The Russians call it Kompromat – the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said “Kompromat“. They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too.
Well, Julian Assange has been getting the bog standard Kompromat. I had imagined he would get something rather more spectacular, like being framed for murder and found hanging with an orange in his mouth. He deserves a better class of kompromat. If I am a whistleblower, then Julian is a veritable mighty pipe organ. Yet we just have the normal sex stuff, and very weak.
Bizarrely the offence for which Julian is wanted for questioning in Sweden was dropped from rape to sexual harassment, and then from sexual harassment to just harassment. The precise law in Swedish, as translated for me and other Sam Adams alumni by our colleague Major Frank Grevil, reads:
“He who lays hands on or by means of shooting from a firearm, throwing of stones, noise or in any other way harasses another person will be sentenced for harassment to fines or imprisonment for up to one year.”
So from rape to non-sexual something. Actually I rather like that law – if we had it here, I could have had Jack Straw locked up for a year.
Julian tells us that the first woman accuser and prime mover had worked in the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC and had been expelled from Cuba for anti-Cuban government activity, as well as the rather different persona of being a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs.
Scott Ritter and I are well known whistleblowers subsequently accused of sexual offences. A less well known whistleblower is James Cameron, another FCO employee. Almost simultaneous with my case, a number of the sexual allegations the FCO made against Cameron were identical even in wording to those the FCO initially threw at me.
Another fascinating point about kompromat is that being cleared of the allegations – as happens in virtually every case – doesn’t help, as the blackening of reputation has taken effect. In my own case I was formerly cleared of all allegations of both misconduct and gross misconduct, except for the Kafkaesque charge of having told defence witnesses of the existence of the allegations. The allegations were officially a state secret, even though it was the government who leaked them to the tabloids.
Yet, even to this day, the FCO has refused to acknowledge in public that I was in fact cleared of all charges. This is even true of the new government. A letter I wrote for my MP to pass to William Hague, complaining that the FCO was obscuring the fact that I was cleared on all charges, received a reply from a junior Conservative minister stating that the allegations were serious and had needed to be properly investigated – but still failing to acknowledge the result of the process. Nor has there been any official revelation of who originated these “serious allegations”.
Governments operate in the blackest of ways, especially when it comes to big war money and big oil money. I can see what they are doing to Julian Assange, I know what they did to me and others (another recent example – Brigadier Janis Karpinski was framed for shoplifting). In a very real sense, it makes little difference if they murdered David Kelly or terrified him into doing it himself. Telling the truth is hazardous in today’s Western political system.
Heh Anonymous,
What do you think of the plight of homosexuals in Iran?
Ruth: “Being told a group of Arabs with their basic flying skills defied the most technologically advanced country is basically even more absurd.”
Besides being an odd Irish nationalist (ignoring the fact that major decisions are made by the Catholic Church), Ruth is simply a racist. She’s made that type of comment before.
Larry, feel free to come out here, we are not opposed to homosexuals here and we will help you to pursuade the US Government that its fine to have them in the forces, makes for so much more happy soldiers, don’t you think?
Apart from thrashing around for arguments, trying to wind everyone up with your obfuse posts, how do you think Israel’s wriggling will trun out.
You think they will stop pretending the Gholan and Sheeba farms are theirs.
After having lived together with Palestinians for hundreds of years, who do you think has wound up the jewish flock with their zionist ideas? Who has brainwashed Balfour and successive generations of serving soldiers, children, the diaspora, as well as half of the world, telling them that they cannot possibly live together with Palestinians?
East Jerusalem is Palestinian and always will be regarded as such by the international community, despite the policy of injecting jewish people with mega buy outs, causing trouble and strife in the neighbourhood, now is the time for Netanyahu to sit down and say so, he can come out too and admit that his past mutterings were wrong, designed for zionist ears only.
Yes, technicolour, it’s a grave situation. It seems that the authorities are using the economic situation as an excuse to further socially-engineer our society; and make no mistake, what has gone on for the past 30+ years has been nothing less than social engineering to destroy the very idea of collective, mutually beneficial action. It’s called looting.
—————————————
On another issue:
The use of the term “ragheads” as a monicker for ‘Arabs’ is unacceptable and someone who has used that term in writing and with no apology afterwards is in no position to call other people “racist”.
Suhayl Saadi: I never used that term; that was someone pretending to be me.
911 was not an inside job; it was an act committed by 19 Muslim Arabs with moral and financial support from Osama bin Laden.
Ingo,
The issue of gays in the U.S. military should be resolved in short order.
Why would you think I’m gay if I speak of the rights of gays in Iran? That’s a bit primitive, isn’t it?
An idiot relativist like you should do a bit of reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iran
Okay, Larry at 11:50am (I will deign to address you on this occasion, since you did me the courtesy), I am willing to accept that. Thank you for responding.
Oh, brilliant, immediately after that, there’s someone pretending to be me again (11:52am), I see. How non-accidentally coincidental.
Anyone for tennis? Wouldn’t that be nice?
You seem to have a preference for talking about gays, not me, I’m merely putting two and two together.
Its fine with us Larry we do not mind at all, you do not have to be frightened here.
Thanks for the link meine kleine Bratwurst, but what has this got to do with todays issue, ie. anniversarry of the 1982 massacre of Palestininas in Sabra and Shatila, on the order of the war criminal and murderer Sharon?
Things are going from Brat to wurst ?
As long as I’m the wurst, thats fine.
well i think you’re both so sage…
It is interesting that Ahmadinejad has called for an investigation of 9/11. As a leader of a major Middle Eastern country, I’d expect him to be fairly well informed about what happened that day. If the officially favoured story is entirely correct and complete, full details of the attack would more likely be available to Iran than to the US. Ahmadinejad would be unlikely to call for an investigation if he expected its outcome to be identical to the Mainstream account, as he would just make himself look silly.
Larry lies again. It has been months since his “raghead” comment. He was posting on the board at the time, and could have denied it immediately. He was criticised by Angrysoba, his best ally, and yet he said not a word.
You’re really not that bright, are you, “Omar”?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/missing_you.html
See January 16, 2010 11:14 PM
I’m a dumb hippie.
And I don’t like black people.
Hi Larry,
Thanks for leaving you IP address in my server logs.
Because I’m a psychotic dumb hippie and I shall stalk you forever.
Somebody (for it was they) pointed to this blog a few days ago – thanks ! – it has another interesting piece today, re Wikileaks etc.
http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/of-wikileaks-and-starfish/
For the record, 1:16 and 1:24 were not me. Bye for now.
Clark, somebody seems to have sensed that Craig is busy with his new abode and is taking the piss, badly.
I knew it was not you and expect other would also realise this, equally Suhayls imposter, they both stick out like sore thumbs.
Maybe Larry, our ‘not gay’ lamb knows a little about cause and effect, can explain this bufoonery par excellence.
“somebody seems to have sensed that Craig is busy with his new abode”
It’s not exactly hard to guess, by now. How are things going there ?
I’m home now and don’t know the latest.
Courtenay Barnett:
“The rumor was fabricated by the American media with a view to discrediting Iran’s head of state and providing a justification for waging an all out war on Iran.”
Except that as the article you then went on to cut and paste says:
‘One may wonder: where did this false interpretation originate? Who is responsible for the translation that has sparked such worldwide controversy? The answer is surprising.
The inflammatory “wiped off the map” quote was first disseminated not by Iran’s enemies, but by Iran itself. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official propaganda arm, used this phrasing in the English version of some of their news releases covering the World Without Zionism conference. International media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Time magazine and countless others picked up the IRNA quote and made headlines out of it without verifying its accuracy, and rarely referring to the source. Iran’s Foreign Minister soon attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote had a life of its own. Though the IRNA wording was inaccurate and misleading, the media assumed it was true, and besides, it made great copy.’
Interesting, Tim B. So specific ideologically fixated factions in the ruling regime (and its instruments) in Iran are keen to provoke a confrontational situation and will distort even the President’s words in translation to achieve that end. They obviously weren’t playing to a domestic audience if the distortion occurred in translation. Is that what you’re suggesting? Just so I’m clear. It might seem like splitting hairs, but words are important. The regime is a theocracy, and we know about its human rights record, etc., and that at the present juncture it is in oppositional geopolitical frame with respect to the USA, but we also know that it is not monolithic; power is not concentrated in a single centre as it would be, say, in a military dictatorship. So there will be power-struggles within the ruling apparatus.
Thanks.
Suhayl
Regarding what you said earlier
‘there has been a decisive shift in the trust the public (even Daily Mail readers) puts in institutional power’
I totally agree. The Daily Mail comments under the Dr David Kelly stories were a sight to behold, and I know people in their eighties who are convinced Dr Kelly was murdered. I can’t imagine them of having thought that way ten years ago.
As for Gareth Davies, it doesn’t seem to be getting much play in the media which is a shame – the claims about him killing himself and then locking himself in a hold-all really set a new record for daftness.
Thanks, KinfofWelshNoir.
Here is a set of funny photos – a bit like those of Bush/Bin Laden which where put on the cover of Tariq Ali’s 2002 book, ‘A Clash of Fundamentalisms’.
I’d often thought of the Kubrick-Rushdie late-period resemblance, but not of the others! Dopplegangers.
Has anyone seen a Doppelganger of themselves? I’ve seen some of other people in various places in the world.
And the odd thing is that people sometimes resemble each other at specific times in their lives but very seldom right through their lives.
I mean, if The Ayatollah K had resembled Sean Connery when the former was a young man, in a surreal piece of imagery and in an alternative and more fun universe, one might picture him riding in an earlier version of an Aston Martin, intoning, in finest Persian,
“Madam. Need a ride…?”
http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0WTf2wq.aBM0H0Asi5NBQx.?p=khomeini++connery&fr=yfp-t-702&ei=utf-8&x=wrt&y=Search
“… The name’s Ruhollah. Ayatollah Ruhollah.”
Now, here’s something weird. But before the man was owner of these scooter-things, he was a defence contractor/ developer. Why in hell would he be scootering over the edge of a cliff into a river? Seems too pat, somehow. Too pat by half. “The lack of information about the Sedgeway death…” Yet the police allegedly saw a man fall 30 feet… Did they, indeed? How intriguing. My question is were there any large sports bags around? And could this have been some kind of homo-erotic ritual?
Something fishy… something very fishy, about this one.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=11735505
Here we go: a defence contracts millionaire, was our Seggie-boy. Now, that would’ve put a rather different complexion on matters, one might have thought, no?
http://www.funnyordie.com/stories/3e01a7bc77/owner-of-segway-co-dies-riding-segway-off-cliff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion
But perhaps one is being overly suspicious here. I mean, defence contractors die of accidents and natural causes just as much as anybody else. It’s just the irony here seems awfully pointed.