State Dept Accuses Russia And Syria Of Gassing Civilians Before Any Investigation by caitlinjohnstone

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· @caitlinjohnstone · (edited)
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State Dept Accuses Russia And Syria Of Gassing Civilians Before Any Investigation
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbiDDMRurFVgtWPBX9RdQK1fqvD953fNisLVmZeKC6h5J/image.png)

Just weeks ago, <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/we-are-one-false-flag-event-away-from-world-war-3-fe9244e70fb8">two firebreathing neoconservative war whores</a> were promoted to the highest echelons of influence within the Trump administration. The <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/anti-war-trump-voters-just-officially-ran-out-of-reasons-to-support-this-president-8318f6456ad4">new National Security Advisor</a> John Bolton only has one key on his piano, and that key is war. <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/14/trump-promotes-longtime-russia-hawk-just-as-russiagate-loses-momentum/">Neoconservative hawk</a> Mike Pompeo was promoted from the head of the notoriously vicious Central Intelligence Agency to Hillary Clinton's old job as Secretary of State after <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/great-news-everyone-the-cia-has-promised-to-become-much-more-vicious-a822786684d">famously announcing</a> that he was trying to make the CIA "a much more vicious agency."

Trump supporters talk a lot about the Deep State as though it is something separate from and at odds with the Trump administration. If that was ever the case, it certainly isn't anymore. Trump might be in a power struggle with certain factions or aspects of the power establishment, but you don't promote bloodthirsty swamp monsters like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to positions of maximum impact if you're fighting the Deep State.

Pompeo's State Department has <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/04/280313.htm">issued a press release</a> by way of its soulless spokeswoman Heather Nauert about the <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/new-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-being-reported-by-all-the-usual-suspects-bb52e9a4f982">nonsensical new report</a> that the Syrian government once again decided to <a href="https://twitter.com/AWAKEALERT/status/982778112000839680">kill a bunch of children</a> with poison gas at the least strategically opportune moment imaginable. The press release is riddled with falsehoods and jaw-dropping accusations which cannot possibly be based in fact since they were made mere hours after the allegations surfaced, long before any sort of investigation into them could have even begun, much less been completed.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmToBZvBWfgwhqMECsTBsFKWSFPvtFqwk4UHLZQLJEa6WJ/image.png)

Let's go through this press release line by line, from beginning to end:

<em><strong>"We continue to closely follow disturbing reports on April 7 regarding another alleged chemical weapons attack, this time targeting a hospital in Douma, Syria. Reports from a number of contacts and medical personnel on the ground indicate a potentially high number of casualties, including among families hiding in shelters."</strong></em>

We should note here that that the "ground" these sources are "on" is controlled by the <a href="https://southfront.org/jaysh-al-islam-officially-unites-with-al-qaeda-in-eastern-ghouta/">Al Qaeda-allied</a> terrorist group Jaysh al-Islam, and the reports we're seeing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/suspected-chemical-attack-kills-dozens-syria-douma-180407202906316.html">sourced by the press</a> are in fact coming from the <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/investigation-white-helmets-committing-acts-terror-across-syria/231597/">western-backed and Al Qaeda</a>-affiliated <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vNwe7yKbwo">propaganda firm</a> known as the White Helmets and the "<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43686157">pro-opposition Ghouta Media Center</a>". There's no reason to believe that there is anyone "on the ground" in Douma willing to make themselves available as a source who is not supportive of jihadist factions and the western empire's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw">longstanding regime change agenda</a> in Syria.

<strong><em>"These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community."</em></strong>

If confirmed. That's an open acknowledgement from the State Department that these reports are unconfirmed, which renders all the accusations which come later in this press release nonsensical.

"Immediate response by the international community" is exactly what Libya got in response to <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/31/the-top-ten-myths-in-the-war-against-libya/">deceitful narratives</a> promulgated by unquestioning media outlets. Now the nation which the west raped, brutalized and left for dead under the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/">pretense of humanitarianism</a> is a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY">humanitarian nightmare</a>, and NATO doesn't care because the empire got the real job done in 2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI

<em><strong>"The United States continues to use all efforts available to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable. The regime’s history of using chemical weapons against its own people is not in dispute, and in fact nearly one year ago on April 4, 2017, Assad’s forces conducted a sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which killed approximately 100 Syrians."</strong></em>

The assertion that the "regime’s history of using chemical weapons against its own people is not in dispute" is a brazen lie. The entire other half of the conflict consistently denies it, including <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-39586500/assad-denies-use-of-chemical-weapons">Bashar al-Assad</a> and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/russia-military-putin-rebel-chemical-attack-us-support-582621">Vladimir Putin</a> personally, and many respected western <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/07/a-new-hole-in-syria-sarin-certainty/">journalists</a> and <a href="https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/khan-sheikhoun-chemical-attack-guest-blog-featuring-paul-mckeigues-reassessment/">scholars</a> remain <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin">skeptical</a> of <a href="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/un-report-on-khan-sheikhoun-23-of-victims-hospitalized-before-the-incident-happened.html">the official NATO narrative</a> for a <a href="https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/who-is-responsible-for-chemical-attacks-in-syria-guest-blog-by-professor-paul-mckeigue-part-2/">whole variety</a> of <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2017/11/04/the-trumped-up-syria-sarin-case/">reasons</a>. It is absolutely ridiculous to say everyone agrees that in a region crawling with known terrorist factions who have a <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/338849-jaysh-al-islam-chemical-aleppo/">known history of chemical weapons attacks</a>, and in a nation <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw">long targeted</a> for regime change by the western empire, the only possible explanation for chemical weapons reports is a government which stands nothing to gain and everything to lose by using them.

<em><strong>"The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately."</strong></em>

Whoa! Held accountable? Immediately? What happened to "if confirmed"??

<em><strong>"Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime, ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks, targeting of countless civilians, and the suffocation of Syria’s most vulnerable communities with chemical weapons. By shielding its ally Syria, Russia has breached its commitments to the United Nations as a framework guarantor. It has betrayed the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118. Russia’s protection of the Assad regime and failure to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria calls into question its commitment to resolving the overall crisis and to larger non-proliferation priorities."</strong></em>

Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for an attack with no evidence? Again, mighty big words for a press release about a completely unconfirmed report.

I've never seen a convincing explanation as to why Assad would be "targeting" civilians at all. I could see criticizing him for, like America, not taking enough measures to protect civilians from air strike crossfire, but why would he "target" them? Is killing civilians with internationally banned weapons just some bizarre sexual kink of his? One he only discovered in 2011? Nobody has ever given me an answer to this that fits into what I know about motive and human nature.

<strong><em>"The United States calls on Russia to end this unmitigated support immediately and work with the international community to prevent further, barbaric chemical weapons attacks."</em></strong>

Half of this press release about Syria is actually about how awful and evil Russia is, the same nation the western empire has been finding any excuse to escalate tensions with since 2016 in a steadily escalating <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/truth-is-the-first-casualty-in-war-especially-in-cold-war-b367a9aa1acb">new cold war</a>. Funny how this is all happening after the <a href="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/its-the-cover-up-uk-foreign-office-deletes-tweet-posts-false-transcript-issues-new-lies.html#more">spectacular collapse</a> of the "Novichok" narrative <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/07/the-uks-russia-narrative-a-verdict-in-search-of-a-crime/">the UK was trying to use</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/17/boris-johnson-eu-support-russia-sergei-skripal">unite Europe in aggressions against Russia</a>.

Truth is the first casualty of war. Because of its reliance on psyops, propaganda and narrative shaping, this is especially true of cold war.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUEtZ8STNsV9zAWmdEnWe8ECCHnp5eYQ2WQCQpbR418Rc/image.png)

And that's it for that insane State Department press release and all its accusations and demands for an international response. For further reading on the latest regime change Syria narrative being promulgated by the western war machine, check out t<a href="http://21stcenturywire.com/2018/04/08/syria-the-egregious-western-media-chemical-weapon-fraud-in-eastern-ghouta/">his brand new article</a> by independent investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley and <a href="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/timelines-of-gas-attacks-in-syria-follow-a-similar-scheme.html#more">this one</a> by the always excellent <em>Moon of Alabama</em>. Both explain how this latest allegation fits in with an already highly suspicious pattern and explain how absurd it is to believe what we're being told to believe. I <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/new-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-being-reported-by-all-the-usual-suspects-bb52e9a4f982">wrote another article</a> about this a few hours ago as well.

Remember: they wouldn't be working so hard to manufacture your consent for these strategic power grabs if they didn't need your consent. Refuse to be bullied and manipulated into handing it over to them.

______________________________

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@mindreader ·
$0.03
You wonder why is the public education level all-time low in the US?Do you really believe we cut funding for schools for no reason?(both Democrats and Republicans did) Morons can be controlled,smart,intelligent people hardly,that's why.
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@herrleeb ·
$0.18
You are so right. Decades of fluoridation and social engineering now pay of big time for the cabal.
They set the world on fire and nobody cares...
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@tyramisoux ·
We were waiting for this.
But the worst part is how stupid they think we all are.
Can we stop this madness?
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@herrleeb ·
$0.19
They KNOW how stupid we are. They don't even have to bother and come up with something halfway credible anymore. The majority will accept ANY lie, the rest gets censored and shut up.
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vote details (5)
@ideafarm ·
I would have kept reading longer if you hadn't done so much name calling.  I think that Trump walks on water and that what he has been doing has been brilliant.  For example, the appointment of Bolton was brilliant, timed perfectly to send just the right message to North Korea and to China.

To understand Trump, it is helpful to use the model or metaphor of a poker game; in those terms, Trump is playing about five poker games simultaneously, at five tables, each with about five opponents.

I do listen to what people have to say against Trump, but I rarely find meritorious argument.
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@eskmcdonnell ·
Anyways this alleged CW attack was in the works, esp. on the back of the Skripal poisoning hoax. What would the US get out of it if not the opportunity to stage a CW attack in Syria to discredit Russia to hem in Russia foreign policy?
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@ideafarm ·
I'll be glad to converse with you.  But your reply doesn't appear to have anything to do with my comment.
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@ctpatriot · (edited)
So basically, Trump is playing 12 dimensional chess, which he obviously learned from Obama. Or maybe, more accurately, it's the all purpose excuse by tribalists for never doubting the actions of their chosen leader despite all evidence to the contrary. Trump has proven to me quite the opposite of brilliant. He is full of bluster (which his adoring 25% eat up) but in the end is yet another easily manipulated puppet of the deep state.
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@ideafarm ·
If you love "liberty and justice for all", and you oppose concentrations of power in order to empower everyday people, and you love our Constitution and the law, i.e. "ordered liberty", then we are on the same side.

I am passionately opposed to what I call "The Plutocracy" and want to restore constitutional government to the United States.  Time will tell about many things, of course.  But I am not concerned about Trump.  We need the wall.  We need law and order.  We need patriotism.  (We also need a DACA deal and we also need to get serious about climate change.)

In my opinion, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party suck totally.  The leadership of both parties exploit the naive but good intentions of their membership to sell out the United States in order to acquire power and to serve their special interest constituencies.

Trump articulates a clear vision that excites people like me.  He should be given a chance.  For this to happen, we need to vote away the obstructionists (in both parties) so that the Trump administration can build its wall and play the strongest possible hand in the foreign policy poker games.
👍  
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vote details (1)
@herrleeb ·
$0.18
What is so mind-boggling to me is that they don't even make an effort to come up with a believable FF anymore. They just use blatant lies. Apparently they can. The masses are already so dumb and numb that they gobble up any crap they are served. So why bother.
Now the whole Trump charade with "pulling out of Syria" makes sense.
I am afraid that this time it will be more than a few rockets hitting an airfield...
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vote details (5)
@techwizardry ·
$1.41
Looks like the US State Department is following the lead of the May administration: make accusations without any proof, then backtrack later.
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@nokodemion ·
$0.36
Enjoy the brick wall , deplorables ! After all ,the Donald did promise a wall ,didn't he? Only it's not what you expected.
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@skepticology ·
Excerpts from Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_

> In effect, the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring the raw materials of, and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become "routine" news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers. It should also be noted that in the case of the largesse of the Pentagon and the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy, the subsidy is at the taxpayers’ expense, so that, in effect, the citizenry pays to be propagandized in the interest of powerful groups such as military contractors and other sponsors of state terrorism. 
Perhaps more important, powerful sources regularly take advantage of media routines and dependency to "manage" the media, to manipulate them into following a special agenda and framework (as we will show in detail in the chapters that follow). Part of this management process consists of inundating the media with stories, which serve sometimes to foist a particular line and frame on the media (e.g., Nicaragua as illicitly supplying arms to the Salvadoran rebels), and at other times to help chase unwanted stories off the front page or out of the media altogether (the alleged delivery of MIGs to Nicaragua during the week of the I984 Nicaraguan election). This strategy can be traced back at least as far as the Committee on Public Information, established to coordinate propaganda during World War I, which "discovered in I9I7-I8 that one of the best means of controlling news was flooding news channels with ‘facts,’ or what amounted to official information." 
The relation between power and sourcing extends beyond official and corporate provision of day-to-day news to shaping the supply of "experts." The dominance of official sources is weakened by the existence of highly respectable unofficial sources that give dissident views with great authority. This problem is alleviated by "co-opting the experts"-i.e., putting them on the payroll as consultants, funding their research, and organizing think tanks that will hire them directly and help disseminate their messages. In this way bias may be structured, and the supply of experts may be skewed in the direction desired by the government and "the market."

###### https://chomsky.info/consent01/
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@danielshortell ·
Wait, hold on...didn't we just do this bullshit gas-lie-thing a few months ago? Are the US administrative goons really this lazy/lacking in creativity that they can't come up with something else? At some point I'm going to demand that the "leaders" of my country at least make their lies more interesting/creative (or at the bare-fucking minimum, differentiated from one another) to listen to or else I'm going to have to tone them out completely.
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@rhetoric · (edited)
Trump has tweeted, recklessly. One almost feels relieved that this follows on the heels of many such inchoate Twitter utterances. The question now: is he playing to the crowd, or does it represent the prelude to an invasion? The targeting of Russia here seems to follow Mrs. Clinton’s statement (in the disclosed e-mails) that Russia would stand aside as the U.S. made Israel feel more comfortable by removing the sitting government of Syria and allowing it to be divided into parts, part of which would be a new Israel-aligned country called Kurdistan.

Your argument seems to be that the U.S. public should resist and fail to support any move to re-start the war in Syria (this time presumably not by proxy). The reasons you give for Americans to foment this resistance include the shadowy and uncertain nature of the “evidence” with regard to this and previous alleged chemical warfare attacks, and a litany of past sins. It seems relevant in this context to mention Israel. Israel is the most proximate cause of the invasion of Syria, an invasion Obama supported by proxy under the guise of aid to a beleaguered population freeing themselves from a tyrannically oppressive government. When faced with the choice of invading in the wake of a similar false flag chemical weapons attack (then given the semiotic moniker “red line”) Obama demurred — or dithered, in the parlance of the neocon crowd — insisting on a fig leaf of congressional approval. As tough as AIPAC fueled congress members talk, they preferred in that instance for a President to do the walking, and may be similarly disposed today. Erstwhile Republican Presidential nominee Lindsey Graham has [called upon Trump to follow up his bellicose rhetoric with action](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lindsey-graham-trumps-response-to-syria-chemical-attack-a-defining-moment), no doubt speaking for the majority of his peers.

Political leaders and the media continue to embrace the false narrative Obama spun ([a tale which goes back several decades](https://www.mintpressnews.com/declassified-cia-report-exposes-25-years-u-s-plans-destabilize-syria/225553/)), all evidence to the contrary. There is no anti-war movement to speak of, like there was with the first Bush’s Iraq war, and during Obama’s administration a sizable portion of the most active left embraced the concept of regime change in Syria, painting Assad as a tyrant so terrible not removing him by force was a crime against humanity (The opposite has proven to be the case, however, with Syrians returning to the bits of Syria reclaimed by the Syrian Arab Army and Assad’s statesmanship, all the while deploring the “rebels” as barbarous, often Takfiri, fundamentalists.). While Tulsi Gabbard has been upright in promoting the counter-narrative of an Assad who does not deserve to be deposed, certainly the most prominent actor on the national U.S. stage to speak of not continuing the hostilities has been Trump. For this he has been reviled by the #Resistance Left, and at best ignored by those progressives whose leftism puts them to the left of the #Resistance Left.

Is there any hope left for Trump? Although you write with absolute confidence that Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo to persecute war, it is at least remotely conceivable that Trump hired Bolton and promoted Pompeo to shore up his right flank. Trump must be more than peripherally aware that Mike and John are irredeemable Neocon Assholes, with Mikey having the additional albatross of Tea Party (and hence Koch Bros) darling. Trump may be using his executive power here. Recognizing that these are among the smelliest, he wants them to be his stinking assholes. Who, if he or she was President, wouldn’t be tempted to stick John Bolton on the White House Lawn like a scarecrow, forcing the DCC crows to circle elsewhere?

According to Caitlin’s analysis, we are in a crucial period now where all hands are needed on deck to resist a[ potentially apocalyptic scenario](https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/we-are-one-false-flag-event-away-from-world-war-3-fe9244e70fb8). Unfortunately — as Caitlin again has been prescient to point out — most hands are not on deck; being otherwise occupied resisting Trump; [ennobling Bush](https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/oligarch-owned-media-outlets-really-really-want-you-to-love-george-w-bush-8be2d806ac2c); and[ pushing for war and more war](https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/dems-kept-cheerleading-bush-era-neocons-now-theres-one-in-the-white-house-84a8e32a1e25) while valorizing Nancy Pelosi, Cory Booker, Chuck “[Industrial Grade Anti-Palestinian Racist](https://soundcloud.com/media-roots/great-march-of-return-killing-gaza-interview-w-max-blumenthal-dan-cohen)” Schumer, and the rest of the establishment that was disempowered when Trump upset. It’s frustrating not to be able to judge how marginal the clear-eyed element is. A Google Search for news about Syria yielded a spate of “Syria Did it” headlines, the only dissenting voice being Sputnik’s.

That our best hope of avoiding war with the SAA and its Russian and Iranian allies lies with Trump may seem forlorn to too many, but that is the executive function in the American political system, and may herald, if anything, that [the twilight of the Presidency](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2860676-the-twilight-of-the-presidency) has given way to a dawn (however false). Trump may be damning Obama and Assad in those tweets to play to the crowd, and he may pull out of his hawk dive, saying that although Assad deserves to be bombed to hell and back, the moment for that has passed, and it’s no longer directly in U.S. interests to intervene. If he does so, that will leave Israel to fight the war alone, or perhaps with Saudi Arabia and a few other allies. (Further to this scenario, from Jets flying in Lebanese airspace, Israel has fired missiles into Syria, according to [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-09/syria-base-is-hit-after-suspected-chemical-weapons-attack) and [Sputnik](https://sputniknews.com/world/201804091063353921-russia-israel-syria-airbase-attack/). Israel may justify itself in striking Syria thusly: as the proxy “moderate rebels” [it’s been funding and arming](http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/03/28/556738/Syria-Israeli-munitions-Eastern-Ghouta) in Syria are being routed by the Syrian Arab Army.) If Israel loses, they have promised to, “turn the lights out” as they leave (with their nuclear arsenal). As perverse as it may sound to a dedicated anti-warer like Caitlin, maybe the longer Trump can pretend that he just might fight this war — allowing Syria, Russia, and Iran to shore up their position and rout the proxies — the better.
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@komie008 ·
That's a nice presentation.
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