A Dylan Ratigan Show panel talks about the role of the U.S. in the developing situation in Libya.
MSNBC TRANSCRIPT:
>>> good afternoon to you. 4:00 here in new york city this afternoon. 10:00 p.m. in libya where a brief calm in the skies over tripoli has been shattered by a new round of gunfire that follows a weekend of u.s. led air strikes. president obama answering questions this afternoon for the first time since sending our fighter jets into action.
>> the core principle that has to be upheld here is that when the entire international community, almost unanimously, says that there is a potential humanitarian crisis about to take place that a leader who has lost his legitimacy decides to turn his military on his own people, that we can’t simply stand by with empty words.
>> one of this weekend’s bombings badly damaged president gadhafi’s compound. pro- gadhafi forces opened fire on a crowd of rebels in mizratah today killing nine of them gaining control of that area seen as critical for gadhafi on a strategic level. what is happening in libya? the latest headline from the uprisingings throughout the middle east look like this away from libya. yemen also in crisis right now. the president is losing his grip on power. he dissolved his cabinet over the weekend but for the growing groups of protesters that’s not enough. some of the members of the military now even siding with the protesters. meantime, chaos has spread to syria where protesters enter a fourth straight day and uprising in bahrain. calm has returned to the streets but groups of anti-government protesters insisting their movement is far from over and saying their own government has been opening fire on them. bahrain is a u.s. ally unlike libya. in egypt, a wave of revolution began 55 days ago. an example of what a determined minority can accomplish. 18 million free egyptians voted over the weekend to overhaul the constitution ahead of elections this summer but democracy remains just a dream for so many of these other volatile parts of the middle east from saudi arabia to iran which leaves us with the biggest remaining question. when push comes to shove, is the u.s. with the allied dictators that it finances or the freedom fighters that we currently claim to support? nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel on the ground in libya. richard filed this report for us a short time ago.
>> reporter: dylan, the rebels here in the east have today begun a counteroffensive. they’ve been moving out of cities like benghazi and heading to the front line. they have been seen along the way destroyed vehicles, gadhafi’s army that had been destroyed by american and european air and missile strikes but this is a very disorganized rebellion. they are only able to advance when gadhafi’s forces have already been destroyed. most of the rebels we saw today were young. they didn’t really know how to handle their weapons. some of them didn’t have any weapons at all. one young man couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 was firing a pistol in the air playing with his knife. he was even spinning the pistol in his finger like an old wild west trick. this is not an organized military force that without western help would not be able to go very far and would not be able to go to tripoli which they say is their goal. air strikes have been continuing. the rebels are welcoming that. the people across this region are welcoming that. they no longer feel threatened. they no longer feel that gadhafi’s forces have the ability to come in and search house to house and punish people for having supported this rebellion but from what we were able to see today, looking at the rebels without significant airpower perhaps more airpower they are not going to be able to win this war.
>> thank you for that report, richard. i want to bring in a former u.s. ambassador to morocco and a senior fellow for advanced studies. how clearly is it defined and can we achieve it?
>> as ambassador ginsberg told me is we’ve taken sides despite what we say about trying to focus on humanitarian. as richard engel just talked about, there’s no organization here. by the fact we opened the door, we’ve now allowed rebels to move forward. not good or bad, it is what it is. the problem we have to face now is what is our end game? we have exceeded the idea of no fly. we’re not now talking about humanitarian support. i see the very same path we went down for the bosnia situation. it opened up the same which with u.n. resolutions and us helping with no-fly zones and it became expensive and we’re still there.
>> are we in a collapsed state and multiple countries where libya once was?
>> there’s a chance because libya is a tribal country with a lot of major tribes and minor tribes. 140 in total. as my friend just said a few seconds ago, you know, we already technically accomplished our goal. we created a blood bath in benghazi. moammar gadhafi’s troops are now having to retreat. we can declare victory and go home if that was our victory. the real danger is that libya would be divided between a very disorganized militia that it will try to march 450 miles across the desert and attack tripoli and gadhafi with his forces still more or less intact defending tripoli and then last thing that we need to do is to be caught up in geopolitical gamesmanship that is of no consequential interest to the united states.
>> let’s look at hypocrisy on almost every level western european relationships with the middle east, countries relationships with themselves and basically the blow back and call to pay the piper is upon us, any clarity as to what implications are of america choosing the side of freedom fighters as the march toward revolution gets closer and closer to places like bahrain and saudi arabia who have to be wondering themselves if it gets hot on the streets in those countries, which side america, who is their strongest ally, is on.
>> we’re in a chess game right now. and five chess games. we have to consider thedifferent. this is the reason the arab league you have seen initially support us and now back off. the truth is that arab league is more worried about internal control of their own countries and they could care less about democracy. i think that’s one of the issues we’ll have to face here head-on. when we talk about yemen, we talk about a situation where we’ve been very close to that government and a real threat there so we have to handle that with full regard to the fact that al qaeda is very active there. the saudis have been an ally. at times have been on both sides of the fence. the evidence has shown. and we’ve got to deal with them in a certain way. we have libya now and we have to deal with that in such a way we know that moammar gadhafi is a bad guy and has killed americans and now we’re trying to take him on directly. so we’ve got to walk through this very carefully and one size does not fit all. we’ve got to figure out each instance what is in the best interest of the country and there will not be a single path forward we can pick for all these countries.
>> don’t you alter what the actual play board every time you interact. what you do with mubarak affects the america relationship with israel. what you do with libya affects the american relationship with saudi arabia. so as much as everybody would like to go case by case and work out each country as america injects itself on one side or the other, it implicitly disrupts alliances with places like israel and saudi arabia.
>> couldn’t agree more. the bottom line for viewers is we have strategic interests in the middle east. those interest like support of israel, flow of oil, preventing iran from becoming a nuclear attack, should be benchmarks by which we measure our involvement and commitment to support revolutions hands-on. these revolutions are all going to play out very differently from algeria to tunisia egypt. why we will do more in libya than bahrain and syria which is the next topic of conversation that you and i will have is really one of the open question marks. my biggest concern is the fact that the administration is having an extraordinarily hard time understanding how to keep our strategic interests in the united states in mind without being dragged into quagmires that are being put in front of us by other parties like the french for example where the french themselves have a much greater interest in libya. why? because president sarkozy wants to create the union of the mediterranean and see this is as a great opportunity to build credentials up. we don’t have to play that game.