Secret Affairs

While reading this book, I was cursing Britain all the time. They would not stop at nothing in order to keep their so called British Empire alive, they ruined the world and connived with the devil... they stepped on human lives, principles, countries, divided and thought they conquered, and the result is a continuous Indo-Pakistani conflict, problems in starving African countries, unstable Middle East with continuous bloodshed and wars, terrorists hitting and killing innocent human beings under the name of religion, and the culprit is they still continue to do it... Unfortunately, they taught the US to follow in their footsteps... and the name of the game was and still is: Oil, oil, oil, and the Suez Canal ... and so it goes

John Pilger once remarked that Mark Curtis is the most important British historian. I agree. And this book is a must if you want to understand how the Western politicians say one thing on tv and do other things with their 'intel agencies'. This book can help us stop the wars.

Brilliant book..A really enjoyable read, and quite easy to follow

The writer first hand information " British Archive " made the book most reliable since it deviated from personal opinion though he inserted his personal opinion but aftereffect.

Interesting!

Enlightening, informative.

Excellent!

Great read

As a student of the E. Mediterranean region since 1990 who has lived in three countries there, I found this new edition most interesting. A surprise was to learn that there was a 'covenant' between our security services and Islamic activists living in Britain, such that they did not cause damage here if we gave them comparatively free rein elsewhere. All in the interest of arms exports and oil imports of course, with Human Rights considerations lagging well behind.The author, who I heard give a talk in London in 2018, suggests our national interest was sometimes seen (by 'grey men'?) to be best served by keeping wars going (eg Syria), especially when we operate in our small way with the USA. Some in the Obama administration were obsessive about removing Bashir Assad, that son of London Medical Schools, which drove him to call Russia to his defence. In 2018 I watched our token effort at first hand at our Akrotiri air base in Cyprus when two fighters took off, reportedly to fire two missiles (only) from outside Syrian airspace. Good training?Among the aspects not reported (hence four stars), is the importance of Qatar's close relationships with the old British establishment, and their wish to finance a pipeline across Syria to export some of their massive volumes of natural gas to Europe via an E Med. terminal. It is not surprising that the Russians thought this might harm Gazprom's sales. A sort of precedent had been set with the BP-led oil pipeline built from Azeri Baku on the Caspian Sea to the Med. in Turkey.The Qataris were of course so kind as to rescue Barclays Bank in 2008, hugely unburdening the Treasury by so doing.It is not openly stated that BP remains effectively an implementer of foreign policy, despite its privatisation, and Lord Curzon's tiny Kuwaiti emirate out of which BP emerged has served Britain very well over the years, and certainly had to be defended when the intransigent Saddam Hussein refused to accept Production Sharing Agreements. A more recent national initiative detailed here was in Libya where the Anglo-Dutch 'Shell Group' had got in first with a deal signed in 2004, but BP/UK won in the end with a £15bn deal in 2007. Shell subsequently changed its name to 'Royal Dutch Shell' and established its head office in the Netherlands where its only AGMs are now held. Collateral damage perhaps.The author gives useful information that confirms the true nature of the Syrian 'moderates' (or the White Helmets 'NGO'), who were the basis of the so-called Free Syrian Army rebels, many of whom were extremists out of control, and being supplied with arms and training by Britain. The last words in the book are: '(British collusion) increased the terrorist threat in Britain and the world; a distinctly immoral aspect of foreign policy that has made Britain, the Middle East and much of the rest of the world deeply insecure.' That conclusion from a former RUSI Research Fellow. Brave!

The thousands of pieces of evidence that Curtis has amassed and structured into this remarkably coherent book, present a convincing picture of a country that has been (and continues to be) put at risk through the machinations of unseen and unaccountable people working for secret organisations, whose motives and strategies are as opaque as they are questionable. Yet, even if their purposes remain opaque, there has been an remarkable consistency in the nature of their plottings over the century since the break-up of the Turkish Ottoman empire and the establishment of the nations of the Middle East that were created largely by the British in pursuit of a "divide and rule" policy designed to retain control over the oil wealth in the region.Curtis presents clear evidence that throughout its post-colonial history, beginning even as far back as the 1920s, British governments and Civil Service have exploited Islam and Islamic fundamentalism for its own (obscure) purposes - from the establishment of the Saudi kingdom; the division of India in 1948 to create the strategically useful Muslim state of Pakistan; to the support of the Muslim Brotherhood during Nasser's control over Egypt; to the backing of both sides during the Israeli-Palestinian wars; to the active support of terrorists (including Bin Laden) during the Afghan-Russian war; to the support of KLA and other terrorists during the Bosnian and Kosovan wars. Even after the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, Britain continued to harbour known terrorists on its shores, giving them a safe-haven from American, French and other prosecutors.The other consistency in the story is that like the US in its terror campaigns against democratically elected popularist and nationalistic governments in Central and South America, Britain has consistently given support to brutal dictatorships in the Middle East and Asia and actively suppressed nationalist parties and organizations, and undermined popularly elected governments, at the cost of many hundreds of thousand (or, more likely, millions) of innocent lives. Presumably Britain's elite continues to pursue such policies, but since the secret services who mastermind such activities, do not publicise what they are doing or planning, and since British governments of every ilk seem to acquiesce unquestioningly in whatever MI6 and MI5 do in the name of "public service", it is unlikely that we will ever know what has been going on until it is too late.Curtis deserves the greatest credit for piecing together this immensely complex jigsaw of evidence. He also deserves credit for his bravery in publishing his findings. It's hard to imagine that there are not many people both within the British secret agencies and amongst the multitude of terrorist groups that he names, who would like to see him silenced. I urge everyone to read this book. It's not a pleasant read, but it's an essential one.I must now go on to read his earlier book ( Web Of Deceit: Britain's Real Foreign Policy: Britain's Real Role in the World ) to which he makes reference at several critical junctures in this more recent book. Web Of Deceit: Britain's Real Foreign Policy: Britain's Real Role in the World

Mark Curtis joins the dots in this forensic study of a perplexing and on-going matter of crucial importance to us all. We can do no better as mere members of the public than to follow his writings and those of his colleagues in the publications emanating from his organisation "Declassified". With both Labour and Tory revealed to be committed over the decades to a foreign policy dependent on oil and the proceeds of oil we are left with the seemingly overwhelming problem of what is to be done. With the parliamentary road blocked and complicit the path of direct action will undoubtedly be the focus of younger generations. The recent successful shut-down of the Israeli Arms Company "Elbit" in Oldham by the group Palestine Action is but one example. But as this book reveals there is inevitably a dark side that also emerges when trust is lost in our democratic leaders,police, military and political institutions. The Arms Industry and dependence on Oil and gas are driving Foreign and domestic policy in an age where Climate change and the disastrous human consequences of continuous war demand a rapid transition to a Green global Economy .

Mark Curtis continues to trawl through formerly secret or widely unknown official papers, and uses them to reconstruct a compelling picture of the way in which the British establishment has consistently acted through the years to protect what it sees to be its interest. This geopolitical "strategy" to use perhaps too polite a word, has had grave consequences for hundreds of thousands (actually probably rather millions) of citizens in other countries who arguably have had the chance for peace and security snatched away from them. This book is essential background reading on what is now happening in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and with ISIS etc, and to the present (continuing) political fixation on so called islamist terror.What would be interesting is to read the counter-arguments, if anyone is willing or able to articulate them, in a well researched and referenced study, arguing i.e. that this foreign policy has been successful and was the right approach at the time, and we are right to be continuing similar policy now, in light of the obvious consequences.(Web of Deceit and Unpeople are similarly enlightening and required reads).

This should be a wake-up call to every British subject! (I hesitate to use the word citizen). If half of what Mark Curtis has written is true then we are in real trouble. It least we can now understand why every Judeo-Christian value has been quenched from our society by those who, instead of representing us, have taken power over us and are using an ideological strategy that has been hidden for many years. Not any more. 911 and 7/7 are just the tip of an iceberg . . .Buy one for your own study shelf and buy a second to give away . . .