[skinster]

[skinster]

Yulia Skripal Is Plainly Under Duress
Only the Russians have allowed us to hear the actual voice of Yulia Skripal, in that recorded conversation with her cousin. So the one thing we know for certain is that, at the very first opportunity she had, she called back to her cousin in Russia to let her know what is going on. If you can recall, until the Russians released that phone call, the British authorities were still telling lies that Sergei was in a coma and Yulia herself in a serious condition.

We do not know how Yulia got to make the call. Having myself been admitted unconscious to hospital on several occasions, each time when I came to I found my mobile phone in my bedside cabinet. Yulia’s mobile phone plainly had been removed from her and not returned. Nor had she been given an official one – she specifically told her cousin that she could not call her back on that phone as she had it temporarily. The British government could have given her one to keep on which she could be called back, had they wished to help her.

The most probable explanation is that Yulia persuaded somebody else in the hospital to lend her a phone, without British officials realising. That would explain why the first instinct of the British state and its lackey media was to doubt the authenticity of the call. It would explain why she was able to contradict the official narrative on their health, and why she couldn’t get a return call. It would, more importantly, explain why her family has not been able to hear her voice since. Nor has anybody else.

It strikes me as inherently improbable that, when Yulia called her cousin as her first act the very moment she was able, she would now issue a formal statement through Scotland Yard forbidding her cousin to be in touch or visit. I simply do not believe this British Police statement:

“I was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital on the 9th April 2018. I was treated there with obvious clinical expertise and with such kindness, that I have found I missed the staff immediately.
“I have left my father in their care, and he is still seriously ill. I too am still suffering with the effects of the nerve agent used against us.
“I find myself in a totally different life than the ordinary one I left just over a month ago, and I am seeking to come to terms with my prospects, whilst also recovering from this attack on me.
“I have specially trained officers available to me, who are helping to take care of me and to explain the investigative processes that are being undertaken. I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can. At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them.
“Most importantly, I am safe and feeling better as time goes by, but I am not yet strong enough to give a full interview to the media, as I one day hope to do. Until that time, I want to stress that no one speaks for me, or for my father, but ourselves. I thank my cousin Viktoria for her concern for us, but ask that she does not visit me or try to contact me for the time being. Her opinions and assertions are not mine and they are not my father’s.
“For the moment I do not wish to speak to the press or the media, and ask for their understanding and patience whilst I try to come to terms with my current situation.”

There is also the very serious question of the language it is written in. Yulia Skripal lived part of her childhood in the UK and speaks good English. But the above statement is in a particular type of formal, official English of a high level which only comes from a certain kind of native speaker.

“At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services” – wrote no native Russian speaker, ever.

Nor are the rhythms or idioms such as would in any way indicate a translation from Russian. Take “I thank my cousin Viktoria for her concern for us, but ask that she does not visit me or try to contact me for the time being. Her opinions and assertions are not mine and they are not my father’s.” Not only is this incredibly cold given her first impulse was to phone her cousin, the language is just wrong. It is not the English Yulia would write and it is awkward to translate into Russian, thus not a natural translation from it.

To put it plainly, as someone who has much experience of it, the English of the statement is precisely the English of an official in the UK security services and precisely not the English of somebody like Yulia Skripal or of a natural translation from Russian.

Yulia is, of course, in protective custody “for her own safety”. At the very best, she is being psychologically force-fed the story about the evil Russian government attempting to poison her with the doorknob, and she is being kept totally isolated from any influence that may reinforce any doubts she feels as to that story. There are much worse alternatives involving threat or the safety of her father. But even at the most benevolent reading of the British authorities’ actions, Yulia Skripal is being kept incommunicado, and under duress.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... er-duress/

[Atlantis]

The OPCW published a meaningless little press release confirming that a nerve gas was used of the type identified by the British at Porton Down. Apparently they also supply a detailed report to the member states. The report does not say where the nerve agent was produced or who used it, even if Boris Johnson pretends otherwise. The only significant info is that it is of high purity, which suggests a sample prepared with great care in a lab rather than a mass produced chemical weapon.

I don't understand why the British are keeping the Skripals incommunicado. At the very least they ought to have the right to contact their next of kin or a lawyer. The only explanation that comes to mind is that the Skripals are involved in the poisoning in a way the British don't want anybody to know. Perhaps Yulia transported the stuff for her father to sell to MI6, the Mafia, or whoever paid most, and that something went wrong when they handled the substance.

