All posts tagged: Craig Murray

The MSM just realised the “Integrity Initiative” is a thing

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…and it turns out it was all Russia’s fault Kit Knightly For those of you who don’t know, the Integrity Initiative is (was?) a UK-government funded operation to “counter disinformation”. It was run under the auspices of the (fake) charity the Institute for Statecraft, paid for by the foreign office and intelligence agencies, and co-opted journalists to spread propaganda. This was all revealed months ago, when internal documents were leaked online. (Moon of Alabama did great work on this, as did Kit Klarenberg). Journalists and other influencers were collected into cells, what the Integrity Initiative’s (II) internal memos called “clusters”, usually by region. These clusters were tasked with “combating Russian disinformation”, or other polite translations of “disseminating propaganda”. The II’s target list is short but predictable – it attacked Russia, Russian media and “Russian bots”. It attacked Scottish nationalists and the independence movement, and it attacked Jeremy Corbyn. Essentially, they turn the fire of their “clusters” on those perceived to be enemies of the status quo. Those contributing to these clusters are then little more …

Crocodile Tears for Venezuela

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On 26 February, Stephen Hickey, UK political coordinator at the United Nations, delivered a statement at the Security Council briefing on Venezuela that put the blame for the situation in that country on its government. He said that years of misrule and corruption have wrecked the Venezuelan economy and that the actions of the “Maduro regime” have led to economic collapse.

What “community standards” did this comment breach? #18

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The following comment – posted to twitter by Craig Murray – was censored by The Guardian. Which of the well-publicised CiF “community standards” did they breach? Removed comment, posted under this live news feed earlier today: Screen shot of where it used to be: For those of you unfamiliar with the video Craig linked to, or the story connected with it: In 2017 Joan Ryan MP was secretly recorded having conversations with employees of the Israeli embassy, in which she appeared to be accepting large amounts of money in order to influence other MPs.: This recording was released as part of the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby. In the same documentary is this clip where an Israeli embassy employee discusses a plan to “take down” Jeremy Corbyn. Seven of the eight (so far) Labour defectors were members of the Labour Friends of Israel. Joan Ryan was the chair. But back to Craig’s comment, and its removal: Which of the Guardian’s “community standards” did it break? Does it “misrepresent the Guardian and its journalists”? Is it …

Venezuela: a study in opinion manufacture

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Today’s Observer runs an editorial on Why Venezuela needs consensus, not conflict. It opens with the image shown above, of an anti Maduro rally (or to be pedantically accurate, one in support of a Juan Guaidó “recognised” by the USA – dutifully followed by that long list of leaders beholden to Washington and Wall St. – as president). Note the absence of faces.

Venezuela? The bad guys are on Wall St.

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Philip Roddis With Washington talking up a military coup (Democrats for once in no hurry to berate Trump on the issue) and Russia a sufficiently interested party to have flown nuclear capable bombers into Caracas last month, it behoves us all to get up to speed on Venezuela. It should go without saying we can’t trust a word corporate media say but, case it doesn’t, here’s why. First, corporate media are not independent but reliant on market forces. This applies not just to the billionaire media but, for reasons given elsewhere, to Guardian and BBC too. Second, media both sides of the Atlantic have a long record of backing US predation on the global south. Never have they deviated from this – take the Guardian’s cheerleading on Iraq. Worse, they’ve abdicated a core duty in their refusal to explore motives that cast a very different light on Western interventions sold to us as humanitarian. Third, sanctions have sown economic havoc in Venezuela. They’re spoken of in such calm tones that an already innocuous word loses …

Further down the rabbit hole with Eliot, Boshirov, Petrov, his grandma & all

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Bellingcat today released the second part of their “investigation” into the alleged real identities of Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, the two Russians accused of attempting to murder Sergey Skripal. We offer some preliminary thoughts and open the subject up for discussion.

Craig Murray: the Guardian tells “deliberate lies” about Assange and alleged Russia ties

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On Friday September 21 the Guardian published a piece titled “Revealed: Russia’s secret plan to help Assange escape from UK”. It was authored by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Dan Collyns and our very own pulp plagiarist Luke Harding. Even without Murray’s subsequent revelations, there was a lot to be concerned about both in the headline and the article itself.

Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case: Part 4 – The Dodgy Dossier

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Rob Slane So far in this series of pieces, I have attempted to demonstrate why I believe the official story of the poisoning of the Skripals doesn’t add up (Part 1). I have then pointed to some of the most significant pieces of the jigsaw, which have either been largely ignored or quietly forgotten (Part 2). And I then went on in Part 3 to show what I believe to be perhaps the key to the whole case; that Mr Skripal became agitated in Zizzis restaurant, not because he was physically unwell and suffering from the effects of poisoning hours earlier, but rather because he had an appointment to keep. But before coming on to propose a theory of what may have happened, I need to first present a theory of why it might have happened. I emphasise the word theory, because that is all it is — neither more nor less. And of course, it could be well wide of the mark. Make of it what you will! In a recent blog, Craig Murray, …

Whose words was Yulia reading?

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Yulia Skripal’s surprise video statement and walkabout yesterday has, as usual in this case, raised more questions than it has provided answers. The MSM has predictably addressed none of those questions and been content to simply air the video along with portions of her statement, laced with anti-Russian commentary and distorted summaries of the backstory (see here and here and here). Fortunately those in the alt media are free to try to do a little better.

How Social Media Platforms Suppress Key Truths

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by Eric Zuesse On April 23rd, the great independent investigative journalist, Craig Murray — a former British diplomat — headlined at his blog, “Condemned By Their Own Words”, and he posted there the translated-to-English transcript (excerpted below) to this Israeli radio Hebrew broadcast on April 21st, in which an Israeli Brigadier-General, named Fogel, explained why Israel’s troops are doing the right thing to shoot and even to kill Gazans who come (an unspecified) too close to the wall which separates Israel from Gaza: FOGEL: Any person who gets close to the fence, anyone who could be a future threat to the border of the State of Israel and its residents, should bear a price for that violation. If this child or anyone else gets close to the fence in order [the soldier thinks possibly] to hide an explosive device or [to] check if there are any dead zones there or to cut the fence so someone could infiltrate the territory of the State of Israel to kill us… NESIEL [the interviewer]: Then, then his punishment …

Skripal case: “closely related agent” claim closely examined

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What does the UK govts vague claim of “a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent” actually mean? Sarin & VX could be described as “closely related” to Novichoks, but they aren’t Russian & their presence wouldn’t implicate Russia. We take a closer look at what these weasel words actually tell us

UPDATED: UK’s “novichok” claim exposed as lies: what is the current reality of the Skripal case?

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Clearly we currently are in no position to know what really happened to the Skripals, how it happened, where it happened or who was responsible. Just as clearly the government and media are lying. In addition the media are trying to work up a jingoistic anti-Russia hysteria that has no parallel in recent times. Not even the 2003 media frenzy to get pubic opinion behind the illegal war on Iraq reached these heights.

All Pretence is Over in Persecution of Assange

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by Craig Murray, February 14, 2018 The “judge” who dismissed Assange’s case yesterday was “Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom”, wife to Tory peer, former Tory junior Defence Minister and government whip Lord James Arbuthnot. Not to mention Chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. Arbuthnot was naturally Eton educated, the son of Major Sir John Sinclair Wemyss Arbuthnot. Of course Lady Arbuthnot’s children were all sent to Eton too. At the first hearing, I was stunned by reports of completely inappropriate comments by Lady Arbuthnot, including responding to representations about Assange’s health by the comment that medical care is available in Wandsworth prison. As the official charade is that Assange is wanted for nothing but jumping bail, for which a custodial sentence is rare, that callous attempt at gallows humour was redolent of Arbuthnot’s Tory mindset. She also remarked – and repeats it in yesterday’s judgement – that Assange has access to fresh air through the Embassy’s balcony. That is simply untrue. The “balcony” floor is 3 feet by 20 inches and gives no opportunity to …

The CIA’s Absence of Conviction

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by Craig Murray I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also. A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions …

Eagle is downed, but not by sexism

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by Philip Roddis Is there a prize for the most featherheaded Guardian analysis of Labour’s crisis? In the face of fierce competition over the months since Corbyn’s election, I shortlist Anne Perkins for this piece yesterday. Eagle shot down? Well that’d be on account of its being female. What else? Er … that this Eagle hadn’t a single policy idea? That her career as MP began with a swoop on Wallasey in 1992 after Labour’s Frank Field, in neighbouring Birkenhead, had in 1987 urged Wallasey to vote Tory against left Labour candidate Lol Duffy? (Tory Lynda Chalker scraped back in by 279 votes. Before the 1992 general election Duffy lost the candidature to backroom skullduggery, gifting to Eagle the fruits of Team Duffy’s work.) That even in her own terms – leadership quality and media savvy – she was embarrassing? That she’s shown  scant regard for truth and has a voting record that takes in: Iraq war – for … Chilcot – against … Trident and death on Syria – for … tighter controls on fracking – against … 90 day lock up …

Britain’s Scramble For Africa – The New Colonialism

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by Colin Todhunter, via True Republica Africa is facing a new and devastating colonial invasion driven by a determination to plunder the natural resources of the continent, especially its strategic energy and mineral resources. That’s the message from a damning new report from War On Want ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’sscramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources’ that highlights the role of the British government in aiding and abetting the process. Written and researched by Mark Curtis, the report reveals the degree to which British companies now control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal. It documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) – most of them British – have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries and collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources. The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. The report exposes the long-term involvement of the British government (Labour and Conservative) to influence and …

Cameron Overreaches With “70,000” Claim Nobody Believes

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From craigmurray.co.uk Cameron is in serious trouble at Westminster after overreaching himself by the claim that there are 70,000 “moderate rebels” willing to take up the ground war with Isis. Quite literally not one single MP believes him. There are those who believe the lie is justified. But even they know it is a lie. There is a very interesting parallel here with the claims over Iraqi WMD. The 70,000 figure has again been approved by the Joint Intelligence Committee, with a strong push from MI6. But exactly as with Iraqi WMD, there were strong objections from the less “political” Defence Intelligence, and caveats inserted. As the Head of Defence Intelligence, Major-General Michael Laurie, told the Chilcot Inquiry: we could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was clear to me that pressure was being applied to the Joint Intelligence Committee and its drafters. Every fact was managed to make the dossier as strong as possible. The final statements in the dossier reached beyond the …

Why Jeremy Corbyn is terrifying the London elite

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by Craig Murray For a decade, I have argued that democracy in the UK is dysfunctional because an entrenched party system offers no real choice. The major parties offer political programmes which are virtually indistinguishable. As I put it in lectures, if the range of possible political programmes were placed on a linear scale from 1 to 100, the Labour and Conservative parties offer you the choice between 81 and 84. This exclusion of political possibility is reinforced by a corporate media structure, led by the BBC, in which ideas outside the narrow band of establishment consensus are ridiculed and denigrated. Therefore even political ideas which have the consistent support of the majority of the population, such as nationalisation of railways and other natural monopolies including utilities, simply cannot get an airing. Of all the broadcast coverage of the Iraq War, less than 3% gave time to anti-war voices, despite a majority opinion against the war. This phenomenon explains why a large majority of both Conservative and Labour MPs are members of the Friends of …