BBC News Uses 2003 Iraq Photo as Syrian 'Atrocity'

[Teddy Bear]

With the US and UK governments preparing for an attack on Syria government forces for what they claim are the use of chemical weapons by them against civilians, still much of the public here are against intervention there for a variety of reasons.

Some just because they don't think we should be getting involved again in a Mid-East conflict.

Others, which includes myself, because we have yet to see compelling evidence that it was Assad's forces which used these weapons. This would not be the first time that rebel forces have purposefully killed civilians, even their own fighters, to make it appear that Assad had committed an atrocity. This is of course a bid to get the West involved in helping them to overthrow Assad.

Daniel Hannan writes more here about the reasons for the reticence to get involved.

As ever, the BBC will always back those forces which they mostly fear. In Egypt they are pro Muslim Brotherhood, despite their persecution and murders of Copts during and since their rise to power. In Syria they back all the Islamists, who are already guilty of launching campaigns against Christians there.

So, since for many, the issue of real evidence to show Assad was responsible for the recent chemical attacks is a sticking point, and I have yet to see compelling proof that it was him. I'm especially cynical since Assad has a military advantage over the rebels, and knowing of warnings given already by Obama, why should he specifically launch chemical weapons against civilians at this time?

One would think that BBC journalists covering this conflict would be aware of these facts, even if they don't go out of the way to publicise it. So what a scoop they must think they had when a picture emerged to show the children murdered supposedly by Assad and his chemicals.

Not bothering to check the source, or perhaps hoping nobody would notice for a while, they run the story. You can read below about what happened next.

BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'
The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.

Mis-captioned photo on BBC website

The photograph was actually taken by Marco di Lauro in Iraq in 2003

By Hannah Furness

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.

The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.

“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.

“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.

He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.

“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.

“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.

“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”

[Teddy Bear]

This article by Melanie Phillips explains the real purpose of our government posturing, which has nothing to do with the real rights or wrongs.

Self-serving posturing over Syria

The US, Britain and other western nations are about to make a bad mistake if they launch their threatened military strike at Syria.

Far from displaying Western strength, the strike reportedly being planned may instead disastrously confirm the enemies of the civilised world in their view that the US and UK are a busted flush, reduced merely to self-promoting posturing as a substitute for principled purpose and toughness of resolve.

For what is being proposed is no more than an empty gesture. It is that most vacuous, cynical and desperate of political knee-jerk reactions – the need to be seen to be ‘doing something’. Anything. As long as there is absolutely no cost to the political leaders urging such action. At least, no cost that can be unambiguously pinned on them.

The driving force behind this stirring call to arms is apparently Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, who is so determined to be seen to be ‘doing something’ that he is urging a clearly reluctant President Obama to do it too.

Obama has reacted in predictable fashion by thoughtfully alerting the enemy in advance to what he is about to do to them, so that everyone involved has the chance to run away before they get hurt. His officials told the New York Times (which was promptly hacked, reportedly by the Syrian regime) that the action under consideration was

‘“limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.

‘The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried out chemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks… the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites, including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed. The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety of conventional military targets. Perhaps two to three missiles would be aimed at each site…’

and just to make things crystal clear, that it

‘would not accomplish Mr Obama’s repeated demand that Mr Assad step down’.

What kind of Commander-in-Chief publicly announces in advance details and targets of his proposed strike? A Commander-in-Chief who is going to war not to defeat an enemy but, cynically and opportunistically, to win plaudits at home.

Of course, this may all be a bluff to conceal a far deadlier military action against the Assad regime. But given Obama’s past form in leaking sensitive military information, it seems all too likely that this is indeed what is intended.

If so, this proposed strike would seem simply designed to advertise the moral virtue of David Cameron, Barack Obama and any other western leaders involved. It aims to show that, faced with the evidence of an appalling atrocity, these leaders reacted in a principled way. But in fact, their moral nausea is highly selective.
Faced with the chemical attack in Syria, says Cameron, ‘the world cannot stand by’.

Oh really? So why did he ‘stand by’ while the Copts of Egypt were subjected to savage pogroms by Muslim Brotherhood fanatics – who Cameron and Obama actually helped put into power in that country?

Why did he ‘stand by’ while Christians were burned alive in their churches, converted at gunpoint or ethnically cleansed by Islamic zealots week in, week out across Africa and the Third World?
Why did he ‘stand by’ while countless thousands were murdered in North Korea? And so on.

Every decent person will have been sickened and horrified by the terrible images from Syria. It is assumed that it was indeed Assad’s regime that was responsible.

The duty to take action to stop such atrocities is qualified by the duty to ensure that any such action does not make matters even worse, that there is a clear strategic goal in mind and that such action is most likely to be in the best interests of those undertaking it. But this proposed strike at Syria meets not one of these conditions for responsible military action.

The fact that these points are being made today by many who have previously shown themselves to be on the wrong side of history, who refuse to acknowledge the Islamist war against the west and who take the utterly ludicrous position that they will never believe any intelligence whatever that suggests western interests are in any danger from the Islamic world, does not mean that over Syria their arguments are wrong. We have to look at the evidence on a case by case basis. And in this case, they are right.

