metropolitan university and author of the new book bombs for peace nato is humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have ivan eland he is a senior fellow and director of the independent institute and in new haven we cross to pierre perceval he is an associate professor at the university of warwick and president of the international society for first world war studies all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it i mean a lot if i go to you first recently wrote an article world war one rather than world war two is key for today's foreign policy why did you write it and what does it mean. well i just said that we always go seem to hear politicians talk about the meaning one nine hundred thirty eight model where we must stamp out any aggression anywhere in the world or will snowball into a hitler like. you know threat to our security when actually we don't go back far enough and i think world war one the real problem was that the us made its first major mistake if we say that the spanish-american war was a minor

yugoslavia was held together because of a dictator. it was a country created after the world war, and it was held together by tito and how he did his job. and i -- most diplomats like the world order not to change. so they like the boundaries, the national boundaries to be as they have been, so we can deal with whatever institutions are chosen to lead within those boundaries. when yugoslavia started to implode, because the strong leader was no longer leading, they said, no, we have to maintain those boundaries, maintain those borders. and i think that it failed to recognize the strong tribal and i use tribal not -- by almost any definition you can come up with, but they were very tribal boundaries that were more historic or faith-based or whatever, and grassroots politics was driving the response rather than top-down politics. i think both brent and larry are were predisposed to say, it was much easier when we dealt with the top-down folks. and so there was a predisposition not to get engaged in the tribal warfare that was taking place

it was very different from the way how the disintegration of yugoslavia was handled when germany was playing its own policy, and the united states was playing its own policy. so this unity of western countries, of course, it's much easier to say than to achieve it. but that turned out to be something really important back in 1991, assuring a peaceful or relatively peaceful demise of the empire. one can look at these events and say that, actually, the demise of empire is not over yet, that what we see is maybe last chapter of the last chapters of the same story. and i want -- [inaudible] so if you want to know the beginning of the story, buy the book -- [laughter] and sometimes i heard that buying is the moral equivalent of reading. [laughter] so thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. that was a fascinating description of what happened to the present. so i'd like, when i call on you, i just want to remind you to, please, stand up and wait until the microphone comes to you and introduce yours. we'll start -- yourself. we'll start over here. >> thank you for your intrig

of course the chapter seven intervention is going on in the former yugoslavia as well.as we talked about this this class is a different situation. >> just about to finish the point how this is related to 9/11. people like osama bin laden were watching the events unfold in mogodishu and the perspective was the western world does not have the will to fight. when they are punched in the mouth, they will turn around and walk away. so the idea was if they punch them in the mouth they will not retaliate. the punch in the mouth ultimately was 9:0011. >> that message was perceived. >> that was part the plan. he knew about this via intelligen intelligence. >> the political context about somalia is also very important. november, 1992, president bush loses the intersection to if clinton. >> we're in that that it's late november. there are images and the story is coming back that the food aid is simply sitting on the dock in mogodishu are being exploited by criminal gangs and using it for political purposes. what i also vividly member about that and the somalia situation is that u.

led a war against yugoslavia a stenciling for humanitarian reasons and here we have to have a russian aid convoy carrying purely aid to people to people in the east and it's being labeled an invasion it really is quite outrageous or any more support for kiev came from germany's chancellor angela merkel she held talks with ukraine's president in kiev polis lior has more on what was said. many good words have been said and often these are the woods of people here inhofe ruined dinette square i am want to hear but experience has shown him to be a little bit suspicious of what leaders are saying on the one hand the german chancellor angela merkel say that she does support a cease fire she also said that the interests of russian speaking citizens in ukraine needs to be addressed she also said she supports the idea of eight decentralization of power the ukrainian president petro poroshenko said that he was taking up a fund to the tune of some five hundred million euros that was being provided for by germany now he has been asking for money to help rebuild donbass with essentially the ukrain

denmark has participated in for in wars in all over the place since one thousand nine when we bombed yugoslavia we have billion of occupying power four years when the present secretary general of nato and as for us moves in was the prime minister of denmark we are now afghanistan we were a major bomber together when norway in libya and we were the only country together with friends who saw that it was a good idea to follow there are the american idea of bombing or intervening militarily in syria these interests are money interests they are very close allies between money people corporate people and politicians they are supported by in the majority of the western so-called free media and there's nothing to be surprised about what i'm concerned about is that it always are small people around the world who pays the price for these policies and i don't think that we can have a democracy if we continue to have the main market the military industrial media academic complex it goes against democracy because you go out in any street anywhere in the world and what people want is peace but what they get

