the fact is the whistleblower raised on russian territory and is asking for an asylum while the united states is demanding immediate arrest and extradition in the current load of uncertainty and chill in it between the two states what is really at risk. a legacy of glory. u.s. ties are continuously tested never more so than. this squabble over snowden has fuels the crossfire well presidents seek to preserve partnership and promote peace what are the sore points in the relationship in the post cold war giants catch the same way. what is its stake for russia and america and for the international community as a whole. so our guest is steven cohen professor of russian studies and history at new york university and princeton university's stephen it's really great to have you with us today i'm happy to be with you so right so at this point who is snowden more of a problem for the united states or russia. well in my perspective he's a problem for both if we put this in historical context since the end of the soviet union twenty two years ago we've lost several opportunities to create a meaningful co

and to pay taxes in the united states and i wonder if it's morally and economically defensible argument these days in the era of globalization that you should hire people and create those jobs in the united states rather than in china even though you know many of your products are money factored in china many of your products are consumed in china but you know many countries still and says that you know there should be policies in place to protect their own national interests for global sake. that's a totally old fashioned view of the world again that doesn't work like that you create jobs in china because they're more competitive in terms of the part that they're producing there you create more jobs in the united states or in europe because they're mostly being the technology the knowledge part but also more and more and countries like india like china like mexico brazil you are outing not only labor but also technology because you have a more educated youth and therefore they can all to compete in the knowledge based assets in the lawless space the capital but what is now obv

life expectancy in the united states is really very low compared to that of comparable industrialized states. and the legal and political system is such that your skin is skewered in such a way that those who are rich and powerful essentially walk free they have no culpability for any of their. deeds while the poor get locked up so the united states has the largest per capita prison population in the world and yet the worst criminals walk free so in those areas it does indeed resemble a third world country. detroit just declared bankruptcy what does that tell you about what's going on in the us economy right now. i think it's important that you you cannot disaggregate take the us out of the question i think overall the planet all you have to do is look at a population growth map a chart that shows population growth and you can see quite obviously where the world is headed i think the united states is in of relatively good position right now historically the us is is an archetype it's an archetype of renewal whether that's deserved or not currently it will remain that way it will conti

i mean why is the united states spying on the european union on brussels. it's on the war on terror i mean why would we have to worry about the you know i know a lot of people european union don't like brussels but i mean why is the united states have to spy on them. i don't know presumably the united states wants to gather information everywhere they can i want to address something jim said earlier that you said that the united states and spans some sort of of loophole in their law every time someone complains about finding loopholes in the laws what they really mean is that person is acting illegally and that's one of the big problems many people have with snowden this idea of calling him a whistleblower you are called a whistleblower when you are when you are typically pointing out illegality there hasn't been any proof yet that what the united states did was in fact legal within the united states this loophole is go ahead jim go ahead but what this loophole is the united states constitution guarantees privacy in the fourth amendment for its own citizens

the united states government can throw a b.s. corpus out the window under a war footing the united states government can illegally torture people under a war footing the fourth amendment rights of millions and millions and millions of americans can be a vis aerated by an n.s.a. that wants to collect all of our method data and. in the interest of fairness in the interest of fairness i want to go to give max a last forty seconds in the program go ahead max. well i have actually seen the statistics on the efficacy of various counterterrorism responses in particular the difference between police responses versus military responses police responses as you've correctly implied are indeed correlated with a higher level of counterterrorism success than military responses are that is to say military responses are more likely to fail in the realm of counterterrorism than our police responded very accurately point max i'm sorry we didn't get to finish your point thank you gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks to my guest today in wash

has been the united states' position again of funding this deep state propping up the army keeping the canal open for traffic all the while egyptians seeing kind of their political views and ability to affect policy absolutely muted for what you just mentioned basically it's better to maintain this peace agreement with israel than to allow a messy developments or experiments and self rule from the you know the greater mass of egyptians and i think i don't think that's going to be for able to fly anymore it's been surprising to hear some of the arguments for alice ousting morsi as these charges of. you know allowing a little bit of tunnel based aid to flow into gaza strip and being in league with hamas as though that were never a big a big gyptian option or big egyptian problem is if anyone actually cared about that sort of thing so the idea of deferring in continually negating any sort of nationalist fervor in egypt and keeping the lid on these tens of millions of people in the name of preserving a peace deal that. you know that's been in place for so many decades i don't think that's

i actually think it is something the united states should consider. right now america's influence in north korea and our ability to engage is very minimal. one of the reasons for that is because we have no legitimate channels to contact them. i am not saying that if we sign this peace treaty that north korea is going to change or we are going to be able to transform it overnight, but it is something that might estimate a little bit of a dent in their behavior. it might be something that would enable the united states did get a little bit more information about north korea, to know more about it and to be able to work with it just a little but more constructively. host: if you are interested in learning more about the korean war as for special events are concerned, a special event is scheduled to take place -- you see live pictures of it now. we will show you live the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the armistice. president obama inspect -- is set to speak as well as secretary chuck hagel. that'll take place at 10:00 right after this show on o

very much raised by snowden's revelations about what the united states is actually up to the. surveillance hawks in the united states and the security apparatus is doing everything it can to divert the attention from what's really important here and instead talk about the persian details of edward snowden what is at issue is that the united states has been betraying the trust of pretty much the entire world now what do you think what do you think he thought significant about his revelations because in the words of one commentator we haven't really learned anything that we did in fact before right well yes or no you could assume that the united states was eavesdropping at some level what is new here though is the extent of the fact that this is happening and perhaps most importantly we're getting confirmation of what we expected and the fact that. somebody inside the national security agency states that this is not right and the science to more or less give up a very comfortable life in the united states for its conscience that is huge now you mentioned that mr snowden has a lo

and the united states.

together happily with the united states but china has a scene which says to takers. live. that's you know china right now it's a couple little cup of course they won't fight the united states fight for that mud to budge eventually they will become a big tiger. it will be too small for the the pacific ocean will be too small for them ok linney you pointed out i mean the united states is a militant want to add something lynn go ahead jump in. yes yeah i just want to say what we have exacerbated this problem also is a chinese growth growth in china economic growth the last few years the insane growth that they've been joined to is unsustainable. globally countries everywhere in trouble in that it and unemployment is up living standards down so the expectation for the future will be disappointed so many countries will be disappointed. about their future prospects so that will intensify this scramble for the remaining resources so just to survive and just to placate they populations we will see more conflicts and the not just between china and usa ok dan it sounds like of

it took about that ten days for the united states state department and the white house but make up their mind on on what kind of policies they're going to do for though in egypt finally they said that on and against islamic does that hurt and you support of course a faction in which that military would have the main say politics of egypt is that coming over or you can kinda military bring democracy to egypt can military bring democracy to the middle east. well it's theoretically possible someplace that some time that that might happen but certainly that's not very likely in egypt and you can put me down as a a skeptic with regard to the rhetoric of democracy and the arab spring with regard to u.s. and western policy the problem that i see is that that has really been a cover for the exertion of u.s. policy the interests of u.s. policy. in egypt and elsewhere in the region and of the case of egypt this is nowhere better illustrated then the the the term that i've been hearing in washington the last few days coup volution the idea of you know the the effort to portray what happened in the

the united states has to base the analysis of where it stands in the world and in the united states on the more difficult relationships but ultimately much more productive relationships with of the world's coming powers and obviously china is prime among them. it is completely dismissive. that doesn't mean that on occasions we want people to do useful business together kid that doesn't mean that on occasions it will be very useful still for an american president to come to london to see the queen and have pictures across the united states. but when you think of who americans are in future generations, where they come from, what they believe in, the idea that they have the same kind of british people being part of them is mad. that just isn't going to be the future america. and the classic example of that. i went to see a very senior person in the obama white house when i was going to say goodbye leaving in 2009 and we had a little discussion and i said to this person why was it that one of the first things the obama white house did that cause a lot of up set was get the best of winston

but even at the popular level in terms of how people in the united states think about africa what do you think about that because people look at the new great game. you see what is important i think when you have foreign investment in any place you cannot distinguish between your desire to extract profits from the country in the mortality that you bring to the country it's not possible to distinguish between the two if you take foreign investment u.s. investment in so if in this country it's been largely one sided into the benefit of the u.s. because if you go for example to a place like rustenburg where the mines operate what has been done for the people of the place to live in. and anybody should go to a place like rustenburg or should go to a place like really where there has been foreign investment in the people on the ground they have not filled any benefit from foreign investment all. these people are talking about and i go back to what i'm saying is that it is not right to divorce foreign investment from the more of those who want to come here they must be morally upright huma

likes if you're not a united states citizen or there's a greater probability that you're not a united states citizen and i'm allies in this data is going into data stores all kinds of things going on so that they can analyze and pick that data and see what they might find on the kind of mass trawling it. exhibition so i think it's pretty outrageous i don't think it would stand up in europe human rights courts i think people would very quickly see that you cannot just take everybody's data on the basis that some people might be guilty that's effectively putting the whole population under suspicion and that is how you put everyone into feeling that they're watched and put some kind of fear an atmosphere of fear. around everybody has profound consequences for democracy if people feel that they're under constant surveillance and under constant threat of their private information being abused ok t.j. i think everyone knows security is important but are these programs proportionate to the threat. where we don't really know the threat i mean everyone has their own bias i have a bias as an am

if you live in below the poverty line in the united states you have two cars you have a cell phone you have a microwave and you've got a flat screen television so if you want to talk about people who are living below consumption in a wage light here in the united states take a look at take a look at look at countries all across the world people who are living below the minimum wage live the those lives there they don't have the same things that they have in america it's because of the free market system and capitalism that people who are poor in the united states are able to afford the necessities that they need to live a better life we're better off than they were we were one hundred years ago who in the world want to go back a hundred years ago when people were when they had didn't have cars were they were not going out how this is as if nobody has years ago are you going to want to bet are all going to be set if you can afford all these that eric go ahead. who would want one of the one hundred seventy to say that but we're not better off than another nine hundred seventy real wa

. >> host: why is it so important to the united states? i mean give us details about how that affects our plans for our energy use, what sort of -- >> guest: well, energy expenditures are one of the highest portions of consumer budgets, consumers in the u.s. are paying relatively high prices for fuels, particularly petroleum right now, despite the fact that electricity bills have stayed relatively low. the impact on consumer budgets of rising oil prices has created concerns, and it's worth understanding the issue that drives that. >> we're talking about the future of energy in the united states. here are the phone lines if you'd like to join the conversation or if you're in the eastern and central time zones, 202-585-3880. in the mountains, pacific, or further west, 202-585-3881. why is it important to look at u.s. energy consumption and where it's headed? >> guest: so following up adam's appointment, the notion of the u.s. in the context of the globe, it's we're competitors, but we're allies, and you use energy for everything you do. this

and this is why the united states is not back is not backing him now the united states probably is avoiding using the word coup because under u.s. law if there is a coup you can't provide foreign aid they want to maintain foreign aid to the military in order to make sure that they maintain their influence over the military yes that's the calculus and the ali very briefly if possible there are reports of islamist attacks in sinai which have caused egypt to close its border crossing with gaza how significant is that. not very we've known is that the islamists in sinai that these you heard these specifically in sinai have had this kind of capability for months it was pretty much expected that they would they would do that if the islamist president was overthrown so this is really not surprising to an extent it actually discredits president morsi and the muslim brotherhood because it shows that you had these were essentially. part of his alliance. they've had this capability for some time the egyptian military hasn't been able to do enough in order to control them this is in part because the is

doesn't come for free it never comes to free trading with the united states means you have to give up something ok ok. i think what we're getting is. dish analogy is to work here ok clarence that's a good point but i think for ruth is correct in the past if you look to in the cold war for example the conditions under which it was deliberate was based on you siding with the us against the soviet union after september eleventh for about the next ten years the conditions were getting a word that you opened up to security concerns of the united states where obama could turn the page which is where we look at china and when we look at brazil is that you don't have those kinds of conditions and it becomes a much more even kind of fair negotiation that has for talks about there are benefits on the ground for people across the region when you have investment when you have development when you have a train that has to be the place that turns as we move forward now hopefully that's what obama will be talking about in the people who are traveling with the business leaders the corporate leaders t

back in the eighty's until very very late on the united states supporting the apartheid regime viewed the continent very much through a cold war lens and and still is suffering justifiably ill feeling from south africa to this day as a result the united states. are. going to be going to be if you gentlemen i'm going to jump in here we're going to go a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the obama's policy on the state with our team. legal. the interview. welcome back to crosstalk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to mind you we're discussing obama's trip to the african continent. ok clarence if we can change gears here a little bit in reading mainstream media about this trip a lot of people are saying it's a day late and a buck short because the chinese are already in africa in a very big way and the americans are far behind when you think about that. that's true and it's not just the chinese it's also the brazilians it's also the indians it's also the south koreans so there's been a recognition i think much of the world that the afr

what's happened here is that the united states and the u.k. in fact of. taken some loopholes in the law and say they don't the u.k. believes it can take data or people when they're communicating overseas the united states believes it can take whatever it likes if you're not a united states citizen or there's a greater probability that you're not a united states isn't that it's and i'm allies in this data data is going into data stores all kinds of things going on so that they can analyze and pick that data and see what they might find on the kind of mass trawling it. exhibition so i think it's pretty outrageous i don't think it would stand up in europe in human rights courts i think people would very quickly see that you cannot just take everybody's data on the basis that some people might be guilty that's effectively putting the whole population under suspicion and that is how you put everyone into feeling that they're watched and put some kind of fear an atmosphere of fear. around everybody has profound consequences for and democracy if people feel that

