The Independent have Jack Straw well and truly cornered:
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Craig Murray, who was sacked as UK ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2004 after alleging that Britain used intelligence obtained by the CIA under torture, said he attended a meeting at the Foreign Office where he was told that “it was not illegal for us to use intelligence from torture as long as we did not carry out the torture ourselves” and claimed this policy came directly from Mr Straw.
The former Foreign Secretary said: “At all times I was scrupulous in seeking to carry out my duties in accordance with the law. I hope to be able to say more about this at an appropriate stage in the future.”
I hope so too, and I hope that the appropriate time is either at the Old Bailey or The Hague.
Straw has climbed down a bit from his days of power and glory, when he told the House of Commons, immediately after sacking me, that there was no such thing as the CIA extraordinary rendition programme and its existence was “Mr Murray’s opinion.” He no longer claims it did not exist and he no longer claims I am a fantasist. He now merely claims he was not breaking the law.
His claim of respect for the law is a bit dubious in the light of Sir Michael Wood’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry. Wood said that as Foreign Office Legal Adviser, he and his elite team of in-house FCO international lawyers unanimously advised Straw the invasion of Iraq would be an illegal war of aggression. Straw’s response? He wrote to the Attorney General requesting that Sir Michael be dismissed and replaced. And forced Goldsmith to troop out to Washington and get alternative advice from Bush’s nutjob Republican neo-con lawyers.
Jack Straw did not have any desire to act legally. He had a desire to be able to mount a legal defence of his illegal actions. That is a different thing.
Should any of us live to see the publication of the Chilcot Report, this will doubtless be clear, though probably as a footnote to page 862 of Annex VII. That is how the Westminster establishment works.
The SNP has weighed in on the side of the angels:
Revelations by the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan of the UK’s knowledge and acceptance of torture must see those involved answer questions on what happened.
In an article in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Murray reveals that he attended a meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where he was told that “it was not illegal for us to use intelligence from torture as long as we did not carry out the torture ourselves” and revealed that this policy came directly from Jack Straw.
Mr Murray also reveals that “there was a deliberate policy of not writing down anything… because there should not be evidence of the policy.”
Craig Murray also states that “for the past year the British Ambassador in Washington and his staff have regularly been lobbying the US authorities not to reveal facts about the UK’s involvement in the CIA torture programme” and claims that is one of the reasons the full Senate report has not been published.
The SNP has called for a full judicial inquiry to be set up as a matter of urgency to get to get to the truth of who knew what and when.
Commenting, SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson MP said:
“Mr Murray’s revelation of the attitude taken by then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw only adds to the urgency with which we need a full judicial inquiry.
“Craig Murray’s article lifts the lid on the UK’s role in the human rights abuses that the US Senate has reported on and there can be no more attempts to avoid answering the tough questions that have been posed.
“Clearly answers are needed just as much from the politicians who led us at the time as from those directly involved in what was going on. The need for an independent judicial inquiry is now clear for all to see.
“It is also long past time that the findings of the Chilcot inquiry were published and there can be no more delays to that report being made public.
“There needs to be a full judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of the UK’s involvement in rendition flights that passed through UK territory and the UK’s wider knowledge of the abuses that the Senate has revealed.”
Craig Murray’s revelations can be viewed on page 25 of today’s Mail on Sunday
But with Malcolm Rifkind being promoted everywhere by the BBC to push his cover-up, it remains an uphill struggle.
Imaginary conversation from the Ministry for Expedient Truth and Justice
Msndarin M1: Minister , there have been disturbing public reports of politicians involved in torture. That is a crime in this country.
Minister M2: What? That’s outrageous! Believe me, heads will roll for this!
M1: Some call for an independent enquiry and suggest that among the heads could be yours, Minister.
M2: Now lets’s not get carried away and be too hasty. Tell the animals in the press pen that we need an enquiry to get to the bottom of this, an enquiry conducted by Democratically Elected Representatives of the People, er, no, scratch that, Elected Representatives will do fine ..
BLOWBACK
in this link Alastair Sloan asks why UK snoozepapers aren’t investigating or writing about 007
http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/12/16/the-allegations-against-mi6-are-serious-so-why-aren-t-they-f
meanwhile in the US, NS/CI/A might have f*cked not just the Russian economy!
http://qz.com/147313/ciscos-disastrous-quarter-shows-how-nsa-spying-could-freeze-us-companies-out-of-a-trillion-dollar-opportunity/
@Fred: https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/543726425254416384/photo/1
Clue: Yougov poll released 13th December: 52 SNP 6 LAB 1 LIBDEM
Fred:
(a) Didn’t follow my links, eh? You can’t expect me to understand your fear of the country you have – I assume voluntarily – settled in, becoming independent, if you bury your head in the sand like that.
In short: The UK economy is stuffed. It is largely dependent on rich people lending each other money and betting on how much it will be worth in 5 milliseconds’ time. It makes little that anyone else wants, and its potential purchasers are similarly stuffed in any case. In the UK’s case, this approach to national (in)solvency was formalised by Thatcher, and continued by every government since. GDP is an essentially meaningless measure of wealth, financial soundness, or anything else. You can increase the GDP by manufacturing millions of plastic ducks and paying your neighbour to burn them. The process need not benefit anyone.
Anyway, I hope that when the speculators who actually control the price of diesel for your grey Fergie decide enough is enough*, you will return to comment on what an opportunity was missed by ‘the nationalists’ now oil is $360/barrel, and how bitterly you regret your naive support of Rangers.
* and they will
I don’t know how many of you have seen this
Daily Mail again
‘I was waterboarded by UK Special Forces’: Pakistani captive details horrific abuse by British troops before being handed to US interrogators
– Yunus Rahmatullah released in May by the US after ten years in captivity
– Claims British captors beat him and threw him in pen with attacking dogs
– 62-page witness statement reveals UK Special Forces waterboarded him
– High Court has dismissed Government attempts to throw out the case
– Supreme Court will now decide whether case can be heard in open court
More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2873032/I-waterboarded-UK-Special-Forces-Pakistani-captive-details-horrific-abuse-British-troops-handed-interrogators.html
Habbabkuk
The question was not whether you were against torture, I have not the slightest doubt that you abhor it as much as the next man or woman. The question was whether you truly agreed with the proposition advanced by Res Dis that those who condemned it in some countries but not others must therefore agree with it.
But no matter, let’s move on. I will answer your question by slightly widening it, if I may, to address the issue you often inveigh against, namely why posters here are more critical of the West than of other places, and which you interpret to mean—wrongly in my view—that they somehow ‘hate the West.’
In order to answer the question we need to understand the background.
Some time ago Craig remarked on the transformation time had wrought in him with respect to his feelings about Britain and her works. He went from the proud FO employee sitting in the car with the Union Flag on the bonnet to a man disgusted by the cruel, ruthless and rapacious warmongering country that Britain really was. Most people on this blog have, I suspect, made a similar journey. We grew up on a diet of deceit about Britain, one suggestive that we are the men in white hats, a noble decent peace-loving country that—in contrast to the usual way of these things—acquired an empire through civilised means. This image of Britain is reinforced endlessly from every direction and survives only by editing out the blood-stained truth. No one talks publicly of the concentration camps in the Boer War, the castration of the Mau Mau the outrageous treatment of the Chagos Islanders, the lunatic cruelty of the Opium wars etc. Instead people bang on incessantly about beating the Boches in two wars, but never mention the fact that we have been at war—apparently—with more than 170 countries, most of which almost certainly didn’t have an army. This must make us the most warlike country the world has ever known.
More recently we have been the junior partner of the US and here too we find ourselves daily exposed to barrage of tosh about America being the City on the Hill, the Beacon of freedom and democracy in a benighted world etc. All purveyed by an army of stooges in the media who present an image of America that is grotesquely contradicted by evidence in the pubic record but which is studiously ignored as if to mention it were somehow impolite. If you take as a yardstick of barbarity aerial bombing then America has no peer in this, it is the most savage people-bomber the world has ever known.
