The documents I obtained under the Freedon of Information Act yesterday are irrefutable evidence that Jack Straw lied to the parliamentary inquiry into extraordinary rendition. This is what Straw said:
I set out the British Government’s position on this issue on a number of occasions, including in evidence both here and to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I wrote a pretty detailed letter to a constituent of mine back in June, setting out our position. As I said there, there are no circumstances in which British officials use torture, nor any question of the British Government seeking to justify the use of torture. Again, the British Government, including the terrorist and security agencies, has never used torture for any purpose including for information, nor would we instigate or connive with others in doing so. People have to make their own judgment whether they think I am being accurate or not.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmfaff/573/5102405.htm
Yet all the time he had been personally directing a secret policy of using, justifying and conniving with torture, as these documents prove. I provide here a brief transcript with notes for those having difficulty understanding Civil Service jargon. :Deletions are by government censors.
My notes are in bold.
TRANSCRIPT
Classification redacted
From: Linda Duffield (Director, Wider Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
Date: 10 March 2003
Reference: 1
To PUS (Permanent Under Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Michael Jay now Lord Jay)
cc: (Sir) Michael Wood, Legal Adviser
Matthew Kidd (Position redacted – representing MI6)
SUBJECT: UZBEKISTAN; INTELLIGENCE POSSIBLY OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE
1. Michael Wood, Matthew Kidd and I had a meeting with Craig Murray (Me, British Ambassador to Tashkent) to discuss his telegram (Tashkent Telno Misc 01). (Detail of telegram deleted. In it I complained that we regularly receive material from the CIA, got from the Uzbek secret services, obtained by torture.) I said you had asked me to discuss this with Craig personally in view of the sensitive nature of the issues involved.
2. Craig said his concerns had been prompted by a presentation to the Uzbek authorities by Professor Korff (OSCE Adviser) on the UN Convention on Torture. Craig said that his understanding was that it was also an offence under the Convention to receive or to possess information obtained under torture. He asked for clarification on this. Michael Wood replied that he did not believe that possession of information was in itself an offence, but undertook to re-read the Convention and to ensure that Craig had a reply on this particular point.
3. I gave Craig a copy of your revised draft telegram (attached) and took him through this. I said that he was right to raise with you and Ministers (Jack Straw) his concerns about important legal and moral issues. We took these very seriously and gave a great deal of thought to such issues ourselves. There were difficult ethical and moral issues involved and at times difficult judgements had to be made weighing one clutch of “moral issues” against another. It was not always easy for people in post (embassies) to see and appreciate the broader picture, eg piecing together intelligence material from different sources in the global fight against terrorism. But that did not mean we took their concerns any less lightly.
4. (Whole paragraph deleted – this may have related to my querying of the accuracy of the CIA torture material).
5. After Michael Wood and Matthew Kidd had left, Craig and I had a general discussion about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan and the difficulties of pushing for a Resolution in Geneva, which we both agreed was important. (Section about US administation supporting Karimov in UN deleted)
CONCLUSION
6. In conclusion, Craig said that he was grateful for the decision to discuss these issues with me personally. At the end of the day he accepted, as a public servant, that these were decisions for Ministers to take, whether he agreed with them or not. If it ever reached the stage where he could not accept such a decision, then the right thing to do would be to request a move. But he was certainly not there yet. He had fed in his views. You and Ministers had decided how to handle this question. He accepted that and would now go back to Tashkent and “Get on with the job”.
7. I think it was right to see him. I am not sure this is the end of the issue (or correspondence), but it was a frank and amicable discussion and Craig appears to be making efforts to balance his work on human rights with other FCO objectives. We shall, of course, be reviewing these again once he has produced his post objectives for the upcoming year.
Signed
Linda Duffield
Director Wider Europe
Then Comes the Endorsement from Jack Straw:
Linda Duffield
UZBEKISTAN
Last night the Foreign Secretary (Jack Straw) read a copy of your minute of 10 March reporting your conversation (in the company of Michael Wood and Matthew Kidd) with Craig Murray.
The Foregin Secretary agrees with the PUS that you handled this very well. He has asked me to thank you.
