gdp's Comments

Craig Murray : Clusters of Hypocrisy

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:45:04 +0000

http://www.counterpunch.org/ Interesting piece on Libya and much else by Alex Cockburn. http://www.counterpunch.org/lee04152011.html And an analysis of the Syrian situation. http://www.zcommunications.org/stephen-shalom-and... And a detailed overview. The comments below the article are actually excellent as well and well worth a read. It's very clear that imperial interests increasingly now dictate the agenda.

Craig Murray : Clusters of Hypocrisy

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:31:47 +0000

Tony Blair as 'Middle East Peace Envoy' is about as Orwellian a job title as I've ever heard! Blair is himself a human cluster-bomb: wherever he goes, the tools of war will accompany him. With his increasingly skeletal visage, he reminds one of the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Hypocrisy is the byword, it seems. I note that Al Jazeera also is foregrounding the cluster bombs story with none of the extremely relevant information which Craig has provided here. As predicted and feared, the Libyan 'campaign' has now explicitly exceeded any mandate originally bestowed. Bad, bad, bad. Nothing new. It seems that some of the uprisings have been hijacked, instrumentalised, controlled or stymied. And of course, entirely predictably, many of the rulers are incapable of flexibility. Let's see what happens in Syria.

Craig Murray : Without Nepotism, Dominic Lawson Would Starve

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:51:18 +0000

Craig Murray's 'Kilt' article: superb - informative, engaging, witty yet not condescending... now I know why Craig sports that enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile! I have a couple of tartan ties and now will think of Craig's article every time I wear them! Dominic Lawson's piece: A reflection of the tiny world in which these cossetted columnists seem to move. Of course, his alleged spook connections/activity makes him more directly malevolent than most of the other the authors of the pampered fluff that poses for 'Comment' in too many of our 'quality' rags today, but the entire phenomenon debases discourse and serves the purposes of the rich and powerful. Germanicus: Never fear!! There are sets of 'Nigella' dvds around, I'm sure, books galore and you may wish to check out Youtube, the BBC website or similar, for unending doses of Nigella's ample presence. "Let us eat cake!" (as Marie Antoinette might have said, had been a 'talking head' on her own TV show).

Craig Murray : Tragedy in Mazar

Fri, 8 Apr 2011 18:06:55 +0000

Ha! Sounds like an interesting book, angrysoba - Nadir Shah, the mid-C18th potentate of Persia, I presume? Yes, Ahmed Shah Durrani (or Abdali) and his men were Afghans in the employ of Nadir Shah. Swashbuckling - and very bloody - history. My family were (are) the Sadozais. Zahir Shah, the ex-king who recently died, was a Mohammedzai, a related, and rival, family within the Durrani 'clan'. He bore a strong resemblance to my grandfather. History sits very close at times...

Craig Murray : Whistleblowers Not Welcome at New Statesman/Frontline Debate

Fri, 8 Apr 2011 17:53:27 +0000

Yes, indeed, sir, you're definitely not allowed to 'go native'. Oh no, perish the thought! The New Statesman has a 'house style', you know! Have to keep up appearances, after all - for the good of the natives, you know...

Craig Murray : Whistleblowers Not Welcome at New Statesman/Frontline Debate

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 17:55:40 +0000

I'm sure that if each of the people who regularly or sporadically post here and agree with what you do, Craig, would at every pertinent opportunity allude or give a link to one of your posts in a sort of 'virally' on the web, including on social networking sites, etc., the 'establishment' (and I include such 'platforms' as the one you have described within that somewhat hackneyed yet still useful umbrella term) will not be successful in 'blacklisting' knowledge of your views, experience and activities and most importantly of the issues you raise. But it will require a concerted, sustained and almost obsessional (in the positive sense) effort. Do you have Facebook and Twitter pages - not personal ones, I mean 'political' ones, open to the public?

Craig Murray : Whistleblowers Not Welcome at New Statesman/Frontline Debate

Thu, 7 Apr 2011 17:48:57 +0000

Yeah, that's it, Ruth.

Craig Murray : For Cengiz Songur

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:56:53 +0000

http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/04/judge-goldst... This is interesting. Goldstone has spoken and it seems that what he says does not concur with Netanyahu et al's spin.

Craig Murray : Whistleblowers Not Welcome at New Statesman/Frontline Debate

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:55:12 +0000

Oh, it's their little phony in-crowd. Yes, it seems odd to invite someone so wholeheartedly and then to dis-invite them - and you've had identical experiences to this one so often that I cannot believe it is simply coincidence or some kind of misplaced snobbery. I think it's possible that they've been warned off. The intelligence services will not forgive and have memories longer than that of an elephant. They will hold grudges just because they hold grudges; their behaviour often moves an irrational orbits. But of course, it is entirely rational to deny you a public platform. Douglas Murray and Mehdi Hassan - a good 'face' double-act, and that's it. Neither is 'real' in the sense that you are real, Craig. These forums do not want real people, they aim render the illusion of reality. They are worse than straightforward censorship because they systemically disempower. The New Statesman is almost archetypal in this regard.

Craig Murray : Tragedy in Mazar

Mon, 4 Apr 2011 16:55:21 +0000

Thanks, technicolour - and welcome back, btw!

