US sponsors war-based economy

The United States is constantly seeking new conflicts around the world in order to sell weapons and keep its economy afloat, political activist Ralph Schoenman says.


“The US economy has entirely been dependent on arms production ... since the mid-1930s, since the Great Depression,” Schoenman told Press TV on Thursday.

“Arms economy requires permanent wars,” he added.

Schoenman accused “US imperialist capitalists” for waging wars around the globe and using poor African-Americans, immigrants and working class youngsters as “their cannon fodder.”

Schoenman also noted that the Pentagon receives huge financial support from the US government in terms of subsidies.

“They (the Pentagon) have received...ten trillion dollars in the space of four decades. Well that is more than the entire production of everything put together in the US taken together,” he said.

“The terrible genocidal weapons...that are inflected on the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan and of the region, affect the US soldiers as well," the political analyst said.

“Go to the website for the Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Afghanistan Veterans Against the War and look at the statistics of how many soldiers have been maimed, permanently harmed neurologically and systemically by these foolish weapons,” he added.

On Wednesday, the US Congress introduced a resolution that would give the US president wide latitude of powers to wage war on other countries as part of the "war on terror."

The fiscal 2012 Defense Authorization bill, sponsored by chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard P. “Buck” McKeon will expand the legal basis for the war on terror, and is moving through Congress amid harsh criticism from civil liberties groups.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the proposed bill is problematic as it does not specify an end date to the so-called war on terror, adding that the legislation is widely viewed as a frantic attempt to find and end to the escalating conflicts and abuses of power in the name of fighting terrorism.

MN/HGH/MMN

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179688.html