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Scott interviews Trita Parsi about the ongoing talks between the Trump administration and Iran. While the talks appear to have some momentum at the moment, Parsi is cautious about getting too optimistic. He and Scott analyze the situation and reflect on the broader regional context.  

Discussed on the show:

• “On Iran, Trump Should Resist the Zero-Enrichment Fantasy” (The American Conservative) 
• Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi

Trita Parsi is the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Parsi is the recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Follow him on Twitter @tparsi

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Incorporated; Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott.

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Scott interviews Tana Ganeva about her recent article detailing the death of a woman due to medical neglect in one of America’s worst private jails. Holly Barlow-Austin, an HIV patient, was detained for violating probation starting in April, and within a few short months of brutal neglect, had died. Ganeva hopes to bring attention to this story and others like it through her reporting on private prisons and corrupt police departments.

Discussed on the show:

• “In April, She Was Jailed on a Probation Violation. By June, She Was Dead.” (Reason)

Tana Ganeva is a reporter covering criminal justice, drug policy, immigration, and politics. Follow her on Twitter @TanaGaneva.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Nassar Arrabyee discusses the war in Yemen, where the Trump administration is now approaching four years of continued support for Saudi Arabia in their war of genocide against the Yemeni population. The UN estimates that close to a quarter of a million civilians have died there since Obama helped start this war, and Arrabyee says that with all the excess deaths from malnutrition and deprivation, there is good reason to believe that that number is much higher. Scott reminds us that the war in Yemen differs from other modern wars in the Middle East in that in most of America’s wars, civilians are just tragic collateral damage—in Yemen, on the other hand, deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure has been the strategy all along.

Discussed on the show:

• “War Crime Risk Grows for U.S. Over Saudi Strikes in Yemen” (The New York Times)
• “Saudi Arabia announces more than $200 million in UN aid funding to Yemen” (CNN)
• “Yemen war dead could hit 233,000 by 2020 in what UN calls ‘humanity’s greatest preventable disaster’” (The Independent)

Nasser Arrabyee is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a, Yemen. He is the owner and director of yemen-now.com. You can follow him on Twitter @narrabyee.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Joe Lauria comments on the last few days of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. He notes a movement on the part of the prosecution away from their previous tack, which was to argue that Assange was not really a journalist, but actually engaging in hacking and intelligence himself. By establishing that, they may have been able to avoid the obvious problem that the prosecution of Assange could create a precedent for the prosecution of any news organization that published classified documents. The British prosecution may have realized that this strategy was not working because of the obvious double standard it relied on. Instead, they are continuing to hit Assange with the charge that he deliberately revealed the names of confidential informants. Again, Lauria explains, the reality is that Assange worked very hard to redact such informants before Wikileaks released them—much harder, in fact, than mainstream news outlets did when publishing the same information. Assange even went to the U.S. government for help in knowing what was important to redact in the name of national security, but the government refused to help. To claim wrongdoing on Assange’s part now, says Lauria, is the height of hypocrisy.

Discussed on the show:

• “Daily Video Report on Assange Hearing–Day 9” (Consortium News)
• Hit & Run
• “State Department Cables” (WikiLeaks)
• “Baghdad War Diary” (WikiLeaks)
• “Kabul War Diary” (WikiLeaks)
• WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy
  
• Iraq Body Count
• A Political Odyssey
  
• “Schenck v. United States” (Oyez)

Joe Lauria is the editor-in-chief at Consortium News. He is a former UN correspondent and wrote at the Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal. You can follow him on Twitter @unjoe.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Ted Snider comes back for an update on the recent round of “peace deals” conducted by President Trump over the last few weeks. Now Bahrain has joined the normalization agreement between the U.S., Israel and the UAE, a move that Trump and his allies are hailing as unprecedented, but which Snider believes is a great deal of fanfare with very little substance. For one thing, he reminds us that these countries can’t declare peace, since they were not at war; they’ve already been at peace for decades. These deals amount to a public announcement of policies that in practice have been in place for a long time—this is simply an opportunity for the leaders of these countries to get some positive PR. Snider says that on the other hand, we have to consider what this means for the Palestinians, whose cause was long championed by Arab nations that refused to negotiate with Israel until the Palestinian situation had been addressed. These deals also promise a great deal of American weaponry to our allies, which will only serve to ratchet up tensions with Iran, against whom this posturing is obviously directed.

