This would be something within their means, and something that I'm sure somebody would benefit from.
Terrorists have been brazen enough to attack US diplomatic missions in the past. That's not to say that I think ISIS is attacking US diplomatic missions with sonic weapons, but if we're going to go with the theory that it is, in fact, a sonic weapon, there's no reason to believe that it could only be Russia.
How do you know I'm wrong? You heard it from one of those same sources? I'm not saying I would outright believe RT or any of Putin's outlets either, but that's exactly the point: a healthy dose of skepticism is called for.
Nonetheless we're getting pretty far afield. Select two incidents where any nation has killed its double-agents or whistleblowers (and I doubt there are any nations that lavish fond treatment on their double-agents in particular), and you now have evidence against that country equivalent to that upon which you declared Russia the only possible country brazen enough to carry out these two embassy attacks (assuming they were attacks).
Skripal, Litvinenko, Gorbuntsov, Perepilichnyy and others. Not two.
You realize Russia has invaded (and annexed territory from) multiple neighboring sovereign nations over the last 10 years? The idea that the west is simply posturing to set up a war with Russia while Russia is starting actual wars is laughable.
Imagine that the US as a nation was dissolved at some point. And some of our territory, perhaps a bit of Texas, ended up the property of Mexico. This new part of Mexico remained almost entirely American in both ethnicity and identity. And then some decades later Mexico began to collapse in internal turmoil with their government being violently overthrown from within. In the mean time the former US had regained a good deal of its lost strength.
In the midst of this, local forces in the annexed regions of Mexico, probably with some support of the US, formed their own interim government. And they then held a vote on whether they should remain part of Mexico, or return to the US. And with 83% voter turnout, 97% voted to return to the US. Those are certainly North Korea like poll numbers, but they have been reflected in later polls by third party organizations including Gallup. If anything it reflects how absurd the initial situation was. The US then declared them as part of its territory and the 'invasion' ended with nary a fatality.
I think there is a strong argument that the people should have been allowed to return as part of Russia if they so overwhelmingly desired it. But even that was something that was not independently acted on. You had a nation collapsing and a group of people in that nation that really did not want to be there. Annexation and war generally implies that the annexed nation did not want to be annexed. In this case, it was their former 'owner' that was holding them against their will.
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The Project for the New American Century was a think tank made up of basically every big name in Washington. It was from Bush's era, but many are still playing extremely prominent roles in DC politics. This paper from them [1], 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' is one of the most honest and clear views of neoliberal foreign policy to date. To avoid bias, I'm going to avoid commenting directly on the paper. Other than to say that our foreign policy actions make vastly more sense if you peruse that paper, but it will also make you vastly more cynical. Keep in mind there that Russia's rise from the USSR's collapse is something that certainly qualifies as what the paper refers to as 'the emergence of a new international player.'
[1] - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmeri...
The downside to this structure is that you have rogue agents you can’t control. The upside is that clandestine operations are very difficult to uncover if nobody in Russia knows about it.
They either had nothing to do with it, or they did have something to do with it and it was for good reasons (good for them, not us) that we don’t understand. But them doing it because they are stupid is probably not one of the explanations.
This says "you should not do spy exchanges with us". Moreover, let's shoot this poor shmuck with an exotic bullet stamped with "Made in Russia" on its side AND let's also just wound the guy.
The bottom line is that this gives Russia nothing. It proves no point, it doesn't serve as a deterrent to anyone (which is what makes it different from the Litvinenko case), but it's just happens to be overflowing with signs that it was done by Russia. If Russians went to such great lengths to make sure it was obvious it was done by them, then it should be even more obvious why they did that. And it's not. So the simplest explanation is that it's a frame-up.
It serves as a deterrent if it sends the message to your own people that treason will never be forgiven, regardless of a pardon and exchange. And that is a philosophy to which Putin subscribes – he once said, "Enemies are right in front of you, you are at war with them, then you make an armistice with them, and all is clear. A traitor must be destroyed, crushed."
The smoking gun is that the nerve agent came from a USSR factory decades ago. It’s not hard to imagine that ended up in who-knows-whose hands since then.
Plus, it didn’t even do the job. Skirpal was released from the hospital. Seems pretty amateur...
> Russia should be the #1 suspect.
If it was actually true that there was only one country in the world brazen enough to attack a US consulate in China, that country would be China, not Russia.
I'm willing to believe the same operators pulled off these two attacks (well, they look like attacks; let us assume for a moment that they were). In that case it was either China or Russia -- I seriously doubt the Cubans would do this in China, so that leaves either China or Russia. Of course, it could also be North Korea, or who knows who else (Iran?).
I doubt anything will come of the local investigations, so until there is a third attempt, we may not find out what's up.
If it was Russia, I don't understand what's the upside here? Step 1:Hurt US diplomat in China Step 2: Start a wave of condemnations from both countries. Possible retaliations. More sanctions. Step 3: ? Step 4: Profit. They are bullies and have assassinated before but they don't seem to be completely irrational. What would be their Step 3 in the plan?