The current state of anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of earlier dark chapters of American history, including the rush to war in Iraq of the early 2000s and McCarthyism of the 1950s, Patrick Henningsen observes.
By Patrick Henningsen
If there’s one thing to be gleaned from the current atmosphere of anti-Russian hysteria in the West, it’s that the US-led sustained propaganda campaign is starting to pay dividends. It’s not only the hopeless political classes and media miscreants who believe that Russia is hacking, meddling and poisoning our progressive democratic utopia – with many pinning their political careers to this by now that’s it’s too late for them to turn back.
Donald Trump and Theresa May during a NATO summit in Brussels. Photo Reuters
As it was with Iraq in 2003, these dubious public figures require a degree of public support for their policies, and unfortunately many people do believe in the grand Russian conspiracy, having been sufficiently brow-beaten into submission by around-the-clock fear mongering and official fake news disseminated by government and the mainstream media.
What makes this latest carnival of warmongering more frightening is that it proves that the political and media classes never actually learned or internalized the basic lessons of Iraq, namely that the cessation of diplomacy and the declarations of sanctions (a prelude to war) against another sovereign state should not be based on half-baked intelligence and mainstream fake news. But that’s exactly what is happening with this latest Russian ‘Novichok’ plot.
Admittedly, the stakes are much higher this time around. The worst case scenario is unthinkable, whereby the bad graces of men like John Bolton and other military zealots, there may just be a thin enough mandate to short-sell another military conflagration or proxy war – this time against another nuclear power and UN Security Council member.
Enter stage right, where US President Donald Trump announced this week that the US is moving closer to war footing with Russia. It’s not the first time Trump has made such a hasty move in the absence any forensic evidence of a crime. Nowadays, hearsay, conjecture and social media postings are enough to declare war. Remember last April with the alleged “Sarin Attack” in Khan Sheikhoun, when the embattled President squeezed off 59 Tomahawk Cruise missiles against Syria – a decision, which as far as anyone can tell, was based solely on a few YouTube videos uploaded by the illustrious White Helmets. Back then Trump learned how an act of war against an existential enemy could take the heat off at home and translate into a bounce in the polls. Even La Résistance at CNN were giddy with excitement and threw their support behind Trump, with some pundits describing his decision to act as “presidential.”
As with past high-profile western-led WMD allegations against governments in Syria and Iraq (the US and UK are patently unconcerned with multiple allegations of ‘rebel’ terrorists in Syria caught using chemical weapons), an identical progression of events appears to be unfolding following the alleged ‘Novichok’ chemical weapon poisoning of retired British-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Wiltshire on March 4.
Despite a lack of evidence presented to the public other than the surreptitious “highly likely” assessments of British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, President Trump once again has caved into pressure from Official Washington’s anti-Russian party line and ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats – whom he accused of being spies. Trump also ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, citing speculative fears that Russia might be spying on a nearby Boeing submarine development base. It was the second round of US expulsions of Russian officials, with the first one ordered by the outgoing President Obama in December 2016, kicking out 35 Russian diplomats and their families (including their head chef) and closing the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, with some calling it “a den of spies”.
Trump’s move followed an earlier UK action on March 14th, which expelled 23 Russian diplomats also accused of being spies. This was in retaliation for the alleged poisoning of a retired former Russian-British double agent in Salisbury, England.
The ‘Collective’ Concern
It’s important to understand how this week’s brash move by Washington was coordinated in advance. The US and the UK are relying on their other NATO partners, including Germany, Poland, Italy, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Estonia and Lithuania – to create the image of a united front against perceived ‘Russian aggression.’ As with multilateral military operations, multilateral diplomatic measures like this are not carried out on a whim.
Aside from this, there are two seriously worrying aspects of this latest US-led multilateral move against Russia. Firstly, this diplomatic offensive against Russia mirrors a NATO collective defense action, and by doing so, it tacitly signals towards an invocation of Article 5. According to AP, one German spokesperson called it a matter of ‘solidarity’ with the UK. Statements from the White House are no less encouraging:
“The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies, and partners around the world in response with Russia’s use of a military grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom — the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world,” the White House said. “Today’s actions make the United States safer by reducing Russia’s ability to spy on Americans, and to conduct covert operations that threaten America’s national security.”
What this statement indicates is that any Russian foreign official or overseas worker in the West should be regarded as possible agents of espionage. In other words, the Cold War is now officially back on.
Then came this statement: “With these steps, the United States and our allies and partners make clear to Russia that its actions have consequences.”
In an era of power politics, this language is anything but harmless. And while US and UK politicians and media pundits seem to be treating it all as a school yard game at times, we should all be reminded that his is how wars start.
The second issue with the Trump’s diplomatic move against Russia is that it extends beyond the territorial US – and into what should be regarded at the neutral zone of the United Nations. As part of the group of 60 expulsions, the US has expelled 12 Russian diplomats from the United Nations in New York City. While this may mean nothing to jumped-up political appointees like Nikki Haley who routinely threaten the UN when a UNGA vote doesn’t go her way, this is an extremely dangerous precedent because it means that the US has now created a diplomatic trap door where legitimate international relations duties are being carelessly rebranded as espionage – done on a whim and based on no actual evidence.
By using this tactic, the US is casting aside decades of international resolutions, treaties and laws. Such a move directly threatens to undermine a fundamental principle of the United Nations which is its diplomatic mission and the right for every sovereign nation to have diplomatic representation. Without it, there is no UN forum and countries cannot talk through their differences and negotiate peaceful settlements. This is why the UN was founded in the first place. Someone might want to remind Nikki Haley of that.
On top of this, flippant US and UK officials are already crowing that Russia should be kicked off the UN Security Council. In effect, Washington is trying to cut the legs out from a fellow UN Security Council member and a nuclear power. This UNSC exclusion campaign been gradually building up since 2014, where US officials have been repeated blocked by Russia over incidents in Syria and the Ukraine. Hence, Washington and its partners are frustrated with the UN framework, and that’s probably why they are so actively undermining it.
Those boisterous calls, as irrational and ill-informed as they might be, should be taken seriously because as history shows, these signs are a prelude to war.
Also, consider the fact that both the US and Russia have military assets deployed in Syria. How much of the Skripal case and the subsequent fall-out has to do with the fact that US Coalition and Gulf state proxy terrorists have lost their hold over key areas in Syria? The truly dangerous part of this equation is that the illegal military occupation by the US and its NATO ally Turkey of northeastern Syria is in open violation of international law, and so Washington and its media arms would like nothing more than to be history’s actor and bury its past indiscretions under a new layer of US-Russia tension in the Middle East.
Another WMD Debacle?
Is it really possible to push East-West relations over the edge on the basis of anecdotal evidence?
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, highlighted the recent British High Court judgement which states in writing that the government’s own chemical weapons experts from the Porton Down research facility could not categorically confirm that a Russian ‘Novichok’ nerve agent was actually used in the Salisbury incident. Based on this, Murray believes that both British Prime Minster Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Britain’s deputy UN representative Jonathan Allen – have all lied to the public and the world when making their public statements that the Russians had in fact launched a deadly chemical weapons attack on UK soil. Murray states elaborates on this key point:
“This sworn Court evidence direct from Porton Down is utterly incompatible with what Boris Johnson has been saying. The truth is that Porton Down have not even positively identified this as a ‘Novichok’, as opposed to “a closely related agent”. Even if it were a ‘Novichok’ that would not prove manufacture in Russia, and a ‘closely related agent’ could be manufactured by literally scores of state and non-state actors.
“This constitutes irrefutable evidence that the government have been straight out lying – to Parliament, to the EU, to NATO, to the United Nations, and above all to the people – about their degree of certainty of the origin of the attack. It might well be an attack originating in Russia, but there are indeed other possibilities and investigation is needed. As the government has sought to whip up jingoistic hysteria in advance of forthcoming local elections, the scale of the lie has daily increased.”
Murray has been roundly admonished by the UK establishment for his views, but he is still correct to ask the question: how could UK government leaders have known ‘who did it’ in advance of any criminal forensic investigation or substantive testing by Porton Down or an independent forensic investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)?
One would hope we could all agree that it’s this sort of question which should have been given more prominence in the run-up to the Iraq War. In matters of justice and jurisprudence, that’s a fundamental question and yet, once again – it has been completely bypassed.
Murray is not alone. A number of scientists and journalists have openly questioned the UK’s hyperbolic claims that Russia had ordered a ‘chemical attack’ on British soil. In her recent report for the New Scientist, author Debora MacKenzie reiterates the fact that several countries could have manufactured a ‘Novichok’ class nerve agent and used it in the chemical attack on Russians Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury.
“British Prime Minister Theresa May says that because it was Russia that developed Novichok agents, it is ‘highly likely’ that Russia either attacked the Skripals itself, or lost control of its Novichok to someone else who did. But other countries legally created Novichok for testing purposes after its existence was revealed in 1992, and a production method has even been published.”
The New Scientist also quotes Ralf Trapp, a chemical weapons consultant formerly with the OPCW, who also reiterates a point worth reminding readers of – that inspectors are only able to tell where molecules sampled in Salisbury have come from if they have reference samples for the ingredients used.
“I doubt they have reference chemicals for forensic analysis related to Russian CW agents,” says Trapp. “But if Russia has nothing to hide they may let inspectors in.”
Even if they can identify it as Novichok, they cannot say that it came from Russia, or was ordered by the Russian government, not least of all because the deadly recipe is available on Amazon for only $28.45.
It should be noted that a substantial amount of evidence points to only two countries who are the most active in producing and testing biological and chemical weapons WMD – the United States and Great Britain. Their programs also include massive ‘live testing’ on both humans and animals with most of this work undertaken at the Porton Down research facility located only minutes away from the scene of this alleged ‘chemical attack’ in Salisbury, England.
Problems with the Official Story
If we put aside for the moment any official UK government theory, which is based on speculation backed-up by a series of hyperbolic statements and proclamations of Russian guilt, there are still many fundamental problems with the official story – maybe too many to list here, but I will address what I believe are a few key items of interest.
The UK police have now released a statement claiming that the alleged ‘Novichok’ nerve agent was somehow administered at the front door of Sergie Skripal’s home in Wiltshire. This latest official claim effectively negates the previous official story because it means that the Skripals would have been exposed a home at the latest around 13:00 GMT on March 4th, and then drove into town, parking their car at Sainsbury’s car park, then having a leisurely walk to have drinks at The Mill Pub, before for ordering and eating lunch at Zizzis restaurant, and then finally leaving the Zizzis and walking before finally retiring on a park bench – where emergency services were apparently called at 16:15 GMT to report an incident.
Soon after, local police arrived on the scene to find the Skripals on the bench in an “extremely serious condition.” Based on this story, the Skripals would have been going about their business for 3 hours before finally falling prey to the deadly WMD ‘Novichok’. From this, one would safely conclude that whatever has poisoned the pair was neither lethal nor could it have been a military grade WMD. Even by subtracting the home doorway exposure leg of this story, the government’s claim hardly adds up – as even a minor amount of any real lethal military grade WMD would have effected many more people along this timeline of events. Based on what we know so far, it seems much more plausible that the pair would have been poisoned at Zizzis restaurant, and not with a military grade nerve agent.
When this story initially broke, we were also told that the attending police officer who first arrived on the scene of this incident, Wiltshire Police Detective Sgt. Nick Bailey – was “fighting for his life” after being exposed to the supposed ‘deadly Russian nerve agent’. As it turned out, officer Bailey was treated in hospital and then discharged on March 22, 2018. To our knowledge, no information or photos of Bailey’s time in care are available to the public so we cannot know the trajectory of his health, or if he was even exposed to the said “Novichok’.
In the immediate aftermath, the public were also told initially that approximately 4o people were taken into medical care because of “poison exposure”. This bogus claim was promulgated by some mainstream media outlets, like Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper. In reality, no one showed signed of “chemical weapons” exposure, meaning that this story was just another example of mainstream corporate media fake news designed to stoke tension and fear in the public. We exposed this at the time on the UK Column News here:
To further complicate matters, this week we were told that Yulia Skripal has now turned the corner and is in recovery, and is speaking to police from her hospital bed. If this is true, then it further proves that whatever the alleged poison agent was which the Skripals were exposed to – it was not a lethal, military grade nerve agent. If it had been, then most likely the Skripals and many others would not be alive right now.
Unfortunately, in this new age of state secrecy, we can expect that most of the key information relating to this case may be sealed indefinitely under a national security letter. In the case of Porton Down scientist David Kelly, the key information is sealed (hidden) for another 60+ years (if we’re lucky, we might get to see it in the year 2080). This means that we just have to take their word for it, or to borrow the words of the newly crowed UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson – any one asking questions, “should just go away and shut up.” Such is the lack of decorum and transparency in this uncomfortably Orwellian atmosphere.
While Britain insists that it has ‘irrefutable proof’ that Russia launched a deadly nerve-gas attack to murder the Skripals, the facts simply do not match-up to the rhetoric.
The Litvinenko Conspiracy
It’s important to note that as far as public perceptions are concerned, the official Skripal narrative has been built directly on top of the Litvinenko case.
In order to try and reinforce the government’s speculative arguments, the UK establishment has resurrected the trial-by-media case of another Russian defector, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who is said to have died after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in his tea at a restaurant in London’s Mayfair district in late 2006.
Despite not having any actual evidence as to who committed the crime, the British authorities and the mainstream media have upheld an almost religious belief that the Russian FSB (formerly KGB), under the command of Vladimir Putin, had ordered the alleged radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko.
The media mythos was reinforced in 2016, when a British Public Inquiry headed by Sir Robert Owen accused senior Russian officials of ‘probably having motives to approve the murder’ of Litvinenko. Again, this level of guesswork and speculation would never meet the standard of an actual forensic investigation worthy of a real criminal court of law, but so far as apportioning blame to another nation or head of state is concerned – it seems fair enough for British authorities.
Following the completion of the inquiry, Sir Robert had this to say: “Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me, I find that the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.”
Contrary to consensus reality (popular belief), Owen’s inquiry was not at all definitive. Quite the opposite in fact, and in many ways it mirrors how the Skripal case has been presented to the public. Despite offering no evidence of any criminal guilt, Owen’s star chamber maintained that Vladimir Putin “probably” approved the operation to assassinate Litvinenko. Is “probably” really enough to assign guilt in a major international crime? When it comes to high crimes of state, the answer seems to be yes.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, that UK inquiry was “neither transparent nor public” and was “conducted mostly behind doors, with classified documents and unnamed witnesses contributing to the result…”
Zakharova highlighted the fact that two key witnesses in the case – Litvinenko’s chief patron, a UK-based anti-Putin defector billionaire oligarch named Boris Berezovsky, and the owner of Itsu restaurant in London’s Mayfair where the incident is said to have taken place, had both suddenly died under dubious circumstances.
The British authorities went on to accuse two Russian men in the Litvineko murder – businessman Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. Both have denied the accusations. Despite the lack of any real evidence, the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklisted both Lugovoi and Kovtun, as well as Russian persons Stanislav Gordievsky, Gennady Plaksin and Aleksandr I. Bastrykin – under the Magnitsky Act, which freezes their assets held in American financial institutions, and bans them from conducting any transactions or traveling to the United States.
Notice the familiar pattern: even if the case is inconclusive, or collapses due to a lack of evidence, the policies remain in place.
Despite all the pomp and circumstance however, Owen’s official conspiracy theory failed to sway even Litvinenko’s own close family members. While Litvinenko’s widow Marina maintains that it was definitely the Russian government who killed her husband, Alexsander’s younger brother Maksim Litvinenko, based in Rimini, Italy, believes the British report “ridiculous” to blame the Kremlin for the murder of his brother, stating that he believes British security services had more of a motive to carry out the assassination.
“My father and I are sure that the Russian authorities are not involved. It’s all a set-up to put pressure on the Russian government,” said Litvinenko to the Mirror newspaper, and that such reasoning can explain why the UK waited almost 10 years to launch the inquiry his brother’s death.
Maxim also said that Britain had more reason to kill his brother than the Russians, and believes that blaming Putin for the murder was part of a wider effort to smear Russia. Following the police investigation, Alexander’s father Walter Litvinenko, also said that he had regretted blaming Putin and the Russian government for his son’s death and did so under intense pressure at the time.
For anyone skeptical of the official proclamations of the British state and the mainstream media on the Litvinenko case, it’s worth reading the work of British journalist Will Dunkerly here.
With so many questions hanging over the actually validity of the British state’s accusations against Russia, it’s somewhat puzzling that British police would say they are still ‘looking for similarities’ between the Skripal and Litvinenko cases in order to pinpoint a modus operandi.
The admission by the British law enforcement that their investigation may take months before any conclusion can be drawn also begs the question: how could May have been so certain so quick? The answer should be clear by now: she could not have known it was a ‘Novichok’ agent, no more than she could know the ‘Russia did it.’
A Plastic Cold War
Historically speaking, in the absence of any real mandate or moral authority, governments suffering from an identity crisis, or a crisis of legitimacy will often try and define themselves not based on what they stand for, but rather what (or who) they are in opposition to. This profile suits both the US and UK perfectly at the moment.
Both governments are limping along with barely a mandate, and have orchestrated two of the worst and most hypocritical debacles in history with their illegal wars in both Syria and Yemen. With their moral high-ground a thing of the past, these two countries require a common existential enemy in order to give their international order legitimacy. The cheapest, easiest option is to reinvigorate a framework which was already there, which is the Cold War framework: Reds under the bed. The Russian are coming, etc.
It’s cheap and it’s easy because it has already been seeded with 70 years of Cold War propaganda and institutionalized racism in the West directed against Russians. If you don’t believe me, just go look at some of the posters, watch the TV propaganda in the US, or read about the horrific McCarthyist blacklists and political witch hunts. I remember growing up in America and being taught “never again” and “we’re past all of that now, those days of irrational paranoia are behind us, we’re better than that now.” But that madness of the past was not a fringe affair – it was a mainstream madness, and one which was actively promoted by government and mainstream media.
You would have to be at the pinnacle of ignorance to deny that this is exactly what we are seeing today, albeit a more plastic version, but just as immoral and dangerous. Neocons love it, and now liberals love it too.
Dutifully fanning the flaming of war, Theresa May has issued her approval of the NATO members diplomatic retaliation this week exclaiming, “We welcome today’s actions by our allies, which clearly demonstrate that we all stand shoulder to shoulder in sending the strongest signal to Russia that it cannot continue to flout international law.”
But from an international law perspective, can May’s ‘highly likely’ assurances really be enough to position the west on war footing with Russia? When Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn asked these same fundamental questions on March 14th, he was shouted down by the Tory bench, and also by the hawkish Blairites sitting behind him.
Afterwards, the British mainstream press launched yet another defamation campaign against Corbyn, this time with the UK’s Daily Mail calling the opposition leader a “Kremlin Stooge”, followed by British state broadcaster the BBC who went through the effort of creating a mock-up graphic of Corbyn in front of the Kremlin (pictured above) apparently wearing a Russian hat, as if to say he was a Russian agent. It was a new low point in UK politics and media.
Considering the mainstream media’s Corbyn smear alongside the recent insults hurled at Julian Assange by Tory MP Sir Alan Duncan who stood up in front of Parliament and called the Wikileaks founder a “miserable worm”, what this really says is that anyone who dares defy the official state narrative will be beaten down and publicly humiliated. In other words, dissent in the political ranks will not be tolerated. It’s almost as if we are approaching a one party state.
Would a UN Security Council member and nuclear power really be so brazen as to declare de facto war on another country without presenting any actual evidence or completing a genuine forensic investigation?
So why the apparent rush to war? Haven’t we been here before, in 2003? Will the people of the West allow it to happen again?
As with T2ony Blair’s WMD’s in 2003, the British public are meant to take it on faith and never question the official government line. And just like in 2003, the UK has opened the first door on the garden path, with the US and its ‘coalition’ following safely behind, shoulder to shoulder. In this latest version of the story, Tony Blair is being played by Theresa May, and Jack Straw is being played by Boris Johnson.
On the other side of the pond, a hapless Bush is hapless Trump. Both Blair and Straw, along with the court propagandist Alastair Campbell – are all proven to have been liars of the highest order, and if there were any real accountability or justice, these men and their collaborators in government should be in prison right now. The fact they aren’t is why the door has been left wide open for the exact same scam to be repeated again, and again.
Iraq should have taught us all to be skeptical about official claims of chemical weapons evidence, and to face the ugly truth about how most major wars throughout history have waged by the deception – and by western governments. What does it tell us about today’s society if people still cannot see this?
That’s why it was wrong to let Blair, Bush and others off the hook for war crimes. By doing so, both the British and Americans are inviting a dark phase of history to repeat itself again, and again.
It’s high time that we break the cycle.
Author Patrick Henningsen is a global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR).
I agree with your views only one complain: please use “existential” in its proper sense and not in the silly way the apologists of apartheid Israel do, turning it into a cliché and meaning a threat to existence.
Actually, the title of this piece is not only very misleading; it is also plain wrong!
the leaders of the West, mostly the ones running the US and israel and their vassal states of the EU have learned the lessons of Irak well. very well in fact.
the main lesson here is: they can and do manage to “get away with it” again and again.
they ruined Afghanistan, irak, Syria, Libya, Yemen and the Ukraine, and now try to ramp up a war with Russia, iran, north korea and possibly China.
politician heads rolled? zero.
westerners ending yp in the prisons of ICC? zero
leaders held to account? zero
people killed? millions
people displaced: millions
countries ruined, bombed, made radio-active by depleted uranium, crimes of war committed, wars of aggression started, occupations still continuing, resources plundered, massive numbers of refugees caused, numbers of refugees drowned in the Mediterranean, slaves and others traded, : too many to count
money made by the elite because of this and put on banks in tax havens: trillions.
they DID learn their lessons. they’re better at it than ever before.
stop ascribing all the wars and suffering as “mistakes being made”. it is POLICY and all of it happens BY DESIGN.
only by accepting these simple facts will the rest of humanity be able to wake up and put an end to it.
as long as we keep kidding ourselves that it’s all just blundering and nobody is guilty of crimes, it will go on and on and on.
The murder in Lebanon that helped discombobulate it may end up repeating on a world level
Five months after Lebanon Prime Minister Rafic Hariri resigned in 2004 he was assassinated by a truck bomb, the engine serial number showed it was stolen years earlier in Japan, purchased with cash from a dealer without cameras,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/the-hezbollah-connection.html?_r=0
Extremely meticulous planning, an al-Qaeda specialty, which I noted at the time.
This attack meant retired politicians had to watch their rear end, a huge escalation. Fury at Hezbollah, a likely suspect, led to a downward tit for tat swirl, mass carnage and most Christians fleeing for their lives.
Consortium News 20011/09/01 reported that several Qaeda detainees being interrogated for recent information gave old news instead, to put the US interrogators on an old trail instead, but they somehow instead kept being questioned about more recent events,
https://consortiumnews.com/2011/09/01/hariri-murder-sleuths-ignored-al-qaeda/
https://original.antiwar.com/porter/2011/08/31/tribunal-concealed-evidence-al-qaeda-killed-hariri/
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=7244
Russia likes to punish what it considers traitors who flee abroad, but never previously considered violating a spy swap. A British police officer rushing to aid two people appearing to nod off on a park bench, seems like they were secretly being trailed, bits of nerve gas in many places around the city, I wonder if in the plane Russian ex-spy Sergie Skripal’s daughter flew to London on, had traces of nerve gas on it.
Whoever is looking for trouble sure found it.
The “Iraqi Congress in Exile” spread lies about Saddam, and the US instead of being mad at being lied to, wanted =them in charge. France 24 reported at at least one of the chemical attacks blamed on Assad, was someone other group.
Among the future false flag dangers would be al Qaeda tricking the US and/or North Korea that an imminent preemptive attack is about to happen and/or an attack between India and Pakistan, or any other place people hate each other. They love attacking funerals and Shiite and Christian Holy sites.
It’s said that staying home to hide from terror would be a partial victory for the terrorists. Al Qaeda thinks Western glamour entices people away from their duty to pray, so withering of our democratic decadence a plus for God.
The above link did not examine whether al Qaeda’s purpose was to cause mayhum the following link does.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/06/did-al-qaeda-dupe-trump-on-syrian-attack-2/
I think that they learned the only thing that is important to them, that is, that they can get away with it, by just playing dumb for a while, and then they can even recycle it at first opportunity!Who gives a damn about suckers.
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This assumes the powers that be consider Iraq a mistake, one that requires lessons learned. Politicians and media work for bankers and Israel – Israel and the banking cartels utilize the US military to drive their interests across the globe. War on terror has provided 15+ years of public wealth going to private hands of defens contractos who’s product enforces the masters wishes. MAKE NO MISTAKE, NONE OF YOURE POLITICIANS CONSIDER IRAQ A FAILURE IN THEIR PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS.
“… the surreptitious “highly likely” assessments of British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson”
I must say that Consortium News maintains high standards of editing and well written prose in addition to accuracy etc. Thus they may become a kind of authority of English usage to readers across the world, and this carries some responsibility. The statements of Theresa May and Boris Johnson were unsupported, but of course they were made in public, and their role in spreading the idiocy was overt, perhaps even a source of pride. Thus it was not
surreptitious “kept secret, especially because it would not be approved of.
“they carried on a surreptitious affair”
synonyms: secret, secretive, stealthy, clandestine, sneaky, sly, furtive”.
Perhaps these statements were sneaky and sly, but definitely not secretive, stealthy, clandestine or furtive.
“w”. Oliver Stone gives excellent insight on how these clowns and their charade gain momentum. Check it out.
Oh I think they have learnt though. The lesson learnt is – don’t display ‘evidence’ to everyone that can then be shown to be wrong (oh Colin). Instead now, there is no displays of anything, just a circle-jirk of words and emotion, leading to the necessary herd panic that is exploited by the evil-sheppard managing their Empire.
The problem is not that politicians and media have not learned – they k now what they are doing. The problem is that the brainwashed and propagandized American sheeple have not learned anything.
In this case, you mean the propagandized British sheeple, no different from the French sheeple, the German sheeple, the Italian sheeple, etc. Boris and Theresa are English clowns, mate.
Actually, the politicians and corporate media have indeed learned one very important lesson: that they can lie and get away with it.
Five months after Lebanon Prime Minister Rafic Hariri resigned in 2004 he was assassinated by a truck bomb, the engine serial number showed it was stolen years earlier in Japan, purchased with cash from a dealer without cameras,
Extremely meticulous planning, an al-Qaeda specialty, which I noted at the time.
This attack meant retired politicians had to watch their ass, a huge escalation. Fury at Hezbollah, a likely suspect, led to a downward tit for tat swirl, mass carnage and most Christians fleeing for their lives.
Consortium News 20011/09/01 reported that several Qaeda detainees being interrogated for recent information gave old news instead, to put the US interrogators on an old trail instead, but they somehow instead kept being questioned about more recent events.
Russia likes to punish what it considers traitors who flee abroad, but never previously considered violating a spy swap. A British police officer rushing to aid two people appearing to nod off on a park bench, seems like they were secretly being trailed, bits of nerve gas in many places around the city, I wonder if in the plane Russian ex-spy Sergie Skripal’s daughter flew to London on, had traces of nerve gas on it.
Whoever is looking for trouble sure found it.
MY COMPLETE COMMENT WAS HELD FOR MODERATION
These politicos didn’t care to learn any lessons from Iraq! They will lie about anything to retain power. Their ‘overlords’ who control them pull their marionette strings.
At “The Duran” website Alexander Mercouris has a piece titled “Furious China Ramps Up Support for Russia on Skripal, Calls West’s Actions ‘Outrageous’ “. The Global Times, English language organ of China’s ruling Communist Party, published a scorching op-ed and 13 paragraphs are printed in Mercouris’ piece. It is well worth reading, as is The Duran a good site to know of. Some very powerful points are made in the piece, please read it.
Not even mentioned in that piece is that China has just launched the petroyuan as exchange for oil purchase, and Russia is their largest supplier of oil. Other countries that are sick of Western bullying are also attempting to get off the dollar and China has leverage to aid them. So does Russia, which has no debt. The US as a debtor nation relies only on its guns to maintain dominance. The West is a ‘beast’ lashing out to keep control.
Don’t believe in mass insanity? You should. We all should. Even considering the most dastardly murder of someone, what type of reasoning would lead us to risk the murder of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions. We have to acknowledge that it is not about them, it is about us, that we are willingly being led toward the precipice and feeling self righteous in doing so.
We have to stop putting the blame on our politicians and take responsibility as a people. It is clear that our elected officials serve somebody else’s agenda so we have to change the system. We need to create a democracy where decisions such as diplomatic relations, is voted upon by the people. A more direct democracy is possible today and we need it.
The political class in America and UK do what their Zionist paymasters tell them. They’re not stupid, they know perfectly well Russia had nothing to do with this.
Yes, you are right Emmet. Add to the list all the puppets, the leaders of EU Vassal States, who simply obey the orders. The so called “Free World” has degenerated into this farce, what it is today.
“carnival of warmongering”
A better title IMO.
I chat online and hang out here in Japan with a number Brits and North Americans and they don’t seem to care or scoff at my thoughts which wholeheartedly go along with Patrick’s, (whom, along with the UK Column team, have podcasts which I never miss.) It seems people have shut off their critical thinking abilities and when I pipe up with my line about how a huge psy-op is being played on us by our own governments (which admittedly to a “normy” does sound whacky), after the scoffing and incredulousness at how evil Russia could possibly be innocent, they will end the discussion with a sure fire discussion ender: they don’t give a shit. I am truly privileged to be alive in this amazing present with the greatest toys and gizmos ever invented and yet there’s Trump and May and my “friends” pissing in my sandbox. WTF??? How can the words and deeds my heroes like John Lennon and MLK be suddenly wrong? Maybe we should all stop giving a shit about this crap. My mother, a firebrand back in the day, is blissfully unaware of anything due to Alzheimer’s and she’s fine! But Mom wouldn’t have scoffed. I’d have had a loving fellow traveler had she not been stricken. Maybe the most irksome thing is how people are profiting off these lies and dangerous provocations. Conspiracy theory skeptics always say that someone would have talked. That this crap is happening under our noses with only some outlets of the alternative media “saying something” still it goes on and maybe only a war will shake them hard enough to be “woke.” Or not. One thing is how much fun the alternative side is. I used to like to read “Consumer Reports” and loved how they got away with ripping apart cars that real companies surely sweated bullets to make. I also liked the way they lauded some products. Nowadays, CR would be a sometimes right but still fake consensus driver like “Snopes” or “Vice News.” While I’m rambling, a shout out to James Corbett. You have got to see his dissection of the Sibel Edmunds Twitter melt down.
Yes, I agree with you. I quit paying attention long ago (approximately 12 years ago) to the msm, of whom I used to work with. The most useful thing for me is to not give a shit what they do. It seems to help; I don’t have the funding to fight them, though I can counter anyone who might defend them. You mentioned “Consumer Reports” and fake news, refresh my memory, were they also along with either “Popular Science” or “Popular Mechanics” agreeing with the NIST lie that fires destroyed the three towers?
Will the people of the USA believe another WMDs lie? Of course they will. They have been doing it since Herheinous lost the election. They are believing that because she lost. Can anyone imagine what they would say if it was Trump throwing out these ridiculous lies? They’d say that he is nuts for even thinking it.
The PTB knew that people would never believe another WMDs type story so they came at people with this softer WMDs type propaganda and lo and behold they are buying it. SMDH!
An excellent analysis, I always enjoy reading your articles, thank you.
The perpetrators do not care whether the allegations can be supported by evidence or if the science makes sense or if there’s a logical motive. All that’s important is that the damage is done and the endgame achieved. The attack has to be blatant to ensure attention is focused on it and fingers are pointed in the right direction. Government officials can always rely on the MSM and the brain dead public to support them. People are easily propagandized. A video on propaganda by Dr. Jerry Kroth on 21st Century Wire is well worth watching. Whoever is behind the incident get away with it because they feel they are above all laws.
In the Skripal case, once again all the mindless sheeple have the wool pulled over their eyes, while bleating their approval of the excessive measures taken by the UK and allies that are disproportionate to the crime. Not long ago, our local TV station had an online poll asking people if they agree with expelling the Russian diplomats and 81% replied “yes”. Many of the comments on the MSM sites are very negative toward Russia over this incident.
History will repeat itself again and again, a long as anyone questioning the official narrative is attacked and discredited, people are fed propaganda, media is censored, and the laws and justice system fail again and again.
I believe that these war mongers cannot help themselves when it comes to lying and deceiving their own people to promote war. Consequently, it is up to the people to put a stop to their nefarious ambitions; According to Richard Sanders, “Military plotters know that the majority would never support their wars, if it were generally known why they were really being fought…
If asked to support a war so a small, wealthy elite could shamelessly profit by ruthlessly exploiting and plundering the natural and human resources in far away lands, people would ‘just say no.’” If people chose to be spectators rather than participants into their own affairs, then they deserve what is coming to them. It is simple math.
Don’t the Brits realize that if there’s any kind of shooting war with Russia, and any Russian city is attacked,that the Russians can and will bomb British cities to retaliate, not to mention the resulting ecalation,almost certainly up to nuclear? Why aren’t a million Brits on the streets demanding peaceful resolution of this and future crises?
Dear Sad: your question may sound simple but it is a complex one;It involves numerous factors interwoven that create the right conditions for war. I think that Brits are not on the streets might be due to apathy, ignorance, disinterest, or sheer historical amnesia. According to Richard Sanders, “The historical knowledge of how war planners have tricked people into supporting past wars, is like a vaccine. We can use this understanding of history to inoculate the public with healthy doses of distrust for official war pretext narratives and other deceptive stratagems. Through such immunization programs we may help to counter our society’s susceptibility to “war fever.”
Politicians and the media are not there to learn anything but how to make money and gain more power through the corrupt, lying games they play. They all made money off the Iraq war, and that is all they care about, period.
Nothing new to readers here, but of course it’s all true. The Empire seeks more war.
Has it ever been otherwise?
“By using this tactic, the US is casting aside decades of international resolutions, treaties and laws. Such a move directly threatens to undermine a fundamental principle of the United Nations which is its diplomatic mission and the right for every sovereign nation to have diplomatic representation. Without it, there is no UN forum and countries cannot talk through their differences and negotiate peaceful settlements. This is why the UN was founded in the first place. Someone might want to remind Nikki Haley of that.”
Reminding Nikki Haley would not make any difference. Nikki Haley does not have the intelligence, knowledge, character or any capacity for deep thinking. Nor does his boss possess much of it. John Bolton has no regard for U.N., and is completely devoid of any humanitarian impulses. He is as close as it could be of being considered as a complete barbarian. There is Mike Pompeo there sitting at the table. You know how he is like. So, there you have it.
And there is nothing to cheer about across the Atlantic. Theresa may, Boris Johnson, Gavin Williamson . . . It is as bad as it gets. Merkel, Macron, Stoltenberg, and the rest of the Flock in those Vassal States follow the orders.
As Henneningsen points out in the article, this latest provocation by The West, in all probability this staged event at Salisbury, is indeed very dangerous. World may be edging towards a nuclear war. There are no sane voices left in the Ruling Establishments in The West.
Dave I agree. In fact Dave, if you were the international war criminals of all time then wouldn’t it be wise to destroy the very fabric of what stands for international justice? It’s either the UN, or NATO, and in this case it’s destroy the UN in order to drag down more allied nations into this carnival of destruction under the banner of NATO. So I agree Dave, it isn’t to how it appears that TPTB want to bring the UN down, as it is that the TPTB are taking the UN down as we speak of this heavy conundrum being laid before us. Believe it not, in Sheldon’s eyes Nikki is doing a fantastic job of it.
