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Syria: Massacres, False Flags, Backroom Diplomacy & Endtimers

Cochise said:
Well, should they ever get in power they will find democracy futile in a part of the world where people will vote exclusively along tribal or religious lines. As has occurred in Iraq.
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In fact, they will find 'democracy' as futile as it is in Europe to change the policies led by their rulers...
 
Cochise said:
Well, should they ever get in power they will find democracy futile in a part of the world where people will vote exclusively along tribal or religious lines. As has occurred in Iraq.
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Slightly off topic but I used to work with a group of Bosnian refugees. Yugoslavia was a multi ethnic state held together by a strong leader, similar in some respect to Assad. I once asked them what they thought of Tito and was slightly surprised when they all expressed their admiration for him.
"But didn't you want to be free?" I asked.
"But we were", they replied, "Free to live our lives. The only thing we couldn't do was criticise the government. But why would we? Tito stopped us killing each other."

My Bosniak friends knew exactly what would happen once Tito died, and lo and behold it did.

It seems to happen quite a lot of the time in states which sit on ethnic/ religious fault lines. Yugoslavia and Cambodia are a couple of examples...I do wonder if Syria can be added to the list.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Again I have to disagree. Amongst the fractured opposition forces are plenty of idealistic, pro-democracy activists, encouraged to take up arms against a totalitarian regime by the momentum of the Arab Spring.
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Idealistic, pro-democracy (at least in the Western meaning of the word) are for the most part present in the legal opposition, the few who had joined the armed uprising (by a momentum that didn't come only from the Arab Spring, but too from foreign powers using infiltrated agents) having since for most of them left it and joined the legal system. For the mere reason that under Assad's impetus, Syria has a new constitution, democratic as usually understood in the Western world, and a genuine political process to integrate the various political tendencies and their propositions to amend the Constitution.
And no, it was definitely not a totalitarian regime, only an authoritarian, police state but quite weak, and open and secular, in fact it was the most secular country in the Near- and Middle-East.
 
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Analis said:
In fact, they will find 'democracy' as futile as it is in Europe to change the policies led by their rulers...
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Tribalism still counts for a lot even here.

Ramon, I'll ask the guy who brings them in if he can scan something. They are old fashioned paper stuff :)
 
Cochise said:
Tribalism still counts for a lot even here.

Ramon, I'll ask the guy who brings them in if he can scan something. They are old fashioned paper stuff :)
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Does the info on the page change when you flick it with your finger?
 
I'm hearing via social media that Robert Fisk has arrived in Douma. Apparently he is tweeting that the whole gas attack story is down to film of children choking on dust and smoke. Someone then panicked and began shouting about a gas attack.

I am clueless about Twitter; can anyone confirm or deny the above?
 
I think this fits in here- though it also touches on Russia influencing elections:

Russian journalist Maxim Borodin dies after mysterious fall from fifth-floor balcony

News website Novy Den (New Day) said its reporter Maxim Borodin died at a hospital on Sunday (local time).

Borodin was reportedly found on the ground of his apartment in Yekaterinburg by neighbours on Thursday, but the cause of the fall was unclear.

Russian news reports cited police as saying the apartment was locked from the inside.

In March, Borodin wrote about bodies believed to be those of Russian mercenaries being delivered to a regional village.

Thousands of mercenaries have reportedly been deployed to Syria by the shadowy contracting company known as Wagner, believed to be bankrolled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St Petersburg entrepreneur dubbed "Putin's chef" by Russian media because of his restaurants and catering businesses that once hosted the Kremlin leader's dinners with foreign dignitaries.

