Western Press Descend into Insanity as Syria Narrative Collapses
Kit Knightly
Syria has disappeared from the front pages of the Western press recently, and for good reason. It’s not going well over there, as far as the “allies” are concerned. Yesterday the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed what many of us had already deduced – there were no chemical weapons present at the sites targeted by the US/UK/French missiles.
That’s not been reported in the Western press, at all. Exemplified by the eternally on-message Guardian, who haven’t had a headline regarding Syria in over a week. The Royal Baby and ABBA’s new song and a stuffed anteater, all apparently too important to be bumped from the front page.
Also yesterday, the Russian and Syrian authorities transported 17 witnesses of the alleged Douma “chemical attack” to the Netherlands. The witnesses, including the little boy who featured strongly in the White Helmets propaganda video, spoke at a press conference before taking questions (video is embedded above). All denied a chemical attack had taken place.
This, along with Robert Fisk et al’s reporting on the ground, pretty much puts the final nail in the coffin as far as the official narrative on Douma is concerned.
We nearly went to war – and nearly instigated WWIII – on the back of a complete lie.
A shocking state of affairs…but one that hasn’t been covered in the Western media much. At all really, except to quote the French ambassador to the Netherlands who called it an “obscene masquerade”. An oddly strong opinion, considering neither he – nor any diplomats from the US and UK – were present at the event, or heard the testimony of the witnesses. They all refused to attend in protest.
ITV “journalist” Rupert Evelyn was particularly bizarre. Displaying his open mind and keen sense journalistic objectivity by first accusing the witnesses of changing their story, (they had not, at all), and then directly accusing the Russian ambassador to the OPCW of threatening a child. An incredibly odd performance.
Just as we saw with the absolutely ridiculous – and never retracted – accusations against certain twitter users of being “bots”, it seems the only recourse the MSM have when their narratives crumble, is to fling abuse. Their only defense when their lies are revealed? Tell more lies.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
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There will probably be an up to date Off Guardian article soon following today’s OPCW interim Douma report but I just wanted to share a couple of immediate thoughts. First, it was excellent news that the OPCW have confirmed that the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) found no evidence of nerve agents either in environmental samples or body fluids.
However I note that some people on Twitter and indeed the BBC ‘red button’ news are claiming that the OPCW did confirm “a chlorine attack”, hoping of course that such a finding will still label Assad as inhuman etc etc. Actually, the OPCW haven’t confirmed a chlorine attack. The report states “Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results [slightly ambiguous but presumably they are referring to all their findings in general] is ongoing. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.”
In fact, the ABSENCE of a reference to explosive residues and various chlorinated organic chemicals in the areas under investigation would have been much more suspicious in terms of validating what many of us already deduced i.e. that the terrorist factions had access to these materials. As everyone will recall, the SSA discovered at least two weapons factories in the liberated areas of Douma, stocked with explosive devices and materials and what was believed to be multiple barrels of a chlorine type substance. If the OPCW hadn’t seen fit to allude to this discovery (and it is my belief it is this that they are referring to) then I think their report would have had no credibility whatsoever.
My second point is that also included in this short interim report is a reference to an earlier report issued on 2 July 2018. I wonder if they felt the need to highlight this earlier report in view of the lack of publicity it appears to have received when first released. The significance of the earlier report? It addresses “allegations of chemical weapons use in Al-Hamidaniya, Syria on 30/10/16 and Karm al-Tarrab, Syria on 16/11/16. On the basis of information received and analysed, interviews, and the results of laboratory analyses, the FFM cannot confidently determine whether or not a specific chemical was used as a weapon in the incidents that took place. The FFM noted that the persons affected in the reported incidents may, in some instances, have been exposed to some type of non-persistent irritating substance”.
It appears that the Western narrative may be starting to crumble even more – yet another reason looming for a false flag chemical weapons attack in Syria?
Reblogged this on The Free.
If at first you don’t succeed in duping the public then keep digging a hole for yourself ever deeper ,until there is absolutely no way to get out of it save someone send then a lifeline. .And that is the state of affairs they are in today. Looking ridiculous and disclosing themselves for what/who they really are .Liars and cheats for the deep state /MIC / corporate multinationals for whom there is never enough profits .
