more airstrikes in tripoli on the fifth night of military intervention in libya. at least a dozen civilians are reportedly killed by sniper fire from broken off the forces of earlier tanks targeting a city hospital pullback following coalition airstrikes. this information coming in as washington presses its allies to decide by the weekend who will leave the coalition experts point to the military intervention lacking a clear goal and suffering the divisions about whether it is a legitimate target. and in japan black smoke seen rising from the fukushima nuclear power station prompts emergency crews to abandon work

and move to safety radiation has already reached tells you a list of the government advising people not to drink tap water workers have been battling to restart cooling systems crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck almost two weeks ago. on the show continues its coverage of the situation in libya taking a look at what the actual goals are of the international coalition. for the. we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice ceased to face with the news makers. but can they loan a show where they get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can he live out of washington d.c. for the military attack on get off he continues but who exactly is in charge and we

have to wonder if this war is doomed from the start with no strategy no goals no end game in sight and there are reports of more violence in the middle east this time coming out of israel rocket fire is picked up in recent days between israel the gaza strip and just today there was a bombing in jerusalem so what will happen if tensions you become yours and what will the u.s. q now that we have a rapidly changing middle east and more dismal news on the housing market at this point does anyone even pay attention anymore or has the news become just too depressing for americans to swallow and it's now easier to get a gun in the state of south dakota than it is for a woman to have an abortion so what does that say about this country and what happened to armageddon that was promised by republicans when health care reform was passed exactly one year ago i'll speak with anika sparing of the young turks and the latest attack on public employees florida's governor signed an executive order insisting that state workers face random drug testing as well as pre-employment

drug testing but is anyone else out there see this is a violation of your rights we're going to host a debate on the issue at the end of the program but now let's move on to our top story. the war against moammar gadhafi continues reports say the international air strikes force khadafi is tanks to retreat from the key western city of misrata and went straight to the rebel council created the governing body in order to in efforts to organize his mate and the pounding by cruise missiles bombers and fighter jets is only getting heavier but that doesn't mean they can offer us any closer to setting down or giving up and quite the opposite is promising a very long fight so what's supposed to happen next the u.s. continues to vow to take a step back after the initial phase but there also seems to be no cohesion amongst the allied forces involved in this initial phase today nato. countries failed to agree to take command no one can figure out look a goal of this mission is so politically militarily was this doomed from the start

and disgusted with this is senior fellow at the center for american progress where i think much for doing that is now obviously this is all interwoven but let's see if we can break it down militarily politically and let's just start with a military strategy how do you possibly conduct an operation of this size when there really wasn't you know a goal something that was agreed upon before it even happens now the goal was agreed on the goal was to protect so they're useful for free from killing. innocent people but how do you do that with airstrikes if could on the way that you had a lot of eason stepping down would you go through all the goal wasn't that the goal was to prevent him from supernews which in fact he's going i mean basically we have accomplished and we're continuing to patrol and keep the pressure on him so that he can't do what he did the goal was for to you know were moved from power would you

like that to happen sure but that's not the goal of the mission now there also seems to be a little bit of a problem in the sense that no one can really figure out who's in charge right because this is supposed to be an international coalition but at the same time you have the u.s. and the u.k. and france all with their own operations with their own names the u.s. is perhaps coordinating all of these efforts but the french defense ministry ministry keeps reminding us that that does not mean that the u.s. has commanded nato now hasn't been able to agree upon whether they want to step in or not so what is that supposed to mean for the international coalition if the u.s. does step back bracing for a military point of view the u.s. the french will always claim that they're not working in the first gulf war but no they're going along because the french military very professional and so they are there working with everybody else you don't see french planes but begin to you know planes from the united. anything i thought there were some reports that initially some of the french jets on saturday that went out that had been cleared or there wasn't you know no i mean the case that in fact the united states wanted another

country to be the first there because we don't want to still be seen as an american involvement in a muslim country given the fact that we went into iraq under false pretenses now of course we don't want to be seen that way but i'm just asking then how it technically even defense secretary robert gates came out today and said possibly even by this weekend the u.s. is going to take how is that going to happen but as time goes going to happen as we will not be flying as many patrols with the most experience and the as we will be largely as many cruise missiles because we've already accomplished our objective we will be and our safer aircraft for all of the all of the countries and again with us stepping back it gets the american brand or fair and it also tells people the united states that we're not going to start a third war and other people are going to help us you know because they have more interested about than we do but it would be a really now safe for the civilians because like i say khadafi isn't it doesn't

