Yearly archives: 2009

Should Stephen Farrell Have Been Rescued

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Stephen Farrell is coming in for a lot of criticism. But let us start by remembering what he was doing. He was investigating a bombing by the United States, in co-operation with Germany, which killed at least seventy Afghans, over fifty of them non-combatants. The government would love all journalists to be “embedded” with the military, giving out messages like the pure state propaganda on BBC News today from a female reporter who concluded that the British troops were making excellent progress in winning hearts and minds, but needed many more years in Afghanistan to do so.

If any truth is ever to break through, it needs brave men and women like Farrell to go out and get the truth. He should not be condemned.

Today it is credibly reported that the military hostage rescue was not in fact necessary as the Afghans were close to a negotiated release. That may be true. However I understand from FCO sources which I trust that the military option was taken in genuine good faith. It was thought there was one last moment to rescue Farrell before he might be taken beyond reach.

It is not possible now to tell what would have been the outcome otherwise. But I do not believe the military option was taken from nefarious motives.

There remains the moral dilemma of whether rescuing Farrell was worth the British soldier, Afghan interpreter and Afghan civilians who were shot. It seems likely that all the Afghan casualties, including the interpreter and woman, were killed by the British soldiers. Whether the British soldier also died from “Friendly fire” remains to be seen.

I am tempted to say that the solution to the ethical dilemma is for journalists entering dangerous areas to inform their governments that they do not wish to be rescued militarily if anything goes wrong. But that is not so simple. What is a dangerous area? One thing this incident underlines yet again is that neither the Karzai regime nor NATO has any control on the ground over vast swathes of Afghanistan – indeed probably in 80% of the land area “Government” writ does not run.

But it is our responsibility as part of the coalition. We chose to be an occupying power. That gives us responsibility to maintain law and order in the land we occupied. Those in Afghanistan – Afghan or foreign – have every right to expect the occupying powers to fulfil their duty. If we don’t want to, we should leave.

If we have bit off more than we can chew, that is not Stephen Farrell’s fault, He is only trying to report the fact.

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The Mystery of Rashid Rauf

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Finally, with its second jury, the State obtained the conviction of three people for attempting to blow up airliners with liquid bombs, as the end result of the greatest of all terrorist plot media hypes. We are left with the continuing War on Shampoo at the airports.

Let us for now accept the convictions as safe, although the whole history of “terrorist” trials in the UK calls for especial scepticism at this point. It does indeed appear that some British born men of Pakistani origin were motivated to attempt a terrorist atrocity. What more does the case tell us?

Well, firstly this is yet more proof of the alienation of British born Muslims from their natural affection for the country of their birth, by Blair and Bush’s policy of securing access to mineral resources by war in Islamic lands. It counters exactly the Gordon Brown claim that occupying Afghanistan somehow keeps us safe here. Every civilian death from NATO action in Afghanistan and Pakistan actually stokes terrorist sympathies here. We are creating, not combating, terrorist sympathies.

Secondly, there is little evidence that the plot was actually viable. There remains great doubt about the ability of the bombers to create liquid explosive of sufficient potency. The airport security idea that liquids are somehow more dangerous than powders or solids is a nonsense.

But the key question, as with the “Islamic Jihad Union” trial in Germany, the “La Guardia” plot in the US and the “Sears Tower” plot in Canada, is who put these useless idiots up to it? How far does surveillance and penetration blend into instigation by agents provocateurs?

Which leads us to the quite extraordinary story of Rashid Rauf, said by the UK and US governments to have been the “mastermind” of this plot Rauf was allegedly the source of the initial information, through the Pakistani ISI. Whether under torture, or whether as a double agent, remains obscure.

The extraordinary thing is that although Rauf was the so-called “mastermind”, and although he was already wanted as a suspect in the UK for the alleged (non-political) murder of an uncle, the British authorities were so keen for him not to appear in a witness box that for over a year they failed to put in any request to Pakistan for his extradition to trial in the UK.

Then, still more amazingly,Rauf mysteriously “escaped” from maximum security detention in Pakistan, in circumstances which have yet to be explained. Finally in November last year the US government announced they had killed Rauf in a targeted drone bombing in Pakistan – a non-judicial execution which (if true) is illegal under Pakistani, US, UK and international law. Rauf was a British citizen, but there was no protest at his murder from the UK authorities.

(His family’s theory is that he was killed in captivity, and the “escape” and subsequent bombing death are simply a twist on the old “Shot while escaping” line.)

We will, therefore, never know the truth of the genesis of the infamous so-called liquid bomb plot. Everything indicates that the British government never had any interest in us knowng the truth, made no attempt to secure Rauf’s appearance at the trial, and appeared unperturbed, to say the least, by his murder.

What conclusions should we draw from that?

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UK and Libya

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The advantage of a break fron blogging is the chance to give a digested view rather than the momentary reaction to events that blogging encourages. Juan Cole is the only blogger who consistently produces up to the second considered brilliance; but then he has a brain the size of a small planet.

So here are a few well-digested thoughts on the recent ructions over UK/Libyan relations.

It was absolutely right to release al-Megrahi. Every dying person deserves what comfort, pain alleviation and disease amelioration can be provided by the presence of family and by medical treatment. There should be no place in a justice system for the cruel vindictiveness of making a now harmless person die in jail. Scotland and the SNP have shown a civilised example; those who attack them have shown ugliness. There is a secondary but also valid utilitarian argument that to keep al-Megrahi in strict confinement while providing necessary medical treatment would have cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of pounds. to no purpose other than making some vicious people happy.

