Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case: Part 6 – Tying up the Loose Ends
Rob Slane, the Blogmire
Yulia Skripal allegedly making voluntary statement May 23 2018
Over the last five pieces (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) I have, slowly but surely, advanced a theory of what happened in the Skripal case. I must confess to having done so with a fair amount of unease. I don’t want to believe that my Government has been stating a case that is false. I don’t want to believe that the public have been lied to. I don’t want to have to think that there has been a lot of effort made to present an explanation that hides the truth.
And yet, given the fact that the Government story contains self-evident fallacies, and cannot be made to add up, I don’t think that there’s much alternative than to be hugely sceptical about their claims. I stated the two main fallacies in Part 1, which are the claims that three people were poisoned by the nerve agent A-234, which is 5-8 times more toxic than VX, and that because A-234 was developed in the Soviet Union, the Russian State is responsible for what happened. The first claim cannot be true, because the three people are alive and well and have suffered no irreparable damage. The second claim is palpably untrue, because A-234 has been synthesised in a number of countries.
Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg of the absurdities and anomalies. I don’t intend to go through all of them, but would simply point anyone who does believe the official story to concentrate on three words: The Door Handle. This was apparently where the poison was poured, so allow me to pose five questions about this claim to those who believe it to be true:
- During the “clean-up” operation, there were lots of military chaps wearing HazMat suits, which are designed to protect against exposure to toxic chemicals. How, then, did the assassin apparently manage to pour this same lethal, military grade nerve agent on a door handle, without wearing a HazMat suit?
- On the other hand, if he or she was wearing a HazMat suit when performing the operation, wouldn’t someone in Christie Miller Road have noticed and found it – shall we say – a bit odd?
- If the poison was administered to the door handle, how exactly did both Sergei and Yulia Skripal manage to touch it (people don’t normally both touch the door handle if they go in the house together), and how did they manage to get exactly the right quantities on their skin so that they collapsed at exactly the same time, some four hours later?
- The door handle theory only reared its head some three weeks after the poisoning, at which point the substance was said to have been still present in a “highly pure” form. During this three weeks, many people went in and out of Mr Skripal’s house using the front door. How did they manage to do so without using the door handle, or if they did, how did they manage not to succumb to poisoning?
- Part of the Government’s alleged evidence pointing at the high likelihood of Russian involvement in the case, is an FSB instruction manual showing – amongst other things – how to assassinate someone by pouring Novichok on a door handle. Suspending our disbelief on this claim for a moment (and admittedly that is hard), did the Government have the manual when they made their accusations against the Russian Government on 12th and 14th March, and if so, why did the door handle theory not surface for more than a week after this?
Of course, a few moments consideration about the door handle theory will show that – like the rest of the official story – it is simply wrong. And because it is so plainly wrong, that is why we can safely say that the real explanation lies elsewhere.
Nevertheless, I am aware that in advancing another explanation, there are likely to be many holes in it too. Whilst much of what I have said throughout this series has been based on facts and eyewitness statements, the theory I have advanced from those facts and witness statements remains unproven. And so I would ask that where I have got things wrong, you would forgive me, and where things don’t make sense, you would point them out.
Having said that, what I want to do in this final piece it to tie up a few loose ends and – most particularly – attempt to demonstrate how the theory I have advanced explains some of the other anomalies in the case in a far more cogent and rational way than does the official story. So here goes.
The Deafening Silence of Sergei Skripal
One of the least talked about points in the official story, yet one that really is very important, is that if it were a true account, Mr Skripal would almost certainly have no more clue about who poisoned him than the average person in the street. If it were true that an unknown assassin, appointed by the Russian Government, poured military-grade nerve agent onto his front door on 4th March, before fleeing back to the Motherland, Mr Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, would be as much in the dark as to who did it than you or I.
Now, if that were the case, two things would naturally follow. The first is that Mr Skripal would almost certainly be inclined to believe the version of events given to him by the Metropolitan Police. Think about it. He wakes up one morning in a strange hospital bed, and has absolutely no clue why he is there or what happened to him. Then a kindly policeman comes and explains that he was the target of an assassination attempt using a lethal nerve agent, and that the British Government believes that it was ordered by the Russian Government. What is he going to believe? Fairly obvious I would think. At least he would have no reason to disbelieve them.
The second thing that would naturally follow is that, as soon as he was able, he would want to release a statement, either on paper, or in an interview, where he not only pledges his support for the Metropolitan Police and their ongoing investigation, and no doubt hints at involvement of the Russian State, but also – and this is crucial – where he also gives the public some information about what actually happened to him on 4th March: where he went, when he first started to feel ill, and what he last remembers.
Again, think about it. If you were in his shoes, wouldn’t you want to catch the people who did it? And wouldn’t you assume that the more information you could give to the public, perhaps even clearing up some of the anomalies (such as the reason for the agitation in Zizzis), the more chance there would be that someone’s memory might be jogged and vital information given to the police?
Of course you would. And yet so far, Mr Skripal has released no such statement. Why?
It isn’t that he is physically or mentally incapacitated. We know from Yulia Skripal’s brief call to her cousin on April 5th (which almost certainly wasn’t “meant” to happen), that Sergei was by that time fine. In response to Viktoria’s question about her father, she said this:
“Everything is ok. He is resting now, having a nap. Everyone’s health is fine, there are no irreparable things. I will be discharged soon. Everything is ok.”
That was nearly three months ago, and yet the Sergei Skripal who was fine on 5th April, having suffered no irreparable damage from apparently being poisoned by the world’s most deadly nerve agent, and who was discharged on 18th May, still has not spoken.
I put it that the theory I have advanced (see Part 5 in particular), suggests an obvious reason for his silence. Were he in the dark about the identity of those who poisoned him, as the official story implies, his silence would be inexplicable. Don’t you want to catch the perpetrators of this crime upon you and your daughter, Sergei?
Yet, if we assume that actually he knows exactly who poisoned him and why they poisoned him – as would be the case according to the theory I have advanced – then his silence is very easily explained. He cannot be allowed to be interviewed about what happened, because he would blow the whole wretched business clean out of the water. He cannot be allowed to make an open statement, with the press there to ask free questions, because it would come out that he had been meeting someone at the bench in The Maltings, and that this someone whom he met was the person who poisoned him.
In addition, his (highly likely) authorship of the Trump Dossier would be revealed. And if this were to happen, not only would it be seen that the foundation upon which the whole Trump/Russia collusion hoax was based was made of straw, but it would become clear that the interference in the 2016 US Presidential election was never really about Russian interference to get Trump elected; but rather about British interference to stop Trump getting elected.
The deafening silence of Mr Skripal is therefore strong evidence of a number of things:
- That the Government story, in which he was the unsuspecting victim of a Kremlin plot, is without foundation.
- That he well knows who his poisoners were and why they poisoned him.
- That he cannot be allowed to speak freely because if he was, a scandal of monumental proportions would be revealed.
The Deafening Silence of Yulia Skripal
Deafening silence of Yulia? What am I talking about? She has released a number of statements through the Metropolitan Police, and in the statement (not interview) she made to Reuters. So what do I mean?
Many have pointed out a number of remarkable things about her Reuters statement. For one, she looked remarkably well. For another, the language of the statement she read was highly suggestive that it was first written in English – not by her – and then translated into Russian (statements like “I do not wish to avail myself of their services” don’t normally trip off the tongue of native English speakers, let alone those who speak it as a second language).
But for me the most remarkable thing about all of her statements are not what they do say, but rather what they don’t say. As with Sergei’s silence, Yulia has nothing whatsoever to say about the day of the poisoning. Isn’t that odd? She notes that she and her father survived an “attempted assassination”. She notes that a nerve agent was used to do it. But she says nothing about her and her father’s movements that day. Nothing about what they did and where they went. Nothing about when they first succumbed to the effects of the poisoning. Nothing to suggest that her father’s agitation in Zizzis may have been caused by poisoning.
In short, she says nothing whatsoever about the poisoning itself. Zero. Diddly squat. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Why?
As with Sergei’s non-statements, this doesn’t compute. If you happened to wake up in a hospital to be told that you had been the victim of a nerve agent poisoning, you would almost certainly want to tell people as much as possible about your movements up to the point of the poisoning. Wouldn’t you? Of course. Especially if not only you had been poisoned, but also your dad. You’d at least want to sound a bit more interested in actually catching the perpetrators than Yulia, who didn’t so much as mention it, and instead sounded like she just wanted to move on and forget it ever happened.
Once again, this total silence on something so crucial just doesn’t fit at all with the official story. That narrative suggests that Sergei and Yulia were innocent victims of a Kremlin-hired assassin. That narrative suggests they don’t know who that Kremlin-hired assassin was. But it also suggests that they of all people have a huge interest in giving details of what happened to them that day. And yet there is silence.
Does it fit better with the theory I have proposed? You bet it does. If what I have suggested is anywhere close to the truth, just like Sergei, Yulia cannot be allowed the freedom to give a proper interview where any question is allowed. She cannot be given consular access by the Russian Embassy. Why not? Because she knows what her dad was up to; she knows why he was meeting people at a park bench on Sunday 4th March; and she knows that the two of them were poisoned by the people who they were meeting.
Why did she agree to an interview? No doubt she realises what a difficult and vulnerable position she is in. Despite claims to the contrary, she clearly has no contact with her family back in Russia, or indeed any contact with the outside world. She was almost certainly pressured into making a statement, and yet — as Tony Kevin convincingly argues here — it has many signs of being a compromise statement. And so she agreed to making a fairly nebulous statement — one which is almost inconceivable from the point of view of the official narrative, but which fits perfectly with the narrative I have advanced.
The Deafening Silence of Nick Bailey
One final deafening silence that doesn’t exactly do wonders for the official narrative, is the silence of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. He has always been a big puzzle in this case, for a number of reasons. It was first said that he was poisoned at The Maltings. However, the problem with this explanation is that there was absolutely no reason for him to have been there. The case was treated by Salisbury District Hospital as a case of Fentanyl poisoning. Why would a member of the Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) be called to a bench to an apparent opioid overdose?
It was then said by none other than Lord Ian Blair that DS Bailey was actually poisoned at Mr Skripal’s house. But again, the same question arises. Why would a member of CID be sent to the home of a person in a what looked like a case of opioid poisoning?
The story then swung backwards and forwards a number of times between a poisoning at the Maltings and a poisoning at Mr Skripal’s house. These anomalies are very important, but even more important is that they could have been put straight by DS Bailey himself. If the official story was correct, not only would it have been super easy to have verified where DS Bailey was poisoned, but he himself could have testified to it. And yet like the Skripals, there has been nothing!
Given the absurd changes to this particular part of the story – and it is perhaps the easiest of all parts to verify – my assumption is that he was poisoned at neither The Maltings or Mr Skripal’s house. Instead, just as I wrote in Part 5 that I believe it likely the Skripals were poisoned by an incapacitating nerve agent in the red bag that was then seen next to the bench, I think it highly likely that DS Bailey was poisoned from the same source.
But where? The red bag was removed from the scene by a police officer and placed in an evidence bag. Why would this have been done? Because the pair on the bench were suspected of overdosing on an opioid, and the bag would naturally be removed by police so that its contents could be examined. And whereas I think it unlikely that someone from CID would be called to the scene of a drug overdose, it seems quite likely that they might receive and handle evidence taken from such a scene. Therefore my guess – and I stress that it is only a guess – is that DS Bailey was the man who received the bag, and whilst looking inside to see its contents, was poisoned by the same incapacitating agent as the Skripals (possibly something like 3-Quinuclidinyl Benzilate (BZ), but definitely not A-234).
Again, if the official story were true, what would prevent DS Bailey from giving a brief statement or interview, confirming exactly what happened to him? But if the red bag theory is close to the mark, then it becomes plainly obvious why this hasn’t yet happened.
Smokes and Mirrors
Which actually brings me on to the penultimate point I want to make in this piece, and indeed in this 6-part series. Everything in the official story, no matter how absurd, seems designed to point our attention away from the most probable source, place and type of poisoning: The red bag, at the bench, and an incapacitating nerve agent. And it does so because if our attention is focused on them, then a very different story begins to emerge. Which cannot be allowed to happen.
As stated above, claims about A-234 being used just don’t add up. Neither the time delay, nor the symptoms, nor the recovery of the Skripals with no irreparable damage match up to what this deadly, military grade, high purity, lethal nerve agent that is so much more toxic than VX, is meant to do. What the claim does, however, is points our attention away from what is far more likely – an incapacitating agent administered to the Skripals between 3:45 and 4:00pm on 4th March.
As stated above, claims about the door handle just don’t add up. Neither the fact that both Sergei and Yulia were poisoned, nor the fact that others went in and out of the house before the door handle theory was put forward and didn’t succumb, nor the fact that the substance on it apparently remained of “high purity” weeks later – none of these things make any sense. What the claim does, however, is directs our thoughts away from what is far more likely – that the substance used to poison the Skripals was administered at the bench, and probably via the red bag.
The apparent motive put forward in the official narrative doesn’t add up either. There is a general agreement among countries that you do not target spies who have been part of a swap. Why? Because if you do, you can kiss goodbye to ever getting any other spies swapped in the future. It’s called shooting yourself in the foot big time! But what this frankly risible explanation for the apparent motive behind the poisoning does, however, is to point our attention away from what Mr Skripal was really up to. And as I set out in Part 4, this was very likely something to do with authoring the Trump Dossier.
Nothing about the official story makes sense. None of it adds up. It is riddled with holes. But I would submit that the only thing that does make sense about it, is that the parts that go to make up the sum are all desperate attempts to divert attention. They are smokes and mirrors, designed to stop us from considering some of the more obvious aspects of the case, and some of the more startling aspects of the case – Mr Skripal’s involvement with MI6; his likely involvement in or authorship of the Trump Dossier; the likelihood that he was due to meet people at the bench in The Maltings; the probability that this is why he was agitated and in a hurry in Zizzis; the likelihood that he knows who poisoned him and why.
And of course the reason that these things are not supposed to be considered is that if – and I acknowledge it is a big if – the alternative explanation I have advanced is true, and if it became generally known, then it would cause just about the biggest political crisis in British political history.
And Finally…
Having said that, I have to say that I don’t believe it at all likely that the British Government knew about any of this before it occurred. I get the impression that the intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic are a law unto themselves, and I think it likely that some of their number wanted to send Mr Skripal a message, one which would look like an opioid overdose, one which he would recover from reasonably quickly, and one which would be forgotten very soon.
However, I don’t think that the poisoning of DS Bailey was meant to happen, but when it did, it set off a series of events that quickly got out of control. I don’t think the identity of Sergei Skripal as a Russian involved in a spy swap was ever meant to make it into the press, but it did and very soon what looked like some kind of opioid poisoning quickly became an international spy saga.
The British Government’s reckless and extraordinarily quick reaction to the case was, apart from being a travesty of the rule of law, one of the biggest clues that the official narrative was not true. If it were true, they could have took their time, acted calmly, and let the investigation run its course. Instead, what we got was a lawless, irrational and absurd response. It all smacked of a panicked reaction, and whilst it made no sense in terms of the story they sold us, it makes perfect sense if the truth was that they were desperate to prevent news getting out about who Skripal really was, what he had been up to, and how the poisoning might well be connected with that work. And indeed the D-notices they slapped on the reporting of that stuff, and of Mr Skripal’s connections to Christopher Steele and Pablo Miller, are further evidence that it is so.
And so they very quickly decided to turn attention away from the big clues of the case, by invoking the scary sounding “Novichok” and pinning the blame – without any evidence – on the Russian State. To this date, they have given us no evidence to back up their claim, much less a suspect, but have unwittingly given us a bunch of absurdities that can be blown out of the water through the use of simple reason and logic.
They should have remembered this:
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7)
But I have a feeling they don’t believe it applies to them. I have a feeling that it does.
And so there’s my case. As I say, there are bound to be a good many holes and no doubt many errors and inconsistencies in it. Please do forgive me for those. As for the rest of it — Make of it what you will.
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Well, now the real Q- WHY WAS SKIRPA (pee pee dossier) picking up ANTHRAX?> Which is true. Does that explain their symptoms? DS Bailey -Packet dropped became compromised in transferrence to Skirpa for MEDVEDEV hit on POTUS TRUMP #BOB
‘…On Friday, Salisbury District Hospital’s director of nursing Lorna Wilkinson announced Mr Rowley had been discharged and Public Health England said he posed no risk to the community…She said “I would also like to reassure everyone that, despite many people seeking advice following these incidents, there have only ever been a total of five people who have been exposed to this nerve agent and admitted to hospital for treatment”‘.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/20/novichok-victim-charlie-rowley-discharged-salisbury-hospital/
This whole Salisbury saga is a complete riddle. The A&E consultant wrote to the Times saying nobody had ever been treated for nerve agent poisoning, yet here we are months later and the director of nursing is totally contradicting him. Don’t they talk to each other at Salisbury District Hospital? Or, more likely, was the consultant going off-script?
Ross, Yes, considering Sergei and Yulia were placed in medical comas for several weeks supposedly to aid their recovery, Rowley’s treatment and speedy recovery appear to have inexplicably followed a completely different pattern. With regard to Dr Davies’ letter to the Times, have a look at ‘The Blogmire’ website where there has been posted in the past two or three days a brief report on this, followed by interesting reader comments. Rob Slane, who also provides articles for this website, is ‘Mr’ Blogmire and he managed to contact Dr Davies but really received less than convincing information.
Hmm, thanks for that. Curiouser and curiouser.
Novichok poisoning: Skripal attack suspects ‘identified on CCTV as several Russians’
is the latest article in today’s Telegraph.
No comments allowed, of course.
I’ve read the Telegraph article and it convinces me of nothing. No mention of where the CCTV images are from and ‘a source’ claims that “investigators believe that they have identified the perpetrators”. Just like Theresa May believes the Russians are guilty. As I recall we’ve been through all this before. Can’t recall the precise timing but maybe three weeks after the initial ‘poisoning’ event we were told that several Russians had been identified as entering the UK and departing within the space of two or three days so they must be the perpetrators. No allowance given for the fact that they might simply have been on a brief business or educational visit. It then all went quiet about these suspects. I have no reason to doubt that these are the same people and it is all a red herring to re-inflame the anti-Russia rhetoric. Perhaps many people have short memories but some of us don’t.
George Blot wrote: Did Trump overnight?
Not on Saturday night/Sunday morning which is the only night of interest.
Why do you say that was the only night of interest? The Steele dossier doesn’t mention the night of the prostitutes. Anyway, he was there Saturday night, in fact until say 1am to give him time to get to the airport. Probably he was up all night on Saturday, so even more opportunity for a splash. And of course he overnighted in the full sense on Friday.
Note I don’t necessarily believe the prostitutes stuff, although it is completely in character for him. Steele doesn’t fully believe it either. The point is that it’s consistant with what we know for sure. So it must be investigated.
Because the alleged incident was supposed to have happened that night.
Its not at all in character for Trump who is well known to be a germophobe. He doesnt even shake hands if he can avoid it.
What? He doesn’t shake hands? See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T84se4fc4KU and a hundred other places. And why is germophobe relevant? They were peeing on the bed, not on him. Anyway, I think you’ll find we only have one of tweets as evidence for him being a germophobe.
George Blot wrote: What? He doesn’t shake hands? See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T84se4fc4KU and a hundred other places.
You don’t appear able to read simple sentences. He doesn’t shake hands if he can avoid it was what i wrote.
Can you Thomas Peterson not remermber the inumerable accasions Mr D Trump has ben photographed and been seen in the act of bare hand shaking and with inumerable persons without any visible hand protection, with the many all and sundry ?
Totalitarians love scare stories like “terrorists” or “nerve gas” to push through their own agendas. Also perfect to pull the “secret” blanket over all their hanky panky.
The behaviour of Mi6, CIA or FBI these days scare me much more.
At the Guardian Novichok: police take away 400 potentially contaminated items https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/14/novichok-police-find-more-than-400-potentially-contaminated-items
“400 potentially contaminated items” is absolutely meaningless but sounds good. It is a useful means to imply that the police are on top of things. Even if they found contamination on any of the items, I’m not sure what it would prove. Basically all they mean is they have removed everything that Rowley and Sturgess might have touched since some randomly selected vague date or been told by Rowley was the date he ‘acquired’ the ‘bottle’. It could be all their clothing, everything in the fridge or kitchen cupboards, everything in the bathroom etc etc If history repeats itself they won’t even bother to test the items but will just incinerate the lot.
JudyJ: “400 potentially contaminated items”
I was puzzled at this. I remarked to a family member that it looks as if either somebody at Porton Down has been very careless, or the spooks don’t understand subtlety.
The brainwashed morons are impressed by big numbers.
It sounds more like a bunch of junky drug dealers contaminated by their own ware[where did that huge house come from again?]
jantje: “It sounds more like a bunch of junky drug dealers contaminated by their own ware….”
Indeed. It’s really the explanation with the fewest moving parts, so to speak. Occam’s Razor….
If this article is anywhere near the truth as to what happened, it follows that it could actually be the Russian state whodunnit.
If Skripal wrote the dossier then it’s clear this was damaging the reputation of Russia to a new level and Skripal might do further damage, so he was sent a warning, or worse by the FSB. They may have been aware of yet another dossier and decided to act there and then. They knew their domestic audience wouldn’t care or know about Skripal, so the timing before the election was not a risk, it could even be an opportunity to show that Putin was strong and patriotic.
It also follows that alternatively, the Trumpster mob were paying him back for the damage being caused over golden showers etc. or working with elements of the Russian state.
To constantly suggest that Russia is always the victim here, and just about everything else, and they always the good boys, even angels, is just nonsensical. They may well have had motive and the means to silence Skripal, or at least elements of the FSB.
As a footnote, Julia may also have warned him that they’d sussed out he was behind the dossier and that’s why he became agitated. She did it in a public place because she didn’t want a domestic scene but nevertheless he reacted since he understood the implications of being outed. The FSB could also feasibly want to poison her as as a further warning to her father.
Basically we don’t know what happened but the Russian whodunnit theory is no less valid. I’ve thought otherwise until now, but looking at the dots again has drawn me to a revised theory.
Good theory, just the Russia FSB is not that clumsy in their operations.
@Frankly Speaking, the most significant words you use in your comment are “we don’t know..” and “theory”. Just that. Your theory carries as much weight as the next person’s. And even people, myself included, who put forward possible theories are not denying that other theories are equally as plausible. The reason we have to do it is because the Government and MSM won’t. If we don’t, who will?
“To constantly suggest that Russia is always the victim here…” None of us are doing this. Russia may very well be behind it but so may many others. The fact that the UK Government was so hasty in pointing the finger of blame in the absence of any evidence, and publicly chooses not to consider the other perfectly valid theories and to ignore evidence which forces them to have to blatantly lie about the facts as we know them, must surely be sufficient to raise suspicions about their role at the very least.
All I would hope is that at some time in the not too distant future some among us all (you, me or anyone else on here) will be in an indisputable position to say their theory was right. I’m not holding my breath, though!
When the Western kakistocracies and the Evil psychopaths who comprise them, in politics, the ‘intelligence’ apparatus and the fakestream media brainwashing machine, lie about everything to do with Russia ie about Putin’s legitimacy, the nature of Russian society, the ‘popularity’ of fascist Quislings like Navalny, Russia’ role in saving Syria from the takfiri death-squad armies sent against it, about Russia’s non-existent role in Western installation of fascists in power in Kiev, Russian ‘meddling’ in US elections etc, etc, etc, on the balance of probabilities it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that these pathological liars are telling the truth about the Skripals. Particularly when we know that they are lying in asserting that ONLY Russia could make novichoks, only Russia had any motive, that only Russia bumps off inconvenient people and that only Russia had anything to gain from it, on the eve of the FIFA World Cup and with various Sorosian vermin braying that it be cancelled. How utterly galling it must be for these psychopathic Russophobes that it was the greatest World Cup, on and off the field, for decades, perhaps ever.
Not bad but you have to explain why the UK authorities incinerated the Zizzi’s Restaurant table where the Skripals had lunch, the park bench and the pet animals without autopsying them.
Good points but we don’t know whether they were or were not incinerated. Deliberate disinfo could have been put out.
My other theory is that the CIA or Mossad did it, but the Russians may well have the motive. It could even be a splinter of Atlantacists in the FSB too, and we know Medvedev and some other politicians are in that camp. If this latter theory is right then it would explain the constant three – four party accusations against Russia or some group going AWOL and wreaking havoc.
Jen: “….you have to explain why the UK authorities incinerated the Zizzi’s Restaurant table where the Skripals had lunch….”
That’s interesting. I hadn’t known that. Curious though: if the authorities incinerated the table at which they had lunch, how is it that the front desk – where presumably they paid the bill – wasn’t also incinerated? Come to that, what about whatever was on the table: cloth, utensils, plates and so on. Also waitstaff and kitchen staff: surely they’d have been contaminated as well?
Truly, the more we’re told about this incident, the more farcical it sounds. Ditto the incident with the unfortunate couple in Amesbury. None of it makes sense.
D’Esterre, Yes, the following is an extract from the Daily Mail of 11 March:
“The pair are still in a critical condition and more than 250 counter-terrorism officers are desperately trying to find the source of the chemical after traces were found on their table in Zizzi, which has since been destroyed.”
As I recall – and it is just a recollection – ‘the traces’ referred to were a visible dusting of white powder! I believe the bench the Skripals purportedly sat on in the park suffered the same fate.
It begs the immediate question whether the chemical weapons ‘experts’ we are all assured exist really do not have the capacity or capability to safely secure and store significant items of evidence at Porton Down ready for analysis by other interested parties such as the OPCW and the Russians (bearing in mind the UK Govt had already pointed the finger of blame at the Russians so knew they certainly had more than a passing interest in any so-called evidence). The second question it begs is whether the items were destroyed (and, yes, we were told incineration was the destruction method) for an ulterior motive.
JudyJ: “As I recall – and it is just a recollection – ‘the traces’ referred to were a visible dusting of white powder!”
White powder! Good grief…. every day, it sounds more bizarre. A family member here has pointed out that white powder is anthrax. Which is true. Does that explain their symptoms?
It becomes clearer and clearer to me,he dropped his packet,that’s why he got so agitated
More likely it was white pepper or icing sugar!
JudyJ: icing sugar, eh? Dangerous stuff, that!
I have just checked the website of Zizzi’s Restaurant (Salisbury) and the restaurant is still closed.
As far as I’m aware, the staff at the restaurant had to surrender all their uniforms which ended up also being incinerated. I suppose they have all been employed elsewhere in that region of England.
I have a “conspiracy theory” for you. I do not say my idea is true – it may not be. But it does explain what happened in a logical way. Thus far nothing makes any sense. The truth, they say, is stranger than fiction, an little can be stranger than the fiction of the government narrative on the poisonings.
First of all I would like to state that the Skripals were poisoned by an opiate as was first reported. I am confident of that. Medical professionals treat symptoms. They cannot wait for diagnoses. Clearly the Skripals were exhibiting strong signs of opiate poisoning.The rest is a fiction designed to ddeflect attention away from the real culprit.
My theory is this:
Sergei Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller was in love with Yulia Skripal, but she had rejected him. Employed by MI6, Miller is unbalanced – suffering from a James Bond delusion. Unable to handle the rejection and thirsting for revenge, Miller poisoned Yulia at the restaurant where they ate a few hours earlier, with Fentanyl, a highly potent
synthetic opioid.
Although not the target, Yulia’s ageing father also had a glass of Yulia’s bottle of wine into which Miller had put the Fentanyl. This was not a part of Miller’s plan. Sergei was not usually a drinker of wine, he preferred cold beer.
After the pair left the restaurant they soon fell ill, but the poison took time to take effect – enough time for Miller to make his getaway. He went to the Skripal’s house (he had a key) to lie low. As an MI6 agent he knew this was the last place they would look for him.
Miller was arrested by DS Bailey at the Skripal’s house. During the arrest Miller also attempted to poison Bailey with the Fentanyl. In the ensuing struggle some of the Fentanyl was smeared on the door handle. Miller has been under house arrest since March while MI6 decide what to do with him.
My idea explains why Sergei Skripal cannot be interviewed. He knew of Miller’s infatuation with his daughter and would immediately implicate Miller.
Bailey cannot be interviewed as he would similarly implicate Miller.
The government, in buying Skripal and Bailey’s houses at over the market rate is attempting to ensure that they remain silent on this issue.
It als explains why there was a D notice put on this case over Miller. Journalists were told they could not discuss him openly in their news reports.
And it also explains why they poisoner chose a time when Skripal’s daughter was visiting her father to carry out the attack. She was the target. Had Sergei been the target the would be assassin would not have wanted the added complication of Yulia Skripal being around. He would have waited until she had gone home to strike.
Well, that’s my “conspiracy theory”. All of what we are being told is lie after lie after lie to cover this up: that an out of control British secret service agent poisoned an innocent Russian national.
And it is just an idea. I am not saying it is necessarily true. By all means insult me and call me a conspiracy theorist. I am not concerned about insults.
I have some issues with the details of your theory – you have to demonstrate that Pablo Miller was at Zizzi’s or at the pub with the Skripals on that Sunday, and so far it seems the Skripals were on their own at Zizzi’s – but it actually looks watertight.
Miller could have driven the Skripal car back to the house as well. That could account for the early story about the car being a medium of contamination.
Well Jen who was the ‘ male person who took the photograph ” of the Russian traitor and his daughter in the restaurant holding their wine glasses in a celebratory fashion?
Actually he was photographed with his camera, by another unknown person, in the restaurant at that signally happy luncheon, why ?
Gregory says the dossier fails the laugh test and is full of bizarre statements. Murray regards it as equivalent to the Hitler Diaries hoax. Where do they not find anything wrong in the dossier?
I loved these comments sections before but now government shills are getting involved it’s so much more entertaining. Keep it up guys, you tickle me.
What leads you to think that there are only shills of one side here?
Very strange the troll surfaces to what end? Like we have not already considered his every argument and dismissed them as inconsistent with the facts. Yet he, they, persist. Perhaps the theory expounded in this series does have some merit after all.
Yulia Skripal’s agreeing to convey the message concerning her possibly meeting with Russian authorities – “I do not wish to avail myself of their services” -, raises suspicion that she and her father Sergei Skripal were “in on” an engineered false flag chemical event from the start.
Perhaps others have already done the investigative research and verified Yulia Skripal did indeed undergo a tracheotomy, the neck scar seemingly over-exposed and the central focus for all who watched her short Reuters “interview”. Has this been confirmed by the doctor(s) who performed the surgical procedure, nurses assisting those surgeon(s) in the operating room, medical photos, medical records, etc..
If Ms. Skripal indeed underwent surgical tracheotomy, our thought that the neck scar was the result of a covert conspirator surgeon’s making a simple incision and immediately sewing it up – to appear as if Ms. Skripal underwent a lifesaving surgical procedure -, goes out the window.
Can anyone help in clarifying this? Has it been verified Ms. Skripal underwent the procedure … and that her neck scar should not be perceived as anything other than from a truly necessary lifesaving action?
Thank you.
Maybe, just maybe, Yulia was speaking of her own free will. Have you considered that?
She has just nearly died and her father too.
The stuff you post about the tracheotomy is plain daft. How do you overexpose a scar on your neck? She wasn’t wearing a polo-neck (in hot summer) you mean? What does that prove even we’re your point correct? It says nothing.
Really, don’t give up the day job, Columbo.
Speaking of her own spontaneous free will, of course.
that’s why she read from a scripted statement and took no questions.
Back from a refreshing expedition to attack a Roma camp, or deface a Soviet war cemetery, our resident Ukronazi troll re-emerges.
Brad Pitte II,
This is a comment from you further down the thread. Can you tell me why ‘Ruth EH’ is written in the middle of your comment; it stands alone and is out of context.
I ask this because ‘RuthEH’ is my unique user name for commenting on articles in the Independent.
July 11, 2018
On 22 May 2007, the MPS/Crown Prosecution Service (the CPS) considered that there was sufficient evidence to charge Andrey Lugovoy with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. An application was made to City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court for the issue of a warrant for Mr Lugovoy’s arrest.
Following further investigation, the MPS/CPS considered that there was suf cient evidence also to charge Dmitri Kovtun with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. An application was made to City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 4 November 2011 for the issue of a warrant for Mr Kovtun’s arrest.
In addition to the issue of these warrants, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have been placed on international lists of wanted persons. They both remain wanted for Mr Litvinenko’s murder. However, they have both remained within the Russian Federation, from which they cannot be extradited as they are both Russian citizens.
Ruth EH
Litvinenko was already infected with polonium from a previous poisoning by the same bstds.
This is clearly explained, as is the fact that polonium would in most circumstances have remained undetected since it only emits certain particles.
The case is clear and that is why they are wanted for murder internationally. If you don’t like it, tough.
They are the facts, and Russia has tried it again.
The uk legal system and uk forensics are second to none.
Original comment written months ago, obviously.
We now know more and Y has survived.
The Zionist apartheid regime used Polonium 210 to murder Arafat-there’s a coincidence!
@thorella: “The uk legal system and uk forensics are second to none.”
Dr. John Kelly, RIP. Assassinated by MI6 by order of Prime Miniister TB.Liar of Dodgy Dossier, interred without mandatory Crown Coroners Inquest with Case Sealed for 70 years by order of Lord “Safe Pair of Hands”Hunt of Bloody
Sunday fame, and Dr.Kelly’s bodily remains subsequently dug up and incinerated to destroy chemical evidence by order of Prime Minister St Theresa of Porton Down.
“Second to none” in what?
What is scary for me is that all of this fear mongering and lies is not for our good but in order to give NATO a license to murder millions of non Western people to prevent their resources getting into the hands of the Chinese or Russians. We destroy countries to benefit bankers and arms manufacturers. I note Trump is ordering EU countries to spend more money on weapons and to stop buying gas and oil from the Russians.
The taxpayers like you and me pay for these weapons and pay higher energy prices because we are forced to use expensive US/NATO sponsored energy.
whatever the theories about why,how,when,it’s obvious to me that the russian government has nothing to with the whole thing
Except that they haven’t come out and called it a false flag hoax. Why the hell don’t they? The UK Russian ambassador said sardonically, “They should call in Poirot” but why not just come out and call it a false flag hoax? No state EVER calls out another for committing a false flag which only means that at some level they’re all in it together.
There’s a diplomatic language of courtesy that Russia respects probably more than most other cultures, but within that, they have heavily implied the idea it’s a hoax. Considering the objectives behind such crazy russophobic stunts it seems very improbable they’re all in it together.
“… they have heavily implied the idea it’s a hoax”.
But that’s my point. They’ve IMPLIED it – they haven’t said it straight. I’d argue a “diplomatic language of courtesy” is tantamount to them all being in it together at some level. Why be diplomatic towards a country that has staged a crime and blamed you for it to make you look bad? Because they all do it. I simply don’t understand your reasoning. Wouldn’t it be a far different thing to say “It’s a false flag hoax falsely impugning us” than “Better bring in Poirot”? I do not at all mean to single out Russia for not being straight. As I say, no state ever calls another out for committing a false flag or false flag hoax, including all the Muslim (and all other) countries on 9/11.
flaxgirl: “They’ve IMPLIED it – they haven’t said it straight. I’d argue a “diplomatic language of courtesy” is tantamount to them all being in it together at some level.”
That’s not so. Russia sets great store by diplomatic language; people such as Lavrov have spoken as directly as the constraints of diplomacy allow. Russia also sets great store by following rules of international behaviour. Unlike some other countries we could all name….
Bear in mind that there are cultural differences between Russia and western countries. Such differences play out in responses to, for instance, provocations on the part of other countries.
well,they’re trying to keep the whole thing diplomatic,what’s the point of both sides acting hysterical?Then you also can be accused of not wanting to go into a discussion,and that seems not to be the russian way,not only about the scripals but in general
Why should the Russians bother commenting on it at all, when we can all see it’s a false flag without the Russians having to tell us?
This is a domestic UK issue about MI6 being out of control.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian embassy in London are too busy having a laugh at seeing the whole affair collapse under its own inconsistencies and at the British government and security services trying to prop up the whole mess and failing to distract public attention away from the shit-heap that Theresa May has made of Brexit.
“Except that they haven’t come out and called it a false flag hoax.”
The main problem with your conjecture is that it is verifiably untrue. Lavrov and a number of Consular officials have strongly denied it but they do not use MSM/Trumpian terminology like fake news or false flags.. Lavrov and Putin always speak very clearly and precisely about important issues.
False flag is a term from ancient times. How is it verifiably untrue?
Quite right, Jim. In the same way that their ‘official speak’ certainly doesn’t include “Go away and shut up”! I doubt that their intelligence, respect and dignity would even see them uttering such sentiments behind the scenes either.
But surely another way of looking at it is that, by saying ‘false flag’, the defendant is, by definition, accusing another country (or agents acting on their behalf) of deliberately carrying out the attack. Even though there may be that suspicion, only the perpetrators and/or instigators know for certain whether that was the case. The Russians sensibly and calmly recognise that, in the absence of hard evidence to date, there may well be other reasons for the attack (e.g. no attack at all but an overdose of recreational drugs, or a private feud) so there is little merit or diplomacy in immediately pointing the finger at any other Western power and arguing that because they (the Russians) weren’t behind it then another country must have been; the Russians are far too intelligent to indulge in that sort of impulsive behaviour,unlike the UK.
I wonder how much money Sergei stole and was paid per agent he gave up and how much remains stashed away? A week after his death another Russian was strangled in London, apparently an inter-oligarch or gangsters dispute. The notion that Russian mafia may have been involved has never been explored. They would appreciate the idea to use a ‘Russian nerve agent’.
This is true but they could say “PERHAPS it’s a false-flag hoax” or “the evidence tends to suggest …”. I believe the reason that no state ever accuses another of a false flag or false-flag hoax or even the possibility of it is that they all do it so no one points the finger. “Gentlemen’s agreement.” Diplomacy. Call it what you will.
Flaxgirl: “This is true but they could say “PERHAPS it’s a false-flag hoax” or “the evidence tends to suggest …”
As others have pointed out, that’s not the way international diplomacy works. Best not to read anything malign into what you’ve seen or heard reported regarding Russia’s response to accusations.
Bear in mind, too, that you’re being informed by reportage that must be translated from Russian to English: be mindful of what’s lost in translation, so to speak.
At present, various media outlets and talking heads are clutching their pearls at what Trump’s been saying to the politicians of Europe and the UK, regarding their obligations if they wish to retain NATO. And to May regarding the UK leaving the EU. He’s correct, of course, but that’s what undiplomatic language sounds like. People don’t like it, do they?
Remember that on the campaign trail, Trump questioned the point of NATO’s continuation, given that the Warsaw Pact no longer exists. He wanted to disestablish it, but evidently the Washington Establishment won’t let him, so instead he’s demanding that members pay their way. Sounds fair to me.
In case you didn’t already know, the Warsaw Pact was established in the mid-1950s, in response to the founding of NATO in1949. The trajectory of threat has always come from Europe to Russia, not the other way about. Russians know this well, as should Europeans: go look at your own history.
Africa is the perfect example. China brings investment, loans (often forgiven later)the building of roads, schools, railways, hospitals and trade including telecommunications equipment etc, plus the education of tens of thousands of Africans in China, and the USA brings Africom, Special Forces death-squads terrifying the continent, IMF and World Bank ‘restructuring’, austerity, cuts to health and education, and aggression, destruction, mass murder and the installation of jihadist swine in power, in Libya, ignoring strenuous AU protests in the process. Latin America is similar.
Brad Pitte II
In the middle of your comment beginning ‘On 22 May 2007, the MPS/Crown Prosecution Service…’ you have written ‘Ruth EH’
Why have you done this?
As for Brad Pitte remember Distract and Disrupt are keynotes for trolls of his ilk. Best ignored
Here’s the sketch of an alternative theory. I’m not saying it’s true, but it explains as much as yours and it seems simpler and so it’s the one to beat. It’s based on two assumptions: (1) Putin is a gangster, with a gangster’s thought patterns, morality, and methods, and he’s a man who loves to fuck with your mind; and (2) the British are somewhere between incompetent and stupid, obsessed with secrecy, and completely contemptuous of democratic accountability, but they’re not the kind who would – let alone could – run an assassination like this. (Seriously? That shower?)
The Russians did it. Skripal had helped with the Steele dossier, and probably the dossier is broadly accurate, and that’s why Putin wanted him taught a lesson. Like all mafiosi, Putin has a taste for bizarre executions and regards audacity as the defining virtue of a strong man. You say that there’s a convention that exchanged spies have a clean slate. If that’s true, it simply means Putin has changed the convention. Next time it comes to an exchange, are the British going to say no? Anyway, any loss is more than made up by Putin proving yet again that the rules do not apply to him. Mafiosi’s only source of authority is their reputation for ruthlessness and unpredictability.
Probably it was done with novichok. Why do I think so? Porton Down say it is, and they certainly have a sample and no obvious reason to lie. Of course, the government has to pretend – or thinks they have to pretend – that PD doesn’t have a sample, which is one reason they’ve tied themselves in these knots. If it had been me, I’d just have come clean and said “of course we have novichok”, and weathered the storm; but, as I say, the current government aren’t all that bright.
The novichok was administered where the victims collapsed, not on the door handle. It acted instantly, as it was designed to. Why did Ian Blair say otherwise? Well, he’s retired, and so what he says is deniable. Probably someone realised the case against Russia looked weak, and wanted to boost it – the equivalent of planting evidence. The idea was that the British could then produce the ancient assassin manual that mentioned poison on door handles, and the case would be closed, at least in the MSM. Why would elements within the British secret service do anything so dumb? Well, because the British copper has always planted evidence, and because Blair’s words were deniable, and because they thought nobody would ask any further questions, so it was worth a punt. They didn’t allow for sites like this endlessly chewing over their transparent absurdities!
Skripal’s agitation in the restaurant – come on, could have been anything. Perhaps he and Yulia had had an argument, perhaps about returning to Russia. Heaven forgive me, but when I’ve been in a restaurant just after a row with my partner, I’ve been known to be bad-tempered to waiters and complain about delays. Where’s your evidence it was anything more? If he was late for such an important meeting, they would have just left.
Their ongoing silence: Yulia might actually want to return to Russia. Her family, boyfriend, and life is there. In those circumstances, I’d be careful what I said as well. In fact, given that Russia has apparently proven itself able to kill anyone it wants, anywhere and anywhen, and by any bizarre method, she probably wants to vanish completely.
DS Bailey: here I’m speculating. I think maybe he was their minder or bodyguard. He might have been connected with Steele. He might have been contaminated when he confronted the attackers. Yet again, the government thinks none of this must be known, so they slap D notices on and lie to pretend otherwise. And that’s why Bailey himself can’t make a statement. But once more, just because the British are idiots, doesn’t mean they did it.
Toxicity of Novichok. Well, Britain isn’t yet a fascist state. Although we have novichok, we probably haven’t tested it on real people, at least not in a laboratory. Even the experts will be speculating about its properties.
Hazmat suits, etc. Novichok is binary, so no need for protection before activation. I suggest it was activated at the moment of contact with the Skripals.
I suggest the reason Britain doesn’t want the Skripal/ Steele connection known is that it would instantly grant the dossier credibility in the MSM, and that would upset Trump. May needs Trump to like her – it’s just about all she’s got. Sorry, it’s not about the Off-Guardian: probably, the security services don’t even know you exist.
The odd English of Yulia’s statement. Yes, it was drafted by an English bureaucrat. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t approve the message. Remember she may be planning to return to Russia, and so naturally asked British help in drafting the most non-committal message. Since than, she’s kept quite – as would I.
There’s lots more, but I don’t think anything that would seriously challenge a modified MSM view that says the British are not in the hands of some rogue deep state, that everything is more or less all right, except that the current government are pathological liars and obsessive about secrecy, even to the extend of contradicting themselves and hoping no one will notice. I find that worrying, but not frightening; Putin, however, is the other way round.
Government troll
Definitely
Have you been playing ‘cowboys and indians’ today,George?
This is such a childish theory that it can only be interpreted as an insult to the public intelligence. Though it is confirmation that ” the British are somewhere between incompetent and stupid, obsessed with secrecy, and completely contemptuous of democratic accountability,.”
To which we can add “and incapable of seeing that theories based upon the character of a man in Putin’s position ,which is to say surrounded by intelligent and sensible patriots with the power to prevent dangerous stupidities from being carried, are incredible”
Does George seriously believe that Lavrov, for example, signed off on this?
The fact that this nonsense appears to reflect the thinking of the government and its media is extremely depressing.
‘ the British are somewhere between incompetent and stupid, obsessed with secrecy, and completely contemptuous of democratic accountability, but they’re not the kind who would – let alone could – run an assassination like this.’
Rubbish – the cry of incompetency is the hallmark of government agencies taking part in illegal activities i.e. the loss of almost 2 billion of taxpayers’ funds in the London City Bond scam directed by Customs as an ‘incompetent’ sting but in actual fact was a massive fraud to covertly remove taxpayers’ money from the UK just as VAT carousel frauds were set up and directed by government agencies.
Putin is FSB as well as the president of Russia, and he said traitors will choke on their ill gotten gains.
You might care to explain what he actually said in the context in which it was said, unlike the BBC. He gave his statements in a lecture ( to students as I recall seeing so he may have used some terminology which young people could relate to) in which he said that ” ‘traitors’ often return to Russia where they are rejected by family and friends because of their unpatriotic actions. This often leads to them turning to drink and/or drugs, and as a result they end up on the streets where they die homeless and penniless. And whatever they were paid it wasn’t worth the outcome.” He was presenting a moral tale as to why treachery and disloyalty don’t pay in the long term. Doesn’t fit as well with the West’s depiction of him, does it? I have seen others using the same reference source quoting him as saying that he would arrange for traitors to be killed on the streets. All garbage.
It was in 2010- just after the spy swap.
He didn’t say all that you say he did.
He made it patently clear he would be pleased for them to choke on their ill gotten gains.
Two months ago, he said he has no quarrel with Skripal.
Why the change?
A prosecution lawyer would be all over this.
Most countries have the death penalty for treason including the US. So what’s special about what Putin said?
And Theresa May is in charge of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) so your point is…?
Putin is not “FSB”. Super dumb assertion
You Ukronazis prefer garrotting, don’t you. It’s traditional.
I think this comment section has been manipulated so that the government troll’s comment stays at the top. If this is so, then the government is running scared of the truthh
Truth is, the more that they insist that they know anything about Putin, the less they actually do know, as a general rule.
“(1) Putin is a gangster, with a gangster’s thought patterns, morality, and methods, and he’s a man who loves to fuck with your mind….”
What do you do with your other hand while you formulate your geopolitical theories? Finger your anus?
The assumption behind George Blot’s theory that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a gangster with a gangster’s mindset (without anything to support it) is so far-fetched that one has to wonder what Kool-Aid GB drank when he sent the comment. Maybe it was flavoured with BZ?
The notion that the dossier is “broadly accurate” is odd when various commentators who have seen the contents of the dossier (published by Buzzfeed) have stated that it is either a forgery or a fake. Even before the poisoning incident the dossier’s credibility had already been trashed and Christopher Steele already facing a lawsuits for libel.
See for example these links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/#588ba4d36867
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/01/hitler-diaries-mark-ii-hope-changed-mattress/
Even supposing that the dossier was accurate, why would Moscow want Skripal dead or incapacitated at this time and not before when he was originally exposed as a double agent?
Hi, Jen. Good point, and an excellent couple of links. However, most experts seem to more supportive than dismissive of the Steele dossier. Don’t forget that this is a speculative type of briefing document anyway – intelligence agencies are staffed with spies, not journalists or lawyers, and an accuracy of 60%-70% is considered pretty good. Nevertheless, the dossier has been confirmed in several claims, and not disproven in any yet. Gregoriy’s objections are more to do with style and Craig’s with plausibilty, and they both have interesting points.
In any case, it doesn’t matter. The question is that we have to choose between theories. Yours has maybe 10% of people who know what they’re talking about supporting it, mine has maybe 90%. That doesn’t mean mine is right, but it does mean that it ought to be taken seriously. (Yours should be as well, of course).
Don’t you mean ‘most Ukronazi experts’, Blot? Otherwise it is regarded with deserved derision, as is your type of liar.
Yes I suppose a document based mostly on hearsay, rumour and guesswork, and with an accuracy of 60 – 70% (where? in spelling?), ought to be taken seriously – to the kitty litter box.
I mentioned Paul Roderick Gregory and Craig Murray as two people who dismissed the dossier as fraudulent. What “experts” can you put forward, GB, who support the dossier’s contents as genuine or accurate? I suppose you think Luke Daniel Harding and Eliot Higgins might qualify as experts supporting the dossier’s contents as more or less accurate?
Wikipedia lists a dozen expert comments and reactions, cautiously favourable to my eye. In particular several commentators point out that no element of the dossier has yet been disproven, while a few have been confirmed.
Gregory points to the feel and style of the document being wrong, and Craig to its implausibility. Both are valid. However, neither find anything factually wrong.
Wikipedia???!!! You buffoon!
Gregory says the dossier fails the laugh test and is full of bizarre statements. Murray regards it as equivalent to the Hitler Diaries hoax. Where do they not find anything wrong in the dossier?
Yes, they both find plenty wrong, they just don’t find any factual errors. The things they find are oddities of style and claims that are bizarre and implausible. Gregory isn’t as well-informed as he claims, though, because he says the capitalised names prove it was written by a Russian trained in the FSB tradition (it doesn’t: MI6 capitalise names in house reports as well, and for the same reason – to make them easy to find on a quick scan.) Craig Murray – lovely guy, salt of the earth, damn good writer – is still human, and makes mistakes. His argument is that Steele’s claims are too incredible. Well, we live in an age where a grubby little game-show host is president of the united states and people are being assassinated on the streets of a small English town. In other words, we live in a world where the incredible is normal. Seems to me neither Gregory nor Murray dispute or contradict Senator Whitehouse: “As I understand it, a good deal of his information remains unproven, but none of it has been disproven, and considerable amounts of it have been proven.” It’s not the final word, ut it’s all we have to go on for now.
If all that you have to go on for now is a dossier put together by a mercenary for the use of a political party in attack ads, produced at great expense, and totally unsourced and uncorroborated, the world is in a worse way than you fear.
Or perhaps, it’s not the world but you?
George Blot is stuck in a rut of his own making in much the same way as fellow troll Brad Pitte II is. They both need to go back to their call-centre supervisor for a new argument template because their current one is worn out from over-use.
Jen, my answer to this seems to have vanished, but it was something along the lines of “there really isn’t a special department within MI5 that posts complicated lies to troll small websites like this. Off-Guardian is not important enough, and even if it was, there are more effective ways to control public opinion. You should be fighting them.” Alas, I think the original was much longer, so you’ve had a lucky escape.
The utterly fraudulent ‘dossier’ was also used to gain an illegal FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, as part of the conspiracy to derail Trump’s electoral bid, elect the blood-soaked feminazi Gorgon, Clinton, and further the hate campaign against Russia.
what in the dossier has been proven other than things like Trump went to Moscow for Miss Universe?
Plenty, as you can confirm or refute easily yourself – provided you keep an open mind and strive to be objective. But on the subject of Trump’s visit to Moscow, let’s recall that Trump initially denied he had stayed overnight, until receipts proved the dossier was right and he had. Now, it’s possible he misremembered: he’s an old man, does a lot of travelling, and probably one Trump hotel luxury suite is much like another. In the spirit of keeping an open mind and striving to be objective, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. But then… what kind of President issues a blacket denial for something so important without first checking whether it’s true?
George Blot wrote: Plenty, as you can confirm or refute easily yourself – provided you keep an open mind and strive to be objective
Name one other than already known facts such as Trump visiting Moscow.
let’s recall that Trump initially denied he had stayed overnight, until receipts proved the dossier was right and he had
Didnt he leave to get a flight at 4 am or something like that the morning after the pageant? I wouldnt call that staying overnight and neither did Trump.
Trump did leave early – but not on the day after he arrived, but the day after that. So he spent two full nights in Moscow, but said he hadn’t spent any.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/flight-records-illuminate-mystery-of-trump-s-moscow-nights
Where and when did Trump say he hadn’t spent any nights in Moscow? Do you have a link to a video or written statement by Trump?
Probably the same place as you, dear, when you say Trump called leaving at 4 not staying overnight.
Also, it’s in the first paragraph of the Bloomberg link.
George Blot wrote: Also, it’s in the first paragraph of the Bloomberg link.
I see some tittle tattle from Comey, nothing from Trump.
George Blot wrote: Probably the same place as you, dear, when you say Trump called leaving at 4 not staying overnight.
4 am is the middle of the night for most people, it certainly is for me.
Well, 4am counts as overnight to hotel managers when they come to charge you. Good luck with saying well it isn’t the full night. Although I imagine Trump wouldn’t be keen sleeping in the bed, after what he had done to it.
In any case, the point is that it wasn’t 4am the following day, but 4am the day after. So Trump overnighted.
George Blot wrote: Well, 4am counts as overnight to hotel managers when they come to charge you. Good luck with saying well it isn’t the full night. Although I imagine Trump wouldn’t be keen sleeping in the bed, after what he had done to it.</>
Sure sweetie, this fairy tale really happened.
How could we doubt the word of a guy sitting in London being paid by Hillary Clinton who was last in Russia in 1992?
Did Trump overnight?
If so, do you admit being wrong to say he left at 4 the following morning?
See, this is the problem with this kind of pugilistic style you’ve introduced. All reason goes out the window and it just becomes a rather boring fisking. Oh well.
George Blot wrote: Did Trump overnight?
You seem to be assuming that I accept your claim that Trump said he never spent any nights in Moscow. I don’t.
He of course did spend Friday night there. What of it?
Well, only that you say he didn’t. And you seem to admit Trump did as well, when you said “I wouldn’t call that staying overnight and neither DID Trump.” See how boring this kind of argument gets?
But leave that to one side, there is something really interesting here that I hadn’t noticed before. Here’s Slate (who are following the legal technicality of Obstruction). Remember that at this point Comey is still working for Trump, and remember that his memos are contemporaneous – they were written at the time, and that that can be proven.
Slate:
On Jan. 6, 2017, Comey informed then–President-elect Trump about allegations that the Russians had a 2013 recording of him with prostitutes. Comey explained that it was the FBI’s job to try to understand what the Russians were doing and to ensure that the Russians do not try to coerce the president. Then, on Jan. 28, 2017, Trump allegedly raised the allegations again with Comey during a private dinner. According to Comey’s memo:
“He said he had spoken to people who had been on the Miss Universe trip with him and they had reminded him that he didn’t stay [overnight] in Russia for that. He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel (he didn’t say the hotel’s name) and left for the pageant. Afterwards, he returned only to get his things because they departed for New York by plane that same night.”
Me: I gather you distrust anything Comey says? – including perhaps his reopening of the Clinton case two weeks before the election, only to close it again days before the election, a situation that Nate Silver says had had a “large, measurable impact” on Trump’s turnout? If so, I’d agree. I don’t trust Comey either. But he’s not a compulsive liar like Trump, who from his inauguration crowd onwards has barely said anything true. But this memo is truly interesting. In the spirit of putting aside all this petty squabbling, what do you think?
George Blot wrote: Well, only that you say he didn’t. And you seem to admit Trump did as well, when you said “I wouldn’t call that staying overnight and neither DID Trump.”
Both Trump and I were talking about the night of Saturday/Sunday, where he did not stay the night. Neither he nor I have ever denied he stayed overnight on Friday.
Wiggle. And, not to be too rude, a little disappointing. Oh well.
Not interested in Comey’s self serving unevidenced ramblings, sorry.
Well, how are you going to find your answers? By only reading stuff you agree with? That is not the mark of a thinker; that’s the mark of a religious zealot. That’s the last type of person the world needs.
George Blot wrote: Wiggle. And, not to be too rude, a little disappointing. Oh well.
Neither Trump nor myself has ever denied he stayed overnight on Friday night. Really its not complicated.
George Blot wrote: Well, how are you going to find your answers? By only reading stuff you agree with? That is not the mark of a thinker; that’s the mark of a religious zealot. That’s the last type of person the world needs.
Sorry but I need facts and evidence.
Comey provided contemporaneous memos that Trump had volunteered (on two separate occasions!) the information that he hadn’t overnighted. Contemporaneous means hard to forge – needs someone very clever, working to a long term plan, and being very careful. Very risky, easy to get caught. And Comey was still working for Trump – indeed, he had helped to make him president. And the fact that Trump had volunteered the information, unasked, is itself odd – innocent people tend not to do that.
So, facts and evidence. Why do you think Comey made it up?
George Blot wrote: So, facts and evidence. Why do you think Comey made it up?
Comey’s ramblings are not facts or evidence. I don’t care what he says really unless it can be proven. It’s not complicated.
For goodness sake George the dossier was put together as a dirt file for Clinton during the Presidential election. Now the Democrats are using a dirt file produced by a agent of a foreign government to prove that Trump was working with Russians to produce a dirt file on Clinton and that is somehow treasonous and deserving of impeachment. Hmm can you not see the irony and hypocrisy at work here.
Furthermore what the Clinton camp and its deep state minders are most angry about is the so called hacking of the DNC by Russians. What did this “hacking” reveal ? – Oh yes it reveals that the DNC were cheating against Sanders and later Trump. The DNC have admitted this cheating and apologised for it. Debbie Wasserman Schultz even resigned.
I would ask what is the biggest damage to the USA electoral system, Clintons cheating or that her cheating was revealed? Ironically this revelation was the main reason she lost. Many swing voters and many Democrats who favoured Sanders were so angry they would not vote for her.
By the way the DNC information was not hacked it was downloaded by an Iinsider and the data was handed to Wikileaks by Craig Murray. This has been proved but the inquiry/inquisition has ignored the facts and instead chased golden showers and muck raking down blind ally’s in an attempt to impeach Trump.
I just wish the bizarre Clintonian blood circus would leave the narcissist President to get on with his self destruction. Instead they are destroying themselves and the Democrat Party with their own brand of lunacy and self deception.
Yes indeed! The Clinton campaign now begins to beggar belief; do they really expect voters to ignore the last two years of acute humiliation? The Democrats are like a Labour Party would be under current “centrist” control, seriously unelectable.
Jim Scott: “the DNC information was not hacked it was downloaded by an Iinsider and the data was handed to Wikileaks by Craig Murray.”
Indeed. See this: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/15/memo-to-the-president-ahead-of-mondays-summit/
If the dossier is genuine, as you claim, the Russians would want Skripal alive and well to demonstrate that it was MI6 who tried to interfere with the US election, not Russia.
The UK (and especially MI6 and the CIA) would, of course, want Skripal silenced . . .
Well, I don’t claim the dossier is genuine, only that most experts seem to be convinced (Gregory and Craig aside) and that therefore it should be taken seriously. But really I have an open mind; experts are often wrong, and disastrously so. Indeed, even Steele puts his accuracy at 80% overall, and significant claims (particularly the peeing prostitutes) as much less. See, this is the adult way of thinking: probabilities, estimates, best guesses. I know, it’s hard, but trust me, it gets easier.
But, Einstein, even then I can’t follow your logic. If the dossier is 100% genuine (were that possible), then it was the Russians who interferred in the US election. So they wouldn’t be able to demonstrate it was MI6, regardless of whether Skripal was alive or not. So why would they want to keep him “alive and well”? On the other hand, why would CIA and MI6 want Skripal “silenced”, since – if he is an important source of the Steele dossier – he was accusing Russia, not them? Haven’t you got it all the wrong way round?
“Genuine” in the sense that it was really written by a KGB insider (which Skripal was), NOT in the sense that what he alleged was true.
The point is that the source of the Steele-Clinton dossier would have been revealed and, of course, the source would have been a proven consummate liar and traitor. This would blow Mueller’s “investigation” out of the water.
But I’ll not engage with you any further on this, since there’s none so blind as those who will not see.
Pity – you’re one of the few posters here who can tell the difference between shouting and argument. Almost.
Just to clarify. Skripal didn’t write the Steele dossier, of course. Steele wrote the Steele dossier. However, it seems likely that Skripal was one of Steele’s sources. Many papers (including Harding of the Guardian) have hinted this, but there appears to be a D notice on connections between Skripal and Orbis, so they can’t be explicit. The MSM doesn’t have the Off-Guardian’s freedom!
As for why there’s a D notice: see my original post. In short: the British intelligence agencies and civil service have a default of secrecy, even when there’s no need, and even when it harms their cause. Absurd, I know, but we are in many ways. The Americans are much healthier on this kind of thing.
So the D Notices are not needed and self harming? How odd!
Well, they imagine they are needed. For example, the British Government is pretending Porton Down doesn’t have Novichok. Of course they do have it, and the Russians know they have it, the Americans know, the international chemocal weapons bods know, the readers of the Off-Guardian know, and really anyone with any sense knows. If PD didn’t have it, you’d wonder exactly what they were doing with public money! But the government thinks that if they admitted PD had novichok then people would think they had something to do with Skripal. So they deny it and of course people are even more sure they had something to do with with Skripal. See, not very bright, the people who rule us. But here’s the brilliant audacity of Putin’s plan: knowing that Skripal happens to live a few miles away from the only supply of novichok in western europe, he attacks using – novichok! You have to admire Putin… the way one admires a crocodile, from a distance.
Is this true? I don’t know, but it seems at least as plausible as Mr Slane’s theory. We should doubt all ready-packed solutions, including mine. However, it’s not a game or an intellectual exercise; many people have died, and many more will. There’s too much lazy thinking around at the moment, and that’s not a luxury we can afford.
But Putin, not being a complete idiot, would obviously know that Russia, not Porton Down would be blamed even if Porton Down does have novichok.
Pretty crappy theory really.
After a history of intelligence lying in the West that includes the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Warren Commission, ‘yellow rain’ in Indochina, KAL 007, Lockerbie, Kuwaiti babies thrown from incubators, the USS Liberty, Saddam’s WMD, Gaddafi’s ‘container-loads of Viagra’, MH17, the Russian ‘invasion of Georgia’, the Russian ‘invasion of Ukraine’, the Tian An Men Square ‘massacre’ etc (I could go on ALL day), to credit ANYTHING that Western intelligence agencies state is sign either of intractable dementia, or duplicity-or both, probably.
George I don’t mind British intelligence being secretive, what I object about them is that they loudly and persistently tell us lies to get us to pour money into more violence. They see us as the enemy they must control by deception.
Yes, that’s right, at least for elements within the services, and I despise it as well. So, for chissakes man, stop messing around with these wacky conspiracy theories and fight the bastards!
why exactly does it seem likely Skripal was one of Steele’s sources? did Steele even need any sources to write his ludicrous ‘dossier’?
The connection is through Steele’s partner – from memory, one Pablo Miller, who was Skripal’s case officer when Skripal was an active spy. MSM journalists aren’t allowed to speculate too much, so you’re right – we don’t know for sure. But it’s widely assumed, on Off-G and by Murray and elsewhere.
I don’t assume it. I see no reason to think Skripal had anything to do with the dossier. More likely in my view the sources, if there were any, were Ukrainians and Americans.
There’s a stink of Ukraine about it.
Paul Roderick Gregory who has followed Soviet and Russian politics professionally for several decades has this to say about the Steele dossier:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/#5a2c34e06867
The Orbis report makes as if it knows all the ins-and-outs and comings-and-goings within Putin’s impenetrable Kremlin. It reports information from anonymous “trusted compatriots,” “knowledgeable sources,” “former intelligence officers,” and “ministry of foreign affairs officials.” The report gives a fly-on-the-wall account of just about every conceivable event associated with Donald Trump’s Russian connections. It claims to know more than is knowable as it recounts sordid tales of prostitutes, “golden showers,” bribes, squabbles in Putin’s inner circle, and who controls the dossiers of kompromat (compromising information).
There are two possible explanations for the fly-on-the-wall claims of the Orbis report: Either its author (who is not Mr. Steele) decided to write fiction, or collected enough gossip to fill a 30-page report, or a combination of the two. The author of the Orbis report has one more advantage: He knew that what he was writing was unverifiable. He advertises himself as the only Kremlin outsider with enough “reliable” contacts to explain what is really going within Putin’s office.
As someone who has worked for more than a decade with the microfilm collection of Soviet documents in the Hoover Institution Archives, I can say that the dossier itself was compiled by a Russian, whose command of English is far from perfect and who follows the KGB (now FSB) practice of writing intelligence reports, in particular the practice of capitalizing all names for easy reference. The report includes Putin’s inner circle – Peskov, Ivanov, Sechin, Lavrov. The anonymous author claims to have “trusted compatriots” who knew the roles that each Kremlin insider, including Putin himself, played in the Trump election saga and were prepared to tell him.
The Orbis report spins the tale of Putin insiders, spurred on by Putin himself, engaging in a five-year courtship of Donald Trump in which they offer him lucrative real estate deals that he rejects but leaves himself open to blackmail as a result of sexual escapades with prostitutes in St. Petersburg and Moscow (the famous “golden shower” incident). Despite his reluctance to enter into lucrative business deals, Trump “and his inner circle have accepted regular intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals,” according to the Orbis report.
This story makes no sense. In 2011, when the courtship purportedly begins, Trump was a TV personality and beauty pageant impresario. Neither in the U.S. or Russia would anyone of authority anticipate that Trump would one day become the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, making him the target of Russian intelligence.
Sergei Skripal could fit the description of the “Russian” referred to in the third paragraph.
“most experts seem to be convinced ” of the Dossier’s authenticity.
I know of no such ‘experts’ making such a claim. It was so widely held that the dossier was unreliable that nobody would publish it, despite being urged to do so by Steele and his co-conspirators, until Buzzfeed did so.
The main corroboration for the Steele Dossier was Christopher Steele: briefing the press at the Tabard Inn, Washington – to set up a collaboration loop. Julian Assange tweeted that one of the journalists was Paul Wood …who looks like a spook or an asset himself.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943588394323973
Another journalists was Michael Isikoff. His planted story war used to collaborate the Dossier as the basis of the FBI’s FISA warrant to surveill Carter Page.
The Nunes Memo also states that Steele back-chanelled additional allegations into the DOJ via Bruce Ohr.
Another corroboration was the Trump Tower meeting: ostensibly set up by Trump linked Araz Agalarov could verify the piss taking allegations. It’s well worth revisiting the Elizabeth Vos Disobedient Media article for background on this meeting …set up Mifsud et al: who are linked to London – not Moscow.
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/04/all-russiagate-roads-lead-to-london-as-evidence-emerges-of-joseph-mifsuds-links-to-uk-intelligence/
Anyway, all these “experts” – and Wikipedia – seem to have got their information from one source – Steele: who both wrote and then corroborated his own dossier. With a little help from his intel friends …
Name an expert who thinks the dossier is genuine.
