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endenogatai · 6 years

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The Zennström manifesto

At almost 86 degrees Fahrenheit, London is enduring a mini heat wave by traditional British summer standards. News reports at the weekend had relayed findings from the Met Office’s latest “State of the U.K. Climate report” confirming that the country is officially warming. Perhaps the first two industrial revolutions have finally taken their toll on the planet, just as the World Economic Forum argues that we are ushering in a fourth industrial revolution based on emerging technology such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, biotechnology and quantum computing.

Knowing full well that the office building housing European venture capital firm Atomico happily pumps out air conditioning on a day like today, I’ve arrived 30 minutes early for an interview scheduled with founding partner Niklas Zennström. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Zennström co-founded Skype, the internet telephony company, which he famously managed to sell twice — first to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, then to Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion. A known environmentalist, with his wife Catherine, he is also the founder of Zennström Philanthropies, a nonprofit that supports organisations combatting climate change and promoting human rights and social entrepreneurship.

Located in Mayfair, one of London’s most expensive districts, Atomico sits within walking distance of the London offices of Accel Partners and Index Ventures. If Balderton Capital, the other of the “big four” early-stage VCs in the U.K., hadn’t moved to the trendier Kings Cross area in North London, Mayfair would be the closest thing the country has to Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road, renowned for its high concentration of venture capital.

I’m greeted by Atomico’s hard-working and always jovial head of communications, who seems slightly on edge, which I take as a compliment and has the converse effect of helping me relax. After taking the lift to the third floor, we find sanctuary in an empty and cool meeting room, and I remark that it feels like I’ve been reporting on Atomico for nearly as long as I’ve been a journalist. A quick count that morning revealed that I’ve covered just less than half of the companies in the current portfolio, as well as interviewed numerous members of the now 30-plus investment team. Yet I’d never met or spoken to Zennström.

The Atomico founder doesn’t give as many interviews as he used to, preferring to share media duties with the wider team, even though there remains a feeling within the organisation that the VC firm is sometimes misunderstood. Despite being in its 12th year and on fund four, Atomico is still considered to be the upstart compared to Accel, Index and Balderton, and amongst entrepreneurs and the press there are often a number of other misconceptions:

Atomico is a late-stage investor. Wrong. The majority of investments from fund four are at Series A, although the firm does invest at Series B, too, and typically follows on.

Atomico is mostly Zennström’s own money. Wrong. LPs in the fund do include Atomico partners, but mostly span the usual gamut of family offices and institutional investors such as pension funds, funds of funds and the EU taxpayer backed European Investment Fund.

Atomico only invests in consumer technology. Wrong. The firm is largely sector agnostic and places bets across B2C, B2B, software, hardware, deep tech and more.

What is perhaps better — and accurately — understood is that Atomico is one of the few European VCs to have developed a penchant for making “moonshot” investments: putting money into a number of genuinely groundbreaking companies and exploratory technology that isn’t expected to generate revenue for many years to come and will either change the world or fail spectacularly.

The best-known is probably Lilium, the Munich-based startup developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet. It plans to use the aircraft to power a “flying taxi” service that wouldn’t be out-of-place in a Sci-Fi movie. Another is Memphis Meats, the San Francisco-based company growing meat in a lab by harvesting it from cells instead of animals. Then there is Graphcore, the Bristol, U.K.-based startup that is designing chips specifically for artificial intelligence, and which has its sights set on Nvidia. Lilium and Graphcore have raised more than $100 million each, while all three are yet to launch a product.

A few weeks prior to the interview I called various mutual contacts Zennström and I have to get a sense of what he is like as a person. Ambitious was a word that came back repeatedly. One entrepreneur who has taken investment from Zennström tried to convince me that there is no venture capitalist equal to him in Europe based on sheer ambition levels, which they said he always tries to instill in the startups he backs. I was also told that he is renowned for being an extremely tough negotiator (A partner at Atomico is rumoured to have asked one of the firm’s portfolio companies to have a pair of brass balls made as a present for Zennström in homage to a deal he recently got over the line.) Paradoxically, others said he can sometimes come across as shy or a little awkward, especially when talking publicly.

Atomico’s Niklas Zennström at TechCrunch Disrupt London 2016

I’m told Zennström isn’t short of entertaining stories, both from his time building Skype and before that through his association with the peer-to-peer file sharing application Kazaa, whose technology was licensed by Joltid, another company he co-founded. The success of Skype, which for millions of people made international calling effectively free, saw him become a major adversary to the incumbent telecommunications industry. In the early 2000s, following in the footsteps of Napster’s Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, Zennström might well have been considered the entertainment industry’s enemy No. 1 due to the way Kazaa was used for music and film piracy, which led to multiple lawsuits.

As fun as I’m sure those anecdotes are, tales from a bygone era would have to wait for another day. With the interview restricted to just an hour and no red lines agreed upon, I had other things on my mind. Tech, it seems to anyone who tracks the industry for a vocation, is having a “moment,” and not always for the right reasons.

From the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal and social media’s reluctance to stem the flow of hate speech and misinformation, to bad behaviour, including sexual harassment and assault, bullying and racism, if ever the tech industry was in need of finding its moral compass, not only to remedy the problems of the past, but more so as we head into the future, it is now.

With $1.5 billion of capital under management, and its fourth fund totaling $765 million, perhaps more than most European VC firms, Atomico is well-positioned to help shape what that future looks like and play a significant role in determining how the technology industry evolves over the next 10 years and beyond.

ennström enters the room in an upbeat and relaxed mood, and we exchange a few pleasantries — no social awkwardness detected. He thanks me for making the effort to visit Atomico (I have a reputation for conducting the majority of interviews remotely, partially because of the extra time and energy traveling consumes as a wheelchair user). Not wanting to waste any time, I switch on my iPhone’s recording app and fire my opening shot: “Why did Atomico need to exist when you first founded this VC firm, and probably more to the point, why does it still need to exist today?”

People told me there is no ambition level in Europe. Niklas Zennström

Zennström laughs, having seen the second half of the question coming a mile off, and then launches into a precursor to the Atomico pitch. He says that when he was building Skype (and before that Kazaa and Joltid), he always had people tell him that you can’t build tech companies in Europe, and that if you want to build a tech company, you need to be in Silicon Valley.

“People told me there is no ambition level in Europe, there’s no development, no talent, nothing,” says Zennström. “Certainly what was true, what I learned firsthand, [was that out of] the VC firms back then in Europe, most of them were very risk-averse. They’d rather bet on a copy of something they’d seen in the U.S., deployed in a small market. And there was also much more of a mentality back then about making a quick buck and exiting early instead of building companies for the long-term.”

He says that when he pitched Skype to European VCs many said they didn’t dare invest as they hadn’t seen anything like it before and they didn’t understand why he and co-founder Janus Friis would want to take on the whole telecoms industry. Instead they asked if he could create telecoms enterprise software, which, the VCs argued, would feel a lot safer. In contrast, many VCs in Silicon Valley thought Skype was amazing and liked the sheer level of ambition, leading them to ask when the London, U.K. and Tallinn, Estonia-based company was planning to relocate. Zennström’s reply: “Well, actually, we’re not moving here.”

“The Skype exit, I think, was a big milestone for Europe. We showed and proved you could build a [European] company that had a big value,” he says. “The thesis that we developed was that if we could do it then a lot of others can do it because we’re not that special; there’s a lot of people who are a lot smarter than we are. So we had the thesis that Europe will produce a lot of great companies in the future and that the existing VCs were risk averse.

“As an entrepreneur — and of course being rejected so many times — it was clear to me [that] my next industry to disrupt needs to be European venture capital.”

This led to the realisation that the reason why many European VCs were so risk-averse and “asked weird questions” was because they had never run companies.

“You need to build a VC firm with people who have also built businesses, because you can build a better rapport with founders if you have done it yourself,” says Zennström. “And of course if you’ve been a successful founder, you probably have a competitive advantage to get access to founders because they’d rather take money and advice from someone who has done it themselves.”

Even at larger venture capital funds, he says that founders tended to only deal with one partner and perhaps one associate, who may or may not be that great. To mitigate this risk, he decided he needed to build a team at Atomico that could help with core aspects of scaling, such as entering new markets, recruitment, marketing and strategy, long before it was fashionable to do so in Europe. The result is Atomico’s “Growth Acceleration Team,” staffed by former operators at major tech companies, from Skype and Google to Uber, Spotify and Facebook.

Adds Zennström: “The mission was to prove and to help to build the tech ecosystem in Europe. And that was important because, at the end of the day, this is innovation, and if you don’t have innovation in the future technologies, you’re gonna be a stagnant region. As a European citizen and someone who wants to live in Europe, I thought it was important.”

The Atomico team

To part two of my question — why Atomico needs to exist today — Zennström says that although we are seeing an inflection point of accelerated growth in Europe, as evidenced by Spotify and Adyen going public, we are still behind the U.S., and it isn’t mission accomplished just yet. More profoundly, he says there is now a second aspect to Atomico’s mission: backing founders who are building technology “that can actually have a positive impact on society.”

“What we’ve seen over the last few years is more and more founders who are building companies to address world problems, whether that is sustainability problems, trying to fix education, trying to fix healthcare, using AI to massively improve the detection of diseases, or treating mental illness, fixing transportation, fixing the food chain that is broken. If we can support those entrepreneurs who are going after these big opportunities, bigger problems, and if some of those companies can be successful, that can be a positive impact on some pretty urgent challenges we have in this world.”

