it without the luck of moscow a story the british m.p.'s accuse the government of grave missing judgment over the selling of weapons to arab regimes now using them against their own people u.k. sold over three hundred million dollars worth of weapons to colonel gadhafi shortly before the libyan uprising began. a priest in finland finds himself under attack for speaking out against chechen terrorists who are not and his terror links

supporters in helsinki finland the shelter is an extremist islamist web site about off make statements about terror attacks in russia. kind of breaking the news breaking the budget the u.s. networks count the cost of covering disasters and war but still find the millions needed to pay their star anchors some outlets have spent most of the annual budget in just a few months. it. has cost discuss america's foreign policy does the president obama follow his own that line or has he voluntarily inherited his course of action from the bush administration on those powers behind the throne that's coming up next right here. we'll. remove you the latest in science and technology from around the world.

we've got the future covered. you can start. following welcome and cross talk i'm futile about the obama doctrine is there such a thing over the past few months we've seen the u.s. waffle as change rages across the arab middle east and some western backed dictators remain firmly in power well the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all in is this a new doctrine or just muddling through. can the story. discuss whether there's an obama doctrine i'm joined by phyllis bennis in washington she is project director at the institute for policy studies in paris we have on this album artie he's

a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk e-mail on the hunger right phyllis i'd like to go to you first you know we're both americans and we're used to having presidents having doctrines when it comes to foreign policy and we had harry truman he had a universal policy you know universal doctrine that is to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation ok john f. kennedy pay any price bear any burden to assure the survival and success of liberty we all remember that one we should it's a good saying george w. bush had his own to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world now mr obama a few days ago had the following to say let's discuss of this is his doctrine. americans should not be expected to police the world particularly when we have so many pressing concerns here at home is that a doctrine should it be a doctrine should it be embrace and is it being acted out through us but i don't

think that's a doctrine i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these documents is that it bases the whole of u.s. foreign policy on the military so if we say should we intervene should we help it's assumed to mean should we send troops in my analysis that's almost never the case we should intervene with a whole range of other things but not with military force and that question of how are we defining intervention is an ongoing challenge in the particular for president obama i think what he faces right now given that the arab spring has turned upside down all of the longstanding assumptions of what u.s. policy in the middle east needs to be i don't think they're anywhere close to having a real doctrine here ok and so we're going to you in paris i mean do you agree with the military intervention into libya well yes or do. i mean given what phil went to was just said ok i mean i and i and all tend to agree

with you you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops in boots and bombs and sure like in effect political changes but they came to haunt everybody in the long run but you supported an already here. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we have to take a longer view i was really happening because particularly pursue intervention as a hope interest what i think you have this is if we take a longer view but the last thirty forty years and fifty years since the nationals of terminations movements which laws are shaped and drew lines around the deserts of the middle east and therefore in the north of those lines were drawn support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense we were actually armed and given vocal support we were actually on passports around the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation to disarm them i personally don't think it is option is it morally right is it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the

argument is if you're just joining in more and more arms into a very very volatile dangerous situation ok and we also have the problem of mission creep ok we heard it only a few days ago when you know you know we're not going to make more do we can actually put boots on the ground apparently cia sneakers are already there they've admitted that after the fact i mean mission creep is involved here. can you have a one off and you're saying we should have a one off right. lola think you should be a one off and let me go back to the first point you're making in a sense if we if we talk about a. military intervention as a as an only solution and it was looking about. from this. person look at the c.e.o.'s involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of the c.e.o. i'm not trying to so the c.e.o. has a great intentions behind however we do know that the c.n.c.

