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.

Scott Horton

Law Broken – No Comment

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_08_28_horton.mp3]

The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer, heroic crusader against the American government’s use of torture and author of the renowned No Comment blog at the Harper’s magazine Website, explains how the Bush/Cheney administration continues to fight for their right to torture people, the roles played by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and likely replacement Michael Chertoff in crafting U.S. torture policy, the overall politicization of the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney scandal and bogus prosecutions of political opponents, NSA/AT&T wiretaps and the “State’s Secrets Privilege,” the Stab in Maliki’s back in Iraq, preparations for war with the Iranians and the legal framework being set up in order for the government to torture them too.

MP3 here. (47:24)

Scott Horton is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and pens the blog No Comment. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Will the Governator Let Californians Vote on Iraq Pullout?

Yesterday, the California State Assembly approved a proposal to allow voters to express their opinion on the “immediate, complete, safe and orderly withdrawal of United States forces” from Iraq. The bill goes back to the State Senate, which had approved a slightly different version of the bill in June.

The bill will go to the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who will decide whether to allow Californians to express their opinion on Iraq. If he signs the bill, or lets it go into effect without his signature, the measure will appear on the February ballot along with the Presidential primary.

Schwarzenegger has tried to avoid taking a firm stance on the issue, saying he supports the troops and the war on terror but also backs a “timetable for withdrawal.” A spokesman for the governor, Aaron McLear, said Schwarzenegger had not taken a position on the bill.

Please contact the Governor’s office and urge him to allow voters to express their position on this important measure.

PS: More good news — while the Assembly was debating whether to pull out of Iraq, the Senate approved a resolution urging the president to stop sending National Guard troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.