If I pretended I wasn’t nervous about my appearance before the parliamentary committee today I would be lying. Little patches of moisture appear briefly on the keys as I hit them, then evaporate.
I am nervous not for myself, but in case I fluff this real opportunity to redeem something of the honour of our country, and to end this barbarous collusion with torture. If I had the chance to speak uninterrupted for ten minutes, I am sure I could make an impact. But I am limited to short answers to questions from the committee.
You will be able to see this on live webcast here at 1.45 BST today.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/VideoPlayer.aspx?meetingId=3978
If anyone knows how to capture this for podcast or youtube or anything…
It was good to shake your hand, Craig, (I passed on Brian Haw’s best wishes), and to be present at this significant event.
You did very well, and I too think a number of the committee were significantly taken aback by some of the facts you laid before them.
Very well done!
I saw the broadcast on the internet and thought you handled it pretty well, seeing that New Labour must surely have worked overtime behind the scenes to prevent it happening. Nice going!
From the BBC report :
“The British government, including the intelligence and security agencies, never uses torture for any purpose, including obtaining information. Nor would we instigate others to do so.”
.
.
.
Note the use of the word ‘instigate’.
Further to my comments above.
Regarding the controversy between “accepting torture material on a limited basis to prevent an atrocity and accepting it in a systemic way”:
This is moot.
You (and others) made it amply clear that such information, as derived from torture, is of no value because it is mostly false. Its only value being to subjugate a resistant population to regimes of tyranny. But even this has been proven ineffective, as confirmed by the battles of Algiers, Palestine, Afghanistan, or Iraq.
The argument that torture could actually yield actionable intelligence is only made by the thugs who wish to justify torture, and instil a regime of terror in the hearts of ordinary civilians, whether at home or abroad.
Under no circumstances should torture be excused under the rules of a civilized world. Not even for that hypothetical bomb in parliament.
And by the way, someone aught to tell the committee that if there ever was a bomb placed in the British Parliament, you are likely to find the culprits closer to home, rather than in far off Uzbakistan.
Just remind the honourable committee of NATO false flag terrorism in Europe (Gladio), London 7/7, NYC 9/11, and the Bali bombings. All were inside-jobs, involving “Western Intelligence” services. (Documentaries for all these crimes are easily available on the web, and I have tried to document some of these facts on my site.)
lesage
(France)
Great to see this being covered by the BBC !! The truth will set you free !!
Craig,
I have the video (MP4) and the audio MP3 from the session saved. Contact me and I’ll give you a URL for downloading both of them.
Craig,
I have just sat through your committee evidence (via you-tube).
Stirring, thought-provoking and damning stuff against the current torture policy.
Great work Sir, you are a real credit to our country and the world.
If I ever meet you, the drinks will be on me.
Tony
Thanks for putting that up. Just watched it all.
Craig
You must be very pleased with how it went. You got all your points across in the most reasonable way and carefully avoided the few minor provocations thrown at you.
Nice one on “ask Thatcher”. That stumped them. “She’s very old!”. Pathetic.
Well done Craig, I watched it live (in between my wife nagging me to go shopping with her) and I was blown away. If you were nervous you didn’t show it and you presented your evidence in a calm, concise way. Don’t give up, people like you are the true heroes of this world and our grandchildren will owe you a debt, whether they realise it or not.
Bravo Monsieur, bravo! Milky bars all round. Vote quick, vote often. Well done again.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/support-the-PM/
And lesage, “Under no circumstances should torture be excused under the rules of a civilized world. Not even for that hypothetical bomb in parliament.
And by the way, someone aught to tell the committee that if there ever was a bomb placed in the British Parliament, you are likely to find the culprits closer to home, rather than in far off Uzbakistan”: if there really were a bomb in Parliament, given the present mood of the country, most people would stand back and cheer.
Jon 5.27 – cheers man. Timpson’s a fake – I used to foster kids for 7 years, he thinks it’s a good gig. The MOD has been woefully underfunded and yet they have chosen to spend money on attack rather than research. I dunno – i’m 34 now and really believe research wins every time – always prepare, always, always, always, always etc.
High politics man. You’ve done well. Unlike the crapulent, truculent & indolent peer review session. Have a good summer bud & hope the house move went well & shit. Been too busy hanging about Guido and shit.
Craig Murray rocks !!!
Sterling work Mr Murray – One of you is worth a hundred of the chinless wonders they have in Parliament at the moment.
Cheers Tony for the YouTube vids.
Numbering is a bit strange and (1 of 8) and I couldn’t find 4 of 7. May I suggest a whole upload to google video?
Not seen them yet, but all the same, well done Craig and all who helped alert the press and gave their support to Craig.
McKelvie!
I didn’t see the popular angle to it all.
I could not understand how such eloquent gentlemen of the committee on human rights could seriously entertain torture even if only but to avert a deserving bust-up by an outraged general public.
