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.
“you have earned my respect with that comment – and by daring to post it.”
yeah, Suhayl, six debaggings before Christmas…duh. Still, it occurs to me to wonder just how sane politics can be in a virtual prison?
Habbabkuk, my post of 8:19pm crossed with yours of 8:16pm. My 8:19pm post was an afterthought to my own previous post, not a response to your post of 8:16pm (if that’s not utterly confusing!).
What happened in Arab countries (let’s assume we all know the history of colonialism and so on) was that autocratio/totalitarian regimes (whether monarchies of republics) run basically by the army, suppressed all civil societal movements especially of the Left. Indeed, all Arab regimes – in spite of persecuting Islamists when they tried to acquire more power – actually allied with Islamists and regressive clerical authorities in order to help them crush the Left. This applies to King Hussein or Jordan, Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and King Hassan or Morocco and everyhting in between. The Saudi regime also has a mutually beneficial relationship with Islamist forces which entails them promoting the Islamists as an ‘export model’.
Now, because the only focus for political acivity was the mosque (everything else having been obliterated), and of course with the petrodollars from Suadi Arabia/UAE, guess what? The Islamists rise up as the only serious oppositional political and military formation to military authoritarianism. The same thing happened in Palestine wrt the PLO and Hamas.
It will take quite a lot of turmoil before a more stable political culture emerges. But chnage is afoot – what we see now if an inevitable consequence of the old order crumbling. If ( and I say here, ‘if’) the Islamists exert an equally authoritarian system of governance, backed by the Mukhabarat (secret police/intelligence services) and the military, I’m afraid progress – economic or political – will be stymied. Their track record does not fill one with hope.
ps please cut ‘virtual’, and most prisons don’t white phosphorous the inmates, or semi-starve them, or bomb them, or hold their children hostage or perform armed incursions, or –
Habby
In what way do these “facts” of Suhayl’s mitigate against the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, such that other posters should refrain from calling Israel nasty names.
Eh?
And yes it’s certainly true that you shouldn’t expect much democracy in Gaza and the West Bank. It would make it too easy for Israel to control outcomes. They have a large degree of control as it is.
As far as democracy is concerned, Israel had to make itself attractive to immigrants. At one time it was almost a socialist paradise. Still is quite socialisty, for some.
And all those Arab dictators. Well yeah. Whose are they.
I really do think it would be contrary to Israeli interests were all the Arab countries to turn all democratic all of a sudden. That’s mostly why they don’t.
Villager
11 Aug, 2013 – 10:33 pm
“Craig, please make Palestine the subject of your next post so that you can contribute to the well being of, and assuage, all these sympathisers, powerless and frustrated as they are looking for others to join in their cacophony in order to assure them that one is on the ‘right’ side of their futile, meaningless ‘campaign’. I have never seen such a bunch of self-righteous people, banging on their keyboards, clueless of how they might actually make a meaningful impact.”
Villager, I think we all know Craig’s stance on Israel/Palestine.
Please set forth your own views and put those self-righteous bastards in their place.
The stage is yours.
Suhayl Saadi
12 Aug, 2013 – 8:04 pm
“… fellow lie-hater and silliness-exposer…” Habbabkuk.
Ah, the Men in Black are back! Or is it, ‘Monsters Inc’?
——-
Suhayl, you’ve exposed one or two Sillinesses yourself, thank you. Your comment reminds me of Johnny Cash and the Man in Black….appropriate too to Technicolour’s observations about the Palestinian prison, so with your permission lets spin this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRmJyIyJbM
But then Suhayl why not Women in Black too? So here’s Kris (no, no no, not Murti, Kristofferson!) with Norah Jones, Ravi Shankar’s daughter singing a beautiful love song…just trying to wash away all the bad blood spilt here today. Though on Dreoilin’s observation re page 8, i say the only good thing about a long thread is that it provides a long enough rope to those intent on hanging themselves to go ahead and do so. Personally, i prefer psychological death! So there we are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwFcmPwYyr4
And finally a gem i discovered while ferreting out these clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pALSKcWcVEk
Life is beautiful and Sacred!
——-
Apologies to disrupt the serious conversation running here — a good one too.
@ Herbie
“In what way do these “facts” of Suhayl’s mitigate against the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, such that other posters should refrain from calling Israel nasty names.
Eh?”
