It is ten years since I ended my FCO career by going on the Today programme and blowing the whistle on CIA/MI6 complicity in torture. It was on my 46th birthday, and I was in my second year as an Ambassador and my seventh as a top Whitehall civil servant, a member of the Senior Civil Service.
Looking back now, what is most striking are the blatant lies by the FCO that they were not obtaining intelligence from torture. As the BBC reported:
In one he claimed MI6 had used information passed on to it by the CIA but originally obtained in Uzbek torture cells – something strongly denied by the Foreign Office.
I do not think there is a single person in public life or social media nowadays who would not accept that the FCO were simply lying. Jack Straw was blatantly to lie about it to parliament. But ten years ago the public and media knew much less than they know now. Nobody outside secret circles had ever heard the words extraordinary rendition. It was a year later – May 2005 – before the New York Times revealed the CIA was sending people to Uzbekistan to be tortured, precisely as I had stated.
It sounds incredible, but in October 2004 many people believed it was Craig Murray who was a liar, not Jack Straw. Again I do not think there is a single individual today who does not understand that Jack Straw was lying through his teeth. But back in 2004 life was hard for me.
After going on the Today programme I went on the run, in fear for my life. I am not paranoid, remember David Kelly. I first stayed with my old friend Andy Myles in Edinburgh, then I think Chief Executive of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. He was phoned the next morning by the FCO. When he denied knowledge of my whereabouts, they not only said they knew I was staying with him, they said which bedroom I was sleeping in. Ten years ago today I was hiding in Aviemore in the house of my old friend Dominic.
That was the start of a decade as a dissident where I have devoted my life to exposing, and trying to counter, the evil of the neo-conservative policy pursued by our political class at the behest of the corporations who fund them. I have suffered a huge loss in money, status and most of the other normal aspirations. But what I have gained is invaluable. I have respect and love, while Blair and Straw will forever be despised.
DonnyDarkThoughts
“Habbalies
Govt. Propaganda is a most cynical form of advertising information which is often untrue.
There isn’t any reason in the world to pay for the BBC.It doesn’t even stick to what it purports to be.Should be a choice if you want to be brainwashed or not if you have to pay for it.”
_______________________
Your comment is interesting because – apart from deliberately misrepresenting the nature and function of the BBC – it seems to imply that you would consider it legitimate for people who disapprove of certain elements of govt spending to withhold a part of, say, their income tax.
Is that your position and if so, do you so withhold?
Habbabkuk,
I chose to get rid of my television because i couldn’t abide the idiotic propaganda masquearding as “news” on the MSM.
When i did have one the licence fee was paid.
I have no interest in the issue other than,from bitter personal experience,the aspect of certain laws being used horrifically,wrongly and disproportionately against me and mine over many years and,as such,deplore the abuse of such powers.
Clue:
http://www.mojuk.org.uk/
There’s always been more than one Habba Mary.Either that or he is a schizophrenic speed freak.All credit if he’s one chap, or chappess there are some days when his shift is amazingly long.He’s been on at my morning coffee and he’s still rabbiting on when I get back in the evening.
And this week he is supporting the sleezeballs that support his masters.Can’t have the Cesspit having problems,and negating all their jollies out to Tel Aviv and the land that God forgot.
Habbathink
No taxation without representation.So the BeeB is awrf!
And as for the rest… over taxation is usually the catalyst behind civil unrest and civil disobedience.People don’t mind paying their share.Unfortunately there are far too many people and corporations that manage to avoid their “fair share”.
Do you believe that “all” ahould pay their fair share in tax ? Do you even pay tax in the UK, or is it in tax free shekels?La Vita could be Bella for all!!!!
Jives
“Habbabkuk,
I chose to get rid of my television because i couldn’t abide the idiotic propaganda masquearding as “news” on the MSM.
When i did have one the licence fee was paid.”
__________________
If true, that’s fine, Jives.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I have no interest in the issue other than,from bitter personal experience,the aspect of certain laws being used horrifically,wrongly and disproportionately against me and mine over many years and,as such,deplore the abuse of such powers.”
__________________
I’m sorry to hear that, Jives.
You sound a little like “Robert Crawford”, who wrote “I once said on Twitter,” without the whistle blowers we would all be in the dark”.
I once said to the Law Society of Scotland, ” this regime I live under calls other regimes “despot” frankly I do not see the difference”.
Maybe this, and a history of complaining is why I am followed everywhere I go, night and day. I do not have as much as a parking ticket to my name, and yet, “they” are there all the time. WHY?.”
In order to evaluate better whether sympathy or a diagnosis of paranoia is due, would you care to give a little more detail about your misadventures?
DonnyDarkness
“There’s always been more than one Habba Mary.Either that or he is a schizophrenic speed freak.All credit if he’s one chap, or chappess…”
_____________________
Just one chap or chappess, I’m happy to say. You must understand that ine Habbabkuk is worth en Eminences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“there are some days when his shift is amazingly long”
_______________________
Tile just flies by when one is combatting hate, ignorance, negativity and plain silliness. You should try it sometime, Donny.
+++++++++++++++++
And now, get back to what you call your “shift” – it’s a working day for you, isn’t it and I suppose the people you work for have a policy on personal use of the internet during working hours?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apologies for all Dad’s droppings.
This Is so embarrassing, but it always happens when the vet gets awkward with Dr Bullstrode over all the ketamine that he has to account for somehow.
I sugest a power-hose and plenty of disinfectant.
Kempe 24 Oct, 2014 – 2:45 am
” Russell owned Evan. ”
“No. Brand was his usual borish self-opinionated self and Davis was wondering why he was invited onto Newsnight.”
Have you ever considered resisting your Pavlovian urges? Your mission to protect the Establishment would sometimes be better served by saying nothing rather than denying the unarguable.
Habbabkuk,
I will furnish you with no information about my experiences.
You asked a question,i answered.
Me and mine have no need to prove anything,we went through it,the people who matter know the horrific reality all to well.
Of course i’m sure in your cosy Panglossian world the state never makes mistakes or miscarriages of justice occur.
Lucky you.
I speak as I find and I find Brand a tiresome loudmouth.
Even the sad acts on David Icke’s forum have rumbled Brand as a fraud.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/10/decade-of-dissent/#comment-488569
I was not seeking sympathy from the troll or anyone else. Just stating some facts. In any case, he/she is probably incapable of understanding the meaning of the word judging from the content of the outpourings.
Not many of the experts here on Craig’s Blog will need assistance in order to (legally) cover their tracks whilst on the internet, but just in case there are some of you who worry about Crypto, there’s a new guide to help: https://ssd.eff.org/en/index
That’s US “electronic freedom foundation,” “index of tools & techniques” for avoiding ‘accidental’ metadata loss. I don’t completely agree with all of the suggestions, (I’ve read enough Snowden/Assange to be more paranoid than the EFF)
e.g. the https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/how-use-pgp-mac-os-x
suggests that you install a PGP/GPG Crypto suite on your Mac, creating a Private Key. In fact I have created a GPG Crypto instance on an OFFLINE computer, and I process the messages that I am required to send OFFLINE and just transmit the hashes ONLINE. Therefore the many *many* remote access attempts to my ONLINE computer will never find my Private Key.
Whatever you do with your correspondence, you can’t be protected from proper, legal, proportional targeted interception, even using *all* of these techniques. Which is as it should be.
The EFF produced a nice diagram of where they claim NSA is contravening the constitution here: https://www.eff.org/files/2014/07/24/backbone-3c-color.jpg
some US senators disagree, and of course different -if any- rules apply in UK
Some comments on Russell Brand from Medialens.
More superb Brand – The Trews on Ottawa shootings
Posted by John Hilley on October 24, 2014, 11:27 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALEaAAU3KAE&feature=youtu.be
John
~~
Posted by Kenneth on October 24, 2014, 12:25 pm, in reply to “More superb Brand – The Trews on Ottawa shootings”
Agreed John – brilliant analysis. His depiction of Teresa May was also spot on – improve human rights by scrapping the Human Rights Act!!! he skilfully exposed the nastiness quite brilliantly.
Kenneth
~~
Posted by gloriousrevolution on October 24, 2014, 1:32 pm, in reply to “Re: More superb Brand – The Trews on Ottawa shootings”
Yes, his analytical skills and ability to deconstruct Harper’s self-serving speech is impressive, especially for someone lacking an Oxbridge education. Wow! Does this mean a person can be really rather clever, smart, and articulate, with the confidence to challenge the state and its representatives, without having been to Oxbridge? How many more gutter-snipes like Brand are out there sharpening their scythes preparing in secret for the long night of the revolution? Be afraid, be very afraid!
~~
Posted by gloriousrevolution on October 24, 2014, 1:53 pm, in reply to “Re: More superb Brand – The Trews on Ottawa shootings”
He reminds me a bit of Chomsky, only with added charisma. So much like my younger self I feel great surging pangs of nostalgia welling inside me. Years ago the FBI and their ghastly gnome-like chief, the cross-dressing Hoover (and there’s a great joke there about the similarity between him and a vacuum cleaner, which I’ll refrain from) was obsessed with the sex life of Marilyn Monroe, but what he was really afraid of was that Marilyn might secretly be a Communist sympathizer, they knew she wasn’t a member of the CP because years before an FBI spy inside the party provided Hoover with the membership records.
When I see and listen to Brand’s entertaining and educational rants I think that he’d be a nightmare for Hoover too.
Think if we had a democratic and fair electoral system in the UK with proportional representation, Brand if he stood as a candidate would easily get a couple of hundred thousand votes and sail into Parliament, not that he’d like it there. What’s worse is all the people who are currently disenfranchised would potentially have a choice and someone worth voting for. Galloway and Respect might have half a dozen MPs and the Greens fifty or more. Only that’s a fantasy under the UK political system which deliberately keeps such people out of Westminster; and at the same time those tweenies reviewing Brand’s book Revolution try to tell me that the voting system is part of a democratic system! Ha, ha, ha.
Bitter as Ever
The ‘Medicine’ of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
by PETE DOLACK
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is as dangerous as ever. Denying access to medicines, increased surveillance of Internet usage and mandatory patents at the behest of multi-national corporations are some of the corporate goodies stashed in the TPP’s intellectual property chapter, revealed by WikiLeaks this month. Journalism could even be criminalized.
The more we know about the TPP, the worse it gets, which is why the governments of the 12 countries involved, led by the Obama administration, continue to negotiate in unprecedented secrecy. The latest text of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter shows very little change from an earlier draft also published by WikiLeaks. In a press release accompanying this month’s publication of the revised text, WikiLeaks says:
“[T]here are significant industry-favouring additions within the areas of pharmaceuticals and patents. These additions are likely to affect access to important medicines such as cancer drugs and will also weaken the requirements needed to patent genes in plants, which will impact small farmers and boost the dominance of large agricultural corporations like Monsanto.”
/..
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/24/the-medicine-of-the-trans-pacific-partnership/
The author’s blog.
http://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/
When I first heard reports of the ambassador talking about torture on behalf of the British or U.S. government I assumed them to be correct.
I never believed Straw’s assertions that we don’t condone torture,nor do I believe that the charity worker D.Milliband wasn’t fully aware of the torture carried out on behalf of the British Government,which he has repeatedly denied,along with the sleazy Blair
Well done Craig.
So David Cameron ha met with Andrew Parker, Director General of MI5, to find ways of beefing up security around the Houses of Parliament, in light of lets call it,the Canadian incident.
No doubt it will give (SO15) a freehand to flash their Glock 19’s at the first person who so much as looks at them the wrong way.
Meanwhile old droopy drawers, Queen Lizzie, a begging your pardon Mam,is said to be saddened and shocked at the Canadian incident. Still it won’t affect her blue chip shares, and her millions of Commonwealth acres that she owns in Canada.
I wonder if Mrs SaxeCoburg-Gotha still visits Kamloops,if so maybe she could have tea with William Combes, I’m sure they’d have plenty to chat about.
Jives
“I will furnish you with no information about my experiences.”
__________________
Fair enough. I asked just to be able to form an idea about whether what you asserted about your experiences would hold water to the man on the Clapham Omnibus or whether your take might be exaggerated. It was you who raised the matter in your post after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You asked a question,i answered.”
__________________
You did and I appreciate your answering.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Of course i’m sure in your cosy Panglossian world the state never makes mistakes or miscarriages of justice occur.”
___________________
You are wrong to think that. The state – any state – can make lots of mistakes and miscarriages of justice certainly occur as a (probably unavoidable) concomitant feature of its activities.
Mary
“he/she is probably incapable of understanding the meaning of the word {ie, sympathy}”
___________________
That is a serious (but not important) misjudgement, Mary. I shall say no more.
News for BBC America
_______________________
The BBC was “one of the most recognised, trusted and respected brands in the world”.
Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general and chairman of BBC Worldwide, said the deal would help the BBC “reach new audiences in the US…and create opportunities for the UK creative community.
Dear oh dear, as if the people of America, aren’t already fed enough disinformation, BBC America, will flood then with even more, pre-package fabrications.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11184252/BBC-America-now-almost-half-owned-by-US-cable-company-AMC.html
To say that the BBC is one of the most trusted and respected brands in the world, is stretching the truth that wee bit too far.
“That is a serious (but not important) misjudgement, Mary. I shall say no more.”
__________________________
Habb=itual Liar
Is that a promise?
