by Tony Cartalucci: 5 Lies Invented to Spin UN Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack!

As predicted days before the UN's Syrian chemical weapons report was made public, the West has begun spinning the findings to bolster their faltering narrative regarding alleged chemical weapon attacks on August 21, 2013 in eastern Damascus, Syria. The goal of course, is to continue demonizing the Syrian government while simultaneously sabotaging a recent Syrian-Russian deal to have Syria's chemical weapon stockpiles and disarmed by independent observers. Image: 107mm rocket shells frequently used by terrorists operating within and along Syria's borders. They are similar in configuration and function to those identified by the UN at sites investigated after the alleged August 21, 2013 Damascus, Syria chemical weapons attack, only smaller. A barrage of suspiciously worded headlines attempt to link in the mind of unobservant readers the UN's "confirmation" of chemical weapons use in Syria and Western claims that it was the Syrian government who used them. Additionally, the US, British, and French governments have quickly assembled a list of fabrications designed to spin the UN report to bolster their still-unsubstantiated accusations against the Syrian government. The BBC's article, "US and UK insist UN chemicals report 'blames Syria'," again states unequivocally, emphasis added: The UN report did not attribute blame for the attack, as that was not part of its remit. However, that did not stop UK Foreign Secretary William Hague who claimed: From the wealth of technical detail in the report, including on the scale of the attack, the consistency of sample test results from separate laboratories, witness statements, and information on the munitions used and their trajectories, it is abundantly clear that the Syrian regime is only party that could have been responsible. And US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power who stated: The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is also quoted as saying: When you look at the findings carefully, the quantities of toxic gas used, the complexity of the mixes, the nature, and the trajectory of the carriers, it leaves absolutely no doubt as to the origin of the attack. The Washington Post went one step further, and perhaps foolishly, laid out a detailed explanation of each fabrication the West is using to spin the latest UN report. In an article titled, "The U.N. chemical weapons report is pretty damning for Assad," 5 points are made and explained as to why the UN report "points" to the Syrian government. 1. Chemical weapons were delivered with munitions not used by rebels: This claim includes referencing "Syria watcher" Eliot Higgins also known as "Brown Moses," a UK-based armchair observer of the Syrian crisis who has been documenting weapons used throughout the conflict on his blog. While Higgins explains these particularly larger diameter rockets, 140mm and 330mm have not been seen by him in the hands of terrorists operating within and along Syria's borders, older post of his show rockets similar in construction and operation, but smaller, most certainly in the hands of the militants.

By Anthony Gucciardi: As Navy Yard Shooting Distracts, France Fuels Syria War Machine!

French report fuels military action in Syria as news cycle focuses on Navy Yard shooting. Amid the turmoil over the recent Navy Yard Shooting in DC, France is now greasing up the wheels of the international war machine by using the latest UN report on the August 21 Syrian chemical attack to claim there is 'no doubt' that Assad's government used the weapons to kill innocents. In what was the top story before the shooting occurred, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius went on record in saying there was 'no doubt' that Assad's government carried out the chemical attacks in Syria. This comes after top Syrian officials say they also submitted evidence showing that the rebels carried out the attacks with the aid of the United States and France. In fact, minister that the US and France aided the rebels in the chemical attacks was reported by Reuters in a piece irrelevantly entitled 'Syria says terrorist's will strike Europe with chemical weapons'. In the article, in which the Syrian official does indeed discuss how the same terrorist groups funded by the US and France will ultimately carry out attacks within their own nations, the deputy foreign minister states: "We repeat that the terrorist groups are the ones that used (chemical weapons) with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and this has to stop," he said. "This means these chemical weapons will soon be used by the same groups against the people of Europe," he added. French Foreign Minister Laureent Fabius, Courtesy CC Wikimedia. The official also went on record saying that the Syrian government provided the U.N. evidence that 'armed terrorist groups' had utilized sarin gas in the attacks. Assuming that these statements are even remotely true, and certainly we know top analysts agree that it would really make no sense for Assad to carry out the attacks, then it means that France and the US are now continuing to grease up the war machine over the very same chemical attacks they helped to fund and push. And even with the British Parliament failing to sound the war drums due to extreme backlash, France has picked up the torch and is continuing to place the blame on Assad over the attacks. Meanwhile, even Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul have come out with others and revealed how the attacks absolutely show signs of a classic false flag event. Here's a breakdown on the Syrian official's statements from my August 28th appearance on the Alex Jones Show: Full story on Storyleak.com. Article printed from Infowars: http://www infowars.com/ as-navy-yard-shooting-distracts-france - officially-pegs-syria-chemical-attack-on assad/.          

By Paul Joseph Watson: Media Buries Psychiatric Drug Connection to Navy Shooter!

Despite every indication that Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was on SSRI drugs that have been linked to dozens of previous mass shootings, the mainstream media has once again avoided all discussion of the issue, preferring instead to blame the tragedy on a non-existent AR-15 that the gunman didn't even use. We now know that Alexis "had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems." As Mike Adams points out, "This is proof that Aaron Alexis was on psychiatric drugs, because that's the only treatment currently being offered by the Veterans Administration for mental problems. Alexis' family members also confirmed to the press that he was being "treated" for his mental health problems. Across the medical industry, "treatment" is the code word for psychiatric drugging." Alexis also suffered from PTSD, blackouts and anger issues, all of which are treated with SSRI drugs. The most common form of treatment for PTSD is Paroxetine, which is listed as the number 3 top violence-causing drug by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). The Navy Yard shooter was clearly on some form of psychiatric drug, but the media has shown no interest in discovering its identity. Despite it being reported that prescription drugs were found in the apartment of 'Batman' shooter James Holmes days after the Aurora massacre, it took nine months to find out exactly what those drugs were. Like Columbine killer Eric Harris, Holmes had been taking Zoloft, another SSRI drug linked with violent outbursts. The length of time it took to find out that Holmes was on Zoloft was partly because the media habitually shows interest in pursuing the link between anti-depressants and violence. As the website SSRI Stories profusely documents, there are literally hundreds of examples of mass shootings, murders and other violent episodes that have been committed by individuals on psychiatric drugs over the past three decades. The number of cases is staggering. Why is the corporate media so disinterested in pursuing this clear connection? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the pharmaceutical giants who produce drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil spend around $2.4 billion dollars a year on direct-to-consumer television advertising every year. By running negative stories about prescription drugs, network risk losing tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue. While failing to ask questions about what SSRI drugs Aaron Alexis was taking prior to his rampage, the media instead blamed the shooting on assault rifles, even after it had been confirmed that no AR-15 was used by Alexis during the massacre. FBI assistant director Victoria Parlve stated at a press conference on Tuesday that authorities, "do not have any information at this time that Alexis had an AR-15in his possession," Despite there being no evidence that an AR-15 was used, the New York Daily News ran a front page headline yesterday morning entitled, "Same Gun Different Slay," next to a picture of an assault rifle. Hours after the FBI stated that no AR-15 had been used, MSNBC's Alex Wagner, who previously blamed the Boston bombings on Alex Jones, continued to use an animated graphic depicting Alexis carrying an assault rifle during the massacre.  

BBC News Middle East: Russia will give UN 'proof' of Syria rebel chemical use!

Russia will give the Security Council evidence implicating Syrian rebels in a chemical attack ob 21 August, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. Syrian officials supplied the evidence, which Mr Lavrov has not yet seen. A UN report released on Monday concluded the nerve agent sarin was used in the attack in Damascus, which the US blames on the Syrian regime. Russia has called the report one-sided and biased. The UN has hit back, saying its findings are "indisputable". The UN report did not apportion blame for the attack, which sparked diplomacy that culminated in a deal for Syria to hand over its chemical arsenal by mid-2014. The UK, France and the US now want the disarmament deal enshrined in a UN resolution backed by the threat of military force. But Russia, which has repeatedly cast doubts on whether the regime carried out the attacks, has objected to any resolution authorizing force. Meanwhile, fighting is continuing across Syria: Rebel groups are fighting each other in a town near the Turkish border, with al-Qaeda linked jihadists gaining the upper hand in a battle with the Free Syrian Army. Unconfirmed video footage shows parts of Damascus being hit in air strikes. The UK- based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops were battling rebels near
the motorway leading to Damascus airport, and Kurdish gunmen had forced jihadists from a village in the north. Mr Lavrov said there was plenty of evidence that pointed to rebel involvement in chemical attacks, including the Damascus assault. "We will discuss all this in the Security Council, together with the report which was submitted by UN experts and which confirms that chemical weapons were used. "We will discuss all this in the security Council, together with the report which was submitted by UN experts and which confirms that chemical weapons were used. "We will discuss
all this in the Security Council, together with the report which was submitted by UN experts and which confirms that chemical weapons were used. We will have to find out who did it," he said. Russia is Syria's most important international ally, and has three times blocked resolutions criticising the regime over the civil war in which the UN says more than 100,000 people have died. Earlier Mr Lavrov's deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, said he had been given the evidence during a trip to Syria. He said it needed to be anaysed, and gave no details of its content. Mr Ryabkov criticised the UN report, saying it was "distorted" and "one-sided". "The basis of information upon which it is built is not sufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of 21 August, he said. "We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the UN secretariat and the UN inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely." The UN inspectors were originally mandated to go to Syria to investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks, at Khan al-Assal, Sheik Maqsoud and Saraqeb. But they were later ordered to shift their focus to the Damascus incident, which was the most deadly chemical assault. They are due to return to Syria "within weeks" to complete their inquiry into the other attacks, and a report is due in October. Chief UN weapons inspector Ake Selldtrom, who wrote the report, told the BBC he thought Russia was not criticising the report itself but the process.
    

By Julie Wilson: Navy Yard Shooting: SWAT Team Ordered to "Stand Down!"

Elite tactical team responsible for defending DC Capitol complex were reportedly ordered to leave the scene. According to a BBC report, one of the most heavily armed police teams, assigned with the task of protecting the Capitol complex and responsible for responding to threats of terrorism, was ordered to stand down in response to Monday's shooting at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building in D.C. The Containment and Emergency Response Team (SERT), is highly trained and equipped with the best gear on the market. The team consists of four men and is responsible for safeguarding the Capitol complex. The specialty unit is the department's elite tactical team assigned with the task of "dealing with the rise in terrorist actives being directed at the US and its citizens," according to the SpecWarNet.net. "Since there won't be time to call for assistance in the event a terrorist is able to execute an attack against the Capitol, their CERT primary mission consists of rescuing Congressional members, their staff, and visitors who have been taken hostage by terrorists. "Secondary missions include, countering threats made against dignitaries, responding to critical incidents and providing security for major events, such as the Presidential Inauguration,"says the website. Reports confirm that although the team arrived on the scene shortly after news spread of an active shooter situation at the Navy Yard, several Capitol Police team members say they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene. The sources spoke anonymously to BBC in fear of repercussions. The leader of the officers' union, Jim Konsczos, said the whole purpose of the CERT Team is to respond to and handle active shooter situations. The officers, who are specifically trained to be expert marksmen, arrived fully dressed in their tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons around 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. BBC's report reveals that an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told the CERT team they were the "only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman." However, shortly after the CERT team arrived, they were reportedly told to leave. "I don't think it's a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved id we were allowed to intervene," said one Capitol Police source. "Odds are it might have had a different outcome,"said Konczos. "It probably could have been neutralized."One Capitol Police officer who supposedly overheard the request for CERT to stand down felt frustrated by the command. Spokeswoman for the MPD responded to the allegations saying there were "not true." The Capitol Police officer who supposedly overheard the request for CERT to stand down felt frustrated by the command. Spokeswoman for the MPD responded to the allegations saying they were "not true," The Capitol Police announced Wednesday they are investigating the allegations and plan to pull radio logs from Monday's incident. Senate Sergeant-at Arms Terry Gainer, overseer of the US Capitol Police Department, had the following response: "It's a very serious allegation and inference to indicate that we were on scene and could have helped and were told to leave. It crushes me if that's the case."

