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.
Posted this earlier up thread but might be relevant…
“It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Ziyyona facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory – ABC standing for atomic, bacteriological, and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient.”
Victor Ostrovsky, former Mossad Katsa in his book, “The Other Side of Deception”
Nes Ziona is the site of the Israel Institute for Biological Research, which has a very interesting Wikipedia entry.
Just think about. What idiot, some days before his election, would organize such a stupid compromising act against himself. One thing’s sure Putin is not idiot at all. Anyway tomorrow I will vote. You know for whom …
If May is concocting this to cover the government’s shit performance with Brexit, it is no more or less compelling for Russia to prop up its domestic failures by concocting it.
Russians are dissatisfied with their government in many areas, but Putin and his power base are very safe. No distraction is in fact needed by Russia’s rulers, as the polling amply attests.
It’s an unfortunate thing in life that you often have to make decisions and judgements based on limited evidence. There is a pattern of Russian assassinations and they have motive and a track record of enmity. Israel has no motive to destabilise the west or undermine Britain. Far less assassinate Skripal.
“…a track record of emnity” Care to expand on this? I am unaware of any emnity towards the UK on the part of the Russian Federation in recent years. I am aware however of many provocations carried out by NATO close to and even within Russian borders. The U.K. seems to be teeming with Yeltsin-era plutocrats such as Bill Browder who have been sustaining a drumbeat of ’emnity’ towards Putin and the Russians for the last five years at least and no doubt have been applying their ill-gotten largesse to U.K. politicians.
Educate me. Perhaps I haven’t been watching the right television.
BTW Did Israel have a motive to destabilise the U.S. when they attacked the U.S.S. Liberty?
FSB/GRU or whoever, they do have a track record. It just isn’t _this_ track record. The MO has changed radically, from precise, targeted and fairly discreet, to a vast mess of colateral damage without even a fatality to show for it, despite the claim that they used the most lethal poison in the world. Still no apparent motive, no obvious benefit for mother Russia, and no clear identification of the agent, much less its source. Compared to this, evidence for Iraqi WMD was rock solid. But by all means, let’s thunder away with outraged self-righteousness on the world stage. Good reviews and trebles all around, eh?
I was going to mention the USS Liberty but someone beat me to it
At least the Saker is unapoligetic..
“As many accredited news reports have revealed, the real name of Zero Hedge’s Tyler Durden is “Daniel Ivandjiiski”, a name that raised many eyebrows due to its suspiciously Slavic origins. But accredited journalists maintained their integrity for years, and refrained from voicing their suspicions that the mysterious Tyler Durden was in fact a Russian agent, running the notorious blog “Zero Hedge” as a Kremlin propaganda machine. But today, the Accredited Times can finally say for sure that Daniel Ivandjiiski is in fact a Russian agent.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.accredited-times.com/2017/10/09/zero-hedges-tyler-durden-outed-russian-agent/amp/
Just checked your link – this is a joke site, isn’t it? Like the Daily Mash or BBC Scotlandshire?
the *major* media organisations in the uk and us are tools of elite big money interests. those are the organisations that shape public opinion .. not zero hedge. has that ever entered your mind?
There is no bigger money interest than Putins reported 200 BILLIONS, is there?
Have you considered?
putin is totally irrelevant to the problems confronting ordinary people in the west, no matter what the political and media elites have told you.
On your say so?
And you would be?
Well then, Putin must be running the world, eh.
And it doesn’t really look like he’s running the world, does it.
Have you ever seen The Economist’s front covers of him.
Or the books, articles all across western media, continually smearing him.
He’s not running whoever runs those, is he.
Oh no.
But they’re certainly running you.
Reported by whom? Proven by anyone?
Putin isn’t building palaces or buying stables of Rolls Royces. Not even a super-yacht to speak of. Hoarding money and stashing it somewhere (the City, like most oligarchs in the former USSR?) wouldn’t advance his agenda to emulate Peter the Great and modernise Russia.
It may be worth pointing out that the sanctions imposed on Russia have in fact given Putin a freer hand to pursue his agenda. Russia was forced to reinvest in agriculture after the counter-sanctions on EU food imports, for an obvious example, and is now more than self-sufficient. NATO actions in moving closer to Russian borders and putting ABM systems in place has provided cover for expenditure on new weapons design and military rebuilding.
I wonder if the US MIC and Pooty-poot may have some form of mutually beneficial understanding in place.
The rumor that Putin “is worth” $200 billion was started by Bill Browder. Since then it has been repeated by various people and media outlets, but they are all simply repeating Browder’s assertion. Needless to say, Bill Browder, who is the person behind the highly dubious Magnitsky Act, is far from an objective observer when it comes to Russia.
Daniel Ivandjiiski is not a russian name. Maybe polish or jewish.
The Novichok agent is produced in other country’s than in Soviet Union, they have at least acknowledged it.
They Novichok agent today at Totalförsvarets forskningsinstituts, in Sweden!
“Det är inte möjligt att Sverige är källan till nervgiftet Novitjok som användes mot den tidigare ryske dubbelagenten Sergej Skripal och hans dotter, säger kemvapenexperten Rikard Norlin till DN.
Anledningen är att nervgift endast finns på Totalförsvarets forskningsinstituts avdelning för CBRN-skydd i Umeå.
– Vi har bra koll på våra substanser och redovisar allt till OPCW, organisationen för förbud mot kemiska vapen, säger Norlin till tidningen.”
http://omni.se/expert-nervgiftet-kan-inte-ha-kommit-fran-sverige/a/gPyqqa
I wonder if Craig Murray is aware that ethanol is a nerve agent, much used by the British military? It breaks down slowly, and has been known to kill, even the person administering it to an intended victim. It is easy to detect, but as it is found in most of the population, hard to track.
“It was Wylie who came up with that idea and oversaw its realisation. And it was Wylie who, last spring, became my source. In May 2017, I wrote an article headlined “The great British Brexit robbery”, which set out a skein of threads that linked Brexit to Trump to Russia. Wylie was one of a handful of individuals who provided the evidence behind it. I found him, via another Cambridge Analytica ex-employee, lying low in Canada: guilty, brooding, indignant, confused. “I haven’t talked about this to anyone,” he said at the time. And then he couldn’t stop talking.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump
Dupes are Worldwide…
Thanks Ben
I read the article thoroughly despite my distaste for the gatekeepers at the Grauniad. Though I despise Bannon and Mercer, the only Russia connection I could find in the article was that one of the prime movers in CA was also a research student funded by the Russian Govt. in St. Petersberg and that CA gave a presentation on their Facebook datasets to a Russian oil company. Is that really enough to conclude that Russia interfered in a meaningful way in U.S. elections? CA the plutocrat Mercer and Bannon certainly used the inherent Orwellian properties of Facebook to its full extent, but it would seem that Russia had very little to do with the result. I could be wrong of course, but the evidence presented is tenuous at best. Given that Trump has subsequently filled his administration with Russia-phobic Neocons of the most rabid hue, I fail to see an advantage to Russia in a Trump win anyway.
“Every time the west notices Russia’s wanting to be a “good neighbor” – about which the west really couldn’t care less, Russia makes herself more vulnerable, more prone to be accused and attacked and more slandered.”
*CHOKE!
http://thesaker.is/russias-reaction-to-the-insults-of-the-west-is-political-suicide/
Great reporting Craig and a devastating indictment of UK journalism. So why are May, Johnson and Williamson spouting misleading claims?
I cannot believe the tories are daft enough to want war with Russia but I do think they want to divert the funds that could be used to mitigate austerity straight into our arms industry and dwindling military. Williamson has been on that track for the last few months. £48 mill for Porton Down for agreeing to weasel words is just for starters. Cheap compared to £1 bill for the DUP. Of course Corbyn has had some success with voters and whipping up anti-Russia hysteria and using it to blacken Corbyn with the electorate is a handy bonus. “Standing up to Putin” is depicted as playing well for May in the media, another bonus. Will it fizzle out now the Russians have done their tit for tat expulsions? Is a chemical weapons false flag about to happen in Syria to justify more coalition bombing? Who knows?
Once Putin’s 1 March speech sinks in all we’ll be left with by the Autumn is a clamour that Britain must spend more on defence. Or give up Brexit and join the EU military?
The formulas were.published and as your twitter interlocutor said chemical molecules of the same formula are.indistinguishable. So how could any trace be solely attributable to Russia? Especially given the OPCW assessments of.Rusian state capability vis a vis production of such agents.
It’s not simply about the chemical formulae of Novichok itself. Additives added to the agent can act as a fingerprint as to which state or even lab created it.
There is probably little point in bringing this example up, as I’ve yet to find to people willing to consistently listen to the OPCW despite being so insistent they be brought into the Salisbury case – but the OPCW concluded Assad had gassed his own people based in part on additives found in the agents used – additives the Syrian CW establishment were known to have. As far as I know, no other cases of this particular additive used as an acid scavenger / nerve agent stabiliser – hexamine – exist.
Some more info: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/09/06/history-sarin-use-syrian-conflict/
Obviously this is somewhat academic – I’m assuming this level of analysis has been performed on the agent found on the Skripals – I simply make the point to illustrate that it’s possible to narrow down where these agents come from, and that it is not simply a case of relying on the base agent alone for attribution. Tbh, if they had insider knowledge of what additives a state CW program was using, that would likely be procured by clandestine means, so I don’t expect them to be shouting their methods from the rooftops.
bellingcat… a known propaganda site.. oh well..
I seem to remember that the Syrian chemical weapons were taken away on American ships to be destroyed. Do we know if this included the additives as well? And if the active weapon parts can not be traced how can the additives? I suppose these are chemicals as well?
How come the brave Det Sgt was first on the scene? Was he buying a late lunch pasty from Greggs when he spied the spies?
Was the Det Sgt actually Special Branch who was meant to be keeping tabs on the pair (spies daughter in town – daughter actually is also a spy) what was the real purpose for the visit, where do they go, who do they meet?
Or knowing the spy’s daughter is in town and knowing whatever the KGB are called these days are aware of the visit and want to know what she is really up to. New KGB have checked the luggage in Moscow for Microfilm or planted bugs / trackers. Was the brave Det Sgt trying to prevent the Russian agent assassinating the lady spy before her mission is completed?
Is the brave Det Sgt actually an assassin whose job was to kill the Russian lady spy before she could complete her Salisbury mission? Was the Salisbury Mission actually completed between 9.15am – 1.35pm Sun 4th March whilst Special Branch had lost them? Had the goods / info been handed over, had the two spies assassinated their prey, had they unwittingly contaminated themselves with secret poison?
After the ID’s of the two bench people had been confirmed (rooting through their pockets / bags) – the Det Sgt may have become contaminated.
But with ID’s known (Spy Swap Spy + Spy Daughter) and their condition realised (poisoned) why the heck would a Det Sgt assume it was safe to enter the poisoned spies’ home? Unless he was very brave or stupid? Did the Det Sgt rummage through the lady spy’s underwear still in the traveling case luggage, did he contaminate it? Did something in the lady’s knickers react with his pasty?
500 highly skilled detectives and anti – terror / spy people are working on the answers to these and other questions, we are in good hands even if they don’t know what they are dealing with, where it came from and who is responsible and why. And probably never will.
But don’t let that stop us blaming the Russians and fucking Britain’s relationship with them.
Please Mrs May when you say “We” and “Our” in your pronouncements please clarify who “we” and “our” are and mention that not all of us believe a word you are saying.
You are over-thinking this, Craig. The fact that Boris Johnson has now stated that it’s “overwhelmingly likely” that Putin did it is incontrovertible proof that Putin is almost certainly innocent.
Lovely quip at the end. I despair of The Guardian (sadly the newspaper I continue to support) – no questioning, no critical insights; this also applying to all the junk about the Clinton emails and supposed Russian interference in the Presidential election.
Although off topic, it is noticeable that Guardian journalists (aside from Simon Jenkins) never get to the heart of defence and foreign affairs matters, unlike Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, and Mary Djevsky of the Independent (an otherwise crap newspaper). Of course, with Freedland and Cohen on board, you will rarely see critical coverage of Israel in The Guardian, other than a bit of soft finger wagging.
Thank you for real journalism.
There’s definitely something fishy going on ,but journalists failure to ask questions and challenge WM about money laundering and donations to the Tory party is very worrying. Thanks for helping to report the facts.
Hi Craig
Wonderful work, refreshing. How do you respond to the article in the Guardian about the nature of the chemical being only really being able to be handled by a top scientist ie Russian?
It’s just a stupid lie. Are we really supposed to believe that Soviet (and subsequently Russian) scientists had a forty-year lead over everybody else on the planet in organic chemistry? The USA. Israel. The UK. Germany. China. All forty years behind Russia?
Truely brilliant. Well done Sherlock.
I have been bullied at work to sign off dangerous stuff and tell lies in safety reports and have compromised in the exact manner you describe. Well done.
I have to stay hidden or they will send the boys round!!
Ukraine ?
On the basis of what Craig has uncovered I know there are many readers of this blog who do not have a gripe agaisnt Russia. Please let Russia and the Russian people know we do not share our government’s perpetual vilification of them. Sign and share please.
https://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/566/472/874/russia-is-not-our-enemy-and-we-will-not-fall-for-propaganda-telling-us-to-hate…./
Здраствуйте.
Пишу от себя и да, вы правы, я не понимаю глупых действий Мэй, и верю, что простой народ так не считает. Читаю новости не только у себя, но и иностранные тоже. Та статья под которой вы оставили комментарий имеет аналогичные мнения и в России.
Здраствуйте Алексей.
Спасибо. Точно!
Just been to the site above, it will not let you sign and says it is not available.
Vladivar Vodka is a brand of vodka distilled in the UK. Originally made in Warrington by the G & J Greenall distillery, the brand was sold in 1990 to Whyte and Mackay and is today made in Scotland.
….. and consequently Russian subs no longer need to navigate the Manchester Ship Canal to keep a check on it, as they did in the wonderful tv ads of long ago!
Don’t you find it strange the only other person contaminated is a police officer?
Yes. As someone commented earlier, what about the female doctor who attended to Yulia? Has she disappeared?
Thank you for being rational, coherent and perseverant in talking sense when almost everybody else seems eager to join the chorus of Russophobic Dementia.
I am glad to read such balanced answer to the hot topic discussed.
Boris Johnson wrote a column in the WP begging for it’s allies (US) to stand with Britain several days ago . Reading from the comments Americans are not buying it. As one person so eloquently put it – It is just a matter of time before Trump says anyone could have done it – a Korean, a pole ,or a 500 pound guy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/boris-johnson-we-must-stand-against-russia/2018/03/14/48fa87d0-27bc-11e8-bc72-077aa4dab9ef_story.html?utm_term=.ce8742aa7775
This could blow up big time for the Tories now they have nailed their colours to the mast – which may explain why so much of the (generally pro-Tory / establishment) media are not asking these questions but are lapping everything up at face value. Qudos to Porton Down for refusing to be cowed by political pressure. I imagine the military top brass aren’t too keen on them either.
Guardian journalists i believe they all died long ago rip
the shower of city of london scribblers take the rothschild shilling for shilling.
as for Robert Fisked Patrick Cockburnt the usual deep state queens men no scoop here just tavistock scripts.
all actor
gnomes including chumpski
I posted this earlier on Twitter but am actually a wee bit proud of it #Salisbury
It’s Theater. But is it Art?
Thank You very much!
Спасибо!
Here are three possibilities:
1. As has been reported, Sergei Skripal was indeed working in association with Christopher Steele. He had information confirming that the Trump dossier was completely true. There is therefore a powerful faction in the US who would very much like to see the back of Skripal.
2. As has been reported, Sergei Skripal was indeed working in association with Christopher Steele. He had information confirming that the Trump dossier was completely fictitious. There is now a completely different powerful faction in the US who would like to see the back of Skripal.
3. Sergei Skripal had nothing whatsoever to do with Christopher Steele. So who wanted him (maybe) dead and why?
In the past, investigative journalists in the West would have been all over this story. Individuals would have been desperate not to be outdone by their rivals. They would have been digging away, using all their resources and connections, to find out what was going on. In a matter of days or weeks a picture would have started to emerge.
Instead, we get wall-to-wall parroting of the government line. No difficult questions are asked. No lines of enquiry are followed. We know nothing at all of what Skripal might have been up to, of who his connections were. “Who said what on Twitter” is the limit of any “investigative journalism” by what used to be the Fourth Estate. And then they have the brass neck to turn round and sneer at ordinary people for giving credence to so-called fake news and conspiracy theories.
What happened to these guardians of our freedoms? When and how did they turn – every man and woman of them – into venal, servile lickspittles of the establishment?
What happened to these guardians of our freedoms? When and how did they turn – every man and woman of them – into venal, servile lickspittles of the establishment?
A journalist appears, and he is scared
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5513629/PETER-HITCHENS-patriotic-thought-police-came-Corbyn.html
Any comments on this?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil
“Any comments on this?”
Yup.
“Buzzfeed: “An anonymous source told Buzzfeed… experts speculate… an inside informer told us… several former serving officers confirmed… a contact in the security services… a made-up person informed us… a thing that looked like a giant alien lizard creature tipped us off…”
But thanks anyway pal.