So a tiny independent radio station in Ireland managed to interview Robert Fisk on the ground in Douma, but none of the British mainstream broadcast media today has him on, despite the political fallout from our Syria bombing attacks being the main news story everywhere? Meantime MSM propagandists including Richard Hall (BBC), Dan Hodges (Mail) and Brian Whitaker (Guardian) and many more queue up to denounce Fisk on twitter from their cosy armchairs.
It bears repeating that the information on the alleged gas attacks – which raises great doubt but which Fisk himself does not claim as definitive – is not the most important part of Fisk’s article. The Hell of rule under the jihadists that we in the West are arming, funding, training, “military advising” and giving air support, alongside Saudi Arabia and Israel, is the indisputable and much more important element of Fisk’s report, as is the clear evidence he provides that the White Helmets are part of the jihadist factions.
To return to Scotland, I am sorry I shocked many of those who wish me well with the vehemence of my attack on Ian Blackford and the SNP for accepting MI6′ version of events, together with a renewed expression of my outrage at Nicola Sturgeon for having instantly supported Boris Johnson’s anti-Russian rhetoric over Salisbury without waiting for evidence.
My anger is not synthetic and there is a fundamental point here.
The question is this: whether Scotland wishes to become truly a different kind of state to the UK, or whether it is simply a case of a management buyout of the local NATO franchise. As the UK enters enthusiastically into a new cold war, that question is now a much sharper one.
The UK security services are Scotland’s enemy. The next effort at Independence is not going to look like 2014 – the British Establishment only allowed that because at the outset they did not believe there was a hope in Hell we could win. Now they are rattled. Our next effort at Independence will look much more like Catalonia. All the signs are that the current leadership of the SNP, who are so comfy having little chats with MI6 in their career break from investment banking, or who want to be an inclusive, unionist-friendly “Queen Mum” figure rather than campaign for Independence, do not have the stomach for the fight. What they do have is comfy, very highly paid, billets as a pocket of token opposition and diversity within the United Kingdom.
Nicola buying into the Johnson story of the new cold war is not a small thing. It is huge, momentous, epoch-defining in Scotland. And a fundamental betrayal of her voters.
A Fully Paid Up Member of the British Establishment
In the next street to where I am writing was born the great James Connolly. He wrote:
When it is said that we ought to unite to protect our shores against the ‘foreign enemy’, I confess to be unable to follow that line of reasoning, as I know of no foreign enemy of this country except the British Government
Note the British government are the enemy – not in any way the people of England. Anybody who cannot repeat Connolly’s statement with conviction is only pretending to be part of the Scottish Independence movement, and will falter as soon as Westminster says no.
Just for the sake of accuracy, Radio 4 Today program did refer to Fisk’s post (they did not play the audio) but moved swiftly on to the Torygraph’s daily rant without any comment. Thus the BBC can claim their ‘objectivity’. Just like they did all those years ago with apartheid South Africa and currently with Israel. Disgraceful.
Just watched the OAN report at
http://www.oann.com/oan-investigation-finds-no-evidence-of-chemical-weapon-attack-in-syria/
From my memory of the film of children being washed down the explanation that given by the doctors sounds more credible than that they were victims of a chemical attack. Had it been the latter the children would have shown distress. I do have a couple of queries regarding the report though. The blurb on the site includes the following which I find self-contradictory. “However, residents there deny the claims of an attack, and say it was staged to help the rebels escape.” but I suspect it is careless wording. Also the reporter described the anti-Assad forces as ‘terrorists’ which makes him sound less than neutral.
Out of interest how else could you describe them?
as ‘Anti-Assad forces’. By saying terrorists it gives the impression that he is just repeating what his translator told him rather than processing it. I personally find that by using scrupulously neutral terminology in argument the key points stand out more clearly.
I do get what you are saying but maybe we have gone past the point whereby we can be diplomatic and pull our punches. Are the ‘anti-Assad forces’ the same collection of people, fighting under the same flag, called rebels, liberators of the oppressed Syrian peoples by FUKUS and the MSM – who when the same collection of people (generalisation I know) conduct their war in Europe somehow are then legitimately called ‘terrorists’ by said same people? I know what I would call those who kidnapped me, starved me and made me dig tunnels for 4 years………… in the name of liberation.
To me the question is ‘how do we best get others to question the narrative of the MSM?’ For me being too emotive may not always be the best way, but what works for one may not work for another.
Pyotr Grozny, Since when have British trained, brainwashed, armed and funded headchoppers been scrupulously neutral?
How about “anti-secular, anti-multi-denominational, anti-pro-Syrian nationalist” forces?
What’s careless about it? Looks spot on.
“However, residents there deny the claims of an attack, and say it was staged to help the rebels escape.”
What does the word it in the second half of the sentence refer to? Strictly speaking to the object of the first half ‘the claims of an attack’ but presumably to the attack itself which in the first half of the sentence is said not to have happened. Perhaps the writer meant to say ‘residents deny claims that an actual attack took place but say there was a staged attack.’
I found that confusion in the sentence also appeared in the report around the 4-5 minute mark.
I suppose if a “staged attack” is not an attack, that resolves it, doesn’t it?
Yup. Unless the have the wit of a May, Macron, Trump.
And the usual lack of protection clothings against the (alleged) chemical weapons – children will survive, the hospital staff will not.
