we are we are some sort of breed or we do not have any specific information about specific individuals. are you was confused as i am so blackly are the rebels in libya as the pendulum of power swings what's next in a land where the history of government is imbedded with tribal tradition. and in a land over its head in wars what kind of toll have been placed on the united states of america look at the many costs that come with war. and going to war as part of humanitarian intervention why do some countries get protection while others

are left to fend for themselves. from wars to the economic crisis to political polarization who's behind it all one man is blaming a group called the oil and drug cartel he says what's happening now harkens back to another dark time germany in the one nine hundred thirty s. intrigue the world with us. it's wednesday march thirtieth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for is out there watching our team also this evening with an update on the situation in libya where chaos and violence continue and the quest for power is largely a game of back and forth in the last few days we've seen rebels gain ground and get pushed back by troops loyal to moammar gadhafi as there is on the ground in tripoli

and brings us the latest. burble fighters have now been pushed back to the city of rust we are hearing that this instituted the important oil for the city is firmly in the hands of gadhafi his men 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 simply based organize 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 harbors some way. now we do know that there were secondary explosions calls from the town of ms doe which is about two hundred kilometers to the south of tripoli there because at an ammunitions dump that was hit in those coalition airstrikes we went there was a group of foreign journalists and we saw damage to the hospital as well as to

stairwells hones and residential areas the moves 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 mentioned we were very a number of news to 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 british 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 certainly here in tripoli since that u.n. resolution one nine seven three was approved there is a clause that talks about the syrian measures and this is open to interpretation and what we think from the british is that it's what plans are needed to protect civilian lives when they can justify the use of weapons we're also hearing a similar kind of line coming out of the obama administration there they saying that they could allow for the supply of the. it is 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 the members and a whole host of very critical questions number one people do not know who the rebels are there are those amongst the ranks of al qaida leanings extremist leanings one of these with the land up in the hands and indeed if they do does that mean there's also the very real possibility that the weapons could end up in the hands of gadhafi soldiers and then even more than that if you're going to hand over weapons to find who's on the ground you 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 is preparing the ground to send ground forces here that was are to correspondent paula slayer from the libyan capital of tripoli. so we want to focus our discussion today on this question exactly who are these rebels to answer that i did some research

and went to the top two people behind the decision to get involved in libya in the first place president obama and secretary of state clinton let's hear what they say about who the rebels are. we have been fully 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 really know who they are so are we trust we are trusting know that they're worth helping voting our time our weapons our resources a lot of people wondering just how far our help will go where we train the rebels

will be given weapons president obama secretary clinton are you ruling out u.s. military hardware the system so i'm not ruling it out but i'm also not ruling it out it is our interpretation that. nine hundred seventy three. amended or overrode the absolute prohibition of arms to anyone in libya. so that there could be legitimate transfer of arms if a country were to choose to do that cus i just don't feel like i'm getting any definitive answers here so instead let's bring in someone into the conversation who knows what things at least look like from the front lines not in libya but this is a man who's made some tough decisions and has experienced first hand the small successes and also the large scale horrors of war and even fascinating as a retired united states army officer he was stationed in iraq in the early months

of the war he's also the author of this book the warrior king priam betrayal of an american commander in iraq. i don't know if the let's talk about what's going on here what have you put this in some practical terms the intervening the airstrikes the support of the rebels what will come out of this what will thanks christine for having me on. i think right off the bat we need to have some very clear military objectives probably some very good follow on objectives and an exit strategy i don't think anybody feels comfortable with a whole trifecta. of reasons right now you know we we look around to what else is going on in the world we can point to things here at home of course unemployment the economy the breaking down of infrastructure but you know we can't ignore what's going on in these other wars that we're involved in just yesterday in iraq i targeted and sophisticated attack into create this is of course the hometown

of former dictator saddam hussein and fifty people were killed including a journalist. so then you say that we have what we're saying in libya which i mean frankly at times it seems like elise what's going on on the ground in iraq and it looks like gangs of have heavily armed people shooting at one another how do you think the u.s. is handling the balance of involvement in very very different conflicts well we're in we're in today which are all clearly 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 which are all bound up 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's really corrupt and out for selfish gain. and you're not going to gain that from bombing them from twenty thousand feet above the year 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 harm's way and when you can you talk about you know the drawdown in iraq iraq the fact that it should be sort of nearing its and i just gotta go back to this attack and to create i mean this is this is and how do we know that that these kind of things are going to continue to happen there as we continue to you know draw down we don't end and you know you have to remember in two thousand and three when we entered lives and entered iraq there was already of level of violence a daily by instead occurred there and and i am certain that when we would draw 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 the 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 between these two places you've been to iraq you've been to some pretty tough situations but 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 country so the tribal of the tribal lines run very very deep they cross over the political and religious views or early lines that are in those middle eastern countries and your own your allegiance is going to go back to the tribe and so it's it's a vastly complex environment for 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. to similar places you've been in similar situations 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 there they act in very different ways than or you know in their eyes we act in very different ways and you know any advice or insights as you've been watching over the lot is what's been going on in libya. as any of the of any of us that's been connecting for you in terms of. you know what we don't know right i think we have to be very very careful who we trust. and it was you know we did huge military operations over there in iraq based on the the information from maybe one or two supposedly credible sources and in fact 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 and who we can't but i don't think we're in a 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 and weeks and i want to keep you here a little longer. we want to kind of look into this just saying on the topic of libya we should of course bring up that the west has formally handed control of the mission over to nato today but america is that remain heavily involved by continuing to invest millions into the operation for one our views on associates are going to look at the real toll of the wars that the u.s. is fighting. the u.s. has cultivated and if you will events with which it invades nations or one or two or three locations change the list of enemies grows it hard it becomes harder to shake even as the costs rack up 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 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 which were 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 it 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 will only work if the people want it but if they want to they're going to do it on their own something the west did not allow the libyans money and u.s. is the proud owner of the largest defense budget in the world and we have fifty

