coming up on our team exclusive look at a not so exclusive list in san francisco federal court a woman finds to get off the terror watch list why was she on it in the first place i mean is the list even affective more on that just ahead and another spine development of the n.s.a. surveillance case of foreign leaders this time looks like our neighbors to the north helped us fly on heads of state during the two thousand and ten g. eight and g. twenty summits in canada or in the expansion of international surveillance coming up and orange county police officers are on trial over the death of a local homeless man for months now there's been video showing how kelly thomas was beaten and tasered by police officers before his death the latest on the case later in the show.

it's monday december second five pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r t well starting off the news this hour a federal district court in san francisco is hearing the case today of a woman who has been fighting to remove her name from the terror watch list for over eight years now it's a list that's easy to get your name on but almost impossible to get off of stanford university ph d. student rouhani even if he was boarding a flight home to malaysia from the san francisco international airport in two thousand and five when authorities arrested her they told her she was on the terror watch list now eventually mrs even to him was allowed to travel again above her student id was for her student visa was revoked and she was not allowed back in the u.s. the evidence levied against her is unclear at this point and the government argues that revealing the information that poster on that list would jeopardize national security and mrs even if he was not alone by the end of last year the u.s.

database of potential international terrorists known as the terrorist identity. data mark environment or tide had eight hundred seventy five thousand names on it that's up from seven hundred forty thousand names in just the year before that because of the list includes multiple aliases there are fewer individuals and there are actual names on that list but nevertheless a huge number of people are affected and the time list just feeds the master terrorist watch list that's run by the f.b.i. which adds in potential domestic terrorists to what that list as well her critics argue that the list is not effective tom or line for instance one of the boston bombers was on the list for years failed to prevent that attack her discuss the effectiveness of the terror watch list is money at a bar a civil rights attorney at care thank you so much for joining me now first of all let's start talking about how you get your name on that list is there any bona fide

way that we will tell them you're on that list well the government doesn't reveal officially to people whether they are on the list and we see usually happen is that a federal law enforcement agency may quote unquote nominate people including u.s. citizens to the watch list and then never revealed the reason for being included on the watch list or even officially let them know that they are on the list and there's just not really any sure fire way of these people finding out why they ended up on the list in the first place and as i understand it muslim sounding names are more likely to be on that watch list is that because they are credible threats or is that because it's more of a stereotype well there's no reason to believe that just because somebody has a muslim name or a muslim sounding name that they are more likely to be a threat in any kind of way in the experience of the civil rights legal community

we are seeing that the list is far. disproportionately affecting people with muslim sounding name so as far as we can tell there is some type of religious profiling going on that leads to the compilation of the list and would you be able to distinguish for us the difference between the terror watch list and the no fly list sure so the no fly list is actually a sub component of the greater terror watch list the no fly list is a list that if you are unlucky to end up on it for some reason it means that you cannot fly in or out of a u.s. airport and generally means that you can't even order flight that's going to cross u.s. airspace and in practice it also means that other types of transportation are also close to you for example non-u.s. countries many of them use some form of the u.s. no fly list to bar people from flying and we've also seen indications that the list

is given out to ship captains and that prevents people from also boarding boats and ships to try to travel sure now we've heard of law enforcement and federal agencies using racial profiling in the past take for instance the surveillance of the mosques in new york city and then after that policy of racial profiling was actually very popular among new yorkers so is that reason enough to continue these practices because there's not enough pushback. there is not really any good reason to continue racial or religious profiling in order to compile this list because as you mentioned earlier we haven't seen any reason that it is effective there are people who are threats who for example the boston bombers who maybe could have been caught if law enforcement were able to be given the leeway to focus on other indications that somebody is a threat besides some of the lists that are derivative of the greater terrorist

watch list i'm at the same time we are seeing the rights of innocent people being infringed every day because they are placed on the watch list for no reason so for example a lot of these people can't fly to attend to business matters to attend to personal matters such as and it can be really heartbreaking for these people and over any known cases where the terror watch list has in fact produced results. not that i can tell you off the top of my head and i'm not going to save one hundred percent that there are not cases where some derivative of the watchlist did legitimately a law enforcement but the problem that we're seeing right now is that there's just far too much air the watch list obviously is not one hundred percent helping us catch legitimate threats but the watch list is also catching too many false positives too many innocent people are being put on the list and affected and they just don't know why and we have just about thirty seconds left but what about similar names between two people say to mecca lopez's for instance unfortunately

that can definitely lead to a problem so for example if there is a mega lopez who has legitimately. you know or not legitimately but has actually engage in some kind of wrongdoing if you maybe have a similar birthday to her there is a chance definitely that at an airport you would accidently be flagged as that person and falsely identified as a threat and maybe not even allowed to board the plane and it's a very scary notion indeed that a simple name can get you on a list that could potentially have the government watching you when you job are still rights attorney for care thank you so much for joining me thank you. well another day another edward snowden leaked detailing the n.s.a. spying on another country this time c.b.c. news broke the story with journalist glenn greenwald's help the broadcaster revealed a largely were directed documents that details how the american spy agency conducted a widespread surveillance during the two thousand and ten g eight and g twenty summits c.b.c. news wrote the briefings that notes stamped top secret show the us turned its

ottawa embassy into a security compound post during a six day spying operation by the national security agency while u.s. president barack obama and twenty five other foreign heads of government were on canadian soil in june of two thousand and ten the covert knew as operation was no secrets to canadian authorities so apparently canadian authorities not only knew about the spying that was going on in their country but they may have even participated in it and that has privacy advocates crying foul i was joined earlier by steve anderson executive director of open media for more on this latest docu drop and i first asked him whether we should really be all that surprised about these latest disclosures given what we already know listen. i think it will be surprising to most canadians that we would all out there a government would formally allowed foreign spy agency to spy on our soil to actually go into our country. permissions and monitor people

in canada in this case trying of canada during the g twenty i think that's a huge surprise to many canadians and it's a surprise to me and maybe it shouldn't be with all the revelations per day i just think that's much for that i thought they would go you know i thought they might collaborate and share our data and that was a concern said of me ca many others purpose and i really did not expect them to allowed us n.s.a. to spy on people in canada and is there any evidence as to how far they these links went between the u.s. and canada and cooperating with these efforts. it's hard to say. for we've seen we know that there are some sort of formal agreements and we know that. they they you know brought in equipment and they had a kind of very robust operation in intro but aside from that it's no it's not

completely clear that arguments that they haven't shared so far i haven't been totally clear on that point and what about the evidence is there anything valuable that we know of came from the spine efforts. i haven't heard of anything they have or they care of it no it's and i think that that actually goes to alert your issue which is how much is all of this spying cost you know this spying without her concern in canada we're talking about spending four billion of our tax dollars to house these new spying operations and you know we know it's out of control you know we're spying on diplomats there's a question of it canadians are being caught up in the strangeness surveillance or spying or our eyes in brazil and so we don't we don't know the value of it and i think that would be really nice if we actually had a value proposition put of poorly canadian now last month in your open medio dot ca group joined with the b.c.

civil liberties association to form a lawsuit alleging that canada's spy agency is there a legal and unconstitutional what it is doing anyway have you made any progress on that or have you heard anything back. that's so far we haven't heard anything back we expect in the coming weeks and months for the government to make its views known we're hoping that they will disappear as a willing party in the case and bring forward information and it really uses as an opportunity to come clean as canadians on worked. what's going on with their our spy agency in canada and how secure is are gay how many canadians are being swept up so i think the surreal opportunity for them but us so far we haven't heard anything from them on the letter and what types of changes would you like to see is it mostly transparency related or are we talking about viable changes and really reining in canada's spy agency. well i think first me transparency we need some

sort of a public review we need answers how many comedians are being caught up with you know whatever information is being caught up in these huge to secure databases so when those kinds of questions answered and then i think we need to have some sort of policies in place that ensure that any spying that goes on is really tearing it is that there is over same accountability and really that or that or if i get is being swept up it's cats because we know that in recent years we've had over three thousand breaches of sensitive cities and i don't think approximately seven hundred twenty thousand canadians and so at the very least you know if we're going to have a gate it in these databases the government needs to come clean with us we need to know how many people are caught up in those databases and we need to have some assurances that our dad is safe from surfing you know cyber criminals and and that sort of them now when the people i've talked to in the reports that you have done or that you've read do you think that it is canada's spy agency which is really

taking the initiative here to widen and broaden the people that have spied on or do you think that the n.s.a. is part of possibly behind it pushing canada's spy agency to really be part of that five eyes alliance. you know that there's a strange confluence happening i think definitely the u.s. you know the n.s.a. is really pushing the envelope on spying you know they're engaging in bulk spying on people really around the world including including people in the u.s. and i suspect canada. from what we've been seeing you know i saw a quote yesterday in a report saying that you know from the air head of the sec saying we want to play with the big boys so i think that there is kind of a definitely a kind of it's. aspect that was the sec is doing where they really want to be a big player in this kind of spying activities even though you know i don't think canadians are really interested in that seem to be and you know we've heard that

they've taken civil servants on kind of while being expeditions within seasick operations to kind of well them and get into get more money and that's where there's but it has ballooned and that's why you know see second o.b. house and the most expensive government bill in canadian history which is just amazing to me now is steve anderson executive director of open media meanwhile the chairs that are the intelligence committees on capitol hill have the airwaves this weekend senator dianne feinstein and representative mike rogers made an appearance on c.n.n.'s state of the union to talk about everything from the n.s.a. to terror threats facing the u.s. today now one surprising comment to come out senator feinstein told candy crowley that we are no safer than we were two years ago but also defended the n.s.a. and said it's time to let the agency get back to its job sam sachs reports. i think terror is up worldwide this quick indicate that the fatalities are way up.

the numbers are way up there are new bombs very big bombs trucks being reinforced for those bombs there are bombs that go through magnetometers the bomb maker is still alive senator dianne feinstein chairwoman of the senate intelligence committee playing the fear card on sunday to defend the n.s.a. her counterpart in the house representative mike rogers also played that card we're fighting amongst ourselves here in this country about the role of our intelligence community that is is having an impact on our ability to stop what is a growing number of threats and so we've got to shake ourselves out of this pretty soon and understand that our intelligence services are not the bad guys so what has the two congressional intel chiefs using scare tactics on a sunday morning this pressure building in congress to hold a vote on actual n.s.a. reform on actually reigning in some of the n.s.a.'s most egregious programs

including the bulk collection of virtually all americans phone metadata so it's one month left in two thousand and thirteen congress has a lot on its agenda from finalizing a farm bill to avoid another government shutdown in the near future but fueled by edward snowden's leaks members of congress want to make sure n.s.a. reform is on that agenda too whether leadership likes it or not in the house the usa freedom act is for now the legislation of choice with more than one hundred co-sponsors including fifty one democrats and fifty one republicans there's a similar bill working its way through the senate and should leadership refused to bring either of those bills to a vote there is yet another route for n.s.a. reformers to take using must pass bills at the end of the year as vehicles for reform to defend the fourth amendment to defend the privacy of each and every american that was a tactic. tried earlier this year with the amash conyers amendment to the national defense authorization act that would have stripped funding from the n.s.a.'s bulk

collection programs the amendment was narrowly defeated but now months later in several new explosive leaks later lawmakers in the senate are eager to try it again with their n.d.a. they believe that if the vote were held today it would pass their two however leadership is pushing back as the chairman of the armed services committee carl levin doesn't want any n.s.a. reforms included in this year's and. this for a over the n.s.a. along with other issues related to sanctions on iran might prevent congress from even passing an n.d.a. for the first time in fifty one years again no n.d.a. for the first time in fifty one years so that is what's going on in congress and that's also what has the top defenders of the n.s.a. so concerned chairman rogers and chairman feinstein their rank and file members willing to wreak havoc on the legislative schedule just to make sure they get a vote on n.s.a.

reform but the wild card here will be the american people and what they want number they didn't want to bomb syria and we didn't bomb syria they want and we've seen march after march rally after rally people calling for n.s.a. reform so win or lose this issue isn't going away the n.s.a. is plugged into our culture it's in their advertisements the n.s.a. is listening and for an agency that operates in complete secrecy just six months ago this is a major change in washington d.c. same sex are to pam and now we're national pastime is turning into a national addiction because as an edible flower that has known to have mild neurotic effects it does not and are chronic affects actually have a call a loss of ask the times and they give users that warm and fuzzy feeling inside now it's a custom that goes all the way back to eight. it is an ages in the country and many farmers actually grow it however it could be causing a serious water shortage in yemen as

a result artie's dives and the issue. it's midday in so not like clockwork each afternoon these now means we're left with people buying cut their own route because it is the essence of nature of the city if you don't choose we're not. banned in many countries both legal in yemen the leaves contain a mild have caught it and almost everyone shoes more than ninety percent of men are into the world health organization at this market countless ladies and plenty of customers that shop and get a second so this is about five dollars worth of caught stealing the substance maybe on the national past time somebody will say i'm national a dentist or the i know already getting a lot of protection comes out of a hole one that the country as a whole but most of is it ok for the idea to logically put that yemen has no

shortage of problems but a shortage of water could make some not the first world cup at all to run dry current as one of the main culprits. yemen is chewing itself to death the country has limited water resources ninety three percent of the extract of water goes to agriculture and that's mostly to grow pot amid the rugged landscape on the outskirts of the capital got trees as far as the eye can see they can be harvested all year round and the farmers here say they earn more cash from drugs than food it takes an incredible amount of water to irrigate these got fields the more you pump in the faster these trees grow but even here it's taking its toll of the thirty wells that serve in this village ten have already gone dry and true more are on the verge. in some no the concept. and his are already visible those who can afford it buy their water from these trucks the rest

trouble to get by however they can and there are public taps but the water is often dirty and shortages are common in the cities groundwater could be depleted in less than a decade but for the poorest residents it's as good as gone should be talking about . what's going to miss his actions around the world it's a matter of definitions no. that's not just some. of the most serious what's the problem in the world. it's a race against time and one that young is the using but here are the evenings belong to cut men gathered together to talk smoke and true those are chosen the scapes for a country that has precious few of them are now speaking of the water crisis we simply have to wait another day. to see how from the party sun up yemen. well two police officers who were involved in the death of thirty seven year old kelly thomas are on trial this week former fullerton officer manuel ramos has been

