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.
The sun is shining on my belly
its turned to jelly
Habby desperate to get the top post on page 7, what a treat to watch, hasbarra rule 171a, ‘try and get a DOMINANT POSITION’.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
9 Aug, 2013 – 9:51 pm
“I shall continue to bring selected items of good news to your notice whilst continuing to hope that you won’t choke when reading!”
Habbabkuk, people who obsessively focus on good news are either in denial of the real world or wish to distract others from seeing it as it is.
Human suffering is hidden from view behind rose tinted glasses.
John Goss
Virgin Broadband. Try cancelling your contract. They will crawl back to you with a reduction of price of 25% in order to be able to continue buggering you. Now that it’s official that the noun bugger and the verb to bugger refer to spying, not – activities off-limit to polite, politically-correct conversation – we can say that Virgin is a company in the old sense of privateer, a private vessel commissioned and licenced by the state to attack and plunder the state’s enemies. Us.
Havasack got week-end overtime so he must show productivity. He’s cutting into his handlers bottom-line profit based patriotism.
@Suhayl. I know you will appreciate this, although its too far to come, but by chance you might be around.
UEA is holding a seven week literary festival with many authors, I believe two each week providing readings and lectures, during October’s Arthur Miller literary festival.
For all those who can’t leave their shed for obvious reasons, tough!
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/author_alumni_to_speak_at_uea_literary_festival_1_2328974
While I’m here Habbabkuk it is plain, to even the most casual observer, that you support Israel right or wrong.
However you never put your arguments forward; you only attack posters that criticize the country.
A straight question to you:
What do you see as the best chance for peace between the state of Israel and a proposed state of Palestine?
The stage is yours.
We are all waiting.
Thanks ll for your helpful suggestions as an alternative to Virgin Media. Suhayl, if I had really concrete evidence I would go public.
Alcanon, as you say it could be cock-up. My guess is they would not want you to know, so you could be right.
“Today the President of the United States validated Edward Snowden’s role as a whistleblower by announcing plans to reform America’s global surveillance program. But rather than thank Edward Snowden, the President laughably attempted to criticize him while claiming that there was a plan all along, “before Edward Snowden.” The simple fact is that without Snowden’s disclosures, no one would know about the programs and no reforms could take place. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently once stated, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Luckily for the citizens of the world, Edward Snowden is one of those “people of good conscience” who did not “remain silent”, just as Pfc Bradley Manning and Daniel Ellsberg refused to remain silent.”
http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/statement-from-julian-assange-in-response-to-president-obamas-plans-to-reform-americas-global-surveillance-program/
“people who obsessively focus on good news are either in denial of the real world or wish to distract others from seeing it as it is”
____________________
Which, Mr Scorgie, is exactly what might also be said about the people – eg, the Luminaries and Excellences of this blog – who focus obsessively on bad news.
“Havasack got week-end overtime so he must show productivity. He’s cutting into his handlers bottom-line profit based patriotism.”
_______________-
For an ageing hippy you seem strangely fascinated by bottom-lines.
How many smokes have you had today?
@ Mr Scorgie
“While I’m here Habbabkuk it is plain, to even the most casual observer, that you support Israel right or wrong.”
______________
Evidence in the form of quotations, please, Mr Scorgie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“What do you see as the best chance for peace between the state of Israel and a proposed state of Palestine?”
______________
Don’t try to be cute, Mr Scorgie. Unlike you and your fellow Luminaries and Excellences, I am not so pretentious as to believe that I have the solution to all the world’s problems.
Here, for Russia-lovers, is an extract from an article on Russian anti-gay discrimination in “The Times” of London (Friday, 9 August):
“Alexander Mikhailov, an MP from Siberia, recently called for a law ‘that would give paratroopers the right to grab gays on the street and drag them to the city square, where Cossacks would whip them.'”
I do hope, for his sake, that Mr Snowden isn’t gay.
Where is Sofia when she’s needed?
Where is Craig?
Where |IS Werritty?
The carpet-bagger havasack declines to provide fodder for the demise of his handler’s ideology.
I think the Bosses would rather you have some convictions. It provides passion to the antiquarian viewpoint and nostalgia for back in the Day.
Oh no! I am still so sad that people will not actually look at the human evidence of stories, but continue in Manichean fashion to divide. Alas.
Perhaps we could all join in a song?
Thanks for putting up Craig’s speech Jon. It was excellent and was well received by a large audience.
However many times I hear him talk about the rendition and torture in Uzbekistan(in which we collaborated with the US) I am always shocked. He said that there were 122 CIA rendition flights to Uzbekistan and that he believed that all of those rendered and tortured were killed. Terrible. He said that he could not be proud of this country.
