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
Letter in the Morning Star yesterday. The message is getting through..
Real reasons behind Taliban’s removal
Wednesday 18 November 2009
The British public have been deluded for too long as to the reason for the Afghan war. Bush had decided before the destruction of the Twin Towers that Afghanistan was to be invaded to overcome Taliban resistance to the construction of an oil/gas pipeline through the country from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India.
Hamid Karzai, the discredited president of Afghanistan, formerly worked as a consultant for Unocol (now Chevron) in negotiations with the Taliban concerning the pipeline which eventually failed.
After the invasion the Karzai government signed the pipeline deal on December 27 2002. So our boys are dying to boost the profits of the oil barons.
The Taliban had been told either to accept the offer of a carpet of gold or be buried under a carpet of bombs.
David & Joan Sheldon
Epsom
The awakening is indeed growing Mary. I will chuckle when I see the rats starting to jump ship. Murdering fukkers.
From Glenn: How the admired, principled people have let us down once we’d finally got them into power
I disagree. You cannot get such fundamental change in so many people unless there is a very good reason for it.
We need to find out the reason.
Well it seems that Turkmenistan have gotten tired of waiting for the westerners to come through. Very recently Iran and the Turkmens have completed their pipeline –
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2009/11/12/Iran-Turkmenistan-pipeline-online-in-weeks/UPI-30471258042432/
and China and the Turkmens have completed their pipeline also –
http://turkmenistan.ru/?page_id=3&lang_id=en&elem_id=15866&type=event&sort=date_desc
Strangely, these events have arisen at the roughly the same time as Brown/Miliband release plans to pull out of Afghanistan…
Craig,
You are very brave. Don’t ever regret standing up for Truth and Justice. You speak for millions of people who stand by you and the values of civilization.
Thank you for all you doing. We shall soon see the likes of Jack Straw and Tony Blair behind bars as war criminals.
(France)
Craig – you’re not alone.
“While Davies’s book was discussed, reviewed, and applauded, far and wide in both print and broadcast media, our own book (published in September) has so far limped to just two, largely dismissive, reviews in mainstream outlets, in the Guardian and Times Higher Education (THE), totalling exactly 1,000 words. Our previous book, Guardians of Power (2006), has never been mentioned, let alone reviewed, in any mainstream national UK newspaper.
The truth is that dissident media analyses are consistently ignored in this way – it is not just us. And so Cook’s comparison of Davies’s mainstream view of the media with an analysis based on Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model of media control” is a vanishingly rare event. As ever, Cook’s experience as a professional journalist adds a fascinating additional dimension to his analysis.”
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php
Let’s get trivial
Trivial
I wanna get trivial
Trivial…
Nov. 18, 2009
“Transcript”
“Explosive testimony on Afghan detainees”
“Senior diplomat Richard Colvin testified at a House of Commons committee Wednesday that he warned government and military officials that Afghan detainees being turned over by Canadian soldiers were being tortured. The following is an extract from his opening statement”…
http://tinyurl.com/y9xjcx3
The UK government is looking even worse than the USAnians:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8368841.stm
My link above not working?…Try full link…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/testimony-on-afghan-detainees/article1368821/
Another CIA torture hell hole ‘discovered’ in Lithuania.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24010.htm
Quite interesting that the Brit who has just been made European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, has no Foreign Office or diplomatic experience whatsoever in her 7 year ministerial career, 10 years after her political career was kickstarted by being appointed to the House of Lords.
Presumably, she must be a massive talent to have got so far so fast? What other explanation could there possibly be?
“What other explanation could there possibly be?”
This seems as good as any…
http://tinyurl.com/ykpxqy3
“Puppet on a String” also won the Eurovision song contest…A case of history repeating itself.
1. She’s married to Peter Kelner, Bambi’s pollster-in-chief.
2. She won’t frighten the horses.
3. She can safely be ignored by Sarkozy, Merkel et. al.
Cheap at the price!
Tony: “At the moment, hardly anyone is actually telling the truth about anything.”
>>Some of us are. Consistently and with material evidence. The prevailing dominant sociopathic culture rolls out its sadistic, covert dirty tricks brigade and the good guys get battered every which way. Until the tide turns, that is.
Ruth: “From Glenn: How the admired, principled people have let us down once we’d finally got them into power
I disagree. You cannot get such fundamental change in so many people unless there is a very good reason for it.
We need to find out the reason.”
