For the first time, Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV released new dramatic footage showing Israeli forces using a weaponized drone against a Hamas rally in the Gaza Strip, according to the Times of Israel.
The post Horrifying Video Shows Israeli Military Target Civilians with Chemical Weapon Drone appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
If there was any confusion whether in addition to Moscow, Beijing was also behind Assad, today all doubts were laid to rest when both Russia and China called on all involved parties "to support the efforts of the OPCW and the United Nations in investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria," according to a joint statement by Russian and Chinese leaders on the current international situation posted on Kremlin website on Tuesday, following a meeting between Putin and China"s president Xi Jinping.
"The sides emphasize that in matters of chemical weapons in Syria, all parties, with respect to Syrian sovereignty, must support the efforts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] and relevant UN structures to conduct an independent and comprehensive investigation in order to obtain irrefutable evidence, establish genuine circumstances and draw conclusions that are capable of withstanding the verification by facts and time."
Additionally, in the document Russia and China both "strongly condemn any use of chemical weapons anywhere and by anyone."
The statement came days after the White House claimed last week that a new attack involving chemical weapons was being prepared by the Syrian government, however, failed to and declined to present any evidence. Washington vowed to make Syrian authorities "pay a heavy price" in case of chemical weapons use. Commenting on the White House"s statement, the Kremlin said that it considers US threats against Syrian legitimate leadership to be "unacceptable." Damascus also denied the information.
Furthermore, after a bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the two sides called for respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, as well as for a political solution to the Arab country"s crisis through an inclusive dialogue.
"The parties underline the necessity of respecting the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, call for settlement of the Syrian crisis in a political and diplomatic manner through broad intra-Syrian dialogue without any preconditions and external intervention, for a search for a political settlement option that matches the particular Syrian conditions and takes the concerns of all the parties to the conflict into account.”
Moscow and Beijing also said they welcome the Geneva talks between representatives of Syrian government and the opposition, the statement said.
Meanwhile, going back to the original fake chemical attack that was used to justify the US ballistic missile strikes on Syria in April, Damascus has repeatedly denied any involvement in the incident and said that the Syrian government doesn"t possess chemical weapons as the full destruction of Damascus’ chemical weapons stockpile had been confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in January 2016.
So far the US has failed to explain why it refuses to accept the Syrian offer to investigate the airbase that served as the alleged source of the chemical attack, although one particular explanation is quite obvious to all. In any case, should Trump resort to another attack on Syria, once again using the fabricated excuse that Assad"s regime used chemical weapons, this time the US will have not only Russia but China as its foreign policy adversaries, as the global axes are becoming increasingly more distinct ahead of the next world war.
Authored by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,
The BBC reportedly has exclusive proof that the Syrian government is continuing to produce chemical weapons in violation of a deal reached in 2013. Pursuant to that deal, the Syrian government was supposed to remove its entire stockpile, which the U.N. said had already been achieved in 2014.
According to a document provided to the BBC by a “Western intelligence agency,” chemical and biological munitions are being produced at three main sites near Damascus and Hama. The document also alleges that Iran and Russia are well aware of these activities.
Even though the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) monitors these sites, the document alleges that the manufacture of chemical weapons continues behind closed doors.
According to the BBC, the OPCW has confirmed that it has asked the Syrian authorities to declare the relevant parts of the sites per Syria’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The Syrian authorities have declared sections of those sites, but the OPCW was not in a position to “confirm that the [Syrian] declaration is complete and accurate.”
In its report, the BBC then tied the information from the document into the wider issue at hand — that the Syrian government is deemed by Western powers to be the number one culprit behind the most recent chemical weapons attack at the beginning of April.
Most disturbing, however, is the fact that the BBC advanced this information with the following provisos buried in the final paragraphs of its report:
“The intelligence information about the suspected weapons manufacturing sites was shared with the BBC on condition the agency providing it would not be named.
“It does not give detail about how the alleged evidence was gathered.” [emphasis added]
It wouldn’t be surprising to most people if the Syrian government is still producing chemical weapons at those sites (or any other sites, for that matter). However, there is a glaring problem with these claims: What is the standard of proof? An unnamed “intelligence agency” shares information with a media network without providing any detail as to how it actually assessed or compiled its data?
This is the same media network that in 2013 reported on U.N. investigator Carla Del Ponte’s view that, in fact, Syrian rebels likely used sarin gas to attack civilians in the major attacks in 2013. So far, very little concrete evidence regarding the Syrian government’s culpability in any of the chemical weapons attacks throughout the conflict has emerged, including the most recent one in April. As such, it is no surprise that the BBC has to resort to these kinds of tactics.
Despite the disclaimer mentioned in the article, the title of the BBC report was “Syria government ‘producing chemical weapons at research facilities,’” though the editors likely knew full well very few people would even bother to read the first paragraph, let alone the last few paragraphs, which acknowledged the absurdity of the information presented.
A parallel can be drawn between this narrative and the numerous allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. As noted by Glenn Greenwald in December, the allegations presented by the mainstream media regarding Russian interference were no substitute for concrete proof:
“There is still no such evidence for any of these claims. What we have instead are assertions, disseminated by anonymous people, completely unaccompanied by any evidence, let alone proof.”
Sound familiar?
Regardless of the accusation, the political nature of the issue at hand, and the parties involved, employing Greenwald’s words of warning are the only way to distinguish fact from fiction. If we don’t know the facts for sure, we shouldn’t promulgate them without question, especially given the ulterior motives of the corporate media and the agencies that advise them (in the case of Syria, the agenda of these parties is regime change).
Real journalism requires a much higher standard than that, assuming our job is to publish the truth. The stakes are high in Syria, and we can’t afford to let the U.S. government and allies employ a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality — the same kind we have seen cause such widespread catastrophe in countries such as Iraq and Libya.
As the New York Times was forced to admit in 2004, approximately a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq:
“But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.”
This time, let’s question the propaganda before the invasion - not after it.
The Sun claims that CNN has released new footage of last month’s Syrian chemical incident … and strongly implies that the Syrian government was responsible.
Washington’s Blog asked MIT rocket scientist and chemical weapons expert Theodore Postol* what he thought of the footage.
Postol replied:
I agree that the footage is harrowing. However none of it is new and none of it proves that the Syrian government was the perpetrator of a nerve agent attack.
As such, this article merely falls into the category of propaganda.
The kindest alternative description of the article is that it might instead be yet another example of bad reporting that mixes ill-considered assumptions with facts that may or may not be relevant to its conclusions.
This kind of reporting could actually be encouraging such attacks.
If there was a false flag nerve agent attack, this tells the perpetrators that when they engage in the murder of children they can build a stronger false case against the Syrian government and thereby increase their chances of creating political pressure on the US Government to intervene militarily on their behalf.
If people are sickened by the inhumanity of these events, they might want to consider alternative explanations of who might be responsible for the immoralities we are seeing.
* Postol is professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT. Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory. He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.
