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The Douma attacks were claimed that Sarin and Chlorine was used in the final stages of a battle to clear this area of Rebels and which it was more or less immediately declared that Syria and Russia were guilty of perpetrating and which subsequently resulted in a US cruise missile attack on Syrian infrastructure.
There were obvious arguments against the claim, such as use of illegal chemical weapons were completely unnecessary to carry out the operation. As far as the Chlorine. My personal argument is that chlorine is a very ineffective weapon, was only used in WWI for a short time before being replaced by other gasses because it simply didnt work. To affect people in open areas needs the right weather conditions and massive amounts (Tons) are needed to have any hope of affecting combatants, quantities which could not even be lifted into the air by the aircraft of the SAA. It was also stated in an early report that presence of organic chloride was part of the evidence. Organ chlorides are everywhere in a city, leaving aside that simple bleach could be a precursor, textiles, adhesives and plastics and their presence in dirt and dust in the street would contain such residues. PVC particles contain chlorinated organic molecules.
Eventually the full OPCW report was released in which the chlorine aspect was supported but no traces of Sarin were confirmed.Since that time, two OPCW whistle blowers have come forward, experts who were involved in collecting and processing materials and contributing reports back to head office. The first one, a ballistics expert revealed that his Engineering Assessment, given to head office stated that the canisters found in the upper floor of a building with a hole in the ceiling were highly unlikely to have ended up in place from altitude, above the buildings and were likely to have been placed there manually. The exact opposite conclusion of the official OPCW report.
The second whistle-blower stated that ¨the official OPCW chemical analysis, toxicology, and witness testimonies, are flawed and bear little relation to the facts¨. The main flaw was that when samples taken near the areas supposedly affected were not compared with the carefully collected control samples of unaffected areas. This means that the chlorine related hits were no different than background, ambient levels of the same chemicals.
This evidence, combined with witness testimony stating that the videos of hospitals ¨treating¨ affected ¨victims¨ were staged and reporters such as Robert Fisk who reached the sites early reporting they could find no witness corroboration of any attack at the time, demonstrate with high liklihood that this event did not happen, no chemical warfare substances was present, the initial jump to conclusions were wrong and the cruise missile attack was unwarranted.
The most important conclusion however is the that the OPCW is obviously severely compromised to the point of being capable of producing reports that directly contradict the evidence produced by their own technicians.
This also has wider implications for OPCW reports in other, politically sensitive areas, for example Skripal.
We and even other OPCW connected countries were never allowed to know the exact results of Skripal from environmental and human samples, in terms of actual assay results and chemicals identified (from the Skripals doorknob etc.) We were just told by politicians that the agent was similar to an agent thought to have been developed in Russia, although Novichok isnt a technical term and its chemical structure is not, in any case officially tied down in detail. In any case Porton down only stated it was similar to a (supposed) Russian linked chemical. Similar is not an exact scientific term and could mean anything. E.g. Alcohol molecules are similar to water in some respects and properties. We were also not allowed to know what the OPCW lab detected in these samples. By agreement between the UK Govt. and OPCW all that was stated was that the results were consistent with the Porton Down results (which were not released). If you remember, the Russians spied on the OPCW lab and found that actual assays included another incapacitating opioid agent that was not Novichok. Lavrov released this information in a press release but the OPCW responded after a few days with a de-bunk that this opioid was added to some samples as part of a Lab performance control.
Like the control environmental samples which the OPCW ignored, could the OPCW be obfuscating results? Could that ¨control¨ chemical have been what both Porton Down and the OPCW lab actually detected but hid by selecting a control that was already there or spiked? Could that control opioid be what actually affected the Skripals? Could that explain why 3 of 4 Skripal victims were not affected immediately on supposed contact and subsequently walked out of their hospital within weeks? Maybe not, but one thing is for sure, untill it is swept with an aggressive clean broom, no clear thinking objective person can trust OPCW reports again.Thank you for posting this. This has received very little coverage by the MSM. I have also mentioned it in a parallel discussion forum on ME updates in this blog.
Caitlin Johnstone also writes about this and also includes a sound recording made by the BBC world service of an interview with a journalist Jonathan Steele.
These whistleblower statements and the increasingly obvious politicisation and therefore lack of reliability and impartiality of the OPCW should be more widely circulated.Here are further discussions of this topic from RT, Aaron Mate and also a more comprehensive analysis here.
Here are a couple of relevant links:
Seymour M. Hersh: Whose sarin?
Craig Murray: The Troodos Conundrum
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Correction. The release regarding the ballistics of the canisters was an anonymous leak, (which the OPCW acknowledged) not a whistle-blower of known identity.
