but from the low to show that the real headlines with none of the mercy me live in washington d.c. operation odyssey dawn has begun as the u.s. and international forces launch attacks on libya this weekend but a lot of lawmakers here at home are wondering if this attack is unconstitutional we'll tell you why president obama might have overstepped his bounds and on the topic of libya what exactly is our mission there obama keep stressing the point that the u.s. is not leading this attack saying that we're helping to accomplish key goals but he

doesn't say what those goals are i think that's a little bit misleading and shocking and disturbing photos surfaced from a german news source showing u.s. soldiers posing with dead afghan civilians so we have to ask if this could be the next great and protesters flocked to quantico this weekend to speak out against the treatment of suspected leaker bradley manning so is this a sign the u.s. is finally paying attention to the way the government has been portraying manning or is there still no justice in sight and are police trained well enough to interact with the muslim community after peter king says of the muslim community isn't responsive to law enforcement a closer look reveals that the problem might actually be the other way around so we'll have details on all those stories and much more but first let's move on to our top story. on saturday we all watched as an international military operation began in libya as a result of u.n. security council resolution authorizing a no fly zone and all necessary force still not clear what all necessary force made

me but we know that french jets entered libyan airspace first of all by tomahawk cruise missiles being fired by the u.s. and the violence continues today obama administration officials keep repeating the line. this operation will only last a matter of days but at this point no one can really say if this is going to be some quick assaults or a long drawn out war as gadhafi is promising but there is already plenty of anger some coming from congress where lawmakers are questioning how obama could make this decision without their approval congressman dennis kucinich went as far as saying that obama's unconstitutional move would appear on its face to be an impeachable offense strong words really go that far earlier i caught up with congressman kasich here in our studio and i first asked him if by suggesting that this could be an impeachable offense he was directly calling for obama's impeachment. arisa question whether whether it's an impeachable offense to go ahead and attack

a nation even though there is no actual or imminent threat to the united states but would you call yourself no proof would you yourself advocate for the impeachment of president obama the question has to be raised about abuse of executive power that's a serious question and that's a question i'm raising a process that's a whole different thing but as far as whether or not the constitution's been violated i think it has i don't think it's a close question frankly but would you support would you lead the way in terms of leading impeachment as it has for that's a totally separate question which i'm not prepared to get into right now what i am saying is that the american people have to realize that the constitution puts into the hands of congress the ability to decide where they're sent a country to war or not that's not up to the president to decide you can only do it by a vote of the congress president and ask congress for permission he went ahead and did it anyway it's a serious matter and it is of course he we end up with a constitutional crisis over this what does this mean i mean what happen to this president when barack obama was still campaigning people were asking him questions about the possibilities of bombing iran and he reiterated the statement that the

president does not have the author already to solely authorize any military operations unless operations unless of course there's some type of imminent danger to the nation and then here we are just you know two years later and he's done this he said this and the same thing i'm saying now plus i'm quoting him so is he no longer a liberal has he turned into a war hawk the definitions and labels are misleading here you have to look at the actions the action was taken to join a u.n. effort to attack libya we can work with the u.n. we passed the first come to the united states congress he did not do that our constitution demands there and so he did not abide by the constitution. if it had come to congress if he were allowed to vote would you have said yes said no because i you know there's no end in sight there's is this regime change are we in effect emboldening those elements of al qaeda that would like. use eastern libya as a new place to organize what's what and can we afford it iraq afghanistan

pakistan border and now libya what is going on in america we have all these problems here at home and we're going abroad looking for great interest so why worry that because you know it's being told that this is a humanitarian concern and that's why the international community needs to intervene here but what's what's the real interest will there's a unitarian concerns in bahrain and yemen and cote d'ivoire. we can find humanitarian concerns were we look. the question is who are helping here even senator lugar in a meeting with the white house came out and said he's not quite sure we're trying to help are we intervening in a civil war is the object regime change what is this about and who's going to pay for it who do you think that we are helping them i mean it's there how do we get this done some background should end up strengthening gadhafi going all said and done because if there if they think we're going to dislodge him it's going to be really interesting humanitarian crisis in libya or anywhere is is very sad and it's very bad when countries have dictators running running their their affairs but you

