The 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria
Posted: Sat Sep 23, 2023 4:52 am
I recently made note of the following source on Wikipedia's page about the 2018 Douma chemical attack: https://berlingroup21.org/wp-content/up ... ressed.pdf
For those not in the weeds here: the official story is that the Syrian military, upon orders from president Bashar Al-Assad, attacked civilians in Syria with chemical weapons. Whatever happened that day, we know that about 40 people died. This event took place in an area that was controlled by a Syrian rebel group at the time. The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigated the scene some time later, and reached an official conclusion: Assad had gassed his own people, by deploying military attack helicopters, which dropped canisters of poison gas onto civilian targets.
This was repeated by NATO and used to argue for further US/NATO intervention into Syrian domestic affairs. Some observers, including a whistleblower from the OPCW, alleged that this was not the case, and that the OPCW had done a "cover-up", fabricating evidence suggestive of a military chemical attack, and suppressing evidence that contradicted the preferred narrative. We don't know what happened, these observers & whistleblowers say, but we know that the US/NATO narrative "confirmed" by the OPCW is a sham, and that the real truth should be found. Note that the OPCW received enormous pressure from the USA in the early 2000s, during the "Iraq has WMDs" psyop. This pressure led the first ever OPCW director, Jose Bustani, to step down in protest of the US's attempts to get him to lie. 20 years later, he is one of the authors of the report linked above.
Needless to say, any acknowledgement of the whistleblowers, or of any narrative other than "Assad gassed his own people", is ignored by the propaganda-by-omission of the US media. If it is acknowledged at all, it is as a "pro-Assad" or "pro-authoritarian conspiracy theory". Thus, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of it, and, predictably, there are a lot of NPC drones who are dedicated to preventing "pro-Assad authoritarian conspiracy theories" (i.e. narratives other than the preferred narrative of NATO and the military industrial complex) from seeing the light of day on Wikipedia.
That's the context for my latest attempt to poke the bear at Wikipedia:
A new source is available. And it's a big one.
"A Review of the OPCW fact finding mission report into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma: evidence of manipulation, bias, and censorship." 162 pages, 192 endnotes. Written by four esteemed western authors, including the first director of the OPCW, A professor Emeritus of international law at Princeton, a professor of propaganda studies, and a former assistant secretary general of the UN.
This is a very serious challenge to the established narrative on Douma. Made by serious people. No Assad or Putin puppets for you to strawman here, NPC drones.
Now the games begin - what arguments will the Wikilawyers bring to the table for why this source absolute cannot, and must not, be given any weight? How urgent and strident will they be in their tone? I think the chances of the source being widely acknowledged as valuable are approximately...zero.
One opinion so far, and it's a doozy, albeit predicable: it's "intentional disinformation". No explanation, no evidence, no reference to a word of the text. Just a random editor with a 10-day old account, no talk page, and some very hot takes.
I think some people overstate the CIA/government presence on Wikipedia. In fact, I think the US government is getting a fantastic deal. Think about it: there are people on Wikipedia that are so stupid, clueless, and arrogant, they'll do the State's bidding for free, with enthusiasm, without even knowing it.
I'll post an update if the NPCs give me any more spicy takes on this source.
For those not in the weeds here: the official story is that the Syrian military, upon orders from president Bashar Al-Assad, attacked civilians in Syria with chemical weapons. Whatever happened that day, we know that about 40 people died. This event took place in an area that was controlled by a Syrian rebel group at the time. The Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigated the scene some time later, and reached an official conclusion: Assad had gassed his own people, by deploying military attack helicopters, which dropped canisters of poison gas onto civilian targets.
This was repeated by NATO and used to argue for further US/NATO intervention into Syrian domestic affairs. Some observers, including a whistleblower from the OPCW, alleged that this was not the case, and that the OPCW had done a "cover-up", fabricating evidence suggestive of a military chemical attack, and suppressing evidence that contradicted the preferred narrative. We don't know what happened, these observers & whistleblowers say, but we know that the US/NATO narrative "confirmed" by the OPCW is a sham, and that the real truth should be found. Note that the OPCW received enormous pressure from the USA in the early 2000s, during the "Iraq has WMDs" psyop. This pressure led the first ever OPCW director, Jose Bustani, to step down in protest of the US's attempts to get him to lie. 20 years later, he is one of the authors of the report linked above.
Needless to say, any acknowledgement of the whistleblowers, or of any narrative other than "Assad gassed his own people", is ignored by the propaganda-by-omission of the US media. If it is acknowledged at all, it is as a "pro-Assad" or "pro-authoritarian conspiracy theory". Thus, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of it, and, predictably, there are a lot of NPC drones who are dedicated to preventing "pro-Assad authoritarian conspiracy theories" (i.e. narratives other than the preferred narrative of NATO and the military industrial complex) from seeing the light of day on Wikipedia.
That's the context for my latest attempt to poke the bear at Wikipedia:
A new source is available. And it's a big one.
"A Review of the OPCW fact finding mission report into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma: evidence of manipulation, bias, and censorship." 162 pages, 192 endnotes. Written by four esteemed western authors, including the first director of the OPCW, A professor Emeritus of international law at Princeton, a professor of propaganda studies, and a former assistant secretary general of the UN.
This is a very serious challenge to the established narrative on Douma. Made by serious people. No Assad or Putin puppets for you to strawman here, NPC drones.
Now the games begin - what arguments will the Wikilawyers bring to the table for why this source absolute cannot, and must not, be given any weight? How urgent and strident will they be in their tone? I think the chances of the source being widely acknowledged as valuable are approximately...zero.
One opinion so far, and it's a doozy, albeit predicable: it's "intentional disinformation". No explanation, no evidence, no reference to a word of the text. Just a random editor with a 10-day old account, no talk page, and some very hot takes.
I think some people overstate the CIA/government presence on Wikipedia. In fact, I think the US government is getting a fantastic deal. Think about it: there are people on Wikipedia that are so stupid, clueless, and arrogant, they'll do the State's bidding for free, with enthusiasm, without even knowing it.
I'll post an update if the NPCs give me any more spicy takes on this source.