All Episodes
Previous Next
April 15, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
01:28:11
A Tale of Two Narratives #1 - The Media Halo
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This video is a tale of two narratives regarding Syria.
It's very hard to establish exactly what has actually happened because of the amount of bias, narrative spinning and misinformation that is coming from a lot of different media sources, politicians and celebrities and others.
So I've done my best to attempt to separate fact from fiction and present to you what I think most accurately represents reality.
And I want to preface this by saying I could be wrong.
I'm not sure, and I don't think anyone else is sure either.
And I think that that is one of the major problems we have when dealing with this subject, so at times I will be forced to use conjecture.
However, I will do this as little as possible and I will show you my reasoning whenever I'm forced to, so you can see why I think what I think.
And even then, I'm not even sure about the conclusions that I'm going to come to.
And if anyone says to you that they are sure and they do genuinely know the truth about what's happening in Syria, I recommend that you take that with a pinch of salt.
I'm going to start by contextualising the situation in Idlib, a province in Syria, where these events are taking place.
As this article states, the letter that follows is part of a project that draws on citizen journalists to depict daily life in war zones where international reporters cannot travel due to threats from warring parties.
The author is writing under a pseudonym for his own protection.
This alone should give you an indication of what life is like under al-Nusra in Idlib.
They took control of this province in March 2015.
Al-Nusra are a jihadi organization, seeking to overthrow the secular Assad government and implement a Sharia law-controlled Islamist state.
It begins, You can't imagine the security grip this city is under.
Idlib, the capital of the only province in Syria that rebel forces now control, lives in fear of being bombed.
Masked, armed men roam the town.
Whole streets are blocked off to protect the leaders of the Islamist militia that rules here.
Fear has paralysed the economy because no one will start up a new business in a city with an airstrike every day, on some days up to 12.
Everyone who can heads to the suburbs, including my family who live in a farm village.
The bombing makes no sense to anyone.
Russia and the Assad regime say they're attacking terrorists from Jabbat al-Nusra, which changed its name to Jabat Fatar al-Sham in July, when it publicly broke its affiliation with al-Qaeda.
In fact, the regime targets are outdoor markets, private houses, factories, schools, offices and the university, but not the Islamists who run the city nor military positions.
The United States, which calls Nusra's new name a deceptive rebranding, and still considers it a terrorist group, is now sending drones over the province to kill Nusra leaders.
But on the streets of this city, known for its mosaic of different religions and its tolerance, it looks very different from both the Russian and American depictions.
When Nusra took control here in March 2015, Idlib entered a dark tunnel of deprivation.
Public education deteriorated, the university was closed, and public debate was stifled.
Since Nusra broke with al-Qaeda and changed its name, the city has become a lot more livable.
People here still call it Nusra and feel suffocated by their masks, their guns and their arrogant manner, but daily life has improved since July.
Most restrictions on dress have been lifted.
The Hizbah, or Morality Police, are no longer on the streets to enforce them, nor are the women's police.
The Islamic police are demoralized.
Even soldiers say their motive for fighting is the pay.
Some things are almost normal, certainly compared with life under the Islamic State, which was once a part of Nusra and now its rival.
Anyone can start up an internet cafe, smoking is allowed, although frowned upon.
To be sure, music is still banned.
The authorities consider it blasphemous, although singing a cappella is okay.
So people don't go to party salons anymore and celebrate weddings at home.
The Fatar Army, an umbrella group of rebel factions that Nusra dominates, has banned the Assad regime's textbooks on history and religion and has substituted dull courses in Islamic education.
High school students say they are being lamified, turned into lambs that are neither pro-regime nor pro-opposition.
Local government is a facade for the Islamists.
There is a governor, a mayor, and a shura or municipal council, but the supreme body is the committee of the Fatar Army, which has no contact with the residents.
It carries out military planning, staffs the front lines, and organises the fighters.
It directs a body called the Executive Force, which carries out raids, searches for sleeper cells of the Assad regime or the Islamic State, and generally functions as the all-powerful intelligence agency we are familiar with from the Assad regime.
When Nusra first came to power, it had the upper hand because it was the biggest group in the Fatar army.
People saw no choice but to accept its rules.
They saw it as less dangerous than the regime and the lesser evil.
Nusra then created an entire apparatus to impose Sharia law.
Sharia courts remain the only form of justice, but the judges are mostly Assad regime defectors or lawyers, many of them trained professionals.
Now the authorities have concluded they cannot oppress the people of the whole city, so they cut back on the restrictions.
The process began when Nusra disengaged from al-Qaeda, and it continues.
Early in November, the Fatar army leadership met with the city's elders.
Nusra hardliners wanted to reinstate the tough measures, but the elders opposed it and won.
However, there was no public statement.
This paints a bleak picture of life under the jihadis, but it also shows us the limits of their power.
The local population are not on their side, and are in fact suffering under their rule and they would appear to know it.
There is no social contract between the people of Idlib and the Jihadis that are ruling over them.
Any local officials are a facade for the Islamists, and cannot be trusted to do anything other than serve their own interests.
There is nothing about this province that serves the people who live within it.
In fact, they are, from their own words, being actively oppressed.
And when they do take to the streets in protest, al-Nusra fighters simply gun them down.
And it's entirely likely that this tyrannical regime will be as self-serving as others in places such as Aleppo, where they will block outside aim for their own political gain.
The quality of life for the people of Idlib is undoubtedly very poor.
The people of Idlib do not appear to want to have al-Nusra rule over them, and Al-Nusra seem to refuse to leave because they are intent on setting up their own Islamist state, at the expense of the people of Idlib.
And Russian, Syrian, and American forces have all been bombing this city.
On the 4th of April 2017, there was an alleged chemical attack in the city of Idlib.
And this is where the story of what is happening in Idlib bifurcates into two separate and contradictory narratives that cannot both exist and both be true at once.
The first narrative was propagated by Western media.
I'll use coverage from CNN to show you how the narrative evolved, but it is broadly representative of what almost every Western outlet was saying.
It began with, suspected gas attack in Syria reportedly kills dozens.
World leaders express shock and outrage Tuesday at reports of a suspected chemical attack in northwestern Syria that killed scores of civilians, with one UK official suggesting the incident amounted to a war crime.
Activists said the Syrian regime was responsible for the killings of at least 70 people, 10 children among the dead, leading the United Nations to replace a scheduled Security Council session for Wednesday morning with an emergency meeting.
As you can see, we are given very little information.
It's not even confirmed that a gas attack took place, and yet unnamed activists are already placing the blame for this presumed gas attack on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, when we know that many other factions are already bombing and killing people within this region.
The next day this was followed up by a piece called What We Know About Syria's Chemical Weapons.
Horrifying images and videos show civilians, including children, struggling to breathe, foam coming from their mouths as they appear to die of asphyxiation after an airstrike on the rebel hell town in northwestern Syria on Tuesday.
The way this is written misleads the reader, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to make the reader believe that there is a causal relation between an airstrike on Idlib and these people appearing to die of asphyxiation.
And as of yet, there is no proof that there was even a chemical weapon attack to begin with.
And they even say this themselves in the article.
It is not yet confirmed what chemical agent was involved in the suspected attack in Khan Shikun, Idlib province, but early indicators point to the release of a nerve agent like Sarin.
This is conjectural, and based on photographic and video evidence that we will examine in the second part of this series.
Both the Syrian and Russian governments have denied their use of chemical weapons in an attack, with the Russian government asserting without evidence that this chemical attack was actually the result of an airstrike that hit a rebel-held warehouse where sarin gas was being stored.
Dan Kazeta, a chemical weapons specialist and the managing director of Strongpoint Security, told CNN that the Russian version of events was highly implausible.
Strongpoint Security are a London-based defence contractor.
All the nerve agents used in the Syrian conflict so far have been binary nerve agents, he said, which are mixed from different components within a few days of use.
This is done because of the difficulties of handling such agents such as sarin, which have a very short shelf life.
Nerve agents are the result of a very expensive, exotic industrial chemical process.
These are not something you just whip up.
The idea that the Syrian opposition would be able to build the covert supply chain to make a nerve agent and then would move it around and store it in a warehouse rather than a bunker makes no sense.
It's much more plausible that Assad, who's used nerve agents in the past, is using them again.
This is of course Kazeta's opinion, but he's stating it as if it is an incontrovertible fact, and this is how it is presented.
Kazeta is specifically referencing the 21st of August 2013 chemical attack in the district of Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, in which he alleges that the Syrian government used chemical attacks on its own citizens.
Again, this is an allegation that we will discuss later on in this video.
On the third day of their reporting, CNN were no longer calling this an alleged attack, even though there was still no proof as of yet.
Will the Syria chemical attack change Trump's mind about refugees too?
Now the pieces being produced were actively demonising Bashar al-Assad.
Despite the vocal expressions of concern for innocent civilians caught in Assad's death grip, Trump has not yet shown a willingness to reconsider his hard line on Syrian refugees.
And by the fourth day of their reporting on this event, Russia was being considered as an accomplice to Syria's chemical attack.
And the justification for associating Russia with what is still an alleged chemical attack is that the Pentagon is looking for any evidence that the Russian government knew about or was complicit in the attack on Idlib province that killed at least 80 people and injured dozen more, a senior US defense official said.
And this is how a media narrative becomes conventional wisdom.
There is no proof that the Syrian or Russian governments had anything to do with a chemical attack in Idlib.
And yet within four days of the alleged event, CNN were reporting this as if it was factually accurate that the Syrian government had done this and that the Russians may well have been involved.
And this itself is justified through conjecture from either defense contractors or government officials in lieu of an independent investigation into the evidence to establish what is and is not factual.
On the 7th of April, the Trump administration made the unilateral decision to bomb the Shayrat airbase in Syria.
59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at the Syrian Air Force facility in response to what President Donald Trump said was a chemical weapons attack on the rebel-held town three days before.
This should be rather alarming for three reasons.
The first is that we have no proof that the Syrian government did this.
So the Trump administration is striking out blindly, but also Syria is not at war with the United States, and it has not attacked the United States, nor does it threaten the United States.
So this is an act of war on an independent sovereign nation without provocation.
And thirdly, the Trump administration did not get congressional approval to commit what was, in effect, a declaration of war against Syria.
The Syrian government reported that 15 people were killed in the US airstrike, and they denounced the strike on one of the country's airbases in retaliation for a poison gas attack, calling it a blatant aggression that caused significant material damage, but importantly, did not put the airfield out of commission.
The United States said their strikes damaged or destroyed 20% of Syria's military aircraft.
But what's really interesting is how this is being used as justification for further political action.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said it appears that Assad should have no role in governing the Syrian people, and that steps are underway for the United States, along with an international coalition, to remove the dictator.
It's important to note that there is no proof that Assad or his government played any kind of role in any gas attack in Idlib province.
That this event is being used as justification to remove Bashar al-Assad from his position as President of Syria demonstrates that important figures in the Trump administration are actively pursuing the same policy of Middle Eastern regime change that was pursued under Bush and Obama.
The day before the strike occurred, Hillary Clinton had called for exactly this course of action, which again mirrored her rhetoric during her failed presidential campaign.
There were many rumours surrounding this event, such as that Donald Trump had called Putin before launching missiles at Syria.
The Daily Caller reports that he did not call Putin before launching missiles at Syria.
And Rex Tillerson confirmed that the only communication between Washington and Moscow was a deconfliction notice for Russian troops in Syria.
Five days after the alleged attack, US Envoy to the UN Nikki Haley said that Syrian regime change was inevitable in her speech to the UN.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has told CNN that removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power is a priority, cementing an extraordinary U-turn in the Trump administration's stance on the embattled leader.
This comes after the Trump administration saying that Bashar al-Assad did not have to be removed from power in Syria.
Two days after the US launched military strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack widely blamed on the Assad regime, Haley said that Assad's departure was inevitable.
You can see why a false narrative is so dangerous, from what we have seen here.
There is no proof that Bashar al-Assad committed a chemical weapons attack.
Indeed, I'm not even sure that there is proof of a chemical weapons attack.
And yet now, Nikki Haley is at the United Nations saying that Assad's departure and overthrow from his presidency of Syria is inevitable.
Before Tuesday's chemical attack, again, the word alleged is missing from the reporting, on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, which killed 89 people, Haley had said that toppling Assad was not a priority.
Donald Trump before his election described fighting ISIS and seeking Assad's removal at the same time as idiocy.
However, Haley had completely reversed this position in her interview with CNN's State of the Union, in which Haley said that removing Assad from power was one of a number of priorities for the United States.
They add, the decision to carry out strikes against the regime and the change in tone from Haley follows Trump's comments that the chemical attack crossed a lot of lines for me.
She even escalated this rhetoric by saying there will be no peace in Syria until Assad is ousted.
This is a rather ironic statement given that we know that removing a Middle Eastern secular dictator does not bring peace to a region.
To clear up some further misinformation, the White House disputes the report that Russia knew of the chemical attack in Syria beforehand.
The Associated Press reported Monday that the United States determined that Russia knew about last week's chemical attack on a town in Syria beforehand.
Again, it is no longer an alleged attack.
The narrative has become cemented in the minds of both government officials and journalists, and they simply do not question it now.
But a senior administration official disputed this report.
At this time, there is no US intelligence community consensus that Russia had foreknowledge of a Syrian chemical attack.
Many people have pointed out that the Trump administration's unilateral attack on Syria is in direct opposition to Donald Trump's previous public statements on the idea of attacking Syria, to which he was heavily and consistently opposed.
Even ironically complaining that the president must get congressional approval before attacking Syria, and it's a big mistake if he does not.
We are led to believe by his son Eric that his daughter Ivanka heavily influenced the decision to launch the Syria strikes.
He says, Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence.
I'm sure she said, listen, this is horrible stuff.
My father will act in times like that.
And after the US launched missile strikes on Syria last week, Ivanka Trump praised the decision via a tweet, saying, the times we are living in call for difficult decisions.
Proud of my father for refusing to accept these horrendous crimes against humanity.
This is rather disturbing for a few reasons of its own.
The first is that the president's daughter had an emotional reaction after seeing what may or may not be perpetrated by an unknown faction, and this emotional reaction was enough to influence her father to take unilateral action to attack a country that was not at war with the United States.
It appears that Ivanka Trump has been directly influenced by the media narrative, and in turn has directly influenced the president, and all of this is based on unfounded, unproven allegations.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis gave this statement.
Last Tuesday on the 4th of April, the Syrian regime attacked its own people using chemical weapons.
I have personally reviewed the intelligence and there is no doubt the Syrian regime is responsible for the decision to attack and for the attack itself.
In response to the attack, our government began a deliberate process led by the National Security Council to recommend diplomatic and military options to the President.
We met over several days and I spoke with some of our allies.
The National Security Council considered the near-century-old international prohibition against the use of chemical weapons, the Syrian regime's repeated violations of that international law, and the inexplicably ruthless murders the regime had committed.
We determined that a measured military response could best deter the regime from doing this again.
As always, we examined how best to avoid civilian casualties in the execution of the strike, and our actions were successful.
Based on these considerations, on 6 April, the President directed military action consistent with our vital national interest to deter the use of chemical weapons.
This military action demonstrates the United States will not passively stand by while Assad blithely ignores international law and employs chemical weapons he had declared destroyed.
We were aware of the presence of Russians at the airfield and took appropriate actions to ensure no Russians were injured in the attack.
