Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott talks with Hassan El-Tayyab about tomorrow’s vote to end all support for the Saudi campaign in Yemen. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is going to be debated on the floor this afternoon (September 22nd). Scott and El-Tayyab urge everyone to call their representatives and tell them to vote to end support. El-Tayyab’s organization has set up a phone number to make the proce...

Scott talks with Weimin Chen about his recent article on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The pipeline will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. Chen explains that these two countries have a long history of conflict, so we should see increased economic engagement as a triumph. But of course, that’s not how many in the U.S. government see it. Chen explains that those involved with the project h...

Scott talks with journalist Aaron Maté about his recent piece bringing attention to the U.S. occupation of Syria. The U.S. military currently controls about a third of Syria with an official troop count of 900. But considering officials were willing to lie to the former president about the real troop numbers, Scott and Maté are skeptical of the official figures. Maté observes that even with bipart...

Scott interviews journalist Mathieu Aikins who has remained in Kabul to report for the New York Times. Aikins and his team recently investigated the drone strike the U.S. carried out on August 29th that officials claimed had targeted a car carrying explosives believed to be driven by a member of ISIS. However, the team from NYT found a devastating scene with the bodies of children and a distraught...

Joe Dyke from Airwars.org joins the show to discuss his new report, coauthored with Imogen Piper, which attempts to count civilian deaths resulting directly from U.S. airstrikes during the Terror Wars. Dyke says he and his colleagues want civilian deaths to be part of the broader ongoing discussions about the cost of these wars. Scott and Dyke discuss the difficulties involved with trying to count...

This week on Antiwar Radio, Scott talked with Dave DeCamp. DeCamp gives an update on Afghanistan where the Taliban are attempting to form a government. Both Scott and DeCamp agree that the Taliban are likely to face difficulties as they try to govern the country, especially if they continue to only appoint Pashtun men to positions of power. Both point to the retaliatory drone strike that killed ci...

Scott interviews Clive Stafford Smith about a recent article written by his client Ahmed Rabbani. Rabbani has been in custody for 19 years without a single charge being brought against him. In 2002 he found himself in the hands of the CIA who allegedly believed he was a man named Hassan Ghul. But even after the real Ghul was captured and brought to the same prison Rabbani was being kept in, the CI...

Scott sits down with Magnus Panvidya to discuss the upcoming antiwar protests that will take place all over the country on September 11th. All indications point to a sizable turnout that is, importantly, not monopolized by any one party or idealogy. Just as the antiwar movement ought to be. Further information can be found in the link below.  Discussed on the show: https://www.endthedamnwars.org/ ...

Scott speaks with FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley about the institutional failures that occurred before and after the 9/11 attacks. Rowley believes that there are many ways the attacks could have been prevented ranging from better information sharing between agencies to the locking of cockpit doors. After the attacks, Rowley says bureaucratic changes alone would have been enough to prevent similar...

Scott interviews Danny Sjursen and gets his reaction to the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Sjursen thinks the Taliban’s campaign to take control of the country may soon be studied in war colleges. He also thinks that Scott’s book Fool’s Errand should be studied at war colleges, or at least books just as critical of the wars. Sjursen then talks about how this is a tough time for veterans, but that...

Gareth Porter joins Scott on Antiwar Radio to discuss his latest piece about the media’s reaction to Afghanistan. Porter lays out how virtually the entire media ecosystem is arguing the withdrawal was done prematurely from both a counterterrorism standpoint and in terms of the evacuation of American citizens and allies. However, the media is ignoring the root of the problem was the overconfidence...

Scott talks with Dan McKnight about the effort to pass Defend the Guard legislation, which would block the use of National Guard troops in foreign combat operations without a declaration of war. McKnight gives background on what led him to become involved in political activism and how the absence of the Louisiana National Guard during Hurricane Ida is yet another reason for this legislation. Scott...

Scott talks with Jack Murphy about the piece he wrote detailing the surge in drone strikes that took place under President Trump.  Murphy explains how the whole project started when a distraught drone operator approached him. It quickly became clear that that drone operator was not alone. Murphy details how Rules of Engagement (ROE) are formulated and how they evolved during the Obama and Trump pr...

Scott interviews attorney and writer Ashraf Nubani about his recent piece making a case for releasing Robert Kennedy’s convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan. Nubani explains that Sirhan meets all the stated requirements of the parole board and that the pressure to keep him in prison is mainly political.  Note: This interview was recorded hours before the news broke that the California Parole Board reco...

Scott speaks with Daniel Davis about the suicide bombing at the entrance to the Kabul Airport. Davis considers this an especially devastating attack because the soldiers killed were only days away from being withdrawn from the country. He also believes that these withdrawal issues could have been prevented if U.S. troops had left a decade ago instead of flooding the country as they did under Obama...

Scott talks with Peter Van Buren about the situation in Afghanistan.  Van Buren explains that many of the people tasked with working on the Afghanistan War were, in fact, working to cover up their own role in the war. And that these individual failures played off each other to create one massive failure. On top of that, Van Buren argues that policymakers were entirely removed from the costs of the...