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.
@Tony M
Hasn’t the Saker’s site always been hosted by blogger.com… which wasn’t always owned by Google, I think.
Happy with the current format and didn’t even think about why he was changing until you mentioned it.
Anyway, I suggest you read Sofia’s link, and the large no. of comments.
If we are allowed to talk about Ukraine, it appears that Donetsk might be attacked in the near future.
Let’s hope that someone somewhere at some point does something about all the psychopaths, like Blair and the Drone King and Dov Zakheim and most CEOs of large companies. Any takers?
Or will The System ineluctably reach some kind of hubristic tipping point that snowballs into an apocalypse in the true sense – a climactic unveiling?
A Ragnarok for finance capitalism. As long as it tastes like chicken I don’t mind.
Here’s Ted with the sports.
@Mike: Just wading through the comments about The Saker’s article… there is a suggestion that the multis, including media multis, control the US – and therefore the CIA – rather than the other way round. Interesting take? I remember in the mid-1980s the US gov. took IBM to court, and the court found for… IBM. My belief system is constantly being challenged. What a weird world!
Peacewisher.
Yes. Scary days for the people of the Donbas.
Here is what the Ukrainian Junta’s “ceasefire” looked on Oct 20th like in Donetsk.
http://en.voicesevas.ru/news/yugo-vostok/3060-the-war-in-the-south-east-online-10202014-chronicle.html
Shocking videos (13 40pm and 19 40pm) of massive “Tochka-U” balistic missile strike.
I feel for all those caught up in the sights of the warmongers.
I’m not sure, Peacewisher. It’s a poisonous symbiosis, for sure. If pushed, I would say the CIA is a tool for smoothing the way – for making sure that overseas interests, however you want to define those, don’t get in the way of US corporate interests. Big media is of course one such interest, but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. ‘War is big news’ is a crude way of looking at it, I suppose. It’s all eyeballs and tax (increasingly the made up numbers on the never-never).
Is that an answer to your question?
I wonder who’s doing the shelling, Sofia? Just the hardnut Nazis and Academi? As far as I can tell, the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers don’t have much of a desire to continue.
Before anyone joins Gough Whitlam’s cult of personality, it is worth remembering that Whitlam ok’d the bloody Indonesian invasion of East Timor and with Malcom Fraser, covered up the genocide that followed. The names of Whitlam and Fraser are dirt in East Timor, now Timur Leste, as they are with me.
Right wing death squads were once the preferred MO for the USA in central america. Maybe they’re trying the same tactic in East Ukraine.
Just a thought.
And here he is as far away from the ebola epidemic as his little legs/charter jet/ sedan chair manned by flunkies will carry him:
http://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2014/10/23/988623
Call me a cynic. Go on. Structural reforms. Which will benefit whom? Answer, Blair will be a keynote speaker at the Mexico Business Summit on the 26th-28th. That’s a long stopover for Tony – he’s been there three days already.
And energy reforms, too: Usual bollocks, nonspecific, reads much better in Spanish if you don’t speak Spanish, but probably refers to Pemax, the Mexican oil and gas company, restructuring along globalist lines to trade across the border. Currently Mexico is buying a lot of US shale gas..Pemex would like a cut, and no doubt the consumer will pay the difference.
http://puebladirecto.com/?p=49335
He’s also been flogging his global privatised education ideas in Mexico. I say his – e-beer to anyone identifying his connection with one or more probably US-run providers of private education subsidised by the recipient’s public money. Cynic. Yes.
Blair makes me retch.
@Mike: I was thinking aloud, rather than posing a question. It is all very well for us to blame the neocons in Washington, but what if they are themselves puppets? Are there still any good guys out there who believe in democracy and have power and influence? I suppose the fact that we still have a “free” Internet at all suggests that there certainly are…
Johann Lamont has resigned. Angry with Miliband. Sarwar stands in.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29765415
As someone who only studied at Oxford, and read not PPE, but Greats, I have no idea what studies Cambridge has to offer. But I would be very much surprised if Cambridge does not offer some course of study very much like PPE.
