Making a Killing: Corporate Arms Makers and Ukraine with William Hartung

Posted inForeign Policy, Materialism and Economics, politics

In December, the Pentagon got a $768 billion budget approved, despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the aim to counter China and build Ukraine’s military strength. This has been a bonanza for arms makers like Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Gruman.

Listen in: apple.co/3qn4ELx

Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes popped the champagne open when saying “…[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we saw a spike in these companies’ stock prices.

In our latest episode, we talk about arms manufacturers with William Hartung of the Quincy Institute. We discuss how the war in Ukraine, potential conflict in the South China Sea and wars in Yemen and other parts of the world are critical to their business model. We also talk about how the bureaucracy of the Pentagon and Washington D.C. gives these companies so much influence.

The U.S. Empire and Ukraine w/ Prof. Clinton Fernandes

Posted inForeign Policy, politics

Our latest episode on the Ukraine is a wide-ranging conversation with our good friend Prof. Clinton Fernandes on the U.S. empire and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. We discuss Russia and Putin’s adventures in Georgia and Ukraine to the lack of strategic empathy from the West (particularly the U.S.). We break down the motives of the U.S. drive to expand NATO and encircle Russia, and the effect it has on global politics.

Listen to part one here: https://apple.co/3I9zY6v

Listen to Part Two Here: https://apple.co/3JlgYn7

We discuss the tensions in the South China Sea and the impact of the Ukraine conflict on Australia’s coming election. Finally, we get an update on Clinton’s law suit trying to get the Australian government to release documents showing intelligence agencies supporting Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973.

Media Release- A Long March to War: the U.S., Russia and Ukraine

Posted inForeign Policy
University of Houston history professor available for media on the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. and NATO.
As Professor Buzzanco sees it, “the current conflict, clearly an act of aggression by Russia in violation of international law, also has to be observed in the context of a long confrontation with Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Despite George H.W. Bush and James Baker promised the USSR that NATO would not expand eastward, the U.S. did that in the later 1990s, moving into ex-Soviet areas, which Russian leaders warned would be a “hostile act.”  The U.S. also invested heavily in the Russian economy and political system as ex-Soviet industries were nationalized.  Because of this, American power grew exponentially in areas adjacent to Russia, thus merging Vladimir Putin’s plan to expand Russian power aggressively with defense concerns of encirclement as NATO grew closer to Russia’s borders.  Now, as the Russian attacks are destroying Ukraine and killing innocent people, the need for negotiations based not just on Russia’s violation of international law but also the legacy of 30 years of political conflict with the U.S. is necessary to stop the bloodshed.”

Flying into the Danger Zone: Ukraine and the History of No-Fly Zones

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History

A new Reuters poll shows that 74% of Americans, with strong majorities from both parties, support a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine as Russia continues to shell civilian areas and populations. The Biden Administration, Chair of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, the head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and politicians from across the political spectrum are opposed to any sort of intervention over the skies of Ukraine. The argument is that it’d lead to a wider war, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin has warned against it.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3sMCk6S

No-fly zones are only a recent historical development. Green and Red gets into that recent history starting with the aftermath of the first Gulf War when George H.W. Bush called on the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in southern Iraq to rise up and depose Saddam Hussein. Their subsequent slaughter by Saddam’s helicopter gunships led to the no-fly zones. We also discuss no-fly zones in the Balkan wars and the 2016 debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump over a no-fly zone in Syria.

War Pigs: Ukraine and the History of the Military-Industrial Complex

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History

Recently, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes reported to his shareholders, “[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”  While lauded in the press for his comments, Hayes’ thinking embodies structures established by government and private industry for over a hundred years.

Listen in: https://apple.co/34cn5KZ

Beyond Good vs Bad: More Background on Ukraine and Russia

Posted inForeign Policy, Materialism and Economics, politics

We’ve got another briefing on the larger contexts of the current  conflict between Ukraine and Russia.  Sure, Putin is a horrible and  brutal force in the world and the attack on Ukraine is indefensible, but  we ignore the larger contexts at our own peril.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3hoJ5p5

We talk about the impact of the breakup of the USSR, the privatization of the Russian economy, the sense of western/NATO encirclement felt by  Russia, and U.S-Russia-Ukraine economic and trade relations.

Deep Background on Ukraine and Russia

Posted inForeign Policy, politics

This week, Russia invaded the Ukraine sparking the largest land assault on the European continent since World War Two. The markets went into turmoil. The price of oil and gas went up. Political and media establishments scrambled to act on what’s next.  Biden moved 7000 US troops to the Polish-Ukrainian border and NATO is expected to send more troops. In cities across Russia, antiwar protestors took to the streets to protest Vladimir Putin’s war with over 2000 being arrested. Finally, the Biden administration and allies have begun a sanctions war against Russia’s people, it’s elite institutions and Putin himself.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3sn9w4T

In our latest episode, we go deep into the history of the Ukraine-Russian conflict and the bipartisan involvement by the U.S. ruling class.  We discuss the break up of the Soviet Union, the expansion of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO), the role of the 1999 war in Kosovo in all of this and the Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008. Most importantly, we talk about how U.S. foreign policy has sought to contain Russia and wield economic and political influence over Europe and the former Soviet republics.

Col. Andrew Bacevich on the Deepening Crisis in Ukraine

Posted inForeign Policy

Rising tensions in eastern Europe between the U.S. and Russia over the Ukraine have dominated the news.  We discuss the situation with scholar and retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich.   We discussed why the U.S. is so concerned, and hawkish, about Russia and Ukraine–Russophobia?   We talked about the role of NATO in this current crisis.  We talked about the many more pressing issues the U.S. should focus on–like inflation, COVID, the surveillance state, and especially Climate Change!

Listen in: https://apple.co/35CTESB

It’s a great conversation with one of America’s leading intellectuals and critics of foreign policy.

Why Oliver Stone and “JFK Revisited” are Full of S**t!

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History, pop culture

Oliver Stone’s new documentary “JFK Revisited” have been hitting the airwaves of late claiming to have a “smoking gun” about the assassination of John F. Kennedy (JFK). Stone and his team of assassinologists main thesis is that the military-industrial complex conspired to have JFK killed because Kennedy was a secret dove and wanted to pull the troops out of Vietnam, end the Cold War and splinter the Central Intelligence Agency into a thousand pieces.

Scott interviews G&R co-host, author and professor of history Bob Buzzanco about Kennedy era foreign and military policy disproving the claims of Stone and his films.

Noam Chomsky on Oliver Stone’s “JFK Revisited”

Posted inChomsky, Foreign Policy, Peoples' History

Noam Chomsky returns to the Green and Red Podcast!

Listen in: https://apple.co/3FepBwT

In a new interview, Bob talks with Prof. Chomsky in detail about Oliver Stone’s new documentary “JFK Revisited,” the Vietnam War, and how both  liberal and conservative elites have use big lies to put leaders from JFK to Reagan to Trump in a pantheon of great leadership. They also talked about the anniversary of the Capitol Riots, politics in America and the failings of big left media.

Not to be missed interview with the “world’s greatest living intellectual.”