The Respectability of Torture
St Mary’s University College, Thurs 1st August, 7.30pm
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was a whistleblower who was removed from his ambassadorial post by Tony Blair for exposing the Tashkent regime‟s use of rape and systematic torture, including the boiling to death of political opponents. He has also spoken out against Central Asia‟s appalling dictatorships, regimes which are allies of the West, involved in torture and rendition, and was accused of threatening MI6‟s relationship with the CIA. Now a human rights activist, author and broadcaster, he outlines the dynamics of torture and the hypocrisy of incriminated Western governments.
My first public appearance for a while will be in Belfast on 1 August where I shall be giving a talk. Long term readers of this blog will recall that, while my focus is largely on international affairs, the domestic political achievements I most hope to see are a united Ireland and an independent Scotland.
And do tell, was it something that happened in the military or a lack of love from your parents that led you to become the most dangerous thorn in the side of the British Establishment?
You sound/read like a comic stereotype lefty social worker, there, Anon. There is hope for you yet. No. It may have had something to do with being suddenly transplanted from an aspirant bourgeois background , as an Other Rank, to the world as most people experience it, though.
p.s.
Of course there will always be a segment of refugee society that is the lying, spying, Mafia political, wishing to come for economic reasons, and who start to climb the slippery ladder of politics by working for MI5/6 and our own UK intelligence agencies. These scum also need to be reminded that they are not welcome in a community that is trying to escape from political oppression. This is the real problem of becoming a refugee – that the political potato-tomato-stall merchants who sold their own people at home, start to sell their own community in this country. Or worse, start selling us English Muslims to the Queen.
Seriously, Anon:
“The reality is that the “racist van” is just a gimmick and a sop to the voters”
– well, yes, except it’s slightly more sinister than that, isn’t it? a ‘sop’ would be distributing free half pints. Instead, as so many people including this nice young man point out, it’s couched in the language of hate; and designed to stir up fear and resentment among the people who can read it:
George the Poet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0wY5suww80
Nor, as part of the same climate, do the testimonies of the people who saw the operations at kensal rise (thanks for the link, mary) sound as though they’re responding to a ‘gimmick’. They sound as though they’re responding to a frightening and aggressive situation.
most illegal immigrants probably couldn’t even read it anyway, and would likely not give a toss even if they could.
I thought this guy was interesting. Alternative universe explored….
http://www.peterfrase.com/2010/12/anti-star-trek-a-theory-of-posterity/
Home Office is now a tool for stirring up racial tension
Hitler had a bum rap by the looks of it. He is perhaps much misunderstood, he should have only wished to provide a “hostile environment” to the illegal immigrants, end the torrents of the hoards of “immigrants swamping” Germany, and really was a nice guy all around after all. Although he was a bit a misguided and shot a few bullets in the wrong direction and at the City folk here in London.
What in hades has happened to this country?
The fascists are no longer content to remaining as cryptofascists and are now openly and in your face declaring their fascism and are getting away with it too.
Is this aggressive posture of the Home Office born out of the diabetes of the Theresa of May?
More on the story, interesting comments too
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-is-the-uk-border-agency-racially-profiling-people-on-the-tube
This, though:
“Police on trains in Germany used to check people of color for no other reason than they were people of color. Suprisingly the German traveling public started protesting when they saw this happening. Shouting at them, taking pictures, going up to then and saying “check me first”. Amasing. – the police seem to have dropped the tactic” (comment on Mary’s link)
What’s this all about then?
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/01/politics/embassies-close/index.html
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
2 Aug, 2013 – 7:28 am
“I seem to recall that I was wondering some time ago who would be entitled to vote in that referendum and asking whether any of the prolific posters and pro-independentists knew what SNP policies on that were.”
“Answers came there none, of course (inconvenient question, I suppose).”
Not an inconvenient question Habbabkuk, just a stupid one!
To vote on Scottish independence one must reside in Scotland and be registered to vote there.
I know it’s difficult but keep running it through your mind and eventually it will click.
I cannot see the downtrodden (though they don’t realize that they are) indigenous British standing up like that Technicolour. All you hear at bus queues and on public transport is the talk of ‘too many immigrants’ especially when attempting to discuss the causes of the bank crash.
Milton Mayer They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945
[..]This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.[..]
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Hmm, Sunday is Obama’s 52nd birthday coincidentally or otherwise.
And closing even the Israeli embassy because of a supposed terror threat??
Wonder if any other countries will follow the US lead and will the UK announce any embassy closures?
http://israel.usembassy.gov/wm08012013.html
Fanning the flames of immigration anxiety is a component part of agent Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ – I call it the ‘Big Society Gap’ as correctly identified by think tank ‘Civil Exchange’ as having zero common vision and zero common goals between younger and older people, affluent and disadvantaged communities, rural and urban areas and white and ethnic minority people.
The real ‘Big Society’ is dead RIP; the ‘Big Society’ died when agent Cameron abandoned his ‘connect with the people while washing up and chastising the kids’ – the ‘home video’ was pulled with the demise of Tory secret weapon, ‘Webcameron’ a subliminal advertising exercise which promulgated:
“”I want to tell you what the Conservative party is doing, what we’re up to, give you behind-the-scenes access so you can actually see what policies we’re developing, the things that we are doing…”
Yeah right Mr Cameron! we found out the hard way; behind the scenes you were fucking spying on every British man, women and child. Why? Because that knowledge is power and essential for us[Tories] to rule by divide.
From the Medialens editors.
Immigrant checkpoints are naked state racism
Posted by The Editors on August 2, 2013, 1:34 pm
Today is Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, marking the start of the liquidation by the Nazis of the “Gipsy” camp at Auschwitz on 2 August 1944. Today is also being marked by racist, illegal state targeting of immigrants on the streets of Britain. The parallels are clearly not exact, but the sentiments are.
At a time when most people are struggling to pay their bills, when wages have been driven down by zero hours and other slave-like “contracts”, when the ConDems are fighting for votes against the nationalist Ukip, it comes as little surprise that the Home Office has unleashed its dogs.
They may not be wearing brown shirts, but the UK Border Agency officials might as well be. Setting up checkpoints at key locations around London, Durham, Manchester, Wales and Somerset, they have patently targeted non-white citizens for identity checks.
This is racial profiling with a vengeance. Stopping people on this basis to ask them for their identity is patently unlawful, as is the Home Office boasting that they have caught “offenders” before people detained have even been charged.
http://aworldtowin.net/blog/immigrant-checkpoints-are-naked-state.html
@ Vronsky:
“(EU citizens already have the UK franchise, I am told).”
_____________
Partly. Just to clarify :
Under EU legislation, EU citizens have the franchise in a Member State other than their own and in which they are resident, but only :
– in municipal (local) elections, not general elections
– if they apply for the franchise (and, in so doing, undertake not to vote in the same type of elections in their country of origin; Member States are obliged to exchange information on such applications).
@ Komodo
“Sorry, H. I wasn’t a practitioner,”
_______________
I wasn’t clear enough, I meant that you have served.
”I want to tell you what the Conservative party is doing, what we’re up to, give you behind-the-scenes access so you can actually see what policies we’re developing, the things that we are doing…”
Yeah right Mr Cameron! we found out the hard way; behind the scenes you were fucking spying on every British man, women and child.
Cogent, Mark.
Check out Martin Rowson’s Silly Season:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/series/martin-rowson-silly-season
A jagged gash in the weft of reality. Indeed.
@ Mr Scorgie :
““I seem to recall that I was wondering some time ago who would be entitled to vote in that referendum and asking whether any of the prolific posters and pro-independentists knew what SNP policies on that were.”
“Answers came there none, of course (inconvenient question, I suppose).”
Not an inconvenient question Habbabkuk, just a stupid one!”
______________________
Oh, OK. You obviously know ahead of the rest of the citizenry what will be in the Scottish govt White Paper mentioned by Vronsky in his post of 08h59 thus :
“we don’t know until the franchise is defined in a (Scottish) Government White Paper expected in November.”
I feel you should discuss this with Vronsky, don’t you?
[Mod/Jon: abusive attack on Passerby, deleted]
“Newspaper forced to apologize over anti-Semitic clue in crossword puzzle
Tribune Media Services newspapers printed a crossword clue where the three-letter answer for Shakespeare’s ‘Shylock’ was ‘Jew’
In response the Anti-Defamation League asked the paper to print an apology and refrain from using clues that perpetuate negative Jewish stereotypes
The paper issued an apology and promised not to print the clue again”
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/no-reference-to-jw-allowed.html#entry34078877
“Immigrant checkpoints are naked state racism
Posted by The Editors on August 2, 2013, 1:34 pm”
( a load of over-the-top guff follows – see at 14h39)
_____________
If the F.P. felt like showing us she has a mind of her own, she could stop simply cutting and pasting egregious bits of nonsense like the one above and, for instance, have a crack at the questions I submitted at 09h57 today.
All others “viscerally shocked” by the spot checks at Kensal Green are also welcome to join in, of course!
@ Komodo
“Cogent, Mark.”
You are the maestro of the oxymoron, Komodo, I take off my hat to you (cf avatar – no hat)
AlcAnon;
I am keeping an eye on these ‘threats’. I don’t believe anything the USG says and it could be an op to garner support for surveillance. Waiting for some Wikileaks/Manning/Snowden pushback to change public opinion back to preferring security over liberty.
Six in a row. For goodness’ sake, find someone to play with him down at the beach volleyball court.
Interesting debate on Zionism
BBC (Persia) Hardtalk
The debate (in English) starts around 1min in.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-on-hardtalk-bbc-persia-very-interesting.html#entry34085304
Same old stuff from the crowd at BBC Watch about that Doug.
http://bbcwatch.org/2013/07/31/bbc-persian-service-promotes-antisemitic-holocaust-denier-atzmon/
See the comment below the article from Elizabeth Morley.
when Going to Edinburgh soon, I shall black up, see whether I can be caught in the immigrant dragnet, our very own beginnings of an even more sophisticated golden dawn, Goetter daemmerung on all these scroungers, but only those who can’t afford to come here with loot they garnered from others hard labour.
Most of them are desperate to work, the tales of Dick Whittington are still pandered, although today these golden paved streets are just for self pleasuring psychopath bankers, the vast majority of us feel a hard wind blowing.
Thanks for all the great links provided.
Bradley Manning is not a murderer, Lt.William Caley is/was. So anything more than two years in the slammer, taking account of the three years of psycho torture endured already, I think there is a chance for the US to re-address their Trust vacuum and let him go.
Free Bradley Manning NOW!
Habbakuk: did you read the traffic reports yet? Have you watched To Shoot an Elephant?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXHB2dnd42Q
I’m very keen to hear your responses!
Mary: I’m finding the great British public positively seething with tolerance and resistance, actually. Anyway, even people who have been thoroughly misinformed or fearmongered can be quite quickly reassured with the facts, I think.
Yes Nevermind. Calley served just three and one-half years for his crimes. Manning faces how many?
This is an interesting little video on the tolerance of Muslims in England (4’35”):
Are extremists invading Britain?