know what it is not the job of the united states to be the policeman of the world and you saw a peaceful revolution in egypt you saw a peaceful revolution in tunisia. the rebels took up arms and things started to change very quickly now some will say well they had to cut off he was attacking them. this is one of those civil matters we're going in the nation that i don't think it's up to the united states to to resolve now we've seen you know you mention the fact that of course technically president obama is supposed to seek congressional approval how many presidents how have we seen you know authorizing military operations without seeking any type of congressional approval we've seen reagan get we've seen bush sr do it we've seen clinton do it i feel like it's a never ending line now so you know why shouldn't be able to do it to the restaurant was constitutional. it's not irrelevant. if another president took

action it wasn't called some accounting by that congress. that's a separate issue but right now here we are right now looking at an intervention in libya there's not a congressional approval i was in in those past congresses where presidents took intervention when i was in the congress that president clinton took intervention we challenge him on an intervention and if ineffectively. the clock ran out under the war powers act and the president was not able to get continuing. permission to go against serbia. now and now we're seeing you know certain lawmakers like yourself of course questioning the president's actions but then if they have time same time we have a lot of lawmakers perhaps on the right side who are saying that the president didn't act soon enough that he should have acted sooner that we should have done this on our own who needs the u.n. who what do you say to that the fact that these people don't care there's never going to be any type of process because this is what they want to reach for in part

it will destroy america. not that simple as that isn't it. rich for him or will destroy america congressman are we now in another war even keep being told repeatedly that this is an international operation that the u.s. is going to step back from it and couple of days why is this a third war for america right now it's a fourth front because you have to count pakistan so here we are in a fourth front of a war. without the representatives of the people having any say in it it's a very dangerous moment. in our democratic experience so what i'm trying to do as a member of congress and took an oath to defend the constitution of united states is to say wait a minute there's a processor which protects america from overreaching and the president didn't abide by that process and that's a. huge problem and you mentioned pakistan what about some of our operations in

ghana is that something of a president as ever seek for approval yemen is well it's it's true so wherever we go with our armed forces we are in a situation where we're expanding the united states footprint particularly in muslim nations. there are multiple. input the implications of that kind of interventionism that we will be experiencing the blowback from those interventions for many years to come the world is being made less safe but it's his global war on terror that it calls for international community to come together and you know police action that doesn't involve dropping bombs but it's being smart seeing you know who is trying to foment violence against masses of people but you know you don't you don't. buy libya in the name of saving libya.

congressman i want to thank you very much for joining us now course we're all watching and it seems as if so suddenly now america's got itself involved in yet another conflict and yet another muslim country overseas like you said and hopefully. i don't even know what to say as to how it's going to end thank you so much. so looks like president obama has finally followed in the footsteps of so many presidents before him he started a military conflict of his own so is obama who campaigned on a platform of change really not so different from his predecessors predecessors after all artes christine for his our ports. the united states it's become an unspoken a dent into the job description i become president of the united states. declare war my fellow americans my fellow citizens for president ronald reagan in

one thousand nine hundred six a familiar attack on a familiar enemy despite our repeated warnings gadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation is relentless pursuit of character we counted on america to be passive he counted wrong turns out so did saddam hussein just two hours ago allied air forces began an attack on military targets in iraq in kuwait for his successor president clinton the target was slobodan milosevic today our armed forces joined our nato allies in airstrikes against serbian forces responsible for the brutality in kosovo president george w. bush said it was weapons of mass destruction that threaten the world and invaded iraq in what was supposed to be quick and limited campaign on my orders coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine saddam hussein's ability to wage war most thought it would end there with president

obama running on an anti-war platform he has spent most of his presidency trying to end the wars started by his predecessor until now the u.n. security council passed a strong resolution that demands and to the violence against its. it authorizes the use of force in the timeline of recent history there have been some glaring similarities when it comes to the youth of course are u.s. presidents none have been in response to a military attack or even threat of an attack on u.s. soil and none have ever been formally declared wars we had to protect thousands of innocent people in kosovo from a mounting military offensive we are determined to knock out set of hussein's nuclear bomb potential we will also destroy its chemical weapons facilities self defense is not only our right it is our duty the definition of duty often changing the result eerily parallel thank you god bless you.

