As this blog is now read daily by tens of thousands of people who had not heard of me before, some idea of where I come from might be in order. After a diplomatic career of rapid promotion (senior civil service age 36, my first Ambassadorship in Uzbekistan age 42) my opposition to Bush/Blair’s immoral and counter-productive foreign policy got me sacked.
This telegram (diplomatic communications are called that; cable in the USA) I am with retrospect very proud to have sent. To have made at the time the observation that the Bush/Blair policy of invasion, oppression and torture would not suppress fundamentalism, but would create it, was prescient. I should say I understood very well I would be sacked. Some things are worth being sacked for.
On provenance, after being kicked out I typed this up from my handwritten draft which I had in my briefcase; hence it does not carry the identifiers it would gain when sent. I assure you it is genuine, and by now I expect it should be obtainable under a Freedom of Information request. If someone makes one I would be grateful – the date on it is the day I wrote it, it might have got sent a day or two later, so give them a range.
Confidential
Fm Tashkent
To FCO
18 March 2003
SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICY
SUMMARY
1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focused on democracy or freedom. It is
about oil, gas and hegemony. In Uzbekistan the US pursues those ends through supporting a
ruthless dictatorship. We must not close our eyes to uncomfortable truth.
DETAIL
2. Last year the US gave half a billion dollars in aid to Uzbekistan, about a quarter of it
military aid. Bush and Powell repeatedly hail Karimov as a friend and ally. Yet this regime
has at least seven thousand prisoners of conscience; it is a one party state without freedom of
speech, without freedom of media, without freedom of movement, without freedom of
assembly, without freedom of religion. It practices, systematically, the most hideous tortures
on thousands. Most of the population live in conditions precisely analogous with medieval
serfdom.
3. Uzbekistan’s geo-strategic position is crucial. It has half the population of the whole of
Central Asia. It alone borders all the other states in a region which is important to future
Western oil and gas supplies. It is the regional military power. That is why the US is here,
and here to stay. Contractors at the US military bases are extending the design life of the
buildings from ten to twenty five years.
4. Democracy and human rights are, despite their protestations to the contrary, in practice a
long way down the US agenda here. Aid this year will be slightly less, but there is no
intention to introduce any meaningful conditionality. Nobody can believe this level of aid –
more than US aid to all of West Africa – is related to comparative developmental need as
opposed to political support for Karimov. While the US makes token and low-level
references to human rights to appease domestic opinion, they view Karimov’s vicious regime
as a bastion against fundamentalism. He – and they – are in fact creating fundamentalism.
When the US gives this much support to a regime that tortures people to death for having a
beard or praying five times a day, is it any surprise that Muslims come to hate the West?
5. I was stunned to hear that the US had pressured the EU to withdraw a motion on Human
Rights in Uzbekistan which the EU was tabling at the UN Commission for Human Rights in
Geneva. I was most unhappy to find that we are helping the US in what I can only call this
cover-up. I am saddened when the US constantly quote fake improvements in human rights
in Uzbekistan, such as the abolition of censorship and Internet freedom, which quite simply
have not happened (I see these are quoted in the draft EBRD strategy for Uzbekistan, again I
understand at American urging).
6. From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US are activated by shared values.
Here we have a brutal US sponsored dictatorship reminiscent of Central and South American
policy under previous US Republican administrations. I watched George Bush talk today of
Iraq and “dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape
rooms”. Yet when it comes to the Karimov regime, systematic torture and rape appear to be
treated as peccadilloes, not to affect the relationship and to be downplayed in international
fora. Double standards? Yes.
7. I hope that once the present crisis is over we will make plain to the US, at senior level, our
serious concern over their policy in Uzbekistan.
MURRAY
For the full story, read my memoir Murder in Samarkand (Dirty Diplomacy in the US) which your local ibrary should be able to get.
Loved “Murder in Samarkand”, Craig. I had to keep reminding myself that is wasn’t a book of fiction. Keep up the good work – your blog is essential reading for me, and I check the blog daily – twice if you are being lazy and haven’t posted in the morning!! 🙂
What a nasty piece of work you are. Hope you are pleased with yourself.
Craig Dammit you are good!!!!!!!!
You have a pair as big as the St. Paul’s dome mate, Cameron ought to be a proud little lad. Good on you and may your example make the others think twice before acquiescing to carry out evil deeds at the behest of the corrupt sponsored carpetbaggers masquerading as our dear leaders.
All very true, and I couldn’t agree more. Craig is one of the good ones, and we are lucky to have him. (Not that he is by any means the first stubbornly honest Scot! It’s a long and distinguished line).
Although I am sure it was far from his intentions at the time, by sheer chance and misplaced trust in the powers that be, he found himself in a position to become an important whistle-blower against State iniquity. A forerunner of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, in a way.
In a time of universal deceit…
I read Murder in Samarkand quite recently and my overall feeling was that while you were right to blow the whistle on what was happening in Uzbekistan, you went about it in completely the wrong way.
If, as you say, you fully expected to be sacked (or perhaps even wanted to be sacked) that that is fair enough, but to portray yourself as having been sacked for telling the truth is a nonsense. You lost your job because of the confrontational and ill-judged manner you went about things.
How could a conformist hive minded specimen as yourself can even begin to understand the concepts of independence of thought and action?
So shove your advice along with your racist attitudes and thinly disguised supremacy where sun don’t shine, now there is a good thing and toddle off to spam somewhere else to earn your shekels.
Fedup
Anon1’s opinion is given politely and may have merit (I’m not personally acquainted with “Murder in Samarkand”).
Why is your immediate reaction such an oafish one?
No argument, no manners, just insults and ad hominems.
Be glad I’m not a moderator on here.
The cat roars Grandiose delusions now advocate general defending …………
Habb.
Oh! We are most grateful. ?
What else to expect from such vociferous defenders of Israeli crimes??
When faced with evil I get confrontational. It’s my nature. Incapable of doing anything else.
Numerous other mandarins lined up to tell the Chilcot Inquiry that they had realised the whole thing was going to be a disaster all along – and that was true. If they had all got confrontational with Blair at the time, the world might be a marginally better place now.
Craig anyone who dose not get confrontation facing evil they are not a human being, they may look like one but alas the similarities end there. Evil and injustice must be fought head on, and there are no half measures.
Speaking as one who is temperamentally non-confrontational, I think what Craig did was extraordinarily brave; the softlee softlee catchee monkey approach is becoming less of an option.
There can’t be many who comment here prepared to jeopardise their careers, jobs and perhaps lives to expose what is just plain wrong by any human standards – forget the language of good and evil.
The way things are going as I see it, more and more of us will have to be ready to call things out, stand up and be counted and show courage as Craig did if we want to live in a half decent society.
Rose we need to confront evil and injustice in any way we can, if you don’t wish to use those terms use any other term you feel comfortable with. But paramount is the act of confronting those forces of reaction and inertia that have yielded the current mess. With a view to carry on their parasitic life cycles.
You will keep butting in, Fedup. Do piss off and find your own conversation and stop sucking up to Craig.
Sucking up is your division/trade anon the racist zionist scrote, no demarcation there for certain, so don’t get worried you are out of a job!
Is that all you have, to come back with tosser?
” If they had all got confrontational with Blair at the time ”
Do you honestly believe he would’ve taken any notice?
I didn’t get he impression from the book that Craig was a troublesome or confrontational figure. Quite the reverse, as his career to that point showed. The problem was that he was not prepared to go along with torture and other forms of evil, as described.
It is hardly a secret that when UK governments do not like what someone says to them, or about them, they are unstinting in their actions to undermine, discredit and, when possible, silence their critics.
My only concern about this post is that it appears even Craig might be taking on board some of the attacks, defending his stand as a part of his character. It is, yes, but you shouldn’t have to defend the basic integrity without which one couldn’t even be trusted in front of a sweet stall.
Craig
You were sent there as a diplomat, not a human rights campaigner.
You can’t, in the position you were in, just walk into a country like Uzbekistan and start bollocking it for its human rights record and expect anything other than a complete breakdown in relations, should the government of the day support you. It doesn’t achieve anything.
Perhaps you chose the wrong career.
Anon1: A diplomat is charged with looking after his country’s interests, in that country to which s/he is posted, by and large, wouldn’t you agree?
It is against our country’s stated position to make use of “intelligence” based on torture, for a number of good reasons, many of which involve adherence to International Law.
Therefore, if a country should is being put in such a position, why should its Ambassador stay quiet about it? We ought surely respect the fact that that Ambassador is not only securing the interests of his country, and paying respect to International Law, but also giving due regard to human rights. (The latter also being something the Ambassador’s country purports to promote.)
Is it reasonable to assume that people stand to lose their careers for going about things in a confrontational and ill judged manner?
Those who prosecuted the assaults on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya surely behaved in confrontational and ill judged manner. I am not aware that, for the most part, they lost their careers as a consequence.
I don’t think Craig was fired (and, let’s not forget, subjected to a despicable campaign designed to destroy him utterly) for being “confrontational”.
The amazing thing is that he lasted so long with such a basically honest and decent personality. How on earth did he even get into the Foreign Service, let alone promoted to Ambassador, let alone sent to such a sensitive spot as Uzbekistan? I suppose it must have been sheer ability that propelled him – so much so that the panjandrums didn’t realize they had an honest man in their midst.
