A protest has been called outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall on Thursday 12 November at 5pm in reaction to the decision to arrest and charge Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, a serving soldier who had the courage to stand up for what many in the army believe; that this is a futile and un-winnable war.
Sometimes you feel compelled to write articles that you realise are going to make you wildly unpopular. I fear this is one of those times.
I don’t wish to fall back into the blogging trap of commenting on the news headlines, but as someone who has no time for New Labour or for the war in Afghanistan, I think the media furore over Gordon Brown and his misspelt letter is entirely unjustified and really very nasty indeed, even by UK media standards.
It is not news that Gordon Brown cannot spell. Given his intelligence, background and rigorous education, he can only have this basic spelling difficulty because of a fundamental problem. Labels don’t especially help, but whether you call him dyslexic or say he just does not have the ability to spell however hard he tries, it comes to the same thing.
That too is not news. This from the Daily Telegraph doctor on 20 April 2009:
It was a bit of a shock to learn the Prime Minister mis-spelt the word “knowledge” (omitting the “d”) in his handwritten apology for those “prank” emails, with their lurid allegations, sent from his office. But close reading of the letter (taking into account his poor handwriting) reveals he also omits the “r” from “understand” and has obvious difficulty with “embarrassment”. These errors could scarcely be attributed to poor teaching as Scottish schools are notorious sticklers for correct spelling, so he must, I presume, have some form of dyslexia.
It has only recently become clear that while spelling (or any other routinely acquired mental attribute ?” reading, talking, elementary maths and so on) might seem quite simple and straightforward, they all involve processes in the brain that defy all imagining. Thus in the twinkling of a second that it takes to hear a word, the brain fragments it into a myriad of its constituent parts with 22 separate areas being involved in the interpretation of sound ?” for example distinguishing between the consonants “p” and “b”.
It is, in short, astonishing we can talk, read, or spell as well as we can. Thus the likelihood that the process might be slightly less than perfect in some ?” with the effect as seen in the PM’s letter ?” is quite high.
Brown has emotions like everyone else. His self-referencing is somewhat worrying. His genuine commitment to the casualties of Afghanistan is fuelled in part by an obsession with courage and overcoming adversity – on which he has terrible ghost-written books in his name and patronises awards – and it is obvious that this is because those are the qualities he believes he possesses personally. Equally his own awful loss of a child plainly has a role in his decision to write to the bereaved military families.
But it remains undeniably attractive in Brown, and a great kindness from an incredibly busy man, to write longhand letters to all the military bereaved families – something Blair nor Thatcher would have ever thought of, and which no other Prime Minister has done. Brown’s obvious difficulty in writing and spelling makes this more endearing, not less. If he had a secretary do it, or dashed them off on a word processor, the spelling would be perfect but surely it would mean much less than a note of real condolence from the Prime Minister direct to the bereaved, not intended for any other eyes?
Which brings me on to more delicate territory. Nothing can be worse than losing a child, and especially in a pointless war. The grief of Jacqui Janes must be dreadful, and convention restrains us from saying anything bad about anybody under the strain of bereavement. If my making unpleasant observations on Jacqui Janes would offend you, I am afraid you should stop reading.
But there was a calculation about her taping of her phone call with Gordon Brown, in cahoots with the Sun newspaper, which goes beyond the perfectly understandable emotional venting of feelings, or an intellectual desire to challege policy.
The fact that she chose to make this calculated move in collaboration with the newspaper which is the most important media propagandist for the war which claimed her son, raises further questions. I do not share the desire to elevate the woman as a hero (unlike for example Old Holborn).
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/11/hissing-brown-and-s-word.html
Not everybody who has been bereaved was, is, or will be a saint or even a nice person.
I really am sorry I was forced to say that. But somebody had to.
I received this rather exasperated response from Annika Thunborg, spokesperson at CTBTO:
there was no professional connection or areas of interaction whatsoever between the two persons who died eleven months apart in two completely different buildings at the UN in Vienna at which about 7000 people in total work and visit every day. For questions about the other death, please contact the IAEA.
