Episodes
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How exactly do police end up supermilitarized? What is the imperial booming that brings militarism abroad to the Homefront? And what does the feminist standpoint offer analysts of these problems? Part of the answer are obscure programs called 1033 and 1122. The founders of the Women for Weapons Trade Transparency (W2T2) join the pod to explain.
W2T2: https://www.w2t2.org
Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
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Is the War on Terror really over? Or is it just less visible? Julia is joined by Sarah Yager and Yumna Rizvi to discuss the makings of a militarized, counterterrorism-based U.S. foreign policy, how it impacts the world, and how to change it.
Sarah is the Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, where she leads the organization’s engagement with the United States government on global human rights issues, with a particular focus on national security and foreign policy. She has previously served at both the Department of Defense and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Yumna is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Victims of Torture, focusing on human rights, national security, and refugee and asylum protections. She previously served as a human rights expert with Huqooq-e-Pakistan, a joint project of the European Union and Pakistani government aimed at improving the country’s compliance with international treaty obligations.
Further Reading:
Counterterrorism Copy Cats: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/counterterrorism-copy-catsOther recent work by Sarah and Yumna:
Opinion: A debate tip for the candidates — there’s a correct answer on weapons to Israel, Sarah Yager: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-09/debate-philadelphia-kamala-harris-donald-trump-gaza
The Abu Ghraib case is an important milestone for justice, Yumna Rizvi: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/4/28/the-abu-ghraib-case-is-an-important-milestone-for-justice
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Episodes manquant?
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Does foreign policy matter in the presidential election? The answer might surprise you. Chris Shell joins the pod to discuss recent survey findings about foreign policy and the presidential election. Gaza, Ukraine, immigration, climate change, and China all feature in the discussion, as well as what's really going on with the African American vote.
Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
How Do Americans Feel About the Election and Foreign Policy?: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/american-voters-election-foreign-policy?lang=en
Race, Foreign Policy, and the 2024 Presidential Election: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/election-survey-2024-foreign-policy-race?lang=en
Find Chris on Twitter: https://x.com/ChrisShell95
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Crossover episode! Van appeared on Convergence Magazine’s Block and Build podcast, hosted by Convergence founder Cayden Mak, to talk about Kamala Harris’s foreign policy. They end up covering all the big issues--Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and China rivalry. They also gab about what it’s like working as an unpaid foreign policy adviser to a presidential campaign.
Subscribe to Block and Build: https://convergencemag.com/podcast/the-future-of-american-foreign-policy-with-van-jackson/
Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
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Free preview of the Bang-Bang Podcast. “We tortured some folks.” Katherine Bigelow and Mark Boal’s cinematic blockbuster about the Bin Laden assassination was alternately ballyhooed and panned upon its release. Fans praised its purported cinematic achievements while critics lamented its alleged militarism or pro-torture sympathies. What’s remarkable today is the attention it received in all directions, perhaps a universal attention no longer possible in a society so fragmented and lost. Van and Lyle try to make sense of the movie as a contested event, and what its ambiguous ending might tell us about what came next. They also recall where they were when Obama ordered Seal Team Six to pull that trigger.
Get the full episode--and all episodes--at: https://www.bangbangpod.com
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Matt and Van chop it up about the Veep debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance; how Ta-Nehisi Coates has taken up the mantel of James Baldwin; the Biden administration's expanding role in Middle East war; and the fanaticism of about China that is dividing America, predictably.
Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast: https://www.bangbangpod.com
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Crossover episode! In addition to Un-Diplomatic, Van is now co-hosting Bang-Bang--a new show about war movies, with an anti-imperialist twist. Van and his co-host, Lyle Jeremy Rubin, are military veterans, war critics, and film junkies. Enjoy this free cross-over episode where Van and Lyle discuss Combat Obscura, a 2018 documentary from Miles Lagoze about Marines in Afghanistan (and Lyle’s experience as a Marine in Afghanistan at the same time this was filmed).
Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast: https://www.bangbangpod.com/
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Van spoke at the New Zealand Fabian Society about how the Democratic and Republican Party’s views on foreign policy are changing, and what those changes (and continuities) mean in the context of the US presidential election.
Written remarks: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/live-world-war-iii-and-the-presidential
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Matt reports out on his recent trip to China. Israel's terrorism in Lebanon and the horizontal escalation happening before our eyes. And Pakistan as a case study of why geopolitics, climate adaptation, and the sovereign debt crisis must be addressed together or not at all.
