RugbyRebels

Sandydragon wrote:
I raise the logical point again that would the governments of Germany France etc have gone along with May if the overall proof wasn't strong?

There is also the various governments suspect Russia of assassinating folks across Europe for sometime under Putin. Whether political or business rivals of Putin, or reporters who're brave enough to write pieces on corruption and such like

Interesting comments from legendary US economist and author Michael Hudson:

Well I was puzzled at first about the whole treatment of the affair of poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter because the treatment is so out of proportion–the reaction is so out of proportion–that it’s obvious that the issue is not about the poisoning itself. First of all there’s no evidence to show Russian involvement. But the important thing to realize is that even if there were a government assassination attempt, the reaction is entirely different things. It’s really about international diplomacy and NATO maneuvering for a military posturing and the reaction has no connection at all according to the poisoning, they’re only using the poisoning as an excuse to wrap a policy that was already thought of and sort through before the actual Skripel Gate occurred. I think anyone who’s seen James Bond movies knows that 07 can kill enemies. And the U.S. assassinates people all the time. It’s killed foreign leaders like the president Allende in Latin America and the whole wave of political terrorism that followed–killing tens of thousands of union leaders, and university professors, and land reformers, and the Obama administration targeted foreigners for drone strikes. Even when this kills large numbers of civilians as collateral damage.

No foreign country broke relations with Britain, or the United States, or Israel, or any other countries using targeted assassination as a policy. So this pretense that Russia has killed someone even without any evidence or with any trial is implausible on the very surface.

So, the question is why are they doing this with Russia? Why are they imposing sanctions and mounting a great publicity campaign? And I think the answer has to lie in looking at why are they doing this now. Timing is the key. So let’s step back a minute and note what seems to be out of the ordinary in the British and US and NATO reaction. For starters the sanctions are supposed to be part of a diplomatic game plan designed to counter the presumed benefits to Russia. When the United States and Britain imposed banking factions they said this is to show you that if you think you can gain we’re going to make you lose even more than you gain. What’s bizarre here is that what gives Russia’s benefit in killing an ex-British spy who has been returned to the West in a spy trade and according to the reports wanted to go back to Russia. Nobody suggested any benefit to Russia at all and obviously there isn’t any. Therefor the sanctions are independent of any benefit and hence the poisonings. And regard to the poisonings themselves, the basis of Western law is a presumption of innocence and reliance on evidence. No judgment without evidence is supposed to be given. Otherwise it’s a rush to judgment or a “He Said, She Said” affair.

And the second principle of Western law is that both sides get to present their case. But in the Skripel affair, which is now being called Skipel Gate, there is no opportunity for Russia to present its case. The Russians have not been given samples of the poison that could exonerate them. They haven’t even been admitted to see Mr. Skripal, although he’s a Russian citizen, or his daughter. who’s now awake and recovering. The British will not even let Skripel’s relatives come to Britain. So the reaction is so out of proportion that obviously there’s a disconnect. This is a double standard and there’s a pre-existing prejudice here. So I think instead of retaliation there seems to be a pre-determined strategy of attack on Russia and an attempt to isolate its economy.

And the question is: why is this occurring? And what are its aims? I wondered at first is it payback for the U.S. failure to use ISIS and Al-Qaeda as America’s foreign legion to destroy Syria and replace Assad with a pro U.S. ruler? Grab its oil? The frustration about Crimea’s vote to join Russia?

There certainly seems to be an economic cold war that’s being escalated and the intention is to isolate Russia but instead it’s driving Russia, China, and Iran closely together. So what we have is a threat to isolate Russia if it does not do certain things. And so to solve the Skripal affair you have to think – what are these things be that the United States and Britain wants? Well one thing is for Russia to pressure North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program which of course it will only do if the United States demilitarizes the peninsula.

Another U.S. aim is to have Russia withdraw from Syria. President Trump announced last week that he wanted just to pull out of Syria. But the question is if he pulls out what will Russia do? Are these sanctions a stick saying, well OK, you see what we can do to hurt Russia but we’ll drop all these sanctions if you withdraw Russia from Syria. Maybe another aim is to get Russian concessions not to back eastern Ukraine.

