stoning for adultery cutting off hands first dealing for renouncing islam can sharia coexist in harmony with western values and what about a government imposed gadhafi libya. plus what's next for libya and everyone involved we'll speak with a former cia agent who questions the end game for libya. america's the greatest country in the world but it didn't get that way but it's over mccain and lieberman there's a new neo con poster boy in town so as conservatives turn to cuban american marco rubio to win over latino votes are they forgetting something they his stance on immigration.

anything it's wednesday august twenty fourth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching r.t. libya's moammar gadhafi is wanted dead or alive there's a one point six million dollars bounty on his head he's a large though he pledged overnight an address to the nation that he will fight until victory or martyrdom meanwhile though the rebels have seized the colonel's compound the rebel leaders are reportedly moving their headquarters to tripoli the question becomes then what will the government look like and oppose khadafi libya and of course who are the rebel leaders that will come to power well the national transitional council though they haven't been elected claims to be the only legitimate government and a draft constitutional charter reportedly from them has appeared online take a look at this excerpt from it libya is an independent democratic state worried that people are the source of authorities islam is the religion of the state and

the principal source of legislation is islamic jurisprudence or shari'a so it's based on shari'a law just the question that comes out of that is this the kind of democracy president obama had in mind when he said that it was justified for the u.s. to drop bombs on the country to back the ruggles because of this. the united states also strongly supports the universal rights of the libyan people that includes the rights of peaceful assembly free speech and the ability of the libyan people to determine their own destiny. regardless of what you think that or john mccain went out on t.v. to just prove the idea that the transitional council is after shari'a law reporting about this statement from them back in march on march eleventh of they have issued a manifesto and i quote just from one sentence of it the state were guaranteed the rights and empowerment of women and all the gore political economic and cultural

spheres i have detected no. effort or motivation amongst the national transition council many of whom i know well to impose shari'a law. yeah that's the same mccain mind you who two years ago but isn't supporting the rebels he was meeting with khadafi and was on his ranch that he'd shared an interesting meeting with an interesting man afterward that was widely quoted and less well known until now reportedly promised to help khadafi get u.s. military hardware as a u.s. partner in the war on terror that's according to a us cable just released released by wiki leaks which revealed a very friendly meeting between gadhafi and mccain and this debate isn't new over shari'a law over what western goals are and hark back to iraq of course a war and occupation after the weapons of mass destruction excuse fell through bush justified by this he said this was part of a global democratic revolution led by the us but struggle ensued between

a rocky desires for shari'a law for the country and an american desire to tone it down in fact at one point the american leader the guy in charge he vetoed iraq's calls for a for a larger role of shari'a law in their constitution and eventually what was enshrined in iraq's constitution was a blend look at this here's an excerpt islam is the official religion of the state and of the foundation source of legislation so well it says that no law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of islam also no no law may be enacted it contradicts the principles of democracy so it was a blend and fair enough that a country should want to put forth the kind of laws that it wants from self that's democracy but shari'a is not what the united states was spending a reported eight hundred billion dollars to attain in iraq that taxpayers funded

and also came at a cost of thousands of lives so our string of priorities arises and what this means as comparisons are being made between libya now and iraq back. in two thousand and three earlier i spoke with one of the top one hundred modern thinkers that's according to foreign policy magazine it is even for room and he's a writer an academic and a journalism professor at bard college and i started off our conversation by asking if we can rip expect a repeat in libya where as we saw in iraq we had an authoritarian regime but a secular one that was overthrown but then the secular elements of the opposition to the back seat and the islamicists took over or we're going to see the same in libya here was his response. well physically i'm they've been on that list of one hundred intellectuals lamas as well as people are going to let mark go there and that doesn't next live here and i think even experts don't really know what is

going to be done except it's all speculation it is quite possible that it. is a lobbyist for the regime whatever comes out in the end and what its replacement that doesn't necessarily mean it will be left in the crack of its oldest and most. critically and. then got the ok but but here's the question if syria is enshrined in libya in the constitution in some way it's just a threat or a challenge to western values because if you watch fox news you do you don't have to be a genius to pick up on the fact that a lot of people think that's the case if you got a problem. that may be a problem question is how it how it's interpreted and how it's incorporated i don't think we're going to go to the salami expert but i think there is a consensus and there's not one interpretation should realize there are many countries with your nation that use korea in different ways and.

that's a beagle case so it could be basically should readers about its breaking its critics is there anything i could be that the law it's supposed to be hard grounded in islamic values just as anything this country united states you know i don't run i feel the law should be based on christian and it's and how that's done how much room the rights of minorities rights of free speech and so on and i just want a country and sort of how not to press it means to balance such as free speech and gender equality and so on and the great events of how the interim. you know and you brought up an interesting point you mentioned that you know whether or not people disagree like yourself with it that that u.s. law and u.s. constitution is based on you could argue christian notion than value so is it any surprise that a muslim country majority muslim country would want the same thing for their

constitution. prize there is of course a big difference with the real threat. secular democracy which is not valued as such its. religious institution and that's a particular when this institution the social the catholic church for real. it is a core base and that's what it's hierarchy. that doesn't really exist in the world there is no it's not there is no source of real religion so we're going to it's hard to see how or rock for it would be. if. for example freedom of speech would be out of some additional religious basis it's not the values it's your or it's either. ok so the authority so then my question is

is there a problem for the united states when the united states calls for democracy and the will of the people in libya to prevail if libya chooses syria and chooses that whether it's a blend of the values or the authority isn't that democracy if that's what they choose but it would certainly be a problem if it were islamized go. to the very literal view of the region and try to impose all kinds of liberal loads on the country that would make it if it were it would be a threat to democracy for its liberal democracy not obviously not. in the first where it's going to be so. for you know going. second place it might be a problem to be united states with west were but what problem could opposed to the united states or to the western world well for example if you had an lamas

government that was very actively and militant anti reston the effect would be a problem in a country that's a major oil. and it could be a problem because it was the app so it's the general private in a very volatile middle east and so on so there are potential problems there i mean the more liberal democratic countries like libya will be the better lead and so the united states on the other hand the it's also very possible to have the drop we're seeing which turns out to be anti western and very nationalistic that could be that represents a popular current in the country it's not it's a panacea or even if it works i think what we see should the u.s. speak out very loudly or get involved to not have it be a government that is anti western because you have made the point that the us going on spreading democracy has got

a really bad name after iraq and afghanistan was pretty much a mark received by armed force and certainly not a good idea and i think. in the middle east or anywhere. thank you very much in flux the less interference rules from the west or better it is this is something that there have to sort out. their country they have to find systems that fit them and the most the u.s. or western countries in general try to intervene directly to shape their future the more likely it is that this will cause great resentment in an empty western back and which which then does what. right could. have been. through. a. lot of issues to sort out that was in groom

a writer i condemn that and lose professor of democracy human rights and journalism at bard college still what remains in the debate going back to libya is the question of the reason for the united states is involvement in the first place because protecting civilians is clearly not seems to have been the only goal congressman dennis kucinich of ohio he is one who is asking in a recent article if cia was involved in planning regime change back when protests broke out in benghazi before that and did the cia have a role in fomenting what was essentially a civil war we're going to talk about that is jack rice he's a journalist and a former cia officer himself thank you for being with us so my first question to you is you know we heard congressman kucinich ask did the cia have a role before protests broke out in february before the events of february and march do you think that could be a possibility. sure i do i mean let's be honest the cia is involved in every place

that they try to get involved they were at least on the ground in egypt they try to be on the ground everywhere in every major country in the region and tripoli is one of those places you would have expected them to deny it but i think so i think what percentage were under siege is talking about is a reasonable question but i think one of the problems that we have is the u.s. has a very schizophrenia relationship it's sort of approach to the middle east in general we talk about democracy and how we're supporting the rebels and how incredibly. protect human life etc but we've made the very same argument in egypt but that ignores the fact that we supported mubarak for decades as our very closest ally in the region how do you reconcile that those two and i think there's a lot of people in the middle east who are asking every question of course i mean at the same question that comes up in countries like bahrain where the united states has not had the same reaction as it did to live where they're at the best

a powerful geo political partner as well as a very important source of oil but libya is a different situation and the united states has had a different relationship with the leader and with that country do you think that regime change was a plan of the united states earlier on then than what it unfolded in the civil war . i think that the broader sense the answer is yes i think if we look at what we found with the arab spring in general when all of a sudden you realized egypt could stall and egypt was going to fall all of a sudden it opens up this broader question of what else can change in the region and what else can we change in our favor and let's face it let's never deny it with the u.s. is doing here is that this isn't about protecting the people of of libya this is about american interests first and foremost we can show we want this is not

a left or right question a republican or democratic question this is an american foreign policy question it's cold but it is a problem that we have that you know his reconciling when we save them but we turn around and do another and regardless of that hypocrisy doesn't the us realize that this could all backfire on its face i mean my last guest and i were talking about the vision that sharia law could be a you know what this ends up which is not something with which the united states would want we've seen that happen in other countries and yes trouble in iraq so this could not go the way that the united states wants it leaders have to know that right. oh without question i mean that's what they're afraid of it's interesting there are a lot of conversations across the diplomatic row right now the british for mr hague just came out this morning and he said you know where do we go next well the first thing we have to do is keep some stability on the ground i mean imagine what happens when all of these twenty something year old kids and they are kids in many

cases who roll in to get off this compound and walk out with or lot of weaponry on the streets of libya on the streets of tripoli where do you go next to the americans to all of a sudden these guys turn around decide you know what what we need is more shari'a what we need is more than what we saw from get up and that's the problem how do the americans reconcile that i haven't had an answer i haven't heard it it's are certainly not as of yet anyway how do you think that americans and the u.s. will back and filed that do you think that the united states will get dragged into you and i get dragged into you but god themselves into war to prevent what they want from not happening to happen. oh i don't think you're going to see a war in any sense of the word what you may see is exactly what we're going to hatch do you see a lot of shadow wars and the shadow war is to basically move into the region and try to control it from the sidelines this isn't what we're saving some place like

yemen as of yet but that's one of our biggest fears let's think about what we have in yemen right now where we supported a leadership which had no control of the region but the problem is is there was nothing better that was there and then when he gets pushed aside you have such incredible instability that you can't turn to anybody and say you can stop what's going on in your own country so now we've expanded into the likes of not just iraq and afghanistan a bit of both places other parts of the horn of africa but you're also talking about yemen he does the american government preparing to actually move into libya he is very real said to what president obama has been very hesitant to do that but you should know that the likes of repairing the likes of bachmann the likes of mitt romney have all said that president obama was not aggressive enough we should have there were troops we should have had more planes or yes well then what does that

say puja things like conservatives always just want to have some of them the hawks want more about walk away and see if this is a bad day continues to expand and see if we find out more about just what role the cia did have and the civil are but thank you so much for your expertise as a former cia officer jack rice is also journalist. and still ahead right here on r t don't go away it's rubio to the rescue at least that's what's making mainstream media headlines so what is missing from the story well we'll explain what you really need to know about a cuban american senator who may very well be the next neo-con in chief. we just put a teacher underneath when i was like nineteen years old i didn't feel the true. sense and i meant to get a sense that i loved that make us is that. he

was kind of the jester that. i'm very proud of the role that i'll just see that split. that we had in apartheid. i think. we never got the book says here keep him safe get ready because their freedom.

welcome back well senator marco rubio of florida was valiant last night he came to the rescue of dancey regen at a feaking event at the reagan library in california he caught the ninety year old former first lady from calling now the heroic he is what made mainstream media news which you can see right there it's very sweet but as rubio holds fundraisers in california this week what do you really need to know about this senator well we'll break it down for you even though the republicans don't have a candidate for president yet his name is getting a lot of air time as a vice presidential prospect he's a cuban american politician and ardent defender of american exceptionalism that has political analysts saying he just might be the next neo-con in chief taking up the

mantle from senator joseph lieberman and john mccain what else you need to know about the republican party's new golden boy well california has that all wrapped up for you take a look at this there was a shouting god who is making waves he's the rising star the republican party or caribbean or still rubio. more new york or if you are you're a troublemaker we're hearing reports not you know to you marco rubio senator from florida america is the greatest country in the world but it didn't get that way by even american you know if you're a neo conservative economists would call it was never america's joy-ann. but that's exactly what the american economic miracle made of really got his start in south florida as one of cuban american congresswoman ileana roslin in an interview he rises in part because. in order to be elected dog catcher you have to have a policy in yours. not unexpectedly rises away

like foam. politics from florida and quickly need to leap from state legislator to u.s. senate and although he invoked his parents struggle as cuban immigrants whether they came here on the mayflower on a slave ship or on an airplane from havana we are all descendants of the men and women who built here the nation that saved the world. opposes comprehensive immigration reform and the dream act marco rubio maybe the republicans superman but the way he handles immigration is this kryptonite and supports english only was even though he ran his campaign in spanish the fact is that when he ran for senator he was able to advertise in spanish saying i'm an immigrant too and it garnered a fair amount of support rubio represents the hallmarks of a new conservative movement leveling this criticism of president obama's taxes on wealthy americans it's class warfare and it's the kind of language that you would

expect from a leader of a third world country not the president of the united states supporting a strong military america still the only watchman on the wall for freedom and there is still no one to take our place and like senators before him and experience a role abroad tyrants have always lied about america's intentions because they fear our values our only interest in serious and we hold her people will have the same freedoms we do as well as fewer regulations are pretty big business if we could just get the government to ease up on some of these onerous regulations. the american people will take care of the rest because this idea about america being exceptional it's not something i read about in the book rubio's vision has been embraced by tea partiers and new conservatives alike the glories of the big issues united states passed when everything was in order when when everybody was. genocide in the end is no slavery no nothing like that just the founding fathers of

