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British PM pledges to protect Israel, Jews in dig at Corbyn

Press TV – September 18, 2018

Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to protect British Jews and what she called “Israel’s right to defend itself” in what appeared to be a veiled attack on Jeremy Corbyn, who has been accused of tolerating anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

Addressing a dinner held by the United Jewish Israel Appeal, which works to build links between British Jews and Israel, May said she was “sickened” by the idea that some Jews had doubt whether Britain was a safe place to raise their children.

“I have come here tonight as prime minister of our country to say that I stand with you,” she told the crowd Monday night. “I stand with the UJIA. I stand with Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. And I stand with the entire Jewish community in Britain.”

The Labour Party has been mired in rows over what critics describe as its failure to address anti-Semitism among party supporters and its initial reluctance to fully adopt a broader definition of anti-Semitism.

Corbyn, a veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights, has come under attack for criticizing the Israeli regime’s policies, which some view as being anti-Semitic. The Labour leader argued earlier this year that party members should be allowed to criticize Israel.

In August, Britain’s former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks labeled Corbyn anti-Semite and said his 2013 comments about Zionists were the most offensive by a senior British politician in half a century.

Corbyn said five years ago, before he was Labour’s leader, that British Zionists “don’t understand English irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time.”

“If we are to stand up for the values that we share – then one of the things we need to do is give young Jewish people the confidence to be proud of their identity – as British, Jewish and Zionist too,” May said.

“There is no contradiction between these identities – and we must never let anyone try to suggest that there should be.”

In a barely coded message to Corbyn, the prime minister said, “Let me be clear: you cannot claim to be tackling racism, if you are not tackling anti-Semitism.”

Furthermore, May said she was committed to strong economic ties between London and Tel Aviv.

“You can also count on my commitment to Israel’s security,” she said. “I am clear that we will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

September 18, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 3 Comments

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

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 21, 2018

In the first piece in this series exposing the holes in the official narrative of the Salisbury poisonings, I looked at Theresa May’s claim of what she said was “the motive” behind the incident. In this piece I want to move on to what she called “the intent”.

Once again, I turn to the statement she gave to the House of Commons on 26th March, as it essentially sets out sets out the Government case for what happened in Salisbury on 4th March:

“In conclusion, as I have set out, no other country has a combination of the capability, the intent and the motive to carry out such an act.”

What is meant by intent? Here is a definition from the online Legal Dictionary:

“A determination to perform a particular act or to act in a particular manner for a specific reason; an aim or design; a resolution to use a certain means to reach an end.”

Intent is not action. Nor is it motive. Rather, it is the purpose of using deliberate means to bring about a particular result. A prerequisite of showing that a person or a group of people had intent to commit a particular crime, is therefore to show that they did actually commit the crime for which you are alleging they had intent.

Say I were to claim that Brian drove his car into Bob, and that he did so with deliberate intent. If I have shown that Brian did actually drive his car into Bob, then I have the right to build a case that he did so with intent. But what if I have not actually shown that Brian drove his car into Bob? Quite simply, my statement of Brian’s intent is at best nonsense, at worst slander.

To accuse someone of doing something with intent is not therefore something which can be done blithely; rather, it is something which requires, in the first place, hard evidence to show that the person actually carried out the action. According to Mrs May, this is just what she did, since she began her speech by emphatically stating who was guilty of the poisoning:

“Three weeks ago, the Russian Federation was responsible for an attempted murder here in our country.”

And after setting out her “evidence”, such as it was, she stated that:

“In conclusion, as I have set out, no other country has a combination of the capability, the intent and the motive to carry out such an act.”

But what actually was the evidence she presented? Here it is, in all its entirety:

“Mr Speaker, we are quite clear that Russia was responsible for this act. As I set out for the House in my statements earlier this month, our world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down positively identified the chemical used for this act as a Novichok – a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by the Soviet Union.

We know that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations – and that it views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations.

And we have information indicating that within the last decade, Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents probably for assassination – and as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks.”

How much of this constitutes evidence of the guilt of the Russian Government in the Salisbury poisonings? None whatsoever. I will look in more depth at her first piece of evidence in a subsequent article, suffice it to say here that it has been amply demonstrated in many places that:

a) The fact that the Soviet Union, which was dissolved on 26th December 1991, was attempting to develop a certain type of nerve agent says nothing about where the substance used in Salisbury came from or who made it.

b) Numerous other countries have the knowledge and the capacity to create the substance mentioned, and many have in fact done just this.

