Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case: Part 5 – An Educated Guess
By Rob ASlane | The Blog Mire | June 14, 2018
I want in this piece to start joining some dots together on this case, using some of the facts, clues and suppositions that I have set out in the previous parts. I said at the end of Part 4 that there would be one more piece. That has turned out to be wishful thinking on my part, and there will in fact be a further article after this one. In this piece, I want to propose a theory — or maybe educated guess is a better term — for what I think may have happened on 4th March. Then I will need one final piece to show why I think this theory helps to explain a number of other events and incidents connected with the story. Think of that final part as tying up some loose ends.
So what of the theory?
Back in Part 2, I made the claim that two of the most important clues in the whole Skripal case are:
- The people who were seen on CCTV walking through the Market Walk towards The Maltings at 15:47 who were very clearly not Sergei and Yulia Skripal
- The red bag that one of them was carrying
These clues are very important, because one of the first witnesses on the scene, Freya Church, testified that she saw a red bag at Yulia Skripal’s feet. In addition, we know that a red bag was placed in an evidence bag and taken away from the scene.
Of course, it could be that the red bag seen near the bench was not the same red bag carried by the person walking through The Maltings. Then again, large red bags like that are not exactly very common (walk around a town and see how many you spot). If the people and the bag have been ruled out, I haven’t heard anything to that effect in the media. Rather, they have been quietly forgotten about in the midst of a lot of nonsense about door handles and deadly nerve agents that don’t kill. This itself raises suspicions, and it is therefore entirely reasonable to suppose that these two people are important, and that the red bag seen on CCTV is the same one seen next to the bench.
There is also something else quite odd about those people, which at first glance you may not have spotted. Although the footage is not very clear, and I wouldn’t want to be dogmatic about this, I believe that a careful look at the two people shows that they are both wearing gloves. This would not be especially remarkable, given that it was fairly cold that day, but what is odd is that the gloves they are wearing are white. Certainly, their hands appear to be far whiter than their faces. Why is this strange? As I said in Part 2, although I’m not 100% sure of the sex of the person nearest the camera (looks like a woman to me, but others disagree), I am very, very sure that the person furthest from the camera is male. And as you are probably aware, men don’t tend to wear white gloves. Of course, there may not be any importance in this, but it does seem to add to the already large mountain of intrigue in the case.
Anyway, 10-15 minutes or so before these two people walked through the Market Walk, Sergei and Yulia Skripal left Zizzis restaurant. They did so after Mr Skripal became extremely agitated, demanding the bill at the same time as the main course, which he ate (the food that is, not the bill). However, this was not down to his being physically unwell, or showing signs of suffering any effects of poisoning, as the fact that he ate the lunch shows quite clearly. As I argued in Part 3, the most likely reason for his agitation and obvious desire to leave as quickly as possible was that he had an appointment to keep – one that he was perhaps nervous about, but one that he could not afford to miss.
Let’s now construct a timeline of the events that followed:
15:35 – Sergei Skripal and Yulia leave Zizzis. They make their way to The Maltings, presumably along Market Walk (although strangely there is no CCTV footage of this), a walk of about two minutes or so.
15:37 – When they got to The Maltings, they appear not to have gone straight to the bench, but to the Avon Playground (approximately 50 yards from the bench), where they spent some time feeding ducks. They presumably then went over to the bench, a few minutes after this.
15:47 – The mysterious pair, one of whom is carrying a red bag, are seen on CCTV walking through Market Walk in the direction of The Maltings.
16:03 – One of the first witnesses to the scene, Freya Church, who was working in the nearby Snap Fitness, leaves work at 16:00 or thereabouts, and sees the Skripals on the bench at approximately 16:03. According to her account, they were already “out of it”, which suggests that they had been poisoned some minutes previously. She noted that there was a red bag on the floor next to Yulia’s feet.
16:15 – Emergency services are called and the pair are taken to Salisbury District Hospital, Yulia by helicopter and Sergei by ambulance. Upon admittance, the hospital believed that the pair had overdosed on Fentanyl, and treated this as an opioid poisoning for at least 24 hours after the incident.
Later that evening – Police remove the red bag, and it has never been heard of or mentioned in connection with the story since.
Assuming that the red bag seen next to Yulia Skripal is the same as the one carried by the person nearest the camera in the Market Walk – who was not Yulia Skripal – we can begin to make some educated guesses as to what happened in those crucial minutes, from 15:47 to 16:03.
In Part 4 of this series, I made the case that there is a strong possibility that Sergei Skripal, not Christopher Steele, was the author of the Trump Dossier. Certainly, the connections between Steele and Skripal make that plausible, as does some of the material contained therein, as does the fact that Russia experts, such as Paul Gregory and Craig Murray, are convinced that the Dossier was written by a Russian “trained in the KGB tradition.”
My (hopefully educated) guess is therefore that Mr Skripal, who knew much about the origins, the contents and the falsehoods of the Dossier, was hoping to be paid off to keep quiet about it. Furthermore, my guess is that he was due to meet someone for this purpose at the park bench in The Maltings at about 3:45pm on 4th March (NB. even if the theory about the money is wide of the mark, I would still say that the rest of the clues tend to suggest that he was due to meet someone at the park bench).
