The use of Nerve Agent in the UK

[BillyStubbsTears]

Right. Corbyn’s Office DID finally swing into gear more than 24 hours on.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/983101179310768128?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

“The horrific deaths and injuries in Douma point to a chemical attack which must be fully investigated by the UN and those responsible held to account. The need to restart real negotiations for peace and a political settlement in Syria could not be more urgent.”

Who could disagree with that?

Oh yeah...except that Douma is entirely ringed by Syrian forced who are backed by Russia and who won’t let anyone from the outside world in to see what they are doing.

Tough one eh?

Compare and contrast with Labour’s (100% correct) total condemnation of Israel for shooting dead Palestinian demonstrators.

Why should Corbyn’s office be SO assertive in one side and so dissembling in the other side?

Oh yeah! It’s because Seamus Milne is on record as saying that we shouldn’t concentrate on Russia’s crimes because it distracts attention from other countries’ crimes. Which, when you extract the logic, means Labour’s leadership has a policy of effectively turning a blind eye to Russia’s or Russia’s allies’ assassinations, bombings and gassing.

[wilts rover]

No, it because one was captured on live tv by the world media and the other requires proper investigation by the relevant authority who can definitively say what happened (as they should have done in Salisbury).

Note the wording in this press release from the OPCW ' alleged use of chemical weapons'.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 9 April 2018 — The Director-General of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, expressed his grave concern in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack on 7 April in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic.

The OPCW Situation Centre has been closely monitoring the incident and made a preliminary analysis of the reports of the alleged use of chemical weapons immediately after they were issued. The Fact Finding Mission (FFM) is in the process of gathering further information from all available sources to establish whether chemical weapons were used. The FFM will report its findings to States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/opcw-director-general-allegations-chemical-weapons-use-douma-syria

[Sprotyrover]

I'm not quite sure what to make of that are you ?

I have filed it away with the contradictions that May gave in her speech when she said 130 people had been treated for the effects of the poisoning, around about the same time the consultant doctor wrote to the Times to say that only 3 people were under treatment and no other member of the public they had seen had any symptoms whatsoever.

What's the truth in this case, I don't know? But the more I read about it the less I believe we are being told it.

The situation with the family pets is alarming,how embarrassing for the Wiltshire Police et al if it's true.
The latest version of the story is that the Skripals were poisoned in their home, You would have thought the pets would have been taken away to be
Monitored,I really do hope this is fake news!

[Sprotyrover]

I'm not quite sure what to make of that are you ?

I have filed it away with the contradictions that May gave in her speech when she said 130 people had been treated for the effects of the poisoning, around about the same time the consultant doctor wrote to the Times to say that only 3 people were under treatment and no other member of the public they had seen had any symptoms whatsoever.

What's the truth in this case, I don't know? But the more I read about it the less I believe we are being told it.

Again I can't believe that the Prime minister of Great Britain spouted such utter garbage, its worse than the contradiction made by Porton Down re Boris Johnson's rants.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts

And of course Russia is going to say there is no evidence of a chemical weapon attack.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43697670

And of course no UN inspectors are going to be able to get in unhindered to find evidence of a chemical attack.

So you’re left with two options:

1) Keep on insisting that the UN should be able to do its job when you know damn well that the UN cannot do its job.

2) Go on the balance of probability given a lengthy list of past form.

Of course, if you’re on record as saying that concentrating  on Russian action is regrettable because it diverts attention from others’ actions then 1 is a very attractive option. And if you take option 1, how exactly are you supposed to hold Russia to account? And if you do that time, and time and time again, can you REALLY claim to even want to hold Russia to account?

[wilts rover]

I'm not quite sure what to make of that are you ?

I have filed it away with the contradictions that May gave in her speech when she said 130 people had been treated for the effects of the poisoning, around about the same time the consultant doctor wrote to the Times to say that only 3 people were under treatment and no other member of the public they had seen had any symptoms whatsoever.

What's the truth in this case, I don't know? But the more I read about it the less I believe we are being told it.

The situation with the family pets is alarming,how embarrassing for the Wiltshire Police et al if it's true.
The latest version of the story is that the Skripals were poisoned in their home, You would have thought the pets would have been taken away to be
Monitored,I really do hope this is fake news!

It seems from the (contradictory) statements that have come out, the house was both sealed and being investigated at the same time, very strange?