as we call him in france transitional council in libya is actually being as transparent as possible because that's something that we've not in libya and we've never had a transparent and accountable government there with. you know the training and it's not something that's kind of you know. as a mystery or something that's coming out a certain that's coming out quite openly from the from certain because you want. to go ahead you know i'm ok tell us you want to jump in and ask can i just ask you i want to ask and ask you raise the issue of looking back further and i think that is very very crucial i think part of the crowd with our discussions about libya has been that we've all focused on that one day when allegedly and i'm not convinced it was either imminent or inevitable that there was going to be the kind of massive slaughter that has really used as the reason that there was no alternative let me just finish and that is what you're doing with the reason that i know i was instead

it is because there was very little what i'm saying is let's go back let's go back two days before that when the libyan opposition had managed to drive those government tanks out of out of out of benghazi with their own power without military force i'm not convinced that they could have done it again i'm not sure but my point is if we start with that day we're hemmed in if we're looking back and we are now i think we need to look back three weeks earlier the first day there was a government assault on unarmed protesters. the first day when it they were still unarmed that was the moment for the u.s. to quote intervene by saying you know what the colonel gadhafi we have allowed you since two thousand and two to be on our good side no more no more arms no more contracts no more military support you're going to back out of this terrorism since i was on the hearing this will stop exactly as they should have in the others well this is a really that's what i think point well does it do it well to look in however the

greatest contribution just being so in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is. you know your own your own problems and we know that one side is on the other side is not i mean i personally don't want any arms in libya i'm not asking for in a situation where no one is on a person that we've made a massive massive i understand and lots of snow and they're looking at of also brought him out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two is about to call it but i personally think that huge because i do want to go about the situation in ukraine and also for the other thing is we can talk about money also because of the vase and we can really focus on but has it right and there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because i'm going to but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that personally because my people and i personally you know that they do themselves realize that. america has a bad track record on for salvation do. right the problem is they are so. good

everyone has family in the barracks i mean really you know that i don't have a marketing curator right fellas jump in head. there are people in libya who also recognize that there are cia people among the libyan opposition the guy who came back from northern virginia for twenty years who is now one of the commanders of the military is somebody who clearly was involved with u.s. intelligence during that period there is a mixed bag of the libyan opposition in terms of what people have asked for what they want the other thing that i think is makes this all very problematic is that in the context of the arab spring we're in each of these situations they began whether it was egypt whether it was tunisia whether it's been yemen bahrain all of them have faced massive military assault at the beginning only in libya was the decision made to take up arms i'm not going to second guess that this is not in the same sense as there are two hundred one says. right and that's why as we.

heard the structure of the national. review why is that is because those problems are very why is it different because it used now with these different ideas to think of. but i personally think that it's a numbers game other think in terms of victims being a numbers game but i want to say that there were more people who you know more people who are equally realize that good durfy was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as a good example as to why things are wrong and things are right personally when bush and blair came out saying there was a forty five minute threat and it was imminent and they tried to fool the rest of the world and we went along with it then fair enough but there was no substance to the argument durfy was openly on the radio on the radio waves of libya and forcing people to be going in and has it all coming cleanse you know if you think that's an imminent threat i don't know ok but i personally wouldn't want my conscious and secondly you have to realize that if we're talking of the greater picture here of

obama he looks like someone that obviously his intervention to us was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late and egypt can do so in the roughly the same thing however in libya i think we can accuse them of procrastination but i look back at his legal background and i say to most of someone that looks at legal background and as a liberal and a different you know kind of a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's taking a legal perspective and try to go through every avenue and tracking developments as they come however when the thought was imminent he would have been and it would have been a catch twenty two situation we were talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one. another highly charged names and countries and and you know the whole you charged if you haven't let me answer i don't want the right response i would point to. nobody does i have thoughts nobody does and i think i have i have a different view in rwanda i supported intervention in rwanda and i blame the united states and france for not only not intervening but affirmatively preventing

the united nations from intervening so i'm not somebody who says there should never be any intervention the question is under what circumstances and i call on one of the key things that president obama did was to recognize that there is a difference between legality and legitimacy he knew he could force his way. and to a u.n. resolution in the security council the u.s. has a long history of that by bribing threatening to get votes it happens here it will happen again it's happened before but he also knew that without clarity from the arab league and the african union that wasn't going to be possible so early on if you recall he noticed the difference in those already rules are way in question here from the way i'm talking about the question that was asked and he recognized you know let me just say the question for me is partly international legitimacy and having both the arab league and the african union would have been important what we found was that the african union was not prepared to sign on to even a no fly zone let alone all necessary measures and as soon as they made that clear