Why meet on the park bench and why drag Yulia along with him? In both instances, as an insurance policy. Meeting out in public, albeit at a time on a Sunday afternoon when few people would be about, would perhaps be “safer” than meeting at home. Taking Yulia along with him would also add another layer of “safety”. Even so, if my supposition is anywhere close to the truth, Mr Skripal would have been apprehensive about the rendezvous, hence his agitation in the restaurant.
According to this scenario, the people seen walking along Market Walk at 15:47 approached the bench. This would have been about 15:48. Perhaps a few words were exchanged, or perhaps the bag was simply put down on the floor, and the pair who had delivered it walked away.
My guess is that over the next few minutes, both Sergei Skripal and Yulia looked into the bag where, amongst other things, there was some kind of toxic substance (which may explain the reason for the white gloves). What was the substance? First let’s say what it was not. It was not a lethal nerve agent, 5-8 times more deadly than VX. If it had been a lethal nerve agent, 5-8 times more deadly than VX, then they would either have died over the next few minutes, or they would have been hospitalised and suffered irreparable damage to their nervous system. Since neither of these things happened, it is safe to say that whatever the substance was, it was not A-234. Indeed, it defies logic, reason and all common sense to maintain that it was.
What was it? It is impossible to say for sure, but given the fact that they were fairly quickly incapacitated, yet suffered no long lasting and irreparable damage, what we are probably looking at is some kind of non-lethal incapacitating nerve agent. For the point was not to kill Mr Skripal – that would have inevitably led to a whole can of worms being opened about who he was and what he was doing – but to incapacitate him and hospitalise him for a time, with a substance that looked like it could be some kind of opioid poisoning, in order to send him a message.
Can we say more? I think so. The hospital treated the case as that of a Fentanyl poisoning for at least 24 hours. The reason for this can only have been because the symptoms exhibited were roughly consistent with the effects of poisoning by Fentanyl. What were those symptoms? Let’s turn to the testimony of various witnesses to the scene, all of which largely agree with one another (I have highlighted those bits that I see as most crucial in pointing to possible substances):
“He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky. I felt anxious, I felt like I should step in, but to be honest they looked so out of it that I thought even if I did step in, I wasn’t sure how I could help. So I just left them. But it looked like they’d been taking something quite strong” – Freya Church.
“It was like her body was dead. Her legs were really stiff… you know when animals die, they have rigor mortis. Both her legs came together when people pulled (her), and when she was on the floor her eyes were just completely white. They were wide open but just white and frothing at the mouth. Then the man went stiff: his arms stopped moving, but he’s still looking dead straight” – Jamie Paine.
“He was quite smartly dressed. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him. He had a woman sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder. He was staring dead straight. He was conscious but it was like he was frozen and slightly rocking back and forward’ – Georgia Pridham.
“The paramedics seemed to be struggling to keep the two people conscious. The man was sitting staring into space in a catatonic state” – Graham Mulcock.
“I saw quite a lot of commotion – there were two people sat on the bench and there was a security guard there. They put her on the ground in the recovery position, and she was shaking like she was having a seizure. It was a bit manic. There were a lot of people crowded round them. It was raining, people had umbrellas and were putting them over them” – Destiny Reynolds.
Okay, so what do we have?
♦ Firstly, we can say that it is a substance that possibly causes hallucinations (“out of it” “staring at the building” “palms up to the sky”
♦ Secondly, it also causes contraction of the pupils (“her eyes were completely white”)
♦ Thirdly, it seems to cause something like stupor (“he was staring dead straight”, “like he was frozen” “catatonic state”)
♦ Fourthly, it can cause tremors (“rocking back and forth” – see here for details on tremors, the effects of which include an unintentional, rhythmic muscle movement involving to-and-fro movements
♦ Fifthly, it can cause shaking and seizures (she was shaking like she was having a seizure)
♦ Sixthly, it can cause frothing at the mouth (which can be caused by seizures or pulmonary edema — fluid accumulation in the tissue and air spaces of the lungs)
There are a number of substances that fit these descriptions reasonably well. For instance, there is Carfentanil, which is an analogue of Fentanyl, only much stronger. Here is a description of some of its symptoms:
“Carfentanil has rapid onset [following IM administration] in animal patients, and is metabolized by the liver and excreted in the bile or by the kidneys … Signs and symptoms of exposure are consistent with opioid toxicity and include pinpoint pupils, respiratory depression, and depressed mental status. Other signs and symptoms include dizziness, lethargy, sedation, nausea, vomiting, shallow or absent breathing, cold clammy skin, weak pulse, loss of consciousness, and cardiovascular collapse secondary to hypoxia and death” – Lust et al. (2011).
