the defense budget is through the roof the taxpayers fork over money for wars critics say can't be won there are some lawmakers finally ready to take a blow to the military budget. and say oh we're going to losing we're going to do that and i feel like it's worthless land in a lot of people speed says whatever happened to hope and change as president barack obama kicks off the two thousand and twelve reelection campaign will broken promises speak louder than words this time around. it's a portable cd i refuse working with your future thirty's and

a lot of these critters are not going to recover for as much as ten years as the international monetary fund needs a question that may not be on the agenda are institutions created to promote economic growth doing more harm than good. afternoon it's friday april fifteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching r.t. now though the united states spends more on defense than any other country six times more than china close to fifty percent of the globe spending it's the elephant in the room when it comes to budget cuts in washington but with skyrocketing debt and three wars adding up to trillions of dollars is that going to have to change parties christine for reports. it's clear that we need to pick up spending cutting slashing reducing you could say it's in the

season so this is my approach to reduce the deficit by four trillion dollars over the next twelve years it's an approach that achieves about two frilly and dollars in spending cuts across the budget it's no secret our government has a spending problem the problem will now be passed along to community health centers . infrastructure the closing of school. and libraries but what's been mostly absent from this battle over the budget bulls is trimming on defense spending. the elephant in the living room that signori by both republicans and democrats is the national security but bruce fein is the former associate deputy attorney general under president reagan and now the president of the american freedom agenda he says those peddling the war use former defense secretary donald rumsfeld's concept of anticipatory self-defense with strong rhetoric and talk of the need for war it makes americans think my gosh you know

saddam hussein is about to attack as our asana bin laden in a little cane now in afghanistan is about to overthrow the government because allegations in the defense department it's weak that fear and when they do the defense contractors win big. now a handful of lawmakers are calling this seemingly endless cycle into question both republicans we spent a trillion dollars in iraq that was a trillion dollars over waste and democrats we're going to have health care for all but we can have war. we can never education for our. we're going to war the budget bill before the house this week calls for the complete elimination of mortgage counselors those people that help the five million americans facing foreclosures the price tag the same is funding eight hours of u.s.

operations in afghanistan a four hundred million dollars cut in heating assistance for low income homeowners the cost of one and a half days of the war in afghanistan and a five hundred million dollar cut in nutritional assistance to women infants and children the cost of two days of that war a war with an increasingly devastating impact also on its troops the suicide rate is at a record level almost of course the divorce rate among the list a great speech more than eighty percent there a crow with rethink afghanistan says it's the result of deployment after deployments and of seeing horrible things year after year and if you're going to say you support the troops continuing to send them into this meat grinder in afghanistan and even iraq select troops there that's really a fallacious argument this kid lost his father. look at the pain of war we're going to us and think about his date in the coffin right behind him and the little

american flag he's got folded just because the war we are now in the years has what has become the longest war in american history and some day after the war is over there will be a memorial. if it were built today there would be six thousand names on it already nearly double that if you count of those men and women who took their own lives after returning home from war by micro war two which is the memorial where i'm standing now it is unclear the list of reasons that will be given for why we went to afghanistan while that money was spent in washington christine for the out party . and to talk about why that money was spent in the battle to rein in defense spending as well as the afghan war earlier i spoke with lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer he's senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies author of operation dark heart he served two combat tours himself in afghanistan and was also involved in that hearing you saw christine cover here's part of our conversation.

there's an awakening now ongoing where people are asking the very difficult questions about what is the end game and why aren't we getting any closer to that end game with the money we're spending it's essentially a form of investment in any investment bank is going to you know basically ask the basic going to ragatz why are we doing this and will we achieve anything in the way of a positive outcome to give our investors money back right now there's no return on investment as far as anyone can see cost benefit analysis not quite backing up any more but should we be skeptical about these lawmakers are taking i mean why these lawmakers and the republicans and democrats are they in districts that don't have a lot of money flowing into their campaigns from defense contractors why are they able to speak out about this and others want it one of congress i met with actually represents one of the districts where a major military base sits and he's weaker he's questioning the need for this levels of spending are you typically that may be a little as that might turn against the war on the base and so he needs the constituents to support him not at all i think he's actually looking out for his

constituents and asking the hard questions of why are we having our best and brightest go forward and be killed and maimed because i think that's what he's saying. when you send people to war both in the cost side and from the human side you're asking a lot i mean you really are you're asking us to put our taxpayer money into the into the mix and you're asking brave men and women to go forward and put their lives on the line many of them do not come back and some come back permanently scarred either visibly through loss of limb or mentally through dramatic stress so when we ask them to do that we have to have a very defined very clear reason why we're doing that we're done for us anymore we don't really hear about al qaeda much in connection with afghanistan and originally that was my way when it was because that's what we needed to defeat the taliban we meaning the meaning the united states right us that it would not harbor al qaeda and we did we should declare victory by the fact we did do that we were done with that in two thousand and two as far as i know. my book actually focuses on the

