Chemical weapons team at work in the aftermath of the Skripal’s poisoning<\/p>\n
Two days ago it was reported<\/a> that UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps was warning the country might face another \u201cnovichok-style attack\u201d.<\/p>\n And he\u2019s completely right \u2013 although probably not in the way he wants you to think. But we\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n First, we should ask: What exactly is<\/em> a \u201cnovichok-style attack\u201d? What was\u00a0Shapps\u2019 dire warning intended to convey?<\/p>\n For those who may not know, Shapps was referencing the alleged poisoning (with a nerve agent called \u201cnovichok\u201d) \u00a0of exiled Russian GRU officer\/MI6 agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March 2018, the \u201cofficial account\u201d of which has been subject to what one could politely call \u201congoing revision\u201d.<\/p>\n We were told \u00a0\u201cnovichok\u201d was \u00a0\u201c5-10 times more lethal than VX gas\u201d<\/em>, and \u00a0\u201ca weapon too deadly to use\u201d<\/a>\u2026. And yet it spectacularly failed to kill either of its Salisbury targets.<\/p>\n Two years later the recently-departed Alexei Navalny apparently had it spread over the inside of his underpants<\/a>. Just like Sergei and Yulia Skripal, he made a full recovery.<\/p>\n Pretty poor showing so far for the world\u2019s deadliest neurotoxin.<\/p>\n But then the Novichok narrative never did seem to know where it was going.<\/p>\n From the almost totally ineffective \u201cdeadly\u201d murder weapon\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026to the early (since redacted) reports that the Skripals were suffering fentanyl poisoning<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026to the \u201cToxic Dagger\u201d chemical weapons<\/a> drill\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026to the apparent coincidence that the British Army\u2019s chief nurse<\/a> was the first person to tend to the \u201cvictims\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026to the D-notice<\/a> on Pablo Miller<\/a> (Skripal\u2019s MI6 handler).<\/p>\n There was never a single aspect of the entire case that made any sense, even on its own terms.<\/p>\n [You can read a full archive of our Skripal coverage here<\/a>. We also recommend the BlogMire<\/a>, who did excellent work deconstructing the narrative.]<\/p>\n Returning to our opening question: what does \u201ca novichok-style attack\u201d\u00a0<\/em>mean?<\/p>\n According to Shapps and the entire Western establishment, it means Russian poisoners stalking the suburban streets of Britain, vials of neurotoxin in hand, dispatching innocent civilians.<\/p>\n \u2026but what does \u201ca novichok-style attack\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 really<\/strong> mean?<\/p>\n It means a massively distracting, obviously orchestrated fake event, in which powerful agencies and institutions attempt to sell an agenda by spinning a narrative that revises and contradicts itself as and when it becomes necessary, and never even tries to conform to common sense or even the laws of physics.<\/p>\n So is Shapps right? Will there be another one?<\/p>\n Oh, almost certainly.<\/p>\n There\u2019s very little else these days.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n