a defense budget that's through the roof all taxpayers fork over money for wars critics say can't be won or some lawmakers finally ready to take a blow to the military budget. all we want to do this and we're going to do that. in a lot of people screen says never happened i hope and change as he gets off the two thousand and twelve campaign will president obama's broken promises speak louder than words this time around. spain portugal is working with the european

authorities and one of these countries are not going to recover for as much as ten years. as the international monetary fund needs a question that might not be on the agenda are institutions created to promote economic growth doing more harm than good. good evening it's friday april fifteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm lauren was during your 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 dough 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 our t's christine for as our reports. it's clear that we need to cut

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 as an approach that achieves about two trillion 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 builds his trimming on defense spending. the elephant in the living room that signori by both republicans and democrats is the national security by 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 makes americans think might know said i'm hussein is about to attack as there are some of bin laden in a little cave now in afghanistan is about to overthrow the government because allegations and the defense department its work that beer 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 of waste and democrats we're going to have health care for all or we can have war. we can never education brah. well we could have war the budget bill before the house this week calls for the complete elimination of mortgage counselors people that help the five million americans facing foreclosures the price tag the same as 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 of. course the divorce rate among the list of rights is more than eighty percent there a crawl with rethink afghanistan says it's the result of deployments 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 a lot of american flag he's got folded that's the cost of war we are now in years have what has become the longest war in american history and someday after the war is over there will be a memorial built if that 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 i don't like world war two this is the memorial where i'm standing now it is only where the list of reasons that will be given for why we went to afghanistan while that money was spent in washington christine for. our team. and for more about the battle against higher defense spending earlier i spoke with chris hedges he's senior fellow at the nation institute i asked him to explain the cost of war not in dollars or cost benefit analysis but from someone with his perspective having covered war zones for two decades as

a court foreign correspondent to describe the cost of the afghan war he's seen he says it's a foreign occupation he calls the dirtiest kind of. the only way in which that you speak is the language of violence you rarely see the enemy that you're fighting that's what i eat be lighting ambushes are about you begin to lash out every time you leave the perimeter of your bases towards everyone and everything which is seen as hostile you depend on your intelligence for informants and informants and any conflicts such as this are a very dubious moral. quality because they're often of course betraying their own people carrying out vendettas having you or telling you that there is taliban in one village when in fact it's just a rival plan and these conflicts i mean murder is always part of war by which i mean the killing of innocent civilians people who don't have the capacity to do you

harm as opposed to killing which is the taking of a life of somebody who is trying to harm you in these kinds of conflicts it's primarily about murder there's very little killing and if you look at the indiscriminate drone attacks over nine hundred civilians in pakistan alone dead since obama took office and when you understand the power of these weapon systems what hellfire missiles do having been around exploding one fifty five howitzers katyusha rockets. you know that these weapons not only suck the air out of the system as a whole forest do but throw out. the deadly bits of r. and fragments for you know upwards of a few kilometers a piece the size of a nickel meaning they can kill you when people are ambushed when forces are ambushed marines or soldiers by are you d.'s they lay down with the rain suppressing far until they get out they don't go back and inspect the damage that's

how we get the figure of over a million iraqi dead so these are a really violent old dirty horrible conflicts in which those who suffer are primarily the innocent it's a really horrible picture that you paint and even though many americans haven't witnessed that pursed hands now opposition to the afghan war has grown to the highest level yet with two thirds of americans recently polled opposing it yet you still see lawmakers seemingly not having any political will to. name a clear and sooner end in sight even with lawmakers meeting on in capitol hill even with the debt being is as high as it is in military spending continuing to grow what's going to change that. well it's very hard because remember that there are corporations even though the war we're losing the war they continue to make a lot of money off of this war our burden raytheon northrop grumman boeing the price the stock price of these defense contractors has quadrupled since the war

