UPDATE
The site is just back up at 16.42 on 21 March having managed to slip like the Tardis into another dimension and thus dodge the massive DOS attack we are under. over 50,000 separate IP addresses simultaneously throwing up millions of hits. The attack has not actually stopped and does seem to have a human intelligence changing terms and directing it, which could make for an interesting afternoon. Once our excellent techs get a minute from fighting it, we will post the cloudfare graphs as evidence.
I just thought I might give you a little taste of what it means to your personal life to express dissent from the government line in the UK in 2018. Let me start with this combined effort from the UK’s most popular website, Guido Fawkes, which fanatically supports the government, and the Blairite crew at “The Guardian”.
The red ink is original.
Now it is true that, when I was sacked as Ambassador by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and the Blair government’s misuse of intelligence from torture, I went into a terrible depression and voluntarily spent ten days or so in St Thomas Hospital (not a mental illness facility) for treatment. I have never tried to keep this secret, indeed it is a major part of my memoir “Murder in Samarkand”. It is also true, as I have always acknowledged, that I have had other less serious depressive episodes treated at home and been diagnosed as bipolar since I was 20.
That we stigmatise anybody who has ever had a mental illness, write them off and view their views, on anything, as invalid, is an attitude I had hoped we had moved past last century. Indeed, if this hatchet job was done on anybody writing within the Overton window, then the Guardian would be dedicating editorials to condemning it. We have in fact moved to the old Soviet position, where disagreement with the official line equals mental illness. I quite confess this sort of thing does in fact hurt me – if you cut me, do I not bleed?
The use of the term “conspiracy theorist” has been used to denigrate my views, ever since Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary lied to Parliament denying that the UK ever obtained intelligence from torture and denying the existence of the extraordinary rendition programme, which I was supposed to have fantasised. Anyone interested in this history can watch this series of videos of my evidence to a Parliamentary Committee on the subject. It explains why I start nowadays from a position of being so hated by the British state and its acolytes, and also of course enables you to judge for yourself whether I should be ignored as insane.
Ever since then, the state and corporate media have described me as a “conspiracy theorist”. Even though there is now acceptance that extraordinary rendition did happen and presumably they, somewhere inside, know I was telling the truth. I find people are taken aback to discover, for example, that I broadly accept that there was no US government involvement in 9/11 (other than minimising the Saudi role) and 9/11 discussion is banned on this blog – [warning it still is].
I cannot in fact conceive of a more outlandish conspiracy theory than that the Russian government secretly manufactured and stockpiled novichoks, hidden from the OPCW, and secretly trained assassins, only to blow the whole operation on a retired spy they let out of jail ages ago. Yet nobody calls Boris Johnson a “conspiracy theorist” for positing that.
But the abuse is not confined to what people publish about me. I receive some extremely unpleasant emails of which this is an example:
I do hope Mr Temis can get money back on his anger management sessions. But there has been rather a lot of this, including some by old fashioned mail. which I find myself prodding suspiciously before opening :-).
There is of course an open effort to extend the term “anti-semitic” to embrace any criticism of Israel. It is also particularly used by Blairites to attack anybody taking any position seen as supportive of Jeremy Corbyn. I am not in the least anti-semitic. Jewish people have made a disproportionate, indeed magnificent, contribution to the world in the fields of science, music, literature, commerce and others. That does not alter the fact that Israel is a rogue state when it comes to chemical weapons, the subject currently under discussion. It refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its chemical weapons stocks, and refuses to join the OPCW.
Plainly someone attacked the Skripals. In stating that it is not the case that Russia was the only state who could have done it, I have included Israel amongst other possibilities. Israel might wish to frame Russia for the deed, as Russian actions in Syria have severely conflicted with Israeli ambitions in Syria and Lebanon. But I have never said it was, or was most likely to be, Israel – it could be the CIA framing Russia, it could be a non-state actor entirely (which I am inclined to think most likely – this could come from those close to a victim of Skripal’s treachery, though I still think the Orbis intelligence connection has been overlooked).
Some of the most vitriolic abuse has come from state and corporate media journalists. Falsely categorising me as an insane racist allows them to ignore any challenge to the establishment line on Salisbury and absolves them, in their own minds, from any dereliction of duty in not questioning it.
In a chilling example of the way they move to crush dissent, here a prominent Blairite corporate media journalist, James Bloodworth, attempts to ensure that consideration of other possibilities than the government line is not carried even in the private domain. He harasses and bullies an individual attempting to force him to accept Mr Bloodworth’s version of what I had said, rather than what I had actually said. When Mr Law (who as a lecturer in philosophy presumably has an attachment to intellectual honesty) refuses, Bloodworth sanctions him by pulling out of his literary festival.
It is very difficult to understand what is happening in the UK today, but when the BBC on its flagship news programme holds a discussion of the Salisbury attack under a huge photo-shopped picture of the leader of the opposition in a Russian hat standing outside the Kremlin, it is plain a fundamental shift has happened in society. The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.
“Conspiracy theorist” is fast becoming a badge of integrity and the mark of a rational mind. Perhaps those of us whose default position is to question government statements should own it. “Anti-semite” is not far from joining it as Zionists continually use it to smear anyone who objects to the blatant criminality of the Israeli state.
“Conspiracy theorist” is fast becoming a badge of integrity and the mark of a rational mind. Perhaps those of us whose default position is to question government statements should own it.
I’ve thought (and occassionally said) that many times. However, to openly ‘own it’ would only be to break a taboo so deeply held that it would necessarily invert society. Survival is predicated on a self-deception that those who wield the ‘manopoly of violence’ do it for our collective best interests. Challenge that and you not only open Pandora’s box, you turn it upside down, shake it, then throw it accross the room.
I think of it – in psychological terms, as comparable to making accusations about parents abusing (or even killing) their own children.
I agree though that many conspiracy theorists have been proven right this century, and people are realising that.
The thing is that by labeling serious analysts who expose elite crimes as conspiracy theorists, effectively equates them, in the public mind, with the host of conspiracy cranks and crackpots incited by agents of the elite such as Henry Makow, Aaangirfan, and Alex Jones.
The thing about “conspiracy theorist” is that it such a wide label it is almost meaningless. Craig’s point that blaming Russia in this incident is equally a conspiracy theory as suggesting other states like the US, has merit. So “conspiracy theorist” tends to be another phrase for “against the consensus”. The consensus does tend to be right, there are far more idiotic theories than plausible theories, but the consensus is often wrong too.
These attacks on you are yet more proof that the world order today does not want anyone thinking critically, so keep up the good work and don’t let them grind you down. You are too valuable a resouce for many.
I also thought you and your readers might find this article from Dmitry Orlov at 21st Century Wire of interest:
http://21stcenturywire.com/2018/03/19/theresa-may-and-boris-johnson-are-killing-diplomacy/
I’ve been thinking throughout this farce that May and Boris are not in the least interested in getting at the truth and acting in the best interests of the country, they are more interested in their careers. May desparately wants to look like a “Strong and Stable” leader and Boris is simply making a case for his upcoming leadership challenge. The disgusting thing is they don’t care that the path they are taking us down, in full propaganda mode, may lead to the deaths of many innocent people, both here and in Russia, or indeed globally.
Though we in the Scottish Independence movement already know how far the UK has moved to being an authoritarian state, with it’s mouthpieces in the BBC and the ‘newspapers’.
Moved? It always has been; ask the working class.
Keep up the good work. The Tories are being found out on a daily basis. The uptick in MSM bile toward Corbyn these last few weeks is a handle that something is going on.
Your latest pieces have had a large impact in disrupting the gov, narrative.These last attacks are a direct consequence.Keep it up!
Solidarity Craig. What you are doing must be an incredible emotional burden and great distress is what is intending by these emotional thugs. Very distressed people are liable to lose their cool and find it difficult to think straight and rationally. If you are then unable to cope under great distress you would be described as mentally ill again. In other words they drive you mad and then use your not coping as their justification for attacking you and to discredit you.
It was ever thus.You are challenging with a sociopathic institutional structure and you are doing it very very well. Have pride and strength!
