“Dirty Diplomacy,” Like There’s Any Other Kind

I see that a U.S. edition of Craig Murray’s book is finally available. Of course, this being the U.S., the title has mutated, from the rather dignified-sounding, Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror to the more Murdoch-friendly Dirty Diplomacy: The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror.

Good grief. The man is no Christopher Hitchens, but with a title like that he could be the new Fiona Apple.

Regardless, the fight he has had thrust upon him by Alisher “don’t libel me, bro” Usmanov seems reason enough to give it a read, and reason enough to temporarily shelve whatever concerns we may have for its veracity. It even includes some passages that were edited out of the UK edition because, in Craig’s formulation, of “the protections for freedom of speech in the US.” How telling.