you are going to live from moscow. stories. come on of the no fly zone over libya but not full control of the military operation this comes as our correspondent in the region tells us that as tried to rock capital tripoli. widens the evacuation zone around the damaged fukushima power plant saying the area is receiving a years dose of radiation each day reactor number three meantime the facility has reportedly been damaged further fears of contamination. and

e.u. leaders agree on the restructuring of a bailout fund to resolve the ongoing debt crisis as portugal financial woes are going. to libya again next cross-talk team now they will debate whether the country's a breakaway city of benghazi could become the next that's next right here on r.t. to stay with us. wealthy british style. markets finance scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the cause a report on r.t. . can.

follow in a welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle decision time what end game looms for the conflict in libya what are the ultimate aims of the u.s. and its allies what is best for people on the ground in libya and are we dealing with deja vu. can you. discuss the cut off points of the coalition effort in libya i'm joined by horace campbell in syracuse he's a professor of african-american studies and political science at syracuse university in london we go to justin crump he is the c.e.o. and sibling an international risk assessment company and in new york we have abe greenwald he is the associate editor of commentary and another member of our cross talk team yelling the hunger all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want justin if i can go to you first as we sit down at this

virtual table right now nato still hasn't decided how this effort in libya is going to proceed and i mean the americans are still kind of left hanging in the lead right now even though we're told that the americans want to back away turkey seems to be very resistant to extending the mandate and the british are saying that the air campaign in libya is successful meaning the libyans can libyan government can no. longer really cannot at all control its airspace so in a sense the policy has one if we look at the one now if we look at the resolution that the united nations security council passed so where do we go from here because in a strange way there is success but i guess it's not successful for some members of this coalition if there isn't regime change. i think you did a very good point the military campaign was always going to be an easy pace in a way certainly in terms of a no fly zone. defenses were pretty poor twenty five years ago when they faced the

americans in eldorado canyon. so much so that in fact the russian general visited off to his to inspect where the performance have been so bad they're not integrated since so to be honest the strategic air defense out into the mediterranean off the coast of libya was never going to be a significant problem for allied air forces and certainly the air force in a very old aircraft cold war era crofter the most part already suffering from a lot of bases from a lot of spares not going to be a problem the problems are always going to be on the alliance itself and the unity of effort. even which mean britain and france i think we've seen some of that the french launching you know actual strikes almost before everyone got started so in a paris conference a week ago so when you put all that together you can see some of the major trouble is behind the scenes and the most controversial thing of all being the attack on ground targets. actually very very hard to do without causing casualties actually even with people on the ground without people on the ground incredibly difficult to

try and accurately targeted at these forces in urban areas in amongst the rebels using the same equipment so in that could be the really big challenge and we're seeing opposition so far to the strategic easy campaign against big military targets it's only going to get more controversial from here horace is is this just going down the path of just a full blown military intervention the invasion of libya with use of ground forces this is part of a game plan all along because just pointed out the obvious because its. interpretation is that. the libyan air force was never going to be a big problem for the united states and its nato allies the real feeling want to do is change the regime in there in that will happen with an invasion a ground invasion of eventually. and that is not the arroyo that was not the a mandate and we must call on all members of the security council to go back

to the secretary-general to ensure that need to withdraw as from libya the military objectives. these objectives are not aligned to the political objectives of the transitional national council and. open the room for western involvement in africa by. is loose talk and it's up to massacres of people ok if i can go to aid. a but i to ask you look at this resolution that was passed by the united nations security council and it's open ended so where we can where the united nations security what i'm saying is the people that are implementing it right now the united states and and primarily nato countries they can say there's no there's no deadline for us to achieve what we want to achieve so i mean the at this point the united states and nato are not satisfied with the outcome because they are as we speak right now and things are changing very quickly in the country

there's a stalemate right now i wouldn't call quite a stalemate but i put we're certainly i haven't heard quite the triumphal language that you quoted at the beginning my understanding is is that commanders are speaking positively saying things are moving in the right direction is certainly degraded could our fees defenses tremendously but that that that fulfilling the mission is really some some days or even weeks away in general i'm sort of a fan of ok but can i ask you what is the success or success in your mind in this campaign what is success. success would be getting khadafi toppling that regime if we were to simply. whole hold off a massacre this this go round which which we are doing and which which the u.s. and its allies should should be commended for. what's what's what's to stop the

next massacre and what's to stop gadhafi retaliate ok justin if i can go to you i mean if we said we see such a geisha of the military infrastructure of libya then what is the rationale to continue the the military campaign i mean if they come out so many tanks with so many trucks ports ability tath why that has something to do with the no fly zone i don't understand i mean you continue to go after the infrastructure i mean then there cannot be another so-called massacre can there well i don't know very well could be in fact. as you just referred to the ambiguity over the mission itself and certainly you know very clearly i think you know u.s. british foreign policy objectives would be to remove the gadhafi regime u.n. security council resolution one hundred seventy three. short of that clearly but it does have the mandate in the open ended mandate to protect civilians and so that's what much of this comes down to and that's where you can the top of this debate

about the end state and all the controversy flowing from that but frankly i think if we look at previous no fly zones and remarkably ineffective. the only fly zone of course near chief compared to be a little no fly zone over iraq did have better achievements but look at the length of time that these operations went on for and again the air force wasn't really causing the damage to the rebels it was it was symbolic you know i think it was important to the rebels that this was gone and they got this sort of level of support the arab league back that up i thought the u.n. resolution went beyond that and you can open up the ground component is is going that troubling aspect and i really think that you know again you can bomb the infrastructure you can cause there just a few problems that libya does pose the disco problems of its own because the length of space if you like between the various major cities and major fighting that's been happening in urban areas. but nonetheless i think that after his forces in misrata back on the offensive tanks on the street snipers were in the buildings and it's very hard for me to see what tactical air power is going to actually

deliver against that in an urban environment you know with many civilians around without creating at least the impression of an own goal if not in fact causing casualties among civilians amongst the rebels and selves so this is this is the really awkward aspect for me is you know where it goes how you actually deliver on that without making the controversy you know gyptian that exist already worse in the strategic space you know horace i mean just in really points out some very important points here i mean no matter how you cut it this is a slippery slope isn't it it's a slippery slope and if you want you can be a cynic and say yes no fly zones really don't work you have to go to the next step in maybe this was the rationale behind it in the first place. no no let's not use the word awkward let's be very clear britain france and russia were opportunistic in going into libya when they were the same persons selling arms to libya russia china and india abdicated their responsibility in the security council by giving

susan rice believe to use very loose land which to get into libya we need to say very clearly that the united states britain and france must be seized from any further military involvement in libya and that it is not their rule to cut out regime change in fact what this would be doing is actually strengthening the credibility of the daffy to print sentence says wasn't and can clearly the transitional national council of libya must mobilize the people of libya to remove gadhafi it is the rule of the libyans and africans to remove gadhafi not the western europeans who got out there over the past forty one years horace brings up an interesting point in the countries that he i mean there is the the international opinion is is is closing in on this i mean russia china and other countries have said here enough is enough i mean that you're bombing campaign it is achieved

enough i mean it's what the u.n. resolution asked for and it's not going further because there is a it is the perception in the world going out is this is turning into exclusively to american nato operation. well that's that's often the way these things go because let's be honest russia and china are certainly against. the t.v. assisted toppling of dictatorial regimes for their own reasons. as as far as i'm concerned mr putin should be ashamed of himself for for calling the u.s. forces the crusaders while they're over there helping the libyan rebels even at the same time a lot of people would say that he echoes the opinion of rose panniers and he received it really actually isn't reflecting the opinion of so many billions of people in the world i mean again you see the west make a determining political outcomes in other countries in this is the perception of it

here there's a there's a lot of people that have this law there's a jason i want to transmitted to go right ahead syracuse the general of the junk from syracuse presumes to know what the libyan rebels should be doing while the libyan rebels themselves are the ones that have asked for western assistance in this. or a suit for us who are related by the real quick before we go to the break. if they have at the point is you can only find persons in countries to invite foreign troops and the very arab league that invited the west to enter into libya i did very same arab governments that are repressing the countries in bahrain in countries such as algeria in countries such as morocco in saudi arabia so the car is going to chime in here after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the bus action in libya state with our. cake.

walk. live fifty years after man's first flight the flames of space race like new rockets need a new launch sites private companies now enter the flight to explore the cosmos name the right species list acknowledge the list the future. first the removal called the clear cut. second excuses are used to be for the cure. her remains are you. find some good soul.

to keep. you out remind you we're talking about events unfolding in libya. but first let's see what russians think about events in the region. the arab world on the moon and taught it in tunisia and egypt players across the region making a prognosis now is far from being easy says the arab world is changing its face every day and people in the streets show they are paul the russian public opinion research center all citizens what drives these people forty five percent think it's

a low level of living standards fourteen percent say it's long rulers thirteen percent blame regimes verity and eight percent see corruption inflaming the people the arab world is going through a red but transformation and today change is. ok just an hour to go back to you in london a lot of people around the world are saying that what's happening in libya is a civil war and why is the west choosing this civil war to intervene when there are other civil conflicts or. around the world and the obvious answer a lot of people would say a cynical one maybe it's because there's a lot of other things going on the world that the united states and its allies don't intervene on but they do on this one and i'd like to point out there wasn't a whole lot of public discussion about it it happened very very quickly and you even have members of the u.s. congress saying barack obama had no right to do that was no public discussion political discussion in the united states so for

a country that likes to export democracy it wasn't very democratic process in the united states go ahead. space in the united states i think my more important. i think a lot of it depends around how you define war and conflict as to when congress can get involved. the key thing i really libya. i think the expectations were very high falling on egypt continues here that libyan regime is going to be gone as well and we're going to see more of this arab spring. so it has a lot of focus on that and i think the recent investment went into libya which i don't just mean the financial investment all the corporate investment but actually some of the political investment that was into libya as a rube state in from the cold you know seen as suddenly on side no longer sponsoring terrorism made it more important and i actually think the scale events there is different to what we've seen in the rest of the middle east perhaps up until the last few days with events in yemen and syria which are changing i mean bahrain is not on the same scale and there is not

a mass armed uprising and open effective as we say civil war almost. on the scale there is in libya so that's why there has been so much focus on it you know just given all that emphasis and i think not to be seen as a failure and hence far more interest and also of course isn't on that sectarian fault line something other countries are where they sit between the sunni and shia divide which is you know the other major issue really and actually much harder to get involved in. a much more dangerous potentially more of a cost i think libya many ways was the easiest place to intervene and that's that's kind of pathetic in a way if it's the easiest one to topple if i can go to you it looks it's clear that the international alliance led by the united states or nato have chosen sides in this conflict if you call it a civil war or not one of the things that's troubling is that if we do continue seeing this deadlock here the stalemate if you agree with dr m. or not is that is the international community chosen to develop to recognize

a new state inside of libya or the state of being karzai or something like that i mean if there are unintended consequences being played out here fig cannot be toppled about is the the intent then you have to protect these people and is that the responsibility of the international community alike and at a cost of all. right now with that's exactly why i'm i'm in favor for a for toppling the regime for a more pronounced end game here we cannot have an open ended protecting operation where where where we're flying over over of a bisected country indefinitely so i don't i think it is the i think it is the obligation of free countries to to choose sides in these things and to choose to choose the side for democracy against tyranny against despotism and and that's the question of why libya and not elsewhere. it's

a good one and and. we perhaps should be thinking about how we can shape these rivalries elsewhere whether through military means or not ok or supporting if i give a credit forces like the ground if i could see it with you if i could stay with you i mean isn't the track record of the west over the last decade particularly nation building in the world especially in the greater middle east of the arab world pretty dismal. no not at all i think if you it's certainly it's certainly not spotless and it's a massive undertaking and it's been it's been done very imperfectly but that's not the same thing as saying it's dismal if you look at the region look to iraq where you see the sort of the only fledgling arab parliamentary democracy that's that's that's kind of struggling along and i think more u.s.

