Portonblimp Down – A Tale By Boris Johnson
By Craig Murray | March 19, 2018
“Comrade Putin, we have successfully stockpiled novichoks in secret for ten years, and kept them hidden from the OPCW inspectors. We have also trained our agents in secret novichok assassination techniques. The programme has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but now we are ready. Naturally, the first time we use it we will expose our secret and suffer massive international blowback. So who should be our first target? The head of a foreign intelligence agency? A leading jihadist rebel in Syria? A key nuclear scientist? Even a Head of State?”
“No, Tovarich. There is this old retired guy I know living in Salisbury. We released him from jail years ago…”
WARNING If you harbour any doubts at all about the plausibility of Mr Johnson’s story, you are a crazed conspiracy theorist and a traitor. Plus you will never, ever get employed in the BBC or corporate media.
Boris Johnson Issues Completely New Story on “Russian Novichoks”
By Craig Murray | March 18, 2018
Boris Johnson has attempted to renew the faltering case for blaming Russia ahead of the investigation into the Skripal attack, by issuing a fundamentally new story that completely changes – and very radically strengthens – the government line on what it knows. You can see the long Foreign and Commonwealth Office Statement here.
This is the sensational new claim which all the propaganda sheets are running with:
The Foreign Secretary revealed this morning that we have information indicating that within the last decade, Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents likely for assassination. And part of this programme has involved producing and stockpiling quantities of novichok. This is a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
This is an astonishing claim and requires close investigation. If this information comes from MI5 or MI6, there is a process of inter-departmental clearance that has to be gone through before it can be put in the public domain – even by a Minister – which is known as “Action-on”. I have been through the process personally many times when working as head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, monitoring Iraqi arms acquisitions. It is not, unless actually at war, a Saturday night process – it would have had to have been done on Friday.
So why is this essential information being released not to Parliament on Friday, but on Andrew Marr’s sofa early on a Sunday morning, backed up with a Sunday morning official statement? This is very unusual. Furthermore, it is absolutely incompatible with what I was told last week by FCO sources – they did not know this information, and one of them certainly would have if it was based on MI6 or GCHQ reporting.
I can see only two possible explanations. One – and the most likely – depends on looking yet again extremely carefully at what the statement says. It says “we have information indicating that within the last decade”. It does not say how long we have held that information. And “within the last decade” can mean any period of time between a second and ten years ago. Very tellingly it says “within the last decade”, it does not say “for the last decade”.
“Within the last decade” is in fact the exact same semantic trick as “sale price – up to 50% off”. That can mean no more than 0.1% off and its only actual meaning is “never better than half price”.
The most likely explanation of this sentence is therefore that they have – since last week when they didn’t know this – just been given this alleged information. And not from a regular ally with whom we have an intelligence sharing agreement. It could have come from another state, or from a private source of dodgy intelligence – Orbis, for example.
The FCO are again deliberately twisting words to convey the impression that we have known for a decade, whereas in fact the statement does not say this at all.
There is a second possible explanation. MI6 officers in the field get intelligence from agents who, by and large, they pay for it. In my experience of seeing thousands of MI6 intelligence reports, a fair proportion of this “Humint” is unreliable. Graham Greene, a former MI6 officer, was writing a true picture in the brilliant “our Man in Havana”, which I cannot strongly recommend enough to you.
The intelligence received arrives in Vauxhall Cross and there is a filter. A country desk officer will assess the intelligence and see if it is worth issuing as a Report; they judge accuracy against how good access the source has and how trustworthy they are deemed to be, and whether the content squares with known facts. If passed, the intelligence then becomes a Report and is given a serial number. This is not a very good filter, because it still lets through a lot of rubbish, but it does eliminate the complete dregs. One possible source of new information that has suddenly changed the government’s state of knowledge this weekend is a search of these dregs for anything that can be cobbled together. As I have written in Murder in Samarkand, it was the deliberate removal of filters which twisted the Iraqi WMD intelligence.
In short, we should be extremely sceptical of this sudden new information that Boris Johnson has produced out of a hat. If the UK was in possession of intelligence about a secret Russian chemical weapons programme, it was not under a legal obligation to tell Andrew Marr, but it was under a legal obligation to tell the OPCW. Not only did the UK fail to do that, the UK Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Adams was last year fulsomely congratulating the OPCW on the completion of the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons stocks, without a single hint or reservation entered that Russia may have undeclared or secret stocks.
On the Andrew Marr programme, Boris Johnson appeared to say for the first time that the nerve agent in Salisbury was actually made in Russia. But this is a major divergence from the published FCO statement, which very markedly does not say this. Boris Johnson was therefore almost certainly reverting to his reflex lying. In fact the FCO statement gives an extremely strong hint the FCO is not at all confident it was made in Russia and is seeking to widen its bases. Look at this paragraph:
Russia is the official successor state to the USSR. As such, Russia legally took responsibility for ensuring the CWC applies to all former Soviet Chemical Weapons stocks and facilities.
It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as made in Russia, the FCO would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in Russia.
The Soviet Chemical Weapons programme was based in Nukus in Uzbekistan. It was the Americans who dismantled and studied it and destroyed and removed the equipment. I visited it as Ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after they had finished – I recall it as desolate, tiled and very cold, nothing to look at really. The above paragraph seeks to hold the Russians responsible for anything that came out of Nukus, when it was the Americans who actually took it.
UK will either have to offer facts on ‘Russian traces’ in Skripal poisoning or apologize – Kremlin
RT | March 19, 2018
The UK will either back up its claims of Moscow’s involvement in the poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, or it will have to apologize, the Kremlin spokesman has said.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Monday that Russia is wrong to deny responsibility for the nerve agent poisoning of Skripal. “The Russian denial is increasingly absurd,” Johnson told reporters in Brussels. “This is a classic Russian strategy… they’re not fooling anybody anymore,” he added.
Peskov pulled no punches in fighting back, accusing the UK of “incomprehensible, unreasonable slander” against Moscow.
“Sooner or later, it will have to account for these baseless allegations, either by backing them up with evidence or by offering its apologies,” the Russian president’s spokesman said.
Last Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May confronted Moscow with an ultimatum to reveal the details of the alleged Skripal plot. After her demand was rejected, the UK announced sanctions on Moscow, which included expelling 23 diplomats, limiting diplomatic ties and freezing Russian state assets in the UK.
In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that 23 UK diplomats must leave Russia and that the British Council will be shut in retaliation for “provocative actions and groundless accusations” over the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
On Monday, the UK is set to hand samples of the nerve agent used in Skripal’s poisoning to a UN watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Johnson accused Russia on Sunday of creating and storing the so-called ‘Novichok’ nerve agent, which London says was used in the attack on Skripal. The UK official claimed that the UK has “evidence… collected over the past 10 years” that Moscow has been developing nerve agents “for the purpose of committing murder.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the allegation that the substance, thought to be a Soviet-era invention, was a Russian “project.” She said that in post-Soviet times, countries such as the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and even the US studied the substance with keen interest and could have been the origin for the toxin used in the incident with Skripal and his daughter.
Boris Johnson Attempt to Refute My Sources on Porton Down the Most Hilarious Fail
By Craig Murray | March 18, 2018
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has issued a statement to refute my report from well-placed FCO sources that the British government continually re-uses the phrase “of a type developed by Russia” because its own scientists refused government pressure to say the nerve agent was made by Russia, and as getting even agreement to “of a type developed by” was bloody, the government has to stick to precisely that rather odd choice of phrase.
This is the official British Government statement:
“We have no idea what Mr Murray is referring to. The Prime Minister told MP’s on Monday that world leading experts at Porton Down had positively identified this chemical agent. It is clear that it is a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. None of that is in any doubt”.
Which is perhaps the most hilarious fail in the history of refutation.
The BBC sprung that statement on me during a live interview on Radio 5 last night. They also sprung on me a statement by the Israeli Embassy and were attempting to lead me into accusing Israel of the attack. But even the BBC interviewer, Stephen Nolan, was flummoxed by the rubbish he had been given from the FCO. Here is an extract from that part of the interview:
Stephen Nolan: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have said to us tonight: “We have no idea what Mr Murray is referring to. The Prime Minister told MP’s on Monday that world leading experts at Porton Down had positively identified this chemical agent. It is clear that it is a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. None of that is in any doubt”. Well, you’ve already covered that Craig and you are zoning in on the fact that they are saying “developed by Russia”, they are unable to say whether it’s made – well they are not saying whether it was actually manufactured in Russia or the source of it or whether it was from Russia, right?”
Craig Murray Yes, exactly. No-one doubts that the Russians had the idea of making these things first, and worked on developing the idea. It has always been doubted up till now that they really succeeded. The Iranians succeeded under OPCW supervision some time ago and the chemical formulae were published to the whole world twenty years ago. So many states could have done it. The “of a type developed by Russia” thing means nothing, undoubtedly.
