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.
@ Habbabkuk at 10.07 am. Neither Je (who quoted from the link to a letter in the Guardian) nor the letter-writer herself suggested that this was – as you interpret their concern – “a question of HMRC sanctioning a former employee”. What’s clear from the 22 October letter is that HMRC were treating her husband vindictively if the letter he wrote to the Guardian was, as she claims, simply to correct “some factual errors on tax and civil servants’ pay in an article by Polly Toynbee. There was no whistleblowing involved, everything he said was already in the public domain.”
However, I was not commenting on this specific case, on which it’s hard to judge without seeing, inter alia, the text of the husband’s letter. (I tried but failed to identify it among letters to the Guardian in April.) My aim was to link your general comment – on organizational rules about employees and the media – to dissent, the theme of Craig’s blog. My view is that overall more damage to the public good is done by organizations suppressing disagreement and punishing those who make inconvenient facts public, compared with the damage done by those who break internal rules, claiming to be (or being treated as) “whistleblowers”. I expect you evaluate the importance of rules and how they are interpreted differently. My default errors are likely to be on the side of dissent, while your will be on the side of rules and contracts being strictly adhered to. We can both find support from many sources: indeed, sometimes the same ones, such as Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Marx, and Einstein.
Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, yesterday warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his party will destabalise the coalition government if the premier doesn’t expedite settlement construction in the West Bank.
___________________________________
President Reuven Rivlin, appears to be correct when he says Israel is sick, and judging by the above,remark, its from the top down, oh dear.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/14823-netanyahu-warned-unfreeze-settlement-expansion-or-well-destabalise-coalition
Brand is not a fraud o matter how loud and how often the establishment says it.
Those interested in legal developments relating to human rights should look at the 57-page report of 17 October by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (Chair Dr Hywel Francis MP – Labour, Aberavon) on the Legislative Scrutiny of three recent bills. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201415/jtselect/jtrights/49/49.pdf See also the Committee’s press release http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/joint-select/human-rights-committee/news/second-report-substantive-press-notice/
Para 1.80 may explain why there has been no reply yet from the Home Secretary to the letter some of us sent her on 9 October. She may, understandably, be preparing to respond to the report: the last four and a half lines of this paragraph are highlighted in bold text.
“1.80 Another safeguard invoked by the Government is that it can rely on the police and prosecution to make sure that prosecutions are only brought in appropriate cases. However, this looks like less of a reliable safeguard in light of the recent collapse of the proposed prosecution of Moazzam Begg on terrorism charges related to his activities in Syria, a collapse which occurred on the eve of his trial and following his detention for several months awaiting trial. Indeed, while there is so far very little information in the public domain about the reasons for the collapse of that prosecution, the episode of Moazzam Begg’s collapsed prosecution may demonstrate some of the difficulties involved in using the criminal law in relation to alleged terrorist activities abroad, and the legal uncertainty which is inherent in such a broad definition of terrorism when applied to such rapidly moving political events.”
I’ll shortly be circulating to co-signatories some suggestions for further action.
@ Kempe
…. and furthermore ….
What exactly do you mean by calling Russell Brand a fraud?
That he’s making money out of it? Definitely not. He was a mainstream success, darling of Hollywood and US chat shows before he started speaking out. Now FOX News security throw him out of the building. Pissing off Rupert Murdoch is not a route to financial success. His showbiz career has gone down the tubes. Any publicity he gets from his ‘revolutionary’ antics is trivial compared to what he’s voluntarily turned his back on. Please be silly enough to claim that he does it to promote his books. I’ll enjoy destroying that ridiculous claim.
Perhaps you mean he is a fraud because he only pretends to believe the things he says. Why would he do that? What could be his motive? Not even you would claim he is stupid. Would you?
Spell it out for me, Kempe. In what way is he a fraud?
Iain Orr (16h25 BST)
Thank you for that and I agree that the scope of our comments is rather different.
As you say, my comments were restricted to the case that someone (I forget who now) posted on this blog (that’s fair enough, is it not?) and were not intended to address the wider question you’ve raised.
If we can stay on the specific case for a moment.
1/. It is curious that you have not been able to find any trace of the “husband’s letter” in the Guardian despite diligent search and unworthy as the thought may be that leads me to wonder if the letter really exists.
2/. As far as what you say in your first para is concerned, the points I was trying to make – perhaps imperfectly – were as follows:
a) it was unclear from both Je’s post and the newspaper report quoted whether the husband contacted the media while he was still an employee of HMRC. I believe that the newspaper report attempted to give the impression that all this occurred after the husband had left HMRC’s employ.
Why do I believe that? Because
b) had all this indeed occurred after the husband had left HMRC then HMRC’s action could reasonably be considered vindictive (and the newspaper would have had its story). Had the opposite been clearly stated, however, then the accusation of vindictiveness loses all force because the husband would have been in breach of departmental rules and regulations governing contact with the media and therefore deserving of some sanction (and there would have been no story).
C) finally, we both agree that this was not a case of “whistle blowing” as we normally understand the term. Assuming that the husband was still in service when the letter was written, the matter therefore is surely one of whether he was entitled to correct erroneous material appearing in a newspaper on his own initiative or whether he should have left such correction (if correction was deemed necessary) to those in his organisation empowered to so correct.
A very apt written analysis on today’s ‘zombie capitalism’ by Michael Sauga.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/capitalism-in-crisis-amid-slow-growth-and-growing-inequality-a-998598.html
Russell Brand does not see change through voting, it represents a rigged game always guaranteeing the same outcome, he likes bit coin as much as he likes getting paid for his new book which he flogged admirably on Newsnight last night, by ensuring a constant touch of a squirming Evan, what a boy, he was able to recite as much as he could muster.