tipping point for more we're going from actually doing it right here as a boy looking at what we need to do to secure the peace to doing this what we call now a counterinsurgency which is just another form of nation building and frankly that's the problem you have a large committed bureaucracy now in charge of the war the bureaucracy he needs very well that includes industry who makes money off the contracts that includes those in the power all make a lot of headway with this bureaucracy overseeing this counterinsurgency that allows that power allows in the flow of money this is becoming a good business for some people or a business so then really a cane in terms of actual funding and winding down the war as long as top political donors heavy hitters according to open secrets are general electric rates on last season aren't there granted it's got to change we don't have money and this is where i think the tea party is coming into right now saying we just don't have the resources to be the world's policeman anymore and we know it's

a pragmatic thing but will it change as long as those companies are allowed to donate as much as they do to political campaigns putting into lobbying has been a huge problem i'll be totally honest with you one of the members told me that they know that they're trying to seek the best information they can get but the problem is some of these so-called think tanks are funded by the very defensive abolitionists who then arse supposedly giving them fair and balanced and non governmental information so if it is a problem something a friend of mine calls i'll bet on lobbying oh yeah the thinking community and all of the people there and giving out information one way to know my thinking we were very hard to be right about we don't have big donors we have to work doubly hard as everybody else to get money to actually spend ourselves with that said if one of my calls this if you come back to congress and i think that's what we've seen here we've seen this huge momentum of bad ideas that everybody's bought into and then think about it all the major brass in the pentagon right now bought into this so to admit now that they made a mistake it was very difficult. most impossible but as i pointed out several times

at one of them my book we didn't get here overnight this is been bad decisions layered on bad decisions which now has put it to the point where we have a statistical rise in violence in afghanistan that matches exactly our troop increase so there's clearly there's no progress being made by the way we're doing this that's why we have to start to take a step back and look at the real threats there are real threats in pakistan the fact that they have nuclear weapons that both the al qaida folks and tell about it so they want to get a hold of that's a credible threat that we're not focusing on that we're purchasing instead on this ground conflict with the insurgency which really is a resistance movement meanwhile relations between is on about in washington and really deteriorated recently that we've seen and you're saying that if you want to focus this why isn't there more of a focus on cutting defense spending or even growth with the white house well i think this is an area where president obama and his staff i think are seen as a lose lose for them they always have democrats been accused of being soft on

defense i think afghanistan was going to be a tipping point showing that we're strong on defense but i think that the wrong battle at all i think it's political is because the money my money simply our politics i think the american i think that's a step back because you know there's been a lot of folks who have the facts like and i think jack and others are saying this is just not paying off for us with the return on investment in the second thing and i think this relates directly to why we're here now i think he was manipulated into making his decision of expanding the war i think he was he was badly advised by a lot of folks and if you recall during the debate his internal white house debate about should we do the surgery or not there was all this information being leaked leaked to the press and i'm being told that that was leaked by certain think tanks was not all of ours or certain offices within the pentagon were giving these think tank folks documents which were classified and allowing that debate to be formed in the press putting more pressure on the president to accept us troops for the course of action so i think those two things in particular resulted in this very bad chain

of decision. which has resulted in what we're seeing today we have in effect a third branch of the of the political system we have the democrats republicans and their ocracy this is something that is the eyes of the person eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex when he left that was his closing speech and i think his worst nightmare if he was here to day he would say this is his worst nightmare because we have this third party now that goes beyond the ability of either a democrat or republican to control a lot more than meets the eye when you talk about defense spending that was anthony shaffer with the center for advanced defense studies you may recall obama was the president who pledged to end the afghan and iraq wars when he first ran now he's officially kicked off his reelection campaign in chicago having done neither now people still paid from one hundred to thirty eight the housing dollars to see him speak last night but without much of the promised change whereas the hope coming from in his bid for reelection party's anastasio turkana reports. two and

a half years ago tears of joy as american celebrity the victory of a president symbolizing the new american dream been a long time from. but tonight changes come through about. the promise of change was met by an unprecedented frenzy of hope a president of transformation peace and economic research action and finally appeared very excited about this is this is history definition. but it's broke obama launches his bid for a second term the mood has changed. with those tears of joy turning to tears of frustration i feel hurt because people voted for him when he said all we're going to do this and we're going to do that i feel like the guy has been slammed in a lot of people space is real wallace mother of two with years of homelessness behind her because among the people who brought obama to the white house with her vote it's not because he was the first african-american president to be in the

state but as more of a chain's he says yes. well i did believe that yes we can for quite a while then it's like. summer jobs for us is going down jobs are going down. gas is. four dollars now maria is one of many now wondering whether the campaign promises new jobs to be created new schools to build or nothing more. to do half of americans don't believe their president deserves a second term my heard the voice of change but i would not receive me with the realization actually middle actually help me understand what the democrats and the republicans are exactly the same thing this weekend up to fifteen hundred people who are on to the streets of new york fueled by uncapped presidential chrono says more. from the myth of at guantanamo shutdown you

could have gone. missing a side of this original girl and so on and so forth truer to develop good clues we're going to. and so on so really for the know it's he's going to be open for quite some years to wealth inequality caused by broken economy according to the u.s. government's own statistics the richest one percent of the population owns more than the bottom ninety five percent of the population in this country too money being wasted on things people just can't fathom the way that you know the united states is being run into the ground for would continue to war with all of these different tax cuts for the rich for a lot of people are really worried about what will happen to us there are six million fewer jobs in the us but at the recession kick off yet the us military budget the largest in the world at over seven hundred billion dollars continues to grow. allowing for quick injections abroad like the six hundred million pumped into one week of work fair in libya but no significant changes that hold the president

really isn't anyone's a puppet. he's a puppet too crowded interests on the political campaign. and is a puppet to wall street to the military complex which wants war was for the profits as disenchantment grows to many the solution for broken promises is more visible than ever. for crowds and republicans fault for anyone to help us remember obama rival sarah feelings how is that going to change the stuff working out more than halfway through the presidency or sarcastic question has taken on a new level of cool for many americans it's not working out obama will have to work hard to convince voters that there will be change and that there is reason for hope decisive trick in our party new york. now you recall obama won the nobel peace

prize for hope of what he would do and the year he won prominent american philosopher and activist noam chomsky wrote a column. and saying that a truly worthy choice for that award would have been our next guest activist afghan rather activist champion of human and women's rights an outspoken critic of the afghan war and government she knows both very well firsthand a former member of the afghan parliament she was suspended for her sharp critique of it and now dodges assassination attempts after of a woman among more load lourdes the extraordinary story of an afghan who dared to raise her voice she almost wasn't allowed to raise it in the u.s. to promote it earlier i spoke with her and asked why she thinks a country that supposedly champions women's rights in afghanistan first denied these that to an afghan woman working so hard to defend knowledge oir i think. because. god. closer

excuse. i'm living and. i'm employment. why i'm living underground in the worst. of it was the last response and. i believe that each time and worse than countries. suman the u.s. and other countries on behalf of my people when i turned into a corner. i exposed. my scarf wrong policies after your scarman murtaugh i go bormann course who occupied my country and a beautiful woman those human dos and democracy and pushed as from the frying pan into the fire which country i'm going to frame is between justice loving people of peace camp truce between nations and the european. between and also

between the wrong politicians warmonger of power. difference between them critical mind of politicians. who. in my country in the slope. of. supporting the saw in the news of democracy from the rise human rights in our country and now the people that you spoke about who are activists against the war their voices have gotten louder and more americans oppose the war than ever before in the united states two thirds are opposed to it why do you think the u.s. is still there. as a. country and their idea for your own strategy include you know economy and trust because people in the hard to understand. and he's aloof and control. focused on the ship there has been

a number of reports of brutal civilian casualties and we've seen reports of the kill team which posed with photos of dead afghans what is the impact of this in your country. you know that clearing this up at ten years of occupation by blind bombardment of us in our top of troops our corp forcers tens of thousands often censor violence has been called and they did a massacre after all of these war crime white houses apologize because this puppet regime say sank you bet that we further from listening apologize and thank you all we want there engulfed this occupation as soon as possible i think just the slobbering grue people of the us around the world i agree with has democracy never come by a military invasion woman dies no human eyes never walk the narcos you never come by class the band white phosphorus by conquering our wedding parties killing

innocent civilians democracy never come by supporting these. so on enemies of these were loose taliban and also photocopy of the taliban these are mis arjen are still worse warlords saw. that it was not a military invasion it was invasion of a school clinic hospital it's a drug you mentioned building schools helping the people those are the reports you hear in the united states the us government saying they are doing those things is that not accurate. they both few schools and some big cities like in kabul you can see some women have a sister job an education and. more stuff robin says situation especially for the woman is like her justification of good arkell patient reconstruction which is not enough while billions off dollars and more than thirty billion dollars. if the democratic mind of people they were in power were not corrupt or not is why

a lot of the afghanistan was like whoever. could've been like heaven that was my will a joy activist and author. now international policies are coming under fire to as the international monetary fund meet in washington critics blame their policies for conditions that led to the unrest in the middle east all merging countries are calling for a greater voice in the i am us decision making our cheeseman important as more. yes . from smoke bombs to broken glass austerity measures budget cuts and taxes have inflamed riots across europe and elsewhere aside from anger also connecting these cash strapped countries heavy hand played by the international monetary fund and world bank global institutions meant to promote economic growth and reduce poverty yet critics say their priorities lie elsewhere they're looking out for the interests of their creditors spain. is working with the european

authorities and a lot of these countries are not going to recover for as much as ten years. public first ration with rampant unemployment high food prices and privatization deals is believed to have helped spark mass uprising in egypt. after suggestion of the i.m.f. and world bank ousted president hosni mubarak sold companies to local and foreign investors forty percent of the egyptians earned two dollars per day but it's definitely a catalyst that in the timing is very much related to what was tremendous financial deregulation and opening to the privatization by external banks of egypt in other countries and what has had dramatic negative. circumstances after that egypt may have actually go the way of latin america were socially. i didn't see a little jealousy after decades of economic stress but it was a huge fan of america and africa and the places where he was most well you had

a president elect you know since their inception the world bank's president has always been an american the i.m.f. director always a european despite the one hundred eighty seven nation membership the world bank in the n.f.l. located three blocks from the white house for a reason this is the structure of political economic power in one thousand nine hundred forty six and that's the primary structure of power in the world today five of the largest emerging nations in the world today are demanding an end to western monopoly over the global institutions. brazil russia india china and south africa say it's time for leadership of the i.m.f. and world bank to reflect the changes of the global economy a transformation from cloud base to all inclusive enough for ny artsy new york. joining me now for more on the role of the i.m.f. and world bank is richard s.

now writer and senior fellow campaigning for the campaign for america's future thank you so much for joining us now in that report i don't know if you can hear it but the reporter was talking about the role of i.m.f. policies in developing countries that have hurt their economic growth pushing neoliberal policies and privatization and i think in the developed world people are really familiar with what exactly that means but i mean anybody on the streets of brazil where i reported a homeless person can tell you the impact it had on our country you kind of break it down a little bit what these policies are sure the i.m.f. and since its creation and especially in the last few decades has always tended to push austerity measures on the governments that come to it for oh very severe ones in terms of social programs aid for the poor and retirement benefits of that sort of thing and along with that they also have very strongly emphasized the regulation of the banking industry the financial sector loosening the rules privatization of

state owned businesses and that kind of thing i don't lot of people feel that's gone to such an extent that it's destabilize a lot of these countries including the middle eastern protrudes and mentioned in the report and contributed to the conditions that led to the uprisings and would you agree that the policies that i am after benefit the creditors of these loans corporations that come in and buy up companies and hurt the average people the working people in these poor countries. that's i think that generally is true i think that's been the experience and in modern times for sure i don't think that was the original intent when the idea was first thought up but i think that's what we've seen play out any number of times why who does it benefit who's pulling the strings that's making that happen well you know i think what you have here is a situation where when i used to participate in emissions for the world bank for

example twenty years ago we used to sometimes say over drinks or whatever what would it be like if europe or the united states had to deal with these kinds of rules and these kinds of imposition so i think if you look at what's happening in the united states now what you're seeing is that financial institutions are given priority in terms of their considered critical to the upon me their private banks and so on but they can't be allowed to fail they need to prosper and i think that similar kind of thinking has driven the i am out and so what you see is austerity measures reduce the pressure on the banks make sure that creditors get paid back for loans to governments and so on and what that means is cut back in programs for people you know causing more misery really and a greater maldistribution of wealth that prevents the ability to fight property right now and we're talking about i am afterall they're meeting just really

a few blocks away from where i think here in washington and do you expect anything to come of this meeting as one of the major criticisms of the i am map is that nothing can really get done in state. well it's getting worse actually because now you have the g. twenty the group of twenty and there are staking their own ground and so you have these kinds of political squabbles between one group and the other i think it's been a little disappointing frankly in terms of us policy which is still a guiding force behind all of this so i'm not optimistic that we're going to see any kind of meaningful change i think they're feeling the heat and the political pressure and their rhetoric is changing to reflect that but i still think we've got a long way to go and you share the sentiment with that with a gentleman who was interviewed in the story that our reporter did that you know the more things change the more they stay the same he expects the leader of the world bank and i.m.f. to be european and american families have always been and even as we see the brics countries meeting right now calling for a greater role at what point will the i.m.f.

have to give emerging countries that have growing economies and billions and their populations more control and more of a say any of the organizations. well it may be that the only way that will happen is if more countries choose to default rather than pay these loans something is going to happen. have to happen to get their attention before there is a fundamental change in the way these this group is organized do you think that there is any sense that any of these countries that have i.m.f. loans that are hurting their economies would do that well you know you all of these countries are walking the political play rope now we're seeing it in portugal over the politics there we saw it in the elections in ireland and you know with the u.s. from countries so far have been able to avoid it and swing the other way but what in the developing countries there's enormous pushback and there's going to be a point at which it's going to be political.