You can hear the whole interview here beginning about 5 minutes in.
The UK Blames Russia for the Spy Poisoning: It’s Time to Set Our Emotions Aside and Look at the Facts
By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 17.03.2018
The world held its breath watching the British government rant and rave. The threats were truly scary and the ultimatum was grim enough to give one goosebumps. Finally it all boiled down to the expulsion of 23 diplomats, threats to freeze suspicious bank accounts, the suspension of some bilateral contacts, a revoked invitation for the Russian FM to visit the UK, and the cancellation of plans by senior officials and members of the royal family to travel to see the World Cup games.
Diplomatic relations will not be severed. Russia was not added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the PM had threatened to do. Instead, the British government announced some rather symbolic retaliation measures, some of which are nothing more than compliance with the Criminal Finances Act that has been in effect since 2017.
All in all, it’s much ado about nothing. No trade wars. RT can continue broadcasting. The relationship has taken a hit, but far less than what had been anticipated. The question is — why did London stop short of full-blown row with Moscow?
Voices were heard calling for a detailed investigation before any final conclusions were reached. Labor Leader Jeremy Corbyn said the UK needed “a robust dialogue with Russia on all the issues” and warned against cutting off ties. He came under harsh criticism in Parliament, although the only thing Mr. Corbyn wanted was some evidence to go on before pointing the finger at Moscow. He just wondered why the government had not made a formal request for information in accordance with Article 9, clause 2 of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)? He got an emotional response, but nobody explained why the procedures described in the convention had not been invoked.
And what if Mr. Skripal pulls through and offers quite a different story? What if new witnesses appear whose testimony moves the investigation in a different direction?
The UK evidently does not want to go the whole nine yards to uncover the truth. It prefers to make accusations first and launch a halfhearted investigation second.
There is a very important fact that has been almost completely ignored by the British media. Where did the poisoning take place? Yes, we know, the name of that sleepy town is Salisbury. That’s where Mr. Skripal lives. On March 16, Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that the UK would spend 48 million pounds ($67 million) on a new chemical-warfare defense center. It will be built at Porton Down, a military research laboratory that has manufactured the nerve agents VX and sarin.
Where do you think that lab is located? Right, less than eight miles from Mr. Skipal’s home in Salisbury. Vladimir Pasechnik, a senior Soviet expert on biological warfare, who defected to the UK in 1989, worked there. He died in 2001. Russia again? Not a chance. Where he lived was no secret and he had worked there quietly for so many years. It’s the research he did at the Porton Down laboratory that was kept under lock and key. He quit the laboratory in 2000 to set up a business of his own. Since he was no longer working for the government, he was in a position to reveal awkward information. You never know about the people involved in hush-hush activities, and the timing of the events could be a coincidence. But it might not be.
The UK officially ceased all activities associated with nerve gas development in 1989 but scandalous stories about Porton Down have been leaked much more recently. The people who worked in the facility were dying under the most suspicious circumstances. In 2010, the Daily Mail published a very interesting report about these mysterious deaths — all related to the development of nerve agents — which was a fact that had been kept under wraps before. Porton Down featured prominently in all those stories. Wouldn’t this be a good time to remember those in connection with Mr. Skripal’s poisoning?
And another question pops up. Why is the UK refusing to give Russia the samples of the deadly substance known as Novichok that it says was used to poison the former spy? Isn’t it because the real poison was not Novichok but some other agent developed at Porton Down? Could be. You never know. This guess would at least explain the refusal.
Nothing can be said for certain but it’s only natural to look at what we know and make guesses. That’s what analysts are for. Maybe this scenario wasn’t what happened, but there is nothing to rule it out.
After all, Mr. Skripal and his daughter got immediate emergency medical assistance. It arrived at once. Intelligence services? Who knows, but the victims were injected with an unknown substance almost immediately. Someone had known in advance that they’d need help. This is an undeniable fact. Another coincidence? Aren’t there too many of them?
Anyway, the work to determine exactly what substance poisoned Mr. Skripal and his daughter was done nowhere else but Porton Down. Wasn’t it amazing how quickly they were able to say with absolute certainty that the nerve agent was Russian-produced Novichok? They are unbelievably talented people because normally that takes some time.
What next? The UK does not want to go it alone. It has raised the issue in the UN. It has approached NATO. The Skripal case will be added to the agenda at the March 22–23 EU summit and even the talks on Brexit.
The Russiagate scandal in the US appears to be dying down. The Skripal case, as well as the furor raised over the events in Eastern Ghouta, Syria, will breathe new life into the ongoing, well-orchestrated attacks on Moscow.
These days the divided West faces many challenges. Just look at the divisions threatening NATO and the EU. There is nothing better than an external enemy, even an imaginary one, to keep the West united and led by the US. That’s where Russia comes in. We may never know who is to blame for the attempt on Mr. Skripal’s life — it’s not important for those who are leading the anti-Russia campaign. No opportunity to pour more fuel on the fire of anti-Russia sentiments should be passed up. The British government seems up to the task.
Syrian Army Intercepts Truck Heading to Terrorists in Eastern Ghouta
Sputnik – March 17, 2018
The Syrian armed forces carried out a successful military operation intercepting a truck containing weapons and ammunition intended for terrorists, a representative of Syrian intelligence told Sputnik.
“We organized an ambush, as a result of which a large truck carrying ammunition and weapons has been intercepted; some of the equipment is made in America. Also there were medicines and equipment for satellite communication there. All this was intended for militants in Ghouta,” the spokesman said.
The operation was carried out after Syrian intelligence received information on the transfer of a large batch of weapons, ammunition and equipment for armed groups in the region.
A video that appeared online shows ammunition and weapons found in the truck, including smoke grenades with the inscription “Salisbury England.”
According to the officer, it is not the first time that the Syrian army manages to intercept a cargo intended for the militants.
A few days earlier, Syrian forces intercepted a car that was carrying ammunition, mortar shells, guns and missiles to the region.
The success of the operation will be a serious blow for the terrorists and will contribute to the weakening of armed groups in Eastern Ghouta, the spokesman concluded.
READ MORE:
Humanitarian Pause in Action: Nearly 13,000 Civilians Flee E Ghouta — MoD
Britain’s Insane Cold War Dramatics
Strategic Culture Foundation | 16.03.2018
Britain has now been joined by the United States, France and Germany in blaming Russia for an alleged murder plot on British soil. No verifiable evidence has been provided by the British authorities to support their shrill claim of Russian violation.
It is as insane as it is pathetic, as it is perfidious. A modern-day parody of William Shakespeare’s admonition “thou protest too much”.
In the unprecedented joint statement issued Thursday by the four NATO powers, it was stated, “The United Kingdom thoroughly briefed [sic] its allies that it was highly likely Russia was responsible for the attack”.
The “attack” refers to an apparent poisoning assault on a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal (66), and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, in the English town of Salisbury on March 4. How fitting a medieval town should feature in a medieval-like inquisition.
Skripal had been exiled to England eight years ago in a spy-swap with British MI6 for whom he had betrayed Russian state secrets a decade earlier. Both father and daughter have reportedly been hospitalized. But notably no photographs of the pair have been published to confirm their whereabouts or their condition.
Almost from the moment of the apparent attack on the Skripals, British politicians and media have hysterically speculated that Russian state agents carried out a “vendetta”. Within days, the British authorities claimed to have “evidence” that the nerve toxin allegedly used was a Soviet-era chemical weapon, known as “Novichok”.
This week, British Prime Minister Theresa May went even further to blame Russia for the attempted murder of the Skripals. She announced various sanctions in the British parliament, including the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats from Britain. All the world’s a stage, to quote Shakespeare again.
The British have quickly engaged in intense rallying of the United States and European allies to support their position of impugning Russia. The latest joint statement of “solidarity” demonstrates that the British have managed to muster an unprecedented line-up of inquisitors condemning Russia.
Moscow has lamented Britain’s “absolutely irresponsible conduct” in this tawdry affair. London has shown deplorable disregard for due process and normal diplomatic relations to recklessly orchestrate a crisis.
The recklessness is almost incredible. Britain has not presented any hard evidence to back up its claims of a Soviet-era nerve toxin, nor how this alleged chemical is provably connected to the Russian state.
It is clear from the joint statement that the US, France and Germany are relying on Britain’s “brief”, and yet all four jump to the conclusion that “the only plausible explanation” for the apparent poison attack is Russian responsibility.
That a supposed criminal investigation involving a seemingly sophisticated chemical weapon could be conclusively carried out in a matter of days beggars belief. More plausible is that the British official position was a foregone conclusion – to blame Russia – and now to instill this prejudice in other willful NATO allies.
