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.
Mary – Ruth Patterson was charged under the Communications Act 2003.
Section 127(1)(a), prescribes that “a person is guilty of an offence (a) if he sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” (i.e. otherwise than by means of a programme service).
According to a High Court Appeal:
Whether a message is grossly offensive is a question of fact.
In deciding, judges should apply “the standards of an open and just multi-racial society, and that the words must be judged taking account of their context and all relevant circumstances…Usages and sensitivities may change over time.
Language otherwise insulting may be used in an unpejorative, even affectionate, way, or may be adopted as a badge of honour (‘Old Contemptibles’). There can be no yardstick of gross offensiveness otherwise than by the application of reasonably enlightened, but not perfectionist, contemporary standards to the particular message sent in its particular context. The test is whether a message is couched in terms liable to cause gross offence to those to whom it relates.
In other words – words are just words…
Hi Mark / Eton Van,
I know one such ex SAS operating out of Dubai.
0 Recommends.
I wonder why?
“I guess you only read one part of what I said. So, just to be super duper clear, let me repeat my point again (apologies to others). It is a simple point that is lost in the “it’s a dog eat dog world” orthodoxy constantly sold to us in an ideological push to justify greed and war.”
I just asked my dog if it is true and he says it’s just Neocon propaganda, in nature dogs do not tend to eat other dogs.
So the reality is that this is not a dog eat dog world.
“Ruth Patterson was charged under the Communications Act 2003.”
I take it her daddy isn’t a high court judge then.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/vile-threat-sent-to-girlfriend-of-rangers-1314619
Don’t see much in resurrection, all seems to be a lot of twaddle, but tomb raiders in Egypt, since the latest uprising against the army, obviously, they seemingly serve whoever pays them, mainly the US during the last thirty years. But now ancient tombs are robbed, as they were pilfered by accolade seekers, western Victorian explorer’s/ researchers who stole what was not their’s then and now.
Whether its the Elgin Marbles, aborigines heads, or Egyptian artefacts in our museums, they are all stolen.
But what of the proposition that this is really Habbakuk?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/german-boy-finds-mummy-in-grandmothers-attic-a-914493.html
Fred
What a clever dog you have. Or are you repeating orthodoxy sarcastically.
Ok let me try again. Yes, you are correct, competition exists. However, there is a shed load of cooperation that goes unrecognised because of the ideologic promotion of unforgiving competition. This ideology misrepresents reality to covince you to accept greed and war as ‘natural’.
Funny enough wild hungry dogs exactly cooperate in packs. You fail to see the larger cooperation even in your own example.
Home Office may have broken the law in ‘racist’ hunt for illegal immigrants
The excesses of the home office in promoting racism as a policy has finally dawned on some of the pundits.
However even more disturbing aspect of the Home Office witch hunt has emerged:
Considering the above, the questions arise, have there been such an investigations, by the police in other cases referred to them, ie have the police been subjecting the victims of violence or other crimes first to an immigration status check, before addressing reasons for referral to the police in the first place?
That interview of Craig by BBC NI was unusual by BBC standards. Craig was allowed to speak freely and unchallenged, and the interviewer even assisted Craig in elaborating some of his points.
Almost as if Craig were a respected member of the establishment.
Obviously this is unusual for the BBC more generally, so media watchers need to ask themselves why.
Fedup, please calm down. This is only a blog, and your repeated fuck-off-piss-off-fucking-whatever isn’t helpful even for this non-family friendly environment. It seems not to have had the effect of offending whoever you wished to offend, so the only result is that you reveal yourself to be easily wound up. So, chill-pills please.
I can’t see what in this thread has got you annoyed. Is the Counter Revolution discussion on religion sneaking into newer posts? 🙂
(I’ll get back to that thread when I have a couple of hours spare!)
Herbie,
My view of the ‘free press’ is that it is, paradoxically, slightly free. If (relatively) radical views such as a anti-war perpectives or anti-capitalist sentiment are permitted 1% of airtime, then such instances can be used as an example of press freedom. If the system were more efficient, and no such views could get exposure, people would more frequently comment on how view X may not be espoused in public.
The funny thing is that this process happens automatically, rather than their being a conspiracy to arrange it. Thus, in relation to your last sentence, I don’t think the BBC necessarily got Craig past the secret censoring committee. Rather, the various mundane circumstances of which program it was, who the reporter was, and where they are based may result in the “influencers” in London not being able to stop the interview without causing themselves embarrassment.
“Craig was allowed to speak freely and unchallenged, and the interviewer even assisted Craig in elaborating some of his points.”
That’s not how it’s supposed to work! If some neo-con zionist were interviewed like that then there would be howls of outrage around here, and rightly so.
lets wait and see before passing judgement on Craig’s performance Anon, no animals were hurt in the debate I trust. Lets wait if we can get a video or verbatim.
What we can judge is Bradley Manning’s performance and we can compare it to other judgements. Just to remind us why he broke his contract and oath.
This incident, as far as we can assume one of many others yet to be exposed, gave him the courage for the psychological revenge torture that followed during his three years in prison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
“Ok let me try again. Yes, you are correct, competition exists. However, there is a shed load of cooperation that goes unrecognised because of the ideologic promotion of unforgiving competition. This ideology misrepresents reality to covince you to accept greed and war as ‘natural’.”
Yes, I was agreeing with you, so was Murphy.
The ideology through the latter part of the 20th century has been based on game theory but the rules of the game did not accurately represent nature. Thus in the Prisoner’s Dilemma the rules are set so the prisoners are kept in separate cells and can’t communicate and studies showed that it was to a prisoner’s advantage to rat on his fellow prisoner. However in the real world people can communicate in which case it is very much to the prisoners’ advantage to cooperate with each other.
It’s all a ploy by the psychopath minority to make their methods acceptable.
Anon, on Craig’s easy interview:
“That’s not how it’s supposed to work! If some neo-con zionist were interviewed like that then there would be howls of outrage around here, and rightly so.”
Neo-con zionists are always interviewed like that, across the whole of the BBC network.
What’s unusual is that Craig, as a dissident, was treated to similar terms in NI. This wouldn’t have happened were Craig to have been interviewed by the BBC in Britain.
That’s why I suggested media watchers ask themselves why it seems to be different in BBC NI.
I’m beginning to understand why Murrayistas are so harshly critical of the BBC. What they want is a BBC that is well to the left, that is staffed by leftists, mostly interviews left-wing guests, and then gives them an easy ride. Only then would the BBC be considered ‘fair’.
Anon – rewind. Why wonder?
Phil, cooperation overarches competition between competing beings. And it’s easy to see how that is. The relationship between the two might be described as two distinct shapes within a Mandelbrot pattern – for example, siblings compete within a cooperating family; families compete within a cooperating community; communities compete within a cooperating society; and societies compete within a belatedly cooperating human civilisation.
Whether the value of one is understated while the other is over “sold” probably depends on what your chosen political readings are.
But convincing people of the value of cooperation in a world full of liars and cheats, with a very long history of dispossessing people of the products of their labours, is a harder “sell” than convincing them of the value of competitive self-interest which is one of our first experiences in life.
That’s because cooperative self-interest requires some surrender of competitive self-interest, so there must be sufficient trust that one’s self-interest is best served in the exchange. That’s not an easy sell when nobody owes you, me or anyone else their ‘trust’.
Anon, the BBC has been aiding an abetting a ring of of paedophiles for years, including some who they have yet to discover.
A monolith full of itself, it is akin to our local councils, indeed they are chiming in unison on many issues these days, using each other as crutches for their wretched arguments.
Defending them, when the time is overripe with need for reform, is futile, only a vested interest could assume such ludicrous stance, or someone who is blind, deaf and mute.
Thank you FJ (& Co) for outing all these devils like jake wallis,robin lustig,etc all masquerading under prim accents and faked sincerity, but all classic robert maxwell types nonetheless. The muzzies I know tell me one day even the stones and trees will inform when such devils are “masquerading” behind them !!
Thanks for posting the Collateral Damage video again, Nevermind. I’m sure we can all agree that it shows evidence of a heinous war-crime.
But I am wondering what, other than the events shown in the video (which were already public knowledge) Bradley Manning and Wikileaks have actually achieved other than to dump a load of classified material online, the overwhelming majority of which is mundane and of little interest or consequence.
I really struggle to find anything patriotic or heroic about what Manning did – though the release of the video by itself might have led me to think that way. I find Edward Snowden’s revelations about spying on the communications of ordinary citizenry to be of far greater importance, though, as I noted in a previous post, he made a major mistake in leaking details of US spying on foreign governments, which is to be expected from any intelligence service, and which has allowed him to be cast as a traitor
Jon
I think it’s probably much more straightforward. NI really is different. Govt dirty tricks are the day and daily norm in NI, and yet more and more emerges through official investigations all the time.
People are well used to it, and expect nothing less.
There’s nothing to gain by attacking Craig. On the contrary it would be counter productive.
Best BBC strategy in the circumstances is to be nice to Craig and pretend the BBC are good guys too.
Had the BBC wanted to do a hatchet job, Noel would have done the interview. He was plucked from relative obscurity in the back rooms for, shall we say, the more challenging interviews…
Hi Mark.
RE your SAS contact operating out of Dubai.
I was wondering if you could answer a question about your contact. Obviously, not wishing to put him in any danger, I wouldn’t want you to give a name or any personal details, so feel free to use a pseudonym such as “BravoTwoZero” and redact any details that might implicate or expose other operatives.
My question is, are you talking out of your arse?
