08/18/10 – Sheldon Richman – The Scott Horton Show

Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses Glenn Beck’s hypocrisy (exposed on The Daily Show — starts at 4:00 mark) on the connection between U.S. foreign policy and 9/11, the inability of some Americans to understand that Muslims are not a monolithic group (nor are adherents of other religions) and why the GOP is likely to exploit the 'Ground Zero Mosque' issue right through the November elections.

08/18/10 – Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller – The Scott Horton Show

Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller, voluntaryist activists and co-founders of Liberty on Tour, discuss their cross country travels promoting liberty and a voluntary society, Pete's exposé on the 1985 Philadelphia police crackdown on the MOVE organization, Philly cops using military weapons borrowed from the FBI including machine guns and high explosives and how the fire and police chiefs allowed the fire on the MOVE house (caused from a police-thrown C-4 bomb) to continue until it burned down half...

08/18/10 – Daphne Eviatar – The Scott Horton Show

Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First, discusses the circumstances surrounding Omar Khadr's capture and incarceration in Afghanistan at the age of 15 in 2002, the Military Commissions judge's decision to allow the admissibility of a confession extracted under threat of death, the irony of the U.S. prosecuting Khadr for war crimes while sponsoring amnesty and rehabilitation for child soldiers in Africa, the purging of jurors who had any negative opinion on...

08/18/10 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses John Bolton’s '8 day' countdown to a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, clarifications on the previous day’s interview, more fanciful claims from warmongers that Iranians will be grateful for a regime-changing bombing campaign and whether the Obama administration has the nerve to 'just say no' to Israel.

08/17/10 – Bretigne Shaffer – The Scott Horton Show

Bretigne Shaffer, author of the article 'Saving Women and Preventing Genocide: The Real Reasons We’re in Afghanistan Now,' discusses the ridiculous notion of harmonious societies created by foreign occupation armies, a reminder that Aisha’s mutilation by Taliban decree happened eight years into the 'protective' U.S. occupation, the very real WSJ divide between the editorial and news divisions, the American predilection to take harmful action rather than no action and how economic prosperity is...

08/17/10 – Jon Basil Utley – The Scott Horton Show

Jon Basil Utley, director of Americans Against World Empire, discusses the 'national defense' exception from popular outrage against government waste, conservatives who think government isn’t competent to run a nursery school but is up to running a world empire, why warfare and welfare go hand in hand, the coming VAT that will aid in prolonging the U.S. empire and why the conservative movement is all out of good ideas.

08/17/10 – Will Grigg – The Scott Horton Show

Will Grigg, author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses the loss of 'local' police to a homogeneous federally-funded force designed to fight the war on drugs, how police departments facing budget cuts use asset forfeiture laws to make up the difference, the dramatic change of police portrayals in movies (and the culture’s acceptance of lawbreaking cops at large) following The French Connection and Dirty Harry, how the 'Mosque at Ground Zero' exposed conservatives’ opposition to private property...

Iran Debate

Below is the 2 1/2 hour entirety of that Iran debate at UCR on April 1, 2010. Featured speaker was Reese Erlich. Panelists were Erlich, Larry Greenfield, Christopher Records and myself. The host was Louis Vandenberg. Thanks to Joe Briggs for putting this on his YouTube account. One correction: After this conference, I learned from Syed Saleem Shahzad that the Jundallah that the CIA and JSOC use against Iran is different from the Jundallah that KSM used to be the leader of. However, they are...

08/16/10 – Josh Stieber – The Scott Horton Show

Josh Stieber, conscientious objector and former U.S. Army Specialist, discusses the explicit direct order from Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich (featured in David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers) to open fire on any Iraqis in the vicinity of an IED attack, the 'magic 8-ball' type randomness to daily patrols in 2007 Baghdad, soldiers who resisted or refused orders that imperiled civilians and where veterans and active duty soldiers can find support groups.

08/16/10 – David Finkel – The Scott Horton Show

Washington Post reporter David Finkel, author of The Good Soldiers, discusses his year-long embedded Iraq War reporting in 2007 with Army infantry battalion 2-16, his book’s reliance on first-hand accounts and unclassified information, how the WikiLeaks 'Collateral Murder' video missed the big picture and why the ground-level view of war bears little resemblance to the one imagined in Washington strategy sessions.

08/16/10 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses the overlooked messages that undermine the premise of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Iran fear-mongering article, the recent history of Israel pretending Iran is an 'existential threat' as revealed in Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Alliance and Israel’s (real) intense fear of friendly relations between the U.S. and Iran.

08/12/10 – Stephan Salisbury – The Scott Horton Show

Stephan Salisbury, author of Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland, discusses the 'Mosque at Ground Zero' that is neither a mosque nor at ground zero, how most 'Not in MY NYC' protesters are from out of town and don’t reflect the tolerance of Manhattan residents, the hostile sendoff of NYC cultural center representative Feisal Abdul Rauf on his State Department-sponsored Middle East religious tolerance tour, the deep rooted xenophobia in the U.S. exacerbated by...

08/12/10 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the State Department’s unintentionally hilarious report on global terrorism, the government’s steadfast refusal to see the underlying grievances that motivate terrorist actions, how Congressional Resolution 1553 defers Iran war-making decisions to Israel and how countries designated 'state sponsors of terrorism' are placed on the State Department’s 'ignore' list.

08/12/10 – David Culp – The Scott Horton Show

David Culp, Legislative Representative for the Friends Committee on National Legislation — Quaker Nuclear Disarmament Program, discusses the START Treaty's origin in the Reagan administration, how Senate Republicans and the Heritage Foundation are delaying the latest iteration of START to deprive Obama of a legislative success, the military's preference for conventional rather than nuclear weapons and why the U.S. and Russian arsenals of 2200 deployed missiles each could be greatly reduced and...

08/12/10 – Zack Mellette – The Scott Horton Show

Zack Mellette, cofounder of Give Us Names, discusses his organization's short films that showcase the plight of displaced Colombian farmers, the U.S. creation of multi-billion dollar Plan Colombia in 1998 to continue the failed supply-side War on Drugs, the devastating effect of aerial fumigation on food crops (and lesser effect on the targeted coca plants), the economic incentives for Colombians to grow coca instead of food and the heavily-armed paramilitary groups that seize land and kill...