As for her other two claims, they are just that: claims. Nothing more, nothing less. They in no way constitute evidence of culpability in the Salisbury case, and certainly no court of law would accept them as such. Rather, they are simply general assertions masquerading as evidence, made in the hope that nobody would notice that this is what they are. Apparently it had exactly this effect on the lawmakers in the House she was addressing, since none of them bothered to question her about it.

What Mrs May therefore did in this statement, was to invert the legal process. Rather than proving the case that the Russian Government was behind the Salisbury poisonings, then alleging intent on this basis, she instead alleged responsibility using a series of very general claims, none of which had any specific connection to the Salisbury case, and then used this unproven guilt to allege intent. They were responsible, therefore they had intent. They had intent, therefore they were responsible. All made without any actual evidence of responsibility for the Salisbury incident, and all done without any actual evidence of intent for the Salisbury incident.

I’m almost tempted to say that she used circular reasoning, but this would be an insult to circles, which are beautiful, smooth, symmetrical shapes, as indeed it would be an insult to reasoning. It’s more like a blob. Blobby, messy, meaningless unreason, which apparently none of our nation’s MPs was able or willing to spot and hold her to account for.

There is one more thing. Two days after her statement, the Metropolitan Police Force released an update on the investigation, in which they said the following:

“This is one of the largest and most complex investigations undertaken by British counter terrorism policing and we thank the public for their continued support.

As a result of detailed forensic and scientific examination, detectives believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent at their home address. Specialists have identified the highest concentration of the nerve agent, to-date, as being on the front door of the address.

The Wiltshire Police support to the Counter Terrorism Policing Network investigation remains ongoing and is likely to do so for a number of months. It is an extremely challenging investigation and police and partners continue to manage a number of unique and difficult issues. We thank the public for their continued support.”

Three brief observations. Firstly, the investigation was extremely complex and likely to last a long time, indicating that guilt, let alone intent, cannot possibly have been established at that time. Secondly, investigators had only just begun to establish the place of the poisoning (“detectives believe…”), again indicating that guilt, let alone intent, cannot possibly have been established at that time. Yet in spite of this, Theresa May apparently already knew what happened, and had established responsibility, motive and intent. In which case, why bother wasting all that police time, effort and resources on investigating the incident. They could have saved a bob or two of taxpayers money by just asking Theresa the Seer.

August 21, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | August 18, 2018

When I began writing about the Skripal case, I was moved to do so by three main considerations.

Firstly, I really am passionate for the truth, and whatever the truth happens to be in this case, I strongly desire it to be made manifest. It was clear to me fairly early on that this was not happening.

Secondly, I am also very passionate about concepts such as the rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, and the apparently quaint notion that investigations should precede verdicts, rather than the other way around. And so when I saw accusations being made before the investigation had hardly begun, verdicts being reached before the facts were established, I was appalled — appalled that this was happening in what we British pride ourselves is the Mother of Parliaments, and equally appalled that this meant the investigation was inevitably prejudiced and – pardon the expression – poisoned from the off.

Thirdly, the incident happened to have taken place pretty much on my doorstep, which made it of even more interest to me.

Nothing I have seen in the intervening time has persuaded me that my initial impressions were wrong. In fact, the whiff of rodent I first detected has only become stronger as time has gone on and the case has become — frankly — farcical. Not only that, but the reaction to the case has been simply incredible. For instance, the United States expelled 60 diplomats back in March, and more recently they have effectively declared economic war on the Russian Federation – all in response to unproven and inconsistent assertions of a botched assassination attempt against an old spy in a quiet Wiltshire City. Such a response ought to raise the suspicions of any sentient being that all is not what it appears.

I still do not have any clear idea of what happened on that day, but what I am certain of is that the official narrative is not only untrue, but it is manifestly inconceivable that it could be true. There are simply too many inconsistencies, too many holes and far too many unexplained events for it to be true. And whilst part of me would dearly love to leave this wretched case behind for a while, whilst it is still ongoing, and especially as it is now being used to push us even closer to the brink of war (economic warfare is often a prelude to military warfare), I find that hard to do.

What I would therefore like to do in a series of 10 short pieces over the next couple of weeks or so, is attempt to expose some of the very many holes in the official narrative. At the end of it, I may well put it all together into one PDF, so that it can be sent somewhere, where it can be completely ignored by those that matter. Enjoy!

Number 1: The Motive

In her speech to the House of Commons on 26th March, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, said this:

“In conclusion, as I have set out, no other country has a combination of the capability, the intent and the motive to carry out such an act.”

For the purposes of this piece, I am not interested in her comments on capability or intent, but simply what she describes as “the motive”.

The first question to be asked is this: What exactly does she mean by “the motive”? By including that definite article before the word “motive”, she implies that there is only one “motive” – the motive – and that only one party – the Russian Federation – possessed this. Which is of course manifest nonsense. She might at that stage have said that they possessed “a motive”, but without looking into what Mr Skripal was up to, and the contacts he had, she was in no position to state that they had “the motive”.

Imagine the following scenario: A farmer called Boggis is found shot dead in his barn. It is known that a week earlier, he had a very public quarrel with another landowner, Bunce, about the boundaries between their lands, and that the two of them had to be separated before they came to blows. Could it be said of Bunce that he had “the motive”? Well, it would be reasonable to suggest that he had “a motive”, but without looking into other circumstances and other characters connected with Boggis, it would be disingenuous to claim that he had “the motive” as if only he might have had one.

As it happens, Boggis had been committing adultery with the wife of another neighbouring farmer called Bean, and Bean had found out about this two days before Boggis was found dead. What now? Does Bean have a motive? Very possibly. So too might Boggis’ wife. Perhaps even Bunce’s wife. Who knows without examining the facts more closely?

And so herein lies the first whiff of rodent. Mrs May asserted that the Russian Federation possessed “the motive”, implying that there was only one possibility, which is something that could only be ascertained by proper investigation of Mr Skripal, his circumstances and what he was up to. She therefore committed what is a most basic fallacy in the investigative process.

The second question to ask is this: she says she set out “the motive” in her speech, but what actually was that? Here is what she presented as the motive in her speech:

“We know that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations – and that it views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations.”

This won’t do. Firstly, many countries have records of conducting state-sponsored assassinations, and not always against their own nationals. But secondly, the claim that the Russian Federation “views some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations” is not a motive. At best it is a claim, but it is not a motive. A motive for an attempted murder, such as this, would need to give a reason for carrying it out on that particular person at that particular time. Simply saying that they view some former intelligence officers as legitimate targets for these assassinations does not explain why they are supposed to have decided to assassinate this particular man, at this particular time, especially since they released and pardoned him in 2010. It also does not explain why they apparently decided to wreck all possible future spy swaps, since Mr Skripal had been part of such a deal, and assassinating him would put an end to such deals.

But the most important question to ask is this: are there any other parties with a possible motive for this crime? Even without a particularly careful investigation of the details of Mr Skripal’s life, contacts and circumstances, I can say assuredly that there were. For instance, it is known — although woefully unreported because of a media ban — that Mr Skripal was connected to the man behind the so-called Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele. Personally, I am reasonably convinced that Mr Skripal had a hand in putting this dossier together, given his connections to Steele, and since it was almost certainly authored by a Russian “trained in the KGB tradition”. Might this give a motive to some very powerful groups who are nervous about the origins and details of this dossier coming to light? Yes, of course. Then why is it not a line of possible enquiry? Answers on a postcard to the Department of the Blindingly Obvious.

In summary:

  1. Mrs May had no right to state that the Russian Federation had “the motive”. The best she could have said at that stage, without taking other possibilities into account, was that they had “a motive”.
  1. The motive she does present is particularly feeble and does not explain why the Russian Federation would have wanted Mr Skripal in particular dead, and at that particular time.
  1. Mr Skripal’s recent activities indicate that there were others with possible motives to assassinate or incapacitate him.

August 19, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Blair and Brown Governments Gory with Torture

By Craig Murray | June 29, 2018

Even I was taken aback by the sheer scale of British active involvement in extraordinary rendition revealed by yesterday’s report of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. Dominic Grieve and the committee deserve congratulations for their honesty, integrity and above all persistence. It is plain from the report that 10 Downing Street did everything possible to handicap the work of the committee. Most crucially they were allowed only to interview extremely senior civil servants and not allowed to interview those actively engaged in the torture and rendition programme.

Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.