look like he is going to step down anytime soon he quite the opposite is going to promise a long fight here with a man like moammar gadhafi he might start using civilians right as shields to protect his own forces and at that point are airstrikes really going to help the people on the ground well the fact of the matter is this is not how he would be in control of gaza he would have thought control of the country he. is going to lose control of misrata and it's only a matter of time until his people or people supporting him turn on a because in addition to the military pressure we've also got economic pressure on him we've got it in bargo we've got a blockade and so basically he could talk all he wants what time is not on his side so you think that boots on the ground it doesn't have to become a reality of the situation i don't think so because you've got boots on the ground in the sense of the people who want to get rid of them they are the boots on the ground and we are providing them the protection that they need dealing with with gadhafi politically president obama has. not really been on message entirely here

because one day he says khadafi must leave the next day he isn't quite sure about that and you know i feel like a lot of people felt confused as there is no cohesive message from the white house and from you know the military no airborne is very clear he wants he wants to duffy to lead what he got there he starts we want to commit to being that while there may be legal but military mission is not to get to copulate with the military mission is to protect civilians but the ultimate goal this get this off easily the president's never said he wants to use military force to accomplish that objective but the how do you put two and three together right now do you have a bit of a problem a divide between the military no no no no no we are going to kosovo we wanted the last of which to leave we bombed kosovo for seventy nine days we finally perpetuated of the venture they got rid of what we did not do that you know by by bombing or anything like that if you think of this is already being perceived as another war for america a lot of military that this is war no matter how well how long or how short it is

right this bill it was worth all the enjoyable people talk about the price so what the one of them going to do the united states is not costing us anywhere near what iraq and afghanistan but it are going it's not it's costing of hundreds of millions of dollars that we don't have we've already budgeted for that i mean in terms of you know if the ships and planes were not flying north are going to be out flying i mean i used to be an able side also we had to fly so many hours a lot of you did have a war you'd be wrong anyway so it's not costing us no american troops are really in danger so yes it is a war but it's terms of the american people they're not looking at it like if you left out a statement or iraq you know the american people in fact that you're talking about today it said seven out of ten americans support these airstrikes because in order to protect civilians in the at the humanitarian mission i think that's where the debate is whether it really will end up being just a humanitarian mission or not do you think it's going to hurt obama politically oh i thought he sought help with politically in fact he's been attacked for go through right in the left which means i think he's doing something right because basically

dates. seen him do two things one get international legitimacy your number two get other people to be a reporter the burden americans are tired of you go do we motion to her we look to by themselves or is definitely getting a lot of fire from both sides there right lawrence thank you so much for joining us tonight. and we have even more violence in the middle east today a small bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop outside jerusalem's main bus station today killing one woman and leaving at least twenty four others injured and this was the first bombing in jerusalem in four years leaving many wondering if we're about to see what the long been a volatile situation descend into chaos and in recent days rocket fire between israel and the gaza strip has picked up israeli prime minister binyamin netanyahu said that this matter couldn't tail exchanges of blows and it may take a certain period of time but he said that he is very determined to strike if a terrorist elements and becomes the next complication while hamas is taking responsibility for the strikes from gaza the bombing in jerusalem was claimed by

islamic jihad a smaller faction within gaza so what happens if the situation gets worse and how will the u.s. respond to its closest ally in trouble while we're currently waging three wars joining me is attorney christopher swift fellow the university of virginia law school center for national security law christopher thanks so much for joining us again tonight pleasure to be but do you think that the situation is deteriorating from what we've seen here not only over the weekend and in the past few days we've seen a lot of airstrikes from both sides or rockets from both sides but now we have a bombing in jerusalem which hasn't happened in quite some time but let's be very clear the bombing in jerusalem today is tragic it is terribly sad but it's not terribly surprising fortunately rather than seeing it something completely new what we're seeing is the same dynamic that's gone on resolved for decades now playing itself out again and it's playing itself out again both because of the international situation but more importantly because of the lack of progress within israel and palestine harmfully towards some kind of final. but at this moment

