Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Aaaaaaghhhh! Not this bullsh1t argument again!

Of necessity, foreign policy is not conducted on the basis of incontrovertible scientific or legal certainty. It is conducted based on rational assessment of risks and the proper analysis of the available evidence in order to arrive at a balanced conclusion. The only rational conclusion in this instance - which you clearly share, btw - is that the Russian state is culpable for the attack in Salisbury.
None of that is strictly accurate. THe overriding truth in all matters of security and diplomacy is that the wider public is not given any meaningful information on the basis for decisions, assessment of risk etc. In other words, the Biritish government may well know for a FACT that the Russian state was behind this. The Russian state may even have told our intelligence service it was happening (I believe this is standard practice). Either way, the likes of us will never actually know what is going on. THere are soundreasons for this, of course.

However....when you openly keep secrets and deny interested parties the truth it is rather silly to expect there will not be suspicions, questions, theories. Its all part of the game.

I was simply making a point that when it comes to identifying the chemical as Russian we believe scientists. When it comes to making firm statements about the precise involvement of the russian state we happilyembrace conclusions made on what appears to be remarkably flimsy evidence.