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.
Komodo earlier this am
I was not talking about where Galal (new Egyptian Foreign Minister) learnt his English. I was referring to these important connections listed on Wikipedia. Very much like the al Sisi connections to the US.
‘Next he obtained a master’s degree in economics from the American University in Cairo in 1984.[2] He also holds a PhD in economics, which he received from Boston University in 1986.[2]
Career
Galal began his career at World Bank in 1984 and worked there for eighteen years.[2] He was the executive director and director of research of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) for two terms (1996-1997 and 2000-2006).[2] In 2007 he was appointed member of the international board of governors of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in Canada.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Galal_(politician)
The Resident Invigilator has a Stasi-like obsession about ‘staying on topic’.
How many comments could be made over the last three weeks on the subject of the Belfast Festival and torture?
Sofia. I am sure Craig is OK. As I said earlier, his publishing deadline is coming up.
Evgueni: I admit to an error here. The number of people who can speak Welsh (not necessarily well, not necessarily as a first language) is probably higher than the number of Polish speakers (for most of whom Polish IS a first language) in the UK.
But alleging that the decline in Welsh is due to linguistic fascism and colonisation is IMO overstating the case. Welsh is harder to learn than English, and less applicable anywhere but Wales and parts of Argentina. It also sounds like someone eating a set of Welsh national dress, but that is by the by…
“Now is the time of the people to come to the aid of the party” which is one of those typing tests much like “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”.
How I hated the Pitmans College where we (mostly female) sat (with blank keyboards on sit up and beg manual typewriters) typing what we saw on a screen at increasing speeds.
Anyway, back to the “party” or more accurately the “partei”
Clegg stepped forward to support Cameron’s instructions to the Cabinet Office Secretary to initiate the Guardian discussions which ended in the hard drive destruction. Don’t they all look rather stupid!
Clegg backed Heywood Guardian move
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/clegg-backed-heywood-guardian-move-29514651.html
Then I heard Lord Carlisle seeming to approve of the detention of David Miranda if there was a threat to national security. Lord Falconer, who introduced the legislation in Straw’s time as Home Secretary, disagrees. In his opinion, a detention can only be made if there is belief and evidence that the detainee is a terrorist.
All of this will give the pocket pols much to argue about in the coming months whilst our freedoms continue to go down the drain.
Sorry got the handle wrong at 1.29pm.
It’s Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.
COO SecureBio
Public Company; 11-50 employees; Security and Investigations industry
July 2011 – Present (2 years 2 months) Porton Down
SecureBio – ‘A DNA & CBR capability which can operate close to the point of effort, including in austere conditions, to produce rapid reference and trace samples in support of National, Civil and Commercial enterprises – and linked to appropriate databases for rapid appraisal of results in order to enable action’.
Visiting Lecturer Bournemouth University
Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry
August 2011 – Present (2 years 1 month) Bournemouth
Lecturing in Forensic Archaeology and Disaster Management
Assistant Director Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance Land Forces
UK Ministry of Defence
Government Agency; 10,001+ employees; Defence & Space industry
July 2007 – December 2010 (3 years 6 months)
Capability development cross intelligence provision. Developed rapid DNA capability in Afghanistan.
Previously Commanding Officer of the Chemical Biological Radiological & Nuclear Counter Terrorist Regiment 2004-2006
Commanding Officer Jt CBRN Regt
July 2004 – August 2006 (2 years 2 months)
CO NBC Regt ARMY Government Agency; 10,001+ employees; Military industry
2004 – 2006 (2 years)
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/hamish-de-bretton-gordon/35/a9a/37a
I corrected several spelling mistakes there. He can’t be expected to be good at everything.
And where is the other Miranda these days? In Thailand for a nice jolly on the 2nd September. It is unclear whether he is being paid more than his expenses. And he’s doing reconciliation, reconciliation, reconciliation. I imagine Thailand will be engulfed in civil war shortly.
http://www.khaosod.co.th/en/view_newsonline.php?newsid=TVRNM05qa3hOVGszTlE9PQ==
If anyone still fancies spotting the Nova, current validated data has it now down to 5.4 magnitude as of now so it is getting difficult to see without aid. That could still change.
Interesting comments from astrophysicists starting to appear now. I think they were waiting for the public confirmation of the gamma ray detection which finally came last night.
The Nova has been caught in the early “transition phase when the fireball seems to be shrinking”, similar to what was seen in thermo-nuclear bomb testing one has now posted as part of a fairly detailed explanation of what is being seen. So it is a bit like watching a nuclear bomb in slow motion. A very big nuclear bomb, a very long way away.
Most probably it will decline as a classic nova but the layers are till being peeled away to reveal what’s going on inside so not even the best astrophysicists no for certain.
Eek. Or even “know” for certain.
AA; Do you sleep?
Manning gets 35 years
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/21/manning-sentencing-espionage-charges/2680243/
@ Komodo
“Did I so much as mention Israel in that post?”
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Don’t play the innocent.
Funnily enough, the only bit of Chris Jones’ very long post which you quoted in your foolish attack on me at 08h18 this morning was the paragraph in which Chris Jones mentioned Israel (negatively, of course).
So you didn’t need to mention Israel explicitly – that had already been done for you in a post which you obviously endorsed, without qualification, and from which you extracted one paragraph (dealing with Israel).
Clear enough for you?
You remain a chump.
Shit. Poor Bradley Manning. He exposes a war crime and HE’S sentenced to 35 years.
We live in a farce. All of us.
