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nato bombing campaign in. the rebels' only hard political fights. bringing you the latest in science and signaling to the from around the russian. we dumped the huge earth covered. fists clenched fist.

he seemed. reluctant. to more news today violence is once again flared up look these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of china that . the chinese hope for asians are relieved a plug. a timer here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today in the big picture.

following welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle libya's stalemate in the sands of nato bombing campaign in eighty 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. came. across the nato mission in libya i'm joined by your johnson in london he's the founder and director of viewpoint africa also in london we have marco gas like he is a political analyst an expert on south east european affairs and in barcelona we cross

to omar asher 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 if any on the new source you want to read it stalemate it's quagmire. we've come 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 today. well that's a civil resistance campaign thirty two ship that somehow turned into an armed conflict because that was the choice of the logically needed intervention came out of necessity calls from the. opposition fighters nine hundred twelve

march the situation was quite bad there were. forces were on benghazi given what given the history of a different level of oppression given what happened. there was the likelihood of so i mean look at all the let me ask you quickly if you think. playing a positive role right now. it's hard to. the regime is not positive the whole situation is obviously 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. guy and see the international council and the need to or whether it will end up in a political compromise by which he gets out or some of its clans and some of his regime figures will be part of the future of libya this is what's the question that is. put forward now ok the other thing also is well how many negative consequences

can happen in any on campaign we can talk about you know what can happen in the course of that he says well whether he stays in power or party in power or whether . some of it is or whether he goes away in both cases there will be some negative consequences in the aftermath of nature's intervention ok mark what do you think about intervention in libya today. you know later in the program i'll quote some of the years within nato 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 however 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 are the 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 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'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 it's not leading to anything good now but it was never designed to 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 know you in london also i mean 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 are just killing civilians now as well i mean is there is this public bombing campaign can you yield any final result can you barm 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 fare but of course the longer it goes on the more likely the war is 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 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 front of his bombings and become pain to go bitterly wrong against them so i think the long way to go the more likely nature 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 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 and the rebels are clearly not strong enough to b.p. to defeat him so we have this this stalemate situation which has not really benefited anyone and i think as a whole the libyan people are suffering. in barcelona there's been some news reports that france is in indirect 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 very serious credibility problem and credibility problem comes from forty two years of history where when when he was ruling but also a credibility problem in the long ago or even a long long ago the west is race mr gadhafi remember remember all the pictures with tony blair with you know bomb with you know the elite of the west yes 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 breaches of interests and one 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 are highlighted and that's the case with that with maybe obviously oil interests and other interests the moral outrage i mean we were talking now about the violations of what their fee 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 a massacre a crime against humanity in obviously in prison in tripoli you were twelve hundred 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 as 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 eagles 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 or expedient so it's politically expedient marco fine go to you i mean why not why can't there be negotiations if they're on both sides of the conflict you're talking about why can't you really tempt to talk in 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 not 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 it's very first clause the immediate establishment of a cease fire so what part of that doesn't and nato not understanding cease fire and if nato ceases the rebels it's 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 starts 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 i 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 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 for years sounds really interesting to me is it really 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 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 major in afghanistan and iraq it's failed miserably in those areas and if it continues in the fashion it is with libya we're 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 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 that it 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 is this is just arrogance by

the western powers i believe it's a good colonial. background this is the new imperialism that we're faced with i think it's the biggest danger to a stable world that's what i meant was russia game i am here is the future 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.

rachel martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. mission free. education free. for charges free arrangement the free. free. free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media don carty dot com.

you can. start. welcome back across the uk i'm here all about the terminology we're talking about the protracted conflict in libya. ok. i want to find back here in barcelona isn't this kind of. attitude that absolute surrender total surrender of the gadhafi and his his going to jean isn't that this shortsighted 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 does he have even to get any room at all i mean a 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 pro conflict processing or didn't start by an i.c.c. indictment or a started by you know putting him in the post associates of his that is international wanted this it didn't stop like that it started with again a separate existence campaign may be organized by local libyan people whether anybody has the order in tripoli what in zawiya and other places in that year and then there's a fly was a vicious aggression campaign that seldon's of this then an organized arm campaign by the. demonstrators who was sorry and i myself oh not an intervention mark but the question. just to ask you if it if it was just a civil resistance campaign how were they able to take a city i mean garfield 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 the armed conflict actually by the end of february maybe because there was defections within the regime of but that the you know they indeed minister the head of this special forces. the justice minister multiple diplomats throughout the world all of them saw the level of oppression and they were amazed that never then you saw a series of defections which is. what led the situation to be armed because then you had military personnel saying that they're not is enough we're not going to shoot on our own people and they were siding with people like we saw similar situations in egypt in tunisia except that the army in egypt in tunisia acted as one unit so these are sided with the people going there was no deal if i could go to you i mean if he is that the west has chosen the side ok i'm going to do good comparisons to other situations don't really work because the united states and

