Scott Ritter

Stop the War With Iran!

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/2007-10-12scottritter.mp3]

Author, former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins Charles in the studio to discuss some of the repercussions of being right, the rewards for those who lie us into war, the high probability of a war with Iran, the complicity of the Democrats in Congress, the military’s readiness for a fight, the extent of the Iranian nuclear program, the history of the weapons inspections in Iraq, how the Clinton government prevented him and his colleagues from finishing their work in the 1990’s, the fight between the vice president’s office and the professional military over the next war and why relying on them to stand up to Bush/Cheney is a bad idea.

MP3 here. (42:09)

As a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, Scott Ritter was labeled a hero by some, a maverick by others, and a spy by the Iraqi government. In charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq, Ritter was on the front lines of the ongoing battle against arms proliferation. His experience in Iraq served as the basis for his book Endgame, which explored the shortcomings of American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf region and alternative approaches to handling the Iraqi crisis, and for Iraq Confidential, which detailed his seven year experience as a weapons inspector.

Scott Ritter has had an extensive and distinguished career in government service. He is an intelligence specialist with a 12-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps including assignments in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Rising to the rank of Major, Ritter spent several months of the Gulf War serving under General Norman Schwarzkopf with US Central Command headquarters in Saudi Arabia, where he played an instrumental role in formulating and implementing combat operations targeting Iraqi mobile missile launchers which threatened Israel.

In 1991, Ritter joined the United Nations weapons inspections team, or UNSCOM. He participated in 34 inspection missions, 14 of them as chief inspector. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, citing US interference in the work of the inspections.

He is the author of many books, including “Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein” and most recently “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.” He lives in New York State. Ritter was born in Florida, and raised all over the world in a career military family. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, with a B.A. in Soviet History.

Clive Stafford Smith

Guantanamo, Torture, Secrecy

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-10-12clivestaffordsmith.mp3]

Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of Reprieve, lawyer for more than 50 of the men at Guantanamo, author of The Eight O’clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay, discusses the “enemy combatants” held at “Gitmo,” why he’s doing what he’s doing, how the men ended up there, torture, the secrecy surrounding the situation, examples of innocent men being held there and the remaining ghost prisoners around the world.

MP3 here. (17:57)

Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 25 years working on behalf of defendants facing the death penalty in the USA.

Jon Basil Utley

Murderous Soviet Communism

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_11_utley.mp3]

Jon Basil Utley, former South American correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers and founder of Americans Against World Empire, tells the story of his father’s arrest and murder by the Soviet Communists at the Vorkuta Gulag, his mother, Freda’s world travels documenting the horrors of Communism afterward and the baneful influence of America’s Armageddonites on our current foreign policy.

MP3 here. (39:51)

Jon Basil Utley is associate publisher of The American Conservative and Robert A. Taft Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. A former correspondent for Knight Ridder in South America, Utley has written for the Harvard Business Review on foreign nationalism and was for 17 years a commentator on the Voice of America. He is director of Americans Against World Empire.

Keith Halderman

The Ruinous Drug War

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_11_haldeman.mp3]

Keith Halderman, editorial assistant at the Trebach Institute and blogger at Liberty and Power, discusses the sordid history of America’s war against some drug users.

MP3 here. (38:48)

Keith Halderman completed his BA in International Relations at Pennsylvania State University and a BA in Social Science Education at the University of South of Florida. He holds a MA in American History from the University of South Florida. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in American History at American University. He has published articles on the medical use of marijuana in the 19th century, the U.S. Army’s study of marijuana use in Panama conducted during the 1920s and Blanche Armwood the first Executive Secretary of the Urban League in Tampa Florida. His dissertation topic looks at marijuana prohibition in the 1930s from a Public Choice perspective. He is a long time activist with both the Libertarian Party and the drug law reform movement. He works as an editorial assistant with the Trebach Institute.

Some Weekend Reading

I’m blogging up a storm over at Taki’s Top DrawerHere‘s my Friday Evening Cyber-Stroll, with items on Ron Paul (the third party option), Gen. Ricardo  Sanchez (lashing out at the Bushites), and Chris Matthews (how the War Party tried to censor him). Here‘s a question: is neoconservatism an incurable disease? Here‘s a meditation on how hard it must be for the neocons to peddle Benito Giuliani as a “conservative” to the GOP base. And here, courtesy of Gen.Wesley Clark, is a visit to the future.

US Nullifies INF Treaty

Vladimir Putin is threatening to withdraw from the INF Treaty, and, as the world’s attention is fixed on the disaster unfolding in Iraq, the disarmament agreements reached in the waning days of the cold war are coming unraveled. The reason: the US is oufitting its East  European satraps with missile “defense” armaments, which has led the Russians to announce that “it will be difficult for us to remain within the framework of the treaty”, which mandates destruction of Russian and US intermediate range missiles, unless it is expanded to include Poland, the Czech republic, and any other former Russian vassals that buy into the latest wares hawked by the US military-industrial complex.

It’s absurd — and an insult to the Russians — to claim, as the Americans do, that they are concerned about a missile attack on Prague by … Iran. Baloney! As Putin put it, “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” It’s clear who this is aimed at. The question is: why? Is there really no limit to the War Party’s ambition — do they mean to take on the Russians along with the “Islamo-fascists“?

This is why I hope we never explore the cosmos, and go to other planets: any intelligent life we find there is bound to be declared an Enemy.