charged with second degree manslaughter and involuntary second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter from a police corporal jason elie has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force a third officer joseph wolf will face trial in late january this is the first time in the history of orange county where police officers are on trial for their actions while on duty and look charges stem from this surveillance video that you're looking at now showing the police officers beating kelly thomas with their fists and the butts of their guns as well as taser them no fewer than four times thomas eventually died from the chemical compression of the thorax which made it impossible for him to glory i was joined earlier by our teams are among the lindo for more on this trial he first walked us through the final moments that led up to kelly thomas is death. absolutely well as we speak right now defense attorneys are presenting their opening statements in an orange county courtroom in the trial of

sirius's aneli and money well ramos in the killing of kelly thomas now this is a murder trial two years in the making this all started back on july fifth of twenty eleven when officers got an eye when one call about somebody trying to break into cars in the downtown fullerton area an investigation later found out that kelly thomas wasn't trying to break into any cars and was not in possession of any sort of stolen goods when officer ramos and says no he confronted kelly thomas there of questioning him and according to the district attorney there in orange county thomas was having a difficulty understanding the commands that police were giving them after about fifteen minutes of back and forth with ramos and the notorious video then shows ramos putting his fists up to kelly thomas' face and threatening to punch him with his fists after that. district attorney to enter

a caucus is that what should have been just a routine police stop ended up with kelly thomas on the ground bleeding unconscious and dying and remember we're looking at the video right now that surveillance video and it's black and white a little bit hard to see what's going on with all those police officers kind of crowded around kelly thomas how instrumental and how instrumental is this surveillance video in that case. well this is really the center of the case and as i mentioned earlier return e tony were a cock is said that if it weren't for this tape and the audio recordings. police were equipped with police with audio recorders on their bodies if it weren't for these tapes he probably could not have prosecuted this case and really the dissemination of these videos online and the efforts of kelly thomas. his father ron thomas really really resonated and got a lot of attention. on this case the final words of kelly thomas is kelly thomas

before you and i was conscious we're dad dad dad those words really engrained in kelly thomas' father's brain and he talked to me last year right after the announcement that a civil rights lawsuit was being filed against the city of fullerton let's hear from them. you know talk this type of thing if you want you to rest patrol talk and you don't teach this you know this is just brutal murder that's all there is to i think everybody needs to be concerned of are copied off like that and murder somebody right iran thomas is himself a former orange county deputy he was actually hoping for more severe charges against these officers however before the trial started he said he is very confident that justice will be served and ramona the defense attorneys for the officer say that thomas was a schizophrenia and he had multiple run ins with the law and he has

a prior conviction for assaulting his grandfather with a fireplace poker his own mother solder restraining order against him after he held her by the throat during an argument he's a known meth user and he was allegedly attempting to take the guns off the officers that night so how did kelly thomas' past play into this trial and how it affected him that night. right and we're going to definitely hear a lot about that during the trial from defense attorneys and prosecutors are well aware of this they say that it is it is routine for defense attorneys to distract from the actions that their clients did and then try to put the victim on trial. the defense attorneys say that the image of kelly thomas being a frail mentally ill man is furthest from the actual case but we also have to remember that the autopsy following kelly thomas' death he actually had no drugs in his system at the time of the beating r.t. correspondent ramon lindau thank you so much for bringing us that story and i'm

sure we'll be staying on top of this trial as it continues to develop. now as the holiday season ramps up you'll be seeing advertisement after advertisement imploring you to buy buy buy but there's at least one ad that you might not see and that's because it's been banned from times square however artie's honest are going to find out that that might be part of the plan. it will be one of the. most of the makings and. so we called the. one place they didn't want to be together with this ad is the big apple's advertisement an anti snoring campaign featuring a u.s. soldier hugging a muslim woman censored from the public spotlight by a private company which owns billboards in times square it's appealing in a way to this idea that a patriotic american and a middle eastern woman could never be together and look how crazy that couple is and so that's a little bit problematic but inherently there's nothing wrong with the ad the aim

of this particular ad as is the case with any attempt to sell a product to generate buzz and bring as much attention to it as possible picture them in the boardroom when there we go to come up with an ad did they walk in and go we want to promote harmony and love no they walked in and said snort right now do you approve or talk about store frank no one walked into that room it was like oh we just love the marines and we love muslim people and we want to see them together that never happened this nor spree kept people wide awake while you know you know certain feelings about moral decency and you know old taboos about you know nudity or drugs or things like that or being last and there is still a political motivation behind censorship yet another example of censorship considered mission accomplished you're going to spend millions of dollars on say a billboard in times square or a television ad campaign why on earth would you be expected to do anything that wasn't provocative what may have been deemed shopping yesterday is nothing but the

