The British government claim is that a "military-grade nerve agent", one of a group of nerve agents supposedly called 'novichok' (which simply means 'newcomer'), was used by Russia on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. They reach the conclusion that Russia is to blame because, they claim, the nerve agent used is "of a type developed by Russia."
Russian daily newspaper Kommersant recently released a 6-page document they claim constitutes the British government's official case against Russia. They summed up the 'evidence' as follows:
Note the 2nd point, that "Novichok is a group of agents developed only by Russia and not declared under the CWC."
- Military-grade Novichok nerve agent positively identified at the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, an OPCW-accredited and designated laboratory
- Novichok is a group of agents developed only by Russia and not declared under the CWC
- A violation of the fundamental prohibition on the use of chemical weapons (Art. 1 CWC)
- First offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War
- We are without doubt that Russia is responsible. No country bar Russia has combined capability, intent and motive. There is no plausible alternative explanation
- As of Sunday 18 March, we count over thirty parallel lines of Russian disinformation
In 2016, Iranian scientists synthesized five 'Novichok' agents and the data was added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' Central Analytical Database (OCAD).
In an interview with AFP, the former Russian scientist who participated in the development of "Novichok" in Russia in the 70s and 80s, Vil Mirzayanov, stated that if Russia was not responsible for the poisoning:
"The only other possibility would be that someone used the formulas in my book to make such a weapon.Mirzayanov's book, published in 2008, contains the formulas he alleges can be used to create "Novichoks". In 1995, he explained that "the chemical components or precursors" of Novichok are "ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides."
So the British government claim that this type of nerve agent can only be Russian, and was only developed by Russia, is demonstrably false. In fact, in her statement to the House of Commons on 12th March 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May contradicted that claim when she said:
"It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok'. Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down."In the world of nerve agents, in order to positively identify a sample, you must have your own sample for comparison and positive identification.
In a judgement at the British High Court on 22nd March on whether to allow blood samples to be taken from Sergei and Yulia Skripal for examination by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), evidence submitted by the Porton Down laboratory to the court (Section 17 i) stated:
"Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent."Again, Porton Down must have had a sample of the alleged nerve agent used to poison Skripal and his daughter. That can mean only one of two things: that Porton Down obtained the nerve agent from some other party, or manufactured it on site. Porton Down is, after all, in the business of producing chemical weapons (ostensibly to test them on anti-chemical weapon equipment).
Note also that the wording used in the quote above includes the possibility that the agent used on Skripal was not even 'Novichok' but rather a "related compound" or something "closely related." So even Theresa May's statement that the British MoD had "positively identified" 'Novichok' seems false.
In an interview with German Deutsch Welle, bumbling UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was directly asked if scientists at Porton Down had samples of 'Novichok', to which he replied:
"They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, 'Are you sure?' And he said there's no doubt."So the only thing we can presume to be 100% certain of in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter is that the nerve agent used was in stock at Porton Down, 8 miles from the site of the poisoning.
In the 5th point in the British government 6-page 'dossier', the British establishment claims:
"We are without doubt that Russia is responsible. No country bar Russia has combined capability, intent and motive. There is no plausible alternative."We know that other countries have the capability. Claiming to have no doubt about someone's intent is nonsense. So we're left with motive. Did Russia have a motive to poison Skripal and his daughter? Motives for a course of action are intrinsically linked to the result of the action. The obvious and predictable result of using a nerve agent that was originally developed in Russia in the 1970s to poison a former Russian spy living in the UK and working for British intelligence is that Russia would be blamed and universally condemned for it. So if Russia was motivated to further downgrade its reputation on the international stage, then sure, Russia had motivation to poison Skripal and his daughter.
The problem is that there is no evidence that Russia desires to damage its own reputation in this way. Is there evidence that anyone else has such motivation? For those that have been paying attention to world affairs over the past 6 or 7 years, I'll presume that you don't need me to answer that one.
So when we remove the unfounded and contradictory claims around the Skripal poisoning, the actual facts of the case are rather limited:
- Skripal lived in Salisbury, England, and had been working for MI5 for 8 years. It is reasonable to assume that he may, therefore, have had access to sensitive material, possibly useful to foreign governments, including Russia. As such, he may have posed an 'intelligence threat' if he returned to Russia.
- According to a close friend, Skripal had recently decided that he wanted to go back to live in Russia and petitioned the Russian government to that end.
- Not long thereafter, Skripal was poisoned with a substance that was in stock at a British Ministry of Defense facility, 8 miles from where he was living.
- The British government blamed Russia for his poisoning. This accusation must be seen in the context of a years-long anglo-American black propaganda campaign designed to marginalize Russia and thereby limit its ability to effectively assert itself as a globally influential player.
Insistence on absolute proof fails to recognize that, as humans, we don't navigate our lives and make decisions on the basis of 100% proof. Instead, we use something akin to 'past form'. For example, if I intend to take the train at 9.15am from platform 1 in the morning, I cannot be 100% certain that the train will be there at 9.15am, or that it will be there at all that day. Instead, I actively assume that it will be there based on the circumstantial evidence I have accrued through repeated observations that when I go there at that time the train is there. You could even say that the train is very likely to be there because it has the means, motive and opportunity.
That's how we go about our daily lives, at least. But in cases of guilt and innocence we probably need a higher standard. Many suspects may have means, motive and opportunity at the same time. That doesn't mean they're all guilty. And a history of similar crimes does not necessarily mean that a suspect is guilty of one particular crime. So what to do in a case like the Skripal poisoning? The only thing we can do is compare competing hypotheses and the degrees to which they are consistent with all the facts available. In other words, which scenario is more likely given the known facts?
In answering the question of who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter, we lack 100% proof that the British government (or some element thereof) was responsible for the attack, just as we lack 100% proof that the Russian government was responsible. In fact, the evidence and reasoning provided by the British government does not actually support the Russian hypothesis over competing hypotheses, because we would see the same evidence if the attack were carried out in order to frame Russia. If evidence applies equally to two or more competing hypotheses, naturally that evidence cannot be used to support one hypothesis over the other, which is precisely what the British government is doing.
In contrast, the British government's apparent access to the precise nerve agents in question, close to where Skripal lives, their full access to Skripal himself, their past form in fabricating evidence of chemical weapons usage by other states, and their clear intent to wage a vicious and underhanded demonization campaign against Russia, all combine to allow us to actively assume that the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter was the work of the British government itself. Is it beyond a reasonable doubt? Perhaps not, but it is currently the only hypothesis that makes sense given the evidence available. And until more evidence is made available, it is the only reasonable conclusion to make.
Reader Comments
In fact it is people like you and the majority of SOTT readers who research beyond what you are told that are 'wrong'. How dare you not believe what your government and media tell you? At the very least you are 'gullible' for believing news from other countries that contradict what your own media feeds you and soon (if not already) you will be deemed 'not patriotic' and even 'traitorous' for doubting your leaders.
I experience these things on a daily basis, from people I've known for years who live conventional, 9-5 lives with aspirations of retiring when they are 60 to some warmer climate. These people equate their successful, urban and sub-urban existences to 'western superiority' and the 'moral strength' generated by 'knowing' that 'western' countries never do anything bad.
I show them information from a dozen sources around the world that contradict what they've been fed on western TV and Internet (Google being the Zionist gatekeeper) but their eyes roll and I am told the only true story is the one they believe. My heart breaks every time because I always thought my friends and family were smarter than that, but I keep trying.
We are meant to believe there is a lack of CCTV regarding the Skripals movements ... try a comparison with the alleged tracking of the 7/7 "terrorists" from Luton, through some of London's busiest stations etc. ... and that was 10 years ago
Has anyone considered whether Skripal was actually assisting people at Porton Down - did an accident happen ... was he dumped in the town centre?
Did someone deliberately infect DS Bailey to add credence / emotion to the narrative?
