the boy. libya's power structure is shaking at its core as brussels stormed the donkey's compound take control of tripoli so could this be the start of a second arab spring. and while libyan rebels are pushing their way into tripoli western forces are pushing their way onto the oil fields so when the stakes are this mine will that mean anything goes. was a human right and wrong nato pushes its way into libyan affairs but does it really have the best intentions at heart. and it's come to syria never mind all those nasty rumors about the country being in turmoil everything is

fine we'll take you inside the p.r. battle going inside of our country. it's tuesday august twenty third i'm christine for is now in washington d.c. you're watching our team and let's start with with the situation in libya where throughout the day today libyan rebels flooded into tripoli moved closer and closer and finally took over moammar gadhafi compound still no sign of a libyan dictator but we do want to bring you the pictures that we have seen from what will no doubt be a very historic day from our correspondent on the ground there are going to go to school. there is celebration on the grounds of the libyan leaders of the libyan leader compound. and apparently the libyan the libyan opposition are

claiming that they have entered the compound are now celebrating the fact that have taken over colonel stronghold however we have to keep in mind that the reports coming from the libyan opposition have been to say the least somewhat confusing over the past couple of days they have claimed to have arrested or apprehended the son who then made a surprise appearance a showing that he was alive and well and definitely not been captured by the by the rebels they have also been giving these reports as to whether they have entered and have captured most of tripoli then about several hours later they go ahead and say that they are actually pulling out of tripoli because they consider it not to be safe there and all of this turmoil is happening and never ending fighting and amid nato bombing nato continues to go on the libyan capital and say of course that could offie is not their target at the same time they have been aiming at his compound they have been aiming at command and control obviously those

. all of those are places very closely connected to the libyan leader also during the mayhem that's been literally taking over and ruling the day in the libyan capital journalists are fighting themselves probably in probably the toughest situation of all they have been essentially barricaded in a hotel in the center of the libyan capital if you do not know what's going on the understand that it's definitely not safe to get out. as we know according to some of their accounts there brewing t.v. in order to make their lives a little bit better because they have no idea what's happening they do report of the gunman showing up at the hotel the also do not know who the gunman are and of course the during this entire time as you have also previously mentioned the whereabouts of colonel gadhafi. our know there have been rumors that he might have left libya but of course their leader himself showed a face and obviously explained that he's not going to leave his country and he's going to stay there i was r.t.

correspondent and go and in libya it is beginning to look a lot like egypt these dramatic pictures of people celebrating in the street talk of a long time dictator following a victory and of the start of a new era but when the celebration and jubilation and what happened next are you correspondent diana chicken takes a look. the cadets the regime is crumbling. the levy and rebels are cheering. same cheers and tears could be seen in egypt in february the nation ousted your longtime leader hosni mubarak but six months on many egyptians say their hope is being crushed by reality but. you know i love the revolution when it happened i welcome to look at the time like a light at the end of the tunnel b.c. it's not getting better we have nothing to eat just don't tell me about democracy

for hungry people just as the egyptians now are not governed by. the army that has strong ties with the west and by washington the military regime and the institutions that wear the essence the fundamental essence of the mubarak regime those remain and we can see that thousands of people have been brought to military trial since the end of the popular revolution that ousted mubarak in tripoli the body taking over is the national transitional council also not chosen by the league in people yet the council is being recognized as the legitimate government of libya by all those been helping oust gadhafi many reviews are outraged by the fact that foreign powers are effectively making vital choices there's too much wealth and geopolitical strategic value to libya to let it only become reformed and then the credit rights and universal participation by the

citizenry. less empowered to implement a western economic and military agenda and therefore the people who will eventually command political situation in libya and the military situation will indeed be supported and buttressed by western powers western power. worst of throw all their support behind the legion national transitional council giving them billions of dollars and weapons to gain control but the rebels are far from being a united group what the navy is going to face after that is a period of prolonged chaos nobody knows the outcome this is as i said at the beginning this is tried to construct this is not democracy against retaliatory revolutions in egyptian leader developed under different scenarios in egypt it was an uprising with millions in libya it's been an insurgency lot it was weapons by the way and those weapons are still in their own hands and they're not going

anywhere and many analysts are saying that libya could find themselves in a much worse situation than the egyptians because on top of power crisis similar to the wanted gyptian are having to leave you could be facing a fresh outbreak of violence that the end will be on the long i'm going to shut down reporting from washington r.t. there are various comparisons being made with what's happening in libya with what happened in panama back in one thousand eighty nine iraq in two thousand and three or as we just saw could this turn into the continuation of what started in tunisia and egypt also help answer some of these questions i want to go to doctor in shapiro he's the professor of political science at yale university in new haven connecticut he's also the author of this book the real world of democratic fairy. i delighted to be with you have a doctor's apparel i want to think back to iraq the fall of saddam mission accomplished you know but also to the other side of that equation an entire country used to things like bombing clean water electricity that for months totally went

