never trust them. you have to be a loser. because those people going to the going to have friends over when i get you to understand us and the same thing could happen to any other country and i just want to point out that saif gadhafi got his ph d. from the london school of economics he was instrumental in negotiating giving up weapons of mass destruction for libya he was viewed as a reformer and on occasion criticized the libyan regime so it really begs the question the u.s. which is pushing for reform in this region are they working for or against it. and that is going to do it for this show you can watch that entirety the entire interview at r.t. dot com that's going to do it for now. it's been in the year iraqis and military journalists i saw some ways to go in the u.s.

contractors there's kind of wasting their time trying to get killed three. i thought all along the link that you can see about five hundred miles i think it would take me about twenty seven days points of publicising people invited. i think . people started the base of the dialogue just. chanting the slogan or waving some stones.

take. the low end welcome to crossfire i'm peter lavelle quagmire and standoff in libya is there a military solution to the conflict in libya could a stable democratic and whole libya be created to the use of force museum change and is there still a realistic possibility of a political solution. can. the process of the ongoing conflict in libya i'm joined by jim brann in london he's

the spokesperson for the stop the war coalition also in london we have and his album marty he's a libyan political analyst and in los angeles we cross to omar tora b. he is a political analyst and a founding member of the libyan human rights commission all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means crosstalk rules in effect and that means you can jump any time you want and i always start this program with the person that had to get up early as far as i'm going to go to you omar in los angeles is there a political solution to the conflict ongoing conflict now in libya because we see why mainstream media says that's not a possibility though we hear here european officials saying there is there should be a possibility of a political solution and we have the the international criminal court saying they tell khadafi his son and a security chief should be indicted for war crimes and that kind of says you shouldn't talk to people like that so i asked my question again is there a political solution to the ongoing conflict quagmire standoff in libya.

peter thank you so much for having me on. it depends on your definition of what a political solution is. quite simply if he and his family leave libya we want to have any war we want to have any bloodshed we want to have any killing that's going on and the libyans will go about their. construction are very good moccasin i want to refer your audience to a report that just came out yesterday by the national democratic institute you can find that on my website omar turby dot org and which actually spells out what the transition period would be and how it would take place to answer your question really yes there is a political solution that he leaves and his kids then we can actually begin to to well mark o'mara there's a moment i can interrupt there's no indication they're going to leave ok so i mean to stop the bloodshed maybe there should be talks and i think turn that question to

jim i mean i'll ask the question and can there be a political solution because the current regime shows no interest in leaving the scene it will continue to fight and after the indictments from the international criminal court it looks like they will continue to fight because there is no way out now for those people what do you think. yes i mean i think i think the quagmire will only get worse you cannot present i think you cannot present the interest of nato as being the interest of the libyan people nato and the nato powers have converted the libyan civil war into something else and that will roll on and i know the fact for example that today the african union summit convenes in. in equitorial guinea and we know that gadhafi won't be there but the question one question might be will sheer of sudan be because remember that there was a into nobody has ever been indicted by the international criminal court except

somebody from africa and the most the highest ranking one is the president of sudan and the african countries are cocking a snoop at this international criminal court because it is seen to be simply a tool of the western powers and that will roll on so the credibility of it for example will be shot and the fact that william hague gets up when the international criminal court issued its indictment two days ago and says this only proves our point remember that the statute of the international criminal court is entirely skewed the supreme international crime as it's defined is the crime of aggression and it was the foreign office legal advisor here in london who to a man and woman said that the iraq war was a crime of aggression and that's simply been left out of the statute otherwise tony blair would be on trial in london for example or in the hague or were so it's very much seen as the skew there's your mischaracterizations here and there are more let

me first clearly the first to go discuss it here because i'd just like by to maybe go a little bit further with what to jim had to say here it seems to me now that meat when nato decides it wants to use military force against a country it uses the international criminal court to is a political tool but we now it's really turning into mass here in service of warfare what do you think about that. well. if you mean. the because of the fact that tony blair and george bush weren't voted for war crimes. you know by extension we shouldn't because i thought fear of whether or not these people. it's the case that the crimes warrants. such as. if verdict being put on their head and it's a very very strong very very strong statement to the rest of the arab dictators in the world that if you do follow such vicious and such horrible crimes against your

