Syria

The regional and international standoff headed by Saudi Arabia against Qatar is not going to be resolved anytime soon. What does the simmering crisis mean? And why has Donald Trump taken the Saudi side? CrossTalking with Sharmine Narwani, Mohammed Cherkaoui, and Foad Izadi.

Interview with Vladimr Putin by NBC News propagandist Megyn Kelly, text published on the website of the President of Russia, June 5, 2017 - https://www.newcoldwar.org/valdimir-putins-televised-interview-on-nbc-june-5-2017/, and a link to Excerpts from transcript of Megyn Kelley interviewing President Putin, et al., St Petersburg International Economic Forum plenary meeting, June 2, 2017 - https://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54667. (If you cannot reach the Kremlin site, try dropping the s in https. We have put the 's' in because of inflexible Firefox padlock tag rules.)

Megyn Kelly: Shifting gears to Syria, our president has said that you are backing an evil guy there. He said that Assad is an evil guy. Do you believe that?

Vladimir Putin: What? That Assad is an evil person? Ask other leaders who have met him. After all, since he was elected, he has been to Europe more often than to Russia. We are not defending so much President Assad as Syrian statehood. We do not want Syria to be confronted with a situation similar to that in Libya or Somalia or Afghanistan, where NATO has been present for many years but the situation is not changing for the better.

We want to preserve [Syrian] statehood and once this fundamental matter is resolved, to move further towards settling the Syrian crisis by political means. Yes, perhaps everyone is to blame for something there. But let us not forget that if it were not for active intervention from the outside we would not have had the situation and the civil war that we are seeing now.

What does President Assad stand accused of today? We know about the charges of using chemical weapons. There is absolutely no proof. As soon as that happened we proposed conducting an inspection right there on the airfield from where President Assad’s aircraft had allegedly taken off with chemical weapons on board. I would like to reiterate because not everyone has heard this: if chemical weapons had been used, if some shells with toxic agents had been loaded, modern analysers, modern control systems would definitely have detected that there were chemical weapons there on board this aircraft, on that exact spot.

They declined. Nobody wants to. There is a lot of talk but no practical action. We proposed conducting an inspection in the area of the attack, “Let us see what there is.” No way again. “Why not?” “It is too dangerous there.” “What is so dangerous there if the strike was allegedly carried out against the good part of the armed opposition? These are normal people out there, why would they be dangerous?” “No, it is not possible there either.” However, it is known for certain that in Iraq (an Iraqi representative is present here, and we also welcome him), in Iraqi Kurdistan, militants used chemical weapons and that fact was established by the entire international community. Therefore, they have them. And judging by the statements made by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Syria has destroyed these weapons.

You see, if reasons and excuses are invoked, without any intention of looking into the essence of the problem, then one can talk about anything. Let us get down to the heart of the matter. Has Assad made mistakes? He probably has, and quite a few, too. Now, are the people who are up against him angels? Who is killing people, executing children and beheading people there? Are we supposed to support them?

As you know, we argued with our US colleagues until we were blue in the face about whether certain territories could be attacked. “No, that is off limits.” “Why?” “The healthy part of the opposition is based there.” We say: “But ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are still there.” “Yes, but everything is intermingled there, so it is hard to understand who is where.” “Well, separate them then. What are decent, honest people doing with terrorists? Do you have control over them? Let them go and let us fight terrorists.” “No, do not touch them.” Why not? Should we wait until they come to you or to us? We will not. If you want to agree on something, let’s agree.

The Prime Minister is nodding because India is constantly confronted with the terrorist threat. It is not an imaginary problem. According to our preliminary estimate, there are 4,000 people from Russia alone in Syria, plus 4,500–5,000 from the CIS countries, mainly from Central Asia. It is a real threat to us. They are trying to return. Some are in fact returning. This is precisely why we began our operation in Syria, because we realised where things were headed. So, there should be no name-calling. Let us simply work together on the matter at hand. We are prepared for this. What is needed is a constructive position on your part.

Megyn Kelly: So, we know that Assad has used chemical weapons before, and Russia entered into an agreement in 2013 to stop that. I mean, Russia acknowledged that in 2013 to try to stop that by Assad. The only question is whether he launched the chemical weapons attack that happened a couple of months ago. And I just want to ask you, to press you a little further on this, because we all saw the video of the suffering, dying children, and that was the reason that President Trump dropped the bomb. Do you deny – because Assad denies that those tapes are real, he is purporting to tell us not to believe our lying eyes – do you believe those tapes are fake?

Vladimir Putin: Firstly, when President Obama and I agreed to work together on destroying chemical weapons in Syria, we acted on the premise that those weapons were out there. However, we have never acknowledged that Assad used them. I would ask you to be more accurate.

Secondly, regarding the people killed or injured as a result of the use of weapons, including chemical weapons, this is false information. At the moment, we are absolutely certain that it was simply a provocation. Assad did not use those weapons and all of that was done by people who wanted to blame it on him.

Furthermore, our intelligence services received additional information suggesting that there were plans to re-enact a similar scenario in other parts of Syria, including near Damascus. We made that information public. Thank God, the plotters had enough common sense not to follow through.

Megyn Kelly: If I could just follow up on that, though, because the bodies of the victims were autopsied at Turkey’s and our forensic medicine institution. The autopsies were witnessed by officials from the World Health Organisation and from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and they concluded that the victims were attacked with zarin gas. Are we really to believe that the whole thing was staged? That everybody was in on it – the World Health Organisation, the forensic medicine institution, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons?

Vladimir Putin: The answer is very simple and you know it: it could have been used – however, not by Assad, but by someone else in order to put the blame on Assad. So any further investigation without understanding who did it is senseless. It only plays into the hands of the provocateurs who organised this attack. That is all. What is there you cannot understand? It seems to me that everything is absolutely clear.

However, I would like to ask you a question: why didn’t they immediately go to the spot from where the chemical weapon attack had allegedly been launched? Why did nobody go to inspect the airfield? Why did nobody inspect the aircraft that had allegedly been used to carry out the strike, as we proposed? Why did nobody go to the place of the attack? The answer is simple: because they were afraid that this entire falsification would be uncovered – that is all.

As for what you are telling me, it does not convince me in the least but only goes to show that it would be far better not to indulge in speculation or a tug of war but combine efforts against real threats. We know very well what it is like. America is far away and there was a minor explosion, as a result of which, unfortunately, people were hurt at a well-known athletic event. And do you have any idea of how we have suffered here? We know full well, who we have to deal with.

Under no circumstances can anyone from this environment, which is hostile to modern civilisation, be used to address current political issues. Meanwhile, sometimes we see such attempts: “Let’s use these and those to fight Assad.” Why these and those? Because there is nobody else who can fight. Once you use them today, you will never know what will happen to you tomorrow. Then they will start fighting you.

At one time, Al-Qaeda was created to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. And then Al-Qaeda carried out the 9/11 attacks in the United States. This is what this can lead to. It is important to think about the possible long-term consequences.

The Democrats and Soros-backed groups are desperately looking to impeach Trump. The US activities in Syria offer the perfect opportunity, but of course Trump's enemies won't pursue it because they are right behind the US-NATO war crimes in Syria. It is ironic that, when Trump is really doing bad illegal stuff, he is also doing the will of the Democrats. This would be because the external policies of both political parties are driven by the Deep State. A further complication is that, if Trump could be impeached, then all those behind the illegal war on Syria would also be in danger of pursuit under criminal law. Automatic transcript provided.

Automatic transcript

Below is a cut and paste of Youtube's automatic transcript of the speech, which may contain errors, notably based on machine spellings of sounds. Emboldened emphases are by Editor of candobetter.net.

