As the Chinese curse implies we live in interesting times. An epoch of epic historical transition, a time when the value and purpose of each and every one of the international institutions formed after world war II is being questioned. And that includes NATO. Formed in 1949, as a defensive bulwark against Soviet expansionism, today the Alliance’s troops are deployed in places its founders would never have expected, and for reasons some of its current members sometimes find difficult to justify to their citizens.

Today NATO is trying to reinvent itself, itching to prove it is just the institution to put the muscle back in multilateralism. For the past four years, it’s secretary general, Lord Robertson, has been navigating the alliance’s identity crisis. With the diplomatic wounds of the Iraq war still festering he is telling the skeptics that NATO is still necessary, now more than ever

Guests:

Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary General

In America it’s almost second nature for students to be doing their homework while they’re chatting on the cell phone, keeping in touch with others through online messaging, downloading music onto their mp3, and wondering what DVD they’ll pick up when they’re ready to microwave something for dinner.

Millions of other kids around the world don’t have those options, some because they live in a developing country too poor to imagine such luxuries, but others because they live in a country that has known more war than peace. Students in Iraq see a glimmer of change in the lives they have known, people are talking of freedom, but what does that mean? the voices of iraq’s future, your questions

Guests:

Ossama Assad, Uday Ali Abid, and Hussein Al-Askr, university students in Iraq.

Security is what Israelis want and what three years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada has denied them. Successive Israeli governments have been unable to achieve lasting security, and so have the tanks, helicopters, and guns of the Israeli Defense Forces. Assassinating the heads of terrorist organizations was supposed to bring security, but Hamas seems to grow two heads for every one you cut off.

As Israel reacts to bombings and attacks, the collateral damage to Palestinian civilians breeds new foot soldiers of hate. Not to mention international condemnation and increasing despair in the ranks of the Israeli army. Now leading figures in the military are saying enough is enough. They say they need a radical new strategy, even if it means unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territories. We hear one veteran warrior’s idea for securing Israel’s future.

Guests:

Iftach Spector, retired Brigadier General, Israeli Air Force

Chemi Shalev, political commentator for the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv.

The ancient code of Hammurabi is a part of every law student’s homework. Close to 3,800 years ago the Babylonian king drafted the first comprehensive set of laws carving them into a great black stone cylinder.

While Hammurabi’s code is often dismissed as harsh justice — an eye for an eye — a closer look at the legal text shows it also to be the first charter of human rights.

38 centuries later the Iraqi inheritors of that code are attempting to rebuild a modern system of justice. Where the regime of Saddam Hussein leaned exclusively on the punishment side of law, the people in Iraq today are hoping for something closer to due process. Reckoning with the past and future, nothing but the truth.

Guests:

Mahmoud Othman, member of the Iraq Governing Council

Judge Methat Mahmood, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Iraq

Judge Donald Campbell, Superior Court Judge, State of New Jersey, former Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Justice in Iraq.

You are what you eat. Yeah, sure, that’s obvious, but there are other things you put inside yourself that define who you are. Pop songs, for example. Psychotherapists of the world, throw out your Rorschach tests. Have your patients make a list of their fave tunes. You’ll learn more about them.

Songs are little lessons in rhythm and rhyme that help us through love and break-up, life and death. They are non-addictive mood elevators that can turn a dark day bright. Well, sort of non-addictive. English author Nick Hornby claims to have listened to one song 1500 times. Hornby has made a nice career out of his song obsessions. Now he’s compiled a list of the tunes he can’t live without, and he wants to tell you why. A writer’s life defined in music.

Guests:

Nick Hornby, author, “Songbook,” “How to Be Good,” “About a Boy” and “High Fidelity”.

You can’t drive down a street in this city without being dazzled by the kaleidoscope of new political party signs and spray painted slogans. Most in the Iraqi colors of red white and green.

Religious groups and sects are also competing for attention. it is at one level a healthy sign of democracy about to flourish, but so much of the energy is still being restrained by the American led coalition planners as they work on various drafts of constitutions and election dates and formulas for making Iraqi politics truly representative. This political kaleidoscope is twisted in the other direction, by thousands of Baath party socialists who have been told they are banned from participating. Imagining an Iraq with ballots instead of bullets.

Guests:

Sami al Mudhaffar, President of the University of Baghdad

Doctor Saieb S.A. Algailani, Member of the Baghdad Advisory Council

Mohammed Serwan, civil engineer.

Muhammad Ali said it, “I am the greatest of all time!” And then he backed it up with his fists. At least to the satisfaction of everyone who hadn’t seen Joe Louis fight in his prime. Defining greatness, the highest human achievement in the arts and sciences has always been a subjective game floating along on winds of the zeitgeist.

O.K. Shakespeare and Michelangelo are above everybody else but after them? And how do you compare across cultures? Is Dante an objectively better poet than Basho? Sociologist Charles Murray says statistical science can offer proof of who’s the top, the Colosseum, the Louvre, museum of artists and scientists.

Guests:

Charles Murray, author of “Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950″

Bonnie Smith, Professor of History at Rutgers University

After a week in which some thirty U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, at a time when resistance fighters lob mortar shells into the U.S. compound with impunity, questions about security remain the number one concern for American commanders in Baghdad.

Six months after the war, it’s clear that U.S. military tactics have been insufficient to restrain these attackers, so now the Pentagon and civilian administrators are considering a major reversal of policy. They’re now talking about enlisting senior officers and soldiers of the old Iraqi Army. The Americans say they need to tap into homegrown military intelligence, and the ability of Iraqi officers to lead Iraqi soldiers. But are these men who were once sworn to kill Americans, really ready to serve under the stars and stripes?

Guests:

Brigadier General Doctor Tariq Jasmin Al-Ani

Admiral Raad Fadel, Colonel Hashim Hassan Al

Ken Allard, retired army colonel, military analyst at Georgetown University, and author of forthcoming book, Business as War.

It’s hours to decision time for the Dean campaign. Earlier this week, Gov. Dean sent an email to 600,000 supporters, asking them to vote on whether he should decline, or accept, federal matching funds. This online poll is just the latest twist in a campaign that has made the internet its centerpiece.

Dean has already raised more than $30 million online. Campaign insiders describe life in the blogosphere, talk earnestly about “empowerment”, and spend time socializing in “meet-ups.” Rivals and skeptics say the Dean camp is full of white, upper-income latte lovers more suited to the virtual world of online chat than the real world of hard-knuckle politics, and that the internet buzz won’t translate to votes. Virtual Dean. The money, medium and the message.

Guests:

Gary Wolf, contributing editor, Wired Magazine

Ryan Lizza, associate editor, The New Republic

Joe Trippi, campaign manager for Howard Dean’s primary campaign.

Early in the last century, archaeologists from Iraq, Europe and America, digging in places like Ure Kish Napoor and Eradu, began exposing signs of civilization that riveted the world with the depth of Mesopotamian life.

Even under Saddam Hussein’s arch’s continued their work gathering here in this city one of the finest collections of history in this world. In a matter of days, last April, much of that work was stolen and burned.

Places that were meant to be protected as heritage sites, the Iraqi national museum and library were ransacked. Though some of the finest pieces have been returned, much remains in the hands of smugglers. We are digging for the latest in those stolen treasures.

Guests:

Donny George, Director General of Iraq’s Museums

John Malcolm Russell, advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and Senior Deputy Advisor to Iraq’s Ministry of Culture

Lauren Sandler, a New York Based journalist, recently back from Iraq.