is this the afghanistan war's abu ghraib? and what does it mean for u.s. relations? >> about 30 seconds. >>> what would you do? a man is carjacked while pumping gas. he's ignored as he crawls past witnesses. oh, he's a world war ii vet. you have to see it to believe it. >> i opened the door, and he proceeded to get in. all i knew, i was on the ground. >>> million dollar baby. this man was once homeless. now he's on the brink of becoming a million-dollar champ. meet the man and hear his amazing story live. that and more right here right now on cnn. >> stand by. >>> good evening, everyone. i'm don lemon. until just a few minutes ago, we had only heard of him as one of two u.s. service men killed this weekend in afghanistan. but now it has become all too real as we learn his name and we see his face. he is lieutenant colonel john loftus, a 44-year-old air force officer from paducah, kentucky. loftus died at a kabul ministry saturday along with another u.s. officer who has yet to be identified. loftus, like you and me, has a family, a family, a mother who is mourning ton

would that apply to people living in the united states at the time of abu ghraib? we were war criminals. all of us. if that be the logic. in his time, he transformed the war and even as you describe him as some kind of devilish fiend, he's the most influential person in 1862. >> professor thomas we'll let you go there so we can all watch the results. professor ameritus. the dogs of war 1861. we'll see what the result is in a minute or two. >> i'm excited. thank you so much. >> you bet. we'll remind our viewers, too, that we will continue to make your calls once the announcement is made up to 4:30 eastern or so on american history tv on c-span3. >> okay. if we could arm the mike up there. got it now. okay. ladies and gentlemen. thank you all for attending and bringing part of the symposium couri of the day in our enthusiasm learning more about the sesquicentennial, c-span is airing this tonight at 6:00 p.m. and again for those of you who are insomniacs at i wouldn't be surprised if they air it at a future date. i hope a o visit us at the museum of the c beginning, i

and following on the heels of abu ghraib, this was one example in which the americans were going aboutit wrong. how can you win the hearts and minds of the people when... when suddenly there's an incident in which 24 civilians die? >> some are comparing the haditha killings to the vietnam massacre at my lai. >> narrator: haditha led the news for weeks and soon became synonymous with other outrages in the iraq war, like abu ghraib. >> haditha, in my judgment, is a metaphor for how the press unconsciously, being in opposition to a war, will take an incident and, simply by reiterating it and reiterating it and reiterating it, build it into something that it wasn't. >> we're supposed to be fighting this war for democracy, and yet something like this happens that sets us back. it's as bad as abu ghraib, if not worse. >> obviously the allegations are very troubling for me. >> narrator: as political pressure mounted that summer, the ncis issued its internal report. >> the ncis report, which is thousands of pages long, came back with recommendations for the command that there were crimes commi

broken in the past several decades as a result of leaks from the pentagon papers to the abuses at abu ghraib so that's a move that i think we need to applaud because journalists have to stick together they have to defend each other fight for their rights if they want to be able to keep the public informed without fearing government backlash but even here we have to remember that there's obviously some picking and choosing going on this is after all the same new york times that used leaks from wiki leaks and that later turned against them but as the obama administration's war leaders continues everybody should be on guard because as this case points out not even journalists are safe. now we often talk about the increasing use in reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles or drones you've by our military our cia our law enforcement agencies and soon to be coming with the approval of domestic drone use in the u.s. media organizations commercial companies who knows who else issues of legality the ethics of killing with the push of a button privacy concerns all these things need to be addressed as we h

president for apologizing for the qur'an burning after george bush had done the same thing back after abu ghraib it's all you know there's this political jumble this whole weirdness here in the u.s. is your thoughts on all of that and what what this might have to do. certainly rush limbaugh coming out and saying something is interesting you know that. i think that there probably is going to be some sort of residual u.s. presence and in the long term that will retain the ability of the strike and what now is sort of called the aftermath theater. you know which is basically the model that we've seen which is special forces and drones which target al qaeda type people that might have aspirations to attack the u.s. and that's going to go on for the long time. the rush limbaugh thing is interesting because if we see a conservative split in the conservative movement over this that certainly would shake things up a little bit because right now the conservative line certainly in the election them in congress with the exception of maybe ron paul and a little bit from newt gingrich has been that we need t

