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.
Hey Technicolour… but I never read the tabloids! Maybe that disqualifies me from the description “ordinary”?
yep, I was thinking of the headlines. Still I don’t know why it would be ‘hard’, actually: it’s not at all hard for me to distinguish between repulsive divisive tabloid shockscaretactics and the human reality 🙂
glenn: just re-read your reply to Alfred: never knew that about Palin’s son. Not a small thing, cutting brake lines. Here I know of boys in young people’s homes (16 – 25) who were forced into the TA for a bit of pilfering (or lose their place); after which they could be sent to Iraq. Nice.
Well said Glenn, without my local ‘Spar’ and warm friendly British Muslims with cousins and Uncles in Pakistan, translation would be difficult and intelligence voids would exist. As an example Geo TV’s anchor Hamid Mir might have gained my trust until I was told he *might* be an agent – ‘might’ means ‘beware’ in my sceptic notepad.
technicolour: There’s an idea – deal with juvenile delinquents by conscripting them into the army. Remember the film “Dirty Dozen”? They could be offered pardon in exchange for participating in dangerous operations. Maybe Britain should have an equivalent of the French Foreign Legion – clean slate after 5 years of service, plus citizenship. Many young asylum seekers might jump at the chance, at first.
I remember a comic in which Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig have accidentally enlisted as legionnaires When Bugs decides it’s time to leave, the lieutenant grabs his ears and says “NO-ONE resigns from ze foreign legion – not even bunny rabbits!” After that Bugs and Porky are put to work cleaning boots. Porky stutters in despair while Bugs says disgustedly, ‘Boot Camp, he calls it!’
“There’s an idea – deal with juvenile delinquents by conscripting them into the army”
We think they’re not responsible enough to be running around on the streets of their own land, so force ’em to go out and point guns at foreigners ? yeah, that’ll be good all round.
the ‘juvenile delinquents’ I know are lost boys. forcing them into murder is atrocious.
sorry, stating the obvious.
This stupid bloody media trap of ‘Muslims’; as though people of one religion should be able to be categorised in any other simplistic way. Ow. It hurts.
technicolour: “glenn: just re-read your reply to Alfred: never knew that about Palin’s son.”
You hadn’t heard of it because it was a complete lie.
Ah well. Not very interested in Palin or her son per se, but the point that ‘young offenders’, whatever their apparent crimes, are being forced into our armies; concomitantly forcing their consciences to condone pointless killing or collapse, still stands.
btw all the soldiers and ex-soldiers I know have been utterly traumatised, rather than rejoicing in it.
Nightingales. I han’t known that, dreoilin. Not such a good noise after all, then, pity.
I remember a road-sign I used to see (I spent a couple of years in France) – it said “Nids des ” … I think it was ‘poules’, or might have been just ‘oiseaus’ (it was a long time ago). Some kind of nests, anyway; and what it meant was sodding big potholes. I wonder if all driving problems turn into birds, in French ? But they don’t just fly away, for sure.
The ‘stop shouting’ bit did make me laugh, I’m stuck for a good come-back.
Why does history repeat itself ? Because no-one listens [Drumroll, clash of cymbals, audience throws things].
I say thank-you for alternate media – introducing – ‘The Young Turks’ – 2009 Best Political web-site:
theyoungturks.com/
Here is their take on the PsyOp Koran burning:
youtube.com/watch?v=VwI_HqB_eOk
wideshut.co.uk –
is a good example of alternate journalism, but the line between now perjorative ‘conspiracy theories’ and the believable is thin.
There is no such thing as superhuman powers of discovery but there is extraordinary cunning involving a Machiavellian enterprises embedded in the main media, that forces its quill whenever needed.
I think keeping our eyes on the ball invokes the word ‘conspire’ which means ‘to join a *secret* agreement, for example Watergate was a ‘conspire’acy.
I also believe there exist an urgent need for a British media outlet whose stories satisfy by opponents and proponents! – before you shout impossible! – it may only be a question of time before ways of accessing truth value have become so sophisticated that ‘fringe’ and alternate media are merged to mainstream.
A recent rise in whistle-blowing, attempts to examine alternate theories and a conscious desire not to project self or posit comforting strings to a non-critical audience , a common failure in reporting, we may (hope) witness sea change in our main media, forced on by falling readership and lost advertising revenue.
“Ah well. Not very interested in Palin or her son per se, but the point that ‘young offenders’, whatever their apparent crimes, are being forced into our armies; concomitantly forcing their consciences to condone pointless killing or collapse, still stands.”
Interesting. Prove it. Do the numbers.
Your scumbag ultra-right American comrade Alex Jones likes to point these stories out, but they’re individual anecdotes and I doubt the underlying facts, as it’s Alex Jones that we’re dealing with.
It’s a shame our resident teabagger is too stupid and ignorant to recognise the fact he’s unwelcome and banned from here. I suppose sticking up for (or at least lying for) the teabagger-in-chief, his hero and intellectual leader Palin was irresistible.
It is also interesting because he says ‘Prove it, do the numbers’ as if primary reporting wasn’t good enough for him.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/02/british-army-recruitment-iraq
Note that back in the day (2007!) employment levels in Tyneside were ‘high’; leaving these children with some options, at least.
I too am somewhat wary of Alex Jones, for some reason, can’t remember what (ranting at crowds over 9/11?). But it’s simple to ckeck the facts in the UK. Would be in America too, I’m sure.