Our military policy in Syria has not changed.
Our priority remains the defeat of ISIS.
ISIS represents a clear and present danger, an immediate threat to Europe and ultimately a threat to the United States homeland.
In closing, the Syrian regime should think long and hard before it again acts so recklessly in violation of international law against the use of chemical weapons.
This should hopefully show you how the narrative crafted around this event can reach the very top echelons of the US government, despite the fact that, again, there is no proof provided.
It is all just presupposed, and military action has been taken on these presuppositions.
Across social media, the debate was raging.
Would Donald Trump approach Congress to authorize a full-scale invasion of Syria?
Thankfully, Donald Trump gave us a direct answer to this by saying, we are not going into Syria.
However, how trustworthy his word is on this is obviously up to debate.
President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. will not launch a full-scale war in Syria, seeking to ease concerns that last week's missile strike could escalate American involvement in that country's civil war.
And again, Trump simply parroted the rhetoric of the narrative that has been established.
He said, when I see people using horrible, horrible chemical weapons, which they agreed not to use under the Obama administration, but they violated it, what I did should have been done with the Obama administration long before I did it, and you would have had a much better, I think Syria would be a lot better off right now than it has been.
There is a lot of discussion about whether this is four-dimensional chess being played by Donald Trump, and that he is actually, in fact, a master of tactics and has run rings around everyone by indulging in the mainstream media narrative, despite the fact that it is as yet unproven, and using it to his own advantage.
There is evidence to suggest that he may well be doing this.
The strike in Syria did not significantly impact the Syrian army's ability to wage war, and it also did not endanger the United States military in the process.
But it did give Donald Trump the opportunity to demonstrate his approval of the United States military.
And as Glenn Greenwald points out, Donald Trump has been lavished with media and bipartisan praise for bombing Syria.
I found this section most interesting.
He says, in wartime, US television instantly converts to state media.
As it always does, the US media last night was almost an equal mix of excitement and reverence as the bombs fell.
People who dissent from this bombing campaign, who opposed it on its merits, were almost entirely disappeared, as they always are in such moments of high patriotism.
Claims from the US government and military are immediately vested with unquestioned truth and accuracy, while claims from foreign adversaries such as Russia and Syria are reflexively scorned as lies and propaganda.
For all the recent hysteria of Russia today being a propaganda outlet for the state, US media coverage is barely distinguishable in times of war.
And probably as a result of this universal praise in the media, you can see that Donald Trump's approval rating is already improving after having been on a steady decline after a consistent and sustained campaign of denigration from the media.
It was also reported that there was a positive response from alleged Donald Trump supporters from within Syria.
Today, the sun is shining.
Syrians react to the Trump strikes.
If the strikes don't take down the regime and don't prevent Assad from ruling in Syria, it means nothing.
And apparently, Syrians were changing their profile photos to Donald Trump with a caption of saying, we love you.
Apparently, the new avatars were first noted by a Syrian Twitter user called Mustafa Mohammed, who says, I found a Syrian with this avatar today.
Expect to see more.
It's very interesting because when I clicked on Mustafa Mohammed's profile, I honestly can't really describe it as anything other than a propaganda account, saying that there was a chemical massacre in Syria, the Assad regime was shelling with poisoned gases, and he states his location as in Syria with the Mujahideen.
This appears to be a jihadist account that is in favor of Donald Trump and is being picked up on by media sources, uncritically regurgitating the propaganda being produced.
In addition to this, many mainstream media outlets would repeatedly refer to a Twitter account apparently run by a woke seven-year-old called Bana Alabed, who says this.
Bonna, do you blame President Assad for this?
Yes.
What is your message to President Assad?
I am very sad.
A lot of died and no one helped them.
The world is watching.
The world doesn't do anything.
What do you want the world to do?
I want to stop the war and I want the children of Syria play and go to school, live in peace.
We can together we can help them.
Together we can save them.
Bana, when you saw the video and the pictures of what happened in Syria this week, what did you think?
I am very sad about this.
100 Syrians were killed in Syria.
They were not terrorists.
They were just people.
Let me ask you.
This didn't start today, but it has been going on six years.
Why can't you stop the war?
I don't know, Fana.
I don't know why the world can't stop the war in Syria.
Fana, do you want to be able to go home to Syria someday?
Yes, I love my home and I love Syria.
Many mainstream antlers have a propensity to use children in order to deliberately tug the heartstrings of their viewers.
I personally have got absolutely no interest in what a seven-year-old girl thinks of this attack, regardless of whether she believes it was Assad or not.
I do not believe she has any evidence.
I do not believe she is even speaking from her own will.
She is clearly reading cue cards, and there is in fact a lot more behind the Bana Alabed Twitter account, but I will cover that in part two of this series.
As you might imagine, the Syrian government's response to the Western narrative surrounding these events has been one of flat denial.
Syria's envoy to the UN wholly denies allegations of chemical weapons use during a Security Council session, calling it politicised and fabricated, pointing the finger instead at some members which he claims are aiming to defame the Assad regime.
The Syrian government categorically denies the allegations and false accusations about the use of poisonous chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab army in the Khan Sheikhun region.
The diplomat also affirmed that the Syrian army is not in possession of any kind of chemical weapons, claiming that it has not used them in the past and will not use them in the future.
He said that these politicized and fabricated accusations confirm that some council members aim to continue their defamation of Syria and blackmail of its government with the goal of obstructing peace talks and a political solution to the crisis.
Moscow's response to this is very interesting.
First, they stated that their support for Syria was not unconditional, but did rattle their sabres, warning of serious consequences from the US strike in Syria.
Russia's deputy UN envoy said, We strongly condemn the illegitimate actions by the US.
The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious.
And the Russian Prime Minister said that the strikes were one step away from clashing with Russia's military.
And in response, Russia sent ships from their Black Sea fleet down to the Mediterranean to show the colours and demonstrate that they meant it.
Both Russia and Iran warned that they would respond with force if red lines are crossed in Syria again.
What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines.
From now on, we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is, and America knows our ability to respond well, said the group's Joint Command Center.
And of course, Ankara welcomes the US attack on Syria, but believes that it is not enough.
Turkish President Erdogan has said that he welcomes the US strike on Syria, but believes it isn't sufficient.
He has also called for a no-fly zone to be set up over Syria.
USA Today provided us with a handy infographic showing us who exactly supports and who exactly opposes the US strike on Syria.
And it is precisely as you would expect.
There are many prominent skeptics of what has become the official narrative who do not live in China, Indonesia, Iran, Russia or Syria.
And many of them have actually been to Syria.
This is what the former British ambassador to Syria thought about the situation.
So the full statement from President Trump in the immediate aftermath of that missile launch, former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford is with me now.
Very good morning to you.
Good morning.
Can I just draw your attention first to the opening part of that statement from President Trump?
He said, my fellow Americans, on Tuesday, Syrian dictator Basha al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
It's a statement of fact.
It's a statement, a misstatement, a non-fact.
We don't know.
What's needed is an investigation.
Because there are two possibilities for what happened.
One is the American version that Assad dropped chemical weapons on this locality.
The other version is that an ordinary bomb was dropped and it hit a munitions dump.
The jihadis were storing chemical weapons.
We don't know which of these two possibilities is the correct one.
Remember the run-up to Iraq.
The experts, the intelligence agencies, the politicians were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
They produced reams of evidence, photographs, diagrams.
It was all wrong.
It was all wrong.
It's possible that they're wrong in this instance as well, that they are just looking for a pretext to attack Syria.
This is what American Representative Tulsi Gabbard thought of the situation.
Here's the issue, Wolf, is what I believe, what you believe, or others believe is irrelevant.
What matters here is the evidence and the facts.