[Music]
0:01 welcome to talk nation radio a half-hour
0:04 discussion of politics as if the people
0:07 mattered
0:08 I'm David Swanson it is my great
0:10 pleasure to welcome to talk nation radio
0:13 this week Francis Boyle Francis Boyle is
0:15 a professor of international law at the
0:17 University of Illinois College of Law he
0:20 has served as counsel to Bosnia and
0:22 Herzegovina and to the provisional
0:24 government of the Palestinian Authority
0:25 he has represented the Blackfoot nation
0:28 the nation of Hawaii the Lakota Nation
0:30 he drafted the US domestic implementing
0:33 legislation for the biological weapons
0:36 convention known as the biological
0:37 weapons anti-terrorism Act of 1989 and
0:41 he has been a strong advocate over the
0:43 years for the proper use of the power of
0:45 impeachment Francis Boyle welcome to
0:49 talk nation radio well thank you very
0:52 much for having me on David my best to
0:54 your listening audience very glad to
0:56 have you on should Donald Trump be
0:59 impeached well I've taken the position
1:05 certainly that his attacks on Syria
1:09 clearly violate the War Powers Clause of
1:14 the United States Constitution the War
1:17 Powers Resolution of 1973 and the United
1:22 Nations Charter they would constitute
1:26 crimes against peace as recognized by US
1:31 Army Field Manual 27:10 so certainly in
1:35 my opinion those are impeachable
1:38 offenses for sure is there a reason you
1:41 named Syria in particular as opposed to
1:44 Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen or you know
1:47 other places where Donald Trump has
1:50 dropped bombs no I just think that you
1:54 know that clear the serious situation is
1:57 is a clear-cut case for impeachment I
2:01 guess the rest weed we have to talk
2:04 about that the press release we put out
2:08 was prompted by Trump
2:13 to latest attacks on Syria yoga it seems
2:19 that there's a view that if the latest
2:22 attack was on Syrian forces as opposed
2:25 to some other forces in Syria then that
2:28 makes a difference but it seems to me
2:31 the the list of violations you went
2:34 through the UN Charter etc covers
2:37 killing anybody in Syria or for that
2:39 matter Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere
2:42 else that the United States is illegally
2:44 killing people well David I you know I'm
2:49 a law professor I just have to be
2:52 precise in my analysis when we're
2:54 dealing with each of one of these
2:55 countries but certainly when it comes to
2:59 Syria the United States government has
3:02 no right to be in Syria at all and as
3:05 you know we have military forces up
3:08 there and Raqqa we're bombing up there
3:11 we also have military forces in Syria
3:15 itself near the border with Jordan those
3:19 are the ones who are fired
3:21 this time arm so our whole presence in
3:25 Syria is is completely illegal unlawful
3:30 unconstitutional it's never been
3:32 approved by our Congress and so
3:34 definitely that's that's impeachable for
3:37 sure from my perspective we you know we
3:42 can talk about other countries if you
3:43 want to but you know I I have to be
3:47 precise I just can't lump everything
3:50 together in you know in one bucket
3:54 absolutely well I would be delighted to
3:57 simply impeach Trump for Syria I was
3:59 just trying to grasp what the
4:00 distinction is between Syria and say
4:03 Afghanistan because it seems that
4:05 Congress allows both to go on provides
4:08 the funding that is used for both the UN
4:11 Charter covers neither etc so I am just
4:15 you know looking for what's the what's
4:17 the legal distinction between the two
4:20 well again right now I just you know I
4:22 want to talk about Syria if you want to
4:24 talk about other countries we can
4:27 and in in terms a you know I've seen
4:32 also references to the fact that Donald
4:36 Trump apparently owned stock in hidden
4:38 raytheon you know in the missiles that
4: sends into Syria is that sort of
4:43 corruption make it make it any worse or
4:45 any more of an impeachable offense or is
4:47 it is the attack on Syria enough well
4:52 that's why I'm arguing the attack on
4:54 Syria's enough I I think you know if you
4:57 look at other potential articles of
5:00 impeachment and I've been this through
5:03 this before I was counsel to the late
5:07 great Henry B Gonzales on his bill of
5:11 impeachment against Bush senior for the
5:14 Gulf War and Ramsey Clark and Gonzales
5:17 and I set up a national campaign to
5:19 impeach bush senior for that war on and
5:22 when when the war started congressman
5:25 Gonzales introduced his bill of
5:27 impeachment and in his memoirs Bush
5:30 senior did state that the reason he
5:33 stopped at Basra and did not go all the
5:36 way to Baghdad was that he feared
5:37 impeachment so we did have have an
5:40 impact there unfortunately couldn't stop
5:44 that war but right now uh you know I'm
5:49 certainly prepared to say that the
5:51 Trump's attacks on Syria are impeachable
5:54 offenses for sure it's it's a slam-dunk
5:57 to use that phrase a type of situation
6:02 yeah right there I could I could draw
6:04 those that article of impeachment now if
6:07 a member of Congress wanted to see it as
6:11 I recall a you and Ramsey Clark also
6:14 presented a case for the impeachment of
6:17 Bush jr. to the Democrats in Congress
6:20 just a week or so before the the attack
6:25 on Baghdad you know which could
6:27 conceivably have saved over a million
6:30 lives and the Congress members there as
6:33 I recall from your account of it
6:37 accepted the the logic of the of the
6:40 case but decided it would be better for
6:42 the Democrats to wait until the next
6:45 election and be able to campaign against
6:48 the war is that what happened basically
6:52 yes David what happened is just before
6:57 the start of go for two by Bush jr.
7:00 Congressman John Conyers the ranking
7:05 member of the House Judiciary Committee
7:06 that had jurisdiction over bills of
7:09 impeachment invited me and Ramsey Clark
7:13 to come in and argue the case for
7:15 impeachment
7:16 uh before 40 or so of the top lawyers
7:22 affiliated with the Democratic Party and
7:26 he had a draft bill of impeachment there
7:30 uh by me drafted by me you can find it
7:33 on the internet if you want to look for
7:35 arm and Ramsey had one too that was was
7:39 similar to mine so Ramsey and I it was a
7:43 two hour debate
7:44 almost everyone there were were lawyers
7:46 of Ramsey and I both both argued the
7:50 case for impeachment and what happened
7:55 the the decisive factor was that John
7:59 Podesta appeared and no Podesta is
8:03 Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign
8:06 director or was and he said that he was
8:12 appearing there on behalf of the
8:15 Democratic National Committee and the
8:18 Democratic National Committee did not
8:22 want a bill of impeachment put in
8:24 against Bush I also had one for Cheney
8:27 and Ashcroft so you know what can I say
8:33 it's clear the Democrats uh were in on
8:38 this war I mean that debt really put the
8:40 kibosh on on the whole thing whatever
8:43 they say in in public
8:45 I'm not criticizing congressman not
8:47 Conyers of course if you you know if he
8:49 he
8:50 had booked the will of the DNC probably
8:53 would have been stripped of his
8:55 seniority and everything else I know his
8:58 heart was in the right place uh you know
9:01 but he's a team player and so we never
9:05 put put put the bill of impeachment in I
9:08 regret to say it was one of the great
9:10 disappointments of my life certainly uh
9:13 and all those people you know the the
9:16 estimate is maybe 1.5 million Iraqis
9:20 were exterminated in what could only be
9:23 called a war of outright genocide
9:25 against the Iraqis and it still
9:28 continues today but what your listeners
9:30 have to understand is that the
9:33 Democratic Party fully supported that
9:37 you know in fact congressman Danza
9:41 Podesta who was Clinton's campaign
9:45 manager was the one who personally put
9:48 the kibosh on it arm so you know what
9:52 can I say I'm not a political
9:55 independent so I you know wasn't for me
9:59 to tell Democrats what to do although
10:02 Ramsey you know as a lifelong Democrat
10:05 and he you know he tried to make that
10:07 argument from from the perspective of a
10:10 lifelong Democrat I said it I made the
10:13 best legal argument I could actually
10:16 yeah sure you did you did and I recall
10:18 what it looked like congressman Conyers
10:21 also discouraged his colleagues from
10:23 introducing any legislation for
10:26 impeachment implying that once he was
10:29 once the Democrats had the majority then
10:31 he would handle it but of course when
10:34 they had the majority in January 2007
10:39 rahm emanuel openly told the washington
10:42 post we're going to keep the war going
10:43 keep Bush and Cheney in place and
10:46 campaign against them again in 2008
10:49 that'll be better and you know for
10:52 whatever
10:53 strategic reasons John Conyers and the
10:56 rest of them went along with that again
10:59 and that's exactly what obama did he you
11:03 know obama was behind me at harvard law
11:06 school we had the same jurisprudence
11:09 teacher Roberto Unger who publicly would
11:12 later call Obama quote a disaster
11:15 unquote on and Obama used that strategy
11:19 to get elected president in 2008 uh but
11:25 he you know he lied tricked and deceived
11:27 all of us as did the as did the
11:30 Democrats and I you know I'm a political
11:34 independent I bet I did not vote for
11:37 Obama either time between you and me
11:39 because I knew all about his career
11:41 behind me at Harvard Law School he is a
11:44 total opportunist you know from here in
11:47 Chicago while I'm not in Chicago but I
11:50 he you know he lived up there in Hyde
11:53 Park and South Side of Chicago where I'm
11:56 from and I contacted people up there
11:58 about him and they said he was a total
11:59 opportunist so I never supported him
12:04 twice voting for for president I voted
12:08 for other candidates right what can I
12:10 say we're speaking with Francis Boyle
12:13 who is a professor of international law
12:15 at the University of Illinois College of
12:17 Law Francis I've got a list of other
12:22 articles of impeachment people are
12:23 proposing for Donald Trump let me let me
12:26 run a few by you and tell me if you
12:28 think they are impeachable offenses are
12:30 not domestic and foreign emoluments
12:33 clauses domestic clause the president
12:36 shall not receive any other emolument
12:38 from the United States or any of them
12:40 any of the states the the foreign Clause
12:43 no person holding any office of profit
12:46 or trust under the US government shall
12:48 without the consent of the Congress
12:50 accept any present emolument office or
12:52 title of any kind whatever from any King
12:55 prince or foreign state Trump seems in
12:58 clear violation of both from day one
13:02 well you know I'm not here to criticize
13:07 anyone else who wants to impeach Trump
13:11 one way or the other
13:12 but let me point out the sociology
13:16 behind this one when Clinton was
13:19 Secretary of State and was involved in
13:24 all the slush funds there with the
13:27 Clinton Foundation none of the lawyers
13:31 pushing this argument on the emoluments
13:34 clause who are all affiliated with the
13:37 Democratic Party talked about impeaching
13:40 Clinton on the basis of the emoluments
13:42 clause not one of them every every
13:46 lawyer behind this campaign on the
13:49 emoluments clause is affiliated with the
13:51 Democratic Party and they did not push
13:55 any of this at all with respect to mrs.
13:57 Clinton the Secretary of State and the
13:59 Clinton Foundation slush fund so I I
14:03 myself um you know if these Democratic
14:06 Party lawyers want to push this they
14:08 can't the only Republican they have on
14:12 there is this fellow Richard painter who
14:16 who used to teach here they use him as a
14:19 frontman claiming that well he's
14:22 authoritative uh because he served as
14:26 the in the White House counsel's office
14:30 as ethics adviser to President Bush jr.
14:35 well you know that makes me laugh that
14:38 that here a painter and Bush jr. are
14:44 covered in blood from head to toe and
14:49 he's there lecturing us painter on on
14:53 ethics this would be like serving as the
14:57 legal adviser on ethics to Genghis Khan
15:01 or something like that yeah only arm you
15:04 know where I you know I'm not I'm not
15:06 discounting the emoluments clause but
15:09 you know you have to look at who's
15:11 making it yet all the lawyers making
15:14 this argument the lawyers who have filed
15:16 the lawsuit they're all uh legal hatchet
15:20 men for the Democratic Party so you know
15:23 if you want to get involved in that uh I
15:26 guess you can't
15:27 and that all the domestic respects the
15:30 domestic laws Francis is specifically
15:33 about the president not a Secretary of
15:34 State but the foreign one could
15:37 certainly be applied to either so I
15:39 guess my question is it granted the part
15:41 of the did the gross blatant
15:43 partisanship it's there were such people
15:47 wrong not to bring such charges against
15:50 Hillary Clinton or are they wrong to
15:53 bring them against Donald Trump what I'm
15:56 saying now is that it's total hypocrisy
15:58 under these circumstances and I'm not
16:01 getting involved with my personally for
16:04 me I'm not getting involved with a gang
16:07 of legal hatchet men for the Democratic
16:11 Party uh who supported Clinton and
16:15 supported Obama for all these years
16:19 but others want to get involved in them
16:21 that you know that's fine that's your
16:23 business but Obama but I'm not getting
16:25 involved in it Obama dropped a lot more
16:28 bombs on Syria then Donald Trump has yet
16:31 to drop on Syria and I don't think any
16:33 of these individuals brought up
16:34 impeaching Obama for bombing Syria
16:3 7either yet we are better Ryan to say
16:40 it's a legitimate charge against Trump
16:43 so that why you know there's there s a
16:47 piracy but it's still an important
16:49 charge to bring is it not well and not
16:52 only did AMA drop bombs on John Syria he
16:56 was the one who started the so-called a
17:00 color revolution that we're seeing in
17:04 Syria now none of these democratic
17:07 lawyers did anything about Obama they
17:09 were fully supporting Obama I tried
17:12 myself to get a Bill's of impeachment or
17:17 bill of impeachment in there against
17:19 Obama and I failed I you know I couldn't
17:21 get anyone to impeach obama for anyone
17:25 for anything or put a bill of
17:27 impeachment in there and you know i
17:29 talked to some members of congress
17:31 republicans and they weren't willing to
17:33 do it so well i could neither veterans
17:37 for peace was the only organization
17:39 as I recall right Willington to say yes
17:43 envy job and i i signed their a petition
17:48 in support of impeaching obama that's
17:51 correct
17:52 yeah but almost no one uh did it so you
17:56 know as I see it this emoluments clause
17:58 you know this is just a partisan effort
18:00 being used by the Democratic Party arm
18:04 which you know uh I'm you know when I
18:09 was a kid
18:09 the Democrats are waging war in Vietnam
18:12s o I not going to be affiliated myself
18:16 with anything that the Democratic Party
18:20 is running here one way or the other
18:22 well let me let me ask you about some
18:24 other charges that I would bring that as
18:26 far as I know no Democrats or
18:28 Republicans are proposing Oh
18:30 one would be banning Muslims from the
18:33 country and having it thrown out by a
18:36 court and doing it again is that not a
18:40 high crime in ms I think you are correct
18:43 on that of David clearly um I think a an
18:50 argument could be made here that it
18:52 violates the First Amendment of the
18:54 United States Constitution and that's
18:57 what these courts have found I have I
18:59 have read I guess the opinion out in
19:03 Hawaii and another opinion out on out in
19:06 the Ninth Circuit there you know in San
19:09 Francisco so clearly um I think an
19:13 argument could be made that if someone
19:17 wanted to pull a put a bill of
19:19 impeachment in there for violating the
19:22 First Amendment I I would support that
19:25 yes but I'm certainly not going to work
19:27 with a gang of you know Democratic
19:29 lawyers who have an agenda here uh to
19:35 basically reverse of the November 8th
19:41 2016 election where Clinton lost and
19:45 that I think is really what's going on
19:48 here with some of these efforts
19:51 I personally putting a
19:53 side the you know the merits of the
19:56 emoluments clause argument um but I
19:59 think that's the agenda there to reverse
20:01 that election and certainly to use it
20:06 against against Trump but I want to make
20:08 clear I didn't vote for Trump and I
20:10 certainly didn't vote for Clinton that's
20:12 for sure
20:13 yes well you and me both the the
20:17 defending Hillary and arguing that
20:20 Hillary would have won if not for
20:22 foreign interference and corruption just
20:24 ignore all the domestic interference and
20:26 corruption seems to be part where you
20:29 agree right that anybody about that I
20:32 agree with what you said yeah yes so so
20:34 I wonder both what you make of the
20:37 business Russia madness and what you
20:39 make of the argument well let's get him
20:42 for obstruction of justice even if there
20:44 wasn't anything there to be found by an
20:47 investigation is that is that a
20:50 legitimate church well the anti-russian
20:56 history is pure war mongering as as you
20:59 know Clinton decided to use that against
21:03 Trump in the campaign uh once once Trump
21:08 was nominated and the Democrats and
21:12 Clinton and the mainstream news media
21:15 all of whom supported Clinton are
21:18 continuing this anti-russian war
21:22 mongering and hysteria there's no other
21:24 word for it and it is extremely
21:28 dangerous under the circumstances and
21:31 certainly but I think if Clinton has
21:33 been elected president we'd be we'd be
21:35 at war with Russia now on the wrestling
21:39 so there there we are I don't know what
21:42 to say about it but there's no I haven't
21:45 seen any evidence that you know Putin
21:48 corrupted our election or anything like
21:51 that I you know I think this is all
21:53 boulder dash you know and I follow these
21:56 things quite carefully no it's it's
22:00 amazing that it goes on and on without
22:02 any evidence but then I have people that
22:04I respect who say well even if there's
22:06 nothing
22:07 there he still obstructed justice and
22:10 the cover-up is worse than the crime and
22:12 you can go after him for obstruction of
22:14 justice for firing Comey what what do
22:17 you make of that argument uh I don't
22:21 think you know well you do have to
22:23 distinguish between uh the crime of
22:26 obstruction of justice I I was
22:28 originally hired here to teach criminal
22:32 law for several years and right now I
22:35 don't I don't see that crime that he he
22:38 committed was different when you know
22:40 you had Archibald Cox who was a special
22:44 prosecutor and a grand jury and
22:48 everything else like that that's correct
22:50 um but and with Clinton too even though
22:54 you know the Clinton impeachment was
22:56 ridiculous but there to you had Ken star
23:00 and a grand jury and things of that
23:02 nature but right now it's just you know
23:05 the director of the FBI he was talking
23:07 with the director the FBI we're not
23:10 exactly sure what they said or why they
23:12 said it what with reasons behind it that
23:14 statute clearly says corruptly but let
23:17 me put it this way certainly if you know
23:19 they want to make a case of impeaching
23:21 him for obstruction of justice of course
23:23 they can do that if they want to but
23:25 right now I don't see the evidence to
23:27 convict them for a crime but we have to
23:30 understand one thing here um David there
23:34 are no good guys on either side of this
23:36 at all call me director of the FBI
23:42 Wesley Swearengen a retired and
23:45 decorated FBI agent in his book FBI
23:49 secrets called the FBI quote an American
23:53 Gestapo uncle you know commies no hero
23:56 here at all he director the American
23:58 Gestapo he worked for President Bush jr.
24:02 and Ashcroft at the Department of
24:04 Justice he's up to his eyeballs in
24:08 torture and forced disappearances and
24:10 all the other hideous atrocities that
24:13 horse jr. inflicted against
24:16 international human rights the United
24:18 States Constitution
24:20 as for Muller this new special
24:23 prosecutor he's just a legal and
24:26 political hatchet man for the Bush
24:28 family of the CIA FBI and everyone else
24:33 he's a political operative Muller was
24:36 the one who was personally in charge of
24:40 manufacturing the case that framed
24:43 Muammar Qaddafi over the Lockerbie
24:46 bombing and everyone knows that was a
24:48 joke that the Qaddafi had nothing to do
24:51 with it
24:52 Libya had nothing to do with it up and
24:55 yet the order was given by Bush senior
24:58 CIA are to deflect attention from Iran
25:03 in Syria for because they supported Bush
25:06 senior on his war against Iraq the first
25:09 time and uh frame Gaddafi in Libya yeah
25:14 personally handled that at the
25:16 Department of Justice he was in charge
25:19 the whole thing and it's always under my
25:21 leadership that the anthrax
25:23 investigation went so badly as he also
25:27 did the cover up on the anthrax there's
25:30 no question all about it up and blaming
25:34 this poor Bruce Ivins guy who committed
25:36 suicide and Muller has his death on his
25:41 hands as well we had all a couple
25:43 minutes left Francis Boyle I think that
25:47 the biggest obstacle we may have to
25:50 impeachment in Washington may be exactly
25:54 as you say there are no good guys and
25:56 there's this this horror of pence
25:59 becoming president you know it would
26:02 make somebody worse president to which I
26:05 say well if we had a culture of
26:06 accountability an impeachment it would
26:08 that would matter more than who was
26:10 stepping into the office but what do you
26:12 say to all these wise people who say
26:14 don't be stupid and make pense president
26:20 well I
26:22I you know personally in my experience
26:26 on impeachment going back to congressman
26:30 Gonzalez uh and also now we find out
26:35 that Obama did not attack Syria in 2013
26:43 Ben Rhodes recently said this that Obama
26:47 feared impeachment uh you know I think
26:50 it would be good to send a shot across
26:53 the bow of Trump or any other president
26:56 as I tried to do with bush senior I
27:00 tried to do with Clinton I had a
27:01 campaign impeach Clinton for the right
27:04 reasons not a having fellatio with right
27:07 Monica Lewinsky and lying about it but
27:09 all these bombings that he was doing uh
27:11 and then we just discussed uh my effort
27:16 with Ramsey Clark on Bush jr. and I
27:20 tried to get you notes a member of
27:23 Congress to introduce bill of
27:25 impeachment against Obama but I failed
27:28 so I we we have a an imperial presidency
27:33 as you know indeed after 9/11 2001 we
27:37 have a hyper imperial presidency result
27:40 i thirty Seconds there is value there is
27:43 value in introducing a bill of
27:47 impeachment and I'm certainly prepared
27:49 to do that on Syria if a member of
27:51 Congress wants to talk with me and also
27:54 pursuant to your suggestion on the ban
27:57 against the Muslims and send a shot
28:01 across Trump's bow and cast a character
28:06 surrounding him I think there's value in
28:08 that I certainly agree I hope some
28:10 members of Congress are listening and
28:11 take you up on it Francis boiled thank
28:14 you very very much for coming on talk
28:16 nation radio well thank you very much
28:19 David for heavy on this is talk nation
28:22 radio I'm david swanson take action at
28:25 roots action org help end war at world
28:29 beyond war
28:31 all task shows can be heard at david
28:34 swanson org talk nation radio is
28:37 produced in Charlottesville Virginia and
28:39 syndicated by Pacifica Network if you
28:43 are listening to a nonprofit station
28:45 please support pat station talk nation
28:48 radio is funded by contributors at david
28:50 swanson org there is no way to peace
28:54 peace is the way until next time
28:58[Music]

See also: ABC's 4 Corners breaches Code of Practice; 'Syria's Disappeared' (24/4/17) by Susan Dirgham, Let's Call Western Media Coverage of Syria By Its Real Name: Propaganda (26/4/17) by Michael Howard | Paste.

