On 19/02/19 01:27, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 12:27:49AM +0000, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
On 15/02/19 01:06, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
Zerowedgie:
BBC Producer's Syria Bombshell: Douma "Gas Attack" Footage "Was Staged" https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-14/bbc-shocks-douma-gas-attack-scene-...
If you read this in any detail at all, you will find that she says the gas attack really happened - just that some of the tv footage was staged.
The cameras got there too late to record the real action, so they recreated some of it.
Not good, and hiding it was somewhat reprehensible journalistically speaking; but not actually evil or even manipulative.
Just some TV guys wanting to report a fucking horrific event as best (and probably as accurately) as they could.
[...]
** Michael Savage: complete “false flag in Syria.” No sarin gas, most likely phosgene gas http://theduran.com/michael-savage-complete-false-flag-in-syria-no-sarin-gas...
Oh wow, that's okay then. Only phosgene, not (gasp) sarin.
Of course, it is far easier to make/get hold of phosgene (CG) than sarin (GB). It is far cheaper. It is also easier to weaponise [1].
IMO phosgene is a little nastier than sarin, though some of those knowing both would disagree. But practically speaking, there isn't a huge difference in nastiness.
Weight-for-weight on an absorbed dose basis sarin is famously about 20-30 times more lethally toxic than phosgene. However on a quantity-used-in-an-actual-attack basis the comparison is more even, with sarin being only about three or four times as lethally toxic as phosgene.
Incidentally, the vast majority of WW1 poison gas deaths were caused by phosgene, even though it was used infrequently compared to other agents like chlorine or mustards (the other agents could be seen or smelled or felt, and they terrified troops - phosgene just killed them almost unnoticed, with them dying in the next day or two; not as good from a military POV as phosgene doesn't terrify or incapacitate immediately).
[1] Sarin is a liquid and has to be made into very small even droplets, and then clouds of these droplets must be spread around for maximum effect. Phosgene is a gas, which comes as a liquid under pressure; just open the cylinder and it spreads itself around.
Point is, there is zero evidence that Assad or Russia was behind -any- chemical "gassing attack" of any syrian people as per the media reports.
I don't see the benefit of clouding the fundamental here...
The known fundamentals are: there have been stories of gas attacks for years. There was at least one actual gas attack. It was assumably phosgene. Three guesses as to who did it: Russia, a "false flag", Assad? I doubt it was Russia, though it might have been. If Russia since Putin hadn't made several exotic attacks on civilian ex-spies, billionaires and militants in the UK, and messed around with longstanding defense treaties, I'd have said it almost certainly wasn't Russia; but nowadays it just might have been a Russian provocation against the US - I kind-of doubt they had any military need to do it. But no, it doesn't make a lot of sense politically afaics, so for now I'll leave it at "it probably wasn't Russia". A false flag? By who - the US? Sorry, I don't believe that for a minute. Not that there wouldn't be people there who would do it, but that they would not want to be seen to, and security on things like that is a bitch - one thing the Yanks have learned is that the cover-up can kill you. Plus they haven't taken advantage of it as a casus belli. So no, not the Yanks. A false flag by the white hats, or some other rebels? I'd have thought that they could organise it better, for one - an actual attack, but with phosgene (which degrades quickly into hard-to-determine-the-origin-of fragments) rather than eg Sarin, whose byproducts are traceable for much longer? They chose the wrong agent. Plus of course they couldn't get newsies into position until after both the attack and its immediate aftermath was over? But the whole point of a false-flag attack would be publicity. So no, it almost certainly wasn't the white hats/rebels (unless it was inter-rebel action, in which case all bets are off - but afaict that doesn't seem to be the case). Which leaves Assad. Morally he'd definitely do it, in a trice, and I'd guess he would turn a blind eye. The choice of phosgene is good for him too, short-acting so forensic proof of an attack would be harder to come by. Phosgene would be readily available in the requisite quantities to a State like Syria. Plus, he is a bit short of conventional bombs anyway. Qui bono? Publicity-wise, the US and/or rebels might benefit, but neither have taken advantage of it, to the extent even that the US is disbenefitted and looks weak. The rebels don't seem to have benefitted any either, though I concede they might have expected to. Militarily, of course, pretty much only the Assad regime benefits. So Assad gets Most Likely To. And after all, Someone did it.