tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post7073308074604303123..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: 10 Points on Russia and British PoliticsPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-57084901347864220062018-12-31T18:25:53.627+00:002018-12-31T18:25:53.627+00:00" A river of blood and misery separates Stali..." A river of blood and misery separates Stalin from the current occupant of the Kremlin, but we see a similar pattern of behaviour in and around the state and its agencies". What is the evidence for this?Johny Conspiranoid.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-89715722596086682282018-03-21T00:21:21.428+00:002018-03-21T00:21:21.428+00:00«they didn't like Corbyn reminding them and th...«<i>they didn't like Corbyn reminding them and the country that politics is about irreconcilable interests.</i>»<br /><br />I have a very good quote about this from G Mikes "How to be an alien", a humorous book from the 1950s about english culture, as to english politics:<br /><br />“<i>The Labour party is a fair compromise between Socialism and Bureaucracy; the Beveridge Plan is a fair compromise between being and not being a Socialist at the same time; the Liberal Party is a fair compromise between the Beveridge Plan and Toryism; the Independent Labour Party is a fair compromise between Independent Labour and a political party; the Tory-reformers are a fair compromise between revolutionary conservatism and retrograde progress;<br />and the whole British political life is a huge and non-compromising fight between compromising Conservatives and compromising Socialists.</i>”Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-60803087599602478492018-03-20T10:17:52.426+00:002018-03-20T10:17:52.426+00:00Apparently this letter has appeared in the Times
S...Apparently this letter has appeared in the Times<br />Sir, Further to your report (“Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”, Mar 14), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.<br />Stephen Davies<br />Consultant in emergency medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust<br />https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/british-retaliation-against-russia-s-actions-p5hmpj8jhJohny Conspiranoidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-39192407812431713622018-03-20T07:09:07.660+00:002018-03-20T07:09:07.660+00:001) There was an "election" in Russia - m...1) There was an "election" in Russia - motive-wise this was a good opportunity for Putin to show off his The West Hates Us And We Don't Care chops. <br />2) This could explain why nerve gas. I'm sure if any state wanted to dispose of an individual subtly ("suicide" for example) it has the resources to do so, this chemical can only be used as a signature. <br />3) That does not rule out that the same signature may be forged. But it is a huge stretch to suggest anyone else - Brtish, Israeli or otherwise - would commit the resources for nefarious, fleeting political purposes. <br />4) Although Phil's point about it not necessarily coming from the very top is a good one, and Bojo is a complete twat, but that's one thing we knew for sure already. Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-49300646176320189012018-03-19T14:29:50.933+00:002018-03-19T14:29:50.933+00:00Good article and some good subsequent comments. So...Good article and some good subsequent comments. Some problems: (a) Putin and the Russian gangster state notwithstanding, it's still not clear that Russians were involved in the Salisbury poisoning. The nerve gas mentioned was developed in Uzbekistan and its destruction confirmed by international bodies. Western interests gained access to the plant itself in the 1990s. If remnants of the agent were used in Salisbury, a number of people have attested that two people initially poisoned could not have survived. (b) I don't understand the dismissal of Craig Murray, one of the sanest and best informed voices in this controversy thus far (c) Phil's explanation for the moves of the Labour right didn't wholly convince. To me, they behave like people beholden to outside interests - the arms industry in Woodcock's case, and a number of the others are pro-Israeli lobbyists/sympathisers who angry at Corbyn's support for the Palestinian cause and have leveled constant charges of anti-Semitism at the Labour left ever since Corbyn got the job. They jumped at a further chance to undermine Corbyn and the alacrity with which they did so suggested to me that they knew what was coming.Stephennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-61297592279357515842018-03-19T13:50:57.643+00:002018-03-19T13:50:57.643+00:00I think you may have missed his point about Israel...I think you may have missed his point about Israel: I don't think he's actually claimed that they did it. The way I read it, he was suggesting that, on the criteria that has been announced by government figures thus far, a truly objective assessment would not come to the 'inescapable' conclusion that Russia was responsible: by all of those criteria, Israel would be a far better fit:<br /><br />Form for assassination: check, makes Russia look like amateurs<br /><br />Chemical weapons program: no-one knows for sure, but the assessment of many (including us and the CIA) is that they do have an active program and plentiful stocks, They refuse to sign up to any regulation, unlike Russia, the verified destruction of whose stock and programs was announced only last year by the OPCW. So, a qualified check.<br /><br />Motive: far more plausible (wish to undermine Russia due to its brokering of power for Iran in the Middle East and Syria in particular) than any that can be constructed around Russia (having been pronounced clean, they now decide to give the game away barely 6 months later, and for what? an act of petty revenge? or a fairly obscure warning that would have been equally effective had it employed any of a hundred other methods available to them.) CheckIan Gibsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-27600974059293759002018-03-19T12:16:35.132+00:002018-03-19T12:16:35.132+00:00Conspiranoid nonsense mainly, Monkai. Including su...Conspiranoid nonsense mainly, Monkai. Including suggesting - without any evidence at all - that Israel should be in the frame for the above. That and the ludicrous arguments his made in defence of lechy behaviour in the past. He can't help it, apparently.