this first strike, the yemeni government takes responsibility, but it was a u.s. strike. and then al-awlaki knows that they're trying to get him. and theyart appearing have not been there since 2002. then in january, 2010, a story leaks to the "washington post" there are a number of u.s. citizens put on the killings. and that is maintained by the cia and the u.s. joint operations command, and was prominently among them is al- awlaki. after the "washington post" publish that story, they had to run a correction and because the cia got in touch with the "washington post" and said that they did not have american citizens on the killings appeared -- kill list. once he knew he was targeted, he spent the remaining two years of his life on the run. and his father wrote a letter to president obama begging him not to kill his son and sang there is another way to resolve this. if there is evidence that my son is involved with any criminal activity, make it public. and the head of the tri said if he is guilty of anything, will execute him ourselves, but we want to see the evidence. w

from getting out i mean that's a that's a very interesting point because the yemeni government has for decades taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the united states that's supposed to be used to fight al qaeda quote unquote and instead has redirected it to repressing its own people trying to tamp down the revolution against the u.s. back to cater ship i think that the issue of guantanamo remains this epic stain. on our nation and you know the fact is they they put these guys in saudi arabia they won't put them into yemen i think part of it is that is that they're afraid that they've created people that will have a legitimate reason to want to fight the u.s. one of the heads of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is a former guantanamo prisoner how was he radicalized where you know where did that transformation of him happen that's the story about how lucky he wasn't made into the guy you see on you tube it was some powder poured in his drink he was radicalized by u.s. wars i know his parents his parents are nothing like him they didn't raise him to be who he became in the youtube

rotting away in a yemeni prison he was going to go to be pardoned by the president of yemen and obama personally called and intervened to make sure that the pardon was ripped up this journalist is in prison to this day and his real crime was exposing u.s. missile strikes and interviewing the people the u.s. says are terrorists so what happens i mean i've interviewed people that are attached to al qaeda does that mean that what i should be in jail you know i've been reporting on these missile strikes i mean where do we stop where is the line drawn when when journalists can be put in prison i don't believe for a minute it was richard engle who had done that stuff that he be rotting in a yemeni prison right now it's because no one cares about. he's not speaking english he's reporting in arabic much of his work no one ever hears about here well especially with things like the n.d.a. in effect that actually does say if you are coordinating with tears if you just are in contact with tears i mean this of course it's a very glaring problem for a journalist such as yourself chris hedges other

he's stuck with a roster of mostly yemeni prisoners that are mostly cleared to be released, but he's blocked from releasing them. now a majority of prisoners at guantanamo are refusing food and hunger striking because they think there's no end to any of it. we now know -- at least we can maybe know enough to imagine -- how this might end, at least how some of it might end. when attorney general eric holder walked into the hearing where he testified for four solid hours this week on scandal-rama, as the attorney general was walking into that hearing room, a protester yelled at him. >> attorney general, when are you going to send a special envoy to guantanamo? >> mr. attorney general, when are you going to appoint a special envoy to guantanamo? the attorney general did not answer. they never do. the protester was thrown out. but then during the hearing, the attorney general did say this. >> there are steps the administration can do and that we will do in an attempt to close that facility. there are a substantial number of people who can, for instance, be moved back to yemen. the presid

makes no sense i'm a human being not a passport and i deserve to be treated like one this is the yemeni. the new york times of course deserves credit for probably this letter of despair of this man but it seems unless it's on t.v. unless it's part of a national discussion national conversation few will actually know. so care about that why is it not part of the national conversation well nobody's taking it on that's happened in the civil rights legislation i was in the johnson white house and it took. many years before we were able to get a constituency it says we have done wrong by our african-american fellow americans and we need to change the way here they were in their face and they want detainees are there and nobody seems to care about understand that but. the undocumented immigrants they were here but nobody seemed to care about them until just recently we're going to get an immigration bill i think that's going to be fair to the immigrants who are here both legally and illegally all i'm saying is when you when you asked they need to win votes and those are gone kind of detainees

endorsed indefinite detention it was disappointing that he said he'd go back and re were you the yemenis to send home and most of all it's disappointing that he can to new. to blame congress for his