We might be destroying our planet because of tech. Niklas Zennström

Zennström says that some of those urgent problems have their genesis in our parents’ generation, who didn’t understand that certain things would become a problem because it was assumed that the world had infinite resources. “But we know very well now that was not the case,” he says.

It’s a theme that the Atomico founder returns to throughout the interview: the idea that the non-digital technology of the last century has had a lot of positive benefits, such as cars, airplanes and combustion engines, which have been instrumental in driving economic growth and productivity, “but has had a tremendous impact on our society in terms of the environment.”

“We might be destroying our planet because of tech,” he says, before reiterating his belief that digital technology and innovation can fix some of these problems. The examples he cites are electric transportation and technology that can help us become less reliant on animal farming — an indirect reference to two of the VC firm’s moonshots.

“If we are leaders and we are people with the ability to have an impact, then it’s not only an obligation, it’s obviously the right thing to do… But we also think that those companies are also the ones that can become some of the biggest companies in the next 10, 15, 20 years, because these problems are really, really big.”

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At this point I’m reminded of something Zennström said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt London in 2016: that politicians are no longer the changemakers. But what exactly did he mean?

“Well..,” he says, breaking out in laughter and rowing back temporarily in reference to Brexit. “Some politicians made change in this country, unfortunately, although it was a referendum and ultimately it was the people who voted, but I think some politicians mainly messed up.

“But what I’m saying with this is, as we’re living in a world which is very dynamic, and whether we have a better world or a worse world than before can be debated, there’s a big paradigm shift that is happening in many ways…

“Not all of them but most politicians are tactical and they seem to be more focused on optimising for the sake of winning the election rather than doing the right long-term thing for the constituency, that’s why they’re not really leaders. A real leader is also someone who goes out and says, ‘these are things we need to do, because we need to pave the way to a better future.’

“In that way, they’re not as great leaders as some of the politicians we had from time to time in history.”

Zennström believes that this is where entrepreneurs can and are taking up some of the slack through tech’s ability to drive change, coupled with a millennial mindset that is seeing consumers “actually thinking about purpose and mission and trying to do the right things.”

I push back a little and suggest there is also a climate where too many startups overstate their missions when at the end of the day they’re building for-profit businesses that will eventually come under pressure to prioritise returning value to shareholders. Recent history is full of examples of tech companies that have seemingly lost their way in pursuit of growth and I wonder if this is something the Atomico founder spends much time thinking about.

“Yeah, big time… We think about this a lot,” he says, and then goes on to offer what can only be interpreted as a diagnosis of Facebook’s recent woes, even though neither of us has mentioned the social network by name.

Compared to when Zennström was building Skype — a time when there weren’t as many feedback loops available — online companies are now incredibly data-driven, he says. And although this “has been amazing,” there are also downsides.

“If you’re a company based on advertisements, all your engineers, your rank engineers who are working on the ranking and how content should be displayed, they are trying to optimise for engagement, right? It’s like, what is our North Star, we try to get people to engage, to click more and come back more. Then they have basically black box algorithms, lots of data points, and out of that comes the content and advertising that is displayed so that people come back. And that becomes the model.

“And then it’s like, ‘well, we are just trying to optimise our business, we’re not doing anything wrong.’ That’s kind of how most engineers in some of these bigger companies are thinking. They may not necessarily think at all that they’re losing their way: ‘We’re doing really well because our algorithms are awesome.’ But then when they take a step back and look at the consequences, it’s like, ‘wow, that didn’t go so well, did it?’ ”

As companies become big, they also become “big machines,” especially if they’ve gone public and where the expectation from the stock market is to continually drive growth. “If you don’t drive growth, guess what, your share price is plummeting and people lose money relative to what they had the day before. So they all want to fuel that growth, without having really thought about some of these consequences.”

Zennström on stage with former U.S president Barack Obama at Nordic Business Forum

This is where Zennström, aged 52, sees a role for industry veterans like himself, and Atomico more broadly. He says the VC firm encourages young founders to grapple with these kinds of issues early, as well as helping them build in company mechanisms “to make sure we have the right backbone so we don’t lose our way.”

“Those are conversations we are having with founders,” he says. “What is the culture you are building, how do you think about the ethics of your business, so that when you become successful, you’re gonna be a company you can be proud of.”

When entrepreneurs and VCs in Silicon Valley talk about “changing the world” through technology, there is always implicit assumption that it is for the better. Does the Atomico founder view tech as agnostic or is tech inherently good?

“I think most people who are in tech believe that ultimately tech is positive,” replies Zennström, although he says that it is not a new debate.

“Let’s take tech from the beginning, the industrial revolution and the first pieces of technology. It’s a philosophical question: before we had the plough, the hammer, were we happier? If you read Socrates, maybe we were happier when we were hunter-gatherers, I dunno,” he says, laughing. “Now we live in a society because of technology.”

Zennström recalls how users of Kazaa sometimes shared “really bad content,” which he says was horrible to see but that tech and the internet is simply a reflection of humanity and turbocharges connections.

“Of course it’s a positive thing that people can connect with each other. Connectivity is better than isolation, I think, as a starting point. But when people connect, it can also be misused.

“We cannot just say, ‘it’s not our responsibility’ and everyone else who is involved in tech. We need to have conversations about this and say, ‘what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.’ And those conversations did not happen…”

But are they happening enough now?

“Not enough, but they’re happening… We certainly have a lot of those discussions, both internally but also with other people we know in the tech industry. I’m sure also within the big tech companies they’re happening but it’s harder for them to move because they’re so big. But I think they’re not happening enough, we need to have more of those conversations.”

A diverse decision group makes better decisions. Niklas Zennström

Zennström says that the challenge for anyone running a large tech company is that lawyers will often dictate what can and cannot be said, which stifles debate and prevents an open discussion. CEOs are advised to toe the party line “and then that party line becomes truth.”

“It’s easier if you’re not running a big tech company to have discussions about what is right or wrong,” he says.

If big tech is prone to adopting a PR “line” as internal truth, I wonder what role Zennström sees the tech press having in reinstating much-needed checks and balances, and if he were to score the press, how good or bad are we doing?

Careful not to take the bait, he says the press has a “very important” role to play in highlighting issues facing the technology industry and tech’s broader impact on society, even if he believes the discourse could benefit from going deeper.

At the same time, we both agree that in some sections of the press, the discussion has gone from an overly simple narrative of “technology is amazing” to “technology is awful,” and Zennström says in some ways we are already in the midst of a public “techlash” that is only going to get more intense.

“I think there is risk for that to become much bigger, because of the strong impact and growth of tech and the development of algorithms and AI and [the] adaptation of that,” he says.

“In many cases when you’re applying AI and machine learning to something, you have biases and then you get a biased outcome. And of course it’s a very interesting thing for the press to write about… so I’m sure you’ll have more and more of these stories. Then you add the risk of more people losing jobs because of tech. Of course there will be a bigger backlash. That’s why it’s so important to have even more discussions.”

Asked what stage AI is in its overall development — since a lot of the technology is overhyped and under-delivers — Zennström says we are still at the beginning, but that AI/machine learning is being used every day to influence what news and what content we are exposed to. “It’s deployed at a massive scale already. And it has impact. It’s not in the future, it’s here,” he says.

“The amount of engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians spending time on machine learning and AI today is just massive compared to about five years ago. There’s so much focus on innovation in AI… it’s probably going faster than many people expected.”

As a journalist who has steadfastly stuck to covering European tech (even when it was detrimental to my career), when I look at AI companies in the U.K. and the number that have already exited, I can’t help feel like they are selling out incredibly early. Zennström doesn’t entirely disagree.

“I think that maybe some have,” he says, although there are several other AI companies in the U.K. and Europe that are looking promising and that have certainly not sold out. “Just like when people told me [that] maybe we sold Skype too early… you also have to think a little bit in the context of the times. If you are early in the cycle and you don’t really see a future in how you can get funding, then maybe it is okay to sell.”

At the same time, he thinks that with more and more funding coming into AI companies, investors in the U.K. are realising that the country is building “really good AI companies” and are encouraging startups to stay independent for longer.

With our allotted time together coming to an end, I hastily turn the topic to diversity, one of tech’s liveliest and at times divisive topics. I wanted to know what diversity actually means to Zennström, and — playing a little devil’s advocate — if it is something early-stage startups should even care about.

He says the way Atomico thinks about diversity — and something that is actually stated in the VC firm’s internal principles of how the organisation should operate — is that “a diverse decision group makes better decisions,” which he says is also borne out by the available research.

“If there’s a bunch of people who are coming from an exactly identical background then each person is not going to add as much,” he says. “For us, because that’s the core thing we do, we make investment decisions, we think it’s important for us as investors. So diversity in that broader sense is people with different backgrounds.

“And of course everyone talks about gender diversity, that’s one dimension. There’s so many other diversities, there’s faith, there’s cultures, there’s age, there’s disabilities, there’s sexual orientation, there’s if you’re introvert, extrovert, if you’re a business person, if you’re an engineer, if you’re someone coming from an unprivileged geography. It’s like, there’s so many different dimensions on this.

“So we think it’s important… we think that we as an investment firm need to be much better, to be diverse, but we need to think about it in the broadest context and we’re striving to do that.”

Atomico almost certainly does better than most VC firms in Europe or elsewhere in terms of gender diversity: Counting the entire 51-person team, 53 percent are male and 47 percent are female — although it is less clear how well it does by other measures.

For startups, especially consumer companies, Zennström argues that they also should have a diverse team because that will likely better reflect their consumer base. “That’s just being a better business,” he says.

“When we are investing in a company, we are talking to them about this. These are conversations we are having, it’s like, ‘how do you think about diversity?’ If they say ‘I couldn’t care less, I just want to build a good business,’ we say ‘if you want to build a great business, you probably want to think about diversity and be active about it.’”

I think that when you have an issue, you first need insight that you have a problem. Niklas Zennström

It is noticeable that the case Zennström makes for a more diverse workforce, either in venture capital or at technology companies in general, is largely a business one, which prompts me to air a view I’ve held for a while as I’ve watched diversity move further up the tech industry agenda: In Europe we have blindly imported Silicon Valley’s version of diversity and as a result there doesn’t seems to be nearly enough emphasis on how diversity relates to European and British progressive notions of social mobility and building a more equal society.

“I feel like if tech treats diversity as the way you described it, it misses a trick,” I tell Zennström. Tech is a great enabler and therefore should also be a vehicle for social mobility. If we are creating this brave new world, with lots of money being generated or value being captured based on new technologies, and not employing a workforce of all the talents, by which I really mean class as much as gender or ethnicity, then something is going badly wrong.

Zennström says that of course tech has a role to play in promoting social mobility, although at first I’m not sure he entirely gets it, even if he undoubtedly thinks about these kinds of issues more than most VCs.

He says there are already initiatives trying to tackle this problem, such as Zinc.vc, the London-based company builder that wants to solve “huge societal issues,” and which counts Atomico as a backer. Zinc’s latest cohort is being asked to focus on people living in places that have been hit hardest by automation and globalisation over the last 20 or 30 years as traditional industries have declined.

“What’s interesting about these things is that what drives an entrepreneur is some kind of hunger: if you’re very privileged you might not be that hungry,” says Zennström. “But if you’re underprivileged you’re probably going to be hungrier to create change. So I think there’s also an opportunity to find entrepreneurs among groups of people who might be less privileged in society.”

“And in a word, so far,” I ask, “the U.K., Europe, Silicon Valley, are terrible at doing that, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “I think that when you have an issue, you first need insight that you have a problem… It’s very early but I think what is good is that there’s an awareness and there’s a lot of initiatives and discussions about these things, which did not happen 18 months ago.”

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melbynews-blog · 6 years

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MoA - Syria - Who Is Stalling The OPCW Investigation In Douma?

Neuer Beitrag veröffentlicht bei https://melby.de/moa-syria-who-is-stalling-the-opcw-investigation-in-douma/

MoA - Syria - Who Is Stalling The OPCW Investigation In Douma?

April 19, 2018

Syria – Who Is Stalling The OPCW Investigation In Douma?

Why has the fact finding mission (FFM)of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) not visited Douma?

The OPCW inspectors are held up by the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) which has a say about any movement of UN aligned organizations in areas that might be dangerous. The UNDSS is led by an Australian police / intelligence officer. The holdup seems to be intended.

On Sunday April 8 videos were published of an alleged ‚chemical attack‘ in Douma near Damascus. At that time the area was under control of Jaish al-Islam, a Salafi terrorist organization financed by Saudi Arabia. The various videos from terrorist supporters like the ‚White Helmets‘ were unconvincing. They showed obviously arranged scenes of an alleged ‚barrel bomb‘ and manipulated bodies of dead children that had been moved and decorated with shaving foam to superficially fit the claims of a ‚chemical incident‘. Another video showed people in a hospital being doused with water for no apparent reason.

An often quoted opposition news outlet, the Syrian Observatory in Britain, denied that a ‚chemical attack‘ had happened. It reported on April 8 of suffocation after a shelter collapsed due to bombing:

[I]n among the casualties there are 21 civilians including 9 children and 3 women were killed as a result of suffocation caused by the shelling which destroyed basements of houses as a result of the violence bombardment that stopped about an hour ago on Douma area.

The ‚chemical incident‘ was likely faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield.

A day after the incident the Salafi terrorists of Jaish al-Islam gave up and left the area under a ceasefire deal arranged with the help of the Russian military in Syria. The ceasefire deal does not allow the Syrian army to enter the area, only the Russian military police is allowed.

Russian military police immediately entered the area and investigated the house where, allegedly, people were killed by ‚chemical weapons‘. They found no evidence that such an event had taken place. The Syrian government asked the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical aWeapons (OPCW) to investigate the case.

Many international news teams have since visited the area where the incident allegedly took place. The also visited the field hospital shown in one of the opposition videos. Doctors at that hospital deny (vid) that any patient of theirs had been affected by a chemical attack. The cases they had seen had breathing difficulties caused by the inhalation of dust thrown up through exploding bombs and artillery. Alleged ‚victims‘ shown in the hospital video claim (vid) they were paid to perform.

The regime-change shills are denying that any claims of the hospital staff working in the now government controlled Douma could be true. Medics are liars, unless they are controlled by Jihadis. See for example this shoddy propaganda piece by the Guardian: Syrian medics ’subjected to extreme intimidation‘ after Douma attack by Martin Chulov in Beirut and Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul.

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The piece begins:

The head of the largest medical relief agency in Syria claims that medics who responded to the suspected gas attack in Douma have been subjected to “extreme intimidation” by Syrian officials who seized biological samples, forced them to abandon patients and demanded their silence.

Now look at the picture. It shows Syrian Red Crescent personal. The caption is false. It says: „Medics take a wounded man into hospital in Damascus after rockets were fired in Douma on 7 April.“ The picture is actually from a series published by the Syrian news agency SANA.

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The SANA series is headlined: „Injuries among civilians in Jaish al-Islam mortar attacks on Damascus“.

The attack was FROM the terrorists in Douma on civilians in Damascus, not IN Douma as the Guardian insinuates.

The pictured Red Crescent in Syria, founded in 1942, has 1,592 staff and some 6,000 volunteers. It is indeed the „the largest medical relief agency in Syria“. But it is not the one the Guardian describes and quotes:

Dr Ghanem Tayara, the director of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM) said doctors responsible for treating patients in the hours after the 7 April attack have been told that their families will be at risk if they offer public testimonies about what took place.

The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations was founded in 2012, works from Reyhanli in Turkey and claims to have 600 staff. It consists of the Syrian American Medial Society (SAMS), which is funded by the CIA front USAID and lobbies for regime change in Syria, the British-Syrian Medical Society which only works in ‚rebel‘ held areas, as well as British and U.S. p.o.-box ‚charities‘ which collect donations. SAMS and UOSSM are said to be Muslim Brotherhood fronts.

The Guardian shows a Syrian Red Crescent/Red Cross picture in the context of ridiculous claims made by an organization on the side of the Jihadis. The Syrian Red Crescent has no relation to that organization. UOSSM is misidentified as the largest relief organization in Syria. Its claims are repeated without doubts by Guardian ‚journalists‘ in Turkey and Lebanon to counter interviews and observations made by real journalists on the ground in Douma. The piece and its presentation is bottom fishing by a once reasonable paper. Jonathan Cook has more to say about that shoddy Guardian piece.

On Friday April 13 the OPCW fact finding mission arrived in Damascus. On Saturday France, the U.K and the United States, (FUKUS), bombed an agricultural and medical research center in Damascus as well as two Syrian army depots. The attack missed its other targets, a failure the U.S. military attempts to cover up. The attack came despite doubts in the Pentagon and elsewhere about what actually happened. High ranking British military generals have publicly doubted the claims of a Syrian ‚chemical attack‘.

The suburb where the alleged incident happened is only a few miles away from the center of Damascus. Journalists and camera teams walk all over the place without any protection and freely interview hospital personal. The OPCW has yet to reach the area. It claims that the security is insufficient.

Like other organizations aligned with the United Nations the OPCW is relying on the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) for intelligence and protection.

Yesterday the Director General of the OPCW Ahmet Üzümcü, a Turkish career diplomat who was earlier Turkey’s Permanent Representative to NATO, issued a statement:

On 16 April, we received confirmation from the National Authority of the Syrian Arab Republic that, under agreements reached to allow the evacuation of the population in Ghouta, the Syrian military were unable to enter Douma. The security for the sites where the FFM plans to deploy was under the control of the Russian Military Police. The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) has made the necessary arrangements with the Syrian authorities to escort the team to a certain point and then for the escort to be taken over by the Russian Military Police. However, the UNDSS preferred to first conduct a reconnaissance visit to the sites, which took place yesterday. FFM team members did not participate in this visit.

On arrival at Site 1, a large crowd gathered and the advice provided by the UNDSS was that the reconnaissance team should withdraw. At Site 2, the team came under small arms fire and an explosive was detonated. The reconnaissance team returned to Damascus.

(Note: Only about 10% of the population of the Ghouta area to which Douma belongs, the terrorist and their families, were evacuated. Other people have stayed or returned to the now liberated areas.)

No other organization reported of recent shots or explosions in Douma.

Even the New York Times, a staunch defender of the ‚opposition‘ in Syria, wonders about the hold-up but does not bother to answer the question:

[T]he fact that journalists had been able to wander around Douma unmolested raised questions about why it was not deemed safe enough for the investigators to visit.

Why were, allegedly, shots fired at the UN Security team but not on anyone else visiting the area?

If, as the terrorist supporters claim, Chlorine was used in the ‚chemical attack‘, the OSCE investigators are unlikely to find any physical evidence of it. Chlorine dissipates and leaves no unique traces in the dead body. Interviews with local witnesses though could be of value.

One gets the impression that certain circles fear the the OPCW could reach the area, talk to witnesses and confirm the claims made by doctors in the hospital as well as by many journalists that no ‚chemical attack‘ took place. It would expose the attack on Syria as a reckless and unjustified war crime.

The leader of the UNDSS is an Australian police commander:

Mr. Drennan, who from 2009 served as Deputy Commissioner National Security with the Australian Federal Police, brings to the position an extensive career in policing and law enforcement at the community, national and international levels.

Is it possible that a distinguished Australian police commander delays or prevents the OPCW investigation to protect the British and U.S. allies?

— Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the ‚chemical attack‘ in Douma and its consequences.

Posted by b on April 19, 2018 at 12:46 AM | Permalink

Mod, please feel free to delete the redundant post and this one

Posted by: the pessimist | Apr 19, 2018 1:07:26 AM | 3

The answer is of course, „yes“, but the question is why? Surely not to cover up what is now widely regarded as a false flag? And is now even being questioned by western media and commentators. Its not as if the OPCW cannot be relied upon to produce the right answer. And the excuse that Russia tampered with the site has already been made by the US.

Something else going on here.

Posted by: cdvision | Apr 19, 2018 1:14:15 AM | 4

Is it possible that a distinguished Australian police commander delays or prevents the OPCW investigation to protect the British and U.S. allies?

Yes it is. Oz’s US/Zionist-approved political elites to whom the commander reports are all poodles. Consequently, when AmeriKKKa tells Oz’s poodles to jump their standard response is „How high?“ Their gutless acquiescence is not only embarrassing; it’s humiliating.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 19, 2018 1:18:50 AM | 5

Was the explosion just an booby trap being cleared?

Posted by: Adrian D. | Apr 19, 2018 1:26:59 AM | 6

Me thinks Peter Au 1 is gonna dig up interesting stuff on that Ozzi chap.. ;)

Posted by: Lozion | Apr 19, 2018 1:31:30 AM | 7

Is there any mechanism under which Drennan can be impeached for obstruction and cover-up? Likewise the director of OPCW. Of course it won’t happen anyway even if there is such a mechanism because the US has too much control over the UN administration and over OPCW, but that does not mean it would not be helpful for Russia to start a process against obstructing officials.

Regarding the article linked by b concerning doubts expressed by the former head of SAS and a former head of the navy – I find it interesting and more than coincidental that the former head of the chemical weapons regiment Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon states demonstratively that a „sophisticated nerve agent“ was used by Assad in Douma as if he could even know such a thing even before an investigation. He doth protest too much! He appears to have a direct interes in the matter. One has to recall the chemical weapons exercise in Salisbury involving the chemical weapons regiment just before the Skripal murders, and suspicions of a link between all three only increase.

Posted by: BM | Apr 19, 2018 2:07:04 AM | 8

Thanks for the posting b. You keep filling in the detail amazing well to the sad soap opera we are living.

What is next? They have to come up with quite the big distraction to cover all the wheels falling off the bus. It would be funny to watch if our fate didn’t hang in the balance.

The Americans I relate to are still ignorant of most global politics but are becoming uncomfortable with Trump and his antics, foreign and domestic. I don’t know what sort of false flag Americans would rally around these days so it will be interesting to see this train wreck of empire devolution evolve…..grasping at straws all the way down…

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 19, 2018 2:32:08 AM | 10

The link to Shulgin’s statement to the OPCW about the Skripal case @pessimist 1 is a MUST READ – it is a really worthwhile read as rebuttal of 8 major lies by the British, including numerous things I have not seen on these pages.

It includes this shocker: on 1st December 2015 the US Patent Office contacted the Patent Office of the Russian Federation asking for an opinion on the patentability of an invention by an American scientist T Rubin. That US patent application concerns a special bullet designed specifically for administrating binary chemical agents and on page 11 contains the following words: “At least one of the active substances may be selected from nerve agents including… tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), cyclosarin (GF), and VG, …VM, VR, VX, and [attention!] Novichok agents.”

Posted by: BM | Apr 19, 2018 2:39:37 AM | 11

Is Admiral Lord West’s interview a critique or a damage limitation exercise?

We’ve been here many times before: Yes, we’ve been duped, but it’s no big deal, and the other guy had it coming.

He goes out of his way to say „there’s no doubt“ that Assad is „a dictator“, „a nasty, unpleasant horrible person“ who „has used chemical weapons“ and „our policy of not talking to him has perhaps prolonged this civil war“ all of which is untrue. He isn’t, he didn’t, and there is no civil war, only brutal British proxies.

The British have a way of making unlawful aggression sound folksy and mild. So firing 130 missiles at a country whenever you please is just „a slap on the wrist“.

The news model isn’t even bothered by truth and integrity:

4:06 „We know that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday, or accused a Western state on Friday of fabricating evidence in Douma or perhaps somehow being involved with what happened in Douma, given that we’re in an information war with Russia on so many fronts do you think perhaps it’s inadvisable to be stating this so publicly? Given your position and your profile isn’t there a danger that you’re muddying the waters“

The Syrians have uncovered large caches of British and German chemical weapons in the terrorist areas. There are rumours that a British chemical warfare unit was captured. If these prove to be true, may Russia fire 130 cruise missiles at Britain? and would Lord West then call it a slap on the wrist?

Posted by: Bob Jackson | Apr 19, 2018 2:49:01 AM | 12

#12 Whoops, I meant 103 missiles. I’m not dyslexic, just a lousy typist. Sorry.

Posted by: Bob Jackson | Apr 19, 2018 3:01:17 AM | 13

@8 I have more than a notion that HdBG knows more about the whole Skirpal issue than he is letting on and, some time earlier this month, I posited this to him via Twitter. Naturally, he remains silent.

Posted by: Bevin Kacon | Apr 19, 2018 3:03:35 AM | 14

OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.

The Guardian has an article today headlined „The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved“ which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese, among America’s closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.

The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919,scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret “M Device,” an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM]. The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it “the most effective chemical weapon ever devised.” Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. “If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda.”

A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919….Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages….But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped.

The rest of the article defends Churchill against claims that he wanted to use „poison gas“ in India and Iraq against tribesmen by suggesting that he meant tear gas but equally he could have been referring to mustard gas which „only“ killed about 2.5% of the 165,000 WW1 soldiers it was used against but that was with a level of medical care I doubt Indian or Iraqi tribesmen could even begin to dream off.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 15

OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 16

„…distinguished Australian police commander“? Give me another one. There is no police force in the whole so-called advanced countries that is as incompetent and as corrupt as the Australian police.

Posted by: Steve | Apr 19, 2018 3:15:08 AM | 17

„Is it possible that a distinguished Australian police commander delays or prevents the OPCW investigation to protect the British and U.S. allies?“

Yes. Australia was happy to donate forty or so victims for MH17 (Anglo Australia, the scum that gathers around the English monarch).

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Apr 19, 2018 3:55:07 AM | 18

One of the small oddities of this incident is that neither bellingcat nor the SOHR are being quoted by anyone in the MSM.

Poor Eliot Higgens must be wondering where his 15 minutes of fame went.

I’m assuming that it is their transparent links to MI6 that makes them persona non grata in this case, lest people start to notice that it is a case of MI6 being here, there and everywhere when it comes to allegations of CW in Syria

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Apr 19, 2018 3:59:42 AM | 19

Lozion 7 Too buggered to do much research at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Apr 19, 2018 4:00:29 AM | 20

>>>> Bob Jackson | Apr 19, 2018 2:49:01 AM | 12

Britain is too poor to fund the terrorists. For instance the austerity measures introduced by the Conservative government have already led to 150,000 excess deaths since 2010. Time for some R2P? Most of the funding, allegedly in excess of $5 billion has come from the people who largely have kept the British economy afloat since Thatcher was Prime Minister, the Suadis, Qataris and various other Persian Gulfies.

our policy of not talking to him has perhaps prolonged this civil war“

I put this down the English understatement. This needs some editing but he unlike the morons in the Conservative government is on the right path. Here is what he actually meant.

our policy of not talking to helping those attacking him has perhaps definitely prolonged this civil/proxy/terrorist war“

As for the Douma attack, this was not a false flag op. but a black propaganda op. There really were people suffocated in Douma just not by chemical weapons but by dust and smoke inhalation. All the White Helmets did was use a bad situation for black propaganda by making a video claiming it was a chemical weapons attack. The British have a long and illustrious history of successful black propaganda ops. like; read about the Soldatensender Calais and Kurzwellensender Atlantik ops by Sefton Delmer in World War 2 and you’ll immediately see the connection. I strongly suspect that someone who’d read about Sefton Delmer, most probably a Brit, came up with the idea and told the White Helmets what to do. As black propaganda ops. go it was pretty damned good but the legend was complete bullshit.

The Syrians have uncovered large caches of British and German chemical weapons in the terrorist areas. There are rumours that a British chemical warfare unit was captured.

As old Syria hands say, where are the pictures?

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 4:10:40 AM | 21

Meanwhile, Pat Lang has a piece up on UNZ that covers Douma and the neo-cons. It’s worth reading and for an 85-year old American ex-military conservative who loves his country (not necessarily his government) it’s pretty exceptional.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 4:18:25 AM | 22

„The ‚chemical incident‘ has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield.“

Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago.

Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.

I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Apr 19, 2018 4:20:05 AM | 23

@22

That’s group think as well that I have read on many blogs (and I am fairly sure I have read this view on this blog on a number of occasions) as well as MSM.

Might the different (confusing) messages be intentional? Trump both held back from greater aggression because he wants a larger conflict and he only allows a minimum strike to prevent a wider conflict, UK & France are responsible for pushing US into action and are also restraining Trump from unwarranted action, etc. Diametrically opposed views are everywhere.

If further action is planned by US then it is convenient for the US to appear ineffective and incompetent, enthralled to public opinion which must be pacified, to keep Russia onside while assets are moved into place. What if Trump really is not in charge? What if he is just being manipulated?

Might not Trump be keeping the ‚right‘ on-side while the Guardian keeps the ‚left‘ supportive.

You might ask, then why the attack on Syria if it was ineffective and agreed with Russia? Surely, it was just incompetence or feeding the hawks? Might not the great advantage be that it conditions western public opinion? I would guess that if the war really gets hot it will be awhile before the western public really begin to understand that something is happening with real consequence for western life.

If a pattern is being sought to understand what is going on then the closest fit (it seems to me) is the lead up to the First World War.

I emailed PM and my MP (Labour, anti-Corbyn, London) and my partner did similar (MP Conservative, up-North) to object to UK being involved in launching any attack on Syria. But no response so far? Seems unusual, I would have expected some kind of response by now. I wonder, are more attacks coming?

Posted by: ADKC | Apr 19, 2018 5:10:05 AM | 24

When the dust has settled in Syria and people get round to writing their memoirs the White Helmets will be revealed to be nothing more to the British government than a sophisticated black propaganda op. Their name Syrian Civil Defence means that Syria’s real civil defence is invisbile and suggests that the White Helmets are part of an alternative Syrian government. Their nickname, White Helmets, how can anyone believe they’re a black propaganda op? Their MO, helping people and videoing it even though they seem to only help certain people and disappear when the video cameras stop running. That they’re involved in certain very dubious acts with the terrorists just suggests how evil the Syrian government must be to „force“ their opponents to behave in this way and allow their supporters in the West to overlook their murderous brutal nature. The „Mannequin challenge“ is regarded by many here as demonstrating that the White Helmets are a black op. but I suspect it was a sophisticated effort to discredit the reporting by Vanessa Beeley of the connections between the White Helmets and Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/HTS that seems to have worked.

Posted by: Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 5:39:32 AM | 25

My Country Right but not wrong. The past few weeks was clearly Wrong. Shameful imperialistic rubbish..

Posted by: Jack | Apr 19, 2018 6:05:28 AM | 26

If you google OPCW and Bolton you will find the US has finger prints on them as well.

Posted by: wow | Apr 19, 2018 6:06:55 AM | 27

@Ghost Ship 15. I have no interest in reading anything published in the guardian and consider that rag unfit for human consumption. Having people repost excerpts etc is a lot like handing round used toilet paper for a second use.

The world is full of better materials on Skripal related analysis. Try theblogmire dot com for a fabulous set of questions.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19, 2018 6:36:56 AM | 29

@Ghost Ship 24. Total BS logic and totally slanted commentary. I would expect this level of ‚analysis‘ in Guardian commentary but they don’t allow commentary.

The White Helmets are terrorist killers who sometimes put on white helmets and do propaganda that only ever supports their terrorist faction. They are guilty of direct and complicit in crimes against humanity and they are fully funded by the UK and USA.

The barbarity of the white helmets is in no way a barometer of how bad Assad is. It is a barometer of the disgraceful terrorism unleashed by western nations against Syrian people and its government. The white helmets are a measure of the depraved warmongering of the west, saudi and israeli governments.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Apr 19, 2018 6:44:58 AM | 30

Peter Drennan very likely is deeply corrupt and entrenched in murderous cover-up affairs, see: „peter drennan“ site:http://www.innercitypress.com/ (no time to review it myself)

Posted by: TomGard | Apr 19, 2018 7:17:30 AM | 31

There is more to the press conference of Alexander Shulgin: https://netherlands.mid.ru/en_GB/web/netherlands-en/-/statement-of-a-shulgin-at-the-opcw-ec

He violated the conficentiality rules of OPCW by making public, that parts of of the secret annexes of its report stay privy to the UK. quote: The report presented by the Technical Secretariat concerning the British specialists’ findings poses a number of questions and calls for additional detailed examination, including by the British side. Any specialist would understand that the final conclusions can be made only having before your eyes the materials of the chemical and spectral analysis of the mentioned samples. And the Technical Secretariat has passed these materials only to London. unquote With those technical data unreported also the chains of custody, if there were any, are incomplete, i.e. the report contains no forensic data at all.

Posted by: TomGard | Apr 19, 2018 7:32:10 AM | 32

Dear b, in case you find it useful, in the Guardian picture, the writing on the arm is مكالحة الارهاب للوحدة, which might mean „fighting terrorism for unit 215“ (or 295). I am not a native speaker, so I don’t understand some features of the writing, but these could be Syrian vs Classical Arabic.

In any case this clearly identifies the man as a loyalist soldier or militiaman.

Posted by: astabada | Apr 19, 2018 7:36:50 AM | 33

Did Russian military police who control the area reported gun fire of rioting ?

This is exactly their job right?

B should explicitly state this and end this charade?

Posted by: Kalen | Apr 19, 2018 7:53:09 AM | 34

Let’s launch a campaign to ask KSA Fr and UK to receive and honor the WH. They need medals and full residence permits for their families, aren’t they? Why otherwise let them creep in Idlib or Jarablus, uh? These guys are so reliable and honest obviously that it is very strange no one has made an offer to host them!

As for the scenario „panick in the hospital“ i bet we’ll see it soon practiced by our very own djihadists with the same PR purposes.

Posted by: Mina | Apr 19, 2018 8:31:52 AM | 36

To the extent that Syria strike has pushed up oil prices it was a net PLUS for Russia.

Posted by: Ragheb | Apr 19, 2018 8:37:24 AM | 37

This question is perhaps too obvious, but as I understand it the OPCW is not a UN organization but rather chartered under the Chemical Weapons Convention. What jurisdiction does the UNDSS have in Syria, anyway, let alone jurisdiction over the OPCW?

Posted by: Paul | Apr 19, 2018 8:57:20 AM | 38

A false flag attack is created and a missil attack executed with very lame effect. Why?

9/11 false flag attack kicked off the war on terror. But this attack seems completely meaningless. What’s the benefits for USA, UK and France?

Posted by: Johnny | Apr 19, 2018 9:05:46 AM | 39

@1, statement by Shulgin on Skripal

Thanks for that link, interesting read. I notice that they also have his statement from two days earlier about the topic of this thread, where he introduces the „irrefutable evidence“ that the Douma event was staged to the OPCW. The link to that statement is here.

Posted by: CE | Apr 19, 2018 9:09:56 AM | 40

Trump and Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The rest of the Rothschild/Zionist/Deep State swamp has long hidden behind such useful idiots, including most of the elected/bureaucratic/bankster/militarist puppets infesting NATO countries.

The Rothschilds et. al. cannot avoid the label of malice, as they have long acted purposefully on the declaration in the mid-1700’s: „I care not who sits on the British throne, the man who controls the money supply controls the Empire… and I control the money supply.“ Baron Mayer Rothschild

„If my sons wanted no wars, there would be none.“ Baron Mayer Rothschild’s wife.

For 300 years the Rothschilds have controlled the political and economic levers that resulted in the endless line of wars. The Balfour Declaration by which the British gov’t stupidly endorses to this day was written to (and largely by) the Baron Rothschild of that day.

Attempting to discern intent by the visible layer of the otherwise well-disguised Rothschild Promised Land agenda is a fools errand.

„By deception thou shalt do war.“ The Mossad motto. The Rothschild modus oprandi.

Posted by: A P | Apr 19, 2018 9:13:10 AM | 41

Where have the White Helmets from Douma gone?? Edlib? Jarabulus? get ready for another „chemical attack“ there soon. They have become the specialists of the chemical false flags.

Posted by: Virgile | Apr 19, 2018 9:20:16 AM | 42

Why is nobody questioning NATO’s theatrical assertion that chemical weapons are the worst-of-the-worst? Quite frankly, I don’t buy it.

Here’s a What’s Left article from mid-2015 which examines that specious and overblown claim from several perspectives and concludes that it’s hokum…

Rethinking Chemical Weapons https://gowans.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/rethinking-chemical-weapons/

Imo, the only reason NATO’s unimaginative weasels, dorks and ‚boffins‘ chose chemical weapons on which to base their childish smear campaign is that Ordinary Citizens are less familiar with chemical weapons, and their effects, than with most of the violent methods used to kill and maim people in times of war (and peace).

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 19, 2018 9:23:59 AM | 43

@Emily 35, us-sub-attacked-syria-not-welcome-back-italy

On the one hand it is a slap in the face of the PTB, but on the other hand it is promoting the City-State agenda of the same PTB. You gotta love the power of the dialectic.

For the inattentive: City-States (xyz-city programs, Global Parliament of Mayors, etc) are replacing Sovereign-Nations, especially in Europe.

Posted by: Angus | Apr 19, 2018 9:30:00 AM | 44

@A P #41

„For 300 years the Rothschilds have controlled the political and economic levers that resulted in the endless line of wars. The Balfour Declaration by which the British gov’t stupidly endorses to this day was written to (and largely by) the Baron Rothschild of that day.“

If we have allowed these people to yank our chains for the past three centuries, then it must be because they are a f*ck of a lot smarter and more motivated than the rest of us stupid Gentiles.

But we believe in a system in which the smartest and most motivated should rise to the top…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 19, 2018 9:32:18 AM | 45

Napalm is worse than chemical weapons. So are white phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) used by „Israel“ against Palestinians. They’re worse because the intention is to maim without killing.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 19, 2018 9:39:57 AM | 46

Outstanding piece as usual. The international community needs to make a decision to either enforce the United Nation’s charter and its covenants or just scrap the organization all together.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 20

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.

