I am becoming quite fond of my little corner of Schiphol airport. I have put up my Christmas cards and a few bits of tinsel. I now have a boarding card for the 0800 to Manchester. This is the sixth boarding card I have had. It is very hard to understand why, time after time, they don’t know a flight is cancelled until some time after it was due to leave and all the passengers have queued at the gate for hours.
Of course, Manchester is a lot further from Ramsgate than Schiphol is, so even if the flight atually goes, this represents rather dubious progress.
Happy New Year everybody.
Remarkably, KLM delivered my lost luggage, including my laptop, at 9.30 pm on New Year’s Eve. At that time a pretty lively party was already in full swing,much improved by the presence of a great many beautiful young women, mostly from Latvia. I am not sure why; my life as ever consists of a bewildering succession of chance encounters with really nice people. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that Nadira was the most lovely of all, without indulging in dutiful hyperbole.
It was an extremely happy Christmas. Having my mum, both my brothers and all my three chidren together was as great as it was rare.
We have been through the laptop in lost luggage discussion before. The problem is that my shoulders dislocate at the drop of a hat, and I travel without hand luggage to avoid an accident.
2011 is going to be a very important year for me. particularly the first quarter. A number of crucial events are going either to set me up financially for the rest of my life, or result in real distress and failure. At present I have reason to be very optimistic. I am also very absorbed in my life of Alexander Burnes, which I hope will help establish a serious academic reputation.
The Portuguese edition of Murder in Samarkand has sold unexpectedly well in Brazil. The translation of the Turkish edition has just been finished.
I hope to do a Wikileaks retrospective in the next couple of days. Just a quick thought on the case of the poor young gardener in Bristol. Of the Jill Dando case, long before Barry Bulsara’s succesful appeal I blogged that this appeared to be a miscarriage of justice in which the police had fitted up the local weirdo.
Despite not being enamoured of landlords in general, I fear the same dynamic is at work in Bristol, albeit Chris Jefferies is much more intellectually capable than Bulsara. My instinct is that the police have picked up on Jefferies for being camper than a boy scout jamboree and archer than Trajan.
Jefferies’ release on bail has me worried that there was nothing against him other than the “He’s a weird one, guv” instinct of some not very bright cop. The case needs to be closely watched as history shows that the powers of the police to make the evidence fit the suspect are considerable.
Jon re Wikileaks and why I don’t like them. Let’s imagine you talk in confidence to a colleague or write an email at work about a touchy subject and that conversation or that email is sent to all and sundry – your boss, your clients, your staff, your family. I think you would be pretty pissed off, no? This is exactly what is happening with wikileaks on a trans national scale. Any fule knows that gossip and overheard conversations are the lubricant of diplomacy but if diplomacy is made more difficult because of wikileaks then the world becomes a more dangerous place. Ditto when lives are put at risk through wikileaks – the Taliban has already set up a committee to study the cables. Ditto when reported conversations such as China’s willingness to let go of N Korea – as today’s events on the Korean peninsula prove. So do I think that wikileaks makes the world a safer place? No. Do I think governments should be entitled to have secrets and keep them secret? Yes if they keep us safer. I am actually quite pleased that people acting in the name of this government are infiltrating extremist groups and blowing their cover and if I thought that creeps like Assange were making their task harder then, as I say, he deserves what he gets.
Happy Christmas to you all – including the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know.
Last night my Wife and I watched a Coen Brother’s Film “Burn After Reading”. Although she didn’t “get” a lot of it (she is much too innocent), I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Basically the film took the piss out of so many aspects of modern society including the bureaucracy of the CIA and the shallowness, stupidity and selfishness of virtually all the characters involved – but with great subtlety, clarity and detail. I myself often don’t get American humour – but this was top class. I would have myself in stitches, and my wife would be wondering – what the hell is he laughing at – as would most actual Americans living these lives.
I recommend everyone on here should watch it, to see if they recognise anyone.
Not quite as good as “American Beauty” – but in the same league.
Tony
“angrysober: BNP scum is hardly an original, or even fair, phrase; so surprised at you”
Well, technicolour, all I can say is that I am surprised at you for telling me there is something wrong with calling someone “BNP scum”.
