more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world is seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations or the day.

below in a welcome to crossfire gang peter lavelle decision time what endgame 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. to 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 a greenwald he is the associate editor of commentary and another member of our cross talk team yelling the hunger all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want just 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 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 a 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 out 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 we did a very good point the military campaign was always going to be 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 does it off to his to inspect where the performance has 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 you know very old aircraft cold war era prof 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 in the alliance itself and the unity of effort. even between britain and france i think you've seen some of that with

the french launching you know actual strikes almost before everyone got started in a paris conference a week ago 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 targeted at these forces in urban areas in amongst the rebels using the same equipment so when that's going to the really big challenge and if 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 the game plan all along because just pointed out the obvious because rect. 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. 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 from libya the military objectives off need 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 act two massacres of people ok if i go to aid. a but i to ask you we 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 it as we speak right now in things are changing very quickly in the country there's a stalemate right now i wouldn't call it 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 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 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 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 is retaliation ok justin if i can go to you i mean if we said we see such a giggle geisha of the military infrastructure of libya then what is the rationale to continue the the military campaign i mean if taken out so many tanks in so many trucks ports ability 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. you know 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 the removal of gadhafi regime u.n. security council resolution one hundred seventy three for short of that clearly but it does have the mandate in there the open ended mandate to protect civilians and so that's what much of this comes down to and that's where you can see the top of this debate about the end state and all the controversy flowing from that put frankly i think if we look at previous no fly zones and remarkably ineffective. fly zone of those near chiefs compared to belittle 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 to troubling aspect and i really think that you know again you can go in the

infrastructure you can cause there just a few problems it does pose the disco problems of its own because the length of space if you like between the various major cities and major fighting it's going to happening in urban areas. but nonetheless i think that after his forces in misrata back on the offensive the 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 with many civilians around without creating at least an impression of an own goal if not in fact causing casualties among civilians amongst the rebels and sells so this is this is the really good aspect for me is you know where it goes how you actually deliver on that without making the controversy you knew that exist already worse in the strategic space you know horace justin 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 is the pretty slow 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 the leeway to use very loose land which to get into libya we need to say very clearly that the united states britain and france must desist from any further military involvement in libya and that it is not their rule to carry out reaching change in fact what this would be doing is actually strengthening the credibility of the duffy to present himself as a clear list the transitional national council of libya must mobilize the people of libya to remove gadhafi it is the ruler 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 country city 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 your bombing campaign has achieved enough i mean it's what the u.n. resolution asked for it's not going further because there is a it is the perception in the world going out is this is turning into exclusively 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 assisted toppling of dictatorial regimes for their own reasons. 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 rosa spammy absolutely receive it we 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 the saudi visceral switching and i want to return to go right ahead syracuse the general 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 i want to reply to that real quick before we go to the break ok. the point is you can always find persons in countries to invite foreign troops and the very arab league that invited the west to input into libya i did very same arab

governments that are representing the countries in bahrain in countries such as in countries such as morocco in saudi arabia so the car isn't to judge me here going after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the bus action in libya state forty. eight. the official t. up location. called touch from the. video. keys mine. and says feeds now in the palm of your.

com. hey tom are in here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. if.

welcome back to crossfire can you 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. target in tunisia and egypt clears across the region making a prognosis now is far from being easy says the arab world changing its face every day and people in the streets show their power the russian public opinion research center asked citizens what drives people forty five percent think it's a low level of living standards fourteen percent say it's long rulers thirteen percent blame varity and eight percent see corruption inflaming the people the arab world is. transformation and to change is the norm. ok just another to go back to you in london a lot of people around the world are saying that what was happening in libya is

a civil war and why is the west choosing this civil war to intervene when there are other civil conflicts around the world and the obvious answer a lot of people would say a cynical one maybe its oil because there's a lot of other things going on the world 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. sort of the aspect 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 like really libya. i think the expectations were very high following on egypt continues here that 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 but which i don't just mean that the financial investment or 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 i actually think the scale of events there is different to what we've seen in the rest the middle east perhaps up until the last few days with events in yemen and syria changing i mean bahrain is not on the same scale and there is not a mass armed uprising and 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 the sectarian fault line some of the other countries are where they sit between the sunni and the sheer divide which is you know the other major issue really and actually much harder to get involved in. much more danger potentially more of

a corporate are 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 the international alliance led by the united states and 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 that term or not is that is the international community chosen to divert to recognize a new state inside of libya or the state of bin karzai or something like that i mean if there are unintended consequences being played out here cannot be toppled that is the the intent then you have to protect these people and is that the responsibility of the international community like another kosovo. 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. 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 the interests and 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. perhaps should be thinking about how we can shape these rivalries elsewhere whether through military means or not ok supporting if i give him credit for seems like a 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 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 bill 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 but at the same time the united states is going around the world building countries like a lot of americans would like the american government to start rebuilding its own country would go ahead i mean nation building in the greater middle east outside intervention and we learned a lesson there i must say i must because someone from inside. the united nations did not give money 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 the caters we'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 democratic 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 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 command 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 one of 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 rule 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 gadhafi son finance succors is campy succors is no in the lead to fight against

libya this is a poll kristie of the highest order africans and this is how this is actually a good reason to allow humanitarian disaster to take place go ahead and he's got to go and see this guy had to say 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 it is their pass through move gadhafi and if they ask the west the car into remove gadhafi for them then they will be puppets of the west when we come to call well justin if i can go to you i mean and 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 that's a. i think it's 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 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 in the ground to the sound of 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 then

fortunate so friendly fire at sanaa through it even they were actually still said we're supporting 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 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 i think. 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 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. any limits to support of the toppling of the regime in libya is very limited in your mind immediately 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 escalate 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 from 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 the.

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