now i hear mostly this is all seen as around the world the song of the week without sinking feeling european in asia a print in the red all the historic u.s. credit rating cards similes hands trading as expected an american. museum and rioting spreads in north london dolls and of offices that injured trying to contain what stalls have as a peaceful protest against the face of the shooting. three years alter of

georgia on the ship war machine to try and seeing south assess we meet there you see the skulls of the called play terror and how they're rebuilding that. time now for another heated debate and people are crosstalk stay with us. can you. stand. alone welcome across town people of all feel bamma doctrine is there such a thing over the past few months we've seen the u.s. waffle as change rages across the arab middle east and some western backed

dictators remain firmly in power well the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all in is this a new doctrine or just muddling through. 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 on this album artie he's a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk e-mail and 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 got drones when it comes to foreign policy and we have harry truman he had a universal policy on you know 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 it this is his doctrine. america 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 in braced and is it being acted out through us well 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 so we're going to you in paris i mean do you agree with the military intervention into libya well yes or do. i mean given what phil with phyllis just said ok i mean i and i and all tend to agree with her you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops in boots and bombs and sure like in effect political changes but are they tend to haunt everybody in the long run that you support and go right ahead. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we have to take a longer view what's really happening because i don't particularly pursue the truth attention as a whole be or as an interest what i think you have this is if we take a longer view but the last thirty forty years and fifty years since the nationals

of time a nation movements which laws are shaped and grew lines around the deserts of the middle east the need for in the oath of those loans with support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we were actually. not only given vocal support we were actually on just what's around the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation to disarm them i personally don't think it is option is it morally right is it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the argument is here to see more and more arms into a very very volatile gains or a 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 to going to put boots on the ground apparently cia sneakers are already there they beat me down 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. moer think you should be aloof and let me go to the first one that you're making innocence of if we talk about. military intervention is that there's only solution and it was working about columbus the news from the from the sea org . look at the involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of the i'm not trying to so this is great times is behind however we do know that they see it. as we're calling them from the transitional council in libya is actually being as transparent as possible because that's something that we've not had in libya and we've never had a transparent and accountable government there with. the training and it's not 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 it openly what it was i was just going. ok fellows who were jumping ahead and ask can i just ask you

i want to ask and ask 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 i was given that would you reason that i could not resist 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 started that day we're hemmed in if we're looking back and we are now i think we need to look back three weeks earlier the first day there was

a government assault 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 out of this terrorism since i was on the hearing this will stop exactly as they should have in the others what does it easily that's what i said point. however a long way to describe to me just being 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 side is on the other side is not on and the minute 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 ourselves not only looking at have also brought them out of the cold into those and three or two thousand and two as you'd like to call it but i personally think they're huge but i do want to go about the situation here

and also where the thing is we can talk about it because nobody is can really focus on and that was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because i mean it is like illusion but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that personally because that my people and i personally that i know that they do themselves realize that. america has a record on fulfilling the commission do this is. right the problem is there are some common good everyone has family but there are so many years that don't have them are saying great all right fellas champion go ahead. there are people in libya who also recognize that there are cia people are 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 the of the arab spring where 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 this is not in the same sense that there are two hundred one says. right now that's why it was easy with. him i don't know sure that's. why you said you were because phyllis brought up a very good point why is he different because it is now with these different ideas . but i personally think that it's a numbers game i don't think in terms of victims being a numbers game i don't want to say that there were more people here more people who were there but equally we realize that give birth he was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as a as a very 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 try to fool the rest of the world and we went along with it and for another there was no substance to the argument good birth he was really on the radio on the radio waves of libya and forcing people to be going in but has it all come in cleanse you know if you think that's an imminent threat i don't know 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 egypt can be saying the roughly the same thing however in libya i think i think we can accuse them of procrastination by look back at his legal background and i think most of someone that looks at legal background as a liberal and a different you know 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 the track the developments as they come however when the thought was imminent it would have been

and it would have been the case with the situation we were talking about and you i personally want to be talking about another one. another highly charged names and countries and and you know the whole you charged me with you live and let me answer what the right response are you point to your school and nobody does your head falls nobody does and i think i have to i had a different view and i wonder i supported intervention in the longer 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 by cohn 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 happened 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 he was the one question was already underway in question from some great i'm talking about the questions iran was asked and he recognized no 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 a 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 or you're going to jump in really really really really early to break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy going with the state . became. the.

the history of this place runs through the centuries. a paradise for archeologists zoo ologists and ecological tourists. was one fateful night shots destroyed the harmony of life. how this republic got its life by. hoping training and retraining. to. download the official ante on vacation to high flown on pod touch from the i.q.

