Latin America and the Arab World
August 5, 2008
Tariq Ali addressed a Sydney Ideas audience, with a lecture on lessons for the Middle East from Latin America, entitled Latin America and the Arab World: Resistance and Occupation. While one region serves to some degree as a good model of regional autonomy and has broken away from becoming a laboratory of neoliberalism, the other is struggling less successfully, so far, against the designs of neoconservatism.
Tariq Ali, Resistance and Occupation: Download Audio
Understanding America’s Terrorist Crisis
July 30, 2008
Gore Vidal in conversation with Lewis Lapham. To buy the full 50 minute interview see the TUC Radio website.
One of America’s most famous novelists, playwrights and essayists had problems publishing his most recent book: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, how we got to be so hated. The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly two hundred military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. Vidal quotes from this list. He spoke at a belated book release event in San Francisco on terrorism, Timothy McVeigh, the Patriot Act and the Bush administration. Could it be, he says, that the greatest victim of the September 11 terror attack will be American liberty?
Rumsfeld
July 26, 2008
Here are two in depth interviews with Andrew Cockburn based on his excellent book on Rumsfeld. It is one of the best political biographies to have come out in the past year, and I hope to post my own review here soon.
Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses Donald Rumsfeld’s flawed personality, and history of intrigue, naked ambition, torture and war.
Antiwar Radio Exclusive: Revealed by Andrew Cockburn April 18, 2007: When Secretary of State Madeline Albright announced, on March 26, 1997, that Iraqi sanctions would stay in place despite the UN inspectors success it was an effort to preempt UN inspection chief Ralf Ekeus’s pending announcement that Iraq was to be certified “free” of “weapons of mass destruction.” (at 22:40)
This, as Cockburn explains, led Saddam to decide there was no further point in allowing the inspectors access to his palaces. (Former UN inspector Scott Ritter has maintained, including to this radio host, that the only purpose for the inspections after 1996 was to allow American spies the opportunity to assassinate Saddam Hussein.) This allowed Bill Clinton to falsely claim that Saddam had kicked them out of the country, launch his “Operation Desert Fox” bombing campaign (on the day the full House of Representatives were to begin debating Articles of Impeachment against him), and for the War Party to claim to this day that there must have been weapons there.
Also: Cockburn and General Anthony Zinni’s belief that the neocons’ plan B after installing Chalabi as dictator fell through was to deliberately destroy Iraq (that is, all this “failure” is on purpose), the suffering of the Iraq people, Rumfeld’s bogus “transformation” of the military and more…
Andrew Cockburn is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, and is also the author of five nonfiction books. He has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Candidates Punt on Iraq-Israel
July 19, 2008
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses his recent article on the probable Israeli/U.S. attack on Iran, Israel’s need for new war in Iran to keep the U.S. military in the Mideast due to the failure in Iraq, the outspokenness of the military brass against an attack on Iran, AIPAC’s drafting of the new Iran war resolutions, Bush and Cheney’s loyalty to Israel, the never-ending conflicts created by the Israel occupation of Palestine, the need for the American people and Congress to understand the catastrophe that would ensue from attacking Iran and the urgency of impeachment.
Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years – from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush and is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The Israel Lobby — A Debate
July 6, 2008
Stephen Walt, co-author with John Mearsheimer of the book Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy debates Mitchell Plitnick of Jewish Voices for Peace. This is was broadcast on Your Call Radio on October 9, 2007.
What explains the U.S. government’s support of Israel? On the next Your Call, we welcome Stephen Walt, professor of International Affairs at Harvard University and co-author of the new book, The Israel Lobby. The book explores why there is so little disagreement about Israel among American politicians. Stephen Walt argues that unconditional support for the Jewish state is heavily influenced by the powerful Israeli lobby in the U.S. and in the end, he says it’s bad for both countries. What do you think? It’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.
Guests:
Stephen Walt in Cambridge
The Robert and Rene Belfer Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and author with John Mearsheimer of the new book The Israel Lobby.Mitchell Plitnick in San Francisco
Director of Administration and Policy for Jewish Voice for Peace
Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties
July 3, 2008
The founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, explaining the European (and US) copyfight in terms of Copyright Vs. Civil Liberties. In short, for the media industry to prevent breach of copyright they must remove all previously held privacy laws and monitor everything you do online. To prevent this Falkvinge launched the Pirate Party to battle in the Swedish polls. For more on Rick try this video presentation.
Chances are you’ve never been welcomed in front of an audience with “Arrrr!” Chances are, however, that you are not the founder of the Pirates Political Party. It’s a rapidly growing group located in Sweden. The name was chosen to represent piracy, or “stealing” copyrighted products because the Party is firmly against corporate ownership.
