Russia - worrying?

[gringo]

Who said anything about the 2001 anthrax attacks? They never blamed Iraq for it. And suspected it was from a domestic source as early as December 2001.

Bruce Ivins left a radical Islamist letter as a red herring to mislead any subsequent investigation. It would have been the perfect opportunity to frame Iraq yet they followed the evidence and found the perpetrator. Which is behaviour very contrary to your conspiratorial view of the US government.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/22/us/nation-challenged-anthrax-trail-us-inquiry-tried-but-failed-link-iraq-anthrax.html

You obviously didn't read the 2011 Guardian article linked in the post that you are replying to. Had you bothered to do so, you would discover that it was Colin Powell himself, at the UN in 2003, who referred to the letters. You would also have discovered that Bush and Blair were explicitly linking the attacks/letters to Iraq in 2002/3.
    Try reading then replying.

[gringo]

Who said anything about the 2001 anthrax attacks? They never blamed Iraq for it. And suspected it was from a domestic source as early as December 2001.

Bruce Ivins left a radical Islamist letter as a red herring to mislead any subsequent investigation. It would have been the perfect opportunity to frame Iraq yet they followed the evidence and found the perpetrator. Which is behaviour very contrary to your conspiratorial view of the US government.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/22/us/nation-challenged-anthrax-trail-us-inquiry-tried-but-failed-link-iraq-anthrax.html

   

    So you believe that the US presenting fabricated evidence, proven and now admitted, twice to the UN to justify an invasion of Iraq in 1990 and 2003 contradicts my "conspiratorial view of the US govt."
    The guy who eventually was nailed for it committed suicide before standing trial. The Anthrax came from US biolab Fort Detrick. The "link" to Iraq was used by the US to lie at the UN. Blair, Bush and intelligence agencies supported all this. The invasions that the US wanted did happen.
    Really undermines any conspiratorial thoughts 

[David1819]

You obviously didn't read the 2011 Guardian article linked in the post that you are replying to. Had you bothered to do so, you would discover that it was Colin Powell himself, at the UN in 2003, who referred to the letters. You would also have discovered that Bush and Blair were explicitly linking the attacks/letters to Iraq in 2002/3.
    Try reading then replying.

The only mention of the Anthrax attack in Colin Powells UN speech is below -

"Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount - this is just about the amount of a teaspoon - less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope."

Nowhere does he implicate Iraq or anyone in particular.

As for the Guardian opinion piece article. They quote Bush saying -

"Never would we dream, that someone would use our own planes and our own mail to attack us."

Again, not implicating Iraq.

[David1819]

   

    So you believe that the US presenting fabricated evidence, proven and now admitted, twice to the UN to justify an invasion of Iraq in 1990 and 2003 contradicts my "conspiratorial view of the US govt."
    The guy who eventually was nailed for it committed suicide before standing trial. The Anthrax came from US biolab Fort Detrick. The "link" to Iraq was used by the US to lie at the UN. Blair, Bush and intelligence agencies supported all this. The invasions that the US wanted did happen.
    Really undermines any conspiratorial thoughts 

As I have already pointed out, Iraq was not accused of sending the letters. My point was, if your conspiratorial view of the US government is correct, it would make no sense for them to accuse a American of the attacks, specially since Iraq had already obtained Anthrax spores from the same Lab in the mid eighties thus already giving them a "paper trial" to support their agenda.

As for Bruce Ivins do you think he was behind it? The anthrax letters where actually written by a child. The perpetrator had used a child to write them in order to hide their own handwriting and the child wont realise what they have been asked to write thus no witness.

http://anthraxdebate.blogspot.com/2013/03/subject-handwriting-evidence.html

Ivins wife was running a children's day care. Make of that what you want.

[gringo]

The only mention of the Anthrax attack in Colin Powells UN speech is below -

"Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount - this is just about the amount of a teaspoon - less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope."

Nowhere does he implicate Iraq or anyone in particular.

As for the Guardian opinion piece article. They quote Bush saying -

"Never would we dream, that someone would use our own planes and our own mail to attack us."

Again, not implicating Iraq.

   When I suggested that you read and then reply, I meant read and understand as a whole, not selectively.
    Copied from the article and highlighted in red below for you. If you want to persist in your delusions, that is up to you, but I would say that the highlighted sections below make clear that Bush was blaming Iraq.

After Woolsey's and Butler's op-eds, President Bush himself took the lead in link anthrax, bioterrorism and Iraq. On 6 November Bush, speaking by satellite to a central European conference on counterterrorism, warned that America's enemies are "seeking chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons". A day later, at a joint news conference with Britain's prime minister Tony Blair, Bush made the anthrax letters central to his remarks. "Never would we dream," he told reporters, "that someone would use our own planes and our own mail to attack us." He made a similar connection in his address to the nation later that week.

    In the US, Iraq and Saddam were widely blamed/suspected of involvement in 9/11 also, hence the reference to our own planes. Anyway he goes on to leave no doubt who those "enemies" are;


By the time of his State of the Union Address in January 2002, the linkage the president wanted to make between the anthrax letters and Iraq had put him in a position to all but declare war. "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas weapons for over a decade," he told the country before going on to say America would not wait to be attacked. "All nation should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security."

The theme was one that Bush stuck to for the rest of 2002, and continued into 2003, when on 3 February in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, he promised that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, the United States "will lead a coalition to disarm him." With just over a month to go before the invasion of Iraq, it remained only for Secretary of State Colin Powell, the foreign policy moderate in the Bush administration, to make the case at the United Nations security council for a possible war with Iraq.

The speech Powell delivered with George Tenet, the director of the CIA, sitting directly behind him employed charts and satellite photos, but its most dramatic moment came when Powell held up a vial of white powder equivalent to a teaspoon of anthrax. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax had closed down the United States Senate in 2001, he told the United Nations delegates. Iraq, he then pointedly noted, "could have produced 25,000 litres" of anthrax according to UN inspectors but had "not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material". It was a compelling speech that swung a number of liberals to Powell's side, among them columnist Mary McGrory, who wrote in the Washington Post, "I can only say that he persuaded me, and I was tough as France to convince."


Powell's information was, as he later acknowledged, wrong. His had not given the UN "facts and conclusions based on solid evidence". As he told Barbara Walters in an interview on ABC's 20/20, his United Nations speech was a "blot" on his record. But equally flawed were the larger political assumptions about who was behind the anthrax attacks.


   And here we are back at Colin Powell disgracing himself.
   And you still claim that Iraq were not being blamed.
   Still got invaded twice.
   There were no babies thrown from incubators!
   There was no Iraqi anthrax!
   
   Some time back Roch recommended and linked, as I recall, George Galloway's testimony to the US Senate. You dismissed it with some sarky comment about Galloway, again as I recall.
   It was a riveting display from Galloway whose command of the facts and substance left senator after senator embarrassingly fumbling through their notes before having no further questions with their arses presented on a plate, courtesy of Galloway. Linked again below. It's connection to the later accusations against Iraq should be noted. History often rhymes;

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

   
   
 

[David1819]

   When I suggested that you read and then reply, I meant read and understand as a whole, not selectively.
    Copied from the article and highlighted in red below for you. If you want to persist in your delusions, that is up to you, but I would say that the highlighted sections below make clear that Bush was blaming Iraq.

After Woolsey's and Butler's op-eds, President Bush himself took the lead in link anthrax, bioterrorism and Iraq. On 6 November Bush, speaking by satellite to a central European conference on counterterrorism, warned that America's enemies are "seeking chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons". A day later, at a joint news conference with Britain's prime minister Tony Blair, Bush made the anthrax letters central to his remarks. "Never would we dream," he told reporters, "that someone would use our own planes and our own mail to attack us." He made a similar connection in his address to the nation later that week.

    In the US, Iraq and Saddam were widely blamed/suspected of involvement in 9/11 also, hence the reference to our own planes. Anyway he goes on to leave no doubt who those "enemies" are;


By the time of his State of the Union Address in January 2002, the linkage the president wanted to make between the anthrax letters and Iraq had put him in a position to all but declare war. "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas weapons for over a decade," he told the country before going on to say America would not wait to be attacked. "All nation should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security."

The theme was one that Bush stuck to for the rest of 2002, and continued into 2003, when on 3 February in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, he promised that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, the United States "will lead a coalition to disarm him." With just over a month to go before the invasion of Iraq, it remained only for Secretary of State Colin Powell, the foreign policy moderate in the Bush administration, to make the case at the United Nations security council for a possible war with Iraq.

The speech Powell delivered with George Tenet, the director of the CIA, sitting directly behind him employed charts and satellite photos, but its most dramatic moment came when Powell held up a vial of white powder equivalent to a teaspoon of anthrax. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax had closed down the United States Senate in 2001, he told the United Nations delegates. Iraq, he then pointedly noted, "could have produced 25,000 litres" of anthrax according to UN inspectors but had "not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material". It was a compelling speech that swung a number of liberals to Powell's side, among them columnist Mary McGrory, who wrote in the Washington Post, "I can only say that he persuaded me, and I was tough as France to convince."


Powell's information was, as he later acknowledged, wrong. His had not given the UN "facts and conclusions based on solid evidence". As he told Barbara Walters in an interview on ABC's 20/20, his United Nations speech was a "blot" on his record. But equally flawed were the larger political assumptions about who was behind the anthrax attacks.


   And here we are back at Colin Powell disgracing himself.
   And you still claim that Iraq were not being blamed.
   Still got invaded twice.
   There were no babies thrown from incubators!
   There was no Iraqi anthrax!
   
   Some time back Roch recommended and linked, as I recall, George Galloway's testimony to the US Senate. You dismissed it with some sarky comment about Galloway, again as I recall.
   It was a riveting display from Galloway whose command of the facts and substance left senator after senator embarrassingly fumbling through their notes before having no further questions with their arses presented on a plate, courtesy of Galloway. Linked again below. It's connection to the later accusations against Iraq should be noted. History often rhymes;

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

   
 

Nowhere in Colin Powell's speech does he blame Iraq for the 2001 anthrax attacks.

You can read the whole thing here.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/text/20030205-1.html

George Galloway is a laughing stock. What appears as a "riveting display from Galloway" with "command of the facts" to you is merely a crazy rant to others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQA2X4yvK_g

[Steve_uk]

   I haven't forgotten anything, Steve. Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria were all also sovereign territories. Sovereignty has nothing to do with R2P. If sovereignty prevented R2P then all R2P has been illegal according to this metric. Sovereignty is not a defence for massacres or crimes against humanity.
    Weeks prior to the invasion, the Russians handed their evidence alleging genocide to the UN. This was largely unreported in the West because the implications were understood. By alleging genocide and providing evidence, this was setting the legal groundwork for the R2P intervention. Dotting the i's and crossing the t's, as it were, with properly documented evidence handed to the UN.
    It is worth comparing with the Western/NATO approach to R2P. They gather a bunch of propaganda and lies and hand it to the pliant media channels who then uncritically repeat it and tell us that we (NATO/UK/US) must do something. In Western NATO parlance, this is legal justification for bombing the shit out of some countries civilians and armed forces whilst arming and training various mercs, nazis and jihadists, or as we call them, "moderate rebels" to overthrow a sovereign government.
    To be fair, NATO did at one time attempt to go through recognised legal channels. Although after the testimony of the Kuwaiti nurse before the UN, vis a vis the throwing babies from incubators by Iraqi troops lie. She turned out to be the Ambassador's daughter, wasn't a nurse, hadn't been in the hospital and the whole tale was invented to justify (you guessed it) a NATO war on Iraq. And who can forget Colin Powell disgracing himself with a vial of Anthrax, again before the UN, to justify yet another Iraqi invasion. The anthrax turned out to have come from American Biolab Fort Detrick.
    After these debacles NATO/US/UK don't concern themselves with presenting evidence through the UN anymore and instead go the "court of public opinion" but only after massively propagandising and hiding relevant aspects from the "court of public opinion".
    Your comments on Crimea are the opposite of truth.
    Crimea is Russian and the Crimeans overwhelmingly want to remain part of Russia. A large number of Ukrainian troops stationed in Crimea defected to the Russians in 2014. There was no fight because Russians were welcomed there. The Ukrainian coup government was not. It is that simple.
     The Russians made sure that NATO did not get their hands on Sevastopol, which was one of the main intentions behind the 2014 Maidan coup. Sevastopol is Russia's only warm water port and of huge strategic significance.
     Remember that history rhymes. Crimea is an old tune. It comes up time and again because of it's significance to Russia. Russia is the defender, not the aggressor. These are self evident truths that western selective reading of history and events wilfully ignores.

You have a habit of forgetting the truth. I don't doubt your sincerity, which makes your comments all the more frightening. Ukraine's borders were guaranteed under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Putin won a fraudulent presidential election in 2018, followed by a rigged election for United Russia in 2021. He's invaded sovereign territory whether you like it or not.

[gringo]

You have a habit of forgetting the truth. I don't doubt your sincerity, which makes your comments all the more frightening. Ukraine's borders were guaranteed under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Putin won a fraudulent presidential election in 2018, followed by a rigged election for United Russia in 2021. He's invaded sovereign territory whether you like it or not.

    You are simply repeating talking points from western media, Steve. Taking at face value, your non doubting of my sincerity, then let us discuss your objections. I don't doubt that you are willing to discuss, reasonably, the points that you raise.