Going slightly off topic, with respect to the OPCW how does this affect Salisbury?
Note here are the reasons why Salisbury occurred, why it was not Russia.
Some excellent relevant links in the latest MediaLens article:
According to Seymour Hersh in his article The Red Line and the Rat Line, the sarin was analysed at Porton Down and found not to match samples from the Syrian government.
The Syrian Government seem to be playing things very gently and calmly, much more calm than in France or Italy or Spain or Greece or the United Kingdom.
It is the long game.
Calm, statemanlike, almost serene.Part of the case against Russia for Skripal is the chemical analysis on samples taken from the environment and from blood associated with Salisbury and the Skripals themselves which was organized and managed by thE OPCW. Their involvement provided cast iron, Gold standard forensic analysis to support what the Brits were claiming.
But based on these suppressed whistle blower accounts on Douma Was the report influenced in the a similar way? The underhand language of the OPCW Skripal reports in which the results were not specified exactly, might suggest they were. From the OPCW report on Skripal, it could be argued is consistent with no ¨Nocichok¨ whatsoever in the samples, despite how the report was portrayed in the media.
The Whistle’blowing on Douma makes this a more credible possibility.Moon of Alabama is now reporting that drafters of the report also say-
On July 4 there was another intervention. Fairweather, the chef de cabinet, invited several members of the drafting team to his office. There they found three US officials who were cursorily introduced without making clear which US agencies they represented. The Americans told them emphatically that the Syrian regime had conducted a gas attack, and that the two cylinders found on the roof and upper floor of the building contained 170 kilograms of chlorine. The inspectors left Fairweather’s office, feeling that the invitation to the Americans to address them was unacceptable pressure and a violation of the OPCW’s declared principles of independence and impartiality.
It should not be forgotten that Weapons Inspectors seem to have a habit of unusual suicide
Timothy Hampton and David Kelly, spring to mind to name but two. Anybody remember more?
So when mysterious, threatening US officials are introduced to them by their boss, the intimidation goes beyond fear for your job. Its probably easier to make them disappear.
See leaked e-mail from one of the OPCW inspector team sent to Douma.
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/Internal-OPCW-E-Mail/Internal-OPCW-E-Mail.pdf
The Calm that both Syria and Russia show seems remarkable.
Almost every week the Israelis attack by overflying Lebanon and damage Syria and Syrians,
then they further threaten Syria with knocking out all their air defences, should they dare to fight back.
The Syrian President just goes about accepting more Syrians home from Jordan or Lebanon and attempting to reintergrate them and starting to normalise life for Syrians, in Syria.
Yet he is portrayed as a monster?More OPCW material released by Wikileaks-
After technical reports were all submitted, a separate, unknown team, not situated or having visited Syria wrote the final reports which the Syrian team were not allowed to review before release.
Moon of Alabama is exploding this story now. Hitchens has updated his piece with more evidence, The Newsweek reporter has provided detailed background on the lengths that Newsweek went to bury the story and him. https://tareqhaddad.com/2019/12/14/lies-newsweek-and-control-of-the-media-narrative-first-hand-account/
How their editors are Council For Foreign Relations planted hacks.How to call for the suspension of OPCW leadership and either a new broom or shut it down?
Scott Ritter explains the history of OPCW senior personnel appointments and how it became a tool of the US & NATO
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/chemical-weapons-watchdog-is-just-an-american-lap-dog/
Thank you intp1
I thought I might just give you a little of my perspective of this as I have a degree in chemistry. I should just say though that I have never worked as a chemist and my degree was obtained 30 years ago, so my detailed knowledge may be a little rusty, but better than a layman’s nevertheless.
The idea of using “molecular chlorine” as a weapon in itself is very suspicious. As you correctly point out, it was only very briefly used as a chemical weapon in WWI. Quite honestly, it sounds about as likely as using musket balls for ammunition. It would be an extremely primitive weapon. I imagine that a number of people at the OPCW would have had private reservations about this even without looking at any evidence.
Chlorine is an extremely adaptable and useful element. It is quite literally everywhere.
Molecular chlorine is a gas and consists of two chlorine atoms bound together. It is an extremely simple compound. Like many elements it is not stable as single atoms. The most readily available source is probably bleach. The smell of bleach is essentially the smell of chlorine. You also get it at swimming baths and in disinfectants.
It also exists as common table salt in the form of “sodium chloride”. This is an inorganic compound. The sodium and chloride ions that it consists of are extremely stable. Sodium is a metal, but you will never get metallic sodium in your salt. Similarly you will never smell chlorine. Salt – sodium and chloride ions – exist in every cell of the body.
