Correspondence: Nerve-agent attack in Salisbury
13 March 2018
Last night, Channel-4 News reported a statement made by Theresa May concerning the recent nerve-agent attack on Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury. It concluded:
“The Kremlin is the highly-likely culprit.”
Where there is no clear evidence, it is often useful to invoke a principle from Roman law, namely, cui bono or cui prodest. Both of these terms mean:
Who does it profit?, Who benefits?
When Channel-4 News first reported the nerve-agent attack, earlier in March, some interesting information was provided. It suggests an alternative explanation to the definite accusation that has now been made by the British government.
It seems that Skripal had
most-likely turned from being a double-agent, into a triple-agent.
Apparently, he had met with a Russian secret-service agent, on more than
one occasion, in the period prior to having been attacked with the nerve-agent
Novichok.
A more-likely culprit is the British secret-service. The British-state benefits most from the attack.
If this is true, it is likely that Theresa May has been informed about it. If Jeremy Corbyn had been prime-minister, it is a far less likely that he would have been told.
There should be no sympathy for Putin’s active support of the Syrian government. However, the disturbing reports concerning Syrian-government actions, conducted with Russian help, are no better, nor no worse, than those carried-out by the forces that invaded Iraq and Libya in recent years.
Channel 4 News has recently shown some harrowing footage taken in Eastern Ghouta, Syria. A difference is, British TV did not present similar footage when reporting the 2003 Iraq War.
US, UK, Australian and Polish forces invaded Iraq, and there was so-called collateral-damage which, of course, was deemed to have been unavoidable.
When a NATO-led coalition invaded Libya in 2011, there was also so-called collateral-damage that wasn’t detailed on TV.
Doubtless, the present-day Syrian government, backed by its Russian ally, argues that there is unavoidable collateral-damage in Syria.
The wars in both Iraq and Libya were essentially wars between governments. However, there were forces, in Iraq and Libya, that were opposed to their own government. They worked according to the principle of first dealing with the foreign-invader and then, subsequently, continue the struggle against one’s own government.
British TV shows much footage of recent Syrian-government atrocities, but it didn’t show similar footage at the time of the wars in Iraq and Libya.
In other words, what is now taking place, is an orchestrated demonization of Russia and its allies.
Roy