Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
خلال المرحلة التي بلغ فيها التصعيد الميداني ذروته، مع إسقاط إيران لطائرة التجسس الأميركية العملاقة وفق مضيق هرمز، واستهداف مجمع أرامكو على يد أنصار الله، وعملية أفيفيم للمقاومة بوجه جيش الاحتلال، أعلن القادة الأميركيون السياسيون والعسكريون، وتقدَّمهم في ذلك الرئيس دونالد ترامب، أنهم لن ينجرفوا نحو مواجهة عسكرية تريد إيران وحلفاؤها جرّهم إليها، فيما هم يحتاجون للوقت أن يمر دون مواجهات ريثما تثمر العقوبات التي يفرضونها على إيران وقوى المقاومة، لكن الزمن الافتراضي لمفعول العقوبات بدا طويلاً، فهو وفقاً للتقديرات الأميركية قرابة السنتين، لكن بعد مضي أسابيع قليلة بدا أن الأميركي قد رمى بكل أوراقه في المواجهة عبر الضغط على الأوضاع المالية لدولتين له فيهما نفوذ وحلفاء هما لبنان والعراق، يتقاسمهما منذ زمن مع قوى المقاومة، ويحصر عقوباته عليهما بقوى المقاومة، وظهرت الخطة الأميركية بالسعي لتفجير الشارع بتأثير الغضب من خطر الانهيار في الدولتين، ومحاولة توظيفه في تغيير التوازنات السياسية، بوجه قوى المقاومة.
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الغارة التي شنتها طائرات أميركية مساء أمس، على مواقع للحشد الشعبي العراقي على الحدود السورية العراقية ليست مجرد ردّ على سقوط قتيل من العاملين مع الجيش الأميركي في إحدى القواعد التي استهدفت بصواريخ يتهم الأميركيون فصائل الحشد الشعبي بالوقوف وراءها. فالغارة أكبر بكثير من حجم ردّ كان ممكناً بحجم سقوط قتيل من غير الجنود، وقد بلغ عدد الشهداء والجرحى جراء الغارة 24 شهيداً، و50 جريحاً وبينهم أحد القادة، ما يعني تخلي واشنطن عن سياسة عدم الرد، وارتضاءها مجدداً دخول مواجهات الميدان، والخلاصة التي يسجلها هذا التحوّل هي قبل كل شيء أن الأميركي يرمي رهانه على التغيير بواسطة الشارع جانباً، ويسلّم بالفشل في هذا الرهان، وهو يعلم أن ارتفاع صوت قعقعة السلاح وانفجارات الصواريخ سيعطل كل رهان على عمل سياسي، ويعلم أن الخطاب اليوم في العراق وغداً في سورية، هو إعلان ساعة الرحيل لقوات الاحتلال الأميركي.
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لا يوجد أي سبب لتفسير المخاطرة الأميركية بمواجهة معلومة النتائج سلفاً في غير صالحه، كما تقول كل تقارير مخابراته وخبرائه، إلا إدخال وجود قواته التي فقدت التغطية السياسية والشعبية في سورية والعراق، على خطوط التفاوض، من خلال تصعيد يضع المطالبة برحيل هذه القوات في صدارة المشهد السياسي في كل من العراق وسورية، وليس بوسع الأميركي الانسحاب على البارد، ولا ترك الإسرائيلي يواجه وحيداً وقائع وموازين القوة في المنطقة، بلا ذريعة مناسبة للانسحاب. فالتصعيد سيستدرج وساطات، وسيكون الروس أول الوسطاء، وسيكون السعي لوقف النار وإعلان الهدنة مربوطاً بموعد نهائي لانسحاب القوات الأميركية من العراق وسورية. وهذا يستدعي التوصل إلى تفاهم شامل مع إيران، تراهن واشنطن على جعل انسحابها ورقة تفاوض مهمة للحصول على مكاسب في ملفات التفاوض الأخرى، بعدما أعلن المسؤولون الأميركيون ان هذا الوجود فقد كل قيمة استراتيجية او عسكرية.
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حتى ذلك الوقت ستدورمواجهة قاسية لن تنحصرفي العراق، ولن تكون معها تسهيلات للتسويات الصغيرة، كتلك التي ينتظرها اللبنانيون والعراقيون في مصيرحكومتين معلقتين على حبال الانتظارات الدولية والإقليمية، وحيث يعلو صوت المعركة تغيب سائرالأصوات .
