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 if, despite being commissioned by the SNP, it was God’s honest truth, and they had known it was commissioned by the SNP, and discounted it?”
So when Manning and Snowden publish data showing the American government did something dishonest they are heroes but when someone releases data showing the Scottish government did something dishonest they are a thief.
If the Israeli government pays someone to write a supposedly independent article justifying Zionism they are evil but when the Scottish government does the same there is nothing wrong with it.
Thanks for the reply Jon.
It’s in the Graun and most of the Aussie press.
Sorry, can’t link or give a detailed reply, on my phone at work.
Komodo Said;
Now that is a clever quip.
###
Jon said:
Recollecting the trial of Al-Jazeera television reporter Tayseer Alouni, whose trial included court admitted evidence of; “take my pants to dry cleaners”! This the prosecution argued was a code word for bombing and such.
“Kilim” a totally foreign word in all certainty is a sign for; go make a nuclear chemical laser dirty hydrogen did I mention nuclear bomb and await instructions of the said Salafist preacher on internet radio, pronto!
Which brings us back to remembering the other episode of discovery of an al kaeda cell in London that included 76 ambulance, 200 police vans, and 56 fire engines and the fire-fighters thereof in attendance all attending the two/three bedroomed house and subsequently reducing the house down to the brick walls, all in the aid of finding the al Keada bomb making stuff that could have been secreted in the mortar between the bricks!
By these accounts mentioning “Kilim” is wihtout a shadow of a doubt a big nuclear chemical laser dirty hydrogen bomb and horrors which as yet humanity not knows of!
I hold my nose at a Telegraph article, which says that Assange is “living in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges” – I’m pretty sure that’s still propaganda. Where’s Arbed when one needs a decent Official Nonsense Cleaner?
But, at least the paper quoted Assange thusly:
Err…
Yes, he does.
CE You’re back then.
No not that he had sex but that a politician (who became party leader and then PM) can write such lurid stuff on the day that their party leader dropped dead suddenly.
Thanks for the link Komodo. 🙂
So when Manning and Snowden publish data showing the American government did something dishonest they are heroes but when someone releases data showing the Scottish government did something dishonest they are a thief.
Is that your point of view? I don’t recognise it as mine. Manning certainly broke the terms of his engagement with the US army – I’m on record as saying so. The concept of Manning as thief doesn’t nullify any criticism I may have of the US government, though. Nor need any such consideration affect your opinion. Nor will it.
If the Israeli government pays someone to write a supposedly independent article justifying Zionism they are evil but when the Scottish government does the same there is nothing wrong with it.
Now you’re putting words on my keyboard. And it’s the governing party, not the government, btw. Unless you have evidence not so far revealed that the Scottish taxpayer rather than the SNP, or, more accurately again, Yes Scotland, paid for the article.
But….If Yisrael Beiteinu pays someone in sympathy with its aims, let us say Melanie Phillips, to write in its favour, that is 100% what I would expect. I’m not about to make a song and dance about it. It’s the aims I object to.
So, rather than fulminating about what was probably a token payment to someone known already for his views on independence by an organisation to which I am pretty certain you don’t contribute, how about the real issue? Why don’t you think Scotland should be independent, And, as an Englishman living there and as far as I can tell honly talking to bright blue Unionists, what say should you have in the matter anyway?
Unlikely that I’d get paid for that effort, anyway -I’ll do it again:
“So, rather than fulminating about what was probably a token payment to someone known already for his views on independence, by an organisation to which I am pretty certain you don’t contribute, how about the real issue? Why don’t you think Scotland should be independent? And, as an Englishman living there, and as far as I can tell only talking to bright blue Unionists, what say should you have in the matter anyway?”
Is this a passage that is causing the furore? Emily/Miranda aka bLiar most certainly is trying to point out that he has a pair, and undoubtedly we know he does. But not the pair he has in mind for us to believe he has.
This character indeed had no talents other than sucking up to the Bu$h and the rich in US, what a no talent brown noser.
By these accounts mentioning “Kilim” is without a shadow of a doubt a big nuclear chemical laser dirty hydrogen bomb and horrors which as yet humanity not knows of!
I fear you are correct, Passerby. Please ensure that you get a good price for this information.
B. Liar did not win.
This nice pair of war criminals had no trouble producing the dodgy dossier. They have 1 million plus deaths on their bloodied hands.
