and even. talking to grow. strongly. underground. though this is r.t. the main stories we're covering for you this hour a senior associate of the libyan regime is reportedly in london for talks over the dolphins future the country's foreign minister has really affected them or officials may be about brandon and. the u.s. top brass gets a grilling in congress that many still uncertain as to what the goal of the libyan campaign is going to pay for it. ted would see of america's motives are scrutinized more civilian deaths in gaza itself sent to jumpstart your

fertility to bring democracy to other regions. different brands to pump out contaminated water from the stream is damaged reactors to resume cooling system parents and nation locals around the country to to rise dramatically. more on the situation in the bia in crosstalk coming up next the people of el asks his guests if nato his decision to back the opposition was a wise choice. kick. start. the. long way and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle arming to win the conflict in libya has reached a stalemate should western powers expand their intervention and arm the and take it off the rebels would this be tantamount to choosing sides in a growing civil war and as time passes there's an end game in libya become even

more elusive. can. you discuss the ongoing still meet in libya i'm joined by jim elder marty he's in london he is a libyan writer and political activists he's also a british coordinator for the rebel interim national council of libya in washington we have ivan eland he's a senior fellow and director of the center on peace in liberty at the independent institute and in tucson we have a lot hudson she is an associate professor of near east studies at the university of arizona and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all right this is cross talk i mean he can jump in anytime you want. i could go to tucson should view the united states and its western allies one way or another legally or illegally or a split the difference between the law and what we want to do morally give arms to

anti kadafi rebels and i'm not going to use the word democratic liberals yet until someone can convince me they are democrats go ahead. what i believe or not is not really the issue we've already taken the first steps down this road and if you look at the last twenty four hour news cycle you'll see that there are special forces on the ground in libya right now and in an afghanistan style scenario that is the first step towards ever greater. involvement in the conflict on the ground there are two different interpretations of what's going on on the ground on the one hand these special forces these u.s. special forces are probably doing much more precise and specific targeting on behalf of the air attack the tactical phase of the air attack but if you look at the washington post this morning the argument is in fact that

intelligence on the ground is actually trying to figure out who the rebels are in order to better position the united states politically so again whether one is pro or anti intervention the first steps down the slippery slope of already been taken him in london if i can go to you do you do you support having the western powers arm the anti could offer your forces it will not make a difference in the stalemate at least you are we can see it on the ground right now a stalemate will that make a difference will it make your side when. well first of all we have to remember that the security council there is a critical sort of solution banning export of weapons to libya however on the other hand we can see now it is not is not an easy in even situation gaddafi has very have have we are mentally armory he has tanks he has multiple rocket launchers he has artillery shelling cities and towns and there is the tension areas whereas the

fighters of the revolution or the freedom fighters are very very lightly armed so did there comes a point we will ask a question well you know just because there is an empowered go or because we should not one side can we just sustain this. killing can we just turned a blind eye and say well you know it's tough you know that we can shell and you know launch all these rockets and kill all these of brilliance but we cannot out of the other side of this i don't i think there is a very strong moral issue of the on the other hand also we libyans have frozen assets outside libya in tens of billions we have also oil which we are we can no export through and an agreement with with qatar so why not be allowed to buy buy weapons to defend ourselves against a mad that's what who has who is insisting on going and going on killing his killing the libyan people on mass i mean even trying to you in washington we've

already chosen sides the west already chosen a sign it's going to be it's a game in incumbent upon the west now because it has chosen a site to start making sure it's guys on the ground when i mean this is the slippery slope that we were all worried about and it seems to be playing out right in front of our eyes. yes and it's happened time and again we haven't been too successful in the past in arming rebel movements remembering goa remember nicaragua remember the worst case was when it seemed like a great idea to arm the mujahedeen against the soviet union during the cold war and look what we've got to get the only threat to the us homeland since the war of eight hundred twelve so i think we really have to be careful about unintended consequences and certainly i risk i wish the rebels well but i think your other guest he made a good point if they have the money to buy the weapons i don't mind them buying them but i don't want the us getting in too involved in on the ground training and

that sort of thing because i just don't know and of course there's a doubt about whether the rebels are competent enough to use these weapons they don't have very good leadership they don't have very good tactics and they don't even really know how to use simple weaponry so i'm not sure you know how they get the training but they can purchase training. overseas from countries that are willing to sell them the weapons but i don't really want to see the united states can involve because i don't think u.s. vital interests is involved here and i think we need to be careful and as far as humanitarian goes in kosovo we started bombing for humanitarian reasons there was limited and ethnic cleansing and of course afterward after we started bombing the regime had nothing to lose so it just went whole hog and i think that same thing could happen here and we may face a stalemate all cut off he has to do is keep tanks in the major cities how are these rebels going to get him out of there that's. a fail safe last resort.

