[lawnchair_larry]

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Skirpal incident is very murky, but even if for the sake of argument we assume that the government ordered it, attacks on a traitor who fled the country would not be in any way relevant to an attack on an American in China. I can’t imagine how one would even suspect Russia here. Not to mention, they would be unbelievably stupid to do something that risky for no real gain.

[wafflebear]

That's just it, doing something unbelievably stupid for marginal gain is the Russian M.O. right now. There are still people in hazmat suits cleaning up leftover nerve agent in Salisbury.

[lawnchair_larry]

As a general rule, if you ever think an adversary is is doing something unbelievably stupid for marginal gain, you should be worried, because it’s a good indication that you’re the stupid one and going to make a stupid mistake.

They either had nothing to do with it, or they did have something to do with it and it was for good reasons (good for them, not us) that we don’t understand. But them doing it because they are stupid is probably not one of the explanations.

[rdiddly]

There is good reason to doubt the Skripal story -- among other things the apparent lack of hard evidence, the absence of any discernible upside for Russia the purported perpetrators, and the already-existing climate of relentless and politically convenient warmongering against Russia for going on 2-3 years now. If Russia is being set up for military attack, then we're currently seeing a propaganda campaign pretty similar to many others. Fool me once... shame on me etc.

How do you know I'm wrong? You heard it from one of those same sources? I'm not saying I would outright believe RT or any of Putin's outlets either, but that's exactly the point: a healthy dose of skepticism is called for.

[favorited]

> politically convenient warmongering against Russia for going on 2-3 years now

You realize Russia has invaded (and annexed territory from) multiple neighboring sovereign nations over the last 10 years? The idea that the west is simply posturing to set up a war with Russia while Russia is starting actual wars is laughable.

[lawnchair_larry]

They actually haven’t done that. There are other sides to both of those stories that are pretty well supported and make for a far simpler and more straightforward explanation. It’s politically unpopular to discuss that though. Even floating the idea that there might be a rational explanation is enough to invite knee-jerk downvotes and accusations of being a fake Russian troll account. I find it quite bizarre.

[rdiddly]

Doubly so, given that the amount of digging required is so very minimal!

[TangoTrotFox]

Do you know anything about the 'invasion and annexation' of let's say Crimea?

Imagine that the US as a nation was dissolved at some point. And some of our territory, perhaps a bit of Texas, ended up the property of Mexico. This new part of Mexico remained almost entirely American in both ethnicity and identity. And then some decades later Mexico began to collapse in internal turmoil with their government being violently overthrown from within. In the mean time the former US had regained a good deal of its lost strength.

In the midst of this, local forces in the annexed regions of Mexico, probably with some support of the US, formed their own interim government. And they then held a vote on whether they should remain part of Mexico, or return to the US. And with 83% voter turnout, 97% voted to return to the US. Those are certainly North Korea like poll numbers, but they have been reflected in later polls by third party organizations including Gallup. If anything it reflects how absurd the initial situation was. The US then declared them as part of its territory and the 'invasion' ended with nary a fatality.

I think there is a strong argument that the people should have been allowed to return as part of Russia if they so overwhelmingly desired it. But even that was something that was not independently acted on. You had a nation collapsing and a group of people in that nation that really did not want to be there. Annexation and war generally implies that the annexed nation did not want to be annexed. In this case, it was their former 'owner' that was holding them against their will.

---

The Project for the New American Century was a think tank made up of basically every big name in Washington. It was from Bush's era, but many are still playing extremely prominent roles in DC politics. This paper from them [1], 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' is one of the most honest and clear views of neoliberal foreign policy to date. To avoid bias, I'm going to avoid commenting directly on the paper. Other than to say that our foreign policy actions make vastly more sense if you peruse that paper, but it will also make you vastly more cynical. Keep in mind there that Russia's rise from the USSR's collapse is something that certainly qualifies as what the paper refers to as 'the emergence of a new international player.'

[1] - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmeri...

[rdiddly]

Your haughtiness really doesn't improve or bolster your point. Google "Victoria Nuland Viktor Yanukovich regime change" together for some examples of contrary information. Hillary's State Dept. (Nuland et al) destabilized the Ukraine in the first place (2014), to get rid of Yanukovych (duly and democratically elected by a sovereign nation), who maybe coincidentally had previously been leaning toward joining the Russian/Asian trade & cooperation zone instead of NATO. Hmm interesting. Kiev soon turns into a neo-Nazi shitshow. Crimea, made up almost entirely of ethnic and linguistic Russians, holds a referendum and votes to join Russia. "There's a big powerful country with a big military next door, that we used to be a part of anyway, that can protect us from neo-Nazis and US meddling alike? Huzzah, welcome the tanks!" For Russia it's their best shot at a warm-water port, so I agree it is a bit convenient for them. But think about what the US would do if Russia toppled, say, Ontario. Do we let foreign governments create failed states on our borders? We almost started WW3 over Cuba.

[wafflebear]

Do you dispute that Russia poisoned Litvinenko as well? Enemies of the Russian state just seem to be poisoned by incredibly rare substances every now and again.

[rdiddly]

I don't know much about that case, but a cursory read on Wikipedia (which could itself be biased and/or misinformed) is a bit more convincing than the Skripal case.

Nonetheless we're getting pretty far afield. Select two incidents where any nation has killed its double-agents or whistleblowers (and I doubt there are any nations that lavish fond treatment on their double-agents in particular), and you now have evidence against that country equivalent to that upon which you declared Russia the only possible country brazen enough to carry out these two embassy attacks (assuming they were attacks).

[dragonwriter]

> Select two

Skripal, Litvinenko, Gorbuntsov, Perepilichnyy and others. Not two.

[rdiddly]

The person I'm conversing with mentioned two, and based on that, concluded Russia is the #1 suspect here, and the only country brazen enough to do it. All you have to do is pick two assassinations by any other country, and that country is now equally brazen. The point is that the statement is weak, not that there have been two assassinations in history. Get it now?

[exelius]

I don’t know it’s so much Russia’s MO as the result of a decentralized Russian intelligence community that overlaps heavily with criminal elements. So some Russian mafia cell may be spying on Americans hoping Putin throws some legitimate business their way if they prove their worth by murdering a defector with some poison they “found”.

The downside to this structure is that you have rogue agents you can’t control. The upside is that clandestine operations are very difficult to uncover if nobody in Russia knows about it.

[huhtenberg]

Skripal didn't fled the country. He was caught, trialed, jailed and then exchanged. That whole incident makes absolutely zero sense as explained by the UK government.

[lawnchair_larry]

Right, that’s an important correction. It casts even more doubt on his poisoning being state ordered.

The smoking gun is that the nerve agent came from a USSR factory decades ago. It’s not hard to imagine that ended up in who-knows-whose hands since then.

Plus, it didn’t even do the job. Skirpal was released from the hospital. Seems pretty amateur...

[noobermin]

Especially since at least in Russia (although elsewhere) it's clear that Russia can dispose of people it doesn't like.

[favorited]

How does it not make sense? It absolutely makes sense that a spy would be exchanged, then assassinated later.

[huhtenberg]

No, it doesn't in the slightest.

This says "you should not do spy exchanges with us". Moreover, let's shoot this poor shmuck with an exotic bullet stamped with "Made in Russia" on its side AND let's also just wound the guy.

The bottom line is that this gives Russia nothing. It proves no point, it doesn't serve as a deterrent to anyone (which is what makes it different from the Litvinenko case), but it's just happens to be overflowing with signs that it was done by Russia. If Russians went to such great lengths to make sure it was obvious it was done by them, then it should be even more obvious why they did that. And it's not. So the simplest explanation is that it's a frame-up.

[favorited]

Except nations do it anyway, regardless of the message it sends to potential exchange partners. Mazen Faqha was released by Israel in a prisoner exchange, and was later assassinated.

It serves as a deterrent if it sends the message to your own people that treason will never be forgiven, regardless of a pardon and exchange. And that is a philosophy to which Putin subscribes – he once said, "Enemies are right in front of you, you are at war with them, then you make an armistice with them, and all is clear. A traitor must be destroyed, crushed."