Nature Bats Last – 03.08.18

Today’s guest on Nature Bats Last is award winning Truthout.org staff reporter Dahr Jamail. Dahr has reported extensively as an un-imbedded journalist in Iraq, he covered the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf and in recent years concentrated on the climate crisis. Dahr’s personal website is http://www.dahrjamail.net/ Download this episode (right click and save)

Manfred Weidhorn – The Future Does Not Exist—Yet

Periodically the US government, or the West in general, faces a perceived threat to peace and security: From Germany in 1938, Russia in 1956 or 1968 or 2014, Iraq in 1991 or 2002, Syria in 2013, and ISIS in 2014. The consequent dilemma over what to do predictably produces two camps. One side says, Act and punish the bad men, …

Ray McGovern – The Iraq War’s Known Unknowns

There is a lot more than meets the eye in the newly revealed Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence briefing of Sept. 5, 2002, which showed there was a lack of evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – just as President George W. Bush’s administration was launching its sales job for the Iraq War. The briefing report and …

Vijay Prashad – ISIS Oil

On December 2, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense Anatoly Antonov made a strong statement about Turkish complicity with ISIS. The charge sheet is long and detailed. It mentions many aspects, but the most incendiary is the accusation about “ISIS oil.” ISIS controls Iraqi oil fields near Mosul. They have been making millions of dollars each day by selling oil from …

When at First You Don’t Succeed, Fail, Fail Again By Peter Van Buren

In one form or another, the U.S. has been at war with Iraq since 1990, including a sort-of invasion in 1991 and a full-scale one in 2003. During that quarter-century, Washington imposed several changes of government, spent trillions of dollars, and was involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. None of those efforts were a success by …

Washington in Wonderland By Andrew J. Bacevich

There is a peculiar form of insanity in which a veneer of rationality distracts attention from the madness lurking just beneath the surface. When Alice dove down her rabbit hole to enter a place where smirking cats offered directions, ill-mannered caterpillars dispensed advice, and Mock Turtles constituted the principal ingredient in Mock Turtle soup, she experienced something of the sort. …

As Stress Drives Off Drone Operators, Air Force Must Cut Flights By CHRISTOPHER DREW and DAVE PHILIPPS

After a decade of waging long-distance war through their video screens, America’s drone operators are burning out, and the Air Force is being forced to cut back on the flights even as military and intelligence officials are demanding more of them over intensifying combat zones in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The Air Force plans to trim the flights by the armed surveillance drones to 60 a day by …