Why All Of The West’s “Chemical Attack” Charges Against Assad Are Baseless by Rainer Shea
https://medium.com/@rainershea/why-all-of-the-wests-chemical-attack-charges-against-assad-are-baseless-fe69f4a61c28 As the U.S. escalates its illegal aggressions <https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-illegal-war-in-syria/> against the Syrian government, it’s desperate to find a passable pro-war narrative. This has resulted in a recent series of unsubstantiated claims from the U.S. that Bashar al-Assad plans to commit a chemical attack, which have been helped by a U.N. report <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-chemical-weapons-idlib-assad-un-report-latest-a8535251.html> from this week which details chemical attacks that have recently happened in Syria. What the U.N. leaves out in its attribution of these attacks to the Syrian government is the fact that Assad’s involvement in these attacks is highly implausible. The real perpetrators of the attacks are very likely the multiple U.S.-supported <https://off-guardian.org/2018/09/08/donald-trump-comes-out-in-support-of-islamic-terrorists/> terrorist factions in Syria. This is because whereas these factions have been admitted <https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1039454094585356288> by the U.S. State Department to possess and regularly use chemical weapons, there is no evidence that Assad has a chemical weapons supply. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded <https://www.opcw.org/news/article/destruction-of-syrian-chemical-weapons-completed/> in January of 2016 that chemical weapons were no longer held by the Syrian government as far as the evidence tells us. When we know all of this, why does it make sense to assume that Assad is behind the attacks? Shouldn’t the prime suspects be the people who we’re already sure have chemical weapons at their disposal? Last year, when this part of the Syria situation threatened to undermine the case for Assad’s involvement in the Khan Sheikhoun chemical incident <https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/09/did-al-qaeda-dupe-trump-on-syrian-attack/>, the defenders of the official narrative were not able to come up with a compelling argument to solidify their claim. Three days after the charge against Assad was made, *The New York Times*’ Scott Shane published a piece <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/world/middleeast/werent-syrias-chemical-weapons-destroyed-its-complicated.html> in defense of the narrative titled *Weren’t Syria’s Chemical Weapons Destroyed? It’s Complicated*. After summarizing the pre-2016 operation to have Syria get rid of its chemical weapons, the article says: *So did that eliminate the threat? Not entirely, though by all accounts, it removed lethal weapons that could have caused slaughter and suffering on a huge scale. Even as the O.P.C.W. completed its mission, new reports emerged of scattered attacks in Syria using chlorine and other suspected chemicals.* This is a very misleading paragraph. When it talks about those attacks, it doesn’t mention the fact that the jihadist groups have chemical weapons supplies. This leads the reader to think that Assad could have been the only potential culprit. The next two paragraphs use the circular reasoning from within this statement to supposedly prove that Assad still has chemical weapons: *snip>* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. If you'd like to donate to News From Underground, please visit http://markcrispinmiller.com/donate - we appreciate your ongoing support. Ways to unsubscribe, 1) send a blank email to [email protected]. PLEASE NOTE: you must unsubscribe using the SAME email with which you subscribed; 2) go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com
