c.d.o. the four year media project a free media gun to our teeth dot com. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used well it's a slippery slope from sanctions to all out war but it's a path the us might be sliding towards with tehran but as all of us would warmongering actually doing anyone any good we thought erector sunstone a studio to tell us why we should be afraid of iran. and in tough economic times everyone feels the pinch and the us is ready for budget cuts all across the board that is unless the pentagon gets its way partner wants to hold tight to its share of the budget pie warning of doomsday scenarios if the fiscal ass comments away.

and they're sticking it to the man or the men in this case from occupy wall street to occupy the preparations going to bring you the latest from today's and nationwide protests. well at least wednesday to you it's february twenty ninth pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine up in you're watching our. well it's one less thing to worry about when it comes to nuclear weapons as north korea agreed to halt its program in exchange for food aid from the u.s. but here in washington the worries are aimed at a nother republic the islamic republic of iran that's a legit quest for the atomic bomb that tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful but israel doesn't quite agree in fact the israelis have threatened a preemptive strike of military strike against iran's nuclear facilities and this

is a position that does have wide support among american lawmakers and it seems among the american people as well in fact a recent pew research survey found that a majority of good voters here in the u.s. would support a strike against iran if sanctions fail but the survey also found that a record number of people here in the u.s. now believe that iran is public enemy number one for us that's not a view shared by everyone including my next guest now twenty seven year old sean stone is the son of the famous director oliver stone and sean made headlines recently over reports that he has converted to islam he was in iran earlier this month and joined me earlier today to explain why. well i would ask in terms of the polls that the american people are being asked about attacking iran preemptively or that's going with iraq i would say if that was it's just as easy to attack iran you know that's one thing but if that leads to world

war three but you still are so sure that you want to do this and this is. also a ploy is to prevent or stop what i think as we are walking into world war three at the moment between syria being destabilized and iran its on its border being threatened by israel and america to me it's a very dangerous time and we don't recognize what the concert the consequences would be not only not only regionally but to the world because russia has stated that they don't want to see the overthrow of the syrian regime or the iranian regime because these are countries and it's backyard and basically on its border across the caspian sea so we are in a very dangerous geopolitical situation having studied this is sturrock lee i recognize the great game that is being played out between british imperial factions using america against the russians and the american people just don't have this background or knowledge to recognize what's at stake here and the thing is though we're talking about ground and knowledge and what's at stake here but the rhetoric that's coming out from our own politicians that we as americans are recollected

into office does not seem to support what you're saying it seems to support the idea that iran is a giant threat how do you account for that. well i count for it from the fact that we have no diplomacy engaging with these people we you know in america we don't really understand that for example the president of egypt who you know being alleged to being a defendant of his i'm not trying to defend him he's not on trial but he's not this is the military commander of that country and he is. he has to you know basically answer to the supreme leader to this parliament he cannot see the head of the poor knew. the fact to my mind is this what's happening is we are now in a state of martial law and war a global e. i was told back in december by a very close friend of mine who has time who who knows one of the more presidential candidates i want disclose who that is his candidate's office told my friend by march of this year he should consider leaving the country and i didn't understand i

understood why because the n d a but i didn't realize it and the national defense authorization act actually comes into effect tomorrow that this act that obama has called for and signed stipulates even american citizens can now be targeted by the military picked up and imprisoned indefinitely without civilian trial that's throwing out our due process and it's corpus clauses so we are now in the state of martial arts of tomorrow which obviously if you carry now the use of drones on u.s. soil the fact that our president has assassinated american citizens everything is now it could preconditions for a total war state i mean came cold for the whole of america becoming part of the so-called battlefield that america is now a battlefield the whole earth is about to feel so rather than trying i'm worried that what's being done is that rather than trying to address our economic our continued economic depression and the reforms necessary to mystically what we're trying to do that is create martial law state using using iran as a terrorist enemy or threat and you know even making these these claims that iran

is rates use terrorism abroad you know you have instances like the iranian in thailand who clothes and stuff up this could be a false flag instigation. by different country to make iran look like a terrorist so you see everything is now in motion as a pretext that you can go to martial law here and war abroad and obviously the war brought has tremendous consequences now because if you talk to iran hezbollah and hamas can unleash on israel which then brings them american potentially russia into the equation so this is going to horrible situation people are being educated as to what's really going on and should have that if that is indeed the case then who would profit from that kind of sort of push towards martial law push towards war who would benefit from that. i mean my calculation you are you dealing with is an economy to last treat because of it it is not really because word from you know from their overall deficit spending that the officers there with all that i mean they basically have to have their attributive that are still unaccounted for they