norm today and while oversensitivity is still king often hypocrisy the potential consequences goes unnoticed and real issues are met with a blind eye us soldiers are engaged in a war imperialist occupation afghanistan and iraq the are there not liberators they're not boyfriend. good boyfriend material and you know i think i can't imagine many muslim people not finding you kind of disgusting and this is science where brands have to do what they can to get noticed by the consumers and get people to talk about their product as much as possible all tricks are game no matter who's feelings get hurt this is a societal manipulation and we should be wary aware of that and that should kind of pissed us off we are now a society of wind up outrage you just crank it up and you watch it go as one pseudo scandal replaces the next while the public holds its breath to see what will push

its buttons next and if they see churkin our team. that does it for now. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. today where it's a story. it's just this kind of like a smear that guys that are working for the people in the mainstream media are pretty much over bribery just as you're doing. the.

hello and welcome to cross talk for all things considered on people about what is the fate of the house of saud gets a list of complaints against washington riyadh's well known protector is long and getting longer the saudis are furious over western dealings with iran disappointed that obama didn't bomb syria and determined to export its radical form of islam and one of its only real friends in the region is israel given all of this can the house of saud afford what it calls an independent foreign policy. to cross-talk saudi arabia i'm joined by my guest brian becker in washington he is the national coordinator of the answer coalition and in nashville we cross to mark levine he is a senior fellow with the truman national security project and a radio show host or a gentleman cross-talk roles in fact up and you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it brian is it time for washington to tell saudi arabia to

pound sand. well i think it's been long established that the u.s. government considers the saudi government to be an indispensable ally not its only ally and perhaps now not its principal ally but certainly an important one ronald reagan made it clear more than thirty years ago that there would be quote no revolution in saudi arabia because the us was just absolutely determined to keep the absoluteness monarch in power there not because they care so much about what's going on inside of saudi arabia but because they consider it to be essential as the main oil export or in the world in a geo strategic ally but of course the saudi government has other things to worry about principally it's a it's a it's an unstable regime in the way saudi society has been organized it's a distorted society and it fears revolutions either from a secular opposition or more importantly from an islamic opposition and so in that

sense the saudi government is always pursuing a foreign policy and a domestic policy based on sort of existential fear that the regimes days although it seemed to nip it in a while ago could in fact be numbered and it's a good point mark the the days are numbered for the house of saud are they a good bet for washington thirty years ago i understand i agree with brian i mean unfortunately that was the reality there but a lot of lot of things have changed in the last thirty years a lot of things have changed the last two years i would argue that in the arab world when the most unstable areas of the world saudi arabia is one of the most stable and look at almost any other arab country name it look here mark it is it is stable and. stable because of tyranny is that it stability. well actually there's less tyranny in saudi arabia than other countries look i'm not saying this saudi arabia some free and open place their treatment of women obviously is terrible there but compared to syria where hundreds of thousands of

being massacred by iran and hezbollah and the syrian government and al-qaeda moving in and iraq in libya in tunisia yes saudi arabia is that beacon of stability compared to all the other in stable places they're ok brian if i go back to you but i mean. syria is unstable because of saudi arabia and it's exporting its jihad oh yes other oil that is so well documented none of the money go to brian but it's so well documented right now and it's one of the reasons why i'm doing this program is because the u.s. is supporting people that are against his own national interest brian first and we'll go to mark go ahead ron. you know mark's comments are are somewhat laughable i would say remember when jimmy carter stood next to the shah of iran in one nine hundred seventy seven and said you are an island of stability in a sea of turmoil and the u.s. premised its foreign policy based on being connected to join with the with the shah

a time that was two years before the government was overthrown by a popular people's revolution of course saudi arabia has formant its civil war in syria it had a principle a fundamental. desire to overthrow the assad government to create a sunni a sunni government that would be backed by the saw saudi regime it did this in concert with the with got our and others it functioned as a proxy of course for the united states and western and western interests who had said assad must go but saudi arabia had its own independent national interests or perceived national interests or the interests of the monarchy the drove it to carry out civil war the blood of the syrian people is on the hands of the saudi government does so to say that there are. there's kind of this crazy mad massacre going to last long arabia ok more easy mark go ahead this is crazy talk we're going to be fair play more night states for the holocaust look the syrian government has

been massacring hundreds of thousands that since randoms that's when i went on your show many times peter. three or four years ago i came on your show it was a peaceful revolution the syrian government mow them down in the streets they take out innocent men women and children shoot them down they don't know any humanitarian. mark what's the role of the soldiers there i'll tell you the ball go ahead there's been a long time battle between shia and sunni muslims that's existed for a thousand years and exists in the iran iraq war saudi arabia is leading the sunni's iran is leading the shias in syria of course you have a sunni majority country ruled by it. iranian backed months already why he's killing washington d.c. involved in all the greatest coming out of the balance sheet in washington be backing the sequester you want friends go ahead go ahead mark they should they should be backing the peaceful rebels there because and doing it through a no fly zone by the way not through arms because right now it's all going to end up frankly you know why you don't have

a light there brian jump in here no one should act of war moreover you know you try to enact again such good stuff you know we were all very each other brian let's be real let's be real if i could a no fly zone means you have to carry out the you through the u.s. and nato air forces the ability to destroy the syrian air defenses no fly zone means the u.s. would unlike what it's doing right now which is preparing for another round of negotiations be doing what the saudis wanted them to do less summer which is to further take that step towards a full scale military engagement with the syrian government and with its allies a no fly zone is not a peaceful alternative to war it's a step towards war it's an act of step towards war this saudi lover i know we're going to am about the heart of the people concerned because of that if we were to suddenly all right jennifer let's stay with saudi arabia here mark mark i'm going

to go to mark now you know mark ok i'll take what you're saying at face value you know the saudis are trying to protect civilians but they've backed saddam in a war against iran were almost estimates say up to a million people so you're saying that the syrian syrian blood is more valuable than iranian blood that's what you're saying because it doesn't make any sense to me what i'm saying what i'm saying is the saudis and the iranians are in a battle it's the old sunni shia battle you've got egypt and turkey involved as well if you run gets nuclear weapons saudi arabia will get nuclear weapons in turkey will get nuclear weapons and egypt will get nuclear weapons then iraq will get nuclear weapons capable get nuclear weapons the entire regime will get nuclear weapons the whole air. well look this is a battle for head germany there's no question about it ok saudis can maybe that's true because much maybe if i go wrong if i could go to brian maybe it would be better if the united states had a good relationship with iran and get rid of the drop this authoritarian tyrannical regime called saudi arabia maybe it be a better bet the u.s.

government right now by engaging even in the first step of negotiations with the iranian government over its nuclear program or really about the unfreezing in a modest way of some of the sanctions not most of them against iran it raises the specter both for israel and for the saudi government and that there could be in fact a shift in u.s. policy towards the middle east the specter of peace between the united states and iran is something that creates who are is inside the the bedrooms of the saudi royal family because they realize if there was any sort of rapprochement detente or accommodation between the u.s. and in the islamic republic of iran the government and set of for instance constantly and endlessly seen it only from the from the vantage point of regime change if there was some sort of an accommodation it would mean the saudi monarchy is role from the vantage point of u.s. geo strategic geo strategic interests would would be less necessary in saudi arabia

could start to drop out of the equation not fully that's what the israelis fear as well they see constant war tension the threat of war is being very useful for them because it means they're more important for the empire more important for the empires hold on this resource rich and strategically part of the world ok mark go ahead mark go right which i writ i wish that people would stop playing risk like in some geopolitical game where you put an army here and you put an army there i support the iranian people who are against the regime i support the syrian people who are against the regime i support the saudi arabian people i think that each people needs a right to have their own destiny and not be for. by these tyrannical powers look the iranian government is dead no way relationship to the iranian people the persian people are some of those pro-american pro israeli people in the middle east that's not the problem the problem is you never hear iraq and goji this side of hezbollah they're supporting the terrorism throughout and look at the saudi regime has its own tyranny women in saudi arabia are not treated well either and there's

virtually no democracy in the middle east except turkey ok i understand all right but i have the day mark you brought up you brought up the risk i don't have to have you brought up the term risk obvious reference to the game but if i go to brian that's exactly what saudi arabia is playing in the region it's playing risk with its money in supporting kinds of crazy groups go ahead ryan. and also when the and mark forgot to mention that when the people of bahrain against rose up for edinburgh proceed against the royal monarchy which house and host the fifth fleet of the of the pentagon of the saudis moved in in the saudis moved in with brutal force with its its army and i want you to ever hit. the saudi isn't me. mark at the end of the day people have the individual self determination whether she or sunni and a majority shia country like bahrain should be shia a majority sunni country like syria should well sunni and maybe glee if it weren't

political going on there should arabia ok brian russell i want to let me go to praise him for the primary go ahead go ahead before the break go ahead i marked on mark's promise that america should be a christian nation and a white nation because it's the majority nation i mean that's completely i mean are closed the land he or she has sort of a basic tenet of democracy or freedom all right gentlemen i'm going to jump in here this is going to go to shirley out again and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on saudi arabia stay with our. leave. the pledge was

a terrible mistake and led very hard to make our lives against a longer a plug that never had sex with the target there's no legs let's play. lists the m let's. listen. to the. think i fucked her. over by going to go did you know the price is the only

industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy allmers. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and our proximity we've been hijacked why handful of transnational corporations will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once i'm john mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem trucks rational debate real discussion critical issues facing death by ready to join the movement then welcome.