Mr Prigozhin was indicted by the US in February on charges that he funded the "troll factory" alleged to have tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called for a full and impartial investigation into Borodin's death.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-...im-borodin-dies-after-mysterious-fall/9666018
 
Jeremy Corbyn's brother also believes that the gas attack was fake.

maximus otter

PS: The Morning Star is also very sniffy about the incident:

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https://order-order.com/2018/04/12/morning-star-suggests-douma-attack-set/

m.o.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
I feel about this the same way I feel about the Israel/Palestine conflict; if you've picked a side in this fight, you're part of the problem.
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With Israel/Palestine I support the right of the Israeli State to exist peacefully within it's pre 1967 borders but I condemn the way Israel treats Palestinians especially disproportionate retaliation. There also has to be some resolution of the right to return: if Israel could absorb 1 million Russians after the collapse of the USSR then it could at least admit some Palestinians whose families were displaced.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
I feel about this the same way I feel about the Israel/Palestine conflict; if you've picked a side in this fight, you're part of the problem.
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Fair comment. My basic position is that the West should butt out. But there are legitimate interests, of course. As long as we keep trying to demonise the Russians, they will want to keep their bases - after all, we wouldn't give up Gibraltar lightly. Or our influence in Malta or Cyprus, which are probably better comparisons.
 
ramonmercado said:
With Israel/Palestine I support the right of the Israeli State to exist peacefully within it's pre 1967 borders but I condemn the way Israel treats Palestinians especially disproportionate retaliation. There also has to be some resolution of the right to return: if Israel could absorb 1 million Russians after the collapse of the USSR then it could at least admit some Palestinians whose families were displaced.
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Again, the fact needs to be stated that more Jews were forced to flee their homes than Arabs as a result of the Arab-instigated 1948 war. The Jewish refugees had nowhere else to go than to flee to Israel, whereas the Arab refugees fled to surrounding Arab states - where they and their descendants have been treated like vermin ever since.
In any case, why would Palestinians not want to live in Palestinian territory, rather than in the state Hamas wants to destroy?
Arafat played the "right of return" card to scupper the Camp David and Taba peace talks. Had he chosen the path of peace instead of endless intifada, Palestine could have celebrated its 16th birthday as a sovereign state by now.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Again, the fact needs to be stated that more Jews were forced to flee their homes than Arabs as a result of the Arab-instigated 1948 war. The Jewish refugees had nowhere else to go than to flee to Israel, whereas the Arab refugees fled to surrounding Arab states - where they and their descendants have been treated like vermin ever since.
In any case, why would Palestinians not want to live in Palestinian territory, rather than in the state Hamas wants to destroy?
Arafat played the "right of return" card to scupper the Camp David and Taba peace talks. Had he chosen the path of peace instead of endless intifada, Palestine could have celebrated its 16th birthday as a sovereign state by now.
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Refugees were driven out and where ever from they should have the right to return. Palestine only composes a small section of UN Mandate Palestine, that is why they wish to return to their homes in what is now Israel.

The Right To Return was a demand recognised by the UN long before the Camp David talks.

Israel admitted a million people from Russia who had no connection with the State, they could at least admit some of those who were driven out.

I suspect we are not going agree on this.

Please just accept that I support the right of Israel to exist and lets leave the rest as something we will not resolve here.
 
ramonmercado said:
Refugees were driven out and where ever from they should have the right to return. Palestine only composes a small section of UN Mandate Palestine, that is why they wish to return to their homes in what is now Israel.

The Right To Return was a demand recognised by the UN long before the Camp David talks.

Israel admitted a million people from Russia who had no connection with the State, they could at least admit some of those who were driven out.

I suspect we are not going agree on this.

Please just accept that I support the right of Israel to exist and lets leave the rest as something we will not resolve here.
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OK. This is getting seriously off topic anyway.
 
Cochise said:
Just an update from an unlikely source :

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6071523/russia-syria-chemcial-attack-uk-propaganda-douma-bombing/

I'm surprised they published it at all. It seems to me that a) the right wing papers have really pushed Syria off the front pages and b) they are publishing the Russian position - albeit with a disclaimer. Is this a subtle way of disagreeing with the Government without putting the free press under threat again?
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Corroborating evidence emerges, all consistent :
http://www.voltairenet.org/article200675.html
Witnesses take the sting out of the charge made by the White Helmets
Voltaire Network | 14 April 2018
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Russia and Syrian TV have just broadcast these witness statements that contradict the accusations levelled by the White Helmets, that a chemical attack took place in Ghouta on 8 April.
Translation
Anoosha Boralessa

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition
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(I couldn't find any English subtitles, so I provide translations).

