World Politics

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

My only emotion is bemusement at the pretzel logic some will do to avoid an inconvenient conclusion that runs against their deep-rooted dogmas. And your posts are a veritable gold mine. Thank you for that!

As for the rest, you provide no evidence for the false flag option. So how can it be equally probable? A hypothesis that is supported by no evidence is a very weak one indeed.

Don't you sometimes think it's really weird that after some event, there's absolutely no evidence, but within minutes to hours there's a fully developed narrative? Even weirder is that the exact same phrases get used over and over again starting with the very first reporting, almost as though they're talking points prepared in advance.

John Swanson

 

[macbindle]

Within minutes and hours the press was reporting the two as having being under the influence of Fentanyl.

Naturally once it was released that the person in question was a Russian spy traitor people aligned the story with previous Russian assassinations that have taken place on UK soil.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

Within minutes and hours the press was reporting the two as having being under the influence of Fentanyl.

Naturally once it was released that the person in question was a Russian spy traitor people aligned the story with previous Russian assassinations that have taken place on UK soil.

Which assassinations are those? The Litvinenko thing is all kinds of weird. And added to that list is...?

John Swanson

 

[macbindle]

http://uk.businessinsider.com/list-alleged-russian-assassinations-in-britain-litvinenko-2018-3

 

[macbindle]

Re:

^you brought an analogy to doping and doping agents..


without engaging into an argument, which cant be had yet w/o the independent evidence, i believe it could be a false flag op. or as probable as anything else.

And yet the UK government did not point any fingers until yesterday, 8 days after the initial incident. They've had 8 days to consider all possibilities including false flag operations.

The UK government hasn't directly accused the Russian state of the killing, but has asked the Russians to account for how their chemical weapon was used.

Almost certainly we are not being told the backstory, it is the spy game after all, but I would be very surprised if the Russians were not involved.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/list-alleged-russian-assassinations-in-britain-litvinenko-2018-3

Hahaha. So basically any prominent Russian who dies of natural causes on British soil, plus some shady Brits including this gem:

"Elichaoff was a businessman and the former husband of TV presenter Trinny Woodall. He had battled painkiller addiction, and reportedly rolled himself off a shopping centre roof after a string of oil investments went wrong. "

Which literally has nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.

John Swanson

 

[macbindle]

They are of course, unproven.

The Litvenenko murder is unproven because Russia refused to extradite the suspects. One of them is now a politician.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

My only emotion is bemusement at the pretzel logic some will do to avoid an inconvenient conclusion that runs against their deep-rooted dogmas. And your posts are a veritable gold mine. Thank you for that!

As for the rest, you provide no evidence for the false flag option. So how can it be equally probable? A hypothesis that is supported by no evidence is a very weak one indeed.

Don't you sometimes think it's really weird that after some event, there's absolutely no evidence, but within minutes to hours there's a fully developed narrative? Even weirder is that the exact same phrases get used over and over again starting with the very first reporting, almost as though they're talking points prepared in advance.

John Swanson

As with Python, I would invite you to come up with your own narrative, present it to us and compare it to the conventional wisdom. The notion that everybody is rushing to judgement is belied by the fact that the US is still on the fence officially, even after May's announcement.

 

[Merckx index]

^you brought an analogy to doping and doping agents...

as i said, this is a very dirty and dark business. it is imo naive to take the info fed to the public w/o any back up evidence.

but to believe into some version is certainly anyone's right. one only needs to be intellectually honest that it ist their opinion not yet based on evidence.

without engaging into an argument, which cant be had yet w/o the independent evidence, i believe it could be a false flag op. or as probable as anything else.

The analogy to doping was only to make the point that these substances can be designed with the aim of avoiding the letter of a weapons agreement. That is quite well established. Almost all of my post was concerned with indisputable facts about nerve agents in general . The only thing I said which is not either factual or which I presented as speculation is that Novichok was the agent used. Yes, it’s possible that it really wasn’t, that the British government is lying about this. Run with that if you want, but rather than focus on why--do the British really want to pick a fight with Putin right now?--i would focus on what actually happened. As I said, the delayed action is a little surprising, and even more so is the delay in warning the public about the danger. Those are facts (unless you're questioning whether it was even a nerve agent, in which case why would the government scare the locals unnecessarily, possibly opening itself up to lawsuits?) that I think stand out more to a scientist than speculation, almost always unprovable, about false flags or whatever.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more the false flag theory doesn’t make sense. If I understand the thinking behind this, government agents poisoned the Skripals, right? Either they used a nerve agent—didn’t have to be Novichok, because they could control the information about it that was released—or something else. If it was something else, there was no need to fabricate a story about contamination in the restaurant, and alarm the public, and as I said, raise the possibility of lawsuits.

OTOH, if it was a nerve agent (which having been factually or falsely identified as Novichok would make the Russian connection more plausible), and there really was contamination, why did they wait a week to inform the public? If this was all planned by the government, they surely would have realized the possibility of contamination at places other than where the Skripals were found. Maybe it wasn’t planned that way, maybe the Skripals were supposed to be affected immediately, but in any case, certainly when the Skripals were found some place distant from where the poisoning took place, the government should have notified the public sooner. Maybe not immediately—they didn’t want it to appear as if they knew it was a nerve agent before they could have had time to examine the Skripals—but certainly sooner than a week. In fact, even before they could have confirmed it was a nerve agent, the government could have reasonably decided to quarantine any places where the Skripals had been seen earlier. A suspicion of a nerve agent would not be suspicious, if I may put it that way.

What’s wrong with this reasoning? Have at it.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

My only emotion is bemusement at the pretzel logic some will do to avoid an inconvenient conclusion that runs against their deep-rooted dogmas. And your posts are a veritable gold mine. Thank you for that!

As for the rest, you provide no evidence for the false flag option. So how can it be equally probable? A hypothesis that is supported by no evidence is a very weak one indeed.

Don't you sometimes think it's really weird that after some event, there's absolutely no evidence, but within minutes to hours there's a fully developed narrative? Even weirder is that the exact same phrases get used over and over again starting with the very first reporting, almost as though they're talking points prepared in advance.

John Swanson

As with Python, I would invite you to come up with your own narrative, present it to us and compare it to the conventional wisdom. The notion that everybody is rushing to judgement is belied by the fact that the US is still on the fence officially, even after May's announcement.

I guess I differ in that I don't feel it necessary to figure out why the sky is blue when people keep telling me it's green. I'm okay at this point to say that the assertions don't match what can be easily observed. I don't know anything beyond that and don't have enough data to make an alternate hypothesis. That said, some of the alternate explanations can't be discounted, also because of a lack of data.

Johnny Science <--- Thanks aphronesis, I really like that one - But I really am John Swanson

 

[djpbaltimore]

I agree in principle that in an outrageous event like this, even outrageous notions can be entertained. But my main point was that the reason false flag theories and the like are not being talked about in any detail is because they would not hold up well to scrutiny. This is a case where Occam's razor seems to apply.

 

[macbindle]

Indeed. You'd have to be a bit of a fukwit to entertain the notion of a false flag operation given that the UK stands to look weak as a result of this event.

Not only that but you'd have to be blind to the probability that this event is a reaction to, or a reprisal for something the UK has done.

....and that is even before you get to the notion of somebody within the UK military being willing to splash a chemical weapon around on the streets of Salisbury.

 

[python]

Re:

^you brought an analogy to doping and doping agents...

as i said, this is a very dirty and dark business. it is imo naive to take the info fed to the public w/o any back up evidence.

but to believe into some version is certainly anyone's right. one only needs to be intellectually honest that it ist their opinion not yet based on evidence.

without engaging into an argument, which cant be had yet w/o the independent evidence, i believe it could be a false flag op. or as probable as anything else.

The analogy to doping was only to make the point that these substances can be designed with the aim of avoiding the letter of a weapons agreement. That is quite well established. Almost all of my post was concerned with indisputable facts about nerve agents in general . The only thing I said which is not either factual or which I presented as speculation is that Novichok was the agent used. Yes, it’s possible that it really wasn’t, that the British government is lying about this. Run with that if you want, but rather than focus on why--do the British really want to pick a fight with Putin right now?--i would focus on what actually happened. As I said, the delayed action is a little surprising, and even more so is the delay in warning the public about the danger. Those are facts (unless you're questioning whether it was even a nerve agent, in which case why would the government scare the locals unnecessarily, possibly opening itself up to lawsuits?) that I think stand out more to a scientist than speculation, almost always unprovable, about false flags or whatever.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more the false flag theory doesn’t make sense. If I understand the thinking behind this, government agents poisoned the Skripals, right? Either they used a nerve agent—didn’t have to be Novichok, because they could control the information about it that was released—or something else. If it was something else, there was no need to fabricate a story about contamination in the restaurant, and alarm the public, and as I said, raise the possibility of lawsuits.

