From a British diplomatic source I learn that Britain has lobbied the United States against the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and extraordinary rendition. The lobbying has been carried out “at all levels” – White House, State Department and CIA. The British have argued that at the very least the report must be emasculated before publication.
The British argument is that in a number of court cases including the Belhadj case, the British government has successfully blocked legal action by victims on the grounds that this would weaken the US/UK intelligence relationship and thus vitally damage national security, by revealing facts the American intelligence service wish hidden. [We will leave aside for the moment the utter shame of our servile groveling judges accepting such an argument]. The British Government are now pointing out to the Americans that this argument could be fatally weakened if major detail of the full horror and scope of torture and extraordinary rendition is revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The argument runs that this could in turn lead to further revelations in the courts and block the major defence against prosecutions of Blair, Straw and Dearlove, among others, potentially unleashing a transatlantic wave of judicial activism.
The unabashed collusion of two torturing security states in concealing the truth of their despicable acts – including complicity in the torture of women and minors – and blocking criminal prosecution of the guilty is a sign of how low public ethics have sunk. Fortunately there are still a few people in the British Foreign Office disgusted enough to leak it.
Ba’al
It’s fine that Putin would require such a commitment. Wouldn’t it be great if our own leaders were to do that.
Point is that Putin changed the way these oligarchs operate, which is what I’ve been arguing.
Only a fool would suggest that Putin hasn’t rescued the country from the Yeltsin days.
And remember that Yeltsin’s way is the way the West wanted it run.
===================================================
This article from Alexander Boot indicates he’s a bit of a looper too. Seems he was involved in the McWhirters’ very right wing so called Freedom Association
http://alexanderboot.com/content/let%E2%80%99s-boycott-john-kerry-not-israel
Perhaps he’s posting here.
It’s fine that Putin would require such a commitment. Wouldn’t it be great if our own leaders were to do that.
Wouldn’t it just. But that doesn’t make me a blind supporter of Putin. I think it can be taken that the oligarchs, though not permitted to rule directly, still rule, and with Putin’s consent. It’s not even certain that he could withdraw his consent – this is how Russia is traditionally governed. Or so this piece would suggest;
” Unfortunately, our understanding of Mr. Putin’s regime and its most important players remains heavily distorted by our disappointment that Russia has failed to develop along Western lines. By fixating on Mr. Putin’s authoritarian streak, hostility to outside influences and resistance to Western-style reforms, we generally overlook that his value to the system, like that of the czars who preceded him, is based on maintaining the balance among competing vested interests. Just as it was five centuries ago, the main battles inside the Kremlin among these groups are about power, money and access to special privileges, not ideology.
Eventually, the day will come when Mr. Putin is no longer in power. Yet it seems highly unlikely that his informal style of rule will be replaced by a rule of law system based on strong institutions and checks and balances. Rather, the West must brace itself for the possibility that the oligarchic system itself, with its deep roots in Russian political culture, will outlive its current master. ”
Unfortunately, our understanding of Mr. Putin’s regime and its most important players remains heavily distorted by our disappointment that Russia has failed to develop along Western lines. By fixating on Mr. Putin’s authoritarian streak, hostility to outside influences and resistance to Western-style reforms, we generally overlook that his value to the system, like that of the czars who preceded him, is based on maintaining the balance among competing vested interests. Just as it was five centuries ago, the main battles inside the Kremlin among these groups are about power, money and access to special privileges, not ideology.
Eventually, the day will come when Mr. Putin is no longer in power. Yet it seems highly unlikely that his informal style of rule will be replaced by a rule of law system based on strong institutions and checks and balances. Rather, the West must brace itself for the possibility that the oligarchic system itself, with its deep roots in Russian political culture, will outlive its current master.”
Sorry – link here, rather than two copies of text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/opinion/russias-oligarchy-alive-and-well.html?_r=0
Agree re. Boot, but the Mandelson piece was a laugh, you have to admit.
“IOW he left Russian politics in order to Follow The Money.
Like Blair.”
Don’t think so. Blair made his money after politics. Were Putin to do that it could be like Blair, but ultimately there was no future for Abramovich in Russian politics. Chukotka is a god-forsaken place about as far as it’s possible to get from Moscow without bumping into Sarah Palin.
It’s not politics as an oligarch might wish it. These guys wanted to run the country for themselves, and themselves alone, before Putin got established.
Bit like the way the Anglo/Saxon world runs these days.
Richard Branson has fallen for a Ukrainian’s message.
Richard Branson @richardbranson · Apr 15
Like Yulia, we should all stand firm alongside Ukraine & stand up for true democracy http://virg.in/yul
Richard Branson @richardbranson · Apr 15
Honoured to receive a hand-painted orange protester helmet from Yulia from ‘I Am A Ukrainian’ http://virg.in/yul pic.twitter.com/OIc6LnQhT9
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlRDSqFCcAAXnuF.jpg
Like more than eight million people around the world who have watched the video I Am a Ukrainian, I was deeply moved by the message of Yulia Marushevska from Kiev earlier this year.
15 April 2014
http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/yulia-and-ukraine
Now who has brought him into the arena.
Mark; The dots need connecting. Is there some relevance to Ukraine, Boston and Awlaki?
Comments are interesting, as well.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/04/14/uss-boston-bombing-report-hints-even-darker-reality/
ESLO
16 Apr, 2014 – 1:30 pm
@Mary
and Michelle is busy lighting the candles.
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/455872355311419392/photo/1
Same old, same old – what are you trying to say, somehow I doubt it is Happy Passover.
Yes Happy Passover. Perhaps you were as surprised as my Jewish friend in the West Country, who sent me the link, to find that the Obamas are Jewish too. Or perhaps they just celebrate Jewish holidays. That must go down well with the people in the AIPAC lobby group.
“I think it can be taken that the oligarchs, though not permitted to rule directly, still rule, and with Putin’s consent. It’s not even certain that he could withdraw his consent – this is how Russia is traditionally governed.”
Yeah but, he takes the decisions. He’s running it like a council of interests, and if the voters don’t like what he does they can get rid of him.
It’s hard to get rid of oligarchs.
He really does play one off against the other and when he wants to emphasise a state interest, he then says that his old muckers are insisting. Much better than the greasy pole bureaucrats we’ve got.
It’s traditional leadership.
I hear the argument that when he goes you may not get another leader with his skillset, and the oligarchs will just take over again, but I’m sure he’s thought of that.
He’ll have to set up systems which ensure that doesn’t happen, and encourage ordinary people to take an interest in their democracy.
Despite its long history, Russia is at an early stage of development in economic terms and new systems and the embeddedness of them takes time.
All I ask of him is that he halt the onward march of Western hegemony.
Whilst Putin is trying to bring in the rule of law, our gangsters are completely out of control, and it’s my belief that they need to be stopped before they do any more damage.
I had my complaints in the past, but I wouldn’t have said that before the late 80s.
“They don’t in Russia, since Putin took over.”
Putin is now the world’s richest head of state, worth between $40 and $70 billion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/29/richest-world-leaders_n_4178514.html
“Yes Happy Passover. Perhaps you were as surprised as my Jewish friend in the West Country, who sent me the link, to find that the Obamas are Jewish too. Or perhaps they just celebrate Jewish holidays”
There is nothing unusual in any democratically elected leader showing respect for religions and interest groups in a company other than his/her own – that is what seeking to govern by consent entails.
“That must go down well with the people in the AIPAC lobby group.”
It may well do – but isn’t it a form of reverse Zionism, or worse, to try and make links between the support of a respected religion and that of Israel? Aren’t you just the reverse side of the coin to those who say that those who oppose Israel are anti-Semitic (or prejudiced against the Jewish religion as the pedants here would prefer).
Abramovich (philanthropic as he certainly was to Chukotka – $179M annually since 1999, estimated)
Small price to pay for the amount of tax he avoided on his company’s profits I assure you.
Eslo I have heard it all how. ‘Reverse Zionism’. That’s a new one.
Try some ‘Zionism’ in forward gear, full speed ahead.
Remote-control machine gun installed on top of wall near Bethlehem — Ma’an
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/04/machine-installed-bethlehem.html
Imagine living with that pointing down at you.
Or put yourself in the place of Mariam Barghouti, one of Obama’s citizens, languishing in an Israeli jail.
American citizen, translator and student—Mariam Barghouti arrested and detained in West Bank
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/04/american-translator-barghouti.html
Anyway a joyous Passover – Chag Pesach Sameach!
Mary, Macky
The Slog is f***ing funny. A libertarian Alf Garnet providing refuge for disenfranchised DM readers on acid. It gets more mental than here!
The insane Nazism of extreme feminism
pc feminism reducing efficiency of fire service.
https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/tag/feminism-islam/
Don’t build more houses stop immigration
Just to pick out a couple of gems from Hurby’s post at 16h53, singing the praises of new world hope President Putin:
“..and if the voters don’t like what he does they can get rid of him.”
I assume that was written tongue in cheek?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I hear the argument that when he goes you may not get another leader with his skillset, and the oligarchs will just take over again, but I’m sure he’s thought of that.
