Craig Murray's Blog, page 207

Thinking of Bradley Manning

My thoughts today are with Bradley Manning, on trial in the USA. He has been subject to solitary confinement, abuse and humiliation, with the sexual humiliation overtones (being kept naked) which seem to permeate US military culture in so many ways.

The BBC is a disgrace. The reporter on BBC World just questioned "Whether Julian Assange manipulated and controlled an impressionable young man?" There has been absolutely zero direct evidence produced of any meeting or communication between Assange and Manning. There is the hearsay word of a hacker informant, whom someone should point towards a potter's field. Both Assange and Manning deny any communication – a fact the BBC did not consider worth reporting.

The relationship between Adam Werritty and Matthew Gould was key to the events which led to the resignation of Britain's defence minister. There is a great deal more evidence for the Gould-Werritty relationship than for the Assange-Manning relationship, yet the BBC refused to carry a single word on Gould-Werritty telling me it was "speculative". The neo-con agenda at the BBC is something they no longer seek to disguise.

Police Abuse in Norfolk

I am very worried by the report of a heavy handed police raid on Tallbloke, a blogger in Norfolk. According to this account, he was raided due to a link to leaked documents posted in a comments thread. We have become far too blase about the rapid erosion of civil liberties in this country. Norfolk is not devoid of serious crimes which these six detectives should be better employed in investigating.

I had not heard of Tallbloke and know nothing beyond the report to which I have linked. His blog discusses climate change at scientific levels well above my understanding, but scarcely seems a subject for the police. I do not share Tallboy's views – in particular, I think man-made climate change is a fact we are not tackling with nearly sufficient seriousness. But whether or not I agree is irrelevant. What is important is the free speech issue. It is astonishing our media are criticising government handling of protest in Russia, when we have police raidng dissident bloggers in Norfolk which goes unnoticed.

Iraq Disaster

Not even in Ghana can you escape the US propaganda surrounding the final pull-out of troops (but not oil companies) from Iraq. They leave Iraq "sovereign and free", a variety of thuggish looking and dull Americans have just told us.

But being in Ghana I probably see rather more balance on TV than I would in the UK. For example, while there is still no official body count from the war, there is an official count of those wounded. The Iraqi Ministry of Health states, officially, that over 3 million were maimed.

Even though the Iraqi healthcare system was damaged by a decade of sanctions before the invastion, on the eve of the attack there were still over twice as many functioning healthcare clinics and hospitals as there are today, and nearly five times as many doctors working in them.

You won't see that on BBC or Sky.

The Secret Foreign Policy

Adam Werritty has given an interview to the Spectator. I cannot find the original online, but there is a BBC report of it here.

It appears an exercise in misdirection. Sri Lanka is mentioned but never Israel. He denies having ever claimed to have any expertise in defence, despite the fact that "a certain expertise" was precisely Gus O'Donnell's justification for his presence at the Ministry of Defence briefing meeting for Matthew Gould, British Ambassador to Israel.

Werritty asks "What had this 'villainous' Adam Werritty actually done?", while being interviewed by a friendly neo-con rag. It is of course the journalist that should be asking that question, and Werritty has shunned everyone who might seriously ask about it. Meanwhile the parliamentary Table Office refuses to accept MPs' questions about Werritty's meetings with Gould, and the FCO refuses Freedom of Information requests for the correspondence between them.

I have not seen anybody deny that Gus O'Donnell's report omitted a minimum of five Fox-Gould-Werritty meetings. The government refuses to answer questions and refuse to release the correspondence. But they have at no stage denied the allegations published here, around the web, and in the Independent on Sunday.

At the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, extreme zionist Conservative MP Robert Halfon attempted to defend Gus O'Donnell from accusations that he covered up a secret government policy with Israel over Iran, in which Werritty was involved. Halfon is the former paid Political Director of the Conservative Friends of Israel. His defence of O'Donnell – and Fox-Werritty – is extremely revealing.

Q381 Robert Halfon: Is it not for the Prime Minister to decide whether a Minister has broken collective responsibility, rather than yourself?

Sir Gus O'Donnell: Yes, absolutely. On this whole issue of violations of the code, I was just providing advice for the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister who decides.

Q382 Robert Halfon: So whether or not there was a separate policy is nothing to do with you; it is to do with the Prime Minister making a decision on whether or not a Minister broke the ministerial code.

Sir Gus O'Donnell: Yes.

I have no doubt that there is a "separate policy" on Israel and Iran, different to that acknowledged in public. I have no doubt that the Fox/Gould/Werritty meetings – and the blanket cover-up of them from scrutiny in parliament, documents or the media – afford a key way into it.

Mary Poppins and Newt Gingrich

Being in Africa appears to make me more whimsical that when I am in my book-lined study at home. One of the joys of having small children is that you can get to do childish things, with an excuse. I took Cameron to the Hornby model centre in Broadstairs a few weeks ago. I never tire of watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And recently I re-watched Mary Poppins. I never much liked this, and still am not a great fan, but I had never before realised that the entire thing is an attack on materialism and the banks, particularly the City of London.

