Anti-Russian rhetoric

[rowan]

The OPCW had already confirmed that Russia destroyed its nerve agent program. However, the US refused to co operate with the OPCW on the issue, and neither they nor Britain have provided any evidence that the program was not in fact closed. Also, it is not difficult to manufacture Novichoks. Other countries certainly have that capability, but neither Britain nor the US have shown any interest in investigating them.


But there is a problem: far from offering a clear-cut evidence-trail to Vladimir Putin’s chemical warfare labs, the use of Novichok in the nerve gas attack on UK soil points to a wider set of potential suspects, of which Russia is in fact the least likely.

Russia did actually destroy its nerve agent capabilities according to the OPCW
Yet a concerted effort is being made to turn facts on their head.

No clearer sign of this can be found than in the statement by Ambassador Peter Wilson, UK Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in which he claimed that Russia has “failed for many years” to fully disclose its chemical weapons programme.

Wilson was parroting a claim made a year earlier by the US State Department that Russia had not made a complete declaration of its chemical weapons stockpile: “The United States cannot certify that Russia has met its obligations under the Convention.”

Yet these claims are contradicted by the OPCW itself, which in September 2017 declared that the independent global agency had rigorously verified the completed destruction of Russia’s entire chemical weapons programme, including of course its nerve agent production capabilities.

OPCW Director-General, Ahmet Üzümcü, congratulated Russia with the following announcement:

“The completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons programme is a major milestone in the achievement of the goals of the Chemical Weapons Convention. I congratulate Russia and I commend all of their experts who were involved for their professionalism and dedication. I also express my appreciation to the States Parties that assisted the Russian Federation with its destruction program and thank the OPCW staff who verified the destruction.”
The OPCW’s press statement confirmed that:

“The remainder of Russia’s chemical weapons arsenal has been destroyed at the Kizner Chemical Weapons Destruction Facility in the Udmurt Republic. Kizner was the last operating facility of seven chemical weapons destruction facilities in Russia. The six other facilities (Kambarka, Gorny, Maradykovsky, Leonidovka, Pochep and Shchuchye) completed work and were closed between 2005 and 2015.”
The OPCW’s reports on Russia confirm that the agency found no evidence of the existence of an active Novichok programme.

It should be noted that Dr. Robin M. Black, formerly of Porton Down’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory — which reportedly confirmed the use of Novichok in the Salisbury assassination — sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the OPCW. Yet a scientific review by Dr. Black also raised doubts about Novichok, noting that its properties and structures had not been independently confirmed.

Here is what Porton Down’s Dr Black wrote about Novichoks in a 2016 scientific review published by the Royal Society of Chemistry:

In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents, ‘Novichoks’ (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the ‘Foliant’ programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published.
On the basis of this sort of analysis, the OPCW’s science board, which included Porton Down’s Dr Black as UK representative, concluded that:

“… it has insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of ‘Novichoks.’”
So in short, the OPCW does not agree with the vague US and British insistence that Russia failed to declare all its chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities, and does not agree with the insistence that Novichok stockpiles or production facilities exist in Russia. But it seems that neither does His Excellency Peter Wilson himself.

In a statement to the OPCW in November 2017, Ambassador Wilson congratulated the OPCW on verifying the complete destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons programme with high praise for its director, Ahmet Üzümcü. Wilson listed the latter’s numerous achievements including:

“… the completion of the verified destruction of Russia’s declared chemical weapons programme.”
Yes, Wilson specified he was only talking about Russia’s “declared” programme, but he did not denounce the OPCW for failing to deal with an undeclared Novichoks programme. So how credible is his recent insinuation that the OPCW’s position is wrong?

Arguably, not very. Because the claim, tracing back to the State Department, that Russia has not declared all its chemical weapons, is based on the assertion that its Novichok capability still exists. But both Porton Down’s Dr. Black and the OPCW’s Science Advisory Board fundamentally questioned the “existence” of Novichok.

