This week’s guest is Russel Mokhiber:

Russell Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter and founder of singlepayeraction.org

Corporate Crime Reporter

The online version of a legal printed newsletter highlighting corporate crime and corruption.
www.corporatecrimereporter.com/

Our guests:

- Bruce Fein on the Obama Administration’s willingness to prosecute members of the Bush Administration for war crimes.

- Kevin Gray on the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965.

Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965.

This week’s guests:

– Larry C. Johnson on the internal culture of the CIA, and on extraordinary rendition during the Bush Administration.

– Max Fraad Wolff on the current financial crisis, and on the difference is between a government bailout and a stimulus bill.

Larry C. Johnson is an owner and founder of BERG Associates, LLC, which specializes in money laundering investigations, product counterfeiting investigations, financial analysis and counter terrorism. Since 1994 Mr. Johnson has scripted exercises and provided seminars for U.S. military special operations forces. This work has included designing scenarios that replicate threats and missions US counterterrorism are called on to execute. He is knowledgeable about strategies and tactics for handling unconventional threats, including chemical, biological, and nuclear.

As a Deputy Director of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, Mr. Johnson managed crisis response operations for terrorist incidents in Lebanon, Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, the Persian Gulf and Europe. He helped organize and direct the US government’s debriefing of U.S. citizens held in Kuwait and Iraq, which provided vital intelligence on Iraqi operations following that country’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Mr. Johnson’s expertise includes aviation and maritime security. He participated in the investigation of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103 and directed crisis management operations that resolved several hijackings. From 1985 through September 1989 Mr. Johnson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. During his distinguished career, he received training in paramilitary operations, worked in the Directorate of Operations, served in the CIA’s Operation’s Center, and established himself as a prolific analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence.

Mr. Johnson routinely analyzes terrorist incidents for TV, radio, and print, including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, CNN, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management magazine, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.

ARTICLES:
“Barack Obama’s Clown Car”
February 20, 2009
By Larry C. Johnson

WEBSITES:
BERG Associates

No Quarter

SELECTED BOOKS:
Narcotics and Terrorism

QUOTE:

Today we learned that another of the really, really smart guys–a Ph.D. in physics and a Noble laureate no less–who was named to head the Department of Energy did not realize that he was in charge of oil policy for the U.S. Government. Meet Steven Chu.

Just one question–Steven Chu, how f—ing clueless are you?

Now, if you are smart like a nuclear physicist what is it about being put in charge of the Department of Energy that would lead you to believe that oil has nothing to do with energy? You are in charge of energy and “oil” is not in your domain? WHAT THE F—!!!!

What next? A nominee for Health and Human Services who does not realize they have a responsibility for health care? If you are in charge of the Department of Defense do you think it far out to assume that you might have some responsibility for the military?

Just when you thought no one could surpass Bush for assembling a crowd of mediocrities Barack Obama shows up to give him a run for his money. And the country gets screwed in the process.

Max Fraad Wolff is an economist and free lance researcher/writer. His work regularly appears in the Huffington Post, Asia Times, The Prudent Bear and many other international outlets. His work can also been seen regularly on his site Global MacroScope. Based in NYC, Max does contract research on international financial risks and opportunities while teaching in the New School University’s Graduate Program in International Affairs.

ARTICLES:
“Late and Short”
February 11, 2009
By Max Fraad Wolff

“symptoms and Solutions”
January 16, 2009
By Max Fraad Wolff

WEBSITES:
Max Fraad Wolff at The Huffington Post

Global MacroScope

QUOTE:

We responded to the bursting of 1990s bubble by inflating another bigger and broader bubble of housing and housing debt. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to 45 year lows. Lending standards were innovated right out of existence and the great housing bonanza began. We borrowed $3.7trillion against or homes between 2003 and the end of 2007. House price appreciation and debt would do what sending everyone to work for more hours, buying cheap imports, burning the savings, tax cuts and equity speculation failed to do. House price appreciation and debt would allow us to spend more than we earned. It would allow the state to borrow and spend well beyond tax receipts. It would allow families to not save, to borrow and spend. People could spend and live like their wages had not been largely stagnant since 1973. It all sort of worked until it did not. That is the story of the great bust that follows the hollow boom. That is what we are trying to stimulate our way out of with $815 billion.

This week’s guests:

– Karen J. Greenberg on torture, rendition, and Guantanamo.

– Lloyd DeMause on the condition of our collective American psyche.

Karen J. Greenberg is the editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security, co-editor of the Center’s newest publication, The Enemy Combatants Papers: American Justice, the Courts, and the War on Terror (Cambridge University Press, August 2008), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, and editor of the books Al Qaeda Now and The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge University Press).