So while I still don’t have the name of the other dead UN scientist, that seems at least to dispel the wide internet reports that they both jumped down the same stiarwell. Indeed I am left not sure whether the first IAEA scientist fell down a stairwell or died in another way. But plainly there remain a great many unanswered questions here.
The UN wishes us to know that there is nothing to bother about in the death of Timothy Hampton. Here is their press release:
Note to Editors,
There have been many misconceptions in the media related to the death of one of our staff members on 20 October, 2009.
For the record, we would like to underline that there is no connection between the death of the staff member and the Iran talks at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The staff member, whose death is now being investigated, was employed by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) as a processing engineer. The CTBTO is a separate organization from that of the IAEA, and has never had any role in the Iran negotiations. Therefore, media reports linking the dead CTBTO staff member with the Iran talks are baseless and untrue.
We request that media which have published such reports issue a correction.
Thank you,
Annika Thunborg, Spokesperson, CTBTO
Here is the CTBTO’s description of what it actually does:
CTBT = Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Aim: bans nuclear testing everywhere on planet – surface, atmosphere, underwater and underground.
Why: to obstruct the development of nuclear weapons: both the initial development of nuclear weapons as well as their substantial improvement (H-bomb) necessitate real nuclear testing. The CTBT makes it almost impossible for countries that do not yet have nuclear weapons to develop them. And it makes it almost impossible for countries that have nuclear weapons to develop new or more advanced weapons. It also helps prevent damage caused by nuclear testing to humans and the environment.
History: Between 1945 and 1996, when the CTBT opened for signature, over 2000 nuclear tests were conducted: by the United States (1000+) Soviet Union (700+), France (200+), United Kingdom and China (45 each). Three countries have broken the de-facto moratorium and tested nuclear weapons since 1996: India and Pakistan in 1998 and the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 2006. Many attempts were made during the Cold War to negotiate a comprehensive test ban, but it was only in the 1990s that the Treaty became a reality. The CTBT was negotiated in Geneva between 1994 and 1996.
The Treaty has yet to enter into force: All 44 States specifically listed in the Treaty – those with nuclear technology capabilities at the time of the final Treaty negotiations in 1996 ?” must sign and ratify before the CTBT can enter into force.
Of these, nine are still missing: China, DPRK, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the USA. DPRK, India and Pakistan have yet to sign the CTBT. Otherwise, 182 countries have signed, of which 150 have ratified the Treaty (as of February 2009), including three of the nuclear weapon States: France, Russian Federation and the United Kingdom.
The Treaty Organization: Since the Treaty is not yet in force, the Organization is called the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Organization, or CTBTO. It was founded in 1996, with approximately 260 staff from most of the CTBT’s 180 Member States. It is headed by the Executive Secretary, Tibor Toth (Hungary).
The CTBTO’s main tasks are the promotion of the Treaty and the build-up of the verification regime so that it is operational when the Treaty enters into force. The budget is around US$120,000,000 or € 82,000,000.
Verification regime: A unique and comprehensive system. At the heart of the verification regime is the International Monitoring System (IMS), which consists of 337 facilities located all over the world that constantly monitor the planet for signs of nuclear explosions. Around 75% of these facilities are already sending data to the International Data Centre at the CTBTO headquarters in Vienna.
The IMS uses the following four state-of-the-art technologies:
Seismic: 50 primary and 120 auxiliary seismic stations monitor shockwaves in the Earth. The vast majority of these shockwaves ?” many thousands every year – are caused by earthquakes. But man-made explosions such as mine explosions or the nuclear test announced by the DPRK in 2006, are also detected.
Hydroacoustic: 11 hydrophone stations “listen” for sound waves in the oceans. Sound waves from explosions can travel extremely far underwater.
Infrasound: 60 stations on the surface can detect ultra-low frequency sound waves (inaudible to the human ear) that are emitted by large explosions.
Radionuclide: 80 stations measure the atmosphere for radioactive particles, 40 of them also pick up noble gas. Only these measurements can give a clear indication as to whether an explosion detected by the other methods was actually nuclear or not. They are supported by 16 radionuclide laboratories.
On-site-Inspection: If the data from the IMS stations indicate that a nuclear test has taken place, a Member State can request for an on-site-inspection to be carried out to collect evidence that will allow the final assessment to be made regarding whether a nuclear explosion ?” a Treaty violation – has actually taken place. This will only be possible after the
CTBT has entered into force. A large on-site inspection exercise was carried out in September 2008 in Kazakhstan.
Civil and scientific applications: The IMS data are provided to the CTBT Member States and to other international organizations. They are used also for applications other than test-ban verification, such as for tsunami-warning (by proving timely data), research on the Earth’s core, monitoring of earthquakes and volcanoes; research on the oceans, climate change
research and many other applications.
http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/public_information/CTBT_FactSheet.pdf
It is worth noting, therefore, that if it is claimed that Iran has moved to test a nuclear weapon, it is the CTBTO that would have responsibility for assessing the claim – and it appears that the processing engineer Timothy Hampton would have a role at that stage, at the HQ, interpreting the scientific data that comes in from the outstation monitoring systems as described.
I have not seem the stairwell in question, but jumping down a stairwell is a very strange – and very uncommon – way to commit suicide. Jumpers generally prefer the outside of buildings’, bridges and sheer cliffs – places as free of obstruction as possible, while a stairwell is surrounded by obstruction. There are widespread reports that another scientist committed suicide down the same stairwell four months previously, but I cannot find any report naming that scientist or indicating what they did at work.
A second autopsy conducted by the family believes there may be indications of murder, though at the moment the evidence appears less than conclusive either way. There are way too many parallels to the death of David Kelly for my liking.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has very wide international support, except for a small number of rogue states with nuclear technology who refuse to sign because they wish to continue nuclear testing to develop weapons, in defiance of the international community. These rogue states have an obvious motivation to destabilise the organisation’s work, and it is their security services who are most likely to have been involved in foul play. They are:
China, North Korea, USA, Israel, Egypt, India, Iran, and Pakistan.
I am not rejoicing at the return of Old Etonian Simon Mann from jail in Equatorial Guinea. His failed coup attempt was just one of a series of ventures in which a group of upper class public school English former officers worked with former apartheid era forces to try to seize control of mineral resources across Africa.
You can find the story of my own involvement with them, the full background and the untold evidence of Blairite complicity in my book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/buy_the_catholi.html
Long term readers of this blog will know that Mann’s erstwhile mercenary partner, Lt Col Tim Spicer, frightened my publisher out of the book by commissioning Schillings to send threatening letters under the UK’s notorious libel laws. But the book is entirely true, eyewitness stuff, as witnessed by the fact that, since self-publication, over a thousand copies have been sold while tens of thousands have read it free online – but there has been no sign of the threatened libel action from Spicer.
New Labour, of course, went on to consummate their relationship with Spicer by making him a multi multi millionaore providing mercenaries to their invasion of Iraq.
Had Mann’s coup succeeded in gaining the oilfields of Equatorial Guinea, it would almost certainly have resulted in the deaths of large numbers of Africans, just as Mann and Spicer organised in their in Executive Outcomes days. That is why I think he should still be in jail.
Strangely, I share that desire with Jack Straw and the with the Foreign and Commonwealth Ofiice, for very different reasons. They are pressing Mann to keep his mouth shut.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/foreign-office-warns-mann-to-keep-quiet-1816864.html
Straw has admitted the FCO had prior knowledge of the coup attempt. Just how far their involvement went is something they appear keen for Mann not to tell us.
Rory Stewart is getting the hang of being a Conservative politician; he has plainly learned that the first requirement is to lie through your teeth. Form today’s Independent on Sunday:
Once tutor to Princes William and Harry, Rory Stewart, in his latest incarnation as Conservative prospective candidate for Penrith, has found himself the unlikely subject of intrigue. Craig Murray, renegade former ambassador to Uzbekistan, claims in his blog that Stewart worked as an MI6 officer in Afghanistan. While it’s true Stewart was educated at Eton, received training from the British armed forces, and has yet to marry, the comparisons with James Bond appear to end there. “I’ve never met Craig Murray and I have no idea why he is saying this,” he tells me when I call, “It’s not just false but extremely dangerous. I’ve been doing charity work in countries where people are already at risk and his claims will only endanger them further.” Stewart’s father is even more succinct: “It’s bollocks.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-bell-the-iiosi-diary-1816838.html
Let me be plain. Rory Stewart was an officer for Torturers’R’Us (formerly trading as MI6).
Now I know many MI6 officers personally and I know the identities of hundreds of them. But I have no intention of “Outing” them and, once retired, I am more than happy for them to tend their roses in Tonbridge Wells in all anonymity. But Stewart has entered politics and, in putting himself forward as a parliamentary candidate, he forfeits his right to conceal his history from the voters.
We have seen a real propaganda blitz for the last week, furiously attempting to shore up support for the war on Afghanistan. It is notable how many senior ex-military and even serving military senior officers have been before the television cameras to put forward the incredible rationale for killing Afghans in Afghanistan who are defending their farms – that it keeps Britain safer.
This is very dangerous. The military are not supposed to make political arguments, and certainly not to argue for wars. I wear my red poppy and attend remembrance events; I do so on the basis that those who died were serving their country and doing their duty as they saw it. I especially remember those who died to save this country from fascist invasion. If we start to see the army as a political force actively canvassing for aggressive war, in time that near universality of remembrance will fail.
Sky News has been particularly blatant today, with Sky reporters stating in terms that the number who turned out at the cenotaph shows that there is public support for the war in Afghanistan, whatever the polls may say. That is untrue. It shows there is public sorrow at the loss or maiming of young lives. If I were in London, I would be in the crowds in Whitehall as I usually am. It is nothing to do with supporting war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/06/brown-karzai-afghanistan-corruption
In other news:
Brown calls on Taliban to join Methodist Conference
Brown calls on Mugabe to retire
Brown calls on Winehouse to join Temperance League
Brown calls on bears to use inside toilets
The horrible case of Nidal Hasan proves yet again the blindingly obvious. The argument that by invading and occupying other countries we somehow increase security at home is an evil justification for waging aggressive war.
In fact if we invade other countries, we cause people to hate us, and create an additional terrorist threat at home. The truth of that is obvious – but truth is not important to those who profit from war.
A contributor to The Daily Kos, Jerome a Paris, has dismissed as “Conspiracy Theory” the notion that US policy in Afghanistan is in any way motivated by a desire to access Central Asian gas reserves via a trans-Afghanistan pipeline. He starts by referencing a Daily Kos entry about me, which he then seeks to “Debunk”.
Plainly the infinitely wise Jerome is right, and the whole Trans Afghan Pipeline project is merely a figment of my imagination. Oh, and the imagination of the BBC as well. And the imagination of the Afghan, Pakistani and Turkmen Governments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2017044.stm
Plainly also I only imagined, as British Ambassador, being briefed on the proposed pipeline as a vital Western strategic interest. Equally plainly, I simply imagined all that stuff about the involvement of George Bush and Enron, for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay12.html
I am very grateful to the wise Jerome for pointing out that Afghanistan is not the only potential route for transiting Central Asian gas while bypassing Russia. Iran is the most ovbious route, but strangely the US is not keen. The other route is through Georgia and Azerbaijan. But Putin has Azerbaijan locked tight against the pipeline. The father of President Aliev of Azerbaijan was Putin’s old KGB boss, and the two are very close. While the proposed route as it passes through Georgia is now under Russian military occupation. But of course that is just coincidence. To think anything else would be “Conspiracy theory”.
There is a minimum of 15 trillion – yes trillion – dollars of natural gas in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Since 2005, Russian diplomacy has tied up the contracts for Gazprom. Before that the US had more than a foot in the door, and the US knows that what changed once can and will change again. 15 trillion dollars is worth some strategising.
Equally, Jerome’s main argument amounts to only this: as it is not currently economic in practice for anybody to be building the pipeline today, therefore it can’t be a key part of US strategic thinking. It takes only a few seconds real thought to dismiss that for the trite nonsense it is.
