america. not that simple as that is a. reach for empire would destroy america congressman are we now and another war if we're keep being told repeatedly that this is an international operation that the u.s. is going to step back from it a couple of days but 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 the it's an argument great experience so what i'm trying to do as a member of congress who took an oath to defend the constitution of the united states is to say wait a minute there is a process here which protects america from overreaching and the president didn't didn't abide by that process and that's a huge problem and he mentioned pakistan what about some of our operations in yemen is that something of a president has ever seen for approval yemen as well which 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 there's a global war on terror. that it calls for international community to come together and i'm in a police action it doesn't involve dropping bombs but it's been smart seeing you know who is trying to foment violence against masses of people but you know you don't you know. libya in the name of saving would be you.

congressman i want to thank you very much for joining us and of 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. well 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 selling 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 as our courts. approach the united states it's become an unspoken identity 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 eighty six a familiar attack on

a familiar enemy despite our repeated warnings khadafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation is relentless pursuit of terror he counted on america to be passive he countered 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 a quick and limited campaign on the orders coalition forces have begun striking selected targets some military importance 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 an end to the violence against such pts. 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 none have ever been formally declared wars we have to protect thousands of innocent people who 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. harold thank you god bless you. god.

thank you very much christine for sound r.t. . operation odyssey dawn that's the official name of the u.s. military operation in libya are on libya i don't want to say in libya because technically we're just flying over it or we're shooting from the water but we will not have boots on the ground he seemed 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 that it's a humanitarian effort they were not there to occupy but with all the line being in and out like no one is 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 the fine pair of the scots are 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 news channels saying that could off 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 the 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 his government but at the same time we have the president saying that if you must go so i would really is really unclear at what stage will be satisfied if gadhafi stops as it seemed like he was going to just we can what do we do there and how the how long do we maintain this little no fly zone because i 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 the call to visit cultivate he's made 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 that we're 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 it is that even possible that we go to our allies have the military capability to really take on this charge without the u.s. playing in front and being for france essentially while some of our allies certainly british and france have the ability to maintain a no fly zone to patrol the skies and make sure that he is not using his helicopters and airplanes today 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 gadhafi. 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 part of this now we are part of this coalition we play a role the u.s. played a role in bringing. this national security or the u.n. security council resolution so we own this in part so is it for how long it goes on that we don't know and that's a very troubling question but we're definitely a part of it we haven't played a large role because we were the ones that 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 necessary force whatever that's going to mean but the question i have to ask as you know an american 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 one 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 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 and a lot of lawmakers are now upset about the fact that he did not consult with them including congressman dennis kucinich was on the show earlier now let's look at how this is going to play out depending on whether this mission lasts a couple of days or last longer what happens if gadhafi doesn't leave then if we made the situation even worse for ourselves because now he said no boots on the ground now the military i guess would look weak if they don't not gadhafi out but 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 billions are dying we've stated our goal that he goes we've enacted this this resolution and taking control

of the skies so it's very easy to see as happened in iraq voices in there already we're already seeing them now voices on the american right saying it's just not enough we for our credibility sake we need to go all the way so you can. situation where this there's this momentum toward escalation and it's very difficult for any president to 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 perhaps some of the rebels that are on the ground between civilians might also be armed there on the ground there defending themselves if all we're doing is flying over yes great question scenes that we would we were doing more as you said than just a no fly zone we're doing more than just preventing gadhafi from flying his air force from flight we are affectively taking part in the 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 what we're doing now people are also arguing now that libya is very important because what's happening there right now is stabilizing 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 a large sunni and shia work going on right there's a lot of a lot of a lot about going around we've got yemen we've got the train both of these governments are much closer to the united states they're allies of the united states and the fifth fleet based in bahrain we've got the government of somalia i mean which has been working closely with the u.s. on anti-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 a clear double standard you know 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 world the same time american allies are crushing their own pro-democracy specially when it's all going on 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 of your shooting missiles and i'm sure people out there are dying that's just my sadness and thanks so much. now coming up next a german news organization there's a house releasing shocking photos of american soldiers posing with afghan state or states such as this be america's next album great or something like sports i'll speak with matthew on the subject from the for. let's not forget that we have an apartheid regime right. i think. either one well. we have a government says they're going to keep him safe get ready because of their freedom .

