'Crim' Craig Murray: How Condemning Torture Killed My Career

[TonyGosling]

Please FIND the time.
Utterly riveting perspective on the inner workings of our criminal Western NATO Israeli diplomatic service. Secret torture advocate & war criminal David Miliband is the antithesis of Craig Murray
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUZTiAoaax4[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUZTiAoaax4

I haven't got time at the moment to check this video out, but I am pretty confident it is the one where Craig says a Diplomat friend in New York told him that the US had struck a deal with the Organisation of African States; the OAS wanted the US to back Saudi Arabian intervention in Bahrein if it was needede; the US agreed if the OAS would call for a 'No-Fly Zone' over Libya in the UN (obviously, it was a win-win situation for the US, who had it's own interest in the Bahrein Royal Clique being supported, but wanted the OAS to forward their agenda for overthrowing the Quaddafi Regime, an extremely Nationalistic and benevolent Dictatorship, with huge benefits for man7y of it's citizens (and a serious threat, with it's switch to the Gold Dinar, to the Yankee Dollar).

[TonyGosling]

Here are Craig's diplomatic cables re British government's use of torture

Confidential letters from Ambassador Craig Murray...
in craig murray, rendition, torture, jack straw, uzbekistan

Letter #1
Confidential
FM Tashkent
TO FCO, Cabinet Office, DFID, MODUK, OSCE Posts, Security Council Posts
16 September 02
SUBJECT: US/Uzbekistan: Promoting Terrorism

SUMMARY
US plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerous policy:
increasing repression combined with poverty will promote Islamic terrorism.
Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynical policy.

DETAIL
The Economist of 7 September states: "Uzbekistan, in particular, has jailed many
thousands of moderate Islamists, an excellent way of converting their families
and friends to extremism." The Economist also spoke of "the growing despotism
of Mr Karimov" and judged that "the past year has seen a further deterioration of
an already grim human rights record". I agree.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 political and religious prisoners are currently detained,
many after trials before kangaroo courts with no representation. Terrible torture
is commonplace: the EU is currently considering a demarche over the terrible
case of two Muslims tortured to death in jail apparently with boiling water. Two
leading dissidents, Elena Urlaeva and Larissa Vdovna, were two weeks ago
committed to a lunatic asylum, where they are being drugged, for demonstrating
on human rights. Opposition political parties remain banned. There is no doubt
that September 11 gave the pretext to crack down still harder on dissent under
the guise of counter-terrorism.

Yet on 8 September the US State Department certified that Uzbekistan was
improving in both human rights and democracy, thus fulfilling a constitutional
requirement and allowing the continuing disbursement of $140 million of US aid
to Uzbekistan this year. Human Rights Watch immediately published a
commendably sober and balanced rebuttal of the State Department claim.
Again we are back in the area of the US accepting sham reform [a reference to
my previous telegram on the economy]. In August media censorship was
abolished, and theoretically there are independent media outlets, but in practice
there is absolutely no criticism of President Karimov or the central government in
any Uzbek media. State Department call this self-censorship: I am not sure that
is a fair way to describe an unwillingness to experience the brutal methods of the
security services.

Similarly, following US pressure when Karimov visited Washington, a human
rights NGO has been permitted to register. This is an advance, but they have little
impact given that no media are prepared to cover any of their activities or carry
any of their statements.

The final improvement State quote is that in one case of murder of a prisoner the
police involved have been prosecuted. That is an improvement, but again related
to the Karimov visit and does not appear to presage a general change of policy.
On the latest cases of torture deaths the Uzbeks have given the OSCE an
incredible explanation, given the nature of the injuries, that the victims died in a
fight between prisoners.

But allowing a single NGO, a token prosecution of police officers and a fake press
freedom cannot possibly outweigh the huge scale of detentions, the torture and
the secret executions. President Karimov has admitted to 100 executions a year
but human rights groups believe there are more. Added to this, all opposition
parties remain banned (the President got a 98% vote) and the Internet is strictly
controlled. All Internet providers must go through a single government server and
access is barred to many sites including all dissident and opposition sites and
much international media (including, ironically, waronterrorism.com). This is in
essence still a totalitarian state: there is far less freedom than still prevails, for
example, in Mugabe's Zimbabwe. A Movement for Democratic Change or any
judicial independence would be impossible here.