We are going to war Dave. We are fast moving towards that place where the closer we get to war that the more criticism of war will be deemed traitorous. Starting to paying attention will have a whole new meaning. Joe
Joe, yes, you are right on that; they are taking the UN down as we speak . Under Bush, when Bolton was at UN, they were talking about dissolving the UN. Immediately after this staged event in Salisbury, the British politicians were talking about kicking Russia out of UN Security Council. It all seems preplanned.
Russia is the biggest country in the World, its population is more than twice that of U.K. and also of France. Its GDP (in PPP) is one and one half times of U.K’s. And most of the U.K.’s economy is Finance and Tourism, and London being the World Center of money laundering, and residence of all these oligarchs/financial crooks, and Corrupt Elite from all over the third world countries; you name it all this ill gotten wealth is pouring into London. It is amazing that the Ruling Elite in U.K. are talking as if they are still in the nineteenth or early twentieth century – ruling over a good portion of the World. It seems to me that if the shooting starts, U.K’s paper economy is going to crumble.
Unfortunately, there is not much out there to hope for. They – The West – are going not only to take the UN down, but take the World down with it into some type of dark ages again.
“We are going to war”. And we’re almost there. As described in this
rather long but very cogent, timely and relevant essay :
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/02/the-warm-war-russiamania-at-the-boiling-point/
I have printed it out for future reference.
Where, pray tell, is the UN in all this? The United States has been fomenting coups and “regime changes” for decades. The UN should be standing up and calling the US out instead of supinely agreeing to eject 10 Russian delegates to the UN.
Jeff: Agreed. The UN has lost the plot for some time now. Their mission was peace originally, and the US can’t have that. Nicki Hoeky is clueless and is not doing a damn thing to help us.
Yes, isn’t it alarming that the US can throw out diplomats from the UN just like that? Did the UN react? Did any members of the UN speak up? Doesn’t this move deflate the immunity and freedom of UN members and the UN itself?
Vietnam: The Gulf of Tonkin Attack of the Radar Blips (Hanoi Bridge For Sale Cheap!) Gulf War I (Kuwaiti babies pitched out of incubators), Iraq War: Saddam Has WMDs! (Baghdad Bridge For Sale Cheap!), Putin Invades Crimea (Kiev Bridge For Sale Cheap!) Syrian Sarin Gas Attacks (White Helmet videos at 11), Putin Novichoks Ex-Russian Spy (double agent) & daughter in Salisbury UK (Theresa May: “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes”) And, of course, now and forever, Trump = Putin. The hits just keep coming. Shades of the Reichstag Fire and Poland Invades Germany. Rogue Nation USA and its pusillanimous NATO “partners” continuously spew out lies to their ever-gullible Gen Pop, because it works! Again and again and again.
Maxim Litvinenko’s opinion on his brother’s poisoning and his father’s regretting being coerced by British authorities into believing his son was targeted by Putin add a particularly relevant wrench into the Tory narrative. Thank you, Patrick Hennigsen, for some very trenchant insights into the web of intrigue.
This is the material for a badly written cheap novel, yet the Brits have been pushing it and their Allies have been pretending to believe it. WHY is the big question I’d like to have answered. There were dozens of ways the Skripals could have been quietly murdered, yet somebody decided to use a method designed to gain maximum publicity.
Given a high probability Israel murdered Arafat with Polonium two years earlier, it was just naturally the turn of the Russians to be the villains. Likely blame was assigned by the Brits using the same method as now – Write the names of all the possible nations who could have done the deed on large pieces of paper. Tape the ones with “Russia” on the south side of a room, and those with all the other suspects on the north side. Make sure your blindfolded dart thrower is pointed south, and you’ve solved the mysteries of the two deadly poisons.
“The fact that the alleged creator of Novichok agents – Vil Mirzayanov – fled to and currently lives in the United States suggests the West has both knowledge of and the means to create Novichok agents themselves.
“The UK’s presumption that “only Russia” could have produced the agents when the creator of Novichok lives in the United States – and British labs clearly have access to the poison – is at face value contradictory and dishonest.
“Since the UK has refused to produce any tangible evidence, including producing samples under its obligations to the Chemical Weapons Convention, all that is left for the international community to consider is the source of these accusations. […]
“Just as the US and UK did during the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003, an avalanche of propaganda is being produced to stampede the world into backing whatever long-ago elected course of action the West has decided to take against Russia.
“In the hindsight of whatever course of action the UK and its allies decide to take in the coming days, weeks, and months based on the Skripal incident, who will play the role of ‘Curveball’ who supposedly duped Theresa May in making her Powell-style accusations before declaring her Bush-style retaliation?
“And considering the ramifications for the West regarding its lies in the lead up to Iraq and the fallout the West has faced in the aftermath of Iraq’s destruction, what do Western policymakers expect to gain from an incident many times more transparently staged and self-serving against a world increasingly skeptical of their claims and actions?”
WMD Lies Strike Again: The Skripal Incident
By Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2018/03/wmd-lies-strike-again-skripal-incident.html
“The fact that the alleged creator of Novichok agents – Vil Mirzayanov – fled to and currently lives in the United States suggests the West has both knowledge of and the means to create Novichok agents themselves.”…very significant fact….if it was reported before, it flew right by me, although I was aware that Western “scientists” took samples of the Aral Sea stockpile during Yeltsin’s chaotic administration.
Here’s a link to Moonof Alabama discussing Soviet defector Vil Mirzanyanov who wrote a book about his chemical work for the USSR; he now lives in Princeton, NJ.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/russian-scientists-explain-novichok-high-time-for-britain-to-come-clean.html
Thanks Fred,…the Zakharova interview was particularly revealing…considering that the “Russian sounding” name “Novichok” was invented by Western sources, the Tory claim reeks of tampering with the facts. It reminds me of the sloppy “Steele investigation” into alleged Russian hacking where a trail of Russian “clues” seemed to be inserted by Christopher Steel’s Fusion GPS. The fact that Steele himself is linked to both MI-6 and the DNC effort to hang Hillary’s election loss on Putin should shift all suspicion onto the accusers, but.alas, the msm is not in the business of informing the public.