Signed
Simon McDonald
(Assistant Private Secretary to Jack Straw)
Does anybody wish to now argue that Jack Straw told parliament the truth when he said two years later – when asked specifically about my account that hese events had happened –
It is Mr Murray’s opinion. Mr Murray, as you may know, stood in my constituency. He got fewer votes than the British National Party, and notwithstanding the fact that he assured the widest possible audience within the constituency to his views about use of torture. I set out the British Government’s position on this issue on a number of occasions, including in evidence both here and to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I wrote a pretty detailed letter to a constituent of mine back in June, setting out our position. As I said there, there are no circumstances in which British officials use torture, nor any question of the British Government seeking to justify the use of torture. Again, the British Government, including the terrorist and security agencies, has never used torture for any purpose including for information, nor would we instigate or connive with others in doing so. People have to make their own judgment whether they think I am being accurate or not.
I have highlighted the bits that are plain lies to parliament in view of the above.
Any argument?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmfaff/573/5102405.htm
Perhaps my grasp of English is inadequate, but I do not see Jack Straw being forced to resign his seat in Parliament on the basis of Paragraph 3 of the above-quoted memo from Linda Duffield to PUS.
The wording seems hopelessly (and no doubt deliberately) vague with little meaning for the average person, and thus of little significance either legally or politically. No wonder Straw congratulated the author.
However, it seems to me that Jack Straw’s statement to Parliament that
“… the British Government, including the terrorist and security agencies, has never used torture for any purpose including for information, nor would we instigate or connive with others in doing so.”
is demonstrably false, on two grounds.
First, the numerous reports of torture by British forces in Iraq (e.g., http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/6567529/Iraq-Investigation-into-new-claims-of-torture-by-British-soldiers.html) appear to refute the claim; although I suppose no investigation has been conducted or would be tolerated that established direct government responsibility for such acts.
Second, and more significantly, if connivance means “to give aid to wrongdoing by forbearing to act or speak,” Straw’s statement appears demonstrably false.
I believe that your campaign against torture and connivance at torture, based on your personal knowledge of torture in Uzbekistan is much to be admired. Yet it seems pointless to bemoan the cost to your career. The issue was whether you wished to pursue your career by compromising your moral standards or uphold your beliefs at a personal cost. You did the latter, as many might not have. Well done. Now the thing is to make the best of your present situation, which is most easily done without regret for past decisions that, given your personality and the circumstances (i.e., crooked lying bastard as Foreign Secretary, etc.), were inevitable.
“December 2002 visit”
“With regard to torture, the State Department cited the Uzbek
government’s “adequate cooperation” with the U.N. Special
Rapporteur on Torture Theo van Boven during his December 2002
visit as evidence that the government “has become more willing to
discuss torture.” In fact, Mr. van Boven has made clear that he
did not receive adequate cooperation. Moreover, the Uzbek
government has taken no serious steps to implement his
recommendations for ending torture.”…
http://tinyurl.com/ycedxjh
The above letter…”Linda Duffield 10 March 2003″ about…”Craig appears to be making efforts to balance his work on human rights with other FCO objectives.”
To even think that torture was NOT a major talking point in the above is an impossibility. Torture and Uzbekistan and other countries were big talking points at that time 2002/2003…
tinyurl.com/yedva34
“MI5 and MI6 are currently calling for evidence of collusion with torture to be concealed even from lawyers for Binyam Mohamed in his damages claim. It is the first time the government has demanded such secrecy in a civil case.”
[Article entitled
“Ex-MI5 agent in memoirs battle sues newspaper for naming him”]
Guardian
http://tinyurl.com/ybec7dz
Tony,
“We can’t face the evil within our own culture.”
Well, you’ve certainly persuaded me to think hard about my own motives in making the posting I made above. But I don’t think I’m really into denialism.
There is a potential for evil in any culture. There is evil in Islamic societies, there is evil in Western societies. There can be evil inspired by religious hatred, and there can be evil associated with secular creeds, like Stalinism or Nazism.
There are differences, though. US Christian zealots tend to go in for loud bombast, outright blatant lies, and taking pride in doing their own dirty work like Abu Ghraib. Brits like Jack Straw have a different style. They shy away from telling direct lies. They let someone else do all the dirty work. They might occasionally be a little better behaved, but they are a great deal more hypocritical.
US cold warriors scream hatred at “liberals”. By contrast, UK cold warriors often cosy up to genuine liberals, and try to camouflage themselves alongside them!
Why bother analysing these distinctions, if they’re all fundamentally similar b*st*rds? Well, “know your enemy”, I guess.
As others have said, to claim that Straw’s remarks are blatant lies is a slight overstatement. To point out the sickening hypocrisy and also the sheer incompetence of the NuLabour position on torture should be a more effective line of attack.
You are delusional. You make the sweeping statement that eveyone involved is Jewish, then list a lot of people none of whom are, to my knowledge, Jewish, then explain away this inconvenient fact by calling them Crypto-Jews.
I am not deleitng your silly racist assertions only because they are so pathetic.
I don’t think humans are intrinsically evil. Quite the reverse. I think 95% of humans are intrinsically good, in all cultures all over the World. The vast majority of people are honest. They do not steal goods on open display.
But a small percentage of humans are intrinsically evil. There have been some detailed studies on this, that make convincing reading. e.g. Ponerology: The Study of Evil ponerology.com by Andrew Lobaczewski and The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout
Both identify “around 4% of humans with undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. They could be your colleague, your neighbour and they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.
How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others’ suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.”
Such people often end up in positions of power throughout all aspects of society, because they are totally ruthless.
Society changes drip by drip. It’s a gradual morphing. Germans are certainly no more evil or less intelligent than any other nation, but they ended up in a Nazi dictatorship under Hitler – shipping Millions of people to Death Camps for extermination – and this was only 70 years ago.
There are multiple similar examples throughout human history.
Because of the gradual nature of such change, most people are completely unaware of it happenning, or unaware of the extent to which it is happenning.
Through a gradual process of moral decay, they themselves can get sucked into a position of behaving like a dictatorial fascist, even if they have such a minor job as a parking attendent or a dustman. They enjoy their power and become addicted to it. Instead of helping people and doing their best to provide the service that they are paid to do, they can make life a misery for everyone they come in contact with and spark completely unnecessary aggression.
Human nature is such that people learn from example of those perceived to be in authority. Children learn from their parents. If the parents act in a moral fashion, displaying love, honesty and compassion, then its highly probable that their Children will behave in a similar way.
But on a similar, but more widespread level, people learn behaviour from their leaders – be it in school, work or Government.
We have a very major problem at the moment, because people are recognising that their leaders are incredibly selfish, evil, corrupt and actually start illegal wars and kill and dismember Millions of innocent people.
This moral decay inevitably spreads throughout much of civil society, because this behaviour is subconsciously learnt.
Our politicians set a most appalling example.
So what can we do? The result of such moral decay almost always inevitably leads to the complete destruction of the society both from within, and externally from the enemies it creates.
The only real solutions that I suggest to halt this evil is the Law. But the Law must be applied equally throughout all of society. No one can be above the Law. Not Prime Ministers, Presidents or Extremely Rich and Powerful Bankers.
But Collapse does seem far more likely than reform, and it is likely to be extremely horrible for everyone.
And I don’t actually buy this Global Warming, Energy Shortages or much of the rest of Popular Hysteria. Sure the human race is facing Multiple Problems, but all these problems can be resolved, if they are tackled in an honest, sensible and fair way, using objective analysis and science, technology and education. At the moment, hardly anyone is actually telling the truth about anything.
Tony
The word “evil” means characteristic of people who are not like us. The vast majority of human beings will see the same actions as good and justified or evil and unjustified depending on how they classify the doers and the victims in terms of “Us and Them”.
The word “evil” means characteristic of people who are not like us. The vast majority of human beings will see the same actions as good and justified or evil and unjustified depending on how they classify the doers and the victims in terms of “Us and Them”.
What does it mean when someone raises the cry of “Politically Correct”.
It means that someone who is certainly an idiot and is definitely a traitor to his race or nation has said something or done something that implies that a member of species homo sapiens sapiens who is not human in the sense of being entitled to human rights is in fact entitled to human rights. Far more important than human rights is the non entitlement of some humans to them. The right to human rights can be overridden by the necessities of Government or to protect the interests of the elites.
Something odd is happening Craig. My last couple of posts have vanished into a black hole.
Ah it turns out that things were just very slow, may have generated accidental duplicates, triplicates.
Carlyle Moulton,
“Tribalism” and “Loyalty” are certainly still very much alive, but the vast majority of people clearly know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Throughout the World, people remain very open and welcoming to completely different cultures, often exhibiting quite tremendous generosity. Whilst their first loyalty will remain within their tribe, they subconsciously and often consciously recognise that openness and friendship can be mutually beneficial. Its only when such trust is abused that evil rears its ugly head.
Tony
At risk at getting flamed to a barbecued crisp, may I suggest that Tony, Carlyle, Bob and others take their discussions to another place off this thread for today, please?
This is a serious post by Craig, and the discussion here needs to keep its eye on the ball.
I think Brian and Abe Rene are doing a useful job here testing Craig’s assertion that this is incontrovertible proof that Jack Straw lied to parliament.
My view is that Craig is right, but I think Brian’s comments show how essential it is to provide “notes for those having difficulty understanding Civil Service jargon”. The issue is very straightforward and simple, but has successfully been buried under layers of obfuscation.
Indeed, it might be worth Craig providing a very clear guide to why this disclosure is significant for the absolute beginner?
Regarding lying to parliament. I’m no constitutional expert but I’m guessing that formally this is a matter for parliament itself rather than the police or suchlike.
Therefore, what are the next steps to take this further?
Craig, do you have a sympathetic MP who could help with tabling parliamentary questions, or complaining to the Speaker, or whatever is needed? Would George Galloway be prepared to assist?
Meanwhile, obviously it would be nice to think that someone from the mainstream papers would pick this up eg the new winner of the Paul Foot Award for Investigative Journalism, Ian Cobain of The Guardian (or, if The Guardian won’t touch it, someone from the Independent).
Carlyle Moulton:
try clicking the “Refresh” button on your browser a few seconds after you’ve posted. I normally find that this site updates itself pretty quickly, but a new comment doesn’t always show up until you’ve clicked “Refresh”.
Good points, Strategist. Yes, where should we apply pressure?
Strategist,
Everyone realises that this is a serious post by Craig. It’s his blog, and he is completely free to delete any comments that he feels are inappropriate – including yours.
If you think a “sympathetic MP” or an “Investigative Journalist” are likely to have any positive outcome, or even have any opportunity to leave any impression, then you are living in a state of self delusion, and think we still live in a Free Democracy.
Ask Craig how easy it is, to get any media attention about such important issues?
Your attempts to stop others contributing to a blog will have absolutely no effect, except to stop people raising their views on a widely read blog.
Why don’t you write some more stuff on the Guardian’s blog?
Do you honestly think it will make any difference?
Tony
Tony. Thanks for letting me off with only a light toasting…
Strategist,
Actually, I was very impressed with the silence in class. I bet you can’t do that with the rabble on Guido’s blog, which is only worth reading for the occasional hilarious contribution.
Tony
Sorry that last comment was by me, addressed to Bob
Tony,
your 1:45 comment was overly cynical. Craig certainly HAS made progress on this issue, as have others. The evidence of torture and collusion with torture is being reported, not as much as we’d like maybe, but more than it would be if we all just didn’t bother.
I do often wish this site was structured more like a discussion forum, though… Can’t we have a “Green Room”, Craig?
Craig,
I’m glad you didn’t delete Bob’s comment; it was so silly it made me laugh.
Clark,
The site is based on a rickety old platfrom which the blog has way outgrown. Problem is apparently it would be a massive amount of work to move it. I don’t think we can do any more modern comment stuff on this platform.
Media reporting of evidence of British Security Services collusion in torture (in the case of Salahuddin Amin) was subject to a court injunction, with the reason cited as :_
“…the grave risk to national security at the present time from potential acts of terrorism and the likely obstruction both to the identification of perpetrators and to the bringing to justice those who are identified are so real that an exceptional course is justified.”
See http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9nhd85
Sorry, I apologise for being overly-cynicl. With regards to the theory of coincidence which I mentioned in an earlier post, I will relate the following because it is kind of relevant.
A close neighbour of ours was very recently interviewed on National TV News. Now I know he had some very posh mates, because he invited us to one of his parties. I won’t go into the details but they were all dressed like penguins and I had just come back from a rock concert with the guitarist.
Anyway, I was beginning to think he had lost his job, and came very close to asking him about it. Then he appeared on National TV news. Of course he wasn’t saying anything particularly interesting, and I would much prefer to see Craig Murray given the same opportunity…
But that is not how the system works. Sure you need the experience, but you also need all the right contacts, right up to the highest level. And everything needs to be cleared editorially in advance, except in extremely rare circumstances.
Whilst obviously Craig Murray has got some very good contacts, he is hardly likely to get an opportunity to discuss the contents that he writes here on Prime Time National TV News, unless something quite extra-ordinary happens.
Tony
Craig, have you looked at WordPress? It gets very good reports from users, and I believe it’s easy to transfer existing archive material once you’ve set it up.
anticant,
Apart from when this website is apparently sufferring denial of service attacks, which is an issue that Craig’s Dutch ISP, now seems to be dealing with quite effectively, I Really Like its simple format. It does everything it needs to do, and at least in the browser I use – works very well and looks quite nice.
