Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East by Patrick Cockburn

Lobster Issue 71 (Summer 2016) FREE

[PDF file]: […] Government should consider pensioning off the whole of MI6 and hiring Patrick Cockburn instead’. The second is a quote from one of Sydney Blumenthal’s e-mails to Hilary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, that Cockburn ‘was almost always correct on Iraq’. Both quotes point to another of Cockburn’s themes, which is implicit, rather […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 62 (Winter 2011) FREE

[PDF file]: […] late 2007-early 2008: for example, one could simply read the July 9 2007 issue of Fortune magazine to discover who the major backers of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama were. One could also have read Business Week (25 February 2008) or the Los Angeles Times of 21 March 2008. Through February 2008 […]

Nixon’s Nuclear Specter by William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: […] Iran during the hostage crisis. President Reagan presided over a massive nuclear build-up which came close to accidental thermonuclear war during the misinterpreted Able Archer alert. President Clinton discussed using B61-11 tactical nuclear weapons against Libya. The second Bush administration threatened the use of the same nuclear weapons during the invasions of Afghanistan and […]

Holding Pattern

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: Holding Pattern Garrick Alder Mrs Mopp and the ‘wet jobs’ The ‘review’ of the Freedom of Information Act is in the news as I write and I don’t think anyone who cares passionately about the Act can be under any illusions about the result this review is expected to produce. (In his autobiography Tony Blair […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

The view from the bridge Robin Ramsay Thanks to Nick Must (in particular) and Garrick Alder for editorial and proofreading assistance. *new* SNAFU or FUBAR? I glance at the financial pages of some of the newspapers, mainly to see the latest idiocy that has been allowed to happen. Most recently that has been the collapse […]

Misc reviews

Lobster Issue

Robin Ramsay These reviews of mine were written for other publications, notably the Fortean Times. Who killed Dag Hammarskjold? The UN, the Cold War and white supremacy in Africa Susan Williams London: Hurst and Company, 2011; 300 pages, h/b, £20.00 After travelling thousands of miles, visiting many libraries and archives, interviewing the surviving eyewitnesses and […]

9/11 attracts mainstream critics

Lobster Issue 91 (2025) FREE

[PDF file]: 9/11 attracts new mainstream critics John Booth In the face of the dark horrors fed to us daily from the Middle East and Ukraine, one risks being deemed Pollyanna-ish to detect any comforting points of light. Who can draw much consolation when a UK Labour Government proscribes a direct-action pro-Palestine group as terrorists in the […]

A fly’s eye view of the American war against Vietnam 40 years later: who won which war?

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: […] helicopter lifted off of the roof of the Saigon embassy compound before the ‘loser’ extended full diplomatic recognition to the country that had defeated it. President William Clinton was quoted as saying that the time was at hand ‘to bind up our wounds’.6 2 Never mind that President Clinton avoided the draft and any […]

The nature of the state and future challenges

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: The nature of the state and future challenges Bigger Government: The Future of Government Expenditure in Advanced Economies Marc Robinson Arolla Press, 2020 https://biggergovernment.com The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy David Graeber London: Melville House, 2015 The Entrepreneurial State – Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths Mariana Mazzucato, […]

Murder in Cairo

Lobster Issue 90 (2025) FREE

[PDF file]: […] Africa.’ 7 Turki had mentioned the Safari Club in a 2002 speech at his old university in Washington DC. Prince Turki and the future US president Bill Clinton had both graduated from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1968. Turki told the Americans: In 1976, after the Watergate […]

Accessibility Toolbar