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.
Komodo
Before we return to torture may I ask a personal question. It’s not relevant to anything, I am just being nosey, so feel free to ignore. What was your military experience? I’m guessing marines.
@Phil, Rather not say*, but not marines or special forces.
*Nothing secret, just rather not say…
Just suppose that I had got on my bike and gone to make Jihad in Syria, which I am not entitled to do on my own decision, without an order from a just and knowledgeable person, the first thing I will encounter at the border/airport is an agent of Mossad sharing an office with an agent of Assad, sharing an office with an agent of Obama and Cameron, sharing an office with an agent of a Syrian opposition power-broker.
I have come to fight for Islam, but there is no office for Islam. It is a political war being orchestrated from London which specialises in Zio-lies about Islam. The war is here on Craig Murray’s blog. How can the Z factor portray Russia as the atheist bad guys for Muslims to fight against? How can the Z factor utilise the Shi’a-Sunni sectarian divide? How can the Z factor utilise the pro-spying-our religion-is-better-than-yours-Salafi – anti-spying normal Sunni inter-sect divide? How can the Z factor introduce an ethnic divide, as they did in Libya, leading to massacres and imprisonment of black people?
The powers that be have allowed this country of ours and our media to be the intellectual melting pot of every divide and rule initiative that benefits the Zionist enemies of Islam. When Mary says that she hates this country she obviously means that she hates the fact that England has always been the epicentre of believable political lies masquerading as commonsense and tolerance.
It is a very lovely country, alternating between sun and rain, hills and plains, and the people have not been subjected to war since the removal of Catholic power in 1640, i.e. nearly 400 years. During that time, England has been a factory for political lies with which to control the resources of the world, from Darwin who insinuated racial superiority, Adam Smith who insinuated the legitimacy of money over morality in the execise of power, or Churchill who rolled out the red carpet of Zionism as a religious curator for Christianity instead of the Gospels which had previously been our spiritual guide. Now we were to have an atavistic Biblical authority rooted in a physical Holy Land.
How much this country has been a factory of lies, it has also been a workshop for justice and creative spirituality. While the factory installed brutal torture in all its colonial lands, where previously Islam justice had been installed, an opposition arose which with Tony Benn foresaw the Zionist New World Order in which financial power merged into moral vacuum.
The resources of the entire world are currently being poured into the whims and desires of zionists to create an actual physical country, a Babylon, a head of the Zionist snake. The war in Syria is a political process in which Israel crushes its neighbours into submission and commands their resources, moral, political and physical.
The war in Syria is only a religious war, which is being painted as a political struggle by the powers that be, with reports of Russian and chinese warships, Saudi and Qatar, funds and UKUSIS politcal discussion. The war is about the right of all citizens of the world to be free from dictator torture and the new moral torture of Zionism, in which God’s rules are cancelled in favour of economic power. A war worth fighting for.
@ Herbie:
Seems very similar to Protestantism. When you throw in the dislike of images and music and the emphasis on the word, it’s not very different at all.
Protestantism took a bit longer to get there, though. Parallel evolution from Judaism + paganism + Gnosticism + “hang about, we seem to have lost the basic idea here”…
….+ Platonism. It might have got even closer to Islam if the Arians hadn’t been shut down. Not usually mentioned in CofE RE classes –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy
Guano 6 Aug, 2013 – 3:43 pm
“Darwin who insinuated racial superiority, Adam Smith who insinuated the legitimacy of money over morality in the execise of power, or Churchill…”
I’m not certain that darwin or smith insinuated such things rather than being coopted and misrepresented by those who go beyond insinuation. I have nothing to say in defence of churchill.
Phil
McKenna goes futher than efficacy though. His argument is that these psychedelics are themselves ways of communing with a kind of unmediated consciousness. He looks at how the material world is itself propelling us towards a kind of unitary consciousness and I suppose we can see that potential quite clearly now, with more and more connectivity producing some form of instantaneous immediacy of being, which itself would change quite radically what it is to be a human being.
It’s not for everyone, I know, but I like him for his grasp of history and culture and he can be very funny and enlightening on his favourite themes. He’s worth it for that alone.
There’s a huge archive of his work here:
http://www.prometheanreach.com/terencemckenna
” Krishnamurti: Just another fraudulent mystic. Symptoms caused by arterial spasm and reduced blood supply to brain. Been mystic, done mystic, neglected to buy mystic teeshirt. Then grew up”
Not to turn this into a discussion about one philosopher/mystic, but I am surprised at the materialistic skepticism, worthy of Schopenhauer. You’ve done ‘mystic’? Hard to know precisely what you mean. You may be confusing religion with spirituality. That’s just a guess, but based on your earlier comment about how glad you were the Puritans left your shores, it seems logical.
Is this the case?
Komodo
Catholicism was a deviance from Jesus’s pbuh teachings by which his followers decided that God had delegated power to Jesus and therefore to St Peter etc
Gnosticism was a deviance from the Islam of Judaism by which its followers were persuaded that God was O N L Y the Creator who had been delegated His power from an invisible greater power to whom humans could turn directly, cancelling 10 commandments prayer justice morality boring boring etc.
Shi’ism was a deviance from Islam by removing obedience to Islam as the criterion of power and delegating it to family blood lines, thus removing Shari’ah justice morality boring boring and they thereby further delegated power to shrines and saints and dead people.
Islam does not evolve, it is a consistent, timeless rulebook for the safe operation of human existence. Tweaked a bit from prophet to prophet, but not like one lot can’t do adultery and the next lot can.
Yes, we’re approaching page 5. So I thought I’d stick this in here
J. KRISHNAMURTI
The Core of the Teachings
The following statement was written by Krishnamurti himself on October 21, 1980 in which he summarizes the teachings. It may be copied and used provided this is done in its entirety. No editing or change of any kind is permitted. No extracts may be used.
“The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said: ‘Truth is a pathless land’. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security – religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man’s thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind.
The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.
Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.
When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.
Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.”
© 1993 The Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd,
Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire, England.
Thanks, Komodo
Maybe if someone were to tell the American fundies that they’re much more closely related to Shia Islam than to Judaism then we might get some progress.
Fancy selling the idea to Fox.
*Ducks and covers*
Schopenhauer was one of the good guys. Carters’ whips in the street and my neighbour’s yappy dog have much in common. I also did Nietzsche and Hesse – required reading for adolescents to provide a standard of muddled thinking to avoid thereafter. As spirituality and religion are inextricably entwined, I decline to separate them.
Guano. Yes. In theory. And from a particular POV. Otherwise no or maybe. Out.
Herbie – not the way it seems to work, unfortunately. They’d be competitors, not allies. Sad, though.
@Guano – you are beginning to sound like a takfiri “MY GOD IS BIGGER THAN YOUR GOD” about to behead us infidels ! Whilst the Islam that ruled over Jerusalem for 1400 years did not touch one shrine, including not one brick of the Jewish Wailing Wall, we have “small timers” like you suddenly assuming a bigger mantle than the caliphs of Islam who had captured Jerusalem? Or are you an ex-yiddish “sherman” Muslim, still harboring delusions of chosenism even under Islam as well, bwahahahaha!
Phil
“I’m not certain that darwin or smith insinuated such things rather than being coopted and misrepresented by those who go beyond insinuation.”
I believe that the collective practice of slavery led to the one individual’s justification of racial superiority, which still pleases colonial minds today.
Similarly the collective practice of colonialism, i.e.concealing the loss inflicted on the primary owner of resources, whether it be indigenous or abroad, led to the justification by one individual of capitalism.
“Catholicism was a deviance from Jesus’s pbuh teachings by which his followers decided that God had delegated power to Jesus and therefore to St Peter etc”
All sects and schisms are deviations, but none so profoundly so as the Catholic church.
Constantine the Great was the convert/founder and the nativist religions of his day were quite upset when he made his brand of Christianity the state religion. To assuage the masses he incorporated many elements of non-christian origin into the mix.
But most forms of Christianity have those elements as well.
Classic example; Christmas is celebrated as the birth of Jesus. Dec 25th is not his bday.
He was born around the 1st or 2nd of October. Dec 25th was a choice made by Constantine because it was a pagan date of significance and could be grafted into the religious practice.
” As spirituality and religion are inextricably entwined, I decline to separate them.”
No need to duck. Just trying to understand what you meant. I won’t try to separate them for you, as that would be a little presumptuous.