Karimov is a dictator who is committed to neither political nor economic reform.
The purpose of his regime is not the development of his country but the diversion
of economic rent to his oligarchic supporters through government controls. As a
senior Uzbek academic told me privately, there is more repression here now than
in Brezhnev's time. The US are trying to prop up Karimov economically and to
justify this support they need to claim that a process of economic and political
reform is underway. That they do so claim is either cynicism or self-delusion.
This policy is doomed to failure. Karimov is driving this resource-rich country
towards economic ruin like an Abacha. And the policy of increasing repression
aimed indiscriminately at pious Muslims, combined with a deepening poverty, is
the most certain way to ensure continuing support for the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan. They have certainly been decimated and disorganised in Afghanistan,
and Karimov's repression may keep the lid on for years – but pressure is building
and could ultimately explode.

I quite understand the interest of the US in strategic airbases and why they back
Karimov, but I believe US policy is misconceived. In the short term it may help
fight terrorism but in the medium term it will promote it, as the Economist points
out. And it can never be right to lower our standards on human rights. There is a
complex situation in Central Asia and it is wrong to look at it only through a prism
picked up on September 12. Worst of all is what appears to be the philosophy
underlying the current US view of Uzbekistan: that September 11 divided the
World into two camps in the "War against Terrorism" and that Karimov is on "our"
side.

If Karimov is on "our" side, then this war cannot be simply between the forces of
good and evil. It must be about more complex things, like securing the long-term
US military presence in Uzbekistan. I silently wept at the 11 September
commemoration here. The right words on New York have all been said. But last
week was also another anniversary – the US-led overthrow of Salvador Allende in
Chile. The subsequent dictatorship killed, dare I say it, rather more people than
died on September 11. Should we not remember then also, and learn from that
too? I fear that we are heading down the same path of US-sponsored dictatorship
here. It is ironic that the beneficiary is perhaps the most unreformed of the
World's old communist leaders.

We need to think much more deeply about Central Asia. It is easy to place
Uzbekistan in the "too difficult" tray and let the US run with it, but I think they
are running in the wrong direction. We should tell them of the dangers we see.
Our policy is theoretically one of engagement, but in practice this has not meant
much. Engagement makes sense, but it must mean grappling with the problems,
not mute collaboration. We need to start actively to state a distinctive position on
democracy and human rights, and press for a realistic view to be taken in the
IMF. We should continue to resist pressures to start a bilateral DFID programme,
unless channelled non-governmentally, and not restore ECGD cover despite the
constant lobbying. We should not invite Karimov to the UK. We should step up
our public diplomacy effort, stressing democratic values, including more resources
from the British Council. We should increase support to human rights activists,
and strive for contact with non-official Islamic groups.
Above all we need to care about the 22 million Uzbek people, suffering from
poverty and lack of freedom. They are not just pawns in the new Great Game.
MURRAY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #2
Confidential
Fm Tashkent
To FCO
18 March 2003
SUBJECT: US FOREIGN POLICY

SUMMARY
1. As seen from Tashkent, US policy is not much focussed 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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letter #3
CONFIDENTIAL
FM TASHKENT
TO IMMEDIATE FCO
TELNO 63
OF 220939 JULY 04
INFO IMMEDIATE DFID, ISLAMIC POSTS, MOD, OSCE POSTS UKDEL EBRD
LONDON, UKMIS GENEVA, UKMIS MEW YORK
SUBJECT: RECEIPT OF INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE

SUMMARY
1. We receive intelligence obtained under torture from the Uzbek intelligence
services, via the US. We should stop. It is bad information anyway. Tortured
dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government
wants the US and UK to believe, that they and we are fighting the same war
against terror.

2. I gather a recent London interdepartmental meeting considered the question
and decided to continue to receive the material. This is morally, legally and
practically wrong. It exposes as hypocritical our post Abu Ghraib pronouncements
and fatally undermines our moral standing. It obviates my efforts to get the
Uzbek government to stop torture they are fully aware our intelligence
community laps up the results.

3. We should cease all co-operation with the Uzbek Security Services they are
beyond the pale. We indeed need to establish an SIS presence here, but not as in
a friendly state.

DETAIL
4. In the period December 2002 to March 2003 I raised several times the issue of
intelligence material from the Uzbek security services which was obtained under
torture and passed to us via the CIA. I queried the legality, efficacy and morality
of the practice.

5. I was summoned to the UK for a meeting on 8 March 2003. Michael Wood gave
his legal opinion that it was not illegal to obtain and to use intelligence acquired
by torture. He said the only legal limitation on its use was that it could not be
used in legal proceedings, under Article 15 of the UN Convention on Torture.