If President Assad is found to be responsible after an independent investigation for these horrific chemical weapons attacks, I'll be the first one to denounce him, to call him a war criminal, and to call for his prosecution, the International Criminal Court, make sure that those consequences are there.
But the key is now with President Trump's reckless military strikes last night, it flew directly in the face of the action that the UN was working on at that time to launch an independent investigation to find out exactly what the facts are, who was involved and who was responsible, so that the appropriate consequences could be levied.
So Congresswoman, when the Pentagon says it was the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad who was responsible, when the Secretary of State says that, the President says that, they all conclude that they have the evidence to back it up.
They say Assad did it.
His military did it.
You don't believe them necessarily.
Well, last time I checked, Wolf, Congress had the authority and the responsibility for declaring war, for authorizing the use of military force.
So whether the president of the Pentagon or the Secretary of State says that they have the evidence, the fact remains that they have not brought that evidence before Congress.
They have not brought that evidence before the American people.
And they have not sought authorization from Congress to launch this military attack on another country.
And this is what Republican State Senator Dick Black thinks, a man who has actually previously been to Syria.
Tonight, a Virginia state senator says President Trump is making a mistake about Syria.
Our Capitol Bureau reporter Evan Armour tells us why Senator Dick Black believes the Syrian president isn't behind the attacks on innocent people.
It was around this time last year that Republican State Senator Dick Black was in Syria.
While there, he met with Syrian President Assad.
My point was to bring peace to the Middle East.
The senator said there's no motive for Assad to have launched any chemical attacks within his own country.
He believes ISIS is to blame, who he calls the master of manipulation.
Why on earth would he make a small attack on a group of civilians?
President Trump, however, disagrees.
The White House condemning the attacks and in turn ordering the strikes.
In one of Senator Black's tweets, he says, quote, if we go into Syria, we're entering World War III.
If we topple Assad, we help ISIS.
Thousands are echoing his message with a retweet.
The senator says he's been a supporter of President Trump, but not of his latest move.
I still have his bumper sticker on my car, but if we do an all-out war against Syria, the bumper sticker comes off.
And Ron Paul makes a very persuasive case when he says that Assad does not benefit by any kind of chemical strike in the Middle East.
Yesterday, there was some bombing with possibly gas exposure in Syria, and things have changed.
It reminds me sort of weather reports.
Well, if you don't like the weather, just wait an hour.
You know, you'll get different weather.
Well, that's sort of what happens in the Middle East sometimes.
Just wait, it'll change.
And actually, you know, before this episode of possible gas exposure and who did what, things were going along reasonably well for the conditions.
You know, Trump says, let the Syrians decide who should run their country.
And peace talks were breaking out.
And al-Qaeda and ISIS were on the run on maybe defeated.
So it was like, you know, in spite of their problems with this foreign policy, it looked like there was some benefit, but it looks like maybe somebody didn't like that.
So there had to be an episode.
And the blame now is that we can't let that happen because it looks like it might benefit Assad.
So Assad, they claim, now went and released gas to kill a bunch of people.
But, Daniel, we might not have much of a job here today because I looked at the New York Times to find out, to get the explanation, and they said, worst chemical attack in years in Syria.
U.S. blames Assad.
So it's all over and done with.
But not quite so easy, is it?
What happened four years ago in 2013?
You know, this whole thing about crossing the red line.
And ever since then, the neocons have been yelling and screaming.
Even part of the administration is still yelling and screaming about Assad using poison gases on his people four years ago.
Not quite true.
Yeah, it was never proven, in fact.
And UN official Carlo Del Ponte said that attack was most likely done by the rebels based on the evidence.
But here you have Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the UN, almost as we speak, literally at the UN Security Council saying, quote, we know Assad has used chemical weapons before.
It's not true.
It has never been proven that he has.
He may have.
We do know that the rebels have used them.
That has been proven.
And who would benefit?
It makes no sense.
Even if you were totally separate from this and take no signs of this and you were just an analyst, it doesn't make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poison gases.
I think it's zero chance that he would have done this, you know, deliberately, and he's doing this now.
So now let's talk about some of the history of the United States in the Middle East.
We'll start with false congressional testimonies.
You may well remember the Nayera testimony that was given on October the 10th, 1990, by a 15-year-old girl known only as Naira.
It turned out that Naira was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, and her testimony was part of an elaborate PR campaign to encourage and provoke the U.S. into waging war against Saddam Hussein.
My mother and I were in Kuwait on August 2nd for a peaceful summer holiday.
My older sister had a baby on July 29th, and we wanted to spend some time in Kuwait with her.
I only pray that none of my 10th grade classmates had a summer vacation like I did.
I mean, I wish sometimes that I could be an adult that could grow up quickly.
What I saw happen to the children of Kuwait and to my country has changed my life forever.
It has changed the life of all Kuwaitis, young and old.
We are children no more.
My sister, with my five-day old nephew, traveled across the desert to safety.
There was no milk available for the baby in Kuwait.
They barely escaped when their car was stuck in the desert, desert sand, and help came from Saudi Arabia.
I stayed behind and wanted to do something for my country.
The second week after an invasion, I volunteered at the Al-Adan hospital with 12 other women who wanted to help as well.
I was the youngest volunteer.
The other women were from 20 to 30 years old.
While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns.
They took the babies out of the incubators.
Took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor.
Despite being widely cited by United States senators and George Bush himself, this was not true.
But this rationale encouraged the American public to support the Gulf War.
You may also remember Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations, in which he explicitly said that the intelligence showed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which in later years he has called a great intelligence failure.
Because, as with Naira, it was not true.
This is a very interesting clip from the speech, and I think it's worth paying attention to.
Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences.
No council member present in voting on that day had any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if Iraq did not comply.
And to assist in its disarmament, we called on Iraq to cooperate with returning inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA.
We laid down tough standards for Iraq to meet to allow the inspectors to do their job.
This council placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm, and not on the inspectors to find that which Iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long.
Compare that speech to Nikki Haley's speech to the UN on essentially the same subject regarding Syria instead of Iraq.
Beyond any doubt that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against its own people multiple times.
On Tuesday, the Assad regime launched yet another chemical attack on civilians, murdering innocent men, women, and children in the most gruesome way.
Assad did this because he thought he could get away with it.
He thought he could get away with it because he knew Russia would have his back.
That changed last night.
As I warned on Wednesday, when the international community consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action.
The indiscriminate use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians is one of those times.
The United States will not stand by when chemical weapons are used.
It is in our vital national security interest to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.
Our military destroyed the airfield from which this week's chemical strike took place.
We were fully justified in doing so.
The moral stain of the Assad regime could no longer go unanswered.
His crimes against humanity could no longer be met with empty words.
It was time to say enough.
But not only say it, it was time to act.
Bashar al-Assad must never use chemical weapons again.
Ever.
Now, while the Syrian regime is responsible for the chemical weapons attack, it is not the only guilty party.
The Iranian government bears a heavy responsibility.
It has propped up and shielded Syria's brutal dictator for years.
Iran continues to play a role in the bloodshed in Syria.
The Russian government also bears considerable responsibility.
Every time Assad has crossed the line of human decency, Russia has stood beside him.
Nothing about Haley's speech has been proven, and yet she is asserting it as if it is fact.
So we must ask the question: why would forces within the United States government consistently orchestrate false narratives in order to justify attacking Middle Eastern regimes?
I will let General Wesley Clark explain that in his words, he believes that there was a policy coup deliberately designed by the neocon administration of George Bush to take over the Middle East.
I went downstairs.
I was leaving the Pentagon and an officer from the joint staff called me into his office and said, I want you to know, he said, sir, we're going to attack Iraq.
And I said, why?
He said, we don't know.
He said, I said, well, did they tie Saddam to 9-11?
He said, no.
He said, but I guess they don't know what to do about terrorism.
And so they can attack states and they want to look strong.
