culture is that so much a lot of people at material dallas and old were tough to finance western liberal interventionism is it ever justified for such military interventions within the confines of international law is there a case where. the emissions. couldn't take should free transport charges free maintenance free. free spirits free the old sleeves long as long as it videos for your media projects and free media gone to our t. dot com. glenn

the globe. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we've got the future covered. more news today violence has once again flared up the funny thing these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. shanghai proration to rule the day plug.

hey john harbin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

hello and welcome to cross talk on people of all western liberal interventionism is it ever justified for such military interventions within the confines of international law is there a case where western inspired forced regime change has worked as it's planned and can such interventions generate positive outcomes for people on the ground the same . cross-talk liberal interventions i'm joined by name voice shook. in washington he's a historian column this 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 let's go all the way back to i kosovo to the president 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 does rather desert shield in iraq in one thousand nine hundred ninety one everything after that has been just a total mockery of international law from the gradual escalation of bosnia to the outrage the illegal war in kosovo to be outright illegal invasion in iraq and now libya which has completely dispensed with even to 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 and i mean are abysmal right to track record bismo history since the end of the start and end 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 bad thing now being revealed but the intervention in bosnia was too late because. if the international community after the division of paratroopers on the river drain at the beginning then the loss of each one of the regime would have collapsed on a two hundred thousand people would still be alive stripper needs or would not have 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 un 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 shouldn't have been done by bombing they should have actually frightened ground troops at the beginning of a lot of it would have surrendered ok bush 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 thrown out the order to the winner right there into legally to go ahead and even 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 that 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 with the case of interventions in the balkans for instance i suspect there's been quite a deal 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 the 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 to the end of this fire about montauk more part of my introduction here i mean this is the law of unintended consequences i mean if the decision is made to him depending on how legal it is and in many cases it isn't a bush appointee that is just completely illegal without any legal foundation at all the fact of the matter is when you 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 legal the russian how was it i was

interpreted when saddam 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 that the bad there's a lot of game playing here the russian the russian delegation is making the protest but no loss at that path it 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 thought is sort of the heart and visited libya six times i think he was a very unpopular early and yeah you know. what is your letter to your eyes are you with anyone or are you from the school and you can let me go let me go to negotiate here because i think the room the saudi royal family are very popular either ok go ahead in a voice or. i mean popularity oughtn't have anything to do with this one way or another but we're talking apples and oranges first of all i'd like to correct ian about the whole brigade on the train 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 joanne's it was rough and ganja nonsense but secondly but secondly. the 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 the muslim leaders that bag of h. if you don't like it go and sign it this was march one thousand nine hundred two this was before the war started so let's just not mix things up here again popularity has nothing to do with this i personally think russia made a mistake in approving one thousand 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 go by any means necessary toss the wrestler solution like they did with twelve forty four b. which they selectively apply because when they have to apply something that obligates them to produce a resolution relation to zambia and so doesn't exist. i had jump in this was

crosstalk. you know did defensiveness of million population numbers i know say you don't exactly know why this stuff did not go past unnoticed they used the consequences and the hope was but a good athlete 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 does that was shot some out early i'm not saying the rebels are angels but gaddafi was a bad guy unpopular with his own people not just the regimes and i think that's now been vindicated he is gone and nobody is shedding tears a little here let's go to geneva go ahead do some go ahead. how about how about this to kind of fit with the theme of this of this discussion about the kind of relationships that very strong wishes that meter on for instance had with milosevic and richard holbrooke which we have some very interesting connections between who called book 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.

what are these missing messages or a misinterpreted messages that often that often evolved into the point where it got to the point of no return where did he abuse soviet perception that i should i have a green light to deal with my problems in a violent way or i have been encouraged in libya to deal with with my our opponents and we recall that could offer he was caught breaking with the cia for until couple of months before the uprisings and then guards in the east so there are some complicity there not 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 cause events on the ground to transform very rapidly we're talk 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 before i see it understood i see devotion trying to jump in here go right ahead of us 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 deceases in twelve years i've been writing about the balkans i have not seen more implacable enemy. well how you might know when you use relations although they had very strong in baghdad yes you just if you if you if you trace back that kind of interaction they go on and before it 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 that mixed messages there and i was

taken advantage of by all sides and 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 you just have to look at the backgrounds and and skim very 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 there's a very distinctive break between early attempts 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 low and then indeed in ninety seven ninety eight ninety nine there is just going back and forth and i would i don't i think i've written about this and i even find parallels in many other so-called crises around the world are you going to jump in here we're going to a short break we're going to break them after that short break we'll continue our discussion on western intervention see r.t. . if you can.

still. very first verses of the bible all human beings are created but seldom it ok in god's image and it doesn't say just jews or not. sixty to seventy percent of what i did. as a common soldier in the territories. doing what we call making our presence felt go out. they hear a knock on some doors run to the other corridor not out religion and nationalism not as judaism have been a part of the problem they've been part of what leads to. bloodshed if you want to bomb guys out and kill. a thousand four hundred people in

a month and you want to expect that this will have no effect in therapy you have to be either extremely naive or it's terms. of you're religious jew calling another joe a not not the way they really something to. say

. welcome back to rostock on your lapel to remind you we're talking about western backed interventions. and. the. ok and i'd like to go back to you it is 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 the discussion is i think about the future ability of the intervention the cost the risks and possible backlash of arab public opinion but there's very little discussion if it's legal or not and outside of the beltway that's a lot of people do talk about it we're looking for a resolution nine hundred seventy three was brought up yeah yeah the what he said

was to have a no fly zone and to use whatever means to protect the civilians but if that entails really bombing the country to hell that's what i'm getting at about the the the legal 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 you know i thought 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 rutter and china are sophisticated players i've been watching them in the security council for twenty years they knew what the implications and what i think everyone agreed was that good that you 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 it would i don't think it's a double game ok to say is they part and why shouldn't they this would have destroyed by support for the but you know but and also that is the whole issue of

sovereignty and if the entire purpose of having the united nations in the first place is to protect the legal rights of sovereign states of motion what do you think about that because look i think it's a little he can't speak if you look at the resolution we've job it was a great race we both agreed it was a slippery slope here what do you think about abortion about that. well there were not the way things are functioning today it's almost as if we're living in the world of drugs lucas envisioned there's this because there's a quote from one of the extra ball sequels to star wars is this legal i will make it legal it doesn't matter what is it matters which can be created on the ground this is no way to run the world let alone you 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 of balkans interventions accelerated to hyper speed 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 qaeda veterans at which you are supposed to which isn't supposed to bother us at all but there's sort of a no not to point we're not either isn'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 you're going to we're going to die because of your principles but that's just where people have died because of your logical principles that's the problem but if you know if any of the principles you're going to build that you don't let dictators kill people if you can a possibly of. killing people in terms of the easy way you know manage i don't know we'll talk about good dictators and bad dictators in a second but. if you are going to go now but i mean by as my implication of you know what i 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 you think

about this whole discussion i don't know spokesman where i can assure you to take your sort of my record on the air you do all we need to we need to just step back a little bit and consider to scale that we actually adopted talking about the world again i insist what is happening with regular human beings highest house. 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 these regime interferes in local local politics that make. it 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 disrespectful of international law you're going to see a pillaging of natural resources of libya very much like the collision of natural resources and so on in central asia and indeed in in other ways what's happening in the arabian peninsula whether there's there's no discussion of intervention on behalf of suffering human beings for many years now and in southern arabia let alone buffering which is considered to be stupid physically important for some countries leaving cotton contemplate intervening on behalf of human beings who are suffering very very harsh tactics by not only the regime in bahrain by some of the neighbors who have actually intervened on behalf of the regime and how we don't do it now interpret these events i think requires us to go back to looking at the events on the ground and listening to people talking and responding to sometimes very difficult conditions if we refuse to take this perspective that we're playing

the game of the richard holbrooke's of the world of the bill clinton. and obama it's a very good way they want to go to see and hear about 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 i mean with frequent. well i mean then then how do you say to be there an ally of the us or now i of the west so just turn a blind eye to what they do there what they do in bahrain which is completely blocked out right now keep coming out and western media criticizing are very very little means to play city it's duplicity on the part of the government certainly but on the path of those of us that support intervention to stop these things there's no duplicity all of us you've read the guardian i write for the guardian quite often and many a writer there has condemned the inactivity over bahrain many people have condemned the saudis behavior the point is that you can't intervene everywhere there are particular conjunctions only who are still in this war and so if you intervene you

intervene if you intervene to visitors or you intervene because there's a boil next to me intervene because there's all for example is not a good reason to intervene because of a had no oil cost of i have to take i have to take accept the wrath of iran and libya is its major problems libya so if a greater resources i mean knows why you'll see a chance to reality which is being on duty here by the gadhafi regime ok ok you say ok this week it's going to christine nationalist or is it going to geneva go ahead ahead go. guards of the balkans you are one 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 for instance of course kosovo is a very mineral rich country and 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 is 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 that they're going to is not or any other places where there is indeed international dimension of course there's x. osho economic dynamics going on but there's also the financial world that has an interest in ghana stan 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 i die on all things but they certainly agree on one thing that the regimes that they are attacking and have to have to be removed for one reason or another can you push or you want to jump in go ahead. i don't necessarily disagree with what he said just said i but 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 doesn't make any sense i'm sorry and as far as he and they are actually spain position milosevic and khadafi and saddam hussein have failed to convey contain some of their own the mass they continuously is that they created because of domestic politics i mean most of it's kind of try to jump into bed with the battle in many ways and he became very unpopular in serbia he got involved with these militias are gone or part of the smuggling organizations he got involved with and indeed the military inserted 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 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 going to and i want to i want to be is that all right do you think the letters were addressed the endo go ahead and campaign. that milosevic 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 yugoslavia 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 love he wasn't the true holbrooke was dealing with him cause he was the guy who could deal with we're talking klaus bits here the final cover the present mess in posner is due to a deal cooked up between holbrooke and milosevich the republican scare was given territories to think had previously included lots of poznań acts and croats and that was a cynical deal done by holbrooke they felt this was a guy they could deal with get their feet get their feet was ten metres the album's release a little earlier it's there and everybody else this was not western intervention to

get hold of natural resources they already had the natural resources they were buying that oil get up 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. but this this is exactly my point that even with the case of khadafi they if you just go back a little bit they waited a month and a half before the actual decided collaborates to start intervening with an air war campaign in support of what they would call the rebels if the events in the libya evolve over time it took about a month and a half for the international community to decide well again i guess cannot be has to go because he cannot contain the real. 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 can actually then he can continue with business as usual with

the western powers and that's the danger for any direction the job here for thank you are going to take you very much for a fascinating discussion many thanks to my guest today in washington new york and in geneva and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk news. if you still. want. him here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.