the child's life on the. video. we have a clear sense of and we are we do not have any specific information about specific individuals. are you as confused as i am so who then exactly are the rebels of libya and of the pendulum of power swings what's next in a land where the history of government is invested with tribal tradition. and the land over its head in wars what kind of toll has a place on america will look at the many costs that come with more. and going to war as part of a humanitarian intervention why do some countries get protection for others less

than for themselves. and from wars to an economic crisis to political polarization who is behind it all one man is blaming a group called the oil and drug cartel and he says what's happening now harkens back to another dark time germany in the one nine hundred thirty s. intrigues all discuss. it's wednesday march thirtieth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine frizz out there watching our team. don't start today with an update on the situation in libya where you could say it's been a pendulum swing in the quest for control there in the last twenty four hours we've seen rebels having to retreat being pushed east by troops loyal to moammar gadhafi progress off the forces have been shelling rebels with mortars and rockets and just

how organized and prepared the rebel forces are almost starting to become a serious question and day twelve of western involvement there are these policy areas on the ground in tripoli and brings us the very latest. global fighters have now been pushed back to the city of ras lanuf we are hearing that this is strategically important oil before the city is firmly in the hands of gadhafi is made now there are numerous reasons being bandied about as to why the rebels are being forced to retreat and retreat so quickly part of that is because gadhafi forces are some feet base organized they better trained or they have base of leadership and this is posing some real dilemmas to the international community in terms of what it should do next when it's becoming increasingly clear that these airstrikes are not that successful while the government here in tripoli is insisting as it has done since these coalition air strikes began that the number of civilians continues to climb and that it hovers some way more than one hundred now we do know that there were secondary explosions caused in the town of misdoubt which is about two hundred kilometers to the south of tripoli there will pause at

an ammunitions dump that was hit in those coalition airstrikes we were foreign journalists and we saw damage to the hospital as well as to several homes and residential areas we moved of some of the wounds in the hospital had been broken in we also saw some beds where there was blood stains and did we not the patients were evacuated in time but we heard from the hospital staff that some thirteen people were wounded we also met when we were very a number of tourists who stop bangladeshi and also filipino and they as you can well imagine are very anxious and very scared and very desperate to get out of here with the prime minister david cameron says that he has not ruled out arming the rebels and this of course is the concern that's been expressed by critics in the international community and syrupy here in tripoli sense that u.n. resolution one hundred seventy three was approved there is the clothes that talks about all the silly measures and this is open to interpretation and what we're hearing from the british is that its weapons are needed to protect civilian lives

but then they can justify the use of weapons and also if they're in a similar kind of line coming out of the obama administration they have a saying that they could allow for the supply of the. we're putting and that they are looking at all options on the table now if indeed there is going to be the supply of weapons to the rebel fighters this poses a whole host of limits and a whole host of very critical questions number one people do not know who the rebels are amongst their ranks with al qaida leanings extremists leanings movies with the man's land in the hands and indeed if they do what does that mean the source of the very real possibility that the weapons could end up in the hands of gadhafi soldiers i mean even moving back if you're going to hand over weapons to fighters on the ground are going to need to give them some kind of practical assistance and training which begs the next concern particularly here in tripoli and that is the question of whether or not the international community has the preparing the ground to stand ground forces here and that was our correspondent

paula slayer from the libyan capital of tripoli so we want to focus our discussion today on this question exactly who are the rebels to answer that i wanted to tell people behind the decision to get involved in libya in the first place that would be president obama and secretary of state clinton if they were based there about who the rebels are. but people that we've met with have been fully vetted so we have a clear sense of who they are and so far they're saying the right things and most of them are professionals lawyers doctors. people who appear to be credible we do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this but of course we're still getting to know those who are leading the trans the transitional national council and that will be a process that continues. so it seems to me we might not exactly know exactly who they are well to get some answers or at least some insights earlier i spoke with

a man who knows what things look like from the front lines and even sassaman was a former commander of ground troops in iraq is only with some of the key differences are between iraq and libya and why he thinks entering libya was a mistake. well there were there which are all till the period in iraq and you know we have to be out of there by twenty eleven and there's going to be a cause and effect that goes along with that withdrawal and on the flip side i think in libya just from my personal knowledge from two thousand and three two thousand and four there's going to be a period of time are you trying to figure out you know who's in charge who's really genuine who's really interested in the goals of the future of libya and then who is really corrupt and out for selfish gain. and you're not going to gain that from bombing them from twenty thousand feet above the air or less you're going to only gain that from from boots on the ground and and frankly there's not enough out there right now to justify sending american sons and daughters into into harm's way

and they feel that they can you talk about you know the the drawdown in iraq in iraq the fact that it should be sort of nearing its end completely i have got to go back to this attack and to create i mean this is this is serious and how do we know it that these kind of things are going to continue to happen there as we continue to you know draw down sure we don't end and you know you have to remember in two thousand and three when we entered and entered iraq there was already a level of violence a daily by instead occurred there and and i am certain that when we withdraw at the end of twenty eleven those to attacks you saw yesterday you're going to see more and more of those kinds of things happening and then it will be interesting to see is the united states going to stand by and watch this fledgling democracy work through that or are we going to have to put you know step back in at some point i want to pick your brain a little bit and talk also about the similarities isis you've been to iraq you've been to some pretty tough situations what do you think american people say now

about you know the tribal mentality that exists in much of the middle east and africa yeah well right off the bat it's you know it's it's brother against brother until there's somebody else and then it's brother and brother versus cousin and the next thing it's a village against province and it's province against. countries so the tribal other tribal lines run very very deep they cross over the political and religious views or are lines that are in those middle eastern countries and you're losing your allegiance is going to go back to the tribe and so it's it's a vastly complex environment or very young leaders to have to make decisions from outside that culture to deal with i mean it seems from the stories that i've heard people who have been you know similar places you've been in similar situation in iraq in the earlier days i think a lot of people were shocked when they saw that you know people live in very different ways they're acting very different ways and are you know in their eyes we are in very different ways and you know any advice or insights as you've been

watching over the last twelve days what's been going on in libya. has any of the of any of that's been connecting for you in terms of. you know what we don't know right now i think we have to be very very careful who we trust. and at least we know we did choose military operations over there and iraq based on the the information for maybe one or two so totally credible sources and in fact in that in the aftermath they were never credible to begin with so it's a it's a it's you know no pun intended it's almost a minefield that you have to walk through in libya and determine who we can trust until we can't think we're in any position to take the rebel side or take the government side and insert ground forces i mean that is the debate congress is going to have to take on in the coming days and weeks that was nathan sassaman retired united states army officer and author of the warrior king the triumph and

betrayal of an american called commander in iraq. the thing with libya the west has formally handed control over to nato today but america is that to remain heavily involved by continuing to invest millions into the operation or one argues on associates are going to look at the real toll of all the wars the us is fighting. the u.s. has cultivated and and valuable events with which it invades nations or one or two or three locations change the list of enemies grows and habit becomes harder to shake even as the costs of military spending casualties and the steve world image what is the real toll of america's wars in iraq afghanistan and libya the three currency was a battlefield let's take a look at what they cost five and a half thousand people that's the official american death toll in iraq and afghanistan another seventy thousand the estimated number of injured u.s.

soldiers. while some one hundred seventy thousand are thought to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder but we're also looking at the number of people that are being killed by u.s. actions and there we're going up into the millions it's estimated that one hundred thousand to one million iraqis are dead but four million displaced aaron emery after tour in iraq is tired of the u.s. trying to run the rest of the world american way of life doesn't work everywhere we've seen this over and over again. failed when we tried to bring it to perea vietnam iraq i mean what we've got going on in libya now it never works. it'll only work of the people want it but if they want it they're going to do it on their own something the west did not allow the libyans the money the u.s. is the proud owner of the largest defense budget in the world we have fifty four percent of the federal tax dollars going into defense and into the destruction of

afghanistan and iraq you have to really wonder how crazy this country is and how total military expenditure could be nearing a staggering nine hundred billion. because the work is expensive iraq has cost an estimated three trillion dollars that was enough money to fix the social security problem in the united states for fifty years you know what afghanistan and another three trillion if we just took two hundred forty three troops two hundred forty three that's all that's really a drop in the bucket for the hundreds of thousands that are up there right now so i'm on a c one thirty in back of we've saved enough money to fund a higher education for all of afghanistan for the entire year those wars not over and done the attack on maybe a kicked off the tab for the first ten days five hundred and fifty million dollars with another one hundred twenty million to be pumped in over the next three weeks

are most affected the lives they go has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and the no followed by a monthly allowance of forty million dollars they said that now nato is in charge nato. is held backwards as usa another less tangible price of war waging soaring anti-american sentiment chipping away at a self-proclaimed key to successful diplomacy for generations the united states of . america has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom the united states is losing influence. looks now like some sort of a democratic nation in pursuit of peace but it looks like you've received no marks especially considering the united states hasn't won a war decisively since the end of world war two and while former soldiers certainly

