As a Brit close to the epicentre of all this, I don’t have much to add to what other posters have written so I’ll keep it short:
Did Russia do it? - in my view almost certainly not, as I can’t see any rational motive, and whatever you may think of Putin, he strikes me as being very rational.
Am I embarrassed by our UK politicians? absolutely. I heard the debate in Parliament on the radio when May announced that it was “highly likely that Russia was responsible”. Politician after politician got up to agree with May and denounce Russia. The lone voice of reason was Jeremy Corbyn (Leader of the Opposition), who asked May whether she had made a sample of the poison available to Russia to analyse, as they had requested, and cautioned us not to jump to conclusions too hastily. He was met by shouts, jeers and denunciation after denunciation from Government MPs, backbench members of his own party and the media, and silence from front bench members of his own party, some of whom may be hoping to replace him as leader. I think that by speaking with the voice of moderation he has probably put his own political career at risk.
Do I think the public are stupid to believe this nonsense so uncritically? - yes.
Do I think we are being prepared for war with Russia? unfortunately yes, although I can’t imagine why. The hysteria has reached such a pitch that it’s very difficult for anyone to say, in private or in public, anything supportive of Russia or suggest that anyone else might be responsible (see “Corbyn”, above). I guess that’s usually the way it is in the run-up to a war.
www.postpeakmedicine.com
I used to think I was being egotistical, because I so dearly wanted others to adopt my perspective on key issues. However, I had the realisation recently that what bothers me is how people think, not what they think. I am so tired of walking through life surrounded by programmed, dumbed down zombies; many of whom I’m sure have higher IQ’s than I do. The propaganda is so powerful that I really see no way of turning this ship before the iceberg; whatever form that takes. The vast majority are wilfully ignorant too. With the clamp down on decenting voices on YouTube and the power of groupthink to identify any decenting voice as the enemy, we truly live in dangerous times. Navigating them is only going to get more difficult and more painful. Quite possibly, leaving us with a choice of survival or speaking out. God help us indeed. This is f****d-up.
Interesting debate last week.
First Question on the programme…
“How certain are you that the Salisbury attack is beyond doubt the responsibility of the Russian state”
Seems an awful lot of jumping to conclusions, could it of been many actors, eg. criminal mafia gangs, CIA plot?
I don’t believe the objective here is for an actual shooting war with Russia, although that is a very real possibility as the consequence of what this really appears to be about.
At the risk of repeating myself from my related Russian Roulette post In the Off the cuff thread this incident appears to me to be part of a coordinated campaign to deleglitimize Russia’s role in the UN security Council and to associate/tar Putin/Russia with the illegal and dastardly use of “Chemical Weapons”
Conversely this is trying to build worldwide (NATO) public consensus and support for future and imminent unilateral military action in Syria as just proposed by Nikki Haley on the part of the US for a robust military strike against Assad in the face of past and now future supposed dastardly chemical weapons attacks by Assad.
The US is effectively telegraphing their foreknowledge of imminent “Assad Chemical weapons attacks” and more ominously our unilateral military response to it (probably cruise missile strike)
The Russian military is making no bones about it:
http://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12167157@egNews
I do believe that one has to be well grounded in the Syrian conflict to understand the Skripal propaganda.
Certainly there’s the usual bruised egos of the emotionally stunted NeoCons to take into consideration, but there’s also the very probable fact that the main regional power brokers in the Middle East know all too well that their oil is not infinite and that time is running out to secure any sort of lasting upper hand.
This next article written by someone in Beirut who I’ve never heard of, makes a lot of points that ring true for me. I’ve reproduced most of it, but included the link in case you want to track down more.
