Skripal: Theresa May set to hit back Russia over spy attack

[Rory]

That's a rehash of every other example of MSM stenography pasted here on this thread. No new material, just the same pronouncements, stylized to some degree relating to the individual typing what they've been told to write.

Has OPCW analyzed the samples then, or are we taking the British State's word for It? Given their stellar reputation for truth and honesty and all.

Some people even claim to be Irish, yet suspend disbelief in this case?

[norton ash]

I'll suspend my Irish disbelief to say it was probably Russians, and much less likely counterespionage-false flag.

[Jerky]

Xenophobe! WARMONGER!!!

Don't you realize you're single-handedly launching World War III by saying this?!?

I'll suspend my Irish disbelief to say it was probably Russians, and much less likely counterespionage-false flag.

[Jerky]

Oh, I almost forgot to call you a "fan of Takfiri headchoppers", too.

Please forgive my omission.

J.

[Rory]

I'll suspend my Irish disbelief to say it was probably Russians, and much less likely counterespionage-false flag.

Nail your colours to the mast. Why the fuck not.

I grew up there and I'd sooner believe the rotting corpse of Joe Stalin telling me up was down before I believed a single word a Tory PM spoke. They are incapable of honesty, and more often than not, there's ulterior motives at play.

[Jerky]

Unlike you, right Rory? No ulterior motives or hidden agendas with YOU.

Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

J.

[norton ash]

Could this be Russian agents trying to sow discord between the English and the Irish?

[seemslikeadream]

oh man now you guys got me curious

did someone call someone a plastic paddy again?

[JackRiddler]

.

Since I'm an expert in spy things -- having read Greene and/or Le Carré, or at least seen the miniseries and the movie, and also having recently started watching the excellent Starz historical documentary series Counterpart -- I consider it highly likely this was a long-simmering act of revenge for pleasure by someone within the Russian apparatus. If so, the movers neither asked for nor required an authorization from above, which would have been poor tradecraft on their part, and they weren't advancing any particular Moscow policy other than settling scores with perceived traitors to their brotherhood. The Kremlin will smile upon it as totally okay, except for the fuck-up that the targets survived. And if so, I doubt the actual planner(s) is/are known for sure to the Kremlin, or even to their own direct superiors, that is if they aren't on a pension anyway. It's part of the evil spy game as played by all of the major participants, one they see as natural and we here at the bottom have also been taught to see as natural through the most important propaganda of all (movies and Congressional hearings starring Oliver North, duh). It's not like back in the day MI6 would not have loved to put a dagger into Kim Philby at his retirement dacha, but they're not that good. May being where she is, in both government (barely) and Toryworld (barely), she has no choice but to play it the way she does. Not that she doesn't believe her own bullshit, or that I would care whether or not she does. Corbyn should sail above the commie-spy baying of The Mirror, the Blairites, et al., but May could hardly afford to have the right-wing press dogs turn on her if she doesn't pump this into an international crisis with a resolute show of smacking the bear. Macron has already sent a message about the limits to this, by the way. (He will later fully accept the UK "findings," assuming that's the end of it.) So if this gradually sinks from view, everyone having played their role, I will be convinced of this scenario I have outlined. On the other hand, if the expelling and sanctioning actually hits Russian Mob interests connected to the Tories (oops), or if it escalates into serious NATO-Russia war foreplay, I'd be more inclined to at least consider false-flag narratives. Fact is, as Craig Murray did a bang-up job in his blog today showing, the formulas for this set of poisons, which are designed to be produced by anyone with a chem degree and access to industrial pesticides, were PUBLISHED twenty years ago. Sorry for the cavalier tone, hope the guy and his daughter get well.

.

[seemslikeadream]

“If you’re poisoned by a nerve agent, it’s forever,” Mirzayanov said, citing the case of his friend and fellow GosNIIOKhT employee, the late Andrei Zheleznyakov, who was accidentally poisoned by a novichok.

Zheleznyakov received a dose of A-232, a component used in Novichok No. 5, during a laboratory accident in the 1980s. Doctors gave Zheleznyakov atropine, a common nerve agent antidote, and he survived following a lengthy recuperation. But the once vibrant researcher was never the same, according to Mirzayanov: “He wasn’t capable of functioning normally afterwards.” Zheleznyakov reportedly suffered from chronic weakness, epilepsy, liver problems, and difficulty focusing, among other maladies, before his death five years later.

