In a world in which our Queen and Prime Minister toady Arab despots, and Uzbek gangster and convicted blackmailer Alisher Usmanov is the UK’s richest man, where is the modern Thackeray or Trollope to chronicle the moral vacuum of high society?
It is no consolation to the three British men tortured in Dubai, that their treatment at least temporarily lifted the conspiracy of media silence on the evils of the Gulf regimes. Not to the extent of provoking in-depth reporting of the running atrocity that is Bahrain, or even a single mention in the mainstream of the torture imprisonment and secret trials of 94 entirely respectable pro-democracy activists in Qatar.
Where money talks, the politicians and the mainstream media do not.
Exactly Craig in fact I had just posted this comment on FB with a link to the BBC website about the State visit
“Once upon a time . . .
The Queen sent Prince Philip to greet the Emiraty P.M. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan who then shared a carriage ride to Windsor Castle with the Queen. During lunch the Queen reminded him of the historic ties Britain had with his country and his father before asking him to please buy weapons from us and invest in our country because our people are so poor and have no jobs after the bankers robbed all their money”. . . no happy ending sorry
The only organisation I can think of which is actively devoted to, and in any way effective in, opposing capitalist amorality and the prioritisation of cash over all other concerns…is al-Qaeda. Admittedly it has other aims as well.
Thackeray and Trollope? Hmmm. Dickens and Fielding would fit the bill better, I think. Perhaps their modern equivalents have AK-47’s and write in Arabic.
Totally disgusting.
The state propaganda is always carried well by Rothermere, especially the photography. I see Miliband E was feeding at the trough yesterday. The speech balloon above his face would say -‘Golly, I like this and I want more of it’. Agent Cameron looks sweaty.
I cannot see P Andrew though. Surely he was there with his Mont Blanc pen and order pad for the arms manufacturers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317153/Queen-greets-United-Arab-Emirates-president-Windsor-Castle-embarks-day-state-visit.html
Hello Craig, I personally like your courage and think that you are wonderful human being for what you did to help spread the awareness about Uzbekistan… But I cannot help to shake my head and feel livid when you act hypocritical!
Alisher Usmanov was convicted (later cleared of conviction) of above mentioned by you crime when he was in his twenties by Soviet regime! Despite his fathers status he WAS thrown into jail. In fact, his father WANTED him to go to jail! that cruel and honest he was!
Life turned around and today he became richest person in UK Not because he was a gangster or blackmailer like as you describe him, because he was smart and hard worker! Because luck was on his side!
He does more charity work than you could imagine Craig! I wish you could truly re-think your stand about him. dont hate the player, hate the game Craig!
It is funny you defend Assange with emotional and eloquent speeches, try to show the world he is innocent (when he clearly ADMITS he HAD sex with those ladies), but talk trash about Usmanov for dark, cold era soviet type of fixed “crimes”?!
Not Cool Craig… Not cool.
In his autobiography, Trollope described his motivations for writing the novel The Way We Live Now as follows:
Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now.
Quite so.
Uzbek,
As you well know, Usmanov’s “clearance” of his blackmail conviction came from Karimov. Usmanov was able to get in to the privatisation process because he was a gangster staked by Gafur Rakhimov. AL Capone gave money to charity too – it is an essential part of the front of any sensible gangster.
April Showers
Thanks. Brilliant quote from Trollope.
Wasn’t there always a ‘moral vacuum’ at the top?
The Halls of Life are bright and fair
The Waiting Room is full
Some get in through the door marked Push
And some through the door marked Pull
I think Trollope approaches this from the wrong direction. The aim is not to avoid being a low scoundrel (mainly in the eyes of moral people) but to become rich and influential. In any case (see Tony Blair, if you can bear to look) the scoundrel has convinced himself that he is the most shiningly honest person on earth, and that any lapses from an overstrict moral code are fully justified by his personal destiny.
Tsk..Tsk. I was going to comment on this post but then I decided I didn’t want to offend Tashkent Sting nad Tantric Trudi.
Usmanov’s Wikipedia page is interesting. If you look at the page history, you’ll see frequent removal of nearly all well-sourced material that reflects badly upon him. He presumably has someone monitoring the page and “sanitising” it.
Seeing all the so called royalty figged out in their military fancy dress with their self awarded medals really does make me puke. Dictators, killers, oppressors and that’s just the bastards from the Middle East. Stinking rich kleptomaniacs playing at ‘I have a bigger boat then you’, when half their country does not have clean running water and kids die of disease and malnutrition, makes me so mad. I would have no hesitation whatsoever in lining up the lot of them against a wall and pulling the trigger.
“There is no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, then there was at the time of Genghis Khan…” Chomsky
Craig,
If Soviet Regime puts him into Jail it is ok, but if Karimov “clears” him it is not ok? Where is your logic? Or are you trying to say soviet juridical system was right?
