Former Russian double agent seriously ill in Salisbury.

[RaohNS]

Well this is just silly - I'm not a remainer - I've got a fairly liberal outlook this lead me to have had some conflicting views on whether to support remain or leave as there are clearly parts of EU membership that are valued by liberals though there are some clearly anti-liberal aspects to the way things are run too, in the end I edged towards leave - however I'm not a fan of Trump or the current Russian government.

If you have has you say voted Leave you are an anomaly. We know govts are capable of bad things. I am skeptical of all governments. Even my own (even though I didn't vote at the last election as it's getting to the point of being a waste of my time).

Trump is, quite frankly, a fairly stupid individual. In some cases he's an absolute lunatic, in other cases he's at best a useful idiot.

Yea, you think that but you don't get to his level of wealth being stupid. So that argument is just so exculpatory of its own inaccuracy.

The Russian government is dodgy as ****. The level of corruption in the country is ridiculous and it has infested every level of government. Their human rights record is incredibly poor. Various high ranking politicians, members of the security services are directly involved in organised crime. They have already demonstrated their willingness to carry out assassinations on UK soil before this attack, they've previously used a radioactive isotope to rather cruel poison a "traitor"/Putin critic.

Have you ever thought at your shoulder right now Theresa May and a group of HMG is holding you shoulders and telling you to "Look! Look! See what that evil and corrupt government there is doing!" While looking back over their shoulders at all the corruption and skulduggery they themselves are doing.

It amuses me that bribes are commonplace in Russia... Here we have legalized them. They are called donations. In the US they are lobbyists.

Theresa May says they have been identified as Russian military intelligence officers.

Russia must be pleased that the British govt have such comprehensive inside knowledge of these two individuals and their identity.

Craig Murray is a raving lunatic who shills for Russia and blames Israel for everything. At some stage he'll probably get around to blaming Israel for leaves on the line.

He's in no position to provide any detailed insight into this issue. You might as well consult a headless chicken.

Aren't you the guy who chums Eliot "worked in retail" Higgins? The guy who gives detailed investigative reporting on all manner of Russia events and activities without setting a single foot near the scene?

Vs
A highly respected Ambassador, historian etc

Watch the stones you throw Evan.

 

[stockhausen]

[SNIP]
Two Russian men, flew from Russia to London for a two day visit. They travelled to Salisbury, back to London, then back to Salisbury, and were seen very close to the home of an ex Russian agent the day he was attacked with a nerve agent and then they flew back to Russia the same day.
[SNIP]

This episode just goes to show how shoddy the Russian security and monitoring service is.

Two photographed men fly out of Russia and back again on identified, scheduled flights and the Russian Government can't work out who or where they are.

Yeah, right.

 

[Nasher]

The Russian position is always to play dumb, blame someone else, deny everything, make counter-accusations. Even when it's obvious to everyone else that they did it.

They also do stuff like this in other countries. We just don't get to hear about it much. They once had someone in a US prison assassinated.

 

[ubersonic]

so still no financial sanctions from the UK laughable - letting the USA do it all

Politics.

Winter is coming, if we get a repeat of last year and Russia refuse to help us this time then people will die, the government will then get 100% of the blame for it.

 

[ubersonic]

Theresa May says they have been identified as Russian military intelligence officers.

I doubt they will be officers after this mess, I mean this isn't even a "you had one job" situation:

Eliminate the target: Failure.
Avoid additional casualties to mitigate suspicion: Failure.
Ensure the method of elimination cannot be traced: Failure.
Hide the evidence: Failure.
Don't leave a trail that can be traced back to you/us: Failure.
Don't get captured: Success!

It couldn't have gone any worse lol.

 

[TJM]

Aren't you the guy who chums Eliot "worked in retail" Higgins? The guy who gives detailed investigative reporting on all manner of Russia events and activities without setting a single foot near the scene?

Vs
A highly respected Ambassador, historian etc

No-one respects Murray’s opinion unless they already agree with him. His babbling yesterday about both men occupying the same space at the same time was pathetic - the experienced man of the world didn’t consider that airports have multiple, identical exit channels until someone pointed it out. He also retracted his tweet about the low quality photographs but left the original up so idiots can retweet it.

But he once held a government job a few years ago (don’t you distrust the government?) so he has credibility despite what he actually thinks and says. Right-o.

 

[Sankari]

Aren't you the guy who chums Eliot "worked in retail" Higgins?

Unlike Murray, the award-winning Eliot Higgins has a long and well respected track record of making verifiable claims that he supports with overwhelming evidence. He has been proved right again and again. He is utterly credible, and his methods are sound. Bear in mind he is not a one man operation; he has a whole team of people working on this stuff.

