it certainly doesn't sound like a ceasefire so as that is being ignored the battle lines are being drawn and redrawn in libya we'll have a report from the ground on tripoli. on full of the risks and costs of military action we are naturally will look to to use force to solve the world's many. reluctant still it seems sometimes we will so what else did president obama tell us about libya could there be more in the future. and the rosenberg trial it's been sixty years since julius and ethel rosenberg were convicted of espionage and

the jury's still out on what they've done for humankind will debate. it's tuesday march twenty ninth seven pm in washington d.c. and christine for sound you're watching our team well let's start with libya this evening where after rapid advance raechel rebels there are being pushed further back from the outskirts of colonel gadhafi his home town there are reports of heavy duty bombardment and gunfire being used by pro-government forces despite claims that there is a feast fire in place are just fall asleep or reports from tripoli. that's often choose day with we now explosions here in the capital city of tripoli i was actually indoors when it happened and i can tell you that the windows of the building visibly so this is the tenth straight day that tripoli has been the target

of coalition airstrikes and as i'm speaking to you here in a few gunshots just coming to my right now it's not only tripoli but also the city of misrata that has been hit increasingly so by these coalition planes this also is the last rebel held stronghold in the waste of libya but the latest reports suggest that the rebels all sauced losing ground it's very difficult as foreign journalists to ascertain exactly what's happening in misrata because the fighting there has been going on for almost a month and we have simply been unable to enter the downtown area of the city the doctors there telling us that it is already days that the hospital ran out of medical supplies that they have been forced to turn patients away that governments micah's all standing on the roofs of buildings and literally shooting at anything that needs and that some of the government tanks that all shelling are actually shelling into residential areas now one of this is happening on the one hand there's this wall of almost an ammunition there is another war that's taking place parallel to it and this is the wall of propaganda it is interesting about the

pentagon has been giving almost daily accounts in terms of its operations here in libya but only now has it made mention of its propaganda planes and these are essentially planes that fly over in battle towns and cities they drop leaflets and they broadcast messages urging people to stop supporting gadhafi to lay down arms and to return home it doesn't really seem to be anything decisive on the horizon surfing off now in terms of the front line which keeps shifting just forty eight always a good certainly looked as if the rebels were making a quick yvonne's ultimately here on the capital city of tripoli not only have they been stopped at get out the stronghold of search but they're not actually being pushed back and the agents what we have is that they are in the town of binge watch but even those kind of reports. keep changing if you see always with some of course suggesting that they've actually been pushed even further than to rust and rigor the problem with the rebels is if they simply do not have enough weapons not only that but that with them they do have are you sufficient and old and this is why we

hear rebels calling to the international community to number one strikes and number to supply them with more with and they will revisit all the cv reinforcements of these weapons from the egyptian border we're also hearing that as gadhafi forces would cheat and as they want to break in states of intending is tried they leave a lot of weapons and ammunition behind that the rebels are been able to take and use themselves but certainly the opposition leaders very much a hoping that they will be a willingness expressed by the international community to continue to be involved in the conflict here because certainly without that international involvement the rebels really do not stand a chance of even reaching tripoli. that was actually correspondent policy clear all right so we are on day eleven now in libya and the latest report has because dead five hundred fifty million dollars i don't know about you but i can think of a few things right here at home but five hundred fifty million dollars could serve well the debate about libya is one with many layers but certainly one of those

layers is the cost and one pretty well known lawmaker says that money should be polled congressman dennis kucinich he's here in studio to talk about that and i know congressman you wrote a letter to the president last week talking about a few of your frustrations about what's going on and you said pretty bluntly i want to pull this funding talk about this. since congress wasn't consulted on whether to go to war in iraq the only real power congress has here to assert itself as the people's representatives is to stop funding now when you say congress wasn't consulted i mean the president did meet with the leadership houses and you can meet with a few leaders but there are five hundred thirty five members of congress the constitution of the united states makes it abundantly clear in article one section eight that the war powers is put in the hands of the congress this is not an academic issue by the way because what we have is a president who basically is assumed as a matter of executive privilege the war powers and this has grave implications for