I just had another comment vanish…
I had said that it’s not a black-or-white matter. The spies who read and write these kind of documents regard 70% accuracy as pretty high – by their nature, they have unreliable sources (that’s roughly the job description of a spy). But if you insist. Senator Whitehouse: “As I understand it, a good deal of his information remains unproven, but none of it has been disproven, and considerable amounts of it have been proven.” See, this is an adult response to a difficult judgement call. Keep sceptical, but follow the evidence.
George Blot wrote: But if you insist. Senator Whitehouse: “As I understand it, a good deal of his information remains unproven, but none of it has been disproven, and considerable amounts of it have been proven.”
I asked you to name an expert who thinks the dossier is genuine.
I’ve said in post after post that the dossier (and the general model of the Russian source of the Skripal attack) is not clear-cut. I’d distrust anyone who said the dossier was 100% genuine as much as you – more, I suggest, since scepticism is a frame of mind that you seem uncomfortable with. The correct approach is to be cautious and curious. For example, Mueller pointedly doesn’t rely on the dossier, but follows leads in it and is continuously surprised by its ongoing accuracy. Exactly what Whitehouse says. And many others that you not only could find yourself, but should want to.
So you can’t name any experts who believe the dossier is genuine. OK.
I believe in human reason, and its power to overcome all prejudice and willy-waving. So, I really really want to believe that, for one hundredth of a second, you nearly learnt something that would have rocked your world. Alas, deep down I know that isn’t true.
Here’s the New Yorker. Just picked at random, not a special selection. Lots of stuff like this.
John Sipher spent twenty-eight years as a clandestine officer in the C.I.A., and ran the agency’s Russia program before retiring, in 2014. He said of Steele’s memos, “This is source material, not expert opinion.” Sipher has described the dossier as “generally credible,” although not correct in every detail. He said, “People have misunderstood that it’s a collection of dots, not a connecting of the dots. But it provided the first narrative saying what Russia might be up to.” Alexander Vershbow, a U.S. Ambassador to Russia under George W. Bush, told me, “In intelligence, you evaluate your sources as best you can, but it’s not like journalism, where you try to get more than one source to confirm something. In the intelligence business, you don’t pretend you’re a hundred per cent accurate. If you’re seventy or eighty per cent accurate, that makes you one of the best.”
…
Biden asked, “How seriously should we take this?” Comey responded that the F.B.I. had not corroborated the details in the dossier, but he said that portions of it were “consistent” with what the U.S. intelligence community had obtained from other channels. He also said that the F.B.I. had “confidence” in the dossier’s author—a careful but definite endorsement—because it had worked not only with him but with many of his sources and sub-sources, whose identities the Bureau knew. “He’s proven credible in the past, and so has his network,” Comey said.
Lots of stuff. Be curious. Look around. Find out for yourself.
George Blot wrote: “Credible” means “believable” or “convincing”. Sounds pretty high standard to me. It doesn’t apply to this page’s main article, for example, nor to your idea that the Ukrainians dunnit.
Er no, it says absolutely nothing about whether the dossier is true or not. It’s really not complicated.
George Blot wrote: For example, Mueller pointedly doesn’t rely on the dossier, but follows leads in it and is continuously surprised by its ongoing accuracy.
Where are you getting this waffle from? When has Mueller made any statement to this effect?
I didn’t say he had. But it’s still true. Which parts aren’t? Link to reputable sources to demonstrate falsehood, please. While you’re there, where’s your evidence for any Ukrainian connection at all, as in your previous post. (Or, if you prefer, you can help to work out what’s really going on instead of engaging in robotic debating tricks).
i dont need to prove a negative. you need to prove what you said is true.
George Blot wrote: Here’s the New Yorker. Just picked at random, not a special selection. Lots of stuff like this.
John Sipher spent twenty-eight years as a clandestine officer in the C.I.A., and ran the agency’s Russia program before retiring, in 2014. He said of Steele’s memos, “This is source material, not expert opinion.” Sipher has described the dossier as “generally credible,” although not correct in every detail.
I dont see this guy saying the dossier is genuine. Generally credible means nothing.
It means pretty damn good in a complicated world. This is the CIA, not the Off-Guardian. It’s a higher standard than anything on this page, including my posts, and certainly including your suggestion that the Ukraine were behind it. Is that 100% gold-standard perfect? No, because only an empty dossier can be perfect in every respect.
But actually I just noticed. How do you define “genuine”? Sourced from reputable and reliable people who are in a position to know? If so, see the quote above:
He also said that the F.B.I. had “confidence” in the dossier’s author—a careful but definite endorsement—because it had worked not only with him but with many of his sources and sub-sources, whose identities the Bureau knew. “He’s proven credible in the past, and so has his network,” Comey said.
Sounds like “genuine” to me.
‘generally credible’ means nothing. it’s a non statement as to the truth or falsity of the ‘dossier’
“Credible” means “believable” or “convincing”. Sounds pretty high standard to me. It doesn’t apply to this page’s main article, for example, nor to your idea that the Ukrainians dunnit.
It’s pathopsychological projection, Jen. Nasty little gangsters see gangsters everywhere. It’s the type they admire and associate with.
…..well thats one comment that didn’t go down well!
No one was affected by a ‘nerve agent poison’?
‘ . . . he began his letter to the Times . . . with; “may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury” ‘
“ The Times published a letter from Stephen Davies (Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust) on the 16th March. ‘Sir, further to your report (‘Poison Exposure Leaves Nearly 40 needing Treatment’), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.’ ”
“Putin is a gangster…..and …..the British are somewhere between incompetent and stupid….”
Familiar tactic. The curse on both their houses method aiming at a fraudulent sense of objectivity. But the difference is revealing. They are evil. We are merely stupid. Thus it turns out that we are the “good guys”.
I know from this bilge that you are far more of a ‘gangster’ than Putin will ever be.
George you say that your paragraphs on D S Baily is speculation. Why did you single out this section when your whole long post is wildly speculative and based on unrealistic assumptions like Putin is a gangster and its the sort of thing he does. Exactly what gangster examples did you provide.
Your other assumption is that Britain doesn’t carry out assassinations. What the hell was it doing in Libya then? Does mass killing and the destruction of a nation state solely on the basis of stopping a leader from creating an Africa wide currency to replace the Petrodollar with a gold based currency not gangster like?
I suppose you are also agreeing with the premise that the discovery of a glass bottle with traces of Novichok proves the Russians poisoned the Skripals? I suppose you do not find it strange that the latest victims would pick up an empty glass bottle in an area that was heavily searched and cleaned by security agencies and take that bottle home.
I also suppose that your favourite song is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. By the way George I have sent you an email regarding 10 million dollars that I am wanting to transfer to a trustworthy person to the UK. If you help me with this I will give you 10% commission. Just send your bank details to the following address. Colonal [email protected]
George Blot: “Putin is a gangster, with a gangster’s thought patterns, morality, and methods, and he’s a man who loves to fuck with your mind;”
Good heavens! And your evidence for this would be….. what? Thus far, the evidence suggests that he’s by a considerable distance the superior politician of the contemporary world: sophisticated, diplomatic, fiercely intelligent; an effective leader.
“…the British are somewhere between incompetent and stupid, obsessed with secrecy, and completely contemptuous of democratic accountability…”
Ah, now, there I can agree with you: the evidence shows that in abundance. But in fairness, it isn’t just the British; the US does a very good line in monumental stupidity, coupled with unlovely arrogance. And there are no plaster saints that come to mind in Europe, either.
“Russia has apparently proven itself able to kill anyone it wants, anywhere and anywhen, and by any bizarre method….”
Some evidence for this bold assertion, if you’d be so good. And not from your msm, either.
“Well, Britain isn’t yet a fascist state.”
Is that so. Yet, in the previous paragraph, you say “so they slap D notices on and lie to pretend otherwise.” Isn’t that a hallmark of a fascist state? Some might with justification ask when Britain actually stopped being a fascist state.
This entire narrative suffers from a major flaw: wild implausibility. So many holes, you could shoot peas through it.
Obviousily, D’Esterre however incompetent the UK government investigators they surely had a reason to remove the roof of the Russian Military spy house ?
What could have been in that appropiteley large attic in the roof space to justify the expense of the destruction and the re-building costs?
Moreover, why and where did Sergre Skripal and daughter drive in the morning before his luncheon in Salisbury, on the six mile road between Salisbury and the Porton Down bio-chemical Research centre, with his car’s GPS transponder suddenly switched off ?
Do watch it on YouTube so that you can read the lengthy and informative video description:
Published on 10 Jul 2018
Three miles from Amesbury, six miles from Salisbury. ‘Porton Down is the elephant in the room’: former British ambassador who visited Nukus plant where Novichok was tested, Craig Murray dismantles Amesbury poisoning story on BCFMradio,
Porton Down: What is the experimental government facility in Wiltshire at the centre of recent poisonings?
The secretive laboratory has unintentionally become key in political developments and international relations
The major incident in Amesbury saw two people poisoned by the same nerve agent that almost killed the Skripals, government scientists have confirmed. The attack turns attention once more to Porton Down, the mysterious laboratory that has unintentionally become central to the response to the attacks.
The secretive government facility at Porton Down has been used for experiments involving deadly and often undisclosed weapons, and in the wake of the Salisbury attack has become indelibly associated with the nerve agent used in the attack. The Met – whose counter-terror police are now leading the investigation – confirmed that samples had been tested at the facility and that they showed “show the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok”.
Porton Down is often talked about in the singular, but is actually a site located near Porton village that is host to a whole group of different organisations. The two key ones are the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which is run by the Ministry of Defence and usually referred to as Dstl, as well as Public Health England – both bodies have been involved in the response to the recent poisonings, though it is the former laboratory whose activity is most mysterious.
Bullingdon Boris resigns, feigns matters of principle, limbers up for the top job he was promised at Eton. As 1922 committee cheers for Theresa May ring out to the rafters, British government prepares for controlled demolition.
Published on 10 Jul 2018
Three miles from Amesbury, six miles from Salisbury. ‘Porton Down is the elephant in the room’: former British ambassador who visited #Nukus plant where #novichok was tested, Craig Murray dismantles #Amesbury poisoning story https://youtu.be/LbbxNkPDNrQ on @BCFMradio
Porton Down: What is the experimental government facility in Wiltshire at the centre of recent poisonings?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/porton-down-what-is-explained-experiments-salisbury-wiltshire-novichok-latest-a8431951.html
The secretive laboratory has unintentionally become key in political developments and international relations
The major incident in Amesbury saw two people poisoned by the same nerve agent that almost killed the Skripals, government scientists have confirmed. The attack turns attention once more to Porton Down, the mysterious laboratory that has unintentionally become central to the response to the attacks.
The secretive government facility at Porton Down has been used for experiments involving deadly and often undisclosed weapons, and in the wake of the Salisbury attack has become indelibly associated with the nerve agent used in the attack. The Met – whose counter-terror police are now leading the investigation – confirmed that samples had been tested at the facility and that they showed “show the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok”.
Porton Down is often talked about in the singular, but is actually a site located near Porton village that is host to a whole group of different organisations. The two key ones are the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, which is run by the Ministry of Defence and usually referred to as Dstl, as well as Public Health England – both bodies have been involved in the response to the recent poisonings, though it is the former laboratory whose activity is most mysterious.
Bullingdon Boris resigns, feigns matters of principle, limbers up for the top job he was promised at Eton. As 1922 committee cheers for Theresa May ring out to the rafters, British government prepares for controlled demolition.
There’s another source of “deadly silence”.
A doctor was reported (by the BBC on 8th May) to have given CPR to Julia for 30 minutes without being contaminated by the “novichok”. Indeed, the doctor reported to the BBC that she ‘felt fine’ afterwards.
No-one has seen nor heard from this doctor since, yet a doctor should be easy enough to trace.
Considering the mendacity of the media on this and other matters has anyone considered the possibility that no poisoning of any kind took place in March? The whole story has been a giant load of road apples from day one. What we are expected to swallow by the powers that be cannot possibly be so, perhaps the Skripals never sat on that bench in the first place.
And Yulia’s TV statement was an actor, or she was forced to do it?
Weird lot on here.
And the OPCW samples?
I think MUGGLEton road is a give away, (you’re a Muggle if you believe this story) as well as the police officer saying it’s a “surreal experience”. Hoax from the start to coincide with a Syrians poisoning to scare people. Syria failed due to a pincher attack, capturing some UK special forces. Classic deception onto of deception.
The police officer means it was “an act of war” so emergency powers means the media has to be monitored by MI5. Hence any interview is quickly cut off if they talk about the Syria or Skripal hoax.
I certainly have. My favourite part of the fairy tale is the cat and two guinea pigs.
I hate that part of the story. Disrespect for animals is the pits. That the police couldn’t detect a cat in the house and look after it is just horrible.
New expression of disparagement for the sterling Old Bill right there: “Detectives? They couldn’t detect a meouwing cat and a couple of treadmilling hamsters in a small suburban kitchen.”
That may be true Robbobbobin but they have been able to sell the MSM a pig in a poke.
We are shown a random photo of a cat and two guinea pigs. Why do you assume it has anything at all to do with the Skripals and that the animals are dead? The power elite have it over us so easily because we have emotional reactions when it comes to death and suffering of humans and animals. They ruthlessly exploit our reactions. You’ve got to get wise to them. This is why they can stage events with impunity and have people believe that people have died. Once it’s said that people have died we cannot undie them. It is an act of sacrilege – but that’s what they exploit. Anything told us by the media needs to be treated with the utmost circumspection no matter what its subject or – even especially – anything that tends to provoke an emotional reaction.
