The rise of warfare capitalism

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] their own experts have to tell them. We saw this with Bush and Blair either ignoring or ‘sexing-up’ the evidence on WMD provided by the CIA and MI6. This process can only be fueled by defective intelligence derived from the privatised torture of hapless goat-herders and taxi-drivers who have been flown around the world […]

The Big Breach

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Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)

[…] stage, with much more powerful economies, who have only small or nonexistent external intelligence gathering operations. Japan or Germany, for example. Could the money Britain spends on MI6 not be spent better elsewhere, on health care or education?’ A flicker of a smile crossed McColl’s lips. “Ah, young man, you overlook the fact that […]

Coach into pumpkin: some problems with Paget

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] (Northern Ireland) Report that the term “agents” is used to refer to informants or sources and not “agents” as it is sometimes colloquially understood to be, “ MI6 spies”. Thus the reference to “agents being involved in murder” was a reference to actions of informants rather than the authorities.’ Paget concludes with the cosmically […]

Jonestown. The secret life of Jim Jones: a parapolitical fugue

Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999)

[…] political, as well as ministerial, agenda. At the time of his visit, the former British colony was wracked by covert operations being mounted by the CIA and MI6. By way of background, the most important political group in the country was the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), established by Dr. Cheddi Jagan during the 1940s. […]

Tittle-tattle 1

Lobster Issue 43 (Summer 2002)

[…] was assistant editor of The Economist. Lloyd and Leonard Jr. keep interesting company at the FPC. Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (see above) is ‘senior researcher’ and career MI6 officer Meta (now Baroness) Ramsay is on the advisory council. Alongside Lloyd and Ramsay are Sir Michael Butler, the former British permanent representative to the European […]

Silent Conspiracy: Inside the Intelligence Services in the 1990s

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Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

[…] to be that if they did their job more intelligently, they could be a genuine bulwark of democracy. ‘Perhaps it is time for the ”sensible chaps” in MI6 to rescue their political initiatives’, Dorril concludes in his chapter on Ireland. This ‘sensibleness’ is the hallmark of the current reforms, which have resulted in copies […]

Truth Twisting: notes on disinformation

Lobster Issue 19 (1990)

[…] Foreign Affairs Publishing Company of Geoffrey Stewart-Smith. Keston College, the British centre of the study of religion in the Soviet Union, certainly, but not yet provably, an MI6 operation. Soviet suspicion of Keston led to the collapse of a planned visit to Moscow by a British human rights mission in October 1989 when one […]

Brands and Britannia: Some aspects of national image and identity

Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

[…] intelligence force, answerable to the Home Secretary, freeing SIS to continue with its core functions, answerable to the Foreign Secretary’. This would avoid a ‘wholesale take-over of MI6 priorities by MI5-led anti-terrorism operations,’ which, he said, many intelligence operatives fear.Note: In the ‘old’ days spook lobbying and territorial warfare were invisible. Given other associations […]

Spinning the Spies: Intelligence, open government and the Hutton Inquiry

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Lobster Issue 49 (Summer 2005)

[…] subtle than that. In any case, the JIC precisely certified as ‘genuine’ intelligence which was ‘false and dubious’: it has almost all had to be ‘withdrawn’ by MI6. () Indeed, as the Australian analyst Rob Barton has told us, the JIC Chair, John Scarlett was still trying to get ‘false and dubious’ intelligence put […]

The Liar: the fall of Jonathan Aitken

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Lobster Issue 36 (Winter 1998/9)

[…] and defence capabilities continue to shrink. Book your seat now for Round Two, the Aitken perjury trial . . . his defence that he was working for MI6 all along. After the sentence is handed down we should have the material for a better and more interesting book than the story of how the […]

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