did not divided up into but maybe in thirty there were not two parties the serbs and the rest and yugoslaviafor instance but that's how it was interpreted now we see again of confrontation and binary as you say the west versus putin and russia. and it's always this there is only these parties there's a good guys and the bad guys and you know there is no conflict in the world where all the good signs is on one all the good guys are on one side and all the bad guys on the other this is probably ganda and this is the deep culture it is something we're not aware of is not true because i don't think that old all journalists are militarist or want war they are simply not aware that conflicts are much more complex and may have thirty parties and not two major pablo but also over all the history books exist for that exact reason to learn something from history and they've journalist decided to go to war zones i think it's incumbent on them to try to educate themselves now are you mention propaganda just a while earlier and i would totally agree with you that there is a very deliberate attempt to pre

remember yugoslavia? there was no more tito, then no more yugoslavia. this is what happens.se strong men do hold countries together. as an american, you have to decide, is it better to put up with a limited s.o.b. or let the whole region come apart? that's the decisions george w. bush made. he said, no, we'll take risk of it coming apart. president obama says, you know what, this destability is not a good thing. we ought to stop block busting countries. these are difficult vierent vie. i doeblt think it's a time to do the blame game. it's too early to say who was right when and who was wrong when. neither side is neither clairvoyant or omniscient. i think we agree on that. >> yes, i'm with you on that. chris matthews, thank you very much. be sure to watch "hardball" weeknights at 7:00 eastern here on msnbc. >>> from iraq to syria to russia, we'll discuss foreign and diplomatic challenges in president obama's second term. then nbc news just getting a statement from american ebola patient dr. kent brantly, who's receiving treatment at emory university hospital in atlanta. we'l

don't know, little movies that you love that you don't want -- like "the 12 chairs" that i made in yugoslavia's the inspiration. it's what -- do you know how i got to make "the twelve chairs"? it's a strange movie that nobody knows. >> tell me. >> there's a chinese gourmet society. we used to meet every tuesday night in chien wratown in new york. it was made up of julie green, speed vogel and mario puzo and joseph heller. and we would talk, you know, and we would just spend the night eating chinese food and talking. sometimes joe heller would -- he'd say, let me serve. he would take the best pieces and then he'd say now you serve. really bad. he was a bad, bad guy. and mario puzo was beautiful he just ate everything. and there was nothing to take home because puzo would vacuum clean. that was it. and one night this is a story that joe told about mario because he found out. mario was busy writing upstairs and at midnight every night he would come downstairs. he was living in bay shore, long island. and he would make a dagwood sandwich. there was a comic strip called "blondie" and her husband,

london metropolitan university and author of the new book bombs for peace nato's humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have ivan eland he is a senior fellow and director of the independent institute and in new haven we cross to pierre perceval he is an associate professor at the university of warwick and president of the international society for first world war studies all right gentlemen cross talk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want i very much encourage it ivan eland if i go to you first recently wrote an article world war one rather than world war two is key for today's foreign policy why did you write it and what does it mean well i just said that we always go it seemed to hear politicians talk about the need.

london metropolitan university and author of the new book obama's for peace nato humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have asked in peterson he is the c.e.o. of stone gate and editor of the libertarian republic dot com and in paris we cross to any much shown she is a former british intelligence officer and writer all right crosstalk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it george if i go to you first here in new york we're calling this program hearts and minds and when i watch the state department briefings with jen psaki i have to wonder if the mainstream narrative is really losing this battle to make people believe in the elite of today. well it's very hard to say it's. the mainstream media is obviously taken a palm aling through the emergence of new media. it's certainly taken a pummeling through the emergence of new outlets such as the however i do think that the mainstream media do have very powerful legs. i can watch the sunday morning talk shows and i see the same faces the same cries for american action american bombing american i

intervention by the same people who cheered on the west so-called humanitarian interventions in yugoslavia and kosovo and in libya where these countries were bombed heavily were civilians killed and yet it's it's it's it's unacceptable even to send aid through to neighboring countries are really double standards are really off the scale here . thanks so much for insight u.k. journalist analysis neil clark clark talking to us here in the national. thanks now let's take a look at some other stories from around the world and severe water shortages in colombia have barred clashes and were arrested in juries as crowds demanded the government's a do more to tackle the crisis drier weather and heat waves have been causing increasingly severe droughts some areas have gone almost a year without rain colombians are also angry over high water taxes bad infrastructure and the contamination of supplies. an intense search is underway after hundreds of prisoners escaped from an overcrowded jail on the outskirts of haiti's capital three hundred twenty nine inmates escaped joining in attempt to free the so

metropolitan university and author of the new book obama's for peace nato's humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have austin peterson he is the c.e.o. of stone gate and editor of the libertarian republic dot com and in paris we cross to any much shown she is a former british intelligence officer and writer all right cross talk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it george if i go to you first here in new york we're calling this program hearts and minds and when i watch the state department briefings with.

