As official Douma narrative crumbles, mainstream already constructing backstop
Catte Black
The official narrative on the OPCW’s deception about the alleged ‘chlorine gas attack’ on Douma, Syria, in April 2018 is falling apart. The dam of media silence is cracking and straining. Trickles of truth are dribbling out. The Mail on Sunday has allowed Peter Hitchens to blog about it. Jonathan Steele and other mainstream journalists are suddenly noticing the whistleblowers they ignored for so long and salving their consciences by going public before the dam bursts.
No one is going to say this is a bad thing. However cynical it might appear, it can only be good if the wholesale corruption in the OPCW evidenced by leaked documents and whistleblower statements, is finally and officially acknowledged. It might at least make it less likely we’ll be dragged into WW3 by faked evidence of phony war crimes.
But let’s not forget in our excitement at getting some attention from the big table that when/if this story finally does burst into the mainstream consciousness it will also simultaneously be neutered of its most important reality – viz that the OPCW are just one tiny part of the massive war-manufacturing, war-justifying, war-sanitising lie-machine that is the entirety of western political society.
Of course they’re staffed with strategically placed yes-men. Of course they produced a report that was fudged into a gigantic if obfuscated deception. What do you expect when our institutions are totally subsumed by warmongers, for warmongers? When our financial and political system is built around the pursuit of wars that are not supposed to be won but merely to continue indefinitely?
If the mainstream finally deigns to recognise the malfeasance of the OPCW, it will treat the whole shady episode as a strange anomaly, a dreadful ‘misjudgment’ by a few misguided individuals. A teeny stain on an otherwise impeccable record. Some middle-ranking unfortunates in the OPCW may be sacked or ‘disciplined’. The media may run stories about how the ‘rebels’ (who will suddenly be bad guys) ‘misled’ the lovely innocent (white) investigators into accepting cunningly planted evidence. There may even be talk of how ‘tunnel vision’ about Syria had taken over at the State Department and FCO.
Someone, somewhere, somehow will, of course, inevitably blame the Russians.
If enough fuss is made there may even be a public inquiry of some type that takes ages to convene, is run by an elder statesman with an MI5/NSA dossier that ensures his compliance, and ends up finding that ‘grave mistakes were made’.
But there will be no questioning of the basic official western Syria narrative. No questioning of the need for ‘humanitarian’ war, or of NATO’s a priori moral superiority over all its adversaries.
In fact there’s a great example of this nascent fallback narrative in Robert Fisk’s recent article in the Independent.
While a decent overview of the facts in many ways (which by the way further indicates it’s about to go seriously mainstream), it includes this penultimate paragraph:
The deep concerns among some of the OPCW staff and the deletion of their evidence does not mean that gas has not been used in Syria by the government or even by the Russians or by Isis and its fellow Islamists. All stand guilty of war crimes in the Syrian conflict. The OPCW’s response to the evidence should not let war criminals off the hook. But it certainly helps them.
Those who have followed Fisk’s career to date may well wonder if he freely chose to add this xenophobic, jingoistic nonsense to his otherwise pretty honest piece. But regardless of how it got there, this para shows us, succinctly, how the true story of and lessons of the OPCW Douma scandal will be castrated and distorted when/if it goes mainstream.
If we want more than that we have to provide it ourselves. The corporate media is never – ever – going to tell the truth about the system that controls it.
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Fisk is not to be trusted! Period! He comes across as legit but alas he is no threat this man was once writing propaganda fluff pieces for the CIA about al qaeda and osama bin laden in the independent in the mid 90’s for Christ’s Sake! He is clearly controlled opposition he still follows 99.99% of ALL OTHER MAINSTREAM NARRATIVES
there’s billions of us, all we need, is a little food and warmth – all we want, is to get on with our lives, in Freedom and in Peace. It unfortunate then, that there exists a small Cabal of International Interconnected players who employ Governments of the World/ Leaders of Men, instrumentally, to the construction of divisive entanglements . Sadly it seems, the People, generation through generation, have become so accustomed to groupthink falsity, they see themselves collectively responsibile for the ruinous designs of dictatorial maniacs…as if the experience of repeatedly being delivered into a madhouse was a natural element of existence.
Well said and concisely said!
Douma is sooooooo last year.
Our Zionist chums are ginning up a brand new war for us in Iran this year.
Should go swimmingly, just all like the previous ones.
Another splendid little (or maybe pretty big) war to kick off the new year.
Must buy a few more shares in BAe and Lockheed.
Time for a post on the new Franz Josef assassination Off-G?
I got some words to say…
Re: Iran escalation.
The MSM had/has a D-Notice on this? Boris Johnson won the neocon thinktank’s “American Enterprise Institute’s 2018 Irving Kristol Award” a couple of years ago so I would not be surprised to see the British establishment (yet again!) being one of the belles of the ball at the “bringing-democracy-to-Iran-party”.
https://www.aei.org/research-products/speech/a-conversation-with-boris-johnson/
True to form, Jeremy Corbyn is using his strengths: diplomacy and reason to try to bring calm and restraint to a tense situation that the war-hawks would prefer to escalate for a myriad of reasons.
Theres a reason why the hard brexit and attempted destruction of the EU had to happen and why Pomeos Gauntlet and our election fixing was done – as there has been a reason why and where Bozo and his minder LauraKoftheCIA have been for the last week or so; and why the antiCorbyn campaign has CONTINUED over the holidays as the ‘patriotism’ meme is spread.
Personally, I quit following Fisk a few years ago, once he started sounding more and more like the people over at The Guardian. Same with Patrick Cockburn.
Agree on both of them,seems like they are stepping back to cover their respective arses rather than go the whole way with the true facts that they know.
I’m afraid until the likes of OffGuardian and others club together in relation to this issue, i feel this will fizzle out in the consciouness of those that are aware.
Work with other bloggers and create a concrete plan of action to raise awareness.
It touches on the Chemical Attack, Julian Assange and the Skripal Affair.
You as a group of bloggers, are easily able to raise enough awareness to get it raised in Parliament.