‘The prize usually goes to painfully serious prose. Campbell is one of the few who has also written explicit erotica – which is barred from the prize – in his pre-Blairite spin doctor incarnation as a columnist for the magazine Forum.
He does have the satisfaction of beating his former boss Tony Blair to the shortlist. Many readers felt Blair should have walked it for the excruciatingly unforgettable description in his autobiography, of himself with his wife Cherie on the night of 12 May 1994: “I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct.”
The judges did consider making The Journey the first non-fiction book ever nominated, but finally concluded that the passage was too brief to merit it.’
Bad sex award goes to novelist Rowan Somerville
Lurid insect imagery secures prize for The Shape of Her, just ahead of Alastair Campbell, who was disqualified for wanting to win
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/nov/30/bad-sex-award-novelist-rowan-somerville
Frankly the idea of Tony and Cherie – no, no no no no no. FJ, if you did ever want to start a Puritan movement you could do worse than post that passage everywhere. It is putting me off the whole – I mean, dear god, no.
I think I need a break from this blog 🙂
Between 10 am and 2pm, high level air acrobatics over our homes here, high level bombing raid, my guess as a Luftraumbeobachter, nothing low level.
Comparable to actions you direct at command posts, airports, depots, barracks and ammunition dumps, so nothing to see here.
This Government is so compromised by their snopperies that they are liable to short circuit, do something to change the news, poor mites, transparent like a condom, now, what does that remind me of, yes Steve Bell’s excellent cartoons.
Cameron is so crap you can almost feel for him.
Words and sex, eh.
Did Shree sing the Molly Bloom Soliloquy.
If not, it don’t count.
Red Arrows, Nevermind? They were doing a display at Cromer today.
I’m sure that the boys at the Bar, according to one fat lady, will feel equally alarmed at the imagery, FJ/Technicolour, their Tony and that woman?… visions of a truly natural purgative….
The latest laughable Unionist smears have been dealt with by wingsoverscotland.com
This coming from Bitter Together which has relied on a preposterously one sided media to denigrate the Yes Scotland campaign.
““So, rather than fulminating about what was probably a token payment to someone known already for his views on independence, by an organisation to which I am pretty certain you don’t contribute, how about the real issue? Why don’t you think Scotland should be independent? And, as an Englishman living there, and as far as I can tell only talking to bright blue Unionists, what say should you have in the matter anyway?”
I happen to believe the people are entitled to know the facts before they decide don’t you?
I believe if someone has been paid to write an article for a newspaper promoting the side which paid them people have a right to know.
Might be a token payment to you but some do hard work for many hours to earn as much.
Technicolour said:
That is funny in a macabre way. Although Cherie bLiar seems to wish; she would rather forget the experience judging by her expression in the photo. It could be speculated; probably Emily managed to use the turkey baster or such like implements for the sprogs thereof, on the road to No. 10 in an effort to portray a kind of “normality” and gain acceptance.
Komodo, seen them, but very high, red arrows going to events fly comparably low and would not have a tumble above the turning point, these were military alright.
“The latest laughable Unionist smears have been dealt with by wingsoverscotland.com
This coming from Bitter Together which has relied on a preposterously one sided media to denigrate the Yes Scotland campaign.”
Are you claiming the Nationalists didn’t pay someone to write an article promoting Nationalism without informing the readers?
” I devoured it to give me strength, I was an animal following my instinct” – key words Mary. An animal in those terms is devoid of compassion, bereaved of empathy.
A vision distorted by perverted thinking and greed that sacrifices the few in a false belief that we can endure and submit to this suffering to save a perceived greater many; a new world ideology, a “coup d’etat” on consciousness that represents in itself a messianic project embracing contemporary mondialism where geopolitical priority of Western orientation is absolute.
The structural designs of pragmatic technocrats can be better served in a new paradym, a resource based economy where greed, selfishness and insatiable lust for profit, gain and luxury are abandoned, replaced by a common suffiency in an attempt to preserve and restore that which we have destroyed.
I happen to believe the people are entitled to know the facts before they decide don’t you?
In my experience of “the people” it doesn’t make much difference what they decide. The last time we got a bunch of oleaginous toffs you wouldn’t trust on work experience running UK plc. But, yes. CE mentions “Better Together”, aka “Project Fear” (look it up). Whose English business sponsors and preponderance of New Labour stooges make it look completely impartial to me…just the people for facts.
