Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Well now UK's own military investigators are saying they can't prove where the gas was made. So much for actually having any PROOF. So much for having any kind of moral high ground.

I feel it should be noted that the UK lab's only job was to identify the substance, not its source.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43633694

"It is our job to provide the scientific evidence of what this particular nerve agent is - we identified that it is from this particular family and that it is a military grade, but it is not our job to say where it was manufactured."

It is noted in that article and many others that it is one of multiple sources used to make the claim. What those other sources are may be test carried out by other labs for equally specific purposes, intelligence-based reports, or a mix of the two.

The results of this lab's tests should not be conflated with ultimate proof of everything, especially seeing as the the purpose of the tests was explicitly not to provide such a thing. All it was meant to do was confirm the substance, which it did as military-grade Novichok. That information will be used to dictate other routes of investigation, not to point the final finger.

tneva82 wrote:
Well now UK's own military investigators are saying they can't prove where the gas was made. So much for actually having any PROOF. So much for having any kind of moral high ground.

A Russian lab would prove beyond doubt where the stuff came from, probably Porton Down.

tneva82 wrote:
Well now UK's own military investigators are saying they can't prove where the gas was made. So much for actually having any PROOF. So much for having any kind of moral high ground.

What has that got to do with anything.

Russia demands proof because proof cannot be forthcoming. That is not how diplomacy works.

This does sound odd so let me spell it out to you.

If you commit a crime and the police nab you there is a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, this is because the citizen is at the mercy of the state.

When you have actions that indicate that state agents are involved the burden of proof is lessened because the people concerned are not individuals at the mercy of the state, they are players for another state with the ability to offer cover of false alibi, technicalities and high quality covering of tracks. This is how intelligence has always worked, burden not of proof in a court but on reasonable balance of probabilities by trained intelligence officers.
This doesn't mean that proof wont be sought, but its a nice dream rather than a plausible goal.. After the Litvinenko poisoning in 2007 several people were wanted for questioning and Russia refused not only to hand them over, but refused access to them for questioning. Proof cannot be found because the state agents will in all likelihood have been whisked out of the country before the government had determined what the chemical agent was, if not sooner. Mr Joe Criminal doesn't have those resources, and doesn't have that protection, and also doesnt have access to Novichok.

But we still need proof, I hear you think.

If so lets look at a diffferent but similar scenario why do we use drones? Do we sent detectives into Daesh held territory to talk to people and hold trials, or do we bomb them because the intelligence services have strong reasons to beleive that valid targets have been sighted. The Russians work on the same principles. they have sent many squadrons of bombers to Syria, but no reports of any detectives to question people in Syria to see if they are naughty.

It would be very nice to have actual hard proof, but that is unlikely. The UK government has been clear of its conviction that Russian state interference was 'highly likely' and that is good enough for diplomatic action. They have never claimed actual proof.

You must remember that the demands of proof were there from the beginning but the tone has changed, before the Russian state media were all but admitting to the attack with videos telling the Russian people that 'traitors' will be sought out and 'have accidents'. Putin thought he would just get away with it, the UK government has not had much of a spine lately and so the sentiment was not unreasonable. However while UK politicians are spineless the Civil Service is not, they knew this was serous and pulled strings and May and Johnson, weak though they are stood their ground and it has cost Russia.

They are doubling down on the demand for proof in a grass roots media campaign, it's all over YouTube. Two weeks ago they were blaming Sweden as a joke while laughing the event off, not they are claiming its a false flag because they are scared they may face sanctions.

Putin has to know that he cant get away with launching chemical weapons attacks in the west. And yes it's not just a UK issue it could happen in Finland too. Furthermore this is not the first time they have done stuff like this. Enough is enough.

It's a chicken 'n egg thing isn't it?

You can conclusively test the sample used on UK's soil by getting a known sample from the Russian labs.

Wanna guess why Russia doesn't want to share the sample to rule this out?

 whembly wrote:
It's a chicken 'n egg thing isn't it?

You can conclusively test the sample used on UK's soil by getting a known sample from the Russian labs.

Wanna guess why Russia doesn't want to share the sample to rule this out?

Because evil scientists at Porton Down will use the sample dose to poison another Russian emigre and blame Russia so that St Putin is smeared?

[Kikrazy -- I have moved this post over from the UK Politics threads.]

 ulgurstasta wrote:

Spoiler:

 Ketara wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Could you point out where the proof for Russian involvement is in that article?

Assuming that you're not just being obtuse, the bits where it talks about the 'wider intelligence picture not disclosed'. The article literally says nothing which alters the status quo of what we already know; namely that the PM says she know with a degree of certainty, from multiple sources, who was responsible.

The OP was implying that some new evidence had come to light revealing this to be untrue, and linked this article. Which says nothing about the veracity or lack thereof in relation to the PM's statement. It's a statement from a chemical weapons lab relating to a separate aspect, and a statement from the British Government saying 'Yeah, we have other stuff from multiple places'. Which hardly jibes with the original statement of 'it turning out we don't, in fact, have any proof'.

You are missing the fact that Porton Down analysis was supposed to show that Russia had manufactured the novichok in question. In fact, the Foreign & Commonwealth office and Boris Johnson both claimed that Porton Down had proof that it was manufactured in Russia, so yeah I would say something seems "untrue" about this!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Porton Down analysis was supposed to identify the substance, which it did.

Russia is where Novichok was invented and it's the only country where it is known to have been manufactured.

Bozza only claimed Porton Down pinned the chemical to Russia because he's an idiot who knows nothing about science and logic, doesn't read his briefs, and likes to shoot his mouth off. The Foreign Office followed suit because it's Bozza's department. However Bozza's incorrect claim has been withdrawn.

I think that's his point. Johnson and May have been claiming this was proof, when it turns out it's not.

It doesn't matter so much what the lab was hired to do, it's what the lab was claimed to do that's the issue here.

Johnson has done what he always does. Make stupid statements without all of the facts and gets them wrong. No one else claimed the lab had identified where it came from. Many said it might. It turns out now that they cannot themselves confirm the exact location, just what it is. We don’t know if that is because they don’t have the ability or because there is not enough information. That does not make it the only bit of evidence. This changes nothing, apart from another reason Bojo should be sacked and should not ever be PM.

Herzlos wrote:
I think that's his point. Johnson and May have been claiming this was proof, when it turns out it's not.

It doesn't matter so much what the lab was hired to do, it's what the lab was claimed to do that's the issue here.

May didn't claim this was proof. The lab didn't claim this was proof.

Johnson didn't make the statement either.

The Foreign Office said the tweet had been part of a real-time account of a speech by the UK's ambassador in Moscow and was deleted because it "did not accurately report our Ambassador's words".

It was the UK's Russian Ambassador, and a part of a mistyped transcript.

In other words, nobody seriously said it. But hey, why let facts get in the way of standard Russian counter-propaganda?

 Ketara wrote:
Johnson didn't make the statement either.

Apart from this of course in a recorded interview...

https://news.sky.com/story/nerve-agent-attack-johnson-faces-questions-over-porton-down-claim-11315840

Though apparently he is claiming he was referring to the chemical itself, despite not being the question ("The source of this agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did we find out about this so quickly? Does Britain possess samples?) spending 5 minutes blathering on how he loves Russia etc. and apparently randomly without reference then talks about the knowing that this was the chemical, rather than referring to the question?

I don't need to listen to Russian propoganda to know he dug himself a huge hole and is again trying to dig himself out of it.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Johnson didn't make the statement either.

Apart from this of course in a recorded interview...

https://news.sky.com/story/nerve-agent-attack-johnson-faces-questions-over-porton-down-claim-11315840

Though apparently he is claiming he was referring to the chemical itself, despite not being the question ("The source of this agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did we find out about this so quickly? Does Britain possess samples?) spending 5 minutes blathering on how he loves Russia etc. and apparently randomly without reference then talks about the knowing that this was the chemical, rather than referring to the question?

I don't need to listen to Russian propoganda to know he dug himself a huge hole and is again trying to dig himself out of it.

Really? Because having literally just pulled the transcript of the interview in question....



If you actually watch the interview (I just did), it's quite clear that his mention of Porton Down is simply part of a portfolio of evidence mustered against Russia that he was in the middle of listing; right before he was interrupted and sidetracked into talking about samples specifically. And that in turn can (if extracted and read completely out of context) make it sound as if he was asking Porton Down scientists whether or not it was Russian in origin, when he's actually talking about identification of the substance in his subsequent reply.


Our foreign secretary is enough of a joke without having to pull crap out of context to nail him with. There's too much stuff he's actually said to waste time inventing more.

I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

 Ketara wrote:


Our foreign secretary is enough of a joke without having to pull crap out of context to nail him with. There's too much stuff he's actually said to waste time inventing more.

So to be clear....saying as you have quoted

DW: You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

Boris Johnson:- Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory…

That being asked a direct question about where the evidence came from to implicate Russia, that he then references Porton Down, isn't actually stating misleading information on the evidence

My suspicion is that he was exagerating the information he had for maximum effect as he has a tendency to do. However he has been found out about (again) because he is in a high profile role where in the past columns he might have got away with it because of the type of papers they were. That has resulted in withdrawl of information presented by the Foreign Office and a formal statement from Porton Down as to what they actually said.

My concern is that his buffonery will make other countries more cautious in the future if we end up backtracking on the information presented. As I've pointed out previously it would have been much better to have waited gathered sufficient evidence and then placed facts on the table. Instead we've had a knee jerk reaction that I fear that if the evidence is less than convincing will make allies cautious of our intelligence int he future. In essence they tried to play a poltical game with the information and now they are having to back track at cost to reputation. All the while giving Russia the 'evidence' it needs to try and further divide people/nations and so on.

Meanwhile Corbyn says ‘I told you so’, in reference to them not being cautious about making accusations, and their response is ‘you’re on the Russian side’.

Which he isn’t, but right now they seem to need to save face from several directions so any muck they hope will stick they will fling.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

Yes, but it all seems so botched. At the technical level, the target is still currently with us, and at the wider level, all this just for Putin to gain a few votes and puff his chest in an election he was guaranteed to win anyway?

I can see the counter arguments - the fact no has actually died yet might be a bit embarrassing, but Putin doesn't care because the point is made, and as to the international reaction, he doesn't care because he sees the West as relatively powerless, not least because so many Western leaders have at least some murky connections with a lot of Putin allies, and Britain particularly as we are so distracted trying proudly to reduce our GDP by about 10% for some reason.

I'm not saying Putin is some sort of mastermind who is incapable of ordering such a botching, just seems very ham fisted to me. Of course, we will probably never know.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Ketara wrote:


Our foreign secretary is enough of a joke without having to pull crap out of context to nail him with. There's too much stuff he's actually said to waste time inventing more.

So to be clear....saying as you have quoted

DW: You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

Boris Johnson:- Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory…

That being asked a direct question about where the evidence came from to implicate Russia, that he then references Porton Down, isn't actually stating misleading information on the evidence

Just so. Look at the grammar. It's not even remotely misleading. It's beginning to list a series of sources in which the collective evidence points to Russia.Porton Down is one piece of that sentence construction, but the sentence was interrupted before it could be finished.

To proffer an alternative example, imagine that I'm working out who stole my pair of garden shears. I know it was my neighbour due to some DNA left behind. I also have a witness testimony from a friend who saw my neighbour in the area at the time, a suspicious footprint, a blurry camera image, etc.