Discussed on the show:

• “Peace Plans That Have Nothing To Do With Peace” (Antiwar.com Original)
• “What’s in the Israel/UAE Agreement? Here’s Five Things That Aren’t” (Antiwar.com Original)
• “Israel Asks US for $8 Billion in Warplanes for ‘Qualitative’ Edge” (News From Antiwar.com)

Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in U.S. foreign policy and history. He is a regular writer for Truthout, MondoWeiss and antiwar.com.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Kevin Gosztola is back for an update on Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. He describes the great line-up of witnesses being summoned by Assange’s defense team and how easily, for the most part, they’ve been able to dismantle the arguments from the prosecution. It’s unclear, however, how effective any kind of reasoned argument about the facts will be, given that we know this whole hearing has been conducted on political grounds from the beginning. The case the U.S. government wants to bring against Assange is based on the conspiracy theory that he deliberately directed Chelsea Manning to steal classified information, and the attempt to brand Wikileaks not as a journalistic organization, but as a hostile intelligence agency. Gosztola reminds us what kind of a precedent this could set: if the grounds for Assange’s extradition are that he, an Australian citizen living in Britain, revealed U.S. government secrets, then could any country extradite anyone for publishing something their government didn’t like? This, Gosztola and Scott agree, is a truly terrifying prospect.

Discussed on the show:

• “9/11/20 Clive Stafford Smith on Julian Assange’s Political Show Trial” (The Libertarian Institute)
• War in the Age of Trump

Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “Unauthorized Disclosure.” Follow him on Twitter @kgosztola.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Scott and Gareth Porter continue their ongoing conversation about President Trump’s foreign policy so far. Porter focuses first on Iran, which has become the ultimate excuse for just about every foreign policy decision over the last decade. In reality, of course, Iran is basically irrelevant to the security of the United States, and isn’t, says Porter, even much of a threat to America’s allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. But in the perception of the neocon establishment, Iran is the greatest enemy since Nazi Germany, and must be opposed at every turn no matter how destructive and quixotic the endeavor. Porter and Scott then discuss Trump’s attitude toward China, where, unlike in the Middle East, he really does appear to have bought into all the hawkish propaganda. This hostility toward China has resulted, among other things, in the failure of the peace talks with North Korea, a process that Porter and Scott agree every sane person should have viewed as a good thing.

Discussed on the show:

• “9/5/20 Gareth Porter on Trump’s First Term Foreign Policy Record” (The Libertarian Institute)
• “The Redirection” (The New Yorker)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state. He is the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare and, with John Kiriakou, The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis. Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth’s previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Arthur Bloom talks about a recent piece from The American Conservative, which exposes the case of a prolific and well-known anti-Iran opinion columnist who turned out not to be a real person. “Amir Basiri,” who wrote dozens of pieces for mostly right-leaning publications advocating for war with Iran, turns out to have been nothing more than a pseudonymous figurehead for the Mujahideen-eKhalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident exile group. The MEK has been described as a communist terrorism cult, but in recent years has found favor with the likes of Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton because of their utility in advancing an anti-Iran narrative in America.

Discussed on the show:

• “Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn’t Actually Exist” (The American Conservative)
• “Is Heshmat Alavi, Writer on Iran, a Fake Run By MEK Opposition?” (The Intercept)

Arthur Bloom is managing editor of The American Conservative. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Guardian, and many other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @j_arthur_bloom.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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Journalist Ford Fischer discusses his coverage of the various armed factions taking to the streets in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, and amid broader calls for police reform. The mainstream media typically paints a black-and-white narrative: on one side are left-leaning, antiracist, mostly peaceful protestors, and on the other are right-leaning, racist, armed militia groups whose presence only makes things more dangerous. But Fischer has made the rather surprising discovery that there are plenty of left-wing pro-gun activist movements, some of which explicitly call themselves militias. These groups have also been involved in the protests, usually in an effort at peaceful protection of the right to assemble, just like the right-wing groups are. And on the issue of gun control, both sides are largely in agreement. In a few cases, such groups have even held unity rallies, promoting their shared causes rather than focusing on what divides them. The corporate media, unfortunately, doesn’t want people to see this side of America, and so relentlessly ignores it.

Ford Fischer is co-founder and Editor in Chief of News2Share, an independent media outlet based in Washington, D.C. Follow his work on Twitter @FordFischer and @N2Sreports.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1Ct2FmcGrAGX56RnDtN9HncYghXfvF2GAh.

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