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Does Twitter really care about pluralism and free speech? Let’s follow the money

RT | September 7, 2018

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has vigorously defended his platform as a place for free speech and political pluralism, but there’s one easy way to determine how much he really cares about all of that: Look at who Twitter gives money to.

In testimony to the US Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Dorsey proudly reminded senators that Twitter had last year banned advertising from RT and Sputnik. Then, presumably as some kind of gesture of apology, he said Twitter donated $1.9 million generated from RT and Sputnik advertising to “research” and “civil society” platforms working to counter Russian influence online.

When Twitter first announced that decision in October 2017, it said it was part of its “ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience” and admitted that it had made the decision in light of a US intelligence community report that concluded that Russia “attempted to interfere” with the 2016 presidential election. That report was widely panned as being extremely light on evidence, even by journalists who are generally highly critical of Moscow.

To put it simply, Dorsey admitted banning RT from advertising on its platform and then handing the money generated from previous advertising over to US government-funded think tanks. This kind of capitulation suggests that Dorsey believes free speech and pluralism is limited to how he treats Americans of different political persuasions on his platform, but not how he treats everyone else.

When Dorsey talks about giving everyone a fair shake on Twitter and ensuring that political bias does not get in the way of how Twitter functions, he seems to only ever be talking about the “health” of the debate and conversation when it comes to American political discourse — but not everyone using Twitter is an American politic worried about being “shadowbanned”.

In other words, he’s implying that while all American individuals should indeed be treated fairly, more broadly speaking, it’s totally fine to be openly and proudly biased in favor of American foreign policy, despite the fact that Twitter is supposed to be a global platform. Twitter is a tool of the US government in much the same way Facebook is. So let’s look at those organizations Dorsey has given money to:

The Atlantic Council

To see that Twitter has offered money to none other than the Atlantic Council to help “research” flimsy claims of election interference by Russia should immediately set off alarm bells.

The Atlantic Council has become widely regarded outside of Washington political and media circles as a vehicle for Western foreign policy promotion and propaganda. The Washington DC-based think tank is funded by a slew of American weapons manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. The Atlantic Council is also funded by both the US government and a number of other NATO countries through various government agencies. Facebook is also a donor.

Unsurprisingly, given its donors list, the AC has lobbied consistently in favor of US military interventions around the world and has taken an almost exclusively negative view of Russia in international affairs. Is this think tank, funded by NATO governments and weapons makers really the kind of organization that can be trusted to fairly assess claims of Russian interference in American elections?

EU Disinfolab

Similar to the Atlantic Council, the Brussels-based EU Disinfolab has focused a huge amount of its attention on countering Russia online in recent years. Its stated mission is to “fight disinformation with innovative methodology” — but it certainly does not focus its attention evenly when it comes to fighting disinformation.

Disinfolab has drawn much criticism last month when it attempted to brand French Twitter users posting about a national scandal involving President Emmanuel Macron’s former bodyguard as “Russophiles” who were part of the “Russian disinformation system”. More of Twitter’s “research” money well spent?

Disinfo lab is also partnered with the Brussels-based European Values think tank which made headlines last year when it published a list of 2,327 people who had appeared as guests on RT, branding them all “useful idiots”  for their appearances on the channel. Included on the list were the likes of journalist Bob Woodward, former US Vice President Dick Cheney, actors Denzel Washington and Pierce Brosnan and the late Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.

Partners in fight against US ‘adversaries’, rather than ‘neutral arbiters’?

If any more evidence was needed that Twitter happily acts as a vehicle for US government propaganda, the Senate hearing on Wednesday provided it in abundance. When Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arizona) asked Dorsey and Sheryl Sandberg, who was also present to give testimony on behalf of Facebook, if they would ever take any kind of action that would favor or “privilege” a “hostile foreign power” over the United States or its military, both Dorsey and Sandberg said no, they would not. It was only when Cotton asked “Do you prefer to see America remain the world’s dominant global superpower?” that Dorsey declined to answer directly, offering: “I prefer that we continue to help everywhere we serve.”

Cotton later suggested to Dorsey and Sandberg that Facebook and Twitter should be actively working on behalf of the US government and not acting as “even handed or neutral arbiters”.

The subdued responses from Sandberg and Dorsey to Cotton’s questions, clearly both afraid to say anything that would suggest their platforms are not there to serve US government interests, seemed to suggest that they have little interest in challenging the assumption that their job is to work on behalf of the White House against “bad actors” around the world.

During the hearing Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) told Sandberg and Dorsey that while they had come a “long way” in recognizing the threat posed by Russia’s “malicious activities” on their platforms, there was still “a lot of work to do”. Warner said it was unlikely that Facebook and Twitter could combat Russia alone without some action from Congress itself, declaring that the “era of the wild west in social media is coming to an end”.

It looks like when it comes to censorship and US government influence over social media platforms, this is just the beginning.

Read more:

Twitter permanently bans Alex Jones and Infowars for ‘abusive behavior’

Zuckerberg admits social media is a weapon, says Facebook in ‘arms race’ against ‘bad actors’

September 7, 2018 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian senator slams proposed blacklisting of RT & Sputnik in France

RT | September 6, 2018

A report authored by two government-linked think tanks that calls on the authorities to deny accreditation to RT and Sputnik reveals the West’s fear of the freedom of speech, a Russian senator has argued.

The Institute for Strategic Research of the French Defense Ministry (IRSEM) and The Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy (CAPS), linked to the French Foreign Ministry, issued on Wednesday a joint paper on the spread of disinformation and how to combat it.

The report urges the French government to “name and isolate” news outlets that are deemed “foreign propaganda organs.” Citing comments by President Emmanuel Macron, who accused RT and Sputnik of acting as “bodies for influence and false propaganda,” the report advises: “It is necessary not to grant [these organizations] accreditation and not to invite them to press conferences for journalists.”

Responding to the paper’s remarkable recommendations, Senator Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Upper House Committee for International Relations, noted that perhaps France has forgotten what free press looks like.

“After all, this is now a general trend in the West: Democracies proud of their freedom of speech have started to become seriously afraid of it. Decades of the unanimous mainstream seem to have relaxed both journalists and their audience, who are simply not ready for real competition of opinions (and it’s about opinions, not facts – because ‘highly likely’ in a normal situation is not considered to be ‘a fact’),” Kosachev wrote on his official Facebook page.

