I was in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for over 20 years and a member of its senior management structure for six years, I served in five countries and took part in 13 formal international negotiations, including the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and a whole series of maritime boundary treaties. I headed the FCO section of a multidepartmental organisation monitoring the arms embargo on Iraq.
I am an instinctively friendly, open but unassuming person who always found it easy to get on with people, I think because I make fun of myself a lot. I have in consequence a great many friends among ex-colleagues in both British and foregin diplomatic services, security services and militaries.
I lost very few friends when I left the FCO over torture and rendition. In fact I seemed to gain several degrees of warmth with a great many acquantances still on the inside. And I have become known as a reliable outlet for grumbles, who as an ex-insider knows how to handle a discreet and unintercepted conversation.
What I was being told last night was very interesting indeed. NATO HQ in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by Israel on a NATO member flagged ship in international waters is an event to which NATO is obliged – legally obliged, as a matter of treaty – to react.
I must be plain – nobody wants or expects military action against Israel. But there is an uneasy recognition that in theory that ought to be on the table, and that NATO is obliged to do something robust to defend Turkey.
Mutual military support of each other is the entire raison d’etre of NATO. You must also remember that to the NATO military the freedom of the high seas guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is a vital alliance interest which officers have been conditioned to uphold their whole career.
That is why Turkey was extremely shrewd in reacting immediately to the Israeli attack by calling an emergency NATO meeting. It is why, after the appalling US reaction to the attack with its refusal to name Israel, President Obama has now made a point of phoning President Erdogan to condole.
But the unhappiness in NATO HQ runs much deeper than that, I spoke separately to two friends there, from two different nations. One of them said NATO HQ was “a very unhappy place”. The other described the situation as “Tense – much more strained than at the invasion of Iraq”.
Why? There is a tendency of outsiders to regard the senior workings of governments and international organisations as monolithic. In fact there are plenty of highly intelligent – and competitive – people and diverse interests involved.
There are already deep misgivings, especially amongst the military, over the Afghan mission. There is no sign of a diminution in Afghan resistance attacks and no evidence of a clear gameplan. The military are not stupid and they can see that the Karzai government is deeply corrupt and the Afghan “national” army comprised almost exclusively of tribal enemies of the Pashtuns.
You might be surprised by just how high in Nato scepticism runs at the line that in some way occupying Afghanistan helps protect the west, as opposed to stoking dangerous Islamic anger worldwide.
So this is what is causing frost and stress inside NATO. The organisation is tied up in a massive, expensive and ill-defined mission in Afghanistan that many whisper is counter-productive in terms of the alliance aim of mutual defence. Every European military is facing financial problems as a public deficit financing crisis sweeps the continent. The only glue holding the Afghan mission together is loyalty to and support for the United States.
But what kind of mutual support organisation is NATO when members must make decades long commitments, at huge expense and some loss of life, to support the Unted States, but cannot make even a gesture to support Turkey when Turkey is attacked by a non-member?
Even the Eastern Europeans have not been backing the US line on the Israeli attack. The atmosphere in NATO on the issue has been very much the US against the rest, with the US attitude inside NATO described to me by a senior NATO officer as “amazingly arrogant – they don’t seem to think it matters what anybody else thinks”.
Therefore what is troubling the hearts and souls of non-Americans in NATO HQ is this fundamental question. Is NATO genuinely a mutual defence organisation, or is it just an instrument to carry out US foreign policy? With its unthinking defence of Israel and military occupation of Afghanistan, is US foreign policy really defending Europe, or is it making the World less safe by causing Islamic militancy?
I leave the last word to one of the senior NATO officers – who incidentally is not British:
“Nobody but the Americans doubts the US position on the Gaza attack is wrong and insensitve. But everyone already quietly thought the same about wider American policy. This incident has allowed people to start saying that now privately to each other.”
Craig Murray is a former British Ambassador. He is also a former Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He negotiated the UK’s current maritime boundaries with Ireland, Denmark (Faeroes), Belgium and France, and boundaries of the Channel Islands, Turks and Caicos and British Virgin Islands. He was alternate Head of the UK Delegation to the UN Preparatory Commission on the Law of the Sea. He was Head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, enforcing sanctions on Iraq, and directly responsible for clearance of Royal Navy boarding operations in the Persian Gulf.
Reviews of Craig Murray’s War on Terror Memoir, “Murder in Samarkand” – published in the US as “Dirty Diplomacy”:
“It really is a magnificent achievement” – Noam Chomsky
“A fearless book by a fearless man. Craig Murray tells the truth whether the “authorities” like it or not. I salute a man of integrity” – Harold Pinter
Thanks Conrad, good to hear from you.
Should be most grateful to hear from you as to what these “Christian Zionists” make of the Ten Commandments, especially that “thou shall not kill, thou shall not bear false witness,” and that one should love thy neighbour as thyself” The tumultuous slaughter and deceit emanating from the U.S. would seem to be in cotradiction to the Bible.
Courtenay,
I don’t mean to be rude but it’s lawyers in government that has got us into this situation; do you ever balance your desire, and requirement to represent your client against justice. And I say that from a criminal law perspective, which may not be appropriate to you, but I have spent more times on a witness stand giving evidence for the prosecution, examined by lawyers for the defence who are on a hiding to nothing but persist in flogging a dead horse than I care to remember. No wonder a popular perception of lawyers is as money grabbers.
No wonder a popular perception (or misconception) of lawyers is as money grabbers.
‘Is NATO genuinely a mutual defence organisation, or is it just an instrument to carry out US foreign policy?”
My answer – the latter.’
Not so.
Both Israel and the US are controlled by the same plutocratic Zionist power brokers, some of them not even Jews, none of whom give a damn about democracy or free society.
So when referring to the instruments of domination employed by these bastards, we should refer not to Israel or the US but to USIsrael.
On this Paul Craig Roberts, former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury is wrong in calling the US a puppet of Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4sM323793A&feature=related
USIsrael is, for political purposes, one entity. To restore the republic, the US would have to undergo a new revolution.
“On this Paul Craig Roberts, former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury is wrong in calling the US a puppet of Israel.”
Mr. Roberts is someone who went loony. But maybe he’s always been loony. For instance, he believes that 911 was an inside job.
Do you ever wonder why the people who you rely on to support your arguments also believe that 911 was an inside job?
every single aspect of your life is controlled by the evil zionist jews. its not jews but zionist jews who are at war with jews,christians and muslims.im glad most of the people are finally waking up n realizing that all this terrorism is bullshit. im starting to think that the terrorists are fighting for our freedoms now, since we cant fight them here. it takes balls the size of watermelons to fight these assholes with the weapons they have made and mastered.
“The tumultuous slaughter and deceit emanating from the U.S. would seem to be in cotradiction to the Bible.”
Have you not read the Book of Joshua? It’s a very explicit endorsement of genocide.
There was a settler Rabbi who said the Ten Commandments (actually there were two sets, one on each tablet) only applied between Jews. That is a defensible position.
The Torah is shared by Judaism and Christianity and it should be obvious that people are wilfully ignorant of the bits that they don’t like. You can’t judge someone’s morality by their religion.
I don’t know how the Koran treats this story. It can’t be any worse than the Biblical version.
/end obvious atheist rant
ih8zionists, you pretty much sum up the level of decency and coherence at this blog.
Larry,
Can you not for a moment refrain from bringing up 9/11, a subject on which you seem to adhere to some loony conspiracy theory about 19 Muslims.
The US has not bombed Iran yet. Therefore Israel does not control the US, and there is not one entity controlling both.
We’ve already had a commentator point out the strong Christian Zionist element of what Mearsheimer and Walt call the “Israel Lobby” (I’d rather call it the Zionist Lobby, or perhaps the Israel Uber Alles Lobby). No doubt the arms lobby (the “military industrial complex” as Eisenhower called it) also likes the current arrangement with massive US arms subsidies to Israel and permanent Israeli conflict.
Famously there is much more criticism of Israel in Israel than there is in the US.
Can we cut the Global Jewish Conspiracy crap now please? Craig deserves better on his blog.
” You can’t judge someone’s morality by their religion.”
True, thank god, or does the old bastard deserve a capital G.
But religion is a very handy justification for genocide when one is need by the ruling elite, which is why, if we are going to live in a harmonious international community, we need to put aside toxic beliefs such as those propagated by the Torah/Old Testament, and another holy book I will not mention for fear of having my head severed from my body by a fanatic intent on his share of virgins.
