Antiwar.com Blog

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/2007-09-24robertpape.mp3]

Robert A. Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of the study Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, explains why it is that suicide bombers do what they do: To rid their land of foreign combat forces. That’s it. Not religion. Not virgins in Heaven. Not Democracy. Not Freedomâ„¢. Not women’s rights… Occupation.

MP3 here. (15:25)

Robert A. Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His publications include Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House 2005); Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell 1996), “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security (1997), “The Determinants of International Moral Action,” International Organization (1999); “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review (2003); and “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security (2005). His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988 and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pittsburgh in 1982. His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-09-26clemons.mp3]

Steve Clemons, author of the Washington Note blog and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, discusses his belief that President Bush is not yet completely on board with Vice-President Cheney’s plan for war with Iran, some phone calls he received from “very senior administration officials” that confirmed his recent article along those lines, the continuing fight between the neocons and everyone else, the continuing danger of a Cheney end-run and a war begun “accidentally” and then made large, the role that Robert Gates is playing in checking Cheney’s power, the recent demonization of Iran’s president and the need for people to influence the Congress to stand up to the presidency on issues of war.

MP3 here. (19:09)

Steven Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to promote a new American internationalism that combines a tough-minded realism about America’s interests in the world with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America’s democratic way of life. He is also a Senior Fellow at New America, and previously served as Executive Vice President.

Publisher of the popular political blog The Washington Note, Mr. Clemons is a long-term policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. He has served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Policy Advisor on Economic and International Affairs to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and was the first Executive Director of the Nixon Center.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw2007-09-26draper.mp3]

Robert Draper, national correspondent for GQ magazine and author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, discusses the access he was allowed to the White House while writing his book, the firing of Donald Rumsfeld, the president’s relationship with his father, certainty about everything he does and fear of ghosts.

MP3 here. (16:34)

Robert Draper has been a national correspondent for GQ magazine for the past decade, and prior to that was senior editor at Texas Monthly. He lives in Washington, D.C. He is author of a novel, Hadrian’s Walls (Knopf), and the biography Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw20070927garethporter.mp3]

Historian and investigative reporter Gareth Porter discusses the McCain-Lieberman resolution which recently passed the U.S. Senate, the falsehoods upon which it is based, the Democrats loyalty to the War Party the possibility of open warfare against Iran, the 2003 peace offer [.pdf], the consequences of its rejection for the war against al Qaeda, Biden’s plan to split Iraq in three.

MP3 here. (30:25)

Dr. Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Dr. Porter was both a Vietnam specialist and an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War and was Co-Director of Indochina Resource Center in Washington. Dr. Porter taught international studies at City College of New York and American University. He was the first Academic Director for Peace and Conflict Resolution in the Washington Semester program at American University.

They seem to wax and wane in harmony with official U.S. government policy.

(Via.)

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_25_cirincione.mp3]

Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, discusses the true nature of Syria, North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, the neoconservatives lies about them, their motives, the Cheney Cabal’s attempted end run around the president, the willingness of the mass media to continually repeat whatever the government says about Iran, the fragility of the UN’s non-proliferation regime and the possibility of a nuclear war against Iran.

MP3 here. (39:31)

Joseph Cirincione is Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at CAP and author of the new book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia University Press, Spring 2007). Prior to joining the Center in May 2006, he served as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for eight years. He is the co-author of Contain and Engage: A New Strategy for Resolving the Iran Nuclear Crisis (Center for American Progress, March 2007), Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats (Second Edition, 2005), and Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (March 2005). He teaches at the graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.