Another possibility is 3-Quinuclidinyl-Benzilate (or BZ):
“Depending on the dose and time postexposure, a number of CNS [Central Nervous System] effects may manifest. Restlessness, apprehension, abnormal speech, confusion, agitation, tremor, picking movements, ataxia, stupor, and coma are described. Hallucinations are prominent, and they may be benign, entertaining, or terrifying to the patient experiencing them. Exposed patients may have conversations with hallucinated figures, and/or they may misidentify persons they typically know well. Simple tasks typically performed well by the exposed person may become difficult. Motor coordination, perception, cognition, and new memory formation are altered as CNS muscarinic receptors are inhibited” – Holstege CP and Baylor M; CBRNE – Incapacitating Agents, 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate. (May 24, 2006)
Let me clarify that I am not saying that it was either of these substances that was used to poison the Skripals. However, it is abundantly clear that the behaviour they exhibited, as described by various witnesses, far more closely matches the descriptions of the effects of substances like Carfentanil and BZ than it does A-234.
And so the sum and substance of this theory is as follows:
- That Sergei Skripal had arranged to meet someone at around 3:45pm at the park bench in The Maltings.
- That this was something to do with his involvement in and possible authorship of the so-called Trump Dossier.
- That the people he met were the same people who were spotted on a CCTV camera in Market Walk at 3:47.
- That the red bag that one of them was carrying is the same red bag that was seen by witnesses at the bench.
- That it was in this bag that some sort of incapacitating substance had been placed.
- That both Sergei and Yulia Skripal became incapacitated after looking inside the bag.
- That the bag was later taken away, and probably subsequently destroyed.
Of course, if this theory has any credibility, it does raise one huge question. How did we go from Mr Skripal being targeted with an incapacitating substance, to wild and wholly absurd claims of him being targeted with the most deadly nerve agent known to man? The answer to that, I believe, is that it all went a bit wrong, there was a panic, and in that panic a cover up of frankly bizarre proportions. In the final piece, I will be explaining how I think it went wrong, and then tying up some loose ends to show how I think the theory I have advanced is backed up by some of the subsequent occurrences connected to this very strange case.
Trouble Clef
By Gilad Atzmon | June 14, 2018
The Jewish Chronicle seems dismayed that the singer-songwriter Alison Chabloz has escaped jail time, at least for the time being. But the message conveyed by Ms. Chabloz’s conviction is devastating for Britain. This kingdom has, in just a short time, become a crude authoritarian state.
For posting so-called ‘grossly offensive songs’ on the internet, Chabloz was sentenced by District Judge John Zani to 20 weeks imprisonment suspended for two years. It seems that now music is deemed a major threat to Britain.
Chabloz was also banned from posting anything on social media for 12 months. I am perplexed. What kind of countries pre-vet social interaction and intellectual exchange? Israel imposes such prohibitions on its Palestinian citizens. Soviet Russia banned certain types of gatherings and publications and, of course, Nazi Germany saw itself qualified to decide what type of texts were healthy for the people and actively burned books. I guess that Britain is in good company.
Chabloz was further “ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.” This amounts to something in the proximity of 90 Jazz gigs. And Chabloz is required to attend ‘a 20-day rehabilitation programme.’ In 21st century Britain, a singer songwriter has been sentenced to ‘re-education’ for singing a few tunes that offended some people. The initial objective of the Nazi Concentration camp was also to ‘re-educate the people.’ Dachau was built to re-educate cosmopolitans, dissenter communists and to make them into German patriots. I wonder what this particular rehab program will entail for the revisionist singer? Chabloz was guilty of introducing new lyrics to Ava Nagila, will she have now to learn to sing Ava Nagila in Yiddish, or maybe to try to fit her own original ‘subversive’ lyrics to the music of Richard Wagner? Who is going to take care of Chabloz’s education, and what happens if the singer insists on continuing to mock the primacy of Jewish suffering or far worse, compare Gaza to Auschwitz?
Satire aside, the Chabloz trial and other recent legal cases suggest to me that Britain is no longer the liberty-loving place I settled in more than two decades ago. If liberty can be defined as the right to offend, Britain has voluntarily removed itself from the free world. In contemporary Britain, exercise of the ‘right to offend’ evidently leads to conviction and possible imprisonment. And who defines what establishes ‘an offence’? British law fails to do so. Chabloz was disrespectful to some Jewish cult figures such as Elie Wiesel and Otto Frank (the father of Anne Frank). Would Chabloz be subject to similar legal proceeding if she offended the Queen, the royal family or Winston Churchill? What message is Judge Zani sending to British intellectuals and artists? Since every person, let alone Jews, can be offended by pretty much anything, Britain is now reduced to an Orwellian dystopia. We may have to accept that our big Zionist brother is constantly watching us. If we want to keep out of trouble, we better self-censor our thoughts and learn to accept the new boundaries of our expression.
Democracies are sustained by the belief that their members are qualified to make decisions regarding their own education: they decide what films to watch, what books to read and what clubs to join. Seemingly, this is no longer the case in Britain. Decisions regarding right and wrong thoughts are now taken by ‘the law’. According to the JC, Judge Zani told Chabloz that :“The right to freedom of speech is fundamental to a fully-functioning democratic society. But the law has clearly established that this right is a qualified right.”
While many of us believe that freedom of speech is an absolute right, Judge Zani made it clear today that this is not the case or at least not anymore. Freedom of speech in Britain is now a ‘qualified right.’ In other words Government and the Judicial system are allowed to interfere with such right at any time. Just two years ago, the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t think that Chabloz should stand trial. Presumably at the time the CPS didn’t believe that Chabloz’ rights should be qualified or quantified. Two years later there has been a clear change in speech that is prosecuted.