I don’t like to use terms like that where I can help it but Alfred has been asked so many times what he really means as if we could somehow herd him into a nicer political position by simply pouting our lips and asking again and again and again…
“Are you actually a big bad racist?”
Alfred is simply what was once known as a racist. He doesn’t like Pakis, Japs, Kikes, Niggers, Wetbacks, Wogs, Potato Niggers (Irish), Sand Niggers or any other kind of people who may threaten his world.
He’s an intelligent guy and someone whom I think I would enjoy drinking and chatting with. But he is still someone whose very understanding of the world is completely anathema to mine.
Do you have to use those disgraceful terms to illustate your point?
“Last night my Wife and I watched a Coen Brother’s Film “Burn After Reading”. ”
Right good film that that, that that that.
“Do you have to use those disgraceful terms to illustate your point?”
Who the fuck are you?
Eddie, very interesting, thanks – though I think the comparison with private correspondence doesn’t work. Diplomacy, like personal communications, are expected to be conducted in private – they have that similarity – but only in the first case is there a public interest to seeing what is going on in public. So in answer to your question, yes, I’d be annoyed if my private communications were made public, since there is no public interest case to be made for that happening (though of course in a court of law, there are some exceptions to be made for that).
So I guess our difference comes down to whether we can agree that there is a public interest case to be made for opening up diplomacy to some degree. For my part, I think plenty of what has been published should not have been classified anyway, and there are a number of US conservatives who agree with this, in keeping with the original Republican ideology of small government and a watchful (armed) populace.
There are obviously some items that were written with the intention of keeping them secret, since their contents are embarrassing; however, I am not persuaded that any great harm has come from them. But I am excited by the idea that if all diplomacy that was not +TOP+ secret was conducted out in the open (either by convention or by threat of future leaking) then the gap between public presentation and international discourse would narrow, and would either (a) expose international diplomacy as a racket to further the interests of capital, or (b) become more honest, and more inclined to factor in social externalities. As an example of (b), it is certainly in the public interest to see how much US taxpayer money is being spent on US diplomatic intervention over Brazil’s intention to mandate the licensing of copy pharmaceuticals for AIDS treatment. Given “US interests” are presently aligned with keeping drugs expensive and out of the reach of impoverished AIDS sufferers, diplomatic enthusiasm for discounting this important social component might be dimmed in the future, on a personal or micro-level, if the possibility of public discovery can be kept omnipresent.
Indeed, whilst it is not surprising in our cynical world that no concern is expressed for AIDS sufferers in diplomatic cables, I’d +like+ to live in a world where that was a significant motivating factor. This is why I am opposed to capitalism, or at least the version of laissez-faire we operate at the international level: it just isn’t the done thing, diplomatically speaking, to express concern for the people whose interests are ignored by big corporations and industry. It would be – shock horror – +political+!
Don’t take this the wrong way, but given your party membership, I’d have thought you’d be cautiously in favour of Wikileaks. The left – even the centre-left – presumably elevates social justice and transparency above much else. I should think you’d be in favour of the release of the Collateral Murder video for much the same reason, regardless of whether you supported the war in Iraq.
“It was perhaps my point or my dark antipodean sense of humour which may have been a bit unclear rather than yours” –DailyMagnet
Ah no, I knew you were kidding.
“general appearance and demanour would seem very at odds with those types of tabloid media labels”
I doubt if women would see him as a ‘threat’. He’s definitely attractive, in a brooding kind of way, and he has a nice voice. I’ve heard (seen) women say so. I have no difficulty seeing him as a ‘womaniser’. But he wouldn’t be the first man to succumb to the attentions of “groupies” and he is incredibly well known now.
So, just because I think Israel has far too much political and cultural influence over the USA – and to a much lesser extent the UK, doesn’t necessarily mean that I think They were too stupid to realise that it was actually the “Scotch”
(that really pisses them off) wrote the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion gecause The Jews were too busy defending themselves from Winston Churchill on his horse committing genocide in places he really shouldn’t have gone…
So why does anyone really think a bunch of Muslims did it, when it is far more likely that it was a bunch of New York punks who’s parents were in the Sharks and the Jets – in West Side Story??