four percent of federal tax dollars going into the fence and into the destruction of afghanistan and iraq and you have to really wonder how crazy this country is and how the total military expenditure could be nearing a staggering nine hundred billion. because work is expensive iraq has cost an estimated three trillion dollars that was enough money too. the social security problem in the united states for fifty years you know what afghanistan and the other 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 over there right now so i'm on a c one thirty i'm fluent back we've saved enough money to fund a higher education for all of afghanistan for the entire year those wars is not over and done the attack on libya 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 effective alliance nato has taken command. of the arms embargo and the no fly zone followed by a monthly allowance of forty million dollars they've said it now nato is in charge neda is held backwards is usa another less tangible price of war we 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 and the united states is losing influence its. looks now like some sort of a democratic nation in pursuit of peace with it looks like a very aggressive war market especially considering the onesies 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 of the. animosity towards the us today comes from our military interventions politicians seem blissfully unaware and our party we are rather on bringing them back into the conversation we just saw the story that i put together about the cost of war. and i'm curious to know what you thought when you first heard this talk that we may be getting involved in libya and knowing that we're involved in so many other things right now yeah this is this is a really tough one and i think the story kind of lays out there's a lot of long term consequences when you commit forces to the battlefield and you've got to realize i know we we went under the pretense of preventing a human massacre in benghazi but when you when you put military force into the equation bad things are going to happen on both sides and then there's the innocent

civilians as you saw in the first story they're going to want to flee because they're they're caught in the middle. long term consequences of the cost of battle feel. is is is troubling at that at the very least and it's not so much even in terms of the money that we're going to spend you know supporting this it's it's that destroys families on both sides and and then innocent people that are it's a very very high cost i think there should have been a lot more consideration taking into account before we interviews to american forces into this battlefield and now there's a situation where you could look very weak in this particular region by pulling back and i think in some cases you know i'm not fired up about us being under nato i'm not fired up about the united states not being a leader we have always been a liberating force we should have gone into iraq in afghanistan much harder it should have taken a lot less time and i think we would have had

a better formula for success to set us up for future a future actions but but right now as you pointed out with the recession and the other things that we're battling with and the other two front war we happily went on elsewhere. this is a tough tough be tough field or just to come on and come alongside on their knees and i mean when you say you're not as psychs that nato is involved in nato taking command i mean how different is it really i mean the u.s. is certainly a major major part of nato when you look at the weaponry over the last twelve days that have been used i mean i think it's you know not just the majority of the great majority of weapons of training in everything has come from this country so it's not really that we're ceding control to nato or a you know great britain or france for that matter well i hope so i hope so because it would be really troubling for me to have my son or daughter under the command of the united states commander who's been there is being led by some from another nation we have the best service academies we have the best war colleges we have the

best material and equipment and leaders and so we need to we need to fall under you know fall under that umbrella or i think you were either all in on their spending and we're going to do it right or we're looking at another eight to ten year escapade as what we've done in the other countries and that the formula for success right now what about this notion that we've been hearing of you know this is not we have president obama monday night and he said you know this is not about regime change. there's talks also that they're looking to try to give him a place to leave to be an exile a lot of people there though they're on a mission they want to get gadhafi out in whatever way it takes do you buy this that this is not about regime change. no not at all i think it mean i think you're the american people are not stupid and i think you'd be just really it would be really good for for our government and our leaders to just come out and say we want the leader of libya out of power whether he's captured whether he's killed whether he's sent into exile but that's really what we want we want regime change and we're

