I may be just one man and his battered keyboard, but something I have brought to light about Buckingham, Spicer, Usmanov or some other creep has evidently struck home because the Sunday Times has run a character assassination piece on me yet again!
This time I merit a page and a bit in one of their pullouts, and a big picture from which they have very kindly airbrushed the wrinkles, presumably to make me more plausible as the dangerous Lothario they are portraying. To be attacked for antiquated attitudes to women by Murdoch, with his page 3 girls and Jordan/Katie Price industry, is vaguely amusing.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4794188.ece
Ms Bowditch, the journalist, was quite pleasant, but kept asking me questions about my love life. For her to write that sex is never far from my mind is a bit rich. Actually it is quite often far from my mind, but not when people ask me repeated questions about it. It is difficult for anything to be far from your mind in those circumstances.
Ms Bowditch came determined to quiz me on and write about my love life. It is ludicrous hypocrisy to do that and then shed crocodile tears that my love life detracts from more important issues in Uzbekistan. I think that there is a simple test of how genuine the Sunday Times is on this:
Question: How many times this century has the Sunday Times sent a correspondent to Uzbekistan?
Answer: Nil
Question: How many serious articles has the Sunday Times written on Uzbekistan other than attacks on me?
Answer: Nil
I was actually thinking it wasn't too bad as these things go, until I read the last sentence: "what seems much sadder is that the plight of the torture victims of Uzbekistan has been submerged in the same sleaze".
What an utterly utterly stupid and mindlessly banal thing to say. And that's being charitable. Maybe she's self-aware and is deliberately being as vicious and evil as Murdoch himself.
What kills me is that this reptile probably really thinks she has a sympathy with the suffering of the victims of torture, and being so stupid she can't join the dots, is blissfully unaware of her own small role within the torture and propaganda system.
I say, keep the "sleaze" up, it's what keeps you and thus the issue on the mainstream media radar at all.
Hah! Antiquated views? Like 'torture is a bad idea'?
Don't despair, Craig: I think you're seeing it far too negatively. If you can drag readers in with the promise of sex and sleaze, but then tell them what's going on in Uzbekistan, that's not a bad thing, surely? The 'Concerned Liberal' contingent (like me) have probably already read 'Murder in Samarkand', so how about a new edition with a really sleazy cover, to attract in the Sun/Times/NewsOfTheScrews congingent?
NoJags
good plan!
The 'Have your say' on the article is not much use since it only allows 60 characters! I put one on anyway.
Strategist, I thought the last paragraph was ironic considering she was perpetuating that sleaze with all her colleagues who seem more interested in peoples personal lives than human rights issues. Still, what else can we expect from one of Murdochs minions.
I made the comment that we had to get down to the 8th paragraph before the torture in Uzbekistan was mentioned, and if I had more than 60 characters would have pointed out that the U.K. was complicit not only 'in his eyes' but in the eyes of International Law and the U.N. Charter, (Jack Straws pet lawyers notwithstanding)
As for Craigs preoccupation with sex, I have to say that I bet I'm worse for that vice. Like most of these articles, it was written so that the most revealing parts were later on in the article, meaning that for those short of time or without the requisite attention span, they may have been missed.
Also, the article was written in such a way as to at least partially dismiss Craigs credibility, mostly on the grounds that he's a sleazebag. Yet when the equivalent Government scumbag utters their bland lies, there is barely a ripple of dissent.
A load of stinking shit from a snide, amoral, complicit Murdoch reptile (60 characters)
Dear Craig,
I have been following your courageous, humorous and adventurous career for some time.
Just to express all my solidarity and admiration.
Miguel Martinez
Florence, Italy
Here's my take on the Times article. Murder in Samarkand arrived via Amazon yesterday. I read the first couple of chapters last night, was gripped by the story and thought 'I wonder what happened to him' (i.e. you).
Have spent the last hour or so Googling, so now I know. Maybe the 'sordidness' wasn't 'self generated', but I can see what the Times are getting at.
What I can't understand is this. As a career diplomat, you must have realised that the F&CO ignores the abuse of human rights in many of the countries in which it operates. It has to, otherwise we'd have virtually no presence in developing countries and emerging economies. Your paymaster wasn't and isn't in the human rights business. If it was, we'd withdraw our Ambassador to China. Plus our High Commissioners (always strikes me as a very undiplomatic job title!) in most African countries.
The job which you'd accepted, and for which you received the vast expenses/allowances which, amongst other things, keep our public schools in business , wasn't to act as Amnesty International's emissary to Uzbekistan. It was to represent British interests overseas.
Seems to me that a. you realised this rather too late and b. the whiskey/women thing doesn't exactly help.
Most of the comments here seem to be entirely uncritical. I wonder whether this will be published.
While I'm at it, I completely agree with you that the attack on Iraq was a disaster. The motives were completely unrelated to the terrorist attacks in Kenya, and New York and probably caused the attacks in London. The operations in Afghanistan are also pointless.
If you want to wage war on terrorists, you don't do so using conventional forces. You use their own methods: the ground war in Vietnam was similarly misconceived. This is basic game theory.
The only hope of closing down terrorist networks lies in playing the game. You have to subvert and use covert tactics. Including, probably, torture and assasination.
Innocent people get horribly hurt in the process, but far fewer – as you Iraq body count meter suggests – than if you use the wrong tactics.
Am I wrong? I worry very much that I might be. It's a nasty old world out there: the older I get, the nastier it seems.
'playing their game', I meant.