65

The OPCW, Douma & The Skripals

In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma “chemical attack” were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.

What was the agenda behind the Douma false flag?
Why was the US response seemingly token and ineffective?
Why was the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired?
What agenda tied the Skripal case to the Douma attack?

The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.

You can read the whole article here.

*

primarily UK initiative?

The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East.

Since at least 2001 and the launch of the “War on Terror” the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.

This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the “response”.

The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.

Trump’s attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation. But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma “initiative” is a continuation of their longterm policy. It’s also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense.

A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.

You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.

The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation.

The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?) voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.

Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma “attack”, and the claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It’s possible this time there were other considerations in the mix beside the usual need to “be seen to do something” and Trump’s perpetual requirement to appease the liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.

The Skripal consideration

Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn’t this way. Since some time in mid to late March it’s been clear the entire thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.

The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.

The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.

1) It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it

2) Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.

3) It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the “toxic substance” found in the Skripals’ blood is omitted, and the only thing tying it to the UK government’s public claims of “novichok” is association by inference and proximity.

Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a “novichok” (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called “BZ”, a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).

None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.

The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn’t want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.

She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has “specially trained officers…helping to take care of” her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it’s hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.

Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative, snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can’t completely control.

Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma “gas attack” and subsequent drive for a concerted western “response” have to do with trying to fix that?

is this what happened?

If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that’s been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East.

So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?

Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?

Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?

So, did they push on with the now virtually useless “chemical attack”, botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied “response” to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?

This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma “attack” seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.

It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed UK government is less appealing.

And it would explain why the “reprisals” when they came were so half-hearted.

If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and “responded” to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren’t bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.

This is very bad.

But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.

This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it’s unlikely that will happen.

So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn into this.

Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more “reprisals”? Or will this signal some other change in direction?

We’ll all know soon enough.

*

Back to today…

…and while things have moved on, we’re still puzzling over all the same issues.

What was the purpose of the Skripal attack?
What was the original plan of the Douma attack?
Is there, as it appears, an internal power struggle in the Trump administration?
Has that resolved? Who is running the United States?
Seeing as the OPCW has been shown to cover-up evidence in Douma, can we trust them on Skripal? Or anything else?
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?

All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean they won’t try it again.

Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives. And they have the motives right now.

The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and depserately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end.

Theresa May’s political career still hangs by a thread, and her “Falklands moment”, at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage’s Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever.

Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don’t know what they might do.

This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.

In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they’ve moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran.

That’s not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen next time.

Clearly, the US hasn’t totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia’s ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate for a false flag.

The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it’s a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media.

But because recognising what they were trying to do last time, is the best defense when they try it again next time.

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andyoldlabour
andyoldlabour
May 21, 2019 7:48 AM

D S Bailey was interviewed by the BBC after leaving the hospital, but that interview simply raised more questions. Why was his family allowed in the hospital without hazmat suits when the hospital staff were wearing them?
We were originally told that Bailey was contaminated whilst wearing police issue gloves, yet the BBC article said he was wearing a hazmat suit.
Nerve toxins kill thousands, yet only three people were initially contaminated and recovered.

Refraktor
Refraktor
May 20, 2019 12:21 AM

It’s beyond reasonable doubt that there was no Novichok: assuming that substance even exists. It could be that Sergei and Yulia were stooges loyal to MI5. It could be they were whacked with bz or fentanyl (by MI5) in the restaurant. That’s all it would take. Of course army heads of nursing and CID officers would be circulating ready get a handle on developments. Perhaps it later became necessary to kill someone after the complete non-lethality of Novichok was revealed. Perhaps this death was really caused by heroin overdose or else something quite natural. Perhaps not. I concur that the most likely motive for this false flag was an attempt to escalate in Syria. Given the total barking insanity of the Skripal Saga it might be that NATO genuinely contemplated war with Russia at this time. When they lobbed those cruise missiles I thought their dreams were about to come true. Maniacs.

Stonky
Stonky
May 19, 2019 1:01 AM

Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?

Sergei was a double agent who could have had his finger in all sorts of dubious pies. There might easily be logical (if not legitimate) reasons for keeping him under wraps. Surely the more pertinent question is: Where is Yulia?

Because even if you swallow every fragment of the official UK nonsense, you’re still left with this oddity:

Yulia Skripal is a young woman who was the completely innocent victim of a dastardly assassination plot masterminded by the evil Vlad. Having survived this attempt on her life, she has responded by deciding that she never again wants to see or speak to anyone at all. Ever.

