By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 February 2023
A Prop of Autocracy and a Nest of Spies: The Russian Orthodox Church
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Tag Archives: Cold War
The Shah’s Perspective on the Islamic Revolution That Toppled Him
“Socialism With A Human Face” Was Always Impossible
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 21 August 2022
It was on this day in 1968, fifty-four years ago, that the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, one of its colonies in the “Warsaw Pact”, which had embarked on a program of liberalising reforms. The Czech leadership did not intend to depart from the socialist path, merely to soften its edges—and ran into the brute fact that this was not possible. Continue reading
The Unlearned Lesson of 7/7
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 July 2022
Getting Real About Pakistan After the Jihadist Takeover of Afghanistan
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 August 2021
Khalil Haqqani, a senior Taliban leader and simultaneously a leader of Al-Qaeda’s Haqqani Network, leads Friday prayers at the Pul-i-Khishti, the largest mosque in Kabul, 20 August 2021
When the Taliban swept into the capital of Afghanistan on Sunday, little of the coverage focused on Pakistan and yet that was where this victory was made. This is a pattern that has persisted throughout the war. Continue reading
Al-Qaeda Has Never Been More Dominated by States
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 11, 2020
In writing a chapter earlier this year about the current status of Al-Qaeda, part of the process was reviewing the organisation’s history since its formation in the late 1980s. What really struck me was how extensively Al-Qaeda is now manipulated, under the influence of, and in places even controlled by state powers. To mark the nineteenth anniversary of 9/11, I thought I could give a brief sketch of this development.
Turkey Increases the Pressure on the PKK Headquarters in Iraq
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 June 2020
Ismail Nazlikul (Kasim Engin) [image source]
The Soviets’ Bagman in Britain
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 February 2020
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (CPGB-ML) carrying banners and Stalin postsers at a May Day parade // May 2016
Jeremy Corbyn has been dogged throughout his time as leader of the British Labour Party by his associates. Having Seumas Milne, a believing Stalinist and general conspiracy theorist, as his spin-doctor and primary strategist is actually among the least disgraceful things about Corbyn. Corbyn was, despite later attempts at obfuscation, a vocal supporter of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Corbyn was paid £20,000 for pro-Iranian propaganda by the clerical regime. He laid a wreath honouring Black September, the deniable unit of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) responsible inter alia for the mutilation and murder of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972. Then there was Fidel Castro, HAMAS, Hizballah, and on and on.
Thus, when it was revealed, two years ago this month, that Corbyn supplied political and other intelligence to the secret police of Communist Czechoslovakia, it was unsurprising. Corbyn was known to have supported the Soviet side in the Cold War, from Castro’s Cuba to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; had he known of Soviet support to PIRA, it would not have turned him against them. So, it was all taken very much in stride. Putting aside the lament that it should have been a bigger scandal that the Leader of the Opposition was once an “operational contact” for the Soviet Bloc, it was an interesting look at how the Soviet Union, through its satellite states, sought to cultivate sympathisers and exert influence in Britain—and how little is known, even now, about the scale and success of such things.
Somebody who could have shed more light on this was Reuben Falber, a senior official of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and its key liaison with the KGB. When he died on 29 April 2006, he took most of his secrets with him. Still, what is known of Falber’s career gives some insight and such insights are by no means all retrospective. Continue reading
Britain’s Brexit Debate is Finally Over
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 15 December 2019
This article was published at QPosts
The victory of Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, and the crushing defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, is the beginning of the end of three years of turbulence in Britain. Continue reading
The Rearrangement of Northeastern Syria and Signs of Rifts in the PKK
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 18 November 2019
“SDF commander “General Mazlum Kobani” (the PKK executive official Ferhat Abdi Shahin) being interviewed by AFP in Hasaka city, 24 January 2019 [image source]
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