Chemical weapons: Are we detecting a pattern yet?

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, May 24, 2024 23:09
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SIGNYM

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 7:20 PM

SECOND, AS USUAL YOU VEER OFF YOUR ORIGINAL POINT WHEN IT BECOMES TOO HOT FOR YOU, AND POST YET ANOTHER WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRIPE.

HERE IS THE LESS-FILTERED ACCOUNT OF A REPORTER WHO WENT, UNACCOMPANIED, TO THE SITE OF THE SUPPOSED ATTACK

Quote:
The search for truth in the rubble of Douma – and one doctor’s doubts over the chemical attack

... At the same time, inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are currently blocked from coming here to the site of the alleged gas attack themselves, ostensibly because they lacked the correct UN permits.

Before we go any further, readers should be aware that this is not the only story in Douma. There are the many people I talked to amid the ruins of the town who said they had “never believed in” gas stories – which were usually put about, they claimed, by the armed Islamist groups. These particular jihadis survived under a blizzard of shellfire by living in other’s people’s homes and in vast, wide tunnels with underground roads carved through the living rock by prisoners with pick-axes on three levels beneath the town. I walked through three of them yesterday, vast corridors of living rock which still contained Russian – yes, Russian – rockets and burned-out cars.

So the story of Douma is thus not just a story of gas – or no gas, as the case may be. It’s about thousands of people who did not opt for evacuation from Douma on buses that left last week, alongside the gunmen with whom they had to live like troglodytes for months in order to survive. I walked across this town quite freely yesterday without soldier, policeman or minder to haunt my footsteps, just two Syrian friends, a camera and a notebook. I sometimes had to clamber across 20-foot-high ramparts, up and down almost sheer walls of earth. Happy to see foreigners among them, happier still that the siege is finally over, they are mostly smiling; those whose faces you can see, of course, because a surprising number of Douma’s women wear full-length black hijab.

I first drove into Douma as part of an escorted convoy of journalists. But once a boring general had announced outside a wrecked council house “I have no information” – that most helpful rubbish-dump of Arab officialdom – I just walked away. Several other reporters, mostly Syrian, did the same. Even a group of Russian journalists – all in military attire – drifted off.

It was a short walk to Dr Rahaibani. From the door of his subterranean clinic – “Point 200”, it is called, in the weird geology of this partly-underground city – is a corridor leading downhill where he showed me his lowly hospital and the few beds where a small girl was crying as nurses treated a cut above her eye.

“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

Oddly, after chatting to more than 20 people, I couldn’t find one who showed the slightest interest in Douma’s role in bringing about the Western air attacks. Two actually told me they didn’t know about the connection.

But it was a strange world I walked into. Two men, Hussam and Nazir Abu Aishe, said they were unaware how many people had been killed in Douma, although the latter admitted he had a cousin “executed by Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam] for allegedly being “close to the regime”. They shrugged when I asked about the 43 people said to have died in the infamous Douma attack.

The White Helmets – the medical first responders already legendary in the West but

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SECOND

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 7:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, AS USUAL YOU VEER OFF YOUR ORIGINAL POINT WHEN IT BECOMES TOO HOT FOR YOU, AND POST YET ANOTHER WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRIPE.

HERE IS THE LESS-FILTERED ACCOUNT OF A REPORTER WHO WENT, UNACCOMPANIED, TO THE SITE OF THE SUPPOSED ATTACK.

Signym, the point in the article you quote is that there was no chlorine. Your Trump doesn't care if there was chlorine or not. My point is that all sides are lying about everything. The Russians said they would destroy the ships and planes that fired on Syria. That didn't happen. Seventy one cruise missiles were shot down. That didn't happen. The Russians say that there is too much danger for the inspectors to inspect for chemical weapons today. That isn't true because a CBS reporter already looked around. Trump's ambassador to the U.N. said there would be more sanctions on Russia. That didn't happen. Are we detecting a pattern yet?
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17242484/nikki-haley-trump-r
ussia-sanctions-syria

Trump has financial ties which might explain his decision to bomb Syria, but his finances are so incoherent that no one knows why he does anything. And then there is Trump's constant lying about why he does what he does. Are we detecting a pattern yet?
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17238058/syria-bombing-trump
-business-interests

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 10:08 PM

Did SECOND say something on-topic?

