as president obama visits ground zero and finishes a chapter in american history another begins this is the tale of how osama bin laden was killed it was so many different stories coming out of the white house which one of these will go down in the history books. and as a world leader and world leaders rather gather to talk about libya's future is nato going above and beyond its original mission if ground troops move in where there will there be hell to pay some experts say so. and the united states is the country for the people by the people of the people but when it comes to voting for the

president does the electoral college system get in the way. that afternoon it's thursday may fifth at four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster you're watching r t well u.s. president barack obama visited ground zero today in the wake of osama bin laden's death elsewhere though conspiracy theories are floor showing in the wake of the white house's bungled p.r. message over his killing yesterday obama ruled out releasing the photographs of the dead bin laden now administration officials are saying they'll give no details on the raid on his compound in pakistan but is the p.r. fumbling and now clamp down just adding fuel to the brewing conspiracy fire marty's marine important reports on. the week began with an international news bombshell

proudly dropped by the united states after a firefight they killed osama bin laden and took custody of his book the. it was a female who was in fact in a lot of fire bets reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin laden from the incoming fire by tuesday a big blunder and major backpedaling in the room with bin laden a woman in lardons one a woman rather bin laden's wife rushed the u.s. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed america grabbed the world's attention after announcing the assassination of osama bin laden yet failing to get the facts story the u.s. has also priscilla take it a rapid rise of conspiracy theories what they did it states hold a bunch of different stories they took some stuff is back and they've just had the conspiracy machine and if they did they were all on a fire a blaze that inflamed after failing to deliver on promises of providing the public

with proof we we are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got sound in line i don't think there was any question but ultimately a photograph where would be presented to the public we have no need to publish those photographs to establish that was some of bin laden was still us president barack obama refused to release any visual evidence confirming bin laden's death for fear it would be used to spark anti-american violence critics say this leaves the public with more questions than answers and when they say we don't want to show the photos because we don't want to inflame people well fine how about bringing in certain members of the press along with a panel of unrelated a forensic identification experts who can come out and say we've studied this the world was able to study the execution of america's other enemy in two thousand and six when the hanging of saddam hussein went viral on the web shortly afterwards

meanwhile bin laden's quick the burial has been the target of conspiracists and after u.s. officials say was. keeping with muslim tradition it would be a tremendous fear is required like an islamic law. individually very within twenty four hours as many have noted washington broke its own rule when the bodies of saddam hussein's sons were embalmed and held for eleven days after being killed by u.s. forces there are so many inconsistency is in all of this that it's incumbent upon the obama administration to be as forthcoming as they can be about exactly what they do and do not know and did and did not know or in this case know what to say before you speak. not just one week ago it was brock obama at the center of a two year conspiracy that died down once america's leader released his birth certificate but now obama's actions surrounding the killing of osama bin ladin have

paved the way for a whole new set of missing questions surrounding the transparency of the u.s. government for an i.r.c. new york. and joining me now to discuss this is lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer a senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies author of this book operation dark heart he joins us now now tony you've actually been on the inside or been a counterintelligence officer and you've done counterterrorism operations what do you think is behind this flip flopping and why do you think the white house is releasing a photo this is been handled within as of a high school debating society that we have done this i think there was with this the aspic rush to tell a great story which don't get me wrong you know the seal team six everything that happened textbook good story problem is it wasn't complete one of the principles that i live by most people who understand how the media works you want to tell the story first you want to tell it as as best you can with the facts that you know to

not speculate because obviously if you speculate and you going to backtrack and you've lost your narrative and that's what's happened here so right now because of them essentially the old adage is if you're going to stop you know if you're if you're in a hole stop digging that like i think are there now going but it's too late because what they're now opening the door for is the narrative to be picked up by someone else and i suspect strongly that the pakistanis with bin laden surviving widow will be the one telling the story from here on which is not in our best interest you know that's that's a good point that you make and the pakistanis have come out saying that assignment and lot and did not resist and that nobody was armed there was no resistance do you think a white house is flip flopping and gives credence to these arguments and gives credence to the claim that this was an extrajudicial killing well yes and yes you know there were some extra legal actions here and you violated the country's sovereignty and you did this essentially as an assassination squad just on up to it to say ok what happened i'm one of those in the minority personally right now that believes we

should have done everything we could to bring him back alive it would be no doubt right now if we had a not with that said they've now created this space they've done they've got dispensed with the birth certificate now did. obama good or they've got to now really sit down and try to explain this and this point in time i don't care what jay carney or else as it has to say this was done in the name of the american people the american people have the right to know what they did what we did and i think that's why it's necessary especially with the butchering of the narrative to put all the information out there that they can be put out there was no reason for the put all the information about what they seized of obama's houses thumb drives everything else like don't talk about it you need to talk about the fact it's dead why used it and most importantly words that doctors are cowards what are we doing next mission to restart they get the narrative focused on that ok let me just back up because you have you know when you were in combat in afghanistan you were searching for senior al qaeda leaders including you and you've done this so what do