THE REGIONAL-INTERNATIONAL DEMARCATION LINE IN DARAA IS APPROACHING FLASHPOINT March 16, 2018 Beirut – from Elilah J. Magnier: @ejmalrai Today, Ghouta and tomorrow Daraa … This is not about Syria nor about the war on its soil: it is all about an open war between the axis led by United States of America, Europe and their allies in the Middle East against the axis led by Russia and its allies. It’s a war about control, influence and dominance in the Middle East and the rest of the world. It is natural for the US to resist the loss of its unilateral dominant status that has held since the collapse of the Soviet Union, from 1991 until 2015. September 2015 is the date when Moscow decided to send its air force, navy and some ground special forces to the Levant to announce its presence to the world there and give birth to its superpower capability after decades of absence. It is therefore natural that the US defends its world unilateralism and tries to block the awakening of the Russian genie by mobilising all its energies and those of its western and arab allies to push back against the (successful) attempts by Russia to prove its diplomatic skills and military power through the window of the Levant. So it is indeed natural that the US should try to hit the weakest link (Tehran) in the Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance by attempting to thwart the nuclear agreement signed by the United Nations and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus one (Germany). All this is caused by the successful (in Russia’s view) outcome of the war in Syria, in which the US failed in its attempt to redraw the map of the Middle East, divide Iraq and Syria, hit Hezbollah in Lebanon and extract parts of northern Syria for itself and Turkey, and the southern region for Israel. (…) So did the Washington hawks succeed in their quest? The simple answer would be: No, they didn’t. But these US hawks are still exploring various avenues to accuse Russia of supporting the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, discredited for years by the restless hammering of mainstream media (which has become an obvious tool in the hands of decision makers) who painted al-Qaeda as “moderates” for all the seven years of war. The US aimed to discredit Moscow’s leadership at the UN to intimidate and to halt the efforts of President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Syria and stop the partition of the Middle East, and to prevent Russia from completely eliminating the bulk of Jihadis In Iraq and Syria. It required Moscow to use 11 “vetoes” at the UN to reject multiple attempts by Washington and its allies to strike Syria and topple President Assad. Russia played very cleverly its diplomacy in Syria by creating de-escalation and de-confliction areas in the north, around the capital, and in the south to cut Syria into squares and freeze the war in different strategic areas so that it could devote enough forces to striking ISIS first and then al-Qaeda and its allies. ISIS has been reduced to a small pocket under US protection in north-east Syria. Actually, this area situated east of the Euphrates is today ISIS’s safe haven and it is therefore forbidden for Russia and the Syrian governmental forces to strike the terrorist group. Previous attempts resulted in the US heavily bombing local forces and their allies. However, Russia has given enough time to the Syrian government to gather its forces, strike al-Qaeda and clear various enclaves, limiting the control of al-Qaeda and its allies to the vicinity and the city of Idlib, around Damascus (al-Ghouta and Yarmouk) and in the south (Daraa and Quneitra). The Syrian army managed to divide the Ghouta areas despite the frenetic anti-Russian campaign mounted by mainstream media and the failed US attempts at the United Nations to stop the war on al-Ghouta and to keep this enclave as a sore thumb at the back of the main capital Damascus. The US’s anger at the Syrian-Russian attack on al-Ghouta needs to be made clearer here: the US occupation of al-Tanf Syrian-Iraqi borders aimed to create a launching platform for its military operations towards Deir al-Zour in the north and al-Ghouta in the east. The US plan was to occupy the city of Deir al-Zour and al-Qaim north-east and the capital Damascus. But Iran went around the area where the US forces were positioned, isolating these in the al-Tanf pocket, and made a qualitative leap to liberate Deir al-Zour and al-Qaim by defeating ISIS forces, who withdrew towards the US area of influence east of the Euphrates. Moreover, Al-Ghouta is a clear demonstration of the US’s failed plan to attack Damascus. The strategic military planning and link between al-Tanf and al-Ghouta was possible had the Syrian Army and Russia not intervened on time to surround it and attack jihadists to force these to surrenderer and pull out to Idlib. The US thought to create a real menace against Damascus and at least prevent the parliamentary and presidential elections due next year. By controlling Ghouta, jihadists were supposed to keep up the pace of bombing to render the Syrian capital “unsafe”. The US and the International community tried to stop the battles of al-Ghouta to no avail. This prompted Washington to exercise its favourite hobby of imposing sanctions on Russia, without succeeding in stopping the Syrian army (fighting without its allies – except Russia) from recovering its control over Ghouta. The answer came immediately from Moscow by bombing Daraa and hitting al-Qaeda’s area of influence in an indication as to where the future theatre of military operations is expected to be. Again, events are moving very fast: the US response came quickly through its UK ally when Britain took advantage of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergey Skripal in London to accuse Moscow of being behind his assassination. The message here is clear: all means are legitimate for the control of the Middle East, specifically Syria. Israel followed by demanding the return of the UNDOF troops, withdrawn in August 2014 following the abduction of 47 UN peacekeepers by al-Qaeda (the ransom for their liberation was paid by Qatar). The Israeli demand coincided – I have learned from well informed sources – with the gathering of forces of Syria’s allies, including Hezbollah, in Daraa, in preparation for future wide scale military operations. The US considers that the battle of Daraa is directly against itself and its Israeli ally, especially as it is party, along with Russia and Jordan, to the agreement to reduce the escalation there, to serve Israel and secure its security in southern Syria. In this tense political climate it requires no imagination to link the issue of the Russian former spy spy to the aggressive statement of President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials who threatened to use military force against the US and any other country in Syria if necessary. The Syrian war is far from being a normal one. It is THE war between two superpowers and their allies, where US and Russian soldiers are directly involved on the ground in a war of domination and power. The lack of victory in the US eyes is worse than losing a battle. Even more, the victory of Russia and its allies on Syrian soil in any battle is therefore a direct blow to the heart of Washington and its allies. Russia understood the US, UK and NATO’s message, including that of the mainstream media, and had no other choice but to escalate the pace of war in Syria as harshly as possible. The superpowers are on the verge of the abyss, so the danger of falling into a war of cosmic proposition is no longer confined to the imagination or merely a sensational part of unrealistic calculations. (Source)The summary is that everything is now extremely tense, and the US is (again) in danger of being on the losing side of a conflict (if it’s not already there) and that’s just not a place it likes to be. So there’s that element. The recent dramatic shifts in power structures in DC, especially the use of a CIA director as Secretary of State, all look extremely hawkish and like the NeoCons have, again, won the power struggle in DC. What happens next? War is a distinct possibility.
