An Incorrect Political Memoir

Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992)

This piece by Daniel Brandt began as a short letter commenting on my review of Right Woos Left by Chip Berlet (Lobster 23 p. 34). I wrote back and asked if he would like to expand it. And so he did, writing almost the whole thing at one long sitting. Anyone who joined the U.S. … Read more

Our Searchlight problem

Lobster Issue 24 (December 1992)

Introduction The ‘Gable memo’ reproduced below originally appeared as the subject matter of a long and extremely interesting article, ‘Destabilising the “decent people”‘ by Nick Anning, Duncan Campbell and Bruce Page in the New Statesman on February 15, 1980. This is still worth digging out, particularly for its detailed account of the context in which … Read more

Fascism: Theory and Practice

Book cover
Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999)

Dave Renton Pluto, London, 1999, £9.99   This book has been touted in some areas as a radical, new contribution to the study of fascism; and it is certainly well-packaged and cheap. To start with the good points which, although few, are important: if you want to know who the current academic theorists on modern … Read more

Miscellaneous: Gemstone. Workers’ Revolutionary Party, MI5 and Libya

Lobster Issue 20 (1990)

Gemstone In Lobster 19, I noted the incremental addition of disinformation to the original Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File. As it turned out, the process was further down that road than I had imagined. From Owen Wilkes, New Zealand’s leading parapolitics researcher, comes the news that a version is in circulation there. Now described … Read more

Print: Magazines and Catalogues

Lobster Issue 18 (1989)

[…] of interest to us. In issue 129, for example, there is a long account of, and attack on, Catholic groups which support the Nicaraguan government against the contras; issue Sept/Oct 1989 is entirely devoted to Austrian opposition to Hitler, and begins, ‘The Masonic peace of 1919’ (!) KOP is 4.00 per year, from 157 […]

Armed and Dangerous: the corporate origins of war with Iran

Lobster Issue 63 (Summer 2012)

[PDF file]: […] provided the main recruitment conduit for these state sanctioned covert operations. Again, the memoir of ‘Tom Carew’ would seem to confirm this. Outsourced state terrorism and the contras The link between British Special Forces and military privatisation partly entered the public domain in the IranContra Affair. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher was returned to office […]

Miscellaneous reviews

Lobster Issue 64 (Winter 2012)

[PDF file]: […] with government permission, gave cocaine dealers in Central and South America a ‘get out of jail free’ card: for a few thousand dollars of support for the contras they could fly their product in unhindered. And so the guns out and drugs back pattern began. Iran-Contra is all too frequently short-handed as weapons-for-hostages. More […]

Misc reviews

Lobster Issue

[…] with government permission, gave cocaine dealers in Central and South America a ‘get out of jail free’ card: for a few thousand dollars of support for the contras they could fly their product in unhindered. And so the guns out and drugs back pattern began. Iran-Contra is all too frequently short-handed as weapons-for-hostages. More […]

Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away with War Crimes by Phil Miller

Lobster Issue 79 (Summer 2020)

[PDF file]: […] trained the president’s bodyguard), El Salvador, Uruguay and elsewhere. Over time, they became deeply involved in providing covert British assistance to the Sri Lankan government, the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan Mujihadeen – as well as, of course, Sultan Qaboos in Oman. Miller does not seem to have found any evidence of KMS involvement […]

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