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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: Robin Ramsay Even Wikipedia . . . In August much of the major media, including the BBC, ran a story about the late Cedric Belfrage, claiming he was a Soviet spy, ‘the sixth man’. Christopher Andrew was among those prominently quoted supporting this thesis. The estimable John Simkins published a devastating rebuttal of this, pointing […]

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 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, […]

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 view from the bridge

Lobster Issue 81 (Summer 2021) FREE

[PDF file]: The view from the bridge Robin Ramsay Thanks to Nick Must (in particular) and Garrick Alder for editorial and proofreading assistance. 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 of […]

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue

The View from the Bridge Robin Ramsay Even Wikipedia….. In August much of the major media, including the BBC, ran a story about the late Cedric Belfrage, claiming he was a Soviet spy, ‘the sixth man’. Christopher Andrew was among those prominently quoted supporting this thesis. The estimable John Simkins published a devastating rebuttal of […]

Tittle-Tattle

Lobster Issue 70 (Winter 2015) FREE

[PDF file]: Tittle-Tattle Tom Easton Balls to the wall The Daily Mirror neatly summed up the post-election fate of two of New Labour’s so-called big beasts when its 15 June headline read: ‘Ed Balls has a new job: Ex-shadow chancellor follows David Miliband to America after election defeat’.1 Milband’s job with the International Rescue Committee (see Lobsters […]

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