Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses how Joe Biden was caught talking out both sides of his mouth on the 2014 Afghanistan withdrawal date; how Gen Petraeus is now claiming progress in small and lesser-known Afghan cities after poor performances in Kandahar and Marjah; polls that show a record percentage of Americans dislike the Afghan War (not that it matters); and why Benjamin Netanyahu is displeased at the (relative) infrequency of US military threats against Iran.
01/11/11 – Cynthia Wachtell – The Scott Horton Show
Cynthia Wachtell, author of War No More: the Antiwar Impulse in American Literature 1861-1914, discusses how Romantic literature, which tended to sanitize and idealize war, was unsuitable for portraying the mechanization of modern warfare and the brutal reality of the Civil War; how Julia Ward Howe, writer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, eventually rejected the glorification of war and called for a worldwide woman's movement to advocate for disarmament; how Mark Twain's brief informal...
01/10/11 – Frida Berrigan – The Scott Horton Show
Frida Berrigan, journalist and activist blogger at Witness Against Torture, discusses the Day of Action Against Torture protest starting on Tuesday, Jan. 11, at the White House and Justice Department in Washington; and why Congress, Obama, and the DOJ will continue the perversion of justice at Guantanamo until sufficient political pressure is brought to bear.
01/10/11 – Nima Shirazi – The Scott Horton Show
Nima Shirazi, creator of WideAsleepinAmerica.com, discusses his catalog of the numerous failed predictions — primarily by the US and Israel — of Iran’s imminent creation of a nuclear weapon; how the latest Israeli estimate of a 2015 Iran nuke is explained, not by a longtime mistaken assumption about Iran’s nuclear intentions, but by the effectiveness of sanctions, espionage and assassination; the vastly overstated Iranian 'breakout' capability that could also be ascribed to well over 100 other...
01/10/11 – Tom Engelhardt – The Scott Horton Show
Tom Engelhardt, creator of Tomdispatch.com and author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s, discusses Tomdispatch writer Nick Turse’s updated estimate of just how many US foreign military bases exist; how the official DOD tally omits bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and most of the Persian Gulf; why, in the age of billion dollar embassies and $130 million fuel depots, the US 'empire of bases' is not economically sustainable; and how your stimulus dollars are being used for...
My Speech in Santa Monica 12/16/10: Central Banking and War
01/07/11 – Ali Gharib – The Scott Horton Show
Ali Gharib, New York-based journalist on U.S. foreign policy and LobeLog writer, discusses how American neoconservatives remain the hardest working warmongers around despite Israeli claims of success — via Stuxnet sabotage and assassination of nuclear scientists — in delaying Iran's (alleged) pursuit of nuclear weapons; Jennifer Rubin's venue-change from Commentary to The Washington Post, which <sarcasm alert> finally gets a pro-Israel perspective in mainstream media; and the WikiLeaks...
01/07/11 – Edward Hasbrouck – The Scott Horton Show
There is also a KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles broadcast version of this interview here. Edward Hasbrouck, global traveler, author and privacy advocate, discusses US citizen Gulet Mohamed‘s alleged abduction and torture in Kuwait, and how the US government blocked his return home (and violated international law) by adding him to the no-fly list; the questionable Constitutionality of an extrajudicial no-fly list immune from court challenge; how DHS sifts through extensive travel records (PNRs) and...
01/06/11 – Danny Schechter – The Scott Horton Show
Danny Schechter, executive editor of MediaChannel.org, discusses his new article that revisits journalist Helen Thomas’s career-ending Israel gaffe; how selective quotation from the 'gotcha' clip turned Thomas’s poorly phrased response into 'proof' of her anti-Semitism; the media hit pieces, gloating about Thomas’s exile, that make clear there is little tolerance in Washington for Israel-critics; and Schechter’s firsthand account — while working for ABC News in 1982 — of an Israeli campaign to...
01/05/11 – Fred Branfman – The Scott Horton Show
Fred Branfman, writer for Alternet.org, discusses how the WikiLeaks documents reveal, more than anything else, the 'vast lying machine' of our government and military; why the Cablegate disclosures alone are enough to justify a new Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunal; how US military escalations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are counterproductive when considering (Ret.) Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s 'insurgent math;' and why the US government — not WikiLeaks — is a danger to national security and...
01/04/11 – Eric Margolis – The Scott Horton Show
Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses how the secession of South Sudan could jeopardize the entire African continent's colonial-drawn borders; considerable US influence in South Sudan that almost guarantees the new nation will be yet another American protectorate flush with oil; why controlling the world's oil supplies has been a US foreign policy goal since WWII, when Axis countries were irreparably damaged by fuel supply...
01/04/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses how Gen. James Jones pushed for NATO to take over the Afghanistan occupation, giving the purposeless organization a new raison d'etre; NATO's inability to deal with the Afghan insurgency (that wasn't supposed to happen) after the quick and resounding US ouster of the Taliban; President Bush's willingness to cede control to NATO in order to free up soldiers for his preferred war in Iraq; and how European countries —...
01/04/11 – Greg Mitchell – The Scott Horton Show
Greg Mitchell, author of the Media Fix blog for TheNation.com, discusses his multi-week long effort to provide daily blog updates on WikiLeaks stories; why the few mainstream journalists who aren't openly hostile to WikiLeaks are keeping their mouths shut; the spectacle of Judith Miller scolding WikiLeaks for bad, harmful journalism; Bradley Manning's inhumane treatment in prison; and why the decline in MSM WikiLeaks coverage can be partly contributed to lack of demand, ie: Americans don't...
01/03/11 – Robert Parry – The Scott Horton Show
Robert Parry, founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com, discusses how discredited mainstream journalists like Judith Miller keep getting TV appearances while the reporters who got it right about Iraq, don’t; how the muckraking press corps of yesteryear was replaced by a bevy of sycophantic stenographers; the punishment/reward system for journalists that makes very clear the kind of reporting required for promotions; the infamous pre-Gulf War April Glaspie memo that shows the US took no...
01/03/11 – Grant F. Smith – The Scott Horton Show
Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses how Steven Rosen’s lawsuit disclosures are shining a light on the highly-secretive inner workings of AIPAC; the pro-Israel media’s focus on the 'injury of the United States' part of the Espionage Act while ignoring the 'advantage of a foreign nation' part; why Attorney General Eric Holder would rather prosecute WikiLeaks than AIPAC; Rosen’s violation of court proceeding rules that may...
