seven thirty am in moscow good to have you with us here on our t.v. we're reviewing the week's top stories easier headlines the u.s. stripped of its prized aaa credit rating for the first time triggering fears of another global financial crisis has investors ready for a black monday asian markets have opened and gone into negative territory. in the eurozone debt woes provoked a turbulent week with european central bankers now agreeing to provide italian and spanish bonds to stop the rot brussels is concerned if it will ease economy fails

it would be too big to rescue and could drag the whole currency down with them. and we're on the republican side of the senate here marking three years since the conflict with georgia devastated the region brought recognition from oriel services are being held in the capital it's involved for victims of the conflict. heated debate coming up with peter lavelle on cross talk stay with us here on r.g.p. . under eight for the full story we've gone to. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. can . start.

following welcome to cross talk i'm people of our field bomber doctrine is there such a thing over the past few months we've seen the us waffle as change rages across the arab middle east and some western backed dictators remain firmly in power while the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all in is this the new doctrine or just muddling through. can. discuss whether there's an obama doctrine i'm joined by phyllis bennis in washington she is project director at the institute for policy studies in paris we have an s. el-gamal he is a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk team yelena hunger all right phyllis i'd like to go to you first you know we're both americans and we're used to having presidents having doctrines when it comes to foreign policy

and we had harry truman he had a universal policy on your universal doctrine that is if you support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation ok john f. kennedy pay any price bear any burden to assure the survival and success of liberty we all remember that one and we should it's a good saying george w. bush had his own to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world now mr obama a few days ago had the following to say let's discuss of this is his doctrine. americans should not be expected to police the world particularly when we have so many pressing concerns here at home is that a doctrine should it be a doctrine should it be embrace and is it being acted out through us but i don't think that's a dark and i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these doctrines is that it bases the whole of u.s. foreign policy on the military so if we say should we intervene should we help it's

assumed to mean should we send troops in my analysis that's almost never the case we should intervene with a whole range of other things but not with military force and that question of how are we defining intervention is an ongoing challenge in the particular for president obama i think what he faces right now given that the arab spring has turned upside down all of the longstanding assumptions of what u.s. policy in the middle east needs to be i don't think they're anywhere close to having a real doctrine yet ok and so we're going to you in paris to me do you agree with the military intervention into libya well you know why why i mean given what phil when phil was just said ok i mean i and i and all tend to agree with you you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops in boots and bombs and sure like in effect political change changes with or they tend to haunt everybody in the long run but you support it and go right ahead. well i

think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we need to take a longer view what's really happening because i don't particularly pursue truth or mention as a whole interest what i think you have this is if we take a longer view but last thirty forty years and fifty years since the nationals of time a nation movements which laws are shaped and grew loans around the deserts of the middle east and you fall in that of those loans with support was given it wasn't in the economic sense it was given in the sense i mean we were actually armed. given vocal support we were actually on that sports are in the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation to this on them i personally don't think it may be good is it actually is it morally right is it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the argument is that you're just going more and more arms into a very very volatile dangerous situation ok and we also have the problem of

mission creep ok we heard only a few days ago. you know we're not going to commit more than i can put boots on the ground apparently cia sneakers are already there they've admitted that after the fact i mean mission creep is involved here. can you have a one off and you're saying we should have a one off right. well or think you should be a one off and let me go to the first point you're making innocence if we if we talk about a. military intervention as a as an only solution and it was working about. from the. other person look at the c.e.o.'s involvement in panama and places like that really really show the you know the old intentions of the i'm not trying to sow the c.e.o. has great intentions behind however we do know that we see him. as we're calling them from the transitional council in libya is actually being as transparent as possible because it's something that we've not in libya and we've never had a transparent and accountable government and there was. you know political training

