MoA - UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of 'Chemical Attack' Reports

January 21, 2020

UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of 'Chemical Attack' Reports

We have long maintained that the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, on April 7 2018 was faked by Jihadists shortly before they were evicted from that Damascus suburb.

By the end of last year leaked documents and a whistle blower from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had proven that the OPCW managers had manipulated the report their staff had written about the incident. The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was evidence that a chemical attack had happened. The murdered people seem in videos from the alleged attack must have died of other causes. The yellow canisters found at the locations of the alleged attack were not dropped from helicopters but clearly manually placed.

Using the Arria-formula, a procedure to have witnesses testify to the UN Security Council, Russia and China invited other UN members to listen to the testimony of OPCW inspector Ian Henderson. He denounced the false final report the OPCW management had published. Henderson, a South African engineer, was a team leader at the OPCW where he had worked for more than twelve years.

Henderson's testimony can be watched here. Philip Watson transcribed Henderson's speech:

I need to point out from the outset, I am not a whistleblower. I don’t like that term. I am a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in many areas and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns.Secondly, I must point out that I hold the OPCW in the highest regard. As well as the professionalism of the staff members who work there.

However the concern I have does relate to some specific management practices in certain sensitive missions. The concern, of course, relates to the [Fact Finding Mission] investigation into the alleged chemical attack on the 7th April in Douma in Syria. My concern, which is shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lock-down and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of the final report.

There were two teams deployed. One team which I joined shortly after the start of field deployments was to Douma in Syria, the other team deployed to Country X. The main concern relates to the announcement in July 18, of a new concept, the so-called FFM Core Team which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis.

The findings of the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turn-around, with what the team had understood collectively. During and after the Douma deployments and by the time of release of the interim report in July 2018 our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.

What the final FFM report does not make clear and thus does not reflect the views of the team members who deployed to Douma. (In which case I can really only speak for myself at this stage). The report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, engineering and or ballistics studies had resulted in a complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team and the entire Douma team in July 2018.

In my case I had followed with a further six months of engineering and ballistics studies into the cylinders. The results of which had provided further support for the view there had not been a chemical attack. This needs to be properly resolved, we believe (Douma FFM Team), through the rigours of science and engineering.

In my situation it is not a political debate. I am very aware that there is a political debate surrounding this.

Perhaps a closing comment from my side, is that I was also the inspection team leader who developed and launched the inspections, the highly intrusive inspections, of the Barzah [Scientific Studies and Research Center] facility outside of Damascus. And I did the inspections and wrote the reports for the 2 inspections prior to and the inspection after the chemical facility, or the laboratory complex at Barzah SSRC, had been destroyed by the missile strike. That however is another story altogether and I shall now close.

The Barzah SSRC was destroyed in a large scale U.S. missile attack shortly after the Douma incident. It had been a civil institution concerned with agricultural and medical research. No prohibited substances were found there during intrusive OPCW inspections before and after the U.S. strike.

In his closing remarks at the UNSC Russia's Permanent Representative at the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said:

Today’s discussions reveal one thing clearly – that something fishy is cooking in the OPCW. When we point at it, our colleagues tell us every time that OPCW, the 2013 Nobel peace prize laureate, is the gold standard of professionalism, integrity and impartiality. We would like it to be such and we adopted a PRST in November 2019 exactly aiming at this. Unfortunately, the impartiality and integrity of the OPCW TS is seriously questioned, and not just by us and other member states, as today’s presentation demonstrated. Members of the “Courage Foundation” can hardly be labeled as “Russian agents”. They are reputable personalities and include such figures as Jose Bustani, first OPCW DG, respectable members of academic community, former senior officials of the US and UK intelligence community, and such names as Noam Chomsky and Oliver Stone to name a few. (You were provided with a copy of their letter and related materials).

Why do some of our colleagues so vehemently defend the reports by the OPCW FFM, which some are believed were fabricated? Because any seed of doubt about chemical episodes conclusions would lead to challenging the expediency and legitimacy of already illegitimate missile attacks against a sovereign UN member state. In that light the Douma incident plays a key role. Because if it transpires that the FFM report was made up, it would lead to questioning earlier episodes like Khan-Shaykhun and others, which resulted in the termination of [Joint Investigation Mechanism].
...
Our colleague from Viet Nam asked what to do next, what are the nest steps. I think that this issue must be discussed at the OPCW. Legitimate questions and issues that member states face should be addressed and discussed. The question why the first report of the OPCW FFM was shelled initially, and then disappeared and destroyed should be answered. So far we are denied – we and other member states – are denied such an opportunity.

Videos from Douma at the time of the incident showed some 30 bodies of dead persons. Most were children. It is up to day unknown who they were and who had murdered them. The OPCW manipulation of the original reports of its inspectors' findings is a cover up for that huge crime.

The manipulation of the investigation of the Douma attack by the OPCW management also raises doubt about other issues, like the Skripal affair in Britain, in which the OPCW was involved. The OPCW needs to come clean. It must fire the managers who were involved in the manipulation of the Douma reports. Other cases the OPCW was involved in need to be re-investigated.

---
Previous Moon of Alabama coverage of the Douma incident and its aftermath:

Posted by b on January 21, 2020 at 13:34 UTC | Permalink

..."The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was evidence that a chemical attack had happened."
Shouldn't that be there was NO evidence?

Posted by: bwilli123 | Jan 21 2020 13:40 utc | 1

"The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was evidence that a chemical attack had happened."

Shoudn't that be?:

The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was
no evidence ...

Posted by: trind | Jan 21 2020 13:41 utc | 2

the u.s. can veto any proposed action, but at least the representatives had to sit still and listen. they'll probably look hard for some way to kneecap him like the first head of the opcw ("we know where your kids are") or julian assange.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 21 2020 14:07 utc | 4

@b:

This sentence

The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was evidence that a chemical attack had happened.

should read

The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there no was evidence that a chemical attack had happened.

Posted by: S | Jan 21 2020 14:07 utc | 5

The Arria meeting at UNSC was skimpily reported. RT and some other sources focused on Russian accusations. Google hits only one western report, The Times of London. I skip here little:

Western nations accused Russia of sowing misinformation ...

Yesterday Russia convened an “Arria” meeting, in which the Security Council hears from civilians and experts outside the United Nations. Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s ambassador to the OPCW, said that the gas cylinders had been placed on the scene by Syrian opposition groups “for provocative purposes”.

Showing the council a series of slides, he claimed that a hole in a roof did not correspond to the shape of one of the gas cylinders and questioned how one of them had come to rest on a bed. “Now, I weigh about 90kg,” he said. “If I incautiously throw myself down on the bed I always break something, the strut falls out, the slat falls out or something else.” Yet here, he said, was a gas cylinder, apparently filled with chlorine, that had rebounded “at a wild angle” and came to rest “like a light swan”.

Russia presented a video featuring Ian Henderson, who worked with the fact-finding team but differed with the OPCW’s conclusions in internal emails that were leaked last year. It also presented Maxim Grigoriev, director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, who claimed that his group’s research on the ground showed that no chemical attack had taken place.

The German ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, said that the Russian intelligence service itself had conducted a cyber attack on the OPCW last year, adding that this “shows how far Russia is prepared to go” in its efforts to discredit the organisation.

Mr Heusgen also questioned the expertise of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, saying that its experts “belong to the school of Russian scientists that believes Ukraine invaded Russia”.

Mr Heusgen said that, listening to the presentation, “I was thinking of Alice in Wonderland. This belongs in literature to the genre of fantasy and absurdity. While Alice in Wonderland is a great fiction, what we heard today is a very sad fiction.”

Karen Pierce, Britain’s representative at the United Nations, said that Russia had shut down an investigative body that assigned responsibility for chemical attacks after it showed that the Syrian Arab Republic was responsible for a sarin gas attack in Syria in 2017.