Sure I know the Coen brothers are Catholics
So What The Fuck?? (New CIA Team set up to investigate wikileaks)
I am not trying to defend Oldhamers???
Why the fuck are you lot so tribalistic?
I really enjoy winding up people from the BNP
And I will quite happily wind up any racist cunt…
You see human beings are much the same regardless of what nonsense they believe in.
It is just sad that so many people are being manipulated by powerful forces to commit evil against others.
If they actually got to know them, instead of going to war with them – they could enjoy a conversation, and even a beer together – and even a smoke …
Most people I have met from multiple countries and cultures all over the world think religion is a load of old bollocks – and are incredibly welcoming.
Tony
“Now to the unholy alliance of angrysoba and this communist clown.
“You can’t start fucking someone while they’re sleeping and then take a lack of explicit protest upon awakening as consent.”
Why not?
It’s only in the world of radical feminism and other authoritarians that all sex acts must be contracted in advance. That’s the ultimate logic of their stupid argument.
It’s not the two women who are making rape or sexual molestation allegations against Assange. It’s the radical feminist prosecutor and her mate the pro American Swedish member of parliament, both of whom have an interest in even further extending Swedish sex law.
This Swedish prosecutor is such an arrogant scumbag that she overides the wishes of the two women and says that she alone will decide whether offences have been committed or not. The women don’t know enough about Swedish law to make the decision because they’re not jurists, she claims. That’s how stupid it all is.
As with all authoritarians they want to take control of all aspects of a person’s life.
Assange should just tell this scumbag Swedish prosecutor, her pro American politician mate and all their ilk to go fuck themselves with a thick stick, and then get the fucking hell out of people’s lives!”
Hey Dick!
Your parents knew you right from the start!
Go fuck yourself you cunt and go watch “I am Curious Yellow” made in Sweden and then, oh yes, go fuck yourself again! Fuck you!
Angrysoba said:
“Alfred is simply what was once known as a racist. He doesn’t like Pakis, Japs, Kikes, Niggers, Wetbacks, Wogs, Potato Niggers (Irish), Sand Niggers or any other kind of people who may threaten his world.”
These statements are not only entirely unjustified by any evidence, but also libelous. An action for libel, though it might not touch some pseudonomous poster in Osaka, Japan, would certainly touch Craig Murray.
To the anonymous person who asked
“Do you have to use those disgraceful terms to illustate your point?”
I think the answer is “yes”. On the thread preceding this one, and elsewhere, I have made the case the Craig Murray’s views amount to support for the NWO. But apparently, on this blog, to make that case is unacceptable. Thus I am subject to abuse, not only if I speak, but even on a thread where I have said nothing other than to wish Craig Murray a safe journey home.
The abuse is in fact threatening, in that there is a clear intent not only to identify me falsely as a racist, but to identify my full name, professional qualifications and employment and my place of residence.
With reference to the BNP, I have reapeatedly stated that the BNP serves to discredit popular policies, many of which I would support, e.g., Britain’s immediate withdrawal from the Afghan war, the EU and NATO; devolution of power to the lowest practicable level, and protection of British workers from unconstrained competition with Asian planation labour paid about 4% of UK labor rates.
So does that make me a BNP supporter? Does that make me “BNP scum”? Only in the mind of foolish person taken in by lying NWO order propaganda, which is what Angrysoba provides.
I note that Techie has expressed disapprobation of the language used against me here, for which I thank him. To anyone finding such language offensive and inappropriate, I suggest they avoid the thread preceding this one where the language is considerably coarser and the threaten tone much more aggressive.
That’s interesting.
“I suggest they avoid the thread preceding this one where the language is considerably coarser and the threaten tone much more aggressive. ”
Well it was coarser than here until just now when Angrysoba entered a state of carpet-chewing mania.
“Ditto when lives are put at risk through wikileaks”
Eddie,
Robert Gates, and the Pentagon, have already said (seperately) that no lives can be shown to have been put at risk by Wikileaks. (I posted that with a link somewhere on this blog.) If you have evidence to the contrary, please post it.
