March 25 - The Hidden History of U.S.-Afghan Relations; Behind the Routing of Boko Haram; "The Real Cost of Coal"

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the just-concluded State Visit by Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani and the country’s Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, and look into the hidden history of U.S.- Afghan relations prior to America’s longest war that may or may not be concluding soon. Roger Morris, who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon and is the author of “Between the Graves: America, Afghanistan and the Politics of Intervention”, joins us to discuss how the real victims in the country called “the graveyard of empires” are not so much the foreign invaders but the Afghan people.

Part 2

Then we speak with Ambassador John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies and the former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, about recent military reversals that have driven Boko Harum out of much of the territory in the north that they had occupied, which is suddenly happening a week ahead of an election after four years of paralysis by the government of Goodluck Jonathan. We look into the fate of hundreds who have been kidnapped and the role of South African mercenaries in routing Boko Harum.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with James Stock, a Professor of Political Economy at Harvard and a member of the faculty at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He previously served as a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and has an op-ed at The New York Times, “The Real Cost of Coal” that reveals how 40% of coal is mined from public lands but the taxpayer gets little back in terms of royalties and nothing in terms of compensation for the effects of climate change caused by CO 2 from burning coal.