Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[peterms]

45 minutes ago, blandy said:

Isn't it? How do they know? and regardless, I mean who was that fella they poisoned with plutonium or whatever it was? Very similar "sloppiness" and botched attempts etc.

As we have discussed previously, that act brought no consequences. Why would Russia think it would be any different this time? The UK, and May in particular has been very reticent about taking any serious action, other than the symbolic, previously. Even this time, there's been expulsions of some diplo's, some "tough talking" and ....nothing else. Nothing of actual consequence. No implementing of financial penalties and checks against all the looted, laundered money and all the rest.

There remain a number of questions about this whole Salisbury thing. What these unresolved things don't do is point to an alternative narrative, that it was the AMericans, or the UK, or was not a sanctioned Russian attack. It's not quite Occam's razor, but its not far off.

Some discussion below about why the account about what the two were doing raises questions.

As for sanctions, if the aim is to take stronger action against Russia, then releasing some actual evidence would be a start.  That might persuade other countries to do more than express solidarity and make token gestures.As it stands, the aim being pursued seems to be more about creating a perception that Russia uses chemical weapons, than actually demonstrating what really happened here.

Taking action on looted and laundered money should happen in any event, as an issue in its own right and with no connection with the Skripal affair.

 

[blandy]

53 minutes ago, peterms said:

Some discussion below about why the account about what the two were doing raises questions.

As for sanctions, if the aim is to take stronger action against Russia, then releasing some actual evidence would be a start.  That might persuade other countries to do more than express solidarity and make token gestures.As it stands, the aim being pursued seems to be more about creating a perception that Russia uses chemical weapons, than actually demonstrating what really happened here.

Taking action on looted and laundered money should happen in any event, as an issue in its own right and with no connection with the Skripal affair.

Last sentence - absolutely agree.

Middle para - there's a wealth of evidence and information regarding Russia's behaviour. Not just on Skripal, but over the Putin era. The US and other nations implemented this Magintsky rule as a direct consequence. The UK hasn't quite got round to it, for some reason. I don't suppose the preponderance of Russian billionaire's settling in the UK and various political donations has anything to do with it...wan't there that leaked memo about "don't do anything here, they fund the Tory party"? or have I misremembered? But from the panama papers, to the testimony of exiles, to intelligence and many other sources, there's a whole lot of stuff about the utter corrupt state of Russia.

Specifically about the use of nerve agents or radioactive isotopes, the Litvinenko trial presented a wealth of evidence. Obviously there's yet to be a Skripal trial and there probably never will be.

The Russia Today state TV video - doesn't amount to much at all. The army man says May will have had intelligence material not available publicly, that the route taken and passports used are/could well be a deliberate signal...that the true identities of the two people are not publicly known and probably not known to the intelligence services, or not wanted to be revealed.

Again, yes there is not a full and comprehensive picture of everything available to the public, or (probably) known privately. But while questions and unknowns exist, alternative remotely credible explanations are lacking.

That doesn't make the official account right, or totally doubt free, but it does offer the most credible version of events. Scepticism is fine, healthy even. As I repeatedly say, I prefer people to apply the same scepticism and questioning to alternative versions too. Maybe I'm looking at things not as "me" being judge and jury to a legal standard, but seeking to understand which version of events seems the best supported by background, by available info and by motive and so on. If (say) you're looking to use UK legal standards in terms of a "prosecution" then (I think) questions are good and right and "conviction" isn't possible on what's available. So if that leads to "acquittal" in (say) your mind, I'd ask who you would point the finger at and what's the evidence there?

Different takes on it, maybe. 

[peterms]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

there's a wealth of evidence and information regarding Russia's behaviour. 

This evidence and information about their behaviour is less damning than the evidence of the behaviour of the US and its client states, including us.  Over a million dead on the back of WMD lies is quite something to match up to, don't you think?  We're in no position to claim the moral high ground, as even Trump recognises.

2 hours ago, blandy said:

from the panama papers, to the testimony of exiles, to intelligence and many other sources, there's a whole lot of stuff about the utter corrupt state of Russia. 

And again, they are far from alone in that.  As the state which is probably most complicit in fraud, corruption and moneylaundering, we are in no position to get preachy about this.

2 hours ago, blandy said:

which version of events seems the best supported by background, by available info and by motive and so on

Again, the incident has (predictably) given Russia no obvious benefit, while incurring obvious harm.  Any consideration of motive could usefully start with that.  If Russia is damaged by the incident, who most stands to benefit?  There are several possibilities, which makes it hard to narrow down, but I find it hard to see a motive for Russia.   I see the NY Times, in a spectaculary shit piece, has today claimed it's all about personal vindictiveness on the part of Putin.  Oh, right. 

[Xann]

15 hours ago, peterms said:

I see the NY Times, in a spectaculary shit piece, has today claimed it's all about personal vindictiveness on the part of Putin.  Oh, right. 

Can't be dismissed.

You don't think he's capable of using the state machinery for his own ends?

Bloke thinks he's Tsar.

[peterms]

23 minutes ago, Xann said:

You don't think he's capable of using the state machinery for his own ends?

Of course he is.  Most leaders are, and most do.

The NYT piece quotes some (unreferenced) comments by Putin which express strong dislike for traitors, and on the back of this, it concludes that this is the motive for the attack on Skripal.  No attempt to justify the conclusion, or defend the leap from Putin sharing an extremely widely held opinion of people who betray their country to launching an attack on someone who the article paints as an insignificant figure, at the cost of real damage to Russian international relations.  It's like there must be a motive, here's a possible motive, therefore this is the motive.   As a piece of journalism, it's desperately poor.  As a piece of logic, it's worse.

[Xann]

2 minutes ago, peterms said:

As a piece of journalism, it's desperately poor.

That's what you get with poorly paid reporters in an age of disinformation.

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, Xann said:

That's what you get with poorly paid reporters in an age of disinformation.

It's true that investigative journalism has been harder hit than other content following the loss of newspaper income.  But this story credits four journos in two countries, which is not insignificant.  Perhaps they were allowed very little time, and just had to dash something off to fill the space.  That might explain why it reads more like a poor novel than a serious piece of work.

[tonyh29]

based on the news I’m currently seeing in  Beijing then Russia and China are doing a deal to remove China’s dependence on the Yankee $ for currency reserves and Putin had found a new home for offloading his oil ... not to mention some nice joint war games between the 2 nations

luckily for the rest of us the US doesn’t have an unhinged madman at the helm right now  

[blandy]

(again) Accusing the US of filming/staging  CW attack which will be released to media next tuesday. As they did a week or two ago. Absolutely No evidence or proof offered..

Meanwhile Syrian forces circle the city, if not to assault, to stop people fleeing.

Assad's henchmen must be tooling up again.

[peterms]

 

[blandy]

Well that's one take.

Another is that 

1. Assad knows he's winning. 2. Every time he's used chemicals he's achieved his objective and won with minimal consequences from the West. He's got chemicals. Scenario, chemicals are used. Question "who did it?" There's only one thing dumber than that question. Useful idiots.

[LondonLax]

17 hours ago, peterms said:

 

This 'logic' gets trotted out every time Assad uses chemical weapons and yet in each time their use turns out to be to Assad's advantage. If it is Al-Qaeda (or the US!) doing it you'd think they'd have learnt by now that it only helps Assad's cause in this war  

[blandy]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

If it is Al-Qaeda (or the US!) doing it you'd think they'd have learnt by now that it only helps Assad's cause in this war  

To be completely fair Al-Qaeda was found to have used mustard gas on (I think) 3 occasions in Syria. And the Syrian regime found to have repeatedly used Sarin and Chlorine gas. There don't seem to be many saints involved.

 

[peterms]

56 minutes ago, blandy said:

To be completely fair Al-Qaeda was found to have used mustard gas on (I think) 3 occasions in Syria. And the Syrian regime found to have repeatedly used Sarin and Chlorine gas. There don't seem to be many saints involved.

 

The UN have said Nusra Front have the capacity to produce weaponised chlorine.

Daesh were found sourcing sarin via Turkey, back in 2015.

They don't need to deploy it in quantities sufficient to be an effective weapon, if they can stage an incident which gives the US a pretext for the intervention they are clearly itching to make.  The western powers don't seem interested in asking why Syria would deploy such a weapon in militarily insignificant quantities, conferring no strategic advantage, while inviting a huge strategic disaster.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, peterms said:

The western powers don't seem interested in asking why Syria would deploy such a weapon in militarily insignificant quantities, conferring no strategic advantage, while inviting a huge strategic disaster.

You keep saying that, but it's utter bollocks. The reason why Syria would deploy such a weapon is the same one they've had all along. It works. Everywhere they've used the weapon they've prevailed. Once they use them, the opposiotion fighters, with no defence against it, bluntly scarper. SYrian foces then gain the ground/City/Town from the rebels. Assad wins. There has been almost no consequence for Syria of these repeated CW attacks. Token bombing of pre-warned targets by a handful of western planes or ships, then back to "normal".

[peterms]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

You keep saying that, but it's utter bollocks. The reason why Syria would deploy such a weapon is the same one they've had all along. It works. Everywhere they've used the weapon they've prevailed. Once they use them, the opposiotion fighters, with no defence against it, bluntly scarper. SYrian foces then gain the ground/City/Town from the rebels. Assad wins. There has been almost no consequence for Syria of these repeated CW attacks. Token bombing of pre-warned targets by a handful of western planes or ships, then back to "normal".

As people have explained many times, unless deployed in very large volumes (eg cases of industrial accidents), chlorine gas is something that people can walk away from.  The defence against it is walking away.

The idea that something far less lethal than the bombs and bullets which are being used would be so terrifying to hardened fighters that they scarper is utter bollocks.

The reason why the last US attack became a token instead of the more frenzied affair that Ivanka was requesting seems to be because someone senior (Mattis?) realised it was a staged event and pulled back accordingly.  But it seems that Bolton is now in charge of the response, and is salivating at the prospect of an excuse for a much bigger attack.

[Chindie]

Chemical and biological weapons are about more than their direct effect. They're terror weapons. And area denial weapons. Being able to walk away from it, which isn't always the case, doesn't stop that.

[bickster]

In today’s Russia news we have a member of Pussy Riot being poisoned and the Skripal suspects appearing on TV (RTV) to claim they were tourists visiting the world famous and well known tourist trap for Russians, Salisbury Cathedral. On the 2nd point - lol to the power of lol

[Awol]

30 minutes ago, bickster said:

...the Skripal suspects appearing on TV (RTV) to claim they were tourists visiting the world famous and well known tourist trap for Russians, Salisbury Cathedral. On the 2nd point - lol to the power of lol

They only stayed in Salisbury for a short time because there was cold slush on the ground. So they went directly back home to Moscow, in March.

Troll level: Expert. 

[Brumerican]

I feel like an utter fool now. 

Should have realised they were cathedral buffs from the off.