karzai

"If the aim was to show us that state terror was more powerful than individual terrorists, we already knew that," says Tariq Ali of the U.S. special forces action that reportedly killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. As Americans celebrated outside of the White House and gathered at Ground Zero to remember those lost, Tariq reminds us that bin Laden's death will not make the U.S. safer. He joins Laura via Skype from London to discuss the ramifications of bin Laden's death, on U.S. foreign policy and specifically the relationship with Pakistan, as well as to question the use of the word "justice" to describe a unilateral military action. After the news of Bin Laden's death hit late Sunday night, Laura headed down to Ground Zero to catch up with the New Yorkers who gathered there to remember the collapse of the Twin Towers. A few of them shared their reflections with her, and we share them with you. "Bin Laden's ideology is not the ideology of the masses, of the Arabs, of people in central Asia, of Muslims," notes Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women's Mission. But, she notes, the danger is that now by killing him we have made him a martyr and inflamed anger again among people already feeling marginalized. Sonali joins Laura via Skype from California to discuss the impact of the war and bin Laden's death on Afghanistan, and the standards that should be applied when pursuing people like bin Laden or Libya's Qaddafi. And finally, Laura reflects on the past ten years and the U.S.--and the world's--desire for closure. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"NATO is losing the war in Afghanistan in every quantifiable way," says Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films, recently returned from a reporting trip to that country. And what's more, he notes, what's clear from the WikiLeaks cables is that the coalition governments are not as deluded as they would like their people to be about the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.Rick joins us in studio to discuss the realities he saw on the ground in Afghanistan, the death of special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, and more.Rick Rowley is just one of the unembedded, independent reporters trying to bring the real story from Afghanistan to the American people. Our friends at Brave New Films also have teams of independent media makers in that country, and this segment takes us inside their dangerous work."In truth, we face the sobering reality that capitalism’s latest crisis — complete with bank failures, corporate bailouts, rising unemployment, and declining wages — has aided the right, not the left. How can we explain the capacity of the right to benefit from and redirect the bitterness and discontent that derives from capitalism’s own failures?" Peter Bratsis wrote a provocative piece for The Indypendent about the Tea Party movement and the crisis on the left--and he joins Laura in studio to discuss it. Are we missing passion and emotional appeals in our quest to be rational?Finally, there's a new blockbuster out just in time for the holidays: Harry Potter and the Bailed-Out Banks. Laura has a synopsis.

"Women's rights are nothing but human rights when women exercise them," notes Ann Jones, but Afghanistan has never been big on women's rights. Still, as highly-touted negotiations continue between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government, where are the women? Can real peace come when it's negotiated without women when, Matthew Hoh notes, the population of the country between the ages of 20 and 45 is four to one women to men? Jones is the author most recently of War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, and Hoh was the first American official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and now directs the Afghanistan Study Group. They join Laura for a discussion of what real peace in Afghanistan would have to entail.

Patrick Hennessey joined the British army in 2004 and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along the way, he wrote an acclaimed book, The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars, detailing his experiences. He's since returned to Afghanistan as a reporter. Hennessey joins Laura in studio to talk about Tony Blair, the difference between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the experience of war reporting, and winding up in a 120-year-old former British base in Afghanistan.