Syria: Alleged Chemical Attack Elicits 180 Degree Response from West

Tony Cartalucci

On the heels of another alleged chemical attack in Syria – the Western media has responded with skepticism – even silence. This acutely different response to its regular “chemical weapons” hysteria is because unlike previous incidents, it appears this most recent attack was blatantly carried out by Western-backed militants operating in Idlib, Syria.

While evidence of this most recent alleged attack must still be collected and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has yet to arrive and carry out its investigation, it should be remembered that none of this was previously required by either the Western media to create a storm of hysteria accusing perpetrators – mainly Damascus – and demanding a Western military response, or by Western leaders who would promptly carry out such military responses.

Compare and Contrast

With no actual evidence in hand, the United States along with the UK and France would carry out military strikes on Syria in April of this year after an alleged chemical attack the West claimed was carried out by Syrian forces in Douma, just six miles northeast of Damascus.

British state media – the BBC – would unquestioningly repeat claims by dubious organizations like the “White Helmets”  that chemical weapons were used and killed scores of civilians. In one BBC article titled, “Syria war: At least 70 killed in suspected chemical attack in Douma,” it was claimed:

The pro-opposition Ghouta Media Center tweeted that more than 75 people had “suffocated”, while a further 1,000 people had suffered the effects of the alleged attack.

It blamed a barrel bomb allegedly dropped by a helicopter which it said contained Sarin, a toxic nerve agent.

The Union of Medical Relief Organizations, a US-based charity that works with Syrian hospitals, told the BBC the Damascus Rural Specialty Hospital had confirmed 70 deaths.

Buried deeper in the article – past rhetoric aimed at preparing the public for a Western military strike – the BBC would eventually admit that the Syrian government had taken most of the surrounding territory through years of fighting – assumably through the use of conventional weapons – and that the remaining opposition-held territory was occupied by Jaish al-Islam – one of several US-NATO backed Al Qaeda affiliates operating in Syria.

The article, and many like it, would begin by claiming:

At least 70 people have died in a suspected chemical attack in Douma, the last rebel-held town in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta, rescuers and medics say.

Compare that with the BBC’s  article regarding the most recent chemical attack on Aleppo titled, “Syria war: Aleppo ‘gas attack’ sparks Russia strikes,” which begins by claiming:

Russia has carried out air strikes against Syrian rebels it accuses of launching a chemical attack on the government-held city of Aleppo.

The BBC would immediately provide denials made by militants operating in Idlib and frame the entire incident as a likely fabrication to justify Russian air strikes on militant positions.

The article fails to point out that even if the mortar rounds allegedly containing chemical weapons were instead conventional – the militants would still be in violation of a provisional buffer zone created between Syrian forces and Idlib-based militants – and would still be viable targets for Russian military aviation as well as Syrian military retaliation.

The sudden skepticism and incredibly ironic “whataboutism” displayed by other appendages of Western war propaganda, including human rights fronts like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as NATO’s “Nonresident Senior Fellow, Digital Forensic Research Lab, Future Europe Initiative” Eliot Higgins, also highlights the disingenuous, cynical abuse of human rights and “open source investigations” as war propaganda by the West.

Kenneth Roth – executive director of Human Rights Watch would declare in his only post on social media regarding the attack that:

Syria asks the UN Security Council to condemn an alleged rebel chlorine attack–the same Security Council where Syria’s ally Russia vetoed extension of an investigation that could identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks.

Absent from Roth’s timeline is the same sort of hysteria, repetitive demands for justice, and calls for immediate action against the perpetrators following other alleged chemical attacks – the only difference being who the accused perpetrators are/were.

The Atlantic Council’s Eliot Higgins would spend the day after the attack posting pictures of alleged munitions used in the attack on Aleppo – an admission that an attack and thus a violation of the agreed upon buffer zone had indeed taken place – claiming that none of them could have contained chemicals despite not being any sort of weapons expert and having never set foot inside of Syria, let alone having investigated that actual scene of this particular attack.

