The Mail on Sunday is doing a very good job on the odious Jack Straw’s involvement in torture and persecution. I think that at last the truth has entered the established narrative. There is a little box in the report about my own evidence to Scotland Yard. I will type it out here as the Mail’s box format here is not internet searchable:
“Torture” Evidence Handed to the Yard
Further pressure was piled on Jack Straw last night over the “rendition” of Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhadj after sensitive documents were handed to Scotland tard detectives.
Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, passed the documents to police as part of the inquiry into the behaviour of Ministers and intelligence officials over the detention of Mr Belhadj in Bangkok in March 2004.
The opponent of Colonel Gadaffi was flown to Tripoli, where he claims he was tortured.
Mr Straw, who was Foreign Secretary at the time, has denied ever condoning the use of torture to extract information.
But the documents appear to cast doubt on that position.
One memo, headed “Uzbekistan: Intelligence Possibly Obtained Under Torture” contains minutes of a meeting Mr Murray held with senior Foreign and Commonwealth officials on March 8, 2003 to discuss his concern that the UK could be in breach of international law by possessing intelligence obtained by torture.
The minute, dated March 10 2003, quoted Linda Duffield, then the FCO’s Director of Wider Europe, apparently justifying the use of such material as part of the fight against terrorism.
A second memo, dated March 14 2003, and written by Simon McDonald – the Straw’s principal Private Secretary – to Ms Duffield says Straw has read the minutes and “agrees that you handled this very well”.
Mr Murray is understood to have told police that during Mr Straw’s time at the FCO diplomats were told to only refer to the policy on torture verbally.
Mr Murray said last night “My evidence stated that Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing evidence obtained by torture to be used. I also told them that written evidence had been destrpyed, and we were told to not commit details into writing.”
There is a slight misquote in the above. It should say Jack Straw introduced a policy of allowing intelligence obtained by torture, not evidence. In fact it was specifically stated such intelligence would not be produced as evidence in court (people were imprisoned without charge or rendered instead). The instruction not to put things in writing was given to me personally, I don’t know if others were told the same. As I was the only one protesting, perhaps not.
These links are to the documents in question.
The first two were obtained by Freedom of Information Act request. Details of the CIA’s colllusion with the Karimiv regime’s torturers have been redacted by the FCO. Last week Jack Straw came out and argued strongly for the effective abolition of the Freedom of Information Act. Now there is a coincidence for you.
Anapa: that’s your story, and you stick to it, chum. But local tribalism has a way to go when competing with the globalised kind.
.
Uzbek: I think that is the approach our toothy friend will be taking. Labour is now talking of “Blue” Labour: a further rightwards shift. If they can neither interest nor support the masses in standing against creeping oligarchy (which is what it is, here as in Russia) then they have no alternative but to woo the hedge fund oligarchs. Several commentators have pointed out that the US Democrats are now further Right than Reagan was – this is happening here, as is the usual pattern, a few years later. And we haven’t heard much from la Mandelson lately. I’m sure he’ll get a piece of whatever’s going.
This is the link.
Tony Blair elected PM 15 years ago: was he good or bad?
.
1 May 2012 Tony Blair walked into Downing Street 15 years ago this week and went on to become +++++the most successful prime minister in Labour history++++++.
But he was a controversial figure and he still divides opinion. Susana Mendonça tested the view on the streets of Westminster with the Daily Politics mood box to ask: Tony Blair – good or bad?
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17910007
.
I think the giddy reporter was rather disappointed that the ‘vote’ was just about even. A silly exercise for silly people.
.
The same is being done to rehabiitate Alastair Campbell. He is given air time and programming. No words.
Mary
.
With all my respect I think that revolution is not on the table. This country have been ruled by T Blair alike since and even before Romans. Blair did a ‘good’ job to secure profit for those who really run this and in fact every country. So his come back will be sweetened first and then left for us to swallow. People concerned with employment insecurity and rising living cost might not even notice come back of a war criminal. Tell me who cares about few million of none-white none-europeans killed in conflicts?
Wonder what SamCam thinks about it?
.
Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks “a dozen” times a day
The PM’s text exchanges with Brooks could soon be published.
.
By George Eaton Published 03 May 2012 11:45
New Statesman
.
Peter Oborne’s excoriating column on the Tories and the Murdochs in today’s Telegraph includes the revelation that David Cameron texted former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks at least 12 times a day. Oborne writes:
.
A fresh embarrassment concerns Rebekah Brooks, who providentially retained the text messages she received from the Prime Minister, which I’m told could exceed a dozen a day. These may now be published, a horrible thought.
.
If true, it evidences why David Cameron’s upcoming appearance at the Leveson inquiry (he will likely appear in mid-June) could prove so embarrassing for the Prime Minister. Indeed, last week’s Sunday Times (£) reported that Brooks is “ready to disclose any text messages and emails between herself and David Cameron if required.” (Cameron reportedly signed letters to her “Love, David”.)
.
It’s easy to see how the news of Cameron’s daily contact with the striking Brooks (Tweeters are already quipping about her being his “Monica Lewinsky”) could permanently reduce him in the eyes of the public.
.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/cameron-texted-rebekah-brooks-dozen-times-day
.
She is giving ‘evidence’ 😉 at Leveson Friday next week, a day after Coulson appears. She has special status as a ‘core participant’ and can get her lawyers to question other witnesses and to have prior sight of witness statements etc. BBC website.
UzbekfromtheUK Respect. Revolt then not revolution. Brits not much good at standing up unlike say the French, the Eqyptians or the Tunisians.
.
For what it’s worth, 45,000 of us signed a petition to stop him getting the presidency of the EU. Some are still signing it I see.
.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stopblair/signatures.html
Did we not have Alfred The Great as a fine example of a leader with courage and determination to unite a people.
I see that the Phoenix four baning consortium have pocketed there 42million from the break up of Mg Rover and the workers are now left with a pension of £3.00 each as revealed today. With inflation likely to be on a steady rise the money wont stretch much.
These things should not be allowed to happen. Please read the NS 25 point programme.
Cant we have a little of integrity. This pussy footing around with the robbers in our society surely cant continue.
I was thinking today here we must have high expectations if we think that governments etal have to be trueful.
Spin is also known as lies. It should be a criminal offence to lie.
http://www.allforthegreatergood.com
Anapa, 3:47 pm, if that is so, why do we see action against secular states? I wouldn’t say ‘it’s not oil’; I’d say there is a convergence of assorted interests.
Does this piece on a new Samsung phone qualify as advertising?
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17935684.
3 May 2012 Last updated at 20:22
Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone unveiled Samsung has opted to launch the new handset in Europe ahead of other markets
.
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Samsung overtakes Nokia in phones
Samsung unveils smartphone chip
Samsung expects profits to double
.
Samsung has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone – the Galaxy S3.
(four photos of phone back and front and two colours)
.
The BBC Charter says this:
.
Advertising
The BBC is not permitted to carry advertising or sponsorship on its public services. This keeps them independent of commercial interests and ensures they can be run purely to serve the general public interest.
.
If the BBC sold airtime either wholly or partially, advertisers and other commercial pressures would dictate its programme and schedule priorities. There would also be far less revenue for other broadcasters.
.
The BBC is financed instead by a TV licence fee paid by households. This guarantees that a wide range of high-quality programmes can be made available, unrestricted, to everyone.
.
The licence fee also helps support production skills, training, local or minority programmes and other services which might not otherwise be financed by the economics of pay-TV or advertising.
.
The BBC runs additional commercial services around the world. These are not financed by the licence fee but are kept quite separate from the BBC’s public services. Profits are used to help keep the licence fee low so that UK licence fee payers can benefit commercially from their investment in programmes.
Straw in the Stink..?
.
Apart from the £120,000 memoir deal from MacMillan-plus a £30,000 advance.