Chlorine is also present in your stomach in the form of hydrochloric acid. It is the major component of gastric acid. Fortunately the stomach is lined with other chemicals which prevent the stomach itself from being digested.
Organic compounds containing chlorine are also extremely abundant and useful, but are generally man-made and often toxic. They are often used in the manufacture of plastics for example PVC, which contains chlorine atoms bound to carbon atoms.
I cannot help but think that the great abundance of chlorine in our modern world would have made it a reasonable “sell” to gullible journalists and politicians.
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A cylinder of chlorine gas is not a chemical weapon in itself as chlorine has so many uses. By contrast a cylinder of sarin (a small but complex compound) would be a chemical weapon as sarin has no other usage except as a chemical weapon.
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Chemistry is divided into three branches: Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. Put crudely, organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds, inorganic chemistry is everything else. That may sound a little facetious, but carbon is a very special element which forms bonds with itself and with other elements in a way that no other element does. There are so many carbon compounds that it has its own branch of chemistry. To a chemist “organo” or “organic” refers to carbon compounds. Living beings (plants and animals) are carbon based.
Yes, its basics, not rocket science, as is the role of controls in any expt. The environmental controls were taken, assayed but then ignored by the OPCW politicos. How much chlorine (Free and Bound) is in drinking water? Ans – a similar level to that found in Douma chlorine attack samples.
The fact that OPCW data can be twisted and exaggerated this way is a god damn disgrace. This is how Science has been co-opted and distorted by people like, Bush and Bolton, and those that ¨lead¨ the OPCW into the dark side. Of course it helps the conscience when you are too uneducated to know basic GCSE physics or chemistry. The truth is what we say it is, said Dick Chaney.
I am now extremely suspicious of the role of OPCW in Skripal . Whereas before I didnt think that scientist with integrity could corrupt the OPCW process (Cognative Dissonance on my part) now I don´t believe that the psychotropic drug BZ (1-azabicyclo[2.2.2]octan-3-yl hydroxy(diphenyl)acetate), leaked to have been found in the Skripal samples, and confirmed as present in the Skripal samples was a lab performance control.If you wanted to test your client laboratories capabilities, I am interested in ur opinion would you spike your precious target samples? What if that control chemical had some reaction with what you were trying to detect? What if the control spike WAS the same or similar as what you are trying to detect?
If the Skripals had in fact been exposed to BZ on that Sunday at the bench, that would much better explain: Delayed effects. The actual symptoms reported by bystanders. The fact that they both walked out of their hospitals within days to weeks (Before disappearing into some black detention site). The fact that a consultant at their hospital wrote a letter to The Times stating that no-one, NO-ONE who had been admitted, had been exposed to any nerve agent. He was also, quickly disappeared from sight but his letter was still on-line. BZ attack is also supported by the fact that full chemical weapon precautions were not taken in the hospital for all visitors etc.
Regarding the Novichok, the OPCW samples were also said to have results which were unusually pure and un-broken down considering they were weeks old. That was touted to the masses as further proof of the seriousness of the attack rather than the more obvious conclusion that this would be consistent with having been added post being drawn by the Phlebotomist within days of being tested.
intp1
Thank you, my own view – bear in mind that I have never worked in a commercial laboratory – is that the scientists doing the testing are likely to be honest in their work. However, they can only work with what they are given, so it could be that the samples were tampered with before being handed to the labs for testing.
With regard to tests for chemicals. There are very well established methods. There is really nothing that can escape the net in the sense that you cannot make something invisible to tests. If a particular chemical residue is present then it can be detected. So there would be no sense in tampering with lab samples to test the capabilities of a lab. They all use the same methods, they should all produce the same results.
I am going to write something on the Skripals on the Sturgess Inquest thread.
Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW not only ignored his own OPCW technicians within the in-Field, Douma Fact finding mission but ordered all traces of the technical ballistics assessment by Inspector Ian Henderson removed including any evidence of ¨its delivery, storage or whatever¨.
According to a latest Wikileaks leaked OPCW e-mail. See OffGuardian
Sébastien Braha
French, based in The Hague.
Directeur de cabinet du Directeur général de OPCW where he is known affectionately by his colleagues as Voldemort and is apparently in charge of: False Science, Fact Twisting and general Propaganda for Post-constitution USA, War Crimes attack-Poodles UK & France, the Salafist, Head Chopping, Journalist butchering Saudis and not to mention the extreme belligerent, apartheid regime existing to the south of Syria. While meant to be managing critical aspects of a supposed neutral, Nobel Peace Prize winning, fact-finding, Science based, Inter-governmental Organization.