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
May 18, 2019 7:09 PM

Actually the biggest issue in the UK right now is whether the Conservative and Unionist Party will die. They are currently at under 10% in opinion polling, an unheard of position for 200 years and akin to what happened to the Liberal Democrats pre 2015.

The real question is whether the combination of Brexit bungling, ridiculous foreign posturing, widescale procurement corruption and quite a bit more is enough to make the membership up sticks and leave.

If they really think that Boris Johnson spinning is going to change anything, they have ongoing challenges up top. For spinning is all that Boris will be doing, along with some bluster, some claptrap and some barefaced lying.

The long suffering UK public want an end to military adventurism, an end to offshore foreign corporations owning our utilities, an end to lapdog subservience to the US, a fundamental reform of NATO or a policy to simply leave, an end to unprincipled Russia bashing and a dose of headmasterly lectures to Us officials on that- and other subjects which would make them think that Mrs Thatcher was a supine little pussycat.

None of that says they wish to become supine vassals to Moscow, Beijing or Brussels. Nor do they understand how New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and others have managed quite happily to be independent nations but Britain is a basket case needing daddy to put their arms around fightened little girl Britain….

The biggest thing right now is that all trust of politicians, officials and experts is at an all time low. Status is no longer a guarantor of trust. And being an American is a positive alarm bell….

If Conservatives think they can dupe the British again, they are reading 2019 fundamentally wrong.

The Labour Party are yet to prove they are any better….

John2o2o
John2o2o
May 18, 2019 7:55 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

Great post Rhys. I completely agree.

FranklySpeaking
FranklySpeaking
May 19, 2019 7:31 AM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

“They are currently at under 10% in opinion polling…”
As much as I dislike the Tories, your figures are way off, where on Earth did you get that from?
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Reg
Reg
May 19, 2019 1:10 PM

FranklySpeaking,

No actually Rhys figures are spot on, here is the live update of EU polling from the FT.

https://ig.ft.com/european-parliament-election-polls/

You have click the drop down arrow ‘show details’ on the UK section (as these are given initially as by EU groupings) as these results are for all of the EU. Notice the most recent poll is by Yougov on the 16/5/19.

This gives Brexit party on 35%, labour on 15% Libdems on 16% conservatives on 9%, Greens on 10%, Change on 5% and UKIP on 3%.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
May 20, 2019 6:08 AM

It does not matter what the polls show.

In Australia’s elections there was not one (NOT ONE) who was correct. The betting agency even paid out the bets for a Labor win before, but on Saturday the Conservatives won. I never trusted Newspoll, but the others were just as bad.

Now we have the two tricks pony of our Tories again. Trick 1: Tax Cuts. Trick 2: More military expenses – and follow Uncle Sam into his wars.

Nick
Nick
May 18, 2019 6:11 PM

It seems that everyone is lying about the Skripal affair. The UK govt. version is riddled
with inconsistencies. But it does seem that 2 GRU officers were wandering around Salisbury.
Why? And the Russians are lying about that.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
May 18, 2019 6:50 PM
Reply to  Nick

The going theory is that the Russian agents were led into a trap. The GRU may have been made to believe somehow that Skripal intended to re-defect, and that’s why they really went to Salisbury–not to assassinate him, but to help him arrange his escape. That’s when the MI6 moved in for the kill, hoping to pin the crime on Russia.

To be sure, it’s hard to get to the bottom of this cloak-and-dagger stuff when all we have access to is open-source information. But one thing is pretty clear to me: the idea that Russia would have allowed Skripal to defect, then waited all those years and taken crazy risks to kill him after having had him in their direct custody in a Russian prison for over 6 years, where they could have easily killed him at any time, is ridiculous.

John2o2o
John2o2o
May 18, 2019 8:03 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

They are not proven to be Russian agents.

Reg
Reg
May 19, 2019 1:35 PM
Reply to  John2o2o

John2o2o
No, not proven but is it possible they were low level couriers in a meeting set up by Yulia where information was to be swapped as the price as re-admittance to Russia for Sergei, particularly given Sergei’s mothers advancing age.
It would explain the UK’s panicked reaction as this was a meeting that must be stopped at all costs. How much would Sergei know of UK security service operations if he was still active? It would also explained why Yulia as also targeted and why there turned off their phones as they sought to shake off their UK handlers. A meeting is more credible in broad daylight than an assassination. An assassination with an escape route involving a train from Salisbury on Sunday is not credible.
It could even be that the UK security services carried out the attack in the hope of blaming Russia if the could convince them it was carried out by Russia. Having kept the OPCW away they could then interfere with the evidence at will with Novachock. They could be filmed propped up in bed blaming Russia (like Litvinenko), but they didn’t play ball so have been kept incommunicado ever since apart from a a carefully scripted interview. The attacks on the other two months later could be to add credibility to a narrative that was loosing all credibility even among the general public.

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 19, 2019 1:52 PM
Reply to  Reg

“Having kept the OPCW away…”

I always considered it was highly suspicious that the UK was most reluctant to involve the OPCW right from the outset even though that would be the normal internationally accepted practice in the circumstances; and when Russia was imploring them to do so.

Significantly, the UK only brought them into the picture (reluctantly) when they were given legal advice that Russia were entitled to invite the OPCW to investigate, and whoever issued the invitation first would have overall control of the final report (i.e. they could liaise with the OPCW in the drafting, they could redact it, and decide who was to receive copies of the full report as opposed to the summary report).

My suspicion now, knowing what we know about the OPCW Douma scandal, is that the UK were totally in cahoots with the US over the Salisbury events and when the prospect of having no option but to call in the OPCW emerged the US simply said “Don’t worry about a thing. Just leave it with us. We’ll sort things out”.

John2o2o
John2o2o
May 18, 2019 8:01 PM
Reply to  Nick

Two Russians were wandering round Salisbury. That is all we know.

Has it never occurred to you that the UK government and/or the people who poisoned the Skripals might be using them as convenient scapegoats?

It may even be that they were deliberately lured to Salisbury to be set up in this way and had nothing to do with the poisoning.

Jen
Jen
May 18, 2019 10:41 PM
Reply to  Nick

There is no proof that the two Russian men Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov were GRU officers. The so-called “proof” for that line of thinking comes from Bellingcat, a known propaganda outfit, who obtained the “proof” in highly suspect ways that suggest it was given cherry-picked information made to fit the narrative.

It is far more likely that out of the many tourists to Salisbury – hundreds perhaps, and many of them from Russia as well – these two men were picked out at random by UK government authorities as targets of suspicion because they happened to be travelling together and must have fit a preconceived template in which secret Russian agents (like Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi before them, when those two fellows were supposed to have poisoned Alexander Litvinenko back in 2006) are believed to travel in pairs.

Stonky
Stonky
May 19, 2019 12:44 AM
Reply to  Nick

But it does seem that 2 GRU officers were wandering around Salisbury. .. Why?

Nick, even accepting that the two guys were Russian intelligence operatives, there are a million explanations for their presence in Salisbury that day that make more sense than the official UK explanation: They came to assassinate Sergei Skripal by smearing the world’s deadliest nerve agent on his door handle in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, while wearing no protective clothing…

Portonchok
Portonchok
May 19, 2019 7:45 AM
Reply to  Nick

Nick,
The likelihood is that the GRU were there to discuss with Skripal his wishes to return to Russia.
There is an alternative likelihood that they were there to quiz him on his contribution to the Dodgy Dossier.
Both scenarios could well lead to the British secret services deciding to take Skripal out, even down, and blame it on the Russians.
I would suggest that Skripal and his daughter are now either living somewhere else in Natoland under different identities and some money to keep them quiet, or else their existence became too awkward and risky and sadly they have been liquidated.

Kathy
Kathy
May 18, 2019 2:51 PM

The British seem to me to act, hide and manipulate from behind the USA.
I think that Trump was really not meant to happen. Killery was supposed to take over the reins and continue the waging of wars in the Middle East. Syria being the immediate agenda.
The two above events both link up in an attempt to force Trump into complying. One of the connections is the attempt to try to smear Trump with the dodgy dossier. The chemical false flag was intended to provide the warmongers with enough pressure to force Trump to act and involve America against his better judgement in an all out war in Syria. luckily this became a short term token one off. Much to British annoyance.
It is the connection with the intelligence services that is key. All of these events seem to be designed to push Trump into compliance and conformity. It is the knowledge of /and his probable involvement with Christopher Steele, that suggest poor Sergey knew to much of both events, and so had to be silenced. The Skripal affair was, I think attempting a cherry on the cake demonizing of Russia with the Skripal narrative. A twist of the knife while Trump was under investigation over his supposed puppet status by/ collusion with Russia.
It seems that the latest persecution of Assange is also mostly being pushed by Britain. Assange certainly did play a big part in the narrative not playing out as planned.

