that have these courts that have been created to try to accommodate torture and even those courts these military commissions that are accommodating torture are not even meeting out any kind of real real results right we have 7 or 8 people that have been convicted and those convictions are totally dubious and based on false evidence and here in federal court we can actually prosecute people in our federal courts. because there's not enough evidence and even if there was it's tortured evidence and so we can actually it's

not admissible and so the reality is that guantanamo is agree stain on our legacy as a country and it's has nothing do justice or has nothing to do with national security it's like you said it's all about fear at the end of the day it's all about fear now the person who has outlasted 3 presidents at this point george bush broke obama now donald trump it seems that the political class here in washington d.c. has essentially forgotten about it because you never hear brought up in congress anymore about that i've seen in the news or anything like that why has going to a century been forgotten in our in the political circles of this town despite and that is throwing out the torture despite the fact that it cost so much to run it cost so much on tax dollars you know why why are they keeping her why is it not being discussed in the halls of congress that's a great question i think that ultimately i think brock obama normalised right we all remember one of those the 1st executive order was the end of torture and he

promised to close guantanamo and we were so hopeful and then he didn't and i think after that we all just kind of were demoralized and i think. it's really a hard question because we we in this civil rights community have been fighting so hard to close the prison and when and when obama normalize it it just becomes harder every day to push back against closing guantanamo and so it's difficult to justify because when i speak to people in congress they just say it's not worth the political capital this is not worth the political capital at the end of the day nobody cares about the men in guantanamo there's only $41.00 held or 40 held and at the end of the day who's advocating for them right there forgotten they are truly forgotten and at the very least they at the very least they deserve a day in court right at the very last day what you are whether you think they're all terrorists or not whatever at least given their dangerous product trial right you know you were at the protests this week and so there are people. upping up and speaking out about against this your what were the purpose of these protests and do

you feel you accomplish what your set up to do thank you for the question i think look somebody who was brought to this work because i thought our and algeria in held there and most the my family's then algeria and i see my own call ois the in my dad i see my grant you know i see my family when i see them manning guantanamo is an algerian and it's it's harrowing and i'm never going to stop until it's shutdown and we see those practice is being migrated to united states indefinite detention without charge for immigrants for example for people coming to united states but at the end of a day i mean they're reason i go to the protests and i don't give up is because i refused to let this become the norm it's not the norm we cannot hold people indefinitely without charge just because they're muslim in they seem to be terrorist we need more than that i believe in due process and i really hope that people will do the right thing eventually and pushback an ask congress to to shut down this prison which is just such a travesty in such a humiliation for

a country that pit truly is and i thank you for the good work you're doing in there and it's good to have you out there fighting for that and i hope you i hope you get more brothers and sisters by your side speaking out against is because we cannot forget about these stadiums in our history kind we can still change it we can still close it it doesn't have to be open the forever right so i want to but you so much for coming on the dave truly a pleasure having you on once again a senior staffer terry at the american arab anti-discrimination committee human book at a bank think the thank you so much truly a pleasure it may have been raining men in the main to made ease according to the song but today in the 2020 as my friends it's raining vegetables at least an australia that is in the wake of the mass of fires that of devastated the country of the government of new south wales at a bed to save the already endangered brush tailed rock while of be have launched multiple massive air drops a vegetables yes some 2000 kilograms or 4400 pounds of sweet potatoes in care birds were dropped on more than 10 different rock wallaby 'd colonies last week my

friends with an estimated 1000000000 animals killed in the apocalyptic blaze environmental patrols in australia resorting to any and all means at their disposal to save them yes even getting them to eat their vegetables this is the good that we can do let's hope that we spread some more good in this world because at the end of the day a mother who doesn't want to save that cute little animal you cannot care right there now we have to we have to put we have to stand up for australia because we know they'll stand up for us when it's our time and we're under the gun of fires or other things of that nature i want to thank you all for joining us today because that my friends of the end of our show remember everyone in this world we are definitely definitely not told that we are loved enough so i tell you all i love i am tyrrell's been keep on watching all those hawks out there and have a great day and.

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy on sunday shouldn't let it be an arms race on screen dramatic to follow only and. i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time time to sit down and talk. among. the food.

the painting was of a time about what was it was a bit. more about. what when and what in the fulfillment. seen that i'm going to get but i'm before. him but i. am now embody i'm not move on. because we ponder the future and look into 2021 fascinating stories will come our way there are often said on this show that you can't have capitalism without capital capital without positive interest rates encouraging people to say and this next story this next whole show this next entire segment is going to be dedicated

to this very notion. this hour's headlines stories about artsy u.s. secretary of state mike pump a.o.r. lines america's strategy of the terrorists saying that killing general kassim solo may was part of an overall approach. to russia and china. also coming up on the program over a 1000 french jock and hospital workers resigning from administrative jussi claiming the government is failing to provide proper funding for the health sector and there.

be no strike for several more.