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.
This’ll be interesting.
Now the gangsters will have to prove that the big bogey man exists.
Can’t wait to see how they word that.
“David Miranda: High Court restricts inspection of data”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23790578
@ The CE
“CE You’re back then.”
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I detect a tiny note of disapproval on that comment from the Frequent Poster at 15h38. Or is it fear?
Anyway, I’ll say “WELCOME BACK, THE CE” (capitals for emphasis), your sanity has been sorely missed here!
Now they’re doing Adam and Eve’s descent into knowledge.
“The Met said they included “highly sensitive” material which would put the public at risk if disclosed.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1131684/david-miranda-data-prompts-police-probe
What we really need is protection from patronising prats like them.
Request No. 94
It’s always a significant tell when habby does a runnner, and I fully expect this one to run and run from the narrative lance. So I’ll just number the occasions asked at the top of each request.
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Habby claims wrt the murderous Apache crew:
” I’m surprised that they appear not to have been subject to any sanction.”
Why are you surprised?
5.55pm
No just a small sized groan.
I agree with ‘nevermind’ too Mary, Bradley Mannings ‘exorcism’ and his defense ‘ritual’ outing were a diabolical, clover footed scheme to debase a brave man, a paladin in our friend Ben’s book.
Czesc habba!
Hope you are well and still succeeding in keeping the lunatic fringe on here in check and honest. Was also hoping the ‘campaign’ against you may have tailed off somewhat, but I can see that flame still burns bright for some.
I’m always happy to be eliciting groans from the female population. 😉
@ Passerby 22 Aug, 2013 – 12:41 pm
No, I was not naive. I recall that in the run-up to the invasion of Afghanistan, prominent feminists reminded the public of the Taliban’s mistreatment of women and how war would rectify this. I thought then that was a sorry excuse for invading a country.
There are thousands of injustices around the world, and as you point out, only those worthy of intervention are ones that supposedly affect our security or more correctly economic interests.
Good one re US policy on global breaking wind rules. It could happen; sound a wrong note — a coded terrorist note — and here comes a little proctological drone to correct the tuning.
Though I disagree with the policy of countries extraditing suspected terrorists to the US, I understand the logic of it; the “yer for us or agin us” policy with the implication of drone visits. My question was, what is the murky legal justification for extraditing people to the US for Internet crimes committed in other countries?
@ nevermind 22 Aug, 2013 – 5:07 pm
‘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.”
Yes, this was well known. She also adopted a feminine persona at times on the Internet, though I don’t recall if she used the name Chelsea. Please note my sensitivity in quickly using her preferred gender.
A must read for all interested in the development of the Wikileaks Party. In case you haven’t already:
“Why I resigned from the WikiLeaks party
I was a member of the WikiLeaks party national council and have been a friend of Julian Assange since university. Here is why I am resigning from my position”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/wikileaks-julian-assange
Is Assange biting off more than he can chew, living unnaturally in his pressure-cooker as he does?
Jemand, in case you see this, it would be a pleasure to get your thoughts from on the ground. Lokk forward to it. Dreoilin i think too was expressing her regrets at your absence and the attendant intelligent views even if they are at odds with some here, i could care less.
Power struggles define the human bean, Villager. If, as indicated, JA is acting like a dicktator, it may be because his seclusion has left him with minimal secure conversations to keep an even keel.
I suspect there are still poseurs within, taking full advantage of the situation.
Don’t think this chap’s been cited here before but he’s an interesting read on stuff that’s happening in the Middle East. He’s a political science professor at California State Uni.
http://angryarab.blogspot.co.uk/
I have reliably been informed that Craig has opened the bar at the ‘Doune the Rabbit Hole’ Festival in Stirlingshire! Wish I was there! All Power to Rabbits, Holes and Alice!
http://dounetherabbithole.co.uk/
The more you think about it: no. Assad’s launches a massive chemical attacs when the UN are in town investigating exactly that? Bullshit.
How dumb are the opposition? Or should that be: How dumb are the US Navy Seals how gave them the stuff and showed them how to use it?
Please excuse the dodgy spelling and punctuation!
Mirroring US stats.
http://www.drugwarrant.com/
“Every 58 seconds someone is stopped and searched for drugs in England and Wales. […] Just over 7600 were of children aged 15 or below. […]
For those from the white population it was 7 per 1000, increasing to 14 per 1000 for those identifying as mixed race, 18 per 1000 for those identifying as Asian and to 45 per 1000 for those identifying as black.
Black people were, in other words, 6.3 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than white people, while Asian people were 2.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs and those identifying as mixed race were stopped and searched for drugs at twice the rate of white people. […]
Across London black people are charged for possession of cannabis at 5 times the rate of white people. […]
Black people in London who are caught in possession of cocaine are charged, rather than cautioned, at a much higher rate than their white counterparts. In 2009/10 the Metropolitan Police charged 78 per cent of black people caught in possession of cocaine compared with 44 per cent of whites.”
Ben, old stick have you read the “politics of heroin” by Alfred W. McCoy?
Also Ben you are much more of a memory man, here is a challenge for you;
The black and white movie of the Harlem and the rise of Black Panthers, in Harlem, in a scene, on the boat the law men (detectives/fbi/cia) are talking to a mafia don, and asking him to flood the Harlem with drugs. What is this fucking movie called Ben?
Finally I remember the self hating _ew Gore Vidal (I really liked the old guy, a principled chap and a stout fellow) he used to write; if drugs were not illegal governments would be pushed to invent something illegal.
