While doing the housework, re-potting some cuttings and making my first batch of yogurt, I’m listening to a play on the radio. It’s a play taken from the book ‘’Murder in Samarkand’’, by Craig Murray, published some time back in 2006. Craig Murray is a Scotsman who was previously an envoy to Uzbekistan. The book is an account of his time there and the things he saw. After listening to this play, the book is top of my list of must reads. This is a pretty good review of the bookhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/aug/12/politics
These are a couple of small exerts from the review,
‘’But when he got to Tashkent, Murray's cockiness started to evaporate. As he describes it, he found himself in a milieu worthy of Graham Greene. The Americans were busy building an enormous airbase, and praising the sinister President Karimov to the skies as a reformist ally in the great war on terror. Karimov himself was exploiting US naivety while running an Asiatic tyranny on a North Korean model, with internal passports, virtual slave labour, and brutal torture of Muslim dissidents. The Americans were kept happy by a supply of colourful "intelligence" about al-Qaida activities, most of which, says Murray, was nonsense’’.
‘’But, as he tells the story, there was just too much that Murray did not realise at the time. He did not know that Tony Blair and the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, had hitched Britain irrevocably to the White House wagon. He did not know that with the coming invasion of Iraq, any dissent from the architecture of lies used to justify it would be depicted as "unpatriotic". He did not know that the CIA had a secret policy of "rendition" which was not merely condoning torture, but was deliberately exploiting it’’
Back to the housework and back to listening, I’m so impressed with this I just had to take a break and share. This is his web site
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
fascinating stuff there, thanks. happy yogurt making!
ReplyDeletethanks loretta
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we will ever know the full story of the Bush-Blair alliance, certainly enough have died for it, we should know why. This story has been circulating in the US news this morning.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/02/20/uk_human_rights_watchdog_demands_torture_probe/
Thanks Frank, oddly enough this was mentioned on the news bulletin just before the play started. I think what is happening is that once a little information gets into the public arena it's only a matter of time before all of it seeps out. After the Iraq inquiry was finally allowed to proceed other unpleasant truths were always going to follow, this is why the Gov wanted so badly to keep a lid on Iraq and suppress the enquiry. Personally the one thing I have always wanted to know is why Blair felt so compelled to follow the US, what exactly did Bush have on Blair that he followed such an obviously wrong and immoral course of action...........that I would love to know.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that is the case. Once in, Blair had to finish his time and ride it out. From my perspective, Blair was a 'hanger-on', hitching himself to whomever he perceived as a star. Prior to Bush, Blair told Bill Clinton something similar to that he saw Clinton as a role model and wanted to be just like him and model his politics after Clinton. Quotes and photos from the newspapers of the day show their great buddy relationship. That was switched to Bush overnight. Too bad for Blair that he was sucked in by the Bush-Cheney lies.
ReplyDeleteBush wanted Iraq because they had tried to assassinate his father and Cheney is an old school war-monger, who appears to have just happened to profit handsomely from the Iraq war, as did his cronies.
have to admit I've never thought of it like that, all I saw was Bush saying jump and Blair saying how high, I thought it was because Bush had something over Blair,never occurred to me it was just because Blair was stupid enough to follow, and over the years we have come to realise just how bad things got and to what depths those two sank. I've never been an admirer of either of them but I thought their crime was charging into illegal war, the whole truth, the torture, false imprisonment, the massive cover ups, the suppression of evidence etc..............its all so much worse than we originally thought, I'm beginning to think they should both be made accountable for their actions in court.
ReplyDeleteMany here see crimes of war. No question that Sadam was horrible and needed to be removed from power, but not at a cost of a whole country and an oil rich one at that. Not to mention the financial crisis that the war has brought down on all of us.
ReplyDeleteI personally see Blair as an opportunist, not a natural leader. Bush was a result of American conservatives having their way, no matter how ill equipped the man was for the job. He is far from the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. No doubt that his political party put Cheney in there to baby-sit and direct him.
we still have people in the media openly saying torture is a 'good' thing !!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-we-not-only-have-a-right-to-use-torture-we-have-a-duty-1899555.html
'Unpatriotic' is a word that I'm constantly hearing.
ReplyDeletehi Brenda...............not sure in which context you are hearing this word but to me the 'unpatriotic' describe those who degrade our country by committing torture and indulging in war crimes in the name of our country, and also of course IN MY NAME!!..............am I actually supposed to be grateful for being 'protected' by torturers and war criminals?? What could be more unpatriotic than bringing your own country and every one in it down to this level
ReplyDeleteIn the context that we hear the word 'unpatriotic' in Spain, it was first used to deny that there was a (financial) crisis and anyone who insisted there was was being unpatriotic (this term was used by the President of the country). I find it used in the context of 'if you don't agree with the government or you criticize it, you're being unpatriotic' - very different from your definition of the word and just a way to try and make us feel guilty, because who wants to be called unpatriotic even if he/she isn't?
ReplyDeleteits a sad world we live in these days, I think people have forgotten the meaning of patriotic, and sometimes even the meaning of 'democratic', like i said...............sad world we live in.
ReplyDeleteThe claims of the necessity of removing such an 'evil' tyrant as Saddam seem to ring rather hollow when one looks at how conveniently we ignored the tyranny of Karimov because it suited our purposes. I'm definately interested in this book, as more light should be shed on areas such as this, overlooked in the larger drama of the 'war on terror'
ReplyDelete