Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton » US Military

Kelley B. Vlahos

Scott Horton — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:55:28 +0000

Kelley B. Vlahos, featured Antiwar.com columnist and contributing editor for The American Conservative magazine, discusses retired General Stanley McChrystal’s generous retirement package, lucrative speaking fees, and new “teaching” position at Yale University; the celebrity status of retired military and government officials, even when they are notorious for torture, coverups, and being fired for insubordination; the missing-in-action campus antiwar movements in “liberal” American universities; and how military women rape victims are punished for reporting the crime, often discharged with “personality disorders” and stripped of health care and retirement benefits.

MP3 here. (27:47)

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos has spent over a decade as a political reporter in Washington DC. Currently, she is a contributing editor for The American Conservative magazine and its daily weblog, @TAC. She is also a Washington correspondent for the DC-based homeland security magazine, Homeland Security Today, a long-time political writer for FOXNews.com, a regular columnist for Antiwar.com and a contributor to CriminalJustice.Change.org

Gareth Porter

Scott Horton — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:44:50 +0000

Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy, discusses his article about Lt. Col. Daniel Davis taking the Army to task for spreading propaganda: “Army Officer’s Leaked Report Rips Afghan War Success Story;” why it’s hard to tell if the military brass and the Obama administration are lying or just self-deluded about Afghanistan; how Iran’s deep-underground uranium processing facility at Fordo/Qom affects US and Israeli plans to “take out” Iran’s nuclear program with air strikes; and why the “messianic” Benjamin Netanyahu might start a war with Iran even if it means thousands of Israelis will die for no good reason.

MP3 here. (19:46)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

William Astore

Scott Horton — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:34:33 +0000

William Astore, Professor of History and author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism, discusses his article “Fighting 1% Wars: Why Our Wars of Choice May Prove Fatal;” how willy-nilly US interventions discount the chaotic and unpredictable nature of warfare, virtually guaranteeing blowback; the young Americans who regularly play video war games yet remain ignorant of actual US wars (while military drone pilots, sitting in comfy chairs in front of computer screens, resemble gamers); and how the US military has transformed into a foreign legion, detached from legitimate national security concerns and the public they supposedly protect.

MP3 here. (20:08)

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. He has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, and now teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Steve Horn and Allen Ruff

Scott Horton — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:38:08 +0000

Steve Horn and Allen Ruff discuss their two-part article at Truth-Out, “How Private Warmongers and the US Military Infiltrated American Universities;” how the allies of empire (from neoconservatives to liberal hawks) united to promote “Grand Strategy Programs” – essentially elaborate fictions used to trick Americans into supporting endless warfare; the group of military officers and academics behind David Petraeus and his PR-focused military doctrine; and how radicals have succeeded in redefining the political center and the acceptable range of foreign policy opinions.

MP3 here. (20:07)

Steve Horn is a researcher and writer at DeSmogBlog. He is also a freelance investigative journalist.

Allen Ruff is a US historian and an independent writer on foreign policy issues. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Eric Newhouse

Scott Horton — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:53:54 +0000

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eric Newhouse discusses his article “Half of Vets Returning From Iraq and Afghanistan Need Medical Attention;” how advances in emergency medical treatment have greatly decreased battlefield fatalities from catastrophic injuries – though surviving soldiers often have debilitating brain injuries and require lifelong care; how the VA‘s increased budget has improved the quality of care (but not nearly enough); and the wasted lives of mostly poor and patriotic soldiers who were sent to fight and die in stupid wars.

MP3 here. (18:27)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eric Newhouse is the author of two books: Alcohol: Cradle to Grave and Faces of Combat: PTSD and TBI. He writes the Invisible Wounds blog at Psychology Today. A retired editor of the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, Newhouse won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 2000 for a 12-part series of stories on the effects of alcoholism in Montana. He also served as a juror for the 2007 and 2008 Pulitzer Prizes.

Mark and Ian

Scott Horton — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:37:00 +0000

Mark and Ian, co-hosts of the talk radio show Free Talk Live on the Liberty Radio Network, discuss the hazards of doing a libertarian antiwar show on commercial radio; losing advertisers and affiliate stations for their insufficiently-deferential Veteran’s Day show; and why real military heroism and bravery is exemplified by Ehren Watada’s refusal to deploy and violate the Constitution, not by soldiers blindly following orders and killing civilians to avoid a dishonorable discharge.

MP3 here. (19:52)

Mark and Ian co-host the talk radio show Free Talk Live.

Jeremy Sapienza

Scott Horton — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 04:06:19 +0000

Jeremy Sapienza, Senior Editor at Antiwar.com, discusses the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and the new era of gays openly serving in the military; why acquiring the privilege of killing foreign civilians and staffing the US empire is not a victory for civil liberties; why we should expect that poor, picked-on, isolated gay youth will be filling the ranks, not the Hollywood liberals who fought against DADT; and how gays can slough off the stigma of “otherness” if they enlist, since they “don’t have to be straight, as long as they shoot straight.”

MP3 here. (19:35)

Jeremy Sapienza is Assistant Webmaster and Senior Editor at Antiwar.com.

Nick Turse

Scott Horton — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 04:27:23 +0000

Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, discusses his article “Uncovering the Military’s Secret Military;” how JSOC became “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine” and the president’s own private army; rebuilding US special operations after the 1980 Iran hostage embarrassment and greatly expanding them after 9/11; how SOCOM has developed the clout and influence of an independent military branch, like the Navy or Army; the war-porn addicts in Congress who get excited by every Navy SEAL operation and fund them accordingly; and why the precision airstrikes in Libya were probably guided by special operations forces on the ground.

MP3 here. (19:41)

Nick Turse is an award-winning journalist, historian, essayist, and the associate editor of the Nation Institute’s Tomdispatch.com. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.

Andrew Bacevich

Scott Horton — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:47:30 +0000

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University and author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, discusses his article “War Fever Subsides in Washington” at tomdispatch.com; Robert Gates on excessive war costs and the end of “wars of choice;” why the US should eliminate the unnecessary and counterproductive military bases in Europe and the Middle East, respectively, while maintaining those in Japan and South Korea; the failure of militaristic “hard power” foreign policy; the officer corps getting on board with budget cuts and reform; and why current US involvement in Libya is at a peak (no need to worry about purple-finger elections and decades of nation building).

MP3 here. (21:42)

Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he received his PhD in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University, he taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins.

Bacevich is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010). His previous books include The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008); The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007) (editor); The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005); and American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002). His essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and general interest publications including The Wilson Quarterly, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and The New Republic. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers.

In 2004, Dr. Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He has also held fellowships at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

William J. Astore

Scott Horton — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:16:19 +0000

William Astore, professor of history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, discusses his TomDispatch piece “American Militarism is Not a Fairy Tale,” how civilian control of the military is falling out of favor, especially among Republican chickenhawks, military budget cuts off the table through 2012, thanks to Democrats afraid of being labeled “soft” on anything, the blurred line between civilian (CIA) and military operations, how Gen. Petraeus made his own foreign policy by making a media case for an Afghan surge in 2009 (which would have got him fired in another era) and how Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy gives Americans a real choice between republic and empire – for the first time in a century.

MP3 here. (19:56)

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He teaches history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He is co-author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism.