Novichok: It all started in 1999 in uzbekistan

Image: The Skripals - a job well done!

​Novichok: It all started in 1999 in Uzbekistan

Or did it? Read to the very end to find out.

New York Times, May 25, 1999:

U.S. and Uzbeks Agree on Chemical Arms Plant Cleanup

After the Soviet Union broke up, it became apparent that there was a Russian chemical lab in Uzbekistan that needed to be dismantled. Guess who helped dismantle it - the good old US of A.

Meanwhile, one of the Russian scientists made it crystal clear that there was no way anyone could survive a Novichok attack. 

The National: ‘No antidote’ to Novichok so spy will die

• Vladimir Uglev, who helped develop the nerve agent allegedly used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, says they will die if taken off life support
• "There is no antidote to these agents. I can say with nearly 100 per cent certainty that if Skripal and his daughter are taken off of life support, they will die, although they are now only technically alive." 

Yet, wonder of wonders, two very useful Russians in the UK (now living in the US under new names?) miraculously survived.

An article in The Bell goes into much more detail:

• The British, just like the Germans, are excellent chemists who can with one hint do what in Moscow is classified as top secret. In addition, the secret was already 20 years old in 1993. So the question should be directed to those specialists charged with protecting state secrets: is it possible to keep such information secret without any leaks?

So how can the recovery of the Skripals be accounted for? That was apparently a conundrum until an article by a medical doctor was posted online by a pay-as-you-go UK publishing firm with funding from an American institution known as: the National Institute on Drug Abuse [grant number K23DA044874 PRC) and K24DA037109 (EWB) 

Dr. Peter Chai owes his new fame as a Novichok expert to both the UK and the US - and, of course, to CNN, which was happy to credit as if scientific proof what should only be categorized as an opinion piece:

• Dr. Peter R. Chai of the Division of Medical Toxicology in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, described Novichok as a "weaponized organophosphate," a category of pesticides commonly used in agriculture.
• The weaponized nerve agents commonly called Novichok, VX and sarin "mostly possess the same chemical structure backbone of other organophosphate pesticides," Chai said. "But they've been modified to make them potent."

Dr. Chai, a physician in the emergency department of a women's hospital, insists there is a cure for this type of poisoning, and that's supposedly why the Skripals are still alive.

But Dawn Sturgess died after reportedly being taken off oxygen support, so even more reason to be amazed that an old, overweight, out-of-shape guy like Skripal, also a happy tippler, could miraculously survive.

The Peter R. Chai "toxological perspective". Though presented as if it were a scientific study, this article comes across as surprisingly anecdotal, self-promoting and strongly political. Oddly, though he quotes several news outlets to make his points, he nevertheless admits that:

• "today’s modern media can be used to distort the facts of chemical weapon incidents".
• "Like the publication of peer-reviewed manuscripts potentially used to mask research and development of Novichok agents in the 1990s, today’s modern media can be used to distort the facts of chemical weapon incidents. In a world where news of assassinations and chemical attacks is rapidly disseminated, we will increasingly be called upon to lend our expertise in the education,  diagnosis, and treatment of nerve agents. We urge our fellow toxicologists and clinicians to continue to speak out, defend, and develop policies against the use of chemical weapons."

So what he's essentially saying is that there is a great future for himself and others like him who are able to back up government pronouncements.

At the foot of the article is a disclaimer from the publisher (in other words "what we don't know can't be held against us"):

• Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
• © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
• Published online: 29 Jun 2018. Submit your article to this journal

I bet if I paid enough money to Informa UK Limited to have one of my screeds published on their website they'd find a place for me.

The Mirror confirms that Sturgess and Rowley were drinking with friends -- and possibly using drugs -- the night before they fell ill.

And here is why I think that one or two of the couple's drinking "friends" may not have been true friends at all:

• Pals said he and Dawn are well-known in Salisbury for scavenging through bins and bushes for items they could then sell.
• One friend told the Mirror: "They are forever hunting through rubbish looking for something worth flogging.
• "He’s probably spotted something in the bushes at the park and then they’ve both gone through the bag and got contaminated."
• Their friend Sam Hobson, who spent last Friday with them, said there was a brief time they were separated in the park.

Notice how the "friend" provides a scenario for how the couple could have been poisoned, and at the same time absolves himself of any direct knowledge of any find by saying they separated for a "brief time" in the park.

If that "friend" is still on UK soil, then the story that Russian agents, who reportedly absconded back to Russia, were caught on CCTV transmitting the poison, does not ring any truer than any of the other media reports.

As Sam Husseini, who was credentialed to cover the Trump/Putin Summit for The Nation magazine but was tossed out instead, tweeted, “The issue isn’t Trump. The issue isn’t Putin. The issue is the issues: Nuclear threats, Syria, etc.”

Thanks to Penny who took time out from her research re: Canada, US & Britain to Rescue Terrorist "White Helmets" At Golan to point out for me another new American rage against Russia:

Maria Butina, Russian gun rights activist linked to NRA, charged as Kremlin agent

And that's not all. As if being a Russian agent was a bit too boring for the average -- very average -- reader, Maria Butina has now been turned into a honey pot.  Apparently, there was not enough violence to tweak interest, and sex is the next best attraction, especially when a sexy movie, suspiciously prophetic, can be promoted.

Poor Maria. She was safer in Russia. Looks like EVERYBODY would be safer in Russia than in the itchy-trigger-finger, paranoid, violent, ready-to-hate anything that looks a bit different US of A.

But perhaps America has reason to be paranoid. After all, it has a history of sending spies to Russia. You should read about the one who was involved in another nerve agent scandal:  Operation Shocker, they called it.  So, really, it all began long before the 1999 cleanup in Uzbekistan.

A commenter to the Butina article hit the nail on the head in response to a comment that "Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin ... greeted [Butina] in Russian":

Mperse c.g. • 3 days ago

• Ah yes! He speaks Russian! He must be a double agent! You guys sound like a bunch of 50's era McCarthyites running around looking for commies under every bed. Wow!

Below: The green bags and the white suits bow to one another as their very presence "proves" the presence of Novichok.
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​Image from Sputnik article: "The majority of the media have been running with the whole ‘the Russians did it’ since this story broke."