Saturday 30th of March 2024

sticking to the fiction...

sticking

and here the BBC news...

The international chemical weapons watchdog has confirmed the UK's analysis of the type of nerve agent used in the Russian ex-spy poisoning.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons did not name the nerve agent as Novichok, but said it agreed with the UK's findings on its identity.

Russia, which denies it was behind the attack in Salisbury, called the allegations an "anti-Russian campaign".

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: "There can be no doubt what was used." 

He added: "There remains no alternative explanation about who was responsible - only Russia has the means, motive and record." 

But Maria Zakharova, from the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the allegations in relation to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal were a "clear anti-Russian campaign, the like of which we have not seen in the world for a long time in terms of its scale and lack of principles".

She accused the British authorities of ignoring the "norms of international law, the principles and laws of diplomacy, the elementary rules of human ethics". 

And she claimed no one except for British authorities had seen the Skripals for more than a month.

 

Read more:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43741140

 

Just a few questions:

How do we know that this "poison was used"? If the so-declared "pure" POWERFUL poison had been used, the Skripal would have been dead before reaching the restaurant.

Can the "samples" be FAKE samples (I mean real sample of poisons BUT NOT COMING FROM THE SKRIPAL CASE? This happens in Sports and MI6 has the will, the purpose and the ability to fudge (remember the WMDs of Saddam?)... See toon at top.

unscrupulous western disinformation campaign...

Western media are waging an “unscrupulous disinformation campaign” by claiming Moscow and Damascus are “blocking” OPCW inspectors from accessing the site of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“It was Russia that supported the request of the Syrian government to the Director General of the Technical Secretariat of the [Organization for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons] to send … experts to Douma,” the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said, dismissing the media allegations.

“We will not indulge the authors of these fake reports,” Zakharova added, explaining that the Russian side “does its part of the work in a very responsible, professional and reliable manner.” She stressed that it is Russia and Syria that bear the responsibility for the security of the OPCW experts.

Those who still want to accuse the Syrian and Russian authorities of neglecting their duties, by “blocking” the experts from accessing the site of the alleged chemical attack, apparently are willing to risk the OPCW investigators’ lives to promote their “dirty fake news,”Zakharova said.

It was after the strikes launched by the US, the UK and France against Syria, when the most radical militant groups renewed active hostilities against the Syrian Army in the Douma region.

The coalition attack also forced the Syrian authorities and the Russian military to change route plans and once again negotiate with some local groups in Douma to facilitate the safe access of the OPCW investigators to the site of the alleged chemical attack.

Earlier, Moscow said that the strikes were aimed at thwarting the UN chemical watchdog’s investigation. Washington and its allies launched a massive missile strike against Syria on the same day that the team of OPCW experts was expected to arrive in Syria.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/424426-opcw-douma-media-disinformation/

western news: polishing the empire with harpic...

The interview, however, went largely unnoticed by mainstream newsmakers. In the rare cases the interview with Hassan got a mention, it was referred to as line pushed by "Russian state media."

A precursor to the Sun's news headline "Russian TV claims Syria chemical attack boy, 11, filmed being doused with water was tricked into taking part in return for biscuits" was the phrase: "Fake Views."

A Times' headline attributes the fact that Hassan was paid off with food — to Russian TV, not the boy's father, who made the statement.

In comparison, the Times didn't attribute mentions of the alleged Douma attack to information presented by the White Helmets, a foreign-sponsored organization operating in Syria. Moreover, if some of the Times' headlines featured the phrase "gas attack" in quotations, the effort wears out, as seen in other titles.

Throughout the development of the Douma story, most news channels have made the effort of calling the reported event "an alleged attack" — and some still oblige. But as time passed, headlines omitting the crucial qualifier started popping up online and in television discussions.

"Syrian medics 'subjected to extreme intimidation' after Douma attack" and "Syria attack: Chemical weapons inspectors retrieve samples from Douma" are just a couple of examples — with the latter actually referring to the fact that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) experts haven't yet established the use of chemical weapons.

 

The US broadcaster Fox News posted the alleged attack video online under the headline "Disturbing video: Children being treated after chemical attack in Syria" on April 9, which indicated certainty that the attack did happen and that chemical weapons had been used. However, a search for mentions of or statements by Hassan and his father on the Fox News website gives zero results.

CNN's coverage follows a similar scenario. Even though some of CNN's headlines on Douma stipulate that it was a "suspected" attack, others simply define it as a "chemical attack in Syria." There is no information on Hassan and his recollection of events that took place on April 9.

Searches on the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post return no articles telling the story of Hassan and his father.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201804241063827265-douma-evidence-western-...

 

Dear Russian "mates". By now you would be aware that the Western media has lost its toupee a long time ago. It regained a bit of mojo during the Vietnam War when many real journalists were telling real news. Look at the result! The US lost that war and it still hurts.... During the War against Saddam, the US bombed any independent news outlet and embedded all other journalists with the US army. Before this the case for war was fabricated in the deep dungeons of the CIA, where this fake information to suit the war was fed to the CIA upper echelons, MI6 and ASIO. The "US government had demanded proofs" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, no matter if he had any or not. The point was that in order to attack Saddam's troops, the US, the UK and little John in Australia, had to know there was no WMDs in Saddam's Iraq, otherwise they would have been sustaining a lot of publicly unacceptable losses before "Mission accomplished". Some of the most "respectable" media eventually apologised for not having been a bit more circumspect. That the "intelligence was flawed" is still the narrative to excuse the bad bad bad bad journalism.

These days, they don't even bother with second guessing the Potomac narrative: "You, the Russians are the bad guys, we, the US Avengers (cartoon characters) are the good guys. We write the script, you shut up. The Western media is surviving only on the crumbs thrown out by their governments, whether it's the US, the UK, France, Australia etc... Not only this, should the media stops promoting the glorious crap with a hand on its heart, governments would fall for exposure to the truth. The truth shall be hidden forever unless, you guys, my "mates", keep balancing the Western news-crap. Unfortunately, you have been a bit too successful since modernising your own media outlet. They, the turds driving the Western governments, are trying to ban you, to place more importance on your supposed "election of The Donald" than their own fractured media has, in the case of a certain Uncle Rupe (you know who you are) who did the trick, contrarily to the "liberal" media that supported the lying warrior woman. 

The "liberal" media hates your Ruskie guts because all you have to do is tell the truth and they have to work harder and harder at creating porkies that seem to add up, but don't. So these days, the Western media does not bother about balance or "proofs". They just print what the government press release tells them, except they still don't like The Donald... This is the only invented affair that keeps the western media really busy... The media is a bind, especially since they have lost so many real journalists who could expose, like during the Vietnam War, the atrocities made on behalf of the public. Nowadays, the problem is not about how many innocent people we kill, but how many bombs we sell, to keep our (fake) economy going...

 

Oh, and by the way, I trust you're telling the truth, aren't you? I double-check and triple-check with my other sources, some of them more secret than the CIA sieve, and so far your news add up reasonably well compared to the Western sewer outlets. And most of your journalists are from the West, but since you cannot be published in the Western media because of your counter-narrative, you have no choice but publish the truth with the "bad guys", my "mates", the Russians.

it's РОССИЯ, please ...

CNN made a mistake in the spelling of the word “Russia” during its broadcast.

A spelling gaffe appeared in the word displayed on the multimedia screen behind the host. The name of the country was written in Cyrillic, but it was misspelled.

Instead of РОССИЯ, which is the correct way to write Russia in Cyrillic, the spelling was РUССИЯ, which does not make any sense, as there is no letter "U" in Cyrillic.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/viral/201806061065167241-cnn-mistake-russian-cyr...

 

MEANWHILE, the kids at the US State Department massage history without blinking an eyelid:

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert shocked the Twitterverse, cable news commentators and historians alike when she made comments seeming to suggest a bizarre revision of the Second World War.

The US is already on thin ice with the government of Germany after the US' ambassador to the country, Richard Grenell, told Breitbart News in an article published June 3, "I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders." 

"I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left," said the ambassador, who has occupied the position since April 26.

Those were the remarks to which Nauert was responding when she made the mind-boggling claim about the US invasion of Normandy, France, in an attempt to repel Nazi occupiers on June 6, 1944.

Nauert highlighted Grenell's freedom of speech, but the bombshell wasn't dropped until she tried to emphasize America's "strong" relationship with the German government.

"When you talk about Germany — we have a very strong relationship with the government of Germany," the senior State Department spokesperson said at a June 5 briefing. "Looking back in the history books, today is the 71st anniversary of the speech that announced the Marshall Plan. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion. We obviously have a very long history with the government of Germany, and we have a strong relationship with the government."

The battle of Normandy, codenamed Operation Neptune, was the largest seaborne invasion in history and kickstarted the liberation of northwestern Europe with a decisive victory for the Allies against Nazi occupiers.

For clarification: that means the US and Germany were at war, and most definitely not involved in what anyone would call a "strong" relationship. The US would go on to form strong ties with Germany — after the Nazi government was defeated and much of its leadership killed.

The Normandy landings are viewed as the foundations of the defeat of the Nazis on the Western Front. The Soviet Union, Allied partners on the Eastern Front, launched Operation Bagration at the same time, which destroyed the Nazis' central army group, forcing them into a retreat that ended in the Soviet liberation of Berlin in April 1945.

The Marshall Plan referenced by Nauert was an effort by the United States to rebuild Western Europe's economy after the war, with 11 percent of the funding going to West Germany, which was formed out of Germany's territory liberated by the US, France, and UK. The Soviet Union formed a socialist East Germany out of the eastern part of German territory liberated by the Red Army during the war. The Marshall Plan was also meant to head off the spread of communism in Europe.

Nauert, some have pointed out, is an alumnus of Fox News. Coincidentally, Grenell was a foreign policy contributor at the network during the US 2016 elections.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201806061065168920-State-Dept-Strong-Relation...

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adding more slop to the sauce...

Britain and its allies continue to blame Moscow for being behind the March 2018 attack on former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter with what UK experts claim was the A234 nerve agent, although the accusations have not been substantiated. Russian authorities vehemently reject the allegations as groundless.

The Sun has cited sources in Scotland Yard as saying that "a two-man hit team with close ties to Russia" orchestrated the alleged poisoning of ex-Russian security agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this year.

The sources said that police are currently convinced that "they made a huge breakthrough" by pointing the finger at two key "persons of interest" who allegedly fled the UK within 24 hours of the attack on the Skripals.

READ MORE: Skripal's Niece Alleges Ex-Spy Was Never Denied Possibility of Visiting Russia 

The suspected hitmen are "now thought to be back in Russia and under the protection of President Vladimir Putin," according to the sources.

"The ultimate aim has always been to bring them to justice. Obviously if they're no longer in the UK, it makes it much more challenging," one of the sources said, adding that investigators are poised to open a criminal case against the suspected hitmen.

On March 4, 2018, the Skripals were found unresponsive on a bench at a shopping mall in the British town of Salisbury after they were exposed to what UK experts claimed was the A234 nerve agent.

READ MORE: No Passenger of Yulia Skripal's Flight Had Traces of Intoxication — Moscow

UK Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to a conclusion, saying that it was "highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal," something that was vehemently rejected by Moscow, which called the accusations "absurd".

Following the alleged attack, UK Prime Minister Theresa May stated that she would be expelling 23 Russian diplomats, and accused Russia of the incident. Several countries have since followed suit and expelled Russian diplomats as a sign of "solidarity", prodding Moscow to respond in kind.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201807031065990669-skripal-case-uk-police...

 

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the sauce was crap...

The Skripal case was a furphy from the beginning. As Rob Slane says:

 

Over the last five pieces (Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5) I have, slowly but surely, advanced a theory of what happened in the Skripal case. I must confess to having done so with a fair amount of unease. I don’t want to believe that my Government has been stating a case that is false. I don’t want to believe that the public have been lied to. I don’t want to have to think that there has been a lot of effort made to present an explanation that hides the truth.

And yet, given the fact that the Government story contains self-evident fallacies, and cannot be made to add up, I don’t think that there’s much alternative than to be hugely sceptical about their claims. I stated the two main fallacies in Part 1, which are the claims that three people were poisoned by the nerve agent A-234, which is 5-8 times more toxic than VX, and that because A-234 was developed in the Soviet Union, the Russian State is responsible for what happened. The first claim cannot be true, because the three people are alive and well and have suffered no irreparable damage. The second claim is palpably untrue, because A-234 has been synthesised in a number of countries.

Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg of the absurdities and anomalies.

 

Read more:

http://www.theblogmire.com/joining-some-dots-on-the-skripal-case-part-6-...

 

See Skripal was still an active spy working for MI6. After having duded his own country, Russia, as a double agent, Skripal was working full time for the Poms — who "trusted" him.

 

As Rob Slane stated in his section 4:

Mr Cohen has of course vehemently denied this claim, saying that he has never been to Prague. Whether he has or hasn’t is not for me to say, but it is in any case irrelevant to the point I am making. That point is this: Sergei Skripal had what looks like extensive connections with Czech Intelligence, and claims – whether true or false –, which presumably came from Czech sources, are found in the Trump Dossier.

Putting these three things together – the Steele/Miller/Skripal connection; the Czech claims in the Dossier; and the emphatic claim made by Paul Gregory that the Dossier itself was compiled by a Russian “trained in the KGB tradition” – then you can begin to see where this might be pointing.