In an earlier part of this series, you said the red bag was unusual – that’s why you thought the bag on the CCTV was the same as the one at the crime scene. “Unusual” is another word for “conspicuous”. Why would trained assassins carry deadly poison in a conspicuous bag?
What an odd website this place is. Why would anyone downvote a question?
George, in answer to your question, it all depends on the role played by the red bag in the saga, and none of us know that. Irrespective of whether it was used to carry any poisonous agent, it might have been a way of conveying identity or a signal to someone. There are very few indisputable facts in this case as to what actually happened on the day and who was involved in doing what so it could be that the bag was something for someone to look out for, precisely because it would stand out to them.
Duuuuhhh … could the red bag have contained bundles of cash, some of which might have had toxin (either intentionally or accidentally) placed on them?
You obviously have nothing better to do… Gibraltar and Belgrano show UK has no inhibition to use force illegally.
Oh, and the Zinoviev letter…
We’re down-voting a Blot on humanity.
Good question. One answer is the assassins were being monitored, so a bright red bag facilitated identification.
The ‘door handle’ theory only arose as a means of explaining how the policeman was contaminated. He was allegedly present soon after the Skripals were found, and became contaminated, while others, including a doctor who closely examined the Skripals, did not. Occam’s Razor suggests that the Skripals and the policeman were affected at the same time before other witnesses were present. This implies that the policeman was a witness to the attack.
The policeman was likely reciebed secondary or even tiertary contamination.
We don’t know. Yet. The investigation is ongoing…
Nobody knows anything yet, Detective Sir Modern Media Plod. Like nothing. Like sweet Fanny Adams. The inventors and testers of the Foliant program, convicted for disclosing state secrets even, contradict each other – big time – about its longevity; Iran synthesizes several variants and the OPCW adds their data to its database but then somehow at some time lost or deleted it and until very recently forgot it had ever heard of it; a military funded researcher in Maryland also published relevant data and then next year unpublished it; several NATO labs got samples and figured it all out but suddenly only Russia can help Porton Down do the same thing – except they’re not permitted to and shouted down when they try; Demented Hillary – biggest clue of all – demands her diplomats hush up any mention of it at chemical defence conferences, probably because an agent with mindset just like yours advised her, definitively, that Gaddafi had accidentally sat on it when it appeared in one of his tents but when he stood up it had gone irretrievably missing, presumably up one of his folds (though that particular morsel of “intelligence” could be as apocryphal as your inside scoops – maybe it was Saddam, not Muammar); and so on and on and on and on. Secondary or tertiary contamination? What, the Ghost of Gaddafi al-Hussein showed up and sat on Rowley’s door handle? Give us a break, there’s only so much credibility we can handle in the real official like answers thoughtfully provided as the solutions to any given “mystery”.
Thank you Rob Slane for this study of the Skripal case.As an outsider from another country I am grateful for your work .Your assumptions are far more likely than what we have heard from the government officials .As ugly as the truth of the matter might be , it would be better if they found a way to fess up .At this point it does not look good for the UK credibility .
I’m intrigued by why the White House or the Administrstion hasn’t asked why an ex-Senior spy, Steele, was given permission by the British Secret Service to write his dossier at all, based as it was purportedly on his time as Head of the Russia Desk at MI6, let alone pass it over to the Democrats while carefully leaking it to the media all with Steele’s stated opinion that he’d do anything to stop Trump getting elected. It’s clear why the US Intelligence Services are unconcerned, they also deplored Trump’s election but why is there nothing about British interference in the election from Trump himself? Is it a row he’s saving up or does it does show that Trump v the Dark State is rubbish, they are all in it together?
‘And in the darkness bind them’. There is no outrage at Saudi or Israeli influence/interference on the election either.
One is directed as to who, when and where to vent outrage by a network of factors that generally ‘work’ because they operate the structure of identity in self-protective reaction. There are those who ‘engineer society’, working ‘mind-capture’ in a post truth system of manipulated (farmed) human-bots. But there are also structural limits to the freedom to operate within a structure that ‘self-protects itself’ from exposures that open a deeper threat to a systemic sense of control that identifies as all that stands between Chaos and such ‘order’ as we sacrifice to, or appease and align in conformity under. Too “Big” to fail – or in translation – if you try to pull out the tares you ruin the whole crop.
The old mythological archetypes have outlived their usefulness. To get perspective we have to zoom out to a larger embrace, not zoom in to ever specialized rejections.
No one can ‘fight’ a deep state of ignorance and arrogance running as justified protections of Notional Security, but we can wake from a deep state of our own participation and complicity in the ‘human-bot’.
Interesting. The up and down markers after each comment are being manipulated. Someone is a little bit worried.
Number 16 your time is up!
The site is designed by amateurs.
Sorry, Offguardian.
More than one side can play the same game.
Here’s my opinion for what it’s worth…
You’ll be surprised…
********Why shouldn’t Putin want to punish traitors to Russia?*******
That’s basically it. It’s a bit controversial. So here’s the rest…
All of you ‘defending’ Putin and Russia, saying he didn’t do it, are effectively insulting Russia. You are saying it’s ok to sell state secrets, to give up your citizenship and pledge oath to another country. That’s wrong, isn’t it?
It’s just a shame that it was so bungled, and that there are innocent victims, Yulia, the policeman and two two others, one fatality. And that it was abroad. That’s not on, you know…
Putin should be punishing the messy and messy assassins, and maybe he already has…
Just like Lugovoi and Kovtun, they have exposed Russia.
if he wanted to kill Skripal he could have done it in Russia. Litvinenko too.
Brad perhaps Putin just likes being threatened by the British and having sanctions on Russian trade being imposed. That’s why he used a now obsolete Soviet military grade nerve weapon which was so old it merely gave the Skripals a headache. It could be that he used a MSM journalist to carry out the operation knowing they couldn’t get it right and that the victims would survive and be able to finger Putin. That way Theresa May and even Boris Minor would know who did it. That would clearly make them fear Russia and enhance his reputation of being known as an evil genius outside of the USA.
No kidding. I just gave you a whole bunch of ups.
wow yeah, no limit to up/down markers. I think we all know what that means. Wonder what stage 2 is?
Interesting.
The poisonings were most probably organised by the state within the state. This speech although almost twenty years old gives some idea of the powers of the deep state and how the government relates to them
http://zersetzen.wikispaces.com/file/view/Gerald+Reaveley+James.pdf
The uk has no motive to harm Skripal.
Russia has classic motive, as Sergei sold state secrets and betrayed more.
Who knows whether the British had a motive to incapacitate Sergei and then keep him in custody so it’s hard to see how it can be said so categorically. If Sergei was serious about returning to Russia to see his mother before she died (a not unnatural sentiment especially for such a sentimental man) then there may have been very pressing reasons to keep him here, notably what he would say in his inevitable ‘de-briefing’ by ex-colleagues. It isn’t denied that he continued to work with MI6 and may have had a hand in the Steele dossier. Julia’s arrival seems to have moved the game forward and ‘action’ became imperative. The story itself has the hall marks of Eton and Trinity, a good ‘wheeze’. Hastily put together it would have unraveled immediately without the D Notice. Now they have to decide whether they can dare let either of them have their freedom; Julia has a long life ahead; is she to be held incommunicado for decades?
Even for you that is a moronic comment. The UK, whether the necrotic May regime or the secret state that controls affairs, have plenty of reasons to traduce and vilify Russia. Buffoon.
Thanks for that link!
“You are posting comments too quickly, slow down” was the response I got from wordpress
The red bag containing the poison makes a lot of sense.
“Yulia has nothing whatsoever to say about the day of the poisoning. Isn’t that odd?”.
She has said nothing to the press about the poisoning because it’s evidence. I am sure the police have much information, that will be revealed when they have built a case.
The rubbish in these articles is stunning.
Thanks.
“The deafening silence of Mr Skripal is therefore strong evidence of a number of things:
That the Government story, in which he was the unsuspecting victim of a Kremlin plot, is without foundation.
That he well knows who his poisoners were and why they poisoned him.
That he cannot be allowed to speak freely because if he was, a scandal of monumental proportions would be revealed.”.
Why?
These simply do not follow.
Absurd.
I don’t know if it has been asked before, but: why poison Yulia Skripal anyway? If this was some sort of professional hit, it was very badly timed, given that Yulia was only visiting her father.
I personally do not believe that any of these 5 people had been poisoned by a nerve agent. And by that I mean an organophosphate compound. BZ is not that class of compound. (I have a degree in chemistry).
Those compounds are exceedingly toxic. If their use (or rather non-use) is military then they must kill enemy troops quickly and with minimal amount. Speed is crucial. Semi conscious enemy soldiers are dangerous.
What I find frustrating is that – because we are being so cynically lied to by our government – we have been seriously misled about the toxicity of these chemicals. You really don’t stand any sort of chance if you are poisoned by them.
The target was almost certainly Sergei. Yulia was accidentally contaminated.
In which case why wait until Yulia had come to Salisbury before making the ‘attack’ on Sergei? Couldn’t you ask around?
Why not? It’s irrelevant, anyway.
Maybe there had been other unsuccessful attacks, like with Litvinenko.
“almost certainly” is as certain as we can be given the dearth of facts available
‘Brad’, the Ukronazi, is the Bradman of down-votes-averaging just a tick under 100.
“I personally do not believe that any of these 5 people had been poisoned by a nerve agent. And by that I mean an organophosphate compound. BZ is not that class of compound. (I have a degree in chemistry).”.
The Skripals were poisoned by a Novichok type nerve agent.
This has been 100% confirmed by the OPCW.
You have absolutely zero reason to doubt this and your opinion is just that. Your subjective opinion.
If they were poisoned by a ‘Novichok’ nerve agent they would be dead.
Who ‘identified’ the supposed Novichok? Porton Down.
Who provided the sample for the OPCW? Porton Down.
Who has stocks of all known nerve agents? Porton Down.
Can the OPCW be trusted? No.
Can Brad Pitte II be trusted? No.
The OPCW have confirmed a Novichok.
I certainly hope no one is infringing on the US patent
Thats like saying that if they were shot by a Kalashnikov, they’d be dead. That’s certainly what mr. Kalashnikov would say.
It’s simply not true, and obviously not if you give it some thought.
The OPCW eh.
https://www.sott.net/article/315425-French-counter-terror-boss-says-Putin-didnt-kill-Litvinenko-US-and-UK-did-and-he-has-proof
And again…
The only ever recorded case of a Novichok nerve agent killing (before the Amesbury case, and that’s not confirmed yet) took a WHOLE FIVE YEARS to kill.
That was in a laboratory, an accident, in Soviet Russia.
Your assertion that Novichoks always kill instantaneously, regardless of state, method or environment is FALSE, and clearly absurd.
“What I find frustrating is that – because we are being so cynically lied to by our government – “.
How do you know this?
Julia’s boyfriend is apparently in the Russian Secret Service and his mother is a senior figure in Russian Intelligence. She may have been passing on Putin’s reply to Sergei’s request to return home to visit his seriously ill elderly mother? He was irritable because he’d realised he’d have to decide, UK or Russia. And if it was to be Russia then he knew he’d have to spill the beans on Steele; tough decision! I agree it would be odd to target her if she was ‘just’ his daughter on a brief visit. Julia may have been as much a target as her father?
Rubbish.
Yulia was the daughter of a traitor to Russia, rather different to being a traitor to Russia.
The boyfriend link is interesting and certainly there may be connections to the attempted assassination, particularly, as he disappeared after it had happened.
Did Sergei want to go home? Is his mother ill and unable to travel? Does he still want to see her before she dies? Will he be allowed? Is Julia’s boyfriend’s mother senior in Russian intelligence? (I ask as you probably know the answers it seems!).
Yulia received secondary contamination.
The application was weakened by rain
wouldnt take much rain to wash away a small amount of a chemical completely
One imagines the Novichok would have been in a ‘safe’ container and the handler(s) would have worn gloves. The person applying it would have the advantage of knowing where it was.
Again, it’s a pretty good assumption that the two more recent cases (inc. the lady who has died) would have been poisoned for the same batch, as it’s a very rare substance. If it was the discarded container, then it would be open and maybe with contamination on its outside edges. The details of both cases are still being investigated.
All this conspiracy stuff is daft.
“The Western forces conspired to do it” = “conspiracy stuff”.
“The Russian forces conspired to do it” = “not conspiracy stuff”.
When is a conspiracy not a conspiracy?
Skripal was a traitor to Russia, and after the spy swop in 2010, Putin is on record as saying that traitors would choke on their gains.
Skripal was hated in Russia, after conviction, but they don’t tell you that, now, do they? Even the family were spilt.
And no one is yet saying Russia definitely did it.
Most likely, but there will likely be more coming…
Point is russia had
Motive
Means
Precedent
Whether “Russia” had a motive is moot. But there is no evidence that “Russia” had any particular means than any other potential culprit, such as MI6.
As to’precedent’ the number of assassinations carried out abroad by Russian intelligence pales in comparison with those carried out by Military Intelligence in the UK, the CIA and Mossad.
You are reduced to citing the very unlikely ‘precedent’ of Litivenko which every effort of The Establishment has failed to produce anything more than a meaningless finding by a tame High Court judge. No legal proceedings have discovered any connection between the death and the Russian state.
On the other hand ‘western’ intelligence agencies are notoriously engaged in assassinations and have been on an industrial scale for seventy years. Cf The Committee chaired by Senator Church.