Great speech from Ed Balls on Craig’s “growth deniers”:
http://www.labourlist.org/the-growth-deniers—ed-balls-full-speech
technocolour: my point was not that irresponsible youths become irresponsible soldiers but that, like the young men in the program ‘Bad Lads Army’ they learn various disciplines that will serve them in good stead. It could be made voluntary if the democratic consensus were against conscription. Taking risks for their country in return for a clean slate seems like a fair bargain to me.
But Abe – why should our soldiers be taking risks anywhere? There’s no need for them to be in conflict. No country has attacked ours since WW-II. No good is served sending them to stomp around in somebody else’s country – they don’t like it any more than we’d like foreign armed forces stomping around in ours. Declaring scrotes and petty criminals rehabilitated by making enemies abroad for the rest of us doesn’t seem the best solution to me.
Just read in the Washington Post that Terry Jones suspended but did no cancel his plans to burn the Koran. Apparently it depends on whether the proposed mosque near Ground Zero is moved. Which means that we could be in for a very interesting weekend.
Turning shoplifter into killers is giving them a ‘clean slate’?
“Just read in the Washington Post that Terry Jones suspended but did no cancel his plans to burn the Koran”
It sounds like he’s doing all he can to make it as bad as possible, doesn’t it ?
‘Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) is probably the most important political blogger in the UK:
http://order-order.com/
He is a right-wing Tory that usually concentrates on Labour Party scandals. However, like other right-wing extremists he is also homophobic and recently broke the William Hague story. Even that might have been an attempt to direct attention from the important political scandal of the moment, the Andy Coulson phone-hacking story. This is a story that Staines has been unwilling to contribute. In fact, his main role in this matter is to smear those who have come forward to provide evidence that Coulson was guilty of phone-hacking. He has been especially harsh on Chris Bryant, the gay Labour MP who is taking legal action against the News of the World for hacking his phone. He is one person who will not settle out of court.
Yesterday it was the turn of Paul McMullan to come under fire from Staines. McMullan gave an interview to the Guardian claiming that Andy Coulson was aware of phone-hacking when he worked under him at the News of the World.
Staines posted on his blog yesterday: “Coulson Cleared: Well not quite, but Channel 4 News have certainly put The Guardian in a tricky spot. The paper’s strategy is to drip out one former Screws hack every day to keep the story alive, but it seems that they are grasping at straws already:
“Paul McMullan told the Guardian newspaper this morning that David Cameron’s communications chief “would certainly be well aware that the practice was pretty widespread,” but Channel 4 News has learnt from the former features executive that he left the paper in 2001, two years before Mr Coulson became its chief.”
What Staines failed to tell his readers is that this item did not appear on Channel 4 News because by the time it went out at 7 pm they realised it was they who had made the mistake. McMullan was employed by the News of the World from May 2000. He worked under Andy Coulson, who was deputy editor at the time, for 18 months. Channel 4 News and Paul Staines had failed to acknowledge that Coulson was deputy editor before he took the top job.’
http://tinyurl.com/3ys5mpq
‘a very interesting weekend’? What’s interesting about it? As Suhayl pointed out this is simply silly. You’d be better off reading a copy of Heat, if you want some cheap thrills.
Technicolour: I look forward to hearing the news of what will happen. That’s why it’s not boring. Trashy novels don’t interest me.
Or more politely (sorry) the thing which will make it ‘as bad as possible’ are people and the media around the world trying to ramp up the story, rather than rise above it.
The Daily Mash headline: WORLD BREATHES EASY AS SAD LITTLE MAN DECIDES HE’S HAD ENOUGH ATTENTION was cruel but accurate, I thought.
Did think that was interesting though TW, thanks.
PS. Concerning turning shoplifters into soldiers is not making them murderers. They are serving and defending their country first and foremost. Killing an enemy is only done under orders as a part of duty, and best avoided as far as possible.
The ‘handle’ on Terry Jones unsurprisingly on a CIA ‘watch’ list.
“More children from the Dove World Outreach Center arrived Tuesday at area public schools with shirts bearing the message “Islam is of the Devil” and were sent home for violation of the school district’s dress code when they declined to change clothes or cover the anti-Muslim statement on their clothing.”
“School district staff attorney Tom Wittmer said the shirts violated a district ban on clothing that may “disrupt the learning process” or cause other students to be “offended or distracted.”
“Students have a right of free speech, and we have allowed students to come to school wearing clothes with messages,” Wittmer said. “But this message is a divisive message that is likely to offend students. Principals, I feel reasonably, have deemed that, a violation of the dress code.”
On their front, the T-shirts had a verse from the Gospel of John: “Jesus answered I am the way and the truth and the life; no one goes to the Father except through me,” and this statement, “I stand in trust with Dove Outreach Center.” The message “Islam is of the Devil” is on the back of the shirt.
On Monday, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Talbot Elementary was sent home because of the shirt. On Tuesday, two Eastside High students and one Gainesville High student were sent home and a student at Westwood Middle had to change clothes because of the shirt, according to members of the Dove congregation.
Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones said no local company “had the guts” to print the shirts. Dove member Wayne Sapp said he then ordered the shirts over the Internet from a company that allows individuals to design their own shirts.
His daughter, Faith Sapp , 10, was the Talbot Elementary student sent home Monday. She said she was allowed to wear the shirt to school on Tuesday – with the Gospel message on the front visible but the anti-Islam message on the back covered.
He added that his children decided it was time to “stand up for what they believe instead of saying the rules might not let me do it” and said that society has grown “so tolerant of being tolerant” that free speech is eroding.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090826/ARTICLES/908261007
Mmm the right sort of man to stir up trouble – or.. create a smokescreen.
I did not call them murderers.