OTOH, if it was a nerve agent (which having been factually or falsely identified as Novichok would make the Russian connection more plausible), and there really was contamination, why did they wait a week to inform the public? If this was all planned by the government, they surely would have realized the possibility of contamination at places other than where the Skripals were found. Maybe it wasn’t planned that way, maybe the Skripals were supposed to be affected immediately, but in any case, certainly when the Skripals were found some place distant from where the poisoning took place, the government should have notified the public sooner. Maybe not immediately—they didn’t want it to appear as if they knew it was a nerve agent before they could have had time to examine the Skripals—but certainly sooner than a week. In fact, even before they could have confirmed it was a nerve agent, the government could have reasonably decided to quarantine any places where the Skripals had been seen earlier. A suspicion of a nerve agent would not be suspicious, if I may put it that way.

What’s wrong with this reasoning? Have at it.

... i have to run to my daughter's performance. will address your points later. at least you still are asking questions and don't pretend like some above that unknowns are hard facts. to me everything starts, i repeat starts with identifying an agent, in a manner that's transparent and verifiable. it should include some sort of independent international mechanism (which does exist) examining the samples. i perfectly realize that russia wont help if it is 'their word against the brit's word'.

i repeat, what we have so far is exclusively the british version and claims, the british refusal to share the chemistry and the british ultimatum they knew in advance will be rejected.

 

[BullsFan22]

I am pretty sure Russia was also involved in the Sharon Tate murder and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa...I know it because Theresa May and Rachel Maddow said so.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

I agree in principle that in an outrageous event like this, even outrageous notions can be entertained. But my main point was that the reason false flag theories and the like are not being talked about in any detail is because they would not hold up well to scrutiny. This is a case where Occam's razor seems to apply.

I suppose one way to analyze this one is to take a look at what the end result is, and then work backwards. In this case a confrontation has materialized between Russia and the UK that may escalate in some unknown ways. So I guess the first question is to ask who has the motive and means to manufacture the confrontation?

For one, I don't think Russia has a motive even if it does have ample means.
Second, I don't think the UK has a motive either although it certainly has the means.
Third, the UK may have been willingly or unwillingly used by a third party which seems the most likely scenario.

From there, I guess you could narrow it down to a smallish list of suspects that might have a motive to create conflict and the sophistication to pull it off. Israel or the Saudis, perhaps?

John Swanson

 

[macbindle]

Eh? There are motives for both sides.

The UK may have staged the event in order to justify expelling 20 or so known spies...ahem...diplomats. Unlikely, as I said in my previous post.

The Russians may have carried out the attack in order to send a message. It might be a message to their own security service staff that if they betray Russia, the state will kill their entire family. Why might they do this? Perhaps the British have been turning other Russian agents into double-agents. Much more likely.

There is constant military tension between western European countries and Russia. Naturally this reflects in all aspects of the defence system.

 

[djpbaltimore]

I am pretty sure Russia was also involved in the Sharon Tate murder and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa...I know it because Theresa May and Rachel Maddow said so.

C'mon man, nobody is talking about Sharon Tate or Jimmy Hoffa. We are talking about the highly suspicious attempted assassination of a Russian spy convicted of high treason through exposure to a Russian nerve agent. See the difference? As I have mentioned to others, feel free to come up with your own hypothesis about what happened and discuss it.

Remember when you were so outspoken and skeptical about the notion of Russian meddling in elections. Hmm.... you seem to have used Maddow to deflect then too.

viewtopic.php?p=2087069#p2087069

 

[macbindle]

I have some sympathy with Bullsfan22's post in so far as the red under the bed narrative is one some of us grew up with, but this time I think the Russians really did do it.

I think they want us to know they did it too. Just waiting to see what the hard calculation was.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re:

Eh? There are motives for both sides.

