coming up on r t despite the fact that the seaquest ration has brought harm to the poor and needy in our nation it looks like flight delays are what really gets congress moving us there's a do nothing congress just ahead. in iraq the government has ordered nearly a dozen satellite t.v. channels to end their broadcast they claim these channels are fanning the flames of sectarian violence while predicts consider it a ploy to censor the press we'll tell you more coming up. plus it's been six months since hurricane sandy devastated the east coast as new york and new jersey residents continue to rebuild what's life like for those who lost nearly everything we'll tell you coming up late in the show.

it's monday april twenty ninth four pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching our teeth well beginning this hour two reports of ground to ground missiles coming out that were fired at russian commercial air a fly or liners flying over syrian air space according to the russian news agency interfax an unnamed source within the russian government confirmed that syrian authorities informed of this incident the plane a charter belonging to norwood air why and such as a russian carrier was originally in route to the city of cazan located in the russian republic of tar tar stan the flight reportedly carrying around one hundred sixty passengers was not hit that is according to a spokesperson from the russia's agency for tourism we'll keep you informed as more details continue to emerge. for months now we've heard about how crippling the dreaded sequester was going to be for the u.s. that was the point after all to force congress to play nicely and come up with fists. solutions but up to this point other than canceling white house tours and

the annoyingly long lines outside of capitol hill there's a question really had little effect on those living inside the beltway that was until last week when airport delays resulting from job for a low that air traffic control towers spread from new york to d.c. and across the country now the well to do business people would have to wait for their planes after a couple of days of delays and escalating hubris and last minute f.a.a. bill literally flew through the legislative branches to stop this from happening the bill out of the f.a.a. to shift some two hundred fifty three million dollars from the air traffic control system from an airport improvement fund it was passed three hundred sixty one to forty one in the house on friday literally just hours before a lot of those congress members were actually catching planes to go home for recess the bill was passed so quickly that parts of it were hand written and there was even a typo in it a typo that is now holding the legislation up from landing on president obama's

desk so why our long airport lie our portland's the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back we'll talk more about the stray from the sequester our financial team perry and boring and bob english joins me now hi there guys thank you so much for joining us it's great to be here so first of all the f.a.a. bill was passed in record time as i had mentioned but it's not the only aspect of the sequester that is the in felt's there's also a lot of other things that one hundred twenty five thousand people that are at risk of homelessness there's greater risk of wildfires and it just goes it affects children it affects low income women people taking aids tests so bob i want to ask this first question to you what does this f.a.a. appeal mean and at war importantly is this an indication of things to come when it comes to the sequester ation probably and i think it's an evidence of the lawmakers self serving this i mean one hundred twenty five thousand homeless people. how many

of these guys a risk a risk of wildfires how many of these guys have head start programs that their children are in answer probably none yet they also and these are pretty airplanes in the rich constituents also flying these are planes and they need these airport control towers so i think they are simply doing what's in their best interest right here and that yes there is more to come. and. so this bill actually transferred two hundred eighty three million dollars from the airport improvement account to the f.a.a. operational account operational account is the largest portion of the f.a.a. budget and it includes the salaries of the employees that work for the f.a.a. so this bill was really just to keep four lows happening at the f.a.a. and the f.a.a. was required to reduce their budget by fifteen point eight billion dollars with the sequester ation there was an about a five percent off the top cuts and we're talking about two hundred fifty three million dollars i just being moved from one account to another so it gives the agency the authority to move funds around so they didn't have to cut those allow

them to cut in other areas that aren't necessarily as critical to airport security and travel safety and that was exactly going to be my next question is if they're just shifting money is it really affecting sequester all of that much because it's not a lot of new flaws to the f.a.a. this allows the agency to move the funds around within their budget the f.a.a. doesn't always have this as a tory authority to do so and this bill gave them the authority from the appropriations committee to do that. it's going to increase cost by about two million dollars over ten years now in light to mind always a lot of money to me but we're talking about they started with a fifteen point eight billion dollars cut and the reason why there is an additional cost because we're talking about salaries and there were some short term issues when changing salaries around like that so in my opinion i don't think it really is doing the sequester are going to pose a significant. budgetary increase and the so one hand we have the f.a.a. being allowed to. move their own money around on the other hand we have agriculture

department and they're doing is they literally pretty much hold the meat industry hostage by saying that they are going to have to furlough employees and shut down all meat industry for a least eleven days not necessarily sequentially but levin days and it was actually there was a sparring that went on between agriculture secretary tom vice act and representative steven king if we can listen to that and then i'll get your as opinions. i would ask you if you would be willing to do and just ask you this submit to this committee hearing commendations and what you'd like to see written into the c.r. to give you the flexibility necessary so that the meat industry no longer has to be concerned about a backup that could be caused by furloughs of meat inspectors. well the answer to that question is relatively easy congressman just give us the resources that. mr secretary as you well know that's as you are making that's a choice you all are making bob right is that my question to you is this what's

going to take to get any kind of progress holding something and ag and agency in industry hostage in order to get progress in congress i think so but it's only incremental change that we're going to get here in the big picture and this is something that we're going to be talking a lot about on our new show is what really takes what it really takes to affect change here is when short term interest rates rise and that's something that the federal reserve has telegraphed for the this year and when that happens the government is not going to be able to deficit spend as it is right now a lot of programs are going to have to be cut and in much greater magnitude than we're seeing right now the eighty five billion dollars sequester is nothing in terms of what's to come all right and i understand you guys have a show coming up right enter tell you about it while prime mentors is a finance and economic program we're not going to be necessarily reporting on a daily set to stay for what happened in the stock markets were more going to be focusing on the details we're going to break down as you get into the fine print to bring your wife and your prime interest as it applies here finances and the economy

and bob tell me how this show is different than every other financial show out there why should people be watching you first we're going to cover different topics we're going to explore things like shadow banking and money market reform which might seem so terrible but we're going to break it down for viewers and we're going to make it interesting we're also going to take the stories that the mainstream media covers but they just miss perfect example is m.f. global. had we been around unfortunately there there was another show around during the time that covered it was rather well but most of mainstream media doesn't cover financial events in a way that's relevant to the customers of the futures industry or the banking industry and we take that perspective and we're looking out for the viewers here well welcome to the r c family i just want to put up you guys information to for our viewers their show prime interest will be on it premieres tomorrow at four thirty and will be on weekdays at four thirty pm eastern make sure you tune in you're not going to want to miss our new financial team our team is parry and

boring and bob english thank you. all right still ahead here on r t ten t.v. stations in iraq are going dark the iraq government has suspended the broadcast license of stations like al-jazeera and baghdad t.v. is this another case of a government restricting freedom of the press we'll answer that question and more after the break. up in the field that you won't find it here if you're looking for relevant stories unique perspectives on top of my skin the dark.

here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the americans call. i don't. i mean it doesn't appear that. you sir are you know what that is my. want to

defeat terrorism the only liberal approach. to the other. you know this is for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industries that soldier from facials that garbage you call that breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that. on now to news out of iraq and the news is that there is no news coming out of this country iraq's communication and media commission announced this weekend that it was pulling the license as of ten news stations including al-jazeera this comes in the wake of weeks of bloody clashes between the sunni protesters and the shia led government the government says these stations are spreading misinformation and provoking the violence there nine of the ten stations whose licenses have been

revoked are sunni stations and the other is funded by iran to talk more about the stifling of the press i'm joined now by our to arabic correspondent remodel one data and georgetown journalism professor chris for chambers thank you so much for joining me first of all so chris let's start with you what does this decision mean to pull the licenses how exactly is it going to affect the stations well it's essentially shut them down the iraqi c.m.c. is like our f.c.c. and in one fell swoop they've basically cut the legs out under these all of these networks the biggest you know the outsider being. of course biggest outsider being al jazeera and some local stations as well if you don't have a license you can operate so they cannot really move around the country move around the country reporting. even even even exploring sources and that's so when you cut that feed off and you cut off the internet as well because those stories cross platform so they're dead in the water basically and so when we say that they're voting i'm taking away these licensing privileges to help me and

a few hours to understand exactly what that means it means that they will not be able to report on the country but the airwaves they cannot block them right because they're coming from internationally right well yeah i mean they can't basically they can operate i mean they they can't they can't not only can they not go out with they could probably talk to sources maybe informally they cannot broadcast anything they can't really operate certainly any crews going out and doing packages and the studios i mean anything that you know you would do here at or t. remotely they cannot do you know the airwaves to say the radio frequency spectrum that's free but if you're not producing anything it might as well be there might be a dome over the country at this point sure now they are ok government claims that these stations are provoking sectarian violence is this a legitimate claim or could it be that even reporting objective only is promoting this type of violence. i think it really speaks to a lot of things here at this situation and that this is and particularly the fact

that there is this year i. channel out of the ten channels that were those licenses were provoked the government will tell you hello we're not doing this just because they're sunni we're doing this because they're misleading there because they're spreading misinformation but at the time that one is funded by the iranian government in iran and true and a lot of people claim and say that the iranian government is an ally of the maliki so the maliki will say i am also shutting down one of the channels that people say is one of my allies i'm doing this because these people are spreading the spreading misinformation so for him this is a he might have. a legitimate. argument here but the fact is that the freedom of the press in iraq is at stake just the fact that ten channels are closed down because of their reporting which many people will say is not objective

many people will say is objective but that is not that that's not the main issue here the main issue is if you report things that we don't like that we shut you down and press talk about what this stifling of the press means i mean the country itself just came out of parental watches this is the first time that they've had such elections since the u.s. left twenty fourteen is supposed to be a big year in all molecules and running so what does this mean stifling the press well i mean. it's it's stalled on for a comedian of the people need the information to be a democratic country you have to have a free press i mean that the no compromise there and it's ironic for all jazeera as well because this was a network that was almost a chronicle or of spring i mean there's commas classic nineteenth century american muckraking the. you know that help feed arab spring and now you have the situation where they're cut off from

a country you know so they have some growing pains that they're going through to the world from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood and there's a question now whether the you know emirs money is helping soothe the situation or make you worse so you know they have some internal issues they have to deal with so it's better for sure and it's bad for a commitment to be winners here and rima we only have a short amount of time left but this is not the first time that the iraqi government has actually shut out the media is there any indication how long this could last what it can and also what kind of repetitions that have in the future we don't know how long it will last and i don't think even the iraqi government knows how long it will last they probably took this decision until the situation is calmer in iraq and then they will weigh in on what they need to do next in terms of reopening these channels are just keeping them close this really has a lot of ramifications not just for iraq actually about poor all of the region when

one government does one thing other governments usually follow suit when one government thinks it's ok to either shut down channels or allow we're not allow journalists reporting or not reporting this will tell other people a lot of things and usually just the facts the whole reason however in iraq the situation is already boiling there is a really bad situation going on and this i many people i was reading articles just before i came into the city and a lot of people said that this will just help incite more violence a lot of people will see this as another attack against specific people not necessarily so nice but you know people who are not necessarily and lined with the regime and this will just help incite more violence and there's been. this information coming out. not coming out we also saw a lot of information not coming out during operation iraqi freedom where was the

press coverage and that you know it and anyway it's a very interesting story we're going to continue following it as it develops georgetown journalism professor christopher chambers an r.t. arabic correspondent rima thank you guys for weighing in. well it's been six months to the day since hurricane sandy of rock the east coast in the storm's wake one hundred forty seven people were killed some one hundred sixty one thousand families were displaced from their homes and states from new york to new jersey suffered from billions upon billions of dollars of damages there have been some notable improvements in relief efforts but for the families affected by this mega storm recovery has been slow and stubborn thirty nine thousand people are still displaced in new jersey and some parts of the disaster area have been left untouched and now even more bad news mold is infesting the houses that fell victim to the storm and even femurs new flood mapping system is causing problems for residents there for a look at the recovery efforts from the ground occupy organizer occupy sandy

organizer greg forward joins me now hi there greg now you've worked closely with the community of rockaway beach which has been hit incredibly hard by it by superstorm sandy commuter scribed what it looked like six months ago and what it looks like now. sure i've been working throughout the rockaway peninsula and a you know i think that sandy wasn't really a natural disaster it was a natural occurrence. that. exacerbated the disaster of longstanding policies so i don't want to overstate the difference. you know in the q relief period but it could be a long time before the community has really achieved anything like recovery much less some kind of resiliency marked by improvement so greg describe specifically what is it like on the ground right now well. you know the

long standing problems of poverty lack of access those things are aggravated by. breaks in the communication systems transportation system which still isn't isn't back up. that's what it looks like absolutely no sandy relief bill is famously held up on capitol hill but that now is passed harsh critics like new jersey governor chris christie have toned down their rhetoric here's governor christie talking about the president and superstorm sandy over the weekend. this is the president's kept every promise that he made. and the fact is that that's what i was saying if. i was i was asked about how was the president doing and i said he's doing a good job he's kept his word and so everybody knows that i have about ninety five percent level of disagreement with brock obama on the issues of principle and philosophy but the fact is we have a job to do and what people expect from people they elect to do their job and i

have to say everything that they promised they would do that. so greg what do you think have the communities you've worked in seen any of the funding from this bill and if so why are there still thirty nine thousand people that are displaced. well you know i'm not a policy expert but a common refrain in the community is that the value isn't being left in the community so regardless of where the funding goes you know we have to i think. use this opportunity of recovery funding from sandy to to create. new structures and improve value chain so that you know for whatever monies earmarked the greatest value is actually landing in the community and in fact could even include investments. through which the community itself will will will create value now right after the flood destroyed houses there was debris and destruction

were the primary concern now six months later we're seeing more of a secondary type of destruction things like mold have sprung up on the houses can you talk a little bit about that and whether this is getting any attention as much as anyway the the initial destruction that. right so mold did not just spring up i mean it was caused by a contamination. from su is overflowing but again you know that's that's a breakdown in. structures and in fact you know you talk to people in nice housing they've been living in mold for six seven years so you know that again it's a there's a chronic problem i don't think it's been getting enough attention maybe in part because their liability issues i mean the city had a. program called the rapid repairs that did tear out and houses and then replace sheetrock without properly radiating mold so that's

actually quite. inappropriate and they're responsible and may be exacerbating problems that can lead to respiratory illnesses finally greg i want to show you a map of the fema districts for which the flood zones are now being redrawn this arrest redistricting will actually allow insurance companies to charge as much as fifteen times what they were charging residents before for flood insurance so what this is having is that having a huge effect on the families now with the families that you're working with have experienced any kind of backlash from the insurance companies that you know of and are they planning on leaving the rockaways area as a result. right well you know my my evidence is anecdotal since i don't do policy analysis but you know families are making their own decisions i think though that it's really important we look at things holistically so you know flood insurance is really only protecting homeowners those who have it was for

a very few and you know i think we need to come up with with solutions not just for the immediate relief but for long term recovery and resiliency that don't divide homeowners from tenants or employers from employees or citizens from the undocumented. organizer with occupy sandy thank you so much for joining us you're welcome thank you well here's a strange story for you california authorities have forcibly removed a five month old baby from his her parents care after the couple pulled their baby from the hospital the parents took the baby to the sutter memorial hospital in sacramento after the baby sammy was showing flu said says at the hospital reportedly began giving the baby doses of antibiotics the doctor later admitted that the baby should not have been given those drugs the baby also has

a heart murmur and doctors begun to talk about giving the baby open heart surgery now wanting a second opinion the displeased couple actually tell took the baby out of care anna and alex nikolayev they removed this baby sammy from the hospital without filling out the proper discharge forms as a result the baby was taken into child protective services custody now are to international actually caught up with the family and here's what they had to say. we been shocked when they walked in the door and just they all of them in saying it's just let us see your son if he's ok and i said i'm holding him in my arms he is ok you can take a look and they're saying give me your child and that's when they took away no paper not so ever they've been providing and they just walked out of the door was any reason given behind the nine eleven call from the hospital after you took your own child to another hospital for a second opinion i mean have they given you any reason whatsoever. they

