[…] brutal dictatorships: Mobutu of Zaire, Pinochet of Chile, Duvalier of Haiti, Somoza of Nicaragua, the Greek junta, Marcos of the Philippines, Rhee of Korea, the Shah of Iran, 40 years of military dictators in Guatemala, Suharto of Indonesia, Hussein of Iraq, the Brazilian junta, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Taliban of Afghanistan, and […]
As I write this in late May 1998, the world is watching two Indonesian traditions, locked in a dramatic struggle to determine that country’s future. One, representing one of the world’s most tolerant Muslim cultures, seeks a non-violent return towards the democratic civil society that prevailed in the early 1950s. The other apparently hopes to […]
In an article in the Journal of Popular Culture, (1) one of the editors of the Jonestown Report considers the role that conspiracy theories have played in the unfolding narrative of ‘Jonestown’. It is a worthwhile endeavour to which few scholars could bring better credentials. Rebecca Moore is a professor of religious studies at the […]
[…] major Soviet effort to establish sympathetic regimes and subvert pro-Western rulers. This meant close cooperation with the Israeli intelligence and security services and helping the Shah of Iran to build up his SAVAK, while making use of MI6 Arabic-speaking officers to alert Gulf rulers to the danger of Soviet activities. Young developed a personal […]
[…] route they sabotaged Jimmy Carter in the same way that Nixon had sabotaged Hubert Humphrey in 1968: by doing a political deal with America’s notional enemies ( Iran in Carter’s case; North Vietnam in Humphrey’s) to prevent Democratic success in the run-up to the presidential elections. In a sense, as Scott acknowledges, this is […]
[…] of brutality and incompetence. In this version, the CIA was never any good, even in its early years. Even its early successes, the coups it ran in Iran and Guatemala, were close-run things, with the Agency and its allies/proxies more or less staggering over the finishing line, just ahead of chaos and failure; and […]
[…] prepared to withdraw and both Afghan government and rebel forces geared up for the battle which will decide which bloc Afghanistan will follow. After the fall of Iran, Pakistan became America’s vital staging post for covert intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the pivotal point for clandestine military assistance to the Afghan rebels – […]
NB This essay has been compressed a good deal. The longer version is at < http://www.pertier.com/demos.html > Ostensibly a left-leaning ‘think tank’, Demos’ initial Advisory Board gathered mostly those who wished to extend ‘Thatcherism’ into the ‘New Labour’ project. The Advisory Board Martin JacquesHis time in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) has been […]
Here are a few more web sites that may be of interest. Thanks for contributions to David Guyatt, Terry Hanstock, Daniel Brandt, Chris Atton and Tony Hollick. Further contributions and comments are welcome: my e-mail is Politics and government USA DoE Office of Human Radiation Experiments http://www.ohre.doe.gov/ ‘OHRE, established in March 1994, leads the … Read more
[…] Foreign Office minister, and a colleague of his wife, in order to smooth a path through any objections to the deal arising from US sanctions policy towards Iran. Mills may be innocent of any specific wrongdoing in all of these cases, but the impression left is that of a seriously flawed judgement combined with […]