The vets concerned have put a statement out on their website and facebook page if you are interested. It's worthwhile looking at the comments on the facebook page where the Skripal's neighbours are saying that it was only last week that police began interviewing them for anything suspicious they might have seen.
https://www.facebook.com/thevetssalisbury/
http://www.thevets.tv/

It's a Met Police operation Sproty although Wiltshire Police are providing some officer and a lot of admin support to it.

[wilts rover]

You say that the UN are not going to be able to get in to Douma yet the OPCW say they are sending a Fact Finding Mission there - one of you is wrong.

It's all well and good saying that you are going to 'hold Russia to account' without knowing what it is you want to achieve from that - and what the possible consequences may be? Do you want to end the war in Syria or escalate it?

[BillyStubbsTears]

We’re working our way through the usual insult list from the Left. I see we’ve got onto “if you don’t agree with this approach, you are a war-mongerer.”

Corbyn pulled that one last year when he was asked if he would stand by Article V of the NATO treaty if Russia invaded the Baltics, and replied that he would work to ensure that never happened. The implication being that the rest of us would NOT want to work to see that didn’t happen.

Wilts. You question is obscene. Of COURSE I want that war to end. How DARE you suggest anything else. I have a very good Syrian friend who has seen his family torn apart by that war and I hear from him regularly how his country’s and his kids’ future has been destroyed. Do YOU think that by downplaying Russia’s role, the killing and the devastation is reduced? Or, even more pertinently, by not facing down Russia, the NEXT set of killing fields will be avoided? After Grozny. And Donbas? And Aleppo?

You face them down by hitting them where it matters. In their pockets. You make damn sure they know that countries who condone and support the gassing of Douma and the obliteration of Aleppo are not to have an arm put round them and “understood” (which is what Milne has made a career suggesting). You put them outside the tent of civilised countries and you tell them they stay there until they learn how to act like civilised countries.

What you do not do is turn a blind eye to their atrocities because it doesn’t fit with your world view. Because that is beyond disgusting.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way, the OPCW has sent delegations to Syria to investigate every alleged use of poison gas. Sometimes they are allowed/able to investigate on the ground. Sometimes they have to pick up their facts from the Syrian Govt. Their remit is not to establish WHO used the weapons. To quote from the report they issued after the gassing last April, “the mandate of the FFM (fact finding mission) is confined to establishing only the fact of the use of chemical weapons.”

The previous FFMs of the OPCW have frequently concluded that it was unsafe or impossible to actually investigate at the site of the alleged use of poison gas. Equally, this time the OPCW has NOT said it was going to Douma. I’ll be astonished if they ARE able to get in there.


So how exactly are we to find proof that it is Syria/Russia? And if we can’t find proof that satisfies you, do we just shrug our shoulders and move on?

EDIT.

Call it naivety. Call it mendacity. But THIS comment by Corbyn after last year’s sarin gas attack in Syria is indefensible. He said, “...we need to bend ourselves totally to getting a political settlement in Syria and allow the inspectors space to work, allow them to make sure we know who did that terrible chemical weapons attack...”

It took me 30 seconds to find this comment on the OPCW website: “The scope of the Fact-Finding Mission’s mandate does not include the task of attributing responsibility for the alleged use.”

So the OPCW CANNOT and WILL NOT “make sure we know” who was responsible. It’s the job of political leaders to piece together information and decide that. Not sit on the sidelines theorising. Corbyn is either out of his depth on this one, or he has another agenda.

[Sprotyrover]

Ok Billy ,what do you want to see happen, tell us why it should happen that way and what it would achieve,Put up or shut up!

[BillyStubbsTears]

I would want to see a much more extensive set of sanctions aimed directly at individuals and companies associated with Putin. A much harder version of the Magnitsky Act which has been discussed. And I’d want to see that linked directly to Russia’s foreign policy.

And equally importantly, I’d want ALL leading politicians to unequivocally and aggressively condemn Russian war crimes. That would mean as a fundamental first step, Corbyn sacking his Press Officer who has spent 30 years writing apologies for Stalin, Milosevic and now, Putin. It is absolutely essential that Western democracies show a united front against Russian aggression. We’ve effectively ignored Grozny, Donbass and Aleppo. It’s naive stupidity to think that Putin will stop there if we continue to placate him.