Re: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Ukraine… (the list goes on). And now they want to pursue Iran:
“We, the war-hawk supremacist globalists, need perpetual war so we can, by increments, gain global governance. We control both (all) sides; ‘Oceana vs East Asia’, etc. and need to keep the MIIC running; we don’t spend your plebian tax money on titanic amounts of arms & surveillance for nothing! If we can get away with it, we need to draft all the young and healthy adults into WW3 – this will help to distract, divide-and-rule, cause chaos, destabilise nations, cause ruin, maim, murder, and cause displacement and ultimately depopulation. NWO ftw! Happy New year! Happy New Decade!”
Hey, let’s tell our infiltrated-nations’ “leaders” to jog on – We do not consent to their murderous, control-freak-ery vision which is hell on Earth; we have a different vision for our countries and world and it involves peace, empathy, truth, justice, love and solidarity. F**k them!
Iran is not the same as the others – this only leads to nukes and the destruction of the ancient history and archeology of Civilisation.
I’m afraid we just have to be glad for the positive contribution Fisk has made – such as visiting Douma and reporting the obvious – and tolerate his “hypocrisy”. It is really hard to understand how a man who has been out with the Syrian army, and understands who they are fighting, can turn around and accuse them of being involved in such war crimes.
Real journos are thin on the ground – how many have actually been to Syria, to Damascus, and spoken to government or soldiers? There has just been a positive development here in OZ, which has had total silence on the OPCW fraud – as I have written here before. A veteran journo, Paul Malone, wrote this thorough and balanced article for P&I, which while on the fringe is quite influential. When you read this you wonder why it is that noone can write such articles and get them published in the mainstream, or discussed on the ABC/SBS etc.
https://johnmenadue.com/paul-malone-doubts-continue-about-the-alleged-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-in-2018/
Watch ‘Shadow World’- One classic phrase: ‘munitions have a sell-by date’.
Endless war is needed to keep funding the arms industry, and arms have to be used otherwise the stockpile gets as high as the plastic mountains in Asia!
During WW1 / 2, munitions came off the production line and were used immediately. Same in Korea and Vietnam.
Peace is the last thing the MIC needs…
So Fisk is, just like Chomsky, Greenwald, Hedges, Klein, a limited hangout.
I wonder what makes them a limited hangout. If it’s the stardom, the money, the idea that you can change things from ‘within’? While in the end you only serve to control the narrative of warmongers.
In a way it’s a pity: people like Fisk are great writers, and could have contributed in far more efficient ways to contribute for a just cause than copping out for the big guns. In the end limited hangouts do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do (i.e., not exposing truth, but hiding truth by first telling us the inevitable and then hiding that inevitable truth under a new pack of lies). Instead of being truthtellers, they are hypocrites.
What makes them do it?
Once I asked this question to Chomsky. His reply: none of what I said was true, and for even thinking that he was a hypocrite I had to apologize.
Which showed to me that the mental problem of limited hangouts is the same as Chomsky once famously exposed Andrew Marr of having.
Quote:
Marr: “How can you know I’m self-censoring?”
Chomsky: “I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
It takes one to know one.
Chomsky the jew lecturing others on self censorship 🙂
Chomsky ‘the jew’? Are you joking? He’s the least Judaic or Zionist person imaginable. If he is a religious Jew, he keeps it firmly to himself. As for Zionism-he is one of its most principled opponents.
Difficult to see how Iran cannot respond forcefully to last night’s terrorist assassination of its military leader. Aside from the pure evil, it is beyond comprehensive that utter stupidity like this exists. I can only conclude US are deliberately trying to start yet another war. And one which could have repercussions far beyond the region. I would imagine this will be the subject of discussion here and elsewhere in coming days.
See Louis Project’s back. It’s people like him on the ‘ left’ why there no longer is any functioning political peace movement to stop all this. Even when they are presented with rock solid evidence of OPCW fabrications they can’t accept it.
The world on fire and they cling on to their outdated ideologies and blind prejudices.
What is wrong with these people?
They are yahoos
Marxism is not outdated: it is highly relevant. Perhaps more so than ever. Especially if you include the 150 year exegesis of Critical Theory and the Continental School. And extend that to World System analysis and ecological Marxism. I would venture to say that it is the only hope we have got.
What is outdated and blind is the particular brand of dogmatic and doctrinaire Marxism Proyect espouses. Marxism is first and foremost a humanism, pace Weber. As for Louis: “He ain’t no Marxist, bros”.
Thanks BigB
That’s probably more what I meant to say. Not criticising the ideology necessarily but being blinded by it when considering all matters. Thankfully, unlike Louis my ‘ideologies’ or values, don’t get in the way of a discovering what is truth or fiction. I think that’s the same for most here.
Peter Ward on ‘ the Slog’ is someone I followed years ago and his observations on how ideology affects thinking very relevant to this day.
I could add: Karl Marx – “Je ne suis pas Marxiste!”
Marx gave us a set of tools to understand what has become the ‘market ideology’. Others came along and tried to supplant a political economic system on those critical tools – not just Louis – to which Marx himself would have been appalled and exclaimed the above!
Broke ass Americans can’t afford war because they are insolvent at $23 trillion USD debt that they will never reimburse to foreign creditors this century or any other. Only really financially illiterate people think that the USA is still viable as a sovereign nation. Bottom line is that they are spread too thin with over 900 worldwide military bases to maintain with banana republic dollars that are worth less every day.
Uncle Sam is far to drunk on the souls of the poor to notice that America is too lazy, drunk, & stupid to notice that no one is listening to USA politicians anymore out of contempt for
their wholesale ignorance en masse.
Uncle Sam is the world’s prison bitch in drag.
MOU
They are controlled by Israhell and bow down to the Saudi regime,thats where the problem is.
a lie became, the lie, until the lie became, a truth of the lie…and so, truth is, it can never be truth alone – more of a, Violation of Truth itself, then being how it was circulated at such influential a level , it’s crime should be judged on equal degree , with the strongest potency, especially when “we the people” are so often reminded of the value in, deterrent. But am being silly, as honestly, how could that happen when the very delinquents that concoct this fakery – have control of the laws.
Your comment perfectly sums up the holohoax,the gift that keeps on giving.
