Media Complicit in the Madness Over Syrian Chemical Attack

Sky News cuts off top British general after he asks

‘Why would Syria launch a gas attack now?’

It's not bad enough that very few news media are questioning the sanity of attacking Syria over the Douma chemical attack, but from this video it would appear they are not only silent but, in fact, force silence upon anyone who questions the madness. In the video below, the presenter cuts-off Major-General Jonathan Shaw, formerly one of the British Army’s most senior officers, in mid-sentence when he dared to question Syria's motive for launching a chemical attack now.

Tucker Carlson, who's show I don't watch, and who's network I don't watch seems to be the only American journalist who is sensible enough to wonder why Syria keeps shooting themselves in the foot in a determined effort to sabotage their own victory. 

Piers Morgan may be asking similar questions in the UK, but this girl, Samantha Washington, on Sky News is not only not asking questions, she's determined not to allow anyone else to.

Watch this hardly believable bit of anti-journalism:

There's no excuse for stopping an interview cold like that. They certainly wouldn't have begun an interview on a complex topic like that when there was a hard commercial scheduled just one-minute later. That's ridiculous! The video is just one minute and 7 seconds! I'm quite sure General Shaw was not aware he had less than a minute to respond.

It's very disturbing how willing the media is to jump behind what is unquestionably an illegal action without any proof of the accusations. All proofs attaching blame to Assad are presumptuous at best and often fall back on statements like - he's a monster who keeps doing this to his own people. That he's a monster, I have little doubt, but there is still no proof that he was responsible for the Khan Sheikoun episode last year - at least according to General Mattis. 

In 2014, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported on opposition forces' ability to use chemical weapons. In an article for the "London Review of Books," Hersh obtained documents from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon's own spy organization. They suggested that the Nusra Front, a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda, had access to the sarin nerve agent. A chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013, which was blamed on Assad, was carried out by rebels, according to Hersh's article. They wanted Washington to presume Assad had crossed Obama's "red line" and draw the US into a war.

Nevertheless, Assad is blamed for all three chemical attacks with each accusation building on the other. Here's the thing: Assad's enemies are the only ones to gain from the use of chemical weapons. It is clear that they have gained in each of the first two mentioned above and stand to gain greatly from Douma.

It's hard to believe that the governments of 3 major democratic countries, and 99% of the media in those countries are too stupid to see that. It's one thing to want to get rid of Assad; it's a whole 'nuther thing to want the war in Syria to continue into the unforseeable future. That is what will happen if the west seriously weakens Assad; the war will drag on for years more where it could potentially be over by summer. 

Furthermore, if Assad is weakened, Iran and Russia will increase their presence. If Assad is taken out - nothing good can come out of it. Look at the messes we've created in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. 

I believe there are many Syrians living in Europe right now who would love to go home. This insane, knee-jerk reaction will rule out that possibility for many years to come.

So, again I ask, are our governments really that stupid, or is there something else at play? Are there people who are determined not to allow peace to break out in Syria? Nothing is as it seems in global politics and when countries join together to insist that everything is as it seems - well, that's when we really need to start worrying.

At Last an MSM Personality Sees Through the Syrian Gas Attack Rhetoric

Tucker Carlson slams US foreign policy in no-holds-barred monologue on Syria, social media explodes

Finally, a powerful media personality gets on-board with what I have been writing for at least a year.

Be it known that I do not watch Fox News or Tucker Carlson. I haven't spent more than a couple hours watching Fox in my life and I have never seen Carlson. I may have to check him out soon.

© Fox News / YouTube

As US leaders and mainstream media push for the nation to go to war in Syria, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has slammed so-called "geniuses" who claim to know the truth behind the alleged chemical attack.

Speaking on his television show on Monday, Carlson spoke of the alleged attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma. However, he noted that while "genius" politicians, media, intelligence services, and think tanks seem to blame Syrian President Bashar Assad for the attack, they don't actually know what happened on the ground.

"All the geniuses tell us that Assad killed those children, but do they really know that? Of course they don't really know that. They're making it up. They have no real idea what happened," Carlson said.

"Actually both sides in the Syrian civil war possess chemical weapons," he said, noting that it wouldn't have benefited Assad to use chlorine gas, since his forces have been winning the war in Syria.

Still no proof Assad was complicit in Khan Sheikoun

He also discussed last year's sarin gas attack which the majority of US leaders also blamed on Assad. "But of course they were lying," he said, noting that US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis admitted two months ago that there is still no proof that Assad used sarin last year. Carlson called the story "propaganda."

