Cold War – Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton

Jacob Hornberger

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/12_05_11_hornberger.mp3]

Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses his article “It’s Again Time to Dismantle the Cold War Military Machine;” how Americans are kept in a perpetual state of fear so massive military budgets seem like a necessity; the Pentagon’s latest make-work project, fighting the War on Drugs in Honduras; how ending drug prohibition would decrease problems with gangs, violence, and public corruption; and the impressive stable of writers at the Future of Freedom Foundation.

MP3 here. (20:35)

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a regular writer for The Future of Freedom Foundation’s publication, Freedom Daily, and is a co-editor or contributor to the eight books that have been published by the Foundation.

Pat Buchanan

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_08_31_buchanan.mp3]

Pat Buchanan, conservative commentator and author of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? discusses his article “Why Are We Baiting the Bear?” about the Senate resolution declaring Abkhazia and South Ossetia the property of Georgia and demanding a Russian withdrawal; the region’s history since the Soviet breakup, including the 2008 war (in which Georgia was the aggressor, despite what John McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann said); looking for the Senate resolution’s true authors and backers, who are probably from the Georgia lobby; and the heartening cooperation of US oil companies and the Russian government.

MP3 here. (19:44)

Pat Buchanan is an American politician, author, syndicated columnist and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and was an original host on CNN’s Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election. He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause. He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. He is the author of many books, including Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.

Lew Rockwell

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_08_25_rockwell.mp3]

Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses why Ron Paul is the first real peace candidate for president since Eugene McCarthy in 1968; the prime importance of foreign policy, since waging imperial wars abroad inevitably harms liberty and prosperity at home; Paul’s bold challenge to Rick Santorum’s Iran warmongering in the Iowa debate; why the US unnecessarily provoked the Cold War and kept it going; why democratic wars fail to differentiate between soldiers and civilians (the people ARE the government, right?); ending the morality double standard that prohibits individuals from grave acts but allows the government to kill and steal; and Dick Cheney’s book promotion media tour, where he defends torture, regrets he couldn’t start a war with Syria, and laughs all the way to the bank.

MP3 here. (24:56)

Lew Rockwell is the founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, California, and publisher of the political Web site LewRockwell.com. He is the author of The Left, The Right and The State and served as Ron Paul’s congressional chief of staff between 1978 and 1982. Check out his podcast show here.

Ivan Eland

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_02_14_eland.mp3]

Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and regular contributor to Antiwar.com, discusses the historical revisionists coming out of the woodwork for Ronald Reagan’s 100 birthday; Reagan’s overrated presidency, from foreign policy to the economy; why the Soviet collapse had more to do with a failed economic model than provocative US policy; how Iran Contra dealt a huge blow to Constitutional checks and balances, with the Executive branch doing an end-run around Congress and the Boland Amendment to secretly fund the Nicaraguan Contras; the persistence of Reagan’s “fake” tax cut model (cutting taxes without cutting spending simply hides the costs of government) evident in Dick Cheney’s “deficits don’t matter” mantra; why a better Cold War strategy would have been to let the USSR run amok in the empire-killing money pits of South and Central Asia and Latin America; and the Pentagon’s conflict of interest in making threat assessments (why would they ever not find one?)

MP3 here. (19:41)

Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow at the The Independent Institute and a regular Antiwar.com columnist. He is the author of Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post-Cold War World.

Tom Engelhardt

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_02_09_engelhardt.mp3]

Tom Engelhardt, creator of Tomdispatch.com and author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s, discusses why the Cold War only ended for the Soviets in 1991, as the lone remaining superpower traded the “peace dividend” for 20 years of economic and military unilateralism; Chase Madar’s impassioned mock opening statement for the defense of Bradley Manning, featured at Tomdispatch; the death knell sounding for Pax Americana and US exceptionalism, as client states come under siege and US influence wanes; and the self righteous media commentary on Afghan financial corruption, with few willing to concede similarities to the US system of unprecedented fraud and nonexistent prosecutions.

MP3 here. (18:09)

Tom Engelhardt created and runs the Tomdispatch.com website, a project of The Nation Institute where he is a Fellow. He is the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture, and of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing, as well as a collection of his Tomdispatch interviews, Mission Unaccomplished. Each spring he is a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His newest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s.

Jason Ditz

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_09_13_ditz.mp3]

Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses Radio Free Europe’s strange accusation that Ditz is an Iranian agent and the taxpayer dollars wasted on a Cold War propaganda relic reinvented as U.S. government “journalism.”

MP3 here. (9:31)

Jason Ditz is the managing news editor at Antiwar.com.

The Other Scott Horton

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_09_03_horton.mp3]

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses spreading American ideas through education instead of with bombs, democratic growing pains (or death throes) in the Kyrgyz Republic, how the wide ideological divisions in the Cold War have since converged in a mash-up of state capitalism and authoritarianism, the strident nationalism of Vladimir Putin and Dick Cheney and why a one-world government is not a realistic possibility.

MP3 here. (41:53)

The Other Scott Horton is a Contributing Editor for Harper’s magazine where he writes the No Comment blog. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union.

He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Ray McGovern

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_06_30_mcgovern.mp3]

Ray McGovern, former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses the hype surrounding a seemingly benign Russian spy ring in the US, the sorely needed FBI public relations boost from their apparent counter-espionage success, CIA director Leon Panetta’s disincentive for changing the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate and why Iran really was pursuing a nuclear weapons program prior to 2003.

MP3 here. (25:08)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. His articles appear on Consortium News and Antiwar.com.

Mark Ames

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/10_01_26_ames.mp3]

Mark Ames, regular writer for The eXiled, discusses Russia’s transition from neoliberal Yeltsin to nationalist Putin, the US “economic hit men” advisers to Yeltsin who facilitated the rise of the oligarchs, the huge decline in Russian life-expectancy rates in the 1990s, the trail of economic disasters left in Larry Summers‘ wake, how the “cakewalk” victory of Gulf War I increased American bravado and militarism, the end of US meritocracy and why a more vigorous opposition is needed to stop the War Party.

MP3 here. (54:57)

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia. He is a regular contributor to eXiled Online and The Nation magazine.

Robert Parry

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/09_09_10_parry.mp3]

Robert Parry, founder of ConsortiumNews.com, discusses Ronald Reagan’s lip service to torture prohibition and support for atrocities in Central America, the hypocritical critiques of “moral relativism” by amoral neocons, the inheritance of an entire generation of government-worshiping journalists, Islamic fundamentalist blowback from Reagan administration attempts to weaken the USSR and the quid-pro-quo deal that enabled Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons.

MP3 here. (63:13)

Robert Parry is an investigative journalist who won the George Polk Award in 1984 for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair and uncovering Oliver North’s involvement in it. He is the founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery and Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

Chalmers Johnson

Tracking the Fall of the Empire

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/09_05_19_johnson.mp3]

Chalmers Johnson, author of the indispensable Blowback trilogy, discusses the evolution of his view of the Cold War and American empire since the fall of the Soviet Union, the inevitable collapse of the U.S. dollar and world empire, Obama’s LBJ guns and butter trap, the kicking-out of the empire by the people of Latin America, the danger of further intervention in Pakistan, the ongoing rape of Okinawa and America’s relationship with Russia.

MP3 here. (39:23)

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.

Robert Higgs

Depression and War, Then and Now

[audio:http://awr.dissentradio.com/09_02_20_23_higgs.mp3]

Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Depression, War and Cold War, discusses his thesis of “regime uncertainty” as a major factor of the Great Depression, the crash and recovery of 1921-22, the bubble created by the Fed in the later “roaring” twenties in order to prop up British interests, how World War II provided the certainty big business needed to start investing again – in arms, why the Cold War buildup was still cheap enough for the economy to continue under its weight, who really benefits from empire, who pays, the irrelevance of trade deficits, the roots of the financial crisis in Wall St.’s bogus financial models, congressional and Federal Reserve polices and the cartelized ratings business, the all-important intertwined policy of inflation and war, his view of the extent of the collapse and whether the empire will be dismantled, the danger of high price inflation, danger of nationalization, and why government regulation of the market is responsible for – not the solution to – its failures.

MP3 here. (1:16:17)

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Higgs is the editor of The Independent Institute books Opposing the Crusader State, The Challenge of Liberty, Re-Thinking Green, Hazardous to Our Health? and Arms, Politics, and the Economy, plus the volume Emergence of the Modern Political Economy.

His authored books include Neither Liberty Nor Safety, Depression, War, and Cold War, Politická ekonomie strachu (The Political Economy of Fear, in Czech), Resurgence of the Warfare State, Against Leviathan, The Transformation of the American Economy 1865-1914, Competition and Coercion, and Crisis and Leviathan. A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of more than 100 articles and reviews in academic journals.

Doug Bandow

Bush Jr.’s Foreign Policy Legacy

[audio:http://awr.dissentradio.com/09_02_03_bandow.mp3]

Doug Bandow, author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire, discusses the Bush administration’s foreign policy legacy, why maintaining a U.S. military presence in S. Korea makes less sense than ever, the difficulty of negotiating alternative U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan while taking a hard line on Russia and Iran, the high cost in Iraqi lives for their “liberation” from one authoritarian government to another and the demise of Bush’s two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

MP3 here. (21:45)

Doug Bandow is a recent addition to the Cato Institute. His new and archived articles can be found at Antiwar.com/bandow.

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.

Tim Cavanaugh

Death and Deception in South Ossetia

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_11_18_cavanaugh.mp3]

Tim Cavanaugh, columnist for Reason magazine, discusses the efforts of activist Lira Tskhovrebova to tell the South Ossetian side of the Georgian invasion, the numerous accounts of Georgian soldiers deliberately killing civilians, the U.S. media failure to accurately portray the conflict and the mixed signals Saakashvili received from U.S. neocon agitators and the State Department.

MP3 here. (34:08)

Tim Cavanaugh represents Lira Tskhoverbova, chairwoman of the Association of South Ossetian Women for Democracy and Human Rights. He is a columnist for Reason magazine and former web editor for the Los Angeles Times.

Eric Margolis

American Raj

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_11_13_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, author of American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World, discusses the repeating of history in Afghanistan, India’s under-the-radar regional influence and sweetheart nuclear deal, ramifications of a future “Pashtunistan”, the precarious economic and political conditions in Pakistan, the possibility of Obama using Bill Clinton as Kashmir peacemaker, the need for a waxing Department of State and waning Pentagon in the foreign policy realm, the Caspian oil pipeline as “Great Game” prize, new accusations about Syria’s nuclear program and the supreme importance of U.S./Russia relations.

MP3 here. (53:49)

Eric Margolis is a foreign correspondent and columnist with the Quebecor Media Company and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj.

Justin Raimondo

War Party Democrats

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_11_03_raimondo.mp3]

Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com, discusses the 2008 presidential election, how transitions in government tend toward continuity instead of radical change, the competing policy influences in an Obama administration where Dennis Ross and Anthony Zinni are possible National Security Advisor appointments, how the only difference in foreign intervention between Democratic and Republican administrations is rhetorical, how the neocon parasite feeding on the Republican party will soon leave its shriveled host behind and search for greener pastures, the continuing danger of war with Iran, realist/neocon policy toward Russia, why a vote for Nader is the best medicine in the current corporate-socialist economy, and why the Constitution and Libertarian parties may be one party too many.

MP3 here. (40:30)

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).

He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

Mark Ames

US vs. Russia, Reason

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_28_ames.mp3]

Mark Ames, author of “The Cold War that Wasn’t” in The Nation, discusses the dominant narrative and ideological underpinnings in the U.S. press regarding the recent Georgian attack on South Ossetia and subsequent Russian counterattack on Georgia, the attempt to portray Russia as the aggressor by floating the idea of a first-strike cyber war despite the lack of any evidence, the alleged poisoning of Ukraine’s Victor Yushchenko and the current dispute between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko over her reaction to the Georgia war, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the precedent set by U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the danger of putting “defensive” missiles in Eastern Europe while the U.S. foreign policy establishment contemplates first strike capability, U.S. NED support for the Russian National Bolsheviks, the “shock therapy” robbery of Russian resources under Yeltsin’s autocracy in the 1990s and the consequences.

MP3 here. (64:25)

Mark Ames is a journalist who has written for several publications including the New York Press, The Nation and GQ Russia and is the founding editor and regular contributor of the Moscow-based newspaper The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.

Douglas Valentine

The Phoenix Program

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_16_valentine.mp3]

Douglas Valentine, author of The Phoenix Program, discusses the CIA’s Phoenix program targeting civilians during the Vietnam war, the similarities between the Phoenix program, the Nazis in France in World War II and the “War on Terror,” the vast difference between policy and operational realities, the tragedy of our support for, and murder of Diem, CIA “black propaganda,” the lies that initiate all American wars, the CIA’s criminal involvement in the drug trade, the corruption of the U.S. Congress and pessimism about the ability of the American people to put government power in check.

MP3 here. (40:31)

Douglas Valentine is the author of several books including The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs and The Phoenix Program and a frequent contributor to the biweekly newsletter CounterPunch.

Jacob Hornberger

Operation Keelhaul

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_10_hornberger.mp3]

Jacob Hornberger, founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses Operation Keelhaul, the betrayal and repatriation of Russian hero Andrey Vlasov and his 50,000 men, how Roosevelt and Churchill’s demand of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender prolonged the war and allowed the Soviet Union to conquer Eastern Europe, the similarities between FDR and the European fascists, the myth that the free market caused the Great Depression and the 20,000 American and 30,000 British POWs that Truman also let Stalin take to the Gulags to die. Watch the speeches from FFF’s Restoring the Republic conference here.

MP3 here. (48:03)

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, publisher of The Freeman and Freedom Daily. Fluent in Spanish and conversant in Italian, he has delivered speeches and engaged in debates and discussions about free-market principles with groups all over the United States, as well as Canada, England, Europe, and Latin America, including Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Argentina. He has also advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on FOX New’s Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows. His editorials have appeared in the Washington Post, Charlotte Observer, La Prensa San Diego, El Nuevo Miami Herald, and many others, both in the United States and in Latin America. He is a co-editor or contributor to the eight books that have been published by the Foundation.

Richard Maybury

End of the Empire?

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_08_maybury.mp3]

Richard Maybury, author of the U.S. and World Early Warning Report, discusses the evolution of common law, the American Revolutionary revolt for natural rights, the “divine right” of the majority, the importance of self-defense to a society’s freedom, the imbalanced offensive/defensive cost ratio, Osama Bin Laden’s strategy of bankrupting the American empire, how to profit from a libertarian understanding of money and power, the emerging second Cold War with Russia, the moral questions around investing in government-tied businesses, the corruption of political power, the two-party system hoax and the coming second American Revolution.

MP3 here. (44:25)

Richard Maybury is the author of the investment newsletter, U.S. and World Early Warning Report and the Uncle Eric books.

Robert Higgs

War, Depression, War and Cold War

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_09_26_higgs.mp3]

As part of Antiwar Radio’s week long series on the economic crisis in association with the Campaign for Liberty, Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government and Depression War and Cold War, discusses the relationship between the inflation of World War One, the roaring ‘20’s and the Great Depression, Fed chief Ben Strong’s deal with the Bank of England’s Montague Norman to inflate in the 1920s in order to help England and how this created the stock market bubble (and others) in the 20s, some of the ways that the near-totalitarian New Deal interventions of Wilsonian Republican Herbert Hoover and Wilsonian Democrat Franklin Roosevelt compounded and prolonged the depression, the myth that World War II ended the Great Depression, the Korean War and switch from World War to Cold War, the state’s scare tactics to strong-arm government growth, chaotic interventionism in the market and the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

MP3 here. (43:37)

Dr. Higgs is the editor of The Independent Institute books Opposing the Crusader State, The Challenge of Liberty, Re-Thinking Green, Hazardous to Our Health? and Arms, Politics, and the Economy, plus the volume Emergence of the Modern Political Economy.

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.

Eric Margolis

Empire of Insanity

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_09_10_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of the brand new American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World, discusses the importance of maintaining level-headed relations with Russia, the consequences of U.S. support for Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, Pakistan’s decreasing stability and our increased interference, the beginning of the “pipeline security wars,” the war party’s bogus explanations of the causes of terrorism and the Arab world’s former admiration for America.

MP3 here. (53:24)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements. He is foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of War at the Top of the World and the brand new American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

Chris Deliso

Background on Georgia

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_09_07_deliso.mp3]

Chris Deliso, author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate and director of Balkanalysis.com, discusses the recent attack on South Ossetia by Georgia, the historic relationships between Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Russians, the Rose revolution, the role of control over oil pipelines plays in the crisis, the potential conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the danger in our war guarantees of countries surrounding Russia and the American war party’s ever increasing belligerence.

MP3 here. (42:47)

Balkanalysis.com director Christopher Deliso has lived and traveled widely in SE Europe and has a master’s degree with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University (1999). His two new books, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West and Hidden Macedonia: The Mystic Lakes of Ohrid and Prespa will appeal to readers interested in, respectively, the major security issues involving the region today, and travel in one of Europe’s most fascinating but least visited areas.

Since 2001, he has published many articles on Balkan politics, economics, security issues, travel, history and culture in US and world newspapers, analysis firms such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, and in numerous magazines and websites. He is also a travel writer for Lonely Planet, covering SE Europe.

Gareth Porter

War is the Health of the State

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_08_25_porter.mp3]

Gareth Porter, independent historian and investigative journalist for IPS News and Antiwar.com, discusses the themes in his article “Georgia War Rooted in US Self-Deceit on NATO,” how the national security bureaucracy dominates American policy to the detriment of the rest of Americans’ interests, the rise of the empire after World War II, how American Cold War policy pushed China toward Russia until the 1970s, the imperial bureaucrats desire to expand NATO up to the Russian border to weaken them, the often conflicting views between the American military and corporate policy ambitions and the multitude of excuses given to retain our many hundreds of military bases around the world.

MP3 here. (34:06)

Dr. Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Eric Margolis

America’s Destructive Asian Empire

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_08_14_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of War at the Top of the World, discusses the complicated politics of the Caucasus region, U.S. and Israeli arming and training of Georgian troops, the Ossetia fiasco, McCain’s foreign policy handler Randy Scheunemann and his relationship with the Saakashvili regime, the fight within the military industrial pentagon complex over whether to focus on imperial occupations or preparing for war with great powers, the dangerous foolishness of NATO expansion, the self-serving hypocrisy of America and Russia’s leaders, the ignored U.S. sponsored regime change in Somalia, McCain’s 3AM moment and emulation of the Kaiser, the rift between Pakistan and India over religion, Kashmir and Afghanistan, Dick Armitage’s threat to totally destroy Pakistan after 9/11 and the new great game in Central Asia.

MP3 here. (38:08)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements.

John Judis

McCain’s Devolution

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_30_judis1.mp3]

John B. Judis, senior editor of the New Republic and author of The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, discusses the importance of Trotskyism to neoconservative thought, John McCain’s change from skeptic to cheerleader for intervention, relationship with the neocons and the dangerous mix between his volatile temperament and his views on foreign policy.

MP3 here. (23:12)

John B. Judis is a senior editor of New Republic, where he has worked since 1984 and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Judis is the author of The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Judis’ articles have appeared in American Prospect, New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Washington Monthly, American Enterprise, Mother Jones, and Dissent. He has written five books, including The Emerging Democratic Majority (with Ruy Teixeira), The Parodox of American Democracy, and William F. Buckley: Patron Saint of the Conservatives.

Chalmers Johnson

Public-Private Imperial Police State

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_29_johnson.mp3]

Chalmers Johnson, former CIA analyst and author of the Blowback Trilogy, discusses his recent article: “The Military-Industrial Complex-It’s Much Later Than You Think” explaining the pervasive privatization of the intelligence industry, the history of corporatism and empire in America, total corruption of Congress and the inevitable end of empire.

MP3 here. (18:47)

Chalmers Johnson is an author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He is also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute, an organization promoting public education about Japan and Asia. He is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.

Pat Buchanan

The Good War a Big Mistake?

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_23_buchanan.mp3]

Pat Buchanan, political analyst, columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, discusses the British politicians’ colossal blunders that led them into World War I and II and the collapse of their empire, the consequences of American intervention in WWI and imposition of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler’s motive to regain the lands lost in the east and willingness to forsake former German provinces in the west out of his desire to avoid war with England and France, what really happened at Munich, the folly of the British war guarantee to Poland during their dispute with Hitler over Danzig and the real lessons of the second World War.

MP3 here. (43:37)

Pat Buchanan is an American politician, author, syndicated columnist and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American presidents, Nixon, Ford and Reagan, and was an original host on CNN’s Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election. He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause. He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation and Rolling Stone. His new book is called Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.