HEDGES: You agree, I think, with Karl Marx that unfettered, unregulated corporate capitalism is a revolutionary force.
WOLIN: Oh, indeed. I think it’s been demonstrated even beyond his wildest dreams that it–yeah, you’re just–you just have to see what happens when a underdeveloped part of the world, as they’re called, becomes developed by capitalism–it just transforms everything, from social relations to not only economic relations, but prospects in society for various classes and so on. No, it’s a mighty, mighty force. And the problem it always creates is trying to get a handle on it, partly because it’s so omnipresent, it’s so much a part of what we’re used to, that we can’t recognize what we’re used to as a threat. And that’s part of the paradox.
HEDGES: You take issue with this or, you know, point out that in fact it is a revolutionary force. And yet it is somehow, as a political and economic position, the domain of people as self-identified conservatives.
WOLIN: Yeah, it is. I think they’re conservative on sort of one side of their face, as it were, because I think they’re always willing to radically change, let’s say, social legislation that’s in existence to defend people, ordinary people. I think they’re very selective about what they want to preserve and what they want to either undermine or completely eliminate.
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12561
True democracy and unfettered capitalism are incompatible, unless you want to drive a square peg into a round hole, that is; the public arse.
“Russell Brand does not see change through voting”
Reform has to occur before the ballots are prepared in order to make a vote truly count. Otherwise, the choice is similar to the choice we have at the grocery store…’paper or plastic, sir?’
The true frauds are the suitandtie PPE oxbridge graduates who fill political, media, boardroom and other establishment positions all over the UK taught orthodox Keynesian economic theory by preserved-in-aspic professors who have not heard about or totally ignore the Law of Entropy Law and its influence upon the economic process. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen recognized the connection between physical laws and economic activity 43 years ago!
Jewish Chronicle prints correction to PSC story after complaint to Press Complaints Commission
October 23, 2014
On 17th July 2014, The Jewish Chronicle published an online story on its homepage headlined Pro-Palestinian group says its supporters made antisemitic comments
This was a completely false headline, and attributed comments to Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Director, Sarah Colborne, which were never made.
The report also began falsely, with this introductory paragraph: ‘The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has acknowledged that its supporters made antisemitic comments during protests against the Gaza conflict’
PSC made an immediate complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and informed the journalist who wrote the article. The article was subsequently removed from the JC’s website.
/..
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/jewish-chronicle-prints-correction-psc-story-complaint-press-complaints-commission/#sthash.R9TKGJnB.dpuf
Johnstone
“The true frauds are the suitandtie PPE oxbridge graduates…etc, etc…”
_____________________
You are the fraud, Sir.
There is no PPE course at Cambridge, only at Oxford.
The appellation “Oxbridge” is therefore wrong.
It is obvious you attended neither Oxford or Cambridge.
££££££££££££££££££££ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ £££££££££££££££££
On reflection I think I prefer a reddish avatar.
Russell Brand is interviewed by the FT.
Thread – http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1414159848.html
Ref http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/10/decade-of-dissent/#comment-488645
As the little girl in the ad says, ‘You are a silly man’.
https://www.vonage.co.uk/silly-man-advert-2014/
Puts ALL your comments into perspective.
“on reflection” I don’t think you have one Habba
Habbaproblem ,the non refelective
DonnyDarkThoughts
Keep trying and you’ll get both the bottom of this page and the top of the next one!
🙂
Donny
“Habbaproblem ,the non refelective”
_______________
“refelective” – more haste, less speed!
Mary
“Ref http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/10/decade-of-dissent/#comment-488645
As the little girl in the ad says, ‘You are a silly man’.”
_____________________
I just thought I’d explain because I know you get nervous about avatars.
The race to the bottom was won by you a long time ago Habbawinner
Donny
There you go, I told you you’d get the top of page 2 if you tried hard enough!
All you have to do now is to improve the quality of your posts.
PS – have you hummed or sung the Boating Song yet?
DoNNyDarKo. 7 50pm
A master of undestatement!
As for Dad’s brave fight with Mary, what can I say? My feeling that he can’t sink any lower proved wrong for the umpteenth time, and he still can’t rock her. Respect.
Here’s a perspective on the Mockingbird droppings aimed at Vlad the Bad. With the same lack of effect from those who’ll get to vote for him. LOL!
Enjoy.
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/putin-at-valdai-world-order-new-rules.html
Now hosted by google I see, oh dear.
Another website dies.
Here’s the Article that goes with the Vlad the Bad video incase you’re interested but fed up with watching stuff.
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/is-cia-running-defamation-campaign.html
Not hosted by Google. Just a short experiment using Google to cache the pages and a test of capacity in case Craig expects an unusual amount of traffic at some future time.
Tont M.
Tony M. 8:34 pm
“Another website dies.”
The Saker is trying, but having problems moving the website here.
http://www.thesaker.net/
In the meantime the old blog runs on. The comment section is revealing and moderation weeds out serial spoilers. You have to come here to meet people of Dad’s calibre.
Your take?
He seems open to constructive suggestions and I believe his heart is in the right place.
The wicked shall flourish as the green bay tree dept.
Blair International is recruiting…
http://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/security-finance-operations-manager/352398?tsId=6
The back story –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10917264/Tony-Blair-strikes-gold-with-a-boxing-banker.html
Even after all this time
The Sun never says
to the Earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the
whole sky.
– Hafiz
(A Persian poet of the 1300s)