Strange but true in the land of the free:
“Children given lifelong ban on talking about fracking”
“Two Pennsylvanian children will live their lives under a gag order imposed under a $750,000 settlement.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/05/children-ban-talking-about-fracking
Well I’ll be burgered:
“McDonald’s ties nine out of 10 workers to zero-hours contracts”
“Britain’s biggest food chain has 83,000 staff on controversial contract as employers body claims economy needs flexibility”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/05/mcdonalds-workers-zero-hour-contracts
Ok I’m getting my ear bent by my missus and she is right. I should spend some time ‘detoxing’ from the pc. I’m going to try to not switch it on for a while. I’ve enjoyed much of this thread. Ta. See you all in the hopefully not too immediate future.
Herbie, I did take to mackenna immediately just watching that short clip and will look further later.
Dre, I find it hilarious that they copyright the truth.
Guano, I absolutely acknowledge the imperialism you describe except I do not think the racism and worship of unmoral(?) money were ideas of those individuals. Darwin’s evolution does not justify racism and smith held that morality was needed to tame the market. However, they have both been coopted. Especially smith. I am not defending smith’s ideas just saying that his invisible hand is not what the market worshippers say it is.
FWIW, here’s my thought on spirituality/religion/cults. I was raised religion free, more by indifference than design. I have no personal stake, and little interest, in the detail of which imaginary friend has said what. I wish there were less discussion about theological detail here because the bigger story is elsewhere and we bog ourself down in irrelevant details. But then again I am so simple my faith was probably cemented by a 1970s movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW8fDw8VzKI
“Life without pain has no meaning.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer
So true. Use a knife for a while and it needs sharpening. The sharpening of such is a form of violence to the metal. In order to sharpen, there must be friction and a loss of metal.
Christianity as it was intended, is a hardship. It’s not the pain of getting up on Sunday and gong to church. Too many go to ‘have their ears tickled’ and quickly forget the lesson of the sermon.
It’s a lifestyle which is counter-intuitive to public practice, and often elicits ridicule from peers.
It was supposed to be difficult to practice, like a camel going through the eye of a needle.
Very few in Christendom want to tolerate the hardship/commitment and we see the results of that failure. Jesus had no words of condemnation for street-wallkers and publicans, but he had plenty to say about the religious hypocrites of his day. Such hypocrisy was the worst sin, and many non-believers cite that as the primary reason for rejecting Christianity.
Bramshill the police college in Hampshire (329 bedrooms!) is being flogged off. It costs £5.2m to run.
Asking price £25 m.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/10182611/Home-Office-puts-mansion-with-329-bedrooms-up-for-sale.html
There is a new College of Policing in the Midlands and this is the first conference under the auspices of ACPO which is a private limited company.
http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03344583/THE-ASSOCIATION-OF-CHIEF-POLICE-OFFICERS-OF-THE-UNITED-KINGDOM
Those on the board inc Thornton of Thames Valley. Orde is the leading light. Never made it to Chief Comm/Met though. http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03344583/THE-ASSOCIATION-OF-CHIEF-POLICE-OFFICERS-OF-THE-UNITED-KINGDOM/directors-shareholders#people
I saw this in the provisional agenda
http://www.excellenceinpolicing.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Programme-v0.30.pdf
Thornton is all powerful. She is spending £37.4m on a new comms system
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23571898 in conjunction with Surrey and Hampshire.
‘Thames Valley chief constable Sara Thornton said the move aimed to “increase efficiency and continue to reduce costs”.’
Surrey btw is the source for nearly all the Met chief commissioners. Chief constables in Surrey end up in London. Weird isn’t it?
Analysis
Adbullah Ghorab
BBC News, Sanaa
The Yemeni capital Sanaa is experiencing unprecedented security measures. The interior ministry has deployed hundreds of armoured military vehicles to secure the presidential palace, vital infrastructural buildings and Western embassies in the capital.
A security source confirmed to the BBC that Yemeni intelligence services had discovered that dozens of al-Qaeda members had arrived in Sanaa over the past few days in preparation for the implementation of a large plot. The source described the plot as dangerous and as including explosions and suicide attacks aimed at Western ambassadors and foreign embassies in Yemen, in addition to operations aimed at the Yemeni military headquarters.
