i would be very reluctant to cut defense spending until we see really how these two conflicts were and are going to come out. not to worry senator the united states is leading the world in military spending but unfortunately you know the saying first is the worst. and radiation levels in japan catch up to those attributes but amid speculation that nato is using highly toxic weapons in libya we'll examine whether another hazardous crisis is on the horizon. there was. jack

give it to achieve for all humanity and riches of course we're very proud of their role in this and houston we have a golden celebration fifty years ago today russia launched the first man into space we're going to have more on the inspirational legacy of cost and yuri gagarin. good evening it's tuesday april fourth twelve april twelfth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm the sea captain of and you're watching our team. now as that reduction dominates the political debate here in washington lawmakers are pushing for massive cuts in the u.s. budget but one area that is likely to escape the cutting frenzy is the sacred cow of military spending which according to a new report grew by a stunning eighty one percent since two thousand and one so how are american taxpayers reacting to a trend that shows no sign of letting up our he's killing ford reports.

frannie is on the u.s. chopping block this week health care education infrastructure was here he was almost. everything that is except for the pentagon my greatest fear is that in economic tough times the people will see the defense budget as a place to solve the nation's deficit problems i would be very reluctant to cut defense spending until we see really how these two conflicts were and are going to come out worldwide military spending increased by twenty point six billion dollars in two thousand and ten and one thousand point six billion of that was the us alone according to the stockholm international peace research institute the us very much sees itself as a global military power it's the only global military. power. so

it perceives it security interests as encompassing the whole world. the u.s. has spent one hundred eighty nine two hundred thirty five years at war in two thousand and ten the us spent more on its military than the next ten highest countries combined. both presidents bush and obama have ripped of the wars defense spending in the us has increased eighty one percent since two thousand and one this seems to reflect a bipartisan cry over close asian military and military conceptions of security even in the face of such difficult economic times and american earning federal minimum wage and working forty hours a week fifty two weeks a year can expect to earn a little over fifteen thousand dollars this year well below the poverty line they can also expect to pay more than five hundred dollars directly to the pentagon and american earning fifty thousand dollars

a year will see their income. over two thousand and go directly to america's wars they talk out of control in the oil fields and all of the profits will be just a real big on track those tax dollars also go to maintaining over one thousand u.s. bases and sites world why as well as the pentagon's two hundred thirty four golf courses. john if the one percent of americans polled would rather cut military spending and sacrifice social programs children poor women and homeless you know take care of the needs of our population to spend enormous amounts of money on the pentagon budget while we are every program is being cut is just fraudulent and obscene try to put it on the ground. they say they feel betrayed by a president was elected i'm promises to end war where doing all these wars and they

don't even want us there and i think that right there is i'm upset with obama i need a reset button you know we need to change right we need the obama administration to do the right thing to stop this attention to continuous military buildup at the four cents of every dollar americans pay in taxes goes to funding past and future war and for all the tough talk by president obama about making hard choices cutting the budget and closing the deficit gap many americans are wondering when it will be the pentagon's turn to tighten its belt and for the r.t. washington d.c. now how the century ago president dwight eisenhower issued a dire warning to this nation there are immense military establishment joined with a large arms industry is one of the biggest threats to american democracy. our core resources and why very good are. some of the very structure of our society. and the counter look government we've got against the acquisition of not going to

get into whether sort of loans or by the military industrial complex the potential for that if that's true right place over exists and liberties that southie eisenhower's warning has become today's reality and as we watch this country fall behind other nations in space travel education health care and economic might we are still number one when it comes to the military industrial complex after all this is the force that accounts for our dubious title as being the world's biggest military spender now with me to talk about the implications is david swanson author activist and author of several books including this one here war is a lie david thank you so much for being here it's great to have you back on the program now. i do want to talk about these numbers here i mean it you know we're not in a cold war anymore there isn't a single nation out there that poses a severe military threat to us i mean our closest rival china we spend six much as

time as that as much of that country on our military budget so what do you think accounts for this discrepancy. yes the united states could cut eighty five percent of its military budget and still have the biggest one in the world which ought to be enough and any effect would be enough for most americans but we don't control our government the military industrial congress nor complex does here we are one hundred fifty years to the day since the civil war began and arguably this military industrial complex began that had reached dramatic proportions when eisenhower was president and has gone beyond anything he probably dreamed of since it is controlling our politicians they are bought and paid for we have wars that two thirds of the nation opposes that can save us hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not being cut but what about this budget cutting atmosphere not like the new fun thing on the hell right we have all these deficit hawks you have republicans talking about the need to cut cut cut why do you think there isn't a discussion about turning to this daft source of potential budget cutting