فيديوات مشابهة
مناورات بحرية إيرانية صينية روسية لأول مرة في بحر عمان والمحيط الهادي
رسائل بالجملة أطلقتها إيران من خلال مناوراتها المشتركة مع الصين وروسيا
معلومات عن نقل مسلحين سوريين مدعومين من تركيا للقتال في ليبيا
مقاتلي المعارضة السورية إلى ليبيا بفرمان تركي ولصالح الأتراك .. هذا ما تنبّأ به القذافي قبل موته
على إسرائيل أن تخاف بعد مشاهدة هذه الحقائق .. عندما تتحد أقوى دولة مسلمة عسكرياً مع أغنى دولة عربية
الخبير الأمني ماجد القيسي: حادثة قصف القاعدة العسكرية في كركوك تنذر بحوادث أكثر خطورة في المستقبل
بومبيو يزور قاعدة عين الاسد سرا بخطوة تندرج ضمن مخطط امريكي مشبوه – تقرير علاء الموسوي
The collapse of the Central Bank of Lebanon following a major state scam plunged the country into an unparalleled economic and financial crisis. The country is now paying for its 76 years of political dependence and 8 years of complete political vacancy. The reality of its situation is very different from the perception of its citizens.
The three presidents. In the centre is General Michel Aoun, Christian President of the Republic, on the left the Shiite Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, on the right the Sunni President of the Interim Government Saad Hariri. Lebanon is not a democracy based on a balance of power between the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, but a confessional system based on 17 religious communities. The extreme complexity of this system ensures the sustainability of warlords and foreign influence. Thus Michel Aoun was the main Christian leader during the civil war, Nabih Berri that of Amal, and Saad Hariri succeeded his father Rafik Hariri who ruled Lebanon exlusively in the name of Saudi Arabia and France after the civil war.
The Central Bank of Lebanon has again authorized private banks to freely deliver Lebanese pounds, but still no dollars.
This exchange control is illegal in law because it has not been validated by Parliament. Several large companies have already filed an application for interim relief before the courts. The wheat, oil and medicine import sectors are out of business, all the others are in recession.
Public debt stands at 154% of GDP. The Lebanese pound was depreciated by half its value in three months, taking the Syrian pound, already mistreated during the war by the Saudi and Qatari counterfeit currency, into its fall.
Causes of the crisis
This financial crisis led Parliament to adopt a new tax that triggered the demonstrations that have paralysed the country since October 17, 2019. In all likelihood, it originated in a massive scam set up by the country’s political leaders through the Central Bank.
A historical reminder is necessary here:
In fact, Lebanon has never been an independent state since its creation during the Second World War (1943). France set up a confessional system there that allowed it to preserve its influence after decolonization by depriving the Lebanese of any national political life. The attempt by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to settle the Israeli question by making Lebanon the homeland of Palestinian Arabs provoked a civil war (1975-1989) and ended in failure. The Saudi Peace, imposed by the Taif Agreement (1989), restored the confessional system and extended community quotas to all public service jobs. The Syrian military presence (1989-2005), validated by the international community, made it possible to rebuild the country, but did not solve any problems.
Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (1992-98 and 2000-04) looted Lebanon by plundering 55,000 families, then confusing the Treasury with his personal fortune. He had raked in $16 billion at the end of his life. Under the Taif Agreement, Rafiq Hariri, as a representative of the Saudi Royal Family, was protected by the Syrian peace force present in the country to end the civil war. During his assassination, it was discovered that he had corrupted the two Syrian officials responsible for overseeing peacekeeping: the head of the intelligence services, Ghazi Kanaan, and Vice-President Abdel Halim Khaddam. The first committed suicide and the second fled to France where he made an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood and prepared for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2005, the Syrian peacekeeping force abruptly withdrew at the request of the Lebanese population, which saw it as a symbol of its own crimes during the civil war and held it – wrongly – responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. From 2006 to 2014, i.e. during the power vacuum and then the presidency of Michel Sleimane – protected mainly from Qatar and secondarily from France – the Lebanese political leaders did not establish any accounting documents. Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were the only two states in the world without an official budget. It is now materially impossible to determine what taxes have been levied, what international aid Lebanon has received, or what it has spent. During this period, Central Bank Director Riad Salamé set up a Ponzi scheme comparable to that of Bernard Madoff, but for the personal benefit of political leaders. Dollar deposits earned twice as much interest as in other countries.
But the interest on these deposits was paid with the money of the new depositors. With the agreement of the United States, private banks agreed to launder the dirty money of South American drug cartels, while a US bank bought a third of the capital of the main Lebanese banks. When a major depositor withdrew his money, the system faltered. Political leaders had time to transfer their loot abroad before it collapsed. Thus, last October, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora broke all records by secreting away between 6 and 8 billion ill-acquired dollars.
In response to the disaster, the Acting President of the Government, Saad Hariri (the legal son of the former), requested an advance payment of $1 billion from the European Union. He then wrote to China, Egypt, France, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States to ask them to guarantee unpaid amounts for the import of basic necessities, which must be repaid as soon as exchange controls are lifted. In response, the main states involved in the economic rescue of Lebanon met on December 11 in Paris. In the morning, they discussed behind closed doors their political interest in saving Lebanon or letting it sink, then in the afternoon, they received a Lebanese delegation. They made the appointment of a new pro-Western government and the establishment of effective control over the use of any money a condition for any assistance.
Indignant at the idea of new foreign supervision over the country, Lebanese petitions have been sent to foreign donors to dissuade them from paying money to the Central Bank until the origin of the crisis has been established.
