For anybody who doubts the reactionary single voice the UK media has become, it should be obvious from what you see on the surface, eg the unanimity of attack on Corbyn, the SNP or Assange. But if that doesn’t help, look below the surface.
Ex-Hedge Fund manager, now Murdoch leader writer Oliver Kamm published a disgusting and blatant lie and smear about me. Very quickly, Nick Cohen, Hadley Freeman and Marina Hyde of the Guardian and Stephen Daisley of ITV were popping up sending him personal tweets to congratulate him on it.
Usually it is best to ignore the lies of far right Murdoch employee Oliver Kamm, but there is one lie about me which he has been spreading so assiduously I feel I have to counter it. In Prospect Magazine Kamm states that:
“Craig Murray, a former diplomat who’s imaginatively reinvented himself as a “human rights campaigner,” claims that the charges against Assange are founded on political correctness.”
This is absolutely untrue. I have said no such thing. What I actually said in an interview with Kamm was “Due to a mistaken kind of political correctness the British media refuses to publish all the details of the case.” You can hear it here.
There is a massive difference between saying that the media refuses to publish the facts due to political correctness, and saying that rape itself is a matter of political correctness. I abhor the latter view. As Nadira has asked me to remind you, my partner is herself a rape victim.
In this interview with LBC Oliver Kamm went on to insult and lambast me and say that I claimed that the rape charges were founded on political correctness. I tried to point out that I said no such thing, but LBC had cut me off. LBC later put up the version you hear on that link in which Kamm’s remarks are given in full and my own are edited. But it is very plain indeed that I did not say what Kamm goes on to accuse me of saying.
Kamm then tweeted that I had stated that rape is political correctness. Though this was plainly untrue to anybody who listened to the LBC link which he attached, he started to receive congratulatory messages from his friends on twitter. To anybody who has yet to catch on that the mainstream media functions in collusion, it should come as no surprise to learn that this Murdoch employee received personal tweets attacking me from Nick Cohen, Hadley Freeman and Marina Hyde, all of the Guardian, and from Stephen Daisley of STV.
Rape is an appalling crime. Any sex without consent constitutes rape.
But I do not hold that the truth or falsity of an allegation of rape may not be subject to scrutiny. Anybody who does hold that is handing unchecked power to the state to eliminate opponents. I do think it is deplorable that the British media has not published the detail of the case. Then people could learn this.
Kamm’s reactionary friends can congratulate him all they like. What he is doing is spreading a deliberate lie about me. But it may just lead to a few more people researching what is really happening in the Assange case, and that would be karma.
UPDATE
I contacted Prospect magazine and they have now changed the Kamm article to state what I actually said. It is still of course surrounded by Kamm’s ultra right wing mendacious interpretations, but at least it no longer says that I said something which I did not say. For the rest, Mr Kamm is entitled to spew the vile nonsense he is so well paid for by Murdoch, and his mates at the Guardian love him for.
Here is another exchange I had with Kamm. He got into a huff when I compared him unfavourably with Che Guevara:
http://www.devilambassador.blogspot.com.ar/2007/11/novembers-target.html
Bert
“The slaughter of an estimated 4,000,000 people in the middle east is a rape of monstrous proportions.”
______________
That is certainly a lot of people. Could you break it down for us (including over time) and of possible indicate authoritative sources?
Re my earlier post:
http://www.devilambassador.blogspot.com.ar/2007/11/ollie-and-tibbets.html
Ollie and Tibbets
Sadly this has nothing to do with some cute little cartoon characters. It is about a mass murderer and his greasy apologist.
The mass murderer is the recently deceased Brigadier General Paul Tibbets who piloted Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and vaporized 140,000 innocent Japanese (not to mention the flood of deaths that followed from radiation sickness). Tibbets is quoted as saying that he never lost a night’s sleep over his atomic handiwork. Nice guy.
The apologist is a creepy little neo-con called Oliver Kamm who bears a frightening likeness to the 30s horror film actor Bela Lugosi (check out his picture – the fangs must have been air-brushed).
Still this is not about Kamm’s unappealing physical appearance. Rather it is about his equally unappealing (and I am being very charitable) politics and the repulsive way he exploits one of the nastiest episodes in human history. (Incidentally the petulant Kamm insists that he is not a neo-conservative and refers to himself instead as a Militant Liberal. After wading through a handful of his turgid posts, however, you will soon realize that he suffers from political dyslexia. He is in fact a Liberal Militarist, shorthand for those who champion violence in the pursuit of “noble causes”, all from a safe distance of course.)
Kamm went so far to post a fawning piece in which Tibbets is eulogized not just as the man who without question helped bring the Pacific War to an end but more subtly as a crusader against “totalitarianism”. It doesn’t take a genius to spot Kamm’s true motive an he tries to draw a parallel with his own “principled” stance against Iraqi “totalitarianism”. If the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of civilization qualifies one for militant liberal sainthood, then surely those neo-conservatives/militant liberals who stood up to the evil Baathist regime without resorting to nukes have earned their places in the choir of angels.
All that remains is to erect a glorious statue to Bomber Tibbets alongside the one of his soul-mate Bomber Harris which already adorns the Aldwych entrance to the City of London, to be unveiled by Kamm and his fellow ghouls from the Henry Jackson Society.
————————————————————————————
PS. If you think I am being too hard on Tibbets, then have a gander at this interview, especially the final paragraphs in which he makes it very clear how he would handle terrorism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,769634,00.html
This man had no compunction about murdering civilians.
“Still this is not about Kamm’s unappealing physical appearance.”
____________________
I quite agree. Why then did you go on about it?
Piss off troll.
njegos; You have some credit with Craig as a new poster, but you should know it’s politically incorrect to call posters ‘troll’ and despite Craig’s superhuman tolerance for contrariness, he is compelled to treat it like rape.
Njegos is hardly a new poster, I think.
J
He or she is new to me.
To echo Tony, LBC have become a complete joke of late, and perhaps Craig shouldn’t have allowed himself to be interviewed by them.
LBC has always been a bit right wing (“the taxi driver’s favourite”) yet managed to retain a bit of balance. LBC is now owned by an outfit called Global Media, and it’s division ‘Global News’, which is on a par with Fox News (go look-up who’s behind Global Media).
In otherwords, what was once a somewhat august London broadcasting company has now been turned into a cringeworthy, totally embarrassing neo-con propaganda outfit, directed from Washington. James O’Brians’s morning show is a good example of a pretend leftie who puts out non-stop neo-con propaganda bullshit.
Go listen to LBC…
http://www.lbc.co.uk/
… tomorrow (weekday) and feel free to tell me that I’m wrong.
Sadly, the entire UK mainstream media is now the same.
If you’re not extremely worried about this, you should be.
Dear Ben –
JSD is correct. I began posting here several years ago although I am an irregular participant. Just to get things straight, I call a spade a spade. Habbabkuk is a troll. If you have any doubts, just look at how he/she/it attacks other posters.
I am sorry if that displeases you but I will continue to defend myself.
Yours truly,
Njegos
Njegos; You missed the irony. You do not displease me. I am trying to keep you from offending Craig and moderators
Sorry, folks, I’ve had a hard day, and I see that Craig wasn’t actually interviewed by LBC, Oliver Kamm was.
Nevertheless, I still stand by everything I said about LBC.
Ben –
Thanks but somehow I think Craig will understand.
“LBC has always been a bit right wing (“the taxi driver’s favourite”) yet managed to retain a bit of balance. LBC is now owned by an outfit called Global Media, and it’s division ‘Global News’, which is on a par with Fox News (go look-up who’s behind Global Media).”
Doesn’t Alex Salmond work for them?
Global News was james Foley’s employer. They don’t seem to be typical MSM
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/140827/what-james-foley-meant-to-us
Njegos thanks for your links and also for your response to a certain barnacle steadfastly stuck on the bottom of this board. I shall borrow your eloquent response and use it henceforth too.
BTW there was a rumour that Tibets had been subject to psychiatric care and treatment due to losing his marbles, is it true?
http://globalnews.ca/news/1257391/globalnews-ca-nominated-for-cjf-excellence-in-journalism-award/
“I think Craig will understand.”
I admire your faith.
Many wonder why james Foley read from the ISIS script before he was beheaded. His motive was based on threats to companions in custody if he did not.
Habbabkuk (la vita è bella)
7 Feb, 2016 – 7:49 pm
Bert
“The slaughter of an estimated 4,000,000 people in the middle east is a rape of monstrous proportions.”
______________
“That is certainly a lot of people. Could you break it down for us (including over time) and of possible indicate authoritative sources?”
……………………………………………………………………….
Habbabkuk, all of your posts confirm, to observers of this blog, that you are an intellectual nonentity.
