world's demand, i know the price per kilogram has skyrocketed from just over $60.00. that was in 2020 want to prices reaching 10 times, not depending on the region senior member of the countries drug fighting force spoke to r t about the issues facing the country. did some of those around 4500 drug addicts have been arrested and sent to jail, including dealers caught right on the streets. as you know, it's a harsh winter in afghanistan, and temperatures have dropped to minus 35 in some parts of the country. while cow bull has experienced heavy winds and snow fall. in this weather, we are really worried about the drug addicts in the prison. we are trying to transfer these people to some other area to save their lives. according to a survey in 2015, we have 3500000 drug addicts in afghanistan, but i don't trust these numbers until we can get our own updated survey. love it or midway, can you try it out for not plenty more. coming your way at the top. do hope you can join me then live for moscow. this is art internet ah, the ah, ah, the hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered. i'm peter labelle . how will the conflict in ukraine and to cease fire, armesis frozen conflict or defeat, or either ukraine or russia? this is the question so called think tanks all across the western world. they're asking the problem with this approach that it lacks intellectual and moral honesty . we must address why this conflict started in the 1st place, the cross fucking war in peace. i'm joined by my guess, john bertolli in new york. he is a political analyst as well as a former foreign correspondent in russia in washington. and we have nick bronner. he is the chair of the people's party of the united states and in north florida. we have tom lawanda, he is the publisher of gold goats in guns, blog, and newsletter, ideally cross grocer. if that means you can jump in anytime you want. i always appreciated. let me, let me go to john new york 1st. you know, john, i mean, i watch all these think tanks, you know, responsible state crap, you know, the american conservative anti war dot com, which i have, you know, basically positive attitudes towards in general. but very specifically, the way they approach the how this conflict in ukraine is going to end. they, they're not very interest interested in contextualizing it. how we got here in the 1st place. because i would posit, and i have every, the complex started that the ending, well has to take into account how it all started. and it western leads and the be, well, the foreign policy blob is that we're just doesn't want to go there because there's a lot of culpability there. go ahead in new york, the roots of conflicts are protecting the rights of the ethnic russians. and don boss in crimea, and absolutely nobody in the west wants to address that issue. they don't even want to talk about it. in fact, i was recently on a atlantic council webinar, atlanta counselor. as you know, it's a think tank based thing for the pentagon from the ca for the national security state. and they deny the fact that there are ethnic russians who are native residents of crimea, and they deny this fact. general wesley clark claims that the russians living crimea are migrate. they just came in the past few years, but moscow sent them to crimea in order to stick a claim to premiere in the past few years. wesley clark, you know, top general, the pentagon actually believes there's lies. there's this information. then there was a former defense minister from ukraine and he said the people in crimea, although ukrainians, they claim the russians, but there are fact ukrainians, they just don't know their ukrainians. and we're going to help them to remember that they're your koreans, which of course, what is the say nato and ukraine. they have a plan of ethnic cleansing, murder executions, ethnic cleansing. that is their plan, that is their vision for crimea for done. but if they succeed, and this is why russia's fighting so hard because it has to protect though 7000000 people had to pick to protect their rights, their lives, their property. so russia is going to fight to the bitter in the residence of those regions. are going to fight to the bitter end to protect themselves from what would be a mass, horrible crime, a mass murder, if nato and ukraine, when? well, john, i'm glad you brought that up. tom, there was a, a media expert. apparently i'm not going to user name a ukrainian woman that went on twitter and said she basically wanted the extermination of all russians and the destruction of russia. and it's still there. i mean people, i mean they, they're promoting ethnic cleansing here. and i'm really glad that john went through the litany of things that he talked about here. because we don't take these issues into account. you can't understand why this complex started and certainly not how it's going to end. because just to take one thing that john just said, i mean, rush is never going to allow ethnic cleansing of, of russians, no matter where. ok, that's a starting point here. that is not an accepted point in the west. go ahead tom. no, i, i agree with all that. and i think there's also the, the route of this conflict are also much deeper than that as well in terms of the political game board as well. so you have to take into account the great power struggle that's happening here. we have a we have a failing western financial system which we know is failing and is being challenged now by the global south led by russia, china and 2 of us rec center, ron. and that ended the big shift of energy east versus having followed. having fought west previously, i think that in a sense all of this is kind of, that's the real backdrop here. and the people whose lives are being snuffed out over this are in the, they're ultimately dest collateral damage. it's like, yeah, i, i don't see anything different from the western leaders that i saw from mattel albright about the us invasion of iraq. you know, 505-0000 data rocky children will go, you know, little their sacrifice or been work it or whatever. she said it was just, it's there's, these are like a pass and, and they don't really see the human cost of this and they don't really care about the human cost of it. so there is no basis for negotiation from my, from my perspective. well, you're jumping ahead of me cuz i actually believe the same thing. you know, nick, you know, living in the u. s. and, you know, and i've been watching, you know, way before february 24th of last year is that there is no conflict contextualization of what was going on at the time. and i watch american media right now and everything about ukraine without nothing about ukraine without ukraine, but they don't even really talk about the nature of the regime in kev whatsoever. okay. and the barrel and ethnic nationalism that is propagated by that regime which the united states is supporting with over a $100000000000.00. and who know it's kevin mccarthy might not be able to resist in another 100000000000 will come their way. not even the nature of the regime is betrayed correctly with a few exceptions like tucker carlson. go ahead. nick, you're absolutely right. there's a lensky regime. the regime we're propping up in ukraine is an ultra nationalist regime infested with nazi elements. it is a dictatorship, essentially. it has banned opposition parties. it has consolidated the media and band, the free press into one national entity. it has band trade unions and collective bargaining. and so these are all supposedly values that the liberal west, the united states in europe celebrate. and yet, there are holding this dictatorship, i think that you have to go back to the promise not to expand nato one inch to the east to contextualize this conflict. and to answer your original question as well as to where, how this conflict? well, and i think that one of the possibilities that you didn't raise, that there is an increasing likelihood with each passing day is nuclear war. good point. because the neocons in this country in the united states, they have so invested them yourself in a victory over russia. they've openly declared their intent to break russia up, in fact, to balkanized that into multiple different countries that that becomes more and more likely. as gen stultz berg said, just a couple of months ago. he said that this is, this war is risking becoming a direct war between the united states and russia or world war. and in fact, the ukrainian foreign minister, just admitted events minister just admitted that in fact, they are fighting on behalf of nato. so the pretext has completely fallen off this war. it is a nato war against russia. it is a world war by asking by a computer like stell diversity saying, but we're not part of the conflict. we're not a cobra ledger. i mean the guys, he's a lunatic. absolute luna. take care. john i had my producers. i send out all 3 of you, an article from responsible, statecraft. and the reason why i did it, it was imbedded in the questions that i also sent out is that the u. s. is, has all these ideas about how to end the conflict? well, it's almost kind of inviting an arson is to put out a fire. i mean, it, it is really quite, it's a, it's on the lunatic fringe. the country that is instigated it is the one that's going to determine it's outcome. what we hubris is that go ahead job. well, it's very clear that the can only be one man standing isn't a fight to the death if either russia wins or nato slash. well, the u. s. slash nato wins. so let's have no allusion is gonna be no peace talks. there's gonna be no negotiations. there could be truth, temporary truth, that's possible, but then it will just heat up again in 6 months. and at the end of the day there has to be one victor at the u. s. yes. has made it very clear that they want destruction of russia. no officials come out and officially said that, but all the nato journalists, all the american journalists, think tanks x, so called experts, they've all said that, which makes it clear that's the policy of the white house. so russia cannot, obviously, is not going to accept this and think about it, a war being fought right on russia's border, who has the guy who has the advantage is simply logistically, geographically russia is a huge advantage. and by the way, i'm going to point, i'm going to say that i think ukrainian trout. i think it's true for nato and we need them. i think it's true for russia. no, no, no. well, you know, john, for me, i think it's a trap. they, what they did was they created a trap for russia. russia took into a went in to protect its ethnic russians. but the ultimate trap is the destruction of nato. and i'm looking forward to that tom, go before we go to the break, go ahead. yeah, i would say that