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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  • Dreoilin

    “that was Dvorak the reporter I was referring to, Dre.”

    Yes, I know Ben, I meant to come back on it, but I only remembered when I saw that interview Hastings’ wife did with Morgan. She seemed pretty cheerful during the interview, and I saw some comments saying she’s done a 180 turnaround in saying it was just an accident.

    “What was Michael doing at 4 am that required 100 mph through city streets?”

    Good question.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    Dre; Also, it’s been 2 months. How long does it take to get a toxicology report? I realize the condition of the body was not ideal, but it normally takes a matter of a few weeks.

  • Dreoilin

    I imagine they have that Ben, but nobody’s talking. And his wife did say that the LAPD is still conducting an “active investigation” into the crash. That’s a good excuse for not talking about it. And that Dvorak woman seems to be saying that she’s being stonewalled?

    If he were my son I’d be very suspicious about his death. But whether I could do anything (other than make noise about it) I don’t know.

    Got to ZZZZzzzz

  • Flaming June

    The courage of Bradley Manning will inspire others to seize their moment of truth

    8 August 2013

    The critical moment in the political trial of the century was on 28 February when Bradley Manning stood and explained why he had risked his life to leak tens of thousands of official files. It was a statement of morality, conscience and truth: the very qualities that distinguish human beings. This was not deemed mainstream news in America; and were it not for Alexa O’Brien, an independent freelance journalist, Manning’s voice would have been silenced. Working through the night, she transcribed and released his every word. It is a rare, revealing document.

    Describing the attack by an Apache helicopter crew who filmed civilians as they murdered and wounded them in Baghdad in 2007, Manning said: “The most alarming aspect of the video to me was the seemingly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They seemed not to value human life by referring to them as ‘dead bastards’ and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety [who] is seriously wounded… For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass.” He hoped “the public would be as alarmed as me” about a crime which, as his subsequent leaks revealed, was not an aberration.

    [..]

    While Manning faces life in prison, Gibney is said to be planning a Hollywood movie. A “biopic” of Assange is on the way, along with a Hollywood version of David Leigh’s and Luke Harding’s book of scuttlebutt on the “fall” of WikiLeaks. Profiting from the boldness, cleverness and suffering of those who refuse to be co-opted and tamed, they all will end up in history’s waste bin. For the inspiration of future truth-tellers belongs to Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the remarkable young people of WikiLeaks, whose achievements are unparalleled. Snowden’s rescue is largely a WikiLeaks triumph: a thriller too good for Hollywood because its heroes are real.

    http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-courage-of-bradley-manning-will-inspire-others-to-seize-their-moment-of-truth

  • Flaming June

    Further to my earlier post of John Newsinger’s piece on the amassing of wealth by David Miliband we now have Miliband writing in the NS about the aftermath of the crash and why people did not turn to the ‘centre left’. btw what and where is the ‘centre left’? Did we ever have one?

    I think the critical words are in the title, in bold.

    David Miliband: The decade of disorder
    As he prepares to leave for his new life in America, the former foreign secretary explains why the financial crisis has not created an upsurge of support for the centre left – and why defensive opposition is not enough.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2013/08/david-miliband-decade-disorder

  • Flaming June

    Villager found it necessary to drip some poison about me in his comment last night, describing me as ‘bitter’.

    I am not in the least bitter but clear seeing and questioning and also able to see through his phoniness. I am getting fed up with the Krishnamurti stuff and the links but don’t know how others feel.

    Incidentally he was not subjected to a long unwarranted campaign of insults and attack as I was on this blog for several months. He knows the name of the perpetrator of course who has lately been whitewashing the persecution of the people of Gaza by the Israelis.

  • Komodo

    Glenn…

    Komodo: This has become unnecessarily tedious..

    Glad you think so. Pity you are prolonging the tedium.

  • Komodo

    But…
    1/ Mr Moped Monkey can at any rate be held to account for riding like a pissant.
    2/ 60 MPG – I wish. And I pay fuel duty on that. Mr Ballsout Pushbiker and his mate Lycra Twatt, riding abreast with a queue of traffic not quite achieving its urban-cycle consumption behind them, doesn’t.
    3/ Horses – you brought the subject up, not me.
    4/ Cycle lanes, yes. And fucking use them when they do exist, please.

  • nevermind

    oo many fatalities on two wheels, bicycle or motorbike. This incessant hissing noise against cyclists who dare their life’s on a daily basis here in Norfolk, trying to get to work awake without falling out of the car after a heavy night, is paltry.

    Cycle lanes? Yes, but that would preclude that planners know what they are doing and councillors had anything else in their brains than the daily commute by car or the latest Beemer.

    In Norfolk they run a P+R service, subsidised by all, including the 30% of us who do not drive, straight into Norwich City centre, without stopping on one or two stops to pick up some of the car-less plebs who enable the toads to get into the City, a direct subsidy to car drivers.

    For years you bang on about it, you hear that the council is ‘considering it’ but instead they now introduced a ‘bank/oyster card’ that further subsidises those choosing one, whilst one of cash payers will pay substantially more for the trip.

    Barmy and unfair! That is the sort of attitude stories are made from. That far more people cycle should be encouraged and made safer. Whoever thinks the Dutch are doing something wrong with regards to their traffic priorities, need their head examined.