Wade Boese

Missile ‘Defense’ in Eastern Europe

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_09_boese.mp3]

Wade Boese, research director of the Arms Control Association and contributing writer to Arms Control Today, discusses the missile defense system being implemented in Poland and the Czech Republic, under the facade of defense from Iran while actually threatening Russia and China, the current and future status of Iran’s missile capabilities, the reality that Iran has no reason to attack the west anyway, the threat still posed by U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, the unwillingness of the Bush war party to reduce U.S. nuclear weapons despite the START Treaty with Russia initiating the process, possible changes to U.S. nuclear posture by the two presidential candidates, the futility of missile countermeasures and how an effective missile defense system would likely only increase U.S. aggressiveness.

MP3 here. (41:26)

Wade Boese is the research director of the Arms Control Association. Boese writes for Arms Control Today, prepares ACA fact sheets, and maintains contact with the press and public on these issues. His work has been published in The American Prospect Online, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Defense News, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, and Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. He also contributed to Challenging Conventional Wisdom: Debunking the Myths and Exposing the Risks of Arms Export Reform.

Robert Parry

25 Year War Against Journalism

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_07_02_parry.mp3]

Robert Parry, proprietor of ConsortiumNews.com and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, discusses his new revelations on the Iran-Contra scandal how the Reagan administration used the CIA for a propaganda campaign against the American population, Iran-Contra was the pilot program for the neocon hijacking of the government, the legal black-hole of the Vice President’s office and the slippery semantics of the War Party, the history of covert tactics the right-wing uses to control the corporate media and its enemies, and the War Party’s view of the President’s total power.

MP3 here. (54:41)

YouTube here.

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek, runs ConsortiumNews.com, and is the author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and the brand new Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.

Melvin Goodman

Failure of Intelligence

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_06_23_goodman.mp3]

Melvin Goodman, author of Failure of Intelligence: The Rise and Fall of the CIA, discusses problems with the CIA, how the serial intelligence manipulator Robert Gates was brought in to replace Rumsfeld only after Rumsfeld started talking about withdrawal, the history of distorting intelligence to fit the policy, how the military runs the intelligence apparatus, Congress’s indifference to the Constitutional crisis and our inevitable failures in Iraq and the militarily-led war on terror.

MP3 here. (34:44)

YouTube here.

Mel Goodman was a senior analyst in Soviet affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked for two decades (1966-1986). He later served as a Soviet analyst at the State Department, and he currently is professor of international studies at the National War College and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of three books on Soviet and Russian Affairs: Gorbachev’s Retreat: The End of Superpower Rivalry in the Third World, The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze, and The End of the Cold War.

Ed Offley

The Sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/awedoffley052108.mp3]

Ed Offley, author of Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon, discusses the book, the secret confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Scorpion, a synopsis of the U.S. attack submarines that were available in 1968, the mission that the Scorpion was involved in, the official story told by the Pentagon, his research process in writing the book, the contradictions that were said between the official Pentagon story and the story later told by the commanding admirals, the expression of remorse among the admirals that lied during the official U.S. Navy investigation, the culture of secrecy in the U.S. Navy, the decision making process in not making the Scorpion sinking become a major incident between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the anniversary observation in Norfolk, Virginia, the lack of media coverage, the mystery surrounding the sinking of a Soviet submarine by the U.S. Navy weeks before and advantages in Naval intelligence that North Korea and the Soviet Union achieved with the seizing of the U.S.S. Pueblo.

MP3 here. (35:11)

Ed Offley is a veteran military columnist and reporter with more than 24 years of experience in covering U.S. military operations. He wrote a book on the tragedy and the cover-up of the sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion, Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon. As editor of DefenseWatch magazine during 2001-2005, Offley helped launch the publication and guided its development into a nationally recognized journal of issues affecting active-duty soldiers and reservists, veterans and military families. In its four years of online operation, DefenseWatch and SFTT.org have received nationwide recognition for a number of major breaking news reports.

Alex Abella

RAND’s Empire

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw051308alexabella.mp3]

Alex Abella, reporter, screenwriter and author of Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the American Empire, discusses the origin and mission of the RAND Corporation, his access to the RAND archives in order to research its history, well known public figures that were once a part of RAND, how RAND brings its ideas into the attention of public policy officials, how instrumental RAND has been in formulating U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, the foundation of rational choice theory in public policy, the problems with RAND’s studies on the Soviet Union’s nuclear and military forces, RAND’s effect on John F. Kennedy’s administration, RAND’s undermining of the policy of détente, the links between RAND, Ahmed Chalabi, and the Iraq War, Leo Strauss, the Project for the New American Century, and the culture at the RAND Corporation.

MP3 here. (15:52)

Alex Abella is a New York Times Notable Book author, Emmy-nominated TV reporter and screenwriter. He is the author of his new book, Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the American Empire. Abella’s non-fiction work includes Shadow Enemies, a non-fiction account of a plot by Adolf Hitler to start a wave of terror and destruction in the United States. Abella’s other writings include a legal thriller, The Killing of the Saints, featuring a Cuban-American hero, Charlie Morell, who’s a lawyer and private investigator. The novel, published by Crown in 1991, was a New York Times Notable Book. Paramount Pictures optioned The Killing of the Saints and commissioned Alex to write the screenplay. Alex’s second novel, The Great American, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1997. The Great American recounts the true adventures of William Morgan, a U.S. Marine who fought in the mountains of Cuba with Fidel Castro. The sequels to The Killing of the Saints, Dead of Night and Final Acts, were published in quick succession. The trilogy has won praise from critics and prominent writers such as Michael Connelly, T. Jefferson Parker and Robert Ferrigno.

William Astore

Leaving Cheyenne Mountain

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_04_21_astore.mp3]

William Astore, professor of history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, discusses his career at Cheyenne Mountain Missile Warning Center, the 15 separate buildings within it, its turning from a protective space to target with improvements in nuclear yield and missile accuracy, the continuing danger of accidental nuclear war with Russia, the necessity of the abolition of these obsolete weapons of indiscriminate killing, the dangerous mindset of the average government job-holder, Ronald Reagan’s desire and failure to make a deal for total abolition at Reykjavik and America’s current aggressive stance toward Russia.

MP3 here. (40:18)

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He teaches history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He is co-author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism.

Jonathan Schell

No Nukes!

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_04_04_schell.mp3]

Jonathan Schell, author of The Fate of the Earth, and The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger and visiting lecturer at Yale University, discusses the case against nuclear weapons, the destructive power and military obsolescence of America and Russia’s nuclear arsenals, the treaties the U.S. government has signed promising to dismantle our nukes, the administration’s war against the non-proliferation regime, missile “defense” in Eastern Europe and the first strike option, NATO expansion, the arguments that nukes are good for preventing war among great powers or that North Korea or terrorists could “hold us all hostage” if our governments ceased to hold nukes, nuclear winter, the end of the age of empire, what needs to be done to get going on abolition and Hillary Clinton’s belligerence.

MP3 here. (40:36)

Jonathan Schell is the author of The Fate of the Earth, and The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. He is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute and a visiting lecturer at Yale University.

Update: Your host’s reference to Hillary Clinton’s denunciation of Barack Obama’s refusal to endorse Harry Truman’s nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was mistaken. I was thinking of this, but that (otherwise wonderful) author was apparently thinking of the time last summer when Clinton denounced Obama for promising not to attack our ally Pakistan with nuclear weapons, “just in time” for the 62nd anniversary of those horrible war crimes against the Japanese.

Sincere apologies to my guest and audience.

Norman Solomon

War Made Easy

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_03_20_soloman.mp3]

Norman Solomon, author of Made Love, Got War and War Made Easy (the book and the movie), discusses the Military Industrial Media Complex and the role they play in deciding America’s foreign policy, the ignorance of the average reporters and politicians in DC and the need for a broad based antiwar movement.

MP3 here. (27:29)

Norman Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. He has been writing the weekly “Media Beat” column since 1992. Solomon’s latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, was published in 2005.

Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts.
His book “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You” (co-authored with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich) was published in 2003 by Context Books. Loretta Alper, has been on the staff of MEF since the summer of 2000, when she was hired as a freelance producer. Since joining MEF full-time in 2001, she has produced a number of titles and served as the Executive Producer on several others.