This interview is excerpted from the September 9 KPFK Los Angeles radio broadcast. The entire show can be heard here. Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California, discusses new accusations — from the NCRI (or MEK) terrorist group — that Iran is building secret nuclear enrichment facilities near Tehran, the moderate interpretation of the accusations from the usually-alarmist Institute for Science and International Security,...
09/08/10 – Matthew Harwood – The Scott Horton Show
Washington DC-based writer Matthew Harwood discusses the RAND Corporation’s study — commissioned by the Army War College — that recommends a hybrid 'Stability Police Force' to supplement U.S. military actions abroad, the placement of non-deployed SPF 'police' in the U.S. Marshal’s Service to avoid conflicts with the Posse Comitatus Act, the blurred line between rules of engagement for the military and civilian police and how the addition of yet another tool for foreign intervention effectively...
09/08/10 – Jeremy Sapienza – The Scott Horton Show
Jeremy Sapienza, Senior Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the doublethink required to reconcile the 'Iraq War is over' pronouncement with the 50,000 remaining troops, winning the fight against Wikipedia’s Iraq War entry (and why this reversal further proves the print media business model is dead) and U.S. interference in Somalia before and after the 'Black Hawk Down' disaster.
09/07/10 – Michael German – The Scott Horton Show
Michael German, Policy Counsel for the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office and former FBI Special Agent, discusses FBI management's rigorous attention to public relations and persecution of internal whistleblowers, broad 9/11 intelligence failures across all agencies, the unnecessary division of FBI functions into a semi-transparent and accountable criminal justice half and a completely unaccountable intelligence half, the high conviction rate of terrorism prosecutions in federal courts and...
09/07/10 – Winslow T. Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project, discusses the Pentagon's trillion dollar budget, rapidly increasing costs that have delayed much-needed repairs/replacements of aging military equipment, the post-9/11 rejuvenation of incompetent Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and how construction of new Virginia-class submarines is spread out in the interest of inefficiency and Congressional pork.
09/06/10 – Kathy Kelly – The Scott Horton Show
Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare), discusses the 'Creech 14' activists awaiting trial for protesting U.S. military drone strikes in AfPak, the obligation of citizens to speak out against government breeches of international law and why targeted assassinations create more security problems than they solve.
09/06/10 – Michael O’Brien – The Scott Horton Show
Michael O'Brien, author of America's Failure in Iraq, discusses the media's focus on troop escalations while ignoring the larger private contractor surges, the ease of starting wars and keeping them going since Congress abdicated its Constitutional responsibility, the inexcusable failures of the Coalition Provisional Authority and Paul Bremer, the primary purposes of contractors in Iraq: generate billable hours and stay alive, the critical questions not asked in the Fox News poll about U.S....
09/03/10 – Will Grigg – The Scott Horton Show
Will Grigg, author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses the consequence of successfully resisting law enforcement: escalation of state violence until you are destroyed, cop priorities that place self preservation far ahead of 'protect and serve,' the double standards of when a taser gun is considered a deadly weapon and why it is no longer a source of pride for a cop never to have drawn his firearm.
09/03/10 – Josh Ruebner – The Scott Horton Show
Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, discusses burning his Israeli military deferment papers in protest, reasons to be skeptical of the newest attempt at Israel-Palestinian peace talks, the unfair foundation for negotiations that requires equal concessions from drastically unequal partners, why the U.S. never uses its substantial leverage to influence Israel’s policy and how the 500,000 West Bank settlers may have established enough 'facts...
09/03/10 – Scott Horton – The Scott Horton Show
The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Harper's magazine, discusses spreading American ideas through education instead of with bombs, democratic growing pains (or death throes) in the Kyrgyz Republic, how the wide ideological divisions in the Cold War have since converged in a mash-up of state capitalism and authoritarianism, the strident nationalism of Vladimir Putin and Dick Cheney and why a one-world government is not a realistic...
09/03/10 – Eric Margolis – The Scott Horton Show
Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the appalling lack of knowledge displayed by the U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan, how Americans are too uneducated and impatient to rival the British Empire's colonial skills, the problem with exporting democracy to Muslim countries whose people are more concerned with justice, economic advisers hard at work making Afghanistan's banks as insolvent as America's and how...
09/02/10 – Patrick Cockburn, Michael Hastings and Andy Worthington – The Scott Horton Show
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 – 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.