Posted by: Tobin Paz | Apr 19, 2018 10:17:00 AM | 48

@ Virgile #42 Where have the White Helmets from Douma gone??

Future will tell, but Russian journalists found one of their victims at Douma:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bht2xhwHTKt/

Posted by: someone | Apr 19, 2018 10:50:07 AM | 49

@43 Hoarsewhisperer

Napalm is worse than chemical weapons.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the irony. So we have Bolton in his first week on the job and Mattis „The Butcher of Fallujah“ authorize an illegal missile strike in response to an „alleged“ chemical weapons attack… both members of the Bush administration that used white phosphorus and napalm in Iraq.

And who reported it at the time… none other than George Monbiot and The Guardian:

The US used chemical weapons in Iraq – and then lied about it

Until last week, the US state department maintained that US forces used white phosphorus shells „very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes“. They were fired „to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters“. Confronted with the new evidence, on Thursday it changed its position. „We have learned that some of the information we were provided … is incorrect. White phosphorous shells, which produce smoke, were used in Fallujah not for illumination but for screening purposes, ie obscuring troop movements and, according to… Field Artillery magazine, ‚as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes…‘ The article states that US forces used white phosphorus rounds to flush out enemy fighters so that they could then be killed with high explosive rounds.“ The US government, in other words, appears to admit that white phosphorus was used in Falluja as a chemical weapon.

…

There were widespread reports that in March 2003 US marines had dropped incendiary bombs around the bridges over the Tigris and the Saddam Canal on the way to Baghdad. The commander of Marine Air Group 11 admitted that „We napalmed both those approaches“. Embedded journalists reported that napalm was dropped at Safwan Hill on the border with Kuwait. In August 2003 the Pentagon confirmed that the marines had dropped „mark 77 firebombs“. Though the substance these contained was not napalm, its function, the Pentagon’s information sheet said, was „remarkably similar“. While napalm is made from petrol and polystyrene, the gel in the mark 77 is made from kerosene and polystyrene. I doubt it makes much difference to the people it lands on.

Posted by: Tobin Paz | Apr 19, 2018 10:53:39 AM | 50

Thank you, b. I hope this analysis helps put pressure on the UNDSS. Yet again I am reminded that the difference between democracy and oligarchy is the difference between a world in which b would be writing for the major national presses and the world in which Thomas Friedman does.

Posted by: WJ | Apr 19, 2018 11:02:43 AM | 52

I second b’s recommendation to watch the Ikhbariya TV short documentary on the alleged attack (16 min). Here are 13 doctors and nurses who actually worked at the Douma hospitals at the time of the alleged attack stating plainly that nothing of the sort happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSrRV-zdNic

Posted by: S | Apr 19, 2018 11:05:07 AM | 53

you did not answer your primary question. you offered speculation, when it seems to me the only question that needs answering is why the Syrian army and the Russians who took that territory are not providing security? The Russians asked the OPCW to come, Assad agreed. How come news teams can go but the OPCW team cannot, into an area now controlled by Russia and Syria. If there is opposition on the ground to the OPCW visit, why is that opposition not being specifically identified. without answering these things or at least attempting to, the rest of your otherwise admirable narrative seems somewhat irrelevant. It certainly doesnt come close to answering the primary question.

Posted by: tamlin | Apr 19, 2018 11:13:13 AM | 54

@ ralphieboy who said: „If we have allowed these people to yank our chains for the past three centuries, then it must be because they are a f*ck of a lot smarter and more motivated than the rest of us stupid Gentiles.“

Sorry, no. It is an unfortunate legacy of the obsolete human predator/alpha survival traits that 0.001% psychopaths infest leadership. It is not that they are smarter of more motivated, it is that they are more greedy and rapacious than the 99.99% who do the heavy lifting in a society. Psychopaths do not build cooperative relationships, they manipulate them.

The very fact the Rothschild Zionists cannot leave peaceful societies (their own and foreign) to function and thrive demonstrates this beyond doubt. The Rothschilds and their well-heeled Bilderberg/Davos sycophants are not the only 0.01%ers who need to be curtailed (or eliminated), but they are the current alphas. The Borgias and Medicis had their poisonous day, and the likes of Genghis Khan showed that brute force is never far from use.

The Rothschild/Zionist/Central Banking Ponzi/Media/Spy scam is tightly coupled to the Genghis-style US/Anglo/EU Empire’s militarist and economic warfare. One cannot survive long without the other.

The simple act of becoming aware of how the Rothschilds et. al. ply their vile trade is the beginning of the end of their dominance. They are bullies and how to deal with bullies is known: make public their cowardly deeds and deprive them of the cover of bogus „law“.

If more people understood the current implications of Milgram and Zimbardo’s research, and saw the Bernay’s inspired propaganda MSM for what it is, the Rothschilds and their ilk could not survive to perpetrate their crimes-against-humanity-by-proxy. Soros is but one visible face of this type of hateful manipulation of humankind’s collective wealth.

Posted by: A P | Apr 19, 2018 11:13:36 AM | 55

Tamlin 53

It is not the Russians or the Syrians that do not provide security. It is the head of the security detail accompanying the delegation that claims security is not enough.

Yet, all kinds of journos have been roaming the sector unharmed

IMO you are laying the blame where it does not belong

Posted by: CarlD | Apr 19, 2018 11:24:07 AM | 56

Ghost Ship Pat Lang is NOT 85 years old, he is 78.

Posted by: mauisurfer | Apr 19, 2018 11:26:40 AM | 57

I think it is clear the „Chemical attack“ did not happen. If you are the Empire you surly have your operatives securely, and secretly stationed within any „independent“ OPCW body, especially if you intend to use „chemical attack“ as your justification to slaughter innocent people for the interests of the AngloZionist/Wahhabi Empire.

Martin Scorsese could not have done a better job. From the grad seines of men in haz-mat suits around Surrey to the suffocating children in Duma it could hardly be better orchestrated.

The Empire only needs 30-35% agreement in the public to be successful and so far they have at least that.

Posted by: Babyl-on | Apr 19, 2018 11:28:36 AM | 58

@ A P who seems to be advocating attacking individuals rather than the structural problem of allowing private finance that empowers these and other anti-humanistic folks.

Make the tools of global and local finance public utilities along with banning private finance and you make it so the power to be a Rothschild or a Soros goes away.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 19, 2018 11:32:58 AM | 59

USA = ISIS

If you’re with the Americans and their Jewish and Muslim terrorist allies, you’re evil.

Erase evil off the face of the earth and save a planet.

Putin = Netanyahu = Trump

Posted by: Lester | Apr 19, 2018 11:41:37 AM | 61

„We heard shots fired (on a show on TV) and were afraid to enter the area.“

Posted by: WorldBLee | Apr 19, 2018 11:41:55 AM | 62

Psychohistorian, your phrase about tbe wheels falling off the bus is on point. Last night’s David Koch funded ‚Nova‘ program on PBS is an example: the entire prorame sought to present human caused climate change, alternative energy, organic farming as though they, supreme scientists that they are, were the true advocates of such discovered solutions to global difficulties of this nature.

Never mind that many of us have been screaming ourselves hoarse and many dying before seeing any solution since the ’60s and long before that. It wasn’t profitable to the ptb; now it is.

I hope, dearly hope, that now it will be profitable to have peace in our time. It would seem that is the only way we are going to get it

Posted by: juliania | Apr 19, 2018 11:56:42 AM | 63

@ psychohistorian: I am only advocating that the intentional perpetrators of generational arms-length crimes against humanity not be allowed to continue their endless agenda. I abhor violence, but when a group cannot be curbed by diplomatic (including legal) means, they leave society no alternative otherwise preventing them from continuing. If the Rothschilds et. al. do not see the wisdom in allowing humans to peacefully move forward, they decide their own fate.

Zionism and the Israel/Promised land agenda is a multi-generation scam based on a loose collection of writings of unknown authorship/editing and dubious historical veracity.

Posted by: A P | Apr 19, 2018 12:08:31 PM | 64

b – your posts are quite amazing and very informative.. thank you for doing this.

Posted by: james | Apr 19, 2018 12:09:09 PM | 65

Lots of activity in Syria, too much to post when it’s easier to visit Canthama’s Twitter and read its contents. The battle to rid Syria of the Outlaw US Empire’s terrorist spawn continues. Iraqi AF is now hitting Daesh in Eastern Syria, and some sort of combined operation is likely in near future given the meeting between C4+1 at Baghdad intel center.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 12:13:40 PM | 66

The AngloZionist/Wahhabi Empire does save money by not having to provide uniforms to so many of its brigades.

Posted by: Babyl-on | Apr 19, 2018 12:41:38 PM | 67

‚Chlorine is undetectable‘ – b

„If, as the terrorist supporters claim, Chlorine was used in the ‚chemical attack‘, the OSCE investigators are unlikely to find any physical evidence of it. Chlorine dissipates and leaves no unique traces in the dead body.“ – B

Does the OPCW have any coroners? I believe it leaves scarring in the lungs

„Chlorine required a concentration of 1,000 parts per million to be fatal, destroying tissue in the lungs, likely through the formation of hydrochloric acid when dissolved in the water in the lungs (2Cl2 + 2H2O → 4HCl + O2)“

It has been less than two weeks. There should be bodies available to examine unless Assad has carted them off to his Crematorium in Damascus where he disposes of his victims in front of his bust of Adolf Hitler.

