crosstalk nato's mission in libya i'm joined by your johnson in london he is the founder and director of viewpoint africa also in london we have marco gas a key is a political analyst an expert on south east european affairs and in barcelona we cross to omar sure he is a lecturer in politics of the modern arab world at the university of exit are all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want omar i'd like to go to you first in barcelona how would you assess nato's operations in libya to date because depending on the new source you want to read it still made its quagmire. we coming across reports of rebels committing human rights. violations they're not looking so pretty anymore and it's just basically a civil war that has come to a stalemate so how would you assess nato's operations to date well that's a civil resistance campaign to a dictatorship that somehow turned into an armed conflict because that was the

choice of the logically does intervention came out of necessity calls from the. opposition fighters nine hundred twelve watch the situation was quite that. these forces were on but it hasn't given what given this level of oppression given what happened. there was the likelihood of so i mean look all day let me ask the question how do you think it is as you think nato is playing a positive role right now. it's hard the whole situation is not positive the whole situation is obviously the far from ideal but relatively speaking there is some advancement on the ground given that with this started in march. whether this will yield a military victory for the. sea the international council and the need to or whether it will end up in a political compromise by which gets out or some of his clans and some of his

regime figures will be part of the future of the this is what's that's the question that is. put forward now ok the other thing also is well how many negative consequences can happen in any armed campaign we can talk about you know what can happen in the postcard that he does well whether he stays in power or partly in power or whether. some of it is all whether he goes away in both cases there will be some negative consequences in aftermath of nature's intervention ok mark what do you think about nato intervention in libya today. later in the program i'll quote some of the figures within nato all bickering among themselves and pointing fingers i guess they didn't think about it too far ahead when they started this campaign go ahead. well nato always goes into places as i know very well from from previous experience of those interventions for his own reasons there's no concern there for any opposition however marginal or have

a morally justified they may or may not be nato is. aggressive alliance which operates on the basis of that it wants to place its military in key areas of the world command and control resources and territory that's what it's there for it's not some kind of moral creature it's a beast really and when the nato powers can't make money and propaganda work for them and undermine governments abroad then they move on to the military machine and the propaganda the false atrocity stories the indictment by tame courts which should know better and all of these things have been done in many other countries and they've been done to libya now and at the expense of all the libyan people as well i think we would have had a short conflict here perhaps there was a case for pressuring colonel gadhafi to listen to the demands for change within his own society but there is no case to launch a major war and an open ended one a new iraq. on the people of libya this will not lead to anything good it's not

leading to anything good now but it was never designed to be designed to lead to occupation and division of libya by the nato pact that's what it's there for that's what it's going to do iow if i go you in london also i mean the nato didn't plan for this very well i mean and it certainly looks like they're bombing campaign is not only moving anything forward gadhafi is still there they're just killing civilians now as well i mean is there is this public bombing campaign can it be yield any final result can you bomb this country to peace. well every day that goes by labor has been called into bits and pieces the infrastructure has been damaged not to mention that the people are being displaced from their homes and people are living in abject fear while of course the longer it goes on the more likely the war is meant to go bad against nato because it's very much about the hearts and minds how can you maintain the status quo how can you and show you keep the coalition in the fashion it is currently with nato together and how are you going to be able to

build on consensus internationally as you know currently the chinese the the indians russians and a few other countries are expressed reservations about nato bombing and the longer it's going to take it's going to cost a lot more money a lot of these countries are not in the mood for spending money and from a from a from an imagery perspective is damaging every second because more than likely you can make more mistakes you can get the coalition to get the wrong in form of these bombings and the campaign to go to the wrong against them so i think the long way to go the more likely nato is to find itself in hot water as we've been seeing over a period of time and the longer it does go gadhafi could think that he's been able to survive this long he could go go it's alone to the end but it's very very difficult to see how we can come out of this one simply because the the overwhelming power is just way too much for him and well the thing is he's not we can enough to defeat the rebels and the rebels are clearly not strong enough to b.p. to defeat him so we have this stalemate situation which is not

a real benefit to anyone and i think i as a whole the libyan people are suffering oh my if. barcelona there's been some news reports that france is in direct talks with members of the gadhafi regime though just prior to that france condemned italy for calling for a cease fire and then simultaneously have khadafi spokespeople say there should be a cease fire should be approved prerequisite for some kind of negotiations so it looks like there is there are elements there that people want to talk what's wrong with the libyan proposal a cease fire to talk no more bombing and see where we go what do we have to lose. the main issue is that you have very serious credibility problem and credibility problem comes from forty two years. when he was ruling but also credibility long ago or more of a long long ago the west is the race mr gadhafi remember remember all the pictures with tony blair with you know obama with you know the elite of the west i mean so