6. On behalf of the intelligence services, Matthew Kydd said that they found some
of the material very useful indeed with a direct bearing on the war on terror.
Linda Duffield said that she had been asked to assure me that my qualms of
conscience were respected and understood.

7. Sir Michael Jay's circular of 26 May stated that there was a reporting obligation
on us to report torture by allies (and I have been instructed to refer to Uzbekistan
as such in the context of the war on terror). You, Sir, have made a number of
striking, and I believe heartfelt, condemnations of torture in the last few weeks. I
had in the light of this decided to return to this question and to highlight an
apparent contradiction in our policy. I had intimated as much to the Head of
Eastern Department.

8. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear that without informing me of the
meeting, or since informing me of the result of the meeting, a meeting was
convened in the FCO at the level of Heads of Department and above, precisely to
consider the question of the receipt of Uzbek intelligence material obtained under
torture. As the office knew, I was in London at the time and perfectly able to
attend the meeting. I still have only gleaned that it happened.

9. I understand that the meeting decided to continue to obtain the Uzbek torture
material. I understand that the principal argument deployed was that the
intelligence material disguises the precise source, ie it does not ordinarily reveal
the name of the individual who is tortured. Indeed this is true – the material is
marked with a euphemism such as "From detainee debriefing." The argument
runs that if the individual is not named, we cannot prove that he was tortured.

10. I will not attempt to hide my utter contempt for such casuistry, nor my
shame that I work in and organisation where colleagues would resort to it to
justify torture. I have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of political or
religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, and I have met with very few where torture, as
defined in the UN convention, was not employed. When my then DHM raised the
question with the CIA head of station 15 months ago, he readily acknowledged
torture was deployed in obtaining intelligence. I do not think there is any doubt
as to the fact.

11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely
known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for believing the
material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN
Convention;
"The competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations
including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent
pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights."
While this article forbids extradition or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right
test for the present
question also.

12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the
Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:
"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of
war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked
as a justification of torture."

13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless – we are selling our souls
for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give the message the
Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and
activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West
that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the
assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the
international criticism on human rights and economic reform.

14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable. Sixteen
months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area of intelligence
assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that they can get it wrong on
even the most vital and high profile issues, but that they have a particular yen for
highly coloured material which exaggerates the threat. That is precisely what the
Uzbeks give them. Furthermore MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of
me and certainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this
assessment.

15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his
children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the
family's links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no
doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard
of the Uzbek intelligence services.

16. I have been considering Michael Wood's legal view, which he kindly gave in
writing. I cannot understand why Michael concentrated only on Article 15 of the
Convention. This certainly bans the use of material obtained under torture as
evidence in proceedings, but it does not state that this is the sole exclusion of the
use of such material.

17. The relevant article seems to me Article 4, which talks of complicity in
torture. Knowingly to receive its results appears to be at least arguable as
complicity. It does not appear that being in a different country to the actual
torture would preclude complicity. I talked this over in a hypothetical sense with
my old friend Prof Francois Hampson, I believe an acknowledged World authority
on the Convention, who said that the complicity argument and the spirit of the
Convention would be likely to be winning points. I should be grateful to hear
Michael's views on this.

18. It seems to me that there are degrees of complicity and guilt, but being at
one or two removes does not make us blameless. There are other factors. Plainly
it was a breach of Article 3 of the Convention for the coalition to deport detainees
back here from Baghram, but it has been done. That seems plainly complicit.

19. This is a difficult and dangerous part of the World. Dire and increasing
poverty and harsh repression are undoubtedly turning young people here towards
radical Islam. The Uzbek government are thus creating this threat, and perceived
US support for Karimov strengthens anti-Western feeling. SIS ought to establish
a presence here, but not as partners of the Uzbek Security Services, whose sheer
brutality puts them beyond the pale.
MURRAY

[scienceplease 2]

Hi Tony,

Just want to pint you to this post, in case you didn't see it:

http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewto ... ht=#162961

UK Planned Torture?

Absolutely de-rigor listening about UK's Torture culture from WW2, Kenya, NI and post-9/11 described by

Ian Cobain
Ian Cobain is a journalist author of "Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture"

David Anderson
David Anderson QC is a barrister and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation - didn't know there was one!

Clare Bayley
Clare Bayley is a playwright. "Blue Sky" (about Rendition) is on at the Hampstead Theatre in London until 10 November. She says she's amazed that so many supposedly knowledgeable people know nothing about Rendition or think it is fiction.

