{"id":2611,"date":"2018-04-21T14:57:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-21T15:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2024-02-21T15:49:38","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T16:49:38","slug":"the-skripals-and-other-fish-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/2018\/04\/21\/the-skripals-and-other-fish-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"The Skripals, and other fish stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you have had your newsfeeds or TV turned off since the first of March this year, you have no doubt heard the tale of the Skripals and the scandal surrounding their alleged poisoning with a military-grade chemical weapon \u2013 \u201cof a type made in Russia\u201d. The tale is straight out of a\u00a0spy drama<\/a><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0a veritable\u00a0giallo<\/em>, as we call them here in Italy. For more, read on…<\/span><\/p>\n

The story goes that on 4 Mar 18 at around 4:00 PM, Sergei Skripal, an ex-Russian double agent, and his daughter, Yulia, were both found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England, after having eaten out at a local restaurant. They were attended to at the scene. (Note for later that the medical people remained alive and well, and\u00a0were unaffected<\/a><\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Later, it was determined that the Skripals had been poisoned. Not more than four days later, it was announced by the British government that the two had been poisoned by a military-grade chemical weapon, and that they were not expected to survive. Fingers were immediately pointed at Russian involvement. The allegations against Russia had been put forward with very flimsy evidence at best (actually, little to no evidence), with a rush to assert guilt, destruction of evidence, obstruction of investigations and media blitz that one typically sees with attempts at manufactured consent or false flag operations. In order to carry out a proper investigation, the\u00a0OPCW<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0process\u00a0typically takes weeks<\/a><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0yet government officials had supposedly been able to determine in a very short period of time (a couple of days) that the agent used was something known as \u2018Novichok\u2019 \u2013 one of a class of deadly nerve agents that had allegedly been developed in the ex-USSR, but which had since been destroyed. As a result, both the US and the UK, along with token numbers by other Western nations, expelled dozens of Russian diplomats, with the US imposing sanctions on Russian oligarchs with known or alleged ties to Vladimir Putin. Cue the TV show:<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been several very good analyses by other sources as the Skripal story has unfolded, so we will not go over all the details. Perhaps two best independent analyses of the events surrounding this whole strange episode can be accessed\u00a0here<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a><\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0It is advisable to read through them for a complete background on the story. Instead, we will focus on the astrology of the events and what it will mean for the UK and the US, as they are the two nations most vociferously agitating for action against Russia. As luck would have it, the Skripals mysteriously resurrected themselves from the \u2018Novichok\u2019 poison \u2013 for which there is not supposed to be any antidote \u2013 an Easter miracle(!) or one might say, an April Fool\u2019s joke on the May government, and they are expected to make a full recovery. Yulia Skripal has been released from hospital but is under what would appear to be\u00a0sequestration<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>by the British government. Before we get to the astrology, there are a few points to keep in mind as we go along.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have likely heard many theories as to why the Skripals would have been poisoned and why the hyperbolic rhetoric has been ramped up around Russia, and we might list some of them here:<\/span><\/p>\n