The full interview of length 34 minutes and 40 seconds was published by Yahoo News on 10 February 2017 and a full copy recorded by the Syrian Government has been placed on YouTube. The YouTube copy is embedded below.

Update 29 Apr 2015. This article republished on Syrian Free Press (SFP). See also on SFP: SAA REPORTS: Syrian Arab Army destroys vehicles and fortifications for Daesh terrorists, kills dozens of them and expands control in al-Maqaber area in Deir Ezzor (27/4/17), Bulgarian-NATO weapons reportedly end up in hands of mercenary-terrorist jihadists in Syria (27/4/17), Friend or Foe? U.S. Troops spotted with PKK fighters (27/4/17), Israel targets military position southwest of Damascus International Airport (27/4/17), Israel targets military position southwest of Damascus International Airport (27/4/17), Daesh gangsters detained on the Island of Sakhalin (27/4/17), Russia's Army Electronic Weapons can easily neutralize the U.S. Air Forces and Warships (26/4/17), Exclusive: U.S. troops in Northern Syria (25/4/17).

Dr Paul Craig Roberts is interviewed by Julian Charles of The Mind Renewed, UK, for his explanation of President Trump's about turn on all foreign policy. The conclusion is that Trump has been sidelined and others have taken over his role at the White House. The term 'coup d'etat' is not used, but that is what is assumed. Paul Craig Roberts also suggests that the only hope of reducing the United States' dangerous power is for Europe to decouple from it. He says that we cannot hold out hope for the UK to do anything because they are completely tied to the United States, but that if the anti-globalist parties, notably the French National Front, win in Europe, there is some hope that Europe will draw back from the USA-dominated EU. Australia and Canada are held responsible, along with some European leaders, for inexplicably enabling this dangerous situation by supporting the United States in its illegal wars. First Published on Saturday, 22 April 2017 20:50 at http://themindrenewed.com/interviews/2017/1035-int130

Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Julian Charles, The Mind Renewed, UK

TMR 171 : Dr. Paul Craig Roberts : Trump Is Over

First Published on Saturday, 22 April 2017 20:50 at http://themindrenewed.com/interviews/2017/1035-int130

We are joined once again by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former US Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Economic Policy, for a discussion on the Trump presidency so far.

Dr. Roberts assesses the performance of the new president and his administration with reference to pre-election promises; shares with us his view that the deep state has effectively neutralised Donald Trump as US president; gives his reaction to the so-called "Syrian gas attack" in Idlib, and the subsequent military action by the US against Syria; and considers the very real prospects for war as Washington steps up its warmongering around the globe.

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To many it might seem strange that Donald Trump's recent departure from his election promises has made me think of Marcel Aymé's story about a character in a book who wanted to avoid her destiny. What could a French author of absurd comical novels have to do with the political analysis of Donald Trump's strange about-face from the foreign policy he promised before his election? Marcel Ayme, in "Le Romancier Martin," the first story in Derriere chez Martin, writes of a novelist who developed a bad habit of killing off most of his principal characters and even some less important ones, which made very depressing reading and diminished sales. The characters themselves and Martin's editor complained that their life expectancy was grossly inferior to that of characters in other novels. Madame Soubiron, the wife of a principal character, somehow sensing that she would be next to die, decided to challenge her fate. First she visited the writer and begged him to make certain changes, but he claimed to have little say in what his characters did. Once he had created them, he said, the die was cast. Although it seemed impossible for a mere fictitious character to influence her role, Mrs Soubiron ultimately managed this by deviating from what was expected of her in strange and unusual ways which the novelist could not have considered in advance. For instance, one evening at dinner, she took off her shoe and put it on her plate. Instead of eating the slice of beef she had served herself, she dropped it down the front of her dress and rubbing her stomach, mimed how tasty it was. As she continued to act more and more absurdly out of character, she eventually escaped death.

Trump suddenly starts acting out of character

Well, after hearing Donald Trump babbling on about 'beautiful little babies' and not hearing any punchline, then of his ordering the firing of 59 missiles at a Syrian airfield in response to an implausibly attributed chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhun, and conveying, furthermore, this news to a Chinese president over a 'beautiful slice of chocolate cake', of course I had a sense of déjà vu. Trump was obviously a fan of Marcel Aymé's and he was using the Mme Soubiron tactic for resisting a fatal and stupid script. Anyone with a slight knowledge of Trump's history on the subject knows that before and during his election campaign, Trump held in utter contempt, had several times denounced as absurd, the idea of intervention in Syria and Obama's near invasion on the basis of specious chemical weapons. Now he was carrying on just like Hillary. Who had a gun to his head? Had his grandchildren been taken hostage?

A cry for help?

When Trump dropped the absurdly outsized and expensive cliched 'mother of all non-nuclear bombs' on caves in Afghanistan, I knew it was an absurdist cry for help. Trump has been surrounded and somehow forced to go along with ISIS fans, Bin Laden obsessives and Putin-Rasputin conspiracy theorists like John McCain, John Kerry, Obama and the Clintons. How did they do it? Many have said that the neocons run the Whitehouse according to a script no-one may escape. Bribery, blackmail, threats and assassination are among the establishment's arsenal, according to John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman. And we all know it anyhow, as that same establishment openly targets anyone standing in its way with assassination: most recently Gadaffi (Hillary Clinton, 'We came, we saw, he died, ha ha ha') and a long list before him: J.F.K, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and then lots more foreign leaders: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/US/Foreign_Assassinations_since_1945. It has also been suggested that a somehow no less irresistible pressure has been applied by purportedly Zionist son-in-law, Jared Kushner, via Ivanka, Trump's beloved daughter. Shades of King Lear! Another absurdist character. And this Kushner pressure is also supposed to have led to Steve Bannon's departure. See, Steve Bannon exposes Jared Kushner also see How much of Kushner's financing came from George Soros?.

Or has Trump gone mad?

An alternative theory is that Trump has gone mad. Gordon Duff at Veterans today, "Breaking: VT Hit with Stuxnet as Trump’s Complicity in Gas Attack is Confirmed," (April 15, 2017) suggests that Trump is suffering from bi-polar disorder and, under pressure from the situation in the Whitehouse, he has become hypomanic or even manic, with delusions, suggestibility and loss of judgement. However I don't think the madness theory stands up. If Trump was going to lose his mind, it would have happened during that long and grueling election campaign with all the travelling to give speeches, interaction with millions of supporters, and the few hours of sleep nightly. No, Trump showed he had incredible endurance when he was in charge of his own campaign and policies.

Cryptic genius

Another theory is that Trump is conducting a program of such cryptic genius that most mere mortals simply cannot put the pieces together. A bit like Mme Soubiron. Thierry Meyssan of voltaire.net.org writes: http://www.voltairenet.org/en. "Trump : two steps forward, one step back": "Damascus, Syria. Whilst the international press describes Donald Trump's big about-turn, Thierry Meyssan shows that it's not that at all. Far from having abandoned his ideal of peace, the President of the United States shouts and bombs, but always careful not to do anything irreversible...."[1]

Deep state victim

It could still be, however, that Trump has recently being drugged, poisoned, blackmailed, or threatened in other ways. Certainly something has changed. Since no-one outside the White House can be sure of what is happening, it all makes you think that Trump should never have agreed to live at the White House. He should have remained at Trump Towers with his tried and true security forces. But is it even possible to resist the Deep State? They got Gaddafi. They got Bin Laden (they say). And maybe they have got Trump.

What happened to Mme Soubiron, the character who evaded death by her creator? Although she wasn't insane, she finished up in an insane asylum, as the novelist found her impossible to bend to the plot. And the plot went on without her.

Will the Deep State swallow America? Surely America is bigger than the evil dwarfs who run the Deep State! Well, let's hope so. But we need some hobbits or something to help us.

NOTES

[1]"Trump : deux pas en avant, un pas en arrière
DAMAS (SYRIE)
Alors que la presse internationale décrit le grand retournement de Donald Trump, Thierry Meyssan montre qu’il n’en est rien : loin d’avoir abandonné son idéal de paix, le président des États-Unis hurle et bombarde, tout en faisant attention à ne rien commettre d’irréversible.." Source: http://www.voltairenet.org/article196024.html

This letter to a high profile pacifist on a Canadian peace activism email list highlights the problem within the international peace movement where some 'leaders' turn a blind eye to the egregious flouting of international law by the United States, NATO and their allies. You would think that peace activists would be highly informed on the propaganda aspect of war, and the role of mainstream press in this, but it seems that this basic education is lacking even in the upper echelons of the movement. By ignoring the illegality of recent attacks on Syria, some in the movement have again helped brutal Takfiris in their effort to take-over secular Syria. Peggy Mason is President of the Rideau Institute of which Ceasefire Canada is an arm. Ken Stone is Treasurer, of the Canadian Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War.

Dear Peggy,

Thank you for your prompt reply and your admission that you were wrong to to conclude, before an investigation took place, that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the April 4th gas attack at Khan Sheikhoun, Syria.

It’s unfortunate that you don’t wish to debate the widely different attitudes within the peace movement towards the US missile strike on the Shayat Airbase in Syria. Nonetheless, the Canadian peace movement still has to consider the issues you don’t want to debate.

In your reply, you touched on the key issue of investigation and judgment before any consequential action should take place. However, in your original e-mail message to the “peace listserver”, you wrote that “Putin has said he will agree to an independent investigation. Tillerson should nail this down.”

I think you have got things backwards. US Secretary of State Tillerson did not wait for (or even call for) an independent investigation of the April 4 incident. Rather, on his watch, his country rushed to engage in an act of war on the sovereign country of Syria which killed several civilians and pushed us towards a wider war in the Middle East, while Putin (as you noted) did call for an independent investigation.

So, here is where we have a difference. In my opinion and that of our Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War, the peace movement in Canada needs to be clear and consistent about international law. No country is above that law. The USA and its coalition partners, including Canada, are violating international law by overflying and stationing military forces in the sovereign country of Syria without the permission of the Syrian government. They are also violating international law by inserting, funding, and arming proxy armies of terrorist mercenaries to achieve regime change in Syria. They have levelled onerous economic sanctions upon Syria, causing great distress to the Syrian people, without the approval of the UN Security Council. The US-led coalition used military force against the Syrian government in its attack on Sharyat Airbase on April 7, 2017.

Where we have another difference with the Rideau Institute and Ceasefire is that you have decided to put pressure on the wrong parties. You seem to want to hold the Russian government to account when it appears that it had no hand in the incident and although its military forces are legally stationed in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. Moreover, you seem to be deeply invested in the campaign to delegitimize the Syrian government and to demonize its elected president.

Neither of your approaches is helpful. And these are very important matters which should be aired in public.

Another important point: what have you, the Rideau Institute, and Ceasefire said about the performance of Prime Minister Trudeau in the context of Khan Sheikhoun? Trudeau initially called for an investigation into the claims of a gas attack. Then, less than 24 hours later, he endorsed the USA cruise missile strike on Syria's Sharyat airbase. Now, his Minister of Global Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, imposes new unilateral sanctions on Syria, which are illegal under international law, because they lack the approval of the United Nations Security Council. Your comments would be appreciated by our Coalition members.

Finally my parting comment on your parting comment that (you) are “paying your dues every day” in the peace movement. As far as I know, you are paid a salary. Am I wrong?

Ken Stone
Treasurer,
Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War

MIT Professor Theodor Postol suggests two inquiries into alleged 'verified evidence' of chemical attack by Assad in Syria: One international probably under the UN, where the Russians and Americans can provide their input and a second American investigation to find out how such a false report could be generated at the highest levels of the US government. "This is very serious. This confrontation with Russia has some potential to escalate and, if it's escalating over false intelligence claims, that is very serious."

Days of incessant propaganda from the ABC, SBS and all other mainstream media toeing the Trump/US Establishment line on chemical weapons in Syria, without any overt logical basis, prompted the author to make a complaint. David Macilwain was in Syria in 2010, corresponds internationally with diverse people concerned about Syria's rights, and has visited Russia twice in the past three years, in a quest to discuss and share views on current events and to build up contacts who might be interviewed by the Australian press rather than the narrow sample usually referred to.

This morning the ABC’s RN breakfast presenter Fran Kelly interviewed a ‘former adviser to the Syrian government and Bashar al Assad’ – Dr Samir Altaqi - who now lives in Dubai. Ostensibly the purpose of the interview was to find out who might replace Assad once he has been ‘removed’. According to the ABC and other Western media, this removal will happen once Rex Tillerson has persuaded Vladimir Putin to stop supporting ‘the Syrian dictator’.

Unsurprisingly for a member of Syria’s government who has abandoned his own country and moved to one of the West’s local allies in the war on Syria, nothing Dr Altaqi said related to the reality of Syria, where the vast majority of citizens now support both their elected President and their defending Army.

You can judge for yourself here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/us-tells-russia-to-abandon-syrias-assad/8436004

One has to ask who is responsible for finding such NATO-friendly 'dissident' voices who will back up the accepted narrative, and one which is almost the only view to be heard on the ABC. I had assumed that long-time presenter Fran Kelly, who has pushed a pro-Syrian 'opposition' viewpoint since the start of the war, played some part in choosing her interviewees, but it appears not so simple.