terms of substance nothing on taking the drones away from the cia he suggested that he would review yemeni cases in guantanamo one by one but not when they're our how publicly or what would the results be he suggested that old timidly he would like the authorization for the use of military force repealed but in the meantime he would like it refined whatever that might mean he said the war in afghanistan would end some day he didn't say a day or a month or a year he provided absolutely no evidence to support government claims around the killing of lockie or of the other three americans including his teenage son which my friend medea benjamin interrupted him to ask him about and he did not answer her very very little of substance very little of change or hope you don't think that there's an element to transparency using to be opening up a bit more on the his tactics on war on terror. how so i mean he claims that he is going to further limit his murder by drone program including applying these arbitrary criteria met in secret by himself to his own satisfaction to non americans at least in cer

but they are not yemenis, they are saudis. >> and why were they operational?ause they had room to maneuver. >> that's correct. >> anything in terms of what you see as in terms of operational move to move in what the group has there? is there any chance of meaningful pressure from them from the domestic government? is it all imposed from the u.s. and cia military move pt? >> that a good question. right now the group is under pressure but most of it is from drones and airstrikes. but the yemeni government right now, we have to remember that arab spring, in egypt meu barry goes to prison. sulla didn't lose, he just stepped down from being the president. he is still a political figure. there is all of these tensions, behind the scenes maneuvering between the different factions and the yemeni government doesn't have complete control over large portions of the country right now. >> gregory, i know you are a yemen expert. not necessarily a guantanamo expert. but if you -- if something was able to be worked out an these 59 guys were shipped from cuba to home to yemen

president himself stablish but he then imposed a ban on releasing two thirds of them because they yemenis after a failed bomb plot in christmas two thousand and nine and the rest of the men and for all of the men in general have had their release blocked or made extremely difficult by congress so it's become a game of political football cynically i think lawmakers are preventing prisoners from being released and the president himself has been unwilling to expend political capital on an issue that isn't popular enough with the voters so you know the hunger strike it's taken the hunger strike for the prisoners to get noticed and these men are now seeking desperate measures but we've seen hunger strikes there before will this one have any different impact. well you know i think it has to do because long time that the prison has been open it's not as though anyone legitimately is claiming that there's any reason for these men the most for most of them to be held apart from the fact that it's proven difficult to close the facility down and to release the majority of them so i think the pressin

president himself stablish but he then imposed a ban on releasing two thirds of them because they yemenis after a failed bomb plot and christmas two thousand and nine and the rest of them and for all of them and in general they have had their release blocked or made extremely difficult by congress so it's become a game of political football cynically i think lawmakers are preventing prisoners from being released and the president himself has been unwilling to expend political capital on an issue that isn't popular enough with a vote so you know the hunger strike it's taken the hunger strike for the prisoners to get noticed. because the quantum however are soaring keeping the prisoners halle's isolated and under total control doesn't come cheap u.s. taxpayers are shelling out nine hundred thousand dollars a year for every inmate in guantanamo and there are one hundred sixty six of them and what's worse that cost is likely to grow given new bills presented by force feeding doctors and medication of want to his rescue with an explanation of the practice. what i'm about to describe to you is

this will be done but he did say the administration is lifting the ban on transfers to yemen the yemenis are the largest single group of prisoners added on and on those six out of eighty six detainees who've been cleared for release are from yemen and president obama also says he asked congress to lift restrictions on bringing the detainees to the u.s. to be tried by military commissions here in the states after all these years of inaction indifference and then just this one tunnel detainees finally got to president obama's attention whether it was just really sad that it took a massive hunger strike and so much physical suffering to them to be heard remember we've heard president obama talk about closing the prison five years ago nothing happened moreover he signed a law that made indefinite detention illegal he shut down the office of the state department that was working on the transfers and just two months ago a pentagon official was in congress asking for nearly two hundred million dollars to renovate the prison so just a little while ago the prospect of closing the prison seemed so

