On April 14th, shortly after the United Kingdom, United States and France bombed the sovereign country of Syria, on the basis of unproven allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Douma on 7th April, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May made the following comment in her official statement:
“Together we have hit a specific and limited set of targets. They were a chemical weapons storage and production facility, a key chemical weapons research centre and a military bunker involved in chemical weapons attacks. Hitting these targets with the force that we have deployed will significantly degrade the Syrian Regime’s ability to research, develop and deploy chemical weapons” [my emphasis].
It seemed to me when I heard these words – and the passage of time has not altered this impression – that Mrs May was admitting to one of two actions, either of which ought to see her removed from office.
If we take her statement at face value, then it appears that she authorised a cruise missile strike on a number of depots that she believed contained chemical weapons, thus risking the dispersion of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. It hardly needs to be spelled out what this could have led to, especially as some of these sites were close to residential areas.
On the other hand, if she authorised the bombing of these facilities knowing full well that they did not contain chemical weapons, then her public statement made after the bombing was false.
There really are no other options. Either she believed that these facilities contained chemical weapons, in which case her authorisation of the bombing of them was a deeply reckless and irresponsible act, which could have had horrendous consequences for the people near those locations. Or she knew that they did not in fact contain chemical weapons, in which case her statement was deliberately misleading.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been investigating one of the bombed sites, Barzah, and has so far found no evidence of chemical weapons.
But let’s say that you don’t take their word for this. Fine, but you are then faced with two problems:
Firstly, the OPCW, in a report published on 23rd March, just three weeks before the US, UK and French strikes on Syria, stated that their inspectors had found no evidence of chemical weapons at the Barzah site when they last inspected it back in late November:
“In accordance with paragraph 11 of Council decision EC-83/DEC.5, the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities of the SSRC was concluded on 22 November 2017. The results of the inspections were reported as an addendum (EC-87/DG.15/Add.1, dated 28 February 2018) to the report entitled “Status of Implementation of Executive Council Decision EC-83/DEC.5 (dated 11 November 2016)” (EC-87/DG.15, dated 23 February 2018). The analysis of samples taken during the inspections did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples, and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention [Chemical Weapons Convention] during the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities.”
But the second problem you have is this: If the Russian MoD is wrong, or spreading false information, and the OPCW has now found evidence of chemical weapons at Barzah, this would only go to show that Theresa May, along with her US and French counterparts, recklessly bombed a chemical weapons facility, without any certainty that it would not result in catastrophic consequences for people in the neighbourhood.
Unless of course someone can come up with a scenario whereby cruise missiles can be dropped “safely” on a chemical weapons depot with a guarantee that the toxic substances held there would not become a danger to people in the surrounding neighbourhoods.
So its as simple as this: If the OPCW report of 23rd March, and the Russian MoD claims made on 25th April are true, then Theresa May misled the public when she claimed that the missiles she authorised had targeted and hit chemical weapons facilities. If the OPCW report of 23rd March, and the Russian MoD claims made on 25th April are false, then Theresa May knowingly authorised the targeting of chemical weapons storage facilities, which could have had catastrophic consequences for innocent people.
Here’s the question that someone in Parliament needs to ask her:
“Prime Minister, on April 14th you authorised the bombing of three sites in Syria, which you claimed were developing and storing chemical weapons. Had this action caused the release of toxic substances into the atmosphere, would you have taken full responsibility for any resulting fatalities in the area?”
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari has once again reiterated Damascus’ adherence to the pre-June 1967 line, re-establishing borders from before the Six Day War, stressing that the country’s sovereign right on the occupied Golan Heights is non-negotiable, and the territory captured by the Zionist entity should be completely restored.
During a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East situation, the UN envoy said some UNSC member-states have opted for a selective approach and the double standards policy, indulging in empty talk about international law, human rights, and the inalienable principles of the UN Charter.
At the same time, these member states turn a blind eye to the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, al-Jaafari said.
“Where have those states and their talk about counterterrorism and the international humanitarian law been when Syrian citizens were arrested and arbitrarily taken to Israeli jails, just as what happened to Sudqi al-Maqt, who was re-arrested because of his audio and video documentation of the close cooperation between the Israeli occupation forces and the Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organizations,” al-Jaafari said during the meeting.
He proceeded to say that the United States has always protected the Zionist entity, granting it immunity, despite the fact that Tel Aviv has consistently violated UNSC resolutions, demanding that the pre-June 1967 status quo be restored.
The Syrian official also denounced Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, recalling the recent developments in Gaza and the West Bank.
Concluding his speech, the UN representative called on the UNSC to take urgent measures against the occupation regime, demand that it stop its aggression and force Tel Aviv to abide by resolutions 242, 338, and 497, stipulating the liberation of Arab territories from its occupation, including the Golan Heights, withdrawing to the pre-June 1967 line.
Iran’s envoy to the United Nations says the Israeli regime has proven its “rogue” nature by adopting “expansionist, aggressive and apartheid” policies that are the root cause of all conflicts in the Middle East region.
“Indeed, Israel is a rogue regime, by definition – this is an undeniable fact for the international community, except for those who believe illegal occupation, illegal settlements, apartheid, siege, and regular attacks of mass murder are the legitimate actions of a regime that proclaims itself as the only democracy in the Middle East,” Gholamali Khoshroo said in a statement addressed to the UN Security Council on Thursday.
Khoshroo criticized the United States and other members of the council for granting Israel a sense of “exceptionalism” that has allowed Tel Aviv to constantly undermine peace in the region without ever having to worry about the consequences.
“The impunity this regime has enjoyed for so long wouldn’t have been possible without the help it receives from the US and certain interest groups,” he added.
The statement followed a series of military threats by Israeli officials against various countries in the region– including Iran and Syria– which have gone unnoticed by the UN Security Council.