First witness :
On Synday 8 April, a building was hit. Its higher levels were destroyed. An ambulance carried wounded people from those levels. A fire took on first floor. There was much smoke on the first level and the cellar. People were carried to the emergency service. We provided aid to the victims. We did not put attention to somebody who was filming us. We were filmed and somebody came and told that it was a chemical attack. The man was not part of the service and was saying that they were the victims of chemical weapons. People became frightened and started to pour water on each other. Medics were telling us that it was not a poisoning by chemical weapons.
Second witness :
I am Alil Hajit, I am a medical student, working at the Douma main hospital, in the emergency services. On 8 April a building was bombed, its upper levels were destroyed and fire caught on lower levels. Residents from the upper levels presented signs of asphyxiation from the smokes from the blaze. We gave first aid, relying on symptoms of asphyxiation. A man came, I didn't know him. He said that it was an attack with toxic chemicals. We were afraid, relatives of the wounded poured water on each other. Those who had no medical training started to spray in the mouth of their children a treatment for asthma. We have not seen any patient with symptoms of poisoning by chemicals.

At the end of the video, they show a video from the hospital, where they can be seen ; so that they appear not to be actors.
See also :
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804171063629688-us-reporter-douma-wa/

https://www.rt.com/news/424421-western-media-douma-attack-narrative/
After visiting Douma, western media begin to question ‘gas attack’ narrative
Published time: 17 Apr, 2018 19:44 Edited time: 18 Apr, 2018 07:43
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After speaking with eyewitnesses on the ground in Syria, even mainstream media are beginning to cast doubt on the West’s narrative of an alleged gas attack in Douma, as medics tell French, German and UK media it never happened.
  • Agence France-Presse (AFP), the world’s third largest news agency, and the Independent, a British online newspaper, have each published stories that question whether chlorine or any other chemical was used against Syrians in Eastern Ghouta on April 7.

    In a French language video report, AFP spoke with Marwan Jaber, a medical student who witnessed the aftermath of the alleged attack.

    “Some of [the victims] suffered from asthma and pulmonary inflammation. They received routine treatment and some were even sent home,” Jaber told AFP. “They showed no symptoms of a chemical attack. But some foreigners entered while we were in a state of chaos and sprinkled people with water, and some of them were even filming it.”

    'Oxygen starvation, not gas’: Veteran UK reporter Fisk doubts MSM narrative on Douma ‘chem attack’
    Jaber’s testimony is consistent with claims made by a Douma doctor who spoke with veteran UK journalist Robert Fisk. Although Dr. Assim Rahaibani did not personally witness what happened in the medical clinic, he said that “all the doctors” he works with “know what happened.”

    According to Rahaibani, intense shelling had created dust clouds that seeped into the basements and cellars where people lived. “People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted ‘Gas!’, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

    Writing in the Independent, Fisk noted that locals he spoke with “never believed in” the gas attack stories – and that tales of President Bashar Assad’s chemical atrocities had been spread by armed Islamist groups who had imprisoned and enslaved thousands of people in Ghouta before the town was liberated by Syrian forces in April.

    Meanwhile, a report aired by the German RTL Group-owned channel n-tv says it’s unclear whether the attack took place at all, given that most of the locals told them on camera they didn’t smell any chemicals at all, one local told them he remembers a “weird smell” and was fine after a glass of water, and one man, who didn’t want to show his face, insisted there was a “smell of chlorine.”

    However, a local doctor told the channel: “Saturday, a week ago, we treated people with breathing problems, but chlorine or gas poisoning – no, those are different symptoms.”

    All of these stories published by different outlets corroborate testimony from two men who appeared in the “gas attack” footage spread far and wide by western media and governments. Interviewed by the Russian military, the two men said they were unknowing accomplices in the gas attack ruse. “We were working and did not pay attention to who was filming us,” the first eyewitness said. “They were filming us, and then a man came in and started screaming that this was a chemical attack…People got scared and started spraying each other with water and using inhalers. Doctors told us that there was no chemical poisoning.”

    Doctors and medical workers questioned by the Russian Center for Reconciliation confirmed that there had been no reports of patients suffering from chemical poisoning in Douma during the timeframe of the alleged gas attack.

