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Peter Oborne

Forfatter af The Triumph of the Political Class

15 Works 318 Members 1 Review

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Peter Oborne, author of The Rise of Political Lying and Not The Chilcot Report, analyses Trump's incendiary presence in all its bewildering guises, and shows how this fusion of entertainment and cunningly crafted propaganda has destabilized the world's most powerful democracy.

Includes the name: Peter Oborne

Værker af Peter Oborne

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Kanonisk navn
Oborne, Peter
Juridisk navn
Oborne, Peter Alan
Fødselsdato
1957-07-11
Køn
male
Nationalitet
UK
Fødested
Poole, Dorset, England, UK
Uddannelse
Cambridge University (Christ's College)
Sherborne School, Dorset, England, UK
Erhverv
journalist
writer
Kort biografi
Peter Oborne is a British journalist and author, with several books on diverse subjects to his credit. His latest work, ''Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan'' (2014) is in the process of release soon.

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http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2676566.html

[review written before the Chilcot report came out - in the event it was much stronger than Oborne anticipated]

In Not the Chilcot Report, Peter Oborne gives a succinct and passionate analysis of the evidence presented to the Chilcot Inquiry, which is now expected to report in July. His findings won't surprise anyonewho has kept their eyes open. Tony Blair and his government lied about what intelligence reports said about the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (my former colleague Carne Ross is quoted at length). Published intelligence dossiers were manipulated to support the case for war, which legally was pretty much non-existent. I slightly differ from Oborne on the flexibility of the French position immediately pre-war - my recollection of a conversation with a senior French diplomat at the time is that Chirac seemed pretty rigid. But otherwise it seems pretty sound to me.

Oborne makes several further interesting points which I don't think I'd seen before. He asserts that the British army basically got its ass kicked in both Basra and Helmand, Afghanistan, for the sake of helping the Americans who as it turned out didn't really want to be helped; that MI5 accurately foresaw that one inevitable result of war in Iraq would be increased homegrown Islamic radicalisation; and that although Blair is probably guilty of war crimes for waging a war of aggression, the fact is that the UK's veto on the UN Security Council will ensure that he remains safe from prosecution.

He starts and finishes very gloomily. He does not expect the Chilcot report, which apparently runs to over 2 million words, to land any punches, which is why he has written his own analysis of the evidence presented to it. He sees the current UK government as fully on board with the neoconservative project (and repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Libya). Meanwhile the intelligence services have been subverted to the will of the executive, which retains and exploits the monarchical powers acquired by Britain's unwritten constitution.

What's particularly interesting is that Oborne is no leftie. He's the former chief political commentator of the Telegraph, from which post he spectacularly resigned last year, and is associate editor of the Spectator and writes a column for the Daily Mail. I'm well aware of his rabid Euroscepticism and other off-the-wall right-wing views. Yet in this book he refrains from Labour bashing - in fact he has nothing but good things to say of the Labour left-wingers who criticised the rush to war (though omits the Lib Dems who also got it right). If anything that rather strengthens the case he makes. We'll see what Chilcot has to say.
… (mere)
 
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nwhyte | Aug 22, 2016 |

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Værker
15
Medlemmer
318
Popularitet
#74,348
Vurdering
4.2
Anmeldelser
1
ISBN
30

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