The lack of credibility of the Anglo-American critique of Russia’s destruction of its chemical weapons was called out in a detailed report by the respected Clingandael Institute of International Relations. The report, co-funded by the European Union, criticised the United States for adopting an unhelpful politicised approach to the chemical weapons issue in relation to Russia, while hypocritically delaying its own compliance obligations, all of which was done in a manner which bypassed OPCW mechanisms. It’s worth reproducing that entire text in full:

“… on a political level there have been some drawbacks. Particularly interesting is that compliance concerns tend to be raised by the US, while this state is itself being criticized for delays in disarmament. In 2005, the US expressed concern about active offensive CW research and development (R&D) programmes, as well as inaccurate declarations regarding past CW transfers and undeclared CW facilities in Russia, China, Iran, Libya and Sudan. The US decided to address these concerns through bilateral channels, rather than directly engaging formal OPCW mechanisms. In the meantime, the US itself has been criticized for exporting arms classified as ‘toxicological agents’ (notably tear gas) to numerous countries in the Middle East (between 2009–13). Since 9/11, the US has also intensified its R&D on non-lethal chemical agents, along with new means of delivery and dispersal. The CWC (Article II, para. 2) does cover chemical compounds with incapacitating or irritant effects… Taken together with the delay in destroying US CW stockpiles, this has taken a toll on the US’ standing within the CWC, undermining its role as a ‘regime hegemon’. Since these compliance concerns remain unresolved, this has also, ipso facto, affected the authority of the CWC, and hence the OPCW.” [emphasis added]
In other words, the US did not raise its claimed concerns about Russia’s undeclared Novichoks through the proper mechanisms via OPCW, but only bilaterally. Why?

One possible explanation is that by not working through the issue with the OPCW, the US effectively circumvented the international verification process by which the Novichoks issue, if real, could be properly investigated and assessed. This has conveniently permitted the US and Britain to claim, entirely without evidence, that Russia is in non-compliance of the Chemical Weapons Convention by insisting that its Novichoks supplies and capabilities remain undeclared. Yet it is precisely the US’ own refusal to disclose and navigate the issue through the OPCW that means the matter can be made out to be forever unresolved.

The crux of it is this: At this point, neither the US nor Britain have offered any actual evidence as to why the OPCW’s verification process regarding Russia’s dismantlement of its chemical weapons capability should be disbelieved. They have provided no evidence that Russia retains any Novichok stockpiles.

The OPCW is, of course, the same agency whose independent investigations the West is relying on to determine culpability in major chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Why, then, would the OPCW’s conclusions on Syria be considered gospel truth, while its conclusions on Russia be rejected?

Not only has the press completely overlooked these kinks in the British government line, it has curiously ignored that Theresa May’s claims contradict the public statements of Mirzayanov.

Agence France Presse, for instance, declared in an opening paragraph to an interview with Mirzayanov, “The Russian chemist who first revealed the existence of ‘Novichok’ nerve agents says only the Russians can be behind the weapon’s use in Britain against a former spy and his daughter.” And yet, the AFP article went on to report:

“The only other possibility, he said, would be that someone used the formulas in his book to make such a weapon.”
Mirzayanov’s book, published in 2008, contains the formulas he alleges can be used to create Novichoks. In 1995, he explained that “the chemical components or precursors” of Novichok are “ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides.”

If his claims are remotely accurate, then that means Novichoks can actually be manufactured by anyone who reads Mirzayanov’s book with access to a decent laboratory. Which means that Theresa May’s claim that Novichoks lead only to Russia is little more than a deception.

Other states have Novichok capabilities, but the British government doesn’t want to investigate them
The OPCW’s authoritative verdict on Russia’s now destroyed chemical weapons capabilities should be enough to give anyone pause for thought in rushing to judgement concerning Russian responsibility for the Novichok attack.

Instead, the British government appears to have no interest in investigating the fact that there are other state agencies with significant nerve agent capabilities. Like its ally, the United States.

Under Boris Yeltsin, who won Russian elections thanks to Western covert meddling, the Russian government had declared that it was not stockpiling Novichok. This is why Yeltsin did not report Novichok’s existence under chemical-weapons conventions at the time — because the official Russian position was that the stockpiles no longer existed.