I do live in Goebbel’s country, Germany. And sadly, I must say that “our” mainstream press (incl. radio & tv), is also fully under the control of the leading political parties. They – the press, the politicians – follow slavishly the “official” anti-Russian & pro-America/Nato politics. I wonder… Do they NEED a war? For economic reasons? They cannot be ALL so silly, so blind, …
Since “Ukraine” and then the flooting of Islamic people (“Welcome politics”), many educated Germans don’t read (and of course don’t trust) this press anymore, theydo not watch tv or believe the official “news”.
Some who still and reminiscentially need their morning paper, they pick Swiss newspapers…
And of course:
A few blogs… can (still) express different opinions or even the simple and often logical truth.
Yes, that outrageous anti-flat-earth conspiracy! There must be some evil reason why they’re all singing from the round-earth hymn sheet!
The round earth choir sound very flat.
Do grow up!
In response to a measured and intelligent post from kdm, you reply with meaningless dross.
Do you really wish to be taken seriously on this board or is your role simply to poison the well as best you can?
On the contrary. The only sane response is laughter when someone takes everyone agreeing as evidence of a conspiracy without considering the possibility that they might be agreeing because they’re all right.
Kdm interesting to hear your comments about German media; I do have s question though why are the mainstream parties not doing better the last election shows losses for them?
Doesn’t this mean people are not so led by the Meade message?
«I wonder… Do they NEED a war?»
My current best guess is that an external enemy is needed to counter tendencies to local autonomy.
As to actual war, there are different factions, and I think that the “deep state” faction thinks that Russia is very weak militarily and politically and would quickly surrender or fall. I suspect that they believe that they own a faction of the russian deep state made of poroshenkos, and in case of war they would stage a coup to get rid of Putin and quickly surrender to “save the nation from obliteration”, and then dismember the federation (the old “Great Game” was to go north up from Persia or Afghanistan through the Caspian to eventually split european Russia from asian Siberia). Then there is the Dominionist faction who believes about the end of times and going to heaven…
«For economic reasons?»
The “Great Game” is pretty old, what is newer is the enormous amount of private debt (mostly “secured” by property and derivatives, mostly owed to banks). Wars allow financial system resets.
Yes, Goebbels, that’s exactly what sprung to mind for me too…
Okay Craig, I can see, feel strongly about this, and I’m sure others who have Scottish independence at heart coupled along with Scotland moving away from the Westminster set up feel the same way.
There is unrest in the indy ranks at the moment, people are chomping at the bit, hoping a second indyref kicks off sooner than later.
Sturgeon must surely know by now that not to call a indyref date (could be 12 or 18 months) before we leave the EU would surely be damaging. Other than wait and see for now, I fail to see how we can force her hand.
As for the British security services, as you say they’ve always been against us MacLean, Connolly, McRae etc, are all testament to that. That particular problem will be there no matter when Sturgeon calls a second indyref.
On Mr Fisk, in my opinion, he points out that, the suffering of the Syrian people is the greatest tragedy, when the west focuses on fabricating attacks on Assad, in order to remove him.
Love this – a man with attitude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HMawHTak8w
This morning’s Spirit Radio interview with Robert Fisk
https://m.soundcloud.com/paul-hanlon-9/robert-fisk-spirit-fm-interview
From Jonathon Cook’s blog, on Fisk in Syria.
“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. ”
“There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night — but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. ”
“People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted ‘Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-04-17/fisk-report-syria-air-strikes/
White Helmets, why am I not surprised.
From Ron Paul Institute
An interview with Vanesa Beeley who has done much to expose the White Helmets.
Her view of what has just happened right in Damascus..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6VzBfkQh5A
“Enough war.” Just caught some rarely heard truth re #Syria and America’s role – Columbia University Prof. Jeffrey Sachs on The Monocle Daily @ https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-monocle-daily/1676/ – well worth the time to listen (and there’s no transcript online)
When he was on American television recently Professor Sachs was similarly candid:
JEFFREY SACHS: I think we need to step back and not put this in partisan terms. This is a U.S. mistake that started seven years ago. I remember the day on your show when President Obama said Assad must go, and I looked at you and Joe and said, ‘Huh? How’s he going to do that? Where’s the policy for that?’
And we now know they sent in the CIA to overthrow Assad. The CIA and Saudi Arabia together in covert operations tried to overthrow Assad. It was a disaster. Eventually, it brought in both ISIS, as a splinter group to the Jihadists that went in. It also brought in Russia.
So we have been digging deeper and deeper. What we should do now is get out, and not continue to throw missiles. not have a confrontation with Russia. Seven years has been a disaster, under Obama and continued under Trump.
This is what I would call the “Permanent State.”
This is the CIA, this is the Pentagon wanting to keep Iran and Russia out of Syria, but we have no way to do that. And so we have made a proxy war in Syria. It has killed 500,000 people, displaced ten million.
And I’ll say predictably so, because I predicted it seven years ago, that there was no way to do this. And it would make a complete chaos.
And so what I would plead to President Trump is: Get out, like your instinct told you, by the way. That was his instinct.
But then all the establishment, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Pentagon said no, no that’s irresponsible.
But his instinct is right: Get out. We’ve done enough damage in seven years. And now we really risk a confrontation with Russia that is extraordinarily dangerous and reckless…
We’ve got to remember how this happened. This happened because of us. These 600,000 are not just incidental. We started a war to overthrow a regime. It was covert. it was Timber Sycamore, people can look it up, the CIA operation.