this is the been my read on the situation as well, from the beginning as well. peter, i went back to the, at the beginning of the conflict. i thought that the, i asked the question, who's cauldron, is this anyway? you're out referencing russian encirclement military strategy is like and it has very clearly a talk about the roots of the conflicts been fighting a war of attrition, economic, political attrition against the west, not just the states, but also europe for over 8 years now. and it's, it's a multi front war, it's part of the strategy and syria. we can bring in the burgeoning piece talk between syria and turkey as a nother front in this war. and we also can talk about the, the fight in the financial sectors as well over, you know, the price of oil and oil and gas and everything else. those are all part of this. this is not just a kinetic war between the nato back ukrainian armed forces and russian forces. this is a multi lack of a better term, multi polar or multi theater war. that's financial, it's, it's simple magic. it's political and it. and it's going to continue until as i think, as the other said, i, which i agree with, which is going to be one clear, victor. and at this point we're not sure who that's going to be. well, nick, 20, depending on the cod, depending on the 20 seconds before the next, we want to react to that before we go to the reg 20 seconds. it's absolutely correct. then that's what i was saying and saying that the pre text has fallen off . this is a world war right now. it is clear that and, and, and russia correctly regards this as a world war as a nato war against against russia. all right, gentlemen, i'm going to jump in here. we're going to go to a hard break amount about hard break will continue our discussion on war in pete, stay with ah, this with the crowd. a community with it and i'm for my that's you know, to find the diesel superscript them yet. get get you physically move associated with deacon. i'm with a big glass till she minutes is so new bandanna, the shipment coupon that this with the hi miss holiday, he'll with the welcome back to cross stock where all things are considered. i'm peter a bell to remind you were discussing war and peace. the okay, go back to john and new york. again, i read all of these think tank papers and, and all this there is not a whole lot of thinking going on in these places. unfortunately, john, i mean, the way i look at it and i think has already been said here on this program, is it? well, why would russia get involved in any negotiations with france, with germany, with the united states? i mean, what happened with the minister records? ok, they've all admitted that they were lying. they were deceitful. i mean, russia doesn't have an interlocutor, it's certainly not going to talk to the, the regime in care of. i mean, they pass laws where you can talk to the russians and that was always by the behest of the united states. mean they the talk of a cease fire and armistice. it's ridiculous because russia, i can my, the way my reading of it is. they don't want to do this again in 5 years, 10 years, 15 years now, they want a resolution to it. and that resolution is respecting russia, security demands, which were not taken seriously in december of 2021, john in new york. yeah. but there's also a bigger context here. we, you know, the whole world pretty much the whole world except for those countries are allied with united states or under american domination. so most of the world, they're just sick and tired of american hedge. they're sick and tired of american people is, you know, let's forget the not to get the context 2020 years of war against the islamic world . invasions and massacres and genocide, and horrible bombings. we can even go back. we can go back to serbia as well. so the world is sick of it because in a lot of the world, a silently cheering on russia supporting russia because they know that if russia goes well their next, they can be american gunboats off their shores, or american plains, over there skies at any moment. so many countries, especially in africa, middle east. busy east, of course, southeast asia, they really support russia because they want to see a new world order. a world water that is based on mutual respect between countries where there's not a dominant headman was always invading and bombing, and threatening, inch, and destroying. the people want to have a new world order in russia, leaving it together with china, with india. and that this is a really golden opportunity in world history. we have a chance to build a new world order based on mutual respect based on the original principles of the united nations. i'm american and i'm really sad. i wanna make clear of very sad to say all this. i'm really, really set up to say that i grew up in the american government system in my family has been serving uncle sam for 60 years. i disagree with this. well, and i don't, you know, john, i'm an american to ok. and i've seen with this foreign policy is done to working people middle class people. they're the ones that always have to pick up the pick up that they have to shed their blood to ok. and in these mandarins, they go from one air condition to office to another, to start another war. and they never are held to account. ok, sorry for my little speech right there. tom is, has already been brought up here and i think it's really