Angry Planet

What seemed unthinkable a year ago has come to pass. Ukraine has started its counter offensive and in a shockingly short amount of time has pushed Russia out of much of its territory. The Russian military appears to be collapsing with a rapidity that is shocking pretty much everyone.

Well, maybe not everyone. People who’ve been paying attention to the minutiae of the war aren’t as surprised as the rest of us. That’s kind of been a pattern in coverage and punditry of Russia’s invasion.

One of those smart guys is here to talk with us today on Angry Planet. It’s returning guest Aram Shabanian. He’s the Open-Source Information Gathering Manager at New Lines Institute, one of the minds behind The Fulda Gap, and one of the best Twitter follows you can snag @ShabanianAram.

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This will be the last episode we do on Afghanistan for a bit. We wanted to give the final word to a U.S. Marine who served there.

We’re now a year out from the fall of Kabul and what looks like the end of America’s uniformed involvement in Afghanistan. There are as many as 70,000 Afghans who helped the United States during the war who are still looking to get out.

Elliot Ackerman, who served in the region as a Marine and as a CIA operative, was trying to help as the last flights were taking off from Kabul’s Airport.

It was, as Ackerman saw it, the Fifth Act of the Afghan War.

He’s joining us today to talk about both his war and his views of the fall. He’s the author of both novels and non-fiction, including Dark at the Crossing, Green on Blue, and Red Dress in Black and White. We’ll put the full list in the show notes.

His latest book, looking at these final days is The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan.

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It’s been a year since the U.S. left Afghanistan in disarray. We’ve spoken to a number of people who have been to Afghanistan over the years on this show. That includes journalists who walked into Kabul with the Taliban the first time, in 1996, soldiers who fought in Afghanistan throughout the war, and more recently, a man who was supposed to be fighting corruption but found it to be worse than a losing battle.

Today, NPR’s Steve Inskeep joins us. He recently visited Afghanistan and spent some time with the Taliban.

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Dissent. It’s a word people don’t like to hear, especially coming from the military. But it’s also a vitally important component of any vibrant democracy. Dissent, especially informed dissent, can pull us back from the brink and help us make better choices. We are one year out from the end of America’s direct involvement in Afghanistan and, after two decades of war, it’s time to start listening to the dissenters.

That’s what the new book Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars hopes to do: give voice to that informed dissent.

With us today is one of the books’ editors, returning guest Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich is a West Point graduate, a 23 year U.S. Army Veteran, a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University, and … a dissenter.

Buy the book here.

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To say there are widespread reports of abuses by Russian troops in Ukraine is to undersell it. There have been hundreds and hundreds of cases claiming rape, torture, and murder. Last week, a video of the torture and execution of a Ukrainian soldier at the hands of Russian soldiers shocked the world.

We call these things war crimes and crimes against humanity. But that’s a relatively new concept. Today we’re going to talk about the Nuremberg Trials, which took some vague ideals and put them into practice.

Joining us today to talk about the Nuremberg Trials is John Barrett. He’s a Professor of Law at St. John's University, a biographer of former U.S. Attorney General and Nuremberg chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson.

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WNBA star Britney Griner is imprisoned in Russia and, apparently, the U.S. is making Russia an incredible offer to get her out. Last week Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that America had “put a substantial proposal on the table.”

That proposal? The return to Russia of convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout. This so-called Merchant of Death’s story is an amazing one. It even inspired a 2005 Nicolas Cage movie, some six years before Bout’s arrest. 

With us today to talk about it is Sean Williams. Williams is a journalist and the co-host of the excellent Underworld Pod, a show about the worldwide phenomenon of organized crime.

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Imagine being trapped below ground for weeks, surrounded by soldiers, bombs dropping just a few feet above your head.

Food is scarce, rats are everywhere. Is survival possible? And what would it even look like? A trip back home, or to a Russian prison?

That was the situation during the siege of the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol, Ukraine. 

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times has put together a comprehensive look at the siege, which is being called Ukraine’s Alamo and he’s joining us today to describe what he found.

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I think we can all assume why Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia recently. In fact, we just did a show on why the world can’t quit Saudi oil.

But it’s interesting to pull apart the other part of his journey — to Israel and, very briefly, the Palestinian Authority.

Joining us to do just that is independent journalist Noga Tarnopolsky. She’s written for everyone from the New York Times to the LA Times, as well as many other international outlets.

So, why visit Israel and why now? Was he just in the neighborhood?

Why is Israel still so important to the U.S.?

One stop on Biden’s visit was the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem. There he did something that seems to have melted hardened Israeli hearts. What was the significance of the way he spoke to two of the few remaining survivors of the Holocaust.

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We’re digging into the archives one more time to bring you two episodes from the early days of the show. They’re all about Russia and Ukraine. I chose these two because I think they give a unique view of the origins of the war and reflect how much our thinking on Russia has changed since its “official” invasion in February of 2022.

We’ll be back next week with a brand new episode. Stay safe until then.

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This one is a blast from the past. Jason is on Vacation and Matthew is going in for a minor surgery so we're resurrecting some old episodes. Here's what we said five years ago when this first aired:

"Antifa and white nationalists clash in the streets. Students on college campuses patrol the sidewalks armed with bats. A man in Portland stabbed several people on a bus and another in Virginia opened fire on Republican legislators on a baseball field. This week on War College, Joe Young – college professor and contributing editor at Political Violence @ a Glance – walks us through what does and doesn’t scare him about the new rash of political violence in America. For Young, the times may be scary but they’re a far cry from the radical sixties and seventies when groups such as the Weather Underground bombed government buildings."

My how things have changed in just five years.

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