Article 19e of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by Great Britain and enacted in 1948 declares: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
This was the law in 1948. In 2018, freedom and democracy are rights we have to remember, we experience them no more.
Support Gilad’s Legal Defence Fund.
Pundits Worry Threat of Nuclear War Is Being Reduced
By Gregory Shupak | FAIR | June 14, 2018
Media outlets don’t want America to negotiate with North Korea; they want the US to hold North Korea for ransom.
MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow (6/12/18) appears dismayed by the manifestation of a US president meeting with an Official Enemy.
On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the host was aghast (6/12/18) that the US says it will halt the annual war games it conducts with South Korea on North Korea’s doorstep, because doing so is “an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator,” “one of the things he wants most on earth,” and now Washington “has just given them that for free, for nothing.”
Maddow implied that Trump has taken this step out of fealty to Russia, and complained that pausing war games that threaten North Korea benefits Russia and China. She twice called the Kim/Trump summit a “wedding,” twice said that the two leaders “love” each other, and referred to Kim as Trump’s “best friend.” In other words, de-escalation is for wimps, and what’s needed is toughness, even if it risks nuclear war.
Not once did Maddow demonstrate the slightest concern with avoiding war. The message of her segment is that the US should subject all 25 million people in North Korea to the threat of nuclear annihilation until its leaders do what the US says, a threat that necessarily extends to the rest of East Asia, since it would be decimated in any nuclear exchange, to say nothing of the likely devastating effects on the rest of the world.
The Washington Post (6/12/18) warned against trusting “a cruel and unpredictable ruler whose motives and aims are far from clear”.
The editorial board of the Washington Post (6/12/18) says that diplomacy “is certainly preferable to the slide toward war that appeared to be underway last year,” but opposes taking steps to prevent another Korean War—a nuclear one, this time. The editorialists complain that the joint statement issued by the leaders of the US and North Korea makes no mention of “US terms for disarmament”: What the editorial, tellingly titled “No More Concessions,” is saying is that the predetermined outcome of diplomacy should be complete North Korea acquiescence to US demands—which, of course, isn’t diplomacy at all.
Similarly, the New York Times’ editorial board (6/12/18) writes that “after months of venomous barbs and apocalyptic threats of war, the meeting between President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was unquestionably a relief.” Trump, they wrote, “seems seized with the need to resolve it peacefully. That is to the good.” Yet the editorial lists measures that Times believes the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea’s official name) needs to take, without saying that America should do anything, and expresses anxiety over the break in war games.
In the same vein, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (6/12/18) says that “it certainly is better for the two leaders to be exchanging compliments rather than missiles,” but describes the US suspending military exercises with South Korea as a “concession” for which America is getting “astonishingly little” in return. He purports to be against the exchanging of missiles, but thinks it’s a mistake to take steps to minimize the threat of exchanging missiles.
While acknowledging Trump being “snookered” is “far better than war,” NYT’ Nicholas Kristof (6/12/18) fears “the cancellation of military exercises will raise questions among our allies.”
“Astonishingly,” Kristof writes, Trump
even adopted North Korean positions as his own, saying that the United States military exercises in the region are “provocative.” That’s a standard North Korean propaganda line.
The columnist failed to explain how military exercises on North Korea’s doorstep, involving 50,000 South Korean troops and 17,500 of their American counterparts, are anything other than “provocative,” but evidently Kristof would have no problem with joint DPRK/Mexico maneuvers near the US southern border pretending to launch an attack featuring 67,500 soldiers, along with simulated nuclear bomber attacks (FAIR.org, 4/3/13).
The Times’ editorial is as bemused as Kristof, writing that Trump “even endorsed the North Korean view of such joint exercises as ‘provocative.’”
Kristof criticized the joint statement because it says
nothing about North Korea freezing plutonium and uranium programs, nothing about destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, nothing about allowing inspectors to return to nuclear sites, nothing about North Korea making a full declaration of its nuclear program, nothing about a timetable, nothing about verification, not even any clear pledge to permanently halt testing of nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.
At no point did Kristof call on the US to take any remotely comparable steps.
The Washington Post‘s Anne Applebaum (6/12/18) does not seem to see Trump and Kim ceasing to threaten each other’s countries with nuclear destruction as a “gain” for those countries.
For Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post (6/12/18), provisionally scaling back American hostility to North Korea should be understood as a humiliation. She wrote that
had any previous American president, Republican or Democrat, emerged from an event like this, in which so much was given away with so little to show for it, he would have been embarrassed.
Her article was headlined, “Trump and Kim Got What They Wanted. The Rest of the World, Not So Much.” It’s likely, however, that “the rest of the world” does not want nuclear war, and might want steps that could help avert that danger—such as, say, an end to nuclear-armed America antagonizing another nuclear power by having “tens of thousands of US and [South Korean] troops, aircraft and naval vessels engaged in mock clashes” with that power.
