Barcelona are through to the Champions League final tonight after beating Chelsea. They were pretty fortunate, with Chelse having four very good penalty shouts, at least two of which looked 100% certain (and I am neither a Chelsea fan, nor English). That outweighed Barca being hard done by in the sending off.
But what is really disgusting is Barcelona’s relationship with the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan, one of the world’s most vicious dictatorships.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/03/unicef_must_bre.html
For selling itself as a propaganda tool for a fascist regime founded on child slavery, Barca has disgraced itself and football.
I can’t believe you are posting anything other than the announcement on your wedding day!!
Craig, if my wife was married to you, assult by IT hardware would not be confined to the No 10 Bunker. Now put it down, pick her up and draw a veil of decency over proceedings until 1200 tomorrow. The earth will still turn.
Can’t help feeling a little disillusioned that Craig is watching footy on his wedding night.
Nadira and the Champions League – what more can a man want? Managed to catch the odd stroke of Bopara’s century too 🙂
OK, that’s it for the night.
Ditto others here: oi! Put that bloody keyboard down and bugger off on a honeymoon. Us rowdy and impatient lot will keep for a week or two! :o)
PS I know next to nothing about football, so would someone like to explain to me what a penalty shout is? Do players get to harangue the ref, with the point allocated for the best abuse?
Jon: traditionally a “penalty shout” is to have reasonable cause for, or to make a case for, a penalty kick. As in “the lad had a good shout for a penalty there Brian, but the referee seems to have given a free-kick to Liverpool instead”.
In the modern game however your interpretation is regrettably rather closer to the truth.
Barcelona a “fascist” team?? For an former diplomat turned guru y0u talk pish, criag. As reported, I do find Barca liks with the Ukbekistan Regime distrurning, dissapointing – though i’d like to hear their ( President La Porta’s I guess) side of the story before rushing to judgement.
But firstly, however distasteful, Ubekistan is not a fascist regime, And Secondly signing a cemmercial development contact with one of its football teams, albeit a government front one, does not make Barca a fascist team.
And if you know anything asy all about barca history – which i presume you do, hence the slur – the fascist label is not only innaccurate but it is distasteful . Like “fascist Israel”, only worse, as israel at leat semi deserves the label – but still a label I’d avaoid applying for historical reasons, and also because there are dozens of other ways to make the same point about Isreal’s attrocities.
Just like Barca and this associotion with Ukbekistan you report. Now I know you resigned etc, but you did work there, took HMG’s money for a good while before you saw the light. Does this make you a fascist?
And it is you who make the point that what Barca is doing is akin to supporting the 1936 Olympics. Well that then makes USA, the UK, France indeed near half the globe at the time faccists – dont know why hitler bothered invading – he had already won in your eyes, by getting them to play ping pong
People, clubs, countries, are entitled to make errors, be seduced, mugged call it what you like, without being name called. And if the case is as black and white as you describe, Id put my faith in Barca’s 160,000 “socis” to put this right though campaigning and discourse, not inane and offensive name calling. But of couse they will be no more than 160,000 neo fascists in you eyes – aye, the sons and daughters of folks that really do know what it is like to live in a fascist regime – rather than just write a book about a two bit corrupt neo soviet statelet that you happened to be the UKs ambassador to for a few years.
On this one Craig, you have lost the plot – all sense of perpective – current or historical. Are you sure you’re not a Chelsea fan, or at least had a tenner on them?
Craig ?” here is an extract from the journalist, Maria Suurballe:-
“A 12 pages long secret “deed of settlement” between Chelsea FC, Manchester United, FC Lyn Oslo and John Obi Mikel was signed on 2 June 2006. The deal requires Chelsea to pay Manchester United GBP 12 million and Lyn GBP 4 million and to “forget” the case and keep quiet about what has been going on. But Manchester United had in fact already reported Chelsea to the police, to the Football Association (FA), UEFA, FIFA and the Norwegian Football Association (NFF).
