Kevin Gosztola discusses the alarming new developments in the case of Daniel Hale, a whistleblower who helped expose the U.S. military’s secret drone assassination program during the Obama administration. Because it’s so easy to obtain convictions of whistleblowers, Hale recently pled guilty to one of the charges against him, hoping to receive a deal from the court. But now he’s being held, mostly in solitary confinement, in the Alexandria Detention Center, the same facility where Chelsea Manning attempted suicide, and a specific part of the reason a British judge turned down the extradition of Julian Assange to the U.S. earlier this year. Scott and Gosztola lament the irony that America treats whistleblowers who risk their livelihoods for the sake of the American people worse than the worst violent criminals. This treatment was a pattern during the Obama and Trump administrations, and now seems to be continuing under Biden too.

Discussed on the show:

• “Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Detained at Facility Where Chelsea Manning Attempted Suicide” (Shadowproof)
• “Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Jailed Ahead of Sentencing” (The Intercept)
• “The Drone Papers: Secret documents detail the U.S. assassination program” (The Intercept)
• The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program
• Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield
  

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: The War State, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Photo IQ; Green Mill Supercritical; Zippix Toothpicks; and Listen and Think Audio.

Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG.

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PBS Frontline producer Martin Smith explains U.S. Army’s training of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution’s Badr Corps and the problems this creates for the American mission to train a national army before withdrawal, the subject of his upcoming documentary ‘Gangs of Iraq‘ for Frontline.

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Professor of Middle East History Juan Cole explains some of what is going on in Iraq, with an emphasis on Bush’s claims about Iran’s behavior there.

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War. His blog, Informed Comment, is a widely read source for Middle East news and commentary.

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Professor Gabriel Kolko discusses the catastrophic post World War II American Empire along the lines covered in his book The Age of War: The United States Confronts the World: the phony Cold War against the USSR, attempted domination of the third world, the Military Industrial Complex’s permanent function in the American economy, the true purpose and fate of the NATO alliance, and the coming destruction — on way or another — of America’s global position.

Gabriel Kolko is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?

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James Bovard, author of The Farm Fiasco, The Fair Trade Fraud, Shakedown: How the Government Screws You from A to Z, Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years, Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil, The Bush Betrayal and Attention Deficit Democracy, discusses the war, torture, unlimited executive power, lies, complacency, ignorance, the impending war against Iran.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy (St. Martin’s/Palgrave, 2006), and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, War Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. He is a contributing editor for the American Conservative and a frequent contributor to Freedom Daily.

The War Street Journal called Bovard ‘the roving inspector general of the modern state,’ and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a ‘one-man truth squad.’ His 1994 book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty received the Free Press Association’s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association.

His writings have been been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.

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Why did America invade Iraq?

Oil? Israel? ”¦

Jets, bombs and taxed dollars.

So says Richard Cummings as he explains the story behind his Playboy.com article ‘Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels‘: the direct role in policy-making played by Lockheed Martin and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex and the amount of money they loot from the U.S. Treasury.

Also discussed: whether the National Review is a CIA front.

Richard Cummings taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of The Immortalists, The Pied Piper — Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

Time out to say thank you to all who have supported Antiwar.com and have sent in their compliments on the new radio project!

If you enjoy the interviews, lend a hand: Digg it, send an email to a friend and post a blog at your place. Then, before you know it, War Party radio will be obsolete.

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Announcing the addition of the great Charles Goyette to Antiwar Radio at Antiwar.com!

Charles was fired by Clear Channel and hired by Air America for his opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He is known as the ‘most independent talk show host in America’ and now hosts the morning show on the 50,000 watt KFNX AM 1100 in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Nuclear Physicist Dr. Gordon Prather explains that there’s no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program and that the people who yell to the contrary are full of it, just as they were in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

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Break out the popcorn!:

Antiwar.com editorial director, Justin Raimondo, explains the importance of the trial of Dick Cheney(‘s former chief of staff Scooter Libby). And why it will be so much fun to watch the criminals who run this government destroy each other.

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