Trita Parsi discusses President Trump’s recent announcement of a troop withdrawal from Iraq. Parsi is hesitant to fully endorse this move, explaining that while troop reductions are obviously good, such individual tactical moves, in order to be truly effective, must be part of a larger strategy of peace. Trump, instead, has repeatedly escalated tensions in other regions, even as he withdraws troops elsewhere, with the result that his foreign policy often results in, at best, a net wash for...

Scott talks to Paul Robinson about yet another round of claims that President Trump colluded with Russia to disingenuously win the 2016 election. This time, what’s at issue is a trove of emails from Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort from his time working as a consultant in Ukraine. Manafort’s ties to Ukraine have long been labeled suspect by the Democrats and the corporate media because they supposedly connect him, by extension, to the Russian government. But Robinson explains that while...

Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about his new book, which chronicles his own story of disillusionment with America’s endless wars, in addition to outlining what he believes should be the new attitude of true American patriotism. He calls this type of patriotism “patriotic dissent,” explaining that when one’s country has become an empire of military adventurism founded on lies, the truly patriotic thing to do is to oppose these trends. Part of the way he does so is by offering historical...

Clive Stafford Smith, expert witness in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing, talks about the outrageous scandal that is the U.S. government’s attempted prosecution of Assange and Wikileaks. Smith begins by making the obvious point that as a recipient of classified leaks, and not a leaker himself, Assange is no different than any journalist who writes stories containing classified information. To prosecute Wikileaks, in other words, the government would have to admit that they could prosecute...

Ted Snider discusses the details of the recent “peace deal” between the UAE and Israel. President Trump, who helped broker the deal, has been bragging that this is a groundbreaking normalization of two hostile nations—most likely, says Snider, in an effort to score political points before the election. In reality, Snider explains, Israel and the UAE have had an unofficially friendly relationship for at least a decade, and really going back to the middle of the twentieth century. Champions of...

Scott interviews David Vine about his research into the effects of America’s decades-long wars on terror. Vine and his team have recently estimated that at minimum, 37 million people have been displaced as a direct result of the war on terror, with roughly 8 million of these fleeing across international borders as refugees. He adds, moreover, that at least 800,000 people have been killed just in combat, along with probably 3–4 million more due to deprivation and destruction of infrastructure...

Scott talks to Kevin Gosztola about day two of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. Gosztola covers some of the highlights of the day’s proceedings, including witness testimony for Assange’s defense, the main purpose of which was to emphasize the fact that Assange’s behavior in running Wikileaks is not categorically different from any other journalistic practices as carried out by, say, the New York Times. Gosztola explains that the prosecution’s main strategy seems to be to emphasize these...

Joe Lauria gives an update on Julian Assange’s extradition trial in the UK. The biggest piece of news from day one is that certain media outlets are reporting 17 new charges added to Assange’s indictment, when in reality, there was simply a superseding indictment to add a little bit of new evidence, but which had to restate all of the original charges. Lauria explains that this new indictment is nothing more than a PR move, designed to elicit exactly this kind of false narrative that there’s a...

Scott interviews James Carden about his latest article, which explores the recent return of many prominent neocons to the Democratic Party in opposition to Trump. Carden reminds us that during the 1960s a group of hawkish Democrats moved over to side with the Republicans in response to some of the radical social movements in America at that time, thus founding the neoconservative movement. Now, as we near the end of Trump’s first term, many of them are supporting Biden—and it’s easy to see...

Gareth Porter discusses President Trump’s foreign policy as we near the end of his first term. The story of Trump’s time in office, as everyone knows, has been that despite his sense for the futility and unpopularity of America’s endless wars, he, like Obama before him, hasn’t been able to resist the pressures of the military-industrial complex and actually follow through with ending them. The news in Afghanistan is somewhat positive, where Trump has put Zalmay Khalilzad in charge of...

Scott interviews David Henderson about the threat to the U.S. posed by China’s growing stature as an economic powerhouse. In general, Henderson thinks that such concerns are overblown, citing the real economic figures behind the trade relationship. In particular, he explains the way that losses from outsourcing tend to be concentrated to a few employees in a specific industry, whereas the (much larger) gains to are spread out over a whole population of consumers. This results in a skewed...

Trevor Timm discusses an important new ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which says that the NSA’s mass data-gathering program, famously exposed by Edward Snowden, was illegal all along. It also came out during the court proceedings that not a single act of terrorism was ever prevented by the program. This ruling is a major vindication of Snowden’s decision, and may bring him one step closer to exoneration. Discussed on the show: “James Clapper denies lying to Congress about NSA...

Ramzy Baroud shares the heartbreaking story of Ahmed Amarneh, an engineer who decided to build a home for his family in a network of caves near their town after getting repeatedly denied building permits for a real house by the Israeli government. Now that he has moved his family to the caves, Israel is threatening to demolish the entire cave system. The Amarnehs are not alone, says Baroud—if anything, their story is representative of the general trend of the Israeli government using every...

Gareth Porter debunks a series of bogus incidents in which Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has accused various Lebanese men over the years of being Hezbollah agents attempting to orchestrate terrorist plots all around the world. In each of the cases that Porter explains, false evidence for the possession of ammonium nitrate was used to sell the idea that these men were trying to make bombs. And in the wake of the recent explosion in Beirut, Israel has been selling the old narrative even...

Scott interviews Phil Weiss about the deplorable state of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel policy. Weiss calls Joe Biden the most pro-Israel candidate of all time, which is somewhat ironic given that he’s running against the most pro-Israel president of all time in Donald Trump. Unlike in the Republican base, where support for Israel enjoys near universal popularity, Weiss says that among Democratic voters support for Israel is actually very controversial. Generally the more...