military

"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.

Comedian Bill Hicks "was really obsessed in some ways with the idea of getting people to think for themselves, confronting them with ideas they might have on a big subject," says filmmaker Matt Harlock, one of the directors of the new documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story. Hicks died in 1994, but his influence lives on in today's political comics and his critiques of the first Iraq war sound remarkably prescient years later. Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas join Laura in studio to discuss their film, Hicks' work, and why political comedy remains so important.

Bradley Manning, the accused leaker of many of the documents posted on the website WikiLeaks, remains in jail under increasingly harsh conditions. This weekend, protesters, including regular GRITtv guest Col. Ann Wright and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested at Quantico Marine Corps base, rallying in support and demanding better treatment for Manning.

"The mystery of American Raymond A. Davis, currently imprisoned in the custody of local police in Lahore, Pakistan and charged with the Jan. 27 murder of two young men, whom he allegedly shot eight times with pinpoint accuracy through his car windshield, is growing increasingly murky." So wrote Dave Lindorff, who has been following the story of Davis's arrest and the subsequent controversy for CounterPunch. Is Davis a CIA agent? A security contractor? A diplomat? What's the deal with the numbers in his cell phone for some shady characters? Dave joins us via Skype to fill us in on the latest. "The working class and poor people are coming out, the middle and upper classes don't like that, they want to stop the revolution of the poor people. They accept the revolution of the middle class," says Nawal El Saadawi, pioneering Egyptian feminist thinker, author and professor. Meanwhile, she notes that the same old factors are moving to make sure that the revolution in Egypt doesn't rock the boat too much. Dr. Saadawi appeared on This Week with Christiane Amanpour this weekend, but she joins Laura in the GRITtv studio to tell us what she said that ABC wouldn't air. Last week Michael Moore appeared on our show and talked about the economy as he sees it--and Fox News called in billionaire Donald Trump to comment. Fair and balanced -- a billionaire to comment on a critique of this Country's skewed accumulation of wealth? Well, Michael Moore had the last word on Saturday in front of the Wisconsin state capitol. Distributed by Tubemogul.