Feile An Phobail Belfast 4110

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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.

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4,110 thoughts on “Feile An Phobail Belfast”

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  • Flaming June

    Australians again… They seem to be the flavour of the month with our pocket politicians.

    Ed Miliband can capitalise on Olympics patriotism, says Australian adviser
    The Labour party is in position to harness the national pride evoked by the Olympics games and use it against the Coalition and David Cameron, according to Ed Miliband’s new adviser.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/9486212/Ed-Miliband-can-capitalise-on-Olympics-patriotism-says-Australian-adviser.html

    ~~

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Soutphommasane

  • NR

    @ BrianFujisan 7 Aug, 2013 – 5:58 am
    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/07/08/fake-and-faker-assange-and-snowden/
    “just throwing this out there…. Who knows what the fuck is going on”

    Ain’t that the truth? Certainly neither Manning or Snowden leaked any great secrets, nor would the Guardian, NYT, or Washington Post publish anything truly damaging to Western interests. At best they revealed state embarrassments or made mainstream what was already suspected. There is something absurd about both their stories.

    Manning walked out with discs labeled Lady GaGa, and then the NSA/FBI is unable to find him, in spite of their vaunted electronic surveillance, and with him communicating in plain text on AOL IM. They had to drag in a mentally ill, homeless hacker and a near-homeless alleged volunteer InfoSec specialist to bust him.

    Snowden made off with his secrets, dragging them around the world on 4 laptops, stuffing pillows around his door to foil eavesdroppers and cloaking himself in a red hood when entering passwords. The veterans today piece makes a good point about Snowden’s communications with Wikileaks, Assange and Greenwald. What did Snowden do when he arrived in Russia, demand Putin provide him with secure lines to the Ecuadorean embassy?

    In all this, no one asks the question; if Manning and Snowden, two low-level operatives, so easily stole Uncle Sam’s precious secrets, what have real spies — Russians, Chinese, Israeli, Iranian, etc. — and surely there must be a few among the vast number of people with similar access, already siphoned off?

    In spite of the above, it’s worthwhile supporting Snowden, if for nothing more than the confusion and entertainment he’s caused. A member of the Russian parliament is allegedly setting up a web page [not yet working] to solicit donations for Snowden, who, he says, is running short of cash money.
    http://www.helpsnowden.ru

    No guarantee it’s legit, could be run by Russian hackers or, heaven forbid, by the NSA/CIA to entrap people into aiding and abetting a notorious traitor who is aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of perpetual war.

    Hark! Is that bagpipes I hear? Drawing nearer now. Oh, oh!

  • Flaming June

    The BBC plant a little seed about terrrrism in the reader’s mind at the end of their report on the Nairobi airport fire.

    ‘It also comes 15 years to the day after attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam in neighbouring Tanzania killed more than 224 people – though there has been no suggestion that terrorism played any role in this fire.’

    Nairobi airport closes as fire crews tackle blaze
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23598012#

    Note G4S operatives are employed. Truly global.

  • Someone

    “The UK government’s attempt at broadening Internet censorship does not end with the “opt-in” button on a customer’s broadband account. Web site owners and bloggers who attempt to avoid the government’s filter will be confronted with one of two options—self-censorship or being blocked. Anyone trying to get around the filter will likely be identified, recorded and subjected to extensive network surveillance and online traffic analysis, and face the possibility of an array of allegations.

    The government’s firewall is set to block access by default to web censorship circumventing tools, such as proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs). It is highly likely that restricted access to the Tor software bundle, which is free software enabling greater anonymity and connects to the heavily encrypted Tor Network, will also be contained within the censorship filter.”

    “Together with the information made available by Edward Snowden, Cameron’s latest move is a clear indication of the British state’s advanced preparations to implement dictatorial rule.”

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/07/cens-a07.html

  • Komodo

    Spaceghetto – site contains material I am prohibited from viewing from the UK, apparently. Macky, stop linking to pron, eh?

