Our response to the nerve gas attack has been one of self harm.

[Mindful]

There was a growling Russian maniac on the BBC’s Today programme last week, an MP from the United Russia party called Vitaly Milonov. Breathing rather heavily, as if he were pleasuring himself, Mr Milonov likened our country to Hitler’s Germany for having accused Russia over the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. At this point he was cut off by the presenter — rather a shame, I thought, at the time. I would have liked to hear Vitaly expand upon some of his other beliefs, such as homosexuals being responsible for the Ebola virus and Jews being Satanists. He also hates cyclists, so not all bad, then. If you wanted to conjure up a post-commie reactionary Russian pantomime villain, Vitaly is what you would end up with. But he is not a chimera; he is real. And Putin is real enough too.

It is troubling, then, to find myself on the side of both of those appalling men when it comes to the UK government’s response to the attacks on Mr Skripal and his daughter. Not just the three of us, mind, but Jeremy Corbyn too. And RT, formerly Russia Today. Lovely bedfellows, all of them. The sinister, the devious and the dullards. History tells us that Corbyn will always support any country or organisation which hates Britain and the West. This makes him unfit to lead the Labour party, in my opinion. But it does not mean he is always wrong. It is quite possible he might be right on occasion, if only by accident.

I think he is right now, although probably for the wrong reasons. Our response to the Salisbury nerve gas attack has been precipitous, shrill, petulant and an act of self-harm. Governments are never more vulnerable to committing acts of stupidity than when they are hellbent on showing the electorate and the world that they are determined to do something. Something, anything, to prove they are tough and taking action. And so we have a fatuous ultimatum delivered to the Russkies, which of course they had no intention of meeting, and the subsequent expulsion of 23 diplomats from the Russian embassy, followed by the expulsion of 23 of our own from Moscow. Are we better off as a consequence? Do the Russians have a look of chastisement about them? And already our European allies are — rightly — beginning to row back a little from their original stance of unequivocal support for the UK and refusing to attribute the attack directly to the Kremlin. That’s because they don’t know it is attributable to the Kremlin, and frankly nor do we at this stage.

Our response to the nerve gas attack has been an act of self-harm | The Spectator

 

[Mindful]

More:

"We are told this demonic substance is five to eight times more lethal than VX — in which case, how come nobody is dead? The merest pinhead of VX would kill a human within too short a time for treatment to be effective. Reasonably enough, the UK refused to hand over a sample of this stuff to the Russians. But why has it taken so long to have the specimen independently verified? If we wish to have international backing for whatever action we are planning to take against Putin’s mafioso state, would it not have been sensible to move more quickly? And it is also worth noting that while Novichok was indeed developed by the USSR a long time ago, its manufacture was supposedly centred in Uzbekistan, not Russia.

I do not necessarily smell a conspiracy here. It is simply that the urgency with which our government wished to point the finger of blame was a case of jumping the gun, to our own eventual detriment. And perhaps, allied to that, a certain penchant for cherry–picking the available expert evidence in order to support an at least questionable thesis which already existed in the mind of the government and, I daresay, the military. We have been there before, of course, with those ‘dodgy dossiers’ which led us into an illegal and catastrophic war in Iraq."

 

[Mindful]

The government’s assertion, that Russia was probably behind it, is a political judgement, based on an assessment of who might have the motive and capability to pursue this (so far) botched assassination attempt. Scientific evidence is rarely enough to arrive at the truth in situations like this. Rather, societies ultimately interpret what is true in moments of uncertainty. The truth is what the majority determine it to be. This may be a majority of specialists and experts, or a majority of the public.

Politicians can seek to shape public opinion but they cannot assert it. And the government’s ill-measured statements on Russia’s alleged culpability have made its position far harder in this respect. Prime minister Theresa May has asserted that there are only two possible conclusions to draw from the Salisbury incident – that either the Kremlin was behind the assassination attempt or it had lost control of its chemical-weapons stock. Both hold Russia responsible, either directly or indirectly. And Russia was given only 24 hours to answer this charge.

But as many have noted, there are many other possibilities. Ignoring the Russian suggestion that scientists from Porton Down may have been involved, other actors could well have been. As the BBC has identified, there were Novichok stocks in Uzbekistan in the 1990s, which US agents were involved in clearing up. Equally, it is not impossible to consider Ukraine having access to Novichok stocks and a motive for killing Skripal. By limiting the spectrum of possibilities, the PM stretched her own credibility.


Salisbury: are we any closer to the truth?

 

[Eugene]

USA&UK and “truth” is opposite terms.

All their policy is policy of lie, hypocrisy and crime. Lasts since the ancient days.