When they saw that telegram and at last understood Craig’s values, I suppose they couldn’t have been more horrified if he had admitted to being a communist. Actually, a devious, case-hardened, pragmatic communist would have been far more welcome than an outspoken honest man.
The tone police are here to direct attention from the gravest crimes to your poor manners.
So now you know, Craig. The “Expert” has spoken, ROFLMAO.
I could be really sarcastic and ask ‘what is a library?’
But having made the point; libraries are dying on their feet. Even though I am from Birmingham and the council here has just wasted a fortune on yet another a new library.
The pity is that we do not have a library-style arrangement for the internet.
Bert.
That cnut Blair is getting a bit of a kicking over his tax affairs, across media this morning.
The Blair Rich Project, they’re calling it.
All in it together, they are.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3542877/Did-Tony-Blair-consult-Britain-s-taxman-secret-trust-fortune-set-manage-riches.html
Usual place. Have also contacted one of the original (Times) reporters. Incidentally I seem to have lost a post on the present topic.
More today in the Times (paywall): detail on Toxic Tony’s activities in Kazakhstan. Nasty. And not in a good way
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fwd-sun-for-mon-part-time-jobs-refile-tlr0q7pwh
Think I’ll wait for the Telegraph and Mail to find it rather than rush out for the paper copy.
I thought that it was the leaking of this to the FT that got you sacked, not the report itself. As you claim not have been the source, it was presumably one of your colleagues?
That was presumably the excuse. Not necessarily the motive.
“As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focused on democracy or freedom. It is about oil, gas and hegemony”.
Bravely said, and quite true. But surely you did not rise to the rank of Ambassador without understanding those things quite clearly? The matter has nothing to do with Tashkent or 2003 in particular. It was equally true (mutatis mutandis) in China in the 1880s, in the Philippines in the 1900s, and from then on throughout the world.
If the Americans were ever stopped from plundering others and thrown back on their own resources, I suspect we should see a drastic reduction in their standards of living, affluence, and grotesque arrogance. Although perhaps they would be inspired to educate themselves and become rather more humble and attractive.
“From Tashkent it is difficult to agree that we and the US are activated by shared values”.
Again, very true and admirable. But your statement perhaps should have been spelled out more clearly. After all, the UK and US governments shared all their values then, as they do now; a wise valet is careful to copy all his master’s values to the letter.
It was your own personal values that differed sharply from the shared values of the UK and US (and Uzbek) governments. That being so, how did you ever find yourself attempting to represent such a vicious, lying bunch of thugs? As Dr Johnson playfully observed, “In Sir Henry Wotton’s jocular definition, ‘An Ambassador is said to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the advantage of his country; a news-writer is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.'” You were and still are unwilling – quite rightly – to lie for either motive. So why become an Ambassador?
Ah, those were the days, 2003. We innocently thought the US government’s problem was hypocrisy. We’ve since learned that the US was simply making Uzbekistan in its own image, as it did in El Salvador and Honduras and Chile and Greece and Indonesia and Iran. Change Uzbekistan to USA and Craig’s words fit equally well. US human rights review showed a knuckle-dragging atavism of a state.
http://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=6QkG1d%2fPPRiCAqhKb7yhsijKy20sgGcLSyqccX0g1nnMFNOUOQBx7X%2bI55yhIwlkDk6CF0OAdiqu2L8SNxDB4%2bVRPkf5gZFbTQO3y9dLrUeUaTbS0RrNO7VHzbyxGDJ%2f
Urgent intensive follow-up showed that that is how the US junta wants it.
http://ccprcentre.org/page/114th-session-in-brief/follow-up-to-concluding-observations?/114-session-follow-up-concluding-observation/
Even with respect to torture.
http://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=6QkG1d%2fPPRiCAqhKb7yhsuLMmIdNURtE47fFHU%2bcDW3YqC%2f3zHkM7HdrMe8Ha0T3LrxFZw2DBuPPjJtmrR1GUBC%2fjzvD8gcT%2fCPPgMygXRPGjD4yWY90dyGDoPyZiQO4
This coming Monday the Convention Against Torture treaty body plenary will convene and follow up on US torture. We’ll see a couple token gestures forced by civil society, and untouched impunity for torture. Another solid block of unsatisfactory responses. More bad faith in breach of peremptory norms.
The US is a pariah state. Under the R2P doctrine it has forfeited any claim to sovereignty. It takes 3 gigatons and a murderous police state to keep it in place. Craig said so at the outset with Kofi Annan and Dominique de Villepin.
Thanks, Craig.
‘I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and “dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape
rooms”’.
This whole topic is replete with gorgeous ironies. The further I read, the more you remind me of the victim in the story of the Good Samaritan, who “fell among thieves”.
‘I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and “dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape rooms”’.
One imagines the scene: Dubya standing proudly, hands on hips, among the ruins of Baghdad and instructing his military subordinates, “Remove those torture chambers and rape rooms, and take them to Guantanamo, Bagram, and Chicago. We need them there”.
Find it interesting that the FO waited until 17 October 2004 to fire you, long after your had rightly made your complaints about US foreign policy crystal clear.
Since PM Blair did think that President GW Bush had a chance in Hell of getting re-elected, the delay in your firing seems to have been to clear the record for the new US President, John Kerry.
Wonder if the FO had second thoughts about having gotten rid of you.
It’s pretty clear that you intended this for publication. Why was it not a formal letter of resignation?
Actually I didn’t intend it for publication. It was however intended for a specific wider audience – many fellow Ambassadors around the world to whom I copied it.
Craig, I don’t think that it was as clear then as it is now that you would be sacked for raising concerns about torture.
ANTI-FASCIST REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
ROBIN RAMSAY
Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine points out the strangeness of Craig Murray not foreseeing the likely results of opposing US Empire policy.
– See Lobster #58, ‘Craig Murray’ – Page 87 – And ‘The meaning of subservience to America’ on the same page. Twofer! –
– http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue58.php
MORE
Craig Murray on UK government perfidy. Bahrain this time. SO – Perfidious Albion: No change there, then! ; )
Plus Tony Benn, Julian Assange and John le Carre on UK subservience to the US Empire –
– See comments by Ex Pat to interview with Craig Murray –
– ‘Bahrain Opposition Meeting at Frontline Club’, 23rd February 2013 – Craig Murray blog – NB. May need to remove ‘s’ from ‘https’ to get the link to work, or google. (??) –
– https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/02/bahrain-opposition-meeting-at-frontline-club/
A petition has been requested on the British parliament’s website, as follows.
************************
Allow British citizens to offer rooms in their homes to refugees, for free
Many people would willingly give up space in their home for free to a refugee or a refugee family. The British government should start a scheme to encourage people to do this.
There are 20 million refugees in the world, including 5 million from Syria. The plight of “displaced people” is not new. Most prolonged wars cause many people to flee their homes – or from the ruins of their homes. Many live in overcrowded conditions with relatives. Many don’t have that option, fleeing across borders to a life of uncertainty, often living in camps or shanty towns. There is a long tradition of citizens giving up space in their homes to house refugees. Publicly encourage this.
************************
It’s currently in the stage of gathering enough signatures to be allowed to go live. You can sign it by clicking here:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128101/sponsors/LTc9J2Jgu0IfeTo
BwKGc
Sorry, the URL got garbled. If you want to sign this petition, the correct URL is as follows:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128101/sponsors/LTc9J2Jgu0IfeToBwKGc
Mary Hartnell.
No matter how caring and supportive towards refugees coming to Britain, we’ll never achieve the sheer love and comfort shown to the poor Syrian refugees by Turkey.
“Human Rights Watch has called on Turkey to stop firing on Syrian civilians fleeing fighting and allow them to cross the Turkish border. The UN Refugee Agency asked Ankara to provide data on possible refugee deaths in shelling on the Syrian border.”
https://www.rt.com/news/339697-syrian-refugees-border-turkey/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome
That description could certainly fit our best buddy, Saudi Arabia…no amount of torture and beheading seems to be enough to cause reductions in military sales or diplomatic hand-holding.
As you discovered, speaking truth to power has a price. But sometimes you want to pay. Kudos.
Helen Marshall.
Best buddies indeed, and recently to the tune of £1.75 billion quid, that amount of cash buys you a friend for life, but why did Saudi Arabia give Britain so much dosh?
“Britain – which has closed its Yemen embassy and refuses to enter the country due to “deteriorating security” – exported more than 1,000 bombs to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2015 and has approved exports of more than £1.75 billion-worth of combat aircraft and bombs for the Royal Saudi Air Force.”
But surely Britain is doing something morally correct, such as taking refugees from Yemen? Well a FOI request into how many Yemeni refugees have been allowed to stay in Britain, was met with a indefinite ban.
To add insult to injury those poor souls that do make it to Britain, from Yemen, are being repatriated by foreign special forces, because the FCO deems Yemen to dangerous to send British nationals to.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/mps-call-to-end-uk-government-secrecy-over-the-fate-of-yemeni-refugees.16426
Helen you may find this article of some interest:
al saud pederasts warn of sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill
This is sort of on-topic, Craig: Day 6 of the ‘Democracy Spring’ protest in Washington. Today’s livestream…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi7bXV8cSFQ
And their FaceBook page…
https://www.facebook.com/democracyspring/
This is a firecracker compared to what’s happening in France (and increasingly in the UK), but you have to be very brave to protest in the USA; not just in the present era, but throughout the history of the country: the USA probably has the worst record of any western country when it comes to stifling dissent, particularly in the early 20th century, when quite often strikers/demonstrators were shot dead by the police.
RobG, Democracy Spring is another one of those dismal middle-class Easter Parades that Dems whip up to give their voters an illusory sense of agency. It’s Bill McKibben type eyewash. NPR victims socialize, and march, and get arrested with the softest of kid gloves (nobody’s breaking their wrist and leaving them in restraints, or disappearing them for days in moving buses, or sexually assaulting them, or macing women to try and start a riot, or letting them get scabies in the jails, or protecting organizations with decapitation plans for targeted assassintion of leaders – that treatment is for less malleable undesirables like Occupy.) Dem-scripted synthetic rebellion eases the pain of voting in a rigged forced-choice election for figureheads who are going to fuck you.
Jane Sixpack, I don’t know enough about the ‘Democracy Spring’ movement to be able to fully respond to your comment.
I do know that hundreds of peaceful protestors were arrested in Washington earlier this week…
http://www.mintpressnews.com/hundreds-arrested-democracy-spring-sit-us-capitol-content-originally-published-telesur-following-address-httpwww-telesurtv-netenglishnewshundreds-arrested-dem/215559/
… and many of those who were arrested have now ‘disapeared’.
Jane Sixpack,
Great analysis. Whilst I am not American, I spent 5 years posting on an American supposedly left wing “liberal” website – Alternet – mainly because I wanted to understand Americans…
I now perceive The American “Left” and their R2P nonsense as far more dangerous than the nutters in The Tea-Party…and if I lived in the USA…I would probably join the local rifle range. I do know how to shoot, but haven’t done so since I discovered girls.
Look at The State of Hillary Clinton…summed up in 11 seconds.
They are actually going to vote for This – Ha Ha – Brainwashed Zombies
“Hillary Clinton on Gaddafi: We came, we saw, he died”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
II could also go on about Chris Hedges, and the Amy Goodman in Democracy Now getting arrested..Give us a Break.
Why didn’t Amy Goodman interview Susan Lindauer?
She wrote a book..and its true..backed up with FBI documentation…and its incredibly exciting….as you are reading it..you think well what the hell are they going to do with her next…
“Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Prejudice-Terrifying-Story-Patriot/dp/1453642757
Tony
I looked more closely at the constituent organizations and saw a lot of credible-sounding ones. But I saw Move On too. When Dem apparatchiks were infiltrating Occupy, they would use undiscredited names like Ellsberg as bait and associate them with a lot of astroturf and party hacks. Hard to confirm or falsify that here, but the first question is, Why did they wait till election year to link up? That means, at the minimum they’re setting too much store by a rigged electoral process; at worst, it’s top-down pretend activism. What are they doing in Washington anyway? No one there gives a shit what we think. Assemble at home or in your own freely chosen capitol, and plan how to do what the state has failed to do. We’re way past the point of petitioning the state for redress. It simply needs to be supplanted.
Must say that I found Robin Ramsey’s reaction to how Craig was treated personally for his official complaints about how Uzbekistan was run particularly offensive – i.e., as a 20-yea veteran of the Foreign Service, he should have known better, as it is commonplace in the service.
Seems Craig’s point was that it was unprecedented.
Loony – you said:-
” Is it reasonable to assume that people stand to lose their careers for going about things in a confrontational and ill judged manner?
Those who prosecuted the assaults on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya surely behaved in confrontational and ill judged manner. I am not aware that, for the most part, they lost their careers as a consequence.”
I think that the instance you cite is the converse of the point Craig is making. The ones who commenced those wars are the status quo warmongers; the ones who oppose such wars are the ones who “…stand to lose their careers for going about things in a confrontational and ill judged manner.” ” Ill judged” in the sense that easy career advance and job security more often than not means going along to get along and ahead.
Quitting, or being fired from, a decent job on a matter of principle is a good thing and should be encouraged, but it does not amount to martyrdom. In fact, it is difficult to see how any decent human being could serve in a great many branches of the government of a Western state, yet most who get the chance do.
So let’s get this in perspective. It’s not that CM is a saint, but that, unlike the majority of those who work in corporate or government bureaucracies, he is no Eichmann. This I think tells us where we are: waiting for any Hitler, Stalin, Mao or other mass murdering megalomaniac to start giving orders, which the vast majority in the FCO and every other branch of government and industry will follow.
But wait, that is what we have now in the Obama/Camoron/Merkel/EU/WTO/FaceBook/Apple/Goldman Sucks/etc cabal of globalists for the destruction of the Sovereign, democratic Western nation state and the genocide of the European peoples as distinct racial and cultural groups by mass immigration and multiculturalism.
In current corporate speak, due diligence is making sure that shit cannot stick to the company. Craig was being expected to deny UK or US corporate torture, and he would have been rewarded for due diligence if he had done so. The more people who cover up state terror, the more difficult it is for others to be believed when they want to expose it or complain about it.
Over on Helen Clarke the poisonous fedup has tried to label me as a hater of Muslims. He has adopted the corporate due diligence of Islam plc, to protect the corporation from internal criticism by its members. Craig didn’t criticise George Bush because he hated Western culture and beliefs, but because he saw those stated beliefs and values being eroded.
As a Muslim I am totally entitled to criticise my fellow members if they deliberately and repeatedly erode the stated beliefs and values of the religion, by lying, spying and seeking military confederacy with the enemies of Islam.
I am not as Fedup nastily implies a racist against dark-skinned people. It’s a puerile insult with no foundation.
100s of millions of people aspire to live in the UK because of its law-abidingness, even the simple fact that your basic safety on the roads or in your house is legislated for and supervised. Anybody who wants to bypass those basic protections after they have come to this country is bonkers. Do they want to re-create the culture from which they have fled where you have to bribe the policeman or the mafia, or the local politician to get your daughter into hospital?
I remember once on a visit through Turkey the news was full of a famous local singer who had been electrocuted in a luxury swimming pool. Has fedup never made the connection between lack of basic respect for health and safety and the creation of Daesh by Turkey. Has Fedup never made the connection between having to have an MOT for your car or a certificate for your electrical work, and Craig’s right to question torture on a blog?
If you let go of the small issues like maintaining your car responsibly, you will soon be made to overlook bigger issues such as state torture. I can choose the irresponsible path if I wanted to. But don’t criticise the MPs or ambassadors who blinker themselves to the reality of torture in exchange for power if you are turning a blind eye to wrong in your own little corner of the universe, namely installing electrical wiring safely.
Why can’t fedup just connect the bodges of Muslim electrical work to the bodges in ideology that allow Muslims to follow the terrorist ideology of the CIA?
I won’t be attacked by a nasty little pit-bull like fedup, even if Suhayl backs down gracefully nor would the nasty little pit-bull expect me to do so. That’s what pit-bulls are made for anyway.
And boy do you criticise!
We are to date awaiting to see a simple praise for a Muslim of any sorts in your long postings, that consist of haranguing and criticising your “fellow Muslims”. In fact reading your “contributions” and that of the “anon the racist tosser” one would be hard pushed to discern who wrote what?
Did you take this poll yourself or are you reliant on the oligarch owned media who big up the “jungle” in the Calais to cover the French strikes in case it gave any ideas to the restless locals here?
Anyway don’t you find this kind of bullshit has a whiff of supremacy to it? Fact that the Afghan translators for the British army have ran off because they were facing their imminent demise, and come over to France hoping they will shame their indolent employers whom promised them Foreign Legion terms? Or the unemployed and the economically destitute wrongly believing the grass is greener on the other side are rushing to come over here, are not exactly the points to be proud of mate! But a supremacist tosser would be blind to these facts won’t he?
On the health and safety the singer whose swimming pool became to be his executioner due to an electrical fault, was probably jerry built as the rest of the buildings in Turkey that often fall apart and regardless of the “oh so H&S and IEE regs” that corrupt joint will have these kinds of mishaps for years to come.
On the subject of Daesh, get educated! Daesh is originated in the “awakening councils” that Petraeus and Bremmer set up in Iraq under the careful watch of Negroponte who had set up similar death squads in El Salvador. Later these “Sunni” groups were picked up by the al saud pederasts and their “British promoted version of Islam” that funded the group, having an endless supplies of large pools of unemployed population who had will answer their call.
Turkey only facilitated the ingress of these mercenaries whom incidentally were also getting recruited from certain European countries and had the time of their life getting through Turkey into Syria. Loads of money, women, drugs and guns to fire the endless bullets and play cowboys and Indians/cops and robbers for real.
Erdogan could not organise a piss up in a brewery as his scam for the cheap oil from Syria that was helping Daesh to pay it’s numerous mercenaries was in tatters within weeks of the Russian involvement in sending the wannabe martyrs to their Valhalla/Djane’t. But we know you are at the minute going through your Kurdish period so an enemy of the Kurds is an enemy of yours, hence the unrelated drivel.