Fedup; memory fails on the movie, sorry. No I haven’t read. Have you access to Leary’s Politics of Ecstasy?
Daniel Hopsicker is all about CIA/Drug running
http://www.madcowprod.com/
Doune the rabbit hole, nicccccce.
enjoy whoever has the time.
Ben I dont, would you recommend reading it? A quick synopsis perhaps?
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slangevar Craig.
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Jon, thanks for the advice, but hey I am of the ilk who calls the spade a shovel. Some of these characters around here if they ever go into the pubs I frequent will have so much fun rolling around the floor! #all those friendly locals tickling the heck out of them, and rolling them around the floor. Mate you know up north fools are not suffered gladly, and in fact put right pretty damn quick. I know down south it is a different story; they say potato and up north they get punch the fuck out of, for saying it!
“Yes a footnote should have been made relating to the token payment, but it pales in comparison to Bitter Together’s Project Fear.”
Yes the readers should have been informed about the payment so it is a genuine complaint about unethical conduct not a smear campaign.
Did you say you had evidence of unethical conduct among those in favour of the union?
Hi The CE, yes I’m well, thanks; hope the same goes for you!
As you might have noticed, plenty of top-quality nonsense on here to keep the doctors busy!
God help us when the lunatics get released into the community 🙂
Fedup; You can download for free.
http://archive.org/stream/ecstaspoliticsof00learrich#page/12/mode/2up
It’s been years since reading, but interesting concepts. You should probably read his former peer’s book (Richard Alpert) ‘Be Here Now’ as it takes you beyond the drugged state, whereas Leary never transcended. (BTW Alpert is now Ram Dass)
Keep that snake oil coming.
Re stops and searches/arrests, etc for possessing drugs (UK)
Ben Franklin, at 21h21, gives some interesting figures. He takes his text from that of the link he kindly provides, but for reasons best known to himself he omits an equally interesting final paragraph from the link. That final paragraph reads as follows:
“Again, it doesn’t have to mean that those who write or enforce the laws are racially motivated (although some may be). Even if the people are not racist at all, a drugs war is by its very nature flawed and cannot help but be enforced in a way that is rascist in its results. This is the result of the challenges of enforcing laws against a POPULAR CONSENSUAL CRIME AND SOCIETAL FACTORS OF COMMUNITY AND POVERTY” (emphasis added).
If one reads that very last sentence carefully, one might be forgiven for thinking that the author is saying that drug use is more prevalent in some communities than in others.
Which, if that is correct, might explain why members of certain communities are more likely to be stopped and searched than others (=detection) and why the charging for possession rate is higher for those same communities (=deterrence)?
Just wonderin’, as Ben might say.
@Habby
Wasn’t it RD Laing that said insanity was a rational adjustment to an insane world. He suggested it was the “lunatics” that are able to discern the true reality while mere “normals” bumble along oblivious …
I didn’t give any figures, they were the author’s. I provided a taste and a link, not the whole frreakin’ flounder.
@Fred “Britain isn’t independent, Britain is in Europe which means we must abide by European laws. The people of Britain still have self determination because they can vote in European elections to elect those who make the laws. I have no problem with that.
Britain is also not independent because the people of Britain must abide by American laws, however the people of Britain have no say in electing the people who make those laws. In that respect the people of Britain don’t have self determination. I do have a problem with that.
Before the union with Scotland the people of Scotland and England spent a lot of time killing each other, that doesn’t happen so much now. Before the EU the people of Europe spent a lot of time killing each other, that doesn’t happen so much now. I support a world where people don’t spend so much time killing each other”
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You’ve missed out on the principle of the right to sovereignity – whatever the country. Although you also forget that Britain/the UK wasn’t asked if it was happy to give away its sovereignity to the EU -it just miracalously happened over and over. Europe’s right to sovereignity will probably come up in the future too if Eurocrats get their initial way of an united Europe super state. And on and on it goes.
Your concepts of nationality are very 13th century if you don’t mind me saying. It’s being kidnapped, finely refined and twistidly fine tuned since then for a very dark non inclusive agenda.
You say “Before the EU the people of Europe spent a lot of time killing each other, that doesn’t happen so much now” but this is wildly naive and innacurate.Since that specific act of union and others, and since the UN and EU,extreme imperialist nationalism has been the main weapon of the British empire, the Anglo American Zionist empire and now Nato – leading to the worst war crimes in history and the meaningless deaths of hundreds of millions of people
“I support a world where people don’t spend so much time killing each other”
Me too funnily enough. I agree with your final statement at least. Only with the stopping of imperialism and pseudo global protection police squad will that come about..
@ Ben Franklin
“I didn’t give any figures, they were the author’s”
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Yes, I’m aware of that. You presumably found them so interesting that you decided to share them with us.
Did you not find the missing final para interesting as well?
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“I provided a taste and a link, not the whole frreakin’ flounder.”
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Quite a taste, I’d say – about 4/5ths of the entire link. Just another few lines and you could have given the whole thing. I wonder why you didn’t.
Appetisers, starters, fish, meat and cheese – only the dessert was missing 🙂
@ Fred
Before you answer Chris Jones’ guff (above), I suggest you revisit the little discussion I had with him on Welsh language speakers – you might decide that his guff isn’t worth the effort of an answer.
Il n’est pas sérieux (as one wouldn’t say in Welsh)