Douma was a staged attack. We know that. Here is the story the Luggenpresse will NEVER cover. If there was no attack: how the fuck did this happen?
https://www.rt.com/news/423968-douma-gas-attack-aftermath-footage/
Hitchens won’t go there, Fisk won’t go there, and I very much doubt anyone else will want to go there either. Because we tacitly take part in this when we validated the state and made it the plenipotentiary of our absolved powers. I’m not out to score points: this is deadly serious – this is what happens when you support the supporters of the White Helmets. Labour party supporters: I mean you.
So the institutions of capitalism are corrupt? They are worse than that: they are murderous. But that did not stop everyone legitimating them again. There is a total cataleptic dissociation from the vote and the consequences of the vote in validating the corrupted institutions of capitalist suprasovereign authoritarianism. Which institutions ones are corrupt? All of them. They all form an interconnected web of associations. From the party to the state to the transnational corporate suprastate. Capitalism globalised while everyone was sleeping. We don’t just vote in a nationalised power structure: we validate the entire global governance architecture. And then expend our energy bitchin’ and moanin’ about the powerlessness of the situation we volunteered to be in. Well, if people cannot see the globalised consequences of their actions: it’s starting to wear a bit thin.
Capitalism is not an exterior socio-economic system of market exchange. It is a historical moment characterised by the interconnectedness of all the transnational social relations we take part in …bar none. Including the murderous ones. And there are plenty of them, everymoment by everymoment …and still we buy into it. Because we insulate ourselves from moments like these. No one wants to be a part of a social system that murders babies for propaganda. But we are. And no one wants to tell that story. Not even to themselves. Until we can face the genesis of our social system and say: “Not in my name, never again” and withdraw our support en masse …it will always be this way.
Capitalism functions as a smoke and mirrors illusion of separateness where no separateness exists. It functions by manufacturing individuals where no individuals exist. Then the individuals pick and choose what they want to be responsible for …which ain’t much. And transfer and offload the rest. Well, this isn’t philosophy – it’s reality. We are all co-responsible for the extended global social and ecological circumstances we find ourselves in. If you don’t like it: change it. If you don’t want to be part of a historical epoch of ecogenocide and propagandic murder of innocents: create a new alternative system. Stop buying in to the old one. And if you want for socialism: don’t vote for bourgeois statist socialism that supports the murderous subhumans who did this.
We should be exposing the White Helmets: not supporting them or supporting their supporters. Which, to my continued amazement has not been the unequivocal view of everyone. The only people who have told it like it is is Tim Hayward’s ‘Working Group on Syria’. That is the press we should have. In the meantime, until such honesty abounds, the state we co-constituted murdered adults and children in Douma and elsewhere to further imaginary national interests we empowered it to have. That’s the truth no one will ever print and probably never choose to honour: which is why it goes on.
Lehman Moment ushered in Secular Stagnation proper. The yield of macroeconomic awareness since the advent of the Great Financial Crisis has gone exponential in light of diminishing returns since the world became aware of the connectivity post-Lehman bankruptcy which was actually created by The Giant Vampire Squid known as Goldman Sachs-of-shit.
I did not send the subprime MBS debacle out like a virus throughout the entire Western Empire of Fractional Reserve Banking. Nor did I engage in any of the financial largesse shared between the top five marquee felon banks on Wall Street.
I do not get discount money fresh from the taps at the Federal Reserve and I did not think Maestro Greenspan was playing the correct tune when he deregulated the Glass-Steagall Act so that he continue to receive plaudits from his peers in the corporatocracy, or Oligopoly slimedouchery.
In brief, I cannot be held to account for the actions of The Giant Vampire Squid or Alan Greenspan.
MOU
Well, neither did I directly. But indirectly – unless we are totally isolated and self-sufficient – we all take part in market exchange. I bank with Barclays: which is THE most networked of the global corporations [see Glatfelder]. My next best local option is HSBC: ’nuff said.
The global market is global: and all our minimal contributions add up. And get highly leveraged by the like of GS. Not that I buy coffee out and about: but it is said that a simple transaction such as this involves several offshore transactions …so densely interwoven is the modern globalised capitalist market. I presume you buy no oil or oil related products – which is all of them? If you do: you also buy into derivative futures and options trades …even at the level of the micro-cent. It all adds up.
But in case you missed my more specific point – which was for UK consumption (which I perhaps did not make clear enough) – the May government had a direct involvement in this. Especially in the equally staged ‘punishment beating’ with cruise missiles. Based on zero evidence: because the canister was placed on the bed. But the murders were real. And have been since Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun …unless the victims are so dedicated they slit their own throats.
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/who-is-responsible-for-chemical-attacks-in-syria-guest-blog-by-professor-paul-mckeigue-part-2/
And thus, so are we who co-constitute the state indirectly involved and tacitly co-responsible. My point is that the May government was only constituted in 2017. It was the weakest, most venal, Tory government in history. Yet, despite the mass populism of so-called socialism: it was arguably supported by the Labour Party …who did not want power. In all honesty: there was and is no difference between the two captured parties of the City and their support for all the major capitalist imperialist institutions …particularly NATO and the White Helmets in this case. In other words: there is no choice for peace and universal fraternity and egality …because all humanist value-ethical choices are contra capitalism.
There is nothing but human choice and human cognition in the empirical and phenomenological sphere of human relations. We are all in it. There is nothing outside of it. Even if we are passive and reluctant consumers: we are still a node of the micro-social and micro-economic globalised market. We are perhaps a captive market: which we will remain all the time we exteriorise the market economy …in all its murderous incarnations which extend far beyond the mere exchange of goods and services.
We live in a co-constituted market state: which is the concretisation and institutionalisation of the market-form of social rules and norms. Neoliberal rules and norms that repress our natural inclination to empathy and altruism. To the point it becomes quasi-vestigial and absorbed in statist neoliberal market socialism.
As such: we create a falsified set of self-recursive social relations that relate to each other and not beyond. Bourgeois society becomes ‘autonomised’ and separate from its imperialist foreign policy and the globalised unfair and unequal ecological exchange. That which represents the real dynamics of the dehumanising and expropriative globalised social and environmental interrelationships we think we take no part in. That is how capitalism transformed into neoliberal globalisation – because we see no part in the grotesque cruelty and violence that capitalism is generated from. We live in our own bubble wrapped ‘separate pseudworld’ – as Debord described the Society of the Spectacle – of insulated and naturalised life-blind values.
