I have been refused entry clearance to the USA to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou and to speak at the World Beyond War conference in Washington DC. Like millions of British passport holders I have frequently visited the USA before and never been refused entry clearance under the visa waiver programme.
I shall apply for a visa via the State Department as suggested but I must be on a list to be refused under the ESTA system, and in any event it is most unlikely to be completed before the conference.
It is worth noting that despite the highly critical things I have published about Putin, about civil liberties in Russia and the annexation of the Crimea, I have never been refused entry to Russia. The only two countries that have ever refused me entry clearance are Uzbekistan and the USA. What does that tell you?
I have no criminal record, no connection to drugs or terrorism, have a return ticket, hotel booking and sufficient funds. I have a passport from a visa waiver country and have visited the USA frquently before during 38 years and never overstayed. The only possible grounds for this refusal of entry clearance are things I have written against neo-liberalism, attacks on civil liberties and neo-conservative foreign policy. People at the conference in Washington will now not be able to hear me speak.
Plainly ideas can be dangerous. So much for the land of the free!
Can you skype your speech? Or is it better to have an empty chair with your chosen symbol on it? This needs to draw attention to the state of the State, whatever you decide.
Good idea Jayne.
It is sadly ironic to call America the “land of the free” especially in this day and age.
Ben thanks.
I saw what you did there. Thanks.
How about using a video link; Skype or Facetime?
Fear, fear, fear!
Last week here in France it was the end of the summer holiday, and the kids went back to school; but they went back to a very different regime…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avDBvIKKCyU
It’s a re-run of the old ‘duck and cover’ bullshit from the 1950s and 60s.
Please, people, I’d like to think that we’ve evolved above such blatant propaganda and manipulation.
I can tell you that the French won’t put up with this, and now we’re into September the protests and riots will resume again.
As always, you won’t hear nothing about it in your favourite CIA controlled rag.
Craig, Have you informed the world’s best selling (online) newspaper – DailyMail? Widely read all over the USA. . .they eventually let in Markus (Micha) Wolf for a chat, but not a human rights campaigner? hypocrisy!
A popular beat combo were banned from the US in 1965, according to Ray Davies. . .in his own words. . .
“Some guy who said he worked for the TV company walked up and accused us of being late. Then he started making anti-British comments. Things like ‘Just because the Beatles did it, every mop-topped, spotty-faced limey juvenile thinks he can come over here and make a career for himself. You’re just a bunch of Commie wimps. When the Russians take over Britain, don’t expect us to come over and save you this time. The Kinks, huh? Well, once I file my report on you guys, you’ll never work in the U.S.A. again. You’re gonna find out just how powerful America is, you limey bastard!’
but my musical choice isnt by the great Kinks, but is a reminder by a Canadian to what goes on in the US of A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4kTnP5VJ1k
So your superior airs have a slightly less noxious odor reception for Canadians?
Lol. The true Master Race raises it’s ugly visage at last.
Hey, sing along Ben
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjT6B6IFUU8
Yes, I did. “Just another poor man off to fight a rich man’s war.” Thank God for artists, poets and singers, like Steve Earle, who have a message of truth. It reminded me in some ways ‘when will they learn’ of “Where have all the flowers gone”.
Dear Ben, have you read this?
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/03/frog-no-longer-boiling-its-dead
or this?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45407.htm
or this?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate#14727770290781&action=collapse_widget&id=0&data=
Don’t waste your time, Alan. Ben is just a nasty piece of work.
Ray Davies should have told that dude: “give me two good reasons why I ought to stay”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIKsHh3BFPI
Near the end it informs that Bush has not attended the funeral of a single US soldier killed in Iraq to the chagrin of their families. The reason is if the President does not attend it is not news. These people are sick beyond hope.
That is the Neil Young video on lets impeach the president.
It costs $118 for a short term (valid 6 months) visa for an citizen of the US to enter the UK.
http://www.gov.uk/visa-fees
How much is an equivalent visa for a British citizen to enter the US?
Nothing, because the US tourist industry depends upon it, as witnessed by all the TV adverts for California and Florida – Please come, we really need your money….
Sorry to hear this. It is important for a powerful country to hear contrary opinion. They can easily spin and bury what they don’t like. Sounds weak and negative to have declined entry. Though ESTA is not a visa and maybe you will get a visa so maybe a glitch or maybe a sign, a raided eyebrow to say you can cone in and speak but we don’t need to make it easy for you. If your declined ESTA do you get a refund?
Sing along now Craig:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIoCafn27Ds
There is only one reason: consorting with Assange. Were you similarly related to a man the Russians consider a comparable security risk you would be persona non grata there too.
Crap – Entry into Russia is 98% guaranteed regardless of hobnobbing with a whistleblower. I know only one case, that of a British paratrooper banned from entering Russia on a previous border violation. The visa ban was overturned and he was granted a letter of invitation from the Russian government. He was then granted a visa in 2014 and I believe he is still there..
I think even the UK’s none-too secret and Guardian reporter, Luke Harding, could get back in, despite the anti-Russian tripe he writes, especially about Litvinenko, and other suspected traffickers on behalf of Berezovsky.
http://johngossip.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-litvinenko-farce-your-legal-rights.html
This is all too true – one trick of the Russian authorities is to slow things down so that entire families cannot travel together at the same time. They also regularly fire warning shots across the bows of those whom they mildly disapprove. Nevertheless it doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the US towards Craig.
The real indictment of the US Government system is that it has always been a fierce enemy of the people. The details are known to all except that it is often forgotten how badly treated are Americans who are of European ancestry.
The current situation is one in which the great mass of Americans, of all races, are suffering from declining living standards and evaporating prospects. Pensions are regularly stolen. The cost of insuring medical care is high and rapidly rising as the Obamacare Band-aid falls off. Public education is being turned into a profit centre for corporations-teachers are being dismissed, educational standards falling. This is a country in rapid decline.
Except in one respect: the very rich are getting very much richer. And more powerful, like Neil Young I have no time for the thieves, con artists and complete madmen (and women) who dominate US politics, but the people are their victims not their accomplices. And certainly not their employers. Although they do pay their wages.
It really is important, when attacking the Imperial government not to blame the first of their victims. It was not the ordinary English labourer who was responsible for-or profited from- the Conquest of Bengal. All that the ordinary US citizen has got out of neo-con policies has been higher taxation, restricted liberties, unemployment and the poverty draft which has done so much harm to so many poor people tricked into the forces.
Don’t forget Bev, how some of them are forced into bankruptcy just for the crime of developing a chronic illness and thus being unable to earn a living any more.
The average cancer patient in America is worth $1 million dollars profit – repeat, *profit*.
And don’t even get me onto the ongoing horror story that is Fukushima…
And don’t even get me onto the ongoing horror story that is Fukushima…
I find it intriguing how people worry about Fukushima while forgetting all the bomb tests in the 60s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
And when you have watched that, ask yourself, do you really want to visit California?
Bev
“… it is often forgotten how badly treated are Americans who are of European ancestry.”
___________________
Huh?
I was under the impression that – until fairly recently – the majority of Americans were of European ancestry.
Are you saying that Americans of non-European ancestry (Mexicans, Central Americans, Asiatics, etc..) are now “treated” (whatever you mean by that) better than those of European ancestry?
If so, would you like to talk us through that?
You got a snarl from the hound of the baskervilles. You should be proud. People say about dictators like Assad that he is the tail of USUKIS aggressive imperialist dog, and you should attack the head.You did it.
When Winston Churchill planned the conquest of Mosul for its petrol 100 years ago, he cannot have envisaged the leader of the US senate John McCain, leading a terrorist drug=crazed caliphate, the tail of the USUKIS dog.
As for the banana republic mafiosa like Erdogan and Barzani, they are no more than farts of the Muslim-gorged USUKIS beast.
PLEASE REVIEW MY TWITTER ACCOUNT @AlexandraMacDo7 REGARDING THE WORLDWIDE COVERT/REMOTE PATTERN-OF-LIFE SURVEILLANCE, COVERT/REMOTE TORTURE OF MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN VIA DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS AND HARMFUL ELECTROMAGNETIC/RADIO FREQUENCIES. PLEASE ALSO REVIEW INFO & PHOTOS ON MY FACEBOOK TIMELINE AND PUBLICLY VIEWABLE FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUMS AT sandra.laser.94 THANK YOU.
Dear Sandra, Do you really have to shout? Just curious..
YES, ALAN, I DO! I ALWAYS SHOUT ABOUT THIS WORLDWIDE HUMAN RIGHTS CRIME BECAUSE THERE ARE FACTIONS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES THAT WANT TO KEEP THIS CRIME COVERED-UP. WOULDN’T LOOK GOOD IF U.S. CITIZENS WERE SHOWN TO BE TORTURED WITHIN THE BORDERS OF THE LAND OF THE FREE. THE OPTICS WOULD BE HORRIBLE, ESPECIALLY NOW DURING THE “RUNNING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES” SO, WHILE YOU MAY FIND MY ALL CAPS UNPLEASING, I DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF BEING CONCERNED WITH THAT. PLEASE LOOK AT THE PHOTOS I HAVE TWEETED AND THAT I HAVE POSTED TO FB, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF MY NECK, BACK OF MY NECK, HECK JUST LOOK AT ALL OF THEM!
Dear Sandra, the only ones who believe in that “Land of the Free” stuff are Americans. Nobody else in the world could possibly be that gullible.
Is your name Sandra McDonald, Alexandra MacDonald or Sandra Laser? Just wondering – since all are apparently your personal accounts. By the way, ALL CAPS are kind of hard on the eyes. That’s why corporations put large portions of their “agreements” for you to sign in ALL-CAPS, knowing an individual is less likely to bother reading it.
glenn, I think Sandra needs a break. I know what you say but people should be taken on face value. Anyone with problems does not need more.
I don’t read comments or articles in ALL CAPS and I can’t be the only one who skips them. We cannot ignore loud voices but loud words we can and the authors should realize this. The only time I might read them is when a comment in reply persuades me to see what they actually said but even that’s not usually necessary.
So, I’ve like, studied, scientifically, from available open literature ” directed energy weapons ” (which do exist) AND ” harmful electromagnetic/radio frequencies ” which do not really exist. Torture using these systems does not exist. Torture of men/women children with these systems does NOT exist.
The laws of physics implies an inverse square law for electromagnetic radiation, double your distance from the source to receive a quarter less power. I call a troll or *a well meaning but hysterical uninformed non-troll!
For example, don’t buy a house under power-lines pylons. It’s marginally less healthy due to air-ionisation, not EM waves. All other RF waves just cause heating.
Well done troll*, this has deflected the discussion away from US not offering free travel to a prominent human rights activist to attend a human rights focussed meeting where the only person to have been jailed in the USA over real CIA torture was the whistleblower himself, who was also to be present
Under a Trump administration, you would now be in a foundation.
In a wall near Mexico…
This is the highest honour you will ever receive, higher than anything the Queen or Nobel judges can confer. A criminal regime, the world’s greatest threat to peace, is afraid of what you might say.
When we knock over that degenerate pismire and put their heads on sticks, you can come and get a proper fête.
Aw, come on, Craig – you some sort of ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ or something?
Digital age will break their barriers
Anon1/ Habbabkuk:
Sorry about this sad loss of your girlfriend – why do the good have to die so tragically young?
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/09/longtime-right-wing-conservative-icon-phyllis-schlafly-dies-at-92/
—-
Schlafly once called feminists “a bunch of bitter women seeking a constitutional cure for their personal problems,” Time said, while insisting that “women find their greatest fulfillment at home with their family.”
Her political ardor did not fade with age and in 2014, as President Barack Obama pushed for pay equity for women, Schlafly sparked controversy with a column for the Christian Post saying a man’s paycheck comes first.
“The pay gap between men and women is not all bad because it helps to promote and sustain marriages,” she said. “… The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.”
Schlafly promoted traditional family values and once told a reporter that she always listed her occupation as “mother” when filling out applications. But she was hardly a typical stay-at-home housewife/mother.
Shortly after marrying lawyer Fred Schlafly in 1949, she became active in Republican Party politics in Alton, Illinois, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice. She would go on to found the Eagle Forum grass-roots conservative group, write a newspaper column and newsletter and author some 20 books.
Her crowning achievement was crusading to prevent the Equal Rights Amendment from being added to the U.S. Constitution and it made Schlafly a leader in the modern American conservative movement.
—-
Et Cetera.
And from another direction:
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/825-propagandising-for-war-the-bbc-today-programme-on-syria.html
Congratulations; you must be doing something right!
And, could you remind me… What is the fist amendment to the Constitution of the United States about 😉
Excuse me while I remove my tongue from my cheek, it seems to have got stuck.
Bert.
Canada
A web page needs to be created listing all British (and EU) citizens denied access to the US merely on the grounds of their opinions.
Much has been made on here of the assertion that Craig would have no difficulty getting a visa to enter the Russian Federation. And that assertion is used in order to further slam the USA.
However.
It is true that Craig has occasionally criticised Mr Putin’s Russia and certain of its actions and policies. But I suggest that the severity of his criticisms pales when compared to the stick he hands out to the USA and certain of its actions and policies. The same may be said of the comments furnished day in and day out by the majority of this blog’s regular commenters. I am in fact being mild: the majority of the comments from those people in fact support and attempt to justify Russian actions through thick and thin.
The following question must therefore be asked: would the Russian govt give Craig a visa if his comments – and those of most of the regular commenters – on Mr Putin’s Russia were as vehement as those about the USA and if his intention was to attend a meeting in Russia of a similar nature to the meeting he wants to attend in the USA?
(Not that such a meeting would ever be allowed to take place in Russia if course….)
You had tea and biscuits with Julian Assange, something the largest bully on earth can’t do, as much as they would like to spike his drink and/or bundle him into a car.
I feel as if the discourse described by YKMN goes to the heart of the Yankee problem with us here in Europe. Growing up, the juvenile asserts itself by going against the grain of his forefathers, what a surprise, yawn.
use skype and make sure that this issue is mentioned, its not the end of the world. Not yet, for that we need Shillary.
One of the reasons the US gets sniffy about visitors is given as countries recently visited by the applicant. Also is your passport (FFS delete that pic, which shows the number) an e- passport? They seem to be demanding that it is these days.
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/usa/entry-requirements
Go figure:
“Soon after the year 2000 has been written, a law will go forth from America whose purpose will be to suppress all individual thinking. This will not be the wording of the law, but it will be the intent” Rudolf Steiner: Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes in Menschengeiste (The Present and the Past in the Human Spirit) 1916.
interesting comment. thanks. Can you amplify it somewhat. I am thinking more and more that we are in a very difficult struggle to keep ‘free thinking’ alive.
“The only two countries that have ever refused me entry clearance are Uzbekistan and the USA. What does that tell you?”
Says it all, doesn’t it? Two of a kind. The UK is not far behind, and catching up fast.
would have thought this should make a media story – ex-ambassador denied entry to US. But as Gore Vidal observed, the US is slowly embracing fascism, so who would be surprised.
I lived in the US a few years ago-2009-2011.
One of the curiosities of the US is that at a practical level it ‘feels’ more democratic than the UK.
What i mean is that there is an election for al kinds of officials-even the people who administer the weights and measures (or at least are the head of the department).
One can understand why that might be a desirable thing-no doubt in the past it was a way of regulating day to day transactions and trying to prevent the various frauds that dodgy dealers an traders indulge in.
Also the police with elections of ‘Sheriffs’ in each different areas and jurisdictions. The town i which I worked was a small place but it had two separate police forces -one for the ‘town’ and one for the university. The town cops were basically employed t sit in cars in the dark and catch people going over the speed limits and then applying a fine. I was fined for not changing a little tiny sticker that is applied to the back number plate of my car. I had actually payed the equivalent of this road tax but being unfamiliar with the procedure had not applied the little sticker. I appealed but the appeal was rejected.
There is not the shred of a doubt that the system exists to provide some income to the town coffers.
So there was a strange unforgiving nature to the bureaucracy. i was also fined for parking in front of my house ’round the wrong way’. Apparently that is illegal in this country too but I have never heard of it being enforced but I can only conclude that the police officers were primed to the offence and actively searched for minor transgressions as it ‘payed their salary’.
Bureaucracy is of course known for its intractability and its strict (and convenient) application of rules
so it is difficult to criticise- but there was a sense of a rigidity that i was not familiar with in this country. Officials in my experience here in the UK have often been able to be mollified or placated by a reasonable explanation in the past, bit i sense that this mentality of ‘catching’ transgressions and punishing is becoming much more prevalent here and is a reflection of the adoption of what seems to me an Americanised mentality. It is convenient to call it ‘neoliberal’, as it seems like the same coin-just the other side of it- but probably this term is not helpful. It is something to do with more and more intrusion into daily activities and possibly the need to ‘monetise’ /punitise certain realtively innocent actions to pay for, and justify complex social and civi arrangements, ostensibly about the creation of order within an ever more complex urban/suburban environment.
