Sorry to be absent from blogging for so long.
Here are a few bits of what I was up to:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4368
This is an excellent quality recording I have seen of one of my talks:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4394
Part 2
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4420
I was sharing a platform in Washington with Daniel Ellsberg. He is the godfather of whistle blowers, and for his revealing of truth about the Vietnam War he was at the time described, in all seriousness, by Henry Kissinger as “The Most Dangerous Man in America”. Ellsberg’s well-informed views on Afghanistan are particularly worth considering, in particular his knowledge that the proposed deployment of 45,000 more US troops is, in Pentagon minds, but the first stage in a ratchet to a colossal Vietnam style operation.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4375
Dan also spoke to me chillingly about Pentagon plans of which he has certain knowledge to set up a network of informers and death squads, on models tried and tested in Vietnam and Central America.
I was also sharing a platform with Col. Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, a staunch Republican who argues that “The most dangerous man in the World” was and is Dick Cheney. For a view right inside the Bush White House, this was fascinating:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4373
Part 2
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4376
Part3
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4378
An account of another speech I gave in the US is here:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html
I have also been very active on Uzbekistan, on which I shall be blogging separately. I attended a very good meeting of the Uzbek opposition in Brussels, but the only account I can find is hidden behind a subscription wall:
Finally, I have been in Dundee for University meetings, and with the other Scottish Rectors we launched a campaign to keep Scottish university education free in the coming troubled economic times:
I am also working with Dundee University Students Association against proposed restructuring – or course cuts – in the university. Law library opening hours have already been slashed, and the University Court moved to set up a “Redundancy Committee” to make compulsory redundancies, initially in the College of Art but I expect that is the thin end of the wedge.
They also, incidentally, voted to abolish the post of Rector’s Assessor, which would make it very difficult to do the job. The University plainly is looking to remove the capacity of Rectors to work on behalf of rhe students, preferring to link the University to contentless “Celebrity culture” by encouraging Rectors like my predecessor, Lorraine Kelly, who never once turned up to committee meetings.
It has been a fascinating period, but fortunately things should be a bit less busy now, so I hope to be blogging more regularly again.
4 November 2009
“Scotland: Growing calls for tuition fees as universities face funding crisis”
“The higher education sector in Scotland is facing hundreds of job cuts, as universities declare they are facing a funding crisis. The response of many senior officials, including university vice-chancellors, has been to call for the reintroduction of tuition fees for students. At present, Scottish students who attend a university in Scotland have their tuition fees paid, although they must still take out large loans to fund living costs and other related expenses.”…
http://tinyurl.com/yjjsl6m
The first stage in a ratchet to a colossal Vietnam style operation.
Craig, 1/ All of the so-called terror plots in the UK have been false flag.
Groups are formed consisting of dumb individuals who are rightly incensed at our foreign policy. These groups’ government sponsors protect their administrators like Rashid Rauf from prosecution and from long prison sentences.
2/ This 45,000 US troops boost is not the first stage of anything. This is a very long term, and long planned US Zionist strategy to eliminate the epicentres of un-Westernised Islam. As such Daniel Ellsberg can afford, like other US commentators to exaggerate the scale of US plans. In doing this they avoid stating the motive and agenda of these invasions which are pure, opportunistic, Zionist anti- Islam. The US Zionists want to extinguish as much of Islam as possible while the Zionists enjoy popularity and power in the US. They know that there is no rationale behind these invasions except their own hatred of Islam. They know better than anybody that they cannot achieve the destruction of Islam, and they know it is a Vietnam. But they are prepared to blackmail Obama into the project ( He’s short of cash right now )- just to see how far they can go.
anon: “All of the so-called terror plots in the UK have been false flag”
Probably unlikely. Only the large-scale successful ones where the evidence never comes under formal scrutiny. The useless ones – bombs made from chapati flour, driving cars into airport doorways and the like, which go through the courts – are, I suspect, genuinely autonomous and independent terror plots.
“Revealed: the £28m that the military handed over to Scottish universities”…
http://tinyurl.com/yg6u8ad
BAE…
tinyurl.com/ylatun2
welcome back, I hope you had a great birthday and have unwrapped your prezzies.
Well done to speak up for the free tuition fees. Will you be renewing your membership of the UCLU next year after what happened in Norwich?
Welcome back, Craig
Seconded: welcome back Craig, good to have you blogging again.
The banality of evil. A dip into the pdfs listed at the bottom of this article is as revealing as looking at the MPs’ expenses claims. So much is ‘redacted’. How can presumably sentient fellow humans spend their lives in this vile crap?
Rack ’em and Screw ’em, Boys!
by Sheila Samples / November 3rd, 2009
Is there anything scarier than the New York Times’ Halloween treat entitled, “Documents Detail Conditions Found at Secret C.I.A. Jails”?
Pardon my Palinese, but ?” You betcha! You damnbetcha!
For starters, the “conditions” the Times mentions only briefly are, in reality, depraved, corrupt, immoral, inhumane torture. According to the Times…
F.B.I. agents who arrived at a secret C.I.A. jail overseas in September 2002 found prisoners “manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock,” and a C.I.A. official wrote a list of questions for interrogators including “How close is each technique to the ‘rack and screw’…
What is more frightening …
Full article
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/rack-em-and-screw-em-boys/
MJ ‘Probably unlikely. Only the large-scale successful ones where the evidence never comes under formal scrutiny. The useless ones – bombs made from chapati flour, driving cars into airport doorways and the like, which go through the courts – are, I suspect, genuinely autonomous and independent terror plots.’
Because they go through the courts does NOT mean they weren’t set up by an agent provocateur. Quite the reverse. There are many procedures that can be used and are regularly used to hide the presence of a government agent.
Firstly, disclosure is in the hands of the prosection (the government) which can choose what it wants to reveal or not. This has been a major failure in HMCR (HMCE) cases where there is evidence that ‘gangs’ are being set up to secretly remove money from the UK.
Also the prosecution often hold back primary disclosure right to the end of the prosecution case which in doing so restricts the defendant in obtaining further disclosure which might help his case.
Moreover, evidence is often manipulated or fabricated.
Prosecution witnesses who were actually involved in the crime are often used to give evidence against defendants.
There are cases I know where it is quite obvious defence counsel must have been working with the prosecution to avoid evidence that might show the involvement of an agent provocateur.
And finally, should the defendant wish to appeal, the High Court judgment is more likely to reflect the wishes of the government in sensitive cases rather than justice.
@ Ruth Plus all the mystery of July 7 2005 and the emergency rehearsal coincidence. No trial obviously but no inquests or enquiry either…so far.
aa~
This in the Guardian today.
Rendition trial ends with Milan CIA chief given eight years
therealnews.com links weren’t working for me. Had to replace the ‘/t/’ in the url with ‘/t2/’ to get them working.
algernon
Good God how resourceful! How on earth did you know to do that?
Great to hear from you again Craig, your speeches are at the usual high standard of gobsmackingness. Love the camera pan in the 1st realnews link to the crowd… open jaws all round 🙂
With the first CIA convictions in Italy, maybe the tide is turning and the criminals in charge will get their comeupance.
Bet Jack Straw is pissing his pants.
“Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles'”…
http://tinyurl.com/yd8ykw9
Craig Murray makes the US blogs:
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/ambassador-cia-people-tortured/
Craig
Your links led to their main page, so i just clicked on your face which led to your intended link and it showed up in the url what the difference was.
Ruth. Because they go through the courts does NOT mean they weren’t set up by an agent provocateur.
Thanks for that. As this blog illustrates, freedom of expression about the evils that we witness in our times is still tolerated. That’s why Oliver Cromwell’s statue is outside parliament. But Muslims from outside this tradition would not normally trust in freedom of speech for fear of residence problems here or worse repercussions in their country of origin. Agent provocateurs, paid spies, from within the Muslim circles that they respect, a wide spectrum, are set up to fan the flame of terrorism.
Don’t be surprised that this has occurred amongst professional people as well as the unemployed. It is a Western myth of socialism that resentment results from poverty. It results from political awareness of the crimes committed by governments. This government has increased the budget for our security services to fund this type of operation in the Muslim community.
If we can’t find the evidence we will just have to make it, is the policy of the likes of Brown and Miliband.
Amazing videos. Wilkerson is surprising – amazing that he was so high up in the Dubya administration. His pessimism is extraordinary – if this was a worldview shared by Cheney, you can see why Cheney was so keen to lash out, almost a desperate last attempt to save American hegemony.
Quite a thought that Powell decided against a run for the presidency in 2000 – what a difference he would have been.
Craig, you’re currently the lead story on Infowars. Give it a few hours and there’ll be hundreds of wild, wacky and sensible reader comments for your delectation.
http://tinyurl.com/yasyfn6
The conclusion of Wilkerson’s lecture doesn’t give much cause to hope that the “blueprint” will prevail over a scramble for diminishing resources. When Fox ‘News’ gets more viewers than the rest put together, and more people believe in alien abductions than evolution, there’s no realistic prospect of an enlightened US electorate ever holding the industrial-military-congressional complex to account.