These interviews are excerpted from the KPFK broadcast of September 2nd. The entire show can be heard here. Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses the embarrassing performance of what was supposed to be an impressive display of U.S. military power in Iraq, the bitter sectarian divide remaining from Iraq’s civil war of 2006-07 and why Kurdish autonomy my be preferable to true independence in the short term. Michael Hastings (audio begins at 19:30), author of...
09/02/10 – Anthony Gregory – The Scott Horton Show
Anthony Gregory, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, discusses his article 'The Persistence of Red-State Fascism' that recalls Lew Rockwell’s 2004 groundbreaking original, how 9/11 removed the last vestiges of libertarian anti-statism from the Republican Party, why the Left should be as obsessive about the entire Bill of Rights as conservatives are about the 2nd Amendment and how war is the state power most diametrically opposed to libertarianism.
09/02/10 – Michael Scheuer – The Scott Horton Show
Michael Scheuer, 22-year veteran of the CIA and former head analyst at the CIA's bin Laden unit, discusses the mostly-unknown motivation for 9/11: bin Laden's 1996 fatwa, the U.S. media's Israel bias that prevents them from explaining the link between terrorism and foreign policy, the 14 missed chances to kill bin Laden from 1998 to 2001 including the Tora Bora escape, why Gen. Petaeus's political ambition and Obama's face-saving guarantee that the failed Afghan War will muddle on, Pakistan's...
09/01/10 – Mike Gogulski – The Scott Horton Show
Mike Gogulski, founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, discusses the successful legal-defense fundraising effort that has landed attorney David Coombs, substantial monetary pledges from Michael Moore and WikiLeaks and the establishment of a mail delivery agreement with the Quantico brig so Manning can read the letters from his many supporters.
09/01/10 – Jason Ditz and Kelley B. Vlahos – The Scott Horton Show
Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz and Kelley B. Vlahos discuss Obama’s substitution of meaningless buzzwords for unpleasant truths in his 'Operation Iraqi Freedom is over' speech, the media’s fixation on Iraq’s 'cell phone index' to measure progress while ignoring water and electricity shortages, why nobody bothers to mention that Iraqi politics are dominated by Shia fundamentalists and how the Iraqi Army State Department will step up as the Pentagon stands down.
09/01/10 – Aaron Glantz – The Scott Horton Show
Aaron Glantz, author of The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans, discusses the U.S. media's eager participation in selling the Iraq War and hyping Colin Powell's infamous U.N. presentation, how Obama made good on troop reductions but is too quick to claim credit for the war's end, increased funding for the VA that has improved care somewhat, the betrayal of soldiers who have killed and died for a war based on lies and how service dogs are used to reduce the epidemic...
08/31/10 – Max Blumenthal – The Scott Horton Show
Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, discusses the religious justifications for killing non-Jews in the 'King’s Torah' by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the tenuous far-right political alliance that makes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hold his tongue on the eve of Palestinian peace talks (lest he have to negotiate land-for-peace), the inclusion of moderate secular Jews on the non-Jew hit list, the seeming triumph of rabbinical law over...
08/31/10 – Haroon Siddiqui – The Scott Horton Show
Haroon Siddiqui, editorial writer for the Toronto Star, discusses Canada’s military role in Afghanistan that is due to end in 2011, why ending foreign wars will stop domestic terrorism, how the U.S. has lost the capacity to do good, the bogus argument of 'we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,' and why the Afghanistan War is a failure by any measure yet continues unabated.
08/31/10 – Robert Naiman – The Scott Horton Show
Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, discusses Obama's commendable follow-through on reducing troop levels in Iraq and (at least rhetorically) standing by the 2011 withdrawal date, the huge increase in troop numbers and casualties in Afghanistan since the Bush administration, the end of finite wars as U.S. foreign policy remains on a permanent war footing and the much-exaggerated death of the antiwar movement.
08/31/10 – Lew Rockwell – The Scott Horton Show
Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses how central banks print fiat money to pay for world wars that would otherwise be impossible to finance, the enormous resources at the U.S. government's disposal to delay an economic reckoning, why WalMart is a net gain to society, the division between those who live off the state and those who support it (albeit unwillingly) and why more super-rich dynastic families are needed to compete for power with the...
08/30/10 – Phyllis Bennis – The Scott Horton Show
Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, discusses the mosque hysteria ginned up to bolster Iraq and Afghan War support, Ground Zero's rhetorical conversion into hallowed ground — encouraging religious fervor and holy war, what Bush should have said and done after 9/11, why the only uncertainty of new Israel/Palestine peace talks is what Obama will do when they fail and how the negotiations are grounded in juvenile conflict resolution...
08/30/10 – Fred Branfman – The Scott Horton Show
Fred Branfman, author of the Alternet article 'Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America’s Military Strategy in the Muslim World,' discusses several common-sense reasons 'why they hate us' (it isn’t our freedom), how the 'McChrystal ratio' exposes the bankruptcy of COIN strategy, the incredibly broad scope — both in number of forces employed and geographic space — of U.S. assassination policy, why (unlike CIA ops) these killings don’t require Presidential approval or reports to Congress,...
08/27/10 – Alexander Abdo – The Scott Horton Show
Alexander Abdo, a Fellow in the ACLU’s National Security Project, discusses the 'new normal' of institutionalized Bush administration lawlessness, why we should expect other countries to mimic U.S. assertions of authority to commit international extrajudicial killings, the government’s failure to cite a legal justification for killing U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, the media disclosures from Leon Panetta and John Brennan about a government hit list of American citizens and why cops now have the...
08/27/10 – Robert Higgs – The Scott Horton Show
Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, discusses the widening gap between public and private sector pay, an increase in affluent military towns, the disappearance of traditional checks on state power and predation and the incremental 'ratchet effect' of governmental authority that increases 'temporarily' during wartime but never fully recedes.
08/27/10 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses Obama’s refusal to declare a 'red line' on Iran’s nuclear program, Robert Gates’s insistence that Iran’s low enriched uranium is tantamount to a nuclear weapon, the abundance of evidence that Obama is not a secret dove and how Gates’s bipartisan tenure allows him to contradict Obama without consequence.
