The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat“. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
er – no?
ps invigorating & sensible post, Suhayl, cheers.
Suhayl,
You forgot to mention the bra burning in the 60s
Yes, bra burning made very little sense, I always thought. At least, if a team of oppressed men got together and burnt their jockstraps as a form of protest I’d be puzzled.
…though I suppose if men felt they *had* to wear a jockstrap… Nearly all women wear bras, don’t they? I wouldn’t like to be strapped up all the time, I must say.
(finally) I love wikipedia:
on jockstraps
As public sporting events grew in popularity, athletes began to wear the rubberized canvas girdle under their tights and uniforms, in order to avoid charges of corrupting public morals with displays of their covered but uncontained genitalia. In 1867, a Chicago sports team refused to take the field wearing “modesty” girdles and forfeited the competition. A riot ensued
I wonder whether it will actually go ahead. President Obama and General Petraeus have pleaded with him not to do it, and even Sarah Palin has condemned the action (simultaneously with the plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero, however). In a video news report Terry Jones claimed that a retired member of the American special forces supported his action. But the city of Gainesville has refused him a permit to have a bonfire, and they may attempt to use civic means to stop him, like ordering the fire brigade to turn the hoses on as soon as the burning starts.
technicolour, ruth… thanks. Rubberised canvas girdles? My type of lingerie! Ahem.
Anyway, shana tov for Rosh Hashanah, Vronsky – do give my regards to the 6th Millennium (and I shall render yours to the C15th and the C21st). But seriously, have a whale of a time. It’s also Eid ul Fitr tomorrow.
what, Suhayl, all the time? I think it would be quite uncomfortable. Lots of bras look uncomfortable too, all those straps digging into swollen shoulders over summer. What’s that thing the extremely strange Catholics use for penance?
Abe, that’s the America I know from Ray Bradbury’s memoirs.
“Nearly all women wear bras, don’t they?”
You’re what we call a ‘chancer’, Tech. 😉
As you know, some women are cursed with figures that mean if they didn’t wear a bra they’d be knuckle-dragging.
Abe,
Terry Jones says he’ll call it all off if he gets a call from the WH. He has an exaggerated sense of his own importance now. Given to him by the media, one could argue.
Vronsky,
Loved your “just finished paying for the 5767 Camry”. Will you be having a special meal or celebration?
Thanks, Abe. But you see what I mean. All these prominent people – and like a scene out of Camberwick Green, Captain Snort and the Fire Brigade – I can see images of nutters being fire-hosed making the 6 o’clock news, which of course is just what they want. I mean, if they’d just been studiously ignored like with the White Supremacist ijeuts – ‘go off to a forest, make Nazi salutes and onanise’, sort-of-thing, no-one would have heard of the spectacle. Naturally, it’s in the fundos’ interests on all sides and everywhere to blow this up like a giant condom and let it explode across the world’s media. Clearly, it’s in no-one else’s interest. Here we go again – the Dutch cartoons, and the cynical use of those by Islamists, all over again. “Oh great joy of the thundermost!” to quote Stanley Unwin.
“a retired member” supported him? It would be kind to find him a clever way to back down, maybe. If it’s Bradbury they will. If it’s Stephen King, they won’t.
Rossignol indeed Richard:
After ‘The Confusion’ comes ‘The System of the World’ (Baroque trilogy -1) Information is power – Geeks rule! But will we ever reconcile faith and science?
Technicolour, if you visit the Doge’s Palace in Venice, in one of the glass cases, carefully and lovingly preserved, you’ll see a chastity belt once worn by one of the Princesses there. It’s a horrible-looking contraption made of pig-iron and is embedded with spikes. Talk about S ‘n’ M on the Bridge of Sighs! Antonioni and Nin would’ve had a field day!
But rubberised girdles? You can’t beat ’em! Not even with a long, rawhide whip.
If it’s Stephen King, the world will almost end and will be saved only by the forthright action of the tight-lipped Gary Sinese, who later became a cop in NYC and set the world to rights – again and again and again.
From Wikipedia:
What is it with all these actors, confusing their roles with real life? Almost makes you long for the smooches of the darlings of Notting Hill!
Here it is. Go to ‘Politics’:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Sinise#Politics
dreoilin agreed; but when I thought about I realised I just assumed all the women I knew were wearing bras. I have never actually studied it.
Also, point about endowment taken, but still, the larger the bra, the more painful it seems to look. As a former fitness enthusiast I wonder if women exercised their pectoral muscles it would mitigate against the drag factor?
(er hem) Sorry. Have lost the thread…
ah, sorry, the above was me *to* dreoilin.
Off for dinner…
chacun a son goute, tho Suhayl, I feel you underrate Stephen King’s ability to produce interesting psychological portraits of people in small towns. See ‘Needful Things’; esp the end.
Oh yes, King is a good writer. I’ll check out that one, thanks. Have good nosh.
Dove Outreach Center rants- Ground Zero mosque rants – condemnations by Clinton, Petraeus, Holder, Rabbi Gutow, Mayor Bloomberg – yes a united chorus that goes to great pains to stifle independent thought against the trillion dollar military industrial terror media complex.
Above all we must “perpetuate the myth of the all persuasive terrorist conspiracy.”
Check out the Corbett Report – expand your consciousness – live dangerously!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiA3K8CGQ-0
??? ?????
Eid Mubarak everybody, and to every body an Eid Mubarak!!!!
Khair mubarak! You too, Arsalan, have a good one, man! And to Anno, too, if you’re still there, reading.
have a happy festival…
Eid mubarak. Enjoy.
The antics of the maniac pastor have been ‘called off’.
Yes. (I was just reading that Fox News had said that they weren’t going to cover it. What are they up to, getting all holier than thou all of a sudden?)
Tech, take your point about pectoral muscles, don’t know the answer.
Arsalan, Enjoy, and come back and tell us your latest fish recipe.
Interesting link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cia-to-monitor-internet-chatter-for-anti-government-sentiment.html
technicolour: if that’s Fahrenheit 451 you’re talking about, I’ve seen the film but not read the book.
The trouble is, Terry Page appears to genuinely believe that Islam is a work of the devil. A person like that is quite capable of burning books. The main reason to be concerned is not that his stunt might give some people a laugh but that it could lead to unnecessary loss of life. But we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
Sorry, that’s Terry Jones I meant, confused his name with that of another Terry whom I’m quite certain is _not_ a bigoted book burner.