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.
Resident Dissident,
It’s good that Flaming June/Mary has been able to answer your question so conclusively about the Stormfront comment.
However, that still leaves open the question of what you were doing there in the first place, and reading in the middle of a thread too. And you with an all-black square for an avatar. Hmmm.
The CE (“Wow, horrific racist comments from Mary there.”) and The Habbabkuk, if polite, would also acknowledge her rebuttal.
NR,
I wouldn’t worry about this, it’s how Twitter normally works. Twitter will almost certainly use a variety of clever algorithms to decide what you might like to follow (and, hence, to encourage you to carry on being a Tweeter). This definitely includes who you follow, and likely also:
– what feeds you look at whilst signed in* even when you do not follow them
– what sites you look at that contain a Twitter tracking image, unless you turn on the Do Not Track option**
– what conversations and profiles you explore
This is all how the system works, and in the main is quite normal and non-spooky. I’ve had a play with Twitter, and I think it’s all rather clever. FWIW, Twitter have fought back against some government requests for data (though I wonder whether they’ve been legally forced to comply with the NSA stuff, since it may be illegal in the US not to).
* If you don’t want a site to do this, delete all of its cookies after you’ve signed out. “Signing out” of websites often means just that you need to log back in, not that they’ve disconnected your cookies from your profile
** I expect that Twitter respect this browser option (usually set up in your Options panel) but if you want to visit an unpleasant Twitter feed and be sure that it does not affect your interests profile, use a different browser.
Whistleblowers prendre note,
“Il est interdit de tuer; par conséquent tous les assassins sont punis, à moins qu’ils ne tuent en grand nombre et au son des trompettes.”
et
“Ceux qui peuvent vous faire croire à des absurdités peuvent vous faire commettre des atrocités.”
Voltaire
re Stormfront etc
“The CE (“Wow, horrific racist comments from Mary there.”) and The Habbabkuk, if polite, would also acknowledge her rebuttal.”
________________
I don’t need lessons in politeness from you, Rouge, to be happy to acknowledge Mary’s rebuttal.
Perhaps you were expecting me stay glued to the computer all morning in order to be able to acknowledge within the hour?
I must say that if I were Mary I’d be rather perturbed that someone is using her handle to post anto-Jewish comments and references to myself and this blog on the Stormfront forum.
Whereas she normally reacts rapidly (and usually intemperately) when corrected or rebuked on this blog, her calm in the face of this little mystery is remarkable.
@Flying donkey – by ‘not being able to resist’ quoting the discriminatory nonsense of Bernard Levin, and thus condoning his deliberately vulgar sentiments. Still no answer to my question asking yourself to show where I made negative comments about Israel – I have deduced that this is probably because I didn’t make any
And Chris Jones I am waiting in earnest for a similar answer from Res Des regarding my supposed accusation that the UK is a fascist country.
NR, Jon, Nevermind,
Thanks for all the Gender input, all very complex stuff eh
And for that link Nevermind.
a thought had occurred to me, that being, if Chelsea has always regarded herself as being female, and not male, would she be in prison today, i wonder.
RE the horrors in Syria –
The following article first published in December 2012 [scroll down] documents how the Pentagon not only provided chemical weapons to Al Nusra, an affiliated Al Qaeda terrorist organization, but also provided training to the rebels in the use of these weapons.
While Washington points its finger at president Bashar al Assad, a United Nations independent commission of inquiry has confirmed [May 2013] that the rebels rather than the government have chemical weapons in their possession and are using sarin nerve against the civilian population:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syria-chemical-weapons-saga-the-staging-of-a-us-nato-sponsored-humanitarian-disaster/5315273
The Rabbit hole sounds like even for a wee while
Sounds Like an Escape….That would be,
Great quotes, Sofia, thank you. I do love a bit of Voltaire. He fought for justice and the rights of people, as well as being a master of the pithy reality.
Perhaps the RI or one of the other trolls would like to pop round to take my temperature. Do I have to account for my absence, interpreted as ‘her calm in the face of this little mystery is remarkable’, by giving details of my current illness?
Could you please delete their junk Jon and tell them to lay off. I have had enough of them and do not welcome the nonsense.
Brian – An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council has called for a prompt investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack outside the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Argentina’s UN ambassador, Maria Cristina Perceval told reporters, “”There is a strong concern among council members about the allegations and a general sense that there must be clarity on what happened and the situation must be followed closely,”
America’s stooge, Secretary General Jan Eliasson has briefed the UN team and on cue asserted the words ‘impartial, thorough and prompt’ in a statement that welcomed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Meanwhile ‘Billy’ 14 pints has said, “”We do believe this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime on a large scale, but we would like the United Nations to be able to assess that.”
This hypothesis lacks trustworthy evidence and it’s constructs suggest it is a ‘sound-bite’ for main stream media headlines.
Almost two years ago an SAS trained mercenary working out of Dubai confirmed to me a ‘little game’ to intercept the movement of Syrian government Sarin stocks (the same stuff that killed a British military volunteer at Porton Down chemical weapons establishment investigating so called ‘common cold cures’) to conjure another ‘dodgy dossier’ implicating and blame the Assad government of using chemical weapons.
The ‘little game’ was judged as the predominant tactic to smash Syria government forces with cruise missiles fired from off-shores naval ships out of range from Syrian air-defences which may include S-300 surface to air capability.
This ‘little game’ is of course passed it’s ‘sell by’ date and if invoked now may indeed supplicate a ‘red telephone’ hotline situation with Russia.
It is my vision that sees a strike on Syria by cruise missiles launched from Israeli remote assets in the thick or fog of a post UN inspection wash-up that is inconclusive and based on US intimidation backed by main stream propaganda.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-syria-chemical-weapons-saga-the-staging-of-a-us-nato-sponsored-humanitarian-disaster/5315273
FJ/Mary: seconded. Pure transparent, and completely unsuccessful, mischief making.
A confidential memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia, Detroit in bankruptcy and British prime-minister Cameron’s harsh ‘bedroom tax austerity’, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo
@ Technicolour
“FJ/Mary: seconded. Pure transparent, and completely unsuccessful, mischief making”
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What are you talking about, Technicolour?
Someone here found an anti-Jewish post from someone calling him/herself “Flaming Mary” on the (Nazi) Stormfront forum or whatever you want to call it. That post also referred to myself and to Craig’s blog.
Flaming June has confirmed that it wasn’t her. Someone, therefore, is indeed making mischief but it isn’t me. I just wonder who it is and why.
WaPo National Security Update:
U.S., Russia at odds on who is blocking U.N. probe of suspected chemical attack in Syria;
Syrian protesters carry a placards showing dead children, during a protest in front of the Syrian embassy to condemn the alleged poison gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus, during a protest in front of the Syrian embassy, in Amman, Jordan, on Friday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-russia-at-odds-on-who-is-blocking-un-probe-of-suspected-chemical-attack-in-syria/2013/08/23/6506fdf4-0c01-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html
With foaming batboy Hague jumping up and down in consternation at the rebels use of chemical weapons, as the UN reported, apparently they’ve done this before and have most reasoning for such atrocious acts, because they are loosing ground all the while, who needs Germany to hold France back, what a grand show of humming and hawing.
Further, these rebels helping the few SFA are foreigners, most of them either mercenaries, or for hire wannabe jihadi’s from western European countries, incl. Britain, so we are already involved. We are training/paying this rag tag and we are arming them and they have no ties to the Syrian people, no compulsion or scruple to carry out chemical attacks on civilians, the rebels desperation is palpable and manifest in their actions, killing and polluting civilians in vast numbers now.
Time has come for western countries to denounce the act of their vassals as heinous massacres and foolish folly.
Thanks for your comprehensive silence to my last night attempt JM, it has made things so much easier here, for us that is.
@Mark G. What is known of the sales of the Yinye-82 to Iran/middle east? Surely such ship to ship missiles, able to be fired from the back of a lorry could be fired from any coastal high point, or beach.
A 98% strike rate should make such cruise missile scenario a more even affair. Thing is what will the Syrians and Lebanese do with navy hulks polluting their coastal waters?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802
Trowbridge? Are you here? (honey trap)
“http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/
George Galloway says Israel gave Al Qaeda weapons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=mrdanDH6E6g
Joe Cannon may be on to something. Attention critical thinkers; what do you think?
“I would also note that both President Obama and the New York Times have denounced Ed Snowden as a “hacker.” Previously, I couldn’t understand what Obama was talking about, since hacking played no role in any of the Guardian stories. However, now that we know that Snowden’s documents came from GC-Wiki, we may surmise that he may not have had authorization to download them.
So why has everyone — including Snowden! — been so desperate to cover up the Middle East surveillance operation?”
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/
Nevermind; JM seemed very interested in getting replies to his hypothetical, then disappeared. Maybe we weren’t up to the task
“George Galloway says Israel gave Al Qaeda weapons: ”
Well he would do wouldn’t he but even he describes it as a theory; and one that once again comes without any supporting evidence. The ranting would suggest he’s coming close to losing the plot if he hasn’t already.
Either that,Ben, or he had a touch of the hibby jebee’s after ‘it’ hit on him, understandably.
Or has been told to not over due it, that this site is already ‘covered’… what a laugh we all had….
Hate to malign JM, not knowing the complete story. I thought his appearance about the time of the Stormfront issue might be a coincidence.
Habbabkuk Activity Report
RE: Page 17 Comments on CM ‘Feile An Phobail Belfast’
FAO: xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx [REDACTED]
On this page Habbabkuk has commented 17 times. Of these only 1 attempts to address a geopolitical issue. The remainder discuss the mechanics of the blog including:
* 4 comments critical of Flaming June
* 3 appeals to Jon the Mod
* Various bickering with 5 other individuals
I recommend we carry on.
Anon; I fear even if someone collected and analyzed all it’s comments, the ratio would be similar, assuredly so if deleted posts included, but it’s only effect is piss running off a duck’s backside.
Craig; Where are you, dude?
@ Nevermind
“Either that,Ben, or he had a touch of the hibby jebee’s after ‘it’ hit on him, understandably.
Or has been told to not over due it, that this site is already ‘covered’… what a laugh we all had….”
_________________
I told you all that there seemed to be something not quite kosher about “James Mason”, didn’t I.
@ Ben Franklin
“I fear even if someone collected and analyzed all it’s comments, the ratio would be similar, assuredly so if deleted posts included, but it’s only effect is piss running off a duck’s backside.”
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Well, if it’s piss running off a duck’s backside, you have nothing to worry about, do you?
That you all can’t resist returning to me shows how correct I was when I said that if I didn’t exist on this blog you’d have to invent me.
Happy to be of service to you all! 🙂
A scab also serves a purpose but it knows when to flake off.