The Balance of Probabilities 1084


Unlike the famous chemical weapons “attack” portrayed by the BBC in Saving Syria’s Children, it does appear that in the latest incident at Idlib there was real horror inflicted by chemical attack of some kind. The question is who did it and why?

I am no fan of the Assad regime, and I have no problem using the word “regime” to describe it. Dictators do hold and win elections. I have lived in severe dictatorships and seen from the inside how they do it. The human rights abuses of the Assad regime have been well documented for decades.

But Bashar al Assad is neither stupid nor unsophisticated. Aided by Putin, he outwitted Obama by quickly giving up his chemical weapons to be destroyed and accepting transparency in verification. There is no justification for the destruction of Iraq, but if Saddam Hussein had been able to swallow pride as completely as Assad, he too could have had a very good chance of averting disaster.

Assad had seen his position go from strength to strength, thanks to Putin’s astute deployment of Russia’s limited military power. Militarily the balance had swung dramatically in Assad’s favour, while Trump had said the unsayable and acknowledged that putting Syria into the hands of Wahabbist crazies was not in the United States interest.

So I cannot conceive that Assad would risk throwing all of this away for the sake of a militarily insignificant small chemical weapons attack. It would be an act of the most extreme folly. It is not impossible – hubris is a great temptation to dictators – but given how Assad has played it so far, it seems out of character and extremely improbable. What is less improbable is a local battlefield decision by pro-Assad forces. In my close observation of dictatorial regimes, a fascinating feature is that they operate an image of the perfection of the state. They are highly adverse to admitting mistakes.

What did happen I do not profess to know. There are at least eleven major identifiable state and non-state forces involved in the fighting around Idlib. In going through them all and considering opportunity and motive for each, I continually find that those whose motive would be false flag stand to benefit a great deal more than those who might have been seeking military advantage.

I am therefore for now unconvinced that this was a deliberate use of chemical weapons by Assad forces. I do not rule it out, but it would take much more concrete evidence than currently offered to prove they did something so strongly and obviously against their own interest. But western governments and media have determined to make that the narrative, so the truth is, as so often in modern geo-politics, entirely incidental to the course of future events.


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1,084 thoughts on “The Balance of Probabilities

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  • Republicofscotland

    What do we make of Boris Johnson’s stand down, over his visit to Russia, why did the Whitehouse tell the British Foreign secretary to stay away from Russia?

    Why did Theresa May not step in and say that the British Foreign secretary is entitled to visit his counterpart Sergy Lavrov?

    Is Britain now taking its orders over foreign policy directly from Trump?

    What does it say to the outside world that the Whitehouse can push a British Foreign secretary aside, to allow an American diplomat (Rex Tillerson) to take his place?

    A fair few people already see Britain as hanging onto the coat tails of the US over foreign policy, this latest debacle does nothing to quell those suspicions.

    • Republicofscotland

      Re my above comment, it would appear that the PM, isn’t too bothered about the Whitehouse, ordering the British Foreign secretary to stand down.

      For she (Theresa May) is on holiday in Wales, no worries for her then over the tense stand-off with Russia, and the West over Syria.

      • reel guid

        Thersea May holidaying in Wales?

        I thought she’d said “Powys not the time”.

        Or something like that.

    • reel guid

      RoS

      There has been a sea change in international perception of the UK state. No longer after the brexit vote and the promulgation of silly ’empire 2.0′ to be taken very seriously by other countries.

      We used to joke that instead of ruling the waves, Britannia waived the rules. Now she’s going to have to get used to taking the rules, not making them.

      • Republicofscotland

        reel guid.

        Yes I think you’re right, the dwindling influence of Westminster around the globe over time, has culminated in the possibility that Scotland may vote to leave the union.

        Brexit has only hastened that event, and around Europe, the tables have turned, from tepidly offering the hand of friendship to a independent Scotland, to a firm and warm handshake, from EU nations.

        I think the isolationist, and harking back to days of halcyon empire, trail of thought, amongst the Brexiteers, will undoubtedly see the break-up of the the UK.

    • Sharp Ears

      Fallon is Treeza’s favourite of the moment.

      Theresa May deliberately humiliated Boris Johnson this week – her disdain for him is reaching dangerous levels
      No one wants to become the latest poster boy for British subservience to Washington, or to wake on the Sabbath to ‘Boris the poodle’ (Moscow’s description). But May knew she couldn’t send him on a delicate mission with his counterpart Lavrov
      9th April 2017
      http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boris-johnson-moscow-meeting-rex-tillerson-sergey-lavrov-syria-theresa-may-disdain-a7675311.html

    • michael norton

      So either it was a Sarin Attack or it was not, it cannot be both,
      Why do they not send in the Chemists to do some LOOKING.

      Are they afraid they with not fins Sarin?

    • Chris Rogers

      THF,

      I actually linked in to the Swedish Doctors conclusions of the video evidence that Trump based his illegal actions on, which they then deconstructed frame by frame. And yes, like all other White Helmet productions its a fraud in their opinion – this based on the fact it contains zombies, that is victims from other purported attacks that some how have returned from the dead, or made miraculous recoveries. That the Doctor in these video’s is a UK citizen and formerly a licensed Doctor in this country must be of concern to HM Gov. and our security forces given we have seemed to have produced our fair share of Jihadists, and that’s before pissing off the actual locals in the ME by acting as the USA’s poodle.

      • bevin

        Others too made links to the Swedish Doctors’ report. I say this not to ‘trump’ Trowbridge but to reassure him that most of the comments on this blog are genuine and that I have noticed no pattern of censorship, apart from the paranoiua related to antisemitism.
        Regarding which :http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/04/make-america-neocon-again/
        Along with the Gilad Arzmon piece there are excellent articles by Matt Pepe and this one
        http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/04/chemical-attack-in-idlib-duplication-of-scenario-in-eastern-ghouta/

          • Republicofscotland

            Sharps Ears.

            I just noticed your excellent link to Atzmon’s column. It was worth reading.

            I’d like to add my own opinion to it, by saying that the Great Satan, needed to respond to the chemical debacle, or in the eys of the world Trump would’ve looked weak.

            I do however believe that both Putin and Trump came to some sort of understanding over where and when to bomb. It allowed the Great Satan and the West to save face.

          • Habbabkuk

            Bevs

            Read your link (to electronicintifada). Israel-UK trade relations and Israel is big in certain technologies. I saw nothing particularly heinous in the article but perhaps I missed something? If so, could you point it out?

          • reel guid

            Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality – the seamless blending of postmodern reality and fiction – does present itself as the best way of describing all this.

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        Thanks, Chris, but I still have beeb unable to find the link though I an sure I could guess your opinion of the video.

        Your arguing with Habby too, tends to make me skip over posts where I suspect this is happening. Don’t waste my time arguing with mind-frozen wrecks like him.

        Also, I think the mods should impose some kind of time limit on responses to older posts. Without it, the thread is increasingly lost.

  • reel guid

    The Scottish Government have just announced that they’re now taking applications to find a young Scotswoman to be mentored by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

    Maybe the leader of Scottish Labour should look her CV out.

    Go for it Kez.

          • Habbabkuk

            Clenching her buttocks to prevent any info about a future independent Scotland leaking out?

          • Republicofscotland

            Habb.

            Speaking of clenched buttocks, Richard I would often share his bed with Philip II of France. It is said they did so to show unity between the countries.

            Well that’s the official story anyway. ?

          • reel guid

            Habba

            The info about a Scotland out the EU and still in the UK is very evident.

            Scotland out the EU and the European Court of Human Rights. Out of the single market. We didn’t vote for any of that.

            Having a majority vote showing the will of the Scottish Parliament for a referendum knocked back imperiously by a British PM.

            Having serial Tory governments we didn’t vote for legislating for more privatisation. Minimal public services and low pay jobs. The engineering of the economy to benefit only the wealthy of the south east corner of England.

            Westminster and the UK Supreme Court overriding the democratic wishes of Scotland with impunity.

            All that isn’t unfounded scaremongering directed at No supporters but the reality of the UK now.

          • Habbabkuk

            Reel guid

            As I’be pointed out before, the Supreme Court does have two Scottish justices on it (out of eleven).

            That would appear to be an over-representation of Scotland if one based oneself on the relative populations.

          • reel guid

            Habba

            Whether Scotland is over-represented in any UK wide political or judicial institution the democratic deficit is caused by the fact that Scottish wishes are being overridden with ease. By Westminster. By the UK Supreme Court (an institution set up by a war criminal incidently).

            A truly democratic multi-nation state has fairness built into the constitution to account for population imbalances between the member nations. The UK has none. Resulting in Scotland voting to stay in the EU yet being dictated to that we are leaving anyway.

            The Scottish Government didn’t even receive the courtesy of being told the date of the Article 50 triggering by the Tory government.

            So regular insult to add to the democratic deficit. The two usually go together.

  • michael norton

    Pilot who dropped sarin bomb which killed 87 Syrians is a General who carried out ANOTHER gas attack last month

    General Mohammed Hasouri named as pilot responsible for sarin gas attack
    He was pictured being congratulated for the raid at Shayrat airbase on Saturday
    General is thought to be behind another gas attack which sickened 70 in March

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4397074/Assad-General-revealed-pilot-dropped-sarin-bomb.html#ixzz4drjgUjWN

    If it was nerve gas, it ought to be obvious.

    • michael norton

      Boris Johnson wants to put further sanctions on Russia for not stopping the Syrians dropping SARIN on the innocents of Syria.

      I wonder if Boris Johnson knows that Russia is constructing the terminals and pipelines for the Israelis for the Methane pipes from Israel to Cyprus.
      The Israelis will not be very happy if the Russians are stopped from doing the job?

      • michael norton

        Boris Johnson warns Russia it could be hit with new sanctions following Syria chemical attack

        Mr Johnson also called on Vladimir Putin to abandon his support for Syria’s Assad regime

        http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-russia-new-sanctions-bashar-al-assad-syria-chemical-attack-regime-link-new-sanctions-a7677011.html

        Mr Johnson made his sanctions threat as he arrived in Italy on Monday in a bid to persuade G7 leaders of the case for tougher action against Russia.

        He said: “We will be discussing the possibility of further sanctions certainly on some of the Syrian military figures and indeed on some of the Russian military figures who have been involved in co-ordinating the Syrian military efforts and are thereby contaminated by the appalling behaviour of the Assad regime.”

        The US and EU currently have a range of sanctions against Russia related to Mr Putin’s annexation of Crimea three years ago.

        While the sanctions are believed to have had an impact on the Russian economy, with Moscow’s diplomats lobbying to have them lifted, they have not forced Mr Putin to heel in Ukraine.

  • Doug Scorgie

    reel guid
    April 10, 2017 at 14:16

    “We used to joke that instead of ruling the waves…”

    …………………………………………………………….

    Britannia Ruled With Slaves.

    • KingofWelshNoir

      Ah the old ‘In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act’ quote. Such a great remark. Trouble is, despite the fact that every conspiracist website out there quotes it, I’ve never been able to find any evidence that Orwell actually said it. In fact, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.

      • glenn_uk

        KoWN: There is this –

        http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/24/truth-revolutionary/


        In 1919 the political theorist Antonio Gramsci co-wrote an article in the periodical “L’Ordine Nuovo” that contained a thematically related precursor expression: (4)

        But the concrete and complete solution to the problems of socialist living can only arise from communist practice: collective discussion, which sympathetically alters men’s consciousness, unifies them and inspires them to industrious enthusiasm. To tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is a communist and revolutionary act.

        Unsigned, written by Antonio Gramsci in collaboration with Palmiro Togliatti, L’Ordine Nuovo, 21 June 1919, Vol. 1, No. 7.

  • Paul Barbara

    Send Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) over to the States – he knows how to deal with Trump.

  • Habbabkuk

    From Dave:

    “It looks like they’re preparing the ground to “cut a deal”, but Trump needs to look “anti-Russian” to do it! ”
    _________________

    What I was suggesting a couple of days ago.

    And part of the deal will be that “President” Assad will no longer be President by the end of this year.

    Remember – you read it here first.

    • RobG

      The Americans are taking military action in Syria (aka, murdering people) totally against all international law.

      Perhaps you can provide an argument for this ‘Frankenstein’?

      (and please don’t give me the nonsense about a ‘chemical attack’ by Assad, a chemical attack that’s now been widely disproved)

    • Ball

      Habbabk,
      ————
      Remember – you read it here first.
      ————
      No and stop pretending to have an original thought you plagiarist.

      If you think Russia and Iran are willing to lose all credibility on the world stage (and with every ally that relies on them for protection) at this stage of the war, 80% won, over false flags and western hot air, you really are deluded.

      Assad goes and Russia would look like they’ve been bullied and as we all know from the Euros, Russians don’t do bullied. He’s going nowhere.

