I was invited to be on the Murnaghan programme on Sky News this morning – which I always find a great deal more intelligent than the Andrew Marr alternative on the BBC. I declined because I did not want to get up and get a 7.30am train from Ramsgate on a Sunday morning. I had a meeting until 11.30pm last night planning a conference on human rights in Balochistan [I still tend to say Baluchistan], and I have a newly crowned tooth that seems not to want to settle down. But I am still worried by my own lack of energy, which is uncharacteristic. Is this old age?
I also have some serious work to do on my Burnes book, and next week I shall be staying in London to be in the British Library reading room for every second of its opening hours. So there may be a bit of a posting hiatus. I have in mind a short post on an important subject on which I suspect that 99% of my readership – including the regular dissident commenters – will strongly disagree with me.
This is a peculiarly introspective post, perhaps because my tooth is hurting, but I seem to have this curmudgeonly spirit which wishes to react to the huge popularity of this blog by posting something genuinely held but unpopular; a genuine view but one I don’t normally trumpet. The base thought seems to be “You wouldn’t like me if you really knew me”.
Similarly when I wrote Murder in Samarkand I was being hailed as a hero by quite a lot of people for my refusal to go along with the whole neo-con disaster of illegal wars, extraordinary rendition and severe attacks on civil liberties, sacrificing my fast track diplomatic career as a result. My reaction to putative hero worship was to publish in Murder in Samarkand not just the political facts, but an exposure of my own worst and most unpleasant behaviour in my private life.
I am in a very poor position to judge, but I believe the result rather by accident turned out artistically compelling, if you don’t want to read the book you can get a good idea of that by clicking on David Tennant in the top right of this blog and listening to him playing me in David Hare’s radio adaptation.
Anyway, that’s enough musing. You won’t like my next post, whenever it comes. Promise.
One of the issues a few readers were not convinced by was Craig’s sympathy for the police in the shooting of Mark Duggan, for which he had, as I recall, some inside information. To my mind the shooting of Mark Duggan and the police’s handling of the whole affair, was the biggest single factor in the Tottenham riots. The Tottenham riots spread momentarily through major cities in England in a particularly bad instance of opportunist theft and property damage which claimed the further lives of three young Birmingham men. Due to another suspected police perjury there was no conviction of those who killed the three young men, and those in the car that killed them walked free.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/20/birmingham-riot-deaths-police-quit
Most of the time I think Craig Murray writes exceptional posts with which I agree, if not totally, to a very large extent. Unless I missed it when I was in hospital, or recovering, I never did learn why his view of the police shooting of Mark Duggan was at odds with most other commentators who express opinions here. So I am awaiting the next post with some trepidation.
mark golding may i suggest you be scared more about the tons of depleted uranium that has been used by uk,usa and israel and france.
the worldwide constant stream for 16 months from fukishima.
than worrying about bicarbonate of soda.
show me proof half a teaspoon will kill you.
if you swallow a peas size amount of normal tooth paste the advice is to go to the hospital.
the question is Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Ohio a looney tune conspiracy nutter or does he know stuff we do not.
do some oil pulling mark it will even improve your breath : )
Thanks sunflower, some good stuff but tedious. He keeps sniffing and touching his nose.
At exactly 1hrs.01 min. Hayden starts to talks about the control exercised to identify possible targets for RCV’s/drones, whether women are within groups of men, how the terrain, environment, angle of the sun/ what the best angle for attack would be and what the potential for success is.
Thanks general, that’s before they shoot, one presumes. If there is so much control and vision and considerate thought, making the latest attack undeniably as callous as those on many previous wedding parties, which dumb wit toss pot of a politician will stand up and explain why these women had to die?
Cowards, the lot of them.
MJ My mum would have been bored silly staying at home after we went to school. And how can you not believe in gay marriage? It exists! It’s not like believing in fairies!
i here in the 70s and 80s in moscow the russians where gently heating up the us embassy with microwave and low frequency waves..
interesting old cnn report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-ly_n8O7M
One of the things that stood out the most to me was his analysis of “country-powers” vs. “decentralised powers”. He is trying to make the case that we live in an era where the focus of “power” is no longer so much defined in relation to country-boundaries but is becoming more decentralised as a result of the internet revolution etc.
This is very important in relation to how the US defines its intelligence and military operations, they are no longer so much fighting an enemy that has a specific location or character, their enemy is everywhere and can be anyone. In other words by their own definition they can now target anyone they like and they have changed their laws to support this idea.
It is true that powers no longer are defined prominently by country interests, but it has not been decentralised, it’s the precise opposite, it has become centralised above country boundaries and interests. There is now a global agenda, countries policies are harmonised, together with the centralisation of banking systems, big corporations and MSM who all are acting in a unison to drive the world in a specific direction.
This centralised global power requires an enemy to push their agenda into peoples lives and to usurp any and all notion of “freedom” they ever had. And what better enemy is there than the one that you cannot see or understand? Therefore they created terrorism and Al-Qaida.
They are of course the neocon zionists, but that should be obvious to all here.
“neocon zionists” – before everyone starts off on another fest, Chomsky, who’s analysed this, concludes that in every case where Israeli interests clash with the USA’s, the USA ignores Israel and goes with its own.
eg (with reference to Mearsheimer & Walt)
“Take, as one example, arms sales to China, which they bring up as undercutting US interests. But they fail to mention that when the US objected, Israel was compelled to back down: under Clinton in 2000, and again in 2005, in this case with the Washington neocon regime going out of its way to humiliate Israel.”
Excellent piece, worth reading, although since it fails to fall for the ‘fallacy of the single cause’, it is rather complex:
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20060328.htm
“Actually, the recent decrease in pro-Israeli trolling suggests that Netanyahu’s government has lost much support. The Mavi Marmara threads were crazy, but it’s been much quieter since then.”
Clark;
BiBi was on Meet the Press this am, and was docile as a lamb. The moderator tried his best to goad him into attacking Obama, but it is quite obvious the Fox doesn’t want to annoy Obama, and this tells me he is convinced Obama is going to be re-elected.
Ben Fraklin: are you taking back your stuff about ‘Muslims’ now that you’ve read Suhayl’s links? Do you, for example, agree that ‘they’ are not all in favour of clitoral mutilation?
“all in favour of clitoral mutilation?” Do me a flavor and don’t make hash of my words. Making the leap from most to all is disingenuous, at best, and prevarication, at worst.
Go back to the thread if you want to see the exchange between Suhayl and meself.
BF: went back to thread, found “they…they…they” (insert random virulent generalisation) until I got to this: .
“They are raised with a male entitlement, to the denigration of the female gender. Mothers have a salient role in inculcating the superior nature of males, as to female. The ambivalence toward the female as sexual partner is engendered by the role of ‘Mother’, who must be perceived as asexual because the act itself makes a woman a whore if she enjoys the experience. Hence you have ritual excision of the clitoris in muslim culture. They MUST NOT enjoy the experience.”
Would you now like to insert some moderation and sanity into your prose?
technicolour,
“clitoral mutilation” is not an Islamic practice, It is an Ethiopian custom, that has been pinned on Muslims through the ever vigilant MEMRI the mossad shop front for media knobbling.
In fact in one of Michael Plains various excursions he comes across the tribe who have their hieroglyphic history denoting the origin of the practice of female circumcision. It is not a religious practice but traditional affair, as is the case of “Santa Clause” the pagan saint inducted into Christianity and revere by all the chain store share holders and CEO. Snata has sweet fa to do with Christianity, but it is widely and wrongly associated with Christianity.
However as ever in the climate of hatred and hatemongering towards Muslims facts are of no relevance.
As a regular beatnik or rebel as ‘anno’ call me, I thought I would second guess Craig’s odious (if that’s the right word) next post.
I really failed at this shot in the dark. After realising this current post is entitled ‘Leave of Absence’ I came to the conclusion that this little inner-directed thought is just a game, a wee ploy to keep the cogs turning until Craig returns after his rather intense reading session.
Craig by design likes a wee ploy.
fedup, thanks for background. let’s see what ‘BF’ comes up with.
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Have you all seen this?
(re. VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, who is a WikiLeaks, Bradley and Julian supporter, and has been supportive of our solidarity efforts at wiseupaction.info – at the London Fashion Show today)
‘The veteran British fashion designer handed out T-shirts bearing her photo and the slogan “I’m Julian Assange” to models and celebrities in the front row.
Her move will be seen as provocative because the show was held in the headquarters of the **Foreign & Commonwealth Office,** off Whitehall, which is caught in a diplomatic stand-off over the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We were delighted to host Vivienne Westwood’s Red Label show as part of London Fashion Week. This was an exciting event as part of the GREAT Campaign, which Vivienne Westwood has done a huge amount of work to support.
“The main message of the show was to raise awareness of climate change. We understand some members of the audience wore T-shirts in support of Julian Assange but these were not part of the show itself and a matter for them.
“We have repeatedly made clear that the UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden where he is wanted to answer allegations of serious sexual offences.”’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9546467/Vivienne-Westwood-uses-London-Fashion-Week-to-declare-support-for-Assange.html
““clitoral mutilation” is not an Islamic practice, It is an Ethiopian custom, that has been pinned on Muslims through the ever vigilant MEMRI the mossad shop front for media knobbling.”
Bolloxed ‘road apples.
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/05/31/female-genital-mutilation-is-part-of-the-sunna-of-the-prophet/
You make the same mistakes as American conservatives who see any attack on Israel as ‘antisemitic’ You label any who question Islam as anti-Hametic. Ignorance is endemic.
Tony Roma, there’s a probable explanation about those microwaves in chapter 6 of Spycatcher. Wright said that a bust of Lenin was designed such that it would resonate in response to local sound waves, and it was given to the Russian Ambassador who kept it at the Russian embassy. Powerful microwaves were then beamed at the embassy. The audio vibrations of the bust modulated some of the microwaves, and the modulated microwaves were received and demodulated, yielding an audio signal from the room the bust was kept in. It thus functioned as a passive bugging system that required no electronics, no microphone and no power supply apart from the microwave excitation. Clever, but unhealthy.
“Craig by design likes a wee ploy.”
And, we would not like it, why?
Ben Franklin, there is quite a bit of referenced information about Islam and female genital mutilation on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_on_female_genital_mutilation#Islam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#History_and_cultural_context
There is also apparently a fatwa against the most extreme types.
Teachnicolour, are you goading the other contributors yet again? You seem to have been trying to start rows for weeks.
Sunflower
16 Sep, 2012 – 7:09 pm
I started to watch your ex-CIA, ex-NSA, General Hayden’s Rosenthal Lecture.
Here’s the antidote to that utter disinformation:
Webster Tarley: The 9/11 Issue – Key to stopping WWIII
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3390733082467388648&q=webster+tarpley,
Bolloxed ‘road apples.
So any wanker from Drums Pennsylvania, sporting a post box as its contact address, and calling itself “yermami”, with first name “sheik” can be deferred to as an authority on Islam.
You are sick fuckwit Ben, indeed you have a sick mind.
PS the photo of the stitched up vagina is the give away, but those hatefull pricks citing the sick site will not notice that.
It’s sooo obvious what Craig’s gonna spill.
If you cant figure it you dont deserve to.
LOL…no surprises really Craig…
Sorry, Clarke. I’ve been goaded.
Clark,
In Islamic texts, FGM is referred to as khafḍ (Arabic: خفض)[12] or khifaḍ[13] (Arabic: خِفَض). According to McAuliffe, female genital cutting is not commanded by the Qur’an
If it is not in Quran then it is not in Islam, ie it is not an Islamic imperative. However the traditions of the Africans, including some Arabic populations (cross pollination of customs) compel these to practice it.
Those Muslim haters care jack shit for facts, and facts are of no relevance.
This is the fucking limit. That fucking war criminal is now spending the blood money he was bribed with and building a home atop the pile of skull and nones of the innocent Iraqi/Afghan children who were killed for the sake of his enrichment.
$1m an hour to schmooze sheiks? No wonder Mr Blair’s preening like the new peacocks on his country estate
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2203546/Tony-Blair–1m-hour-mediator-lives-opulent-country-estate.html#ixzz26gENRylo
Fedup, it seems that Muslims in many places have made the same mistake, and now see female genital mutilation as part of their religion, despite the fact that the practice pre-dates Islam. Islam, in common with other religions, has some pretty bad teachings about women.
Hey Fedup, Ben seems OK to me. That’s a Gonzo Dagger in that tattoo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism
If he’s read biased sources, well, just point him to some others. My biggest problem with Ben is that I struggle to understand some of his colloquialisms.
I think I know where yer comin’ from Pilgrim.
” My biggest problem with Ben is that I struggle to understand some of his colloquialisms.”
It’s that Clash of Cultures, Clarke.
Finally I have just found out why the female circumcision is practised. It is the sort of logic that prohibits Catholics from using condoms.
The clitoris rubbing against anything could make the female randy/aroused, so best to stop her getting aroused and cut the bit off and be over and done with. Stopping the female going astray.
The same logic goes for; don’t use any kind of contraception, hence the fear of falling pregnant will stop the females from having causal sex.
The preoccupation of the old farts and wankers with sex lives of their flock can land the respective flock in all manner of hot-water; lots of poor little bastards running around hungry and cold, and lots of females getting their bits cut, but sex still goes on, who has the last laugh in this pitiful game?
However fact remains female circumcision is not Islamic, in fact it is out of Islam and prohibited/forbidden.
Have you changed the spelling of your name? I could have sworn, months ago I saw an ‘e’.