in the. joint see the children's movie that's the case where the grand imperial. torch was the coromandel you can the essential tools of the ship which suited to go and clear this is the kernel was originally as this can retreat. i say a policy of peace is free trade stay out of the internal business don't get involved in these wars bring our troops home if the gospel according to paul and his foreign policy chapter is going mainstream r t is there for it in iowa. it costs a lot of money because you have to spend a lot of money to send that's right money spent elsewhere so why is the us empire spending so much money on borders instead of its own citizens. these late rating agencies have been wrong about nearly everything for the past ten or fifteen years don't pay any attention to them and rating the you west credit rating agencies just

how they stack up all the explain their mood swings and more. good afternoon it's friday august twelfth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster and you're watching our t.v. well we saw the g.o.p. hopefuls face off in iowa last night in a debate now in a sea of hawkish conservative foreign policy talking points which you would expect from such a crowd things like the threats of nukes in iran like military spending should not be cut we are very different voices emerge ron paul's and he got a lot of air time to make his points on mainstream t.v. rick santorum even complained about it so are we seeing a new era of political cause led by ron paul no longer friends candidate by. any

standards as if this is any attachment to that we will discuss all about it first what's that's ron paul apart from the pack. he is a force to be reckoned with a three time presidential candidate congressman from texas o.b.-g.y.n. doctor and leader of a revolution. ron paul is now in iowa while we are at it again campaigning for twenty twelve new booms and busts comes from a failed monetary system to work and once again his band have come from all corners of the country to hear his message and show support from kansas city missouri and we're here to support ron i sell for my family of four kids of my wife drove up to las vegas a long time critic of the federal government the constitution has no authority for the federal government to run our educational systems and they should be doing it

his policies are often called radical just think of how many nuclear weapons surround iran good chinese are there the indians or the pakistan is there the israelis are there the united states is there all these countries china has nuclear weapons we have one d.p. natural but they might want to weapon but many of his entire establishment ideas are becoming increasingly mainstream as more and more americans reject the status quo of past decades especially his views on u.s. foreign policy in particular the us role in iraq and afghanistan resonate with voters i don't believe our national security required it i think we're a list say for it the threat of terrorism is related to our foreign policy so i feel less safe because we're over there i never feel safer for the foreign policy that we have today while often doubted by the mainstream media if i was a bit of it i think ron paul doesn't have. yes unfortunately for you but who is

there is there a lack of enthusiasm over something touch your g.o.p. candidates another question about electability. do you have any sir there's always the question of whether you are a liar looks like they paid more attention to you this time around they're moving my way his fans are some of the most loyal in american political history we've brought potions eighty six perhaps since he was here or here are you say right or wrong or the first. for thirty years his he's not flip flop on anything except the death penalty everything else. constitutional robert taft barry goldwater so at least you know what you are and despite his seventy five years many of his fans look like this is the man you need to be president but i think he's a smart guy and i think he would change things and need to be changed personally would describe myself prior to being seen ron paul in the early elections those

election cycles a liberal democrat you know i saw him up on stage talking you know against against the war as against you know these violations of civil liberties and going to democrats saying this or even this we need to fix the country we've maxed out our get ceiling as it is and then we're in too many countries and this is where it all happens a famous iowa straw poll here at iowa state university now ron paul has reportedly already sold thousands of tickets as we'll be spending most of tomorrow as people kathy are votes most people here think he will do exceptionally well the question is can he come in first it's an answer we'll have to wait till tomorrow find out reporting in ames iowa christine for our tea. and we'll hear more from christine later in our shows but joining us now from our l.a. studio is grassroots activist and thank you so much for being with us now it's fair to say you're a ron paul supporter my question to you is do you think ron paul has a chance of winning the nomination or do you think this is more about him advancing

his positions which are very different from the mainstream of what's considered french and pushing them forward to the mainstream. ron paul has every chance to be nominated this time because he's endorsed by the u.s. military is more indorsements from. that or just growing from grassroots tea party style candidates at the state level if you look at the iowa state legislature in the new hampshire state legislature i've said before more donations from the military than any other candidate all of the candidates combined because of the the youth with a wide coalition from left to right to radical center everyone loves ron paul so. of course see he has chance it being nominated but people have to get out there and be registered republican so you have to vote for him to get the

nomination if if you're not a republican and you're in a closed primary state then you know the establishment doesn't have to worry about you the establishment is only going to start to worry when activists get motivated enough to register people republican and get them in those primary voting booths let me give you a different take for example writes richard adams in the guardian described ron paul's performance last night and sized him up as iconic better in congress then principal intelligence he has no chance right libertarian except for abortion and gays and it's not seriously he would win the nomination but for the secret alliance of the mainstream media wall street and republican voters who insist on not voting for him in large numbers so my question to you is if he's not electable really but he has got it done a good job of getting some of these viewpoints pushed forward more into the mainstream why do you support and what what do you achieve by supporting someone

who you know maybe when. why artie told you why yeah absolutely can when i i support you know ron paul because any other vote would just be a complete waste of my time and my own liberty and i hear people talk about why i throw away your vote on someone who can't win and i have to ask why you throw away your freedom on someone who some you know supposedly can win and we have to actually take a step back and look at what our votes are worth why do people die for the freedom to choose to vote we don't you know defend liberties so you can have a choice between mccain and obama i'm not a slave interested in a choice between masters i'm interested in protecting my liberty and now my vote can actually do that so i'm not wasting my vote on on ron paul other people

or throwing away their liberty by voting for someone else it's make a great point my question i want to get into is a little bit ron paul's platform and foreign policy especially time got a lot of air time last night on mainstream t.v. with viewpoints that would be considered definitely not in line with the republican establishment i want to play you for example but he said about war propaganda. you've heard the war propaganda that is loud allude to lead us into the sixth war and i worry about that position iran is a threat because they have militants there but believe me they're all around the world scuse me they're all around the world and they're not a whole lot different than others iran does not have an air force that can come here they don't have they can't make enough gasoline for themselves and here we are you know in this case when you see these they're building up this case like just

like we did in iraq build up the war propaganda there was no al qaida in iraq and they had nuclear weapons and we had to go in and i'm sure you supported that war as well so it's a time we quit this it's time it's trillions. do you think that that kind of view that was once may be considered friends within the right is gaining more traction and go in our mainstream and kind of shattering the conventional wisdom. it absolutely is we've had people be against these wars for a long time now so it's well established that you know depending on the poll you could reach between sixty seventy five maybe even eighty percent of the american people are against these wars and you know it doesn't show all the time because people don't connect it with their daily lives in america you don't pay the price

of pyre until the very end when the dollar collapses and that's you know that's why ron paul connects it all back to monetary policy in the federal reserve but speaking on foreign policy strictly americans haven't had to think about foreign policy much until it actually hits the pocketbook and when he talks about spending trillions on the wars that have been made as say for that haven't. done anything except give rick santorum. you know his own speaking to or running for president it's it's just absurdity and it's washington d.c. run amok the people are going to take back d.c. and and they're going to have to take back you know the the actual defense of this country because the government can't defend america. on this policy the

general federal government they suck thank you. nic let me ask you this because we hear i think a lot of ron paul's views that were once considered prayer weren't really talked about you know who who cared about the federal reserve several years ago well now you know that's part of the mainstream consciousness is questioning if i should be audited what should you know be more controlled what kind of control they have and that you know many would say ron paul had a large part to deal with and i'm curious about how much his foreign policy views have really moved forward into this debate and i want to play a bit of what he said about cuba to give us an example of how the difference in his opinion compared to g.o.p. establishment. i mean this whole idea of sanctions all these put pretium free traders they're the ones who put on these trade sanctions this is why we still don't have trade relationship with cuba it's about time we talk to cuba it's just stop fighting these wars about thirty or forty years or. now of course i have you

