20190116 : Corporatism is the control of government by big business. This is what we have in the USA today. The main difference between corporatism and fascism is the level of repressions against opposition. Corporatism now tales forma of inverted totalitarism and use ostracism instead of phycal repressions ( Jan 16, 2019 , profile.theguardian.com )
"... If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal fakery. What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS. ..."
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it
certainly does not
apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the
nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the
coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be
magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.
If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal
fakery.
What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
Thanks sleeply,
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it
certainly does not
apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the
nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the
coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be
magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.
If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal
fakery.
What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
A remarkably disingenuous article I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with
threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions
against an internet collapse and is criticized. For example, DNS resolution function which I
believe resides in various western countries could be denied rendering much of the Russian
internet useless.
If the British were the ones to organise an independence referendum in Crimea, they would
probably push as many people as possible into postal voting and reduce the number of polling
stations as part of this strategy.
Bellingcat's transparency model is similar to the Tor Project's. It lists a bunch of
innocuous, little-known non-profits and human rights-type organizations. To understand who
they and why they'd fund an outfit like Bellingcat takes a lot more digging.
Have any of you read Bill Browder's book Red Notice?
It's a great read.
The grandson of the General Secretary of the United States Communist Party, whose great
auntie worked for the NKVD. His brother, Lev, is a great mathematician.
Browder worked with Robert Maxwell as an intern. That's the father of Ghislaine Maxwell,
Jeffrey Epstein's facilitator.
Browder went on to Salomen Brothers and ended up being one of the largest capitalists in
Eastern Europe.
For some reason the Russians believed that Browder was using front companies to aquire
stakes in Russian strategic assets, then remove billions without paying taxes, apparently
worth in excess of 4 billion. If Russian 'propaganda' is to be believed.
They must have wrong because Browder was able to achieve the Magnitsky Act in
response.
It seemed the Russians unfairly seized shares from Browder he acquired in Gazprom,
Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco.
In July 2017, Browder testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia's alleged
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
As everyone knows, this claim about Russian collusion by Trump is 100% true, and supports
the veracity of all his other claims. As the number one capitalist in Russia following the
fall of the Soviet Union.
And he was a hero too. Speaking out about how Jewish Oligarchs defenestrated Russia with
Yeltsin in the early 2000s and late 90s. He spoke out against his fellow Jews in what most
regard as conspiracy theories. Putin even praised him for assisting in liberation from the
Oligarchs.
What the Russians did was terrifying. They established a precedent where Jewish
international assets and capital could be seized for interference with affairs of state.
Of course what they apparently did was steal $230m off of Browder's fund shareholders.
Russia is of course very corrupt. And Browder's testimony against Trump for alleged Russia
collusion given what everyone knows speaks for his utmost veracity.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder. He did his best in
Poland with depressed assets, and he had a grand adventure. He's clearly amazingly good at
finance.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder.
You don't seem to be serious, if I understood what you want to say. Even Der Spiegel has
published a critical article in English about Browder, Browder is the one who pushed for
sanctions against Russia because of the case Magnitsky:
Questions Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions
The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of
whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story
suggest he may not have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him
to be.
@Anon
After reading the book of this MI6 asset (and potential killer) who tried to fleece Russia,
you probably can benefit from watching a movie by Nekrasov about him. See references in:
It looks like it was Browder who killed Magnitsky, so that he can't spill the beans. And
then in an act of ultimate chutzpah played the victim and promoted Magnitsky act.
Investor Bill Browder's allegations –Why Spiegel
is sticking to Magnitsky research
By Lucy Komisar
Dec 15, 2019
This is German news magazine Der Spiegel's response to a complaint by William Browder to its
editor
and to the
German Press Commission
about its exposé that proved he was a fraudster and his Magnitsky story a fabrication.
Key parts are marked in bold. The text and documents show the Spiegel story to be correct and Browder to be a conman.
Former major investor Bill Browder accuses SPIEGEL of misrepresenting the circumstances surrounding the
death of Russian Sergei Magnitsky. SPIEGEL rejects this – and lists the arguments and facts.
Bill Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital Management, photo Luke MacGregor / Bloomberg / Getty Images
Friday,
13.12.2019
8:21 p.m.
SPIEGEL reported on the background of the so-called Magnitsky sanctions on November 23. These punitive measures,
which were imposed on Russian officials by the United States, are mainly based on the account of the former major
investor Bill Browder and relate to the fate of his colleague Sergei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky died in a prison in Moscow in 2009 in circumstances that were not fully understood. Browder claims
Magnitsky was murdered for uncovering a tax scandal.
The SPIEGEL report describes the contradictions in
Browder's statements and states that he cannot provide sufficient evidence for his thesis.
Browder has now made a complaint against the text public, in the form of a letter to the editor-in-chief and a
complaint to the German Press Council. In his letter, he accuses SPIEGEL of distorting the facts.
We consider the complaint to be unfounded and therefore want to make it clear once again where our considerable
doubts about Brudder's story come from and why we consider it necessary to discuss it publicly. We have also made
the
text
freely available to all SPIEGEL readers (
you
can find the text here
). In this statement, we also link some of the sources to which we referred in our
research.
We have corrected an error in the English version of the SPIEGEL report. There we had the information that a rubber
truncheon was used, wrongly assigned to a report from 2009. In fact, it only appears in another report from 2011. The
German version was correct from the start.
NOTE FROM LK: That is Der Spiegel's only mistake. The claim that a rubber truncheon was used is a Browder
forgery. See this by reporter Michael Thau with whom I collaborated on exposing this very complex Browder
fakery
, which included inventing a form that doesn't exist and tracing a signature.
No doubt Magnitsky died a terrible death. As it was said in the SPIEGEL report, "horrible injustice" happened to
him. In our view, it is also appropriate to speak of a "mercilessly omitted assistance". The "use of a rubber stick"
is also
indisputable
. At no point in the SPIEGEL report is the issue of exonerating the Russian state from guilt for
Magnitsky's death. It is about showing
the inconsistencies, contradictions, and unsubstantiated claims in the
story that Browder has been coming and going to Western governments for years – and which have become the basis for
Western sanctions against Russian officials.
Browder's account of what happened to Sergei Magnitsky's death consists of several key elements:
How it all started:
According to Browder, tax inquiries were launched in Moscow in 2007, which he
described as clearly "criminal and politically motivated". The proceedings were fictitious, initiated only for the
purpose of confiscating important documents from some of his letterbox companies during a search. On June 4, 2007,
searches were conducted in Moscow. Numerous company documents were confiscated.
Magnitsky becomes a whistleblower:
Browder claims that he entrusted Magnitsky with the
investigation in 2007: three mailbox companies were hijacked after the search. According to Browder, Magnitsky
reported these events to the State Investigation Committee on June 5 and October 7, 2008, and explicitly accused two
police officers of the crime, Artyom Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov. According to Browder, this advertisement gives a
clear motive for the later arrest and murder of Magnitsky.
Arrest and death
: A trial against Magnitsky will open in autumn 2008. The allegation is tax
evasion. Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008. He died in Russian custody on November 16, 2009. Browder repeatedly
describes the death as a targeted murder plot.
Browder's presentation of the exact events varied
. The campaign videos that he published on
Youtube are exemplary.
Among other things, it states:
"?? After Sergei Magnitsky testified against the same criminal group for an even larger crime, the same
officers arrested, tortured and eventually killed Sergei to hide their crime."
"Instead of supporting Sergei Magnitsky and recognizing him as a hero, the government allowed interior
ministry officers, Kuznetsov, Karpov to arrest, torture and kill him."
At every stage of this presentation, numerous points do not stand up to scrutiny. A London court came to
the conclusion that Browder did not even begin to substantiate his allegations against Karpov (the
full
court order can be viewed here
)
Again and again it becomes clear that Browder's story contains errors and inconsistencies that distort the
overall picture of the events surrounding Magnitsky's death.
1. The tax investigation
The investigation started much earlier than Browder claims. While he has repeatedly stressed that he first
heard the name of the investigator Artyom Kuznetsov in 2007, the opposite is well documented. Kusnezov's name is
already on a letter from the tax investigator from June 2006, which went to Browder's companies.
That Browder's team was aware of the process also results from Magnitsky's statement of June 5, 2008.
There he describes that Kusnetzov requested company and bank documents at the end of May 2006. This mid-2006
investigation is also mentioned in complaints that Browder's people sent to the authorities in December 2007.
In addition, Magnitsky himself was questioned by the authorities in 2006 about tax inquiries.
Investigations into tax evasion by mailbox companies in the vicinity of Browder, including the company "Saturn
Investment", which Magnitsky was concerned with, also date from before 2004.
Several court rulings were brought against Browder's companies, then the proceedings were closed, but reopened in
2008.
SPIEGEL does not adopt the views of the Russian judiciary. A final clarification on whether the allegations of tax
evasion were valid would be up to an independent court, in a fair trial. It becomes clear, however, that
the
investigation did not suddenly start in 2007 as Browder claims, apparently recognizable without any basis. The
investigation has a well-documented history. The European Court of Human Rights concluded in its judgment on the case
that Magnitsky was not "arbitrarily" detained:
"
The Court observes that the inquiry into alleged tax evasion, resulting in the criminal proceedings
against Mr Magnitskyy, started in 2004, long before he complained that prosecuting officials had been involved in
fraudulent acts."
(
Find
the verdict here
)
2. Magnitsky's role as a crucial whistleblower:
In Browder's account, Magnitsky's statement to investigators is the motive for his imprisonment and later targeted
murder: a corrupt clique team silenced the man who was dangerous to it. This is the core of the story spread by
Browder.
Browder describes Magnitsky as a decisive whistleblower. But this is a retrospective construction. Several
people from Browder's team have made the same or very similar allegations against the Russian authorities, some of
them earlier than Magnitsky:
Browder's lawyer Eduard Khairetdinov in complaints to the authorities in early December 2007 (PDF on
Browders
website
)
According to Browder, Magnitsky's first statement on the matter dates back to June 5, 2008.
He speaks about the search and confiscation of documents that, in his opinion, have been carefully used to hijack
the companies. He does not speak of the great tax fraud.
Magnitsky had "not yet discovered the scam",
writes Browder on his website.
A week earlier, however, on May 28, 2008, another Browder man named Grant Felgenhauer wrote in a
letter to the anti-corruption council of the Russian president about the suspicion that the attackers' real goal
was to refund hundreds of taxes Millions of dollars
(PDF
on
Browders website
– the corresponding passage is on top three, Felgenhauer speculates over $ 300 million).
The media had already reported the events. The business service
Bloomberg
,
the "Financial Times" and the "Wall Street Journal" reported in early April 2008.
The New York Times also made public the $ 230 million fraud on July 24, 2008 (link to
article
). Magnitsky,
in turn, did not speak to the authorities until his statement on October 7, 2008.
This chronological sequence is one reason why observers have doubts as to whether Magnitsky was actually
murdered so that the charges against the police officers are no longer raised. The allegations against the Russian
police were worldwide, regardless of Magnitsky's testimony.
Human rights activist Soya Svetova, who dealt with the case from the beginning, put it this way in conversation
with SPIEGEL last summer.
SPIEGEL
:
What about the version that was specifically targeted for being killed? Is
there evidence of this?
Svetova
:
No. There is no evidence of this. What was the point of killing him? No sense.
SPIEGEL
:
Because he knew about a $ 230 million fraud.
Svetova
:
Yes, but not only did he know about this fraud, the entire management and
colleagues also knew about it. It was written about in newspapers. He didn't reveal a secret.
SPIEGEL
: But your report mentions that pressure may have been put on him while in custody.
Svetova
: When he was in custody, people wanted statements from him against Bill Browder. But he
didn't do any. And probably he would never have made such a statement. But killing him would have been completely
pointless for them.
Svetova agreed to the interview and its recording in July 2019. In previous years, she had taken the position that
there was no evidence of a targeted murder. In 2014, for example, she wrote that she could not imagine that someone
had caused Magnitsky's death in a targeted manner ("Well, after five years have passed, I think this killing was not
intentional" –
original in
Russian
).
Shortly before the publication of the SPIEGEL report in November, she said that although that was her words, she
had meanwhile changed her mind and believed that targeted murder was possible. Svetova's change of heart is
transparently documented in the SPIEGEL.
3. The motive for Magnitsky's arrest
Browder claims that Magnitsky was arrested to force him to withdraw his statements against the police. He was
therefore tortured and murdered. Magnitsky's attorney at the time presented the situation differently right from the
start.
Dmitrij Kharitonov told SPIEGEL in autumn 2009 that his client was only a hostage, and that the
authorities actually wanted to put pressure on Bill Browder
(click here for the
article
).
Kharitonov has used the phrase "hostage" more often. In an interview with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine,
he reported that Magnitsky said about himself in court: "Your honor, I was actually taken hostage. My person hardly
interests anyone, everyone is interested in the person of the Hermitage chiefs."(
Russian
text
).
Human rights activist Soya Svetova also argued in a similar fashion in an interview with SPIEGEL this summer.
Svetova
: The figure Magnitsky combines the two greatest grievances in the Russian judiciary and
the Russian investigative system. If a lawsuit is opened against a company and it is not possible to arrest its boss,
then they take his assistant or his deputy or simply a colleague hostage. We see that in many cases: It was the same
with Mikhail Khodorkovsky's group Yukos (??). First, they take hostages. Magnitsky was also a hostage. He was of no
interest to anyone, they wanted Browder.
SPIEGEL
: Although the Russian authorities had just thrown Browder out of the country.
Svetova
: You wanted Magnitsky to tell you what terrible things Browder did. They wanted him to
discredit him, that he was a fraud and tax evader. Even though they stole his companies from him.
Svetova has represented this position several times, in 2014, for example, "
Radio
Liberty
".
In the 2009 text report co-authored by Svetova, evidence is given that investigators, together with the prison
authorities, put pressure on Magnitsky. The report also contains a corresponding quote from Magnitsky. His conditions
of detention had deteriorated in coordination with the investigator of the case against him, Oleg Siltschenko.
Their
goal is "that I accept false accusations, burden myself and others". There is no mention of Browder's claim that
Magnitsky should have revoked his statements.
The Russian original of the report is available on Browder's website (
PDF
). While
the Russian text does not contain the name of the investigator Kuznetsov, the English translation also published on
Browder's website expressly refers to him
(
PDF
).
[LK: Browder posted the version with his forged paragraph at the top of page 3 to his
website
and distributed it to media, including to the
Wall Street Journal
,
which has it on its website. The
translation
filed in U.S. federal court in the Prevezon case does not have that paragraph.]
4. The alleged evidence of a targeted murder plot
As alleged evidence of his thesis of targeted murder, Browder cites photos of hematomas on the dead man's
hands. Some may have been handcuffed, others may have been from Magnitsky's desperate punches on a door. A fatal
injury cannot be seen in the pictures
.
This does not preclude Magnitsky from being killed by external violence, but
there is no evidence of a
targeted murder by beating eight prison guards over an hour and 18 minutes, as Browder has variously claimed.
The contradicting information about the cause of death of the Russian authorities is disturbing, it is not
sufficient evidence for a targeted murder. The use of a rubber stick was also mentioned in the SPIEGEL text.
[LK:
Again, that is incorrect, there is no evidence of use of a truncheon. And consider, do American police who beat up
prisoners write that in reports?]
5. Magnitsky's alleged statements against police officers Karpov and Kusnezov
Browder accuses SPIEGEL of embezzling the true content of Sergei Magnitsky's statements. That in fact, Magnitsky
clearly named police officers Kuznetsov and Karpov as guilty in the statements before his arrest.
Nowhere in the two documents does Magnitsky raise a direct personal accusation against Karpov and
Kusnezov.
6. The role of the police officer Karpov in the Magnitsky case
Browder accuses SPIEGEL of spreading Pavel Karpov's claim that it has nothing to do with Magnitsky's death and tax
fraud. However, it is part of the journalistic due diligence to give people who have been charged with serious crimes
the opportunity to comment. This also applies to Karpov.
Magnitsky's lawyer Dmitry Kharitonov has emphasized several times (for example
here
in
conversation with the Russian radio station Echo Moscow) that Pavel Karpov played no role in the prosecution of his
client.
Kharitonov repeated this statement to SPIEGEL twice. Human rights activist Soja Svetova also said in
the summer of 2019 with a view to Karpov: "But there is no evidence that Karpov put pressure on him (Magnitsky)."
In addition,
the London High Court has also
found
that
Browder's allegations against Karpov are insufficiently substantiated.
7. The question of money
The SPIEGEL report does not go any further into the course of
the $230 million fraud, of which Browder
complains.
He refers to the findings of US investigators in the New York trial (
PDF
).
LK: The Justice Department acted as Browder's proxy lawyer. Its chief investigator
admitted
under oath that he got all his information from Browder and "the internet." The complaint filed by
U.S. attorney Preet Bharara is full of fabrications and should not be believed.
However, this case is less clear than Browder claims. The responsible US investigator had to admit in a
survey that his findings are based solely on statements and documents from Browder and his team.
The process
ended with a compromise. The Russian Kazyv clan – accused by Browder of profiting from tax fraud – has enforced the
express written note that it has nothing to do with the Magnitsky case.
Browder has been interviewed in the case. Under oath, he is unable to explain how he and his people
followed the cash flows.
Video recordings of the statement have landed on Youtube, the transcript is
available on Pacer.gov, an electronic database for documents from US proceedings.
Browder was able to take a comprehensive position on SPIEGEL on all of the points covered in the report, including
two talks each lasting two hours in summer.
SPIEGEL also sent questions to Browder on November 21 that go beyond the text previously
published. Browder didn't respond.
"... an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories". ..."
"... Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about. ..."
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that
closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across
a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged
his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it.
So I clicked on the BBC article -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry
by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if
our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were
such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm
opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you
might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the
compliment and topple Her Majesty.
The USA "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine requires weakening and, if possible, partitioning Russia.
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin tells the audience that Skripals poisoning was a false flag operation. 7:00
He also point several weak points in Western politicians narrative about MH17
Notable quotes:
"... Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America ..."
"... Putin made it clear when he said the next war would not be fought inside Russia. The troglodytes in the West are unable to grasp not only what that means, but why he said it. ..."
"... The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans). ..."
"... I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!) ..."
"... There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause". ..."
"... Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic. ..."
"... "Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly. But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined." ..."
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily
determined to undermine Russia.
A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign
to destabilize Russia, without cause.
When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff
when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia," Kevin says in his conversation
with the former Australian foreign minister.
The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating
a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders
and Russiagate.
Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy
Vogan.
Putin & the Russian citizenry play chess on this 3-dimensional world.! The Americas and their inane elites attempt checkers
on their flat Earth . Pity, some such as Noam Chomsky are admirable world citizens..! Pity again.! WE will miss men of this honest
calibre and down- to-earth intelligence. Bob Carr is of this cohort.
Eugenie Basile , December 10, 2019 at 03:36
The 'Russia did it' mantra is a gift for the powers in the Kremlin. It rallies most Russians behind their leaders because they
are proud of their country and don't accept the West's moral hypocrite grandstanding.
Just recently the WADA proclaimed sporting ban against Russia is a perfect example. It excludes all Russian athletes because
they happen to represent their country while U.S. athletes who have been caught cheating in the past are allowed to participate
.
It is very encouraging to know there are good people like Mr. Tony Kevin and Mr. Bob Carr alive and sharing their powerful
wisdom at this dangerous historical point on planet Earth. Mr. Kevin and Mr. Carr's immensely important and courageously honest
discussion should become – immediately, and for many years to come – required study in university classrooms and government halls
around this world.
Peace.
ElderD , December 9, 2019 at 15:03
Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive state of affairs deserve the widest
possible distribution and attention.
George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27
A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed. Cold War patterns of thinking
about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer
we come to its revival. Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now
so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.
It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then,
it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of
nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is.
Lois Gagnon , December 9, 2019 at 17:30
I agree. Putin made it clear when he said the next war would not be fought inside Russia. The troglodytes in the West are
unable to grasp not only what that means, but why he said it.
AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48
The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed
oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events
including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans).
Then there were allegations – of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase
Russophobia) sort – about Russian hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour Party's
source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally destroy the NHS and replace it with (of
course) US "health" insurance company profiteering.
(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity among many Tory party supporters among
the working and lower middle classes prevented them from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the
undermining, via installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds that would otherwise
have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money – a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally
conceived and constructed and like exactions.)
Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how
either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the
neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters
are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile
the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military,
thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).
Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what I've read the man is the most diplomatic
and intelligent politician (not just political leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world
stage. None of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries. Unlike their western "world"
political counterparts.
Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30
Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely
assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said
any such thing.
St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked well. We're trying to
do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that
doesn't.
SIPIRI tags US military spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is
bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the energy department or our veteran's
expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better
than we can sustain our $650B and rising bill.
Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17
Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there was NEVER a surrender, intended in
any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships. For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live
and work in peace. (By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)
They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.
The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear as never before, a mad man throwing
a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?
nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56
If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence universally consulted), allowing the
light in for the mass of the viewing and listening public, it could change the world – both an exalting and despairing thought.
Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52
It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!
I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus.
Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more.
(The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!)
I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a nation which has been started by
killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.
Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.
Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18
It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.
"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive
campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."
The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country on earth capable of obliterating
the United States. Not even China has yet reached that capacity.
"Carthago delenda est"
Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13
There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian
citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause".
Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34
The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.
Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election
interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a
very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.
Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all
of "the Western" intelligence combined.
I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last two sentences:
"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly. But it has regularly done the right thing in international
conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia
over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in
order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page
during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence,
and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal,
what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building
named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers
and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what
these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state
factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and
civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide
this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of
FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not
true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the
Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
started by an unemployed Englishman named Eliot Higgins
Good on him – being able to create a thing that rises to such prominence in such a
short space of time speaks volumes about this Higgins guy's entrepreneurial ability. And if
he wasn't mobbed-up to begin with, he sure as fuck is now – which is a double-
mitzvah (for him).
If he did so starting from being unemployed, then anybody who turned down a job
application from the guy must be kicking themselves. (' Unemployed ' is obviously used
pejoratively in the blockquote; 'Englishman' is purely-descriptive).
.
Also, the entire article accepts Bernays' conclusion, but disagrees as to which objectives
should be pursued.
Bernays' conclusions are hardly controversial: most people are gullible imbeciles .
It's not clear to me how much more empirical evidence we need before that becomes just a
thing that everyone with an IQ above 115 accepts.
So the question then becomes " OK, now what? ".
As usual, the right answer is " Depends " – and not just for those with
bladder control problems.
If you want to do things that are just , exploiting gullible imbeciles would appear
to violate the playing conditions. It would be hors jeu ; not done; just not
cricket .
As the Laconian famously said . " IF ."
For those for whom the 'if' condition returns 'false', it does very little to bleat about
how awful they are. You're not going to cause a little switch in their brain to flick on (or
off?), whereupon they realise the error of their ways and make a conscious decision to leave
the gullible imbeciles unexploited.
It's even unlikely to affect their victims (remember, they're imbeciles) – because
otherwise some infra-marginal imbeciles would have to process their way through quite a bit
of cognitive dissonance, and they're not wired for introspection (or processing).
So the sole real purpose (apart from κάθαρσις
catharsis ) is prophylaxis (προ +
φύλαξις – guarding ). Both good enough aims
obviously the writer is the one who gets the cathartic benefit, but who is going to be on
heightened alert as a result of this Cassandra -ish jeremiad -ing?
Non-imbeciles don't need it; imbeciles won't benefit.
Here's the thing: the gullible imbeciles are going to be exploited by
someone .
.
This is something that people of my persuasion struggle with. It boils down to the
following:
Let's assume that a reprehensible thing exists already, and is unlikely to be overthrown
by my opposition to it. Should I just participate and line my pockets?
The resources used are going to be used whether I participate or not, so it may as well
be me who gets them. After all, I will put them to moral uses – and while inside, I
can do things that are contrary to the interests of the reprehensible thing.
There is no satisfactory counter-argument to that line of reasoning, and yet I reject
it.
Then again: I was dropped on my head as an infant, so YMMV.
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not
mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and
on everyone they communicated with.
The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had
talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later
'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were
no more than unconfirmed rumors.
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked
"Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the
Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in
relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There
might be a motive hidden there.
As early as
August 2018 , there had been speculation that the Skripals were being held at USAF
Fairford airbase, based on audiovisual evidence in the background garden scene where the
interview took place. Helmer's sources (they requested anonymity) spotted a chicken coop in
the background which they say is a crow ladder trap. This is one indication that the garden
scene was located near a runway. Background noises included the roar of jet engines.
If Helmer's information is correct, then we can now understand why the British government
never gave Russian embassy staff access to the Skripals: London was in no position to do so,
the Skripals were on US territory.
One implication of this new information is that the Skripals may no longer be in Britain
and may now be living in North America somewhere with new identities. Should something happen
to them (or have happened to them already), they will not be missed by their new neighbours.
The Skripals will never be allowed to return to Russia and Sergei Skripal will never see or
be allowed to communicate with his elderly mother again.
It really does look as if Sergei Skripal may have had something to do with that Orbis
dossier after all, even if as a minor source or as a reference rather than the primary source
of disinformation about Donald Trump's past activities in Moscow. What other work has Skripal
done for his American masters?
It looks as if Sergei Skripal may not be the primary source of the disinformation in
Christopher Steele's dossier. Perhaps the person who is the primary source
is not a Russian at all.
JR | Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20 brings up a revisiting of the Litvinenko polonium poisoning.
It is worth mentioning that a tiny but crucial and virtually never mentioned detail of the
official inquiry (considered the last word on the matter) is that those conducting the
official inquiry were never allowed access to the autopsy report -- which should have been
(which would have been, in any honest effort at inquiry) the bedrock starting point. The
report has right along been sequestered by Scotland Yard in the interests of... you guessed
it: national security. Go figure...
It strikes me that the best explanation of the attack on the Skripals is not that he was
responsible for the Steele Dossier in any way, but that he could easily prove that it was a
fantasy. And was planning to do so.
He knew better, though, than to say so in the UK which suggests that he was on his way
home with his daughter when MI6 caught up with him and poisoned them both.
Steele, Pablo Miller and Skripal were old partners in crime.
I'm wondering whether the mistake Sergei made was not to leave the house -- probably worth
lotsa rubles -- behind and just go. On the other hand he was almost certainly under constant
surveillance.
@50 The Official Report to which you refer was also very careful to enter extensive
caveats regarding its conclusions for which there was almost no real evidence.
It seems important to note that Mr. Lavrov refers to administrations in his
comments, not presidents per se. As there are many staff in presidential
administrations, it seems entirely possible that 1) the requests from the Russians never
reached Obama or Trump personally, and 2) either or both presidents were therefore not even
aware of the requests. In the case of Trump, that would be consistent with the fact that many
members of his administration have been revealed to have operated contrary to his wishes.
@Jen #42
The Skripals residing on US territory would definitely indicate that the US has been the
senior partner in the "Skripal operation". This seems to be part of a general pattern.
@Jackrabbit #48
For the Steele dossier to be intentional bullshit (meaning its creator(s) knew it was
false when they created it) doesn't seem all that surprising. Intelligence agencies promote
disinformation all the time. That in no way means that Trump is in on the game.
Both Putin and Lavrov have stated that they talked directly with Obama and Trump about the
issues involved with their relations, so there's no excuses or obfuscation possible is this
case.
"... In regard to our suggestion, the latest move against Damascus was predominantly a UK project, a link was sent to us today to an article by Thierry Meyssan on Voltairenet that's certainly interesting. ..."
"... It's not "the US", it's an international grouping of ideologues and other cranks, focused as much, maybe even more, in the UK as in America. If Meyssan is right these people are highly placed, but operating subversively within their own governments. Of course we have always known these thing are true to some extent, but this latest event seems to be taking this subversion to a new level. ..."
"... Seventeen years ago a small group of highly placed individuals in the US government may have engineered or at very least allowed 9/11 to happen for their own geopolitical ends. We'd be naive to consider a second such event to be impossible. ..."
"... The real danger isn't that a group of ubermenschen or Bond-villains want to incinerate humanity for vague and unspecified reasons, it's that the deep heart of the Russophobic cabal is too dogma-driven and infested with idiots to understand the real world results of their plans. ..."
"... „Wasser verstärkt die oxidative und ätzende Wirkung von Chlor" (WATER exacerbates the corrosive effect of chlorine (because hydrochlorid acid is formed through the moisture) So why would medical experts then hose down these alleged „chlorine" victims? Of course they would not. So this too, seem to confirm that the whole scene was staged. ..."
"... Another article by Mr Meyssan http://www.voltairenet.org/article200375.html refers to the British regime " is elaborated by an elite gathered around the monarch, outside of any form of popular control " The idea of a deep state seems too convenient. In every sphere the regime exploits the population for it's own requirements, if indeed the regime adheres to a nationality. Cold war, hot war are regime terms, all that matters is knowing who not to trust. ..."
"... There is a very powerful deep state in the UK. I think its leadership is hidden deep in the Privy Council and enforced by MI5/MI6. It runs a hidden economy financed through crime – fraud against UK taxpayers, foreign countries etc, It controls the judiciary when need be. This speech by Gerald James although old gives some idea; ..."
"... Catte, we do know for absolute certain that WTC-7 came down by controlled demolition, not by fire – it's a matter of science – and that fact means inside job, however much it was also an outside job. It's fine to be rigorous but if the facts are staring you right in the face that's rigour enough. I simply do not understand reluctance to call things out when they're in your face. It's not as if a court hearing is necessarily going to give you a better answer, is it, but hopefully there's going to be one soon where the truth will be revealed, at least as much as necessary. ..."
"... According to the 52-page petition, which is accompanied by 57 exhibits, federal statute requires the U.S. Department of Justice to relay citizen reports of federal crimes to a special grand jury. The unprosecuted crime alleged to have taken place on 9/11 is THE BOMBING OF A PLACE OF PUBLIC USE OR A GOVERNMENT FACILITY -- as prohibited under the federal bombing statute or 18 U.S.C. § 2332f -- as well as a conspiracy to commit, or the aiding and abetting of, said offense. ..."
In regard to our suggestion, the latest move against Damascus was predominantly a UK project, a link was sent to us today to an
article by Thierry Meyssan on Voltairenet that's certainly
interesting.
Published March 20 it puts forward the idea the Skripal affair was a false flag intended to be the launch pad for a wholesale
diplomatic attack on Russia that Meyssan suggests would initiate a "new cold war."
While it's possible to question this terminology (many would suggest we already have a "new cold war" and are on the verge of
it becoming hot), his narrative offers a valid interpretation of recent events, and indeed looks more persuasive today that when
it was written.
What Meyssan suggests is as follows:
Back in March a projected coup was planned between the UK government and the neocons in Washington to create an irresistible drive
to a) launch a full blown assault on Damascus and b) get Russia removed from the UN Security Council.
The means was to be first the Skripal incident and immediately thereafter a large scale false flag chemical weapon attack on
Ghouta.
Rex Tillerson, then US Secretary of State, was involved in this plan.
However by some means (Meyssan doesn't say how) the Syrian and Russian intelligence services became aware of the plan, and
realised it was not the Pentagon behind it, but "some other agency."
The Russians immediately alerted the media to a possible false flag.
At the same time, bypassing diplomatic channels (because he was concerned to avoid others who were siding with the "plotters"),
Russian Chief of Staff, General Valeri Gerasimov contacted his American counterpart General Joseph Dunford to inform him of his fears
of a game-changing intel-sponsored event in Syria. Dunford in turn informed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who told Trump.
Since this apparent plot was going on without the knowledge of the White House & Pentagon, Trump then told Mike Pompeo, the
head of the CIA, to investigate.
As a result Trump became convinced Tillerson was involved and soon after, fired him.
This, in essence, is Meyssan's story. He cites no source for the claims about back-channel communications, and we can't verify
them even slightly. But we all know Russia did indeed warn of a pending false flag in Syria several times throughout March, and developments
since the time of Meyssan's writing lend credence to the broad thrust of interpretation.
The orchestrated & hysterical response of the UK state machine to the Skripal event doesn't just hint at agenda rollout, it shouts
it. The idea this was indeed the first act of a make or break plan is certainly more than believable. Indeed we all heard the suggestion
about removing Russia from the UNSC repeated in the
media at the height of the hysteria.
Whether Meyssan is right or wrong, we absolutely did just see an orchestrated, high level operation unfold, apparently
designed to discredit Russia finally and forever.
It suggests new levels of idiot-insanity going on. Not only is such a plan amateurish in conception (kicking Russia off the UNSC,
even if achievable, is not going to suddenly neutralise their political and military power), it would seem to have been doubly so
in execution.
The Skripal story is a farce. But the apparent attempts
to go forward with the "chemical attack" when all rationale for it was gone and when Douma itself was about to fall, shows stupidity
beyond comprehension. If this was the UK, as the Russians claim, rather than rescuing themselves they simply added another embarrassing
failure to the list, and dug themselves even deeper into easily-exposed crime.
The entire situation must be a warning, and not just the usual cliché about the US being a danger to world peace.
It's not "the US", it's an international grouping of ideologues and other cranks, focused as much, maybe even more, in the
UK as in America. If Meyssan is right these people are highly placed, but operating subversively within their own governments. Of
course we have always known these thing are true to some extent, but this latest event seems to be taking this subversion to a new
level.
Seventeen years ago a small group of highly placed individuals in the US government may have engineered or at very least allowed
9/11 to happen for their own geopolitical ends. We'd be naive to consider a second such event to be impossible.
It also seems clear those enacting this plan initially had little idea how dangerous it really was, and were to some extent astounded
by the Russian reaction, and the horror expressed by the more sane elements in international government. This is also significant.
It's a cliché in some alt media now to say the elites want WW3 and to talk about "population reduction" or some other meme. But,
while it's certainly true there is a strong eugenicist de-population cult in the upper echelons, it's highly improbable any of them
would choose a thermonuclear war as a viable method.
The real danger isn't that a group of ubermenschen or Bond-villains want to incinerate humanity for vague and unspecified
reasons, it's that the deep heart of the Russophobic cabal is too dogma-driven and infested with idiots to understand the real world
results of their plans.
We can be sure they won't have learned from this and won't be deterred from more of the same or worse in future. And if their
next remedial scheme doesn't get stymied by circumstance or nifty footwork, no one will be more surprised than they are when it kicks
of WW3.
But they do have some opposition within the state machine, and always have. There were people in the US and UK intelligence agencies
who didn't want to lie about WMDs, and there are people today in the UK FCO who off-record told Craig Murray about the lies being
forced on them regarding the Skripal case. These are people with enough smarts to want to avoid real confrontation with Russia, however
prepared they are to play the public word games.
I think it's important we address this more nuanced reality rather than opting for the security of familiar memes.
Pt. 2: WHY WOULD ASSAD DO IT?
The French govt also argues that the use of CW in East-Ghouta was both in a tactical and a strategical sense a (sort of) military
stroke of genius but I'll spare you the BS except for one argument:
The „strategic" aspect was that Assad wanted to punish the civilians in „rebel-held" areas and by creating „terreur et panic"
they achieved their aim of surrender.
„Because the war is not over for Assad, he wants to demonstrate thru these ruthless attacks that resistance is futile "
This is bollocks of course because the Russians and the SAA are winning and have painstakingly negotiated with the „rebels"
and arranged for them to be evacuated in buses to Idlib. (Can anyone imagine the US-military doing such a thing after 7yrs of
war?)
AND President Assad knows very well that the civilians in rebel-held areas were captives, treated like slaves, starved for
food (sold by the synthetic "rebels" at exorbitant prices) and brutally executed if they refused to live under Sharia-law or supported
Assad. So there was absolutely no need to „punish" them for anything.
Coincidentally, high-ranking former British military officers totally disagree with the French "assessment"
„Given the operational situation in Eastern-Ghouta on April 7, we estimate with high-confidence that the responsibility [for
the non-existent CW-attack] can be attributed to the Syrian Regime". (Sound familiar?)
And finally they put in this kind of „disclaimer" when they say „Les services francaises are not in the possession of any information
which would support the thesis, that these armed groups in East-Ghouta have endeavored to acquire CW for themselves or that they
were already available to them."
(Now that is a BIG Lie even the MSM has reported that the "rebels" DID use CW ( i.e. see Carla del Ponte, Seymour Hersh and
Scott Ritter on this)
„Furthermore we regard a manipulation of the released pictures as implausible, because the groups present in Ghouta had no access
to the means necessary to exercise a communication-manoeuvre of this magnitude" (!)
(this ridiculous claim does not even deserve a comment their "PR" has been highly effective since it was directed and organized
by MI6 see voltairenet for more)
The biggest lie comes at the end when they claim that Assad has not declared all his CW to the OPCW, has kept a CLANDESTINE
CW-programm all the time (since 2013), has intensified the use of CW continually and that the Russians are in on this.
And then follow the (by now familiar) highly-manipulative phrases which are supposed to be imprinted on our brains now:
"Undoubtedly a chemical attack was launched against civilians on April 7 in Douma"
"THERE IS NO OTHER PLAUSIBLE SCENARIO then the action of the SAA (CW-attack) as part of a major offensive to retake East-Ghouta"
"Russia has undeniably actively supported these operations and the clandestine policy of the SARG for the use of CW"
As Sergei Lavrov recently said to the BBC "the proof is (apparently) in the punishment" .. it is crystal clear that neither
the Briitsh nor the French gov't is interested in a thorough, forensic investigation (whether in Salisburgy or in Douma) and the
fact they have acted as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner BEFORE any impartial investigation took place is proof enough
of their duplicity
What I find extremely puzzling is this: The Russians now say they have "irrefutable evidence" that Britain has instigated a
false flag Douma (and obviously in Salisbury as well) . SO WHY don't they show it to us???? Why not publish the findings of the
Swiss lab? Is this some weird diplomatic code of conduct they adhere to?
Cassandra ,
President MACRON recently stated that he has „proof" that CW were used in Douma and that it was the Syrian Army. Now the French
govt has released the „evaluation nationale" but it seems no-one is paying attention to it.
After reading the document carefully one can only reach one conclusion:
There is NO PROOF whatsover in this evaulation and it is obviously addressed to an audience considered to be incapable of critical
thought. The format of the document is rather revealing because it contains no offical ID from a French „service" or ministry
(just „Republique Francaise") and the authors are unknown (so no official takes personal responsibility for its content, like
the phony „assessment" on CW released by the WH in 2017)
In order to find out who committed a crime, forensic evidence is extremely important, as we all know from detective thrillers
and court-room dramas. But in this case, there is NO FORENSIC EVIDENCE (no criminal investigation by a CSI-unit). There are only
unverified pics and videos posted on YouTube by the White Helmets (WH).
It is impossible to verify WHERE these pics/vids were taken and also WHEN because the metadata have been tempered with. The
WH of course have NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever, being a cover for the massive „strategic information" (incessantly demonizing Assad)
created by MI6, who also ran the massive PR for the artificial „rebels" in Syria. (See voltairenet.org for more on this).
And yet this is the basis for the „assessment" of the French govt. They write that „French experts have analyzed the symptoms
(visible in the pics and vids) which can be described as follows (respiratory distress, asphyxiation, cyanosis, skin-burns, excessive
salivation, etc.) Taken together, these symptoms are characteristic für a CW-attack, especially for suffocating-agents. The use
of asthma-sprays supports the thesis that such agents were used."
So instead of a forensic examination and autopsy, all we get is an interpretation of symptoms to fit the frame of the Assad-gasses-his-own-people
horror-narrative. To this, they add statements from anonymous people working (in Douma) for medical NGOs like UOSSM (created in
France in 2011, PR-front group) and SAMS (US directed front group) who claim that about a hundred people „stormed" their health
facilities in Douma and at least 40 died as a result of the CW-attack.
They use medical staff of course as „CREDIBILITY-ENHANCERS" because in general people tend to trust doctors, nurses and paramedics,
hence the „White Helmets" (and the faux „nurse" telling the heart-wrenchning, invented tale of the incubator-babies in Iraq in
1990)
I asked a friend who works for one of the biggest chemical companies in Germany (BASF) about the symptoms and he said they
are consistent with a chlorine-exposure but that does NOT mean that it could ONLY have been chlorine. Very similar symptoms occur
when people have been exposed to SMOKE-INHALATION (German: Rauchgasvergiftung)
And now it gets really interesting because a video has been released by Russian and Syrian TV stations in which two medical
students who work for the emergency department of the Douma hospital, say that the people shown in the WH-video had indeed been
exposed to SMOKE-INHALATION.
A house in Douma had been hit by an airstrike which caused a fire in the lower floors and the partial collapse of the upper
floors. So these people had breathing difficulties and were taken to the emergency dept of the hospital where they were given
first aid. Suddenly some men appeared and shouted „this was a gas-attack!". They then began to douse the patients with cold water
(from a hose), which caused panic (children screamed of course). These „dramatic" scenes were filmed then the strangers disappeared
as quickly as they had arrived.
I cannot verify if these medical students told the truth, but given the political context, I have much more reason to believe
them than the White Helmets or the French DGSE.
Just one more thing, the brochure from BASF about the dangers of chlorine contains one sentence that caught my eye:
„Wasser verstärkt die oxidative und ätzende Wirkung von Chlor" (WATER exacerbates the corrosive effect of chlorine
(because hydrochlorid acid is formed through the moisture) So why would medical experts then hose down these alleged „chlorine"
victims? Of course they would not. So this too, seem to confirm that the whole scene was staged.
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
This is NOT a 'French' report. It is an Israeli Zionist pile of black propaganda, no doubt dictated by the CRIF, the de facto
government of the slave state formerly known as 'France'.
Doing a little more tunnelling into the Rabbit hole.
A Bill Clinton reference to Karl Rove led to some interesting events surrounding the recently pardoned Scooter Libby.
@KarlRove https://bit.ly/2HFtLlh opposing Military Industrial Complex isn't
equal2 Putin Apologism. War(s) Crimes of aggression started for false reasons With no proper Investigative & War reporting from
corporate media how 2 hold http://bfy.tw/AKAh #warmongerstoaccount
5:26 PM – 17 Apr 2018
The criminal group led by the red clown and the old Mare with the skewed muzzle continues the provocations. On Monday, the British
representative in the OPCW accused the Russians of non-admission of OPCW experts in Duma. At the same time, the OPCW experts while
in Damascus were expecting a solution of the Security Department of the UN, because controlled by the Britons the bandits were
instructed to fire at the place where the white helmets organized the performance with a "chemical attack". At the same time,
the United States began to yell that Russian do not allow the OPCW experts to the Duma, seeking to eliminate traces of the "chemical
attack". This gang HIGHLY LIKELY thinks we're all idiots.
The world is already clear that no poisoning of the Tablets was not, as there was no chemical attack by Assad. Clown and Mare
managed to negotiate with the Russians and they did not respond to the shelling of Syria. Seeing that the Russian did not respond,
the bandits completely insolen. And now they can arrange another chemical provocation and hit in Syria already on the Russians.
And is not the fact that the Russian will not answer. This is war. I do not want because of a bunch of idiots, teasing the Russian
bear, to a slaughter in which no one will survive.
The funniest part of Meyssan's story is that Trump asked DCI Pompeo to investigate the false flag. What a nube.
Think it through. They didn't say cabal, they said agency. DoS is not an agency, it's a department. 'Ideologues and cranks?'
'Highly placed, but operating subversively within their own governments?' You are describing CIA.
That small group of highly placed individuals who did 911? That was CIA and their moles in key departments: Brennan, Blee,
Cofer Black, Wilshire, Bikowsky, Bowman. The deep heart of the Russophobic cabal is not some secret society, it's a longstanding
CIA program. These programs look international because CIA uses eyes-only intelligence liaisons to conceal the dirty work they
delegate to other countries' agents.
The opposition within CIA is also institutionally chartered. CIA has a routine: dewy-eyed boy scout analysts secretly decry
the insanity of the operations people. Then when the shit hits the fan, CIA publishes the analysis and uses it to blame somebody
else. That's how they blamed Vietnam on the Pentagon, with their tongue-in-cheek Pentagon Papers. And that's how they blamed Tillerson
for their very own CIA plan and conspiracy for war.
milosevic,
This is a very promising thesis. I hope you can expand on it.
Another angle might be Nixon/Watergate/WaPo. Or Reagan/IranContra/North. Of course, JFK/Vietnam/Oswald goes without saying.
Here's a lecture given to FSB (KGB) students by a Russian professor. He says the world is governed by a "Conceptual Power" that
exists above elected governments and that this template has been in place since 1350 B.C.. Very interesting at the very least:
Another article by Mr Meyssan http://www.voltairenet.org/article200375.html
refers to the British regime " is elaborated by an elite gathered around the monarch, outside of any form of popular
control " The idea of a deep state seems too convenient. In every sphere the regime exploits the population for it's own requirements,
if indeed the regime adheres to a nationality. Cold war, hot war are regime terms, all that matters is knowing who not to trust.
Re BZ (British Zyklon?) the following lengthy clip from Saker's "Curious Incident" discussion reflects OffG's raison d'etre: that
Facts Really ought to be Sacred. The MSM have abandoned this principle, as have the Leaders of F, UK and US regimes among others
in the Western world. This is a huge reversal of human progress, and extremely dangerous for the world because the West now has
runaway Technology without Ethics. BTL Saker:
vot tak on April 16, 2018 · at 1:09 am UTC 14.04.2018
Embassy Press Officer comments on the findings of the Swiss experts regarding the Salisbury incident
"Q. Is there any new information regarding the findings of experts from Switzerland in connection with the Salisbury poisoning?
A. According to information from the Swiss Federal Institute for NBC-protection in Spiez, its experts received samples collected
in Salisbury by the OPCW specialists and finished testing them on 27 March.
The experts of the Institute discovered traces of toxic chemical called "BZ" and its precursors. It is a Schedule 2 substance
under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
"BZ" is a chemical agent, which is used to temporary incapacitate people. The desired psychotoxic effect is reached in 30-60
minutes after application of the agent and lasts up to four days. According to the information the Russian Federation possesses,
this agent was used in the armed forces of the USA, United Kingdom and several others NATO member states. No stocks of such substance
ever existed either in the Soviet Union or in the Russian Federation.
In addition, the Swiss specialists discovered strong concentration of traces of the nerve agent of A-234 type in its initial states
as well as its decomposition products.
In view of the experts, such concentration of the A-234 agent would result in inevitable fatal outcome of its administration.
Moreover, considering its high volatility, the detection of this substance in its initial state (pure form and high concentration)
is extremely suspicious as the samples have been taken several weeks since the poisoning.
It looks highly likely that the "BZ" nerve agent was used in Salisbury. The fact that Yulia Skripal and Detective Sergeant
Nick Bailey have already been discharged from hospital, and Sergei Skripal is on his way to recovery, only supports such conclusion.
All this information was not mentioned in the final OPCW report at all. Considering the above, we have numerous serious questions
to all interested parties, including the OPCW."
Sushi on April 16, 2018 · at 3:04 am UTC
That statement on the part of RF embassy is good to see as it confirms my own supposition as recorded in Part X.
It is always nice to go out on a limb and then discover the rest of the world supports the finding rather than sawing off the
limb 🙂
But I believe the big take-away from this event is the fact that the state is no longer held in check by the MSM. This means
that the ordinary citizen is paying for an entity which is actively acting to subvert the interests of the citizenry. This is
very dangerous.
These [truther] articles each get about 10,000 page views. This is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the total voting population
of the UK, or France, or FRG or US or CA. If you believe this information is valuable then you should share it. You do not have
to agree with all that I have written. It is quite possible I have made errors, drawn incorrect conclusions from the evidence
etc, etc.
The key issue is that the MSM is not engaged in a review of an incident which, on any degree of review fails on the merits
and is quickly exposed as false, deceptive and grounds for vilification of another state which I believe to be innocent of
the allegations made against it. If I could find evidence of RF involvement I would gladly write that. But I cannot locate
any such evidence. This event is likely to be used to further justify illegal use of force in Syria. If the public comes to
the belief that "Bad Vlad" is pulling all the strings then they will accept the march toward global war. The problem is that
the person really pulling all the strings is located at Number 10. If bad things happen they have a taxpayer financed bunker
to retreat to. The ordinary citizen is not even assured of a working NHS. _So if you find this series of value then address
it with your family and other contacts._ Cheers!
There is a very powerful deep state in the UK. I think its leadership is hidden deep in the Privy Council and enforced by MI5/MI6.
It runs a hidden economy financed through crime – fraud against UK taxpayers, foreign countries etc, It controls the judiciary
when need be. This speech by Gerald James although old gives some idea;
Excellent post Catte. Thanks. There is certainly serious dissension within the ranks of the U.S. establishment or we would not
be seeing the various fits and stops and starts that have characterized both Trump's appointments, and his subsequent removal
of various appointed advisors, as well as his erratic foreign policy actions since he entered office. Trump himself was never
"the problem" for the collective U.S. deep state, it was Trump's stated goal of "getting along with Russia" that has prompted
close to open warfare between factions of the U.S. ruling class and institutional structures. What is amazing to behold is watching
almost the entirety of the leadership of the most powerful Western nations on earth morph before our eyes into a group of slapstick
carnival clowns selling snake oil and war as if they were some sort of magic elixir sure to prolong their much cherished Western
hegemony. Recent events have pulled the mask off of the facade of "Western democracy" to reveal the grinning death mask of a dying
elite power structure, delusional, paranoid and grandiose to the bitter end.
Seventeen years ago a small group of highly placed individuals in the US government may have engineered or at very least
allowed 9/11 to happen for their own geopolitical ends
???
May have? Allowed?
How many articles has OffG published on 9/11 that show unequivocally that it was an inside job? Seventeen years later with the
vision of hindsight for those of us who did swallow the lies we can see how utterly silly we were. We can see so clearly how steel
frame skyscrapers do not collapse symmetrically due to fires, how a band of men armed with boxcutters cannot negotiate the most
restricted airspace in the world without an effective stand down – provided so very conveniently by 21 drills occurring on the
morning of 9/11, some of which exactly matched the alleged real life events.
No further investigation needs to be conducted to know that 9/11 was an inside job – only to sort out the guilty and exactly what
happened. In fact, all you need to know that 9/11 was an inside job is the undisputed 2.25 seconds of free fall acceleration in
the collapse of WTC-7. That tiny piece of information is all you need. For free fall, the 82 steel support columns must have given
way at virtually the same time and for that to have happened only controlled demolition could have been the cause and controlled
demolition can only mean inside job.
Catte,
We've successfully proved the official story is a lie, but we haven't uncovered what actually happened beyond there being foreknowledge
and pre-planning of some kind. Who did the planning, how many people knew how much how long before it happened, we do NOT know.
Do we?
Let's be as rigorous about the sceptical argument as we are about the official story.
Catte, we do know for absolute certain that WTC-7 came down by controlled demolition, not by fire – it's a matter of science –
and that fact means inside job, however much it was also an outside job. It's fine to be rigorous but if the facts are staring
you right in the face that's rigour enough. I simply do not understand reluctance to call things out when they're in your face.
It's not as if a court hearing is necessarily going to give you a better answer, is it, but hopefully there's going to be one
soon where the truth will be revealed, at least as much as necessary.
10 April – Lawyers and Victims' Families File Petition for Federal Grand Jury Investigation
According to the 52-page petition, which is accompanied by 57 exhibits, federal statute requires the U.S. Department of Justice
to relay citizen reports of federal crimes to a special grand jury. The unprosecuted crime alleged to have taken place on 9/11
is THE BOMBING OF A PLACE OF PUBLIC USE OR A GOVERNMENT FACILITY -- as prohibited under the federal bombing statute or 18 U.S.C.
§ 2332f -- as well as a conspiracy to commit, or the aiding and abetting of, said offense.
We don't know who exactly but we know for absolute certain that rogue elements within government were involved. We definitely
know it was an inside job, whatever outside involvement there was.
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
How do you explain the 'five dancing Israelis' filming the attack as it happened, from Liberty Park in New Jersey?
"Not excluding it, jut saying it's not an inevitable conclusion they were involved at all, and certainly no indication there were
at the center of anything."
No one is saying they are at the centre of anything. That they were in a position to film, were reportedly celebrating, their
story changed multiple times in interviews with law and enforcement and that they were possibly Israeli intelligence all adds
up to making it an interesting detail.
Especially when all the other evidence of 9/11 is investigated and puts the dancing Israelis in context.
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
LUDICROUS! They knew of the attack, before it happened. Others filming the atrocity were NOT wildly celebrating the deaths of
thousands. They were attempting to pose as 'Arabs' to defame them. One told one of the arresting police that 'Your enemy are the
Palestinians'. The police found traces of explosives in their van. One or more failed lie-detector tests before they were simply
released and allowed to go home to Israel, where they appeared on TV, one admitting to being MOSSAD.
Steady on. The source quoted above doesn't say anything about wild celebration, it just says the five men were looking happy and
smiling. That's a bit weird of itself but don't exaggerate it into something else. Thats just replacing memes with other memes.
Maybe they were involved, but there are many other possibilities, including them simply watching the event with no direct connection
at all.
What significance do you see in the traces of explosives? Are you suggesting these guys are the ones who wired the WTCs for demolition,
and that they had brought the RDX/thermite there in that van, which they didn't ditch but continued to drive around in?
Five guys with no known specialist knowledge, wiring three massive towers for demolition from one small van?
You don't think it was likely a bigger more professional outfit that would do that? One – say – with permits to enter and renovate
the towers/enter the lift shafts?
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
Your diversionary tactics are interesting. They were described as 'dancing, jumping and giving each other 'high-fives'. Obviously
they were overcome with grief. The presence of explosive traces plainly has nothing to do so with the controlled demolition. It
just seems odd, and suspicious. No-one at any time suggested that these five did the placing of the controlled demolition charges.
Of course it was others, probably Israeli Death Force sappers. And they were NOT 'just watching'-they were filming it, and from
the first aircraft strike. Pretty prescient of them.
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
9/11 irrefutably, I would say, was a MOSSAD operation, with US sayanim, and Sabbat Goy involvement, the US side centered on that
Zionist Israel First cabal, the 'neo-conservatives'. Christopher Bollyn does an excellent job of outlining the Zionist ' Clash
of Civilizations' and 'War on (Islam) Terror' projects, the latter, in particular, an endeavour of Netanyahu's for decades. Everything
that flowed from that event, the genocides in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and the destruction inflicted on those unlucky lands,
the crucifixion of Syria, the regular, ritual, massacres in Gaza, are all creations of the Zionist elite, and follow closely the
strategy outlined in the Oded Yinon Plan of 1982, which was reiterated by Netanyahu in the 'A Clean Break' manifesto.
Zionist control easily explains May's involvement, as she is a groveling toady of the Netanyahu regime and the Holy State that
sits above mere 'International Law'. Apparently, when Netanyahu visited Putin in Sochi a year or so ago, and made certain demands
on Russia in regard to Syria, and Putin rebuffed him, so great was Netanyahu's distress at this insubordination by a mere goy
that he lost self-control and went a little hysterical. Hence the renewed determination to keep the vivisection of Syria going,
and prepare for Holy War on Lebanon and Iran. Of course Bibi's path is that of the Masada Complex, he being a wannabe zealot 'hero',
and he seems oblivious to the reality that unending Israeli aggression will only bring about Israel's destruction, in the manner
that it has inflicted ruination on its neighbours for 70 years.
bevin,
"..Let's be as rigorous about the sceptical argument as we are about the official story."
Absolutely agree.
It is quite reasonable for someone to be convinced that, to use a popular argument on this thread, Corbyn is an MI 6 agent but
if there is no evidence of this cited not only is it impossible to insist on the 'irrefutable' nature of the assertion but to
do so is to discredit oneself, the discussion in question and, fairly quickly, the blog in its entirety.
It is one of life's little ironies that off guardian, which insists that we weigh evidence rigorously where claims by the state
are concerned, is becoming something of a refuge for assertions based on evidence just as sketchy and circumstantial as those
put forward by the likes of Freedland and the BBC.
So 9/11 might have been a Mossad operation, just as Putin might have ordered the attack in Salisbury and the White helmets could
be well meaning humanitarians discovering gas attacks.
Let us see the evidence before we agree that something is irrefutable, even when it is something as clear cut as the fact that
Corbyn (already revealed to be a Czech spy, having once had tea with one) has had tea with an MI 6 agent and is therefore, connecting
the dots, completely unreliable and no more to be supported than, say, Boris Johnson. The proof being that he did not oppose,
we are told the Magnitsky Act, sponsored by his fellow agent (and PLP member) Ian Austin.
At any rate the Israeli Embassy can now call off their campaign against Corbyn who is revealed to be almost as big a friend of
Israel as Blair- who even Roman Polanski knew was a CI Agent.
It is one of life's little ironies that off guardian, which insists that we weigh evidence rigorously where claims by the
state are concerned, is becoming something of a refuge for assertions based on evidence just as sketchy and circumstantial
as those put forward by the likes of Freedland and the BBC.
Excuse me? Since when have we been guilty of that?
There is nothing elaborate whatsoever in claiming WTC-7 came down by classic, controlled demolition, aka, an implosion. It's irrelevant
how substandard its material, how much fire was in it, or how much damage it suffered. The manner of its collapse tells all. Pre-
and during- explosions, kink in middle at start, beautiful symmetry, near and partial free fall, complete dismemberment of steel
frame and molten metal are all unique characteristics of controlled demolition while there is not even a lick of flame to be seen
in videos of the collapse. WTC-7's collapse by "fire" is the greatest case of the Emperor's New Clothes the world has ever seen.
I've done an Occam's Razor exercise on the collapse of WTC-7 and offered $5,000 to those who support the official story to produce
an equivalent exercise favouring the "fire" hypothesis. No one has been able to respond. http://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/911.html
Bevin: if this comment is aimed in part at me, you are deliberately misrepresenting my assertions. No one on this thread, makes
the accusation that Jeremy is an MI6 agent except you. As you say, there is no evidence for this and personally, I do not believe
he is. What I have empirically and objectively shown (previously with links) is that he can be co-opted by the Cabinet Office
and JIC to conduit faulty intelligence fed to him. That does NOT make him part of the intelligence apparatus, only ancillary to
it. To this end, it was interesting to note his actions this weekend: commenting on Syria. For this he sought, but did not get
an intelligence briefing as a Privy Councillor. This was quite clear on the Marr show: he talked about "other parties" that may
have perpetrated the Douma provocation but he said "I don't know, I don't know" quite a few times. Corbyn "unbriefed" wants an
OPCW investigation and a UN mandate to act: which is perfectly reasonable and legal. And probably clears up any false assertion
that he is in the full-time employ of MI6?
Re: the Magnitsky ammendment. Not only did Corbyn "not oppose" this: he actively promoted it at every opportunity. As I have tried
to make clear we already have "Unexplained Wealth Orders" which are analoguous to Magnitsky sanctions. We do not need another
Magnitsky ammendment. This was the government position before 6th March. I do not claim that Jeremy is pushing this Act because
he IS an MI6 agent: but I can quite clearly show he is pushing it FOR an MI6 agent. Thank if you do not conflate and impute meaning
for me.
And no, I have not produced "evidence" that Browder is an agent for SIS: but if he is not, he might as well be? Or perhaps you
think him an innocent human rights activist as he styles himself. What is irrefutable, empirical, and objective is that this one
man is the source of much of the character assassination of Putin (from his "Enemy No1") and Jeremy is pushing his agenda. Why:
I do not know – naivety? Beyond that, I leave the speculation to you.
If Ian Austin is an agent, he would be a Mossad agent but I make no such claim.
As for the Israeli Embassy: I have covered that elsewhere in depth. No, they will not call off their campaign. Yes, they already
have a hold, and they are not far off gaining a veto control of the Labour disciplinary process: whereby anyone can be suspended
on false accusations of anti-semitism: a position Jeremy has backed himself into by his strategy of appeasement.
All in all: I would say my assertions are grounded in empiricism, and I have not claimed anything I cannot back up. So facts are
sacred: even if that means you do not like them?
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
I suggest immersing yourself in Christopher Bollyn's excellent videos regarding Israeli planning for just such an operation, to
be undertaken to provide the 'New Pearl Harbor' that the fanatic Zionist 'neo-conservatives' declared presciently would be needed
to get the USA to do Israel's dirty work in destroying the Moslem countries of the MENA. The evidence of Israeli and US sayanim
involvement is huge, most circumstantial, but other parts, like the 'five dancing Israelis' seen filming the atrocity in real
time, are rather more convincing.
I read one of Bollyn's books, can't remember the title. I take on a lot of his points: but I personally frame such events as transnational,
or better still: supra-national. To say it was this or that country alone is not how I view it: the perpetraitors were ultimately
working for a "higher cause"! Caitlin Johnstone just did a piece about this: the ultimate beneficiaries form a globalised superclass
that is totally amoral and has no allegiance to any particular cause or country. Zinoviev termed this the Westernised "supra-society".
Certainly not every individual: but at the corrupted core – all Western Intelligence agencies serve a cause that transcends the
national interest. National security is a line they feed us: the UK as a whole benefits little from our involvement in Syria,
and less still, from being embroiled in a Cold War with Russia on the grounds of national defence. It's all a con!
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
The Zionist elite support other states and their elites only in so far as they serve Israel's interests, or rather the interests
of the Israeli and Diaspora elites. These interests are not those of much of Jewry, or, of course, of any goyim but the collaborative
type like May, Micron, Cheney et al. The Zionist elite most certainly do possess global ambitions rooted in Talmudic doctrine.
Mulga Mumblebrain ,
Please don't misrepresent me. I have stated over and over again that the culprits are the Zionist elites in Israel and the Diaspora,
NOT Jews as a whole. Many Jews oppose the nefarious activities of the Zionist elites, and many others are passive, just like all
other communities. But in the matter of 9/11 proposing that the Zionists not be mentioned is quite bizarre. In my comments immediately
above (the last seven or eight) there are eight 'Zionists' and one 'Jewry' and that was in the context of asserting that not all
Jews support Zionist crimes or benefit from them.
I am sad to see you write that.
I have not seen anyone here claiming Corbyn to be an MI6 agent, and it reads as inflationary misrepresentation to say that people
have.
The Labour bureaucracy is simply overpowered/ outmaneuvered by a very well organised, well connected and well resourced psywar
operation, – one that has at least some links to Israel and zionist sympathies.
Too many on the Corbyn Left cannot engage with this for fear of being branded racist.
Do you refute the accusation of Corbyn's appeasement?
Evidence for Mossad involvement in 9/11 ?
There is a heap of evidence, arguably no conclusive evidence, but not far off:
'First, Bergen, NJ residents saw five people on a white van filming the attacks and visibly celebrating. They had set up their
cameras before the first plane hit. Police arrested them. All were Israelis (now referred to as the "dancing Israelis"). Bomb-sniffing
dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further
testing. All five were later released at the instigation of Israeli & American Jewish leaders, some in the US Government. Details
are still classified. This incident quickly disappeared from the mainstream media, following a brief mention in the New York Times
three days after the attacks, that was not followed up.
A second van was stopped on the approaches to the George Washington Bridge. As CBS's Dan Rather said in his live report: "Two
suspects are in FBI custody after a truckload of explosives were discovered around the George Washington Bridge. That bridge links
New York to New Jersey over the Hudson River. Whether the discovery of those explosives had anything to do with other events today
is unclear, but the FBI, has two suspects in hand, said the truckload of explosives, enough explosives were in the truck to do
great damage to the George Washington Bridge " Those suspects –also Israelis -- and the incident then seem to have disappeared
from the public record and mainstream media "examinations" <sic.> of 9/11, just like discussions of the first van, the secondary
explosions at ground level within WTC-1 and WTC-2, and the precipitous collapse into its own footprint of WTC-7.'
I think that Kevin Ryan has done some of the best work in trying to identify legitimate suspects for 9/11, and proposes a 'private
intelligence network' which spans several countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia, UAE ).
I think there is a strong case made by Sabrosky and others that 'The Big Wedding'
' wedded Neocon philosophy with 500 years of Atlanticism'.
I keep banging the drum that seeks to sound out the need for the Left to come to terms with this history. I contend that they
will not 'get anywhere' in the 21st century unless or until they do.
mog ,
@Admin
Does this network include the US/UK or any NATO countries?
Yes.
absolutely agreed. the more nuanced reality is where Karl ROVE delivered us..("We are empire now we create new realities..") which
is why the adults in Moscow have so far deflected these egregious false flags generated by the MI6 Britprop WhiteHelmets®.con
atrocity troupe.
Because they KNOW whats going on.
Thierry Meysson wrote one of the very first books on false flag 911, the event beginning WW3 (911. The big LIE) He is a voice
highly regarded. The ugly intentions of the anglozionist hegamon, loudly expressed as they slapped the Patriot Act into homeland
'Law' – to smash the middle East by all and any means (Strategy of Tension [NATO:GLADIO] YINON and 'Full Spectrum Dominance' methods/R2P,
P2OG, IIO) ushered in on the LIE of 911 casus belli; was not lost on Russian and Chinese intelligence ; nor on anyone listening.
There has been quite a lot recently in RT about the sports doping scandal and how WADA are
threatening to exclude Russia from all sorts of events. I get the impression that Russia may
be trailing its coat here, at a time when the OPCW news comes out in drips and drabs. So
maybe some bargaining is going on behind the scenes.
On quite another tack I came across this lovely conversation - translated from a
contemporary record on papyrus - between the Roman Emperor Commodus and the head of the
Alexandria Gymnasium (main school.) I think this is 2nd century AD.
Emperor: Do you know who you are talking to?
Head: Yes I know, I am speaking to a tyrant.
Emperor: No, to a monarch
Head: Do not say that. Your divine father Marcus Aurelius had the proper qualities of an
emperor. Listen! - First, he was a philosopher; second, he did not love money; third, he
loved the good. In you there are the reverse of these qualities: tyranny, hatred of the good,
common ignorance.
(He was then led off to be executed). (From City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, by Peter
Parsons)
Makes you think about our current rulers. In the UK, Clement Attlee seems to comes closest
to the ideal.
@ Montreal | Dec 8 2019 18:32 | 17
"sports doping scandal and how WADA are threatening to exclude Russia"
There is some suggestion that the LIMS database had been hacked, with
the hacks / changes being ascribed to Russia, but in fact originating
from parties intent on discrediting Russia..
STUXNET was a sophisticated Government (Israeli / US ) effort to
attack Iran's centrifuge program. Stuxnet's design and architecture
are not domain-specific and can be adapted to other industrial targets.
Such as a LIMS system - often a unprotected visual interface to an SQL database
It is unlikely that the very capable team that gave us Stuxnet has been sitting around
bored and idle, with such a juicy target available
A British Ministry of Defence document, issued on March 12 but unnoticed since then,
reports the ministry has searched its files and records of the blood sampling and testing
for Novichok in the blood of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, but "failed to locate any
information that provides the exact time that the samples were collected."
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is the parent organization for the Defence Science and
Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the UK's chemical warfare centre at Porton Down. Porton Down,
as the laboratory is usually known, is the source of British evidence that Novichok was
detected in the bloodstreams of the two Skripals. [...]
If Gardiner's report of March 12 is true, then this is MOD's official admission there
is no chain of custody for the blood samples on which the Novichok allegation has been
based. If Gardiner is lying, then the ministry's reason is obvious: the samples which were
taken from the Skripals in Salisbury Hospital did not reveal that their blood was
contaminated by what Porton Down and Prime Minister May later claimed was Novichok.
[...]
Exciting new product intro from Max Blumenthal: Maddow's Tears™, a new formula that
produces soothing, cooling moisture in politically convenient circumstances.
"I am at a loss to see what motive the Kremlin might have to commit murders on foreign
soil during the buildup, let alone the enactment, of a sporting event that is of mammoth
chauvinist significance to Russia."
"The most obvious motive for these attacks would surely be from someone out to embarrass
the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – someone from his enemies, rather than from his
friends or employees. But once again we have no clue."
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a
laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014,
he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen
staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special
knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing
video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by
journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society
Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for
Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
The Case of Sergei Magnitsky
Questions
Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions
The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of
whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story suggest he may not
have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him to be.
Jahrgang 1981. Studium der Volkswirtschaftslehre in Bonn, Mannheim und St. Petersburg.
Absolvent der studienbegleitenden Journalistenausbildung des Institutes zur Förderung
publizistischen Nachwuchses (ifp). Sieben Jahre Moskau-Korrespondent von SPIEGEL ONLINE. Autor
des Buchs "Generation Putin - Das neue Russland verstehen". Seit September 2016 Mitglied der
Wirtschaftsredaktion von SPIEGEL ONLINE.
There's a tombstone in northeastern Moscow that bears the portrait of a man with a friendly yet somewhat uneasy smile. His
name is Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky. He was born in April 1972 in Odessa, Ukraine, and died in November
2009 in Moscow. To this day, 10 years after the fact, the circumstances of his death in a Russian pretrial
detention facility remain unclear.
There are two versions of what happened to Magnitsky. The more well-known version has all the makings of
a conspiracy thriller. It's been repeated in thousands of articles, TV interviews and in parliamentary
hearings. In this version of the story, the man from the Moscow cemetery fought nobly against a corrupt
system and was murdered for it.
The other version is more complicated. In it, nobody is a hero.
The first version has had geopolitical implications. In 2012, the United States passed the Magnitsky Act,
which imposed sanctions against Russian officials who were believed to have played a role in his death. The
measure was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama after receiving a broad bipartisan majority. Back
then, if there was one thing that politicians on both sides of the aisle could agree on, it was their
opposition to a nefarious Russian state. In 2017, Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Act, which enabled
the U.S. to impose sanctions against Russia for human rights violations worldwide.
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The facilitator behind these pieces of legislation is Bill Browder, Magnitsky's former boss in Moscow.
"When he was put to the ultimate test, he became the ultimate hero," Browder says of Magnitsky. Browder was
born in the U.S.. For years, his company, Hermitage Capital Management, was one of the largest foreign
investors in Russia. At the time, Browder was an advocate for Russian President Vladimir Putin in the West.
That is, until he was prohibited from entering Russia in 2005.
Public Enemy No. 1
Today, Browder refers to himself as "Putin's No. 1 Enemy." From his office in London's Finsbury district,
Browder coordinates a campaign he calls "Justice for Sergei Magnitsky." His goal is to get other countries
to impose sanctions against Russia for what happened to his former employee. So far, four other countries
have followed the U.S.' lead. For now, Browder is concentrating on Europe. He has spoken to politicians in
Norway, Sweden and France. He came to Berlin in May and spoke with the chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs in Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag. He also had an appointment at the Chancellery.
Browder tells a gripping story of how Magnitsky, the whistleblower, is believed to have died. This
narrative is his ticket into the political sphere. It's why he's received by members of parliament,
diplomats and human rights activists alike, often with open arms. They support his push for more legislation
because they see it as setting an important precedent: Corrupt regimes all over the world that are violating
their citizens' rights must be held accountable and made to suffer consequences in the form of entry bans
and frozen accounts as laid out by the Global Magnitsky Act. The law makes it more difficult, if only
slightly, for autocrats to sneer at and ignore human rights.
But there's another version of the Magnitsky saga, one that is more contradictory than Browder's telling
and more difficult to summarize. The legal documents that underpin it fill dozens of binders, not only in
Moscow, but also in London and New York. After sifting through thousands of pages, one might begin to
wonder: Did the perfidious conspiracy to murder Magnitsky ever really take place? Or is Browder a charlatan
whose story the West was too eager to believe? The certainty surrounding the Magnitsky affair becomes
muddled in the documents, particularly the clear division between good and evil. The Russian authorities'
take is questionable, but so is everyone else's -- including Bill Browder's.
The cases raises uncomfortable questions for the West. In Europe and the U.S., critics of Russia often
argue from a position of moral superiority. But with the Magnitsky sanctions, it could be that the activist
Browder used a noble cause to manipulate Western governments.
One thing that stays the same no matter which version is told, is this: Magnitsky is dead and he was the
victim of a terrible injustice.
Magnitsky's Demise
On the evening of Nov. 16, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky died in a cell at Moscow's "Matrosskaya Tishina"
pretrial detention center. A prison doctor had diagnosed him with an inflammation of the pancreas four and a
half months prior, but shortly before Magnitsky was scheduled to undergo surgery, he was moved to another
prison -- one without the necessary medical equipment for such an invasive procedure. The reason given for
the move was that Magnitsky's cell needed to be renovated. Could that possibly be true? Even after the
whistleblower's death, work still hadn't commenced, according to an investigative commission. It began
looking into the case shortly after Magnitsky's death because the outrage in Moscow was so huge. The
commission counted among its members respected human rights activists and opponents of the Kremlin. They
analyzed notes and complaints filed while Magnitsky was in prison. They also interviewed the prison staffers
who, instead of helping Magnitsky, let him die.
The commission's 20-page report offered detailed insights into the sadistic, cold-hearted nature of
Russia's prison system. In the months before his death, Magnitsky was constantly moved from one cell to
another. His mother brought him medications that took 18 days to reach him. In September, he was forced to
wear his jacket at night because his cell window lacked a pane of glass. His cell toilet often backed up.
One time Magnitsky's abdominal pains became so acute that his neighbor began desperately kicking against the
door of his cell and calling for help. It took prison staff five hours to get Magnitsky to a doctor.
Mischa Japaridze/ AP/ Picture Alliance/ DPA
Sergei Magnitsky's grave at a cemetery in Moscow.
Magnitsky's condition worsened on his last day. He was transferred back to the prison where he was
originally supposed to be operated on months prior. There, the dying man began to panic. He was sedated and
restrained with handcuffs. The files analyzed by the commission note the "use of a rubber baton." Magnitsky
was left alone in his cell, unobserved, without a doctor. "An ill person in severe condition was effectively
left without medical attention for 1 hour and 18 minutes to die," the commission wrote in its report, a
chronology of merciless negligence. Yet it contains no evidence of a targeted murder.
According to Browder's more dramatic telling of the story, Magnitsky's arrest and death were a targeted
act of revenge by Russian authorities against an anti-corruption activist. Browder says he tapped "my lawyer
Magnitsky," to investigate a case in 2007. Over the course of his research, Magnitsky supposedly stumbled
onto a crime of unprecedented proportions -- the biggest tax fraud in Russian history, perpetrated by a
corrupt band of police officers and government officials.
The fraud involved a sum of $230 million (208 million euros) and a complex master plan, which, according
to Browder, was run by two Moscow police officers, Artyom Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov. The duo had initiated
a fraudulent tax investigation against Browder's Hermitage Capital Management and then seized three
letterbox firms that had originally been founded by Browder's people. With confiscated company deeds, the
firms were transferred to middlemen who fabricated massive losses and requested the reimbursement of $230
million in taxes that Browder's company had previously paid. Karpov, the policeman, denies any involvement
in the fraud or Magnitsky's death. "Browder is a liar," he says. Kuznetsov could not be reached for a
statement.
Browder's Story
According to Browder, Magnitsky was onto Kuznetsov and Karpov. He also says the same officials had
arranged for Magnitsky to be imprisoned and killed. Browder has told this version of events countless times.
He testified in front of the U.S. Congress that Magnitsky had been "murdered." Browder told Canadian
parliamentarians: "Eight riot guards with rubber batons would beat him for one hour and 18 minutes. He was
subsequently found dead on the floor of that cell."
When asked, Browder cites the investigative committee's report as evidence. He does the same on his
website, where he also says the same officials incriminated by Magnitsky "intentionally tortured and
ultimately murdered him." The report, however, makes no such assertion of an intentional killing. The names
of the two police officers, Kuznetsov and Karpov, don't even appear in the original Russian version of the
commission's report. Kuznetsov is only mentioned in an English translation on Browder's website.
By now, Browder's campaign has created its own frame of reference and its own supposed evidence. Browder
has often cited reports by the Council of Europe in recent years, though these are largely based on his own
accounts. For instance, one Council rapporteur, former German Justice Minister Sabine
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, referred to Magnitsky as an "independent lawyer." But one look at documents
readily available online is enough to discover that Magnitsky was employed as a tax expert at an auditing
firm and had worked for Browder for years.
Browder claims to be fighting for justice. One of the reasons he's so successful may be because he's
adept at aligning his story with the devastating image that Russia has been projecting for years. And many
media outlets believe him. Browder has given countless TV interviews on the subject. In some of the shots,
viewers can see articles from prominent international media Browder has hung on his office walls -- the
Washington Post
, the
Financial Times
and Russia's
Novaya Gazeta
. The reports are all
framed and appear to lend credibility to Browder's story. DER SPIEGEL has also
written about Browder's campaign
and conducted interviews with him. The
New York Times
won the
Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Russia's legal system, including on the Magnitsky case. There are films
and plays too.
But the question remains: Just how solid are the facts upon which politicians and the media are basing
their judgements of this case? Various inconsistencies and contradictions are apparent in some documents
that Browder's own people have published online. These include two photographs of interrogation protocols
that allegedly prove how Sergei Magnitsky courageously reported the tax fraud of $230 million after
discovering it. In his book, Browder writes, "Sergei set up an appointment at the Investigative Committee
for 5 June 2008. (...) He sat in the chair, provided the evidence and gave his witness statement, explicitly
naming Kuznetsov and Karpov."
Contradictions
The protocol itself tells a different story. Magnitsky does indeed mention the names of the two police
officers nearly 30 times and describes their role during a search. But at no point does he make a concrete
accusation against them personally. In a second protocol of a statement made on Oct. 7, Kuznetsov and Karpov
are not mentioned at all. The first document also shows that Magnitsky did not make his statements entirely
of his own free will, but as a witness in an ongoing investigation. According to other documents, the trial
had been underway since February. This was confirmed to DER SPIEGEL by Magnitsky's lawyer at the time,
Dmitry Kharitonov, who said his client had been summoned to testify.
Browder has a well-documented talent for selling a set of facts so that it supports his own version of
events. In Moscow, this was part of his business model as an investor. According to its own calculations,
Hermitage Capital Management generated a 1,500 percent return on its investments within just a few years.
According to Russian investigators, a company in Browder's fund structure had wrongly paid only 5 percent in
taxes, when in fact 15 percent should have been due. A double taxation agreement with Cyprus should not have
been applied. Browder denies this.
One way or the other, Browder's business model was lucrative. Hermitage bought cheap shares in Russian
state-owned corporations, such as Gazprom or Sberbank, from the late 1990s onward. Then he took on the
conglomerates' leadership, denounced the widespread corruption and demanded reforms. If these came to
fruition, the value of Browder's shares rose. If they didn't, at least the publicity of his fund grew.
Browder had his eye on Gazprom especially. In 1998, the company was worth $3.5 billion. Within seven
years, that number had jumped to $160 billion. Hermitage held many shares through shell companies. Several
of them perfunctorily hired mentally disabled people who they described on paper as, "analysis division
experts." In fact, the people had no knowledge of this field, as several courts would later discover.
The companies took advantage of tax breaks that were intended for firms with workplace disability rates
of at least 50 percent -- and not as a tax-saving model for Western investment funds. Over the course of
their years-long investigations into Hermitage, Russian authorities stumbled upon a man who was helping
Browder come up with his tax-saving models: Sergei Magnitsky. Browder says the practice of skirting taxes
was common at the time.
When Browder talks about his fate in front of Western audiences, he makes it sound as if the
investigations into Hermitage were completely arbitrary. In his book and during interviews, Browder claims
that Kuznetsov, the investigator, appeared out of nowhere in 2007. This is significant because it appears to
underscore that the trial was "politically motivated, fabricated" and initiated for the sole purpose of
obtaining the necessary documentation for the long-planned $230-million fraud.
'A Measure of Vindication'
But the date Browder provided is incorrect. Kuznetsov's name appeared in letters to Browder's company in
June 2006. At the time, the police had demanded the firm surrender its bank data. There is also proof that
Browder's team knew about the letters. Indeed, they were in Browder's possession.
There is another interrogation protocol that Browder did not prominently publish online like the other
two. It is from October 2006, long before Magnitsky is said to have first exposed the big tax fraud that
Browder says caused him to fall out of the authorities' good graces.
According to the protocol, Magnitsky was questioned by investigators about one of the dubious letterbox
firms that gave employment contracts to people with disabilities. He claims that Browder's people asked him
to "to 'be' CEO for a period of reorganization." Other documents show that Magnitsky was involved in the
companies as early as 2002.
Some of the people accused by Browder have begun to fight back against the allegations. The Moscow
policeman Pavel Karpov, for one, who Browder claims worked with Kuznetsov to have Magnitsky arrested and
killed in retaliation for his testimony, filed a defamation lawsuit against Browder in London in 2012.
The presiding judge, Justice Simon, ruled the British courts had no jurisdiction over the matter. But in
his written verdict, he also wrote scathingly about Browder, calling him a "story-teller" who did "not come
close to pleading facts which, if proved, would justify the sting of the libel." Simon also wrote that his
assessment was to be explicitly understood as "a measure of vindication" of Karpov.
The only problem was the judge's words hardly made it into the public discourse at the time. The
Guardian
and other British media wrote about Karpov's humiliating defeat in the courts. Some of the
language they used can be found in press releases from Browder's campaign.
A second trial in New York concerned the frozen accounts of a wealthy Russian political clan, the Katsyv
family. The U.S. government imposed the sanctions because Browder had insisted that money from the
million-dollar fraud had wound up with the Katsyvs. In response, the Russians hired star New York-based
lawyers to defend themselves against the accusations.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 48/2019 (November 23rd, 2019) of
DER SPIEGEL.
Browder, an otherwise talkative person, tried to avoid questioning. One video shows him running away when
someone tries to present him with a subpoena. In April 2015, he was required to appear in court. Under oath
and confronted with numerous documents, he answered meekly -- quite differently than during his public
appearances. Lawyer Mark Cymrot, a surly litigator with a moustache, spent six hours examining him. Cymrot
asked: Was Magnitsky a lawyer or a tax expert?
He was "acting in court representing me," Browder replied.
And he had a law degree in Russia?
"I'm not aware he did."
Did he go to law school?
"No."
How many times have you said Mr. Magnitsky is a lawyer? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred?
"I don't know."
Have you ever told anybody that he didn't go to law school and didn't have a law degree?
"No."
DER SPIEGEL visited Browder in London and asked him to clarify some inconsistencies and contradictions in
his story. The result was a four hour-long interview and a grudging search for information, facts and
details. The meeting, which took place in a glass conference room in Browder's Finsbury office, provided
insights into his tactics: Together with his Russian partners Ivan Cherkasov and Vadim Kleiner, Browder laid
out dozens of documents that supposedly corroborated his version of events. Not all of them would stand up
to further scrutiny.
One of the documents was a previously unpublished email from Sergei Magnitsky. It supposedly confirmed
that he went to the authorities of his own volition as a whistleblower. Yet the document also makes clear
that Magnitsky was instructed to come forward by a higher-ranking lawyer working for Browder. This lawyer, a
Russian, admitted during the interview in London that Magnitsky had been sent as a stand-in for the CEO of a
letterbox company who investigators in Moscow had actually wanted to speak to.
To further back up their story, Browder and his team also presented an article by an American journalist
who had spoken to Magnitsky shortly before his arrest. The police officers Kuznetsov and Karpov had
Magnitsky arrested "immediately" after the publication of the article. But nothing in the article would
explain why Magnitsky was arrested. In it, he doesn't mention Karpov or Kuznetsov. The author of the
article, when contacted, said he couldn't imagine that it was his piece that triggered Magnitsky's
persecution.
Charles Dharapak/ AP/ Picture Alliance/ DPA
Former U.S. President Barack Obama signing the Magnitsky Act into law.
Browder's campaign has turned him into a global celebrity. His publisher advertises his book, "Red
Notice," as a
New York Times
bestseller. In interviews, he calls for Russia to be largely isolated.
He attacks politicians who disagree with him. He called John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state, a
"lapdog" and accused him of "appeasement." Browder has also called for Russia's banishment from the SWIFT
banking network, which would have devastating consequences for the Russian population. But is that really
necessary to ensure "Justice for Sergei Magnitsky?" Or has Browder's campaign turned into a personal
vendetta?
Too Good Not to Be True
Another strange thing about this case is that those involved sometimes change their stories completely
and begin saying the opposite of what they said before. Take Zoya Svetova, for instance: The Moscow-based
human rights activist co-wrote the investigative commission's report. She is a Kremlin opponent and writes
reports for MBKH News, the media project of the exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Svetova has
been intensively involved with the Magnitsky case and published regular articles about it. She is also
planning to write a book.
In July, Svetova said in an interview with DER SPIEGEL that even 10 years after Magnitsky's death, she
didn't think much of the theory that he was the victim of a murder plot. It was more likely that Magnitsky
got into an argument with the doctors and the staff because he wasn't being medically treated. "They were
beating him to pacify him," Svetova said, adding that the beatings in and of themselves did not indicate a
targeted murder. There was no evidence of this, she said. "What sense would it make to murder him?" So that
he wouldn't talk about the $230 million fraud anymore? By that point, news of the fraud was everywhere.
"Magnitsky did not reveal any secret," Svetova said in July.
The investigative commission report she helped co-write mentions that pressure had been placed on
Magnitsky while he was in prison. "They wanted testimonies against Browder. That was the motivation. He
should have accused Browder of not paying taxes. Magnitsky was a hostage. He himself was of no interest to
them. They wanted Browder," she said.
Svetova also said that while Magnitsky's fate was dreadful, it wasn't atypical. Failure to provide
assistance as well as abuse are common in Russian prisons, she said. She wrote an article on the subject in
2010. According to information from the Council of Europe, around 4,000 prisoners died in Russia in 2014. In
Germany, 150 died. "You have to know," Svetova said, "the Russian penitentiary system is very brutal."
Shortly before this article was published, however, Svetova suddenly changed her story. Now she had the
feeling "that he was moved deliberately to the 'Matrosskaya Tishina' prison to kill him." She said that
since July, she had gone back and re-examined all the old documents and that she now had a completely
different view of things.
In August, the European Court of Human Rights announced its ruling in the Magnitsky case: Russia must pay
the deceased's relatives 34,000 euros ($37,500) because the state should have protected the prisoner's life
and health. Nowhere in its verdict was there any mention of murder. The judges did, however, take apart the
claim that the whistleblower had been imprisoned out of revenge. Magnitsky's arrest was not without cause,
they wrote, nor were the authorities' actions malicious. The investigations into Magnitsky began in 2004,
long before he first approached the authorities, it says on page 39 of the court's written verdict. But that
didn't stop Browder from describing the ruling as a "resounding victory."
His campaign has created a kind of perpetual motion. Browder was recently received by diplomats in
Finland, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU. They summoned him to discuss a
European version of the U.S.' Magnitsky sanctions. "This law will become a reality in the EU," Browder
tweeted in mid-October. His chances of success aren't bad: His story is simply too good not to be true.
Looks like Brown Noser Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcrap organisation may have finally met
their match in a real investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who (some of us may
recall) has done sterling work in tracing movements of weapons from the Balkan countries to
Turkey and Azerbaijan with their ultimate destination being Syria to be used by ISIS jihadis,
and for which she was sacked by her newspaper employer in Bulgaria.
Does anyone imagine that the Brown Noser will have the courage and fortitude to respond to
legal action brought against him and Bellingcrap? Will his Atlantic Council employers support
him or has he passed his use-by date and become a liability?
"... "The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield." ..."
"... Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield. ..."
"... I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII. ..."
OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.
The Guardian has an
article today headlined
" The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian
should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese,
among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.
The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian
on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at
Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing
a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].
The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised."
Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and
instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price,
was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you
would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."
A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik
soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood,
then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages .But the weapons proved
less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then
stopped.
"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced
the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar
announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."
Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike.
Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago.
Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move,
same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.
I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent
a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.
"... "There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt ," Mattis told reporters. ..."
"... there's absolutely No Doubt that the Outlaw US Empire's mouthpieces are lying yet again. ..."
"... Perhaps the more disturbing alternative is Mattis is fully aware of everything surrounding the run up to the 2003 Iraq war and is thinking to himself: "Declaring there is no doubt worked last time..." ..."
"... The particular genius of our oppressors has been to erode the public's collective memory. With a dumbed-down educational system, a 24-hour propaganda, and an utterly vacuous popular culture, we are deprived of precisely that faculty on which following Burke's admonition depends. With our "post-literate" reliance on the Internet, it's a wonder any of us can remember what happened last week. ..."
"... If the Syrians used them, then clearly they have them. Did the Syrians use them? The US does not recognize that as a valid question. That is where Mattis goes astray. It is a valid question. We were fooled by false flag use before. There are signs it may have happened again. It is not clear enough to be sure, but it is not clear enough to be sure the other way either. ..."
"... That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. ~Aldous Huxley ..."
"There can be no doubt in the international community's mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its
agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There is no longer any doubt ," Mattis told reporters.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them
to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will
lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors ...
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."
And there's absolutely No Doubt that the Outlaw US Empire's mouthpieces are lying yet again. Makes me even more curious
as to what Putin said to Tillerson, as both Putin's and Lavrov's remarks about the global situation are blunter and more accusatory
than ever before. Given the info provided by Lavrov at the press conference following the meeting of their Foreign Ministers Astana,
I must assume the SCO nations are on the same page regarding the entire International Situation. In June in Astana, the SCO Summit
will admit India and Pakistan as full members and begin the process to enroll Iran. Here, again, is the link to that press release,
http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/2734712
Perhaps the more disturbing alternative is Mattis is fully aware of everything surrounding the run up to the 2003 Iraq war
and is thinking to himself: "Declaring there is no doubt worked last time..."
The particular genius of our oppressors has been to erode the public's collective memory. With a dumbed-down educational system,
a 24-hour propaganda, and an utterly vacuous popular culture, we are deprived of precisely that faculty on which following Burke's
admonition depends. With our "post-literate" reliance on the Internet, it's a wonder any of us can remember what happened last
week.
If the Syrians used them, then clearly they have them. Did the Syrians use them? The US does not recognize that as a valid
question. That is where Mattis goes astray. It is a valid question. We were fooled by false flag use before. There are signs it
may have happened again. It is not clear enough to be sure, but it is not clear enough to be sure the other way either.
Therefore, Mattis is wrong to conclude anything either way. However, given the official position of the US, he can hardly
say anything different in public.
We ought to be looking at this very closely, but we vetoed such a close look by the international body that would do it. That
would put into question the missile strikes we launched based on assumptions.
Pepe Escobar evokes T.S. Eliot's Hollow Men in his latest enumeration of Russia & China's strategic relationship. Oh, and
I forgot to mention in #1 that BRICS also stands with Russia regarding all events Syria and Ukraine; and despite many efforts
to destabilize it, BRICS still stands in solidarity and continues its work to economically counter the Outlaw US Empire, which
Pepe also reminds us about,
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201704211052866086-washington-terrified-of-russia-china/
Why would insignificant village be intentionally "gassed by Assad" while he has an absolute upper hand on the field? - is the
question nobody in the Western media asks, nor has an answer to it.
Bio-chem weapons would be last resort to use on the battlefield in a desperate situation - was an original thought of making
and having them.
Me and probably all of us here have no doubt that it is just a false flag perpetrated, oversaturated and pathetically served
to us to validate continuation to oust Assad for Saudi's concessions, oil and money. Pure con and a rather amateurish one.
As expected, no doubt. :)
Which state is Iran's greatest enemy? - Israel .. Where was the statement made? .. Who are the greatest financial political contributors
in America? Res Ipsa Loquitur.
The importance of Mattis's pronouncement, as well as some "
tilling of the soil " in the prestige press, is that another false flag attack is coming. The Hillary-McCain directive to
take out Syrian airfields is going to be implemented.
@1 karlof1
Talking Lavrov, talking history... The comprehensive history lesson Lavrov delivers to Tillerson is worth watching a number of
times. It is an absolute shut down, in Tillersons face...rolling straight off the tongue. Tillerson: 'trust us, we are sure, beyond doubt, Assad has chemical weapons' Lavrov: 'here have this 5 minute history lesson you
cabbage. '
SmoothieX12 Difference this time is Syria has Russian backing and the BRICS [almost half the population of the World].Russia knows
Syria is the key to the Middle East, if Syria fell, Hezbollah could not resist the head choppers from the North and East and attacks
from the aparthied state from the South. Iran would then be exposed and attacked financially and militarily. Of course its a huge
gamble, will those nutcases in Washington take it? These are existential stakes for many states in the region.
Assad's recent announcement about wanting to buy more Russian air defense systems comes close to addmiting that the Russians
will not be defending Syrian airspace.
To paraphrase tRump:
...the submarines, even more powerful than the carriers...
So, all the assets are in place. We're starting to see the accusation swarm against Assad occur at a rate that's too fast to
refute individual charges against the Syrian president.
Don't be surprised if the decapitation strikes against Syria and N.Korea happen simultaneously.
@18 This probably won't appear in the MSM so I'll post it here...
"Emmanuel Macron fears this as well. The 39-year-old presidential candidate – an unknown quantity here just two years ago–
is campaigning for the Jewish vote, keenly aware of the threat. But when France goes to the polls on Sunday, its Jews will face
a unique choice: To vote in the spirit of Jewish Americans, prioritizing principles of welfare and liberal democratic values,
or in the Israeli posture, with security first in mind.
Macron is betting on the former, appealing to Jewish community values shared with the French Republic of liberty, equality
and fraternity.
"He knows there is a real danger from a double extremism – from the far-Right with Marine Le Pen, and from the far-Left," said
Gilles Taieb, a prominent member of the French Jewish community who joined Macron's En Marche! campaign in August. "He understands
the specific needs of the Jewish community.""
Assad's recent announcement about wanting to buy more Russian air defense systems comes close to addmiting that the Russians
will not be defending Syrian airspace.
This is rather a confusing (in BBC's or NYT vein) statement, since Russia, through a number of her high ranking representatives
openly stated that she will upgrade Syria's AD. Syria IS NOT going to buy them, since has very little precious money, but what
Syria is doing already is letting a truck load of Russia's extracting and construction companies on her market. Google Translate
will do the job (link is in Russian)
Iran would then be exposed and attacked financially and militarily.
I have a different opinion about this dynamics and I will not be surprised if Iran "suddenly" will become a full member of
ODKB. At least for a little while.
Fog of war warning and all, but Assad definitely mentioned price as a factor in getting New AD systems in a sputniknews interview.
Of course, mechanism of what in Russian is called vzaimoraschety (mutual "payments" or "coverage") is always established. The
price of military technology may be compensated through other means, such as contractual preferences or any other privileges.
I think Russia's oil companies will be quite happy and so will be weapons' manufacturers. Come to think about it--they already
are.
The question of Russian air defence missiles to Syria should not even be asked, Israel has nuclear weapons, the US don't care,
the US supplies Israel with the latest OFFENSIVE weaponry and aircraft [f35, f16 ect]plus Iron Dome. It would be the height of
folly for Russia not to give Syria the means to defend themselves.
Just as an FYI, I'm unable to access this site when I use a VPN server based in Canada, however VPN servers located elsewhere
connect without issue. Anyone else experience this?
what's the sound of one mad dog jarhead barking? if it sounds off in the media echo-chamber, does it make a noise? it only echoes
in the tnc msm. every american knows he's howling at the moon. it may well be that there's plenty of energy among those clipping
coupons on american war bonds for more war, and no energy among those who fruitlessly opposed empire in the face of those same
coupon-clippers.
its all-war, all-the-time with tee-rump just as it was with obama, bush, and clinton before him. people who are surprised at
this are no more acute than those who might salute the flag the mad dogs have again run up the flag pole.
it would be exceptionally keen if all those cruise missiles unleashed on syria and/or north korea not only turned around, but
struck their origin. wouldn't that be the end?
The American public has to be the most ignorant and gullible group of ass-hats on the planet, if they fall for this BS being shoveled
at them again. God-almighty this crap gets old!!!
All for the sake of global hegemony, and more wealth for the Trumps of the world.
First of all, I don't know how you can tell those speeches are the same though I heard them both mention WMDs. But here's the
kicker, that's not the Canadian PM, not on that date, he was the Leader of the Opposition at that time. Harper became PM later.
Jean Chretien was the PM and he kept Canada out of Iraq. End of story.
b cites Edmund Burke "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."
There is also this little ditty:
"If at first you don't succeed try and try and try again. Never stop trying."
It works very well for TPTB who hold the sheeples are too dumbed down and will never recall moving lips.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@ Perimetr 16
Israel needs to take the other side of the Golan - that's where the oil bubbles bigly. Ask Genie HQ NJ and while at it check
out their Board of Directors, Strategic Advisory Board. Hint, it's the gang and No One dares to spank
[Alert: page may load slowly but a worthy wait].
So forget about it. The op word is Strategic
Israel can strike Syria with 10 MOABs per second 24hr/7 and lips will be festiviously sealed tighter than a crabs rear-end.
A long essay by Robert Kennedy Jr Feb 2016:
"[W]e may want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology and focus on the more complex rationales
of history and oil, which mostly point the finger of blame for terrorism back at the champions of militarism, imperialism and
petroleum here on our own shores," Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., intoned in an April editorial for
Ecowatch
thanks b... waiting for the exceptional empire to collapse.. not holding my breathe here.. the same game is being played and the
same folks are hoping for the same results.. they are already getting them when it comes to money thrown into war and prep for
war.. they are winning regardless if they can convince everyone to go deeper..
@17 wwinsti.. could be a head fake... no one knows for sure other then assad and russia.. welcome to the world of endless speculation..
@28 ia... this canuck is not having any issues accessing moa.. who nose.. maybe trudeau and freeland have set up a firewall to
protect us from a different perspective then the 'rah, rah, rah - war 24/7 we support twitter mans agenda'..
The verdict on the chemical attack was swift and certain. When it comes to the recent bus bombing, somehow it is so different:
We are investigating, but I don't have any specific ... But we think it's exaggerated . Inqury on Syria. Security Council Stakeout, 21 April, 2017
Those people have no shame. They are not going to investigate the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack. All the want is the flight
plans from the Syrian government to finish their "work".
"No doubt" is not a statement about an objective reality out there (in country x); it is a statement about the subjective reality
in the mind of the speaker (observer). A cunning ploy to speak a non-falsehood (about the mental conditioning of speaker and audience)
that is merely opinion implying it is fact about a situation lacking empirical evidence.
This hype is getting so tedious.
The WMD crap from The International (Christian Colonial) Community isn't about 'manufacturing consent'. It's about manufacturing
CONSENSUS within the Christian Colonial Community itself. The Jew-controlled MSM takes care of the brainwashing. We already know
that bribed politicians are paid to disregard the Will Of The People.
"Those people have no shame. They are not going to investigate the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack."
They're just plugging stuff into the dossier so that historians will be able to look back and see how reasonable and restrained
the U.S. was before deciding to bomb the crap out of Assad and his country.
Here's how they can do that : They say " Look , we admit that proving guilt absolutely is next to impossible in these events
, and that we may have been a bit hasty in bombing Syria's airfield before the investigation was done. We'll even concede the
odds in Assad's favor , say 3:1 , or only a 25% chance he was guilty for any given sarin attack , even though we're pretty sure
he's been the culprit. Just know this , when we're sure - let's set a higher standard here and say 90% certainty - when we're
sure about his culpability for just one use of sarin , big or small , that's our red line, after that he gets the full Gaddafi
, no questions asked. OK ? Understand ? "
Everyone nods , probably including some here. When there's any uncertainty , which there always is , he gives Assad the benefit
of the doubt , and then requires a higher threshold to hold him accountable. You can't get more reasonable than that.
Well , maybe somewhat predictably , false-flag activity picks up - two sarin attacks per month over the following two months
, always with the typical doubts about who dunnit. The U.S. keeps their word , with no significant escalation. With the next event
, as soon as sarin is confirmed but well before we think we know who was guilty , the U.S. announces breach of the red line and
launches a full-scale attack on Assad and his partners , demanding that he step down immediately or watch as his country is turned
to rubble. Why ?
Counting the three sarin attacks to date , and the five more that follow , the probability that the rebels committed all eight
attacks is .75^8 , or 10%. That means there's a 90% chance that Assad was responsible for at least one attack - i.e. , he crossed
the red line.
That's why the false-flags will continue , and why a regime-change war with Syria is inevitable , and why the buy-in by the
public when it happens will be nearly unanimous.
That could just as easily be interpreted as Russia planning to intervene while claiming that "Syrian" air defenses have shot
down US aircraft/tomohawaks. I certainly don't know for sure that Russia has actually decided to take it to that level. Perhaps
the Russians will never do that, or perhaps they themselves have not yet decided but want to keep that option open to them if
later they do. At any rate, there is no advantage at all to reassuring the Americans that they will NOT intervene. It is best
to keep Mattis and McMaster guessing just like we are.
I do not know to what degree US planners are confident of easily overcoming serious air defenses. They probably feel that if
they defeat the S400s then US military dominance will remain unchallenged for a very long time. I'm not sure if they've gamed
the opposite outcome. If "Syria" shoots down a few F22s or 35s the US is in deep trouble and any victory (to the extent bringing
jihadists to power can be called a victory) would be a Pyrhic one.
Well, fuck! Here we go again; U.S. is blitzing the international airways with propaganda and lies.
Zieg heil, zeig heil, herr Trump...
You bloody, rotten, bastard!
Karlof1 and Harrylaw: talking about BRICS'support to Russia, never trust Brazil. After Lula and Rousseff,the right-wing president
Michel Temer has transformed the country in just another latin american lackey of Trump...
Of course, there's no way to predict the outcomes of certain actions or read minds of any of the various actors involved with
this sarin drama, but the events in Syria since Sept. 2015 or even Sept. 2001 do allow us to lean our interpretations a certain
way, don't you think?
At the end of the day, an increasingly desperate USA has available 4 Ohio class submarines that carry just short of 200 cruise
missiles each. They are, with some quibbling, decapitation weapon systems designed to overwhelm nearly any defense. I can't see
the US not making use of such a capacity if they are as hell bent on regime change as they claim.
Because the strike on Syrian territory was against International law
http://www.dw.com/en/us-missile-strike-on-syria-a-violation-of-international-law/a-38389950
Putin has to make up his mind, if the US strike Syria again or repeatedly without harming Russial personnel or assets and
without a military response, Russia should sue for peace and get the hell out of Syria, thereby acknowledging that the US are
the only Nation that can decide the fate of Nations with regard to International affairs. In other words the unanimous agreement
of the 5 veto wielding members of the UNSC will no longer be applicable and article 2 of the UN Charter is null and void.
Article 2. [3] UN Charter All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international
peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
[4] All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity
or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Are you the NEW York Times commentator. I really enjoy your comments their. I hardly drop by NYT however this week you were
the only sane poster on North Korea. Your a jem keep it up. In fact I think cut and pasted you comment onto a Australian paper.
Bravo.
Yes, the US has an enormous amount of cruise missiles. But judging by the damage done by the last 60 tomohawaks, it does not
have enough to destroy Syrian air power with tomohawaks alone. In past invasions, they were used to destroy radars so that the
subsequent air campaign can be conducted without contending with air defenses. They are not an end in and of themselves. In this
case, that isn't possible unless the US plans on attacking Russian forces on both land and sea directly. The US is so far extremely
reluctant to kill any Russian personnel and that is not likely to change. And this reluctance is not because of good sportsmanship.
Add to that, the Russians have shut down the deconfliction line. It means the US can't warn the Russians to get out of the
way during the next attack. In other words, the Russians are prepared to be human shields to protect Syria. That does not scream
"we are backing down" to me. There are also indications that US and allied sortie rates over Syria have dropped in number quite
substantially since communication has been shut down.
While I agree the US is absolutely determined to destroy Syria, it is not at all clear that Russia plans to step aside while
the US does it.
OT but LA, SF, NYC all experience power outages at the same and only RT makes the connection while MSM oblivious. Meanwhile exercises
for an EMZ attack over a major US city ongoing. Strange
Peter AU @52. Sorry Peter I was being a little sarcastic. I think it has already been established that any US attack on Syria
must be countered in the first instance by Syrian forces, since Russia was invited into Syria to help put down terrorism, it might
not be in Russia's interest or anybody's [unless their forces are hit] to start WW3. Hence my point about arming Syria up the
same way the US does with Israel and Saudi Arabia.All 5 veto wielding powers are of course above International law for all time,
so that if the other members of the Security Council propose a Resolution condemning US aggression, the US simply uses its veto
and that Resolution goes down the memory hole. Here is an excellent article on the veto..
http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/ags-legal-advice.pdf
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" does not appear in the complete 12-volume set of Works of Edmund Burke,
and Bartlett's books of quotations have never included it, but the allegation nowadays is common that Burke said this, because
many writers say things that are false. Anyone who trusts a mere allegation, like gossip, is not reliable and cannot be trusted
in what that person alleges, because falsehoods mix in with truths for any such person. The person isn't necessarily fabricating,
not necessarily intentionally falsifying; the person just doesn't care whether what he or she alleges to be true IS true. Any
such person is untrustworthy to cite on anything.
Furthermore, that alleged Burke-quotation doesn't even sound like Burke's writing-style, which was a very distinctive style.
So, anyone who has actually read Burke would suspect that this apocryphal statement from him was probably never said by him. Only
pretentious people would allege that Burke said it -- people who pretend to have read Burke.
@54 lysander, 'In other words, the Russians are prepared to be human shields to protect Syria.'
i don't think that's the message sent or that it's indicative of the action to be taken in the event of another us attack on
syria. as it stood pre-tee-rump-attack the us could call the russians and 'warn' them that the cruise missiles were theirs ...
now they can no longer do that, and the russians have made a point of stating that an attacking aircraft/missile - and the originating
vessel/station - are going to be shot down/taken down ... that the russians will not waste time in trying to figure out just whose
attacking missiles/aircraft they are destroying.
i think it will be a cold day in hell before the russians 'sacrifice' themselves to make a point.
Eric Zuesse | Apr 22, 2017 7:15:46 AM | 59
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it"
This from, of all places, Yahoo answers (blech); however it is referenced;
CITES: George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense 284 (2nd ed., Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York, New York 1924 (originally published 1905 Charles Scribner's Sons)(appears in chapter XII, "Flux and Constancy
in Human Nature")). George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress 82 (one-volume edition, Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York, New York 1954)(appears in Book I, Reason in Common Sense, chapter 10, "Flux and Constancy in Human Nature").
This information was found at: http://members.aol.com/Santayana/gsguestbook.htm
``Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it,'' said Penton, echoing philosopher George Santayana's famous admonition.
All this lies, fake news, psyop by US, NATO and MSM is possibly just because they rule the world. They refuse any other views,
parties, nations questioning their wars and propaganda. Its quite scary when you think about it.
Like, is there ANYONE condemning this in the MSM nowadays? No one.
Every journalist (MSM) from Germany, to US, to Spain, to Portugal, to Columbia, to Sweden, to South Korea etc, all western MSM
peddle this same propaganda for the american empire and their endless wars.
1984?
@ 60, I don't think sacrifice is the word I would use. The US understands that killing openly Russian soldiers soldiers (vs indirectly
by arming terrorist proxies) would mean Russian retaliation. And therefore will not do it.
@ 60, I don't think sacrifice is the word I would use. The US understands that killing openly Russian soldiers soldiers (vs indirectly
by arming terrorist proxies) would mean Russian retaliation. And therefore will not do it.
well, we're real impressed that you've memorized all 12 volumes of Edmund Burke, but for those of us who haven't, Google does
credit him with this remark. a simple oversight, perhaps? so thanks for the lesson(even if you haven't cleared anything up), and
the mini diatribe, teach, even though your scholarly footnotes have fuck all to do with b's intent.
"no doubt"
Did they get this from Bush's speech to congress in March, 2003?
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some
of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Real intelligence left all kinds of doubt especially from the family members of Iraqi scientists who went into Iraq to ask. They
risked their lives for this and were ignored.
"we assess" - recent prepeated mantra from USG declarations. I'm waiting for The Donald or his CIA minion to declare Syrian
WMDs to be a "slam dunk." I think Cheney used to say "we have it on good authority." The rule for most politicians and media is
if their lips move they're lying.
Perhaps after another coalition of the willing has destroyed Syria will the US president joke about searching for WMDs like Bush
did. An insult to us all.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Quotations has the quote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" made
by George Santayana (1863 - 1952) in The Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, ch. 12
Oxford is fairly reliable sourcing for such questions, FWIW. As far as the western world and history another quote comes to
mind from Dante Alighiere (1265-1321) that translates: Abandon all hope, you who enter! [with regard to history].
We need a Jon Stewart style montage of all these people saying "no doubt" followed by the group No Doubt saying it. (like he did
with the GOP/FNC meme of "It's A Trap")
"Counting the three sarin attacks to date , and the five more that follow , the probability that the rebels committed all eight
attacks is .75^8 , or 10%. That means there's a 90% chance that Assad was responsible for at least one attack - i.e. , he crossed
the red line."
I understand that this was presented as an incorrect reasoning, but perhaps not all readers here see the mistakes. First, probability
is used to describe random events and not historical events. The post that you see here could be written by Piotr Berman, an identifiable
individual, or by an impostor. In itself the claim that it was written by Piotr Berman is true or false, it does not have probability.
However, from the point of view of a reader, it is but one of a large number of comments posted on internet so one can apply some
guessed estimates, like "10% of comments signed with uniquely identifiable names are written by impostors". This of course begs
the question how we arrive at such estimates etc. In short, the probability assigned to a single sarin attack is an exhalation
from someones terminal end of the digestive system and quite hazardous if used.
However, even if we form an abstract model in which a chemical attack is randomly perpetrated by X with probability p and not
by X with probability 1-p, and we have 8 attacks, the probability that X perpetrated at least one attack is anywhere between 0
and 1. The formula (1-p)^8 applies only if the events are independent. For example, if X possesses the means to perpetrate an
attack with probability q, then the probability that it perpetrated any of many attacks is never larger than q.
That said, probabilities have their place in war strategy. If a false flag attack has a random effect on a key decision maker,
that repeating it many times may increase the probability that a desired decision will be made. And Trump's and Obama's behavior
has (and had) a degree of randomness.
You're correct about the technical probability considerations , of course , but I think the real-life effect of each new false-flag
may fall closer to the line drawn by the bad model than by the good. I think all parties involved know that each new false-flag
has an incremental impact driving us closer to war ,in addition to the random one you mention , at least as long as there remains
considerable doubt about the true culprit with each new event.
From Khan al-Assal to Ghouta to Khan Sheikhoun we've moved closer and closer to the real "red line". For the anti-Assad camp
, the false-flag strategy is still working and they'll keep it up , though I'm sure they're getting impatient. For the Assad side
, gaining territory has the opposite effect , moving us away from the red line. Had Assad and Putin doubled-down on battlefield
intensity after Aleppo and made further gains , rather than pausing as they did , I think they'd be in much better shape today.
The usage of "there can be no doubt" is a bit different from what we could learn in English classes. First, "doubt" is a kind
of thought-weed that is at times harmless, and at times seriously detrimental and thus subjected to eradication efforts. "There
is no doubt" declares the success of the eradication campaign while "There can be no doubt" is more like "There should not be
any doubt", i.e. an exhortation to continue and expand eradication campaign. Usually the large fields of major agribusiness companies
are well tended with copious amounts of herbicides, while on the edges, meadows, smaller organically tended fields etc. the weeds
can survive and in isolated places they can even thrive.
From that point of view excessive consumption of, say, NYT or TV news can make people positive for "symptoms of sarin or sarin-like
chemicals" like Roundup when we take swabs from their mucosal surfaces and analyze with sensitive instruments. Smaller but proudly
"mainstream" publications like New Yorker have no doubt either (in this case it is easy, because New Yorker is very compartmentalized,
few individuals are allowed to write on the topic, this way they can keep doubt from showing without mass use of chemicals). The
Nation has some articles written by doubt-free persons (like Katha Pollit) but doubt levels are significant -- kept down mostly
by small number of articles on Syria. And Counterpunch is a weed in itself.
How about this: The US is prime Nazi country/regime, and the Zionist state is modeled after the US, or the European racism.
The settler states are known for its unprecedented violence. Unfortunately, still the phenomenon of extermination is connected
with Germany and not the US.
One of many U.S. state laws that Nazis examined was this from Maryland:
"All marriages between a white person and a Negro, or between a white person and a person of Negro descent, to the third generation,
inclusive, or between a white person and a member of the Malay race or between a Negro and a member of the Malay race, or between
a person of Negro descent to the third generation, inclusive, and a member of the Malay race . . . [skipping over many variations]
. . . are forever prohibited . . . punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than eighteen months nor more
than ten years."
@78 bp. 'From that point of view excessive consumption of, say, NYT or TV news can make people positive for "symptoms of sarin
or sarin-like chemicals" like Roundup when we take swabs from their mucosal surfaces and analyze with sensitive instruments.'
very nice piotr berman. the metaphor is so well drawn, and in the following cases as well. One has a malady, here, a malady.
One feels a malady.
the dysfunctions all swell from a common source, into a slum of bloom. the wigs despoiling the Satan ear.
Yes, I was apprehensive at first, but the new regime toed BRICS's lines, participated in its functions as usual, and has tried
to use it in its national interest. Brazil's internal contradictions don't allow it to abandon its one big success story. And
as I stated, BRICS policy declarations are all in line with Russia and China's in every area.
While many of the big brains go to Wall St. to front guess Mr. Market, there are others, "no doubt", that build geopolitical
dashboards, models and simulations for the elite to monitor all the countries/governments/militaries/public.
In spite of their visibility of their universe, they are losing control and know it. The absurdity of the ongoing global debt
situation is a tell.
All countries have evolving relationships with both the US and China as well as within the various groups of nations. China
is talking growth and the US/private finance is talking austerity. It is not if but a matter of when growth wins out and global
finance is put under public control.
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history. ~Aldous Huxley
Afghan officials have said nearly 100 militants and no civilians were killed, but the remoteness of the area, the presence
of Islamic State fighters, and, more recently, American security forces, has left those claims unverified.
British elite is capable to commit any crimes imaginable perusing its goals.
Notable quotes:
"... "The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield." ..."
OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.
The Guardian has an
article today headlined
" The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian
should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese,
among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.
The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian
on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at
Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing
a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].
The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised."
Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and
instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price,
was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you
would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."
A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik
soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood,
then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages. But the weapons proved
less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then
stopped.
"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had
announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after
a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."
Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was
the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago. Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that
this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.
I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent
a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.
"... Thank you b for this revision of the Skripal hoax. The find of pure Novichok was the fatal flaw from the very beginning. The UK is never to be trusted and inept to boot. ..."
"... "only a small amount of BZ is needed to produce complete incapacitation" ..."
"... Also holds for Novichok: Andrei Zheleznyakov, who had been exposed to a minute amount of Novichok in a lab accident five years prior wrote he was, "seared by brilliant colors and hallucinations." Many other sources mention foaming at the mouth, hallucinations and pinpoint pupils. ..."
"... And Litvinenko. The man who prepared the crucial MI6 secret presentation to the chairman of the public inquiry was a colleague of Pablo Miller, the agent runner of Skripal. His name, Christopher Steele. A man the foreign office told the FBI is not reliable!!! ..."
"... UN is owned by west will not pursue war crimes. Responsible parties should no longer lend it legitemacy. ..."
Thanks to an explosive internal memo, there is no reason to believe the claims put
forward by the Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad's government used
chemical weapons against innocent civilians in Douma back in April. This is a scenario I
have questioned from the beginning. It also calls into question all the other conclusions
and reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , which
was assigned in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic
chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."
Besides its activities around dubious 'chemical' incident in Syria there is another
rather famous case in which the OPCW got involved: The alleged 'Novichok' attack on Sergei
and Julia Scripal in Salisbury, Britain.
The Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, threw a bombshell at
the British assertions that the collapse of the British secret agent Sergej Skripal and
his daughter Yulia on March 4 in Salisbury was caused by a 'Novichok' nerve agent 'of a
type developed by Russia'. (See our older pieces, linked below, for a detailed
documentation of the case.)
The Skripal poisoning happened on March 4.
Eye witnesses described the Skripals as disoriented and probably hallucinating. The
emergency personal suspected Fentanyl influence.
A few days later the British government claimed that the Skripals had been affected
by a chemical agent from the 'Novichok' series which they attributed to Russia. It
insinuated that the Skripals might die soon.
A doctor of the emergency center at the Salisbury District Hospital publicly
asserted that none of its patients was victim of a 'nerve agent'.
On March 14, after much pressure from Russia, Britain finally invited the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to analyze the blood of the
victims and to take environmental samples.
The OPCW arrived on March 19 and took specimen on the following days. It also
received a share of the samples taken earlier by the British chemical weapon laboratory
in Porton Down, which is only some 10 miles away from Salisbury.
The OPCW split the various samples it had in a certified laboratory in the
Netherlands and then distributed them to several other certified laboratories for
analysis.
One of those laboratories was the highly regarded Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland
which is part of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection and fully
certified.
On April 12 the OPCW
published a public version of the result of the analyses it had received from its
laboratories.
A more extensive confidential version was given to the state members that make up
the OPCW.
During a public
speech yesterday Lavrov stated of the OPCW report:
[A] detailed and fairly substantial confidential version was distributed to the OPCW
members only. In that report, in accordance with the OPCW way of conduct, the chemical
composition of the agent presented by the British was confirmed, and the analysis of
samples, as the report states, was taken by the OPCW experts themselves. It contains no
names, Novichok or any other. The report only gives the chemical formula, which,
according to our experts, points to an agent that had been developed in many countries
and does not present any particular secret.
After receiving that report Russia was tipped off by the Spiez Laboratory or someone
else that the OPCW report did not include the full results of its analysis.
According to Lavrov this is what the Spiez Laboratory originally sent to the
OPCW:
"Following our analysis, the samples indicate traces of the toxic chemical BZ and
its precursor which are second category chemical weapons. BZ is a nerve toxic agent,
which temporarily disables a person. The psycho toxic effect is achieved within 30 to
60 minutes after its use and lasts for up to four days. This composition was in
operational service in the armies of the US, the UK and other NATO countries. The
Soviet Union and Russia neither designed nor stored such chemical agents. Also, the
samples indicate the presence of type A-234 nerve agent in its virgin state and also
products of its degradation."
The "presence of type A-234 nerve agent", an agent of the so called 'Novichok'
series, in its "virgin state", or as the OPCW stated in "high purity", points to later
addition to the sample. The 'Novichok' agents are not stable. They tend to fall rapidly
apart. Their presence in "virgin state" in a sample which was taken 15 days after the
Skripal incident happened is inexplicable. A scientist of the former Russian chemical
weapon program who worked with similar agents, Leonid Rink,
says
that if the Skripals had really been exposed to such high purity A-234 nerve agent, they
would be dead.
The whole case, the symptoms shown by the Skripals and their recuperation, makes way
more sense if they were 'buzzed', i.e. poisoned with the BZ hallucinogenic agent, than if
they were 'novi-shocked' with a highly toxic nerve agent.
The OPCW had send blood samples from the Skripals to the Spiez laboratory in
Switzerland which found BZ, a psycho agent 25 times stronger than LSD. The OPCW hid this
fact in its reports.
An attack with BZ on the Skripals would be consistent with the observed symptoms that
bystanders had described. The Skripals were indeed hallucinating and behaved very strange
with Sergei Skipal lifting his arms up to the sky while sitting on a bench. Exposure to BZ
would also explain the Skripals' survival.
The OPCW explained the BZ find by claiming that it had mixed BZ into the probe to test
the laboratory. Something which it said it regularly does. At that time I still believed in
the OPCW and
found that explanation reasonable :
The OPCW responded to Russian question about the BZ and high rate of A-234 in the Spiez
Laboratory probe and report.
OPCW said today that it was a control probe to test the laboratory. Such probes are
regularly slipped under the real probes to make sure that the laboratories the OPCW uses
are able to do their job and do not manipulate their results.
That explanation is reasonable.
I guess we can close the BZ theories and go back to food poisoning as the most likely
cause of the Skripals' illness.
In light of the OPCW management manipulation or suppression of the reports of its own
specialists for the purpose of attributing the Douma incident to the Syrian government I
have to change my opinion. I hereby retract my earlier acceptance of the OPCW's explanation
in the Skripal case.
As we now know that the OPCW management manipulates reports at will we can no longer
accept the 'control probe' excuse without further explanations or evidence.
Here is what seems to have happened.
The OPCW did not send a control sample to Spiez to test the laboratory. It sent the
original samples from the Skripals. Spiez found BZ and reported that back to the OPCW. The
OPCW suppressed the Spiez results in its own reports. Somehow Russia got wind of the Spiez
results and exposed the manipulation.
Acceptance that the Skripals had been 'buzzed', not 'novi-shocked' is central to the
Skripal case. It makes the whole Skripal case as a British operation to prevent the
repatriation of Sergei Skripal to Russia much more plausible.
Posted by b on November 30, 2019 at 19:34 UTC |
Permalink
By the writings from the Wehrmacht soldiers we have today, we can see that it was not
Nazi ideology per se which convinced them to invade the Soviet Union, but the nine
consecutive years of extremely virulent anti-Russian propaganda spread in Germany during
the 1930s (plus the myth Bolshevik conspiracy caused 1918).
The West is preparing its population psychologically to go to war against Eurasia --
Russia + China. They are appealing to irrational propaganda to achieve so: painting the
picture of "Russian deceitulness" (this plus the WADA propaganda warfare) and of "Chinese
asiatic despostism" and "Chinese exotism". They are planning for the long term -- maybe
even 20 to 30 years of consecutive brainwashing of their own population so they can
cultivate unconditional hatred for the Eurasians.
If true, then this option also indicates the Western elites are anticipating their own
decline or even a collapse. If Gramsci's theory on the rise of fascism holds true, then
expect the rise of an Anglo-Saxon version of fascism.
Thank you b for this revision of the Skripal hoax. The find of pure Novichok was the fatal
flaw from the very beginning. The UK is never to be trusted and inept to boot.
b - thanks for reconsidering this Skripal case in light of the OPSW scandal that is being
kept under wraps.. This is another phony edifice erected by the west to create what @1 vk
articulates - an anglo-saxon version of fascism towards eurasia..
the whole skripal affair is now standing on even more shaky ground..
Spiez lab and its staff might not have as much reason to frame Russia or Syria for that
kind of stuff, not being part of NATO despite being in a Western capitalist country.
It's
quite possible that the bulk of the staff has no horses in that game and wants to just do
the job - and it's very possible that one or two people there are pissed off enough to blow
the whistle on one part of the ongoing fakeries.
After all, this occurred to people whose
countries were heavily involved in such shenanigans (Scott Ritter, Craig Murray and Edward
Snowden being good examples), and most probably also happened with the Douma report.
Basically, it will be interesting to see if there's any whistleblowing about the Skripal
analyses in the near future.
@vk in 20 to 30 years the East will have risen. All this propaganda will be for nothing.
