The US government displays its lack of contact
with reality with sanctions, designed to hurt both US-Russia relations and
President Trump.
The pattern of slandering all
things Russia with or without (usually without) the burden of proof continues
in the US.
The US State Department made
the decision to impose new sanctions on Russia, based on the insinuation that
Russian agencies were involved in the poisoning of Sergey and Yuliya Skripal in
Salisbury, England this past March.
The US is imposing new
sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughter in the UK. The measures are scheduled to go into effect on or around
August 22, according to the State Department.
“The
United States…determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and
Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the government of the Russian
Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of
international law, or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against
its own nationals,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a
statement on Wednesday.
The
accusation comes despite there being zero evidence suggesting Moscow was behind
the attack.
A
State Department official told reporters in a conference call on Wednesday that
Washington informed Russia “this
afternoon” about the sanctions. The US still wants to maintain
relations with Moscow, despite the new sanctions. “We are tough on Russia, at the
same time we are quite committed to working to maintain relations because there
are important things at stake here,” the official said, as
quoted by Sputnik.
London
was predictably delighted and rushed to welcome Washington’s announcement of
new punitive actions against Moscow. “The UK welcomes this further
action by our US allies,” a spokesman for the UK Foreign
Office said in a statement. “The
strong international response to the use of a chemical weapon on the streets of
Salisbury sends an unequivocal message to Russia that its provocative, reckless
behavior will not go unchallenged.”
The Duran has followed this case very
closely, and there has never been evidence provided
by British or international agencies investigating this incident or its sequel
that happened last month, to prove conclusively that Russian agencies were
involved in poisoning former USSR Spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yuliya,
in Salisbury in March of this year.
The news of this new set of sanctions
was apparently enough to create jitters on the Russian stock
exchanges, and the Russian Ruble has fallen to a new 2018 low against the
American dollar. Trading
went over 66 rubles to the dollar. This marks almost a 20%
devaluation in the currency since April of this year, and the worst valuation
since mid-November, 2016.
This incident has not gone unanswered in Moscow. The Russian
Embassy in the United States called for documentation about the source and
reasoning behind these new sanctions, as reported by TASS:
The Russian embassy in the
United States has called on the US Department of State to publish
correspondence on the introduction of new sanctions on Moscow over the Skripal
incident, the embassy said in a statement.
“For our part, we reiterated our
principle [sic] stands on the events in the UK, which the Embassy had been
outlining in corresponding letters to the State Department. We confirmed that we continue
to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of the crime
committed in Salisbury and for bringing the culprits to justice,” the statement
reads.
“We suggested publishing our
correspondence on this issue. No answer has followed so far,” the Russian
embassy added.
This pattern of throwing out destructive slander while refusing to
provide opportunity for a real answer has permeated American policy towards the
Russian Federation with increasing intensity since 2013. It reveals the
machinations of a very divided American government, with the “deep State” or
establishment politicians and foreign policy makers completely unwilling to
even give Russia a fair shake at representing itself.
This
policy is shared by the United Kingdom, as this piece by The Duran’s Editor
in Chief, Alexander Mercouris shows, with this summary of
violations of due process the British authorities are committing with regard to
Russia:
(1) The British government is
interfering in the conduct of a criminal investigation, with Prime Minister
Theresa May and especially Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pointing fingers at
who they say is guilty (Russia) whilst the criminal investigation is still
underway;
(2)
The British government has said that unless Russia proves itself innocent
within a specific time the British government will conclude that it is
guilty. As I have explained previously this reverses the burden of proof:
in a criminal case it is the prosecution which is supposed to prove the
defendant’s guilt, not the defendant who must prove his innocence;
(3) The British government
refuses to share with Russia – the party it says is guilty – the ‘evidence’
upon which it says it has concluded that Russia is guilty, the evidence in this
case being a sample of the chemical with which it says Sergey and Yulia Skripal
was poisoned.
This violates the fundamental
principle that the defendant must be provided with all the evidence against him
so that he can properly prepare his defence;
(4)
The British government is not following the procedure set out in Article IX (2)
of the Chemical Weapons Convention to
which both Britain and Russia are parties. This reads as follows
States Parties should,
whenever possible, first make every effort to clarify and resolve, through
exchange of information and consultations among themselves, any matter which
may cause doubt about compliance with this Convention, or which gives rise to
concerns about a related matter which may be considered ambiguous. A State
Party which receives a request from another State Party for clarification of
any matter which the requesting State Party believes causes such a doubt or
concern shall provide the requesting State Party as soon as possible, but in
any case not later than ten days after the request, with information sufficient
to answer the doubt or concern raised along with an explanation of how the
information provided resolves the matter.
(5) The British authorities
are denying the Russians consular access to Yulia Skripal, though she is a Russian
citizen who the British authorities say was subjected to a criminal assault on
their territory.
This is a potentially serious
matter since by preventing consular access to Yulia Skripal the British
authorities are not only violating the interstate consular arrangements which
exist between Britain and Russia, but they are preventing the Russian
authorities from learning more about the condition of one of their citizens who
has been hospitalised following a violent criminal assault, and are preventing
the Russian authorities from carrying out their own investigation into the
assault on one of their citizens which the British authorities say has taken
place.
I would add that this
obstruction of Russian consular access to Yulia Skripal has gone almost entirely
unreported in the British and Western media.
The Americans are playing the same game here, and, regrettably,
President Trump’s overtures towards repairing this relationship are almost sure
to be torn out from under him by the actions of this virulent group of people.
It is quite possible that this is the very reason for these new sanctions.
The perspective of the
American government as one divided, with a rabid force in favor of continuing
to isolate and vilify a great power in the world for no good reason, is sure to
have repercussions. However, given the gradual realignment of Russia and China
to be in closer and closer partnership, and Russia’s increasing prominence in
Asian and Eastern Hemisphere affairs, the end result of this behavior is likely
to damage the United States and its standing in the world over the long run.