There is a moment when Banks finally rebels and turns on the big banker and says: "It turns out, with due respect, when all is said and done, that there's no such thing as you!" The world of bankers has become even more of a fantasy since, of meaningless "wealth" unrelated to production, and casino speculation.

But the phrase sent my mind flitting to Newt Gingrich. The Palestinians are very real indeed – I used to have a Palestinian girlfriend, and she definitely existed. Palestine is mentioned in Herodotus, and if the bible bashing Gingrich can't see that "Palestine" and "Philistine" are the same word, he is a greater fool than I supposed. Or does he believe in etymological creationism, that all words were formed by God on the same day in precisely their current form?

The misery of the Palestinian people, squeezed into ever shrinking bantustans, is very very real. What Gingrich is doing is indicating his acquiescence in the genocidal policy of Israel towards the Palestinians. Given what is already happening, it is not a great leap from declaring someone does not exist, to seeking to make that a reality.

Gingrich appears an evil, corrupt, debased manifestation of the real agenda of the United States. He is the picture in America's attic, with all its evil shown up-front. The man is a walking caricature of seething hatreds. Surely it is Newt Gingrich who does not really exist?

David Steel – An Apology

This blog has received many scores of lawyers' letters over the years and given every single one a rude reply. For the first time I am offering an apology.

David Steel says that he was only a director of Heritage Oil and Gas for two years, many years ago, and that he resigned as soon as he became aware of the associations of Heritage and Tony Buckingham with Sandline and Executive Outcomes. I accept that David Steel never had any association with Sandline and Executive Outcomes, and that my accusations of hypocrisy were unwarranted. I am meeting his legal costs.

Home Thoughts

I am off to Ghana today, and it leads me to think about how very much I have come to love Ramsgate. Walks along the cliffs and beach and across Pegwell Bay with my family are a major part of my life. The sea has always been important to reviving my spirits. Ramsgate's magnificent Edwardian esplanades stretch for miles, and the Ramsgate Society is now putting a commendable effort into their restoration. Ramsgate has almost entirely ceased to be a seaside holiday destination and I really do not quite understand why.

All these pictures are of places within an easy 15 minute walk of my house:

The depressingly ugly Turner Modern at Margate continues to attract the visitors, 99.99% of whom are blissfully ignorant of far greater art – and infinitely greater architecture - just down the road:

The lack of public interest in St Augustine's and its highly limited opening hours (Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday afternoons only, from memory) appear to be a vicious circle.

Pegwell Bay still looks precisely as it did when Dyce painted it:

Right on the street where I live we have a particularly good ghost story:

All this just one hour and ten minutes from St Pancras. Unfortunately Ramsgate town centre has suffered disastrously from the decision to build a huge out of town shopping centre at Westwood Cross, but is showing some first signs of revival.

Want another reason to hate the big supermarkets? They are building a new Asda at the top of the High Street, and a fortnight ago the builders cut through a main sewer, flooding several houses including the local vet, where a number of recuperating animals in cages were drowned.

Here is a picture of a jumbo coming in to land over Ramsgate, taken from the Open at Sandwich. You can see my house in this photo:

I am baffled by the scheme to build a new airport in the Thames Estuary, when just down the road at Manston, and already right on Britain's first HS1 High Speed Rail route, you have the second longest, now civil, runway in the UK, fully operational but working at 1% capacity. Manston can take the A380 without modification. I have seen proximity to Schiphol given as the reason Manston cannot be used, but it is further from Schiphol than Heathrow is from Gatwick.

Anyway, time to pack…

Something for the Weekend

I spent last night as a guest at Selwyn College's Cripps Feast, which was simply splendid. I would never have thought of a well-aged Rioja with the venison, but it worked extremely well.

As it's the weekend, here's a BBC interview with Nadira – in Uzbek. It reminds me that I am a remarkably fortunate individual.

The Gould Werritty Investigation Continues

An MP has been refused by the Commons Table Office when they tried to table a question asking how many meetings Gould had held with Werritty and/or Fox. The Table Office say the question has already been answered – even though we know for certain that the answer given was untrue.

This was the untrue – or at the very least radically unfull – answer cited by the Table Office:

Adam Werritty

Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what meetings HM ambassador to Israel has had with the Secretary of State for Defence (a) in Israel, (b) in the UK and (c)

31 Oct 2011 : Column 374W

elsewhere since May 2010; whether Mr Adam Werritty was present on any such occasion; and which (i) other officials and (ii) other people were present on each occasion. [76970]

Alistair Burt: All meetings which our ambassador to Israel has had with the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) since May 2010 are set out in the Cabinet Secretary's report of 18 October 2011. Our ambassador to Israel was also invited by the former Defence Secretary to a private social engagement in summer 2010 at which Adam Werritty was present.

It is remarkable rule of parliament that apparently once a minister lies about something, parliamentarians are never allowed to ask about it again.

Meantime I have submitted a Freedom of Information request about a Freedom of Information request! I have asked for any notes, minutes, emails or correspondence relating to the handling of my FOI request for the Gould-Werritty correspondence. You may recall that my request was declined on grounds of cost, and dealt with in the remarkable time of just 76 minutes, the answer ebing received at 11.31 pm!

Finally the editor of the Jewish Chronicle has declined to publish the following article, which I submitted to him as a comment piece covering the JC's promotion of the charges of anti-semitism against Paul Flynn for pursuing the Gould/Werritty issue. This is a shame, because the JC used to give space to liberal views, and because I believe a serious percentage of their readership would have been interested in the other side of the story.

There is a genuine argument that it was not wise to appoint Matthew Gould as Ambassador to Israel, and the accusations of anti-Semitism levelled at MP Paul Flynn MP by Dennis McShane, and reported by Martin Bright in the JC, do not address that argument.

Of course being Jewish does not in any way disqualify Matthew Gould from being a British ambassador. We are fortunate in the UK to have many brilliant Jewish diplomats. Jon Benjamin in Santiago is an example of an absolutely first rate ambassador with whom I was once privileged to work.

But Israel/Palestine remains, beyond dispute, a scene of unresolved conflict. The Israeli government, for example, recognises that conflict by invoking the San Remo Agreement to justify its naval embargo of Gaza. The San Remo agreement only applies in times of armed conflict. The dispute is also witnessed not just by events on the ground, but in diplomatic terms by the whole paraphernalia of Middle East peace negotiation, including the post of Quartet envoy occupied by Tony Blair.

So the situation surrounding Israel is not normal and involves conflict. That is, of course, by no means unique. Nearby Cyprus is subject to a dispute that has many parallels. I was Head of the FCO Cyprus section for three years, and tried hard but failed to make progress in resolving the "Cyprus question". Winning trust was extremely difficult; it would have been well nigh impossible had I been ethnically Greek or Turkish. For the Head of the FCO Cyprus section, or for our Ambassador in Nicosia, to be ethnically Greek, Turkish or either shade of Cypriot just would not be practically useful. I hope nobody will accuse me of being anti-Greek or anti-Turk for saying so.

Similarly, it is just not helpful to have an Ambassador in Tel-Aviv who is Jewish or Palestinian. It just isn't practically wise. This is not a matter of high policy. There may be Jews or Palestinians of such exceptional personal qualities they could rise above any suspicion of partisanship and be effective. But Matthew Gould has proven himself not to be that talented.

Matthew's frequent declarations to the Israeli media of his personal commitment to zionism are neither helpful nor necessary for a diplomat. Take for example this from the Jerusalem Post of 29 May:

"British Ambassador Matthew Gould declared his commitment to Israel and the principles of Zionism on Thursday"

That really is a very peculiar thing for a diplomat, who is supposed to have just the one national commitment, to say. I was dismissed as an Ambassador – by FCO ministers including Dennis McShane – for too strong a personal commitment to human rights. A personal commitment to zionism is by comparison a good thing, apparently.

We also cannot pretend that in 2011 to declare oneself a "zionist" in political terms merely has its 19th century meaning of somebody who believes in the existence of a state of Israel. The readership of the JC knows that the term "zionist" has accrued baggage of support for settlements and a greater Israel, for the annexation of the whole of Jerusalem, and of links with the non-Jewish foreign policy neo-Cons both sides of the Atlantic. who also declare themselves ardent zionists at every opportunity.

It is also worth noting that, of the entertained guests who have passed into Gould's Tel Aviv residence, a disgruntled British Embassy source tells me that well less than 5% of invites have been to Israeli Arabs who constitute 20% of the population.

Finally, we have to consider the extraordinary relationship of Gould with Adam Fox and Liam Werritty. It has been shown that the trio met at least seven times, including several meetings before the election, according to Gus O'Donnell's replies to Paul Flynn at the Public Administration Committee. The FCO refuses point-blank to say how many times Gould met Werritty without Fox, and refused within the hour (at nearly midnight!) my emailed Freedom of Information request for the Gould/Werritty correspondence.

No other official was ever present at any of the Fox-Gould-Werritty meetings – one of many strange facts about them. Gus O'Donnell's report mentions only two of what we now know was a much larger series of meetings. We really need to know what Gould, the "committed zionist", was doing with the two extreme Atlanticist neo-cons – and why the government is so anxious to hide it..

That is a genuine question, and to scream "anti-semite" at anyone who asks it devalues the term.

Ten Per Cent for Freedom

From now until the referendum, I shall give ten per cent of my income to the campaign for Scottish Independence. My income is both meagre and unreliable, and I can't really afford it, but people have died for freedom willingly, and this is a much smaller sacrifice by comparison.

I urge all my fellow Scots to do the same. The media is viciously anti-independence and the massive resources of the British establishment are going to be concentrated fully against us. This is our first chance for national self-determination since 1707, and if we are not to be "Bought and sold for English gold" again, we need to raise some of our own.