Mark Ames, author of the article “Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire“, discusses the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan that surpasses the levels during Soviet occupation, how Russia benefits from (and is gloating about) a U.S./Taliban stalemate, the slim chance of Russia’s inclusion in NATO and George F. Will’s “Walter Cronkite moment” on Afghanistan.

MP3 here. (32:03)

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond (Soft Skull) and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove). He is a regular contributor to eXiled Online and The Nation magazine.

William Brand, writer for the Krakow Post, discusses the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the end of the USSR, the 1989 Polish open elections where communist candidates were trounced, Gorbachev’s made-good promise to end military crackdowns and the flood of other Soviet bloc countries that followed Poland’s lead (some not so peacefully).

MP3 here. (21:53)

William Brand is an American expatriate living in Poland.

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.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter discusses the newly assertive U.S. role in relations with Israel, how ending nationalism-inspiring threats against Iran will allow a moderate government to take hold, Israel’s inability to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities without U.S. help, how missile defense provokes nuclear proliferation and why nuclear weapons can and should be abandoned in our lifetimes.

MP3 here. (42:45)

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He is the author of numerous books, including Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement and Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.

Mark Ames, journalist for The Nation and eXiled Online, discusses recent history leading up to the current mess in former Soviet Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili’s downward spiral, the broken Georgian economy, rumors that U.S. advisers participated to some extent in Georgia’s invastion of S. Ossetia last summer, Georgia’s relationship with Israel and America’s relationship with Russia.

MP3 here. (22:50)

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond (Soft Skull) and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove). He is a regular contributor to eXiled Online and The Nation magazine.

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

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.

Justin Raimondo, editorial director for Antiwar.com, discusses Vladimir Putin’s red-baiting of Soviet America, the U.S. military’s use of old Soviet supply lines into Afghanistan, how the incredible U.S./Russia role reversal confirms the existence of Bizarro World, why the crumbling U.S. economy won’t stop an Afghanistan surge or prevent new interventions in Africa and how the use of logical deduction in figuring out U.S. foreign policy goals only leads to wild speculation.

MP3 here. (37:24)

Justin Raimondo is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement and editorial director for Antiwar.com. His articles are archived at Antiwar.com/justin.

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.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, an independent researcher on U.S. foreign policy in Iran, discusses the worldwide goodwill Obama has already squandered with his hawkish appointments, the U.S.’s double standard when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation, ordinary Iranians’ desire to be left alone to form their own government, and how neocons like Max Boot support fomenting factional conflicts to provoke an Iranian overreaction.

MP3 here. (37:50)

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher on U.S. foreign policy in Iran associated with CASMII (Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran).