from. here with our live from moscow our top stories this monday world markets take a jolt on the back of america's credit rating caught asian certainly down with european stocks continuing to slide. three years after georgia unleashed its enormous change to try and seize the sense you know we need those from vera the scars of the conflict here in how they are rebuilding their lives. and rampant looting and rioting spreads in north london dozens of officers are

injured trying to contain what started as a peaceful protest against the fatal police shooting. now it's time for another heated survey with peter the vel in crosstalk. and you 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 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. the streets to. 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 art 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 are 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 say 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 doctor and should it be embraced and is it being acted out through us but i don't think that's a doctrine i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these documents 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 i mean do you agree with the military intervention into libya. or do. i mean given what phil wilson was 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 only became to haunt everybody in the long run that you supported already here. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we have to take a longer view of what's really happening because i don't particularly pursue the truth attention 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 drew lines around the deserts of the middle east and you fall in the oath of those laws with rule support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we were actually armed not only given vocal support we were actually on 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 bring in 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 to going to put boots on the ground but apparently cia sneakers are already there maybe it made it down after the fact i mean mission creep is involved here. again if you can you have a one off and you're saying we should have a one off right. another think you should be

a one off and let me go to the first point you're making sense if we if we talk about. military intervention as it isn't only solution and that was working about clandestine news from the from the cia. look at the cia's involvement in panama and places like that really really show the you know the old intentions of the i'm not trying to so this is great intentions behind however we do know that the c. and c. 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 a and it's coming out quite openly from the city because the. jury's going. ok fellas who are jumping up 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 why we're doing that which is a reason i was instead it is because if you want to see 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 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

the norm that was the moment for the u.s. to quote intervene by saying you know what the for no 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 to 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 think point would be if we're looking however long maybe it's from germany just being in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is sort of yourselves you know your own your own problems and we know that one soul is on the other side is not on i mean i personally don't want any arms and to be on the asking for in a situation where no one is on a person even though we've made a massive massive i understand them yourselves not interrupt them that they're looking at also to pull him out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two if you want to call it but i personally think that huge media want to go about the situation is going and also for the other thing is we can talk

about also because of the base and can really focus on and there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because it is like elation but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that personally because they're my people and i personally know that they do themselves realize that. america has a track record on the fulfillment of mission to do this is. right the problem is they are so. good everyone has family in the barents i mean really is it don't have them are saying great all right fellas jump 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's 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 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 going over there are two hundred one says you are. right and that's why i'm sorry. mr chairman of the surely it's. my job. why is it you are because through stronach a very good one why is it different because it is now with these different i do not already think. well i don't personally think it's a numbers game other think in terms of victims being a numbers game i don't want to say that there were more people here or people who are equally realize that gadhafi 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 tried to fool the rest of the world and we went along with it but for another there was no substance to the argument there he was openly on the radio on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people are going in but has it all coming claims 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 information to us was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late and egypt can be saying the roughly the same thing however in libya i think that we can accuse them of progress the notion but i look back at his legal background and i say to myself some on the legal background and as a liberal and a different you know 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 the case with the situation we were talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one there are bosnia and libya another holiday

charged names and countries and and you know the whole is charged. let me answer i don't know that there is no i'm sorry point is off your school and nobody does my headphones nobody does and i think i have that i had a different view and i wonder 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 bike home 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. and to 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 would result in a response from those already miles away in question here from some way i'm talking about the questions i 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 really breaking after that break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy even with the states are. you.

