wow. and that lead bus bomb in jerusalem rockets from gaza and air strikes from israel and then there's libya afghanistan iraq the list goes on could this be the beginning of world war three. and speaking of libya why is the u.s. military there in the first place or get into an all sides debate. the bahrain video seen around the world and it's mostly thanks to social media so

how social media unlocks the pentagon for days when it comes to keeping the message under control and how could this shape u.s. foreign policy. and the state department may be denying it but the b.b.c. did apply for some american money money that could be used against say china so is the u.s. biting the hand that feeds it. is wednesday march twenty third eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine freeze out there watching our team. well just when you thought the violence was done spreading from tunisia to egypt to yemen to libya now there are rising tensions between israel and palestine after about two years of quiet and relative peace between these two countries violence has once again erupted telephony and militants firing rockets into southern israel and israel responding

with airstrikes in gaza so here's the question what happens if this violence escalates the u.s. would have to get involved well you may have thought we were already spread a little thin engaged in libya iraq afghanistan and let's not forget about some of the behind the scenes stuff this country does in yemen and pakistan but let's think about this country israel in many ways is the closest friend of the u.s. after all even their appeal is there right now most presidential candidates make it an important stop on the campaign trail apac as one of the most powerful lobbies in this country there is little doubt the u.s. would have to help in some way so could this be world war three earlier i spoke with normal norman finkelstein from our new york studio norman is an activist and author of this time we went too far here's part of our from versation. i don't think it's going to escalate into anything significant hamas just before the

israeli attack which killed. because the numbers are around nineteen seventeen or one thousand palestinians hamas has been calling for a cease fire and i think the greatest likelihood is that there will be some sort of settling down of the conflict because the united states right now will not want a new conflict between israel and the palestinians and they'll communicate their desires to mr netanyahu mr netanyahu will defer to the american opinion on this one so i don't think it's going to go very far right relief you know while you probably have many problems right now and i don't think they want a new one with hamas but i mean why now i mean surely years of relative quiet between the two countries i mean is this perhaps just the next region emboldened by what we've already seen any other countries in egypt in libya and even here in the united states in wisconsin or is this something else i know you say that you don't

expected to ask but there is something that triggered it. actually i don't even recall the particular cause in this first sequence of events that led to the current escalation because there are for those who follow these things closely there are israeli attacks and hamas counter attacks fairly frequently some of them make it into the news some of them don't some of them score late and some of them in this case there was an escalation and there was more media prominence but this is been fairly regular. you could say every week there are reports of two or three palestinians killed in gaza but they just don't really make it into the news. well there are attacks in the west bank which also don't make it into the news because it's not as if this is. a major

departure aside from the escalation but i also said i don't think the escalation is going to lead to very much but you have to bear in mind as every one of your listeners knows and viewers knows there are major developments now in the arab world and the israelis are very concerned about where they're going and they'll probably wait and watch to see where the dust settles with also as you said a moment ago they're going to be working very hard behind the scenes to try to get some control over the unfolding of those events so gaza's not really uppermost on their minds i'm sure they're involved in what's going on in egypt and what's going on in libya they have quite a lot on their plate no i don't so you thinking that i read it i mean you say as they're concerned about what's going on in egypt a lot of people of course asking the question and you even read some israeli news

reports that in which people from the region and believe that egypt but there it's tomorrow or next year could be taken over at least in part by the muslim brotherhood there's a lot on israel's plate right now in terms of what they're thinking about you don't think that there is any way i mean you say that these attacks go on every now and again that this one was somewhat significant i mean we saw a bus come we saw an exchange not just one or two but several exchanges over the last few days between the two countries. there has been an escalation. but. you know i could be wrong on these things i know i know i know soothsayer but i don't really think that that's for israel's current investment of energy and time is it's not in hamas. their main concerns are what's going on elsewhere and you have to remember that snow israel is a small country and like any country it has

a finite amount of resources and its attention is going to be turned to the outcome in places which have not only a real impact on israel but also you have to remember that is we'll also serves u.s. interests in the region and the u.s. wants israel to be focusing on places like bahrain yemen. certainly egypt and libya what was so given the let's see if i get a clean on about that then because you don't think it's going to ask a lady but that is a possibility out there in the in some people's mind as to whether a small possibility or what what happens if it does ask away i mean don't you think the u.s. would certainly have to get involved. well you know i think there's a certain amount of confusion and exactly i know when you say the u.s. has to get involved i don't think it's altogether clear to many people what that exactly means but for example look at the last b.b.c.

