Angry Planet

Conspiracy theories are as old as the republic. Actually, they're a lot older than OUR republic. In every country, in every culture, people believe powerful forces are colluding in ways they know nothing about.

Why is that?

In this week's bonus episode we talk with Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason magazine and author of "The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory."

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Qanon is a conspiracy theory that supposes President Donald Trump is at war with an ancient pedophile cult. When Qanon believers began to show up at Trump rallies, the mainstream media took notice. In early August, BuzzFeed published an article: www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanha…-is-probably-a that theorized the whole thing was an elaborate prank by leftists activists. Their evidence was a 1999 book about religious rebellions during the 16th century. It’s title? Q: www.amazon.com/Q-Luther-Blissett…e=&qid=1538017365.

Wu Ming 1, one of the authors of that book joins us today to talk about Q, Qanon, and the importance of conspiracy theories in modern life.

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Civilian casualties are a fact of war. The Pentagon, we’re told, does its best to minimize them but war is messy and it’s impossible to achieve the number zero. Unless you’re talking about Somalia. America has been at war in the African country for years and, according to the Pentagon, it has conducted that war with almost no civilian casualties. Amnesty International—a non-governmental organization focused on human rights—says that’s not true and has conducted its own investigation into the war and uncovered evidence of civilian casualties.

Amnesty International's report is called The Hidden US War In Somalia Daphne Eviatar is here with us to discuss it. Eviatar is Amnesty International’s director of Security with Human Rights.

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On paper, Japan is no longer a military power. Article 9 of the Japanese constitution states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Japan is, on paper, to rely on its allies for military defense and, since World War II, American military bases have dotted its islands. But attitudes and policies are changing and as the South China sea looks more and more like a flashpoint, some are wondering if Japan will amend its constitution and re-arm.

Here to help us figure that out is Kimberly Westenhiser is a journalist, photographer and artist. She writes for the Eatonville Dispatch and her work has appeared at The Seattle Globalist, Foreign Policy, War Is Boring and Playboy.

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The cliche goes that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. But history is more than just a memory and a lesson, sometimes it’s a tool and a weapon. Some pundits are concerned that historians in their ivory tower of academia are neglecting the study of war and policy in favor of identity politics, and in some cases shirking their role of educating the public in favor of an academic elitism that is mostly aimed producing work for themselves and their colleagues to consume.

Brian Laslie is the Deputy Command Historian at NORAD and United States Northern Command.  He previously served as the Historian of the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base from December 2009 to August 2012.  In 2011, he deployed as the Air Forces Central Command (Forward) Historian to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, from September 2011 to January 2012. It was while deployed that Brian wrote the majority of what would become his first book.

Brian’s views expressed here are his own and don’t reflect those of the United States government.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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Drugs and war go together like peanut butter and jelly. American soldier boys smoked the reefer in Vietnam, the Wehrmacht ran on amphetamine, and Viking Berserkers were probably on something. Soldiers have enhanced and altered perception using chemicals for centuries, but in the annals of getting fucked up and going to war you don’t hear a lot about psychedelics such as LSD and MDMA.

But that might be changing. With us today is Marine Corps officer Emre Albayrak. Albayrak is an Expeditionary Ground Reconnaissance officer and has served as an intelligence officer for 12 years. He’s also the author of an interesting article in the February issue of the Marine Corps Gazette—a professional journal published by the Marine Corps Association. It’s titled Microdosing: Improving Performance Enhancements in Intelligence Analysis. It suggests, very basically, that military intelligence operations could get a boost if Marines dropped a little acid

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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It’s a story some of you may know, it’s been told over and over in different forms. A gaijin, an outsider, comes to Japan and ingratiates themselves with the local military power. From James Clavell’s Shogun, to a bad Tom Cruise movie, to William Adams, it’s a story told over and over in both Japan and the West. Some of those stories have a kernel of truth and few are as fascinating as that of Yasuke—a Samurai born in Africa.  

Here to help us unravel the mystery and history of this legendary Samurai is Thomas Lockley. Lockley is a professor at Nihon University College in Tokyo and a visiting scholar at the University of London. Along with Geoffrey Girard, Lockley is the author of the book African SamuraI: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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From the Silver Legion to the Aryan Nation, the U.S. has had its share of fascist organizations but its never had anything quite like Atomwaffen Division. Grown and organized online, the group has been linked to five murders and a bomb plot in the past eight months. The group is so extreme that even prominent leaders of the Alt-Right have denounced it.

This week on War College, journalist Jake Hanrahan takes us through what the group believes, what it wants, and what it might be willing to do to get it.

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Civil Defense! From the dawn of World War II and throughout the 1960s, America had a plan to keep its civilians safe and fit to fight in case of invasion or, god forbid, nuclear armageddon. From duck and cover to the aesthetic of the Fallout video games, American popular culture is enmeshed in the history of its Civil Defense. But what, exactly, is Civil Defense. Where did it come from and do we still practice it today?

Here to help with this history is Alex Wellerstein. Wellerstein is a historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons. He lectures on this and more at Stevens Institute of Technology. You may know him as the guy who created the nuke map, a website that allows you to simulate the effect of various nuclear weapons on an interactive map.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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On March 15, a shooter entered two Mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. He killed fifty and injured 50 more. He left behind a bizarre and meme-laden manifesto. In February, authorities arrested a Coast Guard lieutenant who had been stockpiling weapons in anticipation of kicking off a race war. When it comes to terrorism, America’s problems are overwhelmingly white and nationalist. In terms or raw numbers, it’s not even close.

With us here today to talk about our collective white nationalism problem is Robert Evans. Evans is a conflict journalist who has reported on the fighting in Ukraine and Mosul, the host of Behind the Bastards—a podcast that explores the origin stories of the worst people in history, and and author of fine articles at Bellingcat where he charts the growth of online fueled right-wing terrorism. It’s the subject of his forthcoming audiobook—The War on Everyone.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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America is at war across the world, but it’s also at war at home. For decades, violent crime has been at record lows across the country—but that’s slowly changing as cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis see terrifying amounts of murders and gang violence. To make things worse, the way cops do their job in some of these cities looks more like counterinsurgency than it does community policing.

Here to help us unpack what’s going on is Patrick Burke, Burke is a freelance journalist who covered the war at home for War Is Boring, Al Jazeera and the Huffington Post  He’s also a former researcher at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.

You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.

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