August 23 - The End of the GOP's Greatest Strength: National Security; The Destruction of Yemen by Saudi Arabia; The Filmmaker of "We Come as Friends"

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the drumbeat for a new war in Iran and a war with Iran that a dubious poll by Fox News claims 65% of Americans support. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, joins us to discuss his call that if that percentage of Americans support military action against Iran and want to use ground forces against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, “then I suggest we have a draft and draft those 65% to lead the way". We also examine the squandering of the Republican Party’s strongest suit as the preferred custodians of our national security, that the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls are making a mockery of with their fatuous and amateurish bombast.

Part 2

Then we examine the humanitarian tragedy underway in Yemen about which the U.N.’s humanitarian chief, who just returned from Yemen, warned the U.N. Security Council that “the scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible”. An expert on Yemen, Dr. Sheila Carapico, a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Richmond, joins us to discuss how, with military assistance and intelligence from the U.S., Saudi Arabia's brutal and wanton bombing of Yemen, along with a blockade, has brought the country to the brink of famine.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with acclaimed Academy Award-nominated director Hubert Sauper, whose new documentary feature “We Come as Friends” opens this weekend in New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. We discuss his powerful and visceral cinematic journey into how slavery, colonialism, corruption, and now globalization, have devastated Africa, in particular the world’s newest country, South Sudan.