you know it actually is a problem of basic market forces there's a demand for firearms in mexico because of the drug trade because of the illegal drug trade and there's sort of laws there's a surplus on the market in the united states that's able to supply that but if we outlaw them going across the border except for our government doing it we will fight it we don't anyways they're going to be manufactured in mexico anyway all right we're going to actually read that there's not much else i wanted to get to but we're out of time for now that was adam could catch most of our teeth adam versus the man and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our t. dot com slash usa and check out our you tube page you tube dot com slash arky america you can follow me on twitter at lauren lyster and you can stay can right here for more news.

of the latest. the for. more news today is once again fled the families are the images from. canada the first child operations or pledge.

to see. the film the first for. the first. place in the story. in the lead up to the plum. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle united nations tribunals he's indicted some members of the lebanese shia movement hezbollah offer the assassination of a former lebanese prime minister is this special tribunal looking for justice or is it a tool attempting to take advantage of the country's deep political divisions and is living on the ultimate loser in this legal process. plenty to take the simpler. to cross-talk lebanon struggle i'm joined

by howard job are in beirut she's a british lebanese journalist and author in jerusalem we cross all makes arun he is a writer for commentary magazine and in cairo we have mona evades she is a professor at the american university in cairo ok folks cross talk was in effect but first let's have a show report on the tribunals findings to date. days ago a united nations tribunal delivered its long awaited indictment before hezbollah officials in lebanon accused of assassinating the country's former prime minister rafik hariri and a roadside bomb six years ago the indictments now risk reigniting sectarian violence in a country already rattled by decades of bloodshed the split of course stablished where now faces a tricky challenge it needs to find a compromise that both honors its international obligations and prevents a been just the little split with a shiite has a belong with men currently enjoying great political clout and lebanon but that's

what we are today in front of a new reality that request a wise approach and putting the supreme interest of the country peace our national unity and knowing the truth above all concerned. ever since it was opened in two thousand and nine the u.n. tribunal has divided the country along the sectarian lines for the sunni it has represented a chance of serving justice in the murder of a prominent sunni leader meanwhile hezbollah and its constituents have e-mails the tribunal as an american israel a conspiracy to foment civil unrest and sabotage the group itself. we reject everything from the tribunals including its faults indictments and false judgments we will not allow it to drag living on toward strife or civil war. and earlier this year hezbollah brought down the us government of late prime minister son saw theory when several of its members withdrew from the cabinet and defiance of the investigation suspicion of involvement of these us nation has also fallen on

shiite syria one of hezbollah's key allies and patron the syria to deny this connection with the killing the accusation led to mass protests that ended syria's decades long military presence in the country syria like libya is part of an alliance and that the violence is very wide it begins in iran. iraq's government are part of a syrian regime has won all eleven on how mosques in gaza. some experts warn that if syria becomes too embroiled in the investigation and now break of sectarian violence in lebanon will be almost unavoidable and especially alarming prospect given the spike in the sunni share a clash of the arab spring presently lebanese authorities have less than a month to execute their arrest warrants and has a leader hassan nasrallah has sworn retribution for anyone who tries to do this russia china a across our team. ok to go to you first since you're

in beirut this is been going on a long time and there's a number of people that are accused of this crime it happened in two thousand and five first it was being brains on the syrians a number of men were held they were late released then we hear it says below then people say it's around and then there are others that will say it's israel i mean is it gotten down to he said she said because there's a lot of people that can test a lot of the evidence in this case and there are many people expression in lebanon but don't trust the tribunals so who dunnit. that's the one million question dollar who who did what right from the beginning the investigation started on false grounds or wrong wrong wrong grounds it was it was amazing when i was watching it to see for example of the time that within minutes within minutes of the of the explosion that killed former prime minister hariri the finger of that decision immediately went to syria and not just from lebanon but you know within hours the

entire world followed suit and without any evidence without any proof without any anything ever at the time you know syria was being prime's syria was looked at seen as the prime suspect and was. such and events followed after that and continued to be accused for many years and then suddenly out of the blue that changed and i think it was pointed out has a lot. even in the early days you know before the tribunal was ever involved here. if you want the locals that were investigating the case i mean there were there was evidence tampering where removed when patients have been ruled from the scene of from the scene of crime. it was not sealed off within seconds and then dealt with properly there's been a lot of you know information over the years about various pieces of evidence that have appeared here and other. but have not looked into proper properly that were.

you know missed investigated at the time and then looked at again so that the whole thing about the. assassination has been marred with problems right from right from the minutes. he died all right only for you in jerusalem is this a legal farce speakers and i've heard these arguments before that the evidence is so tainted now in fingers were pointed you know really i mean is this really just is it is very different agenda play i guess really what i'm trying to say go ahead . well i mean we should we should distinguish between a couple of things the first is just because it was obvious from the start what kind of coalition was behind the murder doesn't mean that once all of the evidence was assembled that that evidence was wrong we most crimes the vast majority of crimes we have a general sense of who done it and then the job of investigators and subsequently

the job of prosecutors is to work through the rule of law in order to demonstrate that the initial intuitions were correct so just because fingers were pointed early is no evidence that the fingers were pointed correctly and in fact one of the reasons that fingers are pointed so early is because there was plenty of motive for syria and for their allies in lebanon to commit the murder and another reason is that it bore the hallmarks of the kinds of hits that we know syrian security officials have committed against lebanon lebanese officials attempted to resist syrian rule of lebanon so just because pingers were pointed early doesn't mean that they were wrong and it doesn't mean that there weren't good reasons for it now as to the substance of the investigation i think it's way too early to be talking about evidence that was tampered with evidence that was removed from the scene all of that is until it's presented at trial rumor margaret and the international community has called upon lebanon and the new lebanese government under prime minister mikati to launch an investigation and then to serve the arrest warrants

the questions of evidence are questions for trial not questions for rumor mongering and i'm confident that an international tribunal an international investigation from the netherlands which worked as long as it did has all of its ducks in a row and we'll see that the trial ever should to trial ever emerge no man i think wait a minute think we'd all agree there's i don't want to lose a lot of movie rumormongering about this mona feingold do you trust this tribunals do i trust this. well not really no but i want to say here is one of the biggest mistakes was to remove teddy as a prime minister he is the only one who could have juggled this so thing in a balanced way because he might have just learned you know not really pardon the s.s. ns but at least let go of this sort of thing which is very divisive and the evidence could become a flashpoint down the road if things become more tense so while it is gun in

lebanon today this i do not findings can easily be exploited in a much more emotive way and we're already have these tensions between the sunnis and shias so i really have things that only one who could have saved the day would have been prime minister's son teddy and not minister it's a heavy burden on his you know how are you going to get a home here because it's very interesting point was brought up here and i think it's like the eight hundred pound gorilla in the corner all the time is it what do we juggle here what's most important stability or justice because we've already got dichotomy today on this program a few seconds ago stability versus justice and can we find a compromise between the both. you can't. have justice you can't have justice without stability in the concept that if you are justice however going like a few things i mean just because saad hariri is prime minister or not you know the

case is still there whether his promise or not he was not removed his cabinet or his government was voted out of confidence as for the earlier guest who said you know about all the evidence i will come through and obviously some of the thousands and was being you know was being discovered over the years furthermore you know it's surprise that she says or he says that the finger you know pointed to syria meaning that because syria was in town and had other senator. incidents in lebanon that that means automatically it is it is it is the culprits but it but it is to mention or he fails to mention that israel also there are there are some there are hidden marks that are also the same as other attacks that were carried out and assassinations that work out in lebanon over the years by israel really secret service is almost that's just me i mean and the fact that this is resistance is best just untrue the hammer first or the military isn't true and the fact that

israel can benefit out of this and was never even suspect is actually begs the question in lebanon where the hardliners ok. let's go to jerusalem there's been trouble you mean your own original head first really answer go ahead let's let's go let's let's deal with both of those charges very very early the first charge is the attack or the hallmarks of the messiah you know we did mossad homeworks include confirmation of the killed lots of agents targeted a single person included specific kinds of ammos when the mossad allegedly killed. mugabi in syria that was one person would be killed. when they did the army in dubai that was aimed at one person it's not the case now there are people who will say. the fact that this didn't bear the hallmarks of a messiah here but rather than. the hallmarks of a syrian hit was them assad's attempts to make it look like syria did it ok listen if the argument is that it's them aside when it looks like them aside and it's them

aside when it doesn't look like them assad then that's not an argument that can be answered that's that is the essence of a non-fossil fiber conspiracy theory the second charge which is that israel benefited is an absurd charge his role did not benefit by putting his bala by eliminating his ball as opposition and eliminating syria's op and eliminating syria's opposition now it could be ok gentlemen right here all week in january it's all just a short break while to a short break we'll continue our discussion on the u.n. tribunals for levanon stayed with r.t. . to take. plenty years ago largest country. to see.