It turns out the Americans themselves were involved in the dismantlement of Russia’s remaining Novichok capabilities.

In August 1999, as the BBC reported, US defence experts arrived in Uzbekistan to help “dismantle and decontaminate one of the former Soviet Union’s largest chemical weapons testing facilities.” The facility was known as “a major research site for a new generation of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons, known as Novichok”, and provided the US ample opportunity to learn about this nerve agent and reproduce it for testing and defence purposes.

But it is not just the US. According to Craig Murray — former US Ambassador to Uzbekistan and prior to that a longtime career diplomat in the UK Foreign Office who worked across Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia — the British government itself has advanced capabilities in Novichok:

“The ‘novochok’ group of nerve agents — a very loose term simply for a collection of new nerve agents the Soviet Union were developing fifty years ago — will almost certainly have been analysed and reproduced by Porton Down. That is entirely what Porton Down is there for. It used to make chemical and biological weapons as weapons, and today it still does make them in small quantities in order to research defences and antidotes. After the fall of the Soviet Union Russian chemists made a lot of information available on these nerve agents. And one country which has always manufactured very similar persistent nerve agents is Israel.”
But the British government doesn’t want to investigate Porton Down, not even to rule out the possibility that it may have ‘lost control’ of some of its Novichok stockpiles.

Porton Down: proudly experimenting with nerve gas on the British public from the 1950s to 1989
Perhaps the government is worried about what it might actually discover if it asks too many questions about Porton Down itself.

The facility has a somewhat chequered history in relation to the abuse of chemical and biological weapons programmes that has been largely forgotten. This history illustrates that the British government has not at all been averse to using chemical and biological weapons on its own population, just to see what happens.

Two years ago, the Independent reported on new historical research which found that during the Cold War, the British government “used the general public as unwitting biological and chemical warfare guinea pigs on a much greater scale than previously thought.”

Over 750 secret operations had been carried out on “hundreds of thousands of ordinary Britons” involving “biological and chemical warfare attacks launched from aircraft, ships and road vehicles.”

“British military aircraft dropped thousands of kilos of a chemical of ‘largely unknown toxic potential’ on British civilian populations in and around Salisbury in Wiltshire, Cardington in Bedfordshire and Norwich in Norfolk… Substantial quantities were also dispersed across parts of the English Channel and the North Sea. It’s not known the extent to which coastal towns in England and France were affected… commuters on the London underground were also used as guinea pigs on a substantially larger scale than previously thought. The new research has discovered that a hitherto unknown biological warfare field trial was carried out in the capital’s tube system in May 1964. The secret operation — carried out by scientists from the government’s chemical and biological warfare research centre at Porton Down, Wiltshire — involved the release of large quantities of bacteria called Bacillus globigii…”
The new research also shows that many of the British scientists involved “had grave misgivings about the field trials… some had long felt that it was not politically advisable to conduct large-scale trials in Britain with live bacterial agents.” Such reservations did not stop the government from authorising these dangerous experiments.

Porton Down also conducted extensive nerve agent tests on British soldiers around this time.

Less well-known, though, is the fact that members of the British armed forces “were experimented on with Sarin, the deadly nerve gas, as late as 1983 at the Government’s defence research centre at Porton Down,” according to Ministry of Defence documents obtained by The Telegraph. Operation Antler, as the police investigation into the experiments was called, found that the nerve agent trials had gone on as late as 1989.

A secret British intelligence unit is actively arranging ‘honey trap’ propaganda operations to incriminate ‘adversaries’
There are strong reasons, then, not to fall slavishly in line with the British government’s rush to judgement on Russia.

But this is particularly the case given what we now know about British intelligence service’s disinformation intent and capabilities when dealing with “adversaries.”

National Security Agency documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that a secret British intelligence unit, Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG), uses a range of “dirty tricks” against “nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into ‘honey traps,’” according to a NBC News investigation.