The Tories have shown their blood-baying, American bum-sucking true colours. New Labour have been caught in their usual horrible hypocrisy, attempting to capitalise on anti-SNP right wing media reaction, while having been deliberately paving the way for the release for years.

Those who believe that al-Megrahi was the Lockerbie bomber. believe he acted on Colonel Gadaffi’s orders. I have neard no-one argue that al-Megrahi acted alone. Even mad Aaronovitch, who loves attacking conspiracy theories, appears to believe that there was a Libyan government organised conspiracy to blow up the plane. So if Gadaffi was responsible, what logic is there in a view that it is fine for Blair and Brown to be pictured smiling with Gadaffi, but al-Megrahi must rot in jail? Who is more guilty, the man who gave the order, or his tool? But New Labour have been doing everything they can to give the impression that Gadaffi is now absolutely fine and rehabilitated, but the SNP were wrong to release his agent. Where is the logic in that?

Jack Straw has admitted that trade was the deciding factor in his agreeing that al-Megrahi should not be excluded from the prisoner exchange agreement. Bill Rammell has admitted that as an FCO Minister he told the Libyans that Gordon Brown did not want to see al-Megrahi die in jail. There is no room to doubt that the UK’s assiduous courting of LIbya saw all kinds of positive signals given quietly on al-Megrahi, whose release was an obvious Libyan demand in the normalisation of relations.

The infuriating thing is that New Labour actually did the right thing in their dealings with the Libyans. Jack Straw’s positions and Gordon Brown’s message were the right ones. But a combination of fear of the United States, a right wing populist media instinct and a desire to attack the SNP has led New Labour to tyy to hide the truth – and try so badly as to bring down more media scorn than if they had just come out and supported the release in the first place.

Al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber. The scandal is not that trade deals and the realpolitik of relationship normalisation led to his release. The scandal is that trade deals and the realpolitik of relationship normalisation were what led the Libyans to hand him over in the first place – very much in the way their ancestors had given hostages to Imperial Rome. His family were richly rewarded, made wealthy for generations by his acceptance of the role of sacrificial lamb, and there was the hope that he would be acquitted. That he was convicted on very dubious evidence shocked many, especially Dr Jim Swire, representative of the victims’ families, who followed the evidence painstakingly and has never accepted al-Megrahi’s guilt.

Syria was responsible for the Lockerbie bomb. But in the first Iraq war, we needed Syria’s support, while Libya remained a supporter of Iraq. Lockerbie was a bar to our new alliance with Damascus, so extremely conveniently, and with perfect timing, it was discovered that actually it was the Libyans!! Anyone who believes that fake intelligence started with Iraqi WMD is an idiot.

It haunts me that I had a chance to read the intelligence reports which, I was told by a shocked FCO colleague in Aviation and Maritime Department where I then worked, showed that the new anti-Libyan narrative was false. I say in self-defence that at the time I was literally working day and night, sleeping on a camp bed. I was organising the Embargo Surveillance Centre and I was convinced that a watertight full physical embargo could remove the need to invade Iraq. I was impatient of the interruption. I listened to my colleague only distractedly and did not want to go through the rigmarole of signing for and transporting the reports I hadn’t got time to look at then. Events overtook me, and I never did see them.

Which is not to say the Libyan regime was not a sponsor of terrorism. It was. It just didn’t do Lockerbie. It did indeed supply Semtex to the IRA. I have an obvious sympathy with the victims of IRA bombing, and their desire to obtain compensation.

But think of this. Why just Libya?

Is the United States offering to pay compensation to the tens of thousands of victims of CIA sponsored insurgents in Central and South America? Are we and the US going to pay compensation to the victims of UNITA? Are we going to pay compensation to the victims of British made cluster bombs in the Lebanon? Are we going to pay compensation to the victims of Executive Outcomes? Are the Americans going to pay compensation to the Russian and Uzbek victims of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the days when he was a US sponsored terrorist? I could go on for a week.

Ultimately, negotiating with “terrorists” and “rogue states” has to be done. The strange thing is that New Labour’s Libyan policy has been one of its genuine successes – and makes a nonsense of its argument that we could deal with Saddam no other way. There should be more human rights emphasis in the relationship, but the apporach has been basically the right one, just as it was right to settle with the IRA, and just as it is long overdue to settle with the Taliban.

On a rare occasion when this government has shown wisdom, it appears ashamed of it.

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Blogito Ergo Sum?

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I am afraid that the result of Norwich North by-election has severely dented my appetite for blogging. When I put my views to the electorate and asked for their support, I could hardly have been more comprehensively rejected. I was convinced we could get a respectable vote of 7% in Norwich North and have something to build on.

I am not interested in the smug self-satisfaction of believing I have access to a knowledge or analysis denied to the “ordinary” people. Nor do I think that people in the UK have lost their capacity for sensible judgement, or that political discourse needs to be dumbed down to try to achieve a wide appeal. The fact is that Norwich North showed that no significant minority of the general populace has any interest in what I have to say.

So the urge to give comment and information on the sick farce of the Afghan elections, the extraordinary and cynical charade over the Lockerbie “bomber”, or even the hope destroyed in University admissions this year, has been nullified by an awareness that what I think is of no account.

It is not a case of feeling sorry for myself. It is a long overdue hit of realism. I have frequently complained, for example, that the damning evidence I gave on the British government’s complicity in torture was almost totally ignored by the mainstream media. The reason is that the media is not manipulative, it is merely making a shrewd and correct commercial decision that almost nobody cares.

There are moments that change lives. I was fairly stoic at the Norwich North count. I was then struck by a catharsis. After the declaration of results, the candidates made their speeches from the platform. When it came to my turn, Chloe Smith walked off the platform and stood in front of me and the media pack noisily formed around her. The officials started chatting among themselves about what they were doing at the weekend. I was left in the position of having to make the customary comments to a noisy room in which most backs were turned on me and only a very few were politely pretending to listen.

I cannot get out of my head the idea that my blogging is but the virtual equivalent.

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Afghanistan and British Involvement

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In Afghanistan, the last week has seen the passing of the symbolic 200th British fatality and desperate preparations for the looming elections.

Casualty Monitor provides a striking graphical picture of the upsurge in British casualties and looks at the historical context of British military failure in Afghanistan.

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Hillary Clinton Speaks Sense

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I see Hillary Clinton is coming under attack for more remarks made on her Africa tour.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/hillary-clinton-2000-election-recount

I am not a great fan of La Clinton, but I agree 100% with her pointing out that electoral fraud happens in the US too. The UK as well – anybody who thinks we don’t have electoral fraud should try standing against Jack Straw in Blackburn.

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US Supported Afghan Government Warlords Control World Heroin Trade

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There is an execellent interview with former head of the Pakistani intelligence service, General Hamid Gul, here. He makes some very strong points. It is undoubtedly true that it is warlords in the US-backed Karzai government who control 90% of the world heroin trade, and that the trade has expanded to its highest ever levels under coalition control. It is undoubtedly true that US foreign policy in the region is dictated by the desire to access Central Asian oil and gas. It is also undoubtedly true that the US works closely with Mossad and with India in Central Asia, and that many of its attacks appear calculated to stir up rather than ease conflict.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/12/ex-isi-chief-says-purpose-of-new-afghan-intelligence-agency-rama-is-%E2%80%98to-destabilize-pakistan%E2%80%99/

Turning the focus of our discussion to the Afghan drug problem, I noted that the U.S. mainstream corporate media routinely suggest that the Taliban is in control of the opium trade. However, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Anti-Government Elements (or AGEs), which include but are not limited to the Taliban, account for a relatively small percentage of the profits from the drug trade. Two of the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies, the CIA and the DIA, estimate that the Taliban receives about $70 million a year from the drugs trade. That may seem at first glance like a significant amount of money, but it’s only about two percent of the total estimated profits from the drug trade, a figure placed at $3.4 billion by the UNODC last year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has just announced its new strategy for combating the drug problem: placing drug traffickers with ties to insurgents ?”and only drug lords with ties to insurgents ?” on a list to be eliminated. The vast majority of drug lords, in other words, are explicitly excluded as targets under the new strategy. Or, to put it yet another way, the U.S. will be assisting to eliminate the competition for drug lords allied with occupying forces or the Afghan government and helping them to further corner the market.

I pointed out to the former ISI chief that Afghan opium finds its way into Europe via Pakistan, via Iran and Turkey, and via the former Soviet republics. According to the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, convoys under General Rashid Dostum ?” who was reappointed last month to his government position as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan National Army by President Hamid Karzai ?” would truck the drugs over the border. And President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been accused of being a major drug lord. So I asked General Gul who was really responsible for the Afghan drug trade.

“Now, let me give you the history of the drug trade in Afghanistan,” his answer began. “Before the Taliban stepped into it, in 1994 ?” in fact, before they captured Kabul in September 1996 ?” the drugs, the opium production volume was 4,500 tons a year. Then gradually the Taliban came down hard upon the poppy growing. It was reduced to around 50 tons in the last year of the Taliban. That was the year 2001. Nearly 50 tons of opium produced. 50. Five-zero tons. Now last year the volume was at 6,200 tons. That means it has really gone one and a half times more than it used to be before the Taliban era.” He pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. had actually awarded the Taliban for its effective reduction of the drug trade. On top of $125 million the U.S. gave to the Taliban ostensibly as humanitarian aid, the State Department awarded the Taliban $43 million for its anti-drug efforts. “Of course, they made their mistakes,” General Gul continued. “But on the whole, they were doing fairly good. If they had been engaged in meaningful, fruitful, constructive talks, I think it would have been very good for Afghanistan.”

Referring to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, General Gul told me in a later conversation that Taliban leader “Mullah Omar was all the time telling that, look, I am prepared to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country for a trial under Shariah. Now that is where ?” he said [it] twice ?” and they rejected this. Because the Taliban ambassador here in Islamabad, he came to me, and I asked him, ‘Why don’t you study this issue, because America is threatening to attack you. So you should do something.’ He said, ‘We have done everything possible.’ He said, ‘I was summoned by the American ambassador in Islamabad’ ?” I think Milam was the ambassador at that time ?” and he told me that ‘I said, “Look, produce the evidence.” But he did not show me anything other than cuttings from the newspapers.’ He said, ‘Look, we can’t accept this as evidence, because it has to stand in a court of law. You are prepared to put him on trial. You can try him in the United Nations compound in Kabul, but it has to be a Shariah court because he’s a citizen under Shariah law. Therefore, we will not accept that he should be immediately handed over to America, because George Bush has already said that he wants him “dead or alive”, so he’s passed the punishment, literally, against him.” Referring to the U.S. rejection of the Taliban offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan or hand him over to a third country, General Gul added, “I think this is a great opportunity that they missed.”

