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.
Techie
Re: “No Alfred, I asked you to define English culture.”
Let me turn the question back on you Tech. After all, you live in England, do you not. You are a British citizen, are you not. So what do you think English culture consists in? In my response to Clark, I suggested that you seem not to have a clue and from such oblivion, the collapse of Western civilization must ensue. But please prove me wrong.
Dreoilin,
Re: As for your childish effort above to tread on me”
Rubbish, my dear girl (don’t worry — I’m not a bachelor as you seem to assume).
When I said, that after the Irish people rose to support James II’s failed attempt — with the backing of a French army, to conquer Britain and depose the rightfully annointed monarchy of William and Mary, it was fortunate for you that your ancestors were not “deported in chains to the Indies”, I was referring to the way in which James treated those who had rebelled against him.
After the insurrection led by the Duke of Monmouth, who as the bastard son of Charles II claimed to be the legitimate King of England, James sent the notorious Judge Jeffreys to punish the rebels.
As a result, 200 were publicly hanged at towns throughout the South West of England, at least one old woman was burnt at the stake for the crime of providing refuge to a rebel, and 800 were deported, in chains I assume, to the West Indies.
I trust this makes it clear that my comment was not a put down but a reference to the risk that the Irish ran in defying the English crown and the magnanimity of King William.
“the truly religious are ready to die for their religion. And more important, they are ready to kill for their religion.”
The usual nonsense from someone who has never visited a country in the Middle East, or something more pernicious? How do you explain tourism, Alfred? And the fact that most people, religious or not, are not killers? But we’ve been here before.
Richard,
Re: “And, did this British Nation notice that there was anyone there already ?”
You’ve raised this issue before, and I have responded to it. I will not do so again except to say that the people “there already” were the French. We displaced them as the ruling group in 1759 when British forces under General Wolfe defeated the Canadian forces of Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm. Both generals died of wounds received during the critical battle of the Plains of Abraham.
True, the English later extended their hold over the larger half of North America, but had they not done so do you seriously think that the Americans would not have, or the Russians, who already had Alaska, or the Portugese, or the Spanish or, later, the Japanese, or if it were still wide open today, the Chinese (who anyway comprise one of the most important ethnic groups in Canada today)?
Your comments seem to suggest that because the English extended their territorial domain, they should now surrender their country to whatever ethnic or civilizational group wants to take it. This is surely a crazy view. In international relations, might has always been right. Today, there are many who hope that we might instigate a new era of global civilization in which disputes are arbitrated according to some universally accepted rules of justice. I support that view, emotionally anyway, although I suspect it is totally impractical. In the meantime, the British would do well to hang on to what they have.
“Islam is on the brink of final victory in Europe”
Yeah yeah, I can hear their Reaper drones overhead. There’ll be Hellfire missiles raining down on me any minute.
Techie,
“The usual nonsense from someone who has never visited a country in the Middle East, or something more pernicious? How do you explain tourism”
So you decline my challenge and respond with insults — end of conversation, which is a relief.
Phew, that’s a relief.
The “truly religious”?
MAKING PEACE WITH AN UNBELIEVER IS A MARK OF A TRUE BELIEVER: KORAN 25:63.
Alfred: calling the statement that ‘truly religious’ Muslims are all prepared to kill for their religion ‘nonsense’ is not insulting (?) that statement. It is exposing it.
It becomes pernicious nonsense if you refuse to accept that there is a debate on this subject, with which many truly religious Muslims are engaging, and in which they are arguing for peace by citing those parts of the Koran which promote it (see above).
Your ‘challenge’ to define English culture would result in a book. If you would like a word, I choose ‘variable’.
Or, a rather more poetic translation of the Koran 25:63:
And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “Peace!”
So that’s OK, isn’t it?
anno, that shuddering image of Mrs Thatcher is so lysergic, it’s freaked me out completely. It’s a kind of syncretic nightmare of a certain 1970s Indian Prime Minister (Morarji Desai), the ‘Iron’ Lady and the rite of trans-subtantiation. Urgh!!!
Russian Muslim (an interesting choice of monicker, it means that you could be one of how many million people!), yes, I know about devotional cults and saints’ cults and all of those things one finds in every culture in the world. Thanks for sharing your experience, it is much appreciated.
As I said, the concept of what we might call ‘sufism’ is inherent in/ synonymous with Islam itself – the inner faith – I think that’s what most thinkers on the subject would say (nearly all the great Sufis were also qadis/ qazis, i.e. Islamic jurisprudents) – but the manifestations of what is known as ‘sufism’ in the cultural/ anthropological sphere vary widely.
