September 14 – Australia Dumps Its Embarrassingly Inept PM; The Egyptian Military Kills Mexican Tourists With a US Apache Helicopter; Confronting the Reality That Pakistan Takes Our Money and Kills Our Troops

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the ousting of Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott by his own Liberal Party (that is in fact the conservative party), in an internal ballot that elected Malcolm Turnbull as its new leader. Frank Stilwell, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney joins us to discuss the second challenge in seven months to Abbott’s leadership that has been widely lampooned at home and abroad for maladroit slips of the tongue and bone-headed decisions such as awarding the Queen’s husband Prince Phillip an Australian knighthood.  We also discuss the difference that Malcolm Turnbull brings to Australia’s leadership since unlike his predecessor, he believes in global warming which has severely impacted Australia.

Part 2

Then we examine the circumstances surrounding the killing of 12 tourists, eight of whom were from Mexico, by the Egyptian military using an Apache helicopter supplied by the U.S. who have resumed military ties with Egypt’s ruling military junta after a boycott in response to the military coup that overthrew Egypt’s first elected government. Bruce Rutherford, a professor of Political Science and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies and Islamic Civilization Program at Colgate University and author of “Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam and Democracy in the Arab World” joins us.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the deep denial at the top of America’s leadership that has been unable to confront the reality that Pakistan takes our money and kills our troop in Afghanistan. Christine Fair, a former United Nations political officer in Afghanistan who is a professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program joins us to discuss her article at The National Interest “When it Comes to Afghanistan: America Should Ditch Pakistan for Iran” and the possibility that the Iran deal affords the U.S. an opportunity to get right what we’ve gotten wrong in Afghanistan ever since 9/11.