In fact it is impossible to read paras 9 to 14 without being astonished at the sheer audacity of Theresa May’s attempts to obstruct the inquiry. They were allowed to interview only 4 out of 23 requested witnesses, and those were not allowed “to talk about the specifics of the operations in which they were involved nor fill in any gaps in the timeline”. If the UK had a genuinely free media, this executive obstruction of the Inquiry would be the lead story. Instead it is not mentioned in any corporate or state media, despite the committee report containing a firm protest:

It is worth reflecting that the Tory government has acted time and time again to protect New Labour’s Tony Blair, David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown from any punishment for their complicity in torture, and indeed to limit the information on it available to the public. The truth is that the Tories and New Labour (which includes the vast majority of current Labour MPs) are all a part of the same elite interest group, and when under pressure they stick together as a class against the people.

Despite being hamstrung by government, the Committee managed through exhaustive research of classified documents to pull together evidence of British involvement in extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of detainees on a massive scale. The Committee found 596 individual documented incidents of the security services obtaining “intelligence” from detainee interrogations involving torture or severe mistreatment, ranging from 2 incidents of direct involvement, “13 to 15” of actually being in the room, through those where the US or other authorities admitted to the torture, to those where the detainee told the officer they had been tortured. They found three instances where the UK had paid for rendition flights.

My own evidence to the Committee focused on the over-arching policy framework, and specifically the fact that Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove had agreed a deliberate and considered policy of obtaining intelligence through torture. The report includes disappointingly little of my evidence, as the Committee has taken a very narrow view of its remit to oversee the intelligence agencies. This is the only part of my evidence included:

130. This was not unique to the Agencies. Their sponsoring Departments appear to have adopted the same approach. We heard evidence from a former FCO official, Craig Murray, who suggested that “there was a deliberate policy of not committing the discussion on receipt of intelligence through torture to paper in the Foreign Office”.
In July 2004, when he was Ambassador to Tashkent, he raised concerns about the use of Uzbek intelligence derived from torture in a formal exchange of telegrams with the FCO. Mr Murray drew our attention to FCO documents from the same time, which we have seen, one of which referred to “meetings to look at conditions of receipt of intelligence as a general issue”. He told us that the meetings “specifically discuss[ed] the receipt of intelligence under torture from Uzbekistan” and “were absolutely key to the formation of policy on extraordinary rendition and intelligence”.
Mr Murray told us that, when he had given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee about this, they sought the documents from the FCO which replied that the “meetings were informal meetings and were not minuted ”. He went on to say:
“the idea that you have regular meetings convened at director level, convened by the Director of Security and Intelligence, where you are discussing the receipt of intelligence from torture, and you do not minute those meetings is an impossibility, unless an actual decision or instruction not to minute the meetings has been given.… Were it not for me and my bloody-mindedness, … you would never know those meetings had happened. Nobody would ever know those meetings had happened.”

131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support
Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.

Jack Straw to this day denies knowledge and involvement and famously told Parliament that the whole story about rendition and torture was a “conspiracy theory”.

Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been, and so what on earth a judicial inquiry would start to do I have no idea. I do not think it would be justified.”

In fact I strongly recommend you to read the whole Hansard transcript, from Q21 to Q51, in which Jack Straw carries out the most sustained bravura performance of lying to parliament in modern history. The ISC report makes plain he was repeatedly involved in direct authorisations of rendition operations, while denying to parliament the very existence of such operations.

For over a decade now the British government, be it Red Tory or Blue Tory, has been refusing calls for a proper public inquiry into its collusion with torture. The ISC report was meant to stand in place of such an Inquiry, but all it has done is reveal that there is a huge amount of complicity in torture, much more than we had realised, which the ISC itself states it was precluded from properly investigating because of government restrictions on its operations. It also concluded in a separate report on current issues, that it is unable to state categorically that these practices have stopped.

The Blair and Brown governments were deeply immersed in torture, a practice that increased hatred of the UK in the Muslim world and thus increased the threat of terrorism. Their ministers repeatedly lied about it, including to parliament. The British state has since repeatedly acted to ensure impunity for those involved, from Blair and Straw down to individual security service officers, who are not to be held responsible for their criminal complicity. This impunity of agents of the state is a complete guarantee that these evil practices will continue.

June 29, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

How False Flag Operations Are Carried Out Today

By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 26.04.2018

False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one’s own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre, but it was only “honorable” if one reverted to one’s own flag before engaging in combat.