away the same thing to an extent as we just saw in guy and reporting in egypt where there wasn't necessarily gold at the end of the rainbow can you see this happening in libya how daunting is this task that lies ahead well i thought your report was very insightful and suggestive but nonetheless the comparison that comes to mind with me is to none of the countries that you mentioned but rather to afghanistan because first of all we have a child really based civil war going on now and the u.s. invasion or a democracy uprising. and and secondly we have no history of democratic politics in the region and i think it's a sobering thought because i think the the the challenge facing whoever comes to foreign libya in creating the rule of law is going to be much more similar to the challenges that have. faced the karzai government in afghanistan than what's going

on in egypt or what has gone on in iraq are you just saying because there is sort of a more tribal mentality in libya as we see in afghanistan not only that we've had a six month civil war going on in this country furthermore. we know very little about the agenda of the forces that are coming to power after all mustafa i generally feel it was a justice ministry in could office government as recently as february of this year . jabril was head of the economic development council in the regime and alley as is far we whistling was. he is an ambassador for the good of the regime these are the real leaders of the national transitional council. they're certainly known have any history as democrats you know they've been associated with

the good off the regime for a very long time furthermore i very much agreed with the comment in your report that. this this regime in the making is largely being installed by western powers if we go back to march of this year when the un adopts the security council resolution one thousand and seventy three that was the no fly zones to protect civilians. that didn't by any stretch of the imagination give nato forces the authority to facilitate regime change in libya which is what we're now doing in the us it is in the lead there having recognized the national transitional council in july of this year so that of course the great danger is either we have a continuing civil war or we have what the libyan people think of as a puppet american regime designed to protect access to the forty one billion dollars of barrels of oil that everybody knows existing libya i think it's

important to point out that this national transitional council is made up of so many different factions of course ideally in a good world they'd all be working together for the same pursuits but these are despite being all rebels these are people who have a lot more weapons and they probably used to have nato of course a long record of pursuing political goals with military means you spoke a little bit about this possibility of a western backed government what about you know take a step further i mean what's the likelihood that what we see next very much in bodies you know the western way from economic and military agendas put in place there. that is clearly the intention of the obama. ministration the end of the camp and the cameron administration in the united kingdom they want a pro western regime they would billions of dollars into producing that result. my only observation is we don't know how likely they are to be successful what kind of

legitimacy will this regime have on the ground in libya if it appears to be a british or american puppet regime. that that has this in all the features of the cars i was g.m. in afghanistan it's going to have a long term civil war in its hands and the outcome is by no means clear but certainly interesting too when we take a look at just how much this has cost the u.s. so much by some reports eight hundred ninety six million dollars just through the end of july certainly a lot going on there i when you when you watch the mainstream media and hear about these winners and losers it's important also to think about some of that because i want to thank you so much for being here today that's our instant hero sterling professor of political science at yale and also the author of the real world in a cracked theory and i've nother question many people will be asking with the future of libya what happens with the oil who gets control well for more on that

crude intentions going on there are you correspondent laura and it looks into this question parting from the united kingdom. delivered as a promise but seen by many as more of a threat david cameron says nato will stay while libya makes the transition to democracy as allied forces lend support to the rebels to take tripoli to stop the war coalition libyans not to expect they're getting something for nothing but western powers don't do this without asking for a paper why is it that the head of the is running off to paris to meet with the french president well of course that is one very very important issue that's why the western powers tony blair and others struck a deal. in the first place it will be exactly what message going to continue. to further explore. british government makes no secret of the fact that it's

motives in supporting the rebels aren't entirely altruistic last year alone the u.k. exported around forty billion dollars of goods and services to north africa and the middle east but it's black gold that's the key libya has the largest oil reserves in africa when western powers look at the region and they talk about humanitarianism but i think that all great martinet says it's impossible not to draw a comparison with iraq he's written a book about the aftermath of the iraq invasion in which he maintains western powers imposed a democracy which played on sectarian divisions that ensured years of tribal struggle but also meant the allies retained control of the oil supply while the u.k. government insists lessons have been learned from iraq and will move into libya even before the fate of tripoli is sealed the great oil grab is already beginning b.p.

