this is a see you could call it ticking for colonel gadhafi and his supporters to accept an extended deadline to pursue around the malala studies prove this is the end of that leader's underground city one of the hogs on his escape route from tripoli. turkey expelled the israeli ambassador over the jewish state's refusal to apologize for last year's raid on the goals of around a fertility left knowing its citizens dead from the kamal for a new u.n. investigation sound be a time as unacceptable. international war crimes tribunal turns to on t.v.

for assistance in the trial of former both me and general iraq came to doubt it i ask you to provide a unique interview with the genocide suspect in that interview not it g.q. is the u.n. peacekeepers the smuggler known as the default and they were in the one nine hundred ninety s. . one needs to just thirty minutes time right now though time to debate shape crosstalk. hungry for the full stop we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice ceased to face with the news makers on the potty. you can. still. listen to the king live. location welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle reasons for optimism for more uncertainty and violence with the end of the khadafi regime what are the possible futures of libya can the country move from

civil war to a stable and democratic society or will it follow down the path of another afghanistan or iraq led can. still live. cross talk libya after gadhafi i'm joined by lindsey german and london she is a national conveyor of stop the war coalition in denver we cross to daniel wagner he is c.e.o. of country wrists aleutians and in toronto we go to eric margolis he is an award winning journalist and author of war at the top of the world the struggle for afghanistan and asia all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but first let's look at some of the challenges facing the new libya. following six months of a rocky battle the grip the world's attention the arab spring has produced another significant outcome the toppling of libya's comes out in may have come as

a surprise to almost everyone now the least of which were the rebels who fought the forty two year regime. but as the victory fanfare settles libyans are facing a far more trying challenge that of proving they can create an alternative to conduct his rule when the stonewall poor working locals to. the local civil society is. so starting from zero point. four. in this situation the country's transitional council has been lobbying foreign governments to unfreeze billions of dollars and gadhafi has assets to jumpstart the country's economy and the international community has afforded libya the benefit of the doubt well there will be huge challenges ahead one of the positive aspects here is that the libyans are the ones who are undertaking the regime change and the ones leading the transition there's no sign however that

maybe which sustained the campaign against gadhafi forces will be folding up its operations any time soon the mission will continue in full compliance with the united nations mandate for as long as it's needed but not a day longer the transitional leadership has so far rebuffed the idea of deploying military observers but did ask that the u.n. help ensure a democratic elections but the fear remains the major presence money and diplomatic support not withstanding political infighting and tribal strife could threaten the country's for their prospects. and i for crossed out our team. ok if i can go to daniel in denver i was going to the person had to get up earlier for this program we just heard in that report. the libyans don't have a lot of. let's say material to work with to start building a new society how optimistic are you that the civil strife will come to an end

because as we're all reminded it's still very much a tribal society could offer you want to keep it that way conquer and divide. is what do libyans have in common except for maybe the vast majority of them are very happy that gadhafi is gone. well they certainly have their language in common they have their history and i think the challenge is going to be and we've seen this already that along tribal and religious and provincial lines there are divides deep divides in libyan society and one of the concerns that i have is that it's unclear exactly who is leading the charge here exactly what the composition of the new council will be how long the transitional government will be in power and what it will ultimately look like it's really nice to have a change of government after forty two years the real challenge is what comes next and i don't really think that anybody knows the answer lindsey if i go to you in london one of the things that the nato powers keep in mind of a as they met in paris is that they realize that they didn't have

a follow up plan after their invasions of afghanistan in iraq do you think that the nato allies have thought that far ahead in this case is they'd say oh ok they have military control of the country or they have sarah gets there now do they know what to do next and can they build help build a nation. well no i don't think they can nato is a military operation it's a military organization the british and french in particular have played a very big role in initiating this this intervention and in packing out the fact that the libya conference the conference is chaired by france's president sarkozy and prime minister here in britain david cameron tells you exactly how much the west intervening here but they don't have any clear plan later many of the people there now backing up people who who were in death his government who work for gadhafi only a few months ago so what they wanted to do was regime change but as we've seen with

