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.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!) 24 Aug, 2013 – 9:38 pm
“My question is : do you have any view on what the spoof poster’s purpose/aim was? What might he or she have been trying to achieve?”
Do any of the principals feel legal action coming on? Criminal, civil, divorce, alimony or child custody? The UK red-tops will headline, “Fiend visited Nazi Website”.
Recall, Gareth Williams was smeared with his few visits to bondage and claustrophilia pages. I had to look that last one up, and I thought I knew them all.
Resident Dissident at 8.45 p.m. Yes I would oppose restrictions whatever country imposes them. Some of my worst experiences have been with former Soviet countries, especially the Ukraine. But I don’t hold grudges and I am not a racist. I have travelled much over the years, especially the last 20 years. Borders are against free spirits. If governments could stop the swallows they would.
Since it’s a gender-bending, confessional, Montgomery Clift-ish sort of night, it may of mild interest to learn that once (and for one book only), I was ‘Melanie’.
To be at the “Amazon Best Sellers Rank of 4,879,970 in Books” is an achievement of almost sado-masochistic intensity. My aim is to hit the 5,000,000 mark. It is to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ as Lucifer is to Yahweh.
A lesson to you all: This is what can happen when you try to write a Mills and Boon.
Years later, a popular Italian soap opera charcater seems to have been given the same name. She’s better looking than me!
Goodnight, and enjoy! [apologies for the self-promotion, but at 4,879,970th in Amazonia, perhaps it could be forgiven without too many ‘Sadian’ lashes]
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/suhayl-saadi-on-erotic-fiction/
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1871592828
John Goss, you are a good soul.
As we debate, the undercurrents of the “consumer news” (dunchyou luv the market vernacular everywhere) is “Obama’s credibility is at stake”. The warmongers and their cheerleaders have forgotten Russia does have nuclear weapons, and she can use it, and in the case of a full nuclear exchange the vast size of Russia can absorb the hits and come on tops.
The mad cunts running the lets go to war advert campaign, are banking on all or bust, caught up in their imperial fever and believing they can win this big one too.
The Syrians are not alone and regardless of the song and dance on the telly, the facts are, any hit in the depleted Western capitals, will be an effective decapitation of the said verbose warmongering tossers. There no longer exist any redundancy in their infrastructures that is falling apart and around their ears already. Russians are not Saddam Hitler Dictator, or Qaddafi Hitler Dictator, or for that matter Taliban Alkaidy Hitler dictator!
Before these chicken hawks have pushed the world into a third world war to keep their Ponzi scheme afloat. They should be made fully aware; this time there is no bolt hole safe enough for the warmongers beating the war drums. This has been a decade since the fucking kaleidoscope was shaken, and it is long passed the pieces falling. These pieces have fallen but not where they were supposed to fall mind. So to keep shaking the fucking kaleidoscope again and again (a hundred years war) is not going to make the fucking pieces fall into their supposed right holes. This is only digging a whole bigger grave for the same fucking warmongers along with their victims.
The simple fact is; people don’t fall for the nonsense of the desperate warmongers! These have long proved their insanities as the unfolding of events in the mid east have empirically proved. The failures of these operators should not mean the continuation of the same bankrupt ideas, in the hope of turning the fortunes of war. In short the war is lost, and no amount of fighting is going to win it now.
“This has been a decade since the fucking kaleidoscope was shaken, and it is long passed the pieces falling. These pieces have fallen but not where they were supposed to fall mind. So to keep shaking the fucking kaleidoscope again and again (a hundred years war) is not going to make the fucking pieces fall into their supposed right holes. This is only digging a whole bigger grave for the same fucking warmongers along with their victims.” Fedup, 11:28pm.
Excellent metaphor.
“The failures of these operators should not mean the continuation of the same bankrupt ideas, in the hope of turning the fortunes of war.” Fedup, 11:28pm.
I agree totally, but sadly, I do not share your optimism.
Ben,
Can’t handle festivals myself anymore. Which is a real pity.
You can see me in this video when I still attended festivals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vj8C7zWovM
If you know where to look.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then on this superficial non conspiritorial level alone, when we look at the attempts by western forces to ‘do an iraq’ and try to use the same false flag tactics in blaming Syria and elsewhere for international crimes, we can safely assume that the mainstream media in most of the Western world is now technically insane.
Therefore they need to be helped away from their stations and helped to face their illneses in a helpful, understanding environment which will cure them of their debilitating diseases.
I propose that poor souls like Andrew Neil, the BBC and many others be contacted by concerned charities that are very keen to reach out and offer this much needed help to these sick and needy individuals and groups.Please give generously in order to help the campaign to protect the fallen in our midst
Time for National Strikes. Don’t show for work. Don’t buy foodstuffs beyond essentials. Don’t buy gasoline. Don’t go to movies. Stop the flywheel. It’s the only thing that terrifies them.
@Suhayl.8 29pm
“Travelling down this thread – and actually the cybe-world in general – is like going on a mythical journey into the labyrinth, with various tasks and labours and monsters and sirens and phantoms of the night…”
You bet!
Epic threads,
Unnatural offspring,
Man and Myth,
Oracles and Sirens
Endless skirmish.
Labyrinths of false narrative.
Echoing blind passages promising deliverance.
Chaos, Curses,
Preaching and Deceit.
Revelation and Distraction.
Who and What is Real?
Monstrous offspring lurking,
Sucking nourishment from the the unwary.
Heroes bringing gifts of comprehension.
Ariadne’s ball of golden string.
Courage or cowardice?
Inspiration or Confusion?
Rule of Law or Rule by the Lawless?
Universal Human Rights or Full Spectrum Dominance?.
fedup: Good one with the kaleidescope analogy.
Suhayl Saadi: I too am not optimistic. The rulers no longer care what citizen-peasants think on any number of matters. They’ll have their war regardless.
Chris Jones: Yes, retire the weary propagandists to rest-homes and treatment if not to a secure asylum.
I saw a bit of the coverage on Syria. The vid of dead children had voice-over asserting as fact it was Assad’s doing. That was followed by a quick, soft, “If as alleged” and more loudly “The British Prime Minister calls for action” and “What will Obama do?”
Then a General, retired luckily and not representing official policy (if anyone noticed that detail) fulminated at length asserting as fact that this was Assad’s second infraction, “The US must do something lest we’re seen as feckless,” and advocating missile strikes on Assad’s infrastructure, cratering runways, taking out air defenses. All this to prevent thousands more children dying and an increase in millions of child refugees. Assuring that this in no way meant boots on the ground or Western troops in harms way. He forgot the trick of sending missiles down the air vents of Assad’s palace, something others favour, and always a popular TV moment.
You think there’s any chance at all the gas attacks will be blamed on rebels? I’d guess zero.
Ben Franklin: People abandoning the major search engines and email services might rein in the surveillance state just a bit.
Their executives and investors would lobby for restrictions if it affected profits. In the long run it won’t change things; the agencies will do some sleight-of-hand to disguise what’s really going on. Perhaps buy back data from Russia and China if they’re not already doing that.
NR says, “Suhayl Saadi: I too am not optimistic. The rulers no longer care what citizen-peasants think on any number of matters. They’ll have their war regardless.”
Yes, that goes right to the heart of the matter. Public opinion no longer counts, it needs to be managed better, not obeyed. If a leader (forget the “representative” part) is to be serious, bold, courageous, then he will not bow to such whimsical notions as simply doing the will of the people he purports to serve. Our representatives, sorry, leaders – I keep forgetting – hardly make a pretence at doing what the public requires of them, except to steal an edge come election campaigns. Even then, none of the main parties will promise to govern according to mass popular demand.
A stop to privitisation, a properly funded NHS, an end to wars of choice – acting as America’s stooge – and putting some banksters in jail are popular measures. You won’t find any mainstream politician going near any of them, because that suddenly renders said individual not “serious”, according to the political/media bubble.
Union bashing and distancing therefrom is fine, apparently popular and bold – despite unions being actual representative democracy in the workplace. Zero hours contracts, erosion of conditions and liveable wages – no interest there. I have not heard anybody complaining that life is getting more tough, because Ed Milliband is too close to some unions. Yet that is presented as one of the great points in why Labour is not really serious enough, is flawed and unfit to govern.
Back to the wars – we had our little war with Libya. Nobody really noticed, it was conducted entirely by air, and by proxy forces. We’re having an even lighter war with Syria right now. As long as nobody really notices, our governments can do what they like, play their murderous games, and then say we have to be further controlled in the interests of “security” – the world’s a very unstable place, with lots of people pissed off with us, haven’t you noticed?
Syria latest from a British source in Cyprus:
An elite “Sheyetet 13” Israeli naval unit has been spotted in Cyprus.
The unit allegedly arrived from one of two Dolphin class submarines. The submarines are known to be armed with nuclear tipped cruise missiles.
America can deny launching cruise and Israel will maintain inconclusive silence.
Re Syria gas shenanigans, a deafening silence from the sayanim SS crowd here, they dont want to be laughed out of this blog like madofs wife (“I am having to pay for his security out of my personal funds!”) in Judge Chins NY court. Not one trying any dershowitzery speaks volumes of the critical mass of truth in this blog that prevents any devilish deception, compare with eg HuffPo a paradise for the sayanese “narrators”.
I refute completely the disgusting comment about me at the top of this page which is part of a constructive campaign to smear me. The poster concerned has been absent for a long time and suddenly returns to make all sorts of accusations, in concert with others, which are untrue as many here would acknowledge. I expect the moderator to remove it.
Dirar Abu Sisi, an engineer from Gaza who ran the power plant there, was abducted in Ukraine
Do you remember this man? He was abducted in the Ukraine in February 2011 and taken to the Zionist entity. No law exists which it has not broken. There are multiple charges but no trial – which anyway would be unlawful.
He has a family and, like so many, he will not be seeing his wife and children.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=623502
It so ludicrous, it appears to be just another semitic rivalry, Comical Shlomo trying to outdo Comical Ali of Gulf War fame ! Or did Assad really put on the show for the UN team to watch with high powered binoculars from their high rise hotel balconies?
Agent Cameron’s spin doctor is angry about the use of the beach photos by four newspapers. Cameron and family should have stayed put on the Astor (the father in-law) Jura multi thousand acre estate, tax havened in the Bahamas.
No 10 attacks editors over paparazzi beach shots of David Cameron
Photographs showed sunburnt, bare-chested PM struggling to put on his bathing trunks
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/23/editors-paparazzi-beach-david-cameron
This nonsense is a backdrop to Cameron and Obomber’s intensive 40 min telephone call where we are told they were planning some more bombing. It is disgusting to hear the presenters and commentators speculating casually on the various options under consideration. It is as if Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Mali in recent history never happened.
I’ve read – carefully – the first comment on this page to which Mary refers and am unable to find a “disgusting comment”.
Resident Dissident has said, at least twice, that he does not believe that the post on the Stormfront board comes from you. I concur with that view (and have also said so – twice).
Nor, as far as I can see, is he “accusing” you of anything; he has pointed out that you have, in the past, linked attacks on the Israeli govt to Jewish festivals and, if memory serves, this is correct.
I also note that this is the third time in as many days that you are demanding that the Moderator should remove a post. Are you not getting just a little above yourself?
(And, to be fair, you do seem to have eased up on posts which refer to British Jews/Jewry in contexts removed from the topics of Zionism and/or Israeli state policy. I hope this continues).
Roderick Russell who sometimes posts here has posted this on medialens within a link paying tribute to Chelsea Manning.
Canada’s spy agency gone rogue:
Prime Minister Harper couldn’t care less
http://lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster65/lob65-canadian-spy-agency.pdf
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1377394492.html There is an address for Chelsea Manning if you want to write.
We need to get the NAZ… NATO nations to stop Assad killing his own people – so that we can kill them instead.
Dunno where that avatar came from. If you are that ‘Donald’ then apologies for using the same name.
Outgoing Chief Rabbi Lord Sachs said the British were all a bunch of doubters and cycnics who should be more trusting of people like him (with his bronze age fairytales) and other politicians like David Cameron, William Hague and Gideon Osborne. Good riddance Mr Sachs.
Craig where art thou? Can you make some sense out of this nerve gas business and point us towards the truth, its getting late now. Really a separate thread is required, pretty please ?!
Glenn, at 3:16am, today: Absolutely, that was a very cogent depiction of the (now malignant) interaction between domestic and foreign politics.
