Author: Charles Goyette

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-01jimbovard.mp3]

Jim Bovard, author of Terrorism and Tyranny, The Bush Betrayal, Attention Deficit Democracy, discusses the end of the rule of law in America, the Mukasey nomination for attorney general, the newly revealed torture memos, the definition of torture, the el-Masri case, John D. Rockefeller IV’s campaign money and immunity for the telecoms.

MP3 here. (17:24)

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy (St. Martin’s/Palgrave, January 2006), and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean.

The Wall Street Journal called Bovard “the roving inspector general of the modern state,” and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a “one-man truth squad.” His 1994 book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty received the Free Press Association’s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association.

His writings have been been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw1102bobdreyfuss.mp3]

Investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss discusses the new 100 years war in the Middle East, various likely scenarios for Iraq’s future, and the chance of war with Iran.

MP3 here. (16:15)

For nearly fifteen years Robert Dreyfuss has worked as an independent journalist who specializes in magazine features, profiles, and investigative stories in the areas of politics and national security. In 2001, he was profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review, and two of his articles have won awards from The Washington Monthly. In 2003, Dreyfuss was awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story on the role of oil in U.S. policy toward Iraq.He has appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including Hannity and Colmes on Fox News, C-Span, CNBC, MSNBC, Court TV, and, on National Public Radio, The Diane Rehm Show and Public Interest with Kojo Nnamdi, and Pacifica’s Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

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. On line, he writes frequently for TomPaine.com, and produced a popular blog for Tom Paine called The Dreyfuss Report.

Dreyfuss is best known for ground-breaking stories about the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. In 2002, he wrote the first significant profile of Ahmed Chalabi by a journalist, for The American Prospect. Also in 2002, he wrote the first analysis of the war between the Pentagon and the CIA over policy toward Iraq, which included the first important account of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. Other stories in The American Prospect included detailed accounts of neoconservative war plans for the broader Middle East. In 2004, he co-authored what is still the most complete account of the work of the Office of Special Plans in manufacturing misleading or false intelligence about Iraq, for Mother Jones, entitled “The Lie Factory.”

Before 9/11, Dreyfuss wrote extensively about intelligence issues, including pieces about post-Cold War excursions by the CIA into economic espionage, about the CIA’s nonofficial cover (NOC) program, and about lobbying by U.S. defense and intelligence contractors over the annual secret intelligence budget.

Among his many other pieces, Dreyfuss has profiled organizations, including the Democratic Leadership Council, the Center for American Progress, the National Rifle Association, the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, and Handgun Control. He has also profiled Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, conservative activist Grover Norquist, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, Senator John McCain, and, in 1999, Texas Governor George W. Bush. One of his most important pieces was the result of a weeks-long visit to Vietnam in 1999, where he wrote about the effects of Agent Orange dioxin in Vietnam since the 1970s. His stories on the privatization of Social Security and the politics of Medicare and Medical Savings Accounts have been widely cited.

Dreyfuss is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). He graduated from Columbia University.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw10-30edschultz.mp3]

Syndicated radio show host Ed Shultz discusses his recent conversation with Senate majority leader Harry Reid about the Democrats refusal to end the war, their cowardice, the danger of war with Iran and the presidential campaign.

MP3 here. (11:07)

Ed Shultz is a progressive radio talk show host.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw102307frontlinegregbarker.mp3]

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.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-10-20davidlivingstonesmith.mp3]

David Livingstone Smith, author of Why We Lie and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, discusses the competing narratives of war, the human “taste” for mass killing and the conflicting aversion to hurting others, the similarities in the ways in which chimpanzees and people wage war and the danger of the collectivist mindset.

MP3 here. (16:10)

David Livingstone Smith teaches  philosophy at the University of New England. He earned his M.A. from Antioch University and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of London, Kings College, where he worked on topics in the philosophy of mind and psychology.  David’s books include Freud’s Philosophy of the Unconscious (Kluwer, 1999), Approaching Psychoanalysis: An Introductory Course (Karnac, 1999), Psychoanalysis in Focus (Sage, 2002) and, most recently Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind (St. Martins Press, 2004).  His most recent book The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War  was published by St. Martins Press in 2007.

[audio:http://antiwar.com/dissent/aw20071016michaelkirkfrontline.mp3]

Documentary filmmaker Michael Kirk discusses his PBS Frontline specials The Dark Side and Cheney’s Law, Cheney’s attempt to consolidate power in the presidency and break the law, the importance of the hospital room shakedown of former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the conflict between John Yoo and Jack Goldsmith’s interpretations of presidential power and the role of Cheney lawyer David Addington.

MP3 here. (15:00)

Michael Kirk, a former Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, was Frontline’s senior producer from 1983 to 1987, and has produced more than 100 national television programs. He was online earlier this season to talk about “The War Behind Closed Doors” and “The Man Who Knew,” and during the 2001-2002 season to discuss “Did Daddy Do It?“; “American Porn“; “Gunning for Saddam“; and “Target America.”