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli minister of military affairs Avigdor Liberman hurled an unprovoked threat towards Iran, telling Arabic-language, Saudi-owned news website Elaph that “if Iran attacks Tel Aviv, we will hit Tehran.”
On April 9, Israeli leaders proudly announced that they had conducted a missile attack against the T-4 airbase in Syria’s Homs province, where Iranian and Russian military advisors were stationed on a mission to assist Syrian military forces in the war against Daesh and other foreign-backed militants.
The attack killed more than a dozen people, including seven Iranian military advisors. Israeli officials have made it clear that they would not refrain from orchestrating similar attacks in future.
“Every outpost in which we see Iran positioning militarily in Syria, we will destroy, and we will not allow this no matter what the price,” Lieberman told Elaph.
Israel’s ‘grave mistake’
The blatant threat drew a response from Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri, who said Friday morning that the attack on T-4 was nothing but small “fireworks” that were never going to stop Iran’s influence in the region.
Baqeri also downplayed reports that some regional countries were joining forces with Israel to form a front against Iran.
“If they (Israelis) think that these childish actions and coalitions will help them continue their disgraceful lives, they are gravely mistaken,” he said, noting that the future was looking “bright and clear” although there were a few bumps on the road as well.
Israel’s ‘mass murder’ in Gaza
In his statement, Khoshroo also pointed to Israel’s deadly crackdown on anti-occupation protests in the Gaza Strip and said Iran ” reaffirms its solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
Protests along the Gaza fence since March 30 have led to clashes with Israeli forces, who have killed at least 38 Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.
The rally, dubbed the “Great March of Return,” will last until May 15, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Israel was created.
Calling the violence “planned and deliberate,” the Iranian envoy said, “Those who support and enable the Israeli regime to commit these types of crimes have also the Palestinians’ blood on their hands.”
President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, on Thursday voiced rejection of the joint statement by the United Nations and the European Union issued yesterday at the Brussels conference on the displaced Syrians’ crisis.
“The content of the joint statement by the UN and the EU contradicts the state’s sovereignty and endangers Lebanon,” President Aoun said in a statement released by the Presidency of the Republic.
Aoun rejected the content of the joint statement including phrases ‘voluntary return,’ ‘temporary return,’ ‘will to stay,’ and ‘integration in the labor market’ and other terms which contradict the Lebanese state’s sovereignty and laws.
Aoun brought to attention that Lebanon has dealt with the Syrian displacement predicament on the basis of brotherly relations and humanitarian obligation, emphasizing that the only viable solution to the crisis was the safe and dignified return of the displaced Syrians “to the possible areas inside Syria… notably that many Syrian areas have become safe.”
Aoun stressed that Lebanon adheres to a political solution in Syria and the restoration of stability in a way that preserves Syria’s unity and ends the suffering of its people.
Russia’s envoy to the OPCW said it was crucial to avoid new false-flag attacks in Syria and that Moscow “won’t allow” US military action there, as he described details of Russian findings on the site of the alleged Douma incident.
New false-flag operations against Damascus are “possible, since our American partners are once again threatening to take military action against Syria, but we will not allow that,” Russia’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Aleksandr Shulgin, said during a press conference in The Hague on Thursday.
The meeting was called by Russia’s OPCW mission and featured witnesses of the April 7 alleged chemical incident in the city of Douma. It highlighted the findings of Russian military experts, who were among the first to reach the site of the purported attack and locate the “munitions” that supposedly hit the residential buildings.
“Russian experts performed a detailed analysis of the information on the ground,” Major-General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection (RKhBZ) Troops, said. “Two gas cylinders, allegedly dropped by the government forces from helicopters, were found in two apartments.”
The cylinders and the damage they supposedly caused did not fit the tale of an airstrike entirely, Kirillov said. One of the cylinders lacked any makeshift upgrades, such as fins, to make it usable as an aerial munition, and, surprisingly, it was not even deformed.
“An empty gas cylinder found at the top floor. The apartment was partially destroyed earlier by an aerial bomb explosion, parts of roof and outer wall were missing,” Kirillov stated. “Other walls were sprayed with shrapnel. It’s quite peculiar that the cylinder was not deformed, which doesn’t fit its purported fall from a big altitude on concrete floor.”
The other cylinder, while fitted with some crude fins, also remained in nearly pristine condition despite its “fall.” The device miraculously did little to no damage to the room it supposedly hit, besides a large hole in the ceiling, which, however, was unlikely made by the object, according to military specialists.
“The cylinder has partially retained impermeability and is almost undamaged, which is impossible after a fall from some 2,000 meters, the usual altitude used by the Syrian army helicopters,” Kirillov said. “A tail part of an unguided rocket has been uncovered on the roof near the gap in the ceiling. The munition was likely to make the hole, but we cannot rule out an artificial nature of the damage made to the roof, since we discovered a pinch bar at the stairwell of the building.”
The cylinder was likely hauled by the “authors of the staged video” from outside, the official stated, as “multiple chips and dragging marks at the stairwell” indicated. An apartment below was being used by its owner to breed chickens, and all the livestock miraculously “made through the so-called chemical attack alive,” according to Kirillov.
“Moreover, the RKhBZ troops have uncovered a booby-trapped chemical laboratory and chemical stockpile in the city of Douma, which was liberated from the militants. They’ve been presumably used by the terrorists to manufacture toxic substances,” the official said, adding that a chlorine-filled canister that was very similar to the purported munitions used during the Douma incident was recovered from the militant-run warehouse. OPCW-controlled substances, which can be used to produce mustard gas, have been also found there.
The Douma incident was featured in videos released by the controversial White Helmets group and spread through militant-linked social media accounts. It was seemingly taken at face value by the US and its allies, who promptly pinned the blame on Damascus and launched a massive missile strike on the country in “retaliation” on April 14. The attack came hours before the OPCW experts were set to embark on their fact-finding mission in Douma.