metropolitan university and author of the new book obama's for peace nato's humanitarian war on yugoslavia in washington we have asked in peterson he is the c.e.o. of stone gate and editor of the libertarian republic to come and in paris we cross to any much shown she is a former british intelligence officer and writer all right crosstalk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it george if i go to you first here in new york we're calling this program hearts and minds and when i watch the state department briefings with jen psaki i have to wonder if the mainstream narrative is really losing this battle to make people believe in the elite of today. well it's very hard to say it's. the mainstream media is obviously taken the apollo link through the emergence of new media. it's certainly taken a pummeling through the emergence of new outlets such as the however i do think that the mainstream media do have very powerful legs. i can watch the sunday morning talk shows and i see the same faces the same cries. american action american bombing american i

yugoslavia was born in 1918 and died a few years ago of internal contradictions. there is nothing compared to those in iraq. iraq was born in 1920. eight years ago, the senator from delaware, joe biden, suggested partitioning iraq along sectarian grounds. well, it's doing itself now, the question for liz and kirsten and everyone, who's going to take back the cities of fallujah, tikrit, and mosul? the iraqi army? what is the iraqi army fighting for? the iraqi state? the iraqi state barely exists now. a leader of the kurdish fighters said there's an asymmetry in the motivation. the isil people want to die and go and have lunch with mohammed. our people want to fight and go have dinner with their families. those are the kurds whose have built a nation and know what they're fighting for. what would the iraqi army be fighting for? and absent that, who will take the cities back? >> george, you're right that it's a complete disaster and a sectarian mess, but i think the security of the nation requires that we focus on what is the direct threat to us. and part of the prob

concept and she has the direct experience when her husband was president to see the crack up of yugoslavia where american power did an amazing kind of good. she sees greater possibility for american power to do good around .he world >> they could have done it earlier, many argue. >> when you talk the president obama, he is someone who really feels that america has messed up when we have been overaggressive and we have overreached. he is super sensitive, super hesitant. dragged kicking and screaming. i have been struck from dinner conversation when the clinton people, some of the people in state department with her talked about president obama, they do so in critical to sometimes quite critical terms. of this, as you know, and talk to a lot of these , not at dinner parties. >> i bet you do at dinner parties, too. >> i don't get out much. >> you are working too hard. >> there are now people saying in terms of being more muscular, serial was the one. -- syria was the one. , theecisions made there worries that president obama had, but little concern about what happened if you do nothing. if yo

that's the experience of yugoslavia. >> the united states should recognize that? >> of course. it is democratic, pro american and tolerant. that's a really important point. this is a place whose culture prides itself on its tolerance and diversity. the kurdistan government includes yazidi. they've built churches and not mosques. they've been protecting the yazidis. i've talked to my kurdish friends and they are appalled at what's happened to those communities and frankly disappointed that they weren't better able to protect them. >> let's get a broader perspective. you understand all the various communities here. one of the questions i think a lot of people have is how is isis become so strong? we understand the military side. they got ahold of american arms. do they have a political base? >> well, as you know, fareed, we keep comparing the islamic state or isis to al qaeda. that's a terribly mistaken comparison. this is a different beast. think when you talk about isis or the islamic state, it's battling on multiple front. it's battling the iraqi army, syrian army, kurdish for

that came after that, korea and vietnam and the ones i was involved with in the persian gulf and yugoslavia were a lot fuzzier just to be charitable about it. world war ii was the last black-and-white cut or i issue i think there was. i was interested to learn what i learned about korea, vietnam and the era because i was obviously too young to participate, ray? thanks. that's good. [laughter] too young to participate and not. i was raised in the 60s and 70s that we've are taught about it. it's really interesting for me to go back outweigh in fact, the next book i have to let them a december 30 with vietnam. i'll be happy for any help with those of you who experienced it can tell me. but anyway, i am digressing. the book opens an april 1915 with a frenchman named roland barros. most of them think of him when they think of tennis. that's where they play into the stadium is named after. he was a prewar flyer like a lot of those guys come and tear doubles and wild men. when the war started they got into fine because they didn't want to slog through the trenches and for the first six months of t

card's interpretation of events in yugoslavia.h i think some of you may know has been the subject of great debate. was it in fact tribalism? i think the current intellectual of historical opinion is running in the opposite direction, no, it was not tribalism. that in fact is the politicians who screwed things up. if the politics of the local leaders, the europeans, the americans had been more adroit, that probably this sad episode could have been avoided. so lastly the vision things, there's that famous press conference in cairo in which the president's remarks are typically attribute to do jetlag in which he's asked to define what the new world order is, and it just comes out a jumble. my question is, how systematically did the administration think about the new world order and was in fact its thinking more key herein than was on display in that press conference? >> i think the new world order, in quotation marks, and gorbachev was the first one to use the term, that i'm aware of -- >> was -- >> actually from the 1920s. >> no, no

it's almost what occurred in yugoslavia, you had tito in place. gadhafi is gone, the tribes are warring with one another after centuries. you have libya, who had been a big contributor now down to less than 200,000 actually at times producing nothing. that's a probable. it doesn't mean it's going to be a serious problem. it's a problem we need to pay attention to. >> i think it relates to your position now. you are selling brent the international benchmark for oil, you are telling uti, explain why that trade is on. >> one would think if you have inherent problems with libbia it would be beneficial to the brent park. brent has been falling relative to wti for quite some period of time now. even when the news is as supportive of brent as one would seem to think, given the libyan circumstance that brent can't rally. today, brent gave up quite a bit. markets that won't go up on bullish news are not bullish markets. a market that won't go up such as brent when you have the circumstances in libya expecting brent to rally. brent can't rally. brent tells

i would say romania is the best example precursor of yugoslavia. the regions had done an effective job of tamping down historic tensions which, of course, bubble up in the aftermath. it's a great tragedy. >> my name is david mayors. >> i teach at boston university. when we try to sort out the erosion of soviet power in eastern europe and its collapse, how important is our understanding of faith based descent, in particular the catholic church, pope john ii, policyholder, which is in some sense a rehearsal of what went on. protestants who played an active role. if you could just comment on that bundle of questions. >> yes. that was another category of middle actors that i discovered where local church leaders, parishioners, peace prayer groups at clunchs, certainly in policyholder it can be overstated. he knows more about that than i do. the key of the church was significant but more complex than i originally thought. the kind of superficial narrative is that the church sheltered dissidents. there are even a number of books with titles, the revoluti

sneerlier this month 64 fighters linked to isis were arrested in kosovo, once part of the former yugoslavia they had weapons and ammunitions and some hidden in makeshift mosques. while u.s. intelligence officials say operatives are being doing this on their own initiative the administration downplayed the isis threat to the domestic u.s. >> if they get bigger they would constitute a bigger threat. look at each individual terrorist group and show what they are focused on, homeland plotting, what the capabilities are. we haven't seen that coming out of isis. >> reporter: one of the last hour fox news confirmed the u.s. intelligence community is aware of a video claiming to show the beheading of american photojournalist james foley. it's being investigated, and it's being taken seriously, but at this hour there is no independent confirmation of those claims. bret? >> sad news. cat rin, thank you. >>> you're welcome. >>> still ahead, how the media is handling the violence in ferguson, missouri. without a prescription for frequent heartburn. get complete protection. because the best moments in l

in 1999 when president clinton got approval for air strikes in yugoslavia, when congress attached funding to that as it was known at the time. it's possible that congress would approve some air strikes in syria, particularly given the danger isis poses to americans. joint chief chairman martin dempsey called it an immediate threat to the united states. chick hagel said it is beyond anything we have seen. here's how michael rogers describe the threat on "meet the press." >> they see that as a winning ideology and a winning strategy and they want to be part of it. they are one plane ticket away from u.s. shores. >> we should mention there is a dispute about that talking point. according to people i have been talking to, they believe the chief goal of isis is regional power and territory. unlike al qaeda, they have hesitancy to try and build political will in this country. of course isis may be inviting a large scale attack with its own brutality, specifically the beheading of an american journalist, james foley. >> this has been festering for the last year and now it's culminating with the

ruins show little evidence of the game from the brutal four-year war that tore apart the former yugoslavia. >>> let's talk about the gold mark. we're going into the close on gold. right now we have a lot of about 1.80. most of the markets not all that active today. to the bond market, though, where there's always a lot of activity. rick santelli is there to track the action. hi, rick. indeed new home sales today, i guess beauty of new homes sales is in the eye of the beholder or in the length of the chart. you look at a five-year, it looks a lot better than if you look at a ten-year, which doesn't look nearly as aggressive first of all the ten-year, second of all the euro versus the dollar, and clicked off 2000 today, down here they call it the s&p as the new gold. back to you i realize thank you, rick, very much. >>> it could become one of the most expensive divorces ever. billionaire harold hamm and his wife calling it quits after 25 years of marriage. robert frank has the details. we want to hear from you as well. do you think that assets earned during a marriage should simply be split

had the direct experience when her husband was president of seeing cos vow, seeing the crackup of yugoslavia, a case where american power really did an amazing amount of good. so she not only sees the problems, she sees greater possibility for american power to do good around the world than her old boss. >> rose: but it was a little late too. i mean it was good that they did it, but they could have done it earlier, many argue. >> very true. but you know, then when you talk to president obama, you know, he is someone who really feels that america's messed up when we have been over aggressive. when we have overreached. and he's supervence difficult to that, supercautious, superhesitant to use american force. will sometimes do t but he has to be dragged kicking and screaming into it and i really have been struck at sort of dinner party conversation around washington around new york, around the country, when the clinton people, some of the people in the clinton state department with her and some of the people in the orbit talk about president obama, they do so in critical to sometimes quite crit

panthers are a product of montenegro and serbia, the now independent republics in what was once yugoslaviahey were allies in the brutal bosnian wars against the muslims. when u.n. sanctions halted the flow of products into the country, groups of soldiers became professional smugglers. did many of them have paramilitary training? >> noble: the core were fighters duringhe war-- paramilitary training, very organized, very disciplined and ruthless. and those were the ones who started it back in '94, '95, '96. >> simon: so they learned their trade in the war? >> andrea scholz: yes, yes. they grown up with aggression. they know, if you want to have success in you life, you have to use force, and for them, it's common. >> simon: andrea scholz is a risk prevention consultant in germany who has been investigating the gang for ten years. so the distinctive thing about pink panthers from robbers in other countries is that, since they're so experienced in war, they are not afraid? >> scholz: they are not afraid, absolutely. >> simon: to date, interpol has identified 800 core pink panthers using photos

clinton got back-door congressional approval on yugoslavia because they essentially agreed to fund itthat's how eventually these guys will not ever have to cast a vote on whether they approved air strikes in jasyria, but they'll -- >> we're hitting isis and knocking them hard. the question is whether we should do it also in syria. then dempsey comes out yesterday and says we can hit it there if it's a strategic threat to the united states. it's not going to be that. so why is he drawing a line? it's like the vietnam war. we couldn't hit them in the north or cambodia. had them in the south and they beat us. >> that's them searching for legal justive kags. they don't have it yet. they haven't figured that out yet. martin dempsey has to act -- >> put it to the american people right now if they want to get even with isis and do. >> you'll see some movement in congress. how do they do it? how quickly do they do it? and they also need to acquire the target. >> wouldn't anybody like to run against a member of congress who would refuse to fight back if they killed a guy. >> you remember in 20

we have seen past examples before whether it was in the former yugoslavia during the 1990s where the was able to have a limited force or be able to stop again side as well as reach a. history is littered with mission creep and things getting beyond control. there's no doubt seeing what is motivating the president. every poll shows that is an opinion shared by the american public. but of course we have to wait and see if the actions the military responds end up achieving the objectives. it doesn't it raises the next question what is next. >> at the same time this is happening some republicans like senator john mccain lindsay gram are calling for more aggressive action in iraq and syria. they clammed what they call, quote, half measures by the president. so will there be pressure from other lawmakers to go even further in rolling back eisis? >> well, you know, you're going to see the john mccains and lindsey graham wanting more military intervention. one thing that is interesting that is a new wing of the republican party represented by a kentucky senator rand paul. there's a lot more

>> you know, when i brought americans home from prison in cuba and iraq and yugoslavia it was considered by some to be a distraction, others it was a life saving intervention. and so there's some need here to express love to this family and support for the family, but also there's such high frustration here. and it must not become a self-destructive set of actions. they released the name of the police. they did not release how many times michael was shot and the way he was shot. that compounds suspicion. they release his name and then some discrediting tapes about michael. broke next between the tapes and the shooting. that just sends further around suspicion. it's now my concern it's not enough to have quietness, which is the absence of noise, but peace. the fact of the matter is the citizens here deserve half the police force, white, black, male and female, or fire force, essentially lack of trust here because there's so much gross injustice and despairties. >> reverend, earlier on "the five," bill o'reilly called in and he said you and others like reverend al sharpton who have been we