This interview was almost the last straw, following days of incessant propaganda from the ABC, SBS and all other mainstream media, and pushed me to phone the ABC Australia Radio breakfast programme immediately.

I spoke to the executive producer, Cheryl Bagwell, who was impatient and busy and advised me to phone later when the program finished, while at the same time explaining that she ‘didn’t want to get into an argument over Syria’.

When I phoned back, I got the same impatient and petulant response, despite explaining I was a spokesperson for Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation)In Syria (AMRIS), and had a complaint over the interviewee’s viewpoint on Assad. She said something like ‘so you support Assad and dismiss his use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons’ – to which I said – “Of course I support him, along with at least 15 million Syrians!”

Then she said something like, 'We’ve had too many calls from your people recently and we’re tired of it'. I’m not ‘your people’ – by which presumably she meant those from Hands off Syria (HoS), who’ve been victimised by the Murdoch Press and the ABC’s Media Watch just recently.

She went off into what seemed to me a bit of a tirade about how the ABC was the best and most balanced coverage of the issue and ‘can you tell me of one that is better?’ – she demanded.

I said that there was nothing that was any better in Australia, as they were all bad and biased and failed to air the Russian or Syrian viewpoint, and I asked if she listened to RT or other non-Western media, mentioning how RT was no different from the ‘independent’ ABC since they are both State supported broadcasters.

She said that only just the other day they had interviewed a Russian analyst – as if any would do. I heard that interview, with the ‘leading Russian military analyst’, Pavel Felgenhauer. (Podcast at
https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgMVjNAZQV?play=true.)

In this interview, the first question was, “At what point will Russia abandon Assad?” Pavel Felgenhauer's response was that Russia won’t abandon Assad - not because Assad isn’t responsible for a chemical weapons attack - but because Russia has invested so much in Syria, both militarily and politically. He said that some Russian advisers should have known that Assad was going to use chemical weapons, but may not have told the Kremlin.

Fran Kelly then asked, “But why would Russia stay so solid behind Assad? What’s the bigger picture?"

Pavel Felgenhauer said that, “Politically it would be too embarassing to abandon Assad, and lose face.” [...] “Russia right now is in a very isolated position, with even China supporting Trump’s actions... "

The ABC’s choice of interviewee in both cases, whether made by Fran Kelly or by Cheryl Bagwell, shows extreme confirmation bias. When I challenged the views espoused by the Russian guest, Bagwell said that he was from Moscow, and would know more than any of us about the situation.

In fact, knowing the views of many Russian analysts and commentators, I would assert that it would be hard to find any others who believed that Assad had actually used chemical weapons, leave alone ‘against his own people’. Just as you wouldn’t find someone from Syria, outside the ‘rebel-occupied’ zones, who would confirm the view that Bashar al Assad is head of an Alawite coterie oppressing the Syrian people.

Whoever is ultimately responsible for choosing the ‘analysts’ and ‘experts’ at the ABC, it is now clear that changing the thinking there is almost impossible. Any voice dissenting from the ABC narrative on Bashar al-Assad, or Vladimir Putin, would be accused of being one of ‘your people’, and their viewpoint dismissed out of hand.

As we watch the mainstream newsmedia step up their promotion of western government narrative in a kangaroo court on President Assad, more and more high profile people are coming out saying how implausible the mainstream line is. Those people deserve our support because the mainstream newsmedia and government are going after them precisely in order to deprive the rest of us of informed debate. One example in Australia is how the Sydney Morning Herald has published an article citing infotainment and advertising placement specialists, Associated Press, and PolitiFact, a corporate press network propaganda outfit, as authorities condemning Professor Tim Anderson's work as 'conspiracy theory', implying the same for some associated academics. Tim Anderson is in a unique position to judge conspiracy, having been convicted then freed after a conspiracy portrayed him as guilty over the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney. It is thought that the Australian Government organised the Hilton Bombing as a false flag. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Hilton_Hotel_bombing The failure of the Sydney Morning Herald article to analyse Professor Anderson's arguments, preferring simply to condemn him via a press organisation and a propaganda outfit, is a hallmark of 'Fake News' and propaganda. The Sydney Morning Herald's inclusion of an old overturned conviction for Tim Anderson without further explanation seems gratuitous if not designed to damage the standing of his opinion. On the 17th and 18th of April, the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies will be holding a two day conference at Sydney University on the Syrian conflict: http://counter-hegemonic-studies.net/syria-conf-program/. This event is endorsed by Sydney University's Political Economy Society. We at candobetter.net do not necessarily endorse everything that comes out of universities, because these have now become strongly commercialised and mainstream-politicised, but we do endorse this conference because Tim Anderson's book, The Dirty War on Syria comes from long study, many documented visits to Syria and interactions with the Syrian community in Australia, and uses logical and documented arguments, unlike the Sydney Morning Herald or the Australian Government. We are also impressed by Sydney University's support for academic free speech.

Other high profile questioners of the official line on Syria

Former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, questions chemical weapons story on BBC.

Peter Ford was ambassador to Bahrain from 1999–2003 and to Syria from 2003–2006. Since 2010 he has become known to a wider public for his critical stance towards British politics in Syria.

Kucinich: No evidence Assad was behind chemical attacks

Congressman Dennis Kucinich was a U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1997 to 2013 and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections.

See also retired Australian diplomat to Russia, Tony Kevin's, remarks on Syria at the end of his interview at "Video interview: Tony Kevin's book Return to Moscow might help save the world yet".

Some alternative news-reporting sources:

Jake Morphonios of the End Times News takes us through the documents from 2013 on the US-Syria actions.

Syrian Girl shows new documents about NGOs. The Syrian Electronic Army have released US film-maker Matthew Van Dyke's facebook and email messages documents they acquired after hacking his accounts. Van Dyke has acquired some fame and reputation romancing the idea of the Free Syrian Army. Here his unveiled remarks show that

How shallow the ABC’s Mediawatch (‘Media war over Syria’ [11 April 2017]) treats such an important issue, the 6 year long war against Syria. They have cobbled together a few tweets so as to defend the war story of the US and Australian Governments, and the state and corporate media (ABC, BBC and UK Guardian) which faithfully reflect that line.

They then randomly add a few tweets from me, a couple of other writers and the crazy right winger Alex Jones. I’m not sure what they wanted to achieve, but does this have anything do with Mediawatch’s supposed mission of holding the media to account? I think not.

Mediawatch seem to have learnt little from its 2014 defamation of Reme Sakr, a young Syrian-Australian woman who took them to court over their attack on her. She was not a journalist but a student of journalism, and a profile of her was published in the Good Weekend. Mediawatch went more for this young student than for the media. At issue was Mediawatch’s wish to debunk any criticism of the war on Syria, including by support of the August 2013 false flag chemical weapons incident in countryside Damascus.

They attacked Reme for supporting her government. The ABC eventually paid her a sum of money as compensation for their lies against her, also swearing her to secrecy so no one would know about their deceit. They also agreed to finally add Reme’s full reply to their website, which they had earlier truncated. She has since returned to Syria to help her country survive this terrible war.

They treat my tweets as though they were theories off the top of my head. If they had done their homework they would have seen that I published a well-researched book on the conflict, more than a year ago. I gave particular emphasis to collecting hundreds of sources of evidence on the massacres and various claims made by the al Qaeda groups and Washington. The Dirty War on Syria is now published in seven languages. A number of chapters are free online, here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/tim-anderson

On April 7th, US warships delivered an illegal blow to a Syrian airbase in Homs. Their justification was the recent "chemical weapon" attack on behalf of the Syrian government in Idlib. The Kremlin condemned the strike as an act of aggression against a sovereign state, and a violation of international law. Meanwhile, at the UN, representatives of Western governments attempt to push through a resolution that is based on information taken out of thin air. It includes the removal of Assad, whether or not he was behind the attack. CBS News reporter: Russia says that the airstrike on Khan Sheikhun took place between 11.30 and 12.30 pm. Medics on the ground say that the hit happened hours before that. How so? This is one fascinating question posed to Russian foreign affairs minister, Maria Zakharovna at a press conference on 5 April 2017. See inside the article.

Included video is embedded in article at Fort Russ published & April 2017. The article is a guest contribution on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

Above video embedded in article at Fort Russ published & April 2017. The article is a guest contribution on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

On April 7th, US warships delivered an illegal blow to a Syrian airbase in Homs. Their justification was the recent "chemical weapon" attack on behalf of the Syrian government in Idlib. The Kremlin condemned the strike as an act of aggression against a sovereign state, and a violation of international law. Meanwhile, at the UN, representatives of Western governments attempt to push through a resolution that is based on information taken out of thin air. It includes the removal of Assad, whether or not he was behind the attack.

It is noteworthy, that the only real source of information on what took place, are the videos made by the White Helmets, an infamous propaganda organisation as it pertains to the Syrian civil war. In this clip, Maria Zakharova calls on Western respresenatives/ journalists to hear Russia, and what it has to say. The attack against the Syrian government, much like the Ghouta gas attack in 2013, which precipitated the Syrian civil war, is a giant facade for the military industrial warhawks in the US, to put their money where their mouth is.

Syria has censured a US missile attack targeting an army airbase near Homs as an “act of aggression” against the country.

“A US act of aggression (was committed) against Syrian military targets, using several missiles,” said the Syrian state TV right after the US announced the attack.

The attack drew the applause of the foreign-backed opposition, which called for continued US military action against the Arab country.

The state TV quoted a Syrian military source as saying that US missile strike on a Syrian air base had led to “losses.”

Homs Governor Talal Barazi also deplored the aerial assault, saying the attack serves the goals of Daesh and other armed terrorist groups operating in the country.

“Syrian leadership and Syrian policy will not change,” Barazi said. “This targeting was not the first and I don’t believe it will be the last.”
The attack drew the applause of the foreign-backed opposition, which called for continued US military action against Syria.

Some 60 US Tomahawk missiles were fired from the US warships deployed to the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield southeast of Homs. The missiles hit airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas at the base, according to US officials.

Article from Press TV Iran. Look for updates at http://presstv.ir/Detail/2017/04/07/517025/Syria-US-air-base-attack.

Lee Ann McAdoo and Owen Shroyer do a fantastic in depth analysis of the history and current stories on chemical weapon use in Syria. The best I have seen. And they take Trump to task. And finger McCain. Alex Jones, who produces Infowars, has been an ardent Trump supporter and some people feared he might get his journalists to pull their punches on Trump if Trump stepped out of line, but this is disproven here.

It is weird that the mainstream press and the US-NATO war machine continue to put out the same stories as if they were spam-bots. You would think that real human beings could come up with something more convincing. It is known, however, that people tend to believe a message they often hear repeated, to the detriment of their own eyes and reason, so perhaps this is the intentional modus-operandi of the US-NATO-military industrial media complex. The only way to combat the oft-repeated lie is to repeatedly question it, which we are doing here. Once again the US-NATO deep state war-machine has tried to use the UN like Lucy's football for Charlie Brown, to give authority to accusations against the Syrian government which it actually has no reliable basis for. The consequences could be truly awful - but what do spambots care about World War 3?

Do spambots invent US policy in Syria? Has the White House been automated for destruction?

Without credible evidence, without witnesses, without indications, the American president, Donald Trump, and the mainstream news media again have the US trying to convict President al-Assad of 'war-crimes against his own people'. They will try to use this as a pretext for another bloody 'regime change' in the mould of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine, either to keep an enlarge their military footprint in the Middle East or to obtain concessions from peace-keeping Russia.

It is alarming that President Trump is now marching along obediently to the same evil old tune as Hillary Clinton did, since a primary difference between their platforms was that he would not pursue baseless interventions in the Middle East.

His new stance is suspicious of a sudden loss of power to the neocons who surround him, given that his new US State Secretary said, only last week, that the US would leave the Syrian people to decide who would lead them, and not seek regime change. The chemical weapons story is an old one and not a very good one. Four years ago the news was almost identical, when it was resoundingly repudiated, for example by the Swiss UN investigator, Carla del Ponte. See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188. Since then we have heard it many times, picked up then dropped, picked up then dropped again. We republish here a superb 5 April debate and argument from PressTV on this vital subject. In an exercise of logic unfamiliar in the western media, the moderator here asks for a list of for and against points regarding benefits to the Syrian Government or the 'Rebels' in engaging in the purported chemical attacks.

The Debate - Chemical attack in Syria's Idlib

In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Marwa Osman, a journalist and political commentator from Beirut, and Michael Lane, the founder of the American Institute for Foreign Policy in Washington, to discuss a recent suspected chemical attack in the Syrian province of Idlib.

Recording of a timely and important interview with Tony Kevin, author of Return to Moscow UWA 2017. As a young Australian diplomat, Tony Kevin visited Brezhnev's Soviet Union in from 1969-1971. He returned on official business in 1985 when Chernenko was in power, then again, very briefly, in 1990. During these times he was not able to get to know the Russians due to the policy of both governments against fraternisation, thus Russia ironically became a source of growing fascination for him. He continued to inform his fascination from many sources, always at a distance. Concerned today by the threat to peace from US-NATO anti-Russian propaganda, and more fascinated by Russia than ever, he returned on his own to Russia (no longer the Soviet Union, of course) in 2016. Return to Moscow examines past and present attitudes to the people of Russia and to its leaders through empathic eyes and an understanding of the change in geopolitics from cold war to US interventionist.

On Putin: "Not since Britain's concentrated personal loathing of their great strategic enemy Napoleon in the Napoleonic wars was so much animosity brought to bear on one leader. Propaganda and demeaning language against Putin became more systemic, sustained and near universal in Western foreign policy and media communities than had ever been directed against any Soviet communist leader at the height of the Cold War. This hostile campaign evoked an effective defensive global media strategy by Russia. [...] A new kind of information Cold War took shape, with - paradoxically - Western media voices more and more speaking with one disciplined Soviet-style voice, and Russian counter voices fresher, more diverse and more agile." [Cited from Tony Kevin's book.] The interview in the video took place at Russia House in Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. It was organised by Claire Woods of the Traveller's Bookstore. The interviewer was Associate Professor Judith Armstrong, former head of European Languages Department at Melbourne University.

An example of the afore-cited disciplined Soviet-style now dictating western newsmedia was to be found in another interview conducted by Australian ABC Victoria's Jon Faine on his Conversation Hour at around 25.25 minutes in: Jon Faine interview: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/radio/local_melbourne/audio/201703/abi-2017-03-29.mp3. Faine seems to suggest that Russia is nothing much to worry about because:

JON FAINE: "Russia's found it can't match the west militarily. It can't match the west financially. It can't match the west in industrial design, invention and technology, but it can undo the west through the west's Archilles' heel - democracy."