say that he's in them or didn't see that he's almost dying then he needs medical treatment and that he needs that needs to get back to the hospital immediately. or do you believe this. no you was fine he was laughing he was eating he was a normal tyler normal baby to go home and he was released from the from the other hospital that we took him to the doctor released the baby and did a statement said the parents are basically good to go home with their baby in the b.b.c. from their arms. very interesting now taking a step back and facebook and social networks they are a way for you to get support and you said facebook shut down the page that you set up to get support for your case did they give you any reason why they closed range no i think it has everything to do to government we got a lot of support we got

a lot of prayers a lot of people who were there you know just praying for us and all of the first facebook page a blog called facebook basically my sister in law called facebook no answer every question as she was asking them there was no answer coming back we open a second facebook page for support same thing happened again your child hasn't been a lot of home in four days what's going through your mind it kills me i don't have my baby of me at night time just visiting him like been visiting him three times today for an hour and you're leaving at seven o'clock again and i'm the hard going home you babies not that if you you're just feeling empty there's some missing something in your and we're just waiting for tomorrow's day just to you know like coming in this court hearing good news taking your baby going home or going to a different hospital will keep you updated as the story develops and that's going to do it for now for more on the story as we cover go to youtube dot com slash r t

america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa. news today once again. these are the images the world is seeing from the streets of canada. during operations around. the old. crowd science technology innovation all the leaves and elements from around russia we've got the future covered. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else sheer see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture. from new york about international and world in the very heart of moscow.

wealthy british style. sometimes by. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. i am from. the wars

that syria. and every day she says mother body in the body in a syria or syria in arabic. why named. abraham windsor the war beginning looked far from on the skill of. the syrian woman is. trying to take. a shot of the third of the book the last minute sama muhammad i'm planning to stay in russia. to build a new life in russia here. international

at the very heart of moscow. hello and welcome to crossfire. it was red lines with allegations damascus has used some kind of chemical weapons in this ongoing civil war there is

a growing possibility the u.s. nato and the gulf countries may up the ante to break the deadlock in this conflict if that comes to pass what are the possible outcomes and are any of them better than the status quo. to cross-country i'm going by my guess washington mark jacobson he is a senior transatlantic fellow at the german marshall fund of the united states and we also have john glaser he is an editor at antiwar dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it ok jon i'd like to start with you you wrote in your blog why obama's chemical weapons redline in syria is bogus explain yourself. well the first thing is that he shifted his red line before used to be that if assad moved around chemical weapons that would be crossing a red line and obama would pursue some unspecified counteraction the

second reason is that you know the there are no good military options in syria and the obama administration has said this a number of times. i know a no fly zone would put more civilians at risk and you know safe zones don't work. moving in to secure the chemical weapons would need at least you know seventy five thousand troops on all of these options would end up in broiling the u.s. in a quagmire and regime change and nation building as we've seen in iraq and afghanistan go so arrive and plus there's no opposition in order to replace assad so then we're in a real mess john i just want to ask you but obama keeps saying assad has to go i mean isn't he turning into a joke you must go but we're not going to do anything about it he says that in order as a as a sort of public rhetoric in order to seem like he's he cares about the humanitarian situation in syria but you know his policies that he's followed with

regard to syria are very. very nuanced they're very you know sometimes he's on the side of the rebels and sometimes he's you know helping the iraqi state militias stop the flow of rebels into syria from iraq i mean he's sort of all over the place what's clear is that the obama administration doesn't really want to get involved in syria because it would be such a mass market interest the issue of chemical weapons. i mean is it real or is it just baiting to expand the war no i certainly don't think that this issue that was raised last week about chemical weapons is a way to bait. anyone into going to war in fact as john stated there's a great reluctance from both the united states and its nato partners to get involved despite a real humanitarian imperative this is a mess and the challenge is to manage the chaos in a way that doesn't make the situation work and that's why i think we still be the vast majority of emphasis on coming up with some sort of diplomatic solution that

removes assad from power so that we can defeat use with what's become an unbelievably dangerous situation for the syrian people well mark you know and people on the ground are looking for negotiations everybody outside once negotiations maybe except for the qatari zur ots but it's not on the ground there is there is no interest in that right now well again i mean there's been attempts at bringing the parties to talk outside of syria i certainly think that there is enough desire to end this peaceably given the amount of the humanitarian disaster on the ground now that the challenge is there is absolutely no ability right now to get an overarching a symphony of nations at the u.n. security council's deadlocked or largely because of disagreements between russia and china and the rest of the security council members and without that you don't have the international legitimacy that's going to allow this sort of intervention

to bring this to a close look kind of intervention should there be if i can stay with you marc. sure i i think probably the best option is of course the sation of hostilities and by that i mean the attacks by this the syrian military against the population of syria a peaceful transition of power to a transitional government where then you could have free and fair elections later on and that may require some sort of i think in best case un mandated peacekeeping presence i think bosnia provides a particularly good model but my assumption here is that you can bring the security down to a level where the active fighting has largely been concluded before any sort of peacekeeping force would be able to enter syria john what do you think about that well the problem here with getting sides to cease hostilities and perhaps negotiate with each other is that both sides are backed by foreign powers you know

this is a problem there's actually a lot of literature in the political political science field that deals with this once when civil conflicts civil wars happen and both sides are in bold and by outside powers that have a feel like they have a stake in what happens both sides are emboldened and they and they won't they're not incentivized to to lay down their arms and start to negotiate they're not incentivized to compromise because they can they think they can win in a sort of all out kind of way well yes i mean i'm an american so i care about what u.s. interventions are the u.s. needs to stop its sort of half assed you know support of the rebels selected rebels you know them through this vetting process and they need to pressure the saudis and the qataris to stop. funding other elements of the rebel groups that sounds reasonable don't you think mark why i disagree somewhat with what john said here the problem is it's not two sides the problem is that we have multiple sides

here and speaking i think it's not just in the u.s. national interest by thing. it's in frankly the regional and global interest that extremists you take a look at the. at the nusra front and there's a proclamation that now we have a a broader a rocky syrian al-qaeda sponsored movement that's going to somehow free the syrian people that's ludicrous that's not what the syrian people want i think that some elements in syria have been very clear that this is a they want this to be a syrian problem they don't want interference from from al-qaeda they don't want interference from outside forces but where i would agree with john is there is a reality nations to have interests whether that's the gulf nations whether that's the united states and russia. but i do think that there is an imperative to support the free syrian army i think there's an imperative to support the people who are trying to get away from from

a despot who's killed his his own people john you know support to support the rebels that. yeah this is a problem first of all if there were an imperative to support this so-called free syrian army there would be certain requirements like is there a free syrian army or is it too. old and. ok yeah and you know this is a real problem if you decide to intervene in a conflict on one side you have to have some reasonable expectation of what's going to happen as opposed to virtually none which we have i mean the obama administration has even stated that you know knocking out the assad regime would create a power vacuum and even if we were supporting the free syrian army would still descend into probably an archaic civil war that has the kind of on the order that we saw in iraq you know and in terms of

a moral imperative this talk i think really needs to stop because if there were if america had a moral imperative to do something to stop human suffering and mass death then we shouldn't of gone into iraq and killed seven hundred thousand people when we shouldn't have been imposing sanctions on iraq and killed in about a million people during the one nine hundred ninety s. we shouldn't have you know there is there is a trial going on right now for a latin american general in guatemala who who we we backed as he tortured and massacred his own people far more people died in that conflict in a matter of few years than have died in the syrian conflict and you know that situation the moral imperative was to support the soviets as opposed to go in and save people and so america doesn't have credibility on this issue we don't care about human suffering we often impose the human suffering mark you want to reply to

that lot said. i think the challenge is that there is an imperative to help the syrian people the problem is that you have multiple sides and gaging in the conflict and you have to find a measured and responsible way to provide support without making the situation worse and i think that the provision of the non-lethal support of the open provision of non-lethal support has been exactly the right move now i would also advocate perhaps a something that's being done on the private side and that is the provision of lethal support as well but there is a danger in that that we create in the future a worse situation for the syrian people and i think that's why nations have been reluctant as a group to to provide lethal support versus the non-lethal efforts ok john does it ever work out these interventions if we were to come to pass. almost never i mean you think about the past situations in which america has intervened in civil

conflicts choosing one side over the other in their own interests not for humanitarian reasons as the u.s. doesn't care about humanitarian reasons. they tend to prolonging the conflict as i said before both sides are embolden more people get killed it's a protracted still mate and that's what's happening in syria you know the the moral . impulse to do something doesn't seem like it will be served by intervening you know everyone wants to do something quoting you know this is the mantra of the humanitarian interventionists but do something almost invariably especially in the syrian conflict that it's so dangerous source ok mark i know you want to reply but we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syria stay with our team.

couldn't take three days for charges free. range and free. three stooges free. free blood cancer money videos for your media projects for free media don carty dot com . i am from. the one that will see. us and every day she says mother buddy in the body in a syria or syria in arabic. and

brought him into the war began to look far from my house on the skills of. the syrian woman is. trying. to shove their mother father brother my name sama mohamad i'm planning to stay in russia. to build a new life in russia hear. the

news about international airport in the very heart of moscow. you know the only. welcome back to cross talk were all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing syria. ok mark just before the break you want to jump in there please do i would disagree with john in terms of the u.s. not caring in terms of humanitarian intervention i think there's a long record of humanitarian intervention by the united states in fact the u.s. often receives a great deal of criticism for that but more to the point if we are looking at what

could be done in syria i would also look to bosnia and kosovo as examples of not only what the united states can do but more importantly what the broader euro atlantic community can do after almost fifteen years we're seeing great moves towards a settlement for the kosovo situation and announcement last week by lady ashton about serbia kosovo agreement we've seen bosnia and its neighbors go from a state of war to where the nation has been able to rebuild and the people have been able to move on so there are some examples there's no doubt syria is much more complex but i don't think that means that the international energy not try i can say with you if assad left today what would change in syria well i think for one no you wouldn't have a leader that deliberately attacks his own people possibly use chemical weapons against his own people i think what you would have is a vacuum that would need to quickly be filled by behind

a by wholly transitional government by the transitional deborah by whom they backed up by whom. who this is going to have to be backed up by the united nations resolution u.n. peacekeeping forces and i also think a great component a great backer of this will have to be the arab league in fact just to step back i think that it's the arab league that is going to have to play a leading role in requesting u.n. assistance here this is going to be about the legitimacy of any transitional government in the i of the syrian people so whatever it takes to create that legitimacy that is going to be the number one imperative john you want to point out because i still don't understand it with assad goes the war goes on the war probably will go on just the way it went on after the power vacuum in iraq happened when we took saddam out you know this marks prescription although it's more moderate than a lot of the. advocates of intervention that you hear from washington it has

mission creep all written all over it you know when the when international interventions occur that have a broad. sweeping support from the international community it ends up being the united states that takes on the most important role in the situation we will be flooding money into that situation we will be real rebuilding the country we will be putting troops on the ground to try and stabilize the situation we will be occupying that train have to have responsibility for setting up some sort of a government and that has all kinds of problems with it you know it's the old colin powell. if you break it you won't. exactly you're you break it you own it and we will end up owning it because again we're the world's superpower and so while europe can sit back and sort of let tell us to do something and let us do something. you know that that does not bode well for the future of syria or for

u.s. foreign policy mark historically what john said is correct basically well i think about what john said i think the good news is that with the budget the way it is in the united states right now i'm not sure that there's going to be an overwhelming desire for any sort of again i will call it a peacekeeping opposed to side peacekeeping and i'm going to have people have a very that know how can you has he been when there's a war well that's exactly what peacekeepers do i mean there you say don't make three hundred a well these to cause peace enforcement but but again i'm not going to get into a semantic difference arguably if there is instability you need something to get rid of that instability i think the removal of assad while creating a vacuum really takes away a very large impetus for the syrian forces to continue to fight on the regime

behalf that. provides an opportunity for people to sit down and talk john jump in he's he's he's talking about the removal of assad now. he's talking about a removal of assad you know when it's important to try and have an even mind about this if assad is supposedly committing all kinds of war crimes then how is it legitimate for the united states to lead an effort in committing a war crime syria presents no imminent threat to anybody or any of its neighbors especially to the united states and so what you need looking is a u.n. security council resolution russia and china will not agree with what i said exactly that that's exactly but that's exactly what you need is a u.n. security council resolution and nato will not act without it the united states will not act without it and you're exactly right this is time julie it will be that his

have a valid point about ticket toleration they've got together with the guitar is act without it. and also we have a history of acting without a security council resolution iraq and you know this this is a problem that would constitute. a violation of international law one wrong when you know two wrongs don't make a right and this is a very very bad situation because you know you know. the united states is struggling here to even claim that it holds the rule of law when all it does is break it and it's a might makes right thing if we were the most powerful so we can go in and remove remove assad not face any consequences while assad goes to the i.c.c. . mark going to reply to that but i think john one the best the best consequences is assad self removal in other words he should step down but to your point about international law i think that's why we saw last thursday and friday the white house being so reluctant to say that yes an absolute red line has been crossed this

means intervention precisely because the ghost of iraq is there this administration is not going to act like the bush administration and go in without some sort of official sanction i think that yeah hey look at the history so i think i think there needs to be a more nuanced view as to what would constitute something that triggers a u.s. response without an approach without appropriate international sanction and i think that's a fairly high threshold for this administration you know to jump in there. yeah i would just submit that it's probably a little less that they don't have legal sanction and a little more that it's not perceived in u.s. interests the obama administration isn't stupid at least they're not as stupid as the bush administration if going into syria and creating it a war of our own would cost trillions of dollars american blood probably worsen the humanitarian situation on the ground and the obama administration knows this they

know that this is too costly and that's why they're reluctant to intervene not so much because of the international legal regime but you know the he is unfortunately facing a lot of pressure on the obama straight from europe and from people in congress who say you know now that you've laid out this red line and try to do what is on the line credibility credibility is has a technical definition in the political science literature that means the us the world has to fear us power and force and aggression and if they don't they don't they won't do what we say that's that's a that's a big kind of to put it in a playground sense that's what a bully does the united states is an international bully and that's that's what this talk talk of credibility means if we want to stop the conflict end the interventions on all sides to negotiate with the russians stop propping up the assad regime negotiate with saudi arabia and there and stop supporting the

opposition this is what needs to happen in order for any chance to things to calm down and have the both sides be incentivized to negotiate mark when you think about that proposition. well i think certainly again the most desirable option is for people to sit down and talk at the same time however i think that there is an obligation some people say responsibility to protect people in need the challenge is you have to do so without making the matter worse so to sit there and do nothing is the wrong answer it was the wrong answer back in the ninety's with bosnia and kosovo would be the wrong the wrong answer today in syria at the same time i disagree that red lines are somehow only one shade they are in the literature but but frankly you've got fifty shades of red when it comes to the real world and the bottom line is this may not be as clear an example of crossing

a red line as some particularly some of the pro interventionist members of congress have stated this is much more ambiguous a secretary hagel stated there are varying degrees of certainty over whether weapons were used the problem is that i think john does rightly point this out you have to be credible and that's why i think right now the u.s. call for an investigation a more thorough investigation is the right approach and that actually. opens the door to allowing individuals on the ground who can assess the broader situation so i think we also have to look at this as an opportunity perhaps to take advantage to get independent observers on the ground for greater reasons than an investigation of these alleged incidents ok john we're almost out of time when you think about that. i mean i'm thankful that mark isn't you know again i said before he's taking a somewhat moderate approach relative to the pro interventionist crowd in washington

i would just say that you know these things that he wants to do in order to settle things down in syria i don't think can take place until both sides stop being backed by foreign powers that creates a stalemate and it creates a situation where both sides are emboldened and will continue to fight and this is a this is a real problem for any sort of political settlement all right gentlemen we've run out of time fascinating discussion many thanks today to my guests in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember cross talk rules. leave.

good international at the very heart of moscow. coming up on our t.v. despite the fact that the sequester has brought harm to the poor and needy of our nation it looks like flight delays are what really gets congress moving gus this do nothing congress just ahead. in iraq the government has ordered nearly a dozen satellite t.v. channels to end their broadcasts this claimed they claim these channels are fanning the flames of sectarian violence while critics consider it

a ploy to censor the press we'll tell you war coming up. plus it's been six months since hurricane sandy devastated the east coast as new york and new jersey residents continue to rebuild what's life like for those who lost nearly everything we'll tell you about that later in the show.