I am not in the least surprised by the actions of the US government. The people who deliver these services operate in a deeply conservative, cautious, now systematised world with technical content management systems, and this process effectively eliminates the nuance of judgement often necessary to distinguish between reason and paranoia.
It isn’t that officials are paranoid about YOU-they are terrified about the consequences for them if they make an error so they make sometimes ludicrosu is ‘safe’ judgements.
I am not sure how many people will be aware of the current ongoing situation within Scottish Education. Essentially to cut a long story short-the major initiative of the last few years -Curriculum for Excellence-has not worked in all sectors. i.e. Special, Nursery and early primary sectors seem fine or even greatly improved, but the later stages and secondary have been inn all sorts of turmoil, with the levels of literacy and numeracy (and motivation) falling quite seriously. Swinney has ‘pronounced’ as has the Chief Inspector about what is to be done(reduced bureaucracy to free the hands and creative juices of the teachers) but there is a feeling from these pronouncements that it is essentially fairly empty rhetoric. It feel like the the manager of a failing football team at half time shouting at the same players that are going out-‘go and play better’ but the players thinking that they are doing as well as they can–running around like blue-arsed flies but the goals just not coming. It is undoubtedly to do with ‘management’ failures. There have been a plethora of initiatives and a grand ideas marketed as blue sky and innovative but to all intents and purposes this has felt like a marketing exercise for career minded ‘neoliberal’ (again not quite a satisfactory expression but it captures the tone of what is happening) thinkers, and in reality what is required within such a system is consistency and predictability. It is these that have been eroded, and this has undermined the confidence of the teachers on the ground. management of course seem t be doing all the implementation and just can’t understand why the teachers just wont ‘play better’
No mistake-Scotland is slipping down the ‘educational’ ladder. In a sense that is why Nicola Sturgeon appointed Swinney
I sense that ‘neoliberalism’ has become a certain mindset (acquired mental and psychological dispositions) which has its roots in the thinkers that first formulated the technical pragmatism and moral relativism that is neoliberalism.
I suspect that the majority of people don’t really know that in their life and work they are implementing these policies without realising, because they have had avenues of dissent and questioning closed off to them. They dare not express dissent or concern for fear of low level but personally devastating retribution in a highly artificially competitive workforce.
Although collegiality is frequently talked about, my experience is that collegiality has been all bit abandoned in any real sense although tokenism abounds.
Most laws/ordinances have their origin in fees/fines in the US. It’s what they covet most about a society which enshrines individuality versus one that relies on the submissive and obedient citizenry with a hive mentality.
The Sam Adams massive have responded:
We strongly urge the State Department to reverse its decision and allow Ambassador Murray freedom of travel and freedom of expression without hindrance in the United States of America.
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan
Larry Johnson, CIA and State Dept. (ret.)
John Brady Kiesling, former US diplomat
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer
Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.)
David MacMichael Ph.D., CIA, US Marine Corps captain (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, JA, USA (ret.)
Diane Roark, former staff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
J. Kirk Wiebe, Senior Analyst, NSA (ret.)
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/09/u-s-denies-entry-former-british-ambassador-craig-murray.html
Thanks for that link, Ba’al, looks like the petition on it has already over 200 signatures.
I see even Habby and Anon 1 have signed it.
What does Craig have in common with Gerry Adams, Boy George, Nigella Lawson, and Mark Thatcher? ……
list of people banned from entering the United States
Lest we Brits get too cocky ……
list of people banned from entering the United Kingdom
Suspect that Craig will be able to go if he persists in going, as the Sam Adams award is only for government employees who complain about its performance, and Craig has already received it for complaining about how Karimov treated people who complained about his treatment of Uzbeks.
Sam Adams was not the 18th century alarmist about the British are coming but a CIA analyst who complained about how the Agency was cooking the books to make it look like Washington was winning the war against Vietnam.
Tory Brexit minister David Davis, waffled on yesterday in parliament but added nothing of substance, as what will happen over Brexit. Davis, and the Tories have created huge uncertainty for businesses, universities etc, and jobs as a whole. Yet have no answers as to what will happen, once article 50 is finally triggered.
It appears to me anyway that the lack of clear strategy, over Brexit, by the Westminster government, is nothing short of negligence, bordering on incompetence. That Davis can waffle on but give no evidence of any sound planning regarding Brexit, and jobs and the economy is especially galling.