________________
Herbie, Herbie – I apologise for using this metaphor for a second time, but you do really remind me of a broken-down prize fighter, an old, punch-drunk pug wearily struggling up from the canvas only to receive another hay-maker as his reward…
Anyway, why the inverted commas around the word facts? Are you suggesting that Suhayl’s comments are wrong?
Eh?
@ Mr Scorgie
“The stage is yours”
________________
The second or third time you’ve used that line.
On the basis that people’s choice of expressions is influenced to some extent (and usually unconsciously) by their line of work, may I ask you if you’re a Thespian?
Or perhaps just an amateur actor (“all Craig’s blog’s a stage” and so on…)
Wonderful image, habby.
Could you answer the question?
Thanks.
Flaming.June @ 6;29
Here’s some more on Obama’s Flawed Understanding of presidential influence of prosecutions.
America’s neo-conservative war hawks in Congress, including Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and Democratic Representative Eliot Engel of New York, used the summit cancellation to push for renewed development on the U.S. missile “defense” shield that Obama put on the back burner after his re-election. War hawks are now demanding that Obama ignore Russian anxieties over the U.S. ballistic missile shield and begin deployment along Russia’s western borders.
Obama claimed Snowden could argue his case in a U.S. court. But Obama declared Snowden’s fellow whistleblower, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, guilty even before the trial of the soldier who was charged with and found guilty of disclosing a quarter million mostly classified State Department documents to WikiLeaks. OBAMA CLAIMS TO HAVE TAUGHT CONSTITUTIONAL LAW at the University of Chicago, however, his command influence in the Manning case and executive branch animosity toward Snowden are indications that Mr. Obama has very little knowledge of the U.S. Constitution when it comes to presidential influence of prosecutions.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-russia-policy-after-canceling-moscow-summit/5345621
“as a good Catholic boy or girl, I hereby …”
Don’t be ridiculous, Habbakook, please.
I’m not a Catholic – and my avatar is female.
Much indignation expressed on here from time to time about certain Israeli politician defining Israel as Jewish state or asking for it to be so defined.
Official name of Iran : The Islamic Republic of Iran.
“Villager
12 Aug, 2013 – 9:20 pm”
Villager, I am a little worried – that was such a mish mash. Please tell me you are ok in yourself and do not mean that post as an addition to the board?
“however, his command influence in the Manning case and executive branch animosity toward Snowden are indications that Mr. Obama has very little knowledge of the U.S. Constitution when it comes to presidential influence of prosecutions.”
It’s not a matter of lack of knowledge, it’s that he doesn’t give a damn.
Official name of Pakistan : The Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama’s Presidency
QUESTION: I wanted to ask you about your evolution on the surveillance issues. I mean, part of what you’re talking about today is restoring the public trust. And the public has seen you evolve from when you were in the U.S. Senate to now. And even as recently as June, you said that these — the process was such that people should be comfortable with it. And now you’re saying — you’re making these reforms and people should be comfortable with those. So why should the public trust you on this issue and why did you change your position multiple times?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think it’s important to say, Carol, first of all, I haven’t evolved in my assessment of the actual programs. I consistently have said that when I came into office I evaluated them. Some of these programs I had been critical of when I was in the Senate.
This is jaw-dropping.
Examining this “evolution. “As a U.S. senator, Obama “co-sponsored a 2007 bill, introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) that would have required the government to demonstrate, with ‘specific and articulable facts,’ that it wanted records related to ‘a suspected agent of a foreign power’ or the records of people with one degree of separation from a suspect,” Karen Brandeisky notes at Pacific Standard.”
In addition:
“In February 2008, Obama co-sponsored an amendment… which would have further limited the ability of the government to collect any communications to or from people residing in the U.S. The measure would have also required government analysts to segregate all incidentally collected American communications. If analysts wanted to access those communications, they would have needed to apply for individualized surveillance court approval. The amendment failed 35-63. Obama later reversed his position and supported what became the law now known to authorize the Prism program.”
There’s more:
“Feingold’s 2008 amendment, which Obama supported, would have also required the Defense Department and Justice Department to complete a joint audit of all incidentally collected American communications and provide the report to congressional intelligence committees. The amendment failed 35-63. The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community told Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) last year that it would be unfeasible to estimate how many American communications have been incidentally collected, and doing so would violate Americans’ privacy rights.”
And also:
“Obama co-sponsored a 2007 measure that would have required the government to tell defendants before it used any evidence collected under the controversial section of the Patriot Act.”
