"I would love to be locked in a room with the little twerp for a couple of hours"

Rather you than me. Great post. Interesting to see the response of the Information Commissioner. Happy birthdsy.

'Binyam Mohammed is an innocent man whom we gave over to torture for no reason.'

I disagree. There is a reason for most things. You say torture doesn't work. In this scenario it does work. The UK and US governments get exactly what they want - Muslims who confess to taking part in terrorist activities. Obviously not enough were or have been taking part so the governments need to increase the numbers to scare the shit out of us and justify the War on Terror, which is obviously a ruse to nick resources in Muslim lands and gain strategic advantage as well as restricting our civil liberties.

Many happy returns! Have a fab birthday.

PS I forgot to wish you Happy Birthday and to thank you for running your blog. It really has immense value.

What is truly alarming reading the 'Times' online comments on Evans' speech is that at least half - maybe more - take the line that any methods, however repugnant, are justified if they "keep us safe" and that those who object to the use of torture on either ethical or practical grounds are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberal simpletons.

Keep at it, Craig - current developments must be the best birthday present you could wish for.

Anticant -

Worse than that, is that this is precisely what those in the FCO, Home Office, MI5 and MI6 persuade themselves, to justify keeping their jobs and lifestyles (cf Charles Crawford).

The Naxi extermination camp system was not dome by a few people, it involved the complicity of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans who persuaded themselves that the murder of Jews, Communists, Gays, Gypsies, Poles etc was "keeping them safe". It is exactly the Evans/Straw line, and accepted veru easily by the majority if a sufficient climate of fear is created.

"I would have him confessing to menbership of Al-Qaida before I severed his second testicle."

I kind of assumed after he didn't resign after the EU Election disaster that he doesn't even have one.

Yes - I pointed out to Charles the other day that the craven timidity of the present-day British is contemptible, when you remember that 40,000 civilians were killed here in a single year during the Blitz. My parents' generation - the grandparents of this pathetic lot - said "Britain can take it. Do your worst, Adolf" and got on with their daily lives as best they could, often not knowing whether their homes wold still be there when they returned from work.

Having grown up during that real war, I feel quite ashamed of the moaning minnies always caterwauling about how fearful they are of the "War on Terror". Even since 9/11, the risk of being involved in a terrorist incident is umpteen times less than that of being knocked down by a careless driver when you are crossing the street.

Yes - there are some dangerous fanatics out there. They need sleuthing and tracking down by old-fashioned police methods - not manufacturing by false flag operations and torture.

See my latest post in Anticant's Arena.

Very encouraging progress Craig.
Happy returns!

Many happy returns, Craig.

However, I have to agree with Ruth - this sort of torture does work, particularly when it was lifted directly out of Mao's torture manuals for extracting _false_ confessions about undermining the state.

Very much like the middle-ages type stuff - 'water trial' and so on. Does anyone believe there actually were many witches, wizzards, all these devil's assistants and so on back then in the Inquisitions? No? Well why did so many confess to the very same, when the result of such a confession was to be cruelly put to death straight afterwards anyway?

I bet we even have had the Cheneys and Milibands of the day saying, in the most serious tones, "We have prevented tens of thousands of devil-related activities with these methods. We have nothing to apologise for."

Agreed with Anticant too - we are a bunch of frightened, pampered and also wickedly cruel children in this generation, willing to visit medieval horrors on almost certain innocents, and the ruination of entire foreign countries that had no argument with us, just for the supposed protection of our miserable skins. Hearing Americans crowing at us that "now you know what tear'o'rism is like" after 7/7 was most galling. As if their IRA-funded bombers had never been at work, and as if we'd never had entire cities flattened by genuine military might.

Seeing Miliband on Newsnight yesterday, I was left astonished yet again at how we'd come to this - allowing our country, let alone the Labour party, to be taken over by such unprincipled, cowardly liars.

Blunkett use to be my MP when I lived in Sheffield. Although I was young then, he always contradicted the spirit of the people who lived at his constituency with the worst touching me being the day he accused people like me and my family as having "swamped" the GP services.

People like him can get away in places where the victims are unlikely to shift or unable to take initiatives, but stand no chance when faced with rigour and scrutiny.

Craig, The Guardian applies a "double standard" on torture. As a comment to your Oct 1 article, under the heading "The Guardian and MI5, MI6" I summarized what happened after my wife and I visited The Guardian's Office in Manchester. Save to say, we went to complain about years of Zerzetsen (sometimes called "no touch torture") torture from MI5, MI6 being covered-up by government, only to get threatened after we left their offices.

