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.
Thanks for the super music, Villager! Thanks, Technicolour for your (as always) astute and pertinent comments.
Habbabkuk, yes, wrt pakistan, it been the ‘Islamic Republic’ or plain ‘Republic’ on and off (more on than off), since its creation in 1947. Most ‘recently’, that is,in the mid-1970s, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto re-assigned the ‘Islamic’ to the title as a sop – of of several – to the rising Islamists. It didn’t work, their military sponsors still hanged him on trumped-up charges.
@ Technicolour
It’s Babar, not Barbar, and I’m Habbabkuk, not Habbakuk.
And hey, loosen up! The starting point was elephants’ long memory and the question you kept asking me about some Youtube feature. Plus, the literary Céléstine is a very nice person (well, elephant) and I was merely extending to you a friendly hand (or perhaps trunk). Peace.
Doug Scorgie, re. Hasbarista’s constant caricature anti-Jewish comments, yes, I agree. It’s just so ridiculous, it’s not credible. Might this be our old friend, ‘apostate/steelback’? I wonder. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, it’s best dismissed, as you suggest.
Staying with pachderms for a moment, remember Elephant’s Memory: The later versions of the Plastic Ono Band? More good music!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant's_Memory
Elephant talk…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3DppaXz4-o
In some ways, given that the chances of Arab countries defeating Israel and the Palestinians regaining the West Bank and Gaza Strip are remote, in retrospect it might’ve been better if in 1967, Israel had annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip and given all the Palestinians living there Israeli citizenship rights (similar to the post-1948 Arab peoples who stayed in Israel, before the recent discrimination began to find its way into legislation). That would’ve been one version of the ‘one state solution’.
Either that, or they should have accepted the UN’s, and later, (to give him credit) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s offer to give Israel full diplomatic recognition (and of fixed territorial borders) by all Arab countries in return for a two-state solution involving the West Bank and Gaza as a fully sovereign, independent state.
What has happened in Palestine/Israel, it seems to me, is simply the worst of all worlds: Bantustans, high stone walls, increasing physical and economic marginalisation, growing supremacism/racism in Israel itself, increasing extremism on both sides…
@ Suhayl
And another possibility – although it might in the end only have put off the matter by some years – would have been for the US to do what it did at Suez and reverse the occupation. Is there any credible writing out there explaining the change in US reaction as between between 1956 and 1967?
Suhayl Saadi
12 Aug, 2013 – 8:08 pm
“Hamas won the election in Gaza, then decided that wasn’t enough and had a coup to remove all traces of Fatah from Gaza.”
Suhayl you seem to have surprisingly little knowledge of the facts.
In 2006 Hamas won the election across the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Hamas won 74 parliamentary seats to Fatah’s 45 out of the 132 seats available.
The US and Israel undermined Hamas and forced it from power, while strengthening Abbas and Fatah.
There was no coup by Hamas.
Hamas was the legitimate government FFS.
The fact is Suhayl, democracy was cancelled because the US and that “beacon of democracy” Israel, didn’t like the result; just as the fledgling democracy in Egypt has been similarly cancelled.
I am not a supporter of Hamas just a supporter of democracy.
Hasbarista, most of your posts make no sense, and so if you are trying to make a particular point, I think the efforts of your typing are wasted here, really. You are not making any effort to actually have a conversation either; it’s just drive-by anti-Jewish material, 9/11, goyim, yiddistani, barracuda, the holocaust-was-all-a-fake, blah blah – tedious, nonsensical racism.
You’ve had all your chances, so I suggest you post elsewhere. You appear to be completely unable to make your points without resorting to unpleasantness.
I thought I was that?
No shit Sherlock!
This post pretty much clarifies the dogged disbelief/denial of reality about the vile ziofuckwits and their satanic plan to kill off the Palestinians, and steal their lands.
The original plans for a land without “people” to be “given” (with not a single deed of ownership in sight) to “people” without a land was not coincidental. The genocide of the Palestinians was sealed and delivered, along with the parcel of land. To this date this shameful episode on the human consciousness has been in existence without any respite.
The almost unconscious drivel with respect to “rights” of Arabs that are adorning this thread are the stereotypical prose of those confused souls who have been on a diet of disinformation, and have lost their bearings, and caught up in a maze or truthiness, that in turn can find expression in the grotesque defence of the indefensible. As it is evident in the contribution of the paid hasbara agents of disinformation hounding every fucking blog on the internet.
Doug, i’ll let Suhayl and Johnny Cash (Mary go investigate how much) share the stage this evening, though if its all the same with you, i’ll dedicate this one to our Herbie as my ‘first substantive post’ in this free-flow vacuum of page 8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YVYczqD2b8
PS We’ll also remember Fedup and Passerby who are busy chasing ‘ziofuckwits’ this fine midsummer’s night.
