Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest The British military has used or threatened to use military force […]
Topic: Vietnam
by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 16 November 2022 There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show. During its war in Vietnam in […]
By Mark Curtis Declassified UK, 2 May 2020 The UK government’s failure to provide protective equipment to all health staff treating coronavirus victims prompts questions whether ministers are legally culpable for failing to prevent deaths. But UK ministers routinely act with impunity and every prime minister since 1945 has been complicit in deaths abroad. At […]
Articles 1945 ‘Britain’s secret wars’ (Ian Cobain, Guardian, 8 September 2016) US war, 1960/70s Mark Curtis, The US war in Vietnam, 1961-73 (Extract from Unpeople, 2004) ‘Britain’s secret Vietnam war missions‘ (Times, 2 February 2019) ‘The British Royal Air Force: Operations over Laos against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 1962‘ (Priscilla Roberts, Cold War International History […]
It is delightful to see Labour voters defy the establishment by finally electing a leader on the centre ground of British thinking. Opinion polls suggest that Jeremy Corbyn’s policies of nationalising the railways, energy companies and Royal Mail, along with opposition to the Iraq war and British intervention in the Middle East are all supported […]
By Mark Curtis An edited extract from Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses The declassified British files on the Vietnam war are little short of a revelation. They show that Britain totally backed the US at virtually every stage of military escalation, and also played its own important secret role in the war. During the […]
Britain complicit in the deaths of ten million people since 1945. Those are Unpeople – those whose lives are seen as expendable in the pursuit of Britain’s economic and political goals. Historian Mark Curtis pieces together the Blair government’s “public deception campaign” on Iraq and reveals government plans to increase “information operations” directed towards the […]
Britain’s secret support for US aggression: The Vietnam war By Mark Curtis March 03, 2006 The myth has long been promoted that Britain refused to send troops to the Vietnam war and played little role in it. The declassified British government files on the war are therefore little short of a revelation, showing that Britain […]
by Mark Curtis Guardian, 26 October 2004 The redeployment of British forces in Iraq to support a US assault on Falluja marks another stage in a creeping return to the colonial era, when popular revolts against occupation were routinely suppressed by overwhelming force. These past episodes, revealed in declassified British government files, provide numerous parallels with […]