qadhafi presided over libya from 1969 until 2011. the longest period approval of any postcolonial arab leader. during his 43 years, qadhafi bestowed upon himself the title of guide, and the brother leader. he steered a ship of state that deprived citizens of basic civil and human rights, while at the same time, he asserted that his people were in control of their own country and destiny. beyond the borders of libya, gaddafi sponsored acts of terrorism. the most notorious was the bombing of pan am flight 103 in december 1988, which claimed the lives of 270 people, including 189 americans. gaddafi succeeded in rehabilitating himself with the west at the turn of the 21st century by making reparations to the families and hoping his mass of weapons of mass deception programs in 2003. during his rule, he raised the let standards of living and life expectancy of his people, using oil revenues that allowed him to avoid the perils of foreign debt. nonetheless, with the arab spring revolutions already underway in neighboring tunisia and egypt,

dollars to pay ten thousand dollars a year or more for every man woman and child in libya and in libya remains an economic disaster people are suffering there are as you say as you said all this money all this oil money that is coming back into libya where where is it going that's the need that's the hundred dollar question when the some questions about this little transparency more words it may be that like the cases like jury were the worst of all computers and little you just wouldn't have it wasn't the perils of the ships and i think it may be going to. the right to repay that what the intestine industry will be able to enable the libyan people are getting is the libyan medical system or education system. before this war logs it's pretty much a disaster so on i think we. also you see this travel violence breaking or between the people there and i think all this interesting scenarios that are very very well respected just moments ago just moments ago you raise an issue about a tribal rival tribal factions i think a few minutes ago you were alluding to perhaps how iraq was before bef

go to libya as almost. like it that's has happened so the form of my many ministers and as well as happens so that that was the end of the form of a number of presidents of the united nations and many other thousands of views and as i miss the us and also perhaps. but we must also ask what has an interest in corroborating with the n.c.c. which is clearly practicing systematic abuses and this is an interesting question because in cooperating with then eggs you see which is. the greater destabilization and fragmentation of libya as we have same unfolding every day is essentially to say the west's interests very keen to see perpetual instability in libya and in the wider region so that like in iraq what. corporate elites can win contracts supposedly pick up the pieces which of course they will never do because they are in a position so that he says it's only in libya where you suffer and if he is respected that can do that and it's like in that contest so pick. that is another way they won't make any money out

which libya wasn't supposed to happen in the first place as i pointed out. in my view. and turkey of course doesn't like all. but what is lacking here is this is turkey involved arming the opposition in syria today. turkey turkey doesn't take off usually but there are people more civilians and some soldiers or militias coming and going out from the warders but turkey doesn't accept that they're arming militias i mean it is very difficult to find a settlement because there is. a difference of opinion within syria in terms of people and the international community so this is this is the sad aspect of the syrian crisis in libya at least there was a consensus to help people being massacred there but since there are some falls on this consensus especially the russian government there is no law there's no reason to if i could go to brian there's a lot of consensus in the west ok about ending the regime in damascus is calling for regime change really escalating the violence. well that's what really what's behind the violence i mean the preponderance of foreigners w

libya has a long way to go. but 80% of the people in libya have registered to vote. i will predict to you a massive voter turnout. contrast this with what commentators on far right and far left said. at the time we were assisting the libyan people's legitimate rights in their struggle against moammar gadhafi. and that was oh, it's probably al qaeda. we don't know who they are. probably al qaeda. we don't know who they are. the united states shouldn't be involved. we should be involved. we should be involved. and yes there's going to be rocky times in these countries. the latest election in egypt brings great uncertainties as to our future. but they had a free and fair election. generally free and fair election. and they have elected a new president. and are on the path to democracy. this is what we want to happen in syria. tunisia has huge problems, but they have a freely elected government. all i'm saying is the united states should assist, help, but not dictate. when the united states starts dictating with people, that's when the resentment rises. so i'm overall op

as it concerns libya, that was nato. we had a canadian commander in charge of everything in libya. with bin laden, great. i think it's great that he gave the call to go in and use the navy s.e.a.l.s and capture osama bin laden. he's always going to go down in the history books as that having happened on his watch. he shares credit with george bush on that because there's no way he would have been able to go capture osama bin laden had it not been for the infrastructure put in place by the previous administration. that's a fact. we can agree whether or not he would have used s.e.a.l. team 6 or another manner, but the fact remains that infrastructure was put in place by the bush administration. >> let me bring in ben. syria is a real quagmire. nothing like anything else we've seen so far. what do you think the smart thing for obama to do is? >> i think rumsfeld did have a point, that all of this talk of sanctions does not seem to be effective. the choice obama faces is whether to intervene militarily. i don't think anybody is saying send in the marines. >> he can't do that because yo

conflicting interests it makes it extremely difficult and the real problem is here we've learned in libya that the price of military intervention is very very high end if i can just remind your viewers and listeners about the costs that we have paid in libya through a nato intervention originally entered into perhaps with some goodwill to prevent civilians from be massacred ended up first of all hurting damaging killing more civilians than anything that could off he had done and today leading to a situation of virtual tribal war clan war decentralization and the breakup of libya now imagine replicate that situation in a post interventionist stage in syria. now saudi arabia is reportedly gearing up for military action against syria it's all about claims the gulf state has already put militants fighting the assad regime but its payroll israel's news agency thought to have close links with israeli intelligence says saudi troops are moving

largely poverty for the many and i think that's what it's really about syria libya. iran. and of course iraq before that we're all in some ways faulting us ambitions in the middle east as a one off or another the us has targeted each of these states so this is absolutely nothing to do with human rights violations or recently involved the u.s. really though the u.s. allies is a saudi arabia and bahrain are the worst human rights violators in the middle east this is really about the geopolitical agenda of subordinating a large swath of the middle east to. the u.s. military economic agenda ok herb you want to get in there that have air time gentlemen herb go ahead well i was going to say i mean this this case i this case i marxist analysis is really absurd where's the united states where's the evidence of the united states involvement in syria i mean obviously the united states would love to see assad fall but we're not entirely happy about what the consequences of that might be and that is a continuing conversation that is taking place in our state department at the moment t

but even with hindsight after the nato bombing of yugoslavia ruling the alliance is a strikes in libya last year history isn't been prevented from repeating itself again and again. when these disturbing images from the syrian village of whole are made world headlines everybody agreed those who are guilty must be punished but the reaction from the international community has been so sweet and so-called donated the risk is that punishment will come before even those who are truly responsible are supposed and that could mean not just also of justice but also huge loss of life. reef nationality mosco. the rebels decision to quit the un back truce was largely motivated by the behavior of the u.s. and its allies that's the view of antiwar activists don de bar who's extensively covered civil conflicts in our countries. the united states is trying to kill it but it's absolutely essential that some sort of peace oriented mission take place or there will be bloodshed horrible bloodshed in syria little make libya look like a picnic the united states has been very clear from the outset really of t

>> no, i don't think you could say libya has settled down yet.'t think that it would be possible to glide seamlessly from 42 years of dictatorship to democracy overnight. the future of libya really does hang in the balance at the moment. because after the revolution libya has got such disparate views on what they want. some people want a secular state. some people want a an islamist state. and those young men who we saw during the revolution firing their weapons into the air and-- they don't want to give those weapons up. and the central government such as it is, really is very week. it has little legitimacy. >> and your book reminded us just how thinly populated and how fast an area this country really is. is it harder to make common cause, harder to make one country out of a place with the peculiar demographic and geographic challenges of libya? >> well, i really think the libyans have got a lot going for them. as you say, small population, 6 million people. they're rich. they've got oil & gas. an many of them are very well educated. one of the

i think it's important to see waters actually happened in libya since the intervention last year . had a vacuum libya is splintering into a city state and there's no great emergence of democracy or you know the libyan people are not being observed. gee to the actions of obama cameron and then french president. libya has been made into a mess by western intervention i think it's very important to remember that when talking about syria in this situation now last year the un when the u. un security council making its decision russia did abstain from that i think it's very important to rule out military intervention to say actually this is the worst possible scenario in terms of allowing the syrian people to decide their own fate yes the situation in syria is horrid at the moment anyone with an ounce of humanity in them would over the last week really troubled by the massacres that are taking place by the fighting that is taking place but you have to really resist that need to impose to want to try and it has to be into other countries suffer in conflicts and to say we can just step in

which brought about the displacement of many of the to our forces who have been settled in libya for many many years they were well armed and of course with them entering the situation inside of northern mali it's part of the stabilizing polarized situation inside the north of the country and of course affected the capital of. as well the nato forces led by the united states destroy the social fabric and national infrastructure and the national economy of libya libya was the most prosperous of the most stable state on the african continent as a result of the destabilization activities on the part of nato the twenty six thousand air missions that were flown over the country over seven month period ten thousand airstrikes against libya naval blockade the freezing of foreign assets this is of course dislodged a busy place hundreds of thousands of people inside the country and hundreds of thousands of more in the regional context if the u.s. it not intervene in libya last year we were not happy current situation that we have right now in mali so u.s. . and nato intervention is not the so

all indications seem to point towards libya being well on its way to being libya never really was a country before the italians came in and italians lost. this tension very similar to what. we had our. time calling the british people see what it came to. was never really a king of the country called libya they don't really have a history. then tribal. leadership it's breaking out and that thing is you know a green opposition. could after you have people driving the rebels so then the tribes are fighting each other tribes themselves fighting it's like clan who are fearsome in somalia and therefore at each other. get plenty more fiona website at the moment dot com including a case of consumer discrimination in the u.s. an american girl was refused the right to find goods from an apple store by having a radiant ancestry. plus you can sniff a dog's discover explosives near a swedish atomic power plant all the details on dot com right now. in egypt the election committee has postponed the results of the presidential runoff until the weekend and says it must review complaints presented by both ca

all indications seem to point towards libya being well on its way to being libya never really was a country before the italians came in and italians lost. very similar to what. they are. calling the british people see what it came to power it was never really a king of our country called libya they don't really have a history. in tribal. leadership it's breaking out and that thing is your green opposition rep people. could after you have tried the rebels then the tribes fighting each other tribes themselves fighting it's like land warfare similar in somalia and therefore at each other and don't forget there's plenty more for you on our website including a case of consumer discrimination in the us an american government was refused the right to buy goods from an apple store for having it rainy and ancestry. plus nuclear alert sniffer dogs discovered explosives near a swedish atomic power plant all the details for you at all t. dot com. in egypt the election committee has postponed the results of the presidential runoff until we can it says it must review complaints presented by both candidat

air force really to bring about regime change in libya it would be much harder to do so in syria and certainly there could be a certain message that's being sent there saying you know this is a taste of what you would be up against we could bring you down with one of these ground to missiles but so be a bit wary about calling it a game in the sense i think that things are a bit more chaotic a bit more free flowing in that at the moment and there's a bit of a sense from both sides we're talking syria and turkey here that actually there isn't any real sense of how things are panning out what's going to happen next and they're reacting to events and i think that kind of instability in the region could be potentially particularly dangerous especially when such events as this are being hijacked by nato by the west to make broader statements about assad and the fact that he needs to go i think an inquiry needs to take place into what happens here but the danger is when you start to broaden it out and try and talk in broad brushstrokes about the assad regime in general that could really int