Deja Vu on WMDs

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 4:09pm

International weapons inspectors have arrived in Douma, Syria. Their mission is to gather evidence, but the Republican Administration in Washington thinks the mission in Syria is no longer relevant, that the country's dictator has destroyed the evidence, and the weapons inspectors will be fooled.

Yet, France and the US appeared to question the purpose of such a mission, warning that any incriminating evidence had likely been removed by now.
"It is highly likely that evidence and essential elements disappear from the site, which is completely controlled by the Russian and Syrian armies," the French foreign ministry said.
Ken Ward, US ambassador to the OPCW, claimed on Monday that the Russians had already visited the site and "may have tampered with it".

Not only will the evidence of the WMD attack be destroyed, but witnesses have been silenced. No one will testify about this silencing because they insisted on anonymity.

Wait a sec. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
I could swear that I've seen this movie before.
If you change Iraq to Syria and squint your eyes, it's almost as if we are watching a sequel.

Based on more than a hundred visits to suspect sites and private interviews with a number of individual scientists known to have been involved with WMD programs in the past, ElBaradei stated that the IAEA had “to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq” and predicted that the agency should be able to provide that Security Council with an objective and thorough assessment of Iraq’s nuclear related capabilities “in the near future.”
...The Bush administration’s response to the inspectors’ reports was swift and negative, because their conclusions contradicted the allegations previously made by the U.S. government – for example, with regard to the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD. The next day, President George W. Bush delivered a radio address to the American people, arguing that the inspection teams did not need any more time, because Saddam was “still refusing to disarm.”
Given Saddam Hussein’s “long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes,” the United States needed to be willing to use military force rather than waiting “to see what [he] would do with weapons of mass destruction.”

People have forgotten many of the accusations against Iraq, such as that Iraq was sending weapons scientists to Syria to prevent them from being interviewed.
Then there is another familiar accusation.

He further disputed the Bush administration's allegations that his inspection agency might have been penetrated by Iraqi agents, and that sensitive information might have been leaked to Baghdad, compromising the inspections.

Did Russian agents penetrate the inspectors in Syria? Or are they the very same Iraqi agents, now working for a different dictator? They must be good, because they were never discovered.
Why would the U.S. think this?

Both sides agree that American satellites photographed what American analysts said were Iraqi clean-up crews operating at a suspected chemical weapons site they had identified within 48 hours after the information about the site was shared with Unmovic.

Ah, yes. Covering up the evidence of WMDs.
Hmmm. Maybe it's even the same clean-up crew. Job security and all that.

I bring this up because famed journalist Robert Fisk has already been to the site and reported from it.

There’s even a friendly doctor in a green coat who, when I track him down in the very same clinic, cheerfully tells me that the “gas” videotape which horrified the world – despite all the doubters – is perfectly genuine.
War stories, however, have a habit of growing darker. For the same 58-year old senior Syrian doctor then adds something profoundly uncomfortable: the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.
...Before we go any further, readers should be aware that this is not the only story in Douma. There are the many people I talked to amid the ruins of the town who said they had “never believed in” gas stories – which were usually put about, they claimed, by the armed Islamist groups.

So in other words, something truly horrible happened there, and it was done by the Syrian government, but it wasn't a gas attack.
Surely people will consider this news in a reasonable way, right?

No he doesn’t. He visited Daraya where the regime committed a massacre days before, accompanied by the regime army! He is writing propaganda for the regime. His crimes have been documented: https://t.co/nPeyzIZ0uQ

— Mark Boothroyd (@nurseboothroyd) April 17, 2018

So @janinedigi, you want Robert Fisk to be judged for war crimes for reporting on events, in a way that contradicts your priors?

Stalinism enforced by people disguized as journalists? https://t.co/JK41PxDtev

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 17, 2018

Well, at least we have admitted to what we've gotten wrong in Iraq. Right?
Or not.
If you never admit to being fooled, then you never have to learn anything.

Tags:

WMDs

iraq

Syria

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Comments

Submitted by JekyllnHyde on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 5:24pm

It Worked Like a Charm in 2003

—

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 5:40pm

With Bolton back

@JekyllnHyde
We've brought back the band.

