and it's challenging that preposterous assertion look and ok and i said you know i think it's really interesting i mean i would agree with you i remember the the the hours and days after the attacks in new york and washington i agree on that point here but nonetheless i mean you can go before that and you can see this neal come on you know calm perception of the world about what america's role in the world is and that was over there pearl harbor a wonderful opportunity often off the back of a tragedy and i still see it and maybe you know maybe i'm just seeing it in in too narrow a form here but i still see that mindset there with the arab spring going on now too i mean picking and choosing who you're going to support to mold the geopolitical situation of the region. ok awareness personally. if if i if i may i mean i agree entirely i i personally believe and please forgive me for being a cynic here but i personally believe that nine eleven the attack and once again as

horrific and tragic as it was it was used it was manipulated by those who in their minds had some sort of map it was used justification and till now till now and forgive me every time i mean as i said that moment could have been a unifying moment for the entire world at this moment of time i travel throughout the world and i travel extensively throughout the middle east nine eleven and fourteen that moment of sympathy has gone and now it's a very divisive moment and the reason is because the new cons use it as a justification for whatever happened in afterwards but allow me to just comment on what david and john said in terms of toning down the rhetoric on the war on terror during the obama era i welcome that and i hope and pray for the demise of the neo con ideology to uproot the world and brought particularly america to where we are today however we haven't really departed from that moment where still using the very same tactics these ten years we have not only the million lives who we lost but we have countless possibly tens of millions of lives that have been destroyed

the thing is someone who's dead may they rest in peace they're dead but whose remains are those who are alive still and now see us as enemies and now see seek retribution and revenge for what we did to their loved ones you see we now live in a world that is far more scared form far more fear from its neighbors than we were ten years ago i'm quite intrigued by the what david said in terms of the kind of his syria the following i understand that i absolutely understand that but how is it we we made this seismic movements from the moments where we allowed those seventeen people to carry out those attacks totally blew. from the security forces to absolute understanding and awareness of the security threat not only in america but the entire world it was a huge huge huge mistake the first ten years of the millennium unfortunately will always be a very very dark era in human history hopefully with the arab spring the second

decade of this millennium will be far better ok david you want to jump in there go right ahead well i. i think it's certainly true that the. dark painful way as the noble it was to roll in the states. i think the big mistake and it's it's not a necessary consequence of the policies that for or by eleven was the invasion of iraq the invasion of iraq. people tried to link it to the events of september eleventh but the the truth as i wrote at the time was that the intelligence was clear there was no operational link between saddam hussein and al qaeda so this this was a war of choice that was conducted as an os because of a. notion that if you knock down the biggest scariest because you're saddam hussein positive change will follow everywhere. you could make that argument but the bigger

problem is that the united states proved incompetent in iraq and in stabilizing the country and cheating were talked about so i think that's been a terrible terrible mistake with consequences that will will last destabilize the region as i look at the arab spring i'm reminded that the story of what's happening to that part of the world is so much bigger it's just like and us and it's dimensions we forget about and i've been writing about their world for thirty years now i i was there in a way the story is going to have a happy ending it may not have a happy ending the next ten years it certainly has the last ten years but it's a process that i think people could play cricket we're almost out of time john i'd like you know i've been there almost a time and i want to ask john john do you think the united states will go to war out of choice again in the name of fighting terrorism no. no i think when i disagree with some of the things you comment you made earlier i think it's over there is probably going to be an iraq syndrome in afghanistan syndrome because people say do you realize that david is right about what he's been saying and

demeaned emphasis on this is let's not do that again present in polls repeatedly over the last few years the percentage of people saying we should let the world go away and not all right john i'm going to have to jump in here brother and i'm a little me many thanks to my guests today in washington rochester and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk rules. the thing the thing. the thing thing the

. when you look for nuclear winter against. in human blonde is measured in barrels. your brain is. more of. a charmer of an air broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

evening and welcome to the lone no show where you get the real headlines with none of the mersey work coming live out of washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster in for alona so as we come up on the ten year anniversary of nine eleven tonight we'll talk about what has happened since with the trillions of dollars of defense spending thousands of lives lost erosion of individual rights and perpetual state of war has meant for the country i'll talk to colonel lawrence wilkerson about that his former chief of staff to colin powell and also jake hugo he's host of the young turks but first what is the mainstream media miss.