Anti-Iran Arguments Belie Fearmongering
July 2, 2008
Gareth Porter of the excellent Inter Press Service with the latest in the Israel Lobby’s campaign to nudge US towards another war. You can hear Porter discuss his article on Antiwar Radio here:
Also see this interview with him from The Real News: ‘US House Res. 362 suggests the use of force with new bill’
Let me note here that I used to be a regular listener of Democracy Now and several other Leftist news programs. I am no more. It has been clear for some time now that the Israel Lobby and its neocon spearhead are the only entities pushing for war, yet you wouldn’t hear it said once. Even when statements have been made to that effect, such as Seymour Hersh’s comment on DN that ‘Jewish money’ was behind the war drive, Amy Goodman made a point not to pursue the point. These days I mostly turn to IPS for its excellent analysts (Porter, Khody Akhavi and the indispensable Jim Lobe), Antiwar.com, the Real News Network and Counterpunch for reliable news and commentary.
New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favor of U.S. strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the U.S. and Israel and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all.
The new arguments contradict Israel’s official argument that it faces an “existential threat” from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime determined to get nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as 200 nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in the region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.
The existence of a sharp imbalance of power in favor of Israel and the United States is the main premise of a recent analysis by Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) suggesting that a U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is feasible. Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center on Science and International Affairs, has also urged war against Iran on such a power imbalance.
Preparing the Battlefield
June 30, 2008
‘The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran,’ reports Seymour M. Hersh. You can also hear him speak about this here:
As Alexander Cockburn points out, however, none of this is news. This story had already been broken by Andrew Cockburn on Counterpunch a few months back.
Operations outside the knowledge and control of commanders have eroded “the coherence of military strategy,” one general says.
Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.
The Spy Who Loves Us
June 14, 2008
Pay no mind to the Mossad agent on the line. Philip Giraldi on Israeli espionage in the US. For further context, check out this interview from Antiwar Radio: “Philip Giraldi discusses his recent article “The Spy Who Loves Us: Israeli Espionage In America” about the extensive Israeli spy network inside America and their surveillance of the 9/11 hijackers, the corroboration of their spying by U.S. intelligence agencies, the case of spy Jonathan Pollard and how Israel passes it’s stolen intel on to many enemies of America, the still secret identity of Israeli very top level asset “Mega,” the spy for Israel, Ben-Ami Kadish, and his treasonous crimes, the Israeli and Iranian influence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the White House/Iranian “negotiation” charade, and the planning for and consequences of an attack against Iran – including the possible use of nuclear weapons.”
After Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1986, the U.S. negotiated an understanding with Israel—a “gentlemen’s agreement” —stipulating that neither nation would thenceforth conduct espionage operations in the other’s territory without consent. But the agreement was a sham from the beginning. The Israeli government didn’t even honor its commitments in the aftermath of the Pollard case, failing to return the estimated 360 cubic feet of stolen information to enable the U.S. to conduct a damage assessment. The United States, for its part, continued to recruit and run agents inside Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was known within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities that Israel did the same in the United States. David Szady, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, was so dismayed by the level of Israeli spying in the late ’90s that he called in the head of the Israeli Embassy’s Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Activities (Mossad) office and told him, “Knock it off.”
Pollard’s name was in the news again on April 22, when former U.S. Army weapons engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested for passing secrets to Israel. Kadish had been an agent run by Yosef Yagur, who directed Pollard. Yagur, under cover as a science attaché at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, fled the U.S. in 1985 after Pollard was arrested, but remained in touch with Kadish.
Hedges takes on the New Atheists
May 25, 2008
I just finished Chris Hedges’s I Don’t Believe in Atheists. It is a philosophical tour-de-force. I recommend it to everyone, atheist or otherwise. I will post a review soon, but for now, here is Hedges in his own words on Point of Inquiry.
Chris Hedges is a journalist and author who focuses on American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years. He is the author of What Every Person Should Know About War and American Fascists. His newest book is I Don’t Believe in Atheists.
In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, acclaimed foreign correspondent Chris Hedges shares his criticism of the New Atheists, calling them “fundamentalists” in their own right. He responds to their account of the origins of Islamic religious extremism, and he accuses the New Atheists of racism. He explains his view that the New Atheists are proponents of the Neo-conservative agenda and how the American Left does advance secular values in the Muslim world. He also criticizes what he calls the “utopianism” of the New Atheists, detailing his skepticism about moral progress for humanity.