Together with Saudi Arabia, still shrouded in secrecy, which is part of the problem in our country. A major war effort shrouded in secrecy, never debated by Congress, never explained to the American people. Signed by President Obama. Never explained.
And this created chaos. And so just throwing more missiles in right now is not a response. We need to, not walk away, but go to the U.N. Security Council and agree with Russia on a strategy for ending the fight.
Ending the fight means we stop trying to overthrow the government [of Bashar al Assad]. That we stop trying to support rebels who are committed to overthrowing the government. That is where this war continues. Because we, to this day, back rebels that are trying to overthrow a government, contrary to international law, contrary to the U.N. charter, contrary to common sense, contrary to practical path.
We can’t do it. And it just creates an ongoing crisis, to the extent of facing an imminent confrontation with Russia.
View @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vwKk4pADCw
###
Obama must be put before an international tribunal, so much is clear.
Wonderful sentiments.
very True.
But think of the billions in profits for the MIC.
Think of Genie oil.
Did I just see Jared Kushner has now joined in the plunder of Syrian oil?
Thats the point – the elephant in the room of Prof Sachs.
Greed.
Think of Nordstream 2, USA wanting to put sanctions on companies attached to the project, pressure on the Danish Government by the USA to refuse the pipeline, etc etc. The USA want Europe to receive their own LSN gas pumped from the Ukraine (their puppet president in place) at three times the cost. So, the four main elephants in the room are: (i) USA gaining monopoly in the long term of European energy; (ii) Petrodollar protection against the new PetroYuan currency for oil (iii) protection of the US$ as the reserve currency and yes (iv) Protection Israeli interests in a destabilised Middle East and the plundering of Syria’s natural resources. Assad won’t allow a USA pipeline in its own territory, he is moving away from the US$ as currency in Syria as did Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan (who were also all invaded). So it’s got absolutely nothing to do with Assad (who is very popular with the Syrian people) but more to do with getting rid of him and putting a USA puppet president in just like the Ukraine so the USA protect the Petrodollar and the US$ as the reserve currency. Lots of elephants in the room + Western heads of states and politicians who have the IQ collectively of a pond of newts and cannot see truth -v- USA protectionism
Is this the same Jeffrey Sachs as is referred to here: http://thesaker.is/the-rape-of-russia-saker-blog-exclusive-interview/. The link comes from an earlier post (10:32) by Salford Lad.
saoudi peak oil
israel water and land
american petro dollar
Craig, you do the indy cause no favour with this kinda stuff. The SNP is our way to a vote. The only way. Vote them out after YES if you want. Trashing them before we are free? Maybe I should just call you Angela…
I think Craig is just trying to light a fire under the SNP. Trouble is he’s overdone it with the petrol.
Actually, I agree with Craig.
The one thing that I have learned over a lifetime is that politicians ARE the problem, not people, regardless where those politicians are based, and regardless of initial motives, however honourable, the more their nostrils take in that sweet smell of power, the stronger it gets then the greater the disconnect between the politicos and those they fail to represent as they clamber over one another to bury eager snouts in the power trough. Hence, corruption is inherent, demonstrably present in each and every egregore – political or otherwise. The smaller the business, institution or political entity, the smaller the driving forces of personal greed and personal power. Look at any council across the entirety of Britain, laws unto themselves whilst those elected to hold them to account, fail for the most part to do so in favour of personal interest.
There is corruption within the SNP, greater corruption at Westminster, and even greater corruption in Brussels with its associated 50,000 lobbying bodies or however many it is these days. The greatest travesty is that the press no longer provide the faintest buffer against these feckless, morally void half wits, on the contrary the evidence strongly suggests that at times they are not merely complicit, but actively yanking the chains of power towards some pre determined objective.
They refuse to see elite corruption and dishonesty, since their careers depend on them not seeing it. However, mainstream “journalism” does seem to have descended to new depths now. What lessons did they have they learnt from all the disastrous false-flag wars of recent years?
They seem to have learned quite a lot these last two or three decades. They have learned how to co-ordinate their efforts, to essentially present a cohesive front where all sing from exactly the same script. They have educated their presenters and hacks on how not to deviate and simultaneously trained them as attack dogs who fiercely unmuzzle themselves on any dissenters. The same sense of personal greed and preservation dominates the mind0-set of these feeble people as they climb the media ladder. They know exactly what they are doing when they pen or speak nonsense, fail to ask even the simplest of questions and abuse decent and honest people. They are not stupid people and just as complicit in any war crime in my book.
A profession in ruins.
Presstitutes.
Absolutely! This applies equally to politicians. They have learned a great deal in the last 20-30 years.
In a similar vein, people need to understand that the chaos that governments have brought to various countries is no unfortunate accident. A country in continuous turmoil is no longer a threat and can be more easily dominated or exploited.
These catastrophes are the result of having sociopaths in power. The death, destruction and untold human suffering they have created are of no consequence to them. They feel no remorse.
“They have learned how to co-ordinate their efforts, to essentially present a cohesive front where all sing from exactly the same script. ”
The Nazis had a word for this, “gleichschaltung”.
is that politicians ARE the problem, not people
I have to disagree.
These politicians are voted for by the people.
The buck stops there.
We have watched whilst the English in particular have virtually thrown away their country because they refuse – unlike Scotland – to vote outside of the one party state – the lib/lab/con.
Until the public bother to consider what they are voting for – have a look and wake up to the fact that their actual vote in the ballot box gives them the government they then proceed to whine about – Britain is doomed.