—-
PPS Suhayl more Lennon inspiration — betcha, he, Einstein, K and Cash havin a party in the loft tonight — lucky b******s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEo9Bh679wM
Just discovered another version of an earlier song. Wish Dylan had never walked into that darned White House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iDAzLiRT0s&list=PLDC1826E165D6BCCF
I just popped outside (Scotland) and stared up at the sky. After about 5 mins despite some cloud cover I spotted a very visible Perseid meteor – so they are there to be seen tonight if you have some clear sky. At this time of the night don’t look directly at the radiant point as they are mainly sky streakers right now and you are best looking just up. later on in the night they’ll be coming more from the radiant point as the earth rotates.
If you have an Android Phone the free Google Sky Map app will locate the radiant for you if you search for “Perseid” in the app.
“As it is evident in the contribution of the paid hasbara agents of disinformation hounding every fucking blog on the internet.’
Can we make this blog a non-fucking one?
Oh joy. Here we go again. Let’s sing a big welcome to the Islamists-with-a-capital-I!
“the question you kept asking me about some Youtube feature”
oh, not ‘some youtube feature’, Habbabkuk. The only documentary to come from Gaza during Cast Lead. From people embedded with the ambulance crews, the lifesavers, not the military. Made freely available on youtube through Creative Commons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXHB2dnd42Q&list=PLx8pbmU7TME96LSeM0-60fm2Ys1ftOAsc
But either you know that, and are deliberately being silly, or you refuse to know that, and are deliberately being silly. Which, I wonder?
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
12 Aug, 2013 – 9:33 pm
@ Mr Scorgie
“The stage is yours”
The second or third time you’ve used that line.
Habbabkuk, why do you persistently reply to posts that are not addressed to you?
I was addressing Villager and I await his reply.
Not that I am expecting much.
Calling a spade a shovel that is all.
Why don’t you fuck off to a blog that is a non fucking one?
Or is there some fucking Kirs…….. instructions to whine, moan and cry in a blog with plenty of fucking and ziofuckwit?
“Can we make this blog a non-fucking one?” Villager.
Are you a fan of celibacy, Vilager?
🙂
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
12 Aug, 2013 – 9:33 pm
“…may I ask you if you’re a Thespian?”
Habbabkuk, my sexuality is my private business.
“The almost unconscious drivel with respect to “rights” of Arabs…” Fedup.
You think Arabs shouldn’t have rights? or that human rights don’t matter to Arabs? Are you suggesting that they somehow are constitutionally less human?
Is that all the fucking “logic” that is entailed in your response?
Islamist, is the same expression that used to be Communist, a catch all to label and point the fucking finger and denounce. Your kind are used to fucking ducking stools and witches. Regardless of the time and place there is always a good deal of money and power to be earned and wielded through killing little old ladies.
Islamist how very true!! Your denouement in support of carpet bombings, and awful repression of vast swathes of humanity indeed is a gallant stand. Are your mates at the ready to join the fuckwit farrago? Assertions, Assumptions and vehement denouncements, How is a lickspittle to earn a living?
“Are you a fan of celibacy, Vilager?”
I’m not a fan of anything other than the Multiverse, Suhayl, but yes, some people ought to adorn their tongues with condoms so to speak. I should ask if you are a fan of vulgarity but i shan’t.
Time and again you suggest that. In fact your condescension on all things Islamic, belies the brutal reality of your virulent hatred towards the Arabs.
You seem unable and incapable of understanding Arabs have no rights because their fucking leaders set in their charge have a mandate to look after the Western interests, ie the American corporate interests. The fact that Bahrainis are ignored and are left at the mercy of the repressive regime of a bunch of pederasts set in their charge is in fact Bahrains fault, so far as your logic goes.
ROFL I hand you this one, and accept your 10 points gain.
And after double-checking the tracking I also saw the International Space Station as well. Sadly it isn’t in Google Sky Maps so I couldn’t be sure at the time and had no idea there was a pass over the UK right then.
So that’s a meteor and the ISS bagged for tonight.
Why do you not heed your own wise counsel and wear a condom over your head before coming on this blog better still wear a full body condom, and shut your eyes to avert your eyes upon entering this fucking blog to be immune from the ziofuckwits and fuckings?
“some people ought to adorn their tongues with condoms so to speak”
(sigh)
“Your denouement in support of carpet bombings, and awful repression of vast swathes of humanity indeed is a gallant stand. Are your mates at the ready to join the fuckwit farrago?”
brilliant! yeay, Suhayl, go your carpet bombing campaign.
(sigh)
“Did you read that properly – that was meant to be me, not you.”
I did wonder about the construction. But there is so much (general) guff about ‘Catholic Ireland’ it gets tiresome … and I doubt if you’re Catholic, but who knows … you could be anything. Or nothing. And it’s no concern of mine, one way or another.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg
Oh well the mates have arrived but not very enthusiastic to get stuck in.
The current wave of hate so skilfully fanned against all Muslims, immigrants, “coloureds”, is the precursor of the bombings and dronings, of the poor bastards who have fuck all left other than their faith. Do you find even that too much of luxury for these destitute poor bastards whom happen to be living on abundance of resources that are coveted by the armed to to the teeth brigands and privateers?
fedup; I am fedup for sure. Night all.