well let's be careful you know demonstrations are always planned or almost always planned and predictably they are in school and those are true when. the chemical power is challenge by those over power that often accuses outside agitators of being the cause rather than legitimate grievances of 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 development to overthrow a government that they're opposed to those are very very different no one events or one pull of the week you know we know what forces might be behind the event so we should be skeptical of records that to get in europe or to know somebody says oh

there are x. many people feel to be careful about where that's coming from or you know so could such a government is unpopular and everybody hates it but do you think god or the 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 is no way that most americans are aware of the most egregious example the role of the u.s. in trying to with their democracy in venezuela the role of the u.s. in overthrowing democracy in haiti the role the u.s. is putting who in honduras no absolutely people don't know that and in you know we're talking about things here that are somewhat speculative you know the role of the u.s. is huge and 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 a little bit of evidence out there that there is sort of this connection robert naiman director for just foreign policy in our van illinois. so there is now there seems to be a cross country agreement and agreement that is mostly hidden and yet most at least in washington and pakistan know all about talking about drone strikes in pakistan u.s. leaders don't talk much about it citing security reasons and pakistan will simultaneously condemning the strikes do allow them to still happen for the most part a 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 i guess it depends on what your definition of a lot is when the president says there haven't been a lot of civilian casualties so let's take a look at some actual numbers now this is a report from together by the bureau of investigative journalism between two and three thousand people have been killed in drone strikes in pakistan and of those as many of as seven hundred eighty have been civilians and one hundred seventy five of them have been children of those three hundred twelve drone strikes that have taken place president obama has issued two hundred and sixty of them well to talk a little more about these numbers i spoke earlier to a former pentagon official his name is michael maloof and he gave me some insight as to why president obama won't quite own up to these statistics. well it's an open

secret it's been an open secret the pakistanis sure 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 to 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 here or troops are killed but what's the rest of the story here 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 warfare 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. 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 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 at 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 it is so they must be a declaration of war before any sort of you 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 final appeal to the u.k. supreme court he's fighting against his extradition to sweden over allegations of sexual assault in august two thousand and ten and now the future of the world famous whistleblower is as unclear as ever with questions being raised over sweetens legal system and also just how close its ties with the united states are and how those ties may be affecting the case artie's tom barton has more. 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 suisun thora teams want to question his sons over allegations of sexual assault dating back to august two thousand and ten prosecutors have been

criticized by some just supporters 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 course 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 one which say 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 disagree as to whether sweden is an outright country sit in 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 afghanistan 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 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 well that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to r.t.

dot com slash usa or tech our youtube page at youtube dot com slash r t america and you can follow me on twitter at christine for for now have a great night. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. an issue free cretaceous free in-store chargers free. arrangement free. three stooges free.

download free bongos loaded videos for your media projects and free media r.t. dot com you. can. follow him welcome it crosstalk i'm peter lavelle siri 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. and you can. see. to cross talk of ends unfolding in syria we have marwa dowdy and 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 not make it inevitable. now i don't think saying it makes it inevitable i think what makes it inevitable is the situation in syria where the syrian people most of them are rising up against the regime and i think we've seen in other countries in the region and elsewhere in the world that when almost the entire population of a country rises up against its own government sooner or later that government gave a do we know that the the majority of the people are rising up in syria and we know

that. yes we do yes we know that we know that but just looking at the situation inside the country and the sight of thousands of people all over syria risking their lives to demonstrate week after week month after month against the regime we also know that from research that's being done on people in syria really think ok well it was hearing 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. well i think that's extremely belt full 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 it to go she 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 said 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 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 piece one way out which means that the assad family relinquishes by our peacefully and finds a way out why not that would be in fact 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 shown that aside here it's what 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 isn't 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 all sole recognize the syrian national council as the legitimate representative of the syrian people 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 very selective attention and concern for particular countries and not for other countries and what distinguishes the

selective ety 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 are fundamentally incapable of ruling themselves and so what we haveour 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 it's ridiculous why should we think why should we take 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 anywhere or majority of syrians who are protesting in the streets came yes that's correct that's not

a cliche oh if i go you mention before we got it it's a cliche 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 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 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 that refuses dialogue with the regime because it says it has been here a lot already but it was a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state party. well the influence of science technology and innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the huge earth covered. me it'll eat. me if he feels the. need.

for. food. i thought. it.

would. be a. welcome back across the capital to remind you we're talking about events unfolding in syria .

ok david i'd like to 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 price 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 you 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 in 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 the. force of the people in syria will the regime. sooner rather than later ok and when we get away we'll get you interest only you want to say we'll have to die before that happens ok maher well what do you think about this is nothing to do with cheer for cern in democracy the way we were promised that in libya morrow if i can go to you in princeton i mean how much of this is that a geo political play because this is something the saudis are just drooling over there is so pleased about this and a lot of people in media don't like to talk about this shia sunni sunni sectarian difference here which is playing a very big.