president and yet it says colonel gadhafi only has himself to blame for the situation in libya because of his outrageous crimes against his own people. and we've received reports of more explosions and anti-aircraft fire close to gadhafi palace in tripoli coalition forces say the air raids against at enforcing the no fly zone are making progress the death toll is said to sixty according to libyan health officials. and in other news teams tackling the crippled fukushima nuclear plant in japan are evacuated safety amid heightened fears of radiation clock is. sticking with our top story next to the alyona show takes a look at whether president obama may run foul of the constitution because of the

intervention in libya stay with us. but can they load a show at the real headlines with none of a mercy i can 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 the word helping to accomplish the goals but if he doesn't say what those goals are i'd say that's a little bit misleading and shocking and disturbing photos surface 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 torturing manning or is there still no justice in sight and are police trained well enough to interact with the muslim community dr 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 a u.n. security council resolution authorizing a no fly zone and all necessary. force still not clear what all necessary force me but we know that french jets entered libyan airspace first followed by tomahawk cruise missiles being fired by the u.s. and the violence continues today obama administration officials keep repeating the line that 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 is going off he is promising but there is already plenty of anger some coming from congress for 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 but don't 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

a long as impeachment. or is the question whether whether it's an impeachable offense to go ahead and attack a nation even though there's no actual imminent threat to the united states but would you dollars arsenal prove it 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 impeachment 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 which you lead the way in terms of leading impeachment at that age that's a totally separate question which i'm not prepared to get into or you know what i am saying is that the american people have to realize that the constitution which into the hands of congress the ability to decide whether send the 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 didn't ask congress for permission he went ahead and did it anyway it's a serious matter and it is a question we end up with a constitutional crisis over this what does this 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 operative is 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 then and the same thing i'm saying now plus i'm quoting him so is he no longer a liberal has it 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 where 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 i've 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 ok that would like. use eastern libya as

a new place to organize. 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 a great answer slowly so why every there because you know it's being told that this is a humanitarian concern and outside the international community needs to intervene here but what's what's the real interest holders are monetary concerns in bahrain and yemen and cote d'ivoire. can fight humanitarian concerns were we look. the question is who are helping here even senator lugar in a meeting with the white house came out of it saying 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 or who do you think that we are helping that i mean if there how we can doesn't stand back around the issue of strengthening khadafi when all's said and done because if there if they think we're going to dislodge him it's going to be really

interesting the humanitarian crisis in libya or anywhere 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 he was attacking them. this is one of those civil matters within the nation that i don't think it's up to the united states through to result 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 taking any type of congressional approval we've seen reagan get we've seen bush sr get we've seen clinton do it i feel like it's a never ending line now so you know why shouldn't obama be able to do to the rest

are we kind of education. it's not irrelevant. if another president took action and wasn't called some accounting by their congress. that's a separate issue but right now here we are right now looking at an intervention in libya that was not a congressional approval i was an industry has to congresses where presidents took intervention when i was in the congress that president clinton took intervention we challenge him on an intervention and if in affectively the clock ran out under the war powers act and the president was not able to get continuing. permission to go against serbia. well now we're seeing you know certain lawmakers like yourself of course questioning the president's actions but then if the other time at the same time we have a lot of lawmakers perhaps on the right side who are saying 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.

you know who what do you say to that the fact that these people don't care there's never going to be any type of pietschmann process because this is what they want to reach for in part would destroy america. or not that's simple as that isn't it. would destroy america congressman are we now and another war if we're keeping told her people believe that this is an international operation that the u.s. is going to step back from it in 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 and took you know the funny constitution of united states is to say wait a minute there's a process here which protects america from overreaching and the president didn't

didn't abide by that process and that's why. huge problem and you mentioned pakistan what about some of our operations in yemen is not something that the 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 implications of that kind of interventionism. that we will be experiencing the blowback from those interventions for many years to come the world is made less safe place there is a local war on terror that called for international community to come together and in a police action it doesn't and well throughout 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 don't. buy libyan in the name of saving libya. 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 it helpfully . i don't even know what to say as to how it's going to end thank you so much. so it 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 as our courts. the president united states it's become an unspoken a dent into the job description i become president of the united states

ah declare war my fellow americans my fellow citizens for president ronald reagan in one thousand nine hundred eighty six a familiar attack on of the mill your enemy despite our repeated warnings gadhafi 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 and 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 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 our borders coalition forces have begun striking

selective targets some 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 so 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 use of course our u.s. president none have been in response to a military attack or even threat of an attack on us 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 seven 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 south. 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 we're shooting from the water but we will not have boots on the ground if 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 it's a humanitarian effort they were not there to occupy but with all the winding 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 define 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 his government but at the same time we have the president saying if you must go as i would read it 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 they are how long do we maintain this low no fly