important here, righteous isolated, russia has no friends. it's just the reverse. the west is isolating itself. and i would even go further and i don't want to step on nick stows here, but it's a cultural thing too. it's anthropological. the woke ism, the ma postmodernism, most of the world is not interested in any of that whatsoever. the west is isolating itself and the u. s. this destroying its most powerful tool, the dollar. go ahead tom. yeah, i agree with that and i and i share the sentiment of the other speaker about about having, you know, the criticisms i have in my government are deep and abiding and, and virulent. i just always want to remind everybody as well that like we, we learned that from some, some other people in there and they live in europe. especially we learned from the brits who have also been the of subjugating the arab world and the sub continent for 150 years or a couple 100 years. and, you know, we're now just there with just the tip of their sphere. they're inheritors of this . so and it's it and the so the whole system yes, does need to be torn down. and the interesting part about this is that, and this is where i think everybody should kind of take a step back and really start to look at what's i think actually happening in the under, you know, in the undercurrents of the political drama that's playing out. which is everybody where the brain is going, we're, we're like, slouching towards world war 3 is really what we want. and what i'm to beginning to see is the, the beginnings and the servings of a counter revolution at the top of the political us structure in the united states . i really do believe that i think that on a number of the new york banks, i've looked at the situation, the federal reserve has looked at the situation. so this is unsustainable. this is what we can do to bring the to bring the an effect, bring the empire home. i made the point the other day. i was talking to somebody and twitter and somebody said, well, they're always been behind. all the friggin wars with the bankers behind were one and we're, we're to us it. yeah. but there's no blood to be gotten from middle class anymore. you you, the banks don't care where they land, dolan domestic to rebuild the us as we come home. again, look at right turkey, the look at the situation, syria interact very carefully because the, the us is going to have to come home and ignore many people, both of those places. and the sentiment here in the us is, yes, let's get those people home. well, much they tried to sell us a more in ukraine. well, nick, this is a perfect segue for people like yourself that are looking for a 3rd way looking for an alternative. because i, i tend to think you're probably more on the progressive side. i'm on the conservative side, but here we are both of us together here. there's a lot of commonalities right here. and this is what the powers that be don't want. they don't want people like you and i to talk because we might agree on a few things. go ahead, nick. that's right, peter. that's exactly right. because people understand after decades and decades of these endless wars, that these are as much a war, a deep state wall street thea, military, industrial, complex war against the american people as it is a war against iraq, libya, syria, russia, ukraine. these wars are, are freedoms are being liquidated in the united states, in the name of these wars, our freedom of speech, we found out through the twitter fire revelations recently that the read that the pentagon and the f b, i. c, a are involved in actually curtailing free speech. the 1st amendment were being master availed in this country. the 4th amendment has essentially been nullified. so we're sacrificing our freedoms both parties that we have major parties that we have in this country. our war party, the democratic and the republican party, the democrat parties actually leading the charge or war. now, more than a 100000000000, are authorized for ukraine in weapons and military aid by both parties. that on top of the $858000000000.00 military budget that we have. and you're absolutely right. peter, people are finally rising up against these wars in the united states. in fact, as the people's party, we've come together with a party that we have many disagreements with the libertarian party and many others . the peace in ukraine coalition world beyond war. many other organizations to actually host a rally and a march against these wars on february 19th at the lincoln memorial. it is rage against the war machine. thousands of people are going to come to washington dc and we are saying we have had enough with these wars that are costing our freedoms costing our tax dollars and killing people abroad. in the name of this delusional objective of maintaining american hegemony in the 20 for century. well, you know, john, did the sad thing about it. i mean, i think a lot of my viewers long time ago realize that i was banned from you tube. here. i've never seen such a camp propaganda campaign against alternative idea. i mean, saying, well, i don't really agree, there's like, because you, you know, russia, you live here. how do you see the characterization of this conflict and russia in western media since you're in the belly of the beast? go ahead as, as you mentioned, as you know, i worked with the major media 15 years of foreign correspondents. so i still