I think I may have mentioned previously, that my Son runs his own ISP, and he could offer much faster bandwidth and multi-site redundancy, but he is only 21 years old. Yes he provides Internet Services All Over The World including Internet TV Services to places like Peru and Saudi Arabia…
But any company who provides Internet Services To Craig Murray, needs Balls of Steel
Because Craig Murray is Craig Murray
Tony
What Politicians Need To Realise, That The Internet Was Designed and Implemented By People Like Me…
We Couldn’t Give a Shit About What People Say To Each Other…
All We Are Doing Is Maintaining Communication Links
And You Might Try and Sue Us Or Close Us Down…
But We Have No Interest In What You Have To Say…
We are Just Maintaining The Communication Links – Just Like The Guys Who Maintain The Electricity Supply…
We have No Knowledge About The Content Of The Communication
We are Not Editors. We Do Not Control The Content of The Data.
All We Do Is Maintain Communications
Some of The Communications You May Not Approve Of – But That Is Not Our Problem
And If We Receive Any Letters From Arseholes We Will Wipe Our Arses On Them – Before We Flush Them Down The Toilet
I Personally Am Retired…
And I express my interest on this and other web sites..
My Son Hosts Many Thousands of Websites All Over The World…
And it maybe that some Revolutionary Cunt is Spreading His Message About Taking On The Abusive Penguins in Outer Mongolia on a Website That My Son Or His Resellers Are Hosting and You May Want To Sue him in Outer Mongolian…
He Will Simply Ignore You, So Long as The Bloke Paying The Bill Keeps Up His Payments
He is Not In The Editing Business and Has Absolutely NO Interest In Politics
He is Just Providing a Service
Tony
Tony – it was not just happening in London. This reference to an astonishingly coincidental drill ahead of time is reasonably well referenced, given it was a FEMA spokesman talking to Dan Rather:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fematape.html
I concur with your item on sociopaths, and how they rise in government. In could also be said that Chief Executive positions lend themselves to high-functioning sociopaths. How else could they commit treason by sending their nation’s jobs offshore by the million, throw vast numbers of families into desperation, take their millions in bonuses with a smile on their face, and still sleep easy at night. And get up the next day, and think of new ways to do the same thing, and internally congratulate themselves for doing a good job, and convince themselves that they have earned their money by their exceptional cleverness.
In business, we get the likes of Mark Hurd, CEO of HP. He has successfully sacked tens of thousands of decently paid western workers to pay slavery wages in China to have all hardware manufactured. Then the same but to India, for the software and administration end. While profits for HP break records, he imposes a 10% pay cut on all employees in the US – given how tough the market is these days , the hapless worker should understand. He generously takes a 10% salary cut himself, about 0.1% of his total income from HP, while trousering a $50+M bonus.
In politics we get the likes of Blair – as with your summerising of sociopaths, he was said to “glow”. Clearly, Blair is a sociopath, and cares nothing beyond getting his wishes fulfilled at that given moment. That “success” is all it takes to convince him that he was right all along, regardless of the outcome. Remember, a sociopath is never wrong, and any unfortunate consequence is always Someone Else’s Fault.
This internalisation, rationalisation, whatever you want to call it, makes the high-functioning sociopaths running the programme drive weak people such as Jack Straw. The likes of Straw will suddenly be caught up with this wonderous personality, and their sudden own importance, that they will rationalise their own position at any price. Even abandoning any semblance of principle, honesty or even credibility that they once held. They must hold with it. A terrible error in judgement would be too terrible to contemplate, otherwise, by the time they embarked even a short way down the path. This sort of person – as Straw is demonstrating even now – is the most dangerous threat to liberty we can have. A weak stooge with tremendous power, and responsibility to do the Right Thing, but dares not.
Such a potential for being a stooge was clearly identified to sociopath Blair early on, and that is why Straw has become what he has become. Very sad, because under more enlightened guidance, Straw might well have become a very positive administrator in some small capacity, who could have done a reasonably large community some good.
I suppose there is very little more sad than seeing a once principled man, bought and paid for to make a small-time stooge. Straw has to be the ultimate example. At least Short, Cook and Dobson bailed. Hain is another bitter disappointment, little more than a co-conspirator and apologist to war criminals. How the admired, principled people have let us down once we’d finally got them into power.
Being sometimg of a noob, a newbie, an ingenue des affaires politiques, how is it that the most dangerous, most anarchic, most libertarian political critic de nous jours, Guido Fawkes aka Paul Staines, is a regular on the telly whilst rational evidential critics like Craig are not?
Shurely shome mishtake…