live from moscow this is r t with. top stories now the u.n. forges ahead in its efforts to mediate peace in syria with russia backing the push for a diplomatic solution to the syrian opposition admits being from abroad while some countries continue their calls for military intervention. the government attack an afghan government delegation visiting the site where sixteen civilians were killed by iran's paging u.s. soldier leaving one dead and three injured we can massacre widespread fury with

american rallies across the country. and the e.u. approves a second bailout to greece which will see the countries stave off bankruptcy for the time being but the eurozone crisis rages on the nonstop flow of regulations from brussels continues forcing firms out of business. i'll be back with another summary for. the latest edition of capital accounts from washington this time and cia agent gives us an insight on the business of war. good afternoon and welcome to capital account time lauren lyster 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 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 of color coding system remember that it was days 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 a 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 there's a strike on iran isn't a matter of weeks but also not a matter of years ago 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 a 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 interests 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 and 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 retirement mirror. i mean major general when he said that 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 the chance to

speak to you so obviously iran 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 hot if it's gone this long without it that 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 a pact iran has been the top of their agenda for as long as i've been covering it and clearly there is plenty of documentation 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 well lou the most strongest of the most corrupting 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 could you give us advance some examples that you feel substantiate that would you look at senator lieberman senator lieberman as the voice of israel in congress no matter what in the interest of the american people when he is. champions aipac and the rest of those organizations. do you think 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 launching some kind of a properly identifying and engaging the enemy as you put it is your criticism of

proselytizing iran and engagement 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 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 not a 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 couldn't separate persia whenever we felt like doing it forever 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 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 there

iranian iraq was completely contained in there to stop that war the one card i would have on that you would 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've built their capacity to be able to respond to a tack 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 us 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 hospitals in blowing up i.e. these 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 will exact a 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 when we have been able to. you know we're since nine hundred forty five not because we're not keeping it 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 a 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'm going get your commentary on it. to call the guys is running to step aside to ask the economy and this mission in libya are two separate issues they're not separate issues maybe you're just carrying the water for mr obama so just for her separating the issues of the u.s. budget kerrie 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 an. 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 cultivating wars cultivating islamic hatred for the united states both sunis and shias and becoming increasingly involved in their business which with it which is what motivates them to attack us so the budget people in the congress and their bureaucratic partners here 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 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 if you don't have

a choice if you're at war you have to defend yourself that 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 geo political interests to i want to continue this discussion we just have to go to war. we don't have to go to the

arctic or if you know many think that they're going to break for several minutes i guess i was upright and led 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 we'll give you our three cents on where the red to green day got to us but first your closing market numbers . along with. technology innovation all the lives developments around russia we've got the future covered.

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 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 osama bin laden he's as insider as they come these giving us his insight or insight you know i want to talk about

because before the break we were talking about the defense budget how much of it because 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 what you spent. well i think they moved it around within the budget the problem for the american military and i'm of course not an expert as they spend a lot of money we spend a lot of money and weapons we don't need you 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't 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 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 to the livery 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 up be to 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 as it 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 i know some of them a lot 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 will work you have a lot of people in the difference the partner 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

really blow up and that's fine. the idea that you're going to compound 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 if the former mujahideen who have turned eastern libya into a. 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 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 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 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 you can go to iran with boots on the ground and have any chance of winning is to restore the graft in the united states and maybe that would wake 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 their jobs are here they can wage war with other people's kids and that's where we are at the moment that being 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 tonight 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 the 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 define. yourselves is the israelis want to go to war with the iranians and let them 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 it for it no matter what we say and if they attack iran . 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 they are really the attacker or the us attack you think it would be the same blowback in the muslim world is no 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 by 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 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 they be yeah i know i sound like i really appreciate you being on the show right a time from now we're going to have to leave it there but it's nice to know if we appreciate 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 cents on three stories dimitri and shannon 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 daily in addition she did all accounts for nearly ten percent of the daily trading volume of u.s.

equities. when you're controlling time per cent 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 you actually said that was if you later in the testimony has been 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 warren buffett argument is a good rhetoric we need to be able to help more 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 music a whole long we just take what does this this one was no no 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 in sense with the idea that the company be too big to fail and they have a government i phone has failed to such as fail but you know this is kind of this

is absurd but this is the guys this has been kind of and he donated to mitt romney so that's a guy that's going to protect the interests of the super rich so 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. and i think the whole problem tony we're going to go through. all right let's move on because if the tenth anniversary and since we've been talking about war and some of the issues surrounding it and us enemies well is the anniversary of remember that color coded terror warnings that seemed like it was always. felt like at least that's that was my big memory out of it over the last decade or so here to help with our commemoration of it is a different anti-terrorist system but crazy nonetheless. oh week last when you see

nicholas they weren't even using me in the classroom she's got. the situation with. me. 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 i'm in this thing well i think i think people have gotten bored of it need to find a new more exciting way to be scared and i think employing someone like in the case there's a guy who has a career being kind of you know exciting in the regard it could help people get kind of involved in being terrorized again you know kind of embrace the idea of fear and crush you know their desk and stuff like that so i think it's a good move but of the part of the present almost scared 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're trying to build terror within a country in order to get them to support some kind of a war nic cage would be a better way to go in any kind of boring color code question. has the appearance of . who struck ok can do you have anything to do you think is more compelling the cage or horrible color coding that was phased out last year i should add definitely i don't think anybody in the colors and they always were either orange or yellow i think once it was. always you know if i knew where the visas is the severe one looked pretty severe to me looks a very it's a little like the boy who cried wolf i felt about the terrorists 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 rough areas well i remember when he was filming an arc for wall street as a car park so i think. there's

a fight crime but he. more about the slums and result is bad we should go on wall street and some of these executives are already activated more and they're going to be investing as they go he is popping up more and more in real life the back end is these days so hey that's it maybe i'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 lister give us feedback at youtube dot com slash capital accounts and from everyone here at the show thank you so much for watching and have a great night.