[…] or influence: Argentina, Bolivia, Congo, Egypt, France, Greece, Haiti, Italy, Jordan…. Denying and obscuring the CIA’s role in various assassinations, coups, and interventions helps create in the mind of Americans a certain view of the history of the past fifty years, of the role of the American government and, in particular, of the role […]
Crime fighting? There must many candidates for the title ‘The most damaging thing I have read about this government’. My current candidate is a piece by Simon Jenkins, ‘A Keep Police off the Streets Strategy Unit’ (The Times 2 February 2002). After reminding the reader that in the UK the police are a local service, […]
[…] as a result of police horse action. Despite the fact that the NF had not engaged in violence that day, thenceforth they were associated in the public mind with mayhem, and realised the Left were opponents who could not be ignored, or placated. A November 1974 members’ bulletin called for the expansion of ‘facilities […]
[…] be Mandelson’s next-door neighbour in West London) and within a day Draper had lost his lobbying job. Soon thereafter he was shorn of his weekly ‘Inside the mind of New Labour’ column in The Express which Draper claimed to have had regularly vetted by the then Minister Without Portfolio. In the next few days […]
[…] out no operation, investigation, surveillance or action against any individual otherwise than for the purposes laid down in its directive.’ The words ‘lying’ and ‘bastard’ come to mind, as they say. Gill takes a deep breath and contents himself with observing that ‘such an inquiry, to be carried out properly, would have taken many […]
[…] as the Nixon people knew that the CIA knew, they (the White House) must have known that it was all going to come out. With this in mind we should perhaps not so readily accept Hougan’s assertion that the Agency couldn’t have foreseen the outcome. Indeed, we need not assume – as Hougan does […]
[…] sort of stability to Anbar – but we are sure it is not quite what the mild-mannered liberal and evangelical advocates of peace and reconciliation had in mind when they surged around the government for pet project funding. The illusion of Northern Ireland is that constant dialogue and alternatively talking tough and offering concessions […]
Global Intelligence: the World’s Secret Services Today Paul Todd and Jonathan Bloch, London and New York, Zed Books, 2003 h/back £32.95/ $55.00 p/back £9.99/ $17.50 ‘We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq’s WMD program’ Vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Stuart Cohen, December 2003 With the spectacular failure of […]
[…] of our civil libertarian position on immigration, victimless crimes, sexual freedom and tolerance, free speech and censorship, and threats to civil liberties, is hardly what comes to mind when the term ‘right-wing’ is used. Neither does the author mention that we have as many ‘links’ with libertarian socialists, anarchists, sexual minorities, other civil libertarians, […]
[…] 30 July 2000 The Punch story, in issue 117, October 2000, about Sir John Browne of BP, Prime Minister Blair and the Russian oil money comes to mind – unless the retired SIS officer that sits on BP’s board forgot to check out the latest news from Russia with his former SIS colleagues. It […]