      The only option to get rid of Assad is through a full scale US invasion. Do you think after over a decade of US troops arriving home in body bags for nothing in the ME, Trump and Co will commit to another 10+ years of carnage? Not a chance.

      Keep dreaming, Habbabk, fantasy.

      • Sharp Ears

        He wishes. Ha!

        He should read and absorb these paragraphs from an article written by Mariam al-Hijab who is the Editor-in-Chief of the Inside Syria Media Center.

        ‘However, in 2013 there were several reasons that interrupted the U.S. initiating large-scale aggression against Syria. Just after being published, the materials about the use of chemical weapons began to acquire additional details, which indirectly indicated the involvement of the U.S. and their allied groups in the imitation of the chemical attack.

        It turned out that this provocative act has been preliminary and carefully planned by the military experts. This is evidenced by hacked correspondence of U.S. Army Colonel Anthony Jamie MacDonald, who was General Staff Director, Operations and Plans Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the army staff in 2013. On August 22, the day after the chemical attack, MacDonald received a message from his colleague Eugene Furst with congratulations on the “successful operation” and a link reference to an article on Eastern Ghouta in The Washington Post.

        The media leak of MacDonald’s correspondence has become additional evidence proving that the Syrian government has no relevance to the use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta.

        Earlier Damascus has already been blamed for using poisonous substance, but all these attempts have failed. In the same 2013, the UN investigation proved that the militants were responsible for the use of sarin. It was stated by Carla Del Ponte, the head of the UN commission. Subsequently it turned out that the chemical ammunition availability among opposition groups was recorded on video.’

        http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/04/chemical-attack-in-idlib-duplication-of-scenario-in-eastern-ghouta/
        April 10th 2017

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Sharp Ears April 10, 2017 at 22:53
          Thank you, Sharp Ears. But some ‘folks’ don’t want to know the truth; such a thing!

  • RobG

    Even the CIAdian is reporting just how popular Jean-Luc Mélenchon is…

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/10/jean-luc-melenchon-shakes-up-frances-presidential-race

    This is going to be delicious to watch, because in a free and fair election Mélenchon will walk it. How’s Uncle Sam going to deal with this one? because France has been on the verge of revolution for the last year or so (as of course you’ve been told about in your favourite rag).

    Expect more ‘Je Suis Charlie’ and ‘Je Suis Paree’ rollocks to happen (and don’t forget to paint your face in the colours of the French flag).

    If Mélenchon survives and becomes President there will be real prosecutions, and the cockroaches know it.

    • Ball

      RobG,

      Notice how they’ve suddenly dropped the ‘far’ left tag out of the reports.

      And stopped the comparisons with Corbyn.

      Can’t be giving the plebs idea’s.

    • Kerch'ee Kerch'ee Coup

      There seems a lot of talk about Sophia Chikirou and Gerard Miller having done a make over job on him.’ Le candidat anti-systeme adoube par le systeme’. Still hope is the last thing to die

      • RobG

        Repeat, in a free and fair election, Mélenchon will walk this.

        You live is totally fascist lunatic societies where the media is completely controlled.

        Many of you are brain-dead zombies who will be marched into the next war.

        And I can’t say often enough, these war crimes are all funded by tax payers.

        The corporations have all got their claws firmly into the golden pot (tax money).

        Why tax payers are dumb enough to tolerate such blatant corruption and criminality is another matter.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ RobG April 10, 2017 at 21:40
          I couldn’t agree more (re brain-dead zombies). I don’t know anything about Melanchon, but if he’s Left, I’m for him.

  • Alcyone

    It’s official: The chief export of Scotland, over the years, decades and centuries is not whisky, it’s their people. I wonder why?

    And it’s chief import is cars. Over 30 million Scots around the world, yet Scotland has never managed to produce a viable car. I also wonder how many countries have over 80% of their population living outside their country?

    With such erudite Scottish commenters and thinkers here, I hope one can get some quick and frank answers.

    • reel guid

      People out and cars in.

      Independence could reverse that.

      It certainly can’t be worse than the union.

      • Alcyone

        Could, should, would….aren’t you wiser than that? i hope for your sake, you are not a betting man.

        • reel guid

          I used the word could simply so as not to sound strident.

          As for betting William Hill are offering odds of 4/6 for Yes while No is 11/10.