option there because it's going to be very difficult to get armor out of cities and that sort of thing and. he digs in and uses the cities as human shields against nato airstrikes so we could have a stalemate we could have. an opposition that we don't know much about they could turn there may be al qaeda present in that opposition there seems to be some indication of that we've got to be very careful here there are many unintended consequences that could happen from this so you know as we heard that i mean where would you like to emphasize this. was a lot of points mentioned there i mean what would you like to amplify. from there you know i'd actually like to go. i'd like to go back to a point that gemma raised and then that ivan picked up in the context of using rebel financial resources to actually finance and coagulate

rebel command and control i've been arguing this for about two weeks now that in fact one of the key steps that would be far more seems to me beneficial and empowering to the rebels is the step that just happened i guess in the last couple of days namely using the resources of the eastern libyan. company to contract separate oil deals and to finance the rebel cause now interestingly it's only cutter who has taken the rebels up on this and who has begun to take on this rather risky business of doing or oil deals in a conflict environment and yet i think this is probably the most promising outcome rather than all the back and forth all the sort of half starts and fits and divided little kid like you can i just feel it was because i let me ask you a question because it sounds like you know you could end up getting

a partition state that's really what it looks like because you know we just don't know the rebels do not want that that yeah i mean i've been asked that's the dilemma is that it is so delivering a danger here yeah it's a huge dilemma actually and yet it's. seems to me that because people whether it is the transitional interim government for whom the motto is of course a unified libya of which tripoli is the capital and there's a very strong reaction against consolidating down into an eastern syrian a based stronghold because it seems to yield the west to khadafi i understand that sensitivity entirely but it seems to me that what we've seen in the last twelve days of the no fly zone is not a superior solution ok one day we see this back and forth now on the road

basically of this coastal highway back and forth between ras lanuf and all these different towns one day the rebels are advancing the next day khadafi is advancing and it doesn't seem as if the nato airstrikes are allowing the kind of quick decisive rebel advance i think that everyone would like to see interestingly of course it's qatar that is beginning to facilitate the rebel financing which would allow the rebels to pay for and finance their own weaponry and i did you learn this when you know now that we're. in london if i go to you are you getting prepared for the long haul a long civil war and we came out weeks or months are we talking about eventually a partition state because as has been pointed out on this program is that the the rebels whatever groups there are they're not very well armed they're not very well trained or not very well disciplined and they don't have a whole lot of communication i mean you don't get an army in a strap of

a finger even though it takes a while to get yourself together to fight a civil war which essentially is what's happened what do you think. yes first of all partition is not on the table we will never contemplate that we will never agree to it whatever it takes because libya will always be united with temple as its capital secondly if there is no civil war in libya there is the whole of the libyan people against a mad disport who are spinning out of control and waging a mass war against a population that does not want them thirdly the some people think that the whole of the east is free but the whole of the west is under control that is not correct and this right there is that third largest city in libya nearly half a million population is only a hundred and eighty kilometers east of tripoli that's just over a hundred miles is not and they're going to have his control although he's been engulfing it and shelling gets constantly constantly the whole of the western mountain region from about two hundred kilometers south of tripoli all the way to

the algerian border is not under graphics control all gadhafi controlled is just tripoli and couple of towns south of it and now tripoli is going through a very very tough period i'll tell you just before our turn to the studio other quote from tripoli tripoli is run out of fuel it's running out of food there the bread the bread queues are very long people are getting very very driven out the journey here we go to our break we'll continue with this after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the events in libya and stay with r.t. . if you think it's a good. looks like something has been to the yaroslavl region handicrafts has become a major industry. alhaji goes to