And so I guess they think if they take down a state, it will intimidate the terrorists.
And, you know, it's like that old saying, he said, if the only two you have is a hammer, then every problem has to be a nail.
Well, I walked out of there pretty upset.
And then we attacked Afghanistan.
I was pretty happy about that.
We should have.
And then I came back to the Pentagon about six weeks later.
I saw the same officer.
I said, why haven't we attacked Iraq?
We still going to attack Iraq.
He said, oh, sir.
He says, it's worse than that.
He said, he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk.
He said, I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office.
It says we're going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years.
We're going to start with Iraq, and then we're going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
I said, seven countries in five years.
I said, is that a classified memo?
He said, yes, sir.
I said, well, don't show it to me.
He was about to show it to me.
He said, because I want to talk about it.
And I sat on this information for a long time, for about six or eight months.
I was so stunned by this, I couldn't begin to talk about it.
And I couldn't believe it would really be true, but that's actually what happened.
These people took control of the policy in the United States.
And I realized then it came back to me.
A 1991 meeting I had with Paul Wolfowitz.
You know, in 2001, he was Deputy Secretary of Defense, but in 1991, he was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
It's a number three position in the Pentagon.
And I had gone to see him when I was a one-star general.
I was commanding the National Training Center.
I had met him one time.
He said, if you ever get to Washington, come look me up.
They always say that.
Well, I was there in Washington.
It was a Friday afternoon.
I'd visit Colin Powell.
He'd give me five minutes of his precious time and sent me on my way.
And I was bored in the Pentagon.
And I thought, I'll just go, who can I see?
I think I'll see Wolfowitz.
So I called him up there.
He was available.
Scooter Libby came to the door.
I met Scooter for the first time, and he brought me in.
And I said to Paul, and this is 1991, I said, Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm.
And he said, well, yeah, he said, but not really.
He said, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn't.
And this was just after the Shia uprising in March of 91, which we had provoked, and then we kept our troops on the sidelines and didn't intervene.
He said, but one thing we did learn, he said, we learned that we can use our military in the region in the Middle East and the Soviets won't stop us.
He said, and we've got about five or ten years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.
And it was like, you know, I'm coming out of the Mojave Desert.
I've been training troops.
I haven't been thinking geostrategy for some time.
And suddenly a guy just sort of shoves this nugget at you.
Well, you remember it.
It was a pretty stunning thing.
You mean the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments?
It's not to sort of deter conflict.
We're going to invade countries.
And, you know, my mind was spinning.
And I put that aside.
It was like a nugget that you hold on to.
This country was taken over by a group of people with a policy coup.
Wolfowitz and Cheney and Rumsfeld and you could name a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for a New American Century.
They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.
It's important to remember that the West has a long history of lies and propaganda when it comes to its own actions in the Middle East.
This is an article from the Times that was written in 2016 about events that took place in 2006.
Soap operas and fakery, selling peace in Iraq.
Tim Bell's firms used drama and subterfuge to help America win hearts and minds and to combat militants.
Ten years ago, Martin Wells, a video editor, attended an interview for a role with the leading public relations firm Bell Pottinger.
Wells had been hired as part of a conflict resolution division of Bell Possinger to conduct an information campaign known as a psychological operation in Iraq.
The division operated in secrecy and was separately managed from the main agency.
The Iraq campaign was funded with hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States Department of Defense and is revealed today after a joint investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Sunday Times.
An analysis of DOD documents and the federal procurement data system reveals Bell Possinger was paid about $540 million for five contracts between May 2007 and December 2011.
The work involved scripting soap operas, providing footage for Arabic news networks, and allegedly distributing al-Qaeda videos that could be used to track people who watched them.
The propaganda unit was based at Camp Victory.
Lord Bell, the former chairman of Bell Pottinger, who left in August, confirmed the covert operation last week and said, We reported to the Pentagon, to the CIA, to the State Department, to the National Security Council.
The Bell Pottinger team produced news bulletins for local Arabic stations, according to Wells, who arrived in Baghdad in May 2006.
He said the production values were made to look like it was Arabic, but he did not know whether the television companies were told the material was funded by the US military.
The Department of Defense confirmed that some news programs were not attributed to the US military, but said this complied with all relevant American laws and regulations.
The most sensitive program described by Wells was the production of fake al-Qaeda propaganda films.
He said the team was given precise instructions and told, we need to make this style of video because we've got to use al-Qaeda's footage.
We need it to be 10 minutes long and it needs to be in this file format and we need to encode it in this manner.
Despite this huge propaganda campaign, its success was arguably limited as Iraq was devastated by sectarian bloodshed.
There were more than 50,000 civilian deaths in the country from 2007 to 2011.
Emma Bryant, the author of Propaganda and Counterterrorism and a journalism lecturer at Sheffield University, said she did not consider the Bell Pottinger programme a success.
It was an incredible waste of money.
They should have spent more time listening to the Iraqi people.
Given this track record in the region, it should come as no surprise that when the BBC in 2012 finally send a journalist to Syria, that journalist is met with hostility and scorn and repeatedly told that she is a liar.
you are talking very bad about Cedar you are not telling the truth but you know what this is No, but this is the first time I've been able to come to Syria.
I didn't have a visa.
Why you didn't get the visa?
We've been waiting for a visa to come to the city.
No, no, no, no, no, no, but everybody can come to Syria and get visa.
It's not true.
Fadi is here.
We can ask Fadi.
No, no, it's not correct.
There's no journalists who come to Syria.
But tell me what your story is then.
What do you think?
Tell me what you think.
No, but tell me.
Tell me what you think is the lie that's being told.
What do you think is not being lived?
So what is very quiet?
The truth is nothing we have in Syria.
Syria is very quiet.
And everybody in the population in Syria loves our president and we support the president.
But you are telling the very lie about Syria.
I didn't lie, it's my first day here.
No, you are lying because everybody here, population, 23 million Syria love Bashala Sad and support Bashallah.
I'm not making it up.
There are pictures of Basil.
No, you are, you are, you are advertisement like that.
But if we see, yes, there are people like you who support you.
You are telling like that.
Everybody when PBC arbitrary can hear the lies about Syria.
Al Jazeera and the Arabia.
Maybe Syria is like any country.
Some people support and support.
So Syria is different.
There is very little people, little people.
Maybe 10,000 like that.
But most of people, 22 million, 23 million persons support Bashala Saddam.
But even the demonstration, we have armed young.
But even the president said there needs to be some change.
No, yes, yes.
He did say that.
He said there are some legitimate reasons.
He is always doing to make that change.
Yes.
He's trying always to make this change.
But you are telling the lie about the Syria.
Now finish.
Mr. Bashar Al-Azha.
But you have to know.
You are very good.
And I like Syria.
You have to know you are working in BBC and all people that they are working in Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiyyye, that everybody in Syria, population of Syria, they know, very pretty sure that you are lying.
This is the most important thing.
In December 2016, there was a press conference held by independent Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett.
This is quite a long clip, but I think it's important that you hear it.
In this clip, she corroborates everything that has been said so far, and she, as far as I can tell, is being completely accurate with her statements.
I've been to Syria six times since 2014, two of which were with international delegations, and four times were independently on a visa I applied for, paid for, and waited for.
My trips have been self-funded or fundraised, and I've gone at my own risk and been able to travel freely in the country to areas I wish to travel to.
I've been many times to Homs, to Malula, to Latakia, Tartuz, Siyath, Sweda, and again Aleppo four times.
And I mention these because I think it's important people realize I have, wherever I've gone, I've spoken in Arabic to the people I'm speaking with.
What Donna, what Sarah have said, that the people support their army and government, is absolutely true.
Whatever you hear in the corporate media is the complete opposite.
And on that note, what you hear in the corporate media, and I will name them BBC, Guardian, New York Times, etc., on Aleppo is also opposite of reality.