[Sprotyrover]

So basically you merely want the wannabe Trotskyite faction currently misleading the Labour Party to sort itself out, you haven't got a plan to sort the immediate crisis in Syria,for which we and the US are partly to blame,due to our military support of less than trust worthy opponents to the Assad regime.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sproty

Astonishingly, I, like the rest of the U.N., don’t have a solution in my back pocket. What I do have is an understanding from history of where you get to in the long run when strong men push and push and are not pushed back against.

Thanks for the lesson on how Syria started. I hadn’t realised that it was complicated.

[hoolahoop]

" Thanks for the lesson on how Syria started. I hadn’t realised that it was complicated. "

PMSL
You need to get up to speed then !

[Sprotyrover]

Sproty

Astonishingly, I, like the rest of the U.N., don’t have a solution in my back pocket. What I do have is an understanding from history of where you get to in the long run when strong men push and push and are not pushed back against.

Thanks for the lesson on how Syria started. I hadn’t realised that it was complicated.

You know naff all, we Have beenshipping weapons to Isis supporters because Putin has sided with Asad, Well the Syrian Christians have had to throw their cards in with Asad too so that is who we should be supporting,who ever comes out on top there will be a lot of lives lost,all we are doing and have been doing is prolonging the inevitable,it's a mess but Asad is the best card in a very bad hand .

[Sprotyrover]

Oh and by the way the Israelis murdered 16 Palestinians on Good Friday, what is the West doing about them?
Corbyn has a point but even he fails to get acros that an element of the Palestinians are also Christian.
We sit here and don't give a monkeys because we don't realise that!

[BillyStubbsTears]

So Russia has vetoed a proposed UN investigation into Douma. The OPCW will be able to establish THAT a chemical weapon attack took place but there will be no way of definitively establishing who was responsible.

Because Russia has blocked that avenue.

So now what do those people think, who said we shouldn’t rush to judge Russia and we should let the UN do its job?

[Filo]

So Russia has vetoed a proposed UN investigation into Douma. The OPCW will be able to establish THAT a chemical weapon attack took place but there will be no way of definitively establishing who was responsible.

Because Russia has blocked that avenue.

So now what do those people think, who said we shouldn’t rush to judge Russia and we should let the UN do its job?

Thats my whole point in the other thread, the UN as it stands is toothless while nations have the power of veto

[BillyStubbsTears]

Filo

That was inevitable if Syria is responsible because Russia will not allow a UN inspection that ends up pointing the finger at their ally. But the process is still important because it lays out to other countries the case of who they cannot trust.

In the meantime, while Corbyn sounded principled and correct in calling for all parties to support the UN in getting to the bottom of Douma, he is now faced with how the real world of hardball international politics works and it’s nothing like his naively optimistic idea that we should all work together to find the truth.

There’s now a massive question for Corbyn. He said he wanted the UN to establish responsibility. Russia has blocked that. So NOW what does he do. Because if he just shrugs his shoulders, he is effectively condoning the use of poison gas. He can claim as often as he wants that he’s against the use of WMD and I truly believe that he is. But as PM of one of the 5 or 6 strongest nations on earth, he would have a moral duty to do more than just tells us about his conscience. He would need to show what HE would do when WMD were used. So far, he’s failing that test spectacularly.

[hoolahoop]

No, it because one was captured on live tv by the world media and the other requires proper investigation by the relevant authority who can definitively say what happened (as they should have done in Salisbury).

Note the wording in this press release from the OPCW ' alleged use of chemical weapons'.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 9 April 2018 — The Director-General of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, expressed his grave concern in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack on 7 April in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic.

The OPCW Situation Centre has been closely monitoring the incident and made a preliminary analysis of the reports of the alleged use of chemical weapons immediately after they were issued. The Fact Finding Mission (FFM) is in the process of gathering further information from all available sources to establish whether chemical weapons were used. The FFM will report its findings to States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/opcw-director-general-allegations-chemical-weapons-use-douma-syria

So do you think that the people in Douma are exploding chemical weapons on themselves . Say they did , then why would you continue you to do it if you haven't managed to get an international response against the Syrian regime or their Russian backers in the past ? Isn't it dangerous to explode chemical weapons on yourself ?

Wilts OF COURSE  the regime or Russia have used such diabolical weapons on the civilians AND the armed opposition ffs !