M R Hall. M R Hall is an author and screenwriter: "The Chosen Dead"

The programme can be caught here (and presumably on iPlayer)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nkwxc

David Anderson points to coincidence-number-1001 regarding the appointment of the previous incumbent of his job...

Quote:
On 11 September 2001, a few hours before the attacks on the World Trade Centre, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC agreed to accept appointment as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. As terrorist offences and counter-terrorism powers proliferated over the ensuing decade, the profile of the role increased. It was first put on a statutory basis in relation to control orders under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, and is now referred to in a number of different statutes. Lord Carlile held the position for more than nine years, until he was replaced by David Anderson QC on 21 February 2011.


http://terrorismlegislationreviewer.ind ... k/history/

Presumably this appointment was made by Tony Blair who was about to (not) make his speech to the TUC where he was expected to be boo-ed and jeered. But Coincidence City - he didn't have to make the speech. See second entry here: http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewto ... 7a1aa1de63 12db8993ad357d8a076bc

Regarding Lord Carlile...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010 ... rism-watch dog-credibility-questioned


Quote:
Lord Carlile's 'credibility' as terror watchdog questioned by MP
Chair of human rights committee suggests term of office should come to end for peer who recently endorsed control orders



============================================

More on "Blue Sky" - introduction by Clare Bayley

Quote:

When I started to write Blue Sky two years ago, there was plenty in the media about the still-unfolding story. By then it was no secret that US agents had been kidnapping people they considered terror suspects, bundling them into planes and transporting them to third countries to be tortured – and calling it “extraordinary rendition”. But oddly many people remained ignorant.

All the vocabulary around this practice was extraordinary – from “enhanced interrogation techniques” to “black sites”, it was chilling in its perversity. But even though it was written about in the press, many people didn’t really understand what had been going on, and others thought the whole thing so far-fetched that it couldn’t be true. At that point nobody dreamed that a secret document, blowing around in the bombed out ministry building in Tripoli, would reveal Jack Straw’s role in facilitating the rendition of Abdel Hakim Belhadj, an opponent of Gadaffi, back into the hands of the regime. Or that that document would lead to legal action being brought against Jack Straw personally.

One of the reasons people couldn’t grasp it was because of the deliberately misleading language being used. We weren’t supposed to understand it. And the whole thing was unimaginable. It conjured up a world of terrorists and CIA agents that was like fiction, not like real life. You can’t imagine US government lawyers sitting around discussing the level of pain that you could subject a person to before it’s officially torture (pain equivalent to organ failure was one of the cut-off points discussed). You don’t think that when the US president says, “Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture,” he is actually lying.

The story of extraordinary rendition was so bizarre that it took a great deal of tenacity, skill and painstaking slog for journalists to uncover. One of them was Stephen Grey... He vividly described the bewildering feeling of realising that things he had suspected had been there all along, he just hadn’t been able to perceive them because they had been so cleverly, and deliberately hidden.

We have all seen reports about rendition on TV, in the newspapers, on live feeds. The information is there, in so many formats, but somehow it ceases to mean anything at all. Theatre is a way of making it real again. It’s a way of making you imagine yourself in relation to these big, impossible stories...

It’s enjoyable – though often depressing – having your suspicions confirmed about the people who are supposed to be running governments and countries. But I didn’t want to set Blue Sky in among the Bush administration, I didn’t want to put Donald Rumsfeld or Tony Blair on stage, nor set it in Guantanamo. I wanted to bring it all right back down to us, the ordinary people, to make it personal and intimate again.



=========================================

More on "Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cruel-Britannia ... re/dp/1846 273331

Quote:
In one of the most shocking and persuasive books of the year, Cobain details not just British complicity in torture, but the longstanding practice of the thing itself, and the lies British politicians have always told, and are still telling, to cover it up.

Since TB seem to have advance knowledge of 9/11 attacks, (allowing him to avoid his speech to the TUC etc), the implication of his change of personnel for "Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation" on Sept 11th to someone more torture-friendly is that he had planned for torture in the UK. (although they've dressed up the terminology as "enhanced interrogation" of course).