get it if you look at all the animosity towards the u.s. today it comes from our military interventions politicians seem blissfully unaware and they say sure can our party new york the cost of war certainly allow criticism but many say this is something with so many layers and potentially so many layers of problems even one man one of those people he's a writer and radio host and joins us from chicago to talk about this. and stephen i want to start with something that just came down it turns out president obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert u.s. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust libyan leader moammar gadhafi this is according to reuters do you think this changes the game. oh i'm not at all surprised about that i'm sure that america britain france have been supporting

the so-called rebel fighters and. covertly there done it overtly been at least three four hundred british commandos in the country at least under detention commandos in the country there were four thousand u.s. marines deployed the of. if a ground invasion is planned and i have no doubt that a ground invasion is planned and if they cannot get rid of gadhafi by the u.s. strikes in there you know it would be phone number seems you know you just said that you have no doubt that a ground invasion is planned for president obama has said time and time again that this is not about sending troops to the ground you know why you think. well if you're a state or politician and then let's say obama is a supreme liar. if pains me to listen to him it seems to me the list of the things that he says about upbringing and humanitarian aid of humanitarian aid he read

about procedure libya bringing democracy to or actually bringing democracy to understand frankly we will not tolerate you see we don't tolerate a goal what earthly tolerated any place else but there are many peoples even people with you know good information coming their way who say that this effort has indeed helped some of the people people who you know we saw president ghazi himself say he was going to come in and slaughter them but what about that argument that there are people on the ground who actually are or say they are thankful for u.s. involvement. well get out a got a ledger in action then talk when he was attacked he responded to hundreds that he did not initiate that this was planned this began last year there were a differential involved beginning last year. they

arrived some of the papers that come over to to the imperial side there i say that and we've gone into three countries mainly the us the u.s. britain and france called religion in this imperial venture has nothing to do with anything else and in these militants these insurgents are some revolution this insurgency going on and you could affect this but and then the so called leadership . and and they knew that it was no humanitarian crisis in libya and philly's people began to therapy. and train inserted french british but the americans and that's the way it all but you know humanitarian attack at all even i mean no humanitarian threat in terms of what was going on inside that country with the uprising there but you know we saw the kind of violence that we saw. well i read in a couple of articles that the humanitarian crisis to begin until america in france

arrives and basically that's about the way it is because he didn't cause even if you're in crisis he was the recipient of humanitarian crisis. is the state. absolutely. but i do not support any other nation meddling in the internal is another said by senator orrin r.c. your resolution one hundred seventy first is an issue legal resolution is violates the u.n. charter the u.n. charter is very specific article fifty one it says no nation may attack another one except in self-defense and then only until a security council this is security council has no authorization to violate its own charter and that's what the council i want to keep you here a little longer but we are going to show

a report that one of our correspondents said tell us a little bit about some of the points that you brought up and that is the fact that president obama says that we're in libya to protect libyan civilians from massacre by colonel gadhafi forces many people now asking how humanitarian this intervention really is this is are he's telling forging of more on the debate over the responsibility to protect. when it comes to receiving international help. not all countries are created equal. the u.s. and nato are in libya with a doctrine of responsibility to protect responsibly to protect was born out of the cellar to respond ever want. the failures to respond to holocaust genocides around the world created by the un and praised by advisors close to president obama are to peak states that sovereignty is a privilege not a right and you have

a responsibility with as a sovereign country to not massacre of peoples and at the international community can you jean when governments abuse their own people. but critics say r two p. is riddled with poc recy and self interest and even call it as i would say humanitarian peerless then in any number of places where they're supporting dictators and also. president obama justified his decision to bomb libya and are too few ground some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities another conference the united states of america is different. i refuse to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action. but as a candidate for president said r two p. it wasn't sufficient to keep u.s. forces in iraq quote by that argument you would have had three hundred thousand troops in the congo right now where millions have been slaughtered as

a consequence of ethnic strife which we haven't done human rights activist david don't go because the turmoil in his native uganda there was killed because people were killed. but unlike oil rich libya ugandans waited decades for help and when it came david says it was too late and failed because everybody kept on saying that you know we have to use force. to stop the war and that doesn't work sometimes we need to talk things and i think on that the failed a failure critics say is being repeated in libya even as advocates say it will become the new model for humanitarian intervention. but after the bombs have dropped critics say the intervention isn't over so who's going to do with the rebuilding is according to the so-called democracy from the national down for democracy. and so on and so forth are they going to be mercenaries boots on the