our democracy and i know one of your other criticisms is simply that using the military is not a good strategy to deal with humanitarian issues talk about well the bombing that has occurred to and in large no fly zone where the no fly zone mandate was expanded to go after it could have its troops and then expand it further to help the rebels as they move towards tripoli that bombing is there's no way you can avoid civilian casualties and so what we're doing here is enlarging the humanitarian crisis with more people becoming refugees with more as civilians put at risk of injury or death to the bombing there are some who share your criticisms and there are others who say you know what it's not just libya where this is happening we're going to go into libya let's not be hypocritical let's go into the sudan was going to yemen let's go into the heart rate and the president for the

first time i think responded to that in his speech last night let's listen to what he said. it's true that america cannot use our military wherever repression the first. given the cost and risks of intervention we must always measure our interests against the need for action but that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what's right so we said we should measure our interests in against a need for action what do you think are some of the interests he was talking about . i'm not sure because secretary gates on meet the press said there were no. vital american interests he said there were interest but not vital right now title interests at stake on the other hand secretary clinton said in another interview sunday that the vital interests of our

nato allies including france and great britain were at stake well you know what. if we're going to use the nato charter to invoke the united states' involvement and not go to the can not go to the united states congress if we're going to use the u.n. without going to the u.s. congress the arab league coordinate with france and great britain and i checked with the u.s. congress we've lost our way here but i'm wondering congressman i have friends in great britain obviously they have been pretty outspoken that they think this is a good idea but one of the other option here is this president obama say you know what france great britain you go ahead we'll just sit this one out where we have to ask who are you who are we helping first of all where and where is this headed because. there are questions raised about who these rebels are and whether or not they have in fact been involved in operations against the united states in iraq and perhaps in afghanistan we've been in

a situation in afghanistan one day we help people and the next day they shoot at us if we aren't cautious about military intervention so blowback to chalmers johnson johnson wrote famously about is sure to happen in libya we are we are in the middle of a of a war here and i don't want to is not see an end to it and i know that there are people on both sides of the aisle in congress who share your sentiment i know that congressman ron paul has talked a little bit about why he agrees with you and i know his son just came out with a statement let's take a listen to what he said. the problem with sending u.s. military to help rebels in libya or anywhere else is that we are taking sides in a conflict and on behalf of the people whom we know nothing about. when or if there is a regime change in libya what kind of leadership exactly will replace good awfully who are the libyan rebels exactly senator rand paul republican from kentucky

talking about that sort of playing with the kind of onto you what you said which is we don't really know much about these people you're saying there's a possibility that the rebels could turn around could say you know what we want to fight a civil war ourselves talk a little bit about what senator rand paul said as it relates to what happens next well. it's been pointed out that in iraq we didn't have an exit strategy in libya it appears that we don't have an entrance strategy and when the when we enter into the when we when we help accelerate the chaos. and in creating more chaos which we think somehow we're going to be able to direct the outcome it's the same hubris that has visited the united states and iraq the same hubris that keeps us pinioned in afghanistan causes us to believe that somehow we are

going to direct events any outcome in libya we cannot do that nor do we have the right to determine who the leader of libya should be as if not actually says more market afy maybe it is not for us to relieve the people of libya of his regime let's talk about a lot of comparisons have been drawn to this war to other wars that we've been involved in in the past in other wars that we're involved in now but we think about iraq and you know president bush said that he hopes to get as many people on board as possible want it wasn't as easy as he thought it would be and in this case president obama does have the u.n. that's happening does have other countries wasn't this a better situation because he did have the approval and you know as he says he the u.s. is playing a supporting role where you could actually argue even though it was questionable that. in the mandate that he assumed that president bush did in fact go to the

united states haggard's in october of two thousand and two to gain their permission to attack iraq unfortunately the case they made was farce now he put together what was called the coalition of the willing we don't know how willing people are in those coalitions nor do we know how willing the twenty eight members of the nato the twenty two members of the arab league the fifteen members of the curative council were approached eventually voted for it had been in this in this coalition i will say this is. going to station a time to see all these people can have time to check with the united states. congress has its constitutional. rights certainly you you're doing a lot of work here on this issue and so many more congressman senator so much thank you so much for joining us and we thought earlier in the show our own policy on the ground in tripoli and hundreds of journalists remain to cover the david day events

