|
Stable Genius
Durka durka


Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Durkadurkastan
Last seen: 1 hour, 22 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03]
#26974752 - 10/08/20 12:29 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: Did it say Assad has anything to do with the violence?
It said Quote:
The report documents a multitude of detention-related violations by Government forces, the Syrian National Army (SNA), the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and other parties to the conflict.
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03]
#26974754 - 10/08/20 12:31 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:
Quote:
koods said: That is a pretty damning document. I really don’t understand why falcon has spent two years, in multiple threads, obsessed with discrediting these accounts.
If you don't want to talk about the thread topic, start a new thread.
That document covers the April 7th attack. Apparently you’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about it.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger



Registered: 03/16/05
Posts: 32,557
Loc: California, US
Last seen: 4 months, 21 days
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Stable Genius]
#26974763 - 10/08/20 12:53 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Stable Genius said:
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: Did it say Assad has anything to do with the violence?
It said Quote:
The report documents a multitude of detention-related violations by Government forces, the Syrian National Army (SNA), the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and other parties to the conflict.
Ok. Does it say anything about the thread topic?
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
|
Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger



Registered: 03/16/05
Posts: 32,557
Loc: California, US
Last seen: 4 months, 21 days
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974764 - 10/08/20 12:54 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
koods said: That document covers the April 7th attack. Apparently you’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about it.
Sure, I'll discuss what it says about 7 Apr. What's damning about 7 Apr?
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
|
Stable Genius
Durka durka


Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Durkadurkastan
Last seen: 1 hour, 22 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods] 2
#26974766 - 10/08/20 12:54 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45586903
Quote:
Yasser al-Domani, an activist who visited the scene that night, said the people who died had foam around their mouths and appeared to have chemical burns.
Another video from a nearby building shows the bodies of the same children found dead in the block of flats wearing the same clothes, with the same burns, lined up for identification.
The BBC spoke to 18 people, who all insist they saw bodies being taken from the block of flats to the hospital.
Two days after the reported attack, Russian military specialists visited the block of flats and said they found no traces of chlorine or any other chemical agents. The Russian government said the incident had been staged by the opposition with the help of the UK - a charge the British government dismissed as "grotesque and absurd".
An OPCW Fact-Finding Mission team visited the scene almost two weeks later and took samples from the gas cylinder on the balcony. In July, it reported that "various chlorinated organic chemicals" were found in the samples, along with residues of explosive.
There's A LOT of reporting that makes Robert Fisks attempt look amateurish
|
Stable Genius
Durka durka


Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Durkadurkastan
Last seen: 1 hour, 22 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03] 1
#26974771 - 10/08/20 01:01 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: Ok. Does it say anything about the thread topic?
like a hand written order from the president showing his explicit guilt for instance? You know what? I don't think there was.
|
Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger



Registered: 03/16/05
Posts: 32,557
Loc: California, US
Last seen: 4 months, 21 days
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Stable Genius]
#26974793 - 10/08/20 01:39 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Stable Genius said: Yasser al-Domani, an activist who visited the scene that night, said the people who died had foam around their mouths and appeared to have chemical burns.
Another video from a nearby building shows the bodies of the same children found dead in the block of flats wearing the same clothes, with the same burns, lined up for identification.
The BBC spoke to 18 people, who all insist they saw bodies being taken from the block of flats to the hospital.
I'm not doubting there were dead people from a conventional attack. I'm just questioning the evidence of a chemical attack. You previously posted a link to an article that purported to show a guy "foaming at the mouth". I didn't see evidence of him foaming at the mouth in the picture though.

