{"id":373807,"date":"2018-08-17T21:57:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T20:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=373807"},"modified":"2018-08-17T21:57:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T20:57:32","slug":"all-sanctions-against-russia-are-based-on-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/all-sanctions-against-russia-are-based-on-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"All sanctions against Russia are based on lies."},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

All of the sanctions (economic, diplomatic, and otherwise) against Russia are based on clearly demonstrable intentional falsehoods; and the sanctions which were announced on August 8th are just the latest example of this consistent tragic fact \u2014 a fact which will be proven here, with links to the evidence, so that anyone who reads here can easily see that all of these sanctions are founded on lies against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest of these sanctions were announced on Wednesday August 8th. Reuters headlined “U.S. imposes sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in UK\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cWashington said on Wednesday it would impose fresh sanctions on Russia by the end of August after it determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.\u201d This was supposedly because \u201cSergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia\u2019s GRU military intelligence service, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found slumped unconscious on a bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March after a liquid form of the Novichok type of nerve agent was applied to his home\u2019s front door. European countries and the United States expelled 100 Russian diplomats after the attack, in the strongest action by President Donald Trump against Russia since he came to office.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, despite intense political pressure that the UK Government and \u2018news\u2019media had placed upon the UK\u2019s Porton Down intelligence laboratory to assert that the poison had been made in Russia (labs in several countries including the UK have also manufactured it<\/i>), the Porton Down lab refused to say this. Though the U.S. Government is acting as if<\/i> Porton Down\u2019s statement \u201cdetermined that Moscow had used a nerve agent,\u201d the actual fact<\/i> is that Porton Down still refuses to say any such thing<\/i>, at all \u2014 this allegation is merely a fabrication by the U.S. Government, including its allies, UK\u2019s Government and other Governments and their respective propaganda-media. It\u2019s a bald lie.<\/span><\/p>\n

On March 18th, the great British investigative journalist and former British diplomat Craig Murray had headlined about UK\u2019s Foreign Secretary, \u201cBoris Johnson Issues Completely New Story on Russian Novichoks\u201d<\/span><\/a> and he pointed to the key paragraph in the Porton Down lab\u2019s statement on this matter \u2014 a brief one-sentence paragraph:<\/span><\/p>\n

Look at this paragraph:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

“Russia is the official successor state to the USSR. As such, Russia legally took responsibility for ensuring the CWC<\/i> [Chemical Weapons Convention] applies to all former Soviet Chemical Weapons stocks and facilities.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as made in Russia, the FCO<\/i> [Foreign and Commonwealth Office \u2014 UK\u2019s foreign ministry] would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in Russia.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Murray\u2019s elliptical report, which unfortunately was unclearly written \u2014 it was rushed, in order to be able to published on the same day, March 18th, when the UK\u2019s official response to the Porton Down lab\u2019s analysis was published \u2014 was subsequently fully explained on March 23rd at the excellent news-site Off-Guardian, which specializes in investigating and interpreting the news-media (in this case, Craig Murray\u2019s article, and the evidence regarding it); they headlined “Skripal case: ‘closely related agent’ claim closely examined\u2019,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and concluded their lengthy and detailed analysis:<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, the ruling cited above, even if read in the most improbably forgiving way possible, shows the UK government does not have the information to warrant any of the claims it has so far made about Russian state involvement in the alleged poisoning of the Skripals. It shows the UK government is currently guilty of lying to Parliament, to the British people, and to the world.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing has been published further about the Skripal\/Novichoks matter since then, except speculation that\u2019s based on the evidence which was discussed in detail in that March 23rd article at Off-Guardian.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the basis of this \u2014 merely an open case which has never been examined in more detail than that March 23rd analysis did \u2014 the Skripal\/Novichok case has been treated by the UK Government, and by the U.S. Government, and by governments which are allied with them, and by their news-media, as if it were instead a closed case, in which what was made public constitutes proof that the Skripals had been poisoned by the Russian Government. On that blatantly fraudulent basis, over a hundred diplomats ended up being expelled.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Porton Down lab still<\/i> refuses to say anything that the UK Government can quote as an authority confirming that the Skripals had been poisoned by the Russian Government.<\/span><\/p>\n