Usmanov got into privatization process because he was in the right place, at the right time, with right friends who he went to school with.
Rakhimov is totally different topic please do not try to change the direction of the conversation. He may not be Saint, but he is definitely who you THINK/HEARD he is!
Let me, ask you a question. How many times you have talked to Usmanov in person?
Thank you for your answer
It appears there will be too much global collateral damage in the event of the usual millennial cause n effect reset, and the Big Boss has decided to have a much more targeted approach. Hell fire missiles targeted at the DNA of the evil doers and corrupt, a preponderance of Hershey Highwaymen,etc then, lineage extinguished stealthily – the Biblical sins of the fathers visit upon ….. or as Guano and the muzzy crowd would say “Wallahu Khayrul Makirin” !!
Uzbek seems to finally lift the veil on the mirror, showing his real face.
Why should the connections to an outright gangster, and his accomplice president who cares and suckers rogue’s in Uzbekistan, be a diversion from the issue of Usmanov’s bed partners?
Are you ok? or has the sudden temperature rise made you giddy?
Come on you canaries, sing.
Craig, I think you’ll find the 94 pro-democracy protestors are also in UAE.
Talking of sycophants Qatar has presiding over its minions at the Qatar International Court & Dispute Resolution Centre lord Justice Phillips.
http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/news/2226609/outgoing-supreme-court-president-lord-phillips-rejoins-brick-court
Compare these two rulings on extradition by Phillips. The first makes excuses for why the criminal dictator Pinochet should not be extradited to Spain, the second why a good man, Julian Assange, should be extradited to Sweden.
http://lubbockonline.com/stories/032599/wor_032599100.shtml
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/30/assange_attorney_british_ruling_sets_alarming
The sycophant
Justice Phillips in your ermine gown
you really look the part,
establishment’s own sycophant,
a venerable fart.
Justice Phillips in your cloistered world
made only for the rich,
with tightly-knit embroidery
it only takes a stitch,
Justice Phillips, in your toadyness,
to stitch-up a good man,
with tightly-knit embroidery,
regrettably you can.
Justice Phillips, it’s regrettable,
Assange regrets it too,
but sad regrets are coronets
to sycophants like you.
Justice Phillips, you are leaving us
while Julian remains,
it must be really paining you
for all your toady pains.
Justice Phillips, I hope Qatar gets,
right up your beakish nose,
a country full of sheikhs and slaves,
and oil-rich slimy toads.
John Goss
@ Nevermind (10h45) :
“Uzbek seems to finally lift the veil on the mirror, showing his real face.”
——–
I fear that your indignation has led you into the realm of illogicality, Never-a-mind.
Surely it is faces and not mirrors that wear veils?
So, in order to see your real face in the mirror you would have to lift the veil which is covering your face and not the hypothetical veil which might, or might not, be on the mirror?
If you were a more rational and less cocksure type of poster I would of course have been happy to overlook this, but as it’s you I unfotunately felt duty bound to point it out.
Never mind,
You ain’t got jack to say about topic because you have 0 knowledge about those people as Craig! thus only thing you can do is to throw comments and talk trash.
I am still waiting for Mr. Murray to answer my question.
correction:
Rakhimov is totally different topic please do not try to change the direction of the conversation. He may not be Saint, but he is definitely NOT who you THINK/HEARD he is!
One more question Mr. Murray if i may,
How many times you had a chance to sit down and talk to Mr. Rakhimov? Please answer both my questions
Thank you
Uzbek, are you suggesting Usmanov was put in jail because he was fighting against the Soviet regime, or something like that? An Uzbek version of Andrei Sakharov? Give us a break.
It is also pretty well-established how AU made most of his fortune — by working with Gazprom to put steel plants, iron ore mines, etc., into bankruptcy on the basis of their debts to Gazprom . . . from which they mysteriously emerged being owned by Usmanov. I am not sure if that should be described as “luck.”
I know sod-all about Usmanov, except that he’s a stereotypical oligarch. As such, I am sure he can look after himself. What I do know is that he has a large interest in No’rilsk.
The most polluted part of Russia.
http://geocurrents.info/place/russia-ukraine-and-caucasus/siberia/pollution-problems-in-norilsk
Eminently moral and lovely man, I’m sure. Not at all what Trollope was getting at (in the previous thread). And this
http://rumafia.com/person.php?id=88
is produced by lesser men in order to defame him by association with all sorts of dodgy dealers. Does seem to be substantiated, though. Even if the records surrounding his 8-year stretch disappeared as completely as any record of Frances Shand-Kydd’s alcohol content when stopped by the Oban police…
Basically, I’d say if you can get to be that obscenely rich in Russia, you’ve got to be a complete bastard, and leave it at that.
Uzbek, before you ask — I have never had the chance to sit down and speak with either Mr Usmanov or Mr Rakhimov. I was not aware that Craig and others do not have the right to comment on any person they have not met personally.