the formant of stars phoning for that's the world in which he lives are those that say oh yes i think two thousand and twelve presidential race heats up america might be seeing a lot more senator marco rubio and his platform of big budget cuts in the face of a one point five trillion dollar deficit as well as a continued strong presence for america abroad feeling ford artsy washington d.c. so in that report kalen mentioned how the g.o.p. base rubio as a subpoena luring to latino voters or just exactly how do latino voters feel about this senator let's find out community organizer ron go chaz is here is actually in our l.a. studio to tell us thank you for being here so my first question to you is do you think that marco rubio could appeal to latino voters i think you can appeal for a very small group in miami florida but to the masses of the community in the

united states absolutely not the guy really needs that history class and it's to know the realities of our communities because he definitely does not speak for us it's interesting you mentioned in florida i have a feeling to latinos he won fifty seven percent of the latino vote in florida why do you think that this wouldn't apply looking more broadly at the country. but i think it's known that you know florida in miami in particular it's a small group of cuban americans who have a really reactionary political line that goes contrary to the rest of the country you have people who are extremely republican who of course have you know sabotage and even pretty much done their own people under the bus in cuba in order to you know have some kind of political power in miami and i think that the majority of people in the united states simply want to stand for that not only because of issues of immigration you know but the majority latino community is against the war you know there's issues of the economy things that he simply stands completely against our own community and i think that he really speaks of the nature of the system and the profound profound crisis that it's in when the system itself has to

use either black or latino people to speak for them to really rescue themselves from the crisis that we know is only getting deeper every every day so it's something that we know he doesn't speak for us and it's something that you know he will not get the support of the masses of the latino community because he has a support of people like the tea party who are obviously completely against our interest so you're saying that that they key crisis in a key interest here is dealing with immigration because one thing that in his ad that actually karl rove is behind bush strategists is appealing to obama's failure to address unemployment for example. yeah i mean you know this is that and not something that i'm trying to say that up in a community to advocate for president obama absolutely not he's failed as just as much as the republican party has but you know if you ask me about you know they're going to vote for this very rubio simply because of his name i'm going to tell you that we're absolutely not because we know that his name may be spanish he might speak spanish but he really speaks for white power and it's a system that's it's

a racist system that has historically you know profited off our off our backs and he's trying to erase history saying that you know whether we came you know slave ships or whether we were here because of other reasons and use money race history and i would say that we're all american and we know that that's not true and the conditions that our community faces in the attacks that we're facing from the police remember gratian from all these different laws are simply put is in a very different situation so he enjoys his own privileges as a cuban american in miami but at the national level he is not respected or even i would say recognized by the majority of that you know community talk about the talk about what you just said his privileges as a cuban american in miami because from what i understand latinos do not identify with cubans because of immigration because cubans are treated very differently by the u.s. immigration system than all other latino immigrants virtually can you talk about that. there you know our brothers and sisters from cuba you know some in miami have a very extreme right wing agenda that is very different from the majority of our

community now that you know the cubans brother and sisters who have you may agree with this but the ones that they favor these types of and take cuba and policies really have a lot to gain from this type of marco rubio vice presidential candidate they have a lot to gain because that gives them power they give them the pedestal to speak against revolutionary cuba which is something that the majority latino community i would say is not in favor of they're not in favor of speaking against cuba so he simply does not represent the interests not all the only of latinos but working class people in general that speaks for african-americans whites anyone who is poor in this country needs a job needs health care and he does not speak for us he speaks for any neat group and i would say maybe white cuban community really does not represent cuba as a whole or latinos here in united states at all and so they don't identify with the way it was explained to me was that the perception is that when a cuban comes to this country they're on a path to citizenship when mexicans come to this country they're on

a path to deportation is that the perception in the latino community. there is a perception i don't think it antagonisms against the cuban brothers sisters because of that we know it's not necessarily their fault it's the government system it's the law it's the immigration laws that really hit us against each other so this is not against the cuban americans this is against a small group people in miami who are dictating politics based on this extremely reactionary policy against cuba you know these people are most of the people in our community which means that they're not even part of our community this is some that stands totally against those they support everything bush is doing they support all the imperialist wars they don't support immigration reform they are completely couldn't be any more different than the majority of the latino community so not representative of the community or the people that you see as a latino community at all i thank you so much for coming on our show and talking about this it's really interesting and i have to see what happens in your take off but thank you ron go ahead he's a community organizer from our los angeles studio.