Just one difference this time - the Dems want the war.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 6:38pm

The Deja Vu is hard to miss. The parallels are everywhere.

I wrote in my notes this morning:

Perhaps one in a hundred Americans can explain the strategic advantage the US gains by illegally invading (again) Syria and committing war crimes (again). If you ask them, most Americans will tell you that "Assad is a monster who gases his own people" — a slogan that was recycled from the olden days of Saddam Hussein. These are apparently the magic words that convince Americans to go into debt and sacrifice their own, and their children's futures so that multinational corporations can become more profitable by stealing the resources of the nations we destroy. It doesn't matter if the "gassing" is a lie. Assad is bad and deserves to die. (Again.)

—

Carry a burning candle and share the light.

Submitted by joe shikspack on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 7:09pm

heh...

@Pluto's Republic

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

-- Carl Sagan

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 9:47pm

I actually beleive that assad is bad and maybe gassed his

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic own people.

But that is something for the Syrians to resolve. Or some regional coalition that understands the ethnic and religious history of Syria. Not for the US, UK and France.
( cleverly abbreviated as FUKUS by, I believe, Moon of Alabama)

We fired off 110 Tomahawks. What did that cost? Decades ago a Harpoon cost $100K. Did we waste $11 Million to kill innocent people to no purpose while we refuse food stamps for the unemployed? (Many states now require one to have a job to get food stamps. Talk about chicken and egg.)

Maybe I'm heartless but I still remember the Arab Oil Embargo. I don't like fracking, but I hate blood for oil worse. If they want to trade good Illinois corn and soybeans for oil, OK. Let's do business. But not blood for oil.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by Big Al on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 10:41pm

On what basis do you believe that?

@The Voice In the Wilderness The evidence is overwhelming that a chemical attack did not happen.

Submitted by CB on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 11:16am

Here's Assad using his brain and logic

@Big Al
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=213&v=PRTeLIjQ2jk]

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/22/2018 - 7:07pm

I did say "maybe"

@Big Al
Only because the media are frothing at the mouth. It doesn't make sense to me.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by mimi on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 2:07am

but. but, but .... I thought we live in a troll-free zone

@The Voice In the Wilderness
so ... you ask ...

We fired off 110 Tomahawks. What did that cost? Decades ago a Harpoon cost $100K. Did we waste $11 Million to kill innocent people to no purpose while we refuse food stamps for the unemployed?

No, they didn't waste 11 millions to kill innocent people, they invested 11 millions to drop those Tomahawks, so that they can produce 110 more and new Tomahawks and let the business of weapon production make profits and go on. If you don't use the weapons you produce, it just doesn't make sense to not use them, because you want produce more of them.

And if Assad is bad or not is just irrelevant, even if he would be holy and good, it's still a great deal to drop the Tomahawks over there. Every one with weapons want to use them. It just is reasonable business practice. Everybody loves 'a good deal', right?

—

https://www.euronews.com/live

Submitted by travelerxxx on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 2:16am

Just basic Business 101

@mimi

Hey, like any grocer, they've got to rotate their stock. Those missiles probably have a "sell by" date. I can imagine that it's a riveted-on data plate stating: "For highest satisfaction use on Brown People by May, 2018."

Submitted by CB on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 11:02am

Why would Assad gas his own people?

@The Voice In the Wilderness
Especially women and children? What would you do to me if I gassed your children? Would you throw down your weapons and run away? Would you give up and stop fighting?

Or would you go berserk on everything I stood for and try to kill me even if it cost you your life?

Have you ever actually listened to Assad? I'll let him explain the situation.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiC4w7Erz8I]

Everything he spoke of has since been verified. If you don't at least listen then you are doing a disservice to yourself.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 12:13pm

It's the timing that is suspicious

@CB
The gassing itself is one thing, but the timing is bizarre.

That rebel enclave was in the process of falling. It was literally days away from being taken by government forces.

So when the answer to the question of timing is "He's crazy" then you know something is wrong. Assad is not crazy.

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Sun, 04/22/2018 - 7:17pm

I wouldn't listen to Assad or Trump.

@CB

And like I replied to BigAl, I said "maybe". Intending that to mean it's irrelevant to me.