> mort, the united states isn't going to restrict the national agency. i don't think it is right to leak things because we have a congress of the united states. we have rules and regulations. but i do respect the fact that they face the music. they go out, they stayed right in the country and said what the government is doing is wrong and they took it. snowden who runs off, he is getting what he deserves. i hope he stays in that airport. >> excuse me, and reading about these three gentleman, they did have a vested interest here in a sense that they had developed a program within the nsa, at least two of them had. they believe could have averted the 9/11 attacks. the head of the agency, tom haden, at the time ignored it and came up with another, much more extensive program. and so they had, they were really angry that they thought their work was being ignored. they went to congress. they did all the right things, but they are enjoying their freedom now. i think they have a consulting company. >> i think you have it wrong. >> at least one of those three. a

am peter lavelle what if china ruled what if china were a military superpower on par with the united states what kind of world would we live in with china put into check washington's appetite for unilateral military action and manipulation of the global economy or would we witness another cold war where both beijing and washington been tainted chile the relatively peaceful world . to cross not china's rise i'm joined by han in washington he's a visiting fellow at the hudson institute we also have dan low balts in cincinnati he's a coeditor of new politics journal of socialist thought and in philadelphia we crossed him and then he is a political commentator and writer for a counterpunch all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect i mean you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it lynn if i go to you first in philadelphia what will the world look like today if china where the same military strike had the same military strength of the united states you know on par. it won't be a cold war i think it will be a series of wars by proxies because both countries need. quite a bit

can be an objective third party etc it's up to the parties whether they're willing to trust the united states ok omar i mean we have martin indyk he's going to be considered the special envoy we have samantha power with her comments to get israel on the united nations security council so i really wonder i guess this rhetorical affair broker. yeah absolutely not i mean you have a structural problem and then you have the individual players like you mentioned you know martin indyk his association with the israel lobby it's pretty clear but more structurally i mean the united states is supporting one side with obscene levels of military aid and diplomatic support vetoing countless u.n. resolutions that are critical of israel trying to keep israel from being held accountable for its actions so for a player that is clearly backing one side overwhelmingly to be trying to negotiate you know trying to mediate these kind of negotiations obviously there's going to be a structural problem there the only problem of course is that nobody else is willing to step up and fulfill the void that the u.s. is clea

the death penalty in the united states the. will of the majority of the russian people the public opinion polls what they show put in a statement the russians are not extraditing anybody. taking into account that he came out with. snowden all came out with recognition of those conditions that he is not going to hurt the united states probably the easiest realistically to use you we can realistically snowden can get political asylum you can love was in fact in that meeting with edward snowden here at sheremetyevo airport thank you so much for your insights and really kind of details of what happened today will be here throughout the evening bringing you the latest analysis on edward snowden i think he will be asking for political asylum in the russian federation. president to be pigeons press secretary has reacted to snowden's potential assign unpaid and he took his call for retracted that snowden could stay in russia if he stops all activities causing damage to russia's american partners he also added that if this condition is

unable to place any pressure on israel and i think until we solve that problem here within the united states the u.s. cannot mediate these negotiating i think we were ignoring a reality over the last ten years you have russia you have the e.u. you also have china you also have the arab states there are also involved in what's taking place i don't think the united states would have been able to get to both parties to come to washington this tuesday without the support of the arab league so other parties are involved the united states. it's not alone although they'll be sitting around the table with three representatives from the hell with anyone else from the israelis but i mean this is they're saying you agree that abbas is just a paid employee of the united states essentially i mean. what kind of hardy's are these you know the palestinian authority i mean they've they're basically at the mercy of the united states and in funding omar i mean is this all these legitimate others go ahead omar here's the thing here's the thing you have all these parties involved in what's happening but let's be

