National Security Podcast

Interview: Matthew HOH, former Marine Captain

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:49:40 -0800

A former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, Matthew Hoh, also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. This summer he was the senior US civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. In September Hoh became the first US official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war.
His four page letter of resignation explains that he became convinced that our war in that country will not only inevitably fail, but is fueling the very insurgency we are trying to defeat.
He points out that "next fall, the United States' occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union's own physical involvement in Afghanistan."
"I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
The Pentagon’s own 2004 report concluded: "Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America's national security . . . Direct American intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for Islamic radicals."
"American families," Hoh said at the end of his letter of resignaton, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more."
http://www.stopafghanistan.org/

Interview: JODIE EVANS, co-founder of CODE PINK

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:38:40 -0700

JODIE EVANS is the co-founder the International Occupation Watch Center in Iraq, and of CODE PINK, with, among others, Medea Benjamin. Jodie's Baghdad Journals are at the center of the book, Twilight of Empire, and she is co-editor with Benjamin of Stop The Next War Now.
JODIE - "I am just returning from my 10-day trip to Afghanistan. As we left, a farm was bombed and eight members of a family were killed. Eight U.S. soldiers also lost their lives in an insurgent raid on their outpost. And today marks the 8th anniversary of the US Invasion of that war torn country.
We have spent a quarter of a trillion dollars in those 8 years and what have we got for all that time, money, and suffering? Most of the country is in worse condition, the Taliban have been growing in strength and number, the bordering countries are more unstable and death fills the air."
Watch Video: http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2009/10/afghan-women-speak-out-dr-roshnak-wardak/

Movie: THE RECKONING: The Battle for the International Criminal Court

Tue, 7 Jul 2009 21:15:24 -0700

THE RECKONING opens on a man holding a human skull in a lonely field. "Without justice," he says, "people have no respect for each other. If this is left unpunished, it will be repeated."
He is speaking of the more than 5 million people killed in the wars that have torn eastern Congo apart since 1998. But he might as well have been speaking for the victims of mass murder in Guatemala (200,000), Cambodia (1.7 million), East Timor (200,000), Sierra Leone (50,000), Bosnia (200,000) and Rwanda (800,000), to name only the most notorious cases.
The Nurmeburg trials following World War II introduced a new sensibility and legitimacy to international criminal justice and serve as the inspiration for the creation half a century later of the International Criminal Court. Over 100 countries have united to form the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators, no matter how powerful, of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
But the Court was not given a police force or other enforcement arm, and faces major obstacles in pursuing its mission from nations that have not joined the treaty - including China, Russia and the United States. George Bush's UN ambassador, John Bolton, proudly expressed his contempt. "We should isolate and ignore the ICC. Specifically, I propose for the United States policy ... Three No's: no financial support, directly or indirectly; no collaboration; and no further negotiations with other governments to improve the Statute. [...] This approach is likely to maximize the chances that the ICC will wither and collapse, which should be our objective."
The ICC has other problems on its hands these days. A joint declaration issued at the end of an African Union summit this weekend in Libya said member states would not cooperate in the arrest and surrender of Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges. Summit host, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying the ICC represents a "new world terrorism".
Several African members of the ICC are uncomfortable with the AU declaration. Botswana's Foreign Minister, Phandu Skelemani, says his country reaffirms its position that it has treaty obligations to cooperate with the ICC in Mr. Bashir's arrest. Sudan's rival, Chad, has also indicated it would not honor the decision.
THE RECKONING airs nationally on POV Tuesday, July 14 at 10 PM and in Southern California on KCET Thursday, July 16 at 8:30 PM. It will stream for 30 days following the broadcast @ http://www.pbs.org/pov/reckoning/
PACO de ONIS, Producer,  THE RECKONING: The Battle for the International Criminal Court
CHRISTINE CHUNG  trial attorney, Office of the Prosecutor, ICC

Interview: JANE Mayer, New Yorker Correspondent and Author

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:17:46 -0700

JANE MAYER, one of our nation's foremost investigative journalists will join us for at least the last half hour, maybe a bit more. Her best-selling 2008 book, THE DARK SIDE, was chosen by the New New York Times, The Economist, Salon, Slate, and Bloomberg as one of the best books of the year.
In THE DARK SIDE, MAYER reported (to quote a review by Andrew Basevich), "Since embarking upon its global war on terror, the United States has blatantly disregarded the Geneva Conventions. It has imprisoned suspects, including U.S. citizens, without charge, holding them indefinitely and denying them due process. It has created an American gulag in which thousands of detainees, including many innocent of any wrongdoing, have been subjected to ritual abuse and humiliation. It has delivered suspected terrorists into the hands of foreign torturers. Under the guise of 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' it has succeeded, in Mayer's words, in 'making torture the official law of the land in all but name.' Further, it has done all these things as a direct result of policy decisions made at the highest levels of government."
The country learned about all this and rejected Bush's Republican successor, John McCain, in favor of former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama. So has everything changed for the good?
I'd say not nearly enough.
Just in the two months since President Obama released the torture memos, a former FBI interrogator testified to the failures of the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, a former aide to Colin Powell said the interrogations were aimed at building the case for the Iraq war, a coalition of advocacy groups has launched a campaign to disbar twelve former Bush administration attorneys.
The Obama response? While continuing to preach "move forward, don't look back" when it comes to investigating or prosecuting possible crimes committed in pursuit of the above listed policies, the Obama administration has withheld photos of detainee abuse, defended the military tribunal system, and floated plans for a system of "preventive detention" for accused Terrorists.
We will talk with JANE MAYER about the past, the present, and the future of actions and crimes committed by the US government to defend us from terror.

Interview: BEN SKINNER, Author: "A CRIME SO MONSTROUS”

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:02:31 -0700

Currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, previously a Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, BEN SKINNER has written for Newsweek, LA Times, Foreign Policy and others. He was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year 2008. His first book, now out in paperback, is A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery.

http://www.castla.org