Did the UK and France get around the Missile Technology Control Regime in order to sell Saudi Arabia the Stormshadow air-launched cruise missile just by draining off some of the fuel to get the range under a key number? This should probably get more publicity than it has.
Read More at last, a post with rocketsI’ve finally got around to reading Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban and Descent into Chaos. They are as good as everyone says. Specifically, there are perhaps three things that set Rashid apart as a writer on Central Asia. (His contacts book is outstanding, but then, he’s not the only one.) First of all, he writes about Central…
Read More writing about Afghanistan, rather than about Brunssum or QatarJamie Kenny watches the Lebanese elections and asks if the Saudis could spend so much money on British politics. The answer is simple: they already have. Consider the original Al-Yamamah contract, and the famous National Audit Office report that was shown to two MPs and then buried for good. We’re still not trusted to see…
Read More MoneyYou think things were bad in Pakistan? Think again; if Dawn‘s sources are worth anything, it’s now the policy of the British government, in the person of David Miliband, to get behind Nawaz Sharif and the Saudi lobby in Pakistani politics. We warned you; it looks like they’re heading for a kind of negative excellence…
Read More I got the poison! I got the remedy!The Obscurer is usually Blairite Pravda, but now and then it does something worth reading. Have a read of this story. One Anthony Bailey, a rich PR man, is apparently running a Labour Party entity called the “Faith Task Force” charged with raising donations from the rich and religious. What is fascinating is exactly what…
Read More Money doesn’t talk – it swears. In LatinVia Pat Lang’s, the American Enterprise Institute’s plan for yet another atttempt to secure Baghdad. You won’t be very surprised to learn that neither Lang, nor I, think very much of it. Peter Kagan’s strategy – a PowerPoint presentation, natch – is risible. The first and most basic fault is the frantic insistence on victory,…
Read More The generals bow to the government: they’re tired of the truthWell, where to start with my utter rage at the kiboshed Al-Yamamah investigation? It’s a total map of state direness, New Labour subtype: we have hypocrisy, we have a good day to bury bad news, we have cash, we have Lord Goldsmith, the professional get out of jail card himself. Obviously, this being a blog,…
Read More You’ve been bought and paid, you’re a whore and a slaveWithin months of the invasion of Iraq, Saudi Arabian sources began hinting at a contingency plan to obtain nuclear weapons from Pakistan. Now, some more. I’m not sure whether to take The Business seriously, but they seem to have been briefed in some detail: Western and Middle Eastern sources have told this magazine that, if…
Read More Saudi Nuclear WatchSo Mike Turner, CEO of BAE SYSTEMS, and friends are moaning about being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over the Al-Yamamah kickbacks. They are claiming that thousands of jobs are at stake if the Saudis pull out of their order for Eurofighters, and therefore the government ought to quietly call off the SFO and…
Read More Don’t throw me into that…Apparently the alternative to the Baker commission/TYR solution in Iraq – get the fuck out under a negotiated settlement with Iran – that the White House is floating is a “tilt to the Shia and Kurdish 80 per cent. I find it a little hard to work out how we are meant to tilt to…
Read More Pinball Wizard