    • Ball

      Alcyone,
      ————
      It’s official: The chief export of Scotland, over the years, decades and centuries is not whisky, it’s their people. I wonder why?
      ———–
      The neighbours obviously.

  • michael norton

    A US air strike in response to a suspected chemical attack damaged or destroyed 20% of Syria’s operational aircraft, the US has said.

    Defence Secretary James Mattis said Syria would be “ill-advised ever again to use chemical weapons”.

    Ministry of Truth
    That’s some smug fucker

  • mauisurfer

    This report by two real USA scientists deserves full read.
    It contains the best technical descriptions and illustrations of what did/did not happen at Ghouta. Also contains the lies of Sec/State Kerry in sworn testimony to Congress.

    Possible Implications of Faulty
    US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus
    Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013
    Richard Lloyd
    Former UN Weapons Inspector
    Tesla Laboratories Inc.|Arlington, VA
    Theodore A. Postol
    Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Washington, DC
    January 14, 2
    THE BOTTOM LINE
    The Syrian Improvised Chemical Munitions that Were Used in the August 21,
    Nerve Agent Attack in Damascus Have a Range of About 2 Kilometers
    This Indicates That These Munitions Could Not Possibly Have Been Fired at
    East Ghouta from the “Heart” or the Eastern Edge of the Syrian Government
    Controlled Area Depicted in the Intelligence Map Published by the White
    House on August 30, 2013.
    This faulty Intelligence Could Have Led to an Unjustified US Military Action Based on False Intelligence.
    A Proper Vetting of the Fact That the Munition Was of Such Short Range Would Have Led to a Completely Different Assessment of the Situation from the Gathered Data
    Whatever the Reasons for the Egregious Errors in the Intelligence, the Source of These Errors Needs to Be Explained.
    If the Source of These Errors Is Not Identified, the Problems That Led to this Intelligence Failure Will Go Uncorrected, and the Chances of a Future Policy Disaster Will Grow With Certainty
    https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.pdf

    • Paul Barbara

      @ mauisurfer April 11, 2017 at 00:02
      Thanks. I vonder if Chumsky is aware of this, as it emanates from MIT? No probs; he will be in a few minutes!

  • bevin

    This is a very useful summary of US policy in the Middle East by Chas Freeman:

    http://lobelog.com/reimagining-the-middle-east-2/
    This is a excerpt
    “…The central objective of U.S. policy in the Middle East has long been to achieve regional acceptance for the Jewish settler state in Palestine. American diplomats have doggedly sought a political basis for a reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians that could provide sustainable security for Israel and facilitate broad Arab normalization of relations with the Jewish state.

    “The international community originally approved the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of a proposed partition of Palestine into two states. After decades of expansion, Israel has successfully precluded a two-state resolution of its conflict with its captive Arab populations. There is now de facto a single state in Palestine. A government that is democratically elected by Israeli Jews exercises various degrees of tyranny over Muslim and Christian Arabs. This is a formula that assures continuing Palestinian resistance, the alienation of the world’s nearly two billion Muslims from Israel, and the corrosion of both democracy and traditional Jewish values in Israel.

    “The Jewish state has evolved since its founding. It has left behind it both the humanism that inspired Zionism and the universal moral precepts traditionally espoused by Judaism. The perception that Israel no longer shares values it once aspired to exemplify is increasing its international isolation, especially from Jews in Europe and the United States. But American diplomacy no longer even pretends to seek to halt Israel’s triumphant march toward existential implosion despite the obvious negative consequences of this for the security and international influence of the United States….”

    • bevin

      The author ‘Chas Freeman served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the war to liberate Kuwait and as assistant secretary of defense from 1993-94. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on “diplomacy” and is the author of five books, including “America’s Misadventures in the Middle East” and “Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige.” He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.’

  • michael norton

    Blast rocks mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in Turkey
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39563678

    I expect it will be the Sultan of Turkey slughtering his own people, perhaps America will send cruise milles
    to deter him from doing this again?
    Ministry of Truth
    Along with U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Americans have invited Turkey
    to decide the undoing of Syria.

    Quite ironic when it is Saudi and Turkey and America who have initiated the “civil” war in Syria.

    • Salford Lad

      It is deliberately obfuscated but the underlying motive behind the wars in the Middle East, is to maintain the US dollar as Reserve Currency and the Petrodollar as the unit of value for a barrel of oil. thus financing the US economy and its Military enforcement machine.
      Russia and China have been dumping their US Treasury Bonds slowly and now trade between themselves in Gold,Yuan and rubles.
      They have formed a new Financial system with the AIIB (Asian investment and Infrastructure Bank). They have formed a new Bank Clearing System,separate from SWIFT. They have their own credit card systems.
      China is building the NEW SILK ROADS and sea arteries to connect the countries of ASIA to Europe. Trade along these routes will be in local currencies, by-passing the dollar.
      The Silk Roads by-pass the US Navy’s control of the sea route choke points and make their carrier fleets largely redundant as enforcement tools..
      For the Washington war machine,Syria is but a stop along the road to Iran, then up into Central Asia to cut and control the Silk Road and impose the US dollar toll charge.
      The New Silk Roads spell the end of the US dollar as the dominant currency and the end of the US military and Financial hegemon.
      Thus Syria is a major pivot point in World History and will be a war to the end. Empires die slowly and usually decay from within, but this may not be the case with the neocon psychopaths reluctant to concede power.
      There are other US allies with interests in subduing Syria; Saudi and Qatar to build their gas pipeline to the Meditterean and on to the European Market, this undermines Russian near monopoly of supply and will damage their already fragile economy.
      Turkey with its grab for the corridor to the oilfields of Mosul and subjugation of its rebellious Kurds.
      Israel and its Oded Yinon plan to break-up Syria and grab land, also to cut the Shia Crescent connecting Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
      European countries who are reliant on Russian gas energy supplies and wish to have another supply source from the Gulf States.
      So there are many countries ready to feed on the carca

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Blynda Grays April 11, 2017 at 11:01
      Obviously it was a ‘False Flag’; but why on earth say ‘sadly’? The CIA is Satan’s Praetorian Task Force – why on earth should you expect a different result? As Webster Tarpley says, ‘The CIA is Wall Street; Wall Street is the CIA’.
      The CIA organised JFK’s assassination; that marked the end of US ‘Democracy’.

  • Sharp Ears

    Shilling for Israel in Lucca today

    All the communiqués coming out of the so called ‘summit’ of G7 Foreign Ministers are anti- Assad of course:

    Tillerson ‘It is clear to all of us that the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end’.

    French Foreign Minister Aurault ‘The G7 countries agree that there can be no Syrian peace deal with Mr Assad in power.’

    Italian Foreign Minister Ditto

    Johnson (an irrelevance!) sees the G7 summit as a game-changing moment and calls for new sanctions to be imposed on Syrian military figures and Russian military individuals responsible for backing them.

    The moral pygmies are running the show.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Sharp Ears April 11, 2017 at 12:26
      Well, the silly-born baalams might meet Moloch sooner than they had anticipated! Such a thing!

  • Dave

    Assad may go but through a transition deal, but the survival of Assad per say is not the test, its whether its a neo-con deal to dismember Syria or an America first deal to agree to the continuation of a united Syria under secular leadership which would be the way to end rather than perpetuate the conflict.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Dave April 11, 2017 at 13:37
      Since when did the USA and it’s cronies have the right to enforce ‘Regime Change’? Sure, they have done it time and time again, but now they are coming up against a strong resistance. ‘Duck, and cover’, or the alternative ‘squat down, tuck your head between your knees, and kiss your sorry a** goodbye’.

      • Dave

        I don’t think it helps to be a Cadaver McCain in in reverse and support WWIII as a form of virtue signalling or better a ‘betrayed’ Czechoslovakia than a ‘saved’ Poland!

      • Hieroglyph

        Ah, but you are speaking a foreign language there. To us normal people, the US has no right at all to oust Assad, and should leave Syria in peace. It’s illegal, though of course only commies pander to such historical concepts as ‘international law’. It’s also deeply immoral, because though Assad isn’t perfect, Syria is actually not part of the USA, so the USA doesn’t really get to choose the Syrian leader. But you simply can’t explain any of that to a neocon, they seem to think you are talking Martian, and get all puzzled and angry. I’ve literally no idea why neocons do anything. Pipelines, Yinon plan, arms deals whatever, that all seems like good fun, but not really their true motivation. Nope, I suspect they are simply just lunatics, and lunatics don’t really have motivations that make any sense to non-lunatics.

        It’s perfectly possible that the world is actually at greater risk of nuclear death than even during the Cuba crisis. Bluntly, Putin would be well within his rights to announce regime change for the US. See how the neocons like that one, eh?

  • michael norton

    Syria – Russia could then give
    The Israeli Regime 48 hours to get out of
    The Golan

    then blitz the shit out of them.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Can’t believe the rubbish Dominic Sandbrook, who considers himself an expert on modern history, comparing the current crisis to the Cuban Missile one, when Assad triggers WWIIII with another gas attack on the American surrogates in Syria when the real likely one is between Russia and the USA, with China being dragged in when Washington goes it alone over North Korea.

    Sandbrook should stick to British pop culture.

    Xi tipped his hand when he visited Alaska on his way home after visiting the world’s biggest danger, Trump.. The US missile defense shield at Fort Greely is no defense for the enemy boomer off the California coast.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Trowbridge H. Ford April 11, 2017 at 14:56
      You ought to bone up on ‘False Flag’ attacks as a ‘Casus Belli’ for aggressive wars.
      And, I will add, you probably don’t have a clue as to how near the world was to nuclear war in 1967; or, of course, perhaps you do.

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        I am saying that Russia and China have ‘boned up’ on US “false flags” attacks, and are preparing to go to war with Washington if its tries to remove Kim Jong-Un unillatersally by force.

        And the assassinations of JFK in 1963, and Olof Palme on 1986 in “false flag” attacks in the hope of getting rid of Russia were more dangerous than anything that happened in 1967, as I have long written about, and was forced to retire from a tenured position for continuing to claim.

        America’s alleged freedom in a sham. One pays if one doesn’t go along with its loony leadership.

        What? Too busy reading books like The Transformation of America?

        • Trowbridge H. Ford

          Hard to get anything sensible out of you, Barbara.

          The book Cathy O’Brien helped write is entitled, The Tranceformation of America, indicating falsely that Hillary sexually abused the drugged child which Trump hoped to prove by the Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s emails

          Little wonder that you loons who supported him for POTUS are most quiet about it all now.

  • michael norton

    Syria ‘chemical attack’: Turkey says tests confirm Sarin was used

    1 hour ago
    From the section Middle East

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39564437
    Turkey says it has “concrete evidence” the nerve agent Sarin was used in a suspected attack by Syrian government forces a week ago, state media report.

    Health Minister Recep Akdag was quoted by the Anadolu news agency as saying traces of one of the decomposition products of Sarin had been detected in the blood and urine of several victims.

    At least 89 people were killed in the incident in rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun.

    They keep using the same few actors in the photographs.

  • Dave Lawton

    Here we have the fake environmentalist Monbiot who appears to be up for war.Is he going to launch his Nuclear Power stations which he is in favor of at Assad ?

    “Even the usually cautious Guardian journalist George Monbiot appears to be eager for military action. On Twitter (April 7, 2017) Monbiot claimed:

    We can be 99% sure the chemical weapons attack came from Syrian govt.”

    Three days later, media analysts Media Lens challenged Monbiot by citing the views of former UN weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, both of whom contradicted Monbiot’s assertion.”

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-the-latest-claims-against-assad-are-a-pack-of-lies/5584556

    • Dave

      Perhaps for the reverse reason, I always found Monbiot a fraud because his support for the climate change scam was done on back of an emotional rather than factual appeal, the same tactic deployed by the neo-cons to promote war. And when he backed nuclear power that confirmed it for me, because the nuclear lobby promote climate change as a way of providing the expertise and funding for Trident renewal via fuel bills.

      To understand the neo-cons is to understand the Wandering Who’s. Some Who’s are a deadly mix of arrogant racism and paranoid self-loathing due partly to an inbreeding mix of financial intelligence and victim self-image enhanced by Zionist ideology. This shows itself as an entitlement to rule the world and a fear that everyone wants to kill them in their beds. Hence you get the perversity of Israel destroying their neighbours and casting themselves as the victims. I.e. its as you say a mental illness that defies rational thought.

  • michael norton

    Vlad Putin warns of ‘fake’ gas attacks to frame Syria’s President Assad
    http://www.france24.com/en/20170411-putin-warns-fake-chemical-attacks-frame-syria-assad-tillerson-russia

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned of future chemical weapons “provocations” in Syria to frame President Bashar al-Assad, just as Washington’s top diplomat arrived for talks in Moscow.

