Several million people have now read my articles on the lack of evidence of Russian government guilt for the Salisbury attack. That’s over 300,000 unique visitors on this little blog alone so far, and it has been repeated on hundreds of sites all over the internet. My own tweets on the subject have been retweeted over 12,500 times and received 8 million impressions. I know that journalists from every mainstream media outlet you can mention have seen the material, because of numerous tweets from them none of which address any of the facts, but instead call me a “Conspiracy nutter” or variants of that, some very rude.
Yet what I wrote has not been refuted. It would be very easy to refute were it not true. The government would just have to say “Porton Down have stated that they have definitely identified the nerve agent as made in Russia”. They have not said that. Most extraordinarily, not one mainstream media “journalist” has asked a minister the question: “You keep using this phrase the nerve agent is “of a type developed by Russia”. Are you able to confirm it was actually made in Russia?” .
There is no excuse for this. Literally hundreds of mainstream media “journalists” have slavishly reproduced the propaganda phrase “of a type developed by Russia” without a single one of them every querying this rather odd wording, or why it is the government always uses that precise wording again and again and again.
It goes without saying that not a single mainstream media “journalist” has reported that fact either that until recently Porton Down believed that “novichoks” had probably never actually been synthesised successfully and that the OPCW has never banned them on the grounds that there was no evidence of their physical existence.
Finally I wish to repeat these important facts:
1) Israel has major undeclared stocks of chemical weapons
2) Israel is one of a handful of countries, including North Korea, not to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and commit to destroy its chemical weapons
3) Israel is not a member of the OPCW and refuses to declare its chemical weapon stocks to the OPCW.
These are also facts you will never, ever see reported in mainstream media and entirely predictably the corporate lickspittles of the mainstream media have been out in force on socal media justifying their refusal to act on any of the information I have given on the grounds I am an “anti-semite”. A more extreme example of using any criticism of Israel to allege anti-semitism is hard to conceive.
The contribution of Jewish people to human development in fields including science, literature, music, art and commerce has been simply magnificent and utterly disproportionate to their numbers. The genocidal policy of Israel towards the Palestinians these last seventy years, and its rogue state status as regard chemical and nuclear wmds is a completely different question, for which I in no way blame the generality of Jewish people. In fact my position on this is the opposite of a BDS position. I actually want Israel to join OPCW, be a full member and cooperate in the destruction of its chemical weapon stocks.
I think I might now have a vodka. Of a type developed by Russia. Made in Warrington.
Simply brilliant. Loud applause Sir.
Another great analysis in this incident.
counter of FB shares is not working… Infowar sabotage 😉
Excellent commentary again Craig, outstanding 🙂
We need a different model (or a supplementary one) for media imho. This episode again shows the same ethical bankruptcy as in ‘Iraq WMD’ is near universal in mainstream media, including supposed ‘quality’ outlets like the Guardian, Times or BBC. The problem is systemic.
It’s actually quite easy to ensure vastly more plurality and diversity in media by using public funds not for an utterly establishment ‘captured’ BBC, but to create a new ‘commons’ media sector. Where individual citizens each receive a media voucher (which draws on public funds) that they can use to sponsor any media providers of their choice. This eliminates any need for journalism to be beholden to either Corporate revenues, or the mono-culture of the establishment BBC.
Yet again, it is plain to see that where far reaching issues of – life and death – foreign policy, no meaningful ‘Fourth Estate’ exists, or has ever existed. Likewise, any meaningful democracy on this or much any other public policy issues.
You just show how wierd those nutters in Whitehall really are. I usually think of them as the Washington poodles…………
The Tories are a joke now the holes in their pantomime arer showing.
I don’t think that there is any doubt that this is a finely tuned propaganda story deliberately used so that Theresa May can look strong and stable at a time of National Crisis and show how relaxed ,human, friendly she is on a walkabout in Salisbury !!!! while the BBC and the newspapers were very quick to post photoshopped images of Jeremy Corbyn ,which would have done Stalin proud , against a Backdrop of Russia trying to suggest he is a Russian Stoodge. Well so far so good its working if you believe the Polls. Unfortunately it would seem that MPs many of whom are friends of Israel, happily jumped on the bandwagon of critisism of Jeremy Corbyn. Now we can add an investigation of 14 deaths in recent years of Russians.who have died as another layer in this political crime fiction. I certainly don’t support Putin but this whole Salisbury scenario stinks.
Oh No. Arrest him
dwinking the wodka fwom Varrington
the swine
I will just down a port un mebe ask for a game of tennis
Thanks for your input,i agree with you and i think you most deservedly worked for that lovely vodka of a type developed by Russia but made in Warrington haha.
Maaaan, what f-ing genocidal policy? Do you know for a fact that Israelis are killing Palestinians by acts of genocide? What about Syria performing a real genocide on its people ? Thats ok because they are arabs killing arabs, or you wrote an angry post about that too? Lol, man, do us all a favor – if you are trying to act objective about it, then learn your facts and that is done by finding a real neutral sources, watching and reading as much material as possible and then build up.your own opinion, what you have clearly haven’t been doing
Los, I’m assuming English is not your first language from the nature of your post, so you may not be familiar with most of the coverage about Israel’s actions in its Palestinian colonies. But here’s a list of UN resolutions against Israeli actions. You can convert the list to whatever your native language is by simply selecting your language on the left hand side.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel
William has responded to you on the ongoing Israel genocide. Now let’s act objectively – as you would wish – about Syria. That means
ignoring all of the Western media, and entities like Bellingcat, SOHR, HRW and Amnesty. The most objective site I have found
for what is going on in Syria is this:
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
It tries to maintain a balanced perspective, checking all of the evidence, and not drawing unwarranted conclusions. What it fails to do in my mind is to 1. take account of prior behaviour (eg suspect any outlet that said there were WMD in Iraq( and 2. ask who benefits. But you can add that yourself and arrive at your own conclusions.
Oh dear Los, calm down. He’s just saying that Israel hasn’t signed up to the OPCW. He’s not even a typical opponent of Israel – he doesn’t believe in BDS.
Was saying myself, there are no real journalists left, you never see anyone really stepping out and challenging the UK government, and for some of the policies they passed its shocking.i myself am Scottish, so maybe this doesn’t make me see things properly as the way Scotland are being treated by May and her government. But I don’t believe for one second Russia had anything to do with this
Great article Craig, The fact you have to put in a disclaimer about Jews when criticising the occupation of Palestine is indicative of how powerful the “anti-Semite card” still is in mainstream media discourse.
I was taught about chemical and nerve agent’s effects in the seventies – the first sign was convulsions, and you then had to inject yourself with the antidote within a few seconds, or die.
If you were convulsing, you probably wouldn’t get the syringe out of your pocket, if it was just a sneeze approaching, the injection would probably be fatal.
Forty five years later, they seem to have lost some of their efficiency.
Perhaps poisoning minds with boloney is more reliable ?