there is a credibility issue but i mean it goes back and forth right. yeah because of course here i mean. i think one of our colleagues just mentioned the west operates on bases of interests and when interests intersects then you know a lot of the human rights violations are looked not looked at but when the interests do not intersect then those human rights violations of us are highlighted and that's the case with libya obviously oil interests and other interests the moral outrage i mean we were talking now about the violations that has done throughout his rule is rule but if you if you want to speak about an i.c.c. indictment the correct one that could have happened in july in june one thousand nine hundred six when the deficit forces committed in my second a crime against humanity and obviously in prison in tripoli you were twelve hundred thirty political prisoners were gunned down with mass graves and i visited the area

they did on in two thousand and ten and you would have stories from the outside there's people outside the prison and stories from x. detainees who witnessed part of this message because so it's not like something that was nobody knew about but you had actual witnesses that heard and know some of the details of what's happening but this did not happen this was postponed until two thousand and eleven where the you know the interests with it not going to get it also it's a legally expedient so it's politically expedient marco if i go to you i mean why not why can't there be negotiations if they're on both sides of the conflict aren't talking about it why can't there be an attempt to talk and stop fighting i mean you don't have to like each other to have an agreement. well the basic reason is four letters it's not it's not a talking organization you could say because basically if it was it would listen to the mandate it's been given the mandate security council resolution one thousand nine hundred three demands in very first clause the immediate establishment of

a ceasefire so what part of that doesn't and nato not understanding cease fire and if nato ceases fire the rebels it supporting will cease fire gadhafi will also be forced to cease fire then you may before things get much worse have a chance of a dialogue which the resolution also calls for and then you may have a chance alternately for reconciliation between the peoples within libya before too much murder too much death has occurred and before too much foreign occupation and puppet governments have been installed so the best chance for libya is that this war stopped very quickly indeed but of course that isn't what nato wants because nato wants that the usual suspects within nato i should say the ones who attack everywhere and always use the same excuses want to do the same thing they did elsewhere here they want to occupy libya they want to get their compliant puppet government in which will give them cheap deals good contracts they want they've got it all planned out and the libyan people will be the victims if they allow this war

to continue and that will include the rebel side if i go to your it's i'm so interesting to me is that where iraq they didn't plan for after the invasion it seems like in this case with libya they have everything planned except for winning the war what do you think of that. well yes if there's one thing is that the americans and some of its allies have got to learn from the experiences that they saw in somalia not to mention afghanistan and iraq it's failed miserably in those areas and if it continues in the fashion it is with libya we are likely to go down that same route i think the concern all around is how do you ensure that you maintain that what the mandates the u.n. mandate clearly calls for which is not regime change is protection of civilians and property so i think it's going back to the blueprint how can we get to stop complying to international regulations in terms of maintaining the status quo rather than choosing and for me it's all it's own opinion as to whether they want to get rid of gadhafi or not mark or you want to jump in there. yeah it's not just

international regulations it's international law and nato does believe they cannot just manipulate its way and ignore all deceive the security council once it's in there on any basis it's going to act on its own basis is this is just arrogance by the western powers i believe it's about colonial. background these this is the new imperialism that we're faced with i think it's the biggest danger to a stable world that simon both russia and i am going to join here a statement and here we are to go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on libya stay with r.t. . and you can. start . world with. you the latest in science and technology from around the world.

we've got the future covered. and you can. still. welcome back across our computor all about true mind you were talking about the protracted conflict in libya. and you can. see. i want to find back to you in barcelona it isn't this kind of. attitude that add.

salute surrender total surrender of the khadafi and his his regime isn't that this short sided that doesn't that just keep the conflict going because what reason does he if he's going to be put on trial by western powers. for war crimes or what what interest does he have even do to give any room at all i mean human nature would say you have to then you have to stand and fight to the death which is continuous this civil war is protected war in libya. yeah i partly agree because but this is a conflict process you know we didn't start by an i.c.c. indictment or a started by you know putting him in a close associate of his that is international wanted this didn't stop like that it started with again as if it is distance campaign mainly organized by local libyan people was it in benghazi or in tripoli or in. in other places in libya and then that apply was a vicious oppression campaign that seldon's of this and then an organized campaign