people you won't be given or at all for years you think you may. tony blair or george bush. should be investigated for their crimes in iraq but it doesn't mean by extension you know that the arab dictators of the world should get away with such heinous crimes ok omar you want to jump in there i mean if you see it seems kind of odd did you know you should be indicted for war crimes if you kill other people not your own people but if you kill your own people you should be indicted it seems kind of skewed in itself omar go ahead. what i'm trying to say there is no civil war going on in libya we're not talking to war and factions with equal amount of weapons the libyan regime decided to kill its own people with its own military machine. innocent civilians that's one too i think. in london is saying there are no people that have been indicted outside of africa

the balkan states we have at least one or two people that were indicted and. you know you. know you're going to jail and i think the international i think the international criminal court which began operations in two thousand and two specifically the international criminal court has now and i think five sets of people all of them from africa and nobody else that's just a fact of correction ok but all my i mean you're saying this isn't just civil war then what is it because i guess the obama administration isn't call it a war either he likes to use the term kinetic military action is that what you would call it as well when he's kinetic military action. you know i haven't heard that clearly when i was a little loose to be honest with you but yeah but it is really imagine what it was it was it was a define it as it is. yeah go ahead what i think i think we're looking over we're looking at a very different perspective i mean you can call it

a civil war if you'd like to but i think. you're almost a critic of the two moral equivalence to morally equal swords which is a group of the folks that there's a revolution occurring in libya and it was being suppressed with the most violent means. of missiles and bullets were fired at civilians and so if you want to call it civil war two for example that ignores the folks on the ground which is that there pianist personal army a civilian population i don't think you know from history. as a civil war. ok jim if i can go to you why should nato be in the business of forcefully changing the regime presumably to bring democracy and one has to wonder if it's going to keep the country together is one sovereign state i mean why is there a nato mission now. well i think in a way i'm asked police finger on it although i think. in the wrong way the fact

that libya has been singled out in this way the fact that for example khadafi has been indicted in the fastest process ever indulged in by the international criminal court unprecedented speed whereas no other arab leader and i would single out in this particular context for example the king of bahrain is not being singled out. nor has any other head of anyone or else any other arab. i mean i'm told the bankers here think it's you're ignoring a very annoying the for the good and here is these are completely different type of force to suppress and whilst we were facing the same force in libya as the barneys you were for the libyan people not asking for international intervention but when the scenario changed the reality in the fundamentals of the details of the growth were completely different it was an armed conflict where the civilians on and the army was all and it calls for intervention it's not the case and by her and please do not try to eliminate israel it is a very good story now and it's if i could stay with us like i got if i could stay

with you on this real quickly i mean i don't think anybody on this program is wants to justify anything that mr gadhafi has done or not done i don't see that happening here in this program however the indictment goes seem to legitimize the it's not moral morally allow the continued bombing of libya and i think that's the point that jim is getting at here but i think well you know normally when you can do this with the media nothing to do with each other ok i'm sorry don't go first unless you know we're going to jam go ahead and the pulling of our country i mean you'd be hard pushed for many many libyans complaining of of targets being bombed i mean we're not bombing anything that you know libyans off wouldn't want to go on and we're going to use facilities that are not bombing for the most part and i don't know if and it's of interest no i would accept that there have been cases where a few civilians have thought it and subsequently any civilians dying but oh well and fine for a very minute the fact that it's the intention behind it is intervention to try to kill civilians that has been on the phone it is not for it's not for this for me to

entertain or debate so upon the country almost a sense that we're trying to consulates there that's not the case it's not the case it's been a success ok omar or mario you know i referred to you is jim i would go more go ahead you had a point go ahead. well what i'm saying is and i didn't get that he is. not has no relationship to nato is increasing its bombing or the start of the bombing or ending the bombing you know it's the guy committed crimes against the populace civilians and he deserves he pain is crimes from rape of women to. bring in mercenaries from outside the country and killing people so this is you know this is the truth of the matter and he could you know he conducted himself in this fashion and he deserves to be tried as a matter of fact i would really rather see him tried inside libya and this man

this is february seventeenth revolution. are not the only crimes that gaddafi committed he's been committing crimes in libya since nineteen seventy three i mean there's thousands and thousands of people were killed and torture it is a lot of them are really jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on libya stay with r t. h i'm arriving here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

you can. start. with. well the measure crosstalk i'm curious about to remind you we're talking about regime change in libya. egypt story. ok jim i'd like to go to you in london me we just heard omar mentioning about rapes and other heinous crimes being committed in libya right now but you know i looked away when mainstream media and you see those reports but then i checked and this the international human rights watch and they have not been able to determine any credible witnesses to mass rapes in khadafi libya now there seems to be a very big skewing of lines here between what mainstream media western governments

and what reputable human rights groups have to say about what's happening in libya how do you explain that. i think the thing is very simple you cannot possibly take the question of libya or what happened in libya outside of the context of the nato powers interest geopolitical interest it makes no sense whatsoever i think the starting point of any discussion should remain what was agreed in the first half of the twentieth century and it should stay there the fact that they are shifting the position the fact that they are tearing up agreements in the first half of the twentieth century makes no difference if you abandon that as your starting point then i think you fall into the swamp and that it's the very same swamp that was established in the first half of the twentieth century which arrived at the conclusion that you could not use humanitarian pretext for the intervention for the use of force on the world scale that was the issue that was what was agreed in the

late one nine hundred forty s. and i think i think that nothing of that has changed and so richard is a sitting president of the united states. if you have this and this is a call you know peter if you allow me peter if you are already just being asked me and i couldn't distinguish you saying why go ahead you know what. i'm quite disturbed to hear people i mean you're referring to. human rights watch or amnesty international or whatever reporting agencies as far as libya. you know there has been definite definite rapes in libya of at least three hundred fifty reported cases i was just there in libya for three and a half weeks i've seen people in tears families. and. such bad emotional condition because either the daughters were raped specifically the orders came directly from god that and yes the way they're no more omar than i

dismiss it is true or not true but you know media reports and a lot of media coverage of the arab awakening is been very skewed for very different reasons here and we have plenty of people also want to you want to justify nato's aggression is well i mean and this if i think that you want to see this uprising go to you i mean do you want to see a libya that is created by nato through aggression and through war is designed to use it without how do you sit with that what do you. want to use it. there. one second want to employ them in first and foremost the aggression there's no end to the people the people and so for me we have to come also if the heart of a moral values and this is in the world a question when you know how your morals and values know what about international law what about international law interest well international law and sovereignty to hell with children to your people are growing and being raped on the land i'm sorry but i won't i will and for a minute these bizarre ideological sponsors which come at the expense of people

when we talk about this because bigotry has the place or some kind of you know nor can it kind of you know morally if you want to call it because i'm one of you know i'm on a kind of start a new view that i care about what he thinks of sovereignty by saying what people being raped person we're doing murdered over and playing international law saying sovereignty is over until one group women and children are being murdered and if we followed the logical conclusion of the line of argument of someone like him who would be mourning hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in libya and you want to trust with us to look at what would be different has no idea of his track record or his intentions and doesn't you know for me they're walking on a very very morally dubious ground here but i would guess that but if we go in first like important second point is that if we feel that nato made as aggression as we're going to grow in color is that you know is the point in fact fairly good when taken into account something that you know it's completely besides the fact the fact is is that libyans here the equal power brokers they're the ones fighting

on the ground they're the ones are risking their lives they're the ones unloading this country in a vision that we want to and i think we have to sit here as as europeans as people of the world here that have gone into the twenty percent true selves have aligned ourselves with hollywood moral values ok well for this is that fear is diminished and it can be used to align ourselves if i go to him here you know international law was created to protect people ok and to avoid these kinds of things ok i mean i'll ask you the same question i mean he nato intervention i'll take the word aggression out if you want intervention here the clear mission creep that we've seen over the last few months can i create a viable libya that is sovereign and not dependent upon outside forces like the countries that make up nato particularly the united states. then nato took longer to say would you like. to see it would you have a un go ahead jim go ahead what what you will have in libya if nato

succeeds the hearth sixty is a nato peace and it will be that kind of conditional peace it will not be a peace arrived by the libyan people because nato will have presented itself to nato nato encompasses something like between seventy five and eighty eight percent of military spending the three nato powers in charge of this invention are the three biggest military spenders or three of the four billion it's regarded as a really big there in disarray as it is and you're in syria and as a result of their employees i think their military force shall be the decisive factor that is their overriding interest so that they can intervene in the arab spring for example so that the libyan people will not do what the gyptian alternation he wishes to sort that wasn't i that is all you have to. be worse than the america you know what you're looking at what you align yourself the whole your moral values here and support people who want freedom you know would you allow them to are going to be massacred because you know that it is you know you

mentioned the people and i'd like i'd like to ask mark question i mean is this intervention the international criminal court's indictments this is that undermined what the opposition the rebels the rebels are supposed to do because now they describe and say well let nato take care of it for us ok then they also become targets of an outside force is that why not for you know that is a theoretical question it's a fair question omar what do you think about that. you know first of all you know why are you set why are we saying that nato is intervening or conduct and aggression in libya they have received their mandate by the un resolution nineteen seventy three i mean by that i would let me just remind you let me remind you of an event that took place in two thousand and eight putin of russia went into georgia and tried to save the georgians and the russians that live in georgia i guess what did you go anywhere and got a mind received

a mandate from the u.n. to go in and save lives and when and under the very thought under the pretext or the reality of protecting human rights and that's exactly what happened there and and it wasn't an aggression against georgia so it's a totally different kind of analysis totally different analysis and it was very different i won't work on this you know i mean it's a politician create the whole thing it's about a mission creep nineteen resolution one thousand nine hundred eighty three said one thing and we have something completely different now that is the point jim what do you think about what the problem is the no fly zone to everyone here entertaining boots on the ground that's a big difference jim go ahead if if the if the head of the dominant military superpower and two. dominant members of nato they call their intention is that the government of that country shall change that's the that's the issue and if they do it by violence suppose you've got people deciding

issue that's an issue for the day was all but. please vote trying to please vote for three because we're only a month away from or four months away from it so let's not oratory because it didn't happen for republicans that we all talked about all the news people want it turned out to protest they were massacred they were massacred there's been massacres and. why do you want to you want to replay it when i was going to live here going to somehow secretly. and without avail of the necessary bit of being a masochist in the self interest of the us of course. so he said back in february march where was the massacre you said the massacre where were you talking about understood that it could have been crippling massacre's. being massacres in tripoli are known protests were short of money already you're offering this you've been very very colorful what do you really refer to refer to the second group referred

to the second week of the year of the protests when they reach tripoli and when over the bridge of poland the single greatest thousands of protests was solid and they were shot at and in areas and for them are areas that i know there is all been through there is no my friends there been people have been massacred and you want to try and call them later and so it's a question who was that it's later this intervening is all right gentlemen gentlemen let's not dwell too much on mr omar i'd like to ask you this here because it's have a broader context you know if we look we're old if we look at the world we want to see would be mourning the death of thousands and thousands of people as we move people in rwanda i don't want to have the work office you don't want to have the only consider well i think you know saying yes go ahead jewish nation has a lot on each conscience to go back to course of oh and we can get a stance ok jim go ahead does god gradually you're saying i'm asked are nasa scientists time he is saying because some people were shot in tripoli although this wasn't publicized i take his word for it some people were shot in tripoli in

february some people were shot on that basis nato the mighty the sole power block in the world can then proceed to launch a war of eleven thousand missions including four and a half thousand strike missions because they claim as little reason pretext on that basis why they cannot nato intervened anywhere a little to any time has any government shill for anybody the threat to kill people and others and the threat to kill people and others it was imminent it was imminent people who were out of burglaries which are let's start i think we're wasting too much star you know mark leaving the last word on margaret's last word of this program go ahead. first of all jim i'm sorry to tell you that you have absolutely no credibility in your argument whatsoever the whole entire world says this on all networks from c.n.n. to as a zero to b.b.c. to some parts or russian t.v. the libyan people deserve to be hot then they were seen to help and that's that's

the bottom line so to say that that you know they threw doesn't doesn't have any legal right to go in and help the libyan people from being massacred by the libyan regime just makes absolutely right on that knowing general and i'm sure we all have the welfare of the libyan people at stake here many thanks my guess a day in london and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are t c n x time and remember cross talk. wealthy british style.

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