Well this last paragraph really tells it all. “Muslim Electrical work”! Is shoddy workmanship just a “Muslim” phenomena? This then of course leads to “bodges” in the “ideology” the theories of one giyane who is not a racist against the “coloured” people but talks, writes, and thinks just like a racist!
But we have to accept his word because he is “Muslim”!!! With friends like giyane Muslims sure as hell don’t need any racist supremacist zionist scrotes!
Now let’s wait for a one liner insult and dismissal in answer.
On demand. Troll!
Never a one to disappoint, aren’t you?
On the health and safety the singer whose swimming pool became to be his executioner due to an electrical fault, was probably jerry built as the rest of the buildings in Turkey that often fall apart and regardless of the “oh so H&S and IEE regs” that corrupt joint will have these kinds of mishaps for years to come.
There I can agree. Though it’s amazing what they can get to stand up, using hand-mixed (with a shovel) concrete, poplar pole scaffolding and ad hoc formes. Wish they wouldn’t do it in earthquake zones, though. With shelly beach sand.
Ba’al the contractors steal from the materials so much and the standards of building is as you put it from your first hand experience makes one wonder how on Earth the buildings stand and don’t fall apart?
I thought your Telegram was pretty mild. I’m sure they didn’t fire you just for that. In fact they sent you back to Tashkent to carry on your job. I also think some of the criticisms of you here are a little bit out of order. I do not think the entire British Civil Service is corrupt. Most people in a job like yours, just try to do their best, as you obviously did, or you wouldn’t have been promoted so quickly so young. You just had more courage than most of the rest.
Well done. You displayed great courage and integrity.
Tony
BEYOND BELIEF ?
> Must say that I found Robin Ramsey’s reaction to how Craig was treated personally for his official complaints about how Uzbekistan was run particularly offensive
I can’t agree. It was mild to the point of milque-toast criticism.
I thought that Robin Ramsay was suggesting that as a highly intelligent and able diplomat it was odd – to put it mildly – that Craig was unaware of what he might face for breaking the party line of appeasing the US Empire at every turn.
– – See Lobster #58, ‘Craig Murray’ – Page 87 – And ‘The meaning of subservience to America’ on the same page. Twofer! –
– http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue58.php
In the BBC radio play Murder in Samarkand, based on Craig Murray’s book about Uzbek murder and torture of dissidents – and rendered US/UKprisoners, none of whom were ever seen again says CM – David Tenant, playing Craig Murray, describes how he didn’t believe for a nano-second that 19 Arabs acting alone had carried out 9/11, because he had queried UK government analysts and that was their conclusion.
The impression was of an extremely intelligent diplomat getting the views of highly competent intelligence analysts. Does that square with the idea of the same highly intelligent ambassador now being blindsided by the dirty tricks of the FCO? No it doesn’t, imo. (*)
But does Craig Murray get our thanks for his courage and for his stand. YES he does!
– ‘Murder in Samarkand’ – Craig Murray –
– https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/books/murder-in-samarkand/radio-play/
Robin Ramsay @ UK Lobster on Craig Murray
‘This is the sequence of events which led to Murray’s ouster’.
* ‘The US was supporting the dictator in Uzbekistan initially in pursuit of a pipeline which Enron wanted to run through the country’.
‘* To justify US activities in Uzbekistan an al Qaeda ‘threat’ was invented by torturing Uzbeks until they ‘admitted’ being al Qaeda’.
* ‘Because the US was tolerating this, the UK government had to turn a blind eye to it’.
* ‘Because Murray would not drop the issue of torture in Uzbekistan, he had to be got rid of lest he embarrass the American ‘friends’’.
* ‘To get rid of Murray a smear campaign was generated against him’.
‘I admire Murray but you have to wonder how he arrived at the age of 40 plus, after 20 years working for HMG’s foreign service, and had not realised what would happen if he tried to oppose American foreign policy’.
How then should we treat the suggestion that CM was blindsided by the UK Foreign Office’s reaction to his memo detailing the UK’s use of the results of Uzbek torture / and torture-to-death?
ER. Unlikely. Very unlikely.
Muzafar Avazov and Khuzniddin Alimov – ‘Our President’s New Best Friend Boils People Alive’ – 06/23/03 – Information Clearing House –
– http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm
(*) OR
NOAM CHOMSKY
Maybe it’s the difference between those who’ve been under the colonial whip for 800 years and those who’ve been holding it. Alternatively, the UK peasants may be congenital idiots. But their ambassadors? Hardly. YMMV. –
“After 911 I gave interviews everywhere. Except here. And on Irish TV and BBC back to back. I said this much (holds hands a foot apart) on Irish TV – ok, discussion over, everyone understands what I’m talking about. Try to say it on BBC you have to go on for like about an hour. The Irish Sea is a Chasm (of understanding) and it just depends who has been holding the whip for eight hundred years and who has been under it for eight hundred years.” – HA! –
Noam Chomsky on why some countries, and some groups, ‘get it’ and others have a much harder time.
