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russia's foreign minister slams france for supplying weapons to libyan rebels saying its interpretation of the u.n. resolution to protect civilians gives carte blanche for a free for all meanwhile the international criminal court also comes under fire from russian officials who say its arrest warrants for the gadhafi family further damage chances of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. and in an exclusive interview with r t colonel gadhafi his son saif al islam says he believes his country's riches are need those target but that his people will fight to prevent foreign control of their nation meanwhile thousands have taken to the streets of tripoli in the biggest demonstration for months. greece urges the e.u. to release a bailout funds after athens passes a second vote on its austerity program to avert imminent default the measures including

a radical tax increases pay cuts and privatization were approved by violent street protests and riots. and up next peter lavelle discusses with his crosstalk guests why nato campaign in libya was supposed to end quickly continues with out three months after it began. we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from the realms of. the future of coverage. you. know you know welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle quagmire and standoff in

libya is there a military solution to the conflict in libya and a stable democratic and whole libya be created through the use of force to museum change and is there still a realistic possibility of a political solution. to. the process of the ongoing conflict in libya i'm joined by jim brann in london he's the spokes person for the stop the war coalition also in london we have and his he is 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 amara in los angeles is there a political solution to the conflict ongoing conflict now in libya because we see mainstream media says that's not

a possibility though we hear it here european officials saying there is there should be a possibility of a political solution and we have the the international criminal court saying that he 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 killings going on and the libyans will go about their. construction of their democracy and 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 if he leaves then his kids then we can actually begin to. omar omar there's a lot more as 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'd like to turn that question to jim 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 to 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 gaddafi won't be there but the question one question might be will shear 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 snoeck 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 this 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 simply being left out of the statute otherwise tony what i would be on trial in london for example or in the hague or wherever so it's very much seen as askew there is your mischaracterizations here as there are right i'd like more let me first clearly and let me go to first and then we'll discuss that here because i just would like to maybe go a little bit further with what jim had to say here it seems to me now that may when nato decides it wants to use military force against a country it uses the international criminal court to is a political tool we now it's really turning into last year 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 indicted for war

crimes. you know by extension shouldn't because of the feel of whether or not these people are and both of them know it's the case that the crimes warrants such as such a. verdict being put upon their head and it's a very very strong very very strong statement to the rest of the dictators in the world that if you do follow such vicious and such horrible crimes against your people that you won't be given or. as you think you may that's not this that the fact that tony blair and george bush should be should be investigated for their crimes in iraq but it doesn't mean by extension that 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 it is see it seems kind of i 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 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. and 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 there were indicted and. now 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 indicted five sets of people all of them from africa and nobody else that's just a factual correction ok but all my i mean you're saying this isn't a civil war then what is it because i guess the obama administration isn't call it

a war either it likes to use the term kinetic military action is that what you would call it as well what is kinetic military action. you know i haven't heard the term later i know that alludes to be honest with you but it's really imagine what it was or was it was it defined it as it is. go ahead well 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 equating it to to moral equivalence to morally equal swords which is a group of the fact that there's a revolution occurring in libya and it was being suppressed with the most violent means on. the missiles and bullets were fired at civilians and so if you want to call it a civil war feel free to but that ignores the fact on the ground which is that good their personal army i were talking a civilian population i don't know if i'm a history. as

a civil war you know i feel free to call it what you like ok jim if i can go to you why should nato be in the business of forcefully changing regime presumably to bring democracy and one has to wonder if it's good to keep the country together is one sovereign state i mean why is that nato mission now. well i think in a way i'm as police are in it although i think in the wrong way the fact that libya has been singled out in this way the fact that for example could afi 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 has not been singled out. but no no has any other headliner in any other arab. i mean aren't all of the bankers here think it's you're ignoring the very annoying the here is is the 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 in the grove were completely different it was an armed conflict now the civilians own and the army was all and it calls for intervention it's not the case and by her and please do not try to only been an issue and it is a very good story you know and if i could stay with us i could stay with you and it's 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 on this program however the indictment does seem to legitimize if not moral or 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 it's going to be you know nothing to do with each other ok i'm sorry didn't go first and i said no we're going to jim go ahead with the bombing of our country i mean you'd be hard pushed for money and the libyans that are complaining of of targets being bombed i

mean we're not bombing anything you know libyans and so if we don't want to go on but bombing joe use facilities then or bombing for the most part in a lawful in the interest level i would accept that there have been cases where a few civilians have thawed and subsequently civilians dying but oh well at the time for a very minute the fact that it's the intention behind there's intervention to try to kill civilians but it's beyond the fact that it is not for it's not for this for me to entertain or debate so far in that bombing the country almost assumes that we're trying to bomb civilians there that's not the case it's not the case it's been a success ok omar or mario i think i referred to you is jim i would go on more go ahead you had a point go ahead. well say it is and diving. 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 this 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 he can 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 in february seventeenth revolution on are not the only crimes that get that committed he's been committing crimes in libya since nineteen seventy three i mean there's thousands and thousands of people were killed and tortured in out of home are only going after 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. . to

. get the order to order. here this street still keeps its secrets or denounced time to reveal that in the soviet files on r.t.c. .

i was just thinking about my future before the foreign companies came i dreamed of owning a can cabin factory. but we have less garbage now. some visitors who come here make fun of me. regular garbage boy i'm not bad like people think. i'm a good person. it's just the people don't see me. but i feel it was time people like me. that i feel people will start to appreciate us. and.

welcome back to rostock i'm peter lavelle to remind you. talking about regime change in libya. 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 loved it when mainstream media and you see those reports but then i checked amnesty 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 line 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 happens in libya outside of the context of the nato powers interests 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 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. you know the united states. if you have the answer call no peter if you allow me peter if you

are i know you are going to join me again and i couldn't distinguish you saying one guy had you know what i had on or 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 rape in libya. there has been definite definite rapes in libya of at least three hundred fifty reported cases i was just in libya for three and a half weeks i've seen people in tears families. and. such bad emotional condition because their daughters were raped specifically the order of skin directly from get that and yet the way they know you are omar that i'm not dismissing it is that maybe true or not true but you know media reports and a lot of media coverage of the arab awakening has been very skewed for very different reasons here and we have plenty of people there's also want you don't

want to justify nato's aggression is well i mean and this if i can go to you i don't see any kind of surprise you go to you i mean do you want to see a libya that is created by nato through aggression through war is designed you sit with that how do you sit with that what do you what are you going to the only groups that want to go to some extent is there one second what employee i mean first and foremost the aggression there's no end to the people the people themselves i mean we have the criminal also at the heart of. the new season the other question we have higher morals and values but what about international law what about international law. well international insolvency to hell with sovereignty if people are throwing and being raped on the land and sort of all were well and clean for a minute these bizarre all of the logical storms which come at the expense of people when we talk about sort of attributes because because this tree has. some kind of you know. mechanic kind of a you know moron if you want to call it what he calls a mano

a mano kind of stunt in libya and i care about what he thinks of sovereignty i see more people being raped as someone who were murdered or well into play in 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 jim will be mourning hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in libya and they 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 was with us that but if we go into a second point and the second point is that if we feel that nato nato as aggression as we're going to roll call it is that is the defining factor in libya where 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 that are fighting on the ground they're the ones are risking their lives they're the ones and molding this country in a vision that they 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 first century also have aligned ourselves with holly and moral values when for this is that fear just even

if it can be used to align ourselves if i go to the gym 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 to me here nato is intervention i'll take the word aggression out if you want intervention here the the a mission creep that we've seen over the last few months can that create a viable libya that is sovereign and not dependent upon outside forces like the countries that make up nato particularly the united states. that nato can't just say would you like. to see we do have a un go ahead jim go ahead what what you will have in libya if nato succeeds or half succeed 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 eighty percent

of military spending the three nato powers in charge of this invention are the three biggest military spenders all three of the four we know you know it's regarded as a really big there in disarray as it is and you're in surrender in risotto for the employees like 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 intonation is avoiding did which is to sort of that was an incoherent by then so you have to know your ambition of being the west and to america you're not really looking at what you allow yourself the whole your moral values and support people that want freedom you know would you have allowed them to go to being massacred just because you know that it is you know you mentioned to people and i'd like i'd like to ask amara question i mean it intervention the international criminal courts indictments doesn't that undermine what the opposition the rebels rebels are supposed to do because now they do sway back and say well let nato take care of it for us ok then

they also become puppets of an outside force is that why not for a couple know that i mean it's 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've 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 mandate got and received a mandate from the u.n. to go in and save lives under the premise that 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 sort of analysis totally different analysis doesn't apply to me very different from this you know i mean it's about. the whole thing it's about our mission creep nine hundred resolution nine hundred seventy three said one thing and we have something completely different now that is the point jim what do you think about what the for i would probably do is that no fly zone to everyone you know jamie boots on the ground that's a big difference jim go ahead if if the if the head of the world's dominant military superpower and two. dominant members of nato declare that their intention is that the government of that country schol change that's the that's the issue and if they do it by violent people that it's also true that the people decide the issue that's an issue for. the folks on the street because we're only a month away from or four months away from it so let's not try to enter because it

happened three four decades ago we all know it's all documented and these people want to try and they came out to protest they were massacred they were massacred there's been massacres in libya. why do you want to you want to replay it when i was going to libya you know he was almost going to leave. them with salt away almost the same as put up in the massacres. in the south of tripoli though unless of course. so you said back in february march where was the massacre you said don't know much about it will you know i'm talking about under three that have been crippling the massacre's. massacres in tripoli on lone protester it's a short one you know when he referring to you being very very well known for what do you what do you refer to who are referred to as second we refer to the second week of the year of the protests when they reach tripoli and when over the bridge of holland listen to this thousands of protests was solid and they were shot at and in areas and for sure. there is the result of being too there is that my friends

there been people have been massacred and you want to try and call them later and so it's a question you will say that it's later this intervening is all right gentlemen gentlemen let's not dwell too much on this here omar i'd like to ask you this here because it's have a broader context you know if we look we are old if we look at the world today jim we want to say it would be mourning the death of thousands and thousands of more people as we mourn the death of people in rwanda i don't want to have the more cautious hope that you don't want to have that when you're consider well i think mido saying yes go ahead you say joe has a lot on each conscience to if we go back to cost of and we can get a stance ok jim go ahead does god you're saying i'm not a 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 it declares the resolution pretext on that

basis why i cannot nato intervened anywhere in a little you any time has any government sure anybody threat to kill people in but i was a threat to kill people in both houses it was imminent it was imminent people who were out of the ways in which i watched time they were wasting too much time i know mark leaving the last word omar gets 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 two some parts of russian t.v. the libyan people deserve to be helped and they were saved to help and that's that's the bottom line so to say that that you know they do it 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 guest today in london and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember prost talk to. me and. spending the year in iraq his military journalist. we still. there's kind of wasting their time trying to get killed.