Juan Cole

Bush Emulates Napoleon’s Failure

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw082907juancole.mp3]

Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and proprietor of the blog Informed Comment and author of the new book Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East, discusses the likelihood of war with Iran, Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the similarity to the policy of the neo-Jacobin George W. Bush, the abject failure of the “surge,” Ahmadinejad’s statement that he wished the Israeli government would fall one day, and the push in DC for an Allawi coup.

MP3 here. (19:06)

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War. His blog, Informed Comment, is a widely read source for Middle East news and commentary.

Dahr Jamail

America Destroys Iraq

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/2007-08-22dahrjamail.mp3]

Dahr Jamail, unembedded independent journalist now back in the U.S., discusses the absolute humanitarian catastrophe that the U.S. has created in Iraq, the fact that all the propaganda about the surge is “working,” is a bunch of lies, increasing casualty rates for the American soldiers, compares the recent redirection toward the Sunni insurgency to an earlier plan which failed in Fallujah in the spring and summer of 2004 and measures the fate of Nouri al-Malaki’s government in the face of the proposed Allawi coup.

MP3 here. (16:29)

In late 2003, Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource. He is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

Ray McGovern

Hope the Generals Refuse Their Orders

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw0824raymcgovern.mp3]

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses the likelihood of war with Iran and his hope that the US military would simply refuse, the Democrats refusal to check the President’s war powers since pleasing the Israel Lobby is more important to her than stopping another aggressive war, the fact that the CIA says Iran is years away from the ability to make a nuclear weapon, the fact that the CIA knew for certain that Iraq had no weapons before the war, why they invaded, and how to withdraw from Iraq.

MP3 here. (41:05)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years – from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. He is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Michael Isikoff

Government Intelligence?

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw023misikoff.mp3]

Michael Isikoff, Newsweek investigative correspondent and author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, discusses the new CIA Inspector General report about their failures in the lead up to 9/11, infighting with the DIA and FBI, etc., the consensus in DC on changing Iraqi viceroys back to Iyad Allawi and the parallels to the Diem coup,the coming bogus Petraus report.

MP3 here. (12:23)

Michael Isikoff joined Newsweek as an investigative correspondent in June 1994. He has covered the Whitewater scandal, the Oklahoma City bombing, campaign finance abuses, presidential politics and other national issues. He has been a news analyst for MSNBC and a frequent guest on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” PBS’s “Charlie Rose,” and nationally-syndicated radio talk shows.

David Horowitz ‘Declares’ Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week for October 22-26

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.

“This October 22-26, I am declaring Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” declared David Horowitz Tuesday in a friendly interview on FrontpageMag.com, one of Horowitz’s many front groups. “I will hold demonstrations and protests, teach-ins and sit-ins on more than 100 college campuses. Our theme will be the Oppression of Women in Islam and the threat posed by the Islamic crusade [????] against the West.”

Horowitz, who, along with Frank Gaffney, James Woolsey, and Rick Santorum has played a truly vanguard role in the “Islamo-Fascism” movement, apparently has few doubts about his impact. “During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” The event will confront the two “Big Lies of the political left:” that “George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.” In fact, according to Horowitz, Islamo-fascism constitutes “the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted.”

Horowitz, president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (previously the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) editor-in-chief of FrontPageMag.com, and founder of Students for Academic Freedom, is, of course, a former leading New Leftist who has found fame and fortune – he made $352,647 in 2005, according to tax records – on the extreme right and has done particularly well since 9/11 when he got in on the “Islamo-fascist” ground floor.

“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” according to Horowitz will be a “national effort …to rally American students to defend their country” and will feature “memorial services for the victims of Islamic terror both in America and around the globe” (the guide suggests putting up crosses to commemorate victims presumably regardless of their religion); sit-ins (Horowitz suggests the office of the Women’s Studies Department or the campus Women’s Centers “to protest their silence about the oppression of women in Islam”) teach-ins on ‘’The Oppression of Women in Islam;” “a student petition denouncing Islamo-Fascist violence against women, gays, Christians, Jews and non-religious people” (and press releases at the ready if Muslim student groups, campus administrators, or student government officers fail to sign); and prominent speakers, such as the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Ayan Hirsi Ali, columnist Mark Steyn, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Rick Santorum, as well as Horowitz himself.

In addition, participants will distribute pamphlets on Islamo-Fascism, including “The Islamic Mein Kampf,” “Why Israel is the Victim,” “Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews,” “And What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad.” Films to be shown include “Suicide Killers,” “Obsession” (about which my colleague, Khody Akhavi, wrote earlier this year), or “Islam: What the West Needs to Know.” For the films, Horowitz advises campus organizers to invite a “local radio host or other local figure to introduce the film and possibly moderate a discussion on it afterwards.” Organizers are encouraged to request funding from the student government. If is not forthcoming, according to the Guide, “it will prove the hypocrisy of your university’s claim to be committed to intellectual diversity and academic freedom.” Other possible funders and sponsors include Young Americans Foundation, the Leadership Institute, the campus College Republican club and Hillel,

The program clearly models itself after strategies employed by left-wing radicals in the 1960s and 1970s but is careful to protect the campus rules and local laws that Horowitz’s ideological enemies on the left would blatantly disregard. Organizers of the sit-ins are explicitly warned not to obstruct university operations or violate university rules. As my colleague, Eli Clifton noted, it combines some of the hardware of the 1960s student movement with the software of Horowitz’s hard-right – dare one say it? Islamophobic — ideology.

According to tax records obtained through the Foundation Center, Horowitz has been the beneficiary in recent years of a number of far-right foundations, including the Allegheny ($575,000 since 2001), Carthage ($125,000) and Sarah Scaife Foundations ($800,000) – all three are part of Richard Scaife’s empire and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (nearly $1.3 million). The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation ($475,000) also contributed nearly $500,000 to Horowitz’s enterprises over the same period.