For the British to argue that a Soviet-era chemical incriminates Russia is fatuous beyond words. There is every reason to believe that “Novichok” nerve agents are possessed by several states, including the US and Britain. The Americans were involved in the “clean-up” of chemical warfare laboratories in Uzbekistan as far back as 1999, as previously reported by the New York Times, where the Soviet Novichok agents were purportedly synthesized.
As for the British, their chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down – eight miles from Salisbury where the Skripals fell ill on March 4 – must have its own stock of Novichok if indeed the British laboratory carried out a positive identification last week. “If” being the operative word here.
The point is that any number of state agencies could be in possession of the deadly nerve toxin. How the British attribute it solely to Russia is not verified. The claim relies entirely on the say-so of the British authorities. The same disreputable authorities who helped concoct lies about WMDs to wage a genocidal war on Iraq in 2003.
According to the UN-affiliated Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Russia destroyed 100 per cent of its declared arsenal of lethal chemicals at the end of 2017 in compliance with the Convention of Chemical Weapons ratified by 165 nations in 1997. The Americans have not yet fully complied, retaining a portion of their toxic stockpile.
Also according to the convention, Russia has a right to inspect the allegedly offending sample that Britain claims to have identified. But all legal requests from Moscow for confirmatory access have been refused by the British.
This is a travesty of due process. Britain is making grave accusations against Russia of violating its sovereignty and attempted murder. Yet the British are not presenting their supposed evidence. Instead, London has sought to escalate the crisis by imposing sanctions on Russia, and enlisting the support of the US, France and Germany to amplify its dubious charges against Moscow.
Russia has rejected all charges. Moscow says the hypothesis of a revenge assassination on a disgraced former spy who had been living an open and undisturbed life in England for nearly a decade is absurd. Especially given the timing of Russia’s presidential elections this weekend and the hosting of the forthcoming World Cup tournament. For Russia to carry out such an act defies logic and credibility.
Britain’s ridiculous 24-hour “deadline” this week on Russia to “provide answers” over the hypothetical, but undisclosed, “evidence” is so impossible it also indicates the unfolding of a propaganda script. When Russia “failed” to comply with the preposterous demand that was then cited as “more proof” of Russian guilt.
The litany of similar false and baseless charges against Russia over the past four years – from aggression in Ukraine to shooting down a Malaysian airliner, from Olympic doping to election meddling – all follow the same propaganda script. Allegations without evidence, repeated ad nauseam. Thanks to dutiful, supine Western so-called news media.
Britain and its allies are engaging in an appalling degradation of diplomacy and the rule of law. With utter arrogance, ironically they claim to be upholding law and order, while in reality they are pushing the world towards hell in a handcart.
Adding insult to injury, British premier Theresa May deprecated Russia’s “disdain for the gravity of the matter”; her Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson accused Russia of being “smug”; while the Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson sniped that Russia “should shut up and go away”.
Russia is being wronged, not for the first time. But her integrity and fortitude will be vindicated – again. The allure of British Cold War spy propaganda has long ago expired. The stale and impotent residue will eventually show just how bankrupt the British rulers and their NATO allies have become.
In their bankruptcy they are desperately trying to start a war. But their criminal insanity will be their own downfall. In the wise words of Abraham Lincoln, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Britain’s baying mob rejects skepticism for emotion in heat of ex-spy poisoning crisis
RT | March 15, 2018
One of the striking things about the furor over the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter is the lack of skepticism in Britain at the evidence presented, in what are still the very early stages of the investigation.
It may be a sign of the public mood, or at least the mood of the people in power and the commentariat, that not only have they rushed to judgment in mass groupthink, but they also turn viciously on anyone attempting to express skepticism.
It is of course understandable that the response to a nerve agent being used to poison two people in a small provincial city is an emotional one, but when the allegations being made are so serious, what is the value of one MP after another standing up in Parliament to deliver Churchillian declarations of defiance, before a suspect has even been identified?
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn stood in Parliament and posed a series of questions: “Has the prime minister taken necessary steps under the Chemical Weapons Convention to make a formal request for evidence from Russian government under Article 9.2? Has high-resolution trace analysis been run on a sample of the nerve agent that revealed any evidence as to the location of its production or identity of its perpetrators?” He went on: “And while suspending high-level contacts, does the prime minister agree it is essential to maintain a robust dialogue with Russia?”
Corbyn’s request for further details on the evidence united the British Parliament… against him. From the jeering Tories opposite, to his own angry backbenchers, there was uncontained anger at his request to clarify exactly what is currently known about events in Salisbury. If the consensus is such that the leader of the opposition’s attempt to propose some kind of opposing viewpoint is shouted down, shouldn’t that cause at least some pause for thought? The British Parliament has seen this kind of consensus before. The voices of dissent were drowned out. It didn’t end well. And the evidence was wrong.
On Thursday, writing in the Guardian, Corbyn warned against a “McCarthyite intolerance of dissent”. He warned Prime Minister Theresa May not to run ahead of the evidence.
If there was any doubt that cool heads are in short supply in British politics currently, the defense secretary has told Russia to “go away and shut up.” That’s the diplomacy of a petulant teenager.
If you dig down into the initial accusations over Russia’s involvement in the alleged deployment of the Novichok nerve agent, there was at least some skepticism. Theresa May offered two possible scenarios: that the Russian government ordered an attack, or that it lost control of its stock of nerve agents.
This suggests that on Monday the British government didn’t know what had happened, but because Russia didn’t use an arbitrary deadline to make an admission of guilt, that was taken as evidence of culpability. There was no material change in the publicly available facts, but there was a public consensus, simply ‘Putin did it’.
Any evidence of Russian guilt at this stage is circumstantial; the police still have no definite suspect, but there is 100 percent conviction in Britain that the Kremlin was to blame, no questions asked.
Britain’s allies have been more guarded, generally falling in behind the Corbyn view in suggesting more evidence is needed before conclusions are made. Even the joint statement on Thursday from the UK, France, Germany and the United States pointing the finger at Moscow couches its accusations in uncertain terms. It says “Britain believes” it was “highly likely Russia was responsible.” That’s skepticism. It’s small, but it’s there.
Reuters has even picked up a story showing that in the mid-90s, a similar nerve agent was used to kill a banker in Russia. The person found guilty then was a scientist who had sold the substance to supplement his wages. So, there are other possible explanations that deserve at least a little time to be considered.
In Britain though, politicians and the media have become a single mass of expertise on Russia, all with deep insights into the workings of the Kremlin. There’s little doubt among them. Among the theories being expressed with such certainty are that Putin did this to boost his election campaign, or it’s a warning to other spies, or perhaps even it’s an attempt to destabilize Britain during a period of political turmoil. Of course there’s no real proof of any of this, and the vast majority of these Kremlin experts will be experts on Brexit next week, and last week they were experts on North Korea.
When two world powers are heading towards a serious diplomatic crisis, a lack of skepticism is dangerous, and a baying mob driven by consensus could have serious consequences. The Times on Thursday ran an opinion piece calling for Russia to be punished through the targeting of Russian children in British schools. That’s where the level of discourse currently stands.
Gilad Atzmon Needs Your Immediate Support!
By Gilad Atzmon | March 16, 2018
I am being sued for libel in the High Court in England by Campaign Against Antisemitsm’s chairman Gideon Falter. I have made the decision to fight this crucial battle for freedom of expression even though this fight poses a real risk of bankrupting me and my family.
I choose to fight their suit because I believe that the CAA and its chairman and its use of libel laws pose a danger to freedom of speech and the future of this country as an open society. Enough is enough!
Mr. Falter has sued me for comments I made on my own website.
My comments were made in the context of expressing my opinion about the situation where, last July, The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) attested that there had been no increase in anti-Semitism in Britain, and Gideon Falter and the CAA refused to accept the CPS’s verdict. Falter and the CAA insisted that anti Semitism was on the rise. Sky news reported on the discrepancies between the findings of CPS and the CAA.
My article focused on the choice examined by Sky News between two accounts, one maintained by Falter and the CAA, an NGO that is dedicated to prosecuting antisemitism with “zero tolerance”, and the judicial approach of the CPS: a public body, subject to scrutiny and committed to impartiality.
My comments about the CAA are the basis of their lawsuit. I believe that I have the right to express my opinions on my own website: freedom of political expression is at the heart of freedom of speech. Mr. Falter claims that my criticisms of him do not amount to an opinion at all, and is seeking an order that would stop me from saying anything similar about him again, as well as paying him huge sums in libel damages and legal costs.