has a contentious oil and gas exploration contract in libya which the u.k. government will be anxious for it to resume italian all jayanti end i. it's the first to send back to libya and eight sads rose in the knees french to towel and three is a when the well as investors hopes they soon be able to review production in libya but it will price to the libyan people the great fear is that just as they did in iraq the creation democracy which the spanish interests the west's interests or oil companies interests and does nothing for the people of the newer and that's what's he come to and i think a lot of people start to talk about the situation in libya wrapping up we're entering a new chapter i think it's important to take a look back to february when we first heard the speech from president obama when he announced that libya needed our help the united states has maintained a set of core principles which guide or. these principles apply to the situation in

libya so i said last week we strongly condemn the use of violence in libya the american people extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of all they've been killed and injured. the suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and it is unacceptable. but i want to go in and we strongly condemn the use of violence in libya that was president obama back in february what four path forward to today and talk about some of the goals in this mission and whether or not they were a cheeks to help me do that i've got national coordinator for the answer coalition brian becker here in studio and richard spencer the executive director at the national policy institute who's in whitefish montana and brian let's talk let's start with you here first so much to talk about when we think about winners and losers but just with intervention and i know president obama said time and time again this was in in the name of human rights were human rights protected as

a result of nato intervention you know this is the grossest violation of human rights i mean whenever the united states or britain or france the colonizers been in slavers of africa intervene in africa or the middle east or anywhere they assign their mission a noble cause to protect freedom to protect democracy to protect civilians in the case of resolution one hundred seventy three but this is a longstanding policy of the u.s. government to overthrow the government of libya the country that possesses as you've said before the largest oil reserves in all of africa it has nothing to do with human rights and in fact when you bomb was triply when you drop seven thousand five hundred bombs and missiles on a country a country that did nothing to the american people that's an act of aggression that's a war crime that's a crime against humanity this the complete opposite of defense of human rights all right i want to go to richard and tom just get your response to that and what you're thinking about what you're seeing today throughout the day in libya. sure i

might not use the same language as your other guests but i do agree with him in many ways when this conflict began a pentagon spokesman famously said that you're not going after gadhafi and the u.n. resolution that was passed was actually only to enforce a no fly zone but i think everyone knew from the beginning that this is going to become a regime change operation and that it was in its hands to put someone on the road with a little bit less threatening to the united states' interests but i would i would ask anyone. and you can actually find a lot of the particularly among the formally antiwar left now come out for obama's bombing campaign do you think that it would have chilled more people then. if they would have let him. crack down on his protest the answer is

of course no the bombing campaign of killed far more civilians is it caused far more damage. done if you would have tried to control the protesters i think a couple important points that richard brought up in terms of sort of the change the evolution of people's mindset in terms of you know just before we are invulnerable get there was a lot of anti-war talk by people on both sides of the aisle in this you know coming political season about the u.s. involvement in wars all of a sudden we're involved in libya a lot of people frustrated a violation of the war powers act is this another war but richard is right we are hearing from the mainstream media to politicians to people who are now saying this involvement by nato by the u.s. was a victory victory for obama what do you think about what are the messages brian that are sort of getting lost here well the basic message is that. libyan basic fundamental sovereignty has been shredded that the great powers those who have the

weapons those who have the money those who have decided a long time ago to overthrow this government if they succeed are sending a message not only to libya but to syria to venezuela to cuba to what and any governments that seeks to be independent that seeks to control its own resources now we have to remember khadafi drew the ire of the west. right in one hundred sixty nine not because of violation of human rights he suspended any victim the we were scared for space one of the major us air force bases in the middle east a big part of the cold war here because two british air bases from ebay on when libya took control of its own sovereignty and said foreign occupation forces in these military bases have to be closed down that's when they decided then in one nine hundred seventy that they were going to overthrow them this is been a forty year long campaign it sends a dangerous message to others who want to be independent i don't think the battle

is over yet of course i think inside of libya millions of people contrary to the media assertions don't want foreign occupation and in fact have in the fact the founded the government even if they have grievances against the government richard you started one of your recent articles with the ding-dong the oppressive dictator is dead what do you think about this transitional national council that sounds opposed to comment to the forefront then leave this grassroots democratic movement is this realistic or what do you think we see in the coming weeks should the thing somehow become in arrivals you know and then oh i think this grassroots movement for democracy or something it is a kind of hollywood creation i think the rebels are essentially people who have a beef against gadhafi they want power they might win even in an accident and that's what they're about but they're also clearly surrogate the united states and

nato as i also point out in my piece despite all the you know the hollywood story of a ragtag crew who just won a vote or something like that immediately when they were involved establish a central bank. you know the rubble you know i wonder that i would that was one of their first operations so clearly they were acting as a surrogate for nato they're acting as a surrogate for the united states that we're. regime change and how to kind of bigger picture way but all that real quickly i think the immediate aftermath of this war is going to be some kind of chaos because these rebels are not just united but all ragtag crew is rebels often hate one another there are actually some reports of the rebel calling down below arest but against one another again their rival doesn't listen so i think what is going to be in the immediate aftermath something like these are certainly are armed rebels who make up

a group that may have the one goal in common of taking down gadhafi certainly have a lot of different ideas about how rules should happen right i want to talk bigger picture now certainly i've been quiet a little bit in the middle east in north africa this is a lot of people saying the start of the next arab spring arabs summer post libya after live again addition to libya what about syria what do you see happening next in regards to other countries grain syria you know as we move across the middle east and well you can use of compass which is whoever the u.s. corporate media and the u.s. government is demonizing whoever they decided must go is then in the crosshairs of the next the stabilization so you think some of the mainstream media here in this country is calling the shots here but i think there are at going the policy of the u.s. government they function as a propaganda arm there's a lot made about the u.s. as a free press but you see a complete uniformity of position once the state department in the white house established a position has

a lot of reasons for that but i think what's coming next is that the united states is determined having if they do succeed in overthrowing could afi and conquering libya bring it back into an american british friends fear of influence that they will try to do the same in syria so i think we'll see an expanding level of intervention they will always say it's for humanitarian good it's always for to protect civilians we're going to see more intervention that's why this snowball is getting bigger and bigger and i've. going to lead to additional conflict so you have afghanistan iraq libya pakistan it's just like dick cheney said analysts were but with a new administration and real threat richard i want to pose this question to you what's the likelihood that this will follow in the footsteps of the countries that ryan just mentioned i think unfortunately the great likelihood is that for the simple reason that i think the regime was a distraction they want a they want to number of words maybe even a big war in order to shape people's minds off which is really happening to the

country now to the internal collapse. quite to be the crisis in the middle class they want to take people's mind away from that eternally stop looking at what's going on in washington look everywhere else i want to thank you guys so much for talking with me today brian becker national coordinator for the answer coalition and richard spencer executive director of the national policy institute and we must pay attention to the fact that there are things happening all across the middle east and north africa as i just mentioned you know according to the united nations more than twenty two hundred people have been killed in syria in the last six months largely this is the result of the recent crackdown on anti-government protesters it is a danger zone there and we've now of course and president obama and other western countries call for syrian president bashar al assad to step down not only though has he refused assad this is regime is not in danger that syria is doing just

fine so are the correspondent reza notional right to syria to find out just how safe the streets there really are. during the first part of our journey the road looked quite normal surprisingly say for a war torn country but the way to hama goes through problems the city where activists have been reporting dozens of civilians us over the last few months of violence. the closer we get to that street the more dramatic the scenario because i'm sure checkpoints appear and on the highway. a while later our car edges up with a military convoy the troops apparently returning to a nearby base after the invasion in homs officially over they stalk us but not for long. at the entrance to hama all the cars are checked but that's not the only reminder of the recent unrest. this bridge in the city of hama became infamous after it appeared in an amateur video posted on you tube showing dead but his phone

to the r.c. river comment accompanying this video sad these were residents of hama killed by security forces while syrian t.v. reported they were policeman. despite the president's photo and own military operations against anti-government protesters they've recently been reports about the army still being deployed in several cities across syria including hama. we mistake a man as a checkpoint for one of the soldiers but he's just a police officer wearing special protection a measure introduced following dramatic events here this was left from the offices in the center of the city of hama officials say it was attacked by extremist groups operating here shortly before and said that the city they say that. young group that the building on fire and killed at least twenty soldiers who were inside the building at the time of. the only came to remove barricades and go find

these barricades they were owned people not peaceful demonstrations and there were clashes between them and the troops. while the governor's sharing his views on what's happened a crowd gathers outside the residence. will slow going to sound neutral first. that is great. but the changes in the seconds what people start seign gives a completely different picture we lived about a month and all of. this was the inspiration but after the army. we saw. just like. maybe i understood ok. maybe i need an abrasive officials though not all responsibility on the people themselves they have the right spots these people just don't want to give the government time to do reforms the reforms cannot go through and such an atmosphere. i would

journeyed to hama has been part of a so-called syria is fine to it but no matter what its initial goal was it turns out to be very different from its name. r t damascus hama syria certainly an interesting p.r. approach that is going to do it for us for this hour but for more on the stories we covered go to our website r.t. dot com that slash usa also we post most of our videos on our you tube page you tube dot com slash r.t. america you should also follow me on twitter at frowsy i'm christine thanks for watching. our she is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like.