already all of this so that it's actually a platform to have this debate without it being manipulated by the powers that be but that platform might not last for long at least the police have anything to say about it their rating this global revolution stream of thought well explained. it's thursday january fifth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. all scaling down the military budget that's what president obama is announcing today as we look beyond the wars in iraq and afghanistan and the end of long term nation building with a large military footprint will be able to ensure our security with smaller conventional ground forces will continue to get rid of dated cold war era systems

so that we can invest in the capabilities that we need for the future the obama administration now realizing that the u.s. can't fight two wars at the same time anymore because it just costs too much now the department of defense is trying to figure out how to cut some four hundred billion dollars and spending and they say they can do this by and in the wars and cutting back on other costs while the pentagon certainly has a lot to work with but such a massive budget to put into perspective let's look at the u.s. military budget compared to other countries. well in two thousand and eleven the u.s. pumped five hundred forty eight billion dollars into the military compare that to ninety one billion in china russia spent sixty three billion in iran the country where the u.s. is keeping close tabs on now spends about nine billion and india spent thirty six billion all these countries combined don't come close to touching the u.s. . but now that the u.s. is going broke it says it needs to be more frugal in their military spending this

as they unveiled plans for the most expensive piece of military equipment ever take a look you are looking at the u.s. as a gerald ford the biggest price tag for any single weapon in history it cost a whopping eleven and a half billion dollars that carrier is worth more than the g.d.p. of both nicaragua and haiti although what you call cutting back to look deeper into this earlier i spoke to retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor i asked him if this is money well spent. no i don't think so. the real question for the american taxpayer is are you getting something better dramatically behead in capability than what you normally would get with the traditional carrier and the answer is really no it's very expensive we've invested in some new technologies such as the electromagnetic air left aircraft lift system which is designed to replace the catapults it's troubled we've got problems

with it's not working properly they'll eventually work through that but the question is do we really need it what does it do for us that we don't already get from an existing carrier and they can the question is not much when you're spending billions and billions of dollars in addition to what you'd normally spend you expect a dramatic leap ahead we don't get that with the f. thirty five either which is designed to be launched from these carriers and most of the things that people point to any of thirty five have to do with the intelligence reconnaissance surveillance suite the radars all of those things could be refitted to fifteen's that have sixteenths so the bottom line is if what you really need if you're a cop on the beat in new york what you need is a thirty eight and someone is trying to give the cop a laser pistol does the cop need a laser pistol and he as he's probably doesn't so do we need to spend the money for these things i'm not sure that we do they are saying that this is bigger but not necessarily better not dramatically better bet it not good enough to justify the additional billions of dollars that we're investing in it how about why then spend

billions and billions of dollars i mean it's a piece of equipment costs more than the g.d.p. of the entire country why that pump so much money well there are other questions about the wisdom of this sort of thing first of all when you spend this much money on one platform one ship are you really going to put it at risk what do you really plan to do with it if you go back to the first world war the battle of jutland when the royal navy fought the german navy the royal navy commanders were very reluctant to commit all of their battleships because they were very expense. to build and they were afraid to lose them we were reaching that point where we're building something that we were afraid to lose and there's nothing we can do to prevent that from happening if we actually put it in harm's way so the question is do we want to build things that cost less that are more that we can afford to lose if you will in combat or do we want to continue to put our money into these very large expensive capital ships which frankly at sea are becoming more and more vulnerable than

they've ever been in our history affect you go back to the one nine hundred fifty s. the sixty's admiral rickover the father of nuclear navy or maybe was asked when he testified before the senate in one nine hundred seventy s. how long would our carriers last against the soviet navy at sea and his answer was two or three days before their sunk maybe a week if they stay in port well that's because the submarine and submersibles unmanned submersibles today these kinds of things are so powerful and so difficult to track that they will put down capital ships like these aircraft carriers in a serious conflict so again what's the rationale strategically for doing this perhaps it's jobs because clearly you know this creates a lot of employment in norfolk virginia. almost like a really nice car you don't want to. say it's for a show that you don't want to really put in harm's way because of how much money i mean do you think that the money spent on something like this can be better spent

elsewhere yes i do but it but again the navy admiral are stuck with the structure that they've had now since the end of the second world war they are doing the same thing that is being done in the army and the air force to a lesser extent and certainly in the marine corps and that is refit the old structures the old ways of war the single service we're fighting establish was left over from one thousand nine hundred five we're refitting those we're not building anything new we're building a better version of what already exists but it is so outrageously expensive is so much more vulnerable today the. question is does it make sense monetarily i don't think it does the other problem with experience is that we've done a very poor job of containing expense the acquisition system is flawed we don't hold people accountable when's the last time that we conducted an audit of the department of defense we haven't we haven't audited the federal reserve we hear about that a great deal we haven't audited the department of defense and the recent announcement by the president on his new defense plans and strategies doesn't include any

mention whatsoever of an audit of financial accountability and we desperately need that so money could be spent recklessly and the public wouldn't even know about it absolutely there aren't these audits that's that's happening as well as you just that president obama today announced this plan. to draw down troops to decrease military spending but at the same time we have something like this in the works that this is military aircraft the aircraft carrier there seems to be a disconnect there well look there is no existential military threat to the united states there is no power out there today that that is organizing itself to take on and destroy the united states we know that we enjoy a considerable lead in many key categories of military power that's not likely to change in the near term. the point is this creates jobs this is a big ticket item that's important to the defense industry it's important committees of the united states the people who manufacture aircraft we don't have

we're not going to occupy anymore muslim countries that's been a disaster in iraq and afghanistan our strategic disaster self-defeating enterprises that's over that was the signal so what do you do you reduce those ground forces we've started with the army the marine corps will not escape this either there will be more reductions after the next election this is just the beginning but there is no coherent strategy here that doesn't exist it's well we need to cut defense spending so where do we cut first we cut where it's easiest and you go to the large united states army which was increased in size for the occupations in iraq and afghanistan to make cuts there and you don't cut these big ticket items because jobs depend on it income depends on but while we are drawing troops out from iraq from afghanistan there is this mounting tension with iran and i mean do you think that the u.s. is ready to go to war with iran well going to war with iran is a very challenging to be perfectly blunt i mean if the united states is twelve feet

tall iran in comparative terms is maybe six inches high it's a non entity militarily it can't project military power beyond its borders the fear of iran closing the straits of hormuz is much exaggerated the iranians would suffer terribly from that remember that about eighty three percent of china's oil comes from the middle east it has to pass through the strait of hormuz and through the strait of malacca and reach china the japanese the koreans are equally dependent upon it no one no one profits from the closure iran has revenues would tank it's already going to suffer as a result of sanctions nothing would improve we would not benefit so the frankly speaking this tension is artificial it doesn't have to happen it doesn't need to exist the iranians would do themselves an enormous favor by saying. unless. we would do ourselves a favor by ignoring most of it because quite frankly it's not important they're not going to do it we don't need to engage them there's nothing to be gained mutually

all of this sadly i think is connected to israel and israeli fear of iran for rhetorical reasons war the military ones those retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor. and it's not just enormous gadgets the military spending money on as obama announces this drawdown of troops a massive military buildup is in the works thousands of u.s. troops now gearing up to go to israel the military is calling it an exercise not a deployment but this is one serious exercise this is israel says they're ready to go to war with iran so what's really going on here i spoke to jamal earlier to answer just that. what is happening on its face is that the u.s. is working to reassure israel working to reassure saudi arabia and the gulf states that. we have their backs that we have the security blanket in the region and that

they don't have to worry about iran as a threat. but. as we can see we're getting closer and closer to war with iran. anybody who argues that this kind of extraordinary confluence of events of events. planned exercises by the u.s. and israel to exercise that iran was doing in the in the persian gulf they would argue that those aren't sort of part of the lead up to eventual military confrontation i think it's it's probably running out of arguments at this point and the reason that this is happening is that this is the logical conclusion of our current strategy against iran we have sanctions in place with no diplomacy the only way that that ends is to confrontation they are calling this particular build up a point and exercise and not a deployment but is there more to it. well this is something that has been planned for quite a while now it's not the first time that this sort of exercise has been done with

israel but what is being planned is actually you know back in september the u.s. actually provided israel with an advanced radar and for the first time actually deployed. permanently deployed u.s. troops to israel that was a small contingent of a couple hundred troops what we see now though is this much larger exercise not unprecedented but definitely something that is going to have an impact right now as we see this sort of tit for tat in confrontation between the u.s. and iran so we are seeing a lot in that region as you just mentioned this permanent presence and now with this massive military exercise you know and this is i mean this is to set up this is for a contingency plan but i would argue that this is a contingency plan that we're going to see in acted if we don't find a way to change course the idea is that we're there to be a massive war in the middle east presumably with iran that we would be ready to have set up command within israel and actually have israel set up

a command center in europe at the u.s. european command and israel at this point seems that both ready and willing to go to war with iran so if they do i mean will the u.s. automatically join them. well it's a funny thing some have said that the obama administration believes that it could distance itself from an israeli strike on iran and there have been these sort of public leaks in which u.s. officials have said israel wouldn't notify us until jets were scrambled in the air before they struck iran but that being said given that we're doing this massive military exercise doing that the u.s. is actually under obama in two thousand and nine actually provided israel with these bunker busters that presumably would be used against iranian nuclear facilities because me very difficult to not be implicated for the u.s. not to be implicated in an israeli strike on iran and so i don't see

a scenario in which this happens and we are not forced into some sort of all out war so you're saying that likelihood is that if israel does the u.s. will go absolutely and that's that's i mean iran iran officials have said this they're going to consider any strike by israel a strike by the united states now this huge buildup is happening as president obama just today announce that there's supposed to be this big reduction in military spending and in order to do that you see here bring the troops home from iraq from the afghanistan but now we're seeing this possible military conflict with iraq so is it possible that this isn't really much of a draw down or a shrinking of military about just a redirecting of resources well you'll recall that under bush we didn't consider the iraq or afghanistan wars as military spending they were a separate budget item and i would argue that you can't actually reduce military

spending unless we actually have a strategic realignment that puts more of a focus on diplomacy we can't continue the policies of the bush administration and the previous administrations when it comes to iran policies that can only end in military confrontation if we don't change those we're going to. end up spending the money that the prison ministrations would have spent on a war we're locked into this trajectory and one method that the u.s. is using are these sanctions but some argue that these sanctions are in themselves an act of war well iran has said that they would consider sanctions on their oil exports and sanctions on their central bank an act of war. i think it could be reasonably argued that the covert. covert attacks within iran and frankly some of the things that iran does could all be considered acts of war in that there is a cold war going on there's also an economic war going on against iran so i think

that we do have a low scale war right now in the question is does that actually escalate out of control into a full scale war and i'll say that you know what's happening now with iran people are calling it desperation they're saying that what's happening is actually a sign that the sanctions are working but it begs the question what are the sentients intended to do if they're working to bring us closer to war than absolutely they are working but i don't think that that's the policy or the objective that the american people want to see with this. we've said that the sanctions are supposed to prevent us from going to war but it seems like that's not really what they are accomplishing in the wake of all these events of all the turmoil in the region is iran is war with iran at this point unavoidable. it is avoidable the question is will we avoid it it was announced today turkey is working to broker these talks between the p five plus one and iran if there's a serious investment plan with see we may be able to. get ourselves out of this

game of chicken that we've locked ourselves in with in which we're either going to go to war or somebody backs off but you know given the political situation given elections coming up in iran and the united states it's going to take real political courage to figure out how do we do diplomacy how do we take that off ramp and until that happens i think that it will be inevitable jamal thank you for weighing in on this that was a. policy director for the national iranian american council. still ahead on our police forces are swimming upstream and trying to cut off the occupy movement at the source well they've been able to silence the revolution question more that's. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything. you don't.

charge is a big. flimsy lowen. all the preaching about islam and nothing people are suggesting. you know she says she's a. let's not forget that we are. i think.

we never got as safe. because of freedom. coming up on the four month anniversary since the occupy wall street movement sparked and took the country by storm and today science police are trying to silence the movement by shutting down a media outlet up until now viewers could tune it's a global revolution t.v. it's a website for around the clock live streaming video of what's going on there but the group has reportedly been a victim ad from their studio in brooklyn new york police officers also arrested some of the project's key volunteers this week including co-founder of lab tech fired well when global revolution t.v. first started out r.t.

report and how they became a driving force and breaking down the information blockade our season arena for and i reports. from the mass demonstrations of support. to the just derby images of police work. day after day the world has been able to watch occupy wall street in action through a global revolution t.v. a live web stream documenting the ongoing corporate resistance and civil unrest growing and growing in the big apple it's not about one political party or this or that it's actually creating a platform to have this debate without it being manipulated by the powers that be five years ago lied ties for what's a derivative trader on wall street today this thirty nine year old is among those camped out in two cars parked protesting against the financial institutions he once worked for i saw on with

a grave combined with ethical system combined with the stool is the biggest bomb of the lot of us in the saga world economy cash for co-founded a launched global t.v. series weeks ago we're going to bring people in to explain what's going on when the occupation movement began in new york well to peace people how to shoot video images the edit the just upload and how to make it go viral in the whole idea is that you creating it but then you throw that on the witness now that the movement has exploded worldwide the web channel will be broadcasting live streamed from more than seventy countries and six hundred cities we're going have a team of people that's going to do a thing across it with all the other square itself much as we can in figuring out what's happening there and taking destiny of the putting them on the global channel so this sort of a model for a replacement for c.n.n. takes you back says mainstream media outlets will be able to marginalize or spin

the peaceful uprising as people from all over the world take to the streets demanding elected leaders begin working for the majority instead of the financial elites it's a worldwide movement and if these principles of equality are going to be the kind everything because we base of creating the united. the typical you let me get out of people. and that was our own learning apart and i reporting from new york and to talk more about this i was joined earlier by activist and writer for the daily kos jesse let greca i asked him what's the latest with the global revolution web site here is what he had to say from what i understand the very did the people out in brooklyn based on quality of life issues and the funny thing is they were on the first floor of a larger building there were no violations for the upper floors isn't that funny so the only residential area in that building that was a good safety standard was where our global growth revolution live stream video was but the rest of the building is safe to live in it sounds like a very flimsy pretext and so i mean what do you think is behind it i mean do you

think this is a cover for police trying to silence the movement or what do you think is really happening. you know whether it was just strange circumstance or if it was cover to silence the media i think it's easily proven that journalists have been under attack while they're covering occupy wall street protests whether they're credential lies journalists who serve with the new york times in the daily news or whether it's citizen journalist like myself and the people who groove evolution and i think it should be a great concern to all of us the conversation that we want to have about the oligarchies controlling our politics and our economics needs to go forward no matter what and the fact that the system is fighting back against the shows that what we're doing is working and i guess i want to talk about this particular website global revolution t.v. and where they fit into the media or media world or viewers getting by tuning in and that they weren't getting perhaps in the mainstream media. well that's exactly the case you know so many people that i met down

a jihadi back in october november flat out said i heard something the media but i didn't hear enough so i had to come see it myself and global revolution filled that gap that so many people wanted to see coverage of what was happening in the news that important to their lives and not the corporate media stuff that they try to you know create a narrative around so global revolution was massively important and shows what an outstanding model citizen journalism can have going forward to counter a corporate media narrative so i think it's very important but the best part is it's not going away i'm one hundred percent certain global revolution will be back very shortly but are they temporarily shut down. it sounds like they are temporarily shut down but you know what they. knew it wasn't going to be easy so i expect to see them back soon why do you think viewers would prefer these days to go directly to the source. oh it's simple you get a. look at reality especially with live stream technology there is no editing there's nothing that you can prepare for or divert for it shows the unfiltered

unadulterated truth and let's be honest c.n.n. and fox news are not providing that nowadays and so you know with a global revolution t.v. shutting down at least temporarily how about a fact coverage of the movement who were an organic movement so it's just going to shift in other directions are still a ton of activity on twitter facebook there are still several of their lives streams if someone were to go google occupy wall street or live stream i'm sure they're going to find a lot of different options so it's a little bump in the road it's unfortunate but we're still going strong so i don't see this is being blocked at all but now that they have been shut down you say that there are other outlets where you are as cads who need to get this live stream but do you anticipate that may be may it's going to have this domino effect and we'll see more of these sites being shut down. you know even if it were the case that you saw a domino effect in other states will shut the shut down other sites will pop back up too so it's kind of a game of whack a mole and if the well the veep will and their corporate interests who don't want

to have this conversation want to play that game we can play that game all day so i don't think it's going to be a roadblock at all in the larger scope of things i mean would you go as far as to call this censorship. or how would you describe it i would certainly describe it as censorship you know. stated recently that if you don't have a credential as pest press pass that you are you know obstructing justice or some nonsensical term like that so if you're a real journalist you have to stand on the corner where they tell you and you can report the news if you're a citizen journalist like myself you're subject to arrest this is all on constitutional it's all not in the spirit of the freedom of the press as defined by the first amendment and i think that yes it is censorship it's just very subtle and pervasive but it's censorship nonetheless so you would say would you say that these are all signs that the move ban is try is there is an attempt to to silence the movement oh certainly the the last thing that the wealthy people who decide our

politics and economics want is a large conversation about income inequality and the corporate ownership of our politicians and the buying of our elections so yeah absolutely censorship because the last thing i want to do is talk about anything that matters to real people like us well in the wake of this and the arrests that we've seen just where does the occupy wall street movement stand right now at this point and where are they having . we stand a very firm ground everybody's talking about the basic issues we've numerated about the wealthy concentrated today is of one percent of americans out of better than ever and the rest of us who are being austerity fetishism and tax cuts for the rich and cuts for everything else so the future is bright we've got plans on the fifteenth we're going to be holding a worldwide vigil nationwide worldwide the jewel in honor of martin luther king jr january seventeenth is occupy congress we've got plans for february march is going forward it's not going to stop and they can shut down one website or one occupied

territory but it's not going to kill the idea jesse has been quite cold lately yesterday it was one of the coldest here in d.c. and i can imagine farther north it's been a lot worse how has that been affecting the turnout of the movement. well it's a good thing in a certain way because it forces hunker down and organize so we still have actions out in the street i was participating on new year's day of the retreat gives you the pork and sixteen hundred people showed up so even if it's froze in new year's eve people are still coming out there are problems are not going away neither should we get to keep it up stay warm nice to have you on the show that was activists and very there's always for the daily coast jesse it like graca. well that does it for now for the very latest on the occupy wall street movement or for more of the stories we cover today slash usa you can also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash artsy america and you can also follow me on twitter

at liz well i'll see you right back here and a half hour for more news and in-depth interviews. me it is easy to eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat eat. eat eat eat eat eat. well insolently science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the few jerks covering.