The CAA has contacted Jazz venues, community centres, concert halls and even overseas companies demanding that my events be cancelled. They have now escalated this battle and if they win this will ruin me financially. … continue
Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson – Britain’s Record of Conducting State Sponsored Assassinations
Pat Finucane (right) leaving Court with Pat McGeown, the IRA volunteer who had charges related to the deaths of 2 British soldiers dropped.
By Gavin O’Reilly | American Herald Tribune | March 15, 2018
With the eyes of the world focused on the alleged nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal, the Russian who worked as a British double-agent before being exiled to the UK in 2010, since he and his daughter were found slumped on a Salisbury public bench last Sunday, one can’t help but notice the hypocritical reaction of the British political establishment to the attack.
Addressing the House of Commons on Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May alleged Kremlin involvement in the incident due to ‘Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations’.
These words were spoken in a self-righteous sense, one that suggested the UK held the moral ground over Russia and would never go so far as to conduct assassinations of political opponents on foreign soil.
Anyone with even a basic knowledge of British foreign policy towards Ireland however, would know that this patently isn’t the case.
In 1989, the north of Ireland was at the height of a bloody conflict in which Irish Republican militants were waging a guerrilla campaign on Crown Forces in a bid to end British rule in the region.
In order to counter the threat posed by the IRA and other such groups, Westminster had long decided that anyone charged with Republican activity in the occupied six counties would be brought before a non-Jury ‘Diplock’ court; thus maximising the chances of conviction and imprisonment.
One human rights Lawyer from Belfast however, would quickly gain prominence for successfully defending Republicans charged before these courts.
Pat Finucane first came to public attention through his campaigning for Republican prisoners during the 1981 H-Block hunger strike.
He would quickly become a thorn in the side of the British establishment by representing Republicans in several high-profile cases throughout the 1980s, with the final straw coming in November 1988 when he successfully defended an IRA Volunteer in a case related to the deaths of two British soldiers.
On the 12th of February 1989, a pro-British death squad burst into Pat Finucane’s home and shot him 14 times as he had Sunday dinner with his wife and children.
The death squad in question, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was a then-legal organisation under the control of the Force Research Unit (FRU), a covert British military unit tasked with turning the UDA into a more ‘professional’ organisation.
British state involvement in the killing went even higher than the military, with then-Home Office Minister Douglas Hogg lamenting in the weeks before Finucane’s death that there were Lawyers in the north of Ireland who were ‘unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA’.
The murder of Pat Finucane was not an isolated incident however, and not even a tactic confined by the British to intense periods of conflict in Ireland, such as the 1980s were.
Ten years after Finucane’s killing, the level of conflict in Ireland had decreased significantly following the 1998 surrender agreement between the Provisional IRA and British government.
This ‘peace’ however, was and still is maintained by the threat of violence from the British state should anything upset the status quo.
This is what ultimately led to the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
A human rights lawyer, like Pat Finucane, Rosemary had also risen to prominence through her successful defence of Republicans in high-profile cases.
However, it was her representation of the family of Robert Hamill, a young Nationalist beaten to death by a Loyalist mob in 1997 whilst in full view of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) the north of Ireland’s pro-British police force, that drew the most ire from the British establishment.
On the 15th of March 1999, Rosemary Nelson was killed by a car bomb outside her home in Armagh, occupied Ireland. The attack was claimed by the Red Hand Defenders (RHD), a breakaway faction of the UDA.
In the days following her murder, it emerged that members of the RUC’s covert Special Branch had been involved in a surveillance operation close to Nelson’s home the night before her death, ostensibly to monitor suspected members of the IRA.
Despite the intense surveillance of the area surrounding Nelson’s home, no Special Branch members reported seeing the RHD team that carried out attack; like Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson had also become another victim of Britain’s bloody record of state sponsored assassinations.
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Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist.
From its inception, the house of Zion has mastered exploiting adversarial powers to advance Israel’s cause. For instance, their influence over the Democratic Party in the US began with President Truman’s bid for 2nd term election in 1948.
Responding to strong opposition from Secretary of State General George Marshall and Department experts urging against recognition of Israel, President Truman replied: “I’m sorry gentlemen but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands [Jewish voters] who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of [voting] Arabs among my constituents”
Zionists influence over liberal American politics was matched with the doctrinal school of Conservative theoreticians aligning the Republican Party’s platform with Israel’s objectives. The Neoconservative Zionists, coined Zioncons, invented the “Clash of Civilization” concept to fight Israel’s wars. … continue
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