Behind the propaganda smokescreen, evidence points to the Kremlin
Re: “Russian role in Skripal attack highly dubious”, Have Your Say, April 2.
One thing we can deduce from the Salisbury nerve-agent attack on the Skripals is that Russia has been taken aback by the revulsion felt by the international community, and the expulsions of their “diplomats” from a number of countries as a result of received wisdom regarding who is culpable and who is not.
Now we have “Mike Pirsch” informing us that it is “highly likely”: (not, one notes, “probable”, “definite”, “conclusive”, and so on) that the actual perpetrators are the UK and US; this beggars belief. Pirsch partly relies on a report by the UK’s Independent newspaper (something uncommon in Russia) in 2015. In the interests of fairness and balance, let us examine the opposite view:
This is an update from the same newspaper that Pirsch cites, the Independent, reporting on this latest attack last week: “Salisbury nerve agent attack: more than 130 people could have been exposed, [Prime Minister] Theresa May says”.
May went on to say the UK government has “evidence [the operative word] of Russia exploring new ways of exporting nerve agents over the past decade”; that Russia has thus far “advanced 21 different arguments in an attempt to distance itself from the [Salisbury] attack”; and, “we know [not, ‘highly likely’] that Russia has a record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations”.
UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was quoted in the same article saying that “there is clear evidence [that word again] that the Russian state has a case to answer and that they’ve failed to do so, and we can draw no other conclusion other than Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this”.
Given Russia’s recent antics in Crimea, Ukraine, alleged Collusiongate and chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the readers of this publication should be left to draw their own conclusions, and consider the entirety of Pirsch’s offering in that context.
Dr Frank
Bangkok
