yeah but that's wrong and just in this nonsense we are with you we want to see that evidence and i told ben we are not going to point a finger that anybody again we appreciate you for doing nothing and giving us some clarity on that with graham cluley senior technology consultant at both and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we cover going to r.t. dot com slash usa you have a great aunt. rachel martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

today is once again. these are the images. from the streets of. corporations or the day. of the the of .

part of her a little bit of. it was so. the kick. start. to. flow in welcome to cross talk time peter lavelle is outside democracy promotion an oxymoron what is america's track record in the arab world and is invoking security interest for democracy the greatest haven for tyrants.

to discuss democracy promotion i'm joined by katie alley in paris he is a writer and filmmaker and i will risk with we go to jeff perdue he is a post-doctoral fellow at aberystwyth university and author of american foreign policy and postwar reconstruction comparing japan in iraq and in durham we crossed to bruce generals and he's a professor of public policy and political science at duke university and another member of our cross talk e-mail and a hug all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to take i'd like to go to you first in paris over the last two weeks. were saying events that we've never seen before in the arab world i liken it to the end of the soviet union it is a world history or storage moment as we're doing this program events are a folding extremely almost out of control in egypt so i ask you to take what is america's track record in promoting democracy and expression is hot area right now

in north africa and i'd like to name a few places tunisia egypt levanon jordan where there is democracy but it's not recognize hamas hizbollah so it's a mixed game lets them obviously isn't a marsh it's not recognized at least by the united states and its allies and then the united states has been a huge impediment to democracy in the arab world since its inception since independence so what is its track record. its track record is very negative as many serious american historians admit to themselves through of the cold war period when the begin to me was communism the united states not just in the middle east but also in south america was prepared to tolerate tyrants dictators butchers of their people because it's there in cross with the end of the cold war. humanitarianism became one of the ideological pillars accept

in those countries where it wasn't convenient so we've seen in the middle east in particular. and dictatorship in egypt which appears to be collapsing as we speak which has been there for the last twenty five to thirty years we have seen regimes over twenty years long in the mass rugby in countries tunis and morocco or. we've seen the toleration of a completely authoritarian brutal monarchy in saudi arabia jordan itself has been reduced to the status of an israeli american protectorate and iraq has been occupied. the occupation of iraq had very little to do with democracy forces have agreed to do and to do with the establishment of for us again only now we have a waiver for of world sweeping the arab world you talk about it was reminiscent of

before the soviet union i'm not so sure because that the mass involvement in that by and large was limited it reminds me more or of the wave of revolutions that took place in europe in eight hundred forty eight revolutions for democracy eighteen forty eight or to revolutions against autocracy democratic revolutions trying to find a different way of governance and that's that is what we are see here don't you think it is very interesting to have lasted very long and i do and you have eighteen forty eight are interesting but it was a strong reaction eighteen for you jeff if i can go to you a few days ago hillary clinton the u.s. . needs more democratic reform isn't that a bit rich after thirty years of paying off the egyptians in the sum of sixty billion dollars basically without any kind of accountability i mean again you know and if i can expand on that watching c.n.n. and b.b.c.

they're just cheering this on when those governments were all at the very pillars of supporting this very horrible regime and people that knew anything about the regime just knew how terrible it was and now we're turning around saying we're so happy what's happening it's hypocrisy is just outrageous. i wouldn't say so i think that's when you talk about democracy promotion you need to adopt the spectacle you need to look at it from a political perspective perspective of values let's see norms carried by democracy and perspective of warm and let's say material interests or security interests or economic interests and what i'm trying to say here is that it's. during the cold war even after that there is still seem to be there seems to be a paradox in supporting or let's say be friendly to non-democracy regimes while at the same time promoting democracy in peace and peace in very countries. through

various programs of democracy assistance usually implemented by american governments early non-governmental organizations i think that if you look at this from and you take into consideration that you deal with two different time scales one is the economy and the security where you need to address very immediate concerns issues if you want to and the only one is more in the longer run where you tend to what you want to do is to try to see values and norms democracy values and norms in this case and you hope that these will be shared by the serious society eventually the political society of this not democratic regime and little by little you know you could argue and i think that what we've witnessed is little by little decent proceed assistance program started fruits and whatever was did we see that he did all that we see that at all in tunisia i mean i can a free radical level i can just see what you're talking about but my goodness i mean you know it was not too long ago the denali was you know he was

