Craig Murray responds to my previous post: Charles, You brush very lightly over the fact that you praised in the warmest terms at the time the telegrams you now rubbish – as did numerous other Ambassadors including Jeremy Greenstock who commended the to his New York morning meeting. I think […]
Pressing on through Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand, we reach Chapter 4 – Diplomacy. Craig has to present his credentials to President Karimov to assume the full rights and responsibilities of HM Ambassador. These credentials traditionally are formal letters in flamboyantly old-fashioned courteous language language from HM The Queen to […]
Craig Murray has commented on my earlier post about EU policy towards Uzbekistan: You make the somewhat childish debating error of asserting that because I have said that US republicans do something, I am claiming that only US republicans do that thing. I have in fact published numerous pieces, both on my […]
Back to Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand – off with his family to Tashkent (Chapter 3). Uzbekistan was one of the fifteen Soviet republics to become independent in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. Craig offers a few paragraphs on the history of ‘Uzbek independence’, without saying anything about what […]
Chapter two of Craig Murray’s book describes his pre-posting briefing rounds. He heads for Eastern Department, effectively his ‘line management’ people. He finds it hard work: The atmosphere in the department seemed to be unpleasant – heavy, pompous and serious. A pall of misery appeared to have settled. I have […]
Moving on to the substance of Craig Murray’s book. Chapter One opens with a description of Craig leaving the Embassy in Samarkand (seemingly early in his posting) to attend a dissident trial. …out I went, still feeling pretty uncomfortable at people calling me ‘Sir’… Part of Craig’s self-presentation lies in […]
Craig cheerfully writes: Much enjoyed your commentary on the Kristina episode. But at some stage you have to face the real question. Nobody now doubts the CIA’s use of torture, by proxy as in Uzbekistan or even direct. And as you know very well, the UK government gets the CIA […]
For those of you not paying attention, Craig Murray was HM Ambassador in Uzbekistan before a terrific row with the FCO broke out and his FCO career ended in acrimony. He did not go quietly. Since then we have had: CM: Parliamentary candidate CM: Dundee University Rector CM: Anti-War speaker […]
OK, let’s start reviewing Craig Murray’s book Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Mainstream Publishing, 2007 edition) Where better than the covers? Harold Pinter "salutes a man of integrity" John Sweeney: "An amazing narrative, beautifully written…" John Pilger: "A man of the […]
A reader not unreasonably draws attention to a link in my previous post to a fascinating original FCO document reporting a conversation with Craig Murray. He wonders whether diplomats who ‘temper’ their reporting themselves create the impression that others who report more passionately are the only FCO people with a conscience. In […]
