Category: Sudan

Ramzy Baroud

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_05_17_baroud.mp3]

Ramzy Baroud, author of My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story, discusses his article “East Africa at the Brink;” the multidimensional conflict in Sudan/South Sudan and neighboring countries; newly independent South Sudan’s devastating loss of oil income – which is the war and famine-wracked country’s entire economy; how US foreign policy disasters (like the Libyan War) create regional instability that justifies further interventions; why US interests are more geared toward disrupting China’s robust trade in Africa than controlling natural resources; and why a real Palestinian peace process will come from US pressure and Arab Spring momentum, not from the goodwill of Israel’s government.

MP3 here. (23:23)

Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His books include The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle and Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion.

Eric Margolis

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_01_04_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses how the secession of South Sudan could jeopardize the entire African continent’s colonial-drawn borders; considerable US influence in South Sudan that almost guarantees the new nation will be yet another American protectorate flush with oil; why controlling the world’s oil supplies has been a US foreign policy goal since WWII, when Axis countries were irreparably damaged by fuel supply shortages; the increasing US/China rivalry in resource-rich Africa; fundamentalist Christian missionary groups competing with Islamic groups for conversions in Africa; the incremental US stealth-occupation of Pakistan that threatens to become the boggiest of military quagmires; and why the US stands to lose substantial influence in Western Europe should NATO fail in Afghanistan.

MP3 here. (24:52)

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

Eric Margolis

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_11_19_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the escalated tensions between the US and Yemen following the bizarre toner cartridge bomb plot, drone strikes and CIA intrigue in Yemen going back to 2005, how the proliferation of anti-US groups is causing a “national nervous breakdown,” increased intervention in Africa that will soon create a new Southern Sudan nation and why the primary concern about Yemen is the threat it poses to the Saudi royal family.

MP3 here. (16:17)

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

Leslie Lefkow

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/09_11_20_lefkow.mp3]

Leslie Lefkow, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, discusses the worsening situation in Somalia since the 2006 Ethiopian invasion, the media’s preference for reporting on piracy instead of humanitarian disasters, the appearance that the U.S. helped destabilize Somalia simply to apprehend a few suspects from the 1998 embassy bombings, how the U.S. is more careful distributing food-aid than weapons, increasing Al Shabaab radicalism, Ethiopia’s hosting of extraordinary rendition victims and the extreme risks journalists and human rights activists take in Somalia.

For those interested – a short list of news sources that cover Africa more in depth: Voice of America, BBC, Garowe Online, Al Jazeera.

MP3 here. (40:45)

Leslie Lefkow, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, has specialized expertise on Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Lefkow focuses on investigating and documenting abuses in Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, abuses in armed conflicts, and other issues requiring rapid response in sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining Human Rights Watch, she worked as a humanitarian affairs advisor in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Lefkow is a graduate of Columbia Law School and Bryn Mawr College.

Justin Raimondo

Putin’s Warning to America

[audio:http://awr.dissentradio.com/09_02_02_raimondo.mp3]

Justin Raimondo, editorial director for Antiwar.com, discusses Vladimir Putin’s red-baiting of Soviet America, the U.S. military’s use of old Soviet supply lines into Afghanistan, how the incredible U.S./Russia role reversal confirms the existence of Bizarro World, why the crumbling U.S. economy won’t stop an Afghanistan surge or prevent new interventions in Africa and how the use of logical deduction in figuring out U.S. foreign policy goals only leads to wild speculation.

MP3 here. (37:24)

Justin Raimondo is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement and editorial director for Antiwar.com. His articles are archived at Antiwar.com/justin.

Shashank Bengali

AFRICOM

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_15_bengali.mp3]

Shashank Bengali, reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, discusses the new U.S. African command center AFRICOM, the difficulty in finding a host country, the major crises in Somalia and Congo, China’s role in the African oil grab, the capability of U.S. Army humanitarian aide, the fight against AIDS, the Nigerian delta oil conflict and the spread of the “war on terror” to Africa as bin Laden predicted.

