Iraq, Oil, Capitalism and U.S. War w/ Prof. Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt

Bob had a great talk (Scott’s on assignment) with Professor Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt of Cal State-Stanislaus, author of “The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq” about Iraqi history from the Ottoman Empire to the present, with an emphasis on the period from 1958 to the 1970s.

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

Before Iraq became the target of a massive U.S. intervention, it was a British colony, and then a kingdom, which achieved sovereignty in a 1958 revolution led by Karim Kasim. However, the U.S., especially President John Kennedy, began to oppose the Kasim regime and helped engineer a 1963 coup against him and then sending support to the new regime to isolate and kill Kasim backers and others, especially communists.

Ukraine and A Brief History of Atrocities in Warfare and Empire

Websters defines atrocity as “a shockingly bad or atrocious act, object, or situation.”

Russian atrocities on Ukrainian civilians have been the top of the 24 second news cycle since the invasion began. Since the advent of industrial warfare at the end of 19th century, war has been waged increasingly on civilian populations than opposing military forces. Wars of attrition have had the goal of subjecting the populace to “shockingly bad” actions to force the downfall of its ruling regime or submission of a resisting insurgency. The 20th century is full of examples of this by the British, the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, and of course, the Americans.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3vt9eth

As the stories emerge from the war between Ukraine and Russia, detailing atrocities committed on civilian populations, we thought it was a good moment to talk about some of this history. We start with the Civil War and World War One (early industrial wars), the advent of air power, brutal occupations in Nanking, Korea and Vietnam, bombings of Dresden, Tokyo and Hiroshima, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, Central American death squads and the forever wars in the Middle East.

The Best Political Movies of All Time (Part 2). Bob & Scott talk about their favorite Lefty films.

Green & Red Goes Hollywood!

At Green and Red, we’re big fans of popular culture and how it can  politicize and radicalize people.  We’ve already done shows on sports  and activism, progressive Country music, cancel culture, Socialism and  the Sopranos and other such themes. So…..in an upcoming series of episodes, we’re periodically going to talk about our favorite political/radical films, television and music.

Listen in here: https://bit.ly/PoliticalMovies2GandR

In part 2, we continue our journey into the best political films by starting with movies about working-class issues and activism.  Then we discuss some of our favorite foreign films with political themes, including the work of Gillo Pontecorvo and Costas-Gavras.

80,000,000 Bombs in Laos: A Conversation with Sera Koulabdara of “Legacies of War”

In this episode, Bob had a conversation with Executive Director Sera Koulabdara (@SeraKoulabdara) of “Legacies of War” about the 50+ year crisis of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) in Laos.  Scott was away on assignment.

Listen: https://bit.ly/LegaciesGandR

At the same time as it was attacking Vietnam, the U.S. conducted a “secret war” against Laos through the air, dropping 2 million tons of bombs as part of its “sideshow” to the main war against the Vietnamese Revolution.   Included in that massive campaign were 270,000,000 cluster bombs, smaller bombs–about baseball-sized–or “bomblets” that often did not detonate.  So today, decades after the war ended, about 80,000,000 bombs remain in Laos.