Returning to the drug trade, General Gul named the brother of President Karzai, Abdul Wali Karzai. “Abdul Wali Karzai is the biggest drug baron of Afghanistan,” he stated bluntly. He added that the drug lords are also involved in arms trafficking, which is “a flourishing trade” in Afghanistan. “But what is most disturbing from my point of view is that the military aircraft, American military aircraft are also being used. You said very rightly that the drug routes are northward through the Central Asia republics and through some of the Russian territory, and then into Europe and beyond. But some of it is going directly. That is by the military aircraft. I have so many times in my interviews said, ‘Please listen to this information, because I am an aware person.’ We have Afghans still in Pakistan, and they sometimes contact and pass on the stories to me. And some of them are very authentic. I can judge that. So they are saying that the American military aircraft are being used for this purpose. So, if that is true, it is very, very disturbing indeed.”

The full interview ranges more widely and is well worth reading. I was unaware that Gul had been banned from the UK and US. But I am unsurprised. I can tell you from direct inside knowledge that the UK/US view is that the ISI is riven with Al-Qaida sympathisers. This suspicion is directed at Pakistanis who are in fact not in any way Al-Qaida sympathisers, but simply ask sceptical and critical questions about the “War on Terror”.

The demonisation of such people again tends to create the very conflict and anti-Western feeling which is pretended to be the concern. In fact conflict, which the US sees itself as in a position ultimately to win militarily, tends to be the aim. General Gul evidently feels that destabilisation of Pakistan is a US strategic goal. That is certainly increasingly the result of US policy, but I doubt it is acknowledged, even internally, as an aim.

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Blears Lies Exposed: Ikram Yakubov Feature on Newsnight

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For those who missed it,the featue on Ikram is here, though I suspect only for today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight

It is worth watching, particularly for confirmation that the Tashkent “bombs” were false flag incidents – which was a major point in my time in Tashkent. My investigation which established this is covered at length in Murder in Samarkand. Nonetheless both the British and US have continued to use these fake al-Qaida linked bombings to justify our sypport for Karimov.

This is important, as they were knowingly lying, the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre (JTAC) having officially accepted my analysis of events, and informed me so by diplomatic telegram to Tashkent. Hazel Blears (unsurprisingly) was liar in chief:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/10/hazel_blears_ma.html

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Newsnight Investigation of Uzbek Defector

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BBC 2 Newsnight have been working for three months now on the claims of Uzbek security service defector Ikram Yakubov.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/09/evidence_of_kar.html

I think finally the piece will be broadcast tonight, although there have been several postponements already. For me Yakubov’s most interesting evidence is that he accompanied a CIA man to an interrogation, and the CIA man was actually in the room during the torture of a detainee, rather than just handing over questions to the Uzbeks.

But I think the Newsnight piece may be focusing on the probable murder by Karimov of Richard Conroy, the British acting Head of the UN mission in Uzbekistan. I cover this at length in Murder in Samarkand, but could not prove what informants were telling me. Yakubov claims to have knowledge from inside the security services.

I was interviewed by Newsnight for the piece, over a month ago. I presume some of this will be included. It remains a remarkable fact that Yakubov has not been debriefed by MI6, because the Uzbek security services are regarded as allies by the UK. The last thing the government wants is any official record of CIA involvement in torture (the intelligence from which will have been shared with MI6), or of Karimov’s ivolvement in the Andijan massacre, or in the death of Richard Conroy.

Yakubov has been granted political asylum in the UK, but last week he telephoned me to say he was being turfed out of his government provided accommodation and is now homeless.

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Famous Liar Says Britain Not Complicit In Torture

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Head of MI6 Sir John Scarlett has come out saying the UK is not complicit in torture. I can tell you from direct personal knowledge that the man is a lying.

That is, of course, hardly news. Scarlett was responsible for the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. Any sane journalist would treat him with ridicule and opprobrium as one of the most notorious liars in British history. Instead they afford him undue respect.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8188307.stm

Not one of the government’s reponses has addressed the irrefutable evidence I gave to the Parliamentary joint committee. The extraordinary thing is that all the meetings I discussed were minuted and the minutes exist in the FCO. I released official documents referring to those meetings. If I were lying, the government would only have to release the minutes. This they refuse to do.

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Headingley Blues

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This is almost the first morning I have had time to sit down and really pay attention to a morning’s play in the Ashes. So far it has been pretty disastrous for England.

The last ball of the 20th over, Cook left a ball from Johnson that passed four inches outside his off stump. He is the only batsman who has shown any kind of judgement. Strauss, Bopara and Collingwood were all out playing at balls well outside the off stump which they should have left alone in the first few overs of a test match. That England’s top order should have some idea where their off stump is, seems to me not too much to ask of well paid professionals.

The Australian bowling has had the discipline which the English batting lacks. It has not been brilliant, and there has been little movement off the seam and little swing. The wicket looks like a belter and the skies are clearing completely. England should have been giving Australia’s four man attack a very hard day.