so as the anniversary of nine eleven years on sunday we are seeing mainstream media coverage all over focused on the events of that tragic day and the memorials for the lives lost as a nation prepares to remember its worst attack ever new york at the pentagon the pennsylvania things here in new york are moving along toward what will be a day to remember as they formally unveiled the relocation here two of these sites where the towers used to stand at that ship naval ship was built from steel that was taken from the former towers in new york city what was formerly known as the freedom tower but it's now called one of the world trade center. and in honor of the tenth anniversary of being in war started in response to nine eleven the mainstream media decided now would be a good and appropriate time to drop a correspondent into afghanistan to show americans that oh yeah we're still there

and look at these great things that the u.s. is doing. ten years after the nine eleven terrorist attacks and the start of the war in afghanistan the u.s. mission to train afghan troops is intensifying we have thirty years of war and that this country has been gauged in and so there is a generation that is lost and what we try to do is build an army quickly and you know we're on track to do that their home afghanistan is a critical turning point is future uncertain. the problem is that the u.s. has been involved in war in afghanistan and iraq every day for close to ten years now not just on the tenth anniversary of the nine eleven attacks and in that time more than sixty two hundred u.s. troops have been killed in iraq in afghanistan that's according to iraq coalition casualty count that's more than twice as many as were killed in the world trade center attacks but if you watch the mainstream media at all maybe you have noticed

as the folks that pew research certainly have coverage of the afghanistan war is limited to say the least and according to pew more than violence or events on the ground it is policy decisions in washington they create spikes in coverage so this would explain why in late two thousand and nine when obama announced he would be sending thirty thousand more troops to afghanistan covers fight it captured twenty seven percent of the mainstream media's attention and what was an anomaly and it also explains why we haven't heard as much sense when afghanistan has made it into the top five stories that pew research tracks on the mainstream media it captures three to five percent of their attention and that's when it registers and iraq i mean iraq's not even mentioned it doesn't even appear to be registering much of a blip at all anymore so for more or less ignoring the ten years of war that the us has been involved in and trying to make up for in one day of coverage on the anniversary of the attacks there were terrible but used to justify them that is.

what the mainstream media missed. now what we've been talking about the casualties of these wars that doesn't count the money that's been spent too so we want to take a closer look at that in the decade since the twin towers fell in new york city our country has dedicated a huge portion of its resources to counterterrorism efforts both here and abroad but exactly how much has the us financially dedicated to this cause let's break down the numbers so since two thousand and one the u.s. has spent how much six hundred thirty five billion dollars on homeland security and remember it created the department of homeland security after nine eleven add that to our defense budget and america has dropped a whopping seven point six trillion dollars since the september eleventh attacks

now believe it or not this is a huge increase from what the u.s. spent on its military a decade ago so let's take a look at that if you look at the defense budget from fiscal year two thousand it was about two hundred ninety five billion dollars just under three hundred billion dollars it has grown by eighty six percent and the government requested seven hundred eighty billion dollars for the d.o.d. in two thousand and eleven so let's break down those numbers a little and look just at our war budget according to the national priorities project the u.s. has spent one point two trillion dollars on wars in iraq and afghanistan to break that down seven hundred ninety four billion dollars has gone to iraq and afghanistan we've seen four hundred fifty one billion dollars dedicated and how exactly has our country's trillion dollar war funding been divided up the report from the congressional research office shows that the total war funding breaks down into three major categories ninety four percent of it right year that huge chunk

you see goes to the department of defense this includes military salaries training support. activities bunging new work related programs military construction and of course acquiring new weapons just five percent is little chunkier goes to the state department and usa id now this is for international development this deals with reconstruction in iraq and afghanistan foreign aid programs and funding for embassy operations and the last tiny sliver what's left the little bit right here one percent goes to veteran affairs now this is involved for veterans involved in both operation iraqi freedom and operation enduring freedom so when we hear about the u.s. war on terror and winning hearts and minds in afghanistan it looks like the bulk of that money to achieve those goals goes to the ninety five percent that is military weapons and personnel so that's something that maybe can make you think so with one point two trillion dollars going to our war efforts let's take a closer look at how much of

a chunk of that is it makes up our country's discretionary federal spending so take a look at that huge chunk that fifty three percent in this paragraph that's the defense spending so what else is left not a whole lot housing assistance transportation education and health six seven five and five percent respectively so it's pretty obvious where i park priorities lie and keep in mind all of our shadow wars you know the ones that president obama doesn't actually label as war and even though we don't have boots on the ground in libya we know the u.s. has been involved and it is spent eight hundred ninety six million dollars in libya now there's also some stats we can't give you we don't know how much we've spent in yemen somalia and pakistan countries where the united states is engaged in drone attacks and in some case missions so you can see the u.s. is throwing a huge chunk of cash into its defense look at that four point seven percent of g.d.p. but how does this compare to other countries let's see how it looks next to our

