as well that's. why more we'll see you right back here when our. culture is that so much different if you choose it is to find it more or less the logic or do much if humanitarian interventions as would be uprising to stalemate well outside powers find themselves pulled deeper into his. wealthy british style. sometimes the tirelessly. market china has come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger run no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause

a report. to close the. books bringing you the latest in science and technology from around plus. we've dumped the future of coverage. keep. to. the low and welcome the cross talk i'm curious about the logic or kill logic of humanitarian interventions as libya grinds into stalemate well outside powers find themselves fall deeper into this quagmire you such interventions in everybody

involved greater military escalation and do interventions we do invasions. can. start. to discuss the uses in misuses of humanitarian interventions i'm joined by omar tora b. in irvine he is a political analyst and invited to the transitional national council of libya in washington we have heard really about as a he is a senior fellow at the foundation for defense of democracies and in london we cross to john reeves he is a national officer of stop the war coalition and another member of our crosstalk team yelena hunger are a gentleman says crosstalk if you can jump in anytime you want john i want to go to you how is this humanitarian intervention going in libya and how do you define success how do you define failure when it comes to these kind of endeavors but i think it was always a very risky operation not least because the advertised purpose through to save the lives of civilians was never going to be easy and it certainly wasn't the main

motivation i think the main motivation wasn't the saving of civilian life i think the foreign powers united states britain france primarily were very much discomfited probably unfolding of the arab revolutions in tunisia. egypt could see that it was spreading beyond their original countries of success they wanted to go for hold on some control of this process and the fact that the libyan revolution took the form of a civil war gave them the possibility of intervention so i think in the past given reason it wasn't necessary the real motivation if we go to washington if we look at what we just heard from john is is this intervention going as planned or is it going far worse than anyone could have expected when they started out. i think it's going to worse than expected because as we have seen lately. troops loyal to the

death the making some gains and they're making it very difficult for the pro-democracy forces. of course this intervention somehow saved lives because if gaddafi had a free hand and entered in gezi then we would have had massacres far worse than what we see right now but i agree with john that the european nations that interfered are the nations that usually supported dictatorship in the southern mediterranean and after the tunisian and egyptian revolution this is when they started to appear pro-democracy so that they can have a place in the new order of the southern mediterranean what do you think about that i mean a lot of people keep using the terms to mark willacy and since you come from an organization that represents human rights in libya what is the democratic forces in libya right now the justifies this humanitarian quote unquote humanitarian intervention. first of all there is

a natural instinct amongst the libyan people especially when you have a. brutal regime that suppress people's ability to speak or move and one hand but if you're referring to the spot prospects of democracy in libya i could tell you that my visit last week to the board stronghold the libyan opposition i spent four days and one on one with senior members of the transitional national council i address the gathering and i came back with a very very satisfied feeling that libya is on to a democratic change and a democratic i'm sorry to interrupt you but it looks like this it looks like a civil war it doesn't look like a march for democracy i mean how do you how do you this is a contradiction in terms this is a civil war that is getting worse by the day as we do we're doing this program here

the so-called democratic opposition is angry at nato for not bombing enough their own country here i mean how can we be talking about you know a peaceful democracy when we have a raging civil war well you know i think our memories don't serve us well it's only been six and a half weeks it started out as an uprising people are always because of human rights conditions and extreme oppression and being guys you there rose they started to demonstrate peacefully and the next thing the libyan regime came and suppressed it and that tended to suppress that and trust me it was not just rubber bullets or tear gas it was bullets literally the size of your arm. to use to explode tanks and it was very horrific the pictures we were able to very quickly get those pictures out of the world community. we live in the world and as

you very well now. that ariel regime is kids around here and their government as a whole is something that the whole entire war does not have anywhere doesn't really want to have you have that if you are or so the world has actually moved and saved. lives so i mean i'm very aware if i could bring very good idea jump in here and john john john if i was going to you i mean if we look at recent memory you could ask he was being brought out of the cold i mean not very long ago at all go ahead john. i think if we look at recent memory we don't know again john of the one thing. i think we recall i think we recall that these arguments were exactly the same as the arguments used for the invasion of afghanistan and iraq and nobody thinks that what we've got in either place is a model of democracy and the argument that the very language here is that this is a dissembling language to say that the world community there is no world community

i'm a citizen in this country my country is at war a majority of people in the opinion poll don't want to be bombing libya our government and the arms fire factors that it's touring the middle east saudi weaponry to they want to go to the war go to war isn't true but that there is some sort of this embodied world community that is backing this what is true is that a vast majority of people in the world have a very people sympathy with the arab revolutions in tunisia in egypt and in libya what they don't want to see is that the western intervention causing a transformation in the nature of the libyan revolution so that it's now the most protest and people including actually and they are the same people the people who most recently came out from the gadhafi regime itself who were actually involved in the suppression of their own people for decades before this who are now the interlocutors of the west the managers of military intervention the people who are doing a deal with qatar to export the oil. what they don't want to see is

a bolt revolution they won't see a genuine revolution in process of the calling that we saw working its way through and introduce you to egypt but really if i go to you in washington it's more more more more i'm sorry let me august third ok omar jump in and then we'll go to washington go ahead real quick ok yeah yeah i'm sorry john in london year analysis really really. that actual really truth on the ground in libya first of all let me tell you the real justification for intervention in libya the geopolitics of libya are very very important the way it sits in north africa very close to europe there are many aspects that the europeans follow and to be very important to the european community that's one to get that he himself the dictator the sole. ruler of libya is someone who no one on the whole entire planet is fond or likes or wants to be with and the third dimension which is very very important

is that he didn't he didn't stop at anything this man would have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people it may sound exaggerated but trust me on this one right now as we speak there are massacres taken place in misrata and no one can get to that we can get to them by sea can't get to them by then and then in jebel nafusa in the west of libya so let's let's let's actually characterize things in the proper context there is no. as you making today mention it is that we really believe intervention is failing to protect people that's exactly the point that people. make they're saying we asked for this intervention but it's not working ok gentlemen i want to go to washington let's go i don't you know what let me ask my guest in washington here the logic of this intervention here it's not working so do we go down the slippery path of higher. military

campaign air campaign eventually a ground campaign i mean the thing at the wall that what's wrong with this intervention is that when the first missile was fired the west decided a side in a civil war in this is going to turn into a quagmire sooner or later and a lot of people no matter what you do are going to die. yes the first the united states was very reluctant to intervene militarily and then the united states made very clear that no u.s. soldier will set foot in libya in this intervention because of course there is the memories of what happened in iraq and as soon as possible the united states try to involve other countries and it was only under the cover of the united nations that the united states interfere interfered however we have to always remember that there he is one of the most brutal dictator on earth and that is ready to sacrifice maybe half the libyan people just to stay in office yes the international community will come to him in later years which was

a very disturbing thing because he's an international terrorist is one of the most brutal dictators and we forget about the libyan people and the signal and the signs that they have been sending to the world the simple fact that they are using the old flag of libya and this flag is no coincidence it was the flag created in one nine hundred fifty one after the creation of the first lady and constitution that actually created the country and it signals to things do unity of the libyan people that there's no division and also the longing for a modern constitution this is what it represent they are signaling this to themselves and to the world and the international community should do whatever it can to support the libyan pro-democracy forces and till they establish a democratic and for john i agree that there are risks because a lot of the people who are involved are for america definitely people and our know there are crowds and that's why the international community should continue

accompany a political process not only a military process until we make sure this revolution is going to be perpetual are going to go on for a long time ok this morning i have to jump in after a short break we'll continue our discussion on intervention steve harvey. lists listen to. live.

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at. the end. of. the and. welcome back to crossfire computor lavelle tree mind you were talking about the boom and bust of interventions the and . the and. but first let's see what russians think about this issue that. is their standard interventions and business is even possible according to president obama the u.s. and its allies military action in libya to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe but many i wonder which humanitarian crisis justify interventions the russian public opinion research center asked citizens what position russia should take regarding the recent events in libya fifty six percent

say russia should not get involved and eighteen percent believe it's necessary to influence gaddafi so that a dialogue between rebels and government power is launched eleven percent opt for supporting rebels and six percent for back into his side nevertheless the massive pain directed against libya is not bringing about a political outcome thus far. ok john i'm going to go to you in london i'm an eternal skeptic about everything it seems like these days it seems to me that libya is really a sideshow here it is the experiment with interventions in the laboratory is libya . the u.s. school can walk away at some point these people find out among themselves or whatever ok i see no altruism in the foreign policy of us right now so what my give my thesis this is to test the grounds without public consulting public opinion at

home to go after iran and go after syria go after north korea or anybody else it crosses the the hairs of the western powers when you think about their pieces because we're just getting people ready for more interventions we have to stop these regimes because they might do something. yeah well i think i think when you listen closely to the descriptions of what you buy it was inside the bush administration about whether or not to do this it's two things are very very clear firstly they were jammed up by the failures in afghanistan and iraq by as a result the scale of opposition among the public in this country in the united states and so forth of these military adventures and it seems that the kind of intervention that they wanted was brief. and no troops on the ground but which would reestablish the political validity of the argument for humanitarian intervention which was basically

a plastic argument after afghanistan and iraq so yes i think they're reestablishing that argument for use not just in libya but on any and every future occasion where they feel it might be it might be necessary if we remember this was something that was established in course of a last was an argument in afghanistan and iraq and i believe that this is an attempt to refurbish it but i do think there are genuinely some genuine geo strategic factors in play omar actually although i disagree with the no as has mentioned some of them but primarily it's about getting some kind of foothold in the finest moving developments of the arab revolution which completely took the major powers by surprise i mean what do you think about that just getting on the tail end of this year go ahead john you're talking you're done you're talking as if this was free masterminded. some kind of an order intervention will

intervene in one way or another in some places do some imperialist course some master plans for long term first of all libya i can assure you will serve as a model an example to anybody around the area that would attempt to suppress their people and their brutal fashion they get that the regime has i mean you know i have actually. you mean you are a you surely have lived you are saying that the u.s. couldn't simle timelessly agree to intervene in libya but also to attack the saudi question of the rein in the bahraini revolution but that's what's happening now there's no debate and i lived through this whole entire process. i have lived most of the entire class for the last sixty eight weeks of the revolution into your square so there's no point in lecturing me about your personal participation or participate in three square or non at eighteen days so there's really no point in going down that road ok gentlemen i want to go to washington i am going to be going to continue with my cynical other line of argument here. the so-called libyan

democrats are opportunists they're cheap they're trying to take advantage of american and western powers have been bred faced humiliated. seeing their their very good dictator friends leave and now they want to show their quote unquote good face and the because of the opposition to gadhafi which many of them were associated with gadhafi one point time or even cut in other groups their opportunities now trying to cash in but you think. yes but if. the international community does not help the pro-democracy forces who will this is i mean we have to look at the arab world as a regional system when the tunisian revolution happened all arabs were tunisians when the egyptian one happened all arabs were gyptian so if we let deathy get away with this it will signal to all the other arab dictators that all they have to do to stay in office is to shoot and massacre their populations also for the intervention of course that didn't go as expected that it's going to be short and

brief and then the pro-democracy forces will. take over the country and fortunately the pro-democracy forces seem to be highly organized and also and they're equipped so the international community had to do something as the international the so-called international community supported arab dictators for six decades so it is high time that they start switching. camps also the international community interfered after the demands of the libyan opposition and the arab league which is a very exceptional thing. green is. calling upon the international community to protect libyan people now of course we are moving again known because as john mentioned as we mentioned it's not as effective so what will be the next step but i would like to know from john if it's not an international community intervention

how do you see the future of libya or diffuser of the relations of between that that you and indian people ok john you want to feel that go ahead. i entirely support the new process my point about western intervention is that it subverting that process it's buying a revolution to be honest if the west is kept out both of libya and out of the interventions across the revolution in bahrain what we might now be looking at is a victorious revolution in bahrain which would have given enormous heart and enormous sustenance to the libyans themselves to fight on even under more difficult more difficult circumstances so my argument is about the west clearing out of the entire area and allowing as you quite rightly say what is a pirate revolutionary experience to play out across the region oh my what do you think about that i mean can really terry intervention promote democratic interests in the region or all across the region if we go to north africa. you know you can't really talk in generalities and hypothesis and conspiracies here we have to

actually if we look at libya and the subject is libya we have to be much more objective about it the west and the europeans didn't just come to libya because they had plans weeks before months before years ago to come in and thirteen we're talking about a human contact it's a catastrophe in the making and some correction i must add is it's not a civil war here look at what you're looking at how it was civilians attacked brutally by a military machine of thirty five hundred ten to one hundred airplanes one hundred ten hundreds of helicopters i mean there is this proportionate. totally disproportionate and you know what i for one person who actually is associated with the libyan opposition and the libyan movement very much appreciate the united states and involvement in this the u.k.

and the europeans i mean they have the ability to intervene they have actually intervened it might have been just a week late if they would like a few days later it would have experienced complete massacres and omar and i asked you this question you want. the united states and nato to continue your country ok what happens if gadhafi forces go into urban areas and stick it out there do you want bombing there to to get them out i mean how far do you want your country. to be a little ransom could go ahead. there are missed there are unfortunate events that take place or may be taking place now that are not under anyone's control basically the united states u.k. france and the stronger members of nato. or able to avert a massacre in benghazi when i was in benghazi i talked to the people down there i found out for myself that they talk to some of the soldiers that belong together if

you are loyalists and they had given being given a mandate to come to town level the town of nine hundred thousand people literally leveled the town right they were women and and kill every man from eighteen to forty and do you really honestly believe world them are we all right why does keep hearing this from here really doing we just hear this from people like you ok there is no evidence of this so except for people like you come on programs like mine and say hey we're going to do this this and this but we never hear from which never cooperated and i'll sign it again and that's really important here john if i can go to you i mean when the first bomb dropped is there any good way out of this mess. you know because even if we take it on the on the on the kind of playing field the omar is talking about if this goes on for a long period of time we will see the same amounts of human casualties we will see

a prolonged. hold military in the military we're going to have people on the problem with that is as we've seen as we've seen in the last couple of days nato has just destroyed the lives of thirteen of the of the revolutionaries outside prego now when we look at afghanistan karzai first of all started off saying oh well that's unfortunately these things happen and then week after week month after month the civilian casualties but build up so that even the puppet administration which invited and celebrated i was put in place in afghanistan because of the invasion he's now finds it intolerable that this should go on for a decade nobody said at the beginning of the afghan war this is going to last ten years believe me at the end of this even the people who asked them in will be regretting biassed i mean because the imperial powers are very very difficult going against they sit down at the table but when you're ready to go to bed and was going to leave they don't get up they start raiding your fridge they start looking at your wallet and they all go are

a gentleman on that note here i'm going to jump in many thanks to my guest today in irvine washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on our t.v. see you next time and remember crosstalk refuse. to take a stance. if

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