that the regime makes and the opposition makes and of course that's very complicated because that's a dynamic relationship neither one of them is and actor but they're going to determine the future of this country much more than the rest of us are standing on the sidelines that's why i really think with what the rest of us are standing on the sidelines with the united states and other countries should be doing is you know we can work to ensure the stability of the region and to deal with this crisis whatever direction it goes rather than delude ourselves in that somehow we're going to tell the syrians what their future is going to look like a week or a month from now nick you know we are it was already mentioned at the beginning of this part of the program is iran and my suspicions are it's less about israel because i think israel actually is very worried because it's very confused about what's going on with the arab spring in general in the region because it's not as black as black and white as it used to be but iran is an issue here and we hear a lot of saber rattling right now in and so let's look at the issue of syria and iran because there's a lot of countries in the world including the united states would love to see the iranians punished somehow one way or another you know take down hezbollah you

mention to masada ready i mean it's really has nothing to do about the poor people of syria or democracy it's a geo political play to go after to turn around and turn around would be oh i met loser if the regime in the mountain passes did fall well it's both exactly and which part of the reason why the united states would like to see assad go because then iran looses its only regional ally and it further isolates you are allowing the united states and israel to put more pressure on it to stop its nuclear weapons program suspected nuclear weapons program so there is a clear strategic interests go ahead jump in. i just want to jump in i do think there are any and they're greatly concerned here i think one of the problems at the top of their concern is if the syrian regime falls that in a sense the arab spring will blow back into iran again in they'll see an uptick in their in the opposition our own country so i think just for the strategic reasons

they want syria to stay because it's their pipeline and lawson has a lot of support regional allies but i think it also has domestic implications for them that they're really concerned about what you think about that james i mean what how does the rand play into all of this here because again i look at western mainstream media and they're just doing this typical colored revolution element here which we we all have to be honest with ourselves we don't really know what's much of what's going on on the ground because western media all media as far as i can tell been banned from the country so all these numbers coming about casualties guesstimates as far as i'm concerned. well that's a very valid point peter i mean the endgame here is iran i mean the neoconservatives in the us the pro israel lobby want to take down the ronnie regime because it supports the enemies of israel and hezbollah and lebanon and hamas and that's what this is all about that's what iraq was all about iraq wasn't about oil how much oil are we getting out of iraq it's negligible i mean it's nothing how many a lot with oil company merican oil companies there was about taking down saddam hussein

because he supported the enemies of israel and with regard to the palestinian resistance there so with iran that's what then game is for this agenda like i said i'm not saying that elements of the pros are a lobby started that revolution or uprising in syria but i think the numbers have been inflated i think i saw an artsy piece about that about it about reporting entity and they've been exaggerated in western media and like i said the end game is iran you can read my friends book the transparent cabal dr steven seagal ski and that is what we're we're working towards they want to take down the neocon service and wrestle pros are a lot we want to take down the. main arab ally and that's syria and it all goes back to nine hundred sixty seven peter and israel's deliberate attack on the u.s.s. liberty of a good friend former republican congressman paul finley and he told me when israel got away with murdering american marines and sailors on the u.s.s. liberty on june eighth one hundred sixty seven he wrote the excellent book they dare to speak out about the pros will lobby influence in america he said once

israel realizes get away with murdering american sailors and marines and people like john mccain and others in his admiral father covered it up for lyndon johnson they could get away with anything and that's what we're dealing with here you got politicians in america to put the interests of israel first and they don't put the best interests of america first you have neoconservative think tanks like the heritage foundation american enterprise institute they're all pushing war for israel against iran and syria well and recently right as we go to jim jim is from the heritage foundation go right ahead would you like to defend yourself or a comment i mean are you supporting. you could. well i mean you can go to heritage dot org we have peace on our website it's we think the u.s. military intervention in syria is not a good idea so i think it speaks let me stay with you here but you also know ok let me let me stay with you here jim what is the what is the future now you think of the humanitarian interventions right now because. russia and china particularly russia has been very much criticized in in western governments and and western

media for its veto and the russians are standing by it was listen to what russia's ambassador to the u.n. but how he had to say about that. our effort was directed at ending the bloodshed those who are accusing us have been trying to fan civil war and conflict in syria so you know i don't want to learn to make them using this kind of hysterical language but we should have a. call that track record in dealing with the situation of syria supporting opposition sometimes with arms with their goals or forty's even change so. history will show i think. russia has been doing everything we can and continues to do everything we can. ok jim so what do you think about that i mean what my point is here is that you know these humanitarian interventions which i think is an oxymoron in a way because so much violence is used but i mean you know it was libya. being what

we're looking at libya as a president we can do it in other places and let's be fair places where they do the west would like to target their co called enemies of the west and all that friends of the west they're never going to be targeted that way even though their human rights records could be deplorable or eccentric cetera i mean and i think you know the right to protect is a very good case russia did that with south to settle we can disagree on that but that's how russia looks at a valid form of the right protect the south were defenseless they were not fighting anyone and now we have a people that are in very dire straits i believe but the whole idea of an a humanitarian intervention has been short circuited because the some western countries took advantage of the libyan case. well i do believe that humanitarian operations are really no different than any other kind of foreign policy decision and it's never simple go to the rule book and it tells you exactly what to do you have to weigh the merits of all the situations your own capability what's the right

thing to do what can you actually bring a situation i actually think the right to protect is a pretty bad he was an empty doctor and that can be used for going after your enemies and could be used actually to prevent people from doing legitimate humanitarian operations so i would just put it aside it's going to go to the ash heap of history we're going to take each one of these cases on their own merit i would say in the case of russia russia does have a longstanding relationship with syria and this regime they i think they they have special access and i do think they have special obligations to make every possible effort to do what they can and i think they are. well as it looks like they're going the extra mile in trying to get the sides to talk to each other each other in moscow another venue i mean the ambassador was very emphatic about all of that i mean the the the behave the reaction from western politicians and diplomats i think was hyperbole i mean the amount of violence that to the u.s. is committed against the people in the greater middle east in the last twenty years particularly you know he's you know you get to the point of hypocrisy here make

a fine go to you what do you think about the future of these humanitarian interventions i mean we had a dead end right now because or we do see western powers or a coalition of the willing as i keep saying the will end up doing it because the u.n. security council is not going to back it up anymore. we'll see a coalition of the willing to put it the best thing for the united states to do now is support the support the support saudi arabia in whatever they can do to help the opposition to go back to a point about this responsibility to protect doctrine i think the situation in syria and all shows that strategic interest always trump humanitarian missions. the world may want to help the syrian people honestly but. it would be a huge mistake to antagonize china and russia now by crossing them and intervening in syria despite their feet so i don't think that any humanitarian concern in the

west will be big enough to actually prompt governments ok james james in l.a. i'm going to give you the last word how do you think this is all going to end you think we'll be doing a program on syria months from now. you know i think it's going to end with us arming people like john mccain who has been a neo con consider a mouthpiece for years now putting israel's israel interests ahead of america i think you'll see him and joe lieberman and others pressure a bomb to arm the rebels in syria i think unless collate from there perhaps you'll see civil war and you'll see these a liberal here. in a very short run out of time thank you much for a very very interested question it looks like it's going to be a terrible ending no matter how you cut it many thanks to my guest today in washington amsterdam and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at you see you next time remember.

a split within the ranks of syria's opposition fighters at first they claimed they were behind twin blasts in the country's largest city of aleppo which killed at least twenty five but another spokesman denied responsibility just an hour later we get live analysis on the developing situation in syria a little later here on r.t. . to gas and for bombs on the streets of athens as protesters clashed with police angry is another set of looming cuts to please creditors. and observing political change russia's public figures come together to ensure a fair and free presidential vote while striving not to take sides our top stories this hour.

international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day there are conflicting reports over whether the free syrian army and armed wing of the opposition was behind the attacks in the city of aleppo an hour after one f.s.a. spokesman confirmed this another blame the government the blast have killed at least twenty five and injured more than one hundred seventy journalists reports now from syria. aleppo a northern city in syria has been relatively quiet since the anti-government protests took place and march the government claims it's fighting a foreign funded insurgency and as well as it blames terrorist groups for the several bombings that took place in damascus of last year the violence has

escalated in syria for the past week opposition forces claiming assad's forces are shelling on several areas including the city of homs activists are accusing the government of a massacre saying that hundreds of civilians here have been killed something that's hard to verify meanwhile the u.s. is setting an international coalition aimed at supporting rebels and their struggle these so-called group of friends of democratic syria will involve countries willing to prop up the opposition and pile more pressure on the regime although direct military action is has been ruled out some reports suggest the british and cuts are a special forces are already in the conflict so there are now calls from washington to arm the opposition and as our teams merino port i reports that the region has been flooded with weapons from the u.s. we're at the united nations security council america holds one permanent seat but

when it comes to weapons the world's largest arms exporter is often seen as sitting on two chairs they say there isn't an international embargo on arms preventing them from doing that that is a fact that doesn't change the immorality of supplying a dictatorial regime that is killing its people in massive numbers every day and we are deeply concerned about that as u.s. officials continue publicly scolding countries over relations with syria critics say the accusations are being thrown from a tremendous glasshouse us. this is a hugely difficult in this regard because we've long been the largest arms dealer and most of those weapons the us sold the store equally more than four hundred billion dollars worth of since the one nine hundred sixty s. have gone to the middle east and you can't argue. seriously that it's made that region any more stable in the past few years nearly fifty percent of u.s.

weapons exports have been flowing to the middle east many countries with the biggest appetite for american weapons have also made headlines for carrying out brutal crackdowns against dissidents and opposition groups. here ok in france there are thugs or not i mean this is for all of us who have been overseas the duplicity in a park or city of american foreign policy is painfully. evident according to congressional figures america has sold one point four billion dollars worth of weapons to bahrain since two thousand and america struck its single biggest arms deal when saudi arabia ordered sixty billion dollars worth of arms the us has long subsidize the israeli military and recently supplied them with bunker buster bombs experts say this strategic arming of middle eastern countries is aimed at iran and extending u.s.

dominance in the region. is going on. against your own it's not at all about you know human while. some geopolitical f.b.i. whistle blower sibel edmonds has accused america of playing particularly dirty while leading a campaign for regime change in syria but it's not some kind of. simultaneously op risings situation where people are a ballet and then suddenly they are mysteriously arms and mysteriously arms are being smuggled into syria from. sharky well who who is providing this arms nobody's asking in the u.s. media well these are u.s. arms shipped to turkey this is the u.s. military complex flush with record revenue continues to lobby its interests on capitol hill arms manufacturers are some of the biggest companies in america there are some of the most powerful lockheed martin not only do they making so much for

the defense department around the world there are federal contractor and many other levels of elections this statue outside the u.n. headquarters is a symbol of global peace and nonviolence but critics say the idea has been twisted by the u.s. which goes around advocating peace while arming countless conflicts all for the sake of profit marina point ny r.t. new york. well for more on this we can talk to curtis doebbler he's activist and international human rights lawyer joining me in geneva while the free syrian army is split over whether it wants to claim responsibility for those latest attacks in the syrian city of aleppo what it turned us about the lack of unity in the the ranks of the opposition. well as you know the opposition is made up of many different people most of them in fact outside the country and many of them have been outside the country for some time i think that it's unfortunate to him since

whenever anybody is killed in armed conflict and when such a killing like this happens i do think that we need to investigate to get to the bottom of it the syrian government has said that they are willing to investigate i hope that any other parties to the conflict would also be willing to investigate but i think what is important is in any country people have a right to participate in their government but that right does not extend to the use of violence against their own people and we see that in fact when that happens and when it's complemented by foreign intervention more people die than ever would have died if there was an indigenous solution to the problem talking about that foreign intervention and you mentioned the possibility of that investigation going ahead about the recent blasts if the free syrian army was found to be behind those boss do you think it will change nato states attitudes towards the armed opposition groups in the country i hope it would but as we've seen in the past their attitude seems to be more reliant on their political objectives than it does on

international law and i think that that has been international law has been one of the big casualties in these situations and i hope to be able to mitigate the damage that is done in syria and in the future we return back to those principles of international law which remain means that every party every country has to respect those principles he talked much about the foreign interests and the intervention that is supposedly happening now in syria is that not still a genuine grassroots movement within syria by syrians to see a sad being removed. i think there's a grassroots movement in syria as there are in many countries including the united states for people to be able to participate more in their institutions of government and that's a movement that i think myself and many human rights defenders around the world support very much but that is not the in that entails the right to use force except in very very isolated instances where incidences and this is not one of them for

example the post in eons have been recognized as the international by the international community as having a national liberation movement with the right to use force to achieve self-determination there are very few other national liberation movements in the world that have. that right if you will in syria i think it is a matter of there are some very legitimate interest in the country of people who would like to be able to participate more in their government and i think the government has made some effort to respond i think it needs to make more of an effort but i don't think that comes through foreign intervention it comes through indigenous processes of the people in the country if we look back to see what happened in libya foreign intervention was based on the grounds of a humanitarian crisis unfolding therefore there was a humanitarian mission needed that we're now seeing the u.s. and its allies looking into supporting the syrian opposition including the rebels and. what they're talking about again citing humanitarian grounds as

a reason behind it sounds very similar to that no fly zone over libya now moscow is very concerned about any of that kind of intervention happening explain what you think moscow's reasoning is behind it and what the consequences could be. well i think moscow has explained their reasoning but i think the comparison to our most recent example of such allegedly humanitarian intervention is libya and before there is any foreign intervention in libya and even if you take the last fifty years by the standards of the largest and most vocal critics there were maybe five thousand people killed after the intervention there is an estimated one hundred thousand people killed in libya we don't even know many people have been killed there in fact if you look at any foreign intervention over the last several years you see that after the foreign intervention many more people died then could

have possibly died through any type of indigenous process even one involving violence and i think that moscow and some of its allies on this matter are very wise in seen the pitfalls of foreign intervention and as the u.n. charter makes it very clear the use of force should only be the last possible means of trying to deal with the consulate just very briefly because as you talk about moscow's concerns very keen to get negotiations on the table that will negotiations happen do you think or is it too late very briefly. no i never think it's too late and i don't think we made even a real effort to negotiate a peaceful solution to this conflict so i think that that is the way that this will have to be resolved and i hope it will be. activist an international human rights lawyer joining us live in geneva great to hear your point of view thank you for being with us live here on r.t. . thank you. greeks are venting their anger at even more planned cuts which the

e.u. is demanding in return for vital funds to more greek ministers of quit over the deal making it three resignations since its announcement police clashed with protesters in athens firing tear gas in response to stones and bombs there have been reports of some injuries around seven thousand people gathered outside parliament while ten thousand common supporters marched in another part of athens today a two day union strike brought the country to a standstill after a tough multi-party deal the parliament is expected to vote on the austerity package on sunday but a junior coalition partner says it won't back the new plan euro zone finance ministers put the second bailout with one hundred thirty billion euros on hold saying they want to see concrete action without it are things will go bust in march financial analysts max keiser says that debt athens has to pay off was forced upon it. all of the toxic debt that has been accumulated on banks' balance sheets around the world in germany and the u.k. and the u.s. have been put onto the balance sheet of greece and now the government of greece was

the people of greece to pay for this toxic debt the debt in greece did not originate in greece it originated in these other countries that have used greece as a toxic debt dump to dump their debt now they want the greeks to pay the debt the greeks of course will be on able to pay their debt to the greek government is in place by the bankers the previous greek government was put there by the bankers he was trained in chicago the same place christine legarde was trained the greeks of not representational government. in quite some time they need to take a page out of the arab spring they need to stage a revolution they need to become self-sufficient and regain their sovereignty again by staging some kind of coup. live here in moscow still to come for you this hour innocence lost in afghanistan you can find out why the latest strike has sparked the afghan president's condemnation of foreign troops also still to come this hour

separation anxiety. they are now living under a tangible threat of being forcibly separated from their spouses from their children from their parents. palestinians married to israelis fear the citizenship law in the jewish state could tear their families apart. those stories still to come this hour but first people in russia becoming more and more involved in the political structure in the country ahead of next month's presidential election a group of journalists bloggers and proactive figures have created a league of voters in a bid to make the upcoming vote fair and transparent you got this cannot report. it doesn't take long to find videos of alleged violations during the recent parliamentary vote in russia just a couple of clicks is enough of these files are for a lot of the internet and even though most of the o.e.

sions are still to be proven in court tens of thousands of people have been taking to the street demanding fair elections with marches presidential votes just around the corner events are unfolding quickly where. people want to vote responsibly and to know where their votes go they want political competition independent courts and media forming the voters league is not meant the idea was floating in the air the voters league was officially founded in january by a group of journalists bloggers activists reuters and other public figures i'd stay with g.e.d.'s blake t.v. host and now activist. or the head of a charity fund and blogger elizabeth would be even. also known as dr lisa. ordinator of the blue buckets movement fighting for equal rights on roads for

everyone. our league is an opportunity to gather people who are not indifferent to what's happening the more people with a civil position there are the better the league's main goal is to ensure fair elections is published a list of initiatives on the web divided into groups that everyone can be a part of public discussions and online votes are the key instruments and letters have been sent to all presidential candidates asking them to cooperate with the week and even though the project is less than a month old everyone has so far agreed including pledging little to another candidate businessman mikhail prokhorov has already struck a deal with the leak years ago i'm willing to authorize one hundred fifty thousand league observers was also arranged to put together a unified database to keep track of the election protocols according to its founders around ten thousand observers are needed to ensure a fair election in moscow alone. it's great that the civil society wants to be more

active but it's critically important not to cross the line and observers not only are position it is serious so if the mutations are not to take sides in the political process. it is the league's founders say they'll shut the organisation down if it ever starts turning into a political movement gleaming they are keen to work with all candidates equally there's no doubt society has changed more people want to have more influence on russia's political life perhaps that's why it took less than one month for the vote was leaked to establish ties with both the authorities and the opposition and with the help promise from candidates the league just may secure enough access to effectively monitor the vote in march as long as it avoids taking sides and protects its neutrality is going off r t moscow. just remind you plenty of news and eye catching videos twenty four seven and on t.v. dot com here's what's waiting for the online right now hungry for power the muslim brotherhood the.