Monday 16 April 2012
Why Do We Need Whistleblowers in a Democracy?
An Evening with Craig Murray
Ex Ambassador, Author, Broadcaster, Whistleblower and Human Rights Activist
Small Chemistry Lecture Theatre, Main Building, Cardiff University
With Bradley Manning’s impending court martial hearing and the recent WikiLeaks controversy, Craig Murray will be discussing why whistleblowing is necessary in a democracy. He will draw on his experience as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, until 2004 when he was removed from his post for exposing grave human rights abuses as well as about his experiences in Africa.
This event is held in partnership with Bradley Manning Support Events (Wales). For more details of events taking place for the Manning campaign in April, see wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com
Please contact Naomi Blight at [email protected] or call 029 20228549 if you are able to attend.
I am twiddling my thumbs at the moment so will come along….might even buy you a wee dram afterwards..
Good luck with the that. you have got a hell of a mountain to climb. Step by step..
If it’s not raining hard I’ll take the bike down for a spin. (No way of getting there by car in time after work.)
Assange Joins Russian Anti-NATO Campaign Against Sweden
Cliff Kincaid
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In another indication of his service to the Russians, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has told The New Internationalist magazine that the Swedish security services intercept 80 percent of Russian Internet traffic and share the information with the United States. The claim is making big news in Russia, where Assange is regarded as a hero for his charges and disclosures damaging to America and its allies. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti trumpets Assange’s charges.
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Assange is angry at Sweden because the government wants to extradite him from Britain to stand trial on sexual assault allegations. But Assange is also working for the Russian government, which has given him a visa, a television show on Russia Today (RT), and has announced that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Significantly, RT has been hammering the Swedish government for “heading from neutrality to NATO” and taking too much of a pro-American stance in foreign policy. “Swedes are already venting anger at their government for committing troops to Afghanistan, and feel their national interests are being sacrificed for NATO and the US,” an RT report declared. RT quoted an anti-NATO and anti-American activist from the Swedish “direct action for peace” group OFOG.
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On April 1, hundreds of so-called “peace activists,” including dozens of Swedes, attempted to break into NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
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A promo for the new Assange Russia Today show, “The World Tomorrow with Julian Assange,” insists that he wants to “keep journalism honest” and achieve the “maximum political impact” by releasing “full source material.”
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But Assange has been anything but honest about his own sources. For example, he insisted that he had no contact with U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, now on trial for treason, when evidence at Manning’s preliminary hearing demonstrated correspondence and communication between the two. Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, some of them dealing with counter-terrorism and sensitive national security matters.
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Perhaps in a preview of what he intends to talk about on his own RT program, Assange attacked alleged Swedish cooperation with the U.S. in his interview with The New Internationalist, saying that “…the FRA [Försvarets Radioanstalt], which is the big spy agency in Sweden, intercepts 80 per cent of Russian internet traffic and they sell it on to the national security agency in the US.”
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Such a claim can only serve the purposes of those, like the Russian government, who object to cooperation with the U.S. on intelligence matters.
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The FRA, the National Defense Radio Establishment, is dedicated to the protection of Sweden and Swedish interests and can monitor telephone and Internet traffic. Sweden joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace framework in 1994 and may consider full membership in NATO, regarded as an anti-Soviet alliance during the days of the Cold War.
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Interestingly, an official release from WikiLeaks describes Assange as “one of the world’s most recognizable revolutionary figures” and says he will be interviewing on his new RT show “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world.”
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In the context of giving an interview to The New Internationalist, such a description has to be viewed as being in cahoots with the international pro-communist Left. The publication has run such articles as “The Meaning Of Che,” describing the ruthless associate of Fidel Castro as having a “selfless dedication to the poor and the oppressed.”
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The New Internationalist claims it focuses attention “on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide in the fight for global justice.” But the interview with Assange demonstrates the anti-American bent of the magazine and Assange. It did not ask about his failure to disclose documents on corruption in Russia that he had promised to release.
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11786/pub_detail.asp
This anti-Assange stuff is on a website that looks like the second branch of AIPAC when you look at the lists of Board Directors and Advisors on About Us.
Great to hear you are back, alive and with all your files. Norwich is six hours away from lovely Bristol, so I shan’t join you and Frazer, enjoy your dram.
Mary,
Wow! That anti-Assange stuff. Very virulent. I agree with your description of them as a sort of AIPAC parody.
Family Security Matters
Flying Spaghetti Monster
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Coincidence? I think not!
Hallelujah, the world is safer as of today, now that a cure has been found for Gayness, and those affiliated by this terrible disease that compels them to be compulsive hedonists; engaging in cottaging wherever they can whenever they can.
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Oh the thoughts of no more Gayness ought to be good news for everyone, but the Luciferian forces, and the Satan’s very own private attendant: The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has stopped the good news from getting spread, as the buses drove around.
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The world is going to hell in a hand basket and a bunch of repressed gays are trying to convince themselves they are ill and in need of a cure.
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{http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16207800}
{http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iUxftDcREAbLq09UI2kUv9idaN7g?docId=B20887771334252263A00001}
I see on RT (Russian English Language news) that Assange has produced a series of interviews with known whistleblowers and dissidents to be shown shortly..perchance are you on the list or are you sworn to secrecy ? See you Monday.
Be assured that, whence a government set criminal conduct as standard, ultimately its citizens will follow suit. (Supreme Justice Jackson)
Court hears man gouged lover’s eyes
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Brutality and war being common, and might is right the only way, as seen in: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, can only result in such an outcome.
This is what it’ all about. Resources grab by the West.
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Guardian
‘Cameron says this is the crossroads of Asia, endowed with enormous natural resources. It shouldn’t be as poor as it is today, he says. He is optimistic that if Burma can make these political changes it could then become much more economically successful.’
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The prime minister said: “I think it is right to suspend the sanctions that there are against Burma – to suspend them, not lift them.”
Cameron continued: “[Burma] shouldn’t be as poor as it is, it shouldn’t have suffered under dictatorship for as long as it has and things don’t have to be that way.
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“There is the real prospect of change and I’m very much committed to working with you in trying to help make sure that your country makes those changes.
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“I met with President Thein Sein today, and I think there are prospects for change in Burma, and I think it is right for the rest of the world to respond to those changes.
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“Of course we must respond with caution, with care, we must always be sceptical and questioning, because we want to know those changes are irreversible, but … I think it is right to suspend the sanctions that there are against Burma – to suspend them, not lift them, and obviously not to include the arms embargo – because I do think it is important to send a signal that we want to help see the changes that can bring the growth of freedom, human rights and democracy in your country.”
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Aung San Suu Kyi said: “We still have a long way to go but we believe we can get there.
{http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/apr/13/david-cameron-aung-sang-suu-kiyi-live}
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Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9201790/Burma-Cameron-to-offer-Whitehall-training-if-democracy-is-embraced.html
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‘Businesses are increasingly interested in what could end up being the largest new global market since China began opening its doors to capitalism.’
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And what hypocrisy was displayed. The UK with its record giving lessons on democracy to the Burmese people!
Have to agree with you passerby, the London mayoral election are more bland than they are relevant and this ill gotten vaccum gets filled up with moaning all round.
I know that some women are being abused by violent husbands, no doubt one issue to raise with all candidates,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/11/siobhan-benita-london-mayoral-hustings
but hang on…what of participation of candidates in debates?
Am I seeing right, Green party candidate Jenny Jones, well versed in being shut out of campaigns by the BBC and other MSM symbiont’s herself in the past, seemingly agrees with the pack of main streamers of the wholesale exclusion of all others, the exact same attitude displayed as was then by Rupert Read, Green Party candidate in the Norwich North by-election, were Craig was standing as an Independent. Rupert is a fellow lecturers union member, who knew that Craig was a rector at Dundee university, still he saw no scruples in excluding him from a BBC arranged debate on, wait for it, education.
I’m ashamed that the Green Party has become a con-formative bunch of soulless cretin political careerists who’ll do anything to get access to the media and if that means shutting up Independent candidates like Siobhan Belinda, or any of the other candidates in the race. I hear that a few Conservatives had enough of Boris antics and will vote for UKIP, a shame, but well deserved.
Oops, forgive Siobhan, its Benita not Belinda, off course, and you would look so much better than Jenny in her crumpled old suit..;)
Its not worth it, personally. Do those who do regret it later
I really do believe we need Whistleblowers now more than ever; it would have to be a much better world than we live in now, not to need them. WhisleBlowers at least help stop some of the wrong doing and help us understand what is happening around us. I’ve got a book called The Whistleblower, it’s about sex trafficking in Eastern Europe some years ago. The company who owned or leased the aircraft for the rendition fights to Gadafy’s Libya, which is in the news now, were heavily involved. There are many other stories about this company but they are not proven.