Let me say 15 trillion dollars again. Not to mention the fact that I have been officially briefed that it is the US strategic interest in the region. If you think about it, it would be crazy if it were not.
I have almost certainly a great deal more experience than the glib Jerome, of Central Asia, of Afghanistan, of the workings of government, and of gas pipelines. In 1986, when I started my first overseas posting in Lagos, the first file on my desk was marked “West Africa Gas Pipeline”. The WAGP delivered its first gas early this year, 23 years later. A company of which I am Chariman is just commissioning a power station to run off it. The fact little Jerome blogged “Five years ago” that the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline was not a US strategiic interest, and today it is still not built, proves nothing. These are major strategic interests and long term projects.
You can believe that the US is in Afghanistan to search for Osama Bin Laden and to back the “Democratic” Mr Karzai. Or you can believe that this war is about control of resources. The motives of Jerome a Paris are a tiny side issue, but still interesting. Is he just a little fool pre-occupied with his own supposed brilliance? Or is there a sinister reason why he attempts to throw sand in your eyes?
Hat-tip to MPACUK. UPDATE – Quilliam have filed their accounts since I wrote this. They are now in compliance.
Interesting to note that, contrary to the law, the government “War on Terror” neo-con propaganda vehicle The Quilliam Foundation has failed to file any accounts for the last three years (or indeed ever). This despite receiving a great deal of taxpayers’ money, mostly to remunerate its cossetted directors.
This from the Companies House website
THE QUILLIAM FOUNDATION LTD
PO BOX 60380 35-50 RATHBONE PLACE
LONDON
WC1A 9AZ
Company No. 06432342
Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 20/11/2007
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Company Type: PRI/LTD BY GUAR/NSC (Private, limited by guarantee, no share capital)
Nature of Business (SIC(03)):
7484 – Other business activities
Accounting Reference Date: 31/03
Last Accounts Made Up To: (NO ACCOUNTS FILED)
Next Accounts Due: 20/09/2009 OVERDUE
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/e473a907f36923b62b946aa6bc8ba453/compdetails
How do you feel about grants of public money being given to a private company whose address is a PO Box and which does not have accounts?
(UPDATE: Amended in response to comment from Control below, with thanks to Charles)
Some cheerful news from Italy, where 23 American CIA agents have been convicted of kidnapping over an extraordinary rendition case. There do survive pockets of genuine independent judiciary in Europe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/04/cia-guilty-rendition-abu-omar
In the UK, you cannot present someone before a court who was brought there illegally. I know this because I was trying to organise the kidnap of Asil Nadir for the FCO, but the idea had to be abandoned because a then recent ruling by the Law Lords had released an accused who had been kidnapped abroad to bring him to trial.
Does anybody know what the situation is in Italy? Would it not be fun to kidnap one of the CIA agents and render them to jail in Italy? I might give it a go.
Virtuallu unnoticed, last week’s EU summit lifted the arms embargo and travel ban on the murderous Karimov regime in Uzbekistan. So now British arms manufacturers can sell arms for Karimov to use against his people again. Indeed, British troops may return to Uzbekistan to teach Karimov’s thugs “Marksmanship”, as they did before the Andijan massacre which killed over 700 peaceful demonstrators in 2005.
There have been no improvements in human rights in Uzbekistan. There remains no freedom of speech, assembly, movement or religion. Thousands of political prisoners slave in the gulags, children are forced into the fields by soldiers to pick the cotton. Thousands still suffer hideous torture every year. But the UK hails “Dialogue” with the Karimov regime on human rights as a reason to end the arms embargo. Germany and Milliband led the internal EU lobbying for Karimov.
In March the Obama administration signed a new agreement with Karimov for transit of supplies to Afghanistan, and negotiations are virtually complete for a new US airbase in Uzbekistan. Germany remains focused entirely on the access to Central Asian gas via Gazprom and the Nordstream project. The British remain keen to maintain “Security cooperation” with the unspeakable Uzbek security services.
