An American in Syria

recedite

Some good investigative reporting from a US journalist.
Here he visits the site in Douma of the alleged chemical attack. 30 random locals he spoke with reckon it was a fake video staged to provoke a western response, and to allow the Saudi sponsored Daesh-Al-Islam radical Islamist gunmen (who were formerly in control) escape the area alive. People now looking forward to getting some food and rebuilding the town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSXwG-901yU

In this earlier video he wanders about Damascus, finding residents in good spirits and enjoying a religious and cultural freedom denied to most people outside Assad's zone of control. Then watches as the US/UK/French missiles scream in. There's not much you can do when being slapped by a superpower trying to look tough, except watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy0p_GL-Mkg

Chrongen

His reports and observations have been ignored.

As have people there where the chemical weapons are supposed to exist.

recedite

Indeed they have been ignored.

Veteran journalist Robert Fisk has also been ignored. Somebody at the scene said to him..

“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.”

These same "White Helmets" only work in rebel areas and are foreign funded, including from the USA and the British Foreign Office.

So if Teresa May had been looking for an excuse to launch air strikes, who better to call, if she wanted to arrange a suitable event? An event which might "demand an urgent response from the international community".

What I find really disappointing about the whole thing is the way a narrative can be invented and built up so easily, and then swallowed whole by the vast majority of the western media. From there it is dispensed to the people as "news" which they generally accept without much question.

Even this thread is an example of the way most people don't like to have the accepted narrative questioned, instead preferring to ignore anything that deviates from it. Hardly any questioning or debate.

You'd think people in the west would have learned better, after that whole WMD thing being the primary cause of the Iraq war (which later spilled over into Syria) was exposed as a lie. And despite it being well known now that the alleged WMDs were a complete fiction invented by the UK and/or the USA.
So we now have the ongoing destruction of these two formerly prosperous and highly developed countries. Millions dead and displaced. And all because a few crusty old politicians in London and Washington decided to go for regime change in somebody else's countries.
Despicable.

oscarBravo

Hypoxia.

Caused by wind. And dust.



And you criticise others for swallowing a narrative?

OwlsZat

oscarBravo wrote: »

Hypoxia.

Caused by wind. And dust.



And you criticise others for swallowing a narrative?

Do you believe the US UK narrative?

You're a bigger fool if you do.

kaymin

oscarBravo wrote: »

Hypoxia.

Caused by wind. And dust.



And you criticise others for swallowing a narrative?

France and the US have stated they have evidence /proof of a chemical attack - have they made this proof public yet? If not, why not?

oscarBravo

OwlsZat wrote: »

Do you believe the US UK narrative?

Do you believe wind causes hypoxia?

recedite

oscarBravo wrote: »

Do you believe wind causes hypoxia?

Inhalation of dust can cause hypoxia. Dust would be caused by barrel bombs, and may have been blown into the cellars by the wind being in a particular direction.
The Syrian Arab Army used barrel bombs against the rebels. The Daesh rebels for their part regularly fired mortars and artillery towards the suburbs of Damasus.

The first casualty of war is truth. All we really know is that there is insufficient evidence to say for sure what happened. There was certainly no valid reason to launch an attack on a sovereign country, a member of the UN.

The sooner the war ends the better. Everyone knows now that Assad will win. Continued western support for his main enemies, the various Islamist rebel groups, only prolongs the suffering of the Syrians.

jimmycrackcorm

I just find it strange how the Russians have been rushing in to block the inspectors from examining the area.

OwlsZat

oscarBravo wrote: »

OwlsZat wrote: »

Do you believe the US UK narrative?

Do you believe wind causes hypoxia?

I'm not an expert in hypoxia. However, there is clearly loads off about this. I find it totally hypocritical to focus in on the one thing you don't understand where there is clearly loads wrong that you do understand.

oscarBravo

OwlsZat wrote: »

I'm not an expert in hypoxia. However, there is clearly loads off about this. I find it totally hypocritical to focus in on the one thing you don't understand where there is clearly loads wrong that you do understand.

I'm not taking anyone's word for what happened, and that includes a hard right-wing news outlet that supports Roy Moore and Donald Trump when they try to claim that wind and dust - in Syria! - were so unusual as to be mistaken for a chemical attack.

Zubeneschamali

oscarBravo wrote: »

claim that wind and dust - in Syria! - were so unusual as to be mistaken for a chemical attack.

The suggestion is that the chemical attack is a deliberate fabrication, not that someone mistook something for a chemical attack.

And we heard the one about intelligence proving exactly who had WMD before.

recedite

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I just find it strange how the Russians have been rushing in to block the inspectors from examining the area.

That may be the narrative, but the American and British journalists mentioned earlier did not report any problems getting access to the site.
However when the OPCW cavalcade arrived, it seems to have drawn the ire of unidentified persons...

On arrival at Site 1, a large crowd gathered and the advice provided by the UNDSS was that the reconnaissance team should withdraw. At Site 2, the team came under small arms fire and an explosive was detonated. The reconnaissance team returned to Damascus.

So we don't actually know who these people were. By an agreement with the rebels, the Syrian Arab Army cannot enter the area until the rebels have fully evacuated. This withdrawal process is being overseen by Russian Military police, who are technically in control. However we are taking about an area that has been harshly ruled by various Daesh warlords for several years, and as they pull out, you would have to expect a certain amount of anarchy.
There is no evidence of Russians deliberately blocking the inspectors.