thank you very much christine for example r t. and operation odyssey dawn that's the official name of the u.s. military operation in libya or on libya i don't want to say in libya because technically we're just flying over it or are shooting from the water but we will not have boots on the ground you see what i'm doing there that is the art of messaging the word that we keep hearing floated around for the way of the obama administration is handling this situation keeps being stressed that this is an international effort that america is not acting alone but it's a humanitarian effort we're not there to occupy it with all the winding in and out like no one is just saying it straight no one is telling us what the end goal is here so will it be another war on america's record that we can't define here to discuss it with me is matthew national security editor at the center for american progress thanks so much for being here so i feel like nobody really knows what's

going on because obama first comes out and says gadhafi must go then he leaves now he's in brazil and now we have military leaders going out being the talking heads on the news channels saying that could offer he could go or he could stay i feel like there is no end goal there is no message that anyone agreed upon before launching. operation right well i think obama has said for the past few weeks that gadhafi must go he's lost the legitimacy to rule if he ever had it i mean this is a violent dictator who has been oppressing his people for quite some time but the bottom line is we have entered another military intervention with the stated goal of protecting civilians from gadhafi government but at the same time we have the president saying if you must go so it really is really unclear at what stage will be satisfied if gadhafi stops as it seemed like he was going to do this weekend what do we do them how the how long do we maintain this little no fly zone does that remind you here other conflicts that we may be involved in maybe the two wars in iraq and afghanistan where i feel like we have constantly seen

a shift in terms of the end strategy the endgame of what it will actually mean right i mean i think it's important to note the difference is both in the extent of the mission and the international legitimacy to cultivate cultivate excuse me the cultivation of a real international coalition but yes here we are again with an ill defined mission the the end game is not well understood and we're not really sure how long we're going to be involved here the president said today they were going to very soon within days be handing off major responsibility to our allies and i and i hope to see that believe it when i see is that even possible that we go through our allies have the military capability to really take on this charge without the u.s. being in front and being you know i for frank essentially well some of our allies certainly british and france have the ability to maintain a no fly zone to patrol the skies and make sure they get off he's not using his helicopters and airplanes do they have to tomahawk cruise missiles one hundred twenty of them to fire no they don't but i think that was at the initial stages to

really take out. aircraft defenses and airfields at the outset to prevent him from from flying so it is plausible for our allies to kind of maintain this but the fact is we are a part of this now we are part of this coalition we played a role the u.s. played a role in bringing. about this national security u.n. security council resolution so we own this in part so is for how long it goes on we don't know and that's a very troubling question we're definitely a part of and we have played a large role because we were the ones that were first were so cautious when it came to a no fly zone and at the end of the day we ended up saying that it's actually now a no fly zone isn't even enough and now we also have to authorize airstrikes and all unnecessary force whatever that's going to mean but the other question right for us as you know an american a taxpayer is how much is this costing us i think from the last figures each tomahawk cruise missile was almost six hundred thousand dollars apiece and we fired a hundred twenty of them in one day write a very important point in a time of austerity budgets and

a lot of american still in economic distress everyone looking to cut here and there it seems that we always find money for these kinds of of military interventions so yeah these are questions that the president needs to answer and i don't think his you know he has consulted with certain members of congress he certainly hasn't consulted him in a major way he's going to need to answer some of these questions both for congress and for the larger american public than a lot of lawmakers trying to say about the fact that he did not consult with them including congressman and senators on the show earlier now let's look at how this is going to play out depending on whether this mission lasts a couple days or it lasts longer what happens if gadhafi doesn't leave then if we made the situation even worse for ourselves because now we've said no boots on the ground now the military i guess with look weak if they don't knock it off the out i think that's the real danger i mean if he if gadhafi stopped his attacks on civilians but remained in power well that's good because millions are dying we've

stated our goal that he goes we've interacted this this resolution and taking control of the skies so it's very easy to see i was up in iraq voices in there really were already seeing the male voices of the american right saying it's just not enough we for our credibility sake we need to go all the way so you can. a situation where this there's this momentum towards escalation and it's very difficult for any president to get away from that and perhaps very dangerous as well now at the same time we have a military official saying that we're not there. to really help the rebel forces were only there to protect civilians but how can you really tell the difference right how can you tell the difference between some of the rebels that are on the ground between civilians and might also be armed that are on the ground there defending themselves if all we're doing is flying over yes great question scenes that we were we were doing more as you said than just a no fly zone we're doing more than just preventing good of you from slowing his air force from flying we are affectively taking part in a civil war on behalf of the rebels no one can argue the justice or the correctness

of that but i mean we need to be clear that that is in fact that we are doing now people are also arguing now that libya is very important because what's happening there right now is destabilizing for the region i think perhaps you could argue that what's happening in bahrain is could be potentially much more destabilizing for the region if you end up having you know large sunni and shia work going on right there's a lot of a lot of a lot of that going around we've got yemen bahrain both of these governments are much closer to the united states they're allies of the united states you've got the fifth fleet based in bahrain we've got the government of saleh i mean which has been working closely with the u.s. on terrorism it's got an al qaeda problem in in yemen that we're working closely with him so yes there's a double star clear double standard here no sometimes double standards are correct but it's very difficult for president obama and his administration to make these arguments in favor of positive democratic change all the same time american allies are crushing their own pro-democracy specially when it's all going on at exactly

the same time i want to thank you very much for joining us and. i don't know what we're doing but we're spending money and they're shooting cruise missiles and i'm sure people are dying it's definitely time to say thanks so much. now coming up next the german news organization there spiegel high. releasing shocking photos of american soldiers posing with afghan state parks let's look at this the america's next great wall something that supports asking for matthew on the subject of the. let's not forget that we have an apartheid regime right. i think. either one well. we have the government says they're keeping safe get ready because freedom.

john are been here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. new web site with twenty four seven live streaming news tells what to do about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you never find mainstream news. in the media so.

the political. posturing until such time as. you guys welcome to shell and sell on the obama show. we've heard our guests have to say on the topic now i want to hear. you just got you tube video on our twitter profile of a question that we've posted on you tube every monday and on thursday to show the long response to. your voice. could this be the new album grave scandal or even worse german newspaper here spiegel has published three photos of u.s. soldiers who are currently on trial for being part of a kill team posing with the dead bodies of afghan civilians in the kilt eagle says that they are nursed nearly four thousand photos and videos from these men and it's

now been made public knowledge that the military has been striving to keep these pictures secrets in fear of public backlash here discuss with me is not you know senior fellow the center for international policy and the director of the afghanistan study group thanks so much for being here tonight. is this the new agu ghraib scandal could this end up being even worse i don't think it's going to be worse because of the true of the photos in the sense that. there are so many flaws it was was it known that they're going to come out this we need to force resistance these photos or oh they were being used as evidence in a criminal trial against u.s. soldiers five were being tried for murder but how long we stopped there how long have we known of these photos have been in existence because from everything i had all the digging we've been doing it seems like the military has been trying to keep this secret obviously this is what they always do they want the public to find out but it also seems of the defense lawyer said the these pictures were even kept secret from them in this trial yes they were very afraid it would get out and what

would happen similar you know going back to a degree but your first steps are similar to that would occur the speech goes get out there get published in the range the world be read the muslim world and read the afghan population because what you have is you have a grieving american soldier who's been going to night well. for years now standing over a murdered afghan is that's outrageous to americans here let alone to members of the muslim world let alone to members of the community and is that really speaks volumes for the power of pictures i mean it was obviously this was a big story when we first found out about this cult when we first found out that they were going on trial but now that there are images to you know to go along with it do you think that we're going to see a lot more anger we're going to see more protests in afghanistan i think so i get i don't think it gets a little grave but i think this is a real blow to the u.s. is efforts in afghanistan and it's a real boon to the propaganda and public relations efforts of not just the taliban

but al qaida you know we were talking earlier and i was saying when i was in the state department here in washington d.c. in two thousand and five six i'm working on iraq issues we had captured you know number of foreign fighters in iraq at that point and so we're interrogate them we've asked them if you come to iraq in overwhelmingly they said we did it in response to the photos and so they weren't going there so much to attack the west or to terror operations but they're going there to defend their iraqis against the western invasion against western occupation so you have the same context you can now put this in a book look here or the western invaders. murdering afghan people murdering muslims and so this feeds right into his propaganda and recruitment efforts and of course it makes every u.s. soldier look even though this is clearly going to turn being it's a horrible story it's a horrible stain but what happens when you're the first people said that they have

four thousand photos and videos right now all that's out there is three you are saying that it's not going to be as bad as that because there were more pictures we have of all four thousand of these images get out that will hopefully i don't come back here in a couple months them. after you know correct myself you know hopefully it doesn't get to. this and hopefully that those photos that number is overstated or they're just not bad but unfortunately looking at everything i know when i haven't been worth three times or else more than likely you're right it is going to be bad and again i don't think it's going to have the the emotional response that i did but it's going to really hurt u.s. efforts in afghanistan it's going to undermine the course i regime and it's going to be a boon again not just the taliban but the world wide open for the taliban further with us for them in afghanistan is this lends to that people trying we are mantle you know they want to be seen as a national liberation army which in many ways they are this only adds credence to

their call to the afghan people that we are the people who are protecting you from the of yours but do you support the fact that i mean i definitely think that the media has a responsibility if these pictures are out there to show those pictures so you know let's say all four thousand photos take it you support the fact that the media would put it out there even if it made the situation worse in afghanistan what it does is it documents what people up understand words like so i do support the media responsibly releasing these photos now i want to switch gears a little bit and just talk about our war effort in general obviously this isn't going to hurt or help when it comes to winning hearts and minds but lately all we've been seeing is reports of more violence right reports of more i e d's more civilian deaths whatever happened to that civilian surge where you know where is the civilian surge what parts of afghanistan are they and i feel like we hear nothing about it the majority is in kabul we've spent about twelve hundred or so extra civilians i believe is the number of might be. about twelve month or so

civilians to assist with the military search and their job was to help the afghan government reach out and deliver services to the afghan population the idea being that if you give the population a choice between the insurgency and a government that is actively helping them they will abandon the insurgency and so it will. or embrace the government we've seen is that the majority of our civilians have been sent there all are stuck in kabul they're stuck within the embassy walls they're not getting out there the only afghans they are meet are the afghans who m.p. they're trashing clean the latrines are not getting out on the ground they're not they're not doing what they were is what i have and i have several friends who are doing that work there and there are a few who are out there if you will or based on work well provincial reconstruction teams but they're very few in numbers and they're very limited with their resources they're also really limited with who they're working with and so what we see in the south in particular where this idea was going to bring government in a box and referees from the more fabulous you're going to bang you're going to bring a government a box and we are going to basically deliver governments to the afghan people

deliver the afghan government to its people. it hasn't happened. you see is that this idea they're going to fight a strategy of clear hold and build well the taliban insurgency very easily says you know we're not going to fight you nuclear power and you're smart right you can fight american marines and american soldiers and about. a little hard to deliver government a box and if you can't even get to where you're supposed to make the referee and i thank you so much for joining us and of course another horrible story we'll see how it plays out. now it's time for a break knowing return time of the night for time will tell you who thinks they have the most foreign policy experience because a new international business deals then over the weekend protesters young and old came out to condemn the abusive treatment bradley manning so are americans finally starting to wake up and take notice you have seen its clients.