Sunni government President Saad Hariri then addressed the IMF and the World Bank, but they immediately questioned the authenticity of the Central Bank’s balance sheet and the probity of its director, Riad Salamé, hitherto considered an exemplary banker.
This historical reminder highlights Hezbollah’s lack of responsibility for the crisis, despite the fact that the Western press claims the opposite. Similarly, it is important to note that while Hezbollah accepts the zakat (Muslim donation) of drug traffickers in the Bekaa Valley and the Shia diaspora in Latin America, it has always opposed drug cultivation. When it came to government, it proposed and implemented social assistance programs so that farmers could evolve and change their crops. Finally, it should also be stressed that most of the Lebanese dirty money does not come from local drugs, but from the laundering of the income of South American cartels; money laundering instituted by the United States and benefiting Lebanese bankers, mainly Christians and Sunnis.
Identically, this reminder highlights the apparent stability of the country since the election of the Christian President of the Republic, Michel Aoun. Lebanon had never been able to simultaneously fill the functions of Christian President of the Republic, Sunni President of the Government, the Unicameral Assembly and the Constitutional Council from 2005 to 2016.
Impact of the crisis
Exchange controls, which aim to stop capital flight, have caused the economy to collapse. At least 10% of the country’s companies have gone bankrupt in the last 3 months. Most of the others have reduced their working hours in order to proportionally reduce the wages paid without having to lay off their employees. The first companies affected are charitable foundations, so the entire sector of aid to the poor is devastated. Foreign workers – especially Asian domestic workers – who are paid in Lebanese pounds, have lost half of what they used to transfer monthly in dollars to their families. Thousands have already left the country.
Everyone will have noticed that the demonstrations that have been taking place since October 17 are very coordinated. The agitators are permanently connected by telephone to a mysterious HQ. The slogans are exactly the same throughout the country and in all communities, which gives the demonstrators an illusory sense of the end of the confessional system. The designation of the Christian President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, as the main target of the Free Patriotic Movement (CPL) suggests that the movement is organised against him.
The United States’ position is ambiguous. On the one hand, the USAID administration blocked a $115 million grant to the Lebanese army to purchase equipment, while on the other hand, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released the grant. Former US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, testified before Congress stating what he had written. That is, according to him, every “American” must fight the Iran-Herbollah-CPL-White House alliance.
The proposal to appoint businessman Samir Khatib as Sunni president of the government was rejected by the Grand Mufti. Indeed, in Lebanon, the Christian President of the Republic is appointed by the Maronite Patriarch, the Sunni President of the Government by the Mufti and the Shiite President of the Parliament by the mullahs, and then they are confirmed by the Single Chamber. It is the only country in the world with such a confusion of religious and political powers. For their part, the Kateb (Maronite phalangists) proposed diplomat and magistrate Nawaf Salam to make a good face. In any case, the mufti is in favour of a renewal of Saad Hariri, but this time at the head of a government of technocrats who, in any case, will be chosen by the three presidents.
Accused of prevarication, the Free Patriotic Movement (CPL) of the Christian President of the Republic Michel Aoun has already indicated that it would not participate in the next government. He does not intend to be held responsible for future problems under the pretext of covering the embezzlement of funds for which it is accused and which it denies.
The clashes, which took place on December 14 in Beirut, illustrate the emptiness of the unrest. In the early afternoon, young Shia members of Hezbollah and Amal attacked groups linked to George Soros who had set up tents in the city centre. In the evening, other young people, from the groups that had been attacked shortly before, tried to invade Parliament and proclaim it “the colourful revolution” as they did in Serbia, Georgia and many other countries. For the Lebanese, haunted by the memory of the civil war, the hundred or so wounded – including the forces of order – cause unbearable anguish. The fact that the press speaks of the wounded Lebanese, but says nothing about the stateless Palestinian or Syrian national deaths speaks volumes about the country’s violence.
We are therefore heading once again towards a wobbly system because the major powers have been playing with Lebanon for 76 years and the Lebanese have been submitting to it.
How to get out of the crisis?
Contrary to the demands of the demonstrators, there is no proper Lebanese politician. And there can’t be any in a system like this. At best, they stole money to serve their community, at worst to enrich themselves personally. Lebanon is one of the few countries in the world where billionaires suddenly appear without anyone knowing where their wealth comes from. Therefore, it is not necessary to drive them all out, but to rely on the former by encouraging them to serve the Nation rather than their only community and to imprison the latter.
Lebanon’s misfortunes are directly attributable to the Lebanese themselves, who for 76 years have accepted an abstruse constitutional system and fought for their community rather than for their country. They have still not resolved the trauma of the civil war and continue to see their religious warlords as the only bulwarks against possible aggression from other communities.
These misfortunes will only end with a change of constitution and the adoption of a truly democratic system; this implies the recognition of the most legitimate personality to lead the country to its destiny. It doesn’t matter what his confession is. And in this case, it is clearly Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah after the victory of his network of Resistance against the Israeli invader who is indisputably the legitimate personality. It will remain for the Lebanese to hope that he will not use their trust to betray them for the benefit of the Iranians.
For the moment, it is impossible to change the Constitution. The parliamentarians who would be massively swept away are too attached to their seats and will not do so. A referendum will not do this either because corruption is everywhere, including among voters: 45% of them admit to having been solicited to sell their vote. In Lebanon, political parties are denominational. They do not have a national ambition, but they defend their community and distribute prebends to it. It is therefore necessary to proceed gradually by creating a strong administration, and therefore by decapitating the main corrupt agents within a short period of time; this is what the Sunni president of the government, Saad Hariri, had proposed and which was refused him by the demonstrators. Then it will be necessary to attack warlords from the civil war who must prove their usefulness today or leave public life.
Damascus – The year 2019 can be described as one of unimaginable transformations in Syria.
The last twelve months have been characterized by several major events in that country, including the collapse of Daesh as an integrated terrorist body. In the months that followed, US President Donald Trump backtracked on his promised withdrawal from Syria and deployed American troops to occupy Syrian oil wells. Meanwhile, Turkey expanded its invasion of northern Syria before the Syrian army deployed in the northeast of the country for the first time in seven years following an agreement with al-Qasd militias. The Syrian army was busy in other areas, recording significant advances in Hama’s northern countryside as well as southern Idlib where it regained several important towns and villages.
Away from the battlefield, the country also saw significant developments on the political front with the launch of the long-awaited Constitutional Committee. The committee is designed to put the country on the path towards a political settlement.
Daesh collapses but remains a pretext for occupation
The beginning of the year 2019 witnessed the fall of the last stronghold of the terrorist organization Daesh. The stronghold in the town of Al-Baghouz in Deir Ezzor’s countryside was overrun by Kurdish forces with the support of American warplanes. Prior to the Al-Baghouz news event, the Syrian army that spearheaded the fight against the Takfiri organization for years pushed Daesh out of large areas in the Syrian Badia.
As the year drew to a close, Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was assassinated in Idlib following a US operation. The assassination was shrouded in mystery as the US monopolized the narrative surrounding the killing. Meanwhile, the supposed threat of Daesh returning continues to be used by the Americans as a pretext to remain in Syria even though Trump announced on several occasions that he wanted to withdraw US troops.
The army makes advances in Idlib and Hama
In mid 2019, the Syrian army launched a massive military campaign against armed terrorist organizations in the northern countryside of Hama and southern Idlib. As the terrorist groups collapsed, the army was able to recapture the city of Kafr Nabudah in the Hama countryside, surrounding the Turkish observation post in Murak. The army’s advances in Idlib province culminated with the recapture of the town of Khan Shaykhun – a terrorist stronghold. Terrorists were plagued by infighting that saw the Nusra Front [Jabhat al-Nusra] eliminate the Army of Glory faction [Jaysh al-Izza] and Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement.
A new Turkish invasion as the Syrian army returns to the borders and “Israel” runs wild
The collapse of the terrorist groups in Idlib clarified a failed investment for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It prompted him to compensate by announcing another incursion into Syrian territory under the pretext of removing what he called the Kurdish terrorist threat. He had an agreement with the Americans as they announced their withdrawal from Syria, abandoning their assets including al-Qasd militias. However, the US backtracked from its announcement to withdraw due to its ambitions to seize Syrian oil, so it deployed its forces around the wells.
Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin signed an understanding in Sochi where the Russians mapped their role as a policeman for the region to curb the Turkish incursion into Syria and to assure that it implements the Adna agreement signed in 1998 and stresses on respecting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Immediately, the Syrian army moved to the Turkish-Syrian border, entering for the first time in seven years following an agreement with Syrian Kurds that have been abandoned by the US and threatened by Turkey.
Meanwhile, the Zionist enemy continued its policy aimed at raising the morale of its terrorist agents, so it carried out several raids on Syrian territory. However, the Syrian air defenses were able to thwart these attacks by intercepting a large number of “Israeli” missiles.
The Constitutional Committee sees the light of day
Moscow’s strategic patience in its relationship with Ankara bore fruit after the latter was left with few options. Hence, it reluctantly proceeded to implement part of its commitments, both in Sochi with the Russians and in Astana. The move showed Ankara as more of a guarantor and prevented it from investing in terrorist groups after the Syrian army tightened its noose around the militants.
Thus, the work of the Constitutional Committee between the national delegation supported by the Syrian government and delegations of civil society and the opposition began. But the latter adopted suggestions that were based on the Turkish and American desires that the national delegation strongly rejected.
The fourteenth and final round of the Astana agreement renewed the recognition of the legitimate right of Damascus to combat terrorism. But what is new was Russia formally firing at the autonomous administration project after confirming that the country would be centrally managed from Damascus.
Despite allowing the Syrian army to deploy in their areas, the separatists appeared to be under the mercy of President Trump’s mood swings and a limited US military presence to exploit Syrian oil wells.
