Here’s the newest iteration of UK Ambassador Craig Murray’s recent embargoed non-news experiences, but from Thomas Scripps, wsws.org, May 2, but without the tellingly stellar visible tweets:
‘UK media told to conceal connections between Sergei Skripal and MI6’, Thomas Scripps, 2 May 2018 (a few portions):
“Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, has published evidence suggesting that a D-notice has been issued to the press to protect MI6, hiding its connections to the Russian double-agent, Sergei Skripal. According to the Conservative government and a pliant media, Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned by Russia with a “novichok” nerve agent.
A D-notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) is used by the British state to veto the publication of potentially damaging news stories. Formally a request to withhold publication, the slavishness of the mainstream media ensures these notices function for the most part as gag orders.
Murray initially reported the claims of famous whistleblower Clive Ponting that a D-notice had likely been issued in relation to some aspect of the Skripal affair. He then noted Channel 4 journalist Charles Thomson’s confirmation that a D-notice had, in fact, been issued and that it related specifically to censoring the identity of Skripal’s MI6 handler.
Murray suggests that the MI6 agent in question is called Pablo Miller.
As Murray notes, the specific attempt to protect Miller’s identity is highly significant. Miller is an associate of former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, first in espionage operations in Russia and more recently in the activities of Steele’s private intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
Steele was responsible for compiling the Trump–Russia dossier, comprising 17 memos written in 2016 alleging misconduct and conspiracy between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Putin administration. The dossier, paid for by the Democratic Party, claimed that Trump was compromised by evidence of his sexual proclivities in Russia’s possession. Steele was the subject of an earlier (unsuccessful) D-notice, which attempted to keep his identity as the author of the dossier a secret.
If Miller and, by extension, Skripal himself were somehow involved in Orbis’ work on the highly-suspect Steele–Trump dossier, alongside representatives of British and possibly US intelligence, then all manner of motivations can be suggested for an attack on the ex-Russian spy and British double agent by forces other than Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB.”
Now Craig Murray has done a hella lot of digging into Luke Harding’s past and Western Imperial modus operandi, (more on that later), but Thomas Scripps has dug into Pablo Miller’s past careers, appointments, and associates. The Cliffs Notes:
British army Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Green Jackets, then diplomatic postings starting in 1992, including Nigeria, Estonia, and finally in Warsaw from 2010-2013. Apparently in 2000, the FSB had accused him of being ‘head of British Intelligence in Tallinn, Estonia, claiming over time that he’d turned two agents to spy for MI6, and noted that he may have turned Sergei Skripal as well.
“Miller, according to his LinkedIn profile—swiftly deleted following the Skripal affair—had retired from British diplomacy/intelligence to settle down in Salisbury. The same profile also reportedly listed Miller’s “consultancy work” at Orbis Intelligence, linking Skripal, Miller and Steele.”
(okay, i’ll go grab the Tweets on Murray’s exposé, bingling backwards…)
“When this connection was first made in early March, the BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera and Guardian ’s Luke Harding rushed to issue denials. Corera tweeted:
“No link Chris Steele to Sergei Skripal: sources close to Orbis Intelligence—ex MI6 officer Chris Steele’s company which did Trump ‘dossier’—tell me no links whatsoever to Russian targeted with nerve agent.”
Harding joined him, saying, “The @Telegraph story claiming a link between Sergei #Skripal and Christopher Steele’s company Orbis is wrong, I understand. Skripal had nothing to do with Trump dossier. Nor did unnamed ‘security consultant’ ever work for Orbis.”
As you can see if you click the Tweet, one reply noted that pointed to a forum on which the presence of Orbis Intelligence on Miller’s profile was mentioned, with a link to the same (now deleted) LinkedIn address; others offered some sincerely condemnatory ‘Pfffffftttts’.
“Beside these points, there is the timing of Steele’s, Miller’s and Skripal’s intelligence activities in Russia. Miller, as we have seen, was closely involved with the turning and handling of Russian double-agents at least during his time in Tallinn from 1997 to 2010. Skripal was passing information to the British from 1995. Steele was posted to Moscow as a spy between 1990-1993, returned to London as part of a group of Kremlin specialists and was head of MI6’s Russia desk by 2006.”
[As Craig Murray said, “You might think that any journalist worth his salt would want to consider this interesting counter-evidence. But Harding merely tweeted again the blank denials of the security services, without question.”] but back to Scripps:
“As to why Corera and Harding omitted any research along these lines, in Corera’s case, one could point to the recent National Security Capability review which cited the BBC as an element of Britain’s programme for advancing its geostrategic position. Harding, on the other hand, seems to have a telepathic link with the minds of Britain’s leading security personnel. His most prominent work of late consists of hatchet jobs on Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and propaganda pieces against Russia.
“Was he [Skripal], as Murray suggests hypothetically, in fact a participant in the creation of Steele’s Trump dossier? Did he have inconvenient knowledge of ongoing British operations in and against Russia? And, most significant of all, was he targeted by MI6 or the CIA in a preemptive strike to ensure his silence?”