He’ll have to set up systems which ensure that doesn’t happen, and encourage ordinary people to take an interest in their democracy.”
I’m sure he has thought of that – probably with the help of a few well-endowed foreign bank accounts.
And I’m also sure that encouraging “ordinary people to take an interest in their democracy” is something he spends most of his waking hours thinking about.
And what you say there is in contrtadiction with what you said just vefore, which was :
“He really does play one off against the other and when he wants to emphasise a state interest, he then says that his old muckers are insisting. Much better than the greasy pole bureaucrats we’ve got.
It’s traditional leadership.”. VERY traditional!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Whilst Putin is trying to bring in the rule of law,…”
More tongue in cheek, I suppose?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“All I ask of him is that he halt the onward march of Western hegemony.”
The best of the lot, Hurby. Leaving aside the presumptiousness of the “All I ask of him” (I’m sure he’s listening hard, Hurby), I wonder if you could explain exactly why that would be a such good thing? I think you’re exhibiting what Orwell called “transferred nationalism”.
===================
Taken together, your post is the most foolish post I’ve read for a very, very long time.
Hurby
“There’s no way in a million years Putin would send forces across the border, without first openly stating his pretext.”
___________________
Are we to infer from this that Hurby would be happy for Russian forces to enter Ukraine provided that rasPutin provides a pretext?
Hurby
““More to the point what are armoured vehicles bearing the Russian flag doing in Eastern Ukraine doing today! Hardly the local militia that the Putinistas deceitfully claim.”
Did you just make this up, ESLO, or do you have a source?
Sounds like total bollocks, but amusing that you don’t even seem to understand that.”
_____________________
“Total bollocks” – I do think that you have cracked the mystery, Hurby.
As any fule – and any Eminence – no, these are not Russian troops at all. They are agents provocateurs impersonating Russian soldiers. They are, in fact, troops dressed up in stolen Russian-type garb sent by the illegitimate,fascist hyena govt in Kiev, liberally supplemented by cunningly disguised US Navy Seals, Walruses and Porpoises, all in the pay of Ronald Reagan, Boris Yeltsin and Amschel Rothschild (all deceased).
Thanks for that insightful insight, Hurby.
*****************
Russian Oligarch Flagday – please give generously!
Hurby (yes, It’s That Man Again!)
“He’s sharing the wealth amongst the people, increasing salaries and pensions and so on.”
___________________
I take it that the “he” refers to President Putin.
You seem to possess considerable expertise in socio-economic developments in today’s Russia. Would you consider sharing with us the information you have regarding wealth sharing, salaries and pensions. I’m particularly interested in the figure for the minimum state pension in Russia – now and before the “increase”. Any oindication as to wealth distribution in Russia would also be welcome.
Thanks in advance.
That offering from Herbie truly was the very worst post ever written on the Craig Murray blog. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. 🙁
You are right, Anon. D’you know, I sometimes wonder whether Hurbee and posters like him aren’t really people in the employ of those who wish Craig’s blog and Craig himself ill. After all, with enough guff like the above from Irby, people in time will start thinking “well, if that’s the kind of nutter Craig’s blog attracts…..”
Or are they just fruits and nutcases, full stop?
Ultimately it boils down to the difference between Yeltsin and Putin.
Most of the West’s puppets are Yeltsins, allowing the rape and plunder of their country.
Putin has stopped that and is using the wealth generated by their resources to build up internal infrastructure, economic. social and so on. You can’t do that if you submit to the Western bully. That’s not what they want.
That’s the whole history of Africa of South America and so on. They just weren’t allowed independent development. Until recently.
Putin is in the mould of DeGaulle or Nasser etc, standing up for a multipolar world against the West’s desire to finally impose a unipolar one.
That’s the choice.
Place your bets.
“Putin is in the mould of DeGaulle or Nasser etc,…”
________________
Not very encouraging models, I’d say, given the short-livedness of their “achievements” and the mess their countries are in.
BTW, Herbie, how about some concrete figures and data, as requested, re pensions “and so so” in Russia?
“[You do your job; I’ll do mine, thanks.]”
_______________
Fine by me, boss 🙂
fred 16 Apr, 2014 – 6:27 pm
I’m hoping you’re just being mischievous with this comment, Fred. Your Huffington Post link presents no more ‘evidence’ than:
When we check what Bloomberg actually said, their writer Leonid Bershidsky completely demolishes the idea. He says:
….then ….
…. and even more damningly ….