All allegations and claims on behalf of Lyn and Manchester United were to be withdrawn after signing the document and thereby preventing further investigation from FIFA and the Police. In the deed’s article 11.2 the parties signed and promised that “Each of the Parties undertakes and warrants to the others that they shall not take any step to encourage any Football Authority or other statutory or judicial authority to investigate Mikel or his playing registration”. ”
Noting that a lot of the football stars originate in Africa and from the West Coast, it seems that there is a certain consistency here. Old Elizabeth 1, as Queen of England got in business with John Hawkins, the slave trader and kidnapped quite a few in the process. They made a mint out of the business, and it would be fair to say that Elizabeth 11 is sitting on the inheritance handed down from that lucre.
Your man Karimov, is functioning in a tradition of money being invested where it can realise its best returns. The source of the money, the nasty things that are done along the path to accumulation, the steps involved in making even more money ‘in the real world’ ( a phrase economists are fond of using) ?” really constitutes the world in which we live ?” if you think about it for a while. Not saying that it is all morally ‘right’ ?” but it is the process by which the money is made ?” from the days of Elizabeth 1 handing it right down to Elizabeth 11. Who knows, Karimov 1 may some day hand it all on to Karimov 11, if he does have such a successor.
You say, “… what is really disgusting is Barcelona’s relationship with the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan,… ”
The world is a fundamentally corrupt place when you think about it Craig and money runs seamlessly all over it ?” no borders really keep it out ?” not even out of England.
Craig,
opmoc – 7 May’09 – 05:01 – 4271 of 4271 edit
I Now No Longer Post My Heaviest Stuff in America
I post it in Russia
Judging by Craig Murrary’s email address that ends in .ru
I’m amazed that the people who attack him on his wedding day haven’t noticed.
Personally I have never sent him an email – and so far as I am aware he has never sent me one.
I have never even met him.
But his Courage Blows Me Away.
He Now Really Needs not to post anything whatsoever for at least 6 months.
If he continues he is likely to have another Nervous Breakdown
No Man Can Take Such Stress For Too Long
Craig – You Really Do Need To Retire For awhile
There is Just Too Much Passion Flowing From You
You Have Already Said and Done It All
Please Take a Break
I Really Love and Respect You
Love & Peace,
Tony
“People, clubs, countries, are entitled to make errors, be seduced, mugged call it what you like, without being name called.”
What is the name for these pricks who can sit by as all kinds of horrors unfold, but bristle with indignation when somebody uses language they are uncomfortable with.
These are the people who watch a couple fuck on the train, and then when they light a cigarette afterwards, lean over, cough, and point to the “No Smoking” sign. The gutless.
ayewecan,
I think fascist is a fair sshorthand for the Karimov regime. It is a totalitarian regime featurng extreme repression and a cult of personality around the leader, with a nationalist ideology based on a mythologised history. Sounds fascist to me.
Yes, my description of Barcelona as fascist was deliberately designed to be extremely insulting and wounding, to try to shock them into considering their alliance with the Karimov family. I really don’t understand what kind of explanation you feel they might make which would excuse them. Instead of writing to me, why dn’t you write to Barca abour it.
Tony – your posts really are getting a bit all over the place. I am taking some out.
@MJ – thanks! Thought perhaps it was a Craig typo for “shoot”. I am now enlightened :o)
Um, Tony – I presume you are based in the UK. I wouldn’t bother avoid posting political material in the US only to post it on Russian servers instead. In terms of surveillance and interference with free speech, the US may be a pseudo-democracy, but to be fair, it is a damn sight better than Russia!
In any case, you don’t escape the long arm of surveillance by posting to a different country. But it is reassuring that, for as corrosive and anti-libertarian as our govt and our political culture is, there are still only a few things we cannot say. For example no-one AFAIK is locked up for researching 9/11 theories, or propagating them – especially given the dire political situation in the US in which 30% of Americans believe in some govt involvement.
By The Way, Why Do You Post Using Title Case? It Is Quite Distracting To Read! ;o)
huh?
Oh for goodness sake! Stop bleating like a lot of panicky sheep. If you don’t want your expressed opinions to put you potentially under surveillance, get off the internet. There’s nothing private about it, or about any other form of communication in these days of universal snooping, official and otherwise.
In the 1960s, when I was Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society which worked to decriminalise private consenting behaviour in acoordance with the Wolfenden recommendations, I knew perfectly well that both my office and home telephones were tapped, and probably my personal letters opened as well. I had to decide whether to modify what I chose to say in the light of this, and did not do so.
Ever since, I have regarded all forms of communication, however ostensibly private and confidential, as public address systems and I act on the principle that if anyone is foolish enough to think my utterances are worth monitoring, I wish them joy.
Is there any other attitude for a self-respecting British citizen to take?
anticant: “In the 1960s, when I was Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society”
Haha. Did a bit of googling and now I know your real name.
By the way, Skype’s internet phone and instant messaging system is so secure the security services hate it because they can’t crack it. Download the software and sign up at http://www.skype.com.
OK. I don’t mind that. But I blog as a private individual, not because of who I am or what I did. And my blogging name reflects my blogging stance; plenty of grist for that mill!
“I blog as a private individual”
Understood of course. My point really was to demonstrate the truth of your own post regarding the privacy of communications. The internet is a great thing – one of the few genuine victories for liberty in modern times – but we must expect to sacrifice our privacy and anonimity in return.
Anticant, hope your ‘panicky sheep’ message is not aimed at me – it would be totally unfair if that was. I am perfectly aware of the privacy situation, hence my explaining it to Tony, who seemed to think that posting to a Russian server put him at risk of less surveillance.
I take a similar position to you in that I expect all my electronic communications to be monitored, though we differ in that I regard the ordinary people who undertake it as contributors to the road to fascism, and joy is not amongst the things I would wish upon them. I see the increased surveillance as of the same piece as dodgy dossiers, illegal wars and support for awful regimes – so I accept it as a fact of life for the time being, but still register my distaste for it, and hope that one day the worst of it may be dismantled. Starting with f*cking ID cards (excuse my French).
@MJ – Skype is a bloody good bit of software, and in fact since it works on a peer-to-peer system (voice data for all subscribers goes through intermediate subscribers) it *has* to be encrypted, else everyone could eavesdrop on each other! Unfortunately I know about two people on Skype, but VOIP will increase in popularity in the future, I hope.
Jon: yes Skype is great, very secure, not to mention free. A rather reassuring article about its security algorithms and how the intelligence services don’t like it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/a9hn2n
Nothing personal intended, Jon – I was just making the general point that if we are worried about being identified with our views we’d better not blog.
And I entirely agree with you about the ‘useful idiots’ without whom no totalitarian or semi-totalitarian system could function. My basic objection to censorship has always been ‘who ARE these people who think they are entitled to snoop on me?’ What I meant by ‘wishing them joy’ was ‘more fool they’.
I used to have a frightfully nosy neighbour who made it his business to know everyone else’s business – or thought he did: I was careful not to let him know what I didn’t want him to know about me! He came from South Africa, and I suspect he had been a BOSS informer in apartheid days.
The internet is an unintentional victory for liberty – I’m sure the American military who developed it didn’t intend it that way, and governments around the globe (including our own) are itching to tame it. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
@MJ – the only trouble is that it is closed-source software, so any independent verification of its security is not possible. Also the article makes the good point that national secret services may try purchasing a compromised security framework in Skype from eBay. Ultimately, non-proprietary solutions will be a better as “coder corruption” will be too visible to be viable, but Skype is not bad in the interim.
@anticant – thanks for the clarification. On the internet, it is a wonderful irony that a system initially lauded by the US govt as a command and control system for nuclear weapons would turn out to be a democratising force that opposes the ideology that drove it. Bless those hawks, for they have done us a smashing favour ;o)
“Also the article makes the good point that national secret services may try purchasing a compromised security framework in Skype from eBay”
True, but it also makes the point that the system as it is can’t be compromised because the algorithm changes automatically every day so even ebay can’t penetrate it. This is the great advantage of closed-source encrytion software.
Things may change of course but as you say Skpe’s pretty good in the meantime.
It would be interesting to know how much the Spanish public does know about the Uzbek regime. I suspect we in the UK know a lot more simply because of Craig.
I think Bar