A Yemeni military source said the interior ministry had prepared a plan, in co-ordination with the Yemeni intelligence organisations and the anti-terrorism forces, involving “a pre-emptive strike against certain cells suspected of having relations with al-Qaeda, with the aim of thwarting the attack plans”.
The source revealed the intensive co-ordination and exchange of information that exists between the Yemeni intelligence forces and those of the West and the Gulf nations, regarding threats from al-Qaeda.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23585923
Several drones kill 4 AQ as Yemen continues to be the source for the Embassy closures. It seems Snowden didn’t damage their intel and operational strikes.
Ben
There is a constant need to re-assure their separate constituencies that AlQaida and the USUKIS are separate, AlQaida can still murder gay ambassadors, and USUKIS has to close embassies because of AlQaida threats. Otherwise we would not believe them – would we children?
Was The Al-Qaeda Terror Threat Used To “Divert Attention” From NSA Uproar?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-05/was-al-qaeda-terror-threat-used-divert-attention-nsa-uproar
I would have thought the answer was an obvious Yes.
So one of two things will happen
There’ll be a massive bomb blast of some sort in Yemen, in which no Brits or Americans will be killed (they’ve more or less all been airlifted out anyway) in which case they can say, “Look what we saved you from!”
or, there’ll be nothing at all. In which case they’ll claim that the exposure and drone strikes prevented it. And there was a time I would have believed them. Now, I take it all with a very large packet of salt.
Meanwhile, didn’t the U.S. claim to have killed Ayman al-Zawahiri several times already?
And how was he communicating? Email? Phone? I’m quite sure he’s not daft, whatever else he is.
Hasbarista
‘…..assuming a bigger mantle than the caliphs of Islam who had captured Jerusalem’
The mantle is the same, to correct the faith, change ourselves, in order to gain victory. I find it difficult to understand how adopting the tactics of the non-Muslims, viz spying on citizens, creating hierarchies and violence on civilians, is going achieve that victory.
The entire political shenanigans and chicanery accumulated by the Caliphates and carpet-baggers under colonial rule has to be binned. It is completely infested with lying and trickery. Then you have to block up the holes where the rats have been getting in. I don’t care what political skills in the leadership of the Muslims have to be exposed and thrown out in order to get back to the core of Islam. There were plenty of un-Islamic scams and wheezes that had to be binned before Salahuddin and co. won back Jerusalem.
“… the implementation of a large plot.” (BBC News)
A large plot… Hmn. ‘Conspiracy theory’, anyone…? Gosh, the Beeb is turning into Prison Planet! Alex Jones must be the new Director General! Or perhaps it’s Stella Rimmington-Dame-Pauline-Neville-Jones-Eliza-Manningham-Buller-Captain-JOhn-Scarlett-woman-conjoined-with-Lord-Doodlipush-of-the-Grand-Old-Duke-of-York’s-Empire-at-the-top-of-the-hill.
Guano, at 6:22pm: Indeed. While we are airlifting out Brits from Yemen to protect them from Al Qaeda, we are sending in British Special Forces to work with Al Qaeda in Syria and Libya. They are the same shifting paramilitary forces, from Mali to Pakistan. We are in bed with them.
Newsflash! Al Qaeda has a new religious anthem! From being capable of intoning ‘Allah hu Akbar’ ad infinitum as they saw off human heads on youtube, they now have graduated to, ‘I am William Hague’s Butler (and I take it neat)’.
Mind you, there are wax cylinders laying around the Afghan orchards entitled, ‘I am Ronald Reagan’s Bitch’.
So, nothing new, then.
Sky News – coming up
‘How a phonecall from Al Qaeda caused global panic’
should be fascinating
So Sky News is reporting that what was intercepted was a phone call from Ayman al-Zawahiri to the head of AQ in Yemen. I can’t believe they think we’re stupid enough to believe that.
The teabaggers will believe it though. They not only think that Muslims are evil (without exception) but that AQ are the spawn of Satan and thick as a brick with it. Nevertheless, of course, they believe that AQ pulled off 9/11.
Al Qaeda, Dreolin, was a US creation. It never had the capability to engineer 9/11. Few countries did. The US has to be the main suspect.