National Geographic rising sea level prophecy – cause for concern or absurd fairytale?
By Prof. Don J. Easterbrook | Watts Up With That? | September 25, 2013
The September issue of National Geographic shows sea level midway up the Statue of Liberty, 214 feet above present sea level (Fig. 1) and contains dire images of impending catastrophic sea level rise. Anthony’s excellent responses (http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=national+geographic) and
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/28/freaking-out-about-nyc-sea-level-rise-is-easy-to-do-when-you-dont-pay-attention-to-history/) have demonstrated the utter absurdity of the National Geographic portrayal.
Figure 1. Cover of October issue of National Geographic.
As Anthony points out, at the rate of sea level rise shown by tide gauge records since 1856 at The Battery 1.7 miles away, for sea level to reach that high up the Statue of Liberty would take 23,538 years!
But what about the other assertions in the National Geographic article, such as (1) many graphic images of that the future holds, (2) smaller, but still unreasonable sea level rise, (3) doomed cities (Miami and London gone), (4) flooded coastal areas (most of southern Florida submerged), (5) more frequent storm surge disasters due to sea level rise, and (6) various other catastrophic scenarios? Are any these cause for concern or are they also just unfounded, fear-mongering scenarios aimed at getting attention? Let’s look at some the contentions in the National Geographic scenarios.
1. “By releasing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, we have warmed the Earth by more than a full degree Fahrenheit over the past century and raised sea level by about eight inches. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, the existing greenhouse gases would continue to warm the Earth for centuries. We have irreversibly committed future generations to a hotter world and rising seas.”
2. “…the big concern for the future is the giant ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.” “If the Thwaites Glacier breaks free from its rocky berth, that would liberate enough ice to raise sea level by three meters—nearly ten feet.”
3. “by the time we get to the end of the 21st century, we could see sea-level rise of as much as six feet globally instead of two to three feet. Last year an expert panel convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adopted 6.6 feet (two meters) as its highest of four scenarios for 2100. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends that planners consider a high scenario of five feet.” “we’re already locked in to at least several feet of sea-level rise, and perhaps several dozens of feet”
4. “Inexorably rising oceans will gradually inundate low-lying areas” “By the next century, if not sooner, large numbers of people will have to abandon coastal areas in Florida and other parts of the world.” “With seas four feet higher than they are today—a distinct possibility by 2100—about two-thirds of southeastern Florida is inundated. The Florida Keys have almost vanished. Miami is an island.”
5. “A profoundly altered planet is what our fossil-fuel-driven civilization is creating, a planet where Sandy-scale flooding will become more common and more destructive for the world’s coastal cities.” “…higher seas will extend the ruinous reach of storm surges. The threat will never go away; it will only worsen. By the end of the century a hundred-year storm surge like Sandy’s might occur every decade or less.”
6. “…carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach around a thousand parts per million by the end of the century,” “According to the U.S. Geological Survey, sea level on an iceless Earth would be as much as 216 feet higher than it is today. It might take thousands of years and more than a thousand parts per million to create such a world—but if we burn all the fossil fuels, we will get there.”
7. “by 2070, 150 million people in the world’s large port cities will be at risk from coastal flooding, along with $35 trillion worth of property.”
These 7 statements are not as obviously ridiculous as the depiction of a 216 foot sea level rise at the Statue of Liberty, but all carry ominous consequences if true. Are any of these contentions realistic? Let’s consider real-time scientific data for each of them.
1. Has carbon dioxide warmed the Earth by more 1º F over the past century?
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas that makes up only 0.039% of the atmosphere, accounts for only 3.6% of the greenhouse effect, and has increased by only 0.009% since 1950. By itself, it is incapable of warming the climate by more than a fraction of a degree. With no physical evidence that CO2 causes significant atmospheric warming, the IPCC rely solely on computer models, but because the effect of CO2 is so small, they introduce an increase in water vapor (which is responsible for 95% of greenhouse warming), claiming that as CO2 goes up so does water vapor. For models to be valid, a real-world atmospheric water vapor must go up, but just the opposite is true—water vapor has gone down since 1947 (Fig. 2). Thus, climate models have been an utter failure (Fig. 3)
Figure 2. Declining atmospheric water Figure 3. Failure of climate models to match reality. vapor since 1947. Dark line is average temperature predictions of 44 models; red and blue lines are actual temperatures.
The National Geographic claims that CO2 has caused 1º F of warming this century. But CO2 didn’t begin to rise sharply until after 1945 so cannot have been a factor before then. Temperature data shows that 0.7° C of warming occurred from 1900 to 1945, before CO2 could have been the cause and while CO2 emissions soared from 1945 to 1977, global temperatures declined (just the opposite of what should have occurred if CO2 causes warming), and only 0.5°C warming from 1978 to present coincided with rising CO2 (and that is very likely coincidental).
Figure. 4. Temperature changes during the past century.
Much additional data showing the CO2 is of little significance in global warming is summarized in the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change 2013 report “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science.” This 1200 page report convincingly and systematically challenges IPCC claims that carbon dioxide is causing “dangerous” global warming and that IPCC computer models can be relied on for future climate forecasts.
Conclusions: National Geographic’s statement that CO2 caused 1º F of global warming this century is contrary to scientific evidence and is thus false.
2. “…the big concern for the future is the giant ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.” “If the Thwaites Glacier breaks free from its rocky berth, that would liberate enough ice to raise sea level by three meters—nearly ten feet.”
That this is not going to happen is shown by (1) there is no evidence that this has ever happened in the past and several factors insure that it won’t happen any time soon, (2) Antarctic glaciers are frozen to their base and move by internal flowage of ice, not by basal sliding, (3) these ice sheets lie in basins, and (4) the Greenland ice sheet is behaving just as it has in the geologic past and there is nothing unusual happening to it now.
Conclusion: The likelihood of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic sliding into the sea is essentially zero.
3. “by the time we get to the end of the 21st century, we could see sea-level rise of as much as six feet globally instead of two to three feet. Last year an expert panel convened by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) adopted 6.6 feet (two meters) as its highest of four scenarios for 2100. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends that planners consider a high scenario of five feet.” “we’re already locked in to at least several feet of sea-level rise, and perhaps several dozens of feet.”
How realistic are these predictions of sea level rise of six feet to several dozens of feet? To answer that, all we have to do is look at the sea level rise for the past century and compare it with the National Geographic projection. Sea level has risen 7 inches in the past century at a relatively constant rate of 1.7 mm/yr from 1900 to 2000 (Fig. 5) and has actually shown signs of decline in the past few years (Fig. 6).
Figure 5. Sea level rise of 1.7 mm/yr from 1900 to 2000. Figure 6. Sea level rise since 1993.
Figure 7. Sea level rise over the past century (lower left), sea level rise projected at this rate (black line, lower part of graph), and IPCC predicted sea level rise (red).
The difference between the sea level rise projected from actual rise over the past century and the catastrophic scenario of the National Geographic is 15 times the rate of sea level rise over the past century! Two questions immediately arise: (1) what is going to cause such accelerated sea level rise and (2) where is all the water going to come from? The accelerated rise is based on postulated accelerated warming but there has been no warming in the past 15 years (in fact, the climate has cooled during that time (Figure 8). So no climatic warming means no accelerated sea level rise as postulated by the National Geographic .
Figure 8. Cooling of -0.23°C per century over the past decade. (modified from Monckton, 2013)
In order to get the accelerated sea level rise postulated by National Geographic, much of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would have to melt. However the Antarctic ice cap is growing, not melting, and the Greenland ice cap was about the same size as at present during the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Morner (2011) has pointed out that, even during warming 20 times more intense than recent warming, melting of the massive Pleistocene ice sheets that covered vast areas resulted in sea level rise no greater than one meter per century. Thus, now that these great ice sheets are gone, there is no source of water for sea level rise even approaching one meter, so any prediction of sea level greater than that cannot be considered credible. The National Geographic scenario of the rate of sea level rise of six feet would require a rate of sea level rise of 20 mm/yr. in contrast to the rate of 1.7 mm over the past century.
Conclusion: These data demonstrate that the scenario painted by the National Geographic of very large rise of sea level by 2100 is contrary to all physical scientific data and therefore its credibility must be totally rejected.
4. “Inexorably rising oceans will gradually inundate low-lying areas” “By the next century, if not sooner, large numbers of people will have to abandon coastal areas in Florida and other parts of the world.” “With seas four feet higher than they are today—a distinct possibility by 2100—about two-thirds of southeastern Florida is inundated. The Florida Keys have almost vanished. Miami is an island.”
How credible is submergence of two thirds of Florida by 2100, leaving Miami as an island? Figure 9 shows that sea level rose 7 inches at a constant rate (2.24 mm/yr) during the past century at Key West (which is representative of southern Florida sea level rise). Projection of that rate to 2100 (Fig. 9) would result in a sea level rise of 6 inches by then. Contrast this with the National Geographic projected sea level rise of 21 mm/yr. What could possibly cause such a huge, sudden change in the rate of sea level rise? The answer is that it is not even close to being credible because (1) with no global warming in the past 17 years there is no reason for such a change, (2) there is no source of water–the East Antarctica ice sheet is not melting and Greenland has been warmer for thousands of years in the past without melting its ice sheet, (3) Antarctic sea ice is increasing, setting records, and (4) even during the rapid, intense melting of huge ice sheet at the end of the last Ice Age, sea level didn’t rise this fast. Continuation of sea level at the constant rate of the past century would result only in a sea level rise of about 3-4 inches per generation.
Figure 9. Sea level rise at Key West, Florida from tidal gauge records (Blue curve); sea level rise projected to 2100 at the rate over the past century; sea level rise postulated by National Geographic (red line).
Conclusion: The National Geographic projection that two thirds of Florida will be submerge by 2100 is contrary to data and lacks any possible mechanism to increase sea levels more than a few inches. The National Geographic scenario is therefore totally without any credibility.
5. Are the National Geographic statements “…higher seas will extend the ruinous reach of storm surges.” and “By the end of the century a hundred-year storm surge like Sandy’s might occur every decade or less.” credible?
There is no scientific evidence that storm frequency or intensity has increased over the past century. Figure 10 shows no increase in hurricane power dissipation index since 1900 and the US has experienced the longest period with no hurricanes making landfall (the Sandy storm was not strong enough to be considered a hurricane).
Figure 10. Hurricane index for the US since 1900.
Conclusion: The National Geographic conclusion that higher sea levels “higher seas will extend the ruinous reach of storm surges” is not credible because (1) sea level rise is too small to significantly affect storm surges, and (2) the hurricane strength index is now lower than it was earlier in the century.
6. “by 2070, 150 million people in the world’s large port cities will be at risk from coastal flooding, along with $35 trillion worth of property.”
As shown in the data presented above, none of the National Geographic sea level projections are even remotely believable and sea level projections based on tide gauge records for the past century indicate that sea level will most likely rise 4-6 inches by 2070.
Conclusion: The National Geographic contention that 150 million people and $35 trillion worth of property is nothing more than a fairytale, totally contrary to data that indicates that sea level will rise only a few inches by 2070.
7. “…carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach around a thousand parts per million by the end of the century,” “According to the U.S. Geological Survey, sea level on an iceless Earth would be as much as 216 feet higher than it is today. It might take thousands of years and more than a thousand parts per million to create such a world—but if we burn all the fossil fuels, we will get there.”
The National Geographic issue contains many elaborately constructed images under the header of “If all the ice melted,” depicting submergence of extensive coastal areas all over the world and contending that “if we burn all the fossil fuels, we will get there.” What’s wrong with this? For openers, it would require melting of the entire Antarctic ice sheet, the Greenland ice sheet, and all of the world’s ice caps and alpine glaciers. Is this possible? Considering the data presented above, it is, of course ridiculous with no trace of credibility. In addition, the Antarctic ice sheet has not melted in 15 million years, including during many interglacial periods when global temperatures were significantly higher than at present for thousands of years.
Summary of conclusions: From the evidence presented above, the obvious conclusion is that the National Geographic article is an absurd fairytale, completely unsupported by any real scientific data and directly contrary to a mountain of contrary evidence.
Related article
- Has National Geographic Sullied Its Reputation? (dddusmma.wordpress.com)
Obama at the UN
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | September 25, 2013
President Barak Obama said in the middle of his 40 minutes of lies and hypocrisy at the UNGA as world leaders looked on in dismay: “With respect to Syria, we believe that as a starting point, the international community must enforce the ban on chemical weapons.” (The US and Israel both possess and have used chemical weapons, see below) and added “Although we will at times be accused of hypocrisy and inconsistency [!], we will be engaged in the region for the long haul” [to serve Israel].
Incredibly he also said he believed in American “exceptionalism” [white man’s burden]. Hypocritically he also mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. But MLK opposed American imperialism and exceptionalism and who said in a speech in 1968: “God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war ….. We have committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.” [we still do]
Related
“Independent Experts” Reviewing NSA Spying Have Ties to Intelligence Community
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman | AllGov | September 25, 2013
President Barack Obama’s special panel of “independent” experts charged with reviewing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic spying programs is actually lacking in independence.
For starters, the panel assembled to determine if the NSA has violated Americans’ civil liberties consists of five members—four of whom have previously worked for Democratic administrations.
One member is Michael Morell, who served in the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama as deputy director, and twice served as acting director.
The other three with Democratic ties are Peter Swire, former Office of Management and Budget privacy director under President Bill Clinton; Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism coordinator under Clinton and later for President George W. Bush; and Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory czar.
The fifth panel member is Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago, who was an informal adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and is now helping develop Obama’s presidential library. Stone previously went on record as saying that the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records is constitutional.
“No one can look at this group and say it’s completely independent,” Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute and vice president at the New America Foundation, told the Associated Press after attending one of the panel’s meetings.
Michelle Richardson, an ACLU legislative counsel who attended one meeting for civil liberties groups, said her organization “would have liked a more diverse group” for the panel.
Another sign that the group lacks independence is in its name—“Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.”
The AP’s Stephen Braun noted that “the panel’s official name suggests it’s run by” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
In fact, Obama’s announcement in August that the review group would be established by DNI James Clapper triggered a wave of criticism. Obama tried to quell the outcry by assuring the country that Clapper would neither run the panel nor select its members.
But there is more than the panel’s name that suggests DNI oversight. The panel’s so-called outside experts work inside offices provided by the DNI. And it is the DNI’s press office that coordinates all press statements and interview requests.
Another point of criticism stems from Clapper’s decision to exempt the panel from the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires such committees to conduct open meetings and notify the public about their activities. Indeed, it has been reported that during recent weeks the panel’s meetings have been closed to the public even when no classified material was discussed.
There appears to be no formal directive stating that the panel should operate independently of the Obama administration. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. An official White House memorandum actually provides the panel with instructions for areas to emphasize in its review: whether U.S. spying programs advance foreign policy, protect national security, and are safe from leaks.
In his August 9th press conference regarding the establishment of this panel, Obama promised that the “outside experts” will “consider how we can…make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used.” But nowhere in the White House memo is the panel instructed to investigate surveillance abuses.
The panel’s report is due by December 15. On that date it is not to be made public, nor is it to be delivered to the press. Rather, it will be submitted to the White House for review.
To Learn More:
Close Ties Between White House, NSA Spying Review (by Stephen Braun, Associated Press)
NSA Spying Review Panel Appointed by Obama Set to Whitewash Surveillance Abuses (by Kevin Gosztola, Dissenter)
Surveillance Privacy: Obama Orders Fox to Guard Chicken Coop (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Related articles
- Obama’s NSA ‘Independent’ Review Clearly a Public Relations Move (reason.com)
- NSA Spying Review Panel Appointed by Obama Set to Whitewash Surveillance Abuses (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
Anti-piracy curriculum for elementary schools decried as ‘propaganda’
RT | September 24, 2013
Content-industry giants and internet service providers are teaming up to produce multi-grade elementary school curriculum which will denounce copyright infringement.
The likes of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), AT&T, Verizon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Comcast are behind the pilot project which will be tested in California elementary schools later this year.
The curriculum, called “Be a Creator,” is not quite complete, producers say, though Wired was able to obtain the various levels of content – from kindergarten to sixth grade – which aim to communicate that copying is theft.
“This thinly disguised corporate propaganda is inaccurate and inappropriate,” said Mitch Stoltz, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who reviewed the material.
“It suggests, falsely, that ideas are property and that building on others’ ideas always requires permission,” Stoltz says. “The overriding message of this curriculum is that students’ time should be consumed not in creating but in worrying about their impact on corporate profits.”
The content was made by the California School Library Association and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition. The Center for Copyright Infringement commissioned the material. The center’s board is made up of executives from MPAA, RIAA, Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T.
Each grade’s package includes a short video and a teacher worksheet of talking points.
For example, the sixth grade version urges children to realize that copyright infringement can have worse consequences than cheating on a test, which usually results in a bad grade or suspension from school.
“In the digital world, it’s harder to see the effects of copying, even though the effects can be more serious,” the teacher worksheet says.
The material does not comment on fair use, which allows for the reuse of copyrighted works without permission. Rather, students are told that using without permission is “stealing.”
The Internet Keep Safe Coalition, a non-profit organization partnering with governments and major corporations like Facebook and Google, said that fair use is beyond the comprehension of sixth graders.
The curriculum “is developmentally consistent with what children can learn at specific ages,” the group’s president, Marsali Hancock, told Wired, adding that materials for older children will include the concept.
A video for second graders shows a child taking photos and debating whether to sell, keep, or share them.
“You’re not old enough yet to be selling your pictures online, but pretty soon you will be,” reads the teacher lesson plan. “And you’ll appreciate if the rest of us respect your work by not copying it and doing whatever we want with it.”
The groups involved in the curation of the material stressed that it was in draft form at this point, and that some wording will be changed before the pilot project begins in schools.
“We’ve got some editing to do,” said Glen Warren, vice president of the non-profit California School Library Association.
Warren alluded that the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), a content-industry group, has already had influence on the project.
Hancock said the material has not yet been approved by CCI. The group is best known for working with the government and rights holders to begin an internet monitoring program with large ISPs that punish violators with extrajudicial measures like temporary internet termination and weak connection speeds.
CCI’s executive director, Jill Lesser, has alluded to youth education programs in the past.
“Based on our research, we believe one of the most important audiences for our educational efforts is young people. As a result, we have developed a new copyright curriculum that is being piloted during this academic year in California,” she said last week in a testimony on Capitol Hill.
“The curriculum introduces concepts about creative content in innovative and age-appropriate ways. The curriculum is designed to help children understand that they can be both creators and consumers of artistic content, and that concepts of copyright protection are important in both cases,” Lesser testified.
She said that CCI’s board will likely sign off on the curriculum soon.
“We are just about to post those materials in the next week or two on our web site,” Lesser told Wired.
The first grade lesson plan puts content sharing on par with theft.
“We all love to create new things – art, music, movies, paper creations, structures, even buildings! It’s great to create – as long as we aren’t stealing other people’s work. We show respect for other artists and their work when we get permission before we use their work,” the material says. “This is an important part of copyright. Sharing can be exciting and helpful and nice. But taking something without asking is mean.”
The fifth grade lesson introduces the Creative Commons license, though it distorts the legality of copying copyrighted works.
“If a song or movie is copyrighted, you can’t copy it, download it, or use it in your own work without permission,” the fifth grade worksheet reads. “However, Creative Commons allows artists to tell users how and if their work can be used by others. For example, if a musician is okay with their music being downloaded for free – they will offer it on their website as a ‘Free download.’ An artist can also let you know how you can use their work by using a Creative Commons license.”
Do Doctors Really Lose Money on Medicare Patients or Do They Lie to New York Times Reporters?
CEPR | September 24, 2013
That is undoubtedly the question that many NYT readers were asking when they read an article warning that insurance companies in the exchanges were not paying enough money to attract many doctors. At one point the piece told readers;
“Dr. Barbara L. McAneny, a cancer specialist in Albuquerque, said that insurers in the New Mexico exchange were generally paying doctors at Medicare levels, which she said were ‘often below our cost of doing business, and definitely below commercial rates.'”
The claim that Medicare payments are “below our cost of doing business” might seem rather dubious to readers since most doctors accept Medicare patients. The median earnings of physicians are well over $200,000 a year (net of malpractice insurance), which means they are heavily represented in the one percent. Given their extraordinary incomes, which they vigorously protect by excluding foreign and domestic competition, it seems implausible that many doctors are willing to lose money by treating Medicare patients.
It is more likely that doctors are getting less than their desired pay when they treat Medicare patients, but still pocketing far more money than the overwhelming majority workers for their time. It would have been useful to clarify this point for readers rather than letting Doctor McAneny’s assertion pass unchallenged.
Related article
- Study debunks myth of doctors fleeing Medicare (dailykos.com)
Iran Nuclear Weapons Claims Still Need Correcting
By Peter Hart | FAIR | September 23, 2013
Hassan Rouhani
Yesterday in USA Today (9/22/13), Aamer Madhani wrote this about the challenges facing Barack Obama:
The president is also trying to take advantage of a diplomatic opening–created by the installation of a new, more moderate president in Iran–to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
As you might know by now, this is misleading; Iran is suspected by some governments of having a nuclear weapons program, but there is no solid intelligence that such a program exists.
USA Today made a similar claim a few months ago; when FAIR activists wrote to the paper, it eventually got around to issuing a correction. But good luck figuring that out; the paper had originally claimed that new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was “known for his negotiating skill over the country’s nuclear weapons program.” The paper’s correction read:
A June 17 story on Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani misstated his previous position. He was a negotiator over Iran’s nuclear program.
There’s basically no chance that any reader of the paper would have been able to know what was being corrected. But if the paper is actually interested in accuracy, they might want to run another correction.
Bob Schieffer (photo: CSIS)
They’re not the only ones who should consider clarifying the record. Here’s CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer (9/22/13):
Rouhani says that Iran does not want and is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Does anybody take that at face value?
Actually, the burden of proof should be the other way around: Politicians who claim that Iran has such a program should have to prove it. Schieffer obviously doesn’t see the world that way. He’s interviewed people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and failed to challenge their claims about Iran’s weapons. Indeed, Schieffer presented them as facts, telling viewers about Iran’s “continuing effort to build a nuclear weapon” (FAIR Blog, 7/15/13).
So Schieffer is indeed skeptical of government claims. Iran‘s government, that is.
The Syria Chemical Weapons Attack: Human Rights Watch is Manipulating the Facts
By Richard Lightbown | Global Research | September 24, 2013
On 21 August 2013 a series of chemical attacks were perpetrated in the Ghouta suburbs of eastern Damascus. Sources say that between 281 and 1,729 civilians were killed, while Medecins Sans Frontiers reported around 3,600 were injured in the attacks. [1] On the same day UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon instructed the UN Mission already in Syria to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Khan al-Asal, Sheik Maqsoos and Saraqueb to focus their efforts on the Ghouta allegations. [2]
Before the UN Mission had reported its preliminary findings, Human Rights Watch (HRW) jumped the gun on 10 September with its own report written by Peter Bouckaert, the organisation’s Emergencies Director. [3]
The report admits that HRW did not have physical access to the site and had based its study on Skype interviews with ‘More than 10 witnesses and survivors’ made over a period of two weeks between 22 August and 6 September. These were supplemented by video and photo footage and other data from an unnamed source or sources. It is unclear then, exactly how many exposed survivors were interviewed by HRW or who the other witnesses were.
In compiling the report HRW had also drawn on the technical services of Keith B. Ward Ph.D., an expert on the detection and effects of chemical warfare agents. However the organisation did not disclose that Dr Ward is employed by Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States government. [4] The HRW investigation was also ‘assisted by arms experts including Nic Jenzen-Jones […] as well as Eliot Higgins […] who collected and analysed photos and videos from the attacks.’ [5]
Mr Jenzen-Jones’s LinkedIn profile does not list any training or experience with armaments, and his only qualifications appear to be ‘certified armourer and ammunition collector’ – which probably relates to the Firearms Amendment (Ammunition control) Act 2012 of the state of New South Wales, Australia. [6] In reports on the story on his own blog ‘The Rogue Adventurer’, Mr Jenzen-Jones relies on data taken uncritically from sources such as the New York Times and even a Los Angeles Times article based on Israeli intelligence [7] Apparently he is not familiar with Israeli falsified reports such as the alleged use of guns by passengers on the Mavi Marmara against Israeli commandos (which remain uncorroborated despite Israeli forces seizing virtually all photographic data from the more than 600 passengers, along with film from security cameras located throughout the ship and Israel’s own constant infra-red surveillance from boats on both sides of the ship and from at least two aircraft). As former CIA director Stansfield Turner is reputed to have said, Mossad excels in PR, and not in intelligence. [8]
HRW’s other expert, Eliot Higgins is an untrained analyst who was recently talked-up into some kind of expert by Matthew Weaver in the Guardian. [9] On his Brown Moses Blog of 28 August 2013 Mr Higgins featured a video sent to him by a source allegedly showing the type of munition linked to the chemical attacks being fired close to Al-Mezzah Airport near Daraya. The video has been filmed at some distance and none of the upwards of 20 men roaming around the site can be clearly seen. An unmarked Mercedes semi-trailer lorry apparently delivers the rocket which is loaded (this is not seen) onto an unmarked white rigid lorry on which the launcher is mounted. The men aimlessly roaming around are mostly wearing army fatigues, although others, including some on the launcher, are in civilian clothes. A number of those in military uniform are wearing red berets. Based solely on this headgear, and the fact that the Syrian Republic Guard as well as the military police are issued with red berets, Mr Higgins is emboldened to state that ‘…this video shows the munition being used by the government forces […].[10]
Stills taken from the video analysed by Eliot Higgins. Mr Higgins has deduced that this is a Syrian Army operation entirely from the red berets worn by some of the personnel. The rocket shown can also carry conventional explosives.
In a previous posting on 26 August, Mr Higgins estimated from shadows that a rocket shown in photographs between Zamalka and Ein Tarma had been fired from north of the site, and he set about trying to locate the launch site with the help of correspondents. Hoping to find the exact location, he speculated that the 155th Brigade missile base was a possible site for the crime. [11] This line of investigation quietly disappeared after the UN Mission reported that the missile they had examined at Zamalka/Ein Tarma was pointing precisely in a bearing of 285 degrees, i.e. nearer west than north. [12]
Meanwhile Mr Bouckaert in his report two weeks later reported that two of his witnesses told HRW that the rockets came from the direction of the Mezzeh Military Airport. [13] These accounts also became inconvenient later when, as we shall see, HRW seized on the azimuths provided by the UN Mission and dashed off on a new wild goose chase. Apparently HRW now considered that nearly 20 per cent of the ‘witnesses and survivors’ it had interviewed were no longer credible regarding the direction of the rockets.
Nevertheless on page 1 of his report Mr Bouckaert felt confident enough to declare,
Based on the available evidence, Human Rights Watch finds that Syrian government forces were almost certainly responsible for the August 21 attacks, and that a weapons-grade nerve agent was delivered during the attack using specially designed rocket delivery systems.
The ‘evidence’ produced on p20 of the report amounts to nothing more than supposition. Mr Bouckaert merely states his scepticism that the rebels could have fired surface-to-surface rockets at two different locations in the Damascus suburbs; he asserts that the types of rockets thought to have been used are not reported to be in possession of the opposition nor is there any footage showing that they have mobile launchers suitable; and he states that the large amounts of dangerous nerve agent would require sophisticated techniques beyond the capabilities of the rebels. No actual evidence is cited to show that this weaponry is Syrian Army equipment. On the contrary the Soviet 140 mm rocket referred to on p15 requires a BM-14 rocket launcher, first produced in the late 1940s.
The Syrian Army equipment list produced by Global Security shows none of this obsolete weaponry in stock but instead lists around 300 of the BM-21 launcher which replaced it. The BM-21 launches a 122mm rocket, so the Army would be unable to fire the 140mm rocket that rebels found and the UN Mission inspected at Moadamiyah. [14] [15] Mr Bouckaert might also recall that Israel has a common border to Syria and is known to have stocks of sarin amongst the vast collection of illegal chemical and biological weaponry amassed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) at Nes Ziona. [16] YouTube videos also show Syrian rebels in possession of mobile rocket launchers. [17] HRW really did assemble a Mickey Mouse team of researchers when they cobbled together this report.
Nevertheless HRW’s reputation and distribution ensured that their allegation was distributed by agencies such as the Associated Press [18] and reported by outlets which included the BBC [19], CBS [20], New York Post [21] and other international media such as the Tasmanian newspaper The Examiner [22] and the Jakarta Post [23]. None of these outlets questioned the veracity of this very serious allegation against the Syrian Army.
On 11 September, a day after the HRW report was published, the International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria published its unique and important analysis of documentation nominated by US intelligence. [24] Having carefully and thoughtfully analysed the data, including a number of images also published in the Bouckaert report, the study discovered not only widespread manipulation of evidence, but in the tradition of BBC reporting in Syria, [25] they also discovered that photographs of victims in Cairo had been described as victims of a chemical attack in Syria. This preliminary study concludes that there has been gross media manipulation and calls for an independent and unbiased International Commission to identify the children who were killed and try to find the truth of the case. This writer has not seen any HRW document which refers to the ISTEAMS study.
The UN Mission report was published six days after the Bouckaert report on 16 September. This disclosed that the Mission had been allowed a total of only seven-and-a-half hours on-site in the two suburbs which are both located in opposition-controlled areas. During that period they had experienced repeated threats of harm and one actual attack by an unidentified sniper on 26 August. [26] Nevertheless they had collected samples and ‘a considerable amount of information’ along with ‘primary statements from more than fifty exposed survivors including patients, health workers and first-responders.’ In fact the statements had been taken in interviews with nine nurses, seven doctors and 36 survivors. [27] The Mission concluded that there was ‘definitive evidence of exposure to Sarin by a large proportion of the survivors assessed’ [28] and it stated that it had been informed that victims began suffering effects following an artillery barrage on 21 August 2013. All interviews, sampling and documentation followed procedures developed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the World Health Organisation.
The report states that ‘several surface to surface rockets capable of delivering significant chemical payloads were identified and recorded at the investigated sites’ but only five impact sites in total were investigated by the Mission (presumably because of the time constraints imposed on them by those who controlled the areas).
The UN report is not without its contradictions. In a summary in their Letter of Transmittal the authors wrote ‘In particular, the environmental, chemical and medical samples, we have collected, provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used in Ein Tarma, Moadamiyah and Zamalka…’.
And yet none of the 13 environmental samples taken from Moadamiyah were found to have any traces of sarin, although one of the two laboratories conducting the analyses found degradation products of sarin in four of the thirteen samples while a further sample was found to contain degradation products by the other lab. Although two of the samples were unspecified metal fragments, none of the samples was specifically described as being part of a rocket. [29] Does the discovery of degradation products in 38 per cent of the samples (and only 23 per cent of the tests) along with a complete absence of the chemical agent itself constitute ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that Moadamiyah was attacked by surface-to-surface rockets containing sarin?
Most important however are the two caveats included in the report. On p 18 the inspectors wrote concerning the Moadamiyah site.
The sites have been well travelled by other individuals both before and during the investigation Fragments and other possible evidence have clearly been handled/moved prior to the arrival of the investigation team.
Similar tampering of the evidence was noted at the other site as the report notes on p22
During the time spent at these locations, individuals arrived carrying other suspected munitions indicating that such potential evidence is being moved and possibly manipulated.
HRW was quick to seize on the UN report to substantiate its own allegations, although some adjustments were now necessary to get their allegations to dovetail neatly into the report’s findings. On 17 September Josh Lyons used the azimuths cited for the rockets in Appendix 5 of the Mission report to produce a cross reference which suggested that the military base of the Republican Guard 104th Brigade had been the launch site for the chemical weapons. [30] (Mr Lyons called this ‘Connecting the dots’. By coincidence, when referring to the Sellström Report on 19 September, John Kerry said ‘But anybody who reads the facts and puts the dots together, which is easy to do, and they made it easy to do, understands what those facts mean.’? [31] ‘Facts’ can mean anything if distorted enough, Mr Kerry.)