began and they don't give a damn how many afghans are killed or even how many americans are killed so what's going to have to get led citizens to care because you know there's no end in sight to the amount that those companies that you just named can continue to donate to political campaigns and to pour into lobbying efforts which they do you know they're the heaviest hitters some of them in washington when it comes to campaign contributions. well you just put your finger on the problem i mean we are ruled by a class of courtiers. who serve the interests of the power elite and. and they will continue to serve those interests because the price of not serving them is that they're driven out of office people that russ feingold being the perfect example is the because of the supreme court ruling citizens united these corporations come out stealth campaigns that never you know probably can of as

propaganda and nobody knows even words coming from they don't have to dispose words coming from so rather than tighten restrictions. and impose campaign finance or restrictions on lobbyists the power of lobbyists corporations is in fact been expanded you now see obama attempting to raise a billion dollars first billion dollar presidential campaign in history so. you know i i am watching these corporations and these imperial wars which are largely being paid for by the way through debt through borrowing. hollow my country from the inside and destroy it and that's how imperial powers always die our infrastructure is crumbling our public education is a joke our health care system is rouse the. over fifteen thousand americans died last year because they couldn't get proper medical care because cemented into place a kind of permanent underclass one in six workers out of work and they know no limits

these corporations they know one word which is more and they're tone deaf to the suffering of citizens and so the consequences i think or are extremely dire we are flirting with the possibility of collapse especially if we suffer a currency crisis it does our there's a much bigger issues than your time together you know the math of global economic empathy. asians of all of the decisions that corporations make and their employees are able to have on washington i'm curious you know you've called for civil disobedience in america again some of the very issues you're talking about including awards including the role of corporations but what convinces you that in this climate that will even be effective no i'm not convinced that it's effective i'm just convinced that it's right. and if those of us who care about. the open society don't begin to stand up then we will see the opposition to these very

frightening proto fascist movements that speak the language of hate the language of violence that embrace the gun culture that seek scapegoats whether that's muslims undocumented workers homosexuals. and i think the failure of our liberal institutions and the liberal class means that it's incumbent upon those of us who embrace traditional liberal values a belief that the consent of the governed is a serious phrase to use the only mechanism we have left which is civil disobedience and yet you're right the numbers are not very good then to demonstrations in washington where we arrested on the fence of the white house mostly with veterans by the way from iraq afghanistan and viet nam five or six hundred but we can't get caught up in that it's going to be a long struggle it's going to be a difficult struggle and we can't talk about hope if we don't get out and do

something. that was chris hedges senior fellow at the nation institute now a recall obama was the president who pledged to end the afghan and iraq wars when he first ran well now he's officially kicked off his reelection campaign in chicago haven't done either of people still paid from one hundred to thirty eight thousand dollars to see him speak last night but without much of the promised change where's the hope coming from in his bid for reelection artie's anastasio churkin reports. you want to have here is a go tears of joy as the reader can celebrate the big curia the president symbolizing the new american dream but a long time problem. but tonight changes come through about. the promise of change was met by an unprecedented frenzy of hope the presidents of transformation peace and economic research action have 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. but those tears of joy turning to tears of frustration after. her because people voted for him he said or we're going to do this and we're going to do that after like this guy has been strengthened a lot of people space is a real wallace mother of two with years of homelessness behind her was among the people who brought obama to the white house with her vote this is not because he was the first african-american president in the stands but as more of the chains he says yes. well i did believe that yes we can for quite a while then it's like. summer jobs for you and go and 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 what strengths logans. today half of americans believe their president deserves a second term my first equation but i would not receive me with the realization actually help me understand what the democrats and the republicans are exactly the same thing this weekend up to fifteen hundred people who were on to the streets of new york fueled by uncapped presidential promises. from the midst of the kuantan emotional town he could have gone. into this regional girl and senator for. close work on. and so on so really for the know he's going to be open for quite some years to wealth inequality caused by a broken economy according to the u.s. government's own statistics the richest one percent of the population more than the bottom ninety five percent of the population in this country to money being wasted

on things people just can't fathom the way that you know the united states is being run in some ground it would continue to war with all of these different tax cuts for the rich a lot of people are really worried about what happens as there are six million fewer jobs in the us than at the recession kick off yet the us military forgit 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 there in libya but no significant changes that hold the president really has a point he warns the cockpit. he's a. private interests on the political campaign. is a. military security complex which wants the profits as disenchantment grows to many the solution for broken promises is more visible

than ever and easy stuff. for crafts and republicans fault for anyone else remember obama rival sarah feelings how is that one peach changey stuff working out more than halfway through the presidency or sarcastic question has taken on a new level of cool feat for many americans it's not working out obama will have to work hard to convince voters that there will be change in the there is reason for hope if they can target our party new york. and earlier i spoke with dr caroline hellman about this she's a professor of politics at occidental college here's part of our conversation. i think it's a bigger issue with the american political system one that george w. bush also encountered i will go as far as to say that i think the country is somewhat ungovernable at this point in time because of the heightened polarization that has been really led by political elites and by media elites so i think it's

very difficult regardless of what side of the political your aisle you are on to accomplish an agenda and president obama had a very ambitious agenda so i'm not surprised that he hasn't been able to accomplish much of it as far as the american political fifth which which issues do you think of playing the most leading role in what you call it an ungovernable situation is there that your party political system is jesse ventura third in and started here cannot report do you think. well i think the heightened partisanship of the two party system is certainly lending to a lack of compromise we saw with the near government shutdown that both sides were relatively unwilling to go the distance until they were really forced to by public opinion and the fear that they were going to get blamed i think this will this will happen again and again i also see of course the influence of corporate money in politics for example president obama's health care reform was a big disappointment for those on the left because he didn't include a public option he didn't pay for it with you know elimination of the bush tax cuts

on the are the wealthy he let those extended on and so he didn't pay for it he didn't make it really broadly accessible and so i think that's one really clear example where corporate america is having this huge influence but we can't discount the supreme court that passages and united allowing corporations to dump an unlimited amount of funding into the political political system so it's actually more compromise now than it has ever been and i'm assuming you would expect it to continue to get worse as the political elections cycles go on i'm curious jesse ventura one of his points was there needs to be an option there needs to be another party but along the lines of what you were just saying if there was another viable party and they're viable choice wouldn't they what would keep them from being beholden to defame corporate interests that you essentially need to have donate to you because you have to get elected you a lot of money to run for president. and laurin there you have it so it doesn't matter if we have two political parties or five political parties if they're all

owned by corporate america and i don't think that that's an overstatement then the system will not work for the american public and add to that corporate manipulation of the american public in terms of party polarization with really polarized news outlets so we have people up in arms over things that they used to be you know be able to have a discussion about with their neighbor over the fence ten fifteen years ago so i see it extending beyond just their role in government but also in setting the tenor for how we have a political discussion in the nation and i think that we are just at an all time low in terms of our ability to talk to one another on the other side of the political aisle i wonder what you think about the four year election cycle because if it is a candidate at the office it's just a very small amount of time before they have to start considering their reelection and what all of their decisions mean today campaign process. right lauren and you're bringing up a point that it really puts it back in the hands of the american public in terms of blain that we have to constantly be sold and targeted so

a president is always campaigning as soon as he or she gets into office i mean there's just no break in that so president obama didn't start his campaign a few weeks ago he started his campaign the moment that he got into office and we require that of candidates i mean imagine a political system where candidates are honest and really tell us what's going on and say look i'm i am representing these corporate interests so i'm not going to vote in favor of this or you know president obama saying well i could do this but then i'd have to compromise on this if you told us the truth then we would impeach and we would impeach any candidate that really told us the truth and that's where we are in american politics and that's why i think it's rather ungovernable at this point we have a very unique system where the branches are supposed to keep each other in check presidential power has actually very much overshadowed both congressional engine vishal power and george w. bush did a lot to further unconstitutional presidential power when it came to torture extraordinary rendition getting into wars without congressional approval

warrantless wiretapping etc and president obama has just picked up those tools of power and kept them and that is unconstitutional so not only do we see this isn't broken in terms of corporate interests we also see a broken in terms of the massive expansion of presidential power the framers would be rolling over in their graves at this at this expansion it's simply not the systems that they had in mind when they created the u.s. constitution and it's a follow up with that when you talk about security because you imagine presidential power we think now the united states involved in libya which is what you could call a war that the president did not go to congress or i'm curious although he said he was going to end the wars in iraq and afghanistan when it comes to security do you think that this has been political strategy do you think that when the president got off if you just realize that you can't just pull out and the reality of the situation sunk in in drove the decision what do you think has happened on national security. well and i think you hit the nail on the head that he was

a relatively inexperienced candidate and not that he is not a great leader because i actually think he's he's pretty good in terms of getting what he can get done in the sun governable environment but he gets into office and discovers look you can't just pull out if you do that it's going to leave all of these people in the lurch people in afghanistan will be in harm's way and i'm very much in favor of getting out of afghanistan i think a diplomatic approach is the only one we can take but getting out of iraq and afghanistan it will take years and so making the campaign promise that he would get out immediately was simply not something simply something he shouldn't promise to get mow the same thing right he promised that he would be closing guantanamo and then he encountered all of this political opposition even from his own party because they didn't want people they didn't want prisoners coming to the prisons in their backyard so numbers and kicked in right not in my backyard so i think president obama has had this steep learning curve where he promised a lot thought he could do a lot got into office and found out that he is only one deck hand on

a very big boat and it's hard to turn that ship a lesson in managing expectations from dr caroline held and professor of politics at occidental college now it's not just american policies coming under fire international policies are as well as the international monetary fund needs and washington critics blamed their policies for conditions that led to the under arrest in the middle east well emerging countries are calling for a greater voice in the i.m.f. decision making archies marine important i am has more. yes. from smoke bombs to broken glass austerity measures budget cuts and taxes have inflamed riots across europe and elsewhere aside from anger 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 get critics say their priorities lie elsewhere they're looking out for the interests of their creditors spain portugal greece the i.m.f.

is working with the european authorities and one of these countries are going to recover for as much as ten years. public first ration with branded unemployment high food prices and privatization deals is believed to have helped spark mass uprising in egypt. at the suggestion of the i.m.f. and world bank ousted president hosni mubarak sold public companies to local and foreign investors forty percent of the gyptian earned two dollars per day but it's definitely a catalyst and 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 the eventually go the way of latin america were socially. i'd be a little jealous after decades of economic stress but it was a huge fan of america in africa in the places where. you had.

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 and the i.m.f. are located three blocks from the white house for a reason this is the structure of political economic power in one hundred forty four nine hundred forty six and that's the prime minister. true 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 changes of the global economy a transformation from club base to all inclusive. new york and for more on the role of the i.m.f. and world bank earlier i spoke with richard esko writer and senior fellow at

campaign for america's future also former consultant for the world bank i asked him neo liberalism privatization just break it all down some of these i.m.f. policies and explain how they've hurt some of the developing countries take a listen. at the i.m.f. and since its creation and especially in the last few decades has always tended to push. the measures on the governments that come to it for our very severe ones in terms of social programs aid for the poor and retirement benefits that sort of thing and along with that they also have a very strongly emphasized deregulation 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 destabilized a lot of these countries including the middle eastern countries and mentioned in the report and contributed to the conditions that led to the uprisings 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 economy 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 and scriven the i.m.f. 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 that prevents the ability to fight property right now and we're talking about the i.m.f. while 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 these days. 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 out there 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 all of these countries are walking a political tightrope now we're seeing it in portugal over the politics there we saw it in the elections in ireland and you know the view western countries so far have been able to avoid it and swing the other way but put in the developing countries there's enormous pushback and there's going to be a point at which it's going to be politically impossible to agree to the terms of the i.m.f. so that either i.