next biggest competitor china two point two percent of g.d.p. . in two thousand and nine france's military makes up how much two point five percent of g.d.p. is on their military and in the u.k. it makes that two point seven percent of their g.d.p. so check out the staggering difference between a united states and its next biggest competitor china a recent report shows the u.s. spends six times more on its military than china does so with all of this spending done in a post nine eleven world where does this leave us now ten years later that's a question that we would still like to answer let's talk about what the money and casualties have cost us and what it's achieved ten years later has it been worth it to talk about that lawrence works in colonel lawrence wilkerson the retired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell we're so happy to have you here so in the reports that i've been doing we kind of compare the deaths between iraq and afghanistan in the world trade center so sixty two hundred u.s.

troops have died in iraq and afghanistan that's more than double they were killed in the world trade center is that an appropriate cost for in response to the to the attack of the twin towers that's why i said when george bush said we're over there so they are over here he was right but not in the way you mean why would al qaida come to the united states when there was a target rich environment in afghanistan and iraq and as you point out other places do so in their soon storage the bush was right but in the sense that you're asking the question how in the world can anybody think that it's cost effective. how can anybody pronounce it anything other than preposterously nonsensical to take an attack by them in the lot of news a watery which cost about five hundred thousand dollars and spin trillions in order to combat it how can you say that's cost effective how can you say it's even rational it looks completely irrational to anyone standing and looking at it and saying if i were all mars and i said what is that country doing i would say it is

spending itself to death for the use of its military so then why does it seem rational to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle right here in washington because the military industrial congressional complex has made it very very lucrative for them to vote for military defense spending it's also made it lucrative in a sense that's very pertinent right now for example if you were to look at lockheed and say i'm going to rip number one defense contractor i want to reduce your budget by so much from reduce your income that's jobs best jobs in texas oklahoma new mexico ohio that's jobs all across the country same with fiance with boeing same with other military contractors so it's even more sensitive right now but we're going to have to do something about this and you're here you're hearing it within my party now the republican party you're hearing from people people from the tea party for example and others finally colque about if we're going to really do something about the deficit we cannot leave military spending out of do you really

think within your party we're going to see a real political will to make dramatic cuts i think you're going to this always happens and it's happened since world war two it's going to happen to the people who most go after the military in terms of draconian cuts are ultimately baath party republicans when it comes time to actually go after them they will go after them with a vengeance. they will since world war two we have never seen a country demilitarize we heard i think now we're in one thousand nine hundred and i saw her lying about guarding against a military industrial complex and that didn't happen are we just going to see eisenhower felt the military. every day of his presidency and eisenhower was our director of as an engineer no idea what was going through your brain and then there was this sits in his office that the no the military the way i do right and since then we haven't seen a demilitarization are we going to never see id counterterrorism. you saw a massive cut in the armed forces of the united states after the end of the cold war and when you when bill clinton came in you saw an even further could on that

which is one reason why we're having trouble with ground forces in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere in the global so-called global war on terror so it's not true that we haven't cut the armed forces before we have we've got them significantly in certain periods in our history and when the defense budget really comes to be an issue when it's physical sanity or physical insanity the republicans will be in there cutting the defense department as fast as anyone so you can take their publicans are going to do that you're going to do that are we going to see that now is that it's open for it now when we see them making cuts you're going to see hard increase and deal you're going to see increasing pressure to get out of iraq and afghanistan you're going to see increasing pressure on the republican leadership from the tea party to that effect you're going to see them increasingly have to answer to the american people about why are we still doing this and you really see it happen as we start the fourteen months now you're going to see it start happening as we start the general election maybe not in the primaries because that's going to be the extreme right gauge in the primaries but

in a general election you're going to start to see it start happening and the president is crazy if he's or he doesn't take advantage of that is it go after the republicans are well let's let's break from politics and talk about what happens in afghanistan if we see that drawdown and we see that pull out i was reading an interesting commentary from a columnist who was saying that afghanistan in two thousand and four there was this hope and this excitement and people were excited about the fall of the taliban but that in the years since then that hope is decayed they have foreign troops on their land they're sick of it they have a corrupt government and the country has gone down. is afghanistan going backwards i think afghanistan is on the bill in the sense that we would say we want a victory that says a b. c. and d. absolutely i think that because three conditions one you have sanctuary for the enemy that you can't go into pakistan principly two you have a difference in objectives we're fighting a limited war they're fighting a cold war for the last man we're not about to fight to the last man as you pointed

out less than one percent of this country is bleeding and dying for the other ninety nine plus percent we have a foreign legion of people don't care if people don't even know that iraq is going on in afghanistan is gone is that occasionally when the mainstream media it as you pointed out very well tends to focus on it which is a very often and the third reason is that we simply cannot afford this we simply cannot afford it in the congress woke up after ten years in vietnam and use the power of the purse eventually they're going to wake up and use the power of the person here in the in that since it's ironic that the tea party and libertarians within the tea party in particular are the ones who are starting to talk about you've got to go after the defense budget if you're going to restore fiscal sanity to this republic and they're right and we'll have to see if that happens if afghanistan isn't going to go if it is going backwards and the u.s. pulls out and the situation deteriorates they just how bad take our something is that the outcome that the u.s.

should accept after spending of billions of dollars there and losing more than some of what i was the united states this is twenty twenty hindsight or what we should've done was gone over there did what we did in the first year come out and said if you do it again we'll come back and do it again it would cost us maybe fifty billion dollars to do instead we going are there for eleven years unsuccessfully getting worse all the time pakistan is the real issue and about to implode and we are scared to death to leave afghanistan because we want to be there if pakistan doesn't implode but we've got to leave we simply cannot afford these wars on the fringes of them car which are bleeding us to death both. literally in terms of our young men and women and also his will in terms of our dollars you've pointed out in i don't think you win the people know you but you know humans that result in our look at that so you say it's a way worse but what about you mentioned the media you mention the political class you think that actually have some political will to cut but is or is the word terrorism which we are seeing all over the mainstream right now as we talk about

the ten year or the decade that has passed since nine eleven is using the word terrorism for america's political elite and media elite is that just potent in justifying wars and the patriot act and spying and infringing on civil liberties today just as much as it was in the aftermath after nine eleven we have painted ourselves into a corner in that respect and you saw it up well we have indeed done that but i see the american people awakening to the fact that we've gone there and saying ok we're more resilient than we know we may get hit again we know it may be a catastrophic attack we know that it will happen some time in the future so what let's get on with business let's get on with building more jobs let's get on with restoring our infrastructure let's get on with building our economy back because that is ultimately the essence of national security and not standing around in fevered into some patients of another terrorist attack so you're saying our

country's priorities are all wrong i think they are and i think the american people are going to shift and i think they may throw every single member of congress who is serving now out in the next election there is a volver dixon colonel lawrence wilkerson i certainly appreciate you coming on the show and talking about the ten year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on u.s. soil and so to come right here do american citizens of really know or care about increasing encroachments on their civil liberties in the wake of nine eleven jake you proposed to be on target joins us for that discussion in just a moment. into that only military mechanisms do not work to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes that's. why i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you've lived something else here's some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture says. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right here. i think iraq is beautiful and sunny well. whatever government says they're going to keep him safe get ready because you're

going to lose your freedom. for. fear. for. welcome back ten years after nine eleven aside from and less wars that we've talked about the country has come to accept what some would call a war on our freedoms we walk through body scanners at the airport and take off our

shoes for t.s.a. yesterday's mall cops today are military trained counterterrorism professionals sizing you up as a threat as you shop warrantless wiretapping and spying are provisions passed by congress without much debate obama on the tenth anniversary of nine eleven wrote this an op ed that appeared in usa today this is part of it he said the perpetrators of those attacks wanted to terrorize us but they are no match for our resilience today our country is more secure and our enemies are weaker here while we have delivered justice to a solemn bin laden and put al qaeda on the path to defeat we must never waver in the task of protecting our nation but just how much do americans have to give up in that task of protecting our nation and is really more secure as a result earlier i talked with talked with genk ugur he's host of the young turks to ask if he thought the body scanners and warrantless wiretapping and wars were

signs of that resilience that obama is talking about. of two minds on the other one hand i think that we have done some good work. says we do with osama bin laden and i think that we have really deteriorated their abilities to strike us now i don't think that we went about the most efficient way in a massive understatement obviously we wasted a tremendous amount of time resources and blood unfortunately in iraq which didn't help us at all it only hurt us and in afghanistan we've lost. the war helping us in any way shape or form but here internally we've taken some precautions that are catching for example some yemenis that were considering putting bombs on cargo on airplanes etc on the other hand our civil liberties are a great leader and and i don't think that's helped security at all so over.