Jonathan Cook, journalist
More reasons to be highly suspicious
of the case being made by UK politicians and media that Russia is the
only possible culprit for the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal.
One has to ask why this highly pertinent factual information, and much
else, is *not* being included in the British media coverage.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed:
Yet these claims are contradicted by the OPCW [the UN Organisation for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] itself, which in September 2017
declared that the independent global agency had rigorously verified the
completed destruction of Russia’s entire chemical weapons programme,
including of course its nerve agent production capabilities. ...
At this point, neither the US nor Britain have offered any actual
evidence as to why the OPCW’s verification process regarding Russia’s
dismantlement of its chemical weapons capability should be disbelieved.
They have provided no evidence that Russia retains any Novichok
stockpiles.
The OPCW is, of course, the same agency whose
independent investigations the West is relying on to determine
culpability in major chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Why, then, would
the OPCW’s conclusions on Syria be considered gospel truth, while its
conclusions on Russia be rejected? ...
INSURGE just reported on
an extensive US Army study published last year which not only stated
quite unequivocally that NATO expansionism is the main driver of Russian
belligerence, but that NATO’s main interest has always been to rollback
Russia’s regional influence so that the West can dominate Central Asian
natural resources and oil pipeline routes.
The document
recommended that in 2018, the US should consider pursuing a concerted
covert “information” campaign to undermine Putin. ...
The actual
history of Novichok shows that out of the countries discussed here,
Russia is the only state to have been certified by the OPCW as having
destroyed its chemical weapons programme, including its nerve agent
capabilities. The OPCW found no evidence to indicate that Russia retains
an active Novichoc capability. The same is not the case for the US,
Britain and Israel.
Military personnel investigate the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury
