The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

[JackRiddler]

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First, are these witnesses credible? Do they appear coerced? Do they appear professional?

Second, if they're credible and genuine, is it clear that those conducting the water-dousing are outsiders to the hospital?

Third, if so, the scenario you speculate on is still possible. To me, it seems less likely.

However:

Those who make the opposite claims - US, UK, F, White Helmets, other rescue workers - have the possibility, and I believe the resources if the states participate, to present their version, witnesses, and evidence (autopsy results, for example) to the same forum in The Hague. I would expect them to do so.

If they don't, what would you draw as the likelier conclusion?

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[Burnt Hill]

I cant answer the first question. I can accept their statements as legit for the sake of argument.
The second question is a good one. In a hospital there should be protocol on certain medical responses. I can see the fear of chemical exposure causing a panicked response by those involved.
Thirdly, regardless of the scenario on the ground, the situation will be spun by all players to meet their needs.

[peartreed]

Having spent half my career involved with professional performers performing it is my sense that the child and his father are not acting nor rehearsed, but seem authentic and genuine - especially since they are calm and rational, not passionately outraged as actors might play it.

The actual news conference itself seems, by contrast, professionally staged by the adults introducing and translating testimony, such as PR professionals filming an event for propaganda purposes. While you state the RT network is irrelevant, I remain suspicious of its advocacy.

My conclusion will, to a large extent, depend upon the OPCW final conclusion, with emphasis on the chemical trace analysis from the site.

Until that is integrated into the overall investigation final report, my inclination is to believe the father and son's account is truthful and sincere.

[Elvis]

Put what the Hague panel is saying together with the Carla Ortiz presentation of what happened in Aleppo, and it's basically the same scenario.

It also appears the White Helmets film the same gas cannister in more than one location.

This Douma event, at least, looks like it was created out of nothing. The official findings will be interesting whatever they are.


edit: Great post, Jack, very rational approach.

[Grizzly]

Sombunal, RI's may find this of use ...



Also, Fisk: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-air-strikes-america-research-centre-damascus-douma-chemical-weapons-gas-a8324316.html

The great 10th century Iraqi poet Abu Tayyib al-Mutanabbi once lived, O fated city, in the Emirate of Aleppo. He even led a revolt in Syria which was – familiar stuff, this – put down with great ruthlessness. Al-Mutanabbi actually spent two years in prison before reconciling himself to his loss and was subsequently released. Most Arab children in Syria can quote the man by heart and one of their favourite poems begins with these words:

When you see the teeth of a lion,

Don’t think that the lion is smiling at you.

Finally,

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/26/

Blocked By Facebook and the Vulnerability of New Media

They are in full court press to eliminate all alternative press. There are threads that tie all of these things together, especially , around Syrian war and in particular, Russia.

This does not bold, well : Russia "will not allow" another US attack on Syria premised on a false flag event...
https://www.rt.com/news/425256-russia-wont-allow-attack-syria/

[JackRiddler]

The actual news conference itself seems, by contrast, professionally staged by the adults introducing and translating testimony, such as PR professionals filming an event for propaganda purposes. While you state the RT network is irrelevant, I remain suspicious of its advocacy.

RT is not irrelevant, but this is a live broadcast of a news event, is it not? Of course the broadcaster is "professional." Would it look different on another network that broadcasted it uninterrupted? It seems to me the only question regarding the translation is whether it is accurate and truthful. (Anyone here speak Arabic, want to check?) The form is of an evidentiary presentation. The state doing the presentation has an interest and purpose, that is why they are presenting it. The first question, it seems to me, is whether the witnesses and their statements are genuine. If they are, the second is how to assess that within the larger context of the events they are talking about, such as whether their statement can be true at the same time that there still could have been a chemical attack by forces supporting the Syrian government, or what else this indicates about the events they witnessed and describe.

[Elvis]

A brief comparison of RT with the BBC:

RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian international television network funded by the Russian government.

The BBC is established under a Royal Charter[10] and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee[12] which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up.

Under the Royal Charter, the BBC must obtain a licence from the Home Secretary.[70] This licence is accompanied by an agreement which sets the terms and conditions under which the BBC is allowed to broadcast.

Under Russian law RT is an independent organisation.

The BBC has the second largest budget of any UK-based broadcaster with an operating expenditure of £4.722 billion [approximately $6.5 billion] in 2013/14

In 2015, RT was expected to receive 19 billion rubles ($307 million) from the Russian government in 2016.

The BBC pursues its licence fee collection and enforcement under the trading name "TV Licensing". The revenue is collected privately by Capita, an outside agency, and is paid into the central government Consolidated Fund

The BBC is a statutory corporation, independent from direct government intervention, with its activities being overseen from April 2017 by the BBC Board and regulated by Ofcom.

The United Kingdom media regulator, Ofcom, has repeatedly found RT to have breached rules on impartiality and of broadcasting "materially misleading" content.

Huge surprise!!

—but what is Ofcom?

The Office of Communications (Welsh: Y Swyddfa Gyfathrebiadau), commonly known as Ofcom, is the UK government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.

Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors.

