barrel bombs

While European governments cry crocodile tears over the mass migration of people from this region, Syrians are trying to get them and the US to stop backing so-called 'rebels' who are the very ones forcing people out of the region. The video inside came to candobetter.net from a source describing itself as 'a group of Syrian journalists (living in Syria) who have created a new Middle East Channel'. The video shows Syrian civilians who have come from near Idlib protesting outside the Red Cross in Damascus about the silence of the international press on the predicament of two villages isolated behind enemy ['rebel'] -held areas above Idlib, where two villagers have been kidnapped by Islamic extremists.

Would you be surprised to know that Australia supports financing motley militia gangs to fight the lawfully elected Bashar al-Assad Government of Syria on the basis of false documents in the mainstream media? Robert Stuart is an anti-war activist whose site records correspondence with the BBC and other mass media about broadcasts which seem to have contained false war documents or in other ways present documents in a faulty way. In this latest correspondence, Stuart complains to the UK Telegraph newspaper that it is recycling as new, the same old footage also recycled as if new by UK Television Channel 4 (the subject of another article here: "Complaint to UK Channel 4 of reuse and relabeling of old film for anti-Syrian propaganda purposes - by Robert Stuart"). We publish Stuart's letters here in order to help create a true record of what is really happening.

Robert Stuart

12:07 AM 19 July 2015

to inquiries

Bashar al-Assad's airmen laugh as they drop barrel bombs on fellow Syrians – The Telegraph, 20 May 2015

Dear Sir or Madam,

I wish to complain that the above print and web article breaches Clause 1 of IPSO's Editors' Code of Practice, relating to Accuracy.

The article refers to “New footage obtained by al-Jazeera” in the subheading and states in the first paragraph that "New footage has emerged showing Syrian aircrew using barrel bombs”.

The Telegraph includes the al Jazeera footage in the online version of its article. However the section of the video commencing at 1 minute 54 seconds, in which a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard, appears at 4 minutes 32 seconds in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

At least part of the al Jazeera footage was therefore over two and half years old – and possibly even older – at the time the Telegraph article was published.

Further statements in the Telegraph article suggest that the al Jazeera footage is contemporary:

- The inclusion of a quote from President Assad from February 2015 denying that his government uses “barrel bombs” indicates that the al Jazeera footage can be considered subsequent evidence countering this claim.

- Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is quoted saying of the al Jazeera footage: “It shows the casual and indiscriminate way in which Syrian regime forces are dropping these horrific weapons out of helicopters onto civilians below. For months we have seen reports of barrel bombs hitting hospitals and schools, killing thousands.” The use of present tenses (“are dropping”, “have seen”) strongly indicates that the al Jazeera footage is to be understood as depicting current events.

Yours faithfully

Robert Stuart

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/
Attachments area
Preview YouTube video Leaked: Regime Forces Dropping Barrel Bombs on Homes, Celebrating

This is a letter of complaint to UK television Channel 4 [1] about what looks like recent blatant re-use and relabeling as new film of old film shot in 2012. This film has been used as propaganda against the Syrian Arab Army for the purposes of justifying support of 'rebel' groups, in an article entitled, "Syria: Living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo." We are republishing it for information and for the record.

Syria: living under the horrors of barrel bombs in Aleppo, Channel 4 News, 10 June 2015.

Dear Sir or Madam

I wish to raise concerns regarding the above Channel 4 News report.

The first video on the Channel 4 News webpage above is captioned “amateur footage of recent barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo and Deraa”. At 34 seconds there is a shot of two men aboard a helicopter, one of whom appears to take a cigarette from the mouth of the other which he uses to light the fuse on a munition which they then both push overboard.

The same scene appears at 23 seconds in the second, longer report on your webpage, at the conclusion of the following narration:

“Sweets for the Syrian rebels yesterday after they drove out Bashar Al Assad’s troops from the Brigade 52 base in Deraa. It’s another setback for the government which has been rapidly losing territory. Syrian air force video online shows the response: they drop four barrel bombs, which hit not only rebel positions but civilians.”  

This clearly indicates that the scenes of the two men pushing the munition out of the helicopter took place shortly after the “rebel” victory in Deraa, which you inform viewers occurred on Tuesday 9 June 2015, and to which the images you show were "the response".

A portion of the same footage of the same two men is included at 27 seconds in video “obtained by Al Jazeera” embedded in a Daily Telegraph article of 20 May. 

However, another portion of the Al Jazeera/Telegraph footage – the section at 1:54 where a crew member uses a cigarette to light the fuse on a long, slender munition which is then ejected overboard – appears at 4:32 in this You Tube video which was published on 27 October 2012.

It would seem very likely that the Al Jazeera footage presented by the Telegraph is all of the same vintage, i.e. around two and half years prior to the Telegraph’s and to your report - and quite possibly even older.

Are you able to provide an assurance that the footage of the two airmen featured in your 10 June report is, as you claim, “recent” and specifically that it represents, as you claim, “the response” to the capture of the Syrian army's Brigade 52 base on Tuesday 9 June 2015?

Yours sincerely

Robert Stuart  

https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/

NOTES

"Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990, coming into operation in 1993. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became an entirely UK-wide TV channel for the first time.

The channel was established to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the television licence-funded BBC's two services and the single commercial broadcasting network, ITV." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4

One of the main reasons I hate Wall Street and War Street is that they are usually lying through their teeth to us. Fortunately, however, there are usually actual eye-witnesses to what really happened as well, and these actual eye-witnesses are always calling Wall Street and War Street out for their lies -- but none of that even seems to matter. Remember all the lies we were told about Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Palestine? Bosnia? Ukraine? Panama? Guatemala? Granada? And how we were always warned about these lies? And yet all those "wars" went on anyway.

And here is just one more example of the kind of pretty lies that we are constantly being told -- this time about Syria. An internet friend of mine who I met after visiting Damascus last year is now living in Aleppo and he sent me the following eye-witness 411 about what is really going on in his town.

So you read this. And you have been told. By an actual eye-witness. But does that mean that the unjust and mendacious "war" on the Syrian people will now stop, now that you actually know the actual truth? Obviously not.

"We didn't sleep at all last night," my friend Waheed (not his real name)[1] wrote me today from his home in Aleppo. "Attacks by the so-called 'moderate rebels' started in the afternoon yesterday and continued constantly up until this morning. The news here said that three or four civilians died and that 87 civilians were injured. But the ambulance sirens didn't stop all night long."

Hey, Waheed, are you okay? Apparently yes, but just barely.

"I'm sure that you have heard time and again in the American media," said Waheed, "that Syrians support the so-called 'moderate rebels'. But every single one of the people I know over here do not -- and aren't they the real Syrians? And after all these years and after all these attacks on them and after they have lost their income sources and family members, they are still asking the Syrian army to fight on their behalf, to terminate these vicious attackers and their nests, which have become like cancer in our body."

But what about the barrel bombs we hear so much about? I asked.

"At this point in time," said Waheed, "the Syrian people no longer even care if the termination of these terrorist who are invading our homes is by chemical weapons, bombs or whatever. All we want is for the killing of Syrians to stop. Yet, around the world and in the mainstream media, they still dare to demonize the so-called 'barrel bombs' of the Syrian army and they talk about the loss of lives of ISIS terrorists as if it was the loss of lives of some mythological Syrian peaceful moderate opposition who had been killed by a dictator!"

Waheed is totally pissed off that all these lies are being spread around. Barrel bombs? Really? When the terrorists' ISIS version of Freddie Kruger is being armed, trained and paid for by US, Saudi, Israeli and Turkish neo-colonialists who are only after capturing Syria's land and oil? Barrel bombs are the bad guys here? I think not.