Brits – the English in particular vote for these corrupt and dangerous neo lib. neo con sadists – over and over and over.
So whose fault is that – they do have an opposition – but unlike Scotland they wimp out.
The 2015 election was the pivotal moment.
Britain blew it and the future for this country looks eerily like some of the ruination of the Middle East.
Emily, your premise presumes, implies that the vote makes a difference, that it is some kind of democracy gatekeeper, whereas my view is that whoever holds the reigns of power simply becomes another cog in the problem. People of any country use their vote and political parties change whilst establishment and its mind-set remain. The English could have voted in the Greens at the last election and the bombs would still fall on the innocent.
2003 – Blair Lab – Iraq
2011 – Cameron Cons – Libya
2018 – May Cons – Syria
2003 – Bush rep
2011 – Obomber Dem (nobel peace prize)
2018 – Trump (gonna pull troops out yadda yadda)
That’s just for starters. If the Lib/dems, SDLPQRS, Monster Ravers or whoever had been in when millions of people marched across the entire island in 2003, the bombs would still have fallen on the heads and towns of people who are simply trying to live their lives….
Mind yo I do agree the people are the problem to some extent. Poll over Syria bombing
For – 28%
Against – 36%
Unsure – 11%
Don’t care either way – 25%
That means more than half were either in favour of dropping bombs or simply didn’t care. Didn’t care ffs!! In 2003 people voiced their opinion, in 2018, they settled down to watch Strictly….
.Doghouse.
The lib/lab/con are a bunch of neo lib/neo cons with barely a tissue between them.
All globalist.
The Tories are not Conservative.
May and Cameron hijacked the party – have systematically parachuted in their neo lib cronies and barely a conservative politician exists in the House of Commons.
Labour has completely betrayed the entire working, working class.
The lib/lab/con is a farce.
In 2015 opinion polls were showing UKIP – the only opposition party in England at least – was running high enough in the polls to take up to twelve seats.
And had they done so Brexit would have been near accomplished by now and we certainly wouldn’t be bombing Syria.
So what happened – and I rather feel Craig might agree.
Cameron lied, May lied.
Cameron and May – probably two of the biggest liars in decades in our history?
He came up with the story that the Labour Party and SNP were going into a possible coalition to govern Britain.
Two parties at one anothers throats.
It was, of course, denied.
However the scare tactic – unlike his scare tactics over brexit – his lies – unlike his lies over Brexit – worked.
And Tories who had decided to vote UKIP went running back like pathetic wimps – because OH the sky is falling in – labour might win.
No they got Cameron and May with no opposition – and look what you have?.
The problem now is that people have forgotten how to vote FOR anything.
They go and vote to STOP Labour.
To STOP the Tories.
Brainwashed and terrified.
No guts, no integrity – just abject pathetic fear.
Had UKIP won seats in 2015 Britain would have had a completely different few years – even one or two seats – to put the fear of God into the lot.
But Cameron and May lied ….the rest is history.
But it has certainly doomed Britain to coming terror and conflict – and the Middle East too – as you have just watched.
May is a dnagerous and evil woman, an accomplished liar and committed globalist.
She is about as conservative as Sadiq Khan – on a bad day..
“I have to disagree.
These politicians are voted for by the people.
The buck stops there.”
Problem with that is that we don’t have a democracy at all just an ongoing oligarchy. Good interview on this here (though American bias it still stands for the UK): https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/422264-professor-democracy-political-liberalism/
Peter
Until we get fair voting – PR – we are stuffed by the system.
In 2015 with 4,000,000 votes UKIP would have taken 83 seats in most democracies – including 21 countries in Europe.
The AfD in Germany recently took a lower percentage yet won over 90 seat in the German House.
FPTP is an insult to the word democracy.
Kicked out in most countries – the most recent New Zealand.
No excuses here.
We use PR to elect the MEPs.
We have a form in our three regional parliaments.
But although a massive petition signed by 5 party leaders and backed by electoral organizations went forward, the Tories with Labour backing denied it and Cameron did so with one of the most blatant of his lies.
We have a crooked system – a duopoly – working together to maintain a stranglehold on the country.
Rotttenboroughs – now called ‘safe seats’ and fiddled boundaries.
And the Brits are too apathetic to even care.
«The one thing that I have learned over a lifetime is that politicians ARE the problem, not people»
Instead the more time passes the more I am convinced that the people are the problem, that politicians are corrupt because the people are corrupt. The major example are the anglo-american culture countries in which the affluent middle classes will vote for any governments that delivers big property prices increases, and otherwise write a blank cheque to the government.
The major example was Tony Blair: both Thatcher and Osborne won elections with stable or increasing numbers of votes, Tony Blair lost 4 million voters over 10 years, but he kept winning a (shrinking) majority of seats because even if deeply unpopular (since 2001, not just after the Iraq war) he kept delivering big property price increases, and his corrupt voters kept holding their noses and did not vote for the opposition.
In the USA the majority of voters have fully endorsed the Iraq war, assassination by death squads, non-investigation and non-prosecution of finance fraud, unlimited imprisonment without trial, pervasive spying, a trillion of donations to Wall Street, common use of torture of prisoners, etc. etc.
Doghouse, like you, I despair over the way politicians forget their principles (seemingly), once they get a taste of the high life.