A massive explosion occurred at a Syrian Army military base in Hama, allegedly after it was hit by a missile strike.
Another explosion has been heard near Aleppo. According to local TV station Surya, the explosions occurred at 10:30 PM local time. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804301064021000-hama-missile-strike-video/
The Issue of S300 for Syria was discussed with his Generals it seems he is reluctant will these alleged Israeli Strikes change his mind?
This was discussed by Putin with General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on April 20. The Russian military, they told the President, want the go-ahead to deploy S-300 missile batteries to cover Syrian and Iranian forces against US and Israeli attack from the air. They believe Israeli threats to attack the S-300 batteries as soon as they are operational are a bluff which Russia must call if Russia’s positions in Syria, and Iran itself, are not to come under subsequent attack from the American-Israeli combination. Testing the threat in Syria, they argue, is the less threatening, less costly option than encouraging the Americans and Israelis to prepare their offensive against Iran. Putin won’t agree.
To respond to Putin’s reluctance, the General Staff and the Defence Ministry have devised a step short of the S-300, but with potentially enough defensive power to intercept or deter American and Israeli air attacks. This is the deployment of more Russian electronic warfare systems with the capacity to jam the surveillance, targeting, fire control and command signals on which the attackers rely. It is the Samson Haircut option – deprive the giant of control of his firepower, blind him.
http://johnhelmer.net/the-samson-haircut-option-one-step-before-russia-opens-fire-on-american-israeli-forces/#more-19116
Yes please .Show them they can’t continue to nudge themselves onto Syrian territory /sovereignty without being checked.That ,after all is the reason why Russia is in Syria .
‘We nearly went to war – and nearly instigated WWIII – on the back of a complete lie.’
Who is the ‘we’ referred to here?
Freudian slip?
Does off-guardian see itself as part of the UK government?
“We” as in the Western world, the US, Europe, UK. And indeed humanity at large.
Do you think it probable we see ourselves as part of the UK govt?
I do think it was a statement without giving it much thought .
Good response.
Here’s that link from RT. and it was a quote by Russian’s rep to the OPCW, Aleksabdr Shuglin that said OPCW were satisfied with 6 witness accounts.
https://www.rt.com/news/425240-opcw-russia-syria-douma-witnesses/ “Six of the Douma witnesses brought to The Hague have already been interviewed by the OPCW technical experts, Russia’s permanent representative to the OPCW, Aleksandr Shulgin, said.
“The others were ready too, but the experts are sticking to their own guidelines. They’ve picked six people, talked to them, and said they were ‘completely satisfied’ with their account and did not have any further questions,” Shulgin revealed. He added that the allegations by “certain Western countries” ahead of the briefing that Moscow and Damascus were seeking to “hide” the witnesses from the OPCW experts did not hold water.”
Deb – Thanks for this. This again highlights how eager the West (by this I mean Governments and mainstream media both) is to discredit the Syrian Government and the Russians at every opportunity no matter how scurrilous the lies. We have seen it time and time again. They did the same prior to the OPCW inspection visit: firstly, by declaring that the Russians were trying to prevent an inspection visit (when in fact with very little research it could be established that the opposite was the case and it was Western Govts who at the UN voted against the immediate inspection visit called for by the Russians); secondly, the baseless accusations that the Russians were removing all incriminating evidence from the site of the [alleged] chemical attack; and thirdly, by promoting the idea that it was the Russians and Syrians who were delaying the commencement of the OPCW inspection when there was an actual OPCW memo making clear that it was the advance UN Safety and Security team who were preventing it. These are just three examples of many with regard to Douma but we have seen it before with E Aleppo, Khan Sheikhoun, other parts of E Ghouta and, of course, the ongoing Skripal case. Such ridiculous and unsupportable allegations distorting the truth have been going on for years now as the anti-Putin and anti-Assad agenda machine has rumbled on and, in spite of being distinctly desperate in terms of credibility, they seem to get away with it over and over again. The reasons why they do get away with it have been covered in depth by more learned contributors to this site than me so I don’t suggest we try to analyse the whys and wherefores again but I personally find it all extremely frustrating to witness and just wish they all get what they truly deserve, sooner rather than later.
They will.
The lies that are being told over Russia/ Syria/ Skripal are just hammering the final nails into the coffin of the MSM.