Twitter exploded with support for Carlson following the broadcast, with many praising him for being the only American mainstream media personality to publicly challenge US foreign policy on television.

"Tucker Carlson is without question the greatest American in the mainstream media," tweeted the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Daniel McAdams. He added that Carlson may have saved "thousands of lives, maybe more" through his comments.

I'm not sure you can call US foreign policy - policy. It seems more like knee-jerk reaction than policy.

Former US diplomat Jim Jatras called Carlson the "bravest man on television."

'Foreign Policy By Viral Video': Tucker Rips 'Geniuses' Claiming to Know Truth About Syrian Gas...

Tucker Carlson blasted those who feel the latest gas attack targeting Syrian civilians is a call to declare war on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

I wrote exactly the same thing yesterday - the US has no moral imperative to respond without significant proof of Assad complicity. 

Writer and consultant Beth Clay said that Carlson is "the only person so far to ask the tough questions and make real observations." Twitter user Jake Nelson expressed a similar sentiment, calling Carlson the "only person on TV with enough balls to call it like it is."

While the majority of tweets were positive and full of praise for Carlson, there were a few critics who didn't approve of his words on Syria and Assad.

Human rights advocate Rachel Andrews tweeted that Carlson's words resulted in "chills" going down her spine. "How are these people allowed to be on air?" she asked, while accusing Carlson of "defending" Assad.

Have you no interest in knowing the truth, Rachel?

Twitter user @USAF Vet accused Carlson of "spinning conspiracy theories on the Syrian gas attack," calling Fox News "trash TV."

Unfortunately, it is the Administration that is spinning the conspiracy theory. Blaming the least likely person for something that hasn't even been proven to have happened. 

That a chemical attack seems to occur every time Trump starts talking about removing US troops from Syria would make Assad the stupidest man on earth. Assad is many things, some of them quite horrible, but he is not stupid. 

This was most likely a false flag operation conducted by one or more of those who would benefit from the US remaining in Syria - rebel groups, Saudi Arabia, NATO, US military, arms merchants, etc., etc.

Both Syria and Russia have called for an on-the-ground investigation, with Moscow proposing to create an independent mechanism into the alleged attack in Douma. Russia is ready to serve as a guarantor of security for experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The Russian military has stated that it found no trace of chemical weapons at the alleged attack site, accusing the rebel-linked White Helmets of distributing "fake news."

And the White Helmets have certainly distributed fake news before. 

Also, I noticed in the videos from Douma that there were men running about through the dust and rubble without so much as pulling their T-shirts over their mouths and noses. Amazing!

US Will Act Against ‘Monster’ Assad With or Without UN ‒ Haley

USA - Sucked-in Again?

United States envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley addresses the Security Council, April 9, 2018. © Brendan McDermid / Reuters

The US will act against the Syrian government with or without a UN blessing, US envoy Nikki Haley told the Security Council, blaming Russian “obstructionism” for allowing the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria and beyond.

“We are beyond showing pictures of dead babies. We are beyond appeals to conscience. We have reached the moment when the world must see justice done,” Haley declared to the Security Council on Monday, accusing Russia of backing the “monster” [Bashar] Assad, who was murdering children with chemical weapons.

“The Russian regime, whose hands are all covered with the blood of Syrian children, cannot be ashamed by pictures of its victims. We’ve tried that before,” Haley said, adding that “no civilized government would have anything to do with Assad’s murderous regime.”

Moscow has challenged claims, made by the Western-backed NGO ‘White Helmets’ and Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) militants, that the Syrian government conducted a chemical attack against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Russia’s envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia called it “fake news,” noting that no traces of the alleged attack were found in the area after Syrian troops liberated it from the militants.

Haley, however, spoke of the attack as if it and the Syrian government’s culpability were proven facts. If the UN refused to follow Washington’s lead and intervene in Syria due to “Russia’s obstructionism,” Haley said, the US will go it alone.

“History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either way, the United States will respond​​​,” she said.

Nobody has vested you with the power to act 

like the world’s policeman, or to act 

like the prosecutor, judge, and executioner 

Earlier in the meeting, Nebenzia had warned the US and its allies of the possible “grave consequences” of unauthorized military action against Syria, where Russian troops have been legally deployed at the invitation of the country’s internationally recognized government.

“What [the] military misadventures of the West bring about is well known, as shown by the examples of Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya. Nobody has vested you with the power to act like the world’s policeman, or to act like the prosecutor, judge, and executioner either,” he said.

The US cited humanitarian concerns to launch NATO attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 and in Libya in 2011. The latter began as the UN mandate to establish a no-fly zone and, within days, turned into a “regime change” operation. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq without UN authority, claiming the threat of Iraqi nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD). No such weapons were ever found.

It is so blatantly obvious that every time Trump starts musing about pulling out of Syria, there is a chemical attack on civilians. 

Analysis of the 2013 attack in Ghouta revealed that it was not of the same chemical composition as that used by Syria at the time. 

No-one has investigated the Khan Sheikoun attack at ground level and taken samples for themselves. All samples were taken from NGOs like the White Helmets which are decidedly anti-Assad. Those samples could never have been verified as genuine. Will anyone from the OPCW actually enter Douma and take samples? We have documented White Helmets complicity in producing fake news in Syria.

Who benefits from the use of chemical weapons in Syria? Certainly not Assad! Only those who do not want the USA to pull out; that would be any of the rebel groups and Saudi Arabia. But the USA has no business in Syria - ISIS is routed and they should depart and stop using false flag excuses to remain. 

Without proof of complicity by Assad, there is no moral imperative to attack, just because you can. In fact, the moral imperative is to wait for proof and to do everything possible to verify the findings. Otherwise, you are being played for fools.

Khan Sheikhun Sarin Gas Attack was a False Flag Operation

As always, text in this font is mine. Text in this post in this font is from excerpts from previous blog posts on this subject. Search this blog for 'sarin' to access those posts.

Some points to begin with:

I despise Assad and think he has to be held accountable for many, many atrocities!

American and British Intelligence, and probably French also, almost always support American and/or NATO policy. Truth is not their business! Consequently, it should always be taken with considerable skepticism.

Days before the gas attack at Khan Sheikun, President Trump came to the logical realization that Assad, as horrible a monster as he is, must be part of the resolution to the war in Syria, otherwise there will never be a resolution to the war. This must have been the best news Assad had heard in years. But just a few days later, Khan Sheikoun was attacked.

Who would benefit from such an attack? Certainly not Assad! Is Assad so stupid as to not see that? Of course not; Assad may be many things but stupid is not one of them. 

Who gains from the attack? The rebels, of course, and those who support them. That would be the USA, UK, Saudi Arabia and possibly NATO. 

Who else would benefit? Arms manufacturers and merchants all over the world. 

I contend that some people in places of power wanted to turn Trump away from talking to Assad and ensure that the war would continue. Remember what happened to JFK when he attempted to end the war in Viet Nam!

This was a false flag operation that demonstrated that even if Trump can't be controlled, he can be manipulated. This attack had far more to do with 'deep state' than with Assad. 

All chemical weapons were removed from Syrian control...

In 2013, Assad was accused of using chemical weapons and everyone jumped on the band-wagon from the White House to MSM. It was soon proven that it could not have been Assad's regime but was, in fact, from a rebel group, a rebel group sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia. 

In 2014, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported on opposition forces' ability to use chemical weapons. In an article for the "London Review of Books," Hersh obtained documents from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon's own spy organization. They suggested that the Nusra Front, a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda, had access to the sarin nerve agent. A chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013, which was blamed on Assad, was carried out by rebels, according to Hersh's article. They wanted Washington to presume Assad had crossed Obama's "red line" and draw the US into a war.

There are doubts over whether the suspected chemical weapons strike in Ghouta came from Assad's forces.

The attack took place while UN weapons inspectors were in the country, on Assad's invitation, said Meyer. Assad had asked them to investigate a chemical weapons attack from March 2013 outside Aleppo, which killed Syrian soldiers.

"It makes no sense that the regime would carry out an attack with inspectors in the country," he said.

But some were under rebel control

Former weapons inspector Richard Lloyd and MIT professor Theodore Postol cast further doubt on Assad's role in the Ghouta attack. They reported in 2014 that the chemical weapons could have only been fired from rebel-held territory, with a range of up to 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles).

Another excellent read - The New American - Was the chemical attack a 'false flag'?

UN Report on Syria Sarin Attack 'Unprofessional': Russia

Russia on Thursday dismissed a report by a UN-led panel that blamed the Syrian regime for a sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun as "superficial and unprofessional".

