RSS Feed
February 14th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Press TV has conducted an interview with Jim Cason, US military analyst, to further discuss the issue.
The following is a transcription of the interview.
Press TV: The US is responsible for almost half of the world’s arms spent. You outspent China by around five or six times, but politicians – particularly Republicans on the make – glory in the gore, of course, and the mountains of dollars spent on high-tech hardware. You think the budget can be severely hacked without any real damaged, that it’s well padded. How would you do that and would any administration allow it?
Cason: George, I just say that I work for a Quaker Peace Lobby so of course I think that the budget can be hacked. What’s interesting is that lots of other people now agree with us.
You could cut a trillion dollars – that’s a thousand billion dollars – from the Pentagon budget in the next ten years and the level of military spending will still be the same in real terms as it was in 2007 at the height of the Iraq war. That’s how much we’re spending on the Pentagon right now.
Press TV: That’s a staggering statistic. Is it out there in the United States? Do people in the cash-strapped towns and cities of America where unemployment is running at a massive level, houses repossessions, massive inflations, cut backs of all kinds, do they realize the scale of this largest of the military industrial complex?
Cason: I think they’re beginning to realize, but just beginning to realize. And what we’re facing right now is this massive onslaught from the military contractors, from the people in the Pentagon and from politicians, I must say from both of our major political parties not just from the Republican Party who are saying, ‘well, wait a minute we really can’t afford to cut a trillion dollars from this Pentagon budget’.
Well, of course we could cut that! The country, the Pentagon would still have close to five trillion dollars to spend in the next ten years. US defense spending at this point is higher than at any point in the last 60 years, and just to remind your listeners that includes the Korea War, the Vietnam War, all of these recent military engagements.
So, there’s a lot that could be cut and people are seeing that tradeoff. They’re seeing the link between not having the resources for education, not having the money to fix waterworks, the unemployment that you mentioned and the massive amount of money spent on the Pentagon.
The question is in our democracy will people get mobilized to change this? I think it’s beginning to happen. And the other thing your “readers” really should know is that the deficit bill passed last year, actually right now the law on the books passed by Congress, signed by President Obama, would require that one trillion dollar cut in the growth of the Pentagon budget.
What we’re seeing now is a massive effort by the contractors and other people to try and reverse that legislation. So in one sense, we do have an advantage in beginning to reduce military spending. But I think it’s going to be very hard and nobody in this country who looks at these issues thinks that it’s a slam dunk, that the military budget really is going to be cut at that level.
Press TV: President Eisenhower way back in the 1950s, when few watching this were alive, I don’t doubt, warned us of this over weaning power of this military industrial complex, and its ability to subvert, really, the political process. They’re busy, I suppose, the lobbyists and the arms industry trying to dissuade government from making these cuts.
Cason: They’re absolutely busy and I think one of the things that we’ve been trying to focus on, and a number of other groups have as well, is that in the growth in the Pentagon budget in the last ten years, much of that growth has gone to those contractors.
So you often hear from politicians in our country, as I suspect you do in your country, that the country needs to protect the troops, that we don’t want to do anything that endangers the soldiers who are fighting to defend the country.
A lot of the money that’s going to the Pentagon right now is going back out the door and paying Lockheed and other companies that are building these expensive fighter jets. And you don’t have to be a Quaker to raise a question about whether or not in the current political and military environment the United States needs to build a new generation of fighter jets.
Press TV: In 20 seconds, Jim, are people in the United States expecting still more wars to use this weaponry?
Cason: I think that they’re getting scared into expecting that, but I think a lot of people are taking a second look after Iraq and Afghanistan.
*Long live the peace campaigners.
GMA/JR
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