UPDATED: "Obama waives ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian opposition" by Joel Gehrke

President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to "vetted" opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.  Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad's regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah.  The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would "waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction."  Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): "The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act.
"For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups or willfully aid or abet an individual or groups in acquiring unsafeguarded special nuclear material," the law continues.

The law allows the president to waive those prohibitions if he "determines that the transaction is essential to the national security of the United States.

Under section 40(g) of the AECA, the Obama team must also provide Congress — at least 15 days before turning over the weapons — "the name of any country involved in the proposed transaction, the identity of any recipient of the items to be provided pursuant to the proposed transaction, and the anticipated use of those items," along with a list of the weaponry to be provided, when they will be delivered, and why the transfer is key to American security interests.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., endorsed providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.
"Our intelligence agencies, I think, have a very good handle on who to support and who not to support," Corker said. "And there's going to be mistakes. We understand some people are going to get arms that should not be getting arms. But we still should be doing everything we can to support the free Syrian opposition."

National Security Council spokesman Caitlin Hayden issued the following statement concerning the president's actions with regard to waiving certain controls on military aid in the Syrian crisis:
"This action will allow the U.S. Government to provide or license, where appropriate, certain non-lethal assistance inside or related to Syria. This includes: 1) chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment to international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for the conduct of their operations; 2) chemical weapons-related life-saving assistance for organizations implementing Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development programs to strengthen local Syrian health care providers’ ability to prepare for and respond to any use of chemical weapons; and 3) defensive chemical weapons-related training and personal protective equipment to select vetted members of the Syrian opposition, including the Supreme Military Council, to protect against the use of chemical weapons. This action is part of longstanding and ongoing efforts to provide life-saving chemical weapons- related assistance to people in need in Syria."

Web URL: http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2535885

By F. Michael Maloof: Kerry's Claim About Assad's Sarin Challenged!

Washington, Although U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said "we know from what Syrian military unit and from a hilltop chemical weapons were fired Aug. 21 into the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, U.S. military sources tell WND otherwise. At his recent news conference, Kerry suggested the intelligence the Obama administration had could identify precisely the origin of the sarin chemical weapons attack that killed, by some estimate, some 1,429 people, including 400 children. However, Kerry never revealed what the content of the intelligence was, nor how it was obtained, suggesting a level of vagueness so that even Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded more details. But they never were revealed, even during a subsequent meeting between Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama two weeks ago at the G20 meeting. A U.S. military source told WND, however, that there was no intelligence reporting on the Syrian government firing the artillery armed with poison gas. "We don't have anything," he said. "On 21 August, there was no reporting on Bashar's boys doing anything," the U.S. military source said. In referring to "Bashar's boys," the source was referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "And there isn't any up to right this minute, meaning that nobody collected any intelligence via 'INT' that said he was indeed having his troops use the stuff, " the source said. The "INT" to which the source refers is the means of intelligence collection either through HUMINT, imagery intelligence, ELINT, or electronic intelligence, and MASINT, a variety of electronic specialties in gathering and interpreting intelligence. In a separate move the U.N. release its reports on the Syrian sarin allegations, and found that sarin was used, but it did not assign blame. "Unless this is reporting that is at a higher level, even the signals people report at a lower level. They have to, since commanders need the information usable at the ground level, meaning something would have been reported," the source said. "We've been eyeballing Syria for over a year," he said, "watching Bashar al-Assad, move weapons and units around, as well as their skirmishes ans rocket launches. "So, I would say that the community politicians cobbled together an extrapolation that made the boss happy, but there's nothing pointing to Bashar in the time frame that we're talking about," he said. "There's a possibility that the highest level collection platforms are only collectibg certain things and only reporting it on the higher channels but I doubt it." This source also had revealed to WND a classified document that showed that the National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC, had identified sarin production by al-Qaida elements associated with the Syrian opposition in Iraq and Turkey. The document reveals that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria. The document, disseminated in August 2013, revealed that sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq had made its way into Turkey and while some was seized, more could have been used, in an attack in the major Syrian city of Aleppo.

By Kurt Nimmo: Crazed "Black Out" Navy Yard Shooter Suspect Alexis Had Secret Government Clearance!

The suspected Navy Yard gunman shot dead by cops earlier today had a secret government clearance despite the fact he was arrested in Seattle in 2004 after shooting out the tires of a car during an angry "blackout." According to a police report, Aaron Alexis didn't remember the incident until about an hour later. Alexis was also arrested in 2010 for shooting into a neighbor's apartment in Fort Worth, Texas. He had previously confronted the neighbor for making too much noise. The woman said she believed the shooting was intentional. Despite these incidents, the alleged shooter was permitted a secret government clearance and was hired as a civilian contractor with a military-issued ID card. "He did have a secret government clearance and was hired as a civilian contractor with a military-issued ID card. "He did have a secret clearance. And he did have a CAC, common access card)," Thomas Hoshko, CEO of The Experts Inc, a company servicing the Navy Marine Corps Intranet as a subcontractor, told Reuters. "We had just recently re-hired him. Another background investigation was re-run and cleared through the defense security service in July 2013," Hoshko said. Hoshko said Alexis' "secret" security clearance dated back to 2007, several years after the Seattle incident. It is not explained how the former Navy reservist received a secret defense security clearance after the 2010 shooting incident. 

By Joel Gehrke: Obama waives ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian Opposition!

President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to "vetted" opposition groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to "vetted" opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad's regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah. The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would "waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction." Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): "The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act. "For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups in acquiring unsafe-guarded special nuclear material," the law continues. The law allows the president to waive those prohibitions if he "determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States." Under section 40(g) of the AECA, the Obama team must also provide Congress, at least 15 days before turning over the weapons, "the name of any country involved in the proposed transaction, the identity of any recipient of the items to be provided pursuant to the proposed transaction, and the anticipated use of those items," along with a list of the weaponry to be provided, when they will be delivered, and why the transfer is key to American security interests. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., endorsed providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "Our intelligence agencies, I think, have a very good handle on who to support and who not to support," Corker said. "And there's going to be mistakes. We understand some people are going to get arms that should not be getting arms. Bur we still should be doing everything we can to support the free Syrian opposition." White House releases statement on waiver. National Security Council spokesman Caitlin Hayden issued the following statement concerning the president's actions with regard to waiving certain controls on military aid in the Syrian crisis: "This action will allow the U.S. Government to provide or license, where appropriate, certain non-lethal assistance inside or related to Syria. This includes: 1) chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment to international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for the conduct of their operations, 2) chemical weapons-related life-saving assistance for organizations implementing Department of Sate or U.S. Agency for International Development programs to strengthen local Syrian health care providers' ability to prepare for and respond to any use of chemical weapons.

By Eric Margolis: Obama, Don't Play Chess With KGB!

President Barack Obama's foolishly backed himself into a corner during the growing Syrian crisis by issuing fatwas about mythological red lines. When his bluff got called, the silver-tongued president was left twisting in the wind. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize should be rescinded and given, instead, to Putin. Add a warning to Obama's amateur foreign policy advisors: "don't play chess with the KGB!" In fact, Obama, who rudely snubbed former KGB agent Outin recently, owes Russia's leader a "Bolshi Spaseba" big thanks for pulling his bacon out of the fire in Syria. Putin brilliantly demonstrated to the world the difference between diplomacy and force, the rapier versus the cudgel. The American cynic Ambrose Bierce aptly defined a diplomat as "a patriot ready to lie for his country." True enough, but diplomacy is the essential lubricant of international relations. Ever since the Bush administration, America's foreign relations have become militarized and run by the Pentagon while the State Department has been eclipsed. America has become addicted to small wars and debt. The frequent threats and bombast by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ie to "vaporizing Iran" if it dared attack Israel, have been seamlessly continued by John Kerry's fulminations against Syria. Clinton and Kerry both have 2016 presidential ambitions and are playing to key potential donors. It is also painful and disturbing watching Obama and Kerry deliver impassioned orations about poor little Syrian babies gassed by the wicked Bashar Assad, a former eye specialist who would probably prefer to be living in London. What about all those babies killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia? Vietnam anyone? Nagasaki? Enough please, with the synthetic moral outrage over Syrian babies or ludicrous claims Syria was threatening the US. Remember the phony Kuweiti babies dreamed up by Washington PR agency? Egypt's US-armed and financed Army just shot down over 1,500 civilian protestors.Americans are rightly fed up with past crusades and increasingly disillusioned by President Obama and the tame US media. His indeciveness  and lack of a clear strategy have made him singularly unpopular. Nor is there any clamor for war against Syria in Britain and France, whose governments are trying to divert attention from economic woes by bashing the Syrians. As the crisis mounted, we heard increased patriotic guff about "American exceptionalism," a code phrase for American proto-fascism, for "Amerika Ueber Alles." Scary stuff. President Putin warned about this in an incisive analysis of the Syrian crisis in the New York Times. The US Congress also owes big thanks to President Putin. Had he not short circuited Obama's foolish war plans for Syria, Congress would have been caught between ant-war Americans and major cash donors from special interests who are lusting for war. The sensible resolution of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, a manufactured crisis if I ever saw one, raises new questions. What happened to the planned Syrian peace conference in Geneva? The real question is ending this awful war, not chemical weapons. Next questions: why did Syria and Egypt acquire chemical weapons? The answer is a poor man's counter to Israel's large nuclear and chemical arsenal.

By Steve Weissman. What If the Rebels Spread Some of the Poison Gas in Syria?

"No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria," Russian president Vladimir Putin wrote in The New York Times. "But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack, this time against Israel, cannot be ignored." "We know the Assad regime was responsible," American president Barack Obama said in his major speech on Syria. "In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad's chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas-masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from as regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces. Shortly after those rockets landed, the gas spread, and hospitals filled with the dying and the wounded. We know senior figures in Assad's military machine reviewed the results of the attack, and the regime increased their shelling of the same neighborhoods in the days that followed." Which president should we believe? The answer should be obvious. Neither one. We do not need our spiritual mentor I.F. Stone to remind us that "All governments lie." We cannot even take on faith the United Nations weapons inspectors, who will reportedly "point the finger of blame" at the Assad regime for the August 21 attack in the suburbs of Damascus. According to the Times of London, the inspectors found "spent rocket casings" that look as if they came from the Syrian army. Assad, or at least the Syrian army, turns out to be where their finger points, the inspectors may be right. But hold this in mind: the inspectors never sought to do a full inspection on who used which weapons where. That was never their mission, and anything they find pointing to guilt one way or another will be only incidental. Even with the best will in the world, if inspectors and journalists do not ask the right questions in the right places and truly test the answers they get, they will never provide Putin, POTUS, or the rest of us with a narrative the world can trust. Even with the agreement between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, we are still a long way from knowing the truth about the use of poison gas in Syria. Many conspiracy-minded websites have oversold one cocksure truth or another, Israeli intelligence pushes its anti-Assad slant in unbelievable detail, and many of our own readers offer unsubstantiated claims in their comments on articles here at RSN. From pundits to presidents, let's all speak about the situation on the ground with less certainty and more transparency. President Obama and Secretary Kerry could begin by revealing the intelligence information underlying their bold assertions that Assad made the decisions to use poison gas. Their unclassified four-page white paper is a White House political document remarkably free of any facts that independent investigators could check out, as Robert Parry wrote on August 30. According to Representative Alan Grayson, the 12-page classified summary shown to Congress lacked the underlying intelligence as well, while Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have warned Obama that he is not getting the full truth.