[layman]

Or possibly they won’t want to meet or talk to the Russians because they believed they tried to kill them?

Russian stooge media enter nhs hospital on weird propaganda/ conspiracy mission

https://news.sky.com/story/nerve-agent- ... t-11326162

[Atlantis]

Or possibly they won’t want to meet or talk to the Russians because they believed they tried to kill them?

Do you mean Victoria Skripal tried to kill her cousin Yulia?

That is absurd. There is no reason for the British to prevent next of kin to visit the Skripals. Such a thing is unheard of. Clearly, this is a big cover up. If Yulia were to be allowed to talk, she might say something that doesn't fit the British narrative. That's the only possible explanation for keeping her incommunicado.

And why are the British refusing to share a sample of the alleged poison with the Russians? If it is true that the Russians made the poison, then the Russians know its composition. There would be no reason for hiding the composition from the Russians. The only explanation is that the British government doesn't believe its own story and is worried that the Russians might find out were the poison was really made.

[blackjack21]

Well, it does seem that the latest thinking in the establishment is that we're all supposed to be horrified by poisons and chemical weapons and want to go to war everytime we believe someone else has used them.

[layman]

They have already shared a sample with the OPCW. Initially you were complaining the British wouldn’t share with them but now don’t seem to trust them are like their findings so you widen the goalposts. You seem to trust the Russians more I guess.

You have no proof they didn’t agree to be kept under protection and are being held hostage. It would be perfectly understandable given there was an attempted assassination that it is with consent. Your whole “only possible explanation” line is a little silly.

Various Russian news and propaganda agencies are throwing lots of different and sometimes contradictory narratives on this affair. It is typical of the Russian strategy to spread doubt and confusion.

This reaction to events adds weight to the theory that they were involved but I’ll keep my odds at 5:2.

[Ganeshas Rat]

Nor are the rhythms or idioms such as would in any way indicate a translation from Russian.

It's actually very much what I thought after reading this message. Especially "my cousin Victoria" scratched the mind. I can hardly imagine someone referring their cousins by the word "cousin" - possibly because there is no word in Russian for it. The female cousin would be "dvoyurodnaya sestra", something like "two-degree sister", it's very long to pronounce it constantly, so you use it only to say that someone is your cousin and not an uncle for example but refer them by their names. Viktoria seems too official. It's not a really good choice to call like that someone that is close to you because it underlines some distance. Vika would be better. Now I don't know if this feeling is the result of translation and (possibly) rehearsal by some UK state official or not her words at all.

[skinster]

OPCW Salisbury Report Confirms Nothing But the Identity of the Chemical
The word “Russia” does not occur in today’s OPCW report. The OPCW Report says nothing whatsoever about the origin of the chemical which poisoned the Skripals and certainly does not link it in any way to Russia.

The technical ability of Porton Down to identify a chemical has never been in doubt, and the only “finding of the United Kingdom”the OPCW has confirmed is the identity of the chemical.

10. The results of analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and
biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirm the findings of the United
Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and
severely injured three people.
11. The TAV team notes that the toxic chemical was of high purity. The latter is
concluded from the almost complete absence of impurities.

There are scores of countries that chemical could have come from. For the BBC and other mainstream media outlets to pretend that the OPCW has in any sense endorsed Boris Johnson’s claims about Russia is to spread deliberate lies as propaganda. In fact what they have confirmed is simply the finding of Porton Down – and that finding was that it is a chemical which cannot be confirmed as made in Russia.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... -chemical/

And why are the British refusing to share a sample of the alleged poison with the Russians? If it is true that the Russians made the poison, then the Russians know its composition. There would be no reason for hiding the composition from the Russians. The only explanation is that the British government doesn't believe its own story and is worried that the Russians might find out were the poison was really made.

The British did the same, in refusing to share evidence with Russia, when it accused the government of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko.

[Atlantis]

@layman, it was always clear that the OPCW would not be able to identify the origin of the toxic chemical because it has nothing to compare it with.

If the British actually believe that the poison was made by the Russians, they have no reason not to disclose its composition because the Russians already know the composition of the poison they make. The only reason to keep the composition secrete is that the Russians don't know it. If they don't know the composition, they can't have made it. That is pure logic and has nothing to do with Russian propaganda.

The Russians cannot prove that they didn't make the poison if they don't even know what poison the British have.

The only way of determining the origin of the poison is a joint investigation conducted in good faith. That has been made impossible by the British attack on Russia without any real evidence.

