was represented also in the kosovo war more than it is about oil iraq was a disaster largely for u.s. oil companies chinese and russian interests really kind of cornered the market there you know this dream of paul wolfowitz that iraq was going to pay for its own occupation and rebuilding through its oil just never came to fruition and i do understand why you asked that question tom i just i don't see it with libya with the united states but i mean that's actually good to hear in one thousand nine. elections that the u.n. had turned him down and he went to the nato instead ordered bombing of serbia we ended up accidentally bombing the chinese embassy in belgrade we covered the area with depleted uranium we cluster bomb the marketplace. i think there was a train that. pretty much proves that for the u.s. this was a democratic administration. i invent fact i believe that this is your a quote from you the empire is a bipartisan thing what were the lessons that you took away from our an adventure and the subsequent recognition of kosovo. well i spent years there on the ground and i was i

backed kosovo liberation army expelling a quarter of a million serbs and other minorities from kosovo so we want to hold that up as some kind of a success story let's look at the facts on the ground i'm not so sure that what the united states did there in the name of stopping the humanitarian catastrophe or genocide actually had that impact it just shifted who was doing the killing and and also if my recollection is right at that time before we began the bar the bombing there was a pretty aggressive pro-democracy for lack of a better phrase movement that was evolving in that country and of course our bombing put into that i'm curious your thoughts on how our bombing of libya and our air strikes against libya are going to cause any already and i'm hearing bush shares you know he was yelling before that the people revolted against him or al qaida so. now he's going out of the cia and cia is this is this did that in in in serbia and we will there and there will and will this in the middle east to make it more difficult frankly for democracy movements to emerge. i think that's a difficult

and said no you can't go to war against kosovo or against serbia over kosovo and so what the clip administration did was go to nato and use that for quote unquote legitimacy because moammar gadhafi need to be stopped yes he needs to be stop i oppose what the u.s. is doing not on moral grounds but on strategic grounds i think we're going to make it worse and we're getting involved in a civil war and unfortunately it seems like robert gates the defense secretary is probably the most sane voice in the administration right now he's he's sort of openly saying he didn't think this was a good idea to get involved in libya this way that's fascinating that's a pretty big split i think within the administration and a lot of people are saying that robert gates is actually the most honest voice in this debate right now within the discussions taking place at the white house. meanwhile some say the policy of double standards and play into the hands of criminals while leaders around the world continue to the. vents of the past that sometimes you just can't escape the crimes they commit. and israeli. civilians.

and said no you can't go to war against kosovo or against serbia over kosovo and so what the clinton ministration did was to go to nato and use that for quote unquote legitimacy you know fact is these are all sort of rogue operations does market often need to be stopped yes he needs to be stopped i oppose what the u.s. is doing not on moral grounds but on strategic grounds i think we're going to make it worse and we're getting involved in a civil war and i'm fortunately it seems like robert gates the defense secretary is probably the most sane voice in the administration right now he's he's sort of openly saying he didn't think this was a good idea to get involved in libya this way that's fascinating he's on his way out the door and he's been around for a long time he was a gun writer during the mujahedeen wars and. afghanistan has a cia background and special forces background and is the defense secretary but that's a pretty big squid i think within the administration and a lot of people are saying that robert gates is actually the most on his voice in this debate right now with the

what happened in kosovo was a pattern we hope will happen here. we think we have the same tools and opportunity to do that. with respect to support for the opposition, i think you've raised the right questions. we believe under the second security council resolution, that is an option that is available to provide support for the option. we want to make sure it would serve the broader interests in creating a democratic stable libya. those are the questions we're discussing with ourselves and with others. that's something we have not yet made a decision about. >> you a couple of follow-up questions. while you might want to compare this to kosovo, there are different parts of the world. while one strategy might work in one area of the world, it may not work based on a variety of issues, including the terrain, culture, environment, the neighborhood and the other. so i wouldn't be so comfortable to compare this to the similar situation over 15 years ago in kosovo. but having said that, the second concern ta i have that i think a lot of americans have i

and anti-war activist rick rose off says nato is using the same strategy in libya that it didn't kosovo and afghanistan. there are certain power parallels of course with the beginning stages of the invasion and military operations in afghanistan in october of two thousand and one i think there are also astonishing parallels with all the united states and nato you know conduct of the war against yugoslavia ninety ninety nine your report a little while ago mentioned you know sophisticated satellite telephone communication. more advanced weaponry and so forth you know falling into the hands or being supplied to insurgent forces in libya and that's you know fully comparable to what the united states and nato did with the so-called possible liberation army in the serbian province of possible in one nine hundred ninety nine but it looks like the handbook for military aggression in intervention that the united states and nato have recourse to is very limited options and they tend to replay the same scenarios repeatedly the western powers reserved to them so as the exclusive prerogative of wagi

for the decision about libya it's not the basis for decisions about georgia about palestine about kosovo the question of who is held responsible and how is very much a strategic question it's not a legal question as it should be to boost its strategic importance among other things georgia has dispatched one thousand troops to join allied forces in afghanistan and became the leading troop contributor relative to georgia's overall population there boundless and as this fox news. interview shows almost unstoppable praise of the u.s. is also believed to have played a role in the west supporting saakashvili no matter what his clients america's like because he faced them but some americans are sure there are more more you can receive more freedom after religion mr president for regulation of the bastards so you are now as the world has declared a no fly zone over libya to stop gadhafi many wonder why a no fly zone was never on the table when the georgian president launched his dad lee campaign or when israel bombed the gas it was three weeks in a row on the question for example of gaza where y

he mentioned kosovo and the reduction of nato and u.s. forces. is it your assessment that we are making good progress? one of the concerns raised was when i was at the brussels conference was concerned about some of the police sites in kosovo and the extent to which they would be secure if the nato forces withdrew. >> i think we are making very good progress in kosovo. if you look at that time scale, ten years ago we were literally launching tomahawk missiles into belgrade to kind of kick off that conflict just over ten years ago. when i came on the job we had 15,000 troops. because we've been able to maintain a safe and secure environment we reduced to 10,000 in february i came down to 5,000 troops. i'm very comfortable at that level. in the year i will take another look and i think we are going to work our way out of the job and kosovo because the ongoing dialogue between serbia and kosovo continues to improve. in terms of the sensitive sites, we started out with nine of those and we turned over six of them at this point. we are about to turn o

my argument is based on over a decades worth of research and research on the ground in bosnia in kosovo in rwanda i've also researched our for iraq afghanistan and what you find is that rebels often use the same propaganda tactic they start a war that they cannot win on their own and the whole goal is to drag in the united states and its allies on their side and the only way to get the u.s. to come in on their side is to claim that the government is going to massacre civilians they did in bosnia and it worked it didn't cost it worked and so my point is if you're really trying to save civilians what you should do is not play the this rebel game you should say the rebels if you start a rebellion and the government responds by targeting rebels we're not going to get involved the only time that the west's and the international community should get involved is if the government responds grossly disproportionately if the government actually starts targeting civilians intentionally then the international community should come in to stop a bloodbath to stop a genocidal type situation so that wa

this incredible penetrating power and given their effectiveness and their historic use in iraq and kosovo do you think it's possible that that these weapons could essentially be used in libya also almost or will most certainly being used in libya if you examine some of the entrance wounds on some of the changes on some of the key seventy two said i've seen their classic completed your e-mail munition rooms relatively small holes and then exploded outward because when the b d u a goes inside the tank it explodes into a far wall of comparison degrees farenheit which is what produces all the dust in and stuff that blows all over the place and gets on people's clothes and breathe in eccentric weather suspects of a humanitarian intervention right where they're to protect the people i mean what does it say about this country and our and the nato allies if we're essentially going in to protect the libyans but using something that is so devastatingly dangerous to human life well it really should be damn i mean this depleted uranium emission is really in the category of quezon gas or gum gumble it

that kind of coverage now i know that you've been embedded before you're saying in iraq in kuwait in kosovo and afghanistan what do you think the difference is though when you're in bed with the troops versus a situation like libya where this is a civil war where there are obvious forces and there are rebels that also aren't organized and really supposedly the nato allies aren't supposed to be on either side. it's a very very difficult distinction to make sometimes but i think there's a critical distinction to make i mean this is an example i was actually an embed with the u.s. military when i was in afghanistan this last time i remember the would be a sheet of paper and the sheet of paper essentially said you can get blown up it's not our fault it's your fault and i walked out the front gate of the biggest into afghanistan itself but you know what this is also were difficult to this if you will bed with the u.s. military he was military is trying to sell him to i mean they're trying to convince you of a particular point because they want you to report that point as well as true and so some

what happened in kosovo was a pattern we hope will happen here. we think we have the same tools and opportunity to do that. with respect to support for the opposition, i think you've raised the right questions. we believe under the second security council resolution that is an option that is available to provide support for the option. we want to make sure it would serve the broader interestsn creating a democratictable libya. those are the questions we're discussing with ourselves and with others. that's something we have not yet made a decision about. >> you a couple of follow-up questions. while you might want to compare this to kosovo, there are different parts of the world. while one strategy might work in one area of the world, it may not work based on a variety of issues, including the terrain, culture, environment, the neighborhood and the other. so i wouldn't be so comfortable to compare this to the similar situation over 15 years ago in kosovo. but having said that, the second concern ta i have that i think a lot of americans have is tha

kosovo is quite similar. then i was posted to jerusalem and the middle east when the iraq war began. it happened on my watch. i don't have a choice, i could have walked away. it felt wrong to train in journalism and spend years churning -- learning short hand and gaining experience of the language and culture for jordan, iraq, and to walk away and say, i don't fancy this. i am happy to shoulder the lighter burden. tavis: for those following the story of enough to know, there was a journalist captured and beaten. can you tell me specifically what happened? >> we were covering the eastern part of the country that isn't under gaddafi's control. the rebels had started to lie about where the front line was. they started to say they have retaken this town, and we are on a roll, and it is impossible to stay back 100 miles back from the front line and know what was going on. we went down to the front line. it was much quicker than we expected. i was trying to get to the back entrance and back to safety. tavis: there

feel it might be it might be necessary if we remember this was something that was established in kosovo lost as an argument in afghanistan and iraq and i believe that this is an attempt to refurbish it but i do think there are genuinely some genuine geo strategic factors. more actually although i disagree with analysis mentioned some of them but primarily it's about getting some kind of foothold in the finest moving developments of the arab revolution which completely took the major powers by surprise i mean what do you think about that just getting on the tail end of this year go ahead john you're talking you're done you're talking as if this was free masterminded. in a some kind of an order to intervene in a very lean in one way or another in some places do some imperialist course some master plans for long term first of all libya i can assure you will serve as a model an example to anybody around the area that would tend to suppress their people and their brutal fashion and they get that the regime has i mean you know i am absolutely. but restoring a heritage you mean you are a man y

peace prize who didn't get it i'm sure is eating his heart out is bill clinton and he did make war in kosovo but that war was seen as a no other humanitarian intervention but clinton has probably done more for peace than any recent president jimmy carter you retire you bring out jimmy carter peace prize ok but i mean if i go in john. deserved off it and i've done a fine go to you your servant ok go ahead go ahead take your hand and i'm going to clinton deserve the peace prize this guy impose sanctions and maintain sanctions in iraq madeline albright his secretary of state defended the killing of a least a million iraqi children because of sanctions saying it was necessary imposed a no was on iraq destroyed virtually everything so softening the concrete for bush and cheney to take over he deserve that. give us a break ok john what about it what about former politicians foreign policy look at jimmy carter because jimmy carter a lot of people criticize him for some of his thoughts since spread his presidency but he i think it's fair to say that even his detractors while he was president say he'

interest is involved here and i think we need to be careful and i as far as humanitarian goes in kosovo we started bombing for humanitarian reasons there was limited ethnic cleansing and of course after we're after we started bombing the regime had nothing to lose so it just went whole hog and i think the same thing could happen here and we may face a stalemate all cut off he has to do is keep tanks in the major cities how are these rebels going to get him out of there that's coffee's fail safe last resort. option there because it's going to be very difficult to get armor out of cities and that sort of thing. if he digs in and. uses the cities as human shields against nato airstrikes so we could have a stalemate we could have. position that we don't know much about they could turn there may be a president in that opposition there seems to be some indication of that we've got to be very careful here there are many unintended consequences that could happen from this really so you know as we heard that i mean where would you like to emphasize because there's a it was a lot of points mentio

nobel peace prize who didn't get it i'm sure he is i doubt is bill clinton and he did make war in kosovo but that war was seen as a no other humanitarian intervention but clinton has probably done more for peace than any. president jimmy carter you mean carter bring out jimmy carter of peace crisis ok but i mean if i go to john places turn off it i don if i go do you ok go ahead go ahead tell you go ahead i'm going to deserve the praise prize this guy impose sanctions maintain sanctions on iraq madeline albright his secretary of state defended the killing of for at least a million iraq he couldn't because of sanctions saying it was necessary imposed a no wallsten on iraq just scored virtually everything so softening the country for bush and cheney to pick up where he does serve the peace prize give us a break ok don what about what about former politicians foreign policy look at jimmy carter because jimmy carter is a lot of people criticize him for some of his thoughts since spread his presidency but he i think it's fair to say that even his detractors while he was president say he's don

the despair of a refugee camp in kosovo. a marine on night patrol in pakistan. just three weeks ago, hondros declined his boss' suggestion to take a break from the danger. >> and i said to him "why?" and he said "it's what i do." >> reporter: but this picture may tell the most about chris hondros the man-- not just the photographer. >> his image of a liberian freedom fighter, which had him nominated for the pulitzer prize-- he kept in touch with that guy and paid for his education when he chose not to be a freedom fighter anymore. >> reporter: tim hetherington was a combat artist... >> over there! >> tim, get down! >> reporter: ...earning an oscar nomination for co-directing "restrepo." >> hit the bottom right of the village. >> reporter: the bomb tear providing a terrifyingly intimate look at an army play platoon in remote afghanistan. proximity was everything to him, even though the threat of danger was ever-present. >> when my loved ones see the film they're horrified by the situations i get myself into. >> that was their secret. neither man used long lenses.

since the beginning of the war but libyans still longer have access to it but kosovo people don't check this essential fact they take all this information coming so be here you which is the role purpose of rickey you think that you. trained activists provided with panic buttons and other technologies scores of false identities on the internet spreading certain ideas the u.s. says it's all about promoting democracy but do these declared intentions justified direct interference in other countries domestic affairs i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. and as he's come to you live from moscow russia i want some minutes past the hour on the way for you here but struggle to preserve a fragile lives and out why these russian parents aren't getting everything they need from the government to help to keep their children. tensions between the u.s. and pakistan have risen sharply in recent weeks leading islam about officials to demand a cut in the number of cia personnel in the country it comes as it's a foreign office called american drone attacks quote a quarter they were sent in