Month: August 2007

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to be able to make that “breakout” session at the YearlyKos conference after all. Whew! Wouldn’t want to miss that! No doubt they’ll ask her about this, and here’s how I’d phrase the question: Under what possible set of circumstances would she order a nuclear attack on, say, Afghanistan, or Pakistan? Of course, she’ll never give a straight answer. But just having been asked the question is enough — which is why it won’t be asked.

Yet another long, pretentious pro-war, pro-Bush piece in Reason by Michael Young, this time praising the $60 billion arms deal recently announced by the Bush administration, has his readers in an uproar: this comment thread is hilarious. Libertarians are, naturally, antiwar, the Reason staff is officially agnostic on the issue, but in reality its foreign policy pieces are almost uniformly neoconnish to the max. One factor left out of this equation, however, is Reason‘s readers, who, it looks like, have had enough of Senor Young’s gunslinging on behalf of the Bushies.

I woke this morning to the news that Barack Obama, the subject of my column this morning, is having yet another tiff with Hillary Clinton, this time over the issue of whether or when to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Obama is saying “Never,” but Hillary — just as she did on the neogotiations with Iran, Syria, etc. question — is saying “Never say never.” While the War Wall Street Journal is now hailing Obama as a neocon for his let’s-invade-Pakistan stance, it looks like the race to see who among the Democratic front-runners is the most neoconnish is on…..

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_08_02_richman.mp3]

Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman, discusses the history of American imperialism and the growth of domestic government since America lost the Spanish-American war, the roots of Anti-American terrorism (Bush I and Bill Clinton), laissez faire economics, libertarianism and social Darwinism.

MP3 here.

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.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/AW073107RayOffenheiser.mp3]

Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, discusses the new report “Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq,” the catastrophe that the American invasion of Iraq has caused and his view of what should be done about it.

MP3 here.

Raymond C. Offenheiser is the president of Oxfam America, a non-profit international development and relief agency and the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam International. Oxfam works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change. Since Mr. Offenheiser joined Boston-based Oxfam America in 1995, the organization has grown more than fourfold in size and has positioned itself as an expert on international development and global trade.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_08_01_parry.mp3]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry explains why just about everything the government says about U.S. policy in the Middle East is a damned lie and what the truth is instead.

MP3 here.

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek, runs ConsortiumNews.com, and is the author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and the brand new Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.