The Skripal Affair – Another False Flag in NATO Litany to Criminalize Russia
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 20.09.2018
If we start from a premise which understands that Britain and its NATO allies are capable of mounting false flag events in Syria with chemical weapons, then it is entirely possible that British secret services carried out a similar propaganda stunt in England with regard to former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
We also need to bear in mind that British state intelligence agencies are plausibly running a covert assassination program targeting Russian exiles living in Britain – for the purpose of incriminating Moscow.
Over the past two decades, more than a dozen Russian dissidents have met untimely deaths while residing in England, including Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky. Their deaths provide propaganda fodder for the British to accuse Moscow of carrying out “revenge killings”.
However, the suspicious circumstances surrounding each death could more conceivably point to the British liquidating the Russian exiles as propaganda assets.
In the case of Sergei Skripal, the disgraced former Russian military intelligence officer was convicted in Russia of being a spy working for Britain’s MI6. He was exiled to England more than a decade ago as part of an espionage swap deal.
When Skripal was apparently poisoned in his resident town of Salisbury in southwest England on March 4, along with his adult daughter, Yulia, the British authorities immediately pointed the finger of blame at Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegedly ordering an assassination. The Kremlin was accused of dispatching agents who supposedly poisoned the Skripals with a deadly nerve agent.
The publication last week by Scotland Yard police of CCTV images showing two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, walking the streets of Salisbury on the weekend of the alleged attack was reported in the British media as “proof” of the supposed Kremlin assassination plot. The Skripal affair is conveniently portrayed as “one more” example of Putin’s “Kremlin killing machine”.
But let’s look at the whole affair from a different perspective. The following scenario draws on observations and evidence cited by sources such as former British ambassador Craig Murray, the informed analytical website Moon of Alabama, and US-based political analyst Randy Martin (in personal correspondence).
Let’s ask the following question: was Sergei Skripal’s propaganda usefulness to the British as an exiled spy at some later point seen by the British as being better served as a victim of an apparent poison-assassination. That is, as a victim of a false flag attack that was actually carried out covertly by the British state agents in order to give the Western-led anti-Russia media campaign a significant boost?
Recall the Salisbury incident occurred at the time when Putin won re-election as Russian president, and it was during the build-up to the 2018 World Cup tournament hosted by Russia.
There is evidence that Sergei Skripal may have been a drug addict. His movements on the Sunday of March 4 when he was found incapacitated on a public park bench in Salisbury along with daughter Yulia suggest he may have been fixing a drug habit. That day he and his daughter both reportedly switched off their cell phones as they visited parks in Salisbury and nearby Amesbury. The latter venue was also a haunt for the two heroin junkies Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess who later became embroiled in the affair when both apparently were also poisoned with the same nerve agent. Sturgess died days later from her ailment in early July.
Was Skripal visiting venues on March 4 known for scoring drugs? The switching off of phones would indicate some kind of illicit behavior. Recall, too, that earlier on that day, Skripal was reportedly acting in a hurry and very agitated while lunching in a restaurant with his daughter, both of them leaving abruptly. Did he have a monkey on his back, pushing him to get his drug fix?
We can be sure that Skripal was being kept under surveillance by Britain’s MI5 and MI6 all during his decade-long exile in Britain. The postulated drug habit would have been known to his “handlers”.
Moving to cash in their espionage asset for propaganda value, it is possible that British state agents surreptitiously spiked Skripal’s drug fix with some incapacitating substance, such as fentanyl. Indeed, the distressed symptoms of the father and daughter later found in a park on the afternoon of March 4 by members of the public were initially reported as signs of drug overdose.
From that point on, it is contended here, the British secret services intervened as they had anticipated to take control of the “Skripal affair”.
While Sergei and Yulia were comatose in a secured hospital wing, it could have been possible for their blood samples to be doctored with a chemical weapon, the notorious Novichok, which was subsequently and hastily attributed to Russia. That attribution in the British media is wildly overplayed. The British chemical weapons facility at Porton Down is only a few miles away from Salisbury where the Skripals were hospitalized. Without doubt, Porton Down would have its own supply of organophosphate nerve agents, if not samples of Novichok. It is not a uniquely Russian chemical, as British politicians and media falsely imply.
There are gaping anomalies in the official British narrative of a Kremlin-directed “hit job” on Skripal with a deadly nerve agent, a claim which Moscow has vehemently denied.
For a start, Sergei and his daughter have, according to the British government, recovered from their ordeal. Yet, the British authorities were claiming that the alleged nerve poison, Novichok, was a super lethal toxin, multiple times more deadly than related organophosphate chemical weapons Sarin or Tabun. A single drop of Novichok on the skin would be enough to kill almost instantly, so it is claimed.
The official British narrative claims that the killer chemical was applied to the front door handle at the Skripal home. The two Russian men caught on CCTV and accused last week by the British of being Kremlin assassins were not in Salisbury until just before midday on March 4, according to the published CCTV time data. By that time, the Skripals had left the home and were not seen returning. That means the pair were stricken while away from the home, perhaps, as speculated here, while they were in the public park scoring a drug deal.
Plausibly, they were not assaulted with a chemical weapon, but with a spiked drug sample, which British state agents had arranged for the purpose of incapacitating them. In an incapacitated state, the Skripals could then be used as guinea pigs, whose bodily fluids could be contaminated to frame up Russia with a story of “assassination by Novichok”.
Here are some challenging questions: why have the Skripals seemingly gone into hiding since the alleged poison incident over six months ago?
Why did Yulia make only one public statement to the Reuters news agency – three months after the poison incident and apparently having recovered from her “lethal ordeal” – in which she expressed a desire to return to her native Russia? Yet since that one-off public statement nearly three months ago, Yulia or her father have not been seen since. Would she really express such a wish to go back to Russia if she believed the British claim that Russian state agents had just tried to assassinate her and her father?
Why have all official Russian requests for consular contact with Yulia been repeatedly denied by the British side, in flagrant violation of international law and diplomatic norms?
The implication is that the Skripals are being detained under duress by the British authorities who realize that the official version of a Kremlin assassination plot with Novichok might be fatally contradicted by the Skripals’ version of events. Hence the pair are being denied access to public communication.
What about the junkies Charlie Rowley and the late Dawn Sturgess? It is plausible that they were also set up in a covert poison attack by British intelligence using spiked drugs in order to “refresh” the anti-Russia propaganda stunt. Then the story about a perfume bottle containing Novichok was thrown in to the mix to conjure up a murder weapon discarded by alleged Kremlin assassins.
What about the two Russian men caught on CCTV in Salisbury on the weekend that the Skripals were apparently poisoned? Petrov and Boshirov upset the official British narrative by coming forward last week to give a media interview. They said they were ordinary civilians traveling under their own names, not aliases, as the British claimed. They said they are not Russian military intelligence, that they had no perfume bottle with Novichok nor any other substance on their possession in England, and that they were in Salisbury as weekend tourists.
Salisbury and its world-famous 13th century cathedral – reputed to be the most ornate in England – as well as nearby neolithic-age Stonehenge, attract millions of tourists from around the world each year, including many Russian nationals. It is not a stretch that British authorities scanned through reams of CCTV footage on the weekend of March 4, and got a lucky break to find Petrov and Boshirov walking the streets of Salisbury. The two men say they are caught up in a “fantastical coincidence”. More to the point, it seems, they are caught up in a British false flag to incriminate, demonize and delegitimize Russia.
The Skripal false flag is only one in a whole series of propaganda campaigns conducted by Western governments, their state intelligence and their ever-obliging news media in recent years. The alleged “annexation of Crimea”, the “covert invasion of Ukraine”, shooting down a Malaysian airliner, illicit doping of Olympic athletes, meddling in US and European elections, launching cyberattacks on Western power-grids, supporting “brutal dictator Assad” in Syria, among other malicious memes.
The litany of false flags to demonize Russia as a “pariah state” is itself indicative of relentless media orchestration by NATO governments.
The Skripal affair fits into this phenomenal propaganda effort.
Why Is Assad An Insane Suicidal Monster? – #PropagandaWatch
corbettreport | September 17, 2018
As we know from the political puppets and their mouthpieces in the controlled corporate media, Syrian President Basher al-Assad is a bloodthirsty monster responsible for the wanton slaughter of (fill in the number) of his own citizens, and he particularly enjoys dropping chemical weapons on women and children despite knowing that this is the one thing that will bring him universal condemnation and ensure a full-scale assault on his country. . . But why? Why is he such a monster? That is the question, and the New York Times offers its own helpful explainer with predictably comic results. Don’t miss this edition of #PropagandaWatch from The Corbett Report.
SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=28173
Ofgem exploited national security law to silence us, whistleblowers claim
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | September 17, 2018
From the Guardian :
Britain’s energy regulator has been fighting to keep secret the claims of two whistleblowers who independently raised concerns about potentially serious irregularities in projects worth billions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal.
The two men say Ofgem threatened them with an obscure but sweeping gagging clause that can lead to criminal prosecutions and possible jail terms for those who defy it.
MPs and the whistleblowing charity Protect fear Ofgem is abusing its position and exploiting a law that was intended to protect UK national security – not a regulator from potential embarrassment.
The Labour MP Peter Kyle said: “Whistleblowers save lives and protect our economy from harm; they should be protected by law, not have it used against them.”
One of the whistleblowers told the Guardian he was “continually threatened … for trying to tell the truth. For doing my job and uncovering an issue, Ofgem made my life hell.”
He said the regulator had attempted to “scare me witless with threats of imprisonment” and he felt “utterly ashamed” of Ofgem’s behaviour.
Ofgem said it encouraged staff to report suspected wrongdoing and took their concerns seriously.
Both men worked for Ofgem in entirely different areas of the business and were regarded as qualified experts in their respected fields.
One was Greg Pytel, an economist with oversight of the rollout of the £10.9bn smart meter programme, which is due to be completed in 2020.
Smart meters are electronic devices for homes and businesses that measure the use of electricity and gas. They are designed to make billing easier and to help energy companies manage the supply of electricity more efficiently.
The second whistleblower, who has asked to remain anonymous, worked on the renewable heat incentive (RHI), which offers financial rewards to promote the use of new technologies such as green boilers.
The scheme, which started in 2011, has been controversial – and could eventually cost taxpayers £23bn. Both projects are key to the government’s stated aim of making the UK a low-carbon economy.
The two whistleblowers do not know each other and have not been involved in each other’s cases. They say they are only linked by the reaction of Ofgem to their claims.
They found themselves in similar positions after being tasked with scrutinising elements of the two major projects they were working on between 2014 and 2017. Both raised concerns with their managers.
Instead of welcoming their input and investigating their concerns, the men allege they were bullied, treated unfairly and sidelined to such an extent they felt compelled to bring their grievances to an employment tribunal.
The RHI whistleblower claimed he was “continually ignored or threatened.” In both instances, the men say they were told they would not be allowed to reveal to the tribunal, or anyone else, the concerns they had. They say Ofgem warned them that the details were protected by Section 105 of the Utilities Act 2000.
This prohibits the disclosure of certain types of evidence relevant to the energy sector – and it is so restrictive that those who ignore it can be fined or jailed for up to two years.
At an early hearing of Pytel’s case, the tribunal ruled Ofgem was required to disclose his documents about public procurement arrangements for the smart meter programme, citing the Human Rights Act. It said he had the right to freedom of expression without interference from a public authority. But Ofgem has against appealed the decision.
Peter Daly at Bindmans, the legal firm that is acting for Pytel, said: “Ofgem’s position appears to be that anyone who disclosed or reported the content of his whistleblowing would be themselves committing a criminal offence.
“They [Ofgem] are appealing an employment tribunal order to provide disclosure in the proceedings because they say to do so would be a criminal offence. Ofgem’s appeal therefore indicates that in Ofgem’s view this prohibition extends to Ofgem themselves.”
