Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses his piece “AIPAC Pushes Hard for War With Iran,” Keith Weissman’s breaking of his media silence to (badly) defend AIPAC, claiming there is no official program for regime change in Iran, the consistently evil John Bolton (but what a great foil he could serve for Ron Paul during the Republican primaries if he ran), how the US forgoes a necessary waiver when sending aid to Israel –...
06/16/11 – William J.Astore – The Scott Horton Show
William Astore, professor of history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, discusses his TomDispatch piece “American Militarism is Not a Fairy Tale,” how civilian control of the military is falling out of favor, especially among Republican chickenhawks, military budget cuts off the table through 2012, thanks to Democrats afraid of being labeled “soft” on anything, the blurred line between civilian (CIA) and military operations, how Gen. Petraeus made his own foreign policy by making a...
06/16/11 – Mike German – The Scott Horton Show
Michael German, Policy Counsel for the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and former FBI Special Agent, discusses new and expanded FBI powers granted through lax Attorney General guidelines, that allow them to investigate any American for any (or no) reason without opening an official case and creating a paper trail, how we lost the protections put in place after Hoover era abuses and are back to persecuting groups based on their political beliefs and why giving law enforcement extra...
06/15/11 – Eric Margolis – The Scott Horton Show
Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the Assad regime’s deep entrenchment throughout Syrian society (good luck overthrowing it), the foreign governments behind some opposition groups, Israeli strategy: stir up trouble in multi-factioned Arab states and let infighting leave them as the last strong state standing; US intervention in Libya: humanitarian effort or Arab spring counterrevolution and why Iraq’s government will...
06/15/11 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show
Jason Ditz, news editor of Antiwar.com, discusses the Yemeni protests with Saleh out of the country, the limited authority of what’s left of the state there, the de-facto autonomy of the northern and southern provinces; US policy on Yemen from pre-Christmas day bomber to the present: a microcosm of the war on terrorism’s counter-productivity, increasing escalation of drone strikes and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki’s unilateral death sentence imposed by Obama for exercising his free speech rights...
06/13/11 – Patrick Cockburn – The Scott Horton Show
Patrick Cockburn discusses recent moves by the administration to try to stay in Iraq and why their presence will remain a politically divisive issue – there if not here, the very small number of members of al Qaeda in Yemen, why NATO, not the Libyan rebels, will fill the power vacuum created when Gadhafi is eventually ousted, skirmishes in Libya where the media outnumber the fighters (on both sides), the bin Laden/al Qaeda strategy of provoking the U.S. to invade and occupy the Middle East to...
06/13/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article “90% of Petraeus’s Captured ‘Taliban’ Were Civilians,” fact checking Afghan War statistics to prove US claimed gains were illusory; the maze of US, JSOC, NATO jails and prisons, Petraeus’s effective PR blitz in late 2010 that pushed back withdrawal to 2014 and beyond and the expectation for a summer drawdown.
06/13/11 – Charles Goyette – The Scott Horton Show
Charles Goyette, former Antiwar Radio co-contributor and author of The Dollar Meltdown : Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments, discusses his LRC article “Obama Gets it Half Right,” the diminishing returns of government “stimulus” deficit spending, Bernanke’s additional job duty: juice up the stock market, why we need higher interest rates (but the decision and power to do so should not be centrally planned), the Fed as last buyer of...
06/10/11 – David Krieger – The Scott Horton Show
David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, discusses the 20,000+ nuclear weapons still around (almost all in US and Russia), the only 4 countries with deployed nukes (US, Britain, Russia,France); how nuke levels are decreasing, but not across the board and not nearly fast enough, why the new START treaty is really only a start, why the US has a moral obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament and a couple of flaws in the “deterrence” and MAD doctrines.
06/10/11 – Marcy Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show
Marcy Wheeler, blogging as “emptywheel” at firedoglake.com, discusses the unraveling of the federal government’s case against Thomas Drake, the NSA whistleblower charged with espionage but then let off with a misdemeanor charge, the substance of Drake’s whistleblowing about wasteful and privacy-destroying outsourcing of wiretapping, why it’s now safer to leak on the record, using your name, than doing in anonymously and Obama’s attempt to reinvent the Espionage Act for broad use, esp. on those...
06/10/11 – Andy Worthington – The Scott Horton Show
Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, discusses his micro-fundraiser – give a few bucks to the world’s best Guantanamo reporter why dontcha? – Andy’s very brief employ with NYT in 2008; the unknown Gitmo prisoners, the travesty of military commissions instead of federal court trials for KSM et al; Obama’s tour of Britain where he was treated like a demigod while still holding Brits in Guantanamo, his refusal to deal with Bush “legacy” issues like Gitmo, trials, torture and law with...
06/10/11 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show
This interview is from the KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles broadcast of June 10th. Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article “Slain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served al-Qaeda Strategy” about murdered Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad’s last work; evidence that al-Qaeda in Pakistan is more powerful than previously thought; why scaling back the US empire won’t come until economic collapse demands it; and a formula for winning the Global War on...
06/09/11 – Robert P. Murphy – The Scott Horton Show
Robert P. Murphy, senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses the skirting the US debt ceiling, which can continue for a few more months, the GOP's current pretensions of fiscal restraint, why a failure to raise the ceiling doesn't mean default is impending since spending could be cut or govt. assets sold, how missed payments to bond holders would bring a big increase in interest rates, as in greece; debt/gdp ratios and economic death spirals, and the Republicans who converted...
06/09/11 – Jason Ditz – The Scott Horton Show
Jason Ditz, news editor of Antiwar.com discusses the wounded flight of Yemen’s dictator Saleh as the country falls apart, sorting out different factions, tribes and student groups, the US call for Saleh to step down, not in support of democratic reform, but because he is no longer an effectively brutal autocrat, the US campaign of recent air strikes al Qaeda targets, the Golan Heights protests, why casualties reflect Israel’s great concern about large peaceful protests; and Syria’s...
06/09/11 – Doug Bandow – The Scott Horton Show
Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, explains why Obama is among the most flagrant violators of the constitution’s delineation of the war powers, the uncertainty of Gadhafi’s successors in Libya, if and when he is ousted, why Obama needs to wrap up Libya before election season starts while not having the political capital to send in ground troops to take Tripoli, and why the US is (hopefully) too busy to intervene in Syria or Pakistan.