afghanistan and iraq they are absolutely no good at nation building nor can they be because it isn't then nation erika's i'm going to you in toronto over the last few months we've seen a lot of infighting within the rebel camp expression one of its commanders that was mysteriously murdered m do you think that the nato allies really know who they're dealing with here is are these people that you can be trusted because there's a lot of doubts about their backgrounds as we heard a lot of them used to work for gadhafi himself and there is the element the islamic element in its connections to terror networks. peter the nato knows some of the members of this new transitional council because it put them in in place there french intelligence played a leading role in cobbling together the transition council including people with whom we had or britain's am i six or the us cia had

a long relationship many of them libyan exile some of the members of his government so knows them it does not as you brought up know these murky nationalists and islam as who until recently were regarded as quote terrorism quote remember george bush lorded fia's again i quote our valuable ally in the war against terrorism well he was speaking of the militants in benghazi who cultivated for a long time by the british so they just don't know they're hoping for the best but you know something is always of the men with the guns make the rules this war was not won by the libyan people is portrayed in the media was run by special forces from britain and france and by their air forces and i think they will have a very important say in the makeup of the future libyan government daniel do you

have any worries or said something you're right. yeah i just wanted to add something to what you said and that is that my understanding is that they could tare government was actually central to the financing of the rebel movement and one has to ask oneself what role they may expect to play going forward i mean they made this investment in the rebel movement fully expecting something in return and they're in a position to be able to utilize that influence the question is how will that manifest itself and what are the expectations that nato is going to have for their own involvement in this process lindsey well i'll tell you what kind of got ahead of me there there's been a lot of investment in here into this war i lot of people would say it was illegal and now there's going to be payback and are you worried about vast because we just as was mentioned the qatari government was heavily involved nato is going to make probably some make defense and military decisions security decisions on the ground even though they say they won't they probably will because they made an investment

in it i mean it wouldn't it doesn't just divide the libyans more than bring them together. well that's that's just one of the very pretenders. there was a tweet which went out on twitter the other week saying people might think it took a long time to get rid of gadhafi but it can take even longer to get rid of nato and we have to remember we have some history here this isn't the first time we've had an intervention that happened in afghanistan we were told ten years ago they would build a new nation the war is at its worst now all this month we've just had was the bloodiest war for american troops in the whole bloodiest month for american troops in the whole of the war we've had in iraq where we were told there would be stability democracy virtually no iraq he will say today that they live in a stable and democratic country and the danger is that nato will go in there isn't

there a troop on the ground even though the the various governments deny this they want to send in more troops so far the t.n.c. have told and they don't want u.n. troops in but this may change if there's more instability in the country that maybe more and more pressure on the libyans to accept foreign troops and i think a lesson we have to learn is a lesson we tried to put very very strongly to our government is that you cannot bring democracy by paul mean by invasion by foreign powers who actually as a matter of fact have a very very bad record in libya among other countries in africa for their own colonial past you cannot possibly do it and when you look at what the real issues here are about their power regime change that's what they wanted to do was to get rid of gadhafi they've got rid of gadhafi now we will see the true color of it already in britain it's been announced that there was a rental unit set up to deal with the well and the oil companies the various

governments the secret services they will all be involved in these trying to get their share of. the action over the next few months it will not pay for the benefits of the libyan people ok. eric if i could go to you here yes go ahead go ahead i would like to. i just wrote recently in my columns always the is the ultimate out for the ziac. oil is very big you know as the we're hearing all this with this guff about humanitarian missions and protecting civilians what's really happening is french companies have stolen a march on the brits and the rest of the western europe there in libya and now they're trying to corner a lot of the rebuilding. from damage caused by nato bombing or by lack of infrastructure in libya and this is a gold rush this is a new klondike there's a huge amounts of money there arms to be sold there are roads to be build so they're rushing in the qatari. interesting story you know i was i interviewed spent

an evening with gadhafi back in the late one nine hundred eighty s. and he told me he said you know he said the gulf arabs are the saudis and the gulf arabs they say they're a bunch of old ladies and skirts and if you know your mentality you know this really burn the market off he said a number of times a lot of the reasons i think that the qatari qatar's are very smart people but they really want to get revenge arab style khadafi for insulting them and for insulting the arab leaders all right let me jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that sharper go computer or discussion on libya's future state party.