law when they carried out torture at guantanamo or at abu ghraib because the u.s. never really signed the torture convention. the rewritten by the senate to exclude certain category of torture. and if you look at those categories, they are the categories that the cia carries out. the cia back in the '50s basing themselves on kgb manuals and so on that redefined torture to allow what's called mental torture, you know, the kind that doesn't leave marks. so, for example, actually even waterboarding. so, you know, take bradley manning in solitary confinement which, of course, is torture by any reasonable means. but not by u.s. law. and that was then signed into legislation under clinton. so what's called torture here is a very narrow category, and a good deal of the torture that the u.s. actually carries out is legal under u.s. law. this is discussed by specialists in constitutional law, levinson and others, but almost nobody knows about it. well, you know, these are things everyone ought to know about. >> okay, yep. >> i wanted to ask you about two implications or sug

many here today, i became interested in guantÁnamo and the spring 2004 when the guantÁnamo and abu ghraibwere breaking of the media. as the u.s. historian and illegal moral boundaries of the state, i was curious about a place that to be beyond the reach of the cube in u.s. and law. you may remember in the aftermath of 9/11, the bush administration defended the denial of constitutional protection of the guantÁnamo detainees on the ground that guantÁnamo is simultaneously sovereign territory of cuba and has set aside constitutional jurisdiction at the same time, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction that the united states beyond the reach of international torture prohibition. now kubo contradicted what i thought he knew about the spanish-american war and the subsequent u.s. occupation of cuba. so i decided to take another look. what i discovered refuse the bush policy emphatically. the united states sees spain and one of the opening salvos of what americans think to call the spanish-american war. we retained during the subsequent u.s. occupation to cuba and refers cubit t

fighting terrorism and establishing clandestine prisons and detention centers in guantanamo, of abu ghraib under the pretext of promoting freedom. we stress that syria drove strength from the strength of its people and time for confronting its enemies. we call all those who are fomenting the crisis and bent on exacerbating it to reconsider these policies and to end massacreing the syrian people. one cannot be an arsonist and of firefighter at the same time. we call upon them to support national dialogue and syrian political reform process implemented by the syrian leadership in response to the legitimate demands by the people. by way of example i say in february we will hold a referendum on a new constitution for the country that guarantees political pluralism as well as automation of power. parliamentary elections held in the first half of the year, leaving the final fate to the ballot box. in conclusion, we expect the security council to be a platform, encouraging dialogue as a way to crises. we don't expect to provoke or aggravates crises. we believe that exacerbation of the crisis lead

you know this because you and i covered the bush white house together during abu ghraib.. >> absolutely. and dana, finally, i imagine they are looking at women voters, female voters as a really critical group there. when you have the race so close, neck-and-neck. >> absolutely. those voters in every race are important but particularly when you're looking at some of these areas. i notice you picked the sunny state, not michigan. well done. but, look, these voters -- these female voters are very important when newt gingrich was kind of higher in the polls and the romney campaign and democrats to some extent are really, really trying to paint rick santorum as anti-woman because of the things that he's talked about serving in the military and contraception and so on. and what he has done, rick santorum, has pushed back and said, that's not true. it's my personal belief. look at my wife. karen santorum, who he says is a strong woman and female voter, no question, is going to be big here in the two contests as they have been in the past several contests. >> yeah. dana, i spoke

and mention abu ghraib. referring to asaid as h.e. for "his excellency" it says h.e.wed as a hero. americans love these kinds of things and get convinced by it. >> they think the american public is stupid. >> a dissident who says he was one imprisoned and tortured by the regime. >> this is what they told us at the school, americans know nothing about the world, they insulate their people, the worker has no rights in the u.s., and they think the american is easy to fool. >> david kenner of "foreign policy" magazine says the e-mail reflects an amateurish effort to re -- >> honestly i think at this point they think they have lost the western media, they have lost the united states. >> reporter: he says at this point the syrian government is more interested in winning public opinion and government support in russia and in iran. we called and e-mailed syria's mission to the u.n. to the hacking and the karim such. we have not heard back, wolf. >> it's very surprising, even funny, the passwords that the syrians use for the e-mails. >> it's unbelievable. you look at the list

administration, leslie, when you and your friends said when something happened on the night shift at abu ghraib prison, it was george bush and donald rumsfeld's fought. well, who do you see among the media now saying this is the president's fault? his defense secretary, a bad call was made by a military commander to instead of sending these backs back to langley to be analyzed for whatever content they might have in those messages, they were thrown in a trash dump. now, that was an innocent mistake and an unintentional slight to the religion. by the president coming out and saying we're wrong, we apologize, we're sorry and not just once, he did it twice, and he called the second one a severe apology, whatever that means. i didn't go to harvard, so i don't understand what a severe apology is. he's the commander this chief, why isn't he being called on this? megyn: leslie, another point we're hearing from some including rush limbaugh is when you have repeated apologies and you know folks on the right believe president obama is, they call him a serial apologist, that it undermines the effectivenes