The BBC invented modern British propaganda:

Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and the Official BBC Historian has characterised the [BBC 1926 general strike] episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form".[22] Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used.

the BBC has been criticised by the left-wing columnist Owen Jones in The Guardian, who stated "the truth is the BBC is stacked full of rightwingers."[169] Paul Mason, the former Economics Editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme, has also criticised the BBC as "unionist" in relation to its coverage of the Scottish independence referedum campaign and said its senior employees tended to be of a "neo-liberal" point of view.[170] The BBC has also been characterised as a pro-monarchist institution.[171] The BBC was also accused of propaganda by journalist and author Toby Young, due to what he believed to be an anti-Brexit approach including a whole day of live programming on migration.[172]

A BBC World Service newsreader who presented a daily show produced for Kyrgyzstan was claimed to have participated in an opposition movement with the goal overthrowing the government led by president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.[173] The BBC presenter resigned from his post in 2010 once the allegations of his participation in the revolution became public.[174]

And worst of all:

According to Jesse Zwick, RT persuades "legitimate experts and journalists" to appear as guests by allowing them to speak at length on issues ignored by larger news outlets.

How horrible!!!

RT America is officially registered as a Foreign Propaganda Outlet with the United States Department of Justice National Security Division under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Question: Why isn't BBC also registered as a Foreign Propaganda Outlet?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofcom

[peartreed]

All major networks everywhere broadcast propaganda. RT in Russia, BBC in Britain, CBC or CTV or Global in Canada, CNN or FOX or ABC or NBC or the old CBS in the states, Al Jazeera in the Middle East, etc., ad infinitum, worldwide and into Space.

Implicit in the role is government regulation of the broadcaster, overt and covert, legislation and licensing to protect the airwaves and the audience from too much opposing propaganda from that government’s opposition and its detractors.

To expect objective broadcasting and facts filtered for verified veracity is unrealistic, idealistic and gullible, sonombulistic ignorance of the workings of the political and corporate and communication world. Otherwise you swallow all the swill whole.

Thus it comes down to the viewers ability to know and discern the biases in play, the sponsorships and ownerships behind the screens, and the flags being waved

It also is imperative to similarly unpack and unravel the production companies producing the content in every category of presentation to the viewing public.

Then, apply the same discernment and analysis of all media involved as news sources. It's a Tower of Babel built upon biased bullshit.

[Elvis]

Yup, discernment.

[PufPuf93]

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The following link goes to the Russian state presentation of multiple Syrian witnesses from the Douma hospital speaking of their experiences on April 7th, as delivered to an official OPCW session in The Hague today. Please note: 1. Spare us complaints about the network broadcasting this live event, they are not relevant here. 2. Watch the people testifying for the length of the presentation (with a translation into English), then tell us your assessment. Please, no preemptive comments. If you don't want to watch, there is no need to reply either.

I submit there is an authentic dichotomy here: Either this group of doctors and hospital workers (plus the child and his father) are faking, or the White Helmets video of the attack aftermath in the hospital with the water-dowsing was a staged propaganda show conducted by outsiders to the hospitals. Am I mistaken? Discuss.

https://www.rt.com/news/425240-opcw-rus ... witnesses/

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There are not angels on the side of any of the naratives in Syria. I tend to think the chemical attack was embellished (in fog of war) up to totally staged. That does not make me pro-Assaad nor pro-Putin or Russia but does show my learned cynicism and dis-like of wars for empire.

[JackRiddler]

All major networks everywhere broadcast propaganda. RT in Russia, BBC in Britain, CBC or CTV or Global in Canada, CNN or FOX or ABC or NBC or the old CBS in the states, Al Jazeera in the Middle East, etc., ad infinitum, worldwide and into Space.

Absolutely, but of all of the non-FOX ones I must single out BBC as the most propagandistic and moralistic in content and its especially unbearable style. In media theory, style is content and usually more important. CNN is just dumb as rocks and ad-infinitum the same shit over and over and over for hours. Who the hell ever thought to have Wolf Blitzer on for four hours straight?! RT I've covered at length somewhere above, I think, in this thread. A mixed bag, RT America far better than main RT, which is defo FOX-like (but not in the same style, at least). But right wing and Euro-xenophobic are accurate descriptors of most of the Moscow news coverage, as opposed to much of the RT America stuff.

[peartreed]

It’s hard to ascertain the lesser of two or more or many mass media evil meddlers in The Middle East, or across the world map, when the mixed messages are all made for warmongers entrenched on all sides.

The futility and frustration of finding the real and reliable reasons behind the conflict and conflicting accounts tends to breed defensive indifference.

That’s why I turn hopefully to objective science and chemical analysis by non-partisan lab work to discover a clue as to who might be behind the gas being thrown on the burner and the burnt innocents.

The sites themselves have too many actors staging stories and false narratives based on their own tribal interests in acquiring and exploiting the area’s precious resources. Their differing degrees of deception tend to blend in distorted but dutiful delivery about the drama’s protagonists, antagonists and flag-draped loyalists.

[MacCruiskeen]

It’s hard to ascertain the lesser of two or more or many mass media evil meddlers in The Middle East, or across the world map, when the mixed messages are all made for warmongers entrenched on all sides.

The futility and frustration of finding the real and reliable reasons behind the conflict and conflicting accounts tends to breed defensive indifference.

That’s why I turn hopefully to objective science and chemical analysis by non-partisan lab work to discover a clue as to who might be behind the gas being thrown on the burner and the burnt innocents.

The sites themselves have too many actors staging stories and false narratives based on their own tribal interests in acquiring and exploiting the area’s precious resources. Their differing degrees of deception tend to blend in distorted but dutiful delivery about the drama’s protagonists, antagonists and flag-draped loyalists.

arse biscuits

[peartreed]

Your dump of "arse biscuits" verify the usual quality of your contribution to the discussion.

[seemslikeadream]