Mitt Romney addressed an American Legion conference today in Indianapolis where he took another opportunity to swipe at President Obama about coming Pentagon budget cuts via sequestration. The cuts would bring Pentagon spending to 2006 levels.

By Robert Greenwald and John Amick

Recent commentators have rightly called out Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's obvious hypocrisy on cuts to Pentagon spending. This strikes us as a good time to step back and take a broader look at Pentagon spending, and deconstruct the spin coming from the Washington elites.

In January 2009, the media narrative in the U.S. favored increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, bending the public opinion in favor of the same. Understanding the national catastrophe waiting in the wings if lives and scarce national resources were wasted on a military "fix" to a political problem, Brave New Foundation launched Rethink Afghanistan.

By Peter Van Buren

Originally posted at TomDispatch.com

Some images remain like scars on my memory. One of the last things I saw in Iraq, where I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to “reconstruct” that country, were horses living semi-wild among the muck and garbage of Baghdad. Those horses had once raced for Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein and seven years after their “liberation” by the American invasion of 2003, they were still wandering that unraveling, unreconstructed urban landscape looking, like many other Iraqis, for food.

Republican U.S. Sens. John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham are back on the road today in Nevada to do the bidding of Pentagon contractors. 

By Nick Turse

Originally posted at TomDispatch.com.

In the 1980s, the U.S. government began funneling aid to mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan as part of an American proxy war against the Soviet Union. It was, in the minds of America’s Cold War leaders, a rare chance to bloody the Soviets, to give them a taste of the sort of defeat the Vietnamese, with Soviet help, had inflicted on Washington the decade before. In 1989, after years of bloody combat, the Red Army did indeed limp out of Afghanistan in defeat. Since late 2001, the United States has been fighting its former Afghan proxies and their progeny. Now, after years of bloody combat, it’s the U.S. that’s looking to withdraw the bulk of its forces and once again employ proxies to secure its interests there.

This resource page was produced by the Project on Government Oversight and allies. Please share in an effort to combat spin coming from the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex about potential cuts to the Pentagon's budget.

In their campaign to stop reductions in Pentagon spending and protect their profits, big defense contractors are spending millions on studies, rallies, and lobbying Congress with the false claim that defense cuts will result in the loss of more than one million American jobs. But Pentagon contractors’ threats to send layoff notices to thousands of employees in the days preceding the Presidential election are political stunts. The public has a right to know the truth behind the rhetoric and fear mongering.

By Michael T. Klare

Originally posted at TomDispatch.com.

The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America’s counties designated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions. This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported U.S. grains.

War Costs has pointed out before the moaning, groaning and outright deception coming from defense industry titans like Lockheed Martin -- and their defenders on Capitol Hill -- over planned defense cuts, supposedly a menace their companies cannot survive if you believe their rhetoric. They attempt to paint themselves as victims of sequestration put in motion by the Budget Control Act of 2011, voted for by the likes of Sen. John McCain, who hit the road last week with other senators to scare swing states about possible job losses as a consequence of the planned cuts he helped put into motion.

That the revolving door between the U.S. government, both the executive or legislative branches, and the defense industry is alive and well is no secret. But chalk another one up for Capitol Hill. In addition to a top Northrop Grumman official joining the House Armed Services Committee in 2011 (after receiving a lucrative severance bonus on his way out) to oversee the very same weapons systems he lobbied for, now it's the Senate Armed Services Committee's turn.

As Business Insider notes, one of the Pentagon's latest contracts will deliver $171.4 million to Russian state-controlled arms dealer Rosoboronexport, lead supplier of weapons to the brutal regime in Syria.

As Robert Greenwald and I pointed out in our latest post, the defense industry and their protectors are turning out en masse this week to oppose defense cuts planned to take effect Jan. 2, 2013. One of those protectors -- actually, THE protector on Capitol Hill -- is House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.). McKeon called on industry leaders to testify today in front of the committee to warn of the job losses and other stresses the industry faces if the cuts happen. 

You know it's a big moment for defenders of the United States' bloated military budget when some of the all-time superstars of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex descend on Capitol Hill to fight for their perceived right to profit.

Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films & Eli Clifton, Think Progress.org join Thom Hartmann on The Big Picture. An American soldier kills 16 unarmed Afghan civilians. How will this rampage affect US-Afghan relations – and is it time we withdraw from the country altogether? Plus – a twist to this story that should leave us all concerned about the mental health of our soldiers

Robert Greenwald discusses Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s decision to withdrawal combat troops from Afghanistan by 2013. Robert and host Lila Garrett then talk about the possibility of another war, this time with Iran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTLZA1FpTFc&feature=player_embedded

Robert Greenwald and Ed Schultz discuss the recent decision by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that combat troops in Afghanistan will come home a year earlier. The two then dive into what the future holds for Afghanistan after combat troops leave and how Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney needs to get educated about the Afghanistan war.

By RT.com | February 2, 2012

Derrick Crowe, of the non-profit Brave New Foundation, believes years of public pressure on American officials are “starting to break through.”

“Sixty-three percent of Americans oppose the war outright, and 58 of them want troops brought home as soon as possible,” he told RT. “And given the very dim prospects for a military fist strategy, I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do.”

Click here for the full story.

by MSNBC The Ed Show Blog

The war is over…finally!

After nearly nine years, 4,500 American dead, 32,000 wounded and more than $800 billion, U.S. officials yesterday formally shut down the war in Iraq — a conflict that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRB6pdOOQz8&feature=player_embedded

Robert Greenwald joins Ed Schultz on his radio show to discuss the end of the Iraq War, but who won?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ng7AIoag0&feature=player_embedded

The Iraq War is officially ending, but was it a success? Perhaps if you’re a war profiteer…Cenk Uygur and Robert Greenwald discuss on Current TV’s The Young Turks.