Malalai Joya, author of A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice, discusses the absence of democracy in Afghanistan after eight years of “humanitarian” occupation, how the U.S. and NATO treat Afghan warlords like political moderates instead of war criminals, humanitarian aid that enriches the politically connected instead of helping ordinary Afghans and the continuing assault on women’s rights.

MP3 here. (30:55)

Malalai Joya is a (suspended) Member of the Afghan Parliament. She was elected to the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga in September 2005, as a representative of Farah Province. Malalai won the second highest number of votes in the province.

Malalai rose to fame in December 2003 when, as an elected delegate to the Constitutional Loya Jirga, she spoke out publicly against the domination of warlords (Watch her remarks). Since then she has survived four assassination attempts, and travels in Afghanistan under a burqa and with armed guards.

She is the daughter of a former medical student who was wounded while fighting against the Soviet Union (which invaded and occupied Afganistan from 1979 – 1989). Malalai was 4 years old when her family fled Afghanistan in 1982 to the refugee camps of Iran and then Pakistan. She finished her education in Pakistan and began teaching literacy courses to other women at age 19. After the Soviets left, Malalai Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 during the Taliban’s reign. During that time she established an orphanage and health clinic, and was soon a vocal opponent of the Taliban.

Malalai heads the non-governmental group, “Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities” (OPAWC). She is married to a Kabul-based student of agriculture and has six sisters and three brothers.

Mark Almond, Lecturer in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, discusses the discontent about elections in Moldova, the devastation wreaked by neoliberal economics, the encroachment of NATO recruitment on former soviet states, political instability in Georgia and Kosovo and the bureaucratic inertia in NATO that seeks continual expansion.

MP3 here: (38:23)

Mark Almond is a Lecurer in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford and Chairman of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group.

Nebojsa Malic, author of the “Moments of Transition” column on Antiwar.com, discusses the unacceptable-by-design Rambouillet Agreement, how the U.S.-led NATO war against Serbia set a precedent for future extralegal wars, the realpolitik goals behind U.S. interest in the Balkans and the current condition of the gangster state known as Kosovo.

MP3 here. (49:12)

Nebojsa Malic writes the “Moments of Transition” (formerly Balkan Express) column for Antiwar.com and blogs at the Gray Falcon.

Doug Bandow, author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire, discusses the Bush administration’s foreign policy legacy, why maintaining a U.S. military presence in S. Korea makes less sense than ever, the difficulty of negotiating alternative U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan while taking a hard line on Russia and Iran, the high cost in Iraqi lives for their “liberation” from one authoritarian government to another and the demise of Bush’s two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

MP3 here. (21:45)

Doug Bandow is a recent addition to the Cato Institute. His new and archived articles can be found at Antiwar.com/bandow.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher for The Nation magazine, discusses the incoming Obama Administration, the popular backlash against corporate power, the ethical and practical necessity of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how an escalation in Afghanistan would ruin the promise of change and hope from the Obama campaign, the impotence of conventional military power against the contemporary threats of asymmetrical warfare and piracy and why NATO should be disbanded and a new cold war with Russia prevented.

MP3 here. (35:14)

Katrina vanden Heuvel has been The Nation’s editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005. She is the co-editor of Taking Back America–And Taking Down The Radical Right and, most recently, editor of The Dictionary of Republicanisms.

Tim Cavanaugh, columnist for Reason magazine, discusses the efforts of activist Lira Tskhovrebova to tell the South Ossetian side of the Georgian invasion, the numerous accounts of Georgian soldiers deliberately killing civilians, the U.S. media failure to accurately portray the conflict and the mixed signals Saakashvili received from U.S. neocon agitators and the State Department.

MP3 here. (34:08)

Tim Cavanaugh represents Lira Tskhoverbova, chairwoman of the Association of South Ossetian Women for Democracy and Human Rights. He is a columnist for Reason magazine and former web editor for the Los Angeles Times.

Mark Ames, author of “The Cold War that Wasn’t” in The Nation, discusses the dominant narrative and ideological underpinnings in the U.S. press regarding the recent Georgian attack on South Ossetia and subsequent Russian counterattack on Georgia, the attempt to portray Russia as the aggressor by floating the idea of a first-strike cyber war despite the lack of any evidence, the alleged poisoning of Ukraine’s Victor Yushchenko and the current dispute between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko over her reaction to the Georgia war, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the precedent set by U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the danger of putting “defensive” missiles in Eastern Europe while the U.S. foreign policy establishment contemplates first strike capability, U.S. NED support for the Russian National Bolsheviks, the “shock therapy” robbery of Russian resources under Yeltsin’s autocracy in the 1990s and the consequences.

MP3 here. (64:25)

Mark Ames is a journalist who has written for several publications including the New York Press, The Nation and GQ Russia and is the founding editor and regular contributor of the Moscow-based newspaper The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.

Richard Maybury, author of the U.S. and World Early Warning Report, discusses the evolution of common law, the American Revolutionary revolt for natural rights, the “divine right” of the majority, the importance of self-defense to a society’s freedom, the imbalanced offensive/defensive cost ratio, Osama Bin Laden’s strategy of bankrupting the American empire, how to profit from a libertarian understanding of money and power, the emerging second Cold War with Russia, the moral questions around investing in government-tied businesses, the corruption of political power, the two-party system hoax and the coming second American Revolution.

MP3 here. (44:25)

Richard Maybury is the author of the investment newsletter, U.S. and World Early Warning Report and the Uncle Eric books.

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of the brand new American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World, discusses the importance of maintaining level-headed relations with Russia, the consequences of U.S. support for Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, Pakistan’s decreasing stability and our increased interference, the beginning of the “pipeline security wars,” the war party’s bogus explanations of the causes of terrorism and the Arab world’s former admiration for America.

MP3 here. (53:24)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements. He is foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of War at the Top of the World and the brand new American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

Chris Deliso, author of The Coming Balkan Caliphate and director of Balkanalysis.com, discusses the recent attack on South Ossetia by Georgia, the historic relationships between Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Russians, the Rose revolution, the role of control over oil pipelines plays in the crisis, the potential conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the danger in our war guarantees of countries surrounding Russia and the American war party’s ever increasing belligerence.

MP3 here. (42:47)

Balkanalysis.com director Christopher Deliso has lived and traveled widely in SE Europe and has a master’s degree with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University (1999). His two new books, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West and Hidden Macedonia: The Mystic Lakes of Ohrid and Prespa will appeal to readers interested in, respectively, the major security issues involving the region today, and travel in one of Europe’s most fascinating but least visited areas.

Since 2001, he has published many articles on Balkan politics, economics, security issues, travel, history and culture in US and world newspapers, analysis firms such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, and in numerous magazines and websites. He is also a travel writer for Lonely Planet, covering SE Europe.