The politicians do it because the media and public do not seem to care, so they think they can get away with it. So far, they are right. With Karzai exposed for the gangster he is and a new alliance with Karimov, the sickness of our Central Asian policy is now stark.
David Cameron has just ratted on his much trumpeted commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The argument that the Treaty is now ratified, does not in fact preclude a referendum. It is perfectly possible to resile from an international treaty; a referendum on whether to resile would be perfectly feasible, but Cameron has not the stomach for that fight with the EU.
To cover his retreat he unleashed a cloud of rhetorical proposals which have no pactical effect. A “referendum lock” law covering future treaties could simply be undone by any future government, but more practically would be unlikely to be invoked as the Lisbon Treay is designed to allow for amendment, to obviate the need for ratification of further treaties or formal ratification of the amendments,
But more importantly, the “Sovereignty Law” is a non-starter. If it had any meaning, it would require us to resile from the Lisbon, Nice, Amsterdam and other treaties in which sovereignty was given up (or “pooled”, as pro-EU jargon has it,) We cannot simply declare that the UK courts are not subject to the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights, or that the British govenment is not bound by the majority voting provisions of successive EU treaties, without resiling from the treaties that say otherwise. And if we are prepared to do that, the whole argument for not having a referendum on Lisbon fails.
The pretence that the German Constitutional Court sits above the European Court of Justice is a shameful lie. The German Constitutional Court has in fact never tried to strike down a ECJ ruling, a European Commission ruling, or an EU treaty provision. The Cameron ploy is not so much smoke and mirrors, as an effort to hide in a steaming heap of bullshit.
I do not for one second think he believes it himself.
It seems that Cameron is just a shifty snake oil salesman like Blair. Now there’s a shock.
Sorry to be absent from blogging for so long.
Here are a few bits of what I was up to:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4368
This is an excellent quality recording I have seen of one of my talks:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4394
Part 2
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4420
I was sharing a platform in Washington with Daniel Ellsberg. He is the godfather of whistle blowers, and for his revealing of truth about the Vietnam War he was at the time described, in all seriousness, by Henry Kissinger as “The Most Dangerous Man in America”. Ellsberg’s well-informed views on Afghanistan are particularly worth considering, in particular his knowledge that the proposed deployment of 45,000 more US troops is, in Pentagon minds, but the first stage in a ratchet to a colossal Vietnam style operation.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4375
Dan also spoke to me chillingly about Pentagon plans of which he has certain knowledge to set up a network of informers and death squads, on models tried and tested in Vietnam and Central America.
I was also sharing a platform with Col. Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, a staunch Republican who argues that “The most dangerous man in the World” was and is Dick Cheney. For a view right inside the Bush White House, this was fascinating:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4373
Part 2
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4376
Part3
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4378
An account of another speech I gave in the US is here:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html
I have also been very active on Uzbekistan, on which I shall be blogging separately. I attended a very good meeting of the Uzbek opposition in Brussels, but the only account I can find is hidden behind a subscription wall:
Finally, I have been in Dundee for University meetings, and with the other Scottish Rectors we launched a campaign to keep Scottish university education free in the coming troubled economic times:
I am also working with Dundee University Students Association against proposed restructuring – or course cuts – in the university. Law library opening hours have already been slashed, and the University Court moved to set up a “Redundancy Committee” to make compulsory redundancies, initially in the College of Art but I expect that is the thin end of the wedge.
They also, incidentally, voted to abolish the post of Rector’s Assessor, which would make it very difficult to do the job. The University plainly is looking to remove the capacity of Rectors to work on behalf of rhe students, preferring to link the University to contentless “Celebrity culture” by encouraging Rectors like my predecessor, Lorraine Kelly, who never once turned up to committee meetings.
It has been a fascinating period, but fortunately things should be a bit less busy now, so I hope to be blogging more regularly again.
