starts on t.v. dot com. we'll. bring you the latest science. from. the future. and have you with us this is coming to you live from the russian capital top stories this hour a priest in finland who spoke out against an internationally wanted criminal is being questioned by police after all t. brawl calls the story. is accused of inciting religious hatred after describing as a terrorist even though the chechen warlord is behind the moscow metro and bombings . as the trust itself to the forefront of protecting libya's citizens

lawmakers in london a furious the country sold millions of dollars of weapons to kill gadhafi before the unrest here as well as egypt and bahrain from britain and later sort of violence uprisings. a new files to warsaw into the plane crash that killed poland's president kaczynski and ninety five others in western russia last april investigation into the tragedy of a strange relations between the two countries is still underway. with more news for you another update and use in full in less than thirty minutes from now in the meantime peter bell and his crosstalk get us argue whether barack obama is able to follow his own line on foreign policy or the course laid out by george w. bush that's next on r.t. . world. removed the latest in science technology from around.

we've got the future covered. came. along welcome to cross talk i'm people of all feel bomb a 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 while the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all in is this a new doctrine or just muddling through. can still. 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 marty he is a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk e-mail and hunger all 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 and 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 it this is his doctrine. america 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 embraced and is it being acted out through us but i don't

think that's the dark and i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these doctrines 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 yet ok and so we're going to you and parents you agree with the military intervention into libya well yes i do. i mean given we're still we're still is just said ok i mean and i and all tend to agree

with her you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops in boots and bombs and surely i can affect political changes but only became to haunt everybody in the long run but you support it and go right ahead. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we take a longer view there were three happening because i don't particularly pursue the truth or mention as a whole 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 time a nation movements which laws are shaped and drew lines around the deserts of the middle east and you fall in that those loans with support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we were actually armed any given vote was actually on passports around the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation for this on 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 you're just throwing more and more arms into a very very volatile dangerous situation ok and we also have the problem of mission creep ok we heard only a few days ago. you know we're not going to commit more to going to put boots on the ground but 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. another think you should be a one off and let me go to the first with you making sense if we if we talk about. military intervention as a as an under solution and that was working about clandestine moves from the from the sea org. person look at the series involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of the i'm not trying to so this is

great intentions behind however we do know that the c.n.c. as we're calling them from the transitional council in libya is actually being as transparent as possible because it's something that we've not had in libya and we've never had a transparent and accountable government there with. the training and it's not something that's kind of you know. as a mystery or something that's coming out as a witness in this coming out quite openly from the research because they openly want. ok fellas 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 problem 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 your reason that i was instead it is because there was

a feeling 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 final 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 back later as i'm sure as i was on the hearing this will stop exactly as they should have in the others well this is easily that's what i said point well i mean look and however the great national

championships the x. in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what was something is so. you know you own your own problems and we know that one side is on the other side is not on and the minute i personally don't want any arms in libya on the awesome forms and in a situation where no one is on a person that we've made a massive massive i understand then. looking at have also brought him out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two if you want to call it but i personally think that huge but i do want to go to the situation that is going on also for this or the thing is we can talk about it because of the face we can really focus on but there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because many years but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that personally because my people and i personally know that but to themselves realize that. america has a track record on the full solution to this is. right the problem is there are so

common good everyone has family but there are so many years and don't have them are seeing great all right so let's jump in go ahead. 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 innocent but. there are consequences. all right and that's why as we.

saw her the structure of the notion of that's. why is that is because of a very good point why is it different because it is now with these different i just think. i don't personally think 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 here or more people who were there but equally we realize that the earth he was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as a very 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 threats and it was imminent and they tried to fool the rest of the world and we went along with it then for life but there was no substance of the argument he was openly on the radio or on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people telling me going in because the old 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 has information to this was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late egypt can be saying the roughly the same thing however in libya i think that we can accuse them of procrastination but i look back at his legal background and i say to myself someone looks at legal background and as a liberal in a different you know kind of a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's like a legal perspective and try to go through every avenue and track with developments as they come however when the thought was imminent he would have been and it would have been the case with the situation we were talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one in libya another highly charged names and countries and and you know the whole charged if you haven't let me answer i don't want the responses i would point to your school and nobody does head falls nobody does and i think i have that i have a different view and i wonder i supported intervention and i want to 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 by kong one of the key things that president obama did was to recognize that there's 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 buying bribe being 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 the stimulus was from those already rules are way in question here from the wait i'm talking about the questions i was asked and he recognized no 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 going to be jumping into really really really really everything breaking after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy to stay with. you.

lists . if. live.

the to. lead. the lead. lead. but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. a bomb a doctrine is it a doctrine or an interventionist 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 a real regarding the use of u.s. military of course the russian public opinion research center all citizens of 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

dr ian has yet to get it cleared but presidential talk trains have an impact on american policy and as a result on the entire world back to peter ok and if i'd like to go back to you and paris here a lot of people will say and i want to talk about george w. bush in this part of the program obama had a sudden attack of stupid idealism. if 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 panama was 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 or is obama just trying to muddle through on this one too because you can say well it's an international effort now many can walk away from it that's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have

a third war in the muslim world very good for him and. in the post. the rock world i think. in terms of real politic everyone knows the political suicide to recruit through an iraq. strong from all the way through that one again so i mean i personally think that it would but he's done that in afghanistan or trying to be a scrap of us because of you know i think he has us to. this situation and honest and everyone knows that his thousand more troops so i don't really think that this is the debate and this is the us i think this really is the crux of the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if your country fine but i mean this is isn't. isn't this a 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 the same time isn't this just bush lite this is another intervention and there's also this 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 and this was just done over the weekend i mean you know it was no debate in the united states you said you seriously you said it was a minute you say did you say there was some transparency and there's transparency in benghazi but going into this conflict or war if it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so i wish you could finish your children's parents in washington ok but that look a that's what's most important is nobody asking you i think that 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 some or all of his reasoning is going to was his tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question was my one question or kind of mostly his were national rules which is this the libyans why the libyans also why the libyans also for their flaws and why they're asking for international action one import of the feeling they weren't that's a very important question is what was the only or whether it's not the only question of course of the it was i think in the middle of threats and that's a reality came in that's the reality and. that those are the only messages nationally but pushback from sort of up from which is the stronghold of gadhafi that pushed back over a period of a week which back militarily saying look at least we could be exactly ok have a good laugh because the capacity because using european norms no i really want to the point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether it is an imminent threat on the other think we would like to i think we're

working on very morally dubious crones here if we were to say that it doesn't matter if it's a threat or it was you know it was heated i mean he was no innocent man so you know wasn't a no no no i'm not saying that what i'm saying is always the united referring to governments because there's not a question a lot more than can be threatened i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't really annoys you see what i can do it is a could not you say what you want to say right now ready to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united convinced that the united states government decision not my own personal view that the united states government decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision 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 i want to ask you what you know you know sometimes you know it's not very much of the session that was not the way we. last point i won't challenge you on the

point however because i don't think that humanitarian aid is and sort of the principle of of life has always been the theme of the factor and foreign policy in america in the west there's a lot of branches however i do want to was whether or not we believe that this is not a coincidence of interests and if we can all see personally what do you think the motivating factor was in order to go into libya you want to go see 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 us also all the things differently with some popular forces right and but there's a link 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 faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced and i

think they made their own choices and. yes their choice what would be ok choices was ok well you know we can argue that but he wasn't going on with me and there are consequences to that and i want to ask you a question government in yemen both is going to ask you a question a lot of them are talking about go home 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 quite a quite a while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil wars or civil wars or when you have two conflicting conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on though that it's a very small point to make and there's been points that have been made over and over again perino issue for the rest of the revolution and if you want to play person you aren't. people are talking alarm systems are they rebels who talk with

arms or the rebels what are they sebelius 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 and so i want to call them rebels because i have any political aims all their aim is get rid of gadhafi so we can have a more democratic and a more effective government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think i said there were three of us that's truly a crossroads we have an arab spring. it was going. none of this really if 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 army thing really we're going to announce on this trip is your home for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now two sides wins over

eight hundred of those as we go into slavery in the house and there but it was used well some of the houses are not going to other clothes on paper for people and this is john this is the easiest because you know why because this is me and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right erica. hill is the u.s. in the south you see is how they chose the stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side is well in this game making it more and more into the side for a change in the sixty's you say that you said it was your shoes you chose to go to consider is in the right but it's the same time is that this was like oh yes cheers exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so lowly so good i feel no guilt for we are all the treasures over to the rest of the region so we crush in the moment we can begin washing them with issues you are 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 with more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq because when you're alone are hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without flaws and went a little more civilian was judged on what it was georgia was doing was measured look the owner says let's measure it as it is we have an issue we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean i can't go out and prove it to you but i mean there were some journalists on the ground people in benghazi and they would say well i think they want to support america whether they're killing them i know but that come out and said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean i'll be hard pushed to try and find my yes that's right through that area where i was trying to please ramos at the time the killer. is one more question than is how to break the

stalemate here comes a police line was 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 the list goes ok but i personally see all the finger to begin with is that the question is framed it's not a good all that is broken the social conflict and we can be there she has broken the social contract with these people as rousseau would say is broken the social contract these people he has no legitimacy and so when he's with the people they're choosing to fight against a dictator so we have to negotiate with the people and not with their feet he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the motion with him and also is the question the same military forces are going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them for it to use how the use 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 crosstalk will. keep the story.