Antiwar.com Blog

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/scott/07_11_13_prather.mp3]

Gordon Prather continues the discussion on Iran’s nuclear program, the recent attack on IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei by John “Bonkers Bolton,” speculation that the neocons outed Plame in order to destroy the CIA’s monitoring of Iranian nuclear black market operations, Cheney’s suppression of the Iran National Intelligence Estimate for over a year, the fact that Iran was not obligated to tell the IAEA about the things they were keeping secret, how Bolton and the neocons unraveled the Agreed Framework agreed upon by Clinton and North Korea, how Rice put it back together, the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors in ’98, the low quality of Iran’s P1 subsonic centrifuges and the current status of IAEA negotiations.

MP3 here. (42:44)

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. – ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-13craigunger.mp3]

Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud and The Fall of the House of Bush, discusses George W. Bush and the neocon crew’s destruction of the Bush family name and the policy of Bush Sr., Brent Scowcroft’s attempts to reign the boy in, why the realists didn’t overthrow Baghdad, Jr.’s psychological problems, his lie that he was converted to Christianity by Billy Graham when really he was baptized in a toilet, his belief in John Hagee style Christian Zionism, Cheney’s role in the administration and the danger of war with Iran.

MP3 here. (38:44)

Craig Unger is an award winning investigative reporter and author based in New York. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and many other publications. He is currently a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine and the best-selling author of House of Bush, House of Saud (Scribner, 2004), and The Fall of the House of Bush (Scribner, 2007). He is also a Fellow at The Center on Law and Security at NYU’s School of Law. His work was featured in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and he has appeared as an analyst on CNN, The Charlie Rose Show on PBS, NBC’s Today Show, National Public Radio, ABC Radio, Air America, and many other broadcast outlets.

Daniel Koffler douses the Ron Paul fund-raising brouhahardy-har-har cooked up by Jamie Kirchick and Daniel Sieradski. (Shockingly, Sieradski is employed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which I used to think was a serious news outlet.)

I have nothing to add to Koffler’s excellent commentary, except that Antiwar.com is in the middle of its quarterly fund-raiser, and if any disreputable types such as Kirchick and Sieradski would like to send us money, we’d be happy to take it – and keep right on promoting the peace and non-interventionism they so despise.

UPDATE 11/14: Wow, they really need to get their sh*t together over at the JTA. Whatever happened, I agree with Andrew Sullivan that Sieradski’s “assertion that Ron Paul ‘doesn’t take phone calls from Jews’ was designed to be, and remains, a slur.”

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-08craigmurray.mp3]

Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and author of Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror, discusses the tyranny in Uzbekistan, the similarity between the views of Michael Mukasey and those of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, the ties between the American government and the Karimov, the knowlege and complicity of the American government and some good times drinking and chasing skirts.

MP3 here. (23:14)

In 1984 Craig Murray joined the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As a member of the Diplomatic Service his responsibilities included the following:

1986-9 Second Secretary, Commercial, British High Commission, Lagos Responsible for promoting British exports to, and business interests in, Nigeria.

1989-92 Head of Maritime Section, FCO, London Responsible for negotiation of the UK and Dependent Territory continental shelf and fisheries boundaries, for implementation of the Channel Tunnel treaty and for negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. From August 1990 to August 1991 he was also head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, responsible for intelligence analysis on Iraqi attempts at evading sanctions, particularly in the field of weapons procurement, and with providing information to UK military forces and to other governments to effect physical enforcement of the embargo.

1992-4 Head of Cyprus Section, FCO London Responsible for UN negotiations on the Cyprus dispute, relations with the government of Cyprus and for the mandate and requirements of the British contingent of the UN force in Cyprus,

1994-7 First Secretary (Political and Economic), British Embassy, Warsaw Head of the Political and Economic sections of our Embassy in Poland. Responsible for relations with Poland, and assisting Poland’s post-communist transition process with reference to preparation for EU membership.

1997-8 Deputy Head, Africa Department (Equatorial), Foreign and Commonwealth Office Responsible for British political and commercial relationships with West Africa, including development issues.

1998-2002 Deputy High Commissioner, British High Commission, West Africa Branch Responsible for British economic, political, commercial and aid relationships with Ghana and Togo. In Autumn 1998 Craig Murray was the UK Representative at the Sierra Leone Peace talks held in Togo, Liberia and Sierra Leone, including direct negotiation with the RUF terrorist leadership.

2002-2004 British Ambassador, Uzbekistan Responsible for our relationship with Uzbekistan. He found Western support for the dictatorial Karimov regime unconscionable, as detailed in the rest of this website.

At the 2005 UK General Election, Craig Murray takes on Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn as an Independent candidate, winning 2,082 votes.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-08 nathentoff.mp3]

Civil libertarian Nat Hentoff discusses the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General, the Military Commissions Act’s immunity provisions, the unitary executive theory, Mukasey’s view that the Constitutional system is “inadequate” for dealing with the terrorist menace, Mukasey’s former job as adviser on the Constitution to Rudy Giuliani, the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Kahled el-Masri’s and Maher Arar’s torture cases in the name of the State’s secrets privilege, his belief that Bush has more contempt for the law since any president since Woodrow Wilson and his belief in the unique threat of “Islamo-fascism.”

MP3 here. (14:47)

In addition to his weekly Village Voice column, Nat Hentoff writes on music for the Wall Street Journal. Among other publications in which his work has appeared are the New York Times, the New Republic, Commonweal, the Atlantic and the New Yorker, where he was a staff writer for more than 25 years. Hentoff’s views on journalistic responsibility and the rights of Americans to write, think and speak freely are expressed in his weekly column, and he has come to be acknowledged as a foremost authority in the area of First Amendment defense. He is also an expert on the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, student rights and education.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-12reeseerlich.mp3]

Reese Erlich, author of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis, discusses the fight between the realists and crazies in the administration over Iran, his belief that the realists have the upper hand for now, the dictatorship in Pakistan and his view that the power of the administration is waning.

MP3 here. (18:34)

Reese Erlich reports regularly for National Public Radio, Marketplace Radio, Latino USA, Radio Deutche Welle, Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio, and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Radio. (Don’t forget that he also writes for San Francisco Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, and Christian Science Monitor.)

Erlich has been a media critic for San Francisco’s KQED-FM (NPR affiliate) since 1988.

His “Perspectives on Jazz” series airs on sixteen public radio stations in the United States and Canada. These three- to four-minute profiles of jazz artists also appear online through the San Jose Mercury News.