.
C*nt.
.
Same as Blair,Campbell,Hoon,Clarke,Blunkett,Bush,Rice,Cheney,Rumsfled,Wolfowitz,et al…
.
Evil weak cowardly c*nts the lot of them.
.
Please forgive my language but reason and decorum are beyond me just now.
Oops!…i almost forgot John Reid,Dershowitz,John Bolton,John Yoo,Limbaugh,MurdochCorp,Hannity,Panetta,Chertsoff,Frank Gardner,Gordon Correra,Prescott,Mandelson,BBC,ITV,Fox,ABC,Hillary Clinton,Obama,Margaret Beckett,….fuck me the list of war criminal lying weak cowardly whores is endless…
.
Apologies again for my language but the more i think of it the angrier i get.
.
I bet most of the NSA,CIA,FBI,GCHQ,MI5/6,Homeland Security privately agree with me but,after Gareth Williams,are too scared to speak out sanely against the horrors of their political whore-masters.
.
Me? I couldn’t give a FUCK anymore.They’ve tortured me for years,incompotently,anyway,the stupid useless slave-droids.
Also,Roderick Russell?
.
Shut up.
.
We know you’re a fake.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/9244120/US-prosecutor-at-Guantanamo-I-must-deliver-justice.html#disqus_thread
.
Some insane muppet slave-droid US Brig General talking about “justice” at Guantanamo and upholding “American values”…
.
What values? Torture? Bombing complete innocents from drones at 10.000 feet? Fake wars? Collecting body parts on film for posterity? Abu Ghraib? Pissing on dead people? Massacres?
.
Don’t make me weep you grotesque slave-asshole.
Jives
There is more to come.
http://www.commonpurpose.org
Anything to galvanise this country please. Presently we are rusting out.
Mass media has been on us for years.
They consume us then shit us out..
We are only a product of our upbringing.
Sour grapes from the ousted Labour leader in Bradford. Booted out by Respect.
.
‘Speaking after his defeat, Mr Greenwood said he did not think the result meant Respect now held the balance of power in the city.
,
He said he thought the key to Respect’s success was Mr Galloway coming to the city and energising a mass of youngsters.
.
“He’s made promises that I hope that he can keep but I doubt that he can,” he said.
.
Mr Greenwood said he feared Mr Galloway’s energisation would not last and Bradford would be left with a “generation of disenfranchised and alienated young people”.’
.
Gracious in defeat? NOT.
.
Respect Party beats Bradford Labour leader
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-17923883#
Incredibly, on topic:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iPfxAGZUKHTKXcKoeoWipc2WP1Kw?docId=N0079501336060569982A
.
Never mind the war crimes, don’t mention the body in the bag, a bad man in SIS has been blowing his whistle….cue Captain Bungalow.
“He said he thought the key to Respect’s success was Mr Galloway coming to the city and energising a mass of youngsters.”
.
The jealousy is showing. The last time Labour actually energised anyone must have been the 1930’s. But energy may not be the only problem. Can we whisper the “c” word?
.
http://www.cityoffilm.co.uk/city-of-film-news/a-response-to-ian-greenwood/
.
“C”ompetence?
Achtung! Here comes the House of unelected Lords wishlist committee for next Christmas, when Obama is re-elected.
get these Germans fighting again, they are far too peacefull for our liking.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/joseph-watts/parliament_tells_germans_to_be_more_militarily_active_1_1367806
Who says the
GermansLords don’t have a sense of humour?.
I see the word “defence” features heavily in that demand. You aren’t defending yourselves hard enough, in other words. Better go and invade somewhere (Poland, perhaps. We’ve bagged the Middle East) so you have something to defend yourself against.
Or you might defend yourselves against Iran. It’s threatening everyone, honest..
…and would you like to buy some Starstreak missiles from us? Prince Andrew von und zu Hohenzollern-Battenberg-Schleswig-Holstein-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Guelph* will be happy to call with our brochure. Doesn’t speak German, though. Maybe his mate Epstein does.
.
*
-RomanovWell said Komodo, we can’t have peacefull Germans now, or can we?
The times when NATO stooges and those who dance to the tune of Israel’s rogue state foreign policy goals, direct German foreign policy are over.
The unelected house of Lords, dadida’s, fretting to be reformed since 1911, when Balfour cruised through both Housees of parliament with a wicket plan, have nothing to say over what Germany does.
I dare to say that its military strenght and capabilities are determined by the threats it is partial to, not by NATO or any other vasall of western policy goals. But I might be dreaming.
What else will Bibi try to stop Isreli’s leaving the occupied territories….;)
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/201243082536846156.html
Miles Goslett has written on the use of the oath at the inquest into Gareth Williams’ death and at the Leveson Inquiry. So very unlike the Hutton Inquiry!
.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2139439/Leveson-inquest-spy-Gareth-Williams-death-making-great-use-oath–Iraq-Inquiry.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
.
PS Aren’t the spambots annoying to have to wade through? I always say a rude word followed by off as I pass them by. Mods? Can they be filtered at all? Happy Bank Holiday Weekend to all. I expect you will be in the queue on Monday to visit HMS Ocean moored at Greenwich! Not. It just managed not to crash into the Thames Barrier.
I don’t really go for Twitter, but here’s a tweet which deserves a wider public:
.
Louise Mensch [defends] Rupert Murdoch [who owns] HarperCollins [who publish] Tilly Bagshawe [whose sister is]
Louise Mensch.
.
In here: http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/louise-mensch-a-foam-pie-in-the-face-of-criticism/
Thanks for the new wall link, Nevermind. It is antisemitic even to hint at the existence of a ghetto mentality between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, so I am afraid I will have to report you to the Community Trust….
You can take the (penguin) out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the (penguin)….
.
But it is cheering to see Xstrata shareholders demurring at paying Mick Davis even more money to give to worthy causes like Michael Gove’s office… http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/03/aviva-shareholder-rebellion-executive-pay
Mary, here’s a message from our Spam Filter:
That leaves a few that get through, which get clobbered when we find them.
Some torture victims need human rights counsel. They’ve undergone horrifying physical and sexual torture from state agents acting with institutionalized impunity. Their treatment is overt state policy, delegated to the local level to evade international CAT review. They have no domestic hope of redress within their predatory state.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/david-graeber-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors.html
Any ideas?
Leveson is issuing a statement live at the moment.
Re Government applies for advance access to Leveson written inquiry evidence
Move could give David Cameron and other ministers chance to read statements from Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/04/leveson-inquiry-rebekahwade?newsfeed=true
.
Komodo,
Mensch husband works in public relations, and Mensch the whiner apart from wide and varied interests also is known to write “chick books” (who publishes that drivel). Also watching the demented operative that she is, one can hardly not see the power trip and the inflictions and shadows of one M. Thatcher, who used to throw her voice an octave lower in her bouts of penis envy, twisting her face to present a full square jaw to the attending cameras.
,
Of course I am a misogynistic male, not that Mensch et all are man hating harridans suffering from penis envy en mass.
Thanks Clark, All I can say is ‘Crikey!’ and give thanks to NoSpamNX.
well my post was eaten up by the everlasting vigilance.
Passerby, it should be visible now. “Penis” sent it into the queue, at a guess.
.
Mary, yes, I’m very glad not to have to delete that many spams.
Have you read the attention seeker’s Wikipedia page. My word! She does give herself airs and graces. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch}
.
I am going to call her Daphne from now on.
.
Her chick lit stuff eg Venus Envy is published by Orion who are now in the Hachette Livre stable. The Group CEO is Tim Hely-Hutchinson, aristo and ex Eton and Oxford. Same old, same old.
.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2931996/Business-profile-Aristocrat-who-can-spot-a-good-title.html
.
Within, he refers to trashy books. Enough said.