entering a revolution that we know very little about and we don't know and be careful what comes out on the other end and be prepared to take the secular tyranny or the religious tyranny that might evolve into from this this action i think that's an interesting point it certainly begs the question if gadhafi does get out who will be next i really appreciate your insight and i your experience weighing in on this nathan sassaman retired united states army officer and also the author of the warrior king the triumph and betrayal of an american commander in iraq. well from obama to nato to the un all of serco were in libya to protect libyan civilians from massacre by colonel gadhafi forces but more than merely two weeks into the bombings of libya some are asking how humanitarian this intervention is artie's killing board has 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 under the doctrine of responsibility to protect responsibly to protect was born out of the failure to respond and rwanda and the failure to respond to holocaust genocides around the world created by the praised by advisers close to president obama are to peak states that sovereignty is a privilege not a right you have a responsibility as a sovereign country to not massacre other peoples and that the international community can intervene when governments abuse their own people. but critics say r two p. is riddled with paparazzi and self interests and even call it so so humanitarian girl is going to a 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 united states of america is different . and as president 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 activists david does because the turmoil in his native uganda there was guilty 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 go on to stop the war doesn't work sometimes we

need to talk peace and i think on that part 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 it seems like the national exam for more senior republican institute and so on and so forth are we going to be mercenaries when you put some ground to protect these so-called marks you want to get on and continue in libya repression and violence period u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton put the actions of the syrian government but not into the united states is responsibility to protect their human ford artsy washington d.c. this debate of course coming out more and more often and i think ties into the question of exactly who are the rebels in libya and it's difficult of course to study them now in the midst of the fighting earlier i spoke with investigative

journalist webster tarpley who says we can get some clues from history here's his take. it's going on in yemen and it's going on in libya right now same thing in which the u.s. is too poor to have ground troops so we can send in some air cover but the infantry of the u.s. is now al qaeda or libyan islamic fighting group to be precise which merged with. go back to one thousand nine hundred five the david shayler affair this was a defector whistleblower from m i five who said that m i six had paid a good. organization in libya one hundred thousand pounds to try to kill gadhafi and that was a link to the last insurrection in ninety five ninety six precisely from going to sea and tobruk so if this. is an enemy with gadhafi does that make in this situation our friend absolutely not suppose you get these crazies because that's

the only way to put it psychotics fanatics terrorists whatever they are you going to give them modern arms you're going to give them a slice of those thirty two billion dollars you're going to give them the oil revenue they'll create a terrorist power that will go wild across the world governments around the world need to you know what are you doing arming and promoting fighters in those areas of of libya the other angle on this is a tribal and bait make up and it is primarily the whole robbie and the old big tribes that go with al qaeda that's the libyan benghazi rebel council those people are racists they hate black people and you've noticed there have been atrocities by the rebels against black africans and against black libyans if you were from mali or from chad and you were in benghazi or brooke you had a very good chance of being slaughtered literally lynched in many cases of the good laffey tribes the pro get a few tribes being duffer the mugger here are

a lot in the face zine the fares are not black or very dark they might be massacred if. that rebel army gets into western libya we're going to have a genocide of black people presided over by obama and susan rice so it's supposedly an intervention to protect civilians and it's preparing a genocide similar to the bay of pigs right remember that the cia sent the secret army into cuba in one thousand sixty one and they failed just as these libyans have failed allen dulles went to kennedy and said give me a straight give me ground forces kennedy said no i want and you're fired obama in the same situation has said send in the force and as investigative journalist web search tarpley. for the midst of war the u.s. is also no doubt in the middle of an economic crisis and one man who i spoke with earlier says it's due to corporate interests above all else and behind it he says is a grip on the oil and drug cartel now you have to love this theory we're not endorsing

it but because i think it's important to hear what he has to say earlier i spoke to dr matthias round of the dr rath research institute is only were political party today reminds him of a brown shirts that were in germany during the one nine hundred thirty eight a lesson absolutely. there were several articles in the new york times for not saying it was putting a theory there to keep our us being sponsored by our own oil as they call it and i'm extending that i'm seeing there are sponsored by the large oil companies and large pharmaceutical companies b. b b are analogous to the branches in in germany and i did this week for the following reasons not that they are nazis i'm not saying that but they use the same methods meaning going out into the streets causing arc into the public debate us during our.

our aggression of language is so hostile our. in all this psychological preparation was exactly what happened in ninety three our people were confused who to believe and suddenly there was a strongman appearing of nowhere and everyone said well that's the man you want to call or that's what they didn't hear you three so i'm raising my voice here to say wait a minute let's let's pause here as us informed citizens of mechanical sentry we select on what has happened eighty years ago are in draw our conclusions and what do you say to those that are naysayers people who listen to some of your theories and say you know what sounds a little big brother if this sounds like a lot of that are well in mumbo jumbo what do you think about that well. yes we like that we have established a good. tradition in my opinion in that case and lost everything cool in the new

york times all the things that. i'm sane you are i'm writing go through the roof you are a little bored of these newspapers and the publisher in most cases it ought to change your comma so i'm saying what i'm saying here when i'm publishing our must reflect at least to some extent are the concerns of people higher up who may absence be willing to go up if you've got the language and using that was out in the eyes wrath of the dr rath research institute and that out from one of the stories we cover going to r.t. that cannes last usa and christine for south exam much for watching. below and. as. they are suggesting these other films she says she's a nice guy.