Posted by: Christian Chuba | Apr 19, 2018 12:48:16 PM | 68

Well, to answer the final question, it is indeed possible… Thanks for the peace very well done B. But here comes more work to do. The NZZ today is publishing a peace about Belgian firms selling 96 t of Isopropanol to Syria which is described as precursor substance needed for the manufacturing of Sarin, between 2014 and ’16(Nervengift,https://www.nzz.ch/international/syrien-belgische-firmen-liefern-stoff-fuer-nervengift-ld.1378789) insinuating the Assad did this. What do you make out of this? It seems to me this is an important matter to counter.

Posted by: Pnyx | Apr 19, 2018 12:49:59 PM | 69

So the circus goes on…“…this is a democracy after all.“

Peter Ford with Tucker Carlson https://youtu.be/7R2QhK0-Pe8

Posted by: partisan | Apr 19, 2018 12:53:35 PM | 70

CC @66 — Re: Autopsies of Douma victims

Could be possible, unless the White Helmets took them all up to Idlib with them on the buses? Heh.

I can’t recall where I read it, but it was stated that the bodies of the Douma victims had been buried. Nothing about where.

Posted by: jawbone | Apr 19, 2018 12:54:11 PM | 71

According to Lavrov, the UN security team did come under fire by terrorists who were tipped off as to who they were and when they’d arrive. Lavrov’s comment echoes that made by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who observed „Someone does not want an unbiased professional investigation to take place.“

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 12:56:35 PM | 72

Here we have a translated transcript of Shulgin’s testimony at OPCW’s Hague HQ where he points out the 8 fundamental British lies over the Skripal attack. He prefaces his remarks thusly:

„I would like to start my speech with the words that belong to the great thinker Martin Luther, “A lie is like a snowball: the further you roll it, the bigger it becomes”.

„This wise aphorism is fully applicable to politics. He who has chosen the path of deception will have to lie again and again, making up explanations for discrepancies, spreading disinformation and doing forgery, desperately using all means to cover the tracks of the lies and to hide the truth.

„The United Kingdom has entered this slippery path. We can clearly see all of this on the example of the “Skripal case” fabricated by the British authorities, this poorly disguised anti-Russian provocation accompanied by an unprecedented propaganda campaign, taken up by a group of countries, and the finalized unprecedented expulsion of diplomats under a far-fetched pretext. Please, do not try to pass this group for the international community – it is far from that.“

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 1:07:42 PM | 74

@24 10 warships composing the USS Harry S. Truman, departed April 11, are on their way to the Middles East. http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2018/04/11/uss-harry-s-truman-csg-departs-on-2018-deployment/

Thierry Meyssan make the point that the FUKUS strike presents a new narrative, which spells out the fact to the public that the unipolar world is no more. No more ‚coalitions of willing‘, and no more ’successful‘ regime change wars by covert ops. The new narrative here is a return to national armies, vs. national armies. Of course this is just as far from the truth as the previous narrative was but it is covering a new geopolitical reality. Officially FUKUS held back from firing on Russian and Iranian targets, but was this enough reasons to not kill anyone in Syria? In any case this is a first for an Allied bombing campaign since the end the of the cold war: not having casualties. http://www.voltairenet.org/article200729.html

Posted by: majobrs | Apr 19, 2018 1:11:57 PM | 75

Who is stalling the investigation.. ..? A much more complex affair than the present hype and simultaneous denial (different factions) of the Douma ‚chem attacks.‘

White Helmets are not just masquerades of ‘charities’ who support the Agressors (US-uk-isr etc.), yes the WH make these clumsy in ya-face false ‘savior’ vids and so on as propaganda in Syria. But they fulfill other functions, the ‘theatrical’ actions on the ground and the vids don’t justify the expense, which is considerable. Happily I can finally quote ppl more courageous than myself:

Syria: The Darker Side of the NGO Complex. Preying on Children of Conflict.

Feb 2017, 21st Cent Wire, with V. Beeley. (vid 38 mins.)

http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/02/24/syria-the-darker-side-of-the-ngo-complex-preying-on-children-of-conflict/

Posted by: Noirette | Apr 19, 2018 1:19:05 PM | 76

It’s no wonder the Outlaw US Empire desires radical modification of the current Syrian Constitution as it contains this remarkable passage:

„The Syrian Arab role has increased on the regional and international levels over the past decades, which has led to achieving human and national aspirations and achievements in all fields and domains. Syria has occupied an important political position as it is the beating heart of Arabism, the forefront of confrontation with the Zionist enemy and the bedrock of resistance against colonial hegemony on the Arab world and its capabilities and wealth. The long struggle and sacrifices of our people for the sake of its independence, progress and national unity has paved the way for building the strong state and promoting cohesion between the people and their Syrian Arab army which is the main guarantor and protector of the homeland’s sovereignty, security, stability and territorial integrity; thus, forming the solid foundation of the people’s struggle for liberating all occupied territories.“

Perhaps the entire passage ought to be bolded, but I chose to emphasize just that part. Last year, Assad made a speech emphasizing the need to continue to advance the philosophy of Pan Arabism, and his orations highlighting the goal to recover all Syrian lands show his constitutional adherence to what he swore to uphold. Clearly, his convictions give him courage, and that courage is replicated by most of Syria’s citizenry and its SAA.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 1:33:09 PM | 77

@67 Pnyx UK seems to be producing a lot of Sarin then, https://www.statista.com/statistics/342998/propyl-and-isopropyl-alcohol-sales-volume-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/ 96 tonnes looks quite low for an industrial nation, UK in that period 2014-16 2453 tonnes. Its 60 seconds research to find that out, what is wrong with the NZZ. I get through a couple of litres a year cleaning camera and electronic equipment. Isopropyl alcohol is manufactured for a wide variety of industrial and household uses, and is a common ingredient in chemicals such as antiseptics, disinfectants and detergents.

Posted by: Gilbert | Apr 19, 2018 1:46:39 PM | 78

The links to the speech by Shulgin stall out…

Posted by: Charles R | Apr 19, 2018 1:46:48 PM | 79

The Theatre of Absurdity is in full force, unfortunately Syria’s Gov. along with Russians are in it. An Iranian cleverly not participating in it. Neither they have in the past. Why to deal with an idiots?

„The rest of Syria’s air defense system, which is completely Russian made, Russian designed, Russian supported, engaged extensively and comprehensively failed“ per LtGen McKenzie

But at least the Syrians have some sense of humor they reported transfer of „two unexploded“ Tomahawks to Moscow. In certain way they ridiculed the Deranged Dotard when he said that he has new „smart“ missile. Not so smart after all.

http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/5139903

So we have faked chemical attack followed by non-existing coalition barrage of stand-off and cruse missiles against Syria. Even if there were one what’s would be military purpose and objective of it?

Posted by: partisan | Apr 19, 2018 1:47:47 PM | 80

@ Pnyx | Apr 19, 2018 12:49:59 PM | 69 Isopropanol is a kind of universal organic solvent so ubiquitous in the chemical and the food industry as fuel for machines. To claim it is precursor of sarin is stupid-ploitation, simply.

Posted by: Hansi Hausmeister | Apr 19, 2018 1:53:02 PM | 81

@ Psychohistorian who said: „Make the tools of global and local finance public utilities along with banning private finance and you make it so the power to be a Rothschild or a Soros goes away.“

You are operating on the flawed presumption that it is the normal business of humans tending to their own temporary custody of their part of the economic/political system that is the problem. Humans claimed ownership of the land they tilled, and collaboratively traded using money/tokens as a proxy for value long before the terms capitalism, socialism or communism were a glimmer in any philosopher’s eye.

A wide variety of societies showed how all these political/economic systems could be successful, but all to date have succumbed to the baser instincts of the socio-/psychopathic few.

To be the leader of a modern country or to be a military leader would seem a punishment for a balanced human, so most often the nut-cases apply and get the jobs. As good as Putin and Xi are compared to NATO leaders, they still have to be pretty ruthless to attain and hold their positions.

Take one look at Melania’s face and you can see she is thinking „I didn’t sign up for this crap when I married Donny-boy.“

Posted by: A P | Apr 19, 2018 2:11:07 PM | 82

@59 Fran

Ok, I’ll have a go at it, once again. That Duran article lacks basic knowledge when it’s dealing with CWs / basic chemistry in general. 1. Smoke bombs are not CW. 2. Chlorine containers – these plastic containers do not (NOT) carry elementary chlorine. Elementary chlorine is a. chemically very aggressive and b. gaseous in a standard atmosphere. Over time these plastic containers would be degrading due chlorine’s ‚aggressiv-ness‘ pretty quickly and, also, be leaking due its high vapor pressure. Storing and/or transporting elementary chlorine in that kind of container would raise very serious safety issues. Containing inorganic/organic chlorinated compounds, liquid or solid, like hypochlorite would be another matter. 3. A gas cylinder with chlorine from Germany or any other country doesn’t mean anything, simply because the cylinder may have been exported/imported multiple times to a host of countries for perfectly legal purposes (synthesis, water treatment comes to mind) before finally ending up where it was found. For clarification, just in case, I’m not trying to defend Germany for her most despicable conduct in regards of Syria. 4. Whilst I really appreciate Zakharova with her usual ’no nonsense‘ approach, this time she’s spouting utter nonsense. ‚the most horrible kind of chemical weapons‘ – this is simply plain wrong, as it is visible at high concentrations, smells strongly, has higher density than air and when exposed or inhaled it hurts badly, thus urges a person to evade and, most importantly, requires a rather high concentration (~0.5-1 mass%) to immobilize (and kill) people quickly enough before they’d manage to escape. Even chlorine’s sister element bromine would ‚perform‘ better due its analgesic properties and, therefor, its quite stealthy approach to a person’s wellbeing.