Matthew Hoh has resigned from the US State Department and makes some very important points on the Afghan War here.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=29102009&seg=5
I am personally very pleased to hear another government insider, other than myself, make public that it is the Karzai government who ARE the drug warlords – something the mainstream media are in general still very coy about. There is growing evidence that, as so often in the past, the CIA are mixed up in drugs money to further their schemes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1
Gordon Brown’s statement on the tragic death of yet five more British soldiers today is a model of pusillanimity. He talks of “Working with the new Afghan government”.
What new Afghan government?
The farce of the Afghan election, and the Western reaction to it, is beyond description. Are Brown and Obama really claiming that Karzai did not know that one third of his votes were fraudulent, that a million false votes were being manufactured? That’s a pretty enormous logistical operation. Yet Karzai is still there, grinning. It’s like catching a man playing poker with seven aces up his sleeve, and then saying “Oh never mind, let’s say you won that hand anyway.”
Democracy is not exactly healthy at home either, where not one of our three main political parties offers a choice to voters – most of them – who want us to pull out of Afghanistan. The argument that fighting in Afghanistan somehow ties down the terrorists who would strike here, when in fact UK terrorists have been mostly home grown as a direct response to our fighting abroad, is still supported by all our faux-patriotic parties.
We should bring the soldiers back – and use them to shoot the politicians.
Today, a national demonstration will assemble in London at 12 noon in Hyde Park for a march to Trafalgar Square. More details here…
Am at Schiphol again at 5.30am, after an overnight flight from Accra, waiting eight hours for a connecting flight to Washington, and thinking “Why oh why do I put myself through this?” Slightly mitigated by the joy of being able to post again on a working internet connection.
AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, IRAN, IRAQ, VIETNAM: EXPOSING OFFICIAL LIES
Ward Circle Building, Room 2, American University
Wednesday, October 21 at 8:10 pm
Keynote Speaker: Col. Larry Wilkerson (USA, ret.) Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the critical period from August 2002 until January 2005; Served as Army officer for 31 years;
Recipient of 2009 Award from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence
Daniel Ellsberg, Former Defense and State Department official who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he was put on trial facing a possible sentence of 115 years; Author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers; Subject of newly released documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” which he was called at the time by Henry Kissinger
Coleen Rowley, Former Special agent and legal counselor, Minneapolis FBI, who called the FBI director’s attention to serious flaws that might have prevented 9/11; Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2002; Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2002
Craig Murray, Former U.K. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who exposed the use of torture, declaring, “I would rather die than have someone tortured in attempt to give me more security.” Sam Adams Award recipient, 2005
Ray McGovern, Veteran CIA analyst, whose duties included preparing and briefing the President’s Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; Co-founder Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); Colleague of Sam Adams
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History; Director, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute; Co-writer (with Oliver Stone) “Secret History of the United States” (forthcoming on Showtime)
The late Sam Adams, in calculating the number of Vietnamese Communists under arms, came up with more than twice the number Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. forces, would allow the Army to acknowledge. The country-wide offensive at Tet in January-February 1968 proved Sam right.
Sponsored by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, American University History Department, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute
To Tell the Truth
Coleen Rowley and Ambassador Craig Murray
Ray McGovern, moderator
Date/Time: THURSDAY, October 22, 7-9 PM
Place: Festival Center/Servant Leadership School
1640 Columbia Road, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202 328 0072Cost: free (but free-will offerings welcome)
We are all taught to tell the truth. But when some folks enter government service, they seem to claim an exemption. Truth telling becomes quaint, obsolete. Misfeasance and malfeasance get covered up, and we never seem to learn from our mistakes.
Worse still, governments start wars on flimsy pretexts; and this leads to what the Nuremberg Tribunal labeled “accumulated” evils?”like torture. Although a chosen few in our Congress are briefed on such evils, we the people never get to know, UNLESS…
… people of conscience have the integrity and courage to speak out. Our presenters will draw on their personal experience in this kind of speaking out; what it’s like; and what happened to them as a result:
Coleen Rowley, as legal counsel/special agent in the FBI’s Minneapolis Bureau, became aware of the repeated?”but unheeded?”warnings her colleagues sent to FBI headquarters before 9/11. In a memorandum to the FBI Director and Congress she exposed many of the shortcomings and became persona non grata when a lawmaker gave the memo to the press. Time Magazine honored her by naming her Person of the Year in 2002.