i got out of the military in ninety six and six i got out because the sings a song other things i was doing and that's the reason he said we were given for doing nothing there was a personal protest. during the vietnam war an antiwar movement emerged that altered the course of history of this movement to take place on college campuses but in barracks and on ships penetrated elite military colleges like west point and it spread throughout the battlefields of vietnam. today you people know about the g.i. bill but against the war in vietnam. after the army we always said free the army or fun travel and adventure but it really meant to be.

ok. welcome back to cross talk your local to remind you we're talking about libya in the post gadhafi era. ok. ok let's see if i go back to you in london. you mentioned nato earlier on in the program and nato is gloating right now it actually did something it thinks it's actually done something successful after the quagmire of afghanistan do you think does this worry you that will give it gives it it gives itself

a feather in the hat and say look. we actually can do things that are efficient or we can work together well of course the americans were very critical of their dragging their feet most of the members of nato didn't really want to participate in this well of course nato is a u.s. led operation there's absolutely no question about this you have to ask why the north atlantic treaty organization intervenes in south asia or north africa various other places which have nothing to do with the north atlantic this was set up after the second world war and opposition to the warsaw pact countries the warsaw pact was dissolved some years ago but nato is becoming more militaristic is getting more and more money from particularly countries like the u.s. and britain in order to carry out its operations i think it's very worrying they're all saying this is a great success this rehabilitates the whole notion of humanitarian intervention it does nothing of the saw many thousands of people have been killed in libya

including many by nato bombing and also we should remember we heard exactly this before in two thousand and one and two thousand and three when again afghanistan and iraq were said to be success stories very few people now claim either of those was a success you look at what has happened in these countries of internationally ok ordinary people have got no better off ok again you go right ahead. you know i have to take a couple of issues with what lindsey said there's no question that this campaign would not have been successful without the participation of the united states in terms of drone activity intelligence activity etc cruise missiles that nato didn't have and didn't contribute i would also make a comparison in terms of what nato accomplished in kosovo in seventy eight days versus what nato has accomplished in around one hundred fifty days and libya in kosovo there was an intervention force that followed there so far has been no

intervention force on the part of nato the question is will there be and you know ultimately there were far fewer cows casualties nato casualties there were about ten in this conflict versus about five hundred nato on the question of whether it she did same's i would have to say did ultimately achieve its aims but it only achieved its aims as a result of the contribution of money to the rebels from a variety of sources in conjunction with what the military was able to achieve through data ok ok lindsey graham and you were really i don't know here i mean you know lindsey ration was meant simply was made to be protecting civilians it was not meant to be regime change it was absolutely clear from the very beginning that that was that was actually what was at me and to compare it to kosovo so kosovo again in some sense that story is simply it's simply not the case it's one of the same one of the poorest areas of europe with senses of prostitution drug running gun running

i mean this is the kind of state wait a minute not so and you actually well i'm sorry and if you look at here because i. was lazy is using the argument that he's selling selling party ok erica in toronto. you know please enough with the sort of propaganda from you lindsay kosovo there was a risk there were eight hundred thousand albanian civilians who were being driven out of their homes in the dead of winter many of them would have died from exposure this is not about body parts probably which was very very wrong let me finish let me finish. nato did the right thing the united states did the right thing by intervening in this real humanitarian crisis libya is something entirely different and what we're seeing is a return of the old colonial powers in north africa france. italy and spain.

and they are and they are rivals they are notating against each other already to see who gets control the french are ahead the italians are very dismayed now the french may be gobbling up only golden eggs in libya so we can compare the two things together ok daniel people of the nato i think i hear some one more thing on go ahead jump in go ahead. no i said i simply want to do that let's not you know delude ourselves as to what this is and what it is and sure it started out with humanitarian objectives in libya there can be no doubt given what's going on in the neighborhood what it was going to end up being and i don't think there are very many people who are going to cry about gadhafi leaving the scene and i should point out he hasn't yet left the scene and there are still some important battles that must be won for the rebels to rightly claim that this this game is over lindsay i

do want to stay with this nato theme you think syria is next i mean maybe we need to feel bolder now i mean if you look at bahrain i mean there's so many other humanitarian issues in the region but it's all based on geopolitical interest ok and i think certainly everyone it's obvious stake here in libya there's no denying that we'll see where it goes but you know there's the crackdown in syria is you know then nato should go in there or maybe it should go that maybe it should liberate bahrain from the south from saudi control ok i mean we'll try to look at. that isn't going to happen of course but happen in a hurry i don't think they won't go in to do anything to criticize the saudis or or and think bahrain the american fleet is in power and they could have intervened if they wanted to at the time they had no interest in doing so there are clearly now people who will say they should intervene in syria i think many of the night so

pounces will still be very wary about this but that can train very quickly i think if we understand libya i don't agree it was about just simply revenge on the part of the gulf states against gadhafi although they didn't they obviously didn't like him but i think it was much more that if you look at the timing of the pia it coincided with the crackdown by the saudis and the parini well family involved and it was an attempt by the western powers to retake control both of the tunis is a. overthrow him a dictator and they will do everything that they can to maintain that including if they think they can get away with it intervention in syria however the big problem i think that is that this would then lead to a much bigger war there's already tensions between israel and egypt in recent weeks that age it and i think that even the british and french and the americans are nervous about it's

a direct intervention in syria why have no doubt they are already into you know he's already understanding who to talk to try to overthrow. you know your first. ok i simply wanted to add that you know it's very clear that the various powers in the west are extremely stretched militarily economically financially i don't think anyone really thinks that these are going to be wars of liberation led by the west waving the flag these you know the solutions to these problems have to come indigenously they have to come from the locals and the people to the extent that the west may be able to have something valuable along those lines that's consistent with what they're trying to achieve fine but you know living in the united states right now and in many other places in the west you know we don't really have the resources to continue to do this and there isn't the political will on the part of a lot of voters in the west certainly in the united states to do it either so what

do you think is what do you think i mean i don't think anybody in the western united states and in the nato countries were ever asked if they wanted to go into this war or not i mean i seem to remember we got into this war over the weekend at one point ok eric you wanted to say something go ahead. yes i first of all regarding syria look the u.s. the saudis and the israelis have been trying to overthrow the syrian government since the days of the bush administration money was voted for this by congress and they are steady reports that some of the armed groups going into syria are coming out of lebanon and they were trained by western intelligence services and there's a fight going on i'm not sure that the u.s. will intervene or the west will intervene in a full scale war in syria because the syrians unlike the libyans unlike the iraqis unlike the afghans can shoot back they have been obsolete but it's still fairly tough army and it will not be

a cakewalk and there is everybody is worried that what will happen if syria does call absolutely all over the government it may be like libya with the islamists taking over but look the west is using humanitarian intervention that's its new banner for getting involved abroad counterterrorism is passe humanitarianism is rules it will see other humanitarian interventions when and where it suits the interests of the west or other power block linsey feingold to. be its weft afghanistan the mujahideen which we had been funded by the united states the cia they came back to haunt the united states with the taliban regime do you worry about something like that happening with libya. you know it's already happening in libya that there are actually people fighting there who were trained by al qaida who've been in afghanistan and this is of course kept very quiet about but this is something which is already going on of course this is one of the very likely things

that would happen. i have absolutely no time for because they're free i recognize that many many libyans are pleased to say you can go on and i think he is afraid if we go on but the truth of the matter is that you cannot just go into countries overthrow the regime this has to be a process which the people of those countries and cells undertake as they have done in egypt as they have turned into nazir and as they want to do in a number of other countries which are going prevented from doing such as in bahrain and if you don't do it like that if you think you can take these things in the way you have the british empire used to do in the way that the americans out talk about with their imperial overstretch then you are creating a situation where you will not have real democracy will not have real freedom you won't have exactly the kind of chaos and disasters plus you will have the same people running these countries you know the old song from here today or the neatly

of course the same as the new meet the new boss the same as the old pa says what's going on ok peter i'm going to really give you a hand here a change a constraint. libya is never down the marker seasons the days of the roman empire there's nothing in the lips like democracy and i don't think we'll be seeing it any time right thank you very much all right many thanks my guests a day in london denver and in toronto and thanks to the viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time you remember cross talk rules. can . start. to.