Why did America invade Iraq?

Oil? Israel? …

Jets, bombs and taxed dollars.

So says Richard Cummings as he explains the story behind his Playboy.com article “Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels“: the direct role in policy-making played by Lockheed Martin and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex and the amount of money they loot from the U.S. Treasury.

Also discussed: whether the National Review is a CIA front.

MP3 here.

Richard Cummings taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of The Immortalists, The Pied Piper – Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

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Barry Lando, author of Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush explains some of the history of that unfortunate land.

MP3 here.

Barry Lando’s journalistic experience includes 25 years as a producer with CBS “60 Minutes”, which he left in 1997. Prior to that he was a correspondent for Time-Life in South America. He has also freelanced articles over the years for a large range of North American and European publications.

Lando received a B.A. magna in History at Harvard and an M.A. in political science from Columbia University. A Canadian citizen (born in Vancouver), he currently lives in Paris with his wife and 14 year old son. Two older children live and work in the U.S. and Canada.