a former top secret military stronghold. which today has limitless possibilities for extreme sports. where the last secret damask seal has been discovered. and the real something unseen divers watch is a may. come from the chelyabinsk region of. russia close up on the. if. the first fish. the first. plane hit. welcome back to talk i'm curious about the tree mind you were talking about what many people called

a civil war in libya play the game. but first let's see what russians think about how to resolve the libyan crisis. and when he said the goal of the western led effort didn't leave there isn't question then i wonder if the people of libya are really being helped in their hour of need the public opinion agency led by that said also persons what the internet can do to stop the bloodshed and to protect the bins fifty one percent of those polled say they should be no intervention thirteen percent say comic sanctions against the regime as a solution to the problem quote percent believe that his asses should be frozen ten percent think a closed space can help and seven percent support a ground operation in the air the future of the libyan people is far from being clear. ok down there to do this program nato still is very very well it's

actually very against arming any groups in libya the united states britain france other members of nato are not so separate members are not so clear on it in we've heard from the u.s. that they're getting their entertaining the idea i mean if i were you i mean i'm i'm the biggest cynic i know i mean by arming the rebels and with nato air support it's just a matter of time before you can pulverize down the gadhafi regime though as you pointed out early in the program it could take a very long time it could be very very nasty but it's a private issue now i suppose for mr obama isn't it arming the rebels the west particularly the united states is a major stakeholder in the future of the country's politics and economy and its oil . well that's the that's the old adage if you break it you bought it and i think.

we're breaking libya right now and i'd like to point out that even a partition country even if it's not perfectly east and west is better than what you had before with gadhafi running everything so i think if you could even hold it there that people should be happy of course to reality is that obama despite him saying that the goal is natural move could our feet on the ground that's what's happening and of course everyone anyone will tell you behind the scenes that is the goal they're hoping by some miracle that his army will overthrow him or something like that but i think that's remote as long as he makes battlefield gains like he did yesterday i mean you can have a big name defectors and that sort of thing but i think he's going to win for a while because it takes time to train an army against him and i'm not denigrating with the rebels have done they've been surprisingly and they have a great spirit but the problem is he's got people with military training is that mercenaries and he's got heavy armor and artillery especially and of course you

know we can tell you so much in that unless you are armed but the problem that we have in united states is that it is a slippery slope and we need to send trainers if you're going to send him u.s. equipment you need to send u.s. trainers u.s. maintenance all this has to be taught in this is not done in short period of time so they better hurry up or it's going to or they're going to wipe out the rebels maybe i don't know if western airpower can probably keep them out of benghazi it already did but again you're going to have this stalemate for a long time until you can get the rebel army trained up but i think the rebels want to buy. weapons and buy the training from some other countries that's fine but i would really not like to see the u.s. take the lead on that jim if i go back to you in london. there's a very good point it's all about logistics. really in the end it is if you see it you see a regime like

a da fees and we've heard about we've heard talk of the international criminal court we'll talk with her the issues about human rights violations war crimes what reason does gadhafi and his clique have to really negotiate now or do you just fight to the death for me nudie they have no initiative now to negotiate or even to surrender i think you're missing other factors in the dynamics what's happening is that. gaddafi is. loosening this revolution started with peaceful demonstrations get that close to wage a war against his people and prevent them from demonstrating peacefully we are in the state where we are today but look what's happening now yesterday and today top public at that the aides are jumping ship course our foreign secretary today i'll be taking x. foreign secretary you and boy. now the head of the parliament actively. dorda acts prime minister head of the intelligence and others they're all jumping

ship what. can i can i ask you a quick question about these defections you're going it's very interesting as we move forward do you think do you think those members of the people that have defected very high profile for foreign minister and what not like former head of intelligence would you be willing to work with him if he joins your side is he is he somebody that you want to work with and would he be an ally to the west if you were to join your coalition your your opposition group. well if they are people who have no blood on their hands they have not perpetrated any crimes against libyans if they are to just pull her diplomats or politicians who are not involved in any wrongdoings i would say as a person personally this is my personal opinion yes we would welcome them because obviously what they're doing is weakening capacity but if somebody like mr course always got the and the tories record of blood on his hands of course we will not welcome them so but my my my point is yeah who's left with him and his sons and