The United States when it wants to isolate a country traditionally accuses them of chemical warfare. This goes back to George Bush’s accusation that Iraq had chemical weapons of mass destruction. We know that was a lie. It goes back to Obama’s claim that Russia and Assad were using chemical weapons in Syria. So I think when they say that Russia or Assad or Iraq is using weapons that’s part of to generate a fear that is supposed to be met by military preparedness and defense.

Now last week President Trump repeated what he said when he was running for president. He wants European countries to pay more of the military cost of NATO. He’s been saying this for over a year. And I think this is what this Skripal affair is really all about. The aim by using something as emotional as chemical weapons is to create an anti-Russia hysteria that will enable NATO governments to pick up much more of the military budget than they are now doing from the United States. It will force all their countries to pay 2 percent of their GDP to the U.S. Military-Industrial-Complex. So essentially, the Skripel affair is to frighten populations to enable NATO to try to push through more military spending on the U.S. defense industry and to pick up more of the cost of NATO, when the populations are going to say… wait a minute, the European Eurozone budgets can’t monetize a budget deficit… if we pick up more military spending for NATO than we’re going to have to cut back our social spending and we can’t have both guns and butter. So the Skripal is to try to soften the European population, to frighten it into sayin… yes we better pay for guns, we can do without the butter. So you’re having there exactly the fights that happened in the United States in the Vietnam War in the 1960s. And I think there’s also an attempt to use these accusations as a means of employing sanctions to disrupt Western trade with Russia and China by blocking insurance companies such as Lloyd’s of London from insuring shipping and other transportation. Banks saying we’re not going to give you these services anymore, Russia. And the parallel sanction would be to block U.S. banks.

Since 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved the capital outflow to the West has been about twenty five billion dollars per year. That means a quarter of a trillion dollars in a decade and half a trillion dollars in 20 years. And the outflow has been continuing until recently at 25 billion a year. Just in the last two weeks you’ve had in the paper the kerfuffle about the Latvian banks that were vehicles for Russian money laundering… as if the West was shocked to find out that they were actually laundering money for Russia. That’s why Latvian banks were established! Already before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1988 and 89, Grigory Luchansky, who worked for the University of Latvia in Riga, became the vehicle setting up Nordex as a way for the KGB and the Russian military to begin moving its money out of Russia. Billions of dollars a year through the various Latvian banks for the last 25 years. The main business of Latvian banks has been to receive Russian deposits and then move them into the West either into British banks or into Delaware corporations. I was research director and economics professor for the Riga Graduate School of Law for some time -maybe six or seven years ago – so I dealt with the Latvian government, with a prime minister, with bank regulators regularly, and they explained to me that the whole purpose of Latvian banks was to encourage Russia capital outflows to the West. And from the United States point of view, this was a way of draining Russia. It was the idea of pushing neoliberal privatization on Russian utilities, natural resources, and real estate and saying… first of all, privatize these public assets like Norilsk Nickel and oil companies like Khodorkovsky… and the only way you can make money now that you’ve privatized them, you have them in your hands, and the only way you can cash out since there’s no money left in Russia is to sell them to the West. And so that basically they sold them to the West while accumulating huge embezzlements through false export invoicing, moving the money into British banks primarily, and that’s why you see the Russian kleptocrats buying very conspicuous properties in London and bidding up the price of London real estate.

Now all of this has drained Russia tremendously and the United States by threatening to stop the banks drain, and in fact, to begin grabbing the assets of Russian kleptocrats. What’s the effect? The Russian kleptocrats are now frightened and are moving their money out of England, out of the United States, out of Delaware corporate relations, out of the Cayman Islands or wherever they have it back into Russia. So while there are sanctions against U.S. banks giving money to Russia. You have this huge dollar inflow and sterling inflow back into Russia that Russia is using to build up its gold stocks and all of this. So it’s a hilarious example of trying to hurt Russia by threatening the oligarchs, but actually stopping the capital outflow and that’s occurring as a result of privatization.

Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of Killing the Host (2015), The Bubble and Beyond (2012), Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade, Development and Foreign Debt (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971)

Sandydragon wrote: Corbyn hasn't been shown the most sensitive intelligence because he can't be trusted. That particular gem was in the media a long time ago.

But your media piece, which I quoted wasn't from a government source. That was the point being made.

You think the secret services trust Boris..?.

Digby wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:
I raise the logical point again that would the governments of Germany France etc have gone along with May if the overall proof wasn't strong?

There is also the various governments suspect Russia of assassinating folks across Europe for sometime under Putin. Whether political or business rivals of Putin, or reporters who're brave enough to write pieces on corruption and such like

Like our government did to Dr.David Kelly..?.

kk67 wrote:

Digby wrote:

Sandydragon wrote:
I raise the logical point again that would the governments of Germany France etc have gone along with May if the overall proof wasn't strong?

There is also the various governments suspect Russia of assassinating folks across Europe for sometime under Putin. Whether political or business rivals of Putin, or reporters who're brave enough to write pieces on corruption and such like

Like our government did to Dr.David Kelly..?.

I thought the fruitcake simply topped himself. If we did off him it hardly stopped the story getting out

There was a very interesting set of programs on BBC4 last night dealing with the portrayal of Russia in Western media (mostly in the bbc, in fairness).
I hadn't realized there was a bbc drama/documentary about 10 years ago dealing with the death of Stalin. Looking at the clips they showed it seems that the new film 'Death of Stalin' was almost a comedy carbon copy of the old documentary.
Bloody interesting. Saul David is my new favourite historian. Vastly superior to that right-wing apologist David Starkey.
The knut.

Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

rowan wrote:Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

British restaurant chain specializing in Italian cuisine. They need to investigate the nationality of the chefs. That could settle it right there . . .

rowan wrote:

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

British restaurant chain specializing in Italian cuisine. They need to investigate the nationality of the chefs. That could settle it right there . . .

Just execute the ones that put Branston pickle on the garlic bread.

Two fascinating articles in the news today.
First up, the former President of S.Korea (and US stooge) has been convicted of abuse of power and corruption, imprisoned and fined £12m.
Second story,..... N.Korea will have a ballistic missile capable of reaching the UK within 18 months.

Don't tell me our drip-drip propaganda is not the same as their drip-drip propaganda... and then tell me it's raining.

Are you suggesting Park Geun-he's impeachment, trial and imprisonment has something to do with NK?

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

I hadn't heard a report confirming the Skripals are almost recovered, nor whether that recovery would mean back to what they were or will now have ongoing issues, the same of the police officer.

Why the cousin (or frankly those telling her what to say) think those comments on food poisoning will be taken seriously I don't know, nor why appearing on news panels with the men the UK would like to speak to about he murder of Alexander Litvinenko is helpful. It's just a very daft look, though one says that realising we've got Boris as foreign secretary which is hardly a sensible look.

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:Why aren't they issuing a visa to Viktoria Skripal? I wonder. The Skripals want to go back to Russia and she wants to take them there. She also broke the news that Yulia Skripal was almost recovered while the Western news was still claiming she was in a serious condition. & just to top it off the Skripals' cat and guinea pigs starved to death while the stupid British bobbies were standing outside guarding the place!

Hmmm . . . you know I suggested this earlier:

Salisbury attack: Skripal cousin claims pair suffered 'food poisoning'

https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-at ... n-11319366

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

I hadn't heard a report confirming the Skripals are almost recovered, nor whether that recovery would mean back to what they were or will now have ongoing issues, the same of the police officer.

Why the cousin (or frankly those telling her what to say) think those comments on food poisoning will be taken seriously I don't know, nor why appearing on news panels with the men the UK would like to speak to about he murder of Alexander Litvinenko is helpful. It's just a very daft look, though one says that realising we've got Boris as foreign secretary which is hardly a sensible look.

There are certainly many things you do not know then. You need to stop reading mainstream corporate news, which is really only a mouthpiece for government and its warmongering agenda.

rowan wrote:

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote:

Full circle back to the Italian restaurant chain? Non rompere i coglioni stronzo.