Now, you’d think from the way the BBC and others have reported on Mr Skripal that he was just some old chap enjoying his retirement in the quiet city of Salisbury, where he was in the habit of frequenting local restaurants and pottering about in his garden. Yet his continued work for British Intelligence, which saw him travelling to the Czech Republic and Estonia in 2016 to meet with intelligence officers, paints a somewhat different picture

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/07/03/joining-some-dots-on-the-skripal-cas...

 

Now with some news about more dark figures:

The Sun has cited sources in Scotland Yard as saying that "a two-man hit team with close ties to Russia" orchestrated the alleged poisoning of ex-Russian security agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this year.

The plot can only get murkier and murkier, but less and less credible, despite not being credible from the start. The analysis by Rob Slane is solid. Something happened or did not happened but whatever the case, it was not the Russians but in the long run MI6 running a fake case to blame the Russians. It worked to a point and adding carrots like "a two-man hit team with close ties to Russia"  is part of the ongoing shit. Rubbish sensational journalists are unable to know the truth so when they are thrown some garbage by some unnamed sources, they will cling to it to stop them drowning in the soup. 

The UK government will eventually bear the consequences of having lied. 

Interestingly Rob Slane may have been mentioned on this site before, for his book: "The God Reality: A Critique of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion". Rod is a believer. He thinks that:

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7)

 

Gus is a fierce atheist and would have panned Rob's book. See:

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31094

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31842

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31847

 

impossible, said the doorknob...

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" – Alice in Wonderland. The problem for the British narrative in the Skripal case is that one would have to believe way more than six things. 

Let me start with the latest: the taxpayer-funded purchase for more than one million pounds of the homes in Salisbury of the British spy Sergei Skripal and the police officer Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. This purchase is explained as necessary on security grounds and – some suspect – may be followed by the destruction of both houses and all the evidence therein.

This is difficult to explain in the absence of a state purchase of the Zizi's Pizza Restaurant where Skripal and his daughter Yulia ate what could have very well ended up being their last meal, and where they spent at least as much time as DS Bailey could have been in touch with the pair. Ditto the pub the Skripals visited before repairing for lunch. And anywhere else they went after leaving their door handle on which was smeared in gel form the strangely innocuous Novichok(ish) which killed none of the people who ingested it.

This presupposes that DS Bailey was never in the Skripal house but was – oddly, given his rank – merely a first responder on the park bench where the Skripals slumped at exactly the same time and in the same form, despite their differences in age, height, and physical form – itself difficult to understand if both were affected by the Novichok(ish) several hours before from the doorknob.

Neither Skripal showed any signs of having been affected in the pub, or wherever else they visited en route to Zizi's, or in the restaurant, or even in the only short piece of CCTV footage seen in the public domain after they had left the restaurant but before they reached the park bench on which they slumped five hours after leaving their doorknob.

IF all of the foregoing is a truthful account of what happened, then one thing is now the settled will of the majority of thinking people in the United Kingdom – even in Salisbury – whatever else was on the doorknob it was not a "deadly military grade nerve agent... of a type developed by Russia."

Because, if it had been, they would have both been dead in the short walk from the doorknob to the car or certainly before they had driven to the end of their street. They would have been found dead either on the garden path or slumped behind the wheel of their car, not five hours later on a park bench – very unwell but now thankfully apparently well again – and in Yulia's case looking the very picture of health.

Sergei, of course, we have not seen, but given his discharge from hospital just a few days after Yulia's, it is logical to infer that he too has made the same Lazarus-like resurrection from what we had been told was his imminent deathbed just the day before Yulia's now famous telephone call with her cousin in Moscow.
But IS what we have been told about the chain of events the truth? I have met no one, literally no one, who believes so.

And NO evidence, none whatsoever, has been produced by the government or any state authorities which gives the slightest justification to Theresa May's rush to judgment and blame issued peremptorily against the Russian Federation and – in the mouth of both the foreign secretary and the defense secretary – against President Putin himself.
It is established by the very fact the Skripals survived that what struck them was not Novichok.

Even if it had been, it is untrue that the family of nerve agents called Novichok was "developed by Russia." It was developed by the USSR, and not in Russia but in other republics, including the now-Western ally Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Its stockpiles were certified, destroyed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray attended a reception for the UN chemical weapons watchdog in Uzbekistan as they celebrated the successful conclusion of this work.

One of the leading Russian scientists in the Soviet-era Novichok team moved to the United States where he published a book containing the exact chemical formula needed to make Novichok. The book was available on Amazon. One eminent US scientist I interviewed on my radio show by phone from the United States told me that ANY of his undergraduate students could make Novichok and so could any university chemistry student anywhere in the world.

But it was not Novichok or any "military-grade nerve agent" which struck the Skripals – if it had been, they would be dead. I repeat that for emphasis.

But the other parts of Mrs. May's narrative haven't fared any better.

...

 

I have worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh before and closely, almost 30 years ago. That work is worth retelling on another occasion. Suffice to say that Hersh is no journalistic trifle. He is of impeccable, near Olympian, standards.


Hersh claimed last week that the Skripals were attacked by Russians, just not the Russians identified by Mrs. May.  But by Russian criminals, organized criminals, Russian Mafia criminals. The reason? Well, Hersh believes because the British security services had reactivated the bored (or broke) Sergei Skripal to begin working again, this time in cracking down on the nest of oligarchs and their often criminal money and enterprises operating in London.


I don't know this to be true, but it has the ring of truth. A far clearer ring of truth than anything I've heard from the British government.


Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/431630-uk-skripal-case-failure/

 

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from the cheesemaker-luddite...

 


The Skripal psyop – where next?


 

David Macilwain


At the end of my article on “the Framing of Russia”, published initially by American Herald Tribune on October 4th and since on Off Guardian, I wrote:

 .. In the plausibility stakes in fact, this whole story – which as Elena (Evdokimova) observes is only hypothetical – rates at least as “highly likely”, if not quite “beyond reasonable doubt”, and is a substantial base on which to mount further speculation and prediction on the conspirators’ next moves. That the UK government, its agencies and assistants are the conspirators, with everything that this implies, can however no longer be in doubt.”

On that same day their “next move” materialised, in the shape of a coordinated press release by Dutch and British governments. This was actually more of a coordinated release of misinformation, detailing actions six whole months earlier, so the question must be what specific purpose was being sought and achieved by this long delayed action?

Was this not just the next move in creating a profile of Russia’s GRU as some sort of bogyman and mortal “threat to our way of life”, that began on September 5th with the launching of Bellingcat’s chosen patsies “Chepiga and Mishkin” onto the Western media stage? We should ask the National Cyber Security Centre, which appears to be the source of the UK Government’s latest statements.

The NCSC, a branch of GCHQ set up in October 2016, alleges that the GRU tried to gain access to OPCW computer networks, and to those at Porton Down in April 2018, assessing with “high confidence” that the GRU was “almost certainly” responsible for those alleged cyber-attacks.

We can’t however have even moderate confidence in this authoritative sounding information from the UK’s chief spy agency, as the NCSC expresses exactly the same “high confidence” that:

In 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was hacked and documents were subsequently published online”, and that “the GRU was almost certainly responsible.”

Really? Didn’t Russia’s military intelligence unit have enough on its plate in 2016, dealing with US support for Al Nusra in Aleppo and ISIS in Palmyra and Deir al Zour?

The wider agenda of the UK and Dutch governments in making this fabricated case against “Russian meddling” and “reckless behaviour” – even labelling Russia a “pariah state” – is worrying, simply because it is fabricated. To understand why, we need only examine the context of that action taken against Russian diplomats/GRU agents at the time it happened, in mid-April. In fact they were expelled the day before the US, UK and France launched a missile attack on Damascus, having refused to wait for the OPCW to reach Douma to establish whether a Chemical Weapon attack had really taken place.

During the week between the Douma stunt and the missile attack, Russia had been working furiously to prevent such an attack, in the full knowledge that Opposition claims of a chemical strike on Douma were fabricated by the White Helmets and their Special Forces aides. No-one on the ground in Douma knew anything about such a strike, and Russian experts had already done tests and found no chemical evidence of one. Russia and Syria had demanded that the OPCW visit Douma as soon as possible; evidently the US/UK/French coalition intended to strike at Damascus regardless and didn’t want the truth to get in the way of their great story, so found ways to delay the OPCW’s mission both in Holland and Syria.

Whether Russian diplomats were also at the Hague making representations to the OPCW over Douma during that week is unknown, but they were surely there in connection with the OPCW’s investigations of the alleged nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Following on the OPCW’s visit to Salisbury to “collect” samples around March 21st and their analysis at undisclosed certified laboratories, their conclusions on the nature of the poison were issued on April 12th, the day before the expulsion of Russian diplomats.

On the 14th of April, Sergei Lavrov took the extraordinary step of releasing the confidential results of the OPCW analysis performed by the Swiss Spiez lab, publicly revealing what had been omitted from statements by the OPCW head and the UK government, which merely confirmed the presence of “Novichok” in blood and environmental samples.

The OPCW report available here stated only that:

  1. The TAV team notes that the toxic chemical was of high purity. The latter is concluded from the almost complete absence of impurities.
  2. The name and structure of the identified toxic chemical are contained in the full classified report of the Secretariat, available to States Parties.

Like the “release” of misinformation on October 4th, on the alleged GRU hacking of the OPCW six months earlier, it appears that even this public statement from the supposedly neutral OPCW was timed to suit the political and strategic agenda of the UK and Dutch governments. The previous day the new head of GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, speaking on the last day of a three-day NCSC conference in Manchester, had already delivered the verdict of Russia’s guilt and recommended the punishment.

In his first public appearance as an intelligence chief, Fleming’s particularly rabid and intemperate contribution seemed almost designed to inflame the dangerous confrontation with Russia over Syria. At least it appears to confirm the close connection between the UK’s claims of chemical weapons use in Salisbury and Syria, and the intent to smear Russia with the same toxic poison as Syria in the mind of the Western public.

What Lavrov had revealed, on the undisclosed presence of the incapacitating agent BZ in the Skripals’ blood samples, was of course a breakthrough. It is more than ironic that the revelation of this astonishing campaign of lies told through Western media was completely submerged by news of the illegal missile attack on Syria that happened on the same day.

Thanks to this propaganda campaign from the creators of “Operation Nina”, the truth Russia also revealed about events in Douma and its later confirmation by the OPCW barely caused a ripple. When Russia presented a group of real Syrian witnesses from Douma at the OPCW headquarters, UK, French and Dutch governments condemned their action as an “obscene masquerade” and “gruesome spectacle”. It’s hard to think of a better description for that criminal war provocation those governments and their agents had just contrived in Syria.

So where does this all leave us now, as the situation in Syria begins to look more promising? Not only have the Jordanian and Golan border crossings been opened this week, but there is positive progress on the Demilitarised Zone, to be policed by Russian and Turkish forces. With the bizarre events in Istanbul over the apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi causing severe tensions between Turkey, the Saudis and the US, the “rebel” forces all three countries have been supporting in Idlib province may be thinking it best to keep a low profile and comply with the ceasefire plan.

In fact it’s hard not to see some strange connection here, as the DMZ agreement effectively marks the end of the joint Saudi-Turkish “surge” of March 2015, when thousands of fighters invaded Idlib under the joint flag of Jaish al Fatah, or Army of Conquest. The Saudi-supported faction that dominated this army – Jabhat al Nusra – now rebadged as Tahrir al Sham or HTS, remains the wild card, of foreign jihadists on life-support from Syria’s most intransigent enemies.

But the question remains – what is the next move from those countries who have         supported the war on Syria for seven years and now finally failed to achieve their goal? Does this new focus on “cyber-security” – otherwise known as “information warfare” – signify a departure from the “War on Terror”.

Perhaps this glowing portrayal of one of the leaders of the West’s new cyber-army is showing us the way. In an almost unreadable puff piece on “open-source” journalism, titled “Citizen journalists – the fighters on the frontline against Russia’s attacks” Carole Cadwalladr posits that:

We can no longer count on our governments to protect us from a tide of disinformation. Our security rests in the hands of open source intelligence, as pioneered by Bellingcat.”

As Cadwalladr says – disinformation is “the defining story of our age, and the story of 2018”.

We could hardly dispute that!

 

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David Macilwain 

Sixties drop out, Scientist-farmer, cheesemaker-Luddite, late life activist for the Resistance, Putin/Assad/Nasrallah lover. Atheist. Traveller-student through MENA-Russia-Europe. Abandoned UK frying pan for Australian fire. Marginalised dissident. Author for Russia Insider/AHT and OffG.

bellingcat’s crap conclusion...

 

By George Eliason — an American journalist who lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT, the BBC, and Press-TV. His articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews, the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson, SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.


 

For 5 years Ukraine has bamboozled supporters by using “independent” researchers like Bellingcat that work with Ukraine’s Intel to fabricate its innocence.

On November 25th, the Kerch incident happened, worsening the West’s relationship with Russia ahead of the G-20 Meeting in Argentina.

Seemingly right on cue, Russian planners couldn’t find anything better to do than cause another major international incident right in front of the entire world. They did this even as Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump. The formal meeting that never happened was canceled because of Ukraine’s hyper histrionics.

Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations, Kurt Volker, wasted no time getting on Ukraine’s already crashing wagon by citing Bellingcat’s conclusion that the Ukrainian ships “may have been” fired on in international waters. Bellingcat suspects the Russian ships may have been 500 yards outside of their territory. This flaccid statement by Bellingcat is all Volker and Ukraine found to stand behind.

