August 10, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

American Response to the Skripal Poisoning Case: A Mistake, Based on a Cover-up, Based on Fraud

Friends,

Once again Americans are being asked to believe the assessment of our intelligence agencies concerning a major diplomatic incident that may prove to have incalculable consequences for our foreign policy. But not only that, we are being asked to accept on faith the unproven, asserted “judgment” of the intelligence community of our ally Great Britain, specifically over the infamous Skripal poisoning incident that occurred this past March.

Following the lead of the Brits our nation is placing severe and new sanctions on the Russians, and that, it seemed, is all that Fox News and its Hydra-headed stable of sabre-rattling Neoconservative pundits and “experts” could talk about, and salivate about, earlier this week. You see, this proves to all those commentators and politicians further to the Left intent on painting President Trump with the “Russia collusion” brush that he could not have colluded, because he’s “being hard on the Russians.”

Thus, our Intel community accepts what the Brits have proffered, and our government acts upon it.  And we are supposed to have confidence in those findings?

A little history here: this is the very same Intel community that, following Hillary Clinton and her campaign, accepted the fake Christopher Steele dossier. This is the same Intel community that spied on the Trump campaign. This is the same Intel community that not only did its damnedest to prevent the election of Donald Trump, but since then has conspired on nearly every level to see him expelled from office, or at least wounded so badly politically, that his presidency becomes neutralized.

But, more: let’s venture back into the history of our supercilious Intel community which believes itself to be untouchable and above the law of the land…and for decades has believed that it had the right to determine American policy, and not just in foreign affairs.

Remember the so-called “solid proof” that Saddam Husein had chemical weapons of mass destruction? Recall Colin Powell going before the UN to demonstrate in all solemnity our iron clad “case,” only to find out later that the “proof” was fake, false, and fabricated?  Remember the pious declarations of George W. Bush and Paul Wolfowitz about “liberating” Iraq and removing the “threat of chemical weapons,” which we now know did not exist?

Or, what about the infamous “Gulf of Tonkin” incident and the resulting, hastily-adopted resolution by Congress that Lyndon Johnson then used to commit thousands of American men to Vietnam in a war which we never intended to win? Again, Johnson cited the “consensus of our Intelligence community,” and the result was thousands of dead and maimed Americans, and a Vietnam under Communism.

And World War II? Was it not Franklin Roosevelt’s manipulation of intelligence and his calculated maneuvering and severe sanctions on Imperial Japan that in some ways forced the Japanese into the only response that they could make? Was this not his “back door to war” in Europe that he so desperately desired to enter (as historians such as Professor Charles Tansill and others have documented)? And did not—again, as numerous investigators have now revealed—Roosevelt know fully well that the Japanese target would be Pearl Harbor, but fail to issue the proper warnings?  Talk about misuse of intelligence!

Even more, American entry into World War I was based largely on fraud and misinformation. Not just the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (which did indeed carry contraband armaments to England) and unjustified concerns over submarine warfare, but the purported and outlandish German “plan” to enlist Mexico in an alliance to reconquer the American Southwest, all spewed forth to stir up a frenzied anti-German hysteria that even President Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan recognized as “war madness.”

This latest extremely dubious incident, this supposed poisoning in England which made no sense whatsoever, is now being utilized to dictate American foreign policy. It is a huge mistake, based on a scarcely-concealed cover up, based on fraud.  Ever since it happened the Russian government has asked politely, then demanded, finally implored the British government to produce its “proof” that Russia, that the Russian government, was involved. And our allies the Brits have consistently refused.

Fascinating, is it not? “We got proof you did it, but we ain’t gonna tell you what it is!”

And that kind of Intel is what we base our foreign policy on? Not even Colin Powell would have gone to the UN with that kind of response!

Here is a portion of what I wrote about the Skripal case back on March 15 of this year [http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-15-2018-my-corner-by-boyd-cathey.html]:

“…what of this latest incident [the supposed chemical poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter] that has brought the foreign policy, pro-globalist Establishments—both leftist and pseudo-right—in London, Paris, Bonn…and Washington…together to condemn President Putin and Russia? What is the real truth here, and what are the deeper reasons for this most recent attempt to malign the Russians and their president?

 [….]
Strangely, the Brits have refused to allow the accused Russians to see any of the evidence they profess to possess in the Skripal case. In normal cases affecting more than one nation, the accused party is, at the very least, given an opportunity to view and examine the evidence being used to indict it. Prime Minister Theresa May—a full-fledged globalist—has refused to allow Russian authorities to see even the barest “facts” that the Brits say they have. May’s government states that they have consulted “international experts” who have verified the identity of the chemical that was used. However, we have no word of who these experts are or what were the criteria used for their selection, and their reports have not been made public.

“In other words, the Russians are being told that they must prove the negative, prove their innocence, but without knowing the details involved in the charges lodged against them…other than a nerve agent—purportedly Novichok—was administered as the poison. Novichok is a nerve agent that Russia produced from 1973 until the early 1980s. And since then, as verified internationally, Russian chemical stores were destroyed. Samples of Novichok continue to exist, however, in Western repositories.

“In such cases as the Skripal case, the fundamental question that must be asked is always: Cui bono? To whose benefit is the action? And in this case, even the most obtuse international observer must—or should—acknowledge that the Russians and their president had absolutely nothing to gain from attempting to assassinate Skripal.

“In the early 1990s Skripal was recruited by the British as an agent and worked for them until arrested by the Russians in 2004. After serving a prison term in Russia from 2006 until 2010 for his spying, he was exchanged and moved to England where he lived peacefully and without publicity until this year. Why would the Russians—eight years after the end of his prison punishment and eight years after his exchange—wish to employ such an obvious poison, in public view, to take out someone who had ceased to be of any importance or threat to them?

“On the other hand, there is very solid and intriguing data—not broadcast, of course, by the hysterical Russophobes on Fox or MSNBC—which can be adduced that Skripal’s attempted assassination had something to do with the Steele Dossier, and, yes, the ongoing campaign to malign and isolate Russia because of its opposition to and disruption of the globalist goals of an evolving international New World Order.

“Just as in the case of another “false flag” operation, in Syria back in 2017, where the detailed and comprehensive scientific examination (April 17, 2017) by Theodore A. Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT [https://www.globalresearch.ca/assessment-of-white-house-intelligence-report-about-nerve-agent-attack-in-khan-shaykhun-syria/5584867] totally disproved the assertion that the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad (with Russian support) had gassed the village of Khan Shaykun, this poisoning near Salisbury, England, has all the earmarks of an ideologically sharpened attack, using massaged and incomplete (and potentially compromising) details that might place in doubt, if fully revealed, the accusations.

“Again, notice the symmetry: the unhinged Neoconservatives, the Russophobic denizens of the Deep State, the far Left and Democratic Party fanatics all stand united and together. [….] There is a diabolical method in this madness: Russia has become the object of their collective hatred. For the dominant Neocons, it’s the fact that Russia will not bow to their demands for liberal democracy and economic subinfeudation, that Russia refuses to sacrifice its national sovereignty to the globalists and their objectives. And thus Fox is featuring—are you prepared for this?—such “experts” as far Leftist journalist Michael Issikoff and staunch Democrat publicist, Doug Schoen, to confirm and bolster their vitriol. And in this they embrace fully the similar aims of the farther Left—to bring down at any cost, including military means, the renaissance of a nationalist and anti-globalist Russia where tradition and religion are far more important today than they are in the decaying West.  

“British attorney and researcher, James O’Neil, has authored an excellently prepared essay on this topic, exploring the connections between the Skripal case and Christopher Steele, and to whose advantage an assassination would be.  You will not see this information reported by the “united front” of Fox News-MSNBC-CNN-The Washington Post-The New York Times. You will not see or read these potentially incriminating questions raised…questions that should be raised and aired for the future of the American nation. [See, James O’Neil, “The Strange Case of the Russian Spy Poisoning,” March 11, 2018, at: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/13/the-strange-case-of-the-russian-spy-poisoning/]  

And since then there have been updates that confirm what I wrote on March 15. Chemical tests conducted by independent laboratories in Switzerland [April 16, 2018] indicate that the chemical agent Novichok was made in England…and not in Russia [http://theduran.com/uk-involved-in-skripal-poisoning-not-russia-evidence-from-swiss-lab-shows/?mc_cid=fea32e83a0&mc_eid=42e11870e2]. And, recall, a couple of months after the Skripal case, additional Brits were diagnosed with chemical poisoning by the chemical agent Novichok.  Yet, they had absolutely no connection whatsoever to Russia, none at all. Do the Russkies simply go around poisoning folks at random, or, rather, is this a case where Britain has just been a bit sloppy in maintaining its own stores of the dangerous chemical…and the Intel agencies find it a convenient means of incriminating Russia and its president?  

Back in March, after the Skripal incident, Pat Buchanan wrote a column. At the time I don’t think I shared it with you, but I do so today:

Did Putin Order the Salisbury Hit?

http://buchanan.org/blog/did-putin-order-the-salisbury-hit-128936

By Patrick J. Buchanan    Tuesday - March 20, 2018

Britain has yet to identify the assassin who tried to murder the double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England.  But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knows who ordered the hit.  "We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was (Russian President Vladimir Putin's) decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K."

"Unforgivable," says Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov of the charge, which also defies "common sense." On Sunday, Putin echoed Peskov: "It is just sheer nonsense, complete rubbish, to think that anyone in Russia could do anything like that in the run-up to the presidential election and the World Cup. ... It's simply unthinkable."  Putin repeated Russia's offer to assist in the investigation.  But Johnson is not backing down; he is doubling down. "We gave the Russians every opportunity to come up with an alternative hypothesis ... and they haven't," said Johnson. "We actually have evidence ... that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok," the poison used in Salisbury.

Why Russia is the prime suspect is understandable. Novichok was created by Russia's military decades ago, and Skripal, a former Russian intel officer, betrayed Russian spies to MI6.

But what is missing here is the Kremlin's motive for the crime.  Skripal was convicted of betraying Russian spies in 2006. He spent four years in prison and was exchanged in 2010 for Russian spies in the U.S. If Putin wanted Skripal dead as an example to all potential traitors, why didn't he execute him while he was in Kremlin custody?  Why wait until eight years after Skripal had been sent to England? And how would this murder on British soil advance any Russian interest?
 

Putin is no fool. A veteran intelligence agent, he knows that no rival intel agency such as the CIA or MI6 would trade spies with Russia if the Kremlin were to go about killing them after they have been traded.

"Cui bono?" runs the always relevant Ciceronian question. "Who benefits" from this criminal atrocity?  Certainly, in this case, not Russia, not the Kremlin, not Putin.

All have taken a ceaseless beating in world opinion and Western media since the Skripals were found comatose, near death, on that bench outside a mall in Salisbury.

Predictably, Britain's reaction has been rage, revulsion and retaliation. Twenty-three Russian diplomats, intelligence agents in their London embassy, have been expelled. The Brits have been treating Putin as a pariah and depicting Russia as outside the circle of civilized nations.  Russia is "ripping up the international rulebook," roared Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson. Asked how Moscow might respond to the expulsions, Williamson retorted: Russia should "go away and shut up."

Putin sympathizers, including Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, have been silenced or savaged as appeasers for resisting the rush to judgment.

The Americans naturally came down on the side of their oldest ally, with President Donald Trump imposing new sanctions.  We are daily admonished that Putin tried to tip the 2016 election to Trump. But if so, why would Putin order a public assassination that would almost compel Trump to postpone his efforts at a rapprochement?

Who, then, are the beneficiaries of this atrocity? Is it not the coalition — principally in our own capital city — that bears an endemic hostility to Russia and envisions America's future role as a continuance of its Cold War role of containing and corralling Russia until we can achieve regime change in Moscow?

What should Trump's posture be? Stand by our British ally but insist privately on a full investigation and convincing proof before taking any irreversible action.

Was this act really ordered by Putin and the Kremlin, who have not only denied it but condemned it?  Or was it the work of rogue agents who desired the consequences that they knew the murder of Skripal would produce — a deeper and more permanent split between Russia and the West? Only a moron could not have known what the political ramifications of such an atrocity as this would be on U.S.-British-Russian relations.

And before we act on Boris Johnson's verdict — that Putin ordered it — let us recall:

The Spanish, we learned, did not actually blow up the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which ignited the Spanish-American War.  The story of North Vietnamese gunboats attacking U.S. destroyers, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 58,000 dead Americans in Vietnam, proved not to be entirely accurate.  We went to war in Iraq in 2003 to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction we later discovered Saddam Hussein did not really have. Some 4,500 U.S. dead and tens of thousands of wounded paid for that rush to judgment. And some of those clamoring for war then are visible in the vanguard of those clamoring for confronting Russia.

Before we set off on Cold War II with Russia — leading perhaps to the shooting war we avoided in Cold War I — let's try to get this one right.