Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » Empire

Mark Sheffield

Scott Horton — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:22:37 +0000

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 know or understand history; how the Bush Administration played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands by invading Afghanistan and Iraq; and the political barriers to bringing the troops home and winding down the US empire of bases.

MP3 here. (22:01)

Mark Sheffield runs the Policy on Point blog.

Jon Basil Utley

Scott Horton — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 04:35:12 +0000

Jon Basil Utley, director of Americans Against World Empire, discusses his article “Polling the Right Questions on Defense – Voters Get It Right,” a summary of Scott Rasmussen’s book The Peopole’s Money; the super-majority of Americans more concerned with economic threats than military ones; the “political class” cheerleaders of US empire; European labor laws and regulations that limit business competition; and the redundancy and waste in US “defense” spending.

MP3 here. (27:15)

Jon Basil Utley is associate publisher of The American Conservative. He was a foreign correspondent in South America for the Journal of Commerce and Knight Ridder newspapers and former associate editor of The Times of the Americas. He is a writer and adviser for Antiwar.com and edits a blog, The Military Industrial Congressional Complex. Jon also runs the IraqWar.org and TheWarParty.com websites.

Thomas E. Woods

Scott Horton — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:04:54 +0000

Thomas E. Woods, author of Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse, discusses the Ron Paul revolution and why there are very few popular American uprisings specifically against foreign policy and empire; the “26 Things Non-Paul Voters Are Basically Saying;” the left-right political realignment, putting aside jingoistic nationalism and uniting around a moral foreign policy; and why Ron Paul’s campaign staff should get him into more town hall meetings, where his message really resonates.

MP3 here. (21:19)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. A senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Woods holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Robert Koehler

Scott Horton — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:22:35 +0000

Nationally syndicated writer Robert Koehler discusses his article “‘Bugsplat’: the civilian toll of war;” robbing America’s enemies of their humanity through derisive name calling or utter indifference; how US nationalism – America’s civic religion – permits the government to commit atrocities abroad without domestic political repercussions; why all the regular people look like ants to those on high; and military recruiting through video games and high unemployment.

MP3 here. (20:26)

Robert Koehler is a nationally syndicated writer and author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound. His website is commonwonders.com.

Steve Horn and Allen Ruff

Scott Horton — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:38:08 +0000

Steve Horn and Allen Ruff discuss their two-part article at Truth-Out, “How Private Warmongers and the US Military Infiltrated American Universities;” how the allies of empire (from neoconservatives to liberal hawks) united to promote “Grand Strategy Programs” – essentially elaborate fictions used to trick Americans into supporting endless warfare; the group of military officers and academics behind David Petraeus and his PR-focused military doctrine; and how radicals have succeeded in redefining the political center and the acceptable range of foreign policy opinions.

MP3 here. (20:07)

Steve Horn is a researcher and writer at DeSmogBlog. He is also a freelance investigative journalist.

Allen Ruff is a US historian and an independent writer on foreign policy issues. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Rep. Ron Paul

Scott Horton — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:52:49 +0000

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses how American politicians have moved inexorably away from the republic and toward empire (witness the most recent Republican debate); how the Republican base – especially the youngest and oldest members – are developing a healthy skepticism of US foreign policy; and debunking the argument that the US can never “cut and run” because disaster will ensue.

MP3 here. (9:56)

Congressman Ron Paul represents Texas’s 14th district. He is the author of Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom, The Revolution: A Manifesto, A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship and End the Fed. His archived columns for Antiwar.com are here.

Pepe Escobar

Scott Horton — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:21:05 +0000

Globetrotting journalist Pepe Escobar discusses his article “China and the US: The roadmaps;” how the ever-expanding “arc of instability” could get the US into a trade war (or hot war) with China; how South American economies are gathering steam while Goldman Sachs takes over a chaotic and bankrupt Europe; possible covert US support for Muslim Chinese Uighurs; and how the US empire is being crushed by the burden of “full spectrum dominance.”

MP3 here. (27:08)

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving Into Liquid War and Obama Does Globalistan.

An extreme traveler, Pepe’s nose for news has taken him to all parts of the globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination. Two weeks before September 11, 2001, while Pepe was in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Asia Times Online published his prophetic piece, “Get Osama! Now! Or else …” Pepe was one of the first journalists to reach Kabul after the Taliban’s retreat, and more recently he has explored and reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China.

Robert P. Murphy

Scott Horton — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:01:16 +0000

Robert P. Murphy, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, discusses his article “The Economics of War;” how open markets and free trade make expansionist states and war unnecessary; a cost/benefit analysis of empire and “war for oil;” and the $15 trillion US debt (a trillion here, a trillion there, and soon you’re talking real money).

MP3 here. (22:47)

Robert P. Murphy is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, where he teaches at the Mises Academy. He runs the blog Free Advice and is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal, and his newest book, Lessons for the Young Economist.

Andrew Bacevich

Scott Horton — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:34:45 +0000

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University and author of The Short American Century: A Postmortem, discusses his article “The Passing of the Postwar Era;” the major factors leading to a “transformative” decline in US power and prestige on the world stage; the American political elites who are driving the country into a ditch; the redundancy or counter-productivity of overseas bases (excepting the Asia Pacific region); and the lack of “prudent” decision making in Washington D.C.

MP3 here. (10:18)

Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he received his PhD in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University, he taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins.

Bacevich is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010). His previous books include The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007) (editor); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005); and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002). His essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and general interest publications including The Wilson Quarterly, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The New Republic. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers.

In 2004, Dr. Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has also held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Tom Engelhardt

Scott Horton — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:48:59 +0000

Tom Engelhardt, creator of Tomdispatch.com and author of The United States of Fear, discusses how the Bush administration’s version of the American Dream is dying on the vine; the dull-eyed Obama administration bureaucrats who have unthinkingly carried on the plans of radical visionaries from the Bush era; how Hillary Clinton’s imperial hubris makes her immune from logical contradictions (e.g.: “US forces are in the Persian Gulf to prevent foreign interference”); and why the Iraq War has become a clear defeat for the US, despite the middling security detail and giant embassy that remain.

MP3 here. (20:11)

Tom Engelhardt created and runs the Tomdispatch.com website, a project of The Nation Institute where he is a Fellow. He is the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s, a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture, and of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing, as well as a collection of his Tomdispatch interviews, Mission Unaccomplished. Each spring he is a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.