635,000 tons on Korea (including 32,000 tons of napalm)
8 million tons on Indochina, including 2.5 million on Laos whom they weren’t even at war with
And then there was ’Shock and Awe’ etc.
Who, by comparison, have Russia and China bombed? Whatever their crimes, they are small beer compared to those of the US but we live in a world where according to the media up is down and black is white, where China and Russia are perpetually portrayed as the villains with us as the good guys. In truth America is just better at propaganda, a skill beautifully exemplified by the way they managed, for many years, to turn the genocidal destruction of the North American Indians into a children’s game.
Against this background it should therefore come as no great surprise to find the posters here concentrate their efforts on exposing the crimes of the West. We don’t need to bang on about Russia and china, we get it poured into our ears every day of our lives. We come here much as the kid in the story of the Emperor’s New Robes might seek out a bar where there were other kids who could see the same thing. For the sake of our sanity.
More importantly, it is our moral duty to raise our voices against these crimes because they are done in our name using our taxes. It is morally cheap to condemn the criminal behaviour of another regime while remaining silent about our own. Any fool can do that.
Finally, it’s just normal human nature to take an interest in some things and not others. Some old ladies give money to cancer, some to the dog’s home. Some people spend their weekends fishing, others shopping. Those who are interested in fish can reasonably be expected to gravitate to a river and those, here, who are shocked by the crimes carried out by the West can reasonably be expected to gravitate to a blog run by a man who achieved fame as a whistleblower with respect to such crimes. It’s just natural.
It’s not that we hate the West, we just hate what it does and we hate the way the media lies allow it to continue doing more of the same. We hate the cruelty, the people killed in our name, we hate the grotesque double standards, and we come here to mix with people who are similar appalled.
Weeelll said!
‘Keep on pumping that housing bubble, Gideon. It’s all you’ve got.’
Well, Ba’al, there is the small sum of 30 billion in tax cuts he’s still not discounting, just in case anybody still believes he has got this dosh to splash about his mates.
Looks like FB has now heard of torture and extraordinary rendition, thanks to us weasels having words, who really needs the Guardian or a thoroughly corrupted public broadcasting organisation?
So Habby says he’s a false flag too, what has the world come to these days.
Very well said, KOWN.
Rendition: Blair in quotes
What did the government know about the US using British airports to transport terror suspects? Here is what was said by Tony Blair, in his own words
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4627360.stm
Well, Ba’al, there is the small sum of 30 billion in tax cuts he’s still not discounting, just in case anybody still believes he has got this dosh to splash about his mates.
Thanks for reminding me. Borrowed money, of course.
@Dreolin: You can see why Charles Kennedy had to go…
KOWN.
“More importantly, it is our moral duty to raise our voices against these crimes because they are done in our name using our taxes. It is morally cheap to condemn the criminal behaviour of another regime while remaining silent about our own.”
What is it called when a person chooses to defend what is done in our name by our rulers even when a mountain of evidence leaves not the slightest doubt that the scale of their crimes dwarfs the all competition put together?
The Emperor’s leutenant here aka Dad, wants those who use evidence and point at the new suit to be regarded as “subversives” and “enemies of the state”.
Now we know his judgement, maybe he can explain the reasoning behind it. 🙂
Pure gold, Dreoilin. Thanks.
He’s really getting rattled at the end. Essentially, “lalalalala” –
Question: Well Amnesty International, a number of politicians in the House of Commons have come up and furnished you with flight details and the rest of it and asked for an inquiry. Given that you are concerned that if it is illegal you would want to stop it, should you not find out whether it is illegal?
Mr Blair: I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all, and I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that and the next thing, when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not. And I honestly, it is like all this stuff about camps in Europe or something, I don’t know, I have never heard of such a thing, I can’t tell you whether such a thing exists.
Question: Are you not going to find out? Surely, by which we will be judged.
Mr Blair: All I know is that the American practice of in certain circumstances, with the consent of the country concerned, taking someone and either removing them to another country or back to the United States, that is a practice that they have avowed, never mind admitted, for a long period of time. But you know it is not something that I have ever actually come across until this whole thing has blown up, and I don’t know anything about it, and the reason why I am not going to start ordering inquiries is that I can’t see a reason for doing it, I am afraid.
