Mark Urban Faber and Faber, London, 1992, £14.99 In recent months there has been the remarkable sight of the weight of the British state descending upon Channel 4 TV and the production company Box in retaliation for the Box/Channel 4 programme alleging military and intelligence collaboration between the British state and the Protestant paramilitaries in … Read more
The Israel Lobby John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt London: Allen Lane, 2007, £25 This account of the relationship between the ‘Israel lobby’ in the US, the US state and Israel should be required reading for anyone with an interest – personal, professional or political – in the troubled affairs of the Middle East. … Read more
Spectre In the last Lobster 35 I reported on the new anti-EU magazine Spectre and wondered about its political orientation. In response, the editor, Steve McGiffen, sent an exemplary piece of candour from which here are some extracts. ‘….. Our original statement, sent out very widely, made it clear that we are minimalist to a … Read more
Conjuring Hitler: How the Western Elite Incubated Nazism – 1900-38 Guido Preparata US: University of Michigan Press, 2005; h/b, $90.00; p/b $28.95 UK: Pluto Press, 2005; h/b £60.00; p/b £17.99 I would like to introduce a recently published book that has been overlooked. Guido Preparata’s Conjuring Hitler: How the Western Elite Incubated Nazism-1900-38 reinterprets … Read more
A great flood of books about Italian politics recently, and almost none of them willing to answer the question “Why Italy?” Why is Italy’s political culture so firmly based on conspiracy and secrecy? A part of that answer must be Italy’s role as the premier European site of the conflict between indigenous left-wing forces and … Read more
Blowback: the cost and consequences of American Empire Chalmers Johnson London, Little, Brown and Company, 2000, £18.99 (hb) Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism John Cooley London, Pluto Press, London, 2000, £12.99 (pb) It has recently been revealed that the CIA inadvertently helped to create Soviet chemical and biological weapons by convincing the Soviets … Read more
Parapolitics: “Generally, covert politics, the conduct of public affairs not by rational debate and responsible decision-making but by indirection, collusion and deceit.” – Peter Dale Scott The Watergate tag is appropriate to Kincora because, like that epic affair, an initial minor offence was the key that unlocked many secret doors. As James Angleton noted: “A … Read more
See note:(1) Did Staff D feed the Oswald-Kostikov lie to the CIA? Abstract: There exist at least four successive versions (or falsifications) of Silvia Duran’s so-called statement of November 23,1963, to the Mexican DFS (Dirección Federal de Seguridad), about her interviews of Oswald in the Cuban Consulate. The successive changes mirror the shift in the … Read more
The Kent and Sussex Courier is the archetypal regional conservative daily. It reflects an area that returns Conservative candidates for Parliament and Council like Alabamans would return ‘yellow dog’ Democrats. One recent police raid in ‘the war on terror’ was on an Islamic school, Jameah Islamiya, in Crowborough, East Sussex.([1])It is possible that the authorities’ … Read more
Clippings Digest to May 31st. 1984 Policing The Miners Up to May 30th. These are only brief references to the major elements. Magistrates setting restrictive bail conditions. Guardian 5th April Police trying to buy NUM badges Guardian 19th May Police changing their ID numbers for picket duty Tribune 25th May Pickets charged with conspiracy for … Read more