Mr Henderson’s challenge to the conclusions of the report reflected “any scientific process” in which “there are bound to be robust exchanges of views” before a conclusion was reached. She added: “Someone in Russia is a fan of English literature, specifically they are very fond of Lewis Carrol.”

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:22 utc | 6

It seems that Germany was on the frontline of the fight against "disinformation, misrepresentation and absurdities". Is the population sufficiently insulated from them? I did not see any report of Germans believing that, say, Ukraine violates Minsk agreement, something used within EU to sanction Russia. And lies on chemical weapons justify very acute sanctions on Syria. Are those things approved by 99 percent, 90? Is anyone checking?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:37 utc | 8

Free Julia Skripal!

Posted by: el gallinazo | Jan 21 2020 14:56 utc | 9

If you look up "Reported chemical weapons attacks", in what wikipedia/cia calls the "Syrian civil war", you'll find 80 claims--80! That's breathtaking lying by the allies of terror.

Posted by: SharonM | Jan 21 2020 15:00 utc | 10

@Arch Mangle #3
@all

Wikipedia is what we make it. Please register as a Wikipedia user, and edit the articles, and take part in votes. Keep in mind that there are rules on Wikipedia, it’s not a free-for-all. Wikipedia’s “talk pages” (where the articles are discussed with other editors), are not political rallies, so don’t get emotional and accusatory. You have to argue your points like a scientist or, perhaps, like a lawyer. In other words, be polite, follow Wikipedia’s procedures, and win by persistently presenting convincing arguments. Prepare for a long fight. The main weapon of anti-Assad Wikipedia editors is Wikipedia’s principle of using so-called “reliable sources”. However, there are now publications on the Douma report forgery in Western media outlets considered “reliable” by Wikipedia such as Mail on Sunday, so this principle no longer allows the anti-Assad editors to block the inclusion of this information. You just have to engage in Wikipedia community processes, and argue, and vote. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but you will be helping the truth prevail, rather than just voicing your frustration on Moon of Alabama.

Posted by: S | Jan 21 2020 15:13 utc | 11

Time to sue the hell out of these liars and drag them to ICC by Syria. Let them prove their innocence there and it will also solve visa problem when these liars will feel the heat and stop travelling to other countries for the fear of being arrested. State sponsored terror by those who are pretending to fight the terror!

Posted by: Test123 | Jan 21 2020 15:16 utc | 12

A War Crimes Tribunal is awaiting America, Britain, France, and their allies.

The Douma scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the American Axis' lies regarding not only Syria but many other nations (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc.) that these war criminal "democracies" have attacked.

Waging wars of aggression based on deceptions like "Syrian Weapons of Mass Destruction" cannot go unpunished.

Posted by: ak74 | Jan 21 2020 15:27 utc | 14

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:37 utc | 8

Just checked. It is outside of the reporting of German main stream media. Same as wikileaks - they don't mention their leaks any longer.

According to opinion polls most Germans are against German military involvement in Syria.

If you ask people in Germany about "disinformation, misrepresentation and absurdities" most would connect it to Trump not Putin. The German government took the extraordinary step to confirm that they had been blackmailed versus Iran by Trump threatening tariffs for the car industry. There is also the case of Nord Stream II which will be built though the US threw everything they had at it.

There is a German-Russian community and they watch Russian media. There used to be a push by Russia to "protect" "our Russians" against immigrants in Germany but after some stern talks this has stopped. I guess Russian support for AFD has also stopped.

It is obvious that Germany will insist on trade with Russia and China. All Putin has to do is wait for Trump (and Boris Johnson) to cut the last Atlantic bridge.

There is a German version of RT, I just had a look, they sound pretty mainstream and relaxed on the disinformation front. Actually most of the non-Western stuff nowadays looks like this - Press TV, Xinhua. I guess they feel they can be a contrast to Donald Trump's post fact era - which Bush's "truthiness" for invading Iraq has started.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 21 2020 15:38 utc | 15

>Yes, it’s time-consuming, but you will be helping
>the truth prevail, rather than just voicing your
>frustration on Moon of Alabama.
>Posted by: S | Jan 21 2020 15:13 utc | 11

If only this were true! Controversial topics are always controlled by some mysteriously self-appointed cliques. There are enough arbitrary rules and arbitrary enforcement to justify the deletion of "unapproved" facts.

The entry for "myalgic encephalomyelitis" has proven to be exceptionally hard to edit over a period of many years. Actually there is no entry for "myalgic encephalomyelitis": it automatically redirects to "chronic fatigue syndrome". Just try to change that; ordering the sea to retreat would be more fruitful.

I do find Wikipedia to be useful, however it needs to come attached to a giant BUYER BEWARE sign.

The industrial gas cylinder gently lying on a bed is obviously phony. The message is "We can do whatever the F* we want, make up any kind of sh*, and no one can stop us". It is good that these witnesses are testifying in an international forum, so that US sponsored deceptions and crimes are part of the record. Over time, the public record will show that more and people and institutions around the world are standing up and shouting "I Resist".

Posted by: Trailer Trash | Jan 21 2020 15:58 utc | 16

ak74 @ 14 says:

A War Crimes Tribunal is awaiting America, Britain, France, and their allies

in 2011 the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found former US president George W Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity, so they have a head start, but yeah, you just know that these criminal fuckers are shaking in their boots, what with the way things are trending and all. it'll be psychologically devastating for masses of Americans, though perhaps by that time the worst effects will have been ameliorated by all the writing on the wall.

Posted by: john | Jan 21 2020 16:12 utc | 17

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and Blair guilty ... and subsequently Malaysia seems to have been forced to pay a heavy price, namely MH370 and MH17.

Posted by: BM | Jan 21 2020 16:33 utc | 18

"... I am not a whistleblower. I don’t like that term."

Merrim-Webster:

Whistle-blower noun

one who reveals something covert or who informs against another.

A shout-out to Wikileaks would've been more appropriate than running away from the 'whistle-blower' designation.

Wikileaks, the service-provider to 'whistle-blowers', has been key to revealing info to the public about this matter. Especially the fact that it wasn't just Henderson that objected to the final report. The whole staff disagreed.

If not for Wikileaks, Henderson would've been dismissed as a disgruntled employee, a nutcase, and possibly a depressed loser (after his "suicide").

Corporate and government officials have tried hard to make 'whistle-blower' into a pejorative.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 21 2020 16:46 utc | 19

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and Blair guilty ... and subsequently Malaysia seems to have been forced to pay a heavy price, namely MH370 and MH17.
Posted by: BM | Jan 21 2020 16:33 utc | 18

Yes, apparently the final straw was when the President refused to accept US aid, rebellions ensued and a S compliant and apparently quite corrupt govt is now in place.

Posted by: frances | Jan 21 2020 16:59 utc | 21

re my 21 post: that should read US compliant

Posted by: frances | Jan 21 2020 17:00 utc | 22

Posted by: BM | Jan 21 2020 16:33 utc | 18

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and Blair guilty ... and subsequently Malaysia seems to have been forced to pay a heavy price, namely MH370 and MH17.

The youth in the Norwegian labour party advocated for boycotting Israel in 2011. A few days later about 70 of them were slaughtered on the Utøya island, supposedly by one man (even though survivors told there were more than one). The head of the party at that time was Jens Stoltenberg, now head of NATO.

Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 21 2020 17:16 utc | 23

Thanks for keeping this issue in the spotlight, b! The Outlaw US Empire continues to lie about Douma and the OPCW:

"The world will not forget the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons to kill dozens of civilians in #Syria in April 2018. Neither will the Syrian people. The Assad regime has a clear history of using these horrific weapons. Ask @OPCW."

The time has come when anything uttered by the Outlaw US Empire must be initially assumed to be false until evidence is produced proving what was said to be correct--and I mean everything.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 21 2020 17:18 utc | 24

Kudos b, for a valiant attempt to get the Truth out regarding the testimony at the UNSC re OPCW's 'alternative facts' pertaining to NATO's Douma conspiracy to smear Assad.
According to DW News, this week marks an important anniversary for 'Holocaust Survivors' in Germany. Thus the likelihood that the UNSC testimony will be the subject of truthful reporting in the "Israel Influenced" Western MSM is close to Zero. Which is a great pity considering what some of the so-called Holocaust Survivors have been doing in Palestine for 70+ years.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 21 2020 17:23 utc | 25

Sadly, the Nobel Peace Prize has historically been the exact opposite.
It isn't even for show - it is a pure credibility conveyance scam.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 21 2020 17:37 utc | 26

@ 11 S.... quote "Wikipedia is what we make it." no s.. it's a full on propaganda site funded for that purpose too... sure, people can go sign up and participate.. ask craig murray how that went...

Posted by: james | Jan 21 2020 17:45 utc | 27

As described by Times of London - an extremely poor response by western representatives at the UNSC, all ad hominem attacks and incredulity. This story has been brewing for months, with a fair amount of established detail on the process used to arrive at the published report. To attempt to use the OPCW's own weak retort that it was merely a "robust exchange of views" rather than conscious manipulation, a line of argument long superseded by the collected facts, shows the western representatives are feigning ignorance, and they do so confident that most news "consumers" are in fact ignorant of these matters because they are simply not reported.

Posted by: jayc | Jan 21 2020 18:05 utc | 28

Re Pyotr Berman

Lewis Carroll. How apt!

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”

― Lewis Carroll

Posted by: Harry | Jan 21 2020 18:07 utc | 29

Corruption and manipulation in western influenced and controlled institutions has become the norm in the West. The public has been normalized to blindly accepting lies by the political and corporate elites. The people are easily kept under control by narratives of fear and hate.

Truth and honesty from anything the western elites touch is now rare and precious.

Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jan 21 2020 18:15 utc | 30

A quick note about the chlorine "bombs" that were seen in Douma: Those are 100# propane tanks. ASME, DOT, and UN standards only require they have a burst pressure of up to 400psi (ASME is only 275psi). In normal operation propane only pressurizes the tanks to around 100psi. Because of this the tank walls are usually made of 10 or 11 gauge mild steel... about .125" thick.

For comparison SCUBA tanks operate up to 3000psi and have wall thicknesses of over .25"... twice as thick as a 100# propane tank. They are also made from higher grade steels and not plain old cold rolled.

Large high pressure gas cylinders are fairly rugged items, but even so I have a difficult time imagining one punching through steel reinforced concrete and remaining largely undamaged.

Propane gas tanks are NOT high pressure gas cylinders. They are flimsy in comparison. It is not surprising that the OPCW team that actually visited the site of the supposed bombing dismissed the terrorists' narrative. What is surprising is the number of supposedly non-stupid people who believe that the tanks were dropped from helicopters, punched through steel reinforced concrete, and came to rest in the condition seen in the photographs. It takes habituated suspension of disbelief of a population perpetually plugged into the boob tube to accept that nonsense.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 21 2020 18:21 utc | 31

What is "country X" that the inspector refers to?

Posted by: Nikos | Jan 21 2020 18:27 utc | 32

Only one thing need be said about Wikipedia: "Philip Cross"

Until obvious alphabet agency interference like that is openly dealt with, all Wikipedia is good for is looking up famous people's birthdays.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 21 2020 18:29 utc | 33

To be clear a Arria-formula is not a UN sanctioned any thing. It has no official transcript, has no legal basis and for the most part is meaningless and less effective than a press briefing on the side walk. This information given in the cafeteria will never be seen by the ICJ or ICC. If they couldn't get this on the UNSC agenda then they should have done it in the UNGA. Then there would at least be a transcript.

Every thing about the UN has been milatarized by the US and the UN need to be replaced by some thing that fits the modern world as the UN replaced the League of Nations.

Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Jan 21 2020 18:52 utc | 35

An update for Flight 752 storey from Press TV:
"The accidental and most regrettable downing of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS-752, may involve more than human error under incredibly tense conditions. With the plane’s IFF transponder switched off, the Tor missile defense system, which had reverted to manual operation because of an unknown source jamming communications, would have automatically identified the plane as “hostile”. The Iranian missile operator, unable to contact higher-ups for verification due to the disrupted communications and given the high level of alert, had little basis to question the hostile tag applied by Tor to the aircraft.

Given that the US military has known capabilities to alter or mask IFF transponder signals, as does the Israeli regime, it is entirely possible that this tragedy, which led some protesters to blame the Iranian government, may have been deliberately caused by the US in collusion with its Zionist ally in hopes of triggering their goal of regime change. While no clear evidence of tampering with the transponder has surfaced as yet, it is known that the 737-800, whose registration or “tail number” was UR-PSR, was photographed at the Israeli entity’s Ben Gurion Airport five times since March of 2017, the last time being on October 18, 2019 at approximately 2:40 in the afternoon."

Posted by: Smith | Jan 21 2020 18:53 utc | 36

I don't think the United States belongs on the Security Council of the United Nations. At the very least, this country ought to gracefully step down or recuse itself while impeachment matters are proceeding. I know this might indeed be impossible, but if it does not, that fact ought to be considered by the members of the Senate and Leader Chief Justice Roberts in their assessment of the need to depose the current president of the United States, and his minions.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 21 2020 18:58 utc | 37

Re: 33

Phillip Cross, inhumanely active Wikipedia editor, is a nemesis of Craig Murray. Today I use "free one month" of Times of London on-line subscription, Times being only "mainstream" reporter of the Russian presentation on OPCW at UN. One of the oddities was that German ambassador viewed technical studies of a Russian NGO as unreliable because -- they are friendly to their own government, something unheard of in Western counties? -- No! because they have claims like "Ukraine invaded Russia". But I also clicked to see what other stories they have on Russia. Strangely enough, this was one of the hit

Israel conspiracy peddler Craig Murray to address SNP activists
Kieran Andrews, Scottish Political Editor
January 21 2020, 12:01am,
The Times

TAGS: Nicola Sturgeon
Scottish National Party
UK politics
Syria
Middle East
LINK: Craig Murray has written on his blog that Israel was more likely to be behind the Salisbury novichok poisoning than Russian agents

A former British diplomat who has promoted a series of conspiracy theories, including that Israelis might have been behind the Salisbury poisoning, has been invited to address SNP activists.

Craig Murray is due to speak at the nationalists’ Braidburn branch in Edinburgh on Saturday on the same billing as Joanna Cherry, the party’s justice spokeswoman at Westminster. It is understood that Ms Cherry will not be present for his speech.

----
The gist is that Craig Murray is a despicable person, and SNPs proves itself to be a non-serious party by tolerating it in a neighborhood forum. This piece of news was a revelation to me, I actually like Craig Murray. In any case, the effort to get one-month-free paid off. Incidentally, it provides some clues how a person or organization can be tagged as conspiracy theory peddler.

Murray did not write that Israel probably was responsible for Scripal poisoning, but that it is a more probable candidate than Russia. From a point of view of German government, that would mean a super-confident accusation of Israel, given that Russia is such a certain candidate. An occasional reader of Murray's blog is aware that he is passionate about many causes, justice for Chagos island natives, independence of Scotland, wrongdoing of Westminster authorities, and Israel-Palestine has relatively very low priority. He used the phrase precisely to describe his evaluation of Russian role. In any case, an isolated remark without much of an intention was selected as a title for the piece. Methodology is clear: download all the posts etc., text search for the most "inflamatory topic", Israel probably for the start, and pull the sentence out of context. Use it for a title or a key argument, if you are a German ambassador.

I do not have tools to do the same, but the best match for Foundation of Study of Problems of Democracy "peddling idea of Ukrainian invasion on Russia" is a series devoted to crimes of "Ukrainian security forces" in Eastern Ukraine (Donbass). In any case, I am pretty sore about German performance. It is typical "liberal moderation". After doing a few of "good deeds", in German case, insisting on Nord Stream 2 being legal and allowed to be built and moment of feistiness defending the agreement with Iran etc., a balance is needed, and the balance is restored by shows of exemplary behavior of an Imperial Apparatchik. Reform healthcare and rape a few countries, that is American model, German version is more passive by comparison.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 19:03 utc | 39

In addition to the falsification of the report, now presented as undeniable fact to the Security Council, b takes note of two other atrocities - first:

"...Videos from Douma at the time of the incident showed some 30 bodies of dead persons. Most were children. It is up to day unknown who they were and who had murdered them. The OPCW manipulation of the original reports of its inspectors' findings is a cover up for that huge crime..."

There should be a thorough investigation of the identities of these victims. I am guessing the atrocities were perpetrated in a school, if most of the victims were children. Was it in this very building? Had some sort of hostage situation been taking place?

Secondly, the building totally destroyed and seen in b's coverage was one which researched medical and agricultural concerns for Syria - a huge loss in itself, not to mention if there were people within. I don't remember seeing news of that, would appreciate a link if anyone has it.

Thanks b, for your coverage here; it is most important. I had mentioned an argument with an anti-Assad person a while back. (Told him to come here and read; I hope he did.) His main point was the lie that Assad had 'gassed his own people.' Maybe I'll encounter him again.

I further think if the UN Security Council ignores this it will take on the same shade of black currently shrouding the USA. It's currently grey in my book.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 21 2020 19:21 utc | 40

@39 Piotr Berman.. thanks for that.. it is a pretty good overview on the msm and where we are in the world today...

Posted by: james | Jan 21 2020 19:27 utc | 41

As I see it the real problem is the UN based in the US. Not mentioned is that the OPCW inspector's testimony had to be given by Tele conference because he could not get a visa to attend. Remember too that the Iranian foreign minister has been refused a visa to attend the UN. Remember that Bustani was forced to resign as the head of OPCW because of vile,naked threats against his family.

Posted by: Robert | Jan 21 2020 19:35 utc | 42

@ Norwegian # 30

Thank you very much for this absolutely disgusting information. Sheds a different light on the Breivik-affair. :-(

Posted by: Paleene | Jan 21 2020 19:38 utc | 43

"What is surprising is the number of supposedly non-stupid people who believe that the tanks were dropped from helicopters, punched through steel reinforced concrete, and came to rest in the condition seen in the photographs."
Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 21 2020 18:21 utc | 31

Agreed. I've never understood why the Russians haven't filmed the dropping of a few similar cylinders from helicopters at various heights....onto flat roofs of concrete apartment blocks.....so that everyone can see the result for comparison instead of endless theorising. You'd have thought the OPCW inspectors would have done this....but no mention of it.

Posted by: Guy THORNTON | Jan 21 2020 19:39 utc | 44

Smith@36 - PressTV: "..With the plane’s IFF transponder switched off,..."

Civilian aircraft have ATC SSR radar transponders, not military IFF transponders.

IFF aircraft interrogations are ALWAYS military only and ALWAYS encrypted. Their only job, if used by the TOR, is to confirm that a radar target was an Iranian military aircraft. PS752 1) couldn't understand encrypted TOR IFF interrogations, 2) wouldn't be able to provide encrypted replies to any TOR IFF interrogations, and 3) would still be considered "not an Iranian military aircraft" by the TOR. PS752's transponder would need a military IFF encoder/decoder which it does not have.

Likewise, TORs and their acquisition radars DO NOT have civilian ATC SSR radar capabilities to identify civilian aircraft. They do NOT interrogate civilian aircraft for ID, altitude, GPS or any other information, nor do they listen for civilian aircraft ADS-B broadcasts which also provide that information.

Surveillance radars higher up in the air defense network may have civilian aircraft ID capability and can assign appropriate IDs to radar targets BEFORE they appear on the TORs radar screen, but that requires a good data link to the network. That encrypted data link (also used for voice communications) was down at the time, and any ID information that may have been assigned by higher layers of the Iranian AD network wouldn't have appeared on the TOR or been considered by its classification and targeting software.

Sorry - I don't know how else to explain this. PressTV doesn't understand the distinction, nor does it understand the TORs capabilities.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Jan 21 2020 19:39 utc | 45

@42 thank you. This about the visa denial should be amplified also.

Posted by: lindaj | Jan 21 2020 19:50 utc | 46

Paveway we love you, but don't start another technical fill in on this thread! The subject at hand is important enough.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 21 2020 19:58 utc | 47

Having watched the UNSC meeting concerning the OPCW perfidious economy with fact, the British permanent envoy to the UN's 'performance' made it hard to not think the 'woman' would make the perfect character to fill the part of the lead concubine for Star Wars Jabba the Hutt, the demeanour, the ethics (doubtlessly supplied by Integrity Initiative), the appearance.
Wondrous things are made on that small island just off the coast of Europe, and some should be best kept there. Poor Europe, so far from heaven, so close to Britain.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Jan 21 2020 20:02 utc | 48

@39 If things go according to the SNP plans Scotland will be needing a lot of new and expensive embassies. Kieran Andrews is probably hoping to become the Scottish ambassador to Israel.

Posted by: dh | Jan 21 2020 20:06 utc | 49

25 Horsey,
Check out the Committee on the Open Debate ON the Holocaust
CODOH
You can watch the Nuremberg trial, or check out many issues that make up this part of History.
Ron Unz himself a Jew has a website Ron Unz which leads the way on this special topic.
Be ready to question everything.

Posted by: col from Oz | Jan 21 2020 20:17 utc | 50

Fortunately for us it takes great skill to produce a phony piece of footage that looks real. People like Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg didn't just pick up a camera and make good movies, they spent years learning those skills before becoming true artists. It's not a skill many secret agents or jihadist will have studied and that's why what they produce is easily picked apart.

It also explains why false flag footage is getting shorter or from a distance, as in the November London Bridge baloney. Soon there'll be no footage at all, they're that poor at producing it. We'll just be expected to take their word that it really happened in the way they said it did. Then more people will recognise a phony event, when there's no more BS footage to "prove" it happened.

Posted by: Michael McNulty | Jan 21 2020 21:24 utc | 51

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 19:03 utc | 39

Surely, this is theater?

Christoph Heusgen, by the way, seems to have a problem having friends.

This here is a recent December 2019 Jerusalem Post article on his difficulties.

Germany’s foreign ministry made a last-minute attempt to prevent its UN ambassador’s inclusion on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual top ten list of worst outbreaks of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents, prompting a flat rejection from the human rights organization. The Jerusalem Post obtained a December 13 letter written by Andreas Michaelis, State Secretary of the German Federal Foreign Office, pleading with the Wiesenthal Center to reverse its decision. “I consider this a big mistake,” wrote Michaelis, adding “The list has not yet been published…I would greatly appreciate if you were to reconsider your decision.” Heusgen and his boss, foreign minister Heiko Maas, have been under fire for nearly two years for voting against Israel at the UN. In March, Heusgen compared the US and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas with Israel.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 21 2020 21:25 utc | 52

Juliania @ 40:

Based on other online news I have seen in the past, I think it is likely that the dead children shown in the videos had been kidnapped by the takfiris in various villages and other communities, targeted for being Orthodox Christian or Alawite believers, over the years. If the videos have no time stamps on them, then we have no way of knowing how long these children have been dead; they could have been dead for years and the videos themselves of equal vintage before the takfiris decided to make them public. The children may not all be from the same community or school; they could have been grouped together before they were killed or their bodies removed from where they were murdered and then grouped together.

The children may not even have been killed by CWs. I have seen some online photos of Syrian children said to have died from CW suffocation and in some of those photos, there was evidence of blunt force trauma around the hairline near the foreheads and ears.

The only way we'd know the identities of the children is if their families and communities are able to come forward and see the videos and other visual evidence. That's if the relatives are still alive or still in Syria.

Mother Agnes Mariam el Sahib, speaking to RT, on the video footage purporting to show dead victims of CW attacks (August 2013) in East Ghouta:

"... I have carefully studied the footage, and I will present a written analysis on it a bit later. I maintain that the whole affair was a frame-up. It had been staged and prepared in advance with the goal of framing the Syrian government as the perpetrator.

The key evidence is that Reuters made these files public at 6.05 in the morning. The chemical attack is said to have been launched between 3 and 5 o’clock in the morning in Guta. How is it even possible to collect a dozen different pieces of footage, get more than 200 kids and 300 young people together in one place, give them first aid and interview them on camera, and all that in less than three hours? Is that realistic at all? As someone who works in the news industry, you know how long all of it would take.

The bodies of children and teenagers we see in that footage – who were they? What happened to them? Were they killed for real? And how could that happen ahead of the gas attack? Or, if they were not killed, where did they come from? Where are their parents? How come we don’t see any female bodies among all those supposedly dead children?

I am not saying that no chemical agent was used in the area – it certainly was. But I insist that the footage that is now being peddled as evidence had been fabricated in advance. I have studied it meticulously, and I will submit my report to the UN Human Rights Commission based in Geneva ..."

The girls may have been separated from other hostages to be married off to takfiris or used in sex trafficking schemes; or if dead, their bodies disposed of somehow. The extreme religious beliefs of ISIS, al Nusra and other takfiris probably don't allow them to touch the bodies of dead women and girls.

Posted by: Jen | Jan 21 2020 21:35 utc | 53

PavewayIV - please do continue to share your tech knowledge AND your wisdom. Very much appreciated by many of us. For the others - really kids, you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

Posted by: Miss Lacy | Jan 21 2020 21:42 utc | 54

Posted by: PavewayIV | Jan 21 2020 19:39 utc | 45

Paveway, I Dd not believe this is correct. An IFF military ground based
interrogator integrates the mode 3,C civilian identification protocols.
For example, the Buk Telar, not only has an IFF system, but includes
safety measures that prevent the lock and launch of the missile in the
case of civilain airliners. All this information is easily researched on
the net.

Posted by: evilempire | Jan 21 2020 21:43 utc | 55

"Check out the Committee on the Open Debate ON the Holocaust
CODOH" #50

What I find more interesting still is why we in the West hear and read so little about the 25 plus million citizens of the USSR who perished in WW2?

The number of Jewish victims of the Nazis doesn't seem as important to me as it apparently does to those who use it as a tip of their spear. Indeed there is a lot to be learned, and the stories passed down by those who were actually there during that period can shed considerable light. My parents were in Europe during that period and one of them gave me some insights. The other died from wounds suffered fighting the German Army before I was old enough for him to speak to me of his experiences and perspectives.

Still, I think it terribly unfair of Western media owners, think tanks etc. to purposely ignore the suffering of the people of the Soviet Union while focusing on the suffering of the Jewish people almost exclusively. As my Mother conveyed to me, all Jewish people in that time didn't suffer equally and as there wasn't an anti Jewish bone in her body, I believe and cherish her rare but candid remarks.

I remember the light hearted and often humorous recollections of Mother's encounters with local Jewish people and how she and her Father enjoyed shopping in their establishments, fond memories and the entertainment value of haggling. A positive encounter here and there, while out for a walk, kind words exchanged. A kindly old Gent stopping to admire her new born; "Such a beautiful poy he said..such a phat poy." A rotund child was a symbol of accomplishment and station in past times, their times in the Continents when many didn't have enough to eat.

Then the matter of fact accounts of how rich European Jews who left the Continent b4 the Blitzkrieg lived in her country throughout the war years. I suppose one shouldn't be terribly surprised that money does buy certain privileges, regardless of who has it.

I do however yearn for the underlying respect in all of that, when people are left to decide on their own how to interact with one another. That in a time of great horror, should also be given due consideration by thinking people. By decent people.

Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 21 2020 21:59 utc | 56

Thanks for the OPCW follow up b.

The only problem that I have with it coming up at the UN is the timing being within the US Senate trial of Trump. If I was a conspiracy type I would say it was timed for during this period to provide max distraction.

Maybe instead it is more part of the awakening process that must be going on for some/many during this humanity circus time.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 21 2020 22:19 utc | 57

"Sorry - I don't know how else to explain this. PressTV doesn't understand the distinction, nor does it understand the TORs capabilities."

Posted by: PavewayIV | Jan 21 2020 19:39 utc | 45

But 7 civilian planes had passed that area before. How to explain that?

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 21 2020 22:26 utc | 58

Bubbles @56--

What I find more interesting still is why we in the West hear and read so little about the 25 plus million citizens of the USSR who perished in WW2?

Prewar virulent Anti-Communism said that all those people constituted a threat to Western Values, which was amplified by the Cold War slogan: Better Dead Than Red. As such, your genuine concern is extremely rare--it's akin to wanting to know about the fate of all the Native American children who were stolen from their parents and raised in WASP homes, or being at all concerned with the US Citizens placed into Concentration Camps during WW2. Humans deemed non-people end up ignored like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons--nobody weeps for Wil E. Coyote.

As for stories about the survivors, I know many exist in Russian. There are a few in English that detail the siege of Leningrad, for example. Some of the latest newsreel compilations of Russian Front battles depict civilians caught up in it all. I recall one about the Battle of Kursk where the civilian population greatly aided their soldiers in constructing fortifications and such. But many at the outset in 1940 were merely crushed. Of the Allied leaders, Henry Wallace came away with the greatest admiration for the Soviet peoples, but then he was the only one to actually visit the USSR during the war. In today's context, few have shown any concern for the Outlaw US Empire's targets with only Code Pink and its affiliates I know of as helpful.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 21 2020 22:49 utc | 59

I read the comments at this site quite often, more now that I have become a refugee from one on the most prominent trump propaganda sites where I spent the last year or 3 calling out trump's lies, the troll army and the rich Bulgarian who runs the site to publish ongoing trump biased spin. Profit for the Bulgarian being the reason detre, who might just be part of trump's dirty Russian Oligarch connection. The Yeltsin crew. The International Vultures.

That said, what I find missing here is not what the blog / site owner posts, it's what the commentariat focus on. The small ball.

Allow me to quote my step father who has long since passed from this earth.

"All the ins and outs of a pigs arse"

Never mind the pigs arse, see the big picture and if you so choose, discuss that please.

Putin isn't looking to blow up the world, trump is a tool, America's secret weapon is ?? 330 million people dictating who can trade with who and how in a world of 7 plus billion? How long do you suppose that can last?

ie Dimitri Firtash might well be in the pocket of Semion Mogelivich, but how does that mafia differ from Cheney being charged by Nigeria for corruption and his past employer Haliburton paying several hundred million dollars to make the problem go away? And that's one floater that came to the surface.

Keep your eye on the ball...not the pigs arse.

Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 21 2020 23:06 utc | 60

@ Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 21 2020 23:06 utc | 60 who wrote
"
Keep your eye on the ball...not the pigs arse.
"

Welcome to the MoA bar. Some of us here try to make big picture sort of observations while staying on posting topic or over on the latest Open Thread. If you have been here long you have seen comment streams that get into the weeds and reduce the posting related adding of value.

I have taken to finding out the commenter first and then decide to read or not....life is short.

Back to the OPCW truth outing which b has done such a good job on.....

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 21 2020 23:23 utc | 61

Paveway, here is further confirmation that the Tor's IFF system
does have the capability to identify civilian aircraft:

"William Mackenzie, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, says air-crash investigators will have to determine why “Identification Friend or Foe” (IFF) technology failed. The Tor-M1 is normally fitted with an IFF system to discern whether a suggested target is a civilian aircraft or a military foe. A civilian aircraft’s transponder normally broadcasts a signal that can be read and processed by corresponding technology on the air-defence system. “If either wasn’t properly utilizing IFF, the chances of a mistake drastically increase,” Mr. Mackenzie said."

Posted by: evilempire | Jan 21 2020 23:37 utc | 62

Posted by: evilempire | Jan 21 2020 23:37 utc | 62

Did you not read my posts? About focusing on a pigs arse? Are you totally oblivious of the reality that surrounds you?

The reps of the Empire will tell you what to think, the Reality TVee stah trump will howl, his Far Far right billionaire vicious backers will spread anti rational propaganda far and wide.

Resist their hate. Keep your eye on the ball.

Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 21 2020 23:57 utc | 63

Thanks very much, Jen @ 53! I hadn't seen that report and it certainly does make sense.

I myself do go to the pertinent thread for information, or if there isn't one, to the open threads. And it is a good idea when looking for specific posters to check the righthand column, which I do each day. I'd certainly have a look for such as Paveway there, for instance, each time I come, and several others also. I did not mean to say he shouldn't post, just that there are other places more suitable. (I have to confess to having erred myself in the past, when a subject has attracted my attention, but b has gone to the trouble to put all of this together, so I think we should have a conversation about the topic. It's hard to keep track when many are introduced, unless the forum has been declared an open one.)

And there, I've done it again! ;(

Posted by: juliania | Jan 22 2020 0:07 utc | 64

Hi B,
if those containers had several 10's of kilograms of liquid chlorine, wouldn't we expect everything to be bleached white? Common household bleach releases chlorine and it basically makes everything white when a applied in small amount to cloth, wool or wood. Surely if 90kg of liquid Cl2 was released in a small room everything, the linen, the bed and the bedboard would be bright white. The OPCW scientists are correct in blowing the whistle. From a scientific point of view the whole OPCW report is an embarrassing joke. I think the scientists are trying to bring the pols back to some semblance of reality.

Posted by: CJ | Jan 22 2020 0:11 utc | 65

I'll ask another question here to redeem myself. Do we know what the process in the Security Council will be after hearing this report? Is there a number of days before they vote upon the issue, or do they vote at all? I do agree with Robert that the visa difficulties would suggest that the UN needs to find a new home in a country that would not bring such matters to that unhelpful conclusion. Very sad, given how instrumental the US Government originally was in encouraging that body to be formed in the first place.

I still hope our long nightmare in the US will dissolve itself somehow. Empires do snuff out...eventually. Or simply come to their senses.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 22 2020 0:14 utc | 66

(That was Robert @ 42, sorry.)

Posted by: juliania | Jan 22 2020 0:16 utc | 67

@ Robert 42 and Juliana 66

UN had best hurry and relocate to Switzerland. Trump is building a wall. As per WSJ

Trump White House Planning to Add Seven More Countries to Travel Ban List - Report

The Trump administration plans to add seven more countries to its travel ban list, namely Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, which cited two administration officials who have seen the list.

According to the report, not all of the countries would face blanket bans on US travel. Some of the countries could have restrictions placed on certain visa types, including business or visitor vias. The unidentified administration officials also stated that the list isn't final.[.]

The current version of the executive order, also referred to as travel ban 3.0, bars travelers from seven countries including five Muslim-majority nations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — in addition to North Korea and Venezuela, Sputnik reported.

MIAGA. When will people Wake Up?

Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 22 2020 0:52 utc | 68

The OPCW has put a black stain on its credibility by allowing political interference. Unless there is a complete house cleaning of persons responsible, the organization will never regain its former reputation. Every future investigation will be tainted with the smell of the current deceit, and all previous investigations (ie. Skripals) are now in question.

What truly amazes me about humanity and specifically the West, is how otherwise intelligent people can believe utter nonsense. It seems some expert or government official can appear in the media and make, in my mind, obviously false claims without any evidence and be believed by a large portion of the populace.

"Anybody that the bureaucrats in the US government designate evil is automatically accepted as a devil by the media, and then by the people at-large. It’s easy to transform humans into a bunch of hooting and panting chimpanzees who want to kill the other tribe across the watering hole." - Doug Casey

Posted by: Dick | Jan 22 2020 0:56 utc | 69

And the real problem with disinformation being debunked is, that the truth, never finds it's way into main stream news, so the U$A's public can hear it.

99% of MSM"news", here in the U$A, is worthless propganda for the corporate empire.

Posted by: ben | Jan 22 2020 1:00 utc | 70

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 21 2020 22:49 utc | 59

"As for stories about the survivors, I know many exist in Russian. There are a few in English that detail the siege of Leningrad, for example. "

It's important for people to be aware of history, real history not distorted history. Churchill acknowledged the real history. Must have pained him a bit given his political bent and who he served. But his acknowledgement was a rare moment of complete honesty.

The Soviet Union by hook or by crook, by threat or by forced conscription "tore the the guts out of the German Army" as Churchill once said.

Fast forward to waving Old Glory down at the Courthouse. Astute historians have summarized it all with a few simple words...most wisdoms are conveyed that way, with a few words.

The Soviet Union won the war, the United States won the peace... That didn't happen by accident.

Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 22 2020 1:14 utc | 71

William Gruff @ 31

Hi William, I work in gas cylinder retail and those cylinders do look like chlorine cylinders, or have at least been painted in the correct colour. They could be of South Asian manufacture. See examples at: https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/new-brand-chlorine-cylinders-1588323062.html

But your point does stand. They are qualitatively equivalent to Propane/LPG cylinders. Sulfur Dioxide cylinders are another hazardous gas that are sold in cylinders that have similar specs. At the very least those fairings that help them stand would have been sheered off by any impact at the cylinders' terminal velocity.

Posted by: Aristonicus | Jan 22 2020 1:40 utc | 72

Robert | Jan 21 2020 19:35 utc | 42:

It's time for the UN to relocate to a neutral location. Ideally the Moon would be great but we're centuries away from that reality. The best solution is to relocate to a nation that's not a permanent member of the UNSC. Nairobi would be my pick.

Dick | Jan 22 2020 0:56 utc | 69:

The OPCW has put a black stain on its credibility by allowing political interference. Unless there is a complete house cleaning of persons responsible, the organization will never regain its former reputation. Every future investigation will be tainted with the smell of the current deceit, and all previous investigations (ie. Skripals) are now in question.

Every Western created international organization is now in question. I'm expecting similar behavior with the IAEA in the coming months as the push for war against Iran intensify.

Posted by: Ian2 | Jan 22 2020 1:50 utc | 73

kakistocracy (plural kakistocracies)

Government under the control of a nation’s worst or least-qualified citizens.

Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Jan 22 2020 2:48 utc | 74

Posted by: Arch Mangle | Jan 21 2020 14:04 utc | @3

Wikipedia covers scientific and engineering topics relatively accurately, albeit in a mostly useless and pedantic manner. They do this to suggest neutrality, which is then thoroughly abused when dealing with political or religous issues. Wikipedia is used as camouflage for Zionist/Talmudic propaganda.