It is very difficult not to go into grumpy old man mode, and opine that an excess of childish cricket formats have lobotomised Test match temperament out of the English batsmen.

Cook has gone while I am typing. We have to hope that Stuart Broad’s career is going to follow the example of Bob Woolmer, who started as a bowler who could bat a bit, and ended up as a genuine Test opener.

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Blackwater Boss Prince Accused of Murder, Gun Smuggling and Hatred of Muslims

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Several people have emailed me to call my attention to this article in The Nation, which is well worth reading – I particularly recommend you to follow the links and read the affidavits themselves.

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill

These remain allegations, though they are consistent with a general picture of Blackwater and its operations. Mercenaries are, after all, killers for hire. They are paid murderers, no matter how they try to glamorise themselves. That their leaders are ruthless individuals is a matter of course. Sadly, bringing anyone associated with the rape of Iraq to justice is viewed as undesirable by both the Democratic and Republican establishments, so I expect Mr Prince is safe to enjoy his money, his passion for killing and his neo-Templar fantasies.

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The Clinton Effect

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Bill Clinton is to be congratulated on getting the two US journalists released from North Korea. The downside, of propaganda photos for Kim-Jong-Il, is worth it.

For British people, there is a contrast with our own government’s longstanding indifferent attitude to the plight of British prisoners and hostages abroad. I recall particularly the British men who were falsely imprisoned and tortured into confession by the Saudi government, which was seeking to cover up Islamic extremist bombings. The UK not only did not help them, but acted to protect their Saudi torturers against reprisals.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lang=e&id=ENGEUR450102006

But I am also reminded of other photos of Clinton with a very dubious character which appeared recently.

clinton-karimova1-200x300.jpg

Just why Clinton is posing with the appalling Gulnara Karimova is unclear. But it might well relate to the continued efforts by the Obama administration to improve relations with President Karimov of Uzbekistan. As reported here in March, the US has signed new treaties with Uzbekistan, on use of the country for land transit to US forces in Afghanistan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5949217/Barack-Obama-courts-human-rights-abusers-in-Taliban-fight.html

President Obama’s Central Asian policy will prove the disaster which undermines the achievements of his administration. The surge in Afghanistan will not bring military victory, and rhe radicalisation in Pakistan increasingly spreads into urban populations. To compound this, Obama is now repeating Bush’s error of backing the vicious regimes of Soviet elites in the “Stans”

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/1582.

The long term evils of the drive for short term military gain in Afghanistan will haunt the West for generations.

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Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Calls For Public Inquiry on UK Complicity in Torture

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The parliamentary joint committee on human rights has this morning published its report on UK complicity in torture. The headline is a call for a full public inquiry on the subject.

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The most salient fact in the entire report does not feature prominently. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson both refused to appear before the committee to answer the damning evidence given by witnesses, myself included.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9spgagSHI

Arguably, if we had a proper system of parliamentary accountability, the JCHR inquiry would have itself been the public inquiry they want. For ministers simply to refuse to appear speaks volumes for the government’s evasiveness on torture, and determination that the truth should not come out. The greatest danger of this is that individual MI5 and MI6 officers are under investigation by the Metropolitan Police for collusion with torture. We will end up with the Abu Ghraib result, with minions being jailed, while the politicians who authorised the torture policy get off scot free.

Not that I believe a public inquiry will achieve much – it will be yet another whitewash, like the John Chilcot Iraq “Inquiry” entirely consisting of safe establishment yes-men. But it would be a step on the way to public acknowledgement of the role of Straw and Blair in bringing back torture as an accepted tool of governance in the UK.

The Committee report might have been expected to be scathing about Johnson’s and Miliband’s refusal to give evidence. In fact the report spends far more time attacking me for the vigour of my efforts to give evidence:

Mr Murray was a convincing witness when he appeared before us and his allegations are supported by some documentary evidence. His credibility has not been enhanced by his somewhat bizarre dealings with the Committee, however. When he first approached us about giving oral evidence we asked him for a written memorandum, which is standard practice for select committees. His response was to publish a story on his blog entitled “Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Commission Struck By Cowardice” which alleged that we were consulting party whips about how to deter him from giving oral evidence.40 This

was entirely untrue, as our subsequent decision to ask him to give oral evidence, despite his

comments, demonstrated. In May, Mr Murray published further comments on his blog,

suggesting that our Chair was a “stooge” of the Uzbek regime and had somehow been

implicated in his dismissal as UK ambassador.41 Again, these comments are entirely

without substance and may only serve to damage Mr Murray’s credibility and reputation.

I have to say this smacks of desperation in an effort to discredit evidence which the Committee admits was both “Convincing” and backed by documentation. Whoever drafted this also uses the old tricks of misrepresentation. I never said the Committee was “Consulting party whips”. I said that New Labour whips were leaning on New Labour members of the Committee not to hear my evidence – that I know for certain is true. I tried to give the same evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2005 and was refused. The JHRC took three meetings spread over a month deciding whether to hear me. If we had not brought pressure, I should be quite clear that I do not believe that they would have called me.

