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.
Well, well, well, the Defence Minister of Pakistan is sacked becasue he accused the Army of assassinating Benazir Bhutto.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD9IFUI380
“defence contractors die of accidents and natural causes just as much as anybody else.”
Good job, Suhayl. You’re beginning to understand how the world works.
Boring boring boring. Come back Craig.
I’m at a friend’s at present, hoping to fix his fridge-freezer, which is of a ludicrous, self-destructing design, a triumph of capitalist ‘engineering’. He has the TV on at all times, whereas I can’t abide such stuff. So far, I have seen glimpses of: a film glorifying war, ‘Spooks’ glorifying the Secret Services, a trivia show and now ‘Damages’, glorifying lawyers. This stuff is propaganda for the Corporate Industrial / Military Complex, and it rots the brain.
Ingo,
hello! I really did go out immediately earlier. I thought I’d best deny the obviously fake posts earlier, as I’d just lectured Larry about that matter!
@ Tim B and Suhayl Saadi,
Sometmies things are lost in translation, and it may not necesarily be that the misinterpretation was deliberate ( on the part of the Iranian government).
CB
Benazir was a double agent Suhayl – a very sad loss. She had come ‘on side’ after the CIA murdered Zia, the man responsible for the hanging of her father Zulfikar. I found the explanation of Zia’s death intriguing because it clearly showed how America (Secretary of State Schultz) kept the FBI (and justice) out of the loop and how the media and public perception were manipulated (spin control and misinformation) to prevent geo-political troubles.
An early example of one uncounted casualty – the truth.
“Sometmies things are lost in translation, and it may not necesarily be that the misinterpretation was deliberate”
I remember Juan Cole picking the thing apart, when it was new, but I spent some time googling around earlier and couldn’t find the definitive article. There are many pages quoting bits where he talks about the meanings in the Farsi version (“from the pages of history” vs “off the map”, etc), with the implication that that was the original, but I couldn’t find anything bearing on the statement up above that the English version came from an Iranian agency.
All this poxy plastic panel has to do is fit right, but it doesn’t. Who cares? The profit has already been made.
“All this poxy plastic panel has to do is fit right, but it doesn’t.”
“Percussive maintenance”. If it doesn’t make it work, at least it relieves the feelings. ‘it it wivvanammer.
No help ? Probably not, sorry, I’ll go to bed now. Good night, and good luck.
Here we go again with the hair-splitting over Ahmadinejad’s words.
Lookee here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070927213903/http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=200247
Also Courtney Barnett can spin all he likes for the Iranian regime and Ahmadinejad in particular but the fact that it was a famous Khomeinist phrase and the fact that it has been repeatedly translated by the official Iranian propaganda outlets shows that “wiped from the map!” is pretty much what is meant.
You should also release that the attempt to pretend it is the supposedly more anodyne “vanish from the pages of time” won’t wash given that the verb in Farsi is, apparently, transitive. Not only that, but according to this Wikipedia discussion, the verb is also active, suggesting that Khomeini’s words are an exhortation to eradicate the Zionist entity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#2005_.22World_Without_Zionism.22_speech
I say that I don’t know because I don’t know Farsi. However I may make a point of asking an Iranian friend of mine what the meaning is or how he interprets the phrase.
If you watch this video you’ll see that many other people in Iran are presumably confused about the meaning and genuinely thinking it means “wiped from the map”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YJsLGpdByY
It’s blatantly obvious that this is what he means and it doesn’t matter if that idiom doesn’t exist in Farsi.
Here’s a quote from Michael Axworthy in his book, “Iran: Empire of the Mind” p.311:
“The formula had been used before by Khomeini and others, and had been translated by representatives of the Iranian regime as “wiped off the map”. Some of the dispute that has arisen over what Ahmadinejad meant by it has been rather bogus. When the slogan appeared draped over missiles in military parades the meaning was pretty clear.”
Angrysoba,
you seem very clear that Ahmadinejad was calling for the destruction of Israel. But this does not seem at all certain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#Clarifying_comments_by_Ahmadinejad
Speaking at a D-8 summit meeting in July 2008, when asked to comment on whether he [Ahmadinejad] has called for the destruction of Israel he denied that his country would ever instigate military action, there being “no need for any measures by the Iranian people”. Instead he claimed that “the Zionist regime” in Israel would eventually collapse on its own. “I assure you… there won’t be any war in the future,” both the BBC and AP quoted him as saying.
‘And asked if he objected to the government of Israel or Jewish people, he said that “creating an objection against the Zionists doesn’t mean that there are objections against the Jewish”. He added that Jews lived in Iran and were represented in the country’s parliament’.
In a September 2008 interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman on the radio and television program Democracy Now!, Ahmadinejad was asked: “If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?” and replied
‘If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay … Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it’s very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums’.
————
It seems that Iran – Israeli relations were much better before the revolution. I suppose that shows that when a superpower deposes a popular government, it is likely to create a reaction that makes things worse. Iran seems to be improving, slowly, so probably it’s better not to interfere again.
Angrysoba,
the video you linked to is interesting. It does not solve the translation controversy, as the English “Wiped off the Map” banners are added to the original pictures.
I was shocked by the swastika shape in the parade. But then I see that the troops form three missile shapes, pointing at, and then destroying, three other shapes. A white missile destroys a blue Star of David (which may, of course, represent the Israeli flag), a green missile destroys a brown swastika (so presumably the swastika was an enemy of Iran), and a red missile destroys a yellow shape I can’t make out. So I don’t know how to interpret this.
“the video you linked to is interesting. It does not solve the translation controversy, as the English “Wiped off the Map” banners are added to the original pictures.”
No, they are not. The banners on the trucks are in English in their originals. If you pause at 0:24 you can clearly see it on the truck itself. The floating banner is just a clearer rendering of it.
“I was shocked by the swastika shape in the parade. But then I see that the troops form three missile shapes, pointing at, and then destroying, three other shapes. A white missile destroys a blue Star of David (which may, of course, represent the Israeli flag), a green missile destroys a brown swastika (so presumably the swastika was an enemy of Iran), and a red missile destroys a yellow shape I can’t make out. So I don’t know how to interpret this.”
I interpret it this way: they are equating Israelis/Zionists with Nazis and that they aspire to wipe them from the map with their missiles.
Angrysoba,
if we equate Zionism with fascism (as Arsalan often has, with good reason), the message of the choreography of that parade could simply be anti-fascist. Do you know what the third, yellow shape is?
“if we equate Zionism with fascism (as Arsalan often has, with good reason), the message of the choreography of that parade could simply be anti-fascist. Do you know what the third, yellow shape is?”
It’s a swastika.
Did you have a look at 0:24?
“Iran seems to be improving, slowly, so probably it’s better not to interfere again.”
I’m not talking about “interfering” if you mean invading or bombing the country but I’m talking about getting real about what the Iranian regime wants and what it is. As someone who doesn’t favour bombing Iran it is frankly embarrassing to listen to people saying, “Ooh but maybe Ahmadinejad was trying to say he’s really, really cross with Israel instead of ‘death to Israel’ and maybe want he means is I’m just a peaceful man who loves Jesus.”
Iran is not “anti-imperialist” or “libertarian” or “anti-fascist”. It is heavily oppressive and brutal. This should be common bloody sense.
It’s also funny that Mark Golding publicly brags about being an informant for the Iranian regime because in his mind they actually read or take seriously his Internet investigoogling. When challenged on Iranian human rights he shot back with “you don’t tell people how to raise their kids” which is a charming image of how he sees the relationship between the Iranian regime and ‘its’ population. The people there are recalcitrant children to be beaten into line. Funny how no one here would ever in a million years think Iran’s lack of freedoms would be acceptable in the UK or the US but apparently it’s fine for Iranians.
Angrysoba,
yes, I see one missile trailer that reads “Israel should be wiped out from the map” – a bit of an odd translation there, I’d say; either just “wiped out”, or “wiped from the map” would have been good English, but “wiped out from the map” suggests inexperience. I see another that reads “The USA can do nothing” – so I think we can assume bravado and exaggeration. But then it is a military parade, so it’s fairly unsurprising.
Yes, and then if you read the same thing on the podium at 0:55 and on the poster in the same video at 1:07 in which Khomeini is given credit for the saying then the conclusion that this phrase of Khomeini’s that is repeated by Ahmadinejad at the World Without Zionism conference means exactly what these translators have translated it as.
Angrysoba,
yes I did look at 0:24, as you can now see. Our posts keep crossing is all. No, the yellow shape doesn’t look like a swastika to me. It looks a bit like the word “IS”. I’m really not sure what it is.