. hold the last b.b.c. poll showed about americans are split right down the middle on israel's impact in the world forty three percent of american said israel has basically a positive impact in the world forty one percent said it has basically a negative impact on the world so there's no overwhelming american support for israel that's simply a myth number two if you look at the polls they show that americans say. if israel is the victim of israel is the victim of arab aggression. of an arabic attack even of their the victim of an arab attack the polls show that americans oppose americans oppose they are trying to sound like a puddle of the line for i'm talking about what mitt romney will do. the right

world not the government will do we. will be true to the power of the israel lobby but it's not going to be due to the desires of the american people that was norman finkelstein activist and author of the book this time we went too far truth in consequences of the gaza. so let's move now to libya where we're hearing where what we're hearing and what we're seeing are two different things president obama says not only is the effort being led by other countries france and great britain but it will be passed off quickly we have seen repeated stealth bombers flying from missouri more than a dozen american f. fifteen s sixteen fighter jets. two u.s. destroyers three u.s. the marines and just one british submarine that was just over the weekend so should the u.s. the and libya earlier i pose that question to see motley president of less government and medea benjamin co-founder of the anti-war organization code pink we should be

involved in supporting movements for democracy around the world and there are many ways to do that that we shouldn't be involved militarily. there is no the only vital national interest one could argue for is the small percentage of oil that libya contributes to the world market but beyond that it's not just us and we have zero national interest in this i would disagree with medea to a point which is we don't know who we're supporting on the other side they are there calling themselves a democracy movement because that helps them in their messaging worldwide but we don't know who we're supporting and what we're going to get when when if and when the others the opposition succeeds in analysis i mean why do you say that we don't know who we're supporting because we don't know what they want to do once they oust gadhafi so you're saying the strategy is not outlined right now what will the strategy there their motives are goals their objectives what they want to establish once a oust gadhafi we don't know any of that we're just going in blindly and blithely

on uninformed and poorly objected and and say that when it's one thing to support peaceful movements to overthrow repressive regimes we saw what it did a full thing that was in the case of the zip then we're seeing that in other countries as well but this is turned into an arms struggle that looks very much like a civil war and it looks like this is going to go on for a long time and i think it's a big mistake to get involved in the middle of an armed conflict like that i would agree i think the only reason we got lucky in places like egypt is because mubarak wasn't as big a fog as could offer you the worst of the dictator is the worst he's going to treat people trying to overthrow. i'm so so in that sense it's we just got lucky with mubarak isn't his biggest august off here i don't know about getting lucky i think the egyptian people came out in huge numbers and every time there was a police attacking people and

a lot of people died i mean hundreds of people died in the case of egypt more and more people came out more and more people came out i mean i was there being in the square with a million people there comes a point when if you have massive nonviolent civil disobedience the leader has to step down or only has to step down but i don't know i will be a liar i will know i wondered what would have happened in libya if you just kept growing as a nonviolent movement kept growing and growing and growing then we will but again there were no that was a warning for that opportunity to the people about the going this route rather quickly a different situation there but speaking about the and i'm wondering why you think the u.s. government chose to get involved here but not for example in bahrain in yemen is that you know if we're talking about humanitarian finance are for barack obama doesn't know how the heck am i supposed to know why we got involved we don't have any national interest we don't have any tether to why we're doing this obama hasn't made clear why he's doing this speaking of what you said earlier there's word today that twenty three hundred marines who can presume we're just dispatched to libya

