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Abstract
The advent of the War on Terror has seen intelligence agencies emerge out of the shadows to become major political players. 'Rendition', untrammelled surveillance, torture and detention without trial are now fast becoming the norm. Spies, Lies and the War on Terror traces the transformation of intelligence from a tool for law enforcement to a means of avoiding the law - both national and international.
The new culture of victimhood in the US and among partners in the 'coalition of the willing' has crushed domestic liberties and formed a global network of extra-legal licence. State and corporate interests are increasingly fused in the new business of privatising fear. Todd & Bloch argue that the bureaucracy and narrow political goals surrounding intelligence actually have the potential to increase the terrorist threat.
This lively and shocking account is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the new power of intelligence.
Paul Todd is a historian of the Cold War specialising in Middle East issues. He is the author of Global Intelligence: The World's Secret Services Today (Zed 2003).
Jonathan Bloch is a co-authored British Intelligence and Covert Action and KGB/CIA, Global Intelligence: The World's Secret Services Today (Zed 2003).
Patrick Fitzgerald was a journalist and researcher who wrote extensively on intelligence and national security for The New Statesman, The Economist, New Scientist, Tribune and other publications.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| About the Authors | ii | ||
| Acronyms and abbreviations | vii | ||
| Introduction | The sleep of reason | 1 | ||
| Perpetual war | 2 | ||
| The new absolutism | 3 | ||
| 1 | Intelligence and Islamism | 8 | ||
| Islamism and the Cold War | 8 | ||
| Blowback from the Balkans: al-Qaeda in Europe | 15 | ||
| The new doctrine of international community | 20 | ||
| Kosovo: the London connection | 22 | ||
| Pakistan, the ISI and the troubled partnership against terror | 26 | ||
| Iran–Contra redux: promoting the ‘arc of moderation' | 34 | ||
| 2 | Faith and lies | 41 | ||
| A convenient truth: the ‘state of war’ and mass mobilization | 41 | ||
| Spinning the war: the Rumsfeld legacy | 46 | ||
| ‘Leveraging the private sector’: the rise of the think-tanks | 54 | ||
| Spinning the peace: the threat of ‘revisionist history’ | 57 | ||
| ‘Creating message authority’: the coalition of the willing | 62 | ||
| ‘A core military competency’ | 66 | ||
| 3 | Spies, ‘enemy combatants’ and the long war | 68 | ||
| The new exceptionalism: pre-emptive war and global doctrine | 68 | ||
| The unipolar moment | 74 | ||
| ‘Unwarranted influence’: the rise and rise of the Pentagon | 77 | ||
| Presidential power and ‘all necessary and appropriate force' | 81 | ||
| The battle in Congress: the McCain amendment and ‘implicit legal consent’ | 83 | ||
| Bugging wars, data-mining and ‘Total Information Awareness’ | 86 | ||
| The dark glass – the Pentagon and ‘shaping the future’ | 90 | ||
| 4 | Liberty: the casualty of lies | 93 | ||
| ‘Shoulder to shoulder’: the UK and the retreat from civil liberties | 93 | ||
| Ducking the ECHR: control orders and ‘reasonable suspicion’ | 97 | ||
| Appropriate guarantees and ‘practices well below the line’ | 100 | ||
| From Wood Green to Washington: Colin Powell and the phantom ricin | 103 | ||
| A corporate media strategy: the press, the Met and ‘Scotland Yard sources’ | 106 | ||
| Renditions, ghost flights and a ‘shadow system of justice’ | 109 | ||
| Blair, ‘belief’ and the dilemmas of a pillion passenger | 114 | ||
| 5 | Europe and the War on Terror | 120 | ||
| Framing the threat | 120 | ||
| The European response: enter NATO, the ‘liaison game’ and the bilateral conundrum | 128 | ||
| The European Union and the G6 | 133 | ||
| The mésentente cordiale | 140 | ||
| EU decision-making | 144 | ||
| The EU intelligence system | 146 | ||
| Policy laundering and the proliferation of databases | 153 | ||
| Conclusion | Illiberal democracy and ‘manufactured risk’ | 165 | ||
| Notes | 171 | ||
| Introduction | 171 | ||
| Chapter 1 | 171 | ||
| Chapter 2 | 177 | ||
| Chapter 3 | 182 | ||
| Chapter 4 | 187 | ||
| Chapter 5 | 190 | ||
| Conclusion | 196 | ||
| Select bibliography | 197 | ||
| Books | 197 | ||
| Official reports and papers | 199 | ||
| Other reports and papers | 200 | ||
| Index | 202 |