Quote:
Stable Genius said: Two days after the reported attack, Russian military specialists visited the block of flats and said they found no traces of chlorine or any other chemical agents. The Russian government said the incident had been staged by the opposition with the help of the UK - a charge the British government dismissed as "grotesque and absurd".
An OPCW Fact-Finding Mission team visited the scene almost two weeks later and took samples from the gas cylinder on the balcony. In July, it reported that "various chlorinated organic chemicals" were found in the samples, along with residues of explosive.
I'm not disputing that they found chlorine. What they covered up was that the inspectors said it could have come from household cleaners.
Quote:
Stable Genius said: There's A LOT of reporting that makes Robert Fisks attempt look amateurish
I don't know what you mean. 
Quote:
Stable Genius said:
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: Does it say anything about the thread topic?
like a hand written order from the president showing his explicit guilt for instance? You know what? I don't think there was.
No, I just meant does it say anything at all about the gas attack? I don't doubt that post war Syria is still having problems.
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03] 1
#26974799 - 10/08/20 01:45 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Stable Genius said:
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: Right now, I have no reason not to trust the doctors who treated the victims.
You may after you read this https://geographicalimaginations.com/2018/04/24/gas-masques/ There also appears to be numerous eyewitness accounts of the presence of chlorine it's a long read but appears factual.
Quote:
But that’s simply a drive-by smear. The main work is done by Fisk’s doctor, whose words are seemingly sufficient to rubbish or, if you prefer, cast doubt on all those other testimonies. He was not even was in the clinic when the casualties were brought in (‘I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night’, and Fisk himself admits that the doctors who were on duty that night were all in Damascus).
This was an interesting read as well https://geographicalimaginations.com/tag/douma/
This was also worth watching which sort of ties in with the claims in the story above
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:
Quote:
koods said: That document covers the April 7th attack. Apparently you’re the one who doesn’t want to talk about it.
Sure, I'll discuss what it says about 7 Apr. What's damning about 7 Apr?
Stable Genius covered it.
So we have witnesses reporting seeing a cylinder with a green/yellow gas evolving from it being dropped from a Syrian forces helicopter
We have a cylinder matching that description embedded in the top portion of a residential building
We have reports of a large number of residents in that building succumbing to an agent that caused chemical burns and lung damage
We have samples taken from the site containing hydrocarbons that have reacted with elemental chlorine.
Your narrative and agenda are despicable
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974803 - 10/08/20 01:49 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I'm not disputing that they found chlorine. What they covered up was that the inspectors said it could have come from household cleaners.
Household cleaners don’t contain elemental chlorine, they contain chlorates and the reaction products are very different. Chlorine will directly replace hydrogen in organic materials like rubber. Household cleaners like bleach will not do that.
Plus there’s the FUCKING CANISTER.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger



Registered: 03/16/05
Posts: 32,557
Loc: California, US
Last seen: 4 months, 21 days
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974805 - 10/08/20 01:54 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
koods said: So we have witnesses reporting seeing a cylinder with a green/yellow gas evolving from it being dropped from a Syrian forces helicopter
So the gas was already being released as it was dropped??? That's the first time I heard that.
Quote:
koods said: We have reports of a large number of residents in that building succumbing to an agent that caused chemical burns and lung damage
The doctors disagreed. They said they saw evidence of hypoxia from dust and dirt inhalation.
Quote:
koods said: We have samples taken from the site containing hydrocarbons that have reacted with elemental chlorine.
Yes, that the inspectors determined may have come from household cleaners.
Quote:
koods said: Your narrative and agenda are despicable
And you're a big fat poo poo head. That argument gets us no where.
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03]
#26974809 - 10/08/20 02:01 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:
Quote:
koods said: Are you conceding that Assad has used chlorine against his citizens? Yes or no
Not on 7 Apr 18 (see thread topic).
Can you answer my question without qualification with a YES or NO?
Do you believe that Assad has used chemical weapons? Yes or No.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974815 - 10/08/20 02:06 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Yes, that the inspectors determined may have come from household cleaners.
Household cleaners are not elemental chlorine
Bleach can chlorinate a limited number of organic substances. Chlorine will chlorinate nearly everything with a hydrogen-carbon bond.
If someone is telling you they can’t tell the difference between the reaction products of bleach vs. elemental chlorine, they are idiots.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
Edited by koods (10/08/20 02:10 AM)
|
Stable Genius
Durka durka


Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Durkadurkastan
Last seen: 1 hour, 22 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Falcon91Wolvrn03] 2
#26974842 - 10/08/20 02:36 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: You linked to an article that purported to show a guy "foaming at the mouth". I didn't see evidence of him foaming at the mouth in the picture though.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-inside-douma-the-site-of-apparent-chemical-attack-2018-04-16/
At the 1.18 minute mark
|
Stable Genius
Durka durka


Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 5,767
Loc: Durkadurkastan
Last seen: 1 hour, 22 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Stable Genius] 2
#26974850 - 10/08/20 02:46 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: The doctors disagreed. They said they saw evidence of hypoxia from dust and dirt inhalation.
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/50-united-nations-commission-doc/865546bdd15e4bb35f11/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: Stable Genius] 2
#26974866 - 10/08/20 03:01 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Just read that again, and I cannot fathom how that testimony and evidence is not beyond any reasonable doubt. How does a dispute by a few members within the OPCW invalidate what is contained in that document?
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974875 - 10/08/20 03:12 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
That canister is not very big. It’s not surprising it really only killed people in that building. Chlorine gas is twice as heavy as air and it would flow like slow moving water, cascading over edges, and draining through holes. It wouldn’t spread away from the vertical nearly as fast as it would spread downward. Only when it could go down no further would it spread out and dissipate.
It’s also clearly not a military munition. It looks like a standard stainless steel gas cylinder you might see in a lab or for industrial use. The way it would be used is to just open the valve or knock it off as you’re dropping it. Compressed liquids over gas inside canisters will rapidly cool until they reach their boiling point, at which point there would be fairly little gas leaking out - it wouldn’t continue shooting out at full pressure the whole time.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
Edited by koods (10/08/20 03:33 AM)
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods]
#26974880 - 10/08/20 03:22 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I’ve accidentally inhaled a very low concentration of chlorine gas. Just a tiny amount that leaked out of a flask reacting chlorine with mercury. It is extremely unpleasant. It hurts. It makes your eyes burn and it fucks your lungs up. I had a cough for hours, and tightness for days. A single inhalation of even a moderate concentration of chlorine would be fatal, even if it took a minute to hours to occur. Chlorine dissolves into water, including the water in moist surfaces of lungs. There’s no way to get that back out except for your body to flood your lungs with water. And you drown.
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
shivas.wisdom
בּ



