even under the worst current suppression people around the world demonstrate time and again we want freedom democratic institutions east. policies top stories this hour addiction president hosni mubarak refuses to stand down and abbas to stay in office until september but some will be transferred to his vice president are lost in the month the televised address is said he will not bow down to fall down rather to foreign pressure the speech was not well received by virtue of the cairo the rocket into angry trance against. russia's president pays a surprise visit to moscow train station discovering major security lapses following the visit to the country's indoor insoles when agencies do focus dead attention on the transport system of the president to transport security and its pastel control after the last month's terrorist attack at last to my dead of an airport which killed said six people. on german chancellor angela merkel raises

questions over another tree as trying which killed dozens of civilians in afghanistan almost two years ago after one hundred forty two people were killed and dozens of them civilians as a result of the strike on tuesday all time greats like ton of the middle. so whole debate now in this edition of calls talk about his guests discuss the many faces of democracy and the scenery that one size doesn't fit all. and you can. still. love me and welcome to cross talk and peter lavelle even under the worst kinds of oppression people all around the world demonstrate time and again they want freedom and democratic institutions and who's to say what kind of democracy people should live under and this one size fits all. can.

still. discuss the many faces of democracy i'm joined by liesbeth in washington he's a senior editor at the weekly standard in well in for a we go to eleanor and he's an award winning investigative journalist and in springfield we cross to david men because he's an assistant professor of public policy at the university of massachusetts amherst and another member of our cross talk team you know on the hunger gentlemen this is cross talk to when you can eat that means you can jump in anytime you want i to go to allan first i'd like to ask you a very provocative question i hope it'll get lee to react to that to what you're about to say is let's for its face a democracy democracy promotion coming out of the west particularly the united states is to serve american foreign policy interests and to protect its allies promote its allies and punish its enemies and ideology doesn't really have a whole lot to do with it it's a cover. well it's

the west like all big powers is anti democracy so is russia so are the rulers of russia so are the rulers of china and those of the us as well. russia and china are more direct about it and saying that they oppose democracy including. you know what i would say these are different lives the differences between the two is that russia doesn't promote democracy russia doesn't promote democracy it's saying you have to develop your own and yes that's right so i'm not yes that russia is the certainly not an anti-democratic country not by any extreme go ahead oh they were impressed every worker in such a. little was in turmoil i go in now and i had please please let me put it russia russia repressed russian represses dissent internally as this china in the way the us does not do the us is agree with me international western democracy promotion but interestingly internationally emotionless internationally the us is

the main but but but internationally the us is the main suppressor an opponent of democracy by finding a series of repressive regimes egypt is only one of them egypt is getting attention now but its not even close to being the worse the other day i was talking to a survivor of the heroin do you think that the obama it is frustrating when you think you watch an administration in the russian leaders we want to show you that you are bridge are you going to let alan do you try to get me to answer the question relating the coverage of. we we were watching the coverage of the uprising in egypt and he asked about how many have been killed there and said well it's about three hundred or more and he said that's that's nothing in indonesia in where they occupied timor in ahci and pop where they have murdered hundreds of thousands the military has with us support hundreds of thousands of people who are demanding democracy this is the us practice overseas internally the us was compelled by

popular movements over the years to give internal political democracy and to refrain finally from internal political assassination but x. turn only overseas the u.s. has not been compelled to stop that maybe tunisia in egypt with their uprisings could be the beginning of this a revolt of the arab revolt of the client states the beginning of a movement to stop the u.s. backing regimes that kill civilians ok and lee you want to jump in there are right right from the beginning go right ahead. well i mean if the point is to go back throughout the course of the twentieth century u.s. history. and u.s. foreign policy and u.s. strategy around the world then i'm certain quite certain that alan has a point but one of the things that we're seeing or i would agree part of the alamo one of the things that we're seeing in washington right now with the obama administration and with the bush administration before it is that there is a lot of internal debate here how much we should be supporting democracies and i

think that we should be supporting democracy even if it might not necessarily be in the immediate u.s. interest and this is part of the debate that's going on in the white house in the state department right now and it's part of what happened in the bush administration as well so no i think just to say that the u.s. automatically suppresses democracy around the world for its own interest of we're looking at egypt right now no it's preposterous this is precisely what is not happening there would be no debate in the white house nor in the state department if the u.s. just automatically sought to deprive suppress democracy or we don't even know what's going on in egypt is actually a protest for democracy we don't exactly know why people are on the streets but there are large parts of the bush would rather the obama administration which is i don't support this these demonstrations right david we haven't heard from you well you know how it is what you do david we have in the u.s. you are using the weapons to to egypt the u.s. is sending the weapons to israel the u.s. is sending the weapons to indonesia the u.s. is backing the dictatorship in respect to stand the u.s.