The only thing that does make sense is a post on Moon of Alabama speculating that it's all kabuki (deadly kabuki) and the US military made damn sure the Russian military knew when and where the missiles were coming. That way both Trump and Putin can strut around and talk tough with no damage to their forces. I am damn sure that neither Trump, Putin, nor Assad give a big rat's ass about common people dying. It's VietNam all over again.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Fri, 04/20/2018 - 12:33am

I believe only in physical evidence.

@The Voice In the Wilderness

Nothing else cuts it for me.

—

Carry a burning candle and share the light.

Submitted by Johnny Q on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 7:03pm

Are you going to believe the US

or your lying eyes?

—

They say that there's a broken light for every heart on Broadway
They say that life's a game and then they take the board away
They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story
And leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret-- A. Moore

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 9:50pm

I didn't beleive Obama

@Johnny Q
and I voted for him twice. I certainly don't believe Trump.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by joe shikspack on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 7:13pm

the powers that be...

don't seem to care enough about the plausibility of their casus belli to make up a new one. it's really a pretty naked exercise of power.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 7:18pm

An even bigger sin

@joe shikspack
Is that once again there is no plan for the day after

Submitted by joe shikspack on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 8:10pm

unless...

@gjohnsit

the plan for the day after is chaos.

chaos seems a plausible desired outcome for the us, given repeated successful attempts to create it.

Submitted by CB on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 11:09am

That is the MO of the US

@joe shikspack
If the war mongers cannot affect regime change to their satisfaction, creating chaos is Plan B. This prevents the country from functioning and projecting force outside its borders. It basically cripples the country.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 7:30pm

It's the hypocrisy that no one talks about

This country used white phosphorus and depleted uranium on Iraq and other countries. Saudi Arabia is using cluster bombs on Yemen. Israel has used white phosphorus and its using huge amounts of tear gas on the Palestinians, and yet the media has said bukus about it.

BTW. Where did Saddam get the chemical weapons that he used on his own people? That's right. From us and our allies. Oops.

Gassing is bad, but OK for some: US complicity in past chemical attacks

Yet, the United States and some of its Western allies, including Great Britain, have a history of being complicit in a country's – namely Iraq's – use of chemical weapons if it suited their national interest.

So, where's the outrage? The silence is deafening.

"The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States – and Britain – gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember, said Robert Fisk, correspondent for The Independent based in Beirut.

—

Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 8:06pm

Did Putin orchestra the attack?

The US secret plan on Damascus foiled: the Russian role before and after the US/UK/France attack revealed

Prior to the triple attack on Syria by the US – UK – France, intensive contacts were carried out by Russia and President Vladimir Putin himself – at around 04:00 am– to reduce the attack and go to a softer, less significant “Plan B”.

Russia, in its contact with several heads of state, rejected any hit that could cripple the Syrian Army and instructed the leadership in Damascus that the West would now think very carefully before radically changing the balance of power in the Levant.

It looks like he did and that isn't going to play well for the Russian Gateers.

T-Hee

But let's go deeper into the FUKIS's plan and see what was going on. It's best to read this yourself to see the chess game happening in Syria. Oh the tangled web of war.

Russia had informed the Syrian leadership of a large gathering of forces at Al-Tanf US-occupied military base on the Syrian-Iraqi borders, where tens of thousands of US proxies have received continuous military training. The Russians identified unusual military movements and understood that the US was preparing to push Syrian proxy forces to reach eastern Ghouta, linking itself with around 30,000 jihadists in Ghouta itself. This attack was planned to take place simultaneously with a diversion from Daraa, southern Syria, attacking south of Damascus so as to deceive the Syrian army and its allies into leaving smaller forces around the capital.

The article ends with this -

Would the US stand by al-Qaeda? Why not? It has never really been a question of the use of chemical weapons, since the US holds the largest stockpile of chemical weapons worldwide: the real issue is the defeat of the US faced with the dominance of Russia over the Levant.

—

Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 9:58pm

Why Not?

