https://socialistaction.org/2019/06/13/u-s-nato-false-flag-in-syria-exposed-skepticism-is-essential-when-assessing-official-propaganda/
U.S/NATO false flag in Syria exposed: Skepticism is essential when
assessing official propaganda
/ 4 days ago
June 2019 gas canister
Chlorine gas cylinder found on roof of apartment house in Douma. Reports
stated that around 70 died there after April 7, 2018, attack.
By BRUCE LESNICK
On April 7, 2018, the U.S and its NATO allies accused the Syrian
government of carrying out a chemical weapons attack in the town of
Douma, outside Damascus. A week later, President Donald Trump, with the
support of French and British allies, ordered the launch of 103
missiles. ABC News quoted Defense Secretary James Mattis as saying that
the strike was necessary to demonstrate international resolve to prevent
the use of chemical weapons, and that he was ???confident the Syrian
regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people in the last week.???
According to ABC News, President Donald Trump asserted, ???The evil and
the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children
thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a
man. They are crimes of a monster instead,??? referring to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad.
Reporting from Douma for The Independent on April 17, 2018, journalist
Robert Fisk cast doubt on the official story. ???There are the many people
I talked to amid the ruins of the town who said they had ???never believed
in??? gas stories ??? which were usually put about, they claimed, by the
armed Islamist groups.??? But the U.S. and its allies stood by their
story. ???France, meanwhile, has said it has ???proof??? chemical weapons were
used, and US media have quoted sources saying urine and blood tests
showed this too. The WHO [World Health Organization] has said its
partners on the ground treated 500 patients ???exhibiting signs and
symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals.??????
The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was
dispatched to the scene to investigate but they were ???blocked from
coming here to the site of the alleged gas attack themselves, ostensibly
because they lacked the correct UN permits.??? Nevertheless, the OPCW fact
finding mission (FFM) issued its ???final report??? report on March 1, 2019.
The report states, ??????based on the information reviewed and with the
absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy
records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the
signs and symptoms to a specific chemical.??? However, the report goes on
to conclude,
Regarding the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon on 7 April 2018
in Douma, the Syrian Arab Republic, the evaluation and analysis of all
the information gathered by the FFM???witnesses??? testimonies,
environmental and biomedical samples analysis results, toxicological and
ballistic analyses from experts, additional digital information from
witnesses???provide reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as
a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine.
The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.
The OPCW???s conclusions were widely reported in the corporate press as
evidence that the Assad government carried out the alleged attack:
The New York Times: ???Evidence of Chlorine Found in Syrian Town of Douma,
Investigators Say???.
AP: ???Chemical weapons watchdog says chlorine was used in Douma???.
Reuters: ???Chemical weapons agency: ???toxic chemical??? used in attack on
Syrian rebel town last April???
UN News: ???Security Council discusses chemical weapons use in Syria
following latest global watchdog report???
The BBC: ???Syria war: Chlorine likely to have been used in Douma attack ???
OPCW???
But on May 13, 2019, the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media
published a suppressed OPCW engineering assessment that directly
contradicts the OPCW???s ???final report??? on the Douma incident. On May 16,
the OPCW confirmed the leaked assessment was genuine, saying it was
???conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of
the document in question.???
The suppressed engineering assessment could not be more devastating.
Referring to two metal cylinders that were assumed to have delivered the
chemical agent, the assessment states,
In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together
with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability
that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather
than being delivered from aircraft.
Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and
international security at MIT explained the significance of the leaked
engineering assessment as it contradicts the official OPCW report,
???The OPCW engineering assessment unambiguously describes evidence
collected by the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) that indicates two
analyzed chlorine cylinder attacks were staged in April 2018 in Douma.
The holes in the reinforced concrete roofs that were supposedly produced
by high-speed impacts (impact at speeds of perhaps 100 m/s or more, 250
mph) of industrial chlorine canisters dropped from helicopters were
instead created by earlier explosions of either artillery rockets or
mortar shells. In one event a chlorine canister that was damaged on
another occasion was placed on the roof with its head inserted into an
existing crater hole, and in the other case a damaged chlorine cylinder
was placed on a bed supposedly after it penetrated the building roof and
bounced from its original trajectory into a bed. In both cases the
damage to the chlorine cylinders was incompatible with the damage to the
surroundings that was allegedly caused by the cylinder impacts.
???As such, 35 deaths that were originally attributed to these staged
chlorine events cannot be explained and it cannot be ruled out that
these people were murdered as part of the staging effort.???
To date, the corporate media that so eagerly promoted the official U.S.
government narrative of the events in Douma and the formal OPCW report
that reinforced it have been silent on the leaked OPCW engineering
assessment which so thoroughly contradicts the official story. This
entire incident serves as a reminder that critics of the imperial war
machine must be vigilant and remain skeptical.
The ruling rich, their spokespersons and their media all lie. Routinely.
This is their default behavior. It???s one of the tools they use to
maintain power. For them to tell the truth would be to expose the
injustice and irrationality of their system, of their wars, and of their
foreign and domestic policies. Skepticism is always called for when
evaluating contentious narratives in the midst of day-to-day struggles,
but it is especially necessary when the ???official??? narrative makes the
warmakers look like champions of truth and justice while their opponents
are portrayed as monsters. It should go without saying that, just as a
stopped clock will show the correct time every so often, the corporate
media will mix some truth in with their falsehoods. But aware as we are
of the imperial compulsion for prevarication, we should never afford
them the benefit of the doubt. Self-serving claims by the ruling rich
and its mouthpieces should be assumed to be false until proven otherwise
by concrete, verifiable facts.
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June 13, 2019 in Middle East.
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??? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ???
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