In other words they said: Torture is ok if it protects our good parliamentary asses.
And saying this to the whole wide world, as they did in their polite society say Lady Thatcher was too old to be of relevance.
Brilliant, Craig. I just watched all seven “episodes” on YouTube. I was delighted to see how calm and unflustered you remained, no matter how you felt inside. Very well done. I wish the world had more Craig Murrays!
Did I not read that Lady Tatcher is suffering from dementia.
http://tinyurl.com/c3j4ky
lwtc247,
Google video has terminated its upload service.
All the videos are linked together by video responses – so click on the the video response icon if you want to see the next in sequence.
Craig Murray – Torture 1 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI
Craig Murray – Torture 2 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG4ey3GtbP8
Craig Murray – Torture 3 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4dy9NFL4F4
Craig Murray – Torture 4 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHog8VDyKQ
Craig Murray – Torture 5 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS18Y2hgxh4
Craig Murray – Torture 6 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCxqp6Cz7Yg
Craig Murray – Torture 7 of 7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rta-xvwuanU
Philippe Sands – Torture 1 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caBB3PUnzQc
Philippe Sands – Torture 2 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzAJ2XGndPY
Philippe Sands – Torture 3 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv2TJKd3pnA
Philippe Sands – Torture 4 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3k7nbUKrak
Philippe Sands – Torture 5 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKbrf-dwNfs
Philippe Sands – Torture 6 of 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIv25cPLd-E
Have just watched it all.
Congratulations, an excellent and difficult job very well done.
Maybe, just maybe, your honour, integrity and courage will inspire or shame others to step forward.
I bought your book whilst watching, hope the royalty covers a celebratory wee dram.
Thanks also to tony for posting it, live streams not possible on the west coast.
Tony, good job. As a side option you could upload the file to Rapidshare.com and then others could download it in one piece. Free at both ends and no registration required..
YouTube alternatives: http://chaos-laboratory.com/2007/08/30/top-31-free-alternatives-to-youtube-video-hosting-sites/
Craig,
you were magnificent, absolutely amazing! I am so proud of you and thanks for being the first brave person to stand up and be counted…
I was motivated to post this on Youtube after reading Craig’s book Murder in Samarkand.
I had originally intended to turn up at the meeting.
As strange as it may seem I had never before posted anyone elses video on youtube – and only found out how to capture the video from the parliament website about 30 minutes before it started.
I then directly uploaded the whole 57 min thing only for Youtube to reject it after around 2 hours.
I then had to convert it to another format so I could chop it up into < 10 minute chunks.
So why did I bother?
Well Craig Murray is a courageous breath of fresh air amongst a US/UK political system that has stunk to high heaven for the last 10 years or more.
Change only happens slowly and incrementally – by people such as Craig standing up against such terror.
One of the questions to Craig today was how come – you are the only high profile person to stand up to this torture and complain?
The person who asked that question should have asked it of himself. Or is he just too blind and stupid to see?
I am completely ashamed of my Country, its Government, its Civil Servants and its media for not standing up against such evil.
It is not O.K. to torture people and it is not O.K. to invade other countries to kill and maim millions of innocent people in order to steal their oil.
How can people live with their conscience when they are complicit in such terror?
There is no excuse. The World is not running out of energy. There are solutions to all the World’s problems that do not mean inflicting mass genocide on innocent people.
Tony
Craig,
An outstanding performance, considering the lines of the questioning adopted by the freaky Dr. Death (Evan Harris, shame on Lib Dems, shame on them), and fact that his facial expressions; wide eyed gazes into the unknown, and distorted features, searching out the words escaping him, were enough to get anyone rolling around with laughter, and or be phased out (depending on your sense of humour), which never affected you only goes to prove how well FCO train their staff, and what good student you ought to have been.
However, the quality of your evidence patently befuddle the excusers of torture, and sponsors of hate for humanity, and human beings. Whilst clearly conveying the depth of depravity that evidently has come to be “group depravity” in these days of group think, for all and sundry from without the group.
Well done again, and remember lies only enslave, and reduce the human beings to hairless ape status, and fact that you were in the very cage of the hairless apes without much trepidation and fear, only proves that your truth has set you free to transcend the primitive hairless apes you were interacting with.
Liberals would do well to dispense with the ex South African Dr. Death, despite their low numbers. Fact an MD regardless of his junior rank status, still can somehow defend torturers, and excuse torture, only proves the supremacist streak that can never be too deeply disguised, and sooner than later the ugly truth will out.
Finally the weak proposition forwarded by the members of the committee with respect to; Falklands, information, and torture, as well as old Thatcher, as ever highlighted the most infantile methods of seeking to garner support for the indefensible, and absurd. To find such juvenile attempts in justification of torture, we clearly can discern the degrees of unreason and chaos that the current batch of “Parliamentarians” have helped to bring about, whereupon our “values” are justifying little bit of torture, for the sake of preserving “our way of life”.
Mary,
you are correct in your assumption, do a search on google, the freaky doctor is not popular, even among his peers, either, in fact he is the poster boy, or is that the epitome of Zionism/Supremacy some would says.
Anticant,
your generalisation of the Muslims, and projection of your “standards” on the society which you evidently wish to live in, smack of racist overtones, regardless of how many of those “Muslims” you may know, and be friends with. Trouble is, in your mind you have no idea that if it were not for Muslims, you most probably were still runing around in goat skins, and chasing rabbits for dinner. However, as you know fully well Al-Gebra or is that Algebra rots the brain, and has nothing to do with Muslims, and their way of life. There again we have always been at war with Oceania, erm … , Muslims, have we not?
Tony,
Thanks, for posting the videos.
Craig
Thank you. Thank you. Your courage and honourable tenacity in the face of evil, duplicity and intransigence and, as we saw today, seriously sadistic semantics deserves great praise.
As you and the Prof pointed out, there are probably many who’d come forward if they weren’t so intimidated. After all, the people they’re scared of are the ones who sanction torture – and they have many and devious ways of torturing.
And thanks to Tony for capturing and uploading to You Tube.
Sam
Well done, Craig.
And well done Mary …
This is what Craig was standing against today.
Summayah
BY KHALIL
when the dark of evening came,
you began your reign of bombs on our ancient land
and against the fires of anti-aircraft guns
i cradled my summayah in my arms,
and I vowed to you,
oh, enemy of the sun,
we will resist.
your blue black bombs fell as
you came to our lands proclaiming
“all aggression must end!”
but it was you who created these nation states,
and for what reasons were our lands divided at your conference tables?
who was it that cut up our peoples into artificial boundaries?
who separated brothers, uncles and cousins?
before your coming we did not know such worlds.
did you not know?
that at the end of my day,
summayah would run to the gate and jump into my arms?
ahmad.
summayah loved her uncle, ahmad.
before the torturers trained at fort bragg, north carolina
disappeared him for one year.
before the electric prods
before the pulling of nails from fingers
drove him insane.
she loved ahmad.
now he sits in the sun
everyday.
listen, enemy of the sun,
there are those of us who have read and studied
those of us, who know who underdeveloped africa,
the middle east,
asia,
the pacific,
and the americas.
summayah would have been six in a month.
and she had asked me to buy her a blue bicycle.
listen, enemy of the sun,
be I left childless,
be i a grave digger,
be I chisling stone markers
i will rise,
you may delay us,
but you cannot stop us.
today, we are burying summayah.
no one speaks.
this is the new world order.
STOP, enemy of the sun!
do not tell me of your democracy,
do not speak of humanitarianism
oh, enemy of the sun,
if you continue to tell me these lies
I will tell you of the middle passage,
i will tell you of your wounded knee,
i will tell you of your trail of tears,
i will tell you of hiroshima,
I will tell you of chile,
i will tell you of grenada,
i will tell you of panama,
i will tell you of my iraq,
i will tell you of my summayah.
but, for the peoples of the world,
i would like to imagine my grand-daughter describing summayah’s laughter
filling clear air, and playing in open fields.
in writing the setting
she will point to these summayahs looking to the skies:
the skies will be blue, clear and bright.
and our summayahs will taste the scent of wildflowers
blossomings.
COPIED FROM POET’S BASEMENT COUNTERPUNCH
Well done Craig. And thanks to Tony for putting this up on YouTube – a great service.
I note the BBC web report picked up all your carefully crafted and expertly inserted soundbites, so well done!
HappyClappy, some very good thoughts.
Others not.
Check out AntiCant’s own website for a start.
“However, as you know fully well Al-Gebra or is that Algebra rots the brain, and has nothing to do with Muslims, and their way of life.”
That was facile and incorrect even as a jibe.
Moral of the story?
Don’t do a black and white unless you are sure the black is black and the white is white.
Anything otherwise taints us all.
I am sure Anti can look after himself – many years on the exec of the NCCL will have given him a thick skin – but he doesn’t need un-neccessary shit from those who don’t do their research on these matters.
Yes – “racist” is the classic knee-jerk leftie boo-word. Islam is a religion and a culture, not a race. It has little, if anything, in common with a modern, rational view of life. Incidentally, I am genetically 25 percent. Arab.
I suppose people of your mindless stripe would accuse people who opposed Nazism of being racially anti-German?
Craig, I watched your performance yesterday with great admiration. You were calm, dignified, reasonable, and convincing. I am sure the committee was impressed. It must have felt very lonely being all on your own in that front row.
The only time I was in a similar situation I had others with me and knew that the chair [Renee Short] was friendly. But it was still a daunting experience.
Congratulations on an important job well done.