If there is to be a humanist turn before or after the market collapse – which I seem to hold a relatively isolated hopium for – then we have to understand what capitalised market exchange has done to us. Insulated us from the horror of the reality it has unleashed on all innocence and beauty on the earth. This insulation is the only reason why we are not already in an ecological socialist neo-utopia – there is no such state as perfection – or on the barricades right now. This insulation is the marketised and personally branded independent self. There is no independent self: it is capitalisms greatest – and perhaps only – advertorial and individual selling point.
We are all in this together as a temporal web of interdependence and interspecies interbeing. Adorno’s aphorism was that capitalism cannot survive the “anamnesis of the genesis”. That is the recollection of the real. Above is the real. The extended form of the capitalist state monopoly market economy. It’ s not just the honesty Catte was calling for. It would be nice if we could at least talk about taking co-responsibility for the world we were ‘thrown’ into. We cannot have anything that even begins to resemble ecological justice and decency without both. And we cannot even think about a state of socialisation and ecological harmonisation until we begin that personally responsible dialogue.
From a perspective of Quantum Mechanics I agree that all actions have equal & opposite reactions too. The supercharged excesses of Neoliberal Financial Engineers have destroyed both ‘Capitalism’ & the world. Environment is collapsing as we write and all species distributions are blowing fat tails on thermodynamic survival to the extent of extinction level Six Sigma tenuousness.
Systemic extinction across the planet was predicted long before I understood Central Limit Theorem, Gaussian philosophy, Inferential Statistics, or Statistical Power Laws.
To assume that planet Earth can continue to maintain life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness in the face of American penchant for abject violence & Wall Street ethos of ‘kill or be killed’ is to assume incorrectly that individuals like me actually put up with that kind of shit.
Butterflies like moi can flap our wings and destroy America, United Kingdom, and European Union whenever the mood strikes. The United States of America & the worldwide Military Industrial Complex was completely destroyed by butterfly wings being flapped on March 10th 2008 around 11:00am Bear Stearns time New York shitty.
What we are evidencing today is merely the last dying desperate acts of a psychopathic mass murdering text book Psychopath civilization & resident authoritarian histrionics in the face of bankruptcy.
Curfew shall ring tonight, Mr. Snedrick!
MOU
The institutions of capitalism, at root, are anti-Life, and all the manifestations flow from that reality.
Neoliberalism & Capitalism are retro-viruses like recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid, and hazardous to all living entities. It is representative of the breakdown of life one cell at a time
until death is inevitable.
The world knows it is dying via collective unconscious.
MOU
Hitchens and Fisk might not be quite on the same page but this is good. PH twitter feed essential reading.
vanessa beeley Retweeted
Peter Hitchens
@ClarkeMicah
·
11h
You didn’t think that one through, did you,
@eliothiggins
sweetie? You’re not in the ladies’ lingerie trade now. This discussion is about truth, which endures, is not held together by
elastic, and is not for sale.
You know OffG, when some of us saw it imidiatly, the MSM never ever diviated from the course of their war propaganda and they stil dont do that, and to me, whom pays attention to propaganda, its getting tiredsome, because I see it as something old, we are behind the corve, because they dont care.
The force behind this wars and color revolutions have the MSM, and they use it for what its worth to spew their propaganda, relentless for decades since Yugoslavia, and to the present as we speak, nothing have changed, the same MSM pimps the same propaganda, and cencures everything else, and it dont matter how lousy or amaturish their propaganda is/was, they got what they needed, the suport of the etablisement, witch means the full suport of the political class, and dont think sides have done anything about that, the only difference is the reasons, righwinged happy as long Muslims are wacked, and the left because their leaders is wacked, you know, humanitaran reasons for bombing them back to the stone age and like Libya, I know that thru all this years, only 10 Minuttes was on our never fake news MSM, and in this 10 min, they lied about everything, and the TV program was an sick bloody joke.
Like the ICCs warant on the son of Gaddafy, and to this day, they have nothing, not an single prof, like the Serbian leader, witch they, now, admitted was indeed inocent, because, like the case in Libya, everything they knew, they got that from the MSM, and if that dont tell you whom runs the this wars you all have an problem, and thats why I write this, the escalation is just been solidifyed against Iran as we speak, FFs of course and now the red line is there, and belive me, there will come more, because they ZATO forces wants an new war.
The missile attack was an lousy FF, and so bad its almost not wurth to write about that either because the next FF will be much bigger/wurse and Iran will be blamed, thats what I mean with been behind the curve, and the Wolfowitch doctrine, witch is basically that they just invent new “realitys” while we lag behind, and can ignore everything else, also mainly due to their control of our MSM, the Iraqis, well, hurmf, I dont even know if I am to sympathise with this people or not, right now, they only show us how corrupt that are, no spine, no morale, no nothing, other than buring down their own homeland and do what the west tells them to do.
But I will not attack Fisk, other than you dont bite the hand that feeds you, do you, what I personally think I will leave it out this time, but never the less, He is at least, a tiny bit better than the rest, in an sea of well pissers, Fisk is an tiny light in an otherwise stinking whore house full of prestitutes and whorespondents.
I am fraid this case is becoming irrelevant, not because its been exposed, it have been, but they forces of evil dont give an rats ass, as long the people swallows it, they have their legitimasy, and the polticians can wash their hands and move along, because of the “obvious threat”, and the Russians, whom is boming hostpitals, yeah, tell me, find one thing, just one positive thing that have manifested it self, I see nothing, but my hart and sould lies with the Iranians, like others whom the ZATO forces attacks, of reasons the Imperial banana republic to any given time manages to cock up, aka propaganda.
I indeed hope I am wrong, I really do, but reality is bitting by ass, so its hard to tell.
peace
Peter Hitchens feels it necessary to denigrate both the Syrian State and Assad in his blog…
“Alas, it is good news for Syria, a nasty torture state with few redeeming features, which I have avoided for decades because I have written so many rude things about it. That was not hard. Syria has given direct support to terrorists. It has harbored a fugitive Nazi war criminal. Its habit of torturing and massacring the regime’s opponents is beyond doubt… and ..
