No escaping the Russians

[minestrone]

I bet the daughter brought the stuff from Russia with out her knowing. Like in a gift. Bottle of vodka or something. Adulterated in the airport after check in.

3 days later my post makes a broadsheet frontpage...

They are working on the theory that the toxin was impregnated in an item of clothing or cosmetics or else in a gift that was opened in his house in Salisbury, meaning Miss Skripal was deliberately targeted to get at her father.

[Jog On]

From the Daily Wail, note, not the Independent or the Guardian, or the Morning Star :

2018-03-14 Chemical weapons experts have not ruled out possibility toxic substances used in attempted spy assassination could have been stolen in post-Soviet chaos of 1990s

Trickle truth. Also Jezza's call for some measured thought is top story on BBC today. "Russian spy: Corbyn warns against 'hasty judgements'

Could there be a little bit of back tracking now that it's clear that not much will come from this at the International level and we're just embarrasing ourselves and should just "shut up and go away"?

Thankfully there are enough people who care about facts and proper investigations - however inconvenient that may be for those with agendas who use events and the media to make horrible decisions that end up in disastrous actions:

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – 27 September 2017 – The Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, made a statement today marking the completion of the full destruction of the 39,967 metric tons of chemical weapons possessed by the Russian Federation.

The Director-General stated: "The completion of the verified destruction of Russia's chemical weapons programme is a major milestone in the achievement of the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
I congratulate Russia and I commend all of their experts who were involved for their professionalism and dedication.

https://www.opcw.org/news/article/op...-verification/

This is a good read if you are interested in facts and evidence.

As more information comes to light here I expect to see some back tracking or this whole thing being completely brushed under the rug.

Will hopefully backfire on May and give Jezza more credibility as well. How do you like those apples?

[shaunbhoy]

give Jezza more credibility as well.

Now there's a concept you don't often hear mooted outside of a crack den!

[Jog On]

Now there's a concept you don't often hear mooted outside of a crack den!

Indeed - if the Tories don't want this they could try behaving like responsible adults instead of pulling stunts like this and telling people to "shut up and go away".

[OwlHoot]

3 days later my post makes a broadsheet frontpage... ..

Flip me, why do we bother with all those dim-witted dopes in MI5 and MI6 when we could just hire you?

[scooterscot]

Knowledge dispels fear which is why we aren’t going to do anything that will foster knowledge ...

[OwlHoot]

We have to remember that Britain has only said it is "highly likely" that Russia did it, ..

Sounds plausible, but even if so it doesn't automatically follow that Putin is the guilty party.

It could have been some group trying to discredit him just before the Russian elections.

Same motive applies if it was some other country.

[Batcher]

Nobody disputes that, dummy.

The point is was it the Russians, or someone else trying to discredit them?

For once, I reckon Corbyn has been somewhat harshly treated for sounding a note of caution.

After all, just because these Novichok chemicals may be fiendishly hard to discover, and (perhaps) manufacture, they are only chemical substances and there's no law of physics to say they can't be made somewhere else, especially if their details have been filched one way or another from Russian labs at some point over the last thirty or more years.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...oped-by-liars/

To anybody with a Whitehall background this has been obvious for several days. The government has never said the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in Russia. The exact formulation “of a type developed by Russia” was used by Theresa May in parliament, used by the UK at the UN Security Council, used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most tellingly of all, “of a type developed by Russia” is the precise phrase used in the joint communique issued by the UK, USA, France and Germany yesterday:

"This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War."

When the same extremely careful phrasing is never deviated from, you know it is the result of a very delicate Whitehall compromise. My FCO source, like me, remembers the extreme pressure put on FCO staff and other civil servants to sign off the dirty dossier on Iraqi WMD, some of which pressure I recount in my memoir Murder in Samarkand. She volunteered the comparison to what is happening now, particularly at Porton Down, with no prompting from me.

[Jog On]

Meanwhile in Syria:

Pro-government forces are believed to have recaptured 70% of the region after three weeks of intense fighting against rebels there.

The crushing of the rebel enclave outside Damascus would be a major victory for President Assad.

This is all connected - we're seeing major from the regime change crowd now. Expect more...

[tarbera]

holding post

for headings

"arsenal fans targeted in VX nerve gas row"

+ 10 scare stories


arsenal v cska moscow just drawn in next round