Malcolm Bush, we do need whistleblowers. Here is one, a film-maker, Aaron Russo, who died of bladder cancer in 2007.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuinaIm-kd4&feature=share
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Not fully-recovered enough yet to get along on Monday, but it will be a good night I have no doubt.
@ Passerby:
“The posters, backed by Anglican Mainstream, stated: “Not gay! Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it!” …””
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Wonder if Megabus would care to carry this:
“Not Christian! Post-Christian, ex-Christian and proud. Get over it!”
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I can hear the pre-emptive howls of protest, but I am sure Christianity is curable. By gays.
Dang, only just finished with work. No chance to get down to see the talk in Cardiff 🙁
So, how was the talk and what will come of it? Will it help Bradley Manning out of jail for alledgedly transmitting the truth as it was available to 2 million others?
Can we get rid of creeping hegemonial fascism with peacefull sanctions as in Burma?
An excellent evening was had by all.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/17/for-you-a-thousand-times-over/
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Kathy Kelly writes of a protest and of Bradley Manning.
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April 17, 2012
“There is War in Kabul Today, Many Bombs!”
For You, a Thousand Times Over
by KATHY KELLY
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At the start of The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini later adapted for film, a brave and selflessly loyal Afghan boy runs to help his much wealthier friend, singing out his love for him “For you, a thousand times over …” They have been flying a fighting kite, (these are kites with edges sharp enough to cut the strings of another kite), and the singing boy has gone to fetch an enemy kite they have won. A dreadful betrayal ensues, its effects exacerbated horribly by the start of the U.S.-Soviet proxy war. Several decades pass before any small sort of atonement can be achieved by the book’s protagonist.
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We sang that song this weekend. I was privileged to attend several actions organized by Kansas and Missouri activists, beginning at Fort Leavenworth prison, to which Bradley Manning will likely return after his current ordeal in a New Jersey military courtroom.
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Manning faces a life sentence and potentially a death sentence for the crime of informing U.S. voters and people around the world how our troops and our client governments behave when we are not meant to be looking. One partial consequence seems to have been the democracy uprising of the Arab Spring. Later, at Whiteman Air Force Base, we presented an indictment for the international war crimes that are implicit in remote-controlled killing using the kind of aerial drones that are piloted from the base. As three of our friends walked forwards with the indictment to be arrested by riot-shielded base police, we flew kites to remind ourselves that the blue sky above our heads should not be a source of fear, and we sang, “For you, a thousand times over, for you, a thousand times over…”
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Young mr assange is an unusual animal. During a long interview with Norman Swan on Aussie ABC, he repeatedly seemed to assume, without ever really explaining, that wikileaking was justified because it was against awful US hegemony, or perhaps because “information wants to be free”. He was completely unable to explain how wikileaks differed from stratfor, the creepy “private intelligence” operation, and latest wikileaks victim, that sollicits insider information for cash, then resells it to corporations, perhaps using it for a spot of insider trading on the way through.
Whistleblowing is indissociable from the notion of SIN ! Someone wants to keep something hidden because it’s wrong, and a whistelblower wants to publicise it for the same reason. A whistleblower is disinterested, and unfortunately pays heavily. The law protecting journalists adds a notion of public interest. No need to explain all this to you Craig !
I want to say that Wikileaks is whistleblowing, even though I know little about the motivations or the guilt of young mr manning. Mr assange seems to have some notion of public interest sublimated in his other views, but it’s well hidden. It seems clear the public interest has massively been served, even if no-one was consciously trying to serve it. Can mr assange’s lawyer argue that these two nice young men were acting in the public interest, even if they seem unable or unwilling to make the argument themselves?
Strength to your arm
Simon
Dear Craig: tried to say a few days ago, thank you for doing this, but comment didn’t seem to register. So, thank you.
Bradley Manning – his disclosure is burnt into the consciousness of millions…
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“Look at all those dead bastards” – Nice.
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Yet our children are encouraged to watch films like Academy Award winner, ‘The Hurt Locker’ – where American soldiers are selfless heroes and Iraqis are faceless ghosts.
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This is real life – with American soldiers as video game killers and Iraqis as corpses. These are the kind of trained heroes who mistake a telephoto lens for an rocket-propelled grenade.
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The New York Times called this massacre a ‘firefight’ – their page has now been scrubbed…
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/27/bradley-manning-wikileaks-mentally-fragile
An Iraqi orphan drew this picture of his mother and sleeps as if he is in her arms.
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http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/p480x480/563241_379054902138681_100001025227120_1182504_545132232_n.jpg
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So sad. Yet the nearly 12 year old Leo Blair has had no such heartache.