TONY KEVIN: "No. Russia can match the west militarily. It has a huge nuclear deterrent. We tend to talk among ourselves as though that doesn't exist anymore. It's as if we've all said, 'if we don't talk about nuclear weapons, they won't be there.' But they are there. There are militaries on both sides of the frontier training all the time in how to use tactical weapons. This is the world we live in. And Russia has also gained the great command of this country that used to be clunky and used to be unable to keep up with the west technologically. They're now world leaders in handling information technology, as you know."

Back to the video of the Russia House talk: In response to a question from the audience, Tony Kevin concludes his interview with this statement:

"And I say it here and I say it because of Jon Faine: Syria is one of the points where World War 3 could start. The other two are Ukraine and the Balkan states, on the border of Russia, because, in all these situations, there's a lack of understanding, of comprehension of the other side's point of view. There's a self-righteousness and there's a - I think if Hillary Clinton had been elected president, we would already have war involving the west, Russia, and Syria. That's how bad it is. [...] I know Russia's got a very bad press on Syria, but my position is that Russia is there at the request of a sovereign government, which is run by a man called President Assad, which has a seat in the United Nations, and Russia is trying to help that government hold that country together. And, what are we doing in Syria? We seem to be supporting a change in cast of opposition elements, many of whom we don't really know what their politics are, some of whom are extremely unpleasant people, who do extremely unpleasant things. And, so Syria is a mess. But I'm glad that Russia is trying to help bring about some peace and order in Syria."

Yes, Return to Russia is a very important book, with its author in a position of unique authority, given the perspective of his age and his experience of different epoques in Russia and western deep state international policies. Fortunately it will be hard for the Establishment to completely bury his opinion, so lucidly expressed.

Don't mention the role of war in climate change and economic devastation. Why we shouldn't believe that the US military establishment is sincere on its warning to Trump (and the rest of us) on climate change. I would once have swallowed this whole. A bunch of military men from prior US administration proselytise about climate change on this 4Corners program. Of course they totally ignore the role of war in carbon emissions which is probably the greatest contributor to carbon emissions. This is my reaction to the Australian 4Corners program of 20 March 2017.

They talk about a three year drought in Syria as a major cause of the 'unrest', population movement and the 'civil war' in Syria. They don't mention how Israel and Turkey annexed parts of a major river from Syria. They talk about how the consequent 'unravelling of Syrian society' opened up an opportunity for ISIS which. they say, had been born itself from the 'civil war' in Iraq.

They don't mention the US/NATO funding of the so-called rebellion/rebels in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya. They don't mention their role in war and climate change.

This story serves as a cover for current and future wars in the Middle East, for the destruction of the Middle East. It also serves as an excuse for mass immigration and creates a perceived need for more military defense.

By occasionally mentioning war as having other causes alongside climate change the film attempt to sound even-handed. But the whole thing comes from the CIA, is politically biased against the current US administration, is politically rather than scientifically founded. With regard to the science of climate change, it is just used here as a cover for war-propaganda.

The major message of this 'documentary' is that 'you need the US military to protect you from mass immigration and terrorism due to climate change provoking civil wars in the Middle East.

The film also gets in some anti-Russian propaganda, blaming Russia for blocking wheat to Egypt on one occasion, presumably to designate the Enemy for future wars.

The film tells us how Africans need more land but points out that Africa has lots of potential agricultural land, but China is grabbing that land. Doesn't mention that there is global investment in those Chinese agribusinesses nor that US and European investors are in competition for that land. Africans themselves continue to be turfed off their traditional land and disorganised, driven to seek their fortunes in megacities where child labor laws are either non-existent or not enforced, making children a source of income for families which have lost their traditional land and incomes.

Overpopulation accompanies urbanisation and 'development'. In third world countries it is not a consequence of better medical care lowering the death rate, since, by definition, these 'improvements' are lacking in such countries, which suffer from untreated Acquired Immunity Deficiency, associated turberculosis, and various delocalised viruses like ebola and parasitic infestations, such as schistosomiasis.

The film calls for greater international cooperation on climate change, but gives little power to people over their local situations, which is the first base to fight climate change or any other environmental ill. It is probably the only base, since the power-elite base that controls armies has no intention of resiling from weapons and war industry and has forced exception from climate change protocol for the military.

So, it's all rhetoric and propaganda: PR for the industrial-military-media machine. Repackaged for Australians in their most trusted investigative program.

The publication of this film by 4Corners shows how the people who select for this show are either incapable of analysing pure propaganda or unable to avoid showing it.

Who is choosing these propaganda programs for the ABC?

Disappointing to see that Trump's troops are in Syria without permission. Today, 11 March 2017, in a Chinese publication interview (conducted in English), Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad described the US incursion into Northern Syria from Raqqa as 'raids' which he did not think would succeed against ISIS because they are not coordinated with the Syrian government and army. He said that Russia's military manoeuvres against ISIS have been successful because Russia coordinated with the Syrian government and troops, and was invited. Assad said that he had been more hopeful about the Trump administration vis a vis Syria but that he has yet to have any direct (as opposed to indirect and unreliable) contact with Trump. Asked whether he had opened the door to these American troops, Assad said, "No, no, we didn’t. Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one."

Read more at http://pundita.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/video-and-complete-transcript-chinese.html

Full transcript below:
11 March 2016

SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency)

(Damascus, SANA) President Bashar al-Assad said that the solution to the crisis in Syria should be through two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria, and the second one is to make dialogue.

The president added in an interview given to Chinese PHOENIX TV that any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Question 1: Thank you Mr. President for having us here in Dimashq, the capital of Syria. I think this is the first interview you have had with Chinese media after the national ceasefire and after so many fresh rounds of talks, both in Astana and in Geneva, and of course after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

And these days, as we have seen, your troops are making steady progress in battlefields, but peace talks do not seem just as productive. So, as far as the Geneva talks are concerned, your chief negotiator, Mr. Jaafari, was trying hard to find out who should be sitting on the other side of the negotiation table. So, according to your idea, who should be sitting there?

President Assad: This is a very crucial question. If you want those negotiations to be fruitful, we have to ask “who is going to be sitting there?” I mean, there could be a lot of good people with good intentions, but the question is: who do they represent? That’s the question.

In this situation, you have different groups, you have people who are, let’s say, patriotic, but they don’t represent anyone, they represent themselves. You have others who represent the terrorists, and you have terrorists on the table, and you have others who represent the agenda of foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, like Turkey, like France, UK and maybe the United States.

So, it’s not a homogeneous meeting. If you want it to be fruitful, going back to the first point that I mentioned, it should be a real Syrian-Syrian negotiations. In spite of that, we went to that meeting because we think any kind of dialogue could be a good step toward the solution, because even those people who are terrorists or belonging to the terrorists or to other countries, they may change their mind and go back to their normality by going back to being real Syrians, detach themselves from being terrorists or agents to other groups. That’s why I say we didn’t expect Geneva to produce anything, but it’s a step, and it’s going to be a long way, and you may have other rounds, whether in Geneva or in Astana.

Question 2: But anyway, it is intra-Syrian talks, right? But the matter of fact is, it is proxy dialogue. I mean, main parties do not meet and have dialogue directly.

President Assad: Exactly.

Journalist: Are you personally satisfied with the current negotiation format or mechanism?

President Assad: We didn’t forge this mechanism; it was forged by de Mistura and the UN with the influence of the countries that wanted to use those negotiations in order to make pressure on Syria, not to reach any resolution.

As you just said, each one represents a different agenda, even the opposition delegations, it wasn’t one delegation; different delegations of the opposition. So, if I’m going to – as a government – if I’m going to negotiate with someone, who’s it going to be? Which one? Who represents who? That’s our question.

So, you are right, this time there was no negotiations in Geneva, but this is one of the reasons, that’s why it didn’t reach anything. The only thing we discussed in Geneva was the agenda, the headlines, what are we going to discuss later, that’s it.

Question 3: But as we see, lot of time, money, energy have been put into this effort, and the clashes are still going on, people are still dying, and the refugees are still increasing.

President Assad: Exactly.

Journalist: What is the possible way of having a negotiation?

President Assad: Again, you are correct. The more delay you have, the more harm and destruction and killing and blood you’ll have within Syria, that’s why we are very eager to achieve a solution, but how and in which way? You need to have two parallel ways: the first one is to fight the terrorists, and this is our duty as government, to defend the Syrians and use any means in order to destroy the terrorists who’ve been killing and destroying in Syria.

The second one is to make dialogue. This dialogue has many different aspects; you have the political one, which is related to the future of Syria; what political system do you need, what kind? It doesn’t matter which one, it depends on the Syrians, and they’re going to have a referendum about what they want. The second part is to try to bring many of those people who were affiliated to the terrorists or who committed any terrorist acts to go back to their normality and lay down their armaments and to live a normal life in return for amnesty that has been offered by the government, and we’ve been going in that direction for three years, and it worked very well. It worked very well.

So, actually, if you want to talk about the real political solution since the beginning of the crisis, of the war on Syria, till this moment, the only solution was those reconciliations between the government and the different militants in Syria, many of them joined the government now, and they are fighting with the government. Some of them laid down their [weapons].

Question 4: But talking about the Syria war, you can never exclude the foreign factors. The Saudi-backed high negotiating committee, HNC, are saying that they are counting on the Trump administration to play a positive role instead of the mistaken policies under his predecessor Barack Obama. So, from your side, what do you expect from Trump’s Middle East policy, particularly policy on Syria?

President Assad: The first part that you mentioned about their hopes, when you pin your hopes on a foreign country, doesn’t matter which foreign country, it means you’re not patriotic, and this is proved, because they should depend on the support of the Syrian people, not any other government or administration.

Now, regarding the Trump administration, during his campaign and after the campaign, the main rhetoric of the Trump administration and the president himself was about the priority of defeating ISIS. I said since the beginning that this is a promising approach to what’s happening in Syria and in Iraq, because we live in the same area and we face the same enemy. We haven’t seen anything concrete yet regarding this rhetoric, because we’ve been seeing now certain [of the fighting] is a local kind of raids.

You cannot deal with terrorism on a local basis; it should be comprehensive, it cannot be partial or temporary. It cannot be from the air, it should be in cooperation with the troops on the ground, that’s why the Russians succeeded, since they supported the Syrian Army in pushing ISIS to shrink, not to expand as it used to be before that.

So, we have hopes that this taking into consideration that talking about ISIS doesn’t mean talking about the whole terrorism; ISIS is one of the products, al-Nusra is another product, you have so many groups in Syria, they are not ISIS, but they are Al Qaeda, they have the same background of the Wahabi extremist ideology.

Question 5: So, Mr. President, you and Mr. Donald Trump actually share the same priority which is counter-terrorism, and both of you hate fake news. Do you see any room for cooperation?

President Assad: Yeah, in theory, yes, but practically, not yet, because there’s no link between Syria and the United States on the formal level. Even their raids against ISIS that I just mentioned, which are only a few raids, happened without the cooperation or the consultation with the Syrian Army or the Syrian government which is illegal as we always say. So, theoretically we share those goals, but particularly, not yet.

Question 6: Do you have personal contact with the President of the United States?

President Assad: Not at all.

Journalist: Direct or indirect?

President Assad: Indirect, you have so many channels, but you cannot bet on private channels. It should be formal, this is where you can talk about a real relation with another government.

Question 7: As we speak, top generals from Turkey, Russia, and the United States are meeting somewhere in Turkey to discuss tensions in northern Syria, where mutually- suspicious forces are allied with these countries. So, do you have a plan for a final attack on Daesh when the main players actually do need an effective coordination in order to clear Syria of all terror groups?

President Assad: Yeah, if you want to link that meeting with ISIS in particular, it won’t be objective, because at least one party, which is Turkey, has been supporting ISIS till this moment, because Erdogan, the Turkish President, is Muslim Brotherhood. He’s ideologically linked and sympathetic with ISIS and with al-Nusra, and everybody knows about this in our region, and he helped them either through armaments or logistically, through exporting oil.

For the other party, which is the United States, at least during Obama’s administration, they dealt with ISIS by overlooking their smuggling the Syrian oil to Turkey, and this is how [ISIS]can get money in order to recruit terrorists from around the world, and [the United States] didn’t try to do anything more than cosmetic against ISIS.

The only serious party in that regard is Russia, which is effectively attacking ISIS in cooperation with us. So, the question is: how can they cooperate, and I think the Russians have hope that the two parties join the Russians and the Syrians in their fight against terrorism. So, we have more hopes now regarding the American party because of the new administration, while in Turkey nothing has changed in that regard. ISIS in the north have only one route of supply, it’s through Turkey, and they’re still alive and they’re still active and they’re still resisting different kinds of waves of attacks, because of the Turkish support.

Question 8: Now, US troops are in Manbej. Is the green light from your side? Did you open the door for these American troops?

President Assad: No, no, we didn’t. Any foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one. And we don’t think this is going to help. What are they going to do? To fight ISIS? The Americans lost nearly every war. They lost in Iraq, they had to withdraw at the end. Even in Somalia, let alone Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan, your neighboring country. They didn’t succeed anywhere they sent troops, they only create a mess; they are very good in creating problems and destroying, but they are very bad in finding solutions.

Question 9: Talking about Russia and China, they just vetoed a new UN sanction on Syria last week. What do these Chinese vetoes mean exactly for your country?

President Assad: Let’s be very clear about their position, which is not to support the Syrian government or the Syrian president, because in the West they try to portray it as a personal problem, and as Russia and China and other countries and Iran support that person as president. It’s not the case. China is a member of the Security Council, and it’s committed to the Charter of the United Nations.

In that veto, China has defended first of all the Charter, because the United Nations was created in order to restore stability around the world. Actually, the Western countries, especially the permanent members of the Council as a tool or means in order to change regimes or governments and to implement their agenda, not to restore stability, and actually to create more instability around the world.

So the second part is that China restored stability in the world by creating some kind of political balance within the United Nations, of course in cooperation with Russia, which is very important for the whole world. Of course, Syria was the headline, the main headline, this is good for Syria, but again it’s good for the rest of the world.

Third, the same countries that wanted to use the UN Charter for their own vested interested are the same countries who interfered or tried to intervene in your country in the late 90s, and they used different headlines, human rights, and so on, and you know that, and if they had the chance, they would change every government in the world, whether big country or small country, just when this government tries to be a little bit independent. So, China protected the Chinese interests, Syrian interests, and the world interests, especially the small countries or the weak countries.