opportunity things well there is a discussion and i and i would bet there will be some misleading rhetoric in the president's upcoming speech as there was in the state of the union where he talked about cuts and it turned out those cuts meant theoretical future cuts to dream budgets that actually amount to increases but if you look at what actually happens look at this this brand new budget agreement that saved the shutdown of the government which i certainly would have loved to see and everything in sight got cut and the military got an increase that's right not had not a penny cut for the military from that no in fact an increase to the military within the only thing that was increased makes absolutely no sense logically and as you say there's not a credible enemy in sight not long ago the director of national intelligence was in a senate hearing being asked who is a credible enemy and it was quite comical that they couldn't come up with one and yet the funding has almost doubled in the past decade without that enemy to justify

you know we often on this program talk about sort of the the the fact. the titians aren't really listening to the real picture that the contractors run the show here that there's you know the military industrial complex that we talked about but could put the blame actually be with people and i do want to bring up a poll that we saw today earlier this week a gallup poll that actually asked folks who they thought had more power too much power in the lobbyist the federal government all these institutions but not the military so do you think that maybe there's a separation between us as americans and what our military does abroad that accounts for the fact that we don't really pay attention to the disproportionate influence that it has in our in our foreign policy. absolutely our wars are not fought here they're not fought him so neutral ground they're fought the other people's country said we have no experience of that and we it and yet i think these polls are often a function of what people get from their televisions and unless people have been

watching r t they haven't heard that the military has too much power they may have heard that it has too much money polls reflect that on but you just word something slightly differently and people haven't heard it before and you get a different response and justify devil's advocate i mean i do understand that there isn't a specific country that's necessarily a huge threat to the united states that justifies its military build up but to be fair count with a united states is mired in several wars we do have a vast network of military pay for the profit globe we're fighting the so-called that's essential you know war on terror so can't you justify the increased spending by the fact that we have a disproportionate number of threats that are supposedly fighting against well if the wars are going to justify the spending then something has to justify the wars and the reality of course is that the spending motivates the wars and the overwhelming majority of the population wants to end the wars and in fact throughout this so-called global war on terrorism or wars predictably enough and

increased global terrorism and so you have to start somewhere with the justification of the whole machinery and no one has found it yet well i guess well i will actually very briefly what do you think obama's going to say tomorrow mean his his advisors have said that defense cuts are on the table of the think that he's going to announce anything while they think i can't. i doubt it very much i think it will be very misleading and i think there will be good ideas like taxied investments that will show up at all i think there might be some good points some taxiing of the rich maybe lifting the cap on on payroll taxes but i think there will be a lot of misleading rhetoric a lot of demonizing of the republicans who aren't that far off from where he is and a lot of the. commitments that will be followed through i just don't based on past performance but the one thing out of that so-called deficit commission recommendations that the chairman's recommendations that i expect will not be

followed through on even in the speech is significant cuts to the military all right well we'll see if the sacred cow remains of that thank you so much that was david swanson author of war is a lie now new developments out of japan today as the country raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis from five to seven it is now on par with the chernobyl disaster and the specter of lethal fallout from the fukushima nuclear reactor has rightly captured what attention and there could also be an unreported nuclear disaster unfolding in north africa as fresh fighting rocked libya today following the failure of an african diplomatic initiative to end hostilities there are now mounting questions as to whether the west as again using the dangerous the pleated uranium buttons and its aerial assault artie's by and you can have the following story. these leave young men cheer on top of a tank hit by coalition forces unaware of the silent killer they could be breathing

in as they celebrate though the western coalition denies using depleted uranium in bombings in the country others say there is a good chance weapons with the highly poisonous radioactive element have been used that kind of damage there. is a really good chance that was in euro. news to anybody who's on it is getting older and seems mosher some who were aboard the wind blowing all that means the particles are in the air. so all these people in these cars you. know lisa sirius served in the u.s. military during the first gulf war in the early one nine hundred ninety s. clearing up battlefields in kuwait back then the u.s. dropped more than three hundred fifty tons of depleted uranium over kuwait and iraq pictures of bombings from libya seen all too familiar to see how those touches are

red that's the burning see how it shoots out instead of a cone straight out and you get the flare at the bottom that's a new explosion depleted uranium in military terms is highly efficient relatively cheap and powerful enough to penetrate the heaviest armor nato flatly denies its use in libya even though the u.n. human rights commission has called for advanced countries who refused to sign up include the u.s. the u.k. friends and this will the smallest particles if you are a new nano particles are the most dangerous ones inhale they get into the lot and transcribing to any organ including the heart brain liver once the particles penetrate your cell tissue this is when you get all kinds of kinetic new patients and people in iraq for example grieving that contaminated air every day and experts say there is no way to fight it in fallujah or in iraq where the u.s.