– Noam Chomsky – @ Minute 50:00 – ‘Rebel Without A Pause’ –
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZJ-vd7ggrk
LINK CORRECTION- x 2
1. Voice of Russia Radio is now found on Sputniknews.com.
SO. TONY BENN
Q. “How would you characterize Britain’s relationship with the United States. How would you like to see it develop?”
A. Tony Benn – “What we call the Special Relationship is really a product of the fact that we depend upon the United States in Britain for nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and therefore we are really, to that extent, a subject nation. If we want to hang onto nuclear weapons we have to follow American policy and that causes a lot of frustrations and we call it the Special Relationship and it is really a position of subservience.”
– @ 11.30 – Tony Benn – 29.00 minutes – 25th January, 2013 – Voice of Russia radio – Revised link –
– http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia_uk/radio_broadcast/73145563/102427733/
2. “NATO behind Houla massacre. Press TV – Youtube –
‘Some ‘humanitarian’ aid they delivered earlier’. – Revised link –
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU2jxtZKkz0
Revised links from Tony Benn, Julian Assange and John le Carre on UK subservience to the US Empire –
– See comments by Ex Pat to interview with Craig Murray –
– ‘Bahrain Opposition Meeting at Frontline Club’, 23rd February 2013 – Craig Murray blog – NB. May need to remove ‘s’ from ‘https’ to get the link to work, or google. (??) –
– https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/02/bahrain-opposition-meeting-at-frontline-club/
[Mods: caught in spam filter at 06:33, timestamp updated]
In a time of universal deceit, speaking the truth is an act of sedition.
Speaking truth to power is a capital offence. Take care Craig.
I read Craig’s excellent book some years back – as I remember it, he was recalled to London on spurious charges, of which he was cleared eventually on all counts, not for the cable, but for refusing to shut up about the abuse, as demanded by the FCO. On being cleared, he wanted to return to his post in Uzbekistan, but the FCO did their best to dissuade him. He insisted, and on the flight to Uzbekistan he ‘contracted’ a very serious, and obscure, ‘disease’, and had to fly back to London by return flight for hospitalisation. He survived, but when he was well enough and wanted to return to his post, was told he was ‘redundant’. He subsequently stood as an Independent Parliamentary Candidate for Blackburn, against Jack ‘Man of’ Straw, but failed to garner many votes, due in no small degree to ‘Uncle Tom’ ‘Lord’ Patel, who told his fellow-Muslims to vote for Straw.
It was on that election campaign that I first met Craig, as impressed by his actions to expose torture, I responded to a request for campaign helpers.
Incidentally, though Craig may have some suspicions, he has never to my knowledge claimed or insinuated that the ‘disease’ he came down with was anything but coincidental – any insinuations to ‘contracted’ are my own!
@ Tom Welsh April 16, 2016 at 14:44
‘I watched George Bush talk today of Iraq and “dismantling the apparatus of terror… removing the torture chambers and the rape rooms”’.
One imagines the scene: Dubya standing proudly, hands on hips, among the ruins of Baghdad and instructing his military subordinates, “Remove those torture chambers and rape rooms, and take them to Guantanamo, Bagram, and Chicago. We need them there”.
You beat me to it!
@ Anon1 April 16, 2016 at 11:57
‘I read Murder in Samarkand quite recently and my overall feeling was that while you were right to blow the whistle on what was happening in Uzbekistan, you went about it in completely the wrong way.
If, as you say, you fully expected to be sacked (or perhaps even wanted to be sacked) that that is fair enough, but to portray yourself as having been sacked for telling the truth is a nonsense. You lost your job because of the confrontational and ill-judged manner you went about things.’
Did you like the bit about: ‘…’…On the day I presented my credentials, the Israeli Ambassador told me that Karimov had been a good personal friend of Ariel Sharon for over 20 years….’? (from Craig’s ‘Murder in Samarkand’).
f**kin brlliant Craig. what a star. proud to be of the same species as you.. which makes a change, cos i’m usually quite ashamed of being human.. cos most of us are proper c**ts.
I second that Ben
Heroic Stuff..Ta Craig…Takes Good Souls to get Good people behind them
I was mesmerized Reading that, And have been meaning Buy Murder in Samarkand. …Mighty as well buy Booth
OT..i was gonna show the evil cowards at work with Children..For Palestine Prisoners day… But the ZEN side got in Ze way…So Check this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYpwzUrF80M