Anti War Radio

Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses how central banks print fiat money to pay for world wars that would otherwise be impossible to finance, the enormous resources at the U.S. government’s disposal to delay an economic reckoning, why WalMart is a net gain to society, the division between those who live off the state and those who support it (albeit unwillingly) and why more super-rich dynastic families are needed to compete for power with the state.

MP3 here. (43:20)

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.

Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, discusses Obama’s commendable follow-through on reducing troop levels in Iraq and (at least rhetorically) standing by the 2011 withdrawal date, the huge increase in troop numbers and casualties in Afghanistan since the Bush administration, the end of finite wars as U.S. foreign policy remains on a permanent war footing and the much-exaggerated death of the antiwar movement.

MP3 here. (18:37)

Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Mr. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.

Haroon Siddiqui, editorial writer for the Toronto Star, discusses Canada’s military role in Afghanistan that is due to end in 2011, why ending foreign wars will stop domestic terrorism, how the U.S. has lost the capacity to do good, the bogus argument of “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” and why the Afghanistan War is a failure by any measure yet continues unabated.

MP3 here. (20:30)

Haroon Siddiqui is the author of Being Muslim. He has worked for Canadian newspapers in various positions since 1968 and currently writes editorials for the Toronto Star.

Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, discusses the religious justifications for killing non-Jews in the “King’s Torah” by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the tenuous far-right political alliance that makes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hold his tongue on the eve of Palestinian peace talks (lest he have to negotiate land-for-peace), the inclusion of moderate secular Jews on the non-Jew hit list, the seeming triumph of rabbinical law over Israel’s common law and the fascist Judea-state aspirations of Avigdor Lieberman’s political affiliates.

MP3 here. (14:18)

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. His book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller.

Fred Branfman, author of the Alternet article “Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America’s Military Strategy in the Muslim World,” discusses several common-sense reasons “why they hate us” (it isn’t our freedom), how the “McChrystal ratio” exposes the bankruptcy of COIN strategy, the incredibly broad scope – both in number of forces employed and geographic space – of U.S. assassination policy, why (unlike CIA ops) these killings don’t require Presidential approval or reports to Congress, how Petraeus’s strategy seems focused on his short term career goals, why taking on 1.3 billion Muslims is national suicide and how the upcoming Republican midterm election sweep will hasten U.S. economic and societal collapse.

Here is the 3 minute video of John Pilger interviewing former CIA officer Duane Clarridge, who is presently advising CIA assassination efforts in Pakistan.

MP3 here. (51:34)

Fred Branfman is a writer and longtime activist who directed the Indochina Resource Center during the war in Indochina. He edited “Voices From the Plain of Jars: Life Under an Air War” (Harper & Row, 1972), that exposed the U.S. secret air war in Laos. Visit his Web site.

Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, discusses the mosque hysteria ginned up to bolster Iraq and Afghan War support, Ground Zero’s rhetorical conversion into hallowed ground – encouraging religious fervor and holy war, what Bush should have said and done after 9/11, why the only uncertainty of new Israel/Palestine peace talks is what Obama will do when they fail and how the negotiations are grounded in juvenile conflict resolution instead of international law.

MP3 here. (18:48)

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies where she directs the New Internationalism Project. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has recent articles published in YES! magazine and Alternet. While working as a journalist at the United Nations during the run-up to the 1990-91 Gulf War, she began examining U.S. domination of the UN, and stayed involved in work on Iraq sanctions and disarmament, and later the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1999, Phyllis accompanied a delegation of congressional aides to Iraq to examine the impact of U.S.-led economic sanctions on humanitarian conditions there, and later joined former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, who had resigned his position as Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq to protest the impact of sanctions, in a speaking tour. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement.  She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses his article “Mosque Demagoguery Is Bipartisan” and the linkage between property rights and First Amendment rights, why the abandonment of the dollar will lead to an inflationary depression and why Dennis Kucinich’s anti-assassination bill is a redundancy (but deserving of support nonetheless).

MP3 here. (13:00)

Congressman Ron Paul represents Texas’s 14th district. He is the author of The Revolution: A Manifesto, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship and Freedom Under Siege. His archived columns for Antiwar.com are here.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses Obama’s refusal to declare a “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program, Robert Gates’s insistence that Iran’s low enriched uranium is tantamount to a nuclear weapon, the abundance of evidence that Obama is not a secret dove and how Gates’s bipartisan tenure allows him to contradict Obama without consequence.

MP3 here. (18:32)

Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. He is the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. His articles appear on Counterpunch, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and Antiwar.com

Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, discusses the widening gap between public and private sector pay, an increase in affluent military towns, the disappearance of traditional checks on state power and predation and the incremental “ratchet effect” of governmental authority that increases “temporarily” during wartime but never fully recedes.

MP3 here. (28:41)

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.

Alexander Abdo, a Fellow in the ACLU’s National Security Project, discusses the “new normal” of institutionalized Bush administration lawlessness, why we should expect other countries to mimic U.S. assertions of authority to commit international extrajudicial killings, the government’s failure to cite a legal justification for killing U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, the media disclosures from Leon Panetta and John Brennan about a government hit list of American citizens and why cops now have the right to use GPS to track anyone’s car for any (or no) reason.

MP3 here. (20:06)

Alexander Abdo is a Fellow in the ACLU’s National Security Project. He has been involved in the litigation of cases concerning the Patriot Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Navy brig in South Carolina. Mr. Abdo is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. Prior to working at the ACLU, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Barbara M.G. Lynn, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, and to the Hon. Rosemary Barkett, United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This interview is excerpted from the KPFK broadcast of August 26. The entire show can be heard here.

Peace activist Cindy Sheehan discusses the Iraq War’s continuation even after the withdrawal of all “combat” troops, the antiwar movement mesmerized by “hopenosis” and the 75th anniversary edition of Major General Smedley Butler’s War is a Racket with a forward by Sheehan.

MP3 here. (8:36)

Cindy Sheehan became a leader of the antiwar movement after her son, Casey, was killed in Iraq. Her efforts to get answers from President Bush, including a vigil in Crawford, Texas, have received national media attention. She has a website and radio show, is the author of Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey through Heartache to Activism and wrote the introduction to 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military.

Hannah Gurman, author of the Salon.com article “The Iraq withdrawal: An Orwellian success,” discusses the U.S. deliberations on Iraq’s future that fail to ask what Iraqis want, measuring the outcome of war in terms of “success” rather than victory or defeat, how Iraq’s inability to form a parliament is delaying the approval of lucrative oil contracts and why the Sons of Iraq who were never integrated into the army are returning to the insurgency.

MP3 here. (23:21)

Hannah Gurman is an assistant professor at NYU’s Gallatin School. She is currently working on a book about the history of counterinsurgency in American foreign policy.

Charles Featherstone, regular writer at LewRockwell.com, discusses his article “The Littlest Liberal Warmonger,” why Saudi Arabia isn’t nearly as repressed and despotic as most people think, how the mosque protests are as much about despair over failing wars as a Republican election year ploy to rally the base, why al Qaeda’s social agenda and use of violence is exceedingly unpopular in the Muslim world and author Frantz Fanon‘s definitive 1961 work on how violent resistance can defeat Western colonialism/imperialism.

MP3 here. (20:55)

Charles H. Featherstone is a seminarian, essayist and songwriter currently living in Chicago. He writes regularly for LewRockwell.com.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses recent Mossad intelligence operations in America based out of the Israel mission to the U.N. in New York , the one-way street intelligence sharing between the CIA and Israel, why FBI and DOJ espionage investigations never go anywhere and the evidence that Israeli agents in America had foreknowledge of 9/11.

MP3 here. (26:08)

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and executive director of the Council for the National Interest. He writes regularly for Antiwar.com.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses the revival of al-Qaeda in Iraq (and its minimal relation to bin Laden’s group), how the Sadrists are the only grass roots political movement in Iraq, how Prime Minister Maliki’s grip on power is an impediment to a coalition government and why the decisive outcome of Iraq’s civil war greatly decreases the chance of another major conflict.

MP3 here. (16:56)

Patrick Cockburn was awarded the 2009 Orwell Prize for political writing in British journalism. He is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch.org. Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq and Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq.