Difficult economic circumstances did not prevent an increase in wages
Syrians experienced further economic hardship in 2019. This was made more difficult by Washington’s Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act that it slapped on Syrian companies dealing with the government. Nevertheless, at the end of the year, Syria saw a balanced increase in salaries and wages, the largest in its history. Damascus was more open to neighboring countries and its allies in terms of addressing the economic situation. Tehran was at the forefront of those activating joint agreements between the two countries. Despite US sanctions, Iran provided support for Damascus in all fields including reconstruction and housing, supplying oil, setting up joint projects and infrastructure.
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Hamas Palestinian resistance group in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday that its security forces arrested a cell of Palestinian Authority intelligence officials, who collected information on Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata before he was assassinated by the Zionist entity in a targeted killing earlier last month.
Fatah, the party that dominates the PA, quickly pushed back on the accusation, claiming it was false.
Abu al-Ata and his wife were martyred on November 12, in an Israeli strike on his home in northern Gaza. Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza subsequently fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, which responded with retaliatory strikes.
After Abu al-Ata’s martyrdom, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as a “ticking time bomb” and “the main instigator of terrorism” from the coastal enclave, responsible for many rocket attacks on the occupied territories and planning more.
The Hamas Interior Ministry said in a statement Sunday that the cell of PA intelligence officers monitored the movements of Abu al-Ata for several months before he was killed.
It specifically said that the cell was ordered to follow the Islamic Jihad commander by Shaaban Abdullah al-Gharbawi, who it said is a PA General Intelligence Services officer responsible for Gaza.
A video released by the ministry said that there were six PA intelligence officers under Gharbawi’s command. It also stated that Gharbawi resides in Ramallah, suggesting that he was not in its custody.
The footage included a recording of what the ministry said was a phone call about Abu al-Ata between Gharbawi and a Shin Bet security service agent named “Berri.”
The video also purported to show footage of the airstrike that killed Abu al-Ata.
In its statement, the ministry announced that the security forces confiscated “technical materials” that confirm Gharbawi gave Shin Bet officers information about “the resistance’s abilities, plans and the movements of its members and leaders.”
Fatah rejected ministry’s allegations as “baseless lies aimed at covering up the secret understandings between Hamas and Israel.”
“This is a theater performance that has been woven together by Hamas’s delusions,” Fatah said in a statement.
أصدرت حركة الجهاد الإسلامي، تصريحا صحقيا، حول ما نشرته وزارة للداخلية بغزة، بخصوص اغتيال الشهيد بهاء أبو العطا.
وقال الجهاد الإسلامي: “تابعنا باهتمام بالغ نتائج التحقيقات المتعلقة بجريمة اغتيال الأخ المجاهد بهاء أبو العطا “أبو سليم” قائد المنطقة الشمالية في سرايا القدس، و إننا نؤكد أن العدو الصهيوني هو من نفذ جريمة اغتيال القائد أبو سليم”.
وأضافت الحركة: “من خلال قنوات التنسيق والتعاون مع الأجهزة الأمنية تواصل فحص كافة المعلومات ونتائج التحقيق بخصوص كل من تعاون مع العدو في ملاحقة المقاومة واغتيال القائد ابو سليم. وفي السياق نشيد بدور الاجهزة الأمنية في حماية ظهر المقاومة”.
وذكرت الجهاد أنها تجدد إدانتها الشديدة لكل أشكال التنسيق الأمني الذي طالما كان خنجرا في ظهر المقاومة الباسلة وتهديدا لشعبنا الثائر.
U.S., UK, and French ‘news’-media hide the fact, but it is now incontestably a fact, that they committed an international war-crime on 14 April 2018. The OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) does everything they can to hide this fact. Therefore, starting with the latest, and then proceeding in chronological order, with the earliest and then the subsequent ones that had been issued prior to that latest one, here are the real and verified news-reports which have been published (none in the mainstream press), proving both this international war-crime, and the OPCW’s hiding of it:
The leadership of the chemical weapons watchdog [OPCW] took efforts to remove the paper trail of a dissenting report from Douma, Syria which pointed to a possible false flag operation there, leaked documents indicate.
In an internal email published by the transparency website WikiLeaks on Friday [see it here], a senior official [Chief of Cabinet] from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ordered that the document be removed from the organization’s Documents Registry Archive and to “remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever.”
WikiLeaks@wikileaks
Email from the Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, demanding deletion of dissenting engineering assessment: “Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]… And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA”https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/#OPCW-DOUMA%20-%20Release%20Part%204 …
9:30 AM – Dec 27, 2019
The document in question [here ordered deleted] is a technical assessment written by [the chief] inspector Ian Henderson after a fact-finding mission [by Henderson] to Douma, a suburb of Damascus, in the wake of an alleged chlorine gas attack. Western politicians and media said at the time that the government forces had dropped two gas cylinders [on Douma] as part of an offensive against jihadist forces, killing scores of civilians.