to new. zealand. welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing saudi arabia. but if i go back to you in the beginning of the program i mentioned it to the saudi arabia as given these signs and signals that it may want to pursue its own independent foreign policy whatever that may be i mean what without the united states and without it. israel even though they publicly they're not allies but in

many ways many ways they actually are allies i mean what can that mean for saudi arabia because i would agree with mark on one point here is that it sees everything through this sectarian division and this is what's and this is one of the things i'm critical of washington is getting involved in something like that because the united states has just dropped brought in as some kind of mercenary army to settle conflicts on the ground first brian then we go to mark. yes let's let's first look at saudi foreign policy based not on the shiite sunni division even though that's a factor the fundamental power of their foreign policy is based on their own estimation of what the regime needs in order to stay in power it is a fragile regime it is an absolute it's monarchy it has been in power for eighty years and has never had an election one third of all the people in saudi arabia are migrants the saudi population is dependent on migrant labor for work that makes the

regime completely unstable in its core in its essence in terms of its domestic policy in spite of its oil wealth so what it did over the long term was function as a proxy as a client for the united states in the recent years after the onset of the so-called arab spring the saudi arabia as they pursue a more independent aggressive foreign policy trying to carry out regime change against others in the middle east but even when it did so it did so with the united states not against the united states it's the united states and the saudis had the same goal in syria which was to overthrow the assad government now you see because of a possible shift in that way the united states is approaching the middle east but saudi arabia fears isolation they really cannot carry out an independent foreign policy because of their regimes limited strength and dura billet it fears an islamic revolution or a secular revolution it fears isolation and now it's now it looks as if it's

primarily the ally of israel i mean you can't look for a worst outcome for a regime in the arab world mark replied to that because it does look like a tell of the axis now developing and there's been lots of sound and fury that they could collectively could attack iran if the united states and western powers continue their dialogue with iran go ahead. well first of all i want to say i agree with the first part of what brian had to say with regard to the fact that yes the third is migrant workers yes they're paying off people with oil wealth but the idea that saudi arabia is somehow a client state of the united states i completely disagree with they have independent interests that often coincide with the united states and saudi arabia can pursue an independent foreign policy if you run for example were to get nuclear weapons saudi arabia would have nuclear weapons probably within a month because of their alliance with pakistan that many people think that pakistan got their nuclear weapons because of saudi money so if there is a nuclear arms race we will be right there after iran it's one of the reasons why i

support the current iran deal because i think it is the best chance we have to prevent this nuclear arms race from happening but please don't pretend that saudi arabia somehow isn't independent somehow is the united a client state or a very important place has a provision in interest mark to the fact of their joining with israel tells you that they're doing what they need to do to survive not because they like israel but because the enemy of my enemy is my friend ok brian this has nothing to do with the nucular around does it it has it what it's all about is a detente possible detente with to run in the in the outside world the stop isolating it this is the worst nightmare for saudi arabia and israel since it's already been mentioned it's not about a nuclear weapon this is a fiction. it's all about new. markets that the specter ahead it's not the specter of a nuclear armed iran it's the specter of a peaceful accommodation between the u.s.

and iran and that's the main danger for the saudi government that's how they perceive it the iranian government does not have a nuclear weapon the iranian government has a has is the most inspected society it has i.a.e.a. inspectors in there every day it has now said that it won't enrich uranium as an agreement percent meaning that it could be possible for it to acquire a nuclear weapon in other words there's nothing and iran has not initially to agree with any of its neighbors so it's not a nuclear armed iran and it's not an aggressive iran it's really the possibility of a kind of the not serious saudi learn i don't think it's not aggressive war go ahead go ahead mark it's to say that iran is not aggressive war when they're arming hezbollah which is rising i haven't. in the long run hamas mark in markets is going to end because of israel's actions in lebanon hezbollah came into being ok we go around going around on this here ok let's stay with saudi arabia here brian what is

the best case scenario about the future of the house of saud because a lot of people would tend to agree with you it's a very unstable regime it has a lot of money and i would agree with mark in less than a month they can buy a nuclear weapon how do you feel about riyadh having a nuclear weapon i'm more afraid of that than iran having a go go ahead go ahead brian. i don't think they i don't think they can get a nuclear weapon i don't think even though the saudis help finance the pakistan nuclear arms project it's not like the pakistan military is going to say oh and here's your bomb by the way i just don't see that happening i think the i think the best case scenario for the saudi family royal family is there is no best case there i think they can look back in history and see luis the sixteenth or the shah of iran all the other minor. to finally end up in the dustbin of history and they know it they know that their days are numbered and so all of this attempted appearance of a new. of initiations all of this power of of projecting an independent policy underneath

it all in spite of its vast wealth in spite of its vast military it's a fragile regime it can be toppled i think it will be toppled in turmoil all head to head now every government here every government the middle east except turkey and israel because they're democracies every single other government is fragile you look at a fairly stable country like jordan it is fragile as well i hope for saudi arabia's have become a constitutional monarchy more like jordan but saudi arabia has lots of work to do you're absolutely right its citizens have power but its workers are not their citizens women have very few rights in saudi arabia i'm not defending the saudi regime and i'm not saying that they're stable i'm saying they're more stable than virtually every other regime the middle east and that's not a cover to saudi arabia it's really an insult to all the instability in the middle east because of this conflict because of the shock as you saw cause of the tater should ok brian jump in. you know the saudi society is rotting from within there's twelve percent unemployment amongst the city on earth the young people who have

