Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » Torture

The Other Scott Horton

Scott Horton — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:09:14 +0000

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses his article “Spanish Court Resumes Gitmo Prosecution;” the many other foreign courts, frustrated with the US’s refusal to act, restarting their own torture prosecutions; uncertainty of how high up the chain of command indictments will go, and whether the White House OLC lawyers enabling torture will be targeted; how WikiLeaks got the ball rolling again by exposing high-level US efforts to squash previous Spanish investigations of American political and military figures; the US’s repudiation of international law and universal jurisdiction, after helping establish them after WWII; and Ron Paul’s effort to repeal the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision.

MP3 here. (20:43)

The other Scott Horton is a Contributing Editor for Harper’s magazine where he writes the No Comment blog. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union.

He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Stephen Zunes

Scott Horton — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:01:02 +0000

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, discusses his article “Obama to Aid Uzbek Dictatorship;” how the US went from arming Islamic extremists to fight Communism in the 1980s to arming Communists to fight Islamic extremists today; Islam Karimov’s dystopian Uzbekistan, where political parties and unsanctioned religions are banned, government farms are harvested by forced child labor, and exotic horrible tortures await dissidents; and why Congress and Obama have decided US supply lines to Afghanistan are more important than “exporting democracy.”

MP3 here. (18:02)

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. A native of North Carolina, Professor Zunes received his PhD. from Cornell University, his M.A. from Temple University and his B.A. from Oberlin College. He has previously served on the faculty of Ithaca College, the University of Puget Sound, and Whitman College. He serves as a senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, and chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Andy Worthington

Scott Horton — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:09:15 +0000

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, discusses the ten-year-long miscarriage of justice at Guantanamo; why Obama hasn’t expended any political capital to close the prison or end military commissions; the mere six Guantanamo prisoners who have either accepted a plea deal or been convicted of a crime; and why the Obama administration won’t release USS Cole bombing suspect Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri even if he is acquitted, making a mockery of the “justice” system.

MP3 here. (19:47)

Andy Worthington writes regularly for newspapers and websites including the Guardian, Truthout, Cageprisoners, and the Future of Freedom Foundation. He writes occasionally for the Daily Star, Lebanon, the Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch, AlterNet, and ZNet. He is the author of The Guantanamo Files and writes an eponymous blog. He directed the documentary movie Outside the Law: Stories From Guantanamo.

Almerindo Ojeda

Scott Horton — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:34:13 +0000

Almerindo Ojeda, professor at UC Davis and director of the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, discusses his article “Death in Guantanamo: Suicide or Dryboarding;” continuing the investigation began by “the other” Scott Horton at Harper’s Magazine into the suspicious deaths of three Guantanamo prisoners at Camp “No;” the similarites between Ali Al-Marri’s “dryboarding” torture at a Naval brig in South Carolina and the treatment of the Guantanamo Three; and the need for an independent investigation not led by the Pentagon.

MP3 here. (19:59)

Almerindo E. Ojeda is the founding director of the University of California at Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas and the principal investigator for its flagship Guantánamo Testimonials Project.

Luc Côté

Scott Horton — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 05:43:27 +0000

Luc Côté, director of the film You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 days inside Guantanamo, discusses the interrogation videos of 16-year old prisoner Omar Khadr, taken by Canadian intelligence agents inside Guantanamo; how the same American interrogator who killed Dilawar the taxi driver at Bagram prison also interrogated the badly-injured Khadr about 50 times; and how sleep deprivation of prisoners (through the “frequent flyer program“) made extracting false confessions much easier for interrogators.

MP3 here. (20:06)

Luc Côté has been directing and producing films since the age of fourteen. For the past 35 years, he has traveled extensively around the world, making social documentaries that capture the human spirit. In the early eighties, he founded his first production company in New York, On Track Video. In 1986, he joined Robbie Hart in Montreal and launched Adobe Productions. Together, they produced and directed more than 30 films including two award winning documentary series: Turning 16 and Rainmakers.

