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.
Cubans have had to pay for their meager economic gains by surrendering their political liberties. In its latest annual report, Human Rights Watch says, “Cuba remains the one country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent.”
http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/20/cuba-and-the-death-of-communis
Suhayl… glad you found it interesting! There’s more. The main chums of Roger Ailes, and the Bush family for that matter, are Saudi royals. Al-waleed bin Talal is a multi-billionaire who’s a mate of Murdoch and has invested hugely in News Corporation, which owns Fox. Al-waleed bin Talal runs telethons for suicide bombers in his spare time, when he’s not working on funding Islamic organisations in the US. See the link below:
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1375
Saudi Royals are the most enthusiastic supporters of fundamentalist Wahhabism, and spend not inconsiderable effort persecuting what they see as a heretical branch of Islam. So several goals are accomplished at once, with the explosion of coverage by Fox “news” on this so-called “ground-zero victory mosque”.
First it gets the teabaggers foaming at the mouth again, and gives the neo-fascists further cause to demonise Obama as being a suspected Muslim because he’d want to appeal to reason and constitutional protections.
Next, Fox “News” gets a great deal of attention, and gives the neo-fascist multi-millionaire hosts a long-running whipping boy that can serve as a rallying point (literally) for various publicity stunts (such as at the Lincoln Memorial).
The US is dragged further to the right, on the compromising the spineless democrats will make to the ever more radical republicans. The teabaggers drag the republicans further to the right too, because siding with a democrat on _anything at all_ is now political suicide.
The fundamentalists being encouraged by the Saudis have visual proof, provided by Fox, that Americans absolutely detest all Muslims and want them all dead. They only need to show video of the teabaggers protesting the so-called Mosque. Add in the very real proof of wedding parties being blown apart, innocents killed, and military stomping around, despoiling, poisoning and occupying middle-eastern countries, and the proof is virtually undeniable.
Finally, which is the half point all along for the Saudi investors, the impoverished citizens of Saudi Arabia will care less about the iniquities of the Saudi Royals while an even bigger problem appears to be at hand. Murdoch press gets more copy. Democrats look more isolated. Teabaggers get more crazy. Islamic fundamentalists attract more support. America gets further to the right. And war, occupations and military activity becomes more likely and acceptable to Americans – which ratchets the cycle up one further notch, to the delight of all the parties mentioned.
“They only need to show video of the teabaggers protesting the so-called Mosque.”
Really, compared to the fascists in Bradford, far fewer Americans (out of a much larger country and much larger metropolitan area) protested (more or less peacefully) the Muslim religious center.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7969467/Riot-police-tackle-missiles-at-English-Defence-League-protest-in-Bradford.html
What’s going wrong with England? Are people like Suhayl Saadi not welcome there?
“America gets further to the right.”
Horribly, ignorant analysis. The Tea Party groups might be able to elect one or two people in statewide office this election year, but that’s it. Otherwise, they’re failing.
Compare that to the seats that the BNP has in the European Parliament.
Again, what’s the matter with England? If you think America is turning fascist, wouldn’t the same type of evidence indicate that Britain is becoming more fascist?
“wouldn’t the same type of evidence indicate that Britain is becoming more fascist?”
Well, it’s hardly an exclusive proposition, is it ? Or a competition.
“Finally, which is the half point all along for the Saudi investors, the impoverished citizens of Saudi Arabia will care less about the iniquities of the Saudi Royals while an even bigger problem appears to be at hand. Murdoch press gets more copy. Democrats look more isolated. Teabaggers get more crazy. Islamic fundamentalists attract more support. America gets further to the right. And war, occupations and military activity becomes more likely and acceptable to Americans – which ratchets the cycle up one further notch, to the delight of all the parties mentioned.”
And then the World goes spinning out of control and flies off into outer space where it freezes and then blows up and everyone is eaten by aliens!!!!1!
Actually, the Tea Party Movement has been a God-send to the Democrats. It is far more likely that they’ll put off the moderate or mainstream Republicans meaning that while they might be able to win the primaries they’ll have far less appeal in a general election.
Lyndon Larouche has similar tactics in his attempts to infiltrate the Democratic Party. Because some of the primaries are open to all (I think) Larouche looks for places that he can parachute his nutjob candidates into beat the mainstream Democrat candidate and then get completely trounced in the national election.
The Tea Partiers probably won’t get completely trounced but they won’t win big either.
“His followers asked him why certain people had been crushed by a building. Was it a punishment for something they or their parents had done. Jesus pbuh replied, ‘ Worship God, or a worse thing may happen to you’, meaning Hell.”
That Jesus sounds like a right knob!
