A Legacy of Spies

[gary webb]

Since the topic of the Cold War has come up today, and having just finished Le Carre's new novel, I am struck by a fragment of Smiley's at the end of the book: 

"If I had an unattainable ideal, it was leading Europe out of her darkness towards a new age of reason. I still have it." 

It might be wishful thinking on the part of the author to impart such noble aims to the whim of a spymaster and his/her ilk, and if the resultant forces of the Cold War, currently manifest, ie the collapse of the Soviet Union (which the the intelligence services of the West hadn’t the foresight to predict), the arming of militants in the Middle East (the Soviet Afghan war, and the chaos sowed by a civil war and a brutal religious extremist government run from Karachi, giving safe haven to Arab fighters and financiers), the rise European Union and its expansion to the East, and the rise of the Russian Federation and its expansion to the West... 

Most alarming, is the political fragmentation in the West, and the emergence of Authoritarianism, and the legitimacy of far right groups. While these groups have always been part of the political discussion, as far as the US is concerned (these groups have been in European politics much longer), since the Civil Rights movement picked up steam in the early decades after WWII, have they had such a vested interest in the presidency. Yes, there was Nixon and Regan, both courted these groups with a wink and nudge, both were instrumental in the mass incarceration, but never played into overtly racist politics. Trump unambiguously plays the race card, and his followers eat it up. This may be a natural culmination of American racial politics, but it’s uniquely Trump. 

This might be the logical result of our intelligence services rubbing shoulders with far right groups, and military dictators, all over the world when the was even a hint of the dreaded “social revolution” ... 

The consequence of these decisions have had major consequences, just look to Iran if anyone needs an example of a US-UK op, initially thought to be successful until the Shah was run out of the Country in the 70s... 

The reverberations the Iran Coup in the 50s was successful in preventing Communism, or a Soviet Satellite in Persia, but results in the Iranian Revolution, and the Islamic Republic, and the Iran- US Cold War which has been apart of our strategic thinking now for almost 40 years, with no sign of abatement... 


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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l