Independent journalist Anand Gopal discusses the Taliban’s lucrative protection racket on U.S. supply convoys, Pakistan’s refusal to allow a bilateral peace deal between Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, Colin Powell’s disinterest in regime change in Afghanistan (in September 2001), the Afghan army’s inability to secure the country or fight the Taliban, how the Marjah screw-up has made the military cautious on the Kandahar offensive and why Gen. Petraeus’s “success” in Iraq was easy: allow majority (Shia) to rule and bribe minority (Sunni) to stop fighting – while in Afghanistan the opposite is proposed.

MP3 here. (19:30)

Anand Gopal has reported in Afghanistan for the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal.  His dispatches can be read at AnandGopal.com. He is currently working on a book about the Afghan war.

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com blogger and former constitutional lawyer, discusses the NYC anti-mosque/anti-Islam rally sponsored by neocon crazy Frank Gaffney (scroll down to update III), how the public’s fear of an Islamic bogeyman must be constantly stoked to justify a U.S. foreign policy of war and aggression, how Israel benefits from increasing anti-Islam bigotry in the U.S. and the most suppressed truth in American political discourse: that U.S. policy and behavior generate grievances that inspire acts of terrorism – including 9/11.

MP3 here. (23:21)

Glenn Greenwald was a constitutional lawyer in New York City, first at the Manhattan firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and then at the litigation firm he founded, Greenwald, Christoph. Greenwald litigated numerous high-profile and significant constitutional cases in federal and state courts around the country, including multiple First Amendment challenges. He has a J.D. from New York University School of Law (1994) and a B.A. from George Washington University (1990). In October of 2005, Greenwald started a political and legal blog, Unclaimed Territory, which quickly became one of the most popular and highest-trafficked in the blogosphere.

Upon disclosure by the New York Times in December 2005 of President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, Greenwald became one of the leading and most cited experts on that controversy. In early 2006, he broke a story on his blog regarding the NSA scandal that served as the basis for front-page articles in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, all of which credited his blog for the story. Several months later, Sen. Russ Feingold read from one of Greenwald’s posts during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feingold’s resolution to censure the president for violating FISA. In 2008, Sen. Chris Dodd read from Greenwald’s Salon blog during floor debate over FISA. Greenwald’s blog was also cited as one of the sources for the comprehensive report issued by Rep. John Conyers titled “The Constitution in Crisis.” In 2006, he won the Koufax Award for best new blog.

Greenwald is the author of A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok and Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics.

Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C., discusses the boon of documents released in a Senate investigation of Israel’s covert lobbying and PR campaigns, threats to the continued freedom to practice (out of favor) religions in America, how neocons use their unchallenged talking points in mainstream media to push for war with Iran, The Atlantic magazine’s history of shilling for Israel and how AIPAC wields power by withholding campaign contributions to wayward congressmen.

MP3 here. (34:46)

Grant F. Smith is the author of Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee from the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is a frequent contributor to Radio France Internationale and Voice of America’s Foro Interamericano. Smith has also appeared on BBC News, CNN, and C-SPAN. He is currently director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, D.C.

Juan Cole, Professor of History and author of Engaging the Muslim World, discusses Rafic Hariri’s rise to power and prominence in Lebanon before his 2005 assassination, initial suspicions cast on Syria due to its efforts in maintaining political dominance in Lebanon, how Hezbollah filled the political vacuum created by Syria’s withdrawal – much to the chagrin of Israel and the Bush administration and why the current investigation’s focus on Hezbollah could destabilize the fragile Lebanese government.

MP3 here. (17:03)

Juan Cole is the author of Engaging the Muslim World. He is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan and writes the “Informed Comment” blog at Juancole.com.

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the devastation caused by Pakistan’s flood, U.S. monetary aid that props up Pakistan’s economy and government, a likely return to military rule in Pakistan, Islamic aid groups providing care and scoring public relations points, longstanding pre-9/11 grievances against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and why anti-Islam bigotry appears to be rising to the pogrom level.

MP3 here. (19:27)

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 contributor to The Huffington Post and has appeared 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.