Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » Nukes

Ray McGovern

Scott Horton — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:23:29 +0000

Ray McGovern, member of Veterans For Peace and former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses Russian Gen. Nikolai Makarov’s suggestion that a NATO missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe could be the target of a Russian pre-emptive strike; the laughable justification of the missile shield as protection (for Poland and Romania?) against Iranian nuclear missiles; how President Bush funneled more government money to defense contractors by withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; and how the US is replacing the MAD (mutually assured destruction) nuclear doctrine with a disarming first-strike capability, forcing Russia to institute launch-on-warning and greatly increasing the chance of nuclear war.

MP3 here. (19:31)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. His articles appear on Consortium News and Antiwar.com.

Daniel Ellsberg

Scott Horton — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:04:23 +0000

Daniel Ellsberg, author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, discusses his article “For nuclear security beyond Seoul, eradicate land-based ‘doomsday’ missiles;” the slow pace of nuclear weapons reductions, despite much lip service from every US president since Carter; the surprising low number of hydrogen bombs required to cause nuclear winter and effectively end life on earth; redefining nuclear deterrence in terms of dozens of missiles instead of thousands; why everyone loses in nuclear war, even the nation to get a “first strike;” and the complete list of references for the scientific studies, data, and historical incidences mentioned in the article.

Update: Your host was apparently wrong. The footnote I was thinking of was this report [.pdf] which does not refer to 14 nukes anywhere. Sorry.

MP3 here. (47:19)

Daniel Ellsberg is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. His upcoming book is titled The American Doomsday Machine.

In 1959 Daniel Ellsberg worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House, specializing in problems of the command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans, and crisis decision-making. He joined the Defense Department in 1964 as Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), John McNaughton, working on Vietnam. He transferred to the State Department in 1965 to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification on the front lines.

On return to the RAND Corporation in 1967, he worked on the Top Secret McNamara study of U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68, which later came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; in 1971 he gave it to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers. His trial, on twelve felony counts posing a possible sentence of 115 years, was dismissed in 1973 on grounds of governmental misconduct against him, which led to the convictions of several White House aides and figured in the impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.

Lawrence Wittner

Scott Horton — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:58:42 +0000

Lawrence Wittner, Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany, discusses his article “Try a Little Nuclear Sanity;” the “SANE” legislation introduced by Congressman Edward Markey that would cut the budget and scope of the US nuclear weapons program; how Russia is threatened by “missile defense,” that supposedly exists to protect Europe from Iran but actually gives the US an unanswerable first-strike capability; why the Cold War military budget and mindset persist even though the USSR was dissolved over 20 years ago; and the unspoken Ronald Reagan/liberal agreement on nuclear disarmament.

MP3 here. (20:03)

Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany and author of Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual.

John Feffer

Scott Horton — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:44:38 +0000

John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, discusses his new book Crusade 2.0: The West’s Resurgent War on Islam; how the Obama administration is “bribing Israel” with offers of bunker buster bombs and long range aircraft if Israel will wait until after the election to attack Iran; looking at the pros and cons – for Iran – in pursuing a nuclear weapon; and the lack of resolve in US policy on Syria.

MP3 here. (19:56)

John Feffer is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Crusade 2.0: The West’s Resurgent War on Islam. His webpage is JohnFeffer.com.

John has been a Writing Fellow at Provisions Library in Washington, DC and a PanTech fellow in Korean Studies at Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal. He has worked as an international affairs representative in Eastern Europe and East Asia for the American Friends Service Committee. He has studied in England and Russia, lived in Poland and Japan, and traveled widely throughout Europe and Asia. He has taught a graduate level course on international conflict at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul in July 2001 and delivered lectures at a variety of academic institutions including New York University, Hofstra, Union College, Cornell University, and Sofia University (Tokyo).

John has been widely interviewed in print and on radio. He serves on the advisory committees of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. He is a recipient of the Herbert W. Scoville fellowship and has been a writer in residence at Blue Mountain Center and the Wurlitzer Foundation. He currently lives with his partner Karin Lee in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr.

Scott Horton — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 05:10:50 +0000

Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr., Chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, discusses his endorsement of a full page ad in the Washington Post titled “Mr. President: Say No to War of Choice with Iran;” why the US should use sanctions to pressure Iran to adopt the Additional Protocol, allowing the IAEA to conduct more intrusive inspections; how the Obama administration earned the goodwill of Russia, China and Europe by reaching out to Iran diplomatically; and why war isn’t necessary even if Iran builds a nuclear weapon.

MP3 here. (21:08)

Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr. is Chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation where his policy work focuses on nuclear nonproliferation, missile defense, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, military policy, nuclear terrorism, and other national security issues.

