Neutral and unbiased? Why ‘think tanks’ lobby for war in Syria
By Danielle Ryan | RT | April 17, 2018
When US President Donald Trump fired a barrage of Tomahawk missiles at Syrian government targets last week, it was a good day for defense contractors, at least.
In the aftermath of the strike, which Trump claimed was in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government, stocks in Tomahawk missile manufacturer Raytheon surged. Raytheon stock has climbed more than 18 percent in 2018 so far. In fact, stocks in defense companies have been climbing in general since Trump entered office promising “historic” increases in military spending.
Almost a year ago to the day, Trump delivered another bump to the defense companies after attacking Syrian government positions for the first time – also in response to an alleged chemical attack, evidence for which remains in question.
After that strike Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics also rose, gaining nearly $5 billion in market value when trading began the next day, even as the wider market slumped.
Later, when Trump appointed the famously militaristic John Bolton as his national security adviser in March, guess what happened? Shares in US energy and defense companies surged yet again. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out: war is profitable. The more missiles Trump fires, the more money these companies make.
But where do the think tanks come in?
There is a pervasive myth that Washington DC ‘think tanks’ are neutral and unbiased players in foreign policy analysis. But where do these centers for foreign policy ‘analysis’ get their money from? You guessed it: defense companies.
There are a few think tanks which dominate in American foreign policy debates. They include the Center For European Policy Analysis (CEPA), the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund (GMF), the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation. All five of them receive generous donations from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Three of them also receive funding from the Boeing Company.
Corporations like Exxon Mobil, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Bell Helicopter are also big donors to think tanks. Bell Helicopter is a funder of CEPA, while Exxon funds Brookings, GMF and the Atlantic Council. BAE Systems donates to CEPA, while Northrop Grumman gives to the Atlantic Council. This is not to even mention the money they get directly from US government departments and NATO, which also helps explain their consistently anti-Russian analysis.
Nonetheless, these think tanks enjoy an undue air of independence. Experts who work for these defense contractor-funded institutes are quoted frequently in mainstream newspapers and invited on mainstream channels, where they are presented as independent voices. But those independent voices somehow always seem to be in favor of policies that benefit weapons manufacturers.
War profiteers are filling their coffers in return for ‘analysis’ which promotes military action and massively inflates the threat posed to America by countries like Russia, for example.
A glance at the Twitter feed of CEPA reveals almost obsession-like focus on the so-called threat from Russia. In 2016, the Lockheed and BAE Systems-funded think tank suggested in a report on information warfare that people who have “fallen victim to Kremlin propaganda” should be “deradicalized” in special programs.
The NATO-funded Atlantic Council has consistently lobbied for regime change in Syria. In the days surrounding Trump’s military actions against Syria last week, the Atlantic Council published multiple pieces of analysis and interviews with a single theme: that Trump did not or would not go far enough with one night of strikes. Earlier, when the alleged chemical attack took place, the think tank argued that Syrian President Bashar Assad was “indulging an addiction” and called on the US to take new military action against him. For some reason, diplomacy does not seem to be high on the Atlantic Council’s agenda.
It seems the more money defense contractors throw at think tanks, the more those think tanks will argue in favor of the military policies that will make those companies the most money. It’s a vicious cycle, but one which doesn’t take much think tank-style ‘analysis’ to figure out.
The sad thing for the think tank lobbyists, is that the money they make calling for war is nothing in comparison to the money Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing and the rest make from it. Maybe they should ask for a raise.
The Skripal case & the perils of a rush to judgment
By James O’Neill | OffGuardian | April 16, 2018
The perils of coming to premature conclusions before all the facts are available has been starkly demonstrated by the latest developments in the alleged nerve gas attack upon the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English town of Salisbury on 4 March 2018.
Followers of this particular saga will be aware that British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have made a series of statements to the United Kingdom House of Commons and to the media. They alleged, without qualification, that the Skripals were poisoned with a nerve agent of the “Novichok” class, of a type “developed by Russia.”
That these statements were made before it was possible for the British chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down to have made an analysis and reached a scientifically valid conclusion did not matter. The object of the exercise was to demonize Russia in general and its President Mr Putin in particular.
As serious questions about the United Kingdom’s version of events were increasingly raised, the government’s explanations changed, along with increasingly bizarre allegations. The one common denominator to all of these “explanations” was that they were devoid of that troublesome substance known as “evidence.”
Very belatedly, and contrary to their obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the United Kingdom made a request to the OPCW to conduct an independent investigation. While this investigation was ongoing, the propaganda continued unabated. One aspect of that was the United Kingdom persuading a number of its NATO and EU allies, plus Australia to expel Russian diplomats.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a media release on 27 March that blamed the Skripal attack upon Russia, relying on
advice from the United Kingdom government that the substance used on 4 March was a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia……….. The attack is part of a pattern of reckless and deliberate conduct by the Russian state that constitutes a growing threat to international security, global non-proliferation rules against the use of chemical weapons, the rights of other sovereign nations and the international rules based order that underpins them.
Russia’s denials of culpability were disregarded.
The OPCW has now issued its report dated 12th April 2018. At the time of writing (15 April) there has been no mention of this report, much less its implications, in the Australian mainstream media. The report is in two versions. The first part, headed Note by the Technical Secretariat was released for public use. The second and more detailed version was released to all nations who were parties to the CWC, which includes Australia.
Even the two page summary report contains valuable information. The first revelation is that the samples collected by the OPCW technical team that went to the United Kingdom on 21 March 2018 (17 days after the attack on the Skripals) were of a “high purity.”
The alleged significance of this is that it could only have been produced in a very sophisticated laboratory, which almost certainly rules out any resources other than those of an advanced nation state.
The second point is that a “pure toxin” is not a “military grade nerve agent.” This latter phrase is one used by the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary and repeated in Foreign Minister Bishop’s media release. The suggestion to the contrary by Gary Aitkenhead, the CEO of Porton Down, was therefore misleading. Mr Aitkenhead is not a scientist and may not have known better, but he was relying on a statement prepared for him. The Porton Down scientists certainly knew better.
Thirdly, the OPCW summary notes that there were no additives to the substance, which would have been necessary had the substance been applied to the Skripal’s front door handle. That particular version was seriously advanced by Boris Johnson who also claimed to have evidence that Russia had been training its agents for several years in how to apply nerve agents to door handles!
Perhaps needless to add, like most of Mr Johnson’s pronouncements on this topic, this was bereft of evidence and logic, let alone scientific validity.
One of the two most important points in the OPCW summary is that the environmental samples collected by the OPCW technical team were of “high purity” and demonstrated “the almost complete absence of the impurities.” This is literally impossible if the samples related to the time when the OPCW technical team was in the United Kingdom for that purpose. Of the various nerve agents in existence, the most durable is VX, which has a durability of 2 to 3 days, not the three weeks between the attack and the collection of the samples.
The irresistible conclusion is that the places where the samples were taken had evidence planted immediately (within a few hours at most) prior to the OPCW technical team’s arrival at the locations from where the samples were collected. It defies common sense and logic to suggest that the Russians were responsible for the planting of such fake evidence. The most logical candidate is the United Kingdom government or someone acting on their behalf.
That finding alone destroys the argument of the United Kingdom government and its acolytes in the Australian government and media. There was however, a further fatal blow to the UK government’s claims. As noted, the full OPCW report was made available to all governments who were signatories to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
There is no prohibition on any of those governments from publishing the full report or parts thereof. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has released what he claims is another key finding of the report. That is, that the agent used on the Skripals was in fact a substance known as BZ (3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate). BZ is an hallucinogenic incapacitating chemical warfare agent. It afflicts both the peripheral and central nervous systems.
The signs of its use are disorientation, tremors, ataxia, stupor and coma. It is administered by an aerosol spray. These symptoms accord with the descriptions given by eyewitnesses and Salisbury Hospital as to the Skripal’s medical conditions. BZ is not produced in Russia. It is an agent that is used by the United Kingdom and the United States.
When one puts together the now known nature of the substance, its means of delivery and the symptoms that its victims exhibit, it is a further compelling inference that they were “sprayed” at some point between leaving Zizzi’s restaurant and moving to the park bench.
Given the ubiquitousness of CCTV cameras in the vicinity it should be possible to identify the actual perpetrator. One might draw further negative inferences about the UK government and the Police investigation from the fact that no details of the Skripal’s movements at this time have been released.
The British, Australian and other governments who rushed to judgement have a dilemma. Do they attempt to rebut the information that Mr Lavrov released? To try and do so would serve to highlight the revelations and any denials would be easily rebutted by the release of the full report.
On the other hand, ignoring this new evidence inevitably raises further questions about the veracity of the government’s version of events. The details outlined briefly above have already been widely disseminated on the alternative media and at least some British mainstream outlets.
The option that appears to have been taken thus far by the Australian media is to ignore Mr Lavrov’s revelations. Bishop and Turnbull, so recently and frequently condemnatory of alleged chemical warfare misbehaviour by Russia are now completely silent.
Their rush to judgement has now been exposed for the empty propaganda that it was. It is probably too much to expect an apology and a withdrawal of their false claims. Such an apology seems the very least they can do in the light of the actual evidence revealed by the investigation which stands in such stark contrast to the hyperbole and falsehoods perpetrated by the British government and their acolytes.
James O’Neill is a Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He may be contacted it joneill@qldbar.asn.au
Missile Attack on Syria Is a Salute to “Russiagate” Enthusiasts, Whether They Like It or Not
By Norman Solomon | CounterPunch | April 16, 2018
Politicians, pundits and activists who’ve routinely denounced President Trump as a tool of Vladimir Putin can now mull over a major indicator of their cumulative impacts. The U.S.-led missile attack on Syria before dawn Saturday is the latest benchmark for gauging the effects of continually baiting Trump as a puppet of Russia’s president.
Heavyweights of U.S. media — whether outlets such as CNN and MSNBC or key newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post — spent most of the last week clamoring for Trump to order air strikes on Syria. Powerful news organizations have led the way in goading Trump to prove that he’s not a Putin lackey after all.
One of the clearest ways that Trump can offer such proof is to recklessly show he’s willing to risk a catastrophic military confrontation with Russia.
In recent months, the profusion of “war hawks, spies and liars” on national television has been part of a media atmosphere that barely acknowledges what’s at stake with games of chicken between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. Meanwhile, the dominant U.S. news media imbue their reporting with a nationalistic sense of impunity.
On Saturday morning, the top headline on the New York Times website was “U.S. Attacks Syria in Retaliatory Strike,” while the subhead declared that “Western resolve” was at work. The story led off by reporting that Trump “sought to punish President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack near Damascus last weekend that killed more than 40 people.”
Try putting the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Imagine that Russia, with a similar rationale, fired missiles at U.S. ally Saudi Arabia because the Kremlin “sought to punish King Salman for his country’s war crimes in Yemen” — with such reportage appearing under a headline that described the Russian attack as a “retaliatory strike.”
The latest U.S. air attack on Russia’s close ally Syria was as much politically aimed at Moscow as at Damascus. And afterwards, the televised adrenalin-pumped glee was as much an expression of pleasure about striking a blow at Putin as at Assad. After all, ever since Trump took office, the U.S. media and political elites have been exerting enormous pressures on him to polarize with Russia.
But let’s be clear: The pressures have not only been generated by corporate media and the political establishment. Across the United States, a wide range of people including self-described liberals and progressives — as individuals and organizations — have enthusiastically participated in the baiting, cajoling and denouncing of Trump as a Putin tool. That participation has stoked bellicose rhetoric by congressional Democrats, fueling the overall pressure on Trump to escalate tensions with Russia.
What’s really at issue here is not the merits of the Russian government in 2018, any more than the issue was the merits of the Soviet government in 1967 — when President Lyndon Johnson hosted an extensive summit meeting in Glassboro, New Jersey, with Soviet Premier Alexi Kosygin, reducing the chances of nuclear war in the process.
If you keep heading toward a destination, you’re likely to get there. In 2018, by any realistic measure, the escalating conflicts between the United States and Russia — now ominously reaching new heights in Syria — are moving us closer to World War III. It’s time to fully recognize the real dangers and turn around.
The Skripal event and the Douma “gas attack” – two acts in the same drama?
OffGuardian | April 14, 2018
The illegal air strikes on Syria by the coalition of the guilty (US, France, UK) have happened, to no one’s great surprise. As such things go all current indications are that they were more token than anything else. The Russians are saying around 100 missiles were fired at an unclear number of targets, of which around 70% were intercepted. Syrian General Staff are reporting 3 injuries and no deaths. Mattis was at pains to say this was a one-off, though adding the reckless caveat that any further evidence of chemical weapons usage by Assad might change that (thus giving every lunatic or CIA/neocon-controlled cell in Syria a pure gold motive for a false fag).
Compared to how bad this might have been, this is a fairly harmless result for the present.
We’ve resisted the temptation to do any kind of analysis of things so far, preferring to let them play out and to document developments and opinions. But maybe this is a good time to offer a tentative overview of what seems to have been going on in the past weeks.
1) The Douma “gas attack” was likely faked
The only evidence we have for any “gas attack” in Douma on April 7 is the video released on April 7-8, showing piles of corpses, mostly children, some with foam around their mouths. When, where or how the video was made is not verifiable. Who killed the children shown or how they died is not verifiable. Additionally we have images of an alleged “gas canister”, again without any sourcing or verification, and which have been widely suggested to be implausible. And there is Bellingcat (Eliot Higgins), contributing his usual brand of “comparisons” of images and Google maps, adding nothing that could be described even loosely as verification of the salient claims.
In opposition to this the Russians are claiming the event was staged. They allege their armed forces entered Douma shortly after the alleged attack and claim to have found no evidence of chemical weapons usage, no witnesses and no victims.
They have also released video statements by two young men claiming to be doctors at the hospital. They describe people running in to the hospital screaming that there had been a chemical attack, inciting panic among the people there, and “unqualified” people administering to children, giving them “asthma inhalers.” However, he says, there were no victims of such a chemical treated there, only victims of smoke inhalation from recent shelling and subsequent fires.
There is also the notable reluctance by US Defense Secretary, James Mattis to fully endorse the reality of this narrative. Even on April 12, just hours before the air strikes were to be implemented, he was still publicly saying he had seen no evidence to show the gas attacks happened or who may have been responsible. Given his senior position on the Trump administration, and his previously gungho attitude to military adventurism, this is significant.
Of greatest potential significance is the claim by the Russian foreign ministry that they have evidence the UK government was directly involved in staging the fake attack or encouraging a false flag. So far they haven’t released this data, so we can’t comment further at this time.
2) Primarily UK initiative?
The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a) about the verifiability of the attacks, and b) about the dangers of a military response, suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure. Trump’s attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation. But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma “initiative” is a continuation of their long term policy. It’s also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense.
A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.
You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.
The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation.
The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed by Mattis have been heard from the lips of any UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?) voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.
Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma “attack” and a tentative story-line emerges.
The Skripal consideration
Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn’t this way. Since some time in mid to late March it’s been clear the entire thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.
The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences where cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.
The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.
1) It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
2) Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
3) It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the “toxic substance” found in the Skripals’ blood is omitted, and the only thing tying it to the UK government’s public claims of “novichok” is association by inference and proximity. Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, “novichok” may indeed not have been found in those samples at all and the active substance was a compound called “BZ”, a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America. (more about that later).
None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.
The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn’t want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has “specially trained officers… helping to take care of” her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it’s hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.
Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative, snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can’t completely control.
Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess?
Is this what happened?
If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that’s been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East.
So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?
Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?
Did this cancellation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?
This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma “attack” seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed UK government is less appealing.
If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and “responded “ to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law.
This is very bad.
But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.
This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it’s unlikely that will happen. So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn into this.
Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more “reprisals”? Or will this signal some other change in direction?
We’ll all know soon enough.
Syria chemical attack: Theresa May says Assad’s allies should be held to account
RT | April 9, 2018
Prime Minister Theresa May said all supporters of Syria’s leader Bashar Assad should be held to account over an alleged chemical attack on a formerly rebel-held town. Russia says there is currently no evidence of the attack.
Speaking in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Tory leader said that if allegations of a chemical attack against the town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta are confirmed, Assad – along with his allies, which include Iran and Russia – should pay the price.
“Yes, this is about the actions, the brutal actions of Assad and his regime, but it’s also about the backers of that regime. And, of course, Russia is one of those backers,” May said during a news conference in Denmark.
“This is a brutal regime that is attacking its own people, and we are very clear that it must be held to account, and its backers must be held to account too,” she told reporters as she stood beside her Danish counterpart, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a close ally.
Allegations of the attack in Eastern Ghouta on Saturday, which is thought to have killed 70 people, were reported by the humanitarian aid group, the White Helmets. The group, however, has itself been repeatedly accused of having ties to terrorists.
Syria and Russia have rejected the claims as “fabrication,” while Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said no evidence has been found of chemical weapons being deployed in Douma.
Theresa May’s comments come after the US and France threatened a “joint, strong response,” with US President Donald Trump tweeting that there will be a “big price to pay” for the attack.
Skripal Poison Case Becoming British Hostage Scenario
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 09.04.2018
The British denial of a visitor visa to a Skripal family relative from Russia is fueling concern that the whole affair is far more sinister than what the British government and media have been claiming.
Far from the Skripal father and daughter being the alleged victims of a Russian assassination plot, it now seems increasingly apparent that they are being held against their will by Britain’s authorities. In short, hostages of the British state.
From the outset of the alleged poisoning incident in Salisbury on March 4, the official British narrative has been pocked suspiciously with inconsistencies. The lightning-fast rush to judgment by the British government – within days – to blame the Kremlin for “a brazen murder attempt” was perhaps the main giveaway that the narrative was following a script and foregone conclusion to incriminate Russia.
Last week, the saga took several significant twists raising more doubts about the official British narrative. First, British scientists at the Porton Down warfare laboratory admitted that they hadn’t in fact confirmed the alleged nerve agent used against the Skripals originated from Russia. That admission spectacularly exposed earlier British government claims as false, if not barefaced lies.
Secondly, it emerged that potentially key witness-material was destroyed by the British. Three pet animals in the Salisbury home of Sergei Skripal were declared dead and their remains incinerated. Autopsies could have shed light on the nature of the alleged nerve agent used against the Skripals. Why were the animal remains incinerated? And why did the British authorities disclose the fate of the animals only after the matter was raised by the Russian envoy to the UN Security Council on Thursday?
Thirdly, there is the strangely callous way that the British authorities have refused a visitor visa to a Skripal family relative from Russia who was intending to fly to England to be with her relatives while they are reportedly recuperating from the alleged poison attack.
Russian national Victoria Skripal revealed on Friday to Russian news media that she was refused a visa by British authorities to visit her relatives – cousin Yulia and uncle Sergei – who are reportedly confined to a hospital in Salisbury.
The day before her visa application was rejected, Victoria had a brief telephone conversation with Yulia. It appears that Victoria recorded the conversation and made it available to Russian media to broadcast. The transcript shows that Yulia’s words were guarded. She was obviously not comfortable with speaking freely. Their phone call ended abruptly. But she did manage to advise her cousin in Russia that the latter would probably not be granted a visitor visa. Why would she say such a thing?
British media quickly tried to smear the Russian cousin, Victoria. A BBC journalist said that the British authorities “suspected that Victoria was being used as a pawn by the Kremlin”. Russian’s foreign ministry hit back at that suggestion, saying it was a despicable slur.
For her part, Victoria Skripal told Russian media that she thinks the British authorities have “something to hide” by refusing to grant her a permit to Britain in order to visit her cousin and uncle. Was her visa application rejected by the British authorities because she had the “audacity” to record the phone call with her cousin and make it available to Russian media?
Far more plausible is not that Victoria is a “Kremlin pawn” but that the British fear that Victoria would not be a “London pawn”. The worst thing for the British authorities would be for an independent-minded Skripal relative coming to the Salisbury hospital and asking critical questions about the nature of why her relatives are being held there.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if several other Skripal relatives in Russia were to make similar applications for visitor visas to Britain. Surely, the British authorities could not turn them all down?
For over a month now since the March 4 incident in Salisbury, the Russian consular representatives in Britain have not been allowed access to the Skripal pair, allegedly being treated in hospital.
Fair enough, Sergei Skripal is a disgraced former Russian spy who had been living in England for nearly eight years. He was exiled there by Moscow as part of a spy-swap with Britain’s foreign intelligence MI6 whom Skripal had served as a double agent. It is believed he was given British citizenship by the London authorities.
However, his daughter, 33-year-old Yulia, is a citizen of the Russian Federation. She was visiting her father on holiday when the pair became ill – apparently from exposure to a nerve agent – while sitting in a public park in Salisbury.
Yulia and the Russian authorities are therefore entitled under international law to have consular contact. The Russian embassy in London has been repeatedly denied access by the British authorities to one of its citizens. On the face of it, that is an outrageous breach of international law by the British.
Significantly, Yulia did not express to her cousin during their phone conversation that she did not want to see the Russian consular people. That phone call was obviously initiated by Yulia. Her Russian-based cousin at one point asked her, “Is this your phone?”.
How Yulia got use of the phone is a good question. Was it a hospital staff member who felt obliged to allow her a quick call home? Evidently, the call was held in a rushed manner, and Yulia felt constrained to talk in detail about her confinement. And why would she warn her cousin in Russia that the latter would not be given a visa before the application result was known?
It is speculated in British media – most probably at the behest of briefings by shadowy state officials – that Yulia Skripal does not want to see her cousin, or the Russian consular representatives. Even though Yulia did not express that in her phone call. If Yulia didn’t want to see her cousin, why would she bother calling her, apparently out of the blue?
The speculation about Yulia’s preferences are based on the official British premise that the Russian state attempted to carry out an assassination with a toxic chemical on her father. It is therefore insinuated by the official British narrative that Yulia would not want to see the Russian authorities.
But that logic depends entirely on the plausibility of the British version of events. That is, that a Russian state operation used a Russian nerve agent to try to kill Sergei Skripal, and his daughter as collateral damage.
That British version has relied totally on assertion, innuendo and unverified claims made by politicians briefed by secret services. Claims which we are now seeing to be unfounded, as the Porton Down scientists disclosed last week.
At no point have the British produced any evidence to substantiate their high-flown allegations against Russia. Indeed, Britain refuses to give Russia access to alleged samples in order to carry out an independent chemical analysis.
The entire British case relies on a presumption of guilt and a despicable prejudice towards Russia as a malicious actor. That’s it entirely. British prejudice and contempt for due process.
However, what if the Russian government were correct? What if the British state carried out a macabre false flag operation by stealthily injuring the Skripals with some kind of chemical in order to blame it on Russia? For the plausible purpose of adding one more smear campaign in order to demonize and delegitimize Russia as an international power.
No doubt, the situation is disturbing and disorientating especially for Yulia Skripal who apparently was simply visiting her father in England for a happy family reunion.
More sinister, however, is the apparent lack of free will being afforded to Yulia Skripal. The British official position simply conflates their innuendo of a Russian plot, an innuendo which is increasingly untenable.
The denial of a visitor visa to Yulia’s family relatives from Russia points to the sinister conclusion that the British authorities are engaging in a macabre propaganda stunt. Moreover, a propaganda stunt involving the criminal assault on a Russian citizen and the ongoing illegal detention of that citizen.
New Italian Government to Trigger Crisis in EU
By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 07.04.2018
The formal consultations on forming a new coalition government in Italy kicked off on April 4. The center-right coalition led by the anti-migrant League won 37% of the vote to control the most parliamentary seats while the populist 5-Star Movement won almost 33% to become the single party with the highest number of votes. Neither of them can govern alone. It does not make great difference who President Sergio Mattarella will entrust with the task to form a coalition government: the leader of the center-right League, Matteo Salvini, or Five Star’s Luigi De Mayo. The outcome will be the same – the EU will face a crisis over its Russia policy. By and large, the two are at one on the issue – they want the Russia sanctions lifted.
The Five Star is not simply Eurosceptic; it’s openly anti-EU. The movement has always been known as “part of a growing club of Kremlin sympathizers in the West”. It shares a pro-Moscow outlook with the League. “STOP absurd Russia sanctions” tweeted Matteo Salvini to make his position known. It coincides with the opinion of Ernesto Ferlenghi, the President of Confindustria Russia, a non-profit association, who asks for government’s support of Italian businesses operating in Russia. Both agree that the sanctions hurt Italian economy. Salvini lambasted his country’s decision to expel Russian diplomats over the so-called spy poisoning case. In March, he signed a cooperation agreement with United Russia party.
It’s almost certain that Italy, the 3rd-largest national economy in the eurozone, the 8th-largest by nominal GDP in the world, and the 12th-largest by GDP (PPP), will question the wisdom of sanctions war. No doubt, it will be backed by a number of countries, including Greece, Austria, Cyprus, Hungary etc. If not for pressure exercised by the EU and German leadership, the sanctions would have been eased, or even lifted, long ago, especially as Great Britain is on the way out of the bloc. The Skripal scandal can delay the discussions but not for a long time. It will die away. If there were a solid proof to bolster the accusations against Moscow, it would have been presented to public without procrastination to fuel the anti-Russia sentiments. It has not been done. The scandal is doomed to fade away gradually.
The expedience of diplomats’ expulsions has been questioned in almost all EU member states, including Germany. Its newly appointed Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insists that Europe needs Russia as an ally to solve regional conflicts. According to him, “We are open to dialogue and are counting on building confidence again bit by bit, if Russia is ready to do so.”
Austria and Greece have refused to join so far but if such a big country as Italy joins them, the EU will be in a tight spot. The sanctions are to be prolonged in early fall but Rome will block their automatic extension. Italy is too big and important to be easily made to kneel. This is an EU founding nation. The bloc is facing serious cracks and adding more bones of contention will put into question its very existence. Under the circumstances, gradual easing of sanctions to ultimately lift them is the best solution for the EU. That will put the US and Europe on a collision course, especially at a time the divisions over the Nord Stream-2 gas project go on deepening.
US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has recently stated that Russia is no friend of the US. Moscow is well aware that Washington is not its friend either. It’s not about friendship but rather the need for a dialogue on equal terms to address burning issues of mutual interests.
As one can see, the US hostility toward Russia does not strengthen its standing in the world. Quite to the contrary, it makes the gap wider to alienate European allies. The relationship is complicated enough as it is. The pressure exercised by the US and the UK, its staunch European ally, to involve the EU into the anti-Russia campaign provokes stiff resistance. Its strong alliances, not disagreements with close partners that make great powers stronger.
The CAATSA law that allows punitive measures against European allies, the divisions over the Iran deal being probably decertified by the US in May, the European resistance to the US tariff policy and a lot of other things undermine the West’s alliance the US considers itself the leader of. Adding Russia to the list of European grievances hardly makes the US position in the world stronger. By ratcheting up anti-Moscow sentiments it hurts itself to make the “America First” policy much less effective than it could be, if outright hostility gave place to business-like dialogue.
Looks like those who wish Russia ill have lost an important ally. The more effort is applied to hurt Moscow, the more damage is done to West’s unity.
London’s Sincerity in Quest for Truth of Skripal Case in Serious Doubt
Sputnik – April 7, 2018
Anton Utkin, a former UN chemical weapons inspector in Iraq, told Sputnik that the decisions by the UK with regard to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal demonstrate that London isn’t truly committed to getting to the bottom of the case.
According to the chemical weapons expert, right now London is “sitting an examination” on the sincerity of its objective quest for the truth in the attack on Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found unconscious at a shopping center on March 4, which the UK promptly accused Russia of orchestrating.
“London’s disinclination to provide any information on the case, its unwillingness to cooperate and reluctance to openly investigate the matter so that everybody understands their moves and what is going on, indicates that the exam hasn’t been passed,” Utkin told Sputnik.
As for the accusations by UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that Moscow tried to undermine the independent inquiry of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) by proposing a joint UK-Russia investigation into the matter at the emergency session of the OPCW Executive Council, the expert said that the joint investigation would be self-defeating for the UK.
“I’m afraid London wouldn’t be able to accept the results that it would be possible to achieve within a joint investigation,” he said, “They will fight it tooth and nail.”
The analyst also pointed out that OPCW was invited by the UK to provide “technical assistance” rather than inspection.
“Inspection has a unique right to collect samples wherever its wants and interview whoever it believes is relevant, while the OPCW technical assistance delegation has no such rights. It can collect samples where it is allowed to and interview only those approved [by the UK],” Utkin said.
“And taking into account that it is a technical assistance, in accordance with the confidentiality agreement under the OPCW concord, technically the results of the analysis shouldn’t be made public,” he explained.
Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the OPCW, said Wednesday that the results of the sample analyses of the substance used to poison Skripal and his daughter were expected to be received by early next week.
“Once the results of the analyses of the samples are received, the secretariat will produce a report on the basis of these results and will transmit a copy of this report to the United Kingdom,” he said.
According to Uzumcu, the United Kingdom has expressed its wish to be “as transparent as possible” and has already indicated its preference to disclose the report to other state parties of the OPCW. According to Utkin, it is still possible that London will change its mind, taking into account that suspicions are accumulating around the UK’s accusations against Russia.
He stressed that the UK has already violated a number of provisions of the OPCW convention; for instance, by failing to make efforts to settle controversial issues through the exchange of information and consultations and by issuing an ultimatum, with Peter Wilson, permanent representative of the UK to the OPCW, demanding explanations from Russia within 24 hours, while Russia was given no information on what it should explain.
“In accordance with the the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the party is given 10 days to respond, but after 24 hours had passed, Russia was accused, and that was it,” the expert noted.
He said that what Russia can do is abandon moves dependent on voting by the organization’s Executive Council and simply continue staying within the bounds of the convention, as it has so far. On March 13, upon being faced with all the ungrounded allegations, Russia requested that the UK provide the necessary information and offered to switch to a dialogue mode, in accordance with article 9.2.
“Russia offers all ways of cooperation but stumbles across unwillingness to cooperate,” Utkin said, adding that the Convention allows for a number of steps to overcome this reluctance.
For example, Russia can submit a request via the Executive Council asking explanation from the UK, which would mean that without negotiating on the issue all 41 countries would demand that London provides the information. Or via a similar request Russia can demand details from all the countries that at some point produced Novichok, the nerve agent in the case. At a recent Executive Council session Russia provided information backed by evidence on a number of countries where the nerve agent could be produced.
“I believe it is becoming obvious that many countries made haste by following the UK demarche”, Utkin concluded.
See also:
Moscow: UK Justification for Refusal to Grant Skripal’s Niece Visa “Doesn’t Hold Water”
Skripal relative denied visa to visit UK and return poisoned relatives to Russia
RT | April 6, 2018
Sergei Skripal’s niece has been denied a visa to enter the UK after claiming she would come and take her relatives back to Russia.
Viktoria Skripal had planned to travel to Britain after her uncle Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were exposed to a chemical agent in Salisbury on March 4.
The UK Home Office said on Friday that Viktoria is not being granted a visa to come to the UK. “We have refused a visitor visa application from Viktoria Skripal on the grounds that her application did not comply with the Immigration Rules,” a Home Office spokesman said.
Viktoria was behind the first public statements from either of the Skripals and the world’s media this week when she released a recording of a phone call with her cousin Yulia.
In the clip, the two discussed Viktoria getting a visa. Yulia flatly told her she would not be granted one.
“Vika, nobody will give you a visa,” Yulia said.
She said she and her father were fine and there were no life changing injuries. She gave little detail other than to say they would address one issue at a time.
Russian Ambassador Alexander Yakavenko said the embassy is currently getting its information from the mainstream media, after being locked out of Britain’s investigation. He says requests for access to the Skripals have been repeatedly denied.
Media Warn of ‘Russian Bots’—Despite Primary Source’s Disavowal
By Adam Johnson | FAIR | April 5, 2018
Washington Post (4/2/18)
One could forgive the average reader for thinking reporters covering bots had been replaced by bots. The formula is something we’ve seen a million times now: After a controversial story breaks, media outlets insist that “Russian bots” used the controversy to “sow discord” or “exploit tensions”; a “Russian bot dashboard” is offered as proof. (These “dashboards” let one see what Russian bots—automated online persona controlled by the Kremlin—are allegedly “pushing” on social media.)
The substance of the concern or discord is underreported or ignored altogether. Online conflict is neatly dismissed as a Kremlin psyop, the narrative of Russia interference in every aspect of our lives is reinforced, and one is reminded to be “aware” of Russian trolls online.
Note the latest iteration of this story:
- Russian Bots Are Rallying Behind Embattled Fox News Host Laura Ingraham as Advertisers Dump Her Show (Business Insider, 4/1/16)
- Russian Bots Defend Fox News Pundit Laura Ingraham as Advertisers Leave Following David Hogg Tweet (Newsweek, 4/2/18)
- Russian Bots Are Tweeting Their Support of Embattled Fox News Host Laura Ingraham (Washington Post, 4/2/18)
- Russian Bots Flock to Laura Ingraham Feud With Parkland Student: Report (The Hill, 4/2/18)
- Russian Bots Rush to Laura Ingraham’s Defense in David Hogg Feud (Washington Times, 4/2/18)
Not to be confused with the Russian bots that were heard from after the Austin bombings from last month:
- Russian Social Accounts Adding to Complaints That Austin Bombings Aren’t Being Covered (NPR, 3/19/18)
- Fallout of Austin Bombings Exposes Racial Tensions, Russian Bots and Media Distrust (France 24, 4/1/18)
- Russian Bots Were Sowing Discord During Hunt for Austin Bomber, Group Says (Houston Chronicle, 3/20/18)
Or the bots from Russia that were seen in the wake of the Parkland massacre:
- After Florida School Shooting, Russian ‘Bot’ Army Pounced (New York Times, 2/19/18)
- After the Parkland Shooting, Pro-Russian Bots Are Pushing False-Flag Allegations Again (Washington Post, 2/16/18)
- How Russian Trolls Exploited Parkland Mass Shooting on Social Media (Politifact, 2/22/18)
One problem, though: The “Russian bot dashboard” reporters generally cite as their primary source, Hamilton 68, effectively told reporters to stop writing these pieces six weeks ago. According to a report from Buzzfeed (2/28/18)—hardly a fan of the Kremlin—Russian bot stories are “bullshit”:
The New York Times (2/19/18)
By now you know the drill: massive news event happens, journalists scramble to figure out what’s going on, and within a couple hours the culprit is found — Russian bots.
Russian bots were blamed for driving attention to the Nunes memo, a Republican-authored document on the Trump-Russia probe. They were blamed for pushing for Roy Moore to win in Alabama’s special election. And here they are wading into the gun debate following the Parkland shooting. “[T]he messages from these automated accounts, or bots, were designed to widen the divide and make compromise even more difficult,” wrote the New York Times in a story following the shooting, citing little more than “Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia.”
This is, not to mince words, total bullshit.
The thing is, nearly every time you see a story blaming Russian bots for something, you can be pretty sure that the story can be traced back to a single source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard, founded by a group of respected researchers, including Clint Watts and JM Berger, and currently run under the auspices of the German Marshall Fund.
But even some of the people who popularized that metric now acknowledge it’s become totally overblown.
“I’m not convinced on this bot thing,” said Watts, the cofounder of a project that is widely cited as the main, if not only, source of information on Russian bots.
Watts, the media’s most cited expert on so-called “Russian bots” and co-founder of Hamilton 68, says the narrative is “overdone.” The three primary problems, as Buzzfeed, reported, are:
- The bots on the Hamilton 68 dashboard are not necessarily connected to Russia: “They are not all in Russia,” Watts told Buzzfeed. “We don’t even think they’re all commanded in Russia—at all. We think some of them are legitimately passionate people that are just really into promoting Russia.” (Hamilton 68 doesn’t specify which accounts are viewed as Russian bots; that’s a trade secret.)
- Twitter is clogged with bots, so telling which are Russian and which aren’t is impossible. Bots naturally follow trending or popular stories, like all the stories cited above; how does one distinguish “Russian bot” activity versus normal online trend-chasing?
- Tons of bots are run out of the United States, in totally routine partisan marketing efforts; the singular obsession with Russia lets these shady players off the hook. And, again, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between simply partisan GOP bots and “Russian” ones.
BuzzFeed (2/28/18)
Put another way: These stories are of virtually no news value, other than smearing whichever side the “Russian bots” happened to support, and reinforcing in the public mind that one cannot trust unsanctioned social media accounts. Also that the Russians are hiding in every shadow, waiting to pounce.
Another benefit of the “Russian bots agitate the American public” stories is they prevent us from asking hard questions about our society. After a flurry of African-American Twitter users alleged a racist double standard in the coverage of the Austin bombings in March (which killed two people, both of them black), how did NPR address these concerns? Did it investigate their underlying merit? Did it do media analysis to see if there was, in fact, a dearth of coverage due to the victims’ race? No, it ran a story on how Russia bots were fueling these concerns: “Russian Social Accounts Adding to Complaints That Austin Bombings Aren’t Being Covered” (All Things Considered, 3/19/18):
NPR’s Philip Ewing: Well, there’s two things taking place right now. Some of this is black users on Twitter saying that because some of the victims in this story were not white, this isn’t getting as much attention as another story about bombings, or a series of bombings in the United States, would or should, in this view.
This seems like a pretty serious charge, and would have a lot of historical precedent! Does NPR interrogate this thread further? Does it interview any of these “black users”? No, they move on to the dastardly Russians:
Ewing: But there’s also additional activity taking place on Twitter which appears initially to be connected with the Russian social media agitation that we’ve sort of gotten used to since the 2016 presidential race. There are dashboards and online tools that let us know which accounts are focusing on which hashtags from the Russian influence-mongers who’ve been targeting the United States since 2016, and they, too, have been tweeting about Austin bombings today.
NPR host Ailsa Chang: The theory being that these Russian bots are being used to drive a wedge between groups of people here in the United States about this issue, about the coverage being potentially racist.
Ewing: That’s right.
Nothing to see here! There’s a problem in our society—systemic racism in American media—and rather than an examination of whether it’s affecting coverage here, what the listener gets is yet another boilerplate story about “Russian bots,” the degree, scope and impact of which is wholly unknown, and likely inconsequential. Hesitant to cite Hamilton 68 by name (perhaps because its co-founder mocked this very kind of story a few weeks prior), NPR reporter Ewing simply cites “dashboards and online tools” as his source.
To All Things Considered (3/19/18)
Which ones? It doesn’t really matter, because “Russian bots support X” reports are a conditioning exercise more than a story. The fact that this paint-by-numbers formula is still being applied weeks after the primary source’s co-founder declared himself “not convinced on this bot thing” and called the story “overdone” demonstrates this. The goal is not to convey information or give the reader tools to better understand the world, it’s to give the impression all unrest is artificially contrived by a foreign entity, and that the status quo would otherwise be rainbows and sunshine. And to remind us that the Enemy lurks everywhere, and that no one online without a blue checkmark can be trusted.
Featured Video
Death Spikes & Rising Cancer In Our Youth Explained
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- China pushes back against US on Cuba, Iran
- Ukrainian Soldiers, Potential Mercenaries: Have Gun, Will Travel!
- Burnham’s UN debut… A masterclass in British disinformation
- Iran flights continue despite US aviation sanctions
- Global Tipping Points Lead the World Into a State of Entropy
- The day-after at the White House: USA and Xi Jinping
- The Geopolitical Balance in the Red Sea: The UAE Being Displaced by New Players
- Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade
- Turkish parliament to review Saudi-Pakistan defense pact next month
- DEATH SPIKES & RISING CANCER IN OUR YOUTH EXPLAINED
- If Americans Knew
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
