Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, discusses Seymour Melman’s [.pdf] research into the societal repercussions of a military economy, the diversion of research scientists from the private sector to Cold War military programs, the transformation of the U.S. university system into a DOD jobs program and the corruption of defense contractors into companies that can’t compete in a free market.

MP3 here. (22:11)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books. 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.

Ben Manski, Executive Director of Liberty Tree, discusses the Bring the Guard Home! campaign that seeks to end the illegal use of national guard units deployed abroad, the historical U.S. change from a republican system of state militias to an imperial army and the reassertion of state governor control over the guard.

MP3 here. (18:09)

Ben Manski is a Wisconsin attorney. He serves Liberty Tree as Executive Director, editor of the Liberty Tree Journal, and as a Fellow. Ben received his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 2005, and a B.A. in Sociology with a focus in Rural Sociology from the UW-Madison in 1999. Ben Manski served as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States from 2001 through 2004. He was employed on the staffs of a number of environmental, social justice, pro-democracy, and education advocacy organizations throughout the 1990s, and played leadership roles in many others. Ben currently serves as President of the Press Connection Foundation.  He is a member of the Speak Out! Speakers and Artists speakers bureau.

Chalmers Johnson, author of the indispensable Blowback trilogy, discusses the evolution of his view of the Cold War and American empire since the fall of the Soviet Union, the inevitable collapse of the U.S. dollar and world empire, Obama’s LBJ guns and butter trap, the kicking-out of the empire by the people of Latin America, the danger of further intervention in Pakistan, the ongoing rape of Okinawa and America’s relationship with Russia.

MP3 here. (39:23)

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for Inter Press Service News Agency, discusses the connection between PNAC and the U.S. empire of bases, how beltway foreign policy advisers changed Obama’s antiwar rhetoric, the rumors of a U.S.-sponsored Iraqi coup d’etat to replace Nouri al-Maliki and the tendency of empires to enter costly military quagmires that bring their downfall.

MP3 here. (28:13)

Gareth Porter’s articles appear on the Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and on Antiwar.com.

Former senator George McGovern discusses the danger to the U.S. in continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, why the damage to Iraq is already done and can’t be fixed by the U.S., Eisenhower ended the Korean war as promised, the lessons he learned flying a B-24 in World War II, the extraordinary cost of maintaining a world empire and the difficulty of unraveling the influence of the permanent warfare economy.

MP3 here. (15:00)

George McGovern is a former senator and presidential candidate.

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell during his tenure as Secretary of State, discusses how the Bush administration ignored the perfectly adequate Geneva Conventions guidelines for classifying war-zone detainees, the ethical and practical considerations of detaining and interrogating innocent civilians to “fight terror,” the counterclaim to Dick Cheney’s assertion that torture prevents terrorism and the end of an Israel/Palestine two state solution. Wilkerson also says he would cooperate with the prosecution of Dick Cheney for war crimes – not that that would ever happen.

MP3 here. (30:10)

Larry Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. He is chairman of the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative and wrote “Some Truths About Guantanamo” as a guest post on The Washington Note.

Pepe Escobar, writer for the Asia Times, discusses the importance of home-field advantage in the fossil fuel Great Game, how the U.S. empire of bases is used to dominate access to critical energy resources, the IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) pipeline proposal that defies U.S. influence and the increasing cooperation of Russia and China on energy issues.

MP3 here. (26:36)

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving Into Liquid War and Obama Does Globalistan. His article “Welcome to Pipelineistan” appears at Tomdispatch.com.

Philip Giraldi, contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine, discusses the disposition of U.S. diplomacy in the Obama administration, the role Dick Cheney played in scuttling a Syria/Israel peace agreement, Obama’s use of unofficial envoys to float diplomatic trial balloons in Iran and Russia, the fate of Hamid Karzai and why the Pyrrhic nature of the Israel lobby’s recent victory over the realists has been greatly exaggerated.

MP3 here. (41:43)

Philip Giraldi is a former DIA and CIA counter-terrorism officer, member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance and contributing editor at the American Conservative Magazine. His Smoke and Mirrors column is a regular feature on Antiwar.com

Frida Berrigan, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, discusses the frantic U.S. defense contractors lobbying for stimulus money while promising job creation, the prospect of a militarized outer space, Lockheed Martin’s overpriced and unnecessary F-22 Raptor and why the commonly held assumption that World War II ended the Great Depression must be challenged.

MP3 here. (23:33)

Frida Berrigan is Senior Program Associate for the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. She is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus and a contributing editor of In These Times magazine.

Noam Chomsky, author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, discusses the roots of U.S. imperialism, the often overlooked opportunity costs of empire, the exaggerated strength of U.S. economic rivals, the continuation of the Great Game into the 21st century, how the Western World’s observance of the Durand Line exacerbates problems in Afghanistan, the empire’s loss in Iraq, the U.S. doctrine of punishing Iran just to make an example out of them and the Israeli policy of incremental displacement of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories.

MP3 here. (41:12)

Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and widely regarded as the father of modern linguistics. He is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies and dozens of other books on politics and linguistics.