Actually so did MI6 CIA have M M P and opportunity
well,there you go,it def.looks like that the 2 people with the red handbag who were cought on cctv were wearing white gloves
thermite
Let’s see. An MI6 spy, known to be still actively working on MI6 deception, is involved in an incident in which a claim is made that he’s been poisoned with a deadly nerve agent by the Russians, which is disputed by hospital staff and Porton Down people behind the scenes, and can’t be checked out by investigative journalists in the mainstream media, because there aren’t any investigative journalists in the mainstream media, and immediately the Government knows that Russia did it. Doesn’t that suggest to you that Mr Skripal may have been part of the set-up right from the start?
As for his daughter, is that the same Yulia Skripal in the pictures after the event as the one in the restaurant before the event?
“deadly nerve agent by the Russians, which is disputed by hospital staff and Porton Down people behind the scenes”.
No hospital staff or Porton Down staff have disputed anything.
NOT TRUE.
One doctor wrote a letter stating ‘no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning’. Beyond that no one has been interviewed as the govt have a press ban on it. Why is that?
The claims about Novichok by ex-Russian scientists do not match up with the scenario here. How broadly is this ‘novichok’ title being applied?
The UK govt straight out lied with claims it was Russian made. They have no evidence of this and we now know it can be made worldwide. I believe US even have patents on it.
He was a locus doctor in casualty.
He clearly states no cases, except the policeman and the Skripals.
when did he say “except the policeman and the Skripals”?
Stephen Davies is a consultant physician in the hospital’s emergency department. Not a ‘locus doctor’
He was attending the emergency clinic as a locum. NOTE FROM ADMIN: This is not supported by any available evidence.
He was not talking about the Skripals
In his letter he says that three were confirmed as nerve agent cases NOTE FROM ADMIN: This is blatantly untrue, please see Davies’s letter
He has not, as far as anyone knows ‘dissapeared’.
I think you mean locum. No, he doesn’t state ‘except the policeman and the Skripals’. Anyone reading this can go google the letter and see Brad Pitte II is straight out lying. That sums up who this poster is and what they’re about. Just to spread disinformation.
Russia is strongly suspected because they have precedent, particularly the Litvinenko case, with strong forensic evidence against two Russians, one ex. KBG/ FSB.
Circumstances unknown and withheld from public knowledge oblige people in ‘power’ or positions of influence under such power to act in ways that make no sense to anyone with sense.
News for mass consumption is a sideshow but also a conditioning to remain inside the framing of a narrative identity. The ‘Western intelligence’ could not do a better job of damaging their credibility by the WAY they operate as well as the what of it.
However “No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.” (Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives).
While the what of it can be tested to some degree for congruency with itself and with all the factors involved, the WAY of it speaks of either desperation of from a conviction that intellectual criticism is powerless in a post truth coup.
My sense is of either the leadership class being captive to powers they do not feel able to challenge or are cornered in some way by their circumstance so as not to have any other recourse than – in this case – stirring up hatred in incitement to violence with Russia. This could all be a brinkmanship of geopolitical ‘poker’ or it could be that the only ‘escape’ from such a mess as we inherit and persist in is war.
My sense is that when we cannot or will not embrace change somewhat ‘gracefully’ or in some willingness – then we give power to whatever external ‘crisis’ ripens to force it – and seek to ‘survive’ at the expense of those we abandoned or indeed conscripted or made into targets for WMD.
Dictating terms to a world of ‘united states’ under broad spectrum dominance of a tyrannous rule is not justified by ‘symbols and stories’ of freedom.
National and International security rests on honest communication, backed by supporting deeds so as to grow trust in place of treachery. No one has a clean past, but if we persist in re-enacting it, we will forsake the presence of mind by which to choose not to.
The nature of politics has had all its goalposts moved to a rigged system of finance and law that pre-empt any movement of cultural development apart from corporate capture – and allow that corporations have only the power given them by such a systemic ‘development’. No one HAS power but for an agenda larger than their own usefulness.
Worldly power has always operated a narrative control at some level – but technology has ‘outsourced’ our own will and consciousness to systems and machinery of our own attempt and intent to replace Life with our own making. I see a larger ‘script’ than power struggle – or rather I see an awakening ‘script’ running beneath the narrative identity conflict.
Whether we have a fated outcome or make our own (under a fatal condition), the framing of the physicalised sense of self is the ‘life in the world’. But this framing is not itself physical so much as conditioned association and reflex that is hidden from sight while we engage within its framing as a sense of personal struggle under and driven by ‘necessity’ of survival in the terms we set or are forcefully and fearfully identified in.
Deceit is simply a weapon in a world of war – including the claiming of a moral high ground whenever it suits an invalidating of the ‘other’. Loss of communication, trust and therefore integrity is the state of a lack of substance. However, ‘claiming the moral high ground’ as a personal right to power is the same old story. The complexities of deceits and entanglements increase with the persistence of identities and investments in them – which of course run as ‘self-evident reality’ by reactions that embody the beliefs.
Brad Pitte II is strongly suspected of being a paid U.K, or other ‘western’ government disinformation dwarf because he has precedent and because of the improbably large number of “likes” his ridiculous posts acquire so quickly.
Not to mention the highly suspect number of dislikes for very good comments that just challenge his views.
Many likes or dislikes? Faulty software here. You can thumb up or down as many times as you like. Just ask Mulga Mumblebrain who found this out long ago.
I see you’ve given yourself 75 ‘upticks’, Antonyl. And I see from your contribution at Craig Murray’s blog that you are a Sinophobic racist, too, posting vile gibberish about ‘Mongol maps’ indicating a desire by China to expand into neighbouring states. You’re definitely the full package.
No. I’m not.
I reckon BP II is a Ukronazi sitting in a basement in Lvov, currently self-abusing in a frenzy of delight that his Ustasha blood-brothers have reached the World Cup final.
A retired senior member of the French secret service has made a statement that Litvenenko was not poisoned by the Russian Government. He named the person who carried out the killing but I have forgotten his name.I will search my files to find the article.
There is no evidence that it was done by the Russian Government.
The uk has produced massive forensic evidence that Lugovoi and Kovtun put Po210 into the teapot at the Millenium Bar on1.11.2006.
Only Lugovoi, Kovtun and Litvinenko himself were there.
K and L did it. We just don’t know on whose behalf (!!).
The teapot had massive quantities of very rare Po210 and Litvinenko drank from it before he died.
Read the report. All of it. Properly.
They also tried to poison him by the same method two weeks before.
Again, extensive forensics.
FACTS.
Are these facts? What’s the source of the ‘facts’?
I don’t believe you are really Brad Pitte II. You are clearly his demented brother Cecil.
Whoever you are, Mr Pitte, you read this barrister’s analysis of the Litvinenko case:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/03/17/litvinenko-and-the-demise-of-british-justice/
That analysis is flawed.
The report makes clear that Litvinenko was poisoned on at least two separate occasions, which explains how he contaminated areas before Nov. 2006.
All,of his points are covered in the report from the public enquiry.
Read it. You won’t.
The teapot that Litvinenko drank out of has Po210 all over it. Only Lugovoi and Kovtun were with Litvinenko.
That report you mention says why was the poisoning not visible on cctv? That’s no proof it didn’t happen. It’s circumstantial.
There is sufficient to take L and K to trial and very likely convict in a uk criminal court.
It’s amazing how people don’t know how strong the case is.
Note that it happened on uk soil. Uk law applies and proof is required only ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
There is plenty to convict L and K.
Read the full report.
The report offers no evidence for the prior attempt, it merely alleges it, does it not?
A problem with this scenario is that the taxi-cab that took Alexander Litvinenko TO his meeting with Andrey Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun on that day also tested positive for traces of polonium.
How many times
Litvinenko had already been contaminated at least once before (but not fatally) by L and K.
There is proof that L and K out Po210 into the teapot on 1.11.2006.
Always wondered why – if the teapot still tested + for polonium weeks later – it hadn’t poisoned the many other people who must have consumed tea from that pot between the time Litvinenko was poisoned and the time the pot was identified as a source
That is a valid point.
I don’t know.
But the forensics show extensive Po210 traces inside and in the spout. Large amounts bonded with tannin deposits. That’s highly significant. It very rare.
The teapot should have seriously injured or killed numerous people.
It didn’t, because the teapot of doom was just made up by MI6.
This is ‘massive evidence’ as we see in the ‘deadly’ A-234 case(s)?
Unless you were there when they tested the teapot, you’re the mug for believing anything coming out of the UK services/Govt. You blindly believe your masters…
Just like the ‘massive forensic evidence’ for Saddam’s WMD. Poltroon!
Why should I Brad? you haven’t.
Please don’t bother.
It was proabaly Goldfarb. But L and K poisoned him. It’s proven.
It’s not proven. There has been no court case, only a ludicrously one sided ‘enquiry’ featuring a number of foaming at the mouth Russophobes as ‘experts’.
In Ukronazistan, that’s ‘proven’. Even before you get out the hot tongs.
Paul Barril named Mario Scaramella as Litvinenko’s killer: and I’d put more faith in France’s former top cop than our residential troll!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aLI-gXJ7T5E
The public enquiry has forensic evidence.
Russia won’t extradite the accused for trail.
There is an international arrest warrant out for their arrest.
There’s one out for your mate Browder, too.
Very interesting.
But
There is very strong evidence that L and K put Po210 into the teapot on 1.11.2006. The teapot has been tested and the results thoroughly recorded. Only L, K and Litvinenko were present. L and K poisoned him with Po210. On whose behalf we don’t know.
There is similar evidence that they did the same about 2 weeks earlier. Litvinenko was then weakly infected and infected some of those he met at some of the venues he attended.
All of the information about Scaramella is irrelevant, and covered in the report.
I remind you.
The crime was committed in uk soil. Uk law applies.
There is an international warrant for L and K’s arrest and France are party to that warrant.
“There is very strong evidence that L and K put Po210 into the teapot on 1.11.2006.”
There is compelling evidence that L and K may be guilty. To settle it we should ask the nuclear scientist Dr Matthew Puncher who was part of the Litvinenko investigation to clear matters up.
Sadly he was murdered, “Blood from severe wounds in his neck, arms, and stomach pooled around him. A large kitchen knife lay in his lifeless hand, and a second smaller blade was in the kitchen sink.”
Luckily on hand was the top pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt who was satisfied it was suicide, whoops I thought it was murder. You may have head of Dr Hunt the famous pathologist who also did the autopsy of Dr David Kelly, it must be a small world.* Strange that he only measured Dr Kelly’s temperature many hours after he could have and therefore could not give an accurate time of death. It is also a common matter to get the weight of the liver wrong by a factor of 10. Anyway Dr Hunt also had the following bad luck on an autopsy of Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge.
“Dr Nicholas Hunt is said to have made 14 mistakes – including wrongly recording the serviceman’s height, weight, hair and eye colour.
He also noted that the body had three tattoos when there were none – and dated the postmortem two weeks BEFORE the death.”
Indeed, shortly before his death Dr Puncher was working at the reactor site where the Po which is thought to have killed Litvinenko came from!
On 22 May 2007, the MPS/Crown Prosecution Service (the CPS) considered that there was sufficient evidence to charge Andrey Lugovoy with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. An application was made to City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court for the issue of a warrant for Mr Lugovoy’s arrest.
Following further investigation, the MPS/CPS considered that there was suf cient evidence also to charge Dmitri Kovtun with the murder of Mr Litvinenko. An application was made to City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 4 November 2011 for the issue of a warrant for Mr Kovtun’s arrest.
In addition to the issue of these warrants, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun have been placed on international lists of wanted persons. They both remain wanted for Mr Litvinenko’s murder. However, they have both remained within the Russian Federation, from which they cannot be extradited as they are both Russian citizens.
Ruth EH
Litvinenko was already infected with polonium from a previous poisoning by the same bstds.
This is clearly explained, as is the fact that polonium would in most circumstances have remained undetected since it only emits certain particles.
The case is clear and that is why they are wanted for murder internationally. If you don’t like it, tough.
They are the facts, and Russia has tried it again.
The uk legal system and uk forensics are second to none.
The UK legal system is utterly corrupt when it comes to cases involving state crime
Brad Pitte II
In the middle of your comment above you have written ‘Ruth EH’ Why have you done this?
Do you remember the Hutton Inquiry? Second to none in what sense?
Of course, Christopher Steele was also involved in the Litvinenko case:
“Steele’s already dim view of the Kremlin darkened in November, 2006, when Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian K.G.B. officer and a Putin critic who had been recruited by M.I.6, suffered an agonizing death in a London hospital, after drinking a cup of tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. Moscow had evidently sanctioned a brazen murder in his own country. Steele was put in charge of M.I.6’s investigation. Authorities initially planned to indict one suspect in the murder, but Steele’s investigative work persuaded them to indict a second suspect as well.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier
Did Steele develop a ‘dark view’ of Thanatopolis DC after the years of rendition and torture, the illegal aggression and genocide in Iraq, or the carnage of the drone missile terrorism, or the death-squad ‘night raid’ rampage by US Special Forces. If not, why not?
https://www.sott.net/article/315425-French-counter-terror-boss-says-Putin-didnt-kill-Litvinenko-US-and-UK-did-and-he-has-proof
The Government apparently issued D Notices which ban the Press from commenting on matters that the government wants to keep secret.
No- D notices are to press
It is bad enough that we are often told ,if not lies then at least dis-information from government authorities ,now they forbid the press from commenting on them .This is a first for me anyway .Scary Orwellian world indeed.
http://www.theblogmire.com/ Read the whole case and today’s update
“As for his daughter, is that the same Yulia Skripal in the pictures after the event as the one in the restaurant before the event?”.
Yes.