this batman or is this pressure and i think alone beyond which there's not how do you. what matters is not the internal debate what matters is the actions the actual triggers that are pulled that blow people's brains out that's what the u.s. is doing and it doesn't automatically elicit i think i want to say that you mean we haven't even naming. the end washing go ahead excuse me they do not so with democracy i think they did alan jones david. but it's more. than that i mean you know that there are basic i mean if we want to really be as simple as we can in washington there's there's a trade off between two sorts of policies one that seems to serve our ideals and other that seems to serve other kinds of interests and and allan is right that oftentimes u.s. policy runs in the direction of stability and stability is often perceived as supporting more oppressive regimes because the more people have democracy the more

they're likely to to disagree on you know what the government's aims can be it but i think that also has a point that what we're seeing at the moment is the obama administration not trying to suppress what's emerging attorneys are in egypt they're walking a very delicate line and even though it's very easy for the administration to go along with you know the old stability path wanting to keep friends in power even if they're not the most budding democrats in fact what is happening right now is both in tunisia and egypt the administration is trying to sort of step back a little bit and see you know what kind of leadership emerges and so if if the policy is more or less leading up to the backing it takes to the egyptians and tunisians. well they they have been but i agree with you i mean it really is your feeling that a lot of people used to be able to live if if you live in a country where the secret police can kick down your door at night and drag you

away that's not stability but you know i totally i stoutly if you're without it i was in egypt the u.s. cannot invade and says that this so the u.s. is not out of iraq. they're going to free their secret away to this very old and they go to bars a point where you say to you in your head over each other of the people you're not a tom handed over each other all right lee i'd like to go to you i mean what you said i find very interesting i mean is there really so much improvement in the the american white house right now because there. every indication they want somehow to support suleyman and the army that's going to be the savior stability egypt will keep its international obligations and you know what i'm talking about i mean it seems to me the democracy issue really isn't there they just they have this dilemma and they want it solved and they have one partner there and it's there are big right in the dilemma is not merely a dilemma is not merely between people in the white house and state department who support democracy and those who want to promote stability what we're calling

stability here but the idea is we don't know exactly what it looks like in egypt what sort of institutions are there i mean look you can certainly blame mubarak for tearing apart whatever sort of centrist opposition there might have been to him but the fact remains we don't know what there is without mubarak so i think this is part of the debate as well i think the white house definitely would like to find some sort of democratic teller's in the opposition where precisely they are we don't know and evidence of that is they've looked at mohamed el baradei who has precisely no constituency in egypt nonetheless because he's a known yeah a medley why there is just wait why was there only we're asking about the egyptians is there some kind of object david if i can go to you can't we just step back finally and step back and watch what the people do on the ground let them do what they want with me the most rational like magic thing to do right now instead of saying well who should we should be backing who we shouldn't be backing and judging candidates eccentrics said sure go ahead. well i think that to some extent that's

exactly what the administration is doing i mean certainly and to nature that's what's going on the i mean we don't see heavy interference on the part of the white house in terms of what's going to emerge in the emerge in tunisia's you know ongoing kind of democratic process and i think that there's certainly a tendency to want to let the egyptians do just that and that's why the protests have gone on in part for as long as i have that being said i mean i think that what is you know the real issue in situations like this is that every country has a variety of interests and needs with respect to foreign policy and so with egypt and the united states has all sorts of other things that it's concerned about so at the same time that i think the the inclination at the moment is indeed let's sit back let's see what emerges let's see you know what the egyptians want of course it's reasonable for people to be concerned about you know what what happens can there be a stable democracy you know what should the role be and i think that the administration

really has a lot of hard questions to ask itself and it isn't as simple as they're against democracy there for democracy or they can simply set back step back and you know sort of not think about what they have to do in the long run now and if i go to you before we go to the brits and you like you know i didn't know any i could why don't we just why don't the world just let the egyptians alone leave the egyptians alone leave the tunisians alone leave the people of palestine alone leave the people of lebanon alone and let them decide their fate and then we can deal with them yes that would be the best course but that would involve. it would not involve in action it would involve reversing the status quo namely the u.s. would have to cut off that all that was nobbs and president of the united states to its to its to extreme to its to its you are out there who has a ring if you for any was there any reason why it would bring a free press of to a string of what is left out and was proud to i had said and really interest of the united states of america it's. i am not i am not up watching out for the interests

of the united i am not watching out for the interests of the united states of america or not i'm trying to see him and being. around and i say how nice it would be fine i'm programs trying i'm trying to say human being then i just say we should say we should not be killing innocent people we should not be torturing innocent people opposed to the u.s. government i am an opponent of the us government and i am pointing out that the u.s. government if it's going to let people make their own choices will have to go around cutting off those who have been killing them that would mean. here gentlemen we're going to. break right now after a short break we'll continue our discussion on democracy stay with our feet. can. still.

nothing stop we are going to. put it back on track. we'll have a rally we'll sell lots of beer will. they will wear uniforms that will damage is in the black family but very little damming the white. and they are the key to our problems are already.

