Here we go again. Two people in Salisbury, in critical condition after coming into contact with Novichok. The Russians strike again.
Or do they? In any crime, particularly attempted murder, the killer has to have a motive and s/he needs to get their timing right. Certainly the Russians had a motive for killing the Skripals. Skripal was a Russian who went over to the other side. You may think that he left the Bad side and went over to the Good Side, but you can’t expect the Bad Side to share your view. So the Russians might have had a motive to try killing the Skripals.
But timing? In the run-up to the World Cup in Russia? As the last couple of weeks have shown, the world and his mother have been impressed by the colour and efficiency and general AI success of the World Cup in Russia. So why would the Russians now want to crap all over this carefully-constructed international image, just at the time when they were intent on impressing the world, and doing so successfully?
Then there’s the weapon. There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, and fifty more to kill your enemy. Whichever you choose, you’ll be keen that the weapon isn’t traced to you. So what do the Russians do? Instead of using a gun or a bomb or a knife or a car crash or any of fifty ways to kill the Skripals, and now this second couple, they choose a method that is identified with them. Not exclusively with them – remember Porton Down is just down the road and can make this stuff too – but except you were setting out to identify yourself with the crime, you’d choose something other than Novichok.
And finally there’s the inefficiency of this method. Not content, according to the British version, with having screwed up the Skripal killings – both father and daughter are doing fine now, according to all reports – they now have repeated the blunder by using the same method on this other couple, and with equally dubious results. Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, we’re told, are critically ill. But they’re not dead.
It comes down to this. There is not a smidgin of evidence that this was the Russians at work in either case. In fact, given the arrival of the World Cup tournament in Russia, there are loads of reasons why it wouldn’t be them.
And there’s that confusing factor that down the road is Porton Downs, where they manufacture all sorts of stuff. And the confusion that these two people were heroin addicts , slept rough – yet the man had among his Facebook friends a merchant banker and she had friends who were teachers, and they lived in an area where the cheaper houses cost more than £200,000. Curious and curiouser.
So for the British to claim that these four people were assaulted by the Russians would make as much sense as my saying that my cat is missing and I’m calling on President Trump to explain what he’s up to with this action. Not that Trump isn’t capable of kidnapping and probably waterboarding a moggie any time; just that it doesn’t make sense to claim that he did it, when he doesn’t have any motive and has more to think of.
This whole Novichok-in-Salisbury business reeks of ancient fish.
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