you think really happened and was the goal do you think they always went in saying we're taking him down because all of the details that come out just make it sound sketchy and sketchy or dumping a body and you know him not being armed and it's kind of the whole thing at the time i was there the objective was to capture i'm not sure if the policy changed since then my guys are telling me that they were discouraged from capturing because of all its complexity that goes with capturing someone this is a business gratian has been very bad about wanting people captured because what do you do and i would go with mr panetta is comments on this and i would think that what he said was accurate that basically they were told to kill and i mean he said that on the american television so with that said it's pretty clear to me that the objective here was not to bring him back alive if at all possible was it was whether an weapon near his bed i think so did he go forward according to reports i've read probably not i've not been able to talk to any guys i trust or anyone on the team yet but i'm going to eventually hopefully talk to folks find out what the

real story is past you bring on your file we'll see what happens but i the idea here is that they need to clean this up when i know that i want to know you know from your experience also being on the inside sounds like there was a lot of strategy an intel. preparing for this operation so when there have been a p.r. strategy going along with that i know it works well yes and the folks who did this raid do have sat with the guys who do this and are fact one of the guys i over there doing this right now and he and i have talked several times worked together back in the old days with that said there is their strategy and what they do is very professional they know what they're doing the problem is this became politicized because of the white house for better or for worse the strategy whatever they did on this one out the window when president obama and the administration want to take credit for it so they lost all control so any strategy the special operations command did which i know they do a thorough job of not was problems were pretty good is that was part was part of their planning it was thrown out because the white house decided to do it their way this often happens in government ok and the white house blames that on the fog of

war and do you kind of agree that they were just trying to get every detail they could at least said as i said in my facebook post today we create our own fog in this case we actually do creator of one of the principles of war is you assume you don't know all the facts you don't know because you weren't there and therefore the they were lodging it out and well but other than done it's a waste like now they're saying oh there's no video it doesn't work so there's something wrong i mean they so what you need to do is basically state the facts the basic interactive to where what when and leave it at then come back get the full story and then put out what will benefit you and this is this is common sense thing you think the united states should release the fighter absolutely there's no doubt in my mind there's no reason not to based on the fact that we had today and qusay displayed right we had our car we the al qaeda guy and iraq displayed in his in his you know deaths essentially lucky look like he looked when he was actually killed at this point there's no reason i can think of and i don't buy this we don't want to inflame the muslim world look i think doing planes and find them out and are

rightly and when the narrative gets changed by other folks in pakistan i think we're going to see a lot more inflaming going on than any one photo or set of photos would ever have have done for us you know the united states. when used to essentially be in a covert war in pakistan it's one of the reasons why leon panetta says the u.s. needs to keep giving money and the aid that it has to pakistan but after this osama bin laden and killing we've seen pakistani officials come out saying you know condemning it or criticizing it pakistanis very upset that their sovereignty was violated where does this relationship go from here and you said the u.s. overstepped their sovereignty it is as if every we know the u.n. didn't approve it obviously in the pakistanis that know about it apparently well to do two things let's look at this very realistically first book and just when we were we knew this in zero three that the pakistanis were playing both sides of the fence so our own policy leaders have been either naive or worse were guarding the fact that they're not playing ball this proves beyond a shadow of

a doubt you know they're incompetent or in cahoots either way spat with that said we way that he was not playing the i is what i asked i says that they were giving intel on this some of it not everybody is looking at it that they couldn't get away with it that's or with that said one of the things we've recognized and we will talk about is that broader the money we're giving them is going right back into their nuclear weapons program and that and that nuclear weapons programs and that our friends t.m.t. and verify that i don't have to have you just merely as proof they're not folks and told me so the problem is any time we give them money they do not use it for the purposes what we gave it to him for and it's funneled off of these other clandestine programs of their own making and the problem is you cannot continue to fund. a regime which will not play ball and frankly we're in danger in our own our or indian allies in process of what we're doing it's more and more complicated you know i'm more you get into it not simple to unravel but i want to thank you for doing your best to do the job that was a tenet colonel anthony shaffer a senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies now meanwhile leaders from nato and the arab league are meeting today in italy to plan

a political transition following the departure or ousting who knows if any of that will ever happen of libyan leader moammar qaddafi so far coming out of the meeting . we've heard the u.s. looking to take some of libya's frozen assets to fund the rebels but is stalemate graps libya and here spokesman says the use of ground troops may be the only way to move the situation forward artie's daniel bushell reports. the real bombardments of libya has reached a dead in according to nato libya's leader colonel gadhafi is dug in defensive positions meanwhile civilian casualties from allied bombing continue to mount nato spokesman review this solution sending ground troops. u.n. security council should adopt a new resolution on libya was aleutian one thousand seven hundred three there's not invisible man operations we need a new resolution western forces plan that all along says a leading u.s.

