Peter Dale Scott

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Peter Dale Scott, 2007

Peter Dale Scott (born January 11, 1929 in Montreal ) is a Canadian political scientist , English scholar , non-fiction author, poet and former diplomat. He was Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley , until his retirement in 1994.

Life

Scott is the son of the Canadian poet and constitutional lawyer F. R. Scott . Peter Dale Scott graduated from McGill University in Montreal, where he earned degrees in philosophy and politics. From 1950 to 1952 he studied at Oxford . In 1955 he received a Ph.D. from McGill University. in politics. The topic of his dissertation was The Social and Political Ideas of TS Eliot .

From 1957 to 1961 he worked in the diplomatic service , including at the Canadian embassy in Poland. From 1961 he was employed at the University of California at Berkeley, first as an assistant and associate professor , then from 1980 as a professor.

Scott is a poem writer in which he a. a. processed political issues. In 2002 he received the Lannan Poetry Award .

Positions and Theories

As the author of political non-fiction books , Scott dealt with numerous aspects of US politics , especially US foreign policy , in a very critical way. In this context, he created the terms deep politics and parapolitics , which he regards as helpful or essential for understanding certain political processes.

The theory of "depth politics"

In the deep policy is intertwined, public control inaccessible structures inside and outside the state apparatus, the processes set of historical importance in motion. This presupposes the endeavor of societies to suppress certain facets of politics in their own country . This applies, for example, to the circumstances that led to the Vietnam War , as well as the assassination of US President John F. Kennedys , two events which, according to Scott, are closely linked. With regard to the 1963 assassination attempt on Kennedy , Scott primarily investigated the contacts between the Mafia and certain individuals from the CIA and FBI .

"Parapolitics"

Based on this, at the decision-making level, parapolitics refers to the systematic or in individual cases practiced fading out of rational criteria, which, however, does not require conscious decision-making processes. Scott is primarily concerned with methods of covert operations in the United States abroad. a. the thesis that these developed a momentum of their own that would negatively influence US politics itself. People and currents who tried to instrumentalize the USA for their purposes turned out to be less controllable than expected and, on the other hand, showed themselves to be able to exert a negative or undesirable influence on US politics (see also Blowback ).

Criticism of concepts of US foreign policy

According to Scott, the war on drugs is also a pretext to operate the military-industrial complex and secure the strategic supply of oil from Latin America , especially from Colombia , by military means. Scott sees this pattern as given in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s . Scott's central themes include the proven cooperation of the CIA with drug producers and traffickers in Central America , the Golden Triangle and Afghanistan , which he documented primarily in his book Cocaine Politics .

This promotion of international drug trafficking to secure oil supplies is also important for Scott in view of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . Scott highlights the cooperation between Al-Qaeda and the US during the Afghan Civil War . The group was therefore used for the purpose of US interests in Central Asia ; Afghan heroin was used to finance it . According to Scott, al-Qaeda members were also supported by the United States in the war in Kosovo . Today the region fulfills the function of a transit area for drug transfers as well as an oil pipeline that is important for the West .

bibliography

  • The American deep state. Wall Street, Big Oil, and the attack on US democracy. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD et al. 2015, ISBN 978-1-4422-1424-8 .
  • The War Conspiracy. JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. Skyhorse Publishing, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-62636-095-2 .
  • American War machine. Deep politics, the CIA global drug connection, and the road to Afghanistan. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD 2010, ISBN 978-0-7425-5594-5 .
  • The War Conspiracy: The secret road to the second Indochina war. Bobbs-Merrill, 1972, OCLC 463008388
  • Disease of Crime: Punishment or Treatment? Royal Soc. of Medicine, 1972, ISBN 0-9501555-3-5 .
  • The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond. 1976, ISBN 0-394-40107-7 .
  • Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection. 1977, ISBN 0-87867-066-1 .
  • with Jonathan Marshall and Jane Haapiseva-Hunter: The Iran-Contra Connection. 1987, ISBN 0-89608-291-1 .
  • with Jonathan Marshall: Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. 1998, ISBN 0-520-21449-8 .
  • Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. 1993, ISBN 0-520-20519-7 .
  • Crossing Borders: Selected Shorter Poems , 1994, ISBN 0-8112-1284-X .
  • Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, ISBN 0-7425-2522-8 .
  • with David Ray Griffin (Ed.): 9/11 and American Empire. Intellectuals Speak Out. Olive Branch Press, 2006, ISBN 1-56656-659-2 .
  • The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America. Univ. of California Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-23773-5 .

His most important volumes of poetry are the three volumes of the “Seculum” trilogy:

A mail exchange with the poet and singer friend Leonard Cohen from 2016 is printed in his posthumously published book (p. 203 f.):

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ peterdalescott.net: CV , accessed February 11, 2010.
  2. ↑ Lannan Foundation: Poetry Awards by Last Name ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lannan.org
  3. ↑ Interview with Peter Dale Scott

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Scott, Peter Dale
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian author, diplomat and English scholar
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Montreal