[TonyGosling]

There's trouble with the main BCfm download of last night's show about BBC Censorship of Foreign Office Anti-Torture Expert Craig Murray
but you can download it here okay:
Why is the BBC censoring whistleblower Craig Murray? (1hr)
http://radio4all.net/index.php/program/64555
mp3: http://www.radio4all.net/files/tony@cul ... 180001.mp3

23Nov12 Why is the BBC censoring whistleblower Craig Murray?
Subtitle: Prof. Anthony J. Hall - Police and the Media nexus of crime
Hyperlinks: http://bcfm.org.uk/2012/11/23/17/friday ... e-98/24319
Content:
+ No sailors witnessed the ‘sea burial’ of Osama Bin Laden from the USS Carl Vinson on 1st May 2011, just a handful of senior Admirals and Generals. Was the ’killing of Bin Laden’ last year just staged for the Western public and did Bin Laden really die in Afghanistan way back in 2001?
+ Elite Intrigues and Military Purges: It’s Not About Sex, Stupid! Fallout in US over the murder of US Libyan ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi: Petraeus-Benghazi-Gate, the new Watergate moment that may shatter Obama’s presidency.
+ Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan & whistleblower Craig Murray invited onto the BBC 32 times and then has appearances cancelled including on BBC1 Question Time. Mysterious forces behind censorship of whistleblowers like Craig by the BBC despite the fact that he is, for example, Foreign Office expert on Maritime Law.
+ Bristol University students Jamie Melrose & Tim Saunders criticise their vice-chancellor Eric Thomas who is openly embracing privatisation of Bristol university. Bristol university and students already being sponsored by private military firm BAe Systems and bailed out Spanish bank Santander. This week’s under-reported student demo of about 6,000 students in London;
+ Author and political/media analyst professor Anthony J. Hall from University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada: Earth into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism.

[TonyGosling]

Counter-Revolution

by craig on July 4, 2013 8:49 am in Uncategorized

What we are seeing in Egypt is counter-revolution pure and simple, military hardliners who are going to be friendly with Israel and the US, and are committing gross human rights abuse.

Western backed counter-revolution is going to be sweeping back across the Middle East; do not be distracted by the words of the West, watch the deeds. It will of course be in the name of secularism. There is an important correlation between what is happening in Turkey and Egypt. I made myself unpopular when I pointed out what the media did not tell you, that behind the tiny minority of doe-eyed greens in the vanguard of the Istanbul movement, stood the massed phalanxes of kemalist nationalism, a very ugly beast. “Secularism” was the cry there too.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/ ... evolution/

[scienceplease 2]

TB being thrown under a truck...

"Tony Blair 'was fully aware' of CIA kidnap and torture program"

Taken from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ramme.html

And Craig Murray substantiates...

http://rt.com/news/blair-cia-kidnap-program-713/

... the Telegraph source added that “the understanding at SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] was it was acting in the 'national interest’ and with clear political approval.”

In 2009, former ambassador to Uzbekistan and former Rector of the University of Dundee, Craig Murray, gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights that:

“When in early March 2003, at the meeting in London, I was told that it was now policy to accept intelligence that may have been obtained from torture I was very surprised. I was told directly that that had been agreed, that it had the authority of the secretary of state and had come from Jack Straw. I was told that he had discussed it at a meeting with Sir Richard Dearlove.”

Dearlove normally reported directly to TB...

[scienceplease 2]

"Tony Blair advises Kazakh president on publicity after killing of protesters
Former British PM criticised for suggesting strategy following Zhanaozen incident in which police shot dead 15 civilians"

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... protesters

We know how good TB is at advising Heads of State. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_%28film%29

"Blair... calls the Queen at Balmoral and recommends three strong measures to regain public confidence of the monarchy: attend a public funeral for Diana at Westminster Abbey, fly a Union flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, and speak to the nation about Diana's life and legacy in a televised address." All apparently TB's ideas (in the movie)... (and mirrors advice given to Kazakh Tyrant).

[TonyGosling]

Craig Murray Vauntie Cybernat, Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

Decade of Dissent
by craig on October 23, 2014

It is ten years since I ended my FCO career by going on the Today programme and blowing the whistle on CIA/MI6 complicity in torture. It was on my 46th birthday, and I was in my second year as an Ambassador and my seventh as a top Whitehall civil servant, a member of the Senior Civil Service.

Looking back now, what is most striking are the blatant lies by the FCO that they were not obtaining intelligence from torture. As the BBC reported:

In one he claimed MI6 had used information passed on to it by the CIA but originally obtained in Uzbek torture cells – something strongly denied by the Foreign Office.

I do not think there is a single person in public life or social media nowadays who would not accept that the FCO were simply lying. Jack Straw was blatantly to lie about it to parliament. But ten years ago the public and media knew much less than they know now. Nobody outside secret circles had ever heard the words extraordinary rendition. It was a year later – May 2005 – before the New York Times revealed the CIA was sending people to Uzbekistan to be tortured, precisely as I had stated.

It sounds incredible, but in October 2004 many people believed it was Craig Murray who was a liar, not Jack Straw. Again I do not think there is a single individual today who does not understand that Jack Straw was lying through his teeth. But back in 2004 life was hard for me.

After going on the Today programme I went on the run, in fear for my life. I am not paranoid, remember David Kelly. I first stayed with my old friend Andy Myles in Edinburgh, then I think Chief Executive of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. He was phoned the next morning by the FCO. When he denied knowledge of my whereabouts, they not only said they knew I was staying with him, they said which bedroom I was sleeping in. Ten years ago today I was hiding in Aviemore in the house of my old friend Dominic.

That was the start of a decade as a dissident where I have devoted my life to exposing, and trying to counter, the evil of the neo-conservative policy pursued by our political class at the behest of the corporations who fund them. I have suffered a huge loss in money, status and most of the other normal aspirations. But what I have gained is invaluable. I have respect and love, while Blair and Straw will forever be despised.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/ ... f-dissent/

[TonyGosling]

Craig Murray FCO Whistleblower Occupy Democracy
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz17uQrPWPs[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz17uQrPWPs

[scienceplease 2]

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... n-torture/

Senate Report on Torture

by Craig on December 9, 2014

Can I just say how pleasant it is to be vindicated ten years after being sacked by Jack Straw for opposing the torture and extraordinary rendition programme – which Blair and Straw claimed I was inventing.

[outsider]

Craig Murray on RT:

Poland: We hosted secret CIA torture prison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY2zhgc ... ploademail

So the Bliar and MP Jack (Man? of) Straw called Craig Murray a liar (I'm sure with Parliamentary Privilege - they wouldn't have the guts to say it outside Parliament).

He exposed the Bliar's and Donald Dewar's collusion stealing the theft of a large, pprofitable chunk of Scottish Seas: 'He also exposed Tony Blair and Donald Dewar of handing 6000 sq mls of Scottish Seas and 7 of our oil fields over to the English behind our backs. No doubt he'll be made out to be the 'bad guy' for doing that too.

'In 1999, the UK establishment secretly reclassified 6,000 square miles of Scottish sea as English waters.' (from Louise A, commenter on The Scotman 'newspaper': http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/t ... -1-3630018# ).


The Stolen Seas youtube http://youtu.be/GfbfldSrJ-0

Here is Craig's website: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/


Get commenting on newspaper reports of Poland's admission to knowing about US 'Black Sites' for torture in Poland, and the general US Torture Report reporting.

[TonyGosling]

Security services will have lied to him
Just like they did to Robin Cook over the Gaddafi plot

So the Bliar and MP Jack (Man? of) Straw called Craig Murray a liar (I'm sure with Parliamentary Privilege - they wouldn't have the guts to say it outside Parliament).

[outsider]

Security services will have lied to him
Just like they did to Robin Cook over the Gaddafi plot

So the Bliar and MP Jack (Man? of) Straw called Craig Murray a liar (I'm sure with Parliamentary Privilege - they wouldn't have the guts to say it outside Parliament).

Leave me out! You mean that Bliar and Straw didn't know? Of course they knew; and that is why they continue with the lie, EVEN NOW, and Craig is blocked from the MSM from putting the record straight (and he HAS tried, time and time again).

I don't know if you can use Skype or similar on your TV stuff, or just on your radio programme, but I am sure Craig will happily give you an interview (I'm pretty sure he's now living in Scotland). I was thinking of suggesting it before this post, but thought you probably wouldn't be 'bovvered'.

You really surprise me, thinking Bliar and Straw must have been 'ill informed', rather than out-and-out Luciferian apparatchiks.

I actually tried to question Straw, on 'it's' way to 'it's' transport, in Blackburn. 'It' just brushed passed me, ignoring me (and I was alone, not in a mob).

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Craig Murray
Historian, Former Ambassador, Human Rights Activist

The Ubiquity of Evil
https://t.co/EnNv6lTofz
The Ubiquity of Evil 112
30 Jul, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ty-of-evil

My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report. They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted:

131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.
The people doing these things were not ordinarily bad people; they were just trying to keep their jobs, comforting themselves with the thought that they were only civil servants obeying orders. Many were also actuated by the nasty “patriotism” that grips in time of war, as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the FCO stood up against the torture or against the illegal war – Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross and I were the only ones to leave over it.

