Plan of neocon axis in Senate to spend $5 trillion on military could destroy US: Ron Paul

Former US presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul says there is a neoconservative axis  in the Senate, made of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, which might destroy America  by increasing the military spending up to five trillion dollars over the next five years.

Paul, the founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, made the remarks on Thursday in an online weekly broadcast, called Ron Paul Liberty Report, which is co-hosted by Daniel McAdams.

Senate Armed Services Chairman McCain has published a 35-page white paper, “Restoring American Power,” in which he says the US military must achieve the capability of waging and winning conventional warfare in three priority theaters — Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

In the paper, the hawkish senator also outlined his plans to counter the new threats of battlefield nuclear weapons, cyber attacks and irregular warfare, which would cost $430 billion more than current plans over five years.

Last month, Congress passed the US military budget of $618.7 billion for the next fiscal year.

“We want to talk about the spending -- there is too much of it,” said Dr. Paul, “but there is a major paper came out just recently from the leader of the neocons in the Senate. You know there is a neocon axis in the Senate made of McCain, Graham, and Cotton.”

“They’re the three top dogs there, and they have declared that we are in great danger, we are going to be attacked, and we are unprepared, we have no weaponry, we don’t spend not enough money, and therefore their proposal [is] simple: ‘five trillion dollars in next five years just on the military,’” he stated.  

“’Rebuild the military!’ sounds like Donald Trump might like that. He has been arguing the case. These guys are neocons. I don’t think Trump has earned the title. And how this does come together, which will be interesting,” he noted.

“But five trillion dollars is what they want to spend to rebuild the military, claiming that we are in great danger, and that we have to be prepared to fight three wars at a time,” Dr. Paul said.

On his turn, McAdams said that “the real question what we have when coming up with this topic is on the one hand Donald Trump has been saying that we need to rebuild our military. He has been critical of some weaponry but overall he says we need to rebuild the military.”

“Will this be a way of healing the wounds? I mean McCain and Trump have not been friends, not in the slightest. Will this be where they come together?” he asked.

“And if so who will be the big enemy because Trump has talked about wanting to have better relationships with Russia? How do you justify having such a huge military,” he wondered.  

Dr. Paul responded that he does not think that “the military or militarism is going to be diminished in the Trump administration because we have a couple of generals there that are there for a purpose.”

“They are also influenced as usual by those individuals in the weapons industry, and they talk to them all the time,” he noted.

“When they talk about these weapons, making America strong again and this is what we need, do they ever look at the other side of the equation?” the veteran political commentator asked.

“Maybe financially it is going to destroy us, and that’s how most empires end anyway,” he observed. “But they really don’t talk about that.”

Dr. Paul, whose son, Senator Rand Paul, ran for president in 2016, has maintained strong positions against the military-industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, each of which he considers responsible for many of the ills afflicting the United States.

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