Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin on this Memorial Day with an analysis of what is happening at the Pentagon,

with a racist incompetent in charge, who is destroying our military's valuable asset as America's

greatest meritocracy, and a number two, who is a military contractor from Dyn Corp,

Stephen Feinberg, who is busily entrenching the military industrial complex.

Joining us is Robert Young Pelton, an author, filmmaker, journalist and explorer,

who is the publisher of Dangerous Magazine and has had a firsthand perspective on the war

and terror from direct contact with the world's most infamous jihadi, rebel and insurgent

groups.

His books include The World's Most Dangerous Places, Come Back Alive, Three Worlds Gone Mad,

Licensed to Kill, Hired Guns in the War on Terror, and his autobiography, The Adventurist.

Then we'll look into how Trump is already declaring a glorious victory is within reach,

while Iran is saying, no, that is not happening.

Joining us to assess whether Trump will distract us with a little war on Cuba, since he won't be able to spin his way out of his defeat in Iran is Nada Hashemi, the director of the Aloid Center for Muslim Christian Understanding and a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic politics at the Adminawal School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

He's the author of The People Reloaded, the Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future,

and Sectarianization, mapping the new politics of the Middle East.

Then finally, we'll explore how asymmetrical warfare goes back to the American Revolution

when the colonial revolutionaries defeated the greatest power on earth at the time, the British Empire,

and investigate the changing nature of warfare with defense prevailing over offense

as smaller powers like Iran and Ukraine are able to defeat greater powers like

the US and Russia.

...