Once again no supporting evidence was provided to explain why HRW blames the Syrian Army, and all previous locations suggested for the launch were conveniently forgotten. To recap, Peter Bouckaert reported two witness statements that the rockets came from the direction of the Mezzeh Military Airport (more than 6 kilometres from the Republican Guard base) and HRW’s ‘expert’ Eliot Higgins was convinced that they were fired from north of the target sites.
To make his case Mr Lyons is being dishonest. Referring to unspecified ‘declassified reference guides’ he tells us that the 140mm artillery rocket could have reached Moadamiya, 9.5Km from the Republican Guard’s base. Yet even if a seventy-year old rocket system could indeed fly that far, Mr Lyons is forgetting that the Syrian Army no longer has these outdated systems. It therefore no longer has 140mm rockets, one of which is alleged to have been responsible for part of this crime against humanity. He is also forgetting that no actual chemical agent was found at Moadamiya, so it is premature to start producing cross references from that site. And above all he is deliberately omitting to tell his readers about the caveats written for both target sites by the UN inspectors that clearly and unequivocally suggest that the evidence has been tampered with at both sites which are located in opposition-controlled areas.
None of these inconvenient truths have stopped the HRW juggernaut. On 20 September the Guardian published an article by HRW staffer Sarah Margon promoting both the Bouckaert report and the Lyons’ calculations (apparently unaware of the contradiction between the two). She ended up by calling for an Obama/Kerry commitment to ensure there is ‘accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people’. [32] But of course she was not writing about Fellujah or Gaza or the IIBR at Nes Ziona.
Notes
[1] Wikipedia; Ghouta chemical attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attacks (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[2] Sellström, Åke. et al., 13 September 2013; United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic – Report on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 21 August 2013; United Nations; para 15, p3.
http://www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/Secretary_General_Report_of_CW_Investigation.pdf
[3] Bouckaert, Peter, 10 September 2013; Attacks on Ghouta, Analysis of Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria; Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria_cw0913_web_1.pdf
[4] http://www.docstoc.com/docs/24131911/Notes-from-Department-of-Homeland-Security-HSARPA-Best-Practices (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[5] Attacks on Ghouta; op.cit. pp. 1 and 2.
[6] http://au.linkedin.com/in/nrjenzenjones (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[7] http://rogueadventurer.com/2013/08/29/alleged-cw-munitions-in-syria-fired-from-iranian-falaq-2-type-launchers/ (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[8] AbuKhalil, As’ad, 7 September 2011; The Mossad in Hollywood Movies; alakhbar English. http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/530 (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[9] Weaver, Matthew, 21 March 2013; How Brown Moses exposed Syrian arms trafficking from his front room; The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/21/frontroom-blogger-analyses-weapons-syria-frontline (Accessed 21 September 2013)
[10] http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-smoking-gun-video-shows-assads.html (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[11] http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/finding-exact-location-of-alleged.html (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[12] Sellström, Åke. et al.; p23.
[13] Attacks on Ghouta; op.cit., p6.
[14] http://weaponsystems.net/weapon.php?weapon=DD05%20-%20BM-14 (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[15] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/syria/army-equipment.htm (Accessed 23 September 2013)
[16] Abu-Sitta, Salman; Traces of poison; Al-Ahram 27Feb – 5 March 2003, Issue No. 627.
[17] For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKoYg9xEGMs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JEElw-ea5k, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6w68OqA4HM (h/t timbercrown)
[18] http://nypost.com/2013/09/10/human-rights-watch-condemns-assad-for-alleged-chemical-attack/ (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[19] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23927399 (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[20] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57602150/human-rights-watch-says-evidence-strongly-suggests-assad-used-chemical-weapons/ (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[21] http://nypost.com/2013/09/10/human-rights-watch-condemns-assad-for-alleged-chemical-attack/ (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[22] http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1768398/syrian-government-forces-almost-certainly-responsible-for-chemical-attacks-human-rights-watch-report/ (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[23] http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/10/rights-group-syrian-regime-behind-chemical-attack.html (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[24] Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, 11 September 2013; THE CHEMICAL ATTACKS ON EAST GHOUTA TO JUSTIFY MILITARY RIGHT TO PROTECT INTERVENTION IN SYRIA; ISTEAMS. http://www.globalresearch.ca/STUDY_THE_VIDEOS_THAT_SPEAKS_ABOUT_CHEMICALS_BETA_VERSION.pdf
[25] Lightbown, Richard, 18 June 2012; Syria: Media Lies, Hidden Agendas and Strange Alliances; Global Research. http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-media-lies-hidden-agendas-and-strange-alliances/31491
[26] Sellström, Åke. et al.; para 18.
[27] Sellström, Åke. et al.; paras. 18, 19 and 21, Appendix 7.
[28] Sellström, Åke. et al.; p17.
[29] Sellström, Åke. et al.; pp. 24/5 and 27-29.
[30] Lyons, Josh, 17 September 2013 ; Dispatches : Mapping the Sarin Flight Path; Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/17/dispatches-mapping-sarin-flight-path (Accessed 21 September 2013)
[31] Kerry: U.N. report confirms Assad responsible for chemical attack http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155432n (Accessed 22 September 2013)
[32] Margon, Sarah, 20 September 2013; The sarin gas attack is just one Syrian atrocity the ICC should pursue’; The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/sarin-gas-syria-icc (Accessed 22 September 2013)
Richard Lightbown is a researcher and occasional writer on human rights issues, particularly relating to the Middle East.
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Brazil’s Rousseff to UN: US surveillance an ‘affront’
RT | September 24, 2013
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lambasted US spying on her country at Tuesday’s UN summit, calling it a “breach of international law.” She further warned that the NSA surveillance, revealed since June, threatened freedom of speech and democracy.
“Meddling in such a manner in the lives and affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and as such it is an affront to the principles that should otherwise govern relations among countries, especially among friendly nations,” Rousseff said.
“Without the right to privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion,” Rousseff told the gathering of world leaders. “And therefore, there is no actual democracy,” she added, criticizing the fact that Brazil had been targeted by the US.
“A country’s sovereignty can never affirm itself to the detriment of another country’s sovereignty,” she added.
Rousseff went on to propose a multilateral, international governance framework to monitor US surveillance activity. “We must establish multilateral mechanisms for the world wide web,” she said.
Rousseff said that the US’s arguments for spying on Brazil and other UN member states were “untenable”, adding that “Brazil knows how to protect itself” and that the country has been “living in peace with our neighbors for more than 140 years.”
Brazil’s specific targeting in US surveillance practices prompted Rousseff’s government to announce that it intends to adopt both legislation and technology aimed at protecting itself and its businesses from the illegal interception of communications.
A week ago, Rousseff canceled an impending state visit to Washington, scheduled to take place in October, because of indignation over spying revelations. Rousseff has stated she wants an apology from Obama and the United States.
The revelations that the US National Security Agency has been intercepting Rouseff’s own phone calls and e-mails, in addition to those of her aides and officials at state-controlled oil and gas firm Petrobras, have prompted an outcry in Brazil.
Rousseff’s predecessor as Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, said earlier this month that Obama should “personally apologize to the world.” Lula accused the US of “thinking that it can control global communications and ignore the sovereignty of other countries” in an interview with India’s English-language daily The Hindu, published Sept. 10.
Latin America voices widespread indignation at US activities
US relations with all of Latin America have recently soured. In addition to Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia and Venezuela have all voiced anger with the US over the NSA’s surveillance of their countries this year. Bolivia has been especially bitter.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit against Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against humanity,” President Morales told reporters Friday in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. He branded the US president as a “criminal” who had violated international law.
In early July, a plane carrying Morales from Moscow to the Bolivian capital, La Paz, was grounded for 13 hours in Austria after it was banned from European airspace because of US suspicions it was carrying fugitive Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has been responsible for the majority of leaks regarding NSA spying practices since June.
Venezuela wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the end of last week, requesting that he take action in response to the apparent denial of US visas to some members of the Venezuelan delegation who were scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.
President Nicolas Maduro said that the denial seemed intended to “create logistical obstacles to impede” the visit, and further requested that the UN “demand that the government of the US abide by its international obligations” as host of the 68th UN General Assembly.
Tension between Venezuela and the US rose Thursday when Venezuela’s foreign minister, Elias Jaua, told media outlets that the US had denied a plane carrying Maduro entrance into its airspace. The aircraft was en route to China. Washington later granted the approval, stating that Venezuela’s request had not been properly submitted. Jaua denounced the move as “an act of aggression.”
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EU ‘not satisfied’ with US spying answers, says top official
Press TV – September 24, 2013
The European Union is “not satisfied” with Washington’s answers on revelations that the US spied on international bank transfers, a top official says.
“I’m not satisfied with what we have gotten so far,” said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom during a hearing at the European Parliament on Tuesday.
She added, “I will be seeking exhaustive explanations, comprehensive information.”
The revelations that US National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments and financial transactions was reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel on September 16 and stems from leaked documents by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Malmstrom wrote in a recent letter to US Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Under Secretary David Cohen that “should the facts in these press reports be confirmed, they would further weaken the confidence between the EU and the US and would undoubtedly impact on our cooperation in the field of counter-terrorism.”
Since the disclosure, there have been calls by EU lawmakers for the suspension of a data-sharing agreement between the EU and the US. The deal grants Washington access to data from the SWIFT network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely.
“There have been very severe allegations in the press,” said Malmstrom adding, “If these allegations are true, they constitute a breach of the agreement and a breach of the agreement can certainly lead to a suspension.”
Malmstrom warned already in July, prior to the bank transfer disclosure, that the EU could reconsider financial data sharing agreements with the US if it was determined that the accords have not been executed “in full compliance with the law.”
The privacy violations were first revealed by Snowden in June. He leaked confidential information that showed the NSA collects data of phone records and Internet communication in the US and Europe as well as other countries.
Assad: Terrorists may attack chemical weapons inspectors, blame Damascus
RT | September 23, 2013
Syrian armed opposition may be ordered by its foreign sponsors to stage a false flag operation against foreign inspectors when they arrive in the country to monitor destruction of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile, says the Syrian president.
Bashar Assad voiced his concerns in an interview by China’s state television CCTV in Damascus. The Syrian leader proposed this possible scenario as he was explaining how his government may be accused of trying to dodge its obligations to destroy its chemical arsenal.
“We know that these terrorists are obeying the orders of other countries and these countries do drive these terrorists to commit acts that could get the Syrian government blamed for hindering this agreement,” he explained.
Russia brokered an agreement with Syria to dispose of its stockpile of chemical weapons amid US threats to use military force against Syrian army over alleged use of sarin gas, which killed an estimated 1,400 people in August.
Moscow expects the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which received detailed inventory of the Syrian arsenal last week, to prepare a deadline for the operation. It also plans to work with other members of the UN Security Council on a resolution, which would support the OPCW plan and provide for security of the inspectors, who would control the disarmament.
But Washington, London and Paris are insisting on a UNSC resolution which would involve punitive measures against Damascus for any possible hindering of the operation under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Chapter 7 allows for the enforcement of Security Council resolutions with military action. Russia opposes such provisions.
Speaking on the UNSC debate, Assad said the three Western powers are fighting an ‘imaginary enemy’.
“By submitting the draft to the UN Security Council, or by urging the US and Russia to agree on a deal, the US, France, and Britain are just trying to make themselves winners in a war against a Syria which is their imaginary enemy,” he said.
The president said he was assured that Russia and China would “ensure any excuse for military action against Syria will not stand.”
Asked for details on the stockpile of chemical weapons, Assad said, “Syria has been manufacturing chemical weapons for decades so it’s normal for there to be large quantities in the country.”
The WMD arsenal was created due to Syria’s confrontation with Israel, the Syrian leader said.
“We are a nation at war, we’ve got territories that have been occupied for more than 40 years, but in any case, the Syrian army is trained to fight using conventional weapons,” Assad assured.
While admitting that the security situation in Syria is far from perfect for the work of OPCW inspectors, Assad said the weapons are safe from being captured by any party.
They are stored “under special conditions to prevent any terrorist for other destructive forces from tampering with them, that is, destructive forces that could come from other countries,” he said.
“So there is nothing to worry about. The chemical weapons in Syria are in a safe place that is secure and under the control of the Syrian army.”
Earlier China said it is willing to send experts to contribute to the OPCW’s mission to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. Russia pledged its assistance, which would probably involve securing locations where the stockpile would be processed.
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Potential US war on Syria based on a snuff movie
By Finian Cunningham | Press TV | September 21, 2013
The American war footing towards Syria plumbs a new diabolical depth.
Not only is it an act of criminal aggression against an innocent country – the supreme crime according to Nuremberg Principles – but that transgression would itself be based on another vile crime – the deliberate killing of children for propaganda purposes.
The notorious videos purporting to show the half-clothed bodies of dozens of lifeless Syrian children are the central component of US claims for launching a war against Syria. Suspiciously, this footage gained wide circulation on the internet and on international television news bulletins within hours of the alleged toxic gas attack on 21 August near Damascus.
Now it appears that those videos are part of an elaborate, diabolical fabrication, the circumstances of which are very different from what they are meant to assign.
Nobody is questioning the fact that the children are dead. But what transpires is that the children seem to have been murdered by some form of intoxication and that their deaths were then recorded by their killers – with the calculated intention of producing a propaganda video.
That propaganda purports to blame the Syrian government forces of using chemical weapons causing massive civilian casualties. That in turn is aimed at provoking outrage among world public opinion, which would underpin US military intervention on the basis of President Obama’s so-called red line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
In other words, the world is being pushed into acquiescing to a US-led criminal war on Syria based on a vile “snuff movie.”
In the world of vice, there can be few acts more criminal and morally depraved than that of making snuff movies. This illegal genre of film is where some unwitting victim is murdered on screen for the perverse gratification of those behind the camera and the eventual underground audience who indulge in such odious entertainment.
Usually, in the making of snuff movies, the persons recording the scene of death are the killers or their accomplices. These movies are, needless to say, highly illegal and confined to a secretive subculture. Those who make snuff movies and watch them are complicit in murder, and the videos are in effect indictable evidence of their crime.
On close examination of the alleged gas attack videos that came out of Syria on 21 August, the blunt assessment is that the footage is nothing less than a snuff movie.
This is the shocking conclusion from an independent study carried out by Syrian Christian leader Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib. Under the auspices of the Geneva-based International Institute of Peace, Justice and Human Rights, the study concludes that the infamous gas-attack videos showing dead children is a fabrication. That is, the children were not killed, as alleged, by Syrian government forces firing chemical weapons on the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.
According to the authors: “From the moment when some families of abducted children contacted us to inform us that they recognized the children among those who are presented in the videos as victims of the chemical attacks of east Ghouta, we decided to examine the videos thoroughly.”
Mother Agnes’ investigation goes on to say chillingly: “Our first concern was the fate of the children we see in the footages. Those angels are always alone in the hands of adult males that seem to be elements of armed gangs. The children that trespassed remain without their families and unidentified all the way until they are wrapped in the white shrouds of the burial. Moreover, our study highlights without any doubt that their little bodies were manipulated and disposed with theatrical arrangements to figure in the screening.”
The authors add: “Thus we want to raise awareness toward the humanitarian case of this criminal use of children in the political propaganda of the east Ghouta chemical weapons attack.”
Mother Agnes and her co-authors have submitted their findings to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva. But, tellingly, the report, which was published earlier this week, has received negligible coverage in the Western mainstream media.
It is not determined who actually killed the children and by what method. Some observers have pointed out that the victims appear to have tourniquets on their arms. That would suggest that they received a lethal injection.
It also appears that the children are not from the location of Ghouta. It is believed that many of them were abducted by the foreign-backed militants during raids on pro-government villages in the Latakia area of northwest Syria during the weeks prior to 21 August.
That confers on the crime in Ghouta on 21 August the most hideous proportions. For what is deduced is that dozens of children were abducted for the fate of cold-blooded murder, to be videoed with the purpose of fabricating a crime falsely attributed to others for propaganda effect – propaganda to precipitate a war.
When we look at the choreographed way in which the US government and its Western allies have reacted to the incident and the videos, it is suggestive of collusion at some level. Several reports have tied the involvement of Saudi, Turk and Israeli intelligence with the supply of toxic chemicals to the foreign-backed militants fighting in Syria for the Western agenda of regime change against the government of President Assad. These intelligence agencies are closely aligned with those of the US, Britain and France.
The fundamental importance of the alleged gas-attack videos to the US and Western case for military intervention in Syria raises the question of how much do these governments know about the exact circumstances of the child deaths that ostensibly occurred in Ghouta on 21 August.
Apart from flawed interpretation of the inconclusive UN chemical inspectors’ report released earlier this week, the other component of the US government’s case for a military attack on Syria are the videos purporting to show the aftermath of a chemical weapons incident in Ghouta.
Appealing to Congress for military strikes on Syria earlier this month, US Secretary of State John F Kerry described those images as “sickening,” and added that “the world must act on such horror.”
Affecting an air of privileged briefing, members of Congress were taken into closed-door sessions. There, they watched the videos showing lifeless children lying in gaunt rooms in an unknown location, apparently having died from exposure to sarin or some other toxic gas.
It appears that US lawmakers viewed the same video footage that the rest of the world has also accessed via the internet and on television news bulletins. The viewing of such distressing scenes paved the way for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to vote for resolution 2021 backing President Obama’s military attack on Syria.
While the momentum for war has abated in the past week because of the Russian-brokered deal to decommission Syrian government chemical weapons, nevertheless the US continues to threaten that military strikes still remain an option on the table.
US-led wars in the past have notoriously relied on false flags and pretexts, such as the sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and 9/11. But if the US commits to war on Syria, its lawlessness will have reached a new low. In that event, it will be a war of aggression based on a snuff movie.
~
Finian Cunningham, originally from Belfast, Ireland, was born in 1963. He is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring.He co-hosts a weekly current affairs programme, Sunday at 3pm GMT on Bandung Radio.
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Book Review & Summary
Calling of an Angel: The True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine Called Essiac (1988)
Dr. Gary L. Glum – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | October 17, 2026
On June 10, 1975, Dr. Chester Stock, a vice president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, wrote to a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse: “Enclosed are test data in two experiments indicating some regressions in sarcoma 180 of mice treated with Essiac.” The sentence sat in a letter from one of the world’s largest private cancer research centers, concerning an herbal tea an elderly English woman had learned from an Ojibwa medicine man at a northern Ontario mining camp in the 1890s. The tests were terminated the following year after Sloan-Kettering admitted, in sworn affidavit three years later, that they had prepared the injectable solution improperly from the dried material supplied — freezing and thawing the herb rather than boiling it as Rene had instructed. By the time Calling of an Angel was published in 1988, Rene Caisse had been dead for a decade, having treated thousands of cancer patients across fifty-six years in her Bracebridge, Ontario kitchen, never charging a fee, and refusing every offer — from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the National Cancer Institute, Merck, Parke Davis, and private corporations dangling contracts up to $1 million — to release her formula before the medical establishment admitted her remedy had merit. … continue
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