good afternoon now welcome to capital account time or a lister here in washington d.c. and these are headlines for march twelfth two thousand and twelve does the u.s. imperial machine manufacture weapons in order to confront new threats or does it manufacture threats in order to sell do weapons will try to answer that question and more is the u.n. security council votes to extend its mission in libya and america's oldest active duty warship left yesterday on its last deployment to cover the area including iran and syria we will look at the economics of war and dispense with former cia intelligence officer michael scheuer and as the u.s.

budget deficit is released for february it close to two hundred thirty two billion dollars reportedly the highest ever recorded for a month how can anyone with half a brain at least separate america's growing indebtedness from a bloated military budget that takes up more than fifty percent of discretionary spending will look at the defense drain on america's dollars plus it's reportedly the tenth anniversary of the u.s. anti terror color coding system remember that it was based out last year but now look here's the terror warning system two point zero the courage to really look just a little. it's obviously a joke but we'll give you our three cents on where terror warning systems got the country let's get to today's capital account.

today you have the u.n. security council voting to extend its political mission in libya resolution for a year was adopted unanimously now they're still debating and disagreeing over the conflict in syria meanwhile you have america's oldest warship the u.s.s. enterprise there it is leaving yesterday for its last deployment guess where it's headed the waters covering syria and iran now last week you had rhetoric coming from israel's prime minister that a strike on iran isn't a matter of weeks but also not a matter of years the u.s. secretary of defense leon panetta saying the u.s. will take military action against iran if it has to last night you had the former mossad chief in an interview hey this is the guy whose job for a decade was reportedly to try to prevent iran from developing

a nuclear bomb you had him saying that iran's response to an israeli attack would be devastating so what's really going on you know we spend our time on this show very focused on covering the economy but in our view you can't separate the economy from the issue of war at least not when the u.s. spends this much of its budget on the military look at discretionary spending more than fifty eight percent if you're looking at to veterans' benefits and all ties into defense and not when the u.s. is posting a record budget deficit just looking at the month of february it was the largest monthly deficit ever recorded that came out from the treasury today and the deficit the budget deficit is on pace to exceed a trillion dollars for the fourth straight year so when war is such a big business and defense such a powerful special interest and with the price of oil affecting everyone's lives you really cannot separate the economy from war and as retired general smedley butler famously said in the one nine hundred thirty s. war is a racket it always has been it is possibly the oldest easily the most profitable

surely the most vicious it is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many out of war a few people make huge fortunes and he was also i should say a retired marine. major general when he said so here to really help us understand the situation in its entirety is someone who really is so knowledgeable on the subject his former cia intelligence officer he spent years as the chief of the osama bin laden tracking unit and he wrote a book on it too on on osama bin laden it's right there called osama bin laden and he's going to really help us understand this so i just first want to say thank you so much for being on the show thank you for having me nice to get a chance to speak to you so obviously iran is is such a hot button issue right now i just want to know what you think the reality of an attack on iran is going to be it's likelihood because just to to put it in context i mean we heard bush talking about this when he made the axis of evil speech it came up again after the u.s. attacked iraq a lot of people thought that if there was an attack on iran it would come when bush

was president so does that in some way mean that how if it's gone this long without it and it lessens the chance i don't think so i think they're going to go to war with iran because it's really not an american choice anymore it's in this really choice and the choice of the american jewish lobby you'll notice when obama wanted to talk about whether there should be war against the iranians he didn't go to the congress he didn't go to the american people he went to aipac and more or less played for more time to make sanctions work so how do you separate rhetoric though firm reality because i've seen it a pack iran has been the top of their agenda for as long as i've been covering it and clearly there's plenty of documentation that apac is you know arguably the strongest foreign policy lobby in the united states but how do we know that that will lead to some kind of attack and what that would look like who are the most strongest of the most corrupting corrupted the american political system both in the congress and i'm campaign trail otherwise who would pay attention to them if it wasn't for money what can you give us examples of examples that you feel

substantiate that would you look at senator lieberman senator lieberman as the voice of israel in the congress and later what some of the interests of the american people when he is he is champions and the rest of those organizations. do you think that the american people really want to go to war to protect the israelis interests i don't think so i know as an american i don't want to go to war with iran for really any reason that i've seen presented to me but are you suggesting because this is something that you bring up from what i understand of your of your work and your in your writing that you believe in some kind of launching some kind of a properly identifying and engaging the enemy as you put it is your criticism of profit talking iran and engagements the u.s. has had in libya and iraq a reflection that this is not the case you know i think well yes i think the policy of the united states under other under both parties no matter who's president which party runs the congress is to intervene in other people's affairs especially in the

muslim world we intervened in libya intervened in iraq we're going to follow these really lead and intervene in into. iran and the bottom line is none of those countries pose a threat to the united states in even the remotely distant future and we are going to further destroy our own economy for the interests of the israelis their lobby and the people they control in both american political parties you know i want to ask you are sticking to that if you don't think that iran is a threat to the united states what substantiates that because of course the conventional wisdom is that it is a little nuclear iran would be bad for everybody of course we don't know whether it is a nuclear iran but only if iran had nuclear weapons they would still be directly under the targeting sites the united states of britain and of israel if they had a nuclear weapon they could not defeat us we could incinerate persia whenever we

felt like doing it or ever whenever we needed to do it if you look at iran iran's energy industry has peaked and with the economy its support it supports its declining it's a country of a little. the number of shia muslims surrounded by a vastly greater sunni. population that surrounds it and hates them would rather kill them than them israelis or americans or brits and finally. if you look at the map iran is completely surrounded by u.s. military bases that have been built in the last ten years and cold war terms if you will around is completely contained but i think we need to remember that they had the iranian iraq was completely contained in there didn't stop that war but one car the i would have on had us what would happen if we attacked iraq the iranians have a tremendous capability within north america canada the united states mexico and the caribbean to conduct terrorist operations inside the united states and they i

think they've built their capacity to be able to respond to tack by us they would not use it becomes to america as a first strike but they certainly would respond to it and really cause havoc in our country so what are you saying could be the blowback if the u.s. does strike iran militarily certainly terrorism within the united states would be one thing do you think something on the scale of you know and i know a lot of metal i don't know what the they can do in this country they can certainly do low level stuff the stuff they do to the israelis. or the palestinians do to the israelis bombing schools and in hospitals in blowing up a e.d.s. in the road neck kind of thing over there can be done in the united states we have twelve million undocumented aliens we don't know who's in our country and certainly the iranians can't will exact the pound of flesh they're not they're not going to be pushovers they're not palestinians so do you think because you're saying that you don't believe that iran poses any threat to american citizens that attacking is what does pose a threat to americans that the attack on iran will kill u.s.

citizens at home while at home and in addition to whatever soldiers in flyers and marines we lose trying to fight the iranians overseas it's an extraordinary thing to to urge the american military to go to war again and we have been able to win a war. since one thousand nine hundred five not because we are capable of it but because our leaders want a lot of the military to do what's necessary to win i want to get to about point i really want to get back to that what you said earlier about the economic threat because this is something that we are an economic show and this is something i've seen you i started to i've seen your prose with other anchors before on the mainstream news i just want to play a clip i know it's been played and hashed out but it's just such a good one and i feel it's relevant to the discussion so let's play and then i'm going get your commentary on it. to call the crap you guys is reading here we're going to have success at the economy and this mission in libya are two separate issues they're not separate issues here just carry no water for mr obama. so just for her separating the issues of the u.s.

budget terry situation and any kind of military engagement it's obvious to me why you can't do that but i'm curious you know why you think that wars in defense will bring down the united states well i'm not sure it'll bring us down but it will it will be a vast blow against the chance of recovering to the point where we were before the crash of two thousand and eight listen when you have a federal budget what you can control is your domestic spending we don't have the will to do that but that's controllable you can decide how much you're going to spend on roads and environment and airports and the rest of their. you can only control the friend spending if you are at peace and you envision that peace lasting for a considerable period of time under both mr bush and obama now mr obama we are out there cultivating wars cultivating islamic hatred for the united states both sunis and shias and becoming increasingly involved in their business which works it which

is what motivates them to attack us so the budget people in the congress and their bureaucratic partners have focused on the difference being to be what gets cut because they don't want to offend voters with cutting domestic spending they can't if they cut it for one year they'll return it the next year and then some they have to stop intervening abroad in order to stop earning enemies causing wars and then they may be able to trim the defense spending a bit but so are you arguing that because the united states is continually engaged in. going to war and building out enemies that that is what substantiates this defense spending well it's if you don't have a choice if you're at war you have to defend yourself what you can certainly conduct your foreign policy in a way that saps the motivation of your enemies you don't have to invade a muslim country with oil light like you did in libya or at least the tap it you don't have to invade iraq and there's there's a lot of things you don't have to do mrs clinton for example and ambassador rice at

the u.n. and president obama are out to kind of feminize the islamic world now. when professor huntington talked about the clash of civilizations i'm quite sure that he thought it would come from the muslim side but what is happening now is it's coming from harvard and columbia and and the rest of the ivy league schools who believe it's american america's mission to impose secularism feminism and democracy i'm muslims are maybe they're just excuses for other geo political interests to i want to continue this discussion we just have to go to war. we don't have to go to. break for you and i thank you for the right and left pretty appropriate nonetheless we will be back with much more with michael scheuer. and to lead remember these while they may have been phased out last year the terror threats i'm talking about the color coded ones that we are so recognizing ten years of their existence will

give you our three cents on where the red to green day got to us but first your closing market number if. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i like to tell the truth. i confess and i am a total get over and said i love driving because he is a one trick. he was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the all the belgians you're just playing. oh.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you sure see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok and you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of way who can you trust no one who has you view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called. when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

welcome back and before the break we were talking iran war and with the constant rhetoric and the warmongering we feel that it's very fitting important to talk about when every day we spend speaking about the economy and the u.s. budget and a lot of dollars and cents obviously war impacts a lot more than dollars and cents but it's a really important piece of it so former cia intelligence officer and author of this book osama bin laden is here he's breaking it down for us i should mention too that he was in charge of the tracking unit for some of bin laden he's as insider as they come he's giving us his insider e insight you know i want to talk about because before the break we were talking about the defense budget how much of it is you because you're arguing if you make if you make enemies you have to spend money that is in the budget so much more bloated beyond any specific enemies i mean for a lot of the spending for libya. that obama didn't have to go to congress to get it

just sitting there in the budget we have you spent well i think the moved around within the budget the problem for the american military and i'm of course an expert is they spent a lot of money spent a lot of money and weapons we don't need we don't need more submarines we don't need more aircraft carriers we don't need. more fighter planes that can't provide ground support what we need is more marines and more soldiers and more sailors and so there is room within the defense department certainly the defense budgets move around the money but again. cutting the defense budget depends on it and cutting your enemies and right now mr obama is creating more enemies than we can possibly handle with. the mention of weaponry and weapons we don't need i thought it was very interesting that the b. two bomber has been retrofitted to carry these thirty thousand pound bunker buster bombs late last year reportedly the air force took delivery of them many reports over the years have said maybe this would be

a prelude to the us attacking iran my question when you build the b two and equip it with a thirty thousand pound bunker buster bomb that is maybe the only thing that can penetrate a deep nuclear facility does that give you an incentive to hate try it out on iran is there is that a lot of well i'm not sure i'm not sure they certainly wouldn't build it if they did intend to use it they used very large weapons of that sort in afghanistan and they weren't terribly effective they dropped a couple of some of the law but i think those are seven tons so these are things are quite a bit bigger but i think the point to look at here is is will work you have a lot of people in the defense department who build the toys and they want to try to use them and it's really irrelevant whether it works or not it's kind of blow up and that's fine. the idea that you're going to pound the iranians into all into oblivion from the air is absurd air power wins you virtually nothing we saw in

libya the air power didn't win it's the former mujahideen who have turned eastern libya into an islamic state now who won that war on the ground so the idea that we're going to engage the iranians whether it's with smaller or larger weapons and women is nonsense we may put their program back a few years but we will earn enormous hatred from the iranians we will turn terrorism in the united states and we just may bridge the gap temporarily between shias and sunnis and created a one point four billion muslim community there is really at war with the united states and its allies and. in that scenario would there be boots on the ground in iran if you're saying the air power is not enough well so we don't have enough soldiers to do that we have a commitment in afghanistan we're going to have to go to africa to go to defend their strategic minerals freedom of the seas off of both of the african coasts that's already set in stone there's no way to avoid that the only way they can go to iran with boots on the ground and have any chance of winning is to restore the

draft in the united states and maybe that would break some people up well i think so i think the people who argue for war when you watch fox for example and you see john bull charles krauthammer general keane the rest of them they're safe and they're safe and sound here in america their children are here their money are here the jobs are here they can wage war with other people's kids and that's where we are at the moment nothing no skin off their actual back that's right which i think is a major issue sticking just to this bunker buster thing for just one more moment though because one thing that was last week a report came out that behind closed doors obama told netanyahu you know we'll give you bunker buster bombs as long as you delay attacking until after elections then of course the white house came out and denied that what do you make of what probably was reality well i think obama is desperate to try to get the israelis to hold off from hitting iranians and i have to say that the decision whether for israel to attack iran is israel's decision not ours they don't have a right to exist we don't have a right to exist russia doesn't have

a right to exist but we do have rights to defend ourselves as the israelis want to go to war with the iranians fine let him go we should stay out of it but will obama promised them the weapons absolutely obama knows that if the israelis attack iran we will be blamed for for it no matter what we see and if they attack iran iranians will conduct terrorism within the united states and almost certainly cause his defeat because the prediction you can predict terrorism occurring in this country. if the israelis attacked iran so obama is desperate so whether there really is attack or the us attacks you think it would be the same blowback in the muslim world is no different in the muslim world if the israelis attack the americans give them the green light well they're going to use american aircraft american american and you know if you remember when the israelis attacked lebanon in two thousand and six they ran out of ordinance and we supplied them very publicly very very

with a lot of fanfare and the muslim world doesn't forget these things we saw muslims are stupid you know when it happens they just beat us in iraq and they're about to beat us in afghanistan so really how stupid can we be doesn't really sound like it i really appreciate you being on the show we're out of time for now we're going to have to leave it there but it's nice to know you and always we appreciate your insight that was michael scheuer former cia intelligence officer also an author and professor. all right time for some loose change going to give you our three stance on three stories chatting here per usual because we have talked

a lot about money's influence and politics especially surrounding the citizens united decision and super pacs well now one billionaire says he and his super wealthy friends do not have sufficient influence on u.s. politics just to give a glimpse of citadel the hedge fund that he is the chief executive and their power and markets how significant they are this is him talking this was actually in two thousand a during the financial crisis when he testified explaining. our broker dealer is the largest market maker in options in the united states executing approximately thirty percent of all equity option trades daily in addition citadel accounts for nearly ten percent of the daily trading volume of u.s. equities. when you're controlling temper son of the daily volume of us activities i think you have a lot of influence but the question are the super rich not influential enough over politics it's funny because the way he actually said that was later in the movie

he was basically saying we the people that really care about this country the ones that are most responsible for the welfare of the nation don't have enough food to help so the same warren buffet. is good rhetoric we should be able to help more just let us help you exactly do what we want to do in the financial market so let's help let me help you i mean just raise your pocket just me so i can hold on we just take what is this this money was no no no no no i'm helping you yeah i'm helping you that's right you know we don't actually go after the hedge funds at all because . we're more and says with the idea that congress can be too big to fail and they have a government lifeline. funds bail who settles fail but you know this is kind of a many visits there but this is because this has been kind of ridiculous and he donated to mitt romney so what does that say the guy that's going to protect the interests of the super rich well i guess that's why anyone who votes for mitt romney is stupid. that's as

a retreat so i just sort of the audience if any of you will vote for mitt romney you probably should watch the show shannon. now i know. and it's been in the whole problem that we're going to vote for mitt romney. all right let's move on because it's the tenth anniversary and since we've been talking about war and some of the issues surrounding it and some u.s. enemies well it is the anniversary of remember that color coded system for terror warnings that seemed like it was always orange i felt like at least that's that was my big member memory out of it over the last decade or so here to help with our commemoration of it is a difference anti-terrorist system but crazy man. oh class when you see nicholas you've been using me in the classroom. oh.

thank you very much so that was i think that might have been a more effective way to warn people because my memory of this was that it was just a bunch of hoopla that just was annoying i mean i don't really think it terrified the nation into worrying about being in a constant state of terror you know what a minute they were i think i think that people got bored of the need to find a new more exciting way to be scared and i think employing someone like the cases or who has a career of being kind of you know exciting they're regarded could help people get kind of involved in being terrorised again you know kind of embrace the idea of fear and of course you know there's been some progress so i think it's a good move by the part of the present almost cured if i were you i was going to say so if you were a you know in charge of psyops or whatever for the department of defense and you were trying to build terror within a country in order to get them to support some kind of a war nick cage would be a better way to go and any kind of boring color code. is the appearance of an.

ok if you can do you have anything to do you think is more compelling a cage or more of a color coding that was phased out last year i should add. that really i don't think anybody colors and they always were either orange or yellow i think it was. always orange or yellow. and the bees is the severe one looked pretty severe to me yeah it did look very it's a little like the boy who cried wolf i felt about the terror system the warning system we're almost out of time but maybe we just want to say a few words about the fact that brazil has actually hired batman a guy who is presenting himself as batman to help police some of their city's ok areas well i remember when he was filming occupy wall street as a car park so i think that. there is a far cry but you should. more about the slums in brazil made bad if you go on wall street and harpoon some of these executives all over starts is a good morgan they're going to be investing as they go he is popping up more and more in real life the bad end is these days so hey that's it maybe you'll see him

flying around if that's all we have time for thanks so much for watching though don't forget to follow me on twitter at lauren lister give us feedback at you tube dot com slash capital account and from everyone here at the show thank you so much for watching and have a great night. culture is that so much to know there's a huge music history on the market returns me to the middle east and beyond what is the condition of the arab spring or humanitarian interventions effective what about the war. well the. technology innovation all the lives developments around russia we've gone through huge earth covered.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations are all today. yes the air. let us know ok.