We don't know what the Skripals want. We only know what the British government wants us to know. The fact that the British prevent contact even with their close relatives clearly shows that they don't want anybody to know what the Skripals want. They fear that Yulia might let slip something that doesn't confirm the British narrative.

We don't know what really happened, but we know who has been lying all along.

[skinster]

Russia, Novichok and the long tradition of British government misinformation
Few of us realise just how many people the British state employs to ‘discredit’, ‘deceive’ and ‘disrupt’.

I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
Bob Dylan, With God on Our Side, 1964

The hysteria over the alleged Russian role in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter is an extraordinary case study in the continuing relevance of understanding state propaganda in 21st century Britain. What happened to the Skripals has become less and less clear and we are still in no position to say that the Russians (or any other state) did, or did not, have a role. This is also a cautionary tale for the Corbyn project. The danger is not so much that people might believe the lies, but that significant figures in the Corbyn camp feel that they have to go along with them.

Whoever was responsible for the poisoning, we have had an inadequate account of what is known from the government. Instead they are adopting tried and tested Whitehall techniques to mislead and misdirect our attention.

In the Salisbury case, as Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan has shown, the government initially relied on a phrase that they thought could be defended as true but which was intended to cultivate a deception. This is that the nerve agent involved in the case is of “a type developed by Russia” (in fact the agent was reportedly developed by and in the Soviet Union, in what is now Uzbekistan).

The deception was spectacularly successful. The entire mainstream media went along with it. Embarrassingly, many mainstream journalists deluged Craig Murray with abuse and ridicule for raising modest questions about the government narrative. Perhaps more remarkably the Russian connection was accepted, or at least gone along with, by significant sections of the Corbynite project. There is no need to list them all, but we can mention Paul Mason who tweeted that we needed to be “prepared to accept” the official account and even John McDonnell who stated that he “agrees with the prime minister” that Putin “is responsible and all the evidence points to him”. He also called for Labour MPs not to go on Russia Today. This might now be seen as a mistaken concession to the enemies of the Corbyn project.

The wheels began to come off the government narrative when Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson departed from the script with an audacious lie saying he had spoken to the scientists at Porton Down who had confirmed there was “no doubt” the poison had come from Russia. The deception was then exposed by the extraordinary statement from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down, confirming that, as sceptics had been suggesting, the identification of Russia owed more to geopolitics and propaganda than to science. Porton Down confirmed that there was no evidence to link the substance used to poison the Skripals to Russia, thus blowing a huge hole in the government’s phrase of the hour: “of a type developed by Russia”.

Inside the Whitehall bunkers where they dream these phrases up, there is even a term for this kind of propaganda. They call it a ‘term of art’. I first came across this term in 1988 at the Gibraltar inquiry into the killing by the SAS of three members of the IRA, which happened thirty years ago last month. According to the Ministry of Defence the phrase ‘suspect car bomb’ is a term of art which means no more than a car which for whatever reason is thought to contain a bomb. Thus as the former editor of the Independent on Sunday, Ian Jack memorably described, “you ‘find’ a suspect bomb by finding a car and suspecting it. Hence you ‘deal with’ a suspect bomb either by confirming its presence and defusing or exploding it, or by discovering that no bomb exists”. In Gibraltar the car bomb did not exist. Nor were the three members of the IRA, Dan McCann, Mairead Farrell and Sean Savage, armed - and thus they did not participate in the “gun battle” that British sources claimed preceded their deaths. McCann and Farrell had their hands in the air when they were shot. Savage was gunned down seconds later in what the pathologist at the inquest described as a “frenzied” attack, killed by as many as 18 bullets, with four to the head as he bounced on the ground with the force of the bullets.

It is not as if the use of propaganda phrases is an uncommon part of British political life in moments of crisis. The invasion of Iraq was sold to us using a number of such phrases, memorably including an attempt to convince us that Iraq’s chemical weapons programme was “active and growing”, when Iraq had no chemical weapons. Even Tony Blair, eventually, admitted that this was not true.

In more recent times the government attempted to bolster support for military intervention in Syria by claiming in November 2015 that ISIS was behind seven foiled terror plots in the UK. Yet on closer examination by MPs including Alex Salmond the officials would not confirm that the plots had been directed from Syria, but only that they were “inspired by” Islamist propaganda or “linked” to ISIS in some other way. In a striking parallel to the recent Porton Down admission, the official caution, when closely examined, cannot sustain the headline propaganda. If you want to understand how power works in contemporary Britain, you need to take into account the fact that the British government regularly lies. Its intent is to force people to comply through hectoring and dishonesty, aimed at intimidating those people – in parliament – who are in a position to directly constrain their actions.

