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.
It’s gone. Isn’t there an Arsalan who comments here?
Donald
That article was the subject of a libel case with damages paid by the Mail.
Best to take it down really.
Donald
“An artical from 8 months ago that the DM have since scrubbed.”
That story cost the mail a few hundred thousand in damages which is probably why they removed it. I seem to recall suspicions that the syrian email was planted amongst a cache of genuinely hacked documents. From memory it was the email header info was duplicated revealing the syrian email as a copy. I think the guardian ran a piece as well.
Re coke use: In the early days of the Snowden affair, an anonymous poster on a tech blog, who worked for a NSA sub-contractor (don’t remember if it was same one as Snowden), said they had drug testing in their group, which worked until a fellow worker devised some means of circumventing the test, and after that it was cocaine day and night.
If the financial industry instituted drug tests, employees would find work-arounds. Suppose someone generating billions in profits failed a drug test? Not likely upper management would cut them loose.
A sight to behold is a Hollywood sound stage, packed with thousands of folding tables, each with an editing station and editor, editing their assigned few seconds of a major action movie right up to release deadline, which cannot be delayed — theaters booked, action figures in stores and fast-food kids’ meals. Editors working 72+ hours, food, drink and drugs of choice delivered.
@ Ben Franklin
“The Jews rejected his only begotten son. They have likewise been rejected.”
______________________
I somewhat summary last sentence (I believe you recently reproached me for brevity). Would you like to expand in it a little?
OK, specs on and repeat :
A somewhat summary last sentence (I believe you recently reproached me for brevity). Would you like to expand on it a little?
It stands on it’s own. What is it that confuses you?
NR
I can see the military end of things trying to clamp down on drug use. That’s their culture.
It’s very different in media. In UK media, particularly in the creative end, and they all think they’re creative these days, drugs are almost commpulsory. You’re considered of doubtful creative talent if you’re not snorting morning, noon and night. It’s almost in the job description.
And of course there’s the history of drug use by artists, writers and musicians of the past, whom we celebrate today.
I expect it’s very similar in the financial creative industries. A physics PHD and a few cokes will I’m sure produce very imaginative financial products.
@ Herbie
Which currency would you put in the place of the US$ as a reserve currency? Or do you believe that a reserve currency is an anachronism and has had its day?
Pls inform and discuss.
@ Ben Franklin
Not so much confused as curious. What is the thought behind “They { ie, the Jews} have likewise been rejected”?
Thanks.
Man you lot are way too fucking out of it. This is the fucking internet era, you want to read that DM article, here the fucking articles is;
to be found here
Q: Why dosen’t the government use Britain’s foremost expert on WMD to ascertain the facts?
A: Because they killed him 10 years ago after the last fake “Middle East madman with WMD”.
Who is David Kelly’s replacemet by the way, and what does he have to say about this crock-o-shite?
Herbie while you are justifying the need for a fucking “reserve currency” also can you let us know what size hole, and on which part of your head do you want?
What is fucking wrong with the local currencies?
No one applied for the job after they found out about the life insurance package, the vacancy is open still!
Habby
“Which currency would you put in the place of the US$ as a reserve currency? Or do you believe that a reserve currency is an anachronism and has had its day?”
No, there’ll be a new reserve currency which will be a basket arrangement, and both West and East are working on their own versions at the moment.
Obviously the US has abused the status of the USD as a reserve currency and have been doing so since the 1970s.
Clearly the US is using these last few years of reserve status to assist its positioning wrt a new reserve currency.
The game is not to have any dollar dominated instruments after the switch.
Fedup
“Herbie while you are justifying the need for a fucking “reserve currency” also can you let us know what size hole, and on which part of your head do you want?
What is fucking wrong with the local currencies?”
Nothing in most cases, but internationally people may not want to sell you things for your local currency, so you nominate a reserve currency which everyone agrees to accept.
There’s nothing wrong with a basket approach. It’s only a problem if one country dominates it.
Herbie 26 Aug, 2013 – 6:51 pm
“Clearly the US is using these last few years of reserve status to assist its positioning wrt a new reserve currency.”
It may be a reasonable assumption but why ‘clearly’? What convinces you?
Yeah but, Fedup
That article was the subject of a successful libel action.
Rejected by the God they claim to revere. They were restored to the Holy Land around 500 BC by the Medes/Persians, kicked out again by the Romans, left to wander the Earth until 1947. The Messiah of their choice seems overdue. Perhaps he’d already arrived, and they rejected that inconvenient one, in anticipation of hearing what they want to hear, and now He doesn’t hear them anymore. Since the Messiah seems somewhat overdue, maybe he’s not coming at all. Israel was originally a Theocracy, but the people wanted a visible King, and they got King Saul, who was somewhat like Bibi Netanyahu, but Israel still had a religious fundamentalism in their government. Now they have secular leaders who pander to the orthodoxy, just like the rest of the World.
A demonstrable lack of faith in Theocracy ruled from heaven, rather than earth, was the gradual slope toward their rejection of YHWH’s rulership through his first born was the nail in their coffin.
Therefore, the rejectors were themselves rejected.
Dear Herbie, Internationally those who want to fucking buy any sellers wares in a different currency can also go and buy the said seller’s currency first and then buy the shit that they are after from the said seller. Thus the monopoly of the fuckwits who are bent on disenfranchising most of the humanity form the hea.thy markets and shoe down their throats the rigged markets that have been set up to benefit few at the expense to many.
