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Daniel Davis joined Scott on Antiwar Radio to discuss the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive. Davis has been closely monitoring what’s happening on the ground. He shares where things stand and what it likely means for the wider war. 

Discussed on the show:

• “Ukraine’s Big Offensive” (19fortyfive.com)

Daniel Davis did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the army. He is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities and is the author of the reports “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort” and “Go Big or Go Deep: An Analysis of Strategy Options on Afghanistan.” Find him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott.

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Kathy Kelly, coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, discusses her impending 3-month prison sentence for carrying a loaf of bread across a line while protesting the US drone war at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

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Douglas Lucas, a writer at WhoWhatWhy.org, discusses “hacktivist” journalist Barrett Brown’s sentencing hearing, that could get him 8 1/2 years in prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act among other questionable charges.

Transcript:

SH: Hey Douglas how are you doing?

DL: Hey I’m fine. The Government has claimed – I mean prosecutor Heath has claimed quote ‘The Government did not prosecute Mr Brown for political purposes’, the judge has stated quote, ‘What took place is not going to chill any first amendment expression by any journalist’ and this is all absolutely fucking insane. I don’t even know where to begin with this shit

SH: Whoa careful with those … if you can

DL: The obscenities?

SH: Yeah

DL: Okay

SH: Go ahead though

DL: Okay. The prosecution is convinced and has stated that Brown has been trafficking in stolen data. Heath actually said, the prosecution actually said quote, ‘You can traffic in things that have been public or available to other people’, whereas the defense has argued quote, ‘ You cannot traffic something that is in the public domain’, he didn’t traffic in any credit card information, he posted a link and so what is going on here is that the government doesn’t like people linking to information that they do not want people to know.
Brown told me he did not know what was in the file that the link led to, and sure, you know, credit card data is problematic, you know, you don’t want that widespread and everything but this is really about control over the internet and it’s ability to further our knowledge – to link us to all sorts of information.

There was a question in the court about what, the defense attorneys twist (unclear) what’s going to happen when a reporter wants to link to thousands of pages of documents – does he have to know every single word that is in there and he’s liable for them all?
And I think the government would really love that to be the outcome because you know Wikileaks and everything – mass sets of cables – the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, and everything else. The authorities want to shut that down lest they be faced with a populist – or people not falling their propaganda any further, and becoming disenchanted with the idea of simply voting for these guys is going to bring at least a little mercy to the domination – instead of begging them to be nicer – it’s wrong.

SH: In your tweet here Douglas you say that it appears that he will be hit with the full 8.5 years

DL: Yeah it looks like it

SH: That is just because of the judge’s attitude while the prosecutor talked

DL: Yeah, yeah, yeah

SH: Do you have any thing to say about the judge’s body language while Barrett was reading his allocution there?

DL: He, I wouldn’t go as far as glaring but he looked at Barrett intently like more than concentration, it was just sort of like ‘what is this guy saying?’ and I think that the judge did say stuff about how the picture the defense is trying to paint of Project PM and journalists as being – Project PM being journalistic- the judge claimed that Brown was much more involved in trafficking stolen goods etcetera than the defense wants him to believe. So the judge is not happy with the defense or Browns take on the explanation of this matter in his allocution

SH: Oh man

DL: Regardless whatever his facial expressions were, whether they were poker or what

SH: That’s the best answer, well the worst one, but more substantive one

DL: We’re going back in really soon

SH: I understand you got to go. Thanks very much for your time Douglas,I appreciate it

DL: You’re welcome, any time

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Nebojsa Malic, a regular columnist for Antiwar.com, discusses President Obama’s claim that the US is upholding “the principle that bigger nations can’t bully the small” regarding Russia and Ukraine; and why Ukraine might be deliberately losing military offenses in a bid to gain more US aid and intervention.

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Gareth Porter, an award-winning investigative journalist and historian, discusses the suspicious death of an Argentinian prosecutor who claimed Iran was involved in the 1994 Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires; and what the trial of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling has revealed about Operation Merlin and the CIA’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.

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William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, discusses the extensive list of problems with the “overpriced, underperforming and unnecessary” F-35 combat aircraft.

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Sheldon Richman, vice president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses how to retain individual freedoms while being vigilant against terrorist attacks in his article “The Open Society and its Worst Enemies.”

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Dan Sanchez, director of the Mises Academy, discusses Ludwig von Mises’s lectures on how capitalism empowers people to rise above poverty and servitude through private ownership of the means of production.

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Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer and author of Web of Deceit, discusses how the US’s diplomatic blunders helped start the Gulf War, 24 years ago today; why George H.W. Bush is responsible for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who tried to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein; and how the war continues to shape the Middle East, US foreign policy, and the War on Terror.

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