Issue, please. Never mind the partisans. And try and do a bit better than “I don’t like nationalists because Hitler was a nationalist” – it’s weak. There wouldn’t be anything called England if nationalism had been banned in the Dark Ages. Mmm?
Taking responsibility for ‘over delegating’.
Textbook buck passing with the usual slice of martyrdom.
I presumed the ‘young man’ he spoke of was ES, a apologies I may have read it incorrectly. It does seem he has been badly advised given the fact he has ended up under protection from an intolerant and repressive Nation such as Russia, so perhaps JA was involved?
As I have said many times, I approve of people attempting to inform us of abhorrent behaviour carried out in our name, but believe wikileaks is not fit for this purpose, nor do the Diplomatic Cables come under this definition imo.
@Komodo
Have you evidence the Yes campaign have been paying people to promote their cause without informing the public?
Have you even read the article Fred?
‘promoting nationalism’? 😯
It was a fairy dry academic piece on the constitutional issues of Independence. Yes a footnote should have been made relating to the token payment, but it pales in comparison to Bitter Together’s Project Fear.
Yes Mark.
The most telling of the three quotes is the last…page 570…
“I had a vision for Britain. All the way I had believed I could and would persuade the country it was the right choice, the modern way, bigger than Iraq, bigger than the American Alliance, bigger than any one thing; a complete vision of where we should be in the early twenty first century; about how we finally overcome the greatness of our history to discover the full potential of our future.”
..which I see as the most dangerous of the rubbish.
I would say his words are typical of a very powerful psychopath. There should be a system (but it is wishful thinking and will never happen) where psychopaths seeking power are identified and put into preventive detention BEFORE they start the killing. He and his kind are not mad. The violence behind his words and the utterly random use of them is typical I would say.
On my way to the Airport the Taxi driver remarked that he was driving advisors around and that they use him all the time, questioning him on this that and the other.
We talked about the public’s perception of what in it for them and citizens rights in a newly Independent country, what that would mean and should there be such a thing.
He replied that UN human rights would have to come in and that people should have a say in their future, whether its in education or defence. He said that he did not like to be used for their kite flying as it felt as if they took his response in isolation and would never dare to use the same words or terms visa-vis the General public.
We talked about the spurious threats of an Independent Scotland not being able to stay in NATO, no doubt infused by Whitehall, due to the military issues arising (Faslane) and the sovereignty differences this would create, a story last week.
He was not keen on Faslane and said that these are the sort of issues which are flogged to death, like keeping the pound/Queen/ and all that comes with it, but nothing much about what Independence would mean for 5 million Scottish people, their services and future.
I reiterated that although both these reasons also apply to Spain’s relations with Britain over Gibraltar, these idiosyncrasies do not ruffle NATO’s ego’s at all, to which he laughed.
All in all it was a discussion well worth having and it showed me a trail through Edinburgh’s school traffic, leading to the airport via the back roads.
Sky News put this out at 2pm about Bradley. It is now everywhere else.
Manning Says He Wants To Live As Woman
The US soldier says he wants to be called Chelsea, a day after he got a 35-year jail sentence for passing documents to WikiLeaks.
http://news.sky.com/story/1131963/manning-says-he-wants-to-live-as-woman
‘He was a troubled young man’ is another comment his relatives and those who knew him uttered, not at all unexplainable.
I do not think its a smear campaign, he might have had genuinely been toying with the idea for years, a Trans person rather than a Transvestite.
Germany has just two days ago decided to allow parents to register a baby as blank when they are born with indecisive sexual organs, to enable parents and allow this person in later life to live as they would prefer.
The whole idea of imprisoning this wo/man after s/he has already been tortured psychologically and further distort the confusion he/she has been so obviously under coming to grips with her sexuality, would make this torture ongoing, surely not what judge Lind had in mind.
in my view this is a reason for an appeal to at least serve his sentence in an open prison.
I agree Nevermind. The whole case, trial and sentence is grotesque. Man’s inhumanity to man….
http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/lawyer-david-coombs-reads-bradley-mannings-request-for-presidential-pardon-with-video
I think I saw Col Ann Wright (blonde lady with glasses) in the video in the line up behind the defence attorney 6.47 in. She was in the Mavi Marmara flotilla and has been a fellow speaker with Craig at various meetings including this one.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/tom-fingar-winds-sam-adams-award/
Another brave human willing to stand up for the truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Wright