Why did the American Military take precautions to prevent "fanciful" impossibilities?
by Kit
Late last night, The Pentagon stated that their attack on the Syrian Government air-base near Homs was not targeting the regime’s supposed chemical weapon stocks. Despite “all the signs” pointing to Assad’s guilt, and it being “very likely” that this base is where the gas attack originated…no efforts were made to destroy any chemical weapons. At all.
The Pentagon’s official statement says:
The strike was a proportional response to Assad’s heinous act. Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that aircraft from Shayrat conducted the chemical weapons attack on April 4.
And that the attack…
…was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again.”
But the targets were limited to:
…aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.
So they “know” where the chemical weapons are. And they “know” Assad used them on civilians and (for all they know) may well do so again.
So why not target and destroy these weapons? Wouldn’t that be the easiest option?
Well, it is NOT because they know Assad doesn’t really have any. They want to be very clear on that point. Rather, it’s because they want to prevent possible casualties by putting chemicals into the atmosphere, as The Guardian reports:
But that tenuous self-defence justification was weakened by the Pentagon’s insistence that the goal of the strike was not to destroy chemical weapons. In fact, it took great pains to avoid bombing any sites where chemical weapons may have been stored, for fear of causing civilian casualties downwind.
But, hold on, isn’t this statement in total and complete contradiction to all the media coverage of the Idlib attack so far? Why yes, yes it is!
When the Russian government suggested the chemical casualties were caused by the bombs hitting a rebel weapons stockpile, these claims were rubbished as “fanciful” by the current go-to expert on chemical weapons, Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon. He told the Guardian, the BBC and others:
“No I think [the Russian explanation] is pretty fanciful, no doubt the Russians trying to protect their allies,” he said.
“Axiomatically, if you blow up sarin, you destroy it.”
“It’s very clear it’s a sarin attack,” he added. “The view that it’s an al-Qaida or rebel stockpile of sarin that’s been blown up in an explosion, I think is completely unsustainable and completely untrue.”
All the mainstream media have been very clear that releasing sarin gas into the atmosphere through bombing is impossible. Even going so far as to ignore weapons experts so say otherwise, and remove them from their articles.
So there we are, it is perfectly safe – according to our own former-NATO experts – to bomb the crap out of sarin. It poses no threat whatsoever to civilians and will be completely destroyed.
The fact the American’s didn’t destroy, or even attempt destroy, Assad’s supposed sarin gas stocks is definitive proof of one of two things:
1. They know Assad doesn’t have any sarin gas.
2. They know the Russian explanation to be, at least theoretically, correct.
Of course, it could also be both.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons…”
We strongly suggest authors in their articles, readers and all people around the Earth directly challenge Donald Trump to produce the “evidence” he supposedly has which led him to this conclusion.
Possible article titles might include: “Donald Trump – Show The World Your Evidence”, “Where Is The Evidence, Mr. Trump?”, “Trump Must Show The Evidence”, “Where Is Your Proof, Mr. President?”, etc. etc. etc.
Focus like lasers on challenging Trump to produce the proof and/or evidence in the most vigorous manner possible. Do it for your family, your friends, all of humanity and future generations. Peace.
I keep wondering why nobody starts a petition on the WH gov sight about such issues.
There is a third possibility (with a forth-and-a-bit implicit in this third (and I am certain that others can come up with additional speculative implications of their own 😉 )):
If the “sarin gas stocks” actually existed, the Americans couldn’t hit them if their lives depended on it.
Out of 59 missiles, only 23 landed “in proximity” of the Shayrat airfield. Apparently, for approximately 90 million dollars worth of spent ordnance, the US managed a paltry 3-5 million dollars in material damage, and nothing at all to speak of to the runway they intended to disable. Furthermore, Shayrat airfield itself is a rather low value target, given that it’s “a ‘dump’ where the Syrian Arab Republic’s armed forces’ old and already decommissioned military equipment waits before being sent to scrap or dismantling for old parts.”
So . . . either:
3.01. The U.S. missiles are pieces of junk that fly on a wing and a prayer.
Or (by possible implicit implication):
3.02. The personnel whose job it is to target the ordnance are sending their higher-ups a message (my personal favorite in terms of what I’m hoping for and may in fact be possible).
Or (by implicit implicit implication — the least likely of all the implications):
3.02.5. The US military are trying to fool the Russians and Syrians into believing that American hardware isn’t as good as it “exceptionally” really is, trying, that is to say, to lull Russia and Syria into a false sense of security, so as to surprise them later . . .
I’m increasingly convinced there was no gas attack – it was pure Hollywood !
Yep. At this point, it’s hard to tell. There is enough ambiguity in the scenarios at hand to suggest that both the “chemical attack” and the US retaliation are all smoke and mirrors. I’m not saying the first thing was all of a piece with the second, but that the first thing was known to be coming well in advance of its execution, and the “political” riposte (i.e. the missile attack) was also prepared in due time and as a result, and not without the connivance of both the Russian and Syrian leadership. Too few missiles hit their “target” and the misses may have been deliberate, less to mislead the Russian-Syrian camp, then to play up “serious operational deficiencies” to shake the confidence of the hawks back in the U.S.
Of course, the latter is all unrestrained speculation on my part, but there you have it.
As to whether the “chemical attack” was the staging of something that did not in fact occur,
how is this as evidence of at least some “foreknowledge” by the “rebel faction:”
https://twitter.com/WithinSyriaBlog/status/849240804556242944/photo/1
And then see the rest of the article by Paul Antonopoulos, from which I was alerted to that particular piece of suggestive and tantalizing evidence: Jumping to conclusions; something is not adding up in Idlib chemical weapons attack
But who can say? For sure, the details will emerge in time. Obviously, my hope is my bias: I don’t want to see this thing escalate into anything more than the theater it currently happens to be. So that’s the way I’m reading these tea leaves.
There was a real sarin attack in Tokyo a while back. Sarin is so toxic it can kill through simple skin contact. Consequently the first repsonders wear full-body positive-pressure hazmat suits like this.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/n-sarin-b-20150321.jpg
If there was any sarin on the bodies, the people touching them would be dead. Also the use of high pressure hoses would disperse surface sarin as droplets which again could be fatal to anyone caught in the spray or pooled water.
The White Helmets were just playing the part and the chemical agent supposedly involved was definitely not sarin. The presence of the two flatbed trucks with dropped sides is intriguing. Were they used to bring in bodies from elsewhere as props? It is not as if they haven’t done that before.
1 Assad has no reason to use Chemical Weapons that he publicly had ALL destroyed years ago. That would be stupid… mindbogglingly d.u.m.b. Like rubbinh Obama’s nose in shit. And on a target of civilians of ZERO military value! How dumb do they think we are!
2 The rebels have every incentive to use chemical weapons and blame it on the Syrian Government because they ARE LOSING THE WAR. And they want to draw the US and its allies into the fight (so they can win).
3 The MSM hasn’t questioned that LACK OF ANY INVESTIGATION – just regurgitated speculation and absence of facts.
4 The chemical weapons “expert” Hamish says that sarin is destroyed if it gets blown up, but isn’t this what sarin shells are designed to do? Blow up? The US manufactured >250,000 binary shells year ago and they don’t deteriorate nearly so quickly because the ingredients are only mixed after the shell has been fired.
5 Action before investigation can even get started? How to they know who did it and how? It’s total bollocks.
6 The ex UK ambassador to Syrian has to point out all these contradictions this morning, but the presenters were clearly biased and uncomfortable!
The lengths they go to for fabrication is obvious. Only to look at the BBC Panorama episode.
They are fake central. The ‘rebels’ have no issue with cutting off kids heads. As if they care using kids in their fake videos. We are rewarding fanatics who abuse people simply because we want regime change. It is totally sick.
The same commentators in the media lap it all up and give regime change their backing while none of them can now go to Libya for fear of being killed/kidnapped.
They won’t even go into ‘rebel’ areas in Syria because of the danger but they call these areas ‘liberated’ for Syrians? It really is a messed up world.
Yeah. NEPALM victims my arse! Anyone remember vietnam???!!
The result of using this evil substance does not produce bad actors in tatty clothes, more the shame.
This pathetic-beyond-belief video reminded me of those utterly rediculous early warning propaganda movies on the dangers of marry’uarna.
It is very sad when this calibre of crap ‘perception management’ video can actually influence people into supporting genuine war crimes against humanity.
I despair!
I am also incredulous; once again, on a number of levels.
The question which has to be asked is this:
‘Is there evidence that missiles hit a site consistent with where chemical weapon signatures were detected?’
In other words, is there plausible deniability that Assad actually used the weapons as opposed to inadvertently bombing them? Temporal video evidence is essential, although given CIA forging making video evidence unsustainable in courts of law, eye witness corroboration is also necessary. Evidence must NOT come from Western-financed sources, as their funding is contingent on spouting the party line.
The next question is quite simple:
‘The chemical weapons detected: do they survive a missile strike, as the US claim many simply do not?’
The world must learn that when the US know the answers more quickly than is possible through rigorous evidence gathering, it is 99% certain that they are genocidal liars looking, like 9/11, to create false justification for more hegemonic imperialism.
People have to learn that planted evidence appears instantsneously, as does pre-prepared narrative.
Real evidence takes days or weeks.
Someone needs to grill John McCain about this upon pain of killing him if he is caught lying to save his skin.
HOW does the US always miraculously know who did it immediately, unless it is CIA/NSA/neocon warmongering bollocks?!
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” –Karl Rove
Does anyone, now, doubt the truth of Rove’s remarks? Does anyone, now, still nurture a shred of hope that objective, fact-based reality will prevail?
I would guess that there wasn’t even a large chemical attack. From what I can tell of previous cases, the ‘rebels’ deploy a small amount of sarin and create a few casualties and the rest is their usual fake videos of civilians and mainly small children being abused.
Hmmm, wonder if me pointing this absurdity out far and wide had anything to do with them having to now defend their cover story? Almost as good as punching holes in the 911 story day one. Not that there hasn’t been many more before and since.