Benny Morris London: I. B Tauris, 2002, £24.50, h/b In report after report on the major media we hear about or see pictures of ‘refugee camps’ in Israel – and no-one ever explains from where the refugees came. Perhaps editors think we know already. Benny Morris is an Israeli historian who became well known … Read more
The apparent re-election of George W. Bush as US President seems to have its roots in a mechanical failure. On 12 March 2004, a car went out of control on a busy highway and propelled itself in front of an 18-wheeler. The driver – an African-American clergyman called Athan Gibbs – was killed outright. Gibbs, … Read more
From David Hambling On the topic of the People Zapper (Lobster 41 p. 9), the new ‘Active Denial System’ is probably not the first microwave weapon to be deployed. There have been repeated rumours of cruise missiles with HPM (high-powered microwave) warheads being used in former Yugoslavia to knock out communications centres, though apparently the … Read more
Conference Report by Jane Affleck On November 10 2000 the Freedom Forum’s European Centre in London, in association with Article 19, Index on Censorship and Liberty, hosted a debate on National Security. (1) Three panels spoke on The Nature of National Security, British State Security in Northern Ireland, and The Internet – Circumventing Censorship? The … Read more
The killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in public view and for no apparent reason remains one of the most notorious murders of recent decades. For sixteen years there have been few signs of any serious attempts to locate and bring to justice the perpetrator of this outrage. Finally, this April, in an outstanding piece of … Read more
Reflections on the ‘cult of the offensive’: pre-emptive war, the Israel lobby and US military Doctrine In our book, Spies, Lies and the War on Terror,(1) a central theme is the ascendancy of pre-emptive war doctrine in US military strategy and its impact on public perceptions and the construction of political narrative. A parallel and … Read more
John Deutch, the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a panel member on the Interagency Group on Human Radiation Experiments, which was created on January 15 1994, under President Clinton’s order, directing government agencies to look into unethical experiments conducted during the Cold War. John Deutch was also a panel members of the … Read more
Pieces without an author’s name are by the editor Parish Notices This is the final hard copy of Lobster.… but not the final issue of Lobster. I am merely giving up the labour of producing and distributing 1000 copies of a 50 page magazine. The next issue will appear – in precisely which form I … Read more
Since 1945, an Agricultural Revolution has occurred in Britain whose significance and impact outstrip anything which occurred in the 18th century. It has turned farming from the practice of husbandry into a form of industrial production, transformed the landscape through its destructive effects on traditional features and substantially changed the nature of the food we … Read more
On October 8 1998 the CIA’s Inspector General published a report on the recent CIA-cocaine controversy which – apparently – more or less copped the lot, acknowledging that the CIA had ignored drug smuggling by its Contra allies. (See for example The Independent 7 November 1998, ‘CIA turned a deliberate blind eye to Contras’ drug … Read more
