March 24 – Ending America’s Longest War; The Latest Israeli Spying on the U.S.; Netanyahu’s Apology and Israel’s Denial

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the White House meeting with President Obama and Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and the announcement that the U.S. will keep 10,000 troops in Afghanistan throughout this year into 2016, delaying previous plans for a gradual withdrawal. Thomas Barfield, a professor of Anthropology at Boston University and the President of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and author of “Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History”, joins us to discuss ending America’s longest war and the mob killing of a mentally ill young Afghan woman on false charges that she burned a Koran.

Part 2

Then we speak with Avner Cohen, a Professor of Nonproliferation Studies and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. He is the author of “The Worst-kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb” and we discuss the history of Israel’s spying on the U.S. and the Wall Street Journal article that charges Israel spied on the on-going secret talks between the U.S. and Iran and shared a “doctored” version of that intel with the Republican Congress to undermine Obama’s diplomacy.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Lisa Goldman, the director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Foundation about Netanyahu’s apology to the Israeli Arabs and Israel’s denial that it spied on the U.S.- Iran talks and passed on exaggerated negative negotiating details to the Republican Congress.