My story is about the neutering of our human rights industry, our government, our parliament, and our press – since it proves that high establishment figures can operate above the law in the UK with impunity.

The only conclusion I can reach from my experience about UK organizations, that purport to be interested in human rights (such as The Guardian and Amnesty International), is this - It is almost as if they are controlled by MI5, MI6. That is allowed to establish their bona fides in human rights abroad where the CIA are the main culprit anyway, while being careful to avoid issues where MI5, MI6 are themselves the torturers. An old intelligence trick. Other victims have also commented that where zerzetsen torture is being applied in the UK, there is no human rights agency that will help.

I wish Mr. Mohamed all the help he can get, but one should understand "the double standard" - the human rights industry is far from honest when dealing with torturers in its own home establishment. Lions when dealing with Pinochet types abroad, they are wimps at home. Roderick Russell

He has two testicles?

Happy birthday...

Happy Birthday, and Congratulations on Everything You have achieved over the Last 12 months.

Hope You, Your Wife & New Baby Son are Well.

Tony

Many happy returns.

How are you convinced Miliband has one testicle, let alone two to sever?

He is on the road to become the new Jack Straw. Complicit, condescending and writhing as the lies spew out of his mouth to bring him closer to power. Not as smarmy, connected and criminal genius as Blair so he won't make it to the top without several strokes of luck.

Without Blair+friends to bully them, the courts should be able to get much of what they want. The talk about the US withdrawing security collaboration is absurd. They define our policies and we are a client nation, it would be like me saying I won't use my left hand any more because it has been naughty.

Thatcher corrupted us with her voodoo monetarism, then Blair corrupted us by dragging us into a war, and kowtowing to Washington for years and years has also corrupted us. We're like Lonely in the TV series Callan, a spineless henchman who does what he's told.

Oh, and happy birthday! just a week after me own. Hey hey, we're the Librans!

Craig,

Happy Birthday!

A powerful post, even if I am not quite sure what my 'lifestyle' (your reply to Anticant in the comments) has to do with anything. We both had a jolly time overseas for many years at the taxpayers' expense.

Two questions:

- could you maybe explain what you meant when you said that 'almost all' the thousands of Uzbeks tortured into confessing AQ links were innocent. How could you or any of us know which were or were not innocent?

- of the nearly 200 countries in the UN, how many of them would you trust not (not) to use torture or illegitimate pressure when it comes to interrogating terrorist suspects? And if the answer is 'not many', where does that leave international intelligence or even normal international police cooperation in this very complex area?

Oops. Three questions.

My own take here: http://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/secret-intelligence-cooperation-whom-to-trust-

Regards,

Charles

The picture in The Times of Jonathon Evans looks like Wallace of Wallace and Grommit. That's the trouble with relative morality, everything becomes play-doh, the expenses, the evidence of WMD, parliament, MI5/6, presidents.
What can you do with play-doh people?
If you remove one of Miliband's play-doh testicles he will get a play-doh make-over and a new one made. There is no connection to reality with these people.
That's not to say that reality does not exist, but you won't find it there. Fair play to Binyamin Muhammad and to the UK judges and to Craig for their patience and persistence in this quagmire of shifting, Blair-speak putty.

Happy Birthday Craig!

Charles,

Thanks for quoting me on your blog! I'll put a fuller comment there on your interesting post.

Meanwhile, you ask above "How could you or any of us know which [of the thousands of Uzbeks tortured into confessing AQ links] were or were not innocent?"

Isn't this rather an own-goal? It is precisely the point which those of us who think that evidence obtained by torture is not only morally tainted but also utterly unreliable and therefore virtually useless keep on making.

Welcome to the club!

More Charles Crawford linseed oil putty.

How does belonging to an international club of torturers redeem us? Mr Moseley can say that his sex life is private. But the UK can't say: 'We only conduct torture in The International Torturers Club in our own time and at our own expense. What we do in private is of no concern to the general public and we resent very much the implication that we have done anything wrong.'

We do not own the world any more. Except Blair who kept complaining about 'foreigners' resisting the UK/US forces in Iraq.

What you ruling class lot don't understand,and I did understand at the age of seven when I was sent away to be educated with you lot, is that not one of you has a principle, or grain of truth, or fibre of moral consciousness in your over-inflated egos.

You think that the world is as you shape it, and according to your whims and desires as the inheritors of British Empire. Sorry mates, you are past your sell-by dates and you should be dead in your coffins. Wake up to the real world in which the UK is a tin-pot third rate island and China, India and the Middle East are the intellectual and economic super-powers.

Taste the coffee and stop trying to laugh off your crimes with a pathetic smirk.
The only hope of success in the modern world is if the UK starts to practice what it has hitherto pretended to be,
a moral force for justice in the world. If we do not practice that, we have absolutely nothing to contribute. As Craig says, you seem to think that everyone is duped by your smug excuses. Not any more my friends, not any more.

Great post, craig. Keep it up.

& Happy birthday & Lang may yer lum reek

Charles:

With all due respect, are your objections not somewhat misplaced?

Rather than questioning how Craig Murray could possibly know whether "almost all" Uzbekistan citizens subjected to torture were innocent, and whether or not we can exchange intelligence to many of our dubious friends, should you not be more concerned about having these supposed "friends" and "allies" adhering to International Law? Shouldn't the first duty of anyone with the least integrity to do just this - ensure common humanity, justice, and International Law is followed ? (The answer is "yes", by the way.)

Obviously, a man as important, worldly and intelligent and yourself is above such considerations. But could you tell us why? Why is anybody with authority and influence, such as yourself, not standing up for the most least and oppressed citizen anywhere: a personal under torture ?

Your record of excusing torture notwithstanding, could you explain to me why people confessed to witchcraft, under the very system you claim gives useful intelligence? Even when such a confession meant they would be burned at the stake. And after Iraq, the "intelligence" for which whose WMD was obtained by _very_ dubious means ("curveball", etc.) why should should people like you ever be believed about anything, ever again?

-Glenn

Happy Birthday, Craig!

In the UK there seems to be a growing divide between the corrupted, the incorruptible and a mass living in an illusion

"How could you or any of us know which [of the thousands of Uzbeks tortured into confessing AQ links] were or were not innocent?" -- (via anticant's post above)

Oh my. Didn't Charles do well. Give him some more rope, someone.

Craig, I'm 30 minutes late, sorry, but Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, and good luck in your activity of exposing the government's failure to live up to its own voluntarily accepted standards.

{Belated} Happy Birthday Craig,

another year of telling the truth and keeping the pressure on; well done. Thank you for your part in keeping my faith in human nature alive.

I agree with Charles when he tells me that it is the job of intelligence to keep a secret eye on some very dangerous people. But when he adds "as it happens, not unsuccessfully", how do we know? The spooks never give us any details of the many alleged plots they claim to have foiled.

As for Al Qaeda and its supposed 19 Saudis who created such mayhem in the USA on 9/11 with a few box cutters and razor blades, I have always found it as convincing as a pantomime horse.

Oh well, Hallowe'en draws near....

Well done Craig. Oh, and happy birthday!

Belated happy wishes for your birthday, Craig. And I should like to echo Ruth's earlier sentiments - your blog continues to be a really important force for good. I don't know how to measure it, but incrementally, I think you are changing things, not least on the issue of torture.

"I agree with Charles when he tells me that it is the job of intelligence to keep a secret eye on some very dangerous people."

http://tinyurl.com/yjg3ttn

As if they didn`t already. Strange how so many in New Labour became ultra right wing when they got elected...is it not?.

No, not really. Theoretical Lefties nearly always do become extremely authoritarian when they achieve power. Look at Lenin.

As the old saying has it, "The people who shout 'Power to the People' are the people who want power for the people who shout 'Power to the People'"!

Belated Health and Happiness to you, your birthday must have been good going by the duress the FCO must be feeling at this present time.

Jack Straw made sure you were in London when he stood up on a soap box in Blackburn this week. Just imagine you would have known and taken your own soap boax countering every bit of bollox he spouted out to some flag waving supporters. Each and every one interviewed on fascist FM, (Radio 5 live)was either a disgruntled noLabour supporter, or had Labour imprinted on their genetic makeup, i.e. nowt else was ever voted for in their house during the last 100 years.