She previously taught courses in the European Studies Department at New York University. She is a former Vice-President of the Soros Foundation/Open Society Institute and the founding director of the Program in International Education. Most recently she served as the co-chair to Governor Eliot Spitzer’s Homeland Security transition committee, where she advised the Governor-Elect, Lieutenant Governor-Elect and the transition team on the major challenges facing the state. She is a frequent writer and commentator on terrorism, international law, the war on terror, and detainee issues. Her work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The American Prospect, and on major news channels. She has served as a consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NY Council for the Humanities, the NYC Board of Education and USAID.

ARTICLES:
“Six Questions for Karen Greenberg, Author of The Least Worst Place”
February 19, 2009
By Scott Horton
Harper’s Magazine

WEBSITE:
The Center on Law and Security

SELECTED BOOKS:
The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days

The Enemy Combatants Papers: American Justice, the Courts, and the War on Terror

The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib

The Torture Debate in America

QUOTE:

Recent interviews with troops from the early days at Guantanamo confirm that the “worst of the worst” charge was suspect from the very first encounters with the detainees. There wasn’t any reliable vetting. Although the first troops on the ground at Guantanamo were led to believe that they would be receiving the “worst of the worst,” the detainees themselves seemed from the start to be far from the dangerous men they had expected—symbolically, individuals who, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, were capable of chewing through hydraulic cables on board the transport planes but who it turned out arrived with rotting teeth and weakened physiques. Overall, the U.S. military was blindsided by who they received at Gitmo and by the condition in which the detainees arrived. Arriving dehydrated, and startlingly thin, the detainees were mostly not only small and weak, but did not even speak the languages which the troops on the ground had been told to expect. Many came from countries outside of the Afghanistan/Pakistan area. Some did not even seem capable of any dire acts. Among the earliest arrivals, one was apparently an octogenarian; another was over ninety. One was a diagnosed schizophrenic. However possible the danger quotient of these first arrivals, the inclusion of these cases made the team at Gitmo suspect that the vetting process had been haphazard at best.

Lloyd deMause is director of The Institute for Psychohistory, which is in New York City and has 17 branches in various countries. He is editor of The Journal of Psychohistory and president of the International Psychohistorical Association. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 19, 1931. He graduated from Columbia College and did his post-graduate training in political science at Columbia University and in psychoanalysis at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. He has taught psychohistory at the City University of New York and the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training, is a member of the Society for Psychoanalytic Training, and has lectured widely in Europe and America.

He has published over 80 scholarly articles in such periodicals as The Nation, Psychology Today, The Guardian, The Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology, The Journal of Psychohistory, Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Psyche, Kindheit, Texte zur Kunst, Psychologie, Psychologos: International Review of Psychology, Psychoanalytic Beacon and Psychologie Heute. He is on the editorial board of Familiendynamik, The International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine and Mentalities/Mentalites

His books include The History of Childhood, A Bibliography of Psychohistory, The New Psychohistory, Jimmy Carter and American Fantasy, Foundations of Psychohistory, Reagan’s America and The Emotional Life of Nations. His work has been translated into nine languages. He has three children: Neil, Jennifer and Jonathan.

ARTICLES:

Lloyd deMause has published over 90 scholarly articles.

WEBSITE:
The Institute for Psychohistory

SELECTED BOOKS:
The Emotional Life of Nations

The History of Childhood

QUOTE:

The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused. It is our task here to see how much of this childhood history can be recaptured from the evidence that remains to us. That this pattern has not previously been noticed by historians is because serious history has long been considered a record of public not private events. Historians have concentrated so much on the noisy sand-box of history, with its fantastic castles and magnificent battles, that they have generally ignored what is going on in the homes around the playground. And where historians usually look to the sandbox battles of yesterday for the causes of those of today, we instead ask how each generation of parents and children creates those issues which are later acted out in the arena of public life.

Tonight’s encore guests:

– Katherine Austin Fitts on the markets, the financial crisis, and the bailout.

– Ali Abunimah on the conflict in Gaza.

– Robert Dreyfuss on his latest book, Devil’s Game.

Intro music:

- George W. Bush singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”

Catherine Austin Fitts offers a unique perspective on the global financial system and on the political economy. Her background includes Managing Director and member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and President of Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC investment bank.

Catherine has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date, has led portfolio strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities and has participated in the private and public workout and turn around of billions in mortgage, real estate and banking fraud.

Catherine serves on the board of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, a non-profit civil rights and educational organization which advocates and undertakes litigation against illegal collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial securities. Catherine publishes a column “Mapping the Real Deal” in Scoop Media in New Zealand.

WEBSITE:
Catherine Austin Fitts’ Blog: Mapping the Real Deal

SELECTED BOOKS:
The Washington-Wall Street Game: An Insider’s Story of How Dirty Money Rules Our Lives… and What You Can Do About It!

