Russia! Russia!! Russia!!!

[Montegriffo]

You should listen to me more often. Whenever you don't, next thing you're believing in fairy tales.

A fairy tale like the one about the UK using nerve agents to attack the enemies of Russia on their own soil?
That is the RT version of the Sailsbury attack.

Link me to that. I'd like to hear what RT said. That was so bizarre; it was like the Seth Rich case here in the States.

https://www.rt.com/news/424612-skripal- ... es-moscow/

[BjornP]

Well, fuck you. I consider you brainwashed too.

Uhmm...? Ok? I didn't say you were "brainwashed". You asked if you were being manipulated, and you are because that's what RT is for.

Listening to another opinion is not being manipulated. I listen to perhaps a dozen (sometimes more) podcasts a day, everybody saying all kinds of shit. I pride myself on being able to interpret and discern what I hear. I am the "Wysest Myn in the Wyrld" after all.

RT is walking an Old School journalism line in an attempt to gain credibility. Maybe they'll use that credibility in the future to manipulate the narrative but they haven't so far, and I'm very suspicous.

They're not merely "offering another opinion", though they're doing that, too. RT and SputnikNews have a massively lower bar for what constitutes "old school journalism", particularly SputnikNews, which is mostly far out there conspiracy theories.

Martin, I know you don't want to hear this, but: You are not better than me at determining when something is manipulation or not, when something is credible or not. That's a job requirement if you work with historical sources for a living which I've done and do when the museums here can afford it, determining what the (actual) provenance of an artifact is, who actually owned some land or not, determining when someone is lying, blowing something out of proportion, bragging, or possibly even being too modest about some event, claim of ownership, etc. I respect that you are better than me at business, law, medicine, entrepreneurship, family building, world travel, etc. But I am better than you at this. Feel free to contact Nordjyllands Historiske Museum and ask about my work with registration of artifacts and helping clients find relatives, places or just stories in both our own archives and the Danish digitally available ones.

[Hastur]

Are there any western journalists in the Idlib province? The Al Nusra front is pretty nasty. Without any pictures a fake gas attack is pretty pointless. Wasn’t those mostly in the FSA areas?

[Martin Hash]

Uhmm...? Ok? I didn't say you were "brainwashed". You asked if you were being manipulated, and you are because that's what RT is for.

Listening to another opinion is not being manipulated. I listen to perhaps a dozen (sometimes more) podcasts a day, everybody saying all kinds of shit. I pride myself on being able to interpret and discern what I hear. I am the "Wysest Myn in the Wyrld" after all.

RT is walking an Old School journalism line in an attempt to gain credibility. Maybe they'll use that credibility in the future to manipulate the narrative but they haven't so far, and I'm very suspicous.

They're not merely "offering another opinion", though they're doing that, too. RT and SputnikNews have a massively lower bar for what constitutes "old school journalism", particularly SputnikNews, which is mostly far out there conspiracy theories.

Martin, I know you don't want to hear this, but: You are not better than me at determining when something is manipulation or not, when something is credible or not. That's a job requirement if you work with historical sources for a living which I've done and do when the museums here can afford it, determining what the (actual) provenance of an artifact is, who actually owned some land or not, determining when someone is lying, blowing something out of proportion, bragging, or possibly even being too modest about some event, claim of ownership, etc. I respect that you are better than me at business, law, medicine, entrepreneurship, family building, world travel, etc. But I am better than you at this. Feel free to contact Nordjyllands Historiske Museum and ask about my work with registration of artifacts and helping clients find relatives, places or just stories in both our own archives and the Danish digitally available ones.

Don’t forget that I’m an avid collector, constantly dealing with phony provenance. And as an employer, I heard every sob story in the books. However, I recognize you have some authority in the matter of sifting through the bullshit.

[BjornP]

IIRC, before Russia even started sending planes, S-400s, and troops to Syria was Obama's first "red line" over chemical weapons... And then (with Assad's agreement) the Russians agreed to take his stockpiles and destroy them, monitored by the U.N. Chemical weapons inspectors, and the U.N. inspectors verified they were gone from Syria.

Less than a year later was an unverified "Sarin" attack. Where did the Sarin come from?

Riddle me this, Assad knows (and the Russians know) if he uses chemical weapons he'll have US jets dropping bombs and cruise missiles flying in. So why would he do it? I mean, honestly, I've seen video interviews of the guy, he's a college educated (in London) ophthalmologist, he doesn't seem like a stupid man. Not stupid enough to have an overwhelming military force pointed at him holding a jar of ammonia saying "throw that ammonia and we blow the deal out of you" and he does it anyways. Not when he has Russia and Iran there to help him take Idlib without doing that.

On a cost/benefit basis it doesn't seem the cost would be worth any benefit he'd possibly get.

Just like no one is going to touch Israel or Saudi Arabia because they enjoy the nuclear protection of the US, the US is not going to touch Syria. Obama was talking out of his ass and Russia wasn't going to accept potentially losing their single Medeterreanean naval base and primary ME ally. So, I don't think Assad "knew" that the US would do anything about him. All he had to do was deny and keep denying. Remember the Crimean annexation? When Russia kept denying that they had any Russian soldiers occupying Crimea? It was "little green men", instead. It was absurd, and he later admitted it, but he just kept denying it even when there were live feeds people with their phones sharing the vids of Russian tanks and soldiers.

So, Assad can simply keep saying: "Prove it was me".

Is it possible it was all destroyed, that it instead was rebel Sarin gas? Yup. Several NGO's have pointed out that all, I think even the Kurds (who still are treated as media darlings, but I guess they'll be "terrorists" and "fascists" any day, now) have commited war crimes against their rivals. Could even be that the gas really came from Assad's stockpiles, but that the stockpile was looted by the rebels - and Assad isn't saying because.. reasons?

It's more that whole: "If Assad is painted as bad, it means the media is lying, because the media wants us to be world policeman". Well, how many countries, including the US, invaded China when they gunned down students in Tianamen square? Hell, there was intervention against the baddies, Gaddafi and Assad...but what about the rest? Egypt, Saudi Arabia? Hell, did anyone invade Turkey when Erdogan recently kept reducing freedom of speech, assembly, and arrested hundreds of thousands of people and their mothers for maybe, possibly, having once met Gülen? Nah. Lots of media was criticizing Erdogan, though, and media occasionally criticize SA, too. Without arguing you should go to war, btw. I'm saying you CAN have media that simply report on what's happening, because that's their supposed job. Not because they want you to support wars everywhere. You can learn geography without having to go to war, IOW. You can manipulate someone with the truth, too. If your best friend's wife was cheating on him, and you knew, you could manipulate his wife, his wife's lover, or your friend with that knowledge.

And also, from a cost/benefit analysis: Bombing your own infrastructure and killing 50 civilians to kill 12 rebel fighters vs Not bombing your infrastructure, but killing the 50 civilians and 12 rebels? I'd say gas wins that one.

[BjornP]

Are there any western journalists in the Idlib province? The Al Nusra front is pretty nasty. Without any pictures a fake gas attack is pretty pointless. Wasn’t those mostly in the FSA areas?

Robert Fisk is hanging around hoping to spot something, apparantly:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sy ... 30796.html

[Martin Hash]

A fairy tale like the one about the UK using nerve agents to attack the enemies of Russia on their own soil?
That is the RT version of the Sailsbury attack.

Link me to that. I'd like to hear what RT said. That was so bizarre; it was like the Seth Rich case here in the States.

https://www.rt.com/news/424612-skripal- ... es-moscow/

So is Britain still keeping all the information secret? This is a LOT like the Seth Rich case. I guess if you agree Hillary had Rich killed, I’ll agree Russia did Salisbury.

[Montegriffo]

Link me to that. I'd like to hear what RT said. That was so bizarre; it was like the Seth Rich case here in the States.

https://www.rt.com/news/424612-skripal- ... es-moscow/

So is Britain still keeping all the information secret? This is a LOT like the Seth Rich case. I guess if you agree Hillary had Rich killed, I’ll agree Russia did Salisbury.

No they released a load of information after they named the two suspects.

[Martin Hash]

https://www.rt.com/news/424612-skripal- ... es-moscow/

So is Britain still keeping all the information secret? This is a LOT like the Seth Rich case. I guess if you agree Hillary had Rich killed, I’ll agree Russia did Salisbury.

No they released a load of information after they named the two suspects.

Do you have a link to that?

[Montegriffo]

So is Britain still keeping all the information secret? This is a LOT like the Seth Rich case. I guess if you agree Hillary had Rich killed, I’ll agree Russia did Salisbury.

No they released a load of information after they named the two suspects.

Do you have a link to that?

Pick your own source

https://www.google.com/search?q=suspect ... =firefox-b