he would r.t. the headlines now nato is expected to take command of the no fly zone in libya within days but hold back from controlling the whole the military operation for now strikes continue to rock tripoli amid claims of more civilian deaths. public a fury a costly military campaigns abroad and a stringent austerity cuts at home and spreads in the e.u. but massive protests marking the blocks summit in brussels european leaders now accept a bailout economically crippled country and that of portugal. and the radiation

spike at the fukushima power forces japan's government to consider expanding the evacuation zone those are still living dangerously close to the area are said to be struggling without vital supplies. will be here in half an hour's time but for now turning to libya again and an expert lavelle's crossfire program debates with other countries a breakaway city of benghazi could become with the next you without. wealthy british style. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in the kinds of reports on our key. keep.

following the 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 is 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 a greenwald he is the associate editor of commentary and another member of our

crosstalk team yelling the hunger all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime on 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 that means 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 cherokee 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 cannot. 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 the easy bit in

a way certainly in terms of a no fly zone these 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 and so bad they're not integrated sense 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 aircraft the most part already suffering from a loss of bases from a loss of spares not going to be a problem the problems are always going to be in the alliance itself and the unity of effort. even between britain and france i think we've seen some of that with the french launching you know actual strikes almost before everyone got started in a paris conference we could get so when you put all that together you can see some of the major trouble is 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 target conduct these forces in urban areas in amongst the rebels using the same equipment so when that's going to be a really big challenge and pressing opposition so fought a 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 the game plan all along because just in pointed out the obvious the correct. 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 thing they 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. bet 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 we military objectives often need these objectives are not aligned to the political objectives of the transitional national council. and. opened the room for western involvement in africa by. is loose talk to massacres of people ok if i can go to aid. and 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 are 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 he at this point the the united states and nato are not satisfied with the outcome

because it 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. 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 they've certainly degraded khadafi these 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 what is success in your mind in this campaign what is success. success would be getting khadafi toppling that regime if we if we were to simply. whole hold off a massacre 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 to stop the next massacre and what's to stop gadhafi is retaliation 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 they've taken out so many tanks there are so many trucks ports a billet halfway that has something to do with a no fly zone i don't understand i mean continue to go after the infrastructure i mean then there cannot be another so-called massacre can there well i think they're very well could be in fact. just refer 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 the removal could affix regime un security council resolution one hundred seventy three fall 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 what opens the door for 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 the remarkably in effect. of the bosnia chief compared to be a little no fly zone over iraq it had better achievements but look at the length of time at least operations went on for and again the air force wasn't really causing the damage to the rebels and 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 again opened up the ground component is is going that troubling aspect and i really think that you know again you can go in the infrastructure you can cause the just to go 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 has been happening in urban areas. but nonetheless i think that his forces in misrata back on the offensive sanction on the street

snipers 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 with many civilians around without creating a least the impression of an own goal if not in fact causing casualties among civilians amongst the rebels themselves so this is this is the really all aspect for me is you know where it goes how you actually deliver on that without making the controversy new jackson that exists already worsens teach expats you know horace just to really point 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 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. well you know 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 the leeway to use very loose land which to get into libya we need to to say very clearly that the united states britain and france must this cyst from any further military involvement in libya and that it is not their rule to cut out reaching change in fact what this would be doing is actually strengthening the credibility of gadhafi to present himself as that imperialist the transitional national council of libya must mobilize the people of libya to remove gadhafi it is the roar of the great libyans and africans to remove gadhafi not the western europeans who propped up gadhafi over the past forty one years horace brings up an interesting point in the countries that he i mean there is the b. 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 your bombing campaign is achieved enough i mean it's what the u.n. resolution asked for it's not going any further because there is a it is a perception in the world growing now that 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 u.v.b. 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 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's pammy and the receipt he would be 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 here there's a there's a lot of people that applaud a very serious which is going to want to return to go right ahead syracuse but the general of the gentleman 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. horace horace who are related by the real quick before we go to the great. at the point is you can only find persons in countries to invite foreign troops and a very arab league that invited the west to enter into libya very same arab governments repressing the countries in bahrain in countries such as in countries such as morocco in saudi arabia so the far right are still going to jump in here after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the west action in libya state party.

