I keep hearing this from our lovely media, over and over again. The talking points are consistent, and even use the same exact wording. From Fox News to MSNBC, I hear "Brutal Dictator", "He gassed his own people", and the like. This gets accepted as the truth by people, not because it is true, but because the media says it 100 times a day. Especially in reference to Tulsi Gabbard's Presidential campaign.
Let's take a brief look at the evidence of the latest gas attack claim, which occurred in Douma in 2018. There seems to be a lot of conflicting news stories about the specific chemical weapon used. At first it was Sarin, a nerve agent. Then it was changed to Chlorine gas. The new consensus on which chemical was used seems to be a mix of the 2, and remains unclear when looking at dozens of different reports. This could possibly be simply because reporters don't understand the 2 gasses are not the same(LOL), so reporting could become muddled. This, of course, is giving our media the benefit of the doubt, and not claiming to debunk their story based on what could be a simple factual error.
Here is the New York Times investigative assessment of the event. They used footage of the scene and reports to conclude that Assad's forces dropped a gas canister of Chlorine through the roof of an apartment building from a helicopter.
The most notable thing that stood out to me in this video, was that this standard sized steel gas cylinder, with a DIY fin and strap setup, had enough kinetic energy to punch through a steel-reinforced concrete roof, then also punch a hole in the floor underneath, also reinforced concrete.
There is also obvious signs of an explosion in the apartment building, but the steel gas tank is intact. This means that the building was already damaged when the tank was in place. My personal assessment is this building was hit by a mortar round or small rocket before the gas tank ever got there. This also begs the following question, if the hole in the concrete was there before the tank, why was the tank situated to look like it caused the hole? This is plain and clear reasoning, and I am not alone. An MIT professor, Theodore Postol, reviewed the evidence, and came to the conclusion the tank was placed there by hand.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/18/t...-attack-douma/
The BBC News reporting on this attack was every bit in line with the American press. But, as the facts started coming in, and falsehoods started piling up, even the BBC's own producer reversed his earlier stances and called BS.
It is no mystery who the "rebels" in Syria are that the US is backing in an attempt to overthrow Assad's government. They are jihadists. Isis or ISL itself was born from this new resurgence of money, weapons, and intelligence funneled in to these rebels to further the regime change of Assad's government. We claim to be doing this to overthrow a "brutal dictator", and to fight terrorism, and yet, here we are, funding the terrorist crazies we have sworn to destroy. And we are aided in this by our allies, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. If there is any doubt about who is a state sponsor of terror, lets take a look at Hillary Clinton's email,
“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region”.
So, let's see what Fox News does, and see if they are any different than MSNBC.
Nope, looks like Fox News may have well been the Rachel Maddow Show. Well, truly, CNN must have some genuine reporting. Lets look there...
OK, this reporter from CNN believes, at this time, Sarin nerve agent was used. If she sniffed, much less handled a nerve agent, she would be doing convulsions while she vomited up her internal organs. But lets say is was basic Chlorine gas residues. She still would be dressed in hazmat gear and have her will in good order before getting within 1 mile of that place. And this is not something reporters don't know about over there. This reporter, like many others, has been embedded with American troops, they have gone through the drills and lectures on chemical weapons, as well as a host of other combat realities. This video cannot be seen as anything other than treating us all like we are idiots. It is fake.
So, if the US, through 3rd party proxies like the Saudi's, is funding the global spread of terrorist groups, as well as using these terror networks to pursue regime change, the big question is- why?
Let's take this in 2 parts. The first question specifically is why we are generally funding the spread of terrorism. The answer is dark. According to the 2001 Authorization For Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted through Congress after the 9-11 attacks, the President has the authority to pursue the terrorists behind the Trade Center attacks without prior approval from Congress. This was to give the President a green light to go after those responsible, while not dealing with Congressional approval for every action he would take that counted as a "hostility" under the War Powers Act enacted after the Vietnam conflict.
The AUMF has been held up since then as cause for the President to go after any and all terrorism, and not just related to 9-11. Even though the Constitution clearly and unambiguously states the power to declare war is in the hands of Congress, the AUMF is used by the Presidents since Bush Jr. to circumvent Congress and take the Constitutional authority of Congress into the Executive branch's hands. The one deciding factor about if the President can do this or not, lies in the involvement of terrorism. If terrorism is involved at any level, the President uses the AUMF to engage in hostilities and conflict, completely above the concerns of Congress. Sadly, neither Congress nor the Courts have fixed this usurpation of authority, although some attempts were made recently with the Yemen issue. This abuse of Congress's authority has allowed Presidents to pursue regime change unchecked. And this is precisely why we are the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
The second specific question, why regime change to begin with? Well, let's take a look at the countries we have been going after. Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, Iran, Syria, Egypt, and recently, Venezuela. They all have one thing in common, they all are key strategic places to control the flow of oil and gas. Even more critically, the wells and pipelines involved all service European countries. Right now, Russia is supplying the EU with the majority of cheap oil and natural gas. Most of this comes down to delivery distance.
American natural gas, even though we have become the global leader recently in oil and gas production, has to be shipped across the Atlantic to the EU, and because of this, it cannot compete on the open market with oil and gas from Russia, China, or even the Middle East. The only way to get our oil and gas competitive, is to grab control of the competition's supply chain and choke it out. Controlling the critical areas of oil and gas delivery is the only fail safe method of manipulating prices, and, unfortunately, this playbook requires regime change and installing puppets sympathetic to our cause.
One thing that it is good to remember in all of this, is that The US Government is not selling oil and gas. Private Corporations are. The implication here is clear, then. Oil and Gas companies are dictating our foreign policy, they are deciding, in partnership with our government, who gets put on the regime change list, where our people's tax dollars gets spent, and which patch of soil our troops get to die on.
Granted, a lot of this comes down to national security, at least in terms of our energy needs to maintain ourselves to our current standard of living. Also, our ally Saudia Arabia is the deciding factor when it comes to the prevalence of US currency as the Petro-dollar. Without our currency being in demand to provide for their own energy needs, other nations would soon use our dollars as toilet paper, sending us into an economic ice-age. We would lose huge amounts of leverage in diplomatic agreements across the board.
Our foreign policy, then, is basically reduced to keeping our energy companies making their billions, keeping Saudi Arabia happy with their access to EU markets, and doing our level best to convince the American public it is all for the greater good. But is it really a surprise that all of our major media are owned by the same Corporations that drive all of our energy, intelligence, and military spending? Control of critical production, pipelines, and shipping routes, and the ongoing regime change involved to secure those locations, has been turned into an abomination, and a slap in the face to free market Capitalism and our supposed goal of spreading legitimate democracy around the world.
So, do I believe, for even one second, that Assad gassed his own people. No, I don't.
The chemical weapons playbook is one we have been using for a while now. I guess, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It has been working so well since the invasion of Iraq. I will leave this argument with a little gem from CNN and the first Iraqi invasion.