Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses his article “Obama, the king of Africa” about the US military commitment in Uganda and surrounding countries, supposedly to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army; the terrible human rights record of Uganda’s government (even worse than the LRA); the strange African brew of neo-colonialism, tinpot dictators, pipeline routes and JSOC outposts; the great game of mineral and energy extraction playing out between countries like...
10/19/11 – Anthony Gregory – The Scott Horton Show
Anthony Gregory, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, discusses the arguments bound to convince social conservatives that ending the War on Drugs – if not outright legalization – is the best course of action; why a free society would choose family/community solutions to social problems (like drug addiction) instead of creating a police state that makes everything worse; getting the federal government out of the drug business and letting states regulate, like they do with alcohol and...
10/18/11 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show
Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses his post “Impasse: US Says No Breakthrough in Iraq Talks;” the disagreement on prosecutorial immunity for US soldiers remaining in Iraq; envisioning a State Department-led occupation run out of the world’s largest (and expanding) embassy; the big increase in US troop casualties in Afghanistan during the Obama administration’s tenure; the legendary corruption in all levels of the Afghan government; and why a US military excursion in...
10/18/11 – Flynt Leverett – The Scott Horton Show
Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses the Iran uranium swap negotiations in 2009-10; a reminder that the Tehran Research Reactor was supplied by the US in the 1960s, and reconfigured after the 1979 revolution to use far-less enriched uranium (reducing weapons proliferation risks); how the initial swap offer by the US asked Iran to hand over its low-enriched uranium, with no collateral, and trust France to provide fuel rods a...
10/18/11 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show
Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses a couple alternative explanations of the Iranian assassination plot, both more sensible than the official government story; why Iran would essentially commit national suicide by conducting a terrorist attack in Washington DC; the system of incentives for law enforcement agents and informants to play up any terrorism angle; prosecuting the CIA officials who lied to National Security Advisor Richard Clarke, in order to get the big fish in the Bush...
10/18/11 – Andrew Cockburn – The Scott Horton Show
Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses his article “Search and destroy: The Pentagon’s losing battle against IEDs;” the $70 billion “Manhattan Project” to combat $20 homemade landmines – that remain as effective as ever; how the military rejects cheap low-tech solutions and keeps the cash flowing to defense contractors; and the battle of wits between a Taliban bomb-maker and an American explosive ordnance technician.
10/17/11 – Jack Hunter – The Scott Horton Show
Jack Hunter discusses Ron Paul's plan for one trillion dollars in federal spending cuts; why the rest of the Republican candidates won't dare to touch Pentagon spending; why skeptics of government pronouncements about the economy nevertheless immediately believe lies in the foreign policy realm; how the "get government off your back" Republicans from the 1990s discovered their love of dictatorships and swapped their Jesus paintings for Dick Cheney portraits during the Bush administration;...
10/17/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article “US Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims;” piling on the propaganda to pass more punitive sanctions and further isolate Iran (but not start a war apparently); why the government would surely have recorded damning conversations between Manssor Arbabsiar and the DEA informant – if the plot was even remotely real; why the FBI’s real target was Iranian Quds force deputy commander Abdul...
10/17/11 – John Glaser – The Scott Horton Show
John Glaser, Assistant Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the latest US war, this time battling the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and neighboring countries; the loss of any objective criteria from the term “national interest;” propping up friendly African dictators who agree to take on the burden of US demands, like fighting Al-Shabab in Somalia; the previous disastrous attempts to fight the LRA; how AFRICOM’s rapid expansion will get the US bogged down in more interminable, unwinnable wars;...
10/14/11 – Andy Worthington – The Scott Horton Show
Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, discusses the film You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantánamo about child soldier and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr’s interrogation in Guantanamo; Khadr’s travails in Afghanistan, where he was nearly killed by a US airstrike then captured and accused of killing a medic; the US government’s decision to treat child soldiers as regular prisoners in contravention of international norms; and how military commissions have made it a war crime to...
10/14/11 – Flynt Leverett – The Scott Horton Show
Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses his article “Iranian ‘plots’ and American hubris;” why the strange assassination plot is at cross-purposes with Iran’s policy objectives (but syncs perfectly with Israel’s); Iran’s reliance on foreign proxy groups and asymmetric warfare for national defense, in lieu of a powerful conventional military; US policy towards Iran that says, in essence, a meaningful defensive deterrence is...
10/14/11 – Max Blumenthal – The Scott Horton Show
Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, discusses the “price tag” attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, meant to extract a “price” when the Israeli government dares to defy the settlers’ wishes; why the state of Israel has no more respect for Israeli Arab property rights or religious expression than the settlers do; how Israel’s government allied with the Bedouin and Druze (and later betrayed them) to divide and conquer any...
10/14/11 – Ray McGovern – The Scott Horton Show
Ray McGovern, member of Veterans For Peace and former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses his article “Petraeus’s CIA Fuels Iran Murder Plot;” fixing the facts around the policy yet again, this time to start a war with Iran; why you can bet Petraeus’s first objective as CIA director was to make analysts stop honest assessments of the failing Afghanistan War, and start saying “the surge worked;” how Obama’s advisors are limiting his options and trapping him into a war with Iran; and why you...
10/13/11 – Danny Panzella – The Scott Horton Show
Danny Panzella discusses the Occupy the Fed protests, meant to educate people about the Federal Reserve and supplement the Occupy Wall Street protests; uniting Left and Right through common interests, like kicking billionaires off welfare; how Leftists concerned about ending government regulation fail to appreciate the severity of regulatory capture and the revolving employment door between financial firms and government; the "Bernanke bucks" educational fliers that catch the eye and summarize...
10/13/11 – Eric Margolis – The Scott Horton Show
Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses his healthy skepticism of all FBI sting operations, especially this latest Iranian assassination plot; the curious targeting of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador – hardly a powerhouse political figure; cooperation between the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia on getting rid of the Assad government in Syria; the long term neoconservative plan to break up Arab countries into stateless...