ground to protect these marches one of the agencies i've been in continue in libya repression and violence rages on in syria u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton quote condemned the actions of the syrian government but did not have a united sponsibility to protect their ford artsy washington d.c. . and stephen i want to bring you back into this discussion we just on kalends report a quote she found that candidate obama said about the need and the desire and the argument for the u.s. to get involved she points to what candidate obama said about the situation in the congo and compare that to what we're seeing now. well candidate obama also promised to be a peace candidate and elected president he would wind down the war is if one does not expand the afghan or the so called for act was of a pullout direct u.s. combat troops still interact the recent war going on in iraq the region we know the

bloodshed happening in afghanistan is daily bloodshed and pakistan and america arriving in prague. and pianist and iraqi genocide. if you go back to ninety ninety one gulf war between violence between disease between sanctions and two wars the estimates of the death. and cause of them stand in and of over two thousand one. hundred fifty of them over two decades and i sneeze there was this arrest in iran already and we're talking about upwards of six million people. genocides and countries i feel for the libyan people i see it in america maybe perini just to libya they may not like the job the but the kind of person that america was in charge replacing them all mixed

in the europe. well you think stephen what happened this is somewhat hypothetical but you know we've seen this pendulum going back and forth in terms of control of the area and libya let's say that the rebels do gain control of a lot of these areas where pro-government forces are now they're probably daffy forces. obviously they're not going to shake hands i mean i can't imagine a situation where i would say can say you know what maybe khadafi is gone let's all be friends what happens if these rebel forces i suppose i speaking start killing the programs the forces does the u.s. and nato then continue to help them. of giving feeling productive forces all along they were pause. in their interest in learning that a lesson it may not know nothing is in the daily mail of the daily telegraph in the u.k. the idea of their reporter on the ground running from benghazi saying the diesel

powered rebel forces terrorizing the entire city of benghazi anybody they suspect is progress that the interesting though we're feeding. presuming them is torturing them and they soon enough. i don't know how to tell a pro already if you give up the person by just looking at them and deciding i think this may be a bad guy let's get rid of him and these people are killers you don't want the people running the country. again i'd refer the libyan people were coming a mile away. and. obama has really told me to see that the soul of a risk. civilian infrastructure civilians have been hospitals roads bridges so those are the airports all right david i'm fortunate we're out of time certainly some interesting points that you make stephen london

writer and right now. well in the midst of war the u.s. is no doubt also in the middle of an economic crisis and one man i spoke to says it's due to corporate interests being met above all else and behind it all is a group called the oil and drug cartel now you don't have to love this theory we're not necessarily endorsing it but we think the born to hear what he has to say here's part of my conversation with dr matthias rack of dr rath research institute . you have drawn parallels between what's going on here today in america in two thousand and eleven what happened what happened in germany in one nine hundred thirty three now we put together some bullet points of your argument and i want to lay them out and how do you then explain that now you say there's a concrete strategy to turn democracy into a corporate dictatorship and evidence lies and things like corporate interests taking over the economic crisis that we saw rising unemployment financing of the takeover confusion preaching hatred deception and politics now you say these events

are instigated by the oil and drug cartels who exactly is the oil and drug cartels . well charlie real house. major areas of society deeds in any country being controlled by special interests the two main sectors the piano and she anything from cars to us to heating your living room spamhaus human body and these two s. are basically considered market places to make money and all this decades special interest that's accumulated more and more power to dominate those areas and to basically exploiters markets this i'm not saying anything new and it's not a theory that's a public knowledge my approach to that is the following first of all i make them and so i know very well what happened in ninety three in the how these things came

to pass at the time who was behind the nazis. when they came to power secondly i'm a medical doctor and researcher and together with our research team we have investigated non-capital alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs that are frequently toxic and and mainly be near the market because of. the patent fees and roll to use that provide the return on investment so we have some experience with interest in our very own field of what it is to be some sort of the cartel interest group around the pharmaceutical drug makers that wish to maintain a monopoly on the human body with their merchandise and do start to notice where i'm coming in i'm saying wait

a minute time to reflect so if you want to reflect and you say this time is similar to the time of the knock and then heard today is that our our health. well first of all i'm not saying that anyone any politician today in the u.s. or anywhere else in not you i'm not saying that but i'm saying it's. it isn't it's naive to think that the takeover of the nazis in germany was done by a bunch of crazy sputniks like the brownshirts they had to be huge amount of money behind and economic interests and at that time the largest chemical and pharmaceutical interest in the world was called i.g. farben cartel. which means basically an interest group of colors. made up of a year. and some other chemical companies and they financed.