So to summarise, Fred, your claim about Putin’s wealth stems from an unsubstantiated allegation made by someone who was once paid to cause Putin trouble. When Putin was asked about journalists repeating the allegations, he said:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-17/vladimir-putin-the-richest-man-on-earth
Habby says of my claim that “Putin is in the mould of DeGaulle or Nasser etc,…” in advocating a multipolar world rather than a unipolar one:
“Not very encouraging models, I’d say, given the short-livedness of their “achievements” and the mess their countries are in.”
They were early adopters. The later models are much more refined, reflective.
And then there’s timeliness.
You do understand that “the mess their countries are in.” is a direct result of their desire for independent development having been stymied by the West.
The Next 911 : Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
Have the British Trident coordinates been programmed into the Trident II D-5 onboard arming computers? Yes I believe they have. Possibly 80 Russian sites have been targeted with 150KTon thermonuclear bombs.
We rad today Rasmussen said that NATO air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region and NATO ships would be deployed in the Baltic Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean.
http://rt.com/news/nato-ukraine-response-rasmussen-872/
The British Navy and the RAF will be involved in these various NATO ‘exercises’ to slowly ramp up the pressure on President Putin; a strategic part of the Ukraine putsch.
Why do this when a ‘mistake’ or a tragedy or an’act of god’ might cause Russia and Putin to retaliate, strike back, turn the tables or even the score?
I do not have to answer that question except to say that to our American neocons, Putin has forsaken world order. He has exposed, laid bare the Western alliance insidious, fraudulent, devious rendition program, it’s proxy wars and ‘red line’ activated chemical WMD covert operations; EVEN exposed the American ‘pearl harbor’ attack in 2001 when NORAD was confused by ‘drills’ and steel buildings fell like castles of sand hit by the oncoming tide.
Putin like Saddam, like Moammar Gadhafi is a traitor to the ‘system’ -to Plutus and Mammon. He must fall on his sword,
China the deponent will have to sit on her hands, impotent from the threat of nuclear annihilation by US nuclear war-heads totally around one thousand operational Megaton and 500 tactical 150Kton.
I hope I am wrong albeit the double-encrypted plan must reside in Eastbury Park’s COMNAVNORTH bunker…
Oh gosh look!
Surely it’s not the Habbabkuk,ESLO,Anon night shift multi-post gang up on someone schtick?
How quaint,really.
Kerchingggg!!….now don’t forget to fill in the overtime chits chaps and bwing the bossy wossy a wittle apple for the morning eh?
You know i’m right chaps innit like,yeah,what eh?
Fanjitas yoll.
It is not without good reason that Brennan is known unofficially as Obama’s “assassination and torture tsar”. The 58-year-old spymaster is the embodiment of how Washington has itself become a secret, unaccountable government that has set itself above the law in the running of torture and assassination programs by presidential command. Brennan is the “éminence grise” of the White House’s covert world of state terrorism.
Following disclosure of Brennan’s weekend visit to the Ukrainian capital, the White House was evidently caught on the back foot. The Oval Office made the somewhat unconvincing attempt to portray it as a perfunctory meeting between security officials. Well, if it was merely a routine itinerary then why was the fact of the meeting such a closely guarded secret – up until the matter was leaked by parliamentary sources in Kiev?
The timing of Brennan’s sojourn in Kiev comes at a crucial juncture. The unelected Western-backed junta in Kiev is threatening a violent crackdown on pro-Russian protesters in the east and south of the country.
So far, the protesters have taken over government and police buildings in the major cities of Donetz, Karkhov, Lugansk, Slavyansk and Horlivka. The takeovers have been carried out with notably little violence – in contrast to the Western-backed street violence that occurred in Kiev from the end of November. The eastern Ukraine protests have met minimal resistance from local police and other security forces, and indeed the latter seem to have willingly joined in the defense of the demonstrations.
The leaders of the self-appointed regime in Kiev are struggling to contain the protesters in the east and south of Ukraine. The chaotic situation is a pointed reminder that the fascists and neo-Nazis who seized power in Kiev at the end of February – after nearly three months of Western-backed street subversion – do not have a democratic mandate to rule over the whole country. The protesters in the eastern cities view the Kiev junta as having come to power illegally. As one woman told media: “They are just a gang of criminals”.
That view would seem to be substantiated by the tacit revolt among police and security forces in the east of Ukraine against the orders for a crackdown given from Kiev. Such clear lack of command over a basic institution of the state indicates that the Kiev cabal has lost control, or more accurately, never had control in the first place – apart from precipitating the illegal coup in Kiev against the incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych.