the american military's view is that you know that there are all sorts of crimes going on by the yemenis and the associated press have been exposing the actually what's been going on here in reality is exposed so should the press are exposing war crimes by people in their own country what we've got here squaring up is the american military industrial complex led in this case by eric holder i mean he is the u.s. attorney general but he is a some kind of devil's advocate if you look at remember the film is that kind of lawyer he's the first ever in american history to be held in contempt of congress so he is certainly not god he's hands clean on the other side is the tradition of a free press and the effect of this massive trawl effectively a fishing operation through months of associated press is telephone lines is it has a horrific chilling effect on journalism it also means that individuals who. are people with stories cannot know can no longer trust the journalists so if they go with confidential information to those journalists and have confidential phone conversations they are not no

released 86 people already cleared for transfer and lift his self-imposed moratorium on returning yemeni nationals to their home country. we will speak with the center for constitutional rights after headlines. the obama administration is reportedly close to providing syrian rebels with lethal weaponry in their fight against president bashar al-assad. the washington post reports obama will make a final decision in the coming weeks on what one official described as "assistance that has a direct military purpose." syrian rebels have already asked western backers for antitank weapons and surface-to-air missiles. president obama suggested that confirmation of syrian chemical weapons could trigger u.s. intervention in some form, but still awaiting more evidence. >> we now have evidence chemical weapons had been used inside of syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. we don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. decisions am making about america's national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to c

a big proportion of those detainees are yemeni. we've had a problem with the yemenis securing those guys. a lot of them escape from prison. that will dump a lot of the guantanamo prisoners outside u.s. control. but, yeah, i think he's setting a path and asking people to come to the plate and say swing at it. i've given you a ball to swing at and if you don't want to swing at it, give me a better option. >> rose: all right. i have to end it there. thank you very much. thank you david ignatius, david kilcullen, phil mud. back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: memorial day is a commemoration to the men and women who have died in the service of the united states. it's also an opportunity to think about what happens to our returning veterans. in twelve, the unemployment rate for new veterans aged 18 to 24 stood at-- it's hard to believe-- 20.4%. that's more than five percentage points higher than nonveterans of the same age. two men want to change that. they want to harness the unique skills of veterans to help america at home. to do

the vast majority of detainees down there are yemenis.ared in one fashion or another to go are yemenis. and the question that we'll be looking for in the president's speech is does he in fact lift the moratorium he imposed on transfers to yemen and go back to considering on a case-by-case basis, whether yemenis cleared for release. three and four years ago. can now be allowed to be transferred to yemen again. >> and pj, you've been a press spokesman at the white house, at the pentagon. in the state department. so you know the interactions, the daily interactions between the news media and the administration on national security issues. how can the president today say that he believes in press freedoms. when this administration has been more aggressive than any of its recent predecessors in going after not just the leakers, but the reporters? >> andrea it's a very fine line, i worry about the you know, the impact of this on the american narrative in terms of the united states being a great supporter of freedom of the press. i mean these ha

the new york times has recently published the plea over yemeni national who's been imprisoned that kuantan all without charges of any kind for more than eleven years and here's what he writes no one seriously thinks i'm a threat but still i'm here years ago the military said i was a guard for osama bin laden but this was nonsense like something out of the american movies i used to watch they don't even seem to believe it anymore but they don't seem to care how long i sit here either the only reason i'm still here is that president obama refuses to send any detainees back to gammon this makes no sense i'm a human being not a passport and i deserve to be treated like one this is the gemini. the new york times of course deserves credit for probably this letter of despair of this many but it seems unless it's on t.v. unless it's part of a national discussion national conversation few will actually know. so care about that why is it not part of the national conversation well nobody's taking it on that's happened in the civil rights legislation i was in the johnson white house and it took. many

endorsed indefinite detention it was disappointing that he said he'd go back and re were you the yemenis to send home and most of all it's disappointing that he can to new. to blame congress for his inability to transfer detainees back to their home countries or third countries he simply isn't willing to show the kind of political leadership that's required president obama addressed several issues through this hour long speech that he gave today let's play a part of what he said about guantanamo bay since we're talking about it and given my administration's relentless pursuit of al qaeda leadership there is no justification beyond politics for congress to prevent us from closing a facility that it should should have never been opened. today. so sam he laid out several plans of action when it comes to guantanamo bay what did we learn what are his plans moving forward well i think you're right i don't think we've learned much new he he basically brought everything back to square one and he made up the ground that he had lost over the last few years as far as lifting the transfer ban to yem