They were patsies, hunted down and killed, literally like dogs, in docklands (or isle of dogs)
Maybe most of the CCTV is fake and then just knock up whatever they want, when they need it - and fake time stamps for real video
But they don't have anything on the Skripal's, in the middle of town centre, on a Sunday afternoon?
They don't exactly advertise themselves as the go to people when your patient is showing signs of being a bit drugged up
Two people appeared odd on a town center bench ... and beyond that we do not know anything else
Were they even the real Skripals?
U.S. expels 60 Russian diplomats after Sergei Skripal poisoning: What we know (USA Today)
Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal likely poisoned at front door, UK police say (ABC)
Here is your reality check: without a doubt, planet earth is entering a period of catastrophic change that will culminate in another ice age. It is called a GRAND SOLAR MINIMA. You would do well to confirm this through your own research as a first step towards understanding the current cerebral liquefaction process. Through a series of cosmic, meteorological, seismic and volcanic cataclysms...already in relatively minor progress...steadily intensifying to unimaginable proportions... the few remnants of surviving humanity will be reduced to stone age conditions. In order to WAR d-off the chaos that such knowledge of impending doom will surely bring, those wielding ultimate power and authority have deemed it necessary to execute a pre-emptive Hegelian dialectical action....WW3...as a means of culling the potentially pestilential population, thus averting pandemonium as civilization is pitilessly pummeled and ultimately laid prostrate from above and below.
We have been told that God is love. Sure has a strange way of showing it. Unless, of course...and I hate to say this...perhaps we are the unfortunate ones to whom the Creator has turned its back.
Lol. Is there anyone on SOTT who believes the official narrative?
It's hard to even decipher the official narrative, it's an incoherent mess, lacking any motive, lacking any factual content.
Where we have facts, e.g. 3 actual admissions to hospital and compare with the narrative, 130 lives threatened, it's makes May's announcements appear total nonsense
It's all very well western MSM and governments asking us to believe their narratives but their story lines never make sense ... they just lack logical consistency and tend to have glaring plot holes .... it's all hypocritical BS
Why isn't anyone dead?
The thing about official narratives is that they try to appeal to the 'plausible lie' (repeated often enough on the news - and nothing new here to SOTT readers), and in a court of law (or world opinion) this type of lie, as we know, can do the trick in peoples heads. Double-down on it all with rolled out authoritarians and the MSN public can be like putty - moldable.
Thanks for writing such a good article - nice work!
It has no bearing or relevance to what is occurring in the real world, it's a staged political act.
These so called politicians in the west are so inept, they are no longer able to judge or respond to the will of the people, for which they have been elected I might add, they resort to extraordinary measures to keep the electorate on side.
Unfortunately, it seems to be missing the mark, evidence all the mass unrest in the US, UK and Europe.
The so called Austerity measures have done nothing more than to create more chaos on an already chaotic situation, fueled by emotional fervor.
And of course, we have the MSM fueling the fire. At one time it was described as the 5 th Estate, No longer, it is a collaborator and cooperator in the message that the political elite want to send to the masses.
Well it's a free choice one can believe the evidence that is presented from whatever news source one wants to watch, read or listen to. Personally I think there should be a warning message, like on food labels, that if one listens, watches or reads the MSM, it is a case of buyer beware, in the case of MSM, it is a case of your mind beware, and that is the most important thing as far as I am concerned, ones own personal integrity is not compromised, the ability to discern truth from lies.
The politicians are not the ones running the show. Big money is. Really big money. Consortiums of major banks and oil companies for example. The Rockerfeller family is another one. I forgot the number but I do remember their fortune is unbelievably colossal. They are in everything. Just a handful of people are running the show from behind the scene. Surely you know that.
It has no relation to what is happening in th real world. Business with Russia continues, although they may have to jump more hurdles, the space station continues, banking and finance continues. trade continues, cultural exchanges continues.
So this is a purely a staged political event to sway the peoples to back a pathological ideology.
They live in a bubble of there own reality and unfortunately they are trying to get people to pierce the bubble and enter that reality.
Will they succeed, lord I hope not.
Is this third person the MI6 agent Pablo Miller who in 1995 recruited Skripal as British double agent. Miller who was also involved in handling the MI6 assets Boris Berezovski and Alexander Litvinenko. Pablo Miller who lives close to Sergej Skripal in Salisbury and is considered to be his friend? The same Pablo Miller who worked with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence which created the 'dirty dossier' about Donald Trump? How deep were the Skripals involved in making up the fake stories in the anti-Trump dossier for which the Clinton campaign paid more than $168,000 dollars. Did the Skripals threaten to talk about the issue? Is that why the incident happened?
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Her unprotected visit to the sites should also be a clear indication of ‘something’.
What is the name of the ‘containing’ hospitals, and where is it located?
Isn’t this scenario following a distinct parallel path to Iraq’s WMD, starting with the very similar vial, and posture?
Shalom
1. The First Response by Russia and others should be to flatly and bluntly say it is a bunch of lying shit. By this I mean that Russia et al should stop being so damned reasonable. That this sort of stuff should be flung back at the accusers with defiance.
2. Russia et al should inflict immediate and painful measure on the perpetrators. Hit them hard where it counts. Seize assets, arrest nationals, attack economically, impose sanctions. Make it clear that whatever they do to Russia can be taken in stride. But the west is fragile and weak and greedy and so not able to receive return blows. Do this with an air of 'we can take it, we will dish it out, you can't hadle it'.
3. Split the Europeans. Pitch soft to some countries like Italy but pound others like the UK. They are weak, they will fold.
4. Announce bold new military undertakings. Up the building of weapon systems. Increase the reserves, deployment. Make it very clear there will be a price and Russia is prepared to inflict serious pain.
5. Continue to buddy up to China. Dramatically increase economic protection measure. Prepare to attack and undermine western currencies and markets.
The bragging and posturing of the west is a gambler's last throw. They cannot maintain by force or any other means cohesion. Faced with painful resistance parts of the regime will grow fearful and capitulate. Make for civil war. Let them destroy themselves. This is the cheapest and safest way to put the lot out of business.
But, China, Russia and honest people in the west need to show some teeth to set this in motion.
So where is the 'Novichok' talk coming from? Well, someone in the British government propaganda staff watched the current seasons of the British-American spy drama Strike Back. (reverse causality IMO - it was planned, possibly predictive programming and conditioning)
Nina Byzantina points to the summaries of recent episodes:Episode 50 ran in the U.K on November 21 2017 and in the U.S. on February 23 2018:
Meanwhile, General Lázsló shuts down Section 20, forcing Donovan to work in secret. She discovers that Zaryn is in fact Karim Markov, a Russian scientist who allegedly killed his colleagues with Novichok, a nerve agent they invented.
Episodes 51 ran in the U.K on November 28 2017 and in the U.S. on March 2 2018:
Section 20 track Berisovich's meth lab in Turov where Markov is making more Novichok and destroy it, though Berisovich escapes with Markov.
Episodes 52 ran in the U.K on January 31 2018 and in the U.S. on March 9 2018:
Section 20 track down Maya, a local Muslim woman Lowry radicalised, to a local airport. When she attempts to release the Novichok, Reynolds shoots her. The Novichok is fake however, as Berisovich does not want an attack committed in his country. ... By the time Section 20 arrives, Berisovich had already called in the FSB to extract Markov and confiscate the Novichok. Yuri resurfaces to kill McAllister and Wyatt. However they turn the tables and strangle him to death. They then manage to engage the FSB and contain the gas. But in the process Reynolds is exposed. Markov works on an antidote but is killed by the Russians before he can complete. McAllister improvises and saves Reynolds, before Novin blows up the lab. Lowry uses the remainder of the gas to kill Berisovich for trying to betray her.
Here is a clip from the series: [Link]
See article here:
[Link]
Sadly, however, facts and logic are not being used by the masses here as the proles have been sufficiently programmed, that they will 'knee jerk' without analysis, without open minds, and will do what the PTB's MSM tells them to do.
When absolute proof beyond reasonable doubt that the official story of 9/11 came out; to wit: the proof of explosive Alumino Sulfate? Nano sized unexploded particles in the dust of WTC, a friend, newly introduced to the 'bigger truths', asked, 'Well how are they going to explain this away?"
I told him, just like they did in not talking about WTC7. You never knew about it until 2003 when I told you. Same approach here."
Well, assuming your point is true,the more valid it is, the more it will be ignored.
Sad, true. But good thinking!!! Good point!
R.C.
Given that Russia had ample chance to kill Skripal when he was imprisoned there for several years, there's obviously a complete lack of a motive on Russia's part. And further given the abundant means, motive and opportunity of, by, and available to, the British government, it looks beyond reasonable doubt to me.
Nice summation Joe!
Well, they're not much of 'intellectual Ferraris', are they. More like three-wheel bicycles ridden by a child with special educational needs.
I've been noticing that the tactic now employed most often, (other than simply avoiding eye contact and scurrying away), is to interrupt, be louder, to spin anxious, meandering and waaaaay-off point diatribes which go on for many minutes at a time without letup, repeatedly referencing totems and touchstones like, "Scientific peer review is the only thing separating us from chaos!" -and canned talking points which may or may not have any bearing on the subject.
Without raising my voice to interrupt, (which the few times I do is met with increased anxiety and volume until I grow quiet again), I find myself trying to follow and make mental notes. But since the whole speech is without a point, (other than filling the air with noise and soothing internal anxieties), by the time the alarmed person winds down and stops spewing, I realize that my energy has been depleted and that I have become confused to the point where I can't even remember what the details of the original point were, or what I was trying to explain when I was overwhelmed by the hysteria fire-hose in the first place.
I think THAT's the objective, on a subconscious level perhaps, but maybe not even...
It's about protecting oneself with a dense cloud of words, draining the energies of the listener. It's about creating a reality buffer.
I've seen other techniques. A variation of the reverse; where if I get a chance to explain myself, (though by god, I do it with a point and try to be clear and easy to follow). -The listener will sort of slip sideways; you can see it in the eyes, where they dissociate, perhaps not even hearing me until I wrap up my comment, at which point they will nod, re-boot and simply repeat their original statement as though no conversation had occurred at all. Robots!
Which I think is about as close as I've come to experiencing directly the "Reality Bubbles" people place themselves inside.
It leaves me with the recognition that it takes Energy to maintain such a bubble, (and a commensurate amount of energy to penetrate one). That's what the constant repetition of totem principles is all about, polishing the same talking points and core beliefs over and over; not to explain them to others, but to revitalize them for oneself, because that is what maintains the bubble's integrity. It's Spackle all the way down.
-That, and returning to the mother ship where all the other bubbles live, the big fizzy soda drink where "canned" wisdom comes from. -But even that is just another container bobbing in the ocean of Objective Reality.
So here's my little totem, which I do return to now and again in an effort to understand these kinds of strange displays, (though not half a dozen times in the same 'conversation', or usually ever even once ... You'd need to get through several bubble layers to even start that conversation.): When one cuts oneself off from Objective Reality, one is essentially saying, "I am my own god! I reject the Creative Principle. I create my own reality!" -A fight which cannot be won.
Because we are not just in the universe. We are of the universe. Made of its stuff. To pretend otherwise still requires that you draw upon its resources. You need god's energy to weave any lies you want to tell. If you truly want your own reality and not just a little client-side website version of one, well.., you need to come up with a way to create your own energy; not steal it, but actually draw it from nothingness. A Cosmic pipe, your own universal substrate. -You can't plug an extension cord into a wall socket and declare that you are now your own power company.
Sitting still, not drawing any energy to pretend, this means we can rest, and while we do so, Objective Reality continues to exist all around us. Ahhhh. It does so without our needing to run in anxious, endless circles of increasing madness, and this frees up our energy for better things. To learn and grow.
This is why, I think, people aligned with Objective Reality tend to sound stable and intellectually nourished, rather than crazed and increasingly feral.