Sunday 18 March 2018

Show Us The Evidence

Theresa May came to the conclusion very quickly that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter while Boris Johnson today came out and said that the UK has evidence Russia has been developing the nerve agent used in the attack, Novichok, for international assassinations for the last decade.
Russian officials have denied involvement and as yet, our Government has not yet provided any evidence to back up their claims which led Jeremy Corbyn to note caution and for the Government to not 'rush way ahead of the evidence being gathered by the police, in a fevered parliamentary atmosphere'.
We have been here before of course where we are being asked to trust the Government and Intelligence Services, the Iraq War was based on phony dossiers and manipulated intelligence provide George W Bush and Tony Blair the justification for a war they had already decided on waging so excuse us for being cautious when we are asked to take you on trust.
What is similar to the Iraq War build-up is the vilification of anyone who doesn't just swallow the Government line, Corbyn being labelled a 'Putin apologist' and a 'naive dupe' but he is right to question the lack of evidence because the Government have not explained what evidence they have which convinces them that the Russian state was behind the attack.
The facts are sparse on the ground, we have been told that the agent used 'is of a type developed by Russia' and 'Russia have history of assasinations' but that isn't enough to justify their actions especially as we have a history of falsifying intelligence.
Possibly the Government do have concrete evidence to prove Russian involvement but if they did why are they not presenting it to us as they surely would as the questions about 'show us the proof' mount?
As the Government have made such a mess of everything else and as the British public have already been burnt being asked to trust our Government and intelligence services with evidence, i think it is right that we should be wary until we are shown the same evidence that makes our Government so certain it was Russia, if only to galvanise us behind them.

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