Monthly Archives: March 2018

Britain, European Union, Government, Russia, Society

Britain: Russia’s poison stockpile

SALISBURY ATTACK

BORIS JOHNSON has said that Russia has been “creating and stockpiling” the deadly nerve agent used in the Salisbury spy attack for a decade. This claim and accusation was immediately denounced as “drivel” by Vladimir Putin.

The Foreign Secretary said scientists had developed Novichok in breach of international chemical weapons conventions and researched how to use them to assassinate its enemies.

Mr Johnson’s blunt comments has heightened the war of words with Moscow over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Putin dismissed Johnson’s claims as “nonsense”, but said Moscow was willing to cooperate on the probe.

He said he found out about the attack from the media, adding: “The first thing that entered my head was that if it had been a military-grade nerve agent, the people would have died on the spot.

“Russia does not have such [nerve] agents. We destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international organisations, and we did it first, unlike some of our partners who promised to do it, but unfortunately did not keep their promises.

“We are ready to cooperate. We are ready to take part in the necessary investigations, but for that there needs to be a desire from the other side, and we don’t see that yet.

“I think any sensible person would understand that it would be rubbish, drivel, nonsense, for Russia to embark on such an escapade on the eve of a presidential election. It’s just unthinkable.”

Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, even hinted the Salisbury nerve agent could have come from the UK military’s chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down. The Foreign Secretary described Mr Chizhov’s response as a combination of “smug sarcasm and denial”, and said he was lying.

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have today come to the UK to take samples of Novichok. The tests are expected to last for two weeks.

Mr Johnson insists that the British Government had given Russia “every opportunity” to come up with an explanation for how the nerve agent (manufactured in Russia) came to be in Britain.

“Their response has been a sort of mixture of smug sarcasm and denial, obfuscation and delay,” Mr Johnson said.

“In response to Mr Chizhov’s point about Russian stockpiles of chemical weapons: We actually had evidence within the last ten years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination, but it has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.”

Two days ago, Russia announced it would expel 23 British diplomats, matching the number of Russian spies ordered to leave the UK. It also closed a consulate and barred the British Council from working in the country.

Mr Johnson has travelled to Brussels today to brief foreign ministers from across the European Union on the attack. He then held talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The National Security Council will meet tomorrow to discuss the UK’s response. Mr Johnson suggested there would not be an immediate retaliation.

He said ministers were “hardening our borders” and ensuring the authorities pursued Russians who had “corruptly obtained their wealth”.

In interviews given by Mr Chizhov, he claimed that Mr Skripal had been “almost forgotten” in Russia.

“He has been living in Britain for eight years now. Before that – I think I should stress the point – he was officially pardoned by presidential decree.” He also claimed that because Yulia was a Russian citizen, the British authorities had violated “consular convention” by not allowing Russian officials access to her in hospital.

Russia had “no stockpiles whatsoever” of chemical weapons, he said. “Actually, Russia has stopped production of any chemical agents back in 1992. So, we cannot even talk about any chemical agents produced by Russia. All that have been produced previously was produced by the Soviet Union.”

Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1992. The treaty – which aims to end the development, production, stockpiling and transfer of chemical weapons – is enforced by the OPCW.

In February last year, the OPCW presented Russia with a plague to mark the destruction of its declared stockpiles of chemical weapons.

. See also, Opinion: UK measures and sanctions on Russia still leaves us vulnerable

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Arts, History, Philosophy

(Philosophy) Essential Thinkers: Socrates

c. 470 – 399BC

Socrates

Socrates: ‘The only thing that I know is that I know nothing.’

SOCRATES lived through times of great political upheaval in his birthplace of Athens, a city which would eventually make him a scapegoat for its troubles and ultimately demand his life. Much of what is known about Socrates comes through the works of his one-time pupil Plato, for Socrates himself was an itinerant philosopher who taught solely by means of public discussion and oratory and never wrote any philosophical works of his own.

Unlike the Greek philosophers before him, Socrates was less concerned with abstract metaphysical ponderings than with practical questions of how we ought to live, and what is the good life of man. Consequently, he is often hailed as the inventor of that branch of philosophy known as ethics. It is precisely his concern with ethical matters that often led him into conflict with the city elders, who would accuse him of disrupting and corrupting the minds of sons of the wealthy elite with revolutionary and unorthodox ideas.

 

SOCRATES was certainly a maverick, often claiming to the consternation of his interlocutors that the only thing he was sure of was his own ignorance. Indeed, much of his teaching consisted in asking his audience to define various common ideas and notions, such as ‘beauty’, or ‘the good’, or ‘piety’, only to show through reasoned argument that all the proposed definitions and common conceptions lead to paradox or absurdity. Some of his contemporaries thought this technique disingenuous, and that Socrates knew more than he was letting on. However, Socrates’ method was meant to provide salutary lessons in the dangers of uncritical acceptance of orthodoxy. He often railed against, and made dialectic victims of, those who claimed to have certain knowledge of some particular subject. It is chiefly through the influence of Socrates that philosophy developed into the modern discipline of continuous critical reflection. The greatest danger to both society and individual, we learn from Socrates, is the suspension of critical thought.

 

LOVED by the city’s aristocratic youth, Socrates inevitably developed many enemies throughout his lifetime. In his seventieth year, after Athens had gone through several changes of leadership and failing fortunes, Socrates was brought to trial on charges of ‘corrupting the youth’ and ‘not believing in the city gods’. The charges were brought principally to persuade Socrates to renounce his provocative public speaking and convince the citizens of Athens that the new leadership had a tight rein on law and order. With a plea of guilty he might perhaps have walked away from the trial and lived out the rest of his life as a private citizen. However, in characteristic style, he robustly defended himself, haranguing his accusers and claiming that god himself had sent him on a mission to practice and teach philosophy. When asked, upon being found guilty, what penalty he thought he should receive, Socrates mocked the court by suggesting a trifling fine of only 30 minae. Outraged, a greater majority voted for Socrates to be put to death by the drinking of hemlock than had originally voted him guilty. Unperturbed, Socrates readily agreed to abide by the laws of his city and forbade his family from asking for a stay of execution.

Socrates’ trial, death and final speeches are wonderfully captured by Plato in his dialogues Apology, Crito and Phaedo.

. See also Philosophy: An introduction…

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Russia, Society

UK measures and sanctions on Russia still leaves us vulnerable

BRITAINopinion-1

IN measured but uncompromising language, Theresa May handled herself extremely well in the House of Commons this week as she outlined the Government’s response to Vladimir Putin’s use of a lethal nerve and chemical agent on British soil. The Prime Minister’s rhetoric was equal to the profound seriousness of the occasion.

Her resolute demeanour and command of her brief – no doubt learned from her long experience of security matters at the Home Office – put to shame Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts to defend the Russian state and his attempt to score petty political point scoring.

In a new low for British politics, the Labour leader parroted the Kremlin line, suggesting it was unfair to blame Putin without first sending him scientific samples of the toxin in the Salisbury attack.

To his discredit, too, Mr Corbyn even appeared to pin part of the blame on budget cuts to the British diplomatic service.

Corbyn’s response to this grotesque violation of international law and British sovereignty – in which scores of our citizens were put at risk of agonising death – was: “It is essential to maintain robust dialogue with Russia.”

Who would honestly believe dialogue would bring to heel a former KGB officer who exults in presenting himself at stopping at nothing to eradicate his country’s enemies?

Even the SNP in Scotland, never a party solid on defence – incoherent on NATO and divisive over Trident – have grasped the gravity of the situation.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “It is very clear that Russia cannot be permitted to unlawfully kill or attempt to kill people on the streets of the UK with impunity.”

The SNP’s party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford assured the Commons that his party backed the Government and that “a robust response to the use of terror on our streets” was required.

However, we must be realistic. On their own, the measures outlined by the Prime Minister are high unlikely to shake Putin out of his contempt for the international order.

 

YES, Mrs May’s approach is a start. Her expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats identified as spies, the most radical such measure for more than 30 years, should seriously undermine Russia’s intelligence network. These expulsions were always going to be met with a tit-for-tat response.

Other sanctions – including the freezing of Russian state assets deemed a threat, the suspension of high-level contacts and increased security checks on private flights, customs and freight – also sends a signal that Britain will not let state-sponsored gangsterism flourish with impunity.

The truth, though, is that Mrs May held back from other measures that could have inflicted serious harm on the Russian economy.

The reasons for such caution are clear. One is that Britain depends on Russia for 20 per cent of our gas, leaving us desperately vulnerable to punitive Russian reprisals.

Another is that BP, our biggest company, has a vast holding in Russia’s biggest oil company, while the City launders billions in the country’s dirty cash.

And politicians have run down our Armed Forces, spending only £36billion a year on defence. Putin, with a defence budget of £44-50billion – and has an army ten times the size of ours – will feel safe to sneer.

Yet, Russia’s economy is only two-thirds the size of ours. We could be doing much more to match Putin’s military strength.

As for energy security, wasn’t it criminally irresponsible to allow last year’s closure of Britain’s biggest gas storage facility, leaving our reserves at today’s perilously low levels?

Given our vulnerability, the sanctions may have gone as far as Britain could go alone without the international effort needed by straining every sinew to secure.

There is one gesture that could signify abhorrence of the Salisbury atrocity. Whilst it is welcomed that no government minister or member of the Royal family will attend the World Cup in Russia this summer, wouldn’t a boycott by the England team and other countries who are equally infuriated ram home the message more powerfully?

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