I have to correct Chris on a minor point he made here. The results of a war with Russia will not be just economic, they will be catastrophic. No one will survive for long not even in Australia.
Eventually, any battle to try and significantly destroy or even worse occupy Russia will go nuclear. Even if the US missile defense was sufficient, which it isn’t, the resulting carnage would be life ending for the whole planet.
The US knows that it’s current missile defenses are not currently ready to ward off a Russian counterstrike and most of the US would be destroyed. That is why Russia announced new weapons that will be deployed over the next 5 years, they don’t need them now. So the only choice the US would have in a war on Russia is to conduct a massive first strike. Well, even if that were successful in preventing any Russian counterstrike, the radiation and airborne dust created would end agriculture in the Northern hemisphere within 1 year and the southern soon after. What a lot of people fail to realize is that there is a chian reaction when you start dropping nuclear bombs, which are bad enough, but it doesn’t end there.
Once Russia is thoroughly nuked not only those bombs go off but all the nuclear bombs they hit in their silos also go atmospheric and likely critical. All the nuclear power plants either hit or now abandoned also go atmospheric, just like Fukushima. That amount of radiation combined with the crop losses due to the nuclear winter and subsequent collapse of society means that eventually all nuclear power plants everywhere go Fukushima. All this will happen even if Russia cannot fire one single missile back at the US, but they can. Many in fact. They have been preparing for a “first strike” against them for many years.
And a bomb shelter won’t save you unless you are prepared to stay there longer than the half life of plutonium. We are talking 100’s of thousands of years. You probably don’t have enough food stocked up and you will run out of air and water.
Putin seems to understand that another war involving nuclear weapons means the end of life on the planet. It is a shame that the west does not.
Oh and I almost forgot, a thought I had about ballistic missile defense, even if you can hit it, who says it doesn’t detonate? Free radiation and an EMP for you.
Gee you joined in June of 2010 and only posed twice! I think you should comment more.
You are probably right but no one wants to talk about reality and use common sense. Guess if we don’t talk about the consequences they don’t exist. Too bad stupid isn’t painful.
Well said, now please share more often!
AKGrannyWGrit
If the Russia is the people who tried to do the in the old double agent ,then why are they still alive ? Something not right there, just can’t think of what it is, just is not right!
If the Russia is the people who tried to do the in the old double agent ,then why are they still alive ? Something not right there, just can’t think of what it is, just is not right!
Has anyone noted that all the recent Trump administration replacements are CIA? Tillerson to Pompeo. Pompeo to Haspel. McMaster to Bolton (if that happens). I would submit that we are witnessing an overt coup d’etat by the intelligent services in the face of an erratic, undisciplined and “moronic” (to use Tillerson’s characterization) POTUS.
One need only to tune in to the MSM for additional proof. CBS regularly trots out the reptilian neocon and ex-CIA deputy director, Michael Morell. Brenner (War on Terror architect) and Clapper (ex-NSA liar in-chief) make regular appearances on the major networks as well. Then, there’s John McLaughlin over there on MSNBC. Of course, Russia, the ever-evil-empire (3Es), is the arch-villain.
To me, this is about being bested by Russia at every step of the way. Chess master Putin has checkmated the US ever since Obama took office. He has called us out for the corrupt global power we are. The US Perma-State is pissed, and as already posted in this thread, Syria is likely to be the playground.
