Former CIA officer and Antiwar.com contributor Philip Giraldi discusses his new article “Target Iran,” the bogus RAND paper claiming Iran could have a nuke in months and somehow under the IAEA’s nose contrasted with Sy Hersh‘s New Yorker piece on the 2011 NIE, the Ha’aretz article showing more Israeli threats to attack Iran, which would draw in the U.S. timed before September to kill the bid for a Palestinian at the UN.
06/09/11 – Will Grigg – The Scott Horton Show
Will Grigg, blogger and author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses the book Philip Dru: Administrator: A Story of Tomorrow by Col. Edward Mandell House (for which Will wrote the forward), the political operator behind Woodrow Wilson, the book’s proposal for a corporate-state co-administered government, which as House himself boasted “anticipated” Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy, House’s legacy in the FRD administrations and modern Democratic and Republican parties, and Gabriel Kolko’s Triumph of...
06/09/11 – Robert P. Murphy – The Scott Horton Show
Robert P. Murphy, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses the skirting the US debt ceiling, which can continue for a few more months, the GOP's current pretensions of fiscal restraint, why a failure to raise the ceiling doesn't mean default is impending since spending could be cut or govt. assets sold, how missed payments to bond holders would bring a big increase in interest rates, as in greece; debt/gdp ratios and economic death spirals, and the Republicans who converted...
06/08/11 – Peter Van Buren – The Scott Horton Show
Peter Van Buren, former State Department Foreign Service Officer in Iraq, discusses his tomdispatch article “How Not to Withdraw from Iraq;” failing to win hearts and minds in Iraq, despite good intentions; how goodwill infrastructure projects like building schools and drinking water facilities were squandered in a money pit of graft and fraud; Hillary Clinton’s chance to play commander in chief of her own State Department mercenary army; and the two very different tiers of mercenaries...
06/08/11 – Paul Mutter – The Scott Horton Show
Paul Mutter, author of the article “The War Against al-Jazeera” at Foreign Policy in Focus, Sami al-Hajj, the journalist held for years in Guantanamo and questioned for intel on news gathering operations, WikiLeaks release of internal Gitmo documents on Hajj and where we’ve found ourselves after trading liberty for security for the last decade.
06/08/11 – Daphne Eviatar – The Scott Horton Show
Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First, discusses her recent report about the shoddy and lawless process for dealing with detainees at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, the secret JSOC prison nearby, the huge numbers of people swept up in night raids and the many at Bagram arrested on accusations from informers who use US to settle tribal/personal vendettas.
06/08/11 – Anand Gopal – The Scott Horton Show
Independent journalist Anand Gopal discusses the American creation of an unsustainable Afghanistan that’s guaranteed to collapse when US/NATO money stops flowing, anticipating the 2017 date when Afghan troops are trained and they can stand up (after 16 years!), the fact that US strategy still depends on warlords to compete for influence and power with Taliban, the deaths of Saleem Shahzad and Osama bin Laden, the coming major Taliban offensive this summer with spike in violence, and the fact...
06/07/11 – Kelley B. Vlahos – The Scott Horton Show
Kelley B. Vlahos, featured Antiwar.com columnist and contributing editor for The American Conservative magazine, discusses her article “DoD Dodges Deadly Dust Data” about U.S Navy medical researcher Capt. Mark Lyles’s study of Iraq’s toxic dust; Iraq’s unique blend of naturally occurring heavy metals and bacteria with man made toxic burn pits and depleted uranium; the increase of neurological and respiratory illnesses among soldiers, without any definitive studies explaining why (because the...
06/07/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article on Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Slain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served al-Qaeda Strategy;” al-Qaeda’s successful plan to draw the US to Afghanistan and keep them there, slowly bleeding the empire dry like the Soviets before; why Osama bin Laden was never more than a figurehead, while Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri remains the real strategist of al-Qaeda; and how Pakistan’s tribal regions have been radicalized,...
06/07/11 – Ray McGovern – The Scott Horton Show
Ray McGovern, member of Veterans For Peace and former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses his article “Gen. Keane Keen on Attacking Iran;” the US intelligence analysts who stuck to their guns on the 2007 and 2011 Iran NIE‘s, possibly preventing a war; internal division in the Bush administration on Iraq War strategy, with Rumsfeld and the Iraq Study Group (James Baker and Lee Hamilton) advocating drawdown, and Fred Kagan and Gen. Keane promoting a surge; and the changing of the guard in 2007,...
06/07/11 – Robert Higgs – The Scott Horton Show
Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Crisis and Leviathan, discusses his cherished yet under-appreciated chapter 3 in Crisis and Leviathan, about the rational ideological motivation of collective action; beating back the pervasive myth that war stimulates and improves the economy; how the increase in US GDP following massive post-WWII cuts in government spending undermines Keynesian economic theory; and why there is no such thing as free money: government...
06/06/11 – John Lindsay-Poland – The Scott Horton Show
John Lindsay-Poland, research and advocacy director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, discusses his article “Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America;” how using the military to fight the war on drugs only succeeds in increasing the level of violence; the range of options between current drug policy and outright legalization; how the drug crackdown has guaranteed the most ruthless individuals rise to the top of the black market; and the chorus of voices from the...
06/06/11 – David Swanson – The Scott Horton Show
David Swanson, author of War is a Lie, discusses the October 6th event (don’t call it a rally) in Washington’s Freedom Plaza, modeled on Egypt’s Tahrir Square revolution; how to get the MoveOn crowd interested in war/peace issues again, instead of public school lunch menus; and the benefits of bringing our war money home, diverting 1+ trillion/year away from the military industrial complex.
06/06/11 – Hillary Mann Leverett – The Scott Horton Show
Hillary Mann Leverett, former State Department official and co-founder of The Race For Iran, discusses her article “Misrepresenting the Iran-Al-Qa’ida ‘Connection;’” how US hardball diplomacy with Iran squandered an opportunity to acquire al-Qaeda’s “next bin Laden” Saif al-Adel; why the US protected the MEK even though the group was on the State Department’s terrorism list and fought with Saddam’s regime against US troops in Iraq; Iran’s cooperation with the US on terrorism issues (both...
06/06/11 – Eric Margolis – The Scott Horton Show
Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s (permanent?) departure to Saudi Arabia for medical care; the US in damage-control mode in Yemen, protecting the existing power structure as in Egypt; the tribal conflicts and secessionist movements threatening to tear Yemen apart; the dozen or so actual al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula members; how Bahrain crushed internal protests with US and...
