Author and editorial cartoonist Ted Rall told Loud & Clear host Brian Becker that ramping up the military budget to such an extent could be an epic waste of valuable resources for America. According to the columnist, America is spending enormous amounts of money fighting imaginary threats.
"There is no indication whatsoever that Iran, China or Russia have military or other designs against the United States, that's all in the paranoid fever dreams of right-wing US foreign policy makers," he said.
"We don't need a military that is this big. The United States has not been invaded since the war of 1812, we have friendly neighbors to the north and to the south, two huge oceans to protect us, ISIS (Daesh) isn't coming anytime soon, we could easily probably slash 70 percent of the budget."
"Obama ran in 2007 as an anti-Iraq war candidate, repeatedly accusing the Bush administration of fighting the wrong war at the wrong time," the columnist explained, "But then I remember at the time digging into Obama's senatorial voting record on Iraq…and I found that he had voted in fact six out of six times in order to fund the Iraq war."
"He never promised to be non-interventionist…or less militaristic or to slash the Pentagon budget. We assumed that he would do that."
He added that the new military budget increases make America an untrustworthy partner, recalling the Iran Nuclear Deal reached last year and largely contributing to a lessening of tensions between America and Iran. The newly proposed budget still assesses Iran as a threat, requiring additional budget allocations for the military. From the Iranian point of view, there was a deal with Obama, but he now acts as if no deal existed in the first place.
"It's a mixed signal, and from an Iranian perspective, we kind of have to admire their patience and their tact," Rall observed. "If you look at the US from the outside, we are the ones who look like we can't be trusted and that our word is no good."