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finally on board so. that we feel. and. welcome back across town people about 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 move and the rest start to in tunisia and egypt players across the region making a prognosis now is far from being easy since the arab world is changing its face every day and people in the streets show they appalled the russian public opinion

research center all citizens what drives people forty five percent think it's low level of living standards fourteen percent say it's long trials a rule or so change the sun blame regimes vericut and eight percent say corruption inflaming the people the arab world is going through a red but transformation and today change is the way back to. ok justin and i to go back to you in london oh 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 in. around the world and the obvious answer a lot of people would say a cynical one maybe it's all 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 the process in the united states go ahead. sort of the aspects of the united states i think to my more informed american brethren 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 think really libya. i think the expectations were very high falling on egypt and tunisia you know libyan regime is going to be gone as well and we're going to see more of this arab spring. so there's a lot of focus on that and i think the recent investment that 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 route 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 of 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 is changing i mean

brain is not on the same scale. there is not a massive 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 given all that emphasis and i think for 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 the sheer divide which is you know the other major issue really and actually not hard to get involved in. much more danger potentially more of a court so in libya in 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 and nato 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 that term or not is that

is the international community chosen to develop to recognize a new state inside of libya or the state of bin ghazi or something like that i mean if there are unintended consequences being played out here cannot be toppled of that is the the intent then you have to protect these people and is that the responsibility of the international community like another 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 ration where where where we're flying over over of a bisected country indefinitely so that and i think it is the i think it is the obligation of free countries to to choose sides in these things and to choose the interest to choose the side for a democracy against tyranny against despotism 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 you're supporting if i give him credit forces like the ground if i could see it with you if i could stay with you i mean isn't a 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 for more u.s. involvement there will help it on its way ok horan's what do you think about that i mean. the united states is going to be hard to get with 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 you go ahead i mean nation building in the greater middle east outside intervention i mean we were in the last year i must i must speak as someone from inside the peace movement the united nations did not give me a mandate to change regimes in libya we as a revolution going on in north africa and the middle east. these revolutions are over through the teeters who have been supported by the west for the past forty years these revolutions must be made 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 opportunism of the pentagon is such that initially there were opposed to a no fly zone but now they're using this exercise as a public relations exercise for the united states africa comma that africa rejects so is it that the west is attempting to establish a military base in libya to stop the revolution in tunisia and in 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 well 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 spend a billion dollars on tomahawk missiles against libya it is up to the people of africa and it is amazing that in this discussion we have not discussed the role of the african union the united nations security council should be giving assistance to the 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 a good athlete but after his son financed sar causes campi succors is no in the lead to fight against libya this is a park receipt of the highest order africans and this is the this is a good enough reason to allow humanitarian disaster to take place ahead of years ago this guy had you there's no there's no getting around the fact that the libyan rebels asked for our help that's plain and simple. horace you want to reply to 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 their task through with gadhafi and if they ask the west the current interim 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 in 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 the insurrection in

libya the resolution doesn't say that that's a good point and i think it's an important distinction in 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 you know has been 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 of the rebels on the ground to the town fifteen the way they reacted to the crew there and the fact they were still celebrating the guy whose child was very seriously injured and he was injured as well and they were fortunate so funny far it's not too it's 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 with what 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 less than perfect intelligence. but not so easy to one side and. the level of the

bait 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 us 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 limits to the support of the toppling of the regime in libya is very limited in your mind if you just put book boots on the ground i mean we do everything we can to get rid of gadhafi right and have we force regime change go back to the old strategy. 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 all can see that for sure but it need not ask relate 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 you darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk please. home.

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