A strike that is highly circumscribed in this way merely to eliminate any response that might conceivably hit any US or UK forces is an essentially cowardly and incoherent action which will achieve none of its declared purposes.

It is supposed to deter both Assad and other dictators from launching chemical attacks by showing that such atrocities will not go unpunished. But any such tyrant can see all too clearly the extreme nervousness, absence of strategic clarity and lack of courage by the west.

And what if, after a western strike, Assad launches another chemical attack? What if he avoids chemicals but launches even more savage atrocities on Syrian civilians? Will there be further attacks by the west, thus sucking it into a civil war in which it is not in its interest to support either side? If not, what price ‘we cannot stand by’?

Despite the declared intention to avoid hitting the chemical weapons stores, what if in the chaos of bombing raids these materials fall into the hands of al Qaeda who will use them against the west?

Do Cameron and Obama want to loosen Assad’s grip on his chemical weapons stockpiles – and come to that, his biological weapons arsenal? If so, they must be out of their minds. If not, they are going a very strange way about ensuring he retains control of them. Have they thought any of this through? Has it even occurred to them at all?
The US is apparently clinging to a previous suggestion by a military analyst, Chris Harmer, that Assad’s military capacity could be swiftly and cleanly degraded by strikes on Syrian airfields. But Harmer himself has stressed that unless this is done in the context of clear strategic objectives it could rebound very badly.

So what is Cameron and Obama’s strategic goal in Syria? No-one knows. Do they? Do they want to remove Assad? Apparently not; they just want to make him stop being a murderous psychopath. And they are going to do that, it seems, by strikes which they assure him will leave him in power.

The point of this strike, therefore, is not military but political. The aim of military action is to defeat the other guy. The aim of this proposed action, however, is not to defeat Assad. It is merely a rap over the knuckles. It is a gesture.

Assad has murdered something like 100,000 of his own citizens, reportedly gassing untold numbers of them. The idea that such a man will respond to a rap over the knuckles with anything other than irritated contempt is beyond risible. For Obama and Cameron seriously to be suggesting that they will deter Assad in this way is the political equivalent of King Lear impotently howling revenge upon his daughters.

So who do Cameron and Obama actually want to see in power in Syria?

From the noises made by both administrations, they seem to support ‘the rebels’ (having backed Assad for years, turning a blind eye to his sinister role as Iran’s proxy and his terrifying arsenal of not just chemical but biological weapons).

But these rebels include the Islamist fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda. Appalling as is Assad, these forces would be as bad if not worse for the Syrians themselves, and certainly even worse for the west – since Assad is at least a rational actor governed by self-interest, which the Islamists are not.

The most important argument used to support attacking Assad’s regime is that, by bringing it down, the west would deal a grievous blow to Iran, Syria’s puppet-master, which itself poses such a terrible threat to the region and the world.

But this is yet anther incoherent and essentially weaselly proposition. The intention, don’t forget, is not to get rid of Assad but merely to deter him. Weakening him, however, will not hit Iran. It may well merely drive Assad further into Iran’s embrace, and in the process strengthen the influence of Russia over the region – already increasing exponentially as the Middle East and Muslim world gaze at the wreckage of American influence and cosy up instead to the toughest guy on the block.

There is only one way to hit Iran – and that is to hit Iran. Attempting to weaken Iran by striking at Assad is to look at the problem the wrong way round. To neutralise the puppet Assad, the west has to strike the puppeteer, Iran.

The overwhelming moral imperative for the US, the UK and the west not to ‘stand by’ is to stop the Iranian bomb. Striking a few Syrian targets not only will not achieve that end. It will be yet another displacement exercise deployed by the US and UK to avoid facing up to the overwhelming threat to the west posed by Iran.

Other such Iran-displacement exercises include meddling in the Arab war against Israel and thus empowering the enemies of civilisation there; meddling in Libya, ditto; and meddling in Egypt, ditto and with multiple knobs on. Some accomplishment; and now Cameron and Obama intend to add an incoherent, ineffective and potentially disastrously counter-productive strike on Syria to their bone-headed record.

Iran is the major threat to the world right now. While Cameron proclaims ‘the world cannot stand by’ – only after the corpses of gassed Syrian children were so shockingly laid out for the world to witness – his government is not just choosing to ‘stand by’ but look the other way as the Iranian regime approaches its goal of nuclear capability in order to carry out its repeated threat of genocide against the Jews and the subjugation of the west.

How many Israelis will need to die at the hands of Iran before Cameron and Obama decide to stop bullying Israel to surrender to the Arabs in what is patently not the hinge issue in the Middle East, and declare instead, posthumously and lamely, that ‘the world cannot stand by’?

By insisting on the spurious tactic of negotiating with those for whom there can be no negotiation over what is for them a holy imperative to wipe out the Jews and conquer the west, Obama has given a regime which is the mortal enemy of America time to build the nuclear weapon to achieve its infernal purposes, and allowed it to cement and hugely extend its power in the region.

If any doubt remained that Obama will ‘stand by’ until Iran goes nuclear, we only have to look at the way he has pre-emptively neutered the prospective highly limited Syrian strike to see what the Iranian regime sees – a castrated America.

As for Cameron, his lethal shallowness is beyond contempt. Parliament has been recalled from holiday to vote on the Syria strike tomorrow. It should change the conversation, and hold Cameron’s feet to the fire not over Syria but Iran.

[Teddy Bear]

Watching or listening to any BBC report on the use of chemical agents in Syria, it is consistently presented as if they know for sure that it was Assad's forces that used them.

Obama and Cameron have also decided and acted as if they know for sure that it was Assad.

It might have been Assad - but where is the proof?

You can watch this report by Frank Gardner on the BBC website: Syria 21 August attack: Frank Gardner on what we know
You will see disturbing images, and there's fairly good evidence that a nerve agent was used, which is not really in doubt, but the BBC continue to present it, along with their 'experts', that it was Assad.

Near the end of the broadcast, they make it clearer that they really don't know for sure who launched these rockets, but one of their experts doesn't think the rebels have the 'wherewithall' to have done it. Since many of these rebels are funded and armed by Saudi Arabia, he would have to explain a little deeper just why he thinks so.

Jihad Watch has a story that actually implies it was Saudi backed rebels that did it, although it also is unconfirmed.

Point is, without real evidence to clarify why certain decisions are being pushed, the story should really be about why is Obama and Cameron more interested in posturing themselves than already deciding just who did what and to whom.

Fortunately some journalists in the media, not the BBC of course, do question this.

Here's a few:

Syria: we're being guilted into a war against our better interests and our higher reason
By Tim Stanley

A man of steel with a heart of gold.
"Decisions have not been taken," says David Cameron about Syria. And that's probably the first lie of this war.

There's our brilliant PM on the BBC – chin firm, eyes blue – talking about chemical weapons, making the case, arguing the odds, letting the dogs off the leash, putting a bit of stick about. "I don't believe we can let that stand," Cameron says, big head nodding. "This is not about getting involved in a Middle Eastern war or changing our stance in Syria or going further into that conflict." No! No! No! It's just about standing well back and throwing a couple of missiles at Damascus. It's "proportionate", says Dave.

[Galloway on Twitter writes, "The Arab League - largely a bunch of belly-dancing brute dictators - endorse yet another Imperial attack upon their own Arab people". Now that's what I call a proportionate response!]

Next up: Nick Clegg. He furrows his brow and stares down sadly at the interviewer – as though reading cue cards held aloft by a crying midget. What Assad did is "a repugnant crime and a flagrant abuse of international law." Whether or not Assad actually did what Nick says Assad did is, by this point, moot. Nick wants us to go to war, so he's going to use words like "repugnant" and "flagrant" to twist that knot in our stomach and make us feel like we really want this war, too. Whether we actually do or not

Not much mention of "national interest" on the telly yet. That's because we don't have any national interest in Syria, so instead this is one of those Lifetime Movie wars that's all about deciding what's best for other people and then doing it for them. It's HUMANITARIAN and who on Earth would opposed a HUMANITARIAN war? Someone who who would stand by and watch while a puppy drowns?

Yes, that's right Britain, we're actually being guilted into a war against our better interests and our higher reason. We're being told to "think of the children" rather than simply think – and it's not just the politicians who are whipping things up. The TV is creating the climate and here's how:

1. Bring on the experts to talk about the politics, logistics, statistics, inevitability of it all.
We knew a war was imminent the moment David Owen appeared on the BBC to discuss the road map to peace. What does this man do in-between conflicts? Sit at home in the dark in silence in TV makeup, waiting patiently for the phone to ring?

2. Play up the sadness and the suffering, leave the facts until later.
Remember when the BBC used a photo of a massacre in Iraq to illustrate a massacre in Syria? A small mistake that perhaps betrayed a subconscious preference for good visuals over journalistic detail. Now their commentators are letting words like "alleged" or "unverified" or "possible" go missing in all their talk about chemical attacks, replaced by photos of the dead and the verbal drum beat of "something must be done, something must be done". When it happens, this war is going to be part Top Gun, part Live Aid.

3. Create that sense of exciting imminence, like it's all building towards something.
"Is it war yet, General Suchandsuch?" the interviewer asks. "I'd say it's about 45 per cent war," he replies. "Or three quarters. But the bang-bang-bang isn't far away!" Oh, goody.
How odd, when a war in Syria is opposed by the vast majority of the public, that the voices against it are so few and far between and the voices for it seem to be everywhere and getting louder. Diane Abbott says she might quit Labour if it endorses an attack (every cloud has a silver lining) but her party doesn't really hold a position anyway – and no one would probably notice if they did. No, the two great estates of the political establishment and TV are coming together to put a case for war that conspires to make it feel both moral and inevitable. Which makes that much promised parliamentary debate feel like a fraud. But then, I never held out much hope for Parliament to make the right decision in the first place. I don't trust MPs to regulate porn, let alone war.

And this offering by Peter Hitchens

David Cameron is a vainglorious fantasist. He should quit

By Peter Hitchens

The Good Samaritan did not have a gun. I make this simple point to deal with those who seem to think that you can show mercy and pity by lobbing cruise missiles into war zones.

I make no claims to be a good person, but I am more and more annoyed by warmongers who dress up their simple-minded, vainglorious desire to bomb foreigners as moral.

Take Lord Ashdown, who moaned on Friday, after MPs voted against an attack on Syria, that he had never felt so ashamed. Really? Many of us can remember at least one occasion when Lord Ashdown certainly ought to have felt more ashamed.

But these days, our moral worth is not judged by such things as constancy and trust close to home, but by our noisy readiness to bomb people for their own good.

The moral bomber is one of the scourges of our age. He gets it into his head that he is so good that he is allowed to kill people (accidentally of course) in a noble cause.

This stupid conceit was – at long last – challenged last week in the House of Commons. MPs, many of them rightly prompted by the fears and concerns of their constituents, refused to be stampeded by emotional horror propaganda. They kept their heads.

The response of the moral bombers was typical of them. There was twaddle about ‘appeasement’. There was piffle about how our world status has suffered (don’t these people know what the rest of the planet has thought of us since the Iraq War?).

There was tripe about damage to the non-existent ‘special relationship’ between this country and the USA. Anyone who has spent two weeks in Washington DC knows that this ‘relationship’ is regarded there as a joke.

There was foul-mouthed fury from taxpayer-funded Downing Street aides, who I don’t doubt echoed their master’s voice. There were the usual snivelling attempts to portray dissent as disloyalty, cowardice or as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

These flailing, spiteful acts were the reflexes of a babyish despot deprived of a toy.

Luckily, we are not yet a despotism. Despite a long assault on our free constitution, MPs can still follow their consciences, and public opinion cannot be entirely suppressed or manipulated.

In some ways, most shocking has been the behaviour of the BBC. It uncritically promoted atrocity propaganda from the beginning, making no effort to be objective. It frequently treated opponents of the rush to war with nasty contempt. If the BBC Trust is to justify its large budget and fancy offices, it would do well to investigate this grave failure to be impartial.

BUT it was not just the BBC. Until a couple of days before Mr Cameron’s War was abruptly cancelled, most of the media were still braying for an attack.

What bunkum it all was. The ‘West’ has no consistent or moral position at all. The ‘West’ readily condoned Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s and ignored his use of them in Halabja for years, trying to blame others for it.

Saddam, later a villain, was then our ally. Hypocrisy continues to this day. The US and British governments, as they vapour about the wickedness of Syria’s government, refuse even to admit the obvious fact that the Egyptian military junta came to power by a bloody and lawless putsch.

And, as they weep loud tears for the dead of Damascus (whose killers have yet to be identified) they are silent over the heaps of corpses piled in the streets of Cairo, undoubtedly gunned down by the junta, which used weapons paid for by the USA to do so, and didn’t even try to hide its actions.

Mr Blair himself, in an article for the Warmonger’s Gazette, formerly known as The Times, actually says we should ‘support the new [Egyptian] government in stabilising the country’. That’s one way of putting it.

No doubt Bashar Assad would say he was stabilising his country. If outrage is selective it isn’t really outrage.

President Assad, for instance, was a welcome guest at Buckingham Palace on December 17, 2002, when his country was already famous for its torture chambers, its sponsorship of terror and its harbouring of grisly Nazi war criminals such as the child-murderer Alois Brunner.

If you know anything at all about the subject, it is rather difficult not to laugh at Mr Cameron’s righteous pose.

As for the rest of the Prime Minister’s arguments, they are not fit for an Eton junior debating society.

WHAT is wrong with ‘standing idly by’, if the only alternative is to do something stupid? Why does it matter so much that this country takes part in the stupidity? How can he be sure that any military action is limited?

If you start a fight, you provoke retaliation. And you then start a chain whose end you cannot possibly know. So it isn’t limited.

And, as he has been bursting to intervene in Syria for months, how can he claim that his passion is solely to do with the use of poison gas? If his aim is to deter future use, what is the mad rush?

As for Cameron’s ‘intelligence’ document, I could have written it myself. It all came off the internet.

Truly, he is the Heir To Blair. But having had one Blair already, we are at last learning the folly of indulging such fantasists.

I don’t quite understand why he hasn’t resigned, as I’ve never in 40 years of journalism seen a Prime Minister more totally and personally repudiated by Parliament and nation.

But, whether he knows it or not, I think he is now finished. That at least is one good thing to come out of this self-righteous, ignorant posturing.

[steevo]

Some good links Teddy.

The Beeb didn't accidentally use the fake photo (excuse my confidence).

"Far from displaying Western strength, the strike reportedly being planned may instead disastrously confirm the enemies of the civilized world in their view that the US and UK are a busted flush, reduced merely to self-promoting posturing as a substitute for principled purpose and toughness of resolve."

Melanie is right with that. I agree about Cameron, and Obama only drew the "red line" after plenty of criticism his foreign policy is rudderless and toothless. But he doesn't want Assad in power just like he didn't want Gadaffi and Mubarrack. He wants the Muslim Brotherhood or a newly established Islam-centered non-western democracy to fill the power vacuum. These movements and ideology our Left bolster while doing their underhanded darnedest to discredit those desiring a more genuine liberty the West can relate.

There's no cowardliness here in the States with the Left, just the usual fear strategy may indeed backfire. And right now, their Man is in the hot seat.

Most including myself do believe Syria has used the chemicals. We also don't feel America is justified to interfere. And the strategy to 'degrade' Assad's forces, leaves, what...

"Obama has reacted in predictable fashion by thoughtfully alerting the enemy in advance to what he is about to do to them, so that everyone involved has the chance to run away before they get hurt."

Yes even the Syrian and Iranian governments are having a laugh. Plenty of time for Syrian forces to place all those neat WMDs in the midst of civilian 'targets'.

[Teddy Bear]

I wouldn't say that the BBC necessarily used the picture on purpose, but as we've seen several times in their coverage of Israel/Palestine conflicts, when the picture suits their agenda they don't delve too deeply into the source.

There's no question that Assad has the capability to have used chemical weapons, but I'm sceptical for a variety of reasons.

Knowing that the West warned him about their use, it's too easy for the Saudi backed rebels to have used them knowing he would be blamed. Why should Assad target civilians?
But the rebels would target civilians if they thought that the recriminations against Assad would serve their cause.

So far the only 'evidence' that has been used is circumstantial, and opinions.
The same way I read yesterday that John Kerry announced:
John Kerry says there is 'irrefutable and alarming evidence' that climate change is real
I take his 'irrefutable and alarming evidence' that Assad fired these weapons with the same pinch of salt.

I think Obama and his gang are truly evil, and are against everything that I've ever seen as good in the USA.

[Teddy Bear]

I just read this from Assad
Show me the proof: Defiant Syrian dictator carries out eve of war interview challenging West to provide evidence of chemical attack but stops short of denying his troops have access to such weapons

I'm no fan of Assad, but his claims in this case do fit with common sense.

[steevo]

Maybe you're right but I believe Assad is getting more desperate. Regardless of Obama's "redline" comment which was made after proving he didn't want to risk a bad and unpopular political decision even when supposedly there may have been an opening for intervention early on, I don't think concern over serious reprisals by this Administration outweighed the more imminent threat to Assad's power. The rebels finally established a stronghold, in Damascus, and members of the Syrian government were fleeing. Furthermore they have finally been supplied with many arms in recent months to help level the playing field. Now they can more directly confront the Syrian army and with the increasing capability, shoot down jets.

This link was provided from the Jerusalem Post and in searching their archives I haven't come across any reference about the MPN story.

english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/08/23/Syrian-opposition-says-has-smuggled-attack-samples-out-of-Syria.html

In what it said was a preliminary report into Wednesday’s attack based on multiple sources, including a source within Assad’s forces and testimony from opposition activists, the opposition coalition said 16 missiles were launched in an initial assault shortly after 11:30pm GMT.

Local residents reported missiles falling in the Zamalka neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of the capital, far from the front lines, and hundreds of people died in their homes as exposure to the gas spread, the report said, noting that not all of the missiles were carrying chemical warheads.

I have not read of rebel capability to launch such missiles (yet) and with chemical warheads but i'm not up on every detail.



Frankly all of this is not relevant to me insofar as reasons to intervene. Nobody likes to see the innocent suffer from chemicals but they have been brutalized there and elsewhere (including the recent persecution of the Christians in Egypt) ad nausea. This is a civil war on the other side of the world, between Muslims. It was already known Assad possessed chemical weapons, their usage doesn't make this any more in America's interest. We have just as much if not more reason to fear these weapons in the hands of rebels if they win.

[Teddy Bear]

There are so many dubious elements to this, I can't help but find it VERY fishy.
I discount whatever opposition forces claim since it would be in their interest to blame Assad.
'A source within Assad's forces'?
Since that could mean just about anybody, perhaps even a 'double agent' recruited by the rebels from within Assad's military, I would hardly give much for his testimony. The very fact that he's willing to 'turn Assad in' shows he's not particularly loyal, and at best has an axe to grind.

What I find most disturbing is this line from a related article from the same website which tells us:
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama called for a full investigation by United Nations monitors already in Syria. Within Western governments, however, officials say there is little or no doubt that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad launched the strike on rebel-held areas.

No doubt??? Then these idiots are people with their own clear agenda and should have no place within any government.

Within the same article we also have this:

Some analysts and Western officials say the rebels themselves have captured some basic chemical weaponry, but doubt they would have the capability to mount an attack on this scale.

But a little later we're told:

Among the dozens of video clips of corpses and affected adults and children are a handful of pictures purporting to show the rockets themselves.

Relatively basic and with crude stabilizing fins, foreign chemical weapons experts say they bear a striking resemblance to devices found elsewhere in Syria in the aftermath of much smaller suspected attacks.

Why would Assad use such crude rockets when he has much more sophisticated ones? There was even testimony a week or so ago from a 'witness' that it had been a military plane that had dropped these bombs.

All very fishy!

[steevo]

Well I think proof or no proof is all but a mute point, everyone has an agenda. I think there is more reason Assad would want to demoralize the rebels but will leave it at that. In this day it's getting harder to find purely rational reasoning, justification etc. with so many very significant actions and/or drawn conclusions. Look at our President, he has now come out to deny he said, meant or whatever "redline". Can you believe that? How can anyone take this supposed leader of the free world serious other than it will always be about him whatever the situation.

I know I could be wrong but I suspect our Congress is gonna approve this, we have a lot of 'well meaning' hypocritical and just plain stupid people. I hope the American public don't allow media propaganda to change their feelings about this.

You know there was a day it would have been difficult for me to imagine I would be so against our involvement overseas. I'm not an isolationist. I just don't want the slightest doubt intervention will indeed be in our self interest and in a serious way. And in spite of a self-serving political class and bent media I am not alone.

[Teddy Bear]

You already know my views on Obama, and what you say he did fits my estimation perfectly.

There are many other conflicts in the world where the victims are those who share in the values of our own societies. If we were to intervene anywhere, it should be in those countries first.

If Obama does strike Syria, and it was the rebels that fired these chemical weapons, can you imagine just how stupid they will see our Western leaders to be?

[steevo]

Teddy, I just read this... www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/09/05/alan-grayson-syria-intelligence-manipulated

The White House released its four-page public report Aug. 30, arguing that Assad's government killed 1,429 people on Aug. 21 with a planned chemical weapon attack. Evidence cited in that report included "intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used."

Grayson, however, says "the claim has been made that that information was completely mischaracterized."

He points to an article published by The Daily Caller that alleges the communications actually showed Syrian officers were surprised by the alleged chemical weapon attack. The communications, according to unnamed sources paraphrased in article, were intercepted by Israeli intelligence and "doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion."

"What they say in The Daily Caller is that [intercepted communications] would lead one to the opposite conclusion," Grayson said. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, [but] there's a very simple way to find out, that's for the administration to show me and other members of Congress" translated transcripts of the intercepts, he said.

Members of Congress are "not being given any of the underlying elements of the intelligence reports," according to Grayson. He's not sure if the information will come before the votes on a proposed strike next week.

I strongly suggest you read the original article linked to the Daily Caller.

[Teddy Bear]

This is WAYyyy beyond fishy now - downright sinister.
I see on page 2 of the Daily Caller article
An Egyptian intelligence report describes a meeting in Turkey between military intelligence officials from Turkey and Qatar and Syrian rebels. One of the participants states, “there will be a game changing event on August 21st” that will “bring the U.S. into a bombing campaign” against the Syrian regime.

The chemical weapons strike on Moudhamiya, an area under rebel control, took place on August 21. “Egyptian military intelligence insists it was a combined Turkish/Qatar/rebel false flag operation,” said a source familiar with the report.

The White House has gone to great lengths to shut down any independent investigation of the facts.

A UN inspection team was on the ground in Damascus on August 21 when the Moudhamiya attack occurred, where they were awaiting authorization from the Syrian government to visit sites of earlier alleged chemical weapons attacks.

Once word of Moudhamiya broke and the inspectors announced they planned to refocus their investigation on the fresh attack rather than the earlier ones, the White House was telling the UN to back off from gathering the facts.

I think there are politicians on both sides of the Atlantic that should be up before a tribunal with very grave charges against them.

[Teddy Bear]

The plot thickens!

One of the foremost experts on Middle East affairs, Yossef Bodansky, who was once Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare from 1988 to 2004, and the author of the book - The High Cost of Peace, which details the events which led up to 9/11 (he in fact predicted it), writes here of evidence showing Obama might have planned this chemical attack.

Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?
By Yossef Bodansky
Global Research, September 01, 2013

There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters — which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition.

The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the “horror” of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light.

On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.

The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.

Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machineguns. The weapons were distributed from store-houses controlled by Qatari and Turkish Intelligence under the tight supervision of US Intelligence.

These weapons were loaded on more than 20 trailer-trucks which crossed into northern Syria and distributed the weapons to several depots. Follow-up weapon shipments, also several hundred tons, took place over the weekend of August 24-25, 2013, and included mainly sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles and rockets. Opposition officials in Hatay said that these weapon shipments were “the biggest” they had received “since the beginning of the turmoil more than two years ago”. The deliveries from Hatay went to all the rebel forces operating in the Idlib-to-Aleppo area, including the al-Qaida affiliated jihadists (who constitute the largest rebel forces in the area).

Several senior officials from both the Syrian opposition and sponsoring Arab states stressed that these weapon deliveries were specifically in anticipation for exploiting the impact of imminent bombing of Syria by the US and the Western allies. The latest strategy formulation and coordination meetings took place on August 26, 2013. The political coordination meeting took place in Istanbul and was attended by US Amb. Robert Ford.

More important were the military and operational coordination meetings at the Antakya garrison. Senior Turkish, Qatari, and US Intelligence officials attended in addition to the Syrian senior (opposition) commanders. The Syrians were informed that bombing would start in a few days.

“The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days,” a Syrian participant in the meeting said. Another Syrian participant said that he was convinced US bombing was scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Several participants — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that the assurances of forthcoming bombing were most explicit even as formally Obama is still undecided.

The descriptions of these meetings raise the question of the extent of foreknowledge of US Intelligence, and therefore, the Obama White House. All the sources consulted — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that officials of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” actively participated in the meetings and briefings in Turkey. Therefore, at the very least, they should have known that the opposition leaders were anticipating “a war-changing development”: that is, a dramatic event which would provoke a US-led military intervention.

The mere fact that weapon storage sites under the tight supervision of US Intelligence were opened up and about a thousand tons of high-quality weapons were distributed to the opposition indicates that US Intelligence anticipated such a provocation and the opportunity for the Syrian opposition to exploit the impact of the ensuing US and allied bombing. Hence, even if the Obama White House did not know in advance of the chemical provocation, they should have concluded, or at the very least suspected, that the chemical attack was most likely the “war-changing development” anticipated by the opposition leaders as provocation of US-led bombing. Under such circumstances, the Obama White House should have refrained from rushing head-on to accuse Assad’s Damascus and threaten retaliation, thus making the Obama White House at the very least complicit after the act.

Meanwhile, additional data from Damascus about the actual chemical attack increases the doubts about Washington’s version of events. Immediately after the attack, three hospitals of Doctors Without Borders (MSF: médecins sans frontières) in the greater Damascus area treated more than 3,600 Syrians affected by the chemical attack, and 355 of them died. MSF performed tests on the vast majority of those treated.

MSF director of operations Bart Janssens summed up the findings: “MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack. However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events — characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers — strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.” Simply put, even after testing some 3,600 patients, MSF failed to confirm that sarin was the cause of the injuries. According to MSF, the cause could have been nerve agents like sarin, concentrated riot control gas, or even high-concentration pesticides. Moreover, opposition reports that there was distinct stench during the attack suggest that it could have come from the “kitchen sarin” used by jihadist groups (as distinct from the odorless military-type sarin) or improvised agents like pesticides.

Some of the evidence touted by the Obama White House is questionable at best.

A small incident in Beirut raises big questions. A day after the chemical attack, Lebanese fixers working for the “Mukhabarat Amriki” succeeded to convince a Syrian male who claimed to have been injured in the chemical attack to seek medical aid in Beirut in return for a hefty sum that would effectively settle him for life. The man was put into an ambulance and transferred overnight to the Farhat Hospital in Jib Janine, Beirut. The Obama White House immediately leaked friendly media that “the Lebanese Red Cross announced that test results found traces of sarin gas in his blood.” However, this was news to Lebanese intelligence and Red Cross officials.

According to senior intelligence officials, “Red Cross Operations Director George Kettaneh told [them] that the injured Syrian fled the hospital before doctors were able to test for traces of toxic gas in his blood.” Apparently, the patient declared that he had recovered from his nausea and no longer needed medical treatment. The Lebanese security forces are still searching for the Syrian patient and his honorarium.

On August 24, 2013, Syrian Commando forces acted on intelligence about the possible perpetrators of the chemical attack and raided a cluster of rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburb of Jobar. Canisters of toxic material were hit in the fierce fire-fight as several Syrian soldiers suffered from suffocation and “some of the injured are in a critical condition”.

The Commando eventually seized an opposition warehouse containing barrels full of chemicals required for mixing “kitchen sarin”, laboratory equipment, as well as a large number of protective masks. The Syrian Commando also captured several improvised explosive devices, RPG rounds, and mortar shells. The same day, at least four HizbAllah fighters operating in Damascus near Ghouta were hit by chemical agents at the very same time the Syrian Commando unit was hit while searching a group of rebel tunnels in Jobar. Both the Syrian and the HizbAllah forces were acting on intelligence information about the real perpetrators of the chemical attack. Damascus told Moscow the Syrian troops were hit by some form of a nerve agent and sent samples (blood, tissues, and soil) and captured equipment to Russia.

Several Syrian leaders, many of whom are not Bashar al-Assad supporters and are even his sworn enemies, are now convinced that the Syrian opposition is responsible for the August 21, 2013, chemical attack in the Damascus area in order to provoke the US and the allies into bombing Assad’s Syria. Most explicit and eloquent is Saleh Muslim, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) which has been fighting the Syrian Government. Muslim doubts Assad would have used chemical weapons when he was winning the civil war.

“The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, five km from the [UN] committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so,” Muslim told Reuters on August 27, 2013. He believes the attack was “aimed at framing Assad and provoking an international reaction”. Muslim is convinced that “some other sides who want to blame the Syrian regime, who want to show them as guilty and then see action” is responsible for the chemical attack. The US was exploiting the attack to further its own anti-Assad policies and should the UN inspectors find evidence that the rebels were behind the attack, then “everybody would forget it”, Muslim shrugged. “Who is the side who would be punished? Are they are going to punish the Emir of Qatar or the King of Saudi Arabia, or Mr Erdo?an of Turkey?”

And there remain the questions: Given the extent of the involvement of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” in opposition activities, how is that US Intelligence did not know in advance about the opposition’s planned use of chemical weapons in Damascus?

It is a colossal failure.

And if they did know and warned the Obama White House, why then the sanctimonious rush to blame the Assad Administration?

Moreover, how can the Obama Administration continue to support and seek to empower the opposition which had just intentionally killed some 1,300 innocent civilians in order to provoke a US military intervention?

Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs

Copyright Defense and Foreign Affairs and Oilprice.com 2013

[steevo]

I will just say there's a fundamental flaw here, he does not understand the personal disposition and political nature of Barack Obama. He is a man who has been at war with his war. You see he drew the "red line" only because he was under increasing pressurre domestically as a do-nothing toothless leader. Yes he would rather Islamic led 'grass-root' forces topple Assad but he has all along wanted nothing to do with the risk of military involvement for fear of political repercussions of the many possibilities that could go wrong. This is not an intervention he has wanted and the fact of chemical weapons being used, now, has in fact forced him into a corner that he did not believe would happen.

[Teddy Bear]

My reservation concerning Obama that differs with your impression, is how quickly his administration was to jump to the conclusion that it was definitely Assad, even before the UN had collected the evidence and analysed it.

I don't think Bodansky is basing his view on perceptions of Obama, but more on the facts that he knows, and questioning what might be the cause for this.

[steevo]

As I've implied I don't know what to believe. But any conclusion here has to be based directly on the logic the Obama Administration aided the rebels with the intent to blame Assad and justify military intervention. That goes directly against the logic of Barack Obama, why he even drew the "red line", and the pickle he's in now. However Bukovsky has based his view there are what-ifs and his own suspicion, but it does not make sense and I suppose you'd have to live here and know our president and his administration to really understand?

For what the obvious may be worth, Obama was hesitant with Libya but because of Cameron's support in Afghanistan and the backing of the UN and Arab League he went along hoping to lead from behind. There was arguably a legitimate opening with Syria a couple years ago when it appeared most of the rebels were disaffected Syrians but he still could/would not commit. If he was serious about preventing the usage of WMD and real threat to the region and beyond, and arguably in America's interest... he would bomb Iranian nuclear facilities under construction. The fact he voiced nothing more than 'consern and hope' shows regardless of justification he wants nothing to do with any military/political risk and its potential lack of support and disapproval from both international and domestic critics. Everybody knows this about the man.

Give his foreign 'policy' here credit in one big way: Vladamire Putin is now a world stage actor with more credibility in the Middle East.

[Teddy Bear]

All valid points Steevo.
You might want to read 'The High Cost of Peace', it will really show what radical Islam was doing in the lead up to 9/11, and how Clinton chose to 'look the other way', since he really didn't know, or feared, how to deal with it - much like Obama now, even assuming he wants to.

It will give also you a better picture of what Bush was trying to achieve by getting rid of Saddam. Bodansky really knows his stuff.

[steevo]

More food for my indigestion ...

www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/syrian-chemical-attack-spurs-finger-pointing-inside-assad-regime

[steevo]

AP fact check...



By: Calvin Woodward (Associated Press)
President Barack Obama voiced his conviction Tuesday night that Syrian President Bashar Assad was to blame for deadly chemical attacks against civilians, but again he offered no proof.

A look at his remarks to the nation, seeking support for a military strike against Syria, and how they compare with the facts as publicly known:

OBAMA: "We know the Assad regime was responsible.... The facts cannot be denied."

THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out proof Assad was behind the attack.

The administration has cited satellite imagery and communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the attacks.

Administration officials have not shared the satellite imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N. investigators after it happened.

The White House has declined to explain where it came up with the figure of at least 1,429 dead, including 400 children — a figure far higher than estimates by nongovernmental agencies such as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has counted only victims identified by name, with a current total of 502. In his remarks, Obama more generally accused Assad's forces of gassing to death "over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children."

[Teddy Bear]

If they only knew how stupid they make themselves look with their empty claims of proof and certainty to justify their stance. But that of course is only to intelligent people. What's worrying is how many politicians seem to want to jump on his bandwagon.

Any wonder the world is in such a state?

[steevo]

Throughout his presidency Barack Obama and his Administration, the Democrat party leadership and our leftist media have laid most of their hopes on the non-thinking and generally uninformed and/or increasingly government dependent citizenry. Without this substantial and growing portion of our population these elite self-absorbed manipulators would be toast.

It wouldn't surprise me if we had a presidential election in November that Obama would win again. And he would also be the pick for the rest of the world with the exception of Israel over any conservative American.

[Teddy Bear]

You identify the same dynamics as we have here, though different players, and why this site exists trying to counter it.