Antiwar.com Blog

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw092507billsammon.mp3]

Bill Sammon, White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner and author of The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World, discusses Bush’s advising of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the indisputable fact that the Democrats have absolutely no intention whatsoever to end the war in Iraq, Bush’s “legacy” and the possibility of war with Iran.

MP3 here. (16:15)

Bill Sammon is Senior White House Correspondent for The Washington Examiner, a political analyst for Fox News Channel, and the author of three New York Times bestsellers: At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election; Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House; and Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters. Bill is a frequent guest on shows like “Special Report with Brit Hume,” “Fox News Sunday” and “Hannity and Colmes.”

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-08-17CarahOng.mp3]

Carah Ong, Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, discusses the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Senate’s recent call for them to be reclassified as a terrorist group, the Iranian peace offer of 2003, and some of the likely economic implications of a war against Iran.

MP3 here. (13:14)

Carah Ong is the Iran Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation.

Dan McCarthy, Richard B. Spencer, and Jim Antle — all of whom might be broadly perceived as paleocons-with-libertarian-sympathies — have started a foreign policy blog, Exit Strategies, and it’s a great read: I especially liked two posts by Spencer: “Les Neocons,” and his riff on iraq and “Snakes on a Plane.”

Daniel Larison, one of my favorite bloggers, takes on William “You’re A Traitor” Hawkins, and skewers him:

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Hawkins has written this.  It is unfortunate because it is an attack on his former colleagues, but even more because it is an embarrassing spectacle.  Yes, Murray Rothbard opposed unjust wars and pernicious foreign policy, for which he was scurrilously attacked after death by Mr. Buckley.  If anyone would like to take Buckley’s side in that disgraceful episode, he associates himself with very shabby behaviour unbecoming of a gentleman.  People at Antiwar.com also oppose unjust wars and pernicious foreign policy, for which they are routinely scurrilously attacked.  They all see interventionism as a principal source of the expansion of the state at home and the loss of liberty.  I find it hard to believe that anyone at the gathering would say that patriotism has become a dirty word, except perhaps by way of saying that warmongers have helped make it seem so by misusing the word and conflating it with things that have nothing to do with patriotism.” 

And of course I’m still blogging over at Taki’s Top Drawer: on Lawrence Dennis, and a most contentious debate on the war. See also Taki chickening out when he could’ve put his karate skills to good use … 

Vineyardsaker has a provocative post on Ahmadinejad’s description of America as a “big prison.” He posts this chilling data (emphasis added):

Incarcerations per 100,000 population (sample):

1014____Texas (in 1999) (governor George W. Bush)
1013____Louisiana (2001)
715_____United States of America (2001)
584_____Russian Federation
554_____Belarus
487_____Cuba
416_____Ukraine
402_____South Africa
388_____Singapore
267_____Namibia
253_____Tunisia
248_____Taiwan
210_____Poland
204_____Chile
194_____Iran
189_____Hong Kong (China)
178_____Czech Republic
177_____Greenland (Denmark)
176_____Jamaica
174_____Israel
173_____Libya
169_____Brazil
169_____Mexico
161_____New Zealand
158_____El Salvador
146_____Lebanon
142_____United Kingdom: England & Wales
129_____Portugal
126_____Colombia
125_____Republic of (South) Korea
121_____Egypt
119_____China
116_____Canada

Now surely, some regimes have more draconian prisons than the US. But consider the absolute reality of the situation. American prisons are also worse than some other nations’, with widespread rape, brutality, inter-prison gang violence. And we can’t forget that half or so of American prisoners are in there for non-crimes — victimless offenses against the state, such as drug, gun and tax violations. Then there are hundreds of thousands of property criminals and others who, for all their criminality, surely do not deserve being shoved in cages for years on end. America’s terribly sorry record on prisons alone would seem to put the lie to the idea of this country as the world’s greatest shining embodiment of freedom and human dignity. Before Americans talk about liberating the rest of the world, they should look at the rape rooms in their own neighborhoods, housing hundreds of thousands of non-violent enemies of the state.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/2007-09-24robertpape.mp3]

Robert A. Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of the study Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, explains why it is that suicide bombers do what they do: To rid their land of foreign combat forces. That’s it. Not religion. Not virgins in Heaven. Not Democracy. Not Freedomâ„¢. Not women’s rights… Occupation.

MP3 here. (15:25)

Robert A. Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His publications include Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House 2005); Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell 1996), “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security (1997), “The Determinants of International Moral Action,” International Organization (1999); “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review (2003); and “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security (2005). His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-09-26clemons.mp3]

Steve Clemons, author of the Washington Note blog and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, discusses his belief that President Bush is not yet completely on board with Vice-President Cheney’s plan for war with Iran, some phone calls he received from “very senior administration officials” that confirmed his recent article along those lines, the continuing fight between the neocons and everyone else, the continuing danger of a Cheney end-run and a war begun “accidentally” and then made large, the role that Robert Gates is playing in checking Cheney’s power, the recent demonization of Iran’s president and the need for people to influence the Congress to stand up to the presidency on issues of war.

MP3 here. (19:09)

Steven Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to promote a new American internationalism that combines a tough-minded realism about America’s interests in the world with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America’s democratic way of life. He is also a Senior Fellow at New America, and previously served as Executive Vice President.

Publisher of the popular political blog The Washington Note, Mr. Clemons is a long-term policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. He has served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Policy Advisor on Economic and International Affairs to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and was the first Executive Director of the Nixon Center.