there in libya to help the rest of the world get a grasp of what's going on but i don't journalists on the ground getting the accurate information earlier i spoke to keep harmon snell about when war correspondent in williamsburg massachusetts i asked him what sort of challenges journalists in libya are facing and why there are so many mixed messages either side you're operating with you're an embedded reporter unit it works we're talking for work journalists and being embedded means you can only cover one side of the conflict honestly or else you're going to be shot but frankly the u.s. military would not allow anyone to operate is going to tell the story of u.s. military bombings of hospitals for example that happened in libya. innocent civilians as soon as they do that's the end of their invented relationship with the u.s. military other journalists who work independently in war zones like iraq or afghanistan have been targeted and eliminated by their coalition forces meaning western forces meaning nido you know states britain etc because they've been reporting more honestly about what happens so it's impossible to be an independent journalist to some degree it's just it's really an information propaganda war serving

a very imperialist agenda at this point but i worked in afghanistan the congo ugandan ethiopia as well reporter each of which were conflict zones at the time and particular afghanistan is well known in the congo it couldn't be more dangerous you're faced with you know if you took the problem is most your many journalists out there are not not honest they're not going to tell the truth if you do tell the truth you've got to consider who you're working with and how that's going to play out it becomes very difficult to present an honest picture of events you have to be able to pay for protection or work with somebody to protect you so i mean you have to be with the united states military or with the rebels as i said otherwise you don't you potentially face the possibility of being shot or exploded by one of these. us time out attacks from sample because they're indiscriminately killing this is not a targeted well well positioned well targeted attacks these are indiscriminate killings of civilians and military targeted military installations as well as hospitals etc some journalists face that you know that probably liability i think

that's a good point kate you bring up i mean it is extremely difficult and if we just look around what's going on the world right now there's a lot that needs to be covered and i think you make a good point that in order to cover it fairly you need to be independent however it's nearly impossible to be independent in a region where it's just too dangerous so what's the answer here how do we get a fair assessment about exactly what's really going on but the same thing with anything else you have to remove the money from the politics remove the money from your reporting and remove the money from the government and reason the government the officials in the united states government allowing this to happen this indiscriminate killing of people in afghanistan iraq congo ethiopia job already for example is because the money that has bought them off on the defense industries which are profiting from this war from the other corporations that are going to make money on it whether it's coca-cola whose interest in sudan or her are significant or whatever the same thing with journalists journalists are there with a paycheck they're there with support from some institution whether it's the new

york times or. national public radio or whoever they get some sort of level of support and most journalists can operate without that because if you don't have any money you don't have any support how can you do this work just the basic bottom line is the financial financial aspect which then determines the censorship and the private profit motive. that was keith hartman snow war correspondent. and it's not just the coverage of the conflicts there are also mounting criticisms of the strategy itself some call president obama's decision to get involved in libya hypocrisy asking if libya wine and yemen or bahrain but others say let's look a little closer to home countries on our own border where there are plenty of innocent civilians being massacred countries like say mexico earlier i spoke to enrique morones for a founder of border angels here's part of our conversation here run of the border between. mexico and united states. fifty thousand people slaughtered innocent

people that are simply trying to cross the border for a better life. it has to be a slaughter president obama said the words of the world community the words will be fall if you don't take action and we need to do things for humanity human rights how about right here how about what to do people dying every day i look at the fact that these people are being slaughtered. president obama needs to step up and practice with the beaches that only the middle east where there's oil for right here at the front door and then we get all of that from here because you know in this situation we have an evil dictator moammar gadhafi willing to you know he said he's willing to go in and slaughter his own people i know you're not saying that mexico's leader if only because their own is an evil dictator i think you're talking more about what's going on with the drug cartels is that a fair assessment. that's right and i'm not saying this is president calderón idea what i'm saying is that this administration the united states does not pass would

mean immigration reform as a result two people die every day the drugs that are crossing the borders because of the u.s. demand for drugs and we have four and a half percent of the world's population if united states consumes half the world's illegal drugs and to stop that demand innocent people are being killed we're the human rights and this issue where is the humane immigration reform we've got to do something about that's a day that's immoral because it is not an evil dictator in mexico or the united states these are two presidents that have met that have talked about making a stronger mexico a stronger united states you couldn't do that by building bridges of communication not allowing people to die on the border every day like what is happening right now because of the u.s. demand for crowds of people coming across the border the only way they can both governments u.s. and mexico to do something about it we cannot be out in the middle east saying that we're trying to promote human rights and not having it in our own front door i'm not saying that mexico doesn't need to do more of course it goes but you know if he says one around the world put into other countries and saying we need to look out for the people's human rights public the human rights of the people on this border

dying because of the u.s. duignan for drugs it's immoral to truong and i support president obama to be wrong but what he's doing right now by not taking action on immigration reform is immoral it's time to step up to the plate to keep his promise you process humane immigration reform the first year business come up with that you know it is very very important nobody in the united states that disagrees with the fact that we need it the immigration system is broken and we need to cure borders but just wouldn't an intelligent matter the militarization of the border is not the solution but we need to be doing is working with our neighbors to the north south east and west that's what's happening you know they're concentrated in an area where there's lots of oil mexico also has a lot of oil the sides that research human beings put it there in libya egypt or in mexico these are human beings they should not be dying because they simply want to promote human rights in the united states has a big responsibility as a world power to do the right thing not only in intervening in other problem countries policies but right here on our very front. now as i'm reading what on

earth border angels down there at pro immigration activist well today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the day julius and ethel rosenberg were handed down a conviction for conspiracy to commit espionage for stealing i don't advance secrets from the united states this was a ruling that would later lead to their execution we're talking about a time largely ignored by hysteria anti-communism sentiment and fear of new developments in the making of the atomic bomb the rosenbergs case continues to be tied in history classes around the country as a significant and important event and also continues to be debated to this day and even yes on this program right here to discuss is brian becker national coordinator for the answer coalition and see the president of that less government so i'm going to start with you the case of the rosenbergs we've learned about it since we were young here in our schools in america was this justice served or a stain on america's history. of transcripts and ninety one when they.

released he was guilty and they got what they deserved execution for sharing secrets yes you're laughing over here brian what do you think well we're going to my grammar. the conviction of the rosenbergs and then their execution was of course we should remember the first time civilians had been executed in the united states for the activists it was conspiracy to commit espionage it was unfair to the beginning of the mccarthy which i'm here eames thousands of people would had to leave the united states tens of thousands lost their job many people who were communist or socialist would get prison simply for believing in socialism or communism and it was a hysteria and of course it was a complete legal lynching in all ways ethel rosenberg as we know now from the record that we have seen was really held hostage they were hoping that her husband would name names and she was put in really as a as a pawn in this bigger. styria so this wasn't legal lynching. as brian said this

was sort of a product of the time do you think that people today americans who had the intention perhaps of sharing secrets that they should be executed today yes to put it on with the secrets or for instance what the rosenberg shared about the manhattan project was certainly grounds for execution. you can laugh all you want but you know we had kids hiding under their desks for thirty years a byproduct of hysteria was you know i don't know that there was a story of the soviets are going to bomb you would not be climbing under the gas from an american bar actually only the americans ever dropped an atomic bomb let's not forget that i mean until the soviets had nuclear parity when the us had a monopoly on nuclear weapons they in fact used nuclear weapons against civilian cities and we after the soviets acquired the nuclear weapons which of course was a great great disappointment to the pentagon in fact no nuclear weapons because when you and i really support away for a lot of people fifty thousand people died five hundred thousand people died in

north korea and korea and vietnam as a result of the parody use it was a nice word judge classman said when he sends the rosenbergs he said you're responsible for all the deaths in korea because of it the soviets didn't have a nuclear weapon then north korea would not have been in a conflict with south korea as if that was the reason it was a conflict in korea. i would think i want to turn this back to you said even today that if somebody committed the same crime or at least charged with committing the think i had they should be executed today let me turn the tables and ask you about this one about americans working for the cia working in other countries trying to find out important secrets or information to protect this country if they're discovered by leaders of other countries should they then look at them go through the trial but then if i should they be just a lot of the edge i did result of what the rosenbergs gave so you know so i'm not asking if they will or won't i mean should they be executed in your mind americans doing what they think is right to protect this country work. dangerous situation

you're going to get us no by the other country or that's going to happen and you're not going to file another words in other words first of all the rosenbergs did not give the nuclear secrets of the soviet union but each and every step of the way of united states at every major advance and soviet technology had to be gleaned from certain spies so the rows and rows to the extent if julius rosenberg was involved at all was low level the soviets to guard the nuclear weapon all states as you mentioned involve engaging steak or if they have informants the americans have thousands of informants and the soviets obviously did to the point of the matter is the rosenbergs were executed as part of an anti communist hysteria harry truman in their time in the time of their arrest sixty years ago he was the least partly our president during an unpopular war the korean war up until george w. bush suddenly there was a diversion the whole glen could be shifted to the communists that's the nature of the politics of diversion the the benefit of history i don't know of any congress history of so much as a man. committed espionage they gave away nuclear secrets they gave with other

secrets that were going to go out of american agents and they deserved to go and they were all right speaking of giving away secrets that in some ways you could call the rosenbergs at least for what they're convicted of sort of the previous days that whistleblowers certainly we talk a lot about whistleblowers today with the case and with that wiki leaks we talk about bradley manning who is accused not charged but accused of leaking classified documents to wiki leaks he has been treated. in many ways you could say tortured kept in solitary confinement who knows what else is going on over there and something coming out in the way he's been treated brian do you think this is a fair connection to say that in some ways bradley manning is the modern day rosenberg well in the sense that he's been steeped loaded and demonized i mean there are important differences in the case what what bradley manning is accused of doing is really seen classified documents that the new york times published and that other mainstream media. in europe published but what's important is that the

military is treating him as if he could be in the charges are being prepared so that he could be sentenced to life in prison or executed for releasing these documents that the new york times saw fit to print and in that case too were in you hear the republicans and conservatives in congress and in the media saying yes bradley manning should be if need be executed to send a message to other people whistleblowers so in that sense i think there is a comparison even of some of the fact patterns are different things said bradley manning be executed for what he's done if he's convicted of doing what they say. so so before and so to go but i don't think. you can comparison the words in the world in the rose of bronze war. they didn't give it to the new york times they gave it to the soviet union they're not whistleblowers they're spies. what it meant or what manning has been charged giving away is i think of such a nature destructive to our foreign policy just destructive to our national interests that if he did all of what he's been accused of doing not charged as you

point out i do i do think he deserves to be executed yes he's been tried in the media just as the rosenbergs were tried in the media here he's been held incommunicado charges have not yet been pressed and yet he stripped naked every night i mean he's being held in a way that would be humiliating and considered a form of torture why because they're trying to do what yes when you when you look at when you keep people. relieving of torture when you humiliate people when you degrade people it's a form of psychological psych ups terror and just as ethel rosenberg who they knew was in no way involved in any of this. to the extent that it existed the way she was held in a in a particular way threatened with death hoping that she would abandon her husband or start to name names so that the hysteria could grow bits the nature of a hysteria many people say that's something that there are things that they're trying to do in bradley manning in terms of trying to break giving and breaking him and giving giving access to. brian i want to go back to this point we did earlier

interview the son of julius and ethel rosenberg and i presented a theory that's pretty common and he says he can buy at least part of it and that is the theory that the rosenbergs were disloyal to their country but they were boiled to their class they were loyal to the workers so you know if this is the case being well to their class and for their country and let's take what's going on now with the unions that people who say that they are most loyal to workers workers' rights does that mean that they should then be loyal to the communist party well i think it's perfectly legal in the united states to be loyal to the communist party of the party for socialism the liberation or other socialist parties there is nothing wrong with there in communist and socialist understood that the soviet union in its conflict with the united states and then a needle in the in the late one nine hundred forty s. was not acting as an aggressor was now preparing nuclear weapons in order to drop them in other countries was in fact operating from a defensive posture the soviets lost twenty seven million and they were the ones who principally defeated fascism then the chinese had

a revolution in forty nine in the korean revolution the vietnamese revolution so working people around the world were in a state of the art rising against colonial oppression and class oppression and they were sympathizers in activists and socialism communism the united states and of course they were loyal to their revolutionary process taking their head on a few different aspects what did you want to touch upon this the great course of the soviets of the defense of passion the late forty's and early fifty's is a patently false absurd joke second of all the the there were the ones that were fostering the communist revolution start workers communist revolution. yes. it was here you know it was a very powerful leadership that if you could make all the people of vietnam rise up and. harder to taking orders from star and yes and. if rosen bros were loyal to their classes should have listened to the american citizenship and return.