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

QUOTE:

When I served as Assistant Secretary of Housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the first Bush Administration, I discovered that the government was paying billions of dollars to large banks, defense contractors and universities to collect and manage data on the people and resources of the United States.

The lead defense contractor at HUD was paid approximately $150 billion to run the systems. (That was later to increase by even greater amounts.) No matter how much we paid to create and maintain rich databases, it was almost impossible for me to get any data that I needed to do my job. What I did get required a extraordinary effort on my part.

My efforts to get basic management and financial information was met with fear, lies and endless passive aggressive behavior. I soon learned that data about money in government was like cigarettes in prison. It was a currency, traded for power and position. Data that was supposed to be public was not easily available to government officials and it was certainly not available to the average person. Data that was supposed to be private appeared easily accessible to a variety of financial interests.

Ali Abunimah is a Fellow at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, an expert on Palestine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, and author of the book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

ARTICLES:
“Obama’s deady silence”
January 2, 2009
by Ali Abunimah

“Gaza massacres must spur us to action”
December 27, 2008
by Ali Abunimah

WEBSITE:
Electronic Intifada
Co-founder

SELECTED BOOKS:
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

QUOTE:

But today’s horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel’s method of killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel’s idea of a truce. It is very simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

Robert Dreyfuss has worked as an independent journalist who specializes in magazine features, profiles, and investigative stories in the areas of politics and national security. In 2001, he was profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review. In 2003, he was awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story on the role of oil in U.S. policy toward Iraq. He has appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including MSNBC, National Public Radio, and Pacifica’s Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

Based in Alexandria, Dreyfuss has been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. Dreyfuss is also a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect.

He is best known for ground-breaking stories about the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. In 2002, he wrote the first significant profile of Ahmed Chalabi by a journalist, for The American Prospect. Also in 2002, he also wrote the first analysis of the war between the Pentagon and the CIA over policy toward Iraq, which included the first important account of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.

ARTICLES:
“Bush’s Last War Crime?”
January 4, 2009
by Robert Dreyfuss

WEBSITE:
Robert Dreyfuss Official Website

The Dreyfuss Report at The Nation

BOOK:
Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

QUOTE:

The Israeli invasion of Gaza, launched Saturday, might very well be George W. Bush’s last and final war crime. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalled ignorance of the Middle East with supreme arrogance. It is precisely that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance that is on display now, as a politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolds with the full support of the Bush administration.

This week’s guests:

– Katherine Austin Fisk on the markets, the financial crisis, and the bailout.

– We take your pledges of support for KPFT and The Monitor!

Catherine Austin Fitts offers a unique perspective on the global financial system and on the political economy. Her background includes Managing Director and member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and President of Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC investment bank.

Catherine has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date, has led portfolio strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities and has participated in the private and public workout and turn around of billions in mortgage, real estate and banking fraud.

Catherine serves on the board of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, a non-profit civil rights and educational organization which advocates and undertakes litigation against illegal collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial securities. Catherine publishes a column “Mapping the Real Deal” in Scoop Media in New Zealand.

WEBSITE:
Catherine Austin Fitts’ Blog: Mapping the Real Deal

SELECTED BOOKS:
The Washington-Wall Street Game: An Insider’s Story of How Dirty Money Rules Our Lives… and What You Can Do About It!

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

QUOTE:

When I served as Assistant Secretary of Housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the first Bush Administration, I discovered that the government was paying billions of dollars to large banks, defense contractors and universities to collect and manage data on the people and resources of the United States.

The lead defense contractor at HUD was paid approximately $150 billion to run the systems. (That was later to increase by even greater amounts.) No matter how much we paid to create and maintain rich databases, it was almost impossible for me to get any data that I needed to do my job. What I did get required a extraordinary effort on my part.

My efforts to get basic management and financial information was met with fear, lies and endless passive aggressive behavior. I soon learned that data about money in government was like cigarettes in prison. It was a currency, traded for power and position. Data that was supposed to be public was not easily available to government officials and it was certainly not available to the average person. Data that was supposed to be private appeared easily accessible to a variety of financial interests.

Because of you, The Monitor had a very successful second week in KPFT’s winter pledge drive!

We would not be able to broadcast without the very generous support of our listeners, and we are grateful for your sustaining gifts and for listening!

Because of you, The Monitor had a very successful first week in KPFT’s winter pledge drive. Please join us again next week for our second week of the fund drive, and let us know how much you appreciate The Monitor!

We would not be able to broadcast without the very generous support of our listeners, and we are grateful for your sustaining gifts and for listening!

This week’s guests:

– Richard Falk on the continuing conflict in Gaza, and his recent detention in Israel which interrupted his human rights mission on behalf of the United Nations.

– Melvin Goodman on President-elect Obama’s nominations for high-ranking intelligence officials.

Richard A. Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2001 he served on a three person Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestine Territories that was appointed by the United Nations, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order after Iraq. He received his B.S. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; L.L.B. from Yale Law School; and J.S.D. from Harvard University.

ARTICLES:
“My Expulsion from Israel”
Published in The Guardian
December 19, 2008
by Richard Falk

WEBSITE:
United Nations page on the Occupied Palestinian Territory

VIDEO: Richard Falk discusses his expulsion from Israel (YouTube)

SELECTED BOOKS:
Achieving Human Rights

Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East, with Howard Friel

The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order after Iraq

QUOTE:

Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel’s approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practising effectively a politics of distraction.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow and director of the National Security Program at the Center for International Policy. Melvin A. Goodman is a former professor of International Security Studies and chairman of the International Relations Department at the National War College. He was division chief and senior analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency from 1966 to 1990. He was a senior analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department from 1974 to 1976. He was an intelligence adviser to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks in Vienna and Washington. He is co-author of The Wars of Edvard Shevardnadze (2nd edition, 2001), The Phantom Defense: America’s Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion (2001), and Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk (2004), and author of The Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.

ARTICLES:
“Righting the CIA”
November 19, 2004
By Melvin A. Goodman

WEBSITE:
National Security Program at the Center for International Policy

SELECTED BOOKS:
Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA

Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk

QUOTE:

Over the years, there have been many attempts to politicize intelligence. But no government has been so blatant as the Bush administration, which used phony intelligence to justify the war against Iraq and has introduced a new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, to conduct a political housecleaning at the highest levels of the agency…. Instead of negotiating the intelligence reform proposals of the Senate and House, it is time for the intelligence committees of the legislature to monitor the political behavior of the CIA director and to ensure that the agency provides objective and balanced intelligence assessments to policy-makers. It is quite possible that no restructuring or reorganization is necessary and that no additional funds are needed for the intelligence community. What is needed, however, is a return to the original mission of the CIA: telling truth to power. –November 19, 2004

This week’s guests:

– Ali Abunimah on the conflict in Gaza.

– Robert Dreyfuss on his latest book, Devil’s Game.

Ali Abunimah is a Fellow at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, an expert on Palestine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, and author of the book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

ARTICLES:
“Obama’s deady silence”
January 2, 2009
by Ali Abunimah

“Gaza massacres must spur us to action”
December 27, 2008
by Ali Abunimah

WEBSITE:
Electronic Intifada
Co-founder

SELECTED BOOKS:
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

QUOTE:

But today’s horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel’s method of killing Palestinians recently. In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.

What the media never question is Israel’s idea of a truce. It is very simple. Under an Israeli-style truce, Palestinians have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land. Israel has not only banned food and medicine to sustain Palestinian bodies in Gaza but it is also intent on starving minds: due to the blockade, there is not even ink, paper and glue to print textbooks for schoolchildren.

Robert Dreyfuss has worked as an independent journalist who specializes in magazine features, profiles, and investigative stories in the areas of politics and national security. In 2001, he was profiled as a leading investigative journalist by the Columbia Journalism Review. In 2003, he was awarded Project Censored’s first prize for a story on the role of oil in U.S. policy toward Iraq. He has appeared on scores of radio and television talk shows, including MSNBC, National Public Radio, and Pacifica’s Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

Based in Alexandria, Dreyfuss has been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. Dreyfuss is also a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect.

He is best known for ground-breaking stories about the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, and post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy. In 2002, he wrote the first significant profile of Ahmed Chalabi by a journalist, for The American Prospect. Also in 2002, he also wrote the first analysis of the war between the Pentagon and the CIA over policy toward Iraq, which included the first important account of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.

ARTICLES:
“Bush’s Last War Crime?”
January 4, 2009
by Robert Dreyfuss

WEBSITE:
Robert Dreyfuss Official Website

The Dreyfuss Report at The Nation

BOOK:
Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam

QUOTE:

The Israeli invasion of Gaza, launched Saturday, might very well be George W. Bush’s last and final war crime. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalled ignorance of the Middle East with supreme arrogance. It is precisely that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance that is on display now, as a politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolds with the full support of the Bush administration.

This week’s program:

– Headlines

– Audio Clip: Rachel Maddow on the government bailout of the banking industry

– Live Calls: What are your choices for under-reported stories in 2008?

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Articles mentioned on tonight’s program:

“‘Eight Years without a Sex Scandal’… Unless You Count These,”
by Pokey Anderson
Democratic Underground
December 27, 2008

“SEC Whistleblower Speaks on Madoff Fraud,”
by Matt Renner
truthout
December 22, 2008