Doug Bandow talks about the legacy of the war in Libya, which many Americans seem already to have forgotten. Bandow says Qaddafi was supposed to be the test case for a dictator agreeing to U.S. terms of peaceful nuclear disarmament. Instead, as soon as he disarmed...
Trita Parsi explains why he thinks that President Trump’s clear signal that he doesn’t want to go to war with Iran has sent a message to American allies like Saudi Arabia that they should now pursue diplomacy instead of war. Some assume that without a...
Ryan McMaken discusses his recent articles for the Mises Institute about the future of U.S. dollar hegemony. He walks us through the dollar’s history as global reserve currency, which began in the mid 20th century as an alternative to a direct gold standard. Still,...
Scott talks to Andy Worthington about Guantanamo Bay, where dozens of prisoners are still detained without charges under suspicion of involvement in terrorism. Worthington reminds us that President Obama campaigned on closing the prison, but quickly gave up after...
Grant Smith discusses his new book, The Israel Lobby Enters State Government, which tells the scandalous story of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, a branch of the Virginia state legislature tasked with promoting Israeli business interests in the state. Unlike a...
Gareth Porter joins Scott once again to discuss what he calls Mike Pompeo’s “Gulf of Tonkin incident.” In the real Gulf of Tonkin incident, McNamara intentionally misled President Johnson in order to incite war between the U.S. and North Vietnam. Porter says that...
Cliff Maloney of Young Americans for Liberty talks about the disaster of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and how to bring more Americans around to the antiwar position. Luckily, he says, a great majority of people already oppose the wars in Iraq and...
Scott talks to Robert Naiman about the efforts in congress and the senate to oppose the war in Yemen and stymie any escalation in a conflict with Iran. Naiman is optimistic that a concurrent resolution against the war in Yemen, which Trump cannot veto, will have...
Francis Boyle explains why President Trump should be impeached—not for the charges of corruption and abuse of power in Ukraine, but for his war crimes in continuing the aggressive wars of the Bush and Obama administrations. Boyle thinks that Trump’s behavior with...
Scott talks to Matthew Hoh about the claim that General Soleimani and the Iranians were directly responsible for 600 American deaths in the war in Iraq, which supposedly would justify the general’s recent assassination by President Trump. Hoh explains that although...
Patrick Cockburn discusses the recent killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani at an airport in Baghdad. Cockburn is surprised by the boldness of the move, and thinks Iran will respond, though not necessarily in a dramatic or immediate way. More likely, he says,...
Scott talks with Brett Murphy about his recent USA Today article exposing a disastrous U.S. military raid in 2008 that killed 60 Afghan children. The U.S. government tried to cover up the incident and paint it as a perfect success, so it was not until now that Murphy...
Mustafa Akyol talks about his latest New York Times op-ed, which describes a backlash among the people of the Muslim world to some of the political extremism that has recently become common in the Middle East. Scott and Akyol rehash the history of radical Islamist...
Peter Van Buren talks about the unlearned lessons from America’s last several decades of foreign policy failures. Although a presidential administration will occasionally make a blunder that results in something like ISIS or the empowerment of Iran, for the most part,...
Tim Shorrock discusses the negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea. Shorrock explains why the strategy pursued by American neocons—and therefore President Trump’s cabinet—of crushing economic sanctions until North Korea agrees to complete denuclearization, and a...
Lyle J. Goldstein talks about the need for Russia and Ukraine to get along better, and in general for Europe to handle more of its military and foreign affairs without the involvement of the U.S. Much has been made in certain American circles of supposed Russian...
Scott interviews John Kiriakou about the history of the CIA’s secret torture program. Kiriakou was involved in the 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah, who was initially interrogated with some success by the FBI, before his interrogation was eventually taken over by the CIA....
Jim Bovard talks about America’s lack of faith in the FBI, as represented by both the film Richard Jewell and also the Inspector General’s report about the Bureau’s failures in conducting the “Russiagate” probe. The FBI’s history of incompetence and outright...
Dave DeCamp discusses the latest leaks related to the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma in 2018, which continue to point to the fact that it was staged. The most recent leaker dissents from the conclusions of the OPCW investigators that the supposed chlorine...
Sheldon Richman discusses America’s relationship to Israel in the wake of President Trump’s speech to Sheldon Adelson’s Israeli-American Council. Trump has received criticism as being anti-semitic for saying that American Jews, particularly democrats, do not “love...