Daly says if Ofgem wins this legal battle, it would “have a corrosive and asphyxiating effect on the rights of whistleblowers in the energy sector and would create a binding precedent.”
A second hearing of the case will take place in October.
The second whistleblower has described the alleged reaction of his managers when faced with the concerns he raised. “Specifically I was told that if I told the truth, my career with Ofgem would be finished.”
Despite the threats, he said, he briefed the National Audit Office – a move that infuriated Ofgem, he claimed.
He said a senior manager “screamed and shouted” at him, and he was then warned his disclosures were a breach of section 105 of the Utilities Act 2000.
The whistleblower says he left Ofgem last year after being “threatened with imprisonment if I shared information about the wrongdoings that I had witnessed”. He has described Ofgem as being “dishonestly secretive”.
Kyle, a member of the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee, said: “Ofgem do have many commercial secrets that are vital to the wellbeing of our nations’ infrastructure, but the power they have to gag whistleblowers is an extreme one and should be used in only extreme circumstances.
“I’m now extremely concerned about the potential abuse of these powers. Parliament might need to look at who has oversight and scrutiny of them and see if the law needs updating.”
Protect, formerly Public Concern at Work, has been helping both of the Ofgem whistleblowers, and has intervened in one of the ongoing legal cases.
The body’s chief executive, Francesca West, said: “The whole of the UK energy market – that’s more than 600,000 workers – are currently being held to ransom over Section 105 of the Utilities Act, and threatened with a prison sentence if they speak up over wrongdoing. It is utterly shameful.
“Our society needs whistleblowers to speak up, to stop harm. But we also need organisations to be honest, open and operate legally.”
Ofgem said it had only had to consider the use of section 105 once in the last five years.
“In carrying out our duties as the energy regulator, Ofgem handles large amount of information from consumers and businesses which is often both personal in nature and commercially sensitive.
“With the exception of a few prescribed circumstances, section 105 of the Utilities Act 2000 prohibits the disclosure of the information we receive. Section 105 is intended to ensure that consumers and businesses can share their information without fear that it may be subsequently disclosed. Ofgem takes our obligations under law very seriously, including the restrictions in section 105.
“Ofgem adheres to its whistleblowing policy which encourages staff to report suspected wrongdoing as soon as possible, in the knowledge that their concerns will be taken seriously and investigated.”
Curiously the Guardian gives no hint of what the two whistleblowers wanted to tell us.
It does not take a genius to work out the whole smart meter programme has been highly flawed from the outset, and an obscene waste of billions of pounds.
As for the RHI, many more billions are being wasted, often on environmentally damaging projects, and again for the same reasons of reducing CO2 emissions.
The fact that the Guardian has been wholeheartedly behind both schemes might give a clue as to why they are reluctant to tell the whole story.
Stakes Rise in Browder-Gate – EU Threatens Cyprus with Article 7
By Tom Luango | September 15, 2018
It’s been quite a week for Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty. First Hungary and now Cyprus. And all because of some guy named Bill Browder?
Despite numerous warnings and obstacles, Cyprus continues to assist Russia in investigating the finances of Bill Browder. This has resulted in letters of warning to Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades as well as lawsuits by Browder citing the investigation violates his human rights.
Like everything else in this world, just ask Browder.
Last fall Browder and 17 MEP’s launched a two-pronged assault on Cyprus to end their assisting Russia’s investigation into Browder. Browder with the lawsuit. The MEP’s with a letter of warning.
The lawsuit has failed, however. The Nicosia District Court handed down a ruling recently which allowed for Browder to sue for damages to his reputation but not putting an injunction on the investigation.
More than a month ago the Nicosia District Court said that the cooperation with Russia in its politically motivated probe would violate the human rights of Bill Browder and his associate Ivan Cherkasov and the two would have good prospects in claiming damages from the government. Still, the court rejected Browder’s application for an order preventing Cypriot authorities from cooperating with Russia in its proceedings against him on the grounds that any damage would not be irreparable.
And this is where this gets interesting.
Because now in light of this ruling the stakes have been raised. Four of those original 17 MEP’s, many of whom are on the infamous “Soros List” as being in the pay of Open Society Foundation, sent a more serious letter of warning to Anastasaides threatening Cyprus with censure via Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty for not upholding the European Union’s standards on human rights.
Now this is a dangerous escalation in service of an investigation into someone who, agree or not, Russia has a legitimate interest in pursuing. Dismissing all of Russia’s concerns about Browder as ‘politically motivated’ is pure grandstanding. It carries no weight of law and stinks of a far deeper and more serious corruption.
Because if Browder was as pure as the driven snow as he presents himself to the world then he would have no issue whatsoever in Cyprus opening up his books to Russia and put his question of guilt to rest once and for all.
The ruling from the court stated that Cypriot officials are not barred from helping Russia get to the bottom of Browder’s web of offshore accounts, all of which, according to Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, run through Cyprus.
“He [Browder] is afraid of the Russian probe that has conclusive evidence of his financial crimes and proof that his theory of Magnitsky’s death is an absolute fake. That’s why Browder is ready to stage any provocation,” Veselnitskaya said. She went on to say that the investor’s decision to intervene was particularly “influenced by the fact that the entire network of offshore companies that make up his organized criminal group is located on the territory of Cyprus.”
The incident that Veselnitskaya was referring to took place in late October 2017. At that time, 17 members of the European Parliament appealed to Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades in an open letter, in which they called on him to stop assisting Russia in its investigation against Browder.
Remember, Veselnitskaya was the woman who met with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 campaign. She was adamant she had information that was pertinent to them. The Mueller probe and the media tried to spin that meeting as her giving Trump access to Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
But what she was really trying to give them was the low-down on Browder, the Magnitsky Act and the whole rotten, sordid history of him, Edmund Safra of Republic National Bank and the raping of Russia by them and others in the 1990’s.
And to show Trump that the Magnitsky Act was built on a lie and the sanctions against Russia should be lifted because of this.
Some of this I covered in an earlier article.
The Real Browder Story
And this is the whole point. Browder’s story is fiction.
Magnitsky was his accountant and not his lawyer, who knew all about his dealings and could convict Browder of a raft of crimes far greater than the ones Russia already has in absentia.
Putin had no interest in having Magnitsky executed or beaten to death in prison. If anyone had an incentive to keep Magnitsky alive it was Vladimir Putin. If anyone had incentive to have Magnitsky die in prison it was Browder. And so, the whole story that Browder has woven, the myth around himself is so insane that it bears repeating over and over.
Browder’s story is fiction.
Because when you stop and put all the pieces together you realize a number of things and none of them are good.
First, Browder was deeply enmeshed in the plot to frame Yeltsin for stealing $7 billion in IMF money which created the conditions for bringing Putin to power.
Second, he, Mihail Khordokovsky and others have systematically lobbied Congress and the European Parliament to peddle this false story of the brave freedom fighter Magnitsky against the evil Putin to get revenge, in Khordokovsky’s case, on Putin for deposing him from power in Russia and stealing back the wealth Khordokovsky stole during the Yelstin years, namely Yukos.
And for Browder it was the culmination of years of work to destroy Russia from within and stay one step ahead of the hangman’s noose. His 2015 book Red Notice is a work of near fiction as outlined by Alex Krainer in his book The Grand Deception: The Truth About Bill Browder, The Magnitsky Act and Anti-Russia Sanctions.
And the Magnitsky Act was the way everyone interested who can prove this could be silenced through sanctions.
But, it’s bigger than that.
This was policy.
The Magnitsky Act is a lynchpin of American and European foreign policy to destroy Russia and subjugate the world.
It was enacted alongside other legislation to take back control of the political narrative of the world; rein in free speech on the internet by tying any activity not approved of by The Davos Crowd to be subject to sanctions on the nebulous basis of ‘human rights violations.’
The Magnitsky Act has weaponized virtue-signaling and, in my mind it was intentionally done to open up another path to protect the most vile and venal people in the world to arrogate power to themselves without consequence.
Today we stand on the brink of an open hot war between the U.S. and Russia because of the lies which have been stacked on top of each other in service of this monstrous piece of legislation.
With each day it and its follow-up, last year’s Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), are used as immense hammers to bring untold misery to millions around the world.
People like Browder are nothing by petty thieves. It is obvious to me he started out as a willing pawn because he was young, hungry and vaguely psychopathic. The deeper he got in it the more erratic his behavior became.
Browder is being protected by powerful people in the U.S. and EU not because he’s so important but because exposing him exposes them.
This is why another country is being threatened with the stripping of what few rights sovereign nations have within the EU, Cyprus, over his books.
Poland stood up for Hungary the other day over ideological reasons. No one seems ready to stand up to the conspiracy surrounding Browder, Khordokovsky and the Magnitsky Act.
But, if someone in power finally does, it could change everything we think we know about geopolitics.
After Cutting All UNWRA Humanitarian Aid, US to Award Israel with $3.3B/Year in Military Aid
By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | September 14, 2018
WASHINGTON — A massive spending bill, which would deliver $3.3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel over the next year, passed the House on Wednesday under cover of a media blackout. The U.S. Senate had passed a different version of the same bill in early August, a vote that also went largely unreported.
Now, after the House’s passage of a slightly altered version of the Senate’s spending bill, officially titled the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” all that remains is for the two chambers of Congress to reconcile their versions before the product is sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. According to Skopos Labs, the bill now has a 90 percent chance of being enacted. If enacted, the bill will be the largest aid package in American history.
As MintPress previously reported, $3.3 billion was supposed to be the annual limit for U.S. military aid to Israel. However, the figure is actually set to be higher this year as a result of Congress’ recent passage of a massive $716 billion defense bill that provides an additional $550 million in U.S. aid for Israeli missile defense systems. That defense bill also authorizes an additional $1 billion for U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel.
Furthermore, the $3.3 billion in annual aid is set to continue for the next decade based on the current text of the bill and the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the Obama administration — totaling over $38 billion over the next decade when accounting for annual military aid and annual aid given specifically to fund Israeli missile defense.
That startling figure roughly equates to $23,000 for every Jewish family living in Israel.
In addition to the massive sum the legislation would give to the Israeli military, the bill would also mandate that NASA closely cooperate with the Israel Space Agency (ISA), despite the latter’s history of espionage targeting NASA.
The massive amount of aid the U.S. government is set to give to Israel comes amid Israel’s unprecedented crackdown on unarmed protesters in the Gaza Strip and a looming Israeli military operation aimed at “conquering” the Palestinian enclave. The aid package’s imminent package is also set to coincide with efforts to annex the vast majority of Palestine’s West Bank, which has been militarily occupied by Israel since 1967.
As MintPress noted in a previous report, such grave violations of human rights would normally prevent the U.S. government from providing aid to Israel, given that the Leahy Laws enable the U.S. to withhold military assistance from units and individuals in foreign security forces if they have committed a gross violation of human rights.
However, the U.S. government – particularly under the rabidly pro-Israel administration of President Trump, which just last week cut all funding for Palestinian humanitarian relief through UNRWA – has consistently shown that it is willing to bend the rules for Israel.
Congress waves the Israeli flag
The $3.3 billion military aid package was only one of the bills passed by the House that is set to benefit Israel. Another bill, which has also been largely overlooked by the media, would seek to create a special government envoy tasked with monitoring “anti-Semitism” and criticism of Israel worldwide.
According to the text of the bill – officially titled the “Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2017” – the envoy would “serve as the primary advisor to, and coordinate efforts across, the United States government relating to monitoring and combating anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incitement that occur in foreign countries,” and have the rank of ambassador. Only two members of the House voted against the bill: Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA).
While an effort to combat “anti-Semitism” is a noble cause, the recent endorsement of a controversial definition of the term by Congress, which defines certain criticisms of the state of Israel as anti-Semitic, makes it likely that any envoy appointed to this position would be focused on clamping down on domestic and international criticisms of the Israeli government.
Given the potential dangers that such a position could pose to free speech, not just in the U.S. but abroad, it is surprising that this bill’s passage by an overwhelming majority received next to no media attention. Yet, in light of the media blackout also surrounding the imminent approval of the U.S.’ massive aid package to the Israeli military, it is perhaps not so surprising.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
Petrov, Boshirov and the Burden of Proof
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | September 14, 2018
For some time now, I have been concerned that our generation has been busy burying some of the most cherished legal concepts that many of our forebears seemed to instinctively understand, and which were enshrined into English Common Law. Concepts such as innocent until proven guilty, and that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove its case against the accused, rather than on the accused to prove his or her defense against the accusations.
My biggest initial gripe in the Salisbury case was that the British Government completely discarded these concepts and simply presented unsubstantiated accusations as if they were fact. Not only did this prejudice the investigation from the outset, but it went a long way towards poisoning the wells of justice. So much for their much vaunted “British Values”.
More recently, the same has been done again. The Metropolitan Police, The Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Government (TMP/CPS/HMG) named two suspects in the case, stating that they had enough evidence to prosecute the men. They then presented at least some of that evidence, before — at least in the case of the Government and the media — then going on to treat the suspects as if it had been proven that they had brought something called “Novichok” into the country and had carried out an assassination attempt on 4th March at the home of Sergei Skripal at 47 Christie Miller Road, Salisbury.
But it has not been proven. Very far from it. Accusations are not convictions. Suspects are not culprits. And if we are going to pretend that the extraordinarily flimsy evidence against the two men — at least that presented in public — is enough to claim “case closed; culprits caught”, then we have basically torn up 1,000 years or so of legal history, and are pretty well lost as a nation.
All of which is a prelude to saying that whatever the two men said in their interview with Margarita Simonyan, the onus is absolutely not on them to make their case, nor to sound convincing, nor to defend themselves. No, the onus is absolutely on their accusers — TMP/CPS/HMG — to present the evidence they claim they have for their assertion that these men attempted to kill Sergei Skripal, Yulia Skripal and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey.
And so if Petrov and Boshirov had stated in their interview that they went to Salisbury to see St. John’s Church in Lower Bemerton, where the great 17th century poet, George Herbert was minister, the Salisbury branches of Waitrose and Marks and Spencer’s, and Dauwalders coin and stamp shop, yes it would have been jolly strange, but it would also have been neither here nor there as far as the claims against them are concerned. Whether we find their claims plausible, totally implausible, or somewhere in between, I repeat: they are not the ones who need to convince us why they came to Salisbury and what they did there; it is TMP/CPS/HMG who need to convince us why they came to Salisbury and what they did whilst they were there, since they are the ones accusing.
I am aware that some will say this is not a courtroom, and that the claims so far have been made in the media and are therefore not subject to the same thresholds of evidence. However, the problem is that TMP/CPS/HMG:
A) Has presented its evidence (or at least part of it) in public, and
B) Has sent no further evidence to the Russian Attorney General, calling for the extradition of the men.
Which means that the accused — Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — have presumably seen as much of the evidence against them as you and I have.
This is disturbing, and the reason given — that the Russian constitution does not allow for the extradition of suspects — is as pathetic as it is disingenuous. It is not TMP/CPS/HMG’s issue if the Russian Government refuses to extradite the suspects. The British side should simply present its evidence through the proper channels, but has instead chosen to do it through a press conference and the media, naming two men who under the law of the land are innocent until proven guilty. Having taken this course, they now have a duty to present the evidence they have against the men to the public.
As far as the interview itself goes, it was at least helpful in that it narrows things down to the following three possibilities:
1. The men are GU Intelligence Officers who came to Salisbury to assassinate Sergei Skripal by placing nerve agent on the handle of his front door. If this is the case, they were therefore lying through their teeth.
2. The men really did come to Salisbury on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th March as tourists. In which case not only are they telling the truth, but the claims against them are utterly false and contrived.
3. The men came to Salisbury, not as assassins, but to do something else which they cannot reveal, but they did so posing as tourists. In which case, there is an element of truth behind the tourist claims — they really did see the sights — but there is also an element of deception as they have not told the full story, even though it is not the one their accusers claim.
Much of the commentary in the British Press seems to assume that the onus is on Petrov and Boshirov to prove that 2 is true, and that 1 and 3 are false.
Not so. The onus is on TMP/CPS/HMG to back up their claims with evidence, which basically means proving that number 1 is true, and that numbers 2 and 3 are false.
And so when a Downing Street spokesperson dismissed the men’s story, saying it was an insult to people’s intelligence, this is a mealy mouthed smokescreen, and an insult to our intelligence, designed to obscure the basic fact that it is for TMP/CPS/HMG to back up their accusations, not for the two men they have accused to back up their defence
So although the question of what to make of Petrov’s and Boshirov’s claims is interesting, it is not the real one we should be asking. The real question is simply this: Have TMP/CPS/HMG presented credible evidence to back up their claims against the two? Let’s see.
The basic evidence they have advanced against them is as follows:
1. That they flew into London from Moscow on 2nd March, and flew back on 4th March.
2. That they visited Salisbury on 3rd and 4th March.
3. That they are GU Intelligence Officers.
4. That they visited the home of Sergei Skripal on 4th March, and there applied “Novichok” on the front door handle.
5. That traces of “Novichok” were found in the London hotel they were staying in.
Regarding points 1 and 2, both men have admitted that they are true. They did indeed fly into London from Moscow on 2nd March, and then back on 4th March. They did indeed visit Salisbury on 3rd and 4th March. So far then, the men agree with the assessment of TMP/CPS/HMG and the claims are therefore not incriminating.
Regarding point 3, although Theresa May claimed in her speech to the House of Commons that these men were GU officers (well, she said GRU), in his press conference of that same day, Neil Basu did not do the same. So far no evidence has been presented to back up Mrs May’s claim that the two men are intelligence officers; on the contrary, the fact that they turned out to have travelled under their real names, rather than using aliases, as alleged by the Metropolitan Police, if anything undermines the claim. As things stand, the assertion that they are GU officers is just that: an assertion backed up by nothing.
Regarding point 4, the Metropolitan Police showed a CCTV still of the two men walking near the Shell garage on Wilton Road at 11:48am on 4th March. Is this evidence that the two men went to Christie Miller Road to apply nerve agent to a door handle? No, it isn’t. It is evidence that they were on the Wilton Road at 11:48am and nothing more. Real evidence would be footage showing the two men at 47 Christie Miller Road just after noon on that day. If the Metropolitan Police want us to believe that the two men were there, they are going to have to do better than showing an image of them on a different street altogether. Perhaps even an image from the CCTV camera that Mr Skripal’s niece, Victoria, claims Mr Skripal had on his house.
And regarding point 5, if “Novichok” (or “Novichok or related agent” as Porton Down have referred to it) was found in the hotel room on 4th May:
Firstly, how on earth would the two men have left traces of it there and not in other places they visited?
Secondly, how did they themselves manage to avoid contamination?
Thirdly, why wasn’t the hotel immediately cordoned off when the discovery was made?
Fourthly, why were the guests who stayed in the hotel between the 4th March and 4th May not contacted and checked over?
Fifthly, why was the OPCW not informed?
And sixthly, why was the hotel owner not informed about nerve agent being found in his hotel until 6th September, when TV crews turned up outside his hotel?
In other words, unless a reasonable explanation for this clear negligence and failure to act responsibly can be given, we have every right to dismiss the claim that “Novichok” was found in the hotel room. I’m certainly not prepared to just accept the word of people who have acted in such a shoddy way as to not even inform the hotel owner of what was apparently found on his property, and nor should you.
To conclude, I don’t entirely know what to make of Petrov’s and Boshirov’s claims. The images of them in Salisbury City Centre, after the Metropolitan Police claim they had put “Novichok” on the door handle, do not remotely fit the bill of assassins having carried out their deed, but do possibly fit the bill of tourists looking around a city. On the other hand, their wandering up the Wilton Road certainly looks odd.
But as I say, they are under no obligation to prove their defence. The obligation is entirely on the shoulders of TMP/CPS/HMG to prove their case against the two men. And so far they have spectacularly failed to do so.
Kristen Iversen – Full Body Burden – Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats
argusfest – June 20, 2012
This talk was filmed at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, Colorado on June, 19, 2012.
Kristen Iversen shared excerpts from her new book “Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats”.
Here are some quotes about her book…
“In this powerful work of research and personal testimony, Iversen chronicles the story of America’s willfully blinkered relationship to the nuclear weapons industry . . . masterful use of the present tense, conveying tremendous suspense and impressive control of the material.” Publishers Weekly starred review
“Superbly crafted tale of Cold War America’s dark underside . . . exquisitely researched.” Kirkus starred review
“Iversen has crafted a chilling, brilliantly written cautionary tale about the dangers of blind trust . . . Full Body Burden is both an engrossing memoir and a powerful piece of investigative journalism.” Bookpage
“Full Body Burden is one of the most important stories of the nuclear era—as personal and powerful as Silkwood, told with the suspense and narrative drive of The Hot Zone. With unflinching honesty, Kristen Iversen has written an intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security. Rocky Flats needs to be part of the same nuclear discussion as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. So does Full Body Burden. It’s an essential and unforgettable book that should be talked about in schools and book clubs, online and in the White House.
–REBECCA SKLOOT, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
“This terrifyingly brilliant book – as perfectly crafted and meticulously assembled as the nuclear bomb triggers that lie at its core – is a savage indictment of the American strategic weapons industry, both haunting in its power, and yet wonderfully, charmingly human as a memoir of growing up in the Atomic Age.”
–SIMON WINCHESTER, author of The Professor and the Madman and Atlantic
“News stories come and go. It takes a book of this exceptional caliber to focus our attention and marshal our collective commitment to preventing future nuclear horrors.”
–Booklist
Her website is: http://www.kristeniversen.com/
The Bluffer’s Guide to Bombing Syria
The Dirty Dozen: 12 lies they tell you to anaesthetise you for the upcoming bombing of Syria
By Peter Ford | 21st Century Wire | September 14, 2018
The propaganda mills of the British and American governments – spokespersons, media, think tanks – are working overtime churning out ‘talking points’ to justify the upcoming large scale bombing of Syria on the pretext of use of prohibited weapons.
Here is a guide from a former insider to the top dozen of these lies.
1. There are more babies than jihadis in Idlib. As it happens this gem of moral blackmail is untrue. There are twice as many jihadis (about 100,000) as babies (0-1 year) (55,000). What is this factoid meant to say anyway? Don’t try to free an area of jihadis because you might harm a lot of children? The Western coalition scarcely heeded that consideration in razing Mosul and Raqqa in order to crush ISIS. They are still pulling babies out of the rubble in Raqqa.
2. The reports [of the imminent chemical weapons ‘attack’] must be true because Assad has done it before. False. Since 2013 when Asad gave up chemical weapons under supervision of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) the OPCW have not visited the sites of alleged attacks in jihadi-controlled areas but have accepted at face value ‘reports’ from pro-jihadi organisations like the White Helmets and the Syrian American Medical Society, along with ‘evidence’ from hostile intelligence agencies. In the case of the one site the OPCW did visit, Douma, their report said they found no evidence of sarin, no untoward traces in any of the blood samples taken from ‘alleged victims’ (their term), no bodies and only ambiguous evidence of use of chlorine.
3. The OPCW report on Douma was flawed because the Russians and Syrians caused delay. False. As documented in the OPCW report, delay was caused by UN bureaucracy and jihadi snipers. The inspectors do not say their findings were to any significant degree invalidated by the delay.
4. Assad uses chemical weapons because they frighten large numbers of people into fleeing. False. They don’t. This desperate argument is trotted out to counter the fact that Assad would have to be stupid to use chemical weapons knowing what the result would be and that he would derive minimal military benefit. To date, not one of the alleged chemical attacks has precipitated an exodus any greater than flight caused by the legendary ‘barrel bombs’. The inhabitants of Douma by their own testimonies given to Western journalists were even unaware there might have been an attack until they heard about it in the media.
5. The OPCW won’t be able to investigate because it won’t be safe. A feeble excuse to preempt calls for establishing facts before bombing. The Turks escort Western journalists into Idlib. They have hundreds of troops there and the jihadis kowtow to them because they control all logistics. The Turks could escort OPCW. And wouldn’t the jihadis be keener than anybody for the inspectors to visit if their claims were true?
6. The upcoming strikes are not aimed at regime change. False. The plan is to decapitate the Syrian state with attacks on the presidency. Failing that the aim is to make Idlib a quagmire for the Russians. Anything to deprive Asad and Putin of victory, regardless of whether it prolongs the war.
7. It’s all Russian disinformation. Yeah, like the arms inspectors before the Iraq war who said no WMD in Iraq. Reality: the Russians have got great intelligence on what Western powers with their jihadi clients are up to and are calling out the phoney moves.
8. There won’t be enough time for parliamentary debate. Pull the other one. Reality: the government are terrified of a rerun of 2013 when Labour and 30 brave Tory MPs voted against bombing, causing Cameron and then Obama to back off.
9. MPs can’t be told what is planned because it would jeopardise the safety of service personnel. How low can you stoop? Feigning concern for flyers when it’s really just about keeping the people in ignorance of how big the strikes are going to be.
10. There are going to be massacres, a bloodbath, or ‘genocide’. False. We heard all this hysteria before Aleppo, before Eastern Ghouta and before the campaign in the South. All vastly exaggerated. The Syrian Arab Army has not been responsible for a single massacre, while the jihadis have been responsible for many (source: quarterly reports of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria).
11. People have nowhere to go. False. The Russians have opened safe corridors but the jihadis are not allowing people to leave. They can still leave for the northern border strip which Turkey controls, where there are camps, and many (including jihadi fighters) will be able to cross temporarily into Turkey.
12. We can’t tell you which armed groups we support because it would make them targets for Assad. Really? You think he doesn’t know? Isn’t it because you are terrified it will come out that we have been supporting some real head-choppers?
***
Author Peter Ford is a retired British Diplomat who was Ambassador to Bahrain from 1999-2003 and Syria from 2003-2006.
Facebook’s Atlantic Council censors are more interested in tanks than thinking
RT | September 13, 2018
Like all foreign policy and military think tanks, the Atlantic Council exists to manufacture consent for the goals of its paymasters. It hit the jackpot when the world’s largest social media network put it in charge of censorship.
While the ubiquitous presence of Atlantic Council lobbyists across the information space already imperilled fair discourse, Facebook’s May move empowered it to endanger freedom of expression. And founder Mark Zuckerberg’s reference to an information “arms race” in a Washington Post op-ed last weekend exposes the grim reality behind the move.
That said, the spin has been impressive. Headlines such as “US think tank’s tiny lab helps Facebook battle fake social media (Reuters )” and “Facebook partners with Atlantic Council to improve election security (The Hill )”.
But the truth is very different. The Atlantic Council is effectively NATO’s propaganda wing. And it’s funded by arms manufacturers, various branches of the US military, and Middle Eastern autocratic regimes, among others, as it promotes the alliance’s agenda – which was best described by its first secretary-general, Hastings Ismay, as “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
Let’s be clear. If people don’t believe in the “Russian threat,” NATO is essentially rendered useless. Promoting tensions with Europe’s largest country is an existential matter for The Atlantic Council. And now Facebook has effectively placed the lobby group in charge of political censorship on its platform. This presents chilling dangers to free speech and should worry anybody who believes in fairness and balance in the media. Especially after Zuckerberg admitted in the Washington Post piece how his company is being used by US authorities to control information and combat “foreign actors.” The tech boss also boasted that “we’ve worked with law enforcement to take down accounts in Russia.”
Roll of horror
Founded in 1961, with the mission of “encouraging the continuation of cooperation between North America and Europe that began after the Second World War,” the Atlantic Council slowly evolved from being a sort of forum for socialising to a pseudo-academic lobby group. While it professes to be a “think tank,” its lack of genuine debate and tolerance for dissent means in practice this description isn’t accurate in the classical sense of the term, as the Atlantic Council is clearly more interested in creating a market for tanks than thinking.
Funding comes from dozens of foreign governments and also individual vested interests. They include arms makers Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing, plus wealthy private backers such as Ukraine’s Viktor Pinchuk and Saudi billionaire Bahaa Hariri. State institutions who plough in funds vary from the National Endowment for Democracy to the British Foreign Office and the US Army itself.
The money is mainly used to hire lobbyists, who are known as “fellows.” And some of them are occasionally outsourced to cutouts like the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) – the department which works with Facebook.
Some of the Atlantic Council’s hires have significant media profiles. For instance, Dmitri Alperovitch (of DNC hack fame), Anders Aslund (a radical economist who has predicted Russia’s collapse twice, and been wrong both times), Michael Carpenter (Joe Biden’s, usually misinformed, Russia-baiting sidekick), Borzou Daragahi (Middle East correspondent of Buzzfeed ), Maxim Eristavi (a pro-American Ukrainian activist), Evelyn Farkas (a rabidly anti-Russian Obama adviser), and Michael Weiss (a CNN ‘Russia analyst’ who has never been to Russia and can’t speak Russian). The DFR Lab is comprised of 11, almost uniformly young, tech enthusiasts from the US and Eastern Europe and previously worked to support NATO narratives in Ukraine and Syria.
Some are long-time Atlantic Council bodies, and others are some fresh recruits. The main men are Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, which specialises in media-friendly investigations of wars from the perspective which suits British and American interests, Aric Toler (a former private intelligence specialist who spent time in Russia on State Department-funded study programmes) and Ben Nimmo, a one-time NATO press officer.
Other censors include ex-Obama administration and NATO staff, with the managing editor, Graham Brookie, having previously worked at the US National Security Council. There is nobody listed as an employee who could be considered, in any way, neutral on Russia. This betrays the unit’s confidence in how the mainstream media won’t scrutinise them, as normally you’d expect at least one token dissenter.
Different times
In normal circumstances, Facebook’s engagement of the Atlantic Council to decide standards of permissible information would seem bizarre. But, in the current US climate, Zuckerberg’s motivations are quite obvious. Betrayed by the speed with which he engaged the pressure group shortly after his testimony to Congress on “election meddling” was widely derided by the establishment last Spring. And how better to avoid a repeat, and turn down the heat, than to engage the ultimate DC insider institution?
After all, an organisation that has helped to rehabilitate George W. Bush can probably rescue any reputation in the American capital.
Some of the stuff the Atlantic Council itself gets away with serves to show its power over the mainstream media. For instance, when Nimmo himself earlier this year ludicrously insisted grammar mistakes were “proof” that social media users critical of NATO were paid Kremlin trolls, and later when he smeared a British man by labelling him a Russian bot, the popular press didn’t bother to question whether he was a fit and proper person for Facebook to engage as a censor. Even after the victim appeared on Sky News to prove he was a real person. Thus, what should have been a warning of the dangers of DFR Lab was essentially ignored.
At the time, after Nimmo, instead of apologising, wrote “interesting to see the real face of Ian56789, rather than the David Gandy one, at last (referring to his Twitter avatar). Not a troll factory account. Rather, a pro-Kremlin troll(definition based on [sic] use of someone else’s picture, systematic use of Kremlin narratives, and repetitive abusive behaviour),”
WikiLeaks challenged the lobbyist. “You literally produced, with money from weapons companies and dictatorships, a fake news story that spread all over the world, defaming a very British retiree, who wants to reduce arms company profits, as a Kremlin bot,” its editors wrote. “So who’s the paid troll?”
Again, despite WikiLeaks’ prominence, no mainstream outlets connected the dots.
Higgins and Nimmo also focused on attempting to discredit the Twitter user ‘Partisan Girl’ (real name Maram Susli). Susli herself insisted an associate of Higgins had even written to her university accusing of her of plotting to make Sarin gas, and she provided evidence to back up her claims.
Susli was also insulted by Atlantic Council “fellow” Michael Weiss. After a group of pro-Syrian jihadist agitators accused her of having had cosmetic surgery, she responded with a photo of herself as a child to prove them wrong. Weiss interjected by asserting how the young Maram looked like a prostitute, writing “so, your parents raised you as a streetwalker? Honey, no wonder you are pro-Assad.”
Reminder: A bunch of pro regime change people who accused @Partisangirl of having cosmetic surgery. When she responded with a photo of herself as a child proving them wrong, Michael Weiss compared the photo of her as a child to looking like a prostitute. He’s a sick demon. pic.twitter.com/nJ6ekYdQ28
— Eisa Ali (@TheEisaAli) April 22, 2018
The CNN contributor seems to have a habit of commenting on women’s physical attributes. A few months earlier, well-known Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek accused Weiss of promoting a smear about her appearance on Twitter, falsely claiming she used funds donated to her journalistic work to get a nose job. The fact he has received no blowback, in this ‘MeToo’ era, again speaks volumes.
Deflecting dunces
Meanwhile, Higgins himself has been shy about taking on real experts. In Spring, he refused to debate Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at MIT, instead labelling him “an idiot.” Which led to a strange situation where a man with no training in science, whose background is in finance and administration, was smearing a skilled specialist from one of the world’s best universities. Perhaps this is the confidence a man gains by working for NATO’s propaganda adjunct.
His colleague, Weiss, also has a habit of insulting academics with genuine bona fides, running a long campaign of character assassination against Stephen Cohen. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University.
Of course, to advance the goals of its paymasters, the Atlantic Council also needs to shape the media narrative, and influence journalists, which is presumably why it has engaged the likes of CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto and Buzzfeed Foreign Editor Miriam Elder to moderate panels, in what amount to very profound conflicts of interests.
Nevertheless, while plenty of its press outreach is smooth, sometimes it can appear clumsy and amateurish. Take this tweet from lobbyist Agnia Grigas, for instance. Firstly, she misrepresents Vladimir Putin’s stated goal of making Russia a top five economy by using raw GDP, where the country currently scores badly due to weak exchange rates. In reality, economic experts regard purchasing power parity as a fairer snapshot of fiscal heft and by this measure, Russia was only $163 billion behind fifth-place Germany last year ($4,007.831 billion v $4,170.790 billion, IMF)so it doesn’t have much catching up to do. What Grigas does next with her disinformation is instructive. Because she tags the Financial Times’ news editor, Peter Spiegel, on the tweet alongside other Atlantic Council lobbyists . Which blurs the lines between supposedly independent media and propaganda, dressed up as scholarship.
Tail wags dog
Anyway, now that you’ve seen the nature of these lobbyists, let’s circle back to the DFR Lab/Facebook link up, and the extraordinary power the social media giant has handed to this gang. Only last month, the same Reuters report quoted at the outset dropped this nugget.
“Facebook is using the group to enhance its investigations of foreign interference. Last week, the company said it took down 32 suspicious pages and accounts that purported to be run by leftists and minority activists. While some U.S. officials said they were likely the work of Russian agents, Facebook said it did not know for sure.”
Read the last line again. “Facebook said it did not know for sure.” But the accounts were removed anyway. Presumably, at the Atlantic Council’s behest.
Here we see the fallout of Mark Zuckerberg’s knee-jerk reaction to pressure from congressional leaders and prominent media talking heads. Instead of asserting his independence, the Facebook founder buckled. And the stakes are impossibly high. Put plainly, this amounts to a merger of the US national security state and Silicon Valley. With implications far beyond American shores.
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From the Archives
“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
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