the obama administration stopped talking about the need for african union was going to jump in here we're going to. break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy you can libyan state. t.v. . you can. but

first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. i wanna dot three is it a doctrine or an intervention strategy in his speech at the national defense university barack obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it reveals the beginnings of what was really in regards to the use of u.s. military of course the russian public opinion research center all citizens this support the international military operation in libya sixty four percent said they do not and another twenty percent of the respondents expressed their support still the bomb a duck tree has yet to be declared but presidential doc trains have an impact on

american policy and as a result on the entire world to peter kay and as i'd like to go back to you in paris here a lot of people will say and i want to talk about george w. bush in this part of the program there obama had a sudden attack of stupid idealism. do you think that's a fair thing to say because again if we look at interventions in the past a lot of people can say you know what in panama with success successful you can go to panama a lot of people will say it wasn't ok so i guess it depends on how we define success here but very idealistic owner is what obama does trying to muddle through on this one too because you can say well it's an international effort now any can walk away from it that's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have a third war in the muslim world bank good for him and. in the post. the rock world i think. in terms of real political everyone knows that it's political

suicide to recruit to iraq and to try and fumble their way through that one again so i mean i personally think they did it with that he's done that in afghanistan or trying to do as possible you know i think you know there's just. this situation and everyone knows that he sent in thirty thousand more troops so i don't really think that this is a positive and this is the u.s. i think is the biggest approach to the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if you're a country fine but i mean this is this isn't this isn't but isn't this what well i mean even i'm willing to admit that people can have a personal attachment to an issue ok that's fair enough ok but if the same time isn't this just bush lite this is another intervention and this time there's there is a difference too is that the american people and the world were lied to for months on end preparing for the war to go into iraq this was just done over the weekend i mean you know it was no debate in the united states he said you seem to be you say there's nothing you say do you say there were some transparency in this

transparency and in gansey going into this conflict or war if it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so i guess you can finish your parents in washington ok but back ok that's what's most important is nobody else is going to washington all right go ahead phyllis go ahead but i think i think that the key question of transparency is important and was not true in washington but i also think that we should be clear this was not a sudden decision that was made at a moment of urgency this was a decision that was several weeks in the making as we know that come about first when the french and the brits said we want a resolution that will call for a no fly zone the u.s. position was no we don't think a no fly zone is going to work but instead of saying and therefore we're going to vote no. they said let us take the resolution we will rewrite it and we'll come back with a better resolution which of course said not only a no fly zone but all necessary means to protect civilians but with the rules as written is no rule tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be

asked it's not the only question on my one question or highly personal his right national role is decidedly libyans why the libyans also know that it is also in foreign affairs and one of the also international banks one important the feeling they weren't that's a very important question is a was a war only there was a it's not the only question of course of the it was i think personal threats and that's a reality came in that's a reality and in that there was a new messenger because nationally but pushback from sort of up from which is the stronghold of gadhafi the pushback over a period of a week which back militarily the good news was exactly ok good because the capacity because using european arms you know and what we were doing the point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to the great weather is an imminent threat on the other think we would like to i think are working on very morally dubious grounds here if we were to say that it doesn't matter if it's a threat or it was in the you know it was in the heated i mean he was no innocent man so you know wasn't in the area no i'm not saying what i'm saying is obviously

not already something other than it was not a question a lot more of that can be threatened i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't relate or see you say we're not going do what it really could not you say what you want to say right now ready to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united ireland convinced that the united states government decision not my own personal view but the united states government decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision and it's cold it's calculated it takes into account the moral issue only as a political factor in terms of how it will be assessed what their decision is ok and so i want to ask you what you know you know and you know it's not very much of your assertion that we still don't know. last point greg i want to challenge you on that point however because i don't think that it is and sort of the principle of of what has always been the timing factor in foreign policy in america in the west as well as a bunch of however i do want to was whether or not we believe that this is not