The experts have already visited the site of the purported incident. Shulgin, meanwhile, called on the OPCW to visit the chemical laboratories left behind by the militants to see for themselves who is actually behind the use of chemical arms in Syria.
“We urge the OPCW technical secretariat and experts to make use of their time in Syria and examine the undercover underground chemical laboratories of the militants, the terrorists, who used them, as we believe, to produce chemical munitions, including those used for all kinds of false flag attacks,” Shulgin stressed.
SEATTLE – US authorities are combing through the premises of the seized Russian Consul General residence in Seattle, and regular police officers have been removed from the site, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Thursday.
The officials, wearing plain clothes, were seen moving in and out of the shuttered residence and walking around the outside of the property.
One vehicle is parked on the premises, while another is parked outside behind the building.
Throughout the day, several vehicles arrived and departed from the residence, as various authorities arrived to tour the property. It was unclear exactly exactly what they were doing.
Three police officers who were stationed at the residence’s gates on Wednesday — two at the front and one at the back — have been removed, and no law enforcement officers are currently on the site.
The Russian flag continues to fly over the building.
For the first time since Russian diplomats left Seattle on Tuesday, a trash truck came to pick up rubbish from the neighborhood dumpsters, including from one located outside the residence.
The dumpsters have been attracting local journalists, who were seen examining garbage bags left behind by the Russian diplomats. Many posted pictures of their finds on social media, detailing the contents of the trash, which included shredded paper and leftover food.
On Wednesday, US officials came to the closed residence of the Russian Consul General in Seattle, opened the gates and entered the building after breaking all the locks. Commenting on the move, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Twitter that it was not intrusion but a legal action in response to “Russia’s continuing, outrageous behavior.” The diplomat added that the US officials entered the residence to ensure that it had been cleared.
Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that Washington grossly violated international legal norms at the residence and called the actions surrounding the seizure of the property “outrageous and unprecedented.”
Zakharova reiterated that Moscow insists on the return of all six diplomatic facilities “illegally seized by the US authorities” over the last two years.
The diplomat added that if the incident had been caused by legal issues, then the United States should provide the details of the law that was used to justify the seizure of the Russian property.
A representative of the Russian ministry warned that if the United States considers its actions at the residence of the Russian Consul General a “lawful response,” then maybe Russian officials should also “visit” their US partners.
On March 26, US President Donald Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and the closure of the Russian Consulate in Seattle by April 2 over claims that Moscow played a role in the poisoning of an ex-spy in Salisbury, allegations which Russia strongly denies.
Jonathan Freedland’s ‘committed denialists and conspiracists’, and Paul Mason’s victims of Putin’s ‘global strategy’ clutching at ‘false flag theories’, presumably include Lord West, former First Sea Lord and Chief of Defence Intelligence. In an interview with the BBC, West commented:
President Assad is in the process of winning this civil war. And he was about to take over and occupy Douma, all that area. He’d had a long, long, hard slog, slowly capturing that whole area of the city. And then, just before he goes in and takes it all over, apparently he decides to have a chemical attack. It just doesn’t ring true.
It seems extraordinary, because clearly he would know that there’s likely to be a response from the allies – what benefit is there for his military? Most of the rebel fighters, this disparate group of Islamists, had withdrawn; there were a few women and children left around. What benefit was there militarily in doing what he did? I find that extraordinary. Whereas we know that, in the past, some of the Islamic groups have used chemicals [see here], and of course there would be huge benefit in them labelling an attack as coming from Assad, because they would guess, quite rightly, that there’d be a response from the US, as there was last time, and possibly from the UK and France…
We do know that the reports that came from there were from the White Helmets – who, let’s face it, are not neutrals [see here]; you know, they’re very much on the side of the disparate groups who are fighting Assad – and also the World Health Organisation doctors who are there. And again, those doctors are embedded in amongst the groups – doing fantastic work, I know – but they’re not neutral. And I am just a little bit concerned, because as we now move to the next phase of this war, if I were advising some of the Islamist groups – many of whom are worse than Daish – I would say: “Look, we’ve got to wait until there’s another attack by Assad’s forces – particularly if they have a helicopter overhead, or something like that, and they’re dropping barrel bombs – and we must set off some chlorine because we’ll get the next attack from the allies….” And it is the only way they’ve got, actually, of stopping the inevitable victory of Assad.
Another senior military figure, Major General Jonathan Shaw, former commander of British forces in Iraq (his responsibilities have included chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear policy), was shut down by a Sky News journalist 30 seconds after he started saying the wrong thing:
The debate that seems to be missing from this… was what possible motive might have triggered Syria to launch a chemical attack at this time in this place? You know, the Syrians are winning… Don’t take my word for it. Take the American military’s word. General Vergel [sic – Votel], the head of Centcom – he said to Congress the other day, “Assad has won this war, and we need to face that”.
Then you’ve got last week the statement by Trump – or tweet by Trump – that America has finished with ISIL and we were going to pull out soon, very soon.
And then suddenly you get this…
At which point Shaw’s sound was cut and the interview terminated. Peter Hitchens asked:
Can anyone tell me what was so urgent on Sky News, which made it necessary to cut this distinguished general off in mid-sentence?
Sky News gave their version of events here, claiming they had to take an ad break.
Also taking a more cautious view than Tisdall, Freedland, Rawnsley, Lucas, Mendoza, Monbiot, Mason and the Guardian editors (see Part 1), is James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, the US Secretary of Defence, who said:
I believe there was a chemical attack and we are looking for the actual evidence.
Only ‘looking’ for actual evidence?
As each day goes by — as you know, it is a non-persistent gas — so it becomes more and more difficult to confirm it.
The evidence clearly, then, had not yet been found and the claims had not yet been confirmed.
Peter Ford, former British ambassador to Syria, voiced scepticism:
The Americans have failed to produce any evidence beyond what they call newspaper reports and social media, whereas Western journalists who have been in Douma [see below] and produced testimony from witnesses – from medics with names so they can be checked – to the effect that the Syrian version is correct.
Before Trump’s latest attack, Scott Ritter, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, made the point that mattered:
The bottom line, however, is that the United States is threatening to go to war in Syria over allegations of chemical weapons usage for which no factual evidence has been provided. This act is occurring even as the possibility remains that verifiable forensic investigations would, at a minimum, confirm the presence of chemical weapons…
Even a BBC journalist managed some short-lived scepticism. Riam Dalati tweeted:
Sick and tired of activists and rebels using corpses of dead children to stage emotive scenes for Western consumption.
Then they wonder why some serious journos are questioning part of the narrative.
For the FCO, I lived and worked in several actual dictatorships. The open bias of their media presenters and the tone of their propaganda operations was – always – less hysterical than the current output of the BBC. The facade is not crumbling, it’s tumbling.
Robert Fisk – Hypoxia, Not Gas
Veteran Middle East journalist Robert Fisk visited Douma and reported his findings in the Independent. He spoke to a senior doctor who works in the clinic where victims of the alleged chemical attack had been brought for treatment. Dr Rahaibani told Fisk what had happened that night:
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.’
Not gas poisoning? Why was this not immediately headline news in the ‘mainstream’ press and on BBC News? In fact, almost throughout the ‘MSM’, it was quietly buried. The glaring exception was an article in The Times with the pejorative headline:
Critics leap on reporter Robert Fisk’s failure to find signs of gas attack
The piece suggested that there were big question marks over Fisk’s record:
Fisk is no stranger to controversy.
A list of Fisk’s ‘controversies’ followed. There was no mention that, among many accolades, the Arabic-speaking Fisk has won Amnesty International press awards three times, the Foreign Reporter of the Year award seven times and the Journalist of the Year award twice.
In an article published by openDemocracy, Philip Hammond, professor of media and communications at London South Bank University, observed that:
In seeking to close down such dissident thought, Times journalists are acting, not as neutral defenders of truth, but as partisan advocates for a particular understanding of the war.
A Guardianarticle by diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour and world affairs editor Julian Borger commented of Douma:
A group of reporters, many favoured by Moscow, were taken to the site on Monday. They either reported that no weapon attack had occurred or that the victims had been misled by the White Helmets civilian defence force into mistaking a choking effect caused by dust clouds for a chemical attack.’
Not only was Fisk not mentioned by name, he was lumped in with reporters ‘favoured by Moscow’. Jonathan Cook’s observation said it all:
They managed the difficult task of denigrating his account while ignoring the fact that he was ever there.
In The Intercept, columnist Mehdi Hasan wrote an impassioned open letter addressed to ‘those of you on the anti-war far left who have a soft spot for the dictator in Damascus: Have you lost your minds? Or have you no shame?’ The piece began:
Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists,
Sorry to interrupt: I know you’re very busy right now trying to convince yourselves, and the rest of us, that your hero couldn’t possibly have used chemical weapons to kill up to 70 people in rebel-held Douma on April 7. Maybe Robert Fisk’s mysterious doctor has it right — and maybe the hundreds of survivors and eyewitnesses to the attack are all “crisis actors.”
So, Fisk’s evidence with its ‘mysterious doctor’ was clearly worthless, something shameless ‘apologists’ were using to try and convince themselves of an absurdity. Hasan named no other names, but readers could guess from the many smear pieces in The Times, Huffington Post, on the BBC, and spread by the likes of Oliver Kamm, George Monbiot and Alan Mendoza.
Hasan portrayed Assad as a satanic figure while the US and its allies – countries that have sent 15,000 high-tech anti-tank missiles, as well as billions of dollars of other weapons and training to fighters in Syria – are mere ‘meddlers’. The jihadists are ‘rebels’ (a generally noble term), not fanatical invaders from Libya and Iraq. Hasan referenced biased sources including Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, Martin Chulov of the Guardian, and the White Helmets.
The Intercept’s co-editor, Glenn Greenwald, defended the piece:
There is a meaningful debate to be had on Syria and, as I’ve said before, most media outlets (including us) have been quite one-sided about it. That said, Mehdi’s article, well-documented though it was, didn’t name anyone who guilty of loving Assad so I’m not sure who is offended
Mehdi’s article, well-documented though it was, didn’t name anyone. That’s the problem. Hasan’s article arrives in the context of a cross-spectrum, name-and-shame smear campaign making similar points
Political analyst Ian Sinclair declared Hasan’s article a ‘Necessary and important piece’.
It certainly wasn’t ‘necessary’ to damn Assad yet again – the world’s corporate media have been packed with news and comment pieces doing exactly that for years. As for the need to expose left ‘apologists’ – as we have seen, corporate media are currently mounting a fierce campaign targeting leftist university academics, apparently with the intention of getting them fired.
The question of importance is less clear-cut. The piece will, of course, have no effect whatsoever on Assad, whom Western ‘apologists’ on ‘the anti-war far left’ would be powerless to influence even if they came round to Hasan’s view. On the other hand, as a purported ‘leftist’, Hasan’s piece is important as ammunition for foreign policy warmongers, neocons and others. Thus, Jonathan Freedland tweeted:
To all those who have been trying to persuade me that the Assad government is simply maintaining order, please read this excellent article by @mehdirhasan #Syria’
Is this atrocity denial really necessary?” Well said by Mehdi on the extraordinary, scandalous spectacle of people purporting to be anti-imperialists while denying the crimes of Assad.
Hasan, of course, knew his article would receive this kind of favourable attention, and he has form in reaching out to this audience. In 2010, whilst senior political editor at the New Statesman, he wrote a letter offering his services to Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre:
I have always admired the paper’s passion, rigour, boldness and, of course, news values. I believe the Mail has a vitally important role to play in the national debate, and I admire your relentless focus on the need for integrity and morality in public life, and your outspoken defence of faith, and Christian culture, in the face of attacks from militant atheists and secularists. I also believe… that I could be a fresh and passionate, not to mention polemical and contrarian, voice on the comment and feature pages of your award-winning newspaper.
For the record, I am not a Labour tribalist and am often ultra-critical of the left – especially on social and moral issues, where my fellow leftists and liberals have lost touch with their own traditions and with the great British public… I could therefore write pieces for the Mail critical of Labour and the left, from “inside” Labour and the left (as the senior political editor at the New Statesman).
Because, as we all know, being ‘ultra-critical’ of the left ‘from “inside” Labour and the left’ – for example, asking ‘the anti-war far left who have a soft spot for the dictator in Damascus: Have you lost your minds? Or have you no shame?’ – carries enormous weight.
In his piece for The Intercept, Hasan commented:
And, look, we can argue over whether or not to support… regime change in Damascus (I don’t).
I want Assad gone and I believe him to be a brutal and corrupt dictator.
Hasan’s angry mockery of doubters on Douma is ironic indeed, given his own record on Libya. At a crucial time in March 2011, with NATO jets bombing Gaddafi’s troops, Hasan commented:
The innocent people of Benghazi deserve protection from Gaddafi’s murderous wrath.
The reality, as we saw in Part 1, is that the claim was ‘not supported by the available evidence’.
Fisk’s account, irrationally scorned by Hasan, was backed by on-the-ground testimony from reporter Pearson Sharp from One America News Network:
Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighbourhood said that they had seen anything, or heard anything, about a chemical attack on that day… they didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.
As far as we could tell, there was nothing on the flagship BBC News at Six and Ten about any of this testimony from doctors and residents claiming that there was no evidence of a chemical attack in Douma on April 7.
It is shocking that the BBC ignored evidence supplied from Syria by Fisk – one of Britain’s finest journalists – when it has cited hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times evidence supplied by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is run by a clothes shop owner in Coventry who supports regime change in Syria.
On BBC News at Ten on April 15, presenter Mishal Husain, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and political editor Laura Kuenssberg discussed the missile strikes on Syria and the political fallout here at home. There was no mention that the strikes had taken place just as OPCW inspectors had arrived in Damascus. Nor was there any discussion of expert opinion from international lawyers contradicting the government’s assertion that the attacks were legal. A group of international law experts warned:
We are practitioners and professors of international law. Under international law, military strikes by the United States of America and its allies against the Syrian Arab Republic, unless conducted in self-defense or with United Nations Security Council approval, are illegal and constitute acts of aggression.
Meanwhile, the BBC joined the McCarthyite witch-hunt against anyone challenging the official narrative. In a piece titled, ‘Syria war: The online activists pushing conspiracy theories’, an anonymous BBC journalist commented:
Despite the uncertainty about what happened in Douma, a cluster of influential social media activists is certain that it knows what occurred.
Of course, the irony is that an incomparably bigger and better funded ‘cluster of influential’ state-corporate media has been vociferously claiming certainty about what is happening in Syria; not least 100% conviction of Assad’s guilt for a string of chemical weapon attacks.
We have no idea who was responsible for the event in Douma – we don’t know even if there was a chemical weapons attack. Our point is not that credible, sceptical voices are right, but that they should be heard.
On April 12, novelist Malcolm Pryce sent us this poignant tweet:
I remember in the run-up to the Iraq War a friend I had known all my life suddenly said to me, “We must do something about this monster in Iraq.” I said, “When did you first think that?” He answered honestly, “A month ago”.’
This is the power of the corporate media to shape the public mind it is supposed to serve.
But to achieve this effect, it must present a black and white view of the world – ‘we’ are ‘good’, ‘they’ are ‘bad’; ‘we’ are ‘certain’, ‘they’ are morally bewildered ‘apologists’. When reality threatens to get in the way, when there is no choice, an increasingly extreme ‘mainstream’ will resort to deception in plain sight.
Hungary’s decision to fund the construction of a hospital in Syria and its calls for the European Union (EU) to rebuild the war-torn country instead of encouraging migration have been met with support from the Syrian government, according to a governmental source in Damascus.
The Syrian government backs Budapest’s approach to handling and ending the migrant crisis, a source in the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) told Sputnik reporter and columnist Suliman Mulhem on Thursday.
“We fully support Hungary’s efforts and approach to helping Syrian migrants return home, instead of destabilizing Syria with sanctions and encouraging Syrians to flee to Europe, as the EU has done,” the source told Sputnik on the condition of anonymity.
He also called on the EU and the US to lift economic sanctions against Syria, which have exacerbated the economic turmoil the Arab state is facing and worsened living conditions in government-held territory.
When asked for his thoughts on Hungary’s anti-immigrant stance, he said they should be allowed to choose who can enter and settle in their country.
“Who they [the Hungarian government] let into Hungary is a domestic matter for them to independently decide on, as any other nation is entitled to do. Even in Syria, although we are continuing to house and allow some migrants to enter, from Sudan for example, we have rules and regulations, not a lawless border.”
Hungary’s pledge of US$5 million to finance the construction of a hospital in Syria was made by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó on Wednesday, at a Syria donor conference in Brussels.
He suggested such financial aid offers a long-term solution to the migrant crisis.
“The situation in Syria and its resolution cannot be separated from the migration crisis that is affecting Europe in view of the fact that the conflicts in the region are one of the main causes of it,” he said during a press conference on April 25.
“European Union migration policy needs a fundamental change of direction. Instead of encouraging people to come to Europe, the EU should be concentrating on stopping the causes of migration and on taking assistance to where it is needed to enable people to remain at home or in the vicinity of their homes,” the minister insisted.
As the Syrian Army continues to dislodge terrorists from cities and towns across the country, the Syrian government is examining the herculean task of nationwide post-war reconstruction and creating the necessary conditions to allow Syrians to return home from Europe and countries neighboring Syria, particularly Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
The US and a number of EU member states have suggested that they would only lift economic sanctions and provide Syria with financial aid if President Bashar al-Assad leaves office.