dropped thousands of included you really in rounds after the two thousand and three invasion a quarter of all babies are born with a range of horrendous ever normalities higher rates of cancer leukemia and infant mortality of being found here then after the it tomic bombs were dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki the u.s. and the british military admitted widespread use of depleted uranium in bombing bosnia in one thousand nine hundred ninety five for a legacy felt today with cancer and leukemia rates several times higher than normal because medical confirmation all around pollute. iraq the health effects of the radium are there and we see it throughout iraq are saudi arabia kuwait afghanistan somalia the balkans and again our sea unit moving into a libya dr dog rocky who was a leading specialist in the cleanup after the gulf war says there is no way of actually decontaminating affected areas that i was given

a written memorandum will lie about the health and environment a particular a mission he himself was exposed to depleted uranium almost all of the members of his team are now there some theory that the suffering of those bombed in areas where there will be no western troops will go unnoticed and i think happens in. i suspect just because it's the kind of cat and the people there and the just saying hey look everybody is dying here they go over answer and i think gentlemen of the nations and so forth i don't think anyone listens depleted uranium has a hoffa life of four and a house billion years hence it's this production by some as the silent killer that will never stop killing. our t. washington d.c. so could the silent killer be raring its ugly head in the libyan war and if so what would be the toxic toll on the people there for more we turn to khan hallahan in berkeley california is

a columnist with foreign policy in focus thank you so much for being on this program. now as dangerous as these weapons are i do want to talk about the fact that they have 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's the cut it's the kind of weapon that really should come under the geneva conventions because not only is it radioactive that is not only do you have if you breathe it in and therefore it produces bone marrow changes from someone changes let kind of thing your anus extremely toxic never. ukrainian view a rounds go very deep into the ground because they're so heavy they they're get into the world health organization they get into the water tables and so people are drinking their stuff it destroys kidneys it destroys livers it's just very dangerous stuff but you mentioned the geneva convention and i know that years of written about the fact that a u.n. panel has actually found that these kinds of weapons violate federal international

agreements including the u.n. charter geneva conventions other other agreements. what has gotten in the way of these weapons being banned i mean are they so useful that we can't possibly find anything else he is in their stead at a hard time believing that well. what they are is they are very effective and the united states also has a tremendous high all of depleted uranium because they have a very large nuclear industry what do you do with this stuff one of the things you can do is you turn it into the cannon shells and a twenty five millimeter thirty millimeter and take shells and all sorts of things they're very effective they they're very effective and we trade them most of our nato allies and use them italy does not germany does not belgium has is the only country in the world it's officially banned in. the catalinas stuff and we're not only peddling it we're going to expand it we're going to start moving it now to use

our heavy machine guns and even some submachine guns so we're going to find depleted uranium just saturating battlefields and futures just a very very bad idea now i know it's like comparing apples and oranges and we talk about depleted uranium weapons and nuclear weapons are completely separate things but from a big picture perspective does this sort of undermined the america's push to to wean the world off of its nuclear weapons and does it say something about our inability to essentially convince people that we've seen what we say when we talk about certain dangerous that at their face but i think it does some you know i think if we're if we're pushing for instance a nuclear nonproliferation and we're presently. you know the same sions against iran it's sanctions against north korea. and at the same time that we're using nuclear materials in warfare you know i think most people in the world look at that and they see hypocrisy so i think that politically it's again idea i know

that medically it's extremely. their idea and it's just one of those things that's an effective weapon that you have to step away from because the price that you pay for to the end is simply too large and very briefly i know that you've written about the historic use of these weapons in places like kosovo and iraq the national weapons were and our own government and the thought that it was perfectly safe that there were no medical consequences the result as a result of its use yet it's been our central talk a little bit about the medical consequences here but actually you know they don't say that it's just that they don't tell anyone but they're saying the u.s. army back a going to you know you want to get a study of depleted uranium munitions and what they concluded was that anyone who get any clean up in the period after say dragway an armored vehicle that was struck with depleted uranium in addition should be wearing a full biohazard suit and that all clothing afterwards should be destroyed the

tanks that they brought back from the gulf war that were struck by depleted uranium munitions friendly fire they were buried in radioactive dumps so actually the army knew that the stuff was dangerous what they didn't do was an intelligent body that it was dangerous in and that's still the situation today north of the situation today and we're also not telling anyone why they're actually using the stuff are not really unfortunate developments there thank you so much for your time now this convo happened calling us for foreign policy in focus. now today marks the worldwide celebration of a monumental feat fifty years ago so get costly not yuri gagarin boarded has one spacecraft and blasted off into the last unexplored frontier now the twenty seven year old made history as the first human being in space and i sure did a new era of exploration. now reports on how this global inspiration is being celebrated right here in the u.s.

. i store accomplishment one brave soviet it's commemorated at the united nations fifty years later got it first man in space for the exhibit unveiled to a crowd of carefully one hundred guests among them americans honoring a cold war era whose achievements in becoming the first man in orbit delivered a huge space race big to reach the u.s.s.r. i thought it was fantastic and i thought it was about and i was very careless this is a showcase for soviet science and technology and it's nice. from the russian perspective . that the russians opened up space for the rest of the world still images and still document yuri gagarin's preparation for the first flight the world upon his return and the grail for further soviet victories got followed over the next three decades because the first post this russian was the first person to go into space

his own research first. reading on things to be true to. their guns a monumental achievement is now officially marked world by the un general assembly has adopted a resolution declaring the twelfth the international day of human spaceflight just south of the international stage. new york is hosting a yuri's night game dance party to mark the anniversary american fans live in costumes. again. the last dream thank you is seen as a hero because what he did was something nobody had ever done before nobody knew what would happen whether he would come back in one hundred eight minutes the twenty seven year old orbiting the planet and return to earth as an international hero. artsy new york. so what is your eco darren's legacy and what

remains in store for humanity when it comes to space exploration for the answer which are just space entrepreneur jeff remember who is joining us from houston texas jeff are you at the center there or just think you stand of. the nasa sent us how i may well it's great to have you back on one of the things that strikes me about this whole issue of space space exploration as it's birth you know we essentially had these two countries the u.s. and russia. destroying each other with bombs which launched essentially a new generation of space exploration that all of the guns and rockets and war alternately it led to the birth of such a momentous milestone in our history talk a little bit about how we've we've accomplished this on an on the ashes of such a hideous history i mean. you're a beginner in space and so what has turned. human first we're spending and two hundred years for many years from now than us for man we only we

can be sure that school children who are not the universe will celebrate is equal to zero the first and it will not be the first russian or so the earth. and it's been stored there are just now returned years now it's gone from being a little girl to celebrations discos in new york city and it's only going to continue in new york city and actually in the endless angelus here we're going to speaking with somebody who's who's organizing when they are but you know even though the space race is supposedly over like you said i do want to play something interesting that came out of the white house briefing yesterday with the spokesman jay carney he was asked by one of the reporters at the white house had anything special to say about the gerund anniversary and he had this to say take a listen. i wish i had a great one liner in russian or in english but i don't i'm not sure what we have on that but we've sort. we congratulate the russian people on that historic accomplishment and i got to the moon for. that i mean

obviously he was joking there but does that say something about our sort of inability to move wholeheartedly into the whole space cooperation thing is there still some sour feelings over who has bragging rights to space exploration apparently for the white house yes i mean what i wish he would have sent it is hey you know we apologized for two years later that we were the only nation that would not accept you repeat here in the victory tour when an extraordinary moment when we wouldn't accept them and we had separate seats on later but number two but we did not observe during the period and i think there was a cheap shot minutes and it was a shame it's a shame because it is a good moment to say remember you know we were forward and you know we congratulate everybody. so it was a cheap shot now as humanity moves forward with with space exploration unfortunately us but space program is retiring the shuttle fleet we in fact hard

nasa announced today that one of the shuttles is going to be hosted in new york city museum but what does that say to you about the global trend toward space exploration could we see a decline in that now that some countries like the u.s. are not doing what they used to. no and we talked about this before i think we're going to see a blooming opportunity space because you know while the shuttles are going to museums we have all sorts of entrepreneur projects on the ground we have a little and they are merging with nasa contract indians and chinese and russians and europeans japanese so we're entering the period where weightier from them will not be as important when you fly you don't really think about whether you're taking a look. or you know how you get to europe so i think the beginning of a great era i think and then i think very briefly do you think that this wonderful era could be marred by the global economic crisis that maybe folks are saying you know what it's time to spend money on real world things down here on earth and not

what captures the imagination space. we have to go to space we are going to see the future and the there are selfish reasons for us. and it's a call the economics i mean we have to deal with more carefully and more economically responsibly and we will and so this is a day of celebration and to my russian colleagues let me say congratulations and i look forward to the next great milestones we do together as so i thank you so much for the safe entrepreneur jeffrey manber now unfortunately that does it for now for more on the stories we've covered this go to r.t. dot com fashion i say and check out our you tube page teacher thought called flash r.t. america as always feel free to follow me on twitter as well as if you're right back here and half an hour.