No, the real killer these days is DU-munitions that leave behind a myriad of nano / micro crystalline uranium oxide particles that are the cause for a great many deaths and simply won’t go away for an extended period of time. However, nobody is talking about the issue, particularly not the ones that employ these munitions.

Posted by: Hmpf | Apr 19, 2018 2:28:16 PM | 83

@59 Fran

Posted by: Hmpf | Apr 19, 2018 2:28:57 PM | 84

Oh. My God. I posted a bit about Shulgin’s speech as it was happening, and the UN translator very distinctly said the Martin Luther quote was attributed to Martin Luther KING(MLK). I must’ve had other stuff on my mind because I didn’t think twice about it.

Anyway this is the „quality“ we have, and can always look forward to within the UN system.

Posted by: sejomoje | Apr 19, 2018 2:49:07 PM | 85

Here’s an interesting news piece:

„Belgium firms prosecuted over exporting Sarin precursor to Syria“

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43811614

Belgian companies exported 96 tonnes of isopropanol, a sarin precursor, to Syria between 2014 and 2016.

24 shipments of sanctioned chemicals from Belgium to Syria and Lebanon took place between May 2014 and December 2016, in which 165 tonnes of isopropanol (69 tonnes to Lebanon and the remaining shipments to Syria), 219 tonnes of acetone, 77 tonnes of methanol and 21 tonnes of dichloromethane had been exported without the appropriate licenses.

According to Belgian toxicologist Jan Tytgat (KU Leuven), victims of sarin die a painful death. “Diarrhea, urinary flare, narrowed pupils, spasms that give you the feeling of suffocation, vomiting, lacrimation and saliva production: the victim quickly becomes paralyzed, suffocates and dies. The lethal dose of sarin for adults is estimated to be less than 1 milligram.”

„The companies are AAE Chemie Trading from Kalmthout, a wholesaler of chemical products for industrial use; Anex Customs from Hoevenen, a business office that provided administrative services until it went bankrupt in 2017; and Danmar Logistics, a logistics company from Stabroek.“

Roland Cassiers, Jan Tytgat, Francis Adyns, Jean-Pascal Zanders

they had been exporting chemicals to private companies in Syria for over a decade.

And to mark my love of irony:

Last month was the 100th anniversary of the first chemical weapons attack, which took place in BELGIUM in 1917.

https://syrianarchive.org/en/investigations/belgium-isopropanol/

Posted by: Daniel | Apr 19, 2018 2:55:40 PM | 86

Is Sarah Abdallah a Hezbollah op? I have never followed her and just learned of her today w the BBC hit piece upon all dissenters.

Posted by: WJ | Apr 19, 2018 3:10:06 PM | 87

@ A P who wrote: „… To be the leader of a modern country or to be a military leader would seem a punishment for a balanced human, so most often the nut-cases apply and get the jobs. As good as Putin and Xi are compared to NATO leaders, they still have to be pretty ruthless to attain and hold their positions. …“

You could throw the leader of Iran in the batch also. What I have said before about this and will repeat is that the God of Mammon religion, which is another way I refer to private finance, forces humanity to live under a certain set of narrative/incentives.

Yes, you have to be a good asshole to stand up to the bad assholes. And yes again, maybe your tribes values and expression of them is not perfect either…..but, as a species, I can’t help but think we can do better at organizing ourselves than the God of Mammon slavery system that most are living under today.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 19, 2018 3:11:14 PM | 88

@84 I’ll assume the UN translator went through the American public school system. „Martin Luther“ is unknown there, so they probably did a mental auto-correct.

Posted by: Jesrad | Apr 19, 2018 3:13:43 PM | 89

re: Paul 38 This question is perhaps too obvious, but as I understand it the OPCW is not a UN organization but rather chartered under the Chemical Weapons Convention. What jurisdiction does the UNDSS have in Syria, anyway, let alone jurisdiction over the OPCW? Posted by: Paul | Apr 19, 2018 8:57:20 AM | 38

The Chemical Weapons Convention is enforced (or „implemented“) by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). In this way it is similar to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT which is enforced by the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA).

Neither the OPCW nor the IAEA is a United Nations agency, but both both are controlled by the US using the United Nations if necessary as an enforcer to ensure that the agencies obey the US. The US tightly controls the IAEA mainly by controlling who heads the agency. The US lost control to an unfriendly chief at the start of the Iraq war but regained it later with the appointment of a friendly chief.

In this case, as Paul suggests, the friendly Aussie chief of the UNDSS has been called in to make sure that the truth does not emerge from Douma. There is no other basis for UNDSS being in Douma; the United Nations has taken no interest in Syria nor especially the illegal US assault on that country. So it’s sort of ironic that the UN should now be abetting a coverup of an assault violating the UN Charter. Thank you Paul. You nailed it.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 19, 2018 3:14:08 PM | 90

Hmpf @83–

Agree 100% about DU. Its grossly/hideously destructive aspects led me to write a short essay in an attempt to bring attention to the fact that all weapons are essentially chemical weapons and thus all ought to be banned under the Chemical Warfare Treaty. That was back in 2005.

Charles R @79–

Link still works for me. Sorry you’re having issues.

sejomoje @84–

I often see Russians prefacing their remarks with similar observations. It makes their unprofessional and often undereducated counterparts in the West appear as the fools they are most often. Of perhaps greater importance, it also details what I see as a fatal drawback in the abilities of Western citizenry in general–specifically, the level of ignorance and great lack of desire to learn and gain wisdom: Particularly within the Outlaw US Empire.

Oh, and in my haste I forgot to provide the reference to my Syrian Constitution citation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 3:17:25 PM | 91

re 85. Isopropanol is available on Amazon as a cleanser.

Posted by: Laguerre | Apr 19, 2018 3:17:52 PM | 92

@84|sejomoje

I saw the honorable Ja’afari (hardest job in the world) speak at the UNSC meeting after the FUKUS strike. He (original UN stream on ruptly) had a profoundly incompetent English translator that totally failed to make sense of his words. After a couple of minutes, abruptly a woman took over who did a good job ever after.

Posted by: CE | Apr 19, 2018 3:18:58 PM | 93

DB @89–

Thanks for digging further into Paul’s comment. That’s the sort of info that deserves to be tweeted and retweeted many thousands of times.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 19, 2018 3:22:00 PM | 94

„Belgium firms prosecuted over exporting Sarin precursor to Syria“

What shameless propaganda. There is a 9/10 chance that you have this dangerous pre-cursor in your house, better known as rubbing Alcohol. Syria is under so many sanctions they cannot import Aspirin or toilet paper from the west. If they resort to buying bricks from N. Korea an article will pop up, ‚Syria caught buying building materials from N. Korea that can be used for chemical weapons program‘.

Posted by: Christian Chuba | Apr 19, 2018 3:26:45 PM | 95

Gilbert 1:46:39 PM | 78 / Hansi Hausmeister 1:53:02 PM | 81 I indeed think you both are right, but NZZ makes believe different. Textually they wrote (translated): „After the use of sarin in August 2013, probably killing hundreds of people, the Syrian regime joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and pledged to liquidate its toxic gas arsenals. These included the stocks of isopropanol, a chemical used in the production of sarin. Due to the EU sanctions, high concentrations of isopropanol exports to Syria required special licenses from September 2013. Nevertheless, three Belgian companies delivered 96 tons of isopropanol in high concentration to Syria between 2014 and 2016 without the necessary permits. At the request of the customs authorities, they will have to appear before a court in Antwerp in May.“ Obviously it’s a propaganda piece (of shit), but I wonder if its not possible to nail them with more specificity.

Posted by: Pnyx | Apr 19, 2018 3:27:47 PM | 96

For you carrier fans, the Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) entered the 6th Fleet are of operations yesterday, according to its facebook. That means it was about halfway across the Atlantic as shown here.

For trivia fans, the ship is misnamed because the „S“ should have no period after it. The 33rd president had no middle name, only a middle letter.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 19, 2018 3:47:00 PM | 97

It’s a small world….. from Al Masdar News:

BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:30 P.M.) – “Syrian Government forces found chlorine in containers, the most dangerous kind of chemical weapons, from Germany and smoke pellets produced in – attention – Salisbury, Great Britain,” in Eastern Ghouta’s liberated areas, said Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova during her weekly briefing in Moscow, on Thursday. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 19, 2018 3:55:44 PM | 98

From Drennan’s UN bio linked to by b. He graduated in 2011 from the FBI National Executive Institute program.

http://neiassociates.org FBI NATIONAL EXECUTIVE INSTITUTE ASSOCIATES

The FBI National Executive Institute Associates (NEIA) is a private, non-profit organization, of chief executives of the largest law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe. Representing a broad range of key Federal, state and local agencies, these top officials, totaling more than 1400, are all graduates of the FBI’s National Executive Institute (NEI), an intensive, three-week leadership training program held at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia…“

„FBI NEIA MISSION NEIA Provides a learning environment where its members can network, mentor, and share unique executive leadership experiences. Committed to serving as a recognized center of excellence in law enforcement education, research and training, NEIA provides members with lifelong opportunities for the free exchange and dissemination of ideas, information and personal association with their national and international peers. NEIA members are accountable to the guiding principles of:“

Quite a network they have built up that needs looking into more.

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Apr 19, 2018 4:03:41 PM | 99

The „White Helmets“ were supported by murdered British MP Jo Cox. Although apparently a loyal soldier to the war party, Jo became a nuisance to her leftist intellectual husband and to the war party, so an assassin was called in and a patsy was arranged.

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 19, 2018 4:07:44 PM | 100

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