Actually Carla Del Ponte disagrees. It does seem that Turkish backed salfists manufactured their own Sarin. Will try and look up story…
Ah here it is…
Of course with regard to the Del Ponte comments, there is no evidence that the sarin was manufactured by rebel groups. They could have stolen stocks held by the Syrian government.
If we’re stuck deciding whose speculation is more credible, I’m glad to stand by my position.
Says the man who’s desperately waving away any implication that Putin or Russia ordered or approved this assasination attempt (as the starting point of Occam’s Razor indicates).
Look, if you’re going to take on a monicker like yours you should know that it’s not the football player’s job to move the goalposts around.
Any smart autocrat knows that keeping the rubes riled up about external enemies is an on-going task. Stopping for even a moment gives them an opportunity to consider that the real enemy might be inside the house.
I did meet him once briefly. I’m under no illusions what kind of Westerner works in financial services in Putin’s Russia, but he did seem to be genuinely angry not only about his money being stolen by the regime but also by its murder of his friend Magnitsky.
And speaking of the kind of shady Westerner who does business in Putin’s Russia, did your firm have all its money stolen and get kicked out of Russia? If not I can completely understand why based on your comments, especially if it’s still operating there.
All Browder is suggesting is that the assets of the most obvious crooks and murderers get frozen indefinitely. It’s been done over the decades with other regimes that try to export their corruption and violence abroad. That kind of action does tend to inspire retaliation, which in this case would not be good for Western firms doing business in Russia (fortunately for me I’ve been advising my clients not to for years).
Every oligarch who has a significant portion of his assets and income streams in Russia is already in Putin’s pocket to one degree or another. They do business and get wealthy only at his sufferance, and in exchange he lets them move a portion of their money out of the country for various reasons. If they had to repatriate everything they had in the West before it was frozen you’d instead see a quick and permanent mass exodus out as they finally occupied all those empty mansions and condos abroad – better for them to live as a multi-millionaire in relatively free Western consumer society than to live in constant anxiety as a billionaire completely in the thrall to Putin (who, by the way, would probably see a good portion of the billions held in the name of his toadies and friends locked up as well). The whole point of moving money out of countries like Russia is to hedge against confiscation by the regime at its whim and to provide insurance in case one has to do the midnight flit one step ahead of the authorities.
As a British West Indian man you can be forgiven for not knowing your American history, which puts you in company with the paid Russian trollies even though you aren’t one. There are more accurate terms to accuse people of portraying you as sympathetic to the Putin regime.
Yeah, he’s a real pussycat who only cares about the children. I’m becoming more convinced that not only did your firm not get robbed like Browder’s did, but it might still be in operation in Russia to this day.
I don’t blame Kasparov for being bitter after how he’s been treated. What you call Gessen’s nuance, by the way, also starts with the assumption that Russians loyal to Putin in one way or another committed this crime.
You’ll find this shocking, but the board of almost every high-profile company in America has at least one alumnus of the military-industrial complex on it. Despite that, The Atlantic’s overall ideological position – at least until very recently – has historically not been supportive of any right-wing authoritarians (including Putin and his orange fanboi).
No-one is sure if Ames and Taibbi used the Russian authorities’ action against them as an excuse to go back to the States or if they wanted to stay but were forced out (I personally believe it was the former). Either way, Putin’s authorities did take action, for the reasons I discussed.
You brought it up by pretending I ever said you were a bot in a sad attempt to gain the high ground.
Of course he wouldn’t. He’s all about protecting his enemies’ children and families (puppies, too!). The reputation of the folks the Lubyanka Square is all about spreading love and goodwill to children – that’s why Dyetskii Mir was across the street from the FSB for so long.
Your position is ridiculous; you are literally arguing against the importance of facts in public discourse. Without them we are left with a vacuous credulity in the claims of the political establishment. Bayes’ theorem is useless without information to update your understanding.
Furthermore if you were a Bayesian as you claim, you should have already adjusted your prior to a position of skepticism based on past events. If the events of the Iraq war are too far down the memory hole for you, or you somehow slept through that decade, you might consider the Brexiter’s recent lies that the Brexit would gift the NHS with 350 million pounds a week (because that’s who you’re putting your faith in, Boris fucking Johnson, the British Trump). Or, if your memory doesn’t even go back that far, here is Johnson lying about this very incident:
Evidence. Facts. Let’s have them, because these people can’t be trusted.
Yup.
OTOH…
These days, Masha reports that she is also regularly accused of being a pro-Putin shill, BTW.
.
As for Skripal…yeah, it was probably Putin. But there’s no proof of that, and the possibility of it being someone else shouldn’t be ruled out.
More importantly, whether or not Putin was responsible, it is clear that this event is being deliberately manipulated in the media by those who wish to see an increase in tensions between Russia and the West.
Assassinating spies is an action that was and is routinely undertaken by all imperial powers, not just the Russians. It isn’t worth going to war over.
Naw, he’s just been in a coma for a month with possible irreversible brain damage and permanent disability. That barely counts as attempted murder.
The list of potential manufacturers isn’t exclusive. Indeed i think non state actors can manufacture as well. At last a Cornell chemist says so. Are you a chemist?
Not a chemist, but from everything I’ve read the idea of a non-state actor brewing up an obscure nerve agent is bullshit.
Chris Steele had sources. Do you think those sources were current members if the Russian government?
Pablo Miller recruited Skripal. He also recruited the other russian guy who died recently. He also was a consultant for Orbis. Hummmm. Isnt Chris Steele due in the US to give evidence? Apparently he might be looking at jail time. Of course I’m speculating but your argument is embarrassing. Its basically he was a Russian spy and they waited 12 years to punish him for being a traitor, and picked just before the Presidential elections to do it. What amazes me is that your not embarrassed to reason like that in public.
If Skripal was a source for Steele that’s a damn good reason for Russia to silence him. If you aren’t a paid trolley I’m embarrassed to watch you play a moron for free.
The UK didn’t “kill” him cos it would look bad. That’s ok. They can blame it on Russia. Problem fixed!
The problem is that the UK isn’t able to protect their assets, which hurts future recruitment. BLAMING RUSSIA AMPLIFIES THAT PROBLEM.
“Specific animus” is lazy. They killed him cos they hate him. Well why now and why in a way which even hints at them? There is another dead ex- Russian spy. Strangled also recruited by Miller. Why didn’t they use a specific Russian nerve agent (lol) on him?
Beats me why they picked polonium for Litvineko. They pretty clearly did so, though.
I shouldn’t reply on a mobile device. It makes me sound more scornful than i am. However one quick question.
Don’t worry, you sound exactly as thoughtful and intelligent as you did before.
When Tony Blair told you Saddam had WMDs and could use them in 45 mins, did you believe that too?
He was pretty transparently wrong. That’s also rather irrelevant to a counter-intelligence case on home soil overseen by a different prime minister of a different party who doesn’t have the Americans breathing down her neck.
Do you think all black Americans or Native Americans would actually agree with that, especially prior to the classical civil rights movement?
Maybe I’m wrong here, but I’ve always found the “who is worse” argument the least interesting or productive argument when it comes to the cold war. It actively elides more important issues that we could or probably SHOULD talk about with regards to Cold War relations (like how both sides played off the fear of the other in order to more effectively control their own populations, as well as non-committed parties around the world).
And again, this isn’t the Cold War, of course… but hey, take the $.02 of my views as you will.
I’m confused by how you could read what I wrote about Colon Powell waving around vial at the UN and go on to say that I don’t remember the Iraq war. If you think that pointing out to me that politicians lie to people counters my position then I don’t even know what we’ve been talking about.
Almost certainly not! If only because I doubt you could get a 100% agreement on anything with such a large number of people. 
But yeah, you have a point in that the “who’s worse” thing is mostly pointless by now. I wouldn’t bring it up except if I faced by a Soviet apologist (who still exist, weirdly enough, though not in large numbers).
Honestly, I just see it as a game you can’t actually win at the end of the day. We can compare atrocities all day long and come to no conclusion, morally, because it’s at the end of the day an emotional tug of war.
But we can compare and contrast, and get a better understanding of how power operates in the 20th century and where it actually came from. How do systems like this actually shape our lives, who benefits, who doesn’t, and how are they replicated in real life.
But I also recognize that this is a historians view, and most people aren’t thinking in these terms. Plus, ambiguity isn’t a popular view on these things.