Registered: 02/19/09
Posts: 13,428
Loc: Turtle Island
Last seen: 1 hour, 2 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods] 2
#26975114 - 10/08/20 08:52 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
koods said:
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:
Quote:
koods said: Are you conceding that Assad has used chlorine against his citizens? Yes or no
Not on 7 Apr 18 (see thread topic).
So you’re more upset that he was falsely accused (according to you) of one attack than you are by all the other attacks he is responsible for. Such a strange hill to defend.
Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists: Your Hero Is a War Criminal Even If He Didn’t Gas Syrians
Quote:
Sorry to interrupt: I know you’re very busy right now trying to convince yourselves, and the rest of us, that your hero couldn’t possibly have used chemical weapons to kill up to 70 people in rebel-held Douma on April 7. Maybe Robert Fisk’s mysterious doctor has it right — and maybe the hundreds of survivors and eyewitnesses to the attack are all “crisis actors.”
Maybe Assad didn’t use sarin to kill around 100 people in rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun a year ago either. A joint investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found “unmistakable evidence” that he did. Human Rights Watch and Hans Blix also agree that Assad was probably to blame. But maybe they’re all wrong. Or, maybe they’re paid shills for the CIA.
My point is this: Who cares? Seriously, who cares? Whether or not it was Assad who used chemical weapons in Syria earlier this month, or last year, might matter to the leaders of the U.S., the U.K., and France, who decided to launch brazenly illegal and rather pointless airstrikes against his regime, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Syrian president-for-life is a monster who has perpetrated a vast array of blatant human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
[...]
Is this atrocity denial really necessary? Is it the only way you know how to oppose rapacious U.S. foreign policy, or Saudi-inspired extremism, or Israeli opportunism? By absolving Assad of well-documented war crimes, while smearing all humanitarian rescuers as “Al Qaeda” and all of the civilian victims of his bombs and bullets as “terrorists“? By cozying up to Iran and Russia in order to give the finger to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia? Is this not the “anti-imperialism of fools“?
[...]
But here’s the thing: You can condemn rebel atrocities and western meddling in Syria without heaping praise on, or making excuses for, the loathsome Assad. Have you forgotten the old adage about walking and chewing gum at the same time? Or the one about my enemy’s enemy not being my friend? Denouncing the rebels and their backers doesn’t require defending Assad and his backers. Compared to ISIS, the Syrian president may be, in your view, the lesser of two evils — but he’s still evil.
[...]
The truth is that Bashar al-Assad is not an anti-imperialist of any kind, nor is he a secular bulwark against jihadism; he is a mass murderer, plain and simple. In fact, the Syrian dictator long ago booked his place in the blood-stained pantheon of modern mass murderers, alongside the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Henry Kissinger, and George W. Bush. I can think of few human beings alive today who have more blood on their hands than he has.
So, why defend him? Why indulge in conspiracy theories on his behalf? Why minimize his crimes and abuses? And isn’t it more than a little hypocritical of you to constantly call out the violence of the West or the Gulf states or the rebels, while ignoring or downplaying the violence of Assad?
--------------------
|
koods
Ribbit



Registered: 05/26/11
Posts: 106,049
Loc: Maryland/DC Burbs
Last seen: 25 minutes, 13 seconds
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: shivas.wisdom] 1
#26975119 - 10/08/20 08:56 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
It’s like questioning the reality of the holocaust because somebody miscounted the number of prisoners at auschwitz
--------------------
NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
|
shivas.wisdom
בּ