As for Committee chair Andrew Dismore, I stand by my posting about Dismore, his links to the Uzbek Embassy and the speeches he has made in Parliament on Uzbekistan promoting the Uzbek government line.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/andrew_dismore.html

I believe it was wrong of Dismore not to mention his links to the Uzbek Embassy in chairing the evidence session I gave. Interestingly the Committee’s carefully worded paragraph does not actually deny Dismore’s links to the Uzbek Embassy.

It amazes me that the Committee spent so little energy in decrying the refusal to testify of Johnson and Miliband, to cover up a policy of torture, and so much energy attacking me for comments about the committee on my blog. What a bunch of self-regarding political pygmies they are.

In fact, despite the de rigeur attack on Craig Murray’s credibility, my testimony forms part of the very weft of the whole report. Remove the sideswipe at me, and it is a very good report. In particular, no amount of rubbishing me could wish away the existence of the Michael Wood letter to me, giving the FCO’s legal endorsement of the use of torture material.

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I leaked this classified document by publication to the internet over four years ago. It was instantly posted and mirrored by thousands of sites around the World, making it impossible to keep it secret. But this report published today is the first official acknowledgement of the existence of this document and first official attempt to come to terms with what it means. It also, of course, shatters the government’s argument that I am making it all up (a line Jack Straw still regularly deploys).

The Committee made excellent use of the Michael Wood letter:

Other key unpublished documents are copies of the relevant legal advice given to the

Government about the relevant human rights standards concerning torture and complicity

in torture. As we mentioned above, there is already in the public domain the

memorandum from the Senior Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office, Michael Wood, dated

13 March 2003, which says:

Your record of our meeting with HMA Tashkent recorded that Craig had said that

his understanding was that it was also an offence under the UN Convention on

Torture to receive or possess information under torture. I said that I did not believe

that this was the case, but undertook to re-read the Convention.

I have done so. There is nothing in the Convention to this effect. The nearest thing

is Article 15 which provides [for the inadmissibility in evidence of any statement

which is established to have been made as a result of torture.].

This does not create any offence. I would expect that under UK law any statement

established to have been made as a result of torture would not be admissible as

evidence.

89. We accept, as Professor Sands pointed out in his evidence to us, that this short memo

responding to a specific query should not be treated as a formal, fully reasoned legal advice.

However, we are concerned that this response from the Foreign Office’s most senior lawyer

makes no mention of the requirement in Article 4(1) UNCAT that States criminalise

“complicity or participation in torture”. As Professor Sands commented: “In a formal and

limited sense Mr Wood’s response is correct, but it seems not to address the issue in the

round. … there may be circumstances in which the receipt or possession of information

that has been obtained by torture may amount to complicity in torture, within the meaning

of Article 4(1).”

90. The memo from the Foreign Office Legal Adviser raises a number of important

questions. As Professor Sands also said in his evidence, it may well be that Sir Michael

Wood, other lawyers or the Law Officers address the meaning and effect of Article 4 of

UNCAT in other more reasoned opinions, but this memo does not address that and

therefore “it does not give a complete answer.”125 We do not know whether other, more

reasoned advices were given to ministers or to the intelligence and security services. It is

important, in our view, to ascertain whether the Government was ever advised as to the

possibility that systematic reliance on information which may have been obtained under

torture risks at some point crossing the line into complicity in torture for which the UK

would be responsible under the relevant legal standards.

While a public Inquiry would be useful, I believe the major part of the truth about our ministerially approved policy on the use of torture could simply be revealed by releasing the minutes of my meeting of 7 or 8 March 2003 with Sir Michael Wood, Linda Duffield and Matthew Kydd at which I was told of the policy. The top copy includes a manuscript note which makes plain that Jack Straw had ordered the meeting and gives his views. I suggested that the Committee call for this minute, but they do not seem to have done so.

A final point worth mentioning is the continued UK media blackout. I have given 17 media interviews on the Committee’s report so far. including to CNN, but they have almost all been foreign. Only LBC radio in the UK has interviewed me. Neither do I exist in any of the press reports except a brief mention in the Herald.

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Auditors Bribe Tories

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There is an excellent article today in the Independent (thanks, Stephen) about the massive contribution to the Tories from accountancy firms.

Analysis by The Independent has revealed that leading companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and KPMG, have given the Tories nearly £500,000 since the start of last year as they attempt to build ties with the party that has a double-digit lead in the polls.

The firms involved already hold government contracts worth millions of pounds between them. More consultancy contracts would be on offer for auditors and consultants as the party would be forced to grapple with making vast savings across the public sector should it form the next government.

http://tinyurl.com/kuqmul

The Independent reckons these firms already have £4 billion worth of government contracts. Of course not only are they accountants and auditors, but “management consultants”. The idea that private sector consultants always know better took full wing under Thatcher and was enthusiastically adopted by New Labour. I have always found the argument that accountants know best how to fight wars, run hospitals and teach to be complete tripe. As the Independent says:

A single KPMG consultant working in the Department for Children, Schools and Families costs the taxpayer £1.35m over three years, a parliamentary inquiry found.

That’s ten teachers. We could make a start to saving public funds by banning the use of external consultants.

But the Tories’ dependence on these people should shatter any illusions that the Tories will better control the financial services sector. The financial services sector will, as always, control the Tories,

Newly elected Norwich North MP Chloe Smith was of course one of those seconded from the sector – from Deloitte – to the Conservative Party. It is an instructive case. After university, Smith worked for two Tory MPs, Gillian Shepherd and James Clappison – the latter famously bought 156 trees at taxpayer expense to mark the boundary of his country estate.