With the systems of mass communication and much greater lack of trust in authority and the
MSM, these attempts to paint Russia and China in a bad light won't be as effective as is
hoped. The western govts. and elites are hurting themselves far more than any war can hurt
the new powers arising. I read somewhere, ( I apologise that I cannot find the article ),
that the U.S. is planning a limited yield tactical nuclear weapon attack delivered by
stealth bomber on Iran. I don't know if this is in any way true. However Ultimately Chess
and the Chinese game of Go require far more sophisticated thinking than checkers or poker.
The west is very predictable in it's thinking and the East is advancing faster than the
west can sucessfully react.
@uncle tungsten. The U.K. authorities And management are incompetent and not to be
trusted. Not so the scientists, engineers and others in the employ of the civil
service.
It does makes sense that the Skripal's were buzzed as you write and that it is more
propaganda falling apart. This time it is propaganda that was focused on Russia and I am glad to read that Lavrov
is making the findings of the cover up more public. One can only hope that more threads of propaganda come unraveled and the putrid house of
cards built to cover up the global private finance controlled Western society falls apart
soon. At what point are there prosecutions for this sort of "war crimes" against
countries?
Clueless Joe @ 5 wrote: "Spiez lab and its staff might not have as much reason to frame
Russia or Syria for that kind of stuff, not being part of NATO despite being in a Western
capitalist country."
Actually, the Spiez lab is directly linked to NATO, as is Switzerland, through the smoke
screen of the "Peace Partnership" ("Partenariat pour la paix" in its official French
version).
It already go into big trouble once, quite a while ago, for being used by NATO to
whitewash United States use of uranium/depleted uranium weapons. That, apparently, went
down badly with most of the staff, so, if they are on the up-and-up, one might attribute it
to: once burned, twice shy.
Nailed in the head. All and every work from @OPCW should be deeply investigated, it has,
clearly, shown to be a corrupt organization, would like to see its leaders and key
investigators involved in those many crimes arrested and in jail.
Let us not confuse "The British" with an extreme right wing Tory faction, of which Johnson
is the public face, which, as reports coming out today remind us, has been enormously
financed by Russian kleptocrats.
It is this report chronicling the influence of these oligarchs in funding the Tory party
(hundreds of millions of dollars were raised) which was suppressed when it was due to be
released on the eve of the current general election.
The point is that it is this alliance between ultra right Tories, controlling the party
through their secret financing, and anti-Putin oligarchs of the Khodorkovsy, Browder type,
which has been behind the waves of russophobic propaganda and provocations of which Skripal
is but one, particularly flagrant instance.
This is the wing of the Tory party eighty years on, which was ready to sign a peace
agreement with Germany in May 1940. The terms of which would have preserved their power and
the empire and allied the UK with Germany in the attack on the Soviet Union.
Not to put too fine a point on it- the current leadership of the Tory party under Johnson
are crypto fascists.
@ 7 psychohistorian.. that quote from b - "During a public speech yesterday Lavrov stated
of the OPCW report" is actually from april 2018... it would be very good if lavrov actually
did an update here given the latest info we now know have on the opcw process...
As I said at the time, the OPCW has become a political weapon subject to the whims of the
UK and US's foreign policy. (thus the formation of a new attribution initiative body given
the power to blame to whoever the UK and US wants).
ANYTHING coming from the technical secretariat (in particular whilst under Robert
Fairweather) should be considered compromised.
The only thing with any remaining credibility at all are the direct field reports and
the individual lab reports, both of which are considered confidential to the
secretariat.
1. "It sent the original samples from the Skripals."
No, because that doesn't explain the A-234 found by the lab. They were then not original
following the suggested theory. We have to choose between "adding BZ as test" or "adding
A-234 to deceive".
Checking some OPCW docs like "OPCW on-site and off-site analysis of samples" mention one
authentic sample combined with one control sample containing scheduled chemicals & one
blank sample containing no scheduled chemicals. It also makes sense to have control
substances to exclude grave errors or manipulation. In other words the explanation makes
sense. If not BZ then another scheduled chemical would have been there. Not named by Lavrov
for some reason? The simplest solution here remains that Lavrov was blowing smoke or a rare
misfire.
2. From MoA's earlier article, quoting Science Direct
"only a small amount of BZ is needed to produce complete incapacitation"
This would conflict with "lifting his arms up to the sky while sitting on a bench".
That's not complete at all.
3. "consistent with the observed symptoms "
Also holds for Novichok: Andrei Zheleznyakov, who had been exposed to a minute amount of
Novichok in a lab accident five years prior wrote he was, "seared by brilliant colors and
hallucinations." Many other sources mention foaming at the mouth, hallucinations and
pinpoint pupils.
As for the timing, don't confuse "pure" drops with emulsions, the very reason Novichok
was being weaponized as it could be kept active and applied through gel and other more
static forms. Clearly exposure rate would differ based on application method and its
success. Delays could easily occur when it needs to travel eg through skin.
And Litvinenko. The man who prepared the crucial MI6 secret presentation to the chairman of
the public inquiry was a colleague of Pablo Miller, the agent runner of Skripal. His name,
Christopher Steele. A man the foreign office told the FBI is not reliable!!!
@13 James
I should have added that the oligarchs involved are the Fifth Columnist 'westernisers"
whose objection to Putin is that he is orientated towards Eurasia whereas they see their
allies as Wall St and The City, which is where their ill gotten gains are.
In other words this is not about Russophobia so much as a last ditch stand for the maritime
empire in which they are literally invested heavily. It goes without saying-or should do --
which middle eastern Apartheid state is also allied with the anti-Putin oligarchs. Which is
why Vladimir, who knows what its all about, does everything he can, verbally, to
demonstrate his solidarity with the afore unmentioned Apartheid regime.
@ james #12 with the correction to my claim about the timing of the Lavrov
statement...thanks.
@ bevin # 11 who writes that the British Tory party is a tool of Russian oligarchs...any
documentation of that?
And writing about British Tory obfuscation, I am struggling with reading Web of Debt
that keeps talking about Bank of England when I know it got nationalized in 1946 but where
is the documentation about if/how the City of London Corp still has control behind the
scenes? Or don't they? Your Tory claim seems like it should be about the City of London
Corp folks but I have no data to back it up.
The Magnitsky Case
How true is the story on which US sanctions against Russia are based?
Exclusive for subscribers
Bill Browder turned the Americans against Putin with his statements about the death of a
whistleblower. However, his story is full of contradictions.
I'm almost tempted to open the month's trial Spiegel subscription on offer at the
walled-off article, but why read a "revelation" about something that all true Kremlin Stooges
the world over have known for years? -- and, I daresay, there are also more than a few who
are really in-the-know about the Magnitsky Case in the USA and in that state where
piece-of-shit Browder is now a citizen.
America eagerly embraced Browder's fabrications and rubbish because his tale fit the image
the United States is fond of cultivating of Russia, land of savagery and state repression
– but also for a more practical reason; it wanted legislation on the books which would
allow it to continue discriminating against Russia after the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was
relaxed, as it legally had to be with Russia's accession to the WTO. All members must be
granted Permanent Normal Trading Relations (PNTR) status by all other members, and America
wanted an instrument which would allow it to let Russia know things had not changed. So the
Magnitsky Act was safely in place before Jackson-Vanik restrictions were lifted.
Poking holes in Browder's story, gratifying as it is, will not make any practical
difference. As we are all aware, America will steamroller ahead as if nothing had happened,
and continue broadcasting its untruths as if it had never been contradicted, and its allies
will follow suit. The real glimmer of light is Germany's increasingly restless relationship
with the United States, and its implications for the completion of Nord Stream II. Once
that's done and dusted, either Russia or Germany can tell the USA to go fuck itself. It will
take years for the fact that Uncle Sam routinely lies in order to support manipulative
actions in its own interests to percolate through to the general public, because it mostly
listens to whoever yells the loudest. But once that pipeline is through and Russia's energy
connection to Europe exclusive of Ukraine is secure, it's just a matter of time before Uncle
Sam loses his grip on the whole region.
Browder and the Magnitsky Narrative: the end of a disinformation campaign?
24. November 2019
Der Spiegel has broken the anti-Russian story of the whistleblower's murder. The lie
construct has been known for some time: the scandal is that the media and politicians have
spread it unquestioned
Just over 10 years after the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison, a large
news media organization has dared to write a critical article about this anti-Russian myth.
Browder, a shrewd businessman who made his money with tricks and tax evasion in the 1990s, is
another kind of Relotius [Claas-Hendrik Relotius: a former German journalist. He resigned
from Der Spiegel in 2018 after having admitted to numerous instances of journalistic fraud --
ME.] , who has also demonstrated his stance by moving from the USA to Britain for tax
avoidance. Persistent and eloquent, former hedge fund manager Bill Browder, who has allegedly
turned himself into a selfless human rights activist, has portrayed his employee Magnitsky as
a death-defying whistleblower and a fighter against the corrupt system of Vladimir Putin
.
The media and politicians believe in everything that fits in with their ideologies and
interests. But that's not Bidder's theme: if it were, he would have had to critically
question the role of Der Spiegel in this case as well
I any case, Bidder has not really been brave anyway. The European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) had already made a decision about the Magnitsky Case: in September 2019, the court
granted damages to Magnitsky's family because of the conditions of his detention and his
sentencing after his death, but it did not call his death murder, nor did the court speak of
torture and it rejected key points in Browder's story .
Even then the media could have listened, but it didn't: it preferred to follow
Browder's misrepresentation, which stated, "The ECHR decision also completely destroys the
lies and propaganda about Sergei Magnitsky that the Russian government and its paid smear
campaigners in the West have been trying to spread for many years?
The article goes on to say that Bidder presents his article as a revelation of the truth,
and backs up this claim by publishing congratulatory Tweets from admiring subscribers to Der
Spiegel But the article criticising the great revelation in Der Spiegel says nothing new has
been published: what has been "revealed" by Bidder of Der Spiegel was already well known. The
article discusses Nekrasov's revelations and the blocking of the film he made exposing
Browder, stressing that Nekrasov is in no way a Putin fan.
The article critical of the Der Spiegel article says that Bidder's "revelations" also
reveal the ways of fake news story tellers, of how gullible audiences are manipulated, of how
anti-Russian prejudices are vigorously stoked by politicians, governments, Nato and NGOs. The
critical article also points out that the Council of Europe had looked at the case and
blindly accepted the Browder team interpretation of events in the Magnitsky Case, without
doing any independent research itself.
The above-linked article by Florian Rötzer ends thus:
Bill Browder, who otherwise reacts quickly, has not yet commented on the Der Spiegel
article. The strange thing is that Deutsche Welle [ German World Service -- not
Bundestag controlled, aber natürlich! ] has a report in Russian on the
Spiegel article by Bidder, but not in German or English. Bidder does not question this fact
either.
Have the German powers-that-be given the green-light, then, that Browder be exposed so as
to totally undermine the USA reason for imposing sanctions against the Evil Regime, including
its attempts to stop NS-2, whereby the Evil Orcs wish to control the EU energy market,
thereby enslaving the free and democratic satellite Western European satrap states of Uncle
Sam?
That's the same bottomfeeder and tax fraud Browder, who most probably killed Magnitsky. and who abruptly changed his
citizenship from the USA to British after his adventures in Russia. What a Chutzpah on the part of a person involved in
fleecing Russia after dissolution of the USSR, the activity supported by MI6 and CIA.
Businessman Bill Browder alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016,
when the country was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian
officials.
Putin foe says Fusion GPS was agent for Russia while
helping Clinton in 2016 by Jerry Dunleavy | November 26,
2019 07:14 PM
Print
this article T he company that conducted anti-Trump research for Hillary Clinton's 2016
campaign also worked for the Russian government, producing material that was used by Moscow to
pressure the United States, according to a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Businessman Bill Browder alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016,
when the country was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian
officials.
Browder, 55, championed the
Magnitsky Act, which was named for his tax lawyer, corruption
whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in a Russian prison in 2009 after his
investigation for Browder's business uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian tax
fraud implicating Russian officials.
Putin, who despises the law, retaliated by banning American adoptions of Russian
children.
"The work that [Fusion GPS co-founder] Glenn Simpson did involved trying to change the
narrative of how Sergei Magnitsky was killed," said Browder. "He and the Russians paying him
wanted people in Washington to believe that Sergei Magnitsky died of natural causes instead of
being killed. Glenn Simpson claimed that Sergei Magnitsky wasn't a whistleblower and that he
was criminal. He also claimed that all of my testimonies to have Magnitsky sanctions imposed
were untrue."
Browder said he believes Fusion GPS's work violated the Foreign
Agents Registration Act . He sent a
complaint to the Department of Justice in 2016, and then-Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Chuck Grassley
urged the department to look into it in 2017.
"We did receive a response from the Justice Department, essentially stating that it can
neither confirm nor deny the existence of a specific FARA investigation," Grassley's office
told the Washington Examiner .
The DOJ declined the Washington Examiner 's request for comment, and a lawyer for
Fusion GPS didn't respond, though the company has previously said
"it was not required to register under FARA and it did not spread false information about
William Browder or Sergei Magnitsky."
Browder pointed out that Fusion GPS and Simpson began working for Russian lawyer Natalia
Veselnitskaya, who would later make headlines for
her meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower , in 2014 and provided her with
anti-Magnitsky research for years. Veselnitskaya, a former Russian prosecutor, maintained
Russian government ties, according to special counsel Robert Mueller, including lobbying
against 2016's expanded Magnitsky Act.
The DOJ alleged that Russia-owned real estate company Prevezon Holdings laundered fraudulent
money, and the
company later settled with the DOJ for $5.9 million in what the department
called "a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme involving corrupt Russian
officials."
Veselnitskaya hired law firm BakerHostetler to help Prevezon in court, and the firm hired
Fusion GPS, which Simpson
confirmed in an interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017.
"Browder was always eager to testify before Congress or appear on TV, but he did not want to
answer questions from BakerHostetler lawyers about his role as a whistleblower in the Prevezon
case. So the lawyers asked Fusion to figure out how they could get Browder's testimony. What
ensued was a legal game of cat and mouse in which Fusion developed information that would help
BakerHostetler subpoena Browder multiple times, forcing him to testify about his business
activities in Russia and earning Fusion his everlasting enmity. The U.S. government had staked
its case against Prevezon on the credibility of Browder. Yet he was reluctant to explain under
oath where he had obtained his evidence. It was an odd position for a human rights crusader to
take," Simpson and Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch wrote in their new book, Crime in
Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump .
"I participated in two all-day depositions, but the case was settled before it went to
court," said Browder. "Otherwise, I would've been on the witness stand."
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act documents released in 2018 show the DOJ and the FBI
made extensive use of Steele's dossier in 2016. Fusion GPS was
hired by Clinton's campaign and the DNC through the Perkins Coie law firm. Fusion GPS then
hired Steele, who allegedly reached out to Russian sources to put together his dossier.
Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook said they
received briefings from Perkins Coie about Fusion GPS's findings during the campaign.
Browder contended Fusion GPS created a dossier against him, too, by using "false
information."
"Since the Russians were working so closely with Simpson on the anti-Magnitsky, anti-Bill
Browder dossier, it would seem unlikely to me that the Russians wouldn't know that there was
another dossier being created," Browder said.
Mueller's report on Russian election
interference detailed the June 2016 meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman
Paul Manafort, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and various Russians, including Veselnitskaya.
The meeting was pitched to Trump's campaign as an opportunity to get damaging information on
Clinton, but Veselnitskaya pulled a bait-and-switch and turned it into a presentation on
Russia's desire to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
Veselnitskaya presented a
short dossier echoing nearly identical Kremlin talking points that were passed
to a Republican congressman by the Russia prosecutor general's office in April 2016,
criticizing the Magnitsky Act and criticizing Browder as a "fugitive criminal" who was engaged
in a massive fraudulent financial scheme in support of Democrats. In his Senate testimony,
Simpson admitted to researching many of the allegations that appeared in Veselnitskaya's
talking points. When Donald Trump Jr. asked Veselnitskaya for proof, she did not provide any,
according to Mueller's report. Russian American lobbyist and former Soviet military officer
Rinat Akhmetshin and the Russians then complained about U.S. sanctions and mentioned Russian
adoption, and the Trump associates considered it a waste of time.
Browder believes that presentation was from Fusion GPS research, though Simpson denies any
foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting despite seeing Veselnitskaya the day before, the day
of, and the day after.
Simpson "was a person who was coordinating an advocacy campaign for Natalia Veselnitskaya,
and the Trump Tower meeting seemed to be part of that advocacy campaign," said Browder. "It
seems a little odd that he would know about everything else but not that one meeting."
Veselnitskaya attended the meeting with fellow Russian anti-Magnitsky Act advocates,
including Akhmetshin. Simpson told the
Senate that BakerHostetler instructed Fusion GPS to pass anti-Browder research to
Akhmetshin, who lobbied Congress against the Magnitsky Act. Akhmetshin, who is in Browder's
FARA complaint, criticized Browder in congressional
testimony in 2017 and filed a lawsuit against him
in 2018.
In January, the DOJ unsealed an
indictment against Veselnitskaya, now out of reach in Russia, alleging she'd obstructed
justice during the Prevezon case through secret collaboration with Russia.
Fusion GPS's co-founders said in their book that Prevezon's court case was separate from its
anti-Magnitsky Act activities.
"In early 2016, Prevezon -- apart from the court case -- had launched a lobbying campaign
against the Global Magnitsky Act, working with Akhmetshin, in a backhanded effort to discredit
Browder in the halls of Congress," they wrote.
The firm never registered under FARA, they said, because it was not lobbying.
"Fusion had no say in the matter if Prevezon decided to take evidence from a court case and
repurpose it. But all this would come back to haunt Fusion," they wrote.
"... Browder is key in the U.S. demonization of Russia. Assange has exposed U.S. war crimes. For lawyers associated in the British legal system to take both sides on that conflict would appear to be an egregious conflict of interest. But it fits with the U.S.-UK support of the Browder-Magnitsky hoax and their cooperation in the attack on Assange. ..."
"... Bailin is a member of Matrix Chambers, which was founded by the wife of Tony Blair, the former neocon Labor British Prime Minister. He is solidly in the Browder camp. He represented Leonid Nevzlin, a major partner of Browder collaborator Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who according to filings with FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act), paid $385,000 for Congress to adopt the Magnitsky Act which has been used by the U.S. as a weapon against the Russian government. ..."
"... In 2017 British legal actions surrounding an inquest into the death of Alexander Perepilichnyy, he represented Browder, who claimed that the Russian, who died of a heart attack, was somehow a victim of Russian President Putin. Perepilichnyy had lost money in investments he was handling for clients and had to get out of town. ..."
"... Needing support, he decamped to London and gave Browder documents relating to his client's questionable bank transfers. He died after a jog, Browder claimed he was poisoned by a rare botanical substance, obviously ordered by Putin, but forensic tests found that untrue. Robertson accused local police of a cover-up. ..."
"... Why did Assange or his advisors choose lawyers associated with the interests of the U.S. government and Browder? Or how could those lawyers be so ignorant about the facts of Browder's massive tax evasion and his Magnitsky story fabrications? ..."
"... What we are seeing now is no different from the Lula case in Brazil or any one of a thousand similar cases in authoritarian regimes. Upset the Deep State and you face selected targeted application of the law and the destruction of your life and future. ..."
"... because of the peculiar quirks of the legal system in Britain that may include a great deal of secrecy about how aspects of it operate, is how Julian Assange came to have such a dubious legal representation with its various connections to Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky ..."
"... who is going to foot these barristers' bills? ..."
Assange lawyers' links to US govt & Bill Browder raises questions The network of lawyers in conflicting roles in Browder, Assange
and US government cases raises questions about Julian Assange's defense. Editor
A US government lawyer in the Assange extradition case just wrote a London Times oped
promoting the Browder Magnitsky hoax. Ben Brandon is one of five lawyers in a London network whose spokes link to convicted tax
fraudster William Browder, the U.S. government, and to both sides of the extradition case against whistleblower publisher Julian
Assange.
Here is how the British legal system works. Lawyers are either solicitors who work with clients or barristers who go to court
in cases assigned by the solicitors. To share costs, barristers operate in chambers , which provide office space, including
conference rooms and dining halls, clerks who receive and assign cases from solicitors, and other support staff. London has 210 chambers.
There are not "partners" sharing profits, but members operate fraternally with each other.
Browder is key in the U.S. demonization of Russia. Assange has exposed U.S. war crimes. For lawyers associated in the British
legal system to take both sides on that conflict would appear to be an egregious conflict of interest. But it fits with the U.S.-UK
support of the Browder-Magnitsky hoax and their cooperation in the attack on Assange.
The law firm and chambers involved in the Browder-Assange stories are Mishcon de Reya, Matrix Chambers and Doughty Street Chambers.
Ben Brandon of Mishcon de Reya and Alex
Bailin of Matrix Chambers co-authored an opinion
article
in The Times of London October 24, 2019 in which they repeated William Browder's fabrications about the death of his accountant
Sergei Magnitsky.
The article aimed to promote the Magnitsky Act which builds a political wall against Russia. It is based on the fake claim that
Magnitsky, the accountant who handled Browder's tax evasion in Russia, was really a lawyer who exposed a government scam.
Except that is not true, there is no evidence for it, and the lies are documented
here . But the Act has prevented the Russians from collecting about $100 million Browder owes in back taxes and illicit stock
buys.
Brandon's and Bailin's connections are notable. Law firms, at least in the U.S., tend to stake out their commitments. Lawyers
who represent unions do not represent companies fighting unions. It appears to be different in Britain, where legal chambers have
members on either side of some cases.
Bailin is a member of Matrix Chambers, which was founded by the wife of Tony Blair, the former neocon Labor British Prime
Minister. He is solidly in the Browder camp. He represented Leonid Nevzlin, a major partner of Browder collaborator Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
who according to filings with FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act), paid $385,000 for Congress to adopt the Magnitsky Act which
has been used by the U.S. as a weapon against the Russian government.
Nevzlin's suit was for $50 billion against Russia for money allegedly lost by the nationalization of Yukos Oil. Yukos was obtained
by Khodorkovsky in the mid-90s in one of then Russian President Boris Yeltsin's rigged auctions. Khodorkovsky's bank Menatep ran
the auction.
He paid $309 million for a controlling 78 percent of the state company. Months later, Yukos traded on the Russian stock exchange
at a market capitalization of $6 billion. Not surprising, after Yeltsin departed, the state wanted the stolen assets back.
To add insult to injury, Khodorkovsky laundered profits from Yukos through
transfer-pricing
and other scams.
Transfer pricing is when you sell products to a shell company at a fake low price, and the shell sells them on the world market
at the real price, giving you the rake-off. It cheats tax authorities and minority shareholders.
See how
Khodorkovsky and Browder did this with Russian company Avisma, which Khodorkovsky also got through a rigged auction.
The Times oped co-author, Brandon of Mishcon de Reya, has a startling connection. The day after an extradition request
targeting Julian Assange was
signed by the UK home secretary , Brandon representing the U.S. government, formally opened the extradition case.
Now look at another Assange link. Mark Summers , who is
representing Julian Assange is, along with Bailin,
a member of Matrix Chambers.
But while he is Assange's lawyer, Summers is acting for Assange's persecutor, the U.S. government, in a major extradition
case involving executives of Credit
Suisse in 2013 making fake loans and getting kickbacks from Mozambique government officials.
Does Assange, or those who care about his interests, know he is part of chambers working for the U.S. government?
And where do you put this factoid? Alex Bailin is representing Andrew Pearse, one of the Credit Suisse bankers that the U.S. government,
represented by Summers, is seeking to extradite!
But there's chambers where two members are each supporting both Browder and Assange.
Geoffrey Robertson is founder of Doughty Street Chambers. He is also a longtime Browder / Magnitsky story promoter. He has pitched
implementation of a Magnitsky Act in Australia and has served Browder in UK court.
In 2017 British legal actions surrounding an inquest into the death of Alexander Perepilichnyy, he represented Browder, who
claimed that the Russian, who died of a heart attack, was somehow a victim of Russian President Putin. Perepilichnyy had lost money
in investments he was handling for clients and had to get out of town.
Needing support, he decamped to London and gave Browder documents relating to his client's questionable bank transfers. He
died after a jog, Browder claimed he was poisoned by a rare botanical substance, obviously ordered by Putin, but forensic tests found
that untrue. Robertson
accused local
police of a cover-up.
He is a legal advisor to Assange and is regularly
interviewed by international media about the case.
Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers also has a Browder connection. She is acting for Paul Radu a journalist and official
of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) which is being
sued by an Azerbaijan MP. OCCRP is a Browder collaborator.
Browder admits in a deposition
that OCCRP prepared documents he would give to the U.S. Justice Department to accuse the son of a Russian railway official of
getting $1.9 million of $230 million defrauded from the Russian Treasury. The case was settled when the U.S. couldn't prove the charge,
and the target declined to spend more millions of dollars in his defense. OCCRP got the first Magnitsky Human Rights
award , set up for Browder's partners and acolytes.
Robinson is also the longest-serving member of Assange's legal team. She
acted for Assange in the Swedish extradition proceedings and in relation to Ecuador's request to the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights Advisory Opinion proceedings on the right to asylum.
Why did Assange or his advisors choose lawyers associated with the interests of the U.S. government and Browder? Or how could
those lawyers be so ignorant about the
facts of Browder's massive tax evasion and his Magnitsky story fabrications?
It raises questions about how they are handling the Assange defense.
The individuals cited were asked to respond to points made about them, but none did.
The Telegraph reports on a 2015 private dinner in the home of Doughty Street 's Geoffrey Robertson at which the
Magnitsky myth and sanctions against Russia are pitched to then-Labour-Party-leader Ed Miliband, and Doughty Street lawyer Amal
Clooney and co.:
Today we find aforementioned Browder/Magnitsky touts Alex Bailin, QC (Matrix lawyer and "legal writer for The Guardian, The
Times and The Lawyer – co-writer of the bogus FT Magnitsky column with Ben Brandon), and Geoffrey Robertson, QC (Doughty
Street's eminence grise), both on the Advisory Board of Amal Clooney's " TrialWatch " (part of the Clooney " Foundation
for Justice "): TrialWatch® Advisory Board
universal
The tentacles of the deep state (no longer secret now) are clamping on our life so tightly that one would honestly wish that one
of those extraterrestrial rocks would smash into this planet causing total annhilation –just in order to get rid of these psychopathic
mongrels ruling over us.
I am not sure, though, fantasy could solve problems!
mark
We have a corrupt and politicised "justice" system used for the purposes of intimidation and political persecution. Some people
still believe in fairy stories like the Rule of Law and an independent judiciary.
What we are seeing now is no different from the Lula case in Brazil or any one of a thousand similar cases in authoritarian
regimes. Upset the Deep State and you face selected targeted application of the law and the destruction of your life and future.
Jen
Unfortunately what we don't get in Lucy Komisar's article, perhaps because of the peculiar quirks of the legal system in Britain
that may include a great deal of secrecy about how aspects of it operate, is how Julian Assange came to have such a dubious legal
representation with its various connections to Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Who recommended Mishcon de Reya and
other barristers to Assange and Wikileaks, and who is going to foot these barristers' bills? Are there no other barristers
specialising in human rights cases in Britain who can take on Assange's case or was the case awarded to certain chambers in some
kind of bidding arrangement or some other competitive arrangement?
BTW it's not unusual for law firms in Britain and Australia to have clients whose interests may be opposed, ie a law firm can
represent both a company and a trade union whose members may be employed by that company. What usually happens is that different
teams of lawyers work for the two sides and the work of one team is separated from the other team by internal firewalls. The firewalls
include physical separations: the teams may even work on different floors so as not to share copiers or other office equipment
and lawyers in opposing teams may be discouraged from socialising with each other during lunch and coffee breaks. Sounds bizarre
but this does happen.
R Heybroek
With respect, you can't judge British law by US standards. Barristers are briefed by solicitors, not individual clients, and associate
primarily in areas of competence, e.g. criminal, corporate or tax law. In their specialization, they generally follow the 'cab
rank' principle and accept briefs from prosecution or defence as they arise. It's a strength of the system, not a problem.
Whatever I may think of some of the barristers in Matrix or Doughty, it would be foolish to assume that everyone in a chambers
shares the same political views or attitudes. They do not. They argue like cats and dogs, usually with considerable professional
respect.
I see nothing dubious about the range of experience of Assange's legal team. If his solicitor thinks a barrister has a conflict
of interest, he will withdraw the brief. I'd suggest you direct your enquiries to the instructing solicitor.
Julian Assange was a dead man walking from the time he was taken (totally illegally) from the Ecuadorian embassy. Just about all
the Wikileaks team are now totally corrupted; and as this article points out, most of Assange's legal team are also corrupted.
The alleged mental deterioration of Assange, combined with harsh (and totally unnecessary) prison conditions, might account for
some of this.
An important subsidiary question becomes, why aren't any of his high profile champions asking these questions? John Pilger? Craig
Murray? They all bang on about stuff like 'torture' but never point out that his lawyers totally fail to address this pretty darn
crucial issue. Craig Murray says 'Julian has great lawyers'. Really? If we step back and think for a minute, does it honestly
look that way?
They can't even get him out of solitary or into a lower security prison. Shit, they can't even get his mail delivered adequately
or uphold his right to get regular legal visitation! And yet no one, not even his parents, are complaining about these failures!
And who is running Wikileaks these days? Do we have any way of being sure they aren't just a co-opted shell?
Betrayed planet
To be fair Pilger is one of the few real supporters of Julian along with a handful of musicians. His lone voice is not enough.
I saw a clip of Pilger crying after the recent spectacle of a so called hearing. The presiding judge, The Honorary Upyourbottom
should have been in the dock for perjury, fraud, lying before a court and crimes against humanity.
LawStudent
I'm a 2nd year law student and I can confirm that questions about the conduct of Assange's defence are legion in my school. MNynpeople
talking about the inexplicable lapses. Just s fee usdyes often discussed: Why didn't the defense take up the judge's offer of
bail application? To say 'well they would lose' is counter to the basics of jurisprudence.
Why is there no complaint being lodged about his detention in a maximum security facility when he's on remand – not serving
a sentence – pending an extradition hearing? Why don't his lawyers lodge an appeal to the ECHR based on the testimony of the UN
observers? Why are his lawyers keeping such low media profiles?
It's generally agreed something is very 'off' about this.
L Took
I think his lawyers stated that they were never offered a bail application, even though the judge claimed they had refused one.
But I'm not sure; I had heard previous to this event that the lawyers would not ask because if they lost (the appeal?) Assange
could be further punished for the loss. Is this accurate?
MaryD
It may be relevant that one of Assange's barristers also represents the corporate psyop Extinction Rebellion!
nottheonly1
Assange lawyers' links to US govt & Bill Browder raises questions. The network of lawyers in conflicting roles in Browder,
Assange and US government cases raises questions about Julian Assange's defense.
Assange lawyers' links to US govt & Bill Browder raises only one question: What the?
I know it's not comedy, because people get seriously hurt and killed as a result of the transformation of a more or less democratic
government into a well organized criminal organization. Who better to run the courts, than the mob? Mob 'Law' enforcement included.
So, organized crime owns everything. The big club. The biggest profits are made with stuff that was bought to blow up something.
Or somebody. One could ask: 'With links like these, who needs enemies?' Anybody interfering into, or compromising the Mob execution
of the owners' plan, will be taken care of. Laws are written to owners' demands and are quickly as needed in show trials.
The eloquence in describing what is happening right now – and in all other show trials – is comforting.
As it is more like 'a gang of lawyers in revolving door roles in organized crime by Browder and US regime et al versus Julian
Assange, providing Defense for Julian Assange in his case against the same people and the same regime.
I forgot where, but I have heard of such things before.
The World will have to understand that, without the immediate release of Julian Assange, no more rule of law exists on Earth.
And to whomever has not connected the Assange affair with 'pre-emptive incarceration', might for a little longer enjoy playing
outdoor chess on the deck of a sinking cruise ship.
Oh, and yes, the qualifier "six ways to/from Sunday" should also be mentioned as an exemplary business practice by the Mob
regime. Actually, the Mob merged with the regime, with the regime belonging to the owners' club.
Northern
Good to see another article on this, seen several people raising concerns about these associations in independent media over the
last few months, though it's no doubt one of those things that will never be 'officially' addressed. Many people with more knowledge
than I have questioned the wisdom of certain decisions his legal team have made (or not, as the case may be) in recent proceedings.
Craig Murray's account of Julian's recent court appearance reads like something you'd expect from a country with 'the people's
democratic republic' in the name.
On a tangentially related note, anybody reading this who has the impetus to write to Julian in support;
The 'writetoJulian' website which appears at to the top of Google's search results for those who google how to go about such
a thing, is either accidentally or deliberately (one can probably guess which) mis-advising its readers of the requirements. The
website advises several times NOT to include Julian's prisoner number on any correspondence sent to him, but I know from direct
knowledge of communicating with the incarcerated that without the prisoner number your correspondence will be destroyed and neither
you nor the receiver will be notified. I hate to think how many well meaning messages of support for Julian have been 'legally'
destroyed without him seeing them as a result of this.
Northern
Ah, in a limited sliver of good news; The aforementioned website seem to have cottoned on to their mistake after several people
bringing it to their attention. They now advise you should include his number on all correspondence.
Mr Julian Assange
Prisoner #: A9379AY
HMP Belmarsh
Western Way
London SE28 0EB
UK
Betrayed planet
I have long suspected that Julian is not getting proper legal council. That his lawyers have not yet been able to get a proper
hearing whilst he is left to rot in a maximum security prison is suspect in the extreme. The obvious Nazi style behaviour of the
unlawful and fascist U.K. government and its lick spittle judiciary are apparent to all with absolutely no fight back from the
excuse of a media nor indeed 99.9 percent of its compliant increasingly dumbed down and wilfully ignorant population.
What is obvious now to anyone with half an eye open is that the U.K. is now a rogue state where law and justice are meaningless,
where bribery and corruption are common place. That Julian Assange is slowly dying in front of the whole world, will die without
some kind of major intervention is a stain on every single aware English resident. Mind you with a population seemingly set to
vote back in the same filthy vermin that have turned the country into the complete shithole it has become, it's hardly surprising.
Does anybody know if Gareth Pierce is still involved in his case?
nottheonly1
For quite some time now, an odd possibility offers itself – theoretically. Julian Assange is not the messenger. He is the message.
As a messenger, he is somewhat ineffective. He has not been able to convince people that the need for an uprising against lawlessness
exists. That any form of government cannot work when the judiciary is corrupt and that there is no justice in a society ruled
over by a regime.
As a message however, he is in the eyes of masses of people. Probably a majority of humans on Earth know who Julian Assange
is. How many know who he is, where he came from and what it was exactly he did, before he published videos showing how well the
'Support our Troops' deserve was used up in the way it was intended, can only be a guess. Or a dedicated team of statisticians
to hold polls in every country.
So, the published material, that was also leaked by a whistle blower, was proof of how deserving those soldiers were
of our support – showing them killing innocent human beings and 'our Troops' having the greatest times of their lives doing it.
The message is simply: Look, if we can do this to Assange, what do you think we will do to you from Monday to Sunday – if you
get any ideas?
No matter where you are. No matter who you are.
The only antidote to this insanity is the Truth and it be given its day(s) in court. 'Justice Mondays'.
I wonder if Alexander Perepilichnyy's death happened any which way – if indeed he was even a real person – there's only two photos
of him as far as I can tell and the feeling of reality about his is not strong – as the Japan Times says, "What we know of Perepilichnyy
is slight." Could he have just conveniently been invented and disappeared somehow? The story of him spending his last night with
his 22 year-old mistress (the good old 22) in Paris, complaining about his dinner, vomiting and then having his wife the next
day in London prepare his favourite food, sorrel soup, for lunch then going out jogging somehow doesn't ring true and we see a
typical anomaly of faked stories, different versions:
The Guardian: "was found outside his Surrey home"
The Atlantic: "He collapsed on Granville Road, within 100 meters of the house he was renting"
Japan Times: "Then, 50 meters from his home, he staggered into the road and died."
Wikipedia: "[he] was found dead on the road by a neighbour" with a reference to a BBC story makes no mention of neighbour
BBC story: "[he] has been found dead near his home in Weybridge. had collapsed on a road early on the evening"
Collapsed on a road? Wouldn't you give the name of the road in a suburban area?
Rhys Jaggar
Same story in UK sports reporting corrupt industries raking in cash for unprincipled wordsmithery
DiggerUK
The defence team around Julian seems to be unfathomable at many levels. My main concern has been over the unproved allegations
of chemical torture made during his incarceration in Bellmarsh Prison. Why has his defence team not asked for an independent medical
assessment? Why have concerns not been raised with prison visitors who are allowed to investigate independently?
https://www.imb.org.uk/independent-monitoring-boards/
Craig Murray who saw Julian on his last court appearance wrote of his condition .
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/
is it as a result of drugs used during interrogations, or is it down to mental trauma after what he has been through.
Either way, his defense team and close friends need to up their game.
This article is not the first time that concerns have been raised in a worrying manner about the defence team around Julian
_
Rhys Jaggar
It is a standard Uk tactic to have someone try to beat you up then publicly say what a friend of yours they are. Happened to me
four times: I called the lot of them out on it, something which gets them on their faux high horses very quickly
Harry Stotle
Amazing isn't it, the way the legal system goes into hyperdrive pursuing those who expose war crimes while nonchantly turning
a blind eye to those who commit them (no matter how high the body count). Harder to find a more glaring example of the way hypocrisy
defines the elite's relationship with things like morality, fairness or decency, not least because no western politician has ever
been held to account for the havoc they have unleashed (in any court prosecuting war crimes).
Ellen DeGeneres hi-fiving with George Bush. British MPs pretending a courageous whistle blower is not being tortured to death
just a few miles from parliament.
Needless to say the MSM has fully sided with the criminals: first denigrating Julian Assange, then mocking his plight – this
gave way to lies, and now silence.
Put simply can anyone expect justice in Britain if their actions conflict with the ethos of the gangsters who control Britain's
economic, media and military interests?
Rhys Jaggar
We are actually approaching apartheid South Africa in that regard, namely contempt for legal due process. Not quite had the Met
coppers beating Assange over the head like SA cops did to Steve Biko, but we are slowly getting there
The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of
Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less
transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That it
will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit foreign
journalists to spread its propaganda.
On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his
department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the
Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new
endeavour, Open Information
Partnership (OIP).
The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely
light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated information in
the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was also unforthcoming
- there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch
by any government minister or department via social media channels.
The original proposal for
the Open Information Partnership , as
released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media
Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council) and
some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of
Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.
---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:
At Kit Klarenberg's Twitter ,
there's a long tweet thread further detailing what b has written above. I can't help be
wonder how the Monty Python troop would have portrayed the Institute for Statecraft and its
parent the Integrity Initiative. It appears that the governments of the English speaking
nations became addicted to lying to their citizens @1900 and are unable to kick the habit and
instead have actually deepened their addiction. Elsewhere on the planet, it seems that people
are learning it's easier to talk straight and transparently with other people and to pool
resources and combine efforts to form a community of nations and humanity to better one and
all. Seems simple enough to determine which is functional and which isn't.
Bellingcat only serves one interest, a propaganda/info laundering shop for NATO, the military
industrial complex and some very rich people. The blatant lies about MH17, chemical weapons
in Syria, OPCW, Russia, the list goes on and on.
By the time the people in the Netherlands find out how they have been manipulated with the
MH17 narrative and the role of Bellingcat in this operation, hopefully they will torch the
office of Bellingcat in The Hague and club the survivors to death like the Uktainian Nazi
friends of Bellingcat did in Odessa.
The Ukrainian army shot down MH17. It was no accident. The Dutch were also involved with
the 2014 coup in the Ukraine. Putting the blame on Russia is a political decision, its not
based on facts. Dutch politicians are very dirty people. Burn in hell.
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the
key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon
vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
The Courage Foundation , an international
protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has
published the findings of a panel it
convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its
investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the
OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General)
report that they are "unanimous in expressing
our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus
on 7 April 2018."
I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who
aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump
publicly
stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like
independent US congressional candidate Steve
Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had
already
been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal
of standing US Syria policy, as I
noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.
"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017,"
Cox told me on Twitter earlier
today.
"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."
There was immediate skepticism, partly because
acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have
been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing
to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet
highly ineffective
weapon in a battle he'd already essentially
won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the
Al Qaeda-linked
extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady
narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand
everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government
and perhaps saving their necks.
Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed,
the US State Department declared it to have
been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that
Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.
On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France
launched an airstrike on the Syrian government
as punishment for using chemical weapons,
citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The
public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation
could take place.
The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018
published an interim
report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits
like Charles Lister who claimed that
sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW
issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly
implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter
account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted
at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed
chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."
In May of this year, a leaked
internal document from the OPCW investigation was
published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report
published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment
said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability
both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the
forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.
The OPCW
indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's
Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by
clicking here . Establishment narrative
managers
had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented
from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications
that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.
Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes
deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.
The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General
José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering
once saw the lives of his
children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks
editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of
International Law Richard Falk , former British Army
Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut
Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor
Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab
World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.
So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable
professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into
the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint
statement and analytical points are
quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma,
near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical
analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained
conclusion ."
"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts
and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of
investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani
"A critical analysis of the
final report of the Douma
investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation
(chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "
From the section on Chemical Analysis:
"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking
gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in
the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact,
acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such
chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground
would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."
"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6),
it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called
'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background
presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals
in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."
"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated
by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing
hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation.
(' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The
panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis
simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific
."
From the section on Toxicology:
"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with
toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of
what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible
to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there
were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."
"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in
June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed
in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing
chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear
and of concern. "
From the section on Ballistic Studies:
"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical
crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because
of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics
were noted in the leaked study ."
From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":
"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the
inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to,
or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational
efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma
investigation."
Indeed Orwell's "1984" referred to the UK as "Airstrip One" and this Brexit fiasco surely
proves that Outside Influences not only run the Judiciary when necessary, but also plant
poison on doorknobs when it suits them.
The ever servile Australian government to the empire du jour does nothing to honor their
passport pledge. We would have to assume it qualifies as Orwell's "Airstrip Two"
In contrast to Assange's predicament (and Manning I assume), the main point of this post
is to mention the recent Joe Rogan interview of Edward Snowden (touting his book) --
http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/edward-snowden
Nearly three hours of mostly Snowden rambling on. I stayed with it to the end. A few items
of interest but mostly just noise. I found him initially somewhat suspicious -- by the end I
was more neutral. However, what a display of American arrogance and ingratitude. The Russian
government has saved his bacon and has given him refuge with great freedoms he would not have
in the USA -- or Airstrip One ... or, HK, or any South American backyard colony. And yet he
makes no attempt to thank them and even virtually panders to the American anti-Russian meme.
He has even dabbled in Russian opposition politics via local newspaper comments. What an
ungrateful guest! (Or still an agent @ work?) I would entirely understand the Russians
putting him on a plane back to the USA tomorrow. Ungrateful little character, imo. And says a
lot about the way Americans treat the external world from inside their little fishbowl.
Simply a doormat for convenience.
The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal
conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in
these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court
system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with
and blew the whistle on (apparently).
Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music
-- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits
apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine.
Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that.
"... Kinzer notes that the top-secret nature of Gottlieb's work makes it impossible to measure the human cost of his experiments. "We don't know how many people died, but a number did, and many lives were permanently destroyed," he says. Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. After MK-ULTRA shut down, he went on to lead a CIA program that created poisons and high-tech gadgets for spies to use. Kinzer writes about Gottlieb and MK-ULTRA in his new book, Poisoner in Chief. ..."
"... Sidney Gottlieb, can now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture. ..."
"... In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used as a tool for mind control. ..."
"... Whitey Bulger was one of the prisoners who volunteered for what he was told was an experiment aimed at finding a cure for schizophrenia. As part of this experiment, he was given LSD every day for more than a year. He later realized that this had nothing to do with schizophrenia and he was a guinea pig in a government experiment aimed at seeing what people's long-term reactions to LSD was. Essentially, could we make a person lose his mind by feeding him LSD every day over such a long period? ..."
"... Bulger wrote afterward about his experiences, which he described as quite horrific. He thought he was going insane. He wrote, "I was in prison for committing a crime, but they committed a greater crime on me." ..."
"... And towards the end of his life, Bulger came to realize the truth of what had happened to him, and he actually told his friends that he was going to find that doctor in Atlanta who was the head of that experiment program in the penitentiary and go kill him. ..."
"... The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research. ..."
"... For example, Nazi doctors had conducted extensive experiments with mescaline at the Dachau concentration camp, and the CIA was very interested in figuring out whether mescaline could be the key to mind control that was one of their big avenues of investigation. So they hired the Nazi doctors who had been involved in that project to advise them. ..."
"... CIA officers in Europe and Asia were capturing enemy agents and others who they felt might be suspected persons or were otherwise what they called "expendable." They would grab these people and throw them into cells and then test all kinds of, not just drug potions, but other techniques, like electroshock, extremes of temperature, sensory isolation -- all the meantime bombarding them with questions, trying to see if they could break down resistance and find a way to destroy the human ego. So these were projects designed not only to understand the human mind but to figure out how to destroy it. And that made Gottlieb, although in some ways a very compassionate person, certainly the most prolific torturer of his generation. ..."
"... [Gottlieb] operated almost completely without supervision. He had sort of a checkoff from his titular boss and from his real boss, Richard Helms, and from the CIA director, Allen Dulles. But none of them really wanted to know what he was doing. This guy had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around the world and subject them to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over his shoulder. He never had to file serious reports to anybody. I think the mentality must have been [that] this project is so important -- mind control, if it can be mastered, is the key to global world power. ..."
"... The end of Gottlieb's career came in 1972, when his patron, Richard Helms, who was then director of the CIA, was removed by [President Richard] Nixon. Once Helms was gone, it was just a matter of time until Gottlieb would be gone, and most important was that Helms was really the only person at the CIA who had an idea of what Gottlieb had been doing. So as they were both on their way out of the CIA, they agreed that they should destroy all records of MK-ULTRA ..."
"... Gottlieb actually drove out to the CIA records center and ordered the archives to destroy boxes full of MK-ULTRA records. ... However, it turns out that there were some [records] found in other places; there was a depot for expense account reports that had not been destroyed, and various other pieces of paper remain. So there is enough out there to reconstruct some of what he did, but his effort to wipe away his traces by destroying all those documents in the early '70s was quite successful. ..."
CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb headed up the agency's secret MK-ULTRA program, which was charged with developing a mind control drug
that could be weaponized against enemies.
Courtesy of the CIA
During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow
them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug
that could be weaponized against enemies.
MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by
a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation
the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control."
Some of Gottlieb's experiments were covertly funded at universities and research centers, Kinzer says, while others were conducted
in American prisons and in detention centers in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Many of his unwitting subjects endured psychological
torture ranging from electroshock to high doses of LSD, according to Kinzer's research.
"Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people's minds, and he realized it was a two-part process," Kinzer says.
"First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We
didn't get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one."
Kinzer notes that the top-secret nature of Gottlieb's work makes it impossible to measure the human cost of his experiments.
"We don't know how many people died, but a number did, and many lives were permanently destroyed," he says. Ultimately, Gottlieb
concluded that mind control was not possible.
Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. After MK-ULTRA shut down, he went on to lead a CIA program
that created poisons and high-tech gadgets for spies to use.
Kinzer writes about Gottlieb and MK-ULTRA in his new book, Poisoner in Chief.
As part of the search for drugs that would allow people to control the human mind, CIA scientists became aware of the existence
of LSD, and this became an obsession for the early directors of MK-ULTRA. Actually, the MK-ULTRA director, Sidney Gottlieb, can
now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture.
In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the
United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus
foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used
as a tool for mind control.
Now, the people who volunteered for these experiments and began taking LSD, in many cases, found it very pleasurable. They told
their friends about it. Who were those people?
Ken Kesey ,
the author of One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest , got his LSD in an experiment sponsored by the CIA by MK-ULTRA, by Sidney Gottlieb. So did Robert Hunter,
the lyricist for the Grateful Dead, which went on to become a great purveyor of LSD culture.
Allen Ginsberg , the poet who preached the
value of the great personal adventure of using LSD, got his first LSD from Sidney Gottlieb. Although, of course, he never knew that
name.
So the CIA brought LSD to America unwittingly, and actually it's a tremendous irony that the drug that the CIA hoped would be
its key to controlling humanity actually wound up fueling a generational rebellion that was dedicated to destroying everything that
the CIA held dear and defended.
On how MK-ULTRA experimented on prisoners, including crime boss
Whitey Bulger
Whitey Bulger was one of the prisoners who volunteered for what he was told was an experiment aimed at finding a cure for
schizophrenia. As part of this experiment, he was given LSD every day for more than a year. He later realized that this had nothing
to do with schizophrenia and he was a guinea pig in a government experiment aimed at seeing what people's long-term reactions to
LSD was. Essentially, could we make a person lose his mind by feeding him LSD every day over such a long period?
Bulger wrote afterward about his experiences, which he described as quite horrific. He thought he was going insane. He wrote,
"I was in prison for committing a crime, but they committed a greater crime on me."
And towards the end of his life, Bulger came to realize the truth of what had happened to him, and he actually told his friends
that he was going to find that doctor in Atlanta who was the head of that experiment program in the penitentiary and go kill him.
On the CIA hiring Nazi doctors and Japanese torturers to learn methods
The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps.
Stephen Kinzer, author of 'Poisoner in Chief'
The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration
camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had
worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research.
For example, Nazi doctors had conducted extensive experiments with mescaline at the Dachau concentration camp, and the CIA
was very interested in figuring out whether mescaline could be the key to mind control that was one of their big avenues of investigation.
So they hired the Nazi doctors who had been involved in that project to advise them.
Another thing the Nazis provided was information about poison gases like sarin, which is still being used. Nazi doctors came to
America to Fort Detrick in Maryland, which was the center of this project, to lecture to CIA officers to tell them how long it took
for people to die from sarin.
On the more extreme experiments Gottlieb conducted overseas
Gottlieb and the CIA established secret detention centers throughout Europe and East Asia, particularly in Japan, Germany and
the Philippines, which were largely under American control in the period of the early '50s, and therefore Gottlieb didn't have to
worry about any legal entanglements in these places. ...
CIA officers in Europe and Asia were capturing enemy agents and others who they felt might be suspected persons or were otherwise
what they called "expendable." They would grab these people and throw them into cells and then test all kinds of, not just drug potions,
but other techniques, like electroshock, extremes of temperature, sensory isolation -- all the meantime bombarding them with questions,
trying to see if they could break down resistance and find a way to destroy the human ego. So these were projects designed not only
to understand the human mind but to figure out how to destroy it. And that made Gottlieb, although in some ways a very compassionate
person, certainly the most prolific torturer of his generation.
On how these experiments were unsupervised
This guy [Sidney Gottlieb] had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around
the world and subject them to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over
his shoulder.
Stephen Kinzer
[Gottlieb] operated almost completely without supervision. He had sort of a checkoff from his titular boss and from his real
boss, Richard Helms, and from the CIA director, Allen Dulles. But none of them really wanted to know what he was doing. This guy
had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around the world and subject them
to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over his shoulder. He never had
to file serious reports to anybody. I think the mentality must have been [that] this project is so important -- mind control, if
it can be mastered, is the key to global world power.
On how Gottlieb destroyed evidence about his experiments when he left the CIA
The end of Gottlieb's career came in 1972, when his patron, Richard Helms, who was then director of the CIA, was removed by
[President Richard] Nixon. Once Helms was gone, it was just a matter of time until Gottlieb would be gone, and most important was
that Helms was really the only person at the CIA who had an idea of what Gottlieb had been doing. So as they were both on their way
out of the CIA, they agreed that they should destroy all records of MK-ULTRA.
Gottlieb actually drove out to the CIA records center and ordered the archives to destroy boxes full of MK-ULTRA records.
... However, it turns out that there were some [records] found in other places; there was a depot for expense account reports that
had not been destroyed, and various other pieces of paper remain. So there is enough out there to reconstruct some of what he did,
but his effort to wipe away his traces by destroying all those documents in the early '70s was quite successful.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan
Sullivan adapted it for the Web.
Correction Sept. 9, 2019
A previous photo caption incorrectly referred to the CIA's MK-ULTRA program as MS-ULTRA.
"... Or alternatively, Smolenkov might have been someone who was turned after recruitment or a genuine agent who was trying to respond to urgent demands from his controller in Washington, who was de facto ..."
"... Scott also believes, as do I, that the story was leaked because John Brennan and his associates knew that they were deliberately marketing phony intelligence on Russia to undermine Trump and are trying to preempt any investigation by Attorney General William Barr on the provenance of the Russiagate story. ..."
"... The reality is that spying is a highly creative profession, with operational twists and turns limited only by one's imagination. In this case, unless someone actually succeeds in interviewing Oleg Smolenkov and he decides to tell the complete truth as he sees it, the American public might never know the reality behind the latest spy story. ..."
The account that appeared in the mainstream media went something like this: A midlevel
Russian official named Oleg Smolenkov was recruited decades ago by the CIA. He eventually wound
up in an important office in the Kremlin that gave him access to President Vladimir Putin.
Smolenkov was the principal source of information confirming that Russia, acting on Putin's
instructions, was trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to defeat Hillary
Clinton and elect Donald Trump. It was claimed that Smolenkov was actually able to photograph
documents in Putin's desk. CIA concerns that a mole hunt in the Kremlin resulting from the
media revelations concerning Russian interference in the election might lead to Smolenkov
resulted in a 2016 offer to extract him and his family from Russia. This was successfully
executed during a Smolenkov family vacation trip to Montenegro in 2017. The family now resides
in Virginia.
The CNN story and other mainstream media that picked up on the tale embroidered it somewhat,
suggesting that although Smolenkov was the CIA's crown jewel, the US has a number of "high
level" spies in Moscow. It was also claimed that the timetable for the exfiltration was pushed
forward by CIA in 2017 after it was noted that Donald Trump was particularly careless with
classified information and might inadvertently reveal the existence of the source. The
allegation about Trump carelessness came, according to CNN, after a May 2017 meeting between
Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in which the president reportedly shared
sensitive information on Syria and ISIS that had been provided by Israel.
Variants of the CNN story appeared subsequently in the New York Times headlined
C.I.A. Informant Extracted From Russia Had Sent Secrets to US for Decades , which confirmed
that the extraction took place in 2017 though it also asserts that the decision to make the
move came in 2016 when Barack Obama was still president.
Taibbi observes, correctly, that CNN and the other mainstream elements reporting the story
elaborated on it through commentary coming from anonymous "former senior intelligence
officials." As the networks have all hired ex-spooks, it raises the interesting possibility
that employees of the media are themselves providing comments on intelligence operations that
they were personally involved in, meaning that they might deliberately promote a narrative that
does not cast them in a bad light.
Next morning's Washington Post story
US got key asset out of Russia following election hacking touched all bases and also tried
hard to implicate Trump. It confirmed 2016 as the time frame for the decision to carry out the
exfiltration and also mentioned the president's talk with Lavrov in May 2017, though the
meeting itself was not cited as the reason for the move. As Taibbi observes, "So why mention
it?"
The Russians have denied that Smolenkov was an important official and have insisted that the
whole story might be something of a fabrication. And the alleged CIA handling of the claimed
top-level defector somewhat bears out that conclusion. Normally, a former top spy is resettled
in the US or somewhere overseas in a fake name to protect him or her from any possible attempt
at revenge by their former countrymen. In Smolenkov's case, easily public accessible online
county real estate records indicate that he bought a $1 million house in Stafford Virginia in
2018 using
his own true name .
If the Russians were truly conducting a mole hunt that endangered Smolenkov it may have been
because the US media and their anonymous intelligence sources have been bragging about how they
have "penetrated the Kremlin." A Washington Post June 2017 articled called "
Obama's Secret Struggle to Punish Russia for Putin's Election Assault is typical. In
that
article , the author describes how CIA Director John Brennan secured a "feat of espionage"
by running spies "deep within the Russian government" that revealed Russia's electoral
interference.
So, the Smolenkov story has inconsistencies and one has to question why it was deliberately
leaked at this time. The only constant in the media coverage is the repeated but completely
evidence-free suggestion that the mole was endangered and had to be removed because of Donald
Trump's inability to keep a secret. One has to consider the possibility that the story has been
leaked at least in part due to the continuing effort by the national security state to "get
Trump."
Highly recommended is former weapons inspector Scott Ritter's fascinating detailed
dissection of Smolenkov's career as well as a history of the evolution of CIA spying against
Russia . Scott speculates on why the leak of the story took place at all, examining a
number of scenarios along the way. Smolenkov, who, according to former CIA officer Larry
Johnson, has oddly
never been polygraphed to establish his bona fides , might have been a double
agent from the start, possibly a low level functionary allowed to work for the Americans so the
Russian FSB intelligence service could feed low level information and control the narrative. It
is a "dirty secret" within the Agency that many agents are recruited by case officers for no
other reason than to enhance one's career. Such agents normally have no real access and provide
little reporting.
Or alternatively, Smolenkov might have been someone who was turned after recruitment or
a genuine agent who was trying to respond to urgent demands from his controller in Washington,
who was de facto John Brennan, by producing a dramatic report that was basically
fabricated. Or the story itself might be completely false, an attempt by some former and
current officials at CIA to demonstrate a great success at a time when the intelligence
community is under considerable pressure.
Scott also believes, as do I, that the story was leaked because John Brennan and his
associates knew that they were deliberately marketing phony intelligence on Russia to undermine
Trump and are trying to preempt any investigation by Attorney General William Barr on the
provenance of the Russiagate story. If it can be demonstrated somehow that the claims of
Kremlin interference came from a highly regarded credible Russian source then Brennan and
company can claim that they acted in good faith. Of course, that tale might break down if
anyone bothers to interview Smolenkov.
Another theory that I tend to like is that the CIA might be making public the Smolenkov case
in an attempt to lower the heat on another actual high-level source still operating in Moscow.
If Russia can be convinced that Smolenkov was the only significant spy working in the Kremlin
it might ratchet down efforts to find another mole. It is an interesting theory worthy of spy
vs. spy, but one can be pretty sure that Russian counterintelligence has already thought of
that possibility and will not be fooled.
The reality is that spying is a highly creative profession, with operational twists and
turns limited only by one's imagination. In this case, unless someone actually succeeds in
interviewing Oleg Smolenkov and he decides to tell the complete truth as he sees it, the
American public might never know the reality behind the latest spy story.
The conscientious judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a
fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments
and media in the case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the
judgement in the mainstream media at all.
The myth is that Magnitskiy was an honest rights campaigner and accountant who discovered
corruption by Russian officials and threatened to expose it, and was consequently imprisoned
on false charges and then tortured and killed. A campaign over his death was led by his
former business partner, hedge fund manager Bill Browder, who wanted massive compensation for
Russian assets allegedly swindled from their venture. The campaign led to the passing of the
Magnitskiy Act in the United States, providing powers for sanctioning individuals responsible
for human rights abuses, and also led to matching sanctions being developed by the EU.
However the European Court of Human Rights has found, in judging a case brought against
Russia by the Magnitskiy family, that the very essence of this story is untrue. They find
that there was credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed engaged in tax fraud, in
conspiracy with Browder, and he was rightfully charged. The ECHR also found there was
credible evidence that Magnitskiy was indeed a flight risk so he was rightfully detained. And
most crucially of all, they find that there was credible evidence of tax fraud by Magnitskiy
and action by the authorities "years" before he started to make counter-accusations of
corruption against officials investigating his case.
This judgement utterly explodes the accepted narrative, and does it very succinctly:
Essentially neoliberal MSM were hijacked. Which was easy to do. The current anti-Russian campaign is conducted under
the direct guidance of MI6 and similar agencies
Notable quotes:
"... committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it." ..."
"... These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media". ..."
"... "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story." ..."
"... The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies. ..."
"... The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen". ..."
"... But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member". ..."
"... The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing. ..."
"... In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article. ..."
"... The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files." ..."
"... Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004". ..."
"... The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again. ..."
"... The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law." ..."
"... A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian." ..."
"... The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM ..."
The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been
successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released
documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.
The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents
leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.
Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and
its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of
mass surveillance
operated by both agencies.
According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory
Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.
" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the
first tranche of information," state
minutes of a 7 November
2013 meeting at the MOD.
The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small
number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its
stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure
of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them
not to publish certain information.
The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was
previously director of security and intelligence
in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who
describes himself as an "accomplished, senior
ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".
The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary ,
placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian
to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.
Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes
add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."
' Considerable efforts'
These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published
the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise
both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was
marked "private and confidential: not
for publication, broadcast or use on social media".
Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing
blog Guido Fawkes made it public.
At the time, according to the committee
minutes , the "intelligence
agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen
by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden
revelations.
One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance
personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to
consult him in advance before telling the world",
according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.
Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.
" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he
said
in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't
demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."
The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported
at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph
published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The
BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."
The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.
According to the committee
minutes , the fact
The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the
D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?
It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.
GCHQ and laptops
The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials
entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent
three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.
The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters,
brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided
one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."
Johnson
claims
that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we
had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode
hadn't changed anything."
Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee
minutes for November
2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice
advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."
The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The
Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive
and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.
The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair
noted that after
GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".
Moreover, he added
, there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later
testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated"
in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".
But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice
Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this,
noting that "the
process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice
Committee] member".
At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful
gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in
May 2014 and was
to remain on it until
October 2018
.
The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee
alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.
A new editor
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson
taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued
to publish some stories critical of the security services.
But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian
appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner
had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According
to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another
candidate
to be Rusbridger's successor).
Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was
launched just two weeks before the first Snowden
revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called
"Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.
This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.
In November 2016, The Guardian
published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article
noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written
by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice
Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.
The MI5 chief was given
copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson
and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the
Snowden files."
Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk
about our work and explain it."
Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian
published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external
intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick
Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.
The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball.
Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the
intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.
" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should
feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."
Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself
reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's
decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant
wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".
None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig
would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.
More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was
awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior
counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a
three-part series of articles, one of which was
entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".
The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising
the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent
any revelations of this kind happening again.
What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not
known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson,
praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".
Decline in critical reporting
Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team,
whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.
One well-placed source
told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior
editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".
In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues,
notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were
replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current
defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh,
started
at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.
" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current
Guardian journalist told us.
Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6
on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.
" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories
-- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes
seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."
A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence
services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not
always to be trusted."
While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues
more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence
or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.
The Guardian has, by contrast,
published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin,
his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.
In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore
law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security
service
tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was
titled "Revealed:
the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".
Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although
he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured
without his patronage".
There was a much
bigger story
in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of
the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small
army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".
We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's
friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.
Getting Julian Assange
The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator
during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.
One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer,
titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy
in March 2017,
organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage
at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.
Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump,
who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is,
in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".
Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence",
who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then
those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information
in ways and places that cannot be monitored."
It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to
undermine Assange.
In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began
on 18 May 2018 with
one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been
closely
documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial
evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.
One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding,
claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they
could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel
Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The
Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.
This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page
splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's
former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly
secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was
manufactured
and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian,
however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.
The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian
and the security services.
The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped
create the conditions for
a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security
prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.
Acting for the establishment
Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party,
Jeremy Corbyn.
The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected
Labour leader, the Sunday Times
reported a
serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister".
The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise
the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."
On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was
fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph
investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation,
who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".
The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.
Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an
article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation.
At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."
Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources
told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.
Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail
reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred
from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global
propaganda network'."
The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security
pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application
had encountered "vetting problems".
Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but
I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security
service]," he wrote
in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt
if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"
Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However,"
he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there
who I could trust."
The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and
the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely
noted .
Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular,
its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears
carried in the media.
The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem
in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when
Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been
investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour
concluded
that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated
every single United Kingdom race equality law."
Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017,
shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and
that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.
Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of
around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published
just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example,
found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.
At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According
to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by
one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.
In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first
attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind
the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.
A reliable publication?
On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper
reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture
and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off
intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".
This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil
society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.
A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in
torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The
Times rather than The Guardian."
The Times published its scoop under a strong
headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published,
the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations
by telling its side of the story.
The Guardian
posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised
torture guidance does not lower standards".
Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental
guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath
of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly
disinformation.
The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state
to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has
been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden
go? DM
The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.
Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the
authors of this article – in November 2019.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the
Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author
of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .
Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of
Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .
Repeating lies over and over makes old-fashioned Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda.
Repeating lies, then contradicting them; moving them from one government-paid think-tank to
another; footnoting a new lie to an older version; quoting policemen and gangsters saying
fatuities; adding slang and the words of pop songs -- this is still Goebbels-type but
stretched out and product-diversified to make its author more money. This is Mark Galeotti's
method .
####
The rest at the link and a deep dive on Galeotti himself.
What can the Russians do to get ahead of the narrative on the likely impending demise of
Smolenkov by novichok or polonium poisoning?
I know some here might say "Everyone would know it is a false flag if Smolenkov gets
assassinated!" and that is certainly true if by "everyone" one means the regular
readers here and at a few other analysis sites that are not controlled by the empire.
The concern is about the three hundred million other Americans who are at least partially
captured by the false narratives pumped out non-stop from their Plato's Cave displays.
Is there anything that the Russians can do now to inoculate some Americans against the hard
sell they will be facing when the corporate mass media ( Mighty Wurlitzer ) cranks up
the multi-channel marketing campaign for the United States' own Skripal farce?
The main achievement of neoliberal and imperial (warmongering) propaganda in the USA is that it achieved the complete,
undisputed dominance in MSM
Pot Calling the Kettle Black: "The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century."
Notable quotes:
"... Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left." ..."
"... The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites. ..."
"... Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world. ..."
Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left."
Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing
audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.
The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.
Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts
And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers,
with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.
By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante
delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.
Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media
(The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.
It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve,
that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s
team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives,
many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.
USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness,
democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source
of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…
Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda,
and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is
real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national
boundaries and language barriers.
The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century.
Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will
be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.
Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public
intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an
impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is
edwardcurtin.com
I'm sure that had Michael Hudson accepted a position with the CIA, he would not have been
the first or the last person with Marxist, Trotskyist or even more extreme (for want of a
better description) socialist connections to have worked for the agency.
Because snoopydawg linked us to Craig Murray in an
essay yesterday, I happened
to see this important commentary.
Murray makes the point that much of the wealth controlling our obscenely corrupt system has come from the pillaging of Russian
resources during the Yeltsin period and that the motive for demonizing Putin is to keep that wealth out of the hands of the Russian
people.
(When shut out of the American system his sons so vaunt, Fred Koch went to the Soviet Union, which his sons so malign, to make
the Koch family fortune.)
This extended litigation effectively put Winkler-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. "Unable to succeed
at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union".[13] Between 1929 and 1932 Winkler-Koch "trained Bolshevik engineers[14] and
helped Stalin's regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries" in the Soviet Union. "Over time, however, Stalin brutally purged
several of Koch's Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration."[13] The
company also built installations in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.[1] Koch partnered with William Rhodes
Davis to build the third-largest oil refinery serving the Third Reich, a project which was personally approved by Adolf Hitler.[15]
Koch President and COO David L. Robertson acknowledged that Winkler-Koch provided the cracking unit for the 1934 Hamburg refinery,
but said that it was but one of many "iconic" American companies doing business in Germany at the time.[16]
(When shut out of the American system his sons so vaunt, Fred Koch went to the Soviet Union, which his sons so malign, to
make the Koch family fortune.)
I was trying to warn away from hijacking the thread to make it about the Kochs instead of about Russia. Or about RUSSIA!, which
is how I've been referring to the nation since Russiagate began.
You open up markets and provide a fence for the local oligarchs to offload vital public infrastructure and national resources.
Selling rubles for dollars was a no brainer. Rinse, repeat.
Up until the 21st Century, this was only done to the 3rd world and those of the 2nd world who didn't play ball.
I've seen the model looming over America too. The hollowing out and offshoring of America, IMO, is quite similar to the pillaging
of Russia. It's just lacking the hard coup and cannon fire at the capitol.
The same banksters are financing and laundering the money to boot.
I guess sheep are just meant to be fleeced, eh?
Good on Murray for calling it out. I like that guy.
I've just begun reading it, and already there is mention of HSBC, which connects to Mueller, when he was FBI Director, and
Comey, who was a board member of some part of HSBC.
I kept telling them that, unless they dealt with the City, separating from Europe wasn't going to help them at all. It's not
internationalism that's hurting them: it's the depredations of international capital. Leaving the European Union won't fix that.
While I understand that they feel like they're losing their culture and feel threatened by immigration on that account, the
deeper sufferings of their lives, both economic and political, go back, not to some person with dark skin and less money speaking
a foreign tongue who immigrates to Britain, but to good upstanding upper-class British financiers. And the good upstanding upper-class
foreign financiers with whom those Brits have made deals.
'Second officer was poisoned with Novichok in Salisbury incident, police reveal', ,
"Counter Terrorism Detectives, who are investigating the nerve agent attack in 2018, have confirmed that traces of Novichok have
been found in a blood sample which was taken at the time from a second police officer.
The officer from Wiltshire Police, who does not wish to be identified , was involved in the response to the poisoning of Sergei
and Yulia Skripal.
The Telegraph understands the male officer displayed signs at the time of the incident that indicated exposure to a very small
amount of Novichok .
He received appropriate medical treatment at the time and returned to duties shortly afterwards.
A police spokesman told the Telegraph the officer was part of the initial response.
Forensic examination of the officer's blood sample, taken in March 2018, has since been carried out by scientists at the Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory.
The forensic test – which uses a different method to that used to assess the clinical effects of nerve agent poisoning – has now
given detectives confirmation that traces of Novichok were present.
The officer, the fourth person to be confirmed through forensic testing as a victim of the initial Salisbury attack, has been
informed and continues to receive support from Wiltshire Police along with other officers and staff affected by the events in Salisbury
and Amesbury last year."
Well, now that number depends on Gina Haspel's report about
the
dead ducks and sick children poisoned by the Novichoked bread the Skripals had been tossing to the ducks, doesn't it? But Officer
Nick Baily was allegedly #5.
"The spokesman said: "some of the other police officers that attended the scene may have been exposed, but it is possible to find
forensic traces [of Novichok] in blood that have no health implications at the time". [snip]
"The UK
expelled
23 Russian diplomats and the US expelled 60 more in retaliation for poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March last year,
blaming the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, for the botched assassination attempt."
From the link above:
'British authorities are confident they know "everything worth knowing" about the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal, including
a trail right up to Vladimir Putin."
"The Russian intelligence agency behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack has been
dismantled in the UK [<Moscow spins webb of lies] and will remain out of action for years to come, according to government sources.
The threat posed by the GRU, which carried out the attempted assassination of Skripal last March, has been severely curtailed
as a result of the counter-terror investigation that exposed the agents who carried out the attack.'
"Counter-terror police working with the intelligence services were able to piece together the plot to murder Colonel Skripal,
a former GRU officer who had sold secrets to MI6, using CCTV, including footage from the streets close to the Col Skripal's home
in Salisbury, and from passenger flight manifests and immigration data at the time of the attempted hit."
(with photos of GRU Boris and Natasha)
'Novichok Sickened 2nd British Officer, Police Say',
August
15, 2019 , nytimes.com, Anna Schaverien
"Another officer, Detective Sgt. Nick Bailey, became critically ill after going to Mr. Skripal's home to investigate the attack.
Mr. Skripal, a former colonel in Russia's military intelligence, and his daughter, Yulia, had been found unconscious and slumped
on a bench.
Sergeant Bailey, who made contact with the nerve agent through the house's door handle, made a full recovery. Last Sunday,
he ran a marathon to raise money for the intensive-care unit at the hospital where he was treated.
Two other people, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, also suffered high levels of exposure to Novichok as a result of the poisoning.
They were accidentally exposed to residue in Amesbury, a town near Salisbury, months after the initial episode .
Both were critically sickened on July 1 when Ms. Sturgess
sprayed
a substance that she thought was [Nina Ricci l'air du Novichoque ] perfume onto her wrist from a bottle that Mr. Rowley,
her boyfriend, had found. Investigators believe the vial was used to transport the Novichok that poisoned the Skripals. Mr. Rowley
survived, but
Ms. Sturgess died .
In the wake of the attack, tensions escalated to their highest pitch in decades between Britain and Russia, which London blamed
for the poisoning. Moscow denied any involvement." [snip]
"The European Union placed economic sanctions on the two suspects and two senior Russian military intelligence officials in January.
And this month President Trump signed an
executive
order imposing new sanctions on Russia over the episode."
From the Aug. 1 NYT : 'Mr. Trump has been reluctant to take punitive actions against Russia, instead seeking better
relations with Moscow despite its well-documented interference in the 2016 election.
But in recent weeks, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have criticized his administration's delay in taking what they
have called legally mandated action to follow up on sanctions imposed last August.' [snip]
On Monday, the top Democrat and Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a joint letter to the White House threatening
new congressional action to force the administration's hand.
"Failure by the administration to respond to Russia's unabashed aggression is unacceptable and would necessitate that Congress
take corrective action," wrote the members, Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York, and Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas.
The law provided the administration with numerous sanctions to choose from. The executive order released by the White House
on Thursday banned loans or other assistance to Russia by international financial institutions and prohibited most loans from American
banks to Russia's government."
"They are suspected groundlessly," the Kremlin's spokesman told reporters when the European Union imposed travel bans and asset
freezes on the suspects. " We have still not heard any evidence ."
A year after the poisoning, and after 13,000 hours of cleaning, the
British government announced that the decontamination of the former Skripal home was complete. But the investigation into the
attack continues.
"There are parts of the picture that we are continuing to piece together," the Metropolitan Police statement said."
All of which begs the question: what new sanctions will the US and UK levy on Russia? Of course we'll never know where Sergei
and Yulia are, will we?
And sure we remember when they raised a new roof because some of that Novichok gel (or was it a spray?) on the Skripal's front
door knob migrated upstairs into the attic or something
This may have been my favorite story, though: ' Public toilet in Salisbury 'may have been used by Russian agents to prepare deadly
Novichok', themirror.co./uk.com
, Aug. 4, 2018
"A public toilet may be where Russian agents mixed deadly Novichok used to try and assassinate ex-spy Sergei Skripal , according
to reports .
It is thought Met Police counter terror cops are investigating the likelihood that the assassins smuggled the components to the
nerve agent into the country then mixed it in a public toilet in Salisbury.
Forensic teams have discovered low-level contamination in toilets in the city's Queen Elizabeth Gardens."
But I'll turn it over to BBC news : 'BBC to dramatise Salisbury Novichok poisoning',
17 May 2019 , bbc.com/news
"The new drama is being written by Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn who said in a joint statement: "We feel extremely privileged
to be telling this story.
"Extensive, meticulous research is at the heart of how we like to work and we've been overwhelmed by the generosity of the people
of Salisbury who have opened up to us over the past few months and continue to do so."
Piers Wenger, controller of BBC Drama, added: "The poisonings in Salisbury shocked the nation and had a huge impact on an unsuspecting
community.
"This drama will capture the bravery, resilience and personal experience of the local people who faced a situation of unimaginable
horror, so close to home."
Casting for the drama is yet to be announced."
An historical bonus from the good Ambassador: ' Pure: Ten Points I Just Can't Believe About the Official Skripal Narrative', March
7, 2109, Craig Murray,
craigmurray .org; a few snippets:
"I still do not know what happened in the Skripal saga, which perhaps might more respectfully be termed the Sturgess saga. I cannot
believe the Russian account of Boshirov and Petrov, because if those were their real identities, those identities would have been
firmly established and displayed by now. But that does not mean they attempted to kill the Skripals, and there are many key elements
to the official British account which are also simply incredible.
Governments play dark games, and a dark game was played out in Salisbury which involved at least the British state, Russian agents
(possibly on behalf of the state), Orbis Intelligence and the BBC. Anybody who believes it is simple to identify the "good guys"
and the "bad guys" in this situation is a fool. When it comes to state actors and the intelligence services, frequently there are
no "good guys", as I personally witnessed from the inside over torture, extraordinary rendition and the illegal invasion of Iraq.
But in the face of a massive media campaign to validate the British government story about the Skripals, here are ten of the things
I do not believe in the official account:
3) Nursing Care
The very first person to discover the Skripals ill on a park bench in Salisbury
just happened to be the Chief Nurse of the British Army , who chanced to be walking past them on her way back from a birthday
party. How lucky was that? The odds are about the same as the chance of my vacuum cleaner breaking down just before James Dyson knocks
at my door to ask for directions. There are very few people indeed in the UK trained to give nursing care to victims of chemical
weapon attack, and of all the people who might have walked past, it just happened to be the most senior of them!
The government is always trying to get good publicity for its armed forces, and you would think that the heroic role of its off-duty
personnel in saving random poisoned Russian double agents they just happened to chance across, would have been proclaimed as a triumph
for the British military. Yet it was kept secret for ten months. We were not told about the involvement of Colonel Alison McCourt
until January of this year, when it came out by accident. Swollen with maternal pride, Col. McCourt nominated her daughter for an
award from the local radio station for her role in helping give first aid to the Skripals, and young Abigail revealed her mother's
identity on local radio – and the fact her mother was there "with her" administering first aid."
6) Mark Urban/Pablo Miller
The BBC's "Diplomatic Editor" is a regular conduit for the security services. He fronted much of the BBC's original coverage of
the Skripal story. Yet he concealed from the viewers the fact that he had been in regular contact with Sergei Skripal for months
before the alleged poisoning, and had held several meetings with Skripal.
This is extraordinary behaviour. It was the biggest news story in the world, and news organisations, including the BBC, were scrambling
to fill in the Skripals' back story. Yet the journalist who had the inside info on the world's biggest news story, and was actually
reporting on it, kept that knowledge to himself. Why? Urban was not only passing up a career defining opportunity, it was unethical
of him to continually report on the story without revealing to the viewers his extensive contacts with Skripal.
The British government had two immediate reactions to the Skripal incident. Within the first 48 hours, it blamed Russia, and it
slapped a D(SMA) notice banning all media mention of Skripal's MI6 handler, Pablo Miller. By yet another one of those extraordinary
coincidences, Miller and Urban know each other well, having both been
officers together in the Royal Tank Regiment,
of the same rank and joining the Regiment the same year."
Conclusion
I do not know what happened in Salisbury. Plainly spy games were being played between Russia and the UK, quite likely linked to
the Skripals and/or the NATO chemical weapons exercise
then taking place on Salisbury Plain yet another one of those astonishing coincidences."
Weird how literally every one of thes poisioning incidents keep happening less than 10 miles from the uk's largest and most
notorious deadly chemical weapons factory. The fascist uk regime should really stop murdering its own people with chemical weapons
https://t.co/zvIXrJ57eK
At first Novichok described as thee most deadilest chemical weapon in the world. It immediate kills anybody exposed to it and
any unprotected first responders.
It failed to immediately kill to anybody exposed to it.
Seems more like a bad flu instead.
Novichok degrades almost immediately.
Norvichock can stay around for months in a perfume bottle.
Only Russians can and did make it.
For a few bucks, university chem majors made a batch.
the nerve agent is a chimera in time, too! you can even pull it out of a hat, like a wabbit!
thanks for the great chuckle-worthy additions, Mr.Webster. ; )
p.s. it did kill dawn sturgess, as far as we've been told, but iirc, there were extenuating circumstances given her addiction
history. i love it that officer bailey ran a marathon recently, too.
and the saga continues....will it ever end?
At first Novichok described as thee most deadilest chemical weapon in the world. It immediate kills anybody exposed to it
and any unprotected first responders.
It failed to immediately kill to anybody exposed to it.
Seems more like a bad flu instead.
Novichok degrades almost immediately.
Norvichock can stay around for months in a perfume bottle.
Only Russians can and did make it.
For a few bucks, university chem majors made a batch.
xmas list, santa gator? looks like ya gotta either keep your eyes peeled for knock-offs, or head to the soviet union... light
bulb! maybe they left a few bottles hidden in the roof of that bog in the salisbury park!
are addin' up to a fistful of dollars and pound notes by now, aren't they? i'd call it humiliating, myownself.
i did dig out more from craig murray on pablo miller, orbus, et.al., cuz i'd needed a refresher: Where They Tell You Not to
Look , april 30, 2019
lots of tweets, plus this great aaron maté interview
w/ luke harding.
by the by, i finally heard from Rosette Sewali, Producer & Membership Relations Manager after i'd asked TRNN why is might be
that neither sharmini piries nor paul jay have been there since june 13; she wrote back:
'Thanks for your email. Paul and Sharmini have been on leave since early June. Updates will be available when we have more
information .'
??????
'At the very beginning of the of the Skripal incident, the security services blocked by D(SMA) notice any media mention
of Pablo Miller and told the media not to look at Orbis and the Steele dossier on Trump, acting immediately to get out their
message via trusties in the BBC and Guardian. Gordon Corera, "BBC Security Correspondent", did not name the source who told
him to say this, but helpfully illustrated his tweet with a nice picture of MI6 Headquarters.
'MI6's most important media conduit (after Frank Gardner) is Luke Harding of the Guardian.'
..................
'Given that the Steele dossier is demonstrably in large degree nonsense, it seems to me more probable the idea was to silence
Skripal to close the danger that he would reveal his part in the concoction of this fraud. Remember he had sold out Russian
agents to the British for cash and was a man of elastic loyalties. It is also worth noting that Luke Harding has a bestselling
book currently on sale, in large part predicated on the truth of the Steele Dossier.
Steele, MI6 and the elements of the CIA which are out to get Trump, all would have a powerful motive to have the Skripal
loose end tied.
Rule number one of real investigative journalism: look where they tell you not to look .'
"... The research reveals, for the first time, that around 4600 kilos of the chemical, zinc cadmium sulphide (now thought to be potentially carcinogenic, on account of its cadmium content) were dispersed from ships, aircraft and moving lorries between 1953 and 1964. ..."
"... Professor Schmidt's investigation – published on 9 July as a book, Secret Science – has revealed that commuters on the London underground were also used as guinea pigs on a substantially larger scale than previously thought. ..."
"... The new research reveals, for the first time, that in another British imperial possession, Nigeria, a location was found for chemical warfare field trials. In an area called Obanaghoro in southern Nigeria, four British Cold War scientific missions spent a total of around 15 months dispersing, and assessing the effects of, large quantities of experimental nerve gas weapons. The advantage of the location was that it permitted field trials to be carried out in a tropical environment – and, of course, that it was not in Britain or Australia. ..."
"... Ulf Schmidt's book, Secret Science, is published today on 9 July, by Oxford University Press. ..."
Substantial quantities were also dispersed across parts of the English Channel and the North Sea. It's not known the extent to
which coastal towns in England and France were affected.
The research reveals, for the first time, that around 4600 kilos of the chemical, zinc cadmium sulphide (now thought to be
potentially carcinogenic, on account of its cadmium content) were dispersed from ships, aircraft and moving lorries between 1953
and 1964.
Professor Schmidt's investigation – published on 9 July as a book, Secret Science – has revealed that commuters on
the London underground were also used as guinea pigs on a substantially larger scale than previously thought.
The new research has discovered that a hitherto unknown biological warfare field trial was carried out in the capital's tube system
in May 1964.
The secret operation – carried out by scientists from the government's chemical and biological warfare research centre at Porton
Down, Wiltshire - involved the release of large quantities of bacteria called Bacillus globigii. The scientists were keen to discover
whether 'long distance travel of aerosols' in the tube network 'was due to transportation within trains' or through the tube's air
ventilation systems.
At the time, the government thought that Bacillus globigii bacteria were harmless – but they are today regarded as a cause of
food poisoning, eye infections, and even septicaemia. It is not known whether the authorities attempted to properly test the bacterium
before releasing it into the tube system. An earlier series of tube field trials, in July 1963, has been known to historians for
many years.
However, the new research has now revealed that some of the British scientists involved had grave misgivings about the field trials
that had been carried out. Indeed some had long felt that it was not politically advisable to conduct large-scale trials in Britain
with live bacterial agents.
One particular test – involving live plague bacteria – was carried out off the west coast of Scotland in 1952. It's long been
known that a fishing vessel inadvertently passed through the cloud of bacteria and that the authorities were very worried that the
fishermen might contract the disease.
The plague bacteria field trials, though at sea, took place only a few miles from the Isle of Lewis which had a population of
several thousand.
The government scientists, carrying out the trials, banked on the fact that the prevailing wind normally blew away from the coast.
If, however, the wind had changed direction, thousands of Hebrideans would have been at risk from plague infection, says Professor
Schmidt.
Equipment for the isolation of patients in a germ free atmosphere, which was developed at Porton Down in collaboration with the
Institute of Child Health (Getty)
Following the fishing vessel incident, the scientists were eager to carry out any further potentially very hazardous field trials
outside the UK. Prime Minister Churchill therefore approved a plan to carry out tests in a British overseas territory, the Bahamas.
New research shows that the government scientists took the view that the Bahamas was the best place "on the surface of the globe"
to carry out tests "without restrictions".
In 1954, the British government sent Cold War biological warfare scientists to an area of sea near an uninhabited island in the
Bahamas to release clouds of dangerous Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis viruses. These organisms were capable of causing, in humans,
high fever, long term fatigue, headaches and occasionally death.
The new research reveals, for the first time, that in another British imperial possession, Nigeria, a location was found for
chemical warfare field trials. In an area called Obanaghoro in southern Nigeria, four British Cold War scientific missions spent
a total of around 15 months dispersing, and assessing the effects of, large quantities of experimental nerve gas weapons. The advantage
of the location was that it permitted field trials to be carried out in a tropical environment – and, of course, that it was not
in Britain or Australia.
The extent that local people (including locally employed field trial personnel) were affected by the nerve agents is not known.
Historians have so far been unable to find out who did the particularly hazardous work of 'hand-charging' the nerve agent artillery
shells, mortar bombs and aircraft cluster bombs. Likewise they have not been able to discover the extent to which local Nigerian
soils were contaminated or whether nearby villages and schools were affected by any of the toxic clouds that would have been blown
across the countryside.
"The government records I've been looking at are conspicuously silent on all this," said Ulf Schmidt.
"Officials had clearly good reasons as to why the kind of experiments undertaken in Nigeria were strictly prohibited on the British
mainland, which is why the files and photographic records surrounding Britain's post-war nerve agent testing in Africa were regarded
as particularly sensitive," he said.
Professor Schmidt's research has also revealed the vast scale of Cold War chemical warfare tests carried out on 'volunteer' British
service personnel here in the UK – involving numbers of people much greater than previously thought.
His investigation now suggests that up to 30,000 secret chemical warfare substance experiments were carried out, mainly at Porton
Down, on more than 14,000 British soldiers between 1945 and 1989. He believes that, in most cases, the servicemen were not given
sufficient information to allow them to give properly informed consent.
Ulf Schmidt's book, Secret Science, is published today on 9 July, by Oxford University Press.
Spreading diseases: 'Harmless' proxies
Aircraft, lorries and ships spread 4,600kg of cadmium sulphide in one decade
Zinc Cadmium Sulfide ultra-fine particles
. This inorganic compound was used by Cold War scientists in the UK and the US as a supposedly harmless proxy to simulate the behaviour,
in the lower atmosphere and on the ground, of biological warfare substances. However it is still not known whether particles of ZCS
that may have become embedded in people's lungs for decades could ultimately cause disease.
Bacillus globigii . This bacterium was used as a supposedly harmless proxy to simulate the behaviour, in terms of dispersal and
penetration, of biological warfare aerosols. Although not considered harmful when it was used in Cold War field trials, it is now
known to be capable of causing fevers, food poisoning (occasionally resulting in death), peritonitis and septicaemia .
Pasteurella pestis (now known as Yersina pestis) . Clouds of this highly infections bacterium were dispersed only over areas of
sea – but nevertheless very near to Lewis, a Scottish Island with thousands of inhabitants. In order not to infect the islands, it
appears that the scientists relied entirely on the wind not changing direction and speed. This bacterium is the one that has caused
plague epidemics worldwide in the past (including those of the medieval world's Black Death).
Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis. Clouds of this virus were dispersed over an area of sea close to an uninhabited island in the
Bahamas. The virus debilitates or kills horses and donkeys and can also cause severe fever and even death in humans. Mosquitos spread
the virus further by biting equines.
G-series nerve agents. Clouds of this chemical warfare weapon were dispersed during field trials in a small part of southern Nigeria,
some miles north of the town of Warri. G-series nerve agents were first developed by the Nazis before and during World War Two. The
group includes substances like sarin and attacks the human nervous system, causing loss of bodily function and normally death. Survivors
are likely to suffer long-term neurological damage and psychiatric disorders.
One just wonders (but I have read no-one raising this question) why Epstein stopped being useful, why was his "business" dismantled.
All further steps, "suicide" comprised, are standard operation.
The scandal is about the Mega Group [Bonfman and Wexner and the assorted group of other Israel-firsters with the ties to
Mossad], Maxwells [the old embezzler and his daughter the pimp, both tied to Mossad] and Mossad: "The Spy Story at the Heart
of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal."
The end: blackmail the "elite" clients on behalf of a foreign intelligence service.
Thanks for posting this most interesting and edifying story about Israeli decade-long, standard practice, of using sex trafficking
to blackmail and control politicians.
Although Shulamit Cohen's story is highly embellished by official historiography, she herself started working as a prostitute.
The Syrian military she trapped was Adib Al Shishkali, who went on to become Syria's president.
The young girl she used to bait her "clients" was a 14-year Armenian youngster called Lucy Kobelian.
One of Mossad' main modes of operation is prostitution. Not surprising. The Jewish tribe is
exceptional in having as its heroines a set of prostituting women -- Esther, Judith, Dalila.
No wonder that the orthodox Jews treat women like filth. All within the national tradition.
In 1967, Shulamit Cohen, Rachel Raffoul and two of the Jewish prostitutes were released
in a secret prisoner exchange after the Six Day War: they were exchanged against three
officers of the Syrian air force (the official version states that they were exchanged for
"over 500 prisoners").
Today Shula is a national hero of Israel and her story has been whitewashed and made
"apt for public consumption". She lives in the neighborhood of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish
fundamentalists, the Haredim, who are probably ignorant of her past.
And if a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they'll save the man, "who is
obligated to perform more commandments," whereas a woman's "wisdom is only in the spindle."
In fact, "words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women."
A man must say three blessings every day during morning prayers: He thanks God "that He
didn't make me a gentile, that He didn't make me a woman, that He didn't make me an
ignoramus."
I'm experiencing a virulent case of deja vu here, that usually leads to hopelessness. I,
like many readers, eagerly devoured the news of the Scripals – every contradiction,
reframing, new bit of evidence. It's fair to say I was obsessed. Where are they now? Who
knows? Who asks? I expect the same here. Another step on our downward path, to be preempted
by yet another.
The best one can say is that with every one of these "incidents" we all become a little
less sure of our old assumptions, more skeptical. Leading where?
Wow!! Those suckers at the BBC manage NOT to mention Maxwell or Prince Andrew (ok... they are
mentioned in some of the links they give, but come one!!) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49306032
Look out for the bad reviews from The Fraudian's writers: Luke Harding can be relied on to
add his 2 cents' worth of conspiracy paranoid garbage, Shaun Walker will be parsing the book
for dill references and non-Russia experts like Marina Hyde and Natalie Nougat-head will want
a crack as well at reviewing the book.
Probably the only half-decent reviews will be from Mary Dejevski and Prof. Stephen Cohen
but theirs will be buried in a back page or inaccessible behind an Error 404 wall.
This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it
6 (UK) Division is the new organisational home for the Army's "asymmetric edge",
comprising all things "Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic
Warfare, Cyber and Unconventional Warfare".
Launched this morning, 6 Div is a rebranding of the formation formerly known as Force
Troops Command, which covered a hotchpotch of Royal Signals, Intelligence Corps and other
units, including the infamous 77 Brigade
####
Don't forget to hit the comments for hilarity!
Also, the timing of the announcement says plenty, i.e. slipping it in to the news stream
when people have already gone on holiday and all the BREXIT and other bollocks. I've not seen
this reported on the tv in the UK – which is currently facing severe flooding etc.
Is it just me or is all the PPNN reporting that 'Putin's support has dropped to levels
not seen since 2011!'. Of course they don't actually give you any numbers and cherry pick
dodgy poll numbers but there really is this Pavlovian reaction anytime there is a
demonstration in Russia, like undertakers gathering at an allegedly dangerous road crossing
waiting for some cyclist to be dragged under a trash lorry so that they can tut tut and then
profit from the cyclist's misfortune. Nix that, the PPNN are just professional versions of
MacBeth's witches, something which they don't understand is a story .
Putin is in as much danger of being unceremoniously chucked out of office as he is of choking
to death on his grandmother's knitting. The west is ever hopeful, and dutifully rallies to
the glorification of every new dissident firebrand, but whether or not they know it, they are
just going through the motions. The only group, and I mean the only one, that would benefit
from Putin's overthrow would be the disaffected kreakliy and the poncy forgotten
semi-intellectuals. They would be feted by the west as political visionaries, and perhaps
given minor government positions to satisfy their vanity. But who else would make out like a
bandit? The military? Hardly – the west, after years of giggling about Russia's
decrepit military, lapsed into an uneasy silence on the subject just about the time that
long-distance Kalibr cruise-missile attack took place from the Caspian Sea into Syria, and a
west given meddling-room would want to disband the Russian military, if anything, down to a
token force of absolutely-trustworthy sycophants who would probably be issued with American
weapons. The oligarchs? Hardly – western business would be snapping up former state
assets while simultaneously carrying out an 'anti-corruption drive' under the new President's
imprimatur. Small businesses? Hardly – corporate interest would be in melding large
state interests into the Corporate Borg, and their method is to squeeze out small business in
order to expand market share. The people? Hardly – Russia would be a convenient place
to move all the refugee immigrants from that entire hemisphere, while the stubborn loyalty of
the population to Putin would not be forgotten.
It is no coincidence that it is always the same people who show up to bitch and carp about
how dreadful Putin is, and how Russia needs American-style freedom and democracy and non-stop
Pride parades and all the trappings of fresh admission to Club West. They are the only people
who would stand to benefit from driving Putin out. Nobody else is interested.
They're just trying to get some mileage out of Olga what's-her-name, and make it look like a
drop in Putin's poll numbers happened exactly at the moment this young political firebrand
emerged. Pretty sad, really, but you can't tell 'em, and it wouldn't make any difference.
They have to try, it's the same instinct that makes a dog lick its nose if you smear cheese
on it. The western media would rush to interview and endorse a talking Russian toad if it
said "I hate Putin".
Barr now has goods to jail major conspirators for life. It is unlikely happened but we can hope.
Notable quotes:
"... "Turns out it was Britain that was the foreign country interfering in American affairs," former MP George Galloway told RT, speaking about the new revelations published by the Guardian about early British involvement in the 'Russiagate' investigation. ..."
"... The Guardian reported on texts between former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, who now heads GCHQ. The two men met in 2016 to discuss "our strange situation" – an apparent reference to Russia's alleged interference in US domestic politics. ..."
"... British intelligence "appears to have played a key role in the early stages," the report said. ..."
"... Galloway said the revelation was not surprising because people "already knew" that British intelligence had played a part in the Russia-related investigations in the US. He recalled that it was former British spy Christopher Steele who drew up the now-infamous Steele dossier, which made multiple unverifiable and salacious claims about Trump and has since been largely discredited. Britain is "up to its neck in the whole Russiagate affair," he said. ..."
"... Asked what the UK stood to gain by trying to implicate Russia in a US election scandal at a time when then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson was dismissing baseless claims of Russian interference in the Brexit campaign, Galloway noted that Johnson's comments on Russia have appeared to strangely sway between friendly and antagonistic. ..."
"... In June 2016, the FBI opened a covert investigation codenamed 'Crossfire Hurricane' into Trump's now disproven collusion with Moscow, which was later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller. ..."
While hysteria raged about possible Russian "interference" in the 2016 US election, British
intelligence officials were secretly playing a "key role" in helping instigate investigations
into Donald Trump, secret texts have shown. "Turns out it was Britain that was the foreign
country interfering in American affairs," former MP George Galloway told RT, speaking about
the new revelations published by the Guardian about early British involvement in the
'Russiagate' investigation.
The Guardian reported on texts between former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and Jeremy
Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, who now heads GCHQ. The two men met in 2016 to discuss
"our strange situation" – an apparent reference to Russia's alleged interference
in US domestic politics.
British intelligence "appears to have played a key role in the early stages," the
report said.
Galloway said the revelation was not surprising because people "already knew" that
British intelligence had played a part in the Russia-related investigations in the US. He
recalled that it was former British spy Christopher Steele who drew up the now-infamous Steele
dossier, which made multiple unverifiable and salacious claims about Trump and has since been
largely discredited. Britain is "up to its neck in the whole Russiagate affair," he
said.
The texts also reveal that the Brexit vote was viewed by some in the FBI as something that
had been influenced by Russia.
Asked what the UK stood to gain by trying to implicate Russia in a US election scandal at a
time when then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson was dismissing baseless claims of Russian
interference in the Brexit campaign, Galloway noted that Johnson's comments on Russia have
appeared to strangely sway between friendly and antagonistic.
Johnson is like "a sofa that bears the impression of the last person to sit upon
him," the former MP quipped. What happens next will depend on who is leading the tango,
"the orange man in Washington or the blonde mop-head in London."
In June 2016, the FBI opened a covert investigation codenamed 'Crossfire Hurricane' into
Trump's now disproven collusion with Moscow, which was later taken over by special counsel
Robert Mueller.
Ultimately, the two-year-long probe that followed came up short, producing no evidence to prove a conspiracy or collusion
between Trump campaign officials and Russia
According to spokesman Hogan Gidley, the new sanctions are being imposed because of the
last round of sanctions. In the previous sanctions the US demanded Russia offer them
assurances that they'd stop poisoning people.
Russia never made any such assurances, since they denied poisoning Skripal in the first
place. But not admitting guilt and offering the US promises, the US felt the need to impose
another round of sanctions, which are probably going to set the stage for more future
sanctions for the same reason.
Officials claim Russia is "required" to offer the US assurances about poisonings under US
law, and the White House insists these new sanctions prove that President Trump is harder on
Russia than anyone else has ever been at any time.
"... Can anyone clarify the exact manner in which contractors for the State department become operatives for CIA or are handled by CIA? ..."
"... The entire Russia – Gate thing seems very CIA-ish . See CHALMERS JOHNSON'S "THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE", seems like since I read it ~ 2004 I have been watching Chalmers prediction come true in slow motion. ..."
"... Bill Browder shows up in D.C and gets special booking to go before congress. Why? Because he runs a hedge fund? B.S. there is much more to it than that. ..."
"... I have written plenty about Browder's actions and I have always thought him showing up when he did, the way he did was very strange. ..."
"... If Bill didn't pay his taxes where did all that money go? Why is it DOJ is hog tied so badly it cannot produce evidence? What is it that all the above want to keep secret? Why all the lies? ..."
"... Lets us suppose that the CIA who has been in the money laundering business for years and who likely wrote the book on the subject, had a plan. Maybe that plan was to have Browder do exactly what he did,. Except for the getting caught part. ..."
"... JFK lamented that for a government to keep secrets from it's people because it feared telling them the truth was not acceptable. Maybe he saw then what I see now, a public that increasingly threatened by it's government. ..."
"... In a recent newspaper column renowned Danish journalist and editor+ Flemming Rose examines in detail some core, false, claims made by such propagators of the myth as Browder, his connected supporters Jonathan Winer (USA), Irwin Cotler (Canada) and others. ..."
"... Veselnitskaya testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in November 2017 that Browder's major American client, the Ziff brothers, had cheated on American and Russian taxes and contributed the "dirty money" to the Democrats. ..."
"... If Law Enforcement Officers come across evidence of a crime during an investigation, are they not obligated by Law to report it and to investigate it? Didn't the Mueller Team break the Law if they ignored this? ..."
"... Russia Gate was created out of smoke by Hillary and her campaign and people in the Obama administration and justice department. I'm hoping that Barr will release all the information that is being gathered ..."
"... The problem is that Goldstone invented most of the conversation, he told Veselnitskaya via Emin, that Don Jr could help her arrange a Senate hearing about Browder, and told Don Jr she would have "dirt"on Hillary. ..."
"... Even if Browder has a good reason for this, it is still obstruction of Justice, most likely can throw in Conspiracy to Interfere with the Election as a foreign agent by giving Steele a fake meeting. Browder desperately wanted to discredit Simpson, and it's likely Browder suggested Winer hire Simpson, so he can get embroiled with the Steele Dossier. ..."
"... Mueller is a deep state spy who's "investigation" was nothing but an effort to cover up the deep state's efforts to direct the outcome of the 2016 election. They get away with this, and they'll be at it again in 2020. Our democracy is toast. ..."
"... We keep coming back to Browder. Browder is Russiagate is my sense. ..."
"... Quantity or quality? Has the FBI tracked the number of contacts other campaigns have with foreigners, even Russians ? Obama, McCain, Bushes, Clinton's, Kerry, etc? ..."
"... We do know that one campaign actually hired a foreign agent to obtain information from Russia about an opponent and stated that highly placed Kremlin military and intelligence provided information on Trump which was pitched to numerous media outlets.Of course, controlling a few hundred million derived from a sale of control of uranium market is of no interest. These two events seem a bit weightier than Mr. Goldstone's tee-shirt. ..."
"... Mueller may have been a prisoner of his staff, we'll see how knowledgeable he is about what is in the report, if he actually answers questions ..."
"... The more of this is revealed, the more the holy Mueller comes forth as an old, tired cop, that has long lost the fine tricks of the trade, who was only still capable of the crude tricks of the trade. His pathology and tragedy is that he doesn't see it himself; it is likely to become his downfall when he testifies. ..."
"... Those who have seen the film, "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.", by Andrei Nekrasov know that Nekrasov had a sea-change experience, shared by viewers of the film who get a front-seat, close-up look at what went on. That any who see the film could possibly retain a favorable impression of Browder is very hard to imagine. ..."
"... Mueller's apparent lack of curiosity and equally apparent willingness to accept so very many things at face value, based solely on what he was told, without, so it seems, any genuine effort on his part to look more deeply, to actually investigate beyond what really is hearsay, does not paint a picture of an intrepid, dogged pursuit of facts and actual evidence, but rather a slipshod pretense while unctously playing the make believe role of "Special Counsel". ..."
"... At least, this Second Coming, of Mueller will possibly provide a brief and hilarious respite from the Democratic Debate Circus floperation. And the media is sure to love it, Trump Tweets and all. ..."
"... He'll turn up every rock looking for dirt on Trump, but if someone says 'Your boy's dirt is under that rock,' he'll just pretend he didn't see it. There is no reason to ever trust him at all. Dude is an awful investigator, and should have been disbarred when it came to light that Agent John Connolly tipped off Whitey Bulger about a bug that State Police put in the Lancaster St. Garage, which served as Whitey's office. John Connolly is in prison, and his boss is lionized as a hero. ..."
"... Seems to be similar to the well choreographed story of The White Helmets. The deception is so widespread that it's nearly impossible to fully expose ..."
"... I've claimed that the CIA (and or FBI) was active in ensuring Sanders wouldn't rise above HRC in the 2016 campaign; the trail was leading here so the "players" unleashed the Russiagate circus (and we didn't even get any bread with it!). ..."
"... Many of the enablers of this hoax must know better, using the "ends justify the means" rationalization; as our self-appointed "protector" Colbert. ..."
She was also working with Fusion GPS and had nothing?
Trump Dossier Firm Also Supplied Info Used in Meeting of Russians, Trump Team
"The information that a Russian lawyer brought with her when she met Donald Trump Jr. in
June 2016 stemmed from research conducted by Fusion GPS, the same firm that compiled the
infamous Trump dossier, according to the lawyer and a source familiar with the matter."
Can anyone clarify the exact manner in which contractors for the State department become
operatives for CIA or are handled by CIA?
The entire Russia – Gate thing seems very CIA-ish . See CHALMERS JOHNSON'S "THE
SORROWS OF EMPIRE", seems like since I read it ~ 2004 I have been watching Chalmers
prediction come true in slow motion.
One thing about CIA being the most powerful entity in the U.S. when they screw up they
have no place to hide. except behind the skirt of Lady Justice!
Mr. Mueller are you back there also?
robert e williamson jr , July 5, 2019 at 13:53
I would wonder just how many files Mueller has gotten from ICIJ. Maybe we all need to call
bull shit on this entire affair.
Everyone says follow the money but no one seems to be able to do so here. Why not. ICIJ
sure as hell seems able to get info.
I'll state it again, I wonder just how much data Mueller got from ICIJ since CIA didn't
have it?
Bill Browder shows up in D.C and gets special booking to go before congress. Why? Because
he runs a hedge fund? B.S. there is much more to it than that.
I have written plenty about Browder's actions and I have always thought him showing up
when he did, the way he did was very strange. Whether what he claims to be true seems not to
have mattered to congress. Look at what the fools have done. Magnitski Act for what.
So did Bill, the DEEP STATE and CIA all get caught doing what they have always done in
third world countries for the last 70 years ?
If Bill didn't pay his taxes where did all that money go? Why is it DOJ is hog tied so
badly it cannot produce evidence? What is it that all the above want to keep secret? Why all
the lies?
It appears someone has gotten to DOJ. AGAIN!
I have some very bad news for many here. If what I witnessed here in the last couple of
years here is the only way for those who contribute and those who comment here to expose evil
doers we all are thoroughly screwed.
The county is running out of time. If Mueller has received data from ICIJ maybe we all
should be after someone to get the information about what files he got.
Lets us suppose that the CIA who has been in the money laundering business for years
and who likely wrote the book on the subject, had a plan. Maybe that plan was to have Browder
do exactly what he did,. Except for the getting caught part.
Just what do you suppose that carnage would look like.
Think about what the rest of the planet is thinking about the U.S. singing happy birthday
to it's self at such a chaotic time.
Isn't that something to be expected from 2 and 3 year old children?
JFK lamented that for a government to keep secrets from it's people because it feared
telling them the truth was not acceptable. Maybe he saw then what I see now, a public that increasingly threatened by it's
government.
We have the Trump mafia running the repugniklans and the Israeli mafia running the
dimocraps, and the DEEP STATE hoarding the proceeds.
"Off with their heads ", the Queen Shouted. She must have been familiar with the heads of
hedge funds!
In the 1990s I received an NNA – National Newspaper Award (Canada's top prize for
print journalism) for a series of newspaper articles first exposing the presence of Russian
mafia money laundering behind North American public and private co.s – and shut down
the YBM Magnex fraud – which led to Semion Mogilevitch being placed on the FBI's "Most
Wanted" list. The late Robert I. Friedman's "Red Mafiya" book (2000) included info from this
case – and he broke the word in the US via a 1998 feature in "The Village Voice".
I retired from active investigation of white collar / organized crime at the turn of the
century – and just last year became aware that the con-man Bill Browder, who, in the
1990s, was being mentored by another international scammer, Edmond Safra, is today falsely
portrayed as an "anti-corruption crusader". This geopolitical smoke-and-mirrors act is
maintained through the support of state actors and a western "legacy" media that is failed in
so many ways.
Fortunately, the inter-twined myths are all coming undone. To do my part, I've launched a
website "J'Accuse News" @ https://jaccuse.news
There is more than enough independent information – corporate, court, police+
records, employee interviews etc. – accessible on the public record for anyone that
chooses to know the truth of the "Magnitsky" campaign to do so.
In a recent newspaper column renowned Danish journalist and editor+ Flemming Rose examines
in detail some core, false, claims made by such propagators of the myth as Browder, his
connected supporters Jonathan Winer (USA), Irwin Cotler (Canada) and others.
"In his own words, Sergey Magnitsky was neither Bill Browder's lawyer nor a whistleblower.
It is in his witness statements." Rose concludes: "I salute the fight against human rights
abuses and personally was active in this fight in the former Soviet Union. But I fear that,
by relying on untruths, Browder's campaign could undermine this fight rather than support
it."
Fittingly, in Denmark, the land which gave the world Hans Christian Andersen, author of
"The Emperor's New Clothes", the Browder/Magnitsky con is unraveling and the naked truth is
revealed:
Editorial columns penned by Flemming Rose published by"Berlingske":
Danish investigative authors Birgitte Derykilde and Lars Abild have just announced their
book, which promises to reveal "The Emperor's New Clothes" of geopolitics, will be published
August12, 2019 (with a focus on the elements within that country eg. Danske Bank). The book's
title, "Troldmanden", translates fully into English as "The Wizard (master of trolls) –
the story about Danske Bank, money laundering and the man who deceived/fooled the world":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOl9S0_jMEk
###
Zhu , July 5, 2019 at 05:22
Remeber the Historians' Rule, folks: Stupidity always trumps conspiracy.
John McCarthy , July 5, 2019 at 00:09
From your article:
" Veselnitskaya testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in November 2017 that
Browder's major American client, the Ziff brothers, had cheated on American and Russian taxes
and contributed the "dirty money" to the Democrats.
The Mueller investigators appear not to have looked into her charges. "
If Law Enforcement Officers come across evidence of a crime during an investigation, are
they not obligated by Law to report it and to investigate it? Didn't the Mueller Team break
the Law if they ignored this?
Abby , July 4, 2019 at 21:06
One thing about this Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr is that she originally couldn't
get into the country because she had problems with her passport. The Obama state department
had to fix it for her. And after the meeting she met with Simpson from Fusion GPS for
dinner.
Almost every person who ended up having contact with someone to make it look like they
were colluding with Russians was setup by the FBI or were members or connected to the
Clinton's foundation.
Russia Gate was created out of smoke by Hillary and her campaign and people in the Obama
administration and justice department. I'm hoping that Barr will release all the information
that is being gathered, but I doubt that he will let Obama be snared in it. Mueller took the
country on the biggest snipe hunt in history. Lots of people are thinking that they got lots
of snipes.
False. That is the disinformation spread by Fox News, John Solomon and Sara Carter, most
likely originating with Browder. Yes, she did meet Simpson on July 8, because he was hired by
US law firm Baker-Hostetler, who she hired to conduct the defence for her client Denis
Katsyv, in the Prevezon case.
In 2013, Browder had secretly passed US Attorney Preet Bharara a bundle of documents,
accusing Katsyv, wrongly as it turned out, of using proceeds of the alleged "Russian Tax
Fraud", central to his Magnitsky story. Browder was working with the State Dept's Jonathan
Winer, now his his personal lawyer, to have his Magnitsky story enshrined in US Case Law,
effectively giving the State the ability to confiscate any Russian property in the US by
linking it to the so called tax fraud.
The problems began for Browder, when his was discovered, and BH hired Simpson to check out
his story. Simpson recounts in his Senate Testimony, that they tracked Browder to Aspen,
Colorado, twice he evaded the subpoena, and again in New York, after he told the Judge Greisa
he would be overseas, he ran away from the server, after coming out of NBC studios plugging
his fictional book "Red Notice"
The Judge ordered Browder to appear on 15 April 2015, for a Deposition under oath. The
reason why he ran became clear, he couldn't substantiate any of the evidence he provided,
mostly complied by his staff, and he couldn't substantiate his Magnitsky Story either.
So what did he do? What he always does, attempt to shut down proceedings, on a thin
pretext, and his appeal was, guess what, in New York on morning of 9 June.
The meeting between NV and Simpson was about Browder's appeal, both have sworn to that
effect and there is zero evidence they setup the Trump Tower meeting. The also went to a full
defence team dinner a few days after, all above board.
However Browder always accuses others of his crimes, there is good evidence that Browder
was working with the State Dept's Robert Otto and Jonathan Winer, from Otto's leaked emails,
showing a menacing photograph of Veselnitskaya's Moscow home, the same day, she was granted a
work visa by the State Dept, 6 June 2016, three days before Browder's appeal. Same day,
Goldstone had Don Jr and Emin Agalarov agree on 9 June for Trump Tower. The problem is that
Goldstone invented most of the conversation, he told Veselnitskaya via Emin, that Don Jr
could help her arrange a Senate hearing about Browder, and told Don Jr she would have
"dirt"on Hillary.
Even if Browder has a good reason for this, it is still obstruction of Justice, most
likely can throw in Conspiracy to Interfere with the Election as a foreign agent by giving
Steele a fake meeting. Browder desperately wanted to discredit Simpson, and it's likely
Browder suggested Winer hire Simpson, so he can get embroiled with the Steele Dossier.
Haruspex , July 6, 2019 at 00:27
And the Phoenix tarmac meeting was about grandchildren and golf between two people who
never chatted socially. And you are trying to claim, the architect of the Steele dossier, had
nothing to do with Veselnitskaya meeting the Trump team? That it's coincidental? And it's
coincidental that Mike Isikoff runs into Jim Baker and warns him about the Steele dossier?
And it's coincidental that some unconnected oil industry specialist in London all of a
suddenly becomes the most courted man in Europe once it's determined he is associated with
Trump's campaign? And it's coincidental that Nellie Ohr gets a ham radio license the month
after Adm Rogers tossed her off all US intel data sites? And it's coincidental that Nellie is
married to the DoJ conduit between Steele and the FBI? Too many coincidences and in law
enforcement, they teach you there is no such thing as coincidences.
Garrett Connelly , July 4, 2019 at 20:03
Seemingly normal congressional representatives became obsessed with sanctions and passing
the Magnitsky Act.
Jeff Harrison , July 4, 2019 at 19:20
Mueller is a deep state spy who's "investigation" was nothing but an effort to cover up
the deep state's efforts to direct the outcome of the 2016 election. They get away with this,
and they'll be at it again in 2020. Our democracy is toast.
rosemerry , July 4, 2019 at 16:54
The excellent film by Andrei Nekrasov has been unavailable for at least a year. It shows
too clearly the falsity of the Browder charges, but somehow Browder is supported by those in
high places, since it is impossible to find the film anywhere. (I saw it twice online last
year before the complete blackout).
How many people here find the Skripal story in the UK to be as false? We have Theresa
May's word for all the relevant "facts" and that is all.
Experience tells us that US government/intel statements need to be backed up by perfect
evidence or they should be considered propaganda. With regards to Russia, the 5 Eyes have
told us nothing but lies for the last 5 years.
Stan W. , July 4, 2019 at 12:10
The Browder hoax would make a good sequel to the 1966 movie "The Russians Are Coming! The
Russians Are Coming!"
jsinton , July 4, 2019 at 10:15
We keep coming back to Browder. Browder is Russiagate is my sense.
Brian James , July 4, 2019 at 10:14
This will reveal their ultimate goal!
Jul 1, 2019 Democrat Calls On Tech Giants To Censor Conservatives Over Kamala Harris
Debate
Elizabeth Warren Calls On Big Tech To Censor Conservatives Over Kamala Harris Debate.
You are right that censorship was one of the goals of Russia Gate. Because of it we got
Hamilton 68 that said they were able to tell us what tweets came from Russian trolls or
bots.
The Integrity Initiative is another company created during this time and they have stuck
around and then there's NewsGuard who is putting its buttons on Microsoft web browsers.
Facebook, Twitter and Google all changed their algorithms and alternative websites were so
downgraded that some lost up to 90% of their readership. This all came into being after
someone leaked the DNC computers and podesta emails and gave them to Wikileaks. Hillary's
campaign said that if they blamed it on Russia then no one would focus on their content. It
worked. The DNC rigging the primary is considered CT on many leftists sites.
Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:44
Thanks for another great article that gives us a glimpse behind the curtain. It would be
great if the truth regarding Browder were to make it into the mainstream, but I have my
doubts about that being possible. People like Mueller and the MSM lackeys are protectors of
the powerful. What Robert Parry called the "mighty Wurlitzer" keeps the truth drowned out
except for our small "sound proof free speech zone" here at CN and similar sites.
For people who wish to take a look at the "evil Rooskies" from a more realistic angle, I
highly recommend Stephen Cohen's "War with Russia?" I am just finishing it and it is a good
read.
Amazing how long the fraud has been going on, hiding in plain sight, Mueller a clear
player for the corrupt Deep State! We who read Consortium News have been informed about
Browder's fraudulent claims for the entire 2+ years of this ongoing chicanery. The swamp muck
is deep and thick, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is embedded in it. The confluence of swamp
creatures is odd, many don't even interact but they do in strange ways, all by lying. Thanks
for this article, hope for an end to the lies although the US truth decay is pretty far
advanced, maybe a sign it is collapsing ?!
Michael Collins , July 4, 2019 at 00:48
I think the Magnitsky Act is profoundly arrogant and not in our national interest.
I believe that Russia's intervention in Syria was essential and positive.
I'm not convinced that the Dutch report on MH17 has any persuasive power. This site had
the first insider source info that the missile was launched by the Ukrainians.
Having said that, I must say that this article is pure propaganda.
"Collusion" is a pure Republican propaganda term straight from Trump and his acolyte Barr.
The term is the straw man that forms the basis of the author's argument. The Mueller Report
outlines numerous contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign. Were they just chatting
about the weather or were the Russians trying to apply influence.
Whether or not Mueller could prove a conspiracy to commit a crime doe not take away from
the clear meddling by the Russians. In terms of outcome, Trump's performance in Helsinki is
the best argument for Russians influence. He was Putin's bot.
T,J , July 4, 2019 at 02:48
Michael, you got it right in your first three sentences but then, alas, you allowed your
imagination to run wild. The truth is that the Russians had little or no effect on the result
of the 2016 elections. The Democrats, alone, were responsible through their own incompetence
for the election result and even with their poor choice of candidate they could still have
won. The Mueller thing is just a distraction. By not admitting this, to themselves, they have
probably forfeited the 2020 election.
Mark Kelly , July 4, 2019 at 09:48
Quantity or quality? Has the FBI tracked the number of contacts other campaigns have with
foreigners, even Russians ? Obama, McCain, Bushes, Clinton's, Kerry, etc?
It would be rather
difficult for a campaign not to have documented contacts with foreign nationals, and the
Trump contacts like Sessions running into Kislack at receptions seem innocuous. We do know
that one campaign actually hired a foreign agent to obtain information from Russia about an
opponent and stated that highly placed Kremlin military and intelligence provided information
on Trump which was pitched to numerous media outlets.Of course, controlling a few hundred
million derived from a sale of control of uranium market is of no interest. These two events
seem a bit weightier than Mr. Goldstone's tee-shirt.
Mueller may have been a prisoner of his staff, we'll see how knowledgeable he is about what
is in the report, if he actually answers questions . ( Huddles with counsel "Cannot answer,
its classified .") Then wait for IG and Barr investigations .
Mr.Parry immediately smelled a great big rat using historical Russiaphobia
Clark M Shanahan , July 4, 2019 at 10:11
"Trump's performance in Helsinki is the best argument for Russians influence. He was
Putin's bot."
So the dropping of the INF Treaty and the continued massive arms build-up in the ex-Soviet
satellites is simply cover for Evil Vlad's real plans of world domination?
Same with Bolton's failed coup in Venezuela and our arming and training of Ukraine's fascist
Azov Battalion?
Michael,
Did you know Putin provided us our primary Afghan supply line and introduced us to
Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, all-the-while warning us of the real dangers of creating a
quagmire?
rosemerry , July 4, 2019 at 17:00
Pathetic conclusion. Pres.Putin, with all the faults cast upon him from the West, cannot
be considered to be stupid. All the "interference", which he denies (and unlike Trump he is
NOT a liar) would be uncharacteristic and counterproductive, like the alleged
novichok/perfume poisoning in the UK of someone already punished and exchanged, by alleged
"GRU operatives" botching the job.
bjd , July 3, 2019 at 21:08
What an excellent article!
The author provides another view –from a whole other angle yet again– showing
how the Mueller Report is more a work of uninspired wordsmithery and linguistic trickery
(with one or two –sometimes not even that carefully– hidden objectives), than an
unambiguous work of judicious scrutiny.
The more of this is revealed, the more the holy Mueller comes forth as an old, tired cop,
that has long lost the fine tricks of the trade, who was only still capable of the crude
tricks of the trade. His pathology and tragedy is that he doesn't see it himself; it is
likely to become his downfall when he testifies.
Most readers of Consortium News from around the Earth understand the immensity of the
Browder-Magnitsky scandal, and so then they are certainly hugely appreciative of Lucy
Komisar's years-long reporting on the scandal, plus thankful to Consortium News for
exhibiting the moral courage to publish Ms. Komisar's truly bombshell, Earth-shaking article.
Those people around the world yet unaware of this profound and historically important
situation will now, undoubtedly, become fully aware – and soon.
Every candidate from every political party in America running for the office of President
of the United States in 2020 will find it impossible to avoid this just-revealed
800,000,000-pound elephant standing in/on the living room known as planet Earth, as well as
find it impossible to respond in any manner but in 100% alignment with the truth. There are
nothing but positive consequences coming from this truly historic development – most
especially, the forthcoming global paradigm shift featuring exponentially greater
effectiveness of international law in deterrence of major criminality. It is a moving and
humbling experience to witness. Thank you sincerely.
Jerry L.! that was a tremendous piece of editorial writing! . I have been on the trail of
this " MAGNITZKY Sting thing Josef Mifsud is the key man of not so much mystery any more ! I
have been on this William Browder Grifter of the Hoover Institute _Stanford John Perkins .
Book " Confessions of a Economic Hitman " is eye opening . look into Edmond Safra his bizarre
demise or death in 1999' in the middle of Monaco Principality Párkinson had ravaged
Mr. SAFRA a third generation manifestation of Lebanon and Jewish Global financial markets
Financiers Of renowned Edmond Safra was from family heritage of movers and shakers of Global
financial markets and currency manipulators from the Middle Ages! Rick – Él
Cuban cowboy ( 702.767.0072)) hope all is well
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 19:12
This article, which I thank Consortium News for publishing, and its author, Lucy Komisar
for researching and writing, is very important for a number of reasons.
Those who know the history of what happened to Russia and the Russian people when U$
"experts", vulture capitalists and B-School grads, descended on Russia for a sportive
slaughter of its economy, all the better to create an oligarchic class and impoverish the
many while providing many of those "experts" lucrative, even obscenely lucrative rewards,
among them William Browder.
Those who have seen the film, "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.", by Andrei Nekrasov
know that Nekrasov had a sea-change experience, shared by viewers of the film who get a
front-seat, close-up look at what went on. That any who see the film could possibly retain a
favorable impression of Browder is very hard to imagine.
That so very much has been done to suppress any public or widespread showing of the film
speaks, eloquently and succinctly, to the motivations, if not expressly exposing the reasons,
for the suppression.
Clearly, when Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, in 2012, few of those who voted for that
law had seen the film or else they made no serious efforts to ascertain the actual facts.
Perhaps, they did not care to know the facts or, worse, do not care, at all, what the facts
actually were.
One hopes that among the questions posed to Robert Mueller will be several seeking clarity
about something he, rather obviously, got very wrong, about the infamous "meeting" at Trump
Tower.
Mueller's apparent lack of curiosity and equally apparent willingness to accept so very
many things at face value, based solely on what he was told, without, so it seems, any
genuine effort on his part to look more deeply, to actually investigate beyond what really is
hearsay, does not paint a picture of an intrepid, dogged pursuit of facts and actual
evidence, but rather a slipshod pretense while unctously playing the make believe role of
"Special Counsel".
His special guest appearance before Congress may well not be a reprise of a Cameo Role,
but an opportunity to win the Lifetime Oscar for Pusillanimous Leading Man.
The Democrats who have arranged this awards ceremony, thinking they are about to unearth
manifold riches, may well find that they have bitten off far more crow than they can possibly
chew.
Russiagate may yet become a dead albatross piece of neck ware for those banking on its
bonanza.
The "Ineffective Opposition" may soon confirm its utter uselessness, even as Robert
Mueller may find the very real need to embark on a costly "brand" restoration.
At least, this Second Coming, of Mueller will possibly provide a brief and hilarious
respite from the Democratic Debate Circus floperation. And the media is sure to love it,
Trump Tweets and all.
Seriously?
Once again, my appreciation for this timely and important article, which ties together a
plethora of peculiarities particularly perceptively well.
Nick , July 4, 2019 at 00:47
Mueller's lack of curiosity is something people in Boston are well aware of. He was the US
Attorney here when his FBI was covering up for Whitey Bulger, the murderous drug kingpin.
It's crazy, because now, to these same people in Boston, he's the saint who's gonna bring
down Trump. The fact that he got away in the late 90s when his FBI agents all came up filthy
with gifts from this gangster, and was subsequently able to work his way into an FBI
directorship, shows that this dude is a skillful liar, and more one of omission than
commission.
He'll turn up every rock looking for dirt on Trump, but if someone says 'Your
boy's dirt is under that rock,' he'll just pretend he didn't see it. There is no reason to
ever trust him at all. Dude is an awful investigator, and should have been disbarred when it
came to light that Agent John Connolly tipped off Whitey Bulger about a bug that State Police
put in the Lancaster St. Garage, which served as Whitey's office. John Connolly is in prison,
and his boss is lionized as a hero.
Seer , July 4, 2019 at 11:35
I too watched the film: subtle reminder- people ought to be sure to pay for it!
Seems to be similar to the well choreographed story of The White Helmets. The deception is
so widespread that it's nearly impossible to fully expose.
Seems that the Deep State HAS to
be involved in here somewhere: I've claimed that the CIA (and or FBI) was active in ensuring
Sanders wouldn't rise above HRC in the 2016 campaign; the trail was leading here so the
"players" unleashed the Russiagate circus (and we didn't even get any bread with it!).
Jerry Markatos , July 3, 2019 at 18:59
After watching the important film by Andrei Nekrasov, "The Magnitsky Act: Behind the
Scenes," I was embarrassed for the New Yorker and their running a puff piece with swindler
Browder anointing himself as a brave human rights hero standing up to the Russians. I hope
I'm not the only one who wrote the New Yorker editor urging a visit to Consortiumnews and an
evening with Nekrasov's docudrama. Robert Parry in a brief series of questions to people who
knew Sergei Magnitsky and an investigative reporter's nose for fraud, swiftly offered key
truths about the Magnitsky affair to readers of this site. If anyone else sees a possibility
of a mainstream magazine having an appetite either for detailing a fascinating and
consequential fraud or a willingness to eat crow, have at it!
Clark M Shanahan , July 4, 2019 at 10:48
The New Yorker and the lion's share of our MSM and late night talk shows (Colbert,
foremost) became collateral damage to Coronated-Hill's Clown-Car Fiasco.
Hill successfully projected her loss into the victimization of nearly half of the Nation.
Many of the enablers of this hoax must know better, using the "ends justify the means"
rationalization; as our self-appointed "protector" Colbert.
Robert Parry was clearly spot on about Browder and his fraud.
But the fraudster will not just go away, why should he, if he has been so successful in
his deception and fraud. Now we see that he is "leading" a charge against money laundering in
some of the European banks. If nothing else, the fraudster "continues:"
After having read all of the comments, I like to ask a question.
Neither in the story, nor in the comment section, I found any remark about the Skripal
affair.
Have you all forgotten how BOJO leaned himself out of the window, outdoing himself and his
degenerate former boss by accusing Russia of poisoning the Skripals and whoever else with
'Novi-shock'?
And this pathetic liar and accuser of Russia with as much as ZERO evidence is now at the
helm of HMS Titanic?
No wonder people can't figure out what's really going on in the world. Considering his
rabid "The Russians did it" tripe as FM, he should have been barred from public office for
the rest of his life.
Unless, of course, it's all nothing but low grade ham theater, with everybody playing
their role - including the Russians. But I do remember the kind of actions this guy wanted to
take against Russia, for 'highly likely' having been behind this fairy tale of a double agent
and his daughter.
So, please humor me about how much you remember of the stellar performance of this utter
joke calling for sanctions and worse against Russia.
....Russians believe that the Skripal affair has been much more damaging to HMG than it
has to Russia, and have no interest in removing the mystery surrounding it - the more people
delve, the more it stinks. Montreal @ 135 on Skripal thread.
I have heard similar, along the lines 'storm in a tea cup makes the Brits ridiculous',..
Putin knows what went down (or at least what didn't and the rough scenario.)
Remember when VP said in public that he encouraged the two Russians identified as
'culprits' (tourists in Salisbury..) to come forward - they promtly did so, correctly
figuring that this was a protection guarantee for them. They hated, were afraid, to do it,
and set stupid conditions with the Head of RT, trying to limit personal image damage. She
couldn't refuse because of VP's advice.
Putin could publicly wonder why Britain is keeping them incommunicado. What are the
Brits hiding? Even a devoted Empire supporter would have to agree that it is most peculiar.
Yet Putin claims to have no knowledge on the subject, which is almost certainly untrue.
Rob 136 that thread.
The Russians have made, and make, regular requests to have access to the Skripals via the
usual channels, int'l etc. (+ by Red Cross if need be.) They are turned down everytime, but
the situation is complex, as GB has various 'excuses' to hand: -> for protection of
Skripals -> Yulia has stated she does not want -> Sergei is a swapped spy and etc. etc.
(briefly and not 'legal' terms.) Conventional moves from the Russian side.
Putin has strenuously stated that traitors are the vilest scum, in harmony imho with his
general principles as presented to the public, so why should he do SFA to help, or stand by,
Sergei, who sold his country's 'secrets' for paltry sums and privileges .. (and Yulia, who is
most likely? involved somehow? - maybe not .. -) On the other hand, Sergei did his time, has
been pardoned, can do as he likes, where is the problem, the rule of law is such .. (alaff at
137 that thread makes that point forcibly..)
> The Russians sneer at this crazed hyped-up scenario of Novichok poisoning, re. some
minor incident, rightly so, imho. Which does NOT mean the Skripals weren't targeted with some
'substance', hospitalized, etc. nor that Dawn Sturgess didn't die, and Charlie survived but
has lost his agency and sense, nor that Porton Down was involved somehow.
The Skripals are kept incommunicado because they can't be allowed to speak out about what
happened. Clue: nothing to do with Novichok or anything of world importance.
These local minor stories, situations, which may even be fabricated or 'engineered', are
cynically upgraded to world-wide-media horrors by pols and the media, to manipulate the plebs
with movie-script scenarios they can understand and relate to and take sides on and
also at the same time 'be divided' endlessly discussing BS about this that the other and what
more etc. etc.
"... Putin now confirms that Skripal was indeed willing to come back to Russia. Oliver Stone thinks Skripal wanted to present something to the press. If Skripal had publicly said that he made up and wrote the Steele dossier, the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign by the Clinton 'resistance' would have been over. The whole Mueller investigation nonsense would never have happened. ..."
"... The reality probably is thus: The Brits cold-bloodedly poisoned him and his daughter to tar the Russians. Then a straight British fabrication story that holds no water anywhere along the way. They did it, and he had no value to them, so why not? His daughter? She's Russian. Of no use to them. ..."
"... In the scheme of things, it was a trivial act of poisoning with a huge payoff, which they achieved. ..."
"... The Skripals were doped with BZ nerve agent. It is likely that Sergei has been maintained in a near vegetative state with psychotropic drugs since then as a means to keep him in storage. There was no novichok other than the fresh batch made at Porton Down and used to amateurishly spike the sample sent to the OPCW for analysis. ..."
"... The scenario b describes is the most probable of all that I've heard. Spook agencies such as the MI6 and CIA like to think of themselves as thrifty with their assets and thus accomplish multiple objectives with a single operation. They believe themselves to be clever that way. For this reason they would have been unlikely to have doped the Skripals for the sole purpose of implicating Russia. There are any number of other ways that they could have arranged an incident that makes Russia look bad. The operation would have had to serve other purposes as well, and silencing Sergei and preventing his embarrassing return to Russia would be suitable additional purposes. There were likely other objectives within the operation as well such as smoking out leakers. ..."
"... It would be well to remember that in early March last year, about the same time that the Skripals were found collapsed on the park bench in The Maltings shopping centre by Alison McCourt and her award-winning heroic teenage daughter, that the Syrian Arab Army liberated Douma / East Ghouta (or most of that area anyway) near Damascus and captured 300 terrorists. Among the captured fighters were found British and French "military advisors". The British government (and probably likely the French government: do people remember that Moscow also thumped Paris over its role in the Skripal poisoning saga?) needed a diversion from that sorry tale that would have exposed Britain and France's sordid roles in the failed US-led invasion of Syria and the overthrow of Syria's government. ..."
"... It is possible that Skripal, living alone in his house and his pets, and facing a lonely future in Britain after his daughter, the other surviving member of his family, started making wedding arrangements that would have meant fewer visits to Britain to see her father, had contemplated returning to Russia and had made known his wish to a few people he thought he could trust. ..."
"... It might very well be that - unfortunately for the Skripals - Skripal's handler and British government spook agencies were and are as much taken with conspiracy thinking and the conspiracy mind-set as Oliver Stone was (in his interview with Vladimir Putin) and those agencies feared that Skripal was going to spill the beans about his (possible) involvement in the Steele dossier and implicate them. ..."
"... Thanks b, a timely post. I sometimes suspect that the outing of Integrity Initiative and Institute for Statecraft was a Russian payback for the defaming antics perpetrated by the MI6 morons. I have no proof as it was meticulously anonymous. Its a comforting thought here in the gaslit studio of humanity. ..."
"... Putin states now openly it helped "to cause a scandal" supposedly for various geopolitical reasons. ..."
"... As I understood it, Sergei Skripal was more mercenary than spook, in the business of selling info because he could profit from it. In other words, more Aldrich Ames or Hanssen than Philby. ..."
"... He may have overplayed his hand - obviously, his plans leaked out - and UK intelligence (perhaps with the US involved) decided to stage the incident. Or perhaps - as is possible with someone who'll play both sides - Sergei was the leaker in an attempt to gain more currency with Moscow. ..."
"... The British police knew of the perfume bottle early on. The first theory of the poisoning presented to the public was that Yulia had brought the novichok from Russian in her luggage. There was even speculation that it was in a perfume bottle that Yulia had suddenly decided to open on the bench. (This did not sound plausible at the time as it would not explain how the novichok hit Sergei.) ..."
"... We know the police were all over looking for the missing perfume bottle. They could not find it, because Sergei had already dumped it in the charity bin. Maybe Sergei even told them where he put it, but Charlie had found it before MI6 could recover it. ..."
"... There is no Russian state component in it. Not even a Roque element. The claim is total BS. Short analysis shows, that management of this "case" is entirely in the realm of the UK. ..."
"... A lot of elements of this operation had to be prepared upfront and controlled while the operation is unfolding. It remains open, whether or not the skripals where in on the plot, probably not. But anyone asserting the "Russia did it/novichok" story does lack the sanity to be trusted with state matters. ..."
"... Both from interview transcripts and RT article it's clear that the part P. says he does not believe is that S. has been poisoned by the British services (in response to Stone's question floating such a possibility). ..."
"... if Skripal suspected that the bottle contained something dodgy, wouldn't you think the last place he'd dispose of it would be a charity bin, if he were an intelligent ex-spook? ..."
"... That remark by Putin was actually in response only to the question of whether UK spooks poisoned Skripal to stop him returning to Russia, not about whether Skripal wanted to return: ..."
"... However, since the "agent" found by Swiss was Agent BZ, it might be more interesting to hear what poster 101 has to say about synthesizing BZ... ..."
"... From what I have heard, the Russians believe that the Skripal affair has been much more damaging to HMG than it has to Russia, and have no interest in removing the mystery surrounding it - the more people delve, the more it stinks. ..."
"... As an inhabitant of the UK, I can say that a lot of us were very shocked when the Government was trying to stuff these obvious lies down our throats, and it is what got a few of us onto alternative media - sick to death as we already were of the Brexit poison in the MSM. So a belated thank you to b, and your colleagues, what would we do without you. ..."
"... Btw, just to remind - Boris Berezovsky also was going to come back from UK to Russia, he wrote a letter to Putin. But "suddenly" it happened so that Berezovsky committed a "suicide". We can only guess what he could tell if he returned to Russia. Someone really did not want this information to become known... ..."
"... The presence of HMG nurse on site, and the subsequent Monty Pythom-esque cover up, seems proof enough that the UK had foreknowledge and without question, worked to keep the Russophobia stoked high not only after the incident, but the later killed a UK citizen to continue the incident. Mr. P is being diplomatic. ..."
Putin Confirms: Sergei Skripal Wanted To Go Back To Russia
Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian Federation,
Vladimir Putin. The transcript was published yesterday
evening. Most of the interview is about Ukraine. A separate piece will cover that country.
There is also a passage about the U.S. election.
But the most interesting bits from Putin are about the Skripal affair.
The British and Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia were impaired by
some chemical substance in early March 2018 in Salisbury. Britain blamed the incident on
Russia. CIA Director Gina Haspel, a former CIA station chief in London, used
fake pictures of the incident to deceive Trump and to push him to kick out 60 Russian
diplomats. (The NYT later
ran cover for Haspel.)
We have speculated since the very beginning of the Skirpal case that the 'former' spy wanted
to go back to Russia. Putin now confirms , to my knowledge for the first
time, that this was the case (underline added):
Oliver Stone: What has happened to Skripal? Where is he?
Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. He is a spy, after all. He is always in hiding.
Oliver Stone: They say he was going to come back to Russia. He had some information.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I have been told that he wants to make a written request to come
back.
Oliver Stone: He knew still and he wanted to come back. He had information that he could
give to the world press here in Russia.
Vladimir Putin: I doubt it. He has broken the ranks already. What kind of information can
he possess?
The information Sergei Skripal possessed might have been related to the U.S. election and
the Steele dossier which alleged that Russia had dirt on Trump. On March 8 2018, only a few
days after the Sergei and Julia Skripal were allegedly poisoned, we discussed the connection in
our first
post on the Skripal affair :
[Christopher] Steele was an MI6 undercover agent in Moscow around the time when Skripal
was recruited and handed Russian secrets over to the MI6. He [later] ran the MI6 Russia desk
so anything about Skripal will have passed through him. It is very likely that they
personally knew each other. Pablo Miller, who worked for Steele's private company [Orbis],
lived in the same town as Skripal and they seems to have been friends since Miller had
recruited him. Miller or someone else attempted to cover up the connection to Steele by
editing his LinkedIn entry.
Here are some question:
Did Skripal help Steele to make up the "dossier" about Trump?
Were Skripal's old connections used to contact other people in Russia to ask about
Trump dirt?
Did Skripal threaten to talk about this?
If there is a connection between the dossier and Skripal, which seems very likely to me,
then there are a number of people and organizations with potential motives to kill him. Lots
of shady folks and officials on both sides of the Atlantic were involved in creating and
running the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign. There are several investigations and some very
dirty laundry might one day come to light. Removing Skripal while putting the blame on Russia
looks like a convenient way to get rid of a potential witness.
The British government issued a D-Notice which prohibited the British press from further
mentioning Pablo Miller.
We also speculated that Skripal wanted to go back to Russia:
The most curious point in the affair though is the visit of the daughter. She had just
come from Moscow to visit her lonely father when both were poisoned in a rather sensational
way. There must be some reason why she was involved in this.
Did she have a bad message for him?
Did they both decide that suicide was the only way out?
Was locally bought Fentanyl involved as the local press had reported?
or
Was the lonely old man Sergej Skripal preparing to go back to his homeland Russia?
Did he offer a some kind of "gift" as apology to the Russian government that his
trusted daughter would take to Moscow?
Did someone find out and stop the transfer?
The above questions are all highly speculative. But the connection between Steele and
Skripal is way too deep to be irrelevant here. It certainly deserves more digging.
Putin now confirms that Skripal was indeed willing to come back to Russia. Oliver Stone
thinks Skripal wanted to present something to the press. If Skripal had publicly said that he
made up and wrote the Steele dossier, the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign by the Clinton
'resistance' would have been over. The whole Mueller investigation nonsense would never have
happened.
Pablo Miller, the British spy, also
appeared in the papers of the shady Integrity Initiative :
There is additional
suspicion that the Integrity Initiative, whose primary function is to stoke
Russophobia, was one of the brains behind the Skripal incident.
The Initiative was also involved in the Steele dossier and the russophobic
anti-Trump campaign. Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, is employed by the
Institute for Statecraft , the shadowy parent organization of the Integrity
Initiative funded by the Ministry of Defense and Foreign Office. It was Andrew Wood who
helped
to disseminate the Steele dossier to U.S. Senator John McCain. McCain then gave the
dossier to FBI Director James Comey. The FBI used the dossier first to get FISA warrants to
spy on the Trump campaign, and, after Comey was fired, to
launch a counter-intelligence investigation (section 3) against Trump himself.
Here is a theory how all this may come together. Back in 2015 the Institute of
Statecraft and its russophobic director Colonel Donnelly
discussed how to increase sanctions on Russia. In 2016 the Steele dossier was created in
an attempt to connect Trump to Russia. Steele's colleague Pablo Miller and his spy Sergei
Skripal were quite likely involved in creating the dossier. The dossier was disseminated with
the help of Donnelly's Institute of Statecraft .
For some reason the Skripals had to be taken out. Sergei Skripal probably threatened to
spill the beans about the dossier after it became public. The highly scripted 'Novichok'
incident in Salisbury was staged to remove Skripal and to smear Russia with an alleged murder
attempt. Colonel McCourt, the trusted army nurse, was asked to help on the scene. After the
Skripal incident, and with no evidence shown, Russia was blamed and massive sanctions
followed. The Integrity Initiative , the propaganda arm of the Institute of
Statecraft , analyzes the media results of the Skripal affair and continues to stoke the
anti-Russia campaign.
It might be possible that Steele's 'dirty dossier', the Skripal case and the Integrity
Initiative operation are unrelated. But that chance for that now tends towards zero.
The weak part of that theory was always that we did not know for sure if Sergei Skripal
really wanted to go back to Russia. We now know that this was the case. Oliver Stone seems to
know that Skripal wanted to go public about something. That makes the theory fit even
better.
Putin does not
believe that the Skripals were poisoned to kill them:
Oliver Stone: Who poisoned him? They say English secret services did not want Sergei
Skripal to come back to Russia?
Vladimir Putin: To be honest, I do not quite believe this. I do not believe this is the
case.
Oliver Stone: Makes sense. You do not agree with me?
Vladimir Putin: If they had wanted to poison him, they would have done so.
Oliver Stone: Ok, that makes sense. I don't know. Who did then?
Vladimir Putin: After all, this is not a hard thing to do in today's world. In fact, a
fraction of a milligram would have been enough to do the job. And if they had him in their
hands, there was nothing complicated about it. No, this does not make sense. Maybe they just
wanted to provoke a scandal.
Oliver Stone: I think it is more complicated. You know, you think I am much too much of a
conspiracy guy.
Vladimir Putin: I do not believe this.
Oliver Stone: I have seen things. I do.
Vladimir Putin: You should not.
When and where will the Oliver Stone documentary about the Skripal affair have its
premiere?
--- Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:
Doubt that, Skripal's enemies is in Russia, Putin have earlier stated
Skripal was a traitor and should be treated as such. Why Skripal would go Russia after he
deliberately moved out of Russia after an assault most likely carried out by someone in
Russia, that makes no sense.
Doubt that, Skripal's enemies is in Russia, Putin have earlier stated Skripal
was a traitor and should be treated as such. Why Skripal would go Russia after he
deliberately moved out of Russia after an assault most likely carried out by someone in
Russia, that makes no sense.
Skripal was caught in Russia when he spied for the Brits. He went to jail for five or so
years. Then the Brits wanted to exchange him for a Russian agent they (or the U.S.) had
caught. Skripal was released from jail for having served most his time and exchanged. Russia
has no more interest in persecuting him. Skripal did not 'deliberately move out of Russia'.
There was no assault by Russia on him.
Zanon you statement it typical misinformation, you took only a part of Putin statement!Yes,
he said that, but he also said, that he already served his time for that so he is of no
interest to the authorities!
It's been a full year now since Yulia's last (controlled) appearance to the public. The
notion that the Skripals are in some kind of "witness protection program" has been suggested
but never confirmed. There's no indication as to what they may have been witness to, let
alone any statement of fact from them at all regarding the Salsbury events. This is highly
unusual since the UK government made such a high-profile international incident of it all. Is
Putin asked of the apparent forced disappearance of a Russian citizen (Yulia Skripal)?
This adds some weight to the theory that the two Russian "tourists" were delivering something
(paperwork? fake passports? ) that Skripal wanted, not trying to kill him. Or, perhaps, they
picked up something FROM Skripal?
The sentence where Putin confirms Stone's idea that Skripal wanted to go back to Russia is
oddly stated:
"Yes, I have been told that he wants to make a written request to come back."
1. Putin used present tense: Skripal "wants", rather than "wanted". Doesn't that imply
some communication since the "incident"?
2. The bit about the "written request" part is way more specific than I would have expected.
It sounds like Skripal wasn't just vaguely dreaming about going back to Mother Russia, but
was taking steps to do so. Were the "tourists" delivering the proper bureaucratic Form that
Skripal would need to fill out?
I may be reading way to much into this - it could just be idiosyncratic aspects of Putin
speaking in English, or bad translation.
Who would not poison him and his daughter? The Russians.
If he wanted to return, he would have to possess information that was worth taking him
back and letting him live out his life in peace.
Would the crap Trump wanted to know be that infrmation?
He was being handled by Mi6 and knew he had no way to communicate with the Russians.
He needed his daughter to cut a deal.
The Brits could have easily pierced Skirpal's communication with his daughter (even if it
was a whisper in her ear).
Would he risk his life and his daughter's life for such a long-shot 'deal'?
And the foundation question in all this is "Did Skirpal work on the Steele Dossier, and
what did he contribute to that document?"
It's all a MacGuffin.
The reality probably is thus: The Brits cold-bloodedly poisoned him and his daughter to tar the Russians. Then a
straight British fabrication story that holds no water anywhere along the way. They did it,
and he had no value to them, so why not? His daughter? She's Russian. Of no use to them.
In the scheme of things, it was a trivial act of poisoning with a huge payoff, which they
achieved.
Highly Likely it was a dirty trick by the Russophobic Brits. Nothing more. Sloppy Mi6
poisoning.
He speaks in the present, not in the past. And says 'he is a spy' meaning the guy kept
working for the Brits in the recent years. The Skripal affair was possibly used by May when
she was cornered during the Brexit negotiation. No doubt it had other effects as well, such
as forbidding any EU deal with the Russians over Syria.
Mina: Good catch.. IMHO all our speculations are futile anyway at this point. BOTH sides DO
NOT want to know us the whole truth. Only time will tell, when those people directly involve
actually talk and present hard evidence.
Addition: I would asume the Interview will be worth a watch anyway. The "Putin Interviews"
makes for an interesting watch.Though stone seems sometimes more taken away by his own world view and narrative. But he has
his hearth in the right place i assume, and provides some insights to western mass media
watchers that they would otherwise never get.
There was no poisoning ... nobody died of Novichok ... Skripal and his daughter are alive and
well ... the incident was staged ... it was a kabuki piece of anti - Russia malarkey poorly
executed
If Skripal had publicly said that he made up and wrote the Steele dossier, the
anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign by the Clinton 'resistance' would have been over. The whole
Mueller investigation nonsense would never have happened.
I doubt that. The Russiagate-mongers have always been totally proof against any and all
evidence of reality, from day one to today. In this case they would've just said he was
lying, either to suck up to Putin and/or because Putin threatened him.
Why has Skripal never given a public interview? Because he's dead? Nah, the idiots in the
Conservative government would have milked that dry. My best guess is that the British
government know that he'll say something very damaging to the Conservative government and
that can't be allowed to happen. What that something could be can only be guessed at, but it
could be that the Steele Report was authorised and approved by the Conservative government.
This is one event I get nowhere with. In fact the only piece of information that gives me any
info that I feel credible is how convinced a UK ambassador I am familiar with was about
Russia being behind it, not by details given in person to me but just how they went about in
reaction. There are ambassadors and ambassadors, and this one being a nicer person, quite
meticulous, and not one to purposefully lie. That proves nothing though :( .
"Filmmaker and conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone has made no secret of his admiration for
Russian President Vladimir Putin, but now he has taken it to a whole new level by trying to
make him his 22-year-old daughter's godfather. "
So, the question remains: Where in the world are the Skripals at this very moment? I do not
believe that Putin does not know the answer, but for reasons of his own, he is keeping it to
himself. Possibly, he wants the whole affair to disappear quietly down the memory hole. Of
course, the story may return to the public eye someday. Sort of like a cold-case murder that
finally gets solved.
@35 rob.... the skripals are being frozen out by the same means at the uk's D-notice... do
the math.. it is very clear.. it has nothing to do with putin, in fact they need to keep
skripals out of the picture forever, or until that is way past it's by use date - 30 years??
I don't think the Putin statement makes any difference. It confirms the Theory that the
Russians did it equally as well as it confirms that the Brits or Americans did it.
MRD applies.
And it won't convince anyone either.
And of course the "believe 10 incredible things before breakfast" claims in the straits of
Hormuz this month. We are getting close to the point where May or Trump is going to flat out call their own
intelligence services liars and creators of false flags.
The Skripals were doped with BZ nerve agent. It is likely that Sergei has been maintained in
a near vegetative state with psychotropic drugs since then as a means to keep him in storage. There was no novichok other than the fresh batch made at Porton Down and used to
amateurishly spike the sample sent to the OPCW for analysis.
Putin refers to Sergei being a spy in the present tense since Putin knows that once
someone is a spook they are always a spook. It is not a career one can retire from.
The scenario b describes is the most probable of all that I've heard. Spook agencies such
as the MI6 and CIA like to think of themselves as thrifty with their assets and thus
accomplish multiple objectives with a single operation. They believe themselves to be clever
that way. For this reason they would have been unlikely to have doped the Skripals for the
sole purpose of implicating Russia. There are any number of other ways that they could have
arranged an incident that makes Russia look bad. The operation would have had to serve other
purposes as well, and silencing Sergei and preventing his embarrassing return to Russia would
be suitable additional purposes. There were likely other objectives within the operation as
well such as smoking out leakers.
Do feel pity for the Atlantic Council trolls who are tasked with trying to subtly
reinforce the nonsense novichok narrative. Theirs is not an easy job.
The former Russian intelligence officer, who came to Britain in 2010 as part of a spy swap,
regretted being a double agent and wanted to visit his family, his friend Vladimir
Timoshkov told the BBC.
So HMG was embarrassed they could not protect their spy?
As for Putin's responses to Stone being more ambiguous than you would like, please consider
Putin's position. He is trying to be diplomatic and is unlikely to come out and make blunt
accusations even if he is certain about them beyond any shadow of doubt. He needs to leave
his "partners" in Britain and the US the wiggle room to climb down from their nonsense
if they come to their senses. Furthermore, if he gives signals that Russia is willing to
repatriate the Skripals then that could sign the Skripals' death warrant. Best for the
Skripals if the British and Americans feel confident that the Skripals are securely pinned
down.
You have to be careful what you say when dealing with psychopaths that you don't trigger
them into violence with a misplaced word.
It would be well to remember that in early March last year, about the same time that the
Skripals were found collapsed on the park bench in The Maltings shopping centre by Alison
McCourt and her award-winning heroic teenage daughter, that the Syrian Arab Army liberated
Douma / East Ghouta (or most of that area anyway) near Damascus and captured 300 terrorists.
Among the captured fighters were found British and French "military advisors". The British
government (and probably likely the French government: do people remember that Moscow also
thumped Paris over its role in the Skripal poisoning saga?) needed a diversion from that
sorry tale that would have exposed Britain and France's sordid roles in the failed US-led
invasion of Syria and the overthrow of Syria's government.
At the same time a military exercise in which troops apparently rehearsed a poisoning
incident had just been completed in the Salisbury / Porton Down area. McCourt had taken part
in that exercise.
It is possible that Skripal, living alone in his house and his pets, and facing a lonely
future in Britain after his daughter, the other surviving member of his family, started
making wedding arrangements that would have meant fewer visits to Britain to see her father,
had contemplated returning to Russia and had made known his wish to a few people he thought
he could trust. But whether he had information about his role (or no role) in cooking up the
stories in the Steele dossier that Oliver Stone suggested he had, that he was planning to
tell the Kremlin, is another thing. It might very well be that - unfortunately for the
Skripals - Skripal's handler and British government spook agencies were and are as much taken
with conspiracy thinking and the conspiracy mind-set as Oliver Stone was (in his interview
with Vladimir Putin) and those agencies feared that Skripal was going to spill the beans
about his (possible) involvement in the Steele dossier and implicate them.
These people are spies after all, and once a spook, always a spook. And spooks also look
for a scheme that can hit two (and more) birds with the one stone; any consequences that
arise, such as what to tell the public, can be dealt with later. Hence, the poisoning
incident, that can be blamed on Russia and justify further sanctioning and arms build-up and
expenditures (benefiting then PM Theresa May's husband financially), that deflects attention
away from what just happened in Syria, and which removes someone from (possibly) telling the
truth about supposed Russian involvement in the 2016 US Presidential elections, was a
concoction too good to pass up.
Thanks b, a timely post. I sometimes suspect that the outing of Integrity Initiative and
Institute for Statecraft was a Russian payback for the defaming antics perpetrated by the MI6
morons. I have no proof as it was meticulously anonymous. Its a comforting thought here in
the gaslit studio of humanity.
I had a good laugh at one poster who had it on good authority from a trustworthy
ambassador that the Skripals are in USA. The ambassadors of the world are usually well versed
in gaslighting. More on that subject at Corbet Report or Thomas Sheridan.
The big problem with Skripals etc was that they would reveal the complicity of the UK in
developing the Steele dirty dossier to get Hillary the vulgar elected. They backed the wrong
team and got caught playing dirty.
Finding ambiguity or evasiveness in President Putin's answers to Skripal-related questions is
not surprising - after all he knows that anything he says will automatically be discredited
by the MSM echo chambers. By keeping his answers open-ended he challenges the western public
to ask questions and find their own answers. Sadly, few will read or view with the open minds
often found here at MoA.
Russian and English transcripts are not identical. In the Russian version, they both speak in
the past sense, literally:
-It WAS said, that he would return to Russia, that he has some information
-Yes, I WAS told, he wants to write a paper, ask to return
-It WAS said that he intendED to return here and to provide some information to the press
From grammar, that was all said in the past, and was accurate as of that past moment (:
the present tense is used after "that")
The source was not explained by either of them (...and indeed FWIW it reminds of
Berezovsky...)
but it makes sense because they would be recognised everywhere in UK.
I don't get the insinuation from you Uncle T, I mean that is not what I said if it was me
you meant. Same goes for WG insinuating there are trolls on board, it puts an air of
uncertainty amongst commentators like they have to check what they say not to be called
troll, and that is trolling. Why not just criticise a commentator directly and allow the
discussion to continue from that instead if you are serious, of setting the whole board on
edge ?
When I linked to the Putin-Stone transcript yesterday on the open thread, I purposely omitted
the Skripal discussion and posted the bit about American culture. I did so because of its
convoluted nature, as many have noted. I read it 3-4 times and I still couldn't make sense of
it via my usual methods of discourse analysis. In fact, the entire transcript is a series of
convolutions. It would be better to see the filmed original and go from there. Of course, the
Kremlin seemed okay with the transcript's form otherwise it wouldn't have been published.
As for the kidnapping of the Skripals by the UK government, IMO that's now the real
scandal, but there seems no interest in it as BigLie Media has dumped the affair down its
memory hole. And the truth of the matter is yet another reason why the UK's Deep State cannot
allow Corbyn to gain power. Somehow, the UK citizenry must oust the Tories and Blairites,
install Corbyn, and regain control over their destiny. Until that happens, the Skripals's
fate and so much more will remain unanswered.
As for the UK-sponsored Lie Machines, Kit Klarenberg continues his
excellent work uncovering their schemes and continues to get his reporting published by
Sputnik , as with the item linked within the above tweet:
"A reminder of when Integrity Initiative's bff @haynesdeborah, who'd been writing about
#Skripal on an almost daily basis for over a year, believed an NYT story that totally
contradicted the official Salisbury narrative and her own reporting on the subject."
Kit's just one of a small army of excellent online investigators worthy of following on
Twitter and their publishing outlets.
"For some reason the Skripals had to be taken out".
Is in this case perhaps not the simplest provided reason not also the best candidate?
Skripal f#@&ed his old KGB buddies and he got payed back while of course, for dual use
purposes, Putin states now openly it helped "to cause a scandal" supposedly for various
geopolitical reasons. Russia already see itself at war, it's not "hoping".
Putin 2010" "Traitors will kick the bucket, believe me. Those other folks betrayed their
friends, their brother in arms" and "Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of
silver they were given, they will choke on them."
Putin 2019 (FT interview)" "Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors must be
punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way to do it. Not at all. But
traitors must be punished."
Now do we *really* need a complex theory when Putin calls it openly "the gravest crime
possible"? Of course, some parties could have used this tension but sometimes we should not
look for complexity when simpler solutions are there: motive, some evidence, perpetrator and
murder weapon. Just not very *refined* but efficiency in terms of killing was perhaps not
even the point being made. What is being demonstrated is willingness and means.
Oliver Stone. Well, at least he tries. His most brilliant film, in my opinion, was Natural
Born killers which was Kubrikesque as a sort of new take on A Clockwork Orange. But being a
great film director does not make you a great researcher and analyst.
Putin most definitely has a sense of humour and I think that's what keeps him going.
Just to throw it into the bubbling pot, there was that single report in May that Sergei
Skripal, like ET, had finally phoned home. IIRC, earlier (c. March or April) there was a
story with an audio clip about a telephone call between Yulia and her cousin in Russia.
I'm providing this link to a Telegraph article about the Sergei call just as a starting
point for anyone who may be curious. I certainly can't vouch for the Telegraph's veracity,
and of course have no rational way to assess the account's authenticity and significance.
True or not, like every other "development" in this riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside
an enigma of l'affaire Skripal, it raises far more questions than it answers.
FWIW, I think Putin's intellect and statesmanship is impressive. But he's undoubtedly a
bit of a Cheshire Cat.
As I understood it, Sergei Skripal was more mercenary than spook, in the business of selling
info because he could profit from it. In other words, more Aldrich Ames or Hanssen than
Philby.
He was selling info to MI6 in exchange for cash and a holiday home in Spain. He got
caught, spent some time in jail and Russia swapped him because there was no further damage he
could do.
It was probably that same mercenary spirit that made him want to go back and he would have
known he'd have to make his wares really appealing to Moscow to let him back in. I'd think
the Steele dossier and Russiagate seemed like a perfect opportunity for him to state - or
perhaps -- overstate the importance of his information.
He may have overplayed his hand - obviously, his plans leaked out - and UK intelligence
(perhaps with the US involved) decided to stage the incident. Or perhaps - as is possible
with someone who'll play both sides - Sergei was the leaker in an attempt to gain more
currency with Moscow.
I'd think that Putin knows exactly what went on and this would also explain why Russia
hasn't been making a stink about one of their citizens - Yulia - being held prisoner/hostage
in the UK for well over a year.
Let's take the famous Nina Ricci perfume bottle, laced with novichok, which was found in
a rubbish bin or charity bin by a homeless man and given weeks later to his woman friend,
who tragically died after spraying it on her wrist. The police/MI6 narrative is that this
perfume bottle was used to transport the novichok from Russia in the baggage of one of the
alleged GRU men caught on CCTV in Salisbury. The novichok was then sprayed on the door
handle of the Skripals' house. The assassins then callously threw away the bottle (which
they knew contained enough novichok to kill more people) in a dustbin or charity bin,
demonstrating their indifference to loss of life as well as their indifference to leaving
clues all over the place. There are problems with this narrative.
The homeless man claimed he had found the perfume bottle still in its box sealed in
cellophane, proof it was not reopened after it had been laced with novichok and
professionally repackaged. The bottle could not therefore have been used (as claimed) to
spray the novichok on the doorknob, or the cellophane seal would have been broken.
Assassins far from home don't usually carry around cellophane-wrapping machines to
repackage opened perfume bottles, especially when they are just going to chuck them in the
bin. Nor would they take the risk, having fitted the separate spray nozzle onto the bottle
and sprayed the doorknob, of disassembling it again to put it back in the box, knowing that
a drop on their skin would kill them. And where would they perform this delicate operation?
On the street? This poisoned perfume bottle was therefore never reopened, never used and it
affected nobody until it ended up in the hands of the homeless man. So who or what was it
intended for?
Ladies' perfume bottles are normally intended for women. How many women are there in
this story? Only one. The only possible explanation for the existence of this unopened,
unused bottle of perfume laced with novichok is that it was a poisoned gift meant for Yulia
Skripal. Why didn't she open it? Because she had a spy father who took one look at it and
said: "Don't touch it!"
So here is the alternative narrative. MI6 had the bright idea of putting novichok in a
Nina Ricci perfume bottle and sending it as a birthday present to Yulia Skripal at her
father's house. Her birthday was on 17th March, but the present was probably delivered on
the 3rd, the day she arrived, so as to nip their escape plan in the bud. It was meant to
seem like a present from her family or boyfriend. No doubt the parcel had Russian stamps on
it, designed to frame the Russian state when the Skripals were found dead in their house
with an open perfume bottle in Yulia's hands. Unfortunately for MI6, Sergei took one look
at this Nina Ricci perfume bottle and his spy instincts smelled danger. He refused to open
it, but instead went for a long walk with it and put it in a rubbish bin or charity bin
half-way across town. There it was found by the homeless man and given to his woman friend,
a victim of MI6's murderous callousness. Even after MI6 knew it had gone missing, they did
not warn the public to beware of picking up a Nina Ricci perfume bottle because they didn't
want to give themselves away as the assassins.
The British police knew of the perfume bottle early on. The
first theory of the poisoning presented to the public was that Yulia had brought the
novichok from Russian in her luggage. There was even speculation that it was in a perfume
bottle that Yulia had suddenly decided to open on the bench. (This did not sound plausible at
the time as it would not explain how the novichok hit Sergei.)
The nerve agent that poisoned the Russian spy Sergei Skripal was planted in his
daughter's suitcase before she left Moscow, intelligence agencies now believe.
Senior sources have told the Telegraph they are convinced the Novichok nerve agent was
hidden in the luggage of Yulia Skripal, the double agent's 33-year-old daughter.
They are working on the theory that the toxin was impregnated in an item of clothing or
cosmetics or else in a gift that was opened in his house in Salisbury,
meaning Miss Skripal was deliberately targeted to get at her father.
We know the police were all over looking for the missing perfume bottle. They could not
find it, because Sergei had already dumped it in the charity bin. Maybe Sergei even told them
where he put it, but Charlie had found it before MI6 could recover it.
Zanon: "Doubt that, Skripal's enemies is in Russia, Putin have earlier stated Skripal was
a traitor and should be treated as such."
He *was* a traitor, and he *was* treated as such: arrest, trial, conviction,
imprisonment.
But business is business. Once the Russians had let him rot away in prison for years then
there was still some residual value to be squeezed from him i.e. a spy-swap.
The rules of that game are very well-defined: you agree on the people, you do the
swap-over, and then you walk away.
The dude you hand over goes into anonymous retirement, and both sides are content that
they have done the right thing by their own.
Zanon: "Why Skripal would go Russia after he deliberately moved out of Russia after an
assault most likely carried out by someone in Russia"
Oh, pllllllllllease. That sentence makes no chronological sense.
This is the sequence of events that makes the most sense:
1) Skripal is recruited by Pablo Miller
2) Skripal spies on behalf of the British
3) Skripal is caught and imprisoned by the Russians
4) Skripal is swapped for some Russian spies
5) Skripal "retires" to Salisbury
6) Skripal and Miller concoct the entire "dossier" in a pub, laughing uproariously
7) Skripal sees The Shit Hit The Fan in the USA over that "dossier"
8) Skripal thinks "Oh, crap, this could end badly" and puts out some feelers
9) Skripal's daughter brings a message: Two men are coming in a few days to talk to you, you
can trust them, the deal they will propose is that you will be welcome back to Russia if you
agree dump on the "dossier" in a press conference.
The two dudes turn up, but no meeting took place because someone else "novichoked" Skripal
before he could get to that meeting.
Zanon: ", that makes no sense."
Pig's arse it doesn't. It. Makes. Perfect. Sense.
Skripal was swapped because as far as the Russians were concerned that was all the value
he had left to him.
Once he got involved in the "dossier" then his value to the Russians skyrocket i.e. he
could blow the lid off "Russiagate", but only if the Russians can get him back to Moscow.
They tried, and they failed. Someone else got to him first.
@49 Zanon "I am not here to post syncopath comments as you do, "
Zanon, baby, you are here for one purpose only: to suggest - time after tedious time -
that Vladimir Putin is to blame for everything that happens in this world.
A poisoning in Salisbury? Putin ordered the hit.
Israel bombs Syria? That was Putin's idea.
Iran is in Syria? Putin has already agreed to get rid of them. Blaming the Russians is your one and only trick.
Skripal was arrested and spent 5 years in a Russian prison. If "his old KGB buddies" had
wanted him dead then that's when he would have been killed.
Why on Earth would they swap him, watch him go into "retirement" in Salisbury, and only
then slap their foreheads and shout "Oh, shit, we gosh-darned forgot to kill him. Better send
some guys over there and bump him off".
Yesterday you posted an interesting heads up about state dept and Atlantic council
trolls working here. The context being crowing about the Panamanian deflagging of the Iranian
vessel.
They fear this blog that much to commit resources in order to change minds? I an
disappointed that Kissinger has not shown up yet. It makes me feel lowly and unimportant.
Even if Putin is perceived to be our enemy having a conversation would make some sense.
The West fears that they could not stand in a room with him openly and beat him in a debate.
His intellect would outclass them on every level. Minds would be changed and they fear that
hence the fear of even having a conversation about him.
This garbage works on many but I have noticed that people do eventually begin to think
differently if you softly point things out when the conversation turns that direction. They
fear open conversations like this unless they can tightly control and edit.
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning that Russian agents could seek
to further divide Americans by exploiting U.S. passions over whether pineapple belongs on
pizza.
It's a cheesy, playful warning -- but it's trying to deliver a serious message. Posted
online Wednesday by the department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the
tongue-in-cheek warning aims to help Americans identify and protect against propaganda
campaigns from Russia and other foreign adversaries.
After all,
the DHS warning says, Russian agents are capable of simultaneously insisting online that
"Being anti-pineapple is un-American!" while also pushing out posts saying "Millennials are
ruining pizza!""
"
A recent survey of 3,000 kids found that being a YouTube star was a more sought-after
profession than being an astronaut among kids in the US and the United Kingdom.
Children ages 8 to 12 in the US, the UK, and China were recently polled in honor of the
50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which resulted in the first person to walk on the
moon.
Kids in the US and the UK were three times as likely to want to be YouTubers or vloggers
as astronauts, while kids in China were more likely to want to be astronauts."
Here's a simple hypothesis: Sergey Skripal was involved with the fabrication of the Steele
dossier (we know this). Therefore, he was a risk to the UK government and security services,
as well as the US "democrats". Quite possibly Skripal signalled that he wanted to return to
Russia, but if he didn't he was still a risk because of what he knew. So TPTB made up the
story that the "russians had poisoned the Skripals with Novichok". As always in these cases,
it serves more than one purpose. In this case they got rid of the Skripal risk and they could
blame Russia again.
Could it be that PD already made the stuf but did not want to take credit, just in case it
ever proved useful in blaming some Douma-style incident to Russia? But before that happened,
everyone and his cat must know what Novichok is and that only Russia can make it. It had to
be introduced to the public somehow. And then the wrong President got elected.
I understand Russian and I speak a language with a similar grammar, and I have no idea
how to say "he said that he wants" in a way that implies something different than a wish made
at the time of speaking ("he wants") or a wish that existed before he spoke ("he wanted").
Implication about wishing after the time of speaking would require some elaboration, you
cannot make it by selecting tenses.
In Russian, as I have written above, one reports the tense as used by the person whose
action one is reporting. Thus:
"I want to go back to Russia" [Я хочу
вернуться в
Россию] is reported in Russian literally as:
Он сказал, что
хочет
вернуться в
Россию [He said that he wants to go back to Russia],
whereas in English, one should say: He said that he wanted to go back to Russia.
However, in Russian, one can add, for example, the term
якобы in order to express one's doubts about the
veracity of that action which one is reporting:
Он сказал, что
хочет, якобы,
вернуться в
Россию [literally: He said that he, allegedly, wants to
go back to Russia].
I asserted that any credible organic chemist could make novichok nerve agents. Here is my
final exam in my 1st year graduate organic synthesis course. Only one kid of 15 lost any
points. Uniquely Russian technology my ass....
Stone asked the Russian leader if he believes in the theory that Sergei Skripal wanted to return to Russia and divulge some
secrets but was stopped by the British government.
"Honestly, I don't really believe it. I don't believe it," Putin replied.
Files from the Porton Down military laboratory were found in a trash can in Northern London.
It's the laboratory where, according to the British authorities, nobody could walk out with
the poison on the eve of the Skripal poisoning. Classified documents are a terrorist's dream,
according to British intelligence agencies. So, they managed to walk out with them but failed
to walk out with the poison?
The Trump administration has not imposed a second round of sanctions on Russia over the
poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain more than eight months after telling Congress that
Moscow had triggered them.
State Department officials have repeatedly insisted the United States intends to impose
new sanctions, which are required under a law passed by Congress in 1991 on eliminating
chemical and biological weapons.
But several months have passed without news, and members of Congress say they have heard
little from the administration on the topic.
A former government official familiar with the matter told The Hill that the State and
Treasury departments finalized a proposed sanctions package by March at the latest, but top
officials have yet to sign off.
"Options have been ready to go for several months at this point and senior folks in the
administration haven't made the decision or given the green light to roll them out," the
former official said.
Bloomberg reported at the end of March that the White House had received the sanctions
package and that State and Treasury were waiting for the White House to sign off before they
issued the new punishment for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in
Salisbury.
The reason for the lack of action is shrouded in mystery. The White House did not offer a
comment for this story.
C'mon guys, the handling of the case shortly after the event rules out any Russian induced
poisoning, circumstantial evidence does not fit a nerve agent. Its an utmost hilarious
propaganda narrative. The Russian state orders an attack with an internationally banned
weapon of mass destruction on the territory of a Nato member? For late revenge, hurt
feelings? Doesn't anybody realize how stupid that sounds? The scenario brought forward, with
the perfume bottle, could (thinking opsec) have easily involve thousands of innocent victims.
Imagine the opening of the bottle in a mall. There is no Russian state component in it. Not
even a Roque element. The claim is total BS. Short analysis shows, that management of this
"case" is entirely in the realm of the UK.
The opcw sampling, the coincidental first responder military nurse, Pablo Miller...
A lot of elements of this operation had to be prepared upfront and controlled while the
operation is unfolding. It remains open, whether or not the skripals where in on the plot,
probably not. But anyone asserting the "Russia did it/novichok" story does lack the sanity to
be trusted with state matters.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns recent threats made by the London Metropolitan
Police to treat the publication of leaked information as a "criminal matter" - marking the
latest move to restrict press freedom in the UK in favour of national security.
Following a series of media reports containing details from leaked diplomatic cables
preceding the resignation of Sir Kim Darroch from his post as UK Ambassador to the US, the
London Metropolitan Police threatened to treat the publication of leaked documents as
criminal.
[...] On 12 July, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu
stated that "The publication of leaked communications, knowing the damage they have
caused or are likely to cause, may also be a criminal matter...I would advise all owners,
editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government
documents that may already be in their possession, or which may be offered to them, and to
turn them over to the police or give them back to their rightful owner, Her Majesty's
Government."
The following day, 13 July, Basu appeared to partially back down, stating
that the Met "respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent
editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold
an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state." However, Basu maintained that
publication "could also constitute a criminal offence, and one that carries no public
interest defence".
They are most likely in a black site lock up in Swest of England. Life sentence for
sure. There are plenty of suitable estates that are probable black sites. Every nation has
them I guess for their special prisoners. Julia and Sergei are prisoners of conscience, no
habeas corpus in UK.
Both from interview transcripts and RT article it's clear that the part P. says he does
not believe is that S. has been poisoned by the British services (in response to Stone's
question floating such a possibility).
On 24 March 2018 BBC posted a piecemeal-videoed interview with S. classmate named Vladimir
Timoshkov, who said that sometime in 2012 S. called him from London for about 30 minutes,
argued that he did not commit treason since his allegiance had been to the USSR, and "wrote
to Putin" (timing not provided) asking for full pardon to be able to return to Russia on
family grounds. Writing to Putin was denied by Kremlin to BBC, and by Peskov in Russian media
the next day.
Exact meaning is unclear. Timoshkov recollection is not very confident, he is not entirely
sure about the year when this conversation took place, or the exact wording. It's not
impossible that S. only planned to write such letter, not actually wrote it, and that such a
possibility is tentatively confirmed by P. (However Stone version is coming back with some
'information', not coming on family grounds).
It is also possible that S. wrote such letter few years earlier, around the time of the
spy swap in 2010. He had to write to Pres. Medvedev asking for pardon, at least formally, and
it is not impossible that he was retelling some bits from that earlier letter. (Pardon was
granted after it was requested).
The problem with Michael Antony's explanation is that the charity bin has to remain
untouched and unopened or emptied from about 5 March to about 5 July or the first week of
July at least. That would be roughly four months from the time Sergei Skripal pops the bottle
into the bin to the time Charlie Rowley finds the package and gives it to Dawn Sturgess who
then opens the package, applies the perfume to her wrists and promptly keels over.
Plus if Skripal suspected that the bottle contained something dodgy, wouldn't you think
the last place he'd dispose of it would be a charity bin, if he were an intelligent
ex-spook?
@somebody # 102 ,
RT is mixing two different questions in one sentence:
"Stone asked the Russian leader if he believes in the theory that Sergei Skripal wanted to
return to Russia and divulge some secrets but was stopped by the British government. "Honestly, I don't really believe it. I don't believe it," Putin replied."
That remark by Putin was actually in response only to the question of whether UK spooks
poisoned Skripal to stop him returning to Russia, not about whether Skripal wanted to
return:
Oliver Stone: Who poisoned him? They say English secret services did not want Sergei
Skripal to come back to Russia?
Vladimir Putin: To be honest, I do not quite believe this. I do not believe this is the
case.
b:"Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian
Federation, Vladimir Putin. The transcript was published yesterday evening. Most of the
interview is about Ukraine. A separate piece will cover that country. There is also a passage
about the U.S. election."
The "passage" about Ukraine is no less interesting. For example,
Oliver Stone: I remember you were telling me about the Obama phone call, Obama and
you had an agreement that there would be no firing on the last day. And he gave you a promise
that he would
Vladimir Putin: You know, while Obama is no longer President, there are certain
things we do not discuss in public. At any rate, I can say that the US did not follow
through on the agreements that we reached during this phone call [ my emphasis ].
I will stop there without going into detail.
b:"Filmmaker Oliver Stone recently interviewed the President of the Russian
Federation, Vladimir Putin. The transcript was published yesterday evening. Most of the
interview is about Ukraine. A separate piece will cover that country. There is also a passage
about the U.S. election."
The "passage" about Ukraine is no less interesting. For example,
Oliver Stone: I remember you were telling me about the Obama phone call, Obama and
you had an agreement that there would be no firing on the last day. And he gave you a promise
that he would
Vladimir Putin: You know, while Obama is no longer President, there are certain
things we do not discuss in public. At any rate, I can say that the US did not follow
through on the agreements that we reached during this phone call [ my emphasis ].
I will stop there without going into detail.
@109 Insane scenario "C'mon guys, the handling of the case shortly after the event rules out
any Russian induced poisoning, circumstantial evidence does not fit a nerve agent."
I was always puzzled by how inept the British government's pronouncements were following
the poisoning of the Skripals.
But once Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were fingered then the penny dropped.
Here are my two hypotheses:
a) Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were Russian intelligence officers sent to make
contact with Sergei Skripal to parlay a deal.
b) British intelligence knew all about their upcoming visit (perhaps Yulia had been
instructed to vouch for them, and was sloppy)
Easy-peasy: poison the Skripals at that park bench, then do some detective work to
"discover" that those two weaselly-looking Russians were in Salisbury at the exact some time
that Ol' Sergei was keeling over.
Open and shut case, m'lord.
Only the two Russians had left Salisbury (1:50pm) before the Skripals had even entered the
Mill Pub (2:20pm). Therefore they could not possibly have attacked Sergei and Yulia at that park bench
(4:15pm).
Shit, meet Fan.
Q: What do the Brits do once they find out that they had no fall-guy?
A: Scramble. Improvise. Wave their arms around like demented pigeons.
For starters, keep very quiet about Petrov and Boshirov until it is possible to come up
with some way to squeeze them into the narrative.
And, for goodness sake, squash any suggestion that the Skripals had been attacked at that
park bench. No, perish the thought, even if it is the obvious conclusion.
Errrr, how about the car! No, that's stupid. The poison was in Zizzi's? No, that doesn't
actually help. The ducks... no, get a grip man, that's dumber than the car... ummm.. umm..
umm..
Flunky: What about the doorknob?
Flustered: What?
Flunky: We can claim they smeared the poison on the doorknob.
Flustered: Oh, what the heck. OK, we'll go with that.
Flunky: And Petrov and Boshirov?
Flustered: Yes, yes [waves hand] release their pictures.
These are facts:
a) Petrov and Boshirov were on a train back to London by 2pm
b) Sergei and Yulia were found on that park bench around 4pm
c) The Brits therefore had to come up with a timeline that has the Skripals poisoned well
*before* 2pm but only collapsing *after* 4pm.
What we see now is the result of that need i.e. it is an insult to the intelligence, but
the only way for the Brits to pin the attack on their pre-planned fall-guys.
@ in re organic chem prof and novowhatever... The Prof is obviously correct, dd simple. There
are guys in jails, busted for dope, who could make novowhatever...
However, since the "agent" found by Swiss was Agent BZ, it might be more interesting to
hear what poster 101 has to say about synthesizing BZ...
"I asserted that any credible organic chemist could make novichok nerve agents. Here is my
final exam in my 1st year graduate organic synthesis course. Only one kid of 15 lost any
points. Uniquely Russian technology my ass...."
So, Professor Collum, speak, please, to matter of BZ, as this seems far more interesting
and congruent with observations.
Nothing wrong with paid work being tiring. It lets the employee know they have earned their
shekels, or benjamins as the case may be. It helps keep the "impostor syndrome" at bay.
I wonder if Sergei got impostor syndrome when he was writing up his part of the Steele
Dossier or if he was just enjoying an opportunity to be creative?
The weak part of that theory was always that we did not know for sure if Sergei Skripal
really wanted to go back to Russia.
b top post.
Iirc, Sergei's desire to do so was reported from various sources, Viktoria Skripal (niece)
in first place, Yulia perhaps as well. It was just a part of the story for those who were
gripped by it, incl. me. Getting the quotes together would take hours, in any case they might
be contested, be merely some 'option', etc.
Makes sense: his wife and son had died, his (one guesses beloved) daughter was established
in Russia, he never adapted except superficially, was never successful, in GB. (i can't speak
to steele dossier etc.)
Guardian, by Luke Harding, published an article stating that Sergei did not at first
believe that Russia 'poisoned him' - parts ring very true, and are counter to the MSM
narrative.
Theresa May should be installed in the Tower of London until she habeas the Scripal's corpses
or provides verifiable information as to their estate. Should said Theresa May expire in said
Tower of London, she can do so in knowledge and consolation that so many much better than
herself have done so already.
The Tower of London stands as the best monument to the liquidation of the British Monarchy
and their Royal Family as well as the Aristocracy that supports that enterprise. May it soon
be so dedicated. Maybe the lies will then stop.
"I tend to think they are deceased, or they would have been trotted out for more coerced
interviews."
I disagree with those. As it is, it seems literally no one in Britain cares about this
case. (I'm not there, but I'm assuming if there were a civil liberties group trying to make a
public issue of their disappearance, loudly demanding of the government, "Where are the
Skripals? Are you illegally imprisoning them?", that I would've read about it here at some
point.) So why remind the people of their bizarrely disappeared existence?
As for killing them, though, if the government were smart in this case (I know they're
stupid in general, yes), they'd still keep them alive just in case there somehow were public
pressure to produce them. Look at the mistake Richard III made.
Arioch @122 pointed out: "...maybe for Putin there is really nothing of importance
that Skrypal could know and tell."
This is an significant distinction. Does it really matter to Putin or Russian geostrategic
interests if Sergei Skripal wanted to announce that he was one of the authors of the Steele
Dossier, and that he just did it for fun and profit? To the British and the Americans this
would be a huge embarrassment, but aside from some sweet schadenfreude what would Russia gain
from it?
From Stone's perspective this issue would be very important, but from Putin's, not so
much. When assigning an issue importance, one must always consider to whom the issue
is important as importance is rarely universal.
russ @127: I said deceased, not killed by UK, that was some other posters.
The UK government has not showed a shred of intelligence for several decades now. They
take orders from us, and we are not really their friends, we intend to rule, not ally. you
can't get more naive than that. But I don't really care, like with Kashoggi, I want to know
where there are now, before I starting putting emotional weight behind any stories I'm being
told about how they got there.
(Not trying to get in your face, just like accurate representation of what I said.)
Actually, he would have quite a number of ways to "write to P", if he really wanted.
E.g. he could (a) send an electronic message directly using electronic letter submission
option on the official website, or (b) he could ask Yulia to do so for him, and she had a
social media account (that's how his classmate established a contact with him), + almost
surely a email address,+ able to visit (c) or similarly via Victoria (d) or that classmate
(e) or come to any Rus. consulate anywhere and ask for it to be done --and one of his UK
acquaintances was telling he visited the embassy 'often' (f) or do it in lots of other ways
he could easily come up with, given his background in intelligence, + contacts and
experience, even if his communications were monitored
From what I have heard, the Russians believe that the Skripal affair has been much more
damaging to HMG than it has to Russia, and have no interest in removing the mystery
surrounding it - the more people delve, the more it stinks.
As an inhabitant of the UK, I can say that a lot of us were very shocked when the
Government was trying to stuff these obvious lies down our throats, and it is what got a few
of us onto alternative media - sick to death as we already were of the Brexit poison in the
MSM. So a belated thank you to b, and your colleagues, what would we do without you.
@james (38) Not sure what your point is re Putin's silence on the Skripal's whereabouts.
Putin could publicly wonder why Britain is keeping them incommunicado. What are the Brits
hiding? Even a devoted Empire supporter would have to agree that it is most peculiar. Yet
Putin claims to have no knowledge on the subject, which is almost certainly untrue. His
reason for this is unclear, but Putin is nothing if not shrewd. In time, the story will come
out one way or another.
Doubt that, Skripal's enemies is in Russia, Putin have earlier stated Skripal was a traitor
and should be treated as such. Why Skripal would go Russia after he deliberately moved out
of Russia after an assault most likely carried out by someone in Russia, that makes no
sense.
It seems you just watch/read MSM too much.
"would go Russia", "moved out of Russia", "by someone in Russia" etc.
Russia, Russia, Russia...
The thing is that Russia has nothing to do with all this stuff (mean, "Skripal case").
Yes, Putin called Skripal a traitor. Why? Because Skripal is a traitor.
If you didn't know, Putin is used to calling a spade a spade, without prevarication or double
meanings.
"Why Skripal would go Russia"
You reason in categories that you understand, although in reality people may have dozens
of reasons to do what you do not understand.
Why Skripal would go Russia? Well, don't you think the answer may be that Skripal simply love
Russia? Because Russia is his Motherland, his home, his country. Because he has his
mother here, relatives, friends etc.
He can love Russia, his country, even in spite of the harm that has caused her by his
betrayal.
He may experience shame, remorse, and other feelings. Don't you think about it?
And you don't understand the main thing. Because of Western MSM propaganda it may seems to
people that something is "wrong" with living in Russia.
This is pure nonsense. Just to remind - Skripal was arrested, and he served his time in
Russian jail, according to law.
Then he was officially pardoned and was released free. Since that moment he was free to do
whatever he wanted.
The right to come back to Russia was/is his right.
There's no law in Russia that if you served prison term and was released, you can't come back
from another country.
So, i repeat, Skripal can do whatever he wants.
The fact that Putin called him a traitor does not matter. Traitors can come back, bastards
can come back, liars can come back etc.
If you have no problems with the law, the Russian state will have no complaints about
you.
Since 2011, when Skripal was pardoned, he is clean under Russian law, so can do whatever he
wants.
Btw, just to remind - Boris Berezovsky also was going to come back from UK to Russia, he
wrote a letter to Putin.
But "suddenly" it happened so that Berezovsky committed a "suicide".
We can only guess what he could tell if he returned to Russia.
Someone really did not want this information to become known...
The presence of HMG nurse on site, and the subsequent Monty Pythom-esque cover up, seems
proof enough that the UK had foreknowledge and without question, worked to keep the
Russophobia stoked high not only after the incident, but the later killed a UK citizen to
continue the incident.
Mr. P is being diplomatic.
The guy who said that Skripal has been visiting the embassy "monthly" is Valery Morozov, who
has a refugee status in the UK. He made the claim in interviews to Western and Russian
opposition media, saying that he did not like that and stopped his contacts with S.
PS. For the official website submission, one does not need to "authorize" it, one needs to
provide the full name, email, and phone number on electronic form, that's all. It may be not
the best way but the office is required to confirm receipt and to answer. Of course it may
not be the kind of answer which he sought...
Very easy, Skripal have not moved to Russia, nor has his daughter. he is not friend of Russian state, after the swap he
kept working with intelligence services in the whole of the west, giving them information on Russia. You don't go back to live
freely in the nation you repeatedly committed high treason against, then, you are just foolish, begging to be killed.
But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously
revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched
every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their
findings into a spreadsheet-like document.
The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.
Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele's
claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools
available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward
of 90 percent of the dossier's claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source
intelligence found with a Google search.
In other words, it was mostly useless.
"The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn't be corroborated, and
those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele's intelligence was
partly or totally inaccurate on several claims," one source told me.
The FBI declined comment when asked about the spreadsheet.
The FBI's final assessment was driven by many findings contained in classified footnotes at
the bottom of the spreadsheet. But it was also informed by an agent's interview, in early 2017,
with a Russian that Steele claimed was one of his main providers of intelligence, according to
my sources.
The FBI came to suspect that the Russian misled Steele, either intentionally or through
exaggeration, the sources said.
The spreadsheet and a subsequent report by special prosecutor Robert Mueller show just how far off the
seminal claims in the Steele dossier turned out to be.
For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow
in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin Igor Sechin and senior
government official Igor Divyekin -- as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign,
as Steele reported.
Page did meet with a lower-level Rosneft official, and shook hands with a Russian deputy
prime minister, the FBI found, but it was a far cry from the tale that Steele's dossier
spun.
Likewise, Steele
claimed that Sechin had offered Page a hefty finder's fee if he could get Trump to help
lift sanctions on Moscow: "a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return."
That offer, worth billions of dollars, was never substantiated and was deemed by some in
U.S. intelligence to be preposterous.
The inaccuracy of Steele's intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general
investigation specifically because the
FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong
enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.
Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump
lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague
in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a
hijacking of the election, the sources said.
Steele's theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept
evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories
checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.
Again, Steele's intelligence was wrong or unverifiable.
The salacious, headline-grabbing claim that Russians had incriminating
sex tapes showing Trump engaged in depraved acts with prostitutes also met a factual dead
end when the FBI interviewed the Georgian-American businessman who claimed to know about them.
Giorgi Rtskhiladze told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake," according to a
footnote in the Mueller report. Rtskhiladze's lawyer subsequently
issued a letter taking issue with some of Mueller's characterizations.
Steele had some general things right, of course, including that the Russians were behind
the
hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. Of course, there were public reports
saying so when Steele reported this.
But even then, his dossier's theory of how the hackers worked, who paid them and how they
communicated with Trump was determined in the FBI spreadsheet and subsequent Mueller
investigation to be far from accurate.
Even State officials, who
listened to Steele's theories in October 2016 -- less than two weeks before his dossier was
used to support the FISA request -- instantly determined he was grossly wrong on some
points.
Any effort to use Steele's belated cooperation with the inspector general's investigation to
prop up the credibility of his 2016 anti-Trump dossier or the FBI's reliance on it for the FISA
warrant is deeply misguided.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key defender of Trump, said he talked with DOJ officials after
the most recent stories surfaced about Steele and was told the reporting is wrong. "Based on my
conversations with DOJ officials, recent reports which suggest Christopher Steele's dossier and
allegations are somehow deemed credible by DOJ, are simply false and not based on any
confirmation from sources with direct knowledge of ongoing investigations," Meadows told
me.
The FBI's own spreadsheet was so conclusive that it prompted then-FBI Director James Comey (no fan of Trump, mind
you) to dismiss the document as " salacious and unverified " and
for lead FBI agent Peter Strzok to text, "
There's no big there there ." FBI lawyer Lisa Page
testified that nine months into reviewing Steele's dossier they had not found evidence of
the collusion that Steele alleged.
Two years later, Mueller came to the same conclusion: Steele's intelligence alleging a
conspiracy was never verified.
The next time you hear a pundit suggesting Steele's dossier is credible or that the FBI's
reliance on it as FISA evidence was justified, just picture all those blanks in that FBI
spreadsheet.
They speak volumes as to what went wrong in the Russia investigation.
John Solomon is an
award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI
intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster
children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He
serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow
him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .
Whenever the Tories get into trouble, the BBC helps them outJuly 18,
2019While the BBC ratchets up its campaign against the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn,
the timing of its Panorama programme couldn't have been more perfect. by Readers of The National Part 2
I HAVE never seen such a one-sided, biased documentary as the BBC Panorama programme on
antisemitism in the Labour party. This was backed up by biased coverage on news programmes on
TV and radio. Those of us in Scotland have become used to BBC bias in the coverage of
independence, which is why the BBC in Scotland has the highest number on people refusing to pay
the licence fee.
Now people in England are experiencing this level of bias I predict the number of non-payers
will rise significantly too. Of course we can protest, but the evidence is from Scotland that
the BBC ignore the protests.
For the record, as a former Labour party member for many years and a councillor and an MEP I
never encountered anti-semitism in the Labour party, indeed Jewish members were active in every
section of the party without encountering any prejudice. The so-called problem has only begun
when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader – not because he is anti-semitic.
I've known Jeremy Corbyn for more than 40 years and he is a committed anti-racist. He has
been targeted because he is a supporter of Palestinian rights, and the people attacking him
inside and outside the Labour party have close connections to the Israeli Government. Indeed
Al Jazeera have a very good documentary of people from the Israeli embassy boasting they
have a fund of a million pounds a year to bring down their enemies.
Of course if I was a member of the Labour party I could be expelled for stating the above, but
fortunately in Scotland our First Minister is on record as supporting Palestinian rights. No
doubt we can expect accusations of anti-semitism soon. It is not anti-semitic to criticise the
state of Israel for its dreadful treatment of Palestinians and I hope we in Scotland can
continue to uphold that right despite the BBC's dreadful bias! Hugh Kerr (former Labour MEP)/Edinburgh
"... A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda. ..."
"... This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and according to its code "must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests." ..."
"... Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service." ..."
"... Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn and his party. ..."
"... Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors. ..."
"... Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to democracy. ..."
"... Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of anti-Semitism. ..."
"... Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has also, as expected, been rejected by the government. ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan." ..."
"... If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin', his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard against inflation from these snakes. ..."
"... This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of Britain too. ..."
"... This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that far. ..."
"... in 2015, an unnamed, serving British general was quoted saying that if a Corbyn government implemented his well-established anti-imperial and anti-nuke agenda, "there would be mass resignations at all levels [of the military] and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html ..."
"... As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of State in June 1947. From 'the middle of 1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one free world"'. ..."
"... . That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery. ..."
The 'Unconstitutional Animus' Against UK Labour Leader July 16, 2019 •
39 Comments
Johanna Ross spoke with David Miller, a propaganda researcher, after the recent publicity of
U.K. civil service murmurings about Jeremy Corbyn's "fitness."
By Johanna
Ross
in Edinburgh, Scotland Special to Consortium News
A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an
article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too
frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of
foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and
according to its code "must not act in a way that
unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests."
Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing
newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading
such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service."
Controversial BBC graphic seeking to link Corbyn to Russia.
For David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, who
investigates concentrations
of power and ways to hold them accountable, the idea that the British civil service may not be
impartial in its operations is hardly surprising.
Far from ever being objective, he told Consortium News that the civil service now
clearly has "an unconstitutional animus against a potential Corbyn government and has been
briefing against it one way or another through various agencies for some time now."
Catalog of Smears
Indeed, the anti-Corbyn bias within the establishment has been obvious in the catalog of
smears on Corbyn and his team since he came to the Labour leadership; from allegations of being
a "Soviet sleeper" to being "anti-Semitic" and now to questions about his overall fitness.
David Miller: Faction fight against Corbyn. (University of Bristol)
Miller said most of the allegations were created by a number of organisations and
individuals who are "involved in a faction fight with the Corbyn leadership."
Noam Chomsky, a leading U.S. social critic, is among those who have spoken out against what
he termed a "witch hunt" against the Labour leader and his supporters.
Whether or not anti-Semitism exists in the party, Miller said the accusations are out of
hand. "Almost everyone who says anything which is either critical of Israel or critical of the
party's response to the anti-Semitism crisis is denounced as an anti-Semite," Miller said. "The
question is how long will it be before everyone sees that the people who are involved in this
have overreached themselves."
Attempts to undermine potential socialist governments are of course, not new.
Miller gives the example of the Zinoviev case – when a fake letter was published in
the Daily Mail in 1924 just prior to the general election, suggesting Communists in
Britain were taking orders from Moscow. The goal was clearly to undermine the British Labour
movement.
Miller also points to the case of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. "Despite what may now
be said by some elements of the security state," Miller said that British agencies were engaged
in an active plot to
undermine Wilson's elected government.
As another example, Miller offered the "Information Research Department," first proposed in
1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda
operation. In fact, Miller described it as a "secret, covert, anti-Communist propaganda
operation which in the 70s was engaged in undermining the Wilson government."
Today, Miller said, similar agencies in the U.K. government are doing the same thing.
Harold Wilson in 1986. (Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Integrity Initiative
As an example, Miller cites the Integrity Initiative; organized by the government's
Institute for Statecraft, which has a stated mission of countering "Russian disinformation and
malign influence by harnessing existing expertise and establishing a network of experts,
opinion formers and policy makers to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build
national capacities to counter it." Its website is incidentally now empty pending an
investigation into the "theft of its data" – after a hack exposed detail of the extent to
which the government-funded program was itself engaged in disinformation.
Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was
found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn
and his party.
"Corbyn has recently said in relation to the most recent criticism from the civil service
that there are people in the establishment that are trying to undermine Corbyn, his office, his
advisors and supporters of him," Miller said. "And that's what the Integrity Initiative was
doing."
Cartoon published by Punch after the Zinoviev letter was released, depicting a Bolshevik
campaigning for Ramsay MacDonald, head of the short-lived Labour government of 1924. (Wikimedia
Commons)
Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was
regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors.
Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to
democracy.
"A government-funded project was engaged in attacking the leader of the opposition," Miller
said, "which is unconstitutional and something the U.K. civil service should not be involved in
they crossed the line when they started attacking Corbyn. And when we look back on this period,
the Integrity Initiative, its funding by the Foreign Office and its base in British military
intelligence will be one of the strands of the activities which will be seen to have been a
secret state campaign against the elected leader of the Labour party."
Miller would like to see an investigation into the attacks on Corbyn and whether they had
been effectively funded by the Foreign Office, but doesn't hold out much hope of that
happening.
Six months ago, Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry demanded answers to how this could
have happened, with no result.
And Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity
Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of
anti-Semitism.
Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has
also, as expected, been rejected by the government.
Johanna Ross is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom.
If you enjoyed this original article, please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Michael McNulty , July 18, 2019 at 05:52
After he won the second round to remain Labour Party leader Corbyn should have left the
party to form a new socialist party, taking his large following and their subscriptions with
him. He would have had three years behind him with a new movement, one which would not have
had the back-stabbers and poisoners he's having to deal with daily. It would have been quite
established now and a real political force. I think the Labour Party is so polluted that the
left must break away; it's the only way we can overturn the excesses and failures of
neo-liberalism which for most people is a truly dreadful system.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 15:02
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs,
neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a
campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable,
pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt
slavery.
Hopelb , July 17, 2019 at 21:52
Upvote!
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 14:55
"lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
It makes me wonder how Teresa May and her Cabinet, including the next PM, fares in such
assessment. Nincompoops, loud mouths, poodles, and worshipers of woodoo economics.
I get it. Corbyn is Pro-Palestinian, anti-war and Pro-Worker so they are trying to get rid
of him.
All I see are articles attacking him. Are there people/forces behind him supporting him?
Is his support significant among other Labour MP's and the Public at large?
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:11
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic at this point and "everything is
possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit,
Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour
ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent
by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who
walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new
members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the
worst type of rubble. No respect for monarchy, the Trident, necessity of low taxes on
business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his
victory will unleashed the unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and he hold
dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:45
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic lately and "everything is
possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit,
Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour
ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent
by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who
walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new
members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the
worst type of rabble. No respect for the monarchy, the Trident, the necessity of low taxes on
business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his
victory would unleashed unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and that we hold
dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Jeff Ewener , July 17, 2019 at 13:26
Gob-smacking. To call a man with the intelligence, experience, sensitivity & integrity
of Jeremy Corbyn "unfit" to be the British Prime Minister, while a monstrosity like Boris
Johnson is standing on the doorstep of Number 10 – just takes the breath away.
rosemerry , July 17, 2019 at 15:45
Not to mention the former "New Labour" leaders whose policies fell far away from the
traditional policies Corbyn has held to and which caused so many Britons to support him as
leader.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 11:49
Integrity? Are you joking? Corbyn has been anti-EU for 40 years. In fact, he is the only
main party leader who voted leave in the last people's vote (aka the referendum). But he has
tried to hid that fact. He has been sitting on the fence and playing politics with the issue.
Many fools in Britain believe Corbyn is a remainer. A man of integrity would have explained
to the British people his long held position on the EU and Brexit. But he didn't do that
because he isn't a man of integrity. He wants to con his way into power and if he gets there
(looking unlikely right now), he and his Stalinist henchpeople will wield that power
ruthlessly.
Fascinating article. May we repost it on jvl.org.uk?
Eddie , July 17, 2019 at 12:36
Comment that I posted on the Malware article do not post.
Zenobia van Dongen , July 17, 2019 at 11:39
In English-speaking countries anti-Semitic is just a code word for pro-Islamic. Miller
himself is deeply involved in efforts to make extremist Islam respectable and justifying
terrorist indoctrination.
Okay, I'll take your comment as made in good faith but you will need to back it up with
good evidence. Where is it?
Qui? , July 18, 2019 at 03:22
Palestinians are semites, as the rest of the Arabs. So who is the real antisemite now?
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:37
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 07:28
Is it indeed. Then your are a fool. Pol Pot was a communist who was against war and nukes
and massive inequality. But implementing totalitarism by force didn't turn out well for the
Cambodian people. And it wouldn't turn out well for the British people either. Except for
Corbyn and his henchpeople of course.
dean 1000 , July 17, 2019 at 10:42
Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having
much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos
anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand
Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan."
Given the influence of US and European Jews it is well past time for them to stop
screaming anti-semitism when someone has a divergent opinion. They should stop using Semitic
people as human shields.
The left also likes to hurl anti-Semitism at political opponents when they don't have a
relevant answer.
Unfounded criticism of Jews is anti-Jewish rather than anti-Semitic. Call it what it
is.
As Albert Einstein says Capitalism is an Evil supported by those who are terrified of
Jeremy Corbyn because like Jesus he is a true Socialist
Que Nelle , July 17, 2019 at 05:52
To be accused of antisemitism by zionists that champion the racist entity israel, is a
badge of honor.
Vivian O'Blivion , July 17, 2019 at 03:30
If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free
to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin',
his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard
against inflation from these snakes.
Hayman Fan , July 17, 2019 at 02:51
Guys be careful with this. Corbyn is a communist. He is surrounded by Stalinists. Their
modus operandi is entryism + free stuff + perpetual attacks on cultural norms. They used to
laud the USSR. Then Venezuala. Now China. If they ever manage to grab power, they will stamp
on individual liberty. Just like China does. The Muslim vote is very important to them and
whilst they despise conventional religions, they will happily 'buy' Muslim votes with anti
Israeli and anti Semitic rhetoric. The loudest voices speaking up against Corbyn and his
henchpeople are on the left. Be a little bit circumspect.
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:36
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Errr what ? Israel does enough on its own to show how anti-Arab and undemocratic it is
without the need for Jeremy Corbyn to add anything. I'm a socialist. I support what Mr Corbyn
is doing to promote socialism in the UK. There's not the slightest evidence he's an
anti-Semite, and the tiny amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party is dwarfed by what's
emanating from the right against Jews and Muslims.
Just say no , July 17, 2019 at 13:58
This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century
it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a
bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they
finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of
Britain too. That's where we are today.
There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in
the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality. What has
happened to Jeremy Corbyn is horrifying and we have our own issues in the U.S. with the
endless smears and lies regarding the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. We live in a world of
fabrication, sanctions enough to go around for everyone. Even the little state of RI is
sanctioned by Moody's for having the effrontery to pass a bill which "gives too much away to
labor" but Moody's and the other ratings agencies gave triple AAA ratings to junk during the
"great recession" plain and simple, and no one cared. We need a Nuremburg trial for
Capitalism and all its practioners.
You are wrong is several ways. First, "There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly
in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality." Corbyn
was observed to be a threat the moment he was elected Labour leader, something that stumped
large segments of "informed public". Due to the surprise element, the anti-Semitic angle was
not exploited properly, with possible exception of some Zionist whack jobs who harranged him.
Instead, two points were raised that really jolted my attention.
First, Corbyn was sooo
extreme that he advocated discontinuation of Trident program and even, horror!, the entirety
of British nuclear arms program. You could as well raise huge signs ?????? ?y???? ???????! on
English shores.
Second, his bicycling habits were compared to China during the orthodox
Communist year, when riding on non-descript bikes was heavily supported by pre-Capitalist
leadership.
Mind you, a person of note may ride a bike without shame, but not the cheap and
aged specimen favored by Corbyn. Finally, compromising photos were found showing Corbyn
relaxing and revealing his red socks.
Sounds like you just couldn't stand not posting a troll comment on an article about your
own activities, yes?
ToivoS , July 16, 2019 at 22:54
This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for
Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I
assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of
seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to
reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten
years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the
Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is
conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the
West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that
far.
" the 'Information Research Department,' first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as
a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation."
"Anti-American" is a slip, right? I assume it was pro-American (or pro-USAian).
My apologies, I was paraphrasing the work of Lyn Smith in her article on IRD in Millennium
in 1980. It should really be 'anti capitalist'. According Smith the founder of IRD (Christopher
Mayhew) put forward a plan to set up a cold war propaganda agency:
'Mayhew put forward his ideas: the campaign should be as positive as possible laying
stress on the merits of Social Democracy but, he pointed out "we shouldn't appear as
defenders of the status quo but should attack Capitalism and Imperialism along with Russian
Communism" In fact at this early stage, the idea was more of a "third force" propaganda
attacking Capitalism as well as communism (this, however, was not to last for, as later
documents reveal, anti Communism soon cam to the fore).'(Covert British Propaganda: The
Information Research Department: 1947-77, Millennium, 9(1), p68-9)
In fact the idea that it would be anti capitalist was a ruse used by Mayhew to deceive the
left members of the British cabinet. As my colleague and I Will Dinan summarised in our book
A Century of Spin (Pluto Press, 2008, p130-1):
IRD was not created with the knowing support of the Labour Cabinet. The author of the
paper which went to the cabinet –
Christoper Mayhew – was a Labour right winger and cold warrior. He dissembled to the
cabinet about the purpose and function of the IRD by claiming that it was to be a 'Third
Force' campaign, understood as policy intended by the left to be independent of both the US
and the USSR. According to Mayhew himself:
I thought it was necessary to present the whole campaign in a positive way, in a way which
Dick Crossman and Michael Foot would fi nd it hard to oppose. And they were calling for a
Third Force so I recommended in the original paper I put to Bevin that we call it a Third
Force propaganda campaign.
As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of
State in June 1947. From 'the middle of
1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening
the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one
free world"'.
It is interesting, in this light, to reflect what might/will happen once a Corbyn
government is elected with – how should we put this – a minority of leftists in
the cabinet.
David G , July 17, 2019 at 15:27
Very interesting! I guess the propagandists back then had a little more finesse than the
idiotic bludgeoning the US/UK establishment is laying on us these days. Thanks for the clarification, David Miller!
Jeff Harrison , July 16, 2019 at 21:05
The British Political Class has the same problem as the American Political Class –
No integrity, No Honesty, No ethics. Just the sort of bozos we need running countries.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 14:59
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists.
That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to
keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.
Q: Who and what drove this cultural and political direction within the corporation?
A: There are a number of drivers behind this biased BBC culture. The most important is the fact that a small number of hardline
Zionists occupy key positions at the top and middle levels of the corporation, as well as at the shop-floor level, by which I mean
the people who select what to publish or broadcast on a daily basis and who provide editorial steer to journalists. This has been
widely publicised and has been in the public domain for some time -- see, for example, this
http://tinyurl.com/ydhjzeek , these (a)
http://tinyurl.com/y7mjtkc6 , (b)
http://tinyurl.com/y7k39vsh , and (c)
http://tinyurl.com/y3x9nktl . Also see this
http://tinyurl.com/y6ne4apn and this
http://tinyurl.com/y7l88zwl .
Q: What about political impartiality, supposedly a core BBC value?
A: Unfortunately, there are many examples of such pro- Israel hype, some blatant and others who slant the news by use of emphasis
and/or omission. For instance, there was
Sarah Montague's
interview with Israel's defence minister, Moshe Ya'alon , in March 2015, Head of Statistics' Anthony Reuben's reflection on fatalities
in Gaza ( http://tinyurl.com/ycc9p8d4 ), and the utilization of Gil Hoffman,
an Israeli army reservist and chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to write for the BBC News website (
http://tinyurl.com/yanppk93 ) to mention but a few.
Q: Does the broadcaster have the means or inclination to fix itself ?
A: In my opinion, the chances of the BBC fixing itself is about zero. Apart from what I have said above, it is a cowardly, spineless
organisation. Not only does it always pursue the path of least resistance by selecting to broadcast what is least likely to upset
the Zionist lobby, but it is also deadly afraid of what the Daily Mail might say about its output. Very often, and by that
I mean almost on a daily basis, one would hear senior managers ask at the morning agenda-setting editorial meetings, "What would
the Daily Mail say about that?" Invariably, they would choose what is least likely to be picked up and criticised by the
Daily Mail. Please remember, this is a public broadcaster that is funded by taxpayers (yes, the License Fee is a tax) and
is supposed to "Educate, Inform and Entertain", not propagandise on behalf of Israel.
Q: Some of the so-called Labour 'Whistleblowers' were exposed by
Al Jazeera
as Israeli Lobby assets . Is it possible that the BBC was so bold as to interview these characters hoping that no one would notice
or was it simply a matter of a clumsy decision making? Can the BBC match the journalistic dedication of organisations such as RT
or Al Jazeera?
A: There is no chance whatsoever that the BBC would do anything approximating Al Jazeera TV's programme on Israeli infiltration
of the Labour Party ( http://tinyurl.com/yad6fslm ). The BBC is institutionally
pro-Zionist and institutionally spineless.
Q: You worked in the corporation for 35 years, did you notice a deterioration in the quality of people hired? Was there a change
in employees' attitudes and their willingness to express themselves freely and critically?
A: I worked for the BBC's English-language outlets as an editor and senior editor for 35 years. Since the early 1990s there has
been growing intolerance of criticism of editorial management decisions, even in internal forums which internal BBC propaganda claims
are meant for staff to speak freely. This applies across the board on all matters. But certainly with regard to Israel and Zionism,
any questioning of BBC impartiality would attract accusations of anti-Semitism and would certainly spell the end of one's career,
no matter how privately and confidentially such criticism is conveyed.
It wasn't always this way. See the 2002 BBC documentary Dead in the Water , documenting Israel's 1967 attack on the
USS Liberty .
It demonstrates conclusively that the attack was deliberate and even goes so far as to speculate that it was a black-flag operation
intended to justify a joint US-Israeli invasion of Egypt proper.
Personally, I'm skeptical of that -- although it's possible. I think Israel just wanted to ensure she wasn't forced to withdraw
from Sinai as she had been in 1956. After all, in the upshot, we didn't force Israel to withdraw this time -- but she may not
have been sure of that outcome. Making it appear the Egyptians had sunk the Liberty would have helped to assure we would
be in no mood to demand any such thing of Israel.
Of course, Israel muffed it. She wasn't able to sink the Liberty , and wasn't able to prevent her from sending out a
distress signal. Machine-gunning the lifeboats was of no use if the attack had to be aborted before the Liberty could be
finished off and the surviving crew members never needed to get into those lifeboats.
There's nothing special about Israel. The BBC has a policy on every contentious subject, domestic or international. A conspicuous
current example is Brexit.
@dearieme'There's nothing special about Israel. The BBC has a policy on every contentious subject, domestic or international.
A conspicuous current example is Brexit.'
Lol. This piece notwithstanding, the BBC used to give Israel a pretty hard time.
Then, at some point about fifteen years ago, it was very noticeably brought to heel and has since toed the Zionist line as
closely as it can without visible displays of submissive piddling.
The same applies to the Guardian , by the way. Many of its staff who used to report accurately on the Middle East can
now be found on Middle East Eye.
In a way, I find the Zionism of these organs a lot more nauseating than that of, say, the Wall Street Journal or Fox
News. At least with the latter, there's a kind of ideological consistency to their Zionism. With the BBC and the Guardian
, it's the rankest, most craven hypocrisy imaginable.
It demonstrates conclusively that the attack was deliberate and even goes so far as to speculate that it was a black-flag
operation intended to justify a joint US-Israeli invasion of Egypt proper.
The USS Liberty was an ELINT ship. The Israeli's attacked it to prevent the US listening in to Israeli military radio traffic,
and keep the US in the dark re Israel's operations.
This study shows us that the pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the American mainstream media that it
is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted
Washington which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old conflict.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is also under the editorial control of pro-Zionists.
Since the takeover, they have a limited number of revolving topics: holocaust, anti-semitism, slavery, South African Apartheid,
Jewish diaspora feel-good stories, Black lives matter, aboriginal suffering, colonialism, Islamophobia/ why-can't-we-accept-women-in-hijabs,
the KKK, white racism, reparations for Jewish victims of history, refugees, the need to crush white identity .
You cannot go a week of even a day without a mention of one of the above. News critical of Jews or Israel is not allowed.
The BBC claims that these neo-Nazis were supporters of the Russian-speakers who do not wish to be controlled by the ZioNazis
of Kiev.
In reality, the Italian police said the precise opposite. This weaponry was destined to help the ZioNazis of Ukraine. They
were to be used against the beleaguered defenders of the Donbass region.
The lies of the BBC are constant. This is an ongoing phenomenon – MH17, Syrian Chemicals, Skripals, Iran's nuclear weapons,
Hong Kong's peaceful protesters, concentration camps for Uighurs, Global Warming, Building 7 collapsed 20 minutes after broadcast
that it had fallen etc.
my forgotten!! point was that this period of MSM upheaval and enormously rising salaries, noticeably from the 1990s onward,
coincided with ever increasing pro-Israel coverage and ever decreasing pro-Palestinian coverage. Today it has become virtually
an 'anti-semitic' 'racist' 'hate' crime to be sympathetic to Palestinians .accompanied by tearful Zionist bleatings about fearing
for their lives, lurid word pictures of nazis walking the streets and claims of massive population flight to Israel – although
the numbers of UK jews does not seem to decrease. The perception – which could be wrong but given their total dominance
of the media – is quite the opposite!
@(((They))) Live The Hungarian Foreign Minister should have asked the interviewer "Why does the US do the foot soldier work
to protect against the same invasion of muslims into Israel?" While Israel the only country allowed to shoot and kill those even
coming close to their border has the right!
@Parfois1 You raise an interesting point. I remember the outcry over the Beeb reporting on the Falklands that the Beeb was
left wing and treasonous. The BBC was giving massive air time to Labour MPs and talking heads saying that the Falklands should
be abandoned, handed to the Argentinians.
My left wing father (ex-WW2 RN submarine officer) surprised me by pointing out that whatever the rights or wrongs of UK 'owning'
the Falklands the fact was that they did and therefore in the circumstance of armed invasion the UK was obliged to defend it on
the principle of national sovereignty. Not to mention discouraging other such invasions.
I bring this up because exactly these issues have re-appeared today.
That is, the old left-wingism of BBC reportage has morphed into the new left-wingism of today: i.e. LGBT+, racism, anti-semitism,
indoctrinating homosexuality & trans issues into infants in state schools etc. Pro-EU, pro-open borders, pro-migrant, pro-Israel,
pro-war. Anti-Brexit, anti-sovereignty, anti-patriotism, anti-nationalism, anti-religion, anti traditional family all of which
the Beeb loudly deems 'fascist' [deplorable] across all its channels.
Mr Johnson,
This would tie in to your (correct imo) observations of apparent untruths in the Mueller
Dossier, and with Mr Habakkuk's comment above.
Re: The Trump Tower meeting and Russian attorney Veselnitskaya - journalist Lucy Komisar
interviewed Veselnitskaya twice Nov 2018 iirc, and has found another apparent untruth.
Komisar does not believe William Browder of Magnitsky Act fame, and Komisar's article backs
up that claim, relating that to the Trump Tower meeting and the Mueller Dossier.
FTA - "the (Mueller) report on this topic is deceptive...the report itself lies about the
issue the meeting addressed."
"It wasn't to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton...That was a ploy by Robert
Goldstone...(Goldstone) got the lawyer (Veselnitskaya) the meeting for her to lobby a
potentially incoming administration against the Magnitsky Act..."
"Veselnitskaya testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in November 2017 that
Browder's major American client, the Ziff brothers, had cheated on American and Russian taxes
and contributed the "dirty money" to the Democrats."
You and Mr Habakkuk should be aware Jeff Carlson (Epoch Times) is a "Q" follower (Trust The
Plan), fwiw.
Aaron Mate, although a flaming Socialist Progressive, is top notch. imo
Thank you for your continuing research on this.
Thanks again to the Colonel for allowing the intrusion.
Regards.
This is a blatant UK and US intelligence hit job aimed at influencing the 2020
election:
- "UK hijacks oil tanker": Message="UK is prepared to take action against Iran, why is
Trump so war shy"
- "Trump asks Iran before bombing": Message=ditto the above.
- "Diplomatic cables released "accidentally" by UK Foreign Office": Message="Even the UK
is getting tired of confused Trump"
Come on folks, stop analysing it with endless "what if"'s and see it for what it is.
Prepare for much more of this: The UK's Skripal affair lured Trump into expelling
diplomats, later making him look too trigger happy. Now they are trying to make him look
indecisive, stupid and reluctant to stand with his closest allies: notice how Bolton has
receded into the background to avoid the flak?
In addition, I am sure the UK's intelligence would never do any of this without the OK
from US intelligence.
First, let's look at Bellingcat involvement in Ukraine.
On July 11th 2014 an event happened that shook my world, literally. Bellingcat
reported that the Russians attacked Ukrainian armed forces from across the border in
Zelenopillya. The Ukrainians suffered traumatic losses. Once again, Eliot Higgins provides the
data to determine this. Once again Bellingcat was wrong about the origin of the attack.
This single battle marked the turning point for the entire war. The Donbass militia went on
a large offensive for the first time and destroyed a big Ukrainian encampment with a rocket
attack.
How can I afford to be so assertive? At 4:30 in the morning on July 11th every house in my
town started shaking because of the massive explosions going on at Zelenopillya. I did say it
shook my world, didn't I?
I was between the Russian border and the camp. We could see the smoke from the rockets and
the
sky was lit with the explosions . The
explosions were loud enough to wake the dead that morning. There were no rockets flying
over my head. For Russia to fire them, that's exactly where they would have been.
At that point we were under Ukrainian occupation for a couple of months. Two days before the
attack on Zelenopillya happened, a Ukrainian army officer told the post master to get the
children out of town within 2 days. The army was pulling out and a cleansing battalion (Donbas
battalion) was coming in to weed out "separatists and supporters." That was when I came face to
face with Mark
Paslowsky, the American nazi . The article gives his background and tells what was going
on.
Bellingcat misidentifies the weapon as artillery. Grad rockets were fired at Zelenopillya by
the Rovenki militia that day. I spoke with the militia that fired them about 1 week after the
fact. In the linked articles the Ukrainians state plainly that it was militia using Grad
rockets.
The Ukrainians took some of their wounded across the border to Russia. It's not quite
something you do if Russia was really attacking you. The worst injuries were treated locally.
Donbass people ran there after the battle to help the wounded and the Ukrainian soldiers were
treated at local hospitals. Ukraine abandoned them.
The story got a lot of play in the west in the west as a Russian attack on Ukraine thanks to
this event. It was added to the list of reasons to sanction Russia. If the attack on
Zelenopillya didn't happen, I probably wouldn't be here to write this.
For the third time on an important event, Bellingcat shows it cannot identify the origin or
firing location of a weapon and misidentifies both the weapon type and the direction of fire in
media.
Getting the facts straight about the MH-17 shoot down is the difference between hundreds of
families getting justice and closure for those deaths or never seeing it. Convict the wrong
party and justice is never served. New victims are made with false or erroneous evidence.
Bellingcat's importance to the JIT (Joint Investigative Team) investigation of MH-17 is
apparent through all the media Higgins and Toler are quoted in media as the independent
experts.
That last statement should grab your attention. Bellingcat and its founders Elliot Higgins
and Aric Toler's credibility rests on the fact that they are independent researchers. If they
are working for an interested party in any investigation, Bellingcat's credibility is destroyed
and their research means nothing. After all, it's been paid for.
Bellingcat really grabbed the public's attention and imagination after the shoot down of
flight MH-17 over Ukraine. Independent researchers Higgins and Toler went to work to find the
missile launch site and the responsible parties, or did they?
As early as February 2014, Higgins showed the beginning of a clear pattern regarding
Ukraine. In the tweet below this OSINT expert researcher was linking to a
1 month old blog started by
Sviatoslav Yurash . What's special about Yurash at this time is that he was Ukrainian
ultranationalist Dimitry Yarosh's English language spokesman. If that well known fact wasn't
enough to caution Higgins, what was?
In the next article to follow, starting with Yurash as the first example, I'll show you how
all these volunteer experts including Higgins get paid. The article will further cement and
establish the relationships between Bellingcat, Weisburd, Watts and other intel and news
headline providers with each other as well as their employers.
For now, the admission made by the Ukrainian Information Ministry and Aric Toler will have
to be enough.
In
addition, already 21 November Dmitry Zolotukhin met with his US counterpart, team
representative Bellingcat Arik Toler , who conducted a similar training for journalists in Kyiv
on the invitation of Media Development Foundation. They also discussed the possibility of
holding a conference in Kiev on thematic instruments OSINT-use techniques in the modern media."
One of the Media Development Center's
sponsors is NATO . It is a project of the US Embassy in Kiev because of the association
with the embassy's diplomatic paper, the Kyiv Post.
If that isn't enough, let's see how close Bellingcat's Aric Toler views the
relationship.
According to both Information Policy Advisor Dmitry Zolotukhin and Toler, they are partners.
Eric Toler and Eliot Higgins(Bellingcat), along with Aaron Weisburd, Clint Watts, and
Joel
Harding have been working with the same Ukrainian Information Ministry that started the
"Mytorovyets" or Peacekeeper website.
They help the SBU geo-locate people in Ukraine. As shown above, they also train people to
geo-locate anyone considered anti-Maidan or anti-nationalist in Ukraine. They didn't
disappoint.
I think this pretty well sums up how independent Bellingcat's investigation has been. To add
insult to injury, Higgins and Toler work directly with previously identified Ukrainian
Intelligence hackers and Pravy Sektor members (ultra-nationalist Ukrainians) to get Bellingcat
"independent research" information.
InformNapalm and its hackers are Ukrainian Intel agents working for the Information
Ministry. In their own words – The main activities of the project are
collecting and analysing OSINT-information , found in open
sources, including social networks. InformNapalm's investigation of 53rd Artillery Brigade
commander colonel Sergei Muchkayev, suspected of killing the MH17 passengers, was used in
the report of the Bellingcat research team .
Who was the information source for independent researchers at Bellingcat? Dimitry Yarosh's
best friend, Valentyn Nalivaychenko was one of them. In the spring of 2014, he replaced
SBU(Ukraine's Security Service) personnel with ultra-nationalists because they had the right
ideology. Another was Anton Gerashchenko who is responsible for persecuting the press in
Ukraine.
In
few days and hours after the crash of MH17 Ukrainian officials widely publicly discussed
all that data (except the photo of "Paris Match") anonymously downloaded by someone to social
nets. For example on July 17 Gerashchenko (The ministry of internal affairs) showed the photo
of Buk at Torez; on July 18 Avakov (The ministry of internal affairs) showed the video of Buk
at Luhansk; also on July 18 Nalivaychenko (the chief of Ukrainian security service) showed the
video of Buk at Snizhne, and on July 19 Vitaliy Naida (Ukrainian security service) showed shot
fragment of video frame (not the video itself) from Zugres.
Under the best circumstances Bellingcat's research can only be seen as a Ukrainian
Intelligence production. If neither Higgins or Toler were actively engaged with Ukrainian
operations on the many levels that they are, their source material is still very tainted. When
all your research material comes from a party under investigation, you are no longer a neutral
party. You can't pee in a blood sample and call it evidence. Are Higgins and Toler credible?
You decide.
Max van der Werff has become a go-to resource for understanding information about MH-17. I
have spoken at length with Max and his fellow researchers @bellingmouse. This linked article shows the strength of research
these REAL volunteers have brought to the MH-17 investigation . I had to ask Max the great
who-dun-it question. His response was after thousands of hours of research, he didn't know. Too
many people were withholding information and remaining uncooperative on all sides.
What he was sure of is that Bellingcat's research is shoddy and a lot of the evidence
appears fabricated.
Max van der Werf has been interviewed by the JIT investigative team on 4 occasions, given
over 6 hours of recorded interviews to them, as well as over 14GB of data.
Examples of this include the fact that all of the images and video are such low quality and
resolution, it's impossible to make definite determinations from them.
One of the chase vehicles (jeep) in Bellingcat's BUK convoy is driving with the door open.
In another image of the BUK transport supposedly taken by a local resident, the apartment was
not occupied in the summer of 2014. There was no one there to take the image. It was again so
grainy and low quality that even a military vehicle substitution was not noticeable. None of
the neighbors that were there saw a BUK on a trailer.
The route of travel according to Bellingcat would have taken the BUK launcher toward the
conflict zone twice while battles were being fought across the region. Anyone familiar with the
area or that had a map would take a direct route which would have made it much less noticeable
driving through unpopulated areas.
Images taken after the shoot down are just as bad. Some unimportant parts of the image are
in focus while it's almost impossible to make out the BUK even though it's right beside the
photographer.
The so-called wire-tapped conversation was proven to be a Ukrainian SBU production. How is
it still a part of the evidence chain?
What van der Werff and @bellingmouse have proven unequivocally is that another investigation
needs to take place that looks for real evidence. The JIT, for their part had the impossible
task of investigating a hostile shoot-down of a jetliner with no previous airline disaster
investigation experience in a war zone that was active. The problem with it is objectivity was
thrown out the window as soon as Ukraine got the right to reject evidence and control what
would be made public.
What has looking for Ruskies done? In the eyes of Congress it made you and every publication
that strives for neutral information or even writing from their political slant a Ruskie. You
work for Vladimir Putin.
It has taken away any hope of justice for people in Syria and the families of MH-17 victims
unless real neutral investigations take place.
It's taken away real news from the masses and replaced it with policy pieces from people
that get paid to hate you. You are after all, the Russian interference that they talk
about.
"... It seems that everyone is lying about the Skripal affair. The UK govt. version is riddled with inconsistencies. But it does seem that 2 GRU officers were wandering around Salisbury. Why? And the Russians are lying about that. ..."
"... The likelihood is that the GRU were there to discuss with Skripal his wishes to return to Russia. There is an alternative likelihood that they were there to quiz him on his contribution to the Dodgy Dossier. Both scenarios could well lead to the British secret services deciding to take Skripal out, even down, and blame it on the Russians. ..."
"... I would suggest that Skripal and his daughter are now either living somewhere else in Natoland under different identities and some money to keep them quiet, or else their existence became too awkward and risky and sadly they have been liquidated. ..."
In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical
attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.
What was the agenda behind the Douma false flag?
Why was the US response seemingly token and ineffective?
Why was the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired?
What agenda tied the Skripal case to the Douma attack?
The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight
in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.
The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the
Middle East.
Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight
oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.
This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".
The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the attacks,
and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.
Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation. But
he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war
mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative"
is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early
March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any
sense.
A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible
offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure
on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and
nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.
You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike
narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan
for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.
The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity
of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation.
The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed
by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?)
voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.
Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the
claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other
considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the liberal
Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.
The Skripal consideration
Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according to
plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire thing
has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.
The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable
silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.
The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.
1) It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
2) Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous
attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
3) It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in allusion
and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing tying it to
the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.
Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may
not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America,
has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).
None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film or
photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews
with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.
The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die.
Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency
of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.
She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed
location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.
Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative,
snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.
Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent
drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?
Is this what happened?
If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning,
a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions
being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off
in the Middle East.
So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false
flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria,
scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?
Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called
them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?
Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close scrutiny,
and no second act for distraction?
So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading
back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction
and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?
This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no
longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the
run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.
It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further geo-strategic
interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed UK government
is less appealing.
And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.
If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they
lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by
a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove
some of the most egregious parts of this.
This is very bad.
But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria
prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.
This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.
So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn
into this.
Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"?
Or will this signal some other change in direction?
We'll all know soon enough.
andyoldlabour
D S Bailey was interviewed by the BBC after leaving the hospital, but that interview simply raised more questions. Why was his
family allowed in the hospital without hazmat suits when the hospital staff were wearing them?
We were originally told that Bailey was contaminated whilst wearing police issue gloves, yet the BBC article said he was wearing
a hazmat suit.
Nerve toxins kill thousands, yet only three people were initially contaminated and recovered.
Refraktor
It's beyond reasonable doubt that there was no Novichok: assuming that substance even exists. It could be that Sergei and Yulia
were stooges loyal to MI5. It could be they were whacked with bz or fentanyl (by MI5) in the restaurant. That's all it would take.
Of course army heads of nursing and CID officers would be circulating ready get a handle on developments. Perhaps it later became
necessary to kill someone after the complete non-lethality of Novichok was revealed. Perhaps this death was really caused by heroin
overdose or else something quite natural. Perhaps not. I concur that the most likely motive for this false flag was an attempt
to escalate in Syria. Given the total barking insanity of the Skripal Saga it might be that NATO genuinely contemplated war with
Russia at this time. When they lobbed those cruise missiles I thought their dreams were about to come true. Maniacs.
Stonky
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?
Sergei was a double agent who could have had his finger in all sorts of dubious pies. There might easily be logical (if not
legitimate) reasons for keeping him under wraps. Surely the more pertinent question is: Where is Yulia?
Because even if you swallow every fragment of the official UK nonsense, you're still left with this oddity:
Yulia Skripal is a young woman who was the completely innocent victim of a dastardly assassination plot masterminded
by the evil Vlad. Having survived this attempt on her life, she has responded by deciding that she never again wants to see
or speak to anyone at all. Ever.
Nick
It seems that everyone is lying about the Skripal affair. The UK govt. version is riddled with inconsistencies. But it does
seem that 2 GRU officers were wandering around Salisbury. Why? And the Russians are lying about that.
Portonchok
Nick,
The likelihood is that the GRU were there to discuss with Skripal his wishes to return to Russia. There is an alternative
likelihood that they were there to quiz him on his contribution to the Dodgy Dossier. Both scenarios could well lead to
the British secret services deciding to take Skripal out, even down, and blame it on the Russians.
I would suggest that Skripal and his daughter are now either living somewhere else in Natoland under different identities
and some money to keep them quiet, or else their existence became too awkward and risky and sadly they have been liquidated.
Stonky
But it does seem that 2 GRU officers were wandering around Salisbury. .. Why?
Nick, even accepting that the two guys were Russian intelligence operatives, there are a million explanations for their presence
in Salisbury that day that make more sense than the official UK explanation: They came to assassinate Sergei Skripal by smearing
the world's deadliest nerve agent on his door handle in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, while wearing no protective clothing
Jen
There is no proof that the two Russian men Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov were GRU officers. The so-called "proof" for that
line of thinking comes from Bellingcat, a known propaganda outfit, who obtained the "proof" in highly suspect ways that suggest
it was given cherry-picked information made to fit the narrative.
It is far more likely that out of the many tourists to Salisbury – hundreds perhaps, and many of them from Russia as well –
these two men were picked out at random by UK government authorities as targets of suspicion because they happened to be travelling
together and must have fit a preconceived template in which secret Russian agents (like Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi before
them, when those two fellows were supposed to have poisoned Alexander Litvinenko back in 2006) are believed to travel in pairs.
John2o2o
Two Russians were wandering round Salisbury. That is all we know. Has it never occurred to you that the UK government and/or the
people who poisoned the Skripals might be using them as convenient scapegoats? It may even be that they were deliberately
lured to Salisbury to be set up in this way and had nothing to do with the poisoning.
OffG
Is there any solid evidence they were GRU? Has that ever been firmed up beyond Bellingcat's 'data dump' of largely unproven documents?
Seamus Padraig
The going theory is that the Russian agents were led into a trap. The GRU may have been made to believe somehow that Skripal intended
to re-defect, and that's why they really went to Salisbury–not to assassinate him, but to help him arrange his escape. That's
when the MI6 moved in for the kill, hoping to pin the crime on Russia.
To be sure, it's hard to get to the bottom of this cloak-and-dagger stuff when all we have access to is open-source information.
But one thing is pretty clear to me: the idea that Russia would have allowed Skripal to defect, then waited all those years and
taken crazy risks to kill him after having had him in their direct custody in a Russian prison for over 6 years, where they could
have easily killed him at any time, is ridiculous.
John2o2o
They are not proven to be Russian agents.
Reg
John2o2o
No, not proven but is it possible they were low level couriers in a meeting set up by Yulia where information was to be swapped
as the price as re-admittance to Russia for Sergei, particularly given Sergei's mothers advancing age.
It would explain the UK's panicked reaction as this was a meeting that must be stopped at all costs. How much would Sergei know
of UK security service operations if he was still active? It would also explained why Yulia as also targeted and why there turned
off their phones as they sought to shake off their UK handlers. A meeting is more credible in broad daylight than an assassination.
An assassination with an escape route involving a train from Salisbury on Sunday is not credible.
It could even be that the UK security services carried out the attack in the hope of blaming Russia if the could convince them
it was carried out by Russia. Having kept the OPCW away they could then interfere with the evidence at will with Novachock. They
could be filmed propped up in bed blaming Russia (like Litvinenko), but they didn't play ball so have been kept incommunicado
ever since apart from a a carefully scripted interview. The attacks on the other two months later could be to add credibility
to a narrative that was loosing all credibility even among the general public.
JudyJ
"Having kept the OPCW away "
I always considered it was highly suspicious that the UK was most reluctant to involve the OPCW right from the outset even
though that would be the normal internationally accepted practice in the circumstances; and when Russia was imploring them to
do so.
Significantly, the UK only brought them into the picture (reluctantly) when they were given legal advice that Russia were entitled
to invite the OPCW to investigate, and whoever issued the invitation first would have overall control of the final report (i.e.
they could liaise with the OPCW in the drafting, they could redact it, and decide who was to receive copies of the full report
as opposed to the summary report).
My suspicion now, knowing what we know about the OPCW Douma scandal, is that the UK were totally in cahoots with the US over
the Salisbury events and when the prospect of having no option but to call in the OPCW emerged the US simply said "Don't worry
about a thing. Just leave it with us. We'll sort things out".
Kathy
The British seem to me to act, hide and manipulate from behind the USA.
I think that Trump was really not meant to happen. Killery was supposed to take over the reins and continue the waging of wars
in the Middle East. Syria being the immediate agenda.
The two above events both link up in an attempt to force Trump into complying. One of the connections is the attempt to try to
smear Trump with the dodgy dossier. The chemical false flag was intended to provide the warmongers with enough pressure to force
Trump to act and involve America against his better judgement in an all out war in Syria. luckily this became a short term token
one off. Much to British annoyance.
It is the connection with the intelligence services that is key. All of these events seem to be designed to push Trump into compliance
and conformity. It is the knowledge of /and his probable involvement with Christopher Steele, that suggest poor Sergey knew to
much of both events, and so had to be silenced. The Skripal affair was, I think attempting a cherry on the cake demonizing of
Russia with the Skripal narrative. A twist of the knife while Trump was under investigation over his supposed puppet status by/
collusion with Russia.
It seems that the latest persecution of Assange is also mostly being pushed by Britain. Assange certainly did play a big part
in the narrative not playing out as planned.
crank
Remarkable that despite all that is known, an article (well, two really) like this does not meniton Israel once.
The extract from Catte's piece last year starts with the sentence, 'The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably)
regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East.'
The 'neocon faction' means what exactly ? Why not just say it ? It means Israel and the international power bloc aligned with
Israel.
Perhaps Douma and Salisbury make more sense if they are put into a context of Israel writing and running US (and by extension,
UK) foreign policies. And what of Russia's strange and often unmentioned relationship with Israel?
If anyone is serious about unwrapping the onion of lies and misdirection that passes for 'current events', then its time to consider
Israel and its networks of supporters as the central focal point.
9/11 only makes sense, I would say, with this in mind. Ditto the Kennedy killings. If you think these events have significance
in our present,and you genuinely stand against racist supremicism and crazed plans for world domination, then speak out about
Israel before such speech is criminalised everywhere.
Dissidents_unit
Well said Crank. I have always believed Mossad had a hand in the alleged assassination attempt of the Skripals as Israel does
have chemical weapons and has refused affiliation with the OPCW in order, I presume, to avoid inspections and having to decommission
the chemical weapons they have. If anybody is to be accused of meddling in other nation's elections, politics etc Israel is right
up there as the prime suspects – they obviously control Trump, they were caught on Video (at least a non diplomatic representative
from the Israeli Embassy in the UK who branded himself as managing 'special projects') offering Joan Ryan – a Labour MP – £1m
to run a smear campaign against Corbyn – which she gladly accepted. They have run continuous, spurious, ridiculous anti-Semitism
claims against Corbyn and Labour which has only served to turn the public more against them and they are massacring and murdering
Palestinians with impunity – all supported by the UK and USA.
I think Mossad were the Government (UK's) agents with respect to the Skripal affair. I am of the firm belief that the Skripals
are both dead – after all, the UK Government cannot afford to release them so to speak. I say this because Sergei used to speak
to his elderly mother in Russia if not every day, at least several times a week and he has not been in touch with her neither
has Yulia. Yulia had a flat, a fiancé, a job and a wedding to arrange back in Russia – I don't believe she just walked away from
all that.
Portonchok
And what of Russia's strange and often unmentioned relationship with Israel?
It's not strange at all. By far the largest group of immigrants into Israel are Russians.
John2o2o
Jews under the bed? I don't agree with your analysis. Israel has nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning. I understand your mistrust
of Israel, but it is not to blame for all the ills of the world.
crank
How do you know that 'Israel had nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning' ?
You don't.
I know of no connection directly linking the events to agents of the Israeli state, but what does that mean? We don't really know
any more than that the UK government story is a transparent fabrication.
If you conclude that Israel effectively runs US foreign policy then the Syrian situation has to be considered in that context.
(Likewise Iran).
It's not called the Anglo-zionist empire for nothing.
Catte's article was basically a theorised link between Douma and Salisbury. Douma is in Syria, which is under attack from Israel,
according to a plan drawn up in Israel decades ago, with proxy army from Neocon Washington (i.e. Israel)
mark
That's a good point. But I am struck by the leading role currently played by the UK in the recent litany of false flags and smear
campaigns. The UK was a prime mover in setting up the "White Helmets" and the various Syrian gas hoaxes. Litvinenko. Skripal.
The Steele Dirty Dossier. The Corbyn anti Semitism hoax. Admittedly probably with a large Zionist element.
crank
The Henry Jackson Society would be one obvious hub of neocon organisation within the UK political establishment. There surely
are others that we are as yet unaware of (NB the recent Facebook revelations of political interference around the globe.) In much the same way that the 'special relationship' between the US and Britain basically translates into Britain acting as
America's de facto diplomatic poodle, HJS has long seen itself as an outpost to disseminate US neoconservative ideology in the
British political establishment, media and civil society.
O/T I know, but on the subject of the esteemed (!) Henry Jackson Society, I had to laugh the other day when I read about the pending
departure of Alexander Yakovenko from the Russian Embassy in London.
A Dr Andrew Foxall, who (according to the Daily Mail) is the 'expert' Head of Russian Studies at the HJC, stated that it was
clearly a suspicious move because ambassadorial positions are normally held for 5 or 3 years, not for the 8 years that Yakovenko
had been there. He even spoon-fed us with the information that "8 is not divisible by 5 or 3" and therefore this has to be a forced
move. I suggest that Dr Foxall needs to stop and think just a touch longer if he is ever asked to comment in public in future
and not seriously damage whatever reputation he might claim to have. I ask you.
JudyJ
Sorry, should have made better use of my 'edit' time! HJC should of course read HJS. My proof-reading abilities are as questionable
as Dr Andrew Foxall's maths!
crank
If anyone has not reviewed Christopher Bollyn's case against Israel for 9/11, I would suggest that now is the time.
Only a widespread revelation of the role of Israel in 9/11 can stop their war on Iran from proceding.
There are only two viable theories about Skirpal IMO. The first is that his daughter had persuaded the old man to come home and
the englanders learned this at short notice.
Sergeant Nick Bailey the thug on call that day, really screwed up the attempt to off Skirpal even poisoning himself in order
to 'get' Skirpal before he met with the Russian officers who had been sent to negotiate his return home.
Proximity to English chemical weapons determined the method.
The second is also dependent on the proximity of English chemical weapons manufacturing base at Porton Downs. That is the English
were responsible for training Syrian headchoppers in chemical warfare and they taught their terrorists about Novichok to false
flag in Syria in a way that would make Russia appear culpable.
One of the trainee terrorists went to lunch and overheard the Skripals talking Russian & became so upset the invasion and war
had been lost, he decided to poison em.
The latter doesn't fit the known facts as well as the former, but it is more credible than anything the Englander spies have
offered.
Dissidents_unit
URKismet – just a comment – it turns out that the first responder apart from Nick Bailey was, in fact, the Head of Nursing of
the British Army! No coincidence there I think. Either she or Nick Bailey or both are surely suspects in the administration of
the toxic substance?
Wilmers31
Many people forget that Skripal took (according to wikipedia) approximately 300 other agents down with him when he was busted
in Moscow.
That makes about 600 individuals (only 1 relative for each) who must be his enemies. Someone was after revenge? Whether that
one was in Britain in exile or in Russia we don't know. People ignore such a large group of potential enemies.
Seamus Padraig
So why did the Russians allow the Skripals to emigrate to the UK in the first place? They had Sergei in prison for 6 years; they
could have had him bumped off at any time while he was their prisoner. But for some odd reason they chose not to. Strange
Wilmers31
It was a prisoner exchange before Skripal had completed his sentence. The UK must have had an asset which Moscow really wanted,
persons or . don't know. It is now time that these prisoner/spy exchanges no longer happen in secret. Why they let him out earlier
is not understandable from what we know at the moment.
Wilmers31
The one thumb down is surprising. If that is for the idea to cease prisoner/spy exchanges that is somewhat silly as these exchanges
do not make for happiness, as we have seen. If exchanges are so good, why not exchange Kevin Mallory with the Chinese? People
need to cop the complete punishment for their crimes, you do not exchange murderers or fraudsters, either.
If the criticism is about the hundreds of people who are tempted for revenge after their cover was blown through Skripal then
this is bizarre. What purpose does it serve to sweep it under the carpet that Skripal was only one person in a system? Maybe wikipedia's
figure of 300 was wrong – let's have the correct figure then.
We can read in memoirs like Brian Crozier's "Free Agent" and "Gold Warriors" (Seagraves) what operations there were in Chile,
Africa, Philippines etc but the many people who were involved are never mentioned. The individuals like Skripal or Crozier are
the visible tips of the icebergs and it is legitimate to ask who else was involved in the operations, covert or open, legal or
illegal, and who funded.
davemass
Profumo was jailed for lying to Parliament.
Surely May, and all accomplices should suffer the samne fate??
wardropper
I expect the US secret service just asked our secret service to take the initiative for once, since the US were beginning to look
like the bad guys
Paul Harvey
I have privately speculated that the raison d'etre of the Skirpal farce was simply to generate the belief system and memetic narrative
that Russia is currently producing chemical weapons/ nerve agents and is willing to openly use them on their perceived 'enemies'
abroad (and of course that the origin of these chemical weapons, ie Novichok can 'proved' to be exclusively of Russian providence.
Why is the above important? Because if there is ever a chemical weapons attack in Syria on civilians and hundreds die and the
nerve agent is 'proved' by the OPCW to be Novichok then of course Russia would get the blame for supplying the 'Assad regime'
with this chemical agent. (Sarin, anthrax etc cannot be exclusively traced back to Russia, only Novichok and it alone can be,
if we believe the prior Skirpal narrative).
As a side note – the story that Trump was shown images of dead English ducks and hospitalised English children in relation
to the Skirpal incident makes me wonder if this was an attempt by British psychological warfare operatives to pre-program Trump
and his team, so when videos eventually emerge of dead animals and hospitalised Syrian children, the link is already fixed in
their mind as to what a Novichok 'attack' looks like).
One has to admit the story that surfaced last month of dead ducks/hospitalised kids images shown to Trump in relation to the
Skirpal narrative was very strange to say the least.
Just as the Skirpal case 'fixed' the Novichok narrative in the MSM as exclusively of Russian providence, one can also speculate
that the Douma 'Barrel Bomb' meme (and the fake OPCW Report) was another key part of the narrative – if a speculative Novichok
attack occurs and footage emerges of similar containers as used in the the fake Douma chlorine attack, the OPCW can already point
to the providence of the delivery system as being exclusively of Syrian military origin and the Douma events as simply a precursor
to a current 'Novichok' attack (just as the Skirpal events would be used as a precursor to Russian culpability and perhaps even
the suggestion of active Russian involvement in a mass chemical attack on Syrian women and children using the agent Novichok.)
Maybe this is what the Russians mean by UK involvement in Douma – maybe they worked out that the Skirpal events were a precursor
to a wider false flag event to be staged down the line by elements of British military and state intelligence networks in conjunction
with elements within NATO and U.S. intelligence structures.
I know this is total speculation and I provide it as food for thought and grounds for further research in reference to this
article.
That is a tremendous piece of work. It should go down in history, but people are already forgetting Skripal's name. A truly
brilliant summary.
mark
Chemical weapons have been used against the Syrian military, inflicting casualties. They have also been used routinely by the
British taxpayer funded head choppers and throat slitters to terrorise civilians indiscriminately for years. As for "scant evidence
of jihadists weaponizing chemicals", they have been arrested in Turkey by the Turkish police in possession of canisters of sarin
nerve gas. Just one of many documented instances. But maybe this just comes from a "conspiracist mindset." Maybe it's totally
irrelevant to the issue when terrorists are arrested in Turkey in possession of nerve gas.
mark
The UK taxpayer funded head choppers and throat slitters routinely seize civilians as hostages, then murder them and blame it
on Assad. They have massacred entire villages then called in their chums in the BBC to film the evidence of "Assad's latest atrocity."
Like they film the devastation in Gaza and try to pass it off as rocket damage in Israel. All in a day's lying for the folks at
the Botty Bangers Club.
John
Isn't it odd that you used opcw findings when it matched what you want but it doesn't fit now so you're having a hissy fit! I
hope horrid things happen to you fake socialist
lundiel
isn't it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist
military?
No. Western media aren't going to get in a frenzy if some of Assad's soldiers are killed.
crank
isn't it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist
military?
– In a word, no. Anyone with even the slightest comprehension of how psychological warfare works would understand this.
Louis Proyec – 'reader'
Maybe read more widely, or start thinking more deeply, or stop bullshitting so lamely.
Loverat
I came across a similar post Louis made on another topic a while ago.
The political language and terms used in his posts always suggest his political position is his starting point then arranging
selective facts to support it. First, the classic line of attack is accusing others of 'conspiracy theorists' – a tactic used
by mainstream journalists and Bellingcat and el against the academics and experts of the Syria Working Group. As said below, that
does not cut it – especially now the 'conspiracy theorists' have for the umpteenth time been vindicated.
Louis, comes out with stuff like 'Baathist troops' (he uses the word 'Baathist' three times in his post as if it was somehow
relevant) whereas someone normal, of genuine intelligence and independent, would use the description 'Syrian Army'. Why would
you say 'Baathist troops' or use other pointless labels unless you are trying to distract from the real issues while attempting
to give the impression of having some knowledge. His political posturing offers nothing by way of getting to the truth and he
appears to be another self-serving armchair commentator.
mark
Maybe we could get him a job with Bellingcat.
OffG
You're embarrassing yourself, Louis. Throwing out stale ad homs like 'conspiracist' isn't enough any more. You need to up your
game, deal with the developing reality or retire.
Jen
We need the other anti-Assad troll back but the danger is I might get sick of hitting him again with Yassin al-Haj's article for
the New York Times where the Syrian activist admits to having stayed with the White Helmets in Ghouta in mid-2013 before fleeing
to Raqqa and leaving his wife Samira Khalil behind.
Ken
Take it easy on poor old Louis; what can one expect from a fellow who probably believes that 9/11 was not a false flag either?
And that one is a complete no-brainer to see.
Rhisiart Gwilym
Come on! Let's encourage the poor old fart to go on posting here. He's always good for an incredulous laugh. And he's a warning
too to anyone trying to make sense of Western criminal realpolitik, an object lesson in what happens to a supposed 'radical thinker'
– hah! – who drinks too deeply of the Western propaganda kool-aid, and holds the stuff down, too, until it comes time to regurgitate
it as if it were 'original thinking', the poor sucker. Don't off him. He's useful as light amusement.
PS: in case you think I'm being a bit ad-hominy, I'm a poor broken down old fart myself. But I still have my wits about me,
and I can still smell the stench of the West's Permanent Bullshit Blizzard when I meet it. Catch up soon Louis! Till then – thanks
for all the laffs! :O)
JudyJ
" isn't it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist
military?"
No, not at all odd.
1. To be clear, when you say "their own" I presume you mean the Syrian women and children who the (mainly non-Syrian) terrorists
hold as captives to ensure their men folk co-operate with them, or to be used in propaganda campaigns including 'false flag' scenarios.
2. In what form would you suggest the Jihadi murderers might be tempted to use chlorine in a way capable of killing opposition
soldiers? Chlorine is essentially an unpleasant irritant if misused. To kill, it would have to be administered in an enclosed
space where there was no means of escape for the victims.
3. We are constantly being fed the lie that the terrorists don't have sarin so it would be rather foolish of them to deploy
it against opposition soldiers. Even they've worked that one out.
4. The terrorists are mercenaries paid by western agencies whose primary function is to carry out acts to discredit the Assad
Government, thereby providing an ultimate excuse for military action to overthrow the Assad Government. The most obvious way to
do this is to murder, as you so sensitively express it, "a bunch of Syrians" in a way that the West finds appropriate to point
the finger at the Assad Government and its Russian allies.
This all makes a lot more sense than the idea that the Syrian Government assisted by the Russians would choose to murder innocent
Syrian civilians, not least by using outlawed chemical weapons, and incur the wrath of western powers at the point when they were
succeeding in defeating the terrorists with relative ease.
Over the last five pieces (
Part 1 ,
Part 2
,
Part 3 ,
Part 4 ,
Part 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. I don't intend to go through all of them, but would
simply point anyone who does believe the official story to concentrate on three words: The Door Handle. This was apparently where
the poison was poured, so allow me to pose five questions about this claim to those who believe it to be true:
During the "clean-up" operation, there were lots of military chaps wearing HazMat suits, which are designed to protect against exposure
to toxic chemicals. How, then, did the assassin apparently manage to pour this same lethal, military grade nerve agent on a door
handle, without wearing a HazMat suit? On the other hand, if he or she was wearing a HazMat suit when performing the operation, wouldn't
someone in Christie Miller Road have noticed and found it – shall we say – a bit odd? If the poison was administered to the door
handle, how exactly did both Sergei and Yulia Skripal manage to touch it (people don't normally both touch the door handle if they
go in the house together), and how did they manage to get exactly the right quantities on their skin so that they collapsed at exactly
the same time, some four hours later? The door handle theory only reared its head some three weeks after the poisoning, at which
point the substance was said to have been still present in a "highly pure" form. During this three weeks, many people went in and
out of Mr Skripal's house using the front door. How did they manage to do so without using the door handle, or if they did, how did
they manage not to succumb to poisoning? Part of the Government's alleged evidence pointing at the high likelihood of Russian involvement
in the case, is an FSB instruction manual showing – amongst other things – how to assassinate someone by pouring Novichok on a door
handle. Suspending our disbelief on this claim for a moment (and admittedly that is hard), did the Government have the manual when
they made their accusations against the Russian Government on 12th and 14th March, and if so, why did the door handle theory not
surface for more than a week after this?
Of course, a few moments consideration about the door handle theory will show that – like the rest of the official story – it
is simply wrong. And because it is so plainly wrong, that is why we can safely say that the real explanation lies elsewhere.
Nevertheless, I am aware that in advancing another explanation, there are likely to be many holes in it too. Whilst much of what
I have said throughout this series has been based on facts and eyewitness statements, the theory I have advanced from those facts
and witness statements remains unproven. And so I would ask that where I have got things wrong, you would forgive me, and where things
don't make sense, you would point them out.
Having said that, what I want to do in this final piece it to tie up a few loose ends and – most particularly – attempt to demonstrate
how the theory I have advanced explains some of the other anomalies in the case in a far more cogent and rational way than does the
official story. So here goes.
The Deafening Silence of Sergei Skripal
One of the least talked about points in the official story, yet one that really is very important, is that if it were a true account,
Mr Skripal would almost certainly have no more clue about who poisoned him than the average person in the street. If it were true
that an unknown assassin, appointed by the Russian Government, poured military-grade nerve agent onto his front door on 4th March,
before fleeing back to the Motherland, Mr Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, would be as much in the dark as to who did it than you
or I.
Now, if that were the case, two things would naturally follow. The first is that Mr Skripal would almost certainly be inclined
to believe the version of events given to him by the Metropolitan Police. Think about it. He wakes up one morning in a strange hospital
bed, and has absolutely no clue why he is there or what happened to him. Then a kindly policeman comes and explains that he was the
target of an assassination attempt using a lethal nerve agent, and that the British Government believes that it was ordered by the
Russian Government. What is he going to believe? Fairly obvious I would think. At least he would have no reason to disbelieve them.
The second thing that would naturally follow is that, as soon as he was able, he would want to release a statement, either on
paper, or in an interview, where he not only pledges his support for the Metropolitan Police and their ongoing investigation, and
no doubt hints at involvement of the Russian State, but also – and this is crucial – where he also gives the public some information
about what actually happened to him on 4th March: where he went, when he first started to feel ill, and what he last remembers.
Again, think about it. If you were in his shoes, wouldn't you want to catch the people who did it? And wouldn't you assume that
the more information you could give to the public, perhaps even clearing up some of the anomalies (such as the reason for the agitation
in Zizzis), the more chance there would be that someone's memory might be jogged and vital information given to the police?
Of course you would. And yet so far, Mr Skripal has released no such statement. Why?
It isn't that he is physically or mentally incapacitated. We know from Yulia Skripal's brief call to her cousin on April 5th (which
almost certainly wasn't "meant" to happen), that Sergei was by that time fine. In response to Viktoria's question about her father,
she said this:
"Everything is ok. He is resting now, having a nap. Everyone's health is fine, there are no irreparable things. I will be discharged
soon. Everything is ok."
That was nearly three months ago, and yet the Sergei Skripal who was fine on 5th April, having suffered no irreparable damage
from apparently being poisoned by the world's most deadly nerve agent, and who was discharged on 18th May, still has not spoken.
I put it that the theory I have advanced (see
Part 5 in
particular), suggests an obvious reason for his silence. Were he in the dark about the identity of those who poisoned him, as the
official story implies, his silence would be inexplicable. Don't you want to catch the perpetrators of this crime upon you and your
daughter, Sergei?
Yet, if we assume that actually he knows exactly who poisoned him and why they poisoned him – as would be the case according to
the theory I have advanced – then his silence is very easily explained. He cannot be allowed to be interviewed about what happened,
because he would blow the whole wretched business clean out of the water. He cannot be allowed to make an open statement, with the
press there to ask free questions, because it would come out that he had been meeting someone at the bench in The Maltings, and that
this someone whom he met was the person who poisoned him.
In addition, his (highly likely) authorship of the Trump Dossier would be revealed. And if this were to happen, not only would
it be seen that the foundation upon which the whole
Trump/Russia collusion hoax was based was made of straw, but it would become clear that the interference in the 2016 US Presidential
election was never really about Russian interference to get Trump elected; but rather about British interference to stop
Trump getting elected.
The deafening silence of Mr Skripal is therefore strong evidence of a number of things:
That the Government story, in which he was the unsuspecting victim of a Kremlin plot, is without foundation. That he well knows who
his poisoners were and why they poisoned him. That he cannot be allowed to speak freely because if he was, a scandal of monumental
proportions would be revealed. The Deafening Silence of Yulia Skripal
Deafening silence of Yulia? What am I talking about? She has released a number of statements through the Metropolitan Police,
and in the statement (not interview) she made to Reuters. So what do I mean?
Many have pointed out a number of remarkable things about her Reuters statement. For one, she looked remarkably well. For another,
the language of the statement she read was highly suggestive that it was first written in English – not by her – and then translated
into Russian (statements like "I do not wish to avail myself of their services" don't normally trip off the tongue of native English
speakers, let alone those who speak it as a second language).
But for me the most remarkable thing about all of her statements are not what they do say, but rather what they don't say. As
with Sergei's silence, Yulia has nothing whatsoever to say about the day of the poisoning. Isn't that odd? She notes that she and
her father survived an "attempted assassination". She notes that a nerve agent was used to do it. But she says nothing about her
and her father's movements that day. Nothing about what they did and where they went. Nothing about when they first succumbed to
the effects of the poisoning. Nothing to suggest that her father's agitation in Zizzis may have been caused by poisoning.
In short, she says nothing whatsoever about the poisoning itself. Zero. Diddly squat. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Why?
As with Sergei's non-statements, this doesn't compute. If you happened to wake up in a hospital to be told that you had been the
victim of a nerve agent poisoning, you would almost certainly want to tell people as much as possible about your movements up to
the point of the poisoning. Wouldn't you? Of course. Especially if not only you had been poisoned, but also your dad. You'd at least
want to sound a bit more interested in actually catching the perpetrators than Yulia, who didn't so much as mention it, and instead
sounded like she just wanted to move on and forget it ever happened.
Once again, this total silence on something so crucial just doesn't fit at all with the official story. That narrative suggests
that Sergei and Yulia were innocent victims of a Kremlin-hired assassin. That narrative suggests they don't know who that Kremlin-hired
assassin was. But it also suggests that they of all people have a huge interest in giving details of what happened to them that day.
And yet there is silence.
Does it fit better with the theory I have proposed? You bet it does. If what I have suggested is anywhere close to the truth,
just like Sergei, Yulia cannot be allowed the freedom to give a proper interview where any question is allowed. She cannot be given
consular access by the Russian Embassy. Why not? Because she knows what her dad was up to; she knows why he was meeting people at
a park bench on Sunday 4th March; and she knows that the two of them were poisoned by the people who they were meeting.
Why did she agree to an interview? No doubt she realises what a difficult and vulnerable position she is in. Despite claims to
the contrary, she clearly has no contact with her family back in Russia, or indeed any contact with the outside world. She was almost
certainly pressured into making a statement, and yet -- as Tony Kevin convincingly argues
here -- it has many signs of being a compromise statement.
And so she agreed to making a fairly nebulous statement -- one which is almost inconceivable from the point of view of the official
narrative, but which fits perfectly with the narrative I have advanced.
The Deafening Silence of Nick Bailey
One final deafening silence that doesn't exactly do wonders for the official narrative, is the silence of Detective Sergeant Nick
Bailey. He has always been a big puzzle in this case, for a number of reasons. It was first said that he was poisoned at The Maltings.
However, the problem with this explanation is that there was absolutely no reason for him to have been there. The case was treated
by Salisbury District Hospital as a case of Fentanyl poisoning. Why would a member of the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID)
be called to a bench to an apparent opioid overdose?
It was then said by none other than Lord Ian Blair that DS Bailey was actually poisoned at Mr Skripal's house. But again, the
same question arises. Why would a member of CID be sent to the home of a person in a what looked like a case of opioid poisoning?
The story then swung backwards and forwards a number of times between a poisoning at the Maltings and a poisoning at Mr Skripal's
house. These anomalies are very important, but even more important is that they could have been put straight by DS Bailey himself.
If the official story was correct, not only would it have been super easy to have verified where DS Bailey was poisoned, but he himself
could have testified to it. And yet like the Skripals, there has been nothing!
Given the absurd changes to this particular part of the story – and it is perhaps the easiest of all parts to verify – my assumption
is that he was poisoned at neither The Maltings or Mr Skripal's house. Instead, just as I wrote in
Part 5 that
I believe it likely the Skripals were poisoned by an incapacitating nerve agent in the red bag that was then seen next to the bench,
I think it highly likely that DS Bailey was poisoned from the same source.
But where? The red bag was
removed from the scene by a police officer and placed in an evidence bag. Why would this have been done? Because the pair on
the bench were suspected of overdosing on an opioid, and the bag would naturally be removed by police so that its contents could
be examined. And whereas I think it unlikely that someone from CID would be called to the scene of a drug overdose, it seems quite
likely that they might receive and handle evidence taken from such a scene. Therefore my guess – and I stress that it is only a guess
– is that DS Bailey was the man who received the bag, and whilst looking inside to see its contents, was poisoned by the same incapacitating
agent as the Skripals (possibly something like 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate (BZ), but definitely not A-234).
Again, if the official story were true, what would prevent DS Bailey from giving a brief statement or interview, confirming exactly
what happened to him? But if the red bag theory is close to the mark, then it becomes plainly obvious why this hasn't yet happened.
Smokes and Mirrors
Which actually brings me on to the penultimate point I want to make in this piece, and indeed in this 6-part series. Everything
in the official story, no matter how absurd, seems designed to point our attention away from the most probable source, place and
type of poisoning: The red bag, at the bench, and an incapacitating nerve agent. And it does so because if our attention is focused
on them, then a very different story begins to emerge. Which cannot be allowed to happen.
As stated above, claims about A-234 being used just don't add up. Neither the time delay, nor the symptoms, nor the recovery of
the Skripals with no irreparable damage match up to what this deadly, military grade, high purity, lethal nerve agent that is so
much more toxic than VX, is meant to do. What the claim does, however, is points our attention away from what is far more likely
– an incapacitating agent administered to the Skripals between 3:45 and 4:00pm on 4th March.
As stated above, claims about the door handle just don't add up. Neither the fact that both Sergei and Yulia were poisoned, nor
the fact that others went in and out of the house before the door handle theory was put forward and didn't succumb, nor the fact
that the substance on it apparently remained of "high purity" weeks later – none of these things make any sense. What the claim does,
however, is directs our thoughts away from what is far more likely – that the substance used to poison the Skripals was administered
at the bench, and probably via the red bag.
The apparent motive put forward in the official narrative doesn't add up either. There is a general agreement among countries
that you do not target spies who have been part of a swap. Why? Because if you do, you can kiss goodbye to ever getting any other
spies swapped in the future. It's called shooting yourself in the foot big time! But what this frankly risible explanation for the
apparent motive behind the poisoning does, however, is to point our attention away from what Mr Skripal was really up to. And as
I set out in
Part 4 , this was very likely something to do with authoring the Trump Dossier.
Nothing about the official story makes sense. None of it adds up. It is riddled with holes. But I would submit that the only thing
that does make sense about it, is that the parts that go to make up the sum are all desperate attempts to divert attention. They
are smokes and mirrors, designed to stop us from considering some of the more obvious aspects of the case, and some of the more startling
aspects of the case – Mr Skripal's involvement with MI6; his likely involvement in or authorship of the Trump Dossier; the likelihood
that he was due to meet people at the bench in The Maltings; the probability that this is why he was agitated and in a hurry in Zizzis;
the likelihood that he knows who poisoned him and why.
And of course the reason that these things are not supposed to be considered is that if – and I acknowledge it is a big if – the
alternative explanation I have advanced is true, and if it became generally known, then it would cause just about the biggest political
crisis in British political history.
And Finally
Having said that, I have to say that I don't believe it at all likely that the British Government knew about any of this before
it occurred. I get the impression that the intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are a law unto themselves, and I think
it likely that some of their number wanted to send Mr Skripal a message, one which would look like an opioid overdose, one which
he would recover from reasonably quickly, and one which would be forgotten very soon.
However, I don't think that the poisoning of DS Bailey was meant to happen, but when it did, it set off a series of events that
quickly got out of control. I don't think the identity of Sergei Skripal as a Russian involved in a spy swap was ever meant to make
it into the press, but it did and very soon what looked like some kind of opioid poisoning quickly became an international spy saga.
The British Government's reckless and extraordinarily quick reaction to the case was, apart from being a travesty of the rule
of law, one of the biggest clues that the official narrative was not true. If it were true, they could have took their time, acted
calmly, and let the investigation run its course. Instead, what we got was a lawless, irrational and absurd response. It all smacked
of a panicked reaction, and whilst it made no sense in terms of the story they sold us, it makes perfect sense if the truth was that
they were desperate to prevent news getting out about who Skripal really was, what he had been up to, and how the poisoning might
well be connected with that work. And indeed the D-notices they slapped on the reporting of that stuff, and of Mr Skripal's connections
to Christopher Steele and Pablo Miller, are further evidence that it is so.
And so they very quickly decided to turn attention away from the big clues of the case, by invoking the scary sounding "Novichok"
and pinning the blame – without any evidence – on the Russian State. To this date, they have given us no evidence to back up their
claim, much less a suspect, but have unwittingly given us a bunch of absurdities that can be blown out of the water through the use
of simple reason and logic.
They should have remembered this:
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap" (Galatians 6:7)
But I have a feeling they don't believe it applies to them. I have a feeling that it does.
And so there's my case. As I say, there are bound to be a good many holes and no doubt many errors and inconsistencies in it.
Please do forgive me for those. As for the rest of it -- Make of it what you will.
' On Friday, Salisbury District Hospital's director of nursing Lorna Wilkinson announced Mr Rowley had been discharged and Public
Health England said he posed no risk to the community She said "I would also like to reassure everyone that, despite many people
seeking advice following these incidents, there have only ever been a total of five people who have been exposed to this nerve
agent and admitted to hospital for treatment"'.
This whole Salisbury saga is a complete riddle. The A&E consultant wrote to the Times saying nobody had ever been treated for
nerve agent poisoning, yet here we are months later and the director of nursing is totally contradicting him. Don't they talk
to each other at Salisbury District Hospital? Or, more likely, was the consultant going off-script?
JudyJ
Ross, Yes, considering Sergei and Yulia were placed in medical comas for several weeks supposedly to aid their recovery, Rowley's
treatment and speedy recovery appear to have inexplicably followed a completely different pattern. With regard to Dr Davies' letter
to the Times, have a look at 'The Blogmire' website where there has been posted in the past two or three days a brief report on
this, followed by interesting reader comments. Rob Slane, who also provides articles for this website, is 'Mr' Blogmire and he
managed to contact Dr Davies but really received less than convincing information.
"400 potentially contaminated items" is absolutely meaningless but sounds good. It is a useful means to imply that the police
are on top of things. Even if they found contamination on any of the items, I'm not sure what it would prove. Basically all they
mean is they have removed everything that Rowley and Sturgess might have touched since some randomly selected vague date or been
told by Rowley was the date he 'acquired' the 'bottle'. It could be all their clothing, everything in the fridge or kitchen cupboards,
everything in the bathroom etc etc If history repeats itself they won't even bother to test the items but will just incinerate
the lot.
D'Esterre
JudyJ: "400 potentially contaminated items"
I was puzzled at this. I remarked to a family member that it looks as if either somebody at Porton Down has been very careless,
or the spooks don't understand subtlety.
Mulga Mumblebrain
The brainwashed morons are impressed by big numbers.
D'Esterre
Jen: " .you have to explain why the UK authorities incinerated the Zizzi's Restaurant table where the Skripals had lunch ."
That's interesting. I hadn't known that. Curious though: if the authorities incinerated the table at which they had lunch,
how is it that the front desk – where presumably they paid the bill – wasn't also incinerated? Come to that, what about whatever
was on the table: cloth, utensils, plates and so on. Also waitstaff and kitchen staff: surely they'd have been contaminated as
well?
Truly, the more we're told about this incident, the more farcical it sounds. Ditto the incident with the unfortunate couple
in Amesbury. None of it makes sense.
Mulga Mumblebrain
When the Western kakistocracies and the Evil psychopaths who comprise them, in politics, the 'intelligence' apparatus and the
fakestream media brainwashing machine, lie about everything to do with Russia ie about Putin's legitimacy, the nature of Russian
society, the 'popularity' of fascist Quislings like Navalny, Russia' role in saving Syria from the takfiri death-squad armies
sent against it, about Russia's non-existent role in Western installation of fascists in power in Kiev, Russian 'meddling' in
US elections etc, etc, etc, on the balance of probabilities it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that these pathological liars are telling the
truth about the Skripals. Particularly when we know that they are lying in asserting that ONLY Russia could make novichoks, only
Russia had any motive, that only Russia bumps off inconvenient people and that only Russia had anything to gain from it, on the
eve of the FIFA World Cup and with various Sorosian vermin braying that it be cancelled. How utterly galling it must be for these
psychopathic Russophobes that it was the greatest World Cup, on and off the field, for decades, perhaps ever.
Yulia Skripal's agreeing to convey the message concerning her possibly meeting with Russian authorities – "I do not wish to avail
myself of their services" -, raises suspicion that she and her father Sergei Skripal were "in on" an engineered false flag chemical
event from the start. Perhaps others have already done the investigative research and verified Yulia Skripal did indeed undergo
a tracheotomy, the neck scar seemingly over-exposed and the central focus for all who watched her short Reuters "interview". Has
this been confirmed by the doctor(s) who performed the surgical procedure, nurses assisting those surgeon(s) in the operating
room, medical photos, medical records, etc..
If Ms. Skripal indeed underwent surgical tracheotomy, our thought that the neck scar was the result of a covert conspirator
surgeon's making a simple incision and immediately sewing it up – to appear as if Ms. Skripal underwent a lifesaving surgical
procedure -, goes out the window.
Can anyone help in clarifying this? Has it been verified Ms. Skripal underwent the procedure and that her neck scar should
not be perceived as anything other than from a truly necessary lifesaving action?
Thank you.
vexarb
@thorella: "The uk legal system and uk forensics are second to none."
Dr. John Kelly, RIP. Assassinated by MI6 by order of Prime Miniister TB.Liar of Dodgy Dossier, interred without mandatory Crown
Coroners Inquest with Case Sealed for 70 years by order of Lord "Safe Pair of Hands"Hunt of Bloody
Sunday fame, and Dr.Kelly's bodily remains subsequently dug up and incinerated to destroy chemical evidence by order of Prime
Minister St Theresa of Porton Down.
"Second to none" in what?
Jen
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian embassy in London are too busy having a laugh at seeing the whole affair collapse
under its own inconsistencies and at the British government and security services trying to prop up the whole mess and failing
to distract public attention away from the shit-heap that Theresa May has made of Brexit.
Why should the Russians bother commenting on it at all, when we can all see it's a false flag without the Russians having to tell
us?
This is a domestic UK issue about MI6 being out of control.
BigB
The main corroboration for the Steele Dossier was Christopher Steele: briefing the press at the Tabard Inn, Washington – to set
up a collaboration loop. Julian Assange tweeted that one of the journalists was Paul Wood who looks like a spook or an asset himself.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943588394323973
Another journalists was Michael Isikoff. His planted story war used to collaborate the Dossier as the basis of the FBI's FISA
warrant to surveill Carter Page.
The Nunes Memo also states that Steele back-chanelled additional allegations into the DOJ via Bruce Ohr.
Another corroboration was the Trump Tower meeting: ostensibly set up by Trump linked Araz Agalarov could verify the piss taking
allegations. It's well worth revisiting the Elizabeth Vos Disobedient Media article for background on this meeting set up Mifsud
et al: who are linked to London – not Moscow.
Anyway, all these "experts" – and Wikipedia – seem to have got their information from one source – Steele: who both wrote and
then corroborated his own dossier. With a little help from his intel friends
"Genuine" in the sense that it was really written by a KGB insider (which Skripal was), NOT in the sense that what he alleged
was true.
The point is that the source of the Steele-Clinton dossier would have been revealed and, of course, the source would have been
a proven consummate liar and traitor. This would blow Mueller's "investigation" out of the water.
But I'll not engage with you any further on this, since there's none so blind as those who will not see.
Thomas Peterson
why exactly does it seem likely Skripal was one of Steele's sources? did Steele even need any sources to write his ludicrous 'dossier'?
The Orbis report makes as if it knows all the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within Putin's impenetrable Kremlin. It
reports information from anonymous "trusted compatriots," "knowledgeable sources," "former intelligence officers," and "ministry
of foreign affairs officials." The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with
Donald Trump's Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, "golden
showers," bribes, squabbles in Putin's inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information).
There are two possible explanations for the fly-on-the-wall claims of the Orbis report: Either its author (who is not Mr. Steele)
decided to write fiction, or collected enough gossip to fill a 30-page report, or a combination of the two. The author of the
Orbis report has one more advantage: He knew that what he was writing was unverifiable. He advertises himself as the only Kremlin
outsider with enough "reliable" contacts to explain what is really going within Putin's office.
As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution
Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who
follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy
reference. The report includes Putin's inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have "trusted
compatriots" who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were
prepared to tell him.
The Orbis report spins the tale of Putin insiders, spurred on by Putin himself, engaging in a five-year courtship of Donald
Trump in which they offer him lucrative real estate deals that he rejects but leaves himself open to blackmail as a result of
sexual escapades with prostitutes in St. Petersburg and Moscow (the famous "golden shower" incident). Despite his reluctance to
enter into lucrative business deals, Trump "and his inner circle have accepted regular intelligence from the Kremlin, including
on his Democratic and other political rivals," according to the Orbis report.
This story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant
impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential
candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.
Sergei Skripal could fit the description of the "Russian" referred to in the third paragraph.
Thomas Peterson
I don't assume it. I see no reason to think Skripal had anything to do with the dossier. More likely in my view the sources, if
there were any, were Ukrainians and Americans.
There's a stink of Ukraine about it.
Mulga Mumblebrain
After a history of intelligence lying in the West that includes the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Warren Commission, 'yellow rain'
in Indochina, KAL 007, Lockerbie, Kuwaiti babies thrown from incubators, the USS Liberty, Saddam's WMD, Gaddafi's 'container-loads
of Viagra', MH17, the Russian 'invasion of Georgia', the Russian 'invasion of Ukraine', the Tian An Men Square 'massacre' etc
(I could go on ALL day), to credit ANYTHING that Western intelligence agencies state is sign either of intractable dementia, or
duplicity-or both, probably.
Jen
Yes I suppose a document based mostly on hearsay, rumour and guesswork, and with an accuracy of 60 – 70% (where? in spelling?),
ought to be taken seriously – to the kitty litter box.
I mentioned Paul Roderick Gregory and Craig Murray as two people who dismissed the dossier as fraudulent. What "experts" can
you put forward, GB, who support the dossier's contents as genuine or accurate? I suppose you think Luke Daniel Harding and Eliot
Higgins might qualify as experts supporting the dossier's contents as more or less accurate?
Jen
Gregory says the dossier fails the laugh test and is full of bizarre statements. Murray regards it as equivalent to the Hitler
Diaries hoax. Where do they not find anything wrong in the dossier?
bevin
If all that you have to go on for now is a dossier put together by a mercenary for the use of a political party in attack ads,
produced at great expense, and totally unsourced and uncorroborated, the world is in a worse way than you fear.
Or perhaps, it's not the world but you?
Mulga Mumblebrain
The utterly fraudulent 'dossier' was also used to gain an illegal FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, as part of the conspiracy
to derail Trump's electoral bid, elect the blood-soaked feminazi Gorgon, Clinton, and further the hate campaign against Russia.
Three miles from Amesbury, six miles from Salisbury. 'Porton Down is the elephant in the room': former British ambassador who
visited Nukus plant where Novichok was tested, Craig Murray dismantles Amesbury poisoning
story on BCFMradio,
Porton Down : What is the experimental government facility in Wiltshire at the centre of recent poisonings?
The secretive laboratory has unintentionally become key in political developments and international relations
The major incident in Amesbury saw two people poisoned by the same nerve agent that almost killed the Skripals, government
scientists have confirmed. The attack turns attention once more to Porton Down, the mysterious laboratory that has unintentionally
become central to the response to the attacks.
The secretive government facility at Porton Down has been used for experiments involving deadly and often undisclosed weapons,
and in the wake of the Salisbury attack has become indelibly associated with the nerve agent used in the attack. The Met – whose
counter-terror police are now leading the investigation – confirmed that samples had been tested at the facility and that they
showed "show the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok".
Porton Down is often talked about in the singular, but is actually a site located near Porton village that is host to a whole
group of different organisations. The two key ones are the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which is run by the Ministry
of Defence and usually referred to as Dstl, as well as Public Health England – both bodies have been involved in the response
to the recent poisonings, though it is the former laboratory whose activity is most mysterious.
Bullingdon Boris resigns, feigns matters of principle, limbers up for the top job he was promised at Eton. As 1922 committee
cheers for Theresa May ring out to the rafters, British government prepares for controlled demolition.
Three miles from Amesbury, six miles from Salisbury. 'Porton Down is the elephant in the room': former British ambassador who
visited #Nukus plant where #novichok was tested, Craig Murray dismantles #Amesbury poisoning story
https://youtu.be/LbbxNkPDNrQ on @BCFMradio
Porton Down: What is the experimental government facility in Wiltshire at the centre of recent poisonings?
The secretive laboratory has unintentionally become key in political developments and international relations
The major incident in Amesbury saw two people poisoned by the same nerve agent that almost killed the Skripals, government
scientists have confirmed. The attack turns attention once more to Porton Down, the mysterious laboratory that has unintentionally
become central to the response to the attacks.
The secretive government facility at Porton Down has been used for experiments involving deadly and often undisclosed weapons,
and in the wake of the Salisbury attack has become indelibly associated with the nerve agent used in the attack. The Met – whose
counter-terror police are now leading the investigation – confirmed that samples had been tested at the facility and that they
showed "show the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok".
Porton Down is often talked about in the singular, but is actually a site located near Porton village that is host to a whole
group of different organisations. The two key ones are the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which is run by the Ministry
of Defence and usually referred to as Dstl, as well as Public Health England – both bodies have been involved in the response
to the recent poisonings, though it is the former laboratory whose activity is most mysterious.
Bullingdon Boris resigns, feigns matters of principle, limbers up for the top job he was promised at Eton. As 1922 committee
cheers for Theresa May ring out to the rafters, British government prepares for controlled demolition.
There's another source of "deadly silence".
A doctor was reported (by the BBC on 8th May) to have given CPR to Julia for 30 minutes without being contaminated by the "novichok".
Indeed, the doctor reported to the BBC that she 'felt fine' afterwards.
No-one has seen nor heard from this doctor since, yet a doctor should be easy enough to trace.
mike nagel
Considering the mendacity of the media on this and other matters has anyone considered the possibility that no poisoning of any
kind took place in March? The whole story has been a giant load of road apples from day one. What we are expected to swallow by
the powers that be cannot possibly be so, perhaps the Skripals never sat on that bench in the first place.
I certainly have. My favourite part of the fairy tale is the cat and two guinea pigs.
Yonatan
The 'door handle' theory only arose as a means of explaining how the policeman was contaminated. He was allegedly present soon
after the Skripals were found, and became contaminated, while others, including a doctor who closely examined the Skripals, did
not. Occam's Razor suggests that the Skripals and the policeman were affected at the same time before other witnesses were present.
This implies that the policeman was a witness to the attack.
summitflyer
Thank you Rob Slane for this study of the Skripal case.As an outsider from another country I am grateful for your work .Your assumptions
are far more likely than what we have heard from the government officials .As ugly as the truth of the matter might be , it would
be better if they found a way to fess up .At this point it does not look good for the UK credibility .
Paul X
I'm intrigued by why the White House or the Administrstion hasn't asked why an ex-Senior spy, Steele, was given permission by
the British Secret Service to write his dossier at all, based as it was purportedly on his time as Head of the Russia Desk at
MI6, let alone pass it over to the Democrats while carefully leaking it to the media all with Steele's stated opinion that he'd
do anything to stop Trump getting elected. It's clear why the US Intelligence Services are unconcerned, they also deplored Trump's
election but why is there nothing about British interference in the election from Trump himself? Is it a row he's saving up or
does it does show that Trump v the Dark State is rubbish, they are all in it together?
The poisonings were most probably organised by the state within the state. This speech although almost twenty years old gives
some idea of the powers of the deep state and how the government relates to them http://zersetzen.wikispaces.com/file/view/Gerald+Reaveley+James.pdf
Paul X
Who knows whether the British had a motive to incapacitate Sergei and then keep him in custody so it's hard to see how it can
be said so categorically. If Sergei was serious about returning to Russia to see his mother before she died (a not unnatural sentiment
especially for such a sentimental man) then there may have been very pressing reasons to keep him here, notably what he would
say in his inevitable 'de-briefing' by ex-colleagues. It isn't denied that he continued to work with MI6 and may have had a hand
in the Steele dossier. Julia's arrival seems to have moved the game forward and 'action' became imperative. The story itself has
the hall marks of Eton and Trinity, a good 'wheeze'. Hastily put together it would have unraveled immediately without the D Notice.
Now they have to decide whether they can dare let either of them have their freedom; Julia has a long life ahead; is she to be
held incommunicado for decades?
I don't know if it has been asked before, but: why poison Yulia Skripal anyway? If this was some sort of professional hit, it
was very badly timed, given that Yulia was only visiting her father.
I personally do not believe that any of these 5 people had been poisoned by a nerve agent. And by that I mean an organophosphate
compound. BZ is not that class of compound. (I have a degree in chemistry).
Those compounds are exceedingly toxic. If their use (or rather non-use) is military then they must kill enemy troops quickly
and with minimal amount. Speed is crucial. Semi conscious enemy soldiers are dangerous.
What I find frustrating is that – because we are being so cynically lied to by our government – we have been seriously misled
about the toxicity of these chemicals. You really don't stand any sort of chance if you are poisoned by them.
Paul X
Julia's boyfriend is apparently in the Russian Secret Service and his mother is a senior figure in Russian Intelligence. She may
have been passing on Putin's reply to Sergei's request to return home to visit his seriously ill elderly mother? He was irritable
because he'd realised he'd have to decide, UK or Russia. And if it was to be Russia then he knew he'd have to spill the beans
on Steele; tough decision! I agree it would be odd to target her if she was 'just' his daughter on a brief visit. Julia may have
been as much a target as her father?
Paul Carline
If they were poisoned by a 'Novichok' nerve agent they would be dead.
Who 'identified' the supposed Novichok? Porton Down.
Who provided the sample for the OPCW? Porton Down.
Who has stocks of all known nerve agents? Porton Down.
Can the OPCW be trusted? No.
Can Brad Pitte II be trusted? No.
George
"The Western forces conspired to do it" = "conspiracy stuff".
"The Russian forces conspired to do it" = "not conspiracy stuff".
When is a conspiracy not a conspiracy?
bevin
Whether "Russia" had a motive is moot. But there is no evidence that "Russia" had any particular means than any other potential
culprit, such as MI6.
As to'precedent' the number of assassinations carried out abroad by Russian intelligence pales in comparison with those carried
out by Military Intelligence in the UK, the CIA and Mossad.
You are reduced to citing the very unlikely 'precedent' of Litivenko which every effort of The Establishment has failed to produce
anything more than a meaningless finding by a tame High Court judge. No legal proceedings have discovered any connection between
the death and the Russian state.
On the other hand 'western' intelligence agencies are notoriously engaged in assassinations and have been on an industrial scale
for seventy years. Cf The Committee chaired by Senator Church.
Let's see. An MI6 spy, known to be still actively working on MI6 deception, is involved in an incident in which a claim is made
that he's been poisoned with a deadly nerve agent by the Russians, which is disputed by hospital staff and Porton Down people
behind the scenes, and can't be checked out by investigative journalists in the mainstream media, because there aren't any investigative
journalists in the mainstream media, and immediately the Government knows that Russia did it. Doesn't that suggest to you that
Mr Skripal may have been part of the set-up right from the start?
As for his daughter, is that the same Yulia Skripal in the pictures after the event as the one in the restaurant before the
event?
Cherrycoke
Of course, Christopher Steele was also involved in the Litvinenko case:
"Steele's already dim view of the Kremlin darkened in November, 2006, when Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian K.G.B. officer
and a Putin critic who had been recruited by M.I.6, suffered an agonizing death in a London hospital, after drinking a cup of
tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. Moscow had evidently sanctioned a brazen murder in his own country. Steele was put
in charge of M.I.6's investigation. Authorities initially planned to indict one suspect in the murder, but Steele's investigative
work persuaded them to indict a second suspect as well."
Did Steele develop a 'dark view' of Thanatopolis DC after the years of rendition and torture, the illegal aggression and genocide
in Iraq, or the carnage of the drone missile terrorism, or the death-squad 'night raid' rampage by US Special Forces. If not,
why not?
Circumstances unknown and withheld from public knowledge oblige people in 'power' or positions of influence under such power to
act in ways that make no sense to anyone with sense.
News for mass consumption is a sideshow but also a conditioning to remain inside the framing of a narrative identity. The 'Western
intelligence' could not do a better job of damaging their credibility by the WAY they operate as well as the what of it.
However "No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade,
but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself
as a jarring dissonance." (Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives).
While the what of it can be tested to some degree for congruency with itself and with all the factors involved, the WAY of
it speaks of either desperation of from a conviction that intellectual criticism is powerless in a post truth coup.
My sense is of either the leadership class being captive to powers they do not feel able to challenge or are cornered in some
way by their circumstance so as not to have any other recourse than – in this case – stirring up hatred in incitement to violence
with Russia. This could all be a brinkmanship of geopolitical 'poker' or it could be that the only 'escape' from such a mess as
we inherit and persist in is war.
My sense is that when we cannot or will not embrace change somewhat 'gracefully' or in some willingness – then we give power
to whatever external 'crisis' ripens to force it – and seek to 'survive' at the expense of those we abandoned or indeed conscripted
or made into targets for WMD.
Dictating terms to a world of 'united states' under broad spectrum dominance of a tyrannous rule is not justified by 'symbols
and stories' of freedom.
National and International security rests on honest communication, backed by supporting deeds so as to grow trust in place
of treachery. No one has a clean past, but if we persist in re-enacting it, we will forsake the presence of mind by which to choose
not to.
The nature of politics has had all its goalposts moved to a rigged system of finance and law that pre-empt any movement of
cultural development apart from corporate capture – and allow that corporations have only the power given them by such a systemic
'development'. No one HAS power but for an agenda larger than their own usefulness.
Worldly power has always operated a narrative control at some level – but technology has 'outsourced' our own will and consciousness
to systems and machinery of our own attempt and intent to replace Life with our own making. I see a larger 'script' than power
struggle – or rather I see an awakening 'script' running beneath the narrative identity conflict.
Whether we have a fated outcome or make our own (under a fatal condition), the framing of the physicalised sense of self is
the 'life in the world'. But this framing is not itself physical so much as conditioned association and reflex that is hidden
from sight while we engage within its framing as a sense of personal struggle under and driven by 'necessity' of survival in the
terms we set or are forcefully and fearfully identified in.
Deceit is simply a weapon in a world of war – including the claiming of a moral high ground whenever it suits an invalidating
of the 'other'. Loss of communication, trust and therefore integrity is the state of a lack of substance. However, 'claiming the
moral high ground' as a personal right to power is the same old story. The complexities of deceits and entanglements increase
with the persistence of identities and investments in them – which of course run as 'self-evident reality' by reactions that embody
the beliefs.
"... Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. ..."
On September 21, The Guardian ran an absolutely sensational exclusive, based on disclosures made by "multiple" anonymous sources
to Luke Harding, one of the paper's leading journalists - in 2017, Russian diplomats allegedly held secret talks in London with associates
of Assange, in an attempt to assist in the Wikileaks founder's escape from the UK.
The dastardly conspiracy would've entailed Assange being smuggled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge under cover
of Christmas Eve in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to Russia, where he'd be safe from extradition to the US, ending his eight-years
of effective arbitrary detention in the process.
In any event, the audacious plot was eventually aborted after being deemed "too
risky" -- even for the reckless daredevils of Moscow -- mere days before its planned execution date.
Rommy Vallejo, head of Ecuador's
intelligence agency, is said to have travelled to the UK around December 15 to supervise the operation, and left when it was called
off.
'Extraordinary, Deliberate Lies'
The Russian Embassy in London
was quick to condemn the
article on Twitter, calling the claims "another example of disinformation and fake news" in the UK mainstream media, and noting the
paper violated national media standards by failing to ask the Russian side for a comment prior to the report's release. "This publication
has nothing to do with the reality. The Embassy has never engaged with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions
of any kind on Russia's participation in ending Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador.
We're puzzled by the sensational
attitude of the authors. As recently as September 18, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright called for increased efforts to combat media
and online disinformation. [The] Guardian piece is a brilliant example of the kind of journalism British reader should be protected
from," a spokesperson added in an official statement.
In a subsequent statement
, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the article for containing a "whole series of similar anti-Russia innuendos, and once again
made clear Russian diplomats did not contact staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London or Assange's associates in order to assist
in his escape from the UK.
However,
a
far more damning indictment of the article's extraordinary, evidence-free claims was provided by Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador
to Uzbekistan, who denounced the "quite extraordinary set of deliberate lies" in a September 23 blog post. In doing so, he revealed
he and Fidel Narvaez -- a close confidant of Assange fingered as the key point of contact between the Ecuadorian embassy and Moscow
in the article -- had engaged in discussions with Assange in 2017 regarding a possible departure from the UK capital, and debated
possible future destinations for the embattled Wikileaks founder.
"It's not only the case Russia didn't figure in those plans, Julian directly ruled out the possibility of going to Russia. I know
100% for certain the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication. I cannot find words enough to express the depth of my contempt
for Harding and [Editor] Katherine Viner, who've betrayed completely the values of journalism. The aim of the piece is evidently
to add a further layer to the fake news of Wikileaks' non-existent relationship to Russia as part of the "Hillary didn't really lose"
narrative. I am, frankly, rather shocked," Murray
wrote
.
Friends in Spooky Places
The identities of Harding's alleged anonymous sources aren't even hinted at in the article, but Murray made a striking suggestion
-- he "strongly suspect[ed]" that "MI6 tool" Harding's informants were the UK security services. If true, this would make the article
"entirely black propaganda" produced by British spies. Whether MI6 agents are the source of the story or not, it's certainly true
Harding enjoys a very close relationship indeed with British intelligence services -- a bond he has frequently, openly and proudly
advertised in articles and books.
For instance, in his highly controversial 2017 book Collusion, Harding argued Donald Trump
had a relationship with the Russian 'deep state' dating back to the 1980s, and colluded with the Kremlin to subvert US democracy.
To support this conclusion, he frequently cited claims fed to him directly by Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy turned 'business
intelligence' professional, who authored the utterly discredited 'Trump-Russia' dossier for Fusion GPS.
When challenged to provide any evidence whatsoever for his book's assertions by Aaron Mate of The Real News, Harding was left mumbling
and stuttering -- he was also unable to defend
his claim that an individual's use of an emoji was proof they were working for Russian intelligence, and terminated the interview
prematurely.
Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate
wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government
issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo
Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. Individuals who conducted internet searches for Miller afterwards quickly found
his LinkedIn profile, which identified him as a 'Senior Analyst' at Orbis Intelligence -- Steele's corporate espionage company.-
It is true, or was. As I say, this 2017 forum thread, which links to Pablo Miller's LinkedIn profile, states Orbis is listed on
Miller's CV -- https://t.co/Fx0vu1qorJ . Stop regurgitating anonymous claims
by your spook pals and do some research, Luke -- Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg)
March 12, 2018
Miller's page was quickly deleted though, and Harding took to Twitter to issue firm denials of a connection between Miller and the
firm, going so far as to suggest "someone" was using search engine optimization techniques to dishonestly associate Miller and Orbis.
However, enterprising Sputnik journalist Kit Klarenberg quickly and easily found an online forum thread dating from 2017 clearly
identifying Miller as an Orbis employee -- as of September, Harding is yet to respond, or retract his claims.
"... Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and forensically impossible. ..."
"... Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. ..."
"... "War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war," video, as well as the bipartisan ( Hillary Clinton , John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an "act of war" equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the warmongering lunatic John Bolton, calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war." ..."
"... Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy": "We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial support provided by the enemy." ..."
"... The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all. We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted. ..."
It's a relentless economic, diplomatic, and ideological war, spiced with (so far) just a
dash of military war, and the strong scent of more to come.
I mean war with Russia, of course, although Russia is the point target for a constellation
of emerging adversaries the US is desperate to entame before any one or combination of them
becomes too strong to defeat. These include countries like Iran and China, which are developing
forces capable of resisting American military aggression against their own territory and on a
regional level, and have shown quite too much uppitiness about staying in their
previously-assigned geopolitical cages.
But Russia is the only country that has put its military forces in the way of a U.S. program
of regime change -- indirectly in Ukraine, where Russia would not get out of the way, and
directly in Syria, where Russia actively got in the way. So Russia is the focus of
attack, the prime target for an exemplary comeuppance.
Is it, then, a new Cold War, even more dangerous than the old one, as Stephen F. Cohen
says ?
That terminology was apt even a few months ago, but the speed, ferocity, and
coordination of the West/NATO's reaction to the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the
Skripals, as well as the formation of a War Cabinet in Washington, indicates to me that we've
moved to another level of aggression.
It's beyond Cold. Call it the Warm War. And the temperature's rising.
The Nerve of Them
There are two underlying presumptions that, combined, make present situation more dangerous
than a Cold War.
One is the presumption of guilt -- or, more precisely, the presumption that the presumption
of Russian guilt can always be made, and made to stick in the Western mind.
The confected furor over the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals demonstrates this
dramatically.
Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole
responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and
forensically impossible.
False certainty is the ultimate fake news. It is just not true that, as she says: "There is
no alternative conclusion other than the Russian state is culpable." This falsity of this
statement has been demonstrated by a slew of sources -- including the
developers of the alleged "Novichok" agent themselves, a thorough
analysis by a former UN inspector in Iraq who worked on the destruction of chemical
weapons, establishment Western scientific outlets like New Scientist ("
Other countries could have made 'Russian' nerve agent "), and the British government's own
mealy-mouthed, effective-but-unacknowledged disavowal
of that conclusion. In its own words, The British government found: "a nerve agent or
related compound," " of a type developed by Russia." So, it's absolutely,
positively, certainly, without a doubt, Russian-government-produced "Novichok" .or something
else.
Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they
all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. It's a
It boggles the -- or at least, my -- mind how, in the face of all this, anyone could take
seriously her ultimatum, ignoring the procedures of the
Chemical Weapons Convention , gave Russia 24 hours to "explain" -- i.e., confess and beg
forgiveness for -- this alleged crime.
Indeed, it's noteworthy that France initially, and rather sharply, refused to assume Russian
guilt, with a government spokesman saying, "We don't do fantasy politics. Once the elements are
proven, then the time will come for decisions to be made." But the whip was cracked -- and
surely not by the weak hand of Whitehall -- demanding EU/NATO unity in the condemnation of
Russia. So, in an extraordinary show of discipline that could only be ordered and orchestrated
by the imperial center, France joined the United States and 20 other countries in the largest
mass expulsion of Russian diplomats ever.
Western governments and their compliant media have mandated that Russian government guilt
for the "
first offensive use of a nerve agent " in Europe since World War II is to be taken as flat
fact. Anyone -- like Jeremy Corbyn or Craig Murray -- who
dares to interrupt the "Sentence first! Verdict afterwards!" chorus to ask for, uh, evidence,
is treated to a storm of obloquy
.
At this point, Western accusers don't seem to care how blatantly unfounded, if not
ludicrous, an accusation is. The presumption of Russian guilt, along with the shaming of anyone
who questions it, has become an unquestionable standard of Western/American political and media
discourse.
Old Cold War McCarthyism has become new Warm War fantasy politics.
Helled in Contempt
This declaration of diplomatic war over the Skripal incident is the culmination of an
ongoing drumbeat of ideological warfare, demonizing Russia and Putin personally in the most
predictable and inflammatory terms.
For the past couple of years, we've been
told by Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and
Boris Johnson that Putin is the new Hitler. That's a particularly galling analogy for the
Russians. Soviet Russia, after all, was Hitler's main enemy, that defeated the Nazi army at the
cost of 20+ million of its people -- while the British Royal Family was not
un-smitten with the charms of
Hitlerian fascism , and British footballers had a poignant moment in 1938 Berlin
saluting the Fuhre.:
"War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been
inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war,"
video, as well as the bipartisan (
Hillary Clinton ,
John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an
"act of war"
equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the
warmongering lunatic John Bolton,
calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war."
Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up
by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's
noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy":
"We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial
support provided by the enemy."
Which is strange, because, since the Taliban emerged from the American-jihadi war against
Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and the Taliban and Russia have "enduring enmity" towards each
other, as Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network puts it . Furthermore, the sixteen-year-long
American war against the Taliban has depended on Russia allowing the U.S. to move
supplies through its territory, and being "the principal source of
fuel for the alliance's needs in Afghanistan."
So the general has to admit that this alleged Russian "destabilising activity" is a new
thing: "This activity really picked up in the last 18 to 24 months When you look at the timing
it roughly correlates to when things started to heat up in Syria. So it's interesting to note
the timing of the whole thing."
Yes, it is.
The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem
impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and
restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven
to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all.
We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if
you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted.
This is not a serious framework for respectful international relations between two sovereign
nations. It's downright childish. It paints everyone, including the party trying to impose it,
into an impossible corner. Is Russia ever going to abandon Crimea, confess that it shot down
the Malaysian jet, tricked us into electing Donald Trump, murdered the Skripals, is secretly
arming the Taliban, et. al .? Is the U.S. ever going to say: "Never mind"? What's the
next step? It's the predicament of the bully.
This is not, either, an approach that really seeks to address any of the "crimes" charged.
As Victoria Nuland (a Clintonite John Bolton) put it on NPR, it's about, "sending a message" to
Russia. Well, as Russia's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov
said , with this latest mass expulsion of diplomats, the United States is, "Destroying what
little remained of US-Russian ties." He got the message.
All of this looks like a coordinated campaign that began in response to Russia's
interruption of American regime-change projects in Ukraine and especially Syria, that was
harmonized -- over the last 18 to 24 months -- with various elite and popular motifs of
discontent over the 2016 election, and that has reached a crescendo in the last few weeks with
ubiquitous and unconstrained " enemization " [1] of Russia.
It's hard to describe it as anything other than war propaganda -- manufacturing the
citizenry's consent for a military confrontation.
Destroying the possibility of normal, non-conflictual, state-to-state relations and
constituting Russia as "the enemy" is exactly what this campaign is about. That is its
"message" and its effect -- for the American people as much as for the Russia
government. The heightened danger, I think, is that Russia, which has for a long time been
reluctant to accept that America wasn't interested in "partnership", has now heard and
understood this message, while the American people have only heard but do not understand
it.
It's hard to see where this can go that doesn't involve military conflict. This is
especially the case with the appointments of Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel, and John Bolton -- a
veritable murderers' row that many see as the core of a Trump War Cabinet. Bolton, who does not
need Senate confirmation, is a particularly dangerous fanatic, who tried to
get the Israelis to attack Iran before even they wanted to, and has
promised regime change in Iran by 2019. As mentioned, he considers that Russia has already
given him a " casus belli. " Even the staid New York Timeswarns
that, with these appointments, "the odds of taking military action will rise dramatically."
The second presumption in the American mindset today makes military confrontation more
likely than it was during the Cold War: Not only is there a presumption of guilt, there is a
presumption of weakness . The presumption of guilt is something the American imperial
managers are confident they can induce and maintain in the Western world; the presumption of
weakness is one they -- or, I fear, too many of them -- have all-too blithely
internalized.
This is an aspect of the American self-image among policymakers whose careers matured in a
post-Soviet world. During the Cold War, Americans held themselves in check by the assumption,
that, militarily, the Soviet Union was a peer adversary, a country that could and would defend
certain territories and interests against direct American military aggression -- "spheres of
interest" that should not be attacked. The fundamental antagonism was managed with grudging
mutual respect.
There was, after all, a shared recent history of alliance against fascism. And there was an
awareness that the Soviet Union, in however distorted a way, both represented the possibility
of a post-capitalist future and supported post-colonial national liberation movements, which
gave it considerable stature in the world.
American leadership might have hated the Soviet Union, but it was not contemptuous of it. No
American leader would have called the Soviet Union, as John McCain called Russia, just "a gas
station masquerading as a country." And no senior American or British leader would have told
the Soviet Union what British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told Russia last week: to "go
away and shut up."
This is a discourse that assumes its own righteousness, authority, and superior power, even
as it betrays its own weakness. It's the discourse of a frustrated child. Or bully. Russia
isn't shutting up and going away, and the British are not -- and know they're not -- going to
make it. But they may think the Big Daddy backing them up can and will. And daddy may think so
himself.
Like all bullies, the people enmeshed in this arrogant discourse don't seem to understand
that it is not frightening Russia. It's only insulting the country, and leading it to conclude
that there is indeed nothing remaining of productive, non-conflictual, US-Russian "partnership"
ties. The post-Skripal worldwide diplomatic expulsions, which seem deliberately and desperately
excessive, may have finally convinced Russia that there is no longer any use trying. Those who
should be frightened of this are the American people.
The enemy of my enemy is me.
The United States is only succeeding in turning itself into an enemy for Russians. Americans
would do well to understand how thoroughly their hypocritical and contemptuous stance has
alienated the Russian people and strengthened Vladimir Putin's leadership -- as many of Putin's
critics warned
them it would. The fantasy of stoking a "liberal" movement in Russia that will install some
nouveau-Yeltsin-ish figure is dissipated in the cold light of a 77% election day. Putin is
widely and firmly supported in Russia because he represents the resistance to any such
scheme.
Americans who want to understand that dynamic, and what America itself has wrought in
Russia, should heed the passion, anger, and disappointment in this statement about
Putin's election from a self-described "liberal" (using the word, I think, in the intellectual
tradition, not the American political, sense), Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT TV
(errors in translation by another person):
Essentially, the West should be horrified not because 76% of Russians voted for Putin, but
because this elections have demonstrated that 95% of Russia's population supports
conservative-patriotic, communist and nationalist ideas. That means that liberal ideas are
barely surviving among measly 5% of population.
And that's your fault, my Western friends. It was you who pushed us into "Russians never
surrender" mode
[W]ith all your injustice and cruelty, inquisitorial hypocrisy and lies you forced us to
stop respecting you. You and your so called "values."
We don't want to live like you live, anymore. For fifty years, secretly and openly, we
wanted to live like you, but not any longer.
We have no more respect for you, and for those amongst us that you support, and for all
those people who support you.
For that you only have yourself to blame.
In meantime, you've pushed us to rally around your enemy. Immediately, after you declared
him an enemy, we united around him .
It was you who imposed an opposition between patriotism and liberalism. Although, they
shouldn't be mutually exclusive notions. This false dilemma, created by you, made us to chose
patriotism.
Even though, many of us are really liberals, myself included.
Get cleaned up, now. You don't have much time left.
In fact, the whole "uprising"/color revolution strategy throughout the world is over. It's
been fatally discredited by its own purported successes. Everybody in the Middle East has seen
how that worked out for Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and the Russians have seen how it worked out
for Ukraine and for Russia
itself . In neither Russia nor Iran (nor anywhere else of importance) are the Americans,
with their sanctions and their NGOs and their
cookies ,going to stoke a popular uprising that turns a country into a fractured client of
the Washington Consensus. More fantasy politics.
The old new world Washington wants won't be born without a military midwife. The U.S. wants
a compliant Russia ( and "international community") back, and it thinks it can force it
into being.
Fear Knot
Consider this quote from
The Saker , a defense analyst who was born in Switzerland to a Russian military family,
"studied Russian and Soviet military affairs all [his] life," and lived for 20 years in the
United States. He's been one of the sharpest analysts of Russia and Syria over the last few
years. This was his take a year ago, after Trump's cruise missile attack on Syria's Al Shayrat
airfield -- another instant punishment for an absolutely, positively, proven-in-a day, chemical
crime:
For one thing, there is no US policy on anything.
The Russians expressed their total disgust and outrage at this attack and openly began
saying that the Americans were
"недоговороспособны".
What that word means is literally "not-agreement-capable" or unable to make and then abide by
an agreement. While polite, this expression is also extremely strong as it implies not so
much a deliberate deception as the lack of the very ability to make a deal and abide by it.
But to say that a nuclear world superpower is "not-agreement-capable" is a terrible and
extreme diagnostic.
This means that the Russians have basically given up on the notion of having an adult,
sober and mentally sane partner to have a dialog with.
In all my years of training and work as a military analyst I have always had to assume
that everybody involved was what we called a "rational actor". The Soviets sure where. As
were the Americans.
Not only do I find the Trump administration "not agreement-capable", I find it completely
detached from reality. Delusional in other words.
Alas, just like Obama before him, Trump seems to think that he can win a game of nuclear
chicken against Russia. But he can't. Let me be clear here: if pushed into a corner the
Russian will fight, even if that means nuclear war.
There is a reason for this American delusion. The present generation of American leadership
was spoiled and addled by the blissful post-Soviet decades of American impunity.
The problem is not exactly that the U.S. wants full-on war with Russia, it's that
America does not fear it. [2]
Why should it? It hasn't had to for twenty years during which the US assumed it could bully
Russia to stay out of its imperial way anywhere it wanted to intervene.
After the Soviet Union broke up (and only because the Soviet Union disappeared) the
United States was free to use its military power with impunity. For some time, the U.S. had its
drunken stooge, Yeltsin, running Russia and keeping it out of America's military way. There was
nary a peep when Bill Clinton effectively conferred on NATO (meaning the U.S. itself) the
authority to decide what military interventions were necessary and legitimate. For about twenty
years -- from the Yugoslavia through the Libya intervention -- no nation had the military power
or politico-diplomatic will to resist this.
But that situation has changed. Even the Pentagon
recognizes that the American Empire is in a "post-primacy" phase -- certainly "fraying,"
and maybe even "collapsing." The world has seen America's social and economic strength
dissipate, and its pretense of legitimacy disappear entirely. The world has seen American
military overreach everywhere while winning nothing of stable value anywhere. Sixteen years,
and the mighty U.S. Army cannot defeat the Taliban. Now, that's Russia's fault!
Meanwhile, a number of countries in key areas have gained the military confidence and
political will to refuse the presumptions of American arrogance -- China in the Pacific, Iran
in the Middle East, and Russia in Europe and, surprisingly, the Middle East as well. In a
familiar pattern, America's resultant anxiety about waning power increases its
compensatory aggression. And, as mentioned, since it was Russia that most effectively
demonstrated that new military confidence, it's Russia that has to be dealt with first.
The incessant wave of sanctions and expulsions is the bully in the schoolyard clenching his
fist to scare the new kid away. OK, everyone's got the message now. Unclench or punch?
Let's be clear about who is the world's bully. As is evident to any half-conscious person,
Russia is not going to attack the United States or Europe. Russia doesn't have scores of
military bases, combat ships and aircraft up on America's borders. It doesn't have almost a
thousand military bases around the world. Russia does not have the military forces to rampage
around the world as America does, and it doesn't want or need to. That's not because of
Russia's or Vladimir Putin's pacifism, but because Russia, as presently situated in the
political economy of the world, has nothing to gain from it.
Nor does Russia need some huge troll-farm offensive to "destabilize" and sow division in
Western Europe and the United States. Inequality, austerity, waves of immigrants from
regime-change wars, and trigger-happy cops are doing a fine job of that. Russia isn't
responsible for American problems with Black Lives Matter or with the Taliban.
All of this is fantasy politics.
It's the United States, with its fraying empire, that has a problem requiring military
aggression. What other tools does the U.S. have left to put the upstarts, Russia first, back in
their places?
It must be hard for folks who have had their way with country after country for twenty years
not to think they can push Russia out of the way with some really, really scary threats, or
maybe one or two "bloody nose" punches. Some finite number of discrete little escalations.
There's already been some shoving -- that cruise missile attack, Turkey's downing of a Russian
jet, American attacks on Russian personnel (ostensibly private mercenaries) in Syria -- and,
look, Ma, no big war. But sometimes you learn the hard way the truth of the reverse Mike Tyson
rule: "Everyone has a game plan until they smack the other guy in the face."
Consider one concrete risk of escalation that every informed observer is, and every American
should be, aware of.
The place where the United States and Russia are literally, geographically, closest to
confrontation is Syria. As mentioned, the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey, have already attacked
and killed Russians in Syria, and the U.S. and its NATO allies have a far larger military force
than Russia in Syria and the surrounding area. On the other hand, Russia has made very
effective use of its forces, including what Reuters
calls "advanced cruise missiles" launched from planes,
ships , and
submarines that hit ISIS targets with high precision from 1000 kilometers.
Russia is also operating in accordance with international law, while the U.S. is not. Russia
is fighting with Syria for the defeat of jihadi forces and the unification of the Syrian state.
The United States is fighting with its jihadi clients for the overthrow of the Syrian
government and the division of the country. Russia intervened in Syria after Obama announced
that the U.S. would attack Syrian army troops, effectively declaring war. If neither side
accepts defeat and goes home, it is quite possible there will be some direct confrontation
over this. In fact, it's hard to imagine that there won't.
A couple of weeks ago Syria and Russia
said the U.S. was planning a major offensive against the Syrian government, including
bombing the government quarter in Damascus. Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia's General Staff,
warned: "In the event of a threat to the lives of our servicemen, Russia's armed forces will
take retaliatory measures against the missiles and launchers used." In this context,
"launchers" means American ships in the Mediterranean.
Also a couple of weeks ago, Russia announced a number of new, highly-advanced weapons
systems. There's discussion about whether some of the yet-to-be-deployed weapons announced
may or
may not
be a bluff, but one that has already been deployed, called Dagger ( Kinzhal, not the
missiles mentioned above), is an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile that files at 5-7,000
miles per hour, with a range of 1200 miles. Analyst Andrei Martyanov claims that: "no
modern or perspective air-defense system deployed today by any NATO fleet can intercept even a
single missile with such characteristics. A salvo of 5-6 such missiles guarantees the
destruction of any Carrier Battle Group or any other surface group, for that matter."
Air-launched. From anywhere.
The U.S. attack has not (yet) happened, for whatever reason (Sputnik reporter Suliman
Mulhem, citing "a military monitor," claims
that's because of the Russian warnings). Great. But given the current state of America's
anxiously aggressive "post-primacy" policy -- including the Russiamania, the Zionist-driven
need to destroy Syria and Iran, and the War Cabinet -- how unlikely is that the U.S. will, in
the near future, make some such attack on some such target that Russia considers crucial to
defend?
And Syria is just one theater where, unless one side accepts defeat and goes home, military
conflict with Russia is highly likely. Is Russia going to abandon the Russian-speaking people
of the Donbass if they're attacked by fascist Kiev forces backed by the U.S.? Is it going to
sit back and watch passively if American and Israeli forces attack Iran? Which one is going to
give up and accept a loss: John Bolton or Vladimir Putin?
Which brings us to the pointed question: What will the U.S. do if Russia sinks an American
ship? How many steps before that goes full-scale, even nuclear? Or maybe American planners (and
you, dear reader) are absolutely, positively sure that will never happen, because the U.S. has
cool weapons, too, and a lot more of them, and the Russians will probably lose all their ships
in the Mediterranean immediately, if not something worse, and they'll put up with anything
rather than go one more step. The Russians, like everybody, must know the Americans always
win.
Happy with that, are we? Snug in our homeland rug? 'Cause Russians won't fight, but the
Taliban will.
This is exactly what is meant by Americans not fearing war with Russia (or war in general
for that matter). Nothing but contempt.
The Skripal opera, directed by the United States, with the whole of Europe and the entire
Western media apparatus singing in harmony, makes it clear that the American producers have no
speaking role for Russia in their staging of the world. And that contempt makes war much more
likely. Here's The Saker again, on how
dangerous the isolation the U.S. and its European clients are so carelessly imposing on Russia
and themselves is for everybody:
Right now they are expelling Russian diplomats en mass e and they are feeling very
strong and manly.
The truth is that this is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. In reality, crucial
expert-level consultations, which are so vitally important between nuclear superpowers, have
all but stopped a long time ago. We are down to top level telephone calls. That kind of stuff
happens when two sides are about to go to war. For many months now Russia and NATO have made
preparations for war in Europe. Very rapidly the real action will be left to the USA and
Russia. Thus any conflict will go nuclear very fast. And, for the first time in history, the
USA will be hit very, very hard, not only in Europe, the Middle-East or Asia, but also on the
continental US.
Mass diplomatic expulsions, economic warfare, lockstep propaganda, no interest whatsoever in
respectfully addressing or hearing from the other side. What we've been seeing over the past
few months is the "kind of stuff that happens when two sides are about to go to war."
The less Americans fear war, the less they respect the possibility of it, the more likely
they are to get it.
Ready or Not
The Saker makes a diptych of a point that gets to the heart of the matter. We'd do well to
read and think on it carefully:
1/ The Russians are afraid of war. The Americans are not.
2/ The Russians are ready for war. The Americans are not.
Russia is afraid of war. More than twenty million Soviet citizens were
killed in WWII, about half of them civilians. That was more than twenty times the number of
Americans and British casualties combined. The entire country was devastated. Millions died in
the 872-day siege of Leningrad alone, including Vladimir Putin's brother. The city's population
was decimated by disease and starvation, with some reduced to cannibalism. Wikileaks calls it "one of the
longest and most destructive sieges in history [and] possibly the
costliest
in casualties." Another million-plus died in the nine-month siege of Stalingrad.
Every Russian knows this history. Millions of Russian families have suffered from it. Of
course, there was mythification of the struggle and its heroes, but the Russians, viscerally,
know war and know it can happen to them . They do not want to go through it
again. They will do almost anything to avoid it. Russians are not flippant about war. They fear
it. They respect it.
The Americans are not (afraid of war). Americans have never experienced anything
remotely as devastating as this. About 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War, 150 years ago.
(And we're still entangled in that!) The American mainland has not been attacked by a
significant military force since the War of 1812. Since then, the worst attacks on American
territory are two one-off incidents (Pearl Harbor and 9/11), separated by seventy years,
totaling about six-thousand casualties. These are the iconic moments of America Under
Siege.
For the American populace, wars are "over there," fought by a small group of Americans who
go away and either come back or don't. The death, destruction, and aroma of warfare -- which
the United States visits on people around the world incessantly -- is unseen and unexperienced
at home. Americans do not, cannot, believe, in any but the most abstract intellectual sense,
that war can happen here , to them. For the general populace, talk of war is just more
political background noise, Morgan Freeman competing for attention with Stormy Daniels and the
Kardashians.
Americans are supremely insouciant about war: They threaten countries with it incessantly,
the government routinely sells it with lies, and the political parties promote it
opportunistically to defeat their opponents -- and nobody cares. For Americans, war is part of
a game. They do not fear it. They do not respect it.
The Russians are ready for war. The Nazi onslaught was defeated -- in Soviet Russia,
by Soviet Citizens and the Red Army -- because the mass of people stood and fought together for
a victory they understood was important. They could not have withstood horrific sieges and
defeated the Nazis any other way. Russians understand, in other words, that war is a crisis of
death and destruction visited on the whole of society, which can only be won by a massive and
difficult effort grounded in social solidarity. If the Russians feel they have to fight, if
they feel besieged, they know they will have to stand together, take the hits that come, and
fight to the finish. They will not again permit war to be brought to their cities while their
attacker stays snug. There will be a world of hurt. They will develop and use any weapon they
can. And their toughest weapon is not a hypersonic missile; it's that solidarity, implied by
that 77%. (Did you read that Simonyan statement?) They may not be seeking it, but, insofar as
anybody can be, they are ready to fight.
Americans are not (ready for war): Americans experience the horror of wars as a
series of discrete tragedies visited upon families of fallen soldiers, reported in
human-interest vignettes at the end of the nightly news. Individual tragedies, not a social
disaster.
It's hard to imagine the social devastation of war in any case, but American culture wants
no part of thinking about that concretely. The social imagination of war is deflected into
fantastic scenarios of a super-hero universe or a zombie apocalypse. The alien death-ray may
blow up the Empire State Building, but the hero and his family (now including his or her
gender-ambivalent teenager, and, of course, the dog) will survive and triumph. Cartoon
villains, cartoon heroes, and a cartoon society.
One reason for this, we have to recognize, is the victory of the
Thatcherite/libertarian-capitalist "no such thing as society" ideology. Congratulations, Ayn
Rand, there is no such thing as American society now. It's every incipient entrepreneur
for him or herself. This does not a comradely, fighting band of brothers and sisters make.
Furthermore, though America is constantly at war, nobody understands the purpose of it.
That's because the real purpose can never be explained, and must be hidden behind some facile
abstraction -- "democracy," "our freedoms," etc. This kind of discourse can get some of the
people motivated for some of the time, but it loses its charm the minute someone gets smacked
in the face.
Once they take a moment, everybody can see that there is nobody with an army threatening to
attack and destroy the United States, and if they take a few moments, everybody can see how
phony the "democracy and freedom" stuff is and remember how often they've been lied to before.
There's just too much information out there. (Which is why the Imperial High Command wants to
control the internet.) Why the hell am I fighting? What in hell are we fighting
for? These are questions everybody will ask after, and too many people are now asking
before, they get smacked in the face.
This lack of social understanding and lack of political support translates into the
impossibility of fighting a major, sustained war that requires taking heavy casualties -- even
"over there," but certainly in the snug. American culture might be all gung-ho about Seal Team
Six kicking ass, but the minute American homes start blowing up and American bodies start
falling, Hoo-hah becomes Uh-oh , and it's going to be Outta here .
Americans are ready for Hoo-hah and the Shark Tank and the Zombie Apocalypse. They
are not ready for war.
You Get What You Play For
"Russiagate," which started quite banally in the presidential campaign as a Democratic arrow
to take down Trump, is now Russiamania -- a battery of weapons wielded by various sectors of
the state, aimed at an array of targets deemed even potentially resistant to imperial
militarism. Trump himself -- still, and for as long as he's deemed unreliable -- is targeted by
a legal prosecution of infinite reach (whose likeliest threat is to take him down for something
that has nothing to do with Russia). Russia itself is now targeted in full force by economic,
diplomatic, ideological -- and, tentatively, military -- weapons of the state. Perhaps most
importantly, American and European people, especially dissidents, are targeted by a unified
media barrage that attacks any expression of radical critique, anything that "sows division" --
from Black Lives Matter, to the Sanders campaign, to "But other countries could have made it"
-- as Russian treachery.
The stunning success of that last offensive is crucial to making a war more likely, and must
be fought. To increase the risk of war with a nuclear power in order to score points against
Donald Trump or Jill Stein -- well, only those who neither respect, fear, nor are ready for war
would do such a stupid and dangerous thing.
It's impossible to predict with certainty whether, when, or with whom a major hot war will
be started. The same chaotic disarray and impulsiveness of the Trump administration that
increases the danger of war might also work to prevent it. John Bolton may be fired before he
trims his moustache. But it's a pressure-cooker, and the temperature has spiked
drastically.
In a previous
essay , I said that Venezuela was a likely first target for military attack, precisely
because it would make for an easy victory that didn't risk military confrontation with Russia.
That's still a good possibility. As we saw with Iraq Wars 1 (which helped to end the "Vietnam
Syndrome") and 2 (which somewhat resurrected it), the imperial high command needs to inure the
American public with a virtually American-casualty-free victory and in order to lure them into
taking on a war that's going to hurt.
But the new War Cabinet may be pumped for the main event -- an attack on Iran. Trump,
Pompeo, and Bolton are all rabid proponents of regime-change in Iran. We can be certain
that the Iran nuclear deal will be scrapped, and everyone will work hard to implement the
secret agreementthe Trump administration already has with Israel to "to deal
with Iran's nuclear drive, its missile programs and its other threatening activities" -- or, as
Trump himself expresses it: "cripple the [Iranian] regime and bring it to collapse." (That
agreement, by the way, was negotiated and signed by the previous, supposedly not-so-belligerent
National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster.)
Still, as I also said in the previous essay, an attack on Iran means the Americans must
either make sure Russia doesn't get in the way or make clear that they don't care if it
does. So, threatening moves -- not excluding probing military moves -- against Russia will
increase, whether Russia is the preferred direct target or not.
The siege is on.
Americans who want to continue playing with this fire would do well to pay some respectful
attention to the target whose face they want to smack. Russia did not boast or brag or threaten
or Hoo-Hah about sending military forces to Syria. When it was deemed necessary -- when
the United States declared its intention to attack the Syrian Army -- it just did it. And
American10-dimensional-chess players have been squirming around trying to deal with the
implications of that ever since. They're working hard on finding the right mix of threats,
bluffs, sanctions, expulsions, "Shut up and go away!" insults, military forces on the border,
and "bloody nose" attacks to force a capitulation. They should be listening to their target,
who has not tired of asking for a "partnership," who has clearly stated what his country would
do in reaction to previous moves (e.g., the abrogation of the ABM Treaty and stationing of ABM
bases in Eastern Europe), whose country and family have suffered from wartime devastation
Americans cannot imagine, who therefore respects, fears, and is ready for war in ways Americans
are not, and who is not playing their game:
[2]
Though it's ridiculous that it needs to be said: I'm not talking here about the phony fear
engendered by the media presentation of the "strongman," "brutal dictator" Vladimir Putin. This
is part and parcel of comic-book politics -- conjuring a super-villain, who, we all know, is
destined to be defeated. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jim Kavanagh
Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague
John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: "The campaign was more about outrage than
about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth
ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into
their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs,
has found that
when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it
becomes almost impossible to correct lies.
... ... ...
As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain
put it, “The great master fallacy of the
human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies
constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible.
The Tax Justice Network, organized in 2003 to fight offshore tax evasion and corruption,
has censored a podcast its founding director recorded when I spoke at the Offshore Alert
Conference in November in London. I didn't write about this before now, because I though the
TJN leaders might change their minds. But it turns out they are either cowardly or
corrupt.
####
Browder's tentacles run far, but only as far as his backers allow him, which leads me to
ask 'what would it take for them to drop him'? Browder has a shelf-life and at some point he
will be surplus to requirement .
That's a very sad story. You can really only take on someone like Browder when you have
nothing to lose – it seems that as soon as you attract interest at an organizational
level, it turns out that organization is afraid of losing its funding, and bows to the power
which threatens to take it away. Note that he was not able to intimidate Nekrasov into not
making his film, but he was able to browbeat theatres into not showing it.
Sooner or later it will all come crashing down for Browder. But The USA will protect him
until they have something to replace the Magnitsky Act so they can continue to legally
discriminate against Russia. If Browder goes down, the act he worked so hard to get on the
books will be revealed as partisan bullshit, and nobody in the west wants that.
The security service is accused of breaking the law and documents state the "the task [of
complying with it] was too large".
"The documents show extraordinary and persistent illegality in MI5's operations,
apparently for many years," said civil liberties organisation Liberty, which is bringing the
case.
"The existence of what MI5 itself calls 'ungoverned spaces' in which it holds and uses
large volumes of private data is a serious failure of governance and oversight, especially
when mass collection of data of innocent citizens is concerned."
####
Incompetent? No. Don't give a shit? Yes.
It won't make a blind bit of difference as the security service have broad brush
surveillance powers and the 'National Security' exception behind them. At least they are not
handing over that data to their terrorist sponsoring Gulf brothers Oh, hang on, can't rule
anything out!
By this stage I wonder if all the neighbours aren't all "ex" spooks from hither and yon.
Who else would tolerate the nonsense they've been subjected to without reaching out to their
learned friends? Good luck with putting a house on the market with that circus going on.
Such stringent measures would surely not be taken by HM govt and British security if they had
no evidence that those evil Russians had attempted to kill the Skripals with Novichok.
The whole premise just becomes more and more ridiculous – the house is now completely
shrouded in tarpaulins, the roof has been removed, it has undergone extensive
'decontamination' – all, all of it obviously for show, for the yokels, because for
weeks afterward police personnel guarded the residence while standing just feet away from the
door handle which was supposedly the locus of infection. No chemical-warfare protection
whatsoever was apparent; they didn't even wear gloves unless it was cold.
They might at least have made up some story that the Deadly Door Handle had been replaced,
or even the entire door. Because everyone who went in or out of that house, and there must
have been many, touched that door handle, at least some of them with their bare hand. And
what ever became of the intrepid detective, Nick what's-his-name? Wasn't the state going to
buy his home as well, even though he had scarcely been in it and had gone more or less
straight to the hospital after being 'infected'? Only to make a miraculous and complete
recovery in days, and then drop off the public radar?
Stupidity abounds. Yet the press just can't let it go, and let it mercifully drop out of
sight. It would just be too embarrassing to tacitly admit the British government made it up
from start to finish, the entire operation. If the Skripals actually were poisoned with
something, and not just acting a role for the British government, then that part must have
been HM-government-supplied as well, because nobody who has any experience with police
procedure is going to believe they had a culprit and a complete history of the crime in only
a couple of hours after its discovery, and a foreign state was responsible.
I don't want to be an alarmist but if I had to guess I would say our good friend Officer Nick
is probably partying it up with Sergei, Yulia, and their pets in Hades.
You never know. He sort of dropped out of the public eye, and of all of them he seemed to be
the one whose story would be picked apart first, although all of them were improbable. And
I'm sure many, many were interested in interviewing him and questioning him further.
He was released from hospital with no apparent ill effects more than a year ago, on March
23rd, 2018. According to the Telegraph , here,
he returned to active duty the beginning of 2019, but the story has his Chief confirming
this, it is not Bailey himself. That same story remembers that Dawn Sturgess "fell ill in
Amesbury months after the incident and died in hospital in July after coming into contact
with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack on the Skripals and then
discarded." But the perfume bottle described as having been 'used in the attack on the
Skripals' was brand-new and still in its store packaging, not to any appearance unusual
except for that weird plastic aerator fastened to the bottle. Which, now that I think of it,
was supposed to have been not attached to the bottle at all; Charlie Rowley's tale was that
he broke the bottle trying to get the applicator on it, which is how he was exposed. But he
still gave it to his paramour as a gift, and she was still apparently able to use it to spray
herself.
Anyway, so far as I can make out, DS Nick Bailey returned to duty with his former police
department last winter, and since then not a peep has been heard from him. The Skripals are
still incognito, and Sergei has never been seen again since going into hospital.
Bailey's parents apparently threw a wobbler when the Beeb decided to run a two-part
television drama on the attacks, which would doubtless reinforce and reconfirm the government
line although it is meant to showcase the quiet courage and resourcefulness of 'ordinary
heroes'.
Leaked documents reveal Russian effort to exert influence in Africa Exclusive: Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading push to turn continent into strategic
hub, documents show
by Luke Harding and Jason Burke
The only thing you really need to know about the exposé:
The leaked documents were obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative unit based in
London. The centre is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman and exiled
Kremlin critic.
The Guardian obviously has no shame for publishing such an article but then it has never
explained the claims of Manafort meeting with Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. As for the
article, my reaction was "so fucking what?".
The British French and Americans have fucked up
large parts of Africa while the Soviet Union/Russia was indirectly responsible for
eradicating that cancerous growth, the apartheid state of South Africa, a single act that was
better than all the good things that the United Kingdom, France and the United States have
ever done in Africa
"... Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF. ..."
"... And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for torturing prisoners? ..."
"... A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons". ..."
"... Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael Gordon. ..."
"... Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow his example as they should have? ..."
"... The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual budgets. ..."
"... More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research. Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer. His job - pushing the war machine agenda. He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication. ..."
"... In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this intelligence operation. ..."
"... both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker ..."
"... At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of establishing global hegemony. ..."
"... Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their "operator" in spook-speak. ..."
"... CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control. ..."
"... If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway. ..."
"... What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is utter bullshit! ..."
"... I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and put pressure on the NY Times. ..."
"... Those who advocated the strong response to Russia are the intellectual authors of "Russia Gate" to thwart detente with Russia. ..."
A piece in the New York Times showed how in March 2018 Trump was manipulated by the
CIA and MI6 into expelling 60 Russian diplomats. Eight weeks after it was published the New
York Times 'corrects' that narrative and exculpates the CIA and MI6 of that manipulation.
Its explanation for the correction makes little sense.
On April 16 the New York Times published a report by Julian E. Barnes and Adam
Goldman about the relation between CIA Director Gina Haspal and President Donald Trump.
The piece described a scene in the White House shortly after the
contentious Skripal/Novichok incident in Britain. It originally said (emphasis added):
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The 60 Russian diplomats were
expelled on March 26 2018. Other countries only expelled a handful of diplomats over the
Skripal incident. On April 15 2018 the Washington Post
reported that Trump was furious about this:
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To
his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials --
far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on. The President, who seemed to believe
that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his
administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on
Russia.
...
Growing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the
expulsions. 'There were curse words,' the official said, 'a lot of curse words.
In that context the 2019 NYT report about Haspel showing Trump dead duck pictures
provided by the Brits made sense. Trump was, as he himself claimed, manipulated into the large
expulsion.
The NYT report created some waves. On April 18 2019 the Guardian
headlined:
The report of the dead duck pictures in the New York Times was a problem for the CIA
and the British government. Not only did it say that they manipulated Trump by providing him
with false pictures, but the non-dead ducks also demonstrated that the official narrative of
the allegedly poisoning of the Skripals has some huge holes. As Rob Slane of the
BlogMirenoted
:
In addition to the extraordinary nature of this revelation, there is also a huge irony
here. Along with many others, I have long felt that the duck feed is one of the many achilles
heels of the whole story we've been presented with about what happened in Salisbury on 4th
March 2018. And the reason for this is precisely because if it were true, there would
indeed have been dead ducks and sick children .
According to the official story, Mr Skripal and his daughter became contaminated with
"Novichok" by touching the handle of his front door at some point between 13:00 and 13:30
that afternoon. A few minutes later (13:45), they were filmed on CCTV camera feeding
ducks, and handing bread to three local boys, one of whom ate a piece . After this they
went to Zizzis, where they apparently so contaminated the table they sat at, that it had to
be incinerated.
You see the problem? According to the official story, ducks should have died. According to
the official story children should have become contaminated and ended up in hospital. Yet as
it happens, no ducks died, and no boys got sick (all that happened was that the boys' parents
were contacted two weeks later by police, the boys were sent for tests, and they were given
the all clear).
After the NYT story was published the CIA and the British government had to remove
the problematic narrative from the record. Yesterday they finally succeeded. Nearly eight weeks
after the original publishing of the White House scene the NYT recanted and issued
a correction
(emphasis. added):
Correction: June 5, 2019
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the photos that Gina Haspel
showed to President Trump during a discussion about responding to the nerve agent attack in
Britain on a former Russian intelligence officer. Ms. Haspel displayed pictures illustrating
the consequences of nerve agent attacks, not images specific to the chemical attack in
Britain. This correction was delayed because of the time needed for research.
The original paragraphs quoted above were changed into this:
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel tried to demonstrate the dangers of using a nerve agent like Novichok in
a populated area. Ms. Haspel showed pictures from other nerve agent attacks that showed their
effects on people.
The British government had told Trump administration officials about early intelligence
reports that said children were sickened and ducks were inadvertently killed by the sloppy
work of the Russian operatives.
The information was based on early reporting, and Trump administration officials had
requested more details about the children and ducks, a person familiar with the intelligence
said, though Ms. Haspel did not present that information to the president. After this article
was published, local health officials in Britain said that no children were harmed.
So instead of pictures of dead ducks in Salisbury the CIA director showed pictures of some
random dead ducks or hospitalized children or whatever to illustrate the effects consequences
of nerve agent incidents?
That the children were taken to hospital but unharmed was already reported in Britishmedia on
March 24 2018, before the Russian diplomats were expelled, not only after the NYT piece
was published in April 2019.
Yesterday the author of the NYT piece, Julian E. Barnes, turned to Twitter to
issue a lengthy 'apology':
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to
figure out where I went wrong. Here is the correction: 1/9
[...]
The intelligence about the ducks and children were based on an early intelligence report,
according to people familiar with the matter. The intelligence was presented to the US in an
effort to share all that was known, not to deceive the Trump administration. 7/9
This correction was delayed because conducting the research to figure out what I got
wrong, how I got it wrong and what was the correct information took time. 8/9
I regret the error and offer my apology. I strive to get information right the first time.
That is what subscribers pay for. But when I get something wrong, I fix it. 9/9
Barnes covers national security and intelligence issues for the Times Washington
bureau. His job depends on good access to 'sources' in those circles.
It is remarkable that the CIA spokesperson never came out to deny the original NYT
report. There was zero visible push back against its narrative. It is also remarkable that the
correction comes just as Trump is on a state visit in Britain.
The original report was sourced on 'people briefed on the conversation'. The
corrected version is also based on 'people briefed on the conversation' but adds 'a
person familiar with the intelligence'. Do the originally cited 'people' now tell a different
story? Are we to trust a single 'person familiar with the intelligence' more than those
multiple 'people'? What kind of 'research' did the reporter do to correct what he then and now
claims was told to him by 'people'? Why did this 'research' take eight weeks?
That the 'paper of the record' now corrects said 'record' solves a big problem for Gina
Haspel, the CIA/MI6 and the British government. They can no longer be accused of manipulating
Trump (even as we can be quite sure that such manipulations happen all the time).
In the end it is for the reader to decide if the original report makes more sense than the
corrected one.
---
This is a Moon of Alabama fundraising week. Please consider to support
our work .
Posted by b on June 6, 2019 at 06:12 AM |
Permalink
Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on
independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian
E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF.
Surely the time and effort Julian Barnes needed to check what information he had got wrong
and how he got it wrong should not have been as major as he makes out. Animals dying and
children falling sick to a toxin that could have killed them are incidents that should have
stuck out like sore thumbs and warranted careful checks with different and independent
sources before reporting that Gina Haspel apparently showed the US President pictures of dead
ducks and sick boys in Salisbury.
No wonder Barnes got such a roasting on Twitter after making his abject apology.
And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump
puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for
torturing prisoners?
During years I researched articles published in @nytimes we fact-checked BEFORE publication. Here it comes
AFTER bloggers, officials et al point out fatal flaws. That no children were poisoned, and no
ducks killed, by #novichok
in #Salisbury + was known
in Spring 2018. #propaganda
A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense
establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons".
Except in the Barnes construction it wasn't a quotation, or anything like a phrasing that
made clear that the Pentagon source was guessing, not stating, that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program.
This was NOT corrected.
Eric Schmitt was the other NY Times "reporter" who signed the article.
And here's what the two liars reported, pretending that an Iranian nuclear weapons program is
a real thing, first paragraph:
"Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said."
So Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael
Gordon.
Barnes provides the truth then provides a lie about the truth....par for the course at
NYT.
(Remember Judith Miller?) A fake news organization spreading fake news with revised fake
news.
can't really get excited by the fact that not everything in this type of creative writing is
taken serious. Did anyone expect otherwise?
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr.
Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and
told the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
It's pretty obvious that his/their narrative necessarily must be cobbled together by a lot
of sources. Some by phone. Those may not even share the same idea what image of the president
or Haspel they should convey. I always wonder with this type of newspaper reporting. Maybe
both writers should write novels.
Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned
how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow
his example as they should have?
Superb analysis! Been coming here for 11 years now, and I just have to say that "b" is the
best propaganda analyst in the English language. He is the sturdiest anchor in these stormy
seas:)
The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay
them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe
their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual
budgets.
Sarcasm is just about the last pleasure one can get from watching the horrific antics of
these morons.
More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research.
Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer.
His job - pushing the war machine agenda.
He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles
to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication.
Perhaps, the liason can see what this fool types in real time. Who knows?
As the story of the dead ducks and sick children unraveled and fell apart, a sloppy patch
up had to be made. Now its fixed. Like a Boeing 737 MAX.
BoTh vErSioNs of the story (I checked with the "Wayback Machine") still include this
paragraph (6th paragraph of story):
Unusually for a president, Mr. Trump has publicly rejected not
only intelligence agencies' analysis, but also the facts they have gathered.
And that has created a perilous situation for the C.I.A.
As usual for the NYT, they did not publicly reject the intelligence agencies'
analysis,
but also the facts they had gathered.
That, of course, would have created a perilous situation for the NYT.
As the saying goes: "if it looks like a false-flag, walks like a false-flag, and talks like a
false-flag, it just might be a "duck."
In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM
journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story
in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these
same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the
current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this
intelligence operation.
"I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong".
It was only when I found the horses head next to me in bed when I woke up, that I realized
what a stupid mistake I had made.
Gina Haspel has to be as dumb and incompetent as I suspected: someone is paying good money to
make her look like an ordinary sociopath, not a depraved tart who sucked cock to climb to the
head of the organisation.
Slane is ++ on the Skirpals. One 'fact' that emerged early on, made public by Slane, is that
the proposed 'official' time-line ( > press, Gvmt between the lines) of the Skripal
movements - trivial as in a town, drinkies, lunch, feeding ducks, etc. -- was never reported
correctly, obfuscated.
Idk the reasons, but it is a vital point.
___________________________________
Trump, we see, is treated like the zombie public, flashed random photos, sold tearful
narratives about babies, children, recall incubator babies, horrific bio-weapons
threats...
The PTB loathes him, Pres. are supposed to be complicit like Obama - or at least keep
their resistance toned down, be ready to compromise. .. Obama objected to, and refused to act
on, at least two engineered / fake Syria chem. 'attacks.' (Just looked on Goog and can't find
links to support.)
The only EU figure who stated there is no evidence that the Russkies novichoked
Sergei and Yulia was Macron, afaik. He didn't get the memo in time (the Elysée is
inefficient, lots of screw-ups there) but soon caught up! and expelled the minimum. -- I have
heard, hush hush, one in F was a receptionist - gofer (an excellent + extremely highly paid
position) who is now at the Emb. in Washington! Most likely merely emblematic story (see
telephone game) .. but telling.
I like this story. It makes Trump look like a naif which wouldn't bother President Teflon in
the least. On the other hand, both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker.
I'm hoping she said "cross my heart and hope to die" when he queried her advice...
I'm glad I checked to see if anyone had mentioned this hack's article about Russia
restarting nuclear testing. Using his name as one search item I tried a number of current
issues. Like the fellows at local intersections holding up signs "will work for money",
Barnes might as well have a tattoo saying "I'll write anything if the price is right.
That it took so long to come up with a half-assed "explanation" shows he's not the brightest
bulb in the lamp. I suppose people whose jobs consist of slightly re-writing Deep State
dictation don't have to be especially clever.
That "apology" by Barnes is completely nonsensical. How would you know that there was
something wrong with your story, that there was an error in it, without knowing what it was?
If the CIA, various bloggers, commenters, etc., alerted him to the errors, it's unlikely they
would say, "There's something wrong in this story but I'm not going to say what it is. You'll
have to re-research they whole thing to figure it out." I don't think that's how people
usually point out errors.
"Which narrative is unraveling and which is gathering momentum?"psychohistorian@19
One thing that seems to be unravelling is the tight political cartel that controls Foreign
Policy in the UK.
If it does unravel and Labour turns to an independent foreign policy while it reverses the
disaster of 'austerity' and neo-liberalism, cases such as that of Assange and the Skripal
affair, both products of extremists within the Establishment who regard themselves as
privileged members of the DC Beltway, are going to be re-opened.
At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the
CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of
establishing global hegemony. And this at a time when the UK is falling apart and its
population teeters on the brink of economic disaster. It has fallen into this delusion over
the years as it has been able to offer the CIA services which it is afraid to initiate
itself. Hence, most recently, the entire Russiagate nonsense which has British fingerprints
all over it. Hence too the new aggressiveness in DC towards Assange. Hence the disappearance,
without explanation, of the Skripals.
Julian Barnes is like Winston Smith without the intellectual curiosity. He quote happily goes
about his work. lol. What is the matter with you people? You are supposed to embrace the new
narrative!
From wikidpeida... A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of
inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as
from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression
that something never happened.[1][2] The concept was first popularized by George Orwell's
dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party's Ministry of Truth systematically
re-created all potentially embarrassing historical documents, in effect, re-writing all of
history to match the often-changing state propaganda. These changes were complete and
undetectable.
@37 bevin... maybe they will do with assange what they have done with the skripals... the uk
is more then pathetic at this point in time.. craig murray had more to say on the assange
case yesterday - A
Swedish Court Injects Some Sense
Julian E. Barnes' humble confession (a self-incrimination) sounds like one made in a Gulag.
failure of imaginati , Jun 6, 2019 2:23:10 PM |
35
Further down the memory hole is the side tale of the daughter of Brutish Army Chief Nurse
helping Skirpals and getting an award without contaminating the news. Was the girl's father
Pablo Miller,(of Orbis Dossier MFG) and a pal of Skirpal? There's debunk in their poor
narrative. The public has a photogenic memory.
There are 2 Julian Barneses (at the very least!), one is an English writer, the other has
mostly been writing for the WSJ ( https://www.wsj.com/news/author/julian-e.-barnes)
but since recently again for the NYTimes .
Trump is a drug-addled, brain-damaged, hollowed-out shell of the dull con man he once
was.
But, he perceives himself to be a brilliant mastermind - a stable genius. So, he might
indeed, be prone to making inquiries (generally these would induce the toadies around him to
stifle their laughter).
It makes sense that he might ask, while in GB, about the Skirpal incident, since he pulled
60 people from their posts and he remembered the fantasy he was lead to believe about sick
children and dead ducks.
The fact that he overreacted without sufficient evidence, may have inspired a tiny amount
of self-reflection simply because it may have embarrassed him to have been caught on his back
foot. He was lead to believe that his contemporaries intended to react in equal measure. They
did not. Therefore - he was "fooled" or tricked.
This is the only way to embarrass the buffoon. That is to have someone fool him
personally. And to make him look stupid.
He doesn't mind that he is a fat oaf, a greed head and a pig, but that is the stuff of his
own doing. He is comfortable in this. Money is the end-all, etc.
He bought Mar A Lago, making it his own club, because the Palm Beach Club and its elite
snobs would not let him join.
Trump was betrayed by Gina Haskell, the CIA and the NYT.
All of Western media has been compromised by the CIA and friends since at least the 50s.
Remember what late CIA director William Casey said in 1981; "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the US public believes is false".
They 'CIA' controls every talking head you can name. Believe no one. Sad isn't it.
Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the
CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of
patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence
agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA
are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at
the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's
stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their
"operator" in spook-speak.
Of course, there is also the incentive provided by just having to take the story their CIA
"friend" gives them, edit it a little to fit their employer's style guidelines, and
then submit it as their own. A whole day's worth of work and they can have it finished in
half an hour. What's not to like about that?
CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in
mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no
longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually
brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control.
If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make
certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway.
The self-important "journalists" are controlled and in fact, they are flattered by their
special relationships with informants and the owner/managers. After one has sucked his or her way to the upper level, kissing up and kicking down... Laziness is a bonus.
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong.
What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review
every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections
immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as
the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is
utter bullshit!
Every day when I turn on my computer, I am enticed with offers to "see how the Brady Bunch
kids look today" or "what do the stars of the 80s look like today?".
Apparently, there is quite a demand for updates on celebrities and their current well
being.
So why would Julian Barnes do an article about the Skirpals without showing us how they look
today? And just where are they living? Enquiring minds want to know!
I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely
that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and
put pressure on the NY Times.
Using ducks is easier. Gina Haspel could always ask one of the bottom-feeding subordinates
to nip down the road to one of those Chinese BBQ shops and
photograph the display of roast ducks hanging in the shop window . The photos can be
uploaded and altered to remove the background of the chef and the cashier and then the actual
ducks can be altered or colored appropriately before the pictures are sent to Haspel. Anyone
looking at the altered pictures would never guess their actual provenance.
:-)
I'm not sure where Haspel can find hippos or any other large animals that might topple on
top of someone (with dire consequences) were s/he to apply a whiff of nerve agent.
Thanks b for a good laugh at Barnes and Goldman's expense. I note Goldman is silent and I
guess that is because he would likely get his apology wrong and contradict Barnes BS.
Here's my profile of Gina Haspal: war criminal
Here's my profile of Julian Barnes: Fwit and BShitter
Here's my profile of Adam Goldman: Fwit and BShitter.
"... However, Williamson was not alone in his anti-Russian stance. It was under May's leadership that the controversial government-funded Integrity Initiative program really began to flourish. Designed to "counteract Russian propaganda" it instead deceptively engaged in spreading disinformation about Russia and even the UK Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, by hiring journalists, academics and commentators who would all sing from the same hymn sheet when it came to discourse about Russia in the press. ..."
"... What was most chilling about the revelations in the Integrity Initiative hacked documents was the extent to which policy makers within the inner workings of the establishment are apparently obsessed about an imminent "Russian threat" and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to persuade the British population of this. ..."
"... Even more unnerving was the discussion that there was need for some event to be staged in order to heighten the U.K. population's awareness of a Russian threat. The timing was uncanny: this was not long before the poisoning took place of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, which has, along with multiple discrepancies in the British narrative, led some analysts to ask whether the whole incident was indeed orchestrated by British secret services. ..."
"... Staged or not, May's handling of the Skripal incident left much to be desired. Even her experience of handling the Litvinenko affair as home secretary hadn't taught her a great deal. Before any concrete evidence was produced to implicate the Russian government in the poisoning, May was already issuing ultimatums to the Russian president. Her infamous phrase that the government concluded it was "highly likely" Russia was responsible for the poisoning even entered itself into the Russian vocabulary and became something of a household joke in Russia. ..."
"... So what can we expect from the next prime minister of the not-so-Great Britain? Whoever it is has their work cut out not only to unite the Conservative party, but the country. In terms of improving relations with Russia -- as long as the Tories remain in power, and the "deep state" or civil service continues to push its aggressive anti-Russian agenda -- , we are unlikely to see any significant change in policy. ..."
"... The UK under May has continued to serve as a “coalition partner” in the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis engineered and perpetuated dirty war against the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies. Let’s not forget Theresa May’s well practiced phrase, “like the United States, we believe”: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39591476 . May has consistently believed US claims about the April 2017 Khan Shaykhoun incident, the April 2018 Douma incident, and other alleged chemical “attacks” in Syria. ..."
"... The UK under May also has remained the base for two leading disinformation operations supporting the the assault against Syrian government: Rami Abdulrahman’s Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Eliot Higgins’ Bellingcat. ..."
"... As of 31 March 2018, the British government had provided £38.4m in funding to the Al Qaeda allied White Helmets propaganda organization. In April 2018 the Trump administration suspended funding of the White Helmets. The US had provided more than $33 million to support the group since 2013. ..."
"... The British government remains a primary funder of the White Helmets propaganda organization. Posing as an impartial rescue force, the White Helmets work exclusively side-by-side armed militants including US State Department, UN, and EU designated foreign terrorist organizations. Their primary function is not “rescuing” anyone, but to manage a public relations campaign aimed at swaying public and political opinion, leveraging “humanitarian” sympathy worldwide ..."
"... In November 2016, video showed two White Helmets members staging a rescue operation for the Mannequin Challenge meme. In May 2017, video showed White Helmets members removing a man’s body following his execution by armed militants in Daraa. In June 2017, a member of the White Helmets was suspended indefinitely for assisting armed militants in the burial of mutilated corpses of Syrian government soldiers. ..."
"... Apropos, the last two paras about the Civil Service in Britain; Up until the last 2 decades or so, some of the brightest and best talents entered the Civil Service, good pay, good career prospects and good pension. Then this was hollowed out, everything ‘public sector’ was vilified and privatized and starved of funding. ..."
"... The race to the bottom is keenly contested. ..."
"... Without Russian money they are certainly not the world’s 6th largest economy and it appears that unless they want to side with China against the USA which is improbable, no impossible, they will lose Chinese Capital as well after Brexit. ..."
"... And again, a Mr. Jim Mellon a for real billionaire, several times over I should think, the same guy who carpetbagged Russia after the collapse of the CCCP. His gleanings were called “privatization”… of poor mother Russia. ..."
"... The US has it’s own deep state problem of civil servants, especially alphabet soup agencies who are accustomed to operating in the dark and think that they, not the political appointees make policy ..."
UK Prime Minister Theresa May's political career officially ended in tears last Friday, as
the woman who declared that she would provide "strong and stable" leadership when she came to
power three years ago, but who proved in the end to be not quite so strong or stable as she
broke down in front of the press outside 10 Downing Street.
She had in fact, arguably one of the most disastrous records of a UK prime minister to date.
A total of 50 cabinet resignations since she
took office , far more than any of her recent predecessors; together with scandals such as
the Grenfell Tower
disaster , Windrush
scandal , hostile environment policy and record levels of homelessness and poverty. And
that's not to mention her inability to deliver Brexit, which effectively led to her demise.
Indeed however tempting it may be to feel sorry for May -- she has been surrounded by
political vultures all vying for her position for months now -- one is minded of the words of
British political commentator Owen Jones who, when asked
recently if he felt sorry for the prime minister, noted that May's tears were simply those of
self-pity and were absent at times when they would have been appropriate, such as in the
aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, which claimed 72 lives.
'Permanent Crisis'
One may be inclined to think that if she was so unsuccessful on the domestic front, then
perhaps in the area of foreign policy May could have had a better record. No such luck. We only
have to look at the considerable deterioration in relations with Russia to understand that
under her leadership, Britain's standing in the world has diminished. Prominent British
journalist Patrick Cockburn has even gone as far to say that Britain is now "entering a period
of permanent crisis not
seen since the 17th century."
But arguably back in the 17th century the U.K. was more competent in the art of diplomacy
than it is now. May's defense minister, Gavin Williamson, with his comment that Russia should
"go away and shut up" epitomized the extraordinary lack of finesse and savoir-faire the May
government had when dealing with Russia.
His bellicose tone unfortunately went hand-in-hand with a completely misplaced notion of
Russia presenting to the UK some kind of genuine threat, as he argued earlier this year that
the UK had to "enhance its lethality" against such well-resourced states, as opposed to
concentrating its energies on Islamic terror groups. He was then accused by fellow politicians
of "sabre-rattling" in what were widely seen as misguided and provocative statements.
However, Williamson was not alone in his anti-Russian stance. It was under May's
leadership that the controversial government-funded Integrity Initiative program really
began to flourish. Designed to "counteract Russian propaganda" it instead deceptively engaged
in spreading disinformation about Russia and even the UK Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, by
hiring journalists, academics and commentators who would all sing from the same hymn sheet when
it came to discourse about Russia in the press.
What was most chilling about the revelations in the Integrity
Initiative hacked documents was the extent to which policy makers within the inner workings
of the establishment are apparently obsessed about an imminent "Russian threat" and are
prepared to go to considerable lengths to persuade the British population of this.
May with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hangzhou, China, 2016. (Wikimedia Commons)
Uncanny Timing
Even more unnerving was the discussion that there was need for some event to be staged
in order to heighten the U.K. population's awareness of a Russian threat. The timing was
uncanny: this was not long before the poisoning took place of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal
and his daughter, which has, along with multiple discrepancies in the British narrative, led
some analysts to ask whether the whole incident was indeed orchestrated by
British secret services.
Staged or not, May's handling of the Skripal incident left much to be desired. Even her
experience of handling the Litvinenko affair as
home secretary hadn't taught her a great deal. Before any concrete evidence was produced to
implicate the Russian government in the poisoning, May was already issuing ultimatums to the
Russian president. Her infamous phrase that the government concluded it was "highly likely"
Russia was responsible for the poisoning even entered itself into the Russian vocabulary and
became something of a household joke in Russia.
The decision to publicly accuse another state of attempting murder on British soil with
evidence that only amounted to "a nerve agent of a type produced by Russia," was utterly
reckless, not only deeply harming relations with Russia, but undermining the credibility of the
U.K. as a whole. And despite it being an attempt to bolster the PM's position at a time when
desperately needed to generate support for her upcoming Brexit white paper – this itself,
given a delayed Brexit and divided country, proved fruitless.
So what can we expect from the next prime minister of the not-so-Great Britain? Whoever
it is has their work cut out not only to unite the Conservative party, but the country. In
terms of improving relations with Russia -- as long as the Tories remain in power, and the
"deep state" or civil service continues to push its aggressive anti-Russian agenda -- , we are
unlikely to see any significant change in policy.
One could hope that a certain Boris Johnson, himself named after a Russian
émigré, and the leading candidate to replace May, could seek to build bridges in
this regard, but his record on the Skripal case leaves room for doubt. The PM is after all a
figurehead, and the UK civil service remains a driving force of policy-making.
As former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair once said: "You cannot underestimate how much
they [the civil service] believe it's their job to actually run the country and to resist the
changes put forward by people they dismiss as 'here today, gone tomorrow' politicians. They
genuinely see themselves as the true guardians of the national interest, and think that their
job is simply to wear you down and wait you out."
Says it all really .
As one reads this article it is primarily remarkably how closely it resembles
America’s past, present and future. Of course, England has long been known as
Washington’s lap dog. Unsurprisingly, what we seem to be best at is sales and PR. The
UK is far from the only “ally” we have that has followed us off the cliff.
And as the various publics look down and see the snake pit into which our style of
“democracy” and Winners Take All capitalism actually means they want out.
Unfortunately, the winners and our leaders have taken all already, including not only the
money, but the power. The shameful scams of NATO and politicizing the EU turned out to be new
ways to suck the lifeblood out of the earths “Others,” both in our countries and
in the “Others” in Africa, Asia, and everything above and below our borders.
So how do we get out of this? We don’t. Every empire from Cyrus To Babylon,
Alexander’s to The Pharaohs’ and Heraclius, the Spanish, Portuguese, and British
have collapsed in the dust and led to long periods of darkness, inhabited by The Four
Horsemen of The Apocalypse.
If you look around us, still mostly living in luxury unknown to the ancient non-winners,
all of the signs are there. In the multiple-party system in most of “free” Europe
or our Two-party system there’s but decline. Boris won’t save England and none of
the truly potentially electable quacks in our Democrats list are going to get us out of this.
Clinton didn’t, Obama didn’t and what’s up won’t. No one but Tulsi
Gabbard even talks about or has a foreign policy beyond being for peace and plenty for all.
Sure. Dumb.
I hate to sound gloomy-doomy, because I’m not. I’m a writer and a writer is an
observer. Watching all of this, including my own 2008 economic demise, is fascinating.
Gabbard isn’t going to be elected. We’ll get our own Mrs. May maybe, or more
Trump, Bolt-on or the fat guy who will initiate some wars that we’ll win like we did
with Vietnam and Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. ad nauseum. I’m not saying be dumb; I’m
saying be realistic, analytical, interested, and vocal, but come the collapse, be physically
and psychologically prepared (everything that Hillary wasn’t, for example.)
Abe , May 31, 2019 at 12:51
The UK under May has continued to serve as a “coalition partner” in the
US-Saudi-Israeli Axis engineered and perpetuated dirty war against the Syrian government and
its Russian and Iranian allies. Let’s not forget Theresa May’s well practiced phrase, “like the United
States, we believe”: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39591476 . May has consistently believed US claims about the April 2017 Khan Shaykhoun incident, the
April 2018 Douma incident, and other alleged chemical “attacks” in Syria.
The UK under May also has remained the base for two leading disinformation operations
supporting the the assault against Syrian government: Rami Abdulrahman’s Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights and Eliot Higgins’ Bellingcat.
As of 31 March 2018, the British government had provided £38.4m in funding to the Al
Qaeda allied White Helmets propaganda organization. In April 2018 the Trump administration
suspended funding of the White Helmets. The US had provided more than $33 million to support
the group since 2013.
The British government remains a primary funder of the White Helmets propaganda
organization. Posing as an impartial rescue force, the White Helmets work exclusively
side-by-side armed militants including US State Department, UN, and EU designated foreign
terrorist organizations. Their primary function is not “rescuing” anyone, but to
manage a public relations campaign aimed at swaying public and political opinion, leveraging
“humanitarian” sympathy worldwide.
As of 31 March 2018, the British government had provided £38.4m in funding to the
White Helmets. In April 2018 the Trump administration suspended funding of the White Helmets.
The US had provided more than $33 million to support the group since 2013.
In November 2016, video showed two White Helmets members staging a rescue operation for
the Mannequin Challenge meme. In May 2017, video showed White Helmets members removing a
man’s body following his execution by armed militants in Daraa. In June 2017, a member
of the White Helmets was suspended indefinitely for assisting armed militants in the burial
of mutilated corpses of Syrian government soldiers.
On the night of 21 July 2018, Israel allowed 422 people – 98 White Helmet volunteers
and their family members – to cross the Israeli annexed Syrian Golan Heights and into
Jordan. A Syrian government official condemned the evacuation of White Helmets as a
“criminal operation” that had revealed “the terrorist nature” of the
group. In September 2018, the UK granted asylum to about 100 White Helmet staff and relatives
that had been evacuated to Jordan.
AnneR , May 31, 2019 at 09:22
Good Riddance to very Bad Rubbish (mind you that also applies to the whole of the Tory lot
plus the Blairites).
Yes May’s government has much to make amends for – and not just for and to the
survivors of Grenfell Towers, the Windrush Generation families, but also to: the Yemenis, the
Chagossians, the Syrians. It would have behooved her to have a smaller wardrobe and a larger,
effective compassion for those the (imperialist) British have done over numerous times up to
and including today. Even small gestures of real compassion, of real recognition of the
ugliness of Britian’s imperial past wrongdoings by way of simple apology are apparently
beyond her and her government (including the Civil Service).
As for Britain’s “standing” – it is about bloody time that this
small island off the western Eurasian coast put up and shut up and retired. Why on earth
should it have any *standing*? What *good* has it ever done? (And I ask this as someone born
there, whose father was in the army helping to maintain the Raj – much to my much later
disgust, though, disgracefully, not his.)
Bob of Bonsall , May 31, 2019 at 05:11
To be fair, and as much as it pains me to do so, I must point out that the Grenfell
tragedy and Windrush fiasco were as much due to Labour decisions as they were to Tory
incompetence.
John A , May 31, 2019 at 03:01
Apropos, the last two paras about the Civil Service in Britain; Up until the last 2
decades or so, some of the brightest and best talents entered the Civil Service, good pay,
good career prospects and good pension. Then this was hollowed out, everything ‘public
sector’ was vilified and privatized and starved of funding.
For these reasons, most of
the ‘brightest and best’ now shun the Civil Service for a career in casino
banking and similar avenues instead. The calibre of Civil Service advice has nose-dived
accordingly.
As with everything else in Britain post Thatcher, everything is for sale, get rich quick,
plod along with little or no pay increases and less and less job security, or starve homeless
on the streets are the options available these days.
Zhu , May 31, 2019 at 04:51
Sounds like the USA!
Douglas Turnbull , May 30, 2019 at 22:20
The continuing barbaric capitalist nightmare and its sad psychopathic 1% and the destructive antics of its sycophants...
Tom Kath , May 30, 2019 at 20:13
“Something rotten” is not restricted to the state of Denmark, Britain, or USA.
It is not even restricted to the “West”, so we must seek more fundamentally for
the source of this world’s abject immoral disgustingness. The race to the bottom is
keenly contested.
KiwiAntz , May 30, 2019 at 20:09
At last, for the long suffering Brits? The Maybot has finally danced her “Robotic
Dance” off the World scene to the cheers & high fives of most of the British
people, who have thoroughly had a gutsful of her duplicitous behaviour & disastrous
mishandling of Brexit!
And the article lists her shameful record during the period she was
Prime Minister, especially the Glenfell Tower tragedy & her pathetic response along with
the criminal culpability of the disgusting Conservative Tory Party & its role in this
travesty?
Their murderous Policies & austerity directly led to this disgrace? So its good
riddance to a contemptible woman, a abject failure & a loser who was good for absolutely
nothing except walking on stages & doing really bad dance moves!
LJ , May 30, 2019 at 18:39
She was all the Tories could come up with to keep Corbyn out of the office of Prime
Minister. There should certainly have been a General Election after David Cameron crashed the
ship of state with Brexit.
Boris Johnson would certainly complete that job so someone else
will have to play dartboard until the next election. Despite what the Guardian and BBC and
the rest say. And in spite of the Zionist attack on Corbyn he will be Prime Minister. Long
Overdue. Britain is Great no more.
Without Russian money they are certainly not the
world’s 6th largest economy and it appears that unless they want to side with China
against the USA which is improbable, no impossible, they will lose Chinese Capital as well
after Brexit.
Good. I hope Scotland votes for Independence. Wales should as well. Britain
deserves to go to hell after their history as an Empire. London is 41% foreign born. Just who
are they anyway? The British? We here in the USA, or rather younger people here in the USA
should take a good look at what happens over the next 5 years there and put it your memory
banks.
elmerfudzie , May 30, 2019 at 17:37
Tainted tenure indeed! No one asks the right questions anymore. For example, where did all
that Brexit cash come from? As I commented previously at CONSORTIUMNEWS and it is redacted
here; “The Panama Papers signaled a need for radical change(s) in the EU banking laws.
Hiding money, legit or not from, fair and open taxation, has become increasingly difficult
for the upper crust….”
The BREXIT cash originated, no surprise folks, from a
Gibraltar based firm, where a Mr Arron Banks (big bucks Banks) a guy with money to burn, with
corporate holdings in the Isle of Man and too, one of his buddies, an Alan Kentish of the STM
group specializing in, oh you’ll love this, offshore wealth preservation! LOL
And
again, a Mr. Jim Mellon a for real billionaire, several times over I should think, the same
guy who carpetbagged Russia after the collapse of the CCCP. His gleanings were called
“privatization”… of poor mother Russia. Well, to make a long story short, Mr Kentish, the original pro-BREXITeer was arrested in Gibraltar under the UK’s Crime
Act for such suspicious money funneling(s). My oh my Ms May, what strange political
bedfellows you seem to have!
Jeff Harrison , May 30, 2019 at 17:37
Here today, gone to lunch as the late Douglas Adams put it. The US has it’s own deep
state problem of civil servants, especially alphabet soup agencies who are accustomed to
operating in the dark and think that they, not the political appointees make policy. Their
thinking is bolstered by Congresses who stonewall and delay approving personnel for
leadership positions in the civil service.
OPSW proved to be a gang of a despicable, completely bought by the USA bottomfeeders. Looks like they are now a part
of "Intergity Initiative"
At this point credibility of the USA and UK experts on the topic is not zero, it is negative: they systematically generate
false flags.
Truth be told after Skripals affair the level of credibility of the UK government and expects is far below zero in any case.
This is just a gang of despicable warmongers.
Notable quotes:
"... If SST readers are confused by OPCW's constantly shifting explanations for why the Final Report on the Douma incident excluded the Engineering Assessment, they're not the only ones. ..."
"... Unfortunately for whoever thought up this defence, it is explicitly contradicted by both the Interim Report (published last July) and the Final Report, which state that the objective of the engineering studies was to evaluate how the cylinders arrived in position. ..."
Comments on official response to the release of the Engineering
Assessment of the Douma cylinders Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, Piers
Robinson
This post comments on the response to our
release of the Executive Summary of the Engineering Assessment of the Douma cylinders on 13
May 2018. All emphases in quoted passages are added by us. After OPCW had confirmed the
document to be genuine, the story was covered extensively by Russian media.
An informed commentary by Professor
Hiroyuki Aoyama in Tokyo has been published on Yahoo News's Japanese site. The only coverage in
western corporate media has been by Peter Hitchens in the
Mail on Sunday , Robert Fisk in the
Independent and Tucker Carlson on
Fox .
Other journalists who have been in
touch with us have told us that their stories were spiked by editors. As expected, the story
has reached much larger numbers through websites and videos that have disseminated it.
2
OPCW's response to the release of the document
2.1 Official response
In an email dated 11 May and shown to us, Deepti Choubey, the head of OPCW Public Affairs,
wrote:
Thank you for reaching out to us. It is exclusively through the Fact-Finding Mission, set
up in 2014, that the OPCW establishes facts surrounding allegations of use of toxic chemicals
for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic. On 1 March 2019, the OPCW has issued its
final and only valid official report, signed by the Director-General, regarding the incident
that took place in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic, on 7 April 2018. The document you shared with
us is not part of any of the material produced by the FFM. The individual mentioned in the
document has never been a member of the FFM .
The OPCW establishes facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals for
hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic through the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which
was set up in 2014. The OPCW Technical Secretariat reaffirms that the FFM complies with
established methodologies and practices to ensure the integrity of its findings. The FFM
takes into account all available, relevant, and reliable information and analysis within the
scope of its mandate to determine its findings. Per standard practice, the FFM draws
expertise from different divisions across the Technical Secretariat as needed. All
information was taken into account, deliberated, and weighed when formulating the final
report regarding the incident in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic, on 7 April 2018. On 1 March
2019, the OPCW issued its final report on this incident, signed by the Director-General.
Per OPCW rules and regulations, and in order to ensure the privacy, safety, and security
of personnel, the OPCW does not provide information about individual staff members of the
Technical Secretariat. Pursuant to its established policies and practices, the OPCW Technical
Secretariat is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the
document in question. At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and
the OPCW is unable to accommodate requests for interviews.
This was taken as confirmation that the document was genuine.
2.2 Unofficial
briefings
Following OPCW's confirmation on 16 May that the document we had released was genuine, two
individuals in the UK whose communications have supported UK government policy on Syria
favoring regime change – Professor Scott Lucas of Birmingham University, and the former
Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker – began reporting that they had inside information on
how the Engineering Assessment had been excluded from the Final Report.
Henderson was writing what was, in effect, a dissenting assessment from that of most of
the OPCW's team and consultant experts. His findings were considered but were a minority
opinion as final report was written.
He followed this with a remarkably indiscreet
tweet asserting that "I know
how OPCW review process was conducted and what place Henderson's assessment had in it." When
challenged to explain his
connection to OPCW, Lucas did not answer. Hitchens
reported on 24 May that OPCW
Public Affairs had refused to comment on whether Lucas was receiving authorised briefings from
OPCW.
2.2.2 Whitaker
Whitaker was at first more circumspect about his sources,
reporting on 16 May that:
One story circulating in the chemical weapons community (though not confirmed) is that
Henderson had wanted to join the FFM and got rebuffed but was then given permission to do
some investigating on the sidelines of the FFM.
Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat extended Whitaker's version
with:
This reporting by @Brian_Whit on the leaked Douma report that the conspiracy theorists and
chemical weapon denialists are so excited about is consistent with what I'm hearing . Looks
like they all got played by a disgruntled OPCW employee.
In an
article
posted on 24 May, Whitaker was more explicit in reporting the spin of "an informed source" on
the Engineering Assessment.
an informed source has now shed some light on it. The key point here is the FFM's terms of
reference. Its basic role was to establish facts about the alleged attack, and it was not
allowed to apportion blame -- that is the job of the OPCW's newly-created Investigation and
Identification Team (IIT). Although the FFM determined that the cylinders were probably
dropped from the air, the published report (in line with its mandate) omitted any mention of
the obvious implication that they had been dropped by regime aircraft. According to the
informed source, when Henderson's assessment was reviewed there were concerns that it came
too close to attributing responsibility, and thus fell outside the scope of the FFM's
mandate. Whether or not that was the right decision, there was no doubt that Henderson's
assessment did fall within the mandate of the new Investigation and Identification Team. For
that reason, according to the source, he was advised to pass it to the IIT instead -- and he
did so.
Unless this account was entirely fabricated, it could only have come from someone with close
knowledge of how the Final Report had been prepared. A subsequent
tweet from Whitaker on 25 May,
presumably channelling the same source, confirmed that "Henderson and others" had been in
Douma:
Henderson and others did go to Douma to provide temporary support to the FFM, but they
were not official members of the FFM.
2.3 What the channelling of off-the-record briefings tells us
It is likely that (at least on this occasion) Lucas and Whitaker are telling the truth, and
that they have been briefed by someone with close knowledge of how the FFM Final Report was
prepared. If these briefings had not been authorised, OPCW Public Affairs could easily have
responded to Hitchens's question with a standard statement reiterating that "there is no
further public information on this matter" and that this extended to off-the-record briefings.
We would expect OPCW press officers to be reluctant to issue further statements that could
subsequently be shown to be false.
Like cellular biologists who perturb a complex system and measure its outputs, we can infer
from these observations the existence of a pathway. This pathway connects the production of
OPCW reports on alleged chemical attacks in Syria with a network of communicators in the UK who
in different ways have promoted the cause of regime change in Syria since 2012. It is evident
that Lucas and Whitaker are output nodes of this pathway. From August 2012, Whitaker as the
Guardian's Middle East editor
promoted Higgins from obscure beginnings as a blogger to become a widely-cited source on
the Syrian conflict. Whitaker was the first journalist to devote an
article to
attacking the Working Group, in February 2018 when its only collective output had been a brief
blog post.
It is of course possible that OPCW management for some procedural reason was unable to
provide further information on the record, and sought to disseminate an accurate version of
events via off-the-record briefings. But the choice of such highly partisan commentators as
Lucas and Whitaker as channels inevitably calls into question the good faith of whoever
provided these briefings, and undermines any remaining pretence to impartiality on the part of
OPCW management.
2.4 Discrepancies between versions of OPCW's response
An established method in investigative journalism is to compare official versions and to
infer from discrepancies what they are trying to hide. On 11 May OPCW Public Affairs stated
that "The document you shared with us is not part of any of the material produced by the FFM.
The individual mentioned in the document has never been a member of the FFM". After we pointed
out that these two statements were provably false – the external collaboration on the
engineering assessment of the Douma cylinders must have been authorised by OPCW, and Henderson
could hardly have been in Damascus on a tourist visa – they were not repeated on the
record. By 16 May OPCW Public Affairs had formulated a new policy: "Per OPCW rules and
regulations the OPCW does not provide information about individual staff members of the
Technical Secretariat." A more subtle version of Henderson's role was then channelled through
Lucas and Whitaker: "minority opinion", "on the sidelines" and elaborated by Higgins as
"disgruntled OPCW employee"'. Between 16 May and 25 May the story channelled through Whitaker
changed from "Henderson had wanted to join the FFM and got rebuffed but was then given
permission to do some investigating on the sidelines of the FFM." to admitting that "Henderson
and others" were in Douma "to provide temporary support to the FFM".
On 24 May Whitaker's informed source admits that "Henderson's assessment was reviewed" for
the Final Report, no longer attempting to maintain that the Engineering Assessment was not part
of the FFM's process. If we strip away the flannel from this latest story, it appears to be
accurate. The "informed source" tells us that the Engineering Assessment was excluded from the
Final Report not because its technical analysis had been rebutted, but because the conclusion
that the cylinders had been placed in position rather than dropped from the air would
necessarily have attributed responsibility for the incident to the opposition .
The argument that the mandate of the FFM prevented it from endorsing the Engineering
Assessment's conclusion is easily refuted as a matter of logic. Announcing the release of the
Final Report, OPCW
stated that "The FFM's mandate is to determine whether chemical weapons or toxic chemicals
as weapons have been used in Syria." In Douma this could be reduced to deciding between two
alternatives: (1) the gas cylinders were dropped from the air, implying that they were used as
chemical weapons; (2) the cylinders were placed in position, implying that the incident was
staged and that no chemical attack had occurred. Although to conclude that alternative (2) was
correct would implicate the opposition, this would not be attribution of blame for a chemical
attack but rather a determination that chemical weapons had not been used.
Clearly a verdict that the alleged chemical attack had been staged would have been
unacceptable to the French government, which had joined in the US-led missile attack on 14
April 2018. We can surmise that the Chief of Cabinet of OPCW, Sébastien Braha, who
(according to his Linkedin profile ) is still in post as
a French diplomat, would have been in a difficult position if he had allowed the FFM to release
a report that reached this conclusion. He would be in an even more difficult position if he
were to allow the newly-established
Investigation and
Identification Team (IIT), which also reports to him, to overturn the conclusions of the
Final Report and report that the alleged chemical attack was staged. Even if Braha's failure to
update his online profile with the date of leaving his diplomatic post is an oversight, this
would still be a conflict of interest based on the OECD definition of what "a reasonable
person, knowing the relevant facts, would conclude". As we have noted, OPCW appears to have no
arrangements for managing conflicts of interest. Until the governance and working practices of
OPCW are radically reformed, it is hard to see how neutral observers can have confidence in the
impartiality of the FFM or the IIT.
3 Government responses to an alleged chlorine attack on
19 May3.1 Reports of the alleged attack
Possible allusions to the release of the Engineering Assessment on 13 May can be
discerned in government responses to a report of an alleged chlorine attack in Idlib on 19
May. The earliest report , mentioning three missiles or
shells loaded with chlorine was from an Arabic-language website named ebaa.news at
11.01 am Syrian time. The location was given as Kubina Hill in Kabbana village, on the border
with Lattakia. At 12.46 am Syrian time Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (HdBG)
tweeted
Appears to be a chlorine attack from Regime artillery shells in Jose Al Shugour village -
4 casualties being evacuated for treatment
"Jose Al Shugour village" is presumably the town of Jisr Al-Shughour. Rami Abdulrahman's
Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights reported on 22 May that four fighters were treated in hospital after they
"suffocated in the intense and violent shelling by the regime forces, within caves and
trenches" but did not endorse the claims of a chlorine attack, noting that the source of this
story was "the Media platform of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham". The story was
elaborated in
a Fox News report on 23 May that quoted a "Dr Ahmad" from Idlib, who reported that he had
treated the casualties. Fox News also quoted Nidal Shikhani of the Chemical Violations Documentation
Centre Syria (CVDCS).
A possible match for the identity of "Dr Ahmad" is Dr Ahmad al-Dbis,
quoted by Reuters on 4 May 2019 as Safety and Security Manager for the Union of Medical
Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM), describing airstrikes on Idlib and northern Hama. Since
2016 both HdBG
and the
CBRN Task Force that he set up in 2013 have been affiliated to UOSSM. A
report from 2014 quotes a "Dr Ahmad" described as a medic trained by HdBG for the CBRN Task
Force. CVDCS is an
NGO that has worked closely with the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission since 2015 to provide
purported eyewitnesses for interview in Syria, originally established in 2012 as the
Office of Documentation of the Chemical File in Syria , and later registered in Brussels as
a non-profit company named Same Justice. This company never complied with the legal requirement
to file accounts, and went into
liquidation on 27 February 2019.
The ebaa.news site appears to be closely linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),
frequently quoting HTS spokesmen and sometimes reporting exclusive stories obtained from HTS.
On 31 May 2018 HTS was
designated
by the US Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated
Global Terrorist. The Coordinator for Counterterrorism noted that this designation "serves
notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qa'ida affiliate's attempt to rebrand
itself." In conclusion, the provenance of this story of a chemical attack on 19 May is dubious,
and the extent to which the sources are independent of one another is not clear.
British experts are this morning investigating a suspected chlorine attack by al-Assad in
Idlib. If it is proved, will she lead the international response against the return of this
indiscriminate evil?
As expected, the Prime Minister gave a bellicose answer, but made no reference to OPCW.
We of course acted in Syria, with France and the United States, when we saw chemical
weapons being used there. We are in close contact with the United States and are monitoring
the situation closely, and if any use of chemical weapons is confirmed, we will respond
appropriately.
Woodcock's "British experts" appear to have included HdBG, who had suggested in a
tweet the day
before that Woodcock should ask the Prime Minister about Idlib, though not about a chemical
attack. In a subsequent tweet Woodcock stated that his
experts were "on the ground in Syria".
3.3 French response
The daily press from the French foreign ministry on 22 May responded to a question on the
alleged chemical attack on 19 May with:
We have noted with concern these allegations which must be investigated. We have full
confidence in the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons .
3.4 US response
A press
statement from State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on 21 May dealt with the
alleged chemical attack two days earlier:
Unfortunately, we continue to see signs that the Assad regime may be renewing its use of
chemical weapons, including an alleged chlorine attack in northwest Syria on the morning of
May 19, 2019. We are still gathering information on this incident, but we repeat our warning
that if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, the United States and our allies will respond
quickly and appropriately.
She mentioned a " continuing disinformation campaign " to "create the false narrative that
others are to blame for chemical weapons attacks that the Assad regime itself is conducting".
The following day Mr James Jeffrey, the State Department's special representative to Syria,
testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "So far we cannot confirm [the reports of
chemical weapons use] but we're watching it". The New York Times
reported
this to be a "carefully worded recalibration" of the announcement by Morgan Ortagus the day
before, and that American military officials had "expressed surprise over the State
Department's strong statement". 4 Comparison of the Engineering Assessment with the
published Final Report
A comparison of the Engineering Assessment and the Final Report have been reported in
outline form by McIntyre . As Larson has
noted
, there are indications in the
Final
Report that whoever drafted it had access to an earlier version of the Engineering
Assessment (the released version dated 27 February 2019 is marked Rev 1) and was attempting to
rebut it without overtly mentioning it. For instance the Engineering Assessment lists five
points supporting the opinion of experts that the crater at location 2 had been created by a
the explosion of a mortar round or artillery rocket rather than an impact from a falling
object. These points included:
"an (unusually elevated, but possible) fragmentation pattern on upper walls"
"(whilst it was observed that a fire had been created in the corner of the room) black
scorching on the crater underside and ceiling."
The Final Report states falsely that a fragmentation pattern, visible in open-source images,
was absent:
The FFM analysed the damage on the rooftop terrace and below the crater in order to
determine if it had been created by an explosive device. However, this hypothesis is unlikely
given the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristic of an explosion that
may have created the crater and the damage surrounding it.
This is followed by a paragraph that notes the blackening of the ceiling and attributes it
to the fire set in the room. The Final Report's allusion to the possibility of an explosive
device, with mention of fragmentation pattern and the setting of a fire in the room appears to
be an attempt to explain away the argument made in the Engineering Assessment.
We note that several of the key findings of the Engineering Assessment are based only on
examination of the cylinders. For instance the Engineering Assessment reports that the cylinder
at Location 2 bears no markings that would be consistent with the frame with fins (lying on the
balcony) ever having been attached to it, let alone the markings that would be expected if the
frame had been stripped off by impact. The Final Report records that the Syrian government
insisted on retaining custody of the cylinders for criminal investigation purposes.
Accordingly:
On 4 June, FFM team members tagged and sealed the cylinders from Locations 2 and 4, and
documented the procedure.
A useful way to take forward the investigation of the Douma incident would now be for the
Syrian government to invite an international team of neutral experts to examine the cylinders,
to assess whether the observations support the findings of the Engineering Assessment or the
conclusions of the published FFM Final Report, and to publish their findings in a form that
allows peer review and reproducibility of results from data. The next step would be a criminal
investigation of this incident, focusing on where, how and by whom were the 35 victims seen in
images at Location 2 killed.
If SST readers are confused by OPCW's constantly shifting explanations for why the Final
Report on the Douma incident excluded the Engineering Assessment, they're not the only
ones.
Yesterday OPCW released its official response (dated 21 May) to Russian criticisms (dated
26 April) of the Final Report of the Fact-Finding Mission on the Douma incident. In this
response OPCW made, officially and on the record, the same argument as that made by
Whitaker's "informed source: that to assess how the cylinders arrived in their positions was
outside the mandate of the FFM.
Unfortunately for whoever thought up this defence, it is explicitly contradicted by both
the Interim Report (published last July) and the Final Report, which state that the objective
of the engineering studies was to evaluate how the cylinders arrived in position.
Peter Hitchens is on the case, and has listed these contradictions and requested an
explanation from OPCW.
Having been practically a recluse since since the 'fake dossier' alleging links between Donald Trump and Russia that he produced
was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, Christophe Steele has reportedly refused to cooperate with AG Barr's probes
Reuters reports that , according to a source with knowledge of the situation, Steele, a former Russia expert for the British
spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham , named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations
into Trump and his campaign team.
However, buried deep in
Reuters story is the same source claiming that Steele might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector
General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and Clinton.
In the past Steele has cooperated, willingly being interviewed twice in the special counsel's investigation, and submitting answers
in writing to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but apparently this time he is not willing.
With Steel refusing to cooperate, Joe DiGenova, former U.S. Attorney warned Monday on WMAL radio's
Mornings on the Mall radio show,
"this is full scale war," adding that "we are heading toward a gigantic, gigantic fight...
The intelligence community, which includes the FBI, is in full resistance to disclosing what they did during the presidential
campaign ."
Sara Carter reports that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on the FBI's handling of the
investigation into Trump within weeks.
These investigation will hold those in the intelligence and law enforcement community accountable, depending on what evidence
is discovered. This reporter is hearing from sources that it will be scathing. Those who abused their power and weaponized the tools
meant to target America's enemies against a political opponents should be held accountable . Tags
Politics Law Crime
It seems reasonable to demand Steele's extradition to America to explain his part in the conspiracy.
I mean is being a party to the conspiracy, attempted treason and sedition of the attempted overthrow of an elected President
not at least as important as Julian Assange who only made public some documents that someone else removed?
Oh these fuckers are scared to death. Comey lashing out at Trump...on and on. This is going to be great...and Trump will
play it perfect right into the election. And BIDEN was part of all of it. What a great next 6 years.
Funny, I was recently de-platformed on Twitter for tweeting to GCHQ (British Intelligence) that the UK's sordid involvement
in spying on the Trump campaign would be exposed and "no amount of British bluster could refute it...".
Whilst you are at it, prove that the Skripal poison / Novichok case was a fascicle fake
and blame Theresa May categorically, show proof, throw her in prison and throw away the
key.
It is unclear whether May really wanted to implement Brexit deal but at least she negotiated several EU offers. It was UK
Parliament that rejects the offers.
I think May claim to fame might be not her failure in Brexit negotiation, but orchestration of infamous Skripals poisoning
false flag and the bout of Russophobia, as well as her attempt to interfere with the 2016 elections in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... History will not be kind to Theresa May. By the standards she forthrightly set herself at the outset of her premiership, she has been a dismal failure. ..."
"... she became, in George Osborne's devastating phrase, "a dead woman walking". ..."
"... a political nonentity of such crushing mediocrity and insignificance that even when standing in direct sunlight she casts no shadow. A third-rate office manager elevated light years beyond her intellectual capacity, professional capabilities and pay grade. A national embarrassment and global laughing stock ..."
"... When May was elected Tory leader and hence prime minister, the field of choice was notable for its lightweight uniformity. ..."
"... the quality of leadership of the party has been modest at best for years. Among Tory leaders since the war, only Margaret Thatcher has managed to catch the climate of her time and impose her personality on a discernible period, however much one may deplore that climate and that period. ..."
"... What is striking about Conservative politics is that those who wish to hold onto power and wealth for their own class and who have the ambition and talent and imagination to make a difference do not go into politics. They become entrepreneurs, traders, speculators. There is too much regulation and self-abnegation in politics for such people. Look back over the leadership of the Tory party and you get to Harold Macmillan before you encounter anyone who came from a (brief) career in business. ..."
"... We are now told that she is "a patriot" – the last refuge of a political scoundrel – and that she has "tried her best", which was clearly grossly inadequate to the task ..."
"... The wars are over for Britain. Become a global reliable trading nation that honors contracts and business ties, the very elements that made Britain Great. It sure has not been the Wars especially the poodle wars. You laugh at May's tears and under performance but you may as well be looking at yourselves. ..."
"... Why should Britain be holding Venezuela Gold on behalf of Donald Trump? There is no yield in this, there is no value but a soiled reputation as an unreliable trader. Banks in Britain should be honest dealers not playing politics with contracts. ..."
"... It's not clear that all MI5/MI6 operatives are remainers. I suspect they are as divided as everyone else. The gang who attacked Trump simply did it because it was business and not personal. They even outsourced to Steele because they thought it might be cheaper. Outsourcing is perceived as cool in government circles and makes people feel good about themselves. It's the deep state offering value for money. ..."
"... May has done precisely what she was tasked to do by the Establishment: First to "negotiate" a Withdrawal deal that "Only the loser of a major war would agree to" after wasting two years, then do everything else possible to delay Brexit as long as possible and water it down to the point that the UK would even with a "delivered Brexit" still essentially be bound to the EU indefinitely. ..."
"... The final irony here is that it is ultimately only Parliament's duplicity and treachery, in spite of the fact that Parliament desperately wanted to ensure the UK "Remain", which has prevented her and the Globalists from achieving their goals through what they believed to be a process of "subtle subterfuge". ..."
"... She will indeed go down in history as a footnote of no significance or perhaps as the PM who showed the greatest betrayal of the British people on behalf of the Establishment ..."
History will not be kind to Theresa May. By the standards she forthrightly set herself
at the outset of her premiership, she has been a dismal failure. She proposed that,
contrary to most impartial expectation, she would be a socially liberal prime minister who
would strive to relieve the economic pressure on the poorest members of British society (the
briefly famous "just about managing"), but the only small concessions towards the relief of
poverty that have been wrung from her government have done nothing to reduce the incidence of
homelessness, food banks and wage rates that undershoot the demands made by private landlords,
services starved of funds and price rises.
And that's without even mentioning Brexit.
Following the self-inflicted disaster of the 2017 general election, in which May utterly
failed to project herself with any conviction as "strong and stable", she became, in George
Osborne's devastating phrase, "a dead woman walking".
That campaign was the most complacent, least effective ever fought by a major political
party in Britain, and the only explanation for the media's astonishment at the result can be
that editors and columnists had so convinced themselves that they had rendered Jeremy Corbyn,
in their description of choice, "unelectable" that they could see no outcome other than a
thumping Tory victory. What they could not see was that Corbyn is an inspired and inspiring
campaigner, while May is as dull as ditchwater.
The social media commentator Aidan Daley summed her up admirably: "Mayvis: a political
nonentity of such crushing mediocrity and insignificance that even when standing in direct
sunlight she casts no shadow. A third-rate office manager elevated light years beyond her
intellectual capacity, professional capabilities and pay grade. A national embarrassment and
global laughing stock ".
This unsparing but unarguable buttonholing raises a historical problem for the Conservative
Party that shows no sign of quick resolution. When May was elected Tory leader and hence
prime minister, the field of choice was notable for its lightweight uniformity. Given the
length of her cabinet experience, May clearly outshone her rivals, if not in charisma (a
quality conspicuously lacking from the field). But the quality of leadership of the party
has been modest at best for years. Among Tory leaders since the war, only Margaret Thatcher has
managed to catch the climate of her time and impose her personality on a discernible period,
however much one may deplore that climate and that period.
What is striking about Conservative politics is that those who wish to hold onto power
and wealth for their own class and who have the ambition and talent and imagination to make a
difference do not go into politics. They become entrepreneurs, traders, speculators. There is
too much regulation and self-abnegation in politics for such people. Look back over the
leadership of the Tory party and you get to Harold Macmillan before you encounter anyone who
came from a (brief) career in business.
Comparing May with Thatcher and Macmillan is instructive.
May has failed to create any sort of arresting public persona for herself. Aside from the
tiresome bromide "Brexit means Brexit", she has turned no phrase that immediately summons her
to mind. Who could essay her political philosophy, other than hanging on grimly against
insuperable odds and paying heed to no advice?
She has no imagination, no resourcefulness, no wit and no management skills. When pressed,
she retreats to prepared responses, regardless of their irrelevance to the question in hand.
We are now told that she is "a patriot" – the last refuge of a political scoundrel
– and that she has "tried her best", which was clearly grossly inadequate to the
task .
The mainstream media will be eternally grateful to her for betraying emotion at the end of
her resignation statement, thereby providing the "human interest" angle that cements the moment
in history and will be trotted out in every story about the May premiership for ever after,
much like Thatcher's tear-stained face in the back of the limo as it pulled away from Downing
Street for the last time. Whether this emotion sits appropriately with the "dignity" that her
admirers are rushing to credit to her is a question for others to ponder.
Attention now turns to her successor. Vast though the field is, it is again notable for its
lightweight nature. Smart money will be on Rory Stewart, already a media darling and a
politician unusually capable of sounding thoughtful and candid. He also has the advantage of
having led a colourful pre-politics life, thereby bringing instincts to his politics from
beyond the confines of career consultants and spads. But most speculation centres on Boris
Johnson, despite the high level of suspicion that he generates among Tory MPs. He is said to be
enthusiastically supported at the grassroots.
In this as in other aspects, he brings to mind Donald Trump. If Rory Stewart would offer a
safe pair of hands, Johnson would suggest a Trump-like level of gaffes and embarrassments,
thrills and spills.
Britain's Chief problem is that it has become a US poodle for nothing. Essentially
insolvent and small Britain indulges in middle East Wars and US Sanctions and Boycotts. What
do they get in return? Nothing at all.
This is a giant hangover from WWII. It wasn't enough that WWII destroyed Britain, the US
had to take advantage of it in the Anglo American loan and Bretton Woods.
Anyone that has studied WWII knows it was the Russians that killed Germany, not the US and
most certainly not Britain, though cracking the Enigma was certainly useful. But it was Brute
force of the Russians a KURSK that laid waste to Germany.
The US came out of the War essentially unscathed. Britain was bombed out rubble. The US
took full advantage with hard terms in their Anglo American Loan.
The relationship of the US to Britain is more like Abusive parent to abused child. It is
anything but equals. The US only calls on Britain for British Intelligence, or military
support to do something stupid like engage in the Iraq war. The poodle does as told.
ARM was founded in Britain. Now sold to Softbank in Japan. It was the INTEL giant killer.
Had Britain not been a poodle to the US, this one company would have been a driving force in
5G. But the Abusive parent, essentially told the Brits who could and could not associate with
ARM. Now in an even more abused poodle Japan, the world's most emasculated nation. Brits take
their marching order from Donald Trump a bloody moron.
The Tide is out on the British Empire. It is irrelevant at this point what happens with
Brexit. Stall long enough and nobody will care. Instead of branching out and leading in 5G,
they are following their abused parent into the dark ages.
Britain should be making its own deals with China while the US is foundering under Turmp.
Some businesses are such as Rolls Royce that is offering a Rolls Royce jet engine plant to
forward China's local and narrowbody jets. Britain can come in and be a reliable partner with
Huawei and get access to the largest markets in global history China and Asia. Instead the
Gov. wants the UK to be just a US poodle lucky to get a few scraps.
Protectionism can NEVER work in Britain. The Isles NEED TRADE. They cannot survive without
out it. Yet here they are with their brilliant engineering taking orders from Donald Trump
the idiots idiot.
May was just a symptom of the Poodle problem. Do as told, show no spine and live in the
shadow of the USA abuser parent. That is why NO PM in the UK casts a shadow. They are under
the oppressive shadow of the US. Taking orders, Killing off British soldiers for nothing.
The wars are over for Britain. Become a global reliable trading nation that honors
contracts and business ties, the very elements that made Britain Great. It sure has not been
the Wars especially the poodle wars. You laugh at May's tears and under performance but you
may as well be looking at yourselves.
Brexit under the shadow of the USA just strengthens the choke chain in Trump's insane
hand. You become dependent on an unreliable country with the most unreliable administration
in US History. As they do now, they dictate where you may trade and to whom you may sell your
products... and you go along with it like an obedient abused child seeking approval of the
Parent Abuser.
Get some spine and break ties with the USA that are carrying you into the abyss. Why
should Britain be holding Venezuela Gold on behalf of Donald Trump? There is no yield in
this, there is no value but a soiled reputation as an unreliable trader. Banks in Britain
should be honest dealers not playing politics with contracts. Every country in the world is
looking at this British poodle conduct. No country wants to deal with a poodle that refuses
to return assets or that weaponizes Trade. You are cutting your throats for any future global
investment FOR NOTHING!
It's not clear that all MI5/MI6 operatives are remainers. I suspect they are as divided as
everyone else. The gang who attacked Trump simply did it because it was business and not
personal. They even outsourced to Steele because they thought it might be cheaper.
Outsourcing is perceived as cool in government circles and makes people feel good about
themselves. It's the deep state offering value for money.
May achieved what she set out to do being a BREMAINER from the outset.
To block, stall and prevent at all costs BREXIT.
As a BREXIT supporter thank you May because you created a new party in the process as an
alternative to the fake" Conservative BREXIT party" and the EU Labour Custom Union slaves". I
swear Labour = Democrats in the US and their belief in social slavery to them.
When can we get them EU election figures ... as this is going to be such fun if the BREXIT
party manages to achieve an overwhelming vote it is like a 2nd referendum on the previous
referendum. ... Fingers crossed here though because you just know MI5 / MI6 and all the other
mercenaries are going to be ballot stuffing like **** and with no exit polls to prevent the
electoral fraud they will be carrying out on the orders of their paymasters.
Spare the tears, **** you got exactly what you deserved for your betrayal of British
democracy whilst constantly lying and pretending to support both UK AND US values.
May has done precisely what she was tasked to do by the Establishment: First to
"negotiate" a Withdrawal deal that "Only the loser of a major war would agree to" after
wasting two years, then do everything else possible to delay Brexit as long as possible and
water it down to the point that the UK would even with a "delivered Brexit" still essentially
be bound to the EU indefinitely.
The final irony here is that it is ultimately only Parliament's duplicity and treachery,
in spite of the fact that Parliament desperately wanted to ensure the UK "Remain", which has
prevented her and the Globalists from achieving their goals through what they believed to be
a process of "subtle subterfuge".
The ONLY way forward now is a "Hard" Brexit because Parliament has rejected everything
else, it is still the legal default position which does NOT legally require approval by
Parliament and it restores the negotiating position with the EU that May deliberately pissed
away over two years. And the lesson here to other countries wanting to get out of the
clutches of Brussels is this; If you want to leave the EU, JUST LEAVE. Let the Bureaucrats
work out the details later; they aren't that important.
She will indeed go down in history as a footnote of no significance or perhaps as the PM
who showed the greatest betrayal of the British people on behalf of the Establishment
**** off and go away to enjoy the corrupt benefits of your service to the Globalists until
you RIP.
May fits in with the other Prime Ministers of the Paedoph Isles:
"Rules which bar sex offenders from working with children are 'unfair' and even convicted
paedophiles should have the right to adopt, a leading legal academic has said."
Scripals's poisoning connected Prime Minister soon will be gone for good.
Novichok has lasting effects on British PM ;-) Now it will be much easier to investigate her role in spying on Trump,
British government role in creation of Steele dossier, and in launching neo-McCarthyism campaign against Russia (aka
Russiagate).
Notable quotes:
"... During her tumultuous tenure as PM, May survived two no-confidence votes. ..."
"... Crying May. What a Loser. Plus, she may have well co-conspired against Trump. ..."
May, the second - but certainly not the last - female prime minister in the UK, will
abandon her supremely unpopular withdrawal agreement instead of trying to force it through
the Commons for the fourth time. May's decision to call for a fourth vote on the withdrawal
agreement, this time packaging it in a bill that could have opened to door to a second
confirmatory referendum, was more than her fellow conservatives could tolerate. One of her
top cabinet ministers resigned and Graham Brady, the leader of the Tory backbenchers,
effectively forced May out by rounding up the votes for a rule change that would have allowed
MPs to oust her.
During her tumultuous tenure as PM, May survived two no-confidence votes.
Though May will stay on as caretaker until a new leader can be chosen, the race to succeed
May begins now...odds are that a 'Brexiteer' will fill the role. Whatever happens, the
contest should take a few weeks, and afterwards May will be on her way back to
Maidenhead.
"It is and will always remain a deep regret for me that I was not able to deliver
Brexit...I was not able to reach a consensus...that job will now fall to my successor," May
said.
Between now and May's resignation, May still has work to do: President Trump will travel
to the UK for a state visit, while Europe will also celebrate the 75th anniversary of
D-Day.
It's fitting that May touted the virtues of her moderate approach to governance during her
resignation speech, considering that her attempts to chart a middle path through Brexit ended
up alienating hard-core Brexiteers and remainers alike. Her fate was effectively sealed
nearly two years ago, after she called for a general election that cost the Tories their
majority in Parliament and emboldened Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The pound's reaction was relatively muted, as May's decision to step down had been
telegraphed well in advance.
She didn't cry for syrians when she declared bombing Syria and using the firm her
husband is involved in,. They made billion, and she didn't cry over her makeover afterwards
new hair clothes and big jewels and cuddles with her husband in the media.
Many women in esteemed positions are just affirmative action or window dressing to
placate the masses with supposed maternal love but they end up being wicked as heck.
Perhaps, but it's worse than that:
They are part of the Divide & Conquer strategy, while (((Global-lusts))) are
plundering the Wealth Of Nations and taking over the real reigns of power.
Americants are easily distracted or fooled.
ps. "...wicked as heck." Wicked? Heck? What's up with the careful avoidance of "cuss
words"? It's ok, you're safe... No "ladies or preachers" (bitches or scammers) nearby. And
the Tylers or NSA won't rat you out.
"... In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones. ..."
"... The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy. ..."
"... Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now. ..."
"... The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions. ..."
"... The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money. ..."
During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian
Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On
Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegelpublished
(German)
reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.
The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in
east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal
circles.
In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to
a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire
plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire,
who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation
but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.
Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.
A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid,
German)
During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them.
He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could
probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws.
They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.
The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch
daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.
Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair.
Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire
who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.
At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches
for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter.
Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.
Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the
conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much
politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.
Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted
to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist
leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive
reports about the video.
After the reports appeared Strache immediately
stepped down and the conservatives
ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.
On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky
opines
on the case:
Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic
nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the
videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics
and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.
I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view.
The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party
are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian"
puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.
Bershidsky continues:
Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important
member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament
election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded
politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd
been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election.
Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...
This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.
Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was
likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support
for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while
drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video
was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was
thought to be now.
But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will
see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers
hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new
far-right block Natteo Salvini
will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.
Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the
Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:
In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even
the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.
The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly
snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to
do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of
real left alternatives.
Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray
put his finger on the wound:
The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting
almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami.
It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through
multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately
funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.
...
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind
alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties
– and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political
symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine
the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.
If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people,
especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What
was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded
with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through
austerity to make up for the loss of money.
While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote
for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new
'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties
they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.
In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions,
he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes,
we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.
Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM |
Permalink
"... what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers. ..."
"... the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people. ..."
Couple of factors not mentioned. one is Israel and the other is more sinister still and tied
to the conclusions to be drawn from the Mueller report.
it may be true that Skripal helped Steele with some elements of the dossier compiled by
Steele, via SKripals handler Pablo Miller. It may be true that Skripal went "stir crazy" and an
attempt was made to silence him and his daughter - permanently, because they simply cold not be
trusted. a similar motivation could be drawn up against Russia - with the two Russians visiting
Salisbury used as diversionary "stool pigeons". It may be true that the "poisoning" was self
inflicted and was in fact a murder/suicide attempt as a result of depression along the ines
"what's the point of it all".
what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the
poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of
the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community
"needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister
influences of foreign powers.
what ought to be apparent is
- the same tactics used by the special prosecutor to investigate the "Russia collusion"
smoke screen erected by the howler monkeys in the US intel agencies (aided and abetter by
howler monkeys in UK intel agencies) to stymie the US executive branch (Trump) are likely to be
used by the the UK government and some more as well - in true Le Carre fashion, but with much
dumber and less principled actors than Smiley's people.
these tactics prevented (and continue to prevent) investigation and prosecution of heinous
corruption within the obama administration of the previous 8 years - these howler monkey
intelligence agency tactics include(d) entrapment, honeypots, racketeering, blackmail, de facto
kidnapping (in the case of Skripals), bribery, wire fraud, unauthorized wire-tapping, breach of
authorized intel agency activities (like the FBI operating overseas and the CIA operating
domestically in the US, false and unverified claims in FISA warrants, NSA providing unauthorized
information to the CIA and FBI etc)
- given the howler monkey activities of the alphabet soup, it is not beyond the imagination
to draw parallels with the CIA's reporting and analysis of situations on the ground wherever
they operate to provide intel ahead of military activity. the DOD has already proved complicit
by hiring Halper (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) to assist with the entrapment of Trump
operative Papadopoulos. Mifsud is likely a CIA, not a Russian, asset.
- given that we have ample evidence of the howler monkeys in the alphabet soup seeking to
facilitate a coup against a sitting US president, it is certainly plausible that - as with the
US goverment sponsoring the mujaheedin, isis and al qaeda in afghanistan to fight the russians
in late 80's early 90's, Iraq yellow cake and WMD - that the howler monkeys paid the white
helmets to ovethrow assad and foment civil war in Syria - thus causing the migration of some 5
million syrians into europe, iraq, turkey, jordan, turkey and lebanon.
so , the case is that howler monkey activity in intel agencies of the UK and US (add
(F)rance to get FUKUS) are guilty of the manufacture of human conflict by fabricating evidence,
breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing
shitty analysis (howler monkeys are only good at swinging in trees and flinging ****) and
generally operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity.
this can only be brought into sharp relief if howler monkey activities were instead shown to
be powers for good rather than the geo-political risks that persist in Iran, North Korea,
Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and so on and so forth.
Never mind how much past conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and so on relied on
evidence and analysis thrown at us by the howler monkeys in the tree tops, how much of what we
we are doing now is a fabrication causing needless suffering by civilian (not politicians or
military engaged in conflict) populations?
the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE,
Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life
in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down",
reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of
people.
there are equivalents of strzok, page, ohr right throughout the US and UK government
"machines" operating overseas. think about that. crimes exposed by Barr et al in the US -
against a sitting president - are replicated wherever howler monkeys operate overseas as well.
"... Things have indeed moved on since the Skripal affair, not at least in terms of the prime minister Teresa May. It must now be clear to even the most dimwitted that she is a lunatic of note. This is obviously not something that has only come as a response to Brexit. However Brexit has shown her up as an utter idiot. ..."
"... Only a person of this caliper might be able to make any sense of the Skripal affair, and even if it makes perfect sense in her diseased mind, ..."
"... Teresa May has been the common denominator in many of the sick things happening in the UK, ..."
"... "And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words. "Cheney wants you out," Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. "We can't accept your management style." ..."
"... Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: "You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you." ..."
"... There was a pause. "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."" ..."
"... The Brits have gone nuts. Maybe it is Karma for all the centuries of bad actions towards the rest of the world. Now that their DS manipulation is being exposed, what else are they going to do? Try to influence Putin? ..."
"... I don't think they've gone nuts. I think the UK is the center of the globalist cabal, and the cabal is on the back foot and getting desperate. 6 hours ago And the more desperate they are the more dangerous they become. And the Satanic head of this globalist cabal are the Rothschilds, who belong to the powerful Chabad Lubavitch cult, and who "made the modern banking system and the Fed that made Zionism, the world wars, the European Union, and so on." ..."
"... Between 2003 and 2013 "the Jared Khushner family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various institutions and projects associated with the movement... in addition the Donald J Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions." -- Kushners Belong to Jewish Supremacist Doomsday Group (that prophesies WWIII after which the Jews will rule). ..."
"... what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers. ..."
"... the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people. ..."
===
all of this is entirely irrelevant .... the World and his mother know that the us is a rat infested terrorist regime that NOBODY
else in the World REALLY trusts or believes .... "that is all ye know on Earth ... and all ye need to know" (Keats - if you are
American
you will need to do a search -NOT the Goggle NSA one - on that )
===
Looks like everyone in the DS did not get their dead ducks in a row....... get it. Skipals were feeding ducks after they were
poisioned but the ducks did not die.
===
The starting assumption is false: "The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind
much of the western aggression in the Middle East."
BOTH parties have meddled incessantly in the middle east, so the idea
of meddling being unique to neocons of provably false. Clinton and Obama did not reduce our footprint in the middle east, Hillary's
behavior under Obama was particularly meddlesome and irrational. Worse than the Republicans based on results.
===
Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Labour. What`s the difference ?; NONE. They are all part of the Establishment owned Western
Political Cartel. 31 minutes ago You presume that there are no neocons among Democrats, an erroneous presumption. However, the neocons
among the Democrats don't call themselves "neocons" and toe the line on domestic Democrat insanity, just as the neocons infesting
the Republican party toe the line on Republican domestic insanity. Why not? The purpose of neocons (Republican or Democrat) is to
create chaos and disaster to further Israel's monstrous agenda.
If you pay attention to what they do and not to what they
call themselves , life becomes much simpler.
===
...The UK Government is up to its neck in the Trump collusion plot, and on its dealings with Syria.
It is all going to come out very soon. It is also more likely than not that MI6 were involved in the Litvinenko assassination -as
suggested by his father.
===
Things have indeed moved on since the Skripal affair, not at least in terms of the prime minister Teresa May. It must now be
clear to even the most dimwitted that she is a lunatic of note. This is obviously not something that has only come as a response
to Brexit. However Brexit has shown her up as an utter idiot.
Only a person of this caliper might be able to make any sense of the Skripal affair, and even if it makes perfect sense in her
diseased mind, it does not by implication make sense to anyone else.
Teresa May has been the common denominator in many of the sick things happening in the UK,
In the interest of any sane person in that Kingdom, get her removed!
Granted that May is the poster girl for idiotic
behavior but David Cameron and Tony Blair didn't do too bad at giving blow jobs to Uncle Shmuel. Shmuel should have told May, "Suck,
dammit! Blow is just a figure of speech."
===
Who was complicate in the Lie ... Nicky Haley, the US White House, the US Media, the US Military, the UK Government, the UK Media and possibly Saudia Arabia and Israel. That's a Youge conspiracy for just ONE Lie. And NOBODY is going to be held accountable.
===
If Theresa May ever taught us anything, it's that if you suspect a building is a chemical weapons facility, bomb it
===
It's a very simple lesson really...
NEVER TRUST a single word uttered by these corrupt nations EVER... Works for
me... and has been 100% right for years now
===
The OPCW is indeed compromised.
In 2002, John Bolton directly threatened then director Jose Bustani for negotiating with Saddam Hussein to allow OPCW inspectors
to conduct unannounced visits to Iraq, which would undermine the US plans to attack.
...
"And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words. "Cheney wants you out," Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the
then-vice president of the United States. "We can't accept your management style."
Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: "You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply
with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you."
There was a pause. "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.""
===
Why did Trump select Bolton, anyway? I no longer buy the 3D chess nor the genius of Trump theories. Yes, I will still support
him but he needs to look alive.
===
Trump didn't select Bolton... the Boss did
===
Very good and correct points apart from :
"This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home
and would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction."
The beginning of the paragraph is probably right. The media in France followed the lead of Macron concerning both Douma, & The
Skripals and they would probably defend their positions by defending also the next false flag event in Syria or in Britain.
However the nonsense that "Macron is facing a revolution at home and would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international
distraction" is pure hyperbole worthy of a false news site like Breitbart or, in this case, Russia Today. Nothing like a revolution
is happening in France. Macron has the same support as he has had since the last election and the Yellow Vest have to a large degree
gone home. Some 18.500 participated throughout France in the last demonstration and anyway, very few of them want a "revolution".
They want more social welfare and better pensions.
===
The yellow vests indeed do want more social welfare and better pensions, but they also want lower taxes - ON PETROL.
Breitbart has been known to push false narratives (just like CNN or MSNBC or Fox News) but can you point out any fake stories
from RT? I ask because they've been a reliable factual counterweight to the Western media lies over the past 3 years at least.
Your comment reads like standard issue NATO ********.
===
Same reason the deep state is worried about the nano thermite found in the ashes of 9/11. With a widespread catastrophe there
is always an outsider doing their own research on the remnants of the disaster. You can bet your bottom dollar, assuming this story
is even close to being accurate, that someone would have done an analysis on the isotopes, especially if the war drums against Russia
were beating.
===
The Brits have gone nuts. Maybe it is Karma for all the centuries of bad actions towards the rest of the world. Now that
their DS manipulation is being exposed, what else are they going to do? Try to influence Putin?
===
I don't think they've gone nuts. I think the UK is the center of the globalist cabal, and the cabal is on the back foot and
getting desperate. 6 hours ago And the more desperate they are the more dangerous they become. And the Satanic head of this globalist
cabal are the Rothschilds, who belong to the powerful Chabad Lubavitch cult, and who "made the modern banking system and the Fed
that made Zionism, the world wars, the European Union, and so on."
Between 2003 and 2013 "the Jared Khushner family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various institutions and projects associated
with the movement... in addition the Donald J Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions." -- Kushners Belong
to Jewish Supremacist Doomsday Group (that prophesies WWIII after which the Jews will rule).
===
Britain is a police state.
===
(Edited)
Putin shot down MH17!!!!
Remember that gem? They really have to stretch the truth with this one.
Assad using chemical weapons right before he cleaned out Damascus from the cockroaches. Ah ha, yeap. Makes perfect sense if you
have **** for brains. Which are the sort of people the empire relies on these days.
Joos and Zios running things is working out real well. This is the kind of work you'd expect from an office clerk with a bad attitude,
certainly not from god's chosen. 7
===
Yes, and wasn't it the same ******** fake news source, Bellingcat, pushing that lie that also pushed some of the false flag
Syria chemical attack lies?
===
Couple of factors not mentioned. one is Israel and the other is more sinister still and tied
to the conclusions to be drawn from the Mueller report.
it may be true that Skripal helped Steele with some elements of the dossier compiled by
Steele, via SKripals handler Pablo Miller. It may be true that Skripal went "stir crazy" and an
attempt was made to silence him and his daughter - permanently, because they simply cold not be
trusted. a similar motivation could be drawn up against Russia - with the two Russians visiting
Salisbury used as diversionary "stool pigeons". It may be true that the "poisoning" was self
inflicted and was in fact a murder/suicide attempt as a result of depression along the ines
"what's the point of it all".
what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the
poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of
the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community
"needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister
influences of foreign powers.
what ought to be apparent is
- the same tactics used by the special prosecutor to investigate the "Russia collusion"
smoke screen erected by the howler monkeys in the US intel agencies (aided and abetter by
howler monkeys in UK intel agencies) to stymie the US executive branch (Trump) are likely to be
used by the the UK government and some more as well - in true Le Carre fashion, but with much
dumber and less principled actors than Smiley's people.
these tactics prevented (and continue to prevent) investigation and prosecution of heinous
corruption within the obama administration of the previous 8 years - these howler monkey
intelligence agency tactics include(d) entrapment, honeypots, racketeering, blackmail, de facto
kidnapping (in the case of Skripals), bribery, wire fraud, unauthorized wire-tapping, breach of
authorized intel agency activities (like the FBI operating overseas and the CIA operating
domestically in the US, false and unverified claims in FISA warrants, NSA providing unauthorized
information to the CIA and FBI etc)
- given the howler monkey activities of the alphabet soup, it is not beyond the imagination
to draw parallels with the CIA's reporting and analysis of situations on the ground wherever
they operate to provide intel ahead of military activity. the DOD has already proved complicit
by hiring Halper (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) to assist with the entrapment of Trump
operative Papadopoulos. Mifsud is likely a CIA, not a Russian, asset.
- given that we have ample evidence of the howler monkeys in the alphabet soup seeking to
facilitate a coup against a sitting US president, it is certainly plausible that - as with the
US goverment sponsoring the mujaheedin, isis and al qaeda in afghanistan to fight the russians
in late 80's early 90's, Iraq yellow cake and WMD - that the howler monkeys paid the white
helmets to ovethrow assad and foment civil war in Syria - thus causing the migration of some 5
million syrians into europe, iraq, turkey, jordan, turkey and lebanon.
so , the case is that howler monkey activity in intel agencies of the UK and US (add
(F)rance to get FUKUS) are guilty of the manufacture of human conflict by fabricating evidence,
breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing
shitty analysis (howler monkeys are only good at swinging in trees and flinging ****) and
generally operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity.
this can only be brought into sharp relief if howler monkey activities were instead shown to
be powers for good rather than the geo-political risks that persist in Iran, North Korea,
Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and so on and so forth.
Never mind how much past conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and so on relied on
evidence and analysis thrown at us by the howler monkeys in the tree tops, how much of what we
we are doing now is a fabrication causing needless suffering by civilian (not politicians or
military engaged in conflict) populations?
the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE,
Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life
in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down",
reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of
people.
there are equivalents of strzok, page, ohr right throughout the US and UK government
"machines" operating overseas. think about that. crimes exposed by Barr et al in the US -
against a sitting president - are replicated wherever howler monkeys operate overseas as well.
===
Excellent post! And my brain keeps wobbling around the recent revelation that the former heads of the CIA and FBI are both
avowed COMMUNISTS, Brennan and Comey, TRUMP, OFF YOUR ***!!!!
===
exactly.
the liars, cheaters and stealers (aka howler monkeys) ALWAYS project their own crimes onto any opposition - meaning that when
they accuse Trump of collusion with Russia, it is in fact the howler monkeys doing the collusion.
they should be investigated to the same degree that Trump and his assocaites have been - plus China collusion and Ukrainian
collusion. All I can say is " watch your back "..
===
The 'Keystone Cops' outcome of these two events show the utter desperation of the Deep State to continue on with their one world
agenda. Hopefully that is a good sign of weakening. Someone in total control wouldn't make so many amateur mistakes. This proves
that Putin is putting the west in a sort of Jujitsu 'choke hold' where you slowly cut off their oxygen until they tap out. In the
meantime, the opponent flails about throwing useless, wild punches trying to escape the inevitable outcome. That's how I'm reading
it and I hope I'm right.
===
I hope you're right too - but I also fear the other case - they've simply rid themselves of so many perceived challenges that
they no longer bother to be as cautious as before. Along with the new guard just not being as competent and organized, coming from
the "everyone gets a trophy" crowd.
===
(Edited) These false flags would be readily accepted by the public if not for the internet. Which, I believe, is the primary
factor behind the growing government push to censor those who question the "official" narratives.
===
The biggest false flag of all is 9/11. You have to be a moron not to have noticed the controlled explosion of the twin towers
on videos available on youtube and the downing of tower no 7 that was hit by nothing.
===
(Edited) 99.99% false flag inside job done by government/intel agency collaboration - US/Israel/Saudi to lead the US into the
Middle East.
The beastly trid of evil willing to murder 3000 innocent Americans for this sick agenda. And then millions more in the Middle
East. 8
===
I have a very good friend who watched as two sons went off to Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 to "fight terrorism". I have
presented all the evidence of 9/.11 being a false flag, who did it and how it was done. He refuses to believe it. I assume a large
part of society clings to the notion, as he, that "our people" wouldn't do such a thing. They make the classic error of assuming
that the psychopaths amongst us think and reason as they do.
Here's a great article on the nature of psychopathy. It's a long read but good insight into the minds (I'd say hearts .... but
they have none) of these 6% who 'lead" us.
===
I've had some run-ins with real psychopaths--I worked for one for a few years. The reason they are so effective is that they
blindside people. Because they are such a minority, we don't run into them very often and even if we do, we don't "get it." We have
internal models of what people are. Those models comprise our "normalcy bias" and we shape our experience to fit. So, for the
psycho/sociopaths, it's like clubbing baby seals. Maybe that's why they get arrogant and sloppy.
===
Psychopaths have low impulse control. That said, Reality is there are powers beyond psychopath.
===
The Skripal event was fabricated ( two months before the start of the WC) to try and get public support and outrage - enough
- so that the 'people' would support a boycott of Russia's World Cup !!
It ******* failed !! - Like everything else they attempt !!! Try keeping the Brits away from their soccer - the chaos would make the 'yellow vests' ******* blush !!!
===
Their Jihadi buttboys eventually escaped through the Golan and off to Canada, the UK and the rest of the ""Assad Must Go" world
for residency, in exchange for thier services to the (((criminal enterprise))).
===
The obvious fact that the Owners are choosing political frontmen of undaunted stupidity, unable to plan more than 2 steps ahead
is a very hopeful sign. Now they have to shut down the internet through their buttboys false frontmen of social media like Fuckerturd
and Dorsey.
===
Back to today...
...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.
What was the purpose of the Skripal attack? TO CLOSE DOWN THE UK END OF THE STEELE REPORT
What was the original plan of the Douma attack? TO COW RUSSIA INTO LEAVING SYRIA
Is there, as it appears, an internal power struggle in the Trump administration? NO...TRUMP HSS NO REAL POWER
Has that resolved? Who is running the United States? THE HIGHEST ECHELONS OF THE OCCULT GROUPS HAVE ALWAYS RUN AMERICA
Seeing as the OPCW has been shown to cover-up evidence in Douma, can we trust them on Skripal? Or anything else? THE OPCW
ARE A POLITICALLY, SCIENTIFICALLY, ETHICALLY AND MORALLY COMPROMISED ORGANISATION.......SO NO IS THE ANSWER!
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal? IMO..... SERGI SKRIPAL IS DEAD AND HIS DAUGHTER YULIA iS HELD UNDER
DRUG INDUCED HOUSE ARREST IN THE UK TO AID AND INDUCE "STOCKHOLM SYNDROME" IN HER BEFORE RELEASE CAN BE CONSIDERED
===
skripal was to be the conduit for funneling Novichok, conveniently produced at porton down and the white helmets for the next
false flag event...
Rob Slane and all the forum contributors have flogged and dissected SKRIPAL to death.
Sensible and informed people understand what actually happened.
===
The fun really starts when the deep state decides that it no longer needs public approval.
===
Or indeed 90% of it's subjects.
===
i know, i totally agree. the official story is complete bunkum. not one fact to back it up. in fact, it's contradicting itself
every time new "facts" are belched out by HMG
===
It used to be that we had to "read between the lines" to find the truth. Now, we have to "read between the lies".
The OPCW is obviously compromised and is not an independent organisation.
The 'clowns' really are stupid - they keep showing us how they do it!
===
(Edited) They've bragged and played their hand one too many times, exposing the deception for all the world to see.
Problem (false-flag) - Reaction (provoke an emotional response) - Solution (violate civil liberties/privacy, consolidate power,
sanctions, war, etc.)
The emperor has no clothes and is running around naked.
===
(Edited) The fact that the term "false flag" has entered the every day lexicon of the English language is a tremendous setback
for our Owners.
I suspect the Yulia Skripal is occupying the cell next to Julian Assange.
===
"The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect"
Lies & evasion are TM's specialties, along with distraction politics.
===
(Edited) And the extortion empire moves on to new victims to prey on.
It was quite a spectacle watching $100 million burn up on firing missiles on empty runways though. Boy that was a great use of US
tax payers money.
===
(Edited) This is a long long piece about not much of anything without a single introduction of new information or proof? It
is entirely without substance and is entirely speculative opinion as it stands without evidence.
That is NOT to say that the narrative is not entirely correct, I believe that it is, just that speculation doesn't really prove
what we may all believe to be the truth. There is a need for facts, probably supported by leaks, in the Skripal case as has been
the case with OPCW and Douma.
===
We'll do yourself a favor then and read the linked articles as well as the source docs. If you haven't, then expressing skepticism
here is a disservice to the hard and thankless work these brave journalists have been doing, to put it mildly.
"... The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East. ..."
"... Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense. ..."
"... A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time. ..."
"... The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation. ..."
"... The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know. ..."
"... The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect. ..."
"... Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later). ..."
"... The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. ..."
"... She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day. ..."
"... If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East. ..."
"... So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility? ..."
"... This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first. ..."
"... If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this. ..."
"... But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval. ..."
"... The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end. ..."
"... Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever. ..."
"... In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran. ..."
"... The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media. ..."
In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical
attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.
What was the agenda behind the Douma false flag?
Why was the US response seemingly token and ineffective?
Why was the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired?
What agenda tied the Skripal case to the Douma attack?
The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight
in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.
The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression
in the Middle East.
Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight
oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.
This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".
The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the
attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.
Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation.
But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war
mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this
Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would
be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt
no longer made any sense.
A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled
a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain
the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely
vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.
You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike
narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan
for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.
The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against
the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about
possible escalation.
The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed
by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?)
voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.
Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the
claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other
considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the
liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.
THE SKRIPAL CONSIDERATION
Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according
to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire
thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.
The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods
and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.
The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.
It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous
attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in
allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing
tying it to the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.
Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this
case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in
Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).
None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film
or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews
with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.
The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to
die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful
agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.
She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed
location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.
Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative,
snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.
Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent
drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?
IS THIS WHAT HAPPENED?
If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal
poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of
the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible
superpower stand-off in the Middle East.
So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed
a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack
in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?
Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called
them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?
Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close
scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?
So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading
back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction
and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?
This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could
no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on
the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.
It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further
geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed
UK government is less appealing.
And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.
If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have
they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded"
to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence
to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.
This is very bad.
But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists
in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.
This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.
So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn
into this.
Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"?
Or will this signal some other change in direction?
We'll all know soon enough.
* * *
Back to today...
...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.
What was the purpose of the Skripal attack?
What was the original plan of the Douma attack?
Is there, as it appears, an internal power struggle in the Trump administration?
Has that resolved? Who is running the United States?
Seeing as the OPCW has been shown to cover-up evidence in Douma, can we trust them on Skripal? Or anything else?
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?
All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just
because it didn't work doesn't mean they won't try it again.
Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives.
And they have the motives right now.
The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing
much in the end.
Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for
a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make
her position as unstable as ever.
Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don't know what they might do.
This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and
would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.
In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control
of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea,
and even war with Iran.
That's not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last
year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen
next time.
Clearly, the US hasn't totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the
INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia's ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate
for a false flag.
The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests
it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate
media.
But because recognising what they were trying to do last time , is the best defense when they try it again next time .
Sometime in the next 4 weeks, the Justice Department's inspector general will release an internal review that will reveal the
origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Among other matters, the IG's report is expected to determine "whether there was sufficient
justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place." Critics of the Trump-collusion
probe believe that there was never probable cause that a crime had been committed, therefore, there was no legal basis for launching
the investigation.
The findings of the Mueller report– that there was no cooperation or collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign– seem
to underscore this broader point and suggest that the fictitious Trump-Russia connection was merely a pretext for spying on the campaign
of a Beltway outsider whose political views clashed with those of the foreign policy establishment.
In any event, the upcoming release of the Horowitz report will formally end the the first phase of the long-running Russiagate
scandal and mark the beginning of Phase 2, in which high-profile officials from the previous administration face criminal prosecution
for their role in what looks to be a botched attempt at a coup d'etat.
Here's a brief summary from political analyst, Larry C. Johnson, who previously worked at the CIA and U.S. State Department:
" The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments,
to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called
Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in
the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." (
"How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News)
Bingo. Attorney General William Barr has already stated his belief that spying on the Trump campaign "did occur" and that, in
his mind, it is "a big deal". He also reiterated his commitment to thoroughly investigate the matter in order to find out whether
the spying was adequately "predicated", that is, whether the FBI followed the required protocols for such spying, or not. Barr already
knows the answer to this question as he is fully aware of the fact that the FBI used information that they knew was false to obtain
warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Having no hard evidence of cooperation with the Kremlin, senior-level FBI officials and their
counterparts at the Obama Justice Department used parts of an "opposition research" document (The Trump Dossier) that they knew was
unreliable to procure warrants that allowed them to treat a presidential campaign the same way the intelligence agencies treat foreign
enemies; using electronic surveillance, wiretapping, confidential informants and "honey trap" schemes designed to gather embarrassing
or incriminating information on their target. Barr knows all of this already which is why the Democrats are doing everything in their
power to discredit him and have him removed from office.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855
His determination to "get to the bottom of this" is not just a threat to the FBI, it's a threat to multiple agencies that may
have had a hand in this expansive domestic espionage operation including the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the State Department and, perhaps,
even the Obama White House. No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes, but Barr appears
to be serious about finding out.
Here's Barr again:
"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant .I would
like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort
designed to stop the threat as it's being represented."
In other words, Barr knows that the Trump campaign was riddled with spies and he is going to do his damnedest to find out what
happened. He also knows that the FISA warrants were improperly obtained using the shabby disinformation from an opposition research
"hit piece" (The Steele Dossier) that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, just like he knows that government agents had
concocted a strategy for leaking classified information to the media to fuel the public hysteria. Barr knows most of what happened
already. It's just a matter of compiling the research in the proper format and delivering it in a way that helps to emphasize how
trusted government agents abused their power by pursuing a vicious partisan plot to either destroy the president's reputation or
force him from office. Like Barr said, that's a "big deal".
The name that seems to feature larger than all others in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga, is James Comey, the former FBI Director
who oversaw the spying operations that are now under investigation at the DOJ. But was Comey really the central figure in these felonious
hi-jinks or was he a mere lieutenant following directives from someone more powerful than himself? While the preponderance of new
evidence suggests that the FBI was deeply involved, it does not answer this crucial question. For example, just this week, a report
by veteran journalist John Solomon, showed that former British spy Christopher Steele admitted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Kathleen Kavalec that his "Trump Dossier" was "political research", implying that the contents couldn't be trusted because they were
shaped by Steele's political bias. Kavalec passed along this information to the FBI which shrugged it off and then, just days later,
used the dossier to obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Think about that for a minute. The FBI had "written
proof . that Steele had a political motive", but went ahead and used the dossier to procure the warrants anyway. That's what I'd
call a premeditated felony.
But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the hapless sad sack who was left holding the
bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the
nation's premier intelligence agency, the CIA. That's where the headwaters of this shameful burlesque are located, in Langley. More
on that in a minute, but first check out this excerpt from an article at The Hill which sums up Comey's role fairly well:
(There) "will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White
House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree
head spin.
"There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on
a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA
director.
In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA
sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher
Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New
York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more
than an FBI counterintelligence case." (
"James Comey
is in trouble and he knows it" , The Hill)
Why is the Inspector General so curious as to whether Comey "was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous
White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director? And why did Comey draw from "a cast of characters " . that "all
appear to have their genesis as CIA sources"??
Could it be that Comey was just an unwitting pawn in a domestic regime change operation launched by former CIA Director John Brennan,
the one public figure who has expressed greater personal animus towards Trump than all the others combined? Could Trump's promise
to normalize relations with Russia have intensified Brennan's visceral hatred of him given the fact that Russia had frustrated Brennan's
strategic plans in Ukraine and Syria? Keep in mind, the CIA had been arming, training and providing logistical support to the Sunni
militants who were trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Putin's intervention crushed the jihadist militias delivering
a humiliating defeat to Generalissimo Brennan who, soon after, left office in disgrace. Isn't this at least part of the reason why
Brennan hates Trump?
Regular readers of this column know that I have always thought that Brennan was the central figure in the Trump-Russia charade.
It was Brennan who first referred the case to Comey, just as it was Brennan who "hand-picked" the analysts who stitched together
the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that "Putin and the Russian government aspired to help Trump's election
chances.") It was also Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation in the first place. Brennan was
chief instigator of the Trump-Russia fiasco, the omniscient puppet-master who persuaded Clapper and Comey to do his bidding while
still-unidentified agents strategically leaked stories to the media to inflame passions and sow social unrest. At every turn, Brennan
was there guiding the perfidious project along. According to journalist Philip Giraldi, the CIA may have even assisted in the obtaining
of FISA warrants on Trump campaign aids as this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review indicates:
"Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several
requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British
and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was
able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns
about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence
sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped.
And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." (
"The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip
Giraldi)
Can you see how important this is? The FBI was having trouble getting warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, so Brennan helped
them out by persuading his foreign intelligence allies (the British and other European intelligence services) to come up with bogus
"intercepted communications linked to American sources," which helped to secure the FISA warrants. We have no idea of what these
foreign agents heard on these alleged intercepted communications, all we know is that they were effectively used to achieve Brennan's
ultimate objective, which was to acquire the means of taking down Trump via a relentless and expansive surveillance campaign.
According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.):
"GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia
investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower".
("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia ", The Guardian)
Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative
ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his
report, right? But he didn't. Why?
Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence so it
would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's campaign
assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't, because
there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story.
Here's more from the same article:
"The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team
and Moscow ahead of the US election." (Guardian)
"The extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow"???
Really? This is precisely the type of hyperventilating journalism that fueled the absurd conspiracy theory that the president
of the United States was a Russian agent. It's hard to believe that we're even discussing the matter at this point.
There was an interesting aside in John Solomon's article that suggests that he might be thinking along the same lines. He says:
"One legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to
shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council."
Why would Solomon draw attention to "to shielding communications involving the CIA or the White House", after all, the bulk of
his article focused on the State Department and the FBI? Is he suggesting that the CIA and Obama White House may have been involved
in these spying shenanigans, is that why Kavalec's damning notes (which stated that Steele's dossier could not be trusted.) have
been retroactively classified?
Take a look at this email from the FBI's chief investigator in the Russia collusion probe, Peter Strzok, to his fellow agents
in April 2017.
"I'm beginning to think the agency (CIA) got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us. Might
explain all those weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some leaks."
-Peter Strzok.
Ha! So even the FBI's chief investigator was in the dark about the CIA's shadowy machinations behind the scenes. Clearly, Brennan
wanted to prevent the other junta leaders from fully knowing what he was up to.
All of this is bound to come out in the inspector general's report sometime in the next month or so. Both Attorney General William
Barr and IG Horowitz appear to be fully committed to revealing the criminal leaks, the illegal electronic surveillance, the improperly
obtained FISA warrants, and the multiple confidential human sources (spies) that were placed in the Trump campaign. They are going
to face withering criticism for their efforts, but they are resolutely moving forward all the same. Bravo, for that.
Bottom line : The agents and officials who conducted this seditious attack on the presidency never thought they'd be held accountable
for their crimes. But they were wrong, and now their day of reckoning is fast approaching. The main players in this palace coup are
about to be exposed, criminally charged and prosecuted. Some of them will probably wind up in jail.
"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."
There is ZERO evidence that Russia played ANY role in the 2016 USSA election and yet are sanctioned to the max, threatened
with war etc. HOWEVER there IS proof of the UK/GCHQ involvement.
I am waiting to see if Trump still goes to the UK in June or if he tells them he is "busy with more important things at home"
aka F...off.
Apocalypse, I would say that word describes it pretty well.
Middle English Apocalipse "Revelation (the New Testament book)," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin
apocalypsis "revelation, the Book of Revelation," borrowed from Greek apokálypsis "uncovering, disclosure, revelation,"
from apokalyp-, stem of apokalýptein "to uncover, disclose, reveal" (from apo- APO- + kalýptein "to cover, protect,
conceal," of uncertain origin) + -sis -SIS
"No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes"
Too kind. We all know it is impossible that Susan Rice did not know -- she would have to authorize the FBI to conduct any foreign
spying operations.
And if Susan Rice knew, it is impossible that Barack Obama didn't know. And approved of it, if only by not putting a stop to
it.
The string that hasn't been pulled yet is the role of British intelligence. Brennan is obviously not a very bright man. He's
a post-turtle, so how a dull-witted former communist ended up as head of the CIA is yet another story that needs looking into.
Was he actually a British mole?
The intersection of British establishment political goals and donated assets in the operation of this plot is nakedly obvious.
It will be for Barr to expose that "angle", with the distinct possibility the ultimate origin of this scheme was the Blairite
UK civil service who wished to eliminate a potentially powerful political actor who repeatedly and strongly indicated his unreserved
support for Brexit.
All the things you mentioned were obfuscated by Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Cheney, several Generals, heads of
state, foreign intelligence. Do you think someone just snaps a finger and the MIC disappears?
You conflate 'past' leadership with the current. The deep state is crumbling. We need to keep digging and indicting until Rothschild
takes a one way rocket off planet Earth.
It will only end when treasonous traitor hang by their necks. I'm still hoping and informing others.
"I've talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It's not
Hillary Clinton." – Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani
The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Israhell.
A foreign intelligence asset was used to justify surveillance of Trump[ and some of his associates
Notable quotes:
"... What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent? ..."
"... The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA) and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant"). ..."
"... The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their hand on the scale. ..."
"... Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power. ..."
"... I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors. ..."
"... if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know? ..."
"... Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost. ..."
"... Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance. ..."
"... From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. ..."
"... He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI. ..."
"... its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered. ..."
"... Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this? ..."
"... A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as 'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies. ..."
"... It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries ..."
"... If, as seems likely, both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary. ..."
"... An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him ..."
"... A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the supposed termination ..."
"... 'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in American history.' ..."
"... I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief. ..."
"... Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it. ..."
"... Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense. So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs. ..."
"... Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly: ..."
"... Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. ..."
"... One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get 'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt on Trump...how is this not the same...? ..."
"... What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this? ..."
"... Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation that may have already begun? ..."
"... British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete), his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy. ..."
"... British Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion. ..."
"... Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws they have that prohibits spying on their people. ..."
"... still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources ..."
"... I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia. ..."
"... Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these people think they are. ..."
"... It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things ..."
The revelations from US Government records about the FBI/Intel Community plot to take out Donald Trump continue to flow thanks
to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch. The latest nugget came last Friday with the release of FBI records detailing their recruitment
and management of Britain's ostensibly retired Intelligence Officer, Christopher Steele. He was an officially recruited FBI source
and received at least 11 payments during the 9 month period that he was signed up as a Confidential Human Source.
You may find it strange that we can glean so much information from
a document dump that is almost
entirely redacted . The key is to look at the report forms; there are three types--FD-1023 (Source Reports), FD-209a (Contact
Reports) and FD-794b (Payment Requests). There are 15 different 1023s, 13 209a reports and 11 794b payment requests covering the
period from 2 February 2016 thru 1 November 2016. That is a total of nine months.
These reports totally destroy the existing meme that Steele only came into contact with the FBI sometime in July 2016. It is important
for you to understand that a 1023 Source Report is filled out each time that the FBI source handler has contact with the source.
This can be an in person meeting or a phone call. Each report lists the name of the Case Agent; the date, time and location of the
meeting; any other people attending the meeting; and a summary of what was discussed.
What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive
contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent?
The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA)
and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps
who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant").
We can be pretty sure this predates any alleged Russian "hacking" (unless it occurred as a result of alleged Russian hacking
of the DNC in 2015).
This needs to be pinned down if anyone is to be successfully prosecuted for creating this treasonous hoax.
A very closely related topic, Victor Davis Hanson is onto something but it is darker than he suggests,
https://www.nationalreview.... Paraphrasing, he gives the typical, rally around the flag we must stop the Russians intro but
then documents how govt flaks abused their power to influence our elections and then makes the point, 'this is why the public
is skeptical of their claims'.
The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their
hand on the scale.
Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are
trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the
mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't
support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power.
I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in
the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors.
What I can't figure out is: if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the
Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance
with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know?
Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them
to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost.
Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie
that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance.
From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole
thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews
by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. And of course the media narrative that Rep. Nunes, Goodlatte and others were endangering "national
security" by casting aspersions on the "patriotic" law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got
their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI.
Of course, he had most likely already done so and its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered
to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered.
Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was
not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this?
The point is not merely a quibble. A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law
enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as
'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies.
It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of
agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries.
Another related matter has to do with the termination of Steele as a 'Confidential Human Source.'
It has long seemed to me that it was more than possible that this was not to be taken at face value. If, as seems likely,
both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately
involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information
to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary.
An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back
channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him.
A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the
supposed termination.
When on 31 January 2017 – well after the publication of the dossier by BuzzFeed – Ohr provided reassurance that he could continue
to help feed information to the FBI, Steele texted back:
"If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can't allow our guy to be
forced to go back home. It would be disastrous."
At that point, Solomon tells us that 'Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.' This seems to me
a rather important question. It would seem likely, although not certain, that he is talking about another Brit. If he is, would
it have been someone else employed by Orbis? Or someone currently working for British intelligence? What is the precise significance
of 'forced to go back home', and why would this have been 'disastrous'?
Another crucial paragraph:
'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in
London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence
probes in American history.'
The earlier contacts may be of little interest, but there again they may not be.
As it happens, it was following Berezovsky's arrival in London in October 2001 that the 'information operations' network he
created began to move into high gear. It is moreover clear that this was always a transatlantic operation, and also fragments
of evidence suggest that the FBI may have had some involvement from early on.
I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large
measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures
close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication
which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief.
The original attempt came in a radio programme broadcast by the BBC – which was to become known to some of us as the 'Berezovsky
Broadcasting Corporation' – on 16 December 2006, presented by Tom Mangold, a familiar 'trusty' for the intelligence services.
(A transcript sent out from the Cabinet Office at the time is available on the archived 'Evidence' page for the Inquiry, at
http://webarchive.nationala... , as HMG000513. There is an interesting and rather important question as to whether those who
sent it out, and those who received it, knew that it was more or less BS from start to finish.)
The programme was wholly devoted to claims made by the former KGB operative Yuri Shvets, who was presented as an independent
'due diligence' expert, without any mention of the rather major role he had played in the original 'Orange Revolution.'
Back-up was provided by his supposed collaborator in 'due diligence', the former FBI operative Robert 'Bobby' Levinson. No
mention was made of the fact that he had been, in the 'Nineties, a, if not the lead FBI investigator into the notorious Ukrainian
Jewish mobster Semyon Mogilevich.
The following March Levinson would disappear on the Iranian island of Kish, on what we now know was a covert mission on behalf
of elements in the CIA.
Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether
the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson
were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important
issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it.
Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including
McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense.
So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs.
Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem
to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly:
Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with
the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted
his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation
culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. His initial contact with old friends at the FBI Eurasian
Crime Task Force is awfully similar to his contacting these same friends in 2016 after deciding his initial Trump research was
potentially bigger than mere opposition research.
One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get
'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously
I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt
on Trump...how is this not the same...?
Even worse is that the FBI was using this same foreign agent that a presidential
candidate had hired to get dirt on an opponent... Even knowing nothing about legalities this just doesn't look very good...
Stupid question? As the Col. has explained, the President can declassify any document he pleases. So, why doesn't Donaldo unredact
the redacted portions of these bullcrap docs? What is he afraid of? That the Intel community will get mad and be out to get him?
Isn't time for him to show some cojones?
Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this
have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence
source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation
that may have already begun?
British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete),
his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated
desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting
others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has
not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too
big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy.
Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing
agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? And therefore without having to mess about with any formal FISA warrant
thingy's ... But, then use what might be found (or plausibly alleged) to try to get a proper FISA warrant later on (July 2016)?
'Parallel Discovery' of sorts; with Fusion GPS also a leaky cut-out: channelling media reports to be used as confirmation of Steele's
"raw intelligence" in the formal FISA application(s)?
Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they
would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates,
" Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching
him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, "
That's a good question, could it legally enable an end run around the FISC until enough evidence was gathered for a FISC surveillance
authorization?.
I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the
NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws
they have that prohibits spying on their people.
Only a matter of time until someone figured out the same method could be used to "meddle" in national affairs.
I understand, but still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources such as Steele about
a very high profile American citizen and businessman -- aren't our intelligence services competent enough to have known and discovered
as much if not more about Trump than other countries' intelligence services? I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years
ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In
my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia.
Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them
are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these
people think they are.
It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things.
This "shadowy Russian" might well be Sergey Skripal. This suggests that Steele dossier was CIA operation with British MI6 as transfer mechanism and
Steele as a cover. And implicates Brennan. So this is next level of leaks after "Stormy Daniel"...
Another NYT leak out of a set of well coordinated leans from anonymous intelligence officials ;-) Poor Melania...
Notable quotes:
"... But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times. ..."
"... If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries. ..."
"... More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what. ..."
"... Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down. ..."
"... the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy ..."
"... How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind ..."
"... You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS? ..."
"... "U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds. ..."
"... Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it... ..."
"... Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us. ..."
"... 'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot. ..."
"... i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump. ..."
"... Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth." ..."
"... And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works ..."
"... So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw? ..."
When they said "Russian collusion", few expected it to be between the CIA and a "shadowy
Russian operative." And yet, according to a blockbuster NYT report, that's precisely what
happened.
* * *
The CIA paid $100,000 last year to a Russian operative who claimed to have derogatory
information about President Trump, including a video tape of the Republican engaged with
prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. If the video showed Trump, it would support claims made in
the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious opposition research report financed by the Clinton
campaign and DNC.
But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other
information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to
a fascinating report from The New York Times.
American spies made contact with the Russia early in 2017 after he offered to sell the Trump
material along with cyber hacking tools that were stolen from the NSA that year, according to
The Times. U.S. intelligence officials told The Times they were so desperate to retrieve those
tools that they negotiated with the operative for months despite several red flags, including
indications that he was working in concert with Russian intelligence.
Another red flag was the Russian's financial request. He initially sought $10 million for
the information but dropped the asking price to $1 million.
After months of negotiations, American spies handed over $100,000 in cash in a brief case to
the Russian during a meeting in Berlin in September.
The operative also offered documents and emails that purported to implicate other Trump
associates, including former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But The Times viewed the
documents and reported that they were mostly information that is already in the public
domain.
The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers, showed the video
purported to be Trump to a Berlin-based American businessman who served as his intermediary to
the CIA. But according to the Times, the footage and the location of the viewing raised
questions about its authenticity.
The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was
Trump, and there was no audio. The Russian also showed the video to his American partner at the
Russian embassy in Berlin, a sign that the operative had ties to Russian intelligence.
The Russian stonewalled the production of the cyber tools, and U.S. officials eventually cut
ties, according to The Times. After the payout in Berlin, the man provided information about
Trump and his associates of questionable veracity.
The Americans gave him an ultimatum earlier in 2018 to either play ball, leave Western
Europe, or face criminal charges. He left, according to The Times, which interviewed U.S.
officials, the American intermediary and the Russian for its article.
The Times' U.S. sources -- who appear to paint the American side in a positive light -- said
that they were reluctant to purchase information because they did not want to be seen buying
dirt on the president.
The officials also expressed concern that the Russian operative was planting disinformation
on behalf of the Russian government. U.S. officials were worried that the Russian government
has sought to sow discord between U.S. intelligence agencies and Trump. The revelation that the
CIA purchased dirt on him would likely do the trick.
The Times report also has other new details.
Four other Russians with ties to the spy world have surfaced over the past year offering to
sell dirt on Trump that closely mirrors allegations made in the dossier, according to the
article. But officials have reason to believe that some of sellers have ties to Russian
intelligence agencies.
The Times also provides new details on Cody Shearer, a notorious operative close to the
Clintons. Shearer was recently revealed to have shopped
around a so-called "second dossier" prior to the campaign which mirrored the sex allegations of
the Steele report.
According to The Times, he has criss-crossed Europe over the past six months in an attempt
to find video footage of Trump from the Moscow hotel room. Shearer claimed to have information
from the FSB, Russia's spy service, that a video existed of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow
hotel room.
He shared a memo making the allegations with his friend and fellow Clinton fixer, Sidney
Blumenthal. Blumenthal in turn passed the memo to his friend, Jonathan Winer, a Department of
State official. Winer then gave the information to Steele who provided it to the FBI in October
2016.
Steele also provided information to Winer, who wrote up a two-page memo that was circulated
within the State Department.
Trump has denied allegations that he used prostitutes in Moscow. He has called the dossier a
"hoax" and "crap."
* * *
On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that "according to the @nytimes, a Russian sold phony
secrets on "Trump" to the U.S. Asking price was $10 million, brought down to $1 million to be
paid over time. I hope people are now seeing & understanding what is going on here. It is
all now starting to come out - DRAIN THE SWAMP!
Of course, if Trump really wants to "drain the swamp", any such decision would have
originate with him. Tags PoliticsCommercial Banks
Release the pee pee video now! No one pee peed in the $100,000 video in question. The
15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump,
and there was no audio. And how can anyone be more fascinated by the prospect of pee pee than
by the fact that US intelligence agencies were buying bad information from extremely shady
foreigners in an attempt to overthrow the President of the United States?
Trump is starting to assume that the people are dumber than Obowel did. Earth to Don, you
sir have the drain pump, you sir have surrounded yourself with Swamp creatures.... You sir
are.............
According to this, the Russians stole the hacking tools needed to cut through the Swamp
levee, which were developed by the NSA, and now the CIA cannot buy them back. Now, since the
USA wanted its Swamp, the Russians are more than happy to let the USA drown in its swamp.
Anyone have a link for the Qanon posts. I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks since he
left 8chan where he was posting. I don't want the Youtube BS, I just want the link... anyone
got one. Its strangely not googleable... LOLZ.
If you think that the CIA is a U.S. intelligence agency working on the best interests of
the United States, you better wake up and smell the treason. They only work for the best
interests of themselves.
Here is a question. Why does the CIA not come out and clear the air re: Trump?
I mean they were even paying people to come up with dirt. He is now your president and the
country is a fucking mess. Should the CIA not come out and say we tried but we got nothing?
They do have the ability to fix all this Trump shit and yet crickets.
And the best interests of clients. The CIA started out is the muscle for the Dulles
Brothers clients who were being booted out of various countries they were super-exploiting.
The Agency hasn't looked back since.
Nobody got whizzed on. That lurid fantasy came soley out of the head of Hillary Clinton,
given to Blumenthal, passed around and made to look like it came from Russia.
It IS remarkable the stuff people believe when all logic goes against it. Like Oswald
firing magic bullets from an old Italian Carcano...and jet fuel melting steel beams...and a
building collapsing through the path of greatest resistance into its own footprint after NOT
being hit by an airplane...and Kennedy being shot from behind, but his head snapping
backwards from the impact...and Oswald picking the worst possible shooting location, but in
front of Kennedy were two intersecting highways going in any direction...and terrorist
passports floating gently down from the sky.
RFK and Nixon knew immediately the assassination of JFK was a CIA hit job because they had
CHAIRED those hit squad operations themselves for Cuban Operations. They saw the CIA- Cuban
hit squad fingerprints all over the kill. RFK had personally fired Wm Harvey, Dulles' chief
of assassinations. However, RFK was silenced because he and Jack had been tag-teaming Marilyn
Monroe.
The reason JFK was killed was a) his openly stated determination to shatter the CIA into a
thousand pieces so they could no longer operate as a dangerous, renegade private army; and b)
in the Spring of '63 JFK delivered his famous American U address calling for the end of the
Cold War...
Oswald was always a patsie... the WC documents how his rifle was inoperable... scope
needed parts just to be be sited and take aim... even after parts installed the rifle
attributed to Oswald remained highly inaccurate... Military sharpshooters couldn't even hit
stationary targets reliably.
Drain the swamp! Townsquare justice for Odumbo and Hitlery! George Soros to bathe in the
Amazon River with 1 million Piranha Fish until it completely disappears. Drain the evil
Dumorat swamp. Drain the banana republic CIA and FBI. Our tax dollars and constitution did
not pay for this shit.
With today's technology, the CIA is most likely working on a fake video for you right now.
They might release it on Vimeo or Netflix to cover the costs and give themselves plausible
deniability. To add a finishing touch they will make a fake video of Julian Assange claiming
he is releasing it. You'll be in hog heaven. Which is where folks like you go just before
being slaughtered by your owners and turned into spam.
Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to
Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...
And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even
pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in
my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!
No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and
evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7
during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.
So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is
so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull
off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency?
You can't have it both ways.
We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all
day, where would we be without them?
Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to
Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...
And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even
pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in
my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!
No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and
evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7
during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.
So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is
so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull
off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency?
You can't have it both ways.
We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all
day, where would we be without them?
More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help
themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia
is still being stoked no matter what.
Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does
that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine,
McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to
Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the
rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down.
Good point in the last sentence. If someone is going to "drain the swamp" it is going to
have to be the president of the United States. I think I'm correct that he can fire anyone
that works in the executive department for cause. He can also order investigations or hire
people who will launch real investigations.
Mr. President, if you want to "drain the swamp," drain it.
If there was a video it would of been leaked during the election, they have nothing that
sticks on the guy.
All the evidence thus far states
Obama Hillary the FBI, DNC, CIA all spied on Trump and colluded with foreign governments
(U.K. , Ukraine , Russia) to try and dig up dirt to use against Trump (and they more or less
failed).
They turned over every rock they could, look at that stupid hot-mic video in the bus, how
many hours of video did they have to go through to dig up that crumb? they went back
searching through 30+ years of content and thats all they could come up with.... some locker
room talk lol
People have to just face it.
Your government was and still is corrupt and its a weaponized system of control, Your
government colluded with the enemy in a desperate attempt to stop Trump from becoming
president. Your government started a sham "Russia investigation" to cover up its own crimes.
Your government applied a different standard of justice to the clintons than it would have to
you or anyone else.
To date ZERO evidence has been brought forward that Trump or anyone in his campaign did
anything wrong, and the only people that have done anything wrong so far were picked by "the
swamp" to fill positions..... all the others fell into petty perjury Traps on meaningless
topics and insignificant factoids.
Isn't it lovely to find out that your money and mine is being used by government agents to
give us the government they want?
It's sort of like a thug robbing you and using part of your money to pay another thug to
rough you up from time time to time if you ask any questions with the thugs believing it's
for our own good.
Thanks, Hillary, for looking out for us. You and your best buds are the best. Such
bighearted givers! Meanwhile, give our regards to your partner in slime Obama, although it
must pain you to have been bested by 'Beavis' who thinks so much of himself to balance out
how little he impresses anyone who knows him.
"U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can
call off the hounds.
Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of
power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this
himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it...
As taxpayers can we sue the CIA for misusing our funds? Pretty sure that buying sex videos
for commercial release isn't part of the CIA's lawful mandate even at bargain prices.
Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US
intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on
their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own
treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big
bad russkies tricked us.
my sauces tell me that pink pussyhat wearing hollywood types have been called in because
they have a doppelganger for trump and access to 30,000 sexually abused victims that can act
as Russian prostitutes for just ten bucks each. snapchat has a trump emoji that can be transplanted onto any porn video star - male or
female - thus confirming that trump is a serial (serious?) user of ladies of the night
my sauces also tell me that the CIA offers a reward of 100,000 bucks (or 10 BTC) for every
photo-shopped (snap-shopped or porn-shopped) material.
of course, the CIA already owns many many porn movie studios and films, but it would
prefer third "party" movies - not from epstein's island where its operatives choose to rela
with a pizza.
the CIA "pink" budget for such movies is limited to just 5,000 clips or 5 billion of
taxpayers funds, whichever is the higher.
'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the
Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it
hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly
elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope.
Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a
long shot.
i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds.
this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to
trump.
Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I
copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a
cloth."
And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but
my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works.
So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and
more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers
for procurers of hosebags for him to screw?
I mean if they're so concerned about Trump and a couple of hookers... Better put some ice on that, CIA.
You all are so ridiculous and fooled with your "drain the swamp" bs. It's a great idea but
Trump doing it is a joke, I mean just look at who he has hired, what's wrong with you all are
you blind?!!
He can't even fill 1/3 of the government positions he's supposed to and the ones he has
have no business holding the positions given to them and are so incompetent, downright
criminal or just personally horrendous humans that they can't stay in office more than a few
months. All their blatant and moronically concocted lies are backing them into corners every
day that they just try and lie out of again. America is over if we really have gotten to the
point that a group like Trump's has support, it's just astonishing.
"... Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration. ..."
"... Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove. ..."
"... Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend. ..."
"... Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services. ..."
"... Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. ..."
"... Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations. ..."
"... Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated. ..."
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... But in a widely-overlooked interview on CNN on May 3, Clapper admitted that spying had occurred. When asked by Wolf Blitzer whether spying had occurred, Clapper said that "it's not a term of art used by intelligence people" but admitted that "I guess it meets the dictionary definition of surveillance or spying, a term I don't particularly like." ..."
"... Going by the alias Azra Turk, this yet-unknown woman was reportedly sent to meet with Papadopoulos by one of the FBI agents who had previously spoken at Halper's Cambridge Intelligence Seminars." Washington Examiner ..."
"... I have suggested before that Clapper and the FISA court judges are the weakest spots in the array of Russiagate conspirators. The FISA judges are suggested to the Chief Justice by the DoJ for appointment. This occurs after close vetting for probable compliance with anything communicated by DoJ as desired outcomes in cases brought to them. After all, who knows them better than the DoJ lawyers who argue in the courts they come from? ..."
"... Clapper is a weakling filled boundless ambition and handicapped by limited intelligence. He has no particular allegiance to anything or anyone except himself and will seek forgiveness for his misdeeds if pressed hard. ..."
"James Clapper admits FBI's actions 'meet the dictionary definition' of 'spying'" Wash
Examiner
""I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a
thing," Clapper said. "The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to
believe he chose that term deliberately."
But in a widely-overlooked interview on CNN on May 3, Clapper admitted that spying had
occurred. When asked by Wolf Blitzer whether spying had occurred, Clapper said that "it's not a
term of art used by intelligence people" but admitted that "I guess it meets the dictionary
definition of surveillance or spying, a term I don't particularly like."
Clapper conceded this point following a May 2 story in the New York Times
that revealed that a woman who had been posing as the assistant of Stefan Halper, a
Cambridge University professor who himself had worked as a Trump campaign informant on behalf
of the FBI, was herself working undercover for the FBI. Going by the alias Azra Turk, this
yet-unknown woman was reportedly sent to meet with Papadopoulos by one of the FBI agents who
had previously spoken at Halper's Cambridge Intelligence Seminars." Washington Examiner
------------
I have suggested before that Clapper and the FISA court judges are the weakest spots in the
array of Russiagate conspirators. The FISA judges are suggested to the Chief Justice by the DoJ for appointment. This occurs
after close vetting for probable compliance with anything communicated by DoJ as desired
outcomes in cases brought to them. After all, who knows them better than the DoJ lawyers who
argue in the courts they come from?
Clapper is a weakling filled boundless ambition and handicapped by limited intelligence. He
has no particular allegiance to anything or anyone except himself and will seek forgiveness for
his misdeeds if pressed hard.
If Lindsay Graham needs initial targets for his very own "witchhunt," he should start with
these people. pl
I don't think Lindsey is gonna do much other than showboat. The only person who should
have the motive and has the power to take action is Trump. I'm skeptical he has the
wherewithal to push it through. He'll likely delegate to Barr and who knows if Barr really
wants to rock the boat.
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We
know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS)
by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those
reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry
Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer
of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive
steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives,
the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie
Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified
the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This
information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."
This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was
CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka
the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel
and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey
of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially,
his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone
unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump
and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert),
a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately
2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and
brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee
of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency
put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the
direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from
a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign
Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: "
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."
The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research.
This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition
research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets--
Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about
with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against
Donald Trump.
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums. . . .
Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's
Henry
Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6
[British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI
for launching the investigation into
George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that
led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's
associates conspired," The Times reported.
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially,
he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network
reported in a January 2016 exclusive:
But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client
cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation
of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET
intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation
mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so
enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what
I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that
he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect
that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?
The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which
can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but,
there again, they may 'compose', which is not.
Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law
enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses
to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should
be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.
Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial
misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution"
to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance.
But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump
to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently
writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But
it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still
believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing
Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns
though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos'
ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation
that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked
a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved.
No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes
spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before
the country move forward on any front.
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele
via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something
important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured
that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't
been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019
20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf
The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in
U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having
"conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain
that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States,
including to this day, will be exposed.
The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix
the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth,
along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all
that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental
stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.
"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller
report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named
Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."
The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained
variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians.
It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely
wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth,
or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like
Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love
truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.
Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard
Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several
years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper
policy motivation: why it was done.
A New Cultural Paradigm
The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United
States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future
will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical
economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization
of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.
The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a
proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to
resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:
"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically
advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the
working level are great."
There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects
for world peace, stated:
"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is
ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come
together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."
This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the
Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.
It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial
forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work
with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have
repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger
of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.
The Truth Set Free
President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office,
Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of
America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American
people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again
to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and
Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth,
and the truth would set them free.
The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican
forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street,
or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection
against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase
the American Declaration of Independence,
"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
DOCUMENTATION
While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed
two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military
Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the
July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet
Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed
to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian
interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.
The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence
exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence
networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here
can be found on our website.
The Russian Hack That Wasn't
The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that
the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak,
rather than a hack conducted
over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency,
becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted
an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0,
who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics
of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports
the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained
from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department
all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James
Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.
Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's
alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved
a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook
ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every
day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a
stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation
that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.
The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the
claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab
(DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid
warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is
a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.
The British Target Trump
According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump
and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence
leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head
of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence,
the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming
widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing
to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's
direction.
This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British
soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple
connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in
the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly
resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage
control.
Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence
network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent
way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum.
Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support
for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation
throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.
In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian
state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine.
Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.
In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier
which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend"
of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton
from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which
would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at
Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of
bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from
the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department
intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence
and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.
A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations,
and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative
is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation
campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western
Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.
Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier.
They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare
On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst.
He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific
enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must
also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was
for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not
have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy
tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy
company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes
and misdemeanors.
Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed
prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda
stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to
various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes
Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the
friend were having coffee.
The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate
Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former
senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is
no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.
Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State
Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign
into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve
as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of
the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader
at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the
matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense
received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.
As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against
Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the
National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of
them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role
in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This
went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.
Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there
to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda,
against Russia.
The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications
Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department.
Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly,
in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.
This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the
attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That
is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with
ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.
"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"
Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.
David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14
"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some
sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated
assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."
Absolutely correct.
Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University,
my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent
that dark "art".
Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University –
his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his
CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why
the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.
CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15
Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.
There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since
she could be bought. Trump can't.
What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained
that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.
Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes
did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.
Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly
as possible.
So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through
which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.
The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.
They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which
again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.
In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they
needed to try and hide what really happened.
So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.
'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.
Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah
Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.
The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.
1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.
2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.
Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with
the elections. NONE.
They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.
So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion,
Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..
Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?
Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.
There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.
That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!
So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?
He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.
The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.
His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.
Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.
They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.
The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.
It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.
The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
"Russia'.
So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?
A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.
And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)
B: Russians hacked the DNC.
That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.
Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.
It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the
Presidency.
That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!
In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.
That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.
Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump
Campaign'.
Let's go a bit deeper still.
Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?
After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.
If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP
the real crime', what would happen?
They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately
proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.
They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all
THEY were the criminals.
They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.
That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all
that.
They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created
LIE.
That LIE = the Insurance Policy.
What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.
Although true, that is only A.
They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying
on him!
The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.
What's the punishment for Treason?
About Assange and Seth Rich.
Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep
State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.
Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.
If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.
No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.
Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is
that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the
overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not
have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.
Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.
boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13
RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::
Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007
I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:
O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman
was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed,
O'Neal said
In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the
Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about
nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:
News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code
in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned
publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.
If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring
to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack
the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.
Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as
snipers, too.
If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible
for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman
was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire
until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused
jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that
might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt
admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:
As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself,
but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like,
'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'
(Maybe the Congress can )
////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the
world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force
/ and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.
\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life"
they've been alleged/assigned.
/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???
!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????
AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover
Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.
"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".
President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING
The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson
Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"
It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions
and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them
down? They get weapons and start killing people.
There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit.
Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation".
Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now
making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.
The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting
rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters,
the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive
policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying
theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."
In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because
Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton
campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they
disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.
Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14
Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into
where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on
in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner
Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38
Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did
you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is
owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just
supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the
campaign.
-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.
Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36
The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.
It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping
into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place
with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications
turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.
War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.
The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the
truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory
truth effect will include this truth.
Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00
>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."
The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that
they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.
Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?
Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55
That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about
the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony
Blair are lyers and mass murderers.
All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have
been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned
upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.
Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21
I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out
JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John
Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be
a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.
While I knew about Nellie Ohr and her DOJ husband , what I didn't know was that while she
worked for Fusion GPS , fusion was a FBI contractor that had access to NSA database until
Admiral Rogers shut it down .
Sounds Like Brennan's CIA laundered information to EX-CIA Nellie Ohr when she was working
for Fusion GPS who then laundered this info to Steele , another person employed by Fusion who
then gave this back to Bruce Ohr of DOJ who then gave it to the FBI . And they all got paid
for their " research " . This then was used to deceive the FISA court . But Admiral Rogers
went to this court and warned Trump of the spying and violations of constitutional rights .
Shortly after Obama fired admiral Rogers . Sounds fishy to me ? what do you think ?
"... Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of Deerlove at Cambridge. ..."
"... Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups," efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen. Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone. ..."
On Thursday morning, Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to release the Mueller
report, with redactions, according to laws regarding security and the privacy of Grand Jury
proceedings. While the Trump haters and conspirators are preparing various operations to keep
Russiagate going, despite the report's exoneration of Trump's imagined "collusion," the reality
that the British ran the entire operation, as identified from the beginning by EIR, is now
bursting out into the open, and is threatening to be the subject of criminal investigations in
the Department of Justice and in the Congress.
The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross on Tuesday ran an article titled: "Former British Spymaster
Has Flown Under the Radar in Russia Probe, Despite Links to Key Figures." He names Richard
Deerlove, MI6 chief from 1999 to 2004, as a key operative working with fellow MI6 operative
Christopher Steele, the author of the now discredited dossier on Trump's supposed collusion
with Russia. Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign
operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together
with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of
Deerlove at Cambridge.
Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told
Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups,"
efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly
run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in
falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen.
Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian
lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone.
What's more, the VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) issued a public
Memorandum for President Trump on Tuesday, called "The Fly in the Mueller Ointment," warning
him that the Mueller report, despite finding no evidence of collusion, maintains the lie that
the Russians hacked leading Democratic Party computers and provided their emails to Wikileaks,
falsely described as a Russian front. Detailing their forensic proof that the emails were
downloaded, not hacked, the VIPS warn the President that if these lies are allowed to stand,
the idea that Trump was elected due to Russian "interference" in the election will remain, "and
that melody will linger on for the rest of your presidency, unless you seize the moment.... You
are the President, and there may be no better time than now to face them down." (see Bill Binney interview with
LPAC.)
03/28/2016 With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many
Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As
Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating
that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding
that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.
He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts:
I've been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not
to tell the truth to the public.
But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to
bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia -- this is a point of no return and
I'm going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate
people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have
done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over
Europe.
"... RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners. During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's control by the government, rather than western media. ..."
"... On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence: " Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. " ..."
"... It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia. ..."
"... As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign by providing propaganda of its own. ..."
While
it received relatively little coverage from the Western mainstream media establishment, a
recent 42 megabyte upload on an Anonymous server provides us with an inside glimpse into
the genesis of the Western anti-Russia narrative.
According to the documents, an organization (rather ironically) named Integrity Initiative with the moniker
"Defending Democracy Against Disinformation" was organized to mobilize global public opinion
against Russia and its agenda as you can see on the organization's "About" webpage:
The non-for-profit charity was set up in 2015 as a partnership of several independent
organizations led by The Institute for Statecraft. It claims that it is dedicated to "
education in good governance and to enabling societies to adapt to a rapidly changing
world. ", a rather benign mission statement. In its first two years, it was funded by
private individuals, however, funding for 2017 and 2018 was largely provided by governments,
particularly the United Kingdom, reflecting the U.K.'s appreciation of the " importance of
the threat, and a wish to support civil society programmes seeking to rebuild the ability of
democratic societies to resist large scale, malicious disinformation and influence
campaigns."
According to the documents a number of organizations including the United States Department of
State, the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), NATO, Facebook and the Lithuanian
Ministry of Defense were looking to fund the Integrity Initiative as you can see here:
Integrity Initiative
states the following about its services:
" It is inevitable that a programme tackling disinformation in Europe finds itself spending
much of its time addressing the activities of the Russian State, including those carried out
through its intelligence services. The Kremlin has invested more operational thought, intent
and resource in disinformation, in Europe and elsewhere in the democratic world, than any other
single player. "
Not surprisingly, Integrity Initiative has comments on the leaking of its own documents by
Anonymous:
" We note both the attempts by Russian state propaganda outlets to amplify the volume of
this leak; and the suggestion by a major Anonymous-linked Twitter account that the Kremlin
subverted the banner of Anonymous to disguise their responsibility for it...
It is of course a matter of deep regret that Integrity Initiative documents have been stolen
and posted on line, still more so that, in breach of any defensible practice, Russian state
propaganda outlets have published or re-published a large number of names and contact details.
We have not yet had the chance to analyse all of the documents, so cannot say with confidence
whether they are all genuine or whether they include doctored or false material.
Although it is clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or
Institute systems, much of it is dated and was never used. In particular, many of the names
published were on an internal list of experts in this field who had been considered as
potential invitees to future cooperation. In the event, many were never contacted by the
Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it. Nor were these documents therefore included
in any funding proposals. Not only did these individuals have nothing to do with the programme
– they may not even have heard of us. We are of course trying to contact all named
individuals for whom we have contact details to ensure that they are aware of what has
happened. "
With that background, let's look at four of the documents that were posted.
1.) A undated document discussing Russia's use of social media as a proxy for
propaganda:
Note the following comments regarding Russia Today aka RT:
" RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners.
During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised
issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as
covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that
western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both
far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's
control by the government, rather than western media. "
Here is a page from the document which discusses the target audiences for Russian social
media propaganda:
Note that the memo clearly states that Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik are
targeting an audience that is "distrusting of statecraft and major media groups.". I wonder why
Westerners would be distrusting of their own media?
2.) A 2017 document outlining plans for developing an American arm of Integrity
Initiative:
Note that the writer of the memo states that the West is badly in need of a reassertion of
U.S. leadership and that America needs to rebuild its understanding of Russia and how to deal
with it. It also notes that the international community needs to rebuild its understanding of
Russia to ensure that Western governments get the popular support that democracies require
(i.e. a strongly anti-populist movement).
3.) An undated document showing how Integrity Initiative is planning to expand "expert
clusters" to other nations including Austria, Canada, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland
among others:
4.) A
January 2015 document showing Integrity Initiative's views on setting up anti-Russia
sanctions with the goal of changing Russia's behaviour, peace in Ukraine, a return of Crimea
and, most importantly, possible regime change in Russia:
On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence:
" Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. "
It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to
punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point
that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia.
As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit
charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign
by providing propaganda of its own. It's certainly a good thing that Integrity Initiative has
the "real truth" and is willing to pressure us into seeing the global geopolitical quagmire
with its 20/20 vision. Apparently, integrity in this post-truth era is in the eye of the
beholder/purveyor.
"Carnage needs to destroyed" mentality is dominant among the USA neoliberal elite and drives the policy toward Russia.
They all supported neoconservative extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda directed on weakening Russian and
establishing of world dominance. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya. ..."
"... And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'
In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background,
which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate
about him not being president.'
There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion
GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.
This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or
some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both
in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.
And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it
was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the
area.
Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which
clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander
Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on
your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.
The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.
In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry
– the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.
Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier,
which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein
in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.
Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling
attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio
4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets,
backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.
The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available
– evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes
of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played
a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.
Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind
of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction
of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.
What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest
a sale had been completed.
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very
happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent
spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.
All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich
and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder.
For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.
(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews
both with Mogilevich and Levinson at
In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to
prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.
Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential
threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions
north of the Litani.
These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that
somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later
to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.
What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the
part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian
side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.
Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking
'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.
Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic
downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William
Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.
So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that
material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem
that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.
All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen
for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella
was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's
personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was
sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who
then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence
which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate
Russia in supplying materials.
There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether
Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears
that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian
intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)
It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which
claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional,
Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's
offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.
It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here,
a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.
Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called
Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.
In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe
World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the
Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.
Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's
death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain,
but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as
Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)
That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase
nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:
'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve
year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents
state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear
limited life components and you can read for weeks).'
What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility,
in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of
ones which lasted longer.
For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.
What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily
smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide
to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring
to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.
In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited
for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'
According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would
you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?
As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned
with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to
ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.
In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been
describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties,
and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another
day.
A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according
to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious
of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.
Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full
dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation
suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.
thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..
it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy
and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..
Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone
I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.
Re: Levinson
# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier
by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved
he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.
# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson
went to Jablonski with it.
# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum
czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson?
The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing
came of it.
I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.
As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg
is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.
I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive
solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that
the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields.
Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have
been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time. "
David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making.
Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf
of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration
cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but
not fundamentally.
I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their
policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.
It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing
themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace
to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of
defiance which they will not tolerate.
And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear.
That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to
defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.
So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a
counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.
Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.
In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry
favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness
would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two
birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage
and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.
Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming
media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century
endorsed her.
Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in.
Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything
possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is
clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling
the Borg pundits.
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.
Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called
consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda
in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp.
This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous
American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress
West's posture; say 2040.
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously
and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier
on atlantic side.
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''
The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.
'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'
In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG)
dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded
as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that
with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a
former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski
favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241,
251 - 256]
'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'
State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used
against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the
Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task
force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition
of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization
of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis"
and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time."
Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since
he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know
how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders."
Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion,
did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental
people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan
back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that
in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting,
even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports
and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the
terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start
to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such
an escalation.
I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain
more pointers.
It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.
An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander
Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian
attempts to get hold of him. An extract:
'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and
afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the
largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'
Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which
Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.
Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:
'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge
on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing
charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly
smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to
win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'
So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has
changed.
For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always
judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial
Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:
'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [£1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent
political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign
passports for its "very, very special clients".
'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that
it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars
stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".
Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us
think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter,
Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:
'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He
said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he
must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko
by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would
have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'
When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about
the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was
immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.
She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator,
David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting
the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.
Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as
a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.
What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary
claim about Shvets:
'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government
quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically
motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable
posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq,
Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.
'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the
National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll
at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general
who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding
Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.
'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated
the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky
and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's
Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky
contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia
Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb
in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'
Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many
things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What
later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling
her as to the side for which he was working.
It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the
Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like
others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.
An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation
specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria'
was actually credible.
This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of
the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have
been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking,
and for similar action against Syria.
Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with
Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.
There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been
another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.
A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing.
This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or
indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High')
might be a start.
Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story
had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that
is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')
The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one
feel as though one wanted to throw up.
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress
West's posture; say 2040.}
No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the
fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian
Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy
of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were
spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders."
Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George
Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.
Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it
is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat
it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.
Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered
a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving
forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before
any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914.
Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information
on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention
of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the
matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption
the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the
memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and
dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.
The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem
for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At
that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones
in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems
ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They
are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet
and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google
also allows searches with more than one term. This link -
- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories"
on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.
If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what
you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.
"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in
the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.
The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations"
(hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping
boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many
of the contributors know it from inside.
In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle
between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product
of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible,
but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never
going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the
Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for
the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative
Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.
So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly
not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact
with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government
pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.
The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the
Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.
Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will
be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative
appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat
of the BEF.
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break
- David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname
comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament
names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
The hard, blinding truth:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it,
and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting
their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out
all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and
even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.
And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments
being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.
Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article
he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions
by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."
Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case
being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information
to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.
"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily
redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department
last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "
I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress
will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's
court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI
is lying.
What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos
on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that
are based on classified documents.
We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status.
You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am
thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak
their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are
anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a
political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.
Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are,
in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you.
You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant
to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from
Northeestern
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist.
I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians
- they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.
David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of
material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though
not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That
you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities
are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the
States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because
of that.
The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as
"salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other
professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling
around unsupervised?
The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't
seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm
boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever
they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon
might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about
what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced
with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but
for the general public, that bit more untenable.
So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he
was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have
to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far
as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group
then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.
I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up
on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out
so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least
as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type,
they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to
pay him until he left UK service. pl
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.
Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of
the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet
I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK
side.
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about
the "golden showers"? "
I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations
and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public
wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.
So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media
is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.
Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I
doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.
But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK
get mixed up in it?
When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on
SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised
and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.
A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played
a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact
that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario
Scaramella.
When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European
Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.
His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques,
and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium
forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.
So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case
as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract
from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their
prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'
The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive
summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.
The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and
Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December
2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:
'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War
to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic-
Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'
Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet
Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:
'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references
to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations
made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them
[presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had
been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti
warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say
that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company
of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange
Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'
The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':
'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's
sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations
made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news
and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI.
Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there
were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the
assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella
notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for
the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini.
Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'
In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward
Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation
had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography
– which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella
which had been described in the wiretap request.
As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who
could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the
three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.
In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from
Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.
Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes
to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.
'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to
the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies
implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed
by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with
him.'
From a fax dated 7 November 2005:
'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged
sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document
file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get
him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re:
Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even
then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'
From a fax dated 5 December 2005:
'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with
regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who
gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA
disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to
London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella
on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling
file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'
In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was
unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be
in a chaotic state.
However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp
unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed
to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves
for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus
justifications.
Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on
the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June
and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.
(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)
And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided
to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence
in the Inquiry.
Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come
from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.
Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin
years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the
supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.
The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged
about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame
Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')
I know something of spectroscopy. The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis
itself or its instrumentation. The paragraph that you have quoted:
"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his
team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to
brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."
And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics
- which did not and could not exist in this situation.
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was
managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there
is to know?
I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too
complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri
Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele
Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.
Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality?
Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.
By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the
date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage
in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.
Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to
obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.
Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those? The German link is different. How about the Iranian? or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?
another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime
and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s
Decades long "image" of London's spy school fall spectacularly apart, apparently it is not
populated with the high IQ, highly educated brass any more, average intelligence however
cannot play on international stage, script is poor, directing mediocre, inconsistencies and
deep holes in story negate logics...
it is time that London joins Washington, hand in hand,
like lowers to seek fortunes elsewhere, the prey is still to be found in oligarchs of
Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Romania and the like places with spineless political caricatures.
Go London go...there is no fortune for you in EU...and by now you stench of your morals and
ethics reaches shores of smallest island on GMT+12 time scale.
It's been a year since the Salisbury incident. We still don't have the investigative
conclusion. We don't know who's responsible and how exactly the Skripals were poisoned or if
they were even poisoned at all. But international relations sure were poisoned. It appears that
our ambassador to Britain, the esteemed Alexander Yakovenko is a spy decorated with military
medals.
Why don't the Russians just lay out the facts of the story as told by the British? The
Brits story is so stupid it makes zero sense... According to the British media Skripal and
his daughter came into contact with "military grade" Novichok nerve agent and both
survived... Even though they said a tiny drop can be fatal... The poor woman who did die was
a homeless drug addict. Supposedly, her boyfriend found a bottle of "perfume" in a "perfume
box" that was in a trash receptacle. The boyfriend retrieved it from the waste bin and gave
it to to the unfortunate woman. She died. According to the British government, Russian spies
put the Novichok in the perfume bottle and planted the bottle in the trash bin so the
boyfriend would find it... Personally, I blame the death of the homeless woman on a "false
flag" operation run by British intelligence. Someone had to die. Why not an "expendable"?
Meanwhile, the Skripals remain under house arrest, cut off from the outside world... And no
one in the British media has asked to talk to them. No one.
The British story about the Skripals is falling apart. First we were told an off duty
police officer found them. Then we are told that an off duty nurse helped the police officer.
Then it was the off duty nurse that found them and was helped by the police officer. Then it
was the daughter of the off duty nurse that found them. Then the off duty nurse turned out to
be Britain's highest ranking female military medic. Then we are told the police officer never
attended them and had been sent to their house the following day. This week the local TV news
channel (BBC Points West) interviewed a woman that said SHE was the first one to find the
Skripals who were alone on the bench frothing at the mouth. She claims she walked over and
was going to phone an ambulance when a female police officer arrived. Then the female police
officer was interviewed and stated she was driving her police van and was the first on scene
after someone had phoned them for help. She also stated that although she didn't know what
was wrong with the Skripals, she thought the vomit on the ground was suspicious and requested
a Hazmat team in full protective gear to remove the vomit.
Maria is an intelligent in a very high level, fiery and articulate. The British political
system would trade at least half of their politicians for one of her.
Vladimir,can you find out if England has just set up Ireland by sending someone there and
having them post flammable packages back to England? The addresses were so vague that they
should have alerted someone in the postal service,especially since England is on high alert
for terror attacks.That says to me that the government knew they were coming.ISIS would claim
responsibility for a silent fart in a packed room.No-one in Ireland has claimed
responsibility for the packages,probably because it's "highly likely" that England has set up
Ireland.If the Brits are found to be behind it,like black people and Israeli's have been
caught out spraying racist graffiti against themselves,Salisbury will be even more
questionable.Elliot Abrams shipped arms in "aid" convoys,so now no-one believes the aid to
Venezuela isn't hiding weapons.What have the filthy Brits been caught doing in recent years
that would make them look guilty like Elliot Abrams?
Maria Zacharova may be simply too decent a human being to realise that the west is run by
a mafia-like cabal that cares not a jot for their own peoples, let alone those in foreign
realms. She looks for logical explanations that might account for actions, but needs to face
the reality that monumental greed and corruption have hollowed out all corridors of power in
western governments. Any semblance of an unbiased independent media went extinct a long time
ago, replaced by well placed operatives from the intelligence agencies, who manage a vast
array of pseudo "journalists". The western puppet regimes are simply useful idiots who obey
instructions, they sell themselves for money and privilege. In other words, traitors to the
people who put them in office. Those public officials and politicians who perhaps had a shred
of integrity get eliminated, or compromised by indiscretions that are held over them, or by
simple intimidation tactics -- the classic "carrot and stick" method. Russians lifted
themselves from the disastrous days of "perestroika" and have restored their nation to near
normalcy. The west may at some point do the same, but it will take a complete collapse of
their present totalitarian regimes to start the healing, if it is to happen. With each
passing day, the zombification of the masses continues, let us hope it has not already got to
the stage where a return to a better world becomes unattainable.
Mrs Spokeswoman really nailed it: US & UK resort to this Dead Cat tactics everyday
now. That was the Case with Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Syria & now Venezuela. However,
they only manage to bait in their "Allies" (better said Vassals)- and then they fail to
deliver since Syria. Russian Intervention & People waking up to their Lies makes their
Case less and less credible. The paralel Universe they are creating inside their brainwashing
Media is fading away. And that makes them the more dangerous...
It's sad when the only real news people in the US can get is from the Russian media. The
west is financially and morally bankrupt. Thank you Zacharova and Russia for telling the
truth about the evil deeds of the west. Median approval of U.S. leadership across 134
countries and areas stands at a new low of 30%, according to a new Gallup report. Maybe the
tide is finally turning and the evil deeds of the west will be exposed.
I think the underlying cause of all the UK anti-Russia carry ons goes right back to the
damage you did to them during the Crimean War...you bloodied their nose and they have never
forgiven you...silly buggers!
💥💥💥🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
The Roman-Israeli Brits are born liars, but liars will always fall apart because their
stories never add up. I suspect that the Skripals were never even poisoned but paid by the
British to confirm the lie. The Western politicians have become so corrupt that you cannot
believe a word coming from their lying mouths. Over the decades they have become so confident
that everybody would swallow their reckless lies that they don't even care what they say and
what they do without thinking or caring about the consequences of their actions.
To UK & US: Please show some respect for world ordinary people. We are not stupid. We
are intelligent & also kind compassionate human beings. U're insulting our
intelligence!
I think they have completely lost the plot, relying on stupidity and arrogance to achieve
the least amount possible in the messiest most insane way possible. Seriously, the publicly
state the reality, conduct regime change operations, to get US troops into and country and
then charge 150% of cost of that occupation, protection, straight out of a Mafioso playback,
only their blind arrogance and ignorance, make that kind of public stance possible. Any
government that signs onto it, traitors to their own people, selling out to an foreign
occupation, using Americans forces to sustain autocratic control of that country, those
citizens paying for the bullets Americans will use to kill them, should they try to end the
occupation. The more forces required to quell the public, the more they bill the occupied
country and the MORE PROFITABLE IT BECOMES, utter insanity. Only utterly blind stupidity
could make that public statement possible, beyond something you would expect from a backward
third world country and some despot drunk on power, nope, this from the USA, the not home of
freedom, the not home of justice and clearly the not home of democracy, the best people
killers on the planet, ready to back militarily any despot it puts in charge, at the expense
of their victims. Any sane country would hide this embarrassment, nope the US proud.
Imagine a parallel universe where Maria is the British Prime Minister. The British
politicians are not in her league. She is notionally just a spokeswoman, in Britain we don't
have such free speaking spokesmen. It seems everything said in Britain has to be a lie. So
refreshing and much more intellectually engaging to have the truth. There is the small matter
of appearance, nobody in British politics now or ever is dressed as well as Maria. Or this
show's host. I also like it how Maria has her notes on her phone.
And there is more. George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide
meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie:
In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip
to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later,
on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications
from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging
to candidate Clinton.
Papadopoulos shared information about Russian "dirt " with people outside of the Campaign, and the Office investigated whether
he also provided it to a Campaign official. Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials with whom he interacted told the Office that
they did · not recall that Papadopoulos passed them the information. Throughout the relevant period of time and for several months
thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian
government. That meeting never came to pass.
Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political
elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on
the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to
western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular .
Mifsud's alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major
figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been
photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud's LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed
later reported that the professor's name and biography had been removed from the campus' website, writing that the mysterious removal
took place after Mifsud had served the institution for "years."
WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally
pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: "[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year
member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both
be present in this [photo]."
The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to
Claire Smith, who was attending a: " Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and
London Academy of Diplomacy." The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.
This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly
they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three -- Sater and Greenber -- alleged Russian
stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community.
"... As I noted in my previous piece-- The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump --Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. ..."
"... An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie. ..."
"... The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are. ..."
"... We also have the case of Michael Caputo and Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. ..."
"... How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance into the United States? Very simple answer. He too was an FBI informant : ..."
"... Please take time to read the full dossier at democrat dossier . This is more than an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate them in wanting to work with Russians. ..."
"... Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular . ..."
"... A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.” ..."
"... WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo].” ..."
"... This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three--Sater and Greenber--alleged Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community. ..."
"... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
"... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. ..."
"... You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
"... The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson. ..."
While President Trump is correct to celebrate the Mueller Report’s conclusion that no one on Trump’s side of the ledger attempted
to or succeeded in collaborating or colluding with the Russian Government or Russian spies, there remains a dark cloud behind the
silver lining. And I am not referring to the claims of alleged obstruction of justice. A careful reading of the report reveals
that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report is a failed hatchet job. Part of the failure
can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released. It appears that Bill Barr's light
editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.
Let us start with the case of trying to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. If you were to believe that the Steele Dossier accurately
reported Vladimir Putin's attitude towards Trump, then a Trump real estate deal in Moscow was a slam dunk. According to one of Steele's
breathless reports:
The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business
deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament.
How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.
Then there is reality. The impetus, the encouragement for the Moscow project came from one man--Felix
Sater.
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate
development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov.J07 Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014,
had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City.30S Sater later contacted Rozov
and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the
Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert.
(see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
To reiterate--if the Steele Dossier was based on truthful intelligence then the Trump organization only had to sit back, stretch
out their hands and seize the moment. Instead, little Felix Sater keeps coming back to the well. In January 2016, according to the
Mueller report,
Sater then sent a draft invitation for Cohen to visit Moscow to discuss the Trump Moscow project,along with a note to "[t]ell
me if the letter is good as amended by me or make whatever changes you want and send it back to me."
After a further round
of edits, on January 25, 2016, Sater sent Cohen an invitation -- signed by Andrey Ryabinskiy of the company MHJ -- to travel to
"Moscow for a working visit" about the "prospects of development and the construction business in Russia," "the various land plots
available suited for construction of this enormous Tower," and "the opportunity to co-ordinate a follow up visit to Moscow by
Mr. Donald Trump..
This produced nothing. No deal, no trip. But Sater persisted:
Beginning in late 2015, Sater repeatedly tried to arrange for Cohen and candidate Trump, as representatives of the Trump Organization,
to travel to Russia to meet with Russian government officials and possible financing partners. . . .
Into the spring of 2016, Sater and Cohen continued to discuss a trip to Moscow in connection with the Trump Moscow project.
On April 20, 2016, Sater wrote Cohen, " [t)he People wanted to know when you are coming?,,
On May 4, 2016, Sater followed up:
“I had a chat with Moscow. ASSUMING the trip does happen the question is before or after the convention. I said I believe,
but don't know for sure, that's it's probably after the convention. Obviously the pre-meeting trip (you only) can happen anytime
you want but he 2 big guys where [sic) the question. I said I would confirm and revert.”
On May 5, 2016, Sater wrote to Cohen:
“Peskov would like to invite you as his guest to the St. Petersburg Forum which is Russia's Davos it's June 16-19. He wants
to meet there with you and possibly introduce you to either Putin or Medvedev, as they are not sure if 1 or both will be there.
This is perfect. The entire business class of Russia will be there as well.”
On June 14, 2016, Cohen met Sater in the lobby of the Trump Tower in New York and informed him that he would not be traveling
at that time.
Why was Felix Sater the one repeatedly identified pushing to arrange deals with the Russians and yet did not face any subsequent
charges by the Mueller team? Sater had been working as part of the Trump team since 2003. Why is it that the proposed deals and travel
to Moscow came predominantly from Felix Sater?
As I noted in my previous piece--The
FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump--Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. He had been working with the
FBI since 1998. When he agreed to start working as an undercover informant aka cooperator in December 1998 guess who signed off on
the deal? Andrew Weissman. You can see the
deal here. It was signed 10
December 1998.
An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to
cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the
carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple
disingenuity. It is a conscious lie.
The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are.
But Sater's behavior and status as an FBI Informant was not an isolated incident. We also have the case of Michael Caputo and
Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. According to
democratdossier.com:
Greenberg's birth name is Gennady Vasilievich Vostretsov, the son of Yekatrina Vostretsova and Vasliy Vostretsov. He later adopted
new names twice as a result of two different marriages and became Gennady V. Arzhanik and later Henry Oknyansky. Henry Greenberg
is not a legal alias, but he uses it quite commonly in recent years.
But you would not know this from reading the Mueller report. Mr. Disingenuous strikes again:
In the spring of 2016, Trump Campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another
Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to
Hillary Clinton . Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky.
Oknyansky and Stone set
up a May 2016 in-person meeting. 260 Oknyansky was accompanied to the meeting by Alexei Rasin, a Ukrainian associate involved
in Florida real estate. At the meeting, Rasin offered to sell Stone derogatory information on Clinton that Rasin claimed to have
obtained while working for Clinton. Rasin claimed to possess financial statements demonstrating Clinton's involvement in money
laundering with Rasin's companies. According to Oknyansky, Stone asked if the amounts in question totaled millions of dollars
but was told it was closer to hundreds of thousands. Stone refused the offer, stating that Trump would not pay for opposition
research.
How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance
into the United States? Very simple answer. He too
was an FBI informant:
In an affidavit, Vostretsov explained to an immigration judge he worked for the FBI for 17 years throughout the world, including
in the US, Iran and North Korea. He explained in the same paperwork the FBI granted him several temporary visas to visit the US in
exchange for information about criminal activities.
Please take time to read the full dossier at
democrat dossier. This is more than
an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate
them in wanting to work with Russians.
And there is more. George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide
meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie:
In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip
to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later,
on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications
from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging
to candidate Clinton.
Papadopoulos shared information about Russian "dirt " with people outside of the Campaign, and the Office
investigated whether he also provided it to a Campaign official. Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials with whom he interacted
told the Office that they did · not recall that Papadopoulos passed them the information. Throughout the relevant period of time
and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the
Campaign and the Russian government. That meeting never came to pass.
Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political
elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on
the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to
western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular.
Mifsud’s alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship
with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed
that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus
in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing
that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.”
WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith
in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint
Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link
University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo].”
The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud
is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: “…Training program on International Security which was organised by
Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy.” The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant
for a number of reasons.
This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating
honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three--Sater and Greenber--alleged
Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community.
When you put these facts together it is clear that there is real meat on the bone for Barr's upcoming investigation of the "spying"
that was being done on the Trump campaign by law enforcement and intelligence. These facts must become a part of the public consciousness.
The foreign country that worked feverishly to meddle in the 2016 Presidential election and the subsequent rule of Donald Trump is
the United Kingdom. Russia is the patsy.
turcopolier, 20 April 2019 at 10:44 PM
IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus
to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.
falcemartello, 20 April 2019 at 11:28 PM
Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look
at the new boss same as the old boss.
It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the Steele Dossier was floating around
and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as per usual smokey mirrors and deception.
I live you with this one thought.
Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME
and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying
to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism.
You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a
racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence
conference.
Rick Merlotti
The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson.
@5 I had listed some curious incidences of "training exercises" including a bioterrorism
training exercise that happened in New York three
days before 9/11.
I am adding to my own personal notes another bioterrorism training exercise that happened
just prior to the highly suspicious Skripal poisoning.
-------
Add to the list, "Toxic Dagger", a biological/chemical training exercise held
just prior to the Skripal poisoning. Toxic Dagger is the largest annual British army
biological/chemical training exercise.
"Completing the training and exercising against these scenarios provides
a challenging programme for the Royal Marines to demonstrate their proficiency in
the methods to detect, assess and mitigate a CBRN threat."
The first person to discover the Skripals was the Chief Nursing Officer of the British
Army (whose experience includes deployment to Sierre Leone to help fight Ebola).
"An experienced officer, highly connected, who is also known for handling highly
infectious patients?"
The nurse claimed later that it was actually her daughter that was with her that detected
and assessed the Skripal scenario.
The daughter was 16 at the time and we presume the Lifesaver Award she received would be a
feather in her cap useful for her imminent application for admission to a university. Wonder
if Lori Loughlin had thought of using such an angle?
Btw on the Skripal thing does that nurse also run over to every "spice" zombie she sees in
public? Anyone in a puddle of their own partly digested booze? Does she go hunting under
bridges for heroin addicts and glue sniffers? Does she check on everyone sleeping on a bench
or in some doorway? It is England after all.
Weird hobby she's got and with her kid in tow too :P
(Yes I'm being facetious about a bullshit narrative straight out of the 1950ies).
Not only they lost all moral authority. UK MSM became openly neofascist in some areas exceeeding the press of Third Riech and the
USSR in distortions and falsifications. .
Notable quotes:
"... Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV. ..."
"... In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do' ..."
Even if the Skripal affair WAS staged, you shouldn't get too excited about it. In fact, you should be rather pleased because
it would demonstrate that the tired, incompetent old UK is still capable of mounting an operation of which young, vigorous, competent
Russia would be proud.
The UK can fake events with the best of them! I would find that reassuring rather than deplorable because it's a nasty world
out there.
The Government and the media, have not been telling the whole truth for a long time. Sometimes they blatantly lie. Most people
still believe most of what they say, as there is an in-built trust of authority, for some very good historical reasons. The Skripal
story, made it obvious to a large number of people, that some of it could not be true. Most still believe it or din't take much
notice. The arrest of Julian Assange made it clearer, to an even larger number of people, that the government and the media, had
lost all moral authority. Still many people didn't take much notice, or were convinced by the lies in the media, that he was a
rapist and should be in jail.
The lies and corruption from government, is now increasingly out in the open. I believe that this is deliberate. I also think
that it is exceedingly dangerous for society for multiple reasons. We are conditioned to accept authority as our moral guide.
They act as an example of acceptable behaviour. If society as a whole, behaved like government, all trust would break down. Virtually
all functions of society are based on trust. Without such trust, nothing will work.
Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously
know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally
is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV.
I believe this has all been pre-planned, and it will result in a disastrous effect on all society, unless something happens
to bring the governments and media back to truth and sanity. I have no idea what that might be, but I expect it will not be pleasant.
The following was an early warning of the mass insanity affecting The US Government. It has spread like a highly infectious
disease.
In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined
as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world
really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's
how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'
British propaganda is clearly as close to neofascist propaganda as one can get... British neocons are even closer to neofascists then the US neocons. And British security services are closer to
the Third Reich security services then any other.
Skripals is a such a grandiose false flag operation that Gellen (of operation Gladio fame) probably would be amazed and humbled.
Notable quotes:
"... The official narrative of the Salisbury incident is ever-fluctuating. Seemingly each and every article, news segment, official statement or documentary about any element of the case contains new information, requiring the established account to be at least partially rewritten and/or contradicting established elements of the story.... ..."
"... If nothing else, that Haynes was willing to transmit an apparently obvious fiction speaks volumes about the willingness of mainstream journalists to parrot each and every fresh claim in the Skripal case, even if it wildly conflicts with what they themselves have written previously. ..."
"... Oh dear oh dear.. It appears the UK may be denying there were any poor ducks involved... https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1118409471754153984 ..."
It seems highly reasonable to conclude the NY Times item has blown away any remaining
truthfulness to the Skripal Saga and the entire Saga--like Russiagate--can be concluded to be
a very serious hoax, and that there's no reason whatsoever to trust anything said by UK's
Tory government.
"The official narrative of the Salisbury incident is ever-fluctuating. Seemingly each and
every article, news segment, official statement or documentary about any element of the case
contains new information, requiring the established account to be at least partially
rewritten and/or contradicting established elements of the story....
"If nothing else, that Haynes was willing to transmit an apparently obvious fiction speaks
volumes about the willingness of mainstream journalists to parrot each and every fresh claim
in the Skripal case, even if it wildly conflicts with what they themselves have written
previously."
"Difficult to verify your version of events given it involves nameless officials. Knowing
you're often used by security services to peddle propaganda seemed a reasonable assumption
they'd urged you to backtrack your earlier advocacy as story detonates official #Skripal
narrative."
It seems highly reasonable to conclude the NY Times item has blown away any
remaining truthfulness to the Skripal Saga and the entire Saga--like Russiagate--can be
concluded to be a very serious hoax, and that there's no reason whatsoever to trust anything
said by UK's Tory government.
"... Skripal was just one more effort to tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State. ..."
"... The significance of the NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do for itself. ..."
Craig Murray has a piece on this today. There is nothing very new in what he writes but he
sees the significance of this story, which is not about ducks or children or Donald Trump's
personality but a concerted and thorough campaign, carried out largely by British state
actors, to deepen the 'west's' isolation of Russia.
The real story of both the Cold War and the continually recurring propaganda stories about
the "millions" of "victims of communism" is that the Soviet Union was manipulated throughout
its history by capitalist control over the international economy. Like a demonic organist
capitalist governments pulled out all the stops to control the moods and the policies of a
state that the Bolsheviks never did get to rule.