The report also offers a helpful list of ways to detect and counter information “threats” posed by undesirable communities. But weeding out dissent seems more suited for an authoritarian state, Kosachev reminded.

“Apparently, this is what we are talking about: they need to promote the ‘only true’ point of view at any cost (the European Commission even suggested introducing media literacy courses in schools – evidently to start to scare children with terrible RT and Sputnik), and to simplify the task they resort to the beloved instrument of authoritarian states – prohibitions on dissenting media. Somewhere we have already seen all this … Is this the ‘European USSR’?”

Moscow has already pledged to respond if the proposed blacklist was put into effect. Andrey Klimov, the head of the Federation Council’s Commission for State Sovereignty Protection, warned that targeting RT and Sputnik would likely affect “sensitive” spheres within Russian-French relations. However, he emphasized that he hoped that common sense will prevail.

The latest French report also foresaw possible questions that may come to one’s mind – what about mainstream media? The paper accepts that any media can freely defend its point of view and even admits that Al-Jazeera, CNN, BBC or France 24 contribute to the influence of Qatar, the US, the UK and France, respectively. However, it argues, that there is “benign misinformation” and that false information is not in itself problematic. The attention should focus on those “that have a negative effect or at least a hostile intent,” the paper said.

September 7, 2018 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Skripal Case: Luke Harding’s latest work of fiction

By Kit | OffGuardian | September 6, 2018

Luke Harding likes writing books about things that he wasn’t really involved in and doesn’t really understand. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, that covers pretty much everything. His book about Snowden, for example, was beautifully taken down by Julian Assange – a person who was actually there.

He’s priming the traumatised public for another of his works, this time about Sergei Skripal. This one will probably be out by Christmas, unless he can find someone else’s work to plagiarise, in which case he might get it done sooner.

It will have a snide and not especially clever title, perhaps a sort of pun – something like the “A Poison by Any Other Name: How Russian assassins contaminated the heart of rural England”. It will relate, in jarring sub-sub-le Carre prose, a story of Russian malfeasance and evil beyond imagining, whilst depicting the whole cast as bumbling caricatures, always held up for ridicule by the author and his smug readership.

There’s an extract in The Guardian today. It’s not listed as one, but trust me, it will be in the book. It’s title, as predicted above, is sort of a pun (and will probably be a chapter heading):

Planes, trains and fake names: the trail left by Skripal suspects

You see? Like that film? I don’t really get it either but until someone else comes up with something clever he can copy, Luke is left to his own rather meagre devices.

It starts off surprisingly strong, waiting three whole sentences before lurching violently into totally unsupported conjecture:

The two men were dressed inconspicuously in jeans, fleece jackets and trainers as they boarded the flight from Moscow to Gatwick. Their names, according to their Russian passports, were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Both were around 40 years old. Neither looked suspicious.

This is, as far as we know so far, true.

The plane trundled down the icy runway. In Moscow the temperatures had fallen below -10C, not unusual for early March. In Britain it had been snowing.

… and so is this. In fact, in googling “Moscow weather March 2018” Harding has displayed an uncharacteristically thorough approach to research that was rarely (if ever) evidenced in his previous works.

They had also packed a bottle of what appeared to be the Nina Ricci perfume Premier Jour. The box it came in was prettily decorated with flowers, it listed ingredients including alcohol and it bore the words “Made in France”.

This is where truth ends and guesses take over: there is no evidence, at all, that these two men had anything to do with the “perfume bottle” allegedly found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th and allegedly containing a powerful nerve agent. There is (as far as we know) no fingerprint or DNA evidence on the bottle, nobody saw them with the bottle, and there’s no released CCTV footage of them holding or carrying the bottle. Saying “it’s in their backpack” is meaningless without any evidence to back it up.

According to the Metropolitan police, the bottle in fact contained novichok, a lethal nerve agent developed in the late Soviet Union. The bottle had been specially made to be leakproof and had a customised applicator.

Note he doesn’t feel the need to examine, question or even verify the words of the Metropolitan Police [Seemingly, in the UK, bottles are designed to leak]. This is a recurring theme in Harding’s works – there are people who tell the truth (US) and people who lie (RUSSIANS). Evidence is a complication you can live without.

Moscow’s notorious poisons factory run by the KGB made similar devices throughout the cold war.

Did they? Because he doesn’t show any evidence this is true. One thing you can be sure of, if there had ever been even a whisper about a “modified perfume bottle” in any Soviet archive or from any “whistleblower currently living in the United States”, it would be on the front page in big black letters.

Petrov and Boshirov were aliases, detectives believe. Both men are suspected to be career officers with the GRU, Russia’s powerful and highly secretive military intelligence service.

Note use of the word “believe”, it makes regular appearances alongside it’s buddies: “suspect” and “probably”.

And yes, they “believe” they are aliases because IF they were assassins then obviously they used aliases. There’s no evidence taken from their (currently totally theoretical) visa applications that point to forgery, nobody at the time questioned their passports. As of today, we have been given no reason to think they were aliases, except reasoning backwards from assumed guilt… which isn’t how deduction works.

In fact, there’s more than enough reason to assume they aren’t aliases – Firstly, they passed the visa check, secondly their passports were never questioned, thirdly they’ve used them before (see below), and finally… just WHY would a Russian spy-come-assassin use a fake Russian name and a fake Russian passport? That’s ridiculous.

The officers’ assignment was covert. They were coming to Britain not as tourists but as assassins.

[citation needed]

Their target was Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who spied for British intelligence, got caught and was freed in a spy exchange in 2010. They were heading for his home in provincial Salisbury.

Luke doesn’t feel the need to dig down into the nitty gritty here – motive is a trifle, to be added in the footnotes or made up on the spur of the moment when asked at a book signing. I’m a bit more fussy than that – I feel the need to ask “Why did they release him in 2010 and then try to kill him in 2018?” If they had wanted to kill him, why not just do it when he was in prison in Russia between 2006 and 2010? If they wanted to kill him… why do it just weeks before the World Cup? What could they possibly have to gain?

