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2013 Program Archive
August 27 - Both a Crime and an Opportunity; The War Train has Left the Station; Alternatives to Military Force in Syria
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We begin with the drumbeat of war that is drowning out alternative approaches to the crisis in Syria and go to Ireland to speak with Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent for the UK Independent where he has an article “Only a Peace Conference, Not Airstrikes, Can Stop Further Bloodshed”. We discuss his contention that the slaughter of civilians by chemical weapons is both a crime and an opportunity and examine the possibility of pursuing peace before the trigger is pulled on war.
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Then we speak with Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and the author of “The World Through Arab Eyes”. We discuss Syria as the third and most recent Arab country to face civil war after enduring decades of dictatorship. With Iraq and Libya in chaos after being liberated by U.S. and NATO military force, we look at the prospects for avoiding the destruction and division of Syria which is caught in both a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and a wider contest between the U.S. and Russia, both of whom do not want Al Qaeda to take over Syria.
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Then finally we speak with David Cortwright, an American scholar and peace activist who is the Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. We discuss alternatives to the use of military force in Syria that are not on the table and the disconnect between an almost unanimous call for military action from political leaders while only 9% of the American people support the U.S. going to war in Syria.
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August 26 - A Spokesperson for the Syrian Opposition on the Attacks; Forest Policy and More Intense Fires; Statewide Attacks on Abortion Providers
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We begin with strong words from Secretary of State John Kerry characterizing the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime as “undeniable” while calling its indiscriminate use against women and children and bystanders “a moral obscenity”. Rafif Jouejati, the English-language spokesperson for the Syrian Local Coordination Committees, the umbrella group for the Syrian opposition, joins us to discuss the consequences for the Assads as the certainty that they used chemical weapons grows. |  |
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Then, with groves of ancient sequoias in Yosemite National Park threatened by a raging wild fire, we speak with a leading expert on forest fire prevention and management. Stephen Pyne, the Regents’ Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University joins us to discuss how policies preventing natural forest fires that make trees and forests healthier, have led to a buildup of underbrush fuel that makes it all but inevitable that forests and trees will be killed by much more intense and catastrophic fires. |
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Then finally we look into the wave of legislative attacks on abortion providers at the state level that have shut down 54 abortion providers in 27 states since 2010. Jodi Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief of RH Reality Check, joins us to discuss the dramatic decline of abortion access from Republican anti-abortion legislation under the guise of protecting the civil rights of the unborn and their mothers. |
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August 25 - A Showdown in Syria Looms; A Political Use of Military Force in Syria; "The United States of Paranoia"
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We begin with the almost certain military response to the apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria and speak with Robert Baer, a veteran CIA operations officer who worked for decades in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. The author of a number of best-sellers, Robert Baer is now an Intelligence Analyst on CNN and he joins us to discuss why military intervention in Syria is a bad idea, even if it is all but inevitable. |  |
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Then we get further analysis on a likely U.S. strike from Henri Barkey, a professor of International Relations at Lehigh University who served on the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. We discuss growing international pressure on President Obama to act in response to the use of weapons of mass destruction and how a punitive political, as opposed to military use of force, will do little to change the outcome of Syria’s agonizing civil war that the majority of American want the U.S. to stay out of. |
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Then finally we speak with Jesse Walker, a Senior Editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com. He is the author of a new book “The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory” that traces the history of political paranoia in America and explores the reasons why people are attracted to conspiracy theories, that may be harmless when ordinary citizens believe them, but can be a lot more dangerous when those in power act on those beliefs. |
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August 22 - Crossing the Red Line in Syria; Restoring the Old Order in Egypt; Obama Calls for Cutting College Costs While Ignoring the For-Profit College Racket
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We begin with the latest apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria that has both the French government and Senator John McCain calling for the use of force against the Assad regime. Raymond Zilinskas, a former U.N. chemical and biological weapons inspector in Iraq, who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies joins us to discuss the evidence so far that might indicate Assad has crossed President Obama’s red line.
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Then we look into why the Egyptian military decided to release the former dictator Hosni Mubarak from jail at a time when they are claiming that their month-long imposition of martial law and the bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood is not a coup and that they want to return democracy and civilian rule to Egypt. Egyptian journalist Emad Mekay, a senior fellow in the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, who writes for Al Jazeera and Inter-Press Service, joins us to discuss whether the army is restoring the old order. |
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Then finally we assess the president’s proposed college-rating system that he is rolling out on his bus tour of the northeast to promote lowering the cost of college. Former Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch, the author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” and a new book “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Public Schools”, joins us to discuss how Obama could claim to want to lower college cost while not dealing with the taxpayer-funded for-profit college racket that is saddling students with worthless diplomas and mountains of debt. |
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August 21 - Why Manning and Not Cheney?; Why is Pacifica Radio Losing Audience and Going Broke?; The Journalist Booted Off RT - Russia's English-Language Cable Network
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We begin with the 35 year sentence that Bradley Manning received and speak with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff who went public in 2005 with his knowledge that Vice President Dick Cheney provided the “guidance” that led to America’s torture disgrace. We discuss how much Manning hurt the United States compared to Cheney and why others convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, Cuba and Russia received much lesser sentences.
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Then we look into The New York Times article “Democracy May Prove the Doom of WBAI” and examine the reasons why the Pacifica network is losing listeners with two of its five stations facing bankruptcy. John Dinges, a professor and director of radio at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and author of “A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism” joins us to discuss the expensive elections listeners are boycotting and the top-heavy governance, about which the article states, “unless Pacifica reforms it will simply govern itself to death”. |
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Then finally we speak with James Kirchick, a journalist and foreign correspondent who is a leading voice on American gay politics and international gay rights. He was booted off RT, Russia’s English language cable network for attacking Putin’s anti-gay crackdown, accusing the RT hosts and guests of being paid propagandists for their paymaster Vladimir Putin. We discuss Russia’s assault on gay rights and James Kirchick’s article at The Daily Beast, “Why American Social Conservatives Love Anti-Gay Putin”. |
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