The Libertarian Institute - All Podcasts

John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus and author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands, discusses the lazy thinking among foreign policy pundits who insist North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is either a child or a madman who only understands force and can’t be reasoned with. Feffer attempts to read the despot’s mind to find out what he wants for himself and his country, and thereby determine how the US can use diplomacy instead of missiles to reach a peaceful resolution with the hermit kingdom.

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Gene Healy, a vice president at the Cato Institute, discusses the media’s strained constitutional justification for Trump’s “limited military activity” in Syria; and why the 1973 War Powers Resolution doesn’t give the president a free pass to initiate offensive military strikes without congressional approval, contrary to popular opinion.

Matthew Hoh, a Marine veteran and former State Department official, discusses his recent activism on Palestinian rights issues; the common myths recited to Americans to keep them from learning the truth about Israeli apartheid; the new generation of Palestinian and American non-violent activist leaders; and why Gaza is shaping up to be one of history’s greatest human catastrophes.

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Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, discusses the bipartisan coalition of top US politicians, including John McCain, who accepted money from the MEK to lobby for their removal from the State Department’s terrorism list; and Rand Paul’s assertion that the US should stay out of the Syrian civil war, in direct contradiction to warmongers McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Nick Mottern, the founder and coordinator of Knowdrones.com, discusses his organization’s use of targeted advertising to educate military drone operators and the general public that these deadly strikes are illegal, kill innocent civilians, and are not about fighting terrorism.

Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, discusses Trump’s strategy of pressuring Kim Jong-un by leveraging China’s influence; how the Trump administration’s middle-school mentality on North Korea makes for a disastrous foreign policy; and why the US’s peacekeeping/regional hegemony role in Asia isn’t nearly as essential as some commentators think.

James Bovard, author of Public Policy Hooligan, discusses how Woodrow Wilson got America into WWI, directly and indirectly causing the rise of Hitler, Stalin, WWII, and the redrawing of the Middle East. At home, Wilson gave rise to a government crackdown on free speech, the draft, prohibition, espionage laws, and the Spanish Flu.

Gareth Porter, an independent investigative journalist and historian writing on US national security policy, discusses two new revelations that contradict the Trump administration’s certainty that a Syrian airstrike using sarin gas deliberately targeted civilians in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4th. First, a former US official claims that the Russians informed their US counterparts of plans to strike a warehouse in Khan Sheikhoun 24 hours in advance, and advised that toxic chemicals were held there. Second, MIT Professor Theodore Postol says that the weapon casing alleged to have held the sarin gas was an improvised dispersal device detonated on the ground, and was not air-delivered.

Rick Sterling, an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, discusses the three competing narratives about the Syrian gas attack; and why the one favored by mainstream US media – that the Syrian government is absolutely guilty – has more facts working against it than for it.

Matthew Hoh, a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and a former State Department official, discusses why he resigned his post in protest over Afghanistan policy in September 2009; the continuing futility of 16 years of US occupation in a country that never was an important terrorist safe-haven; the startling ignorance of super-hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham; and how informal veterans groups are stepping up to help prevent suicides among their vulnerable peers, since the VA isn’t up to the job.