Craig Murray : At 16.00 Today I Was

Mon, 4 Apr 2011 12:54:24 +0000

Hi Jon, same to you! Really good to see you here again.

Craig Murray : Tragedy in Mazar

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 21:24:45 +0000

I see that more people have been injured or killed in other parts of Afghanistan due to riots around this book-burning incident. It's really typical and pathetic. I am certain these riots will be spread to Pakistan. The Islamists love these international spectacles like the Danish cartoons, etc. because it gives them a real chance to foment the type of chaos and violence on which they thrive. It's little really directly to do with US drone attacks, etc. or with Iraq, etc. - such stupid demos have occurred, in other circumstances, in the UK as well, for example, in response to authors' books that the loudmouths have been told present them in a less than flattering light; they seem to occur at the drop of a hat, ten thousand miles away. I mean the people in Brick Lane or Bradford, say, were not being bombed in 2003 ('Brick Lane') or 1989 ('Satanic Verses'). And yes, illiteracy and prolonged war and all that have a large role to play in specific circumstances (Af-Pak, for example). But it is a deliberately inculcated intolerance, a terrible inferiority complex and an accultured inability to deploy critical faculties that lies at the heart of the problem. Political Islamism renders a deadening of thought. And we've had 35 years of it. A three-decade-long lobotomy. And so, again and again and again, all their actions do is confirm the preconceptions and tactical political goals of people like Jones and the deaths of either themselves or innocents. The winners? The Far Right in the USA, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and all the other literalist nutters 'over there'. More public support for 'The War on Terror' (or whatever it's called now, the 'Kandahar Tea-Party', perhaps?). Ah, the world is a mad, sad place. It's time for a cup of tea (as the March Hare said to Alice).

Craig Murray : Tragedy in Mazar

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 20:48:23 +0000

Yeah, I mean look at Benjamin Gilmour. He made a film with Pushtuns in the northwest of Pakistan, all on his own. He's Australian, but is also half-German, was born in Hamburg and has dual German-Australian citizenship and the understanding while he was there was that he was German. I'm not saying 'go and do it' and Dick, above, has made a strong point, but Jotman is also correct. I mean, those poor people in northeastern Japan going about their daily business, no risk really... and then the wave.

Craig Murray : At 16.00 Today I Was

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 20:43:01 +0000

My advice would be to use local time: It's 1600 hours wherever YOU are. Otherwise, you risk having to rise at three in the morning if you're in, say, Thailand or wherever at some point in the future.

Craig Murray : Tragedy in Mazar

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 16:15:01 +0000

I note that Ansari claims that Burnes played-down any resistance to British rule in his messages to the Governor-General of India because he wanted to succeed Macnaghten in the position of commander of the British forces in Afghanistan and so wanted to present the mission as having been a complete success: "All quiet on the Western Front". That was a fatal error.

Craig Murray : Completely Surreal Hague Press Stunt

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:39:38 +0000

Yeah, it seems far-fetched and almost illogical as a justification. However, on its own it's not entirely without precedent - the Shah of Iran's regime's assets are still not unfrozen, because the USA doesn't want to give the dosh to Iran and also wants to keep it to use as a lever. The Washington Times is a Moonie-owned newspaper - but then again, Press TV (see below) is an Iranian regime mouthpiece! Nonetheless, these are interesting speculations, not so much for their own validity but for the other (financial) information which they throw up. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/150500.html

Craig Murray : Quite A Mystery

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:27:22 +0000

Yes, that's the classic Scottish (esp. West of Scotland) understatement. "How are ye?" "Och, Ah've been worse." If one said that in North America, it would be assumed that something quite (!) bad had happened to one, or that one was a 'glass-half-empty' person. Mind you, one would have to watch to which 'hen' one was speaking, otherwise, "Yer no tae bad, hen" might just elicit a slap and a declamation, "Whit d'ye mean, no tae bad?!!! Ye hawf-cut tadger, ye!"

Craig Murray : Quite A Mystery

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:21:53 +0000

This might be a usage in which the word 'quite' is simply an amplifier of 'nice' and has itself been emptied of independent meaning, or it may be that despite the multilingual nature of most Dutch people, there's a difference between being fluent in a tongue and being able to understand the nuances. 'Nice' itself is a fairly contested word, much lampooned by 'serious' writers and so on - yet we use it all the time in everyday speech. In fact, without cliches, we would soon cease to be able to communicate verbally. So, yes, Mr B, I think likely that it was their way of saying, "My good man, Mr B, let me say that our sojourn at your abode was superlative!"

Craig Murray : Quite A Mystery

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:12:14 +0000

Quite.

Craig Murray : Quite A Mystery

Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:08:57 +0000

Perhaps this may be changing, then, because, with our high-tech cerebration - i-pods, etc. - the state of 'distraction' is now deemed to be normal, or perhaps there are other reasons. I'd always assumed the classic example of someone 'distracted' was Ophelia in 'Hamlet'. David Crystal writes very well - he has an amazing intellect- on the joyous undulations of the English language. I'd recommend anything by him. http://www.davidcrystal.com/