a guest in the white house and he's called a great friend of the united states ok i mean really i mean it's still a bit rich if i can use that term again right here bruce if i can go to you i mean all of america's friends really sir can i just say something all right go ahead finish with i want to go to something very quickly go ahead if bin ali you've been ali was still such a big friend of the united states or from the western world generally speaking you probably if it was all about importing authoritarian regimes in the name of security interests or economic interests then you wouldn't be in the bike it would be in washington and on the parties ok well this is not well that seems to be the ultimate safe haven for well. so you probably other dictators going there as well bruce if i can go to you i mean you can you have a dual policy like that i think in theory it sounds very nice but if you look at weeki leaks and you look at these other sources of information i mean the united states was going to be just stay with the people you know you have to stay with the

devil you know work a and that's exactly what they did with the nisa and then they turn around and their entire democracy project blows up on them in lebanon though it's again against the will of the people there clearly i don't care what people think about hezbollah it is a popular. political party in the country it's up for the people to decide and not again it will reclaims and dictating what kind of democracy should people should have because everything the united states has done in that region last forty years is just create extremism. yeah you look i think you're then if i had some good points i'm not sure if i agree with the way that you're portraying i mean there's no question you know that the united states hasn't lived up to this great espousal have always been for democracy you know the reality for any country whether it's today or historically you know is how to balance off the principles you stand for the security interests that you have in the life you know and what we've been seeing i think is as as as your previous guest was saying was part of what's happening in egypt and a sort of sad part was happening to nisha was in fact fed you know by this

development of civil society by n.g.o.s and not just american many indigenous many european as well that helped to develop the networks you know at the same time you're right that united states was sort of still keeping our support with as it was often said you know they may be s.o.b but there are s.o.b and the problem is there's this old expression you know those who make reform impossible make revolution inevitable you know and are certain to say you see that playing out. this wasn't predicted by experts everybody knew egypt was unstable but there's not an expert out there journalist academic intelligent person whatever who said that things were going to really blow up in tunisia and egypt now and i think that we really have to see where they go people are demanding i think three things they're demanding greater freedom both for their individual lives and for ability to affect their government their protests and its massive corruption the mubarak regime the

ben ali regime and they want to kind of like opportunity this is mostly you know young males out there who want to opportunity in their lives the reality is that you know you mentioned hizbullah as well has a lot of popular support in certain segments of lebanon there's no question about it but you know the notion that somehow they're going to represent all the people to not impose themselves and i'm not quite confident about that either and the same is true you know if a mosque what you originally won its election. basis speaking to the corruption of the palestinian authority you know the injustice is the economic problems that were there but then when they began to rule they ruled with an iron fist of their own oppressive their own people so what we criticize the united states is doing we shouldn't sort of make out is some you know glorifying force a lot of these other groups they've got their flaws as well ok ted if i go to you i mean still at the same time i mean what is the reputation of the united states as

we go through this rate transition here i mean do the people in the region look at the americans as being thomas jefferson you know i mean the great supporters of of democracy out there supporting their dictators for so many dick decades. well not in the arab world and certainly not in south america where you also had a wave of democracy over the last ten to fifteen years which is pork new governments and new social movements and to changing the relationship or forces there quite decisively if i can just sort of come back to one point it's not a question of whether we like hezbollah or whether we like or agree with every doctrine called saw i feel lies and that's not the point the point is permitting the people in that region to decide what happened when hamas won the elections in palestine sanctions were imposed on it it's money was stopped and the west refused to recognize a democratic election because they were hoping to push the p.l.o.

through and we now know why with the publication of the palestinian papers that the pipe p.l.o. leadership it was in the pocket of the united states and now we know also visas released to such a disgusting extent that it's horrified people in the arab world and so be actively promoted and clyde's to defend a corrupt palestinian leadership against hamas even though harm us had one then they tried to destroy hamas as they did hezbollah by encouraging resorting to go which you're going to go to a short break after a short break we'll continue our discussion on exporting democracy stay with our. story.