Question 10: If I’m not mistaken, you said China is going to play a role in the reconstruction of Syria. So, in which areas you think China can contribute to bring Syrian people back to their normal life after so many years of hardships?

President Assad: Actually, if you talk about what the terrorists have been doing the last six years, it’s destroying everything regarding the infrastructure. In spite of that, the Syrian government is still effective, at least by providing the minimum needs for the Syrian people. But they’ve been destroying everything in every sector with no exception.

Adding to that, the Western embargo in Syria has prevented Syria from having even the basic needs for the livelihood of any citizen in Syria. So, in which sector? In every sector. I mean, China can be in every sector with no exception, because we have damage in every sector. But if we talk about now, before this comprehensive reconstruction starts, China now is being involved directly in building many projects, mainly industrial projects, in Syria, and we have many Chinese experts now working in Syria in different projects in order to set up those projects.

But of course, when you have more stability, the most important thing is building the destroyed suburbs. This is the most important part of the reconstruction. The second one is the infrastructure; the sanitation system, the electricity, the oil fields, everything, with no exception.

The third one: the industrial projects, which could belong to the private sector or the public sector in Syria.

Question 11: Alright. And it seems no secret that there are some Chinese extremists are here, fighting alongside Daesh. I think it is a threat to both Syria and China. What concrete or effective measures do you have to control border and prevent these extremists from free movement in the region?

President Assad: When you talk about extremists or terrorists, it doesn’t matter what their nationality is, because they don’t recognize borders, and they don’t belong to a country. The only difference between nationality and nationality, is that those for example who came from your country, they know your country more than the others, so they can do more harm in your country that others, and the same for Syrians, the same for Russian terrorist, and so on. So now, the measures, every terrorist should be defeated and demolished, unless he changed his position to the normal life.

Second, because you’re talking about different nationalities --more than 80 nationalities -- you should have cooperation with the other governments, especially in the intelligence field, and that’s what’s happening for example with the Chinese intelligence regarding the Uyghur terrorists who are coming from China through Turkey. Unfortunately, the only means that we don’t have now and we don’t control is our borders with Turkey, because of the Uyghur in particular; they came from Turkey, the others coming maybe from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, form the sea, maybe, and the majority from Turkey, but the Uyghur terrorists coming mainly from Turkey.

Why? I don’t know why, but they have the support of the Turkish government, and they were gathered and collected in one group, and they were sent to the northern part of Syria. So, the mission now is to attack them, wherever they existed. Of course, sometimes you cannot tell which one… who is who, they mix with each other, but sometimes they work as separate groups from different nationalities. And this is very crucial kind of cooperation between the Syrian and the Chinese intelligence, and we did many good steps in that regard.

Question 12: Mr. President, as you may be fully aware that the “White Helmets” took an Oscar this year for the best documentary short, but folks are saying that the truth about this “White Helmets” is not like what Netflix has presented, so what is your take on this?

President Assad: First of all, we have to congratulate al-Nusra for having the first Oscar! This is an unprecedented event for the West to give Al Qaeda an Oscar; this is unbelievable, and this is another proof that the Oscars, Nobel, all these things are politicized certificates, that’s how I can look at it.

The White Helmets story is very simple; it is a facelift of al-Nusra Front in Syria, just to change their ugly face into a more humanitarian face, that’s it. And you have many videos on the net and of course images broadcasted by the White Helmets that condemn the White Helmets as a terrorists group, where you can see the same person wearing the white helmet and celebrating over the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers.

So, that’s what the Oscar went to, to those terrorists. So, it’s a story just to try to prevent the Syrian Army during the liberation of Aleppo from making more pressure on the attacking and liberating the districts within the city that have been occupied by those terrorists, to say that the Syrian Army and the Russians are attacking the civilians and the innocents and the humanitarian people.

Question 13: Right. Now Palmyra. I took a one-day trip to Palmyra this time. Now, the city is under your control, so as its strategic position is concerned, because Homs is the heart of Syria, it’s right in the middle. Now, when you have Palmyra, what is your next target? Are you going to expand a military operation into Raqqa and Dier Ezzor?

President Assad: We are very close to Raqqa now. Yesterday, our troops reached the Euphrates River which is very close to Raqqa city, and Raqqa is the stronghold of ISIS today, so it’s going to be a priority for us, but that doesn’t mean the other cities are not priority, in time that could be in parallel, because Palmyra is on the way to Dier Ezzor city in the eastern part of Syria which is close to the Iraqi borders, and those areas that have been used by ISIS as route for logistic support between ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in

Syria. So, whether you attack the stronghold or you attack the route that ISIS uses, it has the same result.

Question 14: How many days do you think this war is going to last?

President Assad: if we presume that you don’t have foreign intervention, it will take a few months. It’s not very complicated internally. The complexity of this war is the foreign intervention. This is the problem. So, in the face of that intervention, the good thing that we gained during the war is the unity of the society. At the very beginning, the vision for many Syrians wasn’t very clear about what’s happening. Many believed the propaganda of the West about the reality, about the real story, that this is against the oppression. If it’s against the oppression, why the people in Saudi Arabia didn’t revolt, for example? So, now what we gained is this, this is our strongest foundation to end that war. We always have hope that this year is going to be the last year. But at the end, this is war and you can’t expect what is going to happen precisely.

Question 15: Mr. President, you are President of the Syrian Republic, at the same time, you are a loving husband and a father of three. How can you balance the role of being a President, a father, and a husband?

President Assad: If you cannot succeed in your small duty which is your family, you cannot succeed in your bigger duty or more comprehensive duty at the level of a country. So, there is no excuse that if you have a lot of work to abandon your duties; it’s a duty. You have to be very clear about that, you have to fulfill those duties in a very good way. Of course, sometimes those circumstances do not allow you to do whatever you have to do, your duties, fully, let’s say.

Journalist: During a day, how much time you spend on work, and how much time you spend with your family members?

President Assad: Actually, it’s not about the time, because even if you are at your home, you have to work.

Journalist: Okay.

President Assad: Let’s say, in the morning and the evening, you have the chance, but in between and after those times, you have the whole day to work.

Question 16: Have you ever thought of leaving this country for the sake of your family?

President Assad: Never, after six years, I mean the most difficult times passed; it was in 2012 and 2013, those times; we never thought about it, how can I think about it now?

So, no, no, this is not an option. Whenever you have any kind of reluctance, you will lose. You will lose not with your enemies; you lose with your supporters. Those supporters, I mean the people you work with, the fighters, the army, they will feel if you’re not determined to defend your country. We never had any feeling neither me nor any member of my family.

Question 17: And how is Kareem’s Chinese getting along?

President Assad: He learned the basics of Chinese language, I think two years ago. Unfortunately, the lady and the man who taught him had to leave, because they were members of the Chinese Embassy. They went back to China. Now, he stopped improving his Chinese language.

Question 18: Do you think it is a good choice to learn Chinese for him?

President Assad: Of course, of course, because China is a rising power.

Journalist: You didn’t force him to learn Chinese? It’s his own option, right?

President Assad: No, no, we never thought about it, actually. I didn’t think that he has to learn Chinese, and I didn’t expect him, if I thought about it, that he would say yes, because for many in the world the Chinese language is a difficult language to learn. He took the initiative and he said I want to learn Chinese, and actually till this moment, I didn’t ask him why. I want him to feel free, but when he’s getting older, I’m going to ask him how? How did it come through your mind to learn this language, this difficult language, but of course important language.

Journalist: You didn’t ask him before?

President Assad: No, not yet.

Journalist: So, you think it’s a good choice?

President Assad: Of course, of course. As I said, it’s a rising power, it’s important. I mean, most of the world has different kinds of relations with China whether in science, in politics, in economy, in business, I mean, in every field you need it now. And our relations for the future are going to be on the rise. It was good, but it’s going to be on the rise because when a country like China proves that it’s a real friend, a friend that you can rely on, it’s very natural to have better relations on the popular level, not only on the formal level.

Journalist: Thank you Mr. President, thank you for your time.

President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria, you’re most welcome.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

Is Trump just falling in line with the evil establishment and going for more 'regime change' in Syria like Obama who preceded him? Is this another illegal invasion of Syria by the United States and NATO? Probably not, because the Syrian President would have complained, but has said nothing. Neither has Russia. Nor has Turkey. Something new is going on in Syria and it may actually be good. Could the end of this terrible war inflicted by US-NATO upon Syria finally be in sight?

Despite Trump's formal disapproval of Iran, Iranian television has once again risen above the situation in delivering a superbly objective inquiry or debate about what Trump's 400 new troops might be doing in Syria. You can watch it here http://presstv.ir/Detail/2017/03/09/513707/US-military-Marines-Syria and it will probably soon appear on Press TV's you-tube channel. This episode of Press TV's 'The Debate', canvasses the opinion of Jim W. Dean, the managing editor of Veterans Today, from Atlanta, and James Jatras, a former US diplomat, from Washington, on the deployment of hundreds of US Marines to Syria. As usual interviewer Kaveh Taghvai's questions are right on the nose.

On RT a day or two ago, probably 8 March Russian time, Catherine Shakdam (Middle East commentator) also argued that during the recent talks in Geneva, which the US attended, the US probably obtained Russia and Syria's permission to enter Syria and cooperate with the Syrian Army and Russian troops. There is no public confirmation of this and Trump has repeatedly said that he isn't going to give details of his military plans - and I don't think Russia or Syria would either.

We cannot help noticing that Putin has both Erdogan & Netanyahu in Moscow at the same time, ostensibly for individual talks with Putin... but it is interesting they're both there together, if we take into account their mutuality of interests.

In the meantime,Catherine Shakdam/s interview has been removed from the RT news record as far as I can see from searching, with a talking [male] head from UK being much more dour on Trump. Not that Shakdam is pro-Trump; she was also keen to portray him as trying to seize victory from the jaws of Syria and Russia for his own glory. For all the Soros/Clinton/Obama administration's conspiracy confabulation regarding RT, that online broadcasting channel, with its American channel based in Washington, D.C., was almost entirely anti-Trump before the US election and remains anti-Trump, with Watching the Hawks, The Big Picture and Redacted Tonight playing to the New York and Washington Left. In this it probably fails to reflect Putin's own preferences. Before the running up to the election The Big Picture was generally quite stimulating because of the wide-ranging politics of its invited panelists. As the election actually loomed, host Tom Hartman seemed to panic and dropped all his republican-sympathetic guests, delivering a kind of CNN program. Crosstalk and Going Underground seem to be the only relatively objective programs on the subject. Excellent and original female interviewers Oksana Boyko and Sophie Shevardnadze, who have their own programs, Worlds Apart and SophieCo respectively, are pretty even-handed, but Boyko has indicated a distrust for Trump's administration. Perhaps Boyko's opinion is a reflection of the new-class influence of post-graduate education in the United States. This does not stop her programs having breadth, however. Sophie Shevardnadze is an exceptional polyglot with a wide international education.

Brilliant Iranian interviewer Kaveh Taghvai's questions on the subject are inspired in this debate - more of a discussion - between J. Michael Springmann, a former US diplomat, and Michael Lane, the founder of American Institute for Foreign Policy, both from Washington. The two guests and the interviewer all have an unusually deep grasp of the drivers of turmoil in the region and of the foreign players involved. We get some very interesting new perspectives and interpretations of the latest moves around Syria. For instance, Turkey's position is often hard to fathom. We know it wants to take land from the north of Syria, whilst pretending to be maintaining safe zones. We know it wants to drive the Kurds back, but the usefulness of the refugee camps for Turkey as a military buffer may not have occurred to everyone. And, why did the United States bother to try to get votes on a draft UNSC resolution to sanction Syria for alleged poison gas incidents, when it would know that Russia would veto these highly dubious allegations? And China! We hear some new ideas on the motive, in terms of bargaining chips. In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has brought out layered and thoughtful explanations and comment on the foreign-backed war on Syria, particularly a Western-proposed UNSC draft resolution against the Syrian government that was vetoed by Russia and China.

Introduction

Amnesty International (AI) has done some good investigations and reports over the years. This has won them widespread support.  However, less well recognized, Amnesty International has also carried out faulty investigations contributing to bloody and disastrous actions. One prominent example is in Iraq, where AI “corroborated” the false story that Iraqi soldiers were stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. The deception was planned and carried out in Washington DC to influence the public and Congress.  A more recent example is from 2011 where false accusations were being made about Libya and its leader as Western and Gulf powers sought to overthrow the Gaddafi government. AI leaders joined the campaign claiming that Gaddafi was using “mercenaries” to threaten and kill peacefully protesting civilians. The propaganda was successful in muting criticism. Going far beyond a UN Security Council resolution to “protect civilians”, NATO launched sustained air attacks and toppled the Libyan government leading to chaos, violence and a flood of refugees. AI later refuted the “mercenary” accusations but the damage was done.

The Sensational New Amnesty International Report

On 7 February Amnesty International released a new report titled “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison”. It has received huge uncritical review in mainstream and liberal media.

Like the Iraq/Kuwait incubator story and the Libyan ‘mercenary’ story, the “Human Slaughterhouse” report is coming at a critical time. The consequences of the AI report are to accuse and convict the Syrian government of horrible atrocities against civilians.  AI explicitly calls for the international community to take “action”.

As will be shown below, the AI report is biased and partial. To the extent that it is resulting in a widespread kangaroo conviction of the Syrian government, the AI release can be called a “Kangaroo Report”. 

Problems with the Report

1) The Amnesty International report on Syria violates their own research standards.  As documented by Prof Tim Hayward here, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, claims that Amnesty does its research ‘in a very systematic, primary, way where we collect evidence with our own staff on the ground. And every aspect of our data collection is based on corroboration and cross-checking from all parties, even if there are, you know, many parties in any situation because of all of the issues we deal with are quite contested. So it’s very important to get different points of view and constantly cross check and verify the facts.’ As documented below, the Amnesty report fails on all counts: they rely on third parties, they did not gather different points of view and they did not cross-check.

2) The report conclusions are not based on primary sources, material evidence or their own staff; they are solely based on the claims of anonymous individuals, mostly in southern Turkey from where the war on Syria is coordinated. 

3) Amnesty gathered witnesses and testimonies from only one side of the conflict: the Western and Gulf supported opposition. For example, AI consulted with the Syrian Network for Human Rights which is known to seek NATO intervention in Syria. AI “liased” with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability. This organization is funded by the West to press criminal charges against the Syrian leadership. These are obviously not neutral, independent or nonpartisan organizations. If AI was doing what the Secretary General claims they do, they would have consulted with organizations within or outside Syria to hear different accounts of life at Saydnaya Prison.  Since the AI report has been released, the AngryArab has published the account of a Syrian dissident, Nizar Nayyouf, who was imprisoned at Saydnaya. He contradicts many statements in the Amnesty International report. This is the type of cross-checking which Amnesty International failed to do for this important study.