This began with Iraq and is now coming to a head.
Hence the panicky attempts to close down alternative media and control the internet.
This is a good sign, a sign of weakness.
I’ve read the comments about how Duran article is misleading and has been retracted. However the OPCW did say the other day that they had interviewed and listened to the witness statements, the young boy included, and found them to be credible and no reason to doubt their statements so that’s a good sign. I think it was on RT I read it, sorry I don’t have the link, but will post when I find.
The little boy’s integrity shines forth. Western media can’t handle that, they have to go through all kinds of mental acrobatics to discount his testimony. Otherwise they are shown to be dupes – and that will never do.
God give us strength.
The Western fakestream media has adopted pure hasbara tactics. Lie and lie and lie again, and if a truth-teller hoves into view, assault them mercilessly with insults, epithets and threats.
At least the Russian government has provided proof of life for these Syrians, something the British government has never done with the Skripals. There is no evidence at all they are alive.
The manner in which the Skripals have been ‘disappeared’ is Kafkaesque, but the way the Western fakestream media sewer and its arthropod denizens have merely accepted it, without quibble, is nauseatingly familiar.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Noam Chomsky has just provided Left intellectual and moral cover for US / Israeli / England / Saudi / little boy macron intervention in Syria on behalf of the Kurds. He contradicts himself and is a complete hypocrite, an imperious egotistical narcissist who is a Pope: when he speaks ex cathedra (i.e. ALL THE TIME), he is INFALLIBLE. This is a repeated pattern. One wonders why MIT continues to supply him with an office and staff …
More and more I tend to agree with your statement .I used to be an ardent admirer/supporter ,read many of his books etc. . But lately either I am waking up or he is showing his true colors as I am questioning his capacity to be objective on many fronts .
Cheers.
Why is this posted here? Did you intend it for a 9/11 thread?
Reblogged this on circusbuoy.
Well, “fake narratives”, a never ending Story!
„Media, Independent and Mainstream: Fake News and Fake Narratives“: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/media-independent-and-mainstream-fake-news-and-fake-narratives/
Regards
All caught with their pants down.
No. Delete that. It conjures up horrible images.
The trouble is if the mainstream media and western governments suddenly start telling the truth no thinking person is going to believe them. By then, like the boy who cried “Wolf!”, it could be too late to save the sheep. I actually think the sheeple are incapable of saving themselves.
Much as I question whether Assad used chemical weapons at Douma this article is not up to the standards I expect from Off-Guardian. I can’t see that the OPCW ever stated that no weapons were used.
Have a quick re-read: they did not say that. They even linked to the article: no CW at “Damascus research centre”. They have not reported from Douma yet.
Some confusion over whether OPCW cleared the bombed research centre in this current visit or from last year. And mistakenly reported as current.
Not that I doubt the place was clean. Bombing it would potentially cause casualties from chemicals if they had been present. How, out of the blue, did FUKUS work out these buildings had CW development and never informed OPCW to begin with or bomb them before the claimed attack.
Isn’t the question how FUKUS are sure these buildings didn’t have CW development and were safe to bomb?
Of course, they knew there wasn’t CW there. But the charade goes on.
Perhaps they were lying-you can tell because their lips move.
I apologise. I was confused by a comment below using the Duran as a source. However if the OPCW have stated that there were no chemical weapons on the sites bombed there is no obvious link to this.
Grigory – I agree, the article is lacking in clarity. As we know it has been published today but was clearly in draft form yesterday if not on 26 April which I think is where the confusion has arisen. The opening paragraph refers to the OPCW confirming “yesterday” the absence of chemical weapons at the Damascus sites but I think that is based on the information contained in the linked Duran article of 25 April – which has since been corrected – rather than being more recent definitive confirmation. The article additionally (inaccurately if you go by the publication date of 28 April) states “Also yesterday, the Russian and Syrian authorities transported 17 witnesses…” which must have been written/edited on 27 April. Having said that, I think it has to be clear to everyone – as others have said here – that there can’t have been any chemical weapons on the targeted sites or else there would certainly have been disastrous humanitarian consequences. I certainly concur with the overall sentiments of the article. Another related point, and apologies for repeating myself as I have mentioned it elsewhere, is that the UK Rep to the OPCW had the audacity to condemn the Russians and Syrians for this ‘stunt’ of bringing the witnesses to the Hague, on the grounds that they should have waited for the OPCW to report and by not doing so they are undermining the OPCW’s role. This remark coming from a representative of a country which was prepared to commit war atrocities against a country (and potentially risk triggering a world war) in advance of the outcome of a scheduled and underway OPCW investigation.