always in the interests and if it can also personally what do you think the motivating factor was in order to go into libya. because i think it was a combination of factors the main one i think the main factor was a lack of clarity about what their pastor was going to be in the arab spring in general they wanted to position themselves in a position of being on the right side of history that corresponded with. the food writer with from popular forces right and but there's i think that we do have to separate what i might want to happen as an individual person what i want isn't really the point i would have wanted maybe for a revolution at the very very beginning that very first day when they when people in benghazi thought faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced. i think they made their own choices and. yes their choice what was his was ok going we can argue but he was enjoying them with me and there are consequences to that

choice and i want to ask you a question government in yemen other theaters to ask you a question what they were talking about killer ok i want to ask you i mean the intervention is started it's going on as we speak there is a stalemate at least as we speak has the intervention it fueled or fueled on or created a civil war that could last why don't why do while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil war zone civil wars are when you have two conflicting soldier conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on know that it's a very small point to make and there's been points being made over and over again. for the rest of the motivation and if you want to play person you aren't. people are totally erroneous which are they rebels with arms or the rebels what are they civilians with arms i mean what your definition of millions i mean these are teachers teachers students bakers government employees policemen i mean they're

from every background that you have in libya and i mean i work for a minute or so and so not an artifact is the point it's not an army it's a people trying to govern themselves and they're trying to get rid of forty two years that political dysfunction is in so i want to call them rebels because i have any political aims all their aim is to get their fix that we can have a more democratic and a more reflective government so i want to get rid of them so ultimately i think this is a war of ideas but that's really the kind of the arab spring. they were scheduled to go for none of the village there isn't and i think it is a civil war when people when two sides are fighting to hold territory i think that makes it a civil war i don't think the the opposition side is an art when you're feeling good you're an ass on this if your territory is your home and for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now two cybill in zone rating that is required to say i'm leaving the house and there but has used the be a lesson of all because in the house i'm not going to overdose on to force people

on this john this is the caveat if you want because this is me and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right eric and phil or stan phil is the us and its allies you see is having shows this stalemate the us and its allies have chosen the side as well in this again making it more and more entering the side for a change although you know by going to say she says she was here when she was in the throes of the dictators and the like but it's the same time is that this was what cohen is cheers for exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so no rico gagliano good lord we have all the treasures while we can the rest of the region so we trust in them with. them when. doing it wrong exactly or using military force in a way that is guaranteed and i said it before they did it and i say that it has come true that the military force has made the military stalemate emerge in libya it is now whatever you want to call it i'm not going to fight over the words but there are two military forces battling for control of territory there is likely to

be a stalemate that's going to go on for a long time complete more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq but it's really one year alone a hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without it without flaws and until it was all really it was cultural what it was judge it was doing was measured look the world through this measure it's as it is you know we have an issue of the moment we have an overflow. for the last two weeks i mean prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground the people in there would say well i think they want to support america whether they're killing them or no but that's come out and they've said that the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean i would be hard pushed to try and find out yes that's right through the area where i last time so it's an easy place ramos time to kill or. just one more question and ask how to break this stalemate here comes. this is the last answer how can we break the stalemate with our greater outside

intervention and what would be fueling what a lot of people call a civil war how do you break the stalemate. ok but i personally think you are going to see is the question is framed it's not the frame it's all that is the broken the social conflict can we can be broken the social contract with these people as rousseau would say has broken the social contract these people he has no legitimacy the sovereignty is with the people they're choosing to fight against a dictator so we have to negotiate with the people and not with gadhafi he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the negotiate with him and also ask the question to you as a military officer and you're going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them for forty two years how little of their on this point folks thank you very much for a very heated discussion many thanks to my guest today in washington and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember prostitutes. can. still.

well.