I have no idea, I scrolled right past it's post.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

America is an oligarchy
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

KPO

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 11:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
HERE IS THE LESS-FILTERED ACCOUNT OF A REPORTER WHO WENT, UNACCOMPANIED, TO THE SITE OF THE SUPPOSED ATTACK

Knew it would be Robert Fisk before I even saw it

For those of you who don't know, Fisk is a British journalist and infamous shill for the Assad regime. If you're wondering why this guy has been given access to the site and other journalists have not (and you should be) then this is your answer. Every atrocity pro-Assad journalists are escorted in and shown around by their Syrian government minders. As long as they stick to the Syrian government narrative in their reporting, they get this privileged access to sites of international news interest.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition."

Russia's and Assad's War Crimes in Syria - http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60278
Syrian regime collusion with ISIS - http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60521

SECOND

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 12:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, AS USUAL YOU VEER OFF YOUR ORIGINAL POINT WHEN IT BECOMES TOO HOT FOR YOU, AND POST YET ANOTHER WORTHLESS PIECE OF TRIPE.

HERE IS THE LESS-FILTERED ACCOUNT OF A REPORTER WHO WENT, UNACCOMPANIED, TO THE SITE OF THE SUPPOSED ATTACK

Signym, if you are not already being paid to post for Russia, you should be. Contact Putin and ask for your much deserved back pay.

Russia’s top diplomats have time and again assured American, Arab, and European policymakers that they are not wedded to President Bashar al-Assad.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing just how far he’ll go to keep Assad — Moscow’s key surviving Arab ally — in power.

Saving Assad from meeting the same fate as other regional despots like Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi and Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is emerging as a key facet of Russia’s Middle East strategy.

By propping up one of the region’s most vilified leaders, Moscow is sending a powerful message about its willingness to act aggressively in a region where many of America’s closest allies are feeling insecure — and questioning Washington’s commitment to have their backs in the future.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/putins-russia-is-wedded-to-bashar-
al-assad-syria-moscow/

Russia's support for Mr Assad has less to do with Syria per se, than with the West. The Kremlin watched the Arab Spring in horror, seeing uprisings against authoritarian leaders as American conspiracies. While Mr Putin harbors no particular personal affection for Mr Assad, the Syrian leader has become a symbol of resisting "colour revolutions" and attempts at "regime change". Having backed Mr Assad thus far, allowing him to fall now would mean that Mr Putin is "retreating under American pressure, which is the one thing he cannot do," argues Georgy Mirsky of Moscow's Higher School of Economics. The latest gambit in Syria has also helped Mr Putin deflect attention from the unwon war in Ukraine and bring Russia back into the company of world powers—Mr Obama met Mr Putin at the UN General Assembly for the first time in two years. Mr Putin's message, both to the domestic audience and to the non-Western world, is that Russia remains indispensable to solving global problems, whether the West likes it or not.

In keeping with his style, Mr Putin has opted to play hardball in Syria. Rather than contributing to the war's resolution, Russia's presence will likely deepen the conflict. While America has softened its stance on the need for Mr Assad's immediate exit, his presence presents an intractable obstacle to any cooperation between Russia's ad-hoc coalition (which so far includes Iran, Iraq and Syria) and America's. Yet with air defence assets already on the ground, the Kremlin can impose a no-fly zone for NATO forces; on Wednesday it declared a de facto one, though coalition countries said they were continuing to fly missions, raising the prospect of potentially disastrous accidents. So far, Russian officials emphasize that ground operations are not up for discussion. Support among the Russian population for intervention in Syria remains low, and the spectre of the Soviet Union's decade long war in Afghanistan still looms. Yet so too does the risk of mission creep. The more chips Mr Putin places on Syria, the harder it will be for him to fold.

www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/09/economist-explains-
22

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

KPO

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 3:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
By some accounts then, 58 attacks haven't been attributed to anybody.

Err, your own link says:

"The information, based on data from seven sources, shows that the Syrian government is responsible for the majority of 85 confirmed chemical weapon attacks."

HRW have recorded a greater number of confirmed chemical attacks than the UN, but their conclusions are the same. They can't always ascribe blame, but when they can, it's almost always Assad (3 cases out of the 85 are blamed on ISIS, and another 1 was probably ISIS - all in Aleppo province in 2016).

Quote:
So, let's go over your childish notions.

Let's stick with yours for a little while longer. Your theory about the Douma chemical attack is that the rebels attacked their own territory as a "false flag" so that Assad would get the blame. But we've established now (via your link and mine) that Assad has carried out dozens of chemical attacks - so why frame him for something he does regularly anyway? And even if Assad has been framed, doesn't he deserve retribution for all those chemical attacks he has been found guilty of?

Like I say, "Oh, but maybe he's not guilty of this chemical attack" is a pretty funny line of defense.

Quote:
The Syrian government is winning the war. It has absolutely no reason to carry out a chemical attack.

Let me quote this thread from 2017, after the Khan Shaykhun sarin attack, where you and your buddies argue that Assad had "no reason" to carry out a chemical attack: http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61551&p=2

Signy (quoting one of her blogs): "Assad’s military has gained a decisive advantage over the rebels... The savvy Assad would know that a chemical weapon attack now would likely result in U.S. retaliation..."

6String: "The real question is, why would Assad have gassed his citizens? What was there to gain from doing so? He had nothing to gain and everything to lose."

kiki: "There is ZERO reason for him to have done it."

Of course, about a week or so later, the OPCW concluded their investigation and reported that Assad did indeed do it.

Quote:

Do you really think that makes sense?

Once we dispel the "Why would cuddly Uncle Assad use chemical weapons against his own people?" line of thinking, and accept that he is using chemical weapons, again and again, we can start to have an intelligent conversation about WHY he's doing it.

Here's a good article addressing that very question:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/articles/2017-04-10/why-di
d-syrias-bashar-assad-use-chemical-weapons

-------------------------------------------------------

"Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition."

Russia's and Assad's War Crimes in Syria - http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60278
Syrian regime collusion with ISIS - http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60521

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 4:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:

Here's a good article addressing that very question:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/articles/2017-04-10/why-di
d-syrias-bashar-assad-use-chemical-weapons

That's some mighty fine speculation.

I hear there's some WMDs in Iraq. They're buried under the rubble of the Saddam statues the people tumbled to the ground.

It should be noted that the line right under this article reads as follows:

Quote:
Brian Michael Jenkins, Opinion Contributor

Emphasis on the "Opinion" part.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

KPO

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 4:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I hear there's some WMDs in Iraq.

Did you miss the part where the UN blamed the Assad regime for 27 chemical attacks? Is the UN part of the conspiracy? The OPCW and HRW (whom kiki is citing)? Amnesty International?

Quote:

Emphasis on the "Opinion" part.

I'd say the article falls more accurately under "analysis" - http://thespeaker.co/difference-news-opinion-analysis/

But you're right, there's a lot of "speculation" involved in analysing the strategy of a mass-murderer.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition."

Russia's and Assad's War Crimes in Syria - http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60278
Syrian regime collusion with ISIS - http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60521

SIGNYM

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 5:53 AM

Quote:
HRW have recorded a greater number of confirmed chemical attacks

HRW "reported" on a massacre in Benghazi under Qaddafi which never occurred. It was full of horrifying vignettes, like the six-year old girl who was on a second-story balcony when a tank veered too close, clipped the support post, and caused the little girl to tumble down onto the street where she was crushed under the tank tread. Stories of civilians being "massacred" en masse. Too bad it was false.

Quote:
[Gaddafi’s] forces certainly harmed innocents while defeating rebels in urban areas, as U.S. forces have done in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he did threaten "no mercy" in Benghazi, but Gadhafi directed this threat only at rebels to persuade them to flee. Despite ubiquitous cellphone cameras, there are no images of genocidal violence, a claim that smacks of rebel propaganda.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/07/was-there-going-to-be-a-benghazi-
massacre/

The discrepancy between what HRW reported and the real truth behind was, for me, shocking. I'll give you another example: Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" reporting ONLY from the "rebel" side in Libya. Didn't the reporters realize that they were embedded with a bunch of jihadists? I can give you other examples of the bias that they demonstrate, but I'll save if for another day. But I now disbelieve ANYthing that the supposedly neutral "human rights" organizations "report".

Back to HRW: It allies itself with rendition and "regime change" policies of the Obama administration, no matter WHICH human rights were being violated.

Quote:
So why has Human Rights Watch (HRW)—despite proclaiming itself “one of the world’s leading independent organizations” on human rights—so consistently paralleled U.S. positions and policies? This affinity for the U.S. government agenda is not limited to Latin America. In the summer of 2013, for example, when the prospect of a unilateral U.S. missile strike on Syria— a clear violation of the UN Charter—loomed large, HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth speculated as to whether a simply “symbolic” bombing would be sufficient. “If Obama decides to strike Syria, will he settle for symbolism or do something that will help protect civilians?” he asked on Twitter. Executive director of MIT’s Center for International Studies John Tirman swiftly denounced the tweet as “possibly the most ignorant and irresponsible statement ever by a major human-rights advocate.”

HRW’s accommodation to U.S. policy has also extended to renditions—the illegal practice of kidnapping and transporting suspects around the planet to be interrogated and often tortured in allied countries. In early 2009, when it was reported that the newly elected Obama administration was leaving this program intact, HRW’s then Washington advocacy director Tom Malinowski argued that “under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place” for renditions, and encouraged patience: “they want to design a system that doesn’t result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured,” he said, “but designing that system is going to take some time.”

https://nacla.org/article/hypocrisy-human-rights-watch

One of the reasons for the huge policy crossover between neocons and HRW is the revolving door between them, and international corporations.

Quote:
Malinowski’s background is but one example of a larger scenario. HRW’s institutional culture is shaped by its leadership’s intimate links to various arms of the U.S. government.

In her HRW biography, the vice chair of HRW’s board of directors, Susan Manilow, describes herself as “a longtime friend to Bill Clinton,” and helped manage his campaign finances. (HRW once signed a letter to Clinton advocating the prosecution of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes; HRW made no case for holding Clinton accountable for NATO’s civilian-killing bombings despite concluding that they constituted “violations of internationa

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6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, April 18, 2018 10:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I hear there's some WMDs in Iraq.

Did you miss the part where the UN blamed the Assad regime for 27 chemical attacks? Is the UN part of the conspiracy? The OPCW and HRW (whom kiki is citing)? Amnesty International?

I don't trust what our own government has to say about things that happen within our own borders. I give whatever the UN has to say about anything 50/50 at best.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying that there is no reason for me to believe one way or the other. There's certainly not enough reason for me to believe that we should be involved at all.

We've got no business over there or anywhere else. None. I'd say the same thing if I believed 100% that any of this were true.

Quote:

Emphasis on the "Opinion" part.

I'd say the article falls more accurately under "analysis" - http://thespeaker.co/difference-news-opinion-analysis/

But you're right, there's a lot of "speculation" involved in analysing the strategy of a mass-murderer.

"You'd say", huh? You're entitled to your own opinion as well.

I just noticed I missed the byline underneath the sub-title of the article you linked where the author calls himself a "Opinion Contributor".

That's twice in the same article that he uses that title (or usnews.com uses it for him).

Those two words have the highest probability of anything on that web page given that they are 100% true. I actually applaud their honesty about that. The state of affairs in our own country might be a lot better if the talking heads at the 24 hour news networks on both sides had those words tattooed on their foreheads backwards as a constant reminder that this is all they are while they're riling everyone up and pocketing their millions of dollars per year they're being paid to do it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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