    “We have information from various sources that such provocations — I cannot call them otherwise — are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern outskirts of Damascus, where they are again planning to throw some kind of substance and accuse Syrian official authorities of using it,” Putin said at a televised press conference.

    He said Russia was set to appeal to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and “call on the international community to thoroughly investigate such incidents”.
    ———–

    I am sure Vlad is correct, whoever caused Trump to fire off 59 Scottish missiles at Syria, will continue to provoke Trump

    their reasoning it to depose President Assad and break up Syria, for plundering.

  • michael norton

    MONEY GRABBING SCUM

    Électricité de France raises electricity prices for second time this year
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39577667
    Energy firm EDF is raising the price of electricity for the second time this year for its customers on standard tariffs.

    From 21 June, EDF customers will see electricity prices increase by 9% and gas prices go up by 5.5%.

    The supplier previously increased electricity prices by 8.4% on 1 March

    ——

    I suppose this is to pay for the failing of The French State Controlled Nuclear Power Industries.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Don’t you love the mainstream media saying the Donald Trump is finally behaving more presidential after he bombed Syria for what he apparently arranged, and when he still is showing that he is preparing to deal multilaterally, militarily with North Korea, and his Press Secretary Sean Spicer claims that Assad and Putin are worse than Hitler when it comes to using poison gas!

    The only reason that the USA hasn’t used poison gas is that it has more effective overt and covert weapons to kill people, and Hilter’s Holocaust was just small change when it came to eliminating all kinds of people.

    And these loons are the elected representatives of the biggest shithole on the planet!

  • bevin

    Excellent piece in Counterpunch today from Mike Whitney:
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/12/syria-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road/
    He points out, in simple language why Putin cannot desert Syria and why Russia’s survival as a nation depends upon its ability to mobilise the world against US hegemony.
    Support for multipolarity has nothing to do with agreeing with Putin’s christianity, his capitalism or his attitudes to democracy, it is about the grerat question of the hour” Do we want the self appointed International Policeman-a racist thug given to bullying and plundering those it designates ‘suspect’ to found a global Police State?
    If we do, as the Blairites and Tories clearly do, hate Putin and all he does. If you don’t and you want a world in which there is a balance of powers and individual freedom thrives in the interstices, you gotta like the guy!

    “…Putin is challenging the present world order in which a disproportionate amount of political and economic power has accrued to one unipolar center of authority, a global hegemon that imposes its economic model wherever it goes and topples sovereign states with a wave of the hand. Putin’s task is to build resistance among the vassals, form new alliances, and strengthen the collective resolve for a different world where national sovereignty and borders are guaranteed under an impartial set of international laws that protect the weak as well as the strong.

    “That’s Putin’s real objective, to rebuild the system of global security based on a solid foundation of respect for the vital interests of each and every country. To accomplish that, Putin must seem like a reasonable and trustworthy ally who honors his commitments and stands by his friends even when they are under attack. That’s why Putin won’t abandon Assad. It’s because he can’t…”

  • Paul Barbara

    It is very clear what happened with the Syrian ‘chemical weapons’ incident; it was either a head-chopper’s store of CW’s that was hit by a conventional Syrian bomb attack, or it was a deliberate ‘False Flag’. Some reports say it was a CW storage depot for CW weapons that were going to be transported to Iraq.
    Here’s a couple of articles about ‘False Flags’:

    http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/trump-syria-strike-same-old-lies/

    http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/2017-new-world-order-anniversaries-1/#comment-1269999

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Trowbridge H. Ford April 12, 2017 at 16:38
      You have exposed yourself; but, just for the craic, do you believe Assad ordered a CW attack?
      Just checking.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Why will the Trump administration NOT agree to an independent investigation of chemical attacks in Syria?

    The last UN investigation back in 2013 did not so conclude. Why isn’t the stink hole willing to let independent, qualified minds determine the matter?

    Is it afraid if an independent one finds against Washington, it will also ipso facto rule that it engaged in a war crime?

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Trowbridge H. Ford April 12, 2017 at 19:32
      Now you are commenting reasonably sensibly.
      But of course the USA, being an ‘exceptional(ly bloodthirsty warmongering bunch of a**holes)’ country, doesn’t accept World Court decisions. Kind’a ‘Law of the Jungle’.
      And of course I am not referring to the average Joe, who is just a brainwashed ‘sheeple’ like we have here in the UK, but to their and our ‘Great Leaders’.
      Banksters of the World Unite!

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