graduated. who million migrants have been to two million migrants have been deported in the last year that society is now rife with with the extreme racism society says i know is that it's true that it's lost its moorings that it has no ability but the saudi government has no solution because the only solution would include the liquidation of the monarchy which the monarchy won't do for me obviously is in isolation ok my point is this i might disagree with anything you're saying about clear you know what i don't want to waste time on it and i want to question i want to mark a question ok i mean obviously i think all three of us can agree on one thing is that the so-called values of the of the royal family of saudi arabia have nothing to do with anything that any of us would find in common whatsoever ok but there is a commonality there mark you know and it's called american arms they love saudi arabia don't think and this is one of the things that the saudis are threatening the americans they the arms makers in the u.s.

have a lot of influence in washington this is what's keeping it together at least for now what do you think. saudi arabia does like american arms the the egyptian dictatorship of mubarak certainly liked american arms there's no question about it yes bahrain does as well we do arm dictators in the middle east i don't think anyone disputes that my point is that saudi arabia is less dangerous than virtually all the others praise of saudi arabia tell us that it's only because i have come on the verge of the people in syria that's really cold comfort to the people in syria you know but syria yelling saudi arabia for syria that's really silly i mean when the people of syria rose up nonviolently remote down by the government and tanks and mortars remember syria doesn't allow the red cross to go in because they're massacring people day and night saudi arabia is that many bad things but anything else here a martyr cry i should go and i say that a programmer i'll tell you one of the bad things that saudi arabia does it sends its young people with tickets on airplanes and money in their pocket and they go

across the border with the absence of the turks this is what they're doing for the syrian people this is the export of saudi ideology in violence mark ok brian when sorry when i dry and i would say is go ahead all right so the saudi the i mean if you look at the past thirty five years the saudi royal family has been a funnel through which oil money but also cia money has gone to the most reactionary forces in south central asia in afghanistan with osama bin laden in pakistan and then to the same al qaeda forces in syria the saudi royal family of course does pursue its own policy it has its own networks of support very very reactionary they're very reactionary towards workers towards unions towards now this is where your money is that people equate with freedom here years ago and in the case of saudi arabia by the way mark says mark says the saudis are less of a threat the question is to whom certainly not to the syrians if you go to saudi

arabia mark if you go there you'll see wanted posters for migrant workers up in a while alone means that you are a good. by the saudi royal family it's very threatening it's very not anything so if you're a society that's based on an slave meant ok it's most unfair i ism and australia and iran are ok mark go ahead mark i'm going to ask you some question i'm going to ask what are we going to give you the last word of the program because we're almost out of time and would have you the last word so you prefer to have a cozy relationship with saudi arabia and not have a detente with iran. going forty five prefer neither saudi arabia and iran are both dictatorial regimes they both armed terrorist they're both engaged in this sunni shia battle and they're both destroying people's throughout the middle east i think the people themselves should decide that's why i support the syrian rebels and the bahraini rebels and throughout the middle east i support their spring because i think there is a third way but tween the two harz of iran and saudi arabia ok mark let's keep in mind that people in iran go to elections on a regular basis and there's

a plurality you know they don't they're not allowed to vote for the out of telling . her my name is one she didn't and in nashville and thanks to our viewers for watching us here in r.t.c. you next time remember crossed off. the school in. the. world is probably the most complex.

the phenomenon of friendly fire probably extends back to the invention of gunpowder . a bunch of people. come with their families their people. ready to kill me. this summer shoots my brother in the leg not in touch. because of it because it was night. i'm sure in the morning even the best even the best shoulders. are going to make mistakes and this is this whole idea of brotherhood and order and then and camaraderie and in this sense it was in this context it has absolutely no place.

i was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. loosely. there is breaking news tonight and they are continuing to follow the breaking news namely the alexander family cry tears and so why at a great things rather that had theatrical read or get a quart of water around alive is a story made for a movie is playing out in real life.

is a. bit of a. what's up everyone i'm at a martin and this is breaking the set so did you guys hear the weird news drone delivery is only five years away from being a reality yes online retail giant amazon has announced its plan for a futurist delivery system. back to get packages from the store to your doorstep in the less than thirty minutes the new unmanned door to door service is called primary and according to amazon c.e.o. jeff bays those the future is now guided by g.p.s. alone this future will consist of thousands if not millions of flying robots darting to the skies to deliver goods now look i'm not knocking the technology it's obviously going to be an incredible convenience for customers and it is a greener alternative to giant.