Quite simply I do not believe the US, UK and French government’s assertion that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against rebels “multiple times in small quantities”. Why on earth would they do that? The claim that “up to 150 people have died” spread over a number of incidents makes no sense at all. In a civil war when tens of thousands of people have died, where all sides have been guilty of massacres of scores at a time, I cannot conceive of any motive for killing a dozen or so at any one time with the odd chemical shell. It makes no military sense – chemical weapons are designed for use against population centres and massed armies. They are not precision weapons for deployment against small groups.
Why on earth would the Assad regime use a tiny amount of chemical weapons against tiny groups of rebels, knowing the West would use it as an excuse to start bombing? It makes no sense whatsoever. Cui bono?
The Russians have described the evidence as fabricated, and on this one I am with the Russians.
It is of course no coincidence that this humanitarian motive to start bombing Syria arises just as the tide of war turned against the rebels, and the government forces are about to move on Aleppo. I suspect now we will see massive NATO force intervention, with huge air to ground destruction of the government forces all over the country to “defend” Aleppo, just as we saw hundreds of thousands killed and whole cities destroyed in Libya to “defend” Benghazi. Whose people showed their gratitude by murdering the US Ambassador.
It is a further fascinating coincidence that this coordinated western switch of policy happens immediately after the Bilderberg conference. An analysis of which of the corporate interests there stand to gain in Syria might be a fascinating exercise.
There were two main reasons the tide of war turned against the rebels. Firstly, Hizbollah’s decision to enter the war on a large scale was provoked by the Israeli Air Force’s massive attack around Damascus, a fact the mainstream media has managed to hide completely. Secondly, at Turkish urging, the rebel forces had diverted much of their energies to attacking the Syrian kurds. This opens the interesting question of what the American client Kurds of Iraq will make of their patron sponsoring the massacre of their brethren in Syria.
Finally, chemical weapons are a terrible thing and their use should be condemned unreservedly. But where was all this Western outrage and activity when the Israelis were pouring down white phosphorous and kicking and maiming thousands of women and children in Gaza?
Flaming June (Encyclopaedia Offtopica) ironically offers pest control advice to another variety of pest that was introduced to stymie criticism of her incomprehensibly tedious tickertape announcements.
And it appears that Sofia has become a member of the Coloratus Ad Hominem club as we all know that impertinent insinuations of colour prejudice confers left-wing respectability to uninspired and ‘academically challenged’ comments.
Good news indeed that Iranians have thrown out the dishevelled used-car salesman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and elected someone with a (hopefully) more constructive demeanour. Maybe the Iran war can still be averted.
@Jemand
16 Jun, 2013 – 11:30 am
Shouldn’t you be trolling the proper heavyweights? You know, the ones who are always pointing to real evidence and challenging the mandated narrative with hard facts rather than fictional pre-pubescent pests like me?
There’s a real danger that enough people might just wake up this time to the tricks being played by the latest Colin Powells and here you are being trolled by a troll. I know it isn’t nice, and I did try for ages to resist it but I just can’t fight Dad’s old Zabolotna-Habbercake genes.
Thanks for the recognition anyway. You’ve made my day.
Perhaps the Scottish Government should send the Mullah President Elect of Iran a bottle of the finest single malt. New brand for the whisky-makers of Speyside and Skye: ‘Mullah Malt’.
On second thoughts…
On a more serious, though, I agree with Villager, in hoping for jaw-jaw, not war-war. But I fear that rappochment is not the desired strategic aim (see also under ‘Khatami’) and it is salutory to realise that a country’s strategic situation is what it is. Saudi Arabia/UAE/NATO have their own ideas of hegemony and Iran is the ur-denoted strategic enemy.
jemand. You can forget about all those hordes of Islamists and Fu Manchus out to get you. A far greater threat lurks unnoticed in your own home.
“Americans are thirty times more likely to die from lightning strikes, and ten times more likely to drown in their bathtubs, than to be killed by terrorists. Should we declare war against lightning bolts and bathtubs? Should we install PA systems in our bathrooms reminding us that the threat level of bathtub drowning has been raised to orange? Should we create a new Department of Bathtub Security (DBS) empowered to do sneak-and-peak warrantless searches of our bathrooms to make sure that we’re using no-slip bath-mats? Should we invade and occupy countries that we falsely blame for bathtub deaths?” Dr. Kevin Barrett
.
Full article:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/16/309237/bathtubs-more-dangerous-than-terrorists/
.
Run away now, before it’s too late.