Chloe’s theoretical “Transfer” to Deloitte – while still in fact working for the Conservative Party on secondment – appears to be not only a subvention from Deloitte in taking a full time Tory hack onto their books, but a deliberate attempt to build up Chloe’s CV by making it appear she had not only worked for the Conservative Party.

As the Times put it:

She describes herself as a “business consultant” but is vague about what she does for Deloitte. Perhaps this is because she is on secondment to the Conservatives’ implementation unit

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6719526.ece

There may be one problem for them from this subterfuge strategy – unlike the secondments and donations mentioned in the Independent article, and unlike other secondments from Deloitte, Chloe Smith’s secondment has not been declared to the Electoral Commission as a donation to the Tory Party.

That is illegal.

Deloittes were, of course, auditors to the Royal Bank of Scotland/Natwest before the massive crash. A comment from Praguetory on a post below argued that nothing was wrong with the RBS audit. Well, that is true, if you overlook the failure to flag up the incredible over-valuation of worthless toxic assets, and the failure to warn that the biggest crash in corporate history was imminent.

I posted on this before, and hugely upset a (usually very interesting) accountants’ blog called The Sharpener, which had given a super review to Murder in Samarkand. But the plain truth is that all the first class financial scandals you can name – Polly Peck, BCCI, Enron, Equitable Life, RBS, Allan Stanford, Bernie Madoff – had blue chip accountants who signed off regularly on accounts giving a wholly false picture.

In not one of those case was it the auditors who blew the whistle.

The entire Western accounting system is based on the compliance of morally corrupt little pen pushers. The fact that it is the company which chooses its own accountants and auditors, who have a vested interest in keeping their mouths shut and are never prosecuted when a scheme folds (along with the hopes and savings of millions of investors), is a scandal.

Our jails should hold less desperate social security scammers, and a great many more accountants.

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Tilting At Windmills

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There is a theory in Holyrood that “King Nuke” Brian Wilson’s support for the proposed 550 MW wind power project on Shetland, is based on a desire to see wind power terminally discredited by this over-large scheme.

Of Wilson’s motives I have no view – he was a good man forty years ago at, and immediately after, Dundee University, but like so many his morals appear to have been skewed by contact with Tony Blair.

But wind power needs to generate in serious units like 550 MW if it is to have a real impact on the future of British energy policy. Interestingly, if the Viking project can really be built for £800 million as stated, that is only twice the cost of installing conventional gas turbine plant – and the gas turbines will burn their construction cost again in fuel inside five years, while the fuel for the wind turbines is free.

I confess to having little time for the anti-wind turbine lobby. There are environmental consequences to any energy generation, of course, inclusing wind turbines. All human activity impacts the environment. But compared to the environmental costs of extracting and combusting fossil fuels, the impact of wind turbines is much less damaging.

Yes, you have to join them with roads and cable ducts. Of course that has an impact on the environment – as does mining and smelting the steel, etc. But I am not a fan of closing down human activity altogether to end our environmental impact. Nor is there a great deal of evidence that birds suffer wholesale massacre. The construction will but scratch the surface of the Shetland wilderness – there are no dams flooding valleys, no mountains being moved. That the wilderness should remain pristine for the benefit of occasional sightseers from the cities – who actually never really visit, they just like to think it is there – is not a major priority.

So I hope Viking, and as many other wind projects as possible, speed ahead. Which is why I am furious at the government allowing the closure of the Vestas blade factory on the Isle of Wight. Any amount of public money is available to bail out casino banking young sharps in the City of London – even though it has put us in debt for generations. But it would be “Wrong” to help our too small stake in the wind turbine industry, according to “Lord” Mandelson.

Meanwhile, the taxpayer has been heavily subsidising the nuclear industry for my entire lifetime…

Returning to Norfolk has re-awakened my fury at the government’s abandonment of much of our coastal defences, as impractical and too expensive. Yet the East Coast is full of reclaimed land, around Kent, North Norfolk and the whole of the Fens. We were doing it for centuries armed only with picks, shovels and buckets. The obvious response to the government’s miserable policy is “tell that to the Dutch”. Infuriatingly, erosion on the Norfolk cost is being increased by the Crown Estate dredging sand offshore – to sell to the Netherlands government to improve their coastal defences.

There are offshore wind farms planned around here, including on the shoals off Sheringham. It seems to me that there must be a tremendous opportunity to combine major new coastal defences with renewable energy capture through wind, tide, wave and current. This is the kind of major and imaginative public works project, like building the Hoover Dam, which adds to the investment capital of a nation and provides jobs and economic activity as we enter serious recession.

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Internet Troll Attacks

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Interesting post on the excellent politicalbetting.com. Mike Smithson has asked whether the strict rules that prevented the BBC giving me any coverage in Norwich North, relating to evidence of past electoral support in the area, will be applied to Esther Rantzen.

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/28/will-the-craig-murray-rules-be-applied-to-esther/comment-page-4/

The answer is probably no, they won’t be, as they were not appled to Martin Bell. That is a good thing – they should not be applied, and should not have been applied to me. Fashionable though it is to decry Ms Rantzen, I wish her every success. The point of having more independents in parliament is that they should be independent, not that they should agree about everything.