It is also, unavoidably, good news for Syria’s despot, Bashar al-Assad, who sits at the head of this unpleasant country” https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/in-praise-of-telling-the-truth
No doubt referring to the ‘Caesar’ revelations in Syria, since debunked. And no mention of Assad winning Parliamentary elections, then a Presidential election with huge majorities, and protecting all sections of Syrian society from the head chopping psychos funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulfies enabled by Turkey, US, UK and other coalition of the willing members. But then he [Hitchens] also has to sing for his supper.
Syria harbored A Nazi war criminal, while the West harboured and employed thousands, and Ukrainian, Croat, Slovenian, Belarussia and Balt fascists as well. In that one statement you see the essence of Fisk.
He is quoting Hitchens not Fisk,but otherwise,yes you are spot on about the hypocrisy.
Dear me, I am getting ever more easily confused.
You are complaining because the NY Times or the Washington Post aren’t taking this “false flag” stuff seriously. On the other hand, you can bet that the far-right newspapers and TV stations backing Orban, al-Sisi, Salvini, Modi, Bolsonaro are totally into it. In the USA, the far right is solidly behind Assad as evidenced by white supremacist Tucker Carlson putting down the red carpet for Jonathan Steele. Here’s an example of the solid fascist backing for Assad:
https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/india-throws-its-weight-behind-syrias-al-assad-1.1883712
India throws its weight behind Syria’s Al Assad
Countries agree to upgrade security consultation and jumpstart economic projects on hold for five years
Beirut: Days after a high-profile Chinese general visited Damascus, the Indian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs M.J. Akbar showed up in the Syrian capital, where he was received by President Bashar Al Assad.
Although vocal in their support for Al Assad, member states of the BRICS group of countries have never been closer to Damascus — something that can be attributed to the direct Russian intervention in the Syria war since last September. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
How low can one sink-being a lying apologist for the Daash vermin must be near rock bottom.
What is your point exactly? If one independent sovereign state wishes to have diplomatic relations and co-operation with another why is this considered sinister? Or I suppose they really have cleared it with Uncle Sam first. Please sir, can I have diplomatic relations with China? Just you try it! You’ll have diplomatic relations with whomever we say you will.
Francis, exactly.
It seems that the essence of living in a democracy these days is to accept that diplomacy entails promoting confrontation with as many people as possible.
President Putin had it right when asked a couple of years ago about his approach to diplomatic relations with leaders of countries who do not have similar policies to Russia. His response was that it is necessary to encourage such relationships for the benefit and well-being of Russia and its citizens. He recognised that it is not always possible to see eye to eye with someone on everything, but the key to encouraging diplomatic relations is to put aside differences and find something where there is common ground – no matter how trivial – to provide the foundations for a relationship which can then be built on. Wise words and no less than we should expect from Western politicians but, I’m afraid, we do not get.
Craig Murray has a very good piece on this subject today.
He suggests that the demise of Le Mesurier a few weeks ago and the slow confirmation of the OPCW’s role, in suppressing clear evidence that the Syrian government played no part in the wholly mythical ‘gas attack’ in Douma, are not coincidental.
LeMesurier, the impresario of the White Helmets and an employee of HMG, is the obvious culprit in the production, by the White Helmets, of dozens of corpses of asphyxiated children, conveniently piled into rooms where, it was claimed, they were killed by (wasn’t it sarin at first?) poisonous gas delivered from above.
Someone ordered the killing of those kids and their placement for photo-ops. If it wasn’t LeMesurier or one of his colleagues in the NATO offensive on Syria, who was it?
I figured that the lack of fuss over Le Mesurier’s much deserved and long overdue demise must be down to it being a retirement, ‘with extreme prejudice’, by his MI6 employers, or perhaps MOSSAD.
Yes, he could dish the dirt on too many murdered children as film props.
Right on the mark here Bevin, imo… ALL these things are not unconnected, including what is happening in the UK, Israel and America. And yes the Sarin claim was made by someonee, like HdBG, though ruled out by the OPCW rapidly. We might argue about Chlorine chemistry and rebels and terrorists, but the intentional killing and use of prisoners as video extras is an obscenity beyond description and toleration by “the international community”.
No mention of the lack of integrity initiatives and Atlantic Councily BellEndScats. Off-G is perfectly placed to take THEM on!
Lets do it this year.
Onivar!
We have been taking Bellingcat on since 2015.
https://off-guardian.org/tag/bellingcat/
YES and keep up the good work,Happy New Year
Perhaps if Bellingcat looks like becoming an embarrassment, he’ll be given flying lessons by the dears who instructed James Le Mesurier before his unfortunate ‘test flight’.
” These are my principles , if you don’t like them I have others ” .
Groucho Marx
This site is totally f***ed up. Probably another attack.
All these organisations like the OPCW, IAEA, WADA and others, are hopelessly compromised, corrupt and politicised. They are characterised by a complete absence of integrity or credibility, just like the bogus “NGOs”, “charities” and MSM.
Often there is a revolving door between them and the Neocons and Deep State. That there is zero accountability for all the lies told goes without saying. These individual organisations should just be regarded as different components of the gigantic Lie Factory. Any persons of integrity in them are ruthlessly weeded out, bribed, blackmailed or intimidated, like Bolton threatening the family of an IAEA official.
The same goes for bodies like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, Save The Children, Oxfam. Amnesty International’s lies about black Viagra fuelled rape gangs were used to justify the destruction of Libya. A lot of black migrant workers were lynched from lamp posts as a result. They and Human Rights Watch agitated endlessly for “humanitarian bombing” in Syria and Libya, and Afghanistan was apparently a noble crusade for women’s rights.
Save The Children ran bogus vaccination programmes in Pakistan to gather DNA samples for CIA drone targeting. The Red Cross stole $500 million that had been donated for earthquake relief in Haiti.
A lot of it seems to have ended up in the pockets of the Clinton clan. It probably paid for Chelsea’s wedding. The same applies to all of them.
We have been lied to time and time and time again for decades. Nothing that these people say can be taken at face value.
Tried to make a comment at least 4 times earlier today, wouldn’t post, so gave up.
I thought Offg was under attack also.
Fully agree with your next few comments below btw.
Fisk appended that vomitous paragraph because, if he had not, his nice sinecure would disappear. Someone more reliable, say MOSSAD thug Chulov, would have taken his place. Fisk knows his place.
First they probably would have worked him over like they did with Gary Webb over here after he published Dark Alliance.
What can I add about the Presstitutes?
Not a lot.
In the meantime we’re told by the Presstitues that all these people voted Tory in the GE:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/02/commuters-gather-at-bolton-station-in-protest-over-increased-rail-fares
You’re ‘aving a laff…
We live in a true society of The Lie here in Australia. The regime, the Rightwing MSM, the ‘business’ class and much of what is laughably called ‘civil society’ lie their heads off about everything. Then The Truth rudely intervenes, as with our fire cataclysm, caused by anthropogenic climate destabilisation. The usual lies are peddled almost reflexively, ‘There is no climate change’, ‘We’ve always had fires’, ‘It’s the Greenies’ fault’, etc, but the serfs, particularly those directly affected, don’t believe it anymore. The Pentecostal thug PM, ‘Smoko’ Morrison, a Pentecostal goon who, in my opinion, would secretly be welcoming the fires as a sign of the impending End Times that his death-cult pines for, was heckled by the victims yesterday,l and his discomfort was palpable. Judging by his form, he’ll find some way, once the fires stop, if they do, to be revenged on those who so humiliated him. It’s in his ‘Christian’ nature. And Jesus wept, for us all.
Skippy the outback bush kangaroo from Oz is now a crispy critter, Richard. Do NSW residents camp out on the beach every year when the bush fire season starts up?
How many residential homes burn up per year on average?
Does the heat in Oz make people less fat given that excessive heat would require the body to burn less calories just to stay mobile in hot climates?
In CANUCKISTAN we have to put on the calories for winter or we freeze when we go outside.
MOU
Pictures of Australians from fifty or even thirty years ago reveal a different species. Mostly lean and hungry looking-today they resemble Merkin pachyderms.
WalMart made Merkin Pachyderms what they are today. Fattest pork fried useless eaters on the scale IMHO. If Oz is like that today maybe it is best that it becomes a desert.
MOU
Politicians busted all the unions back when Margaret ‘the milk thief’ Thatcher climbed into the proverbial sack with neocon Ronald Reagan for the neoliberal largesse that took you up to the Great Financial Crisis of 08. When the political parties realized that they could no longer control the masses with union bosses telling them how to vote, they then realized that the only way to control the masses was through the mass transportation sector.
Liberal/Democrats are entrenched in mass transit all throughout the empire from North America to the UK. The Conservatives follow the same controlling tripe but their mandate is to subvert all Liberal/Democrat plans for mass transit every time they attain power.
Liberals plan & Conservatives change the plans each electoral round at helm. Liberals build and Conservatives destroy what Liberals build.
Transportation systems are sclerotic & bottlenecked for a reason. If these systems were efficient we would not have politicians running them.
In Ottawa Civil Engineers with P.Eng certification planned & maintained all mass transit operations prior to Thatcher & Reagan’s party on our dime. Now the politicians & political parties control mass transit throughout all of North America.
MOU
“Milk Snatcher”, please.
I don’t know if you Brits are getting this steaming pile of Male Bovine Excrement when you open up the page but this is what showed up in my browser:
America faces an epic choice…
… in the coming year, and the results will define the country for a generation. These are perilous times. Over the last three years, much of what the Guardian holds dear has been threatened – democracy, civility, truth. This US administration is establishing new norms of behaviour. Anger and cruelty disfigure public discourse and lying is commonplace. Truth is being chased away. But with your help we can continue to put it center stage. It will be a defining year and we’re asking for your help as we prepare for 2020.
Rampant disinformation, partisan news sources and social media’s tsunami of fake news is no basis on which to inform the American public in 2020. The need for a robust, independent press has never been greater, and with your help we can continue to provide fact-based reporting that offers public scrutiny and oversight. Our journalism is free and open for all, but it’s made possible thanks to the support we receive from readers like you across America in all 50 states.
“America is at a tipping point, finely balanced between truth and lies, hope and hate, civility and nastiness. Many vital aspects of American public life are in play – the Supreme Court, abortion rights, climate policy, wealth inequality, Big Tech and much more. The stakes could hardly be higher. As that choice nears, the Guardian, as it has done for 200 years, and with your continued support, will continue to argue for the values we hold dear – facts, science, diversity, equality and fairness.” – US editor, John Mulholland
On the occasion of its 100th birthday in 1921 the editor of the Guardian said, “Perhaps the chief virtue of a newspaper is its independence. It should have a soul of its own.” That is more true than ever. Freed from the influence of an owner or shareholders, the Guardian’s editorial independence is our unique driving force and guiding principle.
We also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported the Guardian in 2019. You provide us with the motivation and financial support to keep doing what we do. We’re asking our readers to help us raise $1.5m to support our rigorous journalism in the new year. Every contribution, big or small, will help us reach it. Make a gift from as little as $1. Thank you.
I almost sputtered coffee on the screen laughing so hard.
To quote the late great Frank Zappa from the album “Just Another Band from LA”.
“Eddy are you kidding!?”
Reminds me of porn king Jimbo Whales trying to get a hand out for Wikipedia Media Foundation or Queen of the Damned Clinton shamelessly promoting the Clinton Foundation. The BCCI of 501ciiis.
Anybody who knows anything like the media in the US they are funded by NED and NATO’s AC plus the alphabet soup agencies that are part of 5 Eyes.
Ironically they quote Mulholland. The family namelessly featured prominently in Raymond Chandler’s Novels and the movie China Town.
The 911 Official Version 1.0 will never be revised to 2.0 given the official mythology of official narratives that never change as dogmatism carries the day, and passes the buck on to the hacks of official narratives so that followers of said hacks can hack some more until it no longer resembles a dead horse.
If an official narrative is offered for consumption we can assume that it is the cake we must digest from our feudalist betters that own the company store, and newsprint franchise.
MOU
Fisk becomes as vague as the ones he argues may have duped the public when he refers to rhetoric regarding the possible use of CW by the Syrian government and or the Russians ,without the slightest bit of evidence .Certainly brought himself down considerably as a journalist with such a statement .