BLiar as Ba’al was saying
Former British Prime Minister Inspires Students and Graduates of Universidad del Valle de México
Tony Blair addresses thousands of students and recent graduates in Mexico City
22/10/2014
‘With 120,000 students on 37 campuses in 18 states, Universidad del Valle de México is the largest private university in Mexico.’
Assume he was paid to speak.
The outfit.
About Laureate Education, Inc.
Laureate Education is the world’s leading higher education provider. Laureate’s more than 75 universities educate over 900,000 students in 29 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Laureate’s universities offer undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degree programs in fields such as architecture, business, engineering, hospitality management, law and medicine. The Laureate network is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. William J. Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, is Honorary Chancellor of the Laureate International Universities network. To learn more, visit http://www.laureate.net.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laureate_International_Universities
War criminals are accommodated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laureate_International_Universities#Visits_by_world_and_business_leaders
More on Laureate. Backed by Clinton, Soros, Kravis and even by an arm of the World Bank. All those suckers signing up to it. What a scam.
Bill Clinton Pitches KKR-Backed College Chain Amid Controversy http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-06/clinton-pitches-kkr-backed-college-chain-amid-controversy.html
Jemand
“Before anyone joins Gough Whitlam’s cult of personality, it is worth remembering that Whitlam ok’d the bloody Indonesian invasion of East Timor and with Malcom Fraser, covered up the genocide that followed. The names of Whitlam and Fraser are dirt in East Timor, now Timur Leste, as they are with me.”
____________________
I like your posts, Jemand because you are splendid at pricking the over-inflated balloons that the easily impressed on here love playing with.
Lysias
Where were you?
Mike
“Let’s hope that someone somewhere at some point does something about all the psychopaths, like Blair and the Drone King and Dov Zakheim and most CEOs of large companies. Any takers?”
___________________
What were you thinking of and what action would you recommend, Mike?
Craig has already done one on Hadley Freeman of the Guardian.
viz
Forget Those Shredded Children, Hadley Freeman is the Real Victim Here
by craig on Aug 8th 2014 in Uncategorized
Do not be deceived. The murdered innocents of Gaza are not those who are really suffering. It is the liberal Jews like Hadley Freeman, victims of the new anti-Semitism. Israel is a state openly founded on racist and theocratic grounds, in which Jews have an absolute right to live in Israel, wherever in the world […]
Here she is today having a pop at Russell Brand.
Britain, don’t put your faith in Russell Brand’s revolution
The comedian’s excitable appearance on Newsnight this week betrayed the incoherence of his political views
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/24/britain-russell-brand-revolution-newsnight?CMP=twt_gu
@Habby: You know I try to be fair, and no politician is going to get it right every time. Harold Wilson is generally accepted as being “one of the good guys”, but he allowed the US to set up their first base on The Chagos Islands.
In defence of Whitlam… we don’t know what diplomatic pressure was being but upon them behind the scenes. Alternatively… they could have been misinformed… as of course could Jack Straw and Tony Blair. In the absence of hard evidence we can only speculate!
Peacewisher
Fair comment!
Mike. 10 03pm
“I wonder who’s doing the shelling, Sofia? Just the hardnut Nazis and Academi? As far as I can tell, the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers don’t have much of a desire to continue.”
Ukraine’s fourth wave of mobilization proceeds to fill the ranks with untrained, aged, criminal and and unwilling conscripts, simply cannon fodder. I’m sure they can load and fire shells and mortars. But accurate aiming, whether of artillery or missiles, demands skills these people just won’t have had the time to acquire.
Just guessing here, but I find it hard to believe the rump Ukrainian Army has suddenly found the skills needed to land balistic missiles on-target and the Nazis seem to be only any good at street violence, repressing of civilians and running away from armed partisans (and of course Vlad’s phantom invading army), so that leaves the usual suspects in the hegemon’s covert and corporate armies IMO.