But I was drawn particularly to a comment on the website. There seems an exponential increase in comment activity on the web designed to portray me as nuts, and this seems to me a particularly egregious example. I post it here with my response:

Comment 40 FPT – Is Craig Murray of Uzbekistan and Norwich North the same one who is lecturing on Out of Body Experiences and Near Death Experiences at the Society for Psychical Research?

No, I am not. Neither am I the film producer, ice hockey player, comedian, aviation photographer, naturalist, police chief, or Duke of Atholl, who all have the same name. Interesting you didn’t choose any of them, but attempt to portray me as someone of curious views.

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The Deeply Horrible Trevor Phillips and the NUS Monster Spawn

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Trevor Phillips, New Labour hack to perfection, is Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission – and his re-appointment has caused nearly half of the commissioners to leave.

At a time when human rights in the UK have come under sustained attack, with the effective extinction of habeas corpus, extraordinarily intrusive “Anti-terrorism Acts”, and growth of the surveillance society, Phillips has ensured the Equality and Human Rights Commission has remained absolutely silent on these issues.

Nor have they said a word about the now overwhelming evidence of UK collusion in torture abroad. When Islamophobia was at its height, and Jack Straw chose to make a populist attack on veiled Muslim women, Phillips waded in to back his long term political ally. He has been entirely silent on, but privately is a strong supporter of, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Phillips is one of that extraordinary roll of former Presdents of the National Union of Students. As members of the far left, they showed an authoritarianism and disregard for democracy in their student days which has stood them in good stead as leaders, cheerleaders and administrators of New Labour’s authoritarian and aggressive right wing state. They are all ruthless careerists, and also fervently anti-Palestinian.

Jack Straw, Trevor Phillips, Charles Clarke, David Aaronovitch, Sue Slipman, all ex-NUS Presidents – a roll-call of shame indeed. Some on the left are surprised that my CV includes being a leader of the succesful movement to bring Scottish universities out of the NUS in the 1970s and 1980s. I rest my case.

(I knew Mike Phillips, Trevor’s brother, slightly and once had dinner at his home. A lovely man).

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A 19th Century Horror

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Last Wednesday, the day before the by-election, I had my first ever encounter with a bailiff – and highly unpleasant it was.

As it happens, I was not the target. I had rented a large house in Norwich to serve as a campaign HQ, and for the rest of the summer as a haven while I crack on with my next book, Sikunder Burnes. The bailiffs were after the landlord of the property.

The debt in question had started at £700, and is disputed by my landlord. I don’t know the rights and wrongs, but he had lost what he says is but the first court skirmish. His creditors had immediately set the bailiffs upon him. One consequence of this was that a £700 debt had grown to £2,700 with court, legal and bailiff costs added.

The bailiff himself was a large man, with the build and manner of a night club bouncer. To call him aggressive would be unfair, but intimidating and extremely pushy would be fair. The landlord, of course, was not around.

The bailiff introduced himself as a “High Court enforcement officer”. But close inspection of his paperwork indicated that he worked for a company named “High Court Enforcement Group Ltd”, as opposed to working for the High Court. All of his paperwork bore the stamp “High Court Enforcement Group”. I could find nothing with the stamp or signature of an actual judge.

He told me that he was entitled to remove all the contents of the house (which I had rented furnished). I told him I was not satisfied with his paperwork. A standoff of several hours ensued, and eventually a policeman was called. The policeman said the bailiff’s warrant was valid, and this did indeed entitle him to remove all the contents of the house.

I am still not convinced the polceman was right. My brother, who is also a polceman, had told me that I should not accept anything other than a Notice of Distress signed by a judge or court official. This bailiff had nothing signed by anyone other than his own company, though the paperwork did refer to a supposed judgement of a court. But the local policeman was backing the bailiff up.

What was even more extraordinary was his apparent entitlement to remove all the contents of the house. This is a distinguished old place, and there are several individual items each worth more than the debt. The total value would be many, many times the value of the debt. Presumably there was a commercial incentive for High Court Enforcement Group Ltd to take away as much as possible, irrespective of the actual debt.

In the end, I managed to argue past 6pm when the bailff knocked off, and the next morning the landlord arrived with the cash.

But I must emphasise how unpleasant the experience was. I am not accusing the bailiff of doing anything wrong, but he was plainly chosen because he was of a very large, shaven headed, bulging muscled, physically intimidating type. Nadira and baby Cameron were alone in the house when he first came.

For a private company to be allowed to call itself “High Court Enforcement Group Ltd”, and effectively try to pass itself off as an arm of the High Court, must be wrong. I cannot understand how paperwork stamped and signed only by a private firm can be sufficient to enter a home and remove its contents, whatever the policeman said.

In The Trials of Oscar Wilde, Peter Finch gives a brilliantly moving portrayal of the poet. One of the strongest scenes, which has remained with me, is when the bailiffs move in on Wilde’s home to enforce a warrant sale after his legal losses.

I am horrified that we treat debtors still with comparable 19th century brutality. Presumably a great many of the bailiffs’ targets are comparatively poor people. The threatening invasion of homes and ripping out of family belongings must tip many over the edge. It is worth noting that many of the items removed by bailiffs from the poor will be exactly the sort of things – televisions, garden ornaments, dinner services – that MPs were buying in highest quality on the taxpayer.

This way of dealing with debt truly is a barbarous survival, and must be ended.

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