Government & Politics

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Martha Mcsally is our nations highest ranking female fighter pilot. Last month she sued the Defense Department for its policy toward women military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia. When traveling off-base women are required to wear traditional Islamic religious clothing, covering themselves from head to foot. They also have to be chaperoned by a male, and are required to ride in the back seat of any vehicle.

Navy Commander Ernest Duplessis of United States Central Command, administrative headquarters for U.S. military affairs in countries of the Middle East, Southwest Asia and Northeast Africa, including the Arabian Gulf. He gives the military response to McSallys suit.

Veteran British journalists Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson. Theyve just collaborated on the new book Those Are Real Bullets: Bloody Sunday, Derry 1972 (Grove Press) about the day thirty years ago when British paratroopers shot 27 unarmed Irish Catholic demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing thirteen of them, wounding fourteen. Five were shot in the back. Since then the day has been known as –Bloody Sunday.— After a formal inquiry the British soldiers were exonerated. Pringle and Jacobson covered the massacre for the Sunday Times, conducting interviews in the days following.

Journalist Barton Gellman of The Washington Post will discuss the Clinton and Bush adminstrationsefforts to track down Osama bin Laden and his network prior to Sept. 11. Gellman wrote a two-part series about it that ran in the Post Dec. 19 and 20, 2001. A third installment was later published Jan 20, 2002.

Milt Bearden spent 30 years in the CIA. He ran the CIA covert operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, and helped train the Afghan freedom fighters. Bearden also was station chief in Pakistan, Moscow, and Khartoum. He received the CIA highest honor, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Since the Sept. 11th attacks, Bearden has been a frequent commentator on TV and in print. He is also the author of the novel, The Black Tulip: A Novel of War in Afghanistan (paperback, Random House).

President Clinton's former budget director and chief of staff Leon Panetta.

President Clinton's former campaign strategist and political advisor Paul Begala talks about life in the Clinton Whitehouse.

He the New York Times Foreign Affairs Correspondent. He's just returned from three weeks in Iraq. He's reported from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Actor and producer Bob Balaban has appeared in over 50 movie and television spots, directed for television and produced three full legnth films. His latest project is Gosford Park, a Robert Altman whodunnit set in an English manor. The film is up for several Golden Globe awards. Balaban produced and appears in it.

Dr. Lynn Amowitz is a researcher for Physicians for Human Rights. Amowitz specializes in internal medicine, women health and epidemiology. Last month she was in Afghanistan interviewing displaced women as B-52s were bombing just six miles away. Previous to that visit, Amowitz researched and compiled the report on the condition of women under the Taliban in the report "Women Health and Human Rights in Afghanistan." Amowitz specializes in working in war torn communities. Over the years she worked in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Zaire, and Nigeria.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist David Vise is a staff writer for The Washington Post. He the author of the new book, The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History (Atlantic Monthly Press). Vise tells the story of how a seemingly all-American boy became a traitor. Vise had access to files about Hanssen, and the opportunity to talk with Hanssen family and friends.

Bernard Lewis is a Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He just written a new book about the war in the Middle East called What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press). The New York Times Book Review has called Lewis "the doyen of Middle Eastern Studies." Lewis says that there may be no escape from the "downward spiral of hate and spite...culminating sooner or later in another alien domination."

Professor Robert Jay Lifton specializes in the study of extremist religions and cults. Hel talk with us about John Walker, the American captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. Lifton is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Graduate School University Center and Director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He written books on many topics, including the Japanese cult which released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors and Vietnam vets.

Journalist Charles Sennott has just returned from Afghanistan, where he traveled with the Special Forces. He also the author of the new book, The Body and The Blood: The Holy Land Christians At the Turn of a New Millennium (PublicAffairs). Sennott was the Boston Globe Middle East bureau chief, and is currently the Globe European bureau chief. He lives in London.

Journalist Sebastian Junger has just returned from Afghanistan, where he was traveling with the Northern Alliance. Last year he was also in Afghanistan following Ahmad Shah Massoud, (known as the "Lion of Panjshir"), the legendary leader of the guerrilla war against the Soviets, who had been fighting the Taliban. Massoud was assassinated by Osama bin Laden's associates in September. Junger is also the author of the bestseller The Perfect Storm, and his new book, Fire.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He's the author of a number of books including a memoir about his boyhood, An Hour Before Daylight His latest is a memoir, Christmas in Plains (Simon & Schuster). Carter and his family has spent the last 48 Christmases in Plains, through out his Navy career, his stint as Governor and his tenure as President. The only exception was 1979 when American hostages were being held in Iran.

U.S. Senator James Jeffords of Vermont. Last May he shocked his fellow Republicans when he defected from the party and became an Independent. Stating that he could no longer reconcile his beliefs with the party, he switched allegiences. In doing so he deprived the Republicans of their trifecta: control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. He explains how he came to make the decision in the new book, My Declaration of Independence

Program Director for the International Center for Transitional Justice, Paul van Zyl. As such he helps emerging democracies to reckon with the human rights abuses in their past. Van Zyl is from South Africa and was the executive secretary of South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The center is now working with the U.N. to design a justice policy for post-Taliban Afghanistan. The International Center for Transitional Justice is located in New York City.

Larry Goodson is associate professor of international Studies at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts. He the author of the book, Afghanistan Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban (University of Washington press). Goodson writes that Afghanistan has become the archetype of a failed state and a perfect example of how nonstate actors move into the vacuum created when a state fails. He also writes about the divisions in the Afghan population: ethnic, linguistic, regional, sectarian, racial, and tribal.

Critic John Powers reviews the film "Spy Game."