that certainly sounds like a ground troop situation which is not what we were told is going to happen i don't fundamentally understand from a national interest perspective why we're getting in the middle of a civil war when we don't know what side we're supporting well the other thing also is look what happens when the u.s. has gotten involved elsewhere and we have two wars that are still going on we just commemorated the eighth year of the war in iraq the very day that the u.s. started loving missiles into libya and i think it would have done well for brock obama and our ambassador susan rice and others to say a wait a minute aren't there some other way. leaves that we can act other than violence sort of an eerie similarity to the i know that you are a code pink is very much against violence but let's break this down mean let's think about the state of our military today let's think back for example to another time when the economy was terrible post great depression when the military. isn't

seized to exist but it was very weak because frankly they couldn't afford it is this an ideal situation for you a time when you know the u.s. can't afford to have a good military and therefore doesn't is that sort of idealistic to you to not have to have a military well first of all it's a terrible time for us because it's a financial crisis and people in this country are really suffering and the kind of budget deficits that we see in every single state are hurting everyone from my teachers to our firefighters to our police so there's nothing ideal about this time and then in terms of the world stage it's a terrible scene but i think it's a time for us to really really really value where we're spending our money we have as code pink already been pushing and saying look we cannot afford this kind of bloated military talk about small government let's look where the government is really doing and that is that the military and so we feel like winding down the two wars that we're already in would have allowed us to save hundreds of billions of

dollars and now all of a sudden we turn around and before we even knew it we are spending about one hundred fifty million dollars a day now on a new war that we never even had a chance to discuss what do you think the i mean you seem to be sort of against this involvement in libya is this a time that you think that we should be making our military our moral or i know i never want to make military decisions based on domestic budgetary if there's a legitimate national situation that requires military action are not going to say well we can't afford it we've got to raise union dues you know i'm not going to do that it's a national security issue we've got it from a national security we've got to do it regardless of what the cost is because the cost if we lose something like that or look something like that. what is quite dire this may surprise medea but i was against nation building in iraq and afghanistan i was for removing the governments and then leaving so that we wouldn't be eight years in and six years in respectively in these two places oh it was then why are you in favor of removing saddam hussein but you're not in favor of removing gadhafi

because saddam hussein was a legitimate threat to the united states or to the united states yes never threat to united he had no weapons of mass destruction never even threatened to attack the united states nothing to do he was attacking united states every day come a no fly zone without the blocking the united nations in american jets and an american troops were there maybe he was not attacking the united states at all c'mon you know i was a junior is i would like you to ask the the fighter pilots in question they were being shot at while we live in a fire and my lesson something i always i.d.r. a day i go for it is i think that is saying what was in our building area near beforehand and it was saddam hussein a threat to the united states before we went to war what again there was a global intelligence community that the turned out to be inaccurate i mean the great shadow is the answer what world the fact the matter is i wouldn't be there six years later but i wonder if you are never heard they told us then they said five days five weeks five months that would be the max we started having to do you know a lot of people are worried about the situation in libya also but let's move on to

something that's happened even more recent and that is you know in the last twenty four hours what we're seeing between israel and palestine do you think see if this ask if this violence that we just had a guest on norman finkelstein says he doesn't think it's going to ask away but there are people a little bit concerned here this is somewhat serious gong to be dropped if this ask away will the u.s. support israel and do they have to i don't have any faith and rock obama supporting israel which is patently absurd there's a facebook page that's going up today for the third intifada and it's already got sixty five thousand likes that's terrible what we need to do is these things and when there is decisive victory israel's been attacked in four wars and north. numerous skirmishes and now maybe three interim solders they've won every one but the world community i stop them from winning decisively what we need to do is let israel be israel taken off the leash allow them to win decisively and these