Nothing is worse than “limited capitalism” ie rigged fucking markets! It is evil unnatural, uncompetitive, and totally uncalled for at these times of communication and data exchange at an instant.
Fuck me, because the guys in the blue corner had more money and won the case don’t mean that we should not read it, and make our own minds up, does it?
Phil
“Clearly the US is using these last few years of reserve status to assist its positioning wrt a new reserve currency.”
“It may be a reasonable assumption but why ‘clearly’? What convinces you?”
Because we’re in freefall. There’s no way back up to a stable dollar. It’s held together only because US major creditors don’t want to be wiped out themselves.
The only way forward is a new currency, so it doesn’t much matter how much the US prints, to bail out bankers or foment war.
It’s all free money now, for the US.
Yeah, Herbie. The Petrodollar is the canary in the coal mine for Western interests. It’s held together with spit and string, and the whole Western economy rests on that precipice. They are fully committed. Everything comes crashing down if oil can be purchased through other currency.
China has been working hard on BRICS, yet their economy is shrinking even now. It’s hard to understand how they can afford to dump USG debt instruments under the present scenario.
Fedup
“Fuck me, because the guys in the blue corner had more money and won the case don’t mean that we should not read it, and make our own minds up, does it?”
Read away. I was just thinking of poor old Craig.
On the reserve currency thing, I’m talking about what will happen, and a basket is better than a single currency.
But yeah sure, something like Bitcoin would make a better reserve currency than having grubby bankers paws all over it.
If you want to rule the world, you gotta go out and rule it. It ain’t a moral issue, from the perspective of the main players.
We only use that narrative because they use it themselves to con the peeps. This is mostly shadow-boxing. The real debate is elsewhere.
I do raise it occasionally, but no one seems to understand.
“Who is David Kelly’s replacement by the way, and what does he have to say about this crock-o-shite?” Donald.
Presumably, (s)he does not want to end up “dead in the woods”.
Thom Yorke says it best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-UXk42ZY4o
“dont walk the plank like I did
you will be dispensed with
when you’ve become inconvenient
up on harrowdown hill
down where you used to go to school
that’s where I am
that’s where I’m lying down
did I fall or was I pushed
and wheres the blood?”
[Harrowdown Hill, Thom Yorke]
Did you see the headlines in nearly all the ‘papers today?
‘WE’LL BOMB SYRIA!’
We are on the eve of launching massive missiles and killing thousands of people (again).
“No, there’ll be a new reserve currency which will be a basket arrangement”
This is of course what Keynes proposed at Bretten Woods and was only partly taken up with SDRs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor
The idea of Bancors was taken furthur by another Keynesian Nicky Kaldor in the 1970s – who proposed that the underlying would be a fund of commodities – whose operation would act a counter cyclical stimulus to the benefit of commodity producers in the third world, which as a whole has often borned the brunt of economic cycles.
While I am all in favour in gently weaning the world away a reserve currency which is concentrated in any one country or backed by any one product/commodity (let us not forget the disaster that was the Gold Standard) since you don’t want a reserve currency that is over exposed to risk of loss in value, I think the toy town revolutionaries need to think through the consequences of the sudden dropping of the US$ that they would like to see. Yes it would hurt the US economy – but the dislocation in the rest of the world – and particularly in the 3rd world would be far worse. Fortunately they only tend to let grown-ups near the world’s central banks.
Herbie – I shall not repeat my reasons again = but just to give you a hint, I would say that the main reason for the decline in western human rights in recent years has been the economic downturn and that despite what the Marxists forecast market economies will continue to find ways to adapt to crises with a little help from the central governments.
RD; Do you remember the dot.com bubble? It’s a perfect allegory for a monetary system which has no assets except future production capabilities (durable goods in the manufacturing pipeline).
The dot.coms had nothing but air to peddle…no asset base other than reserve cash. How is it the gold standard was a failure? The only acceptable fallback is doing without currency altogether and resorting to barter.
Res Diss
“think through the consequences of the sudden dropping of the US$ that they would like to see.”
Of course the consequences will be immense. The point is that USD end is part of the plan. It’s inevitable.
It’s not about people here wishing it.
The US is ALL IN!!
There’s no other way out.
This is the biggest casino game in all human history, and the US and UK have the smartest bankers.
It’s a financial war cum military war.
China will be wiped of its assets and it has little or no energy resources to fall back upon.
Russia will be enveloped and starved.
End of.
Banker wins again.
Ben
The dot coms were not even future production capabiliities – they really were just hot air. If you think about it nearly all investments and savings are just future production capabilities – unless you are into hoarding food and wine. All a pension fund really is, is an entitlement to a share of future production capabilities that we give to old people so that they can live once they are too old to work – it would be interesting to see how pensioners would manage in a barter economy – or how international trade would take place without money – and I very much doubt that the wacky baccy trade would have developed without the anonymity offered by money (well in Canada at least)
As for the gold standard being a failure might I suggest you read up a little by the Great Depression and why the IMF was set up – digging up a metal to place it under ground has never struck me as being particularly socially useful.
Herbie
How many crises of capitalism and imperialism does the world have to go through before you appreciate that markets and the human spirit find ways to adapt and improve. Rather better economic theorists than yourself have been proved wrong on this time and time again. Thankfully there are still a few of us who do not see Armageddon as inevitable and can see other alternatives.