Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.
"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."
Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is "endemic" to the country's justice system.
Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a "totalitarian" state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.
Suspects in Uzbekistan's gulags "were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes."
"I was absolutely stunned -- it changed my whole world view in an instant -- to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn't do the torture ourselves," Murray said.
IT'S THE PIPELINE, STUPID
Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.
Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.
"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.
Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.
The following videos were posted to YouTube by the Real News Network on Oct. 26 and Nov. 4, 2009.
Video at link
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- Vierotchka
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- RFIDemocracy
- added this
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These psychopaths are still at large.
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- Progresshiv
- 20 days ago
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More than 50% of all the heroin trade out of Afghanistan is the Karzais. Less than 10% is the Taliban. We are being lied to by the government and the media.
Afghanistan is a completely fake war that was planned in the 1990s by the Bush's and Enron. Yeah, Kenny boy. -
These people need to be stopped!! There's enough evidence to arrest people and yet nothing happens!
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I'd say after listening to this man speak that President Obama has zero chance of ending the occupation of either Afghanistan nor Iraq, assuming for the moment that he honestly desires to do so.
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From EurasiaNet, on Sting’s visit with the daughter of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, whose regime killed one prisoner by immersion in boiling water:
Tickets to see British singer Sting perform in Tashkent will cost between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars, organizers say. The former Police front man will play at the Alisher Navoi Theater on October 18 as part of Art Week Style, a fashion and art event masterminded by Gulnara Karimova, President Islam Karimov’s daughter. Even the cheapest ticket will cost more than 45 times the average monthly salary in Uzbekistan, the report notes. Previous entertainers at Karimova’s showcase include Rod Stewart and Julio Iglesias.
From Fashion Week Daily:
Sting made it all way to Uzbekistan for the event, where he joined beautiful Dr. Gulnara Karimova at fashion shows and beyond. The superstar closed the week with a concert at the Tashkent Sate Opera and two giant screens were positioned in the square outside the State Theater to accommodate all of those who couldn’t get tickets to the charity performance. And believe it or not, the entire city knew every word to nearly all the songs in the set.
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- RFIDemocracy
- 20 days ago
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This is disturbing!
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- sidewaysclyde
- 20 days ago
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This explains a lot , but we already had an idea of what this was about . Glad to know the details .
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The abject parade keeps on getting longer...
Italian court sentences 23 CIA agents over rendition flight
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6903439.eceA Court Decision that Reflects What Type of Country the U.S. ishttp://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/11/05/renditions/index.html
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." - Voltaire
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So the CIA received the information but did not do the torturing?
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- samthesixth
- 19 days ago
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Sesame street doing a parody of Fox news is apparently more important than this.
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- Incredulous
- 19 days ago
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This is just one more disturbing chapter in the rendition practices of our country's intelligence agencies. Perhaps more twisted are the legal advisers that go out of their way to justify using such tainted "evidence".
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- frank_runyeon
- 19 days ago
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This is exactly why Americans need to know the answers to who, what, where, when and why concerning those private energy meetings that were held in the White House at the beginning of the Bush Adm. I believe, if we can get the answers to them questions and ask some follow-ups the truth will come out. Dick Cheney must be forced to fess up to crimes against the American public. " We have ways to make you talk old man ". This evil bastard will just reply that "I don't recall" unless we put him in a 15ft X 15ft and use a little "inhanced interrogations" to get to the truth.
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Absolutely vomitous. How incredibly shameful.
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- Marbled_Godwit
- 19 days ago
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May I suggest that short of taking this child chewing monster head on; the alternative might turn out to be a tad less classy ;)
“It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren Ellis
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The first thing Karzai did when he was placed (by the USA) as "President" of Afghanistan was to sign the pipeline deal which the Taliban had refused. The Taliban had been received in Texas (in Sugarland, by Big Oil) with full honours, as if they were royalty, plied with presents and promises of great profit. They were told that "We will either give you a carpet of gold, if you accept, or a carpet of bombs, if you refuse." The Taliban refused, and the US planned to attack and invade Afghanistan by mid-October 2001 - this was in June or July 2001, months before 9/11. Much of the US military logistics and infrastructures were already in the neighborhood of Afghanistan when 9/11 so conveniently occurred.
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- Vierotchka
- 19 days ago
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Wow can we all take a moment of silence and think about what it's like to be raped with a broken bottle. Like seriously imagine it. With your eyes closed. Yeaaah i just raped you with a broken bottle over the internet.
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Wow that is truly evil, taking the torture where its legal. Torture is never okay no matter what the law says or where you are.
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- partyrager
- 19 days ago
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torture will continue in our name, with or without our knowledge, as long as people in power value information over decency.
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- zphoenixdownz
- 19 days ago
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How can we stop this, and how can we round up everyone responsible for this disgusting program, and hold them responsible?
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Americas corrupt fucked up nation disgusts me more and more every day. As much as a virus that we are as human kind to this planet there are some who deserve to die first and soon. I personally don't think any trials should be held if they were stopped / caught. There is enough evidence for them to just be all shot in a line. This is some messy world we live in. Go America.. if you like it or not you're supporting terrorism by being in that damn country.
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1. Interesting how the British government isn't included in the title or really even the article, although Murray stated that it, too, is responsible for obtaining such information.
2. This article doesn't even give a time period for when this happened. The CIA before the Church Committee was very different from the CIA after the Church Committee. You might as well release an article on Current stating, "Group of white Americans sent blacks to be 'hung from trees'" in reference to some event that took place a century ago.
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- calm_incense
- 19 days ago
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well, sometimes people need coaxing to get them talking.
Oh well.-
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- s0uthc0ast
- 19 days ago
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Dick Cheney would love to rape someone with a bottle
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EXCLUSIVE: Convicted CIA Spy Says "We Broke the Law"
Sabrina deSousa Says U.S. "Betrayed" Her and Others Found Guilty in Kidnapping of Muslim Cleric in Italy
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/exclusive-convicted-cia-spy-broke-law/story?id=899... -
"I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession."
No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Innocent CHILDREN??////////-
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- Atalanda_Cameron
- 18 days ago
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