I then had the still more mortifying experience of the Foreign Office seeking to punish my dissent by bringing a series of accusations of gross misconduct – some of them criminal – against me. The people bringing the accusations knew full well they were false. The people investigating them knew they were false from about day 2. But I was put through a hellish six months of trial by media before being acquitted on all the original counts (found guilty of revealing the charges, whose existence was an official secret!). The people who did this to me were people I knew.

I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.

I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.

The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.

[TonyGosling]

Who Judges The Judges?
Craig Murray Facing Two Years In Jail And Jury-Free Trial. Defence Fund Launched
'On Tuesday morning, a large Police van full of police pulled up onto the pavement right outside my front gate...'

Craig Murray Defence Fund Launched 160
24 Apr, 2020 in Uncategorized by craig
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... -launched/

I know of four pro-Independence folk who were last week phoned or visited by Police Scotland and threatened with contempt of court proceedings over social media postings they had made weeks back on the Alex Salmond case. Then on Monday, a Scottish journalist I know had his home raided by five policemen, who confiscated (and still have) all his computers and phones. They said they were from the “Alex Salmond team” and investigating his postings on the Alex Salmond case. He has not to date been charged, and his lawyer is advising him at present to say nothing, so I am not revealing his name.

Then on Tuesday morning, a large Police van full of police pulled up onto the pavement right outside my front gate, actually while I was talking on the phone to a senior political figure about the raid on my friend. The police just sat in the van staring at my house. I contacted my lawyers who contacted the Crown Office. The police van pulled away and my lawyers contacted me back to say that the Crown Office had told them I would be charged, or officially “cited”, with Contempt of Court, but they agreed there was no need for a search of my home or to remove my devices, or for vans full of police.

On Thursday two plain clothes police arrived and handed me the indictment. Shortly thereafter, an email arrived from The Times newspaper, saying that the Crown Office had “confirmed” that I had been charged with contempt of court. In the case of my friend whose house was raided, he was contacted by the Daily Record just before the raid even happened!

I am charged with contempt of court and the hearing is on 7 July at the High Court in Edinburgh. The contempt charge falls in two categories:

i) Material published before the trial liable to prejudice a jury
ii) Material published which could assist “jigsaw identification” of the failed accusers.

Plainly neither of these is the true motive of the Crown Office. If they believed that material I published was likely to have prejudiced the jury, then they had an obvious public duty to take action BEFORE the trial – and the indictment shows conclusively they were monitoring my material long before the trial. To leave this action until after the trial which they claim the material was prejudicing, would be a serious act of negligence on their part. It is quite extraordinary to prosecute for it now and not before the trial.

As for identifying the failed conspirators, I have done less than the mainstream media. But plainly the Crown Office, or whoever is pushing them to this persecution, had no genuine interest in protecting the identities, otherwise why did they tip off the media that I was being charged, and thus guarantee further publicity? If protecting the identities was their motive, to tip off the media would obviously be counterproductive.

But what proves that the Crown Office is acting from base motives and not those stated is the one-sided nature of this. Only supporters of Alex Salmond – the Alex Salmond found innocent by the jury – are being pursued by this continuing Police Scotland operation.

There are literally thousands who put out “Salmond is guilty” “Salmond is a rapist” “Salmond is a pervert” posts on social media before and during the trial. Not one has had the police knock on the door. The Herald published absolutely deliberately, the day before the trial, a montage of Alex Salmond amongst photos of mass murderers. They have not been charged. Every newspaper published “jigsaw identification” information which I withheld. They have not been charged or investigated, despite the evidence brilliantly compiled and presented to the Police.

No, this is a blatant, one-sided political persecution. That much is entirely plain. I have therefore decided, in the interests of open justice, to publish the entire indictment against me (with a single sentence redacted where I think the prosecution were excessively indiscreet). Neither the indictment nor the covering letter is marked confidential or not for publication. It is, so far as I know, a public document.

The Crown have very deliberately not included the names of any of the failed conspirators in the indictment and instead refer to the women by their court allocated letters. That is a plain indication to me that this is a public document drafted specifically with publication in mind. Otherwise the document would have more naturally used the names and not the alphabet letters.

More fundamentally this indictment is the basis on which they are attempting to put me in prison – in fact the indictment specifies up to two years in jail and an unlimited fine as the punishment sought from the court. I think the public interest, and my own interest, in it being public is very substantial.