Alternatively, we should frankly acknowledge that racism is the basis of our core beliefs and get on with Amageddon, or whatever it is that we’re coming up for now.
I see the Turks are preparing for war:
http://www.aysor.am/en/news/2010/06/02/turkey-israel-war/
Speaking of Walt, here he writes on conspiracy theories:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/26/on_conspiracy_theories
“The US has not bombed Iran yet. Therefore Israel does not control the US, and there is not one entity controlling both.”
What’s the logic here? You think they don’t have to soften up the world before they commit nuclear genocide – if that’s what they intend?
Or you think brinkmanship is no longer employed in international maneuvering?
And who talked about a Global Jewish Conspiracy? What are you talking about.
“religion is a very handy justification for genocide”
I don’t believe it’s the core reason. In-group/ out-group dynamics are, at the extreme of which members of the out-group become dehumanised.
Religion is one of the most powerful means of establishing in-groups and out-groups though along with ethnicity and language. The three often go together. Curiously some on the right have invented “Judeo-Christianity” to predicate their in-group, arbitrarily excluding Muslims (and often atheists like me – I’m looking at you Mad Mel Philips).
Clearly there is daylight between the US and Israel on Iran. The US military is widely believed to be opposed to any attack, which is why Bush didn’t bomb. Petraeus recently linked US support to Israel to the dangers facing American soldiers.
It’s possible that the difference is merely a public ruse, but there is absolutely no evidence of that and the simplest explanation to explain public differences is private differences.
One group running both the US and Israel is unsupportable conspiracy theorist bullshit.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/02/defending_the_indefensible_a_how_to_guide
Walt’s latest is a satirical description of state apologetics, using this incident as a springboard.
@Craig
During your time at the FCO, did you ever come across the US’s contingency plans regarding mass evacuations of Israelis via Ashdod, Eilat, Hadera, and Haifa?
great comments.
Alfred’s were a little acidic, however, nowhere in my study of all world religions can I find one which has written text describing the boiling of jesus in hot excrement five times a day in hell, as does judaism.
No-where else, can I find a ‘faith’ who’s true documents reveal, in reality, a cover for organized crime going back centuries.
Of course ‘adherents’ are against truth, against justice, and do everything possible to infiltrate organizations so they have pro-criminal doctrines.
I have family members who fled the pogroms of the late 1800’s on europe. So I know you; you are possessed and for that, I pray for you. I do my white wizardry that the disembodied entities possessing you, leave this planet – forever. Do not dare to think you can use your useless slander against me, or that it has any effect what-so-ever.
Judaism is not ‘a people’, it is not ‘a religion’, and it is certainly not ‘a race’. It is an ideology; however neither pure, nor simple.
NaZi – learn about europe and languages. Combined political parties are nothing new. The nationasocialists, the NSDPA, the Na in NaZi, joined with the Zionists, who seemed to have a common interest in removing the jews from europe. The jews who had no issues with the gentile population, and didn’t want to move to the desert, they were left for dead in poorly-supplied labor camps. Poorly supplied because the people orchestrating the war, made sure supply routes and civilian production were bombed, causing the occupants to die from typhus and related complications (starvation). 700,000 max ‘jews’ and ‘half-jews’ died in all of WW2 – deal with it. The dead were jews who did not want to move to a new ghetto planned for them by the ‘head of the snake’, and who were happy and comfortable on europe.
*Legal*, not lawful, definition of ‘Holocaust Survivors (TM)’: needed to be was on europe somewhere, after about 1932. They could have left with all of their possessions and money intact.
In short, the nationalists lost (look at the story of ‘Rudolf Hess’, flew unarmed to scottland in a last-ditch attempt to avert war, spent 30+ years in Spandau Prison at the behest of these criminals) –
and the Zionists won, bringing surplus superior german war technology down to palestine, to defeat millions of arabs, who had WW1-era bolt-action rifles.
No one is a victim!
Redders – hey, thanks I’ll take you up on that! Definitely! It was also very well put about Glasgow.
“One group running both the US and Israel is unsupportable conspiracy theorist bullshit.”
Unsupportable?
Have you ever seen the US media demand that the US adopt a position seriously at odds with Israeli interests? If so, give us some examples.
