Happy New Year!
The “Christmas Surprise” that wasn’t It’s 2020, and after a long hiatus (caused in part by physical ailments, sigh!) I’m starting to post here again. I started the year off with a bang by posting a story on January 1…
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
Uncategorized
Sierras Interregnum – Tahoma, CA
To Gary Snyder, who lives just down the road from here on San Juan Ridge, about 75 miles as the crows fly: Walking tonight, high Sierra: 2/3 moon on right, bright Jupiter on left. Wind the only sound. Reports of…
Limbaugh, Find yourself another country to be part of
My tweet of the day @timothys: Rush Limbaugh calls the first black man elected president “boy.” To the racist white man, America is always Mississippi, circa 1962. (Thanks to the late, great Phil Ochs for the song).
Kwangju Declassified: CIA on Park, June 1979
This CIA report, dated June 1979, was probably written as background material for President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 visit to Seoul. It was obtained by Tim Shorrock under the Freedom of Information Act in 2006; the initial FOIA request to the…
Remembering Hurricane Katrina
Covering Hurricane Katrina was one of the hardest assignments in my 30 years in journalism. I wrote this story after spending two grueling days walking through the Lower Ninth Ward, accompanying families who were coming back there for the first…
Echoes of Cold War past in torture report
My latest published piece, from the London Guardian (go there for all the links). Hidden deep in the CIA Inspector General report on the Bush/Cheney torture regime are references to interrogations and torture in Vietnam and Central America. Plus: How…
SPIES FOR HIRE reviewed in New Zealand
My book, SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, was just reviewed in Converge, the publication of the Anti-Bases Campaign, the largest peace group in New Zealand. That country is home to several important U.S. intelligence installations that…
Coming soon to this space…
To my readers: the hiatus is winding down. Postings will come shortly in sudden bursts. Many stories to tell and follow, starting with articles on the U.S. involvement in the suppression of the 1980 Kwangju Uprising – widely known in…
Easter Sunrise Service, Occupied Tokyo
This picture was taken in 1948 by my father, Rev. Hallam C. Shorrock, Jr., during an Easter sunrise service in Tokyo sponsored by the U.S. occupation army of Japan. General Douglas MacArthur, who ran the occupation for the Truman administration,…
Only the shadow knows
Since coming to office, the Obama administration has launched an aggressive campaign to change the basic tenets of government contracting. In February, for example, Obama introduced a set of “reforms” designed to reduce state spending on private sector providers…
Katrina story drives traffic up 400%
My posting last night about the FBI infiltration of Common Ground, the New Orleans-based humanitarian/solidarity organization, drove traffic up on my website from about 60 hits a day on January 6 to more than 550 on the 7th. Most of…
FBI spied on Katrina activists
In 2005 I spent nearly six weeks in New Orleans writing about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Common Ground collective, an amazing group of street and health-care activists who came together to provide solidarity and humanitarian support to…
Happy Holidays!
To all my readers, whether you’re a friend, colleague, comrade, fan of my book, intelligence officer, contractor or “government employee,” I hope you have a wonderful holiday and that 2009 brings you (and the rest of the world) some peace…
“The Whore Factor”
Your’s truly is quoted in Rolling Stone, by the magazine’s political reporter Matt Tabibi. Even stranger, however, is the fact that [John] Brennan used to head the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, or INSA, in independent nonprofit “research center” which…
Peace sign
Sign posted outside of Rare Earth Gallery, Embudo, New Mexico, on the low road between Santa Fe and Taos, November 29, 2008.
Happy Halloween!
Tiny Town, near Madrid, New Mexico, September 2008, along the Turquoise Trail from Albuquerque to Santa Fe.
Instant Karma
Exhibit Hall, GEOINT 2007, San Antonio, October 2007.
On vacation…back in a few
Meanwhile, take a listen to the great Hawaiian slack key guitarist Ledward Kaapana. Heard him play with 12-string master Mike Kaawa in San Francisco the other night and was blown away by their artistry and sense of humor. Catch them…
Amazing! Music and peace in Pyongyang
Lorin Maazel, the director of the New York Philharmonic, presented a bouquet to a performer in Pyongyang (Chang W. Lee/NY Times) More here, here and here. Great shots of the Philharmonic’s visit here. Timely analysis of U.S. ties with the…
USA! USA!
“The beauty of this country is that someone who makes a statement and disrupts a public meeting won’t be taken out and shot.” — Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, after an antiwar protestor from Code Pink was removed from a…
Repression, from Birmingham to Gaza
Birmingham 1963 Gaza 2008 AP: Egyptian security personnel use a water cannon to disperse Palestinian women, supporters of Hamas, during a demonstration at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008. Hundreds of Palestinian…
Christian diplomacy in North Korea
From Hankyoreh, via H.K. Suh in DC: “Imagine an American Christian rock band going to North Korea, a country accused of being one of the most oppressed in terms of religious freedom, and not only performing a Christian hymn but…
Bush and Kim, Peacemakers
Bruce Cumings, the nation’s foremost historian of US-Korean relations, analyzes the Bush administration’s recent deal with Kim Jong Il: “Bizarre events may well place Bush and ‘evildoer’ Kim Jong Il side by side as peacemakers. If so, all well and…