In his April 30 ‘‘Where They Tell You Not to Look’, Craig Murray links to an April 28 essay of his: ‘Probable Western Responsibility for Skripal Poisoning’
“UPDATE: Stupidly I had forgotten this vital confirmation from Channel 4 News (serial rebel Alex Thomson) of the D Notice in place on mention of Pablo Miller.
“About the only decisive public move by the authorities has been to censor MSM via a D notice last week from fully identifying Mr Skripal’s MI6 handler living nearby…”
Back then I did not realise what I now know, that the person being protected was Pablo Miller, colleague in both MI6 then Orbis Intelligence of Christopher Steele, author of the fabrications of the Trump/Russia golden shower dossier. That the government’s very first act on the poisoning was to ban all media mention of Pablo Miller makes it extremely probable that this whole incident is related to the Trump dossier and that Skripal had worked on it, as I immediately suspected. The most probable cause is that Skripal – who you should remember had traded the names of Russian agents to Britain for cash – had worked on the dossier with Miller but was threatening to expose its lies for cash.
Those of us who have been in the belly of the beast and have worked closely with the intelligence services, really do know what they and the British government are capable of. They are not “white knights”.
Back to his ‘where they tell you not to look’:
He spends a hella lot of ink in a righteous deconstruction of Harding’s deplorable ‘journalism’, including his almost satirical appearance on TRNN “in which Harding outlines how emoticons convinced him someone was a Russian agent, together with this fascinating analysis which really is a must-read study [both hilarious exposés] of anti-Russian paranoia. There is a similar analysis here.
“Perhaps still more revealing is this 2014 interview with his old student newspaper Cherwell, where he obviously felt comfortable enough to let the full extent of his monstrous boggle-eyed Russophobia become plain:
His analogies span the bulk of the 20th century and his predictions for the future are equally far-reaching. “This is the biggest crisis in Europe since the Cold War. It’s not the break-up of Yugoslavia, but the strategic consensus since 1945 has been ripped up. We now have an authoritarian state, with armies on the march.” What next?
“It’s clear to me that Putin intends to dismember Ukraine and join it up with Transnistria, then perhaps he’ll go as far as Moldova in one way or another,” Harding says. This is part of what he deems Putin’s over-arching project: an expansionist attempt to gather Russo-phones together under one yoke, which he terms ‘scary and Eurasian-ist’, and which he notes is darkly reminiscent of “another dictator of short stature” who concocted “a similarly irredentist project in the 1930s”.
Comically or not, Luke Harding appeared on the comment stream, but as by now there are over 700, I can’t take the time to quote his weasel words.
His conclusion:
“Given that the Steele dossier is demonstrably in large degree nonsense, it seems to me more probable the idea was to silence Skripal to close the danger that he would reveal his part in the concoction of this fraud. Remember he had sold out Russian agents to the British for cash and was a man of elastic loyalties. It is also worth noting that Luke Harding has a bestselling book currently on sale, in large part predicated on the truth of the Steele Dossier.
Steele, MI6 and the elements of the CIA which are out to get Trump, all would have a powerful motive to have the Skripal loose end tied.
Rule number one of real investigative journalism: look where they tell you not to look.”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Hi Wendy. Long time no “see”? Glad you have chosen to post on the Skripal affair and are also promoting Craig Murray’s excellent coverage on this. It was hard to swallow the “ofificial narrative” from the get-go and what CM describes as a “great propaganda theatre of destruction” going on in Salisbury caused even the incurious to raise their eyebrows. Now we have the inevitable D-notice…No, nothing to hide.
well ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, jane24. yep. craig’s been as diligent as deconstructing the official narrative (who can get published, even if under constant ddos attacks) as anyone i know. was it he who’d firt brought the swiss lab of the (perhaps; they wouldn’t say) of the OPCW who’d declared that the skripals had been dosed with heavy-duty BZ hallucinogens from the mk-ultra era? well, in my dotage, i’ve forgotten, but we’ll never know the truth, not will we know the political decisions on the douma ‘gas attacks’ or what.ev.er, will we? at least the ‘investigators’ decided to come back to ‘a second site’ later, but no one knows if they interviewed locals, including docs at local hospitals. (white helmet bullshit aside).
the totally missing, or roosia indicting) coverage of all that at the UN was too orwellian for belief. here’s hoping life is good for you, jane, or at least…good enough in these dark days. in solidarity,
wd
on edit: and i should have said: in solidarity across the pond.
ha ha ho ho hee hee; gotta love the guardian:
The mendacity of the west in general surpasses even my wildest imaginings.
Not to mention the murderous rampages which followed.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse have, indeed, been loosed upon the earth.
