John Pilger & Ray interviewed on KPFA radio Flashpoints by Dennis Bernstein

John addresses recent signs of the inexorable U.S search abroad for ‘monsters to destroy,’ including the Chinese dragon, as well as increased precariousness in the nuclear relationship between the U.S. and Russia.  Ray offers his familiar, no-brainer explanation as to why people become terrorists (why ‘they hate us’) and why the polls purport to show that torture “works,” when it demonstrably doesn’t (unless it is false information you wish to coerce a prisoner to “confess” to.  Ray draws on his most recent article for consortiumnews (see below):
John starts out; Ray’s segment is from minute 41 to 58.

Ray interviewed briefly about U.S. government attempts to profile workers who just might pose an “insider threat” and require extra surveillance, lest they blow the whistle on government criminality

A transparent attempt to head off a Public Enemy (aka whistleblower) Number Four, after Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Ed Snowden.  Looking down the list of suspicious characteristics, Ray does confess to having a weakness for an often-unwelcome “ideology” – namely, telling the truth, no matter what.  Will there be enough extra money and trained government snoopers to include “outsider threats” in their job jar?
March 21 (six and a half minutes)

On March 16, 2016, Ray gave a tour d’horizon-type interview to antiwar.com’s Scott Horton, covering some main topical problems and also looking ahead to key issues like how the trilateral relationship among the U.S., Russia, and China is likely to evolve and impact the future

Russia-U.S. cooperation on Syria is discussed at some length, as well as the stakes for Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel – still the biggest flies in the Syrian ointment.

Interview spanned several segments.  To avoid advertisements: begin at minute 1:00; skip from 21:15 to 22:25; skip from 32:00 to 33:15; end at 41:00

http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2016/03/16/31616-ray-mcgovern/

(click on “Play in new window.”)

Ray was asked why President Obama told The Atlantic that he is “very proud” at having resisted enormous pressure from what he called the “Washington playbook” people – including top national security advisers, VP Joe Biden, and other “smart” folks – to launch Shock and Awe on Syria in late summer 2013.

http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/13/455398/2013-Syria-chemical-weapons-falseflag

March 11, 2016, (3 and a half minutes)

Ray noted that in 2014, no-longer-in-office ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was highly critical of Obama for calling off the attack on Syria for which the neocons and she had been lusting. She even took a potshot at Obama’s dictum “Don’t do stupid stuff.”

Obama’s remarks to The Atlantic make it abundantly clear that Obama has finally come to understand that the violent disarray in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and in Libya (hat-tip to Hillary Clinton who pressed hard for armed intervention) is what you get once one you prescind from supremely sensible dicta like “Don’t do….”

Ray on the CIA, Torture and Blowing the Whistle

Truthout.org, March 11, 2016

Includes transcript of interview by Zain Raza of “acTVism Munich,” as well as the video (13 minutes)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35185-ray-mcgovern-on-the-cia-torture-and-blowing-the-whistle

Discussed are the Bush/Cheney program of systematic torture; the complicity of over 50 European governments in enabling kidnapping and secret prisons; why President Obama is afraid to take on the CIA and NSA et al.; Edward Snowden; and history’s lessons regarding what happens when there are not enough activists to expose government crimes.