Registered: 02/19/09
Posts: 13,428
Loc: Turtle Island
Last seen: 1 hour, 2 minutes
|
Re: Did Bashar al-Assad launch a 7 Apr 18 Chemical Attack in Douma? [Re: koods] 3
#26975345 - 10/08/20 11:43 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Sound familiar?
Quote:
Before and after the attacks on Douma, officials in Russia and Syria together with their proxies have been busily running all sorts of interference. These activities spin far beyond the the circles of presidents, ministers, ambassadors and their direct agents and even beyond the grey zone of disinformation sites and bot farms; there is also an army of one-trick academics, self-styled journalists and commentators populating a metastasizing archipelago of misinformation that reaches from the alt.right round to the alt.left.
[...]
Those who have sought to defend the Assad regime against the charge of using chemical weapons in Douma have followed two main avenues.
A first response has been simply to dismiss the reports as ‘chemical fabrications’ and ‘deceitful speculations’: to insist that there was no evidence of a chemical weapons attack.
[...]
As the videos and testimonies I cited earlier circulated, the outright denials were replaced by an altogether more sensational scenario. Russian and Syrian officials claimed that the attack had been staged by Jaish al-Islam in concert with the Syrian Civil Defence (‘White Helmets’) and, by implication, the Syrian-American Medical Society and other NGOs.
(Particular opprobrium seems to be visited on any NGO providing medical help to the sick and injured in rebel-held areas, even though this is explicitly sanctioned by international law; it has also been consistently withheld and obstructed by the Syrian government).
The indictment eventually swelled to include the United Kingdom (which had claimed Russia was responsible for the nerve-agent attack on the former British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury on 4 March).
[...]
The ‘evidence’ was never produced – nor were the British Special Forces soldiers allegedly captured as part of the operation paraded before the cameras either.
Instead, the disinformation campaign relied on two manoeuvres. The first was a counter-argument in the form of a question: what advantage could the Assad regime conceivably hope to gain by using chemical weapons when its forces were on the brink of defeating JAI and bringing all of East Ghouta under their control? This is a familiar tactic. When questioned about the targeting of hospitals in rebel-held areas Assad disingenuously asked: ‘… the very simple question is: why do we attack hospitals and civilians?’ There are sound answers to that – see my account of ‘The Death of the Clinic‘ – and there are to this version too. Remember that in the closing stages of the Syrian-Russian offensive against Douma negotiations with JAI had collapsed.
[...]
None of this settles matters, I realise, so let me turn the question around: what possible advantage could JAI conceivably hope to gain by staging a fake chemical weapons attack? If its leaders believed they could provoke a rapid military intervention (by whom?) to snatch them from the jaws of defeat – the Islamic equivalent of a Hail Mary pass – then it was a supremely stupid miscalculation: the immediate consequence of the attack, within a matter of hours, was the capitulation of Jaish al-Islam.
The second manoeuvre involved in the attempted indictment of JAI and others opposed to the Assad regime has been to substitute alternative evidence to counter the prosecutorial force of the videos, first-hand observations and expert testimony I detailed earlier. I’ll discuss three exhibits.
First, JAI’s ‘chemical weapons factories’.
[...]
A second series of exhibits focused on the elaborate mise-en-scène of a staged chemical weapons attack. In order to discount the videos of the casualties in Douma – shot at multiple locations by different people – claims circulated that the video record (in its dispersed entirety) was faked.
[...]
The final series of exhibits has involved the substitution of other witnesses who vehemently deny that a chemical attack took place in Douma. Both Russia and Syria claim to have discovered witnesses whose testimony contradicts those I cited earlier. Most deny that any chemical weapons attack occurred, but a recent report by Robert Fisk for the Independent offers a particularly revealing example.
[...]
Ever since the combined bomber offensive of the Second World War we have known that many victims of air raids die of asphyxiation rather than blast injury, so suppose for a moment that Fisk’s doctor was not only sincere but also correct. In that case – since Jaish al-Islam has never had an air force – then dozens of civilians would have been killed and injured in a Russian or Syrian air raid. Yet Fisk doesn’t mention that; in fact he doesn’t dwell on the victims at all, who are rapidly airbrushed from the scene.
Instead the doctor’s testimony has been cited by commentators on social media to trump the claims of multiple other witnesses as singular ‘proof’ that no CW attack took place.
[...]
It should be obvious that none of this adds up – that these concerted manoeuvres conspicuously fail to produce a coherent narrative – but, as Jonathan Cooke might say, it doesn’t have to. All it has to do is sow doubt and spread confusion. In an astute attempt to track the interlocking yet contradictory false-flag operations supposedly in play after the Douma attack, Uri Friedman cites Peter Pomerantsev, who explained that the larger (in his case, Russian) project
doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. … We’re rendered stunned, spun, and flummoxed by the Kremlin’s weaponization of absurdity and unreality.
‘If nothing is true,’ Pomerantsev warned, ‘then anything is possible.’
[...]
I also believe that the frenzied efforts by so many to defend Syria and its allies from every criticism, to blind themselves to the repressive and violent constitution of the Syrian state, and to close their ears to the cries of its victims is utterly reprehensible. There is the stench of the theatrical about this too – not of greasepaint but of sulphur. How many chemical weapons ‘manufactories’ have to be discovered, how many film stills unearthed, how many contrary witnesses stumbled upon before those using this ‘evidence’ ask serious questions about its provenance, probity and meaning? To find an utter disregard for truth on the far right is no surprise; to find it on the left is a source of shame. There are questions to ask about the Douma attack and the response by the US and its allies, as I have sought to show, but the mental and moral gymnastics some of these commentators perform simply astound me. Their controlling assumption seems to be that it is impossible to object to the actions of the US and its allies and also to the actions of Russia, Syria and their allies. This really is what Leila al Shami calls ‘the anti-imperialism of idiots‘.
https://geographicalimaginations.com/2018/04/24/gas-masques/
--------------------
|
|