Mary (quoting someone):
“Only that’s a fantasy under the UK political system which deliberately keeps such people out of Westminster”
__________________
Now that is simply not true. There have been a number of cases where non-party people have been elected to Parliament – George Galloway, Martin Bell, the doctor who stood on a platform opposing local hospital closures (I forget his name, I’m afraid).
It is obvious that the hold of mainstream political parties on the electoral process is strong, but it is not impossible for a “private” individual (so to speak) to be elected. Provided of course that his/her message or beliefs appeal sufficiently to the electorate.
ResDis – Information has to is sensed and touched by an open mind, a consciousness fused with instinct, sense, thought and spirit. It is at that juncture we recognise the latest phase of terrorism in the Middle East is very much a product of the west’s disastrous foreign policies, including the extension of wars and the backing of barbaric regimes in the region. The people of the Middle East have suffered enough. The west and Nato should get out of Syria and Iraq now.
Iraq and Syria should be flooded with humanitarian aid, particularly for the millions of refugees who have been fleeing the wars.
After three years of brutal fighting that has left many areas of the country devastated, Assad is seen as the only figure that can stabilize the country and ensure a stable, secular rule that respects all minority communities.
Syrian society has been regarded as highly tolerant and fair towards a multitude of religious and ethnic groups, such as the Christian, Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities, and the majority Sunni Muslims.
The last ballot results in Syria are to a testament to how Assad – who belongs to the Alawite sect of Shia Islam – can still command huge support from the Sunni majority.
Instinct tells us ResDis the air-strikes by Britain and their allies are not intended to save lives, but to strengthen the west’s domination of the Middle East region strategically and control its resources.
The British government’s aim is also to reverse the defeat David Cameron suffered in parliament last year, when MPs voted against an attack on Syria.
The revolving door hinge is always getting greased…
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/17/senior-nsa-official-moonlighting-private-cybersecurity-firm
There is no shame because there is conscience. Sympathy or empathy are foreign entanglements; unnecessary for bizness.
Kempe 24 Oct, 2014 – 1:24 pm
“I speak as I find and I find Brand a tiresome loudmouth.
Even the sad acts on David Icke’s forum have rumbled Brand as a fraud.”
So you and David Icke’s forum are in complete agreement, eh?
Well, your and their opinion on Brand’s character is irrelevant. You contradicted my assertion that Brand dominated Davis in that interview. You were wrong to do so. Icke’s forum didn’t contradict my assertion, therefore you are more wrong than Icke’s forum.
Have a nice day.
‘there is NO conscience…’
Republicofscotland
Your latest post is probably just another attempt to discredit the blog and its founder (“he must be a nutter because he attracts so many nutters”) but just in case you’re being serious, here are a couple of comments.
“So David Cameron ha met with Andrew Parker, Director General of MI5, to find ways of beefing up security around the Houses of Parliament”
______________
Yes, and why not? One has a duty to learn from experience, does one not?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Queen Lizzie, a begging your pardon Mam,is said to be saddened and shocked at the Canadian incident.”
_________________
Perhaps she is showing some of the sympathy which Mary has accused me of not having (and which you evidently do not have for the guy killed and his family).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Still it won’t affect her blue chip shares…”
_________________
Why should it affect them? Has your own material well-being been affected by people killed by drone strikes? Or by the famine in Sudan? And so on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“..and her millions of Commonwealth acres that she owns in Canada.”
________________
Does she own millions of acres in Canada? Perhaps your understanding of the word “own” is different to most people’s? Anyway,n do you have a source or reference for that assertion?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feel free to respond, RoS – if you can.
““I speak as I find and I find Brand a tiresome loudmouth.
Even the sad acts on David Icke’s forum have rumbled Brand as a fraud.””
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Israel is suffering from an epidemic of violence that must be treated, the country’s President Reuven Rivlin said. After the latest bloody conflict in Gaza, Jews and Arabs seem to have lost the capacity for dialogue, as relations have reached a new low.
“It is time to honestly admit that Israeli society is sick – and it is our duty to treat this disease,” Rivlin told the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities at a xenophobia conference on Sunday in Jerusalem.
________________________
Hmm! So Israel is sick, no surprise there then.
http://rt.com/news/197352-israel-sick-society-president/
Thanks to the gods it makes it’s posts virtually unreadable.________******
(((((((( ******
Grammar isn’t even a question when the rule about ‘white space’ is violated with droppings from a keyboard.
““The tension between Jews and Arabs within the State of Israel has risen to record heights, and the relationship between all parties has reached a new low,” he said, as cited by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.”
Self-interest and fear makes us all cowards, RoS.