The OPCW inspector [Henderson] said evidence on the ground contradicted the airdropping scenario [which had falsely implicated Syria’s Government as having dropped both from a plane] and that the cylinders could [and this was actually the only alternative scenario proposed] have been placed [there] by hand. Considering that the area was under the control of anti-government forces, the memo lands [RT meant “lends”] credence to the theory that the jihadists had staged the scene [in order] to prompt Western nations to attack their [the jihadists’] opponents [Syria’s Government forces, which the U.S., UK, and France, missile-attacked on 14 April 2018, in alleged retaliation for the alleged Syrian Government gas-attack].
The final report of the watchdog [the OPCW] all but confirmed that Damascus was behind the incident, but in the past months an increasing amount of leaked documents and whistleblower testimonies have emerged, pointing to [the alleged chemical-weapon event’s having been] a possible fabrication. The OPCW leadership stands accused [now is actually proven in this leaked document from the OPCW’s Chief of Cabinet] of withholding opinions [by the OPCW’s on-the-ground expert investigators] contravening the West-favored [actually its only] narrative and using misleading language to report what the inspectors [had] found on the ground.
“A new cache of internal documents [from Wikileaks] reveal that members of the OPCW team tasked with probing the Douma “chemical attack” protested the organization’s final report on the incident, which they said misrepresented their conclusions. In a memo addressed to OPCW Director General Fernando Arias, one scientist who participated in the OPCW’s fact finding mission (FFM) wrote that there are “about 20 inspectors who have expressed concern” over how the OPCW presented its findings on the alleged Syrian chemical attack. According to the memorandum, the organization’s final report does not reflect the FFM’s findings, presented in their interim report, which is also part of the new document dump.”
The alleged [here RT.com is insinuating that Wikileaks could be releasing here a faked] email was written by Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW. Its authenticity is yet to be confirmed, but the organization never said any of the previously leaked documents were not real. [RT.com is here alleging that Wikileaks’s publication of a document does not, in itself, constitute an official allegation by Wikileaks that the document is, in Wikileaks’s opinion, authentic — a bizarre and undocumented allegation by RT.com, asserting that Wikilweaks is untrustworthy. If RT considers Wikileaks untrustworthy, then isn’t RT obliged to provide some evidence of that?]
Another document published on Friday outlines a meeting with several toxicology experts and their opinions on whether symptoms shown and reported in alleged victims of the attack were consistent with a chlorine gas poisoning. “The experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure,” the document said, adding that the chief expert suggested that the event could have been “a propaganda exercise.” [The OPCW’s official published conclusion was that this event definitely wasn’t a sarin-gas attack but might possibly have been a chlorine gas attack. But now, Wikileaks has revealed that the OPCW’s technical experts, who had actually performed the investigation, said that it also wasn’t a chlorine gas attack, if there was, indeed, even any chemical-weapons attack there at all.]
The Douma incident in April 2018 spurred Western governments into action, with the US, the UK and France delivering a barrage of [105] missiles at what was dubbed chemical weapons sites in Syria days after [on April 14th]. This didn’t prevent the government from seizing control over the neighborhood, but put the reputations of the three governments [U.S., UK, and France] at stake. The OPCW report [now discredited by the OPCW’s own technical experts] gave credence to [i.e., alleged to have been possibly a reaction to an actual war-crime by Syria’s Government] the Western show of force. [In other words: RT here is trying to assert that the “credence to” those three Governments’ 14 April 2018 missile-attacks against Syria is in doubt — instead of having been disproven — because the OPCW’s management had trashed and rewritten their technical investigators’ reports about the on-site findings, which were that there was no evidence whatsoever that any gas-attack at all had occurred in Douma on 7 April 2018, and that if one had been done, then it hadn’t been done by Syria’s Government (i.e., by air-drop).]
“Tareq Haddad announced his resignation from Newsweek last week, claiming that his editors had shot down his attempt to report on a leaked email which casts doubt on the OPCW’s findings regarding an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, in April 2018. … ‘The US government, in an ugly alliance with those [that] profit the most from war, has its tentacles in every part of the media — imposters, with ties to the US State Department, sit in newsrooms all over the world. … Inconvenient stories are completely blocked. As a result, journalism is quickly dying. America is regressing because it lacks the truth.’”
UPDATE: On 4 June 2019, WashingtonsBlog headlined at Zero Hedge “Eminent American Scientist: Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Was STAGED” and Dr. Postol presented there a detailed analysis of who and how and why at the OPCW the report from their engineering team had been hidden from the public (prior to that team’s report having become leaked to the public on 13 May 2019 — and yet still suppressed by the press, just as Dr. Postol’s June 3rd report likely also will be).
////
On May 13th, Tim Hayward of the Working Group on Syria made public on his website an utterly damning document that had been suspiciously excluded from the final investigative report by the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) regarding the U.S.-and-allied allegation that on 7 April 2018 the Syrian Government had sarin-attacked residents in its town of Douma and had killed a large number of non-combatants. Seven days after that alleged incident, the U.S. and two of its allies, UK and France, massively missile-invaded Syria on April 14th, in alleged international ‘response’ to that alleged national war-crime on the part of Syria’s Government. It now turns out that that alleged national war-crime was totally staged by America’s own proxy-soldiers, Islamic terrorists who were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government, and so the attack against Syria on 14 April 2018 by U.S., UK and France, constitutes an international war-crime, an unequivocal violation of the U.N.’s Charter.
This excluded finding by the OPCW is proof that “the US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT”. That’s the way an independent detailed study by the two top U.S. experts had concluded their study of the U.N.’s evidence concerning the U.S.-and-allied allegations that there had been a 21 August 2013 sarin-attack by the Syrian Government against its town of East Ghouta. Their finding then was virtually identical regarding that U.S.-alleged sarin-use by Syria’s Government — identical to this recent OPCW finding. And that finding regarding the earlier ‘incident’ likewise was suppressed, instead of reported by the ‘news’-media. The two investigators in that earlier report, which was issued on 14 January 2014, were MIT’s Ted Postol and Richard Lloyd.
The clearest summary-report about the newer suppressed finding was “signed by Ian Henderson (an investigative team leader for the OPCW” and is best summarized by Kit Knightly’s May 14th “Leaked Report: Douma ‘Chemical Attack’ Likely Staged” at Off-Guardian.org (a terrific website of investigative journalism that exposes lies by mainstream ‘news’-media, such as Britain’s Guardian). As Knightly especially pointed out, that OPCW investigative team’s report to OPCW had concluded:
“In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being dropped.”
As we shall later show, that statement at the end of the OPCW team’s report, was a huge understatement: they had, in fact, proven that “both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations [by the anti-Government side, as a set-up to stage the event and blame it on the Government] rather than being dropped [by a plane, from the Government, as the U.S. alleged].”
So: that’s virtually a clone of the earlier Postol-Lloyd finding regarding the 13 August 2013 incident, except that, whereas the earlier incident was real and had been carried out by America’s Syrian proxy-forces (fanatic Islamists), this more recent ‘incident’ was (as now is clear not only from the latest revelation) entirely staged by the U.S.-and-allied side. It had not existed at all.
Obviously, if that finding is confirmed by an international tribunal not for internal war-crimes but for international war-crimes, then Donald Trump, Theresa May, and Emmanuel Macron, could be sentenced to prison, or worse, but is there any tribunal anywhere that could handle such cases? Almost certainly not. Leaders, such as those, stand above any law. And isn’t that the real problem here?
On 17 May 2019, Russia’s Tass news agency headlined “Militants preparing provocation with chemical weapons in Syria” and reported that, “Militants from Jebhat al-Nusra terrorist group (banned in Russia) are preparing a provocation to accuse Russian servicemen of using chemical weapons in Syria, the Russian Center for reconciliation of the conflicting sides said on Friday [May 17th].” Jabhat al-Nusra is Syria’s branch of Al Qaeda, and U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to overthrow the Syrian Government depended very heavily upon that organization to train the non-Kurdish proxy-forces that the U.S. regime and its press called ‘rebels’ instead of jihadists (which they actually were). The U.S. armed and protected al-Nusra.
Russia’s Center for Reconciliation in Syria says it’s been warned that Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorists brought in chlorine containers to a local village, where they aimed to work with the White Helmets to stage “a provocation.” … According to the source, on the afternoon of February 12, rebels from the Jabhat Al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) terrorist organization brought three cars packed with more than 20 cylinders of chlorine along with personal protective equipment to Serakab. Additionally, according to the caller, representatives of the local branch of the White Helmets, wearing individual means of protection, conducted rehearsals of “giving first aid” to “local residents” who were supposedly suffering from poisoning.”
That appears to have been an accurate description of what the OPCW investigators found in Douma after the faked 7 April 2018 incident there. However U.S.-allied press didn’t report anything of the kind, neither before nor after that faked incident. The reality was suppressed instead of reported there. The latest suppressed finding by the OPCW is a repeat of that pattern.
Further indication of how clear the evidence actually is that the 7 April 2018 Douma incident was staged has been presented by the excruciatingly detailed May 12th document from the team of Paul McKeigue, David Miller, and Piers Robinson, headlined “Assessment by the engineering sub-team of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission investigating the alleged chemical attack in Douma in April 2018”. It explains “that the cylinders were manually placed in position is ‘the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene’,” BECAUSE (and this is quoting now directly from paragraph 32 of the OPCW Engineer’s suppressed report of his team’s findings) “The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders, and the surrounding scene of the incidents, were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder being delivered from an aircraft. In each case the alternative hypothesis produced the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene.”