Sofia, NR, thanks.
@ fedup 24 Aug, 2013 – 11:28 pm
“… the facts are, any hit in the depleted Western capitals, will be an effective decapitation of the said verbose warmongering tossers. There no longer exist any redundancy in their infrastructures that is falling apart and around their ears already. ”
A replacement span of the San Francisco / Oakland bay bridge, 2.2 mi (3.5 km), damaged by an earthquake in 1989 is to finally open next weekend. 24 years in the making. I was about to say in that time China built many of the world’s longest and highest bridges, but in searching for details, found this, dated 24 August: “The accident, which Xinhau said sent four trucks hurtling some 30 meters to the ground, brings to six the number of bridge failures in China in little over a year. The cause of the ramp failure on the Yangmingtan Bridge in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, was not immediately clear but is under investigation.” So crony communism works no better than crony capitalism.
In regard to most any problem, social or technical, we hear, “America put men on the moon, surely we can do…” Yes we did. Once upon a time.
@ glenn_uk 25 Aug, 2013 – 3:16 am
“A stop to privitisation, a properly funded NHS, an end to wars of choice – acting as America’s stooge – and putting some banksters in jail are popular measures.”
It would be nice to see one bankster behind bars in addition to Bernie Nadoff, and he wouldn’t be there if he’d thought to scam the general public instead of a few well-connected friends. If there’s any punishment at all it’s fines on the corporations, who add the cost on the next scam. Even with severe criminal penalties, banksters, I think, with salaries and bonuses in the tens and hundreds of millions, would not be deterred, but weigh the rewards against the small chance of being caught and convicted.
Somebody on prev. pages asked about sentencing discrepancy between Bales for Afghan civilian killings and Hassan for Fort Hood shooting. Bales pled guilty in deal to avoid death penalty and was sentenced to life with no parole. Hassan pled guilty and was convicted but not yet sentenced. Requires unanimous jury for death penalty in sentencing phase. Many call for no death penalty to deny him martyrdom.
Has the BBC, or any other mainstream UK-based media channel, interviewed ANYONE at all from the Syrian Government? Did they invite anyone from the Syrian Embassy to be interviewed? Has anyone heard any such interviews? Would that not be the normal, logical thing to do in such a situation? They interviewed one Russian representative in a pretty hostile manner on Friday morning. And as far as I can tell, that seems to have been it. For the ‘other side’, see here:
http://sana.sy/index_eng.html
It is possible to telephone Damascus. You can use a ‘phone card which can be purchased at any corner shop in the UK, or you can telephone direct. You pick up the receiver and, using your index finger, you dial the numbers. Then you wait for someone to pick up. Contrary to appearances, this is not the nineteenth century.*
Senior diplomats, in the usual tit-for-tat, were expelled last year from London and Damascus. But in case the British mainstream media outlets are having some form of existential difficulty, here is the telephone number of the Syrian Embassy in London.
Tel: 020 7245 9012
We are about to destroy yet another country.
*Correction: It is the nineteenth century.
Look at the Channel 4 site – there is nothing at all suggesting that there might be one iota of doubt about the official narrative. It is straight propaganda. Brainwashing. I wonder why they still feel the need to brainwash – after all, they don’t give a damn and will do it anyway. I suppose it’s just for appearances. Aspidistras and net curtains.
But we are about to commit mass murder.
http://www.channel4.com/news/syria
@DAD! 7 53am
All this phoney indignation re the slur attempt on Flaming June. You know very well why FJ refers to the comments as “disgusting”.
Such a tired old trick. Remember the story of how Lyndon Johnson first got elected to Congress in 1948 when his opponent was a wealthy pig farmer. Running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go Johnson was getting desperate. So desperate he called his campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference at two or two-thirty ( just after lunch on a slow news day) and accuse his high-riding opponent of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows.
His campaign manager was shocked. “We can’t say that, Lyndon,” he said. “It’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not,” Johnson replied, “but let’s make the bastard deny it.”
Re the Stormfront wheeze.
It’s heartening to see the attempt to divert raving white supremacists over here has totally failed.
Seems we’re stuck with the same old worn-out public diplomats flogging horses that are so long dead they are beginning to fall apart.
Thanks FJ for your tireless efforts.