Pakistan – Politics for Peace

From FRANCE24 comes a debate discussing Musharraf, the Seige of Red Mosque, and in general peace in Pakistan.

Tony Smith – A Pact with the Devil

Tony Smith at the New America Foundation, discussing some large changes in the way policy is made. The sound quality is pretty bad, you’d think the NAF could get it right. From the description:

Many liberals as well as conservatives supported the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. In his provocative new book A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy, Tony Smith, professor of political science at Tufts University, criticizes liberal hawks as well as neocons for sharing a common project of American world supremacy.

Reese Erlich: The US and Iran – The Real Story

Don’t worry, that annoying intro music goes away after about thirty seconds.

From the description:

Foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, author of the soon-to-be-published book, “The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of US Policy and the Middle East Crisis,” speaks about his recent trips to Iran researching his book.

Jared Diamond – How Societies Fail-And Sometimes Succeed – Long Now Foundation

Jared Diamon is a captivating and articulate speaker whose are ideas are a type of common sense that just makes sense, even without the countless hours of research. From the description:

Jared Diamond articulately spelled out how his best-selling book, COLLAPSE, took shape.

Cities of Light – The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain

I’ve actually seen a couple of better tv shows about the same subject, but this is the longest. Al-Andalus is an interesting challenge to the notions of east vs. west.

Conversations with History – Seyla Benhabib

Yale political theorist Seyla Benhabib is UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler’s guest in a discussion of how political theory can further our understanding of globalization and its impact on the struggle for human rights.

Democracy, Governance, and War in Oil-Exporting Nations

A very indepth panel discussion at the University of Chicago on the state of oil-exporting nations.

President Ahmadinejad at the UN

President Ahmadinejad address to the UN general assembly.

Identity and Violence – Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen is a definitive voice on developmental economics and a winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998. In this lecture at UC Berkley, he talks about a convergence of a identity and violence.

George Galloway v. Christopher Hitchens

An interesting debate between George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens on Iraq presented by Democracy Now at Baruch College in the fall of 2005.

The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations – Edward Said

At this lecture at the University of Massachussets at Amherst, the late Edward Said refutes the thesis and the material of the book and essay “Clash of Civilizations” by Samuel Huntington. For me, Edward Said is an incredibly lucid speaker and consistently tears down a certain western tendency to categorize and organize ‘the mysterious east’.

Distorted Morality – Noam Chomsky

An hour long lecture from Noam Chomsky which is at times engaging and funny and at other times infuriating. I’ve linked to the wikipedia (as a jumping off point only) entry of several of the events he mentions.

Iran Air Flight 655
1982 Lebanon War
Nicaragua v. United States

William Kristol and Richard Holbrooke

A Charlie Rose debate about Iran, Iraq and the crisis in the Middle East with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke and William Kristol, Editor of The Weekly Standard. August 24th, 2007.

Christopher Hitchens on Iraq

An interview with Christopher Hitchens on Iraq at the Hoover Institutition, August 24th 2007.

Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel that is Challenging the West

I’ll be aggregating Al Jazeera English streams regularily because it’s one of the few English language video news outlets outside of the first world; you can take it with a grain of salt if you’d like. This Massachusetts School of Law video interview with author and fashion model Hugh Miles about his book is an ‘as good as any’ comprehensive introduction to the news network, despite being ‘annoyingly’ biased towards the Doha-based network.

A nice short read by the author published by Foreign Policy magazine outlining the history and global prospects of the network. The bibliography at the end provides an ample jumping off point if interested.

2005 New York Times Review

2005 Fresh Air interview with the author