ultimately can't really you know get good things going in obama's you know continuous bailout of wall street and europe as well by the way is not actually helping the common working people so if you go towards an austerity program for example i mean you could ultimately to the to fascism this country and in western europe and that is you think. as an actor trending towards fascism do you think that that's the trend right now. well in terms of advocating our constitution that's already in place i mean the fact that no one is have you know is creating a steroid outcry about this the idea that u.s. citizens can be picked up and detained by the military without civilian trial which you know where is our constitution where the outrage factor because we're so scared of terrorists i can't believe american people this frightened of terrorism i mean if you study con if you study the cold war you remember that you know communists were also in our backyard regardless they were trying to destroy our way of life so you know if you study history you know that you know war and terror as a part of history you cannot overreact in the straw your public and values in

europe in your constitution your tradition from fear all right and yet it seems that fear is precisely what's dominating sort of the agenda here and i want to play you a little clip of some of the republican candidates for the white house and i want you to sort of react and let me know what you think about the theer in this soundbite let's let's play that we have it. listen john we have a president who isn't going to stop he is going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon if you think a mad man is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that madman is going to use those nuclear weapons then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used for us sean you're talking about sort of educating the american people one of these guys could be president of the united states

what's your reaction. well my reaction is we already have a president that's bad enough what he's doing is a very dangerous game he's not making it clear stand even though his choice chief of staff dempsey and the military i think are very much opposed to the danger that israel of israel preemptively strike iran obama has only stood by and said we are you know an ambiguous and supporting israel working hand in hand with them this is not a clear message or a good message we do not want to let israel instigate something that can escalate into as i said world war i think obama has to be much clearer and trying to force already to war with iraq we're at war with iran. through sanctions now i think war exactly in the point is that you can't you can't engage people diplomatically if you're already trying to isolate them and what are you basically creating is more radicalism on their part because you try to push them into a corner and that was the test that they've been running for example killing their scientists in tehran this was attacked an act of terrorism by mossad which i've

seen as working hand in hand in tehran if it happened in america for example we've gone to war i'm sure right away and sean i mean you just came back from iran you know a lot of the rhetoric here sort of paints the iranians as these crazy people who might be a threat to america their leaders are crazy i mean that's what we're hearing from the media how do a rainy and the americans what it was what is their perception of our leadership given all this war talk. well i would say if the iranians think that if people think the iranians hate americans why would they let me come into their country and be so warmly it's just it's misconceptions and misconception on our part to really believe that the reinstate the americans the half of the loathing for imperialism and this is historical it goes back to the british and russians it goes back to the shah who was backed by israeli and american regimes and frankly you know the sharky of arc for example the secret police were largely trained by israelis and american so there's a lot of pain to put the to the regimes of their governments. abroad because of

that but it comes to the american people i mean i never once felt any kind of danger or threat from iranian people very sophisticated very much like americans my first instinct and i still believe this is that iranians israelis and americans will become good friends again as they were historically you know until the overthrow bashar and then the iraq iran war were forget that iraq was being suppressed sponsored saddam was it was being sponsored by the americans against the iranians right so there is you know there was a lot of anger this is a long it's a trap that you're conflict that killed many iranians and so the fact that there still is calm as they are and sophisticated in this regard goes to show that we can deal with these people i mean i had great conversations with many politicians including one of the top advisers to the supreme leader these people are sophisticated trained in the west that many of them trained in america over one hundred europe speaking english and had a culture of i don't interrupt you but we're almost out of time and so i can have a dialogue. we're talking about dialogues here we're talking about your experience there and i want to bring in very briefly before we run out of iran out of time the

role of the media coverage in all of this because you know a lot of the coverage that we're seeing here in the u.s. doesn't really reflect this view that iran is a sane sort of rational actor and in fact your trip got a very specific change in the media coverage i want to play a quick sound bite from your recent interviews on c.n.n. fox. look look look the one thing that he said that's undeniable was he said that the holocaust never happened and once you get into that kind of a fringe lunatic assessment i don't care if you please a lot of us i don't want to when you go to war when you met him did you bring up this cannot of the holocaust for the kids approaching i mean he seems very tough that you would wish to spend much time with this guy given you found the upbringing and dealing with a guy who is an extremist he's a fanatic and it would be like if you were in germany in the 1930's and you were

talking to him alert for here you are trying to talk about the threat of war there talking about your relationship but often i did it out what does that say to you about the role of u.s. media. well it's the role the media played in the bill to the iraq war i mean my father's done a good job of trying to point this out in his documentaries for example on truckers and castro try to get the other person's point of view across like you know rather than trying to vilify the guy why don't you at least hear his point that's the nature of dialogue that's the nature of diplomacy but if we're trying to become an empire and act as an empire would for same policies that sovereign nations thrope this is exactly a trajectory of her falling as far as the holocaust by the way i mean i'm not trying to say that in any way i agree with anyone who denies the holocaust but opiate of japanese still don't know if they're holocaust the chinese and southeast asians are more or two and they are a great trading partner you know since since we dropped the bomb since forty five so the question is you know it's obviously not a question of principles and morals there's a gender here you know and the fact that which they try to create

a war with iran it helps that purpose by saying their major is so mad big tater which he simply not he doesn't have that power in this country and in terms of whatever he may or may not have said about israel i try i would love to see more of a dialogue opening up regarding israel the west bank in any case in jerusalem specifically all right well unfortunately we're out of time but i want to thank you so much for your appearance here and you know a lot of that a lot of critical issues that we don't really see an honest discussion of the actual threats the u.s. faces in the media by our politicians and sometimes it just takes folks from nonpolitical lines of work i guess to call attention to all of that thank you so very much let us filmmaker shon stone. well defense secretary leon panetta is back on capitol hill for a second day of budget hearings that are once chair of the house budget committee and today he's revisiting his old stomping grounds to try to sway lawmakers against any more defense cuts the military and the military is already slashing spending

keeping several were killing several weapon systems cutting more than one hundred thousand troops and calling for two new rounds of base closures but anything more than that lawmakers are told would pose serious risks to america's national security affairs leon panetta speaking before the senate budget panel yesterday. if you don't you know if you're not dealing with the two thirds that's in title much spending if you're not dealing with revenues and you keep going back to the same place frankly you're not going to make it and you hurt this country you're going to hurt this country security. so is that case well here to help us figure this all out the reality of defense spending and cutting is the retired u.s. army colonel douglas macgregor thank you so much for being back on the program my first question for you as the pentagon is already planning four hundred eighty seven billion dollars in cuts over the next decade isn't that enough though not at all in fact it's very marginal and so modest as to be almost irrelevant look let's

understand the larger strategic context first of all the united states here with the federal government is in seoul that were affected we broke we're in the run up to an election anything we do know tankers on the margins none of the really substantial reductions will occur until after the next election the navy was largely spared any serious cuts the marine corps got off very lightly the air force a little bit a little less so in the army took the brunt of the cuts the rest of the services are going to be under assault after the next election but right now we're going to grow the margins and that's what we're talking about today is marginal change but if you look at the rhetoric coming out of the pentagon at least i mean we heard leon panetta speaking earlier martin dempsey the joint chiefs of staff there said the u.s. quote would no longer be a global power if we slash any more of the pentagon budget i mean these are pretty stark terms that these guys know something that you don't perhaps you know first of all we don't know in the world contrary to popular belief so we don't need to be everywhere all the time there is no existential military threat to the united

states and it has been since nine hundred eighty nine the threats that are out there are threats that we can easily manage and cope with so i think what you're listening to are these sort of exaggerated expressions of fear and after all you're talking about an enormous bureaucracy and bureaucracies don't usually volunteer to be dismantled and that's really what we're talking about the bad news is that we have been cutting soldiers and sailors airmen and marines people to actually do something to deploy and fight we've kept all the general officers all of the headquarters. all of the big programs that's unsustainable that has to change with this thing that you say that there is no sort of essential threat facing the u.s. that we could in effect reduce our per our overseas presence at the same time you know you're not a lefty activist you're a retired general a decorated richard perle. colonel a decorated combat veteran but most americans you know don't necessarily happen

experience most lawmakers and capitol hill don't have direct military experience and so when the head of the pentagon says hey guys this is a big danger we need more money to fix it i mean how people are expected to see through that what we need to know because first of all that of the general officers when he was injured today have risen to their positions as a consequence of a war of having done anything we have to face an opponent with armies and navies and air forces here defenses we're talking about some of the we can stare decisis we've ever encountered certainly the weakest since probably have actually could war the special word more. and they're not even organized so these people are not where they are because they've demonstrated some remarkable performance or capability under fire absolutely not they they are part of a bureaucracy they are due course promote teams that in most cases they've been promoted over the last twenty years because of their willingness to go along with essentially whatever their political bosses wanted regardless of whether or not it made sense for the political boss of say leon panetta well leon panetta i think

went over to defense with the best of intentions to do things that made sense it looks like he's capitulated he's essentially hung it up he's decided it's too hard and i suspect that after the election he will be gone and someone else will come in who has to clean it up because this is this is an overly large bureaucratic mess we are stretched all over the world it's costing us an enormous quantity of money and the world has recovered this is not one nine hundred fifty thousand nine hundred sixty or nine hundred seventy the rest of the world has come back with a vengeance japan korea europe especially germany russia these places have largely recovered from the disease distressing conditions that they faced and they can defend themselves but at the same time i mean you know what we're talking about sort of the these large threats precede threats the united states and yet if we look at for example the u.s. economy right this is the top issue right now about what is the certain about how to pay the bills how to put food on the table they're not necessarily concerned about how stretched our military is and you know what pieces need to be closed and

whatnot how do you bring home to the american public that these overseas experiments projects spending is directly tied to their day to day lives well first of all i think we need to give the american people a little bit more credit than they're getting these days less than fifteen percent according to most recent polls of the american population favors any sort of military action against iraq that's a dramatic drop from where we'd percent according to pew well that's not what i've seen and you've got to look carefully at what he says that fifty eight percent is responding to that i would see. his questions you know the notion that somehow or another iran presents a threat to us is ludicrous nonsense it doesn't iran is a three eight country with a broken economy a dysfunctional society a government that is highly unpopular but the one thing that all the iranians can agree on is that they need some form of nuclear deterrent because they live in a rough neighborhood they are worried about pakistan on one side israel on the other the russians to the north and others but they're also worried about us

because if you go back since the end of the second world war who's led most of the interventions that have precipitated these conflicts and wars c.n.i. did states they have a legitimate concern that we may attempt to intervene in their country i'm not saying that i welcome the arrival of a nuclear deterrent but i can certainly understand it from their perspective but that doesn't change security here at home it doesn't threaten us they are not going to field large numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and again if you look at the intercontinental ballistic missile because recently an israeli foreign minister said that's a devil that's coming and if they try to launch it it has to fly over russia ukraine and a number of other countries that are not going to be very friendly to iran if they are informed that an intercontinental ballistic missile is about to be launched at the united states over their territory so i think it's all nonsense it was just needs to stop what we need to do is understand we don't know the world and we don't want to own it it's a bad economic could best be an economic prosperity here too and rebuilding our prosperity is the number one priority the military needs to shrink we need to go

back to defending the united states and its concrete tangible interest it's very different from maintaining a large military establishment designed to intervene on a moment's notice in other people's countries. instinct point of view they're not cordially and doesn't seem like it's one that's necessarily shared by a lot of folks over on capitol hill or running for the white house but as always thank you so much for your time that was that right a combat veteran and retired u.s. army colonel that wasn't right or. what from occupying wall street to shutting down the corporations and that is the focus of today's protest in almost ninety cities all across the united states now more than a dozen people have been reportedly arrested so far in what has been the largest coordinated occupy wall street protest since the fall of today's actions are aimed at ending corporate influence in u.s. politics and the target of the protests is a shadowy conservative organization you probably haven't heard of it's best known by its acronym alec take

a look. the american legislative exchange council or alec is an extreme right wing membership organization comprised of state legislators and powerful multinational corporations including the corrections corporation of america it sounds ominous but doesn't tell me all that much so let's bring in someone who can break it all down for us only fung is a journalist with the republican support dot org welcome to the program lee i know you spent a lot of time talking about this alec group on our one of our shows the tom hartman program but we haven't really given it that much attention here on the show so for those of us who don't know what this group is what it does give us a quick summary. thank you for having me on lucy of the merican legislative exchange council has existed for thirty years it's a nonprofit and her a long time it's existed under the radar secession organization that brings together state legislatures station state legislators excuse me many state senators

state assemblyman status and representatives together which corporate lobbyists and those corporate lobbies are paired with these legislators and help them write legislation of it's helpful to the whole gratian is that the lobbyist represent oh i'll be honest i am parts well one of the most. famous ones in recent years is. the corrections corporation of america this large for profit prison corporation has worked with now it for twenty years to privatized prisons in states across the country and also to basically put more people in jail then they were behind a three strikes push throughout the ninety's that led to really mass incarceration from places like california they've also been pushing drug laws that have put more people in prison where it sounds i mean again this this sounds pretty shocking how how does this actually work i mean is this a dark room or you know bunch of people smoking cigars sit down and literally write

bills is a bad day i don't know corporate interests trying to sort of hob nob and have drinks with lawmakers and suggest legislate legislative path i mean how does it physically play out. well you know it's kind of an honest scratch crap system because it's a little bit of both what you describe are big conventions sponsored by alec and you know they're publicized they aren't a secret but they do kick out journalists you know i've attended some of these events and in recent years as the group has received more scrutiny to kick me out and i was kicked out of the last one actually pretty violently but you know you know legislators paired with you now a lobbyist is given to draft legislation and then those corporations that would benefit from that built all coordinate their campaign contributions to help that legislators are not only only our legislators getting ideas from alec and actual draft legislation but once they kind of get connected with a network of national lobbyists whether it's from dow chemical or coal company then

those corporations funnel money to the campaign coffers of that legislator are so they can make that go of a reality so basically if you're a new watch maker right and say these these folks at aleko suggest some legislation that may or may not sound kind of ok to you if you sign on to this and go through with this here pretty much guaranteed to get a whole bunch of campaign contribution money well the big loophole here is that you know a lot of states have you know fairly strong lobbying last interview want to provide transparency to the public to see who would help or asians are making contact with which legislators and what issues are being pressed but because american legislative exchange council is organized as a nonprofit as a charitable organization these legislators can attend their events hobnob with obvious go out and party even be reimbursed for their hotel and transportation they never have to disclose because you know it's an out of state organization that organized as a charity so i think a lot of people. ignore knowledge for that very reason because they hadn't been

able to have ignored state lobbying laws for so long interesting something like a shadow a lobbying group just under a different much more. easier to swallow name now right now what accounts for the renewed focus on this group why is that in occupy wall street protests and i was ninety cities is pretty huge why this attention now. well i think that there are two things that happen simultaneously one there's this kind of consciousness on what many people on the left that no matter who you elect and what happens in government there are very powerful institutional forces that are always crashing back that are always privatizing public services that are always overriding and and repealing good laws and so i think there's a lot of people who are in the activist community that are not there trying to wait for regular elections and looking at these big institutional forces and alec is an obvious choice for them to look at at the same time in two thousand and ten midterm

elections there's a sea change in a lot of people talk about the tea party congress the real change in power have been on the state level if you look at the sheer number of state legislators who are republicans were elected in two thousand and ten it was the biggest statewide suite in all the american history for the republican party so in places like wisconsin and north carolina allen has defacto legislative power on their members now have majorities all over the country and are writing laws and not only just in a place like in new hampshire now now they have a veto proof majority so you have alec lobbyist what are really running some states now played on the flip side of that is of course it's harder to sort of influence and change entrenched behaviors here in washington it's sometimes a little bit easier on the state level do you think that because these occupy wall street protests are local perhaps this renewed attention on alec and corporate interests sort of over undue influence in politics could that perhaps. cause any sort of change in behavior i mean maybe if local citizens says see if their

lawmakers look at that corporations and see these protests on their very own local streets maybe that sort of wake people up and how do you that is dying out. i think that's fair you know alec is not only a state organization and may change many ties in congress a lot of times when i've been a lobbyist can get something passed in congress built their turn towards alec for help on this thing or so i guess it works both ways betting said also many powerful alec state legislators are groomed to run for congress if you look at the leaders in congress right now everyone from congressman mike pence to congressman tom graves and some current tom price they were start out legislators were given awards for doing such a good job of promoting a corporate agenda when they served in the state level and then they moved up the ladder into congress so the fact that occupies now working at the local level and moving its way up i think makes a lot of sense at least for what they're trying to achieve all right well that's really interesting how you know it's not.