Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
Last edited by High_Plains_Drifter; 03-08-2018 at 07:29 PM.
Last edited by Balu; 03-08-2018 at 07:35 PM.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
To what extent do the Russian people have any realistic grasp of world affairs ? Your media is still run under Kremlin control, is it not ? Russians 'know' what their leadership deign to tell them.
You yourself illustrate, very well indeed, the propagandist nature of so-called 'dissemination' of 'facts' that's employed.
Eighty percent support ... it's unrealistic. Reminds me of the Saddam era, in Iraq, when he claimed support from his so-called 'electorate' (which in truth was nothing of the kind; Saddam was a dictator) ... and claimed it to come from almost all of Iraqis.
So tell me. How many of those 'eighty percent' DARE NOT voice opposition to Putin ?
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
This story is still ongoing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43344725
About 180 military personnel have been deployed to Salisbury to help in the investigation into the attempted murder of an ex-Russian spy and his daughter.
The personnel - from the Army, Royal Marines and RAF - are experts in chemical warfare and decontamination.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain in a critical condition after being exposed to a nerve agent.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd will chair a meeting of the government's emergency committee, Cobra, on Saturday.
She has described Sunday's attack as "outrageous".
Those deployed include instructors from the Defence Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Centre and the 29 Explosive Ordnance Group, who are experts in bomb disposal.
Eighteen vehicles have also been sent.
Members of the military were seen covering over a police car that has been at Salisbury Hospital since Sunday, before men dressed in white hazardous materials suits examined it.
Specialist officers have also put up a tent over the grave of Mr Skripal's son, who died last year, at Salisbury cemetery.
The Metropolitan Police said the counter-terrorism unit has requested the military's assistance "to remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene", including ambulances that may have been contaminated while assisting the victims.
If a foreign power committed such an act on US soil, surely, it'd be considered an act of war ??
Last edited by Drummond; 03-09-2018 at 07:27 PM.
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
OR
With Their constant Propaganda antics
I love to make Liberals Cry, and Whine.
So, this is for them.
GOD BLESS AMERICA - IN GOD WE TRUST !
I really like this analysis. Yeah ----- we Just Don't Care who is hurt where, say the Russkies. I can see that would be in Russian interests, to make it clear, repeatedly, that they are hard, not soft.
I still am not getting why they made the spy trade at all: you would think they might want to keep that option open, but apparently not. I can't see why Britain would ever want to bring yet more errant Russians to London just to get dozens of people poisoned or irradiated and the attention of the world focused on how helpless they are. Putin must not think these spy trade deals are an advantage to him, relative to making the political point worldwide that they can strike against enemies of the state at any time, anywhere.
For me, this 'we as Russians don't need or want to care about the fate of foreigners' attitude reminds me rather too much of Hitler's 'Master Race' approach. There's scant regard for human life in any of this. Certainly not the target(s) intended .. nor yet the others who innocently get caught up in these assassinations.
What kind of assassin deliberately uses a means of inflicting death which, by its nature, WILL harm others not intended as actual victims ?
There's a word I believe adequately fits. That word is 'TERRORISM'.
For all of Putin's avowed opposition to terrorism, there are times when he himself is no better. That is the truth here. We in the West trust him at our peril.
As for the spy trade involved .. wasn't that originally between the Americas and Russians ? The Russians we're discussing chose, for whatever reason, to settle in the UK instead of the US. Why would we take them ? I haven't a clue.
But as for being put off because of any perceivable future threat ... well, we don't think like that, here. We don't bow to such pressures.
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!
This event is still being covered in what passes for news here. But I have not heard about any American connection. We are hearing it was wholly a British-Russian spy trade: if you read otherwise, I'd be interested.
I am intrigued because we have a Witness Protection Program for such situations and a large enough country to pull it off, usually. This is the plot of a thousand novels and at least one recent movie, the bad guys trying to find the person concealed by the Program. If we ever do such a trade, it is very obvious from events in Britain that we would have to put the traded spies in Witness Protection, or suffer the same terrorism, unless for no reason that is clear to me, the Russians are afraid to do that to us. Trump? We may just not have any traded spies. I haven't heard of any.
