syrian dissidents telling "the new york times" they were electrical workers who refused to end their protest strike against the government. if that is true, along with the manner of killing it strongly suggests either government forces or pro-government militias were responsible. there of course is no such thing as absolute proof of that, or who was responsible for the slaughter of dozens and dozens of children that took place in houla on friday. they both fit a pattern. today, british correspondent alex thompson bravely got in to houla to speak with the survivors of the atrocities. we said this last night, it bears repeating the regime not only denies involvement in the murders, denies any violation of the two month old cease fire at all. >> during this time, syria has not done a single violation or the understanding understanding between syria and united nations. >> keeping them honest, that is not true. as 360 first reported, government forces were shelling homes on day one of the cease fire, hours after bashar al-assad toured that city. even hula, even diplomats speak bluntly. >> what is clear, government forces were involved, they were shelling using tanks and artillery, appears to be militia entering houses and slaughtering people in what is really an abominable crime. that took place throughout the day on friday. >> so the assad regime is flatout lying about the cease fire and more evidence in the complicity in the hula massacre and so many others. yet, they're being protected by a pair of superpowers. that would be russia and china. they're blocking the tougher measures. the chinese foreign ministry said china opposes military intervention. a russian diplomat saying decisions on military operations in syria can't be guided only by emotions. now recall that his boss this week tried to spread the blame around by equating the carnage in syria to a night at a disco. >> you know, it takes two to dance. takes two to tango. in the current situation, in syria, what we have is not the real tango, we seem to be having a disco party, many players are dancing. they should all dance in the same way. >> yes, that translation is correct. he's comparing the massacre to a disco party days after it happened. since then, there has been another, with the regime again strongly implicated in both and as many as 12,000 people killed over the last 15 months. whatever you think about how it is going to end and what is going on in syria, absolutely nobody is there dancing. as we mentioned alex thomson of britain's channel 4 was in houla talking to survivors of the massacre. he joins us by phone. i know you spoke to one man in particular in great detail what happened on that day. what did he tell you? >> he told me what a number of different people, in fact scores of different people in different times and different places around the town, all said, so i rather used him to recharacterize what everybody in the town is saying. they say that after the initial shelling on friday at mid-afternoon at 3:00 p.m., a group of around 100 men came from different villages that surround this area. they are villages that surround the town of hula which is itself sunni. about 100 of these men came in, he says everybody else they were wearing military-style uniforms, but were civilians. civilian militia. they had a well-known local slogan written in pen on their forehead or written on bandanas tied around their forehead, and that is how they were identified as shiia. they went literally from house-to-house and building-to-building slaughtering people. >> alex, tell me more about the shabia, the civilian militia. how are they connected to the military and what did the slogans that were penned on their foreheads say? >> a number of people identified to me the villages they came from, both from the east and west of the town. and it's incredibly close, you can see the villages quite clearly. they are a maximum of five miles away from houla. everybody is convinced these people came from the villages and using underlying intentions as a method of settling scores in this civil war. and the question you have to ask is, how is it 100 armed militia were able to come in and slaughter family after family, in an area which was an intensive shelling zone prior to them arriving, and yet when they came in the area, no shells fell on them. >> last night you were saying that we may never know exactly what happened in houla and today it sounds as if you feel almost certain of what happened in houla. you used the word collaboration and coordination. do you feel this is the accurate, valid story from this particular witness and others in the town? >> i feel having got in the place at last being able to conduct my own albeit brief investigation, i cannot convey to you what it's like there. you are simply cast from family to family to family, from street to street, building to building. everybody has a story. people will be presented to you with gunshot wounds, with shrapnel wounds, endlessly and endless procession of human story and human tragedy has to be said. through that comes a common thread. what i did today was i wanted to concentrate on exactly what people were saying about where they believe these people came from. i think now we have a clear idea. >> alex thomson, thank you. let's turn to former cia officer time.com intelligence columnist and cnn contributor bob baer and fareed zakaria, cnn world affairs analyst and host of fareed zakaria gps. nice to have both of you. fareed, i'll start with you. china could not be more clear, here is what they said. china opposes military intervention, does not support forced regime clear. russia could not be more clear. the russian position is not formed on the basis of emotions. that is the