Published originally May 11, 2018

Here are the press releases which alerted the world to Assad’s latest alleged atrocity:

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

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/PRESS-RELEASE.html?soid=1125761508982...

It seems these 2 organizations couldn’t get their story straight — the White Helmets (a.k.a. Syria Civil Defense — even though the organization was founded by a British neocon and is funded, via NGOs, by the 3 countries which bombed Syria on April 14th) conclude that the attack involved a nerve agent such as sarin. That would be the only way to account for their claim of over 500 casualties and 43 deaths resulting from the gas attack. In contrast, the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations reports upwards of 100 gassing victims, with symptoms suggestive of chlorine poisoning — substantially different than those of a nerve agent, which is far more lethal. These organizations evidently should have conferred beforehand.

One might have thought that this discrepancy — rather like being told by one group that the victim had been shot, and by another that he had been run over by a truck — might have given pause or instilled a few doubts in our intrepid Fourth Estate, but No — because, as clarified by the recent episode in which they rushed to transcribe and broadcast the OPCW’s recent assertion that up to 100 grams of Novichok had been employed in the Skripals’ poisoning, they are blithering idiots. Presumably, this glaring inconsistency gave rise to subsequent speculation that chlorine gas laced with sarin had been employed in the attack (the victim had been shot while being run over by a truck). As Sy Hersh has noted, a chlorine-sarin bomb is an absurdity, since chlorine reacts very rapidly with sarin to deactivate it.

Here is the Guardian’s initial report on the Douma “atrocity”:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/syria-crisis-medics-intimi...

Note that the authors are reporting from Beirut and Istanbul, and the “authoritative source” for their report, Dr. Ghanem Taraya — also cited by the UMCRO report — is a Brit then in Turkey.

https://companycheck.co.uk/director/914689292/DR-GHANEM-TAYARA/summary

Note this passage:

“Medics and survivors who have remained in Douma, and others who have fled for northern Syria, ridiculed competing claims that the attack either did not take place, or did not use gas.”

Who are these “medics and survivors who have remained in Douma”, how can reporters in Beirut, and Istanbul, in communication with sources in Turkey, know what they are saying, and why have none of them been encountered by reporters on the ground in Douma?

It is evident that the Guardian report is based on the claims of White Helmets who have fled to Turkey along with the jihadis and their families who had been allowed to leave Douma after it fell to the Syrian army. It’s rather remarkable that none of these plucky guardians of human welfare chose to remain in Douma to show international investigators the victims of the “attack”, alive or dead, none of whom have been found in Douma itself. Though actually, not remarkable at all, in light of reports by independent on-the-ground journalists in Syria that the White Helmets function as medics only for the jihadis, while producing staged propaganda videos for viewing by the outside world, and always accompany the jihadis in their travels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNwe7yKbwo

And note this passage:

A doctor who spoke to the Guardian said: “Our colleagues who appeared on television were coerced, because some hadn’t served in the military or completed their degree, and for other reasons, some had family in Damascus. They decided to stay in exchange for being reconciled with the regime. But the regime used them.”

Alas, “a doctor” is not identified by the Guardian, nor is it explained how this doctor would know that his “colleagues” remaining in Douma were being coerced.

And here is a further comment:

Another doctor said: “We were receiving threats since the siege began, prior to the chemical weapons attack. When the attack took place, things became much more dangerous. They’re wiping out evidence that would prove the crime, and they are forcing doctors and residents who are witnesses to say that nothing took place.”

Precisely how was this doctor threatened by Syrian government officials at a time when Douma was under the control of the jihadis? And how would he know that the “crime scene” was being tampered with, or that doctors and residents of Douma were being coerced?

Nor would you want to miss this hard-hitting journalism from CBS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m_gpBch0Fs

Note that the highly-paid anchor-whore states that the April 14th missile strikes on Syria “targeted Syria’s chemical weapons facilities” — when everyone paying at least peripheral attention would know that those facilities had been dismantled under OPCW guidance several years ago. (We now know that the attack targeted a lab making snake venom anti-toxin.) He then introduces us to correspondent Seth Doane, referred to as “the only American network correspondent to view the site”. (Apparently CBS does not consider One America Network — whose correspondent Pearson Sharp did extensive reporting in Douma — to be an American network.)

The “victims of chemical attack” whom correspondent Seth Doane talked to in Douma consist of a person who thinks he detected gas that smelled like chlorine after a bomb strike, as well as Nasr Hanan, who claims his brother had tried to wash himself in the kitchen after a gas attack, and then somehow ended up dead in a basement along with dozens of others, as filmed by the jihadis. This segues to film of an alleged chemical bomb on the roof of Hanan’s building, which also had been filmed by the White Helmets as “evidence” of a chemical attack. Curiously, the falling bomb appears to have knocked a hole in a concrete roof — but then bounced back up to hover over the edge of the hole, held in place by a metal bar. Independent analysts who have examined the photos of two “chemical bombs” filmed by the White Helmets, have concluded that the jihadis had clumsily staged these scenes, in a manner very comparable to similar staging presented as “evidence” in an alleged gas attack in August 2017:

https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2018/04/09/easter-ghouta-miracle-c...

https://southfront.org/there-are-some-problems-with-gas-cylinders-videos...