by the. sea and the demonstrators to well and i'm jealous that an intervention of the question. just to ask you if it was just a civil resistance campaign how were they able to take a city of six hundred seventy thousand people with a repressive regime and the organs of the relations are very much as i understand this at seventeen yes you're sure that seventeenth of february the conflict actually thought that the by the end of february maybe because there was defections within the regime of the deaf you know they did minister the head of the special forces. the justice minister multiple diplomats throughout the world all of them saw all the level off oppression and they were amazed that lever then you saw a series of defections which is. what led the situation to be armed because then you had that at the personnel saying that an office enough we're not going to shoot

on our own people and they were siding with the people like what we saw similar situations in egypt in tunisia except that the army in egypt in tunisia acted as one unit so they decided that people took a point there was no you know if i could go to you i mean the thing is that the west has chosen the side ok i've been to a do good comparisons to other situations don't really work because the united states and it's not nato allies to a certain group of people rebels that actually human rights watch now so you committing atrocities against their own people here is this just opportunism on the part of some people in libya and western powers. well i think to an extent it is because let it go ahead. i think to an extent yes because the rebels. never really been able to show that they can control that country they've never really truly been able to show that they have the governance skills to be able to control that country and i think the west is going to show who seriously bringing all the various factions within libya as one on the one control post gadhafi than

it is weather wise to remove gadhafi so i think it's a lack of foresight lack of understanding of the issues on the ground i'm going. to want to for haste to get into a conflict a confrontation that you know very little about and that i think what's happening now with nato is that they realize that they've jumped into quickly conscious of taking sides too quickly when they should have stayed back and watch the situation and i know awfully over time they could have done so but i think it just shows that the the west. to occupy that land and to control the oil and. it would appear in this particular instance that to supporting the rebels who are clearly ill disciplined poorly equipped who do not have the mandate to control the country is a poor decision because we can see now that there is going to achieve anything marco if i go to you maybe just to extrapolate there and when we just heard it is nato look like the nato just think this is going to be a quick easy war i mean it can redeem itself after it's easy but humiliation i

would say in afghanistan i mean or is it just domestically driven you know sort of cozy has to show that he's somebody you know that can stand up to dictators which though he embraces embraces dictators all of the time particularly before the arab spring i mean what is the main motivation in your in your opinion. i think the problem is. for nato that gadhafi is an independent ruler who would like to have an independent country and if possible an independent continent colonel gadhafi has come up with the idea of an african development bank and african gold dinar those moves which could hugely lessen the poverty in africa and the dead in debt to this old african nations to the i.m.f. it's a problem also because he plans on that as a rival to the dollar and the euro that was a mistake saddam hussein tried a similar thing in two thousand and he was invaded as well so it's not a clever idea for the medium right country with oil in it to actually be planning your own currency because the big the big powers on the west on too keen on that scenario so really he was a threat to them or reserves were very attractive to them very close to them and

very high quality so really he takes all the boxes for a good invasion plus they had old historical scores to settle the goals gadhafi came to power on the basis of removing a british puppet rule in the first place so i would say if they want to get rid of him let's be elections in libya let's let the people decide let's have the risk respect for the losers in those elections but let's hold elections and if mr gadhafi is so unpopular let the people tell us and if he's not let's find out. if we talk and add to that is going to be telling you that if gadhafi clearly shown that he has said that he will live and die in libya is there not said that several times and because he is now being squeezed to the wall he's got no means of carrots to come out of this situation he can negotiate his way out of trouble i think that the future is very very own kind for libya and we could see a rogue state developing over time especially something similar to what we've seen in somalia so it's a very difficult time for everyone concerned i agree with this very interesting

omar that this would continue on that point i mean we really creating a rogue state particularly if the country is partitioned i mean that is also a possible option here where you will have a partition is it was pointed out early in the program nato bombs fell on a country they didn't really know very much about. ok i'll give you the positive scenarios and the negatives one obviously that's an interim national council right and two dashes under interim because it didn't it did not say that it will take over power after a defeat says that it will be there then just on a transitional period after that there will be a constitution at least elections based c.d.s. democratization process takes over in libya to transfer it from almost a fiefdom to a modern democratic country with with constitutions so that's the whole but obviously in any society there are too many variables going on and too many actors fleeing and you can have negative consequences one of them is obviously you get

a tribal ices idea what happened and that was again the deficit choice and we should not avoid that the mission of a situation where there was peaceful demonstrations to a situation was an armed conflict. forced armed conflict throughout and that those and those are tribal society with arms around this is one of the problems obviously and especially if. that's the choice of staying is actually dangerous for him if he lost power if you lost control of the country because it now he has been that there was almost every tribe whether in the east or in the west whether from its internal maslov are all but he has a little so that's one of the issues the tribal war that and that the politics the other issue is as you say something here the issue of divisions mark i want to jump in there if i want to just say this isn't something colonel gadhafi has brought about deliberately on himself he clearly like most rulers including repressive one

throughout the middle east wanted a quiet life the fact is this problem has been visited on him by somebody else's agenda and it's a western colonial power agenda which means all people to his country and i mean i know lots of examples throughout the world that repressive regimes will gradually open themselves up to democratization and it's happening it didn't need a war it didn't need a nato attack you need to die. even before any of this happened and that's what we haven't got and it's all very well blaming mr gadhafi fall for the situation but let's remember he was in power for forty two years and pretty much it was stable and getting better he managed to create a man made river project which is the one of the key for my elements of independence from north africa he's the he's done a great deal for his people subsidized housing market cheap free education i mean maybe he's a socialist leaning agenda didn't suit the us but i don't see too many things that he could have done differently and certainly i think now he was very much in favor of a peaceful transition to a better system and not the war one which nato proposes ok omar look like you want

to disagree or go ahead but. quite disagree. game in one nine hundred sixty nine by a cool remove the border stayed there ousted most of the plotters with him jailed some of them most of them fled monaco and then you had their c.d.'s of extreme the depressive campaigns throughout the seventy's from the mid seventy's the started during the eighty's and throughout the ninety's made the opposition after opposition was sacked out including by the way the socialists and the leftists many of them that wanted it he of the form and that he will institutionalize it sounds for the middle east were ousted and including for folks who are nationalists like the national. from all ideological colors most of them were ousted and this is how he stayed in power there was no elections there was no attempt to institute institutionalize the country we're talking about economical option this is a country that is ruled by

a very small clique that benefits from exactly saudi arabia to lose i was always dollar seen as a major reason i mean you had your grandma just been through this i just. did i made a promise in the middle east and laid it on the tip of the individual that i want us out of there are going to be so generally generally gentle rather senator john. and i am going to if you had the common sense the common sense approach is the fact that it's people power we've seen it we've seen a movement across the north africa across the middle east where people are taking ownership and asking for change this is just an example of that gadhafi had been in power for forty two years he's time was up nonetheless the people said they wanted change the question is not about people wanting change itself is where the change can happen without foreign intervention is for the libyan people to determine their own cause to determine their own country and that's not what's happening currently ok mark i'll give you last word you had what brought the full intervention such as a specific hold a libyan people are against him as omar suggests that how is it that he's managed to arm the entire city of tripoli how is it that they clearly are on his side in

those mass demonstrations going on over the layout we don't look at falsified they look as genuine as anything else i've seen coming out of libya he clearly has a huge amount of popular support as well let's not blind ourselves so that. i didn't say the all the egyptian all the libyans gets cut their feet i didn't say that i said the overwhelming majority want that change mostly want to force the country all right gentlemen we've run out of time unless it looks like just to be treated just like the war in libya is going to end many thanks to my guest today in london and in barcelona and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember rostock rules. and you can. still.

in india oh jeez available in the movie the joint the hotel rooms. the gateway photo the grand imperial truly told us to.

sit don't need to go and. read this and the colonel was hoto as a treat. the taliban take out another target on their nato collaborators list us foreign troops begin withdrawing while leaving at questionable local force in charge. of marduk media misconduct sees britain's most senior policeman quit while absolute international chief rebecca brooks is arrested. at a cosmic companion for the hubble telescope that's russia's own eye in the sky gets ready to see the secrets of the universe. am in the russian capital you're watching our joshua welcome to the program. a

senior advisor to the afghan president has been assassinated by the taliban in the capital kabul one of the country's lawmakers was also killed in the attack the deaths come less than a week after how many karzai is have brother who ran south of the country was gunned down the taliban is stepping up its assault on afghan officials and smale combat troops began their withdrawal from the war zone but who has intervention expert stephen lyman says washington will want to close its grip on afghanistan because waging war is look. if i'm. president a little mystery with a small security detail not a practical marine division nic i see him he would last five minutes the resistance you know ghana's want to liberate the country so take any opportunity they care to get anything if any level in any time not only other one hundred thousand u.s.

troops oh thirty or forty thousand other troops there are well over one hundred thousand private security contractors. discussed in the major media so combat forces may come out of private security forces may go when you take their place america wages wars not just to win them but to wage them because the profits are still great the war profiteers want these wars waged ten billion dollars we know of a rare hold it reboots besides the regular affairs appropriations for the f.b.i. for all of us defense operations this is money down or ever will go into the war profiteers alice also say the violence in afghanistan is being precipitated by a local security forces which contain drug addicts and those connected to the taliban the spy this nail began handing.