Today’s false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing honorable about them as their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it did not do. There has been a lot of such activity lately and it was interesting to learn by way of a leak that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has developed a capability to mimic the internet fingerprints of other foreign intelligence services. That means that when the media is trumpeting news reports that the Russians or Chinese hacked into U.S. government websites or the sites of major corporations, it could actually have been the CIA carrying out the intrusion and making it look like it originated in Moscow or Beijing. Given that capability, there has been considerable speculation in the alternative media that it was actually the CIA that interfered in the 2016 national elections in the United States.

False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year’s two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. The most recent reported attack on April 7th might not have occurred at all according to doctors and other witnesses who were actually in Douma. Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful.

The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by “doing something.” If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime.

The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4th. Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. The allegations made by British Prime Minister Theresa May about the claimed nerve agent being “very likely” Russian in origin have been debunked, in part through examination by the U.K.’s own chemical weapons lab. May, under attack even within her own party, needed a good story and a powerful enemy to solidify her own hold on power so false flagging something to Russia probably appeared to be just the ticket as Moscow would hardly be able to deny the “facts” being invented in London. Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA.

The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if “an incident” looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. A bit of caution in assigning blame is appropriate given that the alternative would be a precipitate and likely disproportionate response that could easily escalate into a shooting war.

April 26, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | 1 Comment

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.

April 14, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | 1 Comment

UK Labour leader Corbyn says MPs should have say on military action in Syria

Press TV – April 12, 2018

The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, says members of parliament (MPs) should decide if British Prime Minister Theresa May can join the United States in any military action against Syria in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack.

Corbyn, a veteran anti-war campaigner, also demanded a political process for ending the war in Syria and preventing an escalation of the crisis.

US President Donald Trump has warned of imminent military action in Syria in response to the suspected chemical attack near Damascus on Saturday.

“Parliament should always be given a say on military action,” Corbyn told the BBC on Wednesday when asked about Syria.

“Obviously the situation is very serious, obviously there has to be, now, a demand for a political process to end the war in Syria. We cannot risk an escalation even further than it’s gone already.”

Corbyn also said countries involved should get around a negotiating table to find an end to the civil war by political means.

“What happened last weekend was terrible. What we don’t want is bombardment which leads to escalation and leads to a hot war between Russia and America over the skies of Syria,” he said.

May is considering joining the United States in any military action in Syria.

The British premier is not bound by law to seek parliamentary approval for offensive military action, but many now believe lawmakers should always have a vote before the government takes military action.

On Wednesday May accused Syrian authorities of carrying out the alleged chemical attack, and said she was working with allies on how to hold those responsible to account.

Damascus, in a statement released late on Saturday, strongly rejected the allegation of using chemical munitions and said that the so-called Jaish al-Islam Takfiri terrorist group was repeating the false reports.

The Iranian and Russian governments have also rejected the accusations. Russia and Iran have warned against any US military action against the Syrian government.

April 12, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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.

April 9, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia, War Crimes | , , , , | 11 Comments

Down & out at Porton Down: Embarrassment for the UK’s ‘Rush to Blame Russia’ brigade

By Neil Clark | RT | April 4, 2018

The news that the UK’s own chemical weapons scientists can’t confirm that the nerve agent we’re told was used on the Skripals came from Russia is another blow to the credibility of the UK political and media establishment.

They were oh so sure, weren’t they? Or at least they wanted us to think that. For the past four weeks in Britain, we’ve been subjected to a quite hysterical wave of Russophobia, worse than anything we witnessed even at the height of the old Cold War. The poisoning of former MI6 agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found in a collapsed state on a bench in the cathedral city of Salisbury on Sunday, March 4, led not only to calls for a boycott of the football World Cup in Russia, but for RT to be taken off the air. The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats, and then pressured other European countries to do the same. While on Good Friday, in another provocative move, British authorities boarded an Aeroflot plane at Heathrow Airport.

The important principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ enshrined in Article 11 (1) of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was chucked out of the window. In its place we had ‘guilty until proven innocent.’

Instead of waiting until a full and proper investigation could even begin – let alone be concluded – we had a show trial and sentencing, by media, politicians, and members of neocon think tanks.

Anyone who dared to question the official narrative and didn’t support punishing Russia, faced attack from Imperial Truth Enforcers. Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, who said that Foreign and Commonwealth Office sources had told him that Porton Down scientists were unable to confirm Russian culpability, was labelled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for observing: “The same people who assured you Saddam Hussein had WMDs now assure you Russian ‘Novichok’ nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who condemned the attack but called for a thorough investigation, was savaged not just by the Tories, but also his own Parliamentary party, simply for taking a cautious line in Parliament on March 14.