In a world where propaganda rules and lies and innuendo are treated as truth, the Skripal poisoning makes complete sense. We are not even talking about false flags here. This is nothing more than a blatant coup of our government, our media and finally our souls.
Perhaps too strident for PP?
MR
and, once again, thanks for saying what few will dare to say Chris
I think, perhaps, that the US grossly underestimates, among other things, the dramatic fall of its its reputation in the world community in the short 17 years since 9/11/2001. Above anything and anyone else, the internet has “helped” compete with the truths Uncle Sam repeatedly tries to sell on Iraq, Afghanistan and everything and everywhere else. This site is a testament to that. In another weird twist, the exponential resource fall, resource competition and biological destruction inevitably and perhaps ironically leaves the whoever the current global power happens to be holding the blame bag in a lot of strange and unexpected ways.
I’m not sure where all of this will lead
But I’m sure it’s nowhere good.
U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, arrives to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 13, 2018
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
I think that this link provides some explaination of the bizarre behaviour of the UK politicians.
https://ejmagnier.com/2018/03/16/the-regional-international-demarcation-…
Perhaps it is just the passing of the demonize Russia baton from the USA to the UK now that RussiaGate is finally running out of steam.
As I referenced in the article above, Craig Murray, the form FCO officer, correctly pointed out the weasel phrasing that was “of a type developed by” said absolutely nothing about where the poison may have come from but was then used by the UK government to finger Russia.
Clearly he struck a nerve and his blog has exploded with traffic and comments.
The FCO had to respond, so they did. Here’s Craig:
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.Ah ha ha ha! That's hilarious! :) Craig says what's in doubt is the claim that it must have come from Russia and the FCO is restating that it is definitively 'of a type developed by Russia.' Truly, a gigantic fail of a rebuttal. The entire frame-up is unraveling badly and one way I know that it that there's nothing on the front page of the WSJ this morning about any of this. Worse, the details of the crime scene are now falling apart rather badly. Because of the timeline involved which involved the Skripals parking their car at 1:45 p.m. and being found "frothing at the mouth" at 4:15 p.m. there's a very strong suggestion that they had to have been poisoned during that time frame (and not via her luggage as being rather oddly and incoherently suggested now in trial balloon fashion). The basic timeline we have is: 1:45 p.m they park their car They go to the Bishop's Mill pub 2:20 p.m. they go to Zizzi restaurant 3:35 p.m they leave the restaurant 4:15 p.m. they are spotted ill on a park bench by bystander Freya Church and nearby police are alerted Of particular note one of the first attending police officers, Nick Bailey falls ill too. So far these are the only three people to have fallen ill, presumably from exposure to a Novichok class nerve agent.
Nick Bailey is a police officer in the Wiltshire Police and was rushed to hospital after he speeded to help Mr Skripal and his daughter following a suspected nerve agent attack in Salisbury. (Source - The Sun, Also here, here and here)From the OPCW website:
If a person is exposed to a high concentration of nerve agent, e.g., 200 mg sarin/m3 (see table) death may occur within a couple of minutes. Poisoning takes longer when the nerve agent enters the body through the skin. Nerve agents are more or less fat-soluble and can penetrate the outer layers of the skin. However, it takes some time before the poison reaches the deeper blood vessels. Consequently, the first symptoms do not occur until 20-30 minutes after the initial exposure but subsequently the poisoning process may be rapid if the total dose of nerve agent is high. (Source)So the time frame here is between a couple of minutes if aerosolized, and a maximum of 30 minutes if administered through the skin. We don't know the time frame of action of a novichok (if indeed that's what was used, we still lack independent confirmation of that) so let's be generous and say it has a mechanism of action that is twice as slow as any other nerve agent. I will say that toxicologically (my PhD is in toxicology, by the way) this makes no sense if we are to believe that the Novochoks are 5x to 10x more lethal than VX. Typically a more lethal poison has a higher binding affinity for the target enzyme or protein and therefore operates more rapidly, not less. But even if we give it a 2x longer operating action, they still had to have been dosed somewhere between the end of their stay at the restaurant and the park. Not before. (Please also recall that the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's brother, in Kuala Lumpur was a skin route administration of VX which dropped him in minutes.) This is where it all gets rather interesting. Because the police sargent, Nick Bailey, falls ill so rapidly, we have to suspect aerosol administration meaning they had some fo this stuff on them and wafting about, or their breath was so toxic that he could fall ill from it. Most oddly, we have this (still not yet scrubbed down the memory hole) account posted in the BBC:
Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions. The woman, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father. She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal's face or body. The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she "feels fine". (Source - BBC)Say what? Hold on here. This means that this woman doctor was in direct proximity to Yulia Skripal and her father, was the first to have moved her off the bench into a recovery position and attended to her in close proximity for 30 minutes and after all that "feels fine." This person was the very first then to have handled Ms. Skripal intimately, which you'd appreciate if you've ever handled the dead weight of an unconscious individual. Police typically do not get as physically involved with ill people as doctors, so I have to assume Mr. Bailey got unlucky and somehow touched a spot on one or both of them that was absolutely loaded with poison, while the doctor and everybody else who arrived mere moments later missed that (those) same area(s). Further, 'other people' tended to Mr Skripal. Presumably they are all fine because the only reports we have are of the three poisonings; the two Skirpals and Nick Bailey. And none of the people at the restaurant have exhibited any signs of nerve agent poisoning, and also not the ambulance drivers (air for her, ground for him), and none of the attending doctors or hospital staff. Nobody else. Not one other person. Just Nick and the Skripals. Hmmmm....this really stinks to high heaven here. How did Nick Bailey get dosed to such an extent that he was in serious condition for days afterwards? How did nobody else get dosed even mildly? Since Nick was struck so rapidly we have to understand that this nerve agent is not something the Skripals could have experienced in their car, or much earlier in the day, and then wandered about with for very long. Further, it would be impossible for them to have been so heavily dosed that a transfer contact to Nick would have been such a serious event without them falling ill themselves almost instantly. Therefore we can conclude, with a high degree of likeliness that they were dosed after the restaurant, so somewhere between 3:35 p.m and 4:15 p.m. And we can conclude that whatever was on or about them was not easily transferred to numerous other nearby persons, including those who handled them directly in the immediate aftermath. If I were a dispassionate investigator, I would be taking a very close look at the only other person besides the Skripals to have been struck down by the poison. That would be normal investigative procedure. This is just what the evidence suggests at this point. I'd want to exclude that person as a normal course of the investigation so we could move onto the next subjects and suspects. Finally, the CCTV cameras are critical here because it's most likely the poisoning happened right there on the park bench. The only administration route that makes sense to me that absolves the sergeant too would have been that the would-be assassin had an aerosol can that they unleashed as they walked by which struck the Skripals, did not stick to their clothes or skin appreciably enough to affect anyone else later, and then a diluted cloud wafted off in a direction where the only other victim was Mr. Bailey. Not impossible, but also not my first theory (because relying on air flow and breathing patterns seems risky and fraught with risk of failure). Best to interview every possible witness at the park quite thoroughly would be my vote. At any rate, the fact that the US news has pretty much dropped this tells me as much as anything. This could get mighty embarrassing for some folks.
Couldn’t agree more. I read that all it takes is 10% of either the Russian and American arsenals to be detonated to end all life on earth, as I posted here before. Nuclear war is not an option obviously, not something you can prepare for. There was a poster floating around in the 60’s when this was all more top of mind, it listed in order the things you needed to do to prepare for a nuclear strike, the last thing on the list of some 20 seemly rational items to do was to put your head between your legs and kiss your #%s goodby.
The complete absurdity of it all, and for what. For the lust of power, ego and wealth, some are willing to trade the lives of 7 billion people, all the biological life on the planet, and 5 billion years of evolution. The loss is not quantifiable, really beyond our capability to conceptualize. And that is the heart of the problem.
By discussing this rationally, we make the unspeakable speakable, the insane sane, the irrational rational. The fact that current consciousness is so fractured and dissociated from reality is why these things can even be discussed without complete horror and revulsion. It is like a thick dull fog that pervades our public discourse and awareness. Because so many of us do not yet trust our own inner gut, we still put up with nonsensical babblings of our current outward authorities. The need to fit within the current insane paradigm causes even the most sensible people to twist themselves into ridiculous knots.
How insane do our current culture institutions have to get before we throw them off in disgust. The public narrative created by our media has become incoherent. Kudos to all of you working to create a different narrative and live a different kind of life.
Thats an interesting breakdown of facts. How can the cop get hit with the nerve agent when the doctor who actually cared for the victim came away with no ill effects?
And the “of a type developed by Russia” language is really fascinating. Sounds like a bunch of cranky scientists I’d love to work with.
Sure seems like Corbyn - not that I like all the stuff he says - has the right idea here. No rush to judgment.
Its good to remind us all about “WMD in Iraq” too.