Unfortunately, The Duran made a rather egregious error there. It committed an act of such carelessness in the article referenced above that it superficially looks like a bare-faced lie. They’ve already retracted that claim — that the OPCW, which did collect some samples in Douma the other day, had already issued a report on its findings — but not before this was posted here.
Grabbing Sputnik’s misleading, click-bait headline “OPCW finds NO Chemical Weapons at Damascus research center” (April 25), Duran’s journalist seems to have read no further, as the Russian MoD officer cited by Sputnik and referenced by The Duran says explicitly that he’s referring to OPCW’s 2017 report on last year’s incident and the bombing that followed. To make matters worse, Duran then claimed in the same article that “TASS News Agency has corroborated this story” — a bizarre statement as the TASS piece in question does no such thing. You can check it out at tass.com/defense/1001674.
The Weekly Standard Fact Check column caught the error and The Duran promptly issued a retraction.
It took me some time to look in the vocabulary for a befitting term to describe the Western values Regimes. There is none. Although the closest to what I was looking for turned out to be ‘preposterous‘, since ‘pathetic would appear to be nothing but a compliment. From a pure medical point of view, ‘psychopathic‘ would suffice, but not without the prefix ‘criminally‘.
So, I found this one to be worthy considering when speaking about these truly bad excuses for what goes for a Human Being:
‘PATHOPATHICOSTEROUS‘.
They are psychopaths ie are afflicted by insatiable, greed, the love of violence, grotesquely hypertrophied egotism (given their innate second ratedness)and possess little or no human compassion and empathy for others. The worst are as bad, easily, as the worst Nazis or Eastern European fascists from WW2, or any other human monsters who ever existed. How humanity escapes from the dominance of these genocidal, life-hating, thugs is quite beyond my capacity to imagine.
“We nearly went to war – and nearly instigated WWIII – on the back of a complete lie.”
We have done that before and we will do that again… we are pretty capable of doing exactly that…
Remember the sinking of the Lusitania, and Pearl Harbour… what if almost a century has passed by before the truth of such bizarre game changing events has begun to spill out… it will be perhaps another century before the mass population of this world actually begins to believe what the Zionist Deep State operatives continue to term as Conspiracy Theories were Conspiracies in fact.
I can’t figure out why so many people can be aware of past lies and still believe the new ones.
Because every time there is a lie the protaganists bleat on ‘regretfully’ about ‘lessons will be learned’ and people make the profound mistake of believing them and regarding them as people of honour.
It’s called ‘doublethink’ i.e., the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs in the mind and seeing no mental inconsistency therein. It takes a great deal of mind-structuring – operant conditioning in the jargon – to achieve this outcome. A relentless psychological bombardment is primarily directed to the limbic brain which controls emotions, motivation and memory bypassing the parts of the brain which deal with logic and reason. It has become increasingly sophisticated as a method of producing conformity and group-think. There was a time when clumsy methods such as torture were used to control thought. The PTB attempted to reach the soul via the body. However, it was very hit and miss. At the present time we go straight to the soul playing on feelings of guilt, fear, and irrationality to achieve the end results of zombification and lobotomy.
Francis, you’re describing advertising quite succinctly there. The malignant and malevolent effects of the psychological molesters and manipulators of the Advertising Moloch are seriously under-estimated, in my opinion.
Fear. Fear of being labeled ‘anti-American’, ‘antisemitic’ or an ‘apologist’ for Putin, Assad etc. People have seen what happens to dissenters from the orgies of death-squad rampages in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America etc, and from the ongoing murder of hundreds of unionists, environmentalists, tribal leaders etc, every year, in the poor world, for the crime of ‘getting in the way’, and they know that, before The End, that terror will visit its birthplace in the glorious West, too.
May should be forced to resign but clearly the msm is now wholly irrelevant;Labour still doesnt get it over Syria nor Russia esp Thornberry and Lewis
Or Corbyn: Assad has killed more than IS: Russia guilty of war crimes in Syria, state repression and punishment beatings of students, “state approved” homophobia, and we should look to Navalny for guidance*. And if they do not get it before, Labour will no doubt implement a Magnitsky sanctions act which characterises Russia as a crony-kleptocratic state …and legitimise the BuzzFeed “From Russia with Blood” investigation that characterises Russia as a rogue assassin state. Which is not the way to ease relations or diffuse tensions.
[* I put the full quotes here: https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/22/alexander-shulgin-to-the-opcw/%5D
Just watched one of our supposed ‘Labor’ leaders from Federal parliament, a certain Marles, and, in my opinion, he was NO DIFFERENT whatsoever from the worst Imperial thugs from Thanatopolis DC itself, or the other Imperial running-dogs in our ruling Federal regime, the entire fakestream media, the ‘think-tanks’, the ‘intelligence’ thuggeries etc. He poured venomous, barely disguised racist, contempt and hatred on the Koreans for daring to talk peace to one another, and he did it with a malicious enthusiasm that was undisguised, and repulsive. Evil has the glorious West by the throat, and it won’t ever willingly relax its hold.
Thornberry is a Zionist multi millionaire who despises her own supporters and is being groomed to replace Corbyn if the anti Semitic smears have their intended effect.
Please note the above link to the OCPW conclusion ‘no chemical weapons present’ has been retracted as it was referring to an earlier inspection. http://theduran.com/correction-apology-opcw-has-not-confirmed-absence-of-chemical-weapons-at-damascus-research-facility/
Point is of course, that the OPCW had certified that ALL the Syrian CW stocks were removed, and had also removed or destroyed all the equipment that might be used to restart a CW operation. They know that of course, as did the UK and France and US, who oversaw the destruction. Yet another mind-bending distortion of reality.
Didn’t stop the terrorists of course, who brought their own stuff in.
I’ve asked repeatedly whether and why the OPCW did not visit the two sites where a CW factory was discovered in Ghouta/Douma, but still no answer.
I don’t know how we can deal with these people any longer, and their obscene masquerades.
Donald Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron are war criminals.
Don’t forget that Merkel and her war horny war minister with a name like a disease.
So is everybody else who supported or condoned this business.
They are Servants of Zion, so have impunity to mere ‘International Law’.
May should resign, the sooner the better! the leaders of both the US and France should apologize to both Russia and Syria. They are an embarrassment to their nations and a great danger to the rest of the World.
And to make matters even worse, if that’s possible, May is apparently grooming Gavin Williamson whom she sees as having the qualities necessary to become a future PM. That just goes to confirm how unquestionably incompetent she really is.
Well, if the qualities required to be PM is an insatiable ability to lie with a straight face, the ability to bear false witness, the ability to do what your masters tell you to, then Williamson probably is a good candidate.
The real question is when voters will stop tolerating wastrels like Williamson….
You missed one – his ability to use curt, offensive language to anyone who chooses not to demonstrate subservience.
But Williamson is a puerile cretin, a clear case of moral and intellectual arrested development at about the toilet training (failed) stage of psychic development. Good God, despite the wretched implications for human survival, the collapse of the West into a malignant farce is truly hilarious.
Yes, she should be training Williamson’s pet tarantula Cronus – I’m sure the spider could do a much better job.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/defence-secretary-gavin-williamsons-pet-11668568?ICID=FB_mirror_main
Odd how Williamson named his beloved pet, which he raised from the time it was a baby, after a Greek god who castrated his father with a sickle and consumed his own children before being forced to cough them up by his youngest son Zeus. Strange sense of humour or what?
Williamson is one of the more intellectually challenged of the Tories. And that’s something to behold, cf “Shut up and go away!”
He probably though he was naming him after a designer Swiss wristwatch.
If May and the rest of this revolting crew really believed they were bombing CW stocks their ‘humanitarian’ intervention could well have killed hundreds of people, or maybe thousands, given the built-up area round Barzeh. Talk about ‘humanitarian’!
On the other side, if they knew there was nothing, it’s time they forked out for repairs – from their own pockets.
Thank God they didn’t kill anybody – but not for lack of trying….