In the end the Politburo gave in and did what the 'west' had always been wanted which is
to hand over the country, lock, stock and population to the cannibals of capital.
The result being what was probably, after the 1930-45 war, the largest kill off of
Russians in modern history: Yeltsin plus Harvard Business School being responsible for many
more deaths than even the intoxicated propagandist Robert Conquest ever dreamed of.
It is that total control over Russia, through the manipulation of its economy, and the
direction of its capitalists, that is behind the long series of sanctions, which are being
added to every day: their purpose is to re-invent Yeltsinism, re-empower the Fifth Column in
the Kremlin, and, in a stroke, re-establish the inevitable and eternal hegemony of the
Washington centered Empire.
In this work the assistance of the 'cousins'in MI6 and GCHQ, plus the entire British
military establishment has been crucial in a period in which the subservience of POTUS to the
Deep State was, thanks to the underestimation of his electoral chances, very much in
question. During a period in which Trump had to be tamed and brought under control the UK
Establishment's assistance in coming up with a series of highly publicised interventions was
crucia l.
Lysias points out that Haspel had acted as the CIA's Head of Station in London in 2016. It
was in London that the entire "Russiagate" nonsense was put together, with British based
actors continually prodding Congress, the media and the Democrats to act on revelations
regarding Papadopolous, Mifsud, Stefan Halper.
Skripal was just one more effort to
tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from
foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State.The significance of the
NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of
Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living
off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do
for itself.
I'm wondering what the purpose of the Guardian article is.
On the face of it it looks like just another Guardian attempt to besmirch Trump over his
putative commitment and connections to Russia and Putin, but equally, it could be read as an,
almost surreptitious, attempt to point up that Trump only responded as he did because he was
deliberately (?) misinformed/duped by the American (and British?) security services, thereby
questioning the aims, motives, methods and narrative of those security services.
If you read any of the books about behind the scenes at Trump's WhiteHouse you will find a
familiar scenario which corroborates this account, where Trump is easily manipulable by his
aides, who know very well how to push his buttons. Bolton, AIPAC, Bannon have all employed
this strategy successfully and of course Fox News have a mainstream connection to his brain.
So it sounds par for the course. As well as suggesting that Trump wouldn't have been inclined
to agree to the UK's request without the nonsense pictures, which also rings true to
form.
As for his general conduct, Simon Tisdall's excoriating account of his preference for his
Saudi friend, overriding the American people's request to get out of the Yemen massacres, is
on the ball, and sums up what a clear and present danger he is.
Somehow I don't think Donald Trump is going to ignore every story in the papers and TV and
listen to a professional manipulator from the CIA. More likely he saw an opportunity to talk
fake tough on Russia in order to take some of the heat out of Mueller's investigations,
buying time.
He must know Bolton's a neo-con nut-case and that the re-launching of dirty wars on South
America on the pretext of Russian and Chinese interference is as much of a fatuous waste of
time as the MacCarthyian idiocy.
Russia enters an era in which Western leadership is as unscrutable and bonkers as
Stalin's.
China enters an era in which having spied on everything western, it now dreads itself being
spied on by Western spies.
Politics is surely not so crude as village one-upmanship, where the loudest and most
bombastic talkers get all the admiration from the community, just because they are too lazy
or too busy to run the village themselves? Whatever outrageous claim lifts the town's skirts
up ends up with the big gold chain.
There's a lot of assumptions and projections of your own there, as well as
mischaracterising what is being said about him. there is ample evidence of his manchild
attitude – arrogance, bullying, narcissism, naivety, inability to concentrate, laziness
and a fundamental lack of intelligence.
I don't think Trump's reversing of Obama's creation and funding Islamic State shows a lack
of intelligence or narcissism. He came into office and instead of veni vidi vici as per
madame bloodsucker Clinton, he deployed Iran and Syrian Kurds to round them up and disperse
them.
At last someone in the White House grew some nuts and nouse, for a change.
This report today in the Guardian appears to be not so much about the Scrotals, more about
trying to portray Trump as a gullible idiot.
Yet another piece of evidence to confirm what I wrote in the comments sections on here
months ago. That the Skripal event was a total Psyop, carried out by the corrupt government.
Same as the fabricated terror Psyops at Westminster, London Bridge and Manchester.
@ Ian April 17, 2019 at 22:42
Ever hear of Operation Gladio? I suggest you read up on it, as you are very naive if you
believe the PTB won't sacrifice innocents if it suits their plans. False Flag ops (and
bald-faced lies) are the favoured way to spark off wars, or to introduce stricter limitations
on the people's freedoms (Patriot Act, stuff like that).
@ Ian April 18, 2019 at 00:11
Do you accept that the Operation Gladio attacks were False Flag operations, murdering
innocent European citizens in order to place the blame on the Reds? 'I have heard of
so-called Operation Gladio ' sounds very much like you are dismissive of the attacks.
'..which has nothing to do with these allegations ' It has to do with the fact that False
Flag ops killing one's own citizens is not an unknown phenomena, whilst you appear to have
believed it was, by your response.
I am not claiming Manchester was a False Flag, though I may well suspect it was.
You would be surprised how much evidence many 'conspiracy theorists' have to back up their
dismissal of government and MSM 'narratives'.
So we have a new contributor here by the name of Villanelle. This name has nothing to do
with villains but is a French term meaning:
"a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some
lines repeated."
-- –
[ Mod: "Villanelle" is merely the latest incarnation of a serial sockpuppeteer who comments
under different names in nearly every thread. Craig has been kept informed. ]
-- –
So there are recurring rhymes or themes. An apparently simple but very open question based
on a very non- specific enquiry: what evidence would convince you of a certain occurrence? I
can imagine this as a famous punchline in a legal drama or the like.
A famous barrister just winding up the case of a convicted triple murderer with the line
to the judge: " Your honour, you seem to have made many assumptions in this case, but please
tell me what evidence would you require to prove that my client is innocent?"
Of course in real life the judge would tell the barrister to go where the sun does not
shine. How can you ask such a question, repeatedly, then followed by next, when the case and
all the evidence have already been discussed?
I think Alexander is on the right track. Villanelle is an agent provocateur. (S)he
dominated this thread by also meticulously at least initially answering almost every single
comment by deflection. But contrary to what Alexander says I think he is not CB but is more
like our Wikipedia prolific commentator previously featuring here. Who knows whether this is
not some form of fishing or phishing by something like the II?
'A police officer stands guard outside of the home of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury,
BritainNew York Times Accidentally Unravels UK Government's Official Skripal Narrative':
Latest from Sputnik: includes pic and reference to Craig's present blog post. ' There could be several explanations for this
seeming anomaly. To name just some of the most unsettling:
Several children were hospitalised, and several ducks did die, and for reasons unclear the British government didn't inform
the public and prevented the children and their parents from revealing they'd been affected, while secretly communicating the
fact to other governments in literally graphic detail.
Counterfeit and/or misleading images may have been produced by persons unknown to bolster Britain's case for concerted international
action, and further been relayed to Haspel (if not other overseas officials), conning her and Trump into backing its mass-expulsion
policy.
Alternatively of course, perhaps the stirring tale of Haspel converting the reticent President with impactful images is mere
gossip, or spin -- after all, the article's authors didn't discuss the episode with the CIA chief herself, but based their article
on interviews "with more than a dozen current and former intelligence officials who have briefed or worked alongside her" .'
@ Villanelle April 17, 2019 at 13:27
A hell of a lot more than the load of BS narrative served up by HMG in lieu of any evidence.
But I'll give you a question, as you appear to have swallowed HMG hogwash hook, line and sinker: Can you explain why neither Sergei
nor Yulia have contacted their nonagenarian respective mother/grandmother for months, though she has begged HMG to allow contact?
Given that Sergei used to phone her every week or two, and that Yulia was her loving carer?
Is this not somewhat putting the cart before the horse? Last I was aware it was up to those making the accusation to prove
their case. If you read the articles relating to the Skirpal case on here, you would see that most of the evidence put forward
for this being a Russian assassination attempt has been widely discredited and comes from sources with dubious links to British
security services. So something beyond speculation would be a start.
If I was to indulge in such speculation, I'd say it looks most likely to me on the back of what I've read that Sergei was attempting
to return to Russia with some kind of information or material, and this whole affair was an ill planned and on the fly attempt
to stop Sergei, and pin the blame on the Ruskies as a nice bonus.
howsabout, say , a widely respected and trusted Foreign Minister, standing up in the mother of all parliaments and saying "I,
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, will immediately instigate a full and integral inquiry upon my own initiative and once all
the facts are established, following institutional statecraft, we will then make a considered response to whichever agency bounced
the UK into this mess"
see references:
"Serial liar Boris Johnson caught lying again?" Kevin Maguire, an editor at Daily Mirror,
howsabout, say , a widely respected and trusted Foreign Minister, standing up in the mother of all parliaments and saying "I,
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, will immediately instigate a full and integral inquiry upon my own initiative and once all
the facts are established, following institutional statecraft, we will then make a considered response to whichever agency bounced
the UK into this mess"
see references:
"Serial liar Boris Johnson caught lying again?" Kevin Maguire, an editor at Daily Mirror,
We have had so many contradictory stories from the media and government, that there is definitely something very wrong.
The Guardian has made no attempt to contradict the concocted story that ducks died and "sickened" children had to be hospitalised
– it just didn't happen, it was "fake news" spread by the muderous gina Haspel.
Johnson told us that only Russia could have produced Novichok, which was a complete lie.
The policeman who was contaminated, was originally supposed to be one of the first on the scene, then he visited the Skripal's
house, supposedly wearing police isswue gloves, which later turned out to be a full Hazchem suit.
He was put in isolation in hospital, with doctors and nurses wearing Hazchem suits, yet his wife and daughter were not required
to wear them.
The two boys feeding the ducks in the park were not hurt, no ducks died from the Skripal contaminated bread fed to them.
When did the Skripals get poisoned?
Was it when they left the house – how did they manage to walk around for hours before collapsing? That is definitely not how military
grade nerve agents work.
Where are the Skripals now?
Villanelle, you have just come on here spouting pro government rubbish, and yet you seem to have no idea how much this case
has been researched by Craig and the posters on here.
@ Villanelle April 17, 2019 at 13:57
If as many contend it is a UK False Flag set-up, no evidence on earth would convince me that the Russians were responsible, because
they weren't.
But the real question should be: what evidence is there for the government narratives (plural because they change with the weather)?
To portray some one or group as guilty of a crime, it is normal to provide evidence. Maybe old fashioned, but things work better
that way.
But of course, the UK has form: it went to war in Afghanistan without proof, just on Uncle Sam's say-so.
It bombed Syria over Chemical Weapon 'allegations', with no proof.
It attacked Iraq over alleged Chemical Weapons.
And it bombed Libya over false allegations.
So, yep, HMG has 'form' at fomenting false 'casus belli'.
·When did the Skripals return home to actually touch the door? Earliest door could've been coated around 12 noon. No cctv of
their car returning and timeline is off.
· Why did they both fall ill later that afternoon at precisely same moment despite different body compositions?
·The fact the potential assassins walked up the street in broad daylight unconcerned about any CCTV, why did Sergei's house have
no CCTV.
·The method – insanely risky given Skripal wasn't hiding, living at that address under his real name with no CCTV.
·The fact that for days after these events police stood outside, right next to the door in question with no protective clothing,
this despite an officer apparently falling ill after 'forcing entry' – no sign of forced entry on that door.
· Why did Charlie Rowley and his brother insist in TV interviews he broke the bottle spilled a quantity on his hands and then
wash it off? He even talked of its 'oily' consistency and its smell. A google search shows all the MSM reported the bottled 'splintered'
into pieces. It's reported the sample handed to the OPCW was 98.3% pure.
· Ţhe fact both Skripals have all but vanished despite Yulia feeling the need to phone her cousin during her 'situation'.
There are many other inconsistencies.
If these are answered satisfactorily, I guess Craig and all other querying folk will be convinced.
@ Villanelle April 17, 2019 at 14:09
The following should teach you all you need to know about the OPCW – it is afraid to deal honestly in cases which go against the
Western (US) narrative:
'Was UK paying White Helmets to produce Syria 'chemical weapon' PR as cover for Jaish Al Islam?': https://www.rt.com/op-ed/454205-uk-paying-white-helmets-syria-jaish/
?
And in my estimation, Syria was what was behind the Salisbury Saga. The UK wanted to get across to the public the idea Russia
used Chemical Weapons, in time for the next 'False Flag' CW ops (real or hoax) that the British founded and funded 'White Helmets'
mercenary head-choppers' PR outfit organised in Syria.
I am, Villanelle.
If only Sergey Skripal suddenly and unexplainably died in first year or two after he was swapped. You know, that type of death,
like heart attack during your usual morning fitness, or falling out of the window, or perhaps you remember the guy who was found
dead in his travel bag and somehow it was attributes to his sexual play with his gay partner. Something of this kind.
Gosh, even simple death of rat poison would do.
Not the absurd story about FSB trying to kill an ex-spy with secret warfare in rural England, near the fence of Porton Down, with
the most experienced Army Nurse rushing to help and brave British doctors successfully treating Novichok poisoning. So successfully,
that Yulia was able to read and write two languages, using complex grammar constructions She even didn't stumble on foreign words,
reciting long text in front of cameras and her facial expressions are all relevant, healthy and telling of good self-possession.
So NO, I'm not convinced.
Villanelle has asked a silly question but provided no evidence for his/her/its belief in some "official" version of events
which somehow involves Russian guilt. The simple fact is that there is no evidence for any Russian state involvement in the disappearance
of the Skripals. As for their alleged poisoning – all samples went through Porton Down, a UK government agency – so there is no
independent chain of custody. Just as with the OPCW "investigation" of the alleged Khan Sheykhoun CW "attack" in Syria where all
samples were supplied through terrorists and their White Helmets associates. And OPCW itself refused to visit the Syrian airbase
even when invited and guaranteed security for such a visit.
Russian visitors Petrov and Boshirov (there is no evidence that these are false identities) were in Salisbury on 3 and 4 March
2018 either as tourists or for some other purpose, but the police have been unable to link them in any way with the Skripals.
Craig Murray and others have pointed out innumerable logical impossibilities – not just inconsistencies – in official and media
reports.
There is no case for Russia to answer. Russia needs no defence. The simple answer to Villanelle is that after all the official
obfuscation by UK government and intelligence agencies, there is NOTHING that would now convince me of Russian guilt.
The way honest people proceed is as follows:
Firstly, we assemble the known facts, and then secondly we invent an explanation that's consistent with those facts.
Villanelle evidently goes about things differently.
The question asked, in paraphrase, is:
"The explanation is that the KGB tried and failed to kill Skripal. What facts can we invent that would be consistent with that
explanation?"
This is revealing, I feel.
Charlie Rowley has even met with a Russian ambassador, asking him for help as the British government have kept him in the dark
over the death of Dawn Sturgess, and the matter as a whole.
Even Charlie's meeting with the ambassador was spun though. I saw several information light reports on that in UK media, attempting
to portray the meeting as a result of Russian stonewalling, not British.
As a 'Murrayista' I must say I do roll around with mirth every time Craig posts. I have no theories, banal geopolitics, only
total incredulity at the official narrative. It is so hilarious, and yet they go on straight-faced putting it out. You Bostock,
seem to be happy to accept the bizarre facts and somehow feel they prove something. Vilanelle just keeps popping up squeaking
at some minor point or other.
There is a gigantic smell over the Salisbury incident, but it is not true that ALL the media just suck it up. One or two brave
souls like Mary Djevsky ask simple basic journalistic questions and gets a pile of ordure poured over her for her trouble. The
rest seem cowed into silence. Why does the establishment fear such questions?
Rob Slane (blogmire.com) and his intrepid band of commenters are also poring over this
dead duck story today. Somewhere on Rob's page is reference to the parents of the
duck-feeding boys being told, two weeks after the event, to burn the children's clothes. To
save myself time, I'm paste in here my comment on that aspect of the official script which I
pasted under Rob's article.
So, two weeks after the duck feed, the parents were instructed to burn the boys' clothes.
It seems like an extreme measure given that everyone else in Salisbury was advised just to
launder any clothes under suspicion of contamination. Luckily for the boys and their family
and community (if not the nation), the parents remembered exactly which clothes the boys had
been wearing. Even more luckily, neither the boys nor their duck-feeding clothes had come
into contact with anyone or anything in the intervening fortnight. It's a miracle.
We have been told by many/various sources, that the Novichok was applied in gel form to
the Skripal's door furniture.
Gel does not evaporate.
If the Novichock had in fact been applied by an atomiser spray, then there would have been no
need to wear protective clothing and cordon off large areas of Salisbury because it would
have evaporated.
Your serve Villanelle.
Your own link provides the answer to that question, if you were actually processing it
rather than selectively picking out the bits which support the government narrative.
The whole point of chemical weapons is to cause as much death, injury and incapacity as
possible amongst the enemy, with the added bonus of it severely limiting or reducing their
ability to operate in the affected area. So given what we know from the government's
narrative of alleged Russian application to the doorknob – why would you chose an agent
which burns off at atmospheric temperatures if it's known that there could be several hours
between application and contact with the intended victim?
None of which adequately explains all of the other inconsistencies in the properties of
this agent, either?
How were the samples tested by the OPCW of such high purity so long after the event? How
do you tie this up with agent failing to kill the apparent targets? According to chemists, a
minute dosage of this substance is enough to kill at such high purity?
Perhaps it would be better, Villanelle, if you could let everyone else know which parts of
the "UK Govt. version", you find most compelling. Which pieces of evidence supplied by the UK
Govt. do you find the most convincing?
Bearing in mind that this evidence is brought to you by Intelligence agencies and politicians
with a track record of lying and dissembling, it is surely incumbent on any seeker of truth
to treat with scepticism anything put out by known liars.
Do you believe that Saddam had WMD?
How about Syria? Have these same intelligence agencies and government officials, who you
believe without question now, been truthful and consistent throughout the aggression against
Syria?
I suspect, based on your half arsed attempts on this thread to whitewash the UK government,
that you would literally believe anything you're told as long as it came from official
sources.
It was pointed out to you earlier in the thread that you are way out of your depth on this
forum. I second that.
If you really want to know more about the holes in the official version, which I doubt, then
the archives on here as well as Moon of Alabama and the excellent Blogmire would help to fill
in the obvious gaps in your knowledge. It would also stop you asking stupid questions and
looking foolish.
What would convince me? Even the slightest effort by HMG to produce credible explanations
for the many lacunae that have been spotted in their narrative. Of course their point-blank
refusal to do so doesn't prove they have something to hide. I often feel that with devious
cunning they deliberately let dodgy narratives out into the public domain, then sit back and
watch 'the usual suspects' run around in frustration. Thank goodness we have RT to point out
the truth.
A lot of people take the piss out of the 'How to poison door knobs' manual, but through my
connections in the security services I have managed to get hold of a copy.
I translated it using Google translate.
Here is a section on the special protective Hazmat suits that the two agents would
obviously have worn to perform the job.
It's quite a long and complicated procedure because it is very hard to doff the suit
afterwards without contaminating yourself.
First, you need a buddy to help you, and a mirror, a tent and and chlorine solution.
No doubt they carried these in the small knapsack one of them was wearing.
It takes half an hour and this is a small fraction of the necessary procedure:
Engage the trained observer.
Disinfect outer gloves.
Remove outer apron.
Disinfect outer gloves
Remove and discard outer gloves
Inspect and disinfect inner gloves
Remove face shield
Disinfect inner gloves
Remove surgical hood
Disinfect inner gloves
Remove the coverall
Disinfect inner gloves
Remove boot covers
Change inner gloves
Remove the N95 respirator
Disinfect the new inner gloves
Disinfect your shoes
Disinfect inner gloves
Remove and discard inner gloves
Perform hand hygiene
Examine body for contaminants
Exit the doffing area
Take a shower.
Go and feed ducks
For videos showing the procedure can be found here:
After reading the manual I have tremendous respect for the assassins: to do all that in
broad daylight on a Sunday morning in Salisbury without being spotted.
Clearly they were real pros. So no more laughing please.
"Possibly the Guardian and New York Times are inventing utter drivel, as in the Manafort
meeting Assange story. That would in itself be worrying. "
To my mind they have been doing it for years. It is getting worse. Rusbridger, although he
admitted to being controlled, was a real editor in comparison to Katherine Viner. There is no
moral compass anymore. Yet there are still readers who have been reading it for years who
think it is the same radical organ it was when known as the Manchester Guardian.
Perhaps more important than the Stephen Davies letter is the diagnosis that fentanyl was
the poison involved – quite a strong opoid. But it was quite clear from the start
– as far as the medical profession is concerned – that there was no evidence of a
nerve agent. Novichok is a word circulated by the west to point the finger at Russia. It
means newcomer. This morning I joined a Russian website. Under my name it said Novichok.
Too bad there's not an established legal process in the Western world for adjudicating
these claims. I am thinking of a venue where each side could openly present its case on the
basis of whatever evidence each is able to supply, could ask questions of the other side,
etc., and would agree to abide by whatever decision the citizens appointed by lot to
administer this venue would decide.
No idea how something like this hypothetical structure or institution might be brought
about, but it would seem helpful to have in cases like these, no?
I take this discussion back to my original point, which to my amazement was published
(unfortunately the joke wasn't) Tony_0pmoc
April 17, 2019 at 11:44 which starts
"The Government and the media, have not been telling the whole truth for a long time.
Sometimes they blatantly lie."
Many people posting here, quite obviously still believe most of what is published in the
mainstream media. Most people I know, rarely lie, and when they do, its pretty obvious. yet
some people I know, are quite obviously compulsive liars. they are addicted to it, but
unfortunately do not have exceedingly good memories, to remember all their lies. I never
trust a word such people say any more, unless I know they are telling the truth, which
sometimes they do.
Same girl?
Just Believe – The Magic of Novichok – Before Novichok – After
Novichok
But they don't need good memories when the media don't raise inconsistencies that arise
some time later.
'We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to
tell us the truth about anything, serving their corporate masters who have other plans to
dominate us.' – Gore Vidal
Some ask, why the obsession with the MSM, but they are all we've got holding power to
account. Especially here in the UK with no written constitution. The reason powerful people
give for being against the codified rules of a written constitution, is it'd restrict their
room to act . But in fact, you really do need a set of 'codified' rules – a line that
EVERYONE is afraid of crossing.
The reason why we need a written constitution is because it's not clear where power and
responsibility reside in the UK.
The security services seem to have free rein so
politicians can claim plausible deniability.
Look at the to and froing over historical accusations of UK involvement in torture, with
Straw and Blair basically accusing Mi6 of going rogue. Both insist they never authorised
torture in TV interviews last year (Straw on radio , Blair on Newsnight); they claim they
never signed the documents, despite their signatures being on said documents. The whole
situation is a mess and many MPs have called for a judge-led inquiry , both Blair and Straw
have stated they are happy to cooperate. And yet
Theresa May however, has other ideas; the govt missed its own deadline \to respond last
year and the whole thing seems to have been forgotten.
more drivel from sycophant puppets that proves the US and UK is run by imbeciles who take
the public for gullible idiots, anyone who believes a word they say is just that. Wishing
Julian Assange well in his upcoming court appearance, it's a sick world that allows crooks to
lock up brave and courageous lamplighters like Assange and Manning, their integrity shines
brightly over the dung heap trying to silence them.
That the official Skripal story is bogus should be clear to anyone with eyes, ears and the
barest minimum of intellectual honesty. What is needed to send the story to its final resting
place and raise a more interesting story is information on the whereabouts of the Skripals to
this day. Their disappearance smells like month-old fish, and the best bet is that some
highly placed people in the British Foreign Office and intelligence community have something
very embarrassing to hide. Frankly, I am surprised that nothing has been leaked on this
score.
When the person who was home secretary for six years, then prime minister for a couple of
years, steps down from her current role towards oblivion, new people can take up the
baton.
New people will be able to ask new questions.
1) where are the Skripals?
2) why was all this fabricated?
3) who put all this twaddle in place?
I doubt very much any harm has come to them, they are either innocent victims or went
along with 'spy games ' as Trump called it. But clearly someone doesn't want them giving any
unscripted or unsupervised interviews were all the variables can't be controlled.
Most likely probably resettled somewhere now with new identities: US, Canada, NZ ,
Australia. Could be anywhere, take yer pick.
The unquestioning MSM, pretending as if they never existed, makes you feel like the
country has gone to all hell.
I'm stuck here waiting for your answer to my earlier post. What's holding you up?
Whilst you are about it, could you kindly enlighten us as to the main aim of the Skripal
"narrative" (Ugh – that word reminds me of A.Campbell).
Was it
A) To take Skripal out of circulation before the Steele dossier s**t hit the fan
B) To connect Russia to "chemical weapons" as part of the Syria deal
C) To further drive in the wedge between Trump and Russia
D) To Divert the Attention of the Dopey UK electorate from the Brexit mess
E) Other
Please put in correct order of importance.
It's just occurred to me that you probably knock off at 1730. You are probably down on the
river now the trout season has kicked off. What's the fishing like around Hermitage?
Do get back to us tomorrow!
Agreed.
'The incident is cited as an example of the then deputy CIA director (now director). Gina
Haspel.'
'She is said to have '
Both these quotes from the Guardian article imply (to me) there is no reliable source. It
may not have happened.
Its an office rumour to big up the Director and piss off the boss. One would assume to piss
of the boss you'd actually have to show him a picture of someone pissing on him and that's
opening up a whole other can of worms.
I'll give you points for trying but nowhere does any report from the OPCWsay that the
tests showed Novichok.
Their references are ' toxic chemical ' and even Porton Down's wording ( in the MSM you'll
hate to know ) was similar to – It's what the government says it is.
Despite the waffle the above is not a very specific – is it?
Being as you know a few things answer a few questions please:
How many doors were at the front of the Skripal house and how many handles ( the MSM keep
saying doorknobs) were tested in total?
Why was Charlies flat only given a cursory clean up with say Cilit Bang and the Skripal
house dismantled being as Charlie and Dawn got a massive dose of alleged Novichok?
What was the actual cause of Dawn's death, bearing in mind her relatives said the first
inquest showed no damage to her internal organs?
What colour was Yulia's hair in the Duck feeding ultra clear video(s) and what was Sergei
wearing?
What colour hair did the young woman found on the bench have and what colour hair did the
Salisbury Hospital staff notice?
If the ' Toxic Chemical ' was extremely deadly Russian Novichok , how is it that no-one
else has died or been contaminated ( even slightly ) save three people from the alleged
original attack and two later after opening a ' shrink wrapped sealed ' bottle of what the
Authorities say was the same as that ' smeared ?' – ' sprayed ' on only one door
handle.
If the above is true why didn't the Zizzis staff suffer from some contamination to or the
pub staff who handled the Skripal's cutlery plates and drinks glasses as well as those who
touched the handles of the doors the Skripl's touched with no bad effects?
How come the sprayers/sealers didn't die or fall ill themselves? Hazmat suits in a cul de
sac on a Sunday?
That's just a few questions for an expert to be going on with.
"... The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action. ..."
"... Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President? ..."
"... Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again. ..."
I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was
the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.
The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is
similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France)
after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was
telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness –
in which case there is no need to make anything up.
Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it,
which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.
The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way
and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.
Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a
response from the Russian Embassy.
Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that
when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron
whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any
more time than necessary in a room with him.
He lies all the time – the guy can't stop
lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't
stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show
him.
Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not
likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the
need for US diplomatic action.
The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the
Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British
defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have
moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.
"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching
where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't
been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. (
Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the
Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?
Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President
is this you or a fake President?
Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits
us up the backside with a banjo yet again.
Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the
kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.
All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7
and so on.
So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a
good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.
Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in
Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must
still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.
Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad
story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.
@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the
sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up –
until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.
Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the
nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the
official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl
Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and
400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or
minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a
multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the
protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding
uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer,
no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not
one of this size, why would they do it in this case?
The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern
national rebuke.
In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and
a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe
such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.
More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA,
to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?
What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know
about Haspel and the CIA though?
If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights
abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially
torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on
earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for
media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?
UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of
Sky and II:
"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of
#novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though
not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by
CIA were! "
Therefore, where is a Western Solzhenitsyn to document artistically what transpires in
a society deeply in debt and in social & moral decline
well, Dmitry Orlov, for one, is doing yeoman service. from his latest
:
Then society breaks down. And only then, after all that, do people finally realize that
the problem was inside their heads all along (cultural collapse). Quickly adopting a better,
more right-thinking culture is, of course, a good idea. An alternative is to go through a
Dark Age followed by an extended period of mindless slaughter
The New York Times article is too tongue in cheek for carelessness (of course the CIA
director is NOT manipulating Trump ...). They had sent two reporters to Salisbury and indeed
Russia to get impressions on the ground - that means money. And somehow their interest was
very much
if the British government story sticks or not .
"Others fret about the ducks that used to gather on the Avon River near where the Skripals
collapsed, saying they must have been quietly culled. (Mr. Dean, the City Council head,
says they simply migrated downstream.) Others wonder why some places the Skripals went on
the day of the poisoning, but not others, were cordoned off for safety reasons."
So somehow ducks are a running feature in the New York Times reporting.
When Deripaska was hit with sanctions in April, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) alleged that he and other rich and influential Russian oligarchs were
profiting off their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and from the state's "malign
activity" around the world.
The lawsuit questions whether Treasury can really back up those claims. It asks the
court to order OFAC to hand over evidence and other records and remove Deripaska from the
sanctions list.
The White House has received a long-awaited package of new sanctions on Russia, intended to
punish the Kremlin for a 2018 nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy in the U.K.
U.S. officials at the State and Treasury departments have vetted the sanctions and are
awaiting approval from the White House to issue them, according to two people familiar with
the matter who discussed the internal deliberations on condition of anonymity.
Don't forget – a government minister told us (with a straight face!) that we've
captured a special, secret Russian manual, which details just how to apply poison to
door handles. Doubtless these spies had their own copy to refer to, in order to get the job
done right.
It was a dead duck from the moment they said the poison was on the door handle, which is
just stupid. The official narrative has been a catalogue of stupidities aimed at political
goals. Those who've taken it up are invested in the goals.
If anyone cared what had happened, the first point of enquiry would've been the guinea pigs,
the clue is in the name.
OBTW Who was responsible for the clean up of Salisbury, after which Dawn Sturgess met her
end ??
I would recommend to watch a drama series called "Killing Eve". It was written, produced
and released before the Skripal saga. There is a scene where a deadly poison is administered
on a door handle. Clearly it isn't as far fetched as you suggest.
Coincidentally (?) there was also the joint Sky/US drama series 'Strike Back' broadcast in
November 2017 featuring an attack by a Russian with 'Novichok'. But which came first? Fiction
or 'reality'? Think about it.
"... The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative =
British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on. ..."
"... The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. ..."
The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British,
Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on.
You'd think someone might have noticed something of a trend by now.
They just don't bother anymore, the level of double black psy-ops and gaslighting is a mine field of disinformation. That's what
you get when Washington - Obama, gives the green light to propagandizing their people. It's escalated, like we haven't noticed,
under Trump despite his pathetic attempts at assuring folks it's fake news.
The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I watched about 10 minutes of a
documentary about Easter Island, as an example, and it was revisionist to the nth degree. Just absolute rubbish insinuating that
white European travelers destroyed the Island. This is what British kids are now being marinated in, "He who controls the past"
"Many in the USA have come to realize this stealth organization does not work on the behalf of the USA but rather to its own
ends."
CIA probably was involved in Skripals false flag operation as well. Because the behaviour of Theresa May suggest that she from
the very beginning was sure about the USA full and unconditional support and putting pressure on EU allies. Then now we know
that Gina Haspel, who was also involved in Steele dossier and handled most oversees assets involved in entrapment of Trump, misled
Trump and pervaded him to expel 80 Russian diplomats.
Notable quotes:
"... Then there is 9/11. This one also has a USA government narrative that defies logic. This time it is so blatant and egregious that an organization called "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" was founded by Richard Gage, an architect with vast experience in steel structured buildings and fire. The organization demands on official investigation by Congress into exactly how the buildings came down. ..."
"... According to a statement reported by the BBC , Loose Change film producer Dylan Avery thinks the destruction of the building was suspicious because it housed some unusual tenants, including a clandestine CIA office on the 25th floor, an outpost of the U.S. Secret Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and New York City's emergency command center." Wikipedia ..."
"... So now we have Prime Minister, Teresa May, accusing Putin and Russia of the May 4 nerve agent attack of Sergei V. Skripal (66) and his daughter, Yulia (33), in Salibury, England. Both are in critical condition after being found unconscious on a bench outside The Maltings Shopping Center in Salibury. As we all know Russia is the new Antichrist. The harbinger of all evil. The enemy we all must view with the utmost fear and loathing. Daily, the MSM in USA recoils as they report story after story of Russia meddling in our elections, shaking the very foundations of our democracy. ..."
"... Let's get this straight. Mr. Skripal was convicted of high treason in Russia in 2004. He was not tortured, killed or murdered, rather he was allowed to settle in Britain after a spy swap in 2010. Sounds pretty friendly to me, considering that Putin is portrayed as a sadistic monster out to settle scores with those who cross him, by the Western media. ..."
"... So, why now? Why this attempted assassination now? This is the question, dear reader. Why attempt to assassinate Mr. Skripal now? He was convicted of high treason 14 years ago. He has been in England for eight years. Russia knew at this point he was no threat to them with no new secrets to betray. What would be gained at this point by assassinating the man? ..."
"... None. However, if the CIA took him out, or paid unscrupulous foreign mercenaries to take him out, much could be gained. The narrative of big bad Putin, in his big bad Russia, would be reinforced. Now, not only is he meddling in elections, getting the dastardly Trump elected, he is using nerve gas to take out enemies on foreign soil. My god, what will be next? ..."
"... "If we don't take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used," said Haley. "They could be used here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this council." CNN Politics ..."
Many in the USA have come to realize this stealth organization does not work on the behalf
of the USA but rather to its own ends. And, in this realization, comes a jaded view of both the
CIA and the government it represents.
This realization may have begun with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The Warren
Commission, a congressional investigation was convened. The commission concluded there was a
single lone shooter, a fringe outcast, Lee Harvey Oswald who acted alone in the assassination
of the president. Many felt, in light of the facts, that the Warren Commission was a cover up
of what really went down on November 22, 1963, in Houston, Texas.
In 1976, the Congress reopened the Kennedy investigation. They created The United States
House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) to investigate the
assassination of John F. Kennedy (and Martin Luther King Jr.).
The HSCA completed its investigation in 1978 and determined the Warren Commission was faulty
and there was more than one shooter and there was indeed a conspiracy to kill the president. So
much for the official narrative of the Warren Commission.
Why the Warren Commission cover up back then that even the Congress in 1976 (HSCA) reported
was bogus? One theory April 25, 1966, The New York Times wrote, "And, President Kennedy, as the
enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of
his Administration, that he wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it
to the winds."
Kennedy was no fan of the Director of the C.I.A. Allen Dulles or his agency, and in the
autumn of 1961 he purged the C.I.A. of Dulles and his entourage. This included Deputy Director
for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and and Deputy Director Charles Cabell. You do not mess with
Allen Dulles and the C.I A. Let's leave it at that. Kennedy was dead within two years.
Then there is 9/11. This one also has a USA government narrative that defies logic. This
time it is so blatant and egregious that an organization called "Architects & Engineers for
9/11 Truth" was founded by Richard Gage, an architect with vast experience in steel structured
buildings and fire. The organization demands on official investigation by Congress into exactly
how the buildings came down.
By December 2014, over 2,300 architectural and engineering professionals had signed a
petition for this investigation. If one looks at controlled demolitions and how the buildings
actually came down it is obvious the collapse was not due to an airplane flying into the
buildings, but rather a controlled demolition. 2,300 architects and engineers with verified
credentials all testify that the narrative of the government is patently false and
scientifically implausible if not impossible.
At about nine a.m. the Twin Towers are crashed into and collapse. At about five twenty p.m.
that same day, Building Seven collapses. No planes fly into Building 7, it just collapses.
Again, the videos show a controlled demolition.
There are various theories as to why 7 WTC was taken down. Theories range from 7 WTC being
the operation center for the demolition of the Twin Towers to more nefarious motives. "
According to a statement reported by the BBC , Loose Change film producer Dylan Avery thinks the
destruction of the building was suspicious because it housed some unusual tenants, including a
clandestine CIA office on the 25th floor, an outpost of the U.S. Secret Service, the Securities
and Exchange Commission, and New York City's emergency command center." Wikipedia
What is important to remember is that NO STEEL FRAME HIGH RISE HAS EVER TOTALLY COLLAPSED
DUE TO FIRE.
These are but two examples of hundreds where we have been mislead by the official narrative
of the government and its MSM news. Remember the Trump Dossier that was leaked and printed as
fact? Or, the death of Seth Rich, a "botched" robbery? Or, the list of 200 news outlets in the
USA that were Russian Propaganda fronts? All reported as fact by the New York Times and
Washington Post. All fake news by the MSM fed to an unsuspecting American people.
So now we have Prime Minister, Teresa May, accusing Putin and Russia of the May 4 nerve
agent attack of Sergei V. Skripal (66) and his daughter, Yulia (33), in Salibury, England. Both
are in critical condition after being found unconscious on a bench outside The Maltings
Shopping Center in Salibury. As we all know Russia is the new Antichrist. The harbinger of all evil. The enemy we all
must view with the utmost fear and loathing. Daily, the MSM in USA recoils as they report story
after story of Russia meddling in our elections, shaking the very foundations of our
democracy.
Let's get this straight. Mr. Skripal was convicted of high treason in Russia in 2004. He was
not tortured, killed or murdered, rather he was allowed to settle in Britain after a spy swap
in 2010. Sounds pretty friendly to me, considering that Putin is portrayed as a sadistic
monster out to settle scores with those who cross him, by the Western media.
Teresa May called the act "reckless" and "indiscriminate", and basically said Putin put
innocent English bystanders at risk. She upped the ante by dismissing 23 Russian diplomats, the
largest such expulsion in thirty years.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused May of grandstanding in her
response to the incident. Russian news agency Interfax reported that The Kremlin denies
involvement in the nerve agent poisoning, insisting one motive was to complicate Russia's
hosting of the World Cup this summer. Ah, dear Kremin, the motive was much deeper than the
World Cup games, which were only a bonus to the attack.
So, why now? Why this attempted assassination now? This is the question, dear reader.
Why attempt to assassinate Mr. Skripal now? He was convicted of high treason 14 years ago. He
has been in England for eight years. Russia knew at this point he was no threat to them with no
new secrets to betray. What would be gained at this point by assassinating the man?
None. However, if the CIA took him out, or paid unscrupulous foreign mercenaries to take
him out, much could be gained. The narrative of big bad Putin, in his big bad Russia, would be
reinforced. Now, not only is he meddling in elections, getting the dastardly Trump elected, he
is using nerve gas to take out enemies on foreign soil. My god, what will be next?
Nikki Haley, Ambassador to the UN tells us, "The United States of America believes that
Russia is responsible for the attack on two people in the United Kingdom using a military-grade
nerve agent," Haley said in her remarks at a UN Security Council emergency session, blasting
the Russian government for flouting international law.
"If we don't take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be
the last place we see chemical weapons used," said Haley. "They could be used here in New York
or in cities of any country that sits on this council." CNN Politics
The USA needs an enemy to foment fear to justify it's astronomical defense budget. It just
loves a good cold war. However, now that Russia is no longer a pinko commie nation to be
demonized, and is indeed a capitalist democracy, we have to resurrect a new straw man to
hate.
It is remarkable the degree to which the liberal left has bought into this
industrial-military-complex narrative. The USA always has to be bombing someone, droning
someone or napalming someone to keep the monies flowing into the defense budget. Take a look at
our spending compared to Russia or other nations.
Alas, it is certainly not out of the question that the CIA was behind the attack. After this
amount of time Mr. Putin had nothing to gain in assassinating Mr. Skripal and his daughter. In
fact, he had a lot to lose. The CIA? They had a lot to gain, and nothing to lose. Never
underestimate the CIA and its brilliance in setting the narrative for its agenda. And, never
underestimate Mr. Putin in his resolve not to become their lapdog.
Ms. Simpson was a radio personality in New York. She was a staff writer for The Liberty Report.
A PBS documentary was done on her activism for human rights. She is a psychotherapist and
political commentator.
B, here's a remarkable fact: The Skripal Novichok perfume bottle assassination story is is
eerily similar to episode 2 of BBC show 'Killing Eve' where an assassin uses a perfume bottle
to kill her target and where later an innocent person accidentally dies after coming into
contact with said perfume bottle.
The episode aired around a month after the Skripal attack but well before the other 2
people fell ill and the perfume bottle theory emerged.
"... Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... And there was a video of him bringing her to the microphone on the subject of 5G which amazed me: Trump Invites Ivanka To Talk About 5G Deployment In The U.S. I think Trump truly believes Ivanka is presidential material! ..."
"... Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House. ..."
"... Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be, for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat. ..."
"... Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican. ..."
"... The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again." ..."
"... The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused. ..."
"... Here's a link for anyone who still doesn't believe Trump is on the dark side: Trump vetoes resolution ending U.S. involvement in Yemen ..."
"... Looks like Trump is only a compassionate humanitarian on behalf of Syrian kids. With 14 school children killed in Yemen a week ago, not so much. ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to. ..."
By "meaningful intellectual activity", Craig Murray is referring to critical thinking skills, having an open mind and being
able to consider all options and possibilities. We can agree that Theresa May and the people who make up her Cabinet and government,
and a sizeable proportion of the Tories, may well be deficient in these activities.
I have read something of how David Cameron worked his way up to leadership of the British Conservatives years ago. Coming from
a wealthy family (his father was a stockbroker who enjoyed posthumous notoriety when his name surfaced in the Panama Papers),
Cameron went to the "right" schools (which count Prince Andrew and Prince Edward as former students, btw), Eton College and then
Oxford University where he enrolled in the politics / economics course that prepares students for careers in politics - it's popularly
called "PPE". After university he went to work for the Conservative Party.
You could say Cameron's path had already been mapped out for him and the decision was not his to deviate from it. Probably
the same can be said of some other people in Theresa May's Cabinet.
And what can be said of a UK Defence Secretary of whom the love of his life is a pet Mexican tarantula?
You are being sarcastic, tongue in cheek, correct? I also wonder who could have done such a thing?
But seriously, the value of Solzhenitsyn is not in the quality of his prose, which is very difficult to read, then in the relevance
of his topics. He did document how power over others and ultimately totalitarianism manifest themselves in the fallible human
nature. Humans cannot rule themselves properly, but usually psychopaths must rule (use & abuse) others. A whole system can be
created on top of psychopathy of a few individuals (does this ring a bell?). Of course, the claim that Solzhenitsyn was a critic
of Communism is equivalent to the claim that Animal Farm is a description of Communism. Both are good social critique turned into
yet another political/brainwashing tool. It is art because it describes human nature across artificial boundaries, especially
the ideological one: left versus right.
On another matter, I have started skipping comments where Trump is being bashed. In addition to being leftist TDS, this is
a perfect indication that the commenter has got no clue what is really going on, so how could he/she explain anything to others?
Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She
wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
If an idea like that ever gets into Trump's head, Haspel is a goner. Have you noticed how he said he considered Ivanka for
the World bank?
"Donald Trump reveals he considered making Ivanka head of World Bank because she's 'good with numbers'"
Tinfoil-hat opinion time: if you have a credible threat against Ivanka, you control Trump. If you want to gain a different
kind of leverage - like to talk him into quitting in 2020 - promise him you'll work hard to put her in the White House.
Still tin-foiling, but I think a version of this happened in 1992. Iran Contra was closing in, and the Democrats had the
goods on Bush Senior. I buy into the conspiracy notion Bush Sr. was offered a deal where the matter would be dropped if he left
office, and with a "sweetener" that one of his boys would be advanced to the White House. This didn't hurt the Powers That Be,
for the chosen democrat was a rare Pro-Choice Republican posing as a democrat.
Bill Clinton was a warmongering neocon nut who governed domestically as a Republican.
As it turns out, the "smart one" (Jeb) lost his first step by not immediately getting to be Governor of Florida. That left
the Codpiece Commander, and all his sins were airbrushed away, the Supreme Court intervened, and he entered the White House. Good
deal for Pappy Bush, BTW. Him and Reagan got to keep their gold shine, and President Dumbya did all which was expected of him.
Thanks Jen & Piotr for your comments regarding my take on Murray's missive.
The problem lies with people in generation after generation being fooled by the same or similar ruses used before, which
is why The Who exhorted people to not let themselves "get fooled again."
The UK & EU both face crises caused by their adherence to Neoliberal economics, but Neoliberal governments hold sway in
almost every EU nation and UK despite the damage they've caused.
It's certainly a muddle. Trump vetoing the legislation to cease supporting Saudi in Yemen will further help the turn to the
East. And tomorrow will bring something else.
400 children killed since January 2019 in Yemen and 85,000 have died from malnutrition in the past 3 and a half years and Trump
vetoes resolution to end U.S. involvement.
So far as I understand your question, the Neocon York Times link from above had this about the kids and the ducks:
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened
by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were
inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The Brits were lying, Haspel was lying, and either Trump believed her or pretended to.
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose: ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel,
torture
queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more
aggression against Russia.
In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the
alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged
its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.
The U.S. alone expelled
60 Russian officials. Trump
was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year
ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago
resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.
The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of
Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the
poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.
"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration
official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials
said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian
officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.
The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely
equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the
media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.
The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:
The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly
hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive
measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the
administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been
mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of
dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet
that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Today the New York Timesportraits Gina
Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position.
They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her
shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its
own purpose:
Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss
with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal,
the former Russian intelligence agent.
London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian
operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical. ... During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump.
She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told
the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not
the only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals.
She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently
killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but
pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the
pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he
embraced the strong option.
The Skripal case was widely covered and we
followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by
'Novichok' nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the
Skripals, before visiting a restaurant,
fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.
They also
gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their
blood was tested.
No
poison was found and none of them fell ill . No duck died. (The duck feeding episode
also disproves
the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)
If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British
government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced
policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.
The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were
fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to
manipulate him:
The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people
who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.
Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating
the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency,
according to former intelligence officials who know her.
The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own
policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game:
Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a
result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped
protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.
Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM |
Permalink
I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into
doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the
contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want
to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.
I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other
president he does what he wants to do.
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create
trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life
with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma
all agency owned men.
The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he
gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the
mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two
papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.
One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the
President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.
After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get
promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...
Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...
Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any
and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to
creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring
his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment,
Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you
want to see continued into a second term?
There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy"
where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing
candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the
point where no one can tell the difference.
They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues
it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.
Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential
opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire
Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game[Pompeo]
Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably
the first)?
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I
believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every
policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I
buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so
I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture
Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead
anything).
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he
gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner
whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling
for new tmz gossip.
even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep
state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies
then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela";
if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and
permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get
tough" on "putin's russia".
my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators
and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.
The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly
after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate
no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to
the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were
poisoned.
https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "
There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else.
The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated
narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function.
The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living
happily, probably in New Zealand.
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people
felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis,
John Brennan.
Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is
just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no
action.
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is
the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow
government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or
look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used
by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in
office.
Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The
Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US
foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The
Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal
system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.
How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE
GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"?
because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the
oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of
debt.
Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change.
The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities
necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.
What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and
its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god
suffocating mythology.
But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns
the drugs and all illegal trade as well.
Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal
courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of
flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to
instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave
like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under
their care.
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired
to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more
likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an
advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go
about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even
though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile
company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really
agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he
spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and
agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but
to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as
Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new
McCarthyism.
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor"
is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film
in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the
beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details
for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal
case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we
have Assange.
Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about
it?'
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The
mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.
b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this
and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to
discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.
Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime
wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new
methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future
rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get
rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose
its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn,
completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its
contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold
for their putative boss.
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM
This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he
approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad
if we do not do something really decisive".
In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is
that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also
leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama
would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any
incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it
earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from
given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to
more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on
Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a
"figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was
that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went
to the back burner.
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen.
Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear
himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.
Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I
thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into
leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the
Skripal affair a message like:
.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...
I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so
brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.
Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly
created some major upsets on the ground.
Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc.
The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job -
anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.
Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and
disruptive.
Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:
.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a
Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability,
combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including
against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK
Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and
despicable act. ..
imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started
making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much
like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY
Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of
which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power
sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter
hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the
msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..
what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in
London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In
her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it.
That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...
so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??
my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea
trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he
was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on
it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme.
The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government
can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.
Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to
hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area.
The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the
actual operation of fiat currency.
The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to
hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency
devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.
I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up
the chain.
It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that
hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the
JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in
Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative
version of the truth is possible.
Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to
get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might
have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger
one to blame the Russians.
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both
originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about
both.
"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion
to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that
currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."
The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly
understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while
hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement.
Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in
general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of
their own political history.
karlof1 36
Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but
mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with
attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.
This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly
on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon,
except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to
have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only
thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and
technocracy.
I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot.
it made his government stronger.?
It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no
one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes
anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..
The actors in
government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the
rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else
in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock
markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power
at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting
from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.
Corrupt is now the only qualification for
political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the
military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist
camp.
John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM |
link
"... According to the Army's website, the Brigade is a combined "Regular and Army Reserve" unit, which aims to challenge the "difficulties of modern warfare" through "non-lethal engagement" and "legitimate non-military levers". ..."
"... In a nod to its social media purpose, the website adds that the 77th Brigade collects, creates and disseminates "digital and wider media content in support of designated tasks". ..."
"... Journalists, social media experts and researchers are listed as potential recruits. ..."
A SCOTTISH Labour candidate
and former Better Together boss has been called on to explain her links to a "military
propaganda unit" within the British Army.
Kate Watson is believed to be part of the Berkshire-based 77th Brigade, which was described
by one newspaper as a "special force of Facebook warriors".
She declined to comment, but
David Miller, a professor of political sociology at Bristol University ,
said: "The 77th Brigade is involved in manipulation of the media including using fake online
profiles.
Formed in 2015, the 77th Brigade specialises in non-lethal warfare in the age of 24/7
rolling news and social media platforms.
With Vladimir Putin's Russia being accused of exploiting the openness of Western democracies
– pumping out conspiracy theories on state-owned TV stations, and spreading fake stories
on Twitter and Facebook – the military has been determined to regain control of the
narrative.
In a November article, Wired magazine reported that the Brigade's soldiers do not fight, but
instead "edit videos, record podcasts and write viral posts".
Given access to the unit, the magazine said of the office: "There was a suite full of large,
electronic sketch pads and multi-screened desktops loaded with digital editing software.
"The men and women of the 77th knew how to set up cameras, record sound, edit videos.
Plucked from across the military, they were proficient in graphic design, social media
advertising, and data analytics.
"Some may have taken the army's course in Defence Media Operations, and almost half were
reservists from civvy street, with full-time jobs in marketing or consumer research."
According to the Army's website, the Brigade is a combined "Regular and Army Reserve" unit,
which aims to challenge the "difficulties of modern warfare" through "non-lethal engagement"
and "legitimate non-military levers".
Using marketing jargon, the Army says that the 77th conducts "audience, actor and adversary
analysis", as well as "supporting counter-adversarial information activity".
In a nod to its social media purpose, the website adds that the 77th Brigade collects,
creates and disseminates "digital and wider media content in support of designated tasks".
Journalists, social media experts and researchers are listed as potential recruits.
As director of operations at Better Together, Watson played a key day-to-day role in an
organisation set up to keep Scotland in the
United Kingdom.
After the referendum, she got a job working for Consequitur, a consultancy owned by former
Labour shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander. According to The Courier newspaper, she also
graduated with a postgraduate qualification in terrorism studies in 2013.
She also has political ambitions, having stood for Labour in Glasgow East at the last
General Election and
losing by 75 votes. She has since been selected to contest the same seat.
An online left-wing magazine, in a write-up of the fiercely-contested Labour selection
contest, claimed in June last year that she is part of the 77th Brigade, which Miller told this
newspaper is a "secretive military propaganda unit".
Another politician linked to the unit is Tory junior defence minister Mark Lancaster. The
MP's website states that he has been "selected as Deputy Commander 77 Brigade".
Speaking about the Brigade in Parliament
last week, Lancaster said: "We have focused on just one aspect of the role of 77th Brigade,
which is web ops, but it also encompasses some of the traditional capabilities we also have, be
that what we would know as CIMIC – civil-military co-operation – the outreach group
or the media group.
"By bringing all those components together, you are effectively updating what was a
20th-century capability for the 21st century and the introduction of the web and the internet.
There is no doubt that information advantage is very much a key component of all the work that
we will be doing in the future.
"I will give one example of interest to us as politicians, where recently I went on an
exercise. Traditionally, military exercises tend to escalate upwards, but actually the key
component there to allow de-escalation, which politicians are always interested in, was the use
of information advantage and the web."
Between February 2017 and February 2018, 29 personnel from 77th Brigade were "forward
deployed" on operations, according to a written parliamentary answer.
Meanwhile, it was reported in December that a security alert had been issued at UK military
bases in Britain after a Russian TV crew was seen outside the 77th Brigade's headquarters. A
journalist was spotted filming close to the Brigade's 25ft barbed wire perimeter fence, but he
later denied trying to infiltrate the army base.
The MoD said the journalist's "suspicious" behaviour was monitored by the base's security
systems.
The fact that Glenn Greenwald proved to be a despicable pressitute cast a long shadow of
Snowden and Assange.
Notable quotes:
"... Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US doesn't approve of. ..."
A quick comment about the two Russian alleged assassins, exposed, we are told by the
'investigative' Website, Bellingcat. Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact
that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its
interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US
doesn't approve of.
Media Lens picked up on this awhile back in reference to another Western financed
outfit, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), funded by the UK Foreign Office. I've
also expanded this by quoting from Media Lens' other article that deals with Western-funded
disinfo, ' Douma: Part 1
– Deception In Plain Sight':
Liberal corporate journalists and politicians have been impressed by the fact that SOHR
and White Helmets claims have been supported by ostensibly forensic analysis supplied by the
Bellingcat website, which publishes 'citizen journalist' investigations. As we noted
in a recent alert, Bellingcat is funded by the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is funded by the US government and is 'a notorious
vehicle for US soft power'. – '
The Syrian Observatory – Funded By The Foreign Office ', Media Lens, June 4
2018
It's worth quoting more of the Media Lens article as it exposes the nature of Western
so-called lefties and their attachment to Western (funded) propaganda outfits:
In the New Statesman, Paul Mason
offered a typically nonsensical argument, linking to the anti-Assad website,
Bellingcat:
'Despite the availability of public sources showing it is likely that a regime Mi-8
helicopter dropped a gas container onto a specific building, there are well-meaning people
prepared to share the opinion that this was a "false flag", staged by jihadis, to pull the
West into the war. The fact that so many people are prepared to clutch at false flag theories
is, for Western democracies, a sign of how effective Vladimir Putin's global strategy has
been.'
Thus, echoing Freedland's reference to 'denialists and conspiracists', sceptics can only
be idiot victims of Putin's propaganda. US media analyst Adam Johnson of FAIR accurately
described Mason's piece as a 'mess', adding :
'I love this thing where nominal leftists run the propaganda ball for bombing a country 99
yards then stop at the one yard and insist they don't support scoring goals, that they in
fact oppose war.'
Surprisingly, the Bellingcat website, which publishes the findings of 'citizen journalist'
investigations, appears to be taken seriously by some very high-profile progressives.
In the Independent, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas also
mentioned the Syrian army 'Mi-8' helicopters. Why? Because she had read the same
Bellingcat blog as Mason, to which she linked:
'From the evidence we've seen so far it appears that the latest chemical attack was likely
by Mi-8 helicopters, probably from the forces of Syria's murderous President Assad.'
On Democracy Now!, journalist Glenn Greenwald said of
Douma:
'I think that it's -- the evidence is quite overwhelming that the perpetrators of this
chemical weapons attack, as well as previous ones, is the Assad government '
This was an astonishing comment. After receiving fierce challenges (not from us),
Greenwald partially retracted, tweeting :
'It's live TV. Something [sic – sometimes] you say things less than ideally. I think
the most likely perpetrator of this attack is Syrian Govt.'
We wrote to Greenwald asking what had persuaded him of Assad's 'likely' responsibility for
Douma. (Twitter, April 10, direct message)
The first piece of evidence he sent us (April 12) was the Bellingcat blog mentioning
Syrian government helicopters cited by Mason and Lucas. Greenwald also sent us a
report from Reuters, as well as a
piece from 2017, obviously prior to the alleged Douma event.
This was thin evidence indeed for the claim made. In our discussion with him, Greenwald
then completely retracted his claim (Twitter, April 12, direct message) that there was
evidence of Syrian government involvement in the alleged attack. [My emph. WB] – '
Douma: Part
1 – Deception In Plain Sight'
"... Then on 29 March, Salisbury District Hospital unexpectedly said that "Yulia Skripal is improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition." She was even "conscious and talking" at that stage, according to the BBC. ..."
"... A few days later, she was able to phone Viktoria, who said she sounded perfectedly normal, and a few days after that, Yulia was discharged from hospital. Around that time too, the hospital announced that Sergei's condition also improved rapidly. ..."
"... The whole thing was staged, and the script written months beforehand. ..."
"... Bizarrely, however, one day before Yulia's rapid recovery was announced, the British police presented a new version of events which begins with skin contact. This is the door handle story, where the Skripals first made contact with Novichok at the front door of Sergei's house. ..."
"... This breifing proceeds on the premise that the Skripal's were exposed to A-234. I can not see that this has been established beyond reasonable doubt. ..."
"... And hasn't it been suggested in many places, including the article above, that Skripal's apparent connection with the Steele Dossier could be a motive for some western spooks to want to silence him? ..."
"... So the revelation of Sergei Skripal's trips to Prague and Estonia actually supports the evidence for his connection with the dossier. However, they have been presented in the media as the opposite – as a motive for the Kremlin to try to kill him. ..."
"... These latest media reports smell a lot like damage limitation. What do you do if you cannot stop an embarrassing fact from being revealed? The best action is to spin it to completely change its significance, so that it shifts the blame onto your enemy ..."
timhayward The following briefing note is developed
by academics researching the use of chemical and biological weapons during the 2011-present war in Syria. The note reflects work
in progress. However, the substantive questions raised need answering, especially given the seriousness of the political situation
in the Middle East and UK-Russian relations. The authors welcome comments and corrections.
The Skripals were exposed to a phosphoroamidofluoridate compound named A-234, of high purity indicating that it was most likely
prepared for research purposes.
A-234 or similar compounds have been synthesized at bench scale by national chemical defence labs in Russia and the US in
the 1990s, and more recently in Iran and Czechia. A small quantity of A-234 from a Russian state lab was used in the murder of
Ivan Kivelidi and Zara Ismailova in 1995.
No data on the toxicity of A-234 are available in the public domain. The police statement that the Skripals were exposed through
contact with their front door is implausible as there are no known nerve agents that cause onset of symptoms delayed by several
hours, and it is improbable that absorption through the skin would cause both individuals to collapse later at exactly the same
time.
Although Russia is one of several countries that have synthesized A-234 or similar compounds, there is no evidence other than
Vil Mirzayanov's story that these compounds were ever developed (implying industrial-scale production and testing of munitions)
for military use. Mirzayanov's credibility as an independent whistleblower is undermined by his role in a Tatar separatist movement
during 2008-2009, backed by the US State Department.
There are multiple indications that the UK is hiding information:-
the withholding of the identity of the compound as A-234. For example, the
UK statement to the OSCE 12 April 2018 states only that ' the name and structure of that identified toxic chemical is contained
in the fall classified report to States Parties'.
See
also this briefing. The Chief Executive of Porton Down,
in his statement 3 April, referred to the compound only as 'Novichok'.
the withholding of information about its toxicity
the issue of a Defence Media Security Advisory notice on the identity of Skripal's MI6 handler and the attempt to conceal
or deny his role in Orbis Business Intelligence.
the sequestration of Yulia Skripal.
The UK government's case against Russia, stated in a letter to NATO, is based on asserting that "only Russia has the technical
means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals". Each of these points is open to question:-
Technical means : it is not seriously disputed that compounds such as A-234 can be produced at bench scale in any
modern chemistry lab.
Operational experience : it is alleged that Russia has a track record of state-sponsored assassination, but this
is not enough to support the assertion that "only Russia" could have enough experience to attempt unsuccessfully to assassinate
two unprotected individuals.
Motive : No other attempted assassinations of defectors from Russian intelligence services have been recorded. Even
if such an assassination campaign had been ordered, the Russian state would have good reasons not to initiate it in the first
half of 2018. In contrast there are obvious possible motives (outlined below) for other actors to have taken steps to silence
Sergei Skripal at this time.
What was the agent used?
An early report that the hospital was dealing with
poisoning caused by an opiate such as fentanyl was most likely based on the initial working diagnosis. Signs of organophosphate
poisoning – constricted pupils, vomiting, reduced consciousness and reduced breathing – could easily be mistaken for opiate overdose,
usually a more likely diagnosis. OPCW has stated that the BZ detected by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical Protection in one of the samples sent by OPCW was not from Salisbury but was in a
control sample .
The Russian ambassador reported that on 12 March the Foreign Secretary
had told him that the nerve agent used against Mr and Ms Skripal had been identified as A-234. The
OPCW report issued on 12 April
did not identify the agent but stated that they had confirmed the identification made by the UK and that this identification had
been included in the confidential report provided to "States parties". On 14 April the Russian Foreign Minister
stated that A-234 had been reported by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection that was one
of the four accredited labs used by OPCW to analyse the Salisbury samples.
Based on public reports, a ChemSpider record for
A-234 has been created which assigns it the IUPAC name ethyl [(1E)-1-(diethylamino)ethylidene] phosphoramidofluoridate. Its predicted
vapour pressure is very low indicating that it is predicted to be non-volatile. No information on its stability is available. The
OPCW director Uzumcu
stated in a newspaper
interview that the agent "seems to be very persistent," and "not affected by weather conditions". This was confirmed the next
day by an OPCW press statement that: "the chemical substance found was of high purity, persistent and resistant to weather conditions".
Ian Boyd, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was
reported to have stated: "The chemical does not degrade quickly. You can assume it is not much different now from the day it
was distributed". No experimental studies of the stability of A-234 have been reported.
Who could have produced A-234 in bench-scale quantities?
It is no longer seriously disputed that,
as noted
in our earlier briefing , any well equipped university lab can synthesize and purify such chemicals at bench scale. OPCW r
eported that the agent
(presumably A-234) was of high purity with "almost complete absence of impurities". This suggests that it was from a batch that had
been synthesized for research, rather than for assassination purposes where it would be unnecessary to purify the agent.
Uzumcu stated in an
interview with the
New York Times that he had been told by UK officials that 50-100 grams of the agent was used.
"For research activities or protection you would need, for instance, five to 10 grams or so, but even in Salisbury it looks
like they may have used more than that. Without knowing the exact quantity, I am told it may be 50, 100 grams or so, which goes
beyondresearchactivities for protection"
OPCW quickly contradicted this in a
statement that "OPCW would not be able to estimate or determine the amount of the nerve agent that was used in Salisbury on 4
March 2018. The quantity should probably be characterized in milligrams".
Who has studied A-234 or similar compounds?
Bench-scale research on the toxicity of agents that might be used in chemical warfare is entirely legitimate under the Chemical
Weapons Convention, and does not have to be declared to OPCW.
Russia
Since our
last briefing
note , more material from
the investigation of the Kivelidi poisoning has been published by Novaya Gazeta, updating the earlier
article published on 22 March
. The second article includes an image of the mass spectrometry profile of the sample recovered from the telephone handset, which
matches that submitted by Edgewood to the NIST98 mass spectrometry database. The Russian experts who commented on the original result
appear not to have had access to the mass spectrometry profile of A-234, and to have incorrectly reconstructed the structure from
a best guess, based on the mass-charge ratios of the fragments, as something like the GV agent (both agents have molecular mass 224
daltons, and a 58-dalton fragment). This establishes that Russia had synthesized this compound at bench scale by the mid 1990s, but
does not confirm that it was ever developed for military use as alleged by Mirzayanov.
US
A 1997 newspaper article
refers to a secret US army intelligence report referring to Russian development of A-232 and its "ethyl analog" A-234, indicating
that the designation of these compounds and their structures was known to the US by this time. As noted in our last briefing note,
the Edgewood lab submitted a mass spectrometry profile for A-234 to the public database NIST98, which was current from 1998 to 2001.
A patent application submitted by a US government lab
in 2008 mentions "Novichoks", but examination shows that the structures given for these compounds were the dihaloformaldoxime structures
previously published as supposed "Novichoks", not the phosphoramidofluoridates published by Mirzayanov later in 2008. This does not
indicate that the applicants were studying these compounds – most likely they included them to make their patent as broad as possible.
Iran and Czechia
A study from Iran published in 2016 reported
synthesis for research purposes of a compound similar to A-234, differing from it only by the presence of methyl instead of ethyl
groups. In an
interview with Czech television , President Zeman stated that in November 2017 the related compound designated A-230 was studied
at the Brno Military Research Institute.
Other labs
The director of Porton Down has
declined to comment on whether Porton Down has stocks of A-234 for research purposes. The OPCW labs that identified A-234 in
the specimens from Salisbury were most likely matching it against a mass spectrometry profile in OPCW's Central Analytical Database.
What is known of the toxicity of A-234?
No data on the toxicity of A-234 are available in the public domain. The printout of the entry in the NIST 98 database appears
to cross-reference an entry in the database RTECS ( Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances) but no entry for this
compound now exists in RTECS.
Why was the structure of A-234 revealed?
The structure of A-234 was revealed in a book by Vil S Mirzayanov in 2008, some 13 years after he had emigrated to the US with
the story of a secret programme to develop chemical weapons of a class named "Novichoks". During 2008-2009 the US government, with
an active part for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was
encouraging the development
of a separatist movement in Tatarstan. As part of this, Mirzayanov was declared head of a Tatar government-in-exile in December
2008. The publication of his book may thus have been part of an effort to build up Mirzayanov's status as a dissident. His role in
this operation may explain why subsequent discussion of his book by OPCW delegates was closely
monitored (and discouraged) by the US State Department
. Mirzayanov's involvement in this operation undermines his credibility as an independent whistleblower.
When and where were the Skripals exposed to A-234?
A summary of the different versions on which journalists were apparently
briefed by security sources was given by the Russian embassy:-
– The Skripals could be sprayed with poison by attackers in the street (Daily Mail, 6 March, source: "Anti-terror police").
– The nerve agent could be planted in one of the personal items in Yulia Skripal's suitcase before she left Moscow for London.
According to this theory the toxin was impregnated in an item of clothing or cosmetics or else in a gift that was opened in the house
of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, meaning Yulia Skripal was deliberately targeted to get at her father (The Telegraph, 15 March, source:
"Senior sources in the intelligence agencies").
– The nerve agent could be planted in the air conditioner of the car of Skripals (Daily Mail, 19 March, source: "Security expert
Philip Ingram").
– The Skripals could be poisoned through buckwheat that Yulia Skripal had asked her friend to buy and bring for her father,
because she had forgotten to pick up the grocery gifts herself (The Sun, 1 April, source: "British investigators").
On 28 March the police announced that "at this point in our investigation, we believe the Skripals first came into contact
with the nerve agent from their front door".
Although it is possible that a nerve agent could be prepared in a formulation that would be absorbed only slowly through the skin,
it is implausible that two individuals exposed through contact with the front door would have received doses that caused them to
collapse suddenly and so nearly simultaneously that neither had time to call for help, at least three hours later. It is more likely
that they were attacked shortly before they were found collapsed on the park bench.
Sergei Skripal's link with Orbis: possible motive for murder
In the first few days after the poisoning there were media reports that Sergei Skripal had been in
regular contact
with his MI6 handler, whose Linked-In profile had stated that he was a consultant for Orbis Business Intelligence. On 7 March this
profile was
deleted and a Defence and Security Media Advisory
Notice was issued to caution journalists against disclosing the identity of this consultant. However at Skripal's trial in 2007
his MI6 handler had been identified as Pablo Miller , and the
link between Skripal and Miller had been
described in detail
by Russian opposition media on 6 March.
This link between Skripal and Orbis may be relevant to the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, the founder of Orbis, containing
derogatory information on Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia. This dossier had been
used by the FBI
to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order authorizing surveillance of Trump's campaign. By early 2018
the unravelling of this story was creating serious difficulties for Steele and for those he had worked with. These difficulties included
a
referral for criminal investigation by two US Senators , a libel case in the US against the publisher of the dossier which had
led to a court ruling
that Steele should be questioned in an English court, and a
libel case in
England against Orbis and Steele. It is not difficult to postulate a situation in which the potential for damage to US-UK relations
could have provided a motive for actors on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that Sergei Skripal would not be available to give
evidence.
The UK government's position
This was summarized in a
letter from the National Security Adviser , Sir Mark Sedwill to the NATO Secretary-General on 13 April 2018. Sedwill's letter
made several assertions that were substantiated only by "intelligence":
By 1993, when Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, it is likely that some Novichoks had passed acceptance testing,
allowing their use by the Russian military
Russia further developed some Novichoks after ratifying the convention
During the 2000s, Russia commenced a programme to test means of delivering chemical warfare agents and to train personnel
from special units in the use of these weapons. This programme subsequently included investigation of ways of delivering nerve
agents, including by application to door handles.
In the mid-2000s, President Putin was closely involved in the Russian chemical weapons programme
Within the last decade Russia has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks
Appearing before the House of Commons Defence Committee on 1 May, Sedwill
(11:39) extolled the government's
reaction to the Salisbury incident as "an example of the Fusion Doctrine in practice". The
Fusion Doctrine
brings other government departments under the National Security Council with "the introduction of senior officials as senior responsible
owners to deliver each of the NSC's priorities".
Sedwill's
involvement in the preparation of the now
widely discredited dossier 'Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction' , released in September 2002, calls into question his credibility
in making these uncorroborated assertions. The UK government's case as set out by Sedwill is based on asserting that "only Russia
has the technical means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals". Each of these points is open to serious
criticism:-
Technical means: it is not seriously disputed that A-234 can be produced at bench scale in any organic chemistry lab.
Operational experience: it is alleged that Russia has a track record of state-sponsored assassination, but this does not support
the assertion that only Russia has the operational experience for such an assassination. On the contrary, the failure of the assassination
attempt, against two unprotected individuals, suggests that the perpetrators lacked the operational experience and competence
that one would expect of state-directed assassins.
Motive: no other attempted assassinations of defectors from Russian intelligence services have been recorded. If the Russian
state had decided to begin assassinating these defectors, it is unlikely that they would have chosen to start in March 2018, just
before the presidential election and three months before the FIFA World Cup. However, as noted above, it is possible to identify
motives for other actors to silence Sergei Skripal at this time.
Awesome journalism. The kind we sourly lack in the msm. But I guess they are all "bought and paid for" This whole story has looked
like a farce from the start, especially in the msm. Like they were making it up while they were going along Sounded like: (
https://www.crisis-solutions.com/ ) Who do exactly that sort of
thing.
My question is: Is it even likely that two people will touch the same door handle, either on their way in or out of the house?
Two people and two door handles (inside and outside).
When you leave together, only ONE person will touch the outside door handle, when closing the door, usually the last one to
leave, right?
The authors say " there are no known nerve agents that cause onset of symptoms delayed by several hours, "
A publication from 2009 contradicts this, but it seems to suggest that the onset is gradual rather than sudden:
"Even a lethal drop may require 30 minutes, rather than seconds, to manifest clinically, and a small, nonlethal drop may develop
symptoms over 18 hours."
This delayed reaction still does not explain the unbelievable timeline of the symptoms in the official British version of the
Skripal case. As the authors point out, that version is unlikely to be true, as it would mean that the two victims collapsed suddenly
and almost simultaneously after a long delay.
It is all the more unlikely, as Yulia should have collapsed later than Sergei, due to the difference in the skin layers in
men and women. Because the subcutaneous layer is thicker in women, the nerve agent's transit time is longer, according to Newmark's
piece.
Those comments by Newmark refer to absorption of nerve agent through the skin. This is in contrast to what he says about inhalation
of a large amount of vapour:
"In a vapor challenge of sufficient magnitude, perhaps 0.5 LCt50 or higher, the sequence of symptoms can be so fast as to seem
clinically simultaneous. Many patients have been described who, after a large vapor challenge, lost consciousness, seized, and
developed all of the other symptoms essentially within seconds of exposure."
This sudden attack due to vapour appears very consistent with the Skripals' inability to call for help when they collapsed.
Furthermore, for more than three weeks after the incident, the only methods of poisoning that were taken seriously involved
the inhalation of nerve agent. First, it was supposed to have been sprayed on the Skripals in the park. Later, it was believed
that Novichok in powder form had been placed in the ventilation system of Sergei's car.
As well as the rapid onset of symptoms of vapour inhalation, Newmark also describes its possible long term effects, which he contrasts
with those resulting from skin contact:
"Vapor nerve casualties, if removed from the source of contamination, or masked, and treated aggressively, either die or improve
rapidly. Humans metabolize a circulating nerve agent quickly if it does not kill them. No depot effect is observed with vapor
casualties. The situation is quite different with the patient who gets a drop of liquid nerve agent on the skin."
The most important part of that section is "Vapor nerve casualties either die or improve rapidly." This is consistent with
the prognosis for the Skripals both before and after their recovery.
For three weeks, Sergei and Yulia were given little chance of recovery. On Monday 26 March, Prime Minister Theresa May told
Parliament "Sadly, late last week doctors indicated that their condition is unlikely to change in the near future and that they
may never recover fully."
In the two days after that, others – who were close to the Skripals – put it more bluntly.
Viktoria Skripal, who is Sergei's niece and Yulia's cousin, told the BBC that there was "maybe 1 percent of hope" and that they
had "a very small chance of survival".
Ross Cassidy, a close friend and former neighbour of Sergei, told Sky News: "We've already been told they will be severely
mentally impaired and I don't think they would want that. I think death would probably be merciful."
Then on 29 March, Salisbury District Hospital unexpectedly said that "Yulia Skripal is improving rapidly and is no longer in
a critical condition." She was even "conscious and talking" at that stage, according to the BBC.
A few days later, she was able to phone Viktoria, who said she sounded perfectedly normal, and a few days after that, Yulia
was discharged from hospital. Around that time too, the hospital announced that Sergei's condition also improved rapidly.
All of this indicates a much greater likelihood that Yulia and Sergei were poisoned by means of inhalation than skin contact.
Not only that, but the doctors treating them, and the UK authorities, must have believed that too.
Bizarrely, however, one day before Yulia's rapid recovery was announced, the British police presented a new version of events
which begins with skin contact. This is the door handle story, where the Skripals first made contact with Novichok at the front
door of Sergei's house.
This version gives the impression that the investigators had not noticed the Novichok on the front door during the weeks of
intensive investigation by hundreds of officers! This is in spite of the fact that it was known that their colleague, Detective
Nick Bailey, had been to the house before he suffered from the effects of the nerve agent.
The unexpected announcements of both the door handle story and Yulia's rapid recovery within a day of one another, three weeks
after the incident, appears to be a remarkable coincidence in timing.
It reminds us of another such example that was already mentioned – the Skripals' collapse at almost the same time, hours after
touching the Novichok. That's part of the same unbelievable door handle theory.
This is just speculation, but the timing of the shift in narrative indicates that the UK authorities were afraid of what Yulia
might reveal. Now that she was "conscious and talking", she might even be able to help to identify the attackers.
Because of this, they may have wanted to discredit what she might say about what she noticed in the centre of Salisbury on
the day of the poisoning. By moving the crime scene to Sergei's house, the police could dismiss any such statements by Yulia as
irrelevant, or maybe as the result of hallucination caused by the nerve agent.
Just a summary of some facts about the Skripal case that might point to the means of poisoning. These all indicate that it was
not by skin contact, but much more likely by inhalation, or possibly ingestion. The first two facts match what the literature
says about nerve agent vapour:
– Rapid (instead of gradual) onset of the poison's effects in both victims at the same time.
– Grim prognosis, followed by rapid improvement ("Vapor nerve casualties either die or improve rapidly").
– The investigators' belief for weeks that the poison was either in aerosol or powder form or was added to food. (we can see
these scenarios both in the leaks to the media and in the focus of investigation in Salisbury town centre).
– In contrast, the apparent complete lack of belief for weeks in the door handle theory, which involves skin contact.
– The strange timing of the first mention of this version. It was presented – almost as a fact – after three and a half weeks
of intensive investigation, approximately on the day of Yulia's unexpected recovery.
This breifing proceeds on the premise that the Skripal's were exposed to A-234. I can not see that this has been established beyond
reasonable doubt.
If the information referred to by Segei Lavrov is reliable, it must pertain to environmental samples and not
biomedical samples. Presumably A-234 is a fast acting nerve paralyzing agent, it would therefore seem incongruous that the Skripals
could have had any significant exposure to it but be recovering fully (apparently).
Not least if they were exposed to it and then
initially assessed and treated for fentanyl exposure.
And how prescient of the MD of UK CBRN respirator-maker, Avon Protection, to write a piece on the BBC pretty much predicting a
chemical attack on a NATO member, possibly involving 'new super chemicals many times more potent than nerve agents like Sarin
and VX', just days before the Salisbury incident
The latest story is that the Kremlin targeted Sergei Skripal because he travelled to Prague and Estonia in order to provide security
officers with information on Russian espionage.
But wait isn't Estonia the place where another Salisbury resident, Skripal's alleged handler, Pablo Miller was based for years
as an MI6 agent?
And wasn't Prague the location of a meeting between Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen and Russian officials, as alleged in the Steele
Dossier?
And wasn't that meeting – just a couple of months after Skripal's trip to Estonia in 2016 – monitored by the Estonian secret
service, according to Newsweek?
And hasn't it been suggested in many places, including the article above, that Skripal's apparent connection with the Steele
Dossier could be a motive for some western spooks to want to silence him?
So the revelation of Sergei Skripal's trips to Prague and Estonia actually supports the evidence for his connection with the
dossier. However, they have been presented in the media as the opposite – as a motive for the Kremlin to try to kill him.
These latest media reports smell a lot like damage limitation. What do you do if you cannot stop an embarrassing fact from
being revealed? The best action is to spin it to completely change its significance, so that it shifts the blame onto your enemy.
Full marks for your work here – are there any updates coming in the light of recent events?
The way you've gone about this is particularly impressive and useful – posing questions and answering them as and when you
can.
This stands in rather stark contrast to a few of the more prominent 'company-liners' on twitter.
I've had a diverting, but not entirely fruitful, few exchanges with @dankaszeta on the subject of Novichok persistence and
the delayed, simultaneous, rapid onset story (to my mind the most obvious flaw in the Governments yarn). In April he was happy
enough to state that all OP chemicals degrade in the presence of water as it suited him in his, ahem, Myth Busting piece for politics.co.uk.
Now, however, it's all actually rather persistent and down to viscosity and all that. I fully understand how it might be were
it enclosed in a vial or syringe or something, but it all looked a bit like he was having his cake and eating it when he'd used
the hydrolysis argument to explain why the Skripals weren't killed (or why, I assume PC Bailey wasn't either).
Philip Ingrm (@PhilipIngMBE) chimed in on a recent thread – informing me that the persistence was why they (I'm assuming he
meant the Russians) decided to use Novichoks.
When it came to the delayed collapse story he told me that this was answered in
his, Kaszeta's or Hamish DBG's threads. It's a tactic that certainly Kaszeta has deployed more than once – feign weariness when
questions get tricky and then refer people to tweets they're too busy or tired to dig out themselves.
I told Ingram that I thought
this was a little lame and pointed him to this site by way of example of good practice.
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from
the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White
House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages
of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from
reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against
the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not
lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable
material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly
help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.
I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the
problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications
of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming
out about the British end of the conspiracy.
An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge
Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian
academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications
which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.
At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a
dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.
Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016
– a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with
Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’
This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance
of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come.
It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk
.)
Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This
points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians
might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic,
with Dearlove certainly among them.
Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:
‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to
cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes
#Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’
Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as
‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:
‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc
https://www.openinformation...’
There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental
Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a
written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.
In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves
‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.
The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium
whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium
member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.
A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian
organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible
explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.
An interesting paragraph reads as follows:
‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural
and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario
planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’
They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The
‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.
In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different
countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright
to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they
need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)
Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available
for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.
A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’,
where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch
is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’
It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to
the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’
done by their own people.
There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been
a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that
organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.
The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored
by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.
There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from
‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly
goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."
OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about
the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days
are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.
Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever
actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting
how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were
going to be mass defections.
It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think
tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though
much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right
to meddle in their internal affairs.
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their
hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate
with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens
the US.
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has
been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating
for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."
True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation
would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when
she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents
in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare
of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek
of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more
characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly
unbelievable.
In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against
Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?
There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping
the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan
and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting.
Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.
I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its
about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal
had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary,
increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.
And yet the chatterati
continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was
no more.
I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go.
This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House.
It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.
There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion
is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their
facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising
inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire
crashes we may not be so fortunate.
Money quote: "Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots
that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets
should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion.
But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union. "
Notable quotes:
"... Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally. ..."
"... There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge. ..."
In 2016, Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov, a well-known Russian film-maker, playwright, theater director, and actor, released a docudrama
entitled, The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes . Although the film won many artistic accolades, including a special commendation
from the Prix Europa Award for a Television Documentary, public screenings were abruptly canceled in both Europe and the United States.
Political pressure from various constituents and the threat of lawsuits from William Browder, the American-British billionaire and
human-rights activist, ensured the limitation of the film to a single website. To the knowledge of this author, there has been only
one public screening of The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes in the United States. In June 2016, Seymour Hersch, a renowned investigative
journalist, presided over a showing of the film at the Newseum in Washington, DC, that generated much controversy. The American press
has not been kind to either the film or the director, Andrei Nekrasov. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker,
and The Daily Beast all seem to agree that the film is an overt work of Russian propaganda that aims to introduce confusion
about the circumstances leading to the death of tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, in the minds of the viewers. The Putin administration,
which has been the prime target of both the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Accountability Act and the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act, has good reason to promote a film that questions the circumstances surrounding Magnitsky's untimely death
in Moscow's Butyrka Prison in 2009.
Despite a flood of persuasive articles and editorials by well-known journalists suggesting that this inconvenient film deserves
no more than a quick burial, I was drawn to reconsider both the film and the political controversy that it continues to create for
two main reasons. First, as the collapse of the Soviet Union and our own recent presidential campaigns show, we can never entirely
prohibit the intrusion of propaganda or politically slanted content into the public sphere. Instead, as a historian and faculty member
who serves at a public university, I believe that it is my job to teach our students how to diagnose an issue, and how to consider
the many sides that a story necessarily involves. As an intellectual process this has immense value both in and of itself. Source
criticism is a time tested and reliable means through which we can make sense of an event or a phenomenon. Our students need to learn
both the mechanics and the intellectual value of analyzing a source and should be able to evaluate the nature of political content
whether it is embedded in a Facebook post, a scholarly article, or a documentary.
The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes can serve as an important vehicle to introduce the contested nature of historical
truth, and as a prism, it allows us to view the multiple modes through which various versions of the truth are disseminated in the
twenty-first century. Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a
real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating
analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative.
The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's
death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary.
Second, I am concerned by the fact that both critics and supporters have turned the debate about the film into a referendum on
William Browder, his business dealings as well as his global human rights activism, and the Putin administration. In this interview
with Andrei Nekrasov, I turn the spotlight back on the film-maker, his motivations for making the film, and on his political experiences
since the release of the film. It is important to remember that in the past Nekrasov has made several politically charged films including
Disbelief (2004), and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File (2007) -- films that are extremely critical of the
Putin administration. Nekrasov, a student of philosophy and literature, is in the unique position of having experienced censorship
in the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States.
1) Why did you want to make a film about the Magnitsky Act? What drew you to this project?
Andrei Nekrasov : I felt that the story of Magnitsky, in its accepted version, was very powerful and important. I thought that
Sergei Magnitsky was a hero, and I wanted to tell the story of the modern hero, my compatriot. His case seemed very special because
Magnitsky, a tax lawyer (in reality, an accountant) had come from the world of capitalism, to symbolize all that is good and moral
in modern Russia. I believed that Magnitsky did not surrender under torture and sacrificed his life fighting corruption.
2) Who has funded the making of this film and what motivated them to invest in this production?
AN : The film was produced by Piraya Film, a Norwegian company. There is a long list of funders, and none are from Russia. (Please
visit www.magnitskyact.com for further information). And they are all
very "mainstream." I believe in the United States and Russia it is easier to construe the specific reasons that motivate funders,
who are mostly private, to support a project. In Europe, where more public money is available for the arts, the state is more or
less obliged to fund the cultural process. So I submit an idea to a producer, and if they like it, they introduce it into a complex
system of funding that is supposed to be politically neutral. Only quality matters, in theory. In practice "quality" has political
aspects, and its interpretation is open to prejudices.
But it would be a simplification to say the film was funded because I had set out to tell Browder's version of the Magnitsky case.
Those funders who were (through their commissioning editors) monitoring the editing process, ZDF/ARTE, for example, became aware
of the inconsistencies in Browder's version and supported my investigation into the truth. What they did not realize was who, and
what, we were all dealing with. They did not realize that Browder was supported by the entire political system of North America and
Western Europe. They realized that only when they were told by politicians to stop the film. And they obeyed, contrary to what I
thought was their principles.
3) How has the role of censorship, both in Russia and the West, affected your artistic career?
AN : Censorship has had a very strong and damaging impact on my career. But while censorship in Russia had never been something
surprising to me, the way that the film T he Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes was treated by western politicians was totally
unanticipated and shocking. Yet, intellectually, the experience was very illuminating. The pro-Western intelligentsia of Russia,
a class to which I have belonged, idolizes the West and believes that the freedom of expression is an essential and even intrinsic
part of Western culture. The notion that the interests of economically powerful groups can set a geopolitical agenda and that easily
overrides democratic freedom of expression is considered to be a remnant of Soviet era thinking. So I had to have a direct and personal
experience of Western censorship to realize that that notion is rooted in reality.
The issue of censorship in Russia is, on the other hand, often misunderstood in the West. There is no direct political censorship
of the kind that existed in the Soviet Union, and that possibly exists in countries like China today. Many popular Russian news outlets
are critical of the government, and of Putin personally as evidenced by the content in media outlets such as Ekho Moskvy, Novaya
Gazeta, Dozhd TV, New Times, Vedomosti, Colta. ru, and others. The internet is full of mockery of Putin, his ministers and of
his party's representatives. There is neither a system nor the kind of wellresourced deep state structures that control the flow
of information. Many Russian media outlets, for example, repeat Browder's story of Magnitsky killed by the corrupt police with the
state covering it up. All that is perfectly "allowed" while Putin angrily condemns Browder as a criminal and Browder calls himself
Putin's number one enemy. In reality, it is not allowed but simply happens because of the lack of consistent political censorship.
However, you will hardly ever hear a proper analysis and criticism in the Russian media of the big corporations, and of the oligarchs
that make up the state. It is also true that such acute crises as military operations, such as Russian-Georgian war of 2008 produce
intolerance to the voices of the opposition. My film Russian Lessons (2008) about the suffering of the Georgians during that
short war and its aftermath wasbanned in Russia. But nationalism is not only a government policy. It's the prevailing mood. The supposedly
democratic leader of the opposition, that the West seems to praise and support, Alexei Navalny, was on the record insulting Georgians
in jingo-nationalistic posts during the war. The film industry is, of course, easier to steer in the "right direction" as films,
unlike articles and essays, are very expensive to produce. But Russia is a complex society, deeply troubled, but also misunderstood
by the West. If my films, such as Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File , and Russian Lessons (2010) were attacked
by pro-government media, then some of my articles were censored by the independent, "opposition" outlets, such as Ekho Moskvy
.
4) Did you actually begin filming the movie with an outcome of supporting Browder's story in mind, as you represent in the
film, or did you plan from the start of the filming process to end the film as it now stands?
AN : I started filming the story. I totally believed in the story that Browder had told me, and all the mainstream media repeated
after him.
5) You know that there are many more "disappeared" journalists and others listed in the formal US Congress Magnitsky Act
who have suffered from the effects of corrupt power in Russia. Why did you not address the fates of some of those others as well
in your film?
AN : I may be misunderstanding this question, but I do not see how addressing the fates of "disappeared" journalists and others'
would be relevant to the topic of my film in its final version. I obviously condemn the "disappearance" of journalists and others.
In Russia journalists disappear usually by being "simply" shot (not in "sophisticated" Saudi ways), and as far as I remember only
one is referred to in The Magnitsky Act , Paul Khlebnikov. He was the editor of Forbes, Russia , and was shot in 2004
when Bill Browder was a great fan of Vladimir Putin and continued to be for some time. I have not seen any evidence or even claim,
that Putin may have been behind that murder. I was a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps the most famous of all Russian journalists
who was assassinated in the recent past. She is featured in my film, Poisoned by Polonium .
The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a
fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally
sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international
organizations.
6) Does William Browder's role in the formulation of the Magnitsky Act invalidate its value and that of the Global
Magnitsky Act, in seeking to provide protection for those suffering from the effects of deadly and corrupt power such as the recently
deceased Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?
AN : Let me, for the argument's sake, pose myself what would seem like a version of your question: "Would Browder's role in creating
a weapon that could protect someone like Khashoggi from deadly and corrupt power invalidate that weapon?" My answer would be, no,
it would not invalidate that weapon. However, we are dealing with a fallacy here, in my humble opinion. The Magnitsky Act, in
my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of
Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was
he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never
mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people
named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen
and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights
of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent
investigator or judge.
Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West
is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be
built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But
the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union.
Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee, along with Steven Marks,
Mary Neuberger, and Steve Sabol, edited The Wider Arc of Revolution in three volumes (Slavica Publishers).
Fred - I don't think it's going to go away that easily. This is the BBC web site today, again
keeping alive much the same theme as your man of courage. We're moving on from whether Trump
was a Russian agent to whether Trump deliberately attempted to stop us finding out whether he
was a Russian agent -
"But Mr Mueller declined to draw a conclusion on whether Mr Trump had obstructed
justice, saying only that the president could not be exonerated.
Attorney General Barr, who was appointed by the president, concluded in his summary of
the report that there was not enough evidence to determine if the president had committed the
offence."
So it's too useful a theme to be let go entirely, and fits with the general suspicion of
Russian interference.
It's a difficult one, that. Looking at the Integrity Initiative and 77 Brigade it's clear
that information warfare at all levels - academia, the media, on down to the little
subsidized web sites and right on down to the individuals who are paid to insert comments on
social media - is now regarded in England as an integral part of Intelligence work.
Presumably everyone else is doing it too so why not the Russians? But to trace the huge
political movements of our time back to Moscow, as if they were due to sinister Russians
cleverly playing us via social media and other propaganda outlets, seems to me to be grossly
overdone. After all, if it were that easy it would have worked for the West too. Iran would
now be another Syria and Syria long since gone.
No, even the most ardent Russophobes on our side of the Atlantic might have to admit
sometimes that the reason we're screwed up in Europe at present is that we've screwed
ourselves up. We are not uniformly happy prosperous peoples who would continue to be
uniformly happy and prosperous were it not for Moscow. So it must be in the States.
Even so, the Russians are still the get-out for many. On English web sites "Putin done it"
surfaces regularly as the reason for us voting Brexit. There were suggestions that he had
stirred up the Yellow Vests in France. The Italians are sometimes viewed with suspicion for
the same reason.
And I got caught up in an unusual traffic hold-up just this morning. I can't prove to you
it was the Russians. But can you prove to me it wasn't?
What sets disinformation apart from other forms of manipulative or persuasive
content
Why today's information environment amplifies disinformation
What is Disinformation? Is it Different from Propaganda?
Disinformation is a relatively new word. Most observers
trace it back to the Russian word dezinformatsiya , which Soviet planners in the
1950s defined as "dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended
to mislead public opinion." Others suggest that the
earliest use of the term originated in 1930s Nazi Germany. In either case, it is much younger
(and less commonly used) than ' propaganda, ' which originated in
the 1600s and generally connotes the selective use of information for political effect.
Whether and to what degree these terms overlap is subject to debate. Some define propaganda
as the use of non-rational arguments to either advance or undermine a political ideal, and
use disinformation as an alternative name for undermining propaganda. Others consider
them to be separate concepts altogether. One popular distinction holds that disinformation
also describes politically motivated messaging designed explicitly to engender public
cynicism, uncertainty, apathy, distrust, and paranoia, all of which disincentivize citizen
engagement and mobilization for social or political change. "Misinformation," meanwhile,
generally refers to
the inadvertent sharing of false information.
Analysts generally
agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily composed of outright
lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts, stripped of context or blended
with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is always part of a larger plan or
agenda. In the Russian context, observers
have described its use to pursue Moscow's foreign policy goals through a "4D" offensive:
dismiss an opponent's claims or allegations, distort events to serve political
purposes, distract from one's own activities, and dismay those who might
otherwise oppose one's goals.
Analysts generally agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily
composed of outright lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts,
stripped of context or blended with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is
always part of a larger plan or agenda."
Disinformation in the Digital Age
The reemerging interest in disinformation is
not because such techniques are novel. There are similarities between the contemporary 4D
model and, for example, Soviet active
measures . Rather, a
growingconsensus
asserts that while the use of disinformation is not new, the digital revolution has
greatly enhanced public vulnerability to manipulation by information -- a trend which is
predicted to continue .
In part, these changes have been wrought by the advent of
new social media platforms and their growing dominance over advertising revenues.
This shift in the media funding environment has weakened traditional media gatekeepers,
changed incentives for content providers, and promoted the rise of unprofessional and/or
unscrupulous outlets capable of drawing large audiences at a low cost. As digital advertising
assumes an ever-larger role in shaping news consumption, targeted advertising allows for more
sophisticated forms of propaganda: for example, in September of 2017, Facebook
disclosed that roughly 3,000 ads related to divisive US political issues were purchased
by a network of 470 accounts and pages suspected to be run out of Russia. The company says
that at
least a quarter of those ads were geographically targeted. Twitter
later deleted two hundred accounts linked to those same Facebook accounts and pages and
revealed that in 2016, the Russian state-funded broadcaster RT spent $274,100 on advertising
targeting users in the United States.
Research suggests the total scale of "low quality political information" on those
platforms during the 2016 US elections was much larger, particularly in swing states. The
degree of Russian influence on this market for digital disinformation is unknown;
post-election, researchers are launching new efforts to track and analyze
it.
Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading
content found on the internet, especially on social media."
The Rise of 'Fake News'
The role of disinformation in recent elections has given rise to another distinct, but
related, term: '
fake news .'
Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading
content found on the internet, especially on social media. One analysis lays
out five types of fake news, including intentionally deceptive content, jokes taken at face
value, large-scale hoaxes, slanted reporting of real facts, and coverage where the truth may
be uncertain or contentious. These are not new: an
example of fake news from 2011 involves websites masquerading as real news organizations
to spread false information about the health benefits of acai berries.
Much of this content is produced by for-profit websites and Facebook pages
gaming the platform for advertising revenue. By producing tailored false content targeted
at the views, concerns, and preferences of social media users, these pages can generate tens
of thousands of interactions and thousands of dollars a month. In 2015, Facebook began
taking steps
to curtail this content, which it called a form of "news feed spam." By 2016, it became clear
the problem was growing out of control. Fabricated and fiercely partisan political content --
much of it
produced abroad for profit -- in some instances
outpaced engagement with credible mainstream news outlets.
Facebook initially downplayed the
potential influence of fake news, although it also pledged to pursue a response involving
expanded partnerships with fact-checkers, increased emphasis on detection and reporting,
warning labels for untrustworthy stories, and a crackdown on for-profit fake news pages.
Twitter
also reacted , developing an experimental prototype feature to allow users to report
"fake news" and exploring the use of machine learning to detect automated accounts spreading
political content.
Is Fake News Disinformation?
More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or
propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to a
larger agenda. One attempt to classify
various types of misleading and manipulative news content separates misinformation
(inadvertent sharing of false information) from disinformation, which is deliberate, and
arranges examples by motivation and degree of deception. Most of the fake news described
above falls somewhere in the middle: not inadvertent, but motivated by profit rather than
influence. To the degree that its purpose can be described as political, fake news begins to
resemble more insidious content.
Fake news' political prominence does have lessons for analysts of disinformation. Fake
news draws audiences because it validates their political preconceptions and worldviews,
capitalizing on media consumers' confirmation
bias . Many argue that because social media curates content according to user
preferences, it has a
polarizing effect that leaves consumers more vulnerable to manipulation in this way.
Political actors have been able to use this to their advantage by producing incendiary
content that spreads rapidly through grassroots online networks (some call this "
political astroturfing ").
More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or
propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to
a larger agenda."
Marketing, Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, and other "Information
Campaigns"
Some analysts also differentiate
between various types of "information campaigns" -- organized attempts to communicate with
large groups of individuals -- which may include marketing, public affairs, and public
diplomacy. All of these terms are worth disentangling from each other and from propaganda and
disinformation writ large.
Marketing and public relations rely on a mix of facts, opinions, and emotional cues to
persuade audiences and build affinity between individuals and brands or organizations. As
promotional activities meant to augment or protect the reputation of the messenger, their
goals may be commercial or political, or they may simply aim to generate publicity. Similarly
promotional is public diplomacy, which states utilize to represent their viewpoints to
foreign audiences and promote positive associations with that country among foreign publics.
Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes
itself from propaganda by never intentionally spreading false information or relying on
non-rational means of persuasion (though marketing and public relations, of course, may rely
on such non-rational devices).
Marketing, public relations, public diplomacy, and similar information campaigns are all
related to the field of " strategic
communication ," broadly defined as the purposeful use of information and messaging to
advance the mission of a given organization, be it a corporate, government, non-profit, or
military actor. In the military context, a 2007 paper
from the U.S. Army War College emphasizes that strategic communication in a military
context aims to influence adversaries, reassure allies, and persuade publics. Because it may
be impossible to deceive one of these audiences without deceiving others, some
advocate that "deception should be rigorously forbidden in strategic communication" and
that the use of disinformation should never fall under the rubric of strategic
communication.
Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes itself from propaganda by never intentionally
spreading false information or relying on non-rational means of persuasion."
Intent as a Distinguishing Feature
Some
argue the intent of the messenger is crucial to distinguishing between different types of
messages. This makes it difficult to draw a bright, clear line between marketing, public
relations, and public diplomacy, on one side, and propaganda and disinformation on the other.
This is especially true when the content in question includes both objective fact and
subjective interpretation but no clear falsehood, because it may be unclear whether the
message reflects a genuine perspective or an intent to mislead. When content does include
falsehoods, it may be unclear whether they are accidental or purposeful.
If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or
attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences' understanding
or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its undermining
function. This is not solely the realm of the state:
many activities undertaken by
non-state actors may also fit this description.
If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or
attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences'
understanding or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its
undermining function."
Information Operations as a Tool of Political Influence
Information campaigns with these goals in mind are now sometimes referred to as
"information operations," a term until recently used primarily by defense officials in
referring broadly to the use of communications in military operations. In April 2017,
Facebook
described "information (or influence) operations" on the platform, which aim "to achieve
a strategic and/or geopolitical outcome" using "a combination of methods, such as false news,
disinformation, or networks of fake accounts (false amplifiers) aimed at manipulating public
opinion." In the run-up to the 2017 French presidential election, Facebook deleted 30,000
fake French accounts from the platform, providing a sense of the scale these operations can
reach.
In that election, an information operation (
likely of Russian origin ) released
hacked documents just before the beginning of a legally mandated election news blackout
in order to damage the campaign of Emmanuel Macron, the eventual winner. The manipulation of
information has been a
feature of Syria's civil war since the conflict's beginning.
Research from a diverse set of country case studies suggests that a wide array of
political, military, and private actors now routinely use social media to manipulate public
opinion. Italy's populist Five Star Movement, for instance,
is tied to a large constellation of online disinformation outlets. Taiwanese democracy
must grapple with both
domestic and cross-strait sources of disinformation. Information operations, including
those involving the use of disinformation during elections, are likely to remain a tool of
political influence well into the foreseeable future.
Brief prepared by Dean Jackson, International Forum for Democratic Studies.
It is now apparent with the
release
of the Mueller investigation findings
, that the great storm that has embattled the US
government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US
elections,
originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of
rhetoric driven by partisan corporate media.
One certainty though is the Western
narrative of Russia as a 'malign influence' will not go away.
While America's liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the
influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the
catastrophic
US
meddling in Ukraine
in 2014 and the subsequent
reunification
of Crimea with Russia
.
The question is how can the narrative of 'malign Russian influence' be kept going?
Mainstream media will continue its role in this, but Western governments are also pouring
resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others.
This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project
known as the
Integrity
Initiative
, revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of
organisations across Europe to counter 'Russian disinformation'.
The following is a look at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European
populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real
xenophobic racism, or Russophobia.
While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not
to find some of the EU's counter-propaganda material quite funny.
If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the
National
Endowment for Democracy
which
funds
regime change
in the service of US corporate interests, has its own
definition
,
but it's not important – so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem. In fact,
if we search the word 'disinformation,' a good number of the results tell us it originated in
Russia and is the baby of Stalin or the KGB. If we are not careful, we could end up thinking that
dishonesty is an inherent characteristic of Russians, a view actually
promoted
by
the former US Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper
, who,
coincidentally was caught '
wilfully
'
lying
to
Congress.
The view of Russians being hard-wired for corruption was also promoted by the
New York Times
in
an article published in February,
The
Putin I knew; the Putin I know
, written by Franz J Sedelmeyer, exposing deep prejudice
behind the corporate media's shallow identity politics.
But this narrative fails to credit the CIA, which has spent decades crafting skills
carrying out the most grotesque deceptions in history targeted abroad and at home.
To
leave out the role of the CIA in disinformation must be the equivalent of writing an omelette
recipe and leaving out the eggs. In fact, the CIA doesn't just carry out disinformation campaigns,
as Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA described it:
the
CIA manufactures history
. Not to recognise American intelligence services or government in
the history of disinformation while painting Russia as its mother is to deprive America of the
recognition it deserves for one of its most notable institutions. Somewhat ironically, you can
learn all about the history of disinformation from both
Google
and
the
National
Endowment for Democracy
which are two entities which have received financial support from the
CIA.
What about the EU? Does Brussels think that Russia is an inherently dishonest nation? Are they
aware that the CIA could be manufacturing Europe's history this very moment? Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs) so concerned about disinformation might want to study the documented
atrocities
of
the CIA, some of which were carried out in Europe. Perhaps they are not aware of the
US
intelligence services' role
in the history of subterfuge in Europe:
memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a
fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American
wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.
Paradoxically, given the probability rate of the CIA meddling in the EU, MEPs should consider
putting out a public warning:
The CIA is the most likely source of disinformation in Europe today. It manufactures
crises – and we've plenty of those.
But none of it. Instead, the European Parliament is fixated on ensuring its populations
fear
Russia
and are accepting of the narratives pushed on them. The EU released a new
report
this
month repeating the narratives it has been accumulating to justify increasing actions against
Russia, particularly since 2014 following the reunification of Crimea. It has passed a resolution
stating that Russia could no longer be considered a strategic partner of the EU:
While condemning the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia's
continued violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, Members stressed that
the EU cannot envisage a gradual return to business as usual until Russia fully implements the
Minsk Agreement and restores the territorial integrity of Ukraine
Members condemned Russia's involvement in the Skripal case, and in disinformation
campaigns and cyberattacks carried out by the Russian intelligence services aimed at
destabilising public and private communications infrastructure and at increasing tensions within
the EU and its Member States
They are concerned about the relations between the Russian government and the extreme
right-wing and populist nationalist parties and governments in the EU, such as in Hungary. They
also recalled that the interference of Russian state actors in the referendum campaign on Brexit
is currently under investigation by the UK authorities
As Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner in the current circumstances,
Members believe that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be reconsidered
As well as the coordinated strategic isolation of Russia by the EU, members of the G7 have
signed up to a
Rapid
Response Mechanism
(RRM) designed to:
see hostile states publicly 'called out' for their egregious behaviour – with coordinated
international attribution of cyber and other attacks.
The agreement involves
sharing intelligence
,
attribution of hostile activity
and
forming a
common narrative and response,
effectively a military-like propaganda
coordination between the countries that can be applied for a chosen agenda.
To protect its version of history the EU has created
mechanisms
to
fight off alternative realities, narratives, or truths – which ever word fits – claiming any fact
or opinion contrary to those of the stated EU decree must be condemned as pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian,
or 'Putinist', a derogatory depiction presently supported by the corporate media. The EU claims
these 'alternative narratives' are the product of a Russian disinformation campaign and has
developed resources to 'disprove' that disinformation. These are the EU vanguards of
truth
set
up and funded by the European Council in 2015: the
European External Action Service East
Stratcom Task Force
or unaffectionately known here as Team
East
Stratcom
. A brief study of their work only leads to further concerns about who is
manufacturing history, but also to the likely conclusion that Team East Stratcom is made up of
media studies students who drink beer and watch RT all day.
Here's how Team East Stratcom describes itself in a Q&A:
Does the team engage in counter-propaganda?
No. It identifies and corrects disinformation
Counter-propaganda vs correct disinformation (you say tomatto, I say tomayto).
Julian King, the EU's security commissioner, has described it as a
counter-propaganda
cell
. Come on Brussels, make up your mind.
What does Team East StratCom do, and what is the role of its website
EUVDisinfo
?
The Task Force reports on and analyses disinformation trends, explains and exposes
disinformation narratives, and raises awareness of disinformation coming from Russian State,
Russian sources and spread in the Eastern neighbourhood media space
RUSSIAN MEMES: Official EU conspiracy theory diagram explains how 'Russian disinfo'
permeates mainstream western discourse (
EU
External Action
2017)
Firstly, who defines what is disinformation? Is it just assumed that any information emanating
from a Russian media outlet is automatically disinformation?
Narratives and sources. Does this mean that any narrative which matches a Russian one is then
classed as
Russian
in origin? If a Western alternative media outlet publishes a narrative
which happens to match that of a Russian media outlet, does this then mean that the said
alternative media outlet is 'under Russian influence', or 'in league with the Kremlin'? Could such
a politicized method of labelling lead to potential McCarthyite targeting of independent
journalists?
The Task Force does not target opinions and does not seek to "blacklist" anyone. It
checks facts and identifies disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian language and
Eastern
Neighbourhood
media. It focuses on the disinformation message, not the messenger.
Yet, individual journalists are identified in many of these so-called 'disinformation cases' and
described as supporters of one leader or other on the EU's list of bogeymen. Team East StratCom –
there is no need to be shy about McCarthyism. Certain mainstream media stalwarts of establishment
narratives are more upfront about whom they do and do not want in the club, as Oliver Kamm of
The
Times
has demonstrated:
For an agency already struggling with the concept of truth, Team
East StratCom
is
not off to a great start.
So how does Team East StratCom protect EU narratives? The European Council made it
clear
in
2015 they wanted to counter narratives about
regime
change
in
Ukraine
and
its consequences. In fact, about half of its 'disinformation cases' are about Ukraine:
Ukraine tops the EUvsDisinfo database as the most frequent target with 461 references among
a total of 1,000 disinformation cases reported in the course of 2018.
So how does Team East StratCom counter propaganda sorry correct disinformation? The following
are a few case samples that help to illuminate their methodologies (although with a budget increase
from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019, it may find new and diverse ones):
Disinformation Example 1: Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe
Team East StratCom argues that undermining the credibility of Ukraine benefits Russia. It
reports that RT Deutsch described Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe. It then tries to
debunk this using
Transparency International
's
corruption perception index, a chart which is created and paid for by Western neoliberal
governments – the same ones that help to keep corrupt governments in power so long as they provide
opportunities to serve Western corporate interests.
Team East StratCom tries to disprove this case by drawing our attention away from corruption in
Europe to corruption worldwide. This puts 60 countries ahead of Ukraine. That is sneaky Team East
StratCom because, aside from Russia, which we must believe is the most corrupt country in Europe,
Ukraine actually tops the list. So why does the EU want to hide the extent of corruption in
Ukraine and is it the only thing being hidden about the country? According to Russian Foreign
Ministry Spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova
the West wants
to stop the world from recognising Crimea as part of Russia's territory. In order to do this it
must maintain a manufactured reality; the narrative of Ukraine being a victim of Russian aggression
and in no way a liability due, at least in part, to the West's meddling. This approach also entails
downplaying any suggestion that
the
West planned and orchestrated
a
coup d'etat
in Kiev in February 2014.
Disinformation Example 2: Far-right groups in Ukraine
This extract by Team East StratCom criticises the reporting of far-right groups in Ukraine:
Dehumanise, demoralise, make Ukraine the guilty party
Pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukraine targets audiences in Russia, in Ukraine and in
third countries, including the West. Domestic audiences in Russia are e.g. faced with
narratives which dehumanise Ukrainians and show the authorities in Kyiv as a cynical modern heir
to 20th century Nazism. Such a strategy can turn Ukraine into an acceptable target of the
Kremlin's military aggression.
The involvement of far right groups in the run-up to and during 2014 Maidan events and
since
,
has already been widely reported across much of the global mainstream media, for example,
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
and
here
,
as well as in alternate media. To suggest that this narrative is Russian disinformation is
ludicrous. What's more, the
European
Parliament
have already recognised in 2012 the threat of the far-right parties like Svoboda and
Pravi Sektor in Ukrainian politics:
Parliament goes on to express concern about the rising nationalistic sentiment in
Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new
parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada. It recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views
go against the EU's fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic
parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.
Team East StratCom, you are implying the EU dehumanised Ukraine! But then the EU did later
drop
its
objection as members of the same racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic party
gained
positions in Ukraine's government
, so perhaps you will be forgiven. Perhaps sowing a little
confusion of its own, is Brussels.
Disinformation Example 3: Russia is depicted as a 'defender' and a 'peacekeeper' and
the West – as the villain
.
Team East Stratcom likes using Twitter graphics as evidence when 'disproving pro-Kremlin
disinformation.' Never mind history, reason and common sense – just bring out a nice Twitter
graphic! According to disinfo mavens, any spike in Twitter activity with the words 'Russia'
'Moscow' or 'Putin' in reference to Venezuela is proof of a 'pro-Kremlin' disinformation campaign,
says Team East StratCom. Here is
their
graphical chart
of Twitter traffic:
But Russia is an ally of Venezuela so why would this not be reflected on Twitter when there is a
blatant attempt by a Western aggressor to impose its military and economic will on Venezuela? Such
was the situation in February when the US tried to pressure the Venezuelan government into allowing
in trucks, supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, into the country. Aid as a Trojan Horse for
weapons has historical context, especially with regards to the US and its new special envoy to
Venezuela,
Elliot Abrams
, a
convicted
war criminal
who illicitly supplied weapons to death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Guatemala on behalf of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. Now that he is special envoy to
Venezuela, it is common sense to suspect foul play. Can such people really be seen as peacekeepers,
Team East Stratcom? And using a Twitter graphic to divert attention from a flagrant coup attempt by
an aggressive power is more than a little contemptible. What's more, a few days afterwards, one of
those trucks carrying supplies was found to contain nails and other materials useful for making
barricades:
And so to sum up the tactics used by Team East StratCom for 'disproving pro-Kremlin
disinformation', based on the above cases alone, a list could include for starters:
Categorical denial of any wrongdoing by Western powers or NATO members
Label any information emanating from a Russia media outlet as 'disinformation' or
'Kremlin propaganda'
Discredit alternate media journalists who stray from Official
Washington/London/Brussels position
Diversion and distraction – dazzle the public with colourful Twitter graphics
Remove any key political, geopolitical context
Obscure or erase history
Use of online tools like the Corruption Index promoted by same Western governments
that fund bloody imperialist wars
Use emotive, jingoistic themes
Associate perceived ideological opponents with leaders on Western bogeyman list
Repetition of pejorative terms and ad hominem smears such as 'pro-Kremlin' and'
'Putinist' to create division
Infer that any dissenter in the West is a 'traitor.'
But Team East StratCom can't erase history or delete context or bore us half to death
with those Twitter graphics and still expect to retain their credibility.
What's more, given the Russia-Trump collusion narrative has been exposed as a hoax, Team East
StratCom really ought to
let
that one go
.
"... The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years. ..."
"... It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land. ..."
"... Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans. ..."
"... The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other. ..."
"... The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system. ..."
The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates
the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people
will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been
systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years.
It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people.
Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any
kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land.
Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum
level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because
Russians are subhumans.
Whatever they do, it's always wrong, bad, oppressive, etc. Russians are bad because they're bad. They must be "taught a lesson",
"put into their place". It would, of course, be beneficial and highly profitable for Europeans to break with Anglo-Saxons and
to live in peace and harmony with Russia, but Europeans simply can not overcome their racism towards Russians. The young Europeans
are just as racist, with their incessant memes about "squatting Russians in tracksuits", "drunken Russians", etc., as if there's
nothing else that is notable about a country of 147 million people.
The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of
Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored,
as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring
with each other.
The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call
their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course,
endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language
with the same Cyrillic writing system.
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ).
The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no
American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
the "Steele dossier" that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds
from Hillary Clinton
's campaign and the Democratic Party;
Christopher Steele, the dossier's author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to
defeat Trump;
most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia
collusion; and
agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during
interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.
Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and
every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.
An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that
accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying
all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill
------------
Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for
conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been
defeated.
The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously
used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make
an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to
overturn the results of elections.
At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary
Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever,
clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the
even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British
intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose
staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.
The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while
gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search
through Trump's life trying to find criminality.
AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results
of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin.
pl
I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee –
Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled
against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this
conspiracy.
It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a
strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' –
notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which
case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.
The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence
relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this
side.
In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to
the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of
intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us
to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.
Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an
intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years
it patently has not been.
Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on
ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.
I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -
"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with
Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US
political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and
spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York.
"
What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the
moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?
The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated.
The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of
violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.
Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an
odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers
nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it
turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.
With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own
interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence
Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when
that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny
pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et
al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a
candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC
1001.
The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've
argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of
garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the
information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on
by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be
necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This
could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he
heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would
figure it out.
Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called
professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their
partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to
handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but
proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.
They couldn't know
that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals
would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information
represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the
information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the
horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted"
positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there
it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."
Perhaps this defense could be overcome by
demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible
be so stupid... maybe.
And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings,
all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty
trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic
tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.
So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather
than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed
by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the
country is so uncertain.
I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the
sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the
chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right.
It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and
that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres
as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before
congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy
grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or
somehow intimated by Trump.
The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;
and that
+ all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is
going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled
banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that
should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the
criminal cases under way?
On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the
Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this
video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6
minute, 5 second mark, he says--
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election
result."
Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results
of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly
pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.
However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based
on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly
unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a
weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection"
operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such
obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)
I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings
are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But
I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made
things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are
seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly
support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat
of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?
I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs
to be restitution.
To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as
political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in
suicide or worse - so far.
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a
shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete
malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup
plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the
aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity
into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.
I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd
and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!
Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise
or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a
chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.
And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to
high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious
to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting?
The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the
Democrat-media party.
Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out
deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the
Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find
something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories
or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report.
It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not
among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the
campaign.
That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians
didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for
supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the
Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been
doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but
there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems
to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp
of the real nature of normal political process.
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."
Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential
election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians
interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone
associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016
U.S. presidential election. As the report states: `[T]he investigation did not establish that
members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its
election interference activities.' |"
From page one of the Barr letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and
Senate Judiciary Committees.
https://www.scribd.com/document/402973432/AG-March-24-2019-Letter-to-House-and-Senate-Judiciary-Committees#from_embed
Some call this merely the "end of the beginning." Further revelations will be emerging,
including from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. " J ustice Department
Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating
possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their
investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign," reported the
Washington Examiner this week.
However, AG Barr's letter retells the tale of Russian Interference in our elections,
according to Mr. Mueller and his team's investigation and indictments. So, the anti-Trump
camp will undoubtedly continue to question the 2016 election results, and blame the defeat of
HRC on the "Reds." One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British
Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.
David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials
to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.
In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste
Wallander.
In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December
2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain
asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.
"And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.
"Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went
to Director Comey."
Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier
and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."
Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.
"I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's,"
he said.
"She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status
of it."
In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News
who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom.
That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.
BuzzFeed infamously
published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.
Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated
requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office
by this reporter.
In his
book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he
would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.
Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort
to have the anti-Trump charges verified.
The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first
reported
the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified
documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.
Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.
"I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat,
I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.
The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion
GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie
law firm.
Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier
that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion.
Also Comey
cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a
former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges
a credibility boost.
Nuland and dossier
Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.
In their
book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's
claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with
Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.
Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:
There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria
Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have
been generally credible, gave the green light.
Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy
of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked,
"I have to report this to headquarters."
The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's
general work.
Nuland faced confirmation
questions
prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration
talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her
reported changes sought to protect
Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in
Benghazi.
Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.
Sidney Blumenthal
An extensive New Yorker profile
of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The
magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of
the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.
Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing
and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with
Nuland.
After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington
Post
oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.
Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime
Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which
Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.
Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts
There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.
Nuland described in a Politico podcast
interview
what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.
She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries
that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could
not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive
branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.
In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele
to the FBI.
Here is a transcript of the
relevant
section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname
"Toria":
Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?
Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first
heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.
Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking
about on Russia?
Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department,
and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics.
So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate
whether they thought it was credible.
Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?
Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.
Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that
she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch
Act.
Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.
On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following
exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):
MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.
VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction
to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the
election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."
And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign
who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess
we're in today.
Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the
dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored
last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The Grassley-Graham criminal referral
contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in
contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."
Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed
on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney
Blumenthal. According to sources who
spoke
to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya
working under Kerry. Winer
says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.
It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.
In an
oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's
information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material."
He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.
Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):
In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald
Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures,"
a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a
two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made
aware of this material.
That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public
claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict
with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.
In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over
100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be
"useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."
He wrote:
In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served
as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department
would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful
and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts
at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters,
and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of
events in Russia.
Kramer and the dossier
In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.
He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached
by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.
McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian
agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."
McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate"
the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.
McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly
believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."
The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel,
not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."
Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian
extortion had to be investigated."
McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood
before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for
Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting
and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.
Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his
credibility and report back to me."
McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the
former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria,
I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''
McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.
The Washington Post
reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those
details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may
have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.
Also, in a New York Times oped in January,
GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence
community via an unnamed "emissary."
In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author
and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on
Facebook.
Credibility of the US government and Justice system was greatly undermined, if not destroyed
by the Russiagate. Inability to investigate more plausible election interference by British an,
Saudi and Israeli actors by Mueller paints him as a despicable political operative working for
Clintons, not an independent Prosecutor, who diligently investigate the foreign interference in
elections.
The role of Rosenstein is the role of co-conspirator in a plot to deprive Trump of the
Presidency or, at least, for force him to pursue the Deep State foreign policy, which is totally
bankrupt policy. And they succeeded in this. Trump wet kiss with neocons was probably the part of
the deal.
Notable quotes:
"... When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account? ..."
"... I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation. ..."
When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why
would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to
account?
No one is going to face any consequences - legal or other. Hell, most of them will make money
from writing books about their "dedicated service." When was the last time the swamp applied
the laws to one of it's own. Answer: never.
The laws are enforced on us - the "deplorables out there," not the swamp creature
"elite." We are not governed, we are ruled.
And sadly that situation is as much the result of an indifferent and ignorant populace as
the behavior of the ruling class.
"One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes
(i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's
spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy."
I see Steele's surfacing again. Might I put in a minor query. Does this longstanding
agreement cover retired personnel?
I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens
was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my
Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's
relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a
business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The
first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation.
"Steele might have been expected to move on once his investigation of the bidding was
concluded. But he had discovered that the corruption at FIFA was global, and he felt that it
should be addressed. The only organization that could handle an investigation of such scope,
he felt, was the F.B.I. In 2011, Steele contacted an American agent he'd met who headed the
Bureau's division for serious crimes in Eurasia. Steele introduced him to his sources, who
proved essential to the ensuing investigation. In 2015, the Justice Department indicted
fourteen people in connection with a hundred and fifty million dollars in bribes and
kickbacks."
The second instance of Steele's cooperation with the FBI even had a peripheral
relationship with Trump. "Several years ago, the FBI hired Steele to help crack an
international gambling and money-laundering ring purportedly run by a suspected Russian
organized-crime figure named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. The syndicate was based in an apartment
in Trump Tower. Eventually, federal officials indicted more than thirty co-conspirators for
financial crimes. Tokhtakhounov, though, eluded arrest, becoming a fugitive. Interpol issued
a "red notice" calling for his arrest. But, in the fall of 2013, he showed up at the Miss
Universe contest in Moscow -- and sat near the pageant's owner, Donald Trump."
According to the New Yorker magazine article, it was standard Orbis procedure to warn
authorities about national security threats. Steele warned German authorities about IS
militants using the refugee flow to infiltrate Europe. "When Steele took his suspicions about
Trump to the FBI in the summer of 2016, it was in keeping with Orbis protocol, rather than a
politically driven aberration."
Within the FBI, I'm sure Steele was coded as a source in some way as a standard procedure
to use his information. We did the same with our non-asset sources in DOD. Hell, I was even
coded as an intelligence asset when I was a SMU operative/case officer. This was different
from the reporter number all case officers are given.
Philip Giraldi, on March 13, 2018, has an essay about this New Yorker article: 'Christopher
Steele as seen by the New Yorker. Liberal fantasies beatify the messenger.' This is in the
Unz Review.
www.unz.com/pgiraldi/christ... .
Mayer doesn't mention that Steele was almost certainly identified as MI6 during the
years (possibly 1990-1993) that he was stationed in Moscow under diplomatic cover. Russian
counterintelligence agents broke into his apartment, used the toilet, left it unflushed; they
stole his wife's best shoes. He was definitely identified by 1999 when he was in Paris. There
was a DSMA notice. Too late. Then, in 2006, when Steele is said to have had the Russia desk,
there was the highly embarrassing electronic spy rock in a Moscow park. Surely he held some
responsibility for that? And if Steele was a Russian expert why were his talents being wasted
in Afghanistan?
John Helmer quotes some old intelligence hands who deny that he was a particularly
impressive agent or was deeply knowledgeable about Russia. Steele never went back to Russia
after 1992 or 1993. Mayer, in the New Yorker article, makes no mention of what surely were
setbacks for British intelligence regarding Russia in which Steele likely was playing a large
part.
We've been here before in this discussion. The question remains-- was Steele an unwitting
puppet of a Russian master counterstrike, an aikido throw which has badly shaken and
distracted America? DH, we await your comments. Has TTG gone wobbly?
I'm also fairly certain RIS was aware of Steele's status as an MI6 officer when he was
stationed in Moscow. I would think anyone working out of a diplomatic embassy is first
assumed to be an intelligence officer by the host nation. I stayed away from embassies and
other government facilities just to avoid that taint. The one time I was summoned to an
embassy, I conducted extensive surveillance detection measures both before and after the
visit and I wore a disguise.
It was a normal matter for intelligence officers to be cycled through Afghanistan and Iraq
post 9-11, no matter what their former expertise. I did my turn. CIA's "Russia House" was
bitter about their fall from the pinnacle to be replaced by all things CT during that
time.
Was some of the raw information in Steele's dossier planted by RIS? That's very possible.
Several experienced former US intelligence officers have voiced that possibility, especially
about the more salacious bits of the dossier.
That's a nice piece in the New Yorker. They mention the golden shower episode in Moscow,
however, left out Loretta Lynch. "In was in her role as district attorney that her
involvement in the Fifa investigation began. Over the course of five years in Brooklyn..."
See the BBC article on FIFA from 2015: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32912118
So did Loretta Lynch talk to Christopher Steele during this case or did Steele just
talk to the FBI agent who was years later in London? When did then US attorney for New York's
Eastern District Lorretta Lynch get informed and by which FBI agent? Who did that agent tell
about the Steele dossier, when did it get to the AG's ears, and when did she tell
Obama?
"On January 5, 2017, it became clear that at least two Washingtonians remained in the dark
about the dossier: the President and the Vice-President. " Oh, apparently AG Lynch never told
Obama, because????????
Another New Yorker Enigma: "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence
service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director,
John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had
been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.) "
So the UK has been spying on US Presidential candidates? Oh, they said they were "illicit"
communications. What does that mean? Who was communicating with Whom? And how did G.C.H.Q.
decide these communications were "illicit" but others, well they'd have to have them all to
make a comparison, wouldn't they? Put a ribbon on top of that one. DId they also intercept
any of Hilary's communications?
Given that Steele played an important role in at least two major FBI investigations
leading to multiple indictments, I would assume Lynch knew about Steele. Whether they ever
conversed, I don't know.
Comey was not at all sure about Lynch's impartiality. It would not surprise me if he kept
details of the Russian investigation, including the dossier, from her. She probably learned
about it shortly before Obama and Trump were briefed on the dossier. Obama knew enough about
the Russian investigation, without the dossier, to warn Putin to knock it off in September
2016.
I don't know if the Brits spied on our Presidential candidates. I wouldn't doubt it. We
bugged Merkel's phone. What I am sure of is that the Brits spy on every Russian of importance
within their capabilities. If Trump's campaign was in contact with those Russians, the Brits
would know about it. They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform
their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign. They
wouldn't have done that just for shits and giggles.
"They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US
counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign."
They thought it illicit? Listening is one thing, giving information to aid your country's
government's preferred candidate is interference in an election process - ours. How many
times has our ally the UK interfered with US elections? They had plenty of help from the FBI
and DOJ here in the US in 2016. Who elected GCHQ to be arbiters of US elections? I can't
find them in the US Constitution. Using the FBI and DOJ to sabatouge your party's political
opponents, that's third world government standards.
If the Brits wanted to directly influence the election, they would have publicly released
their information about "illicit' contacts. Keeping it within intelligence channels does
nothing to influence an election. I would hope the Brits would never hold back on information
concerning a possible CI threat.
TTG - thank you for your reply above. The picture one gets of Steele is no longer that of
a loose canon who somehow got himself involved in a presidential election campaign. It is
that of an experienced and respected professional working in tandem, if perhaps
unconventionally, with other professionals.
And perhaps thinking that he or his contacts back home had stumbled over important
information showing that a presidential candidate was compromised. That information possibly
being the tip of the iceberg and urgently demanding further investigation.
But that makes what happened all the more unusual -
1. Why didn't the further investigation happen? Surely the fact that such an important
matter wasn't thoroughly investigated, and that using all possible resources in the States
and abroad, shows that it was no serious investigation in the first place?
And more to the point here -
2. If those involved were professionals working away soberly at a necessary investigation,
what were they doing suddenly branching out into a smear campaign?
For none, even the originators of the dossier, are claiming that the more discreditable
part of the Steele dossier is true. That is not Intelligence material. It is sensationalised
smear material.
This objection has been met in part with the claim that the dossier was all raw unsifted
Intelligence and therefore was released as is.
But surely experienced Intelligence professionals don't suddenly pitch raw unsifted
Intelligence into the middle of the political arena while they are supposed to be still
assessing that intelligence?
Irrespective of the question of whether Trump was compromised the question therefore
arises - what were American officials doing running a smear campaign against a presidential
candidate?
Which leads back to the original question. What officials this side of the Atlantic were
also involved, and how high did the authorisation for their involvement go in England.
.
On a matter I'm better informed about, I don't see the Colonel quietly farming away in
Kent. I see him striding across the limitless expanse of a Scottish grouse moor. If our lot
had known their business they'd have worked that into their offer.
The counterintelligence investigation was in progress through the lead up to the 2016
election and is still in progress. Through 2016, it was done in a remarkably quiet fashion.
That's how these investigations are supposed to work. No one hears about them until there is
an arrest or indictment. That's how Mueller is running his investigation. We hear nothing
from him except for the indictments already issued. And they are characteristically slow and
methodical, usually spanning years before an arrest is made.
None of this investigation, including Steele's reporting was used in a pre-election smear
campaign. In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration did not publicize the idea of
Russian interference with the election and possible involvement of Trump campaign officials
is that it would surely have been seen as a partisan smear campaign. The public did not hear
of the Steele dossier until well after the election was over.
It was not just British intelligence involved in collecting on Russian interference in
the election. The Estonians, the Dutch, the Australians and probably others contributed to
the intelligence picture. We may not learn the full extent of that cooperation for many
years. Given the changing nature of information warfare and social media manipulation, I
sincerely wish the full extent of that intelligence is made public quickly. Sure that would
probably also cramp Western media manipulation capabilities, of which we are far from
innocent, but the sunlight would help inoculate all of us against this malignant
phenomenon.
The retirement farm and the big stipend sounds pretty good. I could do without the best club
and the career assistance. Sounds like they appreciated you a lot more than DIA.
DIA made me an SES-4 with presidential rank (Distinguished). Looks like the Brits expected me
to have a lot of access. They claimed these guys were off the reservation. and that they were
not authorized to pitch me.
Off the reservation my ass. I would say those Brits were a bunch of cheeky blokes who did not
do a thorough enough job of assessing your susceptibility to recruitment.
You seem more upset over this than I was. We accepted their false statements of innocence
betrayed by their own and went right on working with them. Why would they try this? Simple.
As we do they wanted to know what we were not telling them. everyone does it. A basic
principle. Recruit your liaison.
You're right. I never worked out of an embassy or in any long term liaison function. If I was
the target of such a pitch, it would have meant that I was blown along with any operations I
was involved with. For me, it would have been life altering.
Thanks for this. I am wondering what Larry Johnson and the other members of this Committee of
Correspondence make of the possible connection between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, and
Sergei Skripal?
Some of Craig Murray's speculations in his latest post on the Skripal incident
regarding the coordinated role of Orbis Intelligence, the BBC, and the British state (which
issued a DSMA notice prohibiting press mention of Pablo Miller) are quite plausible. Murray
is, like the members of this committee, a veteran of the game....
Was Skripal coerced/encouraged by Miller to serve as one of Steele's unattributed
Russian "sources"? Did he later get cold feet? Or did he later attempt to buy his way back
into Russia with the claim that he could provide proof that the Dossier was a fraud? Or was
he working as a triple agent the whole time? Were the two sightseeing Russians "Borishov" and
"Petrov" sent to retrieve something from Skripal?
Try this. This theory ties together all the incoherencies of the official explanation better
than anything I have seen. And, I'm pleased to see it is getting reprinted here and
there.
https://michaelantonyblog.w...
I concur. This is the most plausible explanation of what really happened in Salisbury that I
have read so far.
Colonel - might this theory be worth a dedicated SST post? It is 5,000 words, so perhaps
Patrick, David Habakkuk, or another interested member of the committee would be happy to
summarize the salient details (e.g. that Borisov & Petrov intended to return to Russia
with Sergei Skripal). The author's contact details are in the comments section re reprint
rights.
In yet another stunning blow to the so-called "Steele Dossier" assembled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the former chief
of the (MI6) said the hastily cobbled-together report by his former employee is "overrated" and its salacious claims against Donald
Trump unlikely to be verified, as the
Daily Wire
's Ashe Schow reports.
Following an appearance at the Jamestown Foundation's
12th annual terrorism conference in Washington
D.C., Sir John Scarlett - who headed the British Secret Intelligence Service from 2004 to 2009, fielded a question from journalist
Nicholas Ballasy, who asked Scarlett what he thought of the dossier and if he believed what was written in it.
"Well, no," said Scarlett, adding "I looked at it and I thought these are commercial intelligence reports; I don't know about
the sources -- they might be right, they might be wrong and they'll probably be overrated and they've been overrated. "
When asked if the dossier could ever be verified, Steele's former boss said "No."
Ballasy then asked Scarlett if he was surprised that Steele would produce the dossier using unverified information, to which the
former MI6 head replied:
"Well, they were commercial intelligence reports and they were visibly that so there's a question of why they were there and where
they came from and who commissioned them and so on," adding" So, I've tended to see them in that context and never quite of political
significance for obvious reasons and actually if you think about it, people have talked about them in a really big way a year or
so ago and they haven't really made that much of a difference. "
"As I said, I suspect, all I can say, is they are overrated. "
When asked about what Steele was like to work with, Scarlett replied: " I'm not going to comment ," before walking away. We're
guessing he's probably tired of MI6 having been mentioned in the same breath as Steele for the last several years.
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from
an article at the excellent Medialens
And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...
I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely
the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources)
on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.
As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:
"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."
Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished
journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.
And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct
Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret
state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed
forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of
the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood
at the end of their career".
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent
is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
A brief history
Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a
cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest
Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf
of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.
The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the
Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided
by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists
and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.
According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism
served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour
of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.
And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret
service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.
In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives'
Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.
And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.
David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media
and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody
in every office in Fleet Street"
Leaker King
And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing
companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".
Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear
he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".
Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet
Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely
involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.
Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according
to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.
David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security
scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.
Maxwell and Mossad
According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the
1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.
In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6
were equally as strong.
Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that
he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks
were fascinating.
For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse
during the Cold War."
The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster
Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked
to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted
to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms
of first-hand knowledge."
And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph
and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to
handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.
Lawson strongly denied the allegations.
Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan
McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security
services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not
being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)
Growing power of secret state
Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.
But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official
Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into
the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.
Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.
According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by
the Rockingham cell within the MoD.
A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant
attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.
Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.
Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein
has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of
the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early
in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies
about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress.
Sexed up – and missed out
During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the
ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government
(in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that
drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition?
But those facts will be forever secret.
Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was
ignored by the inquiry.
Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of
WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US
President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress
and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.
Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the
propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published
stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker
than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures,
especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."
Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence
services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.
~
Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John
Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International
Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.
"... In Orwell's imagination, society was ruled in the future by Big Brother. It wasn't a computer, but rather the collective expression of the Party. But not like the Republicans; this Party was an autonomous bureaucracy and advanced surveillance state interested only in perpetuating itself as a hierarchy. In this dystopia, "the people" had become insignificant, without the power of "grasping that the world could be other than it is." ..."
"... Concepts like freedom were perverted by a ruthless Newspeakperpetuated by the Party through the media. A Goodthinker was someone who followed orders without thinking. Crimestop was the instinctual avoidance of any dangerous thought, and Doublethink was the constant distortion of reality to maintain the Party's image of infallibility. ..."
"... Writing in 1948, Orwell was projecting what could happen in just a few decades. By most measures, even 70 years later we're not quite there yet. But we do face the real danger that freedom and equality will be seriously distorted by a new form of Newspeak, a Trumpian version promoted by the administration and its allies through their media. We already have Trumpian Goodthinkers -- the sychophantic surrogates who follow his lead without thinking, along with Crimestop -- the instinctual avoidance of "disloyal" thought, and Doublethink -- the constant distortion of reality to maintain Trump's insatiable ego and image of infallibility. Orwellian ideas are simply resurfacing in a post-modern/reality TV form. ..."
"... As community life unravels and more institutions fall into disrepute, media have become among of the few remaining that can potentially facilitate some social cohesion. Yet instead they fuel conflict and crisis. It's not quite Crimestop, but does often appeal to some of the basest instincts and produce even more alienation and division. ..."
"... In 1980, Ralph Nader called the race for president at that time -- between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan -- a choice between mediocrity and menace. It was funny then, but now we can see what real menace looks like. Is Trump-ism what Orwell warned us about? Not quite, though there are similarities. Like Trump, you can't talk to Big Brother. And he rarely gives you the truth, only doublespeak. But Trump is no Big Brother. More like a Drunk Uncle with nukes. ..."
"... Security is tight and hard to avoid, on or offline. There are cameras everywhere, and every purchase and move most people make is tracked by the state. Still, there are four bombings in the first week of the Games. There is also another kind of human tragedy. Four runners collapse during preliminary rounds as a result of a toxic mix -- heat and pollution. ..."
"... Greg Guma is the Vermont-based author of Dons of Time, Uneasy Empire, Spirits of Desire, Big Lies, and The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution. ..."
"... This article was originally published by Greg Guma: For Preservation & Change . ..."
More people are becoming alienated, cynical, resentful or resigned, while too much of
mass and social media reinforces less-than-helpful narratives and tendencies. The frog's in the
frying pan and the heat is rising.
On the big screens above us beautiful young people demonstrated their prowess. We were
sitting in the communications center, waiting for print outs to tell us what they'd done before
organizing the material for mass consumption. Outside, people were freezing in the snow as they
waited for buses. Their only choice was to attend another event or attempt to get home.
The area was known as the Competition Zone, a corporate state created for the sole purpose
of showcasing these gorgeous competitors. Freedom was a foreign idea here; no one was more free
than the laminated identification card hanging around your neck allowed.
Visitors were more restricted than anyone. They saw only what they paid for, and had to wait
in long lines for food, transport, or tickets to more events. They were often uncomfortable,
yet they felt privileged to be admitted to the Zone. Citizens were categorized by their
function within the Organizing Committee's bureaucracy. Those who merely served -- in jobs like
cooking, driving and cleaning -- wore green and brown tags. They could travel between their
homes and work, but were rarely permitted into events. Their contact with visitors was also
limited. To visit them from outside the Zone, their friends and family had to be screened.
Most citizens knew little about how the Zone was actually run, about the "inner community"
of diplomats, competitors and corporate officials they served. Yet each night they watched the
exploits of this same elite on television.
The Zone, a closed and classified place where most bad news went unreported and a tiny elite
called the shots through mass media and computers, was no futuristic fantasy. It was Lake
Placid for several weeks in early 1980 -- a full four years before 1984.
In a once sleepy little community covered with artificial snow, the Olympics had brought a
temporary society into being. Two thousand athletes and their entourage were its royalty, role
models for the throngs of spectators, townspeople and journalists. This convergence resulted in
an ad hoc police state, managed by public and private forces and a political elite that
combined local business honchos with an international governing committee. They dominated a
population all too willing to submit to arbitrary authority.
Even back then, Lake Placid's Olympic "village" felt like a preview of things to come. Not
quite George Orwell's dark vision, but uncomfortably close.
In Orwell's imagination, society was ruled in the future by Big Brother. It wasn't a
computer, but rather the collective expression of the Party. But not like the Republicans; this
Party was an autonomous bureaucracy and advanced surveillance state interested only in
perpetuating itself as a hierarchy. In this dystopia, "the people" had become insignificant,
without the power of "grasping that the world could be other than it is."
Concepts like freedom were perverted by a ruthless Newspeakperpetuated by the Party through
the media. A Goodthinker was someone who followed orders without thinking. Crimestop was the
instinctual avoidance of any dangerous thought, and Doublethink was the constant distortion of
reality to maintain the Party's image of infallibility.
Writing in 1948, Orwell was projecting what could happen in just a few decades. By most
measures, even 70 years later we're not quite there yet. But we do face the real danger that
freedom and equality will be seriously distorted by a new form of Newspeak, a Trumpian version
promoted by the administration and its allies through their media. We already have Trumpian
Goodthinkers -- the sychophantic surrogates who follow his lead without thinking, along with
Crimestop -- the instinctual avoidance of "disloyal" thought, and Doublethink -- the constant
distortion of reality to maintain Trump's insatiable ego and image of infallibility. Orwellian
ideas are simply resurfacing in a post-modern/reality TV form.
Our fast food culture is also taking a long-term toll. More and more people are becoming
alienated, cynical, resentful or resigned, while too much of mass and social media reinforces
less-than-helpful narratives and tendencies. The frog's in the frying pan and the heat is
rising.
Much of what penetrates and goes viral further fragments culture and thought, promoting a
cynicism that reinforces both rage and inaction. Rather than true diversity, we have the mass
illusion that a choice between polarized opinions, shaped and curated by editors and networks,
is the essence of free speech and democracy. In reality, original ideas are so constrained and
self-censored that what's left is usually as diverse as brands of peppermint toothpaste.
When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the notion that freedom of speech and the press should
be protected meant that the personal right of self-expression should not be repressed by the
government. James Madison, author of the First Amendment, warned that the greatest danger to
liberty was that a majority would use its power to repress everyone else. Yet the evolution of
mass media and the corporate domination of economic life have made these "choicest privileges"
almost obsolete.
As community life unravels and more institutions fall into disrepute, media have become
among of the few remaining that can potentially facilitate some social cohesion. Yet instead
they fuel conflict and crisis. It's not quite Crimestop, but does often appeal to some of the
basest instincts and produce even more alienation and division.
In general terms, what most mass media bring the public is a series of images and anecdotes
that cumulatively define a way of life. Both news and entertainment contribute to the illusion
that competing, consuming and accumulating are at the core of our aspirations. Each day we are
repeatedly shown and told that culture and politics are corrupt, that war is imminent or
escalating somewhere, that violence is random and pervasive, and yet also that the latest
"experts" have the answers. Countless programs meanwhile celebrate youth, violence, frustrated
sexuality, and the lives of celebrities.
Between the official program content are a series of intensely packaged sales pitches. These
commercial messages wash over us, as if we are wandering in an endless virtual mall, searching
in vain for fulfillment as society crumbles.
In 1980, Ralph Nader called the race for president at that time -- between Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan -- a choice between mediocrity and menace. It was funny then, but now we can see
what real menace looks like. Is Trump-ism what Orwell warned us about? Not quite, though there
are similarities. Like Trump, you can't talk to Big Brother. And he rarely gives you the truth,
only doublespeak. But Trump is no Big Brother. More like a Drunk Uncle with nukes.
So, is it too late for a rescue? Will menace win this time? Or can we still save the
environment, reclaim self-government, restore communities and protect human rights? What does
the future hold?
It could be summer in Los Angeles in 2024, the end of Donald Trump's second term. The
freeways are slow-moving parking lots for the Olympics. Millions of people hike around in the
heat, or use bikes and cycles to get to work. It's difficult with all the checkpoints, not to
mention the extra-high security at the airports. Thousands of police, not to mention the
military, are on the lookout for terrorists, smugglers, protesters, cultists, gangs, thieves,
and anyone who doesn't have money to burn or a ticket to the Games.
Cash isn't much good, and gas has become so expensive that suburban highways are almost
empty.
Security is tight and hard to avoid, on or offline. There are cameras everywhere, and every
purchase and move most people make is tracked by the state. Still, there are four bombings in
the first week of the Games. There is also another kind of human tragedy. Four runners collapse
during preliminary rounds as a result of a toxic mix -- heat and pollution.
... ... ...
Greg Guma is the Vermont-based author of Dons of Time, Uneasy Empire, Spirits of Desire,
Big Lies, and The People's Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution.
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The
moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making
the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't
be reported on Fox.
We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American
People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't
believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are
two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson
Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who
was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry
Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC.
MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market.
Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being
CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli
Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women
and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is
connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option
discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to
a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior
put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals
want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction"
was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that
the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our
various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that
they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man
flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again,
cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These
are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been
eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of
whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and
will never nationalize the oil.
So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come
back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact
that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark
forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can
only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments
they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground
war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there
is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but
relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the
pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby,
a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer
have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department
to your favorite media outlet.
Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to
kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it
turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it
was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from
MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written
still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and
distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
Blooming Barricade , Mar 14, 2019 5:36:22 PM |
link
Pierre Omidyar opens up new Integrity Initiative
Omidyar's Democracy Fund has also helped to finance the "News Integrity Initiative," a
name that evokes the U.K.'s notorious Integrity Initiative. The latter group claimed to be an
independent charity battling foreign disinformation until it was exposed by hackers as a
propaganda mill run by military officers and covertly funded by the British Foreign Office to
cultivate public opinion in support of heightened conflict with Russia. Leaked communications
revealed how the Integrity Initiative mobilized clusters of journalists, self-styled
disinformation experts, academics and political figures throughout the West to advocate for a
long-term war footing against the Russian menace.
For its part, the News Integrity Initiative is a murky $14 million operation intended to
"combat media manipulation" through a network of "journalists, technologists, academic
institutions, non-profits, and other organizations." The set-up is eerily evocative of the
influence clusters developed by the British Integrity Initiative. Few specifics are provided,
however, on what the group actually does.
A hint about the agenda of the News Integrity Initiative lies in a grant of $1 million it
made to an outlet called Internews in 2017. The bulk of Internews' money -- some 80 percent
of it -- comes from the U.S. government. It has also received backing from liberal financier
George Soros and USAID, which provided the group with seed money for a Russian-language
television network, helped drive the pro-NATO color revolution in the Republic of Georgia,
and published footage of Russian casualties in Chechnya to erode Russian public support for
the war.
In countries that are considered official and semi-official enemies of the United States,
Internews has organized de facto boot camps for opposition journalists. "In the Middle East,"
says Internews founder David Hoffman, "training sessions often begin with discussion of
whether Internews is really U.S. propaganda or the CIA." However Hoffman answers the
question, it is abundantly clear that his outlet has advanced Washington's priorities abroad
behind the guise of independent journalism.
In November 2017, the News Integrity Initiative hosted a workshop alongside Internews and
the Omidyar-backed First Draft News in Kiev, Ukraine, according to the initiative's managing
director, Molly de Aguiar. Kiev is today a nexus for intelligence-connected media crusaders
and a launch pad for projects ostensibly aimed at countering Russia's "information warfare."
But, what exactly the News Integrity Initiative was doing there was left unsaid.
While Omidyar ploughs his fortune into organizations that claim to be countering
"disinformation," especially of the Russian variety, he has established a culture factory to
publicize the supposed feats of the journalists often hyped up by the cartel of media
transparency groups and fact-checking sites he funds.
Unfortunately, I have been taken up with the doings of another Christopher – surnamed
Donnelly – whose antics with the 'Institute for Statecraft' and 'Integrity Initiative'
seem just as ludicrous as those of Steele, and equally destructive.
I hope to come back to the implications of what has been coming out on your side about the
dossier attributed to Steele in more depth in the none-too-distant future, particular if in
fact the depositions made by him and David Kramer are unsealed reasonably promptly, but some
background remarks may be worth throwing into the discussion.
It cannot be repeated often enough that an enormous amount of damage has been done as a
result of people forming their impressions of MI6 from David Cornwell, aka John Le
Carré, rather than Graham Greene.
A critical point is that, while if 'humint' is pursued by competent people, it can be
invaluable, if pursued by incompetents, like so many of those Greene had known in his time in
the wartime MI6, and portrayed so marvellously in 'Our Man in Havana', it is common for an
'echo chamber' to be set up, where people are told what they want to hear.
Those providing the 'echo' may genuinely share the delusions involved – or they may
cynically exploit these, as part of a deliberate strategy of making the incompetents
instruments of their own agendas (as MI5 and the Naval Intelligence Division did with the
Abwehr during the war. MI6, largely incompetent apart from the section Philby ran, was
marginal.)
That precisely this kind of 'echo chamber' had been set up by the Berezovsky group with
people like Steele was the thrust of a pointed remark made by Andrei Lugovoi in the press
conference on 31 May 2007 where he responded to the Crown Prosecution Service request for his
extradition.
Thanks for this. I am wondering what Larry Johnson and the other members of this Committee of
Correspondence make of the possible connection between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, and
Sergei Skripal?
Some of Craig Murray's speculations in his latest post on the Skripal incident regarding
the coordinated role of Orbis Intelligence, the BBC, and the British state (which issued a
DSMA notice prohibiting press mention of Pablo Miller) are quite plausible. Murray is, like
the members of this committee, a veteran of the game....
Was Skripal coerced/encouraged by Miller to serve as one of Steele's unattributed Russian
"sources"? Did he later get cold feet? Or did he later attempt to buy his way back into
Russia with the claim that he could provide proof that the Dossier was a fraud? Or was he
working as a triple agent the whole time? Were the two sightseeing Russians "Borishov" and
"Petrov" sent to retrieve something from Skripal?
The son of Dawn Sturges, who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury, has
written to Russian President Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in
the investigation.
"I'm desperate. Putin is the only person that can make it so that justice will prevail.
I need his help to pay tribute to my mum. I'm counting on it", Evan Hope told the British
tabloid "The Mirror". The publication presents the full text of the message:
"It's been almost a year since my mother, Dawn, was killed by Novichok in Salisbury,
and my pain, like the pain of my family members, does not pass. The British police believe
that at least two Russian citizens are responsible for her death, but it seems that they are
under the protection of your state. I'm asking you as a person, to allow our officers to
question these people about the murder of my mother. She at least deserves
somejustice."
Mr. Hope told the publication that the UK government has not provided any support for
his family. "I feel betrayed by the government", he said. He stated that it endorsed the
support of Sergei and Yulia Sripal, who was poisoned by the same substance. "But my family
has had no such support, and we are the ones who have lost our mother. She was an innocent
victim, but we have never heard from Theresa May nor the government -- no phone call, no
letter, nor anything else", he said.
Unsubstanttiated allegations taken as gospel. Wonder who put Evan up to writing to
"Pyutin"?
Zakharova is already girding her loins for the 1st anniversary (tomorrow) of the diabolical nerve agent
attack by Pyutin's agents that took place in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.
"Caroline's friend told "The Sun" that Dawn had switched from being a popular pupil at Durrington school
in Wiltshire to a homeless alcoholic due to post-natal depression when her son Aidan was born.
Her personality changed. She became like a zombie."
It's clearly very wrong for members of the British establishment to exploit members of Dawn Sturges's family
in this way. What they should get help in pressing for is a proper non-politicised investigation into what
exactly happened to her.
The relative clause "
who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury
" should not have had
commas separating it from the main clause "
The son of Dawn Sturges has written to Russian President
Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in the investigation
", in that it is a
defining relative clause whose antecedent is "Dawn Sturges" and not the subject of the main clause, "Ewan
Hope".
As a result of mistakenly placing commas before and after the relative clause in question, that clause is
a non-defining relative clause, adding, in parentheses as it were, additional information about the subject
of the main clause.
Ewan Hope is alive: his mother, who was Dawn Sturges, is the woman who died of unnatural causes in
Amesbury last year. (Two relative clauses in the preceding sentence, each having "who" as its relative
pronoun, the first relative clause being non-defining and having "mother" as its antecedent, the second
being defining, having "woman" as its antecedent.)
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Perhaps I have lived too long here: all relative clauses, be they defining or non-defining, are separated
by commas in Russian.
It is ironic that almost every week I have to point out to Russians the very different English
punctiation rules as regards relative clauses, an English grammar topic that Russians often find hard to
grasp.
Wrong usage of commas in contracts drawn up in English can sometimes have unforeseen and very costly
results.
I often ask Russians what information is given about the subject (the passengers) in the following two
sentences, which are, apart from their punctuation, identical:
The passengers who could speak Russian had few problems at immigration control.
The passengers, who could speak Russian, had few problems at immigration control.
In each instance, how many passengers had few problems?
Are your impressive grammatical skills typical of English folks of your generation? Us Americans (see
what I did?) can hardly put two words together without screwing up a grammatical rule.
In London staged a Shenderovich play "To See
Salisbury". The heroes are two gay men who want to save the world
The theatrical production company StageRC has announced the premiere of a play by the writer Viktor
Shenderovich "To see Salisbury", which will be held in late March in London.
The comedy is built on the fact that Boshirov and Petrov are really two gays who went to England to see the
cathedral. At the end of the play, an apocalypse takes place.
Shenderovich himself also spoke about his new work. "The play 'To See Salisbury' began with my bold assumption
that these people (Petrov and Boshirov) were telling the truth. This is a couple who love each other, and, keeping
it secret from their families, just went off to London. One of them, in addition to loving his partner, also loves
Gothic architecture. And I have assumed that this is true. And this assumption seemed to me so touching", said the
writer.
The company website informs that the premiere performances in Russian and English will be held on March 30 and
31.
The play, balancing between the Theatre of the Absurd and farce, ends on the verge of apocalypse -- the
insane Dementia Petrovna being ready to start a nuclear war.
The drunk feller she defended shakes her hand in gratitude. Notice that two other guys come from around the
corner and take the bully's place in the queue.
Darren Till who posted that video is a mixed martial arts practitioner. Wonder if he'll offer the woman a
place in his training camp?
A few of his followers have fallen in love with her.
Videos of Browder disposition in the United States in which he contradicts all his
public tales about the Russian fraud case against him, and ofthe fate of his accountant
Sergei Magnitsky - Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4
Imagine if Trump was as evasive in a deposition with Mueller as Broder was in the videos. It
just reinforces my view that Americans have no problem at all with hypocrisy, probably to do
with exceptionalism.
the videos on browder - 4 parts - focus on him being questioned in 2015...you could skip to
the last one near the end, but vid 3 and 4 are both pretty good and gaining an insight into
browder.. i am sure most here don't need any more insight into browder then they already
have... the data in the video is organized by some canucks back east in quebec i suppose..
53 million in aid from canada to the border of venezuala, mostly in columbia and some in
brazil.. that is more then twice the amount coming from the usa... interesting video
discussing this
here.. i am sure crystia freeland had a direct hand in this.. maybe she can get a date
with brandscum...
It may be possible to partly unravel the Skripal affair, after all.
I first thought the Skripals were food poisoned, or were somehow accidentally
'contaminated.' I changed my mind when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were 'poisoned' - I
will explain why much later on.
Two assumptions are taken on board for now.
-- The photo of the perfume package published by the Met on the internet is of an object
found in the Rowley home, or said to be so, by the Met. / Scotland Yard / anti-terror force /
PTB.
-- The photo of the bottle + dispenser is that of objects truly or allegedly found in the
Rowley home, or a fair facsimile. (The original bottle and dispenser, if they exist, are
evidence, might be contaminated, etc.)
Imho the box package counterfeit is quite, even startlingly, convincing. The surface,
color, sheen, graphics, organization, text, font, closely resemble the box of Eau de Parfum
*Premier Jour* by Nina Ricci, 50ml. With one glaring difference.
The quantity on the true box (boxes, these vary some with year, country..) is
50ml - 1.7 FL OZ
or
e50ml - 1.7 FL. OZ. (e is a certification)
The Rowley box sports
5.5 ml - 17FL OZ
The forger is telling us that there is about a teaspoon of XXX in the package. Conversion
to fluid ounces isn't made - the creator can't be bothered, so just removed the decimal
point, making nonsense of that. The introduction of the decimal point, a different number, an
extra space, to conventionally signal that quantity, cannot be ignorant, careless copy errors
such as LFOZ or 500 mL might be. Particularly in view of the great care taken with the
rest.
Premier Jour bottles of 50ml or more are of special style and shape and never come with a
separate dispenser / vaporiser / nozzle to attach so as to be able to spray. No high-end
perfumes or fragrances do, as the containers and spray mechanisms (if any) are an integral
part of the object, certifying the brand, its 'look', etc. as well as its working order.
(Fakes often have non-functioning sprays.)
Smaller quantities of Premier Jour such as 33ml exist, the box is completely different.
The bottles are longish thin vials with a spray mechanism attached to the top, always such
for small quantities of designer fragrances - made to be carried in handbags.
Great care was taken to produce a convincing or in-your-face box, sealed correctly with
cellophane. Inside it a bottle that might pass for genuine via cursory inspection, as it is
inscribed *Premier Jour - Nina Ricci* in the same (correct) fonts as on the box. Plus a
dispenser, ensuring that its first use would be a deliberate act, and possibly to ensure a
tight seal.
No scammer hawking fake perfumes would ever produce this.
links in sep post
In Part II we examine its alleged handling by Dawn and Charlie and trace it back in
time.
Addition: Imho the Rowley box is smaller than the real one(s). The text / letters etc. are
too large, take up too much space, I can't measure it at present, don't have a real box to
hand.
Frances at 65 -- yes the perfume bottle could be a plant as you suggest (not photoshop) by
MI5 (or whomever), sure . i did write 'allegedly', 'assumed' or clear words to that
effect.... the trick is to figure out if so, or not. anyway never mind. these details aren't
on their own of much interest with grand debates on the menu --:
One way the PTB fool and trick ppl is to get them all riled up about side issues.
Like vaccines. This gets the public, particularly parents, mothers, loving their littles,
into crazy hyper mode, absorbing their energy to 'contest' in any way, question other
matters, such as crap schools, heath care, corrupt pols, etc.
They get involved in groups, stick to their principled guns, argue to the death (sic),
watch pols for attention to 'their issue', and on and on. They have been deprived of even the
most basic rights in a just society (ex. basic health care) and are shunted to the corridors
of the losers, they don't realise it, yes they are viewed with cynical, and calculated,
disdain.
Videos of Browder disposition in the United States in which he contradicts all his public
tales about the Russian fraud case against him, and ofthe fate of his accountant Sergei
Magnitsky - Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4
Imagine if Trump was as evasive in a deposition with Mueller as Broder was in the videos. It
just reinforces my view that Americans have no problem at all with hypocrisy, probably to do
with exceptionalism.
the videos on browder - 4 parts - focus on him being questioned in 2015...you could skip to the
last one near the end, but vid 3 and 4 are both pretty good and gaining an insight into
browder.. i am sure most here don't need any more insight into browder then they already
have... the data in the video is organized by some canucks back east in quebec i suppose..
53 million in aid from canada to the border of venezuala, mostly in columbia and some in
brazil.. that is more then twice the amount coming from the usa... interesting video discussing
this
here.. i am sure crystia freeland had a direct hand in this.. maybe she can get a date with
brandscum...
It may be possible to partly unravel the Skripal affair, after all.
I first thought the Skripals were food poisoned, or were somehow accidentally
'contaminated.' I changed my mind when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were 'poisoned' - I
will explain why much later on.
Two assumptions are taken on board for now.
-- The photo of the perfume package published by the Met on the internet is of an object
found in the Rowley home, or said to be so, by the Met. / Scotland Yard / anti-terror force /
PTB.
-- The photo of the bottle + dispenser is that of objects truly or allegedly found in the
Rowley home, or a fair facsimile. (The original bottle and dispenser, if they exist, are
evidence, might be contaminated, etc.)
Imho the box package counterfeit is quite, even startlingly, convincing. The surface,
color, sheen, graphics, organization, text, font, closely resemble the box of Eau de Parfum
*Premier Jour* by Nina Ricci, 50ml. With one glaring difference.
The quantity on the true box (boxes, these vary some with year, country..) is
50ml - 1.7 FL OZ
or
e50ml - 1.7 FL. OZ. (e is a certification)
The Rowley box sports
5.5 ml - 17FL OZ
The forger is telling us that there is about a teaspoon of XXX in the package. Conversion
to fluid ounces isn't made - the creator can't be bothered, so just removed the decimal
point, making nonsense of that. The introduction of the decimal point, a different number, an
extra space, to conventionally signal that quantity, cannot be ignorant, careless copy errors
such as LFOZ or 500 mL might be. Particularly in view of the great care taken with the
rest.
Premier Jour bottles of 50ml or more are of special style and shape and never come with a
separate dispenser / vaporiser / nozzle to attach so as to be able to spray. No high-end
perfumes or fragrances do, as the containers and spray mechanisms (if any) are an integral
part of the object, certifying the brand, its 'look', etc. as well as its working order.
(Fakes often have non-functioning sprays.)
Smaller quantities of Premier Jour such as 33ml exist, the box is completely different.
The bottles are longish thin vials with a spray mechanism attached to the top, always such
for small quantities of designer fragrances - made to be carried in handbags.
Great care was taken to produce a convincing or in-your-face box, sealed correctly with
cellophane. Inside it a bottle that might pass for genuine via cursory inspection, as it is
inscribed *Premier Jour - Nina Ricci* in the same (correct) fonts as on the box. Plus a
dispenser, ensuring that its first use would be a deliberate act, and possibly to ensure a
tight seal.
No scammer hawking fake perfumes would ever produce this.
links in sep post
In Part II we examine its alleged handling by Dawn and Charlie and trace it back in
time.
"... When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there. ..."
"... It wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal with those who are responsible for this. ..."
"... Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing. ..."
"... Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are. ..."
We are now saying that the world is changing and the interdependence of states is growing. Do you think international regulation,
for instance, in communications, can be radically improved in perspective? Because of fake news navigation in the sea of information
leaves much to be desired. Is it possible to regulate a host of other things related to migration flows and capital management?
Is it possible to raise international regulation to a new level or is this altogether impossible? Will countries continue to strike
unstable alliances for shorter or longer periods of time or are there grounds to hope for an improvement of this situation?
Sergey Lavrov:
This question is fairly controversial. In brief, currently this regulation that should be ideally based on universal principles
of international law is being replaced with narrowly interpreted rules elaborated in a narrow circle of states.
As for fake news, France, for example, adopted a law that filters the media space the way it wants. The Russian media Russia Today
and Sputnik are political outcasts. They are not allowed to visit the Elysee Palace or attend any special events. When we address
French officials in this context, they tell us that everything is correct because in their view these are propaganda instruments
rather than news agencies. This is what regulation is all about.
When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way
of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there.
There are other examples as well. When France failed to use the OPCW exclusively for passing remotely a verdict on who is guilty
and who is not in violation of all conceivable norms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, it took the initiative to establish an International
Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons that was not linked with any international structures. A few months
later the EU made a decision to the effect that if the new structure reveals violators, Brussels will impose sanctions on them. This
is, of course, regulation but this regulation is based on the narrow interpretation of broad interests by an individual group of
countries.
As for the internet, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been talking for years, if not decades, about the way
the internet should function so as to not offend anyone. No results have been produced and there will not be any in the foreseeable
future for obvious-to-all reasons. I have practically no doubts about this. Likewise, for the same reason virtually not a single
Western country supported our proposals that were endorsed by the UN General Assembly at the onset of work on the rules of responsible
conduct in cyberspace.
You mentioned migration. There is the Global Compact for Migration that was adopted last year. The West was fighting for it to
include a provision on the equal and divided responsibility for the migration crisis. Russia and other countries objected. It
wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms
traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal
with those who are responsible for this.
We are now talking about the formation of the multipolar international order. Its development was preceded by a whole historical
era.
Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating
itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at
some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing.
Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary
resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are.
Not those that established the UN in 1945 but those that are playing today, in the middle of the 21 st century. Only
after this we should think what to do next, for instance, with the UN. It is absolutely clear that the UN Security Council requires
a reform because the world's developing regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America are not properly represented in it. Today, up to
one third of the UN Security Council is represented by EU countries. I don't think that if more countries from the historical West
are added to this structure, it will gain the diversity we want to see in it.
Analytic piece on staged chemical attacks " ... weaponized disinformation campaigns,
staged videos and fake news are common approaches used by the US military and special services
to promote their own agenda around the world. The US was actively using these tools during its
intervention in Iraq and after it.
According to the later revelations, the employed programs were varying from placing
Pentagon-provided articles in Iraqi newspapers as "unbiased news" to producing footage, which
were made to look as if they had been "created by Arabic TV," and CDs with fake al-Qaeda
videos, which then distributed through various channels.
The employed propaganda approaches are constantly evolving. Therefore, propaganda coverage
of the conflict in Syria has some differences with those which were observed in Iraq. Now,
mainstream media, the Pentagon, the intelligence services and diplomats are actively using
Hollywood-style approaches. This style of the coverage is based on providing catchy, even if
horrible, pictures and videos influencing the emotions of the audience rather than convincing
it with logical conclusions.
Just like with Hollywood movies, the mainstream news has increasingly been turning away from
the logical narration of stories with realistic motivations to emotional judgements based on
anonymous sources, non-verified images, pocket citizen journalists and even open speculation.
The content developed within the framework of this approach is usually based on the results of
social and psychological research. This allows results to be maximised by the targetted
development of content and appropriate segmentation of the audience. An interesting and
successful example of this audience reaction modelling can be seen in the mainstream media
coverage of the Salisbury incident, which gave rise to large-scale hysteria in Western
countries about Russian spies." SF
-------------
Well, pilgrims, you heard it first here and often over the last years. This piece speaks for
itself. pl
"mainstream news... to emotional judgements based on anonymous sources, non-verified images,
pocket citizen journalists and even open speculation. " That fits the latest news events from
the Right to Life March or the Jussie Smollett hate hoax.
"weaponized disinformation campaigns" I was thinking of writing something along the lines
of "Where have all the good communists gone". It sure seems their agitprop tactics are alive
and well.
See the real connection between the fake Steele Dossier and the Skipal hoax.
The UK MI6 is behind everything with Australia and Nato. War with Russia is coming to
avoid the Brexit. It has been planned 5 years ago. The Brexit is just a good excuse.
The continued NATO harassment, sanctions and campaigns of lies and false accusations
against Russia, including the blatant war rhetoric of the British Defence Secretary, do not
bode well for the future. For the US to tear up nuclear arms treaties and then blame Russia
is beyond shameful: it is destroying all possibility of negotiations to avert war. The Kerch
Strait incident staged by the puppet regime in Kiev, sending gunboats into the Kerch Strait
without observing the 2003 Protocol requiring them to notify in advance the Port of Kerch (a
protocol observed by the dozens of ships that go through the Strait peacefully every day) was
clearly part of a NATO plan to set up a major naval clash in the Black Sea.
That clash (followed by an attempt to recapture Crimea or at least blow up its magnificent
bridge, a reproach to a man who cannot even build a wall) may be expected in coming months,
perhaps as a distraction from Brexit or a way of derailing it. NATO, in short, is on a clear
trajectory towards war with Russia, which their deluded worldview convinces them they can
win.
Their initial use of Russia as a scapegoat and bogeyman to unite the NATO vassals against
a common threat, keeping Europe in subjection to America, has got out of hand, and is
heading, under the impetus of hysterical rhetoric, towards actual war. Unless decent people
unite to stop this escalation then the nuclear catastrophe will occur.
Exposing the barefaced lie of the Skripal false flag attack may be a step towards averting
that global cataclysm.
"... In 1940, as war raged in Europe, British intel officers in New York and Washington worked to elect candidates who favored U.S. intervention, defeat those who advocated neutrality, and silence or destroy the reputations of American isolationists they deemed a menace to British security. Scores -- perhaps hundreds -- of Americans who believed that fighting fascism justified unethical and, at times, illegal behavior, worked for British intelligence or cooperated with London's efforts. ..."
"... Churchill, the U.K.'s savvy wartime prime minister, knew that Britain could survive and repel an anticipated German invasion only if it received massive amounts of aid from the U.S., and that ultimate victory over the Nazis would require American military involvement. ..."
"... To pull the U.S. into Britain's efforts would require first winning public opinion -- making newspapers and radio programs the front lines in the battle to persuade Americans to elect politicians willing to back Britain over those who promoted an "America First" agenda. SIS, the British intelligence agency, flooded American newspapers with fake stories, leaked the results of illegal electronic surveillance and deployed October surprises against political candidates. ..."
"... Over the 18 months between Britain's humiliation at Dunkirk and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the scale and intensity of the SIS's efforts in the United States were without parallel in the history of relations between allied democracies. ..."
Overt intelligence operations, propaganda, fake news stories, dirty tricks -- all were used
in a foreign government's audacious attempt to influence U.S. elections. It wasn't 2016; it was
1940, and the operations were employed not by a hostile adversary, but by America's closest
ally, the United Kingdom.
Though technology has advanced, and the two nations' motives could not have been more
different, critical aspects of Russia's alleged covert efforts to bolster the campaign of
Donald Trump echo the tactics that Britain's Secret Intelligence Service pioneered seven
decades ago. In 1940, as war raged in Europe, British intel officers in New York and Washington
worked to elect candidates who favored U.S. intervention, defeat those who advocated
neutrality, and silence or destroy the reputations of American isolationists they deemed a
menace to British security. Scores -- perhaps hundreds -- of Americans who believed that
fighting fascism justified unethical and, at times, illegal behavior, worked for British
intelligence or cooperated with London's efforts.
Winston Churchill's goals were as clear Vladimir Putin's motives are murky. Churchill, the
U.K.'s savvy wartime prime minister, knew that Britain could survive and repel an anticipated
German invasion only if it received massive amounts of aid from the U.S., and that ultimate
victory over the Nazis would require American military involvement. He also knew that decisions
to send food, fuel and weapons across the Atlantic, and to dispatch troop ships to follow in
their wake, lay in the hands of the president and a hostile Congress. To pull the U.S. into
Britain's efforts would require first winning public opinion -- making newspapers and radio
programs the front lines in the battle to persuade Americans to elect politicians willing to
back Britain over those who promoted an "America First" agenda. SIS, the British intelligence
agency, flooded American newspapers with fake stories, leaked the results of illegal electronic
surveillance and deployed October surprises against political candidates.
Over the 18 months between Britain's humiliation at Dunkirk and the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, the scale and intensity of the SIS's efforts in the United States were without parallel
in the history of relations between allied democracies.
The SIS and its American collaborators went to great lengths to obscure the ties between
their activities and the British government. These links have since come to light largely
because William Stephenson, the Canadian businessman who headed British Security Coordination
(BSC), the official front for SIS operations in North and South America from 1941–1945,
commissioned a history of the organization's operation. Declassified in 1999,
that history provides a remarkably candid picture of London's espionage and propaganda
activities. Alongside other documents available in the U.K. National Archives, this history
shows that, as it sought to shift America out of neutrality, British intelligence was
restrained only by the certainty that the blowback from public exposure would have been
disastrous.
The story of British government efforts to influence American elections and public opinion
is a cautionary tale, providing a lesson that is all too relevant today about the power of
propaganda and covert operations to alter history. It also demonstrates how difficult it can be
to differentiate in real time between legitimate concerns and imaginary conspiracy theories --
and, perhaps, provides a glimmer of hope about the resilience of American democracy.
***
American communists, fascists and isolationists complained bitterly and loudly in
1940 and 1941 that Britain was secretly manipulating the U.S. media as part of a campaign to
pull America into the war. These accusations, confidently dismissed by liberal politicians and
newspapers as paranoid ravings, were inaccurate only in that they were understated. Even the
most alarmist commentators and conspiracy-mongers underestimated the depth and effectiveness of
British covert activity.
British intelligence employed the full range of cloak-and-dagger techniques in America in
1940 and 1941: forgeries, seductions, burglaries, electoral dirty tricks, physical
surveillance, intercepting and reading letters sent under diplomatic seal, illegally bugging
offices and tapping phones. British intelligence even listened in on a telephone call in June
1940 between President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House and his ambassador to Britain,
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. A report on the call was quickly relayed to Churchill, alerting him that
the U.S. was making contingency plans in case the U.K. fell to the Nazis.
While the British government strongly backed Roosevelt, it hedged its bets by working behind
the scenes to increase the chances that Republicans would pick a presidential candidate in 1940
who would join the fight against fascism.
The Republican Party, lacking a consensus about a standard-bearer or platform, was in
disarray in June 1940 as its national convention approached. BSC worked behind the scenes to
smooth the path for a nominee who favored intervention. One element of the BSC's operations
surfaced on June 25, when the New York Herald reported on a poll of convention
delegates. Surprisingly, given the isolationist positions espoused by GOP stalwarts like Thomas
Dewey, Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover, the poll -- which the Herald wrote was "conducted
by Market Analysts, Inc., an independent research organization" -- found that three-fifths of
GOP delegates supported helping the allies "with everything short of war." In fact, Market
Analysts, Inc., was anything but independent. Its head, Sanford Griffith, was an American who
had secretly been working for British intelligence since the 1930s, and regardless of the
population surveyed, its polls consistently advocated U.S. interventionism in Europe.
Among Market Analysts' clients was the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, a
group led by William Allen White, a nationally syndicated columnist influential among liberal
Republicans. In his column, White wrote that the GOP delegate poll demonstrated that leading
Republican isolationists were out of touch with the party's members, and that Wendell Willkie
-- who had not run in the presidential primaries and had switched his party affiliation from
Democratic to Republican only a few months ahead of the national convention -- best represented
Republicans' views. While all of the other Republican contenders advocated steering clear of
the war in Europe, Willkie argued that "America's first line of defense is Great Britain." It
is impossible to determine exactly how influential BSC's assistance was, but Willkie went into
the convention an underdog and -- to London's delight, and the astonishment of the Republican
establishment -- emerged as the GOP candidate.
In addition to Griffith's operation, BSC funded and coordinated the activities and messaging
of a number of American anti-fascist organizations. One of these, an informal group of wealthy
businessmen and journalists called the Century Group, operated during the campaign as a liaison
between the British government, the White House and the Willkie campaign. It brokered an
agreement from Willkie to refrain from criticizing a proposal that allowed Roosevelt to
unilaterally authorize the transfer of scores of mothballed destroyers to Britain. As the first
president to snub George Washington's precedent of voluntarily stepping down after two terms,
FDR was acutely aware of the threat posed by accusations that he was behaving like a dictator,
so even the hint of such an accusation from the Republican candidate may have scuttled the
deal. On August 30, 1940, BSC's agents secured Willkie's commitment to acquiesce to the
transfer. Assured that he wouldn't pay a devastating political price, Roosevelt announced the
deal at a press conference four days later.
The BSC's work on Willkie's behalf was an exception. For the most part, it focused not on
promoting candidates, but rather on defeating elected officials who opposed American
intervention in the war.
Among those opponents was Rep. Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish III, a Republican and leading
isolationist who had represented New York's Hudson Valley in Congress since 1920. By picking a
high-profile target, the campaign against Fish was intended to "put the fear of God into every
isolationist senator and congressman in the country," according to a letter a BSC agent sent in
fall 1940.
To do this, the BSC created, funded and operated the Non-Partisan Committee to Defeat
Hamilton Fish, which among other activities, circulated a pamphlet juxtaposing Fish, Adolf
Hitler and Nazis. Another photo appeared to show Fish meeting with Fritz Kuhn, the "American
Hitler" who led the German-American Bund and was, at the time, serving a prison sentence for
embezzlement. Contrary to the caption -- "Hamilton Fish inspecting documents with Fritz Kuhn"
-- the Republican congressman had never met privately with Bund leader. The photo had been
taken at a 1938 public hearing that Congressman Fish had organized to discuss a proposed ban on
paramilitary groups like the Bund.
Another bit of British-engineered fake news had an ironic twist, accusing Fish of being a
pawn of a foreign power. They alleged that Nazis funneled money to Fish by renting his
properties at inflated high rates as a means of subsidizing pro-German propaganda efforts. On
October 21, Drew Pearson and Robert Allen reported the story in their hugely influential
Washington Merry-go-Round column -- a true October surprise.
Though Fish won reelection, his margin of victory was just 9,000 votes, half the size of his
win in 1938. In an after-action report to BSC and since archived at FDR's presidential library,
Griffith stated that the local Democratic Party had put practically no effort into defeating
Fish, and that an additional "$2,000 or $3,000 a week or two ahead would have been sufficient
to put it over." Even after the U.S. entered the war, the BSC stayed on Fish's case, planting
scurrilous stories in 1942 that helped cut his margin of victory to 4,000 votes. In 1944, they
finally beat him. Fish claimed it had taken "most of the New Deal Administration, half of
Moscow, $400,000, and Governor Dewey to defeat me." As the BSC history later crowed: "He might
-- with more accuracy -- have blamed BSC."
***
In addition to secretly intervening in campaigns , BSC funded and coordinated the
efforts of pro-intervention American political organizations and of associations of emigres
from Nazi-occupied countries that lobbied Congress and the public for a muscular U.S. response
to Hitler.
BSC also tried to shape public opinion by feeding a stream of true, partially true and
completely fabricated stories to sympathetic reporters and columnists. Some -- like Edgar Ansel
Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News and Ulric Bell of the Louisville Courier-Journal
-- worked directly with British intelligence officers, but most of the journalists who
cooperated with BSC did so through American intermediaries. Among them was Walter Winchell, one
of the most widely read columnists of the time, who routinely ran BSC items supplied by an
intermediary.
Although few of the American reporters and editors who disseminated BSC propaganda were on
the British payroll, it is not an exaggeration to characterize them as British agents or
"subagents," the latter being operatives directed by individuals who communicated with
professional intelligence officers. In fact, this is precisely how the BSC thought about them.
"The conduct of political warfare was entirely dependent on secrecy," notes the BSC history.
"For that reason, the press and radio men with whom BSC maintained contact were comparable with
subagents and the intermediaries with agents. They were thus regarded." In 1991, Edmond Taylor,
an American journalist and active collaborator with the Brits during World War II, told a
historian that British intelligence agents "connived" with "Americans like myself who were
willing to go out of regular (or even legal) channels to try to bend U.S. policy towards
objectives that the British, as well as the Americans in question, considered desirable."
One of the journalists in charge of BSC's propaganda efforts described his unit's activities
in a 1942 memo to the British Foreign Office without mincing words. He wrote that his remit
included "subversive propaganda in the United States for the exposure and destruction of enemy
propaganda [and] countering isolationist and appeasement propaganda which is rapidly taking on
the shape of a Fascist movement, conscious or unconscious." Weekly reports to London from
British agents in New York tallied the number of stories that had been planted in American
newspapers.
The BSC history draws a straight line from planting pro-British stories in American
newspapers to Roosevelt's decision to send destroyers to England. The transfer happened,
according to BSC, because Stephenson had "means at his disposal for influencing American public
opinion in favour of aid to Britain. In fact, covert propaganda, one of the most potent weapons
which BSC employed against the enemy, was harnessed directly to this task."
***
The British government had a well-oiled, coordinated, worldwide strategy during World
War II for generating and disseminating rumors, which it called "sibs," short for
sibilare , the Latin word for whisper or hiss . Many of the sibs were
silly or outlandish -- for example, rumors that man-eating sharks from Australia had been
deposited in the English Channel to consume downed German aviators -- but British intelligence
took them extraordinarily seriously. "The object of propaganda rumours is in no sense to convey
the official or semi-official views of H.M.G. [His Majesty's Government] by covert means to
officials in the countries concerned," read one classified wartime report. "It is rather to
induce alarm, despondency and bewilderment among the enemies, and hope and confidence among the
friends, to whose ears it comes."
New sibs were approved by an organization called the Underground Propaganda Committee (UPC),
which met weekly in London during the war. While rumors spread in Europe by word of mouth, in
the U.S., they were disseminated through a network of friendly reporters and, starting in the
spring of 1941, by the Overseas News Agency, a news service that received subsidies from, and
was controlled by, the BSC. ONA articles appeared in newspapers around the country. Especially
prior to Pearl Harbor, these stories were picked up by newspapers in Germany, Japan and
occupied countries.
To cite a typical example, at a meeting of the UPC on August 8, 1941, a decision was made to
release a series of sibs that, according to the meeting minutes, were "intended to suggest that
the Fuehrer, who is alone responsible in the face of a good deal of opposition for the Russian
campaign, is becoming more and more unbalanced as he realises that the vast gamble is
miscarrying." Eight days later, the New York Post ran an article supplied by ONA citing
"circumstantial evidence for a belief that Hitler is not at the Russian front, but at
Berchtesgaden suffering from a severe nervous breakdown." The article went on to assert that
the Fuehrer's personal physician had recently traveled to Switzerland to consult with the famed
psychiatrist Carl Jung to discuss "the rapid deterioration of Hitler's mental condition," which
ONA asserted was characterized by delusional rages in which he confused the contemporary battle
for Smolensk with a World War I battle in France.
On July 11, 1941, the UPC approved a sib for distribution in the U.S. newspapers, where
Japanese diplomats would read it, indicating that if Tokyo attacked Indochina, the Soviet Union
would attack Japan by air. The next day, the New York Times and other American
newspapers ran an AP story that cited "reliable persons" reporting that Japan was poised to
"make a move against French Indo-China soon." The story noted that "Russia has a large air
force within easy range of Japan's vulnerable centers of population."
In August 1941, the New York Times published ONA's report that the death of a
130-year-old Bedouin soothsayer was seen in the Middle East as "a sign of a coming defeat for
Hitler." Also in the soothsaying business, the BSC sponsored a U.S. tour for Louis de Wohl, a
Hungarian "astro-philosopher." In press conferences and an appearance at the annual convention
of the American Federation of Scientific Astrologers, de Wohl announced that the stars
predicted doom for Hitler and success for Roosevelt. Newspapers credulously reported his
statement that a "yogi once told me a man born on the date Hitler came into power would cause
his downfall. Hitler rose to power on Jan. 30, and that is Roosevelt's birth date."
***
The BSC operations in the U.S. weren't all frivolity and fake news; many were much
more serious.
Using undercover agents, the BSC conducted a yearlong investigation of a scheme by
congressional staff to insert pro-Nazi propaganda into the Congressional Record and to
use congressional franking privileges to distribute it. The BSC then coordinated media
exposés of the franking scandal and supplied federal prosecutors with information on the
pro-Nazi plot, resulting in several convictions.
Elsewhere in Washington, the BSC targeted the embassy used by the Vichy French, illegally
tapping its phones, burglarizing embassy property and deploying a female operative to seduce
Vichy officials. That intel was then used as the basis for a series of newspaper articles
revealing Vichy diplomats' efforts to help Nazi Germany -- stories that the BSC then arranged
to be printed under the byline of an American journalist. The resulting public furor severely
curtailed the Vichy government's American activities.
With the clarity of hindsight, some may write off as a historical curiosity the
extraordinary efforts by Britain to influence American public opinion and the results of
elections, arguing that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's impetuous declaration of
war vaporized notions of neutrality, rendering efforts to propel America into the war
superfluous. But in fact, given the depth and strength of the opposition to FDR's efforts to
support Britain in 1940 and 1941 -- and the importance of that lifeline, which pro-British
propaganda made possible -- it is clear that the efforts of British intelligence officers and
their American recruits helped change history.
In the summer of 1941, the Roosevelt administration strained its political muscles in an
all-out push to persuade Congress to amend an emergency military conscription law and extend
mandatory service from one year to 2½ years. After the White House exerted all its
strength, on August 12, the House passed the extension by a one-vote margin. It is easy to
imagine, though impossible to prove, that the efforts of the BSC's operatives to bend the
public and bully politicians away from isolationism, tipped the balance in favor of the law. If
it had not squeaked through Congress, the U.S. military would have had to send tens of
thousands of men home, substantially weakening the position of American forces on the verge of
war.
America's first experience of large-scale foreign interference in its elections holds
lessons that are relevant today, including the fact that SIS continued to target its American
political foes until at least 1944 -- long after the United States committed itself to the war.
If history is any guide, Donald Trump's inauguration may not mark the end of Russia's attempts
to sway American politicians and public opinion.
Looks like all of them were Brennan men. CIA used FBI counterintelligence and counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal.
Notable quotes:
"... We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. ..."
"... If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice ..."
"... A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." ..."
"... Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else. ..."
"... It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency." ..."
"... Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017 ..."
"... "Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ..."
"... I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling ..."
"... Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons ..."
"... Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too." ..."
"... Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. ..."
"... Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner." ..."
"... There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words ..."
In April last year, Disobedient Media broke coverage of the British involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, asking
why
All Russiagate Roads Lead To London , via the quasi-scholar Joseph Mifsud and others.
The issue was also raised by WikiLeaks's Julian Assange , just days before
the Ecuadorian government silenced him last March. Assange's Twitter thread cited research by
Chris Blackburn , who spoke with
Disobedient Media on multiple occasions covering Joseph Mifsud's ties to British intelligence figures and organizations, as well
as his links to
Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, the FBI, CIA and the private cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.
We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the
Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on
the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members
of Mueller's investigation. What we are left with is an indication of collusion between factions of the US and UK intelligence
community in fabricating evidence of Trump-Russia collusion: a scandal that would have rocked the legacy press to its core, if Western
establishment-backed media had a spine.
In
Disobedient Media's previous coverage of Blackburn's work, he described his experience in intelligence:
"I've been involved in numerous investigations that involve counter-intelligence techniques in the past. I used to work for
the
9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism , one of the biggest tort actions in American history. I helped build a profile
of Osama bin Laden's financial and political network, which was slightly different to the one that had been built by the
CIA's Alec Station , a dedicated task force which was focused on Osama bin
Laden and Al-Qaeda. Alec Station designed its profile to hunt Osama bin Laden and disrupt his network. I thought it was flawed.
It had failed to take into account Osama's historical links to Pakistan's main political parties or that he was the figurehead
for a couple of organizations, not just Al-Qaeda."
"I also ran a few conferences for US intelligence leaders during the Bush administration. After the 9/11 Commission published
its report into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it created a public outreach program. The US National Intelligence
Conference and Exposition (
Intelcon ) was one of the avenues it used. I was responsible for creating the 'View from Abroad' track. We had guidance from
former Senator Slade Gorton and Jamie Gorelick, who both sat on the 9/11 Commission. We got leaders such as Sir John Chilcot and
Baroness Pauline Neville Jones to come and help share their experiences on how the US would be able to heal the rifts after 9/11."
"The US intelligence community was suffering from severe turf wars and firewalls, which were hampering counter-terrorism efforts.
They were concentrating on undermining each other rather than tackling terrorism. I had mainly concentrated on the Middle East,
but in 2003 I switched my focus to terrorism in South Asia."
Counter Terrorism, Not Counter Intelligence, Sparked Probe
In an article published by The Telegraph last November, the paper acknowledged
the following:
"It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI's investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election
into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin... Mr. Trump's allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK's role in
the start of the probe, given many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain... One former top White House adviser
to Mr. Trump made similar insinuations, telling this newspaper: "You know the Brits are up to their neck." The source added on
the Page wiretap application: "I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don't want to
be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA. " [Emphasis Added]
The article cites George Papadopoulos, who asked why the "British intelligence
apparatus was weaponized against Trump and his advisers." Papadopoulos has also addressed the issue at length via Twitter. In response
to the Telegraph's coverage of the issue, Chris Blackburn wrote via Twitter
:
"The Telegraph story on Trump Russia acknowledges that activities involving counter-terrorism are at the heart of the scandal...not
counter-intelligence. If the [London Centre for International Law Practice] was British state, not private, some Commonwealth
countries are going to be seriously pissed off."
Blackburn spoke with Disobedient Media, saying:
" If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange
happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with
people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice.
A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA
using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations,
doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their
intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." [Emphasis Added]
Blackburn discussed this differentiation with Disobedient Media:
"Counter-terrorism is obviously involved in more kinetic, violent political actions-concerning mass casualty events, bombings,
assassinations, poisonings, and hacking. But, the lines are blurring between them. Counter-intelligence cases have been known
to stretch for decades- often relying on nothing more than paranoia and suspicion to fuel investigations. Counter-terrorism is
also a broader discipline as it involves tactical elements like hostage rescue, crime scene investigations, and explosive specialists.
Counter-Terrorism is a collaborative effort with counter-terrorism officers working closely with local and regional police forces
and civic organizations. There is also a wider academic field around countering violent, and radical ideology which promotes terrorism
and insurgencies. Cybersecurity has become the third major discipline in intelligence. The London Center of International Law
Practice, the mysterious intelligence company that
employed
both Papadopoulos and Mifsud , had also been working in that area."
Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation,
saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look
like they were something else.
As counter-terrorism and counterintelligence are close in tactics and methods, it would seem that they were used because they
share the same skill sets - covert evidence gathering and deception. It's basically sleight of hand. A piece of theatre would be
more precise. However, we don't know if the FBI knew it was real or make-believe. It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI
with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency."
Mueller's Team And Joseph Mifsud
Zainab Ahmad , a
member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed
out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event
in 2017. In recent days, Blackburn wrote via Twitter :
"Zainab Ahmad is a major player in the Russiagate scandal at the DOJ. Does she work for SC Mueller? She was at a GCCS event
in May 2017. Arvinder Sambei, a co-director of the [London Centre of International Law Practice], worked with Joseph Mifsud, [George
Papadopoulos] and [Simona Mangiante]. She's a GCCS consultant."
Blackburn told this author:
"Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism
conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged
Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."
Zainab Ahmad (AHMAD). Image via the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point
"Richard Barrett, the Former Chief of Counter-Terrorism at MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence department traveled with Mifsud
to Saudi Arabia to give a talk on terrorism in 2017. Ex-CIA officers, US Defense, and US Treasury officials were also there. The
London Centre of International Law Practice's relationship to the Global Center had been established in 2014. The Global Center
on Cooperative Security made Martin Polaine and Arvinder Sambei consultants, they then became directors at the London Centre of
International Law Practice."
"The Global Center on Cooperative Security's first major UK conference was at Joseph Mifsud's London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD).
Mifsud then followed Arvinder Sambei and Nagi Idris over to the London Centre of International Law Practice. Sources have told
me that Mifsud was moonlighting as a specialist on counter-terrorism and Islamism while working at LAD which explains why he went
to work in counter-terrorism after LAD folded."
"I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped
up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as
special counsel is also troubling."
Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional
testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic
and linked to the Clintons. Critically, The Hill
writes:
"Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ's fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ's international
operations, and Zainab Ahmad , an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior
counselor. Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe." [Emphasis
Added]
This point is essential, as it not only describes Ahmad's role in Mueller's team but places her at a crucial pre-investigation
meeting.
Last year, Blackburn noted the connection
between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel,
works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy.
Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US
State too."
Sambei has been described elsewhere as a "Former
practising barrister, Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales, and Legal Adviser at the Permanent
Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), Ministry of Defence." [British spelling has been retained]
Arvinder Sambei. Image via the Public International Law Advisory Group
That Sambei has been so thoroughly linked to organizations where Mifsud was a central figure is yet another cause of suspicion
regarding allegations that Joseph Mifsud was a shadowy, unknown Russian agent until the summer of 2016 . She is also a direct link
between Robert Mueller and Mifsud.
Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "Arvinder Sambei helped to organize LCILP's
counter-terrorism and corruption events. She used her contacts in the US to bring in Middle Eastern government officials that were
seen to be vulnerable to graft. Lisa Osofsky, former FBI Deputy General Counsel, was working with her." Below, Arvinder is pictured
at a London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) event.
Arvinder Sambei, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter
As Chris Blackburn told this author:
" Mifsud and Papadopoulos's co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert
Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for
covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore
two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism
think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer's former Chief of Staff while
at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian
private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation." [Emphasis
Added]
Lisa Osofsky, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter
An Embarrassment For John Brennan?
Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share
'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that "
The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that
he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23
January 2017.
Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the
New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown
to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and
Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed
so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers
at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner."
Blackburn told Disobedient Media:
"Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who has seen most of the information gathered by Congress from the intelligence community concerning
the Russia investigation, said that if President Trump were to declassify files and present the truth to the American public,
it would " embarrass John Brennan ." I think that
is pretty concrete for me, but it's not definitive. I know the polarization and spin in Washington has become perverse, but that
statement is pretty specific for me. If Brennan is involved, it is most probably through Papadopoulos who sparked off the 'official'
investigation at the FBI. He also made sure the Steele dossier was spread through the US government."
Blackburn added: "Chris Steele was also working on FIFA projects, and a source has told me that he was working to investigate
the Russian and Qatari World Cup bids. The London Centre of International Law Practice has been working with Majed Garoub, the former
Saudi legal representative of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer. He's also been working against the Qatari bid. Steele likes
to get paid twice for his investigations."
"Mifsud has also been associated with Prince Turki the former Saudi intelligence chief, Mifsud and the London Academy of Diplomacy
used to train Saudi diplomats and intelligence figures while Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to London. Turki is a close friend
of Bill Clinton and John Brennan. Nawaf Obaid was also courting Mifsud and tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN's Freedom
Project at Link Campus in Rome. He also knows John Brennan. Intelligence agencies like to give out professional gifts like this
plum academic position for completing missions. In the US, it is widely known that intelligence agencies gift the children of
assets to get them into prestigious Ivy League schools."
At minimum, we can surmise that Mifsud was not a Russian agent, but was an asset of Western intelligence agencies. We are left
with the impression that the Mifsud saga served as a ploy, whether he participated knowingly or not. It seems reasonable to conclude
that the gambit was initially developed with participation of John Brennan and UK intelligence. Following this, Mueller inherited
and developed the Mifsud narrative thread into the collusion soap opera we know today.
Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert
a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power.
What ********. Britain was part of the group pulling of 911 along with the American and Jewish establishment. Blackburn was
the inside guy, posing as an outsider, to deflect attention from the real perpetrators. These people always have agents on both
sides of every issue in the same way they fund two "opposing" political parties and fund two "opposing" sides in the media.
Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal
to subvert a US Presidency , and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power .
It's called TREASON .
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies , giving them aid and
comfort within the United States or elsewhere , is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than
five years
SteeleGate---his mate Skripal, boss Pablo Miller----novichok---Porton Down---anything to blame Russia in the end. After 30
dys of shutdown personnel of CIA, FBI and DOJ can be changed legally: draining of the swamp and DECLAS can begin with proper Military
Tribunals in place. This according to Q who shared all of this, so it was not a conspiracy theory that the Q team exposed, but
just MSM and Deep State in their last panic mode. Justice will now be able to follow: maybe rel end of endless wars too!
There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring
too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words
So now we have an international conspiracy of care. Not one power grubber in the group. A syndicate of misunderstood do gooders.
But not having the consent of the people, but rather trying to undo, and foil the consent of the people.
This part of the Declaration applies
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal
to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power..."
Why do you not call it a coup d'etat? That is what it is, nothing less. If it were about something Trump did you would use
the harshest possible language. Why not tell the truth here. Let the American people know what happened.
"... The job paid minimum wage and exposed Warren firsthand to the topics that would later define her career: the power of corporations and the effects of bankruptcy on the American consumer. ..."
"... Warren, who had been sharply critical of Clinton in part over her ties to Wall Street, ultimately chose not to challenge her for the Democratic party's nomination and endorsed the former secretary of state's campaign. It was also during this time that Warren proved among the few capable of getting under then candidate Donald Trump's skin. ..."
"... At the same time, Warren became a top target of conservatives and Trump himself. The president has repeatedly mocked Warren with the derisive nickname "Pocahontas" – including at an event intended to honor Native Americans. ..."
"... Republicans first tried to push the notion that Warren used her Native American ancestry to further her career in the 2012 Senate race, homing in on a single questionnaire in which she claimed mixed ancestry. ..."
"... But the matter did not end there. The Washington Post published a story revealing Warren listed her race as "American Indian" while seeking a Texas bar registration card in 1986. ..."
"... Warren's platform includes the single-payer healthcare system Medicare for All, debt-free college tuition and anti-corruption legislation designed to restore accountability in government. She is also poised to unveil a proposal that would impose a wealth tax on Americans worth over $50m. ..."
Warren's official entry into the race has differed sharply from when she captured widespread liberal enthusiasm in
her unlikely bid for the Senate seven years ago.
The two-term senator will join a crowded Democratic primary
field with no clear frontrunner – and several contenders jockeying to claim the progressive mantle that she
aspires to grasp. She has also found herself contending with a lingering controversy for previously identifying as
Native American over the course of nearly two decades.
The question now is whether Warren, who moved early to build an expansive field operation in anticipation of
her presidential run, can overcome early setbacks and reclaim her role as the Democratic party's top foil to
Donald Trump.
Born to middle-class parents in Norman, Oklahoma
, Warren has spoken
candidly about how her family's livelihood was upended when her father's heart attack forced him out of work.
Addressing crowds across the country, Warren often recalls how her late mother – determined not to lose the
family's home – "pulled on her best dress" and got her first paying job at the department store Sears.
The job paid minimum wage and exposed Warren firsthand to the topics that would later define her career:
the power of corporations and the effects of bankruptcy on the American consumer.
Her research in bankruptcy law – and the impact on the average person's medical bills, mortgage payments and
other installments – led Warren to become a leading expert on the subject and rise in the academia world.
"These are the issues she still cares about," said Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School who helped
recruit Warren to its faculty.
"I think she is extraordinary for this reason, that she got into politics because she cared about some issues.
She didn't get into politics because she wanted to be in office and then tried to figure out what issues she cared
about."
Warren cultivated a profile as a populist firebrand against the backdrop of the Great Recession, earning the
ire of Wall Street by spearheading the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an agency
established under the Obama administration as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill of 2010.
Upon being passed over to head the agency she helped create, Warren decided to continue the fight from within
the government, embarking on a campaign to win back the late senator and liberal icon Ted Kennedy's seat from the
Republican incumbent, Scott Brown, in the high-profile 2012 Massachusetts Senate race.
Roughly $70m was spent on the bitterly waged contest, which catapulted Warren to the national stage.
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Elizabeth Warren speaks during day two of the Democratic national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina,
on 5 September 2012. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The race also saw Warren cement herself as a leader of the burgeoning progressive movement within the
Democratic party; branding the choice before voters as "Wall Street versus you", Warren viewed the election as an
opportunity to hand a major defeat to what she once
dubbed
as "the largest lobbying force ever assembled on the face of the earth".
Following her victory, Warren's profile grew so rapidly that speculation swiftly emerged over a potential White
House run in 2016, despite the inevitability of Hillary Clinton's candidacy. A group of progressives even mounted
a #DraftWarren campaign.
Warren, who had been sharply critical of Clinton in part over her ties to Wall Street, ultimately chose not to
challenge her for the Democratic party's nomination and endorsed the former secretary of state's campaign. It was
also during this time that Warren proved among the few capable of getting under then candidate Donald Trump's
skin.
After Trump derided Clinton as a "nasty woman", Warren famously riffed: "Get this, Donald. Nasty women are
tough, nasty women are smart and nasty women vote, and on November 8, we nasty women are going to march our nasty
feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever."
The 2016 presidential election did not, however, produce the groundswell of unified opposition to Trump that
Democrats
had hoped for. Instead, it left the party in search of a clear leader to fill the void left by
Obama's departure from the White House.
For Warren, it looked as though her moment had arrived.
In the early days of the Trump administration, Warren quickly emerged as the face of the Democratic opposition,
matching the president's tweets with sharp ripostes of her own and holding his cabinet nominees to account when
they appeared for consideration before congressional committees.
During the confirmation process for the former attorney general Jeff Sessions, Warren famously read a letter
written 30 years prior by Coretta Scott King, in which the widow of Dr Martin Luther King Jr warned of Sessions'
civil rights record from the time of his nomination for a federal judgeship.
Silenced by Republicans mid-speech
on the Senate floor, Warren read the letter on Facebook Live. The hashtag
#LetLizSpeak trended on Twitter and the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted" was coined.
At the same time, Warren became a top target of conservatives and Trump himself. The president has repeatedly
mocked Warren with the derisive nickname "Pocahontas" – including at an event intended to honor Native Americans.
Although Warren long ignored the president's taunts, she took the unusual step of addressing the issue head on
in October by making public the results of a DNA test revealing that she did, in fact, have some Native American
ancestry.
Rather than putting the topic to rest, Warren's move was rebuked by some tribal leaders, who felt it
politicized their identity, and reignited the story.
Republicans first tried to push the notion
that Warren used her
Native American ancestry to further her career in the 2012 Senate race, homing in on a single questionnaire in
which she claimed mixed ancestry.
An exhaustive investigation by the Boston Globe found no evidence that Warren benefited from doing so, and
nearly every living Harvard law professor involved in her hiring
has said
it was not a factor in their votes to offer her a tenured position.
"When we brought her to Harvard, no one had a clue that she thought of herself as Native American," said
Laurence Tribe, the school's professor of constitutional law.
"I think she's had an unfair rap," he added. "I don't think it's the case that she ever exploited her family's
background or ancestry in a way that some people seem to think she did."
The Cherokee nation, one of the groups that was critical of Warren, said she privately apologized to to tribal
leaders.
But the matter did not end there. The Washington Post published a story revealing Warren
listed her race
as "American Indian" while seeking a Texas bar registration card in 1986. Warren apologized once more, telling reporters: "I'm not a tribal citizen.
"My apology is an apology for not having been more sensitive about tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty. I
really want to underline the point, tribes and only tribes determine tribal citizenship."
Warren remains a popular figure in the Democratic party
and was
easily re-elected to a second Senate term in the 2018 midterm elections.
Even so, she received fewer votes in her home state than Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of
Massachusetts, prompting Warren's hometown paper to urge the senator to reconsider a presidential bid.
"While Warren won re-election, her margin of victory in November suggests there's a ceiling on her popularity,"
the
Boston Globe editorial board
wrote. "Baker garnered more votes than she did in a state that is supposed to be
a Democratic haven."
She's hard-edged, not personally, but ideologically. She takes very sharp and
controversial positions
Barney Frank
"While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a
divisive figure," the board added. "A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics
of Donald Trump." Those close to Warren dismissed the editorial as having more to do with the personal biographies and
inclinations of those who sit on the board. "She's hard-edged, not personally, but ideologically," said Frank. "She takes very sharp and controversial
positions."
"So, yeah, they're going to be people who are unhappy with her."
More challenging for Warren, friends and former colleagues said, would be the task of distinguishing herself
within a diverse field of Democratic candidates that includes at least three of her Senate colleagues and a record
number of women seeking the party's nomination.
Warren's platform includes the single-payer healthcare system Medicare for All, debt-free college tuition and
anti-corruption legislation designed to restore accountability in government. She is also poised to unveil a
proposal that would impose a wealth tax on Americans worth over $50m.
Fried, who served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, said he disagreed with some of the more expansive
economic policies touted by Warren. But her greatest asset as a candidate, he acknowledged, would be to approach the campaign with the same steely
resolve to elevate the middle class that endeared her to voters seven years ago.
Although he is only occasionally in touch with Warren as she embarks on what will undoubtedly be a grueling
campaign for America's highest office, Fried recalled recently sending Warren a lengthy article about capitalism
and income inequality.
To his surprise, he received a response from Warren 10 days later. She had not only taken the time to read the
article, but highlighted a portion that stood out to her. "How many presidential candidates would do that?" Fried asked.
In her email, Warren also recounted to her old colleague how not very long ago they sat together on a flight
discussing the prospects of a Clinton presidency.
That day never came to fruition, Warren noted.
"I don't know what lies ahead," she added. "But I know what I'm fighting for."
While controversy around her heritage lingers, voters call the Democrat's fight against economic
injustice 'inspiring'
On a cold, blustery January day in 1912, immigrant women walked out of the Everett Mill in the
->
Massachusetts
factory town of Lawrence demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Mill owners and
city government responded in a swift and heavy-handed manner; local militias and police forces were called to the
streets. Protesters died. Many more were arrested.
On a cold, blustery February day 117 years later, the
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren stood in front of Everett Mill
->
to announce her candidacy for president of the United States
, channeling the spirit of those women as she told
her supporters that they were in a fight for their lives against a rigged system that favors the rich and
powerful.
ss="rich-link">
Why women 2020 candidates face 'likability' question even as they make
history
Read more
"These workers – led by women – didn't have much. Not even a common language. Nevertheless, they persisted,"
she said. "The story of Lawrence is about how real change happens in America. It's a story about power – our power
– when we fight together."
For Warren, who grew up in an economically struggling Oklahoma household and who first rose to mainstream
prominence by handing out practical financial advice to American families, the word "fight" is central to her
platform and political ethos – it was a word peppered throughout her speech.
But on Saturday, she made clear that hers was not just a fight against president Donald Trump, but against a
system she described as one where the rich, privileged and powerful oppress the rest of the country.
"The man in the White House is not the cause of what is broken, he is just the latest – and most extreme –
symptom of what's gone wrong in America, a product of a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and
kicks dirt on everyone else," she said. "So once he's gone, we can't pretend that all of this never happened."
The backdrop of the mill, where the so-called Bread and Roses strikes originated, was symbolic. But so too was
the choice of the modern day city of Lawrence, which is one of those places in America that has felt left behind
in recent times. To many in New England, Lawrence is synonymous with crime, drugs and poverty. The Republican
governors of Maine and New Hampshire have invoked the city's name when laying blame for the opioid crises in their
states. As was the case at the time of the strikes, Lawrence is a working class city of immigrants, with a
population that is about 80% Latino. It is a city where wealth is nearby, but out of reach for many.
Sebastian Brown, 31, moved to Lawrence five years ago. While he had yet to choose a candidate to support, he
was excited by Warren's message and was happy Warren chose the town as the site of her announcement.
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
I think we need a woman president and I think it will be the fight of our lives
Vicki Ward, rally attendee
"This is a working class city. And I think her – and Bernie [Sanders] – are running on platforms that speak to
the working class and how they're being screwed over by the rich and powerful," he said. "And I think she's a
great messenger for it."
While there was optimism about Warren's candidacy at her rally, she enters an already crowded Democratic field
amid
->
r
enewed controversy over her past identification as Native American.
For years now – since even before he was president –
->
Trump has needled Warren on the issue
, calling her "Pocahontas". He and others accuse Warren of falsely
presenting herself as Native American to gain unfair advantages in life.
The controversy was re-ignited last week when the Washington Post
->
published Warren's 1986 registration card
for the Texas State Bar. In it, she listed "American Indian" as her
race.
Warren has now apologised repeatedly for identifying as Native American, saying in recent days that she "should
have been more mindful of the distinction with tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty". She still maintains
that Native American ancestry was part of her family's story passed down to her.
->
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Elizabeth Warren called Donald Trump the 'most extreme' symptom of a broken system. Photograph: Cj Gunther/EPA
How damaging the controversy will be remains to be see. Warren enters a diverse Democratic field where other
candidates belong to minority groups: New Jersey senator
->
Cory Booker is African American
;
->
California senator Kamala Harris
was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.
->
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
is both the first Hindu and first Samoan-American member of Congress, and
the former San Antonio mayor
->
Julián Castro is Latino
. When the Democratic race gets heated, Warren's portrayal of race could prove to be a
point of attack.
Peter Devlin, a 56-year-old dentist from the nearby town of North Andover, said he was at the rally to hear
what Warren had to say but said that the Native American controversy "is going to be a problem" for her campaign.
"I voted for her as senator, but I'm concerned about her electability," he said. "It's going to be a tough run.
She's got a bit of baggage and she's so sort of cliche progressive liberal that I think there's a lot of America
that's not up for that. But I want to hear what she's up to."
ss="rich-link">
Stacey Abrams on the ticket? Democrat's star turn fuels talk for 2020
Read more
However, other attendees, like 64-year-old Vicki Ward, who drove two hours to the event from Vermont, were
ready to throw their support behind Warren on the first day of the senator's presidential campaign.
"I think she's got the qualities that we need," she said. "I think we need a woman president and I think it
will be the fight of our lives."
Maryann Johnson, who came to Warren's announcement from New Hampshire, also said she was already sold on
Warren.
"I basically agreed with everything she said. We need to have more equality, there needs to be less corruption
in government," she said. "She's inspiring."
What we are experiencing today is the worst and most extreme form of predatory and parasitic
financialised monopoly crony capitalism (crapitalism), allied with blatant aggressive
jingoistic militarism and the crudest form of imperialist exploitation.
I'm not sure even Marx envisaged anything this corrupt and degraded. This must be the
terminal stage of crapitalism's death throes. It can only end in war and complete
collapse.
It comes as no surprise to see the Faux Left Blairite Backstabbers and the
Oh-So-Right-On-Politically-Correct Trudeau Regime leading the charge for a bog standard
Pinochet style US coup behind the likes of Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and recycled neocon war
criminal and death squad queen Abrams.
They have taken off the mask and showed their true colours. The final outcome is uncertain
but the fall out will extend way beyond Venezuela. It may well sound the death knell of our
current system.
Isn't it amazing how the scum of the Earth arrange to get into high places? I am totally
outraged that Canada had anything to do with fostering a coup in Venezuela! It disturbs my
sense of national sovereignty and I rue the day that Trudeau made this apostosy a member of
his cabinet. What a poor choice for a Minister of Foreign Affairs! Just consider Canada's
recent problems with Saudi Arabia, the Meng problem with /China, the chastising of Russia
because it protected its sole military base on the Black Sea and now this foolish
interference in Venezuela's internal affairs brought on by US sanctions. Canada's stupidity
in all these matters makes me bilious.
Trudeau made Soros' protege Chrystia Freeland part of his cabinet because it was on that
condition that Soros generously funded and otherwise caused Trudeau's election bid to be well
supported. Billionaires make "democratic" politics so very easy. Canadians, naive,
unquestioning, insouciant, swayed by very well rewarded PR & media and with the
transacted aquiesence of the other two warmongering neoliberal parties (Conservative &
NDP) voted their hopes and Justin Trudeau to PM. But positioning Chrystia Freeland on the
global stage and creating a neoliberal path to imperious fascist globalization is the
assigned purpose of the swish disposable Canadian Dauphin. Harper played his Soros assigned
role, Trudeau will play his and Chrystia hers and they, as quislings all, will exit rewarded
as pet functionaries of Soros and his overly entitled ilk. We authorize Soros by wishing
& believing this coup is at worst simply a flawed democracy. Ukraine was a Soros coup,
Canada is a Soros coup and Venezuela is a Soros coup. All very, very profitable. Don't look,
this is how omelettes are made. Our political parties are always for rent by billionaires
–that is the main function of political parties. Being corrupt is a design
characteristic not a flaw. Buying political parties in supposed democracies is easier, less
risky and much more profitable than stealing candy from babies. Canada is undefended against
billionaires, invest here, concentrated public assets and resources are available and the
quaint people are professionally deactivated. m\\
Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books.
Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.
At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.
Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.
Nations should explore better system to break US hegemony
"The US dollar is used for the international oil and gas trade and a wide part of global
trade. This gives the US an exorbitant privilege to sanction countries it opposes.
..
The latest sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company aim to cut off source of foreign
currency of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro's government and eventually force him to step
down.
..
A new mechanism should be devised to thwart such a vicious circle"
My question is really about those at the top of the power pyramid (those few hundred
families who own the controling share of the wealth of the world) -- those who position
idiots like Bolton to do their work, do they comprehend 'exergy' decline ?
If we can, then can they not? I agree with Parenti that they are not
'somnambulists'. They are strategists looking out for their own interests, and that means
scrutinising trends in political movements, culture, technology and, well, just about
everything. I find it hard, the idea that all these people -- people who have seen their
businesses shaped by resource discovery, exploitation and then depletion, have no firm grasp
on the realities of dwindling returns on energy.
The models were drawn up 47 years ago. I think that some of them at least, do
understand that economic growth is coming to a halt, and have understood for decades. If true
then they are planning that transition in their favour.
These hard to swallow facts about oil are still on the far fringes of any political
conversation. The neoliberal cultists are deaf to them for obvious reasons; the socialist
idealists believe that a 'New Deal' can lead us off the death train, but mostly ignore the
intractable relationship between energy decline and financial problems; even the anarchists
want their work free utopia run by robots and AI but stop short of asking whether solar
panels and wind turbines can actually provide the power for all that tech. It's the news that
nobody wants to think about, but which they will be forced to thinking about in the very near
future.
The Twitter feed 'Limits to Growth' has less than 800 followers (excellent though it
is).
I do not want to get into the mind of the Walrus of Death Bolton! I do not want to know
what he does, as he does. But at lower levels of government, and corporatism, there is an
awareness of surplus energy economics. And as Nafeez has also pointed out, the military (the
Pentagon) are taking an interest. And though it could rapidly change, who really appreciates
the nuances of EROEI? I'm guessing at less than a single percent of all populations? And how
many include its effects in a integrated political sense?
Its appreciation is sporadic: ranging from tech-utopia hopium to a defeated fatalism of
the inevitability of collapse. Unless and until people want to face the harshness of the
reality that capitalism has created: we are going to be involved in a marginal analysis.
There are very few people who have realised that capitalism is long dead.
Dr Tim Morgan estimates that world capitalism has conservatively had $140tn in stimulus
since 2008 -- without stimulating anything or reviving it at all. In fact, that amounts to
the greatest robbery in history -- the theft of the future. Inasmuch as they can, those
unrepayable debts -- transferred to inflate the parasitic assets of capitalists -- will be
socialised. Except they cannot be. Not without surplus energy.
Brexit, gilets jaunes, Venezuela, unending crises in MENA, China's economic slowdown, etc
-- all linked by EROEI.
It is a common socio-politico-economic energy nexus -- but linked together by whom? And
the emergent surplus energy-mind-environmental ecology nexus? All the information is
available. The formation of a new political manifesto started in the 1960s with the New Left
but it seems to have been in stasis since. Perhaps this might stimulate the conversation.
According to Nate Hagens: there is 4.5 years of human muscle power leveraged by each
barrel of oil. We are all going to be working for a very long time to pay back the debts
the possessing classes have built up for us -- with absolutely no marginal utility for
ourselves.
We are subsidising our own voluntary slavery unless we develop an emergent ecosocialist
and ecosophical alternative to carbon capitalism. We cannot expect paleoconservative carbon
relics like Bolton -- or anyone else -- to do it for us. The current political landscape is
dominated by a hierarchical, vested interest, carbon aristocracy. We can't expect that to
change for our benefit any time ever. Expect the opposite.
Graeber has a point, though. We could already have a post-scarcity, post-production society
but for the egregious maldistribution of resources and employment. Andre Gorz said as much 50
years ago (Critique of Economic Reason). Why do we organise around production: it makes no
sense but for the relations of production are, and remain, the relations of hierarchical
rule. So long as we assign value to a human life on the basis of meritocratic productivity --
we will have dehumanisation, marginalisation, and subjugation (haves and have nots). So why
not organisation around care, freedom and play?
Such a solution would require the transversalistion of society and not-full-employment: so
that no part of the system is subordinate, and no part is privileged. All systems and
sub-ordinate (care) systems would be co-equal, of corresponding value and worth. So, without
invoking EROEI, that would go a long way to solve our exergy, waste, pollution, and
inequality problems. It is the profligate, unproductive superstructure: supporting rentier,
surplus energy accumulating, profit-seeking suprasocieties -- that squanders our excess
energy and puts expansive spatio-temporal pressures on already stretched biophysical
ecological systems that engenders potential collapse. It is their -- the possessing classes
-- assets that are being inflated, at our environmental expense. When it comes to
survivability, we cannot afford a parasitic globalised superstructure draining the host --
the ecologically productive base. Without the over-accumulation, overconsumption, and wastage
(the accursed share) associated with the superstructure of the advanced economies -- and
their cultural, credit, military imperialisms I expect we could live quite well. Without the
pressures of globalised transportation networks, and unnecessary military budgets -- the
pressure on oil is minimised. It could be used for the 1001 other uses it has, rather than
fuelling Saudi Eurofighters bombing Yemeni schoolchildren, for instance. The surplus energy
could be used to educate, clothe and feed them instead. That would be a better use of
resources, for sure.
If we took stock of what we really have, and what we really are -- a form of spiritual
neo-self-sufficiency, augmented and extended into co-mutual care and freedom valorising
ecologies we wouldn't need to chase the perceived loss all over the globe, killing everything
that moves. The solutions are not hard, they are normative, once we are shocked out of this
awful near-life trance state of separationism. Thanks for the link.
It seems to me that there are two parallel arguments going on.
One is about social organisation, attitudes towards and policies determining work, money,
paid employment, technological development and the distribution of weath.
The other is fundamentally based on the laws of thermodynamics and concerns resource limits,
energy surpluses, the role of 'stored sunlight' in producing things and doing work for each
other, pollution and projections about these into the future.
I am surprised that Graeber (just as an example) seems to basically ignore the second of
these even though he clearly is an incisive thinker and makes good points about the first. It
is taken as a given that, theoretically at least, human civilisation could re-organise around
a new ethic, transform the economy into a 'caring economy', re-structure money, government
and do away with militarism. In terms of what to do now, as an individual, what choices to
make, it is disconcerting to me when talk of these ideals seems to ignore those latter
questions about overshoot.
I wonder if the egalitarian nature of much of indiginous North American society was
inescapably bound with the realities of a low population density, low technology,
intimate relationship with the natural world and a culture completely steeped in reverence
for Mother Earth.
The talk I hear from Bastani or Graeber along the lines of 'we could be flying around in jet
packs on the moon, if only society was organised sensibly' rings hollow to me.
Welcome to my world! Apart from as a managerial tool, systems thinking has yet to catch on
in the wider population. According to reductive materialism: there are two unlinked
arguments. According to Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) there is only one integrated argument --
with two inter-connected correlative aspects. We can only organise around what we can
energetically afford. Consequently, we cannot organise around what we cannot afford -- that
is, global industrialised production with a supervenient elitist superstructure.
Let's face it : ethical arguments carry little weight against organisation around
hierarchical rule. The current talk of an ethical capitalism -- in mixed economies with
'commons' elements -- is an appeasement. and distractional to the gathering and ineluctable
reality.
The current (2012) EROI for the UK is 6.2:1 -- barely above the 'energy cliff' of 5:1. The
GDP 'growth' and bullshit jobs are funded by monetised debt (we borrow around £5 to
make every £1 -- from Tim Morgan's SEEDS). From the Earth Overshoot Day website: the UK
is in economic overshoot from May 8th onward.
These are indicators that we will not be "flying jetpacks on the moon": even if we
reorganise. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will have to make do with less. A lot less.
Everything would have to be localised and sustainable. Production would be minimised, and not
at all full. Two major systems of production -- food (agroecology) and energy -- would have
to be sustainable and self-sovereign. And financialisation and the rentier, service economy?
Now you can see why no one, not even Dave the crypto-anarchist, is talking about reality.
Elitism, establishment and entitlement do not figure in an equitable future. We can't afford
it, energetically or ethically.
So when will the debate move on? Not any time the populace is bought into ideational
deferred prosperity. All the time that EROEI is ignored as the fundamental concept governing
dwindling prosperity -- no one, and I mean no one, will be talking about a minimal surplus
energy future. The magic realism is that the economic affordances of cheap oil (unsustainably
mimicked by debt-funding) will return sometime, somehow (the technocratic superfix). The
aporia is that the longer the delay, the less surplus energy we will have available to
utilise. Something like the Green New Deal -- that has been proposed for around two decades
now -- may give us some quality of life to sustain. Pseudo-talk of a Customs Union, 'clean'
coal, and nuclear power, will not.
An integrated reality -- along the model of Guattari's 'Three Ecologies' -- of mind,
economy, and environment is well, we are not alone, but we are ahead of the curve. The other
cultural aporia is that we need to implement such vision now. Actually, about thirty years
ago but let's not get depressive!
We are going to need that cooperative organisation around care and freedom just to get
through the coming century.
As mentioned elsewhere here, Venezualan oil deposits are not all that the hype cracks them up
to be. They are mostly oil sands that produce little in the way of net energy gain after the
lengthy process of extraction.The Venezuala drama is about the empire crushing democracy
(i.e. socialism), not oil. [not that this detracts from Kit's essential point in the
article].
The Left (as well as the Right), by and large have not come to terms with the realities of
the decline in net surplus energy that is unfolding around the world and driving the
political changes that we see. So they still view geopolitics in terms of the oil economy of
pre-2008.
The productive economies of Europe are falling apart (check Steve Keen's latest on Max and
Stacy -- although even i he doesn't delve into the energy decline aspect).
The carbon density of the global economy has not changed in the 27 years since the founding
of the UNFCCC.
The Peak Oil phenomenon was oversimplified, misrepresented and misunderstood as a simple
turning point in overall oil production. In truth it was a turning point in energy
surplus.
I predict that by the end of this or next year, everyone will be talking about ERoEI.
Everyone will realise that there is no way out of this predicament. Maybe there are ways to
lessen the catastrophe, but no way to avert it. This will change the conversation, and even
change what 'politics' means (i.e. you cannot campaign on a 'new start' or a 'better,
brighter future' if everyone knows that that physically cannot happen).
Everyone will understand that their civilisation is collapsing.
Does Bolton understand this?
If you were referring to my earlier comments about Venezuelan extra heavy crude: it's
still massively about the oil. The current carbon capitalist world system does not understand
surplus energy or EROEI, as it is so fixated on maximal short term returns for shareholders.
It can't comprehend that their entire business model is unsustainable and self cannibalising.
Which is bad for us: because carbon net-energy (exergy) economics it is foundational to all
civilisation. The ignorance of it and subsequent environmental and social convergence crises
threatens the systemic failure of our entire civilisation. The Venezuelan crisis affects us
all: and is symptomatic of a decline in cheap oil due to rapidly falling EROEI.
I can't find the EROEI specifically for Venezuelan heavy oil: but it is only slightly more
viscous than bitumen -- which has an EROEI of 3:1. Let's call it 4:1: the same as other tight
oils and shale. Anything less than 5:1 is more or less an energy sink: with virtually no net
energy left for society. The minimum EROEI for societal needs is 11:1. Does Bolton understand
this? Francis hit the nail on the head there.
Do any of our leaders? No. If they did, a transition to decentralisation would be well
under way. Globalised supply chains are systemically threatened and fragile. A globalised
economy is spectacularly vulnerable. Especially a debt-ridden one. Which way are our leaders
trying to take us? At what point will humanity realise we are following clueless Pied Pipers
off the Seneca Cliff -- into globalised energy oblivion?
The rapid investment -- not in a post-carbon transition -- but in increased
militarisation, and resource and market driven aggressive foreign intervention policies
reveal the mindset of insanity. As people come to understand the energy basis of the world
crisis: the fact of permanent austerity and increased pauperisation looms large. What will
the outcome be when an armed nuclear madhouse becomes increasingly protectionsist of their
dwindling share? Too alarmist, perhaps? Let's play pretend that we can plant a few trees and
captive breed a few rhinos and it will all be fine. BAU?
The world runs on cheap oil: our socio-politico-economic expectations of progress depend
on it. Which means that the modern human mind is, in effect, a thought-process predicated on
cheap oil. Oleum ergo sum? Apart from the Middle East: we are already past the point where
oil is a liability, not a viability. Debt funding its extraction, selling below the cost of
production -- both assume the continual expansion of global GDP. Oil is a highly subsidised
-- with our surplus socialisation capital -- negative asset. We foot the bill. A bill that
EROEI predicts will keep on rising. At what point do we realise this? Or do we live in hopium
of a return to historical prosperity? Or hang on the every word of the populist magic realism
demagogue who promises a future social utopia?
EROEI = Energy Returned on Energy Invested (also known as EROI = Energy Return on Investment)
EROEI refers to the amount of usable energy that can be extracted from a resource compared
to the amount of energy (usually considered to come from the same resource) used to extract
it. It's calculated by dividing the amount of energy obtained from a source by the amount of
energy needed to get it out.
An EROEI of 1:1 means that the amount of usable energy that a resource generates is the
same as the amount of energy that went into getting it out. A resource with an EROEI of 1:1
or anything less isn't considered a viable resource if it delivers the same or less energy
than what was invested in it. A viable resource is one with an EROEI of at least 3:1.
The concept of EROEI assumes that the energy needed to get more energy out of a resource
is the same as the extracted energy ie you need oil to extract oil or you need electricity to
extract electricity. In real life, you often need another source of energy to extract energy
eg in some countries, to extract electricity, you need to burn coal, and in other countries,
to extract electricity you need to build dams on rivers. So comparing the EROEI of
electricity extraction across different countries will be difficult because you have to
consider how and where they're generating electricity and factor in the opportunity costs
involved (that is, what the coal or the water or other energy source -- like solar or wind
energy -- could have been used for instead of electricity generation).
That is probably why EROEI is used mainly in the context of oil or natural gas
extraction.
The former head of Boris Berezovsky's
security service spoke about the relationship between famous blogger Alexey Navalny and the
British MI6 intelligence service. He succeeded in exporting about 60 servers containing a huge
amount of correspondence and documents.
"23rd December, 2007 - to the head of the Secret Intelligence Service A. Belt.
Report of agent Solomon about ending Navalny's verification and the assignment of the
pseudonym "freedom".
Had a conversation over an encrypted communication channel between the employee and the CRS
(SIS) and agent Solomon. The agent got approval for a confidential cooperation with Alexei
Navalny. It was mentioned that it is necessary for Navalny to arrange financial support to
carry out the tasks within the framework of special operation "Shiver" to undermine the
existing constitutional order in the Russian Federation. Navalny has a nickname of "freedom",
reads one of the documents.
Agent Solomon is the notorious William Browder, head of Hermitage Capital, inspirer of the
Magnitsky act, and a person who made a fortune in Russia in the 90's.
Operation "Shiver" had already been developed at Langley in 1986. The documents were signed
by then-CIA Director William Casey. The main goal of the project was to "change the
constitutional and political system in Eastern Europe and the USSR".
Tasks are described in as much detail as possible: to change the political and
constitutional state system, to acquire control over financial flows, and to extract assets
from emerging economies.
The USSR has not existed for a quarter of a century, however, the project "Shiver" is still
relevant.
"Browder spreads lies, and all his company is based solely on lies. Navalny is his student
and successor of his ideas. They partly work together, working in parallel. They absolutely
face the same direction," said Pavel Karpov, a former investigator of the Moscow Criminal
Investigations Department. He is one of those who has stirred Browder's "snake nest" and opened
schemes of tax evasion and illegal purchase of shares in Russia under the leadership of
Hermitage Capital.
Here is an example of correspondence between Navalny and Browder in 2006:
"Let me very frankly formulate what I want to offer. I will teach you to grab the monsters
of the Russian economy by the balls. Soon you will become a hero of the minority shareholders
and can have their reputational capital. Probably, and political. In return I ask you to
support me when my problems come out. Am I clear?" asks Browder to Navalny. "Your information
in exchange for the loyalty of my potential. However, I'm afraid you banked on the wrong
figure. I could have problems even in my party. There I seem to be a nationalist," -- says
Navalny.
Then, under the leadership of Browder, and with his financial support, the still unknown
blogger opened the cycle of revelations. At the same time the scene appears banker Vladimir
Ashurkov. He dealt with money matters for "revelatory activities".
"Agent "freedom" was acquainted with the first phase of the secret denunciation of the
conviction of corruption and embezzlement of Russian state assets. To implement the first phase
of the plan, agent "freedom" was funded to the amount of 100 million rubles. The first part of
funds, 7 million rubles, will be transferred to our authorised representative of the Moscow
Helsinki Group until January 26th. Agent A. Belt".
The activities of the Hermitage Capital in Moscow has been completely phased out as auditor
Sergey Magnitsky was appointed to clean up any traces that remained.
"People say that he was Browder's lawyer. This is an outright lie! He was an accountant, who
was engaged in tax evasion for Browder, i.e. registered companies through which money was
withdrawn from. As I was told by Magnitsky himself, these millions were withdrawn by his own
chief, who, as I learned later, was Mr. Browder," recalls journalist Oleg Lurie.
When Magnitsky was arrested, Navalny wrote to Browder, "William, sincerely sorry. People get
used to like those who suffer in our country I'm not saying that the suffering of Sergei is
your trump card, but the more these journalists and people will learn about this suffering, the
less they will want to know what is happening".
Browder's goal was to create the maximum noise possible with information, however the
situation abroad with the "legal auditor" responded little.
"20th September 2009. To the Director of Central Intelligence.
A conversation between agent Solomon and an employee of MI6.
Further growth of public resonance will be gone unless we make adjustments to the plans of
our ongoing special events. In his message to the agent, based on information available for it,
he noted the deteriorating health of Magnitsky. It was proposed to the agent, through
authorized persons in the penitentiary system of Russia, to organize a disruption of medical
assistance to Magnitsky. The deterioration of his health will be designated as a medical error
that could lead to his death. Please pay special attention to this information", -- stated the
documents.
Magnitsky was literally sacrificed. In November 2009, he died in the hospital of the
"Matrosskaya Tishina" detention facility, and Browder announced that the prisoner was tortured,
he was also refused medical care. And then there was the "Magnitsky list".
Here is what is said in the secret documents about it:
"January 23, 2010. Sash reports on a meeting with the agent "freedom", during which he gave
the agent $300,000 for the upcoming program to support the "Magnitsky list" on social networks.
The report of the agent Sash also said that the project is linked with the death of Sergei
Magnitsky, and already in the early stages it greatly undermined the credibility of Russian
citizens in the Russian judicial and law enforcement system. This leads to growing chaos in the
Russian judicial and law enforcement system, a reduction of its credibility, and a reduction in
the credibility of Vladimir Putin. Agent A. Belt".
All this time, Browder warned Navalny against political activity.
"We have our own tasks. Bill asks you to be careful. Urge you not to interfere in the
electoral process -- it is not your task. Monitoring, reporting -- Yes. Protests -- no," --
said in his message.
Apparently, the situation has since changed. It is noteworthy that the Skype accounts of Browder and Navalny, where they started talking
in 2006, are still operational. But we failed to contact subscribers.
There was one leading US politician whose name escapes me for the moment. When Chavez was
president, he complained bitterly that Venezuela's oil wealth was being squandered on things
like healthcare, education, literacy and welfare. It could have been given instead to hard
pressed Wall Street fund managers in bigger bonuses. He wasn't being ironic.
"Everything (to the contrary) is propaganda"
Yes, they will never stop. Just think of this brand-new propaganda lie of Maduro allegedly
preventing aid shipment to come into Venezuela. See BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47143492
: " Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing ahead of a delivery arranged by
opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president ".
Notice the word " ahead " in this sentence. This word appears because there was
never a " delivery " (truck) with aid shipment at the bridge!
The Venezuelan government ("Maduro") blocked the bridge only because of war-threatening
Columbia and USA.
If you want to send aid shipment to Venezuela you can send as much as you want anytime. Of
course you have to respect the regulations of the custom (like in every other country!). But
that's all!
Whets foul with this story?
Well, this aid " delivery " cannot have been collected in Colombia – and thus
being taken away from the people of Colombia, who are much poorer than the people of
Venezuela. So it would have to come from other country (USA, Europe, China, Japan). And then
you would not land this aid shipment in Columbia (a harbour, an airport), drive it, in
hot-humid air, through half of Colombia to the border crossing bridge of Cúcuta. Then
cross the bridge and then drive it through half of Venezuela!
Instead aid shipments for Venezuela would be landed directly in Venezuela – in an
Venezuelan harbour or airport.
I ran into Dan Kazeta a number of times at Bellingcat because of his dodgy claims about
Khan Sheikhoun and chemical weapons (Why has the green tube involved in delivering the
alleged chemical weapon never appeared in the west? Because it ain't what the jihadists
claimed it was and forensic tests would prove that?)
BTW, with Skripal, there can only be conspiracy theorists out in the wild because the
British government has made very little of the evidence behind its stupid claims public, and
what they have made public doesn't add up.
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others
But in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else,
the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression
against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates
every letter of the most sacred principles of international law.
This is exactly the same
tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during
basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up
any semblance of dignity.
Taming of financial oligarchy and restoration of the job market at the expense of outsourcing and offshoring is required in the
USA and gradually getting support. At least a return to key elements of the New Deal should be in the cards. But Clinton wing of Dems
is beong redemption. They are Wall Street puddles. all of the them.
Issues like Medicare for All, Free College, Restoring Glass Steagall, Ending Citizen's United/Campaign finance reform, federal jobs
guarantee, criminal justice reform, all poll extremely well among the american populace
If even such a neoliberal pro globalization, corporations controlled media source as Guardian views centrist neoliberal Democrats
like Booker unelectable, the situation in the next elections might be interesting.
Notable quotes:
"... Bhaskar Sunkara is a Guardian US columnist and the founding editor of Jacobin ..."
"... 2016 has shown that the Democratic party is beyond redemption. When it comes down to the choice of either win with a platform that may impact the wealth and power of their owners, or losing, they will always choose the latter, and continue as useful (and well paid) idiots in the charade presented as US democracy. ..."
In their rhetoric and policy advocacy, this trio has been steadily moving to the left to keep pace with a leftward-moving Democratic
party. Booker ,
Harris and Gillibrand know that voters demand action and are more supportive than ever of Medicare for All and universal childcare.
Gillibrand, long considered a moderate, has even gone as far as to endorse abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)
and, along with Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders' single-payer healthcare bill. Harris has also backed universal healthcare and free college
tuition for most Americans.
But outward appearances aren't everything. Booker, Harris and Gillibrand have been making a very different pitch of late -- on
Wall Street. According to
CNBC , all three potential candidates have been reaching out to financial executives lately, including Blackstone's Jonathan
Gray, Robert Wolf from 32 Advisors and the Centerbridge Partners founder Mark Gallogly.
Wall Street, after all, played an important role getting the senators where they are today. During his 2014 Senate run, in which
just 7% of his contributions came from small donors, Booker raised $2.2m from the securities and investment industry. Harris and
Gillibrand weren't far behind in 2018, and even the progressive Democrat Sherrod Brown has solicited donations from Gallogly and
other powerful executives.
When CNBC's story about
Gillibrand personally working the phones to woo Wall Street executives came out, her team responded defensively, noting her support
for financial regulation and promising that if she did run she would take "no corporate Pac money". But what's most telling isn't
that Gillibrand and others want Wall Street's money, it's that they want the blessings of financial CEOs. Even if she doesn't take
their contributions, she's signaling that she's just playing politics with populist rhetoric. That will allow capitalists to focus
their attention on candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have shown a real willingness to abandon the traditional
coziness of the Democratic party with the finance, insurance and real estate industries.
Gillibrand and others are behaving perfectly rationally. The last presidential election cost $6.6bn -- advertising, staff and
conventions are expensive. But even more important than that, they know that while leftwing stances might help win Democratic primaries,
the path of least resistance in the general election is capitulation to the big forces of capital that run this country. Those elites
might allow some progressive tinkering on the margins, but nothing that challenges the inequities that keep them wealthy and their
victims weak.
Big business is likely to bet heavily on the Democratic party in 2020, maybe even more so than it did in 2016. In normal circumstances,
the Democratic party is the second-favorite party of capital; with an erratic Trump around, it is often the first.
The American ruling class has a nice hustle going with elections. We don't have a labor-backed social democratic party that could
create barriers to avoid capture by monied interests. It's telling that when asked about the former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper's
recent chats with Wall Street political financiers, a staff member told CNBC: "We meet with a wide range of donors with shared values
across sectors."
Plenty of Democratic leaders believe in the neoliberal growth model. Many have gotten personally wealthy off of it. Others think
there is no alternative to allying with finance and then trying to create progressive social policy on the margins. But with sentiments
like that, it doesn't take fake news to convince working-class Americans that
Democrats don't really have their interests at heart.
Of course, the Democratic party isn't a monolith. But the insurgency waged by newly elected representatives such as the democratic
socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna and others is still in its infancy. At this stage, it isn't going to
scare capital away from the Democratic party, it's going to make Wall Street invest more heavily to maintain its stake in it.
Men like Mark Gallogly know who their real enemy is: more than anyone else, the establishment is wary of
Bernie Sanders . It seems likely that he will run
for president, but he's been dismissed as a 2020 frontrunner despite his high favorability rates, name recognition, small-donor fundraising
ability, appeal to independent voters, and his team's experience running a competitive national campaign. As 2019 goes on, that dismissal
will morph into all-out war.
Wall Street isn't afraid of corporate Democrats gaining power. It's afraid of the Democrats who will take them on -- and those,
unfortunately, are few and far between.
Bhaskar Sunkara is a Guardian US columnist and the founding editor of Jacobin
Just like universal health care, let's give up, it's too hard, we're not winners, we're not number one or problem solvers
and besides, someone at some time for some reason might get something that someone else might not get regardless if that someone
else needs it. Let's go with the Berners who seem to believe there will never be none so pure enough to become president.
The corporate state does not cast the votes. The public does.
Leaning farther to the left on issues like universal healthcare and foreign wars would be agreeing with the public. Not only
the progressive public, but the GENERAL public. The big money donors are the ONLY force against the Democrats resisting these
things.
2016 has shown that the Democratic party is beyond redemption. When it comes down to the choice of either win with a platform
that may impact the wealth and power of their owners, or losing, they will always choose the latter, and continue as useful (and
well paid) idiots in the charade presented as US democracy.
Bernie's challenge will "morph into all-out war". "Wall Street isn't afraid of corporate Democrats", blah, blah, blah. But we're
going to continue to play along? Why? Oh yeah, Bhaskar Sunkara will have us believe "There is no alternative". Remember TINA?
Give it up, man, just give it up.
One dollar, one vote.
If you want Change, keep it in your pocket.
We can't turn this sinking ship around unless we know what direction it's going. So far, that direction is just delivering money
to private islands.
Democrats have a lot of talk, but they still want to drive the nice cars and sell the same crapft that the Republicans are.
Taxing the rich only works when you worship the rich in the first place.
Election financing is the single root cause for our democracy's failure. Period.
I really don't care too much about the mouthing of progressive platitudes from any 2020 Dem Prez candidate. The only ones that
will be worth voting for are the ones that sign onto Sanders' (or similar) legislation that calls for a Constitutional amendment
that allows federal and state governments to limit campaign contributions.
And past committee votes to prevent amendment legislation from getting to a floor vote - as well as missed co-sponsorship opportunities
- should be interesting history for all the candidates to explain.
Campaign financing is what keeps scum entrenched (because primary challengers can't overcome the streams of bribes from those
wonderful people exercising their 'free speech' "rights" to keep their puppet in govt) and prevents any challenges to the corporate
establishment who serve the same rich masters.
Lol, Social Security, Medicare, unemployement protections, so many of the things you mentioned, and so much more, were from the
PROGRESSIVE New Deal, which managed to implement this slew of changes in 5 years! 5 years! You can't criticize "progressives"
in one sentence and then use their accomplishments to support your argument. Today, the New Deal would be considered too far left
by most so called "pragmatic liberals." I assume you are getting fully behind the proposed "Green New Deal" then, right?
Vintage59 pointed out lots of things people have changed. Here's an exhaustive list of the legislation passed by people
who didn't get elected but were more progressive than the people who did:
There is also a steadily growing list of Democrats who did worse in elections than a hypothetical Democratic candidate had
been projected to do.
The party can either continue being GOP-Lite or it can start winning elections. It can't do both.
Nobody is going to get elected on a far left platform. Not in the USA and not anywhere. That's just a fact. And everybody
is going to need $$$ in the campaign. Of course candidates are going to suck up to Wall street and business in general.
And we would have been a thousand percent better off with HRC in the white house than we are now with the Trumpostor.
We don't need a candidate with far-left platform, we need one that is left-leaning at all. HRC and her next generation of clones
are mild Republicans.
Those who want to push the Democrats to the left in order to win perhaps need to stop talking to each other and talk to
people who live outside of LA and NY. If you stay within your bubble it seems the whole world thinks like you.
How old will Sanders be in 2020?
The people (outside the coasts) lean to the left some big issues. Medicare for all. Foreign wars. etc.
A sane person might ask why in the hell the left-side party is leaning farther to the right than the general public.
Sanders is a dinosaur. If there is a reason for Wall Street to be wary of him then it is that the mentally challenged orange
guy may win another term if the Democrats run with Sanders.
Hopefully, Sanders will understand what many of his supporters do not want to see: At some time age becomes a problem. If
the Democrats decide to move to the left rather than pursuing a pragmatic centrist approach, Ocasio-Cortez might be an option.
If they opt for the centrist alternative, it might be Harris or Gillibrand. Or, in both cases, a surprise candidate. But Sanders'
time is over, just as Biden's Bloomberg's.
It's true, but Trump is such a clusterfuck that an 80yo president is still be a better situation. Many countries have had rulers
in their 80s at one time or another.
Trump is clearly showing early-stage dementia now. Compare footage of him 10+ years ago to anything within the last 6-12 months
and it's obvious. The stress levels of being the POTUS + blackmailed by Putin + investigations bearing down on him . . . it's
wearing him down fast.
Anti-trust would be a very good place to start with.
Universal healthcare is a lot harder than you seem to think. I'd love it, but getting there means putting so many people out
of work, it'll be a massive political challenge, even if corporations have no influence. Progressives might be better off focusing
on how to ensure the existing system works better and Medicaid can slowly expand to fill the universal roll in the future.
Where has offering candidates who actually have a chance to win gotten us? Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the ADA, Title
9, Social Security, and more. None of these exist without constant changes. All took years to pass against heavy opposition. None
went far enough. All were improvements.
The list of wrongheaded things that were also passed is longer but thinking nothing changes because it takes time is faulty
logic.
Our capitalist predators are still alive and well. The finance, insurance, and real estate
organizations are the worst predators in the USA.
They will eat your babies if you let them.
"... The Bilderberg set call people like you either their "dogs" (if you are in politics or the military) or the "dead." ..."
"... What do you mean "where criminals mingle with ministers". That is assuming that ministers are not criminals. Considering that there will be ministers from the USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK, I'd suggest that there is a near 100% certainty that some, if not all, the ministers there are criminals. ..."
"... That one group of almost-certainly-criminals meets another group of almost-certainly-criminals is hardly surprising. That the whole shebang is protected by the host's police force is even less so ..."
Convicted criminals. Such as disgraced former CIA boss,
David Petraeus, who's just been handed a $100,000
(£64,000) fine and two years' probation for leaking classified information.
Petraeus now works for the vulturous private equity firm KKR, run by Henry Kravis, who does arguably Bilderberg's best impression
of Gordon Gecko out of Wall Street. Which he cleverly combines with a pretty good impression of an actual gecko.
... ... ...
"Can I go now?" Another no. So I continued my list of criminals. I moved on to someone closer to home:
René Benko, the Austrian real estate baron, who had a conviction
for bribery upheld recently by the supreme court. Which didn't stop him making the cut for this year's conference. "You know Benko?"
The cop nodded. It wasn't easy to see in the glare of the searchlight, but he looked a little ashamed.
... ... ...
I decided to reward their vigilance with a chat about HSBC. The chairman of the troubled banking giant, Douglas Flint, is a regular
attendee at Bilderberg, and he's heading here again this year, along with a member of the bank's board of directors, Rona Fairhead.
Perhaps most tellingly, Flint is finding room in his Mercedes for the bank's busiest employee: its chief legal officer, Stuart Levey.
A Guardian editorial this week branded HSBC "a bank beyond shame" after it announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs in the UK, while
at the same time threatening to shift its headquarters to Hong Kong. And having just been forced to pay £28m in fines to Swiss regulators
investigating money-laundering claims. The big question, of course, is how will the chancellor of the exchequer,
George Osborne, respond to all this? Easy – he'll
go along to a luxury Austrian hotel and hole up with three senior members of HSBC in private. For three days.
High up on this year's conference agenda is "current economic issues", and without a doubt, one of the biggest economic issues
for Osborne at the moment is the future and finances of Europe's largest bank. Luckily, the chancellor will have plenty of time at
Bilderberg to chat all this through through with Flint, Levey and Fairhead. And the senior Swiss financial affairs official, Pierre
Maudet, a member of the Geneva state council in charge of the department of security and the economy. It's all so incredibly convenient.
Let's see, maybe because we have read over their leaked documents from the 1950s in which they discussed currency manipulation
and GATT. Everything they have discussed in their meetings over the past decades has almost come to fruition. There are elected
officials meeting with criminals such as HSBC. Did you even read the article? If you did, and you are not het up or whatever you
call it, then you are of a peasant mentality, and there is no use talking to you.
The Bilderberg set call people like you either their "dogs" (if you are in politics or the military) or the "dead." I won't
be looking for your response because you have confirmed that you do not matter.
Carpasia -> MickGJ 12 Jun 2015 10:52
Thank you for your comment, my good man. Hatred is human, and helps us all to avoid pain, for pain, especially unnecessary
pain, is allowed to be hated by the agreement of all, if nothing else is. I would hate to be beaten by Nazis. Thus, I would avoid
going to a place where that could occur. That is how hatred works for me. It is the only way it can work, and not be pernicious
to the self and others.
I distrust the international order as it is the means, harnessed by money, whether corporate or state or individual or monarchical,
by which this world is being destroyed. Could things have been better? Jesus is on one end of the spectrum, and Lord Acton on
the other, of the spectrums of viewpoints from which that could be properly assessed.
If the corruption at the heart of the international
order is not regulated properly, this world will come to an end, not the end of the world itself, but the end of the world as
we know it. This is happening now. The world is finite.
I am not a xenophobe. In my experience, the people that are most likely to hurt me, and thus deserve fear, are those closest.
Perhaps that is a cynical way of describing it, but anyone who thinks honestly about it would accede to the notion that it is
the people who "love" us that hurt us the most, for we agree too be vulnerable to them. It is the matrix of love.
As for Austria and Bavaria, I have visited both places and they were, both, the cleanest locales I have ever seen, with Switzerland
having to be mentioned in the same breath, of course.
I take a certain liberty in writing. I am not damning the human race, or strangers to me. If I did not entertain, but caused
offence, I apologize to you. I do not possess omniscience, and my words will have to speak for themselves.
Thank you, again.
DemonicWarlordSlayer 12 Jun 2015 08:02
"How Geo Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power" in the UK Guardian >
"Did Geo H W Bush Coordinate a JFK Hit Team" at Veterans Today >
"9/11 Conspiracy Solved, Names, Connections, Details" on youtube....dot-to-dot of the
Demonic Warlord's Crimes Against Humanity....end feudalism.
Carpasia 12 Jun 2015 07:09
Excellent article.
I visited Austria once, and I know of what he speaks. It was the one place I have ever visited that I thought I would be jailed
if I littered. I was wandering at the time, but I tentatively had a meal of chicken and departed henceforth.
Austrians are an interesting lot, to be sure. That they are perfect goes without saying. Their main virtue is that they do
not travel, and that strangers, which we call tourists these days, are not welcomed. If only we were all like that, the world
would be a far better place.
Austrians do everything well, including crime. Some of the greatest crimes in the world have been committed by Austrians, but
their crimes did not include not having their papers.
During World War 2, and I pass over Hitler, the German machine of death had an unusually high proportion of Austrians in commanding
roles assisting it. It can not be explained away by saying they were some kind of faux Germans, and so it matters not. Indeed,
if anything, Germans are faux Austrians, looked at in the broad brush of history. Men of many nations joined the Germans and adorned
themselves with the Death's Head, but many Austrians might as well have tattooed it onto their foreheads. I know of what I speak,
for I read on it, and will justify if questioned.