Posted by: fritten | Jan 22 2020 4:21 utc | 75

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:37 utc | @8

You are referring to the population, not the government, surely? The government, especially Merkel and her puppets, are thoroughly into the EU/NATO/Zionist cool-aid. The exceptions where she makes political sense is probably the result of relentless pressure from the powerfull industrial/manufacturing-lobbies.

Posted by: trind | Jan 22 2020 4:25 utc | 76

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 19:03 utc | @39

Germany gov officials are gutless NATO/EU/Zionist puppets per definition. No unvetted German gets into an influential government position, the country is still under occupation, and you can feel the visciousness of the Anglo-Zionist jackboot on the german neck even to this day. In the former Soviet sector, this jackboot was lifted after the fall of the USSR, which is why East-Germans are more enlightened than the rest, and why many patriotic Germans think that any peace-treaty will be with Russia, and not the "allies".

Posted by: tridle | Jan 22 2020 4:38 utc | 77

UN is a joke. Its only useful purpose is it makes it easier to pull the nation puppets strings from a single location, not to mention boosting the local NYC economy for housing, travel, entertainment and education.

Let it move to Siberia , Gaza or Wuhan , someplace like that, a hardship posting for puppets, but its doing fine for the elites where it is so dont hold your breath.

Posted by: Pft | Jan 22 2020 4:50 utc | 78

It seems that Germany was on the frontline of the fight against "disinformation, misrepresentation and absurdities". Is the population sufficiently insulated from them?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:37 utc | 8

You are referring to the population, not the government, surely? The government ...

Posted by: trind | Jan 22 2020 4:25 utc | 76

It seems clear that the government and "responsible media" strive to keep "absurdities" from contaminating the population. What is a German peculiarity is that it actually has an economy with considerable weight, and on top of that, an economy that operates on somewhat different principles that the Anglo-Saxon model. They remain mediocre as a financial center, they shun property bubbles, and they maintain industrial base to a much larger extend. Hence pressure on industrial interest to trade more with Russia, Iran etc.,.
In particular, Germany is not so great in weapons, not dominant in consumer goods but huge in industrial machinery, so guess who is potentially a larger importer, KSA, Russia or Iran? Unlike KSA, the other two are actually keen in building industry. The irony is that Germany is supposedly a capitalist country, and CDU/CSU, a capitalist country, and yet the poor capitalist have such a hard time.

Yet, Atlanticism prevails when the push comes to shove, with modest exception. So a naive me would expect that there would be some electoral recoil. But a major part of the electoral upheaval is the increase of Greens who seem to be a very nice and tame Atlanticist creature.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 5:17 utc | 80

Sorry for typos, please be creative readers (e.g. CDU is supposedly a capitalist party).

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 5:24 utc | 81

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 5:17 utc | @80

The Greens are the German War Party. Confirmed by many astute political observers. They have voted for foreign intervention whenever they could, and resisted detente with Russia. They are aligned with the most rabid Anglo-Zionist positions. They are currently financed by Soros, and probs are a CIA creature oroginally. The Green ideology is used to lure the youth, environmentalists and average Germans who are genuinely concerned about the environment. Classical environmentalist (which is a necessary policy) is purposely conflated with global warming/cooling (which is an ideology). Greens receive massive support from the media which is why their numbers are so inflated. It is estimated that 80% of reporters are Green voters. Its a ruse.

Posted by: gtr | Jan 22 2020 5:56 utc | 82

Thanks very much, Tom @ 79. Fisk is a good writer. So is Abu Tayyib al-Mutanabbi!

Posted by: juliania | Jan 22 2020 5:58 utc | 83

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 5:24 utc | @81

CDU was created/permitted by the Axis powers to bind the conservative middle class to the US/West (Westanbindung) and prevent the resurgence of German Nationalism, or the trend to neutrality (Swiss model). The German Free Market era was under Ludwig Erhard, who genuinely understood the concept of Social-Free-Market Capitalism. The so-called Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) concided with his stint as economics minister and chancellor. Nowadays the CDU is nominally capitalist, but in reality protects the vested interests of the capitalist class, landowners, monopolists, industrialists, banks etc, and of course the EU/NATO axis. That is not the same thing as being capitalist/free market, and certainly not the Social-Free-Market Capitalism of Erhard.

Posted by: tzin | Jan 22 2020 6:08 utc | 84

b wrote:

"Using the Arria-formula, a procedure to have witnesses testify to the UN Security Council, Russia and China invited other UN members to listen to the testimony of OPCW inspector Ian Henderson.“
One can fairly say that this event is not reported or mentioned in the German MSM. It seems not to exist. In every day's life the OPCW does not appear as a corrupted instition. If it is mentioned as such the usual reaction is conspiracy theory.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 22 2020 8:12 utc | 85

Posted by: fritten | Jan 22 2020 4:21 utc | 75

"Wikipedia covers scientific and engineering topics relatively accurately, albeit in a mostly useless and pedantic manner. They do this to suggest neutrality, which is then thoroughly abused when dealing with political or religous issues. Wikipedia is used as camouflage for Zionist/Talmudic propaganda."

No doubt that's a broad-arc purpose of what's certainly a Wikipedia deliberate policy: To have the entries for scientific topics become useless to the general public by having them be maintained exclusively by and for technical specialists.

But I think there are more specific purposes of this. It reinforces the scientism ideology that science is rightfully the province only of system-credentialed specialists and technocratic bureaucrats. And if a non-specialist wants to disregard this authoritarian decree and attempts to do research in spite of it, Wikipedia presents this strong barrier of illegibility in order to discourage that.

Thus, regarding our topic, I suspect a non-specialist would have a hard time using Wikipedia to assess the conflicting technical claims about these alleged gas attacks and who might have perpetrated them if they ever did happen.

In this way Wikipedia works to deter citizen self-education and citizen journalism.

Posted by: Russ | Jan 22 2020 8:33 utc | 86

Nowadays the CDU is nominally capitalist, but in reality protects the vested interests of the capitalist class, landowners, monopolists, industrialists, banks etc, and of course the EU/NATO axis. That is not the same thing as being capitalist/free market, and certainly not the Social-Free-Market Capitalism of Erhard.

Posted by: tzin | Jan 22 2020 6:08 utc | 84

A capitalist party, IMHO, caters to existing capitalists and not some utopian vision of free enterprise -- same for social components. But there seems to be a gap between people who want to produce Germany and sell to any country that invests in its industry and infrastructure, those who wouldn't like to pay more for energy than they have to, and "necessities of Atlantic solidarity" or whatever the slogan is (I imagine a single longish word here).

Then there are little things like a global company vacuuming a percentage of advertising spending in most of countries into some land of no taxes. European would be wise to capture part of it as taxes with no detriment to their own capitalists, not to mention the little people, but the vaguely existing land of no taxes somehow can marshal the most powerful military and most ferocious sanction machine in the history of the globe (the former looms and the latter bites). If EU has any sense, it is to defend its members from such depredations, but even as they are insulted, threatened and sanctions, they shlep to those sad, sad meetings to vilify the Russians, transmit threats to Iran etc. Collective wisdom of EU members seem to add to zero, even with a departure of UK.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 8:40 utc | 87

It is estimated that 80% of reporters are Green voters. Its a ruse.

Posted by: gtr | Jan 22 2020 5:56 utc | 82

I guess Greens should oppose direct military involvement, military vehicles having ridiculous fuel consumption etc. But sanctions, at least in design, tend to decrease carbon emissions, more destitute people having to eat fewer animal proteins, burn less fuel etc., So Green may like sanctions.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 8:48 utc | 88

@30 Nikos.

It was turkey.

The FFM ground team was in Douma Syria, the 'core' team was in turkey.

