Censorship, fake news, perception management

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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:02 pm

The ‘independent media’ that exist to attack independent media
The enemy’s supposed to hate it: Beeley and Bartlett under attack again.

Image

Saturday 7 April 2018

A disturbing (but not surprising) new phenomenon has been brought to our attention recently: the emergence of new and apparently ‘independent’ media, whose journalists present themselves as being opposed to and outside of the corporate narrative, but who then go on to use whatever credentials this appearance gives them to train their fire on the few voices that really are prepared to call out the lies of the warmongering ‘mainstream’ imperialist media.

In a recent article in Proletarian, we analysed the Guardian’s vicious attack on Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and others whose work has done so much to expose the lies that are put out to ‘justify’ the unjustifiable war against Syria. (See Blunt hatchets: Guardian attempts to discredit real journalism on Syria, February 2018)

Who is behind Newsbud?
The vitriolic voices of the corporate liberal warmongers at the Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 and the BBC have recently been swelled by another, less obviously imperialist-aligned source: the apparently independent outfit Newsbud, whose tagline is ‘Where media integrity matters’, and which claims to be completely non-partisan and audience-funded. It also presents itself as being on the side of the Syrian people and government, and against the imperialist war against Syria.

A recent video entitled Syria under siege: guarding against wolves in sheep’s clothing, Newsbud’s founding editor Sibel Edmonds started by presenting the situation in Syria as one that is so complex and ‘multifaceted’ as to be impenetrable to outsiders.

Having made such banal but apparently unarguable observations as that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, she went on to talk emotionally about the fate of babies and children who are killed in war, and proceeded, with her co-presenter Spiro Skouras, to deliver an increasingly hysterical 75-minute tirade against the independent reporters Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett, who, she claims, have fundamentally failed to abide by the essential standards and ethics of independent journalism, and who are guilty of the most heinous crimes and disinformation besides.

For a detailed deconstruction of the malicious content contained in the report, we recommend our readers watch Fact checking Newsbud’s ‘Syria under siege’ video by James Corbett of the Corbett Report website.

The only conclusion one can come to having watched both Corbett’s video and the Newsbud piece is that Newsbud is not at all what it pretends to be. No doubt an investigation into these investigators is overdue.

Singing from the imperialist hymnsheet
Tellingly, the main points that the Newsbud report made about Eva and Vanessa are along identical lines to those that were made in the Guardian hit-piece back in January. These include:

– That the two reporters have no journalistic qualifications and are not well versed in middle-eastern politics.

– That they spread ‘disinformation’ that harms the Syrian cause.

– That their pointing out that there are doctors in such organisations as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), etc working to support the terrorist agenda is an outrageous lie and absolutely beyond the pale. Doctors are, it is maintained by Edmonds, completely beyond reproach and are all motivated entirely by humanitarian concerns and the Hippocratic oath, and to call this into question is the most horrendous crime against journalism and human decency. (It is worth noting here that MSF was described recently by Syrian ambassador to the UN Dr Bashar al-Jaafari as a branch of the French intelligence service.)

– That they are denouncing innocent journalists online (“issuing fatwas”), and also reporting them to the authorities in Britain, the US and Syria, and asking for them to be jailed

– That they are 100 percent supportive of the Syrian government to the point of losing all credibility.

– That their funding is mysterious and dodgy, and that their claims to be self or crowd-funded are bogus.

– That they haven’t really seen what they claim to have seen, but spend their time in Syria in plush hotels in Damascus and the odd package tour and day trip.

– That they are arrogant ego-maniacs, with a personal agenda of self-promotion, who hope to get famous and make money out of the war in Syria.

– That they wrongly describe all those whom they oppose, or who oppose them, as being ‘not real Syrians’.

– That any useful work they have done was all plagiarised (a charge denied by at least one of the authors – Cory Morningstar – they are alleged to have ‘stolen’ from!)

In summation, the Newsbud team would appear to share the imperialist media’s outrage that a few independent voices have been able, through dogged work and the systematic use of social media, to bring true information to those who are keen enough to search it out, that they have exposed the imperialist lie machine and its presstitutes for what they are, and that their audience is growing as the national-liberation forces in Syria win victory after victory.

Going one step further than the hints in the Guardian hit-piece, the Newsbud report ended with an explicit call to the Syrian government to stop allowing Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett into Syria, to the independent media to stop giving them a platform, and to social media outlets to ban their content, including an impassioned call for systematic censorship of social media, whether self-censorship instituted by platforms such as Facebook and Twitter or censorship imposed by governments from outside.

The video has been followed up by a concerted campaign by Sibel Edmonds on Twitter to try to get various independent media outlets to drop all connection with the two reporters, where she describes them as ‘fake activists’, ‘communists’ and embezzlers, besides hurling the most egregious of personal insults at them (all in the interests of promoting ‘ethical journalism’, of course).

Connections to communists
The report also referred to the two having received funding from the ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’. Since we assume that Ms Edmonds is referring to our party, the CPGB-ML, we wish to make it quite clear, for the record, that we do not fund and have never funded the work of either Vanessa Beeley or Eva Bartlett.

This is not because we do not think their work is worth funding, or because we would be ashamed to be connected with them. Quite the reverse. We make no secret of the fact that we consider the work they have done in smashing the narrative of the imperialist war propaganda machine to be more useful and more effective in laying the groundwork for a real anti-war movement than anything that has been done in 15 years by the Stop the War coalition (StW). Presumably, this is why StW never invites either of them to speak on its platform.

This is why we have helped to organise meetings at which they have spoken (one for Vanessa in Birmingham last year; one for Eva in London this January), and have mobilised for meetings in Bristol, Frome, London and Derry put on by other organisations. Unfortunately, since we are a small party and very low on funds, although we would have liked to have given more, the most either Vanessa or Eva received from us on each occasion was a train ticket, a meal and a bed for the night.

We make this clear not because we feel there would be anything wrong in our funding their work to a greater extent, but to illustrate how the “triple fact-checking” Sibel and her colleagues go about their business. We have no idea who informed her that we were funding Vanessa and Eva, but it was not a member of our party’s leadership, none of whom has been contacted to verify the claim.

No doubt such claims are also meant to discourage people from paying any attention to the testimony of Vanessa or Eva on the basis that if they receive funding from or associate in any way with communists, anything they have to say must necessarily be suspect. This is a well-worn bourgeois trope that doesn’t need dissecting in this article, except to note in passing that affiliation to the bourgeois Labour party, with the blood of millions on its hands, is never used in this way by such anti-communists.

A plea for censorship and repression
Accusing Vanessa and Eva of being “fake activists” and of conducting “vicious violent and malicious operations”, Edmonds goes on to call on “you the people, who value human decency”, and ends her report by making an impassioned plea for action to be taken against the “dangerous duo”:

“Any of you who is against online violence, profanity and terrorising, take it upon yourself to make it your priority to stop this operation. Do whatever you deem appropriate, for the sake of thousands of Syrian civilians, hundreds of decent journalists and activists, whose lives have been endangered, dozens of doctors who have been facing death threats …”

As James Corbett pointed out in the video cited above: “This is a concerted 75-minute in-depth hate piece that then ends with the launching of this campaign for ‘ethical journalism’ and ‘human decency’, which so far has only been and only is a drive to get Beeley and Bartlett expunged from the internet.”

Imperialism in trouble
The Newsbud report actually illustrates the weakness of the imperialists: they are on the run in Syria and their impotent rage is showing in such crude hit-pieces as we are now witnessing. The fact that such ‘mainstream’ outlets as the Guardian are no longer sufficient to the task of destroying an opponent’s credibility speaks volumes about the increasing lack of trust of official news outlets and the growing audience for independent sources of information about the world.

The campaign against media channels such as RT and Press TV, the growing clamour for censorship of social media, and the direct attacks on reporter-activists like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett are all symptoms of this rage and of the imperialists’ fear that they are losing their hold on the minds of the workers at home.

For our part, we can only see this latest attack as a sign that Ms Beeley and Ms Bartlett, and others like them, are doing useful and effective work, and they should take it as a compliment that they are being singled out for such treatment.

As the 19th-century Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov wrote:
I hear the sound of approbation
Not in the dulcet tones of praise,
But in the roar of irritation.

https://www.cpgb-ml.org/2018/04/07/news ... t-newsbud/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:07 pm

New Developments In The Skripal Drama - Police Statement, OPCW Report Release
There are a few notable developments in the Skripal case about the poisoning of a former British secret agent from Russia and his daughter in Salisbury.

(If you are new to the issue please refer to our older pieces listed below. You may want to start with The Best Explanation For The Skripal Drama Is Still ... Food Poisoning.)

On Sunday Yulia Skripal was secretly released from the Salisbury District Hospital but immediately taken into British government custody. She is under guard at an unknown location. Yesterday the Metropolitan Police released a Statement issued on behalf of Yulia Skripal:

"I have specially trained officers available to me, who are helping to take care of me and to explain the investigative processes that are being undertaken. I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can. At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them.
"Most importantly, I am safe and feeling better as time goes by, but I am not yet strong enough to give a full interview to the media, as I one day hope to do. Until that time, I want to stress that no one speaks for me, or for my father, but ourselves. I thank my cousin Viktoria for her concern for us, but ask that she does not visit me or try to contact me for the time being. Her opinions and assertions are not mine and they are not my father's.
"For the moment I do not wish to speak to the press or the media, and ask for their understanding and patience whilst I try to come to terms with my current situation."

While written in quotes it is doubtful that Yulia Skripal expressed any of these words. "At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services" is British bureaucratese, not the wording any Russian (or anyone else) with English as a second language would ever use.

The Russian embassy in Britain seriously doubts that the letter is from Yulia Skripal. It notes that despite the claim that Yulia has "access to friends and family" none of her nearest family members, who are in Russia, was recently contacted by her. It also notes a contradiction:

Particularly amazing is the phrase “no one speaks for me” appearing in a statement which, instead of being read on camera by Yulia herself, is published at Scotland Yard website.
(The embassy also published a refutation of earlier British government accusations.)

In discussing the police statement the former British ambassador Craig Murray suggests that Yulia Skripal Is Plainly Under Duress:

It strikes me as inherently improbable that, when Yulia called her cousin as her first act the very moment she was able, she would now issue a formal statement through Scotland Yard forbidding her cousin to be in touch or visit. I simply do not believe this British Police statement.


Today the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released the summary of a technical finding of the substance that allegedly injured Sergej and Yulia Skripal.

The British state media BBC headlines: Russian spy poisoning: Nerve agent inspectors back UK

The report itself does not holdup to the headline claim:

The international chemical weapons watchdog has confirmed the UK's analysis of the type of nerve agent used in the Russian ex-spy poisoning.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons did not name the nerve agent as Novichok, but said it agreed with the UK's findings on its identity.

The British government accused Russia as having caused the incident with a 'nerve agent'. In no way does the OPCW confirm any of those claims. Its press release only states:

The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirm the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people.
Some unnamed 'toxic chemical' was found by Porton Down and the OPCW confirmed that Porton Down was correct in its chemical analysis.

Neither in its press statement nor in its public Summary Report (pdf) does the OPCW speak of finding a 'nerve agent'. But what is this 'toxic chemical'? Saxitoxin, a natural poison that causes Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) which would be consistent with the symptoms the Skripals showed shortly after eating a Risotto Pesce with mussels? Or some artificial agent designed as chemical weapon? Neither the OPCW nor Porton Down will say.

The BBC continues:

The OPCW does identify the toxic chemical by its complex formula but only in the classified report that has not been made public.
Early involvement of the OPCW, as demanded by Russia, was resisted by the British government. Only on March 14, ten days after the incident happened and two days after Prime Minister Theresa may had made accusations against Russia, did the British government invite the OPCW. Only on March 19, 15 days after the incident happen did the OPCW technical team arrive and took blood samples.

Nowhere does the OPCW support the British claims of a 'Novichok' nerve agent nor does it support the British accusations made against Russia.

---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:

March 8 - Poisioned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign
March 12 - Theresa May's "45 Minutes" Moment
March 14 - Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart
March 16 - The British Government's 'Novichok' Drama Was Written By Whom?
March 18 - NHS Doctor: "No Patients Have Experienced Symptoms Of Nerve Agent Poisoning In Salisbury"
March 21 - Russian Scientists Explain 'Novichok' - High Time For Britain To Come Clean (Updated)
March 29 - Last Act Of 'Novichok' Drama Revealed - "The Skripals' Resurrection"
March 31 - Hillary Clinton Ordered Diplomats To Suppress 'Novichok' Discussions
April 3 - Operation Hades Blamed Russia - A Model For The 'Novichok' Claims?
April 4 - It's The Cover-Up" - UK Foreign Office Deletes Tweet, Posts False Transcript, Issues New Lies
April 5 - Novi-Fog™ In Fleet Street - Truth Cut Off
April 6 - The Best Explanation For The Skripal Drama Is Still ... Food Poisoning
April 7 - A Very British Farce
Posted by b on April 12, 2018 at 08:46 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/ne ... lease.html

The wheels are falling off this scam and only the so-called 4th Estate can shore it up long enough for it to become fact in the common memory.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 13, 2018 11:43 pm

Syria - Manipulated Videos Fail To Launch World War III
It seems to me that World War III has been called off - for now. Sanity prevailed over a stampede of warmongering which erupted after dubious but well timed claims of a 'chemical attack' in Syria.

Secretary of Defense Mattis let know of his doubts about alleged 'chemical attack' which the 'rebels' attributed to the Syrian government. This changed the tone of Donald Trump's tweets and the international conversations on the issue. Several NATO countries, including Germany and Canada, said they would not take part in any threatened 'revenge' operation.

Today the Russian Defense Ministry accused Britain of having directed the staged attack:

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, released statements by medics from Douma’s hospital who said a group of people toting video cameras entered the hospital, shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons and causing panic. The medics said none of the patients were hurt by chemicals.
Here are videos of that hospital scenes from the 'rebel' propaganda outlets. The 'treatment' by the 'rebels', dousing with water and administering some asthma spray, is unprofessional and many of the 'patients' seem to have no real problem. It is theater. The real medical personal is seen in the background working on a real patient.

The people in the video scenes were "rent-a-mob" actors which the Russians say they have found. They also found the medics and videotaped their statements. They Russian government claims to know the main culprit:

"Today, the Russian defense ministry has other evidence proving the United Kingdom’s direct involvement in the organization of this provocation in Eastern Ghouta," [Igor Konashenkov, the defense ministry’s spokesman] said.
An OPCW technical team has arrived in Damascus. It will investigate the scene and talk to the witnesses.

Cause of the recent panic were a few videos by several propaganda outlets associated with Takfiri 'rebels' in Ghouta. These videos immediately looked staged to me. Yes, they showed dead people - mainly children - in a basement or apartment. But the bodies were not in the place where they had died and were probably not, as was claimed, killed by chemical weapons.

In the videos some 20 dead children and a few women lie on the floor as if they were thrown in there. The scene was obviously manipulated several times. The various videos show the bodies in different positions. They have been moved around for presentation. Later videos show, for example, a baby in diapers on top of two older kids. In an earlier video that baby is not there.

The 'rebel' claim that the people were killed by chlorine and a nerve agent: "Look, the dead have foam at their mouth." (Foam at the mouth is wrongly assumed to be a sure symptom of exposure to a nerve agent.)

Yes, they have foam at their mouth. But it seems to be shaving foam and/or some white gel, not a human secretion. We have seen this trick before.

Compare for example this video from the scene uploaded by فادي عبد الله on Apr 7, 2018 at 20:49:26 UTC with this video from the same scene by Yaser AlDoumani2 uploaded on Apr 7, 2018 at 22:43:16 UTC.

A screenshot from the first video (graphic):

Image

The corridor where the cameraman stands at that moment is filled with dead bodies. The body with the white bonnet on its head lies in a backroom. The detail picture below is turned 180 degree:

Image

A screenshot from the second video. The body with the white bonnet has been moved from the backroom to the corridor and added to a pile of other bodies.

Image

Detail of the body with the white bonnet turned 180 degree:

Image

It is the same body with the same cloth in a different position. It seems obvious that shaving cream or something similar has been added to the body after it was moved. The shaving cream simulates "foaming at the mouth".

Stephen McIntyre found and collected several other discrepancies between the various videos from the scene.

The people shown have died. They probably suffocated after a shelter collapsed as the Syrian Observatory reported on that day. But the videos were likely not made at the scene of that incident. The bodies had been moved and manipulated. There were likely no chemical weapons involved in their death.

It would have made no sense at all for the Syrian government to launch a 'chemical attack' on a nonmilitary target in the Douma situation. Its imminent victory was already guaranteed. The 'rebels' and their supporters had their reasons to fake such an 'attack'. It was an attempt to drag the U.S. into destroying the Syrian government and its army. It nearly succeeded.

The various 'leaks' and media claims around the staged 'attack' have reached comical grounds.

CNN headlined today: Biological samples from Syria attack site test positive for chlorine and nerve agent, official says:

Biological samples from the area of the alleged chemical attack in Syria have tested positive for chlorine and a sarin-like nerve agent, according to a US official familiar with the US analysis of the test results.
...
Medical sources and activists in Syria said blood, urine and hair follicle samples were smuggled in batches to Turkey after rebel groups and their families were pushed out of the area by the Assad regime, CNN reported earlier on Friday.
The sources did not know what happened to the samples after they reached Turkey.

That chain of evidence is joke and the claim is nonsense. There is simply no way to diagnose chlorine exposure in blood, urine or hair samples.

The Center of Disease Control notes of Chlorine exposure:

Laboratory criteria for diagnosis:
Biologic: No biologic marker for chlorine exposure is readily available.
...

Chlorine is highly reactive. When it enters the bloodstream it turns into chloride and associates with sodium and potassium and other basic elements. The natural chloride level in a body is already quite high and changes often. We all eat and naturally dispose of table salt, aka sodium chloride, each and every day. The chloride level in a body can be measured but it is not a criterion for chlorine exposure. The 'official' who made those claims to CNN is lying.

The evidence for a 'chemical attack' in Douma is simply not there. The videos provided by the 'rebel' propaganda outlets are manipulated. Medical personal in Douma dispute their propaganda claims.

Secretary of Defense Mattis spoke out and U.S. allies refused to swallow the faked evidence. Donald Trump pulled back from his earlier aggressive threats. There will likely be no bombing of Syria and in consequence no violent conflict with Russia.

Trump already began to change the headlines. He just pardoned Dick Cheney's former errant boy Scooter Libby. He is preparing the grounds for pardoning his own staff should they be caught up in the Mueller investigation.

This will give the media enough material to cover throughout the weekend and to forget about attacking Syria.

The staged 'chemical attack' was designed to draw Trump back into the conflict over Syria after he announced that he wants the U.S. military to pull out. Has it changed his mind? Will those who initiated this stunt, probably the Brits, try again?

Will Russia be able to prove its claim of British involvement? If so could it free Yulia Scripal?

Posted by b on April 13, 2018 at 04:12 PM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/sy ... r-iii.html
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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:59 pm

Were the Skripals 'Buzzed', 'Novi-shocked' Or Neither? - May Has Some 'Splaining' To Do
The Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, threw a bombshell at the British assertions that the collapse of the British secret agent Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4 in Salisbury was caused by a 'Novichok' nerve agent 'of a type developed by Russia'. (See our older pieces, linked below, for a detailed documentation of the case.)

The Skripal poisoning happened on March 4.
Eye witnesses described the Skripals as disoriented and probably hallucinating. The emergency personal suspected Fentanyl influence.
A few days later the British government claimed that the Skripals had been affected by a chemical agent from the 'Novichok' series which they attributed to Russia. It insinuated that the Skripals might die soon.
A doctor of the emergency center at the Salisbury District Hospital publicly asserted that none of its patients was victim of a 'nerve agent'.
On March 14, after much pressure from Russia, Britain finally invited the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to analyze the blood of the victims and to take environmental samples.
The OPCW arrived on March 19 and took specimen on the following days. It also received a share of the samples taken earlier by the British chemical weapon laboratory in Porton Down, which is only some 10 miles away from Salisbury.
The OPCW split the various samples it had in a certified laboratory in the Netherlands and then distributed them to several other certified laboratories for analysis.
One of those laboratories was the highly regarded Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland which is part of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection and fully certified.
On April 12 the OPCW published a public version of the result of the analyses it had received from its laboratories.
A more extensive confidential version was given to the state members that make up the OPCW.
During a public speech yesterday Lavrov stated of the OPCW report:

[A] detailed and fairly substantial confidential version was distributed to the OPCW members only. In that report, in accordance with the OPCW way of conduct, the chemical composition of the agent presented by the British was confirmed, and the analysis of samples, as the report states, was taken by the OPCW experts themselves. It contains no names, Novichok or any other. The report only gives the chemical formula, which, according to our experts, points to an agent that had been developed in many countries and does not present any particular secret.
After receiving that report Russia was tipped off by the Spiez Laboratory or someone else that the OPCW report did not include the full results of its analysis.