The guy who gives detailed investigative reporting on all manner of Russia events and activities without setting a single foot near the scene?

Eliot relies on existing intelligence and forensic details acquired locally or via satellite images, etc. The same methods used by government intelligence agencies. Like them, he doesn't need to be personally on the scene in order to make an accurate assessment.

You clearly have no idea how the process works.

Vs
A highly respected Ambassador, historian etc

How is that relevant? He could be a Nobel Prize winner, and it still wouldn't mean anything. Murray is a crank; nobody takes him seriously outside the political fringe.

It couldn't have gone any worse lol.

Getting captured would be worse.

 

[Stretch]

Have you ever thought at your shoulder right now Theresa May and a group of HMG is holding you shoulders and telling you to "Look! Look! See what that evil and corrupt government there is doing!" While looking back over their shoulders at all the corruption and skulduggery they themselves are doing.

Have you ever thought you might be a product of targeted misinformation and Russian whataboutism.

 

[ubersonic]

Getting captured would be worse.

Well if you want to be pedantic yes, but that was never really a possibility unless they decided to wait around in the UK for five months before making their escape

If everything had gone to plan Sergei Skripal would have died alone in his flat and not been discovered for weeks or even months, the coroner would have ruled it as an undetermined cause of death and the case would have been closed. When you consider that then it shows just how epically the assassins (and the Russian intelligence service in general) screwed up.

 

[MookJong]

The Russian position is always to play dumb, blame someone else, deny everything, make counter-accusations. Even when it's obvious to everyone else that they did it.

They also do stuff like this in other countries. We just don't get to hear about it much. They once had someone in a US prison assassinated.

Just to add, I think they then use the accusations as propaganda in their own country to show how Western Europe and the US is trying to stitch them up. It makes me wonder if they are apathetic to how sloppy they are with the hits because they actually welcome the accusations coming back to show the people how Russia is under attack by foreign powers. If they were untraceable killings there would be nothing to spin.

 

[wolfie138]

I doubt they will be officers after this mess, I mean this isn't even a "you had one job" situation:

Eliminate the target: Failure.
Avoid additional casualties to mitigate suspicion: Failure.
Ensure the method of elimination cannot be traced: Failure.
Hide the evidence: Failure.
Don't leave a trail that can be traced back to you/us: Failure.
Don't get captured: Success!

It couldn't have gone any worse lol.

all of which points to someone else deliberately setting the Russians up!

 

[stockhausen]

I doubt they will be officers after this mess, I mean this isn't even a "you had one job" situation:

[SNIP]
Don't leave a trail that can be traced back to you/us: Failure.
[SNIP]

Au contraire, Putin would probably have been quite happy to have the finger pointed at Russia - pour discourager les autres.

 

[FishFluff]

Yea, you think that but you don't get to his level of wealth being stupid. So that argument is just so exculpatory of its own inaccuracy.
.

Trump inherited a huge fortune from his family and has somehow managed to have a fortune that is worth less than if he'd just invested the money in a bog standard stock market tracker fund. He's 'military grade' stupid.

 

[Danny75]

You seem to be looking for every possible tenuous reason to ignore the elephant right in front of you.

Two Russian men, flew from Russia to London for a two day visit. They travelled to Salisbury, back to London, then back to Salisbury, and were seen very close to the home of an ex Russian agent the day he was attacked with a nerve agent and then they flew back to Russia the same day.

At the very least they deserve to be locked up for poor holiday planning.

I wouldn't say I'm ignoring the elephant, but questioning the presence of an elephant with "Russia did this" sprayed on just about every part of its body. The message might read one thing but the spray can doesn't have to be Russian.

Dowie mentioned the following:

We also don't know what Russia's intentions were here - did they intend for this killing to go completely undetected or did they intend to send a message?

In the latter's case (sending a message), the elephant would be intentional on behalf of Russia. However, the elephant can also be intentional on behalf of someone else framing Russia.

Just as an example, if we give the benefit of the doubt to May that the two are Russian and GRU (despite this being seemingly at odds with Neil Basu saying no when asked in the press conference if he had any evidence of Russian state involvement), there are other possibilities that do not require them to have been acting on orders from the Russian state to murder Sergei Skripal. One of them is that they were lured to Salisbury on false pretences by those behind the actual plot, so they could have patsies to use later. Another possibility is the question of who they were actually working for. Sergei Skripal himself was in the GRU but working for British intelligence so it wouldn't be a new thing. These two could have been paid a lot of money by someone (not necessarily British intelligence) to have a gander in Salisbury. Big chemical weapons exercise (Toxic Dagger) was taking place in Salisbury at the time. Next big one will take place in Romania (Scorpion's Sting). Car with Romanian license plates was seen outside the Skripal residence several times in the week leading up to the incident. Mentioning this because plainly some stuff was going on involving chemicals and foreign people therefore there are more possibilities.