in the sort something that's kind of you know. as a mystery or something that's coming out as a something that's coming out quite openly from the city because that openly went on three months i was. ok fellows who were jumping on it and that's can i just ask you i want to ask and as you raise the issue of looking back further and i think that is very very crucial i think part of the problem with our discussions about libya has been that we've all focused on that one day when allegedly and i'm not convinced it was either imminent or inevitable that there was going to be the kind of massive slaughter that has really used as the reason that there was no alternative let me just finish and that is that we have and that would be a reason that i'm not resisting it is because. what i'm saying is let's go back let's go back two days before that when the libyan opposition had managed to drive those government tanks out of out of out of benghazi with their own power without

military force i'm not convinced that they could have done it again i'm not sure but my point is if we start with that day we're hand in if we're looking back and we are now i think we need to look at three weeks earlier the first day there was a government are sold on unarmed protesters. the first day when it they were still unarmed that was the moment for the u.s. to quote intervene by saying you know what the colonel gadhafi we have allowed you since two thousand and two to be on our good side no more no more arms no more contracts no more military support you're going back later as i said i was on the theory this will stop exactly as they should have in the others what is it is ok that's what i think point would do if world however the greatest contribution is the x. in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is sort of yourselves you know you own your own problems and we know that one soul is on the other side

is not an american i personally don't want any arms and i'm not asking for in a situation where no one is on a person that we've made a massive massive i understand them or loving ourselves not a little girl if they're looking at have also brought him out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two is illogical but i personally think that huge but i do want to go about the situation is going and also for the other thing is we can talk about money also because of the base and we can really focus on but there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it doesn't it is like elation but when the moment was imminent but i wouldn't risk that personally because they are my people and i personally know that they do themselves realize that. america has a better track record on the full solution do it. right the problem is there are some commentary that really has family in the us i mean really is that i don't have them are saying great all right fellas jump in go ahead. there are people in libya

who also recognize that there are cia people among the libyan opposition the guy who came back from northern virginia for twenty years who is now one of the commanders of the military is somebody who clearly was involved with u.s. intelligence during that period there is a mixed bag of the libyan opposition in terms of what people have asked for what they want the other thing that i think is makes this all very problematic is that in the context of of the arab spring we're in each of these situations they began whether it was egypt whether it was tunisia whether it's been yemen bahrain all of them have faced massive military assault at the beginning only in libya was the decision made to take up arms i'm not going to second guess that decision in the same sense as there are two hundred one says that you were. right on this why is it was. the heart of the structure the notion of that's. my job. why is it is because of a very good reason why is it different because it used now with these different i

don't know if you think of. well i don't personally think it's a numbers game other think in terms of victims being a numbers game but i want to say that there were more people who hear more people who are there but equally realize that gadhafi was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as a good example as to why things are wrong and things are right personally when bush and blair came out saying there was a forty five minute threat and it was imminent and they tried to for the rest of the world and they were along with it but if there was no substance of the argument he was openly on the radio or on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people. coming cleanse you know if you think that's an imminent threat i don't ok but i personally wouldn't want my conscious and secondly you have to realize that if we're talking of the greater picture here of obama he looks like someone that obviously his intervention in this was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late and egypt could be saying the roughly the same thing however in libya i think i think we can accuse them of progress the notion but i look back at his legal

background and i say to myself someone looks at legal background and i say liberal and a different you know kind of a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's taken a legal perspective and tried to go through every avenue and track the developments as they come however when the thought was imminent he would have been and it would have been a catch twenty two situation we're talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one in libya another highly charged names and countries and and you know the whole charge that the will to live and let me answer i want to respond to your point. nobody does because nobody does and i think i have i have a different view and i want i supported intervention and i want to and i blame the united states and france for not only not intervening but affirmatively preventing the united nations from intervening so i'm not somebody who says there should never be any intervention the question is under what circumstances and i call on one of the key things that president obama did was to recognize that there's

a difference between legality and legitimacy he knew he could force his way. into a u.n. resolution in the security council the u.s. has a long history of that by bribing threatening to get votes it happens here it will happen again it's happened before but he also knew that without clarity from the arab league and the african union that wasn't going to be possible so early on if you recall even with question was already underway in question here from the weight on talking about the questions that was asked and he recognized you know let me just say the question for me is partly international legitimacy and having both the arab league and the african union would have been important what we found was that the african union was not prepared to sign on to even the no fly zone let alone all necessary measures and as soon as they made that clear the obama administration stopped talking about the need for african union was going to be jumping into really really everything breaking after the actual people continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy in libya state.