[wilts rover]

I am not sure how you work out I am saying the people in Douma have exploded chemical weapons on themselves when I point out that the OPCW wish to go and check/verify if a chemical attack has happened there Hoola? A call which I have heard echoed today by such diverse voices as General Richard Dannant and Peter Hitchens.

Syria and Russia say it hasn't. The opposition groups in Douma say it has. The OPCW will confirm it one way or the other. We have all seen the tv pictures. Have we all seen the tweets from the BBC editor in Syria who says that at least some of the pictures that have come out have been faked? https://twitter.com/Dalatrm

As you well know Billy, Russia and Syria have asked the OPCW to carry out an investigation. Also Russia also put their own UN resolution down that the US, UK and others vetoed because it was independent of them. Russia vetoed the US resolution because they would not be part of it. 

If there was a chemical attack who else might have done it? Have a read up on the Jaysh al-Islam (the group in Douma) and their habit of putting civilian prisoners and using them as human shields. Is it a coincidence that the attack happened a week or so after Trump announced he was going to pull US troops out of Syria - just as the attack last year came after he also announced he was going to pull troops out? Or when Russia, Turkey and Iran are discussing peace talks in Syria? Who might not want the US troops out of Syria or a Russia - Iran brokered peace?

None of which really matters. What is important now is whether the west risks escalating a crises in Syria into a full blown conflict between the US and Russia on the basis of no independent evidence? Or looks for an alternative?

What has Corbyn got to say? He's asked for a debate in Parliament. I am extremely doubtful if he will get it as I cant see Trump waiting to see which way he votes before he decides what to do.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

No. If you’re going to discuss this then get your facts right.

 Russia vetoed a proposal that the OPCW be given the remit of establishing who was responsible for the chemical weapon attack.

Russia’s proposal was that the Security Council have the final say on apportioning responsibility. Which, obviously, would mean that any of the permanent members (say...Russia for example?) could veto any decision.

https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13288.doc.htm

Meantime, you are following precisely the line that Putin wants his stooges in the West to follow. Obscure the issue by throwing up conspiracy theories that cannot be disproved precisely because Putin has vetoed the one process by which the truth can be established.


EDIT:
Apologies. The link I posted earlier did not make it clear that the Russian proposal was for the SC to have the responsibility to assign blame. This one does.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/04/1006991

[BillyStubbsTears]

Corbyn today:
“Britain should press for an independent UN-led investigation of last weekend's horrific chemical weapons attack so that those responsible can be held to account."

What the f**k? Britain DID press for an independent UN mission to investigate and have the authority to apportion blame.

Russia vetoed it.

Once more, not a word of criticism of Russia.

What is the game here?

[hoolahoop]

Ok Billy ,what do you want to see happen, tell us why it should happen that way and what it would achieve,Put up or shut up!

Why are you being so aggressive ?

[hoolahoop]

So Russia has vetoed a proposed UN investigation into Douma. The OPCW will be able to establish THAT a chemical weapon attack took place but there will be no way of definitively establishing who was responsible.

Because Russia has blocked that avenue.

So now what do those people think, who said we shouldn’t rush to judge Russia and we should let the UN do its job?

Thats my whole point in the other thread, the UN as it stands is toothless while nations have the power of veto

Filo , you are absolutely right and perhaps it's time to either call it a day as the U.N. stands now and completely reform it .
It's way past it's " sell by " date.

[Sprotyrover]

Why has the former head of UK armed forces been cut off when he gives SKY an answer about the alleged Chemicals attack in Douma, which clearly wasn't to the liking of Teresa May,Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Macron and all of the other retards who are trying to start an illegal war on Russia.

[Sprotyrover]

Why is the UK Government systematically destroying all evidence in relation to the alleged Russian nerve gas attack in Salisbury.
I think they should change the name of the Operation to Operation F**k up!

[Sprotyrover]

Have you ll noticed how May and Johnson have wound in their necks in the last few days.hopefully we will soon have a new PM and Foreign secretary in the near future!

[Filo]

Common sense tells you that Russia will not go to War with the West, thier firepower would be overwelmed by Nato's combined firepower, Russia would be finished it that happened. The problem is we are living in a World where common sense has taken a back seat and a lot of Country's leaders are raving egomaniacs

[RedJ]

If Russia went to war with the West it'd probably be game over for us all.