Luke doesn’t know, and neither do I.

Their Aeroflot flight SU2588 touched down at 3pm on Friday 2 March. They were recorded on CCTV going through passport control, Boshirov with dark hair and a goatee beard, Petrov unshaven and wearing a blue gingham shirt. Both were carrying satchels slung casually over the shoulder.

This is all true, and completely unnecessary. It’s what we in the industry call “filler” or “padding”. Totally meaningless and useless words that do nothing but take up space. Without it, a lot of Luke’s books would only be about 700 words long.

According to police, the pair had visited the UK before.

Way to bury the lead there, Luke.

This is actually quite important isn’t it? I mean, when did they visit the UK before? Did they visit Salisbury then too? Did they have any contact with Sergei Skripal? Were they travelling under the same names? Were these visits linked with other intelligence work? Were they just holidays? What kind of assassins would use the SAME FAKE IDS ON TWO DIFFERENT OCCASIONS?

These are all very important questions, but Luke doesn’t ask them. Because Luke is a modern journalist, and they don’t interrogate the claims of the state, just report them. To Guardian reporters a question mark is just that funny squiggle next to the shift key.

From Gatwick they caught the train to London Victoria station and then the tube to east London, where they checked in to the City Stay hotel in Bow. It was a low-profile choice of accommodation. The red-brick Victorian building is next to a branch of Barclays bank, a busy train line and a wall daubed with graffiti. Across the road is a car pound and a Texaco garage.

This just more filler. Totally meaningless packaging material. The prose equivalent of All-Bran.

On hostile territory, Boshirov and Petrov operated in the manner of classic intelligence operatives.

In this instance “the manner of classic intelligence operatives” means, flying direct to London from Moscow, using Russian names and Russian passports (which you’ve used before), checking into a hotel with a CCTV camera on the front door, going straight to the hometown of an ex-double agent, leaving a Russian poison his front door even though he’s already gone out, dumping your unused poison in a charity bin on the high street, going back to your hotel, smearing poison around that too even though you already dumped it, and then flying directly back to Moscow without even waiting to see if the plan worked and the target is dead.

This, in Luke’s head, is ace intelligence work.

On the day of the hit, according to detectives, the pair made a similar journey, taking the 8.05am train from Waterloo to Salisbury and arriving at 11.48am.

Yes, they arrived at 11.48, making it absolutely pointless to put poison on the Skripal’s door, as they had already gone out.

The perfume bottle was probably concealed in a light grey backpack carried by Petrov.

It was “probably concealed” in that backpack because, as I said above, there’s no evidence either of those men ever knew the perfume bottle existed. You never see it in their possession.

Oh, and the backpack would have to contain TWO bottles of perfume – because the police aren’t sure the bottle Rowley found 3 months later was the same bottle, and Rowley reported it was unopened and wrapped in cellophane. Perhaps Luke should have read the details of the case instead of trolling IMDB looking for movie titles with “plane” in them or googling “insouciant” to see if he was using it right.

From Salisbury station the two men set off on foot. It was a short walk of about a mile to Skripal’s semi-detached home in Christie Miller Road.

… which doesn’t matter, because the Skripals weren’t there. They left at 9.15 and there is no evidence they ever returned.

At Skripal’s house the Russians smeared or sprayed novichok on to the front door handle, police say.

… which doesn’t matter, because the Skripals weren’t there. They left at 9.15 and there is no evidence they ever returned.

It doesn’t matter if Borishov and Petrov re-tiled the bathroom with novichok grouting or hid novichok in the battery compartment of Sergei’s TV remote or replaced all his lightbulbs with novichok bombs that explode when you use the clapper…. according to everything we’ve been told so far Sergei and Julia were literally never in that house again.

Luke seems to write a lot about this case, considering he is barely acquainted with the most basic facts of it.

The moment went unobserved

True. There is not a single piece of footage, photograph or eyewitness placing these men within a hundred feet of the Skripals, or their house. The “moment went unobserved” is an incredibly dishonest way of phrasing this, “the moment is entirely theoretical” is rather fairer. Or, if you want to be honest “it’s possible none of this happened”.

At some point on their walk back they must have tossed away the bottle, which at this point was too dangerous to try to smuggle back through customs.

It’s all falling into place perfectly isn’t it?

At some point the two men, who we never see holding or carrying the bottle, must have thrown it away because three months later someone else found it.

They took it through customs once but couldn’t a second time, because reasons.

Also one of them was smiling a sort of “I just poisoned somebody” smile:

At 1.05pm the men were recorded in Fisherton Street on their way back to the station. They appeared more relaxed, Petrov grinning even.

Those evil bastards.

By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a park bench in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the poisoners were gone.

No Luke: By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a park bench in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the ALLEGED poisoners were gone.

Alleged is an important word for example, there is a marked difference between being an ALLEGED plagiarist, and being a plagiarist.

The visitors were captured on CCTV one more time, at Heathrow airport. It was 7.28pm and both men were going through security, Petrov first, wheeling a small black case. In his right hand was a shiny red object, his Russian passport. Police believe the passport was genuine, his name not. In other words, that it was a sophisticated espionage operation carried out by a state or state entities.

You see? Nobody thought the passport was fake, which means it was a really good fake. So the Russian state must have been in on it. This is known as an unfalsifiable hypothesis. If the passport did look fake, that would be evidence that the men were spies… and therefore the Russian state was in on it.

Harding has created a narrative where there is literally no development that could ever challenge his conclusions.

Seemingly, the GRU plan – executed two weeks before Russia’s presidential election – had worked perfectly.

This is an example of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy – two things happen at the same time, therefore they happen for the same reason. It’s a maneuver we at OffG refer to as “the Harding”, where you state two separate assertions or facts one after the other in such a way as to imply a relationship, without ever making a solid statement. I’ll give you an example:

Luke Harding was born in 1968, mere weeks before the brutal assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Harding is suggesting some sort of connection between the election and the poisoning. He can’t STATE it, because then he has to explain his reasoning – and there isn’t any. Putin, and Russia as a whole, had nothing to gain from poisoning an ex-spy they had released nearly a decade earlier, especially on the eve of a Presidential election and mere weeks before the World Cup. There’s no argument to be made, so he doesn’t attempt to make one, he just makes a snide and baseless insinuation.

In his defense, Luke might genuinely believe it, cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a favorite amongst paranoid personalities, of which Luke is definitely a prime example.

Vladimir Putin, the man whom a public inquiry found in 2016 had “probably” signed off on the operation to kill Litvinenko. The UK security services say a “body of evidence” points to the GRU.

“Probably” is also a big word. For example, there’s a marked difference between “probably being a plagiarist” and “being a plagiarist”.

It seems clear that Moscow continues to view Britain as a playground for undercover operations and is relatively insouciant about the consequences, diplomatic and political. The Skripal attack may have misfired. But the message, mingling contempt and arrogance, is there for all to see: we can smite our enemies whenever and wherever we want, and there is nothing you can do about it.

This is the second time Luke has used the word “insouciant” in two days, which means that word of the day calendar was probably a sound investment, but he forgot to flip it over this morning.

Other than that, this final paragraph is nothing but paranoia.

The Russians were TRYING to make it obvious, to send a message. But were also lazy and arrogant. And yet also left no solid evidence because they are experts at espionage. They had no motive except being mean, and couldn’t even be bothered to make sure they did it right. They want us all to know they did it, but will never admit it.

The actual truth of the situation can be summed up in a few bullet points. Currently:

  • There is no evidence these men were using forged documents.
  • There is no evidence these men were travelling under aliases or assumed names.
  • There is no evidence these men ever had any contact with Sergei Skripal’s house.
  • There is no evidence these men ever had any contact with Sergei Skripal or his daughter.
  • There is no evidence these men were Russian intelligence assets or had any military training.
  • There is no evidence these men ever possessed or had any contact with the perfume bottle found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th.
  • They have visited the UK before, not on intelligence business (as far as we know).
  • Their movements don’t align with the timeline of Skripal’s illness.

The entire narrative is created around half a dozen screen caps of two (allegedly) Russian men, not behaving in any way illegally or even suspiciously. All the rest is fiction, created by a hack to service an agenda. This isn’t one of those “You couldn’t make it up” stories, it’s not that incredible. It’s just insulting and stupid.

You could make it up, and he did.

September 6, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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.

 

September 6, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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.”

September 6, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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.

September 5, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

US meddles in Russian affairs by trying to turn our citizens into informants – Kremlin

RT | September 3, 2018

In recent years, the US has been meddling in Russian affairs by “very crudely” trying to recruit Russians as informants, while exerting moral and other types of pressure on them, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson said on Monday.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was commenting on a recent story published in the New York Times, stating that in 2014-2016, the FBI and the US Department of Justice tried to recruit Russian business tycoon Oleg Deripaska as an informant.

According to the paper, US officials wanted to make the businessman share information on Russian organized crime and the alleged Russian aid to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Considering that businessmen like Deripaska are “major shareholders and top managers of major companies,” including those operating in “quite sensitive segments of the Russian economy,” attempts to recruit them constitute “attempts to meddle in Russia’s domestic affairs,” Peskov said.

The US Intelligence Community and lawmakers have been accusing Russia of interfering in the American election process by waging cyberattacks and ‘propaganda’ against US citizens.

In June, the US federal grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and three entities with organizing a campaign “supporting” then-candidate Trump and “disparaging” his then-rival Hillary Clinton. US officials also accuse the Kremlin of hacking the server of the Democratic National Committee and the email account of the head of the Clinton campaign, John Podesta.

The Kremlin had repeatedly denied claims that the Russian state provided any assistance to Trump and emphasized that the US failed to produce substantial evidence of ‘meddling.’ The House Intelligence Committee report, accusing Russia of interfering in the US election, was published but heavily redacted, with the chapter entitled ‘Russia attacks the United States’ completely covered with black lines. The same report found “no evidence” that the Trump campaign “colluded, coordinated, or conspired” with the Russian government.

As for the accusation of waging a ‘propaganda campaign’ on social media, IT giants YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter admitted that the ‘Russian-affiliated’ posts and videos made up just tiny fractions of their feeds.

President Vladimir Putin found the whole idea of Russia transforming the will of US voters ridiculous. “Does anyone seriously think that Russia can somehow influence the choice of the American people?” Putin said back in 2016.

“Is America some sort of a banana republic?” he asked rhetorically. “America is a great state. Correct me, please, if I’m wrong.”

September 3, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Desperate for collusion proof, FBI ‘tried & failed to recruit Russian oligarchs’ – report

RT | September 2, 2018

FBI agents tried to turn Russia’s once-richest man into a US mole, according to an explosive NYT report. It claims that Oleg Deripaska was one of six oligarchs targeted for information in a Russiagate-related intelligence flop.

According to reports by the New York Times, the US government pushed oligarchs with perceived links to President Vladimir Putin for information. Deripaska was allegedly nudged to give up information on Russian organized crime and “possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign.”

Determined to get something on the Kremlin’s unproven involvement in the 2016 election, FBI agents reportedly turned up unannounced at Deripaska’s New York home to quiz him about his ex-business partner Paul Manafort – who went on to lead Trump’s election campaign – and Manafort’s links to Russia.

Despite the US government’s repeated attempts to gather intelligence from him, Deripaska told the US Department of Justice that he had no information to provide. Sources told the NYT that Deripaska disagreed with the agents’ opinion that Russia had colluded with the US in Trump’s election campaign. He also slammed theories about Manafort’s alleged role as “preposterous,” even though the two men were involved in a “bitter business dispute.” He is also said to have notified the Kremlin about the US government’s failed efforts to recruit him.

It is understood that Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and former British spy Christopher Steele – who was responsible for the infamous Trump-Russia ‘dirty dossier’ – were involved in the attempt to turn Russian oligarchs into US informants. The report said that the US government tried to entice Deripaska with promises to relieve him of previous visa issues stemming from past legal problems, but their attempts to win over the aluminum magnate and other Russian oligarchs appear to have failed.

In April, Deripaska and his company were hit by sweeping US sanctions, with Washington accusing him of links to crime, various abuses and even of ordering a murder.

The report comes as Trump took to Twitter to accuse the Department of Justice and FBI of “corruption” over the “Russia hoax.” The president also accused the DOJ and FBI of being “completely out to lunch” in a series of tweets, in which he insisted that “no information was ever given by the Trump Team to Russia”.

September 2, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #6 – The Meal and The Drink

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 30, 2018

In the last two pieces, I have focused on the official timeline of events on March 4th, as stated by The Metropolitan Police on 17th March. In Part #4, I concentrated on the fact that the timeline has not been updated since 17th March to let us know what the Skripals were doing on the morning of 4th March, even though this information is both important and readily available. Then in Part #5, I focused on another very important event that occurred on the afternoon of 4th March, which has been omitted altogether from the timeline: the duck feed. Given that the duck feed occurred after the official narrative says the Skripals were poisoned, but before they went to Zizzis and The Mill, that piece of information alone is enough to completely discredit the official narrative. Which is perhaps why it has been left out.

I want to now focus on one last part of the timeline, which is not something that has been left out, as in the case of the missing 4 hours and the duck feed, but something that appears to have been inverted into the wrong order. Once again, let’s begin with the official timeline:

Saturday 3rd March

14.40hrs on Saturday 3 March: Yulia arrives at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Russia.

Sunday 4th March

09.15hrs on Sunday, 4 March: Sergei’s car is seen in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road.

13.30hrs: Sergei’s car is seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre.

13:40hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings. At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre.

14.20hrs: They dine at Zizzi Restaurant.

15:35hrs: They leave Zizzi Restaurant.

16.15hrs: Emergency services receive a report from a member of the public and police arrive at the scene within minutes, where they find Sergei and Yulia extremely ill on a park bench near the restaurant.

I noted in the previous piece that the timeline is astonishingly vague in places. No more is this so than regarding the visit to The Mill Pub. As a general rule, when there is such vagueness in an official timeline, it must either be because the information that might clarify things is not available, or because those producing the timeline are attempting to conceal something or detract attention.

Is the information available? Of course, and from a number of sources. Firstly, there are a number of CCTV cameras covering The Maltings, and no less than 12 in The Mill itself, all of which could be checked and the timestamps noted. Secondly, according to witnesses the Skripals are known to have ordered two glasses of white wine whilst in The Mill, and so the cash register or card payment would have registered the time of purchase. Thirdly, there were a number of witnesses who claimed to have seen the Skripals both in the pub and the restaurant. Fourthly, Sergei and Yulia’s phones could be tracked to see where they were and when, assuming they were traceable. And fifthly, as I have repeatedly pointed out, Sergei and Yulia are alive, apparently well, and so can be asked to fill in the details.

But if the information is there, why is the timeline so vague?

To answer that, I want to turn to some of the earlier reports, which rely on witness statements to piece together details about the Skripals’ movements. All of these reports appeared prior to the release of the Metropolitan Police’s timeline and, as you will see, there is something very striking about them:

“Sergei Skripal went for a drink with his daughter at 3pm at The Mill in Salisbury after eating at a Zizzi Italian restaurant. In the pub, they ordered two glasses of wine before Mr Skripal went to use the toilet. The witness, who did not want to be named, said that when he returned he appeared as if he was drunk. He said Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia then left immediately without finishing their drinks.”
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180310/281625305816856

 

“It is not clear when the Skripals were confronted, having left a branch of Italian restaurant chain Zizzi between 2pm and 3pm. After leaving the restaurant, they are thought to have gone to a nearby a pub called The Mill. They were then seen walking through a shopping precinct and found on a bench overlooking the Avon shortly after 4pm.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5473177/Woman-40s-taken-hospital.html

 

“The Skripals had eaten lunch in Italian restaurant chain Zizzi in the centre of Salisbury on Sunday. They are believed to have left between 2pm and 3pm and gone to a nearby pub called The Mill before being found later on a bench overlooking the Avon.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/emergency-services-called-to-building-next-to-zizzi-restaurant-at-centre-of-russian-spy-poison-plot-a3784031.html

 

“A witness told detectives he saw a man with a black mask covering his nose and mouth acting suspiciously around 3pm last Sunday. At the time Mr Skripal and Yulia were thought to be in the Mill pub a few yards away.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5486163/Fears-Russian-spy-poisoned-bouquet-flowers.html

 

“Witnesses have said that after eating at Zizzi’s restaurant they went to the Mill pub where Mr Skripal appeared unsteady on his feet, as if “drunk” – even though he had only ordered a single glass of white wine – suggesting the effects of the nerve agent were rapidly taking effect.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/10/poisoned-police-officer-not-hero-just-job/

 

“Officers yesterday took CCTV from inside The Mill. They had gone into The Mill pub following a meal in a Zizzi restaurant.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5742937/cops-hunt-blonde-woman-seen-on-cctv-20-mins-before-ex-russian-spy-spy-sergei-skripal-and-daughter-yulia-were-poisoned/

 

“Steve Cooper, who was at the Mill pub with his wife and dog for a couple of hours last Sunday afternoon, told the BBC he was outraged. Some of his friends, who had been in the pub at the same time and seen Mr Skripal head to the toilet, could not remember what they had been wearing that day, he added. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43362673
When was Mr Cooper in The Mill? Here’s what he said in an interview with ITV:
‘We’d been sitting on the very bench at around 3pm and then moved onto The Mill Pub and left there at 4:45pm where we saw the air ambulance.’”
https://www.facebook.com/itvnewsmeridian/videos/1699234906804241/

 

In fact, there are three very striking things about these reports:

  • Firstly, they all contradict the official timeline by stating that Sergei and Yulia Skripal went to Zizzis first, then on to The Mill.
  • Secondly, a number of them suggest that the Skripals were in the pub at around 3pm, rather than between 1:40 and 2:20, as the official timeline suggests.
  • Thirdly, they are based on the testimony of witnesses, whereas I have yet to see a single witness statement that backs up the order of events suggested in the official timeline.

But if those reports leave you unpersuaded that the Skripals visited Zizzis first, followed by The Mill, there is more. In this early report in The Times, not only is the sequence stated as Zizzis then The Mill, but there is also an interesting detail. It is said that the Skripals left Zizzis 45 minutes after arriving, before going onto The Mill:

“Within 45 minutes the pair had left and it is assumed that they took the short stroll to The Mill.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-spy-sergei-skripal-was-easy-to-find-at-pub-restaurant-or-railway-club-t80jfbjxm

This same detail was mentioned in another article, this time in The Mail, which carried the following statement by another witness:

“He was going absolutely crazy, I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t understand him. They had not been seen for a little while by the front of house staff, but I think it was more than that. He just wanted his food and to go. He was just shouting and losing his temper. I would have asked him to leave. He just said, “I want my food and my bill”. ‘The waiter took him the bill at the same time as the main course, which was unusual. I don’t think they paid all of the bill. I think they were given a discount because he was so angry and agitated. He had to wait about 20 minutes for his main course. I think it was easier for the staff just to give him money to leave as he was so angry. They were sitting by themselves at the back of the restaurant but I think people were pleased when they left. They were only there for about 45 minutes. It was a quick lunch. He just wanted to get out of there. She was silent, perhaps embarrassed.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5470455/How-poisoned-spy-plot-unfolded-Salisbury.html

Notice how this 45 minutes does not fit into the official timeline. There it is said that they arrived at Zizzis at 14:20 and left at 15:35. By my reckoning, this is 75 minutes. Not 45. And in any case, the 75 minutes would make a nonsense of his apparent agitation at having to wait 20 minutes for his main course.

Put all this together and what can we say?

Firstly: we can be confident that the original reports, based on various witness statements and all claiming that the Skripals went to Zizzis first and then The Mill, are accurate.

Secondly: we can therefore be confident that the official timeline, which places the visit to The Mill before the visit to Zizzis, but which is backed up by no public witness statements, is wrong.

Thirdly: we can construct our own timeline of that part of the day, which although not official, and differing from the official timeline, does at least have the benefit of getting things in the right order:

13:40hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings.

13:45hrs: Sergei is seen on CCTV feeding ducks near the Avon Playground, and handing bread to three boys, none of whom seem to have been affected by a nerve agent.

13:50-14:00hrs: The Skripals enter Zizzi Restaurant.

14:35-14:45hrs: They leave Zizzis and walk to The Bishops Mill Pub.

All of which begins to answer the question of why the official timeline is so vague. It is vague because the order of events it posits is incorrect. Furthermore – and I’m sorry to say that I can think of no other plausible reason, given the “cloud of witnesses” mentioned above – it is vague because the order of events it suggests is deliberately incorrect. That is, it appears that a decision has been taken to ignore all the early reports, and to discard all that witness testimony, and instead to advance a timeline that is based on no public witness statements, using the vague and woolly statement, “At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre”.

Which raises a number of important questions:

  1. Why have investigators ignored a large number of reports and witness statements, and have instead produced a timeline that is not backed up by any public testimony?
  2. Why have the media organisations who came up with the Zizzis to Mill order of events after speaking to witnesses, not questioned the Metropolitan Police timeline and its implication that their reports were “fake news”?
  3. Why do those who constructed the timeline seem so keen to avoid people concluding what the early reports state, which is that after leaving Zizzis, the Skripals were in The Mill at around 3pm?

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #1 – The Motive

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #2 – The Intent

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #3 – The Capability

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #4 – The Missing Four Hours

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #5 – The Feeding of the Ducks

The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #6 – The Meal and The Drink

August 31, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Imagine if the BBC Were Honest

By Craig Murray | August 30, 2018

The BBC refuses to answer my Skripal questions to Mark Urban on the grounds they have no legal obligation, instead giving a “statement”. That correspondence follows below. But I want you first to imagine a World in which the BBC and Mark Urban were honest and independent, and imagine these were the answers to my questions:

1) When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
My interviews with Sergei Skripal were on a strictly off the record basis and I felt honour bound not to mention them until I could obtain his permission.

2) You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal’s MI6 handler, Pablo Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the years and how often do you communicate?
I had not heard from Pablo Miller for decades, since I left the army.

3) When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you meet Miller separately?
I did not meet Miller.

4) Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
Yes, with Skripal.

5) When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your discussions with Skripal?
A book on Russian intelligence.

6) Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
I don’t know.

7) Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
No.

8) Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
No.

9) In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal’s telephone may have been bugged. Since January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the matter above.
That was my only contact with the intelligence services on this matter.

Does anybody imagine that, if those were indeed the answers, Mark Urban and the BBC would not freely give those answers, and show up their accusers as “conspiracy theorists” with no foundation?

If those were the answers, they would be shouting them from the rooftops.

And indeed the BBC statement, while refusing to answer the questions directly, does give responses to questions 1, 4 and 5 which are along the lines of this outcome were they behaving honestly, though their phrasing does not carry conviction, especially on 1.

The questions the BBC has refused to address at all are all those related to Pablo Miller, UK intelligence services and the Steele Orbis dossier on Trump/Russia. That is an extremely telling omission. Their attempt to issue a statement rather than address the questions individually, is a deliberate ruse to disguise that.

On a balance of probabilities measure, I am willing to take the BBC’s refusal to answer these very specific questions as strong evidence that the Skripal case is indeed about Miller, Steele, Orbis and the Trump/Russia dossier. Furthermore the BBC knows that and is deliberately concealing the truth, and instead broadcasting evidence free nonsense about Russian agents, knowing that to be untrue. If that were not the case, it would take the BBC quite literally two minutes to give the answers above. There would be no downside for the BBC in giving those answers; indeed they would be vindicated to a sceptical public.

I asked you to imagine those answers were true. In asking us to imagine a better world, John Lennon told us “its easy if you try”. Sadly I find it is not easy. It is not easy to imagine a world in which Mark Urban is not a morally repugnant lying shill for the security services, that takes a very great deal of effort.

Here is the BBC statement and ensuing correspondence:

From: Matthew Hunter
Sent: 29 August 2018 09:42
To: ‘is’
Subject: BBC Newsnight

Dear Mr Murray,

Matt Hunter in the BBC News Press Team.

I understand you contacted Mark Urban on Monday with regards to meetings he had with Sergei Skripal. Some of the information you’ve requested we are not obliged to share as it is held for purposes of journalism, but I can provide you with a more general response regarding Mark’s meetings with Mr Skripal.

Mark Urban met with Sergei Skripal on a number of occasions last Summer in Salisbury and last spoke to him on the phone in August, 7 months before the poisoning. Mr Skripal agreed to speak to Mark to assist with his research for his latest book on post-Cold War espionage, it was not discussed with Mr Skripal whether the information would be used for the BBC ahead of the book being published. The relevant information gained from these interviews informed Newsnight’s coverage during the early days after the poisoning. Mr Urban reported his meetings with Mr Skripal on BBC Newsnight once the details of the book were made public in keeping with the understood terms of the interview. Mark Urban’s line managers were aware last year that he was working on a book and more specifically from 5th March this year that this work had included interviews with Mr Skripal.

I hope these details help clarify the situation.

Please note that all future journalistic enquiries should be made through the BBC Press Office (press.office@bbc.co.uk).

Thank you for your enquiry.

Best wishes
Matt

Matt Hunter – Publicist
BBC News & Current Affairs

——–

From: craig murray [mailto:craigmurray@mail.ru]
Sent: 29 August 2018 14:23
To: Matthew Hunter; Mark Urban
Subject: RE: BBC Newsnight

Dear Mr Hunter,

Thank you for your email. This is an important matter, which interests a great many people, as I am sure you are aware, and which has caused some damage to the reputation of the BBC.

You state that ” Some of the information you’ve requested we are not obliged to share as it is held for purposes of journalism”. My questions were not couched as an FOI request so that is a redundant provision, even if your broad interpretation of the FOIA were correct, which I dispute.

Your email then proceeds on the basis that you should not reveal anything unless you are legally obliged to do so. That seems a very strange stance for a public broadcast body to take. Whether or not you are legally obliged to do so, can I ask you to give the answer to these questions to Mr Urban, or in each case an explanation for why you refuse to give an answer voluntarily, even if legally unobliged.

What is at stake here is the BBC’s reputation for open and honest reporting, and this particular case has done a great deal to increase public distrust in the BBC. All of these are fair and relevant questions which have simple answers. Kindly address them individually.

My questions to Mark Urban:

1. When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
2. You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal’s MI6 handler, Pablo Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the years and how often do you communicate?
3. When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you meet Miller separately?
4. Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
5. When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your discussions with Skripal?
6. Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
7. Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
8. Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
9. In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal’s telephone may have been bugged. Since January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the matter above.

I look forward to your response,

Craig Murray

———-

From: Matthew Hunter
Sent: 29 August 2018 15:09
To: ‘craig murray’
Subject: RE: BBC Newsnight

I’m afraid we have no further comment beyond the statement provided earlier.

Many thanks,
Matt

———–

From: craig murray
Sent: 29 August 2018 18:22
To: Matthew Hunter
Subject: RE: BBC Newsnight

Oh, so it was a “statement” rather than a reply to my questions.

May I ask you who drafted the statement, who approved it, and who was consulted on it? The statement, incidentally, does not constitute journalism, so you do have a legal obligation to answer those questions.

Craig

August 30, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Vital’ US moles in the Kremlin go missing!

By Stephen F. Cohen | The Nation | August 30, 2018

According to New York Times intel leakers, “informants close to” Putin have “gone silent.” What can it all mean?

For nearly two years, mostly vacuous (though malignant) Russiagate allegations have drowned out truly significant news directly affecting America’s place in the world. In recent days, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron declared  “Europe can no longer rely on the United States to provide its security,” calling for instead a broader kind of security “and particularly doing it in cooperation with Russia.” About the same time, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin met to expand and solidify an essential energy partnership by agreeing to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, despite US attempts to abort it. Earlier, on August 22, the Afghan Taliban announced it would attend its first ever major peace conference – in Moscow, without US participation.

Thus does the world turn, and not to the wishes of Washington. Such news would, one might think, elicit extensive reporting and analysis in the American mainstream media. But amid all this, on August 25, the ever-eager New York Times published yet another front-page Russiagate story – one that, if true, would be sensational, though hardly anyone seemed to notice. According to the Times’ regular Intel leakers, US intelligence agencies, presumably the CIA, has had multiple “informants close to… Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details” about Russiagate for two years. Now, however, “the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent.” The Times laces the story with misdeeds questionably attributed to Putin and equally untrustworthy commentators, as well as a mistranslated Putin statement that incorrectly has him saying all “traitors” should be killed. Standard US media fare these days when fact-checkers seem not to be required for Russia coverage. But the sensation of the article is that the US had moles in Putin’s office.

Skeptical or credulous readers will react to the Times story as they might. Actually, an initial, lesser version of it first appeared in the Washington Post, an equally hospitable intel platform, on December 15, 2017. I found it implausible for much the same reasons I had previously found Christopher Steele’s “Dossier,” also purportedly based on “Kremlin sources,” implausible. But the Times’ new, expanded version of the mole story raises more and larger questions.

If US intelligence really had such a priceless asset in Putin’s office – the Post report implied only one, the Times writes of more than one – imagine what they could reveal about Enemy No. 1 Putin’s intentions abroad and at home, perhaps daily – why would any American intel official disclose this information to any media at the risk of being charged with a treasonous capital offense? And now more than once? Or, since “the Kremlin” closely monitors US media, at the risk of having the no less treasonous Russian informants identified and severely punished? Presumably this is why the Times’ leakers insist that the “silent” moles are still alive, though how they know we are not told. All of this is even more implausible. Certainly, the Times article asks no critical questions.

But why leak the mole story again, and now? Stripped of extraneous financial improprieties, failures to register as foreign lobbyists, tacky lifestyles, and sex having nothing to do with Russia, the gravamen of the Russiagate narrative remains what it has always been: Putin ordered Russian operatives to “meddle” in the US 2016 presidential election in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and Putin is now plotting to “attack” the November congressional elections in order to get a Congress he wants. The more Robert Mueller and his supporting media investigates, the less evidence actually turns up, and when it seemingly does, it has to be considerably massaged or misrepresented.

Nor are “meddling” and “interfering” in the other’s domestic policy new in Russian-American relations. Tsar Alexander II intervened militarily on the side of the Union in the American Civil War. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to fight the Reds in the Russian Civil War. The Communist International, founded in Moscow in 1919, and its successor organizations financed American activists, electoral candidates, ideological schools, and pro-Soviet bookstores for decades in the United States. With the support of the Clinton administration, American electoral advisers encamped in Moscow to help rig Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996. And that’s the bigger “meddling” apart from the decades-long “propaganda and disinformation” churned out by both sides, often via forbidden short-wave radio. Unless some conclusive evidence appears, Russian social media and other meddling in the 2016 presidential election was little more than old habits in modern-day forms. (Not incidentally, the Times story suggests that US Intel had been hacking the Kremlin, or trying to, for many years. This too should not shock us.)

The real novelty of Russiagate is the allegation that a Kremlin leader, Putin, personally gave orders to affect the outcome of an American presidential election. In this regard, Russiagaters have produced even less evidence, only suppositions without facts or much logic. With the Russiagate narrative being frayed by time and fruitless investigations, the “mole in the Kremlin” may have seemed a ploy needed to keep the conspiracy theory moving forward, presumably toward Trump’s removal from office by whatever means. And hence the temptation to play the mole card again, now, as yet more investigations generate smoke but no smoking gun.

The pretext of the Times story is that Putin is preparing an attack on the upcoming November elections, but the once-“vital,” now-silent moles are not providing the “crucial details.” Even if the story is entirely bogus, consider the damage it is doing. Russiagate allegations have already de-legitimized a presidential election, and a presidency, in the minds of many Americans. The Times’ updated, expanded version may do the same to congressional elections and the next Congress. If so, there is an “attack on American democracy” – not by Putin or Trump but by whoever godfathered and repeatedly inflated Russiagate.

As I have argued previously, such evidence that exists points to John Brennan and James Clapper, President Obama’s head of the CIA and director of national intelligence respectively, even though attention has been focused on the FBI. Indeed, the Times story reminds us of how central “intelligence” actors have been in this saga. Arguably, Russiagate has brought us to the worst American political crisis since the Civil War and the most dangerous relations with Russia in history. Until Brennan, Clapper, and their closest collaborators are required to testify under oath about the real origins of Russiagate, these crises will grow.

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)

READ MORE:

Russiagate’s ‘core narrative’ has always lacked actual evidence – Stephen Cohen

August 30, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

US Intel, Media Spread Fake Reports on Alleged Russian Election Meddling

Sputnik – 29.08.2018

WASHINGTON – US intelligence officials and the American mainstream media have been propagating false Russia meddling claims to undermine pro-Trump congressional candidates ahead of the midterm elections, analysts told Sputnik.

In particular, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing unnamed intelligence officials, that US sources in the Kremlin who had warned about Russian intervention in the US 2016 presidential election “had gone silent” and now the CIA is in the dark about Moscow’s plans vis-a-vis the upcoming congressional midterm elections.

In November, US voters go to the polls to elect lawmakers who will represent their respective states at the federal level. The midterm elections will determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress and will be seen by many as a referendum on the sitting president’s performance.

US intelligence leaders, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, without any evidence have been warning that Russia will likely interfere in the midterm elections. Coats and others have also claimed that Russia is waging an influence campaign via social media.

Former US Defense Department adviser Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik that she had doubts about the reliability of the New York Times report and intelligence community claims.

“Reading between the lines of this article, it seems as if politicized members of the US intelligence establishment — including people like Dan Coats — are hedging their bets,” she said.

Coats and his colleagues were getting on record their ‘concern’ about Russia interference in these upcoming elections in the event of an unexpected wave of support for President Donald Trump, Kwiatkowski explained.

The New York Times report, claiming that the United States had human sources inside the Kremlin appeared to be based on false assumptions and to be part of a wider strategy to try and convince US public opinion about a non-existent Russian plot to influence the elections, Kwiatkowski cautioned.

“In terms of this article, I suspect it is wrong in its assumptions, and is part of a larger domestic propaganda effort,” Kwiatkowski said.

Kwiatkowski pointed out the remarkable lack of evidence to support US allegations of Russia’s meddling in the 2018 midterm elections.

“The American intelligence apparatus is ‘concerned’ that the Russians are trying to pick and choose candidates in midterm elections — 435 Congressional elections and 33 plus Senate elections — but they don’t have any information about this activity that they ‘know’ is happening,” the former Pentagon aide said. “This isn’t how intelligence is done. It is however how agendas are pushed, and propaganda rejuvenated.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who was referred to in the New York Times article, lacked any credibility based on his documented record, Kwiatkowski noted.

“Brennan is an unreliable source, extremely biased, a known liar and he’s currently angrier than usual. With his clearance suspended, he may be receiving less information from his friends in the government, and maybe that’s what he is complaining about,” Kwiatkowski said.

Former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong, who once served as a political official at Ottawa’s embassy in Moscow, told Sputnik that The New York Times report was written to try and sustain flagging interest and support the diminishing credibility of the fiction that Russia intervened in the 2016 US elections.

“The writers are trying to keep the conspiracy going in the hope that the Democrats will control the House and shut down all examination of what really happened,” Armstrong said.

Fake News

However, the fantasy that Russian involvement had cost the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton the 2016 election was supported by no evidence whatsoever, Armstrong emphasized.

“This is nonsense on stilts and only can be twisted into a question if you believe — as New York Times consumers do as a matter of faith — that Russia ‘interfered’ in the first place,” Armstrong said.

No evidence has been produced other than the “fantasies” in the unsubstantiated dossier produced by former UK spy Christopher Steele.

The only plausible content in the New York Times story was the assertion that Moscow had expelled many of Washington’s intelligence assets in Russia, Armstrong observed.

Kwiatkowski pointed out that the real manipulation of US elections was done by countries that had a historically shared culture with the United States.

The UK’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad, Kwiatkowski said, are far more active in US elections, at many levels, than the Russians could ever hope to be.

“It’s nice for The New York Times to be able not to talk about these risks — in part because Trump is not the candidate these two countries would prefer,” Kwiatkowski concluded.

In January 2017, a US intelligence community report that contained zero evidence claimed that Moscow tried to meddle in the US election process. Moscow has repeatedly denied interfering in US elections as such actions would run counter to the principles and practices of Russian foreign policy.

August 29, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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