Perhaps you could apply your knowledge to this article, then.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rcm.7757
“microsynthesis” caught my eye. Presumably this is on the opposite end of the spectrum from weaponization schemes.
This looks like the actual paper behind the announcement in Spectroscopy Now linked above about Iranian chemists identifying Russian chemical warfare agents. As three of the authors are affiliated with a military research lab that is designated as a sample detection lab by the OPCW, I’d hazard that this doesn’t count as a non-state actor making the stuff.
I thought the idea was to maintain a certain level of discourse.
Miiltary grade nerve agent ya’ say? Perhaps we should suspend judgement for a week or so? Just in case the fish at Zizi’s was a bit dodgy?
Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions.
The woman, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father.
She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal’s face or body.
The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she “feels fine”.
Ah, so your position is the information from a ex-Russian spy who the Russians caught 12 years ago, is highly likely to be so sensitive that they would bump him off for revealing it. Hasnt it occured to you that if this was the “source” for the dossier it would implicate the British government in a scheme to directly discredit a candidate for the American presidency? The exact same thing which Russia is accused of and for which there is a standing extradition request? Perhaps I can quote you here?
" If you aren’t a paid trolley I’m embarrassed to watch you play a moron for free."
I dont think you have really been following this.
Maybe we should wait till the UK government declassifies certain documents which remain excluded from consideration.
Maybe a better question would be who killed Boris Berezovsky. Do you remember the inquest result there? I ask because suppose a couple of the deaths of Russians living in the UK were not at the hands of the Russian authorities but at the hands of their British intelligence contacts. That would change the picture a lot wouldnt it? Who would have a pattern of assassinating inconvenient Russian figures then?
PM May doesnt have the Yanks breathing down her neck? Oh good, but I do hope you are sure. Its patently obvious that the problem with the Iraqi intelligence was not the intelligence or the even the assessment of it but that the conclusion was fixed around the desired policy. I would suggest that same MO is apparent here. Consider the case where the UK did not come to a conclusion regarding who perpetrated this apparent crime. Would that adversely affect the position of the an already weakened PM? How about one where they came to the conclusion the Ukraine was responsible? Do you really think they would announce that?
If it aint convenient it will just disappear - just like the question of who killed Boris Berezovsky.
I also saw these two stories. Its amazing what you can find in wikileaks
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09THEHAGUE205_a.html
(S) On March 25, in a private conversation, Canadian delegate asked U.S. and UK Delreps whether they had heard of the Mirzayanov book “State Secrets: An Insider’s View of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program.” Canadian Rep added that Mirzayanov now appeared on YouTube. UK Rep acknowledged she had heard of it, but said this was the first time she had heard of “novichoks” and thought the entire discussion was best left to experts in capital. U.S. Delrep indicated a lack of familiarity with the subject matter and indicated no interest in pursuing the discussion further.
(S) On March 4, Delrep met with U.S. Rep to the OPCW Data Validation Group. In addition to a routine report on the activities of the Validation Group the week of March 2, U.S. Rep informed Delrep that representatives of several countries (Finland, Netherlands, UK) had begun discussing the Mirzayanov book on the margins of the meeting. All participants in the discussion seemed to be simply gauging the level of awareness; these same individuals also expressed some doubt as to the credibility/accuracy of the information in the book. U.S. Rep to the Validation Group confirmed that no other members of the group took part in or were listening to this conversation.
(S) Del Note: U.S. Del understands from OSD that the UK Ministry of Defense has spoken to its counterparts in the Netherlands and Finland, apprised them of the conversation, and asked each country to provide guidance to its del members not/not to raise this issue in the future. End Note.
The (S) denote these paragraphs as “Secret”.
Strikingly, Porton Down did not even think Novichuks existed as recently as 2016
How about this
https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06PRAGUE319_a.html
Funny dont you think? Any thoughts as to what that might signify?
One other interesting observation.
“As though in confirmation, the so called “government of Tatarstan in exile” was formed in the United States in December 2008. It is headed by US citizen Vil Mirzayanov, a Russian scientist granted political asylum in the United States. Along with Mirzayanov himself, the alleged government includes two Germans and a Turk. This self-proclaimed government already appealed to the UN to recognize independence of Tatarstan in the manner sovereignty of Kosovo, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia had been.”
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
