Novi-Fog™
In Fleet Street - Truth Cut Off
4
April, 2018
BERLIN
(Reuters) - Britain
needs to show proof that
Russia was behind last month’s poisoning of a former Russian double
agent and his daughter in England, the German government’s
coordinator for Russia said on Thursday.
Gernot
Erler said pressure was rising on Prime Minister Theresa May’s
government after Britain’s military research centre, at Porton
Down, said on Tuesday it could not say yet whether the nerve agent
used in the attack had been produced in Russia.
“That
contradicts what we had previously heard from British politicians and
will certainly raise the pressure
on Britain to show further proof that the traces plausibly point to
Moscow,”
Erler told German broadcaster ARD.
Armin
Laschert, head of Germany's most populous state North
Rhine-Westphalia and near to Merkel, also questioned the
British behavior.
The
international loss of trust for the British claims is serious. Unless
the UK government comes up with a very plausible story with some real
evidence behind it no serious European official will lend it any
further support. And no, holding up a tube of white powder will not
be enough.
Opposition
leader Jeremy Corbyn, who's skepticism convinced 165 countries to not
fall for Boris Johnson's lies, says that
Johnson has to answer "serious questions".
The
spin-masters of the May government throw Novi-Fog™ into Fleet
Street to prevent that.
Operation
'Save Boris' fills the Fleet Street papers with more lies. It claims
that secret intelligence, which can
not even
be shown to the opposition leader, proves that Russia tested how
to smear the nerve agent 'Novichok' on doorknobs:
Police
said last week they believed Russian ex-double agent Sergei Skripal
and his daughter were poisoned at home in Salisbury via their front
door.
Now
agents have confirmed that Putin's
scientists carried out experiments looking at its effectiveness on
door handles before
the March 3[sic!] attack.
A
security source told the Daily Mail: "We have intelligence that
goes beyond Russia made Novichok and stockpiled it.
"We
have evidence that they also explored using it as an assassination
weapon including on areas such as door handles and everyday objects."
"Putin's
scientists" experimented and found that two persons leaving a
home will both touch the exterior doorknob and reliably infect
themselves with a rain-resistant, "military grade" nerve
agent which several hours later has a similar sudden effect on a 33
year old healthy women and a 66 year old man with serious diabetes.
That indeed sounds quite plausible to me (not).
More
Novi-Fog™:
The
Times was
told that the spies found the source of the nerve agent. But the
piece is extremely vague and makes little sense:
There
are two different sources: 1. "Security services" which say
they know the source but neither name it, nor pin the location to
Russia and 2. a Whitehall spin-master who points to Russia.
Some
photo editor made sense of what the "security services"
said and introduced the Times piece
with a picture of the likely source:
Behind
the wall of Novi-Fog™ all the
outrageous claims the
government made about the case get pushed down the memory hole.
Meanwhile
Victoria Skripal, a cousin of Yulia Skripal, claims to
have been called by Yulia and told that everything is fine. In
response(?) the Metropolitan Police claims to
have a statement from Yulia in which she also says that everything is
fine. Neither claim is verifiable and both might well be wrong.
Theresa
May's government is in serious trouble. It tries to spin its way out
of its lies. But the time is working against it. The fog will rise:
The
OPCW investigation, to which Russia was denied access, will not help
May to make a case against Russia. In the best case for May it will
come up with a similar result as Porton Down. It might say that some
nerve agent was used on the Skripals but that it is impossible to
pin it to a source. It might say that it can not identify the nerve
agent at all. It may find nothing.
Yulia
Skripal will have to be released from hospital and is likely to fly
home to Russia. She will talk. She is unlikely to know anything that
could help May, but might well say something that lets the whole
story fall apart. She will have to watch her back.
Britain's
allies are miffed. They have been lied to and damaged their
relations with Russia for no good reason. The Brexit negotiations
will become more difficult as Brussels has lost trust in any British
claim or commitment.
Russia
will continue to attack May while she has lost the protection from
her allies.
The
upcoming local elections could well go against the Tories. In 2004
the Spanish Prime Minister Aznar blamed the Basque ETA for the
Madrid train bombing. That was exposed as a lie and he
lost his
lead in the polls, the election and his job. When the Skripal case
broke and was pinned to Russia the Tories rose in the polls. But the
fall after the exposure of the lies will probably be of equal size.
What
will the British government to get out of this situation?
---
Previous Moon
of Alabama reports
on the Skripal case:
According
to Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn made him lie about the Salisbury
poisoning…
4
April, 2018
Boris
Johnson has been accused of ‘misleading the public’. He stated
that experts from Porton Down were “absolutely categorical” that
Russia was the source of novichok, the nerve agent that poisoned
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March.
But
on 3 April, Porton Down said it could not identify the “precise
source” of the novichok. And then, on 4 April, it also emerged that
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had deleted a tweet that
also claimed the nerve agent was “produced in Russia”.
Amid
calls for his resignation, Johnson’s answer was… to blame Jeremy
Corbyn. Obviously.
“Lamentable”
Johnson
issued a series of tweets outlining his position. Firstly, he blamed
Corbyn:
Next,
he outlined his “key facts”:
It
is true that Corbyn urged caution before jumping to conclusions about
the source of the novichok. And this sent right-wing media into a
frenzy. But it now seems Johnson is also blaming Corbyn for his own
words to a German media outlet:
And
Corbyn is also probably responsible for the actions of the FCO, of
course:
Really,
Boris?
After
a month of near-constant smear campaigns against Corbyn, many on
Twitter were quick to challenge Johnson’s version of events:
Just
in case you haven't figured it out:
But
as diplomatic tensions rise between the UK and Russia, Johnson’s
‘error’ has serious implications. So calls to #SackBorisJohnson
are spreading across Twitter:
It's
clear Boris Johnson's comments about Russia were inaccurate. With
tensions across the world high enough as it is, such behaviour is
unacceptable for a Foreign Minister. He must go.#SackBorisJohnson
As
The Canary previously reported, BBC News coverage of recent events
has also received widespread criticism. But as lawyer and activist
Peter Stefanovic points out, the BBC also failed to accurately report
Johnson’s statement:
But
others have not been afraid to call Johnson an outright liar:
Corbyn
clearly stated that Johnson “needs to answer some questions”. And
he went on to say that Johnson has “egg on his face for the
statement he made on German television”:
The
latest announcement is that Russia’s request to the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for a joint
investigation into this case was voted down. On 5 April, Russia has
called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council – a move
that the FCO has already called “diversionary tactics”. And this
suggests that relations between the UK and Russia look set to
deteriorate further.
‘War
is peace’
According
to The Moscow Times, Sergei Naryshkin (head of Russia’s foreign
intelligence service – SVR) warned of “‘unprecedented
hypocrisy’ and a Cold War mentality” from the West, and said:
In
fact all the norms that regulate intergovernmental relations are
given precisely the opposite meanings.
Naryshkin
reportedly went on to quote George Orwell’s famous line: “War is
Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.”
As
Johnson blames Corbyn, who is so open in his opposition to war,
chemical weapons and the government handling of this case, Orwell’s
words do seem alarmingly accurate.
Posts
#IStandWithJeremyCorbyn