  • Komodo

    My main bitch is with cyclists who put themselves and other road users at risk, or avoidable inconvenience, Nevermind. Those, too (see Karel above) collide with pedestrians while doing their iron man act on the pavements. And I think that if expensive works are contemplated to make life yet more miserable for motorists, the beneficiaries might be induced to put their hands in their pockets. Sorry. Lycra skinsuits probably don’t have pockets, cancel that.

    Here’s a cyclist. Looks pretty hard to me, doesn’t have accidents. Maybe a pushbiker will deign to listen to him, who knows? Situational awareness. Mirrors . Spot on, mate, they save motorcyclists’ lives, they could save yours. Without being declared a protected species. Read and digest. He’s American. Read ‘right’ for ‘left’ and ‘pavement’ for ‘sidewalk’ throughout.

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/2012/06/19/most-important-safety-device-for-bicyclists/

  • Komodo

    From your link, Dre..

    In a May 18, 2012, article on propaganda efforts by the State Department, Hastings referred to a “program being developed by the Pentagon [that] would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets.” The HBGary emails are littered with references to this type of “persona management” technology.

    Principal among these was a June 2010 United States Air Force (USAF) contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. It sought providers of “persona management software” that would allow 50 users to control up to 500 fictional personae.

    These sock puppets were required to be “replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally, and geographically consistent.” In other words, avatars so convincing they could fool the people with whom they were interacting into believing they were real.

    MacDill Air Force Base is home to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the section of the military that oversees and coordinates all special-forces activity globally. USSOCOM lists under its “core activities” the employment of psychological operations (PSYOPS) and information operations (IO)—exactly the type of activity this “sockpuppeting” technology would be employed in.

    To put it another way: a clone army for future psywars.

    I foresee a day when nothing is happening on Facebook but Eurasia’s military sockpuppets trolling Oceania’s. Should be fun.

  • Dreoilin

    “I foresee a day when nothing is happening on Facebook but Eurasia’s military sockpuppets trolling Oceania’s. Should be fun.”

    Yep. “software that would allow 50 users to control up to 500 fictional personae.”

    Who knows, maybe a few of them are here? 😉

  • karel

    komodo,

    mirrors for cyclist? Yes. But what about the long-suffering pedestrian? I can conceive a contraption with a mirror on each side that anyone can easily attach to his head to watch for fast-aproaching cyclists with a murderous grin. On a second thought, it may not be such a good idea as watching the world behind you may cause one to neglect what is in front and increase the chance of colliding with lamposts. Swishing a white stick may reduce the chance of such unpleasant encounters but then one would unwittingly enter the virtual world of Monty python. Í am stil convinced that pilum is much better. One can file the tip down to about two inches to make it legal and socially acceptable.

  • Dreoilin

    Here’s a nasty

    Former NSA chief warns of cyber-terror attacks if Snowden apprehended

    Michael Hayden, who also headed the CIA, speculates on global hacker response if Edward Snowden brought back to US

    http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/06/nsa-director-cyber-terrorism-snowden

    “If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?” said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to “nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven’t talked to the opposite sex in five or six years”.

    “They may want to come after the US government, but frankly, you know, the dot-mil stuff is about the hardest target in the United States,” Hayden said, using a shorthand for US military networks. “So if they can’t create great harm to dot-mil, who are they going after? Who for them are the World Trade Centers? The World Trade Centers, as they were for al-Qaida.”

  • karel

    fedup
    that one can be linked to anyone else and any crime ever committed (if tortured, I would readily admit that I polished cartridges for Lee Harvey Oswald) by the so called media is no news to me. But spare the little Danes. They are just vassals of bigger states and were even ruled once by someone called Svend Estridsen, born in England, whose appearance hardly differed from the typical Macaca Mulatta male. Hence, Darwin was right in assuming that we must have all (except for some bishops perhaps) evolved from monkeys. Whether Darwin was familiar with the portrait of that noble king I cannot tell but we can still notice many such living fossils walking around. Only a month ago I saw a man in Lyon with a distinct australopitecine crest going right through his scull. The appearance of a friend of mine brings to mind the drawings of the Neanderthal man but I like him nevertheless.

  • Dreoilin

    A Fukushima fisherman’s tale

    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/a-fukushima-fishermans-tale-radioactive-water-from-the-daiichi-plant-is-flowing-into-the-ocean-at-a-rate-of-300-tons-a-day-8750780.html

    “A survey released [today] by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said water laced with caesium and other radioactive materials is flowing into the ocean at a rate of 300 tons a day. The ministry, which oversees the nuclear industry, said it could not rule out the possibility that the water has been leaking into the Pacific since the crisis began more than two years ago.

    “Critics have accused the NRA of allowing Tepco off the hook. After months of denials, the embattled utility was finally forced to admit the groundwater leaks last week. Many suspect the admission was conveniently delayed until Japan’s pro-nuclear Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, had solidified his power in the recent general election. Anti-nuclear voices in the media were muted during the election campaign and on occasion silenced completely: a YouTube video showing Mr Abe’s security confiscating an anti-nuclear sign during a speech in Fukushima has gone viral – but never been seen on TV.”

    Full article at the link

  • Komodo

    Wonder how many people will suffer radiation-induced illnesses and/or miserable deaths to ensure Abe’s election? Politicans, ya gotta luv ’em. Power, and never mind the people.

  • Hasbarista

    I have just seen a video (translated) of the recent Assad speech, really I must admit the man is a HUNDRED TIMES bigger than some of our politicians like Hague with the tell tale gay throaty rasp resulting from perhaps a “jinn” residing in the throat centre!!!

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