the olympic torch is on its epic journey to such. one hundred twenty three days. through two thousand one hundred towns and cities of russia. relayed by fourteen thousand people or sixty five thousand kilometers. in a record setting trip by land air sea and outer space. a little fake torch relay. on r t r g dot com. i. below and welcome to cross talk all things are considered i'm peter lavelle two years after the force ouster of khadafi by nato

forces libya stands at the abyss the lack of a strong central government weak rule of law and the endless violence in a country awash with weapons has resulted in libya facing a failed state status add to this the presence of islamic militants can things get any worse in libya. to cross-talk events in libya i'm joined by my guest in washington rich galen he is a republican strategist and we also have michael shank he is the director of foreign policy at the friends committee on national legislation and a professor at george mason university and gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to very much encourage you to michael if i go to you and in washington two years on the libyan people living better better than before the intervention that overthrew colonel gadhafi certainly not and we're seeing the same playbook u.s.

playbook in syria that we saw in libya you know our prior to zation in libya was military wasn't state building wasn't capacity building wasn't economic development we threw out a lot of money at them a lot of arms which is now a trickle down it's a nice year in mali thirty seven billion unfrozen at the state department another one hundred fifty billion globally dumped into the fractious rebel groups so unsurprisingly they're very divided still and we're seeing that play out without saeed who is the rebel leader who kidnapped the prime minister earlier this month so the lives aren't better but that's because we didn't prioritize that and we're not purchasing that in syria as well rich how do you feel. on that because we didn't have a plan b. after a quote unquote victory against gadhafi is that why because it wasn't thought about not thought about the consequences of our actions. go ahead. i don't know i think they probably did think about what they wanted to have happen clearly but but i mean one of the issues i think we're facing is is that america thinks that if we

can just if we can just kind of wave the flag of democracy in front of a free and open democracy in front of people that they'll say oh that's a good way to do it and there is good way to do it but we've been at it for two hundred what is it michael to a thirteen to fifteen years and a lot of places are still really more comfortable under tribal leadership and i think throughout the northern africa middle east the whole the meg grab in the event i think we're seeing that that. people people are may have been more happy more living better under a dictatorship and one of the things we know i think from a long and tough history is people who trade safety and security for freedom at the drop of a hat ok but michael i mean it's not waving the american flag and saying democracy it comes at the end of a barrel of a gun that's the difference here it's not waving

a flag or plenty of tomahawk missiles as was the case in libya and what obama wanted to do with syria same playbook again listen nobody on the continent liked hot off the certainly up until two thousand and eleven and certainly with assad no friends there maybe a few holdouts so i might counter rich's point because people on the ground didn't enjoy life under cut off he let's be clear about that but in terms of what we're prioritizing whether it goes all the way back a couple hundred years to rich's point you know thomas jefferson ordered naval troops into tripoli so there's a there's a long history of invasion and intervention that was naval base the republican war . or in you know the northern part of africa so a couple hundred i'm going to get my going to say when china would but i go there i said but they said education there michael michael there's an addition that did not want american national interest at stake either gender is something i like and i don't know but when when when jefferson did that there was an american national issue at stake here ok i still don't understand what they were the national lobel

issue for the united states and nato was when bombing libya go ahead rich well one of the things that i think we have to remember that in the sequence of events the whole libyan nato intervention came sort of at the crest of the arab spring and that's where this i mean that's where the unrest began it didn't begin with us dropping a tomahawk missile you know down the lavatory and khadafi south it started with the arab spring from tunisia and it was working its way across and for reasons that frankly i just don't remember now it was decided that we would not put troops on the ground but as we've seen with the president president obama he doesn't equate dropping missiles with boots on the ground and it's far more eager to use those sorts of things remember we put in a no fly zone which we have not done in syria and we did a lot of things that were interventionist with that question but it didn't begin with us to begin with the arab spring ok but michael the death count in libya

really started going high after the intervention the military intervention that's when we had the body count increase dramatically. i remember well you're seeing the whole new intervention interventionists strategy coming out of the white house same war powers act dispute was play in the house because i was working as a congressional staffer then when we were pushing back against the white house they were claiming it wasn't a war in libya now they're claiming it's not going to be a war in syria same war powers dispute now the house regenerated working for a minute authorization or funding it was working for us congress and my conda of california same pushback then saying it is a war and has to go through congressional authorization so now in syria the white house claiming it's not a war but to obama's credit asking for congressional authorization this time but the house pushing back yet again so we're seeing almost parallel tracks here well we all remember though he remember though even as he remembered the michael even as the president asked for congressional authorization they made it very clear at the