Thousands of people employed to distort and deceive
To support their lies the British government employs thousands of people directly in propaganda and related activities. The other weekend in a talk at the Media Democracy Festival in Central London, I discussed British government deception activities, and made the claim it employed “thousands” of people to distort and deceive. Afterwards, both at the event and on Twitter, I was challenged on the figures – was it really “thousands”?. While it may not be very well known, the government does employ thousands of people in what used to be known as “propaganda”. We don’t know exactly how many since the government is a little touchy about some of the people it employs in this capacity. Nevertheless data from the Office for National Statistics, for 2017, show that the number of people who work in “communication” (including media work, social media, strategy, internal comms etc) in central government departments, executive agencies and non departmental public bodies, totals 3,450.

This is an increase on the total of 2,830 in those positions in the decade preceding the financial crash. After reaching a high of more than 4,000 in 2010, numbers declined modestly under austerity cuts, to 3,240 in 2013, climbing again to the current figure just under 3,500.

It is clear that these figures are an underestimate for a variety of reasons. For example the 490 employed in the MoD seems not to cover the media people in the armed services themselves. In 2007, for example, the total MoD complement was reported as as over 1,000, but this “excludes many military personnel involved in communications work” according to the official Defence Communications Strategy.

One imagines that the 370 people at the Home Office includes (probably) one hundred or so in RICU, the propaganda unit that masterminds covert propaganda on counter terrorism in the UK. The ninety listed at the FCO presumably includes those in the rather scarily titled Counter-Daesh Coalition Communications Cell which is known to work with the US and UAE governments (amongst others), in countering ‘terrorist’ propaganda. But the figures do not include any of those specialists paid to do PR by the government. Some of these are in covert roles, such as Breakthrough Media employed by RICU to produce government propaganda messages that can be issued in the name of Muslim civil society groups as if it were their own work – as was the case with the alleged ‘women’s rights’ group Inspire. Nor does it include the firm or firms that have been active in providing the propaganda operation of some elements of the Syrian opposition – only the ‘moderates’, we’re assured…

Also not in the figures - as the ONS has confirmed - are the unknown numbers that work for the intelligence agencies. Both MI5 and MI6 most likely have sizable staff groups working on propaganda, whether ‘communication’ is in their formal job title or not. Looking back on the Iraq debacle it was plain that those in government formally charged with communications – Alastair Campbell and the like - were not the only people involved in very detailed discussions about the precise phrases to use to mislead the public. Many of those in the intelligence apparatus, including the intelligence assessments staff in the Cabinet Office (120 of them in the latest data) and others in the MoD, FCO etc were intimately involved.

And let’s not forget GCHQ whose secretive propaganda unit - the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) - was disclosed by Edward Snowden. In 2011 JTRIG housed 120 people. Amongst the Snowden documents was a review of the group written by a UK academic which states that JTRIG engages in operations “characterised by terms such as ‘discredit’, promote ‘distrust’, ‘dissuade’, ‘deceive’, ‘disrupt’, ‘delay’, ‘deny’, ‘denigrate/degrade’, and ‘deter’.” JTRIG works closely with DSTL – based at Porton Down. In addition to the work they do on chemical and biological warfare agents, DSTL has a very significant number of people working on propaganda. It has been a key agency in undertaking research on ‘Information Operations’ (IO) and on ‘Psy Ops’ – both military euphemisms for propaganda – and currently advertises an Orwellian-sounding ‘Influence programme’. Amongst other things it was influential in the creation of RICU at the Home Office. None of the people working on this activity are included in the zero return that DSTL gave to the ONS on communications. Presumably they are all subsumed within the 3,120 listed as working in ‘Science and Engineering’ at DSTL, of a total of 3,750 staff.

All in all, therefore, it would not be surprising for the total figure of people working in propaganda for the British government, to significantly exceed five thousand people.

The propaganda techniques discussed here are not a secret, but perhaps they are not as widely known as they ought to be. Perhaps if these techniques - and the army of disinformation professionals who are paid to make stuff up and spread it - were more widely known we would be less subject to the hysteria in the press and Parliament we have seen in the Skripal case.