No-one is forcing anyone to participate in these particular, localised rituals, which tend to fall away with increasing levels of education, literacy, better social conditions, etc. They give some succour to poor people who feel they’ve been abandoned by thir rulers, largely. And as I said, such traditions have also been exploited by some rich, unscrupulous people.
They can also produce good art, which is another matter.
Nonetheless, the ‘inner spiritualism’ itself has stimulated great art – think of all those fabulous Persian, Arabic, Balkan (and no doubt, Russian!) poets.
What I’m saying is, we can have our own convictions but that ought not to prevent us apprehending the complexity of things and the beauty of varied human activity.
‘Islam’ is strong; it need have no apprehension about such things.
Well, that’s my view, anyway.
Dreoilin, hope you got your 14 things done before breakfast!
God sake, Alfred, get real, man. “Islam on the brink of final victory in Europe”. What, are we talking 732 or 1560 or 1689? Are we talking the prime superpower of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, at the gates of Vienna? No, we’re talking 2010 and overwhelming ‘Western’ (not ‘Christian’) superiority in economic, strategic, educational terms. Because of this, we have some issues re. extremism and the hard state, yes. But your apocalyptic rhetoric makes you sound like Pat Robertson or Terry Jones (both Terry Joneses!) simultaneously speaking in tongues in a specific form of backwards Syriac. Asthtaroth!
English culture? Ahm… that’s me. Or do you want to cross broadswords?
This really takes the biscuit! An antire packet of biscuits.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/09/20/death-of-welsh-spy-not-treated-as-suspicious-91466-27301272/
Whatever you do, do NOT venture anywhere near a large sports bag. It may fancy you and begin to engage in autoerotic activity.
Unless you’re Harry Houdini (or smallish policewoman), you will be trapped with enough of a vent to allow you to stick your hand out but insufficient aperture to allow oxygen molecules in. Despite the fact that the average hand – or even the average finger – is many magnitudes of size larger than an oxygen molecule.
. If that there dot is an oxygen molecule, an average hand would be the size of Eurasia.
Well, think of a number, anyway.
God, they must really imagine that we are all morons!
Having said that, it is of course possible to suffocate through not being able to breathe properly due to malposition – eg. in crucifixion, even hen there’s lots of oxygen around.
But I don’t believe for a minute that this is what happened in Williams’s case. I think it was murder and I think it likely that it had to with his job.
‘God sake, Alfred, get real, man. “Islam on the brink of final victory in Europe”.’
So Anno and Russian Muslim need to get real too, eh.
And Shahid Malik
“Le parlement anglais deviendra completement musulman”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpq7TtMEBFA
Or should it perhaps be you, Suhayl:
La civilisation, c’est moi.
LOL
“”Islam on the brink of final victory in Europe”. What, are we talking 732 or 1560 or 1689? Are we talking the prime superpower of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, at the gates of Vienna?”
On previous iterations of this silliness, this is the point where he explains that he doesn’t actually mean anything violent at all and don’t we realise it’s our _culture_ he’s so frantic about. I think he must mean Roman numerals. Our computers will all break when They embargo the number zero, don’t you see ? And look at the harm sugar has done !
Alfred: the difference is that you, extrapolating wildly, accuse both posters of being prepared to kill for their religion. Then you take that assumption and apply those two imaginary cases to the whole, and conclude they represent the whole.
By contrast no-one here is suggesting that you are representative of anything, apart from an unwillingness to answer questions, or to substantiate claims, and a willingness to make sweeping statements of opinion as though they were incontrovertible truths, and to change the parameters of debate when it suits you. On top of this you appear to be hideously biased and living in some imaginary world of fear.
I assure you, it is good to travel.
Go east, young man! Go east!
On second thoughts…
‘But I don’t believe for a minute that this is what happened in Williams’s case. I think it was murder and I think it likely that it had to with his job.’
I do too and the giveaway is the stance taken by the police and the manipulation of the reporting full of sources and conjecture. Just look at this:
‘The source said: “Unless you do this properly, the Press will end up saying it was Mohamed al-Fayed or the Duke of Edinburgh.”
What connotations does it convey?
To me it’s straight out of the mouth of an intelligence agent.
Masking murders in this way seems to be quite common practice in getting rid of people who threaten the Establishment/the hard state.
“Whatever you do, do NOT venture anywhere near a large sports bag. It may fancy you”
*laughter*. What a horrifying thought. The Strange Case of the Libidinous Luggage. “case” ? Oh dear. And I suppose “affair” wouldn’t be any better … but, if he has “a history” of – well, of being a wanker, of course that explains everything.