All that\u2019s left of the matter, then, is a cold case of official lies asserting that proof has been presented, when in fact only official lies have been presented to the public. <\/span><\/p>\n

The UK Government prohibits the Skripals from speaking to the press, and refuses to allow them to communicate even with their family-members<\/span><\/a>. It seems that they\u2019re effectively prisoners of the UK Government \u2014 the same Government that claims to be protecting them against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the basis upon which the U.S. State Department, on August 8th, issued the following statement<\/span><\/a> to \u2018justify\u2019 its new sanctions:<\/span><\/p>\n

Imposition of Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act Sanctions on Russia<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Press Statement<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Heather Nauert <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Department Spokesperson<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Washington, DC<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

August 8, 2018<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Following the use of a \u201cNovichok\u201d nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, 2018, determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, expected on or around August 22, 2018.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. law is supposed to be \u201cinnocent until proven guilty\u201d \u2014 the opposite of legal systems in which the contrary assumption applies: \u201cguilty until proven innocent.\u201d However, regarding such matters as invading and destroying Iraq in 2003 upon the basis of no authentic evidence; and invading and destroying Libya in 2011 on the basis of no authentic proof of anyone\u2019s guilt; and on the basis of invading and for years trying to destroy Syria on the basis of America\u2019s supporting Al Qaeda in Syria against Syria\u2019s secular government; and on the basis of lying repeatedly against Russia in order to load sanction after sanction upon Russia and to \u2018justify\u2019 pouring its missiles and thousands of troops onto and near Russia\u2019s border as if preparing to invade \u2018the world\u2019s most aggressive country\u2019 \u2014 the U.S. federal Government routinely violates that fundamental supposition of its own legal system (\u201cinnocent until proven guilty\u201d), whenever its rulers wish. And yet, it calls itself a \u2018democracy\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Donald Trump constantly says that he seeks improved relations with Russia, but when his own State Department lies like that in order to add yet further<\/b> to the severe penalties that it had previously placed against Russia for its presumed guilt in the Skripal\/Novichok matter, then Trump himself is publicly exposing himself as being a liar about his actual intentions regarding Russia. He, via his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo\u2019s State Department, not only is punishing Russia severely for this unproven allegation, but now adds yet further penalties against Russia for it. Trump is being demanded by the U.S. Congress to do this, but it is his choice whether to go along with that demand or else expose that it\u2019s based on lies. He likes to accuse his opponents of lying, but, quite obviously, the members of Congress who are demanding these hiked rounds of sanctions against Russia are demanding him to do what he actually wants to do \u2014 which is now clearly demonstrated to be the exact opposite of exposing those lies. If Trump is moving toward World War III on the basis of lies, then the only way he can stop doing it is by exposing those lies. He\u2019s not even trying<\/i> to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing is being said in the State Department\u2019s cryptic announcement on August 8th that sets forth any reasonable demand which the U.S. Government is making to the Russian Government, such that, if the reasonable demand becomes fulfilled by Russia’s Government, then the United States Government and its allies will cease and desist their successive, and successively escalating, rounds of punishment against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia is being offered no path to peace<\/i>, but only the reasonable expectation of escalating lie-based American \u2018justifications\u2019 to perpetrate yet more American-and-allied aggressions against Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been three prior U.S. excuses for applying prior rounds of sanctions against Russia, and all of them have likewise been based upon lies, and varnished with many layers of overstatements.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