Thirty-six Labour MPs signed an Early Day Motion – sponsored by arch Corbyn-critic John Woodcock – which declared “This House UNEQUIVOCALLY accepts the Russian state’s culpability for the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal.” The EDM supported the expulsion of Russian diplomats and the calling of a special meeting of the UN Security Council to “discuss Russia’s use of chemical weapons on UK soil.”

Will these MPs now be apologizing to Russia for accusing them of doing something which most definitely has not been proved? Or does supporting a neocon foreign policy mean never having to say you’re sorry?

It’s not just politicians who need to eat some humble pie.

In all my years in journalism, I have never felt so ashamed of my profession as in the last four weeks. The job of the journalist is to ask questions. To find out the truth. To be absolutely fearless in following leads, wherever they may take you. Today in Britain, political journalism means just parroting the official War Party line. It soon became apparent that the government narrative on Salisbury had more holes in it than a slab of Swiss cheese. But we were all expected, like the good little townsfolk in Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘Emperor’s New Clothes,’ not to notice. Newspapers and magazines which should have been holding Theresa May and Boris Johnson to account did nothing of the sort. Suppositions were reported, day after day, as proven fact.

The last four weeks have shown how nothing really changed even after the catastrophe of Iraq. The same pro-war commentators are still in place, robotically churning out their rabidly anti-Russian, anti-Putin diatribes for an ever-dwindling readership.

After the lies told about Iraqi WMDs, you might have thought there would be a bit of ‘mainstream’ skepticism about UK government chemical weapons claims against an ‘Official Enemy’ state, which seem designed to lead us into an even more calamitous war. But no, they all carried on as if the only important thing that had happened in 2003 was Arsenal beating Southampton 1-0 in the FA Cup Final.

Just before the Iraq invasion, I remember asking a Conservative MP at a party if he really believed the guff about Saddam having WMDs. He looked at me and paused, before saying, “Well you’ve got to admit, he’s not a frightfully nice chap.” Today that MP, who clearly didn’t believe the government’s assertions, is the British Foreign Secretary.

Boris Johnson has gone further than any minister down the ‘Russia did it’ line. In an interview with Deutsche Welle on March 20, he said: “they (the scientists at Porton Down) were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt.”

That is flatly contradicted by the statement today of Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, who said, “We have not identified the precise source.”

Just as interesting was Aitkenhead’s response to being asked if Novichok could have emanated from Porton Down itself. “There’s no way that anything like that would ever have come from us… we’ve got the highest standards of control and security,” he said.

Yet in his Deutsche Welle interview, Boris Johnson, in answer to the question: “Does Britain possess samples of it?” (i.e. Novichok), replied, “They (Porton Down) do.” How could Porton Down know the substance used was Novichok if they possessed no samples to test it against?

If samples were stored literally just down the road from where the Skripals were poisoned, surely it’s reasonable to ask whether or not some of them did get out? To maintain, as the UK government does, that no other explanation other than Russian guilt is plausible is clearly nonsense. After going out on a limb on this one, (one suspects in order to curry favor with kingmaker Rupert Murdoch, Boris Johnson’s position as foreign secretary is surely now untenable. Jeremy Corbyn needs to be calling for his resignation – and also that of Prime Minister Theresa May – when he next goes to the House of Commons.

But it’s clear that the UK’s problems go a lot deeper than changing the faces at the top. The Salisbury ‘Rush to Blame Russia,’ before any evidence of Kremlin involvement was produced, proves that we need a clear out of the entire political and media establishment and a move to a more democratic, publicly accountable system. We didn’t get that after Iraq, but we really must get it now.

April 4, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

May blatantly misleads Parliament about Russian “terrorist” law

Theresa May following a tradition of being less than exact in Parliament about a casus belli
OffGuardian | March 14, 2018

When Theresa May said this in the House of Commons today:

While the extra-judicial killing of terrorists and dissidents outside Russia were given legal sanction by the Russian Parliament in 2006.

she was either disgracefully uninformed or was intentionally misleading Parliament on the nature of the Russian laws in question.

Her words completely misrepresent the known and understood facts of the case.

