command

Resistance – The Essence of the Islamist Revolution is Alistair Crooke’s survey of modern Islamist thought. It would be clearer to say it is a couple of books occupying the same space; one would be a history of Islamist thought since the origins of the Iranian Revolution, with a polemic for greater understanding of such…

Read More Review: Alistair Crooke, “Resistance: the essence of the Islamist revolution”

25 years ago today I was a three year old boy, living in a village in the Yorkshire Dales, from where you could see the golfball aerials at the NSA’s Menwith Hill base. Later, people I knew well would protest it for ages, and a man who was supposedly an engineer for LockMart there lived…

Read More Petrov Day

“Sir” Ian Blair addresses the troops: “Our approach will be one of humility. On 22nd July 2005, we confidently believed that our systems of command, of surveillance and of firearms intervention were among the best in the world. However, they failed in response to a previously unforeseen circumstance, suicide bombers on the run.” Well, it’s…

Read More Sir Ian Blair, Sir Ian Blair! The Lord save me from Sir Ian Blair!

OK, so I was wanting to know about that Hezbollah WiMAX net. The original source of the story appears to be this Time report: Although Hizballah is known for its massive Iran-funded social welfare system that provides everything from soup to education, construction materials and matchmaking services for Lebanon’s Shi’ite underclass, cell-phone service is not…

Read More It’s good to talk

So we had the world’s first military coup motivated by a 3G network licence, in Thailand; we had the shootout between the Chalabi Boys and Orascom security men in Baghdad. Now, there’s the Hezbollah/Amal coup de force (or de folie as Robert Fisk preferred), motivated in part by the Lebanese government’s desire to control their…

Read More scaleydelic!

J.D> Henderson chez Intel Dump writes that General Abizaid should be relieved of his command. But first, he says, he respects Abizaid for the courage he showed in his past career. Fair enough. But there is some historical evidence that extremely brave generals are a bad idea. Consider the British experience – we brought several…

Read More Bravery doesn’t exclude stupidity