towards the united states government if not the united states people anything else that takes place and i think what we need to really be talking about is that and not sort of these sort of well if they come get us how do we go get them you know eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth the real question is how do we create sort of a system in this world that's based on humanity based on you know sort of mutual aid if you will will support and not one based on through these reciprocal acts of violence which is what i think these hypotheticals when they're posed in the u.s. media and pose like shows like twenty four you know would you kill a baby if you knew there was going to be a terrorist attack next week or something like you know it never happens that way but you know people pose these questions it's sort of put us in a sense of fear and make us answer in a way that i think is always the most warlike. and let's talk about foreign policy in general right now we're hearing a lot of strong rhetoric coming from the political media establishment about iran syria and most recently north kore

if you passed a regulation in the united states of america, it's going to only affect united states of america. and i've always had a lot of respect for lisa jackson. lisa jackson was the administrator of the e.p.a. under the obama administration. while she is lmb and -- liberal and i'm conservative, she was always honest in her answers. i asked her the question, if we pass by legislation or any other way cap-and-trade in the united states is that going to reduce worldwide co2 emissions? and the answer, her answer was no. because if you do that, you're doing it just us on the brightest sectors of our economy without china, without mexico, without india and the rest of the world doing it, then u.s. manufacturers could have the reverse expect fect because they could end up having to go to other countries where there are not restrictions on emissions so they would be emitting more. so this is the problem that we have. there go our jobs overseas seeking energy in areas where they're able to afford it. and i -- using her -- lisa jackson's quote exactly, she said, when i asked her the questi

narrator: over 300 million people live in the united states. and each person uses an average of 100 gallons of water every day. man: what it takes to actually make clean water is somewhat a mystery to most customers. woman: so how does water get from the river into your house, or here at school? woman: somebody has to bring that water to us, and somebody has to take it away when we're finished with it. man: the water infrastructure is vital for disease protection, fire protection, basic sanitation, economic development, and for our quality of life. man: you just can't visualize all the assets that are under our feet. we have about two million miles of pipe in this nation. if you're walking around in an urban area, you're probably stepping on a pipe. man: our grandparents paid for, and put in for the first time, these large distribution systems. woman: and in many cases, it's not been touched since. man: we're at a critical turning point. much of that infrastructure is wearing out. narrator: our water infrastructure is made up of complex, underg

come to the united states. mexican migration, the origin of mexican migration to the united states is not poor mexicans wanting a better life. it was u.s. business interest needing to replace eastern europeans, bursts of japanese workers and an eastern european workers in the early 20th-century. so they went to mexico and the mexican workers. they started coming to the united states to work, particularly in railroad construction. so all these historical ties have a lot to do with it as well . another important myth is the fact that there has never been any hostility to immigration in the united states. we have always been a country of immigrants. we have always welcomed immigrants. we have always valued people coming from overseas to contribute to this society. again, that's not true. there has always been hostility toward immigration. of course it has not always taken place exactly in the same way. it does not always been as intense, but historically it has always been the case that there was significant hosti

we know by the british because they have a sister an equivalent of variation of prison in the united states so most probably me just states juice on this citizens' prism might be slightly because of course the united states has global reach but in terms of principles it's very similar and governments when they're not caught like they will be and it's by stone and deny what it would be a jew secretly and this is the same rule in any government but he said let me say i'm sorry sir but paris of paris was particularly angry about america's surveillance of europe and its institutions so well how does france justify its own version of big brother. well actually this is the age of bliss city states states in general say something officially and do something different and officially. this same thing in germany merkel was very adamant there are units in germany and i don't think oman really lashed out of the united states. publicly he said a few things that were critical but immediately went front and overflight rights for the bolivian president it showed immediately that cranch accepted what the un

promoting growth here in the united states, and we're optimistic will continue to make progress. >> my home state this louisiana. we're in energy producing state. and in the energy sector this could be really beneficial. i was with chairman nunes down in brazil, and they are struggling with the right kind of expertise and technology to develop deep water resources as well as shale. other countries have the same concerns. we have the expertise. with in jenin services and so forth. thanks. i yield back. >> thanks. mr. thompson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for having the hearing. ambassador, thank you for being here, and congratulations. we look forward to were king with you. the chairman started off talking about some tariff in nontariff barriers as it pertains to agriculture. i'd like to pick up on that. i represent an area that has a very significant agricultural component. we produce some of the best wines in the world. and some of the tpp countries present some pretty good barriers for our product. so i would like to be able to get a good commitment that we work together to