Foreign policy

Given the West’s insistence that Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi face exile and war crimes prosecutions, here’s a quick look at some other toppled dictators (list compiled by Mark Bowery):

As we go to press, the British government’s systematic, sustained and deep-rooted support for repressive Arab regimes is being exposed by the wave of grassroots pro-democracy movements in the Middle East, and by anti-arms trade campaigners at home. Late on 18 February, the British government was forced to cancel more than 40 arms export licences to Bahrain, after the Gulf state’s security forces fired on peaceful pro-democracy activists, killing four people, and the Campaign Against Arms…

The ‘Teutates’ agreement was signed by David Cameron and President Sarkozy in November and presented as an exercise in military economy. We were told that we and the French have similar needs in the ‘stewardship’ of our nuclear arsenals, and that sharing research facilities will save expensive duplication. What was not stressed was that this treaty commits both nations to undertake a 50-year programme of cooperation on nuclear weapons technology at a new hydrodynamics research facility known…

Even as the current US-led escalation in Afghanistan continues to shut-down the still-live option of a negotiated end to the war, a new report has confirmed that the US blocked Taliban efforts to reconcile with the Afghan government in the wake of the 2001 invasion – efforts that could have ended the current war eight years ago.

According to a recent paper for New York University’s Centre for International Cooperation, written by Kandahar-based researchers Felix Kuehn and Alex Strick…

You can’t fault David Cameron for honesty. The prime minister was blunt in his statement launching the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) on 19 October (12 years after the last such review).

Cameron said: “this review is about how we project power and influence in a rapidly changing world.” He went on: “Britain has punched above its weight in the world. And we should have no less ambition for our country in the decades to come.”

Missing: the public

…

The Nation, the United States’ leading left-liberal magazine, once said: “Not to have read Chomsky is to court genuine ignorance”. Rarely has this been more true than today.

With Hopes and Prospects, academic and activist Noam Chomsky has produced another indispensable critique, explaining the inner workings of world affairs.

The first half of the book is largely focused on Latin America, with updated and revised versions of lectures Chomsky gave in Chile and Venezuela in 2006…

The formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government as the result of the UK general election signals changes on several fronts, but no change on the war and peace agenda.

Afghanistan was barely mentioned by the major political parties during the election campaign because, despite overwhelming public opposition to current policies, the war is a consensus position. While Trident replacement was mentioned in the election campaign, it was as a financial and not…

“I don’t think the public are up for it any more. Everything has changed. We as a nation don’t want to send out soldiers anywhere” – former foreign office minister Kim Howells

Though the British government has run a highly successful propaganda campaign, significantly boosting support for the war amongst the British public, the recent media furore over British casualties has been causing concern in Washington.

Some anxiety

A senior US official told the Financial…

Professor Peter Hennessy is a tremendously well-connected insider, who has over the years lifted the lid on Whitehall in a way that no other historian has managed. His latest book Cabinets and the Bomb is perhaps the ultimate in revelation, in that it reproduces (photographically) top secret cabinet documents relating to the most sensitive topic in British politics: the British nuclear arsenal.

62 documents from 1940 to 2007 are presented (often in full), along with explanatory text,…

To mark his eightieth birthday The New Press have published a new selection of Noam Chomsky’s political and linguistic writings (The Essential Chomsky).

While some of the selections (which span almost five decades) would have to be included in any essential collection - the famous demolition of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour, or his reflections on the 1967 march on the Pentagon, where he was arrested for civil disobedience – there are also some surprising omissions, eg. his brilliant…

It is hard not to get carried away by the hysteria of Obamania.

Those wishing to keep a level head should certainly keep away from the mainstream media. Jonathan Freedland, writing about Barack Obama’s July speech in Berlin for the UK’s most progressive national newspaper the Guardian, breathlessly reported that the Democratic US presidential nominee “almost floated into view, walking to the podium on a raised, blue-carpeted runway as if he were somehow, magically, walking on…

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has sparked enormous enthusiasm throughout the world – and a fair amount back home in the United States – as a symbol of change. Many progressive-minded people are hoping that he will bring about genuine reform in domestic and foreign affairs.

Our opinion, to be blunt, is that Barack Obama is another Tony Blair.

It is difficult to remember at this point – steeped as we are in the blood and lies of the Iraq war – the excitement…

On 19 March, the British prime minister launched the much–delayed National Security Strategy (NSS) – to little enthusiasm. The Daily Telegraph (which accompanied its report with a picture from Dad's Army) described the document as "a disappointing damp squib".

The report says that Britain faces "diverse and interconnected" threats, including pandemic influenza, failed states, transnational crime, terrorism and the proliferation of WMD. These have "diverse and interconnected"…

Iran stands accused by the US of developing nuclear weapons, supporting global terrorism and insurgents and Afghanistan, and occasionally of suppressing democracy and human rights at home. How important are these in US policy do they genuinely drive Dick Cheney's manoeuvrings? What of Iran's new alliances with Russia and China, which have a significance far beyond Central Asia?
Iran's nuclear programme is a genuine source of concern, a potential threat to the aims of non-proliferation…

Once again, Britain is enduring terrorist attacks. Once again, the Prime Minister is denying obvious realities, flying in the face of a near-national consensus.

Now it is Gordon Brown claiming that the attacks in London and Glasgow happened “irrespective of Iraq, irrespective of Afghanistan”. Brown and his ministers are fully aware that this is not the judgement of Britain's counter-terrorism experts.

After the 7/7 London bombings, British police involved in…