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the market finance scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause report on our keep. up. keep story. if you want to. welcome back to cross talk i'm curious about to remind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. on the topic. still. but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. how about an adult tree is it a doctrine or an intervention strategy in his speech at the national defense

university barack obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it to reveals the beginnings of which really you know regarding the use of u.s. military of course the russian public opinion research sun also citizens this support the international military operation in libya sixty four percent said they do not and another twenty percent of the respondents expressed their support still the bomb adult treat has yet to be declared but presidential talk trains have an impact on american policy and as a result on the entire world to peter and as i'd like to go back to you in paris here a lot of people will say and i want to talk about george w. bush in this part of the program there obama had a sudden attack of stupid idealism. do 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 panama was except successful you can go to panama and a lot of people will say it wasn't ok so i guess it depends on how we define success here but very idealistic owner is obama just trying to muddle through on this one too because you can say well it's an international effort now many can walk away from it that's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have a third war in the muslim world good for him and. in a post. the rock world i think. in terms of real political one knows that it's political suicide to recruit 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 this kind of as possible you know i think you know there's just. this situation about as everyone knows that he's in thirty thousand more troops so i don't really think that this is serious i think it's really just

across to 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 at 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 you know it was no just debate in the united states you said you seriously you said it was i mean you say did you say there were some transparency in this transparency and dancey going into this conflict or war if it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish your parents in washington ok ok that's what's most important is nobody else can you try all right go ahead to let's go ahead but i think i think that the 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 is really just no room what is tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question will be my one question or kind of person his word nationals which is just signed with the libyans why the libyans also why the libyans also for the if it was a mother asking for international banks one import of the feeling they weren't that's a very important question it wasn't the only one whether it's not the only question of course of the. threats and that's a reality that's

a reality and for them that doesn't mean it is nationally but push back from sort of up from close to which is the stronghold of gadhafi push back over a period of a week wished that militarily thank goodness we could be exactly ok have a good because because because he's using european norms no i really want to the point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether there's an imminent threat on the other 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 heated i mean he was oh no innocent man saying no wasn't in there and here you know i'm not saying i'm saying in all this when i already own government because there's not a question a lot more of them can be threatened i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't do it or susan can do it as they could not you say what you want to say right now and i already tried to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united 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 and 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 so you know it's not very much of your decision that i was told that i was. last point greg but 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 dominant factor in foreign policy in america in the west there's a lot of bunch of 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 think 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 want to think differently with from popular forces right and that was like think 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 thought faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced and i think they've made their own choices and i. guess their choice would be ok choices was ok only we can argue but he was enjoying them with me and there are consequences to that choice and i want to ask you a question government in yemen rather thin you ask you a question in there we're talking about killer 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 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 zoid conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on though that it's a very small point to make the points that are being made over and over again perino issue for the rest of the revolution and if you are the people who aren't. people are talking around this which are the rebels with arms are the rebels what are they sebelius with arms i mean the what's 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 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 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 a more reflected government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think they

were already addressed that's truly the kind of the arab spring. there was. none of the really really be there is it 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 art when you're doing really well if you're an ass on this if you're to introduce your home then for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now two cybill in zone rating which of those is really going to say over here in the house and there but has used the be a little move over them the has a not going to other places to force people and this is you know this is the hand if you if you want to cause this is me and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right eric and phyllis ten feel as the u.s. 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 and again making it more and more entering the side for a change although you knew going to say she says you said it was your shoes in the

throes of the dangers in the way but it's the same time is that this week on his chair is exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so low rico gagliano good or we are going to be traitors overcome the rest of the region so we trusting them a little bit watching them when. 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 complete more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq but it's really one year alone a hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without that with no fly zones all of that was really it was just one of those

digital disappearing but as measured look the world through this measure it's as it is we have an issue of the moment we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean i can't go out and prove it to you but i mean western journalists on the ground and the people in there would say well i think they want to support america whether they're killing them i know but the come out and them said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean i'll be hard pushed to try and find the yes that's right through the area where i last time so it's a good place ramos time. ask one more question and ask how to break the stalemate here comes ali great logic was this a last chance or how can we break a 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. ok i personally feel although i think you have been really serious the question is framed it's not a did all that is the broken the social conflict can weaken me yes he has broken the social contract with his people as rousseau would say he's broken the social

contract these people he has no legitimacy and so when it is with the people they're 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 notion with him and also is the question you are saying military forces are in going from injury but arming the people themselves even on them for you to use 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 to our viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember prostitutes. ok. we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from the realms.

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