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When militants in Ghouta claimed that Syrian Government forces had launched an attack on the Damascus suburb with Sarin-filled missiles back in August 2013, the government’s denials of responsibility were ignored by Syria’s foes in the West. Had they given the matter even the slightest unprejudiced consideration, and asked the most obvious question of Syria’s President Assad – “why did you do it?” – the answer would certainly have cut short the foreign-backed campaign to overthrow his government.

But very few Western commentators asked this question publicly, even if Assad’s motivation was puzzling to them. Or incomprehensible - not only was the Syrian Army on the front foot at the time, and “rebel” forces under pressure, but a specialist UN team had finally arrived in Damascus to investigate the apparent use of Sarin by Jabhat al Nusra six months earlier.

Russian experts had visited the site of that attack at the time – March 19th - which targeted and killed Syrian soldiers and “pro-Government” residents in Khan al Assal near Aleppo. Samples they took and analysed in an OPCW approved Russian lab identified “kitchen Sarin” – a finding evidently confirmed by the UK’s chemical weapon research facility at Porton Down. Admitting that Al Qaeda-linked forces had used Sarin identified as not from Syrian stocks was however a bridge too far for the Free Syrian Army-supporting UK government, and the MI6 agents who apparently recovered samples from Khan al Assal themselves.

This is the vital but mostly ignored background, not only to the subsequent “false flag” Sarin attack in East Ghouta, but quite evidently to the current anti-Russian hysteria on show in the Western media, both over current Russian actions in East Ghouta and alleged Russian actions in the UK; the extraordinary resonances hardly need pointing out.

By the same token we can see how prejudices – in the sense of pre-judgements – developed over Syria five years ago, are now leading to a state of hysteria and delusion in the West that almost defies understanding.

What happened in Ghouta on the 21st of August 2013 – what is alleged to have happened by local “activists” and their media support networks in the West – was NOT a Sarin attack by the Syrian army or any of its allies. Demonstrating his straight-talking intolerance of pretence, Vladimir Putin described the Opposition claims as “utter nonsense”. What possible motive could President Assad, or some rogue general in the army, have for using such a weapon against innocents, and on the day after the UN CW investigators had arrived in Damascus? The idea was quite preposterous, and only those already blinded by Western anti-Syrian and anti-Russian propaganda could have believed it.

Now it appears that this “training”, not just of Western media and commentators, but of the “great British public” is enabling the same states who pulled off the Syrian chemical weapons scam to pass off the Skripal poisoning as an act of war ordered by the Kremlin. The similarities are considerable, and striking from the start to unprejudiced observers. (though it might be fairly argued that we are in fact highly prejudiced – against believing anything at face value which suits the political and strategic interests of Russia’s Western opponents.)

For anyone vaguely familiar with the British establishment’s defence and intelligence history, simply hearing – on March 4th – that a serious incident involving a Russian spy had taken place in Salisbury was sufficient to ring alarm bells. Salisbury has no special security significance beyond its proximity to Porton Down – Europe’s biggest Chemical Weapons research base and repository. The mere presence of an MI6 Russian agent in Salisbury rings some bells – why would he go there, to retire? Perhaps he wasn’t retired at all, as suggested in this article by James O’Neill.

It appears that Skripal had maintained contact with the MI6 agent who recruited him in the ‘90s, one Pablo Miller, and who just happened to live in Salisbury. But Miller also just happened to work for Christopher Steele’s company, responsible for compiling the Trump Dossier for the Clinton campaign. Steele of course was also an MI6 agent, who was in Moscow when Miller was in Talinn, Estonia.

In an affair that begins to look rather incestuous, Steele went on to run the Russia desk in London, and was there at the time of Livinenko’s poisoning in 2006. Yet another link of interest was revealed in a recent interview with Sir Anthony Brenton by Fran Kelly on the ABC’s RN Breakfast programme. As a former UK ambassador to Russia, Sir Anthony provided a predictably supportive commentary on the UK’s fanciful and mendacious claims about Russia’s supposed role in the Skripal drama, refuting Russia’s denials and embroidering Theresa May’s “Novichok” story with some of his own:

“What happened in Salisbury today, could happen in Melbourne tomorrow, could happen in Frankfurt, or Avignon…”

It’s no coincidence perhaps that Sir Anthony Brenton was the Moscow Ambassador from 2004 – 2008, but also worked as a counsellor at the Moscow British Embassy from 1994-98. His strong support for the UK’s allegations against Russia in the Livinenko case, which remain as unsubstantiated as those over Skripal, was evident in the interview.

At this point the ABC had shown little interest in asking our own leaders for their viewpoint on the Skripal affair, and it almost seemed as though Brenton was pushing for an Australian response on behalf of Whitehall:

“..we have a shared interest in discouraging the Russians from doing this sort of thing, and we hope that our allies will involve themselves in supporting the sanctions that we about to take.”

The following day the UK got what it wanted from Australia – full endorsement and solidarity – along with that of the US, France and Germany, and NATO’s Jen Stoltenberg. Now we’ve signed up to this insane provocation, we should take another look at just what it means.

And this is where a comparison with the alleged/staged chemical weapons attacks in Syria is so relevant. To that unprejudiced observer, the suggestion that Vladimir Putin chose this moment to bump off a passe’ old spy, using a special weapon bearing his insignia, which he left behind in a public place just a stone’s throw from the only place in the UK that could identify it… this story would seem like “utter nonsense”.

And it turns out that those swarms of special agents and operators who so rapidly appeared on the streets of Salisbury, and on TV screens around the world, were waiting just round the corner, as if they knew “Putin was coming”. Only three weeks earlier a major chemical weapons exercise had been held in that very area, which encompasses both the Porton Down facility and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston:

40 Commando Royal Marines and The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) have staged the UK’s biggest annual exercise to prepare troops for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) operations. Exercise TOXIC DAGGER is supported by Dstl, along with Public Health England (PHE) and The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), and is the largest exercise of its kind in the country. Specialists in CBRN from Dstl and AWE are able to create realistic exercise scenarios based on the latest threat information. Completing the training and exercising against these scenarios provides a challenging programme for the Royal Marines to demonstrate their proficiency in the methods to detect, assess and mitigate a CBRN threat. The three-week programme included Company-level attacks and scenarios concerning CBRN vignettes, concluding with a full-scale exercise involving government and industry scientists and more than 300 military personnel.

Just a coincidence perhaps. But perhaps not, and it’s abundantly clear that Russia sees such coincidences as yet more evidence of malintent. While we may only be able to speculate on the reasons that the UK has for staging this particular false flag operation now, we should also fear that their objectives and those of NATO partners go far beyond such trivial matters as appearing at the World Cup, or even deflecting attention from arms sales to the Saudis. This surely is all about what is happening in Syria, and even what is about to happen there unless we wake up to it and sound the alarm. Russia has evidence that Western powers and their local agents – the White Helmets – are about to stage another chemical weapons attack, in order to provide the pretext for a direct military attack on the Syrian government.

It’s time to stop supporting our old allies, stop standing on the fence, and stand up for Russia. But that’s about as likely as Theresa May admitting responsibility for her crime.