Shining City on a Hill
Under-girding the view that the United States should only negotiate with North Korea when “negotiation” means “forcing the DPRK under nuclear duress to do whatever America says” are entrenched notions of intrinsic US superiority.
Probably the most blatant example of this is the view that the United States is “legitimizing” DPRK by meeting with its leaders. MSNBC’s Maddow seems to find it blasphemous that the summit “billed” North Korea “as a nation equal in stature to the United States.” According to the Times, Kim got a “win” by receiving the “legitimacy of being treated as an equal as a nuclear power on the world stage, country flags standing side by side.” The Post was incensed that Kim was “able to parade on the global stage as a legitimate statesman,” while Applebaum said that “the flags and the handshake will reinforce Kim’s legitimacy and make him harder to depose.”
States, and the parties that govern them, are not granted legitimacy by the United States. Legally, that legitimacy comes from United Nations recognition or its absence; as a practical matter, states and their leaders establish legitimacy through what the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci described as a combination of coercion and consent. Believing that the US has the power to confer or deny legitimacy on other countries or their leaders is part of the same imperial hubris that makes pundits panic about tentative moves in the direction of curtailing American belligerence toward North Korea, and thus the threat of nuclear war.
We would find it absurd if pundits complained that Kim failed to extract a promise from Trump to halt the thousand or so extrajudicial executions that take place in the US every year.
A comparable dynamic is at work in the commentariat concern-trolling about North Korean human rights. Maddow was perplexed that the US would meet with North Korea without the North Korean leadership making any promises about “their behavior toward their own people.” The Times’ editors considered it “startling” that the joint Kim/Trump statement contains no reference to human rights in DPRK.
In this conception, America is the shining city on a hill that must free the people of the DPRK, though these analysts don’t ask who will liberate US citizens living under a regime with the highest incarceration rate in the world, rampant judicial and extrajudicial execution, widespread racism, obscene wealth inequality and an undemocratic political system. Calling for a US government crusade for change inside North Korea while overlooking all of these features of US society is another dimension of the imperial arrogance that insists it’s legitimate to subject the entire population of other nations to crushing sanctions and violent threats until their governments give Washington everything it wants.
Nor do any of these commentators address the possibility that the US ruling class might need to change its global conduct: The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the sodomizing to death of Moammar Gadhafi, neither of whom possessed nuclear weapons with which to deter America from invading and destroying the countries they governed, could be a reason why the leaders of North Korea want nuclear weapons.
For the punditry, the goal of US/North Korea talks isn’t lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, it’s total North Korean submission to US commands. Corporate media appear to be more worried about the United States being successfully defied than it is about nuclear war.
Tension escalates as U.S Navy battle group arrives off Syria’s coast
By Paul Antonopoulos | Fort Russ News | June 14, 2018
A US naval group, led by the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, entered the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday. Military analyst Konstantin Sivkov points to the possible goal of the aircraft carrier.
Earlier, the US Navy reported that the naval group led by the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea to participate in operations against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
For the Russian analyst, the naval force may have moved to the Mediterranean Sea to prepare an attack with cruise missiles and even aviation bombs against the Syrian army.
“I suppose it’s really about preparations for a cruise missile attack. They might also use manned aviation. As the previous attacks have shown, a cruise missile attack is not efficient, so they will use aviation to protect the missiles when they attack,” Konstantin Sivkov said.
According to Sivkov, the United States will use drones as well as airplanes that will attack air defense systems with anti-radar missiles, “that is, the whole set of measures to assure the missile attack.”
“There will probably be an attack on Syria’s own air defense systems, and then Syrian troops may be attacked, but by manned aviation using standard bombs,” he added.
The United States, Britain and France launched on April 14 more than 100 missiles against Syrian targets in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Damascus against civilians in the city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta that supposedly occurred on April 7. Most of the projectiles launched were intercepted by Syrian air defense systems. The allegations were later proven to be false by international experts visiting the scene.
The United States has also attacked Syria on other occasions, usually when the Syrian Army are making rapid progress against terrorist forces. Washington justifies the attacks supposedly because of chemical weapons used by the Syrian Army which conveniently always occurs when the Syrian Army are about to win a major battle, not at the beginning of the battle.
Israel’s CRAZY offer to Iran: we’ll give you water, you give us your LAND
Israeli PM Netanyahu offered Iranian people irrigation technology in PR Video
By Matfey Shaheen | The Duran | June 14, 2018
Israeli PM Netanyahu made a bizarre offer to the Iranian people – if it can even be called an offer.
His “offer”, came in the form of a youtube video, which was also re-uploaded with Arabic and Farsi (Persian/Iranian) subtitles. In the video, he says Iran is suffering from major lack of water, and Israel wants to help by providing the Iranian people irrigation technology with seemingly no catch. In the video, he says that “The Iranian regime shouts “death to Israel”. In response, Israel shouts, “Life to the Iranian people”.
The video seems to be a PR scheme, in which he is trying to frame himself as the Savior of the Iranian people, saying that Israel stands with them, and cares about them more than their own government.
If you watch the video, and understand the situation, you realize however that his “offer” is a thinly veiled PR scheme at best.