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

9-11

It would be like the USA joining with the Imperial Japanese Navy after Pearl Harbor to attack China.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by CB on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 11:45am

Nonsense. The US has been using al Qaeda as proxies

@The Voice In the Wilderness
to foment discord in Syria and attempt to affect regime change since the very start of hostilities. They also used offshoots of al Qaeda in Libya. It was financed by Qatar with the full knowledge of Hillary as shown from her released emails. These emails came from a court order by Judicial Watch.

Here's when and how the US and Israel started using al Qaeda (and its shape shifting, name changing affiliates) in the ME as proxies (again).

The Redirection
Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
March 5, 2007
By Seymour M. Hersh
...
“It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written widely on Shiites, Iran, and Iraq, told me. “The Saudis and some in the Administration have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”

Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside down.”
...
Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al Qaeda first emerged. In the nineteen-eighties and the early nineties, the Saudi government offered to subsidize the covert American C.I.A. proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious schools, training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis. Among them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded Al Qaeda, in 1988.

This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”
...

Submitted by GreyWolf on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 8:26pm

Deja Deja vu vu

I posted an article on reddit:

"LOL: Pentagon Says Syria Strikes Hit ‘Heart’ of [ALLEGED] Chemical Weapons Program (nytimes.com)"

... and left a comment on my own post:

I actually laughed out loud when I saw the NYT headline. So a for-profit corporate media only interested in clicks so they can sell more advertising is publicizing propaganda manufactured by the military that says that the military has struck at something that was never proven to exist in the first place.

Hehe, the 'news' is just like r/jokes - ya' just change one name and then repost it. This is just like joke #7958, remember "Pentagon Says Iraq Strikes Hit ‘Heart’ of Weapons of Mass Destruction Program" - yeah, it wasn't really funny then, and it ain't really funny now. Repost, boo!

"History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes."

Submitted by GreyWolf on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 8:36pm

In case ya' don't know the joke about numbering jokes ...

@GreyWolf

A fellow gets sent to prison, and in the exercise room another fellow yells out, "5674," and everybody laughs.

Another fellow yells out, "9979," and everybody laughs.

The new prisoner is puzzled, and he asks another inmate what is going on. The other prisoner says, "Well, we've all been in here for quite a while and we've heard all the jokes before, so we just gave all the jokes numbers, and so instead of wasting time we just call out the numbers of our favorite jokes."

Well, the new prisoner thinks about this, and decides to give it a try himself and yells out, "#7958," but nobody laughs. So he goes back to the prisoner who had told him about the joke numbering system and asks what's up.

The other prisoner says, "You just don't tell it right."

Submitted by snoopydawg on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 11:04pm

This is what I don't get

@GreyWolf

People know that the government has a history of false flags and yet they fell for it again. The last one was less than two decades ago and they saw through it then. Are they only falling for it now because they hate Trump so much? Hillary lost the election and her supporters lost their minds...

If we had hit a chemical weapons facility, then there would be more dead people because of them.
SMDH!

—

Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 8:31pm

What a f**ked up election that was in 2016

There is no reason to believe this avoidable.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by The Voice In th... on Tue, 04/17/2018 - 10:03pm

I really believe

@Timmethy2.0
that President Sanders would not have done it. Maybe I'm Pollyanna.

President H. Clinton (pardon me while I puke) would have done it sooner. Maybe she would be nuking them now.

—

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Submitted by Timmethy2.0 on Wed, 04/18/2018 - 2:27pm

I agree with you

@The Voice In the Wilderness @The Voice In the Wilderness @The Voice In the Wilderness

I really believe that President Sanders would not have done it. Maybe I'm Pollyanna.

And that's a big reason why the 2016 election was so f**ked. As a Senator, Bernie could still be President, if the Congress suddenly had a catharsis and developed a conscience. Russians or no Russians, Bernie would be President today if he had been treated fairly by the Clintons and their DNC and their media and their lackeys in the federal and local governments.

—

Beware the bullshit factories.

Submitted by CB on Thu, 04/19/2018 - 9:41am

Bernie would have had a heart attack

@Timmethy2.0
or died from some kind of cancer. Killing one man is nothing to people who could care less about killing millions in pursuit of their foreign policy interests.

The following is a small representation of what has been done and continues to be done in your name. Who are the real monsters in the world?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMzJvwG2rsQ]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGNCNl6f6Ts]