  • karel

    komodo

    but these bastards manage to hit you before you can get the stick out. The only remedy I can think of is to attach the good old pilum to one’s back to impale any fucker geting too close. Once the wooden rivet breaks they will not get very far and the pilum hanging from their yellow bellies will bring on them many memorable minutes of suffering.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)

    @ Karel

    “I vaguely recall that someone at this blog tried to draw a parallel between the Warsaw ghetto and Gaza, something you will probably find difficult to swallow. My rather insignificant view of the matter is that Warsaw Ghetto must have been a better place to be in as the inhabitants were neither bombed or singed with white phosporus, nor were they frequently woken up by overflying jets breaking the sound “barrier””
    _______________

    We can agree on the fact that your view is insignificant. I would go further and say that it is wrong.

    It would have been difficult for the inhabitants of the ghetto to be woken up by the sound of jets, given the years in question. On the other hand, quite a few of them didn’t wake up at all every morning, but I suppose that’s just a vulgar detail.

    Chump!

  • Flaming June

    ‘Eid Al-Fitr’

    With the approach of Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan and its fasting, I am reminded of the holidays and
    celebrations of my childhood in Palestine; of how eagerly we awaited the Eid, its festivities and rituals. The nights of Ramadan leading up to the Eid were spent at the mosque in prayer and reading from the Quran.

    Our small village of Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem was still without electricity and people carried lanterns to light their way in the darkness as they went first to the mosque and from there to visit friends and family: a special part of Ramadan. Beit Hanina had a drummer, charged with the pre-dawn task of awakening the village to sahoor, the light meal whose end marked the beginning of each day’s fast.

    /..
    http://www.hanini.org/Eid.html

    The author is one of the 4m Palestinians in the diaspora. He lives in the US. He is also the author of this beautiful heart- rending poem.

    http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/thinking-of-spring-in-palestine/

  • Dreoilin

    […]

    Is it incompetence? Is it bias? Is it oversight, an inability by BBC journalists to see Palestinians as the subject?

    The final example is given over to Tarik Kafala, BBC Online’s Middle East editor, who emailed this explanation to a reader who queried why the BBC will never definitively say that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law:

    “We … feel that to simply state that the settlements are illegal under international law is potentially misleading. An untutored reader might wonder why, if Israel is so flagrantly breaking the law, such a criminal state is still a member of the UN, a favored ally of the US, a major trading partner of the EU and so on.”

    There is the implication again that the BBC’s audiences aren’t all that smart — in this case, not smart enough to understand the reality of US and EU hypocrisy in their relationship with Israel. And again, a seeming admission by a senior BBC editor that the BBC’s journalists don’t have the necessary skills to inform and educate those audiences, and so will shield them instead from a truth that they can’t understand and the country’s supposed best journalists can’t explain.

    As a result of these journalistic failings, what we’re left with is misleading coverage, with vital information omitted and only one side of the story told. It may well be incompetence, as the BBC’s various editors seem to imply, but the end result, tragically for the Palestinians, is biased and unbalanced reporting which keeps the true horrors of the occupation off the airwaves and webpages of this huge global broadcaster.

    Full article

    Why does the BBC plead ignorance on Palestine?
    http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/why-does-bbc-plead-ignorance-palestine

  • Komodo

    Karel – I am designing a bicycle-proximity sensor attached to a distressingly loud directional siren and blinding light to discourage your assailants. And enrol in a Kendo class to hone your umbrella skills, too. The penalties for carrying blades over 3″ long in this country are such as to make your suggestion an impractical one. Though, true, you are less likely to be assaulted by a bicyclist in a police cell, it must be borne in mind that some policemen are themselves bicyclists. My invention will reduce any charges arising to antisocial behaviour, and minimise the risk of incarceration. Have courage, and have patience.

  • glenn_uk

    Komodo: Personally, I haven’t seen many cyclists riding two or more abreast. That would be most annoying, but a short, inoffensive sound on the horn should get them to clear out of the way. Never found myself unduly held up by them, and I don’t exactly hang about.

    Damned big of you to concede that there are good and bad cyclists, just as there are with all other forms of road user. But from your frequent diatribes on cyclists, one might conclude they are the only serious problem out there. Having said that, your comments on the bearded recumbent cyclists was quite amusing.

    My own racer bicycle will – generally speaking – easily outpace a learner scooter. It will definitely outpace horses on the road, which while slower and more obstructive, have not even had a mention.

    If you consider bicycles “primitive”, what would you suggest for a method of self-propulsion? Surely not legs – they are vastly more primitive still. You’ll find bicycles by the tens of thousands in many European cities, if they were each replaced by cars they would have the same screwed up, noisy, slow and polluted traffic system as we operate in the UK.

    *
    Anyway, understood that you don’t want to discuss your service, which is why I wanted to save you the bother by answering Phil myself.

  • Macky

    “site contains material I am prohibited from viewing from the UK, apparently. Macky, stop linking to pron, eh?”

    Komodo, it sounds like you are a bit miffed that you live in a nanny state; try using a proxy to view the “obscene” images that I posted.

  • Flaming June

    How disgusting.

    David Cameron entertains Bahrain’s dictator King Hamad al-Khalif
    Tuesday 06 August 2013

    On his first full day back from holiday, David Cameron held talks in Downing Street with King Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

    The meeting came a week ahead of planned rallies by pro-democracy campaigners protesting against the Gulf state’s ruling dynasty.

    Its tough tactics against demonstrators over the last two years have been condemned by human rights groups.

    /..
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-entertains-bahrains-dictator-king-hamad-alkhalif-8749082.html

  • karel

    Halibaba,
    I suppose you know exactly how many people do not wake up every morning in Gaza. Please tell us.

    I cannot decide whether you are a hasbara clown or a sabbath goy. If you happened to be the latter I may have some interesting errands for you to keep you from potential mischief. You will be surprised to learn that I am the descendant of the famous rabbi Rambambam as well as that of king David, which makes me a relative of the queen. Thus I would request somewhat more respect from lowly creatures like you. As a disciple of the only “true” religion I have occasional needs for a pliable goy to flush the john or turn on the washing machine. Where can I contact you?

  • Komodo

    Glenn, you may take it that if I don’t want to discuss my personal details, I am not going to feel obliged to anyone else for discussing them. But if you feel this is wrong, let me know your address, and I’ll put it all over the web.

    Most things can go faster than a 50 cc learner scooter. A 125 can do 60-70, since we’re picking nits. Both riders have done a CBT, (https://www.gov.uk/cbt-compulsory-basic-training/overview ) and are at least aware of other road users. Both will lose their licenses if they haven’t passed a full test in two years. Both are required to be insured and MOT’d, and to have paid road tax. Their entitlement to piss me off is beyond question. Similarly tractors and cropsprayers.

    Horses: a rarity, and their riders (having been one on occasion) are even more acutely aware of what is going on around them than the best drivers. They get out of the way if they can. I don’t grudge them the road despite the effect a horseturd can have on a motorcycle’s direction. And I don’t envy them having to use public roads. It can be a very scary experience. I will happily stop and switch off the engine if a horse looks nervous, until we are out of each others’ way. As I hope you would. And a horse rider is both willing and able to look round without wobbling across you or falling off: hard to fit a mirror to a horse, anyway. Still, if you feel badly about horses, let’s lobby together for horse lanes and the right of horses to shoot red lights.

    Primitive…well, I do use my legs a lot. I tend to start earlier if I’m in a hurry, and if I’m in a real hurry, it would be the m/c. But I think the bicycling public is being sold a whole load of technocrap it doesn’t need (ditto m/c’s and ditto cars) on the usual lines of flash, bling and gofaster stuff to impress your peer group with. There seems to be little point on something which, by and large, can’t quite manage 30mph for any distance in a 30 zone, but hey, that’s me. I managed for years (again in my youth) on something nondescript in black enamel with a fixed wheel. Primitive function, primitive form…

  • Komodo

    Macky:
    Fire up your sense of humour, will you? And re your suggestion, can’t be arsed.

  • doug scorgie

    Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
    6 Aug, 2013 – 10:45 pm
    @ Mr Scorgie

    “You have been quite active today but haven’t yet managed to provide, as requested, references and quotations to back your assertion that Jemand has racist attitudes to Aboriginal Australians.”

    Habbabkuk you get everything mixed-up don’t you.

    I didn’t “assert” anything I merely asked Jemand a question; he could have answered but he didn’t.

    Now politely piss-off.

  • Passerby

    Macky said:

    Komodo, it sounds like you are a bit miffed that you live in a nanny state; try using a proxy to view the “obscene” images that I posted.

    Out of curiosity what kind of an image is this image which is getting blocked?

    It seems these ruling fuckwits at long last have sunk their teeth into the last remaining unslave realm and are progressively penning us all into the cyber coral that has only one portal; the hosepipe of shit emanating from beeb et al.

    I am foaming at this unwelcome development, how dare these fuckwits?

  • Komodo

    Dreoilin – good catch on Palestine and the BBC. I have never seen a clearer statement of intentional complicity than:
    “We … feel that to simply state that the settlements are illegal under international law is potentially misleading. An untutored reader might wonder why, if Israel is so flagrantly breaking the law, such a criminal state is still a member of the UN, a favored ally of the US, a major trading partner of the EU and so on.”

    I wonder if the necessary tutoring can be found on the OU? And if it might cure our fantasy that doubling the rate of population of the settlements over the Israeli national population trend doesn’t indicate a sincere desire for a contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank?

    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/20138694140823658.html

    Who knows, the same tutor (Mark Regev?) might even be able to convince me that George Osborne has my interests at heart. Flying pigs not withstanding.

  • mark golding

    Web sites initially implicated in the 2013 ConDem web filtering system.

    ‘Cameron’s latest move is a clear indication of the British state’s advanced preparations to implement dictatorial rule. The working class must recognise the grave dangers that lie ahead. Rather than relying on VPNs and proxies, what is required above all else is the building of a mass revolutionary party armed with a socialist political perspective.’

    thetruthseeker.co.uk
    warez-bb.org/
    2600.com
    movie-censorship.com
    phrack.org
    newzbin.com
    newzbin2.es
    peb.pl
    ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=about
    kinecthacks.net
    blackdtools.com/
    hidemyass.com/
    hideme.ru/
    torproject.org
    itshidden.com/
    google.com/talk/
    openrightsgroup.org
    eqi.org/eabuse1.htm
    torrentfreak.com
    yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php
    bn.org.uk/index.php
    laquadrature.net/en
    uk.yahoo.com
    christwire.org/2012/02/is-tumblr-stealing-the-souls-of-your-children
    twitpic.com
    exquisitetweets.com
    archive.org/web/web.php
    tweetmore.net/
    domainwhoisinfo.com
    dogbomb.co.uk
    texemarrs.com
    shadyoldlady.com
    biased-bbc.blogspot.com/
    stmgrts.org.uk
    ehow.com
    publicknowledge.org/
    thegreenwichphantom.co.uk
    politicalscrapbook.net
    smartest.libsyn.com
    erowid.org/

  • Komodo

    Macky, I think you need to know that it is your specific picture (/97118.png) that is blocked for viewing in the UK. Others in the spaceghetto.com/images index are accessible. You might want to ask yourself why.

    Source, please, Mark. I’m baffled as to why anyone would want to shut down Ubuntuforum….

  • AlcAnon

    Both linked spaceghetto images display fine for me with Virginmedia in the UK.

    The first image is a whistle blower cartoon. The second is an actual image that says “prohibited from the UK” but that’s what the text in the image says. It is not an error message. The second image appears to be based on an actual image used in Pakistan but someone has changed Pakistan to UK. Or at least that’s what Google Image search suggests.

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