Forgot to mention… the particular brand of Islam that the Saudi royals would like to be considered heretical, is that of the Sufis. It attracts a very negative attention from the Saudi state, and just happens to be the same division of Islamists that were proposing establishing the community centre.
Also forgot to mention, another major winner in the scenario being played out as described in my last post is of course the Military Industrial Complex, who happily had connections with the funders of the “victory Mosque” via Patriot Defence Group, a come-together consortium for those with mutual interests in military dollars and empire.
*
“Voice of reason” (glad you cleared up what you are!) – the teabaggers won a couple of primary nominations, but didn’t you seen to think it that serious that they now have seven recent victories for the senate – Delaware, with the swivel-eyed Christine O’Donnell, Paladino in NY and five other states this year. Maybe you don’t think a shift of seven senators is that serious, even though legislation resting on the votes of just one or two have been at the centre of political wrangling and horse-trading for the entire Obama term to date.
Maybe you don’t think McCain’s major huge shifts on numerous positions to the right, his influence gone from that of a sane, moderate anchor of the Repugs to where it is now, on the outer fringes, have anything to do with his competition? His competition was another raving lunatic teabagger, who so worried McCain he instantly dropped any and all remaining principles.
As to your point about Britain, as Richard asks – why shouldn’t it? And of course we’re taking a lurch to the right, only some professionally centered mainsteam media type would consider it otherwise. We’ve been lurching to the right at varying paces for over 30 years now. And it’s working out very well indeed, in fact things have never been better – if you are in the very top 1% or 2% of the monied classes. And truth be told, it’s not so bad that you can do much complaining most of the way up the top 10%. So from their point of view, it’s working out well. In financial terms only, of course.
I’m not sure why you think my analysis is so horrible and ignorant, although your language is strangely reminiscent of our resident banned teabagger, who’s name now evokes contempt, and who’s owner must hate to use it anymore. Still, better than a job in the health insurance industry, denying health coverage all day disputing claims, just to meet targets, eh?
“The occupants of the twin towers were not innocent victims because they chose to work in the mascot of US imperialism, and they chose to ignore the significance of supporting the corruption and destruction that flowed from that odious regime.”
Oh dear, you are clearly a complete knob as well and you seem to think your knobbery is divinely sanctioned. In fact that is exactly what al-Qaeda believed when they produced a self-serving fatwa to say that anyone in the Towers or on the planes could be justifiably killed as part of their great cosmic struggle. Presumably it also causes you little distress that more than two hundred African civilians were killed in the simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
I will at least agree with you on one thing and that is that Hizbollah are a terrorist organization. Though maybe you would like to explain why suicide bombings are very rare among the Shia but practiced by very many Sunnis including Hamas.
“Forgot to mention… the particular brand of Islam that the Saudi royals would like to be considered heretical, is that of the Sufis. It attracts a very negative attention from the Saudi state, and just happens to be the same division of Islamists that were proposing establishing the community centre.”
In fact the Shia are targetted by the Saudi state for being heretical. In theory only Wahabists are considered real Muslims to the extent that the term Wahabist is not used by the Saudi state as all non-Wahabists are considered non-Muslims. The Shia are routinely “derided” as being Jews. This all sounds fairly similar to the beliefs of anno.
“the particular brand of Islam that the Saudi royals would like to be considered heretical, is that of the Sufis”
“In fact the Shia are targetted by the Saudi state for being heretical”
Again, it’s hardly an exclusive proposition, is it ? Or a competition.
“Again, it’s hardly an exclusive proposition, is it ? Or a competition.”
Well, okay. You can insert “also” into my sentence after “the Shia are” and before “targetted”. All forms of Islam aside from Wahabism are considered heretical in Saudi Arabia to the extent that even within Saudi it is apparently quietly remarked that the Saudi royal family are heretics (if not Jews!)
Sufism is a “practice” across the various sects of Islam, neither exclusively Sunni or exclusively Shia. Sufism is popular in Sudan as well as Iran but it isn’t a form of “Islamism”. In fact, it is often derided by Islamists for its relaxed attitude to scripture.
“In fact, it is often derided by Islamists for its relaxed attitude to scripture.”
Heh! Are we talking about an Islamic version of the Church of England, wherein you can call yourself Christian but don’t actually have to do anything?
“Heh! Are we talking about an Islamic version of the Church of England, wherein you can call yourself Christian but don’t actually have to do anything?”
I have heard that there are some Anglican vicars who are openly atheist. I would have thought that would be a deal-breaker, but apparently not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Cupitt
However, not all Sufis are the same. Ayatollah Khomeini was also influenced by Sufism and he could hardly be considered cuddly.
Yes, Sufism is regarded as the core of Islam, the kernel, while the equally important external aspects are regarded as the husk; both are necessary. they’re not competing factions, theologically. It’s a bit like contemplation in Christianity, it’s not a faction, more a sense of gnosis.
Well, that’s it is a nutshell (!); there’s much more to it all, of course.
You’re all correct, the type of Islam exported by Saudi is aggressively opposed to just about everything else in the universe.
In parts of Pakistan, however, Sindh specifically, ‘sufism’ has been used by ruling landowners to oppress the peasants – for generations, the landowners like to claim that they are spiritual masters. How very convenient! Like gurus in Cadillacs.
The US/UK and prominent musicians, etc. in various places since ‘9/11’ have been active in promoting ‘sufism’ as an ‘answer’ in recent times. hence, the Cordoba Foundation, etc. I think some of this facile.
And as angrysoba points out, Khomeini was influenced by Sufism; of course, he also changed during his lifetime, becoming more and more extreme politically.
There have been sufi revolutionnaries in the past – Bulleh Shah in Punjab, for example, who were kind of liberation theologians of their time.
Ataturk banned sufism because he regarded as it the opium of the people and holding back the development of Turkey.
So, as usual in human societies, it’s not all black and white, it’s complex. Sufism has meant different things at different times and in different places.
An interesting blog including a piece about Julian Assange.
The Curious Case of Julian Assange
http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/
Suhayl,
sifism is a sect made up of innovations and contradicts the basic teachings of the Prophet Muhammad who said any innovation in religion is bid’a and bid’a will take to Hellfire. I was shocked once to see in a sufi dominated mosque that they believed prophet Muhammad can hear your supplications and deliver your supplications to Allah. This is shirk, and Allah does not forgive shirk. Prophet Muhammad is the teacher of true believers and he has set example in everything, i.e. how to pray, how to greet, how to speak, how to lead life, how to give charity, how to praise Allah, etc., everything. Adding to all his teachings is equal to saying that he didn’t know a particular matter. And those who stand firm to the teachings of the Prophet are branded today wahabis, or extremists. Well, even Prophet Muhammad was branded by bad names and he didn’t care. He struggled to straigten his attitude towards the Creator, not the created who were branding them. People’s religion will cramble when they start creating new innovations, this is what happened with all previous followers of the Book.
Kindly,
A muslim from Russia
Thanks, Muslim from Russia.
Islam is a moderate religion, a middle path. It is neither the externalising path of the majority of contributors to this blog who think that the political soap opera is real. JR is totally dominated by power and greed, Tony Blair is a war criminal. The reality is that the Zionists who control the world at the present time are insane, and they hand out money to people in power to bring their insane ambitions from fantasy into reality. The real reality is the Zionists’ insanity.
Nor is it the internalising path of the Sufis or any of the other false religions of the world. My worship is valid in itself, regardless of to whom it is directed. Or, my loyalty to a political party envalidates my actions and I disclaim personal responsibility.
If a world authority on chemical weapons is reported to have committed suicide, is he not already up to his eyeballs in sin simply by being an expert on human destruction? He sailed his own kite onto the power lines. His death is because he knows that we sold Saddam to chemicals to attack his people and he didn’t object to it on moral grounds, rather than the given reason.
Talking of suicide, why has the West launched these totally unnecessary and unpleasant wars, in support of its completely degraded and corrupt lifestyle? In order to prove its decadence and dissolution on the world’s TV screens? Would sane politicians willingly drag their countries’ names through the humiliation of these war crimes?
The world’s politicians made Faustian pacts with Zionism in order to gain their little piece of glory and fame.
Thanks for all the insults against Islam everybody. Keep them coming. Has it ever occurred to you idiots that Muslims follow the word of God, the Qur’an? You call them Wahabis when they follow the Qur’an with knowledge and perseverance, as if Tony Blair or angrysoba is the better interpreter of the true meaning of Islam.
It is not the job of the disbelievers to teach the Muslims their religion. I don;t care if you eat laurels at the omphalos of Delphi, you thrash yourself to bleeding at Kerbala, or you miraculously turn Mrs Thatcher’s urine into wine. Take your pick of false religions. You will not change the Muslims from adhering to the word of God in the Hadeeth and the Qur’an.
You are way off track on Dr Kelly. You also make an assumption that we do not like Muslims. Wrong again.
Thanks for angrysoba’s reminders of religious zeal.
Religion has to clean itself up a little It turns out that some religions, preaching the dogma of abstinenece and celebacy can’t keep their hands of children, equally Jehovahs Witness’s another sect riven with moral decline and abuse of children. The protestants have their fair share of scandals.
I am pleased the pope has departed, his forked words had no substance or promised change of the basic underlying dogamic mistake in catholicismn, it is unsustainable and unreformed since medieval times.