Jon
I should have said that I certainly take your points more generally.
The other thing about NI is that because it’s a divided society there’s a kind of internal balance of power effect at work. It’s difficult for BBC NI to construct an overall narrative as they do in Britain, since so much is contested and contested quite vigorously and vocally.
This is similar to the situation that existed in Britain up until the late 1980s, and I think media did a much better job in representing difference in those days.
Anon, alright, if your 1:03pm post is genuine (I’m afraid I really can’t decide):
My above assessment of the BBC (or any media outlet) was not that it should all be “leftist” – I think it should express all shades of popular, well-informed opinion. I would have thought that you would be in favour of my casting doubt on conspiracy analyses of media output, in any case?
How the media should work is complicated, and given the economics, the ideal system is hard to achieve. Over-reliance on advertisers slides towards treating the audience as consumers, and risks treating global corporations with excessive deference; public funding has the same effect but with the government being given an easy ride instead. It is possible that a better solution would be micro-financed and operate like Wikileaks, but I don’t know whether that model is sustainable.
I think the work of Herman and Chomsky, Media Lens and the Glasgow Media Group are well worth consideration in understanding the dynamics of disseminating “acceptable” ideas as well as thinking about how culture is shaped. I recommend “Will the revolution be televised?” by John Molyneux – a Marxist analysis that should be of interest for socialists and non-socialists alike.
There’s a lot of propagandist components of the BBC, but I take the view that most of it is a feedback loop from existing culture, rather than a specifically state-engineered system of thought control. The hype around the royal baby and the Queen’s Jubilee are psychologically reassuring expressions of tribal belonging and subconscious cultural superiority, despite the trail of murder and pillage that such a system represents. I’m firmly anti-monarchy, but I’m in agreement with Craig that the Queen is probably quite a decent person given her upbringing.
The royal baby stories I think could have been reasonably balanced with discussion shows and documentaries critical of the monarchy, reflecting the 20% of Britons who would like to see the back of it. But part of the problem in commissioning such a piece is that, rather like criticising “our boys in battle”, it does not do so well for editors’ careers, or that it feels too anti-establishment in a polite, refined, middle-class environment like the Beeb. If we could redress this sort of imbalance I wonder if some people would lend their political support to war, poverty, capitalism, monarchy etc much more critically, rather than in the ways they do now.
The BBC is institutionally infested with an alliance of cohens and boadens, each side plugging the others agenda. Its that simple, rantzen scratching saviles back and savile in turn advising the israeli cabinet!
Anon – No.
Herbie claims:
“Neo-con zionists are always interviewed like that, across the whole of the BBC network.”
I’m afraid I don’t see it like that. What you want is for neo-con zionists to be torn to shreds and “dissidents” to be given an easy ride. Anything else is evidence of bias in your warped view. The right accuses the BBC of left-wing bias and the left accuses it of right-wing bias, so it must be doing something right. On Israel/Palestine, you lot call it the ‘ZBC’ and on right-wing sites they call it ‘Al-Beebera’.
Anon
The evidence of BBC bias in favour of Israeli policy is clear for all to see. There was a time up until Mark Thompson took over when even the BBC could not fail to highlight the occasional injustice against the Palestinians, but that all changed after Mr Thompson’s visit to Tel Aviv.
Only a fool or liar or both would claim that the BBC is left wing or pro Palestinian today. It hasn’t been anything like that since 1987, and up until then only by way of balance.
Anon – if you can extricate yourself from your left-right bubble you may gain some insight in geo-politics esp. as regards to proxy warfare and combat.
Thanks for quoting Molineux Jon, and for advancing the arguments for reform.
Understanding the BBC has taken many of us decades, its not about that anymore.
In an age of dubious information gains a truly public broadcaster should be seen to be above board, just as a tax inspector asked for a paper trail, the BBC should be accountable for each and every penny of their expenses, without prompting, in within the latter two words hinges the crux of the affair, TRUST, it has bee eroded exponentially and criminal activities have become part of it., so time for reform is overdue, imho.
In the age of managing consent, an institution as the BBC, exposed to various propaganda channels for years and integrated with this Countries secret services, has become remote from its public broadcasting brief. I dispute that it is in the public interest to ‘slew and spew’, to say it mildly, whatever is presented by the western media barons and lobby groups. After decades of ‘not much change at all’ the BBC has become nepotistic in its staffing and in its allegiances, not at all independent or pro public interest, unless we meant to understand the establishment view being presented as public interest.
I’m not surprised that you don’t think it being patriotic to expose one’s own countries atrocities to those who regularly fed BS by eyewasher’s, apologists and proponents for any type of heinous crime.
You will just have to live with your own views Anon, and for the sake of your mental senity, I very much that you are still able to change your mind when you see that facts overwhelming, relevant and appropriately addressed.
Why live like a turnip?