It is not that everyone has been swept up in the hysteria. There are millions of British citizens who have kept their wits about them. The contemporary period is indeed one in which many more people than in the previous two decades are more confident about existing outside the ‘filter bubble’ conjured up by the government, the spooks and the mainstream media. But there is some evidence in the polls that some – including some on the left – were taken in by the propaganda.

It is not that the public is the main target for this campaign any way. In truth the object of the game is to gain freedom of action for the political elite to pursue their chosen path in foreign policy and in war making. And the attack on Corbyn and the Labour Party is part of that process of disciplining the only proximate force with a reasonable chance of stopping the rush to aggression in Syria and indeed against Russia. Recent statements from some parts of the Corbyn project, agreeing with the Prime Minister on the threat from Russia, are a sign that the propaganda has some traction.

Now it has been decisively shown to be built on a deceptive Whitehall phrase it is urgent that we push back. Let us stop decrying those who ask inconvenient questions, as conspiracy theorists. Let us not hang our allies out to dry on the say-so of right wing trolls. Let us instead challenge every dubious statement from government. Let us be confident in our pursuit of truth. Let us not bow to the intimidation of the government, the media and the right to go along with the next hysteria du jour.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/david- ... nformation

[SpecialOlympian]

A grand international conspiracy involving thousands of people waged over a decade to falsely incriminate Russia in killing its own former agents all for the nefarious purpose of.... expelling diplomats.

Yeah, sounds believable to me.

[skinster]

Lol, someone can't read.

[Atlantis]

Thousands of people employed to distort and deceive

@skinster, this is just the peak of the iceberg.

I have seen estimates according to which about 100,000 people are employed in the British "intelligence community", both public and private. As the Cambridge Analytica (CA) case shows, this is a major export industry. They boasted about having manipulated 200 elections worldwide. They are linked to the British secrete services, to the military industrial complex, to the Tory party and its donors, and to the very pillars of British society like Lord Ivar Mountbatten, who is involved with SCL (= CA).

Like Toefl teachers, their services can be exported worldwide because of the reach of English as an international language. They have established networks in the Anglosphere and the Commonwealth. Since the UK has off-shored most of its manufacturing, the British economy needs these services together with arms exports to prosper. Deceit and arms are major export items. Deceit produces wars and the arms fuel the wars. No wonder that the former UK secretary for defense, Michael Fallon, was able to predict a boom in UK arms exports.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

The only way of determining the origin of the poison is a joint investigation conducted in good faith.

Well, that would be the OPCW, which uses independent laboratories. But the Russians rejected the findings before they were even made:

The findings by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will be a major relief to the UK, which has said Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia, was used in the attack.

The executive summary released by the OPCW does not mention Novichok by name, but states: “The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirms the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people.”

The OPCW, which does identify the chemical by its complex formula in a classified report that has not been made public, also notes in its summary that the chemical had an “almost complete absence” of impurities.
...
At the request of the British government, experts from the OPCW carried out an independent investigation. The OPCW technical secretariat, based in The Hague, handed its report to British officials on Wednesday; it was for the UK to decide whether and what to make public.

The OPCW does not have the power to identify the source of the nerve agent, only to spell out its chemical properties. It is standard OPCW procedure not to identify the laboratories involved in testing the samples, but the organisation draws from a multilaterally agreed list of labs.

At a special meeting of the OPCW executive last week, Russia lost a vote demanding that it be jointly involved in testing the sample. The Russian embassy in London said it would only accept the OPCW’s findings if there was Russian participation.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/e ... -1.3458706

It's clear Russia has done everything it can to hinder investigation, from the start. It is also, still, the only player with a credible motive for poisoning the Skripals - to intimidate those who might work against the Russian government. As SO says, the pro-Russian conspiracy theory says that some agency in the west would develop a nerve agent and do all this just to get each side to expel some diplomats.

[noemon]

As SO says, the pro-Russian conspiracy theory says that some agency in the west would develop a nerve agent and do all this just to get each side to expel some diplomats.

This is quite ridiculous. The Skripal case was just chapter 1 in the movie we have been watching to justify further escalation in Syria. Chapter 2 is Douma. As I told you earlier and before the Douma attack:

Putin is quite willing to use force to maintain the presence of his fleet in waters it has been for centuries. Of course he is. And westerners are willing to use force to push Russia aggressively further inside. How much further inside before they are satisfied? And how much more havoc before laymen say: "enough already"? The west got Yugoslavia, most of the former USSR republics and most of Russias former M-E client states, how much more territory must NATO take over from Russia before laymen say "ok that's enough aggressive expansion now"? Where is the trench line that would satisfy you? In St Petersburg? In Moscow? And how much more do you think Russia will tolerate before she starts pushing buttons? Russia being the aggressor against NATO is quite funny. Russia is the deadbeat NATO mercilessly beats with a stick to project its power for 2 decades now, and it has finally managed to barely defend its last remaining warm-water fleet ports at enormous cost and this is what hurts the most the NATO bully that the deadbeat has actually managed to defend himself after decades of humiliation and hence the hysteria we are witnessing. The NATO hubris trying to hit the Russian fleet in the Ukraine thus cutting Russia off the Black Sea and the Med and turning it into a land-locked nation in this side of the world with access only to the Baltic and the Pacific!!! was the kind of straw that requires over-abundant amounts of aggressive bullying arrogance to attempt to pull off. Even the concept of neutral buffer areas has vanished, no; full NATO membership all the way to Moscow. NATO is something like 100 times more powerful than Russia and has been aggressively gobbling up Russian strategic territory like there is no tomorrow, Russia cannot afford to provoke the bully to beat him further and the only thing preventing the bully from using all its resources against Russia is public opinion. Now that the deadbeat stood up for himself, revenge must be exacted from NATO's perspective to keep up appearances around the world to keep everyone in line, so the only thing we can do is brace ourselves. Unless the western elites finally realise that it may be time to change strategic orientation and attempt to approach Russia which is something that she desires as well.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Wow, @noemon, so you're buying into the "MI6 secretly staged a chemical attack in the middle of Syria" thing, are you?

Now I understand why your signature asks people to "take your common sense with you". I'll repeat: Russia is the only player with a credible motive for poisoning the Skripals.

And, no, claiming that Britain (or the USA) can stage a large false flag attack inside a zone where they have no presence or influence, just to be able to launch some cruise missiles at Assad, and shake their head at the countries Russia supports, is not a credible motive either. If they had that much control in the area, they'd be using it to defeat Assad.

Assad, on the other hand, has the obvious motive - he has a civil war to win, and he wants the rebels dead, and the populace afraid to support them, or associate with them in any way. With Trump having said he wanted to withdraw from Syrian involvement, he may have reckoned he could get away with it without a physical attack by the USA. It turns out not - perhaps Bolton reinforced the anti-Iran/Syria/Russia arguments, perhaps Trump felt he needed to distance himself from Russia thanks to the Mueller investigation, perhaps Trump would have done it anyway to make America look 'strong'. But Assad may still feel he's come out ahead, given the gains in the war against the rebels.

[noemon]

Why are you supporting war-mongering, why are you supporting the very same lies that led to the Iraq war? Why are you supporting the escalation of conflict with Russia? Why are you pretending that there is no motive, when the motive is unraveling before your eyes?

The only player with a motive is NATO in order to justify the escalation of war against Russia, an escalation that we are witnessing daily. Russia has no foreign policy objective to achieve, none whatsoever and the assumption requires the belief that Russia's foreign and secret services are plain idiots. To botch everything for no apparent foreign policy reason whatsoever.

And, no, claiming that Britain (or the USA) can stage a large false flag attack inside a zone where they have no presence or influence, just to be able to launch some cruise missiles at Assad, and shake their head at the countries Russia supports, is not a credible motive either. If they had that much control in the area, they'd be using it to defeat Assad.

The chemical attack in Douma was not large at all, it was tiny, barely enough to achieve any strategic objective whatsoever except for to be used as a rally cry to galvanise western public opinion against Russia and Syria.

edit: Are you going to accuse the former Commander of the British Forces in Iraq for not buying the lies spread like you are willing to accuse me and others?

[ingliz]

you're buying into the "MI6 secretly staged a chemical attack in the middle of Syria" thing, are you?

MI6 doesn't have to stage anything, only offer words of encouragement.

Experts from the Russian Defense Ministry have found unexploded artillery ammunition belonging to terrorists that contains toxic substances.

[Balancer]

You have no proof they didn’t agree to be kept under protection and are being held hostage.

You understand, according to this logic in Russia now can kidnap any Briton, say that he was attacked by Britain, that he does not want to see any of the relatives or British diplomats. And you will not have any evidence that "they did not agree to be kept under protection and are being held hostage"