Author: Charles Goyette

Antiwar Radio: Larry Johnson (20:17)

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson explains what’s been going on in the Scooter Libby trial, like for example, how Joseph Wilson offered to not bother going to Africa after the State Department said  they could handle it, his friend Plame’s feelings about the trial, the White House’s suppression of her book, the larger story behind her case and his dispute with Peter Lance.

MP3 here.

Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs foreign governments on a regular basis on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on product counterfeiting and smuggling.

Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management.

Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world, including the Center for Research and Strategic Studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France. He represented the U.S. Government at the July 1996 OSCE Terrorism Conference in Vienna, Austria.

From 1989 until October 1993, Larry Johnson served as a Deputy Director in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He managed crisis response operations for terrorist incidents throughout the world and he helped organize and direct the US Government’s debriefing of US citizens held in Kuwait and Iraq, which provided vital intelligence on Iraqi operations following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Mr. Johnson also participated in the investigation of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103. Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership the U.S. airlines and pilots agreed to match the US Government’s two million-dollar reward.

From 1985 through September 1989 Mr. Johnson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. During his distinguished career, he received training in paramilitary operations, worked in the Directorate of Operations, served in the CIA’s Operation’s Center, and established himself as a prolific analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence. In his final year with the CIA he received two Exceptional Performance Awards.

Mr. Johnson is a member of the American Society for Industrial Security. He taught at The American University’s School of International Service (1979-1983) while working on a Ph.D. in political science. He has a M.S. degree in Community Development from the University of Missouri (1978), where he also received his B.S. degree in Sociology, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1976.

Antiwar Radio: de Borchgrave

Washington Times Editor-at-Large, Arnaud de Borchgrave discusses his belief that George W. Bush is going to initiate a violent attack on Iran to “save his legacy,” whether Bush’s claims about Iran are true, what the situation might look like to the average Persian.

MP3 here.

During a 30-year career at Newsweek magazine, Arnaud de Borchgrave covered most of the world’s major news events. At 21, he was appointed Brussels bureau chief of United Press International, and three years later he was Newsweek‘s bureau chief in Paris. At 27, he became senior editor of the magazine, a position he held for 25 years. He was appointed editor in chief of the Washington Times and Insight magazine in 1985. He left his post with the Washington Times in 1991, and currently serves as its Editor-At-Large. He served as president and CEO of United Press International from 1999 to January 2001. He is currently serving as Editor-At-Large at UPI. His awards include Best Magazine Reporting from Abroad and Best Magazine Interpretation of Foreign Affairs. In 1981, de Borchgrave received the World Business Council’s Medal of Honor, and in 1985 he was awarded the George Washington Medal of Honor for Excellence in Published Works. While at CSIS he has coauthored Cyber Threats and Information Security: Meeting the 21st Century Challenge (2001); Russian Organized Crime & Corruption: Putin’s Challenge (2000); Cybercrime, Cyberterrorism, Cyberwarfare (1998); Russian Organized Crime (1997); and Global Organized Crime: The New Empire of Evil (1994).

Antiwar Radio: Taylor Branch

Award winning author Taylor Branch discusses Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy as a voice against the Vietnam war.

MP3 here.

Taylor Branch is the author of many books and articles, including Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 and Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65. He lives in Baltimore with his wife Christina Macy.

Antiwar Radio: Abi Wright

Abi Wright, Communications Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, on the CPJ’s report of Journalists Killed in 2006.

MP3 here.

Abi Wright most recently worked as CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. She traveled throughout the region researching and documenting press freedom abuses, meeting with journalists and government officials, and reporting on breaking news stories. Much of her prior professional experience has been as a television news producer. She worked for two years as a producer in the NBC News Moscow bureau, reported in Iran for an ABC News documentary, traveled throughout the former Soviet republic of Georgia as an Internews consultant, and spent several months working with Memorial, one of the earliest and most important civic organizations in Russia, which led the way in digging out information on Stalin’s crimes against humanity. She graduated from Barnard College with a degree in Russian studies.

Antiwar Radio: Robert Naiman

Robert Neiman challenges the Bush regime’s assertions about Iran’s involvement in violence against American soldiers in Iraq.

MP3 here.

Robert Naiman is Senior Policy Analyst and National Coordinator of Just Foreign Policy. He has worked as a policy analyst, researcher, union organizer, and teacher of economics and mathematics. He has worked and studied in the Middle East, and has a basic knowledge of spoken and written Arabic and Hebrew. Naiman produces the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and podcast. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois. He is co-author, with Mark Weisbrot, of a blog on Huffington Post.

Antiwar Radio: Chalmers Johnson

Former CIA analyst, and author of the trilogy Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic and now Nemesis: the Last Days of the American Republic, Chalmers Johnson discusses his books, and the ways Republics die: the English model of losing an empire without total self destruction and the Roman way of dictatorship and destruction which America seems to be following instead.

MP3 here.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. He taught for thirty years, 1962-1992, at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California and held endowed chairs in Asian politics at both of them. At Berkeley he served as chairman of the Center for Chinese Studies and as chairman of the Department of Political Science. His B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in economics and political science are all from the University of California, Berkeley. He first visited Japan in 1953 as a U.S. Navy officer and has lived and worked there with his wife, the anthropologist Sheila K. Johnson, every year between 1961 and 1998.

Johnson has been honored with fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation; and in 1976 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written numerous articles and reviews and some sixteen books, including Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power on the Chinese revolution, An Instance of Treason on Japan’s most famous spy, Revolutionary Change on the theory of violent protest movements, and MITI and the Japanese Miracle on Japanese economic development. This last-named book laid the foundation for the “revisionist” school of writers on Japan, and because of it the Japanese press dubbed him the “Godfather of revisionism.”

He was chairman of the academic advisory committee for the PBS television series “The Pacific Century,” and he played a prominent role in the PBS “Frontline” documentary “Losing the War with Japan.” Both won Emmy awards. His most recent books are Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000) and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, which was published by Metropolitan in January 2004. Blowback won the 2001 American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation.