CCI Friends and Followers,
Rumors and disinformation are the political norm today. The “Blame Putin narrative” is the most dangerous one being currently pushed. Watching Putin closely, there is nothing to indicate ill will; if anything, he shows restraint when attacked.
I don’t know Philip Giraldi, an 18-year-CIA operative, but he covers the topics below that need to be addressed regarding the Navalny poisoning case and others in the past.
Until we Americans are better informed on issues manufactured in Washington, grave danger of moving toward confrontation is risked. Given the speed of missiles fired these days, a world-wide nuclear exchange could happen in seconds … creating a nuclear winter from which none would survive. Is this clear to you?
Please read and forward this email to as many Americans as possible. Even at this late date, we must find a way toward a less dangerous future … our children and grandchildren deserve better!
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
A Truly Poisonous Foreign Policy. The Blame Putin Narrative…
A Ridiculous Proposal from The New York Times?
September 13, 2020
By Philip Giraldi
If one had been reading America’s leading newspapers and magazines over the past several weeks the series of featured stories suggesting that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is some kind of latter day Lucrezia Borgia would have been impossible to avoid. Putin, who was simultaneously being branded as some kind of totalitarian monster, apparently does not just go around chopping off heads. Instead, he prefers to slip military grade poison into people’s tea or wipes it onto their doorknobs. The case of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England is being cited as evidence that poisoning is a routine way of cleaning out the closets, so to speak, together with that of Aleksandr Litvinenko, who died in England in 2006 under mysterious circumstances after reportedly drinking a radioactive isotope that had been placed into his cup of tea while dining at a sushi restaurant in London. Apparently the raw fish had nothing to do with it.
There are, of course, parts of the story that just don’t fit no matter how hard one tries. The Skripals, father and daughter, lived in Salisbury within walking distance of Britain’s chemical and biological weapons lab located at Porton Down, an option for poisoning that was never fully explored. And there was no real reason to kill them in 2018 as they no longer posed any threat to Russian interests, having escaped to England twelve years before. In fact, they did not die, which in itself seems odd since the lethal agent was eventually reported by the British to have been Novichok, which may have been smeared on their from door latch. Novichok is designed for battlefield use and reputedly kills instantly.
Poisoning is certainly a convenient short cut when one is unable or unwilling to persevere with the basic principle of politics among nations, often referred to as Diplomacy 101. The first rule in Diplomacy 101 is that you prioritize your interests so that you are not wasting your time and energy by pursuing objectives that are either essentially inconsequential or even meaningless at the expense of authentic vital national interests. By all accounts, Vladimir Putin is an astute politician who would recognize that killing political opponents is counter-productive. Far better to let them live to demonstrate that Russia is truly a country that allows dissent.