>>I don’t believe there’s any reason apart from what’s in plain sight: the love of power, money, greed and a thoroughly callous, ruthless disregard for ordinary people. Sociopaths are adept at gathering coteries of intimidated wannabes around them.
We ordinary little people who have healthy principles and compassion cannot get our heads round this sociopathy and its lickspittle adherents, whom we’d always thought of as admirable and ‘people like us’. So we have to read more into it than is there.
It’s simple. We either go along with these sociopaths and feather our own nests with their droppings, or we disassociate and stand up for humane values, compassion and fairness. The latter is far harder in a climate where every infected, diseased arm of the state is pressed into the sociopathic service of suppressing truth and rational, free debate.
But if we don’t stand firm now, then we’re certainly headed for another 3rd Reich, another CCCP.
Kudos to Craig for standing firm.
>>and yes, it’d be good to have that ‘green room’, a discussion forum…anyone any ideas for how to set it up?
“But if we don’t stand firm now, then we’re certainly headed for another 3rd Reich, another CCCP”
Exactly. And not because nazi-ism or communism, but because they are totalitarian in nature. Central banks like things this way… So much easier to extract wealth from the people, when ‘their’ governments act ruthlessly.
It was gratifying to see Bliar scuttling away from the cameras yesterday.
People here keep using the term ‘sociopath’. I would say that the term psychopath applies to these war criminals.
Psychopathy is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy. Robert Hare, renowned researcher in the field describes psychopaths as “intraspecies predators who use charm, manipulation, intimidation, sex and violence to control others and to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse”. “What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony.”
Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth. It is estimated that one percent of the general population are psychopaths. (Wikipedia)
a~~
Much of the above applies to Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon et al and their counterparts in the US, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell et al.
Well well. What’s this all about? ACPO are having a hissy fit on Cameroon’s plan to have forces under locally elected control. I thought we had police authorities containing locally elected representatives at the moment.
Acpo head warns police chiefs may quit over Tory plans
Sir Hugh wants police independence retained.
Police chief constables may resign if a Tory government tries to place forces under local political control, the head of their professional body has warned.
Sir Hugh Orde, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said colleagues would resist being told how to protect the public by locally-elected leaders.
The Tories want these officials to be able to hire and fire police chiefs and set force budgets in England and Wales.
Sir Hugh said police independence was vital to public trust and democracy.
Sir Hugh, the former chief constable of Northern Ireland, took over as the president of Acpo earlier this year.
aa~
Few people know that ACPO is a private company.
http://www.acpo.police.uk/about.html
They’ve speedily forgotten the old dispensation when local police forces were semi-independent of the Home Office and overseen by elected watch committees. A good summary of the history here:
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-16.html
Few people know that ACPO is a private company.
http://www.acpo.police.uk/about.html
I knew that.
On a totally different subject and not related in any shape, way or form to the above (and me being a bit thick) could anyone tell me what the word “freemasons” means?.
I have just been looking at the composition of the panel on the Chilcot Inquiry. The members were chosen and appointed by Brown/NuLabour ie the poacher chooses the magistrate, and if this was not so serious a matter this would be funny. JP Morgan Chase also employ Bliar but I am absolutely 100% sure that there will be no conflict of interest. (from Wikipedia)
Sir Roderic Lyne – He will form part of the Chilcot enquiry into circumstances leading up to war in Iraq in 2003 and its aftermath. He is an advisor to JPMorgan Chase, who have been chosen to operate the Trade Bank of Iraq, which will give banks access to the financial system of Iraq.
He was a special adviser to BP, which currently has major interests in Iraq.
a~~
Sir Michael Wood FCO (in Craig’s post above) is on this list to give evidence first.
Any comments Craig?
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/news/091116-firstwitnesses.aspx
Sorry – omitted.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/?
Seems to be that the climate camp have been lying and changing figures that didnt suit for some time now.
And I bet the Canadian defence minister has also lied here…..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/20/canada-allegations-complicit-torture-afghanistan
You did this before this Canadian diplomat Craig… thank you for being you
I could hardly believe, that a girl in my wife’s class at school, who no-one has heard of outside of the political class, and someone who has never been elected to do anything whatsoever should be given what is potentially one of the most influential powerful jobs in Europe – but stranger things have happenned in fiction – but no one believed the story was true.
It would have been better if it had been Blair for numerous reasons. First of all to have a World Renown War Criminal as Leader of The EU would be completely appropriate for an Unelected European Dictatorship that the vast majority of the European Population completely disapprove of.