know obviously the u.s. has things on cuba which you know he would argue are no longer relevant my question you don't often hear that on t.v. at the g.o.p. debate nonetheless but really got his chance to speak rick santorum said it said you know how come ron paul always gets to finish so why do you think that so much ron paul was with allowed on a very mainstream debate on fox news do you think it says anything about his foreign policy views. yeah it's it is really funny actually to hear candidates say why are you giving ron paul so much time when the last four or four years ago the last campaign it was quite clear that ron wasn't getting enough questions and you know you didn't hear him complain at all about it and yet you have these whiny ten free trade. so you know so-called free trade republicans up there and they are they're just continuing the same old policy with the cup

a new word slipped in for people who are only paying attention on the superficial level but those who take an extra minute and extra little time to read an extra little time to empower themselves with some new information and knowledge you can't turn away from ron paul once you go you know once you go ron paul there's no turning back and with all these in it candidates neck and i getting it right i just want to ask you because we're out of time but i just want to keep this question going to start one more minute because i want to ask if you think that this is a new era of political thought you mentioned that in the past ron paul didn't get at times and can get a word in not edgewise but i think at the time he's getting now and the fact that it is now is bigger than ron paul are we seeing a new era of political thought that is is a merging as a major contender i mean from politics. absolutely and this is part of what's

happening globally globally people are rejecting illegitimate authorities and in whatever way they happen to be suppressed on you know in their home and locally so here in america it's the same thing only in america we're blessed with a system of government that. alleviates a lot of the burdens of violence because we have somewhat left of a decentralized for a public form of government so that we can take back our local and state elections hopefully with youth candidates from young americans for liberty or year of youth. and people taking back their voice at home local level so that's that's what the revolution is all about here in america where we're trying to spread the word of peace and liberty the ron paul is spreading so that we don't ever riots in the streets that that's the choice that we're at all right thanks so much for giving us

your perspective that was grassroots activist and i can't. now as ron paul illustrates while the country desperately searching for ways to cut out of control spending some are saying it's time for the u.s. to end its military involvement abroad and stop empire for domestic stability but as the g.o.p. establishment to help show if you watch the debate last night and very important i can attest to there are a lot of barriers to doing this. late comedian george carlin always spoke frankly about his nation the only true lasting american value that's left byron bay byron pains people spending money they don't have on things they don't leave today country long driven by borrowing and consuming is in desperate need to cut it spending he wants defense and security spending has remained untouchable soaking up seven hundred five billion dollars or twenty percent of federal funds every year

since two thousand and one more than one point two trillion dollars have been spent on the wars in iraq and afghanistan but now with fourteen point four trillion in the hole some economists say it's time for the u.s. to compromise world domination for domestic stability also probably have to see a significant request training or questioning and downsizing of the several hundred foreign military bases we have given the size of the budget problems and the growing issues around the national debt and the debt ceiling it is fairly well assured that the budget will be cut for defense and it probably needs to be cut more than it's presently proposed for the pentagon priorities may be different it department reportedly spent twenty three billion dollars on global hawk drones alone this year taxpayers are estimated to spend one hundred twenty two billion dollars on the war in afghanistan the same amount that could cover an estimated twenty five million americans with low income health care an empire costs money

because you have to spend a lot of money to the same that you have to spend a lot of money to promote it you have have to. a lot of people working on various aspects of economic support for imperial adventures around the world the consequence is the money is leaving united states going to other places not to the places in the united states that need it the most needing it most is the country's neglected infrastructure and jobs that come with rebuilding according to the american society of civil engineers order of americas six hundred thousand bridges are listed as deficient and nearly half of american households don't have access to public transportation ongoing federal budget cuts are expected to force thousands of post offices and fire departments the books more than forty million americans on food stamps they also make sacrifices we just cut the food stamp budget by twelve billion dollars we have multiple experimental ongoing programs in the defense

department each of which is large enough to offset the food stamp cuts and i think if we have forty one million people already who are dependent on government aid for food getting food to them is probably a first priority but defense secretary leon panetta is looking further afield for his priorities we are nation at war. we face a broad and growing range of security threats and challenges. but our military must be prepared to confront from terrorist networks to rogue nations that are making efforts to change a nuclear capability to deal with the rising powers but always look at us to determine whether or not we will in fact maintain a strong defense here and throughout the world eyes on the world while citizens face mounting struggles at home that's what the owners count on the fact that americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red white and blue chant up there every day because the owners of this country know the truth it's

called the american dream because you have to be asleep to believe or enough portnoy artsy new york. they control and joining us now here in the studio is retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor to help us figure out the reality of defense spending cutting what's at stake as someone who knows he is a decorated combat veteran also the author of this book the warriors rage the great tank battle of seventy three easting and we're so glad to have him thank you for being here so thank you my first question many would say the country is broke suffering under a mouth of amount of debt with a massive amount of unemployment can the u.s. afford not to dramatically cut defense spending but the answer is absolutely not it's a strategic imperative for the united states to scale back its investment in defense how much to what extent well the plan that i put together saves two point seven nine trillion dollars over the next ten years and that's what we should aim for we

should look at that at least two trillion because the idea in my plan was that almost a third of that money would be harvested for investment in new capabilities because in addition to this thing being too expensive that we have been too involved in germany places in the world record frankly we don't need to be we've also got an anachronistic force structure force structure with its roots in the sort of world war and there is no existential military threat to the united states that hasn't been since one thousand nine hundred nine so the argument that there is great risk if we reduce spending and reduce our presence overseas simply doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny what about iran what about china what about those some of those popular names thrown out by g.o.p. contenders we heard last night as as the right the biggest threats the u.s. well i think that i think that some of the people that you listen to certainly ron paul isn't one of them but the others that you listen to are well intentioned well meaning people but they're uninformed and there's a tendency that emerged during many decades of the cold war to eat quite defense

spending with patriotism the notion that if you weren't supportive of the defense spending that somehow or another you were sympathetic to communism and it heads unpatriotic. i think many of these people are stuck in a time warp and they're listening to the wrong voices they're listening to advisors who've also being with us for many many years who have personal agendas unconnected to the interests of the american people what agenda do you have why why and why you know you're not some lefty anti-war activist you are a colonel you're a retired colonel you're a decorated combat veteran and you're saying that you know well as i am more republicans willing to take it on well i think that's changing and i think that was the point of your previous discussion now that you're going to see more of that future more and more americans are finally beginning to ask questions but they've lived remote from the realities of warfare a war has imposed no kloster no detectable cost the losses of trillions of dollars along with thousands of people not even addressing the hundreds of thousands of people that have been killed who were muslim arabs or afghans and it's all being

transparent and it's invisible to the american public the american public is finally beginning to connect the dots between the tremendous loss of revenue overseas on these fool's errands that we've been involved with these nation building exercises and the current economic problems at home so i think it's changing but the president has so much control over foreign policy that really from congress so if you have someone like the people that we saw on that stage last night who think that iran is the biggest threat to the united states and iran getting nuclear weapons how is what you're saying never going to play out well there's a supposition that iran is something more than it is iran is actually a very backward place it's struggling to survive its oil and gas industry is in ruins it's investing in a nuclear weapon at least as much because of iranian nationalism as because they want to ensure that we can't intervene in their country if we choose to do so every member of that israel which is sitting up very far away from both iran and turkey

in the rest of the region has three hundred nuclear weapons so if you're sitting in tehran right now you can come up with lots of resistance try and build a nuclear weapon. what's astonishing to me is that after all these years they have done it they must be monumentally incompetent to be blunt well what's astonishing to me is that you sound like ron paul are so why is ron paul's foreign policy considered alternative considered you know so far from the norm even though i guess we're seeing it move towards the mainstream but you still see in the mainstream press has his ideas looked at is the right thing well remember that the press the mainstream media and by the way i don't include you in that mainstream i would not we're not the mainstream with a-k. they are very much part of what i call this a neo will sony in complex this notion that the united states will only be safe when most of the world is either governed by the united states or there are u.s. forces in other people's countries and it's a very mistaken notion in fact today our presence in many places of the world if

not most is more of a liability than an acid first of all we've we've expended treasure on a scale it's unimaginable trillions of dollars over many decades to defend large numbers of the world long past the need to do so the europeans the people in northeast asia and most of the world today can defend themselves so there's no need for u.s. forces to be constantly present stoop to offer you know defense when it comes to china china is also struggling internally in fact the greatest threat right now to the regime in beijing is that it will be overwhelmed by its own population that is making increasing demands on me they've got one point two billion people in addition to that everyone who lives around china is anti chinese for a whole range of reasons so the notion that somehow or another china represents a threat to us in military terms is absurd china's economic power is another matter i want to keep this conversation going inside is often used as a reason for the united states to keep its military spending where it is to keep

buying fancy machinery why does the united states need more f. thirty five hundred sample the most expensive fighter jet in the world which is gras. did because of mechanical problems and yet we just saw us buy more the us been going to united states well yes well first of all the f. thirty five whether or not we need it is a separate discussion and there are good reasons on both sides of that equation we certainly don't need the vertical takeoff and landing version for the marine corps that's absurd whether or not we need large numbers of these fighters it's hard to tell one of the problems that we do have are aging aircraft aging at fifteen's aging at sixteen's that do need to be with well how do we fight with these anymore are we using these to get. militants in yemen i don't think so well remember first of all you know whether or not we actually need to bomb people in gavan on a routine basis is another issue and i'm not sure that we need to launch most of the strikes were launching in most of these places but it takes

a long time to create and maintain military power and you have to be very selective about where you put your resources that's why we need to harvest stadiums now change the way we invest we have critical leads in aerospace and maritime power that's our strength as a nation we need to maintain those strengths that doesn't require that we bankrupt ourselves because it easily a trillion dollars could be saved within the first year simply by withdrawing the garrisons that we maintain all over the world that that's where you had structure savings first but when you ever see that happening you have leon panetta now the head yes i played defense saying you know coming out against the new terry cuts you know what point even though you know you say the peoples in the united states that their views are changing but we've seen a high rate of people who are opposed to worthing you don't see a change in policy necessarily you don't you don't see them cutting back on the thirty five already on put out is new he's reading from the script that he's been handed he's also seventy three years old very much

a product of the cold war much as his predecessor mr gates was they tend to see the world through this lens that we described earlier this new you know will sony a notion that we should use. use the military to export american culture politics ideas ideology i think that's an abysmal failure and i think it will become increasingly clear in the years ahead that iraq and afghanistan are just the latest in a series of failures of the last twenty years i think that will lead we can't afford it there's something else happening and this is very grave and that is that our economy is going to implode we simply can't sustain it we seem on that course and we don't seem to be dramatically changing even plans there wondering if that's a bait to save a trillion dollars in the next ten years and war or made it out of thin air they were from accounting gimmicks and he's learned from actual reality are connected to policy so with washington the way it is is there any chance of us changing course really this country short term though between now and the next election absolutely

not everyone is focused on getting reelected and as a result no one is willing to stand up and be counted on anything that's terribly decisive or important you know in some ways i think. our politicians are very much like alexander korecki who took over after the czars removal in one nine hundred seventeen and he was advised by everyone to end russia's war with germany and austria and to focus on russia's domestic needs he refused to do so he sustained the war and ultimately he was swept away and let and came to power eight months later by the way he was also known as the chief persuader and i think of obama in very much korecki like terms so we've got lots of the first waiter though i don't mean here is he on time that he's doing a pretty good out of time or so that was that was macgregor retired u.s. army colonel and author with that insight and that does it for now stick around though we will have much more in five at five including a look at the country being broke and what the rating agencies have to say about it but what's behind.