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

good evening it's thursday may fifth i'm lauren lyster and your watching our team u.s. president barack obama visited ground zero today in the wake of osama bin laden's death elsewhere though conspiracy theories are floor shing 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 and now the administration officials are saying they will give no more details on the raid on his compound in pakistan but is the p.r. fumbling and now clamp down just adding fuel to a brewing conspiracy fire artie's. 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 body there was. a

female who was in fact in the on the floor. that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin laden from the incoming fire by tuesday a big blunder there. major backpedaling in the room with bin laden a woman bin laden's what 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 back story the u.s. has also facilitated a rapid rise of conspiracy theories but they did estates hold the crunch of different stories they took some stuff. and that's just the conspiracy machine they've gone to fire a blaze that inflamed after failing to deliver on promises of person writing 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 some but not i don't think there was any question but ultimately a photograph or would be presented to the public we have no need to publish those photographs to establish that some of bin laden was killed 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 that 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 i mean while in martin's quick the burial has been the

target of conspiracists and act u.s. officials say was in keeping with muslim tradition they were determined that there is a requirement in islamic law that individual 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's 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 baracoa obama at the center of a two year conspiracy that died down once america's leader released his thoughts but now obama's actions surrounding the killing of osama bin ladin after paved the way for a whole new set of missing questions surrounding the transparency of the u.s.

government. artsy new york and earlier i spoke with lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer about this he's senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies a former counterintelligence officer himself and author of the book you see here operation dark heart here's part of our conversation. 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 that they were lodging it and well but other than the articulation i gather 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 packs but the basic inner organs who were what when and leave it at them come back to get the full story and then put out what will benefit you and this is this is common sense they do you think the united states should release the photographs of that look 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 a car we had the al qaeda guy and iraq displayed in his in his you know death

essentially what he looked 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 have his own plane to enflame and i don't are rightly and when the narrative gets changed by other folks in pakistan i think we're going to see a lot more inflamed going on in any one photo or set of photos would have done for us you know the. ited states continue to essentially the attic over war in pakistan it's one of the reasons why leon panetta says the u.s. needs to keep getting money and aid that it gets to pakistan but after this osama bin laden killing we've seen pakistani officials come out saying you know condemning it or are criticizing it pakistanis are very upset that their sovereignty was violated where does this relationship go from here and you said the u.s. overstepped their sovereignty but it is about every we know the u.n. didn't approve it obviously and pakistan isn't know about it apparently well to two things let's look at this very realistically first my book you just we 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 regarding 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 it's bad with that said we said who's not playing ball but not at the i want to back i.s.i. says that they were giving intel on this and i refuted as much as they thought they could get away with it that's it and with that said one of the things we've recognised and we won't talk about is that a lot of 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 d.n.d. and verify that i don't have it you don't merely as proof that my folks have told me that so the problem is any time we give them money they do not use it for the purposes which we give it to him for and it's funneled off in 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 are our indian allies in the process of what we're doing. that was authentic colonel anthony shaffer senior fellow at the center for advanced defense that even sticking

to that issue of pakistan which he brought up all the rest rejoices over the death of osama bin laden and american officials increased their criticism of the pakistani government pakistan has threatened to review cooperation with washington if there is another similar violation of pakistani sovereignty but in all of this it's possible many are forgetting the true toll this war is taking on the pakistani people and a country ravaged by the war on terror peace is fragile and not something to be taken for granted for as r.t. correspondent wary of the notion of reports. of some a stir couldn't have come into better time u.s. and pakistani relations are going through their worst period since nine eleven reasons behind it predator drones and private contractors when a cia agent shows two pakistani stand in the daylight earlier this year officials in islamabad said it was the final straw and demanded all american operatives leave

the country immediately we have to be doubly sure whether their presence border into pakistan or against in the interest of parks. why not western pakistan just one week before one kurdish leader was killed an empty u.s. gentleman strange and unite as hundreds of protesters furious that another twenty five people were killed and it's trying to take in the total number of civilian taps into the hundreds. kareem han lost his son and a brother in a two thousand and nine attack the drone operator and miles away from here pushed the button when it was night in pakistan and koreans how family was sleeping oh you were a real and i. meant. your. therapist be borg or pro left but this time and there would be other americans with many

people sharing this opinion pakistani officials are warning the us is fueling insurgency rather than cooling they harm more than they help because of the bulletproof damage is that your days of the civilians in the area america's reaction has been very good the white house first accused pakistan of not doing enough to counter terror if for the us changed its tactics finally addressing pakistan's calls to acts is america's trend acknowledging the despite signs of a peace offering and general and sentiment has continued rising u.s. plans to extend its military presence in pakistan and ensure its dominance in the region after its troops withdrew from a guy stand seem to have collapsed and he's about bin laden's demise just like us drones came out of the blue delivering a direct hit on us treat ix. which many say never to speak to me will hardly change the life of ordinary people here in

a country that's been in the mates to fact by the global war on terror. cells recently in pakistan was among the first to be cleared all the time and since two thousand and nine since families of the saudi army divisions have been patient in the region to protect peace and stability hope to move in operation to the least place feeling like tranquil as you can see people going about their daily lives that we have done with less than a hundred kilometers away from here and with the mountains all around this piece is very fragile august all right. but the country's army has always been alert now more than ever and. many fear the dearth of a summit in london will spark a backlash and danger to peace and has to be cheap to refinish not t. pakistan. meanwhile the libyan intervention continues and leaders from nato and the

arab league are meeting today in italy to plan a political transition following the departure or ousting of libyan leader moammar gadhafi now so far coming out of the meeting the west is looking to take some of libya's frozen assets to fund the rebels but is stalemate grips libya and it a 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 switched to according to mates of libya's leader colonel get there for years building a defensive positions the well civilian casualties from a lot continue to mount nato spokesman this solution sending ground troops. the u.n. security council should adopt a new resolution on libya resolution 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 in libya is a pre existing war play out by nato by the british by the french like the americans with air moved everything now is going affording to play and which is why i think that since they have failed to depose gadhafi what steps are solid far the next stage will be moving into a ground invasion and nato powers have jukes the international community into supporting war those one or them protecting civilians was the claim but grabbing the country's resources is the real goal this is one of the most. were reason 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 in 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 that we will see increased military activity not only in the air but also on the ground and maybe this will solve the problem from the perspective of a major countries maybe it will simply be. the one who. from thirty thousand feet coalition soldiers feel fairly safe i don't see what activists want putting troops on the ground risks not just more civilian killing but need to deaths as well the further away they get from high tech and they and the nearer they get to know tech and the greater the danger of casualties on both sides turkey china and russia criticize the bombardment of libya for ms to say lavrov thinks nato has already called the first un resolutions to maintain

a no fly zone he thinks the second resolution to move in grown troops may not come as easy now several nations feel tricked if anybody wants to ask for this mandate welcome to the un security council we will discuss trying to understand what was planned because the aggressions from the money that we're seeing now are enough to learn lessons with international opposition on the rois need to state space and open tolls to make the case for more war for britain's prime minister will dealt sending ground troops to libya his defense secretary of it's a part of what they planned exactly that but you have members all right good at the number of civilian deaths from nato bombing a drawing likely to welcome escalation of the conflict altie london and for more on the possibility of ground troops in libya earlier i spoke with alan cooperman he is professor at the university of texas at austin and author of this book the limits of humanitarian intervention genocide in rwanda i asked him if sending in nato

ground forces will end the libya conflict more quickly or if this would be a huge mistake he says take. i don't think there's going to be a speedy end through military force if there's going to be escalation on behalf of the rebels in libya against gadhafi and his regime that seems to me probably a long road them rebels or really a ragtag force in fact ragtag might be overly complimentary it would take months and months to really get them together to the point where they can take on a decent conventional military like cut off the ads so no i don't believe that's that's a quick and i think the way to the weekend would be a negotiated agreement and for a negotiated agreement you're going to need two things first of all you need to tell the rebels they're not going to get a complete victory they're not taking over the country they're only going to get

a share of power and then you have to be willing to deal with the khadafi regime elements of it and say that going forward they don't all have to step down and leave power that some of them are going to get to stay on with some political and military power that's the way to a quick and different if we try and do this military way it's going to not end quickly and it's going to get a lot more people killed as it already has done so we hear the polish and they're not talking about brokering a peace agreement but rather talking about it in military terms so why do you think that they are looking at this option what do you think they're really trying to achieve in libya if not a quick. well i think that president obama sort of revealed his hand early on even though the u.n. resolution only authorized military action to protect civilians.