I guess there is nothing much the British government can do to Russia, and they didn't do it last time with the radiation, either. They are saying in the news that it has to be proven.............how do you do that? Can't be done. It's the same with hacking attacks. Russia, China, North Korea --- or just criminals. Or just vandals from Anonymous. It's really impossible to tell.
Of course, that never REALLY matters. In case of a genuine Act of War that must be instantly replied to, I have understood for a long time that it never matters who actually did it. A dirty bomb in New York Harbor, our payment systems nation-wide suddenly taken down ---- no one is going to run around trying to find "proof," at least not in the open. They'll choose the most problematic enemy of the moment (like Bush chose Iraq, though Iraq had nothing to do with the Towers coming down) and declare war on them. That's how the world really works.
Britain won't reply, I'm betting -- they didn't last time, after all, and that was even worse. They can't really make war on Russia for this, after all: they'll just have to eat it. But I bet they don't take any more Russian spies! I don't think that's a question of pride issues ----- a country would be foolish to do such business with a nation that constantly sends in terrorists to kill the spies and lots of citizens to boot. Russia can't be trusted, so don't trust them.
Whoa! Again, I am very impressed with this analysis. It simply didn't occur to me, but of course you are right. It is terrorism.
Because they hardly had to do it that way! Stabbing, shooting --- why not that? It surely would have been easier than these grotesque toxic methods cast widespread, radiation and nerve poison.
The diplomat who was stabbed by a poisoned needle in an umbrella years ago on London Bridge --- Bulgarians? That was not terrorism, that was assassination plain and simple.
Remember that North Korea (presumably) had Kim's half-brother killed in an airport with another grotesque murder by nerve poison, using two beautiful young prostitutes who smeared it on his face for maximum world attention.
I've been assuming Kim was saying, we can get anyone anywhere --- but he and Putin may be saying, we can kill everyone everywhere. So I was probably mistaken that it was a private message to Russian dissidents and spies against Russia. It was also a message to the rest of the world, as terrorism always is. You can't stop us killing your citizens, so you'd better do what we say. Why Russia is sending such a message to Britain, I don't know, but maybe your higher-ups understand the international politics of this better than I do.
No - judging by what I've seen, it couldn't have solely been a UK-Russian deal. My understanding is that the US certainly played a part in it. At minimum, the FBI cooperated with us, which they could've only done, as a domestic-based organisation, if ordered to by a higher US authority ....
I think this report confirms it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43315636
The UK will certainly take some sort of stance against Russia, once official confirmation of a Russian origin for the nerve agent is released. We're told it was a 'rare' agent ... meaning it may well be possible to track its exact origin, maybe even the very laboratory which produced it. What official response we come up with may not be much, in international terms, but it will be something.Who are the victims?
Col Skripal, 66, had been living in Salisbury after being released by Russia in 2010.
Colonel Skripal is a retired Russian military intelligence officer who was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
He was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006.
In July 2010, he was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10 Russian spies arrested by the FBI as part of a swap. He was later flown to the UK.
Perhaps we'd do what Trump has attempted regarding N Korea, and call upon other powers to ally with us in a common cause ... maybe yet more sanctions ? Or, maybe we'll order Russian diplomats out of our territory. I don't know.
Anyway, our media tells us that UK-Russian relations are now in 'a deep freeze'. In fact, the BBC aired, just minutes ago, a commentary-programme suggesting that Russia was heading for diplomatic isolation from the West as a whole.
I think that Russia really did mean, primarily, to send an 'oppose Putin, ever, and see what it brings you' message to other Russians. I think it was simply that. However .. Russian arrogance is such that foreign lives mean very little to them. Therefore, they've no human constraints upon the method of execution they use. Besides ... the greater the loss of life, the greater the media coverage will be of it. Russia, in sending its message, may rely upon that extent of coverage, and so will work to maximise it.
Last edited by Drummond; 03-10-2018 at 12:56 PM.
It's That Bloody Foreigner Again !!!