BRITISH DEVIOUSNESS

PETER KOENIG—The Houthis have made technological advances in building their own drones, missiles, and rockets. They have shown the Saudis that they have the precision and capacity to attack Saudi Arabian targets practically anywhere in the Saudi territory. This is impressive and surely may have had a crucial influence in this first step of a prisoner exchange; first step to what I hope will be a much more important goal – Peace.

JEAN SHAOUL—The UK has licensed more than £6.5 billion worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition in the five years since March 26, 2015, when the bombing began. This is likely an underestimate as many of the bombs, missiles, and aircraft components are licensed via the opaque and secretive Open Licence system that is “more flexible” than a standard licence and “avoids the need to apply for a new licence for every export.”

CALEB MAUPIN—Dispatch dateline October 2019 • Topics included:
The fake (synthetic) left destruction of real leftism in the developed world • Criticism of identity politics, LGBTQ, transgenderist idealism, etc.  • Deliberate “de-industrialisation in the developed world heartland • Dismantlement of the postwar “welfare state” in Europe, and rollback of worker gains in the US (the “Great American Middle Class”) • The imposition of austerity and unending war • Why bourgeois feminism leads nowhere •The century long campaign to defame the Soviet Union and J. Stalin • The accomplishments of socialism • Art & music under the Bolsheviks: it wasn’t the way the film Ninotchka presented it —and much more.

BEN NORTON—When internal emails were leaked showing that the massive opposition media platform Basma Syria was funded by the United States and Britain, Albany wrote, “the Basma brand has been compromised following leaks about funding project aims.”

The leaks on social media “have damaged the credibility and trustworthiness of the existing branded platform,” Albany wrote. “Credibility and trust are the key currencies of the activities envisaged and for this reason we consider it essential to refresh the approach if the content to be disseminated is to have effect.” The Basma website was taken down soon after.

CYNTHIA CHUNG—Although Bohr was the most outspoken on the subject, the reality was that the greater majority of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project were of a similar accord. From the first, discussions had been held between the scientists and the military as to the question of how long a lead time America would have. If the bomb could be kept secret for a number of years, it was the thinking among the military (excepting General Marshall) that there was no need to tell Russia. But if it could not be, and the scientists were agreed that it could not be, that the extremely dangerous matter of an arms race had to be faced.