Reinhard Heydrich is an epitome of this, in the true sense of the word. Kurt Waldheim was another, too young too rise too far
before the Ragnarok of May of 1945, but government of the world was not out of his reach, a man who had materially assisted the
transportation of the Jews of Thessaloniki to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and, when challenged, was unrepentant, not as a racist,
but as something worse even, as a man whose great virtue was that he followed orders. It is order that the Austrians value over
everything. Even crime is ordered.
In the common-law west we think criminals are disordered beasts to be locked up. We do not give them papers. They are registered
only to warn us of their existence, and we do not like to let them travel, as much as we could benefit by their absence, because
we think they flee to license, and we think it wrong to inflict them upon innocents abroad. In Austria, the criminal is the man
with no papers. If he has papers, all is well, and he is no criminal, whatever he has done.
colingorton 12 Jun 2015 03:19
What do you mean "where criminals mingle with ministers". That is assuming that ministers are not criminals. Considering that
there will be ministers from the USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK, I'd suggest that there is a near 100%
certainty that some, if not all, the ministers there are criminals.
That one group of almost-certainly-criminals meets another group of almost-certainly-criminals is hardly surprising. That the
whole shebang is protected by the host's police force is even less so.
How far can all this mutual back scratching go? It seems that the only alternative left is far too drastic, but there really
seems to be no place for a legal alternative, does there?
"... The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby. ..."
"... I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. ..."
"... George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one). ..."
"... That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. ..."
"... Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's. ..."
"... The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it. ..."
"... They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment ..."
"... well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/ ..."
British and most western media are either in the direct or indirect pay of their governments. What journalist can expose this
for us? Any of you willing to make the biggest scoop of the 21st century? Tom Bradbury at ITN must be on the spook payroll, for
starters? MI6 had foreign correspondents for years, but domestic mouthpieces must now be on the take too? All paid to demonise
Russia and Putin.
The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and
roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they
come across a particularly adorable baby.
Simon 'white helmets' Tisdall is especially egregious – one can imagine him throwing darts at a picture of Putin while
producing his latest homily to the murderous actions of gangsters like Bush and his crime family.
Its hard not to despair now this has become the official face of Britains so-called liberal media.
I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's
books and media appearances. As with Michael White, with whom I had a very illuminating argument via email a few years back.
He *is* an asset, not a journalist (and a massive dick, to boot)
I thought the attitude of the Bush family to their fellow Americans was best illustrated by Barbara's response to the plight of
the homeless victims of Katrina who had been transported to the Houston domed stadium. They spent their nights there sleeping
on hard benches and when good ole Babs heard of it, she opined that they probably had never had it so good so why were they complaining.
Could Mother Theresa have had greater generosity of spirit?
Not just one article, the awful Guardian is full of contents eulogising [yet another] mongrel of a president.
But look at conservative media. The crazy Infowars.com described this Bush as an Anti-American Globalist and Traitor!! .. and
zerohedge.com is celebrating: "The Evil Has Died" and "In 2016 he voted for Hillary Clinton, because the Deep State Swamp sticks
together". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-02/exploring-dark-side-bush-41
Just tell me, who is the rabid neo-con right-wing rag that is glorifying wars and mass murderers?
The late Robert Parry, sad to say. Maybe that now both the 'MacBeths' are stains on the tarmac – Parry's notes of the bloodstained
legacy of that dynasty can finally be displayed? That Barbara was one cold blooded mother! Would have happily pulled a trigger
on JFK, MLK herself (some think).
Just about the whole century from the setup of the Fed, the two world wars, the depression,
Hitler, Korea, Cuba all of it, had a a Bush hand in it. He was the self crowned Caesar having publicly executed the whole of Camelot
and left us with a poison toad, reminds us how low the Bush's took the USA.
George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual
beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one).
That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems
these people don't have a conscience. If you surround yourself with people of similar mindset and in a climate where war
is considered obligatory for US Presidents, you go into self denial. Wars are probably like an addiction for these people and
once you get to that stage you no longer have a conscience.
During John McCain's funeral where all living ex-presidents were in attendance, someone remarked on Twitter, 'Quick, lock the
church doors and hold the war crimes trial in the church!'. This was a far more realistic observation than the sickening McCain
apologist BBC coverage we were subjected to.
At the weekend I went to the place where Oliver Cromwell lived. There was an American tourist who told us she was shocked about
Oliver Cromwell being dug up from his grave and his head stuck on a pike. She said it was gruesome. I was tempted to say that
at least that was 350 years ago, and similar things are happening today in Iraq, Syria and Libya – all places where the US has
instigated the chaos and supports the perpretators. I resisted the temptation.
I note that Cromwell thought he was chosen by God to do what he did. But again that was in different times and there were some
redeeming factors in what he did, Probably on par with Obama – who wreaked havoc on the Middle East but reached agreements on
Iran and Cuba. Plus Obama looked cool while killing and droning.
But what goes around comes around. I sense the pure evil involved in the current regime change wars, government, media etc
will pay a heavy price – whether in this life or the next.
The state controlled BBC has just done another puff piece on McCain saying what a splendid chap and great statesman and all round
good egg he was.
The MSM likes to slag off Vlad The Bad by droning on about how he was in the KGB. But Bush wasn't just IN the CIA, he was the
BOSS of the CIA, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Central American peasant farmers and Indians were being killed by CIA
trained and orchestrated death squads.
Mark: jayzus Mark, don't you just want to projectile vomit when you see all this absolute bullshit, just straight out revising
of history, just the lies, on and on . I was involved in a Central American solidarity group in the 1980s – early 90s here in
Aussie, found out then all about U.S style 'democracatic values' and 'human rights concerns' and death squads and various fascists
fully supported by the United States, and places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. Its all an illusion for 'polite society' and the
gullible to believe in. Sigh
I can't remember the exact figures but I think it was over 200,000 murdered in Guatemala out of a population of 4 million. It
was the same story in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. And of course the CIA satrap Noriega was hauled off in chains
when that country was invaded. But Uncle Sam is finally paying a price for his antics south of the border. Those societies were
wrecked and brutalised beyond repair. There is now an unbelievably high murder rate of women in Guatemala. Millions of those people
have sought some kind of refuge in the belly of the beast, causing an immigration crisis, with an illegal immigrant population
that may be as high as 30 million. Hence all the uproar over Trump's wall. The immigration crisis was a factor in Trump's election,
just as the tidal wave of migrants from the destroyed countries of the Middle East was a factor in Brexit. Cameron, Sarko and
Clinton thought it was a spiffing idea and quite a wizard wheeze to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. So we now have a Mad Max
failed state complete with warlords and slave markets just across the Med. What goes around, comes around. You can't expect to
export violence and mayhem abroad and remain immune to it at home.
Mark: after Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup in Guatemala in 1982, US Ambassador Frederick Chapin declared that thanks
to the coup of Rios Montt "the Guatemalan Govt has come out of the darkness into the light". That sums it up in one sentence,
and you're probably aware of the mass killing and disappearances under his genocidal tyranny. Reagan kindly submitted that Rios
Montt was 'getting a bum rap on human rights, the same Reagan who declared the Contra's were 'The moral equal of our founding
fathers'. In El Salvador, the same mass slaughter, the same mass upheaval, and even murdering Archbishop Romero. You only need
to look at what happened in Central & South America to understand what the United States really represents.
That's entirely right. People understandably despise and revile people like Brady and Hindley, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Bundy and the
like. But they killed a handful of people and were often very damaged individuals to begin with. And at least they did their own
dirty work. Subhuman scum sucking filth like Bush, Bush 2, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Blair, Straw and Campbell
are a thousand times worse. They kill millions without getting their hands dirty, and preen and posture as great statesmen and
public servants, expecting deference and state funerals and puff piece obituaries from nauseating, loathsome, lickspittle media
hacks like Tisdall.
Nailed it Kit. The attempt at revionism and rewriting history by these craven creatures, these sycophantic slimebag shills for
Imperialism and War and the Anglo Zionist Empire. They don't speak truth to power, they protect and grovel to the powerful. The
eulogising and fawning of Bush was stomach churning, as it was for the arch Imperialist McCain when he croaked. Thank God for
alternative news sites, and yeah Caitlin Johnston @ medium nailed it as well, as Fair Dinkum mentioned. Where's John Pilger when
you need him?
What no one seems to realize is that the VP often takes charge of the US National Security Council when POTUS is not able to attend
meetings, which are held weekly. Under Eisenhower it was Richard Nixon who often took charge of the meetings -- Tim Weiner's book
"Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" gives some details on this. Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking,
oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was
a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's.
I don't know but as a fairly apolitical individual, I never much bothered with the Kennedy Assasination. All that changed when
during the fiftieth anniversary, BBC Radio Four ran a program which included an interview with the Dallas police officer who was
handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. The consensus of that program was that the case was open shut and
Oswald did it. Around that time, several newspapers in the UK featured articles claiming that Oswald acted alone.
Whether or not anyone actively involved still lives, their descendants still do and the probable organising body too. There
still appears to be determination in some quarters to spread disinformation about the case. Given that as long ago as the late
seventies the House of Representatives Assassination Committee concluded that JFK's death was probably the consequence of a conspiracy,
determination amongst the mainstream media to lay Kennedy's death at the hands of Oswald alone suggests that there is still determination
that the truth never becomes public.
I'm sickened by the Guardian's and BBC's obedience to the US neocon project to seek, or create, and destroy "enemies" and whilst
ignoring all the disgusting atrocities that arise as a consequence.
The Guardian is not even worth the paper it's printed on. It's become The Guardian Of The Establishment rather than of the
Truth which it used to proclaim.
It is in danger of losing its budgie-cage-liner status. If budgies can talk they may refuse to evacuate on it. What kind of person
maintains ties to such a a poor excuse for cage toiletry. The moral crunch time for their journalists (actually their opinionists)
came and went a long time ago.
What a great piece. My parents knew them in New York and they came over once and left behind an embossed packet of White House
cigs. I asked my father (before he died) what he thought of them and all he ever said was he thought that Barbara was the intellect
in the family.
Bloody annoying, thanks Pater.
"The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq broke a 46-year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war continues to be used more
and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years). The long-term effects from
over a decade of DU exposures are devastating. The increased quantities of radioactive material used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5
times greater than Iraq, 1991. In Iraq, 2003, they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991, and will travel through a larger
area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000-mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected
by radiation poisoning
"DU remains radioactive longer than [ ] 4.5 billion years." It's worse than that. It loses half of its radioactivity in that time.
The good news is that that slow release means "D"U doesn't zap you much. The bad news is it's chemically toxic, like a heavy metal
(which it is).
Also no mention of the body of circumstantial evidence linking Bush to JFK's murder, though Bush repeatedly insisted that he couldn't
recall his whereabouts that day (I can precisely recall where I was, and I was 9 years old in 1963), in spite of the fact that
solid documentary evidence exists that puts him in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963.
The very first Google Search I did was this, (George H.W. Bush+November 22, 1963) and it yielded a page like the following link,
which began my research into the JFK Assassination.
The EU didn't impose austerity on the UK, its own government did. We don't have the euro, in
case you haven't noticed. The US is our top overseas buyer. If we want more of that, we'll
have to take something like TTIP or worse.
The EU was a voice for African, Caribbean and Pacific producers against US transnationals,
and offered favorable terms. We've weakened that voice.
Brexit makes us more dependent on the IMF, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup
and Morgan Stanley. They're not EU bodies.
Britain opposed EU democratisation for forty years by upholding national governments' veto
powers over proposals supported by elected MEPs.
You voted against everything you claim to uphold. Because it was a vote against
everything.
None of that's even the issue. Do you have an insight to offer beyond antipathy to the
EU?
Whatever the truth, and I become daily more distrustful of the media that regularly attack
Putin in this way, I doubt very much if his crimes in this regard come anywhere near those of
Bush, Cheney, Blair, Cameron, Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
This is just routinely parroted by the MSM and equally routinely expanded upon by them.
Organs like the Guardian/ BBC casually announce that Putin has stolen £40 billion
(sometimes this is casually raised to £200 billion, which would make him the richest
man on the planet and people like Gates/ Buffett poor as church mice by
comparison.)Occasionally someone does ask for details, like bank transfers, property holdings
or whatever.
Nothing is ever forthcoming. All they come up with is that he has some nice Italian suits
and a nice gold watch that cost him $1,200.
Apart from that, these allegations must be true because some financial fraudster mate of
Khordokovsky who sought refuge in the US said so. Sounds pretty convincing to us here in the
MSM – what more evidence do you need? Of course Putin is just a kleptocratic thug and
James Bond cartoon villain who has people murdered purely for the fun of it.
Very late in the game I finally saw the documentary Icarus recently. I had passed it up
because I thought I could predict that it would be rampantly dishonest, and an exercise in
propaganda. It having received an Academy award seemed to be an independent confirmation of
my prejudice.
Well, I was right for once. It was disgraceful, and the most common image in it was of
Putin, accompanied by feeble ad hominem claims, without any counterpoints of any kind. So the
core issue, cheating at the Olympics, turned out to be presented with no context at all, for
the anti-Russian smear job. No mention of Balco, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones, and just a few
seconds of an unidentified Lance Armstrong.
So now we see awards for propaganda. The Americans don't do fairness or integrity, but now
they don't even pretend.
Tolkien also comes to mind here.
Us 'hobbits' are treated as inferior beings by the 'Saurons', 'Nazguls' and 'Gollums' of this
world.
Gandalf ?
We're waiting
Comments were true and apposite enough, but it's all been said really. But given that this is
largely an information war the truth needs continuously asserting.
Our opponents – the Guardian (minitru on thames) the New York Post (Pravda on the
Hudson) the Washington Post (Izvestia on the Potomac) – sole tactic is constant
repetition, this should be our tactic also but with evidence to back it up.
We need to constantly expand our readership and challenge the lunatic narrative of the
PTB. We are now in a pivotal historical moment. If we fail it will be Hunger Games.
I agree about the repetition but do you want to know what I think? I think you need to
play MSM and others a little bit at their own game. They don't back anything up with
evidence. They write short pieces of fiction as statements of fact. Yet they are
believed.
The thing is all 'our' evidence is already out there just by taking a look. (e.g White
Helmets will take you 15 minutes to doubt that narrative) You have an army of
researchers/journalists (e.g Kit Klarenberg, Vanessa Beeley etc) posting detailed evidence
out there. A lot of the independent/academic articles I read are well backed up with evidence
but the problem is to someone not up to speed, is less inclined to read a long article backed
up by detailed reasoning and evidence within it.
I think this article is clear and credible and prompts those new to independent thought to
look at different sources of information.
So perhaps more independent writing, which is creative setting out the facts in an
intelligent way as above and invite (through links) the reader to look at the evidence which
is plentiful, at their leisure.
Humour is another good way of spreading the message. The CJ Hopkins piece a few days ago
very effective.
Skripals case reminds us that the Red Brigades in Italy and Baader-Meinhof in Germany were
entirely bogus and controlled intelligence operations. It's the same story with the "Symbionese
Liberation Army" in the US. Then there's Gladio and Northwoods.
Realpolitik has become surrealpolitik. In Skripals case Russia was immediately blamed,
despite the fact an investigation had barely begun That instantly suggests british intelligence
services participation in Skripals poisoning.
Were are currently the father and daughter who were allegedly poisoned is unknown. Why they
are in hiding is also unknown. But such quetions are never raised by MSM.
In the Middle Ages, everybody knew that witches, fairies, pixies and elves existed and were
responsible for everything that went wrong in life, like the cows or the pigs falling sick or the
hens stopping laying. But round about the early 1600s, judges and juries started demanding
evidence and acquitting defendants in witch trials. They accepted their existence, but still
wanted to see some evidence. The folk in the 1600s were probably more sceptical and less
credulous than our friends like Harding at the Guardian today.
The public can be persuaded to accept almost anything providing the story chimes with deep
seated fears or prejudices, such as Russians threatening 'our way of life' (fears and prejudices
continually stoked by the media of course)
Skripal. The final illustration is the alleged of poisoning with "Novichok" of Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March 2018. This was immediately blamed on
Russia, again before an investigation had been concluded, followed by sanctions, the expulsion
of Russian diplomats (including by Australia) and a general tirade of abuse against Russia in
general and President Putin in particular.
The Skripal case is a classic illustration of Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief,
Roh's magical realism and Orwell's doublethink (the act of simultaneously accepting two
mutually contradictory beliefs as correct) all rolled into one.
Rob Slane ( www.theblogmire.com 9
January 2019) has brilliantly deconstructed the many logical, scientific and political
absurdities in the official story. One will wait in vain for the merest hint of this demolition
in the mainstream media.
One possible reason for this non-coverage of the actual evidence and instead a non-stop
barrage of disinformation, suppression of evidence and manipulation of the public can be found
in the activities of a shadowy organisation known as the Institute for Statecraft, and one of
its projects known as the Integrity Initiative (sic).
Fresh revelations are emerging about this project on a daily basis and a proper analysis
must await developments. Suffice to note at this point that the Integrity Initiative is
known to be funded by the United Kingdom government, ostensibly to counter 'Russian
disinformation.' It is rather a major project to spread falsehoods about Russia through
"clusters" of journalists working in mainstream media outlets.
The latter have gone beyond the willing suspension of disbelief and instead actively promote
disinformation they know to be untrue. It is not only potential embarrassment that prevents
this story getting the attention it deserves. It is a strong suspicion, no more than that at
the time of writing, that a D Notice has been issued in the United Kingdom and
Australia.
The effect has been to prevent discussion of what is an extraordinary campaign to mislead
the public, attack opposition politicians and the alternative media, and generally undermine
what used to be regarded as a free press.
That some of the same personnel involved in the Integrity Initiative are also involved in
the Skripal matter (itself subject to a D Notice) reinforces the belief that this project has
wider tentacles than originally thought .
"... Trump's recent tax cuts are a good example. Most of the actual cuts go toward the corporations and ultra-wealthy, which just increases the deficit while shifting the proportion of taxes paid onto the middle class. It's a con that many Americans are inexplicably susceptible to believing, for some reason. ..."
Didn't help that the ostensibly neutral DNC was sending emails saying that they should play
up Bernie Sanders' Jewish faith (among other attack strategies), fed debate questions to the
Clinton campaign or tried to limit opportunities for Bernie and Hillary to share a stage
together.
Bernie Sanders is widely considered by many to be one of the most popular American
politicians, more than Trump and certainly more popular than Hillary. I think an interesting
phenomenon to notice is the lengths the GOP, in particular, will go to in order to convince
the average voter that anything that cuts taxes is inherently good for the 'little guy,'
while anything that raises taxes is bad.
Trump's recent tax cuts are a good example. Most of
the actual cuts go toward the corporations and ultra-wealthy, which just increases the
deficit while shifting the proportion of taxes paid onto the middle class. It's a con that
many Americans are inexplicably susceptible to believing, for some reason.
We've known since WW2, that fighting fascism is difficult. Benito Mussolini defined fascism
as "Barely able to slip a cigarette paper between business and government." And when business
runs government, we have even exceeded fascism. The new battle against fascism is not going
to be easy.
Do you think Trump is in anyway worse than his predecessors?
Well from my perspective, he's worse than his predecessors because, for a brief period of
time, he offered to hand me over to Putin!
Well, I would imagine you do have skin in the game because of that.
Also, he doesn't seem to have the level of he doesn't read briefing reports or have any
specifications at all about what this guy's up to.
What is your opinion on the future of America as a result of what Putin did during the 2016
election? Has he succeeded in striking a permanent blow against democracy in this country, for
lack of a better way of putting it?
Well, I believe that the institutions of United States are now being tested. It's kind of
like a it's a virus that has now has tried to infect the United States. I believe the
institutions are the immune systems in the United States. I think that United States will
survive this attack, and as far as Putin is concerned, I think that he has done himself very
grave long-term harm to his own interests. Because the next regime in the United States is
going to come down so hard on Putin, he's not going to know what hit him. He's playing such a
short-term game that he doesn't understand that whether it's Democrats or Republicans, any
normal reasonable person will want to be absolutely, devastatingly aggressive towards Russia
after Trump is finished.
So in a sense this pop-culture image of Putin as a grand strategist you think is flawed?
I think he's a highly effective short-term tactician and a very, very stupid strategist,
because his long-term interests are not served by alienating the entire Western world to sort
of rally against him. He can do all these frauds and scams and tricks on a short-term basis,
but pretty much everybody understands what he's up to.
"... The whole affair is psyop, we know that already ..."
"... Stranger and stranger British press is saying that they did CPR on both victims at the scene of their collapse; being a trained nurse one of the first things they would have done is to have taken their pulse and other vitals and miraculously managed to do this and not become contaminated. Methinks something doth stink! ..."
"... Before any free-trade agreement can be reached with the United States, the Queen must issue a written apology to President Trump for attempting to overthrow his government. ..."
The case of poisoned double-agent Sergei Skripal just got weirder after it was revealed that
the first responder to the scene was the Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army after he
daughter spotted Skripal and his daughter collapsed on a bench at the Maltings shopping center
in Salisbury on March 5 of last year.
According to
Spire FM , 16-year-old Abigail McCourt spotted the poisoned Russians while "out celebrating
her brother's birthday," and then quickly alerted her mother - Alison McCourt. The two McCourts
gave first aid to the Skripals until paramedics arrived.
Colonel McCourt - who was decorated
for her efforts to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, proposed her daughter as a candidate for the
Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards.
"As a qualified nurse it was a fairly routine situation for me but my daughter was amazing.
Her prompt actions, spotting them in difficulty, and the way she assisted me to put Yulia
Skripal in the recovery position had a significant impact on the outcome of the two victims , "
said Alison of her daughter.
The coincidence - kept under wraps for nearly a year , is sure to give skeptics plenty of
new ammunition to refute the official narrative that Russia attempted to kill Skripal 10 years
after the voluntarily gave him up in a spy exchange with the UK.
... ... ...
Christopher Steele connection walked back
In an embarrassing walkback of a story from March 2018, The Telegraph now says that the
Kremlin laid a "false trail" linking Sergei Skripal to Christopher Steele - the former MI6 spy
who crafted the infamous anti-Trump "Steele Dossier" paid for by Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
The Telegraph understands that Col Skripal moved to Salisbury in 2010 in a spy swap and
became close to a security consultant employed by Christopher Steele, who compiled the Trump
dossier.
The British security consultant, according to a LinkedIn social network account that was
removed from the internet in the past few days, is also based in Salisbury.
On the same LinkedIn account, the man listed consultancy work with Orbis Business
Intelligence, according to reports. -
Telegraph
On Sunday that entire connection - which implied that Skripal was somehow involved with the
Steele Dossier, was
blamed on Russia .
Russian intelligence created a false trail linking the double agent Sergei Skripal to the
former MI6 officer behind the Trump dossier before carrying out the Salisbury nerve agent
attack, the Telegraph has been told.
Well-placed sources now believe that the plot to kill Col Skripal may have included a
'black ops' attempt to sow doubt on the veracity of the explosive dossier that claims Donald
Trump received Kremlin backing.
The year before the attempted assassination of Col Skripal, a mysterious post on LinkedIn
suggested his MI6 handler, who is not being named, worked as a "senior analyst" at Orbis
Business Intelligence, the firm that produced the Trump dossier.
...
But a number of sources have told The Telegraph that the LinkedIn profile is false - if it
ever properly existed at all - and that Skripal's MI6 handler never worked for Orbis.
It is now suspected that the LinkedIn profile was created by the GRU, the Russian military
intelligence unit which tried to kill Col Skripal with novichok nerve agent. -
Telegraph
"By creating this link, they are suggesting that MI6 are involved with the dossier or
Skripal or both. It adds to the confusion and acts as a wedge between the White House and
Downing Street. It is exactly the kind of operation the Russians would order to sow confusion,"
said the Telegraph 's "well placed source."
"An internet hyperlink to the LinkedIn page appeared in an obscure blog posting in January
2017 - more than a year before the Salisbury attack - but the actual LinkedIn page itself has
never been visible ," the Telegraph writes.
In other words, The Telegraph wrote an entire story in March of last year based on nothing
more than "an internet hyperlink to the LinkedIn page" without actually having viewed the
profile now blamed on a Russian black op.
But there was another possibility - one that is utterly ludicrous and now disproved - that
was none the less championed by conspiracy theorists. Namely, that the death of Col Skripal
was not ordered by the Kremlin at all - but carried out by British agents to silence the
former Russian intelligence officer.
The reason was simple. Col Skripal - so the theory went - had helped provide information
to Christopher Steele, a former senior MI6 officer, who authored an extraordinary dossier on
Donald Trump, alleging that the soon-to-be president was effectively a puppet of Putin. The
dossier claimed that the Kremlin had been "cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at
least five years".
Oddly, however, a British spy named Pablo Miller was claimed by Russian media in 2007 as the MI6 agent
who recruited Skripal in 1995. Miller apparently works (or worked) for Orbis - though it is
unclear whether he is the same person noted in the original Telegraph report.
So - the British Army's head nurse was the first one to provide assistance to the dying
Russians, while Skripal's link to Christopher Steele is now thought to be part of a Russian
plot to discredit the Steele Dossier. Fascinating.
Fascinating??? Too much fantasy in this piece of fiction. The author seems uninterested in
going beyond trying to make it look like a fantasy James Bond. Surely someone can give the
'patient in difficulty' symptoms. Good grief, to categorize this fantasy story cooked up by
British Intel and hard-sell journalists, as NEWS. Is this the drivel we have to expect from
journalism schools?
M eye 6 is complicit in the Steele Dossier on Fake Russian collusion, Trying to cover a
big black eye from a so called British ally to USA that tried to run a coup on a sitting
president...
We always knew Pablo Miller worked for Orbis, Steele's consultancy, and was skripals
handler,
the article brings out the the nurses daughter sad Yulia Skripal was not breathing, was
dead, neither suffered any contact problems, unlike the policeman who was first on the scene
on the old story.
The 'actor based reality,' which has always been a tool for TPTB to use the fair and
balanced press to divide the public at large, utilizes much more than vast corps of
characters, writers, producers and directors as the psyops event coordinators executing
preplanned large scale operations to steer our perception with proven mind control tactics.
But, they're tactics have become so simple to spot by researchers as the templates are
basically similar and the plots of they're fake large scale events have become mind numbingly
ridiculous for any body paying attention to even the smallest amount of detail exposed in
these hoaxed
Wow, (((THEY))) sure LOVE gaslighting us. This mess of an attempt at an article shows how
******* stupid they really think we are. Even their warped version of one alternate theory
fits their ******** narrative. ******* absurd.
Porton Down is 8 miles...10 miles away? .. staff live in Salisbury...numbers of medical
staff deployed at PD and area will be large...Interesting is all.
Stranger and stranger British press is saying that they did CPR on both victims at the
scene of their collapse; being a trained nurse one of the first things they would have done
is to have taken their pulse and other vitals and miraculously managed to do this and not
become contaminated. Methinks something doth stink!
British authorities have refined to a whole new level offering bald faced lies and patent
absurdities with a dignified stiff upper lip. I have it from a highly placed source that
envious American and Israeli official and unofficial liars have been practicing posturing as
dignified and putting glue on their upper lips.
It's all a coincidence. In fact the word coincidence is an exaggeration. Because the
coincidences are happening more and more. Which makes them no longer a coincidence.
The previous alleged first responder was a policeman who became dangerously ill because
the novichok was so potent but strangely, this woman and her daughter suffered no ill
effects. I can only guess that due to her work with the British Army, she and her daughter
had fortunately and coincidentally been innoculated with a novichok antidote.
The house was on lockdown forever. Even if you are a trained nurse, doctor, emt, you are
out in a park with your family. What equipment are you carrying to defeat the effects of a
biological weapon??? And they weren't affected. Simply amazing.
Before any free-trade agreement can be reached with the United States, the Queen must
issue a written apology to President Trump for attempting to overthrow his government.
"... Even as I was finishing this piece off, yet another round of nonsense was unleashed; this time, the news that the roof of 47 Christie Miller Road (including the roof of the study) is to be taken off and replaced. Remember, we're talking about a substance that can be cleansed with baby wipes. Remember, we're talking about a substance that apparently breaks down after 80 minutes of exposure to the air. But 11 months later, it is again so deadly, that a whole roof needs replacing! Of course the media is not bothering to ask the obvious questions about this action, such as: How exactly could the roof timbers have become contaminated? Who could have contaminated them? D.S. Bailey? But why would he have been in the attic? Why is the ceiling / roof in Zizzis [restaurant] not being replaced? Why has the roof in The Mill [pub] not been dismantled? What was really in the attic? Obvious questions, yet none of them will be asked. ..."
Next twist in the ongoing Skripal poisoning soap opera saga - it seems to be turning out
that way - must surely be an autobiography publishing deal for Abby McCourt, with the book
having a working title of "I Was A Teenage Frontline Emergency Responder in the Fight
against Putin, Novichok and Russia".
@ Paveway IV Post 1
Curiouser and curiouser goes the tale; apparently it was not just the door handle -
John Helmer's post, January 17th, 2019 on "The British state broadcaster BBC and other media have disclosed that the Salisbury
house (lead image) owned by Sergei Skripal is to be partially demolished and rebuilt over
the next four months."
a very long piece and a worthy read. the last three paragraphs tells all -
The second conclusion is that it was Skripal who exposed himself to a poison he was
handling inside the house. That he did so by accident is likely; the accident theory was
first reported here, on March 25, 2018.
The only independent British investigator of the affair, Rob Slane, has announced that
he is retiring from the case. Here is his last word.
" Even as I was finishing this piece off, yet another round of nonsense was
unleashed; this time, the news that the roof of 47 Christie Miller Road (including the
roof of the study) is to be taken off and replaced. Remember, we're talking about a
substance that can be cleansed with baby wipes. Remember, we're talking about a
substance that apparently breaks down after 80 minutes of exposure to the air. But 11
months later, it is again so deadly, that a whole roof needs replacing! Of course the
media is not bothering to ask the obvious questions about this action, such as: How
exactly could the roof timbers have become contaminated? Who could have contaminated
them? D.S. Bailey? But why would he have been in the attic? Why is the ceiling / roof
in Zizzis [restaurant] not being replaced? Why has the roof in The Mill [pub] not been
dismantled? What was really in the attic? Obvious questions, yet none of them will be
asked.
In conclusion, I think it abundantly clear that what we have been told about what
took place on 4th March in the beautiful city of Salisbury is not, in fact, true. It is
clear that something else happened, and much of what we have seen since then has been
theatre and an attempt to cover up what actually took place."
"... The point of this practice is to propagate lies into the public consciousness. It's a method that can be used to distract and disseminate and divide. The accuracy of the statement is immaterial. ..."
"... The point is, once it has been said it cannot be unsaid. There are countless examples: "Assange was working for Russia", "Trump ordered Cohen to lie to Congress", "Russia hacked the US election", "Donald Trump worked for the KGB", "Assad gassed his own people", "Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite". The list goes on and on and on. None these have been proven. All were asserted without evidence, fiercely defended as facts, and then discretely qualified. ..."
"... The lie was told, the audience laughed, the reality was created. "Labour are behind in the polls, anybody who says otherwise is a laughingstock" . The lie goes around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on. That's why fake news is so important to them, and so dangerous us. ..."
Trump has been a disappointment to his base and is yet to implement half the policies he discussed on the campaign trail, but
he's not fully and totally being controlled by the warhawking Deep State yet, either. His policy of peace with North Korea and decisions
to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan show that there is a tug-of-war ongoing inside the administration. It's probably no coincidence
that this latest of many "bombshells" comes so quickly
on the heels of Trump's announcement of the Syria withdrawal. Careful "leaks", planted stories and social media witch-hunts remind
Trump how precarious his position is, whilst simultaneously distracting the public – both pro-Trump and anti-Trump – from real issues.
The case-specific "why?" doesn't matter so much as the general aim of this type of manipulation. The important question
is: Why does the media tell lies if they know they will be revealed as such? Clearly, the lies serve a purpose, regardless of their
retraction or qualification. Telling a lie loudly and then taking it back quietly is an old propaganda trick – it allows the paper
to maintain a facade of "accountability".
The point of this practice is to propagate lies into the public consciousness. It's a method that can be used to distract
and disseminate and divide. The accuracy of the statement is immaterial.
The point is, once it has been said it cannot be unsaid. There are countless examples: "Assange was working for Russia", "Trump
ordered Cohen to lie to Congress", "Russia hacked the US election", "Donald Trump worked for the KGB", "Assad gassed his own people",
"Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite". The list goes on and on and on. None these have been proven. All were asserted without evidence,
fiercely defended as facts, and then discretely qualified.
That is the purpose of "fake news", to forge the Empire's
"created
reality" , and force us all to live in it. These are world-shaping, policy-informing, news-dominating narratives and are nothing
but feathers in the wind .
A perfect exemplar of this occurred just two days ago on the BBC's flagship Political debate show Question Time :
me title= The (notionally impartial) host not only sided with right-wing author Isabel Oakeshott in criticising
Labour's polling, but then joined in mocking the Labour MP Diane Abbott for attempting to correct the record. Both Oakeshott and
Fiona Bruce, the host, were
factually incorrect – as shown a hundred times over since. But that doesn't matter.
The lie was told, the audience laughed, the reality was created. "Labour are behind in the polls, anybody who says otherwise
is a laughingstock" . The lie goes around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on. That's why fake news is so important
to them, and so dangerous us.
Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now
he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.
"... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
"... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch
#4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.
It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen,
Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy
Corbyn.
Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but
created by the II.
This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously
and using smears,
-Yellow Vests
– Jill Stein
-Jeremy Corbyn
-George Galloway
-Seuams Milne
-German Left Party
-French Left Party
-French Communist Party
-Greek Communist Party
-Podemos
-Norwegian Red Party
-Norwegian Socialist Left Party
-Swedish Left Party
-Swedish Greens
-International Anti-NATO Groups
-Greyzone Project
-Julian Assange
-MintPressNews
Via
-Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
-Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
-Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
-Hosting events for collaboration between members
-Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere
By repeating or openly collaborating with:
-Ben Nimmo
-Oz Katergi
-Anne Applebaum
-Peter Pomerantsev
-Bellingcat
-Atlantic Council
-Carole Cadwalladr
-David Aaronovitch
-Center For A Stateless Society
-PropOrNot
-Alexander Reid-Ross
-Nick Cohen
-Michael Weiss
-Jamie Fly
-Jamie Kirchick
Directed by:
-Tory Government
-NATO
-Facebook
-German Multinationals
Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward
many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.
I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least
for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.
And, one last bit from the BBC report on March 8, 2018:
"...Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how she
found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting and fitting. She had also lost
control of her bodily functions.
The woman, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the
recovery position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father.
She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical
agent on Ms Skripal's face or body.
The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added
that she "feels fine"
Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever...
"... Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament. ..."
The UK government and other Western governments and the US in recent years have had increasing
difficulties persuading enough of their populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign
policies that they have been pursuing.
And at the same time, Western countries have been going through a period of political crisis
and economic crisis.
Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of
Sheffield, further explains:
I think a lot of this drive is as much about trying to shore up shaky official narratives and
trying to shore up political systems in a situation of political crisis, as it is actually
about countering Russian propaganda.
I would suspect that that's a little bit of an excuse here to really what's going on of
problems much closer to home. This is not just to do to UK, this is Europe-wide. And there are also indications from the
documents that they are intending to start to have some kind of impact within the United
States. So, it's a very wide-ranging network that seems to be established.
The reason why it needs to be covert, of course, is that if a media organization, or if a
journalist is to let on that he, or she, is involved in a program, which quite clearly is
pushing a particular agenda, then the credibility of that journalist will be damaged.
And this is really what is very deceptive about the Integrity Initiative . It's about
co-opting journalists and academics into, essentially, a campaign, which appears to be a
propaganda campaign, in order to manipulate opinions.
And the only way that can really work effectively, is if readers and viewers don't know that
what they're reading is something which has emerged from a particular political agenda.
Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity
Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military
intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert
Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament.
So, it's not accidental that the organized and systematic propaganda campaign against labour
party has actually started under Corbyn's leadership. And that the campaign contains a lot of
personal attacks against the leader of the Labour party. That's because, of course, Jeremy
Corbyn is driving the party out of the neoliberal machine that has been dominating the UK
politics for decades.
But it seems that the agents of the neoliberal establishment are really desperate as they see
that the new narratives are not particularly successful.
It would not be exaggerating to suggest that the attacks against Leftist leaders like Jeremy
Corbyn and Bernie Sanders essentially bring the opposite effect. That's because especially the
younger generations have turned their back to the mainstream media.
And they understand that the more the media attack Corbyn and Sanders, the stronger the
indication that these leaders are not part of the neoliberal establishment that ruined their
lives becomes.
"... But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the "incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that Abigail was a very worthy winner. ..."
"... Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some 11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere. ..."
"... That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing day. ..."
"... Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease ..."
"... what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the Skripals. ..."
"... The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU. ..."
"... Curious that Abigail McCourt received basic first aid training at school (in which she would have been taught CPR) yet when Spire FM hosts spoke to her, she says that her training was not needed. In almost the same sentence, she says Julia Skripal was not breathing. ..."
"... Off-Guardian on Twitter wonders if Alison McCourt had been involved in Exercise Toxic Dagger (chemical weapons training exercise) staged by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Royal Marines in February 2018: ..."
"... The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok. ..."
"... The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites. ..."
"... It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge, of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state. ..."
"... So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army? ..."
"... Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't die). How odd. How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why..... ..."
"... Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election. See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency, which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason. ..."
"... Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such as the Skripal affair. ..."
"... reminds me of the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in the runup to the first gulf war. ..."
"... 'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the crowd cry out 'shame'! ..."
On March 4 2018 the British/Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia
were found incapacitated on a bench in Salisbury. The British government asserts that they were affected by a chemical poison
of the so called Novichok group. The case led to a diplomatic conflict as Britain accused Russia of an attempt to kill the
Skripals. No evidence was provided by the British government to support those accusations. The Skripals have since been
vanished.
Today an intriguing new detail of the case came to light. Spire FM , a local
radio station in Salisbury,
reports of a young woman, Abigail McCourt, who was given a 'Lifesaver Award' for her
involvement in the Skripal case:
The 16 year old, from Larkhill, was the first to spot two people collapsed on a bench in
the Maltings on March 4th and didn't hesitate to help. Abigail quickly alerted her mum, a
qualified nurse, who was nearby and together they gave first aid to the victims until
paramedics arrived.
It soon became clear this was no ordinary medical incident, but the poisoning of a
former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, with Novichok.
...
Immediately following the incident and with the world's media focused on Salisbury, the
pair didn't want any want press attention and kept their involvement quiet.
But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the
"incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award
at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that
Abigail was a very worthy winner.
Earlier reports mentioned that a 'military nurse' had attended to the Skripals. Following
the above report Elena Evdokimova checked the name of the young women's mothers and found a
curiosity:
We were right, it was Alison McCourt who was that"unknown military nurse" who,
absolutely randomly, happened to be near the bench where #Skripals collapsed . Spire FM
alleges that it was her daughter Abigail alerted her, but no one mentioned her before
...
Colonel A L McCourt OBE ARRC QHN - Assistant Head Health Strategy / Chief Nursing Officer
(Army) - Senior Health Advisor (Army) Department.
Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month
before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some
11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere.
As I read this I had two thoughts. The first one is that the Brits have lost the competence
they once had with this stuff. "Operation Mincemeat" was, according to all accounts, a marvel
in planning, execution, and getting the desired reactions from the German High Command. The
"Double-Cross System" turned the extremely risky invasion at Normandy into a success. The
recent stuff is a comedy by comparison.
excellent reporting.. still we have little written collaborative evidence.. just as in 9/11
just top dogs saying improbable things.
What seems to me important now is to develop as you have done a set of hypotheses. and to
hack at them until we hit the ones which all evidence cannot dispute. Using your summary I
rewrite in hypothesis form,
hypothesis 1: Steele's dirty dossier is not related to the Skripal case.
hypothesis 2: Steele's dossier is not the result of an integrity initiative.
hypothesis 3: Downing street personnel were not involved in integrity initiative
hypothesis 4: media reported only supportable facts.
hypothesis 5: Neither the USA or any of its agencies were involved
hypothesis 6: Neither Israel or any of its agencies were involved
hypothesis 7: Neither Saudi Arabia or any of its Arab partners were involved
hypothesis 6: Neither Republicans or Democrats in America were involved.
hypothesis 8: the FBI had no part in this.
hypothesis 9: Developing sufficient misinformation to justify attacking Nord 2
pipeline was not one of the objectives of the integrity initiative.
hypothesis 10: No private interest supported organizing a false flag op against
Russia
Too good. That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of
human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing
day.
Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent
battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics
and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease.
what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against
ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the
Skripals.
Coincidence? Probably like most here, I think not. But isn't this something of an own goal?
If indeed things are as we suspect, why would you put the daughter up for an award? Wouldn't
you want the can of worms this presents to remain unopened? Can they be this incompetent?
Well, looking at the Brexit process, I guess we know the answer to that last by now
rhetorical question.
The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for
the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange
that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the
poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU.
b, you are too suspicious. Nothing to see here.
Clearly way beyond a serious matter, this dastardly attack on Skripals by the Soviets, er,
the Russians, er, Putin.
In Canada our eloquent foreign Minister, in a barrage of outraged talking the talk that
was accompanied by making four Russian diplomats walk the walk home, said in words that will
surely take their high place in the history of inspired speeches, along with Churchill's
'Never have so many done so much for so few', and MLK's 'I have a nightmare':
And her words re the March 4 nerve agent attack on a close ally and partner of Canada "a
despicable, heinous and reckless act" that potentially endangered the lives of hundreds"
Strange - no military hospital in Salisbury but then there aren't military hospitals in
Britain anymore. Instead the military use civilian hospitals with a Ministry of Defence
Hospital Unit attached but none near Salisbury. The Ministry of Defence Hospital Units do not
treat operational casualties who are treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at
Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Birmingham. You'd think the Chief Nursing Officer for the
British Army, Colonel McCourt would work out off the most important site for defence medicine
in the UK (QEH in Birmingham) but instead she's based at Larkhill which from memory is where
the Royal Artillery is located.
Not so strange - The area inhabited by the British Army north of Salisbury (more specifically
north of the A303 road was classified as deprived because of the lack of shopping facilities,
so most residents of this area do their shopping in Salisbury which has the best shopping in
the area. There are now a Tesco superstore and a branch of Lidl in Tidworth so perhaps it's
not so deprived anymore.
The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in
Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of
the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok.
The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in
Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its
entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply
staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites.
The US is fracturing, the EU is fracturing, and therein lies the greatest danger. With the
overplayed sanctions only making the sanctioned effect work arounds to the point that the
primacy of the US dollar is threatened, with the contain China train having left the station
and recently pulling into a station purpose built on the dark side of the moon, their only
options look to be to either go nuclear or go away.
2019 looks to be a most interesting year!
exiled off mainstreet , Jan 19, 2019 6:05:32 PM |
link
It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled
media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family
member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge,
of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received
propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state.
So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to
be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief
Nurse Of the British Army?
Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in
the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't
die). How odd.
How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open
up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why.....
I am beginning to wonder if Sir Humphrey Appleby and some of his colleagues are conducting a
deliberate hoax, piling impossibility upon impossibility and contradiction upon
contradiction, just to see how long it takes the unbelievably gullible British public to get
the joke and start throwing cabbages and rotten fruit. Not so funny for the poor woman who died - but then, as Sir Humphrey has often been heard
to remark, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to
act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election.
See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of
the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy
Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency,
which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of
governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason.
Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the
entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions
operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our
disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false,"
then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're
studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new
realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's
actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela,
Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian
athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it
BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own
to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely
Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past.
So, while it seems comical, this is all deadly serious.
The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such
as the Skripal affair.
Either Chris Donnelly of the Institute for Statecraft (IoS), (formally of the British
Army's Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst), or UK General Sir Richard Barrons
reportedly stated that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response,
then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it
out of the political space."
great coverage b.. thank you... it's either a coincidence theory, or a conspiracy theory...
no other choices, until the uk gets down to doing an open investigation on integrity
initiative...the investigators investigating the investigators.. ain't going to happen...
similar deal in the usa now.. basically this will be when hell freezes over - a very long
time if ever.. meanwhile the skripals are persona non grata... it would be very interesting
to find out where they are kept... it looks like their is no chance for any type of normal
life for them here on out... even if the novihoax didn't kill them, the uk has done the
equivalent.. it is hard not to tie operation toxic dagger into all of this... the
coincidences are just too great..
@ petri.. thanks for the that.. how did you manage to figure that one out? does that mean
that allison mccourt is the daughter of pablo miller, or was allison from another
relationship/marriage? of course m16 and some folks know the answer to this amazing
coincidences and probably are unable to openly say..
@ Glen Brown and bevin with their correction to my comment.....thanks
I was not in my best of mind and along with misspelling his name I projected my desire for
more movement by the UK opposition in light of having the government paying folks to work
against them.....my bad idealism........
If it is true that Alison McCourt is married to Pablo Miller as Petri Kohn asserts in
comment #1 then it looks like the daughter is being groomed for big things in the UK
government.....16 years old and already an award for criminal complicity.
Petri Krohn@1 - ? Only thing I could find is a reference to her husband Hugh - a
prison officer - and her two kids, Abagail (now 16) and Cameron (now 14). That was from a
DailyMail
article (I know...) from Dec. 20, 2014. She was spending time away from them during
Christmas when she was sent to Sierra Leone for the Ebola outbreak. The article also mentions
time away from Hugh and Abagail in 2003 when she was deployed to Iraq. Couldn't find anything
about Pablo Miller being married or having kids, but many mentions of his home in Salisbury.
Nice conjecture, except that those who devised the Dossier specifically said it was to be
used as insurance in case Trump won. Please see article I linked to in my comment.
The daughter is what's know as a "cutout". You can't have the "nurse of all nurses" be the
first on the scene. But, they didn't even bother with the daughter having to call mama at
home. She was luckily "nearby", presumably lurking behind a tree.
She might have been the commanding officer of 22 Field Hospital but now she's moved
on.
From the QARANC website:
Following promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 2011, Alison attended the Advanced Command and
Staff Course. Her initial SO1 appointment was as Chief of Staff, Headquarters 2nd Medical
Brigade in York in Aug 2012. Alison assumed Command of 22 Field Hospital in July 2013 and
deployed the Unit to Sierra Leone on Op GRITROCK in Oct 14. She was awarded an OBE for her
leadership of 22 Field during Op GRITROCK.
On promotion to Colonel in Dec 2015 she assumed an appointment in the newly established
Senior Health Advisors department and has been the lead for Assurance and now Health
Strategy in that area.
Alison assumed the appointment of Chief Nursing Officer for the Army on 1 Feb 18.
@1 petri... unless they hooked up after 2014, your theory doesn't look very likely...
further to @36 paveways comment from the daily mail dec 20 2014 article - Even though
Lieut Col McCourt is a veteran of campaigns in Iraq and the Balkans, she admits this tour of
duty has taken a toll, and that she has depended on the support of her husband Hugh, a prison
officer, to help her through it. While this is her first Christmas apart from her children,
she is accustomed to leaving them and her husband behind. In 2003, she left Abigail, then
aged just eight months, in Hugh's arms while she went to Iraq to treat British soldiers
wounded in the Gulf War. She returned there in 2008 for a second tour of duty.
Lieut Col McCourt said: 'I have a very supportive husband. On both occasions I went to
Iraq he took sabbaticals from his job to ensure that our family life was maintained. Yes, it
was hard to say goodbye so soon after having my first child but you immerse yourself in your
work, and on an operational tour everyone is missing someone. This Christmas he'll be with
the children and my mum will join them at the family home in Aldershot. Of course I miss them
all but our focus has to be saving lives here.'
Suppose you were Russian and believed that the west would not attack because of the checks
and controls that exist in western democracy. Suppose a deadly incident occurred and Russia
was blamed and an attack became more likely. Suppose that (as a Russian) you knew Russia
wasn't involved and that the evidence was very sketchy and didn't make sense. Suppose this
was was all in the public domain but instead of the incident being questioned it was just
accepted and Russia was sanctioned and other western and allied countries (despite knowing it
was nonsense) joined in.
You might as a Russian come to believe that evidence didn't matter, that the west could
manipulate their populations at will and the idea that there was some "restraint" on western
attacks would be shown to be fanciful. You might, as a Russian, become very concerned that
you might be attacked and there was a lack of restraint on the west.
The west are blaming Russia for something they didn't do but, also, showing that they know
that Russia didn't do it and, more, letting Russia know they framed them, and showing Russia
that the evidence doesn't matter. Perhaps, not UK incompetence, maybe, it's all psyops.
Mr Moon, you have excelled yourself! A brilliant article, worthy of a standing ovation!
'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed
to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief
Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the
crowd cry out 'shame'!
John Helmer raises an important question, why does the roof of Sergei's house need to be
removed? Tongue firmly planted in cheek. The air leakage through the front door of Sergei's
house must be through the roof! How else does the fumes from novichok get from the front door
handle to the roof? Sure hope they do a proper energy efficient rebuild. Can't go wasting
that soon to be arriving at Perfidious Albion's shores horror of horrors, Russian gas. North
Sea gas wont last much longer.
Suppose that ... CIA-MI6 were trying to ensure the election of Trump, not Hillary. As
I described in previous comments , Trump's election followed a logical progression that,
in sum, indicate manipulation on his behalf. Hal Duell @21 mentions some of the psyop
reality-making: White Helmets, MH-17, Skripal, etc. Karlof1 @30 notes the absolute hubris of
the Empire's "we make our own reality".
Lets say Integrity Initiative, working with CIA and MI6, wanted to use the 2016 election
to cast aspersion on the Russians. A populist running against Hillary was the logical choice.
The narrative: only with Russian help could a challenger hope to win against Hillary.
"Russian meddling" and Wikileaks as Russian agent are major "wins" for the establishment.
Integrity Initiative was formed soon after Kissinger's Op-Ed in August 2014 and before Trump
began his run for President.
"... The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment. ..."
annamaria says: April 10,
2018 at 2:44 pm GMT 100 Words On the British Establishment:
The Skripal affair is better understood in the context of "sir" Savile' knighthood -- when the
influential pedophile had been raping and molesting kids for 40 years and none stood up to the
criminal. The BBC has dutifully refused to publish anything that would upset "sir" Savile. The
Scotland Yard looked the other way -- precisely as the Establishment ordered them to do.
Savile' specialty were orphans. He was the embodiment of British Establishment.
The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices
against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by
any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the
vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment.
"... Even voters too ignorant to see Trump for what he really was - voters that are misinformed to the point that they unwittingly and continually vote against their own best interests - realized how much the Dems have sold out to Wall Street. ..."
"... That's why they anointed Obama who then proceeded to squander eight years of opportunity to remove big money from politics and enact progressive reforms to health care, the environment, etc. ..."
"... Bernie is a bit long in the tooth, so I am all in for Liz Warren. She's the only one with both the courage and the intelligence to take on the big money that controls our politics. ..."
"... Sanders or Warren would mean a change from neoliberal war mongering of the Clinton/W model. If the Democrats offer up another Clintonite they will lose. They need to offer something positive to the 90% who have lost the last 40 years of class war. ..."
The neoliberalism of the Democratic Party elite (and most of the rank and file) is one big
factor in our 2016 loss. Even voters too ignorant to see Trump for what he really was -
voters that are misinformed to the point that they unwittingly and continually vote against
their own best interests - realized how much the Dems have sold out to Wall Street.
HRC would have been nominated in '08 if she had kissed more Wall Street you-know-what.
That's why they anointed Obama who then proceeded to squander eight years of opportunity
to remove big money from politics and enact progressive reforms to health care, the
environment, etc.
Bernie is a bit long in the tooth, so I am all in for Liz Warren. She's the only one
with both the courage and the intelligence to take on the big money that controls our
politics.
Therefore, you can expect the Russian trolls to be coming for her in force. If you read
anything negative about Warren in the coming months, check the source and don't trust the
accuracy.
Sanders or Warren would mean a change from neoliberal war mongering of the Clinton/W
model. If the Democrats offer up another Clintonite they will lose. They need to offer
something positive to the 90% who have lost the last 40 years of class war.
Broadly, authoritarianism is the desire to impose one's own worldview on others in one's
society by institutionalized coercion. Authoritarians, therefore, see punishment as an
appropriate response when members of the group with which they identify [...] diverge too
far from values that the authoritarian believes are best for society – even if the
punished person has neither caused direct harm to another nor infringed another's
rights.
Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic
conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.
The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.
This is the realistic perspective we have to adopt in the US: the Democratic establishment
is part of the neoliberal machinery that has generated Bush's wars, Obama's bank bailouts,
deportations, and drone executions, and now Trump's anti-democratic populism.
"... Bernie's bid was crushed by Clinton's superdelegates. No amount of throwing money against him in the direct sense was doing any good. He took popular positions on issues and stubbornly stayed on-message. ..."
In regards to the Hillary v Bernie question, it also didn't help that the primary vote was
wildly skewed by so-called 'superdelegates,' who don't actually commit their votes until the
DNC convention, but were being counted by the media as having already voted for Hillary,
which made it appear to many of the uninformed that Bernie didn't have any chance of winning,
which may have been intended to keep Bernie supporters home on primary day under the
assumption that Hillary was unbeatable.
As sensible as your suggestions may be, what you're calling for would require at least three
constitutional amendments to be practical - including scrapping the first amendment.
Maybe we should strive towards attainable goals instead?
Didn't help that the ostensibly neutral DNC was sending emails saying that they should play
up Bernie Sanders' Jewish faith (among other attack strategies), fed debate questions to the
Clinton campaign or tried to limit opportunities for Bernie and Hillary to share a stage
together.
Bernie Sanders is widely considered by many to be one of the most popular American
politicians, more than Trump and certainly more popular than Hillary. I think an interesting
phenomenon to notice is the lengths the GOP, in particular, will go to in order to convince
the average voter that anything that cuts taxes is inherently good for the 'little guy,'
while anything that raises taxes is bad. Trump's recent tax cuts are a good example. Most of
the actual cuts go toward the corporations and ultra-wealthy, which just increases the
deficit while shifting the proportion of taxes paid onto the middle class. It's a con that
many Americans are inexplicably susceptible to believing, for some reason.
Progressive believe in inclusion and if that is "moralistic rhetoric" then so be it.
The litany goes "round and round.
Hillary Clinton:
" you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of
deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you
name it!
"Barack Obama:
"Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the
presidential hopeful said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion "
Bernie's bid was crushed by Clinton's superdelegates. No amount of throwing money against him
in the direct sense was doing any good. He took popular positions on issues and stubbornly
stayed on-message.
Half of Americans don't bother voting for president. Why is the American media full only of people who insist that the country
is divided in half between Democrat and Republican supporters? Where are the people of influence who think it's a problem and
reflects poorly on the country that half of eligible voters don't see a reason to participate, and that it's worth changing things
in order to get more people to change their minds about that?
Both parties are content with being unpopular, but with political mechanisms ensuring they stay in power anyway. The Democrats
aren't concerned with being popular. They're content with being a token opposition party that every once in a while gets a few
token years with power they don't put to any good anyway. It pays more, I guess.
It still looks like if Americans want to live in a progressive country, they'll have to move to one. But as it is clear that the
neoliberalism of establishment Democrats has little or nothing to offer the poor and working class, or to non-wealthy millennials,
the times they are a-changing.
''Tis booming because the left/liberal/metropolitan muesli crunching elites (and I include
the Tories in that) who have reigned disdainfully over us since the Second World War have
ignored our fears over mass immigration and the changing of our established traditions and
cultures. They have also connived in the insanity of insisting every hair brained liberal
idea is worthy of being protected by the human rights legislative farce. Rapists being
offered a say in the upbringing of their issue, school uniforms being dragged into law and a
thousand and other one 'special issues' to a tiny minority being rammed down the throats of
the fed up majority at every opportunity by activists.
But that's the point, isn't it? That populist has been so vaguely defined that it encompasses
anything the authors don't like. It's a straw man, a pejorative.
Populism is a belief in the goodness of people, a belief that masses make better decisions
than elites and that the the rule of the elite come at the expense of the demos.
It's a term synonymous with grassroots, popular democracy. Proponents of elite rule with
reductionistic views democracy (rule with the consent of the governed and all that trash)
call their grassroots opponents 'populists' in attempt to tie them to strong men.
Noam Chomsky has a view on this issue and I am inclined to think he has a better
understanding of it than the author of this piece.
Chomsky rejects the term "populism" in this matter and offers, instead, the proposal that
;
"Working people are turning against elites and dominant institutions that have been
punishing them for a generation"
The theory of 'cause and effect' seems eminently more sensible to me than the shrill cries
of "It was the internet wot dun it"
The elites and dominant institutions that Chomsky refers to ( including mainstream media )
precipitated the current shift and would do better to acknowledge the part they played in it,
rather than insult and demean the consequential reaction of people on the receiving end of
it.
The enemy is not populism, it's the right's capture of the populist narrative. Trump is a
faux populist that has nothing but disdain for the people he employs and the people
rules.
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through
our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my
ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Isaac Asimov
"A Cult of Ignorance". Newsweek, January 21, 1980.
the very old school Christian conservative libertarians and old skool nutty right have
seized on the success populist narrative has had in recent elections and referendum.
I would argue that is is because establishment figures in the Democratic party -- the New
Democrats -- decided that the days of class struggle were over, that 'we are all capitalists
now' and ceded the populist narrative to the right. Yes, this a populist moment and the
question is not if we can reestablish faith in the elite but whether we can ensure that the
new populism goes is a left rather than right direction.
I don't agree that populism lacks depth -- probably because when I think of populism I
think of left populist intellectuals like Friere, Martin-Baro and the like who thought that
democracy should be built on the virtues of the people.
The occupy movement was a populist movement. It said we, the people on the ground, know
better than the elites in the towers. It made decisions democratically, this in stark
contrast to the hierarchical structures of decision making exercised by the financial elite.
I think populism, or grassroots, popular democracy has intellectual depth and
sophistication. Take a look a the writing of Sheldin Wolin, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, David
Graeber . . .
I don't agree with most of the definitions of populism we've been offered -- I think they
are little more that pejoratives dressed in academic language and have as much depth as the
right's favored "snowflake" pejorative.
I remember watching 'Tomorrows World' ' in the 1970s and they showed us an unpuncturable
cycle tyre that would last 25,000 miles.
The patent was bought by Europe's largest cycle tyre manufacturer, and AFAIK that was the
last ever heard of it.
If that happened why is the water fuel idea so fanciful?
If you inject water into the inlet port or combustion chamber of a petrol engine, compression
ratios, power output and efficiency can be raised dramatically, this has been known since WW1
and was employed in high altitude aero engines during WW2, yet has never been taken up by any
major car manufacturer as far as I know, why?
So the notion that inventions could be suppressed for commercial reasons is really not
fanciful at all, it would make less sense for such technology, if it existed, to be made
altruistically available on a single purchase basis than to shitcan it.
As far as I can see, our country has been ruled by a right-wing, monied elite for many
years- not a 'liberal' one. Liberals at least tend to think in terms of economic equality and
social freedoms, whatever their other faults might be.
But many working class and middle class people still carry on voting Tory even though it's
against their own interests.
We don't have a 'liberal elite' in the UK. We still have the old-fashioned right wing Tory
elite in power based on class and wealth. Why 'liberals' get all the abuse these days is
beyond me.
I'm researching populism on youtube - and it is seedy- and I have yet to turn on the FB news
feed, but the algorithms do support populism- watch a PragerU video and the feed is full of
other rightwing nonsense.
And all of it has the same empty lines.
I watched the Oxford Union Steve Bannon address- and it could have come from a left
winger- the globalised corporate world has abandoned the little guy, and Trump is fixing
it.
The on message is the MSM is lying
PC and activists are totalitarian = commies
either capitalism or socialism [commies] = freedom vs enslavement
and an over whelming anti intellectualism - where have we heard that before.
True but there is still a case for having decent housing etc and training our own
professionals as well and not hollow out professionals from less advantaged countries. When
we took hundreds of nurses from the Philippines in 2000 and whole clinics there had to shut
to terrible detriment of ill locals
"But populism has two chief characteristics. First, it offers immediate and supposedly
obvious answers to complicated problems, which usually blame some other group along the
way."
I think this point (simple solutions to complex problems) is often overstated. If you take
the issue of immigration (an issue that has fuelled populism) , it actually shouldn't
necessarily be that difficult to bring the number of new immigrants down, except that the
political and media establishment pretend that it is.
Take Trump's plan to build a wall on the Mexican border. I see absolutely nothing wrong
with this as it is ultimately every country's prerogative to defend its borders.
Ditto for intra-EU immigration (perhaps the main reason for Brexit): the EU acts as if
this principle of free movement is sacred, but why should that be the case? Or Germany, where
I live, where the constitution guarantees a right to asylum for those seeking refuge in the
country. Again, this is spoken of as though it were cast in stone, when it really shouldn't
be that difficult to amend. So I don't necessarily believe that solutions to problems always
have to be difficult and complicated.
I agree that advances in people's abilities to interact with greater numbers of other people
tend to usher in periods of social upheaval. A lot of the current nationalistic,
anti-foreigner sentiments are the result of our initial reactions against unfamiliar
influences coming from groups with whom we previously had relatively little contact.
Brexit, "Make America Great Again", and similar movements are the collective screams of
resistance against dealing with unfamiliarity, learning new things, and growing. Over time,
we will adapt, but this will probably require a generation or so, at minimum.
Of course, given the high pace of technological change, we are likely to be collectively
bonded together even more tightly before we are able to adapt to the current state of the
world. It won't be long before people will all be interconnected via implants, which means
that each and every thing we do and every emotion we have will be sent out over the
net.
In a way Populism is somewhat similar to Marxism: implicit message is that the class struggle
in the societies is the key problem, which is completely true. American middle class was robbed
from 1970th of a considerable chunk of its standard of living. So it is not surprising that the
neoliberal elite ( the News Class of as they are called the US nomenklatura) now feels threatened
and resorts to censorship, usage of intelligence agencies and mass surveillance, and other
oppressive tactics to squash the dissent.
But in such cases the dissent grows stronger despise such an efforts and might turn, at some
point, into insurrection against financial oligarchy as Marxists predicted.
The only problem is with Marxism is that they considered working class to the the next
dominant class and this proved to be a false idea. That will never never happens.
Populism is a range of political approaches that deliberately appeal to "the people,"
often juxtaposing this group against a so-called "elite." There is no single definition of
the term, which developed in the 19th century and has been used to mean various things
since that time. Few politicians or political groups describe themselves as "populists",
and in political discourse the term is often applied to others pejoratively. Within
political science and other social sciences, various different definitions of populism have
been used, although some scholars propose rejecting the term altogether.
the wiki
page is a bit more expansive you should try reading it.
The left is also guilty of populist ideas- blaming the rich, or banking [when in the UK we
get a lot of tax from international banking as a service].
The right has just seized on populism and mainly through social media- brexit and trump
are proof its works- but the people behind the populist message are the same old tired neo
con christian right of the Reagan era and the sad old far right conspiracy nut jobs. Their
message failed in the past- but people like Rees-mogg can now seize on this technique.
Your misunderstanding of what socialism means indicates you swallow the new right wing
propaganda. Poorly funded education will result in people without proper opportunity- S.Korea
is not a socialist country but they spend a huge amount on education and reap the rewards.
But they have a culture where children doing well academically is praised but can also have
negative pressure consequences.
It is complicated and worth discussion but populism wants the easy message.
One of the better reports on populism I've see recently is ''European Disunion'' by Yascha
Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard
https://newrepublic.com/article/143604/european-disunion-rise-populist-movements-means-democracy
.
A analysis by Harvard ''Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and
Cultural Backlash'' found that the primary factor driving populism is a cultural backlash
i.e. against [neo]liberal policies and immigration.
Populism is growing because wealth is being concentrated into the hands of the wealthy, at
the expense of everyone else.
Generations, instead of doing better, through working are doing worse because governments
are allowing individuals and corporations to reduce terms and conditions of the
workforce.
Twenty years ago, many UK workers had company pension schemes and jobs that paid the rent
& bills. Now, the pensions have largely dried up and as housing has got more expensive,
and incomes have shrunk.
Those at the top are pushing those beneath them closer to a bowl of rice a day, and shrug
at the social consequences as inevitable - and a necessary step to protect shareholder values
and profits.
In essence, it is the same situation that gave rise to populism in the thirties.
Who do you blame for the fact that house prices have gone up?
Who do you blame for the fact that your pension is going to be smaller than your
parents'?
Thing is the populist politicians are the very same people who cut your pension and made
money out of it. They just want you to blame someone else.
Some highlights from this thread (no names, no pack drill):
Populism is a kickback and correction to the forty years of political correctness where
the white masses of Europe and America were forbidden by the liberal establishment to be
their real selves
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites.
Perhaps the reason that "populism" is thriving is that the liberal elites who ruled us
in the entire post war period became complacent out of touch with those they were meant to
represent.
there are millions of others whose voices have been ignored or silenced by the
mainstream news
We are disenfranchised by what the elites are saying because the elites control the
narrative in a way that makes sure the power will always reside with them.
The MSM has always been biased-
Why is democracy booming the article asks.
Well because the lies and bullshit of the liberal elite are there for all to see.
Take a look at what the MSM refuses to report, or what it deliberately distorts,
You can see the problem. It's like they are all reading from the same limited script which
has been handed to them. Given the freedom to express our opinions, we are regurgitating what
someone else has told us to say.
Maybe we should not be too pessimistic. The levels of opportunity for expression that the
internet and social media have given us might currently have exceeded our ability to think
critically about whatever bullshit we are being fed, but future generations may be better.
After all, it's only a small step from doubting whatever mainstream thought tells you, to
starting to wonder who is telling you to doubt those things and why and then to actually go
back and think for yourself about the issues.
So Corbyn and Trump are the same because they both have shirts. Well, color me
convinced!
Like so many of these articles -- including the long but uninformative 'long read' on the
same topic -- there is no mention of the failures of the elites.
Clinton sold us a false bill of goods. The Washington Consensus on economics would make
the country richer and, after some 'pain', would benefit the working class. Sure you wouldn't
be making cars but after some retraining you would work in tech.
This was a broken promise -- de industrialization has devastated the upper midwest. The
goods are made in China and the money goes to Bezos. People are rightly upset.
The Washington Consensus on war sold us a false bill of goods. Instead of peace through
strength we have seen a century of endless conflict. We have been caught in state of constant
killing since 2001 and we are no safer for it. Indeed the conflicts have created new enemies
and the only solution on offer is a hair of the dog solution.
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites. Nowhere
are the repeated failures of the elites, the decades of broken promises mentioned in the
articles. Instead, those of us who prefer Sanders to Clinton, Corbyn to Blair are mesmerized
by emotional appeals and seduced by simplistic appeals to complex problems. And they wonder
why we don't accept their analyses . . .
TL;DR -- clickbait didn't get us here. The broken promises of the Washington consensus
did.
Why is populism booming asks the writer - simple, because people feel that no-one's
listening. Can it really be a surprise to The Guardian Opinion writers that people who have a
zero hours contract, pay a high rent and have little job security won't vote for more of the
same?
It's not a question as the writer suggests of 'if this wave of populism drifts into
authoritarianism or worse' it's more a question of when - and when it does the liberal left
will still be asking themselves - why?
I've grown very sceptical over the years about the whole issue of asylum. To me, the idea
that an individual can cross a border illegally without a visa, or without even a passport,
and then suddenly become quasi legal be declaring that they wish to seek asylum is a bit of a
farce. The situation becomes even more farcical when failed asylum seekers still aren't
deported. As for humanitarian and ethical obligations, I don't really buy into that either
because the demographics of the world are such that the West is at risk of losing its very
identity if it feels "obliged" to accept everyone seeking asylum and/or work from the world's
more troubled regions. I see the admission of refugees as a generous gesture, not as an
obligation.
If he can only succeed in a positive environment then there's not much hope for him, he needs to be able to fight and prove
he's got what it takes. As it is I'm not sure he's got it.
That's not what I said at all and you know it.
Last time, the only stories that the NYTimes and (mostly) the Guardian could manage to run were Bernie-negative
stories. The NYTimes has already begun the exact same campaign for the 2020 cycle. By comparison, the Guardian
has been providing balanced Bernie coverage.
Do not count on the mainstream media to support him. They're already hard at work smearing him and he hasn't even announced yet.
Half the time they dont even mention him as being a likely contender. It's Biden all day, all night. Might as well be Hillary
again.
Expect 2020 to be quite contentious, possibly even more than 2016. That just means as a supporter of Bernie you'll have to
work twice, maybe three times as hard. The corporate media is going to suppress and challenge him as much as possible. They don't
even mask it anymore.
[Jan 16, 2019] Corporatism is the control of government by big business. This is what we have in the USA today. The main difference between corporatism and fascism is the level of repressions against opposition. Corporatism now tales forma of inverted totalitarism and use ostracism instead of phycal repressions
That is why we need a Constitutional amendment to get the money OUT of politics. Make bribery illegal. THEN, we will not need
Wall Street, which doesn't serve MOST of the population of this country, and is mostly responsible for the wealth gap and lack
of opportunities for most of the population.
I'm not fooled. These are not progressives, they are corporatists, beholden to their donors. They have no courage, no interest
in serving their constituencies, but are only interested in the power and money. What our country , and the world, needs is radical
change from the profit-first point of view. I won't support either one of them.
These corporate-Dem candidates are not being forced to sell out to win elections. Quite the
opposite in fact. They are risking losing their elections for the sake of selling out.
Surely, many will comment that Democrats have no choice but to take the money in order to be
competitive. I have one truism for such folks to ponder: Why would you trust your allegiance
to those who don't care if you win?
Basic logic: rich people win the general election either way, so long as the
primary-winning Democrat is in their pocket (the GOP is always on their side). So this
monetary affection is certainly more about fixing an no-lose general than it is about ousting
Trump, or any Republican.
"... Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract. ..."
"... While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent. ..."
Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who
appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State
Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation,
misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative
memo, he is listed as a current team member:
Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with
"counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center
has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My
old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global
Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it
and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that
awful."
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's
international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying
smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an
outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he
would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would
marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation.
His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the
messenger.
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's
international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying
smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an
outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he
would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would
marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation.
His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the
messenger.
Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000
British pounds) for a 50% contract.
While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own
Linkedin page
lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were
true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.
Posted this over at Mark Chapman's The New Kremlin Stooge blog:
The latest news from Salisbury: first, the park bench and the dining table walked the
Path of Fire, then the guinea pigs and a cat followed, a house may soon do so as well, and
the latest perhaps to join the queue
Several comments attached to that post are of "wish we had Novichok in our shopping
centre" or "they planned this all along" type. It seems that Salisbury shopping centre as it
is has not been doing well because of high rents previously imposed by Wiltshire Council and
it desperately needs a makeover. Call me cynical but maybe Wiltshire Council is using the
poisoning incident to bring forward its redevelopment plans for the Salisbury shopping centre
that will all but kill off local businesses.
He essentially became a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a
Deep State controlled republican. In any case he betrayed his voters in a way that resembles Obama betrayal. One has a
fake slogan "change we can believe in" that other equally fake "Make [middle] America Great Again" (which means restoration
of well-being of middle class and working class in my book, not the continuation of Obama foreign wars, and tax cuts for for
corporations and super rich.
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans
and former Sanders supporters. He might do good and not to try to run in 2020. He definitely is no economic nationalist.
Compare his policies with Tucker Carlson Jan 2, 2019
speech to see the difference. He is
"national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and
prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties.
And his "fight" with the Deep State resemble so closely to complete and unconditional
surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two.
Most of his appointees would make Hillary proud. That that extends beyond rabid neocons like Haley, Mattis, Bolton and
Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them. ..."
"... Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. ..."
"... It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors. ..."
"... They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them. ..."
"... The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement. ..."
"... It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way ..."
Washington
Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his
discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a
phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in
Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I
couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which
only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that
included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the
president of various countries. I do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed
by Republicans.
"The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump
said.
When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an
inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever
worked for Russia, Mr. President?"
"I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's
the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former
FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush
or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often
said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday
we will have good relations with Russia again!"
rumcho
Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for Washington Post, five years later he gets a government contract with the CIA for $600
million. Are you connecting the dots? You do the numbers. This is how fascism works. Bezos is a crony capitalist joker.
is Trump waiting for Mueller to lay down his cards? Head him off at the pass and arrest Obama, Rice, Jarrett, Lynch, Comey,
Rosenstein and McCabe all on day 1
best defense is a good offense. Make the narrative about Dem sedition not impending House impeachment hearings.
You are President, start acting like it. Make them fear you.
your re-election depends on Mike Obama not being your opponent.
Let it Go
WaPo, again?
The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do
they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them.
Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all
part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. The
article below delves into how WaPo is behind many of the big stories that manipulate America and moves the needle of public
opinion in huge ways.
It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum
and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG,
fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors.
shadow54
They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that
John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict
of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them.
The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and
blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement.
It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by
Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to
get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had
nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way.
Then there is the news that Fusion GPS worked with the Democracy Integrity Project and Knew Knowledge to run a fake Russian
bots campaign against Roy Moore. The Democracy Integrity Project was started by Feinstein's aide and with New Knowledge wrote
a report on Russian bots for the Senate Intelligence Committee. So the Senate Intelligence Committee hired creators of fake
Russian bots to write a report on Russian bots.
A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of
fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented?
Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.
BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump
Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial
crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in
the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this
week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But
he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in
his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down!
And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.
Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon
case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for
links.)
BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi
posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way
to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.
@RobinG
UWell, we here in Russia know all this (about Browder) for quite a time. What new did you
find? It's just one story in long list of those written and spoken for western idiots like
Scripals
, MH17, chemicals in Syria and WMD in Iraq, Russian meddling in f-n US elections and so on.
Eat it all dummies.
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing
foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.
A bombshell
domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence
psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting
"Russian disinformation."
The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of
a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government,
including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly
involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal
that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS,
where it has gained access to
Katharine Gorka and her
husband, the
fascist-linked cable news pundit
Sebastian Gorka .
The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting
"a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the
most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships
with the media.
Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse
of public money.
In a
recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments
the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.
"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in
the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.
"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public
opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's
old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."
Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine
The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure
British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's
internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded
to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.
Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to
organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation --
and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.
A bid for
funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance
on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."
The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its
militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination
was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its
media cutouts
painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies
accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy
Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir,
"View From The Right."
These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the
reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.
Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"
A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.
The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where.
It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and
close relationships with US officials.
A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a
de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment,
but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.
He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold
The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior"
who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence
agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times
exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR"
-- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.
John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)
Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue
of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially
obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also
found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas
[and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"
These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents
that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be
"fed anonymously into local media." (Among
the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)
Keeping Up with the Gorkas
Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like
Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned
right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.
The latter Gorka is an
open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation
of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.
Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night
Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates
that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded
military research center, CNA .
According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like
Mara Karlin
, an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre
, and John McCain Institute executive director
Kurt Volker
, another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers
inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.
A Foreign Agent in the State Department?
Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal.
Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation,
misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team
member:
Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's
Global Engagement Center
has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was
as chief propagandist," confessed former
Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their
own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement
Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian
disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem
smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message
and destroy the messenger.
Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.
While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own
Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation
Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.
As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials
and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the
Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.
Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation
An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for
its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000
for covert propaganda activities across Europe.
The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations.
According to reporter
Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on
cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy
of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within
the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their
opponents."
Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level
in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement,"
wrote journalist
Kelley Vlahos.
Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to
expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government
is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.
The "Main Event" in Seattle
An Integrity Initiative internal
document argues that because
"DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the
organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic]
across the USA."
This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation
held in Seattle, Washington
under the auspices
of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity
Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."
Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a
recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event
began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two
years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary
run, earning media write-ups as the
"Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized
in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.
Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the
event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered
a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and
political allies.
According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government
to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime
environment rather than peacetime."
During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses,"
referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."
"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean
sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."
The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in
notes of a private meeting
between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should
be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."
While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed
him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out
from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.
Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter
Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle
The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb
relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled
by puppeteers in Moscow.
Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students
have given him dismal marks at Rate My
Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class."
But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic
has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.
Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits
and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the
group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.
In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories
to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher
Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly
controlled by the Kremlin.
The articles ultimately
generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public
retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for
discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross
as a sought-after public intellectual.
Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance
puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international
national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college
organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"
In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside
Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting
far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.
Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona
and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative
news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross
has written for C4SS in the past.
The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the
most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.
But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.
Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates
C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed
child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to
"replace Marxism on the
left."
When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was
finally drummed out by his colleagues.
There's more: Spangler's understudy and
deputy in the C4SS, Kevin
Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory"
-- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender
of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS
man as "the Proudhon of our
time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged
anti-Semitism . Carson
only disowned Preston in 2009,
shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.
The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International
Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC,
LibertyCon, a who's
who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.
In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin,
and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and
formally apologized for having run them.
For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner
with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right
-- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that
MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.
Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.
Disinformation for Democracy
As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has
stated
its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists,
think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.
Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he
sent a menacing email to the co-author
of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast
-- a publication that appears to enjoy a
special relationship
with Integrity Initiative personnel.
Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert,
government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of
fighting foreign disinformation.
"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly
said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."
making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these
people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".
Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and
arms dealing.
The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail
where they belong.
I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now,
but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.
This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting
to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.
Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.
Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations
that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.
What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds
that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?
Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers
to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century.
Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the
Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into
the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a
manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity
is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons
is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level
in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using
the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia
has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza
of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that
talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of
nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out
to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of.
Just a thought.
He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of
a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.
That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last
cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia
for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.
Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics.
This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less
a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.
It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or
other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.
If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going
to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.
The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of
Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations
about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?
After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.
Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd
New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before
the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.
I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out
of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?
But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms
Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.
Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the
U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips
of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!
That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia;
what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.
Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should
always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued."
The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at
eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter
Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda.
Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what
was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin
gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss
the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik,
we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC
that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's
enough.
Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching
down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly
intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological
position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil
as the former, in my mind.
You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you
mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed
enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.
I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument
embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she
criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in
a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.
It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point
where language impedes communication in the political sphere.
It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason
you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes
overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the
liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive
at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.
I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying
to find their way.
I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing
that I find annoying about the Russophobes.
Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.
Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although
it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english
parliament (at ransom by brexit).
Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:
(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left
Spanish daily .)
YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded
to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One
has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber
Capital whose CEO,
Joseph
Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium
that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.
I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly
centre-left daily.
For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people
working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks
to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection
of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses
we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways
that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that
will happen.
Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start,
after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and
is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won.
We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.
Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.
It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the
relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British
intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states
that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently
argue that we still don't to this day.
but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat
a dead horse.
Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who
brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to
me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should
be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to
catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case.
Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?
"... Neither Rob nor I have a sound theory of what really happened in Salisbury. There are many possible explanations, but none
for which there is sufficient evidence. What we do know is that the British government lied and lies about the case from A to Z. ..."
"... This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of
the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the rolling anti-Putin regime change operation. ..."
Stuff To Read: Integrity Initiative, Skripal, Kaspersky ...
The is no original piece ready to post today, but here are some interesting links:
The Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky was contacted by someone who it found to be related to the U.S. National Security
Agency. Kaspersky immediately told the NSA about the contact. Following that tip the FBI arrested Harold T. Martin, a NSA contractor
who had collected the NSA entire arsenal of digital weapon at is home. Despite that very helpful tip by Kaspersky the U.S. government
continues to harass the company and to claim that it was working as an agent of the Russian government. Exclusive:
How a Russian firm helped catch an alleged NSA data thief , Kim Zettler, Politico
There are several new stories about the Integrity Initiative though still none in any mainstream media.
Over several months Rob Slane at The Blogmire did a detailed analysis of the Skripal case and the often contradictory
information that officials and media have published. Rob has the advantage of living in Salisbury, where the Skripals were allegedly
poisoned. Today he published the summation of his
series about the case:
Last but not least a 20 minute video by Prolekult about the (geo-)politics of Brexit and the Skripal mess in Britain.
Interestingly Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn seems to be pushing the 'blame Russia' racket just as much as the Conservatives. (Disclaimer
- I do not endorse the views of the authors.):
History
is Marching | Part five: The Fall of the British Empire (vid)
Comments I posted this comment at Off Guardian. There are a couple of points that may be of interest:
The essential feature of this "Integrity Initiative" is that it is purportedly a charity or an NGO. Like Atlantic Council,
or Bellingcat, it is funded by government(s) but it has, as this video demonstrates, the capacity to distance itself from government,
Deniability.
Deniability is the central feature of all British regime change operations since 1945. The UK takes (took?) the UN Charter
and Nuremberg seriously. Not in the sense that it follows the rules but in so far as it tries not to get caught waging aggressive
wars and interfering in sovereign states by carrying out regime change operations.
Britain has become very good not just at keeping its secret operations secret and deniable. But, through its controls over
the media, stopping leaks by ensuring that whistle blowers are not heard.
What this case indicates is that people like Donnelly, contemptible careerists playing games with humanity's very existence,
have prevailed over the more cautious and sensible Civil Servants in the Foreign Office, who used to keep a lid on the irrepressible
folly of psychopaths like Christopher Nigel, and have been given license not only to kill but to do so without reference to 'M'
and Whitehall.
In this case, thanks to the weakness and demoralised state of the current government what has happened is that Donnelly has
improved on the rolling regime change operation against Russia, (consisting of taking advantage of opportunities to castigate
the Kremlin and blaming Putin for everything that goes wrong, every Russian expatriate's death, every botched poison gas gambit
by the White Helmets (another one of these NGOs run by 'retired MI types),).. improved on it to the extent that, now, rather than
waiting to comment on, and build frames around such events as Litvinenko's death, they are constructing them out of whole cloth.
The key word here is bricolage, as used by Levi Strauss to describe one of the characteristic reactions of traditional societies
to the irruption of western imperialism.
Donnelly, his acolytes and his dupes in the media are taking whatever they find lying around in the world and twisting it together
to form apparent events. The White Helmets, for example, attempt a chlorine gas attack on Syrian forces. It fails but rather than
deny that it ever happened British Intelligence convinces the media that, in fact the attack was not by the Jihadists but upon
them. The media dutifully takes its cues, from the clusters and, almost before you know it, the US is bombing Damascus on the
ground that Assad is carrying out poison gas attacks.
The MH17 affair is another instance: an airliner gets shot down, whether deliberately or not doesn't matter, and Russia is
blamed. All manner of phony 'evidence' is publicised. The real evidence such as Air Traffic Control records is suppressed. Sanctions
are imposed. Russia further isolated etc. Then we had the DNC emails, again, a leak probably by a decent person disgruntled by
the utter cynicism and criminality of the DNC's tactics in the primary elections. Twisted into something resembling a Russian
conspiracy against Clinton. Not one that anyone with enough brain to tie his shoelaces would credit but just enough to set the
media lynch mobs, led by their clusters, into operation.
All of which leads inexorably to Salisbury and the Skripals.
And here perhaps there is more than bricolage: rather than picking up what providence has delivered and making a passably plausible
story of it, here, one suspects, the matter was put together in advance. This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned
semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the
rolling anti-Putin regime change operation..
Which, and this is something that the old FO mandarins knew would happen if policy were left in the hands of Donnelly and Co,
(straight out of schoolboy comics like Magnet or Hotspur), has proved to be exactly what Russia needed: a series of kicks at the
Kremlin which drove it into the arms of Beijing and forced it to form an iron alliance which will lead not to regime change in
Moscow but to the destruction of the Atlantic empire.
Just would like to point out a small, interesting parallel between these Integrity Initiative documents and some of the mainstream
academic literature in the US about democracy, namely the use of the phrase "malign influence" to describe the influence of Russia
(and China). If one reads the latest issue of the Journal of Democracy (which names the NED as a partner or some such)
or the latest Freedom House report, one will find the academic version of the language used by mainstream journalism, warning
of the threat that Russia and China pose to the Western liberal democratic way of life.
I would call them a country run fully by intel agencies. I made a game today. Google research results are personalized. I asked several friends to search Google for „Integrity Iniative".
All the screenshots showed the same. One sputnik-Link, one to Nachdenkseiten, the rest international. Not one single main stream
medium was mentioned. Since November! There has been even a debate in the British parliament. If this is no top-down organized
consulting machine what is such a machine then?
@26 Ross Stanford. I had been posting on Craig Murray's website for nearly 10 years since I read his book Murder in Samarkand,
and very nearly turned up at the House of Commons as a witness - but he asked can anyone record this - which I did. I have never
actually met him. bevin posted for maybe a couple of years a couple of years ago. bevin wrote about The French political situation,
before it kicked off.
He is a very clever man, and to delete someone so intelligent who was almost literally predicting what was
likely to happen with yellow vests etc, seems a little bit both arrogant and immature in my my view. However all of us regardless
of our political views accept the Craig Murray is a Man of Great Integrity and Courage, even though on a lot of political issues
I disagree with him. Surely thats O.K. disagreeing about politics?
@30 The basic line seems to be that the West is vulnerable to Russian attacks because we have a free press. So why did it take
the free press such a long time to come up with a response? James Ball does admit that a secretive organization using government funding to slander Jeremy Corbyn might not have been a
great idea.
Posted this over at Mark Chapman's The New Kremlin Stooge blog:
The latest news from Salisbury: first, the park bench and the dining table walked the Path of Fire, then the guinea pigs
and a cat followed, a house may soon do so as well, and the latest perhaps to join the queue
Several comments attached to that post are of "wish we had Novichok in our shopping centre" or "they planned this all along"
type. It seems that Salisbury shopping centre as it is has not been doing well because of high rents previously imposed by Wiltshire
Council and it desperately needs a makeover. Call me cynical but maybe Wiltshire Council is using the poisoning incident to bring
forward its redevelopment plans for the Salisbury shopping centre that will all but kill off local businesses.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 9, 2019 6:17:08 PM |
link
@3
The irony is that, with a genuinely free press, RT would cease to have any appeal. The corporate media is hopelessly biased against
Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, as well as pro-war, opposed to anarchism, openly pro-capitalism, and fails to report on issues
like fracking, oligarchic trade deals Palestinian struggles, police state brutality against left, and almost every other topic
the public would want to know about.
Projects like PropOrNot and the Intgerity Initiative exist solely to prevent the public from
knowing about those things by locking down the information sphere against independent media (today they claimed that "neoliberalism"
and "neoconservatism" aren't real concepts but Russian-invented insults against the rules-based liberal world order.
George Galloway weighs in
on the chaos engulfing the Empire in Washington, London and Paris. The Neoliberal ship is foundering while the uplifting of people-based
policies of Russia and China keep them on track to reach their aims. Soon, if Trump keeps the government shutdown, those idled
federal workers just might be seen in the streets. George has a penchant for connecting things, and had this to say about Macron:
"The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are
now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic."
The false flag of Austerity--Neoliberalism preying on its own as was predicted at its beginnings is what we're witnessing,
while the actors that created the situation cling with bloody hands to the ship of state unwilling to surrender the wheel to those
who might salvage the situation. Metaphorically, Rome burns while Nero and his Senators fiddle.
The Guardian has produced an article about Integrity Initiative. It was so poorly written that they had to close the comment section
after 138 comments. People do know a lot more than the Guardian thinks.
the guardian never keeps comment sections open long if too many posters start disagreeing with their preferred line. their other
tactic is simply never to open comments on posts where they think this is likely to happen. and of course they haven't even acknowledged
the luke harding travesty, as they continue to beg for donations to support their fearless independent journalism.
I thought James Ball made a gallant effort to exonerate Western media considering he probably had a team of editors breathing
down his neck. It's the lack of transparency that seems to upset him most. Perhaps his next article will be an in depth look at
how Integrity Initiative got government funding.
The heroes of Dickens' Pickwick Papers visit the fictional borough of Eatanswill to observe an election between the candidates
of the Blue Party and the Buff Party. The town is passionately divided, on all possible issues, between the two parties. Each party
has its own newspaper : the Eatanswill Gazette is Blue and entirely devoted to praising the noble Blues and excoriating the perfidious
and wicked Buffs; the Eatanswill Independent is equally passionate on the opposite side of every question. No Buff would dream of
reading the "that vile and slanderous calumniator, the Gazette", nor Blue the ''that false and scurrilous print, the Independent".
As usual with Dickens it is both exaggerated and accurate. Newspapers used to be screamingly partisan before "journalism" was
invented. Soon followed journalism schools, journalism ethics and journalism objectivity: "real journalism" as they like to call
it (
RT isn't of course ). "Journalism" became a profession gilded with academical folderol; no longer the refuge of dropouts, boozers,
failures, budding novelists and magnates like Lord Copper
who know what they want and pay for it. But, despite the pretence of objectivity and standards, there were still Lord Coppers
and a lot of Eatanswill. Nonetheless, there were more or less serious efforts to get the facts and balance the story. And Lord Coppers
came and went: great newspaper empires rose and fell and there was actually quite a variety of ownership and news outlets. There
was sufficient variance that a reader, who was neither Blue nor Buff, could triangulate and form a sense of what was going on.
In the Soviet Union news was controlled; there was no "free press"; there was one owner and the flavours were only slightly varied:
the army paper, the party paper, the government paper, papers for people interested in literature or sports. But they all said the
same thing about the big subjects. The two principal newspapers were Pravda ("truth") and Izvestiya ("news"). This swiftly led to
the joke that there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestiya. It was all pretty heavy handed stuff: lots of fat capitalists
in top hats and money bags; Uncle Sam's clothing dripping with bombs; no problems over here, nothing but problems over there. And
it wasn't very successful propaganda: most of their audience came to believe that the Soviet media was lying both about the USSR
and about the West.
People in Crimea are pretty happy to be in Russia.
The US and its minions have given an enormous amount of weapons to jihadists.
Elections in Russia reflect popular opinion polling.
There really are a frightening number of well-armed nazis in Ukraine.
Assad is pretty popular in Syria.
The US and its minions smashed Raqqa to bits.
The official Skripal story makes very little sense.
Ukraine is much worse off, by any measurement, now than before Maidan.
Russia actually had several thousand troops in Crimea before Maidan.
There's a documentary that exposes Browder that he keeps people from seeing.
I typed these out as they occurred to me. I could come up with another ten pretty easily. There's some tiny coverage, far in the
back pages, so that objectivity can be pretended, but most Western media consumers would answer they aren't; didn't; don't; aren't;
isn't; where?; does; not; what?; never heard of it.
So, in a world where the Integrity Initiative is spending our tax dollars (pounds actually) to make sure that we never have a
doubleplusungood thought or are tempted into crimethink, (
and maybe they created the entire Skripal story – more revelations by the minute), what are we to make of our Free Media™? Well,
that all depends on what you're interested in. If it's sports (not Russian athletes –
druggies every one unlike
brave Western
asthmatics ) or "beach-ready bodies" (not
Russian
drug takers of course, only
wholesome Americans ) – the reporting is pretty reasonable. Weather reports, for example (
Siberian blasts excepted) or movie reviews (but all those
Russian villains ). But the rest is some weird merger of the Eatonswill Gazette and Independent: Blues/Buffs good! others, especially
Russians, bad!
So, as they say in Russia, что делать? What to do? Well, I suggest we learn from the Soviet experience. After all, most Soviet
citizens were much more sceptical about their home media outlets than any of my neighbours, friends or relatives are about theirs.
Notice what they're not telling you. For example: remember when Aleppo was a huge story two years ago? But there's nothing
about it now. One should wonder why there isn't; a quick search will find videos like
this (oops! Russian! not real journalism!) here's one
from Euronews . Clearly none of this fits the "
last
hospitals destroyed " and brutal
Assad memes of two years ago; that's why the subject has disappeared from Western media outlets. It is always a good rule
to wonder why the Biggest Story Ever suddenly disappears: that's a strong clue it was a lie or nonsense.
Most of the time, you'd be correct to believe the opposite . Especially, when all the outlets are telling you the same thing.
It's always good to ask yourself cui bono: who's getting what benefit out of making you believe something? It's quite depressing
how successful the big uniform lie is: even though the much-demonised Milosevic was eventually found innocent, even though Qaddafi
was not "bombing his own people", similar lies are believed about Assad and other Western enemies-of-the-moment. Believe the opposite
unless there's very good reason not to.
In the Cold War there was a notion going around that the Soviet and Western systems were converging and that they would meet in
the middle, so to speak. Well, perhaps they did meet but kept on moving past each other. And so, the once reasonably free and varied
Western media comes to resemble the controlled and uniform Soviet media and we in the West must start using Soviet methods to understand.
Always remember that the Soviet rulers claimed their media was free too; free from "fake news" that is.
Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from
the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity
Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and
NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.
The files were
released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the
content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the
least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in
the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and
internationally.
Sinister Timeline
One file
apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the
Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change",
"peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers"
span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and
"technology".
In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF
[Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries
as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over
1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence
officials by any government in history.
The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting
[sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of
'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".
2015 File
Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions
In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was
promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and
in
October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear
who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a
response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and
take it out of the political space."
"We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the
1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something
dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside
government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the
national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of
resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.
Operation IRIS Begins
On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.
Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news
spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.
The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its
auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to
analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.
It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon
Bracey-Lane
producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by
individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an
unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its
"own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious
pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the
Initiative.
Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal
Incident
Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news
narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response.
One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key
messages bolded throughout.
It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out
yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in
Britain".
"Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and
seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been
carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has
poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency
of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been
poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead.
Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a
gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.
The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the
government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic,
first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018
World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to
the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and
their families.
Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative
It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to
journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the
Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream
media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of
Russian state involvement in the attack.
It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly --
if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's
also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on
March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.
Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations
in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident
routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number
of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack --
including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the
Skripal attack? --receiving 40
pence per word .
Invoice submitted to
Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections
The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document
apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6
recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document
is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and
Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions
about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same
tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year
before his poisoning. When I attended the
launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive
on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's
recruiter.
The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for
Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of
Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that
purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which
"[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could
be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.
After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others
have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be
honest with the public.
Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
Notable quotes:
"... "Russian disinformation." ..."
"... "network of networks" ..."
"... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
"... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
"... "global investigative solutions" ..."
"... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
"... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
"... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
"... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
"... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
"... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
"... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
"... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
"... £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
"... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding
media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated,
UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was
unmasked in November after hackers
released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly
fighting "Russian disinformation."
The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for
smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new
leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia
were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.
It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented
following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.
Operation Iris
Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to
"study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being
perceived" in a number of countries.
After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II)
launched
'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity
related to Skripal.
What role did # IntegrityInitiative
play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers
from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....
However, Harod's confidential
report
did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts"
accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."
Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman
from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.
Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo
is having a laugh with £2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents"
- has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.
Another
document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative"
of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended
actions.
These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the
UK."
Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim
brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."
It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other
countries.
This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning
– which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.
Ahead of its time?
One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a
document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including
mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.
Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with
the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective
expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."
Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and
Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "
The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made
all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the
alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler
and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.
It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended
# IntegrityInitiative meetings. There
is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.
It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity
Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were
drawn up years in advance.
"... Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman ..."
"... 'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body' ..."
"... This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection – cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance the whole world. ..."
"... To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth. ..."
"... But there is also a second way to make money. That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his power to claim economic benefit. ..."
"... For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large class of useless rentiers, well-described by the French economist Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere. ..."
"... It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they gobble it up whole. ..."
"... In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however, is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares, then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you), and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up. ..."
"... Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields a similar revenue model. Take tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers. One of the richest people in the world, Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent. ..."
"... Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google , Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose. ..."
"... Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger. ..."
"... Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an astounding 64% of all online ad revenue in the US. ..."
"... Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box. ..."
"... The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks, law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts. ..."
"... One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire. Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier drains a country of its vitality. ..."
Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're
sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman
'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body'.
This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection
– cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job
creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance
the whole world.
Now, we may disagree about the extent to which success deserves to be rewarded – the philosophy of the left is that the strongest
shoulders should bear the heaviest burden, while the right fears high taxes will blunt enterprise – but across the spectrum virtually
all agree that wealth is created primarily at the top.
So entrenched is this assumption that it's even embedded in our language. When economists talk about "productivity", what they
really mean is the size of your paycheck. And when we use terms like "
welfare
state ", "redistribution" and "solidarity", we're implicitly subscribing to the view that there are two strata: the makers and
the takers, the producers and the couch potatoes, the hardworking citizens – and everybody else.
In reality, it is precisely the other way around. In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders
are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true mechanism of social solidarity. Meanwhile, a growing share of those we
hail as "successful" and "innovative" are earning their wealth at the expense of others. The people getting the biggest handouts
are not down around the bottom, but at the very top. Yet their perilous dependence on others goes unseen. Almost no one talks about
it. Even for politicians on the left, it's a non-issue.
To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means
tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout
app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth.
But there is also a second way to make money.
That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase
your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his
power to claim economic benefit.
'From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.'
For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large
class of useless rentiers, well-described by the
French economist
Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend
the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big
pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.
There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering. In fact, the modern-day rentier often works damn hard.
Countless people in the financial sector, for example, apply great ingenuity and effort to amass "rent" on their wealth. Even the
big innovations of our age – businesses like Facebook
and Uber – are interested mainly in expanding the rentier economy. The problem with most rich people therefore is not that they are
coach potatoes. Many a CEO toils 80 hours a week to multiply his allowance. It's hardly surprising, then, that they feel wholly entitled
to their wealth.
It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll
start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the
International Monetary Fund and the
Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist
thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they
gobble it up whole.
In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating
anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however,
is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares,
then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you),
and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up.
The financial innovation concocted by all the math whizzes working in modern banking (instead of at universities or companies
that contribute to real prosperity) basically boils down to maximizing the total amount of debt. And debt, of course, is a means
of earning rent. So for those who believe that pay ought to be proportionate to the value of work, the conclusion we have to draw
is that many bankers should be earning a negative salary; a fine, if you will, for destroying more wealth than they create.
Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields
a similar revenue model.
Take
tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of
other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers.
One of the richest people in the world,
Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The
same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the
Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent.
But here comes the rub. Most rentiers are not as easily identified as the greedy banker or manager. Many are disguised. On the
face of it, they look like industrious folks, because for part of the time they really are doing something worthwhile. Precisely
that makes us overlook their massive rent-seeking.
Take the pharmaceutical industry. Companies like
GlaxoSmithKline and
Pfizer regularly
unveil new drugs, yet most real medical breakthroughs are made quietly at government-subsidised labs. Private companies mostly manufacture
medications that resemble what we've already got. They get it patented and, with a hefty dose of marketing, a legion of lawyers,
and a strong lobby, can live off the profits for years. In other words, the vast revenues of the pharmaceutical industry are the
result of a tiny pinch of innovation and fistfuls of rent.
Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google
, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries
and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid
paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose.
Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing
growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult
to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger.
Aptly characterising this "platform capitalism" in an article,
Tom Goodwin writes : "Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner,
creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider,
owns no real estate."
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'Every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll.' Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters
So what do these companies own? A platform. A platform that lots and lots of people want to use. Why? First and foremost, because
they're cool and they're fun – and in that respect, they do offer something of value. However, the main reason why we're all happy
to hand over free content to Facebook is because all of our friends are on Facebook too, because their friends are on Facebook because
their friends are on Facebook.
Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for
free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg
has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with
free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an
astounding
64% of all online ad revenue in the US.
But don't Google and Facebook make anything useful at all? Sure they do. The irony, however, is that their best innovations only
make the rentier economy even bigger. They employ scores of programmers to create new algorithms so that we'll all click on more
and more ads.
Uber has
usurped the whole taxi sector just as
Airbnb has upended the hotel industry and Amazon has overrun the book trade. The bigger such platforms grow the more powerful
they become, enabling the lords of these digital feudalities to demand more and more rent.
Think back a minute to the definition of a rentier: someone who uses their control over something that already exists in order
to increase their own wealth. The feudal lord of medieval times did that by building a tollgate along a road and making everybody
who passed by pay. Today's tech giants are doing basically the same thing, but transposed to the digital highway. Using technology
funded by taxpayers, they build tollgates between you and other people's free content and all the while pay almost no tax on their
earnings.
This is the so-called innovation that has Silicon Valley gurus in raptures: ever bigger platforms that claim ever bigger handouts.
So why do we accept this? Why does most of the population work itself to the bone to support these rentiers?
I think there are two answers. Firstly, the modern rentier knows to keep a low profile. There was a time when everybody knew who
was freeloading. The king, the church, and the aristocrats controlled almost all the land and made peasants pay dearly to farm it.
But in the modern economy, making rentierism work is a great deal more complicated. How many people can explain a
credit default swap
, or a collateralised debt obligation ? Or the revenue
model behind those cute Google Doodles? And don't the folks on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley work themselves to the bone, too?
Well then, they must be doing something useful, right?
Maybe not. The typical workday of Goldman Sachs' CEO may be worlds away from that of King Louis XIV, but their revenue models
both essentially revolve around obtaining the biggest possible handouts. "The world's most powerful investment bank," wrote the journalist
Matt Taibbi about
Goldman Sachs , "is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything
that smells like money."
But far from squids and vampires, the average rich freeloader manages to masquerade quite successfully as a decent hard worker.
He goes to great lengths to present himself as a "job creator" and an "investor" who "earns" his income by virtue of his high "productivity".
Most economists, journalists, and politicians from left to right are quite happy to swallow this story. Time and again language is
twisted around to cloak funneling and exploitation as creation and generation.
However, it would be wrong to think that all this is part of some ingenious conspiracy. Many modern rentiers have convinced even
themselves that they are bona fide value creators. When current Goldman Sachs CEO
Lloyd Blankfein
was asked about the purpose of his job, his straight-faced answer was that he is "
doing God's
work ". The Sun King would have approved.
The second thing that keeps rentiers safe is even more insidious. We're all wannabe rentiers. They have made millions of people
complicit in their revenue model. Consider this: What are our financial sector's two biggest cash cows? Answer: the housing market
and pensions. Both are markets in which many of us are deeply invested.
Recent decades have seen more and more people contract debts to buy a home, and naturally it's in their interest if
house
prices continue to scale new heights (read: burst bubble upon bubble). The same goes for pensions. Over the past few decades
we've all scrimped and saved up a mountainous pension piggy bank. Now pension funds are under immense pressure to ally with the biggest
exploiters in order to ensure they pay out enough to please their investors.
The fact of the matter is that feudalism has been democratised. To a lesser or greater extent, we are all depending on handouts.
En masse, we have been made complicit in this exploitation by the rentier elite, resulting in a political covenant between the rich
rent-seekers and the homeowners and retirees.
Don't get me wrong, most homeowners and retirees are not benefiting from this situation. On the contrary, the banks are bleeding
them far beyond the extent to which they themselves profit from their houses and pensions. Still, it's hard to point fingers at a
kleptomaniac when you have sticky fingers too.
So why is this happening? The answer can be summed up in three little words: Because it can.
Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he
had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely
in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised
within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box.
The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon
a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks,
law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions
in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts.
One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire.
Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier
drains a country of its vitality.
What innovation remains in a rentier economy is mostly just concerned with further bolstering that very same economy. This may
explain why the big dreams of the 1970s, like flying cars, curing cancer, and colonising Mars, have yet to be realised, while bankers
and ad-makers have at their fingertips technologies a thousand times more powerful.
Yet it doesn't have to be this way. Tollgates can be torn down, financial products can be banned, tax havens dismantled, lobbies
tamed, and patents rejected. Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less attractive, precisely because society's biggest
freeloaders are at the very top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, oil, and innovation through
a system of, say, employee shares, or a
universal basic
income .
But such a revolution will require a wholly different narrative about the origins of our wealth. It will require ditching the
old-fashioned faith in "solidarity" with a miserable underclass that deserves to be borne aloft on the market-level salaried shoulders
of society's strongest. All we need to do is to give real hard-working people what they deserve.
And, yes, by that I mean the waste collectors, the nurses, the cleaners – theirs are the shoulders that carry us all.
"... The British Private Eye finds a relation between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion. ..."
Forgot to link this: The
Briefing note
on the Integrity Initiative by Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason and Piers Robinson is the most complete analysis of the
Integrity Initiative papers.
The British Private Eye finds a relation
between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion.
I'll have to say more on the issue. For some fun, check the attachment to this tweet. (Klarenberg writes for Sputnik.)
"Jornos for hire" are now mainstream. Much like escort services.
Again, it's pure projection. These vermin are literally incapable of looking at anything except in terms of how it can
be used as a weapon (or how it can be destroyed), so they automatically attribute that fundamentalist way of looking at things to everyone
else, and especially to the "enemy". So by definition anything Putin and the Russians do is some kind of "weaponization".
Notable quotes:
"... Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat). Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style. ..."
"... Here is what Americans really think about the anti-Russia hysteria coming from Washington: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/08/americans-on-russia-will-of-people.html Washington has completely lost touch with what Main Street America really believes. ..."
"... And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril islands: Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite" maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected. ..."
"... Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia, will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.) ..."
"... I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the population from reality. ..."
"... The underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth. ..."
"... Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media. ..."
"... Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. ..."
"... Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything they touch turns to weapons. ..."
"... But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian than Western governments ..."
"... Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it. ..."
Several of the pieces listed in it are products of the recently uncovered
British government
financed disinformation campaign , or of similar efforts by other governments. But these are only a part of the general anti-Russian
reflex that is ingrained in our 'western' culture. Nothing else can explain the craziness of these 'weaponizing' claims.
The updated list with some 65 issues, ideas and things that Russia allegedly 'weaponizes' will hopefully help to convince people
that most of what is said or written about Russia is likewise blatant nonsense.
Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat).
Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style.
And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril
islands:
Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite"
maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise
I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected.
Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia,
will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.)
I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the
population from reality. Now whether it's believed or not is neither here nor there as it's built upon decades of anti-communism
and the inherent racism of the Anglo-Saxon Empire that has demonized the Russians as essentially backward peasants who cannot
be trusted. Worse still, the Russkies have ginormous weapons!
I agree that both 'sides' in a phony cold war 2.0 weaponize just about anything of a controversial nature or event in civilization.
Both sides are advancing agenda that are leading humanity in the same direction even as they create a false adversarial paradigm.
This has been termed non linear psychological warfare under which such a confusing array of created realities leaves the greater
public unable to define what is real or a fabrication. It takes at least two or more to create the illusions and the 'other' can
simply be created/funded as controlled opposition and then even this can be published to further create more confusion within
the confusion. Carl Rove told us this. He just didn't tell us that the 'Empire' also includes Russia, China and any number of
other corporate national jurisdictions.
More seriously, this is not "stupidity" of the political class, as some pundits would have you believe. It is a well thought-out
retrenchment plan of attempting to institute a new "iron curtain" to separate Europe from Asia after the demise of unipolarity.
Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding
apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media.
Russia's weaponized Arctic
Ocean or perhaps Russia's weaponized the lack of proper marine maintenance. Russia's also weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's
lack of naval or other Arctic Ocean land-based infrastructure -- there's zip to support any off-shore drilling from Alaska's coastline.
IOW, Russia's weaponizing a plethora of Outlaw US Empire weaknesses.
And what the Sputnik article refers to as the heavy US icebreaker Polar Star is more roughly one half the size of the
nuclear powered Russian icebreaker 50 Years of Victory, 50 лет Победы . I suspect the Russians would call the Polar
Star a light icebreaker. Sputnik probably probably being polite.
Way back in the 1950s the Pentagon (specifically the Air Force) was all atwitter over unsubstantiated reports (again leaked by
the Air Force) that the Soviets (read: the Russians) were building a nuclear powered strategic bomber that would have unlimited
range and flight time. Well now. You know what that means? We gotta have one too! So guess what. The Air Force dutifully volunteered
to save the US and Western civilization from being bombed back to the stone age and godless communism all at the same time by
building a nuclear powered bomber of our own. To make a long story short the effort failed miserably. The project managed to last
into the Kennedy administration but was cancelled in favor of developing submarine launched ICBMs. While the nuclear bomber program
died it's spirit lived on. During the Carter administration the then chief of Air Force intelligence (yes I know there's no such
thing) became convinced that the russkies were building ground-based and orbiting death ray machines to use against US satellites
and ICBMs. Thus was born "Star Wars." Of course this fit in perfectly with the Reagan administration's defense views even though
the engineering and science simply didn't exist then of now. Well as the french say the "more things change the more they remain
the same"
Some people get weaponized on business trips to Moscow. This video shows how they do it...
https://youtu.be/8cs4tKdiiI4 Posted by: dh | Dec 17, 2018 10:36:48
AM | 15
Move over Russia make room for the Chinese weapon program.. its much more dangerous than the Russian disinformation program,
unlike Russia, the Chinese circumvent the USA Senate, the President, and the SCOUS and go directly to the poor, innocent governed
humans, lending them money, creating for them jobs and developing infra structure to make life easier; such will be the end of
us all. WE MUST REMEMBER Aake news and made up fictions are produced by the six entities that own 92 of the media. Without the
Internet and other public infra structure, the media could not smear you with its dirty tricks. Someone please pass the soap.
"weaponizing terrorism "? because until Putin all "terrorists" sat around talking and sipping tea like the goddamn mclaughlin
group? then again, given the outsize influence of objectively insane think tanks in DC, maybe they were onto something.
funny how this can also be seen as what psychology types call "projection". in a culture like the west's (especially the states)
where the economies are built on warfare and financial voodoo, everything is either "weaponized" or collateralized. look at anything
on that list and it's something from which someone "atlantic" has tried or will try to make money. of course, many things start
out weaponized and are then collateralized
. weaponized taxes? weaponized corporate welfare?
hey, if a bunch of white/israeli suburbanite music executives in LA can control rap, it should be pretty easy. side note: rap
is officially banned in iran. some say it's been deemed "satanic". Years ago when i was grooving to das efx or public enemy i'd
have disagreed but now that the big names are drake, minaj and meek mill...only malevolent supernatural evil can explain that.
I'm shocked to learn that "Russia is weaponizing its Coast Guard",
https://warisboring.com/russia-is-weaponizing-its-coast-guard/
The author seems quite angry the Russians are using their "Coast Guard" of all things, to defend their coast. He thinks they should
have used their Navy instead!
"The use of the Russian Federation Navy to close the strait would have been more likely to escalate because it would have
been a military-on-military clash. In contrast, using the Russian coast guard made it a law enforcement issue rather than a
military-sanctioned act of war. Russia is adept at using legal channels to pursue violations of justice. It now appears willing
to use its coast guard for this purpose.
Onshore, the situation in eastern Ukraine has been stuck in a rut. Perhaps the escalation in the Sea of Azov was seen by
the Russians as a means to break the impasse, using the flimsy legal cover provided by the coast guard. No similar terrestrial
options exist, as the Russians have exhausted their plausible deniability for operations by police, volunteers and undercover
"little green men."
While Russian seizure of the Azov coast was anticipated, it was not expected to use its coast guard. Utilizing the Russian
coast guard in this way opens a new range of options for Moscow, in the Sea of Azov and beyond."
Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling
lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. Indeed, perhaps
this ought to be enlarged to include weaponizing mediocrity as portrayed by Trump's entire Cabinet. We can also see the great
strides Putin's made in making the Outlaw US Empire appear as the Ogre it is by weaponizing Anglo-American Exceptionalism. It
seems, given the above list and its additions via comments, that the Outlaw US Empire is most exceptional at being incapable of
weaponizing anything aside from its #1 go-to--The BigLie.
Strategic Message Code One , Dec 17, 2018 3:04:33 PM |
link
Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything
they touch turns to weapons. I seen it here as well, every Russia thing is trouble of some kind, like there is nothing else
that comes from there. I seen Russian people and they ok, but now I'm frightened to get close to them in case I turn into a weapon.
Aan here too guys, Russia touches the west an the west as consequence are all buying weapons an using them everywhere, they cant
do nothing cause Russia makes them weaponators too. Oh my, we are doomed man and waponized press freakin me out aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A quote from the report mentioned in (50): "Although the NDS generally reflects the right priorities and objectives, it
is not supported by adequate investments. It is beyond the scope of this Commission's work to identify the exact dollar amount
required to fully fund the military's needs, but the available means are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy's ends.
This is true despite the two-year funding increase for FY2018 and FY2019 provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018."
What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the (we all know it) struggling news organizations.
I believe many of these quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that propaganda money. Most
of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount, but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid
well. I certainly think the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6.
The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia,
'weaponizing', hackers, cyber, fake news...
I believe the Saker was pointing out a few days ago that the Border Guards were often more like spetsnaz than what we in the
west think of as a border patrol. The Russian Coast Guard has probably maintained the tradition.
I see culture's already been deemed weaponized, but
here's Putin's actual plan he laid out in his speech to a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art in St Petersburg
two days ago. Introductory remarks:
"... global competition in creating best conditions for self-fulfilment and revealing the potential of each individual is
growing, and the world's leading powers including Russia, rightly see it as a key to the future. Of course, a significant role
here will belong to establishing a vibrant, rich cultural space, which will be interesting and attractive not only for the
citizens of our country but also for the whole world."
Meanwhile within the Outlaw US Empire, Boy Scouts of America is about to
file for bankruptcy thanks
to the many sexual abuse lawsuits it now faces. This leads me to declare yet another Russian accomplishment: Putin has weaponized
Machiavellian divide and rule by enticing the Outlaw US Empire's Deep State -- years prior to his birth! -- to promote and escalate
what's known as the Culture Wars used to ensure a continuing inability to achieve solidarity by the USA's polity.
Anaya, I take it you took a look-see at its staff and there's a lot of them! Yeah, that's what prompted my own feelings about
it. The report has apparently been published but I've not yet seen it.
The '150 million' influenced by those scheming Russkies, has been floating for awhie. I first saw it used in a Euro-based setup,
funded by NATO I think. I'll try and dig it out as I remember writing something about.
This kind of "Weaponization" is far less expensive than say an F35 or a 13bn Ford class Aircraft carrier, but the more of them
you build the safer you will be from the "Weaponization" of coloring books. Nuke crayons now! The state of the US and its
military in my view is that they can't win a war against anyone, all they can do is blow up the world with nukes - the only question
is will they deny the world to everyone if they can't own it.
It's a shame we can't massively disseminate our weaponization of ridicule contained in b's article and our commentary. I wonder
how many comedians are making good money ridiculing the entire weaponization meme, and not just in English.
What I'd like to see at all US government pressers is for uncontrollable laughter to break out amongst the press when the spokesperson
begins speaking and continue until it leaves the podium, followed by the press exiting the room.
In case you haven't yet heard, Heather Nauert replaces Nutty Nikki as US ambassador to the UN so 'tis there that Matt Lee and
his fellow journos must trek (it's gonna be a long way to NYC) to get their regular dose of laughter.
Here in my exceptional country it is customary at the end of each year to declare a "word of the year", some from past years were
truthiness, Y2K and hashtag.
but it didn't go after the current Russian govt. It pointed out how the US imitates the Soviets in weaponizing psychiatry by
declaring dissidents crazy. You have to be insane to disagree with TPTB.
I'm sure the comedian replacing Nauert will be just as distracting and of similar character.
Did you happen to read Caitlin Johnstone's
Twenty-One Thoughts On The Persecution Of Julian Assange , particularly #s 8-10 as they relate to her essay about narratives?
All our rather witty ridicule is almost totally wasted on us--we don't need to hear it; it's those people Caitlin refers to in
her 8-10 that require the deep pin-prick of ridicule to snap them from their torpor and return them to reality and to rational
thinking.
The biggest weapon in the West arsenal is private finance. Private finance is the jackboot that keep nations/governments/individuals
in line. Private finance has been the primary weapon of control for centuries. China/Russia are trying to weaponize alternative
finance......and succeeding......which is why the world is all in a tither.
I think it has to do with what one has studied. I have four university degrees: B.A. in Classics from Princeton, A.B. in Classics
from Oxford, Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard, and a J.D. from Yale. I spent a lot of time in the U.S. military: four
years in the active duty U.S. Air Force, plus something like 15 years in the reserves, largely of the U.S. Navy. For as long as
the original Cold War lasted and Communism ruled Russia, I was a true believer in the Cold War. It now looks to me as if I was
misguided at the time, but that is what I believed, whether despite or because of my education, I don't know which.
But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was
in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian
than Western governments. I think someone with a classical education like the one I got is more capable of thinking for himself.
I don't think my education disabled me from thinking critically and independently.
BB 93 Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it.
Hoarsewhisperer 95 He may well be, but with the passing of several years and his actions in that time appear to be ardent
zionist. The swamp to him are those that frittered away US unilateral power and those that did not sufficiently support Israel.
What Trump views as the swamp is not what most of us view as the swamp. Kissinger was not forced upon Trump, rather his thinking
is in line with that of Kissinger.
"... To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course, there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in 2003... ..."
To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art
and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that
two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course,
there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in
2003...
In EU universities you now see all sorts of "labs" popping out, with EU funding from the
"digital" budget. They are trying to recruit people with a very odd profile: ambitious, ONG
oriented, IT familiar. The reason why these labs insist on the ONG type activities is
dubious. An example of US/EU sponsored project involving refugees in Greece, neurosciences
and mobile phones (check Harvard/Data&Society: Refugee Connectivity)
News that the BBC is trying to tie the Gilets Jaunes movement to the Kremlin reaches the
Russian Foreign Ministry. Betting that Lavrov, Zakharova and company are all having a laugh
as well.
Just when you think British news media couldn't fall any deeper into their rabbit hole ...
down, down farther they go into the abyss ... aaarrgghhh ...
"... Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large. ..."
"... People are building their careers on this garbage! ..."
The Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are run by people.
These people display a stunning level of immorality by lying and war-mongering.
Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal
presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and
orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large.
It would be proper to publish a roster of the presstitutes and their idiotic managers working at the Oxford University's Computational
Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project
About half an hour ago I opened News.Google.Com these are some of their major headlines:
Russians sought to recruit 'assets' through social media, Senate told - CNN . one hour
ago
Russua favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say -
NBC News . one hour ago
New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation's
scale and sweep - The Washington Post . today
Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump,
GOP - USA TODAY . 2 hours ago
Silicon Valley may have done 'bare minimum' to help Russia investigation, Senate Intel
Committee told - CNN . one hour ago
I opened the one from the Washington Post:
Headline: "New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the
operation's scale and sweep"
Subtext: "The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the
first to analyze the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate
Intelligence Committee."
The headline is meant to give the impression that the report was prepared at *The Behest*
of the Senate. If you read the article it would have you believe that it *was* written at the
behest of the Senate but does not say that specifically.
Well? Was it? I have tried to track it down and could use some assistance.
Buried in a CBS NEWS version of the article is this sentence: "The Committee welcomed the
research effort without endorsing either report's findings."
USA TODAY says it *was* "Senate Reports". The lead paragraph is this: "WASHINGTON –
The Senate released Monday a pair of reports that found Russia engaged in an all-out social
media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him
after he took office."
"People are building their careers on this garbage!"
Josh said at #60
"What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the
(we all know it) struggling news organizations. I believe many of these
quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that
propaganda money. Most of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount,
but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid well. I certainly think
the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6. The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia, 'weaponizing', hackers, cyber,
fake news..."
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation.
Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare
of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.
In re "Our man in Havana" I think there
are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.
The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head
round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.
Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.
If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.'
It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating
one ham-fisted cover-up after another.
The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in
Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'
Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate'
-- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.
And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about
it..
There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying
Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with
Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.
As the Colonel eloquently asks:
"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem
to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"
I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating
their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened
in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world
(with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May,
Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though
there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.
(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse
is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).
Hackers who leaked documents from the Integrity Initiative, a shadowy outfit funded by the
UK government, claim they show its connections to the March 2018 alleged poisoning attack in
Salisbury and proposed actions against Russia. The Integrity Initiative (II) was set up in 2015
by the equally shadowy "Institute for Statecraft," according to the documents
published online in
November by hackers calling themselves a part of the Anonymous collective. While Anonymous
has denied the group was behind the leak, the Institute confirmed the authenticity of the first
batch of documents.
The hackers
posted a fresh batch of documents purportedly from the Initiative and the Institute on
Friday, hinting that both outfits had connections with Western media coverage of the March 2018
alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal, and the actions against Russia taken
subsequently by the UK government and its allies.
One of the documents is the
confidential report by Harod Associates, a company hired by the Initiative to conduct
"mainstream & social media analysis" of the Skripal scandal coverage. The entire
undertaking was dubbed "Operation Iris."
Among those who found themselves named "Russian trolls" and Kremlin agents in the
report were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa and a gentleman from Kent who goes by
Ian56 on Twitter.
Wanna see something funny? 🤣
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and
Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French
yellow jackets. I kid you not. https://t.co/I3X4ypylAP
Another
document , dated March 11, 2018, contains a "Narrative" of the Skripal incident,
blaming Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally and containing a number of recommended
actions, such as boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2
gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and block Russian access to SWIFT international banking
system, but also to "ban RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."
Other suggestions include propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicise what has been
happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion" (sic) and getting
members of Parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."
The document dump also contains the April
14, 2018 email from Andy Pryce, whom the hackers describe as "chief propaganda man" at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, containing the official government narrative of the Skripal
affair and the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Pryce ends the email by recommending
"good sources of further information" on alleged Russian propaganda, including the
Atlantic Council's DFR Lab, Bellingcat and Stopfake.
Documents obtained and published by the hackers also show connections between Skripal's
recruiter and neighbor Pablo Miller, the Institute for Statecraft, and the so-called rescue
group White Helmets, created in militant-held areas of Syria by a former British official in
2013.
It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended
#IntegrityInitiative
meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II
initiated the affair. https://t.co/Xv29Uk9z3e
There are also several invoices from Dan Kaszeta of the Institute for Statecraft, for
articles he wrote as supposedly a chemical weapons expert advancing the Institute's narrative
on both the Skripals and Syria.
The most intriguing, however, is
a document from 2015 , in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a
series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of
1971's Operation Foot. One of the actions by the UK, US and several other NATO countries in the
wake of claims that Russia used a nerve agent against Skripal was a mass expulsion of Russian
diplomats.
Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents written long before the Salisbury events
call for arrests of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding, "Makes you think
"
Previously published documents have revealed the Initiative and the Institute as being
involved in widespread
propaganda operations targeting not only foreign countries and media outlets – as one
might expect from someone doing the bidding of the Foreign Office – but also domestic political
figures , such as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"... Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment. ..."
If Syria wins the award for Country of the Year 2018, I'd hate to see who gets the Wooden
Spoon for 2018. There must be quite a few serious contenders for that prize!
Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer
disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that
constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own
collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity
Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military
establishment.
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian
interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b
above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into
promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)
Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses
(neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t
as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions
should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.
The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for
'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.
Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of
doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive
social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.
Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a
jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically
no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc.
having any clue.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 48/2019 (November 23rd, 2019) of DER SPIEGEL.
Charles Dharapak/ AP/ Picture Alliance/ DPA
490 9:39 PM
2015 File
Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions
Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal
Incident
Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative
Invoice submitted to
Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections
