9/11 Truth: War on Terror or “War on Democracy”? The Physical Intimidation of Legislatures
By Prof. Graeme McQueen | Truth and Shadows
Timely and incisive analysis, this is the text of a talk given by Prof. Graeme MacQueen at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, on November 18, 2015.
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Good evening. I have two sets of introductory comments.
First, my aim tonight is not to prove each of my assertions with a wealth of evidence but to survey four cases briefly in order to reveal a pattern. If you feel I may be on to something it will be up to you to look at these cases in more detail.
Secondly, as a Canadian addressing other Canadians, I want to note that I am aware of the taboos this talk is violating. I will be making claims, and pointing out patterns, that are unwelcome in mainstream society today in Canada. The taboos are held in place with heavy silence and with ridicule, and they are, in my opinion, crucial to the maintenance of the “War on Terror”.
The taboos are strong in the media, the universities, and in all sectors of government. Since my theme today has to do with legislatures, and since we have just experienced a federal election in Canada, I will give two recent examples from the political arena.
Although the two examples concern the Liberal Party, I am not implying this party is alone in its observance of this taboo. As far as I can discover the taboo is found in all of Canada’s major political parties.
While the election campaign was in full swing there was much searching through the records of all candidates (their social media records, for example) by opposing parties for material that could be used to discredit them. It turned out that two Liberal candidates had at one point in the past expressed skepticism about the official account of 9/11. The discovery of this material immediately created a crisis. Both candidates quickly made formal public statements:
(a) “I want to be extremely clear. I do not question any aspects of what occurred during the tragic events on September 11th, 2001. Let there be no doubt about it.”
Maria Manna, Liberal candidate in British Columbia
(b) “Let’s be crystal clear: I have never and do not question the events which took place on Sept. 11, 2001.”
David Graham, Liberal candidate in Quebec
These are peculiar statements. They do not seem to have been written independently and they verge on the incomprehensible. What, after all, does it mean to say you do not question an event? The verb “question” would normally mean in such a context “to doubt.” But how can we doubt an event?
An event is what it is. Perhaps the writer of these statements is using the verb to mean, “to have questions about.” But surely the candidates are not bragging that they have no questions about the events of that day? Over one-third of Canadians and Americans, as revealed by numerous polls, have serious questions about the events of the day. Why would their representatives have no questions? How could it be a virtue to have no questions? Have the candidates studied these events deeply and resolved all questions? Even the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which produced the most detailed official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, has admitted that it has been left with questions about these collapses. Perhaps Ms. Manna and Mr. Graham should explain to NIST how they have resolved all the confusions?
Or do these candidates mean they do not have any doubts about the official account of the events of 9/11? This would be a different statement altogether. And in this case, which account are they actually referring to? The Canadian government has no independent account of what happened on that day. A citizen’s petition for an independent investigation was rejected with contempt by Steven Blaney, the Minister of Public Safety under the Conservative government. So, is it the U.S. government’s account that the candidates are affirming? This account, to the extent that there is a single account, is the ultimate responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was charged with investigating the crime. But do Ms. Manna and Mr. Graham even know what the FBI’s position is? Do they know, for example, that the FBI never even charged Osama bin Laden with the crimes of 9/11 because they had insufficient evidence? Do they know that the 9/11 Commission, tasked with writing a public report on the events of 9/11, made extensive use of the weakest of claims—claims made under torture?
Frankly, I do not think these candidates’ assertions have anything to do with evidence or reason. I believe they are best understood as loyalty oaths. I think they mean something like this:
“As far as this founding event in the War on Terror is concerned, we promise to accept as true, without investigation or critical inquiry, whatever Canadian authorities accept as true. If Canadian authorities, without conducting an investigation, have faith in statements made under torture and in unsupported claims made by a foreign intelligence agency, then we will share that faith.”
These loyalty oaths suggest that anyone who raises questions about the claims made by this foreign intelligence agency, and supported by acts that violate international law, will be excluded from the Canadian Parliament. Such people will not be permitted to represent the Canadian people or to help steer this country into the future. What a staggering notion.
The loyalty oaths I have been discussing serve well to introduce today’s talk because my theme is the bullying of legislatures in North America. But I wish to go beyond the sort of bullying indicated in loyalty oaths. I want to look at an even more gross form of bullying, the use of physical threat.
My basic claim is simple: physical intimidation of elected representatives, as suggested in the four instances I will discuss, is a core feature of the War on Terror. And this is a direct attack on representative democracy.
Intimidating the U.S. Congress in the fall of 2001
A. The 9/11 Events:
I begin with the attacks of September 11, 2001, crucial to the War on Terror.
Most of you remember these events and are aware of how shocking they were to the general population in North America. But perhaps you do not all recall the nature of the shock delivered to Congress.
Democrat Tom Daschle, who was Senate Majority Leader on September 11, 2001, recalls being at the Capitol with other members of Congress when the assaults on the Twin Towers took place. He watched them on television like most Americans, as stunned and puzzled as anyone. But his television viewing was interrupted when a guard ran into the room and announced that there was a plane headed toward the Capitol and that an immediate evacuation of the building was necessary. This was, says Daschle, the first time in history the entire U.S. Capitol had been evacuated. There appears to have been no clear protocol. Daschle says it was a scene of “total chaos.” Elected representatives, both senators and members of the House, fled in confusion. Many had difficulty getting reliable information about what was happening and did not know what to do or where to go. This was a frightened and intimidated legislature.
Later in the day, when things in Washington had settled down somewhat, many of those who had fled reassembled on the steps of the Capitol building. A few brief speeches were made, after which, as we can see and hear in precious video footage, members of Congress broke into a singing of God Bless America, followed by emotional embraces.
A powerful feeling of unity is evident in the record of this event. Tom Daschle said that he had never in his life experienced the sense of unity he felt on September 11, 2001. Like others on the steps of the Capitol that evening, he seems to have been almost euphoric. We were, he says, one family.
I draw your attention to the emergence of a pattern that is common in societies experiencing danger and that characterizes affected populations in the War on Terror.
First, there is the sense of threat. The population then goes through a phase of intense, felt unity.
Party loyalties and ideological divides are cast aside. There are solemn declarations, there is singing, there is the calling down of blessings on the nation, there is hugging and there are tears.
I am not mocking members of Congress, or any other group that unites under threat. This seems to be an aspect of our nature as human beings. But bear in mind that while these social adjustments may help a society gear up for a response to an attack, they can also leave a population vulnerable to manipulation. At such moments dissent is discouraged and critical thinking is in short supply. Passion and calls for loyalty are the order of the day.
The consequences can be very serious.
A photograph of George W. Bush and Tom Daschle, top Republican and top Democrat, embracing shortly after 9/11, tells the story. The act is a symbolic statement of unity, but like many symbolic statements it tells us a tale with very practical implications.
The U.S. Constitution gives to Congress the power to declare war. Aware of the desirability of involving Congress, the White House immediately took advantage of the shock delivered by 9/11 and asked Congress for a bill explicitly allowing the President to use armed force in response to the attacks. Tom Daschle was one of the few people who could have stopped such a bill. The Democrats had a majority in Senate and he, as Senate Majority Leader, could have urged them to vote as a bloc against the bill. But the hug indicates, the sense of being one family, the feeling of unity, was strong. Not only did Daschle not rise to the occasion and oppose such a bill, he immediately offered to put it forward, thus guaranteeing its acceptance.
This extremely dangerous legislation, “Authorization for Use of Military Force, 2001” was proposed to and passed by both House and Senate on September 14, 2001. There was only one vote against the bill—by Barbara Lee, later Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. The bill provided cover for the immediate invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and simultaneous preparations for the invasion of Iraq. It also handed to Bush the power to decide who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Remember: people who want war may purposely create a sense of threat and a feeling of unity. And they will typically do so in order to achieve a particular reaction. This is the triad I am drawing your attention to: Threat, Unity, Reaction.
The reaction may express itself outwardly in foreign policy or inwardly in domestic policy. Frequently, the outward and inward moves are simultaneous. Outwardly, the enraged nation throws itself on the nation or group it decides was responsible for the attack. Inwardly, the population agrees that this is a time for unity, not a time for debate and dissent but for gathering as one people, with the surrender of individual freedoms and civil rights as needed to mobilize for violence.
We do not need to speculate about whether this condition was achieved in the American people on 9/11. A poll was initiated on that very day, in the evening of 9/11. (Washington Post-ABC). According to those who conducted the poll, nearly nine in ten Americans supported military action against whoever was responsible for the attacks and two out of three Americans were willing to surrender civil liberties to fight terrorism.
Now, you may be thinking, what’s the big deal? The threat-unity-response triad makes sense: an attacked group unites and, when united, acts to deal with a serious threat. The triad is compatible with the official story of 9/11 and does not by itself mean that dissenters are right and that the day’s events were an inside operation.
You would be right in thinking that I have said nothing to this point that indicates the official story of 9/11 is false. My preliminary aim has been simply to point to the triad, which becomes visible again and again in the War on Terror—and to emphasize how populations and their elected representatives may, at such times, be vulnerable to manipulation.
Now, if we wish to go further and ask if 9/11 was a fraud we will need to look at the evidence. This is not difficult: fourteen years of research by a wide variety of people has given us plenty of evidence. In today’s talk, however, I am discussing four events, and I have little time to discuss details of 9/11. So let me restrict myself to a few brief comments.
Many of you will know, if you have looked into this issue even superficially, that the destruction of the World Trade Center, and especially of three buildings (WTC 1, 2 and 7), is regarded by many of us as providing the strongest evidence against the official account. I realize that many people “tune out” when building collapses are discussed (inner voice: “What do I know about buildings? My God, I hope they aren’t going to ask me to remember my high school physics!”). But there are very good reasons to pay attention to the destruction of these buildings.
Covert operations are typically characterized not only by lying, but by the laying down of false trails and the creation of pseudo-mysteries and diversion. So complex and contradictory is the evidence encountered that it is very often difficult to prove an event was based on deception even when we feel sure this is the case. When we do get such proof it makes sense to try to persuade people to look at it. The destruction of the WTC buildings is one such instance. In my view the official explanations of their destruction have been proven to be false. If you wish to read an admirable summary of the evidence against the official account of the WTC destruction, I refer you to a recent publication that can be obtained from the website of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. It is entitled, Beyond Misinformation: What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7.
As this publication makes clear, the official account of the destruction of these buildings is based on repeated violations of the laws of physics and of basic principles of scientific investigation and thought. In contrast, the hypothesis that the three buildings were brought down by planted explosives and other agents of destruction is robustly supported. Evidence against the official account and in favor of the dissident account is copious, varied, and mutually corroborating.
But if these three buildings were brought down not by plane strikes but by controlled demolition, through preparations made well before the attacks, this means that the entire official narrative is false and the founding event in the War on Terror is a fraud. Moreover, since discovering that the official account is false is not actually difficult, we must assume that the U.S. government agencies that promote the fraudulent event, including the FBI, are aware of the fraud and have been engaged in a major cover-up. They are, at the very least, accessories after the fact.
Let me sum up my observations and claims to this point:
- Observation: there is a taboo in place in Canada (as in the U.S.) that punishes people, including members of Parliament, who raise questions about the FBI account of 9/11.
- Observation: a familiar pattern of human history becomes clear to those who study the 9/11 event: threat leads to feelings of unity, and feelings of unity facilitate and shape the reaction: (a) the sacrifice civil rights at home and (b) a willingness to use force against a perceived enemy.
- Observation: In the case of the 9/11 event in the U.S. the reaction phase encouraged (a) a willingness at home to surrender traditional rights and freedoms and (b) a willingness to use military force abroad.
- Claim: the 9/11 attacks were not carried out by Islamic extremists but were managed from within the U.S. to manipulate the population and to intimidate the U.S. Congress into supporting the reaction desired by the perpetrators.
B. The 2001 Anthrax attacks:
Very shortly after the 9/11 attacks there was a second set of attacks in the U.S. Envelopes containing deadly anthrax spores were sent through the mail.
This set of attacks appeared at the time to be the second punch in a one-two punch attack. After all, the attacks began a mere week after 9/11 and the perpetrators clearly wanted to be seen as the same Muslim extremists who had carried out the first attack.
Here, for example, is the letter sent to Senator Tom Daschle:
Note the date, 9/11, at the top. Note the attempt to look like a Muslim extremist. Most of the U.S. population assumed this was, indeed, a second blow by the same Muslim extremists alleged to have carried out the 9/11 attacks. We know this from a poll carried out in mid-October, 2001.
What were the effects of the anthrax attacks and who was the perpetrator?
The main effect was to keep up the momentum established by the 9/11 attacks. The external aspect of the reaction to 9/11 was directed toward those thought responsible: this reaction supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The first bombs were dropped on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, two days after the first death in the U.S. from anthrax. The anthrax attacks kept al-Qaeda and Afghanistan in the crosshairs.
And as October of 2001 progressed another possible perpetrator appeared on the scene. According to this hypothesis al-Qaeda was providing the foot-soldiers—the people who wrote the letters and mailed them—but the sophisticated anthrax spores had to have been produced by a state, which was collaborating with al-Qaeda in this deadly attack.
The enemy state was said to be Iraq.
The Iraq hypothesis flourished briefly in October and November of 2001 in partnership with the al-Qaeda hypothesis. During that period, as the invasion of Afghanistan proceeded, support was given to preparations for the invasion of Iraq.
But I spoke earlier of a pattern, and the pattern includes not only attack on enemy states but also sacrifice of civil rights at home. Here is where the anthrax attacks scored their biggest victory. Attorney General John Ashcroft had introduced what would later be called the Patriot Act shortly after 9/11 and had made it clear to Congress that he wanted it passed immediately. But there was resistance. Both the population at large and Congress began to recover from the 9/11 attacks, and as they did so their willingness to sacrifice civil rights began to diminish. The anthrax attacks saved the day for Ashcroft by ensuring that both population and Congress remained sufficiently intimidated to accept the Patriot act. The act was passed on October 26, 2001. The connection between its passage and the anthrax attacks is very clear.
There were two powerful Democratic senators whose actions were slowing down passage of the Patriot Act. One was Tom Daschle, whom I have mentioned previously. The second was Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Anthrax letters were sent out to Daschle and Leahy immediately after they resisted a deadline for passage of the bill proposed by Vice-President Dick Cheney.
How odd that al-Qaeda and Iraq would have had a special hatred of Democratic senators who slowed down the Patriot Act!
But, of course, the anthrax letters were not sent by al-Qaeda and Iraq. According to what we have since learned, no Muslim had anything whatsoever to do with the attacks.
If you want to know more about this topic, please read my book, The 2001 Anthrax Deception. Since the publication of that book there have been further developments, including the emergence of a highly placed FBI whistle-blower, that have supported the book’s claims.
What do we know about the perpetrators? Studies of the physical characteristics of the anthrax spores quickly ruled out al-Qaeda and Iraq as sources of these spores and showed that the anthrax came from a highly secure laboratory within the U.S. military-industrial complex. This is not controversial, having been acknowledged by the FBI, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.
So the perpetrators were not Muslim extremists but they pretended to be, and whoever they were they had access to the heart of the U.S. intelligence and military community. It is, therefore, clear that the anthrax attacks were an “inside job” and a “false flag operation.”
The true perpetrators are still at large, the FBI having led the public on a multi-year wild goose chase.
As far as the intimidation of Congress is concerned, the process started with 9/11 but was continued by means of the anthrax attacks. Concrete barricades and yellow crime scene tape marked off the Capitol. Congress members were told by the FBI not to wear their Congressional pins publicly or to use their Congressional license plates. They were told they must hide their identities as elected representatives.
When Tom Daschle’s office received an anthrax letter in mid-October the stuff was so sophisticated it contaminated the whole building. The Hart Senate building was closed down for several months while it was cleaned. Some senators remained without computer access and proper office space as the Patriot Act was being pushed through. The anthrax attacks ensured that the passage of the Patriot Act took place in an atmosphere of urgent and ongoing threat to Congress.
Now, note that the lies pushed in October-November of 2001 to frame Afghanistan and Iraq for the anthrax attacks (Iraq as sponsor, al-Qaeda as client) belonged to the same repository of lies that was used over a period of years to justify the 2003 attack on Iraq. The two main deceptions were (a) that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” and (b) that Iraq was a sponsor of al-Qaeda.
The Centre for Public Integrity in the U.S. did a study a few years ago of these two sets of false statements. The study found that during the two years following 9/11 top Bush officials made 935 false statements on these two topics.
When Colin Powell gave his deceptive performance before the UN Security Council just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, holding up his little vial of simulated anthrax, he was still making these two sets of false statements and he was still warning the world that Iraq might attack the U.S. with anthrax.
Intimidating Canadian legislatures, 2013-14
I now turn to a different country and to a time nearer the present. I have two incidents in Canada to discuss, the first situated in 2013 and the second in 2014.
A. The Provincial Legislature of British Columbia:
In 2013 Canadians learned that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had arrested two Muslims for attempting to set off three bombs on the grounds of the British Columbia legislature on Canada Day, July 1.
This event seemed to have confirmed dramatically the fears on which the War on Terror feeds: Islamic terrorism, as a threat to democracy both symbolic and real, is alive and well in North America.
But let us look more closely at the perpetrators.
The couple arrested, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, had allegedly self-converted to Islam in 2011. According to Ian Mulgrew, journalist for the Vancouver Sun who attended the lengthy trial, “These new Muslim converts ‘discovered’ Islam in a Lower Mainland camouflage store while on a walkabout in an alcoholic haze.” Nuttall and Korody were not members of a Muslim community; in fact, we have been told that when they began talking about the need for jihad members of the B.C. Muslim community promptly reported them to police.
Mulgrew has described Nuttall and Korody as “impoverished, troubled drug addicts.”
After they were brought to the attention of police Nuttall and Korody “were befriended by an [RCMP] officer pretending to be an Arab businessman with extremist connections. Over the following months, he encouraged their Islamic militance and introduced them to other Mounties acting as jihadis.” Mulgrew refers to this exercise as a “stage-managed operation.” More than 240 members of the RCMP were involved in this exercise.
“Over the following months, the [RCMP] corporal [posing as their Muslim friend] encouraged their extremism, bought Nuttall a suit…paid him for meaningless jobs, gave him money for groceries, all the while pressing him to formulate a viable terrorist plot.”
On the audiotapes of police interactions with Nuttall, the RCMP mole can at one point be heard berating Nuttall for his “poorly researched plan to hijack a Via Rail passenger train in Victoria that no longer exists.” (The remarks are by Canadian Press journalist Geordon Omand.)
The evidence consistently suggests that Nuttall had been indulging in fantasies. His plans were not rooted in the real world. What was the RCMP response on learning this? On the undercover audiotapes the police mole, after criticizing him for his poor research, can be heard saying to Nuttall: “I’m here to make what you have in your head come true.”
In other words, people cannot be arrested in Canada for having violent fantasies, but the RCMP is permitted to turn these fantasies into reality so that an arrest can be made and the victim fed to the ever-hungry War on Terror.
Each of us may have our moment of special anger as we read the records of this case. My moment came when I read about Nuttall having an awakening of conscience in the weeks before the planting of the bombs.
“Until a couple of days ago, I didn’t clue in that people were going to die. I’ve never killed anybody. I’m not a murderer.”
At another point Nuttall says clearly that he needs spiritual counseling.
“I want to know in my heart that I did the right thing—I need some spiritual guidance.”
The RCMP mole, anxious to discourage these signs of an awakening of conscience, replies: “What’s this spiritual guidance going to give you?”
Nuttall says: “This is about my soul were talking about, my wife’s soul.”
“All of us,” intones the costumed RCMP officer, “we have our own destiny… Allah chooses it for us, we don’t choose it for ourselves.”
Here is the essence of entrapment. A citizen shows clear signs of being ready to back away from a not yet committed crime but the police, instead of encouraging this tendency, work to beguile, seduce, and trap the citizen into the commission of this crime.
But there was more. A frightening little videotape was found in which Nuttall and Korody, with faces hidden, exhorted people to carry out jihad and expressed inclinations toward martyrdom.
But who urged the couple to make the video? Who helped at every stage in its creation? Who filmed it? Who even supplied the black banner used as a backdrop? Why, the RCMP. The film was an RCMP production.
Neither the entrapment of this couple, nor even the assistance in making a martyrdom video, involves creativity on the part of the RCMP. Canada’s federal police have for some years been aping the FBI, which has a long record of such operations and has made them central to the War on Terror. Those of you who wish to look into this should read Trevor Aaronson’s book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. If you do not have time to read the book, please watch Aaronson’s TED talk on the internet.
In the end, RCMP operatives convinced Nuttall to concentrate on a practical weapon, something he might actually be able to manage. They suggested he build pressure-cooker bombs and gave him advice on how to do it. They assured him they would supply the required explosive substance—to which he had no access.
Then they drove Nuttall around Victoria and found him a nice place to put the bombs—behind the bushes on the grounds of the B.C. legislature.
This case is so outrageous that even mainstream media have carried angry criticism of the RCMP. Journalist Ian Mulgrew has said: “this operation is redolent of a make-work project by the Mounties and the federal justice department to bolster the rhetoric of the prime minister.”
Consider Mulgrew’s statement. Let us give credit where credit is due: he is a mainstream Canadian journalist with the courage to say that the RCMP’s actions in this operation are not real policing at all (he calls them “pretend policing”) but a political act constructed to support the Conservative government’s involvement in the War on Terror. Everything I have seen about the case supports this claim.
The fact is that in Canada today, as in the U.S., federal police and intelligence agencies have politicized both policing and the courts. They have corrupted both sets of institutions. In doing so they are driven by, and in turn are supporting, an aggressive global conflict framework, the War on Terror, that is based on lies and deception.
And let me remind you of one aspect of the 2013 stage production that is often neglected. It involved the Canadian federal police encouraging a threat to a Canadian legislature.
B. The Parliament of Canada:
And now we arrive at the fourth and last case from the annals of the War on Terror to be reviewed today. This is the invasion of the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa on October 22, 2014.
Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette has recalled her experience in her Senate office:
At 2:30 p.m., to cries of “Police,” my assistant opens the office’s main door. He comes face to face with soldiers aiming their machine guns at him and ordering him to put his hands in the air. One by one, our doors are opened and the soldiers point their guns at my other assistants who exit their offices, hands in the air, as if they were criminals… The door we go through is destroyed; glass has exploded all over the floor. The door across the hallway has also been knocked in. Glass litters the hallway. There are more than 50 people crammed into four offices, everyone talking to one another…
I sit near the open window. I’m breathing but stunned: parliamentarians are under the command of the military. Parliament is in the hands of the armed forces.
The persons holding the automatic weapons were almost certainly federal police officers, not members of the armed forces, but for our purposes today the distinction may not be important. Men in camouflage clothing with heavy boots, helmets, and automatic weapons would have been hard for most Canadians to identify. Let us simply say that security forces took control of Parliament. The image fits the theme of this talk very well.
But you are thinking: naturally they took control—an armed gunman was running down the hall shooting!
Yes, but let us look a bit more closely at the affair.
I want to begin by saying I do not pretend to have sorted out the facts of this attack. I am not in a position to say with confidence that the RCMP were complicit. But, in a report I have written on this incident, The October 22, 2014, Ottawa Shooting: Why Canadians Need a Public Inquiry, I do claim that (a) there are very serious unanswered questions about this series of incidents (I list 32 questions), (b) the RCMP have given both misleading and false information to the public and (c) in any serious inquiry the possibility of RCMP complicity would have to be considered.
The RCMP are, of course, the ones in charge of the investigation of the October 22, 2014 events. But this simply illustrates the dilemma faced by citizens in North America. The agencies charged with investigating acts of alleged Islamic terrorism have a proven record of incitement, entrapment and framing. They would, for this reason, be treated as suspects within an uncorrupted system of policing and litigation.
When we look for recognition of this obvious truth in mainstream North America media today we will seldom find it. I saw not a single person interviewed on television or radio, or quoted in mainstream newspapers, in Canada in the days after the October 22, 2014 attacks, who was willing to raise this as a serious possibility.
Drawing on the 2013 Canada Day case, we might ask our question this way: Could the 2014 impoverished drug addict from Vancouver (Zehaf-Bibeau) have been assisted by the RCMP the way the 2013 impoverished drug addict from Vancouver (Nuttall) was assisted? Could the two acts of intimidation of the people’s elected representatives have belonged to the same pattern of police behavior?
Before entering into the critical questioning of the mainstream account of October 22, I draw attention to the triad we have seen before: Threat, Unity, Reaction.
Let us begin with threat. After allegedly shooting Corporal Cirillo at the War Memorial the suspect, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, made it to the Centre Block of Parliament. The Conservative caucus, including Mr. Harper, was assembled behind a door on one side of the central Hall of Honour, while the New Democratic Party was assembled behind a door on the other side. To the astonishment and horror of the MPs, a barrage of shooting broke out in the Hall.
Globe and Mail reporter Josh Wingrove caught the gunfire (second volley) on his Blackberry, and the showing of this video footage gave the public a dramatic sense of what MPs, hunkered down behind poorly barricaded doors off the main hall, heard at that time.
Volley one, which had occurred prior to the volley caught on this video, had roughly the same number of shots as volley two.
So MPs certainly felt threatened. The danger was emphasized by the CBC, which said on October 22 that the perpetrator may have fired 30 shots in the Hall of Honour. John Baird, then the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said on Anderson Cooper’s TV show on October 23 that if Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers had not killed Zehaf-Bibeau a dozen people might have been killed.
It turned out these statements were based on fantasy. The evidence we now have suggests that the suspect, Zehaf-Bibeau, ran into Centre Block with two bullets in his rifle. His firearm was a lever-action hunting rifle—a model first produced in 1894. Zehaf-Bibeau’s goals at that point are not clear, but he fired his two bullets, hitting no one (security guard Samearn Son appears to have been hit in the leg by a ricochet) and at one point he declined to shoot a security guard he was facing at point blank range. In the space between volleys he seems to have loaded one more bullet in his rifle, which he fired—again hitting no one—just before dying in a hail of bullets less than two minutes after entering the building. He did not, therefore, shoot 30 times; he shot three times. And he was in no position to kill a dozen people. Of the roughly 59 shots heard by MPs, 56 were fired by police with semi-automatic 9mm handguns.
While it is important to sort out these facts, it remains true that the feeling of threat experienced by MPs was intense. They heard a huge barrage of shots, could not see what was going on, and felt at risk.
How about the next member of our triad, unity?
We have a remarkable piece of footage from the next day, October 23, fully as striking as the singing of God Bless America on the steps of the Capitol. Kevin Vickers, apparently one of the two men who killed Zehaf-Bibeau, was Sergeant-at-Arms and regularly carried the mace into Parliament. (The mace represents the authority of the Speaker and the right of the House, transmitted to it by the crown, to pass laws.) When Mr. Vickers entered Parliament with the mace on October 23 he was given a prolonged standing ovation by the House, with members of all political parties enthusiastically participating.
In addition to this particular symbolic statement of unity we saw in Canada the embraces familiar to us from the U.S. incidents of the fall of 2001. The Canadian Prime Minister signaled his trans-party solidarity with Mr. Trudeau of the Liberal Party and Mr. Mulcair of the NDP with hugs.
So we had threat and we had unity. The third element is reaction, which possesses two components. Internally, citizens and their representatives are all supposed to pull together, sacrificing civil rights or having them sacrificed on their behalf. Externally, they are to fling themselves at the enemy—whoever has been assigned that role.
In Prime Minister Harper’s speech on October 22 he made clear, albeit in genteel and delicate language, that he intended to move ahead on both fronts: to give more power to national security agencies at home while joining with allies in military action abroad.
This week’s events are a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the types of terrorist attacks we have seen elsewhere around the world…this will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts and those of our national security agencies to take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats and keep Canada safe here at home, just as it will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts to work with our allies around the world and fight against the terrorist organizations who brutalize those in other countries with the hope of bringing their savagery to our shores. They will have no safe haven.
The forms this reaction took are well known. Internally we had the passage of a series of bills, including the famous Bill C-51. Externally, we found the victim of the War Memorial shooting, Corporal Cirillo, quickly exploited in Iraq.
So we have the triad found in the War on Terror in its autumn, 2001 manifestation. The presence of death in the October 22 events has guaranteed that the pattern will be deeply inscribed in people’s consciousness. The absence of killing in the B.C. bombers incident is, I am convinced, one of the reasons the incident has had relatively little impact in Canada. In fact, the lengthy court case associated with this incident—still not resolved as this talk is being given—has embarrassed the RCMP at the same time the lack of casualties has left the Canadian population uninterested. The operation cannot be called a success.
Would it not be tempting for police, after such a failure, to mount an operation in which there are deaths to draw people’s attention and where the perpetrator or patsy is killed in the operation so that there will never be a court case?
I am aware that I have to this point offered no evidence that the October 22, 2014 incident was planned or carried out with police complicity. Let me now, therefore, look at selected aspects of the RCMP’s performance and foreknowledge. In my view these are sufficiently peculiar, even if they were the only anomalies encountered, to justify a public inquiry. For other problematic issues in the case my report may be consulted.
I begin with a question: Where did the most blatant security failure occur, which allowed the suspect to make it into a building of Parliament after shooting Mr. Cirillo at the War Memorial? The answer is that the main security failure occurred between the time he emerged from his car in front of the bollards near East Block until the time he entered the doors of Centre Block. This zone was the responsibility of the RCMP. As he stepped onto Parliament Hill he was no longer the responsibility of the Ottawa police, and as he entered Centre Block he became the responsibility of House of Commons security. In between the RCMP was responsible.
Now, during that brief period when he was the responsibility of the RCMP he ran from the bollards along the grass in front of the East Block, his keffiya over the lower part of his face, his long hair flowing, and his Winchester rifle in his hands. He hijacked a black ministerial car in front of East Block. The driver got out and ran away at top speed. The suspect then got into the black car with his rifle and drove straight to Centre Block. On his way he passed two white RCMP vehicles. Neither moved to intercept him, although either one could have done so. Neither seems to have made a serious effort to catch him or intercept him on the rest of his journey to Centre Block, although they followed him to his destination.
I am not interested in blaming the officers in these two cars. The more important issue is the fact that the RCMP has such a thin and permeable line of security, not to mention a communications system that performed very badly. Two cars between the suspect and Parliament, each with one officer, neither of whom seemed to expect anything and neither of whom appeared to have heard the 911 calls from the War Memorial? Neither of whom appears to have been able to warn the House of Commons security, who were, therefore, caught off guard when Zehaf-Bibeau burst through the door?
We now know, thanks to a CBC access to information request, that the RCMP were short by at least 29 persons in their Parliament Hill security at that time. We also know that the extra patrols in the vicinity that the RCMP had mounted in mid-October due to various incidents had been halted two days before the October 22 incident.
Am I being a Monday morning quarterback? Will you object that it is all very well to bemoan this reduction of security in retrospect but that the RCMP could not possibly have known of the danger at the time? Well, I certainly would have thought that the killing of a soldier at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu two days earlier by an apparent “terrorist” would have led to some tightening of security. But, beyond that, there were plenty of signs of danger.
We are now touching on one of the most explosive aspects of the October 22, 2014 case, namely advance warnings. If we turn to the RCMP and ask what was the stated and official position we find it set out very clearly. Commissioner Paulson said without hesitation that there had been “no advance warning.” Is this true? Consider the following list:
(1) October 8, 2014
Warning: potential “knife and gun” attacks inside Canada.
Source: NBC News, crediting US intelligence sources, in turn crediting Canadian authorities. The warning was quickly denied by Canadian authorities.
(2) October 17:
Warning: “heightened state of alert”
Source: Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC), which is housed at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) but has several partner organizations, including the RCMP.
(3) October 17:
Warning: “violent act of terrorism”
Source: Privy Council Office (PCO), which advises the Prime Minister.
(4) October 18:
Warning: ISIS considering attacks on uniformed law enforcement persons in Canada
Source: Criminal Intelligence Integrated Unit of the RCMP
(5) October 21:
Warning: [We do not know what is in this report, which the RCMP has refused to release, but it was apparently based on more than the lethal October 20 event in Quebec.]
Source: National Intelligence Coordination Centre, RCMP
(6) September to October, 2014, beginning about a month before the October 22 events
Warning: There was a war-gaming of “an attack in Quebec followed by an attack in another city” (CBC journalist Adrienne Arsenault called it the “precise scenario” that unfolded in October).
Source: Adrienne Arsenault, speaking on The National, CBC television, October 22, 2014. According to her the participants in the war game included CSIS, the RCMP, and the National Security Task Force.
We find, in short, that there were repeated warnings beginning at least a month before October 22 and growing more intense in the five days prior to the attacks. Such warnings are not at all normal in Canada. ITAC’s last similar warning had been issued about four years previously. As to the precision in timing of the warnings, Craig James, an official at the B.C. legislature, said that his office had been told “there may be a problem this week.” How extraordinary. There was, indeed, a problem “this week:” there was a lethal attack on the Monday (October 20) followed by a lethal attack on the Wednesday (October 22).
But the words of Craig James raise another issue: it is not merely the timing that is peculiar but also the institutions warned. With warnings going out to legislatures in Canada, how could the most important legislature at all have been left with no warning? As journalist Michael Smyth of The Province put it: “our provincial politicians [in B.C.] and legislative security staff were well-briefed by the feds here, but the RCMP in Ottawa got taken by surprise? What is wrong with this picture?”
What is more, consider the peculiarity in the October NBC warning. “Knife and gun” attacks inside Canada? Such attacks are very uncommon. Yet both on October 20 and October 22 large knives were found at the crime scene. Is this a coincidence?