"We believe that the report turned out to be superficial, unprofessional and amateurish," said the foreign ministry's security and disarmament department head, Mikhail Ulyanov.

Research was all 3rd party and biased

"The mission did their research from a distance, that in itself is a scandal."

The report offered by the White House, however, cited “a wide body of open-source material” and “social media accounts” from the rebel-held area, including footage provided by the White Helmets rescue group documented to have ties with jihadist rebels, Western and Gulf Arab governments.

The White Helmets are not what they appear to be on MSM. It is clear they are agenda-driven and anti-Assad. Check out this report by a Canadian journalist.

Syria called out the OPCW investigators for not caring enough to visit the actual site of the incident in Khan Sheikhoun despite the Syrian authorities’ reassurances that they are ready  to cooperate in full to make the venture possible.

According to the ministry, the findings were rooted in the claims provided by “terrorists”, who were taken to Turkey from Khan Sheikhoun and bribed to testify.

At the same time, the ministry noted that the mission (OPCW) turned down the proposal by Damascus to fly them on a private plane to Shayrat airbase, considered by the West as a place from which the attack originated. 

It further argued that the OPCW’s way of handling the probe suggests that the organization’s initial goal was not to establish the truth but to conceal the facts that did not fit in the western narrative. The report serves “to raise the collapsing morale of terrorist groups following the achievements made by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies on the Syrian ground,” the statement read.

So the OPCW never went to Khan Sheikoun or to Shayrat airbase. Their investigation was taken from the testimony of people and groups who are not the least impartial.

Sarin canister crushed from above not exploded from within

“Any competent analyst would have had questions about whether the debris in the crater was staged or real,” he wrote. “No competent analyst would miss the fact that the alleged sarin canister was forcefully crushed from above, rather than exploded by a munition within it.”

Chemical analysis 'proves' Syrian origin

Chemical analysis indicates the nerve gas used in the April 4 attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun was identical to that used previously by the Syrian military.

This was the 'proof' that it was Syria who was responsible. However...

Rudskoy noted that, under the 2013 agreement to give up its chemical weapons, the Syrian government destroyed its stockpiles at 10 sites that were under its control. This was verified by the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). However, the remaining two facilities were in territory controlled by the rebels, he said, and it remains unclear what happened to the chemicals stored there.

So, obviously, rebels, including those backed by the USA, had access to Syrian-made sarin gas, but the Syrians didn't. How you can use that to conclude that Syria did it is beyond common sense. It's a red herring! If anything, it proves that the gas came from rebels.

The event

At least 87 people died on April 4 this year when sarin gas projectiles were fired into Khan Sheikhun, a town in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria.

Images of dead and dying victims, including young children, in the aftermath of the attack provoked global outrage and a US cruise missile strike on a regime air base.

A joint panel by the UN and the world's chemical watchdog Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that the Syrian regime was responsible, and that the air force had dropped a bomb on the town, releasing the deadly nerve agent.

Bomb came first, gas later - Ulyanov

Russia and Syria have however presented an alternative theory that an explosive device was set off on the ground. Ulyanov on Thursday suggested the sarin gas was poured inside the crater in the ground left by the bomb.

He spoke as part of a panel of foreign ministry, air force and other Russian officials presenting slides that showed elaborate diagrams of regime war planes' trajectories and satellite images in an effort to cast doubt on the UN report.

The officials also showed video footage of rescue personnel working in the crater wearing "only respirators and cotton gloves."

Ulyanov said the video had been filmed after rebels detonated the bomb and before the sarin gas was poured into the crater.

"If it were an aerial bomb, the bomb's tail would be in the crater, but there are no traces of an aerial bomb," he said.

"The verdict against Damascus that has been issued so confidently turned out to be baseless," he said.

Bomb was not dropped from a plane

Russia made the conclusion that chemical weapons could not have been used on Khan Shaykhun, Syria, from the Su-22 plane used by Syria's Air Force, the Russian news agency Tass reported, quoting an unnamed Defense Ministry spokesman.

"After studying the materials submitted, I see several aspects that do not allow making a conclusion that chemical weapons in the form of an air bomb were used from a Su-22 aircraft of the Syrian Air Force," he said.

Russia claims, after studying a report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations, that the chemical bomb that exploded in Khan Shaykhun left a rectangular-shaped crater on the ground, while an airdrop bomb would leave an elliptical or round hole.

The evidence, the spokesman noted, is "convincing enough to conclude that at the moment of the explosion the bomb was static and lying on the asphalt surface."

The report “contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft,” wrote Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Theodore Postol, who reviewed it and put together a 14-page assessment.

“I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun,” wrote Postol.

Bomber & bomb don't line up

On Thursday, with the aid of maps, satellite footage and charts, Moscow set out why it believed the Syrian government had been unfairly maligned.

A Russian Defence Ministry official told a media briefing that the Syrian Su-22 jet accused of dropping the chemical bomb was not physically close enough to the attack site to have been involved.

Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, told the same briefing that US accusations that Russia had encouraged the use of chemical weapons in Syria were ungrounded, RIA reported.

"It was hysteria and a completely open attempt to discredit Russia with rather primitive dirty means," Ulyanov was quoted as saying.

The White House on Wednesday admonished Russia after it vetoed a United Nations plan to continue its ongoing investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons during the country's more than six-year civil war.

‘No Credibility’: Syrian Govt Blasts OPCW Report, Denies Latest Rebel Gas Attack claims

Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 5, 2017 © Ammar Abdullah / Reuters

Damascus denounced a report by UN’s chemical weapons watchdog on April chemical incident in Idlib as one-sided, lacking evidence and aimed at encouraging terrorists as they lose ground. It also denied reports of deploying chlorine against rebels.

The fact-finding mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), tasked with investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, rejected the Syrian government’s assistance in unearthing  the facts at the site of the incident and instead relied on highly questionable testimonies provided by rebels and terrorists, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

An ensuing report by the OPCW therefore “comes up with a fabricated and contrived narrative that has no credibility and cannot be accepted in any manner, because it is removed from logic and is concocted by a twisted imagination that only thinks about weaving conspiracies”, the foreign ministry argued in a statement, cited by Syria’s state SANA news agency.

According to the ministry, the findings were rooted in the claims provided by “terrorists”, who were taken to Turkey from Khan Sheikhoun and bribed to testify.

At the same time, the ministry noted that the mission turned down the proposal by Damascus to fly them on a private plane to Shayrat airbase, considered by the West as a place from which the attack originated. The allegations that the airfield was used to launch a chemical attack were repeatedly refuted by Damascus, which insists it does not possess any chemical weapons.

The ministry also called out the OPCW investigators for not caring enough to visit the actual site of the incident in Khan Sheikhoun despite the Syrian authorities’ reassurances that they are ready  to cooperate in full to make the venture possible.

It further argued that the OPCW’s way of handling the probe suggests that the organization’s initial goal was not to establish the truth but to conceal the facts that did not fit in the western narrative. The report serves “to raise the collapsing morale of terrorist groups following the achievements made by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies on the Syrian ground,” the statement read.

Calling the presented findings misleading, the ministry urged the OPCW to come up with an impartial report into the incident free from external influences.

The OPCW report, released on Wednesday for review by the watchdog’s members, purports to confirm that sarin, a banned nerve agent, was used in the attack, that reportedly killed up to 100 civilians and injured hundreds. Although the report does not assign responsibility to any party, Washington used the publication to pin the blame on Damascus, while noting that OPCW’s Joint Investigative Mechanism  (JIM) is yet to come to the conclusion.

Three days following the incident, US fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at Shayrat airbase, inflicting casualties among Syrian military civilians and material damage.

Russia, on its part, criticized the fact-checking mission for listening to only one side of the conflict, namely, to "all kinds of the Syrian armed opposition groups and NGOs,” the Russian OPCW representative, Aleksandr Shulgin, told RT. It also cast doubt on the integrity of the findings, as the report states that the organization was unable to implement a chain of custody over the samples.

In a separate statement, the Syrian military flatly rejected reports that have started circulating on Saturday that it targeted rebels in Ain Tarma in the Eastern Ghouta area with chlorine gas. Labelling the reports baseless the military stated that they were fabricated by the rebels themselves “to justify their defeats and heavy losses whenever the Syrian Army makes progress in the area.”

It further stressed that Syria could not have mounted the attack as it had disposed of all chemical weapons and “has never used toxic chemicals since the beginning of the crisis,” read statement by Syrian Amry general Command, cited by SANA.

Earlier, Failaq al-Rahman rebel group operating in the area said that over 30 of its fighters displayed the symptoms of suffocation, blaming the Syrian army of using chlorine on them.