According to Lavrov this is what the Spiez Laboratory originally sent to the OPCW:

“Following our analysis, the samples indicate traces of the toxic chemical BZ and its precursor which are second category chemical weapons. BZ is a nerve toxic agent, which temporarily disables a person. The psycho toxic effect is achieved within 30 to 60 minutes after its use and lasts for up to four days. This composition was in operational service in the armies of the US, the UK and other NATO countries. The Soviet Union and Russia neither designed nor stored such chemical agents. Also, the samples indicate the presence of type A-234 nerve agent in its virgin state and also products of its degradation.”
The "presence of type A-234 nerve agent", an agent of the so called 'Novichok' series, in its "virgin state", or as the OPCW stated in "high purity", points to later addition to the sample. The 'Novichok' agents are not stable. They tend to fall rapidly apart. Their presence in "virgin state" in a sample which was taken 15 days after the Skripal incident happened is inexplicable. A scientist of the former Russian chemical weapon program who worked with similar agents, Leonid Rink, says that if the Skripals had really been exposed to such high purity A-234 nerve agent, they would be dead.

The whole case, the symptoms shown by the Skripals and their recuperation, makes way more sense if they were 'buzzed', i.e. poisoned with the BZ hallucinogenic agent, than if they were 'novi-shocked' with a highly toxic nerve agent.

The Spiez Laboratory responded by not denying Lavrov's claims:

Spiez Laboratory @SpiezLab - 19:49 UTC - 14 Apr 2018
Only OPCW can comment this assertion. But we can repeat what we stated 10 days ago: We have no doubt that Porton Down has identified Novichock. PD - like Spiez - is a designated lab of the OPCW. The standards in verification are so rigid that one can trust the findings. #Skipal

Science Direct has several excerpts of reports about BZ. The basics:

Agent 15 is also called compound 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, BZ, or “Buzz.” It is a powerful chemical warfare agent. As one of the most potent psychoactive chemical agents, only a small amount of BZ is needed to produce complete incapacitation. When used as an aerosol, BZ is absorbed through the respiratory system (it has no odor). It can also be absorbed through the skin or the digestive system. It takes approximately 1 h for BZ to take effect, and the symptoms of exposure include confusion, tremors, stupor, hallucinations, and coma that can last for more than 2 days.
BZ is a psycho agent 25 times stronger than LSD. It was developed by the U.S. military as an incapacitating agent. At least 50 tons were produced and filled into weapon delivery systems. It was allegedly tested on U.S. soldiers in Vietnam:

Working with the CIA the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of "volunteer" soldiers in the 1950's and 1960's. In addition to LSD, the Army also tested quinuclidinyl benzilate, a hallucinogen code-named BZ. Many of these tests were conducted under the so-called MKULTRA program, established to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing techniques. Between 1953 and 1964, the program consisted of 149 projects involving drug testing and other studies on unwitting human subjects. Although many human subjects were not informed or protected, Dr. Gottlieb defended those actions by stating "...harsh as it may seem in retrospect, it was felt that in an issue where national survival might be concerned, such a procedure and such a risk was a reasonable one to take."
This is what the military tried to achieve with BZ and other psycho agents.


BZ (and LSD) turned out to be impractical as battlefield weapons.

According to British parliament records BZ was also produced and tested, allegedly on unknowing civilians, by the British chemical weapon laboratory Porton Down.

The Russian Foreign Minister asserts that the OPCW suppressed the details of the Spiez Laboratory report:

Nothing is said whatsoever about a BZ agent in the final report that the OPCW experts presented to its Executive Council. In this connection we address the OPCW a question about why the information, that I have just read out loud and which reflects the findings of the specialists from the city of Spiez, was withheld altogether in the final document. If the OPCW would reject and deny the very fact that the Spiez laboratory was engaged, it will be very interesting to listen to their explanations.
The current Director-General of the OPCW is the Turkish carrier diplomat Ahmed Üzümcü who earlier served as the Turkish Permanent Representative to NATO.

I have no theory how the BZ or the A-234 made it into the OPCW samples or if the Skripals were really influenced by either of these poisons or are victims of simple shellfish poisoning. Your guess is a good as mine.

But the story the British government has so far told is full of holes and discrepancies and makes absolutely no sense at all. The suppression of the Spiez Laboratory report by the OPCW is a serious breach of its procedures.

The British Prime Minister Theresa May, and the OPCW, have some 'splainin' to do.

---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:

March 8 - Poisioned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign
March 12 - Theresa May's "45 Minutes" Moment
March 14 - Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart
March 16 - The British Government's 'Novichok' Drama Was Written By Whom?
March 18 - NHS Doctor: "No Patients Have Experienced Symptoms Of Nerve Agent Poisoning In Salisbury"
March 21 - Russian Scientists Explain 'Novichok' - High Time For Britain To Come Clean (Updated)
March 29 - Last Act Of 'Novichok' Drama Revealed - "The Skripals' Resurrection"
March 31 - Hillary Clinton Ordered Diplomats To Suppress 'Novichok' Discussions
April 3 - Operation Hades Blamed Russia - A Model For The 'Novichok' Claims?
April 4 - It's The Cover-Up" - UK Foreign Office Deletes Tweet, Posts False Transcript, Issues New Lies
April 5 - Novi-Fog™ In Fleet Street - Truth Cut Off
April 6 - The Best Explanation For The Skripal Drama Is Still ... Food Poisoning
April 7 - A Very British Farce
April 12 - New Developments In The Skripal Drama - Police Statement, OPCW Report Release
Posted by b on April 15, 2018 at 09:35 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/wh ... to-do.html

'b' be on a roll
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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:09 pm

Russia’s OPCW envoy exposes ‘eight UK lies’ in Skripal case
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https://www.rt.com/news/424537-russia-o ... ipal-lies/

Russia's OPCW envoy exposes 'eight UK lies' in Skripal case

Published time: 19 Apr, 2018 00:36 Edited time: 20 Apr, 2018 12:19
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Officials in protective suits attend to the Skripal incident scene in Salisbury © Peter Nicholls / Reuters
The UK's narrative in the Skripal case is a "story woven with lies," with London continuously trying to "deceive" the international community, Russia's OPCW envoy said, highlighting eight examples of such misinformation.
"We've tried to show that everything our British colleagues produce is a story woven with lies," Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Aleksandr Shulgin told reporters on Wednesday, following the organization's meeting on the Skripal case.

"And, unlike the British, who aren't used to taking responsibility for their words and unfounded accusations, we showed specific facts why we believe our British partners, to put it mildly, are 'deceiving' everyone." The official provided eight examples of UK-pushed misinformation, surrounding the March 4 events, when the former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the town of Salisbury

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© facebook.com/julia.skripal / Global Look PressBritain admits OPCW did not confirm ‘essential evidence’ on origin of Skripal poison

#1. Russia refuses to answer UK 'questions'
"In reality, they've asked us only two 'questions'… And both were worded in such way that the existence of an undocumented arsenal of chemical weaponry at Russia’s disposal was presented as an established fact, beyond any doubt."

It was effectively an ultimatum, pressing Moscow to either confess that it "attacked the UK with chemical weapons," or to admit that it had "lost control over the chemical warfare arsenal."

Moscow answered both of these 'questions' immediately, stating that it had nothing to do with the Salisbury incident. Apart from that, the official emphasized, it is an established fact that Russia destroyed all its chemical weaponry stockpile ahead of schedule last year.

#2. UK abides by Chemical Weapons Convention rulebook
The OPCW procedures clearly state that if one member state has issues with another, it should send an official request, and thus the other party would be obliged to respond within 10 days, Shulgin said. However, instead, the UK allegedly "instigated by their colleagues from across the pond," disregarded the established mechanism and came up with a dubious "independent verification" scheme, which violates those very OPCW rules.

#3. Russia refuses to cooperate
While the UK and a number of its allies accuse Russia of "refusing to cooperate to establish the truth," the situation is exactly the opposite, Shulgin insists. Moscow is interested in a thorough investigation of the incident – especially since the victims are Russian citizens. Moscow repeatedly insisted on a joint probe and urged London to release data on the Skripal case, but all efforts were in vain. Many requests went unanswered by the UK, while others received only a formal reply.

#4. Russia invents versions to distract attention
Despite numerous speculations and allegations by questionable sources, cited by the UK's own domestic media, it was Moscow that was eventually accused of coming up with some "30 versions" of the Salisbury events, allegedly to "disrupt the investigation," Shulgin said.

"In reality, the picture is different. In fact, it's the British tabloids, the so-called independent media, which is multiplying those versions," the official stated, recalling some of the narratives, most of which entirely contradict each other.

#5. Exterminating traitors is Russia's official state policy
"They claim that the Russian leadership has, on multiple occasions, stated that extermination of traitors abroad is a state policy of Russia," Shulgin said. "This is slander, of course. The British cannot produce a single example of such statements, since the Russian leadership has never said anything of the kind."

#6. Experts pin the blame on Russia
The head of the OPCW mission has clearly said that it was impossible to determine in which country the toxic substance used in Salisbury had originated. Yet the OPCW findings were once again used by the UK officials to claim Moscow was "highly likely" responsible. "Look, the head said it was impossible and they, abandoning all common sense, said 'They've confirmed our evaluations that it was Russia.' How else can you evaluate this but as a lie?" Shulgin wondered.

#7. 'Novichok' is a Soviet invention, so it has to be Russia
The development of the so-called Novichok family of toxic agents more than 30 years ago in the Soviet Union was one of the main cornerstones in the UK narrative, pinning blame for the Skripal incident on Russia. Publicly available sources, however, indicate that "the West has been and still is conducting research and development into such substances," Shulgin said, giving a fresh example of such activities.

"Not long ago, namely on 1 December 2015, the US Patent and Trademark Office filed a request to its Russian colleagues asking to check patentability … of a chemical weaponry-filled bullet, which could be equipped with Tabun, Sarin or the Novichok family of agents," the official stated.

#8. Yulia Skripal avoids contact with relatives & refuses Russian consular support
While such a statement was indeed produced by the UK authorities "on behalf" of Yulia, Moscow believes it to be false. According to Shulgin, the situation with Yulia is starting to look like a Russian citizen is effectively being "held hostage" by the UK authorities.
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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:16 pm

It goes back to the Thucydides quote that was in one of the articles (I think..I've been digesting a ton of material recently) you posted: "the strong take what they will; the weak suffer what they must". That more or less sums up Imperialism in action. But the landscape can swing quickly and then you find out what happens when the playing field is no longer so unequal.

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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Sat Apr 21, 2018 4:29 pm

kidoftheblackhole wrote:
Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:16 pm
It goes back to the Thucydides quote that was in one of the articles (I think..I've been digesting a ton of material recently) you posted: "the strong take what they will; the weak suffer what they must". That more or less sums up Imperialism in action. But the landscape can swing quickly and then you find out what happens when the playing field is no longer so unequal.
I said that? Not exactly profound but succinct, I guess.
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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by kidoftheblackhole » Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:32 am

Thucydides said that (paraphrase but very close) but I think there was a discussion of the Thucydides connection in an article you posted (the .mil types are obsessed with Ol' Thuce for obvious reasons)

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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:37 pm

The Silence Of The Skripals - Government Blocks Press Reports - Media Change The Record
There has been no recent reporting on the Skripal case in which a British-Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury, England. There even seem to be attempts to change the public record of the case.

The British government alleged that the Skripals were poisoned by Novichok, a deadly nerve agent, and blamed Russia for it. There are stiill many open questions to ask but the British media, otherwise not afraid of 'door stepping', are curiously uninterested. We already noted in early April that the British press was throwing Novi-Fog™ onto the public. It was repeating outrageous and illogical claims from "security services" but did no genuine reporting on the Skripal case.

Some photo editor made sense of what the "security services" said and introduced an April 5 London Times piece with a picture of a likely source of the alleged Novichok poison:

Image
via D'Aramitz - bigger

Now the former British ambassador Craig Murray quotes Clive Ponting, another former senior civil servant, who suspects that the British government issued a D-Notice. Such a notice forbids British media to report on an issue. Murray also points to a tweet by Channel 4 correspondent Alex Thomson from March 12 in which Thomsen mentions a D-Notice specifically related to Mr. Skripal's MI6 handler:

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The D-Notice attempt Thomsen mentioned was too late as some media had already reported the name of the Skripal's MI6 handler. We spelled it out on March 8.

One Pablo Miller, a British MI6 agent, had recruited Sergej Skripal. The former MI6 agent in Moscow, Christopher Steele, was also involved in the case. Skripal was caught by the Russian security services and went to jail. Pablo Miller, the MI6 recruiter, was also the handler of Sergej Skripal after he was released by Russia in a spy swap. He reportedly also lives in Salisbury. Both Christopher Steele and Pablo Miller work for Orbis Business Intelligence which created the "Dirty Dossier" about Donald Trump.

We early on suspected a relation between the "Dirty Dossier" and the Skripal affair:

Here are some question:

Did Skripal help Steele to make up the "dossier" about Trump?
Were Skripal's old connections used to contact other people in Russia to ask about Trump dirt?
Did Skripal threaten to talk about this?
If there is a connection between the dossier and Skripal, which seems very likely to me, then there are a number of people and organizations with potential motives to kill him. Lots of shady folks and officials on both sides of the Atlantic were involved in creating and running the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign. There are several investigations and some very dirty laundry might one day come to light. Removing Skripal while putting the blame on Russia looks like a convenient way to get rid of a potential witness.

Whistleblower Clive Ponting, quoted by Murray, now also suspects that the Skripal case was an 'inside' job that followed from the 'dirty dossier' fakery:

If [Sergej Skripal] was also involved in the ‘golden showers’ dossier then elements in the US would have a reason to act as well. The whole incident was an inside job not to kill him, hence the use of BZ, but to give him a warning and a punishment. The whole thing is being treated as though the authorities know exactly what went on but have to cover it up.
...
I meant to add that the policeman who ‘just happened’ to be around was almost certainly the special branch ‘minder’ who was keeping Yulia under surveillance. The media are not allowed to mention the existence of a D notice.
There is not only a very curious silence in British media about the Skripal case, but there seem to be active attempts to remove certain material about the case from the public.

In 2017 investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhiev reported about massive air transports of weapons to Syrian 'rebels' under diplomatic cover and got fired over it. On April 26 she made another interesting find:

Dilyana Gaytandzhiev @dgaytandzhieva - 21:24 UTC - 26 Apr 2018
The #Skripals were allegedly exposed to the drug #Fentanyl, not the #Novichok nerve agent, according to information obtained from the UK Clinical Services Journal https://www.clinicalservicesjournal.com/story/25262/...

The Clinical Services Journal piece Gaytandzhiev had found is from March 5 2018, the day after the Skripal incident in Salisbury. In its original version it read:

Salisbury District Hospital declared a “major incident” on Monday 5 March, after two patients were exposed to an opioid.
...
It followed an incident hours earlier in which a man and a woman were exposed to the drug Fentanyl in the city centre. The opioid is 10,000 times stronger than heroin.
On April 27, a day after the above tweet:

Dilyana Gaytandzhiev @dgaytandzhieva - 12:12 UTC - 27 Apr 2018
The #Skripals were exposed to #Fentanyl, not #Novichok. After I published this information yesterday (26.04.) the Clinical Services Journal redacted it today https://www.clinicalservicesjournal.com/story/25262/...

I personally read the CSJ story after Gaytandzhiev's first tweeted it on the 26th. I can confirm that it was changed.

The top line in the CSJ quote above now reads:

Salisbury District Hospital declared a “major incident” on Monday 5 March, after two patients were exposed to what is believed to be an opioid.
The second line has been changed to:

It followed an incident hours earlier in which a man and a woman were exposed to a substance in the city centre.
All reference to Fentanyl as cause of the Skripal illness in a March 5 article has been removed between April 26 and April 27.

Archive.org has the original version as collected on April 26:

Image
bigger
The changed version as now available at the Clinical Services Journal site:

Image
bigger
One wonders why such a tiny magazine would bother to change an old story after some journalist tweeted about it.

The CSJ was not the only outlet which mentioned Fentanyl. The local Salisbury Journal reported it on March 5 and the piece is still up:

Police declared a major incident after a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s were found unconscious on a bench in the shopping centre on Sunday.
Emergency services at the scene suspected the substance may have been a powerful drug called fentanyl, but nothing has yet been confirmed.

They were taken to Salisbury District Hospital where they are in a critical condition in intensive care.

In November 2017 the Salisbury Journal had reported about an unrelated fenatanyl overdose case. In 2016 Salisbury had a spike in Fentanyl OD cases. The local emergency services were surely aware of the symptoms and effects of such a substance.

Another local news site, Devon Live, headlined on March 5: Major chemical incident declared after 10 people vomited fentanyl and two are critically ill

It is understood that police suspect fentanyl, a synthetic opiate many times stronger than heroin, may have been involved. A man and a woman are in a critical condition and up to 10 other people are involved.
Officers and paramedics were called to The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury after the man and a woman fell ill. The woman, who was unconscious, was airlifted to Salisbury district hospital at about 4.15pm, while the man was taken by ambulance.
...
It was recently reported that fentanyl has claimed the lives of at least 60 people in the UK over the last eight months.
The Devon Live report is still in its original form. It links to the first Wiltshire Police statement on the case and quotes from it. Curiously the link is dead. The first official police statement on the Skripal case is "currently unavailable".

The British press is now totally silent on the Skripal case. Craig Murray and another former senior civil servant suspect that the government gave order to not report on the issue. They also suspect, as we did early on, that the case is related to the fake "Dirty Dossier" which the Clinton campaign ordered up to use it against Donald Trump.

It is not understandable why the British government would give a silencing order if, as the government alleges, Russia caused the incident.

Why is no public investigation by the media allowed? Where is Yulia Skripal and what is the health status of Sergej Skripal? Why have they been silenced?

---
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:

March 8 - Poisioned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign
March 12 - Theresa May's "45 Minutes" Moment
March 14 - Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart
March 16 - The British Government's 'Novichok' Drama Was Written By Whom?
March 18 - NHS Doctor: "No Patients Have Experienced Symptoms Of Nerve Agent Poisoning In Salisbury"
March 21 - Russian Scientists Explain 'Novichok' - High Time For Britain To Come Clean (Updated)
March 29 - Last Act Of 'Novichok' Drama Revealed - "The Skripals' Resurrection"
March 31 - Hillary Clinton Ordered Diplomats To Suppress 'Novichok' Discussions
April 3 - Operation Hades Blamed Russia - A Model For The 'Novichok' Claims?
April 4 - It's The Cover-Up" - UK Foreign Office Deletes Tweet, Posts False Transcript, Issues New Lies
April 5 - Novi-Fog™ In Fleet Street - Truth Cut Off
April 6 - The Best Explanation For The Skripal Drama Is Still ... Food Poisoning
April 7 - A Very British Farce
April 12 - New Developments In The Skripal Drama - Police Statement, OPCW Report Release
April 15 - Were the Skripals 'Buzzed', 'Novi-shocked' Or Neither? - May Has Some 'Splaining' To Do
Posted by b on April 28, 2018 at 02:18 PM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/th ... ecord.html
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Re: Censorship, fake news, perception management

Post by blindpig » Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:01 pm

Response Unit Called As Salisbury Hospital Declares “Major Incident”
MAR 05, 2018

Image

Salisbury District Hospital declared a “major incident” on Monday 5 March, after two patients were exposed to what is believed to be an opioid. The fire service was called to decontaminate the hospital’s Accident & Emergency unit, as paramedics treated the casualties.

Emergency personnel arrived to the scene, wearing full-body hazardous materials protective and an incident response unit was on site.

It followed an incident hours earlier in which a man and a woman were exposed to a substance in the city centre.

A spokesman for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: "We are currently dealing with a major incident involving a small number of casualties, with a multi-agency response. It is under 10 people, but I cannot say any more at the moment.

"People with outpatient appointments in other areas of the hospital can still come in as planned, but we are asking people not to come to the Accident and Emergency department unless it is an emergency."

https://www.clinicalservicesjournal.com ... r-incident

************************************
The image that was here, purporting that Amber Rudd had quit because of the Skirpal scandal was incorrect and been removed. Sorry.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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