this is our team now a quick look at the headlines this hour egypt braces for a fresh wave of massive protests sparked by people's anger at president mubarak's latest refusal to step down that's despite him vowing to have some power to the vice president omar suleiman in a televised address. a territorial dispute between moscow and tokyo flares up again as foreign minister this is russian for talks a day earlier he reiterated his country's claim to be karylle islands which have been officially russia since the end of world war two. and sweden is under fire for

its controversial wiretapping wall slammed as the most far reaching eavesdropping in europe we can weeks cables on the country's close cooperation with the u.s. suggest it was adopted under american pressure. coming up peter lavelle and his guests discuss why the u.s. is sat on the promotion of global democracy and why it yields unintended and mostly negative consequences well a heated debate and cross talk is coming your way. 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 does one size fit all. and you 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 and for a we go to eleanor and he's an award winning investigative journalist and in springfield we cross to david many cough he is 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 stock and you can eat that means you can jump in anytime you want to go to alan first of 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. god 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 difference is he meant to say russia in this interim obama is the 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's russia isn't certainly not an anti-democratic country not by any extreme go ahead oh they were impressed every worker in such a. ludicrous is legal in the sense internally i go in now and i had plenty 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 wants to is agree with me international

western democracy promotion interest but internationally are motionless internationally the us is the main but but but internationally the us is the main suppressor an opponent of democracy by funding 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 iran and do you think that the obama it is frustrating when you think you watch an administration in the last year we were watching leaders leave and we want to show you that you are bridge are you going to let alan do you kind of get me to answer the question relating the coverage. 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. where they occupied timor and pop what 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 u.s. 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 us has not been compelled to stop that maybe tunisia in egypt with their uprisings could be the beginning of this a revolt of the revolt of the client states the beginning of a movement to stop the us backing regimes that kill civilians ok only you want to jump in there or 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 and 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 that on the 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 and 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 protests for democracy we don't exactly know why people are on the streets but there are large parts of the bush should 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 pakistan the u.s. this ballin or is this question then to columbia which does not have to do. 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 know listen i think i want to say these you mean we haven't even aiming to be. revealed jamie and washing go ahead excuse me they do not so with democracy. they did alan jones david. but it's more. not 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 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 in tunisia and 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 legal you know back in his politics to the egyptians and tunisians. well they they have been but i agree with you i mean exactly as we're hearing that a lot of people used to be able to live. 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 the you know i totally i stoutly agree with out of it that i was in egypt the u.s. cannot invade and says that this so and us is not out of iraq. they're going to free their secret away these very old guard bars a point where you say to me your head over each other and if 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 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 of 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 if there are good writing the dilemma is not merely the 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 keller's in the opposition where precisely they are we don't know and the 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 i sternly 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 it go ahead. well i think that to some extent that's exactly what the administration is doing i mean certainly in tunisia 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 is 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 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 string to its to its you or any of our out there who has a ring if ready to say what he's liable to do a string of repressive to its string of what is left out and this present clients

and really interest of the united states of america it's. go ahead i am not i am not watching out for the interests of the united i am not watching out for the interest of the united states of america or not i'm trying to see him and being. unfair i'm trying as i say how nice it would be fine i'm pro guys writing about trying is a human being than i to say that we should not be killing innocent people we should not be torturing innocent people i am opposed to the us government i am an opponent of the us government and i am pointing out that the us 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 an all military not a jump in here gentlemen we're going to go in for racing right now east after a short break we'll continue our discussion on democracy stay with r.t. . and.

hungry for the full story we've gone to. the biggest issues get a human voice ceased to face with the news makers. more news today violence has once again flared up. these are the images. from the streets and can that. change operations or rule the day.

welcome back and sometimes i'll remind you we're discussing different forms of demand. but first let's see how russians to find the word democracy 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 us and i ask russians how they see democracy so tonight percent link this form of government with economic prosperity in a country the says seem pretty that was a speech and religious exercise fundamental to democracy made associated with lawfulness and direct elections then those 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 microscope and i i'd 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 most of the lands would say you deny us democracy you don't recognize our elections and in this sends a message out throughout the the muslim world that democracy is only for them but we can't have it and they 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 in indonesia in lots of places it's a false dichotomy 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 geopolitical interests i mean again it's very devoid of ideology i mean we all remember. you know what happened in with i india 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 and 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 in to 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 as alan because we had like a whole lot. else want to 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 i think 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 to my. 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 it 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 media 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 one nine hundred eighty s. . 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. what is the what is the score card here i mean how well is the united states done in democracy promotion they say 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 a pond well remoting no i'm not denying the outcome of elections they're going to limit the legitimacy of some political parties i mean if you like has 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 well my own 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 and legalities they're called you know how are these men want to work they will know precisely what have we done well you know i mean you don't want to

do you know everyone is terrified of the language has not even though they're democratically elected well it has got a lot of the answer they were you know has over to. go ahead. i 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 was about to languish was just on a tear values and a gun just got a wrist joke. out of their head in his prime minister's why has he did that and the us and the us did now the us denounce that as balanced against a model of seeing thirty was zero zero election even though the love of the election was that really bothers me harlem because they were not up a lot is there are a lot of bad system three percent your dad fought in america and another one says forgotten you that doesn't mean what they say is right or center of the vote card what utter nonsense it's anti anti american government it's anti-american

government policy so you're making the mistake you don't know what happened you don't know what you're talking about guarding lebanon that's like you know exit song 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 about has been doing some thinking about going out and has knocking has nothing to do with the are as you don't understand they don't exist you don't know what happened i respect i don't want to do is see that as a very serious you know using the word each other usually i notice the. who gentlemen let's go to david in springfield the gentlemen after which the jumper and yes he can't return to haiti but baby down the hall the a the former dictator trying his back now and the us is saying wristy can't return in country after country when it's not convenient the us simply knows the results of democratic votes or in the recent case of lebannon it we've got the result right

gentlemen but i'm going to be in gentlemen with geoff you know david you wanted me to say that only in haiti alan did that well you did in. that i really think i mean you know i i appreciate the passion of fortressed saying. you know at the end of the day it's too simple a description you know would that 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 think you know where policy is play and uniform consider it is it isn't it all you know that i mean 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 the right. time i think one thing we have crews around the proven on this program there are all good democrats many thanks to my guest today in washington springfield well of course and thanks to our viewers for watching us here or to see you next time remember for us to.

keep.

in taiwan multis available in. typee her tongue. tied pete the how it calls a hotel type be sure to type the hotel hotel while shall his the groom photo the show would hotel some will do misty type the hotel kuvasz photo photo from the hotel resort evergreens the hotel type eat victoria hotel. hotel hope springs resort and spa tied to a hotel while she plans come closer to the town town taipei evergreen plaza hotel in thailand thailand as hotel time ambassador type e hotel full points and how would. the splendid hotel in touch with the hotel untouchables.