By Stephen Pizzo: Eyes Wide Shut!

If folks in power spent less time spinning the present and more time learning from the past we'd all be better off. I'm not going to carry on about all this Syria business, you'd have much smarter opinions if they cared more about history than they do about their audience ratings. And I think they'd also have less to say, not more. I certainly am finding that to be the case as I spend more and more time immersed in fully-baked history and less time listening to half-back current event coverage. Because the more I learn what the human race has already learned from the past, the more time I spend thinking about similar situations facing us today. And a lot less talking ourselves into trouble and a lot more thinking about how to avoid trouble we should know awaits, would be a welcome change, don't ya think. So, to the bottom line. From GW Bush to Barry Obama the US has held tightly to the notion that we can somehow "straighten those people out in the Middle East." All we have to do is get rid of their totalitarian leaders and let the people speak their will. So we did just that in Iraq and Afghanistan and, guess what, the people spoke their will, only it was "wills," plural. Oh, and they were ready to kill to get their ways. If our leaders were students of history,or for that matters, students of anything other than getting re-elected they might have stepped back sooner and said something like: "Hey, you know what? That entire region looks a lot like what would become Great Britain looked like way the hell back during Saxon and Norman times, a rag-tag collection of semi-primitive tribes that hated one another more than they even hated outsiders. Maybe we should just step back and wait, let that region cook for few more decades before we try to do any serious business with them." That thought certainly came to my mind this morning while reading the opening chapter of Macaulay's "History of England," when the following sentences slammed into my aging grey matter: Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the preceding events is the history of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race carried farther  in England. In no country Have A nice Monday. Steve. About author Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer. His web site is News For Real. Vote Result.

By Anthony Gucciardi: As Navy Yard Shooting Distracts, France Fuels Syria War Machine!

Amid the turmoil over the recent Navy Yard Shooting in DC, France is now greasing up the wheels of the international war machine by using the latest UN report on August 21 Syrian chemical attack to claim that there is 'no doubt' that Assad's government used the weapons to kill innocents. In what was the top story before the shooting occurred, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius went on record in saying that there was 'no doubt' that Assad's government carried out the chemical attacks in Syria. This comes after top Syrian officials say they also submitted evidence showing that the rebels carried out the attacks with the aid of the United States and France. In fact, the declaration by Syria's deputy foreign minister that the US and France aided the rebels in the chemical attacks was reported by Reuters in a piece irreverently entitled 'Syria says terrorists will strike Europe with chemical weapons'. In the article, in which the Syrian official does indeed discuss how the same terrorist groups funded by the US and France will ultimately carry out attacks within their own nations, the deputy foreign minister states: "We repeat that the terrorist groups are the ones that used chemical weapons with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and this has to stop," he said. "This means these chemical weapons will soon be used by the same groups against the people of Europe," he added. The official also went on record saying that the Syrian government provided the U.N. evidence that 'armed terrorist groups' had utilized sarin gas in the attacks. Assuming that these statements are even remotely true, and certainly we know top analysts agree that it would really make no sense for Assadto carry out the attacks, then it means that France and the US are now continuing to grease up the war machine over the very same chemical attacks they helped to fund and push. And even with the British Parliament failing to sound the war drums due to extreme backlash, France has picked up the torch and is continuing to place the blame on Assad over the attacks. Meanwhile, even Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul have come out with others and revealed how the attacks absolutely show signs of a classic false flag event. Here's a breakdown on the Syrian official's statements from my August 28th appearance on the Alex Jones Show: Exposed: U.S. Helped Launch Syrian Chemical Attack. Full Story on Storyleak.com!

By Alexander Martin: Fukushima Watch: Tepco Drains Water During Typhoon!

As typhoon Man-yi swept through northeastern Japan on Monday, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power plant said it had drained some of the water accumulated during the heavy rainfall, adding that the radiation levels of the water were within national safety limits. The large typhoon has already battered Japan's main island, flooded rivers, damaging buildings and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate. Hundreds of flights and trains have been cancelled and at least one person has died, according to local media reports. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a news release that it had drained water accumulated at seven locations between tanks holding contaminated water at the plant and barriers put up to stop any leaks of the water flowing into the sea. The plant operator is fighting a constant battle to find sufficient reliable storage space for an ever-increasing amount of water contaminated in the process of cooling the plant's melted reactor cores. A string of recent leaks has raised concerns about the utility's ability to stop contaminated water from reaching the sea and prompted the government to step in and offer help. While the drained water will reach the sea, the utility said radiation levels of strontium were below the safety level of 30 becquerels per liter. Earlier, Tepco workers at the plant had prepared for the typhoon by weighing down cranes so that the typhoon's strong winds wouldn't topple them while tying down other equipment including pipes and pumps. There were no other reports of action needed at Fukushima, likely calming any lingering fears that the typhoon might cause problems at the plant. As of Monday evening, Man-yi was passing through Iwate and Aomori prefectures in northern Japan, heading northeast at a speed of 70 kilometers an hour with winds up to 35 meters a second, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. Public broadcaster NHK said so far one person had died, one was in critical condition and four people were missing as a result of the typhoon. It said 124 people have suffered injuries. Strong winds destroyed five homes in Saitama Prefecture, while 18 houses have been destroyed in Obama, Fukui prefecture, where heavy flooding swamped the city. Special warnings of "unprecedented heavy rain" issued for the western prefectures of Fukui, Kyoto and Shiga were all lifted before noon, although the torrential rain had left areas near major rivers inundated. To respond to the natural disaster, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set up an information-gathering team within the government's crisis-management center Monday. Man-yi is expected to reach waters off the northeastern coast of Sanriku by Monday night, the JMA said. NHK said most domestic flight services that were canceled Monday were canceled Monday were expected to resume operations Tuesday.   

Press TV: US report confirms Israel has at least 80 nuclear warheads!

A newly released report in the US professional journal confirms that the Israeli regime possesses at least 80 operative nuclear warheads and has enough material to produce up to 190 more. The report published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, nuclear weapon proliferation experts Robert Norris and Hans Kristensen halted its production of nuclear warheads back in 2004 "once it reached around 80 munitions," RT reports Monday. However, the experts add, the Tel Aviv regime "can easily double its arsenal since it has enough fissile material to build at least another 115 bombs." "There are rumors that Israel is equipping some of its submarines with nuclear-capable cruise missiles," the report says, echoing the 2013 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook on Armament and International Security, which also implied that the Israeli regime may have nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missiles and reported the same assessment of nuclear stockpiles. It is still not known how many nuclear warheads of the total inventory could already be deployed, as Israel continues to maintain its long-held policy of nuclear ambiguity, under which it never confirms nor denies its possessions of nuclear and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In December 2012, Tel Aviv once again dismissed the latest demand from the members of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to join the accord. The suspicions about Israeli nuclear warheads were fueled by the fact that Germany supplied Israel with five Dolphin-class submarines, which are supposedly capable of launching nuclear missiles, ans signed a contract to build yet another one. Israeli regime's stockpiles of WMD have come under particular scrutiny following the US-Russian recent agreement for the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, which is seen as a significant step towards a WMD-free region. This is while Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari also stated last Thursday that "The main dagger of WMD is the Israeli nuclear arsenal," stressing that the Tel Aviv regime also possesses chemical weapons bit "nobody is speaking about that." The Syrian envoy further described his country's chemical weapons as "a mere deterrence against the Israeli nuclear arsenal"and other WMD, referring to a declassified CIA report on Israel's chemical weapons program. Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday: "Its well known that Syria has a certain arsenal of chemical weapons and the Syrians always viewed that as an alternative to Israel's nuclear weapons." This is while recently declassified CIA documents suggest that the Israeli regime secretly built up its own stockpile of chemical and biological weapons decades ago, adding more fuel to the lingering complaint of Arab states, who constantly accuse Tel Aviv of possessing nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, during a speech on Sunday before talks with the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said that "in any case, Israel must be poised and ready to defend itself, by itself, against any threat, and this capability and readiness are more important now than ever."   

By Syed Zafar Mehdi: West, Breeding Ground for Terrorism!

Today, the war drums are beating again,, and this time the target is Syria. "By ordering air strikes against Syria without UN Security Council support, Obama will be doing the same as Bush in 2003," writes Hans Blix, Swedish diplomat and politician. Blix was the head of United Nations monitoring, verification and inspection commission from March 2000 to June 2003, which searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none." "There are two ways to approach the study of terrorism," notes Noam Chomsky in widely-acclaimed book Western State Terrorism. "One may adopt a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power. It comes as no surprise that the propagandistic approach is adopted by governments generally, and by their instruments in totalitarian states." Chomsky maintains that there are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States puts its rivals to shame when it comes to perpetuating 'international terrorism'. A 2010 research undertaken by Professor Marc Sageman of University of Pennsylvaniea lends credence to what Chomsky says. The research findings establish the fact that terrorism is a product of the West. Syria, more than two years into the foreign-sponsored militancy. Let's make no bones about it, the menacing threat of nuclear powers who form the core of the NATO alliance, and keeping intimidating and threatening the non nuclear weapon states. The history of US imperialism is replete with stories of unilateral belligerent military strikes, gory massacres and socio-cultural aggression. In this no-holds-barred brinkmanship, the US and its allies have sought to impose their writ on other nations, more so on those who have refused to swear allegiance to Uncle Sam's hegemony. The blatant war-mongering and sinister desire to inflict suffering on others is best explained by these words of American writer Andre Vitchek. "West has always behaved as if it had inherited, but undefined, right to profit from the misery of the rest of the world. In many cases, the conquered nations had to give up their own culture, their religions, even their languages, and convert to our set of beliefs and values that we define as 'civilized'. Guatemala Civil War that continued from 1960 to 1996 was bitterly fought between the government of Guatemala committed worst human rights abuses and engineered genocide of Mayan population of Guatemala. Historical Clarification Commission set up under the Oslo Accords of 1994 concluded that the Guatemala military committed murder, torture and rape with the tacit support of CIA. The commission stated that the "government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some state operations." Noam Chomsky in his book What Uncle Sam  Really Wants writes, "Under Reagan, support for near-genocide in Guatemala became positively ecstatic. The most extreme of the Guatemala Hitlers we've backed there, Rios Montt, was lauded by Reagan as a man totally dedicated to democracy. In the early 1980s, Washington's friends slaughtered tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly Indians in the highlands, with countless others tortured and raped. Large regions were decimated."      

By James Corbett: Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War!