Robert Naiman

Scott Horton — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:54:59 +0000

Robert Naiman, Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, discusses his article “Does AIPAC Want War? Lieberman ‘Capability’ Red Line May Tip AIPAC’s Hand;” how Joe Lieberman’s senate bill lowers the threshold for military action by adopting Israeli policy on Iran’s nuclear breakout capability; the dangerous ambiguity of the terms “vital national interest” and “nuclear weapons capability;” and how US diplomats have abandoned compromise in favor of “do what we say or else” bullying.

MP3 here. (19:18)

Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Mr. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East.

M.J. Rosenberg

Scott Horton — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:32:06 +0000

M.J. Rosenberg, journalist and Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network, discusses his article “American Enterprise Institute Admits: Iran Threat Isn’t That It Will Launch Nuclear Attack;” why the neoconservatives fear Iran getting a nuclear weapon and then not using it, dispelling the “crazy Ayatollah” image carefully created by Iran-hawks; how a nuclear-armed Iran would disrupt the “balance of power,” so the US and Israel could no longer wage undeclared war with impunity; the new round of “crippling” Iran sanctions, which would end conventional trade and create nation-wide black markets; and why Israelis keen on attacking Iran should expect retaliation from Hezbollah’s large arsenal of missiles in Lebanon.

MP3 here. (19:44)

M.J. Rosenberg is Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. Previously, he worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 15 years. He was also a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 1980s, he was editor of AIPACs weekly newsletter Near East Report. From 1998-2009, he was director of policy at Israel Policy Forum.

Seymour Hersh

Scott Horton — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:20:42 +0000

Seymour Hersh, award winning investigative reporter for The New Yorker magazine, discusses his article “Iran and the I.A.E.A.;” how extensive CIA/JSOC espionage (and perhaps assassination and sabotage) in Iran failed to find any evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program; why Iran’s interest in nukes prior to 2003 was to hedge against an Iraqi weapon; the new IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, who has no problem regurgitating old innuendo to make a case for war; and why the bluster coming out of Israel exists mostly at the top, since common sense attitudes about Iran are common in lower ranks of the military and Mossad.

MP3 here. (20:40)

Seymour M. Hersh wrote his first piece for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 1993. His journalism and publishing awards include a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting. As a staff writer, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest for his 2003 articles “Lunch with the Chairman,” “Selective Intelligence,” and “The Stovepipe.” In 2004, Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces in the magazine; in 2005, he again received a National Magazine Award for Public Interest, an Overseas Press Club award, the National Press Foundation’s Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism award, and his fifth George Polk Award, making him that award’s most honored laureate.

Eric Margolis

Scott Horton — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:27:04 +0000

Eric Margolis, internationally syndicated columnist and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses his article “Nuclear Pots Call Iranian Kettle Black;” why Iran hasn’t developed nuclear weapons despite having incentives to do so; the US-sourced chemical and biological warfare agents used by Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s; why Iran is far more likely to be “wiped off the map” by Israel than the other way around; and how Syria – as the last Arab state not subservient to the US – is being torn apart by genuine popular discontent as well as Western and Israeli interference.

MP3 here. (29:52)

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times and Dawn. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He appears as an expert on foreign affairs on CNN, BBC, France 2, France 24, Fox News, CTV and CBC.

As a war correspondent Margolis has covered conflicts in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Sinai, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He was among the first journalists to ever interview Libya’s Muammar Khadaffi and was among the first to be allowed access to KGB headquarters in Moscow. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq.

Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet and American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World.

Flynt Leverett

Scott Horton — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:34:20 +0000

Flynt Leverett, former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discusses why the IAEA’s job in Iran is verifying the non-diversion of nuclear materials for making weapons, not publicizing the assertions of foreign intelligence agencies; how “journalist” David Sanger of the NY Times continues his personal crusade against Iran, truth be damned; why Iran’s alleged theoretical study of nuclear weapons, including the testing of high explosives, still does not violate the NPT; the dubious legality of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting Iran from enjoying its rights to nuclear energy as an NPT signatory; and why an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only work if they used nuclear weapons – or dragged the US into the war.

MP3 here. (20:44)

Flynt Leverett runs The Race For Iran blog and teaches at Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs. Additionally, he directs the Iran Project at the New America Foundation, where he is a Senior Research Fellow.

Dr. Leverett is a leading authority on the Middle East and Persian Gulf, U.S. foreign policy, and global energy affairs. From 1992 to 2003, he had a distinguished career in the U.S. government, serving as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and as a CIA Senior Analyst. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror.

Dr. Leverett’s 2006 monograph, Dealing With Tehran: Assessing U.S. Diplomatic Options Toward Iran, presented the seminal argument for a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain”, an idea that he has developed in multiple articles and Op Eds in The New York Times, The National Interest, POLITICO, Salon, Washington Monthly, and the New America Foundation’s “Big Ideas for a New America” series.