Aleppo, since 2012, has been inhabited by different terrorist factions, among them al-Nusra, among them the so-called Free Syrian Army, which has committed the same heinous acts of terrorism as al-Nusra, as ISIS, as Al-Harasham, as Noureddin Lazinki, which beheaded a 12-year-old Palestinian child and somehow is still deemed moderate.
Since 2012, these areas of Aleppo, which have now recently been freed, their occupation by these terrorist factions has meant the greater Aleppo, the 1.5 million plus population of Greater Aleppo, have suffered sieges denying them food and medicine.
They've suffered for years a want of electricity and water.
And they've suffered daily bombardment by these terrorists of mortars, of gas canister bombs, which are improvised and made locally, of water heater bombs, which are even more powerful and can level floors of entire buildings, of conventional weapons like grad rockets supplied by the West, and etc.
As I said, they've suffered these attacks on a daily basis.
And even now, because there are still Western-backed terrorists in pockets of Aleppo, there are still mortars and gas canister bombs raining down, and people are still dying in Aleppo.
This is another reason why the liberation and securing of these areas is imperative, because that will actually bring peace to Aleppo.
Now, my colleagues here mentioned the nature of unity in Syria and the fact that Syrians see themselves first as Syrian before any sect.
This is an important point because our media and the Gulf media has made Syria out to be sectarian, which is something the Syrians themselves have denied.
But it's something, it's a tool to make people confused.
It's a tool to make people believe that it's Sunnis against Bashar al-Assad, when in fact, bear in mind that Aleppo is overwhelmingly Sunni and is with the government and is with the army and is suffering from the terrorists who declare that they are liberating the city in Syria.
Other points about Aleppo are hospitals in Aleppo have been attacked.
I'm sure you've heard in the media that hospitals have been attacked.
Well, this media is referring to the pockets of Aleppo that were occupied by terrorists.
And they have manufactured stories.
And I can give you a precise account.
In April of this year, there was a hospital called the Al-Quds Hospital, which in a concerted effort, all media said, was attacked and targeted and badly damaged by either the Syrians or the Russians.
In fact, the Russians had satellite imagery showing that this hospital was in the same shape that it was in October 2015.
No difference.
Therefore, it was not attacked.
Months later, The Guardian, which is a prominent British newspaper, actually said the Al-Quds hospital that it had alleged months prior to be attacked and destroyed was treating victims of so-called chemical weapons attacks.
So even the media that is lying is inconsistent in their lies.
But there have been hospitals attacked.
I went to the Al-Dabit Hospital, which is in Aleppo City.
It's a maternity hospital.
It was attacked on May 3rd, and three women were killed.
You would think this would be something raised at the UN or by so-called human rights groups, but it was not.
In December 2013, the Kindi Hospital was attacked and destroyed.
It was the largest and best cancer treatment hospital in the Middle East.
It was destroyed by al-Nusra terrorist truck bombings.
And in fact, in recent media reports on Aleppo, again alleging Syrian or Russian strikes on hospitals, the Fox News actually had the audacity to use a photo of Al-Kindi Hospital and allege that this is in eastern areas of Aleppo and that this hospital had been attacked by Syrian or Russian strikes.
This goes to show how much the media has been lying from the very beginning about Syria and continues to lie.
When I went to Aleppo, I spoke with the Aleppo Medical Association.
They comprise 4,160 active and registered doctors.
More lies in the media have said the last doctor in Aleppo, the last pediatrician in Aleppo.
Of these over 4,000 doctors, 800 of them are specialists.
So you can see that when the media talks about Aleppo, it's talking about areas that were occupied by terrorists.
And it's completely negating the suffering and the will of the Syrian people in Greater Aleppo.
When I was in Aleppo in July, I got a taste of some of the bombings by these terrorist factions.
There was an explosion about half a kilometer away at Mhatat Baghdad, and I don't know how many people were killed that day, but it was close enough that it was a massive plume of smoke.
About five minutes later, an explosive bullet fired from an area occupied by terrorists landed about 15 meters away from where I was.
If it had hit parked cars, I wouldn't be here speaking.
A day later, a good friend of mine, his mother, was killed by one such explosive bullet.
So this is just a small taste of what people are suffering on a daily basis.
In November, when I was there with a delegation of Western journalists, including from the New York Times, LA Times, BBC, etc., on November 3rd, there were a series of attacks throughout the day with GRAD missiles, explosive vehicles, and other explosive bullets and snipings.
By the end of the day, 18 people, civilians, were murdered and over 200 were injured, including critically.
We were at the Al-Razi Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals, and we saw the maimed people pour in.
And this was just one day of many of endless days in Aleppo.
On November 4th, we were at the Castello Road humanitarian crossing.
This was a day that was meant to allow the people in eastern areas of Aleppo that were inhabited by terrorists to evacuate.
And this was not the first time.
On prior occasions, the Syrians and the Russians had opened eight humanitarian corridors to enable people to leave.
These were attacked by terrorist factions heavily.
Even that day on November 4th, the Castello Road crossing was attacked twice with mortar shelling when we were there and five times afterwards.
Clearly, there has been political will and intent by the Syrian government and its Russian allies to enable civilians to leave, to minimize any sort of loss of human life.
Clearly, the terrorists that declare themselves liberators of Syria do not want people to leave.
They've been holding civilians hostage.
And if you're following reports that are not BBC and that are not New York Times, you will see countless testimonies of civilians of the 100,000 civilians who've been liberated the last week saying, thank God for the Syrian Arab army that liberated us.
And the terrorists were hoarding food.
They were preventing us from having food.
This is all documented.
Also documented are that areas in these areas occupied by terrorists, including a school, were housing chemicals used to make chemical weapons.
And you could see also the gas canisters that were used to make explosive gas canister bombs.
In fact, even when I was in Lehramoun, we saw a factory in one of the buildings that was used to make gas canister bombs.
In Lehramun, we also saw evidence of the so-called free Syrian army that some people say doesn't exist anymore.
The 16th Brigades was active there.
They had a cell underground, three stories below, that was perfectly intact in spite of aerial bombings above ground.
And I make this point because people talk about the destruction in Aleppo as if the physical destruction matters.
It's the people that the Syrian government and the Syrian people care about.
And the destruction in areas occupied by terrorists occurs because the terrorists are bunkering below ground, come up above ground, fire their bombs on civilian populations and go back below ground.
So I just want to address a few other myths.
Some of the myths that have been about Aleppo and Syria in general have been that the Syrian government and army are starving the population.
Again, I refer to testimonies of people, even people I met with in November.
I met with a family of displaced people from Al-Halaq, which is north of Bustan al-Pasha, which was an area, both areas occupied by terrorists.
At that time, when I met them on November 10th, he told me that they had fled along with about 40 others about 20 days prior, and that they had tried twice prior to flee, but they were prevented violently so from doing so by the terrorists that inhabited those areas.
This is the case.
These are the testimonies coming out of Aleppo now.
People saying, we tried to flee, they wouldn't let us.
They shot at us.
There are also videos showing people who did manage to flee coming under fire and the Syrian army actually protecting them, acting as human shields.
So that's to say that what we've been hearing in the corporate media is not depicting an accurate image of what's happening in Aleppo.
The corporate media is saying that the Syrian army is attacking people, and until today, the corporate media is maintaining this, even though the exact opposite is true.
I would ask you to follow the voices of people in Syria who, like my colleagues here said, they want you to speak the truth.
They're tired of lies.
They're very aware, very well aware of the lies that our media is purporting and that our human rights groups are reporting.
They want an end to the violence.
They don't want this war to continue.
They didn't ask for this war.
But as my colleagues stressed, Syria is a sovereign nation.
It has the right to fight against terrorism.
And we know that 101 of 193 UN member states have sent terrorists to Syria to slaughter and destroy.
So Syria is fighting a war against terrorism.
It's winning in Aleppo.
And hopefully either the terrorists will accept a deal to be transported out of Aleppo.
Hopefully they will participate in the Musalaha, the reconciliation, will lay down their arms, will take the amnesty offered to them by the government and which has been taken by thousands of former militants.
And hopefully, above all, the U.S. will stop supporting terrorism and stop funding terrorism.
And hopefully this new bill will take fire, will be supported, and actually it will be impossible to fund an armed mercenaries from FSA, Atarasham, Notre Dame and Zinke, and all the colors in between because they're all the same terrorists.
Thank you, Iva.
Very informative.
Thank you very much.
Now we are open to questions if there are questions.
The gentleman in the back.
Thank you very much.
I'm Christopher Rollenberg with the Norwegian newspaper Aften Posten.
A question for two questions for Ms. Bartlett here.
As a journalist, I'm sure you can appreciate getting other impressions than empirical impressions from the ground.
When you talk about the Syrian people and what the Syrian people want, how can you quantify that?
Do you have any independent surveys where you can actually document that?
And secondly, you talk about the corporate media, the Western media, the lies and all of this.
Could you explain what you think might be the agenda from us in the Western media and why we should lie, why the international organizations on the ground should lie, why we shouldn't believe all these absolutely documentable facts that we see from the ground, these hospitals being bombed, these civilians who are talking about the atrocities that they have been experiencing.
How can you justify calling all of us liars?
Thank you.
I mean, there are certainly honest journalists amongst the very compromised establishment media.
Let's start with your second question.
So, international organizations on the ground.
Tell me which ones are on the ground in Eastern Aleppo.
Yeah, okay, I'll tell you, there are none.
There are none.
These organizations are relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Coventry, UK, and which is one man.
They're relying on compromised groups like the White Helmets, which let's talk about the White Helmets.
The White Helmets were founded in 2013 by a British ex-military officer.
They have been funded to the tune of $100 million by the US, UK, and Europe and other states.
They purport to be rescuing civilians in Eastern Aleppo and Idlib, yet no one in Eastern Aleppo has heard of them.
And I say no one, bearing in mind that now 95% of these areas of Eastern Aleppo are liberated.
The White Helmets purport to be neutral, yet they can be found carrying guns and standing on the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers.
And their video footage actually contains children that have been recycled in different reports.
You can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in month, say, August, and she turns up in the next month in two different locations.
So they are not credible.
The SOHR is not credible.
Unnamed activists are not credible.
Once or twice, maybe, but every time, not credible.
So your sources on the ground, you don't have them.
As for your agenda, not your, but the agenda of some corporate media, it is the agenda of regime change.
How can the New York Times, I was reading it this morning, or how can Democracy Now, which I was reading the other day, maintain until this day that this is a civil war in Syria?
How can they maintain until this day that That the protests were unarmed and non-violent until, say, 2012.
That is absolutely not true.
How can they maintain that the Syrian government is attacking civilians in Aleppo when every person that's coming out of these areas occupied by terrorists is saying the opposite?
So that's with regards to your question on lying Western media.
How do I quantify the support of the Syrian people?
The elections.
In 2014, the Syrian people held elections.
The voter turnout was 88%, including people in Lebanon where I was during the elections in Lebanon, which were actually ran for two days, extended hours, people walking for kilometers to reach the embassy, including people who flew from their own countries like mine, which has criminally shut the Syrian embassy so that Syrian people have no rights, and including people within Syria who braved a torrent of terrorist mortars and missiles on Election Day.
And yet, voter turnout rate was something like 88%, I believe.
And then the election, the results were 78, I believe.
Okay, I might get the turnout wrong.
So the results.
74%.
88.
Okay.
Anyway, the point being, overwhelmingly, the people support President Assad.
That's based on elections, based on my own travels.
Okay, so that's subjective, but as I said, I've traveled around Syria, talked with people of all faiths, all walks of life.
And there are people that want change in the government.
We're not pretending they don't want change.
Everybody wants change.
But in terms of support of the government, the point is they don't see President Assad as the problem.
They see the problem as terrorism.
They see elements of problems in the system that they have there.
But President Assad, they don't see the problem.
They actually overwhelmingly support him.
So I'm basing it on their choice in their leader, and I'm basing it on my interactions with people in Syria.
The deceptive nature of Western media is well known across the Middle East.
In 2015, the Guardian wrote an article about a manual of tactics that is used by the Islamic State.
This is called The Management of Savagery, the most critical stage through which the Ummah will pass, written by Abu Bakr Naji, who was subsequently killed in a US airstrike.
It can best be described as an Islamic version of Sololinsky's Rules for Radicals and contains tactics for how to overthrow the United States hegemony in the Middle East by using their own power against them.
I'm going to read a quick excerpt that deals with Western media.
The illusion of power, the centrality of the superpowers as a function of their overwhelming military power and deceptive media halo.
The two superpowers which used to dominate the global order controlled it through their centralized power.
The meaning of centralized power here is the overwhelming military power which extends from the center in order to control the areas of land that submit to each superpower, beginning from the center and reaching the utmost extremity of these lands.
Submission in its primary simplest form means that these lands owe the center loyalty, submission to its judgment and responsibility for its interests.
There can be no doubt that the power which God gave to the two superpowers, America and Russia, was overwhelming in the estimation of humans.
However, in reality, and after careful reflection using pure human reason, one comes to understand that this power is not able to impose its authority from the country of the center, from Amerikro, for example, or from Russia, upon lands in Egypt and Yemen, for example, unless these latter countries submit to these powers entirely of their own accord.
It is correct that this power is overwhelming, and that it seeks the help of the power of local regimes controlled by proxies who rule the Islamic world.
Yet all of that is not enough to completely control the satellite states.
Therefore, the two superpowers must resort to using a deceptive media halo, which portrays these powers as non-coercive and world-encompassing, able to reach into every heaven and earth, as if they possess the power of the creator of creation.
The concept of the deceptive media halo is a very interesting one, and demonstrates to us how we look from the outside.
They know our media is effectively state propaganda.
They know our media is not really informed, and they know that our media has a tendency to believe its own lies.
In 2013, conspiracy website InfoWars claimed to have received a leaked email that revealed the US backed a plan to launch chemical weapon attacks on Syria and blame it on Assad's regime.
I know what you're thinking, and I agree.
I don't treat InfoWars as a reliable source either.
But this email falls completely within the pattern of behaviour of the United States and its allies within the region, with the interests of removing Assad from power.
The email reads, Phil, we've got a new offer.
It's about Syria again.
Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.
We'll have to deliver chemical weapons to Homs, a Soviet-origin G-shell from Libya, similar to those that Assad should have.
They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record.
Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea, but the sums proposed are enormous.
Your opinion?
As I said, this can't be verified, but I also think it shouldn't be dismissed because it does, as I said, fit perfectly into the pattern of behaviour of the United States in this region.
There was a widely circulated report by Human Rights Watch, who claimed that the sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2013 could likely be attributed to Assad.
They say our investigation finds that the August 21st attacks were likely chemical weapons attacks using surface-to-surface rocket system of approximately 330mm in diameter, likely Syrian-produced, and a Soviet-era 140mm surface-to-surface rocket system to deliver a nerve agent.
Evidence suggests that the agent was most likely sarin or a similar weapons-graved nerve agent.
I have no doubt that Human Rights Watch produced this report in earnest, but if the leaked email to InfoWars is true, then it appears that Human Rights Watch have been duped in the exact way described in the email.
It appears that they have successfully falsified this attack.
And a UN investigation into the use of sarin gas found that the Syrian rebels used the gas and not Assad's regime.
Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the Revolution Ragnation, a senior UN diplomat said Monday.
Carla Del Ponte, a member of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof that the rebels seeking to oust the Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.
This appears to have been corroborated by a June 2013 interview with a Free Syrian Army general who appears to be threatening the intelligence community to give them one month to provide anti-tank anti-aircraft weapons.
Interviewer.
There is a lot of talk about advanced weapons and about the fact that countries are supplying the Free Syrian Army with advanced weapons like anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.
Abd al-Baset Tawali.
That's right.
In my opinion, if we were provided with such weapons, we would shorten the timetable set for this country.
Infield, who set the timetable?
Tawali, the superpowers.
Interviewer, they set a timetable for the revolution.
Tawali, yes.
Interviewer, so what you are saying is that these countries want to control the timing of victory of the revolution or the toppling of the regime.
Tawali, yes.
Interviewer, what is their aim?
Tawali, various agendas and schemes.
I do not know all the details of these schemes, but I can tell you that it is difficult for us to overcome the timetable set for the revolution.
Let me give you some evidence.
The weapons and ammunition that the Free Syrian Army receives do not include anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons.
We are unable to confront these tanks and aircrafts here.
In all candidness, I would like to see a civilized state with Islamic law.
Let me give you an example.
We would like our army in future to have a clear Islamic nature.
I give the international community one month to provide the rebels and the Free Syrian Army with weapons and ammunition so that we can defeat this criminal regime.
We give them one month.
If we see that the international community continues to desert our revolution, we will reveal all the evidence we have about the use of chemical weapons.
I think you know full well that I mean what I say.
Thanks to Wikileaks, we know from a leaked email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton that they considered in 2012 that al-Qaeda was on their side in Syria.
And another leaked email that was sent in 2014 from John Podesta to Hillary Clinton shows that they knew that US allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia were providing clandestine financial and logistical support to ISIL, who at the time were close allies of al-Nusra.
Also, in September 2016, it was revealed that al-Nusra were reportedly receiving weapons from the United States.
The Syrian al-Nusra front, according to a commander of the combat groups, receives weapons from the USA.
As the al-Nusra man explained in an interview with the publicist Jürgen Todunhofer, for the Monday's edition of I'm not even going to try and pronounce that, the US supplied the Soviet Union's anti-tank missiles.
Al-Nusra is the strongest rebel group in and around the area of Aleppo.
The Islamists were formally allied with al-Qaeda.
Asked whether the US had given the weapons of the Free Syrian Army, the so-called moderate rebels, the Al-Nusra man replied, the missiles were given to us directly.
The Americans are on our side.
However, cooperation is not designed as desired by Al-Nusra.
We will fight until the fall of the regime.
The goal was the establishment of an Islamic state, according to Islamic Sharia.
We do not accept a secular state.
Officially, the US treat al-Nusra as a terrorist organization.
In 2015, Turkish whistleblowers corroborated the story of false flag sarin attacks in Syria.
This is quite the bombshell delivered by two CHP deputies in the Turkish parliament and reported by today's Zaman, one of the top dailies in Turkey.
It supports Seymour Hirsch's reporting that the notorious sarin gas attack at Ghouta was a false flag operation orchestrated by Turkish intelligence in order to cross President Obama's chemical weapons red line and draw the United States into the Syria war to top La Sad.
If so, President Obama deserves credit for holding the line against the attack despite the grumbling and incitement of the Syria hawks at home and abroad.
And it also presents the unsavoury picture of an al-Qaeda operative colluding with ISIL in a war crime that killed 1,300 civilians.
Two Turkish members of parliament claim that deadly sarin gas was delivered from Turkish territory to Islamic State fighters in Syria in 2013.
They say that officials knew about the deliveries, but that the case was closed.
The MPs say that they have evidence to back up the allegation and that they have presented it in parliament.
We spoke to one of them.
Chemical weapon materials were brought to Turkey and put together at ISIL camps in Syria, which was known as the Iraqi Al-Qaeda at the time.
We have recordings to confirm this.
A public prosecutor opened an investigation, which led to those involved being detained.
A week after, another public prosecutor was assigned and all the detainees were released.
They left Turkey, crossing the Syrian border.
The phone recordings in the indictment showed all the details of how the shipment was going to be made, from how it was prepared, to the content of the labs and the source of the materials.
Which trucks were going to be used, all dates, etc.
From A to Z, everything was discussed and recorded.
Despite all of this evidence, the suspects were released.
Well, the incident that Aaron Adam recounted there took place in 2013, in August of that year, rockets filled with sarin struck a Damascus suburb.
And Aaron Erdo again thinks that the two incidents are linked.
There is a high probability that it was carried out with the materials shipped through Turkey.
It was claimed that regime forces were behind it.
But in my opinion, examining the given dates in the indictment, the regime didn't have sarin gas.
It was the attackers who possessed it.
As far as I understand, this file was closed just to place the guild on the regime.
The shipment is through Turkey, but all basic materials are purchased from Europe.
Western sources know very well who carried out the sarin gas attack in Syria.
They know that these people are working for al-Qaeda.
The West has been hypocritical over the whole situation.
Everything you have seen so far should put into clear context what happened to John Kerry in September 2013 when he, as an offhanded comment in a press briefing, said that Assad could give up his chemical weapons to avoid a U.S. invasion of Syria.
He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.
Turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that.
But he isn't about to do it and it can't be done, obviously.
But with respect to the credibility issue, look, I just answered that.
I just gave you real evidence.
Evidence that as a former prosecutor in the United States, I could tell you I can take into a courtroom and get admitted.
And I believe this man, I mean, I've personally tried people who've gone away for long prison sentences or for life for less evidence than we have of this.
If that doesn't put chills up your spine, I don't know what will.
Perhaps the people who John Kerry has put away should have their cases re-examined.
But anyway, when he says it can't be done, well, that's not true, because that's exactly the offer that Vladimir Putin took him up on.
Within the week, Assad was ready to give up his chemical weapons.
Syria has decided to cede control of its chemical weapons because of a Russian proposal and not the threat of US military intervention, Interfax News Agency quotes President Bashar al-Assad saying in a Russian television interview.
And by June 2014, John Kerry and the Department of State confirmed that the last 8% of declared chemical weapons were removed from Syria, with apparently great work done by all involved.
In September 2016, the New York Times reported on leaked audio that revealed what John Kerry told to Syrians behind closed doors.
Secretary of State John Kerry was clearly exasperated, not least at his own government.
Over and over again, he complained to a small group of Syrian civilians that his diplomacy had not been backed by the serious threat of military force, according to an audio recording of a meeting obtained by the New York Times.
He says, I think you're looking at three people, four people in the administration, who have all argued for the use of force, and I lost the argument.
We're trying to pursue the diplomacy, and I understand it's frustrating.
You have nobody more frustrated than we are.
The problem is that, you know, you get, quote, enforcers in there, and then everyone ups the ante, right?
Russia puts in more, Iran puts in more, Hezbollah, there is more, Nusra is more, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey all put their surrogate money in, and you are all destroyed.
So, thus far we have proven the following.
1.
Forces within the United States government have long desired to overthrow the secular regimes of the Middle East.
2.
The United States has lied multiple times to justify Middle Eastern interventions and regime change.
3.
The United States and its regional allies have been arming and funding known terrorist groups in an attempt to overthrow these regimes.
4.
The media narrative surrounding the events in the Middle East is not credible and cannot be trusted.
5.
Turkish intelligence has framed the Syrian government for the use of chemical weapons.
6.
John Kerry tried to use this false flag event as a pretext to remove Bashar al-Assad, which was thwarted by his own offhand comments.
7.
The United States appears to have no alternative to the Assad government other than the terrorist groups it has been funding.
And 8.
The Syrian people do not wish to live under the Islamic State or any other form of Islamist government.
▲
Export Selection