president obama said from the beginning that cut off he had to step down and leave the country so it's clear what president obama wants he wants regime change and a negotiated agreement is not necessarily going to get you regime change and so that may be why we're seeing instead nato and the united states in the lead pushing this sort of military escalation i think it's a terrible idea both because it's going to increase the humanitarian cost there's going to be more civilians noncombatants killed and wounded and moreover it's going to help bring to power at least in part of the country this rebel force which has elements of radical islamists and it is so it's not good for the people of libya and it's not good for the u.s. national interest either have you seen a situation because you've been critical of the intervention all along for the reasons that you stated and you compared it to rebels getting support internationally and using the same tactics propaganda tactics you've called kosovo

and bosnia and other conflicts where the united states has gotten involved so i'm curious if you've seen a resolution where there was not intervention and things worked out just fine and there was a peace agreement brokered and great humanitarian. toll wasn't taken . absolutely yeah it's it's a case that i've written about published an article in a book and that will also be a chapter in a book that i'm working on on this whole question and that's the case of libya liberia in two thousand and three where as you remember there was a fairly ruthless leader named charles taylor. and there was a civil war going on with rebels and the united states came in did not put any large scale boots on the ground it not launched a bombing campaign did put some marines off the coast but the key was they engaged

in diplomacy and what they did is they said to the rebels you can't conquer the country you can only have a share of power so why are they doing that manager charles taylor you i'll just say that they said to charles taylor you have to go but you will get amnesty in a third country and they said to the people under taylor you don't have to go you can continue to have a share of power so everybody has an interest in peace and what happened is you've got a peace agreement and here we are eight years later and there's still peace in liberia so why didn't the obama administration pursue a similar course in libya i think it was in part because he was getting bad advice as i say from people like samantha power and susan rice who have made it their mission over the last decade to advocate for military force on humanitarian grounds and sometimes that can work but it should only be used in extremis and it wasn't the case in libya and as i've warned if you use it in appropriately then it can

actually cause more harm than good and just very briefly you know qaddafi xscape and nato missile strike in tripoli but if youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of twelve did not they were killed is this an example of the united states overreaching the u.n. resolution and if this as i aleisha of international law. it's clearly not authorized by the u.n. resolution which authorized all necessary means to protect civilians. and so protecting civilians would be stopping forces that are in the process of attacking civilians trying to assassinate a leader is not within the realm of protecting civilians so you know international lawyers can say whatever they want but i think a normal person reading that resolution would say that it did not authorize assassination so that's the first thing the second thing is when you start

attacking the leaders of countries for their behavior in a civil war against rebels where they're clearly not targeting civilians on mass you set a very dangerous precedent and i said this before that how about of somebody around the world didn't like the way barack obama is prosecuting wars in iraq iraq or afghanistan or libya and they said well then we're up obama is a legitimate target let's assassinate barack obama would brock obama feel that was ok and how that if they'd bombed the white house and killed his wife michelle or one of his daughters malia or saw a show would he say well that's a legitimate target i understand that of course he wouldn't so if it's not good for the goose is not good for the gander if it's not legitimate to attack the u.s. in that way then it's not legitimate for us to attack libya in that way and when i say us in this case it was nato i don't believe it was a u.s. munition or a u.s. craft that launched the attack but it was nato were part of nato and it was ill

advised i personally think when you do something ill advised you should acknowledge it and apologize for it and instead nato is just plowing ahead and saying well that was a legitimate target and we did nothing wrong they did do something rotten and we shouldn't do it again and my preference would be that we actually acknowledge the mistake. different perspective when you turn things around and look at it from a different side that was alan cooperman professor at the university of texas in austin author of the limits of humanitarian intervention genocide in rwanda meanwhile voters in the united kingdom are about to vote on a referendum that could change the way they elect members of parliament electoral reform is expected to fail 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 which the u.s. uses to elect president argue for one that it makes it not a national election but rather fifty state elections and that's just one problem

earlier i spoke with trying to england director of the save our states project here's what he had to say. the electoral college at least serves the cause of having national politics rather than regional politics and having a system that creates some political stability along the way which you know i think those things are very important a political system and i think the electoral college has served us very well ok you spoke about a national election or if there is regional elections but left it out a little bit because one of the criticisms of the electoral college is actually the exact opposite of what you said people argue that it impacts the electoral college when states do it tensioned by presidential candidates because that's where they focus their campaigning and even some of their policy promises birth is states that are expected to be actual wins for a particular party so get over a lot potentially well in the in the the irony is it's in again it's fascinating when you look at the history is that by pushing the presidential election down into

the equivalent of fifty one separate state elections which is the way the system works it actually nationalizes presidential elections more than might be the case otherwise because you can't have a regional quality it's what americans were in that house though because that sounds counter to the argument i just post here. it's exactly what happens is with swing states or with the election process a candidate just to be credible has to have broad you know relatively broad national support they have to bring a lot of states you know these states that we call say states they have to have a lot of support in a lot of states really to begin with in what the effect of swing states new it's true that people in swing states get to see a lot more campaign advertising in the candidates though they're more what is a swing state a swing state is whatever state in adding election happens to be the most moderate evenly balanced state what happens is that the phenomenon of saline states drives

our politics towards the center. you know those candidates already have broad national support that's why there are a lot of safe states in every election on on both sides those are places where most of the voters favor one candidate or the other in what the electoral college does it says but don't go in and spend your campaign resources making a state more radical pushing a state from seventy percent to eighty percent support instead focus on the state where you have forty five percent because if you can get from forty five percent to fifty one percent that you know that could win you the election because of the way the electoral college works not all here wouldn't want to ration instability and i'm so sorry to interrupt but also it means that when you're making and trying to get from point a five to fifteen percent there may be policy promises that get out and you focus on states like that and one example would be in two thousand and one the steel tariffs that george w. bush put in place when he was in office are believed to have to do with his desire

to win west virginia so how do you avoid special interests in that state well you know that the bottom line is no election system is perfect candidates always under any in we we can't hit the electoral college against a sort of utopian idea of what we would like elections to be like what we should do is look at actual single member district elections that's a direct election and we know that if you look at governors' races if you look at other countries where they do have direct elections for for their executive candidates still pandered to particular regional interests if you do away with the electoral college what would be more likely is is to have candidates entering you know probably more than even do now but it would be focused on the large population centers los angeles new york chicago the big cities would gain in clout in candidates would make more promises there rather than in those swing states and

again at least a swing state is a place that is getting that vote is because it. evenly balanced it's relatively moderate and i do think that that produces some very healthy side effects as much as we hate to see candidates entering in any kind of the other way we can agree there is going to be pandering going on that this is the nature of our political system so why not direct democracy to actually allow the majority of people to decide the country's leader will give it it comes down to what what is really valuable when the electoral college was created it's based on the same mathematics that go into making up congress it's it's actually the second most democratic part of the constitution congress on the idea of the house of representatives even the most directly representative in the senate being the least with the electoral college in the middle but the electoral college does bring along these added benefits then it prevents regional candidates we saw in the lot in the presidential election of eight hundred eighty eight the electoral college for ben

a candidate from winning in that case lee election based on radical regional support rather than national support i was trying to england director of the save our state project weighing in on that and with that going to do it for our show for more on the stories we covered go to our t.v. dot com slash usa and check out our youtube channel it's youtube dot com slash r t america a lot of really interesting videos posted up there we have the full sit down interview with presidential candidate for the republican party ron paul also a congressman r.t. host adam co-pastors show broadcast right here on our t.v. had that interview and also my full interviews from what you saw on this show i will see right back here for more news until then follow me on twitter at lauren mr and i think. three. thousand.