how did. you get a job. where did it take. today violence is once again flared up the families are the images. from the streets of canada. trying to go for

a shelter all day. keep the story. welcome back to cross talk computable about to mind you were talking about the u.n. investigation of the killing of a former lebanese prime minister. came the story. ok mona i'd like to go to you again another issue that's being brought up in this program is that who benefits the most from this crime ok and there's so many different variations here some people say it's the israelis the americans others say it's syria certain factions within lebanon of course has a law you know logically in your mind who benefited from this why it was done.

those who benefited is those who go into one to see a stable levanon and this has been going on for twenty five years and we don't know who it is but we know at the same time that there are people who are to be held responsible. until now we don't know who are the real people to sponsor but it is possible that there are other indictments identifying individuals in other countries and that's what we were trying to say earlier there has been speculation that syria could be issued with and it's not clear. that our speculation is that israel could be indicted also so nothing is clear but what i want to see is that beyond lebanon and syria this is a global judicial process that doesn't only belong to levanon because there's a limit on does not arrest the for a hizbollah figures if they are indicted then tensions with the international community could arise and action put us on

a soft trajectory and then maybe we could justify what hezbollah is saying that the tribunal is completely politicized instrument of the united states and israel but nobody wants to have a sectarian war in lebanon that's the main point here so we should see also what is a little response here a b.s. in salute. jump in there go ahead and move on to that seems a little bit. seems a little bit over the top to say that because lebanon doesn't meet its international obligations because hizbollah won't let it there's evidence that it's an american israeli plight it seems like it's a hizbollah plot to destabilize lebanon and to undermine the obligations that lebanon has been placed under by the international community there was a resolution the resolution passed there was a prosecutor there was an investigation investigation concluded it's hardly fair to blame anyone other than the people stopping the investigation and let's not forget what we heard in the introduction which is that the last government was brought

down over the government's refusal to disavow the hariri tribe you know the government was brought to his ball of brought down the government because the government failed was meeting its international obligations it's ok. to me how easy is it really is a lot of people would say this is part of the plan to destabilize lebanon and i think all of us would agree this is what's going to happen and why and he's behind it is totally different go ahead i'll go ahead i think i think i think as an observer as a journalist and i've been covering this country even though i mean i've been in this but i looked at through it for many years and i. you know i can i can say that it has little or any other faction for that matter and i don't want to destabilize the country they can as well has been one of the factors in lebanon so far and i'm sorry if people disagree but that's a fact on the ground that has made sure that this state you know that this country continues to be stabilized and refuses to participate and terry in war or conflict or to cause it is ation and. then on. down the government

lebanon shutting down the street you know. the government plan of lebanon voters a vote of no confidence like any other country can because it does have some form of a democratic system and then brought to the government and it's as simple as that you know and who everyone and their families know that you know we spend our money and . you say has. brought down the government i mean when you look at any particular government has the lies about two members and they say doesn't even exist you know how can a surety and our government i say go so it can i just go to mona here i'd like to go to mona there's there's one interesting scenario out there is that jim and i'm not going to point a finger at anyone right here but there are some people in the in the region and i'll be honest something about israel they are very pleased to see that the lebanese are spiraling among themselves because they don't want to see another. war with hezbollah because they hezbollah is been very very careful in expanding its

influence in the country in maintaining its grassroots stronghold which it has i mean it does have a lot of popularity in lebanon that something that would bother the israelis and throw in the mix what's going on in syria. syria is tomorrow. you know in the international issues. and that's why she it's serious keeping a distance from the details of the indictment if you notice. so the government is obviously has the mask has clearly supporters of the current government so it is obviously president politically but it will try to be as far away from the discussion about the war on terrorists as possible syria says this is an internal lebanese issue and if any syrians are in they did they will begin to internally that's what syria says now many other countries as you said maybe.

not happy better. not unhappy. as well let me go let me go let's go back to beirut let me go back to you would i want one of the thinking given this era that we live in now called the arab spring and i'm thinking about libya and things like that yeah you think. hollowing are you worried about are you worried that if the current government in in lebanon doesn't . fulfill the execution of these these warrants here it will be used as a pretext for regime change or pressure on the regime in trying to isolate the current political leader in lebanon i mean that seems to be the flavor of the moment now in dealing with the with political change in the greater middle east what do you think it's difficult to say regime change in lebanon because lebanon contra you know in contrast to say syria and egypt and libya you know where they

were ruled by a one man one party scenario lebanon is not is not that case so it's very hard to apply regime change in lebanon as such here you have governments governments going governments come there was no confidence now the new government is because his governments down the line i mean there is an attempt as we speak and then that. three days and they declared it the march fourteenth if you want the opposition at the moment said that it aims to bring down this particular governments and they're in session for the next three days starting today. in parliament to see whether they would vote for or against now the likelihood is that they will not be able to bring it out on this round but they could do that you know maybe another time. that the matter is you know there won't be as. you know it's a pickle i mean spring revolutions that are happening around the world we must we must be very careful not to stereotype them all as the same you know each country is different you know with its own with its own characteristics and its own systems and they apply accordingly you cannot take one and apply to the rest of the region

it doesn't work as well as we've seen and we thank you it looks very likely that the lebanese government isn't going to give up these four people being guided what do you think the result should be is that i mean what kind of message does that send in i'm not asking you to speak for israel but how do you think anything will be added to it. sure i mean. i think that israel will take it in the same way that lebanon will take it in stride the same way that the region will take it in stride nobody expects the hizbullah government which before they control the government when they were merely the opposition when they were merely a coalition partner said that they would cut off the hands of anybody who tried to arrest anybody indicted by the internationally sanctioned prosecutor and resignation so the question is not whether or not they're going to hand him over but what in lebanon will do for now i think that it on this issue probably is the only issue that the panelists agree which is that there is no taste in lebanon for sectarian conflict and if there was a case for secular and conflict and this is what the other panelist won't say what

is the fact that the march fourteenth movement would get that would lose his ball as would the u.s. trained lebanese armed forces would lose to his brother his boat was just the most powerful militia the most powerful military force if you will in lebanon and so the country is going to roll with it because nobody can do anything else and it's an interesting way of mana when what do you think about that i mean he gets a lot of media coverage there's a lot of hype but i mean everybody wants to keep the peace go ahead. absolutely and but you know we already it's can have i personally think that there could be tensions with the international community. as this as i said is a global tradition process it's not only limited to lebanon and syria and we already saw the movement last week i think in the u.s. congress which wanted to stop military aid to lebanon so this is very apparent that will impact on the many steps the other thing is i'm wondering why you didn't ask

about the role of saudi arabia i think saudi arabia has quite a bit an important role to play and i think it was although it was very unhappy when the daily government was felled this earlier this year. it's clearly started to lean on its allies in lebanon not to escalate the situation against syria because so did a b a is one of the countries that certainly doesn't want the arabs be the arab spring spreads that's a very good point. oh mike and if i can ask you i mean it's quite interesting here and we're in this program we've seen that how lebanon remains just a pawn of so many other countries and we can name them why if you were them it would have been mentioned here i mean is lebanon strong enough politically its political establishment to to make sure it doesn't become victim of outside forces to stir up these troubles that we've seen over the last few decades i think many years ago before during you know during the civil war and before the civil war that

was the case and yes many factions in lebanon have various if you want support from from from from other countries or allies in other countries however i think lebanon also has come a long way from from those days of you know when they went on the street and took them to the ground it's a different generation and you just have to go around and realize that this kind of generation at the moment is not interested. and taking up arms and fighting each other now yes every now and then they're going to street and then shot them screaming and demonstrates and then my bucks if you don't kick kick kick each other a little bit but that's about as far as it goes there's no intention by anybody to let you know it's a low level and you're into a war but more important more important he's just one more thought as you know everyone is going and again you know these are these are not things one you know or not not everyone says. has a lot for example those not once. but for this for this you know prosecution to go

to go ahead now there's a there's a slide this is your confusion right from the beginning has well i was part and parcel of this and it was part of the government i'm very sorry we've run out of time i'd like to thank the rest of our. thanks to our viewers for watching us here are keep she takes time to remember. the little. silly. though things. they'll they'll they'll they'll

they'll. they'll . twenty years ago the largest country in the world to certain places of. one hundred million men. began a journey. where did it take them.