that the u.s. government in prose cruel inhumane degrading and borderline torturous treatment on the alleged wiki leaks are absolutely worth a read and also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r.t. america and you can follow me on twitter at christine prism our. culture is that similar to maybe you should be sitting on the mark with the chance to meet middle east and beyond what is the condition of the arab spring are humanitarian interventions affected what about the war. good afternoon now welcome to capital and how time more and list are here in washington d.c. and these are your 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 new weapons to 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 defense 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 phased out last year but now look here's the terror warning system two point zero. just to move.

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 and they're still debating and disagreeing over the conflict in syria meanwhile you have america's oldest worship 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 this 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 massage chief in an interview 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 it 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 of took power for special interest and with the price of oil affecting everyone's lives you really cannot separate the economy from war and as a 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 of retirement. i mean 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 want to say thank you so much for being on the show thank you for having me nice to get the 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 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. attack 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 it had if it's gone this long without it 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 and 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 from reality because i've seen it 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 i would look like well lou the most the strongest of the most corrupting they have corrupted the american political system both in the congress and the campaign trail otherwise who would pay attention to them if it wasn't for money what can you give us advance some examples that you feel substantiate that when we look at senator lieberman senator lieberman is the voice of israel in congress no matter what's in the interest of the american people and he is he is champions aipac 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 presented to me but are you suggesting because this is something that you bring up from what i understand 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 prosody attacking iran and engagements the u.s. has had in libya and iraq

a reflection that this is not the case no i think well yes i think the policy of the united states under. under both parties no matter who is 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 well if iran had nuclear weapons they would still be directly under the targeting sites of 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 limited number of shia muslims surrounded by a vastly greater sunni. population that surrounds it and hates them would rather kill them than than the 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 in cold war terms if you will iran is completely contained but i think we need to remember that the iranian iraq was completely contained and that didn't stop that war the one card you have i

would have on that you ask 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 built their capacity to be able to respond to it that's hack by us they would not use it against 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 i know a lot of it i don't know what the we can do in this country they can certainly do low level stuff the stuff they did to the israelis. or the palestinians do to the israelis bombing schools and in hospitals in blowing up a edis in the road neck kind of thing all of 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 at home and in addition to whatever soldiers and 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. you know we're since one thousand nine hundred five not because we're not capable of it but because our leaders want the military to do what's necessary to win i want to get to that point i really want to get back to the 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 subject 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'll get your commentary on it. to call the guess is really going to have

a sense yes but the economy and this mission in libya are two separate issues they're now separate issues very are just carrying the water for mr obama. so just for her separating the issues of the u.s. budget kerry 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 and defense will bring down the united states well i'm not sure it'll bring us down but 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 was a. 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 growth and environment and airports and the rest of them. you can only control defense 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 called to beating wars cultivating islamic hatred for the united states both sunni and shias and becoming increasingly involved in their business which works which is what motivates them to attack us so the budget people in the congress and their bureaucratic partners have focused on the defense spending 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 and causing wars and then they may be able to trim the difference spending a bit but so are you arguing that because the united states is continually engaged in. going to war and building up and it means that that is what substantiates this defense spending well it in you don't have a choice if you're at war you have to defend yourself when 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 attack it you don't have to invade iraq and there's a lot of things you don't have to do this is clinton for example and ambassador rice at the u.n. and president obama are out to kind of feminize the islamic world now. one 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 and muslims are maybe they're just excuses for other geopolitical interests too i want to continue this discussion we just have to go to war. we don't have to go to we already heard that you had a break for you and i guess i was there right and left pretty appropriate

nonetheless we will be back with much more with michael scheuer. and still ahead remember these well they may have been phased out last year the terror threat i'm talking about the color coded ones but we are still recognizing ten years of their existence will give you our greatest bands on where the red to green day got the u.s. the first or closing market number of. science technology innovation hall the list of elements from around russia we've dumped those huge earth covered. leave you.

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welcome back 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 but some of bin laden is here he's breaking it down for us i should mention too that he was in charge of the tracking unit first some of bin laden he's as insider as they come these 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 has you because you're arguing if you make if you make enemies you have to spend money but isn't the budget so much more bloated beyond any specific enemies i mean for a lot of the spending for libya it didn't the obama didn't have to go to congress to get it just sitting there in the budget but if you spent well i think the moved around within the budget the problem for the american military and i'm of course not an expert is they spend a lot of money we spend 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 stealth bombers we're fighter planes that can provide ground support but we need is more marines and more soldiers and more sailors and so there is room within the defense department certainly defense budget to 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 u.s. 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 that. well i'm not sure i'm not sure they certainly wouldn't build it if they didn't intend to use it they used very large weapons of that sort in afghanistan and they weren't terribly effective they dropped a couple out of some of the law but i think those are seven tons so these are these are quite a bit bigger but i think the point to look at here is is it 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 looping a weapon that's fine. the idea that you're going to pound the iranians into all that 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 when 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 sunni's and created a one point four billion muslim community that is really at war with the united states and its allies and that's an area how 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 depict 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 wake some people are well i think so i think the people who argue for war when you watch fox for example and you see john bolton 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 their jobs are here they can wage war with other people's kids and that's where we are at the moment nothing no 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 i am 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 but 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 if you really israelis want to go to war with your audience find out and 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 say and if they attack iran and 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 attack iran so obama is desperate so whether there really is attack or the u.s. attack i think it would be the same blowback in the muslim religion or difference in the muslim world if the israelis attack the americans give them the green light well they're going to use american aircraft american bombs american money 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 soon muslims are stupid you know when it happens they just meet us in iraq and they're about to be doesn't have cameras the end so really how stupid can they be now that i 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 always we appreciate your insight that was michael scheuer former cia intelligence officer also an author and professor. all right thanks and loose change are going to be our three on three stories chatting here per usual because we have talked a lot about money's influence in 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 of and their power and markets how significant they are this is him talking this was actually in two thousand and eight 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 steely edition suit all accounts for nearly ten percent of the daily trading volume of us equities. when you're controlling tam percent of the daily volume of u.s. equities 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 if you later in the testimony is because 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 to save more of both of our lives is good rhetoric we just need to be able to help just let us help you exactly do what we want to do in the financial market let's help let me help you i mean just raise your pocket just to me so i can hold on let me just take what is this this is my was my money no no no i'm helping you yeah i'm helping you that's great you know we don't actually go after the hedge funds at all because. we're more and says that the idea that the company too big to fail may have a government life on. bail such as phil but you know this is kind of a mini is absurd but this is because this has been kind of lawyer and he donated to mitt romney so that's a big old guy that's going to protect the interest of the super rich well i certainly again and that's why anyone who votes for mitt romney is stupid. that's as dimitris so i am just sorry to our audience if any of you will vote for mitt romney you probably should watch the show shannon. now i know.

there's been talk about it in the whole problem tony 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 u.s. enemies well is the anniversary of remember that color coded system for terror warnings that seemed like it was always orange i felt like believe that that was my big member of it over the last decade or so here to help with our commemoration of it is a difference anti-terrorist system but crazy nonetheless. class when you see nicholas the work you've been using me in the classroom. got really good. education with. me 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 would terrify the nation into worrying about being in a constant state of terror that you know. i think that people have gotten bored of the need to find a new or exciting way to scare and i think employing someone like in the case those who has a career of being kind of you know exciting their regard it could help people get kind of involved in being terrorised again you know kind of embrace the idea of fear and crushing other their desk and stuff like that so i think it's a good move by the part of the present almost spirit and i was 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 after any kind of boring collar question was regarding his appearance. ok. do you have anything to add do you think is more compelling to cage or horrible color coding that was based out last year i should add definitely i don't think anybody knew what the colors and they always were either orange or

yellow ones it was. always orange or yellow if i didn't have a big is the severe one looks pretty severe to me 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 resilin has actually hired batman a guy who is presenting himself as batman to help police some of their. rough areas but i remember when he was filming art for wall street as a kind of park so i think. there's a far cry but he. i'm worried about the slums in brazil and it's bad and should go on wall street and some of these executives all sorts of very good work and they're eager to be investing to go he is popping up more and more in real life the demand is these days so hey that's it maybe you'll see him flying around because that's all we have time for thanks so much for watching now don't forget to follow me on twitter at lauren lyster 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. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to look for asians to rule today . lead. the british sign the sun. times like this let's go. right.