Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses his article “Drone Warfare Is Fraught with Danger;” setting a new “Libya precedent” of cheap and easy regime change with US drones in the air and indigenous fighters on the ground; forgetting the quick “victories” in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 that later went sour; the case for impeaching Barack Obama for violating the War Powers Act; why a commander in chief less removed from the field of battle might not...
10/24/11 – Kevin Zeese – The Scott Horton Show
Kevin Zeese, Executive Director of VotersForPeace and Co-Chair of Come Home America, discusses whistleblower Bradley Manning’s treatment at Fort Leavenworth prison; why the UN torture investigator is still being denied a private interview with Manning; how Manning’s chance for a fair military trial has been greatly impaired by Obama’s pronouncement of his guilt; the common ground shared by protesters – from the Left and Right – against government corruption; and why relying on the UN to...
10/24/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses how the Obama administration pushed hard for an extended Iraq troop presence, got rejected, then spun it as fulfillment of a campaign promise; why the Iraq War’s principal aim was to establish a massive military garrison from which to project power in the Middle East; the long-term training of Iraqi pilots on US fighter jets; and why the huge US embassy in Baghdad may not have enough force protection to secure it –...
10/24/11 – Luc Cote – The Scott Horton Show
Luc Côté, director of the film You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 days inside Guantanamo, discusses the interrogation videos of 16-year old prisoner Omar Khadr, taken by Canadian intelligence agents inside Guantanamo; how the same American interrogator who killed Dilawar the taxi driver at Bagram prison also interrogated the badly-injured Khadr about 50 times; and how sleep deprivation of prisoners (through the “frequent flyer program“) made extracting false confessions much easier for...
10/21/11 – Robert P. Murphy – The Scott Horton Show
Robert P. Murphy discusses the "boom and bust" business cycle and what exacerbates it; why the Federal Reserve - with a primary mandate of ensuring price stability - is a demonstrable failure; how Ron Paul popularized the Austrian school of economics and removed the aura of infallibility from Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke; why we shouldn't focus solely on the Fed - lest we forget the pernicious roles of big banks and insurance companies; whether Bernanke is an academic doggedly...
10/21/11 – Nick Baumann – The Scott Horton Show
Nick Baumann, news editor at Mother Jones, discusses his article “Locked Up Abroad—for the FBI;” US citizen Gulet Mohamed’s secretive “proxy detention” in Kuwait where he was beaten and interrogated for weeks, apparently at the US government’s behest; other individuals subject to “rendition-lite;” and how to hold the government accountable when the state secrets privilege functions as a “get out of court free” card and the Department of Justice is asleep at the switch.
10/21/11 – Glenn Greenwald – The Scott Horton Show
Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald discusses the release of his new book With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful; how Barack “Nobel Peace Prize” Obama gets away with assassinating US citizens, like Anwar al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son; and why Americans discouraged by their economic prospects can at least be proud of their government’s killing prowess.
10/20/11 – Grant F. Smith – The Scott Horton Show
Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses his article “Americans Pay Dearly to Maintain Israel’s Nuclear Secrets;” the Army Corps of Engineers’ $170 million cleanup project at NUMEC, a Pennsylvania nuclear facility that diverted uranium to Israel in the 1960s; why the CIA still won’t release documents on NUMEC (and the agency knows plenty about it), even to aid the cleanup effort; the juvenile stupidity of “strategic...
10/20/11 – Patrick Cockburn – The Scott Horton Show
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses Moammar Gadhafi’s death and NATO’s “mission accomplished” in Libya; why the rebel factions will have to find a new cause to rally around, or else face divisions and infighting; why the Arab spring is a genuine grassroots movement, not a CIA-engineered series of color coded revolutions; and having to rely on human rights NGOs for reports critical of Libya’s NTC, since the media doesn’t do its own investigations or...
10/19/11 – Scott Horton – The Scott Horton Show
The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses the double standard wherein the US can assist in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists but the very idea of reciprocity (via a dubious plot) is beyond the pale; the skeptical accounts of the Iranian assassination “plot” in the European press, especially compared to the credulous US media; the hardliners in Congress pushing for mandatory military custody...
10/19/11 – Pepe Escobar – The Scott Horton Show
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...