involvement there will help it on its way ok horan what do you think about that i mean. the united states is falling apart is good but at the same time the united states is going around the world building countries i mean a lot of americans would like the american government to start rebuilding its own country the go ahead i mean nation building in the greater middle east outside intervention and we learned a lesson i must say i must because someone from inside me. the united nations did not give need to a man beat to change regimes in libya there's a revolution going on in north africa and the middle east these revolutions are to overthrow caters who've been supported by the west for the past forty years these revolutions must be me by the people of north africa if we're going to have a democratization process social justice and the billions of dollars used to provide employment for the people of north africa the united states cannot afford

a military adventure in north africa as the did in iraq in fact the opportunities in what became to go in is such that initially they were opposed to a no fly zone but now they're using this exercise as a public relations exercise for the united states africa cama that africa rejects is it that the west is attempting to establish a military base in libya to stop the revolution in tunisia and egypt in the back let's be very clear that the west is not in support of democracy in africa they're not in support of democracy in yemen in bahrain in saudi arabia it is the west that is supporting or the most arcade governments in the world in saudi arabia so for the west we all live in the united states of america when we are cutting back money for teachers for education for schools for health for housing for environment we cannot stay in

a billion dollars and thom hartmann says against libya it is up to the people of africa and it is amazing that in this discussion we have not discussed the rule of the african union the united nations security council should be giving assistance to the e.u. african union for humanitarian assistance to libya that was the mandate of the security council of the united nations france and britain were in bed. with gadhafi gadhafi son finance succors his campaign sour cause he is no in the lead to fight against libya this is a poor crissy of the highest order africans and this piece of this is actually a good reason to allow humanitarian disaster to take place go ahead and he's going to go for serious i had you say there's no there's no getting around the fact that the libyan rebels asked for our help that's plain and simple or if you want to reply that yes i agree that the libyan

insurrection forces for your help but we can also assist the libyan insurrection forces to say to them that it is their pass through with gadhafi if they ask the west to come into remove gadhafi for them then they will be puppets of the west when we come to power well justin if i can go to you i mean i guess that's asking people to make a choice on the ground here i mean even i and i'm very very skeptical about this whole operation as you guys all can tell me i can understand rebels saying look i mean we're going to get massacred in the next forty eight seventy two hours can you stop that from happening and haven't we already done that isn't really the job according to the resolution been achieved and i think that's where the discussion is where we go next year. because the resolution doesn't talk about any international force politically socially militarily supporting an insurrection in libya the resolution doesn't say that. i think is an important distinction all the

talk in strategic space in the media space in the political space has been about this you know the intent for regime change in stated. but actually if you look at the military operation is completely compliant with the u.n. security council resolution if you look at the reaction the rebels in the ground to the downed fifteen the way they reacted to the crew there and the fact they were still celebrating a guy whose child was very seriously injured and he was injured as well and they were fortunate so friendly fire at sanaa through it even they were actually still said we supported the americans they've come to help us so there is no getting away from the fact that was what they wanted and actually what's being delivered on the ground at the moment appears to be broadly in line the rebels need rebels want there's no evidence filling casualties i do suspect there will be some i think the inherent difficulties of chucking around large amounts of high explosive are such that you know there will be problems especially in a lesson intelligence. but not so easy one side i think. the level of debate around

the rest of these issues is very interesting i have to disagree about. the reasons . brought up just now about the whole issue of us being that. the rebels really did ask this it is compliant and that's a really important point ok you want to jump in there probably the last comment of the program here i mean. is there any limit to the support of the toppling of the regime in libya is very limited in your mind if we just put boots on the ground i mean we do everything we can to get rid of gadhafi right and have forced regime change go back to the old strategy. well of course there are limits but we're nowhere near there yet it's very hard to topple a regime just using air power. so we were going to have to start to think of novel uses of american power projection in order to make this happen but yes there is there is there is a limit we this is not worth a nother iraq that that that is that i'll concede that for sure but that but it

need not pass clay to that point sorry gentlemen we've run out of time i'm going to have to jump in many thanks to my guests today in syracuse in london and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us eat our teeth see you next time and remember cross talk means. taking.

wealthy british style. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports on r t. if. it's easy to beat.