Finally, we have the war-games exercise, which was found to be oddly prophetic when an attack in the province of Quebec (October 20) was followed by an attack in a second city (Ottawa, Ontario). It is true that part of the war-game scenario mentioned by Arsenault (a third incident with returnees from Syria) did not manifest itself, but there were certainly efforts, which involved RCMP lies, to tie both October suspects to Syria.
So, what are we to think of Mr. Paulson’s statement about “no advance warning?” Mr. Paulson was lying. Why? There are two main possibilities.
First, he may have been lying to disguise gross RCMP incompetence. To suggest this is to stay within the bounds of acceptable discourse, although even in this case there should be calls for Mr. Paulson’s resignation.
But how does the incompetence theory fit with the fact that the although the PCO document of October 17 explicitly called for maintaining patrols, the RCMP, after the issuing of the PCO document, actually halted a series of patrols they had been making in the vicinity of Parliament Hill? And why would the RCMP, after receiving a series of clear warnings, allow themselves to remain short-staffed on the scene to the tune of at least 29 officers? Moreover, since the PCO warning explicitly called for maintaining excellent communications, how is it that the RCMP neither received nor passed on, in a timely way, effective warnings that would have prevented the suspect’s assault on Centre Block?
The unspeakable possibility—the possibility that is outside the bounds of respectability and will not be mentioned by mainstream media and political representatives–is that Mr. Paulson denied receiving warnings of the attacks because the RCMP were complicit in the attacks.
It is not wise to pretend we know the truth about an incident when we do not. I do not pretend, in this talk or in my written report, to know with certainty whether the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was complicit in the October 22, 2014 attacks in Ottawa. But I do know that, given its history of complicity in establishing “terrorist” threats, as well as the serious anomalies and unanswered questions that stare us in the face when we investigate the October 22 events, the RCMP must be regarded as suspects.
Conclusions:
Let me end this talk by reiterating five points.
- There is a pattern, common enough in war and found in the War on Terror: Threat, followed by Unity, followed by Reaction, which has an internal and external dimension.
Whatever the value of this pattern to human survival at various times in our history, it can leave populations open to deception and manipulation.
- In the War on Terror deception and manipulation are exactly what we find. There is strong evidence that legislatures of the U.S. and Canada have been subjected to physical intimidation that has facilitated both the internal projects (repressive legislation) and the external projects (invasions and occupation) of the leaders of the War on Terror.
- A strong social taboo has been constructed that has hampered awareness of this deception and manipulation. The taboo extends through the population but is especially strong in legislatures, including the Parliament of Canada.
- This taboo ensures that our Canadian Parliament, like the U.S. Congress, is unfit to protect citizens from the deceptions and violence of the War on Terror and is even unable to protect itself.
- Of the four cases dealt with today, I regard complicity in the physical intimidation of legislatures by state agencies as established in three cases. In the fourth case, the events of October 22, 2014 in Canada, state-sponsored intimidation had not been established, but is a possibility that must be explored through investigation and research—formal and public if possible, but otherwise by members of civil society using all their intelligence and determination.
*
The text was edited by MacQueen for publication in Truth and Shadows. In addition to being a retired professor of Religious Studies and founder of McMaster’s Peace Studies program, MacQueen is the author of The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case For a Domestic Conspiracy.
Sources
Since this was a public talk rather than an article it included no notes. I directed the audience to websites where they could find more information.
9/11:
Websites important for understanding the destruction of the World Trade Center:
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth:
(The booklet, Beyond Misinformation: What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7 (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, 2015) can be purchased below:)
http://www.beyondmisinformation.org/#beyond-misinformation
Consensus 9/11: The 9/11 Best Evidence Panel:
The Journal of 9/11 Studies:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/
Anthrax:
There are several good books, but my own explores the relationship of the anthrax attacks to the 9/11 attacks more closely than other books: The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case For a Domestic Conspiracy (Clarity Press, 2014). This book also explores the intimidation of Congress by both sets of attacks.
http://www.claritypress.com/MacQueen.html
The two Canadian cases:
Information about the Nuttall-Korody case was obtained mainly from a series of articles by Vancouver Sun journalist Ian Mulgrew, who attended the couple’s trial and regularly posted articles about it.
Information about the events of October 22, 2014 can be found in my report, The October 22, 2014, Ottawa Shootings: Why Canadians Need a Public Inquiry (fall, 2015). The bibliography in that report includes both primary and secondary sources for those wishing to learn more. The report can be downloaded here:
http://democracyprobe.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/09021508.pdf
A slightly revised version is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C6DZU6W
Copyright © Prof. Graeme McQueen
International Relations Expert on UK Salisbury Assessment: ‘Accumulation of Fake News’
Sputnik – September 8, 2018
A meticulous decontaminating process is under way in the house in Salisbury where the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with a nerve agent. Sputnik spoke to Xavier Moreau, Journalist and Political Commentator, about this story.
Sputnik: The US, France, Germany and Canada have agreed with the UK’s assessment that Russia’s government “almost certainly” approved the Salisbury poisoning. What does this assessment mean for Russia?
Xavier: I think it won’t change anything because the relationship between the G6 and Russia is already very bad; so it is just a new accumulation of fake news and fake investigation on the Skirpal case.
Sputnik: Prosecutors in the UK believe there is sufficient evidence to charge the pair with offences including conspiracy to murder. Is there sufficient evidence to support Britain’s verdict
Xavier: Actually there is no evidence; it’s just pictures and some videos on the two men who were supposed to get a visa to come in the UK. We do not even know if they are Russian. They [the UK] have said that they are from the GRU, but why the GRU? Why not a group like the FSB – how do they know that you know? There was an argument that was pronounced by Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman that you are supposed to give data to get a British visa. So why has London not published this data? I am very surprised. London has had 6 months to produce a reliable story but what they have said is a very poorly written story…
Sputnik: Looking to the future, what effect will this have on relations between Russia and the west?
Xavier: Relations between Russia and the West is already very bad, so it couldn’t be much worse. In my opinion until the midterm election in the United States all the Atlantic anti-Russian forces will be try to shield these anti-Russian fallacies; so they will use everything they can find and Skripal is one of these operations. You can also for instance the Syrian Crisis, they can find out another fake chemical from the Syrian Army… you will see. Until the 6th of November, you will not hear anything positive about Russia.
See also:
Skripal Skeptics: Which Countries Didn’t Agree With UK’s Assessment of Case at UN
Britain Should Be in the Dock Over Skripal Saga, Not Russia
Strategic Culture Foundation | 07.09.2018
The latest announcement by British authorities of two named Russian suspects in connection with the alleged poison assassination of a former Russian spy and his daughter is more absurd drama in a long-running tawdry saga.