And then there’s the fact that:
“As a senator, Obama wanted the attorney general to submit a public report giving aggregate data about how many people had been targeted for searches … Despite requests from Microsoft and Google, the Justice Department has not yet given companies approval to disclose aggregate data about surveillance directives.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-surveillance-speech-a-low-point-in-barack-obamas-presidency/278565/
Oh, Habbakuk, you are funny.
Komodo
12 Aug, 2013 – 11:15 am
“Someone’s going to shoot Abbas, and it won’t be the Israelis.”
I think that is a real possibility Komodo.
@ Dreoilin
““as a good Catholic boy or girl, I hereby …”
Don’t be ridiculous, Habbakook, please.”
_________________
Did you read that properly – that was meant to be me, not you.
PS “Habbakook” – a bit Mary, Herbie, Mr Scorgie-like, surely?
I read an article recently, pointing to where Obama said that his first duty was to protect the American people.
But apparently his first duty as president is to uphold the constitution.
Interesting reversal, but funny he’s never pulled on it.
Perhaps they thinks it’s withold. Children often make mistakes like that.
@ Technicolour
Merci, Céléstine, gros bisou!
Suhayl, various ones of yours 8pm onwards , very well enunciated. With historical perspective and motives clearly laid-out,(i’m sure refined without a single malt). Thank you for taking the wind out of the sails of those who’ve been punching up for a fight all day long. Wasted opportunity of meditation hours al fresco in such perfect weather, or other activity productive to Society or its betterment.
From an egregious post at 08h43 this morning, this :
“Sufficient that he { ie, Craig } is alive and well and has not succumbed to one of those extrajudicial killings that our masters are so proficient in arranging.”
_________________
Wow, that sounds serious! If I were Craig, I’d do a Snowden, and sharpish, before MI6/the CIA/Mossad get to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seriously though, this sort of stuff is loony even by the fairly high standard set by it author. Better to stick to the usual cutting and pasting!
Anyway.
Thanks to habby and villager’s exhortations that there be much more discussion of Israeli crimes against humanity, I offer this interesting insight from Jonathan Cook in Nazareth.
“There’s invariably a refreshing honesty to the views of the Israeli right, precisely because they have such little insight into the implications of what they say. There’s none of that clever dissembling and dishonesty you get with a Shimon Peres, for example.
The mayor of Upper Nazareth, Shimon Gapso, is a good example of the honest Israeli racist.”
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2013-08-08/refreshing-honesty-from-israeli-right/
“Seriously though, this sort of stuff is loony” – on which note, I think it’s in your own interests, Habbakuk, to stop the elephant stuff (I looked ‘Barbar’ up)
On other loony stuff, have just overheard that Tesco is a good employer because they ‘take up’ young people – irony is, of course, dead.
TC, i mean about people exposing themselves as to who they actually are (in their ignorance not of knowledge, but of wisdom) without any sense of self-awareness. All that forensic analysis about K’s foundation, directors in France and goodness knows what. I saw a lot of venom. Of course i don’t feel it. Just saying its better to die psychologically and be free — objectivity may happen-chance with it. Then we can all look at the issues and solve them with one voice, one mind, one love. Judgments are conclusions while life is a living thing, a process, right? Observationa nd awareness trumps conclusion.
Are we understanding each other?
Hasbarista
12 Aug, 2013 – 1:36 pm
“Can somebody please tell this stupid jewboy Villager hiding behind his Krishnamurky nonsense, that the WHOLE GODDAMED WORLD is losing its mind and harmony because of his yiddish ilk’s slow creeping annexation of the 1967 expansion by the institutionally terrorist state of yidistan!!”
Fuck off Hasbarista
I know your game and I hope others here will wise-up to your anti-Jewish racism intended to bring this blog into disrepute.
“Judgments are conclusions while life is a living thing, a process, right? Observationa nd awareness trumps conclusion.
Are we understanding each other?”
Hey, my mindset was happily altered when I heard the pessimistic ‘call no man happy until he is dead’ re-calibrated to the understanding that you can call no person anything, until they are dead, because at any time they/we/I have the potential for anything.
“Man must live by the will to integrity rather than the will to power, the prime minister is caught up in the will to power game — and that is his problem.”
Canon Timothy Russ PBUH
Overheard as Blair and family left St Anne’s Immaculate Heart of Mary…