In the video, he talks about how Iran is challenged with major drought, and water issues, which he claims threatens the lives of regular Iranians. He says that Israel has developed state of the art irrigation technology, to circumvent their own water issues, which he wants to share with Iranian people.
He seems to blame the water issues, or rather, an implied lack of Iranian solutions on the Iranian government. It must be said, that even parts of the US can suffer from irrigation issues This is not an unheard of problem in hot or difficult climates, for even powerful countries to struggle with.
A major part of his so-called “offer“, to appear like a hero for Iranian people, is he claims to create a Farsi website to share this irrigation technology with the Iranian people.
The devil is as always, in the details, however, and we will examine these details with biblical levels of scrutiny.
The offer is obviously very suspicious, but not simply because it’s an obvious deception. The reason why I have written “offer”, in quotations, is aside from him calling it an “unprecedented offer”, nothing about it seems like an actual offer for several reasons.
First of all, he spends the majority of the video talking about how terrible the Iranian government is, and how they allegedly don’t help their own people with their water issues. Then he claims he is going to step in and save the Iranian people by offering them this technology, but his offer seems entirely for the purpose of publicity. There seems to be nothing real at all behind these words.
First of all, it is framed as a totally free offer, a gift, yet the very use of the word “offer”, in politics, implies there is to be an exchange. He does not specify what he wants in exchange for this offer, unless he truly wants it to be believed, that he will give cutting-edge technology for free. It seems obvious he is trying to influence “hearts and minds” be they Iranian or not, in a propaganda campaign, rather than to actually give technology
This is because, despite making an offer, if you dig deeper, he is actually not giving anything concrete as of now. There does not seem to be any way for the Iranian people to take this offer.
The website is propaganda
As noted, he claims he will create a Farsi website with the irrigation info, yet this doesn’t seem to actually happen.
Specifically, he says:
We will lanch a Farsi website with detailed plans on how Iranians can recycle their waste-water.
Those words clearly imply he will create a comprehensive Farsi language site, with the irrigation technology provided there. The way he describes it in the video, this is his offer, it’s not about the conflict or politics, it’s about saving Iranians by giving them the technology. Once again, the devil is in the details.
If you look at the actual sites given in the video, and linked in the description, they don’t appear to match what he is describing.
The first site that he links to, is a Farsi language, two-page archive of a total of 15 irrigation and water-related articles, on the main site of the Israel Foreign Ministry. It doesn’t even seem to come close to what he is describing.
First of all, he said he would launch a Farsi language site. The word launch in modern internet terminology clearly implies creating a website. If we were going to put together a series of articles in Russian about Russian infrastructure on The Duran, we would not likely say we are going to “launch a Russian language site designed for infrastructure engineers”. This implies we are creating a totally different site under our umbrella.
He implies this isn’t about politics, he is creating a website to bring Iranians life-saving irrigation technology, yet he simply links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which instead contains, if not direct propaganda, essentially what amounts to PR advertisements for Israeli technology.
The site also conveniently contains links to other official government propag and… um… I mean… information, unrelated to water at all. So you can start reading about water, and find yourself reading official Israeli foreign relations info with a few clicks. It’s essentially product placement, but with information.
At this point, one could claim this is all too picky and unfair, a matter of semantics. One can argue so long as he is delivering what he promised, what does it matter on which site.
The issue is the site itself IS essentially propaganda, and moreover, it’s a Potemkin village, there is nothing really there OTHER than propaganda.
Even if you don’t speak Farsi, you can click on some of the articles, use a simple online translator, and see they don’t match what he is offering. They are not comprehensive scientific pieces on how Iranians can fix their water issues They are blatant advertisements for Israeli innovations and technology.
How does a video that talks about how wonderful Israeli irrigation can actually help farmers in a drought? That is like showing an advertisement for the Cleveland Clinic to a sick person in Iran, and expecting them to magically be healed by simply watching it. There is nothing wrong with ads. Their purpose is to sell a product, but the issue is he is claiming to give in-depth irrigation know how, and instead, delivers propaganda.
Look for yourself at some of the articles, they’re very short, sometimes no more than a few sentences, with short 2-3min video advertisements talking about how great Israel and Israeli technology is. One can hardly see how this would help anyone.
Indeed, they are relating to water, but they don’t provide anything substantial, beyond a substantial amount of propaganda. Some of the short PR and testimonial style videos are even in English, with Farsi subtitles, so you can clearly tell this was not originally designed for Iranian people.
There is nothing of value in the videos, certainly nothing comparable to his great unprecedented offer.
This would be the equivalent of a major food company saying they wanted to tackle hunger in Africa, and saying they will help starving, impoverished Africans, by providing their technologies and products to them, saying they will link below to resources, but the links provided are just advertisements for their company.
The ads talk about how they are using automation to speed up packaging, how they use the best products, and the videos will show happy people in major first world cities enjoying their meals and their luxurious lifestyles. That is an advertisement, and it does literally nothing to help the people, and that is exactly what this website is.
It would be like someone trying to end world hunger by filming themselves making gourmet meals, and putting the videos on youtube for free.