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if. you think you. welcome back your little three minute we're talking about the so-called democracy industry. ok.

but first let's see what democracy means to russians democracy for all democratic values are spreading all over the world some countries adopt them voluntarily in others simply imposed by the outside forces the public opinion agency about us and i ask russians what democracy means to them so tonight percent as a comic prosperity thirty percent as freedom of speech order and stability garnered thirty some percent and many regard democracy as a low fullness and direct elections so the latest events in tunisia make us wonder if west so-called democracy doesn't really promote or its own interests pete. right jeff and i to go to you one of the things that happened when one of the reasons why ben ali was such a big friend of the americans and the west in general and any and we can look at what's going on in egypt and other countries in the region is because their stance

on the war against terror ok and that's always top of mind here and in the deep the nonsense that spewed out about here is karen that's terribly you know just terrifying publics in western media and it does it all of the time and there these people are you know they may not be you know thomas jeffersons but you know they they're still going to be on our side isn't this really being shown is a complete exaggeration now because these tyrants created. a fundamentalist group of people that may be inclined to terrorism and things like that i mean the. arc of supporting our own ideals and values have actually created the so-called threats against us. rocking we're talking about two different historical structures as well the immediacy of the cold war or let's say. what the united states needed to do during the cold war was to contain the u.s.s.r. in the u.s.s.r. in the region and hands you know starting to cut on some less than friendly

regime or not well thought of a lot of the considerations in the case of when ali and what's going on in egypt right now i think that we should look at this from a more modern perspective if you keep talking about the past and all that it was and so on mean we never would know i was talking about today very much george bush's war on terror and it seems like obama is the accepted it is well no i'm talking about what's going on today not a cold war. ok so well in this case i would say that there is a clear progression in the obama administration about democracy promotion and that the discourse is not linked anymore to the war on terror of course you still have references to what is called a democracy peace theory and the fact that democracies don't go to war with each other. would it mean that these and merging democracies in the middle east would be friendly to the united states i think in this case the history might not be in favor of the united states and what we might see is the image and so for of some

different models of democracy which will not be the liberal democratic model which we know in the west with an emphasis of on elections essentially and creating procedures and structures favoring elections between competing elites favoring individual freedoms we're going to trying to say here is that the receive is very contested as a concept there is more than one type of democracy and that's in order to sort of guess the outcome of democracy it is essential to look at the realities affecting the temperature to democrats in the nation so where do i see stating roots and look at you know the realities there and how they will proceed can adapt if you want to and we have competing models we talk a lot about islamic or islam democracy. so would that mean that we live in well i mean or i mean jeff jeff i mean you're right i mean this again it's very academic but i mean under eight years of bush and then in under two years of obama we still

see an american understanding of democracy and i gotta go to bruce here on this one can protect american national interests ok it's a cover it's a cover for sure it's a cover to protect american interests that's why you know it could it's growing that hillary clinton will come out and say we need more democracy in egypt why couldn't she say that when she became secretary of state like when a secretary of state said that twenty five or thirty years ago. so look if you can see the difference between obama and bush you know they're not really looking close . to the reason they're not washington not washington to the region ok i think they raised more or less the same one hundred eighty degrees but but but there are significant differences but i come back to a point that tariq ali made because it's an important point you know during the cold war one of the huge mistakes that the united states made as we to his we kind of worked with or against this of the so-called third world was we lumped everything together as communism and marx and it was marxism and we didn't see the

way that nationalism and local factors in culture and all those things entered and so in brazil i've been back and forth quite a few times i mean for you know for the president of brazil who came into office feared as a great leftist to have emerged with eighty percent popularity in his own country when he leaves office you know most leaders around the world would die for that sort of popularity and he demonstrated luba demonstrated. that he was progress illian interests and he was prepared to work for them and not always agree with the united states and elsewhere and the challenge we face i think in the arab and islamic world is very similar ok there are elements in my view you know. jihadist extremist groups that frankly don't have the interests of the people you know the best measure people are all on their minds but what can i say it's nice to do do is to figure out how to have relations with different forms of political islam i think in both tunisia and egypt ultimately you know whether some muslim brotherhood in egypt or some of the political islam parties that have been trying to stamp out by the dictator tunisia they're going to emerge as part of the mix and we really need

to figure out ways you know to work with them because in neither tunisia or egypt are these uprisings at this point at least anti-american this is not iran one nine hundred seventy eight seventy nine it may well go in that direction if the u.s. does some of the things you're saying that that it's doing right now i think the obama administration you know is trying it's a very tricky balance and you can find you know contradict. senate fine but they're trying you know as they have since the president came into office when he went to cairo and he gave a speech where an awful lot of stuff going on there that doesn't make the headlines but has been working with civil society groups and other groups in egypt and elsewhere to try to develop you know their ability to to be part of the political process and that's a way to get the balance right but to say that it's all you know just about you know standing with their carriers i think right now this is ministration is trying to change it and change it in a way that leads to things that are really in the interest of the people because

the united states can't control everything that happens in these countries in one direction or any other entity a lot of forty's or they can influence because of their power and leaders take it you had your hand you had your head around i was wondering if you if you were bored by a conversation or you were exasperated no no i'm not true no way are those where those see differences where others see differences i basically see an essential continue to be between the bush and obama administrations both domestically and in terms of foreign policy i don't think all that much has changed except for the moment of music and the record in terms of what is concretely being done in different parts of the world in afghanistan which we have mentioned obama is actually escalated the war there have been more drone attacks some pakistan during the obama years than in the entire eight years of the previous administration so

wants to preserve a balance and not to be taken in. by the rhetoric which is being thrown around i think essential in what is going on in the middle east today is sixteen lean porton a small part of a fall so it will be a heavy blow for the united states regardless of who takes over because egypt was absolutely central to u.s. policy in the. region in order to keep these rallies happy we have discussed this state for some reason is important the united states impacts it through thick and thin and often american interests get in tangled with what they see is israeli security increase in the region and that is one reason why that region and many many of its intellectuals and civil society groups have been extremely unhappy that palestine is the one colonial issue from the last century that remains resolved and now in terms of political islam there is flarm has all of the colors of the rainbow

you can find every current within the make world the united states is perfectly happy working with these families in turkey who are staunch supporters of nato and have been a central pillar of nato i don't think the muslim brotherhood in either region will be all that different but what will be different if the demonstrators succeed in toppling mubarak is that egypt will for the first time in years be able egyptians will be able to decide on who they want to elect in that instance stream lee important and the choice there is much more different than the choice you have been europe center left center right democrats republicans in the u.s. very little divides them in egypt the gulf between the dictatorship and the people challenging it is huge so it's a very exciting prospect and of course it might well affect u.s.

relations with egypt if for instance just on one issue there decided to open the border with gaza and not going to allow because i bought exact in of jeff i mean i i didn't want to go too deep early israel because well first of all your program on that is this week already but i mean again i mean in the course of two weeks we have this these events playing out in egypt we. events with lebanon i mean the entire security arrangement between added states pursued over the last four decades in the greater middle east is in shambles now if in fact instead it was said really at the center of american foreign policy interests in the region israel's security it may now be the least secure it's been in a very long time and it's because democracy is the idea and and people took it upon themselves i agree with what we heard earlier it's not anti-american yet we'll see where it goes but when we do hear what the people have to say we could have a very very volatile and we always say volatile the greater middle east if these

changes are actually come to fruition true or something that we would call democracy you know the question is that it's not necessarily the case that the united states and i say should not be putting all our eggs in the mubarak basket there's no question about that and it's not necessarily the case that a new regime would be anti-american ok really depends how this plays out what the forces are at work and the like but i think that this notion that there's just continuity is kind of if people that i say sometimes are only reading the right hand pages of a book and a lot of what i'm hearing is just reading the left hand pages ok well you know the reality is that the reality is that you know this administration took the bush administration basically gave the israelis a lot of blank checks ok great i'm going to treat it as have some problems is ok. but it's really ok ok we have to stop on this point gentlemen ok many thanks to my guests today in paris and in wales and in durham and thanks to our viewers for watching this here r.t. see you next time in remember crosstalk.