Have you ever seen the the US Congress seriously at odds with Israel on any issue of significance? If so, give us some examples.
Have you ever seen the the US President seriously at odds with Israel on any issue of significance? If so, give us some examples.
“I see the Turks are preparing for war:”
Alfred,
you should worry, I met a delightful and peaceful old woman 10 years or so now, a guest of Hitler in Auschwitz. She told me and other guests at a party that she had been given the gift of being able to see certain things and told me she could see my guardian angel. He was always with me and behind me all the time, he is, evidently, a Turk, brandishing a scimitar, mounted on a white stallion.
I am an atheist but I believe there is something more than just the over simplification of ‘a bearded Man in the clouds’ (Ricky Gervais movie, the man who told the first lie [or something like that]) and I take some comfort in the possibility this old lady was right.
Incidentally, she wasn’t a guest, she was a waitress and at 70+ years old a peaceful and positive lady who is/would have abhorred Israel’s conduct now.
And now a word from the Holocaust deniers! Tell us more, commentitus!
(Suhayl, did commentitus likewise provide us with a fascinating post?)
Alfred, what I do understand is that in your conspiracy-theory mind (like all anti-Jew conspiracy-theory minds), because the U.S. does not oppose Israeli policies as much as the Muslims and the European Left, it must be that the JOOOS control the U.S.
I just can’t imagine that you ever studied logic and really learned the lessons.
Most stupid comment on the thread (in a strong field):
Suhayl Saadi: “The USA even allows Israel to spy on it, unpunished and indeed abetted”
I’m sure Jonathan Pollard will be pleased to hear that.
Suhayl
Just a miserable old ex coppers opinion, I loved the public but hated the Police regime.
I guess that’s why I value justice so much, it supersedes everything; and Britain still has the best justice system in the world, despite it’s weaknesses. The public gallery in a court is a great place in a good trial but even better is ‘guarding’ the accused in the High Court when he says things to the coppers sitting beside him he wouldn’t even tell his lawyer. Then you know if he’s truly guilty or not and your judgement rarely differs from the jury’s.
And I think everyone needs to keep in mind that the U.S. was never as infected with the disease of anti-Semitism (or anti-Jewish hatred, if you prefer) as was the case in Europe.
By the way, I do a fair amount of related reading, and I’m still waiting to read a Jew exploiting the Holocaust as a reason to justify Israel’s existence or policies. I think you people are simply given to exaggeration.
Larry from St. Louis
Does somebody need a hug?
Larry,
Let’s get one fact straight. I never talk of JOOOOS. Got it?
Let’s get another fact straight. I never said Jews controls the United States.
What I did say was that the same power brokers control both Israel and the United States.
I specifically stated that Paul Craig Roberts was in error to say that Israel controls the US. This is a silly notion. Is it likely that a piddling middle east state with a GDP less than that of New Jersey could control the United States contrary to the wishes of the American ruling elite?
Obviously, not. The only way that there can be the appearance of Israeli control of the US is if the US and Israel are controlled by the same group, who as I have already pointed out are not all Jews and of whom the majority are not Israelis. Vice President Biden, for example: “you don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist.”
Finally, I have said nothing here that is “anti-Jew” (is the charge of anti-Semitism losing its bite?).
I have criticized those Jews who support Israeli crimes as a matter of racial solidarity. That is not anti-Semitism. It is a statement of a moral judgment with which I believe many (ethnic, or anthropogenic, and even religious) Jews, would agree.
And I am no more of a conspiracy theorist than you with your unsubstantiated belief about 19 Muslims.
But go on. Hack away at your assigned task of deriding and dismissing anything that contradicts the imperial mission of USIsrael. It is of no significance, as surely no one takes you seriously.
>the U.S. was never as infected with the disease of anti-Semitism…
No, they were far too busy committing genocide and land grab against indigenous tribes and later lynching blacks.
Heh – a dozen posts from “wide-stance” Larry, including a 3-star “larry alert” above (where you find consecutive posts all by the same author) – must mean the Israelis haven’t got a leg to stand on. I’m surprised they don’t find more competent apologists, though.
Alfred – you don’t actually think you can have a conversation with a slippery, discreditable liar like him, do you?