As long as he does not release thehistory and files of all incidents, he’s not worth listening to. Does it really need to take a court case by victims to wrench out some info from the Vatican?
Those who attack other religions in missionary outright competition and disgust at any other beliefs should look within themselves and think whether it is in accord with their peaceful religion.
Muslim must also realise that in Britain multicultural ghettos exist and that we all will be there to witnes who approaches differences with dialogue, rather than adversity.
Religion is also used to create division, a front that cushions the real interest for resources and control over them.
Religion is used to direct those who follow a certain deity in the interest of Government, utilising worldwide religious connectivity for its secret service activities.
Religion is the beating boy for many ills today and to further segregate ourselves from each others beliefs, allowing more faith schools and access for religions/sects to take over schools, when we are actually moving closer together in a globalised world and must learn to accept, integrate and live with each other, might not be the reight approach, multiracialism rather than multiculturalism ought to be the aim, acceptance of differences and promotion of those values that unite us.
Religions have no right to childrens minds, it is resentfull indoctrination and onesided in faith schools.
One can teach good and bad without using fear and loathing, something that is up to parents imho., not for a religious teacher to control the flock.
We know that we have to live responsibly to a certain extent and respect each others rights, and live with some wrongs done on our behalf, dare I mention Iraq. But thats something decision makers have to answer to during their bodyguarded lives.
“I don;t care if … you miraculously turn Mrs Thatcher’s urine into wine”
Now that’s what I call vivid.
I might care. I might even pay a (small amount of) money to take the piss out of her.
I’d want a _serious_ testing process to verify it first, mind. Faith alone would definitely not be enough.
“The Curious Case of Julian Assange
http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/ ”
Thanks, somebody. “More thoughtful than most”.
WHat’s so interesting about Islam, again?
“WHat’s so interesting about Islam, again?”
Well, we have to find /some/ way of getting on with the neighbours ?
Well, my neighbours include Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and a Christian who believes Jesus managed to escape. All of them are interesting, but none more so than any other.
Mmm.
“Well, my neighbours include …”
I was thinking more kind of historical geography, but maybe it doesn’t matter.
Group hug! Group hug!
I’ll see you after my ‘community service’. Tell that crusty old bachelor in Canada it’s safe to come back now. The sheeply female has left the building.
dreoilin, come back soon!
“Tell that crusty old bachelor in Canada it’s safe to come back now”
Nah, we’ll save that till you come back 😉
Good luck, hope it goes well.
Clark,
Re: “An immigrant *either* comes as a settler, intent on establishing a community of their own faith and culture in a foreign land, *or* they are
prepared to integrate”
You say, “…They maintain their culture AND integrate, each to greater or lesser extents in diverse aspects of their lives, depending upon inclination, circumstance, opportunity, incentive, etc.”
What you say is, for the most part, correct and important. Immigrants (and occupiers) have brought much to English culture, including most of the language, part teutonic, part romance — hence the huge vocabulary, which allows ideas to be expressed in many ways, each with its own resonance.
But this does not address my point, which is that proseletyzing Islam, brought to Britain through Muslim immigration, threatens the continued existence of English culture in a way that the eclectic assimilation of foreign cultural elements does not.
Many English people, perhaps most, are atheists, which is why it is possible for the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens — Ditchkens as they have been amusingly dubbed by the almost equally clueless Terry Eagleton, to turn a quid ridiculing religion. The result is a widespread belief that religion doesn’t matter. That religious disputes are simply silly.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You only have to see what Anno and a Russian Muslim are saying to realize that these people are truly religious and that the truly religious are ready to die for their religion. And more important, they are ready to kill for their religion.
It is also a serious mistake to assume that Islam consists in some notions about spirituality of as little practical importance as the spiritual beliefs of the average Anglican. Far from it. Islam is much more than a religion. It is a civilization as Russian Muslim makes clear:
“Prophet Muhammad is the teacher of true believers and he has set example in everything, i.e. how to pray, how to greet, how to speak, how to lead life, how to give charity, how to praise Allah, etc., everything.”
So when you get Islam you don’t get a religion as most British people understand the term, you get a civilization: a form of law, a form of government, a canon of art, literature and music, and a language (for you cannot be a Koranic scholar without studying that work in the language of composition). And once it becomes the dominant culture it is imposed ruthlessly. Pre-existing minorities of the book — Jews and Christians — are tolerated, they are not emancipated.
Islam and Christendom have been engaged in a struggle for 13 hundred years. Now it appears, Islam is on the brink of final victory in Europe, not because Islamic civilization has received a new accession of strength but because the Christian West has lost faith in its own culture. Indeed, if Technicolor’s persistent questioning on the subject is anything to go by, it has lost all conception of what its culture and civilization consists in.