What a terrible tragedy for all involved. And what a tragedy for the people of Western Europe to allow their attention to be so easily diverted from the re-emergence of Fascism in Europe, simply for the gain of a tiny number of kelptocrats on the other side of the world.
In 2030 will our kids start asking us how we could have allowed it to happen?
Is the reason for the info blockade that the of the Ukraine issue will determine whether the instigators end up running the show or standing in the dock?
BLiar must have a financial interest in Laureate. This is from a search for ‘Douglas Becker Blair’. See how many Laureate locations there are where BLiar has spoken.
http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/prnewswire/search?q=%22Douglas+L.+Becker%22
This is the eponymous Becker speaking. Nerdy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brrz1Tqzhp8#t=115
http://article.wn.com/view/2014/09/16/Former_British_Prime_Minister_Tony_Blair_Addresses_Students_/
Thanks, Mary. If you don’t like e-beer, just order what you like from the e-bar.
Yes, the Clinton connection is probably significant – the Blair operation seems to be modelled on Bill’s. Blair was also promoting state-funded corporate education provision in Malaysia and Indonesia this year. Looks like education, education, education ™ is the latest moneyspinner.
It looks also as if he has ditched his greenwash scam, the ‘Breaking the Climate Deadlock’, a divison of the Blair Group, whose website, last updated in 2011, informs us that’The Climate Group is an independent NGO working internationally with business and government leaders to advance practical policies and technologies necessary to cut global emissions and drive a prosperous low carbon economy.’
Difficult to do while representing BP’s interests in building a colossal oil pipeline from Baku to Italy, or lecturing the Mexicans on globalising their shale gas market. Which may be why Blair has been very quiet on global warming lately.
Craig, well done and thank you.
Please do something about ” Tough titty ” addressed to Mary: Habbabkuk.
“Mary
Can you really not understand that sympathy for you as a person (as far as your health problems are concerned) does not mean that one should refrain from commenting on and where necessary contesting various views you put forward on this blog?”
This is not just ” ad hominem “, sexist, personal and extremely disrespectful, but also it has a taste of Hasbara insolence.
I heard a comment on Radio 4 this week that women clergy in the C of E had received similar obscenely insolent attacks from closet homosexual clergy in the same organisation.
Quite apart from all your other achievements how do you tolerate this shitty anti-woman racist bigot on your blog files? Please do something about it as I am not going to participate in your blog so long as this misogyny is allowed is allowed.
Correction:
Is the reason for the info blockade that the outcome of the Ukraine issue will determine whether the instigators end up running the show or standing in the dock?
The mantra of Blair’s legacy should be uneducation, uneducation, uneducation… for that is what he really has been achieving from the moment he uneducated the British public into believing that we were (according to the Sun) “45 minutes from doom”.
http://www.jpost.com/International/French-Israeli-banker-with-ties-to-disgraced-former-IMF-chief-Strauss-Kahn-dies-in-apparent-suicide-379732
Strange happenings in the Banking Industry again . JP Morgan has suffered some mysterious deaths lately . In January 2014 Gabriel Magee a Vice-President of JP Morgan is alleged to have committed suicide after ‘ leaping to his death ‘ [ Press description ] from the 33 story JP Morgan HQ in London . The background to the Tel Aviv ” apparent suicide ” will also no doubt remain a mystery .
Your comment is also awaiting moderation.
If mods cannot see that hab’s sexist game is extremely sinister, I’m not sure that they understand that the Hasbara trolls are trained to unpick commenters who are truthseekers.
Maybe the mods have been infiltrated by the hasbara trolls.
Well they’d do all of us a favour by leaping to their deaths – it would save the cost of lengthy court proceedings and interminable appeals – not to mention the dreary TV reconstructions down the line. Enough already.
Dear Mary – lots of love.