Although much of the focus of these operations is online, they also include the goal of “having an impact in the real world” and “using online techniques to make something happen in the real or online world.” The modus operandi is to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them and planting misinformation designed to look like actions were performed by them.

Propaganda campaigns can use deception, mass messaging and “pushing stories” via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. One section of the document explains that such influence operations can involve direct efforts to manipulate people’s behaviour into compromising situations:

“Honey trap; a great option. Very successful when it works.
- Get someone to go somewhere on the internet, or a physical location to be met by a ‘friendly face’.
- JTRIG has the ability to ‘shape’ the environment on occasions.”
Such capabilities and operations of deception at the heart of the British state raise perfectly reasonable questions about whether the UK’s intelligence services are deliberately seeking to pin the blame on Russia for geopolitical reasons — or perhaps, even, to distract from scrutiny of allies who might be legitimate suspects.

According to former British diplomat Craig Murray, for instance, it is more reasonable to cast the net of suspicion onto Israel for many of the same reasons cited by the British government:

“Israel has the nerve agents. Israel has Mossad which is extremely skilled at foreign assassinations. Theresa May claimed Russian propensity to assassinate abroad as a specific reason to believe Russia did it. Well Mossad has an even greater propensity to assassinate abroad. And while I am struggling to see a Russian motive for damaging its own international reputation so grieviously, Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation so grieviously. Russian action in Syria has undermined the Israeli position in Syria and Lebanon in a fundamental way, and Israel has every motive for damaging Russia’s international position by an attack aiming to leave the blame on Russia.”
Murray further points out that it is unlikely the Russians “waited eight years to do this, they could have waited until after their World Cup.” Similarly, it makes little sense to suddenly assassinate a “swapped spy” who had already served his time and been living out in the open for years in the UK.

Murray is no blind Russiaphile, and so his critical analysis cannot be dismissed on grounds of partisanship. He describes himself as “someone who believes that agents of the Russian state did assassinate Litvinenko, and that the Russian security services carried out at least some of the apartment bombings that provided the pretext for the brutal assault on Chechnya. I believe the Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of Georgia is illegal.”

But he cautions that, given the severe lack of credible evidence on this case, he is “alarmed by the security, spying and armaments industries’ frenetic efforts to stoke Russophobia and heat up the new cold war.”

Indeed, INSURGE just reported on an extensive US Army study published last year which not only stated quite unequivocally that NATO expansionism is the main driver of Russian belligerence, but that NATO’s main interest has always been to rollback Russia’s regional influence so that the West can dominate Central Asian natural resources and oil pipeline routes.

The document recommended that in 2018, the US should consider pursuing a concerted covert “information” campaign to undermine Putin.

Army document: US strategy to ‘dethrone’ Putin for oil pipelines might provoke WW3

Senior DIA, Air Force and Army officials admit that NATO expansionism and US covert interference in Russian internal…
medium.com
Is this what we are seeing play out right now as Theresa May rushes to punish Putin?

This leaves us with the following. The actual history of Novichok shows that out of the countries discussed here, Russia is the only state to have been certified by the OPCW as having destroyed its chemical weapons programme, including its nerve agent capabilities. The OPCW found no evidence to indicate that Russia retains an active Novichok capability. The same is not the case for the US, Britain and Israel.

There is no legitimate reason for the British authorities to rule out that any of these states could have at the very least ‘lost control’ of their nerve agent stockpiles. The fact that the government chose, instead, to shut down all avenues of inquiry other than to claim falsely that the “only possibility” is for all roads to lead to Russia, demonstrates that we are almost certainly in the midst of a concerted state propaganda operation.

It may turn out that Russia did indeed carry out the Novichok attack. But at this time, the British state has no real basis to presume this. Which implies that the state has already decided that it wants to manufacture a path to heightened hostilities with Russia, regardless of the evidence. And that does not bode well.

This story was 100% reader-funded. Please support our independent journalism for as little as $1 a month, and share widely.
Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is the founding editor of INSURGE intelligence. Nafeez is a 16-year investigative journalist, formerly of The Guardian where he reported on the geopolitics of social, economic and environmental crises. Nafeez reports on ‘global system change’ for VICE’s Motherboard, and on regional geopolitics for Middle East Eye. He has bylines in The Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, New York Observer, The New Statesman, Prospect, Le Monde diplomatique, among other places. He has twice won the Project Censored Award for his investigative reporting; twice been featured in the Evening Standard’s top 1,000 list of most influential Londoners; and won the Naples Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award created by the President of the Republic. Nafeez is also a widely-published and cited interdisciplinary academic applying complex systems analysis to ecological and political violence.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Oh wise up Rowan. Simply pouring out yet another diatribe lifted directly from yet another widely discredited doom-blogger, conspiracy theorist is not contributing to any form of rational debate!

Your original post regarding Bilger's - sorry Pilger's (See what I did there? You can have a drink now Cashead) - comments on the current Nivichok incident was relevant to the debate. Your subsequent 'faecal flinging chimpanzee' comment was not and simply reflects your persistent inability to cope with a contrary opinion as to the value of the sources of your arguments.

You will respond to this post, as with every other post that questions the validity of your evidence, by howling argumentum ad hominem. This is not the case. When your arguments are based wholly on the massed regurgitation of tracts from third party sources (Do you honestly believe that any of us are going to be persuaded to change our view under such a indiscriminate barrage of guff?), it is entirely valid to counter by questioning the validity and credibility of those sources.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

The last person to address the matter at hand on this thread was, in fact, me. Since then there have been 22 posts, only two of which were mine, two or three of which were yours (on the subject of Ed Sheeran, if I'm not mistaken ) and the remaining dozen and a half of which had nothing to do with anti-Russian rhetoric at all but were mostly of the feces-flinging chimpanzee frenzy variety.

My arse you were!

Your Pilger post (Directly relevant) was posted at 17:11 on Monday.

My 'Ireland Expels the KGB' post was made at 15:01 on Tuesday.

Are you not reading my posts? How is that conducive to meaningful discourse?

Have you any idea just how easily the faeces-flinging chimpanzee frenzy metaphor fits your utterly predictable response to any challenge?

[rowan]

Ad hominems, Sarge. Just for once try to address the arguments, rather than attack the messenger. I mean, according to you, anyone who doesn't agree with the warmongering corporate mainstream propaganda of the US & Britain has been discredited. Discredited by who? The world's foremost independent investigative journalists and political commentators haven't been discredited just because some guy on a rugby chat bored says so, that's for certain...

[SerjeantWildgoose]

I provided 4 examples of individual writers who have criticised Pilger's latest work. Obviously these are not credible to you because they take a contrary view to your own.

World's foremost independent investigative journalists and political commentators?

Says who?

You?

Or yet another twat with a crusade?

Let me be clear.

I have not had sight of the/any evidence regarding the causes of the injuries sustained by Nick Bailey and the Skripals or who may have perpetrated the assault.

You have not had sight of the/any evidence regarding the causes of the injuries sustained by Nick Bailey and the Skripals or who may have perpetrated the assault.

Neither John Pilger, Nafeez Ahmed nor any other political commentator has had sight of the/any evidence regarding the causes of the injuries sustained by Nick Bailey and the Skripals or who may have perpetrated the assault.

The facts of the matter are obscured to all of us and our opinions can only be formed on our world view. Mine is formed by my experience; others by theirs. It would require a compelling, evidence-based and measured argument from a truly independent source to convince me that other views, which have helped shape my own, are wrong.

My argument is that you have failed to offer anything like a compelling, evidence-based and measured argument from a truly independent source.

Tu quoque!

[kk67]

Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion man.

Back off Big Nose! THESE FECKING OPINIONS DON'T READ THEMSELVES YOU KNOW!

I wish I'd said that.

[kk67]

At the risk of sounding redundant, not one person on here has supported either the morally degenerate practice ....or the negative impact of the US military industrial complex on contemporary history.

The US made huge profits from WWI and II. They paid a price in terms of humans but both conflicts were a massive money spinner with almost zero impact on the Homeland. Same in the middle east.