Craig Murray was Great Britain’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan when he discovered that his hosts were boiling people alive to extract “intelligence” on “terrorists.” He discovered to his dismay that his Foreign Office superiors thought that this was okay, so long as Craig didn’t do it. He left the Foreign Service and is now Rector of the University of Dundee?”one of Britain’s leading universities, described by Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney as “having its head in the clouds and its feet firmly on the ground.”
Rowley and Murray are past recipients of the annual Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. This forum is follow-on to the Oct. 21event at American U. (see: http://tinyurl.com/ygm55pe)
Sponsored by Speaking Truth to Power/Tell the Word
Press release
Union of Uzbek non-governmental organisations
A particularly damning example of New Labour’s Stalinist approach to propaganda. The FCO website carries news of the High Court judgement in the Binyam Mohammed case. If you click on the headline, it gives you an utterly mendacious statement by Milliband attacking the High Court judgement – but nowhere on the website does it give you the High Court judgement, any kind of objective summary of the High Court judgement, or even a link to the High Court judgement.
The FCO, having just lost a court case and been heavily criticised by the High Court, on a taxpayer funded website is hiding the facts while spewing out pure propaganda that we are paying for.
Absolutely fucking disgusting.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=News&id=21042723
It is my birthday today, and I feel rather pleased with the progress being made on exposing the torture crimes of New Labour.
Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card has been that the courts accept the argument that national security overrides all, and the biggest threat to national security is the threat of withdrawal of intelligence cooperation in the “War on Terror”.
It was precisely the threat of withdrawal of Saudi security cooperation that the Law Lords concluded was the potential greater evil, which justified forbidding the prosecution of New Labour’s personal paymasters at BAE for corruption.
And it was precisely the alleged threat of withdrawal of US security cooperation which persuaded the High Court to ban publication of material detailing the torture of Binyam Mohammed.
Only then Obama got in and the Americans said “Milliband is wrong (ie lying), we never threatened to withdraw security cooperation”.
If you read the Guardian report of the High Court judgement, in any other age a Minister caught behaving as appallingly as Milliband has, would have resigned. I would love to be locked in a room with the little twerp for a couple of hours to teach him about the reliability of intelligence from torture. I would have him confessing to menbership of Al-Qaida before I severed his second testicle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/16/binyam-mohamed-torture-evidence-miliband
Which is of course the major point. Binyam Mohammed is an innocent man whom we gave over to torture for no reason. The thousands tortured in Uzbekistan into confessing to Al-Qaida links were almost all innocent. That is just one problem with the “Torture Works” argument put forward by Britain’s highest paid thug Jonathan Evans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/mi5-chief-torture-al-qaida
Can anybody construe the government’s line as anything other than “We were not complicit in torture. We were complicit in torture, but it was necessary.”?
In a Kafkaesque twist, Sky News are today running the banner headline
“Release of Intelligence Papers Could Damage UK/US Intelligence Sharing Agreement”
They are reporting from “US sources” that the Americans have now been persuaded to help Milliband by threatening to reduce cooperation if the evidence of Binyam Mohammed’s torture is released.
Is there a single person out there who genuinely does not now believe that Mohammed was tortured, and further that MI5 and MI6 were not complicit in torture worldwide? The documentary evidence I have already published is damning:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Wood.pdf
More so are the minutes of the FCO meeting at which I was formally instructed to stop complaining internally about collusion with torture as it had been set as an undeclared government policy. The High Court ruling gives still further weight to my Freedom of Information Act request to have those minutes released.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/10/either_craig_mu.html#comments
Friday was the twentieth working day by which the FCO was supposed under the Freedom of Information Act to respond to my request. Hardly surprisingly, it has not done so (other than to acknowledge receipt). I shall now appeal to the Information Commissioner. The government’s attempts to prevent the truth being known about their complicity in torture, are simply desperate. There appears to be a weird fiction that everybody does not realise the truth already.
It really is “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.