He also spoke of the ‘dodgy dossier’ and how everyone on the inside knew it was fiction based on false intelligence. I did not know that his work in the FCO prior to becoming an Ambassador had been as head of the unit that monitored Iraqi weapons.
Recommend watching. http://vimeo.com/69392412
Tech; Did you mean for havasack to join in. I think his preference……….
http://www.songandpraise.org/rule-brittania-lyrics.htm
IMO Habbakuk provides invaluable contrarian perspective here, with impressive logical rigor. In fact, when trying to be even-handed, I sometimes put the question to myself, ‘How would a fellow like Habbakuk approach this?’
Only the other day, I was wondering just that. So if M. Habbakuk would put on his thinking cap for the following hypothetical case, I for one would be much obliged.
If the UNSC referred charges against Mister Netanyahu persuant to
Rome Statute Article 13(b) for crimes in its jurisdiction including but not limited to Article 7.1(b/d/j/k) and 8.2(b para. xvii), and you were defense counsel,
– Would you object to the charges? If so, how?
– If you judged that an unsworn statement of defense was indicated, what would you have it state?
Thanks in advance!
“Thanks in advance!”
Well played. Whomever you are.
http://gtmoclock.com/
Dre; You’re not holding your breath, are you?
No, I’m not Ben.
[But I think it’s a good initiative all the same.]
Dre; I agree that collective action has value. As to Obama; his sense of History and his own Party must prevail. His legacy seems extremely important to him. Case in point; framing the narrative around domestic spying.
So far he’s only grudgingly and indirectly giving Snowden his due regarding his recent speech.
In fact he took credit for it in a weird way. My skepticism wrt Obama and his coldness, I mean it’s scary, almost like Manchurian Candidate, should in no way be meant to discourage any legal appeal because in the final analysis, numbers matter. I remember, although it’s decades old, that politicians used to regard a letter as the equivalent of 20 phone calls. They, although less so in recent years, are very conscious of the health of their political party, and even a lame-duck like Obama wants to retain democrat control of the Senate, and hopefully take control of the House.
It’s a numbers game.
As usual it Misses the Points completely
Firstly
Of course, Germany didn’t go from depressed nation to genocidal superpower overnight. Boundaries were crossed one by one until they culminated in the near total destruction of Europe and horrible crescendo now known as the holocaust.
Brandon Toy,
i wonder if it Read that part
it’s F all to do with readiness for an emergency, A DOCUMENT SITS GATHERING dust for 20 years till they Mastermind the Emergency themselves
Boundaries are being crossed one at a time at a fast pace in the u.s.a
Secondly
Brandon Toy was already of a higher Being before he even got to Iraq. in his own words
“I arrived in Baghdad believing that Iraqis were simple people in need of having civilization thrust upon them, and that we were the enlightened civil ones who would show them the right way to live. To me, they were less than human”.
I wonder if it read that bit
But well Done to the Guy for Becoming HUMAN again
It seems to have a Problem That some of us Fight Against All The Myriad Ways that they use to try to dehumanize us, the Horror is that it seems to be working, Since the Evil B’s own the MSM, AND If my own large circle of friends are anything to go by…Sigh
As Mackie would Say I hope it gets the Sack
Why Syria is a Smokescreen for WWIII
Still admissible, still superb and a window on young American American sapience – Bravo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFvzWvqfrOU
Tweedle-Dum
“Nobody is more offended than me by some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia,” he said, rejecting the idea of an Olympic boycott on Friday in a White House news conference.”
Tweedle-Dee
“British Prime Minister David Cameron ruled out a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, saying Saturday that attending the games is a better way of tackling prejudice against gays.”
Through my looking glass…
The Witch Is Dead contd.
As the link says. By Nicholas Jones who was once with the BBC but got out.
http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/more/item/5523-cabinet-records-reveal-how-news-media-was-misled-over-power-cut-threat-in-the-miners-strike
@ Mr Golding :
Now you’ve got in your little dig against Obama and Cameron, anything to say about ant-gay discrimination in Russia?
Biotech ambassadors in Africa
06 August 2013 13:33
Jonathan Matthews of GMWatch lifts the lid on the US-and-industry-backed lobbyists driving the latest wave of corporate colonialism in Africa.
Back in May 2013, a controversial PR operative headed for Africa. He even tweeted a picture of the hotel where he was staying in Dar es Salaam.
Credited with running some of Monsanto’s most dubious PR operations, Jay Byrne was in Tanzania to attend a regional planning meeting of the Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa (OFAB). The OFAB is a collaboration between two of the key lobby groups promoting GM in Africa – the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).
And the AATF featured in another of Byrne’s tweets from Africa:
/..
http://spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/science/item/5522-biotech-ambassadors-in-africa