Finian Cunningham

The US has accused Russia of “swimming against the tide” in persisting with its claims that foreign-backed militants in Syria committed the chemical weapons attacks, not the Syrian armed forces, as the Western governments have asserted.

In a sense, the US is correct. Russia is indeed swimming against a tide - a powerful tide of fabrication and propaganda promulgated by Washington, its Western allies and their dutiful news media.

But that tide is now subsiding, by the day, as more facts emerge about what really happened in Syria with regard to the use of chemical weapons. If Russia was swimming against a tide, the position of the US and its allies is now sinking from lies and criminality. As each day passes, it becomes clear that Western states tried to railroad a guilty verdict on the Syrian government and thereby trigger a desired military aggression.

The Western propaganda operation went into full speed on Monday following the release of the report by the United Nations chemical weapons team, led by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom. No sooner had that report been published than the US, British and French governments were crowing that it provided “conclusive proof” of their allegations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had committed the mass killings on 21 August near the capital, Damascus.

The UN team did not actually state who perpetrated the chemical gas attack, but its inferences allowed others to point the finger of accusation at the Syrian army. So too did the tone of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who called for sanctions against those who commit such crimes “against your own people”.

So, they all lined up in familiar choreography to denounce the Syrian government. The US, British and French said they were justified in calling for military strikes and that they intended incorporating such action in the recent chemical decommissioning deal worked out by Washington and Moscow. For a day or two, it seemed that the Western governments had gained the psychological upper hand.

But it is increasingly clear that the Western “certainty” over Syrian chemical weapons is an edifice built on sand. The initial Western claims were never supported by verifiable evidence, only “secret intelligence”. Now it turns out that the UN inspectors’ report upon which the Western governments have rested their case is fatally flawed.

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Montea Cristo

Following the Second World War and the decline of British colonial power, London’s foreign policy has always been influenced by US expansionist plans, raising objections even among politicians in the UK to such an indisputable adherence.

Britain’s policy on the Iraqi imposed war on Iran could be defined as being primarily affected by Washington's protectionist policies towards Iraq's executed dictator Saddam Hussein and European Union’s approach to regional issues in the Middle East.

Relations between the Islamic Republic and the UK were also influenced by a number of factors such as the anti-colonial nature of the Islamic Revolution, the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, the 1980 siege of Iran’s embassy in London, the frequent expulsion of diplomats from the both countries and finally the British support of Saddam during the imposed war.

Former British Prime Minister and Labour party leader James Callaghan recognized the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, but he immediately proceeded to remove two thousand of his country’s citizens from Iran.

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Wayne Madsen

The UN in Geneva has released its long-awaited report on the use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21.The UN concluded:

1. Sarin gas was used in the attack.
2. The attack used at least two surface-to-surface rockets
3. One of the warheads containing sarin held 56 liters of the deadly chemical.

The UN report did not assign blame for the attack nor was assigning blame in the charter of the team of forensic investigators. However, France and the United States immediately used the report to blame Syria for the attack.

Cited as evidence were the two rockets used: an M14 artillery rocket with Cyrillic markings and a 330-millimeter rocket of unknown origin.

The UN report stated that the evidence found in rebel-controlled territory outside of Damascus could have been manipulated by the rebels or forces allied with the rebels. The CIA and Mossad have a particularly long and jaded history of manipulating evidence in false flag attacks.

Some Syrian rebels, including those affiliated with Al Qaeda, have been known to have access to sarin gas in Iraq. The rebels also have access to mountains of weapons in Iraq once possessed by Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, most of which were of Soviet or Eastern European origin and from countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet, including Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

The United States is claiming that the Syrian rebels do not have the means to transport such weapons to Syria and, therefore, it is the Syrian government that is responsible merely by using the process of elimination. However, the Saudi intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate or Ri'asat Al-Istikhbarat Al-'Amah and its chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, nicknamed “Chemical Bandar,” does have the capability to pre-position the sarin rockets used in the attack on Ghouta. Saudi Arabia has been providing cash, weapons, training, diplomatic support, and jihadist mercenaries to the Syrian rebels to topple President Bashar al Assad and his government from power.

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