Antiwar.com Blog

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/scott/07_11_07_dickinson.mp3]

Tim Dickinson, contributing editor at Rolling Stone, discusses his recent article “Bush’s Lapdogs: What Happened to DC’s Watchdogs?” How the dozens of Inspectors General appointed by Bush have changed their positions from auditor watchdogs to complicit lapdogs, how they suppress governmental crimes and get fired if they do their real jobs.

MP3 here. (26:39)

Tim Dickinson was an editor at Mother Jones from 1998 to 2005 and is now a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine. He is the author of Rollingstone.com’s political blog, National Affairs Daily.

IraqSlogger reports:

A pro-US Sunni paramilitary force has been announced in a notoriously rough area of Eastern Baghdad, local sources tell IraqSlogger.

In the Sulaikh area, a “Sulaikh Awakening” (Sahwat al-Sulaikh) group has been formed, locals report, which is cooperating with the Iraqi government against Sunni extremist groups in Sulaikh and surrounding areas. Locals in Sulaikh report that members of extremist groups related to al-Qa’ida in Iraq traveled from neighboring Adhamiya to raid Suleikh, kidnapping 10 civilians. This event prompted locals to begin cooperating with the Iraqi security forces, residents report, and information is flowing to the Iraqi government regarding the whereabouts and activities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq-related operatives.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/scott/07_11_05_margolis.mp3]

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Sun National Media and the American Conservative magazine, discusses the state of emergency in Pakistan, the history of the Musharraf dictatorship, his relationship with Dick Cheney, the return of Benazir Bhutto, her accusation that Musharraf was behind the recent suicide bomb attacks, the Islamists in Waziristan, the cause of their insurgency, Pakistan’s feudal system and the slim chance that crazies could get their hands on the nukes, the tension between Pakistan and India, the collision course coming this way as the Kurdish PKK attacks Turkey and vice versa, the U.S. and Israel’s policy of splitting off Kurdistan Iraq while simultaneously backing the Turks, U.S. support for Kurdish terrorism against Iran and the plan for long term occupation of Iraq.

MP3 here. (43:13)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements.

Read this post by Arthur Silber, then sign this petition in support of the Illinois high-school students now facing expulsion or even criminal charges for their participation in a peaceful antiwar protest.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw1102naomiwolf.mp3]

Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, discusses the American Constitutional crisis, the steps that have lead societies to totalitarianism in the last century, the point of no return, the state’s war on the media, the combination of private interests and public power, the President’s grandfather’s financial dealings with Fritz Thyssen, her fun with the TSA no-fly list and Ron Paul’s American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007.

MP3 here. (17:32)

Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.

The Beauty Myth, her first book, was an international bestseller. She followed that with Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, published by Random House in 1993, and Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, published in 1997. Misconceptions, released in 2001, is a powerful and passionate critique of pregnancy and birth in America. In 2002, Harper Collins published a 10th anniversary commemorative edition of The Beauty Myth.

[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.