No verifiable evidence is ever presented, just more lurid innuendo and more refusal by the British authorities to abide by any due process and international norms of diplomacy. It is all scurrilous sound and fury aimed at smearing Russia.
This week, Britain’s Metropolitan Police released video shots of two alleged Russian men purporting to show them arriving at London’s Gatwick airport on March 2. Other video shots purport to show the same men walking the streets of Salisbury on March 3, the day before former Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were apparently stricken with a powerful nerve agent. The two would-be assassins then allegedly flew back to Moscow from London late on March 4.
One preposterous claim, among several by the British authorities, is that traces of the putative nerve poison Novichok were found in the London hotel room where the alleged Kremlin agents stayed. The incompetence of the two supposed super assassins beggars belief. More realistically clumsy, however, is the attempt by the British to lay an incriminating trail.
The day after the Met police announcement implicating the two Russian culprits, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May stood up in front of her parliament and claimed that the two individuals were members of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Another British minister, Ben Wallace, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of having personal responsibility for ordering the alleged assassination plot.
Then on Thursday Britain summoned the United Nations Security Council to hash over the lurid claims against Russia without providing any further substantiating details to back up the sensational accusations.
This is nothing other than more trial-by-media, a process of railroading allegations against Russia, not on any basis of legal due process, but simply by bluster and prejudice. The credulous British news media play a dutiful secondary role in giving the claims a semblance of credibility, instead of asking the gaping questions that are warranted.
As Vasily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, remarked, the whole aim of the British claims is to whip up more international anti-Russia frenzy and hysteria. No sooner had Britain unleashed its latest allegations, a joint statement was released by the United States, Canada, Germany and France supporting the British claims.
Britain is now calling for more punitive sanctions against Moscow just as it had triggered earlier this year when the Skripals apparently fell ill on a park bench in the southern English town of Salisbury. Some 28 countries have expelled Russian diplomats over those earlier and as-yet unfounded claims. More expulsions can thus be expected, with the intended effect of framing Russia as a pariah state.
The timing of this week’s twist in the Skripal saga seems pertinent. The US, Britain and France are threatening to launch military strikes on Syria just as the Syrian army and its Russian ally move to defeat the last-remaining stronghold of NATO-backed terror groups in that country, potentially bringing an end to the Western-backed criminal war for regime change against the Assad government in Damascus.
Last month, too, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel held a productive, cordial summit with President Putin near Berlin, where the two leaders appeared to solidify a rapprochement over a crucial energy project between Russia the European Union.
The British government is also teetering on political implosion from the Brexit debacle and growing public contempt.
As Russia’s UN envoy Nebenzia further pointed out, how is it possible that the British prime minister can make the categorical claim that the two alleged Russian men in the video shots released this week are members of the GRU? Typically, she made the claim without providing any substantiating information.
This was the same kind of plucking from thin air that Theresa May performed only days after the Skripals were apparently poisoned in Salisbury on March 4. Again, back then, May stood in front of parliament and dramatically accused Russia of a state-sponsored assassination attempt. The British authorities have cast, and continue to cast, a verdict without any legal case. That verdict relies entirely on Russophobia and prejudice of Russian malfeasance.
Former British ambassador Craig Murray and other astute observers have noted that the latest video shots released by Britain’s counter-terrorism police are highly questionable. The images could have been easily fabricated with modern digital methods. They are not evidence of anything. Yet, suspiciously, the British authorities are in unseemly haste to make their sensational charges of Russian state culpability.
Moscow has condemned the reprehensible rhetoric used by the British prime minister and senior members of her cabinet in throwing grave allegations against the Russian leadership. Britain’s trashing of diplomatic norms is deplorable, befitting a rogue state that is itching for conflict.
The fact is that the British have spurned any normal legal attempt by Russia to access the supposed investigation in order to ascertain the nature of the alleged information incriminating Moscow. If Britain had a case, then why doesn’t it permit an independent assessment? Russia is being denigrated with foul accusations, and yet Moscow is denied the right to defend itself by being able to ascertain the information. The British technique is that of an inquisition making a mockery of legal standards.
Another salient fact is that the whereabouts of the Skripals is not known – six months after the alleged poisoning incident. Russia has been repeatedly denied consular contact with one of its citizens, Yulia Skripal, whose bizarre one-off appearance in a video, released by the British authorities three months ago, conveyed her wish to return to her homeland of Russia. Britain is violating the legal principle of habeas corpus.
Far from any evidence implicating Russia in a crime, the evidence so far points to the British authorities illegally detaining the Skripals for propaganda purpose. That nefarious purpose is clear: to demonize and delegitimize Russia as a sovereign state.
The Skripal saga and official British clowning around would be laughable if the consequences for international relations were not so dire.
The British authorities should be the ones in the dock, not Russia, to answer a case of forced abduction and incitement of international conflict.
Skripals – The Mystery Deepens
By Craig Murray | September 6, 2018
The time that “Boshirov and Petrov” were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off.
A key hole in the British government’s account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged – the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to have been involved.
But what has not been established is the men’s identity and that they are agents of the Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by “experts” as to why the Novichok dose was not fatal.
This BBC report gives a very useful timeline summary of events.
At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals’ car was seen on CCTV driving through three different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location.
There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am.
But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving.
The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.
So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.
In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast “Petrov and Boshirov” managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.
This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals’ location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.
“Boshirov and Petrov” plainly are of interest in this case. But only Theresa May stated they were Russian agents: the police did not, and stated that they expected those were not their real identities. We do not know who Boshirov and Petrov were. It appears very likely their appearance was to do with the Skripals on that day. But they may have been meeting them, outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid surveillance.
It is also telling the police have pressed no charges against them in the case of Dawn Sturgess, which would be manslaughter at least if the government version is true.
If “Boshirov and Petrov” are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well have poisoned themselves, and left the “murder weapon” lying around to be found. Their timings in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent.
There are other possibilities of who “Boshirov and Petrov” really are, of which Ukrainian is the obvious one. One thing I discovered when British Ambassador to Uzbekistan was that there had been a large Ukrainian ethnic group of scientists working at the Soviet chemical weapon testing facility there at Nukus. There are many other possibilities.
Yesterday’s revelations certainly add to the amount we know about the Skripal event. But they raise as many new questions as they give answers.
Russia is not involved in Skripal case at any level – Kremlin
RT | September 6, 2018
Russia has nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning case at any level, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, slamming “unacceptable” British allegations.
“Neither Russia’s top leadership nor those with lower ranks, and no country’s officials, have had anything to do with the events in Salisbury,” Peskov said. He rebuffed UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s claim that the attack on the ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter was approved at “senior level of the Russian state.”
“Any accusations against Russian leadership are unacceptable,” the spokesman added.
On Wednesday, UK prosecutors named two “Russians” whom they accuse of poisoning the Skripals. May later claimed that the duo were officers of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. Firing back, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the names and photos of the two men ‘do not mean anything’ to Moscow and called on London “to abandon making public accusations and media manipulations.”
If the UK wants Russia to take action, it should send an official request in the first place in accordance with existing agreements, Peskov stressed, noting that media reports and statemens in parliament cannot replace it.
“We need a request from the British side to check their [suspects’] identities, to give us legal grounds for the identity checks. There is a common practice [for it],” he told journalists. He stressed that from the very beginning Moscow offered cooperation on the case, but London has been reluctant to agree.
One of the main arguments leading the UK to repeat its “highly likely” mantra regarding Moscow’s involvement in the poisoning has been that the Novichok nerve agent – allegedly used in this case – could have only been produced by Russia. However, foreign specialists have long been familiar with the formula, which was developed by the Soviet Union.
The new “revelations,” however, are not more plausible that the previous ones, Charles Shoebridge, a security expert and a former British military officer, told RT. The simple fact that allegedly well-trained Russian intelligence specialists could have left behind so much evidence speaks for itself, he says.
“It seems very strange that these people have absolutely left what seems to be a very reckless and clear trail of evidence, which almost seems to be designed, or at least would almost inevitably lead to the conclusions that the police and the authorities have come to today, in other words that Russia [is] to blame,” he told RT.
Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, said she doubts Russia’s alleged motive behind the Salisbury incident and that certain pieces of evidence reported by the media “may look pretty compelling but will never be tested in a real court of law.”
The Impossible Photo
By Craig Murray | September 5, 2018
Russia has developed an astonishing new technology enabling its secret agents to occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same time.

These CCTV images released by Scotland yard today allegedly show Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov both occupying exactly the same space at Gatwick airport at precisely the same second. 16.22.43 on 2 March 2018. Note neither photo shows the other following less than a second behind.
There is no physically possible explanation for this. You can see ten yards behind each of them, and neither has anybody behind for at least ten yards. Yet they were both photographed in the same spot at the same second.
The only possible explanations are:
1) One of the two is travelling faster than Usain Bolt can sprint
2) Scotland Yard has issued doctored CCTV images/timeline.
I am going with the Met issuing doctored images.
UPDATE
A number of people have pointed out a third logical possibility, that the photographs are not of the same place and they are coming through different though completely identical entry channels. The problem with that is the extreme synchronicity. You can see from the photos that the channel(s) are enclosed and quite long, and they would have had to enter different entrances to the channels. So it is remarkable they were at exactly the same point at the same time. Especially as one of them appears to be holding (wheeled?) luggage and one has only a shoulder bag.
I have traveled through Gatwick many times but cannot call to mind precisely where they are. Can anybody pinpoint the precise place in the airport? Before or after passport control? Before or after baggage collection? Before or after customs? The only part of the airport this looks like to me is shortly after leaving the plane after the bridge, and before joining the main gangway to passport control – in which case passengers are not split into separated channels at the stage this was taken. I can’t recall any close corridors as long as this after passport control. But I am open to correction.
Corbyn Summoned by MI5 for ‘Facts of Life’ Briefing on Terrorism – Reports
Sputnik – 02.09.2018
The head of the MI5, Andrew Parker, has reportedly invited Corbyn to a “facts of life” briefing on the real terrorist threats facing the country.
But Corbyn has postponed the meeting, which was scheduled for Tuesday, as he is expected to spend all day attending a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee as he battles to quell a storm over anti-Semitism that has engulfed his leadership.
“The subjects of the briefing would have included issues relating to the domestic security threat, counterterrorism, counter-espionage, Russia and returning foreign fighters,” The Sunday Times wrote, quoting intelligence sources.
This would have been the first time the Labour leader would have been briefed by the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service, the newspaper wrote.
Jeremy Corbyn had been told he could bring along his chief advisor Seumas Milne and Labour’s shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott to the briefing.
Another source told the newspaper that Britain’s security services have been “troubled” by some of Jeremy Corbyn’s statements on terrorism.
When speaking after last year’s bombing in Manchester, Corbyn suggested that it was London’s foreign policy, rather than jihadist ideology, that bears the blame for terrorist atrocities.
Corbyn and Milne have also questioned the veracity of the security services’ conclusion about Russia’s alleged involvement in the Skripals’ poisoning in March, with Milne saying that she found it “problematic” to trust the security services after the Blair government lied about the strength of the intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the US-led invasion of the Arab country in 2003.
US Threats to Strike Syria Won’t Stop Damascus From Idlib Op – Syrian FM
Sputnik – 02.09.2018
Following the liberation of Daraa in the south, Idlib remains the “world’s largest open prison” for some three million people and the last terrorist stronghold in Syria.
“Anything that is actively promoted by the US will not affect the determination of the Syrian people and Syrian army’s plans to clear Idlib and finally put an end to terrorism in Syria,” Syrian Foreign minister Walid Muallem said in an interview.
According to him, the US accusations about alleged plans regarding chemical attacks have become questionable in the eyes of public opinion and are just an excuse for a possible attack on Syria.
“We, the people and leadership of Syria, would like to end the conflict today, but the intervention of Western countries headed by the US makes it difficult,” Muallem said.
Muallem emphasized that the US presence in Syria is illegal and Washington can in no way justify it.
“The US presence has claimed the lives of thousands of Syrian and every time terrorists were besieged by the Syrian Arab Army, Washington provided them with protection. It became clear that Washington’s main objective was to prolong the crisis in Syria in the interests of Israel,” the minister said.
On August 22, US National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that Washington and its partners would respond in a “swift and appropriate manner” to any verified chemical weapons use in Idlib or elsewhere in Syria.
Separately, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that the United States “will respond to any verified chemical weapons use in Idlib or elsewhere in Syria… in a swift and appropriate manner.”
The Russian Defense Ministry, when commenting on the situation, accused the US and its allies of attempting to use a chemical weapons provocation planned by militants in Idlib as a pretext to launch an attack on Syrian government forces.
In August, Russian officials warned of a conspiracy by terrorists to launch an alleged chemical attack in order to provoke Western retaliation against the Syrian government.
According to Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a group of militants, who had been prepared by the Olive Group, had conspired to stage the rescue of victims of a chemical weapons attack in Idlib.
After media reports alleging a chemical attack had been carried out in the Syrian city of Douma in April, Western countries immediately accused the Syrian government of being behind the attack.
Following the accusations, the US, the UK, and France launched over 100 missiles on multiple targets in the country in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons.
Damascus denied the accusations and said that the Jaish al-Islam terror group had staged the attack to encourage foreign intervention in Syria.
Lawyers Petition for 9/11 Grand Jury
Corbett Report Extras – August 31, 2018
Today we’re joined by Mick Harrison (and David Meiswinkle) of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry to discuss their recent petition to the U. S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York to convene a special grand jury into the unprosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. We talk about the committee and its formation, the nature and powers of a special grand jury, and what legal options remain for those seeking justice for 9/11.
Show Notes and MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=27961