The high life can be in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff – or any local council. I am a local councillor, as was my husband who died two years ago. We feel (and felt) that we were always battling against the ruling party. It is interesting that once “humble” councillors become cabinet members, they suddenly become part of a protected hierarchy. They can’t be moved out of the cabinet because they come to depend on the extra salaries, so the whole thing becomes stale and people of talent, don’t get a look-in. They quickly adapt to a certain lifestyle – big cars – holidays – a grand way of lecturing others. I don’t know what we do to alter things. I am a local politician because I am interested in fighting for the people of my ward. I would do this even if I weren’t paid to do it. But then I and my husband were brought up to have a sense of responsibility and a care for others – particularly for those in need and without a voice.
A longer Robert Fisk interview on Douma here:
https://soundcloud.com/paul-hanlon-9/robert-fisk-spirit-fm-interview
It is entirely possible that this current upsurge in bollocks from the Brits has in part been designed specifically to make independence for Scotland impossible.
I think that shaping public opinion that there is a “clear and present danger” from an external threat is a long term strategy to counter centrifugal forces in various “first-world” states: loose groupings tend to coalesce more if there is a common enemy. If Putin and Russia did not exist, they would have to be invented. The subtext, for example in the constant stream of alerts that russian airplanes and ships are being intercepted in international waters or airspace, dozens of hundreds of km from the UK, is that if Scotland went alone there is a russian army ready to invade it “just like they invaded Crimea and the Donbass” and turn it into a gulag.
My impression is that there are actually two factions:
* Anti-Putin: they are careful to blame all “invasions”, “WMD attacks”, etc. on Putin alone. This faction would be very happy with a satellite Russia governed by a cooperative leader like Yeltsin or Poroshenko, selling out for cheap all russian natural resources to foreign speculators.
* Anti-russian: they blame Russia itself, because what is needed is an external threat, and even if it were governed by a cooperative leader it would still need to be represented as a threat. Putin apparently asked informally about NATO membership for Russia, but that “of course” was refused.
I have no argument against Scotland gaining its independance. As it is defined as a nation, then of course it should be a national choice without the inteference of outside forces. However I do like the concept of being British. While I recognise it fails to offer to protection it should to many (the Windrush generation for example), it does provide a label that does not decide your ethnic origins or national loyalties based on colour or creed. Anybody can say they are British ad belong. Anybody can be accepted. And why not? Once you start adding ethnic labels, like I’m 50% Scottish etc, it undermines the ideal of an accepting, inclusive society. Am I English? Well I doubt it in the long view. Am I British? Yep.
Anybody can say they are Scottish and belong.
Stop trying to sneak in Anglocentrism under the guise of inclusiveness.
Seems odd that I make an observation and it is returned with an accusation. I can’t know whether you can say you are Scottish and belong, but if so it is good to hear. As I say, if Scotland wants independance, I have no axe to grind on the subject. It is not my business to tell others on whether they should seek self determination. It is the idea of an ethnic origin that I am never comfortable with. Was Craig Murray born on Hadrian’s wall to claim being 50% Scottish? I don’t do the nationalist stuff for any nation in terms of ehtnic background. It doesm’t mean nations shouldn’t exist. If it works for you, go for it.
Some said earlier on ( apologies for not remembering who) that being Scottish, British or anything else is a state of mind. For myself, I was born and brought up in London and moved to Scotland when I was 20 – more than 50 years ago. I feel Scottish, but not at all British. England stopped being a country I recognises as mine from about 1980 onwards. The city of my birth in particular was being changed into another world, whose vision centred on itself and which didn’t care about anything that was being destroyed to achieve that new world. And it’s getting worse.
Cemetery was not contaminated
Clean-up work underway in Salisbury in next phase of recovery
Work is beginning in Salisbury to decontaminate potentially affected sites for the city and its visitors.
Published 17 April 2018
From:
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Public Health England, Department of Health and Social Care, and Home Office
Clean-up work is beginning in Salisbury after the appalling nerve agent attack, to bring a small number of potentially contaminated sites back into safe use for the people of the city and its visitors.
This follows the continuing handover of sites from the police investigation to recovery operations, including The Maltings, the cemetery, Zizzi and the Ashley Wood compound. In total nine sites, three of which are in the city centre, have been identified as requiring some level of specialist cleaning.
Today (Tuesday 17 April) a small cordoned area of London Road cemetery was the first area to be reopened to the public after extensive investigations and testing established that it was not contaminated.
All remaining potentially contaminated sites will remain secured and the current scientific assessment is that the remainder of Salisbury is safe for residents and visitors. Public Health England have reaffirmed that the risk to the general public is low.
Work to clean each site will involve a process of testing, removal of items which may have been contaminated, chemical cleaning and retesting. Sites will not be released back into use until test results and the work undertaken has been reviewed and approved by the government’s decontamination science assurance group.
The work, which is expected to take a number of months, is being planned and overseen by Defra based on expert advice from Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Public Health England, Department for Health and Social Care, Home Office, and Ministry of Defence (MOD). The clean-up operation will be carried out in partnership with Wiltshire Council with support from the MOD, who are providing specialist teams to carry out work on the sites. Around 190 specialist military personnel from the Army and RAF will support the operation.
Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser Ian Boyd, who is chair of the decontamination science assurance group overseeing the work, said:
Our approach is based on the best scientific evidence and advice to ensure decontamination is carried out in a thorough and careful way. Our number one priority is making these sites safe for the public, so they can be returned to use for the people of Salisbury.
Thanks to detailed information gathered during the police’s investigation, and our scientific understanding of how the agent works and is spread, we have been able to categorise the likely level of contamination at each site and are drawing up tailored plans.
Meticulous work is required and we expect it will be a number of months before all sites are fully reopened.
The public will begin to see more activity in the city as the work gets underway. In the coming days residents can expect to see current cordons around the most public sites replaced with secure fencing, backed by police patrols and security guards. At certain points during decontamination, some cordons will be temporarily expanded to allow workers access to the sites with specialist equipment and ensure public safety as work is underway. Wherever possible this sort of disruption will be kept to a minimum.
As work in the city moves from site to site the local authority will keep businesses and the community informed. The clean-up work goes hand in hand with the £2.5m already announced to support businesses, boost tourism and meet unexpected costs in recognition of the exceptional response and recovery effort in Salisbury. Baroness Jane Scott, the Leader of Wiltshire Council, said:
We are pleased that work will be starting to decontaminate the sites affected by the shocking attack in our city. Working together with local and national agencies we are doing all we can to help Salisbury return to normal. Our main concern is to ensure that Salisbury is safe for residents, businesses and visitors and that the city can focus on the future, its recovery and that it will go from strength to strength.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/clean-up-work-underway-in-salisbury-in-next-phase-of-recovery
Utter cr*p.
You have to wonder who has the gall to write such total BS.
Honestly!!
Thanks for that.
What news of the perpretators? Any persons of interest named by the police? Arrests? Charges?
You have to laugh at this best scientific advice b/s. I would have thought the most sensible thing to do with this BZ/A234 hybrid, totally lethal, absolutely 100% non lethal, would – if not at all sure – be to clean it up immediately rather than let it blow across town into peoples collective faces and drain into the water supply due to all this nice weather we’ve enjoyed, Rather than sitting with your thumb up your ass for 6 weeks. Tell me I’m wrong. And now it will take months. Do the mad scientists at PD have to go into quarantine for months at the end of each day’s work. Or do they have some state of the art decontamination chemicals. Answers on a post card….
Anyone who’s been to all those places for the last weeks be damned I guess. Showcasing is more important. Yes, this is operetta-on-a-budget. But it’s vile in its intent, and meant to carry us to June.
«Living in Goebbels Land»
Some quotes from “George Orwell”:
“Looking Back on the Spanish War”, June 1943: “Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.
I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened.
I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’.” … “Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer. Undoubtedly they were, and yet when it came to the final showdown they chose to stand up to Germany.
It is still very uncertain what plan they acted on in backing Franco, and they may have had no clear plan at all. Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.”
“As I Please”, 4 February 1944: “During the Spanish civil war I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of “facts” which millions of people now living know to be lies.”
“As I Please”, 26 January 1945: “Victor Raikes, the Tory M.P., who is an able and outspoken reactionary, made a speech which I should have considered a good one if it had referred only to Poland and Jugoslavia. But after dealing with those two countries he went on to speak about Greece, and then suddenly black became white, and white black. There was no booing, no interjections from the quite large audience – and none there, apparently, who could see that the forcing of quisling governments upon unwilling peoples is equally undesirable whoever does it.” … “The Daily Worker disapproves of dictatorship in Athens, the Catholic Herald disapproves of dictatorship in Belgrade. There is no one who is able to say – at least, no one who has the chance to say in a newspaper of big circulation – that this whole dirty game of spheres of influence, quislings, purges, deportation, one-party elections and hundred per cent plebiscites is morally the same whether it is done by ourselves, the Russians or the Nazis. Even in the case of such frank returns to barbarism as the use of hostages, disapproval is only felt when it happens to be the enemy and not ourselves who is doing it.”
You forgot to mention the part where he denounces Charlie Chaplin with his dying breath.
The evidence points to Blair being an agent of the British state.
Wow Blissex, what a very timely piece of historical writing. It is oh so relevant to the current situation.
Sez Orwell the grass.
G7 Statement Salisbury
G7 foreign ministers’ statement on the Salisbury attack
G7 foreign ministers unite to condemn the nerve agent attack and share the UK’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation was responsible.
Published 17 April 2018
From:
Foreign & Commonwealth Office and The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
We, the G7 foreign ministers, of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the European Union, are united in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the attack that took place against Sergei and Yulia Skripal, using a nerve agent in Salisbury, United Kingdom, on March 4, 2018. A British police officer and numerous civilians were exposed in the attack and required hospital treatment, and the lives of many more innocent British civilians have been threatened. We express our deepest sympathies to them all and our admiration and support for the UK emergency services for their courageous response.
The United Kingdom has thoroughly briefed G7 partners. We share, and agree with, the UK’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation was responsible for the attack and that there is no plausible alternative explanation. We condemn Russia’s continued failure to address legitimate requests from the UK government, which further underlines its responsibility. We call on Russia to urgently address all questions related to the incident in Salisbury. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has now independently confirmed the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury. Russia should provide full and complete disclosure of its previously undeclared Novichok program to the OPCW in line with its international obligations.
This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War and is a grave challenge not only to the security of the United Kingdom but to our shared security. It is an assault on UK sovereignty. Any use of chemical weapons by a state party, under any circumstances, is a clear breach of international law and a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is a threat to us all. Their use is abhorrent, completely unacceptable and must be systematically and rigorously condemned. We, participating states of the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons, stand together against impunity for those who develop or use these weapons, anywhere, any time, under any circumstances.