If you need a sturdy bed, be sure you buy one from Syria, because bombs which are capable of plowing right through concrete roofs will harmlessly bounce off a sturdy Syrian bed, which indeed will be hardly damaged at all.

Alas, Doane apparently wasn’t able to make it to the only functional hospital in Douma, possibly because he knew in advance that the doctors there had been terrorized into spouting nothing but Syrian government lies. The less circumspect journalists Robert Fisk and Pearson Sharp went to that hospital, and were told by all there that they had seen no gassing victims on the day of the “attack”, and that the White Helmets video of gas attack victims at the hospital had been another staged Oscar-worthy production, as subsequently corroborated by one of the young stars of the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPFaEG9vJT4&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWdzwKp6RHw

Nor could Sharp or Fisk find anyone on the streets of Douma who had heard about a gas attack there, aside from what they saw on TV. People of limited imagination might find this a mite hard to square with White Helmets reports of over 500 casualties and 43 fatalities, but the guardians of True Truth at Snopes have a more subtle perspective:

https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/04/20/critics-slam-viral-stories-claimi...

Their analysis begins:

“Journalists and area experts are calling into question widely-shared articles that cast doubt on reports of a chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma.

“Many of the stories have been published by the Russian state-controlled propaganda network RT and conspiratorial sites such as ZeroHedge, regurgitating a report by storied war correspondent Robert Fisk writing for the Independent. The stories focus on a claim that first appeared in another Kremlin-controlled outlet, Sputnik, which featured two Syrian medical responders telling the Russian military that scores of people who convulsed and died on 7 April 2018 outside Damascus did so as a result of dust or smoke inhalation, not from a chemical attack, as is widely suspected.”

In fact, the two “medical responders” quoted by Sputnik said nothing about anyone dying from dust or smoke inhalation that day, and doctors at the Douma hospital told Pearson Sharp that there had been no fatalities at the hospital all day. But why quibble about details.

“Fisk spoke on the record with a doctor who experts say likely gave — in order to avoid arrest, torture, or death — a regime-friendly account of events.”

One of these experts apparently is Elizabeth Tsurkov, a research fellow at the Israeli Forum for Regional Thinking (undoubtedly an unbiased observer):

“Any person who lives under a dictatorship is not free to speak their mind….People know what happens to people who speak out against the regime.”

Oddly, my viewing of the Douma interviews conducted by Pearson Sharp of citizens and doctors in Douma leaves me with the impression that the interviewees are spontaneous and at ease, but perhaps that reflects a naivete stemming from inadequate brainwashing.

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

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

Nor could the Independent’s Robert Fisk find anyone on the ground in Douma who knew about a chemical attack in Douma — though why should we pay any attention to the maunderings of a journalist who has won Britain’s Press Awards Foreign Reporter of the Year award only seven times?

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

Snopes then cites a report from Swedish TV4, whose correspondent Stefan Borg coincidentally talked to the same young man, Nasr Hanan, whom Doane had interviewed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDey9vvPmlM&feature=youtu.be

The young man states that, aside from himself and his father — who was away from home at the time — all of his family died in the chemical attack, as they had run back into the house after the bombing. (He doesn’t explain why people would run back into a building filling with poison gas smelling like chlorine.) The reporter then descends to the basement, where 25 people allegedly died. Borg’s “throat hurts” as he descends to the basement of death, bravely abstaining from any protective gear. Curiously, neither Doane nor Borg appear to have asked Nasr where the bodies of his relatives now are, or whether any of the neighbors had also been afflicted and could corroborate his story. Also curious is the fact that the vast majority of victims in accidental chlorine gas poisonings — in which many thousands of gallons of chlorine gas have been released — have survived. Chlorine is a respiratory irritant, and is very substantially less toxic than nerve gasses. Where are the surviving victims of the alleged chlorine attack in Douma? Furthermore, analysts have noted that the amount of chlorine that could have been carried by the two yellow cannisters claimed to have delivered the gas would not have been nearly enough to kill so many people, particularly since holes had been knocked in walls, and chlorine disperses rapdily.

Alternatively, if a nerve agent had been used, hundreds of casualties and deaths should have occurred throughout the neighborhood, as they did in the Ghouta sarin gassing in 2013.

Apparently, Nasr is the only person in Douma whom reporters have found who can speak of deaths caused by chemical attack. And no surviving victims have been traced. Very curious indeed.