This GRTV production by James Corbett was first released in January 2012. In the light of the recent media disinformation campaign in relation to Syria, we bring this carefully researched video-documentary report to the attention of GR readers. As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again. To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the
centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious. As the US and Iranian governments escalate tensions in the already volatile Straits of Hormuz, and China and Russia begin openly questioning Washington's interference in their internal politics, the world remains on a knife-edge of military tension. Far from being a dispassionate observer of these developments, however, the media has in fact been central to increasing those tensions and preparing the public to expect a military confrontation. But as the online media rises to displace the traditional forms by which the public forms its understanding of the world, many are now beginning to see first hand how the media lies the public into war. Faking it: How the Media Manipulates the World. The term "yellow journalism" was coined to describe the type of sensationalistic, scandal-driven, and often erroneous style of reporting popularized by newspapers like William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. In one of the most egregious examples of this phenomenon, Hearst's papers widely trumpeted the sinking of the Maine as the work of the Spanish. Whipped into an anti-Spanish frenzy by a daily torrent of stories depicting
Spanish forces' alleged torture and rape of Cubans, and pushed over the edge by the Maine incident, the public welcomed the beginning of the US-Spanish war. Although it is now widely believed that the explosion on the Maine was due to a fire in one of its coal bunkers, the initial lurid reports of Spanish involvement stuck and the nation was led into war. In many ways, the phrase infamously attributed to Hearst in reply to his illustrator "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war," apocryphal as the story may be, nevertheless perfectly encodes the method by which the public would be led to war time and again through the decades. The US was drawn into World War I by the sinking
of the Lusitania, a British ocean liner carrying American passengers that was torpedoed by German U-boats off the coast of Ireland, killing over 1,000 of its passengers. What the public was not informed about at the time, of course, was that just one week before the incident, then-First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had written to the President of the Board of Trade that it was "most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany." Nor did reports of the attack announce that the ship was carrying rifle ammunition and other military supplies.
       

By Gregory Elich: Political Firestorm in South Korea!

Actions by South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) have generated a political furor that is growing by the day, pitting the ruling New Frontier Party against the main opposition Democratic Party against the main opposition Democratic Party and threatening the existence of the Unified Progressive Party. The NIS intervened in the election of December 2012 in an endeavor to bring victory to conservative candidates. NIS director Won Sei-hoon ordered the agency's psychological warfare division to launch a campaign to discredit liberal and left political candidates. Agents were instructed to each create three or four posts on the internet per day, praising the ruling party and attacking the opposition. Three teams were tasked to carry out this mission, and one team alone alone generated an average of 1,200 to 1,600 posts per month. Won was motivated by a paranoid McCarthyst frame of mind, and he was heard to say, "If there is a person or a force which condemns the government and the ruling party, they are no different from North Korea even if they are our citizens." The psychological warfare teams used IP switching software to prevent tracking. Many of the posts smeared liberal and left candidates as "followers of North Korea." According to South Korean investigators working with the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, the NIS utilized software to generate millions of automated re-tweets of their postings, flooding the internet. In a further boost to the campaign of presidential Park Geun-hye and other conservative candidates, the NIS leaked excerpts from a classified document to the press and to the ruling New Frontier Party, containing a transcript taken from the October 2007 meetings between liberal South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The excerpts leaked by the NIS dealt with discussions of the Northern Limit Line, the western maritime border between the two Koreas. The NIS intentionally distorted the excerpts it provided and fabricated content in order to make it appear that Roh was offering to turn over South Korean territorial waters to South Korean territorial waters to North Korea, expecting the resulting outcry to damage the chances of liberal presidential candidate
Moon Jae-in. The NIS removed a statement from the version leaked to the New Frontier Party, in which Roh stated that the Northern Limit Line should not be changed. In another example, the NIS spliced together a phrase from a morning session with a phrase from an afternoon session so as to misrepresent Roh's position. The NIS also altered words and phrases, and inserted content of its own invention into the transcript in order to discredit the liberal candidates. Two days before the December 19 election, Kim Moo-seong, head of Park's election campaign, publicly revealed quotes from the fabricated transcript, and angrily announced that he was "filled with indignation" over its  content. His comments received broad media coverage, which helped to swing votes in favor of Park. It was not until after the election that the extent of NIS meddling was revealed, and Won Sei-hoon was indicted in June. In response to demands by opposition parties that the NIS be reformed, President Park Geun-hye merely asked the agency to come up with a proposal to reform itself. 

By Adam Larson: Rebel Capabilities and the Damascus Chemical Attacks!

The Ghouta Gas Attack: Cui Bono, Who Benefits? Despite recent maneuvers to ease the danger, the world stands entirely too close to a disastrous conflict to remove the sovereign government of Syria, aka Bashar al-Assad. Like the campaign against Iraq, aka Saddam Hussein a decade ago, this Western-driven program is over WMD allegations. The charges of course are that "Assad" killed perhaps 1,300 of his citizens with Sarin gas, in several contested cities of the Ghouta region surrounding Damascus, on August 21. Hundreds of civilian victims, including dozens of children abd babies, were shown dead on videos, they were not shot or stabbed like usual for that medium, visually appearing to be killed by poison or perhaps suffocation. Activists describe the gas differently but agree it was delivered a series of pre-dawn rocket attacks from government-held areas. This was done, allegedly, to finally drive the rebels out of Ghouta, but it's not usually explained why that method and time were chosen. Because of this alleged crime, the increasingly harassed, demonized, and isolated nation is threatened with Cruise missiles and perhaps months or years of deadly force to follow. As if to make a point, whoever chose the time made it exactly one year after U.S. President Obama first promised that an event like this, even remotely like or hinting at this, would cross a "red line," which would force him and the U.S. military to respond somehow. Aug. 20, 2012 compared to around 2-3 AM Aug. 21, 2013: adjusted for time zones, that's one year and a few hours, the exact times are unsure. Oddly, this also came not three days after the elusive United Nations CW investigation team finally arrived in Damascus. They were first invited by the Syrian government in March after a rebel gas attack on their forces in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, an incident we will return to, and so for the first time in the conflict, they were on hand to find and expose any signs of this alleged Sarin deployment the other way. The attacks in areas all around them would also, obviously, distract the team, who never did get to Aleppo as hoped. From this vantage point, it's not hard to see who stood to lose and to benefit from the chemical attack. Everyone can seethe government had to be stupid or suicidal to willingly do just that, just there, and at that time. Explanations bandied about include that it was a rogue officer issuing the insane order, or it was approved but someone miscalculated on a massive scale. An unnamed analyst said to Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable "we don't know exactly why it happened, we just know it was pretty fucking stupid" and, presuming imminent air strikes, "they get what they deserve." Conversely, it would be to the utmost benefit for the extremist rebel cause in Syria and the region to have "Assad" do, or be blamed for such a thing. As Russia's Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich suggested, it might be a "pre-planned provocation" timed with the arrival of the UN team. Each breathtaking massacre of civilians over the years of this horrible conflict has been sold, by opposition "activists," as a reason to finally be given a Libya-style NATO Air Force. But Syria's air defenses remain and so the lobbying efforts continue, dead baby videos and all.      