The full paragraph 32 opened by saying that “At this stage the FFM engineering sub-team cannot be certain that the cylinders at either location arrived there as a result of being dropped from an aircraft.” But when it went on to say “In each case the alternative hypothesis produced the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene,” that “alternative hypothesis” referred to the alternative to the cylinder’s “being dropped from a plane.” That “alternative hypothesis” refers to people on the ground having placed it there. That “alternative hypothesis” referred to the event’s having been staged by people on the ground. That “alternative hypothesis” referred to the U.S. side’s proxy-forces — America’s ‘Syrian rebels’) having staged this event and filmed its alleged aftermath so that the U.S.-UK-led White Helmets could then feed it to the U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media so as to enrage their publics against Syria’s Government enough for those publics to think that the subsequent U.S.-and-allied bombing of Syria, On 14 April 2018, was a ‘humanitarian’ action.
The OPCW’s Engineering team stated there, very clearly, that the U.S.-and-allied allegations that those cylinders had been dropped from a plane or planes “CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT,” as Postol and Lloyd had previously said about the U.S.-and-allied alleged Syrian Government 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack against East Ghouta. This is a tactful way of saying that the U.S. and its allied regimes had lied about it.
Britain’s Daily Mail headlined on May 16th “Strange News from the OPCW”, and Peter Hitchens, at his blog there, reported that “I have received the following reply from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.” It said that, “the OPCW Technical Secretariat is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question.” This had been an “unauthorized release”; no question was being raised as to the document’s authenticity.
Who will get the rope to hang Trump, May, and Macron? Of course, nobody. This is the type of world we are living in. Accountability and punishment are only downward, to the individuals below (and many of them are railroaded); credit and rewards are only upward, to the masters above; and so there is no ultimate downside for the people at the very top to perpetrate any crime. There really is no legal jeopardy for people in the positions of Trump, May, and Macron. Such people administer whatever laws actually apply to themselves. There is no accountability for such people, in our world. They are above the reach of any law. And their press say that they are a free press, and that their nation is a democracy. Has the term “democracy” now lost all significant meaning? Or is everything that’s important now, just propaganda, just lies? Is that what we should expect? How can democracy even function under such conditions? It obviously can’t.
It is now clear that on 14 April 2018, the three Governments of U.S., UK, and France, fired over a hundred missiles against Syria, on no more ‘justification’ than staged videos that had been done by those regimes’ own proxy boots-on-the-ground fighters in Syria, who are trying to overthrow Syria’s existing, non-sectarian Government and replace it by a Sharia-law regime that would be selected by agents of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family. In other words: the fighters whom the U.S., UK, and France, had been arming and training, had themselves created this pretext of a faked ‘gas attack’ having been perpetrated against civilians, as an excuse in order for those three national regimes (which Governments are those jihadists’ own foreign supporters and backers — the real international “Deep State” imposing the empire of which they themselves are already a part as the empire’s proxy boots-on-the-ground army) to, additionally and now directly, invade Syria, by means of over a hundred missiles against Syria, on that date: 14 April 2018. The U.S.-and-allied Deep State worked in conjunction with these jihadists in order to wage their war against Syria. This international war-crime, of “aggression” against a sovereign state — or, in common parlance, unprovoked aggression, for conquest — is now clear, and will be fully documented in the following news-report, providing the evidence for prosecution of those three Governments, in an appropriate forum:
On 27 October 2019, Caitlin Johnstone posted to Twitter a 2:18-long audio clip from the BBC World Service in which Jonathan Steele, who specializes in reporting on the Midddle East, reported that now a second whistleblower from within the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) (the U.N.-authorized agency to investigate possible chemical-weapons attacks) is alleging that the OPCW’s final report, regarding the alleged 7 April 2018 chemical attack against Douma Syria, had lied in some significant ways in order to avoid concluding that the ‘attack’ (which had been the excuse for the 14 April 2018 invasion) had been staged and never actually occurred. Johnstone then posted to the American Herald Tribune and other non-mainstream online news-media, an article “The USA’s History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change”, saying:
When the Courage Foundation and WikiLeaks published the findings of an interdisciplinary panel which received an extensive presentation from a whistleblower from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation of an alleged 2018 chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, it was left unclear (perhaps intentionally) whether this was the same whistleblower who leaked a dissenting Engineering Assessment to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media this past May or a different one. Subsequent comments from British journalist Jonathan Steele assert that there are indeed two separate whistleblowers from within the OPCW’s Douma investigation, both of whom claim that their investigative findings differed widely from the final OPCW Douma report and were suppressed from the public by the organization.
The official final report aligned with the mainstream narrative promulgated by America’s political/media class that the Syrian government killed dozens of civilians in Douma using cylinders of chlorine gas dropped from the air, while the two whistleblowers found that this is unlikely to have been the case. The official report did not explicitly assign blame to Assad, but it said its findings were in alignment with a chlorine gas attack and included a ballistics report which strongly implied an air strike (opposition fighters in Syria have no air force). The whistleblowers dispute both of these conclusions.
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CONCLUDING NOTE: If this sort of thing doesn’t make clear why the U.S. and UK regimes have, for over a decade, imprisoned Julian Assange without trial, and are now slowly murdering him, in solitary confinement, then what ever possibly could make these dictatorships clear?
Voltaire, actualité internationale, n°109
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