we played you know the most major role obviously when you look at egypt it was about the people kind of getting out there in the streets but don't you see at least how connection at least can be viewed if there's these strategies these underground strategies things being planned if there's these sort of revolution teaching schools out there a lot of people know about this. well let's be careful you know demonstrations are always planned or almost always planned and predictably they're in school and those are true when unaccountable power is challenge by those over power that often accuses outside agitators of being the cause rather than legitimate grievances people that they've been oppressed and that's a story all over the world and it's a board to distinguish between you know the majority of people in the country deciding that they want to change their government which is the right of everybody

in the world and an external power manipulating trying to intervene in medically political developments to overthrow the government that they're opposed to those are very very different no one events or one pool of the week you know you know what forces might be behind the event so we should be skeptical of records that to get in your board you know somebody says oh there are x. many people feel to be careful about where that's coming from or you know such and such a government is unpopular and everybody hates it but did they go over that u.s. taxpayers are aware that they're bankrolling a lot of these efforts that we're seeing here no they're not aware that i mean there are not aware of so much of us foreign policy there's no way that most americans are aware of the most egregious example the role of the u.s. in trying to exert democracy in venezuela the role of the u.s. in overthrowing the marcy in haiti the role the u.s.

is putting who in honduras no absolutely people don't know that and then in you know we're talking about things here that are somewhat speculative you know the role of the u.s. in egypt you know we don't really know i think it's overstated but in these other examples eighty one hundred. i think there's a lot of examples here sadly we're out of time but you're right there are certainly a lot of examples that at least some a little bit of evidence out there that there is sort of this connection robert naiman director for just a foreign policy in our van illinois. well there seems to be a cross country agreement agreement that is kept hid in and yet most in washington in pakistan at least know about i'm talking about drone strikes in pakistan and u.s. leaders don't speak much about it citing security reasons and pakistan will simultaneously condemning the strikes still allow them to happen for the most part drone strikes

target al qaeda and taliban militants living in some of those tribal areas along the afghan border but for the first time president obama actually spoke about this in an online chat session i want to make sure that people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties that for the most part they have been very precise precision strikes against al qaeda and their affiliates and we are very careful in terms of how it's been applied so i think that there's this perception somehow that we're just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy nilly this is a targeted focused effort something is not matching up here let's take a look at some actual numbers this is according to a report put together by the bureau of investigative journalism between two and three thousand people have been killed by drones in pakistan and many of those as many as seven hundred eighty are indeed civilians one hundred seventy five have

been children and of those three hundred twelve drone strikes that have taken place president obama has issued two hundred sixty of them so to dig a little deeper into these numbers earlier i spoke to former pentagon official michael maloof he gave me some insight as to why president obama won't own up to these statistics. well it's an open secret it's been an open secret the pakistanis certainly know about it and it's it's much it actually is beyond the to the plot the policy is beyond just afghanistan and pakistan it's also now into yemen they've been using them in yemen a lot of civilians have been killed there as well and it is taking a terrifying toll even on civilians and that's probably one of the major opposition . points from the pakistanis on how many civilians it has been killing. when you're when you're guiding these these drones from a half a world away even though they take off from afghanistan. it's difficult sometimes

to identify the target from that distance and yet i mean if you're if you think about some of the people that actually are targeted in pakistan. there doesn't seem to be at least for the missions at hand a lot of other options it's not like you can send in boots on the ground or troops to get these people so i guess i want to know from you what you say there's more to the story though i have a lot of friends a lot of people i know intelligent people who say you know drones seem to be a great idea because fewer people fewer civilians fewer troops are killed but what's the rest of the story it's really representing a new concept in warfare that we're getting into which we might call six generation even the russian military is looking at this where you can fight from a far stand off were fair and not commit a lot of troops and and indeed the fact that we're actually cutting back on troop strengths indicates that we're not going to be fielding tremendous armies like we

used to it's going to be much more unconventional asymmetric and the use of drones and other. means of standoff warfare is going to be the norm and frankly it requires a lot of advanced tech now. ologies which even were still and that are still in the development stage and you see the russian military looking at this very very seriously as well but it seems to me that you know it not only succeeds perhaps in killing some of the people that are targeted it also gives this country kind of a bad reputation well it's it really is a declaration of war without declaring it as such and when you're surprised and hit it from afar and if you're an innocent target on the ground it's going to cause major repercussions politically let me talk about real quick because this is something that i don't think is talked about very much and that is the legal implications here there are many who suggest that. ok here's what i understand

targeted killing is lawful if the suspects are directly participating in hostilities or if there or if the target poses an imminent threat however if people are being killed because they're believed to be associated with terrorist groups i think that violates international law but nobody's kind of speaking up or enforcing it well they've been silent about that and again it gets to whether or not you have a declaration of war and secondly when you hit a compound which has a lot of women and children associated with the target that's there you're going to have so-called collateral damage and that is and that is something that legally is . so they must be a declaration of war before any sort of you know and you need to know i mean you need something from the congress if you're really going to go after targets like this and knowing what the implications are going to be with respect to. the

the outcome of the devastation namely other innocent innocent women and children especially but yeah it seems to me that that this president and many before him don't seem to declare war even though a lot of acts that occur seem to sort of resemble it interesting stuff former pentagon official michael maloof. well wiki leaks founder julian assange was back in court today giving his appeal to the u.k. supreme court he's fighting against his extradition to sweden or allegations of sexual assault in august of two thousand and ten and now the future of the world famous whistleblower is as unclear as ever with questions being raised over sweden's legal system and also just how close its ties with the united states are and how those ties it may be affecting the case artie's tom martin has more. in the face that launched a thousand leaks julian a son does exposure of tens of thousands of secret documents has embarrassed

governments the world over but the wiki leaks phenomenon is no longer his most pressing concern swedish authorities want to question a songe over allegations of sexual assault dating back to august two thousand and ten prosecutors have been criticized by sandra supporters and international civil libertarians with allegations of cumbersome contradictory and simone legal process huge arguments have also broken out over the nature of some of sweden's laws on sexual offenses such as those of some places it's going to be closed schools. and leading up to the trial is going to be held. well the chief prosecutor asked for him to be held in solitary confinement it's just bizarre so there are so many bizarre aspects to the why in which the management is being conducted up till now. from our perspective i just can't see how he would get a fair trial others have gone beyond legal arguments saying the storm raised

branson's through wiki leaks has made him a target for political interference across the atlantic u.s. authorities enraged at having their secret documents exposed may seek to have a son extradited there to stand trial but surely sweden's famed neutrality would stop such a thing i would take me as whether sweden is an outright country sit in that's a very clear cut. proximity and collaboration even in military operations with such campaigns initiated by nato you have for instance the so its presence in that is that you have a clear cut. it brought nato policy on the part of sweden and that is not to try to do with some u.s. politicians branding a son

a cyber terrorist and calling for the death penalty it could get a lot worse for the wiki leaks founder the problem is not that we have too much wiki leaks we have too little. i think most people agree with. who is a national public opinion polls indicate that very large majorities applaud and support the efforts of wiki leaks the why do worry is that with or without julian asuncion governments around the world with something to hide will now launch full scale assaults on internet freedom in order to keep their secrets secret but for now the focus is on the man not his website cheering us on his connections with sweden have raised many questions about what really happened in august two thousand and ten but now with the sun just future as uncertain as ever questions are being leveled at sweden's legal system and its relationship with the united states which

could prove crucial to the fate of the world's most notorious whistleblower dumbarton r.t. stockholm sweden are i was going to do it for now i want to thank you so much for watching and christine for. it was shot four times in total. war as it were and. three of the boys are still in my body. and people should be allowed to defend themselves where were they on guns in the hands of law abiding decent people are not a problem national rifle association was a group of basically retired military we love to shoot holes and i'm sorry if you know that the bullet comes out here and this makes it go

bang and what's in front of here is going to die and that's all the training you really really need raise your hand if you know something's been. ok place to live what i want to philadelphia the streets. in jail without a gun hopefully we will never have to use the weapons for self defense but we should be prepared in a full class including the teacher i think was. seventeen students. and one of seven or still. download the official t. application to go on a phone oh i pod touch from the i.q. sample to. watch on t.v. life on the. video on demand on t.v.'s mine broadcasts and says feeds now in the palm of your.