does it become all the more important because of all the unrest that we see in the middle east in north africa do we fear that this could actually get even worse get even more violent we have these more extremist factions it's not just hamas and also taking place right let's let's break that question on the different parts you have the concern of who is responsible for the different attacks in israel right it's pretty clear that katyusha rocket attacks from gaza into southern israel are a hamas operation today islamic jihad claim the operations claim the bombing in jerusalem these groups are aligned with one another politically they're aligned ideologically they may not be very well lined operationally hamas is having trouble in the reining in islamic jihad so to the extent that you know absolute actors on both sides of this conflict are using provocation to promote their political agenda that's definitely a concern you know backing up into the broader region the concern isn't so much

that israel and how will stein will touch off violence and bring countries if you look back at the gaza war in two thousand and nine that was pretty well contained to gaza was pretty much and israeli hamas conflict but if you look at everything that's happened in the greater middle east over the space of the last six weeks if you look at all the fundamental changes that have happened in so many crucial countries having this open wound in the heart of the middle east does not make anything easier for us and it certainly sends the wrong message to a younger generation of performers that are looking for a better future what message are we sending exactly because of course it's no secret that israel is our ally right the america where america will do everything it needs to protect israel but at the same time now we're trying to send messages that we are going to support democracy in some of these other nations but what happens if it's a type of democracy an elected government just like hamas that we aren't so find out where the danger that we consistently hear of is the one man one vote one time

scenario which arguably happened with hamas. in gaza. you know but looking at the bigger question the issue isn't so much which side are we going to choose right there's only one side here that's worth supporting and that's the side of peace a majority of palestinians are for and a majority of israelis are for it and i'd be willing to bet that if you want to round instead of the majority of the people who've been pushing for reforms in these arab countries across the region the majority of them would like to see a pluralistic stable region that's actually nomic we prosperous and at peace with israel although why can't it happen if the majority on both sides is for it if everybody would like to see peace in the middle east here then why can't we fix the problem here is the difficulty with insurgencies in any kind of uncertain situation which is what the conflict arab israeli sorry the arab palestinian cut the israeli palestinian conflict fundamentally is provocateurs on either side can derail majority opinion or do you process by using provocative violence we saw it today right we could send katyusha rockets over the border israel israel responds you

have a terrorist bombing in jerusalem the city of peace israel is going to respond now israel has a right to respond and it should but that response has got to be absolutely targeted and proportional and when that response isn't that when things happen like the accidental killing of the palestinian boys over the weekend it only feeds the same cycle of anger and hatred and bitterness that's been going on in this region for decades you know what we really need to take a look at the situation not in terms of which side we support or who's right or who's wrong you know israeli absoluteness want peace without justice right palestinian absoluteness want justice without peace the simple fact of the matter is both sides know you can't have peace without justice and vice versa both sides know they have to make hard decisions and it's time for the united states to step in to hold some hands and encourage people to start making some of those hard decisions i would love to see that happen and it's a very nice idea to say that it's time to stop saying that you must take

a side bet. think about it obviously people are going to expect the united states to pick a side israel is going to expect the united states to pick a side but the difficulty with both of these sides is that both of them are right both of them have done things that are very wrong and having this conversation that we've been having for the last sixty years hasn't made anything better right the united states will always protect israel from an extra special threat but at the same time we have to be willing to push our friends and our adversaries towards and it was shooting table because it failed to connect it with here means an open wound in the center of the middle east for generations to come given what's going on right now in egypt and tunisia perhaps the i mean we might see a change of government there we bought her a in syria do you think that the u.s. is going to have to change their tune a little bit they're going to have to step back and come up with this what's changing the tune so much as it as it is a matter of reengaging and building being willing to take the risks that american administrations have deferred for decades even if those are military risks i don't

think this situation can be solved for military standpoint the israelis and palestinians are more than capable of making each other's lives in which very large miserable united states is not in position working intervene militarily to improve that situation the kind of intervention i'm talking about is strong clear leadership in a diplomatic and political don't mean preferred way from the american president but it's focused on breaking these old ideas breaking these old cycles and working towards a constructive solution well i brought obama can do it that will certainly be something thing as no other president has been chris thanks so much christopher thank you so much for joining us tonight pleasure to see and it's time for short break and when we come back mike huckabee is doing what republicans do that's waging the culture war to obscure the issues that actually matter this time he's taking on the gays how regional and then home sales in the united states have reached the lowest point since j.f.k. was president the american dream seems to have died and no one's talking about it

anymore it was just simply too depressing for. america to face the music. wealthy british style. market. why no one should really be happening to the global economy with much stronger a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to this report on

r t. what do you do when you have no novel ideas or solutions to the problems that face america but you still want to be president paul have a view just a wage a culture war you distract from the real problems of his country faces and you focus on abortion and gays and of course the left sinister plan to conduct background checks in order for you to get guns and mike huckabee has dive head first into this war he has decided to join the very full ranks of republicans including some who wish that they could go back in time who desperately wish they could take back the progress that was achieved by the repeal of don't ask don't tell that's right huckabee like before and has decided to take a grave at stand against an issue that has broad support from the american people i think we all remember when paul n.-t. huckabee predecessor his conservative credentials were under fire so he said the following.

in recent in the funds for implementation for implementation of repeal. it's not only to think the don't ask don't tell is very very bad but if you elect in hell even defund if implementation that is really super conservative get to vote for progress or wait or go to go back in time much like the entire republican platform which now brings us to mike huckabee who you're an interview with one news now said the following he said there's been some talk of the military is fine with having same sex orientation people but if you really surveyed the combat troops that is not at all the case i don't think of these are decisions the politicians should make these are decisions that soldiers should make and the soldiers in the fox holes make the decisions they choose something different and we should listen to that. right how could be so when the pentagon it did

a study asking troops and found that upwards of seventy percent of those troops didn't believe that gay troops would undermine unit in or out or cohesion and the pentagon was lying even if the majority of the soldiers didn't want the repeal of don't ask don't tell what about what the american people want because huckabee care about that the american people who pay for the military happened overwhelmingly also support the repeal of don't ask don't tell and i guess what they don't get is they because they are in the foxholes the i'm not convinced that huckabee actually understands how our armed forces operate we don't poll the armed forces and let them decide when the entire country goes to war we don't poll the armed forces and ask the way we should leave a war a little bit more complicated the next congress is involved theoretically that is i think we all know after libya that there are ways around that ideally the american people are involved and of course the president gets to say and in reality if we abide by our constitution which says that equal rights are for all polling means nothing because it's already said. to apply to all including gates so sorry but

your reasoning just doesn't really pan out at all and as for appealing don't ask don't tell good luck you can pander to your base all day long but that doesn't mean it's going to get you elected and it certainly isn't going to convince the american as a whole to go back in time with you. hey guess remember that housing crisis in this country well it turns out that it just got worse the converse department released figures today for february home sales and new home sales fell by sixteen point nine percent are now at the lowest point since the kennedy administration and it may get worse goldman sachs released a statement today saying that housing data has gotten so bad that investors can't even be disappointed anymore so has it gotten so bad so depressing that we can't even talk about it and if that's the case that hardly supposed to come up with us here to discuss it with me is anthony randolph the director of economic research for the reason foundation and thanks so much for being here tonight so when goldman

sachs tells investors you can't even be upset me more is that just mean that it's really all gone downhill that it's completely demolished we are at the lowest place in the housing market by force it's actually the crisis began really since one thousand sixty's has really began we began keeping it if you look at whether it's building permits the new start like you starts of homes existing home sales new home sales they are all almost every statistic is at the lowest number lower than even when we were at the bottom of the recession when the housing bubble is really starting to crash and that is despite several years of the federal government seeking to try and prop up the housing market to try and boost sales to boost prices given that that's where there's a lot of people who might say look now we've reached the bottom and we really can't be disappointed by by bad numbers in the future because it's just it's so bad eventually it can only get better which is essentially what you go report saying i

think there's probably some credence to that eventually the housing market does have to bounce back but i actually don't think that we're necessarily at the bottom yet but you know worst thing you know we haven't even hit rock bottom or about had or not and here's and here's why i said if you look at it's. estimates of how many homes still need to be purchased it's kind of clear out the inventory of all these homes built these neighborhoods outside las vegas or in orlando or outside phoenix just. that's not being sold or people are trying to sell their homes that care. up to four years worth of homes that need to be purchased before we have a stable sustainable growing housing market three to four years and that's a lot of homes so how much of that you know how much the fact that new homes are being sold is based on the fact that there are so many homes there are foreclosure that people are going for those you also because it's a lot cheaper that's certainly impacting the sale of new homes and why would you

want to pay a high price to build a new home when you can get a short sale or a cheap home with foreclosure that's absolutely case and there's a lot of people that are saying this is a great time to buy prices really can get lower but the fact is that there's a lot of homes that haven't even hit foreclosure the foreclosure process has been slowed by the number of foreclosures last year banks just being overwhelmed with the number of homes that they need to actually put through the foreclosure process so we still have a lot of homes that need to go to be foreclosed on and then be put on the market which is going to depress prices so there's a lot of people that don't want to build a home right now because they don't know what their home is really going to be worth in a couple years because they don't know what the housing market is what you know around now you know you and i have tried to talk about this before unfortunately the last time we had the second to go is are they could be very well you relenting over unfair guide but let's get back into the conversation too right because her so many americans are the american dream to own a home and fortunately that just might not be the american dream or that maybe

isn't realistic anymore but you say that the entire market needs to be privatized you know fannie and freddie obviously need to go but then what happens to all of those people that got that one day perhaps the government might help them reach that dream but what needs to be privatized is the system of financing these homes and the. we how much money or where the money comes from for funding so i don't think that the american dream anymore really should be to own your own home it's not practical in a more. twenty first century where people are moving more frequently were the travel is not what it was in the night and sixty's you can go all over the world you can work in new york one year and two years later work in d.c. and that's normal we can still obviously people should still buy homes that we shouldn't have there but we shouldn't necessarily have a public policy the government shouldn't try to make sure that every single american owns a home that's the american dream that should change but if we privatized if we get rid of fannie mae and freddie mac. and we don't have the government's basically financing the purchase of homes that

doesn't mean that people are going to be able to buy homes it doesn't mean that the rates of our mortgages are going to go skyrocketing high what it means is that it's going to be a little bit more expensive to buy a home and it means that you're not going to buy a home until you can afford to buy a home and during the housing bubble we didn't see homeownership rates rise we just saw it really cheap kweisi i rented it because the homeownership rates are now where they were in the one thousand nine hundred ninety s. all those people who didn't buy homes who thought that they you know had become homeowners that have now lost their homes they don't have any equity and so they're put into their homes they didn't really ever own their homes and so simply by getting rid of fannie mae and freddie mac. what we do is we say when you actually buy a home you're really going to be a homeowner you've actually achieved that american dream it's going to be a little bit more expensive so maybe buy a home in your twenty's or made by your thirty's but that should be ok or could it be that you never get to buy that home considering the way that you now look at the economy right now look at unemployment we've seen so many study after study that

says that this generation is going to be is going to make a last money than their parents did i mean do you think that americans can actually come to accept that that perhaps they might never ever be. if people are not able to buy a home ever in their lives it's not going to be because fannie mae and freddie mac. don't exist and. it's not going to be because local sam is not opening his wallets to support basically investors in wall street financing american homes. there certainly are going to be individuals that may never own a home that's maybe that's good maybe that's but it depends on really where you live you may never be able to own a home in washington d.c. but if you really want to own a home you can move it through stonework homes are a lot cheaper and you can be a homeowner there certainly are going to be markets where that may be the case but just because we have a private the private market for financing those homes and it's really interesting is what the process is that doesn't mean that you're never going to be able to home you're still going to be money out there so you're still going to be right it was very survival of the fittest obviously not everyone you're not going to you know.

given your well i definitely you know it's i think it's something that's going to be really hard for a lot of americans to come to terms with and it is depressing i think that's perhaps why we've seen less coverage of this issue lately it's because people just don't even know how to really talk about it anymore anthony thank you so much for joining us and it's now coming up next time warner is a little confused again the man leading the march to war against libya seems to have forgotten that just two years ago he was praising the improvement in the u.s. relationship with that yes and selling weapons. and it is now easier and the state of south dakota to buy a gun than it is to get an abortion from liberal publicans realize that you can't be anti big government and pro invading people's lives and privacy.