The UK is _not_ central. So now we instantly distrust the Swiss and Dutch secret services too. Who, we're to believe, framed these fellows yet punished them with nothing more than sending them back to Russia.
If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over.
But now that this story is obviously being killed by abusing the controversy penalty algorithm, I hope the admins use it as a honey pot for locating shills.
There are shills on all sides.[0]
Many of the people you are calling shills are actually doubtful of the narrative put forward by a security cabal involved in one of the most pervasive and under-handed spying programmes [1].
Part of the reason for this is because that narrative is actually inconsistent with earlier versions of itself.
Those who disagree with that narrative are most likely not Russian shills, they may just be able to spot an inconsistent narrative based on evidence drip-fed to the media and refuse to believe it.
There are two Russian citizens who are now effectively limited to countries with no extradition treaty with the UK or its allies unless they are willing to face a trial that has no reasonable prospect of being fair. [2]
> If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over.
If Westerners are going to support trial by lynch mob and trial by media with carefully-controlled evidence and a strong hint of xenophobic nationalism and a trust-our-state-sanctioned-murderers attitude then we will be the ones to suffer the consequences as the farce of the "superiority" of "western values" is truly exposed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora
[2] They have had a trial by media and been found guilty.
Arrests done solely because Switzerland really wants to start the cold war again?
No, actually the pattern generally is to sow such much confusion that people no longer believe anything and end up believing all sides are the same.
The pattern here specifically is to get the story of the front page which was successful.
There is no need to take a side. It is possible to simultaneously distrust the British spies and the Russian spies.
To believe the Russian spies (we didn't do it, somebody in the UK is killing Russians, they are liars!) requires disbelieving the British spies (the Russians did it, they're liars!).
So it has the property of being believe the British government narrative or you're agreeing with the Russian government, which feels a lot like guilt by similarity of argument.
The default position for those who believe in the rule of law is to not believe the British narrative, because they are the accusers and the burden of proof is theirs and they have publicly provided only circumstantial evidence.
It's quite a clever trap that many educated people seem to have left unchallenged.
No it doesn't. It is quite possible that they both lie.
The British narrative is the Russians did it.
The Russian narrative is they had no part in it.
If you disbelieve the Russian narrative, you believe they did have a part in it.
It's possible to not believe the British narrative and not care about the Russian narrative because you don't believe they have anything to answer for, but that is altogether different from disbelieving both.
For what it's worth I don't believe the British narrative on this because of it is inconsistent with previous versions of itself and the evidence I have personally seen is circumstantial.
We have a (EDIT - silly me he's not dead) nearly dead body, so a crime has clearly been committed. We have in the courts a sophisticated process for determining whodunnit and what they done with a high standard of evidence.
Given that the people accused of undertaking the killing are foreign state actors, that process is unlikely to be taken to conclusion. The situation is political, and the people who are publicising the information are closely involved with people who are hired to be _professionally untrustworthy_.
We don't have any evidence, and should judge the situation by what the response is. If it is understated and a censure of the Russians, the UK secret service are probably being truthful. If it ties in to some real action (ie, is used as justification for something that wouldn't otherwise make sense) then the UK secret service were probably lying. It isn't like the Russians would have revealed any new intent or capability with this incident.
This type of analysis is sorely lacking in the "which side are you on" comment. We should not lock in behind a western government doing something bad because they are pointing fingers at Russia. We've regretted doing that in the past - WMD and Saddam is a pretty cut and dried example (I have others, but they aren't as clear cut and a lot of people might not regret them).
I can see one example of what you're talking about and that is how Putin co-opted some prominent western anti-US-imperialists in service of his own agenda and his own imperial ambitions (setting up permanent bases in other countries, exploiting natural resources by means of war, killing innocent people by thousands, pretty much anything anti-imperialists abhor about the US). Enemy of my enemy... I guess. These people then talk about how Russia was invited by Bashar, or whatever and that makes it ok for it to bomb people there for years - but this is usually unstated, you just sense the implied sense of legitimacy and lack of criticism for Russia.
Many of these people have some followers that then repeats their talking points, or defer to their authority.
What sides?
So, the sides where Russia has been surrounded by ever closer NATO bases (post cold-war), and those countries are used to put pressure on it, while the news constantly bombard western audiences with "enemy du jour" coverage?
Where foreign countries constantly meddle with its internal goings-on (with embargoes, sanctions, supporting opposition parties, funding NGOs and "independent" organizations, and good old "Voice of America" style efforts), to establish friendly lackeys in power like Yeltsin, to sell the country's assets wholesale to them?
Would you rather distrust the UK secret service and believe whatever the hell Putin is saying?
My Russian parents are so happy to listen to Russian television it makes me sick (given the fact that they are Lithuanian citizens since 1991).
The question is not whether you should trust UK secret service, but rather - which side are you on? Because the fact is that we'll probably never know anyway, and Russia is happy to monetise on the liberal distrust of the government.
After all, Soviets did have a culture of managing the public opinion in their own state.