The state believes it has finally discovered a way to put me in prison without the inconvenient hurdle of a jury of my peers. Contempt of Court is just decided by a judge. It is extraordinary that you can go to jail for a substantial two years with no jury protection and no test of “beyond reasonable doubt”; and on the whim of a judge defending what he may view as the dignity of his own office. This really is the epitome of bad law. To use it against freedom of speech is disgusting.

So here is the full indictment against me:

caseagainstcraigmurray

If the indictment contains anything they did not wish to be public, well, I didn’t force them to serve it on me. From my side, the proceedings against me will be entirely open. I will remind you that you may find all or part of the indictment initially convincing; but you are yet to see my point by point reply, which naturally I shall also publish in due course.

The purpose of this operation against free speech is a desperate attempt to keep the lid on the nature of the state conspiracy to fit up Alex Salmond. Once the parliamentary inquiry starts, a huge amount of evidence of conspiracy which the court did not allow the defence to introduce in evidence during the criminal trial, will be released. The persecution of myself is an attempt to intimidate independent figures into not publishing anything about it. The lickspittle media of course do not have to be intimidated. To this end, I am charged specifically with saying that the Alex Salmond case was a fit-up and a conspiracy in which the Crown Office was implicated. So I thought I would say it again now:

The Alex Salmond case was a fit-up and a conspiracy in which the Crown Office was implicated, foiled by the jury. If Scotland is the kind of country where you go to jail for saying that, let me get my toothbrush.

Before then, I am afraid we have to fund my defence and I shall be very grateful for donations to my defence fund. My initial target is £60,000. I shall post daily updates on total reached, but I shall be using my established funding channels and not involving a crowdfunding website. I do not intend to fight this battle entirely on the defensive, and some of the funding may be put to launching actions against the Crown or others.

[TonyGosling]

The Choice - 17 May, 2020
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... he-choice/
I came across this 2007 interview I did for BBC Radio 4 with Michael Buerk. He is a good interviewer and challenges me directly and critically at several points. The interview is particularly fascinating for the fact the the British government was still lying through its teeth and issuing desperate denials that torture and collusion with extraordinary rendition had ever happened.
It is also good to remind myself that the audience of this blog has grown exponentially and many readers do not know the back story. I had never listened to this interview since giving it and I found it pretty compelling myself!

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-co ... -Food-.mp3

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

CIA ‘Obsessed’ with Craig Murray’s Upcoming Testimony in Assange Case
https://larouchepub.com/pr/2020/20200725_cia.html

July 25, 2020 (EIRNS)—Craig Murray, a close associate of imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, said he himself was the “top target” of the 24/7 surveillance of Assange at Ecuador’s London embassy, done by the Spanish security company UC Global, which reportedly shared its surveillance with the CIA; this was reported by Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria July 23.

Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, told Lauria he has been contacted by an attorney in the spying case on Assange, and that he will be going to Madrid to testify in the trial of UC Global’s founder David Morales, who was arrested over the surveillance of Assange, including privileged conversations between Assange and his attorney.

Murray told former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, in an email shared with Consortium News, that the CIA was “obsessed” with Murray. Murray had offered to give evidence to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who spent $32 million of government money investigating a nonexistent conspiracy between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, which included the allegation that “Russia” hacked the Democratic National Committee computer and turned the emails from the DNC and John Podesta over to WikiLkeaks which published them. Murray’s offer was not accepted, and now, three years later the claim of the “Russian hack of the DNC” has been proven to be false, as detailed in the July 23 press conference by former National Security Agency technical director William Binney.

Murray has said that different persons with legal access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Podesta emails were WikiLeaks’ sources. Murray told Consortium News that he wrote Mueller, offering to give evidence, but received no reply, and “never had any request for an interview by any U.S. authorities.” Murray then wrote: “BUT I received a message from the lawyer in the case in Madrid about the spying on Assange in the Embassy, contracted by the CIA, which said that I was the ‘top target’ for the contractors, and the evidence shows that they were ‘obsessed’ with me. I shall be going to Madrid to give evidence.... Just why the U.S. security services declined my offer of free evidence, yet were obsessed with spying on me, is an interesting question....” (Emphasis in original)

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Craig Murray: An Urgent Message On The Situation In Gaza

'I can’t type much with my left hand but I wanted to get this out there. It then took me ten hours to upload with a maximum speed here of 0.5mbps. Still more breaking news now. May do a follow-up tomorrow.'

https://youtu.be/yf3ixJxILdg