Craig, I would like to commend your bravery and courage in the pursuit of justice and truth. I must say that I can’t even imagine what it feels like to be attacked and abused and denigrated in such awful ways and yet you keep on going! Humanity needs people like you who are willing to stand up to injustice to inspire others to follow in your footsteps until one day we can have a better world! I, for one, would like to show my support and gratitude to you, even though it is only expressed in words!
Thank you very much and take care!
All the best!
Yes, keep it up Craig. Your revealing insights and logic are potent weapons it would seem.
It would also seem that “upholding British values” now involves shutting down debate wherever it appears.
Well done for continuing under extreme pressure to speak the truth. Please carry on we need more people like you to challenge the current political climate.
You are doing a great job exposing the truly shocking failure of the MSM to question the government narrative. Please keep going.
Good on you Craig. This needs to be questioned, we cannot trust the state / corporate media nexus at all. You are doing a terrific job.
Craig,
The only way this story can stay afloat is by being fed more lies.
See the precedents,
9/11
Iraq WMD
MH17
Russia-gate
Syrian gas attacks
Terrorist bombings and killings around Europe
None of these stories came to a conclusion. None ended with a public (forget about fair) trial.
There is no reason to believe that this one will be any different.
You are a beacon of hope to many of us today and I thank you for that.
Stay strong.
No matter what, we are many.
Nice video by James Corbett on the chilling parallels between the Saddam WMD lies, the US Anthrax scare and the Skripal saga, with special mention of the lying complicit media. Plus ça change.
https://off-guardian.org/2018/03/20/watch-anthrax-the-forgotten-lie/
the red ink is when they’re afraid. in the last month of the french presidential campaign, french paper “le nouvel observateur” made constant hit pieces about Jean-Luc Melenchon (our biggest local lefty ^^ ) as most of papers, and in the last line of the competition used the bloodiest red available in the print edition, something they never ever used in decades of existence, to further signal its readers the guy was a massive danger 😉
Hang on in there, Craig. We, the good guys, are here watching your back.
Craig, don’t let the bastards grind you down!
This is from the Met’s own website;
AC Basu continued: “In any investigation, the information we receive from the public can be crucial to helping the police build a picture of events and in this case the public response has been immense. Around 400 witnesses have already given statements, with hundreds more to be taken in the coming days.
“This is an extremely challenging and complex investigation and we currently have around 250 exceptionally experienced and dedicated specialist officers from the counter terrorism network working around the clock on this case.
“They are being supported by hundreds more officers from across the police family, as well as the military and other emergency services.
“To date, detectives have recovered 762 exhibits and are trawling through around 4,000 hours of CCTV. They are making good progress in what is a painstaking investigation that is likely to be ongoing for weeks, if not months.”
http://news.met.police.uk/news/renewed-appeal-for-information-from-anyone-who-saw-salisbury-victims-car-298912
So why, oh why in the name of heaven did Mayhem rush to judgment and the idiot de Pfeffel add fuel to the fire by claiming Vladimir Vladimirovich personally ordered the incident, without, it is clear, the least shred of evidence to support these fanatical claims?
And more disturbing still, why is the corporate media and its apparatchiks like Bloodworth and Guido still maintaining the party line and, apart from one or two minor exceptions, not brooking any form of dissent on this most dubious scenario???
Curiouser and curiouser.
.
.
http://www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/ConspiracyTheories.htm
This is part of an essay that I wrote about conspiracy theories at the time of the Iraq war that was widely circulated in the interne. Keep in mind it was written in 2003….the points are still valid….
Actually “conspiracies” (con – spirare – from the Latin to breath together) are a boo word to discourage people looking behind the scenes. They are rather ordinary in the world of business and even in everyday life. People come together to act behind other people’s back. People cheat on their partners sexually, covertly. Businesses make deals, or understandings to restrict competition or get an advantage that they don’t tell others about. And governments, the business and banking elites, have secret services that can play these kinds of game mega scale too – and then hide what they are doing under the cover of state secrets.
And this is not something that is happening on a small scale. Since the CIA works with billions of dollars, involving, for example, in Pakistan the heroinisation of whole economies to pay, originally, for the Jihad against the Soviets, the illegal operations actually involve huge numbers of people acting outside official government control, partly inside organised crime networks, partly inside government. That doesn’t mean that everyone in these networks knows everything about what everyone is doing. A pusher on the streets of Nottingham, selling heroin or crack cocaine probably has no idea about CIA involvement at the beginning of the supply chain. Like underground cells in a revolutionary movement the little players know only a few immediate associates and have a tiny part to play. Moreover the bigger players are regularly double crossing each other, also covertly, and nothing in life ever goes according to string pulling super worked out mega plans. For one thing there is Murphy’s law.
So, if you look at what really happens there’s a lot of variation. Many of the deeper processes in world economics and politics take place as covert operations and are illegal (as IranContra was) but the law proves impossible to enforce and the crooks are later pardoned (as Bush Snr did for the Iran Contra convicts like Elliott Abrams when he left office in 1992); other operations are not illegal but are hidden (as banking and money laundering through offshore banks, where places are created by multinational capital precisely to evade laws and escape notice – the ubiquitous swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts); other things get revealed, but only partially and then are covered up again as the bigger players can cover their backs (like the BCCI scandal where the big cheeses in US politics prevented the investigation going too deep – or the Scott Inquiry in the UK where arms sales to Iraq in the late 80s were skimmed over, a few scapegoats identified and the big players escape). Then there are international scams using insider knowledge of national and global policy processes e.g. following up on World Bank or IMF programmes – based on insider knowledge and big scale bribery (e.g. privatisation programmes buying local politicians first and then local assets on the back of IMF policy).
There’s a rich mixture – and sometimes allegiance, alliances and trust break down among the rival gangsters and then you see the results in world politics – e.g. the fall out with Noriega, the fall out with Saddam Hussein, the current breakdown in business links between the Saudi royals and the Bush oil dynasties
The bigger schemes are not even hidden (like the recent ‘Great Game’ plans in Central Asia in books by Brzezinski etc about what “moves” the mega US interests should make on the chessboard of world politics). These things only get noticed by investigative reporting, by spending enormous time trying to understand what is going on. Many of these consciously planned global strategies, though open, are hard to find out about, and pass unnoticed by ordinary people – they fail to make the newsworthy/simplicity test plus, of course, they are just not being publicised as the same magnates who are making them often own the media empires too.
I took a trip to Guido Fawkes comment section on their Article….seems all my posts were accepted…except this one which is “Hold on this is waiting to be approved by Guido Fawkes”….my comment was this
‘Reminds me of the D – Notice put on the dunblane enquiry…..ain’t that right Tony Blair….hmmm, I wonder why (Saville’s bestest friend)’
Now why would that be under scrutiny I wonder yet others weren’t?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xceJFiBjSaE&t=0s&index=6&list=PLfdeq2w6qn8ewGVxuFldk-q5GL2mWM4O2
Good article Craig and a good time for a ML media alert on the exploitation of this farrago by the corp-0-rat media and state broadcaster to scapegoat dissenters, Roj Blake eat yer heart out. It’s a sad day that someone can be smeared for having in-patient treatment due to some troubled mental health, although these days getting admitted to residential accommodation is a work of art rather than medical science; he should congratulate you.
In the surprising absence of the TradBBC series “Propaganda with Facts”, an anatomy of manipulation, I enclose a link to the TradBBC telly news for 8 June 1944 (made in 1984) which shows that things never change. The soundtrack is dubbed, the montage is a patchwork, the British and Canadians are invisible, Allied bomber losses are tucked away in a footnote about the survival of the Memphis Belle and we have a pigeon on a skateboard to cheer us all up.
I would like to add myself to the growing list of supporters. Thank you Craig for your bravery and humanity. I cannot help feeling that we should be doing more to stand with you but know not what I should do.
Dear Mr Murray I would like you to know that there are many people out there who regard you as a hero. Many of my friends feel that we are descending into a totalitarian state . Recently if you don’t go along with the official narrative you are a crank , a conspiracy theorist. It has got worse I think since brexit, a result the establishment thought could never happen. ( I didn’t vote either way actually as I didn’t agree with either sides argument ) Since then we’ve had fake news, curbs on alternative media, Russiagate and the calls to ban RT. My Czech wife tells me we are becoming more like the old Soviet Union with each passing day, and someone please tell me why Tony Blair and his henchmen are not in court? Oh yes there friends run everything.
Keep up the good work and let the b###%###s grind you down.
Dog whistling?
Let me state clearly Israel cannot possibly be involved beacuse
Israel is not a rogue state
It doesn’t have undelclared stocks of chemicla weapons
It doesn’t have undeclared nuclear weapons
Mossad has never eliminated anyone including Yasser Arafat
Keep up the good work Craig
Dear Aussie and Proud, I appreciate your sentiments. But I’m Aussie and Not Proud of our Government and the MSM (of which the national broadcaster, the ABC leads the pack) who all assert that Putin is responsible for poisoning the Skripals, for murdering Litvenenko, invading Crimea, shooting down MH17, bombing Syrian hospitals and civilians, assassinating Russian journalists and prominent opposition figures, aggression against neighbouring countries and the EU, and is only President because Russian elections are a ‘sham’. It seems the masses accept this without question.
But even if all of the above were true, would it be worth risking or even repeating the mass slaughter of the wars of the last century to oust Putin and install another Yeltsin?
Comedian! ;O)
Tongue in cheek is it Cobber….must be
more spot-on Aussie satire here [1221 × 2000 pixels, Andrew Marlton cartoon from today’s Grauniad]
https://media.guim.co.uk/773a5b22f2bb98bf40a26a5fa0da2a76316d4833/0_0_3508_5745/1221.jpg
he’s worried about the kids
It’s beginning to look a bit Absurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_(play)
Blogs like this are indispensable, so keep up the good work and don’t let anyone stop you.
Oh I forgot to mention the thing that the scapegoaters can’t gainsay, you’re still here. ;O)
Not as bad as being dissenters a few years back, like murdered Gareth Williams, Gudrun Loftus and Steve Rawlings.
Get over the idea that the UK is civilized.
You have missed out a few names there Trowbridge.
I have believed and trusted you for many years,and have been thankful for your voice of sanity in the crazy world that we inhabit now. I am appalled and not a little alarmed at the the present UK government’s actions and the direction that it has set itself on. I shout loudly, NOT IN MY NAME.
Craig, your rational analysis is a breath of fresh air. It is, however, a risky occupation as Socrates observed. Opposing the state truth of the day has rarely been healthy in Britain either, judging by Thomas a Becket. But the more hysterical and angry the howling from the peanut gallery, the more you know you’re making progress. As they say in Montreal, if you want to spray the cockroaches, you have to keep kicking the stove. With my very best wishes.
They are desperate, so they are ruthless. The shameless smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn is also unprecedented. I personally am not young, and I cannot remember seeing such a toxic atmosphere in my life, which indeed looks worse than the accounts we have of the height of the McCarthy’s years of the Cold War. Back then at least, there were real communists, whereas now, it all seems to be about seeing things to do with Russian puppeteers pulling strings everywhere.
BTW, I find quite rich that delusional paranoid nutjobs such as they are should point the finger at somebody whose diagnosed illness does not entail paranoia, nor seeing things, nor anything else than bouts of depression and overachieving. Obviously, they are no mental health experts, nor does it look like they are they much else.
The 14 points or so decline in IQ in Britain is obviously no myth.
On another note, have you seen this interview of Maria Zakharova? Among other interesting points, she says the ridiculous James Bond-esque word “Novichok” is not even Russian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTA6KA3fCzc
And thank you for your unwavering honesty.
Craig – if you are drawing flak, then you must surely be over a target which someone considers worth defending; It is times like this which define our lives, which make us who we are, and which tell the world what we are all about
We all have lives and back-stories, and as numerous others have pointed out, you stand in the company of some great men in grappling with (and overcoming) some annoying personal demons; but a man who stands for nothing will fall for anything, and I am humbled by your courage and your lucidity of thought and expression; please, don’t let these baskets get you down
Well spoken.
I agree. Britain is no longer the country i grew up in. Forty plus years of Thatcherism have corroded our sense of decency and democracy which has been replaced by greed and hate and the ideas associated with social Darwinism.
As for Isreal, it seems determined to make the Palestinians pay for the terrible crimes petpetrated on the Jews by the Nazis.