Posted by: S.O. | Jan 22 2020 9:15 utc | 89

i wonder how many people who try to conflate climatology with warmongering or atlanticism or whatever are paid by the fossil fuel industry.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 22 2020 9:18 utc | 90

the u.s. military is a money machine. it exists to protect the corporations and banks that make life increasingly precarious, and to perpetuate the profits of defense contractors and fossil fuel companies. but hey, let's worry about big green and scientism and anything else in order to ignore this basic fact. war is a racket, and british petroleum and exxon are some of the major racketeers. if you want to support warmongering, support the racketeers and their propaganda.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 22 2020 9:22 utc | 91

Posted by: Aristonicus | Jan 22 2020 1:40 utc | 72
"At the very least those fairings that help them stand would have been sheered off by any impact at the cylinders' terminal velocity.“

This is what hits the nail. And it is accessible for any "citizen self-education and citizen journalism“ ( Russ | Jan 22 2020 8:33 utc | 86)

As one commentator at Craig Murrays blog took it: Wikipedia is an excellent source - as long as it concerns South-Malayian tree frogs. For more complex topics like climatic change it is not like this. These are dominated by hidden political interests that can fool the alt right and especially "patriotic Germans" with ease.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 22 2020 9:27 utc | 92

juliania #66

I do agree with Robert that the visa difficulties would suggest that the UN needs to find a new home in a country that would not bring such matters to that unhelpful conclusion.

Establishing the UN in one country was fine in the days of poor speed telecommunications. The entire Un should be a multi national establishment and distributed across the globe where technical and administrative mechanisms suit. There is no reason for Un to be centralised in USA in these day of excellent communications systems. Multinational corporations and vast states like Russia that span half the planet can achieve these things.

The blatant hoax of the OPCW Douma exercise is simply an insult to the common sense of humanity. The fact that so many children were sacrificed to give gravity to this hoax is simply macabre beyond belief. The OPCW is complicit in a crime against humanity and refuses to acknowledge it. Each and every one of the scientists that participated should give recorded testimony of what they know of the origins and fate of those children. THAT is an absolute priority evidence collection.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Jan 22 2020 10:10 utc | 93

Posted by: gtr | Jan 22 2020 5:56 utc | 82
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 22 2020 5:17 utc | 80

This walks the eternal revolution triangle of freedom, equality and solidarity. The balance is different in European countries but that is the triangle they move in. Freedom is always the freedom of capitalism, solidarity is limiting the freedom of capitalism, same as equality.

You have to follow the history of the Greens back to May 68, which had the function to offer the Western public a left wing movement independent of and opposed to the traditional Soviet Bloc linked Communist parties. Which was overdue.

Green anti-authoritarianism (and the knowledge that Germans had been liberated from fascism and from their own military elite by war) makes them fall for interventionism from Bosnia to Kurdistan.

The framing of conflicts as "humanitarian intervention" is a trick for "Green" target groups.

They did not fall for the Iraq war but were convinced to "act responsible" in Bosnia.

For Greens Russian authoritarianism and the Chinese surveillance state are unattractive models. They fall for cultural colonialism considering their lifestyle superior to other people's life. And some of them are prepared to "liberate" other people with the gun (if it is not them who have to do the fighting).

But frankly, the problem I have with the US are not USians but is Trump et al. So should Bernie Sanders win the next US elections I am transatlanticist.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 22 2020 10:18 utc | 94

@ Russ | Jan 22 2020 8:33 utc | 86 (about the gas cylinder(s).

Any bright high-school kid who's been through the math curriculum and has some calculus can tell you, give you, a range of terminal velocities in air at that elevation. You have to assume that the thing fell in the "best" attitude, and also the "worst" attitude - a matter of aerodynamic drag. Obviously there's a terminal velocity - somewhere about 200 feet per second. There's a minimum altitude above which it doesn't fall any faster because of drag...and it has a krappy drag coefficient. You have to work with the numbers to get a fine understanding...but it's the sort of question you'd see in a university engineering exam.

The mass is assumed to be something like 100 pounds. Do the math.

Then there's the question of concrete quality...it's highly heterogeneous..but you can assume it's top quality, and estimate the rebar density and thickness from the pretty pictures.

And you can assume zero projectile deformation (not even straps torn off!!?) and the hole's not big enough.

The story's bull.

Posted by: Walter | Jan 22 2020 12:30 utc | 95

Posted by: Walter | Jan 22 2020 12:30 utc | 95

Of course. Intelligence services wordwide and their governments knew this as soon as they saw the image.

But Western main stream media does not report on it.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 22 2020 12:39 utc | 96

If one uses a search engine for "Ian Henderson OPCW" there is still no MSM report about it. Only Al-Bab, apparently a smear piece. Therefore in Germany the narrative of the poisonous-gas-Assad can go on and impress the public opinion, including the part that supports the Green Party.

Posted by: Hausmeister | Jan 22 2020 13:37 utc | 97

somebody @96: "But Western main stream media does not report on it."

Of course not. The western corporate mass media does not have among their workforce "Any bright high-school kid who's been through the math curriculum and has some calculus..." that Walter @95 points out as being a prerequisite to see how bogus is the narrative they are tasked with amplifying. The workforce chose to major in Journalism specifically because they had difficulties with basic arithmetic, with such heartless and unyielding topics as addition and subtraction being forever beyond them in the absence of a calculator.

Many think I exaggerate or am joking, but this is literal truth. These individuals of which the corporate mass media are composed get their conception of physics from crappy syfy movies in which spaceship blasters make "Pew-pew!!" noises in the vacuum of space. If it is necessary for the plot that a flimsy canister is able to punch through steel rebar reinforced concrete with barely a scratch, then they are fine with it. If these new age journalists' "contact" in Langley (what we know to be their "handler" or "operator") says it is believable, they won't pause for an instant to question.

After all, earnest delusion and ignorance serves the Mockingbird mass media's handlers in the CIA far better than does cynical and deliberate deception, though that last does have a sizable role to play as well. Deliberate deception is difficult and requires some skill, while any American can do stupidity with the greatest of ease.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 22 2020 13:48 utc | 98

I still hope our long nightmare in the US will dissolve itself somehow. by: juliania @ 66 <=The declaration of independence supports your wish but the US Constitution spells out a document designed to deny its success. Thank you for revealing that the claim made by the few Framers at Philadelphia, that they had framed a governmental organization that suited them, and that people they hired [the governors], would take all human and democratic rights from the governed and then turn around and license those same rights just taken back to those it takes them from <=was working quite well.. Maybe you are one of those deplorables Mrs Hillary speaks of? Speaking as a super elite I think the plan the Aristocratic Framers worked out in 1788 is working quite well.

pretzelattack @ 91 <==I thought the defense machine protects democracy, not the profits of corporations, banks, defense contractors and fossil fuel companies from bad or unprofitable experiences> . . I thought propaganda protects them all. by: pretzelattack @ 91.. Thanks for straightening me out.

Posted by: snake | Jan 22 2020 14:21 utc | 99

William Gruff | Jan 22 2020 13:48 utc | 98

That's right. I used to know the guys at Gannet in a major US city. Nice people, but not technically aware, and politically-philosophically innocent. Naifs. Put on nice parties where they chatted about their pasts in foreign places entirely unaware of the objective and obvious exploitation going on right before their eyes.

I might add that the engineering students dread, as a rule, English 1-A, and do, generally, quite poorly. (My wife used to teach that class)

The result is a nice antipodal bar-bell shaped arrangement whereby neither group sees reality, but only a simulacrum of one part or another.

In this regard, Yasha Levine > " Weaponizing Fascism for Democracy: The Beginning " Begins in the DP camps...

I've said before that the plans to nuke USSR were being drawn prior to the Trinity test. Levine's essay buttresses this quite well, though essentially in background...he says nothing about the bomb. He doen't have to...

Posted by: Walter | Jan 22 2020 14:30 utc | 100