4) Amnesty’s accusation that executions were “extrajudicial” is exaggerated or false. By Amnesty’s own description, each prisoner appeared briefly before a judge and each execution was authorized by a high government leader. We do not know if the judge looked at documentation or other information regarding each prisoner. One could argue that the process was superficial but it’s clear there was some kind of judicial process.

5) Amnesty’s suggestion that all Saydnaya prisoners are convicted is false.  Amnesty quotes one of their witnesses who says about the court: “The judge will ask the name of the detainee and whether he committed the crime. Whether the answer is yes or no, he will be convicted.” This assertion is contradicted by a former Saydnaya prisoner who is now a refugee in Sweden. In this news report the former prisoner says the judge “asked him how many soldiers he had killed. When he said none, the judge spared him.” This is evidence that there is a judicial process of some sort and there are acquittals.

6) The Amnesty report includes satellite photographs with captions which are meaningless or erroneous. For example, as pointed out by Syrian dissident Nizar Nayyouf, the photo on page 30 showing a Martyrs Cemetery is “silly beyond silly”. The photo and caption show the cemetery doubled in size. However, this does not prove hangings of prisoners who would never be buried in a “martyrs cemetery” reserved for Syrian army soldiers. On the contrary, it confirms the fact which Amnesty International otherwise ignores:  Syrian soldiers have died in large numbers.

7) The Amnesty report falsely claims, based on data provided by one of the groups seeking NATO intervention, “The victims are overwhelmingly ordinary civilians who are thought to oppose the government.”  While it’s surely true that innocent civilians are sometimes wrongly arrested, as happens in all countries, the suggestion that Saydnaya prison is filled with 95% “ordinary civilians” is preposterous. Amnesty International can make this claim with a straight face because they have effectively “disappeared” the reality of Syria. Essential facts which are completely missing from the Amnesty report include:

1. Western powers and Gulf monarchies have put up billions of dollars annually since 2011 to fund, train, weaponize, provide salaries and propaganda in support of a violent campaign to overthrow the Syrian government;
2. tens of thousands of foreign fanatics have invaded Syria;
3. tens of thousands of Syrians have been radicalized and paid by Wahabi monarchies in the Gulf to overthrow the government;
4. over 100 THOUSAND Syrian Army and National Defense soldiers have been killed defending their country. Most of this is public information yet ignored by Amnesty International and other media in the West. They have done a massive distortion and cover-up of reality.

8) Without providing evidence, Amnesty International accuses the highest Sunni religious leader in Syria, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, of authorizing the execution of “ordinary civilians”. The Grand Mufti is a personal victim: his son was murdered by terrorists near Aleppo. Yet he has consistently called for reconciliation. Following the assassination of his son, Grand Mufti Hassoun gave an eloquent speech expressing forgiveness for the murderers and calling for an end to the violence. What does it say about Amnesty International that they make these kind of specific personal accusations, against people who have personally suffered, yet provide zero evidence?

9) Amnesty uses sensational and emotional accusations in place of factual evidence. The title of the report is  “Human Slaughterhouse”. What goes with a “slaughterhouse”?  Why of course ….. a “meat fridge”!  The report uses the expression “meat fridge” seven separate times, presumably in an attempt to buttress the association.  Even the opening quotation is hyperbolic: “Saydnaya is the end of life - the end of humanity”.  This report is in sharp contrast with fact-based objective research and investigation; it is closer to perception management and manipulation. 

10) Amnesty International accusations that the Syrian government is carrying out a policy of “extermination” are contradicted by the fact that the vast majority of Syrians prefer to live in government controlled areas. When the “rebels” were finally driven out of East Aleppo in December 2016, 90% of civilians rushed into government controlled areas. In recent days, civilians from Latakia province who had been imprisoned by terrorists for the past 3 years have been liberated in a prisoner exchange. The following video shows the Syrian President and first lady meeting with some of the civilians and gives a sense of the joy.

11) The Amnesty report is accompanied by a 3 minute cartoon which gives the false narrative that Syrian civilians who protest peacefully are imprisoned and executed. The cartoon is titled “Saydnaya Prison: Human Slaughterhouse”. Apparently Amnesty International is in denial of the fact that there are many tens of thousands of violent extremists in Syria. They set off car bombs, launch mortars and otherwise attack civilian areas every day. While there are mistakes from time to time, and also cases of corruption and bribery, it makes no sense that Syrian security or prison authorities would be wasting time and resources with non-violent civilians when there are tens of thousands of foreign sponsored actual terrorists in the country. The AI accusation is also contradicted by the fact that there are many opposition parties in Syria. They compete for seats in the National Assembly and campaign openly for public support from both the right and left of the Baath Party.

12) The Amnesty claim that Syrian authorities brutally repress peaceful protest is also contradicted by the Syrian reconciliation process. For the past several years armed opposition militants have been encouraged to lay down their weapons and peacefully rejoin society. This is largely unreported in western media because it contradicts the false stereotype presented by Amnesty International and western media in general. A recent example is reported here.

13) The Amnesty report cites the “Caesar” photographs as supporting evidence but ignores the fact that nearly half the photographs show the opposite of what was claimed. The widely publicized “Caesar photographs” was a Qatari funded hoax designed to sabotage the 2014 Geneva negotiations as documented here .

14) The Amnesty report makes many accusations against the Syrian government but ignores the violation of Syrian sovereignty being committed by western and Gulf countries. It is a curious fact that big NGOs such as Amnesty International focus on violations of “human rights law” and “humanitarian law” but ignore the crime of aggression, also called the crime against peace.  According to the Nuremberg Tribunal, this is “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister and former President of the U.N. General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto, is someone who should know. He says, “What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State.” Amnesty International ignores this.

Background and Context

The co-author of this Amnesty International report is Nicolette Waldman (Boehland). She was uncritically interviewed on DemocracyNow on 9 February. The background and previous work of Waldman shows the inter-connections between influential Washington “think tanks” and the billionaire foundation funded Non Governmental Organizations that claim to be independent but are clearly not. Waldman previously worked for the “Center for Civilians in Conflict”. This organization is directed by leaders from George Soros’ Open Society, Human Rights Watch, Blackrock Solutions and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). CNAS may be the most significant indication of political orientation since it is led by Michele Flournoy, who was predicted to become Secretary of Defense if Hillary Clinton had won the election. CNAS has been a leading force behind neo-conservatives plan to escalate war in Syria. While past work or associations do not always define new or future work, in this case the sensational and evidence-free accusations seem to align with neoconservative political goals.

Conclusion

Amnesty International has previously published false information or “corroboration” which justified western aggression against Iraq and Libya. This seems to be the same role they are playing now in Syria.

The Amnesty International report is a combination of accusations based on hearsay and sensationalism. Partially because of Amnesty’s undeserved reputation for independence and accuracy, the report has been picked up and broadcast widely.  Liberal and supposedly progressive media outlets have dutifully echoed the dubious accusations. In reality this report amounts to a Kangaroo court with the victim being the Syrian government and people who have borne the brunt of the foreign sponsored aggression. If this report sparks an escalation of the conflict, which Amnesty International seems to call for, it will be a big step backwards not forward ….just like in Iraq and Libya.

This well explained debunking comes from from Syriana Analysis

This story originally published 8 Feb 2017 at American Everyman with the long title: The Farce that is Amnesty International’s ” Human Slaughterhouse ” Study: It is, Quite Literally, Fake News Gone Viral. There was massive mainstream news yesterday (8 Feb 2017) of Amnesty International's report of 13,000 prisoneres hanged by the Assad Government during Obama's US regime. The next day, however, the story has been relegated to the back pages and some publications have actually pulled their aritcles. This is because there is zero evidence for the report, which, if you actually read it, claims nothing specific at all. Read Scott Creighton's article inside to know more. [Candobetter.net editor: We have included at the end of the article the request for donations from the original publication site, because this was integral to the original article.]

UPDATE: Check out al Jazeera story which features one of the sources of Nicolette’s report. He is a Free Syrian Army terrorist who did two years in the prison AND WAS RELEASED. Wait a minute… I thought they were exterminating everyone? What gives? (check out video at 1:10 mark)

I wonder who’s kids they grabbed for this PR shoot.

—

Everyone from CNN to al Jazeera covered the Amnesty International report of the 13,000 prisoners hanged by the Assad government during President Obama’s “moderate” terrorist regime change operation in Syria yesterday. They titled the report “Human Slaughterhouse” so the concentration-challenged American public wouldn’t have to read much further than the title to get their water-cooler talking points for the day at the office. Fox covered it. The Guardian covered it. ABC, USA Today, Telegraph, BBC, Red State, Breitbart, Business Insider you get the picture, right?

All day yesterday, Amnesty International was trending on Twitter. Thousands of people left comments reflecting their outrage at Assad “the monster” and various news organizations published the baseless comments as news. It was a megaphone project that worked perfectly… for a little while.

You’ll notice the story has been relegated to the back pages today and some publications  have actually pulled their articles on it. There’s a reason for that. The AI report is complete and total bunk. It’s baseless, technically flawed and as they accurately reported over at Moon of Alabama, it wouldn’t stand up in even the most rigged kangaroo court on the planet.

Do you want to know many of those 13,000 victims of “torture, hanging and extermination” that AI has actual evidence of?

Zero.

It’s not 13,000 which is the high range of their “estimate” which everyone is touting on various regime change backing “news” outlets.

It’s not 5,000 which is the low range of that “estimate”

It’s not 375 that were provided by the western-backed, regime hating, openly lying Syrian Network for Human Rights.

It’s not even the “additional” 36 names that were provided to AI by “witnesses”

It’s zero.

It is total,complete, absolute fake news and there is no other possible way to look at it.

Here is what Amnesty International says about the “documented deaths” in their report. It is found in section 4.3.4 on page 40 of their study. It is the entirety of the documentation of deaths in this report and therefore the entirety of the factual basis they offer.

“Amnesty International’s research, along with the research of the UN Commission of Inquiry, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch, suggests that tens of thousands of detainees have died in Saydnaya and other government-run detention centres since 2011 as a result of the extermination policies discussed above. Because the Syrian authorities have withheld information on the names and whereabouts of the individuals they have in their custody as well as the names of those who have died in the detention centres it operates, the exact number of deaths in Saydnaya is impossible to specify. However, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has verified and shared with Amnesty International the names of 375 individuals who have died in Saydnaya as a result of torture and other ill-treatment between March 2011 and October 2016. Of these, 317 were civilians at the time of their arrest, 39 were members of the Syrian military and 19 were members of non-state armed groups.170 In the course of the research for this report, Amnesty International obtained the names of 36 additional individuals who died as a result of torture and other ill-treatment in Saydnaya. These names were provided to Amnesty International by former detainees who witnessed the deaths in their cells.171

170 Email correspondence with Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights on 25 November 2016.
171 These names are on file with Amnesty International.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights is something akin to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and they have about as much credibility with regards to what is really happening in Syria.

They are a UK-based “not-for-profit” that is focused on helping the Western-backed ‘coalition’ force a brutal regime change in Syria at any cost. As Steven Lendmen pointed out in Aug. of 2016 (a couple months before the SNHR provided AI with their “list”) the SNHR has a long history of making unsubstantiated claims about brutality in Syria and always their claims are focused on aiding the regime change operations in one way or another.

“Instead of reporting truthfully, SNHR falsely claimed “Russian forces have killed no less than 2704 civilians including 746 children and 514 women” from September 30 last year through end of July.

Its assertions aren’t based on credible documentation, Western-sponsored propaganda alone. Saying “(t)he Russian regime has terrorized and massacred the Syrian people and surpassed the extremist group ISIS,” then adding “(w)e have to be brave enough to acknowledge this truth (sic)” is simply crude propaganda anyone paying attention understands instantly.

Ghani is a poor liar. SOHR’s Rami Abdulrahman does a better job of reporting misinformation and Big Lies. Maybe they should get together and compare notes.

Their purpose is similar. Demonize Syria and Russia. Support US-led imperial aggression. Blame its high crimes on Assad and Putin.” Lendman, Aug. 2016

If you go here, you can watch the chairman of SNHR give a presentation before the UN in 2013 which he accused Assad of everything from ordering institutional rape of women to the Lindberg baby kidnapping. He was literally screeching for regime change. He was saying that peace “at the cost of justice” would lead to more instability not less. Meaning, no deal between opposition and Assad government could be tolerated without removing and executing Assad and other members of the legitimate government back then. The chairman, Fadel Abdul Ghani, set up a Youtube channel back in 2013 in which he featured a number of poorly made fake propaganda videos.

This video is one of the first on his ridiculous channel. It features a bunch of Obama’s “moderate” terrorists taking a break from shelling civilians population centers to make a propaganda video where they grab local kids and pretend to weep like they are their fathers. Apparently these Salafist monsters didn’t understand back then of the power of the image of the mother holding their dead child. Either that, or the other terrorists were too busy raping the women to stick one or two in the video.

SNHR is apparently the precursor of the White Helmets al-Qaeda production company.

Taking ANYTHING this organization offers as “evidence” and basing a report such as this on that alone, is beyond irresponsible. It’s almost criminal. The history of this liar Ghani speaks for itself. The fact that the organization is located in the UK and probably receives funding from organizations that support the regime change program makes anything they offer all that more tainted in terms of evidence.

In short, the 375 names emailed to AI for their “extensively researched study” is bunk. And their using it in this report makes it “fake news” pure and simple.

And what about those 36 others reported by “witnesses”?

So, let me get this straight… some released “moderate” terrorists say, without providing evidence of course, that they know of 36 other “moderate” terrorists who were executed by the Syrian government for launching homemade Hell Cannon mortars into population centers and killing and raping civilians during their time in Syria… and yet, remarkably, AI doesn’t wonder why these particular terrorists were allowed to leave and tell their story?

Does anyone else notice a stark contradiction in the “extermination of the opposition” story here?

Does anyone else notice the fact that these guys who were released had at one time been dedicated to the regime change operation and that MOTIVE might just still be part of their agenda?

Would such testimony be permissible in court? Would it be laughed out of court if allowed by a rational jury of 12?

So now what are we at? We have gone from 13,000 “exterminated” “activists” to 5,000 to 375 to 36 and now we are left with what?

Zero.

See how the math works with that one?

For a good explanation of how AI fraudulently came up with their extrapolations which provided them the massive numbers of inmate hangings, based entirely on hearsay “evidence” (they literally took a lie, extrapolated it as a baseline norm, and then multiplied the lie over the course of the 5 years… I’m not kidding, that is what they did) you need to read Moon of Alabama’s work on the bullshit study. It’s well worth the time and while you are there, check out the informed comments as well.

If you go to Russian Insider you will find a pretty good critique of the “mass graves” images AI included in their study.

Does anybody remember this?

That was one of the many fake photos of Iraqis WMDs they used to try to get the UN Security Council to agree to our illegal war of aggression against Iraq. It failed. The image was a fraud. Much like AI’s pics of “mass graves”

This whole story is I call a foundation lie. When they came up with this idea, they knew it was bound to be torn apart on the merits by the few conscientious journalists still working these days, but they went forward with it anyway knowing the complicit media would ask no questions, do no independent investigation of their sources or their methods and megaphone their conclusions without pause.

The purpose of crafting such disinformation is that in the future, talking heads and politicos will be able to now say “Assad must go because he hanged 13,000 peaceful activists” and if someone dares challenge them on the lie, they can refer them to all those fraudulent MSM outlet articles posted yesterday without having to worry about the fact that the study itself is entirely baseless. That kind of discussion would take longer than the 45 seconds they have allotted for the segment.

From there, they can call for things like “safe zones”, humanitarian bombing campaigns and even “boots on the ground”

If you want recent examples of other foundation lies, there was the one about Gaddafi killing thousands of his own people, Assad using chemical weapons or even Saddam’s WMD story, which even today is being revisited by the revisionists trying to white wash the Bush administration’s crimes against humanity.

But the foundation lie is key. It pops up, it can’t stand the light of day… and ultimately it’s purpose is to serve as that tiny tidbit of disinformation rumbling around in the back of someone’s head so that when a war-monger brings it up in the near future, all he has to do is mention it and the audience accepts it at face value.

Upon these lies, the structure of future war-crimes is based.

It’s not enough to run around with a “No War for Lies” sign a year from now while Trump is bombing Syria into the stone age. These kinds of efforts they produce must be attacked and dismantled when they surface. Google will certainly prevent searches for the real truth about the 13,000 in the future, as they already do today regarding the truth of things like faked aerial photos of Iraqi chemical weapon sites. We understand that and move on regardless.

This is not going to be the last time AI produces politically based disinformation. In fact, right now, front and center of their website, they are still promoting the stopping of what they call Trump’s “Muslim Ban” even though most complicit MSM outlets have already given up on that line of destabilization.

When you find good, well researched work on disinformation campaigns like this one, share it widely. Make a point to do so. That’s what ultimately stopped Obama from acting on the “redline” violation his “moderate” terrorists in Syria crafted for him with the chemical weapon use in Syria (his mercs did it). When the internet journalists exposed the fraudulence of that event en masse, he couldn’t respond the way they wanted him to because it was already well known and circulating through the internet that the Syrian government didn’t do it.

Yet that foundation lie continues to be used today as well.

Moon of Alabama’s work on this “study” should go viral. Everyone should read it and make IT the topic of discussion at the water cooler today.

It’s not enough to run around on the streets waving signs while bombs are dropping in foreign countries.

It’s not enough to come back years later and say “oh look. the claims were baseless after all”

We have to undermine the foundations of these war-crimes BEFORE they happen by chipping away at the fake news as it is crafted. That is the only way to stop them.

—

Please help keep AE up and running if you can.

I really could use any help you can afford. Things are getting pretty bad

Thank you all so much

(For my mailing address, please email me at [email protected])

For those rare individuals who like their news direct from the source instead of twisted by the biased mainstream media, this interview with Assad covers a new range of questions and answers. Assad denies that his family has any ownership of the presidency. He gives a clear account of how he came to be a presidential candidate. He attributes' Syria's ongoing problems to European and United States sponsorship of al-Nusra affiliated terrorists and ISIS. He says he would have no problems in stepping aside if someone else was elected as President of Syria. He says that 'the new U.S. administration' gave some cause for hope, during the elections and after. And much more. No Australian politician has ever been interviewed at this depth, to my knowledge.

In a 27 January talk for the Edinburgh SNP Club former UK ambassador Craig Murray appears to reveal that contacts within the BBC have admitted to him that events featured in Ian Pannell and Darren Conway's 29 August 2013 BBC News report about an incendiary attack on a Syrian school were "exaggerated" and that some parts were "filmed again".

"I think there’s been an awful lot on the BBC that’s simply been deliberate propaganda and when they had the debate on bombing Syria – the idea that bombing Syria would help stop people dying – in the run up to that debate you remember we were having almost
every BBC news bulletin was full of stories of the Syrian government forces killing civilians, whereas our own bombs never do, apparently, and I think that push for war by the BBC was really very worrying.

There was one particular thing that I blogged about myself and on which other people have done a lot of work where I just happened to notice that on two different news bulletins, a female - an item the BBC had  done about a chemical weapons attack on a school in Syria, it was extremely emotive, on two different news bulletins the doctor speaking had said different things, ostensibly the same sentence, ostensibly filmed at exactly the same time, but with different words in it, one said “napalm” and one said “chemical weapons” and her mouth was hidden by her doctor’s mask so you couldn’t actually see her lips move, it was kind of voice over going on and yet it appeared to be a “breaking news” news item of everything happening before you almost live - and dug down into that quite a lot and the footage was used again on a Panorama programme the BBC did, which was very much, undoubtedly it was designed to stoke an emotive appeal to British military intervention in Syria, that was the purpose of it and it became plain that there just were a number of things in that video that weren’t right.

Now I have friends in the BBC and in Panorama itself in fact and what I’m told happened, which I think I believe is the truth - I mean there’s some people who believe that the whole thing was, the entire thing was a setup, that the whole bombings and things never happened at all and the whole thing was just set up with actors - I don’t think that is true I think what happened was that they were filming when something had happened, they rather exaggerated how bad the incident was and bits of it they filmed again because they didn’t get it clearly or it wasn’t exactly as they wanted and it seems to me that there’s a line here that’s been crossed because if you’re doing something that’s supposed to be news and you’ve got someone bringing in someone on a stretcher you can’t say “right, sorry, can we have another take?” and get them to bring him in on the stretcher again and that’s what was happening, so no matter how real the incident on which the thing was based what we were seeing was a fictionalised account posing as real life and that, to me the BBC has been crossing that kind of line quite regularly in its coverage in Syria."

In a blog post of 9 March 2016 Mr Murray stated: “Let me pin my colours to the mast and say that I am absolutely convinced that the BBC did deliberately and knowingly fake evidence of chemical attacks”.

In a March 2014 email to One World Media, when Ian Pannell and the "Chemical School Attack" report were nominated for awards, Mr Murray wrote: “I am obliged to say, having personally been in my career in rather similar conflict situations, I was struck by the strange absence of panic and screaming both by patients and surrounding family - I have seen people in that sort of pain and situation and they are not that quiet and stoic, in any culture." (Mr Murray has previously granted permission for me to publish his email online and the extract above is now copied on my blog).

Parts of my March 2016
presentation for Frome Stop War on BBC Panorama 'Saving Syria's Children' have been featured on Syrian television:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqGmLlbVBHo&feature=youtu.be 

[...]John Kerry himself [...] admitted, in a meeting with Syrian opposition, the Obama administration saw the ISIS advance as a positive development: “[W]e know that this was growing, we were watching, we saw that DAESH [ ISIS] was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. [We] thought, however, we could probably manage that. Assad might then negotiate.”(By “negotiate,” Kerry meant “capitulate”—negotiate the terms of his abdication.) For the Serious People in Washington, this—the impending takeover of Syria by ISIS and Al-Qaeda jihadis—meant things were going swimmingly. (Al-Nusra was at the time—and still is, less officially—the affiliate of Al-Qaeda in Syria.) As Daniel Lazare pointed out: “After years of hemming and hawing, the Obama administration has finally come clean about its goals in Syria. In the battle to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, it is siding with Al Qaeda…[R]ather than protesting what is in fact a joint U.S.-Al Qaeda assault, the Beltway crowd is either maintaining a discreet silence or boldy hailing Al Nusra’s impending victory as ‘the best thing that could happen in a Middle East in crisis.’”

The recapture of Aleppo by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies marks a turning point not only in the conflict in Syria, but also in the dynamic of international conflict. For the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rolling imperial engine of regime change via American-led military intervention has been stopped in its tracks. To be sure, it’s certainly not out of service, even in Syria, and it will seek and find new paths for devastating disobedient countries, but its assumed endgame for subjugating Syria has been rudely interrupted. And in our historical context, Syria interrupted is imperialism interrupted.

Read more at "Game Change: Syria, Interrupted" by Jim Kavanagh.

In a rather alarming development for Syrians hoping that the danger of a no-fly-zone had passed when the US electorate passed on Clinton, the new ‘pro-Russian’ President Trump has suggested ‘Safe Zones’ in Syria should be pursued, so that Syrian refugees would have somewhere to go when he stops them coming to America.

"Russia urges caution on Donald Trump's plan for safe zones in Syria": A Kremlin spokesman says Donald Trump's administration did not consult Russia before announcing the plan to establish safe zones for refugees in Syria. [...] On Wednesday, the US President said he "will absolutely do safe zones in Syria" for refugees fleeing violence. "I think that Europe has made a tremendous mistake by allowing these millions of people to go into Germany and various other countries," he said in an interview with an ABC News (US) broadcast."

This off-the-cuff remark by Trump has also alarmed Russia, which isn’t yet confident that the US can change its spots, or that the President won’t inadvertently say something unwise and then have to follow through on it.

But while all of Syria’s enemies have jumped at the possibility the US is going to come to its senses and pull Mr Trump back into line, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that there is another sort of ‘safe-zone’ possible in Syria, which looks an awful lot like Aleppo.

Russia has in fact already created a – relatively – safe zone in Aleppo by helping the Syrian army and its allies expel the terrorist groups who were holding the East of the city under siege. What is more, already there are tens of thousands of ‘refugees’ returning to their homes in the east from West Aleppo, where they have been living for the last four years since armed jihadists invaded their city.

It may be a hard pill to swallow for Western supporters of Syria’s fake ‘revolutionaries’, but the Syrian people they pretend to speak for have long decided who makes them feel safe – their own security forces! If President Trump is going to help them drive out and kill the terrorist groups his own country has been supporting then he will surely be making us all feel a lot safer.

As much of Washington prepared for the inauguration of President Donald Trump, I spent last week on a fact-finding mission in Syria and Lebanon to see and hear directly from the Syrian people. Their lives have been consumed by a horrific war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and forced millions to flee their homeland in search of peace. It is clear now more than ever: this regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people. [Candobetter.net Editor: This communication was issued as an email to a list by Ms Gabbard and we reproduce it here in the assumption that it was intended as a kind of press release. More on Tulsi Gabbard, who was a distinguished soldier in Iraq: https://www.votetulsi.com/tulsi-gabbard]

We met these children at a shelter in Aleppo, whose families fled the eastern part of the city. The only thing these kids want, the only thing everyone I came across wants, is peace. Many of these children have only known war. Their families want nothing more than to go home, and get back to the way things were before the war to overthrow the government started. This is all they want.

I traveled throughout Damascus and Aleppo, listening to Syrians from different parts of the country. I met with displaced families from the eastern part of Aleppo, Raqqah, Zabadani, Latakia, and the outskirts of Damascus. I met Syrian opposition leaders who led protests in 2011, widows and children of men fighting for the government and widows of those fighting against the government. I met Lebanon’s newly-elected President Aoun and Prime Minister Hariri, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard, Syrian President Assad, Grand Mufti Hassoun, Archbishop Denys Antoine Chahda of Syrian Catholic Church of Aleppo, Muslim and Christian religious leaders, humanitarian workers, academics, college students, small business owners, and more.

Their message to the American people was powerful and consistent: There is no difference between “moderate” rebels and al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) or ISIS — they are all the same. This is a war between terrorists under the command of groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and the Syrian government. They cry out for the U.S. and other countries to stop supporting those who are destroying Syria and her people.

I heard this message over and over again from those who have suffered and survived unspeakable horrors. They asked that I share their voice with the world; frustrated voices which have not been heard due to the false, one-sided biased reports pushing a narrative that supports this regime change war at the expense of Syrian lives.

I heard testimony about how peaceful protests against the government that began in 2011 were quickly overtaken by Wahhabi jihadist groups like al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) who were funded and supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the United States, and others. They exploited the peaceful protesters, occupied their communities, and killed and tortured Syrians who would not cooperate with them in their fight to overthrow the government.

I met a Muslim girl from Zabadani who was kidnapped, beaten repeatedly, and raped in 2012, when she was just 14 years old, by “rebel groups” who were angry that her father, a sheep herder, would not give them his money. She watched in horror as masked men murdered her father in their living room, emptying their entire magazine of bullets into him.

I met a boy who was kidnapped while walking down the street to buy bread for his family. He was tortured, waterboarded, electrocuted, placed on a cross and whipped, all because he refused to help the “rebels” — he told them he just wanted to go to school. This is how the “rebels” are treating the Syrian people who do not cooperate with them, or whose religion is not acceptable to them. Although opposed to the Assad government, the political opposition spoke strongly about their adamant rejection of the use of violence to bring about reforms. They argue that if the Wahhabi jihadists, fueled by foreign governments, are successful in overthrowing the Syrian state, it would destroy Syria and its long history of a secular, pluralist society where people of all religions have lived peacefully side by side. Although this political opposition continues to seek reforms, they are adamant that as long as foreign governments wage a proxy regime change war against Syria using jihadist terrorist groups, they will stand with the Syrian state as they work peacefully toward a stronger Syria for all Syrians.

Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering.

I return to Washington, DC with even greater resolve to end our illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government. From Iraq to Libya and now in Syria, the U.S. has waged wars of regime change, each resulting in unimaginable suffering, devastating loss of life, and the strengthening of groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

I call upon Congress and the new Administration to answer the pleas of the Syrian people immediately and support the Stop Arming Terrorists Act. We must stop directly and indirectly supporting terrorists — directly by providing weapons, training and logistical support to rebel groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS; and indirectly through Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Turkey, who, in turn, support these terrorist groups. We must end our war to overthrow the Syrian government and focus our attention on defeating al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The U.S. must stop supporting terrorists who are destroying Syria and her people. The U.S. and other countries fueling this war must stop immediately. We must allow the Syrian people to try to recover from this terrible war.

Thank you,

Tulsi