a job market here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture a. new web site with twenty four seven live streaming news towns what to do about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download. and stories you may never find the name is. going to be so. mean

political. posts are too dull to stand. hey guys welcome to shell and tell the obama show we heard our guests not to say on the topic now i want to hear our audience just go on to you tube video on our twitter for part of the questions that we've posted on you tube every monday and on the first day of the show the long response is. could this be the new grave scandal or even worse german newspaper der 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 killed or spiegel says that they on earth nearly four thousand photos and videos of these men and it's now been made public knowledge of the military has been striving to keep these pictures

secrets and fear of public backlash here discuss it with me is matthew hoh senior fellow at 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 nature of the photos in the sense that. there are so many photos of it it was was it known that they were going to come out this week or the food was resistance these photos or or oh they were being used as evidence in a criminal trial against the 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 that the defense lawyers said the these pictures were even kept secret from them in this trial yes they were very afraid that it will get out and what would happen similar going back to i would be

another first graphic similar to that would occur you see these photos get out they get published in the range the world they reach the muslim world and reach the afghan population because what you have is you have a. any american soldier who's been more of an occupation going on nine bus years now standing over a murder after it that's outrageous to americans here home let alone to members of the muslim world to members of the community and does that really speak 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 you 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's the level 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

with the state department here in washington d.c. in two thousand and five six i'm working on iraq issues we have captured you know a large number of foreign fighters in iraq at that point and so when we interrogate them we'd ask them why did you come to iraq in overwhelmingly they said they did a response to the abu ghraib photos and said they weren't going there so much to attack the west or to do 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 look here or the western invaders. murdering afghan people murdering muslims and so this feeds right into it is propaganda and recruitment efforts and of course it makes every u.s. soldier look bad i know this is clearly going to turn being a horrible story it's a horrible stain but what happens we have the people sort of they have four thousand photos and videos right now all that's out there is three and you are

saying that it's not going to be as bad as that because there are more pictures whatever the fall of four thousand of these images get out that will hopefully i don't come back you're a couple months and a half to you know. correct myself you know hopefully it doesn't get worse than 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 to war three times are you know it's more than likely you're right it is going to be bad again i don't think it's going to have the the emotional response that great did but it's going to really hurt u.s. efforts in afghanistan it's going to undermine the corps i regime and it's going to be a boon again not just the taliban but worldwide and for the taliban further what does for them in afghanistan is this lens trying we're mantel you know they want to be seen as a national liberation army which in many ways they are this only adds credence to that to their call to the afghan people that we are the people who are protecting you from the invaders 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 didn't come out would you support the fact that the media would put them out there even if that made the situation worse not. what it does in the documents and people of course no 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 us when it comes to winning hearts and minds but lately all we've been seeing is reports of more violence right reports of more eye he's more civilian deaths whatever happens in 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 college we've spent. about four hundred or so extra civilians i believe was the number of might be. about twelve hundred so civilians this is what the military surge in 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 active. helping them they will abandon that insurgency and support or embrace the government we've seen is that the majority of our civilians we've been sent there are stocking up they're stuck within the embassy walls they're not getting out there the only afghans they were me are the afghans who have been there trashing clean the litter means not getting out on the ground they're not they're not doing their areas you know i have friends who are doing that work there and there are a few war out there if you will or based on what i call 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 is in the south in particular where this idea was going to bring government pox or that phrase from the more fabulous you're going to value we're going to bring a government a box and we are going to basically deliver governance to the afghan people deliver

the afghan government to its people. it hasn't happened and what you see is that this idea that going to fight a strategy of clear hold and build well it's how well the insurgency very easily says you know we're not going to clear in or snort right you can fight american marines and american soldiers on the battlefield killed a little hard to deliver government a box and if you can't even get to where you're supposed to make the delivery and i want to thank you so much for joining us and of course another horrible story. now it's time for a break on return it's that time of the night it's time will tell you two things they have the most foreign policy experience because a few 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 that in spite.