Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, discusses her article “The Phases of War: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Israel;” how the US lost the Afghan War before it even began; why military occupation/pacification campaigns always degenerate into massacres and degradations like those lately perpetrated by US soldiers in [...]Author and journalist Jefferson Morley discusses his article “Drones for ‘urban warfare’” at Salon.com; the International Drone Summit hosted by CODEPINK, Reprieve, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Washington D.C.; Congress’s fast-track approval of domestic drone aviation; and concerns about privacy and the eventual weaponization of drones. MP3 here. (10:25) Jefferson Morley is a [...]Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, discusses Washington Post writer David Ignatius’s claim that a deal has already been made on Iran’s nuclear program and that ongoing talks are scripted; why the US and Iran can’t just “make a deal and shut up already;” how Benjamin Netanyahu’s bluff about [...]Joshua B. Freeman, History Professor and author of American Empire, discusses his TomDispatch article on the “prison-corporate complex;” the late 19th century chain gangs in the South and industrial prison labor in the North; the return of involuntary servitude, i.e. slavery, in American prisons; how low-paid prisoners keep pressure on labor unions and generate profits [...]Mark Sheffield of the Policy on Point blog discusses his article “Ignorance or Arrogance (or Both): The Long War Doctrine and Post-9/11 US Foreign Policy;” a comparison of the limited invasions and proxy wars between Vietnam and 9/11, and the lengthy full-scale occupations since then; looking at 9/11 through the eyes of Americans who don’t [...]Oleg Novinkov, former Soviet officer and author of Afghan Boomerang, discusses the propaganda-filled book Charlie Wilson’s War about the CIA operation to arm mujaheddin in their fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan; the Western media’s re-labeling of Afghan “freedom fighters” as “terrorists” once the US invaded; why Afghans would rather be occupied by the [...]J.M. Berger, investigative journalist and terrorism consultant, discusses his article “Patriot Games: How the FBI spent a decade hunting white supremacists and missed Timothy McVeigh;” how years of bad reporting have muddied the waters of the Oklahoma City bombing story; the FBI’s PATCON operation of infiltrating (and possibly inciting) the radical right in the 1990s; [...]Jesse Trentadue, attorney and brother of Kenneth Trentadue (who was probably tortured and killed by FBI agents mistaking him for Richard Lee Guthrie – a.k.a. John Doe No. 2 – in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing), discusses the new book Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed-and Why It Still Matters by Andrew [...]