let's move on to. the. mortgage weiner scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy in those reports on our. own welcome back to join us you're watching r.t.m. these are the top stories the taliban take out another target on the or nato collaborators list as foreign troops begin withdrawing while leaving a question of a local force in charge you have been army is known for having numerous drug addicts some people lengths to insurgency. one thousand others bail them or media misconduct seize britain's most senior policeman quit over connections to girl is suspected of bribery and phone hacking while x.

news international chief rebecca brooks is arrested. and a cosmic companion for the hubble telescope as russia's own eye in the sky gets ready to seek out the secrets of our universe ready us drawn boasts a much higher resolution than its nasa cousin. doesn't have lines kind of else talk show crosstalk is coming up so missed the debate. can start. following welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle libya's stalemate in the sand and nato is bombing campaign and ag and take it out the rebels have only hardened

political facts on the ground western intervention was intended to last a few weeks now is open ended instead of dislodging khadafi nato allies are left to bicker among themselves. can start. to cross the nato mission in libya i'm joined by io johnson in london he's 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 call cross to omar ashour 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 and i could go to you first in barcelona how would you assess nato's operations in libya today because if any on the new source you want to read it stalemate it's quagmire. we're coming across reports of rebels committing our 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 today. well it's that's a civil resistance campaign thirty two ship that somehow turned into an on conflict because that was the choice of a bare feet a logically needed intervention came out of necessity calls from the. opposition fighters nineteenth of march the situation was quite bad there was. forces were on benghazi given what given the history of his level of aggression given what happened in the south and there was the likelihood of i mean we all be asking what should he do you think. playing a positive role right now. it's hard the whole situation is not positive they also few issues obviously they're far from ideal. 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. guy and see the international council and the need to or whether it will end up in a political compromise by which i better get out or some of its 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 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 post but there he goes 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 of our nato intervention in libya today. later in the program only

quote some of the figures within nato are 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 later interventions for its 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 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 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 so leave you now and at the expense of all the libyan people as well i think we would have a short conflict here perhaps there was a case for pressuring colonel gadhafi to listen to this man for a change within his own society but there's 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 is not leading to anything good now but it was never designed it was designed to lead to occupation and division of libya by the nato pact so that's what it's there for that's what it's going to do you know 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 still there it is killing civilians now as well i mean is there is this public bombing campaign yield any final result can you bomb this country to peace. well every day that goes by labor has been cut 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 object fear but of course the longer it goes on the more likely the was meant to go bad against nato because it's very much a part of 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 international yes you know currently the chinese 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 as bombings and the campaign to go bitterly 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 saying over a period of time and the longer it does go off he 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 but the thing is he's not we can enough to defeat the rebels on the rebels are clearly not strong enough to b.p. to defeat him so we have this stalemate situation which has not really benefited anyone and i think the as a whole the libyan people are suffering on a. virus a lot of there's been some news reports that france is in direct talks with members of the khadafi regime though just prior to that france condemns 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 we have

a very serious credibility problem and credibility problem comes from forty two years. when he was ruling but also a credibility problem long ago on the really low to go the west in 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 visas 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 that with libya obviously oil interests and other interests around the moral outrage i mean we were talking now about the violations

of the deaf ear has done throughout it all is rule but if you if you want to speak about an i.c.c. indictment the correct one that could've happened in july in june one thousand nine hundred six when the deficit forces committed in my secular climb against humanity in obviously in prison in tripoli you were under thirty political prisoners were gunned down with mass graves and i visited the area later on in two thousand and ten and you would have stories from the outside there's people outside the prison and stories from acts detainees who witnessed part of this message so it's not like something that was nobody knew about but you had actual witnesses that heard and know some of the evils of what's happening but this did not happen this was postponed until two thousand and eleven where the you know the interests were not pulling together to legally expedient politically expedient markel fine go to you i mean why not why can't there be negotiations if you're on both sides of the conflict you're talking about why can't you really tempt to talk it's not fighting

i mean you don't have to like each other. well the basic reason is four letters it's not 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 demand since mary first clause the immediate establishment of a cease fire so we're all part of that doesn't and nato not understand the cease fire and if nato ceases fire the rebels it supporting will cease fire could our people 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 ultimately 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 stops very quickly indeed but of course that isn't what nato wants because nato

wants the usual suspects within nato i should say the ones who attack everywhere i do is 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 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 i over your it sounds very interesting to me is it with iraq they didn't plan for after the invasion it seems like in this case we really have everything planned except for winning the war what do you think of. 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 major in 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 round is how do you ensure that you maintain that was the mandate the u.n. mandate clearly calls for which is not regime change it's protection of civilians

and property so i think it's going back to the blueprint how can we get nato to start 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 you 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 can adjust manipulate its way to ignore or deceive the security council once it's in there on any basis it's going to act on its own basis it's 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 iran did you know here asleep and here we go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on libya stay with r.t. . if you. still . want to.