The west is immersed in the seven deadly sins; they are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Only the gods can help us now…
‘mendacity’. good choice of words, v; one i’d forgotten. but as for the rest, that’s quite a lullaby of images and literary references. only the gods or…an alien visitation teaching us another way it could have gone.
as shoot that arrow often asks an answers: ‘who will stop ‘us’?’ ‘those who can…and will’. sleep well, v, and enjoy your gardens and orchard. we had a much-needed blessing of half an inch of rain and snow yesterday.
…an alien visitation teaching us another way…
That is actually the root of USian’s thinking, unfortunately.
Klatu and/or the second coming just ain’t going to happen.
I’m far from convinced we deserve saving… ;-)
well, as you’d said ‘Only the gods can help us now…’ i was going full-tilt scifi, i reckon. as in discovering that we are among the least sentient of beings messages from other-worlders who can warp space to travel here, explore, etc. and of course the sainted stephen hawking had pushed back against any such thoughts: ‘beware: when they come, they won’t be friendlies’, more the borg than close encounters teachers. ;-)
how did i not guess that there’s a #skripals hashtag?
Not-a-bot @HypocricyRules “New dictionary entry: Skripalised or could be BinLadenised? Meaning: main character in fakenews or false flag narrative who ‘vanishes’ without trace.🤔🤫never to be seen or heard 🤐of again especially by govnt’s and their MSM! Example: Serge’s been Skripalised!”
(on RT now, far easier to read than the one i’d put up earlier, and will delete. the ambassador had said that no one would publish his analysis)
down the memory hole: ooopsie.
but Rt has it this way: (the slimes is already behind a paywall for me))
“‘in turn, the New York Times did not issue a correction, but instead deleted its original article wholesale, replacing it with a new text.
Even after its apparent resolution, the episode raises questions. Why did Uzumcu overestimate the quantity of Novichok by a factor of thousands? It did not appear that he merely misspoke, as the article also has him endorsing the theory that Western labs would have never produced it in such quantities. In fact, why did Uzumcu name any number at all, considering that his own agency says that they are unable to estimate the amount used, and he himself says he “does not know the precise amount.” Also unusual is the behavior of the New York Times, which neither stuck to the veracity of the original article, nor apologized for any supposed misquotes, but appears to have simply wished it away.
“It’s easy to make a mistake in an interview, mistaking grams and milligrams, but there is more here than that,” Charles Shoebridge, former UK intelligence officer, told RT. “The situation makes you wonder what the reason was the chief of the OPCW to say something that was – at least officially as we can see from the statement – untrue.”
https://www.rt.com/news/425886-opcw-novichok-grams-correction/
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?…” Alec Lemas, “the Spy who came in from the cold.”
and now for the 2nd half of the quote:…”I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass that you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.” the rationalization, protect the Nazi & kill the Jew as his love interest the commie Liz says to him, for the “great moronic mass”.
“We have to live without sympathy, don’t we? That’s impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren’t like that really, I mean…one can’t be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold…d’you see what I mean?” lol. kill off the Skripals for what they might do. their former service means nothing. complete ruthlessness as the goal.
I read this so long ago I had forgotten this vital sentiment:
“He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England; it was the caring about little things – the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread of the seagulls or love”. everything these spooks do is a trap. nothing is simple & innocent. nothing. not even hummingbirds.
ha ha: “It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread of the seagulls or love”. seagulls are as trivial as love. that’s fantastic, j. i’d thought i’d read that book, but the author’s name is totally unfamiliar, so…thanks so much for the quotes. you have quite a memory in that head of yours.
swear to the gods, we just watched an episode of ‘the blacklist’ (james spader) in which the head of ‘the fulcrum’ (mainly former spooks, some active) said exactly the same thing. ‘our methods of control might seem brutal, but in the end, the (rabble) of the nation can sleep w/o fear…well, less fear, anyway’.
this seems to be a never-ending saga, doesn’t it? but harding & friend seem to be in the thick of the sales pitch; what a dangerous oaf for empire he is…in the end. the wheels are falling off both this ‘poisoning’ by russia, as are the douma ‘gas attacks’ by…well, you know; putin’s puppet.
John Le Carre is the author, Lemas is the main character. movie version is quite good too, Richard Burton.
They abuse his need for love and then kill his lover. he tries to bring her back across the wall.
the wildflowers are crossing all the fences, try as we might.
ah, now i’ve got it, thanks ;-) i did read all of le carré’s books, i guess. or at least one series of them (tinker, tailor, smiley’s people. etc.)
i’d forgotten what a riveting actor burton is/was, but i’d had to bingle to discover that ‘control’ is cyril cusack. i’ll see if we can borrow it an the others.
aside topic: that the D team has learned to love the cia is one of my favorite themes of trump derangement disease.
a bit off topic, but from today: ‘Trump committed to ‘regime change’ in Iran, his lawyer Giuliani says’, via RT w/ video i can’t begin to want to watch…
https://www.rt.com/usa/425960-trump-regime-change-iran/