COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"Putin tightens
grip on power"
God, The Independent is packed with garbage about Russia
today. It resembles an all-out propaganda assault.
Putin remains extremely popular, and greatly admired, in
Russia, and he is about to be reelected.
It is hard to see that as "tightens his grip on power,"
unless you are in the habit of using words with little sense of meaning.
He will be reelected, and with a majority any British or
American politician can only envy, regardless of the clownish efforts of
Theresa May and Boris Johnson and the British corporate press, very much
including The Independent and The Guardian.
Your big spread on the chemical agent, Novichok, a nerve
agent indeed first created by Russians, is loaded with innuendo and you have
permitted no comment there.
Here are some fundamental facts about this material, whose
very presence in Salisbury is the only known evidence for accusing Russia of
attempted murder.
It exists in several jurisdictions in the world, very much
including some former Soviet Republics, and notably Ukraine.
It is not some totally unique substance either. Several such
binary nerve agents exist, including a comparable one stocked heavily by
Americans called Sarin.
Apparently, a formula for the Russian-discovered Novichok
was actually published in a book, a book published by a Russian dissident
scientist Vil Mirzayanov, about ten years ago.
Experts have told us that any competent large chemical
laboratory can synthesize the stuff. It is not truly exotic science.
Apparently when Britain's own chemical weapons experts at
Porton Down, a big facility just miles from Salisbury, were asked to confirm
that the chemical was of Russian manufacture, they declined to do so.
Their verbal formulation is “of a type developed by Russia”
- the exact weasel words used.
So, on the basis of such "evidence," the Prime
Minister runs around much like a chicken missing her head and Britain's Foreign
Minister, the ever-erratic and often buffoonish, Boris Johnson, publicly
charges Russia's President with murder.
It's astonishing and unacceptable to any thinking and
informed person for international affairs to be subjected to such an earthquake
on the basis of these extremely foolish people Britain has in charge of
government.
I say "foolish" but what I really mean is
"dishonest."
The world is seeing a Conservative government repeat the
utterly shabby behavior it saw from the Labour government of much-detested Tony
Blair in the run-up to the Iraq invasion with his phony dossier and the
mysterious death of weapons expert, Doctor Kelly.
Of course, this all really just reflects American pressure
and an effort to throw still more mud at Russia, to influence Russia's
election, and perhaps to upset Russia's FIFA World Cup events.
Americans have done badly in their dark and murderous
efforts in both Syria and Ukraine. A great chess player has them in a place
they very much do not like being. After all, this is America, the most powerful
nation of all time declaring what it wants to happen. How dare a place like
Russia thwart its will to run everything and everyone?
Just terrible and irresponsible.
It is interesting, too, that Europeans have been left to
lead the charge this time. Trump gives vague statements of support, but so far,
we’ve not heard anything like Boris Johnson’s libelous and shameful
accusations, and we all know Trump is not a man to shy away from blubbering
libelous and shameful accusations. He makes them all the time.
This brings to mind that one extraordinary question
journalist Megyn Kelly put to President Putin, about why he thinks Trump is
always so deferential towards him. That question holds the captivating
suggestion that Putin has embarrassing information about Trump, information
which he quietly holds in reserve. I doubt it would have anything at all to do
with the idiotic stuff about Russian-Trump relationships, but it would be some
damning personal stuff, perhaps along the lines of Trump’s now-publicized
affair with a porn star not long after he was married. Perhaps worse.
AFTERWARD: There's actually more to add, since Iran,
under international supervision, a while ago demonstrated it is possible to
synthesize Novichoks from commercially available chemicals.
AFTERWARD – ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RELATED TO NOVICHOK:
New facts and important considerations related to the
supposed attack in Britain with the nerve agent, Novichok, appear regularly. I
append some here.
A Russian scientist, expert in these matters, made some
excellent points. He said it is not possible to positively identify such a
material without possessing samples. So, Britain’s Porton Down facility must
possess samples. He said further that the very fact that the alleged victims
have not died is proof that the antidote was administered to them. Who did
that? And under what circumstances?
I saw another interesting anecdote, from a British person,
in the comments to a story on the Internet. He said that during an event with
which he was familiar, an anthrax-attack scare, the entire district was
immediately closed down and evacuated by authorities. It does seem rather
mysterious that the same measures would not have immediately been taken in
Salisbury.
At this writing, the British government has still not
supplied a scrap of evidence to Russia despite requests. That must strike any
fair-minded person as extremely odd. After all, the supposed victim was a
Russian national, and his government has every right to such information. The
Russians certainly are entitled to view the matter as a terrorist attack in
which the British government refuses to share information.
Of course, the timing of this entire affair is very
suspicious. It follows serious threats of an American attack against Syrian
troops in the Damascus area. Russia responded in unusually blunt language to
this threat. The head of Russia’s armed faces told the Americans that any
attacks in areas where Russian troops and personnel were working would result
in not only in the attacking missiles being targeted but also whatever source,
as a ship, from which they were launched. The attack appears to have been
stopped, but this intense noise of unsupported accusations in Britain seems
part of a further response, part of American discontent at not being to do as
it pleases.
