to. say this is i'll see here is crowds and clowns from police and things and all of it and you probably times two pages worth of nothing dead as is the new president of the black faces its biggest challenge abba and the club the economic integration is much. needed he sends in the troops to reinforce untasted border crossing between serbia and braithwaite. after fresh fall of the rails and in the two sides russia's foreign ministry wants peacekeeping forces to remain neutral and stick to give and

receive. a little wave of global disapproval hates israel which says it will build eleven andriy new staff mag's of the disputed east jerusalem the commerce of the un's most powerful body refers palestine states to the membership base to its admission can you see the literature on friday. next cross-talk panel a question of whether foreign intervention is ever good for the people whose countries are being me. k. . street. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm people of all western liberal interventionism is it ever justified are such military interventions within the confines of international law or is there a case where western inspired forced regime change as worked as it's planned and

can such interventions generate positive outcomes for people on the ground. to cross not liberal interventions i'm joined by the emotion my leach in washington he's a historian columnist for antiwar dot com in new york we have ian williams he's a journalist and author and in geneva we cross that you saw gloomy he is a professor of middle eastern balkan history at georgia state university hard gentlemen this is crosstalk i mean you can jump in anytime you want to have different points of view and i want my viewers to see it all right here bush if i can go to you and i know you're an expert on the balkans so i just go all the way back to like kosovo to the present and looking at libya why events are playing out in countries like libya but not bahrain not in yemen not in somalia etc etc what is the track record in your opinion of western military intervention since the end of the cold war. abysmal i think the first in terms of the first and only intervention that actually followed the rules was the desert storm or death rather desert shield

in iraq in one thousand nine hundred ninety one everything after that has been just a total not creative international law from the gradual escalation in bosnia to the outrage the illegal war in kosovo to the outright illegal invasion in iraq and now libya which has completely dispensed with even the figure leaf of u.n. authorization and simply went to the resolution to establish a no fly zone and then proceeded with regime change right away ok what do you think about that the enemy of bismo right a track record is no history since the end of the start of the cold war well look the intervention in iraq was nothing to do with liberal interventionism nothing to do with the international community it was a unilateral bush enterprise. so it's unequivocal thing now being revealed but the intervention imposed that was too late. because. if the

international community i put a division of paratroopers on the river train at the beginning then milosevich one of the regime would have collapsed two hundred thousand people would still be alive stripper anita would not of happened the intervention in kosovo you might remember followed a whole string of un resolutions telling the milosevic regime in belgrade to stop killing the albanians in kosovo he ignored it the intervention when it eventually came and i just refresh my memory about the resolution was voted for by the security council including russia and china provided for u.n. military intervention for nato military intervention and occupation in effect of kosovo it set out the terms of it all and incidentally riffraff france the runway accords which provided for a conference to discuss self-determination within three years stop the killing in kosovo it allowed most of the cost of us to go back home when they've been thrown across the border so i think kosovo was successful but carried out in the wrong way

it shouldn't have been done by bombing they should have actually you threaten ground troops at the beginning of the last of it would have surrendered ok new version i know you knew him and i know you don't agree on the whole a resolution one thousand seven hundred three roll call was very clear nine hundred seventy three right now i want you to know when i am in there into legally go ahead anyway go ahead. yes i would suggest to all your listeners and to the other two participants in this debate that things do evolve and transform over time and i would suggest that we don't have any evidence of a plan a going to straight trajectory to plan b. in the case of intervention in these conflicts in the balkans or north africa or anywhere else in the world and for that matter indeed the international players as they constantly are doctoring to the conditions on the ground are forced their hands are forced often by events in the case of interventions in the balkans for instance i suspect is being kraybill of collusion between certain players in

so-called. members member nations and the nato alliance with some of the key players on the ground including the most of his regime we often forget that there are some strong indications and very strong opinions voiced by various players in both the united states and in western europe in regards to protecting the sovereignty of another sovereign claims that serbia had an intervention intervening first in. northern balkans in one thousand nine hundred ninety one ninety two and then later on ninety seven ninety eight ninety nine in kosovo similarly in north africa i suspect that there was a great deal of hedging there was and waiting it out and see how things were turned out i don't think i don't think the international players actually appreciated what was happening on the ground they were caught by surprise ok and indeed intervention in libya let me go back and then and it is part of a lot more part of my introduction here i mean this is the law of unintended