Torture was not just practised by the Nazi's, it was also practised by the Allies. KGB archives, despite the Lubjianka's record of false information in the field, was one of the most accurate discovered when opened up to researchers. The Japanese, trying to tally their numbers of prisoners of war, realised that there was only a discrepancy of two in the KGB records vs. their own. The KGB also recorded that the german soldiers captured after fleeing the eastern front, were instatly transported to Flanders and Northern France. These imaciated men were shoved into holes dug by themselves in fields, they were fed on starvation ration, thats a max. of 700 calories/day and they died like flies.
Some 400.000 died under this slow torture regime.
UK/US archives relating to this issue were destroyed, only one archive, that of the red cross in Genever, could collaborate this evidence, but they are steadfaslty refusing to open it up to general research, despite the time past.

Thats one of the reasons why western nation can fool their populus, stay squeaky clean, whilst on a weekly basis point to the bad germans and their torturous regime.

But do not let this divert us from discussing Straws missing testicles, comparing it to Adolfs missing testiclestec. etc., its as de rigieur as the masochistic voting habits of stalinist noLabour supporters. Oh what fun we all had...

"The only hope of success in the modern world is if the UK starts to practice what it has hitherto pretended to be,
a moral force for justice in the world. If we do not practice that, we have absolutely nothing to contribute."

- Oh how I agree, Anon. It's as if these Broons, Millichumps, Strawmen etc are living in a massive bubble of delusion that Britain is still a great power. Bliar got out as soon as he could see a role of real power on the horizon (god help us).

If you don't have military/industrial/financial/physical might, what you do is develop your more subtle skills and talents (as you suggest here: impeccable moral authority) and gain influence that way. Ask ANY woman!

This load of deluded fools are still operating off a very tired 100year old model of Great British Empire.

And as Ruth says ("In the UK there seems to be a growing divide between the corrupted, the incorruptible and a mass living in an illusion"), the vast majority of people here cling desperately to this delusion.

BTW, I don't believe that there are some who are 'incorruptible'. I don't suppose I'd feel quite so unhappy about the state of the world/UK if I suddenly found that £1billion had been deposited in my bank account, would you? And yet these MPs are happy to lie, cheat, defraud for peanuts (tch - the cost of sink plugs and pr0n!) What does that tell us about their calibre?

The only element in all this humungous delusional mess they've created that holds any value for all of us is that truth will always, always be uncovered sooner or later: as Craig is so adroitly showing us. Thank you again Craig and hope you had a good day yesterday!

"What is truth?" said Pilate, and did not stay for an answer.......

@ Craig. Slightly off topic - but - belated happy birthday. Do not worry, the years will continue to creep up on you, but you can blog away such concerns to your heart's content. Speaking of which, your blogging endeavours are now a global threat - just consider: - http://www.businessinsider.com/john-carney-obama-we-need-to-bailout-newspapers-or-blog-will-run-the-world-2009-9

Ruth,

"In the UK there seems to be a growing divide between the corrupted, the incorruptible and a mass living in an illusion"

So true - any ideas about what to do about it?

George Dutton,

The only time I actually remember seeing a major politician get up and stand on his soapbox and speak to the people directly was in or around 1965.

It was Harold Wilson in The Outdoor Open Market in Oldham.

My family was rabidly conservative - including my brother who had actually joined the Young Conservatives and Supported The Vietnam War.

Whilst I thought my older brother was a genius, I also thought he was a stupid cunt in supporting a war and told him so. I was 12 he was 23.

Thankfully Wilson had more integrity.

Tony

And so most people who have still got a brain that has not been switched off are demanding that he faces Trial For War Crimes Against Humanity

All The Indepedent Can Come Up With Is

"Blair for President? 'Not necessarily a good idea,' says his former adviser"

If we stand any chance, whatsoever of turning this World back into The Heaven on Earth which it should be...

We have got a really hard slog.

Tony

My eldest brother had already been mentally tortured at St Bedes, but he appeared to have come through it O.K., whilst my other brother escaped as soon as he could.

He did some completely amazing work with electronics in his bedroom - and made the Earth float...

And he was snapped up, even before he had left University...

Then the Medical Profession got hold of him - sure he had the same inherited muscular problem as I have - Myotonia Congenita...

They said - well we can do nothing about that, but you have hammerhead toes.

He had never had any problem whatsoever with his feet - and could run and walk fine, after his muscles had warmed up - hell he even joined The Territorial Army...

Bu The Doctors look at his feet - and smiled and looked at each other - and said - We can fix that...

So they surgically removed every toe of my brother, and applied forces to every toe ( I think they hit each toe with a surgical hammer to flatten it - whilst disconnected from his foot)

Then they reconnected each and every toe and drove a steal pin through each toe to reconnect it to his feet...

The Doctors smiled at each other - and said - well that is one satisfied patient. We have cured his hammerhead toes...

Meanwhile my brother was experiencing the most incredibly horrendous pain...

Eventually he could walk again, though it did absolutely nothing for his real problem Myotonia Congenita...

Throughout going through all this hell, his mind was in electronic design overload.. and as soon as he could walk again - he was working for one of the real leading edge electronics computer companies in the UK, over 200 miles away from home, but very close to where I have lived for most of my life...

And his brain exploded...

He couldn't take it any more...

Straight Jacket, Padded Cell, the Mental Works...

And then he got over that, met a lovely girl, got married, and had 4 kids (two of who'm have achieved PhD's at Cambridge)

And dropped dead of stress, before he reached the age of 60.

He did however beat cancer at the age of 29.

Tony

I don't like this, but I'm not surprised. People facing possible prosecution for serious crimes usually will do anything to save their skins.

Happy 21st (again)
Called you the other day, but you were still in bed...give you a bell this week to catch up...

Allegedly, 2,000 of the "militants" currently engaged in battle with the Pakistani army in South Waziristan are "foreign militants, most of them reportedly from Uzbekistan" (source: today's Morning Star)

Is the Uzbekistan claim likely?

"So is it against the law to refuse to enforce the law?"...

http://tinyurl.com/yfreloz

Great work and good p0st,as ever,Craig.

So many know now,or have experienced,the torture that Their denial is truly pathetic.The full Truth will out,in time.Way too many people know it happened/is happening.

Miliband is a disgusting child.

Evans,and his whole bunch of psychotic bully-boys and girls are on a very sticky wicket.Their abysmal brand of above-the-law gangsterism is coming to be seen and understood.Funny,sort of, how these self-appointed gaurdians of national faith,are the ones,at end,who destroy the system they claim to protect.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

I'll probably get tortured for posting this,more or less...

I dont care anymore.I've had it for years anyway.

A mighty Judgement is coming on these bastards.

Thanks,again,for all your brave work Craig.

Happy birthday.

** Two things you can do to oppose the war on terror **

Can I suggest that folks here who are in broad agreement that Western militarism, as applied to Afghanistan and elsewhere, is a disaster do two things:

* Come to the Troops Out demo this Saturday in London to make some noise
* Make a donation prior to the demo to help with the costs of publicising it. You can use Paypal, cheque or direct funds transfer.

Thanks :o)

I should have provided the address for Stop the War coalition:

www.stopwar.org.uk

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Finally David Cameron has announced that there will be an inquiry into British government complicity in torture. It will not start until a number of civil and criminal proceedings by individuals who claim they have been tortured have been resolved - which David Cameron appears to believe will be later this year, but we can't know that. Unlike the Chilcott Inquiry, the personnel of this inquiry are not obviously packed with supporters of the government view. I am somewhat concerned that Sir Peter Gibson, who has been Intelligence Services Commissioner for some years, can be viewed as parti pris. If the intelligence services were seriously misbehaving throughout his time as Commissioner, is he not being asked to judge whether he himself has been negligent? But Dame Janet Paraskeva,... 
In rendition

Finally David Cameron has announced that there will be an inquiry into British government complicity in torture. It will not start until a number of civil and criminal proceedings by individuals who claim they have been tortured have been resolved - which David Cameron appears to believe will be later this year, but we can't know that. Unlike the Chilcott Inquiry, the personnel of this inquiry are not obviously packed with supporters of the government view. I am somewhat concerned that Sir Peter Gibson, who has been Intelligence Services Commissioner for some years, can be viewed as parti pris. If the intelligence services were seriously misbehaving throughout his time as Commissioner, is he not being asked to judge whether he himself has been negligent? But Dame Janet Paraskeva,... 
In rendition

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As for Al Qaeda and its supposed 19 Saudis who created such mayhem in the USA on 9/11 with a few box cutters and razor blades, I have always found it as convincing as a pantomime horse.

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When will people realize that living in peace and not hurting others is the best way to be?

Your record of excusing torture notwithstanding, could you explain to me why people confessed to witchcraft, under the very system you claim gives useful intelligence? Even when such a confession meant they would be burned at the stake. And after Iraq, the "intelligence" for which whose WMD was obtained by _very_ dubious means ("curveball", etc.) why should should people like you ever be believed about anything, ever again?

Do you have any more info on this?