The G7 is committed to protecting and promoting the rules-based international system. We stand in unqualified solidarity with the United Kingdom. Our concerns are also heightened against the background of a pattern of earlier irresponsible and destabilizing Russian behaviour, including interference in countries’ democratic systems. We call on Russia to live up to its Chemical Weapons Convention obligations, as well as its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to uphold international peace and security. In order to bring Russia back into the rules-based international system, we will continue to engage with Russia, as appropriate, on addressing regional crises and global challenges.
The G7 will continue to bolster its capabilities to address hybrid threats, including in the areas of cybersecurity, strategic communication and counter-intelligence. We welcome national action taken to constrain Russian hostile-intelligence activity and to enhance our collective security. The G7 will remain closely focused on this issue and its implications.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g7-foreign-ministers-statement-on-the-salisbury-attack
«We share, and agree with, the UK’s assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation was responsible for the attack»
Two vital details: “assessment”, not “evidence”, and “Russian Federation”, not “Putin”.
«and that there is no plausible alternative explanation.»
Again the G7 seem to say that it is an entirely speculative “assessment”.
«We condemn Russia’s continued failure to address legitimate requests from the UK government, which further underlines its responsibility.»
Again with the story that there is no evidence of responsibility, just lack of evidence of innocence. It is quite amazing innuendo. We have a clearly botched “attempt”, where the clumsy culprits must have left a long trail of evidence, and the “victims” themselves could be paraded for tear-filling Q-and-A sessions on their story, and the best a press release can come up is “no plausible alternative explanation”, “continued failure to address”.
Added to which, I fail to see how Russia can answer any questions posed by the British Government when it has not been given any evidence on which to base it’s response. It omits to say that, from the outset, Russia said it would cooperate with an independent joint investigation with the OPCW, that request was refused. Russia’s request for evidence was refused. Russia’s request for its Ambassador to the UK to meet with BoJo was refused. The U K Govt breached international convention, conducted it’s own, non transparent, secretive investigation and hasn’t got any evidence to show for it but for a pack of lies and so many inconsistencies in the story that renders it a joke. Do the members of the G7 have any intelligence at all or are they so immune to the truth of the UK Govt’s position that they will just agree for the sake of promoting the West’s concerned anti-russia hysteria campaign/ What a rubbish statement. it is partisan, has little truth in it and has no foundation in either fact or evidence.
So the government is no longer explicitly claiming that a Novichok was deployed in Salisbury (but mentions Novichoks only in regard to an allegation of Russia having a “previously undeclared Novichok program”.
And what of this claim that “numerous civilians were exposed in the attack and required hospital treatment”? Didin’t Stephen Davies already say that no such thing happened?
«Living in Goebbels Land»
Plus two shorter quotes:
H MacMillan’s diary, 30 November 1963: “It is wonderful not to read the newspapers — except a rapid glance through The Times. It makes such a difference. One feels better, mentally and morally, not to be absorbing unconsciously, all that steady stream of falsehood, innuendo, poison which makes up the Press today, apart from purely informative sections.”
T Jefferson, letter to W Jones, 2 January 1814: “I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, & mendacious spirit of those who write for them: and I inclose you a recent sample, the production of a New-England judge, as a proof of the abyss of degradation into which we are fallen. these ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste, and lessening it’s relish for sound food. as vehicles of information, and a curb on our functionaries they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief.”
Thank you Blissex. As book of Ecclesiastes says “There is no new thing under the sun.”
:
Have you checked Nicola Sturgeons’s facebook page, ref: the comments to here varous quisling messages of agreement with Westminster?
Probably the MAJORITY of comments are critical of her positions – so you are far from alone in your completely valid criticisms; but she doesn’t reply; seems she’s become a real Establishment politician as you say – criticism being like water off a duck’s back to her.
Tragic really; I had such great hopes for her when I first became aware of who she was; but I guess the writing was on the wall when she utterly bizarrely endorsed the ALREADY Mass-Murdering serial War-Criminal Hillary CLinton BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN – outstanding amongst ALL pathetic reasons, and EVEN WORSE, poor politics, just ONE day for what passes for a presidential election in the United States of Perpetual Propaganda. (Don’t misinterpret this – I have nothing but seething contempt for Trump – but the fact is that the American people were presented with a choice between two catastrophes, so the inevitable result was ALWAYS going to be catastrophe – and that choice, btw, was ENTIRELY due to Democratic Party deep, Deep, DEEP corruption, as you know)
P.S: Pls accept my fbook ‘friend’ request, then I can get your article summaries straight into my ‘newsfeed’.. TY.
,
The SNP has long been a broadly neoliberal party which has been good at using the language of radicalism to garner the support of those whose political aims are anathema to the SNP’s elected body.
An absolute disgrace of an interview being conducted on the Daily Politics right now. We’re at DPRK levels of propoganda now.
We are living in Goebbels land. And not just in the propagandistic sense.
Joseph Goebbels had been charged by the Nazis in the late 1920s with the tough task of winning over cosmopolitan left wing inclined Berlin. He never really did. In the early years of the regime some leading Nazis like war hero Goering drew large crowds. When Goebbels made public appearances in the capital he had to arrange for SA in civilian clothes to line the streets as if they were the public.
The UK today has to rely on such tactics. When Prince Harry and Meghan visited Edinburgh Castle the foreign tourists on the esplanade were handed little plastic union jacks to wave and encouraged to line up along the barriers. There were few Scots in that crowd. Of course May doesn’t even try to meet the public on Scottish visits.