So you say to me, 'How do you know your neighbour took the shears?' I respond by saying, 'Well, there was a blurry camera image, a footprint'- At that precise image, you interrupt me and ask me whether that camera showed someone of my neighbour's size. I then respond in the affirmative and talk about that aspect. You'll note that whilst my primary evidence is the DNA, I didn't get a chance to get to that in my listing. And the conversational flow is now such that if I write down a transcript and take it out of context, it'll look like I'm basing my accusation upon the camera image.

It's a classic case where transformation of format and turning it into something bitesize alters the meaning beyond the original intent. But combined with the tweet from (another transcript) online, it's made it seem like the Foreign Office issued two separate statements making Porton Down evidence and the origin of Novichok dependent upon each other. Which has resulted in the Russians seizing on it with glee to push it as much out of context as possible, because that's what their information strategy is based around these days. Making people argue over meaningless little facets like this to distract from the issue in question and sow doubt and distrust.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

Well, either that or their typical corruption or ineptness allowed a chemical weapon produced there to fall into unknown hands, like literally every other facet of their military equipment.

I can tell I grew up during the cold war. Governments trying to kill spies and double agents seems normal and unworthy of comment, let alone this level of diplomatic breakdown.

Voss wrote:
I can tell I grew up during the cold war. Governments trying to kill spies and double agents seems normal and unworthy of comment, let alone this level of diplomatic breakdown.

This issue isn't that they killed a spy, if they had used a knife or a gun this story would have been out of the public eye by now. The issue is they used a chemical weapon on foreign soil that has effected civilians.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

Well, either that or their typical corruption or ineptness allowed a chemical weapon produced there to fall into unknown hands, like literally every other facet of their military equipment.

Well now, don't discount the possibility somebody just took it with them on vacation

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

That is a gross abuse of Occam's razor. It is meant to establish an order for the testing of scientific theories, not for assigning right or wrong, let alone guilt or "who did this crime". Occam's razor sounds good in theory, but it doesn't hold up well in real life, because we all know that things are usually more complicated than they need to be. It is is not applicable to anything outside of scientific theories. And even its usefulness in science is disputed, seeing as that again, simple theories are not necessarily more correct than complicated ones and Occam's razor can put an artificial limit on our understanding. In many disciplines, it has already been disregarded for a long time. Really, Occam's razor is only useful when there are two theories explaining the same phenomenon that both predict exactly the same results, which is a situation you almost never get in most scientific disciplines, and never outside of it.

 Ketara wrote:
In other words, nobody seriously said it. But hey, why let facts get in the way of standard Russian counter-propaganda?

There's a wealth of arguments making it clear Russia was behind this. But they all get forgotten about as the debate ends up back and forth over one minor, technical point that isn't even being honestly described.

That does the Russian counter-propaganda pattern very well. Just close conversation down with endless debate over misleading claims about minor details. Keep doing this until people get frustrated and give up on the big picture.

Well, this isn't a court of law, and there isn't a case to be won (yet). In terms of diplomacy the UK doesn't need to satisfy Russia, they need to satisfy the rest of the world to the extent they are going to partake in sanctions and whatever might come after that. The metric here is reasonable proof, not proof beyond all possible doubt.

I think it's pretty clear Russia was behind this. Their motivations don't really make sense but understanding their motivations isn't required to determine that they did it, and should be punished for it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Well, either that or their typical corruption or ineptness allowed a chemical weapon produced there to fall into unknown hands, like literally every other facet of their military equipment.

Sure. And to be honest, the latter would have been a much better defense, but I guess that's not as an effective as message job.

 Ouze wrote:
Well, this isn't a court of law, and there isn't a case to be won (yet). In terms of diplomacy the UK doesn't need to satisfy Russia, they need to satisfy the rest of the world to the extent they are going to partake in sanctions and whatever might come after that. The metric here is reasonable proof, not proof beyond all possible doubt.

It's not even that. In reality this is not a court of law, this is the actions of one government to another. It requires zero proof. Ultimately the UK government can decide tomorrow that it want's to throw out every diplomat from Guatemala because they think the name has too many A's in it. They can also decide that they will enforce trade sanctions, banning export of whiskey to Guatemala until it changes its name to Guatem to stop using so many A's. It is then up to our government to justify it to the international community and then face the consequences or gain support. You don't have to have any proof or reasonability to throw out diplomats or impose sanctions. Governments can do it on a whim. Getting other country's to agree to do the same would require something to convince them.

As I said earlier in the thread, if Russia was really concerned about this as a matter of justice then they would have handed over Andrey Lugovoy, who Britain accused with substantial evidence of murdering Alexander Litvinenko. But Russia flatly rejected extradition.

Anyone pretending that this time it should be all about justice and that requires evidence to a court's standard needs to explain what changed from the Litvinenko case, or admit they're liars who's actual motivation is to make sure Russia is not held to account.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
That is a gross abuse of Occam's razor.

This isn't about a pedantic debate about the use of Occam's Razor outside of its original purpose. If you'd like instead we can use "if you hear hooves think of horses, not zebras". A medical saying, its true, but applicable to many other things. It means that on reviewing evidence, then you should go with the most obvious, most common explanation that fits what you know. In this case we should consider a man who betrayed Russia was murdered with a very obscure poison which has only one known source of manufacture - in Russia. We could invent a zebra explanation that the poison was made in secret by some nefarious, unknown party with a cunning plan to... make Britain expel some Russian diplomats. Or we could consider the hooves are horses, and that Russia used a Russian weapon to murder a man who betrayed Russia.

 Ketara wrote:

DW: You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

Boris Johnson:- Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory…

That being asked a direct question about where the evidence came from to implicate Russia, that he then references Porton Down, isn't actually stating misleading information on the evidence

Just so. Look at the grammar. It's not even remotely misleading. It's beginning to list a series of sources in which the collective evidence points to Russia. Porton Down is one piece of that sentence construction, but the sentence was interrupted before it could be finished.

Except no collective evidence was presented, the only evidence he presented was that from Porton Down implicating that this was the primary evidence he had in place for believing it was Russia

To proffer an alternative example, imagine that I'm working out who stole my pair of garden shears. I know it was my neighbour due to some DNA left behind. I also have a witness testimony from a friend who saw my neighbour in the area at the time, a suspicious footprint, a blurry camera image, etc.

So you say to me, 'How do you know your neighbour took the shears?' I respond by saying, 'Well, there was a blurry camera image, a footprint'- At that precise image, you interrupt me and ask me whether that camera showed someone of my neighbour's size. I then respond in the affirmative and talk about that aspect. You'll note that whilst my primary evidence is the DNA, I didn't get a chance to get to that in my listing. And the conversational flow is now such that if I write down a transcript and take it out of context, it'll look like I'm basing my accusation upon the camera image.

The argument being that if you are presenting your evidence you start with most circumstantial piece and then let yourself get side tracked and not talking about better more compelling evidence? If there is more compelling evidence why has this not been stated. Not many jury's are going to convict someone on a blurry photo when you fail to provide the DNA evidence. It is more likely he was presenting what he thought was the best evidence but exaggerated the claim to try and make a case and is now having to back track. It's not even that he didn't have three of four minutes to clarify what he was saying. He spent a large fraction of the time after the question talking about how he loved 'Russia' and the people for which there was no reason to do so, it was his own choice. He had plenty of time to make clear what he was saying about the accusation, yet he didn't. To return to the garden shears example it would be like saying, "I have this blurry photo that's the reason, but now I want to talk about how I love shear makers..." (and later wondering why people who have not had sight of any other evidence think that he has misled them)

But combined with the tweet from (another transcript) online, it's made it seem like the Foreign Office issued two separate statements making Porton Down evidence and the origin of Novichok dependent upon each other.

You mean this one...(now deleted)

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/981490573835161600/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.co.uk%2Fentry%2Fboris-johnson-under-fire-over-salisbury-russia-claim-as-foreign-office-tweet-blaming-moscow-deleted-russian-embassy_uk_5ac4b1efe4b063ce2e5799c7

"Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military-grade Novicjok nerve agent produced in Russia. Porton Down is OPCW-accredited and designated laboratory"

and yet we now have DSTL tweeting

"Our experts have precisely identified the nerve agent as Novichok. It is not, and has never been, our responsibility to confirm the source of the agent"

So the first was apparently a 'mistake' and 'misinterpretation' of an embassy statement. Which is complete bullgak. It's not like their PR team is made up of one unsupervised 16 year apprentice. The original tweet would have been approved at the highest levels (if not Boris the Clown himself) because of the level of sensitivity.

Which has resulted in the Russians seizing on it with glee to push it as much out of context as possible, because that's what their information strategy is based around these days. Making people argue over meaningless little facets like this to distract from the issue in question and sow doubt and distrust.

That came about because of May's and Boris the Clowns desire to push a 'strong and stable' approach to the issue and rushing out before all the evidence was gathered. A more cautious approach to gather the evidence and come out with a much more robust conclusion would have made it a lot less easier for the Russian government to deny its involvement. Instead we got May's preferred strategy of the "weak and wobbly" approach which has now left a massive question mark over the initial statements that allows those doubts to be exploited. We cannot yet definitely prove that Russia produced the agent and is circumstantial. Others could have made the chemical with the correct equipment. This is an interesting read about Chemists views on making such material...

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/long-read-does-the-uks-case-against-russia-stack-up

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

That is a gross abuse of Occam's razor. It is meant to establish an order for the testing of scientific theories, not for assigning right or wrong, let alone guilt or "who did this crime". Occam's razor sounds good in theory, but it doesn't hold up well in real life, because we all know that things are usually more complicated than they need to be. It is is not applicable to anything outside of scientific theories. And even its usefulness in science is disputed, seeing as that again, simple theories are not necessarily more correct than complicated ones and Occam's razor can put an artificial limit on our understanding. In many disciplines, it has already been disregarded for a long time. Really, Occam's razor is only useful when there are two theories explaining the same phenomenon that both predict exactly the same results, which is a situation you almost never get in most scientific disciplines, and never outside of it.

The trouble with your comment is that it is grossly one sided.

There are plenty of secondary reasons to consider Russia as being 'highly likely' to be responsible for the attack.

1. The Russian Government have done this before by similar methods against a similar specific target. They share this trait only few countries, notably Israel and North korea, however neither of those countries would have any motive to assassinate the specific target Skripal.

2. The Russian Government have not acted in any way in concurrence with a belief that the attack was a false flag operation. Had they done so they would not have allowed the plethora of comments made after the attack which amount to gloating, but would have been more concerned with who set them up.

3. False flag operations are normally carried out by the third party to sour realtions between two other countries. The UK does not need to poison people in the UK in order to freeze relations with Russia, they can do this simply enough by increasing rhetoric on current disagreements, notably the sham election, threats to the Baltic States and Ukraine.

4. The Russian state media have been stating as if they were facts that the UK was responisble for a false flagging operation, this would be extremely unlikely and illogical conclusion based on the above. Were the operation a false flagging the UK would be hoodwinked too. This however is not the Russian state position, instead there is a claim that the UK is responsible, not that it might be. The Uk has good reason to consider Russian involvement 'highly likely' for which there is a demand for concrete proof, yet the Russian state and its media are making reverse claims without not only any proof but without any logical basis.

Now lets look at some excuses given for why it was supposedly not a Russian attack.

- 'If we had done it Skripal would be dead' - Putin himself made this remark. This holds some thin logic in that attacks caused by Russia with extreme toxins normally result in death. Russia know this all too well. However Skripal is in hospital and is seriously ill, he might yet die. Furthermore in reality not all poisonings or for that matter assassinations work. Recently Putin has also made comment about how many assassination attempts he has survived. Which is it Vlad?
It is possible even with extreme toxins to receive less than the lethal dose, its is also possible to react to most extreme toxins with medical care. Polonium is a radiological agent, when ingested there was nothing that could be done for the victim because the victim himself became radioactive. Novichok apparently works by causing choking and respiratory failure. A ventilator might bypass the effects in the short or long term. This buys time to see if anything can be done.
The Bulgarians used ricin as a poison, another extremely toxic substance, one dissident shot in London by a converted umbrella died, the next time this technique was used the victim had a two inch region of flesh around the wound surgically removed and thereby survived. Skripal might survive because due to prior Russian poisonings, and there have been a fair few, we know somethign about how to stop them.

- The British reacted surprisingly quickly and came to conclusions suspiciously quickly Common piece of maskirovka used to 'prove' that the Uk set this up, and its bollocks. The Uk police is generally slow and half asleep, but MI5 is not. they have a very good rep. The British civil service i also slow ad half asleep but wakes up fething quickly once they detect attacks of this nature. Police forensics waits in a long queue for overworked forensic scientists to get to a case in turn order while working office hours. In cases of suspected chemical weapons there is no queue, and I doubt there are office hours either. If you want to ID an extreme toxin you courier the sample to the labs by the quickest safest route and you phone the test scientists in them iddle of the night if you have to and get them to work. The time taken to investigate is the time to suspect what is going on, to transport the sample, the science involved and a rush email to UK intelligence, and in all likelihood the Prime Minister. You dont test for each potential chemical or agent in turn either like police forensics needs to do. If you want to test for 100 things you use 100 scientists and all test together, rather than have one team testing everything in sequence. Police forensics does take weeks or months to come back, this sort of threat requires and can reasonably receive analysis in hours or days.

If you were in charge of any country would you sit around and go through a queueing process if dealing with forensics of a weaponised chemical agent, or would you give it maximum priority?

 Orlanth wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'll point out that Occam's Razor still fingers Russia as the perp.

That is a gross abuse of Occam's razor. It is meant to establish an order for the testing of scientific theories, not for assigning right or wrong, let alone guilt or "who did this crime". Occam's razor sounds good in theory, but it doesn't hold up well in real life, because we all know that things are usually more complicated than they need to be. It is is not applicable to anything outside of scientific theories. And even its usefulness in science is disputed, seeing as that again, simple theories are not necessarily more correct than complicated ones and Occam's razor can put an artificial limit on our understanding. In many disciplines, it has already been disregarded for a long time. Really, Occam's razor is only useful when there are two theories explaining the same phenomenon that both predict exactly the same results, which is a situation you almost never get in most scientific disciplines, and never outside of it.

The trouble with your comment is that it is grossly one sided.

There are plenty of secondary reasons to consider Russia as being 'highly likely' to be responsible for the attack.

1. The Russian Government have done this before by similar methods against a similar specific target. They share this trait only few countries, notably Israel and North korea, however neither of those countries would have any motive to assassinate the specific target Skripal.

2. The Russian Government have not acted in any way in concurrence with a belief that the attack was a false flag operation. Had they done so they would not have allowed the plethora of comments made after the attack which amount to gloating, but would have been more concerned with who set them up.

3. False flag operations are normally carried out by the third party to sour realtions between two other countries. The UK does not need to poison people in the UK in order to freeze relations with Russia, they can do this simply enough by increasing rhetoric on current disagreements, notably the sham election, threats to the Baltic States and Ukraine.

4. The Russian state media have been stating as if they were facts that the UK was responisble for a false flagging operation, this would be extremely unlikely and illogical conclusion based on the above. Were the operation a false flagging the UK would be hoodwinked too. This however is not the Russian state position, instead there is a claim that the UK is responsible, not that it might be. The Uk has good reason to consider Russian involvement 'highly likely' for which there is a demand for concrete proof, yet the Russian state and its media are making reverse claims without not only any proof but without any logical basis.

Now lets look at some excuses given for why it was supposedly not a Russian attack.

- 'If we had done it Skripal would be dead' - Putin himself made this remark. This holds some thin logic in that attacks caused by Russia with extreme toxins normally result in death. Russia know this all too well. However Skripal is in hospital and is seriously ill, he might yet die. Furthermore in reality not all poisonings or for that matter assassinations work. Recently Putin has also made comment about how many assassination attempts he has survived. Which is it Vlad?
It is possible even with extreme toxins to receive less than the lethal dose, its is also possible to react to most extreme toxins with medical care. Polonium is a radiological agent, when ingested there was nothing that could be done for the victim because the victim himself became radioactive. Novichok apparently works by causing choking and respiratory failure. A ventilator might bypass the effects in the short or long term. This buys time to see if anything can be done.
The Bulgarians used ricin as a poison, another extremely toxic substance, one dissident shot in London by a converted umbrella died, the next time this technique was used the victim had a two inch region of flesh around the wound surgically removed and thereby survived. Skripal might survive because due to prior Russian poisonings, and there have been a fair few, we know somethign about how to stop them.

- The British reacted surprisingly quickly and came to conclusions suspiciously quickly Common piece of maskirovka used to 'prove' that the Uk set this up, and its bollocks. The Uk police is generally slow and half asleep, but MI5 is not. they have a very good rep. The British civil service i also slow ad half asleep but wakes up fething quickly once they detect attacks of this nature. Police forensics waits in a long queue for overworked forensic scientists to get to a case in turn order while working office hours. In cases of suspected chemical weapons there is no queue, and I doubt there are office hours either. If you want to ID an extreme toxin you courier the sample to the labs by the quickest safest route and you phone the test scientists in them iddle of the night if you have to and get them to work. The time taken to investigate is the time to suspect what is going on, to transport the sample, the science involved and a rush email to UK intelligence, and in all likelihood the Prime Minister. You dont test for each potential chemical or agent in turn either like police forensics needs to do. If you want to test for 100 things you use 100 scientists and all test together, rather than have one team testing everything in sequence. Police forensics does take weeks or months to come back, this sort of threat requires and can reasonably receive analysis in hours or days.

If you were in charge of any country would you sit around and go through a queueing process if dealing with forensics of a weaponised chemical agent, or would you give it maximum priority?

I did not say Russia didn't do it. I did not say the UK shouldn't take action against Russia over this. I agree with comments made earlier in this thread that in diplomacy you do not need 100% proof like you need in a court, since such proof is impossible to obtain when dealing with the agents of sovereign states. All I said is that you should not abuse the principle of Occam's razor, because it is ill suited to virtually anything and can make you blind.

 sebster wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
That is a gross abuse of Occam's razor.

This isn't about a pedantic debate about the use of Occam's Razor outside of its original purpose. If you'd like instead we can use "if you hear hooves think of horses, not zebras". A medical saying, its true, but applicable to many other things. It means that on reviewing evidence, then you should go with the most obvious, most common explanation that fits what you know. In this case we should consider a man who betrayed Russia was murdered with a very obscure poison which has only one known source of manufacture - in Russia. We could invent a zebra explanation that the poison was made in secret by some nefarious, unknown party with a cunning plan to... make Britain expel some Russian diplomats. Or we could consider the hooves are horses, and that Russia used a Russian weapon to murder a man who betrayed Russia.

I did not know that saying, it is a nice one.
But again, while I can see it being useful when having to make a medical diagnosis in limited time, it is dangerous to apply in many cases because it fallaciously assumes that simple = more true. It is bad science to assume something is the truth simply because you were too lazy or unable to test other hypotheses.
We should be done is that all possible, reasonable hypotheses are tested. In this case, Britain should not simply assume that Russia did it because it is the most simple explanation, it should also look into other possible explanations (assassination was conducted by criminal elements, the chemical agent was stolen in the 1990's like many other Soviet secrets, the agent could have been made somewhere else since the formula is not secret etc.) and refute those before coming forward with accusations. That will make Britain's position much stronger, and more likely to get its allies on board with possible sanctions etc. Since we can't proof that Russia is behind it, eliminating other options is the next best thing.