consequences i mean if the decision is made in depending on how beagle it is and in many cases it is the bo she pointed out is just completely illegal without any legal foundation at all the fact of the matter is we have an intervention like this you never know where it can go and people are cheering something might happen to ok in libya but it's far from over far far from over going. well resolution one thousand nine hundred seventy three is not completely illegal the russian power which he thought was interpreted went along it was interpreted is this is the is the issue at hand here ok i mean you go from a no fly zone to the interrogation is there on the bed there's a lot of game playing here the russian the russian delegation is making the protest but that kathy was the most unpopular person in the neighborhood that was one of the reasons why this intervention was at all possible in the security council he had very few friends apart from those he'd pull out is so hard and visited libya six times i think he was

a very unpopular exactly you know. what is your letter to your eyes are you with any with your friends let me go let me get an emotion here because i think the saudi royal family are very popular either ok go ahead your voice or. well i mean popularity oughtn't have anything to do with this one way or another well we're talking apples and oranges first of all i'd like to correct ian about the whole brigade on the dream and nonsense and two hundred thousand dead when it's been known for at least six years that the final tally of the war was one hundred thousand people in all three sides i'm not trying to minimize anybody's suffering but let's you know man's with the propaganda nonsense but secondly but secondly. international community so-called was involved in bosnia from the get go i have eyewitness testimonies from people who were there when the american ambassador told a muslim leader is a vegan if you don't like it don't sign it this was march one thousand nine hundred two this was before the war started so it's just not makes things up here again

popularity has nothing to do with this i personally think russia made a mistake in approving one nine hundred seventy three because in one thousand nine hundred seventy three he said let's establish a no fly zone by any means necessary so the u.s. and nato to come by any means necessary toss the wrestler solution like he would call forty four b. we should selectively apply because when they have to apply something that obligates them to pursue the resolution relation to the example and so doesn't even see a stock relation he and i had jump and this was crosstalk. no defense of the civilian population that i know said. this stuff did not go past unnoticed they use the consequences and the hope was but that fate would collapse a lot sooner than he did and we know one of the reasons he didn't collapse was because anyone who tried to these that was shot so not only i'm not saying the rebels are angels but gaddafi was a bad guy unpopular with his own people not just in great britain regimes and i

think that's now been vindicated he is gone and nobody is shedding tears a little here here let's go to geneva go ahead some go ahead how about the how about this to kind of fit with the theme of this of this discussion how about the kind of relationships that very strong relationships that meter on for instance had with milosevic and richard holbrooke which we have some very interesting connections between holbrooke as a banker and milosevic in his in one nine hundred seventy s. they continue on in the one nine hundred eighty s. and one nine hundred ninety s. kind of these mis messages or a misinterpreted message is that often that often evolved into the point where it got to the point of no return where did the views of the of perception that i should i have a green light to deal with my problems in a violent way or i you know i and i have been encouraged in libya to deal with with my our opponents and we recall that could our feet was caught early with the cia for until couple of months before the uprisings and then ghazi in the east so there

is some complicity there are some serious problems we have to raise about about how the international community and this includes russia and china how they how they interact with with many of these british eams that cars can't constantly events on the ground to transform very rapidly we're told about human beings who resist tyranny whether it's in western china whether it's in north africa whether it's in detroit in michigan united states and if we continue. play his game that it's you know that we have a very hard hard break between what is right and wrong are you how internet for i see understood i see devotion trying to jump in here go right ahead of course go ahead go ahead comment well i actually agree i'm actually agreeing with this line of reasoning as you want to ask a couple questions are you implying that the whole group can milosevic were somehow in cahoots because this is the first time i've heard distances in twelve years i've been writing about the balkans i have not seen more implacable enemy.

well you know when you use relations although they had very strong in baghdad yes you just if you if you if you trace back to kind of interaction they go on that before even the conflicts explodes and listen to the language of the international community often of course is bush war bush number one swore in the beginning and they were very conservative in dealing with the breakup of the eastern bloc and they kind of gave mr smith mixed messages there they were taken advantage of by all sides and then of course once the clinton administration comes into power a very influential figure like holbrooke who has long term relations with all kinds of players in the east which you know you can look you just have to look at the backgrounds and and skin very well read very closely what some of the statements that holbrooke is making both privately and publicly as a representative of the state department you can find that there's a there's a very distinctive break between earlier times to work with most of it in the

ninety one ninety two and then of course after dayton accord so there is this kind of law where and then indeed in ninety seven ninety eight ninety nine there's just going back and forth and i would i don't i five i've written about this and and easy to find parallels in many other so-called crises around the world are you going to jump in here we're going to short break we're going to lose your freedom after that short break we'll continue our discussion and western intervention stay r.t. . if you still . want to. believe.

it's. since. i've. just.

welcome back to rostock i'm going to go to mind you were talking about western back interventions. q. ok and i think go back to you know it's i think it's quite curious because a lot of this program has been discussing international law but when western powers go into countries like libya i found that the discussion is they think about the feasibility of the intervention the cost the risks and possible backlash of arab public opinion but there's very little discussion if it's illegal or not and outside of the beltway that's a lot of people do talk about that we're looking for

a resolution one thousand nine hundred eighty three was brought up yeah yeah it was it was the what he said was to juice to have a no fly zone and to use whatever means to protect witnesses billions put it that entailed really bombing the country to hell that's what i'm getting out about if the illegal end of it because in western media they get along to go along support their governments most of the time but there's never really discussion of the legality of things and i think that's what outside of the security council that's what other people think about go ahead. i think nine hundred seventy three was legal and they stretched the legality perhaps but it was within the terms and look the other parties russia and china are sophisticated players i've been watching the minister curity council for twenty years they knew of the implications and what i think everyone agreed was they could that we had to be dealt with but russia and china wanted to keep clean hands in the international arena so they played this double game and i think well i don't i don't i don't think we're i don't think it's a double game vocal in saying is that why we're in this would have destroyed by

support for the but you know but and also that is the whole issue of sovereignty in this the entire purpose of having united nations in the first place is to protect the legal rights of sovereign states the potion when you think about it because look. if you look at the resolution we've told you with everything rearranges we both agreed it was a slippery slope what do you think about the basha about that. well i mean we're not looking at the way things are functioning today it's almost as if we're living in the world of drugs lucas invasion there's this because there's a quote from one of the extra ball people for star wars is this legal i will make it legal it doesn't matter what is it matters we can be created on the ground this is no way to run the world let alone you can't run a dog catching operation like this without it backfiring what happened in libya what we saw happening in libya was basically the entire cycle balkans intervention six celebrated to hyperspeed within weeks instead of years and you ran through the

whole gamut of excuses from refugees to mistreatment of minorities to this and that in the other to install in power a shadowy movement that we don't really know much about except that it's composed of al qaida veterans which are supposed which isn't supposed to bother us at all but they're the sort of the not the point we're not even doesn't matter how this ended the outcome of it is frankly irrelevant it's the principle of the thing and the principle of the thing was wrong because we're going to die because of your prince of goals but that's just where people go because the only logical principles that's the problem if you only. have the principles are you going to build all that you don't let the haters kill people if you can possibly be killing people in terms of ok if you don't mind we'll talk about good dictators and bad dictators in a second but. you're going to go now but i mean i guess by implication. when i get

listening to you i think there are ok and then there is that's how it's practiced in the west there are good dictators and if i was you so what do you think about this whole discussion i don't know spokesman what i can assure you to take your sick of my record on there you do all we need to we need to just step back a little bit and consider to scale that we actually adopted i'm talking about the world again i insist what is happening with regular human beings highest highs. significance to how we talk about in abstract terms international relations international law whether or not states intervene in other people other states affairs whether or not this regime interferes in local local politics and make. elsewhere and so this is where we are now at a time where libyans are going to find out very quickly that the people who are representing me and speaking on their behalf in new york are not the same ones who that many of them believe they were fighting for and this is going to be very interesting is the same thing that happened in the balkans the same things happened in central asia and eastern europe throughout the one nine hundred ninety s.

and people are going to not going to react very poorly to a new regime that is very exploitive and of course this respectful of international law you can see a pillaging of natural resources of libya are very much like the pillaging of natural resources and so on in central asia and indeed in in other ways what's happening in the arabian peninsula whether there is there is no discussion of intervention on behalf of suffering human beings for many years now and in southern arabia let alone behind him which is considered to be students usually important for some countries to even call contemplate intervening on behalf of human beings who are suffering very very harsh tactics by not only the regime in bahrain by by some of the neighbors who have actually intervened on behalf of the regime and how we got to know interpret these events i think requires us to go back to looking at the events on the ground and listen to people talking and responding to sometimes

very difficult conditions if we refused to take this perspective that we're playing the game of the richard holbrooke's of the world of the bill clinton will i mean obama it's a very good point and i want to go back and hear how good dictators and bad dictators ok bahrain was mentioned the saudi royal family was mentioned these are not very nice people on the saudi royal family as a matter of fact they show no honey mustard well. well i mean then then how do you think they're an ally of the u.s. or now i have the west so just turn a blind eye to their what they do in bahrain which is completely blacked out right now and there are people coming out and western media criticizing a very very little means to play city it's to play city on the part of the government certainly but on the part of those of us that support intervention to stop these things there's no duplicity all of us you are read the guardian i write for the guardian quite often and many a writer there has condemned the inactivity over bahrain and many people have condemned the saudis behavior the point is that you can't intervene everywhere that

there are particular conjunctions here were so in this way and so if you intervene and you intervene and if you intervene users or you intervene because there's an oil extreme intervene because there's all in all for example if i had a good reason to intervene because about had no oil costs about have to take after take accept the wrath of iran over. its major problems libya sell it on greater resources resources i mean i why you see the richness or reality which is iran's nuclear i think it's a fear regime ok ok you subway this week it's going to christine nationalist or is it going to geneva go ahead ahead go. well we got to the balkans well what has to really think why why so much investment on the part of both sides if there is such a thing in sustaining and containing events in kosovo a friend since of course kosovo is a very mineral rich country of there's potentially hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mineral wealth that has been exported throughout the twentieth century and

there are of course many western companies invested in partnership with the most of its regime prior to the war and much of that has to do with you know city control of a potential gas line. pathways but also the minerals themselves in the ground so let's not be naive about them going to kosovo is not or any other places where it is indeed international events and of course there's x. osho economic dynamics going on but there's also the financial world that has an interest ganis than iraq you can take a very clear example of there are multiple interest why intervention was necessary according to various different players and they don't necessarily meet idea i on all things but they certainly agree on one thing that the regimes that they are attacking and have to have to agree move for one reason or another when you push or you want to jump in go ahead. but i don't necessarily disagree with what he said just said i. i do have a problem with the reasoning that this is going towards so you're saying that

because the western world had good relationships with milosevic they intervened against him then it doesn't make any sense i'm sorry and as far as the end go he may actually respect your position milosevic and qaddafi and saddam hussein have failed to convey contain some of their own domestic continuously as they created because of of domestic politics i mean most of this kind of joint shop and there was a terrible in many ways and he became very unpopular in serbia he got involved with these militias a gun revolver the smuggling organizations he got involved with and indeed the military in serbia became very disgruntled with him and he had to go and he said he held on the power by often just firing generals and firing officers and i don't i do and i did some of the we the people he fired the people he fired in ninety eight the people he for they the head of his security service and the chief of his general staff were later proven to be cia agents so i'm thinking that had something to do with their firing as opposed to some sort of popularity contest that i could

meet and i want to i want to be is that all right if you think if you want to address the endo if you're happy and you jump in. loss of it was a power hungry person he wasn't a nationalist he was an expedient nationalist he realized that he could harness the power of resurgence of nationalism to maintain his own power first of all in europe just love it then when it disintegrated in what was left and that's been his main aim i mean he swapped between the prime minister and the presidency he wanted to hang on to power and he used people not became clear even to the serbs and if you look it was indeed true holbrooke was dealing with him cuz he was the guy who could deal with we're talking klaus rates here the final cause of the present mess in pozner is due to a deal cooked up between holbrooke and milosevic the republican serbska was given territories to think had previously included lots of calls in the x. and croats and that was a cynical deal done by holbrooke they felt this was a guy they could peel with their feet he was literally on his release

a list of the rings there and everybody else this was not western intervention to get hold of the natural resources they already have the natural resources they were buying that oil get that he was investing that money in london his sons and investing in geneva and in london with the money they stole not to let me jump in here almost an entire those were almost out of time here in geneva go ahead you have the last word go ahead. well this is this is exactly my point that even with the case of khadafi they say if you just go back a little bit they waited a month and a half before they actually decided the collaborates to start intervening with an air war campaign in support of what they would call the rebels there the events are in libya evolves over time it took about a month and a half for the international community decide well ok i guess kentucky has to go because he cannot contain the rift the events in eastern libya it's spreading to his within his military it's spreading in the western part of the country now he

has to go he made the fatal mistake of not being able to contain his problems within. a format that it can actually then he can continue as business as usual with the western powers and that's the danger for any direction really has just been here for i think you are going to take you very much for a fascinating discussion many thanks and i guess you mean washington new york and in geneva and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember rastafarians. keep. still.

the. man in the ship would be so much brighter if you move out son from funds to freshen some.