A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the abuse of America’s intelligence agencies James Bamford, New York: Doubleday, 2004, h/back, $26.95 Ghost Wars: The Secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 Steve Coll New York: Penguin, 2004, h/back, $29.95 These books cover some […]
[…] of the judiciary from the state executive being almost entirely eroded. The criminalisation of foreigners and of dissent increased, beginning with the Asylum Act of 1993 and Intelligence and Security Act of 1994, after which rival law enforcement agencies began competing with the police.(12) Although MI5 made much of its anti-fascist credentials in the […]
[…] text. In 1984 Crozier wrote to the Spectator attacking IPS director Richard Barnet (a former Kennedy aide) and accusing the IPS of being ‘a front for Cuban intelligence, itself controlled by the KGB’. Barnet sued, the litigation reaching a climax in 1986 when Crozier lost a key court battle to prevent the Spectator retracting. […]
[…] interesting – if unsurprising – that the final edits are done by Blair’s two closest advisors. But by the time Hutton heard this, the memo from Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chair John Scarlett had been released which referred to the JIC’s ‘customers’.(5) Once that concept has been taken on board the game is up […]
[…] knows what it is doing about civil disorder. It is fishing. As the facts come out, they often seem to fit into the standard pattern of poor intelligence and some mistreatment of those arrested. We remain convinced that miscarriages of justice are likely in this mismanaged chaos. We have noted the signs of a […]
[…] about dealing with the unrest among the natives by the classic Imperial methods which had worked so well in Malaya against the Communist guerillas – a co-ordinated intelligence drive, a big propaganda campaign, mass round-ups of suspects, attacks on guerillas’ arms-supplies and cross-border sanctuaries – and then, if all else failed, negotiations from strength. […]
[…] but is incapable of turning the analysis round: what has US foreign policy persistently done in the past? Who says the CIA and the assortment of other intelligence organisations stopped what they were doing just because the NED was put in front of them as a fig leaf? Might these criticisms also apply to […]
Extracts from what are claimed to be CIA analyses of Israeli intelligence services found when the US embassy in Iran was taken have been published in Imam, October 1983 through to May 1984. 17 pages in all. To this untrained eye they look genuine; ie dull enough to be genuine. There is nothing that […]
[…] for the state to keep control (PR) of these histories because openness and demands for change can impact on existing complex relationships, e.g. with India or Pakistan’s intelligence communities. () Targeting a wholly different area, SIS used a sophisticated version of multiple single messaging on 13 August, summarised in the press by the heading: […]
[…] cover seemed interesting and publishing the names seemed to be some kind of act against the-powers-that-be. But in 1985 there was very little information available about the intelligence services, and every scrap seemed significant. These days, if you want them, you can receive e-mail bulletins with more information about the world’s intelligence services – […]
