3/9/21 Martin Smith on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham Leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani

Scott talks to documentary producer Martin Smith about the subject of his newest project, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Smith considers Jolani and his fighters to be something of a separate group from al Qaeda and ISIS who should be treated as such—but Scott challenges him with the fact that Jolani, a sworn follower of Ayman al-Zawahiri, is just as guilty of terrorism and war crimes as any al Qaeda leader. Throughout the war in Syria, many in the U.S. have tried to portray Jolani and his fighters as "moderate rebels," whom we can support in order to overthrow the Assad...

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3/12/21 Danny Sjursen on the Biden Administration’s Afghanistan Plan

Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the leaked Biden administration plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The document evidently represents the Biden administration's new take on the deal reached with the Taliban during the Trump administration, which laid out a May 1st deadline for withdrawal. But Sjursen stresses that this plan isn't really new—in fact, there's nothing "new" to be done or said about Afghanistan at all. The Kabul government simply doesn't have widespread control over the country, and the Taliban are in a position of relative strength. Nothing America can do,...

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3/9/21 Dan McKnight on the Defend the Guard Movement

Dan McKnight discusses the progress of the "Defend the Guard" movement, a set of bills that would mandate that a state's national guard troops not be deployed overseas without an official declaration of war from congress. The legislation has sponsors in 31 states so far, and that number is growing. None of this, McKnight stresses, is a radical reinterpretation American law—it is just an attempt to follow the process that the constitution already lays out. It's ridiculous, he says, that national guard troops are spending their time helping the American empire occupy countries halfway across...

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