it's not needed well is choose a certain group of people rebels that 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 well exactly yes because one little letter go ahead. i think to an extent yes because the rebels. never really been able to show that they can control that country they have 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 are going to show who seriously bringing all the various factions within libya as one under 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 try not to for haste to get into a conflict a confrontation that you know very little about nothing what that what's happening now with nato is not realized that they've jumped into quickly conscious of taking sides too quickly when they should have stayed back and what's the situation and i

know fully over time they could have done so but i think it just shows that the the west it's private 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 the country is a poor decision because we can see now that it's not going to achieve anything marco fine go do you maybe just strap later on when we just heard it is nato looking to nato just think this is going to be a quick easy war i mean it can redeem itself after its c.e.o. but humiliation i would say in afghanistan i mean or is it just domestically driven you know sarkozy has to show that he's somebody you know that can stand up to decatur's which though he in braces braces caters 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 confidence colonel gadhafi has come up with the idea of an african development bank and african goldstein are those moves which could hugely lessen the poverty in africa and the dead in this old african nations to the i.m.f. it's a problem also because he plans to have 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 powers on the west aren't 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 all historical stalls to settle because gadhafi came to power on the basis of removing a pretty puppet ruler in the first place so i would say if they want to get rid of him let's i mean lections 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. i think i can add to that is going to be telling you that if gadhafi clearly house shown that he said that he will live and die in libya he's not said that several times and because he is now being squeezed to the wall these are no means of carrots come out of the situation you can't negotiate his way out of trouble i think that the future is very very 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 the business would continue on that point i mean we could really creating a rogue state particularly if the country is partitions i mean that is also a possible option here where you'll have a partition is it just point out early in the program or bombs fell on a country they didn't really know very much about. ok i'll give you the positive

scenarios and the negatives ones obviously that's an intriguing national council right and is under interim because it didn't have the not say that it will take over power after a defeat says that it will be there. to address all of transition of media after that there will be a constitution police elections least 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 conflict society there are too many variables going on and too many after sleeping and you can have. negative consequences one of them is obviously is a tribal society what happened there was again a few stories and we should not avoid the transition of a situation where there was peaceful demonstrations to a situation was an armed conflict. force armed conflict throughout and that is and those are tribal society with arms around this is one of the problems obviously and

especially for qualified f.e.m. self 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 meant that there was almost every tribe whether in the east or in the west whether from its internal. look so that's one of the issues the tribal war that and that are politics the other issue is their office this is mr magee whole issue of divisions mark i want to jump in there if i will 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 has been talking for his country and i know i know lots of examples throughout the world that repressive regimes will gradually open themselves up to democracy isolation and it's happening it didn't need a wall it didn't need a nato attack it needed to. 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 he was stable and getting better he managed to create a man made river project which is going to keep my home and so benign things 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 us but i don't see too many things but 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 wall one which nato proposes ok omar look like you want to disagree or go ahead but i'm quite disagree. that became in one nine hundred sixty nine by a cool remove the water stayed there ousted most of the plotters with him jailed some of them most of them fled monica and then you had a series of extremely repressive campaigns throughout the seventy's from the mid

seventy's started during the eighty's and throughout the ninety's maybe opposition after opposition was sacked out including by the way the socialists and the leftists many of them that wanted it he of reform and if you institutionalize it sounds standard 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 reinstitute institutionalized the country we're talking about economical option this is a country that is ruled by a very small creek good benefits from exactly saudi arabia to the most high was always our response for many reasons i mean you had your grandkid i just mean i think this is interesting. this is a policy in the middle east that of the family in that little camera with the loss of her father are going to be so gentle gentle and gentle rather central. am i a guy 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 off that's good aki have been in power for forty two years he's time result 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 marc i'll give you our security and what brought the flight into various cities or city hall the libyan people are against him as omar suggests but how is that he's managed on the entire city of tripoli how is he going to clearly are on his side in those mass demonstrations going on over the layout we don't look 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 about omar. i didn't say the all the egyptian all the video that gets caught there for you i didn't say that i said the overwhelming majority want to change mostly want to

force the country are you gentlemen we've run out of time it doesn't look like this debate 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. celiacs time and remember crossed our troops. and you can. be. a target here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.