Matt's remarks from the Xiangshan Forum: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-right-way-for-china-and-the-us-to-get-along/
Van's remarks at the NZ Fabian Society: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/live-world-war-iii-and-the-presidential
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The MAGA foreign-policy braintrust in Trump world is militarism all the way down. The unpopularity of the Democratic Party's popular front. The problem with threat inflation about disinformation. A defense budget out of control. And why Washington's manufacturing fetish is key to a convergence of jingoism, patriarchy, and oligarchy.
Further Reading:
Ken Klippenstein, “Russian Influence Operations Are A Joke"
Van Jackson, “Why the Working Class Strategizes Against Genocide”
Christian Lorenzten, “Not a Tough Crowd"
Thomas Brodey, “Disinformation Dilemma: US Hands Are Way Dirty, Too"
Gisela Cernadas and John Bellamy Foster, "Actual U.S. Military Spending Reached $1.537 Trillion in 2022—More than Twice Acknowledged Level: New Estimates Based on U.S. National Accounts"
Black Alliance for Peace, "Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Federal Indictments of Uhuru 3 and Denial of their Fundamental Human Rights to Speech, Association, Information and Political Dissent"
Further Listening:
Dead Prez, “Police State" -
The election is nearing, and students are going back to school. What does this mean for student organizers demanding a ceasefire in Gaza? For the uncommitted movement? In this episode, Julia facilitates an intergenerational conversation about anti-war organizing. Guests Phyllis Bennis and Roua Daas reflect on campus demonstrations in the spring and share their thoughts on what lies ahead for the ceasefire now movement.
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS, focusing on the Middle East, U.S. militarism, and UN issues. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2002, she co-founded United for Peace and Justice, a coalition against the Iraq war. In 2001, she helped found the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and more recently spent six years on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, where she now serves as its International Adviser. She works with many anti-war and Palestinian rights organizations, writing and speaking widely across the U.S. and around the world. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East issues and was twice short-listed to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Phyllis has written and edited 11 books. Among her latest is the 7th updated edition of her popular Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, published in 2018. She is also the author of Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terror and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power.
Roua Daas is a Palestinian organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine. She attended Butler University for undergrad, where she co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and led several campaigns, including a successful defeat of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which falsely conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and a campaign against an authoritarian university administration decision to cancel a student-led event featuring abolitionist, scholar, and activist Angela Davis. Currently, she is a graduate student in Pennsylvania State University’s Clinical Psychology and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program, where she organizes with Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine.
Their recent work:
How we passed a cease-fire resolution in our town, Roua Daas, American Friends Services Committee
Uncommitted voters sending a clear message to Biden about slaughter in Gaza, Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
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What are the differences between nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition? How do disarmers and abolitionists balance the need for policy change with the need for sustainable, intersectional organizing? In this episode, Jasmine Owens discusses how Black and Indigenous thinkers inform her vision for the future of the nuclear abolition movement. She reminds us that “small is all” when it comes to organizing, and that community is everything.
Transformative justice is integral to community building. Indigenous folks are on the frontlines of radiation exposure from nuclear tests, uranium mining, and the dumping of nuclear waste. In 1990, the U.S. government created the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to aid some of those harmed, but the program has expired. This September, members of several Indigenous communities and allies are traveling from New Mexico to D.C. with a simple message: Pass RECA before we die.
Please consider donating to help bring Indigenous radiation survivors to D.C.: https://chuffed.org/project/pass-reca
And read Jasmine’s recent work, here:
The false equivalency of nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Understanding the Gap Between Vision and Practice: Understanding Emergent Strategies for Authentic Intersectional Organizing in the Nuclear Abolition Movement, Win Without War
Building The World Anew: The Case for Radically Redefining the Nuclear Abolition Movement, Win Without War
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Cross-promotion! Van Jackson joined the Hegemonicon podcast and is sharing the experience here with Un-Diplomatic listeners. Van and show host William Lawrence discuss the dangerous strategy of global primacy that drives US foreign policy from many angles. What are the contradictions in US industrial policy? How does primacy relate to China and great-power competition? What kind of international order is emerging? What is the political coalition that can keep us out of catastrophe?
Become a subscribing member of Convergence at convergencemag.com/donate
The Hegemonicon Podcast
Convergence Magazine
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"This is what courage looks like." Today Matt talks to three people -- two Biden appointees and one career military -- who made the courageous choice to resign in protest over US support for the Gaza war. We hear from each of them how they came to work in the administration, how they made the decision to leave it, and how that choice has impacted them.
Tariq Habash most recently served as a political appointee and policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. Tariq worked to overhaul the broken student loan system, provide relief to millions of borrowers, and address inequities across American higher education. He was the second government official, and the first political appointee to publicly resign from the Biden Administration due to its policy on Gaza and unrestricted support for Israel’s aggression against Palestinians. Prior to joining the government, Tariq was a cofounder of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a national research and advocacy nonprofit where he led the organization’s investigative work on student loan and consumer finance policies. He also spent years working at The Century Foundation, specializing in higher education affordability, accountability, and consumer protection issues. Tariq holds degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the University of Miami.