1) "Ukraine's borders were guaranteed under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum."(BM)
     As with anything, Steve, context is everything. When the media quote only nine words from a memorandum which contains approx. 500, give or take, then immediately you should be curious what the rest of the memorandum says, that isn't being repeated. There are only 6 points, each a paragraph long. 
    The 1st point of BM is RF/USA/UK commit to respect the Independence, Sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine.
    2nd point of BM is RF/USA/UK committing to refrain from threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of Ukraine except in self defence or otherwise in accordance with the charter of the United Nations
    The highlighted part is missing context from western MSM which leads to your final point when you say, "He's invaded sovereign territory whether you like it or not". Putting aside the characterisation of Russia with Putin personally, a very silly thing that western governments and media do when they want to attack countries. Makes their crimes easier to whitewash amongst the proles when your saving the world from a boogey man. Civilians are just acceptable collateral damage. Got the bad man though so it's ok. Unfortunately the masses fall for it and repeat these linguistic tricks without realising. Not Syria but Assad, not Iraq but Saddam, not Libya but Qaddafi etc.
    When NATO invoke R2P they do not gather evidence and go through proper channels, as already said. They use their pliant press to uncritically repeat their lies. Time after time after time. I am incredulous that anyone still falls for it.
    Russia, not Putin personally, are claiming and have gathered the evidence which has been handed to the UN invoking the Genocide convention against Ukraine govt. for their shelling and targeting of civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk. It has been reported on, even in western media over the last 8 years. No-one can honestly doubt that Ukraine has been using its armed forces against its own civilians. Russia have gone through the correct legal processes to invoke R2P.
    The Budapest Memorandum does not guarantee Ukraine's borders under any and all circumstances. It does not free them to shell and target civilians.
    You may dispute the Russian govt. claim. But you need to discredit that claim rather than repeating 9 out of context words. Below the Budapest Memorandum link. Read it, Steve, and discuss with sincerity the whole document. I will respond in kind.
    The other two points that you raised are again just repeated, un-evidenced and irrelevant, but simply allow the environment to characterise Russia as Putin alone. Some dictator who controls every aspect of the Russian state. It is just a silly caricature painted by those who are hostile to but know little about Russia. You should be above repeating such irrelevant and silly caricatures,.
   
https://www.pircenter.org/media/content/files/12/13943175580.pdf
   

[gringo]

Nowhere in Colin Powell's speech does he blame Iraq for the 2001 anthrax attacks.

You can read the whole thing here.
    Your original position was that the 2001 attacks were not mentioned at all just a few posts back, David. Iraq were not suspected according to you. I had made it up according to you, so now having demonstrated that Powell did in fact mention the 2001 Anthrax letters in his speech to the UN to justify an invasion of Iraq, you shift the goalposts. So tell me, genius, now that you accept that Powell did mention the anthrax letters in his speech about alleged Iraq Bio and chemical weapons programs. Who did you infer he was talking about? It is pretty clear as demonstrated in previous posts. Taken in conjunction with Blair and Bush statements in 2002 and 2003, there is zero doubt that Iraq were being blamed. Your initial position was that Powell never mentioned it and Iraq weren't even suspected after 2001 has been dismantled. You're all over the place, as usual.

George Galloway is a laughing stock. What appears as a "riveting display from Galloway" with "command of the facts" to you is merely a crazy rant to others.

   This dumb comment demonstrates your own ideological blinkers. A quick search on the web will bring up numerous articles from the time of the hearing. There was a universal consensus, even amongst Galloway's detractors, that Galloway made absolute mincemeat of senator after senator. This was on both sides of the Atlantic. Your opinion that Galloway's display was a "crazy rant" to everyone else is in fact an opinion I have seen voiced only by you. It was so commanding that even his detractors could find no way to say otherwise. You are ideologically blind and clearly incapable of impartial judgement.

    Linking to Galloway as a cat in Big Brother on youtube, really?
    It is one way to demonstrate that you are out of your depth discussing anything of substance.
    As is your flag, by the way. Waving a flag and treating serious issues like some sort of football game shows your mentality and that you are incapable of serious discussion.

    Here is Galloway again, schooling senator after senator and exposing US hypocrisy and warmongering in a  45 minute masterclass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

 

[lookout]

I blame Blair for all that happened in Iraq. Idiot that he was, plus our useless Intelligence before 2003.

[David1819]

Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate of the Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet is reportedly on fire near Zmiiny island in Black Sea. Rescue operation ongoing, multiple aircraft, rescue vessels in the area

[Roch]

I blame Blair for all that happened in Iraq. Idiot that he was, plus our useless Intelligence before 2003.

Lookout, I think the 'intelligence' was just a smokescreen. There was no intelligence. It was contrived for the purposes of justifying an invasion.

[Steve_uk]

Lookout, I think the 'intelligence' was just a smokescreen. There was no intelligence. It was contrived for the purposes of justifying an invasion.

..and it evidently gave Putin justification in his own mind to commit his own crimes.

[Roch]

..and it evidently gave Putin justification in his own mind to commit his own crimes.

She was referring to Iraq Steve.

[Steve_uk]

She was referring to Iraq Steve.

Iraq..weapons of mass destruction..Ukraine genocide against ethnic Russians..Lavrov says Ukraine has not been invaded. So many lies to swallow.