The ‘escapologist’ was surreal enough, but those last two paragraphs are just off the scale. Did the journo get confused and print the bit that was supposed to be the explanation for why he should write the rest of it ? Why don’t They want us to think it was Mohammed al-Fayed, anyway ? Are they aiming to frame David Icke’s lizards for it, do you suppose ?
And, with the same info comes the same photo.
These spy stories are geting weirder, aren’t they ? David Shayler, this, that bloke who rings up other ‘friendly’ spy setups and offers to sell all the Brits’ sekrits without even guessing that they talk to each other … perhaps they’re all having breakdowns under the strain ?
“Re: “And, did this British Nation notice that there was anyone there already ?”
“You’ve raised this issue before, and I have responded to it.”
Not in any way that addresses your prescription about how everybody should stay in their ethnic homeland, which your irrelevant history lecture above also somehow doesn’t seem to notice.
http://news.morayfirthlive.com/2010/09/20/police-launch-bid-to-combat-the-threat-of-terrorism-in-highlands/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitter-publisher-main&utm_campaign=twitter
Oh bloody Hell! Project Kraken. G-i-v-e m-e -a- -b-r-e-a-k!!!!! And give them some chlorpromazine.
No, but wait, I see it nbow. It’s all perfectly logical. You see, it’s Nessie, she’s an Al Qaeda submersible, just like in Monday’s episode of the TV drama, ‘Spooks’, where the BEARDED BADDIES (who intoned what sounded like “Shalom” but must’ve been “Salam” repeatedly just so the script editors could be sure we understood that they were definintely MUSLIM and not Mormon), sent remotedly-controlled submarines up the Thames to blow-up Westminster. And that nice Mr M or C or whatever, who, a long time ago used to be in the ‘Double-Deckers’, with Gordon Brownian pugnacious angst, he saved England-I-mean-Britain.
Yes, Nessie, there she is, evil fundamentalist Islamicist pugilist, Satanist, paganist, dinosaurist, ithyosaurist, like Lilith she’s been lurking in the deep, dark waters for… well, since the C7th and she looks kind of bendy just like an Arabesque. So that’s it! Nessie is a terrorist! Kraken!! Kraken!! Nanoo! Nanoo!
“Through enhanced criminal and counter terrorist awareness and a promotion in the exchange of information, the Highlands and Islands can continue to be a safe place to live, work and relax for all.” PC PR-man
“a promotion in the exchange of information…”??????
Orwell is here. But look out, here come the terrorists! Aye. Bonny Prince Charlie is coming back with Flora MacDonald and Mel Gibson and this time, they’ll be declaiming “Freedom!” in Aramaic.
Ah, The Mothers of Invention saw it all coming…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsjbKd-H4Y
Help! I’m a rock! Help, I’m a rock!
Suhayl, I am not a regular watcher of Spooks, but the closing lines of one episode did amuse me greatly. It went something like this:
Woman spook – ‘I don’t understand why they do it.’
Man spook – ‘We don’t need to understand them, we just need to stop them.’
Ha ha.
By the way, does anyone else have the text they type come up really slow on Craig’s blog?
“By the way, does anyone else have the text they type come up really slow on Craig’s blog?”
I haven’t noticed that … do you mean, when you push the ‘post’ button, or do you mean each letter as you’re typing into the box ? If the former, I can’t help – connection speed ? or something – if the latter, it’s all happening on your machine, so will be due to what’s going on there. I find that turning off javascript & flash in the browser settings does wonders for that sort of thing (but then, I tend to have lots of tabs open at the same time. This site definitely doesn’t use flash, and I don’t think it uses javascript. If this gets out it doesn’t, anyway …)
Each letter I type appears in the box slowly. I can type a whole sentence and see nothing, then it will all appear about 5-10 seconds later. This doesn’t happen all the time, but only happens on Craig’s blog. It did start happening a long time ago.
It should be a free text box, Jaded. Nothing’s happening online until you hit ‘preview’ or ‘post’. Could be your system is just about maxed out, needs to create a space for the text in memory, and has to page-out another slice of swapped memory. It’s even worse if the disk(s) is/are set to sleep while idle.
Personally, I’m very fond of Spooks, and thought it a real shame Ros is gone.
Jaded,
try turning off “Check my spelling as I type” or equivalent…
Richard Robinson,
some posts (not this one) on this site have used embedded Flash (confounded stuff!). According to NoScript (a Firefox extension), this page has six scripts. They don’t seem to do much, and they aren’t necessary. With scripts enabled, refreshing the page returns you to the same comment. Without scripts, a refresh sends you back to the top of the page.