Harrison Mann is a former U.S. Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Middle East/Africa Regional Center who resigned in protest of his office’s support for Israel during its Gaza campaign. He previously served as a Middle East all-source intelligence analyst and led a crisis cell coordinating intelligence support for Ukraine. Prior to DIA, he worked at the U.S. Embassy Tunis Office of Security Cooperation and led Army Civil Affairs teams combatting regional smuggling under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) in Bahrain. Harrison began his Army career as an infantry officer. He received a B.A. from the College of William & Mary and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Lily Greenberg Call is a former Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Department of Interior. She has nearly a decade of experience in politics, movement organizing, and domestic and international human rights work. She worked on President Biden's 2020 campaign and served in the administration until May 15, 2024, when she became the first Jewish political appointee to resign in protest of US policy in Gaza. Lily grew up doing pro-Israel advocacy with AIPAC and other organizations throughout high school and college, and later became invested in Palestinian rights and Jewish anti-occupation movements. She has appeared as a guest on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, and given commentary for the Washington Post, Politico, and the Associated Press. Lily holds a B.A. in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Further Reading:
The Moral Limits of Public Service
State Department Official Resigns
Biden Staffers Mobilising Non-Violent Resistance Against the US Government
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What just happened in Venezuela? Matt Duss is joined by two great Latin America experts to talk about Maduro's very shady re-election, and how the US should respond.
Paarlberg's piece: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/venezuelas-people-not-government-deserve-solidarity/
Michael Paarlberg is an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. His research focuses on Latin America, migration and security issues. He previously worked for the Service Employees International Union and was a journalist with the Guardian, and was a Latin America adviser for the Bernie 2020 campaign.
María José Espinosa is the executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas (CEDA) and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with CIP. Her work focuses on shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean on issues such as U.S.-Cuba relations, regional migration cooperation, climate, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, and protections for refugees and migrants.
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J.D. Vance imagines a global color line. Kamala Harris has an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond primacy and embrace a progressive foreign policy—will she take it? Biden's claim that America is no longer at war is at odds with...facts. Netanyahu's speech to Congress was evil but says something important about how the Democratic Party has changed. And a rant about the violent throughline that connects America’s war on the homeless with campus protest arrests, economic nationalism, MAGA’s Handmaid’s Tale fantasy, and the national security state.
Stephen Semler in the Forever Wars Newsletter: https://www.forever-wars.com/cops-arrested-over-3-500-pro-gaza-campus-protesters-new-data-shows/?ref=forever-wars-newsletter
Matt Duss's piece on Kamala Harris in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/24/kamala-harris-gaza-israel-democrats-united-states-presidential-race/?tpcc=recirc_trending062921
International Crisis Group Report on War Powers: https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-states/009-bending-guardrails-us-war-powers-after-7-october
Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
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What can a revolution with progressive values look like? What kinds of non-violent resistance against oppression are possible? And what does everyday guerilla warfare do to people with humanist commitments? Dr. Justine Chambers talks about her new research with co-author Saw Ner Dhu Da, understanding how Myanmar's Gen Z led a nationwide revolution against a military coup in Feb. 2021 and has been living everyday revolution ever since.
Read "'Living With' Revolution: The Everyday Experiences of Myanmar’s Generation Z Revolutionaries" in Journal of Contemporary Asia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00472336.2024.2359373
Justine Chambers on Twitter: https://x.com/DrJustineC
Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
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The vegetable versus the fascist? The Democratic Party is in chaos. Why AOC and the Squad back Biden (for now). Biden's Trumpian turn. The truth about Biden's foreign policy record.
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An emergency live episode of the Un-Diplomatic podcast. Van explains the situation the Democratic Party faces: who will replace Biden, why it's likely Kamala Harris, why Bernie should be her running mate, and what all that means for foreign policy.
Livestream on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSc9-8Qra5w&t=842s
Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com
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Navigating the politics of Washington think tanks. Matt's interview with The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner. Robert O'Brien wants the entire Marine Corps to relocate to Asia. Arundhati Roy is a target of Modi's Hindu-fascist turn. The case for defunding ICBMs. And Chiquita Banana death squads.
Un-Diplomatic Newsletter on the politics of think tanking: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/a-political-map-of-washington-think
Eliana Johns on ICBMs: https://inkstickmedia.com/faith-as-small-as-a-titan-relying-on-icbms-in-a-post-cold-war-world/
Isaac Chotiner's interview with Matt Duss: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-bidens-israel-policy-cynical-or-naive
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