Originally published Jul 8, 2018

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has just issued an interim report on the “chemical attack” alleged to have occurred in Douma, Syria, on April 7th of this year.

OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Reports on Chemical Weapons Use Allegations in Douma, Syria in 2018 and in Al-Hamadaniya and Karm Al-Tarrab in 2016
https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2018/07/opcw-issues-fact-finding-...

Here’s the key conclusion:

OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.

Compare that with the press release jointly issued by the White Helmets (a.k.a. “Syria Civil Defense”) and the Syrian American Medical Society the day after the alleged attack:

https://www.sams-usa.net/press_release/sams-syria-civil-defense-condemn-...

Here are some highly imaginative excerpts:

On Saturday, April 7th, at 7:45 PM local time, amidst continuous bombardment of residential neighborhoods in the city of Douma, more than 500 cases -the majority of whom are women and children- were brought to local medical centers with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent. Patients have shown signs of respiratory distress, central cyanosis, excessive oral foaming, corneal burns, and the emission of chlorine-like odor.

During clinical examination, medical staff observed bradycardia, wheezing and coarse bronchial sounds. One of the injured was declared dead on arrival. Other patients were treated with humidified oxygen and bronchodilators, after which their condition improved. In several cases involving more severe exposure to the chemical agents, medical staff put patients on a ventilator, including four children. Six casualties were reported at the center, one of whom was a woman who had convulsions and pinpoint pupils.

SAMS has documented 43 casualties with similar clinical symptoms of excessive oral foaming, cyanosis, and corneal burns. Civil Defense volunteers were unable to evacuate the bodies due to the intensity of the odor and the lack of protective equipment. The reported symptoms indicate that the victims suffocated from the exposure to toxic chemicals, most likely an organophosphate element.
Following the chemical attack, the target site and the surrounding area of the hospital receiving the injured were attacked with barrel bombs, which hindered the ability of the ambulances to reach the victims.

What we now know:

The OPCW could find no residues of organophosphate nerve agents (such as sarin) in Douma;

Whereas the press release claims that more than 500 cases were brought to local medical centers after the attack (mainly women and children, to tug harder on our heartstrings), interviews with medical personnel at the only functional hospital in Douma indicated that they had received no gas attack patients that day. Furthermore, these interviews also clarified that the video alleged to show emergency treatment of gassing victims at the Douma hospital was in fact a farce, enacted and filmed by White Helmets who burst into the hospital on the day of the supposed attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9w8j-avq_0&t=615s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD9C9koRmro&t=2s

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-rob...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPFaEG9vJT4&t=8s

Moreover, journalists on the ground in Douma several days after the attack found that, with the exception of one individual, the residents remaining in Douma were wholly unaware of any chemical attack that day (aside from what they heard reported on TV!) The one individual who did report an attack — Nasr Hanan — told a story that inherently lacked credibility: namely, that every other member of his family had died in a chemical attack because, after initially fleeing the bombed building, they all went back in. (If a colorless and odorless nerve agent like sarin had been used, this tale would not necessarily be bogus — but we know now that no such agent was used; chlorine has both odor and color, and is of course immediately irritating, so for a whole family to rush into a cloud of it would be beyond insane.) It is undoubtedly no coincidence that CBS and Swedish TV correspondents who reported from Douma both interviewed Hanan — but couldn’t be bothered to visit the hospital. Hanan in all probability is an affiliate of the jihadis, and reporters from mainstream media outlets were given a tip by the White Helmets to visit him.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/your-viewing-pleasure-hilarious-pres...

The memo issued by the White House on April 13th in justification of its illegal cruise missile attack on Syria the following morning included this statement:

The United States assesses with confidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in the eastern Damascus suburb of Duma on April 7, 2018, killing dozens of men, women, and children, and severely injuring hundreds more…..The symptoms described in reporting from media, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other open sources — such as the WHO — include miosis (constricted pupils), convulsions, and disruption to central nervous systems. These symptoms, in addition to the dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries reported, suggest that the regime also used sarin in its attacks on April 7.

https://www.defense.gov/portals/1/features/2018/0418_syria/img/United-St...

In other words, the lies and frauds concocted by the White Helmets and the Syrian American Medical Society were used as the justification for launching 103 cruise missiles into Syria, in complete defiance of international law.

While it is now clear that the White Helmets and Syrian American Medical Society engaged in overt fraud to bait the US into bombing Syria, I am unaware of any mainstream media outlet that has reported this fact. Which is in accord with their usual conduct: they lie continually by omission. Any findings which don’t fit into the preferred Deep State narrative simply go unreported. Such reporting is in fact propaganda, not news.

Independent reporters who have done actual investigative journalism on the ground in Syria have presenting compelling evidence that the White Helmets function as a propaganda outlet for the sociopathic jihadi mercenaries who have been terrorizing Syria for years with the logistical and financial support of Turkey, Gulf State monarchies, and the CIA. Rather than being an “independent” humanitarian organization as they purport to be, the White Helmets are auxiliaries of the jihadis; they are in constant association with the jihadis, and depart with the jihadis when the jihadis are evicted from a city — which is precisely what happened in Douma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNwe7yKbwo&t=840s

https://21stcenturywire.com/2016/10/18/crisis-extras-are-syrias-white-he...

Yet the journalists who have risked their lives in war zones to bring us this vital information have been constantly reviled by mainstream outlets as “conspiracy theorists” and “puppets” for Assad and/or Putin. You can bet that these mainstream outlets are not eager to admit that, by passing along uncritically as fact the lies and distortions of the White Helmets throughout the duration of the Syrian conflict, they effectively have functioned as accomplices to the destruction of Syria by head-chopping Salafist maniacs. They have no more honor than the German “journalists” who aided the Nazi party agenda during the Nazi era — indeed, less; in Hitler’s Germany, telling the truth could cost you your life — whereas now telling the truth can only cost a journalist a job.

Here’s another excerpt from the White House memo of April 13th:

Further, it is unlikely that the opposition could fabricate this volume of media reports on regime chemical weapons use. Such a widespread fabrication would require a highly organized and compartmented campaign to deceive multiple media outlets while evading our detection.

Well, it is looking like there has indeed been “a highly organized and compartmented campaign to deceive multiple media outlets” — and it’s very easy for it to evade detection IF YOU DON’T FUCKING LOOK!

https://caucus99percent.com/content/did-syrian-army-ever-use-chemical-we...

But be assured that our Deep State and its mainstream media puppets are not through with Douma — there is good reason to suspect that the OPCW will report that a lethal chlorine attack occurred in Douma, and that our mainstream media will immediately assert that this was the work of the dastardly Assad. Indeed, the media coverage of the OPCW interim report, while omitting to inform us that this report provides further evidence that the White Helmets claims about the Douma “attack” were total BS, implies that the OPCW findings regarding organochlorine compounds point to an attack on Douma with chlorine.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/syria-many-media-lie-about-watchdog...

Here’s my analysis:

https://caucus99percent.com/content/opcw-likely-will-report-autopsies-do...

https://caucus99percent.com/content/tidal-wave-bs-incoming%E2%80%8A%E2%8...

I suspect that the film of dead civilians in a basement released on-line immediately after the chemical attack — civilians who appeared to have been gassed to death — reflected the fact that the jihadis killed these victims in a gas-chamber-like execution, likely with chlorine. (Which explains why no surviving victims of the attack could be found — when people have been accidentally exposed to massive amounts of chlorine gas in the past, the large majority of them have survived.) The jihadis, after making their grisly film, then claimed to have buried their victims — and the White Helmets helpfully provided the OPCW with the coordinates of their burial sites. If the OPCW was able to locate these bodies and autopsy them, they would likely find organochlorine compounds in the lungs of the victims suggestive of chlorine gassing. (Chlorine per se won’t be found, as it rapidly dissipates into the atmosphere.) My essays explain why any claim that these deaths resulted from an aerial chlorine attack are inherently absurd.

This scenario is entirely feasible, because the Russian army claims to have found chlorine canisters of German origin in a jihadi chemical lab which they discovered in Douma.

https://www.rt.com/news/424581-chlorine-germany-bombs-uk-syria/

It is notable that the OPCW found chlorinated organic compounds in the immediate vicinity of the yellow cylinders found on a bed and on the roof of a house in which the fatalities were alleged to have occurred. Hence, it is reasonable to suspect that these cylinders once contained chlorine gas. However, whereas the jihadis maintain that these cylinders were dropped from helicopters by the Syrian Army, the positioning of the cylinders has raised suspicions that they were not delivered aerially, but were placed in the house by jihadis to simulate an aerial attack. In particular, it is hard to understand how a cylinder falling with such force as to a knock a hole in a reinforced concrete roof ended up perched comfortably on an undamaged bed — with scrape markings on the floor suggesting that the canister had been dragged there. (Not surprisingly, the neocon-affiliated Bellingcat organization and the New York Times have tried to cast cold water on such speculations.) The fact that the OPCW also found explosive residues at these locations — which evidently did not come from the gas cylinders — suggests that the apartment building had already been bombed with conventional explosives, creating the holes observed in the roof. The jihadis then chose the apartment for their hoax and positioned the yellow cylinders so that naive observers would conclude that the falling cylinders had created the holes.