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industry's godfather became the most want to trophy the world to see. the great times an artist. can say. welcome back and cross hunkers out to remind you we're discussing different forms of democracy. if you see. but first let's see how russians define the word democracy and the law of supply and demand the world is now witnessing demands for granted democratic changes but such moves raise questions. about how democracy can be achieved and under what

circumstances the public opinion agency a lot of sun ask russians how they see democracy thirteen that percent late this form of government with economic prosperity in a country thirty eight percent seem pray there was speech and religious exercise fundamental democracy maybe associated with low fullness and direct elections the values of democracy have deep roots in western culture but do they really serve the interests of all. all right let's continue our discussion on the mockery see and i would like to go to david i mean one of the big issues that we have obviously when we're talking about this issue is islam and democracy in the in the number of examples that we've seen through history where the west just claims that the islamic world is not ready for democracy we had vice president suleiman in egypt say that as much in the last few hours ok and a lot of people in the in muslim lands would say you deny us democracy you don't

recognize our elections and in this sends a message out throughout the muslim world that democracy is only for them but we can't have it and they'd support dictators to oppress us i mean that's a pretty obvious historical lineage that you can get from this narrative. three quick points on this first of all again i think that the issue with respect to the united states and the west is a little more complex in that what often happens is that. they'll be a lot of talk about democracy promotion and real efforts to do so but then there can be fear about you know what sort of government will emerge and it's not as simple as active suppression we could like but that more second point islam is clearly compatible with democracy you know we have muslim democracies in turkey and into nature in lots of places it's a false dichotomy you know this is probable stablished the third and more subtle

point which goes back to the poll that you just showed the real issue here is that i think that a lot of. people don't agree on what the word democracy means you know even here in the united states we talk about democracy promotion we are advocating a variety of different strategies and programs so islamic democracy russian democracy you know sometimes these terms can be oxymorons but more often the problem is that we don't exactly know what we mean when we say to mark crissy and then you know countries sort of disagree on what this kind of promotion refers to you know but it's very if i'm going to alan i mean if we there's if we look at all through the twentieth century and since the cold war you know if it's latin america if it's the the muslim world you know it's all over the world i mean it gets down to geo political interest i mean again it's very devoid of ideology i mean we all remember. you know what happened in with iran day and she lay and things like that again in the more recent ones we have algeria in one thousand nine hundred one where people didn't want to recognize their democracy their democratic will and we all know what happened after that i mean again it and i'll agree with what we heard

you know what does this mean this word democracy mean but should we disrespect how it's played out on the ground and the an expression in the muslim world since well this is part of the newspaper of what we're doing on this program today. well the question of islam and democracy is just an excuse it's a rationale that's used to justify invading and backing terror and in muslim countries you know in two thousand and six for example in the west bank in gaza they had a parliamentary election hamas won the next day president george w. bush gave a press conference where he was asked about the elections and people should go and read the transcript he basically said yeah it was a fair straight up election then soon after that the us weighed into to crush the results of that election those weren't muslims doing it that those were the people of other religions who run the government of the united states it doesn't matter it doesn't really matter how you define democracy what matters is you have regimes

were people can speak freely where they're not dragged away for for protesting the u.s. it doesn't matter what kind of programs you have the u.s. policy a democracy promotion programs the u.s. policy for years has been selling to cut if you had like a whole lot of i'll sell it or else what excuse me what amala el salvador honduras hand them democratic speeches with one hand and hand the rifles and electroshock equipment with the others it's the actions that matter not it's the actions that matter not the words and also democracy itself is often overrated people think that with democracy. thing things will happen nothing will necessarily happen it's only it only gives you some space if you take advantage of it there are democracies that carry out horrible internal repression like in tunisia and colombia democracies that commit some of the world's worst aggression like the us in israel and there's

almost no connection between democracy in the alleviation of hunger which and. horrible poverty and mass disease which are really the worst problems of the world and in terms of the u.s. attitude toward. prosy the u.s. attitude toward democracy over the years has been very clear they wish democracy on their enemies and they they wish secret police for their allies and if democracy can be used in their allies to maintain stability then they're all for it but it's just it's just a tactic we should have a world order in which the murder laws are enforced in which the bush doctrine isn't forced george w. bush's doctrine said if you arm a terrorist namely someone who kills civilians you are a terrorist i agree with president bush entirely but by his definition he himself was a terrorist as is the current us government because when you're arming regimes that kill civilians you're breaking the law politicians can still get away with that

today there are no international institutions the work of the international criminal court won't step in and arrest mubarak or arrest obama so the people have to do with themselves and that's what they're starting to do in the streets of egypt this is very inspiring ok it's not just a lesson for the arab world this is a lesson for americans for people everywhere stand up for your rights revolt and stand up if your government is depriving others of their rights ok me and you want to reply to that yeah i mean you know i think that that's the that's right what you've just said i mean that is to say it's important that. you know we observers people in the media really pay attention to when people in countries who know say they've really had enough for their government and that can be that can happen whether the technical form is democracy whether it's a dictatorship like in egypt you know whether it's a monarchy in some of the other arab countries the reason that i think it really is important that we think about

a concept like democracy and try to unpack it and see how it's understood is precisely that oftentimes whether something is you know technically democracy that is representative democracy or monarchy or something else matters a lot less than the degree of. ability that citizens have to speak up for themselves and i think that it's precisely something like to nature or egypt today or eastern europe in the in the nineteen eighties. you know holds lessons for when governments ought to step back and let people decide for themselves what they want what do you think about that we i mean i mean what is the what is the score card here i mean how well is the united states done in democracy promotion this way since the end of the cold war here because a lot of people when we see all of these exceptions that we have or examples that we've mentioned it looks like hypocrisy doesn't it i'm not sure with what looks like upon well remoting we know i'm not denying the outcome of elections that are

going to limit the legitimacy of some political parties i mean if you like as below zero in libya in lebanon it's the same the largest as a legal entity the single largest one even christians vote for it as we all call it which is not legitimate and and when when we have politicians there that to support american policy everybody's really happy but when hezbollah uses the constitution. they're called you know how are these meant to work that will go on and on precisely what have we done well you know i mean you don't want to do you know everyone is terrified of killing with has not even though they're democratically elected well it has got a lot of the answer there was you know has over to. go ahead. i don't know they did they didn't know what it was they overthrew they overthrew them in the sense that through a democratic parliamentary procedure a parliamentary maneuver of the kind that occurs all the time in parliamentary systems has no that was just going to have as an aide on just got

a wrist joke. that there had in his prime ministers why has he only did that and the u.s. and the u.s. to now the u.s. denounce that as a model of seeing thirty was only election even though the love he's got a little bit of the other right now is that really to this may harlem is because they went up a lot is a rock through a lot of bad system three percent of your eyesight in the mass and not gotten to that doesn't mean what they say is right or center of the vote card what utter nonsense anti anti american government it's anti-american government policy so you're making the mistake you don't know about and you don't know what you're talking about guarding lebanon that's like yelling over there it's on about that's like someone who that's like someone who was attacked saying that someone who was attacking mubarak is attacking the egyptian people that's nonsense let's look at let's look at another example the case of haiti we're talking that has nothing to do something about. it as knocking has nothing to do you know who are as you don't understand they don't see us you don't know what happened i respond i do want to do

is see that as a very serious you know usually very much i think you'll see i was i noticed a strange heald who gentlemen let's go to david in springfield gentlemen after which the jump in yes he can't return to haiti but baby die being of all the the former dictator trying his back now and the u.s. is saying wristy can't return in country after country when it's not convenient the u.s. simply knows the results of democratic votes or in the recent case of lebanon on it we got the result right gentlemen but i'm going to jump me in gentlemen and with jeff you know david you wanted to say i believe in haiti alan did that well you did it in. but i really think i mean you know i appreciate the passion of fortressed saying. you know at the end of the day it's too simple a description i mean you know boy dead american policy in this this is this is always something that you know it's easy to say would that american policy were so uniform and all powerful that it could actually you know have

a unified well abroad if you were thinking in american policy his way and you know for. it it is it isn't at all you know that i mean i and look i mean i'm i mean as an academic i'm neither staked in the system or particularly you know stake in anything else that's not that's right you know i mean there are times saying one thing we improve on the proven on this program there are all good democrats many thanks to my guest today in washington sprinkling well of course and thanks to our viewers for watching us here or to see you next time remember across the.

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