MP3 here. (35:47)

Shashank Bengali is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and writes about sub-Saharan Africa. He has reported for McClatchy from more than 25 countries and covered conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Georgia. Before moving to Africa in 2005, he was a roving correspondent for The Kansas City Star. Originally from the Los Angeles area, Shashank studied at the University of Southern California and at Harvard University, where he earned a Master’s degree in public policy. He speaks French and broken Kiswahili.

Robert Pape

The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_01_pape.mp3]

Robert A. Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, discusses his database of every suicide terrorist attack on earth since 1980, what it shows about the role of religion and occupation in motivating suicide terrorism, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, the amount of truth discernible from social science, the suicide bombing campaign in Iraq and spread around the world since the Iraq invasion, the motivation of the Japanese Kamikazes, the suicide attacks of the Jewish Zealots against Roman occupation 2,000 years ago, the strategic logic of suicide terrorism, the importance in the difference in religion of the occupiers and occupied, the illogical Obama/McCain consensus on escalating the war in Afghanistan and now Pakistan, the example of Hezbollah’s suicide campaign against Israeli/French/American forces in Lebanon, the profile of the individual suicide bomber, why fighting them over there makes us less safe here, Adam Gadahn and the real, human, political reasons he sites in al Qaeda recruitment videos, and why Paul Wolfowitz got it wrong even on the one occasion he was right.

MP3 here. (51:57)

Robert A. Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His publications include Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House 2005); Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell 1996), “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security (1997), “The Determinants of International Moral Action,” International Organization (1999); “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review (2003); and “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security (2005). His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity.

Chris Floyd

The Victory of War Party Slogans

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_09_12_floyd.mp3]

Chris Floyd, author of the book and the blog, Empire Burlesque, discusses the lack of – and need for – honest reporting in this country, how the state and media manipulate language to change or hide reality, the “success” of the surge only in prolonging the war, the phony facades of both presidential campaigns, the insanity of antagonizing Russia, Obama’s unfortunate choice of Joe Biden as VP, the complete silence surrounding our proxy war in Somalia and the spreading disaster that is “The War On Terror.”

MP3 here. (41:02)

Chris Floyd is an award-winning American journalist, and author of the book, Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Regime. For more than 11 years he wrote the featured political column, Global Eye, for The Moscow Times and the St. Petersburg Times in Russia. He also served as UK correspondent for Truthout.org, and was an editorial writer for three years for The Bergen Record. His work appears regularly CounterPunch, The Baltimore Chronicle and in translation in the Italian paper, Il Manifesto, and has also been published in such venues as The Nation, the Christian Science Monitor, Columbia Journalism Review, The Ecologist and many others. His articles are also featured regularly on such websites as Information Clearing House, Buzzflash, Bushwatch, LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and many others. His work has been cited in The New York Times, USA Today, the Guardian, the Independent and other major newspapers.

Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque with webmaster Richard Kastelein, who created the site using open-source software. Floyd is also chief editor of Atlantic Free Press, which was founded and designed by Kastelein. Floyd has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University.

Bill Kelsey

Sudan, Israel, Libertarianism

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_09_02_kelsey.mp3]

Bill Kelsey, libertarian activist and sometimes relief pilot for an NGO in Africa, discusses the crises in Congo and Sudan, what he learned about libertarianism growing up in the Middle East and how it relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

MP3 here. (54:47)

Bill Kelsey is a relief pilot for an NGO and oil companies in Africa.

Isabel McDonald

Do-gooders Make Darfur Worse

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_02_08_mcdonald.mp3]

Isabel McDonald, communications director at FAIR, discusses how do-gooder liberals in the American media distort the truth about the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, the negative consequences for the people there, the precedent set by the NATO intervention in Serbia/Kosovo in 1999 and the general implausibility of American intervention in Africa benefiting anyone.

MP3 here. (33:06)

Isabel McDonald is communications director at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.