Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » United Nations

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.

Joe Lauria

Scott Horton — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 04:18:18 +0000

Independent investigative journalist Joe Lauria discusses Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s request for full UN membership during his speech to the General Assembly; how most media coverage has failed to distinguish between statehood (some 130 countries already recognize Palestine) and the various degrees of UN membership; charting Palestine’s options and chances of success in the Security Council and General Assembly; how Palestine’s upgrade to “observer state” would grant them access to the International Criminal Court and sovereign control of their territorial waters – two things Israel’s defenders want to avoid; and why European countries may eventually take over the “honest broker” role, played so poorly by the US for decades.

MP3 here. (17:49)

Joe Lauria is a New York-based independent investigative journalist. A freelance member of the Sunday Times of London Insight team, he has also worked on investigations for the Boston Globe and Bloomberg News. Joe’s articles have additionally appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Montreal Gazette, The Johannesburg Star, The Washington Times, New York Magazine, ARTnews and other publications.

Sheldon Richman

Scott Horton — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 04:06:27 +0000

Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses how Palestinian statehood has been deferred and denied since Israel’s founding in 1948; Israel’s “facts on the ground” that are getting larger and more numerous by the day, making a Palestinian state untenable by design; Obama’s attempt to kill statehood without casting a veto and dropping the “honest broker” charade for good; and the different degrees of UN “promotion,” short of statehood, available through the Security Council and General Assembly.

MP3 here. (17:27)

Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, and serves as senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of FFF’s award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and FFF’s newest book Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State.

Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School & State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: “I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School & State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank… . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility…”

Mr. Richman’s articles on population, federal disaster assistance, international trade, education, the environment, American history, foreign policy, privacy, computers, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics.

A former newspaper reporter and former senior editor at the Cato Institute, Mr. Richman is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Robert Parry

Scott Horton — Sat, 28 May 2011 17:11:32 +0000

Robert Parry, founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com, discusses his snazzy new website; his article on the US Congress’s love-fest for Israel’s Prime Minister, “Cheering Netanyahu’s Intransigence;” how, with members of Congress competing for the role of top Israel cheerleader, all pressure to negotiate with the Palestinians is relieved; walking back long established understandings, like a reversion to 1967 borders and a shared Jerusalem capital; Likud Party member Danny Danon’s NY Times op-ed proposing the annexation of the West Bank, should Palestinians declare statehood in September; and the Likud Party’s influence in US politics since the Carter administration.

MP3 here. (19:57)

Robert Parry is an investigative journalist who won the George Polk Award in 1984 for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair and uncovering Oliver North’s involvement in it. He is the founder and editor of ConsortiumNews.com and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery and Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

Sheldon Richman

Scott Horton — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:19:31 +0000

Sheldon Richman, senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses “Obama’s Imperial Adventure” in Libya; the many Democrats and leftists falling over themselves to defend Obama; why the UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians isn’t possible with the supposedly limited “no-fly” zone; and why Congress couldn’t delegate war-making powers to the UN even if wanted to.

MP3 here. (17:42)

A former newspaper reporter and former senior editor at the Cato Institute, Mr. Richman is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Jason Ditz

Scott Horton — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 05:29:11 +0000

Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the UN war against Libya, where goals and exit strategies are uncertain; problems with an east/west division of Libya, assuming a prolonged stalemate; Obama’s curious bypassing of Congress, as the legislature generally approves of any military action; the seemingly unlimited US appetite for global intervention and budget deficits; and how official justifications for hypocritical foreign policies have been laid bare for all to see.

MP3 here. (19:43)

Jason Ditz is the managing news editor at Antiwar.com. His op-ed pieces have been published in newspapers and other media around the world.

Will Grigg

Scott Horton — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:24:12 +0000

Will Grigg, blogger and author of Liberty in Eclipse, discusses Obama’s decision to get a UN Security Council declaration of war on Libya – and further marginalize Congress’s exclusive war-making authority; how the United Nations Participation Act, signed by President Truman in 1945, directly challenges the authority of the US Constitution; why the UN is less a peacekeeping organization than a means of consolidating power and applying it against enemies of the “international community;” why bilateral talks work better than UN diplomacy; the hierarchy of authority with regard to international treaties and domestic federal and state laws; and how broad-based legislation like the PATRIOT Act and TARP are quickly used in ways that far exceed their mandates.

MP3 here. (20:11)

Will Grigg writes the blog Pro Libertate and is the author of Liberty in Eclipse.

Jason Ditz

Scott Horton — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 04:22:45 +0000

Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the tendency of UN Security Council resolutions to greatly exceed their initial mandates in both time and scope; the token military contributions of Qatar and UAE; the UN critics in Congress who have nothing disparaging to say about world government when war is approved; Saudi Arabia’s fake GCC “coalition of the willing” in Bahrain; how excessive government violence has prompted some Yemeni tribes to ally with the protesters; another deadly US drone strike missing the mark in North Waziristan; and the great divergence in Afghan War support between Congress and the public.

MP3 here. (18:37)

Jason Ditz is the managing news editor at Antiwar.com. His op-ed pieces have been published in newspapers and other media around the world.

Juan Cole

Scott Horton — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 04:22:32 +0000

Juan Cole, Professor of History, blogger and author of Engaging the Muslim World, discusses Gaddafi’s military offensive that began in earnest while outside forces were mobilizing against him; modeling intervention in Libya after the 2001 defeat of the Taliban, with US air support for Northern Alliance ground forces (and look how that turned out); why the no-fly zone is worth it to prevent massacres, like in Kosovo; why the terrorist Gaddafi can’t be allowed to stay in power, as he might invade Tunisia and destabilize the region; and the question: if Libya intervention is justified, then why are Bahrain and Yemen off limits?

MP3 here. (25:22)

Juan Cole is the author of Engaging the Muslim World. He is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan and writes the “Informed Comment” blog at Juancole.com.

Philip Weiss

Scott Horton — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:42:43 +0000

Philip Weiss, investigative journalist and author of the blog MondoWeiss, discusses the mounting pressure on the US to refrain from vetoing a UN resolution critical of Israel’s illegal settlements (even J Street is on board); the glaring omission of George Mitchell from Obama’s new Mideast task force, which is full of establishment hacks and pro-Israel pundits; the continuing pretense that equal concessions must be made in a two-state solution, ignoring the reality of occupation and the vastly unequal parties involved; evidence that the US has lost all credibility as an “honest broker” as a rash of countries independently recognize the Palestinian state; how Noam Chomsky underestimates (or understates) the influence of the Israel lobby; and why a one-state solution is the only reasonable settlement, even though the subject remains verboten in polite society.

MP3 here. (18:05)

Philip Weiss is an investigative journalist who has written for The Nation, New York Times Magazine, The American Conservative, Jewish World Review and other publications. He is the author of American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps.