Greg Barker, producer of the Frontline documentary Showdown With Iran, explains how the Bush/Cheney administration refused to hear Ayatollah Kahmenei’s attempts to make peace, the role of Flynt Leverette and Hillary Mann, the hanging out to dry of the Iranian peace-makers, the current march to war and the neocons’ claim that the Iranians would rise up and help the U.S. attack their government.
MP3 here. (15:26)
Greg Barker produced, wrote, and directed FRONTLINE’s epic two-hour 2004 special Ghosts of Rwanda — the culmination of six years of interviews and research into the social, political, and diplomatic failures that converged in the 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 Rwandans. The Boston Globe called the film “riveting, appalling television … one of [FRONTLINE’s] most powerful programs in years” and the film won honors including the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton, the Sidney Hillman Award, a Banff Television Festival Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Barker’s other projects for FRONTLINE include Campaign Against Terror (2002), which recounts the behind-the-scenes story of the U.S. and world response to 9/11, and The Survival of Saddam (2000), an examination of Saddam Hussein. For the fourth hour of FRONTLINE’s News War series (2007), Barker traveled to the Middle East to examine the rise of Arab satellite TV channels and the growing influence of Al Jazeera. He also produced Part II of FRONTLINE’s four-hour series The Age of AIDS (2006), which won the duPont-Columbia Silver Baton.
Good Interview, but nothing really new as the drumbeat for war with Iran continues on. With Putin leaning on the Iranians side of the fence I wonder just how far the Bushites will go with this escalation?? Are they insane enough to do it??
From what I can tell, Zogby based its poll on only calling 1,059 people, and the 52% answered yes when then queried whether we should ‘strike’ Iran if that would take out a nuclear site, or words to that effect. That doesn’t mean that 52% of Americans want to go to war with Iran. I mean, what kind of educational materials did these poll answers have to help them decide their answers. Ill informed, stressed, hurried — this isn’t a fair way to decide whether to go to war, to put it mildly!
What you’re talking about in this article is clearly contingent on a war with Iran or for that matter, a lack thereof.
On October 30th, Senator Chuck Hagel’s letter to President George Bush leaked. In the straightforward letter, Hagel insists that the time has come to engage Iran in a one-on-one conversation to address the sour relationship between the two countries. It seems like his point his fairly obvious – he wants to stop beating around the bush and initiate direct dialogue with Iran’s government in order to prevent a seemingly inevitable ‘clash of civilizations.’
You can read the ENTIRE letter here, you can also download the original: http://www.gummyprint.com/blog/hagel-to-bush-begin-unilateral-and-unconditional-talks-with-iran/