white house that they didn't think it was necessary they just thought it was the right thing to do so i'm not sure we've moved very far off the previous stance ok ok ok michael was it the right thing to do in retrospect two years on was it the right thing. i don't i don't think it was i think nato's decision this month to send military advisors is a recognition of one responsibility but two that we did not focus on institution building building or capacity bill you know it's interesting that the transitional council which then became the government which then split up because understandably the militias and the rebels were more fractious to begin with used patton boggs as a legal firm to lobby on behalf of the thirty seven billion that state then freed up so there's money at play and also munitions at play that five hundred million small arms are being trafficked all throughout the continent we have some responsibility for that certainly libya but also egypt our military aid to egypt

seeps through porous borders so if we're inclined to help the african continent be safer and more stable one first step would be stopping the military aid that's trickling down from the north and also from the horn rich what is the responsibility of nato and suddenly the approach that's been one of the complicating go ahead jump in i'm sorry go. to michael's to michael's point that's been one of the complicating issues in syria i don't want to keep going off libya but but i but it but there are parallels and disconnect said i think are interesting is that is that the administration was very hesitant about shipping arms into the current rebel rebels because we're not if we are either we're not clear we don't want to say actually who we're giving those arms to and how they're going to come back and haunt us and you go way back to afghanistan when we supplied stinger missiles to the move move. gentlemen and gentlemen where learning curve

here where is the learning curve here ok i guess we're all in agreement here where you said earlier as they grow right i just go michael first then rich where is the learning curve come on this isn't complicated stuff michael go ahead. it's not it's not complicated stuff yet remarkably the cia in in cahoots i should say not to use a loaded word but with saudi arabia and qatar funding rebel groups that just this month split you know the previously semi unified transitional council in syria has now split some go into more extremist islamic groups some going to the free syrian army so what was once unified and the state part was very happy about that has now split up i wouldn't be surprised i don't know the lobby for in this advocating on behalf of the transitional council but i'm sure it's a similar group but we clearly haven't learned because what we did all the way back to rich's point the mujahideen we haven't learned in libya and we certainly haven't learned in syria rich go ahead jump in. and i was i was in iraq for six months in

two thousand and three and two thousand and four when we helped established the the the council the governing council and helped institute what we called the transitional administrative law which was sort of the proto constitution there but that's again that that that's still it's tribal warfare that's kind of disintegrating into into mafia type warfare so i don't know that there is a good answer but one of the things i do to two quick points one in libya getting back there we have sent in one of our most accomplished diplomats deborah jones to be the ambassador and she has she has the ear of everyone because she may be one of the most talented professional diplomats we have currently working that's number one and number two i think whether you're looking at africa or southwest asia or or the middle east at some point i think these the regional organizations that that that are in those areas have to step up to take some responsibility i understand

that africa's got a lot of problems but at some point the western nations have to say you know what to stay off our shores and you guys figure this out because we've got problems with you know among among and between ourselves and you have the additional actions of not actions but the additional gravity in terms of the gravitational pull of both russia and china in all of these regions plus the united states so there is there is this tension of who's going to i mean it's almost like going back to the cold war spheres of influence ok michael but maybe just not intervening in the first place might be the best idea i mean can't we derive that from the experiences going back to afghanistan. two points not intervening we like big splashes we like the pomp and circumstance we don't like the small stuff so what's working in terms of economic development in afghanistan is a project a very small project twenty thousand dollars block grants thirty thousand dollars

block grants that the world bank funds through the afghan ministry of rural rehabilitation development through the national solidarity program we don't like that because we like to put our name on things and we like we like the show so real development real reconstruction real stabilization is a slow process and it might require that we don't put our name our stamp our usaid stamp on it secondly a transit point about regionally it's only that and that might avoid some of the blowback in the future that might avoid blowback in the future gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on libya stay with us. the police will.

choose your language. calling we can we know if they're going to stay still some. say. to the good the consensus. choose the opinions that you think are great. choose the stories that impact your life choose access to. there's the media lead us so we leave the media part of the scene push the security play your part of the musical. where shoes that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's all on politicking only on our t.v. . look it was terrible they come up very hard to make

a plan to get along here there's a lot that matter how exactly would that hurt their feelings. one last. look a little bit closer. look look look look look look. look look look look the people.

on. the news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are all today please come up. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to mind you were discussing the ongoing crisis in libya. ok which i go back to there are two hundred twenty five thousand libyans registered in militias and they're paid by the government. that's

a rather curious thing isn't it i mean you're you're keeping these rival militias well armed and they have some spending money is that why a strategy for a country like libya that is breaking up and i'd like to talk about a little bit or a little while is breaking up into three different countries before ice. that's we have and that's what i said in the beginning these things i mean go these lines as we all know are largely drawn by westerners these these country lines that that may or may not you know follow a river may rent out fire fire follow tribal lines but you know in terms of arming everybody the other side of that is the russia and the u.s. or the soviet union then in the u.s. you know lived under a concept of mutually x. as you were destruction and it may well be that the whatever the central government is in libya thinks that the safest way to do it is the not let any of these three groups gain any kind of you know measurable arms a superiority and that sort of keeps everybody out of balance so i'm not so sure

that that that's the wrong thing but let's go back a step about i don't i don't want to leave the impression that i think that america are the bad guys in all these things i don't think that's right and if we look at syria as again an example of nonintervention hundred over one hundred thousand people have been killed it is spreading across the borders as refugees scramble to get out of the way that specially the. on the turkish border there's the turks are the turks don't want them there because the the syrian army and the syrian secret service follows them across the border so i don't know what the right answer is that but i don't know that i'm going to do the right thing but only if you think let me can you give me an example recently where interventions were a good thing because every time there's an intervention i mean what half a million half a million iraqis died for a reason that no one really can convince me it was a good idea to go into iraq in the first place i mean it's really all nice and finally i say you know what we know we go to the point mike but i mean what i'm saying is that sometimes doing nothing is better because by doing something you

make the the process even worse the outcome easier even worse well again i was i was in iraq for i was in iraq for a long time and i actually saw the mass graves of the kurdish mass graves way down south near the saudi border where saddam had gassed those people tens tens and tens of thousands of them we went to villages that didn't have that we had to train women on how to run the village because there weren't any men left they killed all the men so i don't i mean look a smidgen of somehow then i mean we're going to read it was we're days full of mesopotamia where does joe the saddam get the gas in the technology. came from the united states well you know if we can go back to the first well well i don't know about that first that was an atom i mean that's that's you know you know who invented water i mean at some point you got to say well ok we're not going to do that any more exposure waited for the well documented but it's pretty well documented ok michael but you know you but again i'm i'm not i will not allow you

to say that the united states is the cause of all these problems which is i think where you want this conversation i am i'm not and i'm not saying that i'm not saying it's the cause but i'm saying interventions make it worse i'm not saying it's the cause ok let's be clear on i don't i don't know you you can't really what you can't rewind the clock and see if we hadn't done a well then b. and that's that's exactly what i don't know we learn enough for attention in the past on intervention in syria from the past couple of hundred thousand and least one hundred thousand civilians to have been killed and there's no end in sight and everybody's kind of jumping up and down about the fact that you know that a handful of inspectors are going in looking for syrian gas and yet the killings continue to use support of military intervention when she syria good idea either do you support a military or an engine really finish rich do you support a military inventions are going ok all right but is that yes you are going to i'm not that smart i don't know what the answer is but what i do know what i do know is

that saying that in every case intervention is wrong it may not be the perfect answer but it may be a better answer than doing nothing and i think in syria that may well be the case ok all right i don't think people in iran would your greens think so today is what i call that's why you're rattling your sword so much no with a rattling international lowlife michael go ahead. you know playing over something because i think it's very kind of the good side of intervention richen richard and peter i think it's about the kind of intervention because i certainly support the u.s. being very involved in the kind of socio economic development schemes that i mentioned earlier in the program in syria we did not aggressively engage the organization for islam in cooperation or the arab league in advance we still haven't invited them aggressively into geneva two peace talks we haven't even invited iran so it's the kind of intervention you know on libya this is a great example we brought in the arab league late to the game because we have centrally needed their stamp of approval on an invasion they supported

a track through the u.n. which eventually led to a security council resolution allowing no fly zone etc but then they rescinded some of that because they didn't want to support a tomahawk invasion by sea but our engagement of the arab league was late in the game it was a stamp of approval we haven't really engaged them aggressively on syria so i would just. the previous conversation where the two of you were going back and forth in terms of what kind of intervention is it we tend increasingly to choose primarily a military intervention and and clearly it's it's not working in iraq it's more unstable than it ever was we didn't do a good job of political reconciliation between the sunni and the shia we kicked the sunni out and then we gave them arms and weapons in the anbar province unsurprisingly now that we're not funding them anymore they're back in baghdad blowing stuff up because we don't prioritize reconciliation so it's the kind of intervention that's critical you know it's kind of paradoxical here because nation building didn't go so well in afghanistan and in iraq is that the reason why they

didn't think about it in libya because why think about it because it doesn't work anyway is that logical reasoning in your mind no i'm not saying that. no i think i think i think what you have to do as i said earlier i think what we've done i don't remember now why russia or the soviet union invaded afghanistan i care. member why that all happened but but i mean there was obviously some some reason for the soviet union to invade afghanistan before you got kicked out of there and that opened the door to the taliban and everything flowed from there i mean if to but to michael's point a few you know there are a lot of people i think correctly believe that after after the soviet union got thrown out of afghanistan that that more civil civil civilian intervention might have stopped the taliban from taking taking over and that would have helped that situation but you know these. sort of learn as you go a little bit better but the first thing you do in all these cases whether it's rush

or of the u.s. or china well china is not there yet but they'll get there is that you see you first you launch a missile and see what happens ok i hope they learn history better than than what's happening in the last ten years in the war on terror you guys haven't you guys haven't i mean russia is you're not you're one of you i know you got a reward in the world i mean my goodness trying to bring those you bring you to your period but you are getting any type of well that you can feel like i mean they have to live if you want to if you want to keep pressing that security wanting some pressure that point that you know no rich really want to please press saying let's leave your let's go back to it's go back to libya ok let's go back to libya and i want to give this to michael here ok because for all the criticism that you have about russia and syria russia doesn't want to see syria explode because you know what syria is a lot closer to its neighborhood before it you get blowback in the united states in the u.k. it's twenty hours away by car from damascus to chechnya to get my

drift here everyone thinks it's russia trying to protect its friend it is by geopolitical interests no it's about a region that could explode and explode in a really vicious fashion jordan lebanon and said you are so i don't rush is because action is a better mistake stay away from me i don't i don't think of that or is it because. we're not doing hilda in a civil war is that your position no matter who is it isn't it wasn't your people that doing something that is a little while doing nothing and allowing one hundred a lodger to be heiress richie your problem is that a lot of that is going on like me that even across the whole. will be coming around this is surely you son you said at the beginning of this thing that that we could that we could each take a turn and ok you go ahead and finish the washing line well i'm not going to be the line of peter lavelle to my mind ok and i'm talking about facts on the ground if you want to compare with your kids do that your line is well we can do that michael

you heard a lot you want to weigh in. a couple of things russia of course doesn't want to see you in the stability in syria. u.s. doesn't want to see instability in the middle east now would we invade these countries if they were closer to our shores maybe not i want to offer up one thing that's perhaps a lesson learned here and bill horry who was with the state department this month came out with a statement saying for every drone strike we create forty to sixty enemies if you will adversaries and he came out saying this recognizing that his friends in previous colleagues at the state department wouldn't be happy with him saying it i think we need to look at the efficacy and efficiency of our military strategy is it costing us more in the long run and is it bringing people to our side is it winning hearts and minds and i would say pretty consistently with the various invasions in the middle east north africa horn of africa and south asia and central asia it's not so that's what we need to look at what do you think the world community should

do for a living at the start of the show is that michael is these are keeping is that go ahead go ahead we're going to say anything all right i'm not no i'm not because as soon as i start talking you're going to start talking again go ahead no there is a slight time delay when i saw you starting to speak i shut up so please which go ahead. that the other side of that michel is that what we don't know you and i don't know is is how many threats against america and american interest specifically have been thwarted by those drone strikes and i'm not a huge fan of the drone strikes either i have a nice i have some some truly ethical issues with it but that but if if you first agree that we're still in a war and you don't have to agree with that but i do then then winning the hearts and minds it's not the same thing as as a war between states it's the isa metrical war and i think that the the second administration in a row now has determined that the safest plan to protect american interests which

is which is sort of the president's job is to find and destroy potential adversaries before they can find and destroy us michael gave you last ten seconds to. two concerns having worked in the middle east central asia and south asia i've seen public opinion turn against america because of our military endeavors in the country and secondly i real concerns with the authorization to use military force from two thousand and one to let the president kill anyone anywhere any time so all right is it really concerns that we need truly great i appreciate i agree with both of you many thanks to my guests in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember.

one hundred days remaining. one hundred days a flake. to keep. most of the missions that soldiers. still. prevention are in many ways targeting the civilians that have nothing to do. with the actual attacks against israeli targets. his lover into an amazon. that had been my dream for so long. but

he couldn't hold on to there is such a thing as. now she runs her own muslim factory throw down a challenge to men there's no alcohol or smoking and even coffee is forbidden they worship the sun. and learn martial arts. will he be able to wind up back man versus woman on r.t. . we speak your language. news programs and documentaries in spanish matters to you breaking news a little too much of angles to the story. to. find out more visit.

the olympic torch is on its epic journey to structure. one hundred twenty three days. through. the cities of russia. really. the people who are sixty thousand. in a record setting. their. face. on our. cool. others a few. faces change. picture .

over sixty people were killed in iraq. getting crowded neighborhoods. and are now attempting to look at syria and. spring throughout the entire region right smack at the foot of southern europe a former pentagon official tells. us intelligence to spot. vigorously denies.