He also links to an official Israeli telegram channel, where it can only be imagined you can get these type of Israeli ads sent directly to your devices, which is surely what Iranian farmers need the most.
A Propaganda Campaign intended for whom?
It’s obvious the Israeli PM’s offer, in its current form, as everything appears from the youtube videos, is not genuine. It is very easy to say its just a propaganda campaign, but who is it intended for? Is it really even directed against only Iranians in the first place?
The languages the video were made in are most telling. The English language video is uploaded first, and the Farsi version comes afterward, separated by one of his cabinet meetings on his youtube channel.
One wonders why he made an English language video? Indeed, English is the Lingua Franca, but what is the purpose if he is speaking to Iranians? Why not just make a Hebrew language video, with Farsi subtitles?
Some may say because he prefers to speak English and can not speak Farsi… fine… but then why title the video in English? He does not have to speak Farsi, to have his translators title the video in Farsi. But his English video does not even have Farsi subtitles at all, it’s a separate video.
He makes separate English, Farsi, and Arabic videos and the English video has the most views, currently at 113,916, while the Farsi version (below) currently has only 7,474 views.
He would only make an English video, let alone title it in English, for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes. Clearly, he wants an international audience to view his video. While he pretends he is speaking to the Iranian people, Iranians mostly do not speak English, instead, he wants the world to see his “good deed”.
Most telling, as noted, he created a video subtitled in Arabic.
If this is only intended for Iranians, that makes no sense, as they don’t speak Arabic as their primary language. In this case, it is clear he is not just targeting an intentional audience, he is targeting an Arab, including Palestinian audience.
All of that is not needed, if he just really loves the Iranian people so much, that he wants to help them. True acts of altruism are best without the need for attention…unless of course…it is thinly disguised propaganda. In this case, you would want as many people as possible to view it.
In conclusion, Netanyahu’s videos pretend to care for Iranians, but in reality, they are a publicity scheme intended to:
- Make Israel, and himself personally seem like a hero for Iranian people
- Bash the Iranian government.
- Pretend to offer irrigation technology, while instead linking to propaganda
In theory, he could even try to convince Iranians he truly cares about them more than their government. While it is highly unlikely anyone, including Bibi believes this will achieve regime change, it’s possible and likely that was his most ideal fantasy. At the very least, this is probably a tiny component of that ultimate goal.
Bibi’s irrigation offer could really be about testing the waters, as to whether or not he can get Iranians to turn on their government. He seems to feel that offering the Iranian people irrigation technology is enough to drive them to a revolution. He is basically saying:
Dear Iran,
We’ll give you water, in exchange for your land, lives, and freedoms.
P.S. If you could send us your souls too… that would be great.
Apparently, he thinks it’s that easy. The Persian people will have to decide for themselves, if that’s a good offer. My guess, their answer is going to be NO.
Congress to bind President’s hands on troop removal from Korean peninsula
US congressmen are concerned that a peace arrangement might be brokered with North Korea
By Frank Sellers | The Duran | June 14, 2018
When the President wants to wage a war somewhere, he just does it, and no one bats an eye. But for the first time in a very long time, as opposed to escalating tensions, invading, and bombing somewhere, a US president is proposing to deescalate a situation and establish peace somewhere.
That’s a major thing in and of itself. But that’s not alright in the minds of US congressmen, who are concerned that a peace arrangement might be brokered with North Korea if Trump withdraws American troops from the Korean peninsula.
Due to this worry, predicated on the reality that they simply don’t trust Trump at his word [to maintain the occupation], quite openly, they are drafting up some legislation, in both houses, that would bind the president’s hands in order to prevent any meaningful reduction or removal of US military presence in Korea.
ABC News reports:
A pair of Senate Democrats introduced a bill Wednesday that would prevent President Donald Trump from unilaterally drawing down the American troop presence on the Korean peninsula – not necessarily because he’s said he will, but because they don’t want to rely on his word that he won’t.
Other measures that also tie the president’s hands, but don’t go as far, are already closer to being passed as part of an essential military policy bill.
The new legislation, from Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., would prevent Trump from withdrawing troops from South Korea unless the secretary of defense says it’s in the interest of national security and that it would not undermine the security of allies in the region.
“U.S. troops are not bargaining chips to be offered up in an off-handed manner,” Duckworth said in a statement.
During his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump announced the U.S. would be ending large-scale annual military exercises conducted with South Korea but insisted that the status of the 28,500 American soldiers on the peninsula is not up for negotiation.
“They are going to stay. We didn’t even discuss that, that wasn’t discussed,” Trump said in an interview with Voice of America.
But he also said, during a press conference, that he still wants to draw down troops in Korea at some point – just not as part of negotiations over the North’s nuclear capability.
“At some point, I have to be honest. I used to say this during my campaign… I want to bring our soldiers back home. We have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea. I would like to be able to bring them back home. That’s not part of the equation. At some point, I hope it would be,” he said.
That type of uncertainty was enough for Murphy to try to establish some new restrictions.
“I don’t think it’s smart policy for Congress to rely on the word of the president,” the Connecticut Democrat told ABC. “This time he gave away exercises for nothing, what’s to stop him from giving away troops for nothing?”