    The French and British media reports seem to contradict statements made by Paris and London, which have both stated unequivocally that the chemical attack did take place – and that Assad was responsible.

    READ MORE: UK airstrikes in Syria based on ‘hearsay’ – Labour MP Chris Williamson (VIDEO)

    French President Emmanuel Macron said before Saturday’s missile strike against Syria that he had proof that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chlorine to attack civilians in a militant-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

    For her part, British Prime Minister Theresa May insisted that a “significant body of information including intelligence indicates the Syrian Regime is responsible for this latest attack.”
 
You are seriously quoting the Kremlin's official propaganda channel and Fisk - both equally notorious for bullshit.
 
:clap: :cynic:

Now, the Kurdish opposition protests over the attacks, stating them for what they truly are :
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804171063655954-kurdish-parties-condemn-us-strike-syria/

'This Was a Political Message': Kurdish Parties Condemn US-Led Strike on Syria

18:53 17.04.2018

Representatives of Kurdish political parties in Syria in an interview with Sputnik condemned the missile attack of the United States, Britain and France on Syrian territory.

The chairman of the Syrian Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party, Mustafa Hanifi, stated that his party "strongly opposes the use of force in the Syrian question".

"We issued a protest statement against the missile strike against Syria. Our party strongly condemns any attack directed against Syria, regardless of which country or group of countries it is from," Hanifi said.

In turn, the leader of the Democratic Union Party (FDP) Fethi Muhammed expressed concern that the attacks on Syria could further aggravate the Syrian crisis.
He said, "Western forces attacked Syria not because of a chemical attack or the desire to achieve justice. They did this to show Russia their presence in the Middle East, in Syria. This was a kind of political message; information about the impending strike on Syria was actively discussed in the media.”

The chairman of the National Council of Syrian Kurds, Fuad Eliko also considers the missile strike a message of the Western coalition countries.

"The United States wanted to send to Russia, which has significantly strengthened its positions in Syria and the Middle East, a political message and influence the Russian position in the region.

READ MORE: US-Led Coalition Preparing for Tectonic Shift in the Middle East – Analyst

I believe that the diplomatic crisis in the relations between Russia and European countries also played a role in the decision of the Western forces to strike.

According to Eliko, the situation in the region "points to the need to find political ways to resolve the Syrian conflict."

On April 14 US, French and British military forces conducted a massive missile strike on Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, groundlessly blaming it on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The views and opinions expressed by Mustafa Hanifi, Fethi Muhammad and Fuad Eliko are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
 
Don't you think your sources of RT & Sputniknews are the teeniest bit slanted? They're both pretty much mouthpieces of the Russian government. According to wiki: Sputniknews (formerly The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti) is a news agency, news website platform and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya in 2014.

Frankly I have very little firm idea who the goodest guys are & who the baddest guys are. It's hard to know what's really going on but I'm not sure I'd take solely the Russian governments version as my only source.
 
hunck said:
Don't you think your sources of RT & Sputniknews are the teeniest bit slanted? They're both pretty much mouthpieces of the Russian government. According to wiki: Sputniknews (formerly The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti) is a news agency, news website platform and radio broadcast service established by the Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya in 2014.

Frankly I have very little firm idea who the goodest guys are & who the baddest guys are. It's hard to know what's really going on but I'm not sure I'd take solely the Russian governments version as my only source.
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Analis gets called out on sources time after time after time, but still keeps it up.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Excellent article in The Guardian highlighting the sinister forces seeking to discredit the eye-witness reports from the White Helmets in Douma.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...th-tribal-robert-mueller-white-helmets-factse

I realise this forum's resident Putinbot won't like it, but I urge you all to read it.

Be warned though, it may put you off listening to Pink Floyd for a while!
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This is a comment piece rather than a news or investigative report. Many reports have been posted On the Syria (which are not from Russian media ) exposing the links between the White Helmets and the Jihadis.
 
So where are these Syria conspiracy theories coming from anyway...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43745629

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In response to a list of questions, she called BBC Trending's story a "blatant attempt" to "silence independent journalism" and repeated unsubstantiated claims about alleged chemical weapons attacks.

Beeley gives talks to fringe groups and makes appearances on media outlets including state-owned Russian channel RT.
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