professor at the center for muslim christian understanding at georgetown university in paris we go to john laughlin of the institute of democracy in cooperation and another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all right.

professor at the center for muslim christian understanding at georgetown university in paris we go to john laughlin of the institute of democracy and cooperation in another member of our crosstalk team on the hunger all right folks crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to comment on what i've said or other panel members have said all right i'd like to go to you first shereen it's about fifteen a little over fifteen little less than fifteen years since huntington's teachers came out how valid is it today because since the cold war we see a lot of conflicts and many people would say it's more or less culture not ideology not philosophy that is driving not all but many of these conflicts. well i frankly this agree with that and i disagree very early on the first time hunting when he first raised this issue in his foreign affairs journal in one thousand nine hundred three i think that first of all one of the reasons why we are emphasizing culture these days is that for almost couple of hundred years the role of culture was not really paid enough attention to although it

and john laughlin from the instead of democracy and corporations as they proclaimed withdrawal is on paper only and iraq remains an occupied country there's no real withdrawal at all on the contrary fifty thousand troops are going to remain in iraq so what we're dealing with here is a political package it's an administrative change the troops who are already in iraq will stay there the name of the mission changes but they will still be combat troops they will still be engaged in combat operations after all an american soldier died again only on sunday so this is indeed all about presenting all other creating a reality which in fact does not exist the collapse of state power in iraq and the fact that it is effectively an occupied country means that it doesn't have self-determination. i think that people who argue in favor of this war say that the achievement of democracy at least on paper made it worth it i'm not sure of course whether the many hundreds of thousands of people who've been killed would agree with that but even if one can say that the situation has in some respects impro

here in the deadline of course being august thirty first we're now joined live from paris a by john laughlin from the institute for democracy and cooperation so all combat troops are out but there are many forces already allow to take part in combat operations if the iraqis are asked them to so if you think the combat mission is over or assist with draw more to do with obama's fulfillment of an election campaign promise. that's exactly what i think there's no real withdrawal at all on the country fifty thousand troops are going to remain in iraq so what we're dealing with here is a political package it's an administrative change the troops who are already in iraq will stay there the name of the mission changes but they will still be combat troops they will still be engaged in combat operations after all an american soldier died again only on sunday so this is indeed all about presenting or rather creating a reality which in fact does not exist now operation iraqi freedom it may be officially over but has washington really brought any freedom to the iraqis is there any semblance of a so-calle

no longer a dictatorship my own view is that the human cost in terms of deaths is much too high john laughlin there are other news now in desperate times in one indian village of prompted residents to take desperate measures a severe two year drought has left three hundred families on the edge of starvation they are threatening to commit mass suicide if there's no aid from the government but despite the start warning so far no helpers arrived charan singh has the story . here in the village of you know remote part of eastern india so intricate mali spends time with his family including his little grandson this may look like one happy picture but the reality is quite the opposite with no food to eat. and over twenty other farmers in the small village of about three hundred families have threatened to commit mass suicide. mutely we will have to die sometime so while the suffer like this every day it's better to die now we're so hopeless that we've come to the conclusion that committing suicide is the best option would like to do nearly little food to eat how many days can a person want to live.