Spinwatch has just published my latest profile piece, on the Euston Manifesto group. I doubt the broad thrust of it will come as a huge surprise to anyone.
It looks at the group's connections with American social networks around the (apparently now defunct) Social Democrats USA and the National Endowment for Democracy, two organisations which played a part in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Some more strands in this particular web were highlighted in a recent post from the Yorkshire Ranter:
You may recall that the famous document that
was meant to show Iraq buying uranium from Niger originated with the
Italian secret service, and then appeared in yer dossier, just in time
for the Americans to start using it in public speeches. It has long
been suspected that the meeting in Rome was somehow involved in this
exercise in policy-laundering, or rather bullshit-laundering. So how
did the thing get from Italy to the UK? Well, there was Harold Rhode,
also at the meeting, who made it to the December 2002 Iraqi opposition
conference in London. That may give us some idea. Now that's what I
call the exigencies of the service – you've got to meet gems like
Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, Chalabi, and Nick bleeding Cohen, plus every other Decent out of hospital at the time. It's hell in the diplomatic, as Harry Flashman so wisely said. (Selling the Dummy)
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