I love your phrase “management buyout of the local NATO franchise” – makes the point wonderfully well. (Reminds me too of Gandhi’s reproaches to the wealthy Cambridge-educated suit-dressing would-be independence-leaders in India in the 1920s.)
The problem is: what is the alternative to that? Realpolitik is a dire fact. There used to be a “non-aligned movement”, but it was broadly ineffectual and it has pretty much disappeared. The nostalgics of the english empire can’t quite remember that it was old imperialist Churchill who opted for being a n USA protectorate, out of necessity (and with the delusion that “clever” english elites could “guide” the “uncouth” USA elites) and seem to forget that the current Conservatives realizing that the only alternative to “the local NATO franchise” could be “the local belt-and-road franchise” have enthusiastically adhered to every chinese initiative.
An independent Scotland could be like Ireland (outside NATO, but otherwise an american economic protectorate) or like France (allied to the USA but not a protectorate), but the latter is quite unaffordable for a country as small as Scotland.
Probably the best an independent Scotland could do is to be like Portugal or Slovenia, that are dutifully “aligned” but pretty much otherwise ignored by The Powers That Be, so they can arrange their internal affairs with some latitude.
Craig,
Back in early 2014, the SNP were running a pathetic referendum campaign under ( ex BBC) Blair Jenkins, with support stuck in the low 30’s.
Only the YES movement, taking advantage of an exceptional Indian Summer, saved us from humiliation and took us to a breakthrough 51% in the polls.
The establishment, queen, civil service and BBC all went into full panic mode and abandoned all impartiality and fair play. Who knows what else they did in that final week before the vote.
Yes Scotland was only ever a front for the SNP anyway, funded to the tune of £825,000.
On the subject of fair play, in the light of recent revelations about Cambridge Analitica it’s dubious whether their imported software nationbuilder.com or the later software they developed themselves was entirely legal in that it may have harvested and stored information about people without their consent.
Not just Fisk. Here’s a Bolivian actress on the ground showing close-ups of damning wall posters regarding white helmets and al quaeda
https://twitter.com/CarlaOrtizO/status/986060254277337089
It’s only a couple of minutes long and is sped up when she has to do the long boring walking bits between buildings. The original piece of around 15 mins length is on FB here:
https://www.facebook.com/CarlaOrtizOfficial/videos/2132748790076439/
The most damning evidence is after minute 12.
The cats of Salisbury, newly fearful of being doorknobbed (and what befalls one or two of their number is quickly transmitted to the remainder of the community by wondrous telepathic means) have further cause for concern in DEFRA’s statement that the BZ/A234 toxin was delivered in liquid form and that the Skripals were left in a “catatonic” state.
For cats, milk is the only acceptable liquid and catatonic has dubious implications, none of which are good.
Is this the same Jeffrey Sachs as is referred to here: http://thesaker.is/the-rape-of-russia-saker-blog-exclusive-interview/. The link comes from an earlier post (10:32) by Salford Lad
Ooops!!
“as is the clear evidence he provides that the White Helmets are part of the jihadist factions.”
Where? – twisting words again I’m afraid.
Posing with guns on top of the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers, pulling mannequins out from under rubble, presenting the same child victim in numerous different locations. It’s all quite blatant, unless you decide you don’t csre to see it.
With regard to “presenting the same child victim in different locations” –
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cnn-same-refugee-girl/
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-eva-bartletts-claims-about-syrian-children
This particular claim about this particular victim clearly is not true. That’s not to say others aren’t. But this case is fake.
But not in Fisk’s article.
The trouble is if one detail is made to seem what it isn’t then everything may come into doubt. There is a picture here of what everyone I’ve showed it to thinks is a man in a burka listening while Jo Cox’s sister pays a tribute to Jo Cox.
http://sonarz.com/still-think-jo-cox-is-dead-watch-this/
You can just think that this is a well-meaning person trying to send a message of inclusiveness or it can prompt wider questions about this scene.
Craig, unfortunately, is correct. The SNP has been utterly shameful on this. They also supported the disastrous attack on Libya.
Re: Goebbels.
I have some quotes here that you may find useful:
Hans Borgelt, journalist in Nazi Germany:
“We felt…I felt relatively free. I always thought I could write what I wanted. But years later, when I read the articles I’d written then, I was surprised by the inhibited style in which they were written. As if my brain were standing to attention awaiting orders.”
Goebbels:
“With the benefit of hindsight, however, we disciplined journalists so that, at critical times, we did not even need to give orders. A mere sign made clear to the press that there would be no discussion.”
Narrator:
“As a result, these journalists became servile heralds of the dictatorship. Dutifully, they anticipated the party line.”
(Hitler’s Henchmen “Quest” 30 November 2011).
The SNP didn’t support Cameron’s actions in Libya in 2011.
This statement is, sadly, incorrect:
All 6 SNP MPs voted to attack Libya:
Stewart Hosie
Angus Robertson, leader of the parliamentary party (2007-2017)
Pete Wishart
Angus MacNeil
Michael Weir
Eilidh Whiteford
Only 13 MPs voted against (9 Labour)
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/9/14/libya-report-which-mps-voted-for-and-against-intervention
Only 13 MPs voted against (9 Labour)
I suspected Robertson was a Neocon plant a good while back.
Given his departure recently, I guess his mission, whatever it was had been achieved.
I guess the people of Scotland will never know what disservice has been performed for them…
That is a great–terrifying–collection of quotations.