President Assad has refused to allow external forces to dictate or influence Syrian politics, and said his future can only be decided by the “ballot box.”
Ha’aretzreports that a man who knocked over about 120 headstones at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis last year doesn’t seem to have been motivated by hatred or antisemitism.
The article reports that Alzado Harris said “he acted alone, was angry over a personal matter and was under the influence of drugs when he committed the offense.” According to the article, “The fact that the cemetery was Jewish appeared to be coincidental.”
“The crime occurred at about the same time Jewish centers across the country received bomb threats,” Ha’aretz reports. The bomb threats subsequently turned out to be hoaxes by an Israeli teen. Some others were hoaxes by a man trying to get his girlfriend in trouble. Neither appear to have been motivated by antisemitism.
Police said, “There is no evidence that the crime was racially, ethnically or religiously motivated,” according to a local TV news report.
These incidents largely account for the alleged “rise in anti-Semitism” that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has reported, and that media repeat without question. Many of the other alleged “antisemitic” incidents concern actions on behalf of Palestinian human rights, which the ADL labels as antisemitism.
Reports of an alleged rise in antisemitism recently motivated the South Carolina legislature to pass bills against antisemitism. The legislation, however, codifies a new definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Israel. This definition is then to be applied to the state’s public colleges and universities, likely causing certain information to be censored. The bill has not yet been signed into law. Such bills have also been introduced in other states.
Ha’aretz reports that Harris’s toppling of the headstones in the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City in February 2017 “caused more than $30,000 in damage and drew widespread attention, with Vice President Mike Pence and Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens visiting in the days after it happened.”
The paper reports: “The Jewish Federation raised nearly $250,000 to restore the cemetery, and Tarek El-Messidi, a Muslim social justice advocate from Philadelphia, helped raise another $160,000. ”
St. Louis’sRiver Front Times reports that “Harris has a long criminal record with convictions for burglary, car theft, drug possession, forgery and misdemeanor assault.”
It is not known whether the ADL will now revise its statements about the alleged rise in antisemitism. Since antisemitism, like all bigotry, is abhorrent, many groups feel it is crucial that accusations about it be accurate. The ADL is increasingly coming under criticism for including the [hoax] bomb threats and Palestinian activism under that category.
Analysts have noted that the more antisemitism the ADL finds, the more donations it receives. Its net assets are approximately $100 million and its executive director’s annual compensation is over half a million dollars. A primary part of the ADL’s mission is to advocate for Israel.
ADL New York Region Celebrates Israel at 2017 NYC Parade.
The White House has had a hot new idea – to leave Syria but also stay there at the same time by deploying an Arab contingent to US military bases, primarily from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). So to Arabize one of the bloodiest wars of our time in keeping with the bitter memory of Vietnamization.
It seems that the plan was worked out during the almost month-long stay of Saudi Arabia’s defence minister, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in America. And the plan’s existence was announced on 17 April by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, during a joint press conference with the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Following the missile attack on Syria, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, reiterated that President Donald Trump still wants an early withdrawal of US troops from the country. The introduction of a Saudi contingent in their place seems to Washington to be in the interests of the United States. And the US government has not just suggested to Saudi Arabia that it replace the American contingent, but to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as well. They would take a back seat to the Saudis, however. There is also talk of these regimes providing money to rebuild Syria’s destroyed north. It seems they wouldn’t just be counting on military force, but on “buying” the local population as well.
It does raise a question, of course: have the Americans asked the Syrian government or its own allies – the Kurds and, at the very least, Turkey, Russia and Iran – about the desirability of such a replacement? No, of course they haven’t. Even while withdrawing, the US is unable to forget about its “exclusivity”. For many reasons, however, the idea of replacing Americans with Arabs is doomed to failure.
That Damascus will resolutely resist the proposed reoccupation of its territory by the forces of a “fraternal country” is obvious. It can only lead to more fighting and a rise in regional tensions. Almost as well-equipped as the Americans, the Saudis will never be a worthy opponent of the battle-hardened Syrian army. They have already shown what they’re capable of in the endless war in Yemen, where barefoot Houthis are inflicting one embarrassing defeat after another. Riyadh’s intention to fight a “decisive battle” against Iran on foreign soil will not be realised, either. With its ally Iraq behind it, Tehran would soon have the advantage.
All in all, not a single one of Syria’s neighbours is in favour of the arrival of Saudi troops to replace the Americans except Israel. Iraq is categorically against the idea, since it wants to avoid having to deal with an upsurge in fighting between Sunnis and Shi’ites on its borders. Turkey has no need for the Saudis either, because they would undermine its influence in the Ankara-controlled area of northern Syria. Suffice it to say that the nearly 30,000 troops now under Turkey’s wing from Eastern Ghouta, which was recently liberated by government troops, have been on Riyadh’s payroll for the entire war. Turkey has every reason to fear that Saudi Arabia will use these and other groups to assert its dominance over the area. Libya is also against the appearance of Saudi Arabia on the Syrian stage, fearing that clashes between Sunnis and Shi’ites will move to within its own borders. Even Jordan, which is dependent on Washington and London, is weary of the initiative. As a pragmatic politician, King Abdullah II of Jordan has a good idea of all the possible negative repercussions of such an undertaking.
The proposals have also been criticised by Egypt, which has completely ruled out its involvement in their realisation. Mohammad Rashad, a senior official in Egypt’s General Intelligence Directorate, expressed himself in no uncertain terms: “The Egyptian Armed Forces are not mercenaries and cannot be leased or ordered by foreign states to deploy in a certain area.” Rashad continued: “This is not acceptable. No one should dare to direct or give orders to Egypt’s army.” The statement is an indirect response to an appeal by the US president’s new national security advisor, John Bolton, to the head of Egypt’s intelligence services, Abbas Mustafa Kamil, inviting Cairo to be involved in the project.
Just as many problems await the Saudis in and around the area of their proposed location. To begin with, the Kurds from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who control the area with the help of the US will certainly not welcome their arrival. It would mean the Kurds giving up control of the local Arab population in favour of the incoming contingent and losing most of the power they have won. It is quite possible that the Americans are secretly pushing for a scenario in which, as well as Arabization, there will also be a “dekurdization” of northern Syria, but at someone else’s hands. Then it would seem as if they are not betraying the Kurds, while calming Arab national feelings and ironing out differences with the Turks at the same time. Don’t think that the Kurds will remain passive bystanders in this situation, however. Chances are they will occupy the vacated US bases and refuse to let anyone in. It is even possible they will finally realise that, in the current situation, the most sensible course of action to resolve the Kurdish national question would be an alliance with Damascus. For the time being, Damascus is prepared to extend the rights of Kurds, but should they find themselves on the losing side later on, their window of opportunity will gradually close.
And for Saudi Arabia, a direct clash with the Islamic State (IS), which, according to the official version, is the terrorist group that the Saudis must go to Syria to fight, could prove fatal. The truth is that many of the IS militants still fighting in Syria are mujahideen from Saudi Arabia and their ability to indoctrinate their fellow countrymen should not be underestimated. It could happen that any direct contact between the Saudi contingent and IS militants will eventually extend the latter’s influence to the Kingdom, something that the Islamic State has long dreamed of. In the countries of the Persian Gulf, there are already some who think it would perhaps be better to hire Sudanese nationals, Pakistanis or some other poor souls for the operation.
The new plan for America to save face in the Middle East is just as chimerical as all of America’s previous attempts at a global reorganisation of the region. The outcome of Arabization will not be any better than the outcome of Vietnamization was all those decades ago. And this will continue to be the case until Washington starts taking into account the positions of all interested parties, including Damascus.
There has still been no retraction or correction of The Guardian‘s demonstrably false and completely indefensible claim that two normal antiwar Twitter accounts were controlled not by real people but by bot programs based in Russia.
This is the sort of environment that has been created by the ongoing Russia panic that is plaguing the western world: one wherein mainstream news outlets can openly lie about dissenting voices and antiwar activists, refuse to retract or apologize for those lies, and suffer no consequences.
They’re using the highly stigmatized label “conspiracy theories” to paint healthy, normal skepticism of a notoriously untrustworthy power establishment as mentally unsound paranoia.
The other day I wrote an article about the shocking number of blatant attack editorials the mass media machine has been churning out on anyone who questions the establishment Syria narrative, and that output has not slowed down since. Warmongering empire loyalists like senior Huffington Post editor Chris York have been hard at work making sure the output of McCarthyite smear pieces remains on rapid fire, accusing anyone advocating skepticism of the same establishment which lied us into Iraq and Libya of being a tinfoil hat-wearing nut job.
This fits an established pattern which we have discussed previously, wherein proponents of US-led military intervention accuse those who question their narratives of being mentally unsound. There is a word for the tactic of convincing someone that they are crazy in order to manipulate and control them, and that word is gaslighting. It is a textbook abuse tactic, and it isn’t okay.
It isn’t okay for these war whore pundits to bully and deceive us so that we will feel unsure of the basis for our skepticism and consent to the longstanding western agenda of regime change in Syria. It isn’t okay for them to try to make people unsure of their mental health in order to pave the way toward public consent for broader bombing campaigns and no-fly zones in a sovereign nation under assault by western-backed jihadists. Never let anyone bully you into thinking that you are the strange, weird outlier for suspecting that a western empire who has sponsored actual, literal terrorist factions in Syria might lie about Iraq’s next-door neighbor like they lied about Iraq.
Doubting the official narrative being advanced by mainstream media is the sanest thing in the world. The US-centralized power establishment has an extensive and well-documented history of using lies, propaganda and false flags to manufacture public support for preexisting war agendas, so it is perfectly sane to express concern about the legitimacy of the stories we’re being told about Douma, the Skripal case, Russian hacking allegations etc. We’ve already got The Guardian lying unapologetically straight to our face right now about Russian bots while not one single mainstream editorial opposed the British, French and American bombing of Syria earlier this month, so it’s obviously very sane to think the mainstream media may be advancing the interests of this war like they do every other.
Intense, rigorous skepticism is the only sane response to these narratives we’re being pummeled with day in and day out, and they’re trying to make us believe that the exact opposite is true.
Ian Shilling, one of the two Twitter account owners falsely labeled a Russian bot by The Guardian, appeared on Sky News a few days ago to defend himself and debunk the claims made about him. It was a truly brilliant appearance, and despite the open hostility showed him by the two Murdoch muppets hosting the show he was able not just to defend himself but to use the space to attack the warmongering neoconservative agendas being advanced by the UK government. As a representative of the many many regular flesh-and-blood humans on Twitter who are routinely dismissed as “Russian bots” simply for questioning establishment narratives, Ian knocked it out of the park and then some. He not only proved his humanity, he proved his sanity.
With the benefit of hindsight and not having been the one in the crosshairs, however, there was one part I thought could be handled a little differently. At one point in the interview, Shilling was articulating exactly why it would make no sense for Assad to have used chemical weapons in Douma as he is accused of having done, and one of the Sky News hosts demanded to know “Well if not, who then?”
Shilling provided the entirely reasonable speculation that it would have been the terrorists occupying the area who had every incentive to stage such an attack, but in my opinion it isn’t necessary to even go that far. The burden of proof is on the party making the claim; it isn’t up to us to flesh out a positive narrative about what happened using the limited information and resources afforded to bloggers and tweeters, it’s up to the massive western power establishment to provide the kind of proof of their accusations that is required in a post-Iraq invasion world. This plainly has not happened.
You see this sneaky attempt to shift the burden of proof among empire loyalists all the time when debating such topics. A couple of months ago I wrote about how in a debate with Real News‘ Aaron Maté, John Feffer of Lobelog used the tactic of arguing that his belief in the still-unproven Russian hacking accusations arises from the absence of a better “counter-narrative” about what happened, the implication being that we should take the US intelligence community at their word unless presented with a more compelling case for what happened from somewhere else. We also saw it in the BBC’s recent interview of Lord West, whose skepticism of the establishment Douma narrative was met with protestations that he didn’t have any solid proof of anything else having happened than what we’ve been told by the western war machine.
Don’t let them shift the burden of proof like that. We can point out, in the case of Douma for example, that the area was crawling with known terrorists who had every incentive to stage such an attack and gain the benefit of the western empire’s air force bombing their sworn enemy over a crossed “red line”, but we should also point out that it isn’t our job to come up with a positive counter-narrative about what happened. The burden of proof is on the accuser, so it’s their job to present us with a very solid collection of evidence that the alleged chemical attack could only have been perpetrated by the Assad government. Until then, our position that these people lied to us about Libya and Iraq and have a longstanding agenda of regime change in Syria is sufficient to declare decisive victory in any debate.
Don’t let them shift the burden of proof, and don’t let them gaslight you. You have truth on your side, and their side has a whole, whole lot of work to do before they have enough substantial evidence to even debate you rationally. They use these deceitful tactics because they are losing the debate, and because war is very profitable and advantageous for a few very powerful individuals. That’s all that’s happening here.
A former Qatari detainee, accused by the US government of being involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks in 2001, says he had been tortured and abused during 13 years of incarceration on American soil.
Speaking for the first time after his release three years ago, Ali al-Marri said his FBI interrogators would restrain him using duct tape and subjecting him to what he described as “dry-boarding,” a torture technique which includes having socks stuffed down the throat.
“I have never experienced death, but I assume this is the nearest thing to dying,” he told the ITV News on Wednesday.
“You’re suffocating, you can see your life coming out of your face and you cannot even move,” he said.
The Qatari man alleged that threats were made to his wife and children while being held in solitary confinement.
“Threatening to sodomize me, threatening to rape my wife, threatening to bring in my kids, that’s torture. Threatening to send me to a black site, to become a military lab rat, choking me to near death. This is torture,” he said.
The former detainee also said he was subjected to sleep deprivation and forced nudity, among other extreme measures.
Al-Marri, who was in solitary confinement without charge for six years at a naval brig in South Carolina, said he was innocent and wanted his interrogators brought to account.
Al-Marri had traveled to the US with his wife and five children legally on 10 September 2001, the day before the attacks, to attend graduate school in Illinois.
He was initially charged with fraud based on information found on his computer, but the then-president George Bush declared him an “enemy combatant.”
Al-Marri has never answered the allegations. In 2009, he pleaded guilty in a civilian court to conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida and was jailed for 15 years, a sentence that took into account his previous captivity.
US government documents seen by ITV News said “On 11 March 2004, in response to al-Marri’s continuous chanting in Arabic, the lead interrogator wrapped duct tape over al-Marri’s mouth on three occasions.”
In a statement released to ITV News, the FBI said it “does not engage in torture and we maintain that rapport-building techniques are the most effective means of obtaining accurate information in an interrogation.”
Al-Marri was the only al-Qaeda-linked prisoner held outside the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison following the September 11 attacks.
His allegations of torture are supported by detention logs which are set to reignite the controversy over the US handling of al-Qaeda suspects.
US officials assert that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists but many experts have raised questions about the official account.
They believe that rogue elements within the US government, such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, orchestrated or at least encouraged the 9/11 attacks in order to accelerate the US war machine and advance the Zionist agenda.
In several cases, hundreds of victims’ relatives and injured survivors, along with insurance companies and businesses say, the Saudi government assisted the attacks through a variety of activities in support of al-Qaeda over a number of years.
Israel has authorised the use of electronic tracking devices on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, formalising real-time surveillance of civilians who have not been charged, tried or convicted of any crime, according to a new directive issued by the Israeli army.
The order allows Israeli authorities to compel Palestinians placed under administrative movement restrictions to wear or carry electronic monitoring devices and criminalises any attempt to tamper with them. The measure embeds electronic tagging within Israel’s system of military rule over the occupied territory, further expanding the regime of surveillance imposed on the Palestinian civilian population.
Significantly in another example of the Israel’s apartheid rule, defence minister, Israel Katz, has explicitly excluded illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank from the directive, underscoring the discriminatory nature of the policy and its application along ethnic and national lines. The order was issued following coordination between the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Security Agency, Israel Police, the Ministry of Justice and the military’s legal authorities responsible for the occupied West Bank.
Human rights observers note that the policy applies to civilians subjected to Israel’s system of administrative control, a framework that routinely denies Palestinians due process and relies on secret evidence. Palestinians placed under such measures often face severe movement restrictions, prolonged surveillance and the constant threat of detention without trial.
The new directive reflects what journalist and filmmaker Antony Loewenstein has described as Israel’s “Palestine Laboratory”, a system in which Palestinians are used as testing grounds for advanced military and surveillance technologies later exported abroad. In his work, Loewenstein argues that Israel exports not only weapons but a comprehensive model for controlling what it labels “difficult populations”, combining military force, mass surveillance and spatial domination.
This model is explored in Al Jazeera’s latest documentary How Israel tests military tech on Palestinians, part of The Palestine Laboratory series. The film documents how Israeli checkpoints function as experimental sites for so-called “frictionless” technologies, including AI-enabled remotely operated weapons that fire stun grenades, tear gas and sponge-tipped bullets. These systems are deployed at checkpoints where Palestinians are routinely subjected to intrusive searches and data collection. … continue
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President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, on Thursday voiced rejection of the joint statement by the United Nations and the European Union issued yesterday at the Brussels conference on the displaced Syrians’ crisis.
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