problems where they have the military capability to do it their intel that is our leader let israel win decisively keeping pulling up short when when when when they when they see all of it to kill the already blown gaza instead of just fourteen hundred of them were auditioned well there's a lot more than four hundred enemies so yes the answer is yes they should so you're saying that they should that the u.s. should allow israel that the world allow israel to go to maurice and kill all of gaza maj ahmed younis imagine if canada was lobbing since two thousand and five ten thousand rockets and into. upstate new york at some point would we want to go to war with canada they've watched more than ten thousand rockets into gaza since israel pulled out every single last june settler out of the gaza strip they've launched more than ten thousand rockets into israel perhaps that would upset us if it were happening to us that we are also said to somebody came in and tell you and they did they gave them the land back and since and they've had ten thousand rockets on israel in the west bank that have their eye on the people endure is

jerusalem their land is being taken away from in everything updated taken and god or later they have already or in and out of their country they don't have not their land base there has already thought of the area where you have a land are going to have virtual prison and so if you ever want to see ts it's not letting israel off the least believe me it's putting israel on notice and it's around the palestinians time they are here in rights as we have our human rights without just there was no particular natural happening and as always a heated debate could be found or coke medea benjamin and president of russia government. well yet another sign that times are changing for the first time in history a poll found that the percentage of people who say they get their news online at least three times a week surpassed those so they get it from newspapers forty one percent of americans surveyed got most of their news about national and international issues on the internet more than double the of the seventeen percent who said that just last year so what does this change well everything even though it appears the u.s.

government and even the mainstream media would prefer countries like bahrain and yemen stay out of the news videos like the one you see behind me make it so what's happening there does in fact reach people here i want to go now to woodstock new york where it's a college journalism professor jeff cohen is standing by. hey there on one hand this explosion of social media has really given people so many options you know immigrants can keep up with news from their home countries people interested in multiple points of view can find it but on the other hand many use the internet simply to validate their points of view they already have talked a bit about this strange you know to have a devil here. i think you've raised a good point that second point about people going just to get their views reinforced but i would argue as someone who used to be a regular t.v. pundit i was

a talking head on all three cable news channels that the quality of debate he's much better on the internet between left and right. between people of different philosophies because i'm the internet when you see something you have to have a source and you have to actually link to it you know the debates you see i'm c.n.n. and elsewhere between the democratic party hack and the republican party hack and i many issues by the way they don't really disagree and some of the foreign policy issues your program focuses on there isn't a lot of disagreement i would argue that even though people go on the internet often seeking out points of view that reinforce it's hard on the internet to avoid intelligent points of view on the other side there's raging debates among the real good bloggers they link to each other even when they're in a close sypher as philosophical disagreement i think that that they among quality bloggers is better at them to debate amongst the best t.v. mainstream shows in america and you can forget

a lot of time he thought made that happen on t.v. i have to happen and you know three men are six minutes so there's no sort of thing as or making connections there simply let's get that sound guy in there what do you think i'd have these night men if you had. yeah i was going to say in just what you're saying that. i'm the internet if someone if you're a successful blogger you built up a following and someone went after you you're going to be the one who brings it to the audience and you can donate to it so they can see what the opposing view is. as you say on television there's almost no sourcing other thing on u.s. television there's almost never a correction you know it's ten cent better now it turns out that the media got it right not just the government but media is almost never correct there's no correction box on t.v. what's time now what's going on sort of around the world right now these movements from egypt to now bahrain and do you think that some of these countries leaders

will try to crack down more on what they allow their people to see or i mean is it simply too late has this become at the start of a movement that is here to stay even for some of these countries. it's here to stay and what they don't understand what they haven't been able to grapple with is how to close down the internet and social media the egyptian rulers had really a problem the organizing that preceded the marches and me in the liberation of liberation square was so much organized on facebook and you know here and you had a government in egypt that had arrested bloggers they have tortured bloggers they've been trying to figure out who's behind these facebook sites i mean it's it's very hard for repressive governments to control the internet it's it's a lot easier for them to control the state press to control the states television