Of course the OPCW stands guilty of deliberately manipulating the evidence ,Fisk skates very close to the same thing IMHO.
Fisk always does stuff like this, to keep his job. He’s a typical ‘limited hangout’ propaganda operative. Among the full lying, hypocritical, vicious thugs of the MSM he might look good, but in fact, he serves they same ends as do the most venal presstitutes.
There are many such ‘alt news’ types , who are always turning up JUST behind the wave…
”Fisk becomes as vague as the ones he argues may have duped the public when he refers to rhetoric regarding the possible use of CW by the Syrian government and or the Russians, without the slightest bit of evidence.”
Of course, but this is exactly how the MSM operates. Everything is allusion ,inference and subliminal suggestion.
The bigger question is why does the western alliance feel it has the right and indeed duty to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state which does not threaten it or is at war with it? Not only do they feel that they can murder a foreign head of state in his own country, but they can also back an invasion by Takfiri headchoppers as of right. Claiming a divine right to target and bomb these countries – for their own good of course – also extends to anyone of everyone of its citizens, whoops there goes another Afghan wedding party. Never mind, collatoral damage! How many ‘terrorists’ have died in the drone programme initiated by the great bullshitter Obama? How many of the wretched of the earth died in the genocidal wars unleashed by the ‘good guys’? It is estimated up to 20 million.
Of course all of this mass murder (for that is what it is) is in direct violation of UN and International law but that doesn’t seem to matter much. This was never so much a conflict between East and West as between West and South, and a murderous, genocidal conflict at that.
“The corporate media is never – ever – going to tell the truth about the system that controls it.”
That should be posted as a maxim in caps in 40 pt type. Personally I stopped believing in the MSM about the same time as I stopped believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Even when I was a kid I saw how much of it was biased toward the endless and useless conflict in Vietnam. Now in the Middle East the song pretty much remains the same. To quote Led Zeppelin.
Punto Uno:To this day there has been no credible evidence that the Syrian Arab Army has used gas in the Nato war against the the Syrian Arab Republic.
Punto Due. IN 2014 the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic allowed the western ?Nato ? UN to eliminate all of the Syrian Arab’s Republic stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Punto Tre:For Fisk or any other western Nato Pax-Americana stenographers to state that the Russians or the Syrian Arab Army had committed war crimes or used banned chemical weapons is like as the WASP say “The Pot calling the kettle black.
Post Scriptum: Facts reason and logic have all been replaced with the likes of Bellingcat. White Helmuts and Corporatocrocy dressed up in western elitist values that have no qualms in destroying nations and lives outside their western world of truth justice and the fascistic way.
Docius on Fondem: How Orwellian are values and world has become
In WW1, the German Army suffered 2.4 million dead. 2,000 of these, less than 0.1%, died in gas attacks. In the aftermath of the war, poison gas was supposedly banned, though it was used in Iraq by Britain, and in Ethiopia by Italy, against unprotected Eyerabs and darkies. It fell into disuse, not out of ethical or moral considerations, but because it wasn’t that effective as a weapon of war. It was more trouble than it was worth. It is a lot less effective than using high explosive.
I think Fisk (and not only he) simply tries, first of all, to avoid being identified as a “Russian asset”, and secondly, he really does wish to avoid to somehow eventually siding with Russia, or China, or Iran. The fact that they are the victims of aggression on the behalf of the US empire, does not mean that one should switch off his critical thinking.
‘Critical thinking’ doesn’t generally involve making false claims & distorting reality, does it?
What false claims? That’s quite an accusation. Please supply the detail.
The false claims that Syria or Russia have EVER used poison gas in confronting the jihadist attack on Syria. Every single instance of alleged poison gas use by the Syrian GOVERNMENT has been disproved, but the presstitutes whose service to the Daash cause has been unceasing, still lie and lie and lie. It’s in their contracts.
.. and remember it was Fisk who went to Douma and then wrote he could not find traces of the attack, not long after it supposedly happened.
After Beeley.
Despite having lived in the Middle East for at least half a century if not more, and with presumably more local connections and access to accurate information than, say, Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone Project put together, Robert Fisk has consistently regarded Syrian President Bashar al Assad as a dictator, has always supported his removal and has always regarded Russia as a collaborator in supposed war crimes attributed to Assad. That attitude comes out clearly in the linked Independent article and in past work Fisk has done about the war in Syria for his employer. No big surprise there. The surprise is why Off-Guardian should have thought otherwise.
Give the devil his due that Fisk’s reporting has been more accurate than other members of the Media Brothel known as the MSM. The best Whore House in the West.
Here’s an old Robert Fisk article for The Indenpendent dated December 2013:
Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace: The Saudi businessman who recruited mujahedin now uses them for large-scale building projects in Sudan. Robert Fisk met him in Almatig …
Before anyone clicks on the title, try to guess who the businessman is.
For a journalist who has lived in the Middle East longer than some of us Off-G commenters have been alive, Robert Fisk’s reporting on significant people in that region seems to lack insight and knowledge of their context.
Sorry that date “December 2013” should have been “December 1993”.
I am going to say something controversial. It wouldn’t matter if Assad was a dictator, although, however, he was elected quite properly and openly in an election. He is a therefore a representative of a independent sovereign state and should be treated and respected as such. Which is more than can be said of the Saudi Royal family. It really is this blatant inconsistency of US foreign policy which sticks in the craw. The truth is in fact that the US is being pushed by Israel and its lobby in the US to clear the way for the long-held ‘Greater Israel’ project of total domination of the middle-east.
Of course the A-Z, MSM will do everything they can to avoid this uncomfortable truth. They will perform all sorts of intellectual and ethical contortions to blind themselves and their audience regarding what is actually happening on the ground. Instead of reality we are offered an MSM hologram. A 21st century fabrication to pull wool over the peoples’ eyes. The creation of a make-believe reality smothering truth and sanity.
”Totalitarianism … does not so much promise and age of faith, as an age of schizophrenia.”
George Orwell – The Prevention of Literature.
Israel has no leverage on the US, KSA and UAE do: massive oil and gas sales and reserves.
Iran is a much bigger threat to them than to Israel.