zone because i remind you few 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 of a cult is a cult of a season of the cultivation of a real international coalition but yes here we are again with an ill defined mission 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 i'll believe it when i see is that even possible that we do our allies have the military capability to really take on this charge without the us being in front and being before frank the same strike while some of our allies certainly the british and france have the ability to maintain a no fly zone to patrol the skies and make sure that you know if he's not using his

helicopters and airplanes you don't have to tomahawk cruise missiles one hundred twenty of them to fire no they don't but i think that was the initial stages to really take gadhafi and 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. this national security u.n. security council resolution so we own this in part so is so 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 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 forever that's going to mean that the other 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 or 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 you know 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 right 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 days or it lasts 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 there he goes we've been activists in this resolution and taking control of the skies so it's very easy to see as happened in iraq voices and they're ready we're already seeing them now boyce is the american right saying it's just not enough we for our credibility say we need to go all the way so you can. a situation where there's 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 military officials 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 had 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 flying we are affectively taking part in the civil war on behalf of the rebels no one can argue that 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 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 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 rain both of these governments are much closer to the united states their allies of the united states and 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 anti-terrorism it's got all kind of problem in in yemen we're working closely with them so yes there's a double 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 all the same from an american allies are crushing their own pro-democracy pressure as i'm 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 cruise missiles and i'm sure people out there are dying and stuff i saw this and thanks so much. now coming up next the journal news organization there spiegel have. releasing shocking photos of american soldiers posing with afghanistan or it's so could this be america's next great or something like sports i'll speak with matthew holland suggest that the. great for the. we've got. the biggest issues get the invoice face to face with the news makers. wealthy british style.

market why not. why not what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. is a report. could this be the new abo ghraib scandal or even worse german newspaper there's a go 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 and then killed her spiegel says and they are nearly four thousand photos and videos from these met and it's now been made public knowledge that the military has been striving to keep these pictures secret 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 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 flaws that it was was it known that they're going to come out. this we knew the photos were existence these photos 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 that 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 lawyer said that 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 now going back to abu ghraib as your first steps are similar to that would occur the speech of those get

out to get published in the grange the world the region the muslim world the average the afghan population because what you have is you have a grieving american soldier who's been in occupation going to night but for years now standing over a murdered afghan is that's outrageous to americans here home let alone to members of the muslim world let alone to members of the afghan 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 kill team we first found out that they were going on trial but now that there are images too you know to go along with make 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 guess i don't think you'll get the level of greed 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 in the same when i was in the with

the state department here in washington d.c. in two thousand and 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 why did you come to iraq in overwhelmingly they said he had a response to the photos and said they weren't going there so much to attack the west or keep their operations but they're going there to defend. and the rockies against the western beat and against western occupation so you have the same context you cannot put this in a book look here or the western invaders. murdering afghan people murdering muslims and so this fits right into his propaganda and recruitment efforts and of course it makes every us soldier look bad i know this is clearly it's being it's a horrible story it's a horrible stain but what happens when you go there's people said that they have four hours in the photos and videos right now all that's out there is three you were saying that it's not going to be as bad as that because there were more

pictures whenever the ball four thousand of these images came out that will hopefully i don't come back here in a couple months and. after 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 and having been to war three times or a thing else will 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 i 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 and worldwide and for the taliban further with those for them in afghanistan is this lends to that trying we are mantle you know they want to be seen as a national liberation army which in many ways be or this only adds credence to their call to the afghan people that we are the people who are protecting you from the editors 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 to go out would you support the fact that the media would put them out there even if it made the situation worse in afghanistan what it does is it documents and 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 where. in general obviously this isn't going to hurt or help excuse me when it comes to winning hearts and minds but lately all we've been seeing as reports of more violence right reports of more i.e.d. he'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 four hundred or so extra civilians i believe is the number might be more than now about twelve months or so civilian assistance 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 support or embrace the government we've seen is that the majority of our civilians have been sent there are stuck in kabul they're stuck within the embassy walls they're not getting out there the only afghans they would meet are the afghans who empty their trash and clean the latrines are not getting out on the ground they're not they're not doing what they were this is what i have and i have several friends who are doing that work there and there are a few war out and there are a few who are based and 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 is in the south in particular where this idea was going to bring government in a box or that phrase from the pabulum 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 that going to the strategy of clear hold and build well the taliban insurgency very easily says you know we're not going to fight for nuclear power and you're smart why you can afford 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 a delivery i want to thank you so much for joining us and of course another horrible story we'll see how it plays up next on now it's time for a break the return it's that time of the night it's full time will tell you who thinks they have the most foreign policy experience because of 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.