KingOfWelshNoir provides an excellent explanation and justification of why Craig and most who comment on his blogs concentrate on the faults of the UK and the USA. This is different from being self-critical because for the most part we are heaping the responsibility for bad policies on the decisions and actions of government ministers and officials, not of ourselves. (Some of us who voted for parties in our present government are looking for alternatives; and don’t see it in the Labour Party.) However, when it comes to the detail there are legitimate questions about the accuracy of our information or the intentions that are attributed to others. That’s where it becomes hard to avoid conspiracy theories; because in some cases, there is indeed evidence that we are being fed lies and that a hidden agenda is being followed. But in most cases, probing the reliability of the evidence is a valuable exercise, certainly more valuable than name-calling those whose perspective is different. If we are going to dismiss the views of anyone, from PM and Cabinet Ministers to powerless bloggers, because they are putting up false flags – eg they say they want to improve the NHS but really want to get rid of it as a universal service free at the point of need – evidence is needed to support this, not just assumptions that they are deliberately lying about their intentions.
Thanks Dreoilin. I agree Ba’al, pure gold. This is the Tony Blair (letter of the law man) who was not going to be ordering inquiries into this that and anything who, before the pathologist had got to the scene of the crime to make his assessment of how Dr David Kelly died, who ordered an inquiry (the Hutton whitewash), circumventing the legal procedure of a coroner’s inquest. The man has no integrity.
I love the way Blair kept saying things like if it is lawful I agree with it, if it is unlawful I don’t. He was trying to cover his arse with woolly weasel-words to pull the wool over the eyes of parliamentary commoners and pull the woolsack from under the Lords.
Iain Orr:
“If we are going to dismiss the views of anyone, from PM and Cabinet Ministers to powerless bloggers, because they are putting up false flags – eg they say they want to improve the NHS but really want to get rid of it as a universal service free at the point of need – evidence is needed to support this, not just assumptions that they are deliberately lying about their intentions.”
I totally disagree with you. You are talking as if this government and New Labour have no form. There’s no need to have evidence, as if evidence was going to be left around like passports at ground zero. No the balance of evidence against neo-con institutions means that no evidence is required to charge them with malicious intentions, whether in domestic or foreign policy.
They need to prove themselves clean.
Craig
“If I learnt one thing inside the Foreign Office it is that apparently normal decent people can be twisted by the State to do bad things. If you hate everyone for that you would end up hating most of society.”
Weasel words indeedy. Yet again Murray brushes aside the question of degree. We are to equally “hate” anyone who works for the state! Yes, the social worker is as guilty as the leader of a Foreign Office team imposing sanctions against Iraq. So says the ex leader of a Foreign Office team imposing sanctions against Iraq!
Of course Murray does not actually believe this crap. There are those he holds responsible, those he calls “evil” and deserving of your “hate”. A select few politicians, though apparently still decent chaps, are to blame for everything. And only chaps above Murray’s pay grade should ever be held accountable for their actions. Anyway, he knew nothing. Don’t take my word for it, read his autobiographies.
Don’t be a hater. Vote Murray!
ISIL looking for greener pastures?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/16/us-pakistan-school-idUSKBN0JU0JO20141216
Iain Orr
“Patrick: we have some parallel experiences in that I was Craig’s predecessor as Deputy High Commissioner in Accra. Comparing notes is best not on this website”
Iain, I am intrigued. Patrick interestingly and relevantly pointed out that Craig was talking nonsense about Rifkind’s anti-apartheid position. Probably I’m misunderstanding it but to me your comment reads like an old school tie appeal for silence before the plebs.
Hint: Who Created Cartoon Character “Man Haron Monis” Behind “Sydney Siege” Circus?
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/who-created-cartoon-character-man-haron.html
Kingofwelshnoir and Ba’al.
Well done! All in a nutshell.
Mark;
” Monis/Boroujerdi is certainly no “loan wolf terrorist.””
I’m sure that’s a typo, but it is interesting he might be ‘borrowed’ by CIA.