By Frank Rich, New York Magazine. Obama's True Motives on Syria!

President Obama reiterated his case for a U.S. led strike in Syria last night, asking Congress to postpone voting on military intervention while the administration pursues a diplomatic solution. It appears unlikely that the House will approve the use of force. Did Obama really think his speech would swing votes? Or was there another aim? The last time many of last night's viewers tuned into President Obama en masse, he was imploring the nation in much the same terms and tone to join him in stopping the grotesque slaughter of innocent children. On that occasion, Newtown, many Americans were in grief and, according to polls, on his side. But we saw the results from his pitch for new gun-control legislation: zero. So let's at least hope that he didn't really think he would swing votes with last night's mishmash of an address. The notion that it would bring around a citizenry and a Congress that are both overwhelmingly opposed to intervention in Syria's civil war is proposterous than anything else that has happened over the past week. And Obama's brief speech was nothing if not of a piece with what came before. He started with a call for military action, then veered into a prayer for diplomacy before trailing off into an inchoate "stay tuned" denouement. I guess this proves that if you mate as hawk with a dove, you end up with the rhetorical equivalent of turducken. I'd like to believe there was some other aim, but what could it have been? A humanitarian preemption of ABC's The Bachelor? This address should have been put on hold by the White House the moment the attack was put on hold because the urgency of the appeal for force had evaporated. Now, if the Hail Putin Pass proves a Russian-Syrian bluff or some other form of mirage, the president can't give the same speech again, minus the diplomatic part. One prime-time strike to sell the country on air strikes, and you're out. Obama mentioned the specter of Iraq and Afghanistan several times during his speech, and his entire approach, seeking explicit congressional approval and guaranteeing "no boots on the ground" seems to reflect his wariness of those wars. Of course, public opposition to the Syria strike is also colored by the country's wariness of those wars. Of course, public opposition to the Syria strike is also colored by the country's experiences over the past ten years. Are we right to see Iraq and Afghanistan in Syria? Or have all of us, Obama included, overlearned their lessons? As someone who was so riveted and outraged by the Bush administration's successful propaganda campaign to sell the Iraq War that I wrote a book deconstructing it, I am here to say that there are many differences between the run-up to that disastrous national misadventure and what's going on now. Obama has been clear about these distinctions, not just last night but all weak. He has assiduously pointed out that he "could not honestly claim" that Syria represents an "imminent threat" to America, and much to his credit last night he did not evoke 9/11 on the eye of its anniversary. The evidence of Bashar al-Assad's atrocities and his repeated use of chemical weapons has not been seriously challenged by anyone and is far more persuasive than Colin Powell's notorious display of show-and-tell props before the U.N.  

By John Chuckman: America's Rediculous Posiition on Syria!

I read that an American Senator, Bob Menendez, wanted "to vomit" when he was supplied with a copy of Vladimir Putin's New York Times' op-ed piece about Syria. Well, I'm sure it wasn't just a matter of Sen. Mendez's delicate stomach: there have been many times in the past I wanted to vomit over something in The New York Times. It is, after all, an impossibly pretentious, often-dishonest publication faithfully serving America's military-industrial-intelligence complex, one which never fails to support America's countless wars, insurgencies, dirty tricks, and coups, all this while publicly flattering itself as a rigorous source of journalism and even a newspaper "of record." Many regard The Times as simply the most worn-out key of that thunderous public-relations instrument an ex-Agency official once called his "mighty Wurlitzer." Only in the antediluvian political atmosphere of America could The Times manage to have something of a reputation for being "liberal." Mr. Menendez, as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, holds a powerful position, one he has used in lockstep with President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry to promote illegal war. Like them he blubbers about rights and democracy and ethics while planning death and destruction to people who have done nothing against the United States except disagreeing with it and being hated by that greatest single outside determinant of American foreign policy, Israel. Sen. Mendez's personal anecdote actually provides a perfect miniature replica of the entire operation of America's foreign affairs. American officials never fail to invoke words about democracy or human rights when addressing their next piece of dirty work or effort to pressure another people into doing what America wants. So naturally the Senator might be a bit upset over Putin's upstaging the top officials of the United States and proving himself the superior statesman and rational politician in every detail. First, every honest, well-read person, not trying to promote American special interests, knows there is no proof that Assad used chemical weapons. Absolutely none. Even as I write, an Australian newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports that the UN inspection team could find no evidence of chemical weapons used in the place cited by Syria's rebel army. A video which made the rounds among American allies and which purported to show the attack has been declared a fake by the U.N. Russia's secret services also declared it a fake. The only other bit of "evidence" worth mentioning is a supposed recording of Syrian officials  provided to American officials by Mossad. Yes, that's Mossad, the very people who pride themselves on deception and who have a long track record of expertly using it, even in several cases successfully against the United States. You do not kill thousands of people and destroy a country's infrastructure citing rubbish kike that. Again, as I write this, a former British Ambassador, Craig John Murray, states that the United States has been deceived by Mossad with its purported recording and that Britain's super-sensitive listening post in Cyprus, vastly superior to Israel's listening assets, had picked up no such information. Germany, based on its secret service operations, also has publicly stated that Assad did not use chemical weapons.