Pathfinders: Capitalism’s Bond Villains

[Bijou Drains]

Dave B wrote:

i “We know where your kids are”   There was an interesting interview with former director general of the OPCW. The Americans got rid of him during the Iraq WMD story as they didn’t like his management style. He was told by John Bolton that if he didn’t resign within  24 hours. “We know where your kids are” 4 minutes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRONBTkNogY these are the people we are dealing with.

What I find remarkable about the film from Douma is that the medics hosing down the children and treating them with inhalers are wearing masks, but none of them are wearing gloves?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43697084The Syrians must also have some really smart technology as it appears the bombing only targeted children under the age of 12?

[Dave B]

to have our leash jerked?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j_Z1f84Ps8

[ALB]

Bijou Drains wrote:

What I find remarkable about the film from Douma is that the medics hosing down the children and treating them with inhalers are wearing masks, but none of them are wearing gloves?

According to a trainee medic who was present who the Russian authorities identified on the video and interviwed, those hosing down the people were not medics but people who barged in with others with video cameras at the ready:

Quote:

Konashenkov released statements by medics from Douma's hospital, who said a group of people toting video cameras entered the hospital, shouting that its patients were struck with chemical weapons, dousing them with water and causing panic. The medics, however, said none of the patients had any symptoms of chemical poisoning, according to the satements. (http://abc7ny.com/politics/russia-claims-syira-chemical-attack-was-stage…)

There is an interview with the trainee medic concerned somewhere on the internet but I couldn't track it down.

[alanjjohnstone]

This one perhapshttps://smmsyria.com/2018/04/14/confirmed-participants-of-alleged-douma-chemical-attack-tell-process-of-footage-production/However, i wouldn't be swayed by the lack of evidence presented here, either. 

[ALB]

I agree. That it merely shows those that the videos were staged. Those that staged it may well have believed that it was a gas attack. Nevertheless the fact that two medics, identified as being present on the video, describe what happened must count for something as first hand rather than hearsay evidence.

[ALB]

Here's an interview from someone else seen in the staged video:http://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/933485041?-12152:1529ia-chemical-attack-speaks-ordeal/

[Dave B]

i As to not wearing gloves and wearing face masks both are of absolutely no use if it was a chlorine gas attack. So it was either for theatrical effect or just ignorance. In the first world war at first the British used just fabric hoods soaked in a solution of [alkaline] sodium carbonate. The Germans were ahead of the game with masks using activated charcoal filters. Chlorine is OK or made less harmful in an alkaline medium. I suppose it was a choice of being water-boarded of chlorine gassed. I chlorine gassed myself once just to see what it was like. It is ‘bit’ like tear gas if you have ever experienced that. It O’ level chemistry stuff and you can get what you need from ASDA if you wanted to.  As much is made of it and I suppose this a free for all comments section with non chemists etc. It is not a poison as such like cyanide, