It was lobbying by big corporations that resulted in the US$700 billion military budget in the United States, Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges told RT.
“There are corporations, even though we are losing the war, that continue to make a lot of money out of this war,” he said. “The stock price of these defense contractors has quadrupled since the war began and they do not give a damn how many Afghans are killed or even how many Americans are killed.”US politicians are basically serving the interests of the corporations in question. “We are ruled by a class of courtiers, who serve the interests of the power elite and they will continue to serve those interests because the price of not serving them is that they are driven out of office,” said Hedges.The war in Afghanistan is fought by morally-dubious methods, he added. “The only language that you speak is the language of violence,” he said. “You begin to lash out every time you leave the perimeter of your bases towards everyone and everything which is seen as hostile.”“You depend on your intelligence for informants and informants in any conflicts such as this are of very dubious moral quality because they are often betraying their own people, carrying out vendettas, telling you that there is Taliban in one village, when in fact there is just a rival clan,” Hedges added.