Note the Arabic speaking attackers in the Pakistan massacre. Taliban took credit.
poli-ticks
= many blood sucking insects
However, back to politics-free sport! In the link below, the NS/CI/A are continuing efforts to have the next world-cup host country thrown out of the championship, er, FAIL for the moment. Somebody isn’t bribing the incorruptible Swiss enough yet! It must be annoying when countries don’t read the deep-state script
I only mention this as the BBC R4 Today football-comment-team have hardly talked about anything else for the last few months, at least they are On-Script, trebles all round when UKUSA spontaneously “pull-out” of the games over some future false-flag trivia…
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/16/micahel-garcia-loses-fifa-ethics-appeal
Phil
You do misunderstand. Having lasted in the FCO until my set retirement date – though not without problems with certain bosses – I am always interested to meet others who either jumped ship or were pushed. But detailed exchanges on the lines of “who did you work with on what desks/posts/ issues and what did you think of them and of FCO ministers at the time?” are inevitably going to use a lot of in-house shorthand. Yes it is clannishness, but of the same sort if you have suffered ( as I have) from an ischio-rectal abscess or erisipelas and want to exchange details of symptoms and treatment with someone who has had the same illnesses. Working in any big organization is a bit like going into hospital – the risks of infection of mind or body are immediately greater.
Delighted to see your piece on Paul Craig Roberts’ blog.
You might have a word with him about Ukraine. He is very wise on that subject.
“You might have a word with him about Ukraine. He is very wise on that subject.”
I see what you did there. Add the EU/NATO/TPIP and the picture is complete.
Phil grow up
We all encounter people whose ideas we detest on a daily basis but it does not prevent us from being socially charming to them.
You never know, under the disgusting exterior, the frog-prince could be Prince Charming.
The prophet Muhammad May God’s blessings be upon him, was sitting outside the fortified castle of a Jewish family in Madinah and the Angel Gabriel Alaihi Salam informed him that the Jews planned to roll a boulder from above onto him where he was sitting.
If the best human being SAW did not possess knowledge of the unseen, who are we mortals to know the inner hearts and motivations of other human beings? But form – criminal form – is another thing. if Craig had kept quiet about rendition but later blown the whistle on the Iraq invasion, your snide remarks might have some traction.
The fact is, as Craig has often mentioned, the difference between doing his job under Thatcher or Major, and under Blair was obvious and glaring. He was now being required to process Human Rights violations requested by the US and automatically shared with him as Ambassador.
Since that time it has become routine that when US wishes to use its mercenaries, like Islamic State in 2014 to threaten Maliki in Baghdad, all the neighbouring affected parties are sworn into accepting the policy so that everyone shares the blame for the consequent human rights violations, beheadings tortures etc.
Craig, a patriotic UK public servant refused to allow the UK to be drawn into collective blame for US extraordinary rendition.
I am and always will be very proud of him just for making that one decision. It was an act of clarity and conscience on a par with the angel Gabriel’s. He was in a position to warn and he warned.
The more you try to demonise him, the more I am convinced he is an angel clothed in human form. None of the other FCO cronies who pop up here seem to appreciate the ihsan/ self-sacrificing excellence of what Craig has done.
Similarities:
16 December 2014
G4S guards cleared over deportation death
Three security guards cleared over death of Jimmy Mubenga, who died during attempted deportation from UK in 2010
4 Dec 2014
Eric Garner: No charges in NY chokehold case
A New York grand jury decides not to charge a white policeman over the death of Eric Garner, a black man he placed in an apparent chokehold.
~~~~~~~~~
16 December 2014
Taliban massacre children at school
Militants from the Pakistani Taliban attack an army-run school in Peshawar, leaving at least 135 people dead, most of them children.
31 Jul 2014
‘The world stands disgraced’ – Israeli shelling of school kills at least 15 children
– Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us’ UNRWA
• UN condemns IDF attack on sleeping children as violation of international law
• Strike on crowded market in Shujai’iya during ceasefire kills 17
• Death toll now more than 1,300 after three weeks of fighting