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Discussed on the show:

• “Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report” (The Grayzone)
• “Israeli army gassed my son ‘like Auschwitz,’ mother of slain Israeli soldier says” (The Grayzone)

Director and writer of “Killing Gaza,” Max Blumenthal is a senior editor of the Grayzone Project and the author Goliath, Republican Gomorrah and The 51 Day War. Follow him on Twitter @MaxBlumenthal.

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

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Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, discusses the $254 billion in inflation-adjusted US aid to Israel since 1949; the pro-Israel think tanks that try to hide Israel’s large share of foreign aid by comparing it to US expenditures and troop deployments in Japan, Germany and South Korea; and why Israel has no real common interests with the US and hasn’t reciprocated like an allied country should.

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Jon Schwarz, a writer for The Intercept, discusses President Trump’s executive order restricting immigration and why most Americans are understandably confused about why “Muslims hate us,” since politicians and the media completely avoid making any link between decades of US invasion, occupation, and sanction of the Middle East and the unavoidable terrorism blowback such a foreign policy generates.

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Mark Perry, author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies, discusses the military philosophy of new national security adviser Lt. General H.R. McMaster, who, as smart and qualified as he is, might not be the best man for the job; and the growing anti-Russia tilt within President Trump’s cabinet that runs counter to his campaign promises to improve relations between the world’s preeminent nuclear powers.

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Brad Hoff, a US Marine veteran and writer on Middle East affairs, discusses the newly declassified CIA document from 1986 entitled “Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change,” that spells out a regime change policy remarkably similar to today’s anti-Assad rhetoric coming out of Washington; and why nobody bothers to consider that the successor to an overthrown secular autocratic state could be even worse – a radical Islamic State, for example.

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George Joseph, an editorial fellow at CityLab, discusses the widespread use of powerful cell phone interception and extraction equipment by police departments, and their collection of phone location data and even the content of texts and calls with devices like “Stingrays” and “Dirtboxes” that vacuum up private information and don’t discriminate between suspected criminals and ordinary people.

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Rick Sterling, an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, discusses the many flaws in Amnesty International’s report accusing the Syrian government of executing thousands of political prisoners in mass hangings. This is AI’s contribution to the West’s propaganda machine that is trying to escalate the war in Syria and push for Assad’s ouster. AI has previously backed up false accusations (the infamous incubator babies) against Iraq in the lead up to the Gulf War and against Libya in 2011 as the US-backed regime change operation progressed.

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Greg Thielmann, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, discusses the Trump administration’s overblown protestations of Iran’s ballistic missile testing; the US government’s tendency to corrupt intelligence reports and exaggerate threats to start conflicts – like the 2003 Iraq War; and why the Iranian nuclear deal is a great diplomatic achievement by both sides and a victory for nuclear non-proliferation advocates.

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Tom Collina, the policy director for Ploughshares Fund, discusses why the Trump administration is planning to spend $100 billion to replace hundreds of old ICBMs deployed across Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming, even though they are part of an outdated ‘nuclear sponge’ plan designed to draw Russian missiles to America’s upper Midwest in the event of nuclear war. Tom goes on to explain why ICBMs don’t make any strategic sense and should be phased out entirely – and why Trump just might be the president who can do it.

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