And yet films of evidently dead people in the basement of Nasr’s home were released on-line; they don’t appear to have blunt trauma, and hence might indeed have been gassed to death. Not unlikely, they were unwilling actors in another White Helmets production. Russian troops found a jihadi chemical weapons lab in Douma where chlorine was stored; if people were tightly sealed in a small room — like a prisoner in a gas chamber — release of a sufficient amount of chlorine could indeed have killed them. And this scenario would explain why there were no survivors. There are strong reasons to suspect that the victims of the Khan Sheikhoun gas attack were gassed by the jihadis — as many of these victims were clumsily delivered to hospitals prior to the time the alleged attack occurred — so false-flag execution-style gassing appears to be a jihadi MO. The head of the White Helmets claims to have supplied coordinates of the graves of these victims to the OPCW, so don’t be surprised if the OPCW reports autopsies of victims who died of respiratory toxicity consistent with chlorine poisoning.

The Snopes analysis then displays its impartiality with the statement that

“Although the Syrian civil war is now in its seventh bloody year, the attack on Douma that killed scores and injured hundreds of persons, including many children, caught international attention.”
“Desperate to cling to its advantage in Syria, the Russian disinformation machine has shifted into overdrive in an effort to shield its ally, president Bashar al-Assad, churning out a muddled and contradictory message. The official story has careened from claiming nothing happened, to saying something did but it was staged, to claiming that dust or smoke caused scores of deaths, and even outlandishly insinuating that the British were the culprits in Douma.”

As noted, no one in Douma has claimed that “dust or smoke caused scores of deaths”. Nor has anyone claimed that “the British were the culprits in Douma.” However, Russia claims to have intercepted communications in which British intelligence urged the White Helmets to hurry up with their provocation.

https://www.rt.com/news/424047-russian-mod-syria-statement/

Evidently, the Brits were right to be anxious, as the White Helmets stalled too long — by the time they got around to filming their farce in the Douma hospital, the Syrian army had routed the jihadis in the city, giving independent journalists and chemical weapons inspectors access to “ground zero”. That’s not the way the ploy was intended to work; all the pertinent info was supposed to come from the White Helmets and jihadi families who had fled to Turkey. Nonetheless, as we have seen, the jihadi-affiliated medical organizations, the MSM as represented by CBS and Swedens’ TV4, the Oscar-worthy Nasser Hanan, and the watchdogs at Snopes have done their darndest to make the best of a bad situation.

Of course, the ultimate irony of all of this is that, even if we knew that there actually HAD been a chemical attack in Douma, clear-sighted analysts considering “cui bono” would overwhelmingly conclude that the jihadis were responsible. Indeed, when residents of Douma have heard about claims that they have been subjected to a chemical attack, they usually have concluded that, if this is true, then the jihadis were responsible. But don’t expect our MSM to divulge that to us.

Update 7–8–2018: An interim report by the OPCW states that their inspectors in Douma could find no traces of organophosphate nerve agents (e.g. sarin). Seems that the White Helmets not only gave an Oscar-worthy performance at the Douma hospital, but also concocted an overt lie about the Douma “chemical attack”. Which should surprise no one who has been paying attention the last few years.

https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-repor...

However, the OPCW found traces of chlorinated organic compounds near the sites where the two yellow canisters were found, suggesting (but not proving) exposure to chlorine gas. Let’s see if, as I have predicted, they will claim that Douma was attacked with “chlorine bombs”.

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

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

Update 5-13-2019: An independent engineering assessment regarding the two chlorine cannisters claimed to have been dropped by the Syrian Arab Army was commissioned by the OPCW - but its findings were mysteriously EXCLUDED from the OPCW's recent final report. This report concludes that the cylinders were not dropped from a height, but rather almost certainly were placed at the scene:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/05/syria-opcw-engineering-assessment-...

http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/assessment-by-the-enginee...

We only know about this now because a courageous whistleblower at the OPCW has leaked the engineering report to The Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media. This organization has made public the report, and in its analysis of it concludes that:

The new information we have removes all doubt that the organization has been hijacked at the top by France, UK and the US. We have no doubt that most OPCW staff continue to do their jobs professionally, and that some who are uneasy about the direction that the organization has taken nevertheless wish to protect its reputation. However what is at stake here is more than the reputation of the organization: the staged incident in Douma provoked a missile attack by the US, UK and France on 14 April 2018 that could have led to all-out war.

The cover-up of evidence that the Douma incident was staged is not merely misconduct. As the staging of the Douma incident entailed mass murder of civilians, those in OPCW who have suppressed the evidence of staging are, unwittingly or otherwise, colluding with mass murder.

And congratulations are due to all the MSM outlets that effectively served as accomplices to this atrocity. Job well done! Perhaps you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for them to comment on this new development.