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the. world. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've done the future covered. up. the topic and. welcome back to crossfire but i'm curious about to remind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. if you can. but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. obama

doctrine is a doctrine or an interventionist strategy in his speech at the national defense university barack obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it reveals the beginnings of a real regarding lee use of u.s. military of course the russian public appearance so so not all citizens support the international military operation in libya sixty four percent said they did not and another twenty percent of the respondents expressed their support still the obama doctrine has yet to be declared but presidential talk trains have an impact on american policy and as a result on the entire world back to peter and it's not going to go back to you in paris here a lot of people will say and what i want to talk about george w. bush in this part of the program obama had a sudden attack of stupid idealism. if you think that's

a fair thing to say because again if we look at interventions in the past a lot of people can say you know one panama was success successful you can go to panama a lot of people will say it wasn't ok so i guess it depends on how we define success here but very idealistic or is obama just trying to muddle through on this one too because you can say well it's an international effort now any can walk away from it but it's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have a third war in the muslim world good for him and. in the post. the rock world i think. in terms of real politic everyone knows that it's political suicide to recruit in iraq and to try and calm all the way through that one again so i mean i personally think they did it with but he's done that in afghanistan or trying to be a scrap of as possible you know i think he has us through this situation and others that everyone knows his thousand more troops so i don't really think this is ok but

and this is yes i think this is actually the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if your country fine but i mean this is this isn't this. isn't this well i mean even i'm willing to admit that people can have a personal attachment to an issue ok that's fair enough ok but if the same time isn't this just bush lite this is another intervention and this time there's there is a difference too is that the american people and the world were lied to for months on end preparing for the war to go into iraq and this was just done over the weekend i mean it was no debate in the united states you said you seriously you say there's nothing you say do you say there were some if it was transparency and there's transparency in benghazi but going into this conflict or war if we did this war it wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish until a conspiracy in washington ok well that look a that's what's most important is nobody else is going to washington all right go

ahead phyllis go ahead but i think i think the key question of transparency is important and was not true in washington but i also think that we should be clear this was not a sudden decision that was made at a moment of urgency this was a decision that was several weeks in the making as we know that come about first when the french and the brits said we want a resolution that will call for a no fly zone the u.s. position was no we don't think a no fly zone is going to work but instead of saying and therefore we're going to vote no. they said let us take the resolution we will rewrite it and we'll come back with a better resolution which of course said not only a no fly zone but all necessary means to protect civilians but with the world this really is no what is tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question i think i really question the kind of person his word national is which is this the libyans why the libyans also why the libyans also for the if it was a more they're asking for international one import of the dizzyingly work that's a very important question is what was the only that was or it's not the only

question of course of the it was i think personal threats and that's a reality came in that's a reality and in that there was a method because nationally but pushback from sort of up from was which is the stronghold of gadhafi that pushed back over a period of we pushed back militarily they were really good was going to be exactly ok because the capacity because using european arms no zero point i really want to make here is that whether or not we want to debate whether there's an imminent threat on the other thing we would like to i think we're working on very morally dubious grounds here if we were to say that it doesn't matter if it's a threat or it was you know it was in the heat of i mean he was no innocent man so you know wasn't in the area no i'm not saying that what i'm saying is always the united states because there's not a question a lot more of that can be threatened i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't really a choice you can do it this way could not you say what you want to say right now they are ready to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united convinced

that the united states government decision not my own personal view that the united states government decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision it's cold it's calculated it takes into account the moral issue only as a political factor in terms of how it will be assessed what their decision is ok and i want to ask you what you know you know sometimes you know it's not very much of the session that was little they were. last point greg i want to challenge you on that point however because i don't think that it is and sort of the principle of of life has always been the family factor and foreign policy in america or in the west there's a lot of branch of that however i do want to was whether or not we believe that this is not a coincidence of interests and if i can also personally what do you think the motivating factor was in order to go into libya you want to go see i mean it was a combination of factors the main one i think the main factor was a lack of clarity about what their pastor was going to be in the arab spring in

general they wanted to position themselves in a position of being on the right side of history that corresponded with. a different road with from popular forces right and that was a group that we do have to separate what i might want to happen as an individual person what i want isn't really the point i would have wanted maybe for a revolution at the very very beginning that very first day when they when people in benghazi faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced and i think they did make their own choices and. yes their choice was the care choices were ok i mean we can argue that he was enjoying them with me and there are consequences to that choice and i want to ask you a question government in yemen other theaters to ask you a question what they were talking about go home ok i want to ask you i mean the intervention is started it's going on as we speak there is a stalemate at least as we speak has the intervention that fueled fueled on or

created a civil war that could last why don't why do while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil war zone civil wars are when you have two conflicting soldier conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on though that it's a very small point to make and there's been points being made over and over again. for the rest of the revolution and if you want people who aren't. people or people around the senate are they rebels with arms or the rebels what are they civilians with arms i mean what your definition of millions i mean these are teachers teachers students bakers government employees policemen i mean they're from every background that you have in libya and i mean i work for a minute or so and so not an artifact therefore in its own army it's a people trying to govern themselves and trying to get rid of forty two years that way but political dysfunction isn't i want to call them rebels because i have any political aims all their aim is get rid of gadhafi so we can have

a more democratic and the reflected government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think it's a war of ideas that's truly a kind of arab spring. it was going. through the if there isn't going i think it is a civil war when people when two sides are fighting to hold territory i think that makes it a civil war i don't think the the opposition side is an army training really willing to run us on this tour to introduce your home and for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now too sizable in zone rating which you know this is going to say over here in the house and there but it was used to be a lesson of all but within the house is not going to over close to force people out on this john this is a very good because you don't want because this is me and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right character and feel it's the us and its allies you see is have a show there's a stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side as well in this game making it more and more

interesting the side for a change in the sixty's you see as you say with your shoes in the throes of the exhibitors in the way but it's the same time is that this is what. exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so well rico gagliano just war we have all the treasures while returning from the region so we trust in them a little computer in washington one issue is usually they're doing it wrong exactly or using military force in a way that is guaranteed and i said it before they did it and i say that it has come true that the military force has made the military stalemate emerge in libya it is now whatever you want to call it i'm not going to fight over the words but there are two military forces battling for control of territory there is likely to be a stalemate that's going to go on for a long time compared to more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq because one year alone are hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without that no fly zone went down that was really it was

judged on one of the most urgent was doing was measured look the onus is this measure it's as it is we have an issue we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean i can't go out and prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground there are people who would say well i think they want to support america whether they're clinging on or the come out and them said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean the holocaust to try and find the yes that's right through the area where are you trying to place ramos at the time of the koran. just one more question and ask how to break the stalemate here comes. the line was this the last chance or how can we break the stalemate without greater outside intervention and what would be fueling what a lot of people call a civil war how do you break the stalemate the lists go ok but i personally feel. to be honest here is that the question is framed it's not a charade it all that it is the broken the social contract when we can be broken

the social contract with these people as rousseau would say is broken the social contract these people he has no legitimacy and so when he's with the people they're choosing to fight against a dictator so we have to negotiate with the people and not with your bare feet he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the aggression with him and also the question he oversaw and illiteracy and going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them for forty two years how does the use of their on this point folks thank you very much for a very heated discussion many thanks to my guest today in washington and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember prostitutes. can stay. great for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice ceased to face with the news makers.

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