“Manning gets 35 years”
________________
A long time.
But somewhat less than previous hysterical posts on this thread (“maximum of 120 years” and “60 years” – I think that was a Ben Franklin prediction) gave us to understand.
BTW, is this kind of sentence, handed out in the US, subject to being reduced reduced (good behaviour, parole after 10 years, or whatever?
Although it’s Summer and sunny weather, these are very dark days. Poor Bradley. I hope he knows that he has our gratitude for exposing the lies, the horror and the evil. Stay strong Bradley. You got a bad hand in your childhood and a raw deal now.
Ben,
Not enough sometimes. Would sleep easier if I had my own neutrino detector in the basement just for a “heads-up” 🙂
Rubbaduk – can’t take the tactics, don’t hand them out. Gibbering chimp.
“The Resident Invigilator has a Stasi-like obsession about ‘staying on topic’.”
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That’s interesting, I hadn’t known that the Stasi had an obsession with staying on topic. I thought their main obsession was more along the lines of that manifested by several Excellences on this blog – including the Frequent Poster herself – ie, jumping on anyone deviating from the Party line.
Eligible for parole after serving one third of the 35. So potentially, he could be out in his thirties.
And could I point out, Habbabkuk, that people like Ben were not inventing terms like “maximum of 120 years” and “60 years”. These figures were what were being given out to the press by the authorities. Nobody was being “hysterical”. 120 years was the maximum sentence he was eligible for, if I remember correctly, and 60 is what the prosecution were demanding.
Oh, and, Rubbaduck –
“What do you see as the best chance for peace between the state of Israel and a proposed state of Palestine?”
You won’t find many clues in the Hasbara Handbook, I’m afraid. You might want to look at (and cite) some non-kosher sources.
@ Komodo
“Rubbaduk – can’t take the tactics, don’t hand them out. Gibbering chimp.”
______________
That’s porky n°3. My arguments prevail because they are based on the application of a little thought before posting, rigorous logic and the avoidance of lies and misrepresentation.
Try it some time and you might win a few 🙂 Over and out!
I had worst case scenario in mind, Hab as that is the modus operandi for our handlers.
I think the tortured portion of his incarceration should be credited for time served at 100 to 1.
Obama?
http://ccrjustice.org/solitary-factsheet
Dreo, mine was a similar response though farce is a mild term– proof that man is still a savage, even more so at an organised society level.
As animal, we have inherited the character of fear for our physical security. That fear has spilt over into our psychological sphere as to how we live. We have to rid of it if we are to come out of living in constant conflict.
The only saving grace is that he could be out on parole in 10 years (wonder if the 3 already spent in prison would count towards that?). Would Obama have the courage to issue a presidential pardon, even on his last day in office? Yes we can, but that is not who we are.
Hab; Please share your thoughts wrt the Apache crew and the appropriate sentencing…..oh wait.
There were no charges, trial or sentencing.
Ref The Stasi. I compared the obsession about keeping to the topic here to be like the Stasi obsession of keeping meticulous records and files, a national characteristic of the regime who controlled E Germany at the time.
The excellent film The Lives Of Others demonstrated that.
@ Dreoilin
“And could I point out, Habbabkuk, that people like Ben were not inventing terms like “maximum of 120 years” and “60 years”. These figures were what were being given out to the press by the authorities”
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Strictly speaking you’re right, Dreoilin.
But it’s interesting that nobody mentioned what you mentioned about being eligible for parole after serving one third. Now this might of course have been due to ignorance; on the other hand it might have indicated a desire to paint everything in the worst possible light..
I also wonder whether anyone would have pointed it out now had I not asked the question. Credit to you, anyway, for doing so.
@ Flaming June :
“Ref The Stasi. I compared the obsession about keeping to the topic here to be like the Stasi obsession of keeping meticulous records and files, a national characteristic of the regime who controlled E Germany at the time.”
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No, you didn’t make that comparison (re-read your first post) and no-one could have inferred it.
You are now clarifying, which is good. And it would have been even better if you’d been more precise from the start, wouldn’t it.
35 years imposed on a good man by a criminal collection of states just fills good people with disgust. A petition of 103,000 signatures has been presented to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. My faith in this masonic influenced body is not strong but people like Nelson Mandela have won it, but unfortunately so have murderers like Begin, Sadat and Obama. While it is only a name making Bradley Manning a Nobel peace laureate will give him a lot of credibility. People wrongfully imprisoned can be set free with the right kind of pressure. In some countries it only needs the word of the president or monarch. Unfortunately the sick-heads in power today really believe in imprisoning anybody with a view other than the government propagandist view. Israel is the worst offender. Mordechai Vanunu served his sentence for revealing that this nasty government was breaking international law by possessing nuclear weapons (Vanunu got 18 years). After that they put him under house arrest (because they did not admit yet even to having these weapons but criticise surrounding countries for allegedly trying to develop such weapons. Vanunu is still not allowed to leave Israel.
That is why we must all fight to ensure Bradley Manning is released, to reveal who actually did 9/11 and why the so-called ‘war on terror’ is a myth created by US/Israeli intelligence to persecute good people from Islamic backgrounds and try to falsely make them into pariahs.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-13/manning-supporters-want-him-nominated-for-novel-peace-prize/4882284
John; We are approaching a half-century since JFK’s demise. We can’t even get the remaining files on the case because Obama kicked that can down to 2016 just like every other pusillanimous POTUS.
See? Lots of questions but no replies, even out of courtesy.