different perspective when you turn things around and look at it from a different side that was alan cooperman professor at the university of texas in austin author of the limits of humanitarian intervention genocide in rwanda meanwhile voters in the united kingdom are about to vote on a referendum that could change the way they elect members of parliament electoral reform is expected to fail in the u.k. this time the prospect of reform has at least been raised so is it time to look at changing the u.s. electoral system critics of the electoral college which the u.s. uses to elect president argue for one that it makes it not a national election but rather fifty state elections and that's just one problem earlier i spoke with trying to england director of the save our states project here's what he had to say. the electoral college at least serves the cause of having national politics rather than regional politics and having a system that creates some political stability along the way which you know i think those things are very important a political system and i think the electoral college has

conflict altie london and for more on the possibility of ground troops in libya earlier i spoke to alan cooperman he's a professor at the university of texas at austin news author of this book the limits of man a tarion intervention genocide in rwanda now he told me why he believes sending ground forces into libya is not only a bad idea but is mission creep and not authorized under the u.n. mandate. i think that president obama sort of revealed his hand early on even though the u.n. resolution only authorized military action to protect civilians. president obama said from the beginning that qaddafi had to step down and leave the country so it's clear what president obama wants he wants regime change and a negotiated agreement is not necessarily going to get you regime change and so that may be why we're seeing instead of nato and the united states in the lead pushing this sort of military escalation i think it's a terrible idea both because it's going to increase the humanitarian cost there's going to be more civilians noncombatants killed and wounded and moreover it's going to help bring to powe

than thirty billion dollars of it are frozen character given to the opposition but professor alan cooperman says it's unlikely to become a turning. if their rebels were strong then a little bit of outside assistance to them might have been enough to topple the government but the rebels were extraordinarily weak in fact the war would have ended more than a month ago if not for intervention the rebels simply would feel the killing would have stopped. and more people would be alive than are alive today so what the intervention really did is just level the playing field this is actually quite common intervention that is intended to end the violence sometimes that's collates the violence and that's exactly what's happened in libya and so could offer so it's secure and tripoli his forces are loyal large parts of the country support him and so a little bit of intervention is not going to compel him to step down there are tribal differences between the west of libya and the east of libya this is mainly a regional war between those regional tribes west and east and that would not change with the kil

libya has been dragging on since february has reportedly claimed thousands of lives professor alan cooperman an x. special military intervention thinks the nato led coalition has taken the wrong approach to solving the conflict. if their rebels were strong then a little bit of outside assistance to them might have been enough to topple the government but the rebels were extraordinarily weak in fact the war would have ended more than a month ago if not for intervention the rebels simply. killing would have stopped. more people would be alive in our life today so what the intervention really did is just to level the playing field this is actually quite common intervention that is intended to end the violence sometimes that's the way it's that i don't see that's exactly what's happened in libya and so off he is he says secure and tripoli his forces are loyal large parts of the country support him and so a little bit of intervention is not going to compel him to step down there are tribal differences between the west of libya in the east of libya this is mainly a regional war between those regio

members of his family for more analysis on this i came across to america to austin texas professor alan cooperman joins us from there is an expert on u.s. military intervention thanks for joining us here on r.t. another coalition has been bombing libya for what well nearly a month and we're hearing about this new financial front to support the rebels now being agreed do you think that this is perhaps a step closer to seeing boots on the ground. well i doubt you're going to see american boots on the ground except for special operations troops so i don't think you'll see a large presence and i know that president obama wants to avoid that but the president has been pretty clear that what he wants to do is strengthen the rebels enough and put enough military pressure on cut off the so that could off he steps down leave the country and then there's a transition to you know some sort of i assume power sharing government that's the goal i'm not sure that that's being accomplished anytime soon instead what we see is that the war is going on and on it's escalating the battlefield has been leveled and tha

collateral damage to the killings be evidence of nato mission creep in libya for more we're joined by alan cooperman a professor of public affairs at the university of texas in austin and also the author of this look here the limits of humanitarian intervention professor thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today i want to get right to the story how do you interpret the killings of gadhafi son and three grandchildren this weekend accidental or evidence of something a little bit more. well it's two possibilities either we that is the nato coalition thought that cut off it was there and they were trying to take him out and instead they killed his son and three of his grandchildren and that's one possibility the other possibility is that nato story is true that they thought it was really a command center or a command bunker and they hit it and in that case the intelligence was terrible given that in fact it was a residence for civilians and including the children grandchildren khadafi my and my point is that in the first place if you were trying to assassinate it off that's really ill