have many contacts and friends. there are no way i should say i had because because of this issue with ukraine, we have parted ways. i've had very heated conversations with them. i'm outright called them liars because they are liars. they are fabricating false narrative. they're promoting false narrative, the pentagon narratives. right? do you remember there was a time when, if you were a journalist? no, you had to be whatever the pentagon said was bad, and you will always automatically opposition to whatever, whatever the pentagon said and, and now today the opposite. you have to be, you, you curry favor with the pentagon, you immediately say yes, yes, yes. let's go with dependent on narrative. i mean, journalists, american journalists, british as well. so this is really strange journalism. well, it's not journalism quite as she is pure, pure war propaganda. it's is a real, obviously very painful topic for me because i did work so many years in the major media and i have so many friends over this issue, but nothing's going to change. i don't think changing my colleague who just spokes is more optimistic. i'm more pessimistic. i don't see that people are really rising up. i don't see any changes in the media for some people to rise up, there's going to have to be a revolution. is that the mass media because you know, the mass media such enormous power over how americans see the world, because they don't have time to do research or that what's really happening ukraine, they just repeat the talking points out nbc, cnn new york times. so it has really want to change something. it's going to start by changing something inside the american media. yeah, well, i mean, one thing you can do is what i do a lot as i turn it off. i mean, i'm just, i don't want to participate, not participating it in. okay. i think chomsky said something like that. tom, how does is, where do we go from here? because i don't see any reason in the world why russia is going to refrain from what it's doing. it's going to, it doesn't care what the german chancellor says. sergeant shoulds or whoever is the for minister in pet. no, they don't care about these things. i mean, jake sullivan, do you care what he has to say? i don't. ok. and that is unfortunately i do. well, my point is a lot of more and more people around the world. what's called the global south. i called the global majority because that's what it is, the global majority. they're taking the west less and less areas. they're not as afraid of the west as they used to, and they certainly don't respect that anymore. one last minute. go to you, tom. go ahead. sure, i would say the, the following, peter, which is that? yes, we are the, i think the part of this, this exercise is to dealer jeremiah the united states a certain level, this of, of kind of fundamental weird thing that's happening here, where it's almost like where the is that the d u. s. is being pushed into the role of being the evil bad guy that is create that is creating the conflicts around the world and trying to get a self involved in a couple of world wars. and it clearly cannot fight from a logistical perspective. and this is when we look at what we look at the, a war material production numbers and what not there, there's no way that the united states could fight those a multi front war against russian china. so that's, that's a non starter. so yes, yeah, that's the case then and then why are they doing this? yeah, well i think what we're going to do is what we're having all, i think all of us would agree in our body. and still there is a reckoning in front of us. right? now and i started out by saying, you know, happy new year to all you guys and, and i'm, i was convinced that this will be a better year. i'm not, unfortunately, it's going to be another turbulent year. it's all the time we have gentlemen, i want to thank my guest in washington, new york, and in north florida. and i want to thank our viewers for watching us here at r t c. next time. remember process with ah ah a so glad they ship laugh that get what is the best time with them? this is a little bit of a complicated victim. lady. no, really, really, really? what i say school mccartney for backwards passed. thank. same here. nothing. the medicaid report to me had cut order the status of their love. it really a conditional krinski about it, which it, it said the chest. i mean, you can even go, can be kama loosened up and become lost. somebody mp community that they've got a lovely knob is all like it's supposed to this out. thank you. so affected law only out of that. i needed one with us. that's clear but, but then with the routing just leaving it right. nobody with thought was looking at them during the summer because i've my seat, not with you. we're panel that correctly will it was, it was the was there then your big us over for you will that they should i see it. it's an open till she come from that we're still a, a a, a use a you is now completely following the american dictate. europe has lost its independence, preserve, american interest in the geopolitical containment of russia and china, russia, foreign minister, it's the e. u as a bus, so all the un sound is conducting a proxy war against moscow. you train beijing claims washington for dealing oil from syria saying the tankers of the country club is worse. they looted by us forces just a recent survey.