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 7:09 AM

Remarkable that despite all that is known, an article (well, two really) like this does not meniton Israel once.
The extract from Catte’s piece last year starts with the sentence, ‘The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East.’
The ‘neocon faction’ means what exactly ? Why not just say it ? It means Israel and the international power bloc aligned with Israel.
Perhaps Douma and Salisbury make more sense if they are put into a context of Israel writing and running US (and by extension, UK) foreign policies. And what of Russia’s strange and often unmentioned relationship with Israel?
If anyone is serious about unwrapping the onion of lies and misdirection that passes for ‘current events’, then its time to consider Israel and its networks of supporters as the central focal point.
9/11 only makes sense, I would say, with this in mind. Ditto the Kennedy killings. If you think these events have significance in our present,and you genuinely stand against racist supremicism and crazed plans for world domination, then speak out about Israel before such speech is criminalised everywhere.

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 4:32 PM
Reply to  crank

If anyone has not reviewed Christopher Bollyn’s case against Israel for 9/11, I would suggest that now is the time.
Only a widespread revelation of the role of Israel in 9/11 can stop their war on Iran from proceding.

mark
mark
May 18, 2019 4:33 PM
Reply to  crank

That’s a good point. But I am struck by the leading role currently played by the UK in the recent litany of false flags and smear campaigns. The UK was a prime mover in setting up the “White Helmets” and the various Syrian gas hoaxes. Litvinenko. Skripal. The Steele Dirty Dossier. The Corbyn anti Semitism hoax. Admittedly probably with a large Zionist element.

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 5:30 PM
Reply to  mark

The Henry Jackson Society would be one obvious hub of neocon organisation within the UK political establishment. There surely are others that we are as yet unaware of (NB the recent Facebook revelations of political interference around the globe.)
In much the same way that the ‘special relationship’ between the US and Britain basically translates into Britain acting as America’s de facto diplomatic poodle, HJS has long seen itself as an outpost to disseminate US neoconservative ideology in the British political establishment, media and civil society.

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-american-far-right-s-trojan-horse-in-westminster-6799f442d6ce

http://spinwatch.org/images/Reports/HJS_spinwatch%20report_web_2015.pdf

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 18, 2019 7:52 PM
Reply to  crank

O/T I know, but on the subject of the esteemed (!) Henry Jackson Society, I had to laugh the other day when I read about the pending departure of Alexander Yakovenko from the Russian Embassy in London.

A Dr Andrew Foxall, who (according to the Daily Mail) is the ‘expert’ Head of Russian Studies at the HJC, stated that it was clearly a suspicious move because … ambassadorial positions are normally held for 5 or 3 years, not for the 8 years that Yakovenko had been there. He even spoon-fed us with the information that “8 is not divisible by 5 or 3” and therefore this has to be a forced move. I suggest that Dr Foxall needs to stop and think just a touch longer if he is ever asked to comment in public in future and not seriously damage whatever reputation he might claim to have. I ask you.

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 18, 2019 10:18 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Sorry, should have made better use of my ‘edit’ time! HJC should of course read HJS. My proof-reading abilities are as questionable as Dr Andrew Foxall’s maths!

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 10:32 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Ha ha.
Good scoop !

John2o2o
John2o2o
May 18, 2019 8:06 PM
Reply to  crank

Jews under the bed? I don’t agree with your analysis. Israel has nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning. I understand your mistrust of Israel, but it is not to blame for all the ills of the world.

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 9:08 PM
Reply to  John2o2o

How do you know that ‘Israel had nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning’ ?
You don’t.
I know of no connection directly linking the events to agents of the Israeli state, but what does that mean? We don’t really know any more than that the UK government story is a transparent fabrication.
If you conclude that Israel effectively runs US foreign policy then the Syrian situation has to be considered in that context. (Likewise Iran).
It’s not called the Anglo-zionist empire for nothing.
Catte’s article was basically a theorised link between Douma and Salisbury. Douma is in Syria, which is under attack from Israel, according to a plan drawn up in Israel decades ago, with proxy army from Neocon Washington (i.e. Israel)…

Portonchok
Portonchok
May 19, 2019 7:53 AM
Reply to  crank

And what of Russia’s strange and often unmentioned relationship with Israel?
It’s not strange at all. By far the largest group of immigrants into Israel are Russians.

Dissidents_unit
Dissidents_unit
May 19, 2019 12:46 PM
Reply to  crank

Well said Crank. I have always believed Mossad had a hand in the alleged assassination attempt of the Skripals as Israel does have chemical weapons and has refused affiliation with the OPCW in order, I presume, to avoid inspections and having to decommission the chemical weapons they have. If anybody is to be accused of meddling in other nation’s elections, politics etc Israel is right up there as the prime suspects – they obviously control Trump, they were caught on Video (at least a non diplomatic representative from the Israeli Embassy in the UK who branded himself as managing ‘special projects’) offering Joan Ryan – a Labour MP – £1m to run a smear campaign against Corbyn – which she gladly accepted. They have run continuous, spurious, ridiculous anti-Semitism claims against Corbyn and Labour which has only served to turn the public more against them and they are massacring and murdering Palestinians with impunity – all supported by the UK and USA.

I think Mossad were the Government (UK’s) agents with respect to the Skripal affair. I am of the firm belief that the Skripals are both dead – after all, the UK Government cannot afford to release them so to speak. I say this because Sergei used to speak to his elderly mother in Russia if not every day, at least several times a week and he has not been in touch with her neither has Yulia. Yulia had a flat, a fiancé, a job and a wedding to arrange back in Russia – I don’t believe she just walked away from all that.

UreKismet
UreKismet
May 18, 2019 5:57 AM

There are only two viable theories about Skirpal IMO.
The first is that his daughter had persuaded the old man to come home and the englanders learned this at short notice.

Sergeant Nick Bailey the thug on call that day, really screwed up the attempt to off Skirpal even poisoning himself in order to ‘get’ Skirpal before he met with the Russian officers who had been sent to negotiate his return home.

Proximity to english chemical weapons determined the method.

The second is also dependent on the proximity of english chemical weapons manufacturing base at Porton Downs. That is the english were responsible for training Syrian headchoppers in chemical warfare and they taught their terrorists about Novichok to false flag in Syria in a way that would make Russia appear culpable.
One of the trainee terrorists went to lunch and overheard the Skripals talking Russian & became so upset the invasion and war had been lost, he decided to poison em.
The latter doesn’t fit the known facts as well as the former, but it is more credible than anything the englander spies have offered.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
May 18, 2019 6:59 AM
Reply to  UreKismet

Many people forget that Skripal took (according to wikipedia) approximately 300 other agents down with him when he was busted in Moscow.

That makes about 600 individuals (only 1 relative for each) who must be his enemies. Someone was after revenge? Whether that one was in Britain in exile or in Russia we don’t know. People ignore such a large group of potential enemies.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
May 18, 2019 4:33 PM
Reply to  Wilmers31

So why did the Russians allow the Skripals to emigrate to the UK in the first place? They had Sergei in prison for 6 years; they could have had him bumped off at any time while he was their prisoner. But for some odd reason they chose not to. Strange …

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
May 19, 2019 8:26 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

It was a prisoner exchange before Skripal had completed his sentence. The UK must have had an asset which Moscow really wanted, persons or …. don’t know. It is now time that these prisoner/spy exchanges no longer happen in secret. Why they let him out earlier is not understandable from what we know at the moment.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
May 22, 2019 5:09 AM
Reply to  Wilmers31

The one thumb down is surprising. If that is for the idea to cease prisoner/spy exchanges that is somewhat silly as these exchanges do not make for happiness, as we have seen. If exchanges are so good, why not exchange Kevin Mallory with the Chinese? People need to cop the complete punishment for their crimes, you do not exchange murderers or fraudsters, either.

If the criticism is about the hundreds of people who are tempted for revenge after their cover was blown through Skripal then this is bizarre. What purpose does it serve to sweep it under the carpet that Skripal was only one person in a system? Maybe wikipedia’s figure of 300 was wrong – let’s have the correct figure then.

We can read in memoirs like Brian Crozier’s “Free Agent” and “Gold Warriors” (Seagraves) what operations there were in Chile, Africa, Philippines etc but the many people who were involved are never mentioned. The individuals like Skripal or Crozier are the visible tips of the icebergs and it is legitimate to ask who else was involved in the operations, covert or open, legal or illegal, and who funded.

Dissidents_unit
Dissidents_unit
May 19, 2019 12:51 PM
Reply to  UreKismet

URKismet – just a comment – it turns out that the first responder apart from Nick Bailey was, in fact, the Head of Nursing of the British Army! No coincidence there I think. Either she or Nick Bailey or both are surely suspects in the administration of the toxic substance?

davemass
davemass
May 18, 2019 5:49 AM

Profumo was jailed for lying to Parliament.
Surely May, and all accomplices should suffer the samne fate??

wardropper
wardropper
May 18, 2019 1:59 AM

I expect the US secret service just asked our secret service to take the initiative for once, since the US were beginning to look like the bad guys…

Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey
May 18, 2019 1:59 AM

I have privately speculated that the raison d’etre of the Skirpal farce was simply to generate the belief system and memetic narrative that Russia is currently producing chemical weapons/ nerve agents and is willing to openly use them on their perceived ‘enemies’ abroad (and of course that the origin of these chemical weapons, ie Novichok can ‘proved’ to be exclusively of Russian providence.

Why is the above important? Because if there is ever a chemical weapons attack in Syria on civilians and hundreds die and the nerve agent is ‘proved’ by the OPCW to be Novichok then of course Russia would get the blame for supplying the ‘Assad regime’ with this chemical agent. (Sarin, anthrax etc cannot be exclusively traced back to Russia, only Novichok and it alone can be, if we believe the prior Skirpal narrative).

As a side note – the story that Trump was shown images of dead English ducks and hospitalised English children in relation to the Skirpal incident makes me wonder if this was an attempt by British psychological warfare operatives to pre-program Trump and his team, so when videos eventually emerge of dead animals and hospitalised Syrian children, the link is already fixed in their mind as to what a Novichok ‘attack’ looks like).

One has to admit the story that surfaced last month of dead ducks/hospitalised kids images shown to Trump in relation to the Skirpal narrative was very strange to say the least.

Just as the Skirpal case ‘fixed’ the Novichok narrative in the MSM as exclusively of Russian providence, one can also speculate that the Douma ‘Barrel Bomb’ meme (and the fake OPCW Report) was another key part of the narrative – if a speculative Novichok attack occurs and footage emerges of similar containers as used in the the fake Douma chlorine attack, the OPCW can already point to the providence of the delivery system as being exclusively of Syrian military origin and the Douma events as simply a precursor to a current ‘Novichok’ attack (just as the Skirpal events would be used as a precursor to Russian culpability and perhaps even the suggestion of active Russian involvement in a mass chemical attack on Syrian women and children using the agent Novichok.)

Maybe this is what the Russians mean by UK involvement in Douma – maybe they worked out that the Skirpal events were a precursor to a wider false flag event to be staged down the line by elements of British military and state intelligence networks in conjunction with elements within NATO and U.S. intelligence structures.

I know this is total speculation and I provide it as food for thought and grounds for further research in reference to this article.

Panopticon
Panopticon
May 18, 2019 12:42 AM
wardropper
wardropper
May 18, 2019 2:37 AM
Reply to  Panopticon

That is a tremendous piece of work.
It should go down in history, but people are already forgetting Skripal’s name…
A truly brilliant summary.

CoryP
CoryP
May 19, 2019 8:49 AM
Reply to  Panopticon

This was such a treat. Thanks for sharing!

Louis N. Proyec
Louis N. Proyec
May 17, 2019 10:57 PM

For the past 6 years, every time a bunch of Syrians die in a chemical attack, there are articles like this invoking a “false flag”. For jihadists so bent on terrorizing the benign, religiously tolerant, and socially progressive Baathist government, isn’t it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist military? All you need to do is look up chemical attacks that victimize Baathist troops in either Nexis, Google or Wiki and you’ll find scant evidence of “jihadists” weaponizing chemicals. What accounts for this kind of knee-jerk acceptance of the Russian and Syrian media? I guess it is tendency to put a plus where the Guardian puts a minus. Not a very smart methodology but one that goes along with a general conspiracist mindset.

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 17, 2019 11:54 PM

“……isn’t it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist military?”

No, not at all odd.

1. To be clear, when you say “their own” I presume you mean the Syrian women and children who the (mainly non-Syrian) terrorists hold as captives to ensure their men folk co-operate with them, or to be used in propaganda campaigns including ‘false flag’ scenarios.

2. In what form would you suggest the jihadi murderers might be tempted to use chlorine in a way capable of killing opposition soldiers? Chlorine is essentially an unpleasant irritant if misused. To kill, it would have to be administered in an enclosed space where there was no means of escape for the victims.

3. We are constantly being fed the lie that the terrorists don’t have sarin so it would be rather foolish of them to deploy it against opposition soldiers. Even they’ve worked that one out.

4. The terrorists are mercenaries paid by western agencies whose primary function is to carry out acts to discredit the Assad Government, thereby providing an ultimate excuse for military action to overthrow the Assad Government. The most obvious way to do this is to murder, as you so sensitively express it, “a bunch of Syrians” in a way that the West finds appropriate to point the finger at the Assad Government and its Russian allies.

This all makes a lot more sense than the idea that the Syrian Government assisted by the Russians would choose to murder innocent Syrian civilians, not least by using outlawed chemical weapons, and incur the wrath of western powers at the point when they were succeeding in defeating the terrorists with relative ease.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
May 18, 2019 1:22 AM
Reply to  JudyJ

No, not at all odd. 1. To be clear, when you say “their own” I presume you mean the Syrian women and children who the (mainly non-Syrian) terrorists hold as captives to ensure their men folk co-operate with them

Ha-ha!!! This is the same thing Netanyahu says when he bombs Gaza. Hamas is holding innocent civilians hostage. Naturally, Netanyahu is best friends with Putin who sees eye to eye on this anti-terrorist propaganda. Putin leveled Grozny to stop terrorism as Assad did all across Syria. This kind of gangsterism is contagious.

Refraktor
Refraktor
May 18, 2019 2:22 AM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

So you accept the Novichok story and the Duma chlorine attack? I don’t believe you…

grandstand
grandstand
May 18, 2019 4:21 AM
Reply to  Refraktor

Louis is a well-known troll. Do not feed him.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
May 18, 2019 1:52 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

When you click on ‘reply’ you are confronted with an array of formatting options, including ‘blockquote’.

Why not use them? It will make your posts much easier to read.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
May 18, 2019 1:19 AM
Reply to  Editor

You’re embarrassing yourself, Louis.

Boo-hoo. You hurt my feelings.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
May 18, 2019 7:35 AM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

Come on! Let’s encourage the poor old fart to go on posting here. He’s always good for an incredulous laugh. And he’s a warning too to anyone trying to make sense of Western criminal realpolitik, an object lesson in what happens to a supposed ‘radical thinker’ – hah! – who drinks too deeply of the Western propaganda kool-aid, and holds the stuff down, too, until it comes time to regurgitate it as if it were ‘original thinking’, the poor sucker. Don’t off him. He’s useful as light amusement.

PS: in case you think I’m being a bit ad-hominy, I’m a poor broken down old fart myself. But I still have my wits about me, and I can still smell the stench of the West’s Permanent Bullshit Blizzard when I meet it. Catch up soon Louis! Till then – thanks for all the laffs! :O)

Ken
Ken
May 18, 2019 4:36 AM
Reply to  Editor

Take it easy on poor old Louis; what can one expect from a fellow who probably believes that 9/11 was not a false flag either? And that one is a complete no-brainer to see.

Jen
Jen
May 18, 2019 10:51 PM
Reply to  Editor

We need the other anti-Assad troll back but the danger is I might get sick of hitting him again with Yassin al-Haj’s article for the New York Times where the Syrian activist admits to having stayed with the White Helmets in Ghouta in mid-2013 before fleeing to Raqqa and leaving his wife Samira Khalil behind.

Loverat
Loverat
May 18, 2019 2:20 AM

I came across a similar post Louis made on another topic a while ago.

The political language and terms used in his posts always suggest his political position is his starting point then arranging selective facts to support it. First, the classic line of attack is accusing others of ‘conspiracy theorists’ – a tactic used by mainstream journalists and Bellingcat and el against the academics and experts of the Syria Working Group. As said below, that does not cut it – especially now the ‘conspiracy theorists’ have for the umpteenth time been vindicated.

Louis, comes out with stuff like ‘Baathist troops’ (he uses the word ‘Baathist’ three times in his post as if it was somehow relevant) whereas someone normal, of genuine intelligence and independent, would use the description ‘Syrian Army’. Why would you say ‘Baathist troops’ or use other pointless labels unless you are trying to distract from the real issues while attempting to give the impression of having some knowledge. His political posturing offers nothing by way of getting to the truth and he appears to be another self-serving armchair commentator.

mark
mark
May 19, 2019 8:35 PM
Reply to  Loverat

Maybe we could get him a job with Bellingcat.

wardropper
wardropper
May 18, 2019 2:39 AM

Oh dear…
Words fail me.
I’ll stop right there.

crank
crank
May 18, 2019 7:16 AM

isn’t it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist military?

– In a word, no. Anyone with even the slightest comprehension of how psychological warfare works would understand this.

Louis Proyec – ‘reader’

Maybe read more widely, or start thinking more deeply, or stop bullshitting so lamely.

lundiel
lundiel
May 18, 2019 8:54 AM

isn’t it odd that sarin gas or even chlorine has only been used to kill their own women and children rather than the Baathist military?

No. Western media aren’t going to get in a frenzy if some of Assad’s soldiers are killed.

John
John
May 18, 2019 11:44 AM

Isn’t it odd that you used opcw findings when it matched what you want but it doesn’t fit now so you’re having a hissy fit! I hope horrid things happen to you fake socialist

mark
mark
May 18, 2019 4:41 PM

Chemical weapons have been used against the Syrian military, inflicting casualties. They have also been used routinely by the British taxpayer funded head choppers and throat slitters to terrorise civilians indiscriminately for years. As for “scant evidence of jihadists weaponizing chemicals”, they have been arrested in Turkey by the Turkish police in possession of canisters of sarin nerve gas. Just one of many documented instances. But maybe this just comes from a “conspiracist mindset.” Maybe it’s totally irrelevant to the issue when terrorists are arrested in Turkey in possession of nerve gas.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
May 18, 2019 5:06 PM
Reply to  mark

Chemical weapons have been used against the Syrian military, inflicting casualties.

—-

Yeah, about 2 percent of the incidents are blamed on the rebels.

https://www.gppi.net/media/GPPi_Schneider_Luetkefend_2019_Nowhere_to_Hide_Web.pdf

mark
mark
May 19, 2019 8:33 PM
Reply to  Louis Proyect

The UK taxpayer funded head choppers and throat slitters routinely seize civilians as hostages, then murder them and blame it on Assad. They have massacred entire villages then called in their chums in the BBC to film the evidence of “Assad’s latest atrocity.” Like they film the devastation in Gaza and try to pass it off as rocket damage in Israel. All in a day’s lying for the folks at the Botty Bangers Club.

Louis Proyect
Louis Proyect
May 19, 2019 9:11 PM
Reply to  mark

You don’t seem to be even the least bit aware that Hamas backed the Syrian rebels until Iran threatened to cut off aid. Iran probably wanted them to defend Assad but that was a bridge too far.

NY Times, FEB. 24, 2012
In Break, Hamas Supports Syrian Opposition
By FARES AKRAM

GAZA —A leader of Hamas spoke out against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, throwing its support behind the opposition and stripping Damascus of what little credibility it may have retained with the Arab street. It was Hamas’s first public break with its longtime patron.

Hamas’s prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said during Friday Prayer, “I salute all people of the Arab Spring, or Islamic winter, and I salute the Syrian people who seek freedom, democracy and reform.”

The worshipers shouted back, “God is great” and “Syria! Syria!”

Mr. Haniya made his remarks in support of the uprising that is seeking to oust Mr. Assad, a reversal after years in which Mr. Assad has given safe haven to leaders of Hamas while helping supply it with weapons and cash in its battle against Israel.

But the remarks were almost as significant for where they were made: in Cairo, at Al Azhar Mosque.

During the years in which Syria supported Hamas, Egypt’s leaders were hostile to the group, treating it as a despised relative of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also tagged an outlaw and banned. So Mr. Haniya’s remarks in Egypt served as another measure of how much has changed since popular uprisings began to sweep the region, removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and now trying to topple Mr. Assad.

Mr. Haniya’s comments confirmed a distance between Hamas and Damascus that emerged several weeks ago when the group’s leadership abandoned its longtime base in Syria as the environment there became more violent. The remarks, which were seen as the group’s official position because of Mr. Haniya’s role, reflected a progressively deeper split with Mr. Assad. Hamas also recently allowed residents of Gaza to stage protests against Mr. Assad and in support of the uprising.

In Syria, the protest movement began peacefully, but Mr. Assad’s forces struck back with lethal force.

In Cairo, as Mr. Haniya spoke, the crowds also shouted against Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, both of which continue to support Mr. Assad and have long been hailed on the Arab street for remaining defiant toward Israel. That was yet another significant shift caused by the Arab uprisings.

Iran has been a key supporter of Hamas. On Thursday, Al Sharq Al Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, published remarks by Ezzat al-Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, who said that Iran had been the main financial supporter for the Hamas government in Gaza. Without the Iranian money, he said, Hamas would have never been able to pay its 45,000 government employees.

Mr. Haniya is in Cairo with other Hamas leaders from Gaza and abroad to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to try to form a government of national reconciliation between the two rival Palestinian movements. The plan for such a government was agreed to last May, along with a plan for Palestinian elections. But numerous disputes remain an obstacle.

WeatherEye
WeatherEye
May 17, 2019 10:19 PM

Fantastic piece. The leaked report confirms what many analysts on the left have been saying, including myself. https://flashpointssite.wordpress.com/2019/05/17/chemical-attack-on-dhouma-foam-lies-and-videotape-weathereye/