"I don't swear, and I'm fasting this month," Waheed said next, "but this injustice is unlimited and it makes me and many others here feel like we are going to explode with cursing and swearing against all that nonsense of people lecturing in some conference in Britain this week or people at the UN who are telling nothing but lies and hypocrisy."

Part of Waheed's family spent last night huddled in the bathroom of their house because it was the safest room. "Everyone there was crying and terrified by the 'moderate peaceful opposition' as their house is located close to one of the conflicts lines. But the Syrian army can't bomb these ISIS and foreign-fighter terrorists because then the 'international community' will accuse the Syrian army of using this unprecedented super-ultra-modern weapon that is way stronger than a nuclear bomb: Barrel bombs!"

Yeah, right. And next the Syrian army will probably be accused of illegally using fire crackers or cap guns to protect themselves.

"The terrorists are using mortars, explosive bullets, cooking-gas-cylinder bombs and bombs made out of water-heater cylinders; filled up with explosives and shrapnel and nails, and fired by what they call "Hell Canons". Just Google these weapons or see their YouTube clips." Yes, they still do have Google in Aleppo -- but not for long if Obama and Bibi and Turkish hard-liners and the House of Saud have their way.

"The cooking-gas cylinder is made of steel, and it weighs around 25 kg. Imagine it thrown by a canon to hit civilians? And imagine knowing that it is full with explosives? And yet, the mainstream media in America is all busy with the legendary weapon of 'barrel bombs'! And also filled up with how these terrorist ISIS 'moderate rebels' came to spread 'freedom' among Syrians! How dare they say that Syrian army shouldn't fight them back?"

And meanwhile the fighting just keeps getting closer to Waheed's house. "For the first time last night, we smelled gunpowder. The shelling was so extreme and so close as to leave the smell gunpowder in the air." Yet no one at the UN complains about the American-backed terrorists.

"The results of last night's shelling was nothing but more new innocent civilian victims," said Waheed. At this point I'm almost ready to cry.

"I mean, the terrorists failed in gaining new land or occupying new buildings or quarters. They lost many of their foreign-fighter cannon-fodder 'zombies' here of course but their zombies don't count because they are being paid to fight and have no families or friends here to weep over their mangled bodies like is the case with our civilians."

Waheed then apologizes for being so upset -- as if he didn't have a legitimate reason. I know if it was my family and neighbors who were being blown up by terrorist death machines, I'd be too hysterical to even put words on a page!

"Mostly I'm not so much upset by the attackers and whoever is supporting them in Turkey over here (and Israel and Jordan in the south); but mainly from the liars in that conference in Britain or at the UN, who keep lying and lying, telling piles and tons of lies, about 'freedom' and 'barrel bombs' -- and they live in their perfumed and ironed suits and ties, happy with their Ph.D degrees in stupidity and fooling the world, having no problem in obtaining clean water, electricity, hot food and the rest of the services that we are suffering over here to obtain, even a part of them.

"Those people travel in 1st class airlines and live in 5-star hotels, and are ready to come on TV to weep over the fate of the 'Syrian people' and blame the 'regime' -- while giving a blind eye upon all the terrorists they are funding and supporting. I wish these people, whether they are Arabs or Western, Muslims or Christians, Syrians or others... I wish them Hell! And to taste and suffer the same pain they are causing to the innocent Syrian people." Me too!

These pond-scum should be evicted from their 5-star hotels and forced to go live out the reality that they now happily force millions of others to endure.

"The Syrian army has defended our city, and all the lies on the media claiming terrorists' victories are nothing but rumors and gossip. But that's all for today. Take care." You too, Waheed.

NOTES

Jane Stillwater and candobetter.net have the same correspondent from Aleppo, whom we reported here: Aleppo, Syria: 2nd-3rd July 2015 attacks - Please stop blaming the Syrian Government However Jane has had some more dialogue with him which means that the block of words we posted originally has been clarified, contexted and better explained in this article of Jane's.

First published on Jane Stillwater's blog at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2015/07/syria-where-america-drops-barrel-bombs.html