First, in 2012, there was the Magnitsky Act, which was based upon frauds (subsequently exposed here<\/span><\/a> and here<\/span><\/a> and here<\/span><\/a>) which assert that Sergei Magnitsky was murdered by the Russian Government. The evidence (as linked-to there) is conclusive that he was not;<\/i> but the U.S. Government and its allies refuse even to consider it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, in 2014, Crimea broke away from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation, and the U.S. and its allies allege that this was because Russia under Putin \u2018seized\u2019<\/span><\/a> Crimea from Ukraine, when in fact America under Obama had, just weeks prior to that Crimean breakaway, seized Ukraine and turned it against Russia and against Crimea and the other parts of Ukraine which had voted overwhelmingly for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom the Obama regime had just overthrown in a bloody coup<\/span><\/a> that had been in the planning ever since at least 2011 inside the Obama Administration<\/span><\/a>. Several rounds of U.S.-and-allied economic sanctions were imposed against Russia for that \u2014 for the constant string of lies against Russia, and of constant cover-ups of \u201cthe most blatant coup in history,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>which had preceded and caused the breakaway.<\/span><\/p>\n

These lies originated with Obama; and Trump accuses Obama of lying, but not on this, where Obama really did lie, psychopathically<\/span><\/a>. Instead, Trump makes those lies bipartisan. On what counts the most against Obama, Trump seconds the Obama-lies, instead of exposing them. And yet Trump routinely has accused Obama as having lied, even on matters where it\u2019s actually Trump who has been lying about Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, there have been the anti-Russia sanctions that are based upon Russiagate and \u2018Trump is Putin\u2019s stooge and stole the election.\u2019 That case against Russia has not been proven, and Wikileaks\u2019 founder Julian Assange says that what he had published were leaks from the DNC and Podesta\u2019s computer, not hacks at all; and yet the sanctions were imposed almost as soon as the Democratic Party\u2019s accusations started. Those sanctions, too, are utterly baseless except as being alleged responses to unproven (and likely false) allegations<\/span><\/a>. Furthermore, even in the worst-case scenario: the U.S. Government itself routinely overthrows foreign governments, and continues tapping the phones and electronic communications of foreign governments, and manipulating elections abroad. Even in the worst-case scenario, Russia hasn\u2019t done anything that historians haven\u2019t already proven that the U.S. Government itself routinely does. That\u2019s the case even if<\/i> Russia is guilty as charged, on all of the U.S-and-allied accusations.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: Who wants World War III? Apparently, both the Democratic and the Republican Parties do<\/span><\/a>. Obama called Russia the world\u2019s most aggressive nation<\/span><\/a>. Trump joins with him in that bipartisan lie. Outside of America itself, most of the world consider the United States to be actually the \u201cgreatest threat to peace in the world today.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Therefore, why isn\u2019t the NATO alliance against America? The NATO alliance is<\/i> America and most of its vassal-nations: they\u2019re all allied against Russia. Their war against Russia never stopped. That \u2018Cold War\u2019 continued, even after the USSR and its communism and its Warsaw Pact mirror-image to NATO, all ended in 1991<\/span><\/a>; and now the intensifying \u2018cold war\u2019 threatens to become very<\/i> hot. All based on lies. But that seems to be the only type of \u2018justifications\u2019 the U.S.-and-allied tyrants have got.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either the lies will stop, or else we all will. Trump, as usual, is on the wrong side of the lies<\/span><\/a>. And he seems to be too much of a coward to oppose them, in these cases, which are the most dangerous lies of all. This is how we could all end. Doing something heroic that would stop it, seems to be way beyond him \u2014 he doesn\u2019t even try. That\u2019s the type of cowardice which should be feared, and despised, the most of all. Trump has taken up Obama\u2019s worst, and he runs with it. Trump had promised the opposite, during his Presidential campaign. But this is the reality of Trump \u2014 a profoundly filthy liar \u2014 at least insofar as he has, thus far, shown himself to be. What he will be in the future is all that remains in question. But this is what he has been, up till now.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org All of the sanctions (economic, diplomatic, and otherwise) against Russia are based on clearly demonstrable intentional falsehoods; and the sanctions which were announced on August 8th are just the latest example of this consistent tragic fact \u2014 a fact which will be proven here, with links to the evidence, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":281910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,519],"tags":[30,96,535,541,59,526,524,754,523,49,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-373807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-newswire","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-cover-up","11":"tag-global-news","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-military","14":"tag-propaganda","15":"tag-russia","16":"tag-syria","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-white-house","20":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373808,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373807\/revisions\/373808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}