dagblog - Comments for "UK: Former Russian Spy critically ill from unknown substance"

Good points. I note at

NCD — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 03:01:46 +0000

In reply to Yez. Wouldn't be surprised to

Good points. I note at Raymcgovern.com its all Deep State corruption, west forcing Putin to defend Russia, annex Crimea.

I guess the Deep State forced Putin to poison people in UK..??

Likely, now neither McGovern or Consortium will even mention this latest incident. It's too much a stretch to blame the US.

Consortium had a long analysis of the "travesty of justice" in attributing the Litvinenko polonium business on Russia, but they concluded, after paragraphs and paragraphs it's likely true.

I note Robert Parry has gone to a place where he no longer will devote himself to revealing the constant overwhelming mendacity perpetrated by the US government.

Yez. Wouldn't be surprised to

artappraiser — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 02:20:48 +0000

In reply to Waiting for Consortium News

Yez. Wouldn't be surprised to see some even blame the poisoning on the American hegemon trying to make it look like it waz Russians. It's always got to be that the American Empire is all powerful and is responsible for everything one way or another, doppelganger theory of American Exceptionalism.

What I am not handling well since Trump is that more and more the far righties are on board with the whole deep state thing that used to belong to the far left. And that effect seems to be infiltrating further and further into traditionally less nutsy folks. Since you mentioned it, I went to check Consortium News and what I found is a piece by Ray McGovern not only trying to make the case that the Jane Mayer of the New Yorker and the evil NYTimes in general are fake-news pumping anti-Russia hysteria, which I would expect, but also pointing to a recent Joe DiGenova op-ed (he of the the vast right wing Paula Jones conspiracy, along with wife Victoria Toensing) on possible Hillary crimes as "cogent"

It used to be so easy: the far right was for strong military/defense and aggressive foreign policy and weak Federal domestic government, and the far left vicey versa.

Sometimes it almost seems if our political system is moving to these two extremes: moderates on one side, radicals on the other. Sometimes the moderates are Clintonians, sometimes they are establishment GOP, what they have in common is that they are all elite educated cosmopolitans trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with crap like rationality and reason.

Strange bedfellows all. Boggles my mind sometimes, these new coalitions.

I know one thing: CNN's ad campaign that sometimes an apple is just an apple (and sometimes mother Russia really does just kill enemies) isn't going to get them new viewers. Ultra complex conspiratorial thinking is the true hysteria going on.

Waiting for Consortium News

NCD — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:51:57 +0000

In reply to Sergei Skripal believed to

Waiting for Consortium News or RT link to be posted by our usual doubter "proving Putin and the KGB were definitely innocent" of this poisoning.

Sergei Skripal believed to

artappraiser — Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:07:20 +0000

In reply to UK: Former Russian Spy critically ill from unknown substance

Sergei Skripal believed to have been poisoned with nerve agent

Investigators think nerve agent deliberately used on former spy and his daughter in Salisbury

By Vikram Dodd, Luke Harding & Ewen MacAskill @ TheGuardian.com, March 7

Investigators believe a nerve agent was used to poison the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury on Sunday.

It is believed to have been a deliberate act and the two victims are still critically ill in hospital.

The medical and chemical evidence and the effects on the victims point to a nerve agent. Sources would not discuss which one. The best known are VX and sarin.

Although further details are awaited, the suspicion in Downing Street will be that the Kremlin has carried out another brazen assassination operation on British soil.

Moscow will furiously deny involvement. But the prime minister, Theresa May, will have to consider how the government might respond should the scientific evidence point to Russia and its multiple spy outfits.

Scientists at Porton Down have assisted in the investigation, which is being led by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, SO15, with significant help from the intelligence agencies [....]

Ah yes, always cooperative.

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 12:20:23 +0000

In reply to Kremlin ‘ready to cooperate’

Ah yes, always cooperative.

Kremlin ‘ready to cooperate’

artappraiser — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 08:58:16 +0000

In reply to UK: Former Russian Spy critically ill from unknown substance

Kremlin ‘ready to cooperate’ over former spy’s illness in UK

By Kate de Pury @ A.P., March 6

MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin said Tuesday that Russia has not been approached by British authorities to help in an investigation over how and why a former Russian spy was found critically ill in a shopping mall in a town in southern England [.....]

The Guardian has published

artappraiser — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 03:33:08 +0000

In reply to UK: Former Russian Spy critically ill from unknown substance

The Guardian has published elaboration by Luke Harding, Steven Morris and Caroline Bannock:

Former Russian spy critically ill in UK 'after exposure to substance'

Sergei Skripal, 66, and woman in 30s found unconscious on bench in Salisbury shopping centre

[.....] is a Russian man who was exchanged in a high-profile “spy swap” in 2010, the Guardian understands. Sergei Skripal, 66, was one of four Russians exchanged for 10 deep cover “sleeper” agents planted by Moscow in the US.

Wiltshire police said that a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s were found unconscious on a bench in the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon.

Temporary assistant chief constable Craig Holden said that the pair were believed to have been known to each other and were in a critical condition. He added: “This has not been declared as a counter-terrorism incident and we would urge people not to speculate. “However, I must emphasise that we retain an open mind and we will continue to review this position.” [.....]

The sudden and unexplained illness will invite comparisons with the poisoning in 2006 of another Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, whose death sparked a major international incident.

Skripal is a former Russian army colonel who was convicted of passing the identities of Russian agents working undercover in Europe to MI6 in 2006. He arrived in the UK as part of a high-profile spy swap in 2010.

He was sentenced in August 2006 in Russia to 13 years in jail for spying for Britain after being convicted of “high treason in the form of espionage”. Russian prosecutors said he had been paid $100,000 (£72,000) by MI6 for information he had been supplying since the 1990s when he was a serving officer.

He was flown to the UK as part of an exchange that involved the notorious group of deep cover “sleeper” agents planted by Russia in the US, which included Anna Chapman, a diplomat’s daughter, being taken to Moscow.

It had been assumed that Skripal had been given a new identity, home, and pension. However [.....]