Hysteria Over Alleged Syrian Chemical Attack Will Result in Disaster

Note: I am not defending Bashar al-Assad here; he is a butcher and a murderer. I am defending truth and sanity, neither of which is evident on the world stage right now.

The mess

Trump, May, Macron and other world leaders and ex-world leaders like Tony Blair are itching to teach Assad a lesson by risking war that would involve Russia and Iran. They seem to be in an extreme hurry to inflict their knee-jerk, emotional response before anyone even investigates to determine if it actually even happened. 

That's how they responded to Khan Sheikoun and a year later they still can't definitively link a chemical attack to Assad. Assad would know that another chemical attack would result in a considerably more damaging response. He just isn't that stupid that he would provoke such a response especially just days after Trump mused about pulling troops out of Syria. That would have been a major win for Assad; only an idiot would have given the US an excuse to change their minds. An idiot, or an enemy!

There are still several rebel groups fighting in Syria against Assad. Some are supported by the USA, some by Saudi Arabia, some by Turkey, and possibly Israel, although I have seen no evidence or even suggestions of that. But Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel would all like to see the US stay in Syria. They would prefer Syria in a state of war rather than in a state of peace with Iran as a close ally. Iran is already rebuilding schools in Syria, Islamic schools, teaching Iran's version of Islam  - Twelver Shia.

The term Twelver refers to its adherents' belief in twelve divinely ordained leaders, known as the Twelve Imams, and their belief that the last Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, lives in occultation and will reappear as the promised Mahdi. According to Shia tradition, the Mahdi's tenure will coincide with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (Isa), who is to assist the Mahdi against the Masih ad-Dajjal (literally, the "false Messiah" or Antichrist). - Wikipedia

In reality, the Mahdi is the antichrist, or, at least, the False Prophet of Revelations, and will be destroyed when Jesus returns. Regardless of what you believe, Iranian leadership believes the 12th Imam is set to return soon and it is their responsibility to create absolute chaos in the world to set the stage. Former President Ahmadinejad was quite out spoken in this belief. His successor is less vocal about it but almost certainly believes the same thing, just as the Ayatollah does.

Who is responsible?

So, you can easily see why Turkey and Israel might not want such an influence on their borders. Iran is attempting to spread their influence elsewhere in the Middle East including Yemen. The proxy war they are fighting there puts them right on the border of Saudi Arabia, and the Kingdom does not like it much.

So, there are at least 3 major countries who do not want peace to break out in Syria, plus a number of rebel groups, any of which would prefer the Americans to remain and even become more destructive of Assad's forces. 

They are all losing right now and, I'm sure, would do anything to reverse that trend. If that means gassing a few of their own women and children, well, that's a sacrifice they are willing to pay. Palestinians have been doing that for decades. Besides, they would be considered martyrs for Mohammed; why deprive them of that?

There are other possibilities, perhaps more remote, but I can't help but wonder if Deep State is involved in this. Deep State, I believe, represents many very wealthy manufacturers - vehicles, planes, weapons, etc., who found out way back in WWI that war is extremely profitable. Their influence is profound in most western governments and in NATO. This is not a conspiracy theory! Learn the influence that global industrialists had on WWII. They gleefully made vehicles, airplanes, ships, and weapons for all sides of the war. Hitler could never have accomplished his sweep of Europe without their help.

Whomever is behind the apparent use of chemicals in Douma, they are playing Trump, May, Macron and others for the fools they are. There is no moral imperative to punish someone who did nothing to deserve it; in fact, it is morally reprehensible.

It is very disappointing that Tony Blair has learned nothing from the fiasco in Libya and the disaster Khadaffi's murder had on both Libya and Europe with the hundreds of thousands of migrants crossing the Sahara through Libya. I used to like Tony Blair. I used to think he was reasonably intelligent. Now I just wonder if he is on drugs.

The consequences

As much as I hate the fact that Iran is involved in Syria, they have a right to be there having been invited by the legally elected government. Russia is also there by invitation and has, not only a right, but an obligation to be there as an ally. All other countries and rebel forces in Syria have no right to be there, including the USA.

If Trump attacks Syria again, as he did after Khan Sheikoun, only even more viciously, Russia and Iran have every right to respond. They might respond by attempting to shoot down American missiles, or they might respond by destroying bases from which planes or missiles are launched. This certainly means casualties! And, God forbid, they would attack Navy destroyers or submarines for launching cruise missiles. Then there would be serious casualties and the US would certainly respond in kind.

The sensible thing

The sensible thing would be to investigate the incident thoroughly and investigate it with the idea of not just proving it was a Syrian Army action, but that it was not a false flag operation intended to provoke a stupid, knee-jerk reaction by the west.

It is hard to believe that the west is that stupid. But there is always the possibility that they aren't that stupid but are just hoping their citizens are.

The WHO and the OPCW are both trying to get boots on the ground in Douma and Russia has guaranteed the OPCWs safety. Any western response prior to their preliminary reports would be nothing short of insane.

UK's Claims Questioned: Doubts Voiced About Source of Salisbury Novichok

Former British Ambassador questions his government's

and NATO's actions

Porton Down scientists revealed it cannot confirm Russia was behind the attack

on ex-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia

Ewen MacAskill Defence correspondent
The Guardian

Theresa May with Wiltshire police’s chief constable, Kier Pritchard, in Salisbury on Thursday. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Russia's chemical weapons destroyed

It was a historic moment largely ignored at the time by most of the world’s media and might have remained so but for the attack in Salisbury. At a ceremony last November at the headquarters of the world body responsible for the elimination of chemical weapons in The Hague, a plaque was unveiled to commemorate the destruction of the last of Russia’s stockpiles.

Gen Ahmet Üzümcü, the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which works closely with the UN, was fulsome in his praise. “This is a major achievement,” he said. The 192-member body had seemingly overseen and verified the destruction of Russia’s entire stock of chemical weapons, all 39,967 metric tons.

Where did novichok come from?

The question now is whether all of Russia’s chemical weapons were destroyed and accounted for. Theresa May – having identified the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack as novichok, developed in Russia – told the Commons on Wednesday that Russia had offered no explanation as to why it had “an undeclared chemical weapons programme in contravention of international law”. Jeremy Corbyn introduced a sceptical note, questioning whether there was any evidence as to the location of its production.

The exchanges provoked a debate echoing the one that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq over whether UN weapons inspectors had overseen the destruction of all the weapons of mass destruction in the country or whether Saddam Hussein had retained secret hidden caches.

On social media, there were arguments that the novichok could have come from some part of the former Soviet Union other than Russia, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or Ukraine, or some non-state group, maybe criminals.

The years following the fall of the Berlin Wall were chaotic, with chemical weapons laboratories and storage sites across the Soviet Union abandoned by staff who were no longer being paid. Security was almost non-existent, leaving the sites at the mercy of criminal gangs or disenchanted staff looking to supplement their income.

“Could somebody have smuggled something out?” Amy Smithson, a US-based biological and chemical weapons expert, said to Reuters. “I certainly wouldn’t rule that possibility out, especially a small amount and particularly in view of how lax the security was at Russian chemical facilities in the early 1990s.”

It took almost a decade before order was restored, in part through stockpiles being transferred to Russia from other parts of the former Soviet Union and in part through help from US and other western experts.

Novichok was developed at a laboratory complex in Shikhany, in central Russia, according to a British weapons expert, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, and a Russian chemist involved in the chemical weapons programme, Vil Mirzayanov, who later defected to the US. Mirzayanov said the novichok was tested at Nukus, in Uzbekistan.

British Diplomat questions premature blaming of Russia

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who visited the site at Nukus, said it had been dismantled with US help. He is among those advocating scepticism about the UK placing blame on Russia.

In a blog post, he wrote: “The same people who assured you Saddam Hussein had WMDs now assure you Russian ‘novichok’ nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil.”

A Russian lawyer, Boris Kuznetsov, told Reuters he was offering to pass to the British authorities a file he said might be relevant to the Salisbury case. It details an incident when poison hidden in a phone receiver killed a Russian banker and his secretary in 1995. The poison came from an employee at the state chemical facility who sold it through intermediaries – in an ampule placed in a presentation case – to help reduce his debts.

The UK government case rests not just on its argument that novichok was developed in Russia, but what it says is past form, a record of Russian state-sponsored assassination of former spies.

Murray, in a phone interview, is undeterred, determined to challenge the government line, in spite of having been subjected to a level of abuse on social media he had not experienced before.

“There is no evidence it was Russia. I am not ruling out that it could be Russia, though I don’t see the motive. I want to see where the evidence lies,” Murray said. “Anyone who expresses scepticism is seen as an enemy of the state.”

"Your either with us or your against us!" Remember that line as the US martialled support for the invasion of Iraq. When you are trying to propagandize something, dissenters are treated as enemies, even though those perpetrating the propaganda know very well the dissenters are right to question the lies and the premature conclusions.

Murray went on to say, (admittedly to RT):

“a fortnight ago sources inside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told him they were 'under pressure' to say it was made in Russia" but they knew they were unable to do so.

He said: "What we have seen today is news management because the Government had to get over the hurdle the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will shortly be telling people there is no evidence this came from Russia.

"The Government decided for damage limitation it was best Porton Down came out and said that first. We will see careful news management over the next day or two.”

Porton Down scientists said “a state” was likely to be behind the attack, because of the complexity of the agent. However, Murray said there is evidence to the contrary.

He said: “The probably in the statement is very important, there are many people including David Colum, professor of organic chemistry at Cornell University, who says it’s just not true it has to be a state and any of his senior students could make it.”

“If you watch the interview, the sentence where he says it would probably need a state to make it is tacked on to the end. If you look closely, not only has the shot changed, the camera and tripod have actually moved. I strongly suspect government handlers who would have been in that room watching him were unhappy with his interview and wanted something which implicated Russia more, so added a bit onto the end.”

Murray said a minimum of a couple of dozen states could make it. He also said this “ought to be an investigation into a serious crime” investigated appropriately to find proof.

He said: “We are told probably this and likely that, well that is not the way criminal verdicts are found.

“This quite simply feeds into a desire by NATO members in particular to step up the cold war and enhance confrontation with Russia. This has to be seen in a wider geopolitical context. Within that context the last thing the politicians care about is the truth about what happened in Salisbury.”

'The UK and its NATO friends have attempted to

“step up the Cold War” with Russia and have failed'

Rep. Gabbard Under Fire After Refusing to Accept ‘Assad did Chemical Attack’ Without Proof

This is the 3rd story I've done on Tulsi Gabbard in the past few months.

It is becoming more and more obvious that she may be the smartest person 

in American politics and quite likely possessing the most integrity

(ie not owned by the military industrial establishment) 

Rep. Gabbard under fire after refusing to accept ‘Assad did chemical attack’ without proof 

Tulsi Gabbard © Alex Wong / AFP

Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has provoked a backlash from senior Democrats after refusing to take Syrian President Bashar Assad’s complicity in the Idlib chemical attack at face value and demanding proof.

Speaking live on CNN in the aftermath of the US missile strike against the Syrian airfield near Homs, Gabbard said she remained “skeptical” of the allegations, and reminded the host of the destructive invasions in Libya and Iraq, the latter based on a false intelligence pretext. The Democratic representative from Hawaii also called out US President Donald Trump for the “reckless” and “unconstitutional” attack.

The remarks infuriated some “progressive” Democratic figures, including former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Howard Dean and former Hillary Clinton policy director Neera Tanden, now the President of the Center for American Progress, a pro-Democratic Party think tank. The two suggested on Twitter that Gabbard, who also famously visited Syria for a covert “fact-finding” mission, should be expelled from Congress for her doubt of Assad’s guilt.

“People of Hawaii’s 2nd district – was it not enough for you that your rep met with a murderous dictator? Will this move you?” Tander wrote on Twitter on Friday, referring to Gabbard’s recent comments she made to CNN.

Dean, who served as Vermont Governor from 1991 to 2003 and led the DNC from 2005 to 2009, branded Gabbard’s stance on Syria “a disgrace.”

“Gabbard should not be in Congress,” he wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Asked by one of the users why the former Governor did not display a similar indignation over “Hillary Clinton’s mistakes,” Dean responded: “Engaging in dialogue isn’t the problem. It’s claiming there is doubt Assad uses chemical warfare.”

But where no proof exists - isn't that the definition of doubt? If proof exists there is no problem, but who would accept 'intelligence' reports at face value on anything anymore? I know America doesn't want to reveal how its sources operate. It may, in fact, be Israeli intelligence reporting on Syria, who knows. But having seen what Dick Cheney did to American intelligence reports on Iraq, it would be absurd to accept it at face value, particularly when it is used as basis to start a war.

In an interview to the channel which aired on Saturday, Gabbard refused to be convinced by the undisclosed evidence that Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have cited when justifying the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase.

Despite being repeatedly pressed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to unconditionally accept the so far unrevealed intelligence, Gabbard retorted: “Last time I checked, Wolf, the Congress has the authority and responsibility for declaring war, for authorizing use of military force.”

“Whether the President or the Pentagon or the Secretary of State say they have the evidence the fact remains that they have not brought that evidence before Congress, they have not brought that evidence before the American people and have not sought authorization from Congress to launch this military attack on another country,” Gabbard said.

She went on to argue that the US has been waging an illegal proxy war aimed at toppling the Syrian government “for years,” which has only resulted in the “suffering of the Syrian people, hundreds of thousands of people dead, millions of refugees and the strengthening of terrorist groups in Syria like Al-Qaeda and ISIS.” 

Exactly!

Gabbard, who is an Iraq War veteran and sits on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, cited the Iraqi invasion as an example of “completely destructive, counterproductive war.”

Not to mention completely bogus intelligence - intelligence that was altered by Dick Cheney as an excuse to launch the war.

The congresswoman courted controversy after going on a private fact-finding mission to Syria earlier this year, after it was revealed that she met with Assad, as well as with civil, religious, and opposition leaders and civilians.

“Their message to the American people was powerful and consistent: There is no difference between ‘moderate’ rebels and Al-Qaeda / Al-Nusra or ISIS – they are all the same,” Gabbard said at the time, drawing strong criticism from the US establishment, with many accusing her of cozying up to Assad.

She has been a vocal opponent of Washington’s support for the rebels in Syria, arguing that weapons often end up in the hands of the terrorists.

Isn't that the real objective though - to move weapons. I've stated and documented several times how America often supplies weapons to both sides of a war. Now that wars are getting very complex with half a dozen different factions, America may very well be supplying weapons to more than two proponents. 

My fear is that Trump is being manipulated by establishment pressures to make decisions that provoke Russia. There has been a remarkable series of NATO led decisions in the past few months that justify its existence by provoking the bear. NATO uses a tremendous amount of military hardware which is very good for American prosperity but a nightmare for world peace. 

In December, Gabbard introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, designed to stop the US government from providing direct assistance to terrorist entities, urging to “prohibit the Federal government from funding assistance to countries that are directly or indirectly supporting those terrorist groups.”