question on the t.v. dot com. and. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle syria on the brink as violence escalates in this in battle country the calls for strong sanctions and even a military intervention grow in intensity what is at stake the protection of innocence or regime change that transforms geopolitics of the region. to cross-talk of ends and folding in syria we have marwa dowdy in princeton she is a departmental lecturer in politics and international ations of the middle east at the university of oxford in washington we have david pollock he is

a senior fellow at the washington institute for near east policy and in montreal we cross the maximillian forte he's a professor of anthropology at concordia university in montreal all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but ok first i'm going to go to david david the the white house says that it is inevitable that assad will fall so by saying it does that make it inevitable now i think thing it makes it inevitable i think what makes it inevitable the situation. where the syrian people most of them there are rising up against the regime. i think we've seen in other countries in the region and elsewhere in the world when almost the entire population of the country rises up against the government sooner or later that government david do we know that the the majority of the people are rising up in syria and we know that. yes we

do we know that we know. but just looking at the situation in the country. thousands of people all over syria are risking their lives to demonstrate week after week month after month against the regime we also know from research being. people who really think. there's a media blackout i think it's still pretty hard to say ma if i can go to you in princeton has the west decided to support a side in this conflict in syria that is rapidly looking like a civil war. well clearly there is an uprising which has continued unabated since about a year and now we're heading towards the first anniversary of the start of the uprising. there has been a brutal repression on the part of the regime and so far about six thousand civilian casualties killed in this repression so clearly there's a situation that here they are peaceful protesters who have been crushed by the

regime security imperative and that has drawn attention internationally so there's been a sigh taken in the sense that there are human rights violations and i would say it's true that the uprisings have taken you know have continued and a large part of the population is supporting it you also have a part of the population which still doesn't know which side to take because they are afraid of what would come next and this is the part of the population which still needs to be comforted that there will be a peaceful transition to democracy ok max if i can go to you do you think the syrians still have a chance to negotiate an end to this conflict before there is this push for another humanitarian intervention and we all know what happened in libya and what is happening in libya today. now. well i think that's extremely doubtful as a matter of fact because just recently russia offered to host negotiations between

all of the different parties and as we know the syrian national council you know one of the main opposition blocs has essentially rejected that offer possibly with some foreign encouragement behind them because one of the stipulations that they made one of the preconditions for the talks was that assad should resign so they wanted an old come of the goshi ations the outcome of a process as a preliminary condition and so that possibility of negotiations is very unlikely and from my point of view it's starting to resemble a bit what was happening in libya where the opposition consistently refused to engage in any sort of peaceful negotiations. so i think that's highly unlikely peter david david go if i can go to you i mean look we've brought up libya here do you see that see this turning into

a libya like scenario where you know we go down the slippery slope of intervention when they say of what no fly zone means one thing then the reality on the ground in the bombing is another thing. no i don't think this resembles the libyan scenario partly of course because unlike the security council. given the threat of a russian and maybe also the chinese veto will approve any kind of military intervention in syria but i think if one is looking for a peaceful resolution it's very easy to imagine how that could happen and that would simply be. his ruling clique found asylum in moscow that would resolve the situation very quickly and very but he you think that's going to happen

yes i do actually sooner or later i think that would be of great benefit to the syrian people and i think that russia would be able to preserve its interests in syria and in the wider region more effectively by negotiating that kind of outcome marlen by the opposition if i go tomorrow actually i said regime is willing to negotiate with russia even if they're not willing to negotiate with us said ok tomorrow if i go to you why do you think that the the international community to quote the whole international community meaning nato and its allies she did to determine who should leave who should be in power and who should leave power i mean this is turning into a pattern i think i would. right the libyan example is not a good case study for syria i mean there were there were calls by the transitional council for military intervention and that led to the nato campaign which by the way has created civil war today in libya there are still the spoils of war which

are being fought for between the different rebel groups in the case of syria this is not a scenario which is favored by the majority of the syrian population there have been calls for a no fly zone scattered calls but i would say the majority of the population rejects any foreign military intervention with the fear that this would lead to the fragmentation of the country and in fact the start of civil war now we see that the conflict has started to become militarized because the civilian population is defending itself it's being besieged but this is a dangerous path and i would say if there is any transition towards a successful democratization there would have to be a choice that is made by the syrian people themselves and in that case they would have to claim in fact ownership of this revolution and if there is a peaceful way out which means that the assad family relinquishes by our peacefully and finds a way out why not that would be the ideal solution but that would mean still that there would not be delaying tactics you know talking about negotiations while

repression goes on because the repression still goes on and at the same time trying to maintain itself and power that would have to be a real way out of the conflict but that would have to be decided by the representatives of the syrian people the syrian national council but also all of the opposition movements their local coordination committees and other groups on the ground which are the ones in fact suffering on a daily basis from the repression ok. the west has jones they decide here it's chosen these were people called rebels or protesters that are actually and we have desertions in the army i mean why should the outside world be getting involved in what is a civil war i don't care what people want to call it i mean you have a part of the population that is getting better armed through outside help. yes in all of them that i and i agree peter very much. that the west has taken a side is that while it's been stated very clearly is being stated by barack obama

himself who who said that assad must leave you know that's a statement of preference for regime change. so there is an ambiguous that the saudi arabia has back to the syrian national council other members of the arab league such as libya have also recognize the syrian national council as the legitimate representative of the syrian people and so there are outside interests that have taken a side the thing to understand is we live in a period of war. humanitarianism as has become the new ideology of imperialist intervention the united nations itself is serving as a kind of human rights the iter with a very selective attention and concern for particular countries and not for other contraries and what distinguishes the selective ity in the concern shown is these

are regimes that have been targeted by the united states that's where human rights really counts the united states wants to cast itself as being in a position as being the liberate or of arabs as being the force i will liberate arabs from themselves because they're fundamentally incapable of ruling themselves and so what we have here is a kind of rehash of colonialists doctrine david what do you think about that. i think it's a very. speedy. search would to me truly quote ridiculous why should we think it was wise he really should wise everything it's ridiculous because it's ridiculous because it has no relationship to reality or to the fur coats whether in egypt or tunisia or any role of majority of syrians who are protesting in the streets came yes that's correct

that's not a cliche oh if i go before we're going to live in seclusion because nothing to do with my wife i go to you before we go to the break here do the majority of all the airports are actually a majority of syrians recognize that the syrian national council is a legitimate body representing themselves how do we know that why do foreign governments recognize it but we don't know if the syrian people do well the syrian national council has gathered sort of a big spectrum of the different opposition movements you have islamist you have secular as you have intellectuals you have kurdish groups so it tried to bring sort of a platform. sort of consensus platform but it is. you know divided and they don't have a united position this year a national council is seen as the leading opposition force but you have other of physician groups such as the national coordination committees and the two groups differ in their way they would see a way out of the crisis the syrian national council refuses dialogue with the

regime because it says it has just been here already going to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state party.

well for the. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future are covered. plenty. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. the giant corporations are on the day. if you. want to. welcome back across a computer

a little to remind you we're talking about events unfolding in syria. ok david i could go to you in d.c. you know you've been on the program before and you know i'm a cynic so i'm going to give a cynical comment in that quote i don't question this has nothing to do with the syrian people this has nothing to do with their rights it has nothing to do with the killing of innocent people eccentric cetera this is all about geo political change in the region you take syria down and it's a boon for israel maybe but certainly for other countries where hezbollah is weakened in the next target the great prize of the mall is around that's what it's all about isn't it. yeah well that's. a point of view again has no connection with reality but what everyone is buying yourself why you say that you dismiss you and you know

you want to who are rising up. as i started to say before you interrupted everyone can see that the syrian people are rising up and risking their lives day after day week after week month after month thousands of people all over the country tens of thousands of people so you think there should be a military intervention should there be a military intervention and quote unquote stop this you know i'm not calling for i don't think there should be and i don't think there needs to be i think that the force of the people in syria will oust the regime. sooner rather than later ok. for someone you want to say will have to die before that happens ok maher well what do you think about this is there anything to do is cheer for cern in democracy the way we were promised that in libya my wife i go to you in princeton i mean how much of his state.