Radio War Nerd #339 — Turkish Invasion of Cyprus, Part 2: Independence (1960 - 1973)
Recorded: July 21, 2022
"If two fish are fighting in the water, an Englishman was there"
In part 2 of our series on Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus (part 1: EP #337), we start with the sham independence constitution forced on Cyprus by the departing Brits ensuring sectarian strife and British bases in perpetuity...and we end on the eve of Turkey's 1974 invasion, with Kissinger nearly blowing up the planet, and the CIA convinced that Britain's new prime minister is a Kremlin-controlled asset.
Listen to Part 1 in our Turkish Invasion of Cyprus series (EP #337)
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Total time: 1:57:08
Comments (13)
John and Mark, have you guys ever looked into the Colin Wallace story? He was British intelligence officer in Northern Ireland and was involved in the Harold Wilson situation. Also funnily enough, this is a quote from MI5 officer Peter Wright speaking on N. Ireland: “It reminded me a lot of Cyprus. A fierce, insoluble conflict, made worse by a vacillating British policy.”
Great episode. My grandfather immigrated from Greece after world war 2 but was so angry at the us support of the junta that he renounced his us citizenship.
Another nice episode guys.
Aris was informed and his comments multi-stranded. By comparison you have simplicity and certainty. We can take our pick, then, can't we?
OK, they aren't providing a running commentary (altho' Mark comments on Twitter all the time). But check the previous outing (13 July): superb and informative interview with Ben Aris, reaching the parts most commentating from whatever viewpoint do not reach.
Ben Aris was pretty good last year on the gas politics and economics, but his recent comments lacked insight and imagination I thought. Chinese factories will be making anything the Russians can't make themselves in no time, IP be damned. What can the west do? Sanction China, wreck the western economies and empty western stores of most manufactured goods? Never say never, but it won't qualitatively change things and if there's one thing 2008/2009 taught us is that Chinas economy is highly resilient to global economic shocks.
Listening to them "potter away" about things like Cyprus and the Italian Wars is why most people sign up to the war history podcast.
I’m really disappointed with Radio war nerds coverage of Ukraine in what is probably the most geopolitically important war since Vietnam (most important ever if it actually ends in nuclear conflagration). War nerds coverage has trailed off in recent months despite the scope and stakes increasing, the conflict intensifying and the scale of casualties mounting. Unusually for radio war nerd, other than your interview with Seth harp, your coverage on this conflict has not been particularly insightful in the first place, being overly reliant upon western mainstream media (MSM) and security establishment sources who are all lying on a scale I have never witnessed in my life, a point John Pilger also made in a recent interview. Yes, there is Russian propaganda too, but because the scale of the obvious lying is heavily asymmetrical towards the western MSM, the truth probably lies somewhere much closer to the Russian version of events. You don’t have to lie so much when you’re winning so heavily. My apologies for being so blunt. Perhaps most listeners are happy enough with your pottering away about Cyprus and the Italian wars. I just see radio war nerds considerable expertise and intellect not being applied in any major way to the geopolitically most important conflict of the last 50 years - which is happening right now! Missed opportunity in my opinion. You’re also missing a trick by not interviewing Scott Ritter. Even if you vehemently disagree with him, he’s got considerable relevant expertise and is one of the very few people in the establishment who swam against the tide in trying to prevent the war in Iraq, at great personal cost.
The invasion of Ukraine isn't going to escalate into nuclear war, don't be silly... The whole reason why Ukraine will never be allowed to actually join NATO in the first place is in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust. Anyway, I'm really not sure what you want RWN to do that they aren't already. When they've found journalists who have real insight into what's going on, they interview them for the show, but by and large the reality is that it's almost impossible to learn what's actually going on.
There's endless discussion in the U.S. about Hitler and how crazy he was and why he was so crazy, etc., etc., and yet zero self-awareness that all these Angloid leaders (I would argue) from Churchill to Truman to Nixon to Thatcher to Reagan to both Bushes were basically psychotic invalids incapable of rational thought, propped up almost purely by capital and the voting polity's ambient racial animus.
Happy birthday! Can’t wait for that Turkey series!
"Once you've been to Cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands."—Anthony Bourdain
Happy late birthday Mr. Nerd