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welcome back across our time hear all about remind you we're talking about the protracted conflict in libya. egypt. i wonder if i'm going to back to you in barcelona isn't this kind of. attitude that absolute surrender total surrender of the khadafi and his his regime isn't that just short sided that doesn't that just keep the conflict going because what reason does he have he's going to be put on trial by western powers. for war crimes or what what interest is the have even do do you give any room at all i mean and human nature would say you have to then you have to stand and fight to the death which just continues this civil war and war in libya. yeah i partly agree

because this is a conflict process you know or didn't start by an i.c.c. indictment or started by you know putting him in close associates of his that he more international wanted this didn't sound like that it started with again if it is distance campaign maybe organized by local libyan people whether in benghazi or in tripoli or in zawiya and other places in libya and then that if i was a vicious depression campaign that you that seldon's of this an organized campaign by the. demonstrators who was sorry i'm cells i don't have an intervention mark but the question. i just ask you if it if it was just a civil resistance campaign how were they able to take a city like being able to see something in seventy thousand people with a repressive regime and the organs are really very much as i understand this at seventeen yes you're sure that seventeenth of february the the armed conflict actually had up there by the end of february maybe because there was defections

within the regime of our deficit or they did minister the head of this pressure forces. the justice minister multiple diplomats throughout the world all of them saw the level of oppression and they were amazed that level then you saw a series of its actions which is. what led the situation to be armed because then you had military personnel saying that enough is enough we're not going to shoot on our own people and they were siding with people like what we saw similar situations in egypt in tunisia except that the army in egypt in tunisia acted as one unit so these are cited that people took a point there was no you know if i could go to you i mean if he is that the west has chosen the side ok i did he do good comparisons to other situations don't really work because being no good reason is not needed well is choose a certain group of people rebels did actually human rights watch now so you are 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 what exactly it is because only it will matter because like i had. i think the next twenty years 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 that the west are going to struggle seriously bringing all the various factions within libya as one on 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 watch for haste to get into a conflict a confrontation that you know very little about i'm not i think what's happening now with nato is that they realize that they've jumped into quickly or countries have taken 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 west ever so eager to occupy that land on down to control the oil

and. it would appear in this particular instance that's supporting the rebels who are clearly ill disciplined poorly equipped who do not have the mandate to control our country is a poor decision because we can see now that there is no want to achieve anything marco if i go to you maybe just extract later on when we just heard he is nato looking to nato just think this is going to be a quick easy war a meet 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 cause he has to show that he's somebody you know that can stand up to take taters which though he embraces brace's dictators all of the time particular before the arab spring i mean what did 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 an independent country and if possible an independent confidence colonel gadhafi has come up with the idea of an african development bank and african gold dinar those moves which could be hugely less than 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 out 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 a medium right country with oil in it to actually be planning your own currency because the big the big world powers on the west came on that scenario so really he was a threat to them all 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 all historical scores to settle your goals can start he came to power on the basis of removing a pretty puppet rule in the first place so i would say if they want to get rid of him let's be lecturers in libya let's let the people decide let's have the risk respect for the losers in those elections now 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 i'm

not so that is going to be telling you that if gadhafi clearly house shown that he 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 these are 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 it's very interesting omar don't do this let's continue on that point i mean we really creating a rogue state particularly if the country is partitioned i mean that is also a passport option here where you would 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 want of a speedy that's an intriguing national council right and the ashes under interim because they didn't had the guts say that it will take over power after put their

feet says that it will be there. through just all the transitional period after that there will be a constitution police elections beast as he is democratization process takes over in libya to transfer it from almost a few for them 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 being and you can have negative consequences one of them is obviously you get a tribal i society what happened there was again a look at their histories and we should not avoid that the transition of a situation where there was peaceful demonstrations to the situation was an armed conflict. post armed conflict you have and that has and those are tribal society with arms around this is one of the problems obviously and especially for. the choice of staying is actually dangerous for him if he were lost power if he lost control of the country because it now he has been there was almost every tribe

whether in the east or in the west whether from is intent on the south are already ghazi and. so that's one of the issues the tribal war that and the politics the other issue is there are positions and some of the issue of divisions marketing manager 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 your people his country and i mean i know lots of examples throughout the world of repressive regimes will gradually open themselves up to democratization and it's happening didn't need a wall it didn't need a major attack you needed. 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 using powerful forty two years and pretty much it was stable and

getting better he managed to create a man made river project which was one of the key for my elements of the ninety's for north africa ease that 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 u.s. but i don't see too many things that he could have done differently and certainly i think now he really very much in favor of a peaceful transition to a better system and not the wall one which nato proposes ok omar look how do you want to disagree but. i quite disagree. jeff you came in one nine hundred sixty nine by a cool remove the border state did ousted most of the coup plotters with him jailed some of them most of them fled monica and then you had this u.t.s. of could be extremely repressive campaigns throughout the seventy's from the mid seventy's that started during the eighty's and throughout the ninety's made the opposition after opposition was health including by the way the socialists and the

leftists many of them that wanted it a year before and that you institutionalize you sound sounded for the middle east were ousted and including for folks who are nationalists like the national. front 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 institutionalized a country we're talking about economical option this is a country that is ruled by a very small clique that benefits from a disaster in saudi arabia to believe i was an artist i was seen as a major reason i mean you had your grandma read just me and i think this is interesting. because it obviously country in the middle east that of the family in the middle come a lot of us are probably going to be so generally gentle and gentle rather subtle. and i am going to if you had the common sense the common sense approaches the fact that it's people power we've seen we've seen a movement across the north africa across the middle east where people are taking ownership and asking for change and this is just an example of that's good after

i'd 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 it's 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 the last word you had what brought the plane into the valley it's a specific role the libyan people are against him as omar suggests but how is it he's managed to arm the entire city of tripoli how is it that they clearly are on his side in a mass demonstrations going on over the layout we don't look at falsify 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 omar. i didn't say. gets cut their feet i didn't say that i said the overwhelming majority want to change mostly want to force the country all right gentlemen we've run out of time elizabeth like this to be treated just like the war in libya is going to and many thanks to my guest today in london and in barcelona and thanks to our

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