home in the yemenis of course constitute more than half of the prisoners. at guantanamo know that's going to take place i will hold my breath i won't hold my breath and rather until that happens but clearly when the president saying he's looking for a way and congress keeps blocking him he needs to just override what congress is saying because they keep saying these people are going to be recidivist are going to go back and start fighting against the united states which is just pure nonsense because six hundred thirteen plus have been released and the overwhelming majority of us particularly ones in the european countries are living our lives as normal people just briefly you've told us about the psychological effects of indefinite detention also the allegations of torture there in the prison but i spoke to the spokesman yesterday he was saying the conditions were pretty good the satellite t.v. they're a communal areas what exactly are the conditions like you've been there tell us what they are like inside the cells you have the condition that these people

footage of children killed in one of those strikes he was jailed he was about to be pardoned by the yemeni president and then there was a phone call from president obama who reportedly insisted that they keep him in jail what do you make of that you know i don't i know this story i don't know. in depth sort of i know others have reported extensively on this story i mean i think that there is a there's no question that there's been a crackdown by the administration this administration on information as a whole and reporting on various secret programs i mean you see it overseas you see it in the united states there's been more leak prosecutions of the obama administration than there was under the bush administration and makes it incredibly hard for reporters whether they be american reporters or foreign reporters to get at the basics of these shadow wars that are going on because although it is all classified in the past it has been easier to sort of find the basics of things is now i know it's quite hard have you felt that crackdown in your own work on your own skin yeah certainly the it ma

this makes no sense i'm a human being not a passport and i deserve to be treated like one this is yemeni. the new york times of course deserves credit for probably this letter of despair of this many but it seems unless it's on t.v. on less it's part of a national discussion national conversation few will actually know and care about the. why is it not part of the national conversation well nobody's taking it on that's happened in the civil rights legislation i was in the johnson white house and it took. many years before we were able to get a constituency is as we have done wrong by our african-american fellow americans and we need to hear they were in face and they want detainees are there and nobody seems to care about understand that but. the undocumented immigrants they were here but nobody seemed to care about them until just recently we're going to get an immigration bill i think that's going to be fair to the immigrants who are here both legally and illegally all i'm saying is when you when you're asked they need to win votes and those are gone kind of detainees foreign nationals

. >> you said you are conflicted about this story that the yemeni league was really bad which i get.hat is the rational for the doj not following the usual guidelines and notifying the associated press in advance it would subpoena the records? >> they are saying it could have threatened the investigation. >> how? >> any sane person would ask that question. it makes no sense. >> when you do an investigation like this and say they pull 20 phone records, phone lines. >> they are pulling the call logs off of those. you have two months of call logs and you have all of those numbers. that's a lot of numbers considering they are reporters. now you have to investigate the numbers. now are you not just investigating the reporters, but you are investigating the private citizens. the whole thing makes no sense. you can't justify it. >> doesn't it make it harder to find the needle in the hey stack? >> don't get me wrong. i am right on board of finding out the source of the leak. but you don't do it this way. we have a much easier way. >> water boarding, right? >> again, i keep going back to the

the yemeni with very pro-american view, but drone strikes are beginning to change that in yemen.ied in congress. this is what he said there. >> the america that i know and that i love. now, however when they think of america, they think of the terrorists with the drones hovering over their heads ready to strike an time. with it took many years to achieve one drone strike destroyed in an instant. >> cenk: i've seen that and you've done seen that in the stories that you've written we're turning the population against us because often times we're killing civilians. we do signature strikes where we don't even know who we're killing, which seems outrageous. the only thing more outrageous is when we kill conspiracy first responders. why would we do something so counterproductive. >> the obama administration basically made a decision they want to get away from large large-scale troop deployment. they're selling the country a bill of goods the idea that this is a clean war, we're taking out the terrorists and reports of civilian deaths or casualties are greatly exaggerated. i think to a

a yemeni military jet has crashed in a residential suburb of the capital. .rowds gather in the street at least one person, the pilot, has been killed. it exploded in the air before going down. the committee has already been sent out to investigate. we will bring you more of that story as we get it. hasebel leader from dahrfur been killed attempting to enter the territory within the justice and equality movement. >> this peace deal, signed in april, was one of several glimmers of hope for dar for in recent years, and has since vanished. agreement was signed with the sudanese government, but since then he has broken away, taking a splinter group with him. the main body of the rebels appears to be angry with the sudanese government. he and his convoy were attacked inside of chad inside the darfur region. in his men were having lunch when 30 vehicles ambushed of them. the attack is yet another factor that could destabilize sedan with its fragile peace agreement with south sudan. the sudanese government has agreed to share power and establish a governing authority in darker -- are for -- a

day bombing incident, all transfers to yemen were stopped because we did not have confidence the yemeniovernment could handle them. well, guess what? between december 2009 and today, has yemen shown any indication that they are more capable of looking after those individuals? absolutely not. if we were to transfer those individuals to yemen, we would be just like turning them loose. i just don't think that is the right thing to do. >> that was sexy chambliss from georgia. we're also joined by codepink co-founder diane wilson who is on day 25 of a water and salt only hunger strike in solidarity with the guantanamo prisoners. she was arrested earlier this month after chaining herself to the white house fence and a demonstration urging the president to close the guantanamo prison. she is a fourth generation fisherwoman from the texas gulf coast. welcome to democracy now! we're also joined by pardiss .ebriaei, senior staff attorney her client, ghaleb al-bihani, is one of the detainees currently on hunger strike. she is lead counsel for ccr in the al-awlaki's case that seeks accountability f

transfer but they were not transferred because a number of them were going to yemen, 56 of them are yemeni. following the 2009 christmas day bomber incident, all transfers to yemen were stopped because we did not have confidence -- their government could handle them. guess what? between december, 2009 and today, has yemen shown any indication that they are more capable of looking after those individuals? absolutely not. if we were to transfer those individuals to yemen, it would be like turning them loose. host: that was saxby chambliss yesterday after the president's speech. some reaction to the plan is coming in on our facebook page. we are taking your thoughts and comments this morning and the phone lines are open. look at this graphic from today's "the washington post." we will show you a bit of that graphic as we take phone calls. first, cindy from wyoming, on our democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning to you. i am just amazed that we have not close this facility before. it should never, ever have been opened. i am fully behind the president's attempts to try to close it

government, you were part of the decisionmaking group to send some of the yemenis back to yemen, from guantanamo, that was halted after the underwear bombing attempt. where do you think we should go now? >> i think conditions in yemen have changed from that time to the point that those -- and i think there were almost 100 yemenis -- determined in fact, ought to be sent back to yemen. the history is that, about a fifth of those whom we were released in the past go back to the battlefields. we're taking the chance that some we release will try to kill american servicemen or americans. but i think that this is a current situation is a price worth paying. and that rice goes downover time. >> that's a chance we should take? >> we have a 160 individuals, cost $150 million to hold, the problem with guantanamo and the president believes rightfully is that it's -- it's incites our enemies. it puts our intelligence members overseas in jeopardy. it's used as a rallying cry. >> do you think it's going to happen? do you think it will really be closed down? >> congress, particularly, the republican

democrats f yemeny are not happy with the leaderships and have not been paid for months. the only person working is the ambassador himself. >> the permanent mission of yemen to the u.n. every nation considers its embassy in new york to be one of its most important diplomatic postings. but behind the closed doors behind this building, there is very little diplomacy going on. the staff are inside but they're refusing to do any work. they say everyone apart from the ambassador is effectively on strike because they haven't been paid and they have no health insurance. >> as we speak right now their offices, they're not working. we had some code of honor which i think is an important vote in the general assembly. that's when we would vote. otherwise regular meetings, no one's going to the regular meetings. why are you taking this action? >> right now, this is a major mischief in the mission. first because of the terrible management of the mission here. and because of the lack of coordination between difference public agencies. >> the staff say they have political problems with