Order the autumn edition here

"I failed to stop the Iraq war"

Av John Y. Jones
THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL: Katharine Gun leaked information about the NSA's request to the British intelligence service GCHQ to spy on members of the UN Security Council in connection with the planned invasion of Iraq.

One January day in 2003, an e-mail came to linguist Katharine Gun (b. 1974) from the United Kingdom Signal Intelligence Agency (GCHQ) in Cheltenham. She was a translator and expert in Mandarin Chinese. The text was a request from NSA in the United States to the British for help in spying on members of the UN Security Council. What the sheet did on her desk, she does not know to this day. Maybe it was from someone who hoped that Katharine would pass on the information?

As the host country of the UN, the United States was required by law not to monitor the Security Council. . .

Dear reader.
To continue reading, create a new free reader account with your email,
or logg inn if you have done it before. (click on forgotten password if you have not received it by email already).
Select if necessary Subscription (69kr)

John Y. Jones
Cand. Philol, freelance journalist affiliated with MODERN TIMES

MODERN TIMES's latest book reviews:

Siste artikler

ASIA: "We are the ones who are far away, while they are in the center"

TECHNOLOGY: According to Kevin Kelly, technology writer, photographer and publicist, the best thing you can do sometimes is slow down technology.

Two girls with clasped hands stare expressionlessly at the ground

AFGHANISTAN: Sangin – during twenty years of war, this area has been the bloodiest battlefield. It is reminiscent of Roman ruins. In 2001, one in three Afghans was starving – now one in two is starving.

Dialogue between sculpture and photography

DISPLAY: Peter Lindbergh's photographs of Alberto Giacometti's small, secret sculptures – put together in an exhibition: Showing intimacy is a challenge. You come as a visitor, an intruder…

The danger of modified nature

ECOLOGY:With technological measures in all directions, researchers are faced with sky-high challenges. One of them is human ignorance linked to indifference.

To modernize an entire continent

PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE: The tendency of Latin American writers to focus on a better future is part of the region's renewed self-awareness – and modernization with free abortion and new constitutions.

The effort in ORIENTERING contributed to a turning point in the Norwegian labor movement

Sigurd Evensmo <7b> Journalist in the Arbeiderpressen from 1930 to 1949 in recent years as cultural editor of Arbeiderbladet.

A gigantic loss project

THE DISCLOSURES: For 20 years, US authorities lied about the war in Afghanistan.

Hitler's favorite director Leni Riefenstahl

FALSE OF HISTORY? Nina Gladitz challenges the notion that Leni Riefenstahl was an ingenious artist with poor political views. Her documentary about the filmmaker has been hidden in the German WDR archive since 1982. The reactions to Gladitz's book also show how difficult it is to seek truth and give the weakest in society a voice.

Challenging climate sobriety

ECOLOGY: We need such voices as Holly Jean Buck, who criticizes wishful thinking – precisely to help bring forward a hopeful, serious and long-lasting climate fight, beyond all easy optimism.

The comprehensive self-insulation

COVID19: SARS in 2003, bird flu in 2005, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, combined with the financial crisis, massive refugee flows, and revolutions in the Middle East and Greta Thunberg's shrill doomsday voice, had largely immunized the population against something as abstract as Covid19.

We call it precariat

WORK: Precarious working life is perhaps alluring with its freedom and flexibility. But with the precarious also comes the uncontrollable, the unpredictability and the lack of rights. Precarious work has become widespread in a subject such as journalism. Nevertheless, I am still tempted by the flexible tasks, by the sense of variability, freedom almost.

An ever-creeping feeling of loneliness

INSULATION: Acute loneliness affects both winners and losers. Daniel Schreiber visits a wealth of hermit literature – such as Thoreau's Walden and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. But what does social withdrawal mean today – whether it is the occupational or pandemic condition?
- Advertisement -spot_img

You may also likeRelated
Recommended

Freedom, equality and sisterhood

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: With topics such as forced marriage, child marriage, rape and honor killings, Professor Unni Wikan has studied people all her life, but not least – the Muslim. She has had to avoid that.

"Stink journalism" against whistleblowers

JOURNALISM: Professor Gisle Selnes writes that Harald Stanghelle's article in Aftenposten on 23 February 2020 "looks like a statement of support, [but] lies as a framework around the aggravated attack on Assange". He is right. But has Aftenposten always had this relationship with whistleblowers, as in the case of Edward Snowden?

Silently disciplining research

PRIO: Many who question the legitimacy of the US wars seem to be pressured by research and media institutions. An example here is the Institute for Peace Research (PRIO), which has had researchers who have historically been critical of any war of aggression – who have hardly belonged to the close friends of nuclear weapons.

The war reporter close to the truth

PORTRAIT FILM: War Reporter Robert Fisk has the courage to monitor and challenge. He is known for reporting from the front lines in violation of the official line of politicians and authorities.

Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

© MODERN TIMES & Orientering AS Dronningensgt. 16, 0152 Oslo Chief editor: Truls Lie

Newsletters