Here listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pCZ5E5tn4I&feature=fvw
Continuing from previous post…
Another reason why I support the WL project is that it appears to be creating cracks in an imperial edifice. The US machine is advancing its “interests” across the world, in diplomacy and political pressure, in bombs and wars, in corporate corruption, in one-sided extradition mechanisms, in unfair trade treaties, in socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, in refusing to censure Israel over its crimes, in picking and choosing at international law, in advancing the interests of capital over people, and in believing in a dangerous chosen-people exceptionalism that insists on having its own way.
My sense is that the furore caused by the cables – and the reversing of positions that initially claimed the releases to be harmless – are a collective howl of indignation from an elite class* that is pondering a future in which they might have to be more honest about how they coordinate their affairs. Assange wrote about this some years ago, in particular how a “conspiracy” can be thwarted by preventing its ability to communicate dishonesty in secret.
* Clarification: whilst the US government is the primary “victim” of the leaks, the elite class is, of course, not exclusively American. But the ordering of Western economies do hinge substantially upon US interests, and so the USG winds up being a primary proponent of this system – it has no choice, unless it makes a conscious effort to go down a different road.
“I love reading this blog. Can’t wait for the next post.”
Is that you, Suhayl posting under Cheap Driving Lessons. I know you’ve been practicing spambot language for some time now.
I suggest yuou check out Apostate/Freeborn when you’re suing, Dr. Alfred. You’ll need his IP address from Craig of course.
“Well it was coarser than here until just now when Angrysoba entered a state of carpet-chewing mania.”
If you have a problem with it you can pleasure yourself for all I care.
Nobody needs be interested in your personal problems because they are irrelevant to everyone but yourself.
Go Fuck Your Self!
eddie, Happy Christmas to you too.
Make sure you’ve got a decent hat for the winter.
Why don’t you piss off, Apostate. Taking other people’s handles when you troll has to be the lowest of the low.
OK you lot. Tomorrow is Xmas Eve, so let us ALL try to show a little restraint on the blog pertaining to F&C words and a lot of personal abuse between participants.
Whatever your political beliefs, race, colour or creed, I suggest we call a blog truce here until Craig is back so he can mediate. Let’s ALL take a deep breath and step back. I am sure we all would like to post something on the theme of wishing Craig and family a merry festive season and all the best for the New Year, wherever we come from. Personally, I have enjoyed over the last 2 years drunken rants from Tony-opomoc, political insights from Mark, photos of INGO cleaning a fireplace,Larry from St Louis throwing a spanner in the works, personal attacks on my drinking habits and arguments who(or did not) blow up the WTC, and many more too numerous to mention.
I wish you all good fortune for 2011 and look foreward to arguing, abusing and calling your personal sanity into question in 2011. Have a good one.
Anonymous poster at 7pm: Even when I’m teasing spambots with spambotty language, I do not post under any name except my own. No, the ‘cheap driving lessons’ post was not written by me.
Did you check out the time in Japan before you started this stupid lark?
Eh, Apostate/Freeborn/tungsten/Juniper/ChebaCow?
And shouldn’t you be more careful than to write “technicolor” one minute and “technicolour” the next?
You’re sick. Find some other source of amusement. Like Lego.
Thanks, Frazer. And the same good wishes to you too. And of course, all good wishes for the Festive Season and for 2011 to Craig and his family.
Jon said,
“Another reason why I support the WL project is that it appears to be creating cracks in an imperial edifice. ”
Really, what has WL told the world that (a) is important and (b) was previously unknown?
I mean, we already knew that the US routinely engages in torture, that it kidnaps people and renders them for interrogation under torture, that the US assassinates anyone it wants, including American citizens, that the US murders journalists who get in its way, that hundreds of thousand of civilians have been killed in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and that millions more have been made refugees, that George Bush called the US Constitution a “just a goddam piece of paper.”
Your assessment of WL seems entirely uncritical. You do not consider the hazard of such an operation to a genuine whistleblower, should WL be a security services operation, or just a badly run commercial racket to fund Assange’s international life-style.
And you ignore the impact of WL on the legitimate US interest in conducting diplomacy effectively.