Turning 16, a series about teenagers around the world produced in 1993, has been broadcasted in more than forty countries and got several national and international awards, including the prestigious Japan Prize, from The International Educational Program Contest sponsored by the NHK TV network and a Gémeaux Award from The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Most recently, Luc Côté has been directing films for other production companies: Macumba International, Virage, Erezi Productions and the Cirque du Soleil.

In 2005, he directed, Crash Landing, a film about post-traumatic stress disorder that was selected to be shown in many festivals around the world and won several awards including an Honorable Mention for best Canadian Documentary at the Hot Docs Toronto Festival in 2005. Along with his work as a filmmaker, Luc teaches documentary film making at the International Film School of Cuba.

Daphne Eviatar

Scott Horton — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:55:18 +0000

Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First, discusses the UN report on widespread torture in Afghan-run detention facilities; the difficulty of assessing US torture-prevention programs that are kept secret; discarding established conventions for prisoners of war, as the US makes up new rules and prisoner classifications on the fly; and how, ten years after 9/11, indefinite detention in military custody has become the new normal.

MP3 here. (20:04)

Daphne Eviatar is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Legal Affairs, Mother Jones, the Washington Independent, HuffingtonPost and many others. She is a Senior Reporter at The American Lawyer, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First and was an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow in 2005 and a Pew International Journalism fellow in 2002.

The Other Scott Horton

Scott Horton — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:01:02 +0000

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses how the “Cheney doctrine” continues to dominate US policy ten years after 9/11; Cheney’s aggressive pro-torture propaganda book tour, meant to be a preemptive strike against his possible prosecution; why many Americans trust the government to torture and kill wisely and judiciously; and the double standard of US torture prosecutions, whereby the son of Liberia’s Charles Taylor gets 97 years while Cheney remains a free man.

MP3 here. (20:07)

The Other Scott Horton

Scott Horton — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 04:46:26 +0000

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses his article “A Setback for Obama’s War on Whistleblowers” and the unusual judicial check on Executive power; how the DOJ persecutes whistleblowers when they can’t be prosecuted; the Supreme Court decision that gives blanket immunity to prosecutorial misconduct; the two torture lawsuits progressing against Donald Rumsfeld because apparently government officials can only torture foreigners, not Americans, with impunity; and why another adverse SCOTUS ruling could effectively remove any process of legal recourse against the government.

MP3 here. (22:09)

Laura Pitter

Scott Horton — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 08:58:38 +0000

Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor in Human Rights Watch’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program, discusses the HRW report “Getting Away With Torture;” why the Bush administration should be criminally investigated for its torture program; giving compensation to torture victims who cannot bring suit in court due to state secrets privilege; the illegality of holding prisoners incommunicado in “black sites,” even if they are otherwise treated humanely; why federal courts are more fair and efficient than military commissions; and why Spanish courts may begin torture investigations anew, after John Durham’s long investigation of CIA misconduct concluded that only 2 of over 100 cases should be prosecuted.

MP3 here. (20:54)

Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor in Human Rights Watch’s Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program, monitors, analyzes and writes on US counterterrorism policies. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Laura was a journalist, human rights advocate, and attorney who practiced in both the public and private sectors.

She was a reporter during the war in Bosnia where she wrote for Time Magazine and Reuters News Agency among other media outlets. Following the war she worked for the United Nations in both Bosnia and post Sept. 11-Afghanistan as a protection and political affairs officer. After Afghanistan, Laura practiced law for eight years, first with the Legal Aid Society and later with a boutique law firm, both in New York. Laura holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University, and a law degree from the University of San Francisco.

The Other Scott Horton

Scott Horton — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:30:54 +0000

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, professor and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses his confidence in his Guantanamo “Suicides” expose in Harpers magazine despite a barrage of criticism; the Department of Justice giving a wink and a nod at the Bush torture program; how John Durham’s investigation of CIA torture was hamstrung by limitations imposed by the Obama administration; the CIA’s heavy redaction (to save face, not protect national security) of Glenn Carle’s book The Interrogator: An Education; and how the DOJ withheld crucial evidence during accused al-Qaeda financier Pacha Wazir’s habeas corpus hearing.

MP3 here. (18:51)