“Where money talks, the politicians and the mainstream media do not.”
At every instance in naming a corrupt individual or behaviour, one should also suggest a solution.
Craig, I read your blog daily, and am always disappointed when there are no new posts, but admire your integrity, and loved your Sam Adams speech.
I feel inadequate in suggesting any deficiency but even so suggest that guiding lights like yourself always, always, suggest a solution.
I am amongst the plebs who almost comprehend what you expose, but do not see a way to solve the problem. And while I reserve the right to reject your solution, at least I will have an alternative, offered by a person I respect, that I will weigh against the lies and deceit I see from those who hold office.
It is not enough to criticise, offer alternatives and maybe even run for office.
Craig linked to this (Rowan’s Blog) Week after week, Americans and Europeans worn down by budget austerity have learnt about the secret accounts of their politicians, tax evasion by leading companies and hot money destabilising the world economy. The darker truth is that these havens are not gaps in the world’s financial system; they are the system…
The next edition of ‘Private Eye’ (10th May, #1340) will be carrying a 48-page supplement on the UK’s role as the hub of corporate corruption. Don’t miss it!
Morality is what is left after the censors have parred away all that offends their orthodoxy.
When the State, and the Trojan Mares of its supporters that inveigle their way into all avenues of opposition, passes laws that make a pantomime of the heterosexual family, then the slander of virtue is inevitable.
This is the functional reason behind ‘women’s lib’ and ‘gay rights’, to produce perpetual ‘victims’ that have no vested interest in the evolved human condition, to use them as an excuse to clamp down on natural opposition to the excesses of the State, which hides behind the sham virtues of equality.
When nature is made equal to its perversion by law, then virtue must itself become, if not illegal, then equal to amorality.
How can the people oppose their wayward State with moral objection, when State sponsored equivocations of ‘right and wrong’ have been redefined by the State itself, aided and abetted by useful idiocy of socialism?
Hi Uzbek,
Interesting point you are making here. So Usmanov got rich just because he was in right place, at right time and had right friends who studied at the same MGIMO with him? How typical it is, is not it? The same can be said about virtually every oligarch, every head of former soviet republic and everyone who serve themselves by pretending serving their electorate. Why are not we all that lucky to be in right place, at right time and have right friends?
Or might be this is not enough after all? Might be Usmanov used his privileged background and his connections to uzbek mafia and some high positioned Uzbek and Russian officials and made himself the richest man in the UK? Not only his connections to uzbek thug Gafur Rakhimov are well known but also his connections to other criminals in Russia such as Япончик, Тайванчик, Михась and others. Usmanov’s first private company “Ассоциация 8-й день” allegedly was cover for heroin trade from Afganistan via Central Asia to Russia and МАПО-банк which allegedly was a cover for money laundering from heroin trade and prostitution.
Some relevant information on Usmanov is available here. Unfortunately for some the information is in Russian, but this should not be a problem for my Uzbek countryman.
http://rumafia.com/ru/person.php?id=88
http://www.compromat.ru/page_9817.htm
http://www.randevu-zip.narod.ru/magnat.htm
http://rublev-museum.livejournal.com/230967.html
First the rhetorical question;
Then comes the retort:
On goes the theatricals:
Let us examine how would we go about determining what is the temperature of the surface of the Sun?
1- find a thermometer.
2- buy a ticket on the Virgin Galactic bound for the Sun.
3- arrive at the Sun and parachute to the surface and shove the mercury end of the thermometer into the first lava river flowing.
4- read the thermometer and make a note of it on our note pad.
5- catch the orbital elevator and get back to our ride on the its return journey, passing the Sun’s orbit.
5- arrive back on Earth just in time for double decker bacon and eggs sandwiches, and hot cross buns for tea.
Not exactly a practical, or probable way of adducing the surface temperature on the Sun, is it?
Craig Murray’s encyclopaedic knowledge on Uzbek criminal elite, and their background, somehow is trumped by his lack of meetings between him and the criminal bastards posing as do gooder charity patrons.
Qaddafis used to be charitable too, in fact all the criminal twits with their massive ill gotten gains tend to be overtly charitable, and intent on buying respectability through charitable acts. For they damn fine well know that their money does not buy them any respect, hence their efforts in projecting the refined and well heeled gentry image. Fact is thugs will always be thugs regardless of the silk suits and knickers, as any two bit Mafioso thug knows well.
Uzbek,
Ok, if you insist I will speak to both of them on behalf of Craig, if you arrange the meetings. Then I will tell Craig or here how good/bad they are. Does that satisfy you?
Now, leave the man alone and p..off!
Uzbek,
As you are so convinced that both Usmanov and Rakhimov are good guys, and that before one say anything about another one need to meet another personally and had conversation with him, can I assume that you met and talked to both Usmanov and Rakhimov?