I hadn't heard a report confirming the Skripals are almost recovered, nor whether that recovery would mean back to what they were or will now have ongoing issues, the same of the police officer.

Why the cousin (or frankly those telling her what to say) think those comments on food poisoning will be taken seriously I don't know, nor why appearing on news panels with the men the UK would like to speak to about he murder of Alexander Litvinenko is helpful. It's just a very daft look, though one says that realising we've got Boris as foreign secretary which is hardly a sensible look.

There are certainly many things you do not know then. You need to stop reading mainstream corporate news, which is really only a mouthpiece for government and its warmongering agenda.

The food poisoning claim looks fucking foolish. That's all he was commenting on. You throw these noncommittal statements out there in order to project some air of authority, and you do the same with an extremely condescending tone.

You are the Boris Johnson of these boards.

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:

Digby wrote:

I hadn't heard a report confirming the Skripals are almost recovered, nor whether that recovery would mean back to what they were or will now have ongoing issues, the same of the police officer.

Why the cousin (or frankly those telling her what to say) think those comments on food poisoning will be taken seriously I don't know, nor why appearing on news panels with the men the UK would like to speak to about he murder of Alexander Litvinenko is helpful. It's just a very daft look, though one says that realising we've got Boris as foreign secretary which is hardly a sensible look.

There are certainly many things you do not know then. You need to stop reading mainstream corporate news, which is really only a mouthpiece for government and its warmongering agenda.

The food poisoning claim looks fucking foolish. That's all he was commenting on. You throw these noncommittal statements out there in order to project some air of authority, and you do the same with an extremely condescending tone.

You are the Boris Johnson of these boards.

I was also saying I hadn't heard a report saying either the Skripals or the police officer were recovered. I've heard updates they're improving, even rapidly improving, but not recovered.

cashead wrote:Are you suggesting Park Geun-he's impeachment, trial and imprisonment has something to do with NK?

No. I'm suggesting that all propaganda is just the elite pissing down our backs and claiming it's raining.
We do it,.... they do it.

In fact, I was quoting Viktoria Skripal. My own comments on it being foodpoisoning were tongue-in-cheek and that was very clear. I also quoted her claim that Yulia Skripal was "almost recovered," not fully recovered. So please pay a little more attention to detail, folks, because these are important distinctions, and in this respect it is not me but yourselves who resemble the mop-headed baboon of Westminster. & so it should have followed that when I pointed out there were many things you seemed to be unaware of, this was a reference Viktoria Skripal's claims, which appear to have been ignored by mainstream corporate government propaganda.

It is incredible how massive a twat you can be.

Always fun reducing you to a feces-flinging chimp

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote:

rowan wrote:
There are certainly many things you do not know then. You need to stop reading mainstream corporate news, which is really only a mouthpiece for government and its warmongering agenda.

The food poisoning claim looks fucking foolish. That's all he was commenting on. You throw these noncommittal statements out there in order to project some air of authority, and you do the same with an extremely condescending tone.

You are the Boris Johnson of these boards.

I was also saying I hadn't heard a report saying either the Skripals or the police officer were recovered. I've heard updates they're improving, even rapidly improving, but not recovered.

The cousin lives in Russia and is fed a diet of RT. Not surprising that she believes the Putin line.

I'm sure you know more about the case than she does, Sandy.

Sandydragon wrote:

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote:

The food poisoning claim looks fucking foolish. That's all he was commenting on. You throw these noncommittal statements out there in order to project some air of authority, and you do the same with an extremely condescending tone.

You are the Boris Johnson of these boards.

I was also saying I hadn't heard a report saying either the Skripals or the police officer were recovered. I've heard updates they're improving, even rapidly improving, but not recovered.

The cousin lives in Russia and is fed a diet of RT. Not surprising that she believes the Putin line.

Shows how much you know about Russia. Nobody watches RT.

The woman is just silly, simple and ignorant, plenty of such people in all countries.

rowan wrote:I'm sure you know more about the case than she does, Sandy. [emoji38]

By your logic, I know more about the case. I live 40 mins from Salisbury which gives me ultimate authority over anyone who doesn't live in the region.