In fact they've suffered no Homeland damage from war since their own Civil war. Not surprising their governance eulogises the military and seeks the profits of war.
That they are seeking more of the same is not a big surprise.

[rowan]

The US made huge profits from WWI and II. They paid a price in terms of humans but both conflicts were a massive money spinner with almost zero impact on the Homeland. Same in the middle east.

In fact they've suffered no Homeland damage from war since their own Civil war. Not surprising their governance eulogises the military and seeks the profits of war.
That they are seeking more of the same is not a big surprise.

Very true, with the exception of Hawaii, which they don't care about, and whose native peoples have never wanted to be part of the USA either.

Meanwhile, another good read:

Skripal posed no further threat to the Russian state. There is at least one report that he sought to return to Russia recently. It’s hard to comprehend why at this time Moscow would poison him and his young daughter visiting from Russia with a nerve agent (Novichok) created in the USSR from the 1970s but subsequently banned and destroyed under international supervision. Cui bono? Who profits from these poisonings?

https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-skrip ... in/239684/

[morepork]

3000 people were killed in NYC 2001. Is it the result of a conventional war? Maybe not, but 3000 nonetheless.

[kk67]

Numbers of dead...wow.
Put a number on it ,

[morepork]

Numbers of dead...wow.
Put a number on it ,

The number was to make the point, possibly peripheral to your direct statement, that these deaths definitely qualify for the homeland damage designation. I'm happy to accept critique of the cause of said deaths, but cannot dismiss them outright.

[rowan]

3000 people were killed in NYC 2001. Is it the result of a conventional war? Maybe not, but 3000 nonetheless.

Not. & who would you pin the blame on? Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan? There have been countless other terrorist attacks in America, many committed by white supremacists, of course. In fact, 94% of terrorist attacks in the US between 1980 and 2005 were not committed by Muslims. Even Jewish extremists carried out more. While less than 0.0002% of Americans violently killed since 9/11 were done so at the hands of Muslims. In fact, the rate of violent deaths among Muslims in America has been somewhat higher.

[kk67]

Numbers of dead...wow.
Put a number on it ,

The number was to make the point, possibly peripheral to your direct statement, that these deaths definitely qualify for the homeland damage designation. I'm happy to accept critique of the cause of said deaths, but cannot dismiss them outright.

The Homeland designation.
Is that Tuesday morning when the White House has it's kill meets..?.

[morepork]

3000 people were killed in NYC 2001. Is it the result of a conventional war? Maybe not, but 3000 nonetheless.

Not. & who would you pin the blame on? Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan? There have been countless other terrorist attacks in America, many committed by white supremacists, of course. In fact, 94% of terrorist attacks in the US between 1980 and 2005 were not committed by Muslims. Even Jewish extremists carried out more. While less than 0.0002% of Americans violently killed since 9/11 were done so at the hands of Muslims. In fact, the rate of violent deaths among Muslims in America has been somewhat higher.

You are assuming that I apportion blame for the overall rate (which I most definitely do not) to the ethnographic you state here. Far more Americans have died at the hands of coordinated domestic groups....you'll get no argument from me there. Please do not attempt to paint me as a proponent of blaming your selected ethnicities for the loss of life overall, as I would find that grossly offensive. I am merely pointing out that the loss of 3000 lives qualifies for definition of homeland damage. I lived through that NYC tragedy, so please be respectful of that.

[morepork]

Numbers of dead...wow.
Put a number on it ,

The number was to make the point, possibly peripheral to your direct statement, that these deaths definitely qualify for the homeland damage designation. I'm happy to accept critique of the cause of said deaths, but cannot dismiss them outright.

The Homeland designation.
Is that Tuesday morning when the White House has it's kill meets..?.

What is the homeland designation and what is your point?

[kk67]

The Whitehouse has weekly meetings regarding who they will kill.

It seems very odd to me, not at all odd, that we have constant media conflagrations like this week about cheating in Cricket when we have constant examples of cheating in multinationals and their accountancy stooges.

There are lots of cheap Jeremy Kyle telly programs about 'catch a contractor'...... but precious few programs about 'catch a dodgy accountant', 'Catch a dodgy insurance salesman'....'Snare a paedophile copper'.
Lots of attempts to demonize the vulnerable.......Lots of attempts to Lionize the psychopathic.

[kk67]

If the Elite are a bunch of crooks,....what will society become.

[rowan]

3000 people were killed in NYC 2001. Is it the result of a conventional war? Maybe not, but 3000 nonetheless.

Not. & who would you pin the blame on? Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan? There have been countless other terrorist attacks in America, many committed by white supremacists, of course. In fact, 94% of terrorist attacks in the US between 1980 and 2005 were not committed by Muslims. Even Jewish extremists carried out more. While less than 0.0002% of Americans violently killed since 9/11 were done so at the hands of Muslims. In fact, the rate of violent deaths among Muslims in America has been somewhat higher.

You are assuming that I apportion blame for the overall rate (which I most definitely do not) to the ethnographic you state here. Far more Americans have died at the hands of coordinated domestic groups....you'll get no argument from me there. Please do not attempt to paint me as a proponent of blaming your selected ethnicities for the loss of life overall, as I would find that grossly offensive. I am merely pointing out that the loss of 3000 lives qualifies for definition of homeland damage. I lived through that NYC tragedy, so please be respectful of that.

It was a rhetorical question, not even directed at you personally, and they weren't my selected ethnicities but those of the US source I reference. My only point was that acts of terrorism cannot be regarded as acts of war unless they are state-sponsored, and there was nothing remotely disrespectful about that comment at all.

[rowan]

Incidentally, Mexican soldiers under Pancho Villa and Jose Escobar carried out raids within US territory during the border wars early last century. Those would be the only attacks on Mainland America involving fatalities (a few hundred soldiers, in total) since the Civil War. The US, meanwhile, has conducted well over 100 foreign interventions during that time, and almost 200 since independence. It has, in fact, not been at peace for more than 21 years at any time since its independence. Here is a list of its foreign interventions since WWII.

China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009 *
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012 to present
Ukraine 2014 *
Yemen 2015 to present

[Digby]

3000 people were killed in NYC 2001. Is it the result of a conventional war? Maybe not, but 3000 nonetheless.

Not. & who would you pin the blame on? Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan? There have been countless other terrorist attacks in America, many committed by white supremacists, of course. In fact, 94% of terrorist attacks in the US between 1980 and 2005 were not committed by Muslims. Even Jewish extremists carried out more. While less than 0.0002% of Americans violently killed since 9/11 were done so at the hands of Muslims. In fact, the rate of violent deaths among Muslims in America has been somewhat higher.

Are you claiming that none of those fighting the US in Afghanistan or Iraq are muslim? Else it can't possibly be the case that such a small % of Americans killed since 9/11 have been killed by muslims. I doubt we'd be looking at 50% or anything close, maybe not even 25%, but there's no chance it'd be some fraction of 1%

[rowan]

The discussion is about attacks on American territory, Digby. But for the record there were over 400 K American deaths in WWII and almost 60 K in Vietnam, compared with only 4.5 K in Iraq and 2.3 K in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, around 250 K Vietnamese, 2.4 million Iraqis and 150 K Afghanis perished as a result of those wars.

[Digby]

I'm going to guess at more people have died at the hands of the USA rather than yes my sentence made no snese

[kk67]

I'm going to guess at more people have died at the hands of the USA rather than yes my sentence made no snese

If you're getting more money than is reasonable. You probably reckon it's reasonable.

[SerjeantWildgoose]

There are lots of cheap Jeremy Kyle telly programs about 'catch a contractor'......

You've just gone up in my estimation. Clearly you have never watched Jeremy Kyle, whose telly programmes are all about fat, ugly people who fuck their spouses' mothers.

[kk67]

...with bad teeth. Don't forget the bad teeth...they are crucial to his US sales.
Many of them are 'actors' wearing fake teeth. The US loves it.