And nearly as importantly, if Blair had have got the job, as even Monbiot has pointed out, he would have to travel regularly to different Capitals in Europe, and would always be worrying when he was going through Airports, is it going to happen here and now…?
Because sooner or later it will.
It would be completely appropriate if the Leader of the EU was arrested and Charged with War Crimes Against Humanity, and Shackled and Taken To The International Criminal Court in The Hague.
So far as Lady Ashton of Upholland is concerned, well I have never heard of her, and I don’t think anyone outside of The Political Class has ever heard of her.
Also hardly anyone in Upholland has ever heard of her. They might as well have given the job to My Mother-In-Law. Despite being about 25 years older, she is far better looking, and personally knows thousands of people in Upholland and surrounding areas. Not only that but she is of Royal Descent – a Direct decendent of at Least Two of The Women That King Henry VIII not only shagged, but married – and one of them was French.
She is also a strong defendent of small independent farmers, having had her father’s farm compulsorarily puchased such that they could build the abortion of Skelmersdale on it, and also opposed to mass immigration, particularly of Scousers.
The Most Powerful Lancashire Girl in Europe? I think I’m Going To Throw Up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Ashton,_Baroness_Ashton_of_Upholland
Tony
Craig, are you following the news items on Canadian diplomat, Richard Colvin, re torture of Prisoners handed over by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan?
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2009/11/19/afghanistan-torture-colvin-inquiry.html
There is nothing to be said about the bypassing of FCO talents, it shows how popular they are.
I think the two will make a go of it and hopefully work together, it is to be seen who and what will try and send the first shiver to divide them from their tasks of uniting 27 states, who will be the first to work away at the new decision makers in Europe? create factionalism and division between two departments that have a simbiotic realtionship to function well, one can only do as good as the other.
Maybe the friends of Israel are already smarting at the task.
I welcome both appointments and will want to see how they are doing for Europe.
As much as some might want to flog their mother in law, royal heritage connective tissues, warts and all to do this job, don’t mind if they see ol crony Tony on the throne, a calamity and invitation to create more strife and anger, imho, I could not possibly join in.
The man is a religious nutter who should has lied and deceived what people call ‘democratic institution’, his actions together with others were pivotal in sending hundreds of thousands Iraqi civilinas to death, I’m glad he never had a chance, it says something about Europe and its leaders, how people felt about his performance.
Anyway, the gold price is creeping up, maybe soon we will see a new world currency emerging, will do wonders to our spending habits I fear.
Re: Mary’s Wikipedia quote on psychos/politicians, bankers, etc.
“The consensus among researchers is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth.”
To call psychopathy disorder seems bizarre. Look at the buggers. Who’s got the money, the power, the fame.
Obviously it’s a highly adaptive trait. And for those who don’t have it, the logical thing is to skew the contingencies of selection: send the bastards to the Hague and have them tortured to death by being forced to listen to a tedious English judge for years — as in the case of Slobo. Or just hang them.
Alternatively, train him to shoot a gun give him one single pair of boots and a basic kit to carr round and send him to Helmand, not to polish boots or cook for the troops, but next to fighting contingents, out on patrole with the boys. If he comes back, he will be a changed man forever.
or, feed him to the dogs.
ingo,
Actually I think it was more a part of this
http://www.alternet.org/world/144022/why_is_congress_demonizing_an_investigation_of_israel%27s_war_crimes_in_gaza
Gaza today.
[Report this comment] [Ignore this user]
Posted by: Tescoliatprole on Nov 20, 2009 1:37 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Your rating: 5
Do you ever get the feeling that events are overtaking us? My view is that Bush and Blair have already been found guilty of war crimes in the real world court, i.e. the court of World Opinion. Wether jurisprudence ever catches up remains to be seen. But I cant help thinking that this same world court has already made its mind up about last winters attack on the people of Gaza. The world has shrunk, and we were all able to watch as white phosphorous rained down on defenseless civilians. We were all able to see the aftermath.
The mushroom media can continue on it’s own sorry path, but those with eyes to see, and ears to hear and with the curiosity to find out have bypassed the mushroom growers. Not it would seem in the House of Representatives.
We are fed a steady diet of the settlements issue, but many of us are asking what now for the people of Gaza? Eighty thousand homes destroyed. People now facing a freezing winter surrounded by the rubble of their former homes. No building materials for reconstruction. And no suggestion from our current leaders that their consciences are at all troubled.”
Tony
We know what’s going on, OK. But what’s the point of knowing what’s going on if we do nothing?