See my above post ! Ps..Thanks Suhayl ..best to you and family as well..
Incidentally, and you probably won’t believe me – but a couple of nights ago when I was posting about Students and Liberals and Lemmy and Motorhead and “Eat The Rich”
I had not read the Daily Mail, and knew absolutely Nothing whatsoever about The Crossbow Killer – and his Prostitute Eating History..
It was a complete co-incidence
My wife who is completely lovely, was reading this shit in bed with me last night after we had watched the film I mentioned earlier.
I knew absoluetely nothing about it – but she likes all this gory stuff…
Before I met her whilst I was living in Manchester, I did meet a few girls from Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield…
The Yorkshire Lasses were Fucking Georgeous – even the one I really did not fancy fucking – who shagged Ian Gillan…
She said oh come on…
Oh it was not very good.
I had to apologise
Leeds and Bradford though were Fucking Brilliant….
Not as Good as Lancashire Girls Though
We could always beat them at Cricket – But The Gliding was better in Yorkshire
As Regards Southern Girls (Well They Are an Old Secret)
My Wife Comes From Lancashire Just Like Me
And I Love Her Even More Now Than The Moment I Met Her
And I could Never Betray Her
She is My Soul Mate, My Best Friend, and The Mother of Our Two Children
I just don’t get it – how I have been so lucky
Tony
LOL, I am wary of discussing things with you, given the way our last conversation ended, but on the other hand I hate to leave a good question unanswered. For a civil and interesting response, thank you.
I think there is definitely new material that was previously unknown, such as the Dalai Lama’s position on Tibet versus climate change. But far more important is US +acknowledgement+ of the world’s problems, such as Shell being deeply embedded “at all levels” in the Nigerian government. Furthermore, the tone is really quite important too: the opposition in Qatar to a Marks & Sparks store was painted as “repugnant anti-semitism”, even though it went on to suggest that the kerfuffle was due to a personal slight, rather than M&S trading with Israel. This illustration, I think, cannot be underestimated; each diplomat, having had the education, upbringing and socialisation to be useful to capital, takes the political views that are most suited to that endeavour. People who are more resistant to that will usually be pushed out before they reach such dizzy heights (Craig’s story is, I think, a magnificent exception).
Whilst I’ve not criticised WL in the last couple of posts, I have previously acknowledged that it would be a splendid vector for elite disinformation, though I have yet to see any substance on that. I am happy to change my mind on that though, as new facts emerge.
On the safety of whistleblowers, this is a very good point, and the only way whistleblowers are protected is if they go to a whistle-blowing site of some repute. This is why we should be cautious about OpenLeaks, TuniLeaks and the several others that have popped up. I love the idea of a “marketplace of leaks” – turning the worst features of capitalism against itself, to my mind – but some of them may have poor security, insufficient anonymisation mechanisms or malign intent. That said, good whistleblowers know that they need to take their own anonymisation seriously (letter drops, internet cafes, Tor, etc) and that boasting about ones accomplishments (as Bradley Manning is said to have done) is foolhardy. So, if WL is a security services operation, anyone with anything really interesting to leak won’t be doing so from their home address anyway – not unless they’re totally daft.
As to whether Wikileaks can be trusted by whistleblowers, I think it can – but then trust is a tricky concept. We’ll see how the next few months play out, and next year when they start accepting submissions again, we’ll see if people will use them. I think they will, personally, but of course that may all change!
I am open to the idea that +some+ diplomacy might be best conducted in secret. Perhaps I am sensing – correctly or erroneously – that open is +generally+ better than closed, and that we’d win more than we’d lose. I am surprised as your last sentence though – given that you’re so opposed to the NWO, do you not regard “US interests” as effectively the same thing? On that basis, something that puts a wedge in the systems as we know it ought to be regarded by you as a good thing, I would have thought.
In any case, for the time being, where there is a genuine case for shielding information from public view, it is being redacted. It seems to me that journalists are the best people to determine this (despite my concerns about the MSM); diplomats would redact everything, and anarchists would redact nothing. And, of course, cables are being released slowly, which again shows – I think – that this is not a free-for-all.
I agree, Frazer. Do you know where Craig is? We worry, you know.