close aides and cousins from his own tribe how long can he sustain this soon that the military brass those who are controlling the the security brigades and doing the fighting for him the top generals and officers will realize that they are fighting a hopeless battle that they will die so soon they will start defecting as well soon his machinery and his and his and his hierarchy is going to start to degrade and disseminate and just wither away he cannot sustain it tripoli is suffering now people are fighting today we have stories of people killing each other over fuel and bread and food there is no cash in the packs he'll run out of cash i'm a little easier how can this range the grand isle louisiana your question is going to jump in. well i was going to say you know i hope i hope. other guest just said is true because i'd like to get rid of gadhafi myself but if your arm is all these things were said about saddam hussein that they were going to be defectors after

the first gulf war that and that's the u.s. plan seems to be get it get in partially into these things and then hope for a coup well i didn't say that happens in some countries it doesn't happen in other countries but it didn't happen with saddam after the first gulf war so i think we have to be a little skeptical that that's a u.s. good u.s. strategy to go in and then hope for it is the i dassent he of hope i guess you could quote the president's own saying to run a strategy like this or we're going to get in do some bombing and that sort of thing and hope for the best and i just don't see going to war in that way is responsible and i can't believe the u.s. foreign policy establishment is supporting that type of a half baked option in line in the can but this is something that can go ahead but this isn't but this is not the u.s. against gadhafi in fact the u.s. has taken a back about see through this is a forty three countries international it is the u.s. who headed i'm leanin country it is the us against. the siding mostly i don't you

can see my point please can i finish my point please can i finish my point out of countries five out of countries two of them are engaged in the military action a third key norway and canada. is another land sort of denmark forty three countries france britain you know this is not the u.s. against gadhafi and we have not invited to you as to come in we have asked the security council the legal entity was that a sponsor for protecting people around the world to intervene and protect libyan civilians who have been killed on monday nobody spoke and i haven't heard from above from you or sort of from your guest the gentleman did anything about this but but it must can and i guess the whole population what's happening in libya is another one day not a tough. because there is as you would guess that the temperament of how people are allowed that to happen. even if they are since they complied i mean please keep keep your ideology of the american administration out of our i mean we are doing

the things i used to say to the ladies and i've been running up to the very beginning of the program and i don't think it's out to be pro or anti american issues that being pro practical and seeing what has happened in the out no no no no no no i mean it's always very easy as with all due respect sir it's always very easy these days they have the americans bombed them for us ok the americans will support us here they'll give us that's not a good idea but that's what this is so generally what is how to save money out of people who hide behind it it's all i'm sorry doesn't look good americans you know the money but it was the french who saved one guy's he's the second because you know democrats were not asking americans to come back at that increase to get this right ok but at the end of the day if you don't hear us is you're in the middle at the end of the day it's footing the bill and it brings us you know yes it is obviously and i think i noticed you had going in washington go ahead is that a bit like that is that basically to get a look at the senate side as he was still providing most of the strikes and they're

also providing intelligence tanking aircraft a wax aircraft you know logistics and that sort of thing that no other air force has when you have a you have a coalition air strike so you have like you as a high that hasn't shaved for whatever thing is on the podium when i give the briefing it's u.s. driven and it's us by the scenes the u.s. is letting the french it is night the lead is not on this server you have to have a number of french and british aircraft is that you know and the strikes they have are is not going to last until their eyes that those will invade and they turn into afghanistan and it may turn into iraq and i think that's the major concern as it is such as that is what that is the europeans and the americans got to look at going down the slippery slope of intervention for a group of people with. all due respect sir we really don't know who you are yet we hear that there's an i'll maybe i'll then i'll try to is there a very special artist there are other people there is other agendas i hear you know

where it's very much described as it is if you want to label the our society we'd like to know before we take your and i think that's fair isn't it that i have misconception it is not a tribal society that is wrong that's a misconception ask me and i'll tell you what we are and we are not the type of society ok well can you tell us what your organization is why we got twenty seconds god ok that the damn time constant is a national broadly based councillor presenting always cities and towns in libya they have lawyers judges and human rights activists academics women liberals generals it we are not a tribal society there are police two million gazans one million muslims does have all right gentlemen today john and then i have to jump in here many thanks and i guess the day in london tucson and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember across struggles. to. stay.

wealthy british style it's time to. time. markets. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy comes a report on our. in

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