one thing they haven't been able to figure out what's funny about gadhafi i guess not so funny couple months ago we had this rambling speech that's all over you tube where it was a tacky wiki leaks and attacking the internet and saying any trunk or it can get on the internet and i mean the reality is these dictators in the middle east i'm glad you brought it up they've really been hurt by the internet more than any form of media in recent decades or is that we've got to talk to jeff about what's going on in this own country for so long it was you know the big three networks and the main newspapers you know the method to say to the discuss and then it was shaped by them in any way that they were the gatekeepers so now the gate keepers have been pushed aside do you think this changes the foreign policy. it hasn't changed foreign policy but i'll tell you this if the internet and independent media had been as powerful back in two thousand and two as they are today i'm not sure all the lies that came out propelling the invasion of iraq

would have sufficed they would not have succeeded. was there was an informed minority that was reporting each lie on the internet but the internet didn't have as you pointed out the bigoted a segment didn't have the real saturation that it does now so the question i think in the future now that people have access to independent websites like truthdig and truth out in common dreams and democracy now if you don't watch al-jazeera online you know will it be as easy for. ministration to use that media mainstream media and get their point across when there are so many other people putting out alternative messages and that was jeff cohen media critic and journalism professor at a college. all throughout the newscast we've been talking about friends and foes of the united states so where does a china that end well on one hand just a couple months ago president obama hosted chinese president hu jintao in a lovely thing

a visit with the royal welcome his visit included various activities that portray the two leaders as friendly including of course a state dinner and also many speeches by president obama meant to highlight the strong relationship between the u.s. and china. the united states welcomes china's rise a strong prosperous and successful member of the community of nations. and the china success has brought with an economic benefits for our people as well as yours . so why then would the u.s. government want to fight against the chinese government turns out that could be what's happening according to british news reports which say the u.s. state department may be planning to provide thirty million dollars to britain's b.b.c. world service for anti jamming technology so it can penetrate china's networks earlier i spoke to georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers about all of this i asked him why the u.s. state department would want to fight against inner internet censorship and even

join great britain to do so here's his take. it's patently silly on a lot of levels because you know we're talking about a lot of different things tonight but this is one of the those things that really when you peel away the layers it doesn't make any sense. but on one level you have the contracting with b.b.c. which is which is actually pulling back some of this it's world operations in certain areas they're getting their budget cut just like we're having budget cuts here why can't we do that internally number one number two you're paying them to give you anti jamming technology why can't we come up with that well it seems like sort of a partnership that they're joining together on the. back of the b.b.c. would do this at all i mean in some way this can be seen as an act of sedition of blatant disregard for the right is law that they would go in there and they write well i mean here's the thing i mean they are trying to to fight china and places and iran and places like that and even other governments we've seen it in all the

arab protests where they're jamming social media jamming cell towers satellite transmissions the chinese of turn this into a high art form i mean do you really think the investing a piddling amount of money with another government is going to overturn this i mean and then even if you do what are you beaming to these people because that's the other layer of silliness here because i've said it on this show the b.b.c. actually is a good model but not the b.b.c. world and world wide but in terms of getting on the ground talking to regular people with real correspondents getting real stories finding what the real people what bothers them not being propaganda to people so you've got to got it in any idiotic situation on many levels i'm not the forget the your party has been have their own networks they've got you know voice of america that dialogue or they're already contributing millions of dollars for some of these that work. and yet it is

a little bit ironic i mean that this could be seen as even outsourcing. competent and well yes that's what it is i mean you know ironically that outsourcing you're putting overseas propaganda something what the president said he didn't want to do in terms of our in industry but yet that's what it is outsourcing propaganda rather developing network strategies and on the ground strategies for for talking to the real people and getting to know their hopes and fears and maybe building on that we're not doing that what's america could do that you know radio liberty that you know well who are could do that if they switch their approach their approach has been very heavy handed and we've talked about this in very you know run by people don't you don't even from there and even stuff like like like radio free europe in the old model the old school radio sometimes the old school penetration like radio can get through this jamming you know and we don't even know about what's going on with social media social media has worked in places like tunisia where you have a population.