Volker is undeterred even though the Bellingcat report’s only value is to spin another nut into Ukraine’s InfoWar machine.

Bellingcat is a western based arm of Ukrainian Intel and InfoWar. Bellingcat OSINT school attendance can be cross-referenced against people from Ukraine and the various Diasporas supporting a nationalist Ukraine or Syria. When Ukrainian supporters at the seminars are multiplied by a per seat value, we can know exactly who built Bellingcat’s reputation and how Bellingcat receives financing.

When Bellingcat’s OSINT results are looked at against Ukrainian Intel, Bellingcat is anti-American, anti-Democracy, against Christianity, against free-speech, support Ukraine’s Bandera nationalists and ISIS.

In fact, the same Ukrainian Intel groups who provide Bellingcat with its Syrian and Ukrainian Intelligence did the official Opposition Research on Candidate Donald Trump in 2016. To do this the Ukrainian operatives were given access to US State Department and DNC servers.

They say openly these groups feed Bellingcat important information from their Ukrainian perspective for Bellingcat’s inciteful’ and fanciful reports. Ukrainian Intel and Bellingcat work together through the Atlantic Council and its DFR Lab.

On Ukraine’s InformNapalm (Ukraine OSINT and hackers) website under “Our Main Achievements, InformNapalm claims they were the ones identifying people involved in the shootdown of Flight MH17 over the occupied Donbas “(this information was used in the reports by our colleagues from Bellingcat team).”

In other words, Bellingcat merely provided an acceptable funnel for the information to be made public through.

The Ukrainians will be thrilled to step out of the shadows because Bellingcat doesn’t do much without them. They are financed by Ukrainian Diaspora groups like the Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA) and the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC).

Both of these Ukrainian Diaspora groups bought the bullets for Ukraine’s Maidan coup in 2014. The UCCA is the Ukrainian Diaspora’s lobby in the US Congress and Senate. They lobby for funding Ukrainian political nazis and ISIS in Syria.

Groups associated with Bellingcat like InformNapalm which contain Ukraine’s OSINT, State Hacking, InfoWar, and CyberWar teams had Russian all-stars working for it in 2014-2016.

They provided Huma Abedin’s hacked State Department passwords. Afterward, they were indicted by Mueller for the DNC hacks and Russian election interference. For some reason, Mueller forgot the group and country (Ukraine) they were working with is the same group Bellingcat works with at the Ukrainian Information Ministry (InformNapalm).

What’s all this have to do with the Kerch incident?

 If these groups which are providing Intel to the EU and US about Ukraine, Russia, and Syria only give highly politicized propaganda through services like Bellingcat, it’s only a matter of time before Ukraine starts WWIII.

 Information fabricated by Ukrainian Intel making it into the US President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) is influencing US and EU policies on a daily basis.  If Kurt Volker is citing the Ukrainian Intel fed Bellingcat reports in an official capacity, that is the information Donald Trump was given in the PDB which defines current threats to the USA.

Does the US have a functioning Intel agency left or is everything farmed out to the private sector?

Back in the day, the US had Intel agencies that someone like Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins could quote in a historical sense because no current information was available.

Now, the same Intel agencies that report to the President of the United States through the PDB quote groups like Bellingcat that have no real qualifications and use highly politicized information provided by 3rd rate software jockeys otherwise known as Ukraine Cyber Alliance and CyberHunta (Pravy Sektor nationalists) whose connection is provided by the Atlantic Council its DFR Lab.

Time and again, Ukrainian neo-Nazi Intel groups refer to Bellingcat as their western counterpart. The neo-Nazis make it clear Bellingcat is part of Ukraine’s Intel team.

Why is Kurt Volker showcasing the Ukraine’s Intel groups that worked to overthrow candidate Trump in 2016? This is the same Ukrainian Intel group the Chalupa sisters used to accuse Trump of colluding with Russia. This is the same Bellingcat that wants to destroy the Trump presidency today.

Elliot Higgins Bellingcat counterparts in Ukraine also known as InformNapalm, RUH8, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta put over 40 journalists, politicians, and activists on the Myrotvorets death list in November 2018. Their crime was documenting, reporting, and observing the elections in Donbass.

I am a hacker, and my goal is to To break, spoil, rob, entangle, blackmail, frighten, divulge, mock and mock the defenselessness of the victims. Because I can. Hate is my name. I will harm the Russian Federation. And I do not care who you are — a liberal or a guardian, Russians must suffer.  Traitors and spongers of Russian invaders must suffer.  Pensioners and functionaries, Buryats and October, must suffer.  If I find a way how to harm you, even for a penny, I immediately use it.  Do you live in Russia?  Bad luck.  I will not tolerate, will not be merciful, I do not forget and do not forgive.”-RUH8,  aka Sean Townsend  -Ukrainian Intel Hacker, Atlantic Council DFR Lab, InformNapalm, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, DNC Opposition Researcher for Team Clinton

As an American who believes in the 1st Amendment, I am shocked Special Rep Volker entertains information coming from the worst of the worst neo-nazi groups in the world (Pravy Sektor). They say they want to get the US and EU into a hot war with Russia. That’s the goal.

According to the hackers, information from Ukraine’s neo-nazi Intel operators RUH8 is what Bellingcat reports are based in. He provides the information. When discussing Ukraine Intel, RFE/RL had no problem using RUH8 as an in-house expert throughout the Obama years.

This information has made its way into the US President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) since 2015 through the Clinton and Kerry staffed US State Department. Because of that, this little intellectually and morally bankrupt stump of a Ukrainian neo-nazi has more say on what’ going on in US policy than the many sane voices in US Government.

How closely do the US State Department and Bellingcat’s Ukrainian Neo-Nazi Intel sources work together?

If you want Bellingcat information closer to the source about Syria or Ukraine, contact Ukrainian Intel manager Kristina Dobrovolska for the first-hand data. She works with InformNapalm, CyberHunta, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, Ukrainian Intelligence, the Ukrainian Information Ministry, and the US State Department.

Shown in the article linked directly above about her, this Ukrainian Spy Handler also works as a liaison and interpreter for the US State Department through the embassy in Kiev. She managed the Ukrainian DNC opposition research team that interfered in the 2016 US elections through her dual position with Ukraine’s Informnapalm and Ukraine’s Information Ministry.

She can be reached through the US State Department, or you can reach her through Alexandra Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, and Irena Chalupa at the Atlantic Council.

Her boss Dmytro Zolotukhin  @ua_intelligence is the Deputy Information Minister in Ukraine. The Information Ministry handles Ukraine’s Cyberwar, Infowar, and Ukraine’s Information Operations. Together, they are personally responsible for Ukraine’s murder list website Myrotvorets. Along with more than 40 other politicians and journalists, they put me on their official death list in November 2018.

During training sessions held in Kharkov, Ukraine during 2015, Zolotukin acknowledged Bellingcat’s Aric Toler as his American counterpart and representative of their Bellingcat team. He did this officially. This is weird because Toler has no US government position and therefore has no official Ukrainian government counterpart.

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Bellingcat and Aric Toler work for Ukraine’s Intel and Ukraine’s Information War team.

Should the Ukrainian hacker Sean Townsend aka RUH8 have any input in Ukrainian, EU, NATO, or US foreign policy? That is the real question that needs answering. By providing the information or adding insight into the US President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) through their assets at Bellingcat says Ukrainian Intel hacker RUH8 does exactly that.

As an example of how probable the impossible can be, in late 2016, as soon as it became convenient, Townsend, RUH8 disavowed his Russian colleagues who provided the so-called Surkov Leaks to Ukrainian Intel and gave Mueller someone to prosecute for 2016 election interference. From 2014 through 2016, Shaltay Boltay (Fancy Bear) was part of Ukraine’s RUH8s Cyber Alliance and CyberHunta.

Does Neo-Nazi RUH8 (Sean Townsend) complete his only goal by starting a war between the US, EU, NATO, & Russia? His group of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Diaspora operatives is where Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council, and some members of US government get Eastern European and Syrian (pro-ISIS) Intel.

Is this a credible source for Intelligence that governments should pay attention to?

 Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur is a perfect example of this. She supports both Ukrainian nationalism and ISIS members in Ukraine. Kaptur said Americans owe the families of her Nazi SS serving nationalist cousins in Ukraine an apology for fighting them in WWII. Kaptur offered a eulogy for one Ukrainian ISIS member killed in Ukraine.

Should US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker @SpecRepUkraine listen to a Pravy Sektor Neo-Nazi RUH8 and its associated group Bellingcat for Intel and policy decisions?

Pravy Sektor became famous during the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. They believe in a fascist totalitarian violent nationalism. If you disagree with them, they will torture and murder you if given the chance.

Special Rep Volker provides Intel and insight directly into Donald Trump’s PDB. He’s the guy that’s supposed to know what’s going on in Ukraine. He should be relying on US agencies, not groups that want to overthrow his president.

How pervasive is Ukrainian nationalist thought in US diplomacy? Does the following sound like a career Diplomat or the same Ukrainian neo-nazi  Sean Townsend?

“We want the Russians to absorb the message that they need to release the crews or there will be consequences and the pain will grow over time.”  Anonymous Special Briefing Senior State Department Official Washington, DC December 4, 2018

The only time Ukrainian neo-Nazis RUH8 and his minions aren’t spewing hate, murder, or revenge is when they feel bad or sad about their situation. Neo-nazi murderers like RUH8 aka Sean Townsend and Kristina Dobrovolska are notoriously thin-skinned and populate the Ukrainian hit list website to feel better about their inadequacies.

I am deeply saddened by the fact that Aric Toler from #BellingCat have mentioned us in his latest article at #AtlanticCouncil https://goo.gl/v80WdW as “Ukrainian hacker groups”, and no single reference to #InformNapalm at all. We at #UCA (Ukrainian Cyber Alliance), #CyberHunta and InformNapalm put tremendous efforts into gathering and publishing information dubbed in press as #SurkovLeaks. Unlike hackers of the past we never dump raw materials anonymously. Publishing the data derived from our materials without proper credit is a clear disrespect from Aric’s side. It undermines our joint mission to fight back the Russian aggression.” – RUH8 Sean Townsend “Open Letter to Aric Toler”

Whoever takes Bellingcat or InformNapalm information seriously on any level has to believe the ramblings of insanely murderous nationalists like RUH8 make sense and are already hellbent on starting WWIII. There is no room for any other conclusion.

What makes the Kerch Incident a short story is the passage Ukraine made through the channel with warships in September 2018. According to the 2003 agreement which governs transit from the Black Sea to the Azov, ships have to follow a specific procedure that isn’t confined to Ukrainian ships.

Ukraine took warships through the Kerch Strait with Russian escort. This is a matter of record that was and video evidence is abundant showing a Russian escort with a much smaller Russian ship sailing ahead of it.  According to the Russians, the Ukrainians used pilot services. Looking at video evidence, this seems to be the case.

However, directly after, the Ukrainian Navy called it a victory saying they did not call or confirm transit or use a pilot to navigate the shallow channel.

According to the Kyiv Post, in September the warships radioed ahead to enter the Azov Sea through the Kerch Strait as they approached it.  It says they did not follow the official procedure to request permission. This notation is important.

The Kiev Post goes on to say the ships received pilot services from the Kerch port authority free of charge. According to Ukrainian naval expert Taras Chmut  “For the first time, we didn’t just react to the Russians’ steps, but started to set our own game rules.”

If the September record, which includes the Kyiv Post article as well as onsite video is looked at, the accepted law and procedure in place can be shown and every parties action in November can be weighed against that and the actual agreements.

Western sources claim the Russians violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This is a nonstarter because the Azov Sea is a private internal sea by both Ukraine and Russia. It is not the high sea and it contains no exclusive economic zones. If either was the case, it would have made the UNCLOS applicable.

The accepted law and procedure in Ukraine are described in “Navigating Straits Challenges for International Law” which specifically states the services of the Vessel Traffic Control Center (VTC) are compulsory.

Ukraine was well aware of its own established law as well as the language of the treaty governing Kerch Strait transit. This voids any concept of free navigation regarding the Strait because transit is done at the discretion of the port authority and established procedures.

Ukraine’s other complaint that Russia unfairly targets Ukrainian vessels for searches or longer queue waiting is out of line with reality.

On November 25th there were 166 vessels waiting in queue to make transit through the channel. Statistically, a lot more Russian ships are subject to searches because many more Russian ships go through. There was no way that the Ukrainian vessels which had no position in the 166 vessel queue were going straight through ahead of Ukrainian commercial traffic, Russian commercial traffic, and international commercial traffic that were following the transit procedure.

Ukraine has once again taken advantage of the hate and prejudices its drummed up against Russia and the world is dancing to it.

The Kerch Incident is hardly worth the time to sort out because in reality, it was a border crossing incident that no country other than Ukraine should give a damn about. And even giving Ukraine every consideration, when you are left with the facts, Ukraine makes supporters look foolish once again.

The only real news about the Kerch Strait story is how this narrative and other stories are developed.

For the last four years, there has been a massive uptick in how much information and Intelligence from politically deviant sources like RUH8’s Bellingcat are tainting the President’s PDB, NATO Intel, EU Parliament, and US Congressional inquiries.

Ukraine is using innocuous and non-threatening personas like RUH8 associates Eliot Higgins and Aric Toler to give a benevolent look for information developed to maximize the nationalists advantage.  Behind RUH8, Eliot Higgins, Toler, or Aaron Weisburd are people who provide logistics for surly headchoppers in IGIL and Ukraine’s neo-nationalist groups like Azov battalion and Pravy Sektor.

It’s high time for the world’s developed countries to stop dancing to Ukraine’s beat and look to their own Intel apparatus for answers. The only difference between Ukraine and their head-chopping murderer associates in ISIS is the Ukrainian nationalists completed their coup in 2014.

What did it bring the world? Is Ukraine better off? The people are suffering under Poroshenko more than they have under the entire 27-year history of Independence.

Donald Trump, Russia, and European leaders have to get together and agree the path to reconciliation for Ukraine to be at peace isn’t listening to Bellingcat Neo-Nazis or people who get their information from them.

 

Read more:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/bellingcats-kerch-gaff-how-kurt-volker-bou...

 

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and the BBC rubbish underhand...

Attempts to portray Moscow’s hand as being behind the Yellow Vest protests has been quite a hot thing lately. Accusations against Moscow included the way-too-close attention that “Russia-linked” social media accounts and Russian media in general –including RT– paid to the protests. Surely, there’s nothing to see during the largest unrest in France in years, move on. Nevertheless, French authorities confirmed they've opened an investigation into possible Russian interference. They have declined to comment before it yields any results.

One of the boldest claims was produced by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) a week ago. Kiev’s spies claimed that the Kremlin deployed “illegal terrorist armed formations,” who'd been involved in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, onto the French streets. The scope of Moscow’s alleged malicious plans, however, reaches far beyond France.

“Behind the back of peaceful protesters, they resort to the organization of riots and acts of violence in France. SBU has information that Russian intelligence services are organizing similar provocations in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria and other European countries,” SBU’s head, Vasyl Hrytsak, stated.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/446604-russia-bbc-yellow-vests/

 

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dodgy donald ducks if I see one...


Images of hospitalized kids and dead ducks, allegedly supplied by the UK, were used by the CIA to persuade Trump to get tough on Russia after the attack on the Skripals. But there were no harmed children or ducks. What’s going on?

Just when you thought the Skripal case couldn’t get any more Pythonesque, it just did. According to a report published this week in the New York Times, the then-deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, showed President Donald Trump pictures of “young children hospitalised by the Novichok agent that had poisoned the Skripals” along with “a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.”

The ‘emotional appeal’ from Haspel, made last March, was successful as Trump “fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks” and embraced the CIA’s “strong option” of expelling 60 Russian diplomats.  

You can imagine the conversation, as scripted by Cleese, Chapman and Clark…

Haspel: ‘Look Mr President. I know a dead duck when I see one, and I’m looking at it right now’

Trump: ‘No, he’s not dead, he’s, he’s resting… Beautiful plumage!’

Haspel: ‘The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead. And its name was Donald!’

Trump: ‘Oh my God, let’s kick out the Russkie duck killers!’

The story – entertaining as it is – raises a number of serious questions.  

So, let’s get our pipes from the rack above the fire, put on our deerstalkers and remember Sherlock Holmes’ famous dictum: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

When you think about it there are four possible explanations for the New York Times story.

Number one is that children were hospitalized and ducks were killed, and it was all covered up from the public by the intelligence services. But this makes no sense at all, as the British authorities – with anti-Russian neocons very close to the action – were desperate to demonize Russia and would surely not have hushed up such terrible things had they actually happened.


Moreover, how possible would it have been to keep it all under wraps? Surely, the parents of the children hospitalised would have spoken up? Surely, some members of the public would have taken pictures with their smartphones of dead ducks floating on the water?

And if the Novichok fall-out was that widespread, why wasn’t the whole of Salisbury sealed off?

Then we’ve got the testimony of Dr Stephen Davies, consultant in emergency medicine at the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. Writing in response to a report published in The Times (London) which claimed “Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment,” Dr Davies stated:

“May I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed a treatment… No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.”

One presumes that the “three patients with significant poisoning”  the good doctor was referring to were Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and DS Nick Bailey, none of whom, by any stretch of the imagination, could be described as ‘children.’

It’s also the first time that anyone has mentioned ducks being killed following the peculiar incident. Wouldn’t UK newspapers have been full of dead ducks pictures had local bird life in Salisbury been affected by the events of March 4, 2018? You can just imagine the ‘Evil Putin kills Arthur Mallard’ headline in the Sun, can’t you?

So, accepting there were no ‘hospitalized children’ or ‘dead ducks’ (and this was also confirmed this week by the director of public health at Wiltshire Council), what conclusions can we draw?

The second explanation is that the British authorities, in their desperation to get Trump to take “strong action”, provided fake photographs to the CIA. The photographs were of hospitalized children and dead ducks from somewhere else, not Salisbury. With the children they could have spun people being taken into hospital for precautionary checks as being ‘hospitalized.’

That would go along with plenty of other reports that the UK worried that the maverick Trump wouldn’t be as anti-Russian as it has been. Think back to early 2017 and reports of how terrified the British neocon faction was that the soon-to-be inaugurated US President would seek a rapprochement with Vladimir Putin. Think too of the ‘Golden Showers’ dossier, written by a former British Intelligence officer, and the similarities to the Zinoviev Letter of 1924.

Yes, the notion that Britain faked photos is credible, given the geopolitical context, but according to Deborah Haynes, foreign affairs editor at Sky News and the former defence editor of the Times, UK security sources have said they were unaware of children hospitalised or of wildlife killed in the Skripal attack. “If that's true, I wonder what these images used by the CIA were!” Deborah asks.


Are the ‘UK security sources’ engaging in damage limitation, following the NYT report?  Are they worried that if it does come out that they sent fake photos over to the US, people will ask ‘what else was faked?’ about the Skripal story?

Perhaps, as a third explanation, the photographs were faked not by MI6, but by the CIA. We know the US ‘Deep State’, like the UK ‘Deep State,’ was very concerned that Trump wouldn’t ‘play the game’ in relation to pursuing Cold War 2.0 with Russia.

Trump would need something ‘extra’ to kick out 60 Russian diplomats, and fake pictures of hospitalized children and dead ducks would probably do it.

But if it was the CIA, what was to stop Trump getting on the phone to London to check the information was correct?

‘Hi there, Theresa. I’m being told that kiddies were hospitalized in Salisbury and that Donald Duck was Novichoked too. Is it true?’ What would Theresa May have said to that?

A fourth explanation is that the New York Times were sold a pup by their ‘sources.’ That Gina Haspel didn’t show the president the pictures and the whole thing never happened. Trump didn’t need any extra encouragement to ‘get tough’ on Russia – he did it anyway. The aim of the story is simply to portray Trump as someone initially soft on Putin – in line with the decidedly dodgy  ‘Russiagate’ narrative.

 

 Whichever explanation we favor from two to four (and it is of course possible that both the UK and US security services collaborated with regards to the photographs), it’s clear that the official UK government narrative on the Skripal affair continues to unravel before our very eyes.

There are so many unanswered questions, but arguably the most important one is this: why haven’t we seen or heard anything from Yulia and Sergei Skripal?

Yulia’s last video appearance was last May. Her father hasn’t been shown since his hospitalization, which we are told he recovered from.

If Yulia and Sergei accepted the UK government narrative, namely that the Russia state was behind their poisoning, then why haven’t they been brought out before the cameras, at a secret location, to say as much? Think what a great propaganda coup this would be.  

Interestingly, a book published last year by Mark Urban, a BBC diplomatic editor, concedes that Sergei Skripal was initially reluctant to believe that the Russians had tried to kill him.

READ MORE: Kept in the dark: ‘Novichok’ poisoning survivor tells Russian ambassador he got NO info from UK govt

Even more puzzling is the fact that Sergei has not called his 91-year-old mother Yelena. If he is indeed being looked after by British security services, in order to protect him from another assassination attempt, then why hasn’t he been allowed to call home to say he’s ok?  A simple ‘Hi Mum, don’t worry about me, I’m being looked after and I’m fine’ would suffice.

“She is waiting for his phone call. She needs nothing else. She needs one phone call from her son,” Skripal’s niece Viktoria said last September. The fact that he still hasn’t called home, suggests that Sergei Skripal is either dead, or unable to talk. If the latter, why haven’t we been told that he’s lost his voice? If the former, then how did he die?

Up to now, establishment gatekeepers have been using ridicule against those questioning the party line. Craig Murray, for one, has had a terrible time. But there are so many inconsistencies in the official version of events, no genuinely inquisitive journalist can really ignore them. After this week’s developments, you really would be ‘quackers’ not to question more.    

Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66 and @MightyMagyar 

 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/457010-skripal-ducks-children-cia/

 

 

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supported by three toxicologists with expertise...

23 November, 2019
OPCW management accused of doctoring Syrian chemical weapons report


Wikileaks today publishes an e-mail, sent by a member of an OPCW fact-finding mission to Syria to his superiors, in which he expresses his gravest concern over intentional bias introduced to a redacted version of the report he co-authored.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons sent a team of experts to investigate allegations that a chemical attack took place in the Syrian city of Douma on the 7th of April 2018. The author of the e-mail was a member of that team and claims the redacted preliminary version of the report, misrepresents the facts he and his colleagues discovered on the ground. The e-mail is dated 22nd of June. It is addressed to Robert Fairweather, Chief of Cabinet, and forwarded to his deputy Aamir Shouket and members of the fact-finding mission to Douma.

He says this misrepresentation was achieved by selective omission, introducing a bias which undermines the credibility of the report. Further it is claimed that crucial facts, that have remained in the redacted version:

“...have morphed into something quite different to what was originally drafted.”

This is said to have been done at the behest of the Office of the Director General (a post that was held by Turkish diplomat Ahmet Üzümcü at the time, he has since been replaced by Spaniard Fernando Arias).

The attack in question was widely attributed to the Syrian Army, based on reports by rebel forces that were present in Douma at the time, and this assertion was backed up by the United States, British and French governments. These three countries carried out air strikes against Syrian government targets in response, on the 14th of April 2018. This was before the fact-finding team had gained access to the site in Douma, the mission there was delayed for nearly two weeks by entrenched rebel fighters and subsequent clashes between the rebels and government forces that moved into the area.

Upon arrival the team found much of the physical evidence, including the bodies of the deceased, was no longer available. It was alleged that 49 had died and up to 650 had been seriously affected by a weaponized chemical gas released in a specific area of rebel-held Douma on that day in April. Rebels claimed the gas came from cylinders dropped from aircraft, clearly implicating Syrian government forces who had complete air superiority.

The redacted report seemed to support these conclusions but the author of the released e-mail outlines some specific aspects of it which he considers: “particularly worrisome.”

Firstly, there is a statement in the redacted report. It states that there is sufficient evidence to determine the presence of “chlorine, or another reactive chlorine-containing chemical.”

The e-mail points out that this was:

“likely one or more chemicals that contain a reactive chlorine atom. Such chemicals could include… the major ingredient of household chlorine-based bleach. Purposely singling out chlorine gas as one of the possibilities is disingenuous.”

The redacted report also removed context from a claim in the original draft, which concerned the likelihood of the gas having emanated from cylinders found at the scene in Douma. The original text is said to have purposely emphasised that there was insufficient evidence to affirm this being the case. This is “a major deviation from the original report” according to the author.

He also cites problems with paragraph in the redacted version, which states:

”based on the high levels of various chlorinated organic derivatives detected in environmental samples”.

This is said to overstate the case. According to the e-mail:

“They were, in most cases, present only in parts per billion range, as low as 1-2 ppb, which is essentially trace quantities.”

One piece of evidence, which was shown on news networks across the world, was a video said to show victims being treated in a hospital in the aftermath of the attack in Douma. The symptoms shown were, however, not consistent with what witnesses reported seeing that day. A detailed discussion of this was apparently omitted from the redacted version of the OPCW report.

The e-mail states:

“Omitting this section of the report (including the Epidemiology which has been removed in its entirety) has a serious negative impact on the report as this section is inextricably linked to the chemical agent identified… In this case, the confidence in the identity of chlorine or any other choking agent is drawn into question precisely because of the inconsistency with the reported and observed symptoms. The inconsistency was not only noted by the fact-finding mission team, but strongly supported by three toxicologists with expertise in exposure to chemical warfare agents.”

Yet another point of contention is the placement and condition of the cylinders reported to have contained the chemical agent. It has been alleged that their condition may not be consistent with having been dropped from the air, compared to damaged in the immediate surrounding area. This was discussed in an unreleased engineering report from OPCW that was leaked and Wikileaks published in October 2019 and indicates it is unlikely the cylinders were air-dropped (see previous release: OPCW Whistleblower Panel on the Douma attack of April 2018)

Sections discussing this are largely absent from the redacted report. “This information was important in assessing the likelihood of the ‘presence’ of toxic chemicals versus the ‘use’ of toxic chemicals,” states the e-mail.

The author ends his letter with an appeal to the management to allow him to attach his differing observations to the document.

The annual conference of the states parties of the OPCW that is composed of representatives of all member states of the convention starts Monday November 25th in The Hague.


Media partnership and coordination: La Repubblica (Italy), Stundin (Iceland), Der Spiegel (Germany), Mail on Sunday (U.K.)

 

 

Read more:

https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/

 

See also:

https://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/144111-lies_syaia/

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33296

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35813

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/34803