Of Marcello Foa

Source: Marcello Foa
We are really sure that the Russians were the ones who poisoned the former spy Skripal and his daughter? Allow me to raise more than one doubt by carefully examining the news that has come out so far. The points that don't add up are these:
Primo. What is the motive? What is the interest in Putin? Let me explain: everyone recognizes the Russian president's great sagacity in calibrating his moves. He excels in both strategy and tactics. We have long known that the United States (which drive Europe) they are engaged in an operation to wear down the Kremlin aimed at obtaining a realignment towards pro-American positions, which can only be achieved with certainty through a change of regime or with Putin's exit from the scene. Since a colored revolt is unfeasible, the scenario is to make the weight of sanctions and international isolation unsustainable, causing Russian elites to rebel against the newly re-elected president.
In this context, every pretext is used to unnerve or weaken Putin. Knowing the end goal, you have to ask yourself: but what interest did the Russian president have in trying to eliminate a former spy, however out of the picture, resorting to the most spectacular of assassination attempts, the only one that - after the pollonio affair - the whole world would have attributed to the Kremlin? You will agree: it doesn't make sense. Diplomatically it would have been suicide, because it would have offered the West an opportunity for a further anti-Russian campaign, which in fact occurred promptly. No, Putin is not the leader to make these mistakes.
Second point: we must evaluate the media noise and the furor of the accusations. Let's not forget it, communication is a fundamental tool in the context of asymmetric wars: it is the theme that I deal with in my latest essay “The sorcerers of the news. Act two“. when the media noise is deafening, unique, exasperated, there are two possibilities: the evidence is incontrovertible (for example the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait) or they are not but those who accuse have an interest in exploiting them politically, which can only happen if supreme sources - i.e. governments - affirm the same thing and in such loud and absolute tones as to inhibit any critical reflection, under penalty of exposing oneself to the accusation of being "friends of the dictator Putin".
And now if we carefully analyze the statements of the British government, we note how Prime Minister May herself continues to say that "it is highly probable” that the attack was sponsored by the Kremlin. Highly probable does not mean certain, because to be sure we would have to prove the origin of the gas, which is impossible in the short term. And in the joint statement released yesterday by the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany reiterate that it is «Military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia», which would be part of a group of gases known as Novichok conceived by the Soviets in the 1970s. But developed does not mean produced in Russia. If this verb – or a synonym – has not been used, as fabricated – means that the British experts themselves have no concrete evidence to support the thesis of Russian responsibility, which should therefore be considered as an investigative hypothesis. Not as a verdict. Semantics too, in highly emotional fragments like these, it is indicative and should alert the press, who instead shows no hesitation.
Yet there are many reasons to be more cautious. We want to remember Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? But there is no shortage of examples in recent times. The accusatory hysteria of these hours recalls that of the " incontrovertible evidence " of 2013, according to which Assad had exterminated with gas 1300 civilians, makes many children. We later discovered that it was the rebels who used the gas to provoke intervention in NATO. O, always in Syria, In the 2107 when Amnesty and the State Department denounced the existence of a crematorium where rebels were burned, a revelation that rightly outraged the world but which was denied after a couple of weeks by the American government itself.
Let's be clear: no one knows who made an attempt on the lives of Skipal and his daughter and no hypothesis can be ruled out. But the propaganda is really deafening and the precedents, as well as experience, suggest greater caution. And a healthy skepticism: because Putin will be, for the big press, “bad” but certainly not stupid.