“We must fight them on the beaches, while eating the peaches, in the bathtubs…!” Vinstan ChaL-ChaL to Fu Manchu, bahuth peechey kal-kal.
ah, Jemand this: “According to one left wing romanticist here” might hurt if I wasn’t also a happy and constant reader of PJ ‘Republican Party reptile’ O’Rourke who, in his equally interesting book ‘Eat the Rich’ visits China and makes exactly the same criticisms of the Chinese system as Klein, albeit in more pungent language, when describing the horror that is corporate capitalism there.
Syrian Report took over this article.
http://syriareport.net/observations-from-a-former-british-ambassador/
You can also find a link on a Belgian dutch speaking forum.
http://forum.politics.be/
So, daddy, what did you do when they attacked Syria? or as Jemand says’ Maybe the Iran war can still be averted.’
Well son, I took a very cold shower and told everyone about it on FB, you should have read the comments, from Temperature, what soap is best to use, and athletes foot tips.
After having talked up the war with Iran, maybe, we can avert it without actually having it…. what utter genius, give that man a cucumber.
But would that not preclude that we are governed by thinking primates? which we are not.
No surprise.
‘In an interview with the French TV station LCP, former French minister for Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas said:
“I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria.
This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.
Naturally, I refused, I said I’m French, that doesn’t interest me.”
Dumas went on give the audience a quick lesson on the real reason for the war that has now claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.’
/..
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/06/former-french-foreign-minister-war-against-syria-planned-2-years-before-arab-spring/
Morsi follows instructions.
Egypt’s Morsi cuts ties with Syria
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-06/16/c_132457794.htm
~~
Wonder how Agent CameraOn is getting on with Putin?
‘David Cameron says he will be asking President Vladimir Putin to help get movement on an international deal for peace in Syria, when they meet later.’
I think he will get either the cold shoulder or the ‘big E’.
I note CameraOn is suffering from the early male pattern baldness syndrome. Perhaps he has too much stress. Anyway he will look very strange if he goes completely bald.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness
The Guardian have noticed it and give him advice.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/shortcuts/2013/feb/12/10-rules-bald-men-david-cameron
Morsi urges “us” to go in hard on Syria. Now I see why Hillary was so keen to have him in charge (she anointed him the day before Iron Dome ended). The long game must be Shia v Sunni – a continent-wide conflagration that serves the neocon agenda nicely. Perhaps that’s why the US wanted also al Maliki in charge of Iraq. The yanks will probably end up arming both sides. Very goo business.
“Good news indeed that Iranians have thrown out the dishevelled used-car salesman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”
He wasn’t thrown out. He was ineligible to stand again having already served two consecutive terms.
“Maybe the Iran war can still be averted”
Unlikely I would have thought. Unless of course Rouhani is proposing to hand over Iran’s oil and gas reserves to the big oil corporations and close down its independent central bank so it can get into debt with western banksters.
Sofia, I don’t know what shadows you think you are boxing, but none of them are mine. If you’re trying to impress anyone here with your faux wit, it is only you. Well done.
Technicolour, you always miss the opportunity of avoiding being an annoying, self-righteous hypocrite. What are your thoughts on the millions of Chinese dead at the hands of Mao’s communists? And of the seemingly unquenchable Chinese desire for traditional (superstitious) remedies that endanger rare and endangered animal species while cruelly exploiting those that are safe from extinction in their backyard factory cages? Nothing to say, as usual, I should expect. Good for you!
MJ, Sofia, Mike: challenge that narrative! And this from June is worth repeating over &:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/06/former-french-foreign-minister-war-against-syria-planned-2-years-before-arab-spring/
Oh, do stop distracting, Jemand, and read the sources. It will make you informed, as opposed to randomly splenetic. My thoughts on the history of communist massacres, and on the universal torture of animals, while doubtless fascinating at some point, are irrelevant right now, as you well know.
Technicolour, you are right. Your thoughts are irrelevent, now and always. *hug*
NB though June’s link is interesting, solely for what Roland Dumas is supposed to have said, it gives no link to the interview quoted, and one also wonders why on earth British officials would ask him to be involved in a top secret operation even though he was no longer foreign minister. Sorry, posted in far too much haste.
Indeed, which is why I generally try and post facts. But otherwise, then why ask for them, Jemand? You could always just deal with the facts. Much simpler.
No doubt the UK and Cameron now regret the activities of TE Lawrence and Winston Churchill in playing politics to weaken Islam in their quest for oil. Major blowback has occurred in the engine room and the survivors are left to fight for survival as they attempt to escape the sinking ship.
Who’d have thought the US and Great Britain would be forced to ask parliament for permission to ‘arm rebels’ to achieve their economic goals or Israel be forced to ask for assistance from Russia and Shi’a Iran. What a to-do. Obama and Cameron are left to swim through the submerged gangways of the sinking ship and batten down the hatches against the pressure of water in the capsized hull.
All politics is a vast ego-charging scheme by psychopaths who first break things that weren’t broken so that they can then go and play the hair-swamped hero and rescue people from harm. Us non-politicians who do not seek this ego-attention, do not need to create havoc and panics like Lawrence, Churchill, Obama and Cameron, because we do not need the drug of world attention.
Psychopath politicians would be best left in padded cells in asylums with their sleeves knotted and locked behind their backs. A small hole with a large notice in Red Paint on the outside of the door reading’ Do not Let Out for Whatever Reason ‘.
Flaming June
16 Jun, 2013 – 10:00 am
“Is there a training school where politicians are taught these neuro-linguistic skills?”
I think there must be. I wonder who pays for the tutoring though; taxpayers?
Look at the bastards; Blair, Brown, Straw, Hague, Cameron, Clegg, the Milibands and others. They all use the same hand gestures; it seems to be a PR body language psychology stratagem.
Obviously many people are taken in by it.
Putin and CameraOn haven’t got going yet. Putin’s entourage could not enter Downing Street via Plebgate because a large and noisy protest against the Turkish government. Therefore he has had to go round to the back passage where William ‘Springheel Jack’ Hague has been sent to meet him and show him in. So funny.
“Is there a training school where politicians are taught these neuro-linguistic skills?”
Anyone can learn neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). There are lots of courses and books available. It’s a well-respected psychotherapeutic tool. Now it’s being used by politicians, the more who understand how it works the better. Worthwhile picking up one of the many pbs on the subject.
Would a no-fly zone in Syria have to approved by the Security Council presumably, anyone? If so, that ain’t about to happen anytime soon.
It would be good if the BRICS grouping would speak out with one voice against the rebels being armed. It would be perfect if that were to happen coinciding with the G-8 meeting. I wonder what happened to the G-20 or is that too much of an orgy for the Western crusaders to manage?
—-
Mike, re your post, it certainly looks like that. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar are untouchable. Which country’s passport did most of the 9/11 attackers have?
We are continually told about the growing number of Syrian refugees. Nobody mentions the 5m Palestinian refugees (according to the UN) and nobody suggests arming the Palestinians to overthrow their oppressors, the Israelis.
Good initiative starting in Canada.
Building Bridges Vancouver (BBV), in concert with Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (BIAC), Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at UBC (SPHR), Canada Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet), Canada Palestine Association (CPA) and Seriously Free Speech (SFS) have formed the Palestine Awareness Coalition in order to bring to public awareness the ongoing shrinking of Palestine from 1946 to the present day.
Skytrain ad 1
http://buildingbridgesvancouver.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/skytrain-ad-1.jpg
Bus ad 1
http://buildingbridgesvancouver.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/bus-ad-1.jpg
The first design above will soon be placed as a large wall mural at two TransLink Skytrain stations: Waterfront and Vancouver Centre. The second will be placed on the exterior of city buses over a four-week period. Similar campaigns have been launched in New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC and Portland, OR. The four-map posters are also being used in various formats by organizations in several countries to bring public awareness to the reality faced by the people of Palestine.
Disappearing Palestine
http://buildingbridgesvancouver.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/disappearing-palestine-3/
Jemand
16 Jun, 2013 – 11:45 am
“Good news indeed that Iranians have thrown out the dishevelled used-car salesman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and elected someone with a (hopefully) more constructive demeanour. Maybe the Iran war can still be averted.”
Not quite Jemand, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not standing for election.
“…and elected someone…” So you agree that Iran is a democratic state.
And what is a “constructive demeanour”? US/Israel/UK compliant?
“Maybe the Iran war can still be averted.”
You make it sound like Iran is the belligerent entity here.
I take it that you are a fan of Lewis Carroll.
AND
“Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-send-4000-troops-to-aid-president-assad-forces-in-syria-8660358.html
“Which country’s passport did most of the 9/11 attackers have?”
Given that at least seven of the alleged hijackers were travelling on passports stolen or otherwise acquired from people who were still alive, that information isn’t particularly useful.
@Flaming June (16 Jun, 2013 – 1:29 pm), also mentioned by Fedup in Emma thread.
On Roland Dumas, over on moa: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/06/war-on-syria-exactly-like-iraq.html#c6a00d8341c640e53ef01901d6ad27c970b –there is some information quoted about Dumas which is discreditable, not that it necessarily detracts from the import of the comments he has made and the source of the character assassination information is untimately Murdoch’s NYT. Dumas must have been well aware of deep French involvement too, two years or so back, and the grim irrational determination of Cameron and Hague to persist in this Syrian folly, confirm it is their adventure primarily and now has become their downfall and disgrace.