We don't know that they are Russian and GRU yet though. We just have May's allegation and Basu's seeming contradiction on the same day.

The media and their anonymous sources made a big noise about two hit-teams and rain washing most of the nerve agent off the door handle overnight. But now we are down to one hit-team (I'm curious what happened to the other one, not Russian enough perhaps? Just there to document the event or something? Or just a lie from some Whitehall or MI5 or MET source? Neither Basu nor May addressed this speculation) and the nerve agent being applied moments after 11:58 AM in broad daylight.

 

[Stretch]

I wouldn't say I'm ignoring the elephant, but questioning the presence of an elephant with "Russia did this" sprayed on just about every part of its body.

That's the only elephant in town.

The rest of your post is just textbook deflection. Which I'm sure we'd be happy to hear, if these men were to hand themselves over to face the charges.

 

[ubersonic]

Just to add, I think they then use the accusations as propaganda in their own country to show how Western Europe and the US is trying to stitch them up. It makes me wonder if they are apathetic to how sloppy they are with the hits because they actually welcome the accusations coming back to show the people how Russia is under attack by foreign powers.

Putin is a lot less popular in Russia than it may seem looking purely at his dominant record, yes he has been elected four times, however it wasn't until his second victory in '04 that he bested either of Yeltsin's wins, and Medvedev's win in '08 was better than Putin's '00, '04 and '12 wins.

The only standout victory of Putin's career came this year when he got 76% of the vote, and that was arguably down to no other viable candidates plus the election taking place two weeks after the Skripal poisoning (at the point where the west was "attacking" the Russian people with sanctions).

 

[Danny75]

That's the only elephant in town.

Sets it up nicely to rhyme with Porton Down.

 

[Nasher]

Putin is a lot less popular in Russia than it may seem looking purely at his dominant record, yes he has been elected four times, however it wasn't until his second victory in '04 that he bested either of Yeltsin's wins, and Medvedev's win in '08 was better than Putin's '00, '04 and '12 wins.

The only standout victory of Putin's career came this year when he got 76% of the vote, and that was arguably down to no other viable candidates plus the election taking place two weeks after the Skripal poisoning (at the point where the west was "attacking" the Russian people with sanctions).

Yep, but you won't see people being vocal about it since they get arrested (or killed) for opposing/criticising him.

 

[RaohNS]

Unlike Murray, the award-winning Eliot Higgins has a long and well respected track record of making verifiable claims that he supports with overwhelming evidence. He has been proved right again and again. He is utterly credible, and his methods are sound. Bear in mind he is not a one man operation; he has a whole team of people working on this stuff.

http://theduran.com/15-minutes-of-f...over-internet-by-real-experts-and-scientists/

Real experts disagree with him. He has been found to fake things. As indicated in the article. Type "debunking bellingcat". Enjoy.

relies on existing intelligence and forensic details acquired locally or via satellite images, etc. The same methods used by government intelligence agencies. Like them, he doesn't need to be personally on the scene in order to make an accurate assessment.

See above. He is a stooge.

You clearly have no idea how the process works.

From all the way up on your self imposed lofty pedestal, neither do you.

is that relevant? He could be a Nobel Prize winner, and it still wouldn't mean anything. Murray is a crank; nobody takes him seriously outside the political fringe..

Shop worker with zero credentials to do what he does... Vs...

Have you ever thought you might be a product of targeted misinformation and Russian whataboutism.

Have you ever thought the same of yourself?

No-one respects Murray’s opinion unless they already agree with him. His babbling yesterday about both men occupying the same space at the same time was pathetic - the experienced man of the world didn’t consider that airports have multiple, identical exit channels until someone pointed it out. He also retracted his tweet about the low quality photographs but left the original up so idiots can retweet it.

But he once held a government job a few years ago (don’t you distrust the government?) so he has credibility despite what he actually thinks and says. Right-o.

He offers a counter view. Only looking at one side of the story is about the dumbest thing you can do. I assume you went to university? If so... Why bother with an argument when you can just state one side and pass a degree? Oh that's right, you wouldn't.

I said I was skeptical, the implication being there is doubt on what is said. Some things I outright distrust.

Ever think with the retracted tweet issue he kept it up for transparency... He made a mistake and owned up to it. All the same the pic was there on met police (I had to have a nose after seeing it)

 

[RaohNS]

Goto: www.craigmurray.org

Notice the picture of the two assassins in exactly the same place at exactly the same time. These are issued by Met Police.

That level of fabrication of images is Bellingrat skill