the but i think the rocket is readable and one well. whatever government says there can from safe get ready because in the air freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you live something else here see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok and you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

for. a few. welcome back to the big picture i'm in for tom foreman coming up later in this half hour allied lines may soon be erased in libya if u.s. nato airstrikes continue to accidently close rebels early now stands in the ravaged

war zone and speaking of war a new study shows that an old policy could actually help keep america from of rushing into new conflicts that's right folks the debate over the draft is back plus it appears that the proposed promise of bringing home the troops from iraq at the end of the year may be broken an in-depth look at america's war addiction in tonight's dealy take. a look at. the alliance between libyan rebels and nato is growing more and more uncertain as casualties continue to mount rebels claims that a nato airstrike today mistakenly killed took on their own positions killing two people and wounding at least a dozen others now remember this is the second accidental attack on rebel forces by nato in less than a week now in the aftermath of this accident there are reports of chance of down

down with nato from the rebel camps and all of this comes on top of complaints by opposition commanders that nato strikes were coming true slowly to give the rebels a clear edge now the ongoing stalemate and that is what it is in libya underscores the lack of clear strategy for the allies prompting us to ask whether we're sliding into yet another endless war and here to offer his take on this issue is stephen's unions he's a professor of politics and chair of middle eastern studies at the university of san francisco professor thank you so much for being. great to have you back. now to something that's been obvious i think for libya watchers for quite some time now is finally being officially acknowledged by officials which is that libya is at a stalemate there is a grim assessment by the chief of u.s. military command today and it looks like it's really likely to remain that way for quite some time but the bigger question on my mind is why does this always come as a surprise for us airstrikes do a lot of great things and

a lot of terrible things but one thing they certainly don't do is build democracies so was our approach to this whole mess wrong from the start. i refer you to words i mean this is striking that the libyan opposition is greatest danger during its first week when it was overwhelmingly nonviolent that's when they liberated more than half the country where he had this massive defections among top people and could offer these regimes well some basters around the world and we saw that we've seen not just since news and a joke from chill a to serbia to poland to the to the philippines the power of nonviolent action bring down even the most brutal dictators but by taking up arms or putting their attacking a darkie the strongest point bringing in foreign forces just kind of feeds you know phobia nationalism which actually strengthens the regime not not and so we indeed have found ourselves in a stalemate in what could be an indefinite civil war well and it really seems to me like the policy here when it comes to libya sort of one of hoping that either the

rebels will somehow win by themselves militarily or that gadhafi will one day wake up and decide to voluntarily step down but i mean since when did hoping to get lucky become the basis for u.s. foreign policy yeah i'm afraid you're right and this really has not been thought thought through in a strategic matter agreeing in air support and even arming the rebels doesn't make them a cohesive fighting force and the other two hundred courses who's who's in charge here i mean initially the pro-democracy movement was genuine and broad based is the pro-democracy movements we've been seeing elsewhere in the middle east but as it's evolved into a civil war i was a pretty sketchy character start to rise to the top of the opposition so then basic question if we do get rid of gadhafi is going to take its place now let me i mean i i don't that you're a professor you're not a commander in chief necessarily but considering the fact that we are in the situation we did get involved militarily now that you know the steps can't be undone what do you think is the least painful way of either getting out or sort of

coming forward that you know that's that's i guess. if that's the least amount of damage for all the involved parties. i would do it could possibly be done to repair next a cease fire and i mean the rebels are in fighting if you know they're going to have your support and gadhafi is actually obviously going to keep fighting if he if he feels that he's not being it's about to be overthrown or in an armed revolution trying to get a cease fire and for the people in the liberated areas to try to have some some summons of democratic rule or could be western the rest of libya could emulate encourage nonviolent resistance strikes way cards so those civilians other kinds of resistance there which i'm dying with her fiance is receiving then there were signs they talk about partitioning another country and how do we oh no no ok only temporarily so good but again escalating struggle in the nonviolent struggle in the

western part of the country which will hopefully evolution is loosen its grip there because soldiers are much more likely to stay loyal to the regime if someone's shooting at them then if they are nonviolent protesters people using using their bare hands and that's a way to get defections from the military that's the way to really you know we hear from from within so i basically go back to the nonviolent struggle because they're being a lot more successful in the early days when they were engaged and that is certainly as we've seen in chinese in egypt and literally dozens of other countries around the world that's the most effective way to bring down dictators and you think of this intellectual shift in the in the obama administration a sort of responsibility to protect the liberal folks who want to go into certain countries to prevent bloodshed which is very nice and noble but as we have seen and libya we don't think through the endgame the consequences could be a potentially disastrous move do you think that these forces and the administration will continue and potentially move on to other countries where we can protect folks get health things that are going in libya i think will be more questioning and i

think there's there is legitimacy in theory around their responsibility to protect no national boundaries national sovereignty he should not take a. dictator license commit genocide and and in serious crimes like that but not only was libya not at that point but against a change of plea this is we've already had mission creep going beyond simply protecting civilians essentially taking sides in the civil war i don't see this happening in other countries even places like syria where we like to see the government overthrown simply because i think this recognition that the regime has more of a social base. it's not an armed conflict so you're coming in with planes as isn't going to really help help things one way or the other and certainly the opposition has not been calling for that i think also you know a lot of arab countries have issues with assad he's not the pariah. so you wouldn't get the kind of. approval by the arab league no and certainly not the u.n. security council so i am also a clinton for that barely

a lot of our lawmakers think that he's a great reformer i know and a wonderful gentleman unfortunately out of time a professor is going to thank you so much for your time. all right so if a government shutdown can't end our wars and a massive debt crisis can down our wars and our east population cans and our wars what can a new study out of the university of pennsylvania could provide some answers researchers there were trying to figure out what exactly happens to support for wars if a nation implements a draft and here's what they discovered they found that we find that mass support for a war falls by seventeen percent when there is a draft relative to when there is an all volunteer force further the shift is driven by self-interest support falls most sharply among those who would most directly shoulder the burden of a draft the young who are themselves be drafted and parents who would see their children drafted so if the united states did have a draft is it reasonable to assume that perhaps we would not be engaged in all

these military misadventures across the globe we're here to offer their takes our seat and mostly president of less government in iran clayton a progressive strategist here in washington d.c. gentleman welcome but if you have a so i want to begin with you. can chew safely say that there is a little bit of a disconnect between our wars abroad and the burden that falls upon the military folks and the people who make the policy decision and washington can she say that perhaps if there were a draft we would all feel the pain more and maybe think twice before i let every six lately with the first person part of your assertion not at all to your second do you recall that the military personnel with whom the military leaders consult are also volunteer so that it's not only going to have to be the military personnel with whom they consult are the folks at the top who are battling on the front lines there and they did so they understand and appreciate it going to be didn't they were born generals they got there through going through the ranks and they understand the cost and the and the good the oil the is entailed in

a war that they're horrible bloodshed so they will they will counsel the leaders to . do this or not that is based upon personal experience and understanding what's going on in their volunteer military is volunteer i want to say very quickly that these people have to rely on the people who are left in the right in a foxhole and they're much more confident everybody's there voluntarily we have the best military in the world and it's voluntary so i don't think we need a draft so you're saying so if by that logic we had a draft in world war two we had a draft in world war one we had a draft in the vietnam war somewhere those guys are not looking out for their counterparts they're soldiers because they where they have so a lot of that when john kerry came back it's cheap it was odd readily apparent he wasn't looking out for his fellow soldiers he was looking out for himself and himself only and there's a bunch of examples the whole winter soldier movement is a quintessential example of all about how it all ryan do you agree this assertion that the generals know what it what the toll of war costs and so they're going to counsel the politicians with the best advice possible because they know just how

bad the evidence look we have a great volunteer military in america great men and women that serve their country with discipline an honor and you know plus that are the peacemakers you know those those people who go out there and ensure that there is peace and safety throughout our country and throughout our world what i would say is that we have a great country with rights but we also need to exercise some responsibility with that and we should really have a national service act that requires that everybody that does benefit from those rights shares in the responsibilities of keeping our country together keeping it safe and having a military option for that service because at the end of the day when you have that option and when you make sure you democratize the military forces people are going to think twice and think more about putting our military men and women in harm's way you know it's going to be a lot higher bar to set before we send people into combat and i think that that's going to be something that impacts the political decisions we make that are right now there are just too cheap and easy to send to another class of citizens halfway across the world to do something that other people are sharing the burden of with

their own friends in their own family but everybody if everybody knows that your own children or your neighbor's kids can get shipped halfway around the world we think twice we think maybe even three times before we take that decision seat and i want to thank cindy sheehan's son for his nice little diatribe there. and there there are many many members of congress who have children. brothers sisters in the military and they voted to go to war this is not a classless thing i mean it's not the right that's keeping their o.t.c. off of the harvard campus it's the left if you want talk about breaking down the class structure why isn't harvard and yale and columbia and the ivy league allowed in the arts you see to come and recruit well most of the best and brightest of the of the country well if you want to talk about classless i would talk about how you mentioned cindy sheehan's son who actually died serving his country yes and would and has her as cindy sheehan's ex-husband said she would have vehemently disagree with everything she did in his name at that house is not cindy sheehan it's about

the bigger issue of whether we're disconnected from war and you know adults we're not disconnected from war that we don't listen to from our i i when you see how remote controlled essentially a war that's covered by you know m.s.m. p.c. gung ho and this n.b.c. and we don't really understand what the costs are we don't see the whole the physical toll the emotional toll on our troops don't you think that we're a little bit we were rushed into i got saudis in the marine corps and one of the things that pictures they sent me on line was a picture that you know written on a locker and it said you know america's not at war the marine corps is one that says they're calling out to us and saying look we need your support and we need you at our back to be able to do what we're doing but we also need you to be sharing that sacrifice and be here with us or bring us home and what because they've been out there and well it's a way to do what side of the illogical spectrum has been with the troops for the last eight years was it harry reid who said the war is lost was it was a or was it the american right and conservatives who constantly do fundraisers for the troops conflict is it that is the left like john kerry and harry reid and dick

durbin dick durbin compare the troops. and the tongue in guantanamo bay so you don't have to prove your patriotism to me no i don't approve of your government and citizen and i think we all believe in a healthy and secure america god no that's not true but not every american does i'm not saying you don't i'm saying that every american to us but. it's been the american left it's harry reid harry the war is lost reed it's the left which is what is going on about afghanistan in a state where our objective as an entire president is you're talking about being at for al qaeda for having a safe haven as now it is so you have resurgence are kind i mean the words are no i mean we now have a president who's helping al qaeda in libya. i call al qaeda from iraq is leading the charge against moammar gadhafi has murdered of his son you his press releases that's literally cut and that's about right so that it's a well it's also a fact wooders as a first person it was a first place reporting not moammar gadhafi waiters and i would i would say reuters is not working for gadhafi you may want to say that i'm not well but the point the fact of the matter is we didn't have an exit strategy in afghanistan in iraq we

didn't have an entrance strategy in libya you were talking to somebody who's abusing the troops and has no idea what he's doing with regard to putting men and women in harm's way it's this president right now with drug barack obama in libya i'll give you the last word do you think that that we would have been more likely to have an exit strategy had there been a trap and how do we all felt the consequences of rushing into military conflict i think it is undoubtable that we're going to make wiser strategic decisions with our military resources including the men and women in uniform and everybody has to participate and if anybody can be sent off to war because right now what it is is there's a class of citizens that are bearing the entire burden and some people just aren't sharing in that sacrifice and they don't have to worry about it every day when they wake up but if everybody had to think twice about that then we make a much better national slaters see foreign policy there's an unfortunate rout of time but i do want to end of the fact that you know what we're all very lucky we get to sit here in our nice washington studio we're certainly not making the sacrifice as we have the luxury of debating about it and unfortunately that's that's that thank you so much for thank you much for us all right well more it

tonight on our nation's approach to war in just a few minutes don't go away. it's going up and it's going for us in vietnam and it won't be coming up our involvement in foreign conflicts may just be a force of habit it's a nice feeling take thomas tours write a void in a war is such a challenge for america. is

he to. leave me. to. see. it.

just. like the segment would go a lot better with a cowboy hat but anyway it's time for tonight's the good the bad and the very very worldly experience she it only. first up the good the arkansas supreme court now yesterday the court struck down that state's ban on adoptions by same sex couples and unanimous opinion the court said that the ban violated people's right to privacy officially bringing arkansas out of the dark ages and into the modern world slowly but surely gays in america are gaining access to equal rights a matter how hard the republicans try to stand in right now the bad the donald

donald trump has sent a team of investigators on a witch hunt in hawaii with finding out the truth about president obama's birth place take a look at what trump had to say about his quest this morning on the today show. you are not allowed to be a president you're not one of his book he may not have been born in this country and i'll tell you what three weeks who i thought he was sort of this question right now i have some i have people that actually have been studying to become. you have people now. i mean in hawaii absolutely they cannot believe what they're finding. people and that's donald now believe it or not what i can't believe is that a recent poll that came out shows that this guy is in a dead heat for first place among republican presidential hopefuls about a dream come true for president obama and i just journalist and the very very ugly republican congressman mike pence now the feeling of the republicans may be just playing politics with this whole government shutdown thing but mike pence aside if you could have heard those suspicions with this curious freudian slip last night on

fox news take a look we're trying to score a victory for the republican. field if you score a victory for the american people not for the republican party. that victory is going to going to come in stages here i think what's there you have it republicans only care about scoring a victory for other republicans and not the rest of the country and that's very very oddly. right the secretary of defense robert gates was in baghdad today we spoke to american troops telling him that if the iraqi government asks hate to have to remain in that country past the december thirty first withdrawal deadline take a look at folks here are going to want us to have

a presence. we're going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning. and our ability to figure out where we get the forces and what kind of forces we need here and what specifically the mission they want us to do is. i think there is interest in having a continuing presence but. the politics are such we'll just have to wait and see because the initiative ultimately has to come from the iraqis that's right the politics are such so much for the whole winding down the iraq war at the end of the year and just like afghanistan and libya we got unfortunately moved from rock into the column of indefinite wars though i sort of think that it's probably been safely there for a few years now and if you weeks ago tom analyze just why it was that every single president since jimmy carter i sent american troops abroad with orders to kill and tom revealed a sad reality about our nation and our economy it's addictive to war took

a lot. of hooked on the military industrial complex there's no question these wars in afghanistan and iraq need to know that if obama were to do that and the war is tomorrow and suddenly what all the private contractors and troops in the mid. at least that's what happened our economy would tank unemployment was shoot up to depression era levels and it's not just because of the newly unemployed troops and contractors this extends to huge parts of our industrial infrastructure that was shut down because all we do is make weapons and war material if we were to realize the insanity of a global military reach and start closing military bases and interests around the world the unemployment rate would further skyrocket definitely plummeting our country into another great depression this is the consequence of not listening to president dwight eisenhower the republican fifty years ago when he warned us of the dangers of the military industrial complex we didn't pay attention to him then and now we have an economy based on war we primarily build tanks and planes and bombs

in the united states and if one day the war's ended and there was no longer a need for these weapons then our economy would be manufacturing virtually nothing just look around your living room right now it's more than likely that the television or computer you're watching the show on your clothing you're wearing and the furniture you're sitting on were made entirely or largely in large part somewhere outside the united states as an economic backdrop i suppose we have our service economy and economy built on speculative bubbles by billionaires and billionaires who have too much money on their hands thanks to the reagan tax cuts an economy built on complex financial instruments built on predatory lending built on debt and overpriced real estate that those things have no real value now things actually made and economies built on bubbles are always teetering on the edge and we know what happens when those bubbles burst after the roof after the republican tax cuts of the one nine hundred twenty s. led to the disaster of one nine hundred twenty nine after the reagan tax cuts led

to the bubble and crash of one nine hundred eighty seven after the bush tax cuts led to the bubble and crash in two thousand and eight once that i scratch. it wasn't always like this i remember when wal-mart opened a store near where we lived in atlanta the early one nine hundred eighty s. when sam walton is still alive and running a business that this huge banner across the doors saying made in america which by the way was the title of his autobiography good luck finding one item at wal-mart still made in america today now that we've left the chamber of commerce by congress and passed legislation that gives tax breaks to c.e.o.'s who ship american jobs overseas and close down factories that operated for generations in the united states are non-war manufacturing base is largely gone and this is the first time our country has tried to climb in our history the way back to george washington has tried to climb out of a depression or near depression we've had a number of them without having a non-defense manufacturing to throw back on. so that's the situation we're in

today is the real backdrop behind the new unemployment numbers that came up today it's the dark secret that nobody in america wants to discuss a military that overshadows our entire economy with endless wars and occupations around the world a federal budget with an exploding deficit thanks to these very same military misadventures and a lack of taxes to pay for them and no and this is perhaps the most important part no real domestic manufacturing base to turn to other than defense because nearly our entire economy is completely depend on this perpetual war machine and we followed the insanity of so-called free trade like a heroin addict slowly deteriorating it too scared to stop using because the pain comes from withdrawal from the drug and our dealers and chamber of commerce wall street defense contractors are really pushing we need an intervention to stop

funding the military industrial complex and restore our consumer products manufacturing base if we want to see actual improvements in our unemployment numbers in the future and primal influence that don't also depend on thousands of us soldiers dying halfway around the world and millions of civilians being killed in displaced due to war and we need to check our country into a methadone clinic immediately wean us off these free trade economic policies to give c.e.o.'s their quick fixes would deteriorate the substrate of our economy we have by getting out of the w t o and nafta and promote uniquely american industry like we used to do before reagan sold us out maybe then we can bring home our war contractors and put them to real productive work building the infrastructure of this country and the goods of the future for our country in our country. this is our only choice now we've been hooked on the military industrial complex for way too long it's urgent that we seriously consider kicking that abbott because it is

destroying our country our addiction to to go to war our addiction to this giant military machine and the fact that we as i said from the founding of our country today we have nothing to fall back on or very very little because we don't make things here anymore. we stopped that manufacturing process or begin to slow it down starting with reagan it went on steroids we're now through a gap with you know during the clinton ministration and now there's virtually nothing left that we make here anymore this is this is a true disaster that that needs to be fixed by breaking our addiction to the military and bringing home our jobs by changing our trade policies. and that's the big picture for more information on the stories we covered please visit our website at thom hartmann dot com and also our team at dot com and if you're driving and i want to listen to tom this entire show that's available as a three part cast on i tunes and also check out our youtube page at youtube dot com

slash the big picture our team that's tom always says the modesty begins with you get out there are getting active and tag you're it. used today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. oh gracious room today.