There does seem to be a cohort of journalists who are happy to write their opinions on Assange, without bothering to properly investigate the issue. It seems their arguments rarely get beyond ‘Assange should go to Sweden to face justice’, ensuring to mention that Assange is a narcissist for good measure. For me, this is basically quite sad. Craig does this part-time, for free, and has made the effort required to investigate the case; paid journalists – very well paid – seem not even to have asked for a brief from their underpaid researchers. One may argue that Assange should face justice in Sweden, but surely one can also note the complexities, especially around the US Grand Jury. Apparently not, in some cases. No, Assasnge is a creep, who is manipulating his gullible followers, and should probably have his errant member chopped off, they argue, all too often. Where is the nuance? Aside from anything else, it is atrociously condescending to their readers. I know it’s in the ‘opinion’ section, but I don’t believe even The Guardian has a ‘Stupid, Ill-Informed, Poorly-Researched Comment’ section, and the paid writers really need to pay heed to their craft.
Still, Craig has offended Oliver Kamm, so it’s not all bad.
Njegos
“Piss off troll.”
__________________
Thank you for that; I now fully understand why you went on about Kamm’s unappealing physical appearance before going on to say that your post wasn’t about his unappealing physical appearance. All clear, laddie! 🙂
Macky..And anyone else interested, a wee heads up… in case you find yirself, or are Close by –
http://normanfinkelstein.com/
Mr Scorgie
Would you consider giving Bert a hand with the breakdown (including over time) of the 4.000.000 people he thinks have been slaughtered in the Middle East?
Feel free to correct his figure upwards or downwards while you’re at it, of course.
Thanks.
Hieroglyph
07/02/2016 8:59pm
I don’t know if you are familiar with the US lawyer Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson and wrote a terrific book about the O.J. Simpson trial. (Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind seeing him take a look at the Assange case.)
He says somewhere in one of his numerous books that if anyone takes the trouble to look a little more deeply into almost any matter dealt with by the media, they are invariably shocked by the superficial nature of the reporting and the howlers that the average reporter comes out with, apparently from sheer idleness and ignorance.
I think that we are privileged to be seeing a case of this unfold before our eyes right here and now. Which would be great if it wasn’t so damned serious.
Kind regards,
John
Fred, Alex Salmond (much like Ken Livingstone) is allowed to be a guest presenter on LBC to create a false impression of balance. Once again, I invite anyone interested to listen to the weekday output of LBC (see my link above) and then tell me that LBC aren’t the British version of Fox News.
And Fred, since you seem to know a bit about oil north of the border, perhaps you can tell us if the SNP are planning to abandon the petrodollar?
Njegos
“Here is another exchange I had with Kamm. He got into a huff when I compared him unfavourably with Che Guevara:
http://www.devilambassador.blogspot.com.ar/2007/11/novembers-target.html3
_____________________
May I salute your indefatigability and your courage, Sir!
In my judgement, you got the better of him on Che Guevara but he got the better of you on the “white feather” argument.
If I had been in your shoes, I might have been tempted to show him I was no mere internet armchair warrior by seeking him out and kicking him down the steps of his club.
Piss off troll!
====================
To any and all who are reading the above nonsense, it is a clumsy attempt to marginalise the deaths of the millions of Iraqis who have been subject of the “kinetic” policies of the US et al, discounting the deaths resultant of the subsequent destruction of the countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya as the lawlessness left behind due to the adventurism of the US et al.
Officially the narrative was “we don’t do body counts”. However given the tonnage of the explosives dropped and fired on these countries and the potential of fall out as well as the destruction of the water, sewerage, electricity, hospitals and the swathes of refugees the deaths would amount to millions upon millions. That so far is not being mentioned in any of the oligarch owned media or the state propaganda in bunkum bullshit corporation
RobG
“Alex Salmond (much like Ken Livingstone) is allowed to be a guest presenter on LBC to create a false impression of balance.”
_______________________
Have I understood you properly, Rob?
If Salmond and Livingstone were not allowed to be guest presenters, LBC would be guilty of a lack of balance.
But if they are allowed to be guest presenters, LBC would still be guilty, this time of creating a false impression of balance.
Have I got you right there? 🙂
Fedup
Since the original poster remains silent and my appeal to Mr Scorgie appears to have fallen on deaf ears 🙂 perhaps you could help to break down the 4.000.000 people who have apparently been slaughtered in the Middle East (including of possible reliable sources for the numbers you come up with).
Feel free to include the numbers which represent the locals slaughtering their fellow citizens, if you wish.