Frida Berrigan, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, discusses US dominance of the global weapons market, the costly domestic upgrade cycle that is perpetuated by defense contractors selling current generation high-tech weapons abroad, the relatively low number of jobs created with money spent on the military compared to other sectors of the economy and how weapons manufacturers create demand for their products by promoting belligerent US foreign policy.

MP3 here. (25:44)

Frida Berrigan is Senior Program Associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. Previously, she served for eight years as Deputy Director and Senior Research Associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute at the New School in New York City. She has also worked as a researcher at The Nation magazine.

Ms. Berrigan is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus and a contributing editor of In These Times magazine. She is the author of reports on arms trade and human rights, U.S. nuclear weapons policy, and the domestic politics of U.S. missile defense and space weapons policies. She has been a featured expert on national and regional radio outlets, and regularly speaks on national security issues to citizen’s organizations and at major conferences throughout the United States.

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California, discusses the newest round of proposed US sanctions on Iran, the odd idea that choking off supplies of refined petroleum will pressure Iran to give up uranium enrichment, how sanctions will effectively impose a gasoline tax on ordinary Iranians and consolidate the power of the Revolutionary Guard, generous concessions made by moderate Iranian presidents that were rebuffed by the Clinton and Bush administrations and the new doubts about Iran’s supposed nuclear “breakout” capability.

MP3 here. (31:34)

Thanks to Anders for the video.

Muhammad Sahimi is NIOC Professor of Petrolium Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California. He has written extensively on Iran’s nuclear program and its political developments. His article “Sanctions Only Hurt Ordinary Iranians” is available on Antiwar.com.

Former CIA and DIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the likely circumstances that allowed a Jordanian triple-agent to kill seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan, how the CIA’s limited ability to overcome cultural and language barriers forces a dangerous reliance on foreign intelligence services, Hillary Clinton’s declaration that Yemen is now a threat to the whole world, growing foreign and domestic opposition to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, newly discovered problems with the Iranian documents published by the Times of London, the massive disinformation campaign to provoke wars in Iran and Yemen and why Iran’s perfectly reasonable proposal to swap low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods will probably be rejected by the US.

MP3 here. (44:40)

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative, fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance and a regular columnist for Antiwar.com.

David R. Henderson, author of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, discusses the anti-Afghanistan war demonstration he organized in Monterey, California, the effectiveness of hypothesizing a role reversal to demonstrate the hypocrisy of U.S. exceptionalism, winning over conservatives by showing the economic consequences of war and how punitive sanctions designed to instigate regime change inevitably fail.

MP3 here. (34:56)

David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an associate professor of economics in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is author of The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey and co-author, with Charles L. Hooper, of Making Great Decisions in Business and Life (Chicago Park Press). His latest book is The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (Liberty Fund, 2008).

David has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, the Jim Lehrer Newshour, CNN, and C-SPAN. He has had over 100 articles published in Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Red Herring, Barron’s, National Review, Reason, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has also testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

John Basil Utley, associate publisher of The American Conservative, discusses the directly proportional relationship between lengthy congressional incumbency and pro-war attitudes, the left-right alliance needed to curb military spending, the military-industrial-congressional complex and the narrowing political divide in the U.S. (except the south).

MP3 here. (31:49)

John Basil Utley is a writer and adviser for Antiwar.com and edits a blog, The Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

James Bovard, policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation, discusses the prospect of mandatory national service in the U.S., the often dubious contributions made by AmeriCorps programs, the expansion of civil service budgets from the Clinton to Obama presidencies and the general dislike of compulsory service among Americans.

MP3 here. (30:34)

James Bovard is a policy advisor at The Future of Freedom Foundation and the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal and many other books.

Tom Engelhardt, founder and editor of TomDispatch.com, discusses the mainstream media’s reverence of error-prone hawkish pundits, the over-reliance on force in U.S. foreign policy, the large numbers of dead or displaced Iraqis and the Obama administration’s disdain for the historical success rate of foreign intervention in Afghanistan.

MP3 here. (23:45)

Tom Engelhardt is the author of The World According to Tomdispatch: America and the Age of Empire and The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation.

Robert Dreyfuss, author of Devil’s Game, discusses the coming pitfalls for the Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, the prospects for full withdrawal in the face of renewed “facts on the ground” decision-making rhetoric, the many possible meanings of “residual forces,” the political power struggles among the many Iraqi factions, the influence of foreign policy think tank agitators in the Obama administration, the tendency of U.S. diplomats to deliberately fail in “peace talks” to create a pretense for military action and the need to shift the centrality of Iran/U.S. relations away from the nuclear issue.

MP3 here. (34:35)

Based in Alexandria, Va., Dreyfuss been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. He’s a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Newsday, Worth, California Lawyer, The Texas Observer, E, In These Times, The Detroit Metro Times, Public Citizen, Extra!, and, in Japan, in Esquire, Foresight and Nikkei Business. His blog, The Dreyfuss Report, is now at The Nation.

Joseph P. Sottile, the producer of the new documentary, The Warning, discusses the importance of Plato’s “noble lie” in Straussian/ neo-conservative ideology, why Obama must be pressured to dismantle the imperial presidency, how the complicity of top Democrats in torture and wiretapping schemes prevents prosecution of Bush officials, and the remarkable North Korean origin of the U.S. torture manual.

MP3 here. (49:06)

Joseph P. Sottile has produced programs featured on PBS, National Geographic Channel and Fox. He served as producer and executive producer of Metropolitan Edition, a newsmagazine show that aired on WJLA/ABC 7.

Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com, discusses his article “AIPAC’s Man in the Obama Camp,” Rahm Emanuel’s family ties to Israel and military service there, his ascension in the Democratic Party from Clinton fund raiser to Democratic Leadership Council powerhouse, the domestic spy service floated by Democratic leaders, the overreaching ambition of Rep. Jane Harmon and the new headquarters of the Democratic War Party, the “Project for a New American Security.”

MP3 here. (36:17)

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA officer and an authority on international security and counterterrorism issues. He is a regular columnist for Antiwar.com and a contributing editor for The American Conservative.