progressed more with the last of a response at home but i think in some way so we see america has become in europe we're just expected to be in a permanent war do you know it all along this is a little bit war doesn't get on a nightly news you know there are american columns coming but else it seems that there's an expectation that we should just keep this up forever are you as outraged as you were back then are you still outraged over u.s. policy. it's. turned out you know raised it's hard to stay in a kind of outrage when it seems like nothing happened some change for the better. wages. which of course so far not much that's going to have our eight o'clock show can and we'll be right back here tomorrow for until then follow me on twitter at lauren let's start way and let us know what you think and have a great night. k.

. street.

following well in the cross talk i'm people of our field bomber 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 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 cartoon or just muddling through. can. 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 art he is a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk e-mail and a 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 if you 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 then 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 phyllis. well 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 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 doctor yet ok so we're going to you and parents do you agree with the military intervention into libya. well yes. but i mean given what freeway phillis just said ok i mean i and i and all tend to agree with her you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops in boots and. and surely i can affect political changes but i would be tend to haunt everybody in the long run but you support it already here. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we need to take a longer view it was really happening because i don't particularly pursue the truth

to mention as a whole big 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 then you fall in that of those loans with support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we've actually aren't not only given vocal support we're actually on best what's around the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation for this on them i personally don't think. is it morally right is it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the argument is here to see all this or even more and more arms into a very very volatile dangerous situation ok and we also have the the problem of mission creep ok we heard only a few days ago when we know you know we're not going to commit more to going to 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 it should be a one off and let me go to the first point you're making no sense if we if we talk about a. military intervention as a as an only solution and it was working about clandestine news from the from the cia. a personal look at the cia's involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of this i'm not trying to so this is great intentions behind however we do know that we see him. as we're calling them from the 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 and there was. no particular training and it's not something that's kind of you know. as

a mystery or something that's coming out as a something that's coming out quite openly from the from the center because it. seemed. ok fellas you were jumping ahead and that's 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 i would have been that was the reason that i resisted that is because it was just 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 hand 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. that 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 probably just or as i say as i was on the theory this will stop exactly as they should have the others well this is a very that's what i say point with. however the greatest from germany just being in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is sort of yourselves you know your own your own problems and we know that one soul is on the other side is not on i mean i personally don't want any arms and i'm lost and for in a situation where no one is on a person that we've made

a massive massive i understand the loss of someone if there are going to be looking at have also brought them out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two if you'd like to call it but i personally think the huge media want to go about the situation very clear and also for the other thing is we can talk about me also because moment based and that can really focus on but and there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because anything is like elation but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that person there because they're my people and i personally know that they do themselves realize that. america has a bad track record on fulfilling the mission to do this is. right the problem is there are so. few what has family in the barracks i mean really isn't don't have them are saying it's great all right fellas 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 where 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 . consequences. and that's why it's the employees are one. of the notional that's. my job. why is that even because phyllis brought up a very good point why is it different because it used now with these different i do think. well i don't personally think that it's a numbers going on i think in terms of victims being

a numbers game i don't want to say that there were more people here or more people out there but equally we realize that it was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as a good example as to what things were 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 for the rest of the world and we went along with it and if there was no substance to the argument he was openly on the radio or on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people are going to. come and cleanse you now 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 as was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late egypt can be say 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 myself someone looks at legal background and as a liberal and a different you know

a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's taken a legal perspective and tried to go to if we have a new and track the developments as they come however when the thought was imminent it 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 holiday charged names and countries and and you know the whole charge that you have and let me answer i want to respond to your point to. nobody does headphones nobody does and i think i have that i have a different view and i wonder i supported intervention in a lot 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 whom 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. into 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 was the one person was already rolled away in question here from the weight on talking about the questions that was passed 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 what has been important what we found was that the african union was not prepared to sign on to even the 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 are you going to break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy did libya state are.

the. reasons you believe some signs and signals from the realms of. the future coverage.

let's. see. let's. start. with you. welcome back to crossfire computor live out to remind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. story.

but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. obama doctrine is a doctrine or an intervention strategy in his speech at the national defense university barak obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it reveals the beginnings of which we know regarding the use of u.s. military force the russian public opinion research center also prisons 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 doctor has yet to be cleared but presidential talk trains have an impact on american policy and as a result the entire world to peter and said i could 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. 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 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 or is obama just 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 good for him and. in the post. the rock world i think. in terms of real political everyone knows that political suicide through recruiting in iraq and to try and fund all the way through that one again so i mean i personally think they did it with but he's done that in afghanistan or trying to be careful as possible you know i think you know there's

just. this situation about everyone knows that he's thousand more troops so i don't really think this is a positive and necessary and i think it's across to 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 this isn't this is what is there but isn't this 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 at 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 you said you serious you say there's nothing you say did you say there was some transparency in this transparency and ganci going into this conflict or war if it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish in three words parity in washington ok well that look

a 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 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 for israel in a small room was 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 highly personal his road nationals aside were the libyans was the libyans also doing what the libyans also informed it was a more the asking for international than one import of the questioning they weren't

that's a very important question is the us and well me or whether it's not the only question of course of the it was an imminent threat and that's a reality claim and that's the reality anderson for those of the method because nationally pushed out from sort of up from which is the stronghold of gadhafi and push back over a period of a big push back militarily thank goodness we could be exactly ok have a good because because because he's using european norms no i want to point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether there's an imminent threat on auto think we would like to i think we're working on very morally dubious crones if we were to say that it doesn't matter if it's a threat or it was you know it was in the heated i mean he was going to say man so you know wasn't in the area no i'm not saying i'm saying in all this and i already own government because i was not a question a lot more than i can be threatened i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't relate or suzanne what i can do is 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 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 well you know this and you know it's not very much of decision that i was told that i would. 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 dominant factor in foreign policy in america or 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 posture 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 resources or think differently with from popular forces right and that was like things 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 thout faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced and i think they've been a deliberate choice and second guess their choice. is was ok only we can argue that he wasn't showing them with the speed and there are consequences to that and i want to ask you a question government in yemen other theaters 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 quite a lot of while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil wars or civil wars or when you have two conflicting stories or 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 it's been a point of being made over and over again. for the rest of the revolution and if you are deeply pushing people aren't. people or people around the summit are they rebels or talk with arms or the rebels what are they sebelius with arms i mean the what's 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 and so on i mean 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 get rid of gadhafi so we can have a more democratic and a more reflective government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think this is a war of ideas that's truly a castro one of a kind of arab spring. it was going. none of this really there is it 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 of very good will if you're an ass on this 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 which of those is really going to say over here in the house and there because you should there be a list of all put in the house i'm not going to other close to force people on this john this is the games if you want to call it isn't it i'm saying there are two sides fighting right eric and phyllis ten phyllis the u.s. and its allies you see is how they chose this stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side as well in this and again making it more and

more interesting the side for a change although nobody can say she says the truth is you were shooting for the significant taters and the like but it's the same time is that this was cheers exactly i will choose the dictators including good selfie so we go belly up you know the war we have all the treasures what we call the rest of the region so we trust in them a little tribute in washington one issue is usually they're 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 a 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 as i can put 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 flaws and some of that was really it was judged on what it was total was doing but it's measured look the world through this measure it's as it is you know we have an issue with them we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground there are people in there and they would say well i think they want to support america whether they're killing them or not but the come out and them said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean i would be hard pushed to try and find my yes that's right through the area where i last time so it's an easy place ramos time. is one more question than is how to break the stalemate here comes. the last 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 feel although i think you are going to see is that the question is framed it's not going to do all

that is american the social conflict can we can be there for years broken the social contract of these people as rousseau would say has broken the social contract with people he has no legitimacy and so when it 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 he oversaw the military system going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them to for you to use how long this is there on this point of 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. in the streets.

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