Robert P. Murphy discusses the "boom and bust" business cycle and what exacerbates it; why the Federal Reserve - with a primary mandate of ensuring price stability - is a demonstrable failure; how Ron Paul popularized the Austrian school of economics and removed the aura of infallibility from Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke; why we shouldn't focus solely on the Fed - lest we forget the pernicious roles of big banks and insurance companies; whether Bernanke is an academic doggedly...
10/21/11 – Nick Baumann – The Scott Horton Show
Nick Baumann, news editor at Mother Jones, discusses his article “Locked Up Abroad—for the FBI;” US citizen Gulet Mohamed’s secretive “proxy detention” in Kuwait where he was beaten and interrogated for weeks, apparently at the US government’s behest; other individuals subject to “rendition-lite;” and how to hold the government accountable when the state secrets privilege functions as a “get out of court free” card and the Department of Justice is asleep at the switch.
What Neoconservatives Think
Elliot Abrams’ wife (and as Glenn Greenwald points out, central figure in the neocon family) Rachel Abrams on the release of Gilad Shalit: 'Celebrate, Israel, with all the joyous gratitude that fills your hearts, as we all do along with you. 'Then round up [Shalit’s] captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women””those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their...
10/20/11 – Grant F. Smith – The Scott Horton Show
Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses his article “Americans Pay Dearly to Maintain Israel’s Nuclear Secrets;” the Army Corps of Engineers’ $170 million cleanup project at NUMEC, a Pennsylvania nuclear facility that diverted uranium to Israel in the 1960s; why the CIA still won’t release documents on NUMEC (and the agency knows plenty about it), even to aid the cleanup effort; the juvenile stupidity of “strategic...
10/20/11 – Patrick Cockburn – The Scott Horton Show
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses Moammar Gadhafi’s death and NATO’s “mission accomplished” in Libya; why the rebel factions will have to find a new cause to rally around, or else face divisions and infighting; why the Arab spring is a genuine grassroots movement, not a CIA-engineered series of color coded revolutions; and having to rely on human rights NGOs for reports critical of Libya’s NTC, since the media doesn’t do its own investigations or...
10/19/11 – Anthony Gregory – The Scott Horton Show
Anthony Gregory, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, discusses the arguments bound to convince social conservatives that ending the War on Drugs – if not outright legalization – is the best course of action; why a free society would choose family/community solutions to social problems (like drug addiction) instead of creating a police state that makes everything worse; getting the federal government out of the drug business and letting states regulate, like they do with alcohol and...
10/19/11 – Pepe Escobar – The Scott Horton Show
Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses his article “Obama, the king of Africa” about the US military commitment in Uganda and surrounding countries, supposedly to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army; the terrible human rights record of Uganda’s government (even worse than the LRA); the strange African brew of neo-colonialism, tinpot dictators, pipeline routes and JSOC outposts; the great game of mineral and energy extraction playing out between countries like...
10/19/11 – Scott Horton – The Scott Horton Show
The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses the double standard wherein the US can assist in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists but the very idea of reciprocity (via a dubious plot) is beyond the pale; the skeptical accounts of the Iranian assassination “plot” in the European press, especially compared to the credulous US media; the hardliners in Congress pushing for mandatory military custody...
10/18/11 – Flynt Leverett – The Scott Horton Show
Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses the Iran uranium swap negotiations in 2009-10; a reminder that the Tehran Research Reactor was supplied by the US in the 1960s, and reconfigured after the 1979 revolution to use far-less enriched uranium (reducing weapons proliferation risks); how the initial swap offer by the US asked Iran to hand over its low-enriched uranium, with no collateral, and trust France to provide fuel rods a...
10/18/11 – Andrew Cockburn – The Scott Horton Show
Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses his article “Search and destroy: The Pentagon’s losing battle against IEDs;” the $70 billion “Manhattan Project” to combat $20 homemade landmines – that remain as effective as ever; how the military rejects cheap low-tech solutions and keeps the cash flowing to defense contractors; and the battle of wits between a Taliban bomb-maker and an American explosive ordnance technician.
10/18/11 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show
Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses a couple alternative explanations of the Iranian assassination plot, both more sensible than the official government story; why Iran would essentially commit national suicide by conducting a terrorist attack in Washington DC; the system of incentives for law enforcement agents and informants to play up any terrorism angle; prosecuting the CIA officials who lied to National Security Advisor Richard Clarke, in order to get the big fish in the Bush...
10/18/11 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show
Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses his post “Impasse: US Says No Breakthrough in Iraq Talks;” the disagreement on prosecutorial immunity for US soldiers remaining in Iraq; envisioning a State Department-led occupation run out of the world’s largest (and expanding) embassy; the big increase in US troop casualties in Afghanistan during the Obama administration’s tenure; the legendary corruption in all levels of the Afghan government; and why a US military excursion in...
10/17/11 – Jack Hunter – The Scott Horton Show
Jack Hunter discusses Ron Paul's plan for one trillion dollars in federal spending cuts; why the rest of the Republican candidates won't dare to touch Pentagon spending; why skeptics of government pronouncements about the economy nevertheless immediately believe lies in the foreign policy realm; how the "get government off your back" Republicans from the 1990s discovered their love of dictatorships and swapped their Jesus paintings for Dick Cheney portraits during the Bush administration;...
10/17/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article “US Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims;” piling on the propaganda to pass more punitive sanctions and further isolate Iran (but not start a war apparently); why the government would surely have recorded damning conversations between Manssor Arbabsiar and the DEA informant – if the plot was even remotely real; why the FBI’s real target was Iranian Quds force deputy commander Abdul...
10/17/11 – John Glaser – The Scott Horton Show
John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the latest US war, this time battling the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and neighboring countries; the loss of any objective criteria from the term “national interest;” propping up friendly African dictators who agree to take on the burden of US demands, like fighting Al-Shabab in Somalia; the previous disastrous attempts to fight the LRA; how AFRICOM’s rapid expansion will get the US bogged down in more interminable, unwinnable wars;...
