The Vicious Vendettas of Oliver Kamm – Times Leaderwriter, erstwhile journalist and Cyberstalker
I am combining two stories – what is being termed
the Philip Cross Affair and the Vicious Vendettas of one of the most unpleasant
people in British journalism, Oliver Kamm.
They intertwine and it may be that Philip Cross is a composite person,
whose persona includes that of Kamm.
If we are to believe that “Philip Cross” is a genuine
person then he is an amazing person. He has not had one single day off from editing
Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited every single day from 29 August
2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive
days of editing.
Below is a fascinating article by Craig Murray, who
was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan before he was sacked by Jack
Straw. What was Murray’s offence? Criticising the regime in Uzbekistan headed
by Islam Karimov for its quaint use of torture, in particular the boiling alive
of victims. This criticism was deemed a
sackable offence. It is a measure of the
depravity to which New Labour sank, that under Blair and Straw we had extraordinary
rendition for torture in Libya and other places and the sacking of Craig Murray
for speaking out.
Omer Benjacob in Israel’s Ha'aretz immediately jumps
to the defence of Cross, labeling his critics as Kremlin stooges –
Why Are Russia, WikiLeaks and the British Far Left Out to Get This 'pro-Israel' Wikipedia Editor?
Beneath this article is another, equally fascinating
article on the vendettas and stalking of Oliver Kamm. Kamm’s lack of any discernible talent is only
matched by his ego. I first encountered
him 30+ years ago when I gave a talk on Palestine to Oxford University Labour
Club. A fairly right-wing bunch it must
be admitted. Kamm’s contribution, which
he later denied, was to ask me how Zionism could be racist when Jews weren’t a
race. My response was to suggest that if that were true then the Nazis too
weren’t racists since the Jews weren’t a race.
Kamm’s own recollections of my addressing the Club are in an article The
fight’s gone out of me in the Jewish Chronicle announcing his overdue resignation
from the Labour Party.
A good article describing the dishonesty of Kamm and
his method of argumentation is by the Socialist Unity editorial team Oliver
Kamm: Smearing Himself…In Person which talks about Kamm’s ‘accidental misrepresentations, inadvertent
omissions of fact and what on first sight looks like outright manipulation?’ It is one way of putting it.
Kramm’s views on our interactions can be gauged from his
Harry’s Place article Oliver Kamm, Tony
Greenstein, the IRA and musicians
Kamm was an enthusiastic support of Blair and the war
in Iraq, supported extraordinary rendition, loves Israel, describes the
struggle of oppressed people as ‘terrorism’, was a member of the far-Right cold
war and Islamaphobic Henry Jackson Society.
A leader writer on The Times he still says he is ‘left wing’! He is also a banker and when once I called
him a ‘wanker banker’ he accused me of homophobia! I’m still working it out.
The article by Neil Clark is disturbing because it
suggests that he isn’t just a reactionary and narcissistic freak but a
genuinely disturbed person who engaged in persistent stalking over a number of
years because a book of his had, in his
opinion, not been given a fair review.
The Philip Cross Affair
Craig Murray
 |
| Philip Cross's tweets |
UPDATE “Philip Cross” has not had one
single day off from editing Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited
every single day from 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas
Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive days of editing.
133,612 edits to Wikpedia have
been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per
day, seven days a week. And I do not use that figuratively: Wikipedia edits are
timed, and if you plot them, the timecard for “Philip Cross’s” Wikipedia
activity is astonishing is astonishing if it is one individual:
The operation runs like clockwork,
seven days a week, every waking hour, without significant variation. If Philip
Cross genuinely is an individual, there is no denying he is morbidly obsessed.
I am no psychiatrist, but to my entirely inexpert eyes this looks like the
behaviour of a deranged psychotic with no regular social activities outside the
home, no job (or an incredibly tolerant boss), living his life through a
screen. I run what is arguably the most widely read single person political
blog in the UK, and I do not spend nearly as much time on the internet as
“Philip Cross”. My “timecard” would show where I watch football on Saturdays,
go drinking on Fridays, go to the supermarket and for a walk or out with the
family on Sundays, and generally relax much more and read books in the
evenings. Cross does not have the patterns of activity of a normal and properly
rounded human being.
There are three options here.
“Philip Cross” is either a very strange person indeed, or is a false persona
disguising a paid operation to control wikipedia content, or is a real front
person for such an operation in his name.
Why does this – to take the
official explanation – sad obsessive no friends nutter, matter?
Because the purpose of the “Philip
Cross” operation is systematically to attack and undermine the reputations of
those who are prominent in challenging the dominant corporate and state media
narrative. particularly in foreign affairs. “Philip Cross” also systematically
seeks to burnish the reputations of mainstream media journalists and other
figures who are particularly prominent in pushing neo-con propaganda and in
promoting the interests of Israel.
This matters because, an ordinary
reader who comes across an article questioning (say) the official narrative on
the Skripals, is very likely to turn to Wikipedia to get information on the
author of the article. Simply put, the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation
is to make certain that if that reader looks up an anti-war person such as John
Pilger, they will conclude they are thoroughly unreliable and untrustworthy,
whereas if they look up a right wing MSM journalist, they will conclude they
are a paragon of virtue and entirely to be trusted.
The “Philip Cross” treatment is
meted out not just to left wingers, but to all sceptical of neo-conservatism
and who oppose “wars of intervention”. A list of Cross’s victims includes Alex
Salmond, Peter Oborne, John Pilger, Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Hayward,
Diane Abbott, Neil Clark, Lindsey German, Vanessa Beeley, and George Galloway.
As you would expect “Philip Cross” is particularly active in making amendments
to the Wikipedia articles of alternative media, and of MSM critique sites.
“Philip Cross” has made 36 edits to the Wikipedia entry of The Canary
and, staggeringly, over 800 edits on Media Lens. George Galloway remains the
“Philip Cross” operation’s favourite target with a quite incredible 1,800
edits.
See also War on
the left: Targets of relentless Wikipedia editor Philip Cross report intriguing
patterns
I'm launching a crowd-funded legal action for libel and harassment
against Oliver Kamm, The Times newspaper and Rupert Murdoch. Here's why:
Oliver Kamm- cyberstalker.
A SIGN OF THE TIMES- THE VICIOUS
VENDETTAS OF OLIVER KAMM, CYBERSTALKER
Neil Clark
The author of a-pro Iraq war book sees it critically reviewed in a
national newspaper. He then spends over ten years stalking, attacking, hounding
and defaming the anti-war author of the review. He even tweets the Minutes of
the reviewer’s local parish council meetings in an attempt to discredit his
‘enemy’. He attacks articles written by the wife of the reviewer on the rare
occasions she ventures into print. He boasts about his efforts in ‘destroying’
the reviewer’s career in a blog post.
He tweets obsessively about the 'obscure' reviewer and when the
reviewers’ work is cited or praised by someone with a high profile on Twitter,
he intervenes to warn them off with claims that the reviewer is a ‘fake’,
a ’fraud’, a ‘crank’ and a ‘genocide denier‘.
Then, after he is finally questioned under caution of arrest by the
police in relation to stalking/harassment activities, the author accuses the
person he has been relentlessly persecuting of harassing him- and falsely
claims that his victim has been ordered by the police not to contact him, his
family and his employers!
Sounds like pretty disturbing behaviour, don’t you think? I certainly
would agree, but as I’ve found out over the past decade, waging vicious
vendettas - and telling lies in an attempt to destroy the reputation of his
‘enemies’ is par for the course for Mr Oliver Kamm, ‘former banker, Leader
Writer and Columnist, The Times’ and author of ‘Anti-Totalitarianism-The
Left Wing Case for a NeoConservative Foreign Policy’.
Kamm’s behaviour is a scandal, but even more shocking has been how
powerful individuals in the British neocon Establishment have not only
protected the Internet stalker, but promoted him.
My review of Kamm’s book was published by the Daily Telegraph on New
Years Eve 2005. It was critical, but as reviews go, not particularly harsh- and
certainly nowhere near as harsh as the bile-dripping book reviews that Kamm
himself writes for The Times. What I did not know, when I filed copy, was that
the book’s author was an incredibly malicious and vindictive individual with a
history of cyber-stalking and online persecution of people whose views he
disagreed with.
The day after the review appeared, Kamm attacked me
on his blog- and accused me of not reading his book. The first of over
twenty-five posts devoted to attacking/denigrating me (or my wife) over the
next two years, was no mindless rant, but was clearly designed to discredit me
with newspapers who commissioned my work.
In subsequent blog posts that month Kamm made further allegations
against me which I responded to on my own blog. I had said that the source for
one of my claims in the review was The Institute of Strategic Studies
Organisation. I had meant The International Strategic Studies Association. Kamm
attempted to build this up into a heinous offence, writing that ‘a reasonable
person might readily take this as a reference to the well known International
Institute of Strategic Studies’. I think ‘a reasonable person’ would think Kamm
was making a mountain out of a molehill in a deliberate attempt to discredit
the reviewer of his book.
Kamm’s initial attempts to discredit me didn’t work, but then there was
a more sinister development. A poison-pen style email, from a ‘George
Courtenay’ was sent to Tom Switzer, the opinion editor of The Australian
newspaper, who regularly commissioned me. The email read:
‘I see you have published an opinion article by Neil Clark today.
That's all good to print a range of views but you may be interested that Oliver
Kamm of the London Times has been investigating Mr. Clark's use of sources.
Mr.Clark doesn't say the same thing in his new article but as he's lied to
other editors I'm bringing it to your attention'.
G. Courtenay
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