The vacuum of central authority in Ukraine is evident from the ineffective deadlines issued by the office occupiers in Kiev. Ironically, this supports Moscow’s position that any political solution will have to be based on a federal settlement among the regions of Ukraine. American, European and Russian officials are to meet in Geneva this week, but there is little sign that the Western parties can admit to the reckless folly of their efforts at forcing regime change across Ukraine on the back of the Kiev cabal.
Kiev’s first ultimatum for the protesters in the eastern cities to relinquish their occupation of public buildings expired last Friday. Kiev had given demonstrators 48 hours last week to disperse otherwise it was sending in “anti-terror” military forces to do so. That deadline was defiantly ignored by armed protesters behind their barricades. So too was a second deadline, which expired on Monday morning.
This is the context for the secret visit by CIA chief John Brennan to Kiev at the weekend. The Washington-backed regime is floundering to cope with the nationwide crisis it has helped to provoke, and it needs a steadying hand from Uncle Sam.
The CIA’s covert involvement in destabilizing Ukraine goes all the way back to the end of the Cold War, when the country was targeted for regime change from the early 1990s as a calculated pressure point to exert on Russia. The admission at the end of last year by US state department official Victoria Nuland that the US had funneled some $5 billion into Ukraine for subversive activities under the guise of myriad CIA front organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the Heritage Foundation, is testimony to this strategic gambit.
The question might be asked: why did Brennan have to visit Kiev in person? Surely, a lesser dignitary bearing a sealed letter would have sufficed? The fact that Brennan was obliged to press the flesh with leaders of the Kiev junta suggests two things. Firstly, the junta is way out of its depth in maintaining a façade of “governance” over a population of 45 million, many of which are armed and implacably opposed to its Western-infiltrated rule. Given Brennan’s top ranking as Washington’s éminence grise, his meeting in Kiev was probably designed at shoring up the shaky US-backed regime in the face of growing dissent.
Secondly, and more sinisterly, Brennan was letting his hosts in Kiev know – in the most authoritative unspoken way – that they could rely on the full panoply of Washington’s state terrorist expertise.
The CIA director is a holdover from the Bush administration in which he was a formative figure in drawing up the torture and extraordinary rendition practices during the 2000s. Brennan’s rise through the ranks of the American national security apparatus is in tandem with the rise of American government lawlessness around the world.
In 2008, he had to withdraw his nomination for the top CIA post under public pressure then from his known involvement in and support for torture. The Obama administration circumvented that glitch by appointing Brennan as the president’s “chief counterterrorism advisor” – a career appointment that did not require Congressional oversight.
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/cia-terror-chief-pulls-rank-in-kiev-by-finian-cunningham/
“The argument runs that this could in turn lead to further revelations in the courts and block the major defence against prosecutions of Blair, Straw and Dearlove, among others, potentially unleashing a transatlantic wave of judicial activism.”
It would bring me great joy to see Blair in the dock. I’m not quite sure what he should be charged with, war-crimes, treason, or corruption in office. I don’t think he can realisticaly be charged with all of them, though of course he is quite obviously guilty of all of them. I’d go with Treason, personally. The war-crimes is never going to stick, and the corruption in office is too boring. But Treason is a good one. It brings added shame, and I wonder if we could still theoretically take him to the tower and chop of his head?
Apparently, though, Blairy is fearful of assassination, quite genuinely. In case the spooks are reading, I personally would never go above shouting a bit of abuse, and maybe chucking a shoe in his general vicinity – but I’m quite sure some of Bliary’s new pals would go much further. I suspect this is the reason he pops up every so often, repeating his little mantra about whatever it is he talks about, so as to show he is still ‘safe’. I think there is much more chance of Bliar having a little accident, than there is of him going to court.
Godwin alert. There is that little book called ‘Political Ponerology’, which I’m sure many have read on these boards. In this book, the writer bemoans, quite genuinely, the death of the leading Nazi’s at Nuremberg, because humanity lost the chance to see how evil works, to study the psychopathology of these deviant minds. They may have deserved their fate, no doubt, but their death gained us nothing other than revenge. The writer goes on to suggest that this was never entirely an accident, as too many people simply didn’t want us to know how evil works, and the legal establishment played along. I mention this, because I’m quite sure Blair will never face a court, in case we see a little too much about how powerful men operate, and about the inter-connectedness of it all. So I imagine the senate report will be bland, and full of those funny black redaction marks, and Obama – another curious case – will wibble something about healing, and moving forward, and much will remain a mystery, as ever.
Also, lots of dead bankers these days. Very curious that. I didn’t know so many were that unhappy. One of them, apparently, shot himself with a nail-gun I believe 9 times, poor guy. Suicide, obviously.