Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the investigation into the backgrounds of the San Bernardino terrorists, in particular Tashfeen Malik, and examine her time in her native Pakistan with Pakistan’s former Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani. He joins us to discuss the role of Saudi Wahhabism in her radicalization, along with the possibility that she received military training in one of the many terrorist training camps in Pakistan that have yet to be shut down.

Part 2

Then we discuss President Obama’s address to the nation on dealing with terrorism and the self-declared Islamic State, and speak with Arun Kundnani, a Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University who also teaches terrorism studies at John Jay College. He is the author of “The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror” and we discuss the gulf between the major role that politics play in the radicalization of young Muslims who join daesh, compared to the minor role of religion which usually gets most of the attribution and emphasis.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the Justice Department’s launch of a “pattern and practice investigation” into the Chicago Police Department following the release of a video that showed a Chicago policeman shoot 17 year old Laquan McDonald 16 times. Craig Futterman, a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and founder of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic joins us. He played a key role in getting the video released and we will discuss the DOJ investigation and the latest release of a video of a Chicago police shooting. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the current efforts to define yesterday’s tragedy in San Bernardino, California as either yet another mass shooting by well-armed deranged individuals, an act of domestic terrorism or an act of terrorism inspired from abroad. Paul Pillar, the Director of Graduate Studies at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University who retired after 28 years in the CIA as the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, joins us to discuss what foreign influences might be involved in motivating Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik to kill 14 people, wound 21 and leave behind their six month old baby after dying in a furious shootout with the police.

Part 2

Then we speak with Ali Al-Ahmed, the founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs about the need for less Saudi Wahhabi influence and more diversity in Islam as American Imams and Islamic Scholars once again find themselves on the defensive, repeating clichés that “Islam is a religion of peace” to an increasingly skeptical  American public that is more and more susceptible to the kind of Islamophobic ignorance being spread by Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the maximum one year jail sentence that the West Virginia coal baron Don Blankenship faces from a misdemeanor conviction of conspiracy handed down today after the Justice Department failed in a prosecution that could have led to a 30-year prison term for causing the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010. Bob Kincaid, the co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign and President of the Coal River Mountain Watch joins us to explain this slap on the wrist.