stamps to. charge each life on the. video on demand archie's mind bold costs and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. kitchen. stores. welcome back across our computers about to mind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. the topic. 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 articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it reveals the beginnings of which really in regard to the use of u.s. military of course the russian public opinion research center all citizens of this support the international military operation in libya for sixty four percent said they do not and another twenty percent of the respondents expressed their support still doctoring has yet to be declared but presidential talk preens have an impact on american policy and as a result the entire world peter and as i'd like 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 what panama was except 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 that's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have a third war in the muslim world and that's very good for him and. in the post in the post the rock world i think. in terms of real political everyone knows that it's political suicide to recruit him in iraq and to try and fumble their 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 do is possible you know i think you know. the situation about is that everyone knows that he sent in thirty thousand more troops so i don't really think that this is the debate and it's just yes i think it's the

crux to the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if it's your country fine but i mean this is this isn't this is it 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 it is 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 you know it was no debate in the united states you said news international you said it was over do you say do you say there was a was transparency in this transparency and in godfrey but going into this conflict or war if we did this war there wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish your thought and spend see in washington ok well that book and that's what's most important because nobody else is going to do i think all right go ahead phyllis go ahead but i think i think that the key 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's discrimination over what is tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question all the question all the time the first of his world nationals which is decide the libyans why the libyans also why the libyans also for a no fly zone was also going to national that's one important the feeling they were that's a very important question is what was and was only the relative it's not the only question of course which i think threats and that's a reality that's

a reality and for the for those that don't because nationally the pushback from sort of up from close to which is the stronghold of gadhafi push back over a period of a week wish there militarily take a look at. exactly ok have a graph it has the capacity because using european norms you know on the point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether it's going to through an auto think 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 a heated i mean he was no innocent man so no wasn't in the area no i'm not saying that what i'm saying is always the united. we don't know more than i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't really choice you can do it if they could not you say what you want to say right now ready to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united ireland convinced that the united states government decision not my own

personal view but the united states government decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision because 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 well you know this and i think you know it's not a natural jurisdiction that there's little i would. last point but i want to challenge you on that point however because i don't think that humanitarian aid is and sort of the principle of of what has always been the timing factor in foreign policy in america or in the west if you will as a bunch about 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 so i mean it was a combination of factors the main one i think the main factor was a lack of clarity about what their posture 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 us also. from popular forces right and but there's a link 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 went people in benghazi faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced i think they did a different choice and i. guess their choice what would be ok choices was ok now we can argue that he wasn't going to say it and there are consequences to that choice and that's i want to ask you a question government in yemen but i think it is going to ask you a question what they were talking about go ahead 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 it fueled or fueled on or created a civil war that could last well i don't try to while at the expense of the libyan

people civil civil war civil civil wars or civil wars or when you have two conflicting zoid conflicting demands and that's the thing that i don't like to call them rebels on know that it's a very small point to make and the point of being made over and over again i guess will be a perino issue for the rest of the revolution and if so you are the people who aren't. people are people are all muslims are they rebels look with arms for the rebels what are they sebelius with arms i mean what's your definition of millions i mean these are teachers futures 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 is the point it's not an army it's a people trying to govern themselves and they're trying to get rid of forty two years that political dysfunction is and so i don't want to call them rebels because i have any political aims or their aim is get rid of a good purpose that we can have a more democratic and a more effective government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think we

have a point but that's true in a classroom the kind of we have an arab spring. there was. none of this bill here if there isn't and 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 thing we're going to run out on this your territory is your home for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now two sided bullen's overrating going to this is going to stay away from the house and there but it does use the bureau where some of them the houses are not going to other pows ok to force people on this john this is amazing if you if you was to see that i'm saying there are two sides fighting right eric and phyllis standstill as the u.s. and its allies is having shows this stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side as well in this again making it more and more a jury will change the i'm going to say she says she was here when she was in the throes of the things haters and the like but it's just same time is that this was

growing is chilliest exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so we still will just be the no to war we are only traitors what we presented on the region so we trust in them when they don't look at it in washington why they should be 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 with more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq because really when you're alone one hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without close it was one of the one of the really it was joe joe who was doing let's measure look at the world and says this measure it

as it is we have an issue with them we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean go out and prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground. they would say but i think they want to support america whether they're killing the mono but the come out and them said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean behold push to try and point out yes that's right through the area where i was trying to place ramos at the time. to ask one more question and ask how to break the stalemate here comes. the last of this is the last chance or how can we break the stalemate with our greater outside intervention and what will be fueling with a lot of people call it a civil war how do you break the stalemate. ok but i personally feel although i think you are going to hear the question is framed it's not the frame it is all that is iraq and the social conflict and we can be broken the social contract is because russo would say he's broken the social contract with people he has no

legitimacy and so when he is with the people there are choosing to fight against a dictator so we have to negotiate with the people and not with gadhafi he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the negotiate with him and to also ask the question the same military forces are going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them for forty two years how do i know this is there 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 for viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk was. ok. we'll. bring you the latest in science technology from the ground.

we've got the future covered. home.

in india call jesus made.