If you’re opposed to invading or attacking Iran, you should be a bit careful about unequivocally stating that Iran is driving for war. There are plenty of very powerful people who are very much in favour of violence against Iran, and are very glad that such opinions are stressed. Consider all the jingoistic drum-beating in the British media when the UK naval personnel were arrested (KIDNAPPED!) in Iranian / disputed waters. Thank goodness for Craig Murray in that unpleasant episode.
A state can be anti-fascist and anti-imperialist AND oppressive and brutal – people aren’t always consistent. But I wasn’t talking about Iran, just about the message of that parade.
Angrysoba,
so if it’s so certain that the Iranian leadership wishes to destroy Israel, how do we account for Ahmadinejad’s words as I quoted at 4:48? Maybe this is what we should expect from a conference called ‘A World Without Zionism’.
Or maybe things are just a bit mad in Iran. In human psychology, aggression is a response to threat. Iran must be one of the most threatened nations in the world, surrounded by the US, with occupied Iraq to the north, occupied Afghanistan to the east, targeted by Israel’s nukes, US covert operations within, Operation Ajax in the background, and calls for them to be nuked in the Western mainstream media. It’s surprising that Iran isn’t worse than it is.
“so if it’s so certain that the Iranian leadership wishes to destroy Israel, how do we account for Ahmadinejad’s words as I quoted at 4:48? Maybe this is what we should expect from a conference called ‘A World Without Zionism’.”
Diplomacy? His words in those interviews are attempts to downplay the rabble-rousing intent of the original. We surely wouldn’t expect him to go on a US radio station such as Democracy Now! and say, “Read my lips… Israel shall be wiped from the map!”
Maybe the message from Iran is “Israel should be wiped from the map – rather than us”!
Yes, diplomacy is a possibility. All these assessments are partial and incomplete, and I think you should be careful of magnifying one specific part of a much larger picture. There’s that fatwa against nuclear weapons, too.
Speaking practically, there is close to zero chance that Iran would attempt to annihilate Israel, or even destroy one of its nuclear reactors. On the other hand, Israel…
Anyway, I must get some sleep. Goodnight.
“It’s also funny that Mark Golding publicly brags about being an informant for the Iranian regime because in his mind they actually read or take seriously his Internet investigoogling. When challenged on Iranian human rights he shot back with “you don’t tell people how to raise their kids” which is a charming image of how he sees the relationship between the Iranian regime and ‘its’ population.”
I didn’t see this, but it makes sense.
It’s about time to call out Mark Golding for running a phony charity. I happen to have the arrows in my quiver to suss out what is or is not a fake charity in the States, and perhaps my experience is not directly applicable to the UK, but I would imagine that UK law has some minimal standards for parties who call themselves charities and solicit money (perhaps the standards are even more stringent).
Golding clearly doesn’t run a charity … he runs a website with extremely graphic pictures that could very well be the result of jihadist bombings, and then expects you to go to click through and give money to him.
Mark Golding doesn’t seem to feel the need to take the necessary steps to set up an actual charity. Other charities do engage in such steps.
Mark Golding is a fraudulent war-porn pervert, who solicits donations for Iraqi children in order to feed his 911 truther life.
It’s about time the authorities get involved.
Heh Craig Murray –
to the extent that you still read your 911 conspiracy blog –
what do you think about Mark Golding promoting his phony charity, lining his pockets with the aid of dead child porn?
Heh Clark – what about those gay men in Iran?
Personally, I believe in solidarity with them.
Do you also think that there are no gay men in Iran? Is it OK to imprison people for being gay?
It seems that what people say means whatever angrysoba wishes it to mean. Larry Silverstein spoke of ‘pulling’ WTC7, but of course that wasn’t what he meant. Ahmadinejad never mentioned ‘wiping Israel from the map’ but of course that is what he meant. I suppose when Churchill spoke of ‘fighting them on the beaches’ he was advocating surrender?
http://www.chinawholesaletown.com/
Angrysober,
“It is heavily oppressive and brutal. This should be common bloody sense.”
I can put up with wild accusations and attempts to discredit me which make you look stupid.efore you hiss about brutality and oppression do some ‘investigoogling’ yourself on the massacre and maiming of children in Iraq who never had the chance to become recalcitrant, their lives terminated or hideously mutated by the West’s toxic weapons in an illegal war instigated on lies.