russian first deputy foreign minister. what is the diplomatic solution here? >> the diplomatic solution is not going through the u.n. for precisely the reason you described. the russians interestingly, the foreign minister did say that he understood that there was a possibility of a transition and so he did leave the door open to some kind of change. but look, it's not going to happen through the u.n. but we want it to happen with as many allies as we can find, with multinational cover we do. whatever it is we need to do in syria, we need to follow the principles we have been following with libya, with other countries, because there is enormous hostility to the idea of the united states unilaterally getting involved in another muslim country, particularly if there is some kind of military or covert angle to this. >> part of the pressure has to be -- part of the strategy has to be putting pressure on russia, and the deputy national security adviser said this. we don't believe it's in russia's interest to be associated with the assad regime. what was he trying to say? what did he mean? >> i think they are hoping the obama administration is hoping the russians will see the assad regime is doomed, that it makes sense for them to begin repositioning themselves where they oppose the assad regime. there is no question russia will not cooperate in this venture. all russia will do is dragged along kicking and screaming, if it believes this transition will happen anyway. so the hope here is to create a kind of dynamic in which the russians realize all right, since this is going to happen, in a year or so, or maybe sooner, we might as well stop being the principle obstacle to a post-assad syria. >> bob, do you think the transition will happen anyway? when you really -- you've said that if everybody, hypothetically russia were to say, okay, and china were to say, okay, actually the international community would be stuck they won't know what to do. what do you mean by that? >> well, syria is a mess. there is no simple solution, there is no decapitating the regime, getting rid of bashar al-assad and coming to a solution. we are looking at a community, the allowites on the edge of survival, will fight to the very end. we can decapitate the regime. it won't make any difference. the russians and chinese are being very pragmatic about it. frankly, i think the white house is, you know, saying hold me back, hold me back. we don't want to go in syria, there is no easy solution, we can't separate the communities. we could use some force against their armor, from the air, but what will that get us? could get us a worst civil war. >> so then, fareed, if as bob says if you decapitate the leadership, it really doesn't make a difference. is it time to seriously look at military intervention? is there a stomach for military intervention, the people who pushed for military interventions, others say no. is it doable? >> i think it's very tough and i think what bob meant is even if you were to militarily intervene, it would be difficult. the alowites realize in a post-assad syria, they will be massacred. they will hold on for dear life. syria, remember, is 10% the size of libya, three times as many people. so geographically a different situation. in libya you had vast swathes of the country where the rebels could run and hide, set up a government. none of that is possible in syria, notice the rebels don't control a single town. i think bob is right, this is a very tough case. >> bob, let's talk about clem -- chemical weapons. i know you're an expert on that. tell me a little about the chemical weapons that exist there and who controls them and just how deadly they are. >> the military controls them. they have vx. they're binary chemical agents, sarin as well. they are the most advanced military in the middle east with sophisticated weaponization of biochemicals, barring none. i think that the alowites with the back to the wall, would use these, if it were an invasion, if intervention or if the regime were going to collapse. i think fareed hit the nail on the head. this is a very serious position, and we just don't know what they are going to do. this goes back to the white house's reluctance to get involved. >> i was going to ask you that. is there a sense it's all these chemical weapons that are underscoring the reluctance to jump in? >> absolutely. i don't know where they are now but i would imagine they are disbursed, we can't hit the things, can't contain them, we have to assume they are going to use them. and so every day when the white house wakes up their balancing the dangers of going in syria, and also let's don't forget this could spread in other places. i keep on hearing about problems in jordan. there's been fighting in lebanon, the turks are involved, this could effect iraq, that could send it in a civil war. we're very much on a tightrope here and it's tough. >> remember, the lebanese civil war, which in some ways looks like this, lasted for ten years, 150,000 to 250,000 people died. one million people displaced. this could turn in a high stakes game. >> a terrible thing to compare it to. thank you gentlemen, appreciate it. want to know what you think we're on facebook and at twitter. a rising star will talk about what it will take to win over the latino vote. the question tonight, will making him mitt romney's running mate make a difference? 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who is he? here is tom foreman. >> reporter: just as barack obama emerged nearly a decade ago as a young democratic darling, 41-year-old marco rubio is a rising star of the republican party. in part because he is more than willing to take on the president. >> barack obama is a reality. for millions of americans life is worse than three years ago because he doesn't know what he's doing. >> reporter: the son of cuban parents, rubio has the resume of a serious political player who can connect the gop to increasingly valuable latino voters. from miami, roman catholic, after high school went to college on one year sports scholarship, eventually becoming a lawyer. he is married to a former miami cheerleader. served in local and state government and is currently the junior senator from florida who never miss as chance to explain how his party needs to build strong, lasting ties to the latino vote. >> one of the mistakes we make, we view it through the lens of the next election. >> reporter: simultaneously showed stripes that enchanted the tea party, even while threading the needle on potentially explosive matters like the arizona immigration law. >> i believe arizona and states like arizona have a constitutional right to do what they did. >> reporter: it makes him a perfect amalgam of what republicans need, a fresh face that inspires young voters and minorities to give the party a second look, and a staunch defender of many basic republican values. fidel castro is oddly enough at the center of the single biggest dispute about rubio's record. rubio has long suggested his parents came to america to escape castro. last year it was revealed they left more than two years before castro took power, leaving rubio to explain his claims. >> they always hoped they could return to their country, they tried, for obvious reasons they couldn't and didn't. >> reporter: so far that has been little more than a bump on rubio's fast track to political power. tom foreman, cnn, washington. digging deeper now, in the republican search for latino support, where marco rubio fits in to all that is alberto gonzales, he served as attorney general in the george b. bush administration and juan lopez, you have said you don't think in fact that senator rubio would be a good vice presidential candidate. you said basically you think his resume is on the thin side. what do you make of the fact of this trip to cuba and he will be talking at the council on foreign relations tomorrow? is it all about bolstering his cred to be potentially a vice presidential candidate? >> it would do that, it would make him a stronger senator as far as i'm concerned. senator rubio, his story is remarkable. he's a very talented man and obviously i honor his service, but when you look at a vice presidential pick and by the way, obviously governor romney is going to make the decision based on what he thinks is right, but from my perspective, the number one criteria is whether someone is ready to step in as president on day one. secondly, i think you want to choose someone who will help you govern. after all, it is often the vice president who is the last person in the oval office with the president. the president hears last from the vice president on very controversial issues. only after a potential nominee satisfies those two criteria, i think then you look as to whether or not can this person help me win an election in november? >> juan carlos lopez, we know that of course the name of senator rubio has been coming up because he's strong potentially in the state of florida but what about outside of the state of florida? does he have the national appeal you might need? >> he's working on it and he is out there and he's getting those credentials. does he have that national recognition? not yet, he's working on it. to be completely honest, there isn't a name right now that you could throw out and say well this is a latino that will resonate in every state. but latinos aren't one group, we're not one homogeneous, solid group. there are different groups among the latino community, six or seven out of ten hispanics are mexican or mexican descent. he's one of two hispanic senators and he gets a lot of coverage in the media, so he is working his way up there. >> mr. gonzalez, you said the republican party needs to do a better job in outreach to latinos. when you look at mitt romney and think of some of the things that he has said on the campaign trail, for example, about latinos, certainly saying listen i'll veto the dream act, talking about self-deportation for illegal immigrants, isn't that going to be a challenge as he tries to appeal to latinos and steal them, frankly from president obama? >> i think it is going to be a challenge. and governor romney has work to do, he and his campaign have work to do in terms of making inroads in the hispanic community. the good news is we have time. also running against an imperfect candidate in the eyes of the hispanic community, as far as i'm concerned. someone who has not delivered on promises with respect to immigration, with respect to better economy, and so there is an opportunity for governor romney to make a personal connection. but at the end of the day, i think hispanics like most americans are not going to decide who they will vote for president based upon who the vice president nominee is. they will make the decision based on what is best for them, based on the policies that governor romney is championing. >> juan carlos, let's pick up on that. mr. gonzales talked about the imperfect candidate because of course there are many issues -- latinos felt would be covered, many are bitterly disappointed about that. president obama is trying to bolster that support. how big of a challenge does the president have on his side? >> well, he has a challenge but it's not as great as the challenge for mitt romney. if you look at the polls, you see it's a 65-27, 70-30, more or less. mr. romney has 27% according to the most recent polls among hispanic, republicans need 40% to win. he has a real great challenge. the president is