Mark Danner

The President’s Faith in Himself

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_18_danner.mp3]

Mark Danner, writer for the New York Review of Books and author of The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History, discusses George Bush’s faith in himself as revealed by the recently disclosed transcript of his meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Aznar in February, 2002, and how it keeps getting innocent people killed, the narratives of “enhanced interrogations” and “weapons inspections” that make torture and aggressive war acceptable and “legal,” Bush’s belief, in spite of all evidence, that everything he does is right no matter what, the relevance of his former life as a cheerleader to his mindset today, the infighting between the neocons in the DoD and the State Department and the CIA, the administration’s accusations that racism against Arabs was somehow responsible for European opposition to the war, Bush’s refusal of the option of exile for Saddam, the decision to install the Iranian-backed SCIRI/Da’wa Party types in power and the recent decision to stab them in the back and “redirect” toward the Ba’athists again, the question of whether the Bush/Cheney regime always meant to break Iraq apart and the danger of war with Iran.

MP3 here. (49:40)

Mark Danner, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, and professor at Berkeley and at Bard, writes about foreign affairs and American politics, including Latin America, Haiti, the Balkans and the Middle East. He speaks and debates widely about America’s role in the world.

Author: Scott Horton

Scott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan and editor of The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper’s. Scott’s Twitter, YouTube, Patreon.

4 thoughts on “Mark Danner”

  1. Scott Horton is so right to call for the impeachment of Bush, is say as an effort to prevent WWIII, and is so correct that there is enough evidence gathered to support the impeachment by
    Congress, that it need not take them much time, I say, two – four weeks. I can’t believe that any smart American, concerned about the freedom of Americans, would disagree with him.

  2. Scott is off the chain on Irag, he’s one of the biggest speakers on this issue and he should get medal. Should Bush be impeached? Is that question? after all the facts we currently know? When the dust of fog war is passed, we will have witnessed some of the greatest atrocities in 50years from Bush doctrine. Can it get worse O stay tune….09 is not here yet.

  3. Hi Guys,

    I’ve just (rather belatedly) downloaded and listened to the interview with Mark Danner.

    With reference to the Bush administration’s charge of “racism” against the Europeans, I would like to point out that Europe has huge Arabic populations. What’s more, they’ve got political clout, albeit, nothing like the Israeli lobby in the US. Ergo, when the European leaders decided to forgo endorsing Bush’s war against Iraq, it’s hard to believe that they weren’t casting an eye towards their Arabic constituents.

    Thus, Bush’s and Rice’s logic (yes, I remember her crack about Rosa Parks) was completely off the rails. Very few Arabs wanted the US version of democracy brought to the Middle East on the tip of a Cruse missile.

    Steve
    Brussels

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