law professor clearly what we're seeing unfold here in libya is a pre existing war plan by laid out by the british by the french by the americans with air moved everything now is for you know forty five years which is why i believe that since they have failed to live at the polls. with the steps so far the next stage will be moving into a ground invasion nato powers have jukes the international community into supporting war and that's one of them protecting civilians was the claim that's groping the country's resources is the real goal this is one of the most. worries and transgressions of rights of nation national sovereignty and international law that we've seen in the post-war period the west the u.s. and france and britain have been called berkeley according to the evidence that's leaking out covertly arming the opposition to gadhafi in hopes of grabbing control

of the oil and the different parts of libya the libyan government promise is still for nato if it sends in ground troops some agree such a war may be tougher than expected we will see increased military activity not only in the have it also on the ground and maybe this will solve the problem from a spectator or a major countries but maybe it will simply get a woman who. bombing from thirty thousand feet coalition soldiers feel fairly safe potentially war activists war putting troops on the ground risks not just more civilian killing but me two deaths as well the further away they get from high tech and they and the nearer they get to know tack then the greater the danger of casualties on both sides turkey china and russia will criticize the bombardment of libya for ms to say gay lover of things nato has already called for beyond the first un resolution to maintain

a no fly zone he hits the second resolution to move in grown troops may not come as easy there are several nations feel tricked if anybody wants to ask for this mandate welcome to the un security council we will discuss try to understand what was planned because the christians from the mandate that we are seeing now are enough to learn lessons with international opposition on the rois need two states face an uphill toss to make a case for more war or britain's prime minister will dealt same ground troops to libya his defense secretary admitted to parliament they planned exactly that but you have members good at the number of civilian deaths from nato bombing i draw unlikely to welcome escalation of the conflict than a bushel party london. and here to talk more about this is pepe escobar correspondent with the asia times ip how you do it it's nice to know it's so i mean is there much time oh it's our time i know it's on your mind but let's talk

about libya how would nato we hear here talk about some talk about putting boots on the ground how would that work will there be support for any kind of new u.n. resolution brazil where you're sitting now abstained from that first resolution of course not to mention china and russia who have veto power and they've been more outspokenly critical of the libyan intervention right. she looks real for weeks a group that you said this is coming yes exactly this will be the next move let's go back to the u.n. get another resolution to get boots on the ground and that's exactly the point the bric countries will coordinate once again then they will simply be too specially china i've been getting a call from beijing this press release from people a magic sources they say china would not even consider this resolution in effect they will be felt it was a trick like your report said they did first and the second and it's absolutely out

of bounds and so good at redhill ready said that all the record right so what do you think would need to happen do you think that boots will end up on the ground anyway. you know it's going to happen they are praying for a bass player to get s.s. in asian style and in effect be ready it's rooting through the libyan transitional council. for you know let's get cut back for the way you got those up so the big picture as i see it at the moment is that international law as we learned for the past fifty years is that no state at assassination is considered justice. humanitarian rule that you sneak into and then use nato as a weapon to pick sides in the super were these are still considered less true then you have a true war in pakistan that would keep growing more upright from the targeted

assassination or pull them out with a lot of collateral damage and this is actually proceeded less so well that for good both international law is ok let's follow this or that something you just said that you believe that the goal now is assassinating qaddafi and we did see his compound hit by a nato strike reportedly killing his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of twelve if the nato forces do in fact kill qaddafi if he is assassinated does that create a better situation an end to this violence or does it make it worse. it makes much worse first of all because the. great cause and never. has already been stolen but affected that western humanitarian we are is no going all the norse in africa so if you look at the headlines for these past three or four weeks what's happening in egypt like the you know the political situation in egypt and it wasn't

forces are fighting for power and trying to get to a real election electing a real. limit and a presidency these appear completely from the headlines saying about tunisia we're only talking about about how to get assassinations drone wars in when it's only preventions the way to circumvent international law via the wind. that day i want to ask you you know today we're hearing u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton saying that she does endorse a turkey a turkish roadmap for peace in libya do you buy that best. we should having burst the splendid nansook or because this plan has been on the table today and by those who took the turkish foreign minister and african union plan is first similar to the turkish plan and status a humanitarian could put everybody on the same table and discuss

a peaceful solution then we know who to propose something that's the only feasible way to get out of this quagmire but then i'm going to have that kind of conflicts with what you're saying that the united states really just wants regime change and wants gadhafi assassinated so which these are really going for yes is this is let's go look at the first owes them a p.r. debacle effect be the root of the roots. and you made. no motion so do you think that they are moving towards trying to push for a brokered peace agreement. through i had to like turkey from the better view of the us afterward happened with those that weren't there wouldn't be able solution the problem mr couldn't be. karen europe because this is the war in europe and the us was posing as ok we are in the background oh do they launch the we're through africom and then they transfer to

a neighbor which is the pentagon and europe essentially but circassian camera for them politically internally britain and friend this is their were in need to win it for electoral purposes and i was in d.c. distance from them and that's why they're panicking so now they have to be complaining but i don't write a book and so good and the. u.s. secretary of state it's ok it's a completely casket esque situation and it's even broadcast goes because no one. asked what's the mood of international law anymore i think this is the most important from where this mess well international are certainly comes into play i just want to back up real quick and last question just real briefly you know going back to in the african union did try to procure a ceasefire and gadhafi is croutons said that he's on board for a ceasefire no one believes them so in that situation what is the likelihood that the fire will ever be reached and do you think gadhafi is serious that he wants

that he would stick with the saying is he was trying to conquer misrata before actually implementing the cease fire the saying is but remember to implement this is a fairy tale because who is going to be for it so badly needs all his major assets in place if he doesn't have rights or syrian ica will not the most important installations it's ok with him so guess what his play for and that's why misrata will so you put into a new space for weeks so now i would say would ever saw. consider a true. story because no it's. interesting i want to wait and see what happens and see if your predictions continue to pan out the way it did with the call for boots on the ground i was asia times correspondent pepe escobar. now voters in the united kingdom are voting on a referendum that could change the system they use to elect members of parliament

now what will the toral reform is not expected to pass in the u.k. this time the prospect of reform has at least been raised so is it time to look at changing the u.s. electoral system critics of the electoral college system which is used to elect the u.s. president argue for one it makes it not a national election but rather fifty state elections and joining me now for more from atlanta georgia is a former presidential candidate herself cynthia mckinney thank you so much for joining us ms mckinney now i want to ask you why you think a system has been kept in place that has allowed a candidate you know going back to al gore in two thousand to win the popular vote in this country but lose the presidency because of the electoral college system. well we have problems with electoral college system there's no doubt about that but i do want to clarify one thing the reason an outpour lost the two thousand presidential election was because of fraud fry that was committed by the

republican party and republic party operatives so now if we're going to talk about reforming the united states system i think we have an expert inside the green party by the name of gordon who has filed two cases all the way up to the supreme court unfortunately failed the first time for lack of standing on the merits and so let's back up the mess make any effort if as you allege fraud was a problem in the al gore case maybe there isn't a case where the popular vote has not been recognized by the electoral college and maybe there isn't this you know example distressing example of how the electoral college system has failed this country. well you didn't let me get to the point of a sick or at least complaint before the courts ok and this is an active

way but it is not right now the substance of the matter is that the electoral college allow rules a mad party to control the majority party any circumstance no one would say that that is real democracy and no one would say that that is scare but that is not only the function of the electoral college it is also the purpose and the intent of having an electoral college and what is of gordon discovered in here is research on this matter is that interstates where there are a substantial number of black voters that the function of the electoral college even this franchise's those black voters people who are for example in my own home state of georgia so what would be the solution

to that what would be a better system. well a better system would be for us to get rid of the electoral college altogether the better system would be for us to not have these obstacles that exist for voters who want active vote outside either the democrat or republican parties the democratic party in the republican party doesn't for example represent voters who want peace voters who want justice voters who want change those parties are status quo special interest parties but don't reflect the interest for the will of the voters and unfortunately as long as we have a system that is able to be purchased by those who can

amass. mobilize it quickly we will not have a democratic system we do not have it can create a system in this country today and well let me ask you this what do you think would be the benefit to the rise of third parties with getting rid of the electoral college how are you so sure there would be one because there are still a number of legal and social issues that limit the rise of a third party candidate in some cases there are laws that limit them from even being on the ballot you yourself were a third party candidate for the green party i want to know what makes you confident that getting rid of the electoral college would simply solve the problem. well we we need to get rid of the electoral college but i didn't say that was the only mechanism needed to be changed inside us political system i also mentioned that we have very poor ballot access but those voters who were right to vote in

a party other than the democrat and republican party is very difficult for an independent voter in a state like for example georgia where i am very sad to act but for an independent candidate that also needs to be changed the influence of money in an election basically it's whoever can amass a multiple has the most money is pretty darn sure guaranteed to be able to win. is wrong and so we need limits on the amount of money that is spent in campaigns as well we also have a problem with the way in which we vote some countries have what's called preference voting so that they can vote for several different candidates and not feel that they are losing.