Never forget the Dodgy Dossier. That was the supposed evidence claiming in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against Britain within forty minutes. The Dodgy Dossier was presented in Britain’s House of Parliament as the truth – and was unchallenged by the mainstream media. It was included in the case for war presented to the UN by the United States, and became the given reason for Britain then joining forces with the US in the illegal war that followed, a war which, in addition to costing almost two hundred British lives, killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and ruined the lives of millions more. The Dodgy Dossier turned out to be pure bunkum.
Fifteen years later a brand new dodgy dossier appears to be in the making, which once again is being unchallenged by the mainstream media. We are now supposed to believe that the Russian government is behind an alleged chemical attack on an ex-spy. Once again, the hard evidence for the allegation is nowhere to be seen. All that passes for evidence are stories about a chemical that was supposedly invented in Russia forty years ago (but almost certainly could easily be reproduced a few miles away from Salisbury at Porton Down – or by the CIA), and Oscar-winning performances of righteous rage in parliament by British politicians – not unlike the pantomime we saw in the same theatre a mere fifteen years ago.
Another possibility for the sourcing of Russian chemical weapons might be Syria. When Isis (who were actively assisted by western special forces) were enjoying their early successes in that tortured country, they overran some Syrian military bases which could have been storing chemical weapons. Russia has supplied Syria with military equipment in the past, and could have perhaps supplied chemical weapons too. All this happened before Assad destroyed his remaining stockpiles, and may have accounted for why he did so. So Isis could have obtained these chemicals at that time, and they could then have found their way into the hands of the west to be used in exactly the kind of scenario we’re seeing played out now in Salisbury.
Shortly after the Salisbury incident, Britain announced it was going to impose trade sanctions on Russia. I bet that had the Kremlin shaking in their boots. Imagine, a country that has almost no natural resources and is incapable of manufacturing anything that Russia can’t make for itself is going to stop trading with the country who supplies it with much of its natural gas. That’s sensible, isn’t it? About the only service that Britain provides in exchange for essential energy supplies is offshore banking – and even that is a service that’s probably used more by Russian gangsters than by the state. Russia is a country that grew up with trade sanctions and for most of the last hundred years has had to go it alone. If there’s anywhere on earth that’s pretty impervious to trade sanctions, it’s Russia.
It’s difficult to say for sure why the west has decided in recent years to renew the cold war with Russia. After all, given that Russia is no longer a communist country, that excuse no longer exists, so what other existential threat does Russia present? A likely explanation is that Russia has started to kick back against western assaults in Russian spheres of interest. The first major incident was over Ukraine, once part of the USSR, and a country where the US openly admitted spending $5 billion in a coup to overthrow the lawful Russian-friendly government. Russia openly supports Eastern Ukraine, who wanted no part of the coup, and especially Crimea where a referendum overwhelmingly backed a desire to formally merge with Russia – all of which resulted in something of a defeat for the western warmongers.
But possibly the most unacceptable intervention was Russia’s support for the Syrian government which, as a consequence of yet another terrible western-sponsored war, was on the brink of defeat. But when Russia was asked by the lawful Syrian government to help out, the made-in-the-west attempted coup was soon crushed, once again defeating the western warmongers.
Unlike the western warmongers, however, Russia has done nothing wrong, and has only supported the people who wanted and asked for its support and invited their military interventions. But that fact will not carry any weight in London or Washington – quite the reverse. It will be seen as a humiliating defeat, and recognition that Russia’s credibility as a force to be reckoned with once again will not pass unnoticed around the world. It’s just like what happens when someone stands up to a common gangster: if the gangster doesn’t strike back hard when he thinks his authority is being undermined he knows he’s going to be seen as weak.
Watching Britain’s Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in action over the last couple of weeks has been physically painful. This is someone who was almost unknown until he started appearing a few years ago on a popular news quiz on TV, in his capacity as a journalist. He was popular on the show because he appeared to be a likeable buffoon, someone else who had been educated in one of Britain’s most elite schools and yet who appeared to be as thick as two short planks. No one could take him seriously, yet somehow he has now obtained for himself one of the most important and powerful political positions in the country. Whether he’s insulting Europe, China or Russia with his “laddish humour” or his even more worrying attempts at being serious, watching Johnson at work these days is a bit like watching a bumbling clown playing around with matches at a petrol station – whilst you’re trying to top up your car with fuel.
As well as Johnson’s evidence-less ranting and personal attacks on Vladimir Putin, he then affects incredulous anger that Russia is stockpiling deadly nerve agents. Given that Britain’s own Porton Down laboratories, just walking distance away from the Salisbury incident, has been a world leader in this field for many decades, Johnson’s remark is simply breathtaking in its sheer brazen hypocrisy.
One of the cornerstones of Britain’s ludicrous “unwritten constitution” is the concept of a “free press” – the notion that our news providers should not be censored. The real purpose of this is supposed to be that those news providers will then fearlessly challenge our great trusted leaders and hold them to account whenever necessary. This almost never happens, as the outrageous and illegal Iraq War of 2003 proved. Then, the great trusted leaders never once had their feet held to the fire by the media; and afterwards, when some of the war crimes were revealed, there were no demands by the media for accountability – for heads to roll – possibly because the media were as complicit as the politicians. In short, our main news providers cannot be trusted, and the theoretically invaluable concept of a free press is nothing but a cynical joke.
It could be that Russia is indeed behind the events in Salisbury, even though everything about that possibility defies logic. Why would Russia kill-off an old and washed-up ex-spy in Britain by using an illegal weapon saying “made in Russia” all over it, an ex-spy who they had plenty of time and opportunity to dispatch if they wanted to whilst he was in Russia? Knowing full well the furore such an attack on British soil would provoke, how does that benefit Russia?
The anti-Russia hysteria that’s currently being whipped-up by politicians and the mainstream media is ridiculous, a dangerous bid to renew a cold war that benefited no one except the west’s military-industrial-intelligence complex. Before this situation gets out of hand we need hard evidence that Russia is responsible for the Salisbury attack, and we need reasonably independent UN weapons inspectors to examine it – not the same people who produced the dodgy dossier in 2003, nor the same people who provided dodgy evidence to wrongfully convict the “Birmingham Six” and the “Guildford Four” of terrorism, as well as who knows how many other dodgy political convictions in the past. Hysterical politicians grandstanding in parliament and on TV is not evidence. Never forget the Dodgy Dossier.