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-91953879529940702022018-03-19T08:53:05.278+00:002018-03-19T08:53:05.278+00:00Putin's right-wing vile regime is no friend of...Putin's right-wing vile regime is no friend of workers anywhere, and there is no reason why socialists should give them any credence whether they attacked people in Salisbury or anywhere else. Corbyn was right to point out the vile nature of that regime, and the need for us to give our support to those oppressed by it in Russia. That is something, which, of course, Theresa May and the Tories do not do, because they are in hock to dirty Russian oligarch money.<br /><br />The Tories and Tory media do not seem to be aware that Putin and his regime are the product of the fall of the USSR, and of the right-wing ideology that was imposed on the Russian people by Yeltsin with the assistance of right-wing western economists and ideologists, and which created the conditions for all of the gangster oligarchs to rip off the Russian people via the privatisation programmes that mirrored a similar process undertaken by Thatcher in Britain during the 1980's.<br /><br />Yet, its not just the Tories who seem to have failed to recognise that change. The Stalinists of the CPB and Morning Star, as well as some others on the left blinded have also failed to notice that Putin's regime is a right-wing, reactionary, vile regime, which raises the question of why Corbyn allows such people to have any influence in his advisors.<br /><br />But, however much the fact that we should recognise that Putin's regime is vile, is also no reason to believe that the British intelligence services are any less ruthless or deserving of blind belief than any other. Even the obnoxious Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail a week or so ago pointed out that no doubt British spooks undertake the same kinds of operation on foreign soil that the GRU are being accused of in Salisbury.<br /><br />The job of every intelligence agency is at least as much to spread disinformation as it is to gather information. British intelligence agencies have always been at the forefront of that, e.g. in order to hide the fact they had developed radar, or had cracked the Enigma codes. In other words their job is to lie effectively, and to lie effectively the intelligence agencies have to also lie to everyone. Only a fool, therefore, believes anything that any intelligence agency says, because unless those agencies are telling lies they are not doing their job!Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-62312762440569215962018-03-19T03:13:26.113+00:002018-03-19T03:13:26.113+00:00I think your post is spot on, and articulates some...I think your post is spot on, and articulates some matters that I haven't yet seen discussed elsewhere - such as what happens when others investigate and find the evidence woefully insufficient to justify the level of blame pinned on Putin. However, I really don't get the anti-love for Craig Murray: yes, he can be emotive and impulsive, but those are the very same qualities which led him to throw away his career and (to a degree) health standing up against the state when he saw its wrong-doing at first hand. He has moral courage, to the extent of severe personal cost, and that's worth a lot of anyone's respect. He's as honest as they come too.<br /><br />However, his particular value is his ability to read 'high-level civil servant' speak and his insider knowledge of how these things work, and this is certainly to the fore in this particular issue.<br /><br />(He doesn't, it's true, have much time for Labour - but, from a Scottish point of view that is, I am afraid to say, an entirely reasonable, nay sensible position to hold, given their continuing proclivity to prioritise scoring points against the SNP no matter what the issue over opposing the Tories. It certainly shouldn't be equated with not being truly 'left')Ian Gibsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-2085944620453316522018-03-18T23:05:57.400+00:002018-03-18T23:05:57.400+00:00There is no-one other than the Russian state (and ...There is no-one other than the Russian state (and quite possibly Putin himself) that would target an ex-spy cum traitor. The Russian mafia or any other body or state would simply not know of him or his whereabouts or be interested. JC missed the boat on this issue - he did not present as a leader. The millions donated by oligarchs to the Tories is a valid point but it should be made *after* backing UK action against a state that used a chemical weapon on British soil. Timing is all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-67444217339280177752018-03-18T21:54:34.647+00:002018-03-18T21:54:34.647+00:00Why do you say that Phil? (Genuinely interested)Why do you say that Phil? (Genuinely interested)monkaiboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07254014652562588866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-79483412921800005372018-03-18T20:49:46.144+00:002018-03-18T20:49:46.144+00:00Craig Murray may have "been excellent" o...Craig Murray may have "been excellent" on this, but broken clocks etc. He's not someone anyone on the left should give time of day to IMO.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-35837411743114262792018-03-18T18:37:24.891+00:002018-03-18T18:37:24.891+00:00Craig Murray has been excellent on this issue. See...Craig Murray has been excellent on this issue. See for example his dissection of Boris Johnson's claims that Russia has a secret stockpile of Novichoks and an assassination programme. This is a very serious claim indeed given that the OPCW itself certified that Russia had disposed of its chemical weapons. As Craig points out this announcement should have been made to Parliament not the Andrew Marr show. Also it is important to examine the wording of Government statements very closely. What does we received this information "in the last decade" mean? (and why was it not reported to the OPCW before?. Very importantly "of a type developed in Russia" which occurs in all Government statements does not equal "made or produced in Russia"John Edwardsnoreply@blogger.com