Category: Syria

Statement of Concern: The OPCW investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria

Courage Foundation;

We wish to express our deep concern over the protracted controversy and political fall-out surrounding the OPCW and its investigation of the alleged chemical weapon attacks in Douma, Syria, on 7 April 2018.
 
Since the publication by the OPCW of its final report in March 2019, a series of worrying developments has raised serious and substantial concerns with respect to the conduct of that investigation. These developments include instances in which OPCW inspectors involved with the investigation have identified major procedural and scientific irregularities, the leaking of a significant quantity of corroborating documents, and damning statements provided to UN Security Council meetings. It is now well established that some senior inspectors involved with the investigation, one of whom played a central role, reject how the investigation derived its conclusions, and OPCW management now stands accused of accepting unsubstantiated or possibly manipulated findings with the most serious geo-political and security implications. Calls by some members of the Executive Council of the OPCW to allow all inspectors to be heard were blocked. […]
 
To date, unfortunately, the OPCW senior management has failed to adequately respond to the allegations against it and, despite making statements to the contrary, we understand has never properly allowed the views or concerns of the members of the investigation team to be heard or even met with most of them. It has, instead, side-stepped the issue by launching an investigation into a leaked document related to the Douma case and by publicly condemning its most experienced inspectors for speaking out.
 
In a worrying recent development, a draft letter falsely alleged to have been sent by the Director General to one of the dissenting inspectors was leaked to an ‘open source’ investigation website in an apparent attempt to smear the former senior OPCW scientist. The ‘open source’ website then published the draft letter together with the identity of the inspector in question. Even more alarmingly, in a BBC4 radio series aired recently, an anonymous source, reportedly connected with the OPCW Douma investigation, gave an interview with the BBC in which he contributes to an attempt to discredit not only the two dissenting inspectors, but even Ambassador Bustani himself. Importantly, recent leaks in December 2020 have evidenced that a number of senior OPCW officials were supportive of one OPCW inspector who had spoken out with respect to malpractice.

Tucker Carlson: “If the Pentagon & our media can lie about pretext in order to justify bombing sovereign countries & get away with it, then they will do it again & that should concern you.”

“Russian asset” Tulsi, vindicated. There was plenty of skepticism here at the time.

Art Of The Deal

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/12/21/checkmate-saudi-crown-prince-mbs-sends-replacement-troops-to-defend-kurds-in-syria/

First, remember Turkish President Recep Erdogan was the antagonist in the Kashoggi matter and Erdogan orchestrated the blame toward Saudi Crown Prince MbS. There is no better motivated mid-east ally to protect the Kurds against any military action by Turkey other than MbS. No doubt MbS and UAE will send their best forces.

 

Secondly, what military equipment will MbS and the UAE be shipping along with their military troops? Those would be military purchases directly from the U.S.

 

Third, who stood up against international pressure and refused to condemn MbS over the Kashoggi matter? That would be a strategic U.S. President Trump. MbS owes a favor; see how that works?

Was There Nothing That Obama Couldn’t Do?

Holocaust Museum Pulls Study Absolving Obama Administration For Inaction In Face of Syrian Genocide

The intervention of the Holocaust Museum in a hot-button political dispute–and the apparent excuse of official US government inaction in the face of large-scale mass murder, complete with the gassing of civilians and government-run crematoria–alarmed many Jewish communal figures. “The first thing I have to say is: Shame on the Holocaust Museum,” said Leon Wieseltier, the literary critic and fellow at the Brookings Institution, who slammed the Museum for “releasing an allegedly scientific study that justifies bystanderism.”
The Museum’s exercise in counter-factual history, he suggested, was inherently absurd. “If I had the time I would gin up a parody version of this that will give us the computational-modeling algorithmic counterfactual analysis of John J McCloy’s decision not to bomb the Auschwitz ovens in 1944. I’m sure we could concoct the fucking algorithms for that, too.”

How could such a thing happen?

Some Jewish communal leaders suggested both privately to Tablet, and in conversations with board members and staff at the Holocaust Museum, that the Museum’s moral authority had been hijacked for a partisan re-writing of recent history, and alleged that the museum had absolved the Obama administration of any moral or political error in its response to mass atrocities in Syria. At least one of the architects of the Obama administration policy in Syria, former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, was appointed to the museum’s Memorial Council during the closing days of the Obama administration.

Oh.

Pick a Strategy

Richard Fernandez;

Trump must now make an immediate choice: reinforce Afghanistan with no long term prospects of victory or watch it fall. The last two administrations have not brought victory over Islamic extremism any closer. To avoid defeat from attrition Trump will need a new approach. While none has been officially announced the outlines of a new strategy may be emerging from the actions it has so far taken.

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