Moon of Alabama has updated the information on this and links it to Hillary. Gee, what a surprise, ehh?
Even MORE interesting is that when she was US Sec of State, she along with the UK “ordered Diplomats To Suppress ‘Novichok’ Discussions! http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/clinton-state-department-discouraged-novichok-discussion.html#more
Thanks Kathryn,…both the article and the comment thread raise a lot of questions(the thread never ends). Many of the comments seem to be from people with considerable knowledge of the chemical composition and its possible effects,
As the article states above, the book and recipe re: Vil Mirzayanov can be bought on Amazon for $28.45. This information has certainly been known by chemists worldwide.
Actually all you have to do is use Amazon´s “Look Inside” and search for A-234 – and you have it.
Free for anyone with an internet connection.
There is always reality and, offered in its place, the risible Washington narrative. Clearly, the world knows the difference just about every time, yet the world hegemon and its NATO vassals insist on the preposterous mythology and most of the rest go along out of fear. It’s a frustrating trap that honest and rational people everywhere are forced to accept, unless they want to war in one form or another with the great bully. You go along with the Red Queen’s six impossible things imagined before breakfast or it’s off with your head!
We know the identities of the figureheads in whose name these outrages are promulgated–moral sell-outs for political grandeur like D.J. Trump, Nikki Haley and now John Bolton. What piques my curiosity would be the names of those powers lurking in the shadows who pull the strings of these figureheads. Who are the psychopaths that have been firmly directing Washington’s endless wars with no deviation in their prosecution regardless of campaign promises, elections and warm bodies occupying offices? Who are the monsters that have put us on a certain collision course for nuclear war with Russia ginned up with an un-ending litany of lies, frame-ups, false narratives and aggressive military moves? Would it be people we’ve heard about? Is Sheldon Adelson essentially the defacto czar of the “Western alliance?” Or is he also only a front for truly Deep Slimeballs pulling the strings at the depths of the Deep State?
If the pope’s pronouncements on hell, which presently has some prominent Catholics disconcerted that pain and suffering forever and ever without end is not a reasonable position for an all-knowing and all-loving diety to take, is the likely truth then, for many unfortunates, hell actually ends when their stay on earth is terminated courtesy of the blood-thirsty Washington maniacs who play god.
Yes, the ultimate influencers are the great question. Those who follow the money and follow the motive find the nature of oligarchy and its factions, if not its commanders. Our tyranny is a subculture of bullies using all available forms of power: direct force, economic power, social, and information power, and in all modes of bribery, threat, and deception. We owe everything to our gangsters.
The pope cannot change Church dogma/doctrine. Period. He is a heretic sitting on the see of Peter. There is a mighty chastisement coming to the world, which will resemble the flood in its ferocity.
The War Criminals are all in Solidarity with each other.
See more at link below.
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2018/03/solidarity-among-war-criminals.html
Trump is a businessman, and the biggest and most profitable business is a military spending. PR and advertising campaigns (like Salisbury ) are just a part of the game to keep wheels moving.
One more note. At first I was puzzled by the stupidity of those who produced this cheap B-movie scenario of this Skipal show. Now I must admit that they are much smarter than I previously thought. As Joseph Goebbels said, the more unbelievable lie the easier to make people believe in it. And that is very simple to explain. Those who would try to analyse the unanalysable will not be able to come to a definite conclusion and there will be always a room for a doubt. Good job!
Moon of Alabama has been covering this and the latest post shows that this was planned as far back as 2009. Hillary is involved with this and while she was SOS she told her staff not discuss the book that had the information on how to make the poison. This is a little convenient, don’t you think?
Good grief, there are so many holes in this story that I’m just frankly dumbfounded that people can’t see through them. The timeline of where they got poisoned and then the number of people who had been exposed to it kept going up.
I have been following the story closely at MoA as well. I’m not sure that the U.S. and the UK had an anti-Russia false flag operation specifically in mind at the time, but it seems clear that they were actively working to suppress international concern for a new class of chemical weapons. The likely reason for this is that both governments wanted to develop Novichoks for their own purposes in secret.
To Stephen J. Gray: I agree with you 200%, and have said the exact same thing for years now. What a let down when the last President declared justice was off limits for these scoundrels! How the world could look now if justice was served then! Patrick J. Henningsen’s piece here and his site 21st Century Wire, along with working with Vanessa and Eva, fill us in on what has transpired in Syria more than any other place, and I am pleased to see him represented here. I also love seeing him on “Crosstalk” on RT.
Second this!
Hi geeyp, I believe we are ruled by total evil. Hopefully, there will be a day of reckoning and these villains will be put on trial.
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/12/will-there-be-day-of-reckoning.html
The current crop of “leaders” in the UK share the same trait — the complete lack of dignity. It seems that immorality has become a prerequisite for entering the UK politics. Guess, The Friends of Israel have succeeded in educating Brits in accordance with Mossad’ ethics, “By way of deception thou shalt do war.”
Let us have a look at something we do know. In the early 1990s, Skripal was recruited as an agent for MI6 by Pablo Miller. Miller’s MI6 controller under diplomatic cover in Moscow at this time was Christopher Steele. We know they have remained in contact – Miller visits Skripal regularly and works for Orbis (Christopher Steele’s outfit).
Smell anything?
Steele, of course, was the author of the dodgy dossier that targeted Trump based on his Russian activities. Skripal, who is a bit short of the readies, wanted to go back to Russia – had made application to do so.
Getting a whiff?
Could it be that what Skripal knows about the dossier could fetch a tidy price in Russia?
Certain parties would consider that inconvenient.
why would he have to go to Russia to sell this information?
“Hysteria Proves Politicians and Media Haven’t Learned the Lessons of Iraq”
What lesson would that be, since the GOAL of the media/government was to attack Iraq regardless of the truth? If anything, the media LEARNED better how to lie the American public into more wars! Iraq was not a mistake. It is was a carefully crafted war crime that ignored the facts, because the facts would have stymied the plans to attack Iraq or any other nation! Calling these “interventions” mistakes only serves to drain off the REAL guilt of the war criminals who pushed this nightmare through!