Not only have two experts in Russian law given their view that the laws do not permit the extra-judicial killing of “dissidents” in the manner described, but a British judge ruled in agreement with this conclusion during the Litvinenko Inquiry.

These are the judge’s own words:

The only legal route to extra-territorial action against Mr Litvinenko was therefore under the Terrorism Law. However, action could only have been taken against Mr Litvinenko under this law had he been involved in, or no doubt suspected of involvement in, some form of terrorist activity. Article 3 of the Terrorism Law contains definitions of terrorism and terrorist acts that are broadly conventional, and certainly not as expansive as the definition of ‘extremism’ in the second of the 2006 laws. Mr Batmanov’s letter (above) states that, “Alexander Litvinenko did not make part of a terrorist organization and was not accused by Russian law enforcement bodies of having committed a terrorist crime.” That accords with my understanding of the evidence

On the basis of the evidence currently before me, and in light of the considerations set out above, I am therefore not persuaded that any action could have been taken by the FSB against Mr Litvinenko in 2006 under the terms of either of the 2006 laws.

Put simply, this means the two laws would not have legalised the killing of Litvinenko on foreign soil. And, by extension would not legalise the poisoning of Skripal either.

Alexander Mercouris, a former UK barrister and author of a lengthy study of the Litvinenko Inquiry (published by OffG here and cited above) had this to say to us about May’s words in Parliament today:

Theresa May…was the Home Secretary who – somewhat unwillingly – set up the Litvinenko inquiry, and to whom the inquiry report was formally addressed. It is difficult to believe therefore that she is unaware that there is a British judicial finding that the two Russian laws which were passed in 2006 do not authorise extra judicial assassination attempts such as the one the British say was carried out in 2006 against Litvinenko, or the one which the British say was recently carried out against Skripal – who had of course been previously pardoned for his crimes by the Russian state.

The question arises – if this part of May’s statement contained such a blatant inaccuracy, how much weight can be given to her other as yet unsubstantiated claims of Russian guilt?

Those currently excoriating Jeremy Corbyn for asking for evidence before endorsing what amounts to indirect declarations of war on a nuclear power, might want to consider this fact before continuing on their chosen path.

March 15, 2018 Posted by | Deception | , , , | 4 Comments

PM vows to clamp down on online abuse… despite spending millions vilifying Corbyn

© Joel Goodman/ Global Look Press
RT | February 7, 2018

Prime Minister Theresa May was applauded on Monday when she pledged new measures to tackle online abuse against politicians. But has the Tory leader forgotten about the millions her party spent on smearing Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn?

In a speech marking the centenary of women gaining the right to vote in Britain, the Tory leader said new measures aimed at tackling online abuse will include a new annual report comprising of data on how social media giants moderate alleged abusers.

Speaking in Manchester, May said: “While there is much to celebrate, I worry that our public debate is coarsening. That for some it is harder to disagree, without also demeaning opposing viewpoints in the process.”

She said she will also ask the Law Commission to shake up legislation so it ensures abuse is illegal online just as it is offline.

“In the face of what is a threat to our democracy, I believe that all of us – individuals, governments, and media old and new – must accept our responsibility to help sustain a genuinely pluralist public debate for the future,” May added.

The comments appear to be a bit rich, however, as they come from the leader of a party which reportedly spent millions on a smear campaign against Labour during the 2017 general election.

The Conservatives were accused of circulating ‘dark ads’ on YouTube and Facebook to deter voters in marginal constituencies from voting for Labour. One of the last installments was an 85-second video made up of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches circulated on Facebook with the caption: “On June 9th, this man could be Prime Minister. We can’t let that happen.”

The ad featured a snippet of an interview with Corbyn, given to Sky News in May 2016, received a widespread backlash as it erroneously framed the Labour leader as condoning IRA bombings. The Labour boss had argued: “All bombing is wrong, of course I condemn [IRA bombings].”

The video was only built to show the channel’s news anchor Sophy Ridge asking, “but you’re condemning all bombing, can you condemn the IRA without equating it to…?” to which Corbyn is heard adding “no.”

In the full footage, however, Corbyn goes on to say: “No, I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process. Listen, in the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution, it clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British Army at the time… I condemn all the bombing by the loyalists and the IRA.”

Corbyn representatives said the Tories were “running a hateful campaign based on smears, innuendo and fake news.”

Labour also sent out ads, but they focused on policies to appeal to the party’s supporters rather than attacking their rivals.

February 7, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

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