Israel just wants safe borders which include Judea.
Semi secular Assad is indeed a more benevolent ruler: he should distance himself from political Ayatollahs.
Come on Antonym-you don’t just demand ‘Judea’ but also ‘Samaria’ and the whole of Eretz Yisrael, ‘…from the Nile to the Euphrates’, including Damascus, and the Arabian Peninsula if certain Talmudic fascists have their way. Why so coy? And all those ‘two-legged animals’, the various goyim, inhabiting the Herrenvolk’s lebensraum, must ‘go elsewhere’. Isn’t that also true?
“If we get caught, they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do. America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece, until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God and America is big enough to take the hit. So we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.” – Netanyahu.
I thought Fisk’s article was fair and as always honest. The paragraph you quote isn’t untrue I’d add. He makes the point that International organisations like this can never be credible when they mislead and censor.
The paragraph claims Syria and Russia stand guilty of war crimes in Syria. It also implies by omission that no such allegation can be made against NATO forces. This is manifestly dishonest, if not a reversal of the truth.
If he was being totally honest he would have included British special forces likely involvement in supplying Saudi sponsored militias in Ghouta with precursors in preparation for the “final assault on Damascus” which was fouled by the SAA, who uncovered factories producing mortars, including stocks of British ordinance and stores of chlorine. There were eye witness accounts at the time.
Fisk was the first MSM journalist in Duoma after the allegation and his report that contradicted the official narrative was the first hard evidence that the story was a load of bullshit.
With respect, that’s not the point. Fisk has his villains clearly marked out. As Jen points out above. They are Assad, Russia and Iran and like admin points out, no mention of Saudi/Qatarian/Turkish/Jordanian/Israeli/NATO involvement in his conclusion….he leaves it open but missing some key operatives.
Fisk is one of the most out spoken people about Israel; one of the few who dares criticise it. Similarly he knocks the Saudis and always the malign influence of America – and doesn’t lay all the blame on Trump. TBH there aren’t many groups he does rate! His books on Algeria and the whole ME mess are outstanding works. He’s an exceptional journalist who quit The Times when Murdoch bought it. Wounded on the front line in the Iraq-Iran war he gets places few others go. Living in Lebanon for 40 years has kept him out of the clutches of the British establishment currently headed by Murdoch. It’s a pity to see such a man traduced by saying he’s some sort of right wing stooge. He just ain’t! Read his books rather than rely on the very short pieces the Independent allows him. Some might argue he shouldn’t write for the Independent but that would render him voiceless as nobody else would publish him. With such a vast field of untruthful and misleading journalists to choose from its bizarre that a man like Fisk should be called out. A great journalist by any standard.
Which is why his conclusion to the article is being used as a a likely template for the great roll-back that will surely follow the exposure of the truth. It will be ‘the truth’ with glaring (to me) omissions and everything will continue as before.
The Independent the last decade has been degraded to “junk” level for political news, just like its partner in crime the Guardian. Both are dependent on the Anglo Arab oil cabal .
Assad was as much a thorn in the eye for KSA as Saddam – too secular / independent, but his opening up to Iran did him in. The old tussle Persians – Arabs / Shia – Sunnis.
The Guardian led by the resident Zionist liars, war criminal Cohen, and Freedland, and super-saturated with other Zionists and Sabbat Goyim, is as pro-Israel as the rest of them, and then there is its despicable leading role in the total fabrication, the Jeremy Corbyn is an ‘antisemite’ lie festival. Your gloating over the Sunni/Shia conflict that the Zionists have done their Evil worst to foment is repulsive.
The Guardian has been a piece of Zionist toilet paper for the past hundred years. It was shilling for Israel before it even existed.
There are quite a few of these licensed clowns and court jesters, controlled opposition like Counterpuff and Goodman at Democracy Now. Ever so daring as they pick up their Soros money.
He has to sing from the right hymn sheet or he’d just be kicked out of our “free” press, like Donohue or Chris Hedges.
2 bee
or not 2 be
fisked
that is the question
how about having a cockburn or 2
a gnome chumpski
or a double shot of
saymore sayanim hersch
fisked met tim osman bin lardin when the special services of the world where looking for him
bob fisked found donmeh osama bin bla bla
in a cave in the afgannies
tim osman aka osama was doing shadow puppet shows
in those plato caves for guardian mi6 asset fisk
all actors acting for zion
But it IS untrue, Paul. That’s the point.
Even if it was half true it’s still a lie.
The damage has been done. Assad is widely perceived as a murderous monster. The “rebels” who were all bussed to Idlib are now “civilians” and most people here will totally ignore any retraction over Douma let alone show any concern over the illegal activities of our special forces and air force in Syria.
they called him animal assad
and yet the same assad let all the mossad dicks the mi6 sas cia navy seal types
let them all go home
they captured many in tunnels you remember those billion dollar tunnels built bt swiss german corporations.
captured like rats and roaches scurrying about
not a court case what about a syrian nurenberg on syrian state tv.
state terrorist from uk,usa israel,norway,canada,new zealand,norway,france,poland ukraine,estonia,norway,sweden and norway.
what a gentlemen assad was letting all those state satan agents go home in peace..
rape torture and murder of the syrian people ancient civilisation dustified
year zero
the pirates the lovers of oded yinon gets a free pass it would seem
The presstitutes here will call the Idlib denizens ‘rebels’ one second, then, honestly, ‘al-Qaeda’ the next. The cognitive dissonance is never commented on. Anyone with an hour to spare can swiftly discover that Daash, like al-Qaeda et al, is a Western/Israeli/Saudi creation with minuscule local Syrian involvement, by vicious fundamentalist thugs from the local society, but NO Western presstitute deviates from The Party Line one iota. THAT is the Free Press in all its glory. Possibly the most Evil cohort of villains extant.
Menaced by a ruthless American war machine obviously intent on making Syria into another Eyerack, murdering our families, stealing our resources and enabling the destruction of our priceless heritage, some of us could do things of which we might have thought ourselves incapable.
America unfortunately has been doing this since its founding. Read an Indigenous Peoples’ History of the US but has gotten away with it by pretending not to be a rapacious empire. Of course the mask is falling off and this is upsetting for Neocons and Neoliberals.