- No cure -

An attack with Novichok agents, which are 10 times stronger than VX, is excruciating and has no cure, he added.

He said half a gram is enough to kill a person who weighs 50 kilos (110 pounds).

Someone exposed to it first has their vision go blurry, and if no antidote is applied are then hit with violent convulsions and can no longer breathe.

"I have seen the effect on animals -- rabbits, dogs. It is awful," he said.

Even if they do not die, Skripal and his daughter will suffer for the rest of their lives, he predicted.

[BenDhyan]

Why am I not surprised the UK does not want an open investigation into the poisoning...

UK blocks Russia's draft UN Security Council statement on Skripal poisoning case

Published time: 15 Mar, 2018 03:49

The UK has blocked a UN Security Council statement drafted by Russia, which called for an "urgent and civilized" investigation into the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

"The Russia-proposed March 14 project of a short and fact-based UNSC press statement calling for an urgent and civilized investigation into a resonant chemical incident in Britain in line with OPCW standards was crudely blocked by this country’s representatives under a politicized pretext," Russian UN mission spokesman Fedor Strzhizhovskiy said.

The proposed draft, unlike earlier statements by the UK and the US, did not assign blame for the incident, instead, it urged “all member states concerned to consult and cooperate” in the investigation as prescribed by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

According to Strzhizhovskiy, the UK wanted to amend the document in a way that would have distorted its initial meaning.

Moscow previously rejected a 24-hour ultimatum from UK Prime Minister Theresa May to explain how what she says is a Soviet-engineered nerve agent called Novichok was brought into the UK to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

At the emergency UNSC meeting on Wednesday, the UK blamed Russia for “unlawful use of force” in the “attempted murder” of Skripal. The accusations were promptly backed by the US, which also pointed the finger at Russia while praising the UK response that included the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats.

https://www.rt.com/news/421340-uk-block-un-skripal/

[BenDhyan]

MOA makes some reasonable points imho, including for starters, the absence of actual real evidence there even was a poisoning...

Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart

March 14, 2018

The British government claims that 'Novichok' poisons, developed 30 years ago in the Soviet Union, affected a British double agent. But such substances may not exist at all. The British government further says that the Russian government is responsible for the incident and has announced penalties against the country.

A comparable incidents happened in 2001 in the United States. Envelopes with Anthrax spores were sent to various politicians. Some people died. The White House told the FBI to blame al-Qaeda but the Anthrax turned out to be from a U.S. chemical-biological weapon laboratory. The case is still unsolved.

The 'whistle-blower' who revealed the 'Novichok' program and its poisons published chemical formulas that should enable any decent laboratory to reproduce them. But neither the existence of the claimed program nor the existence of the alleged substances were ever accepted by the scientific community.

The highly constructed drama around the alleged poisoning of a British double agent Skripal and his daughter has thus turned into a surreal play. The British government has so far given no evidence that the Skripal's were poisoned at all, or that they were poisoned by someone else. No detailed medical bulletin was published. The British accusations against Russia lets one assume that a suicide attempt has been excluded. Why?

There is no independent evaluation of the alleged poison. The British government claims that its own chemical weapon laboratory at Porton Down, only a few miles from where the incident happened, has identified the poison as one of the 'Novichok' chemicals.

But in 2016 a leading chemist at Porton Down had doubts that such chemicals exist. (Tim Hayword and Craig Murray both point this out):

As recently as 2016 Dr Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at the UK’s only chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, a former colleague of Dr David Kelly, published in an extremely prestigious scientific journal that the evidence for the existence of Novichoks was scant and their composition unknown.

In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents, ‘Novichoks’ (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the ‘Foliant’ programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published. (Black, 2016)

continues...

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/theresa-mays-novichok-claims-fall-apart.html

[SonicG]

There were some good comments there at MOA about why isn't the specific poisoner being investigated or proof offered - witnesses CCTV etc. Also the fact, if it is weapons grade, why did it fail?

[Sounder]

J wrote...
Don't you realize you're single-handedly launching World War III by saying this?!?

This is chaff.

Wars do not start 'single-handedly, they start when the general population have been sufficiently conditioned to see the foreigner as an evil force that must be confronted.

People that participate in catapulting the propaganda are warmongers. Plain and simple.

Just like has already happened, many times.

There are learning opportunities for all but the morons among us.

[JackRiddler]

People that participate in catapulting the propaganda are warmongers. Plain and simple.

Radically untrue. Most of them are deceived. And it's not always obvious what is war propaganda.