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> "Only Russia has the sophistication to create such a poison that we can't tell what exactly is, therefore it must be Russia" If somebody dropped a nuke on N
by ajuc 6y ago
> "Only Russia has the sophistication to create such a poison that we can't tell what exactly is, therefore it must be Russia"
If somebody dropped a nuke on North Korea in 50s it would be pretty obvious who did it, wouldn't it?
There was only a few countries that had nukes and only 1 of them had the incentive.
It's very much like that with Novichok.
- mrtksn 6y agoSomeone can argue that only the USA used nukes on the civilians and not once but twice, therefore it must be them again because who else would do such a cruel thing? False flag operation operation, they can argue. As long as you don't have a proof, it's words in the winds really.
- takeda 6y agothat's why it is perfect. It's ambiguous enough that could be misread as false flag operation, but it sends message to other targets that they are not safe.
- fatbird 6y agoIsn't that Ajuc's point? In the 50s only Russia and the US had nukes; North Korea was a client state of Russia and China, and had just recently been in war with the US. If a nuke went off in NK in the 50s, everyone would assume, quite reasonably, that the US had done it.
- ajuc 6y agoYes it was.
- monocasa 6y agoIt's not like that with Novichok. Iran has published just regular scientific journal articles confirming that they've synthesized Novichok, and it's widely believed that most of the west has synthesized it too.
- ajuc 6y agoAnd in 50s USSR and USA had nukes. And some thought Israel had them as well. But only USA had a reason to bomb North Korea. How is it different?
- monocasa 6y agoThe first implication in your argument is that it's a constrained supply like nukes in the 50s. However most geopolitically relevant countries have the ability to synthesize the novichoks, with some outright publishing public literature on the topic. Iran's publications on how it breaks down over time and what that means for identification via spectrometry are actually really interesting if you're into chemistry. The second implication is that only Russia would have anything to gain from it, when the geopolitical machinations have worked out against Russia's favor. The sanctions put an extremely important pipeline for them on the back burner at best (probably canceled), and the Skripals had just about run out of usefulness to the west so it's not like the west lost anything really for that to happen.