Chemical Weapons or Not, Militants Violated Idlib Buffer Zone

It would be premature to conclude what sort of munitions were used in the recent attack on Aleppo. However it is indisputable – even among the West’s various propaganda organs – that militants in Idlib carried out some sort of armed attack.

The attack was – regardless and undoubtedly – a violation of agreements made to deescalate fighting between Syrian government forces and their allies and the remnants of the West’s mercenary forces in Idlib – and required a military response.

When the OPCW investigators arrive, and as time passes, evidence can be collected and the true nature of the attack can be ascertained with further measures taken against Idlib-based militants if necessary.

And regardless of the outcome of these investigations – the West has suffered yet another tactical, strategic, and now political defeat as another loop of the long rope given to it by its opponents wraps around their collective necks, strangling the remnants of their credibility.

For organizations like British state media – the BBC – its transparent bias and politically-motivated inconsistency has so fully permeated its reporting that side-by-side comparisons of its headlines serve as the greatest indictment against – and parody of – of its legitimacy as a news organization.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.
https://journal-neo.org/2018/11/28/syria-alleged-chemical-attack-elicits-180-degree-response-from-west/

Cyber Censorship – Proof of Falsity of US Social Media Horns

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The western media, especially of the US, thrives on lies, deceit, and spin – all hidden behind the veil of claim to freedom of expression, which is nothing but sheer hypocrisy.

In fact, the vast worldwide network of the self-styled open press which churns out false and fake news to mislead masses around the globe is hypersensitive to truth, and the moment it feels the unmasking of its propaganda, it swiftly censors and blocks access.

This has become fully evident by the recent anti-Iran and anti-Russia measures of a number of US-based social media networks, which unable to belie the facts exposing the falsity of the Zionist-controlled propaganda, closed thousands of accounts on allegations of ‘misinformation’.

If it is really ‘misinformation’ as alleged, then the so-called free press instead of disabling the accounts of others should leave it to the audiences to sift truth from falsehood on the basis of what the ‘self-righteous’ western media says.

Imperialism and Zionism, aware of their own flimsy claims, know that once people in the Americas, Europe, and other areas of influence around the world, understand the realities, then the regimes in both the US and Israel would have nothing to justify and would fold up like houses of cardboard.

On Thursday, Google said it had blocked 39 YouTube channels as well as disabling 13 accounts at its Google+ social network and six accounts at Blogger – mostly subscribers from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If Google Vice President Kent Walker is to be believed, the company has identified and terminated a number of accounts linked to what it said the IRIB organization (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) operating under guise.

Nothing could be far from the truth, and only betrayed the inability of the supposedly biting US sanctions economic sanctions to have the desired effect on Iran, which earlier on Thursday had prompted the US social media giant Facebook to target thousands of accounts in Iran, on the same lame pretext of fighting "misinformation.”

It is interesting to note that among the accounts blocked by Facebook was one belonging to the Quest 4 Truth (Q4T) Iranian network which is purely an Islamic site, having no political agenda and focusing exclusively on ethics and religious values, which many good Christians aspiring for peace and universal brotherhood and striving to cleanse society of such cardinal sins as lies, fraud, avarice, violence, adultery, and terrorism, might fully support.

In a simultaneous move, Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) also removed accounts said to be tied to Iranians promoting the Islamic Republic’s geopolitical agenda.

It has now become clear that these supposedly international social media networks are neither free nor independent, and in light of their confessions merely follow the dictates of the CIA.

It is obvious that the US intelligence is also not its own master and has to obey whatever the notorious Zionist network Mossad instructs, and this means negation of Christian values in the West.

We in Iran, however, believe that on no account fact and realities can be suppressed, since truth is destined triumph over whatever sophisticated methods the enemies of humanity use and cybersecurity belt they claim to have built to try to block the righteousness of the Iranian position whose influence is spreading.