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.
It seems that five Gainesville children have worn this shirt to school. Gainesville has a population over over 100,000 people. According to the BBC Jones’ church had 50 members. Where is the story?
Wayne Sapp?
Technicolour: “Killers” doesn’t sound much different to me. But I grant that you may have meant simply ‘takers of human life’ & so I regret any misunderstanding. I won’t argue about semantics, because there’s just been some more news –
according to Sky News Terry Jones has given the imam a two-hour ultimatum.
How, pray, are soldiers “defending our country” by occupying that of other people? Surely, Abe, you have’t bought into this crap that “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”, have you?
The reason there’s so much unrest and disquiet among Muslims in this country is _precisely because_ we’re fighting them over there.
there’s not only unrest and disquiet about this among Muslims either. there’s downright screaming fury on CiF.
Gosh, I didn’t know you read ‘Heat’ magazine, technicolour! First, it’s tales of gentlemen clad in rubberised canvas corsets and now ‘Heat’ magazine! Whatever will be next?? It almost makes one reach for the bromide. But no.
There’s the randy pastor who seems to have been named after the Welsh Python. Gosh, the whole thing is wildly surreal. And predictably, some ijeuts somewhere have been busy protesting and some of those have been shot dead in the process. And all over a silly man with a cigarette lighter. The usual, predictable, cycle of idiocy.
I think I shall turn to ‘Heat’ magazine, too. Right, I’m off to the Spar shop. Except… the guys there are Pakistani and it would be deeply embarrassing for me to buy ‘Heat’ magazine from them – especially on Eid! But I’ve already told that story, right? Have I…? Have I…?
Good on you, technicolour! Keep on!
“It’s a shame our resident teabagger is too stupid and ignorant to recognise the fact he’s unwelcome and banned from here.”
As explained to you, the teabagging movement was started by 911 truthers.
“I suppose sticking up for (or at least lying for) the teabagger-in-chief, his hero and intellectual leader Palin was irresistible.”
I’m not lying. There’s no evidence that Track Palin’s problems with the the law led him to being in the military. I’m sticking up for both the truth and Track Palin.
So that would make turning teenage shoplifters into ‘takers of human life’ OK. I see.
Haven’t heard that story, Suhayl, no..
HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
Okay, technicolour, I’ll narrate it soon. The long laugh was meant for the self-professed purveyor of truth and beauty.
Sahayl : I did a passable imitation of James Finlayson with my double-take at that post too! Only the troll is lying again, as teabaggers are wont to do. “Truthers” and teabaggers have nothing to do with each other, apart from a few individuals trying to cut in on the action. You won’t find Radio Rwanda, sorry, Fox News giving “truthers” any support, and they are teabagger-central.
You can explain in the Spar that your Heat magazine purchase is just to show the degenerate nature of infidels, and that you’ll only be holding it up to publicly denounce it and them, before burning it. That should keep them happy. (Works for me every time, with due modifications, when the misses catches me buying it.)
Apparently Wikileaks is preparing a document-dump about Iraq:
“Declassified has previously reported that the Iraq material portrays U.S. forces being involved in a “bloodbath,” but some of the most disturbing material relates to the abusive treatment of detainees, not by Americans but by Iraqi security forces …”
Newsweek: http://tinyurl.com/32p3en8
Richard,
I didn’t know about nids de poule. Good one.
Looks like nobody yet knows the truth about Track Palin. There is a discussion here on Snopes
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=734149
But why was he shipped off for his final year of high school to Michigan? Hm …
technicolour: our soldiers are following the orders of a democratically elected government. If you as a citizen don’t like it, vote against them or stand for election. I’m not going to speak against them doing their duty.
“Looks like nobody yet knows the truth about Track Palin.”
Since it appears to be a smear that was made up on the Internet, I think we know the truth.
You people are simply stupid and dishonest. Make up claims, and if there’s no evidence to back them up, you simply say, “Well, we’ll just never know the answer.”
Let me give this a go: dreoilin ate her first-born child. There, it’s out there on the Internet.
“A progressive Alaska radio station (Newstalk 1080 KUDO) reported on September 2, 2008 that the 16-year-old boy in the story was actually Track Palin. The station cited an unnamed judicial source. A recording of the radio broadcast is not yet available.
“However, the story has been picked up by a local Anchorage public television station.
“Nellie Moore and Steve MacDonald on KAKM Channel 7, Anchorage Edition (September 5, 2008):
(video)
http://sarahpalintruthsquad.wordpress.com/2008/09/10/track-palin-involved-in-vandalism-rampage-real-reason-for-army-enlistment/
“I’m not going to speak against them doing their duty.”
Maybe they should just refuse, Abe. There’s no morality in what they’re doing.
Abe: Not speaking for technicolour here, but you’re engaging in a straw man argument. Nobody’s saying soldiers are not following orders etc.. What I (and Tech, I believe) are saying is that what they are doing is not necessarily a good thing – while you’re saying just that. You’re saying such service would be good for them, and that they’d be “protecting our country” somehow – I’d like to hear a good explanation of just how, incidentally, without appeals to glib slogans such as “keeping us safe”.
While we’re at it, do you _seriously_ think that Haiti is in the trouble it’s in because of former practices of voodoo? Did you hear that from that phoney billionaire televangelist Pat Robertson perhaps?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/pat-robertson-haiti-curse_n_422099.html
Glenn – good idea – I’ll try it!
I’m sure that dreolin is not Chronos, the father of Zeus. Yes, I can say that categorically and with absolute… absolutism.
Well, here’s the tale of the porn magazines, then. Hope it amuses!
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/suhayl-saadi-on-erotic-fiction/
Did you know that rendition flights were outsourced to a Boeing subsidiary? (Binyam Mohammed refused permission to sue by Obama)
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/95118
About Track Palin:
1. The genesis of the non-story was a liberal radio station. Citing an unnamed source. In an election year. Do you need anything else?
2. The story makes absolutely no sense. The kid does some minor crime (vandalism) when he’s 16, he goes off to Michigan for his senior year, and he’s thereafter compelled by the courts to go to the army when he’s 18 or 19?
3. Clearly you don’t understand the different jurisdictions in America. State courts have very little interaction with the U.S. military.
4. Your story says that he might have gone off by Michigan during his senior year to have more interaction with recruiters. That makes a lot of sense, actually. There are schools all over the Midwest that hand out hockey scholarships. It’s important to get noticed by recruiters, and I’m sure there are far less recruiters in Michigan.
5. Him accepting a “sentence” of a 3- to 4-year commitment with the military, rather than a month of juvenile detention and restitution, obviously makes absolutely no sense.
6. If your position is that, because of the incident he might not have had anything to do with, he was both “shipped off” to Michigan for his senior year and was thereafter awaiting a 3- to 4-year commitment to the U.S. military, then you’re just silly.
I come to this website to laugh at how quickly stupid people will believe stupid things. This particular thread has been a goldmine.
dreoilin – are you going to continue to deny having eaten your first-born child?
He missed the bus a long time ago and now roams through the wilderness, shouting, at no-one in particular, “I am the truth, I am beauty! I am bromide! Drink of my mouth and be cleansed of sinful thought!”
… while muttering under his breath,
“God, I am sick of this damn contract. Would someone get me off it, so I can go back to being David Icke’s pet lizard?”
‘Somebody’, now that is fascinating, thanks for the link.
‘Night folks, going to watch the Late Late.
A week rolls by very quickly!
PS Just bought a bright green Viva Palestina T-shirt here
http://www.philosophyfootball.com/view_item.php?pid=631
Sales help fund the convoy.
Can anybody hear me?
New in Town,
the Soros connection you mention seems to be from the Wayne Madsen Report, see here:
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=234999;article=3256;title=APFN%20MESSAGE%20BOARD
New in Town,
I thought the best link on WikiLeaks was this one:
http://mindbodypolitic.com/2010/06/27/more-on-assange-and-wikileaks/
Both of these were linked earlier on this thread. Note the qualified support of Cryptome for WikiLeaks.
Fresh questions were raised last night over the professional conduct of the pathologist who performed Dr David Kelly’s autopsy.
It has emerged that Nicholas Hunt is still under a five-year warning for breaking General Medical Council guidelines.
He was given the caution for using a seminar to show photographs of the mutilated bodies of three Royal Military Police killed in Iraq in June 2003.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308509/David-Kelly-doctor-Nicholas-Hunt-cautioned-breaking-GMC-rules.html#ixzz0zAnNnVvH
There seems to be a common feature in the coroners chosen in sensitive cases
Dr Kelly had one, Ian Tomlinson had one and now Keith Williams has one.
A coroner has been criticised for his decision to remove the hands of more than 20 victims of the Marchioness disaster for “identification purposes”.
Sorry. I clicked before I finished my last comment. It should have read as follows:
The Daily Mail 3/9/10
‘Fresh questions were raised last night over the professional conduct of the pathologist who performed Dr David Kelly’s autopsy.
It has emerged that Nicholas Hunt is still under a five-year warning for breaking General Medical Council guidelines.
He was given the caution for using a seminar to show photographs of the mutilated bodies of three Royal Military Police killed in Iraq in June 2003.’
From the Guardian 25/8/10
‘Ian Tomlinson pathologist behaved irresponsibly in other cases, GMC rules
Dr Freddy Patel, who said Ian Tomlinson had died from a heart attack, is criticised over three other postmortem examinations’
and now Gareth Williams’ coroner, Dr Paul Knapman
BBC News 23/3/01
‘A coroner has been criticised for his decision to remove the hands of more than 20 victims of the Marchioness disaster for “identification purposes”
and
House of Commons Hansard debates 23/10/02
‘Miss Annis was a 31-year-old nurse who was the first of
23 Oct 2002 : Column 380
a series of victims of one of her colleagues, Kevin Cobb, who attacked women sexually, having administered midazolam, a sedative since dubbed a date-rape drug. Although Dr. Knapman detected midazolam in Susan’s body, he attributed no significance to it, even though four deaths due to the drug had already been reported to the Committee on Safety of Medicines.’
WTF is a teabagger?
“I’m not going to speak against them doing their duty”.
Your privilege Abe, but not a popular point of view, as Military Families Against the War and polls have regularly shown. This is the latest (April 2010):
An IoS poll shows 77 per cent of Britons want our forces to come home and a majority believe our presence makes UK streets less safe from terrorist attack. Yet all three parties are ducking this most critical issue