The UK may have staged the event in order to justify expelling 20 or so known spies...ahem...diplomats. Unlikely, as I said in my previous post.

The Russians may have carried out the attack in order to send a message. It might be a message to their own security service staff that if they betray Russia, the state will kill their entire family. Why might they do this? Perhaps the British have been turning other Russian agents into double-agents. Much more likely.

There is constant military tension between western European countries and Russia. Naturally this reflects in all aspects of the defence system.

That doesn't fit for a few reasons. First, if they were going to make an example of Skripal it would've been when he was first arrested. Did they? Nope. He got an 18 year sentence and received a full pardon before the spy swap he was part of. Second, my understanding is that there is a very long tradition by the east and west to NOT go after defected spies. It's just part of the game.

Also, the UK doesn't need such a roundabout, murderous scheme to eject any diplomats it deems to be spies. They can simply give notice to the ambassador that the following people will be arrested for espionage if they don't leave the country within the next month.

And military tension with Russia... That's a fairly recent phenomena that was non-existent shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Did you hear that the Ukraine now has a MAP and is on its way to becoming a full fledged NATO member? That's hardly the Russians who are being aggressive.

Again, I'd say start with at the end and work backwards. So start with a list of who might want a confrontation between the UK and Russia and start eliminating the suspects. None of this is in Russia's interests so I think we can safely rule them out.

John Swanson

 

[macbindle]

No we can't rule them out and your point about who is the guilty party in west-russo aggression is irrelevant.

Skripal may have been exchanged, but that only adds to the message Russia may be sending to its own people. The message being that 'we will get you'. Maybe they didn't need to make an example 18 years ago. Maybe they do now.

I think you are a little naive about east-west relations. There are constant quick reaction scrambles in the UK to intercept Russian nuclear bombers heading towards UK airspace. There is unprecedented sub activity in the waters north of Scotland. There has been interference with undersea communication cables.

I'm fully aware of the issues surrounding NATO expansion, but that just adds to the motive the Russians may have.

You have neglected to consider the state of British politics. All parties are split over Brexit, the PM is unpopular and Britain has alienated it's Euro neighbours. The US is led by a man who seems very reluctant to criticise the Russians over anything.....kompromat.

 

[macbindle]

By the way, voices in the Russian opposition are saying Putin did it for domestic political reasons. They are saying he wants to present the West and the UN as anti-Russian.

 

[BullsFan22]

I am pretty sure Russia was also involved in the Sharon Tate murder and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa...I know it because Theresa May and Rachel Maddow said so.

C'mon man, nobody is talking about Sharon Tate or Jimmy Hoffa. We are talking about the highly suspicious attempted assassination of a Russian spy convicted of high treason through exposure to a Russian nerve agent. See the difference? As I have mentioned to others, feel free to come up with your own hypothesis about what happened and discuss it.

Remember when you were so outspoken and skeptical about the notion of Russian meddling in elections. Hmm.... you seem to have used Maddow to deflect then too.

viewtopic.php?p=2087069#p2087069

Right, and have they found any 'evidence' linking the Russians to the DNC leaks or the election? I am still waiting...

 

[Elagabalus]

Re: Re:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/list-alleged-russian-assassinations-in-britain-litvinenko-2018-3

Hahaha. So basically any prominent Russian who dies of natural causes on British soil, plus some shady Brits including this gem:

"Elichaoff was a businessman and the former husband of TV presenter Trinny Woodall. He had battled painkiller addiction, and reportedly rolled himself off a shopping centre roof after a string of oil investments went wrong. "

Which literally has nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.

John Swanson

You didn't go back far enough.

Georgi Markov

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/09/a-brief-history-of-attempted-russian-assassinations-by-poison/

 

[macbindle]

It's funny isn't it. As soon as there is something like this involving spies people start acting like Colombo.
.
t's pretty damn obvious who did it, especially when they actually tell you they will assassinate traitors.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

It's funny isn't it. As soon as there is something like this involving spies people start acting like Colombo.

It's pretty damn obvious who did it, especially when they actually tell you they will assassinate traitors.

They should just do what the Americans and Brits do in the Middle East and just say 'hey, look people, it's for your own good that we are bombing the snot out of you.'

Being obvious isn't a bad thing, innit?