Gareth Porter

Debunking Lieberman-Kyle

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_28_porter.mp3]

Gareth Porter easily destroys the claims Cheney Cabal, the Democrats and the media’s about Iran’s actions inside Iraq, the “presumption of guilt” established by the Imperial Senate’s passing of the Lieberman-Kyle resolution and explains the new jargon behind the White House’s Iran policy, what it means, who on the inside is resisting and what the American people can do about it.

MP3 here. (52:33)

Dr. Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Dr. Porter was both a Vietnam specialist and an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War and was Co-Director of Indochina Resource Center in Washington. Dr. Porter taught international studies at City College of New York and American University. He was the first Academic Director for Peace and Conflict Resolution in the Washington Semester program at American University.

Wesley Clark

Talk to Iran, Don’t Bomb Them

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-10-01wesclark.mp3]

Gen. Wesley Clark, former supreme allied commander of NATO, Democratic presidential candidate and author of A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country, explains why he thinks Iran should be denied the ability to produce nuclear weapons (which they don’t even have anyway), but that Bush should talk with them instead of starting another war, U.S. control of oil resources, why the War Party has no legitimate claim on the exclusive ability to support the troops and why they fight.

MP3 here. (19:05)

During thirty-four years in the United States Army Wesley K. Clark rose to the rank of four-star general as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. After his retirement in 2000, he became an investment banker, author, commentator, and businessman. In September 2003 he ran as a Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

What could they possibly be thinking . . .

The aide (a senior advisor to President Bush) said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” — as reported by Ron Suskind, in the New York Times Magazine, 10-17-2004 –Geov Parrish, History ignored, President’s men rebrand ‘War on Terror’ as World War III, WorkingForChange.com, 09.12.06

[White House Press Sec.] Tony [Snow]: No, as a matter of fact the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the President is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself. –In which Tony Snow laughs at me (but the last laugh is on Tony), BTC News, 9/22/2006

They believe we need a different kind of government now, an Executive government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we’re getting with signing statements. Signing statements are talked about as line-item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the president says “I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I legislate.” –‘A Coup Has Occurred,’ Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the secret Vietnam War “Pentagon Papers”), Sep. 20, 2007

[Film maker George] Lucas’ own geopolitics can sound pretty bleak: “All democracies turn into dictatorshipship, but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea “ Dark Victory -April 23, 2002, 12:40:03