The two Democrats want their amendment added to the Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets military policy for the next fiscal year. The House’s version already has a similar provision, which would limit funds that can be used to reduce troop levels in South Korea, and the Senate includes a “sense of the Senate” provision stipulating that “the significant removal of the United States military forces from the Korean Peninsula is a non-negotiable item” as it relates to North Korea’s denuclearization.
Once each chamber passes its respective NDAA, the two must be merged in what is known as a conference committee.
So while Murphy would obviously like to see his bill passed, he acknowledged that this year’s NDAA will be making some sort of a statement warning the president not to try to reduce troop levels in South Korea unless there is a national security imperative.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who wrote the sense of the Senate resolution, said he is concerned Trump might try to limit troop numbers on the Korean peninsula, which he warned would play right into China’s desires to have an unchallenged presence in the region.
“The Chinese have probably been coaching Kim Jong Un to seek that as part of the nuclear negotiation goals,” he told ABC.
Last month, Trump ordered the Pentagon to issue options for reducing the American presence in South Korea, despite his administration’s assurances that they were not a bargaining chip in the Kim talks.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said those kinds of comments indicate that it might be time to consider tying the president’s hands when it comes to defense on the peninsula.
“I generally wouldn’t be open to that, but I might be now,” he told ABC, although he added that the Senate should hold a hearing on the Murphy/Duckworth proposition before any votes are contemplated.
As we see, the American government really isn’t all that interested in a peace scenario being established on the Korean peninsula, and, one might well argue, anywhere else, for that matter. Consider Syria, when Trump announced he wanted to pull US troops out of Syria and to bring our boys home. What happened? Well, the military’s top brass and advisers raised a stink about it and insisted that the troops stay.
And, conveniently, Assad just happened to decide at that time to launch a gas attack on his own citizens, the perfect excuse to maintain a military presence in Syria, and maybe even to escalate US participation in the region by getting some allies together to blow some stuff up. The same sort of scenario, after a fashion, appears to be going on here.
Trump says he wants to bring America’s finest home and then the government raises a stink about it and tries to find a way to force Trump to not interfere with the war situation in Korea. That might ruin other US interests in the region, together with reducing the apparent budget requirements for the Pentagon, as well as damage any good pretexts for attempting some sort of regime change operation in North Korea, after the Libya model, of course. Apparently, the war mongering mentality isn’t something limited to John Bolton or Mad Dog Mattis, but looks to be shared by the rest of the Federal government as well.
However, that such measures would actually be of any use isn’t really all that certain, given that all Trump would have to do is to assign some national security priority to the denuclearization process in North Korea, indicating that such a withdrawal is therefore necessary for America’s security against a nuclear North Korea. Afterall, Trump’s tariffs regimes against China, the EU, the other members of NAFTA, and most of the rest of the planet, are all in the name of national security. So, all Trump really needs to do is utter those words, and his will is carried out, even if the US congress isn’t too excited that Trump happens to be the Commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, maybe with some emphasis on that chief part.
Bill on restricting Iran ties to hurt Canada’s interests: Tehran
Press TV – June 14, 2018
Iran has condemned the Canadian House of Commons’ vote in favor of a draft law restricting ties with Tehran, rejecting the claims in the bill, which it says will be to Ottawa’s detriment.
In a hostile move on Tuesday, the Commons approved the bill, introduced by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, which called on the Canadian government to “immediately cease any and all negotiations or discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran to restore diplomatic relations.”
The measure also accused Tehran of “sponsorship of terrorism around the world” and designated Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “listed terrorist entity” under the Canadian Criminal Code.
Under Canadian law, a bill is required to through a voting process in the Senate after passing the House of Commons. Once the bill gets the approval of both chambers, it is given Royal Assent and becomes law.
Responding to the move on Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was returning from a visit to South Africa, denounced Canada’s “misconceptions and illusions” about the Islamic Republic.
“These polices will be to Canada’s detriment and will not serve international peace and security,” he said, calling on Western countries to adopt independent policies towards Iran.
“Iran has always been on the front line of the fight against terrorism and without our country’s efforts and support, the situation in the region would have been different,” Zarif added.
Additionally, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi expressed dismay at the Canadian legislative body’s pursuit of the anti-Iran motion.
The measure, he said, is still in its initial stages, adding, however, that its “final approval will undoubtedly be a strategic and major mistake entailing destructive consequences.”
The bill shows that Canadian lawmakers lack precise information about Iran’s clear and logical positions on fighting terrorism, Qassemi noted.
He also stressed that the world’s public opinion would never accept “delusional and wrong allegations” against the country.
The spokesman further warned against the repercussions of passing the “injudicious and baseless” measure and expressed hope that the Canadian government would prevent it.
In 2012, the administration of former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper severed diplomatic ties with Iran, citing, among other pretexts, what it described as continued threats from Tehran to its ally, Israel.
The House of Commons’ move came while the government of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been voicing willingness to resume ties with Iran almost since it took office in late 2015.
Ottawa had said in late 2016 that it would act “in a speedy fashion” to normalize ties, and diplomats of the two countries have been in talks over the resumption of ties.
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By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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