Fortunately, the OPCW interim report suggests that the investigators will be circumspect in analyzing this “crime scene”:

The FFM team visited Locations 2 and 4, where it observed the presence of an industrial gas cylinder on a top floor patio at Location 2, and the presence of a similar cylinder lying on the bed of a top floor apartment at Location 4. Close to the location of each cylinder there were crater-like openings in the respective reinforced concrete roofs. Work is ongoing to assess the association of these cylinders with the incident, the relative damage to the cylinders and the roofs, and how the cylinders arrived at their respective locations.
It is however important to add that, even if the two cylinders had indeed fallen from the skies, the amount of chlorine delivered by them would have been insufficient to kill the several dozen victims filmed by the jihadis, particularly inasmuch as the released chlorine would have readily dispersed through the holes in the roof, even if no windows or doors were open. And certainly, if such an aerial attack occurred, a large number of people would have survived their exposure — yet no survivors of a gas attack could be found in Douma. If your apartment had been hit with canisters releasing a pungent, highly irritating yellow gas, you would hold your breath and get the hell out, wouldn’t you?! (Not, as Nasr Hanan would have us believe, rush back in.)

The White House memo cited above contains this statement:

Within hours of the first allegation of chemical use on April 7, Syria’s state-run news agency painted the reports as a smear campaign by the last remaining opposition group in East Ghouta, Jaysh al-Islam. We have no information to suggest that this group has ever used chemical weapons.
Apparently, you don’t find what you don’t look for. Although who after all would suspect that Salafist jihadis who use the decapitated heads of children for soccer games* would stoop to anything so barbaric as chemical weapons.

It appears likely that the jihadis in Khan Sheikhoun followed a similar strategy to generate gassing victims at that site in 2017.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/al-qaeda-kidnapped-syrian-civilians-...

Just as they did at Douma, the jihadis at Khan Sheikhoun appeared to have screwed up in concocting their false flag gassing. In the latter case, they apparently failed to synchronize their watches, and brought many gassing victims to local hospitals prior to the time that Assad’s forces allegedly had dropped sarin on the city.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/un-report-on-khan-sheikhoun-23-of-v...

The punchline on Khan Sheikhoun is that the UN Joint Investigative Mechanism nonetheless concluded that Assad’s forces were responsible for the gassing — apparently choosing to believe the claims of the White Helmets rather that straightforward logic.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/panel-blames-syrian-forces-khan-s...

It is important to understand why, in Douma, the totally fraudulent anti-Assad narrative concocted by the White Helmets was unmasked: the Syrian army was able to evict the jihadis from Douma just as the fraud was being perpetrated. This enabled independent reporters to interview citizens and physicians of Douma, and the OPCW to directly obtain samples from “ground zero”. In the large majority of instances in which Assad’s forces have been accused of chemical weapons use, the incidents occurred in jihadi-held territory that Western journalists and the OPCW did not have access to. Often, in direct violation of their declared principles regarding “chain of custody”, the OPCW has received its chemical samples from the White Helmets, who also described the incident to Western media (which almost invariably passed along these claims as documented fact). UN Joint Investigation Mechanisms have then used the OPCW analysis of White Helmet-provided samples and the White Helmet-provided testimony to accuse Assad’s forces of chemical warfare.

In fact, it has never made any sense whatever that the Syrian army would use chemical weapons in its fight with the jihadis, as this was totally unnecessary — conventional explosives are more than sufficient for killing and maiming — and would only succeed in bringing down international condemnation on the Syrian government. This logic is even more compelling now that Syria has the jihadis on the run. Whereas the jihadis would have every motivation to perpetrate false-flag chemical attacks — which time and again have been blamed on Assad, reinforcing support for “the rebels”.

It is vitally important to rip to shreds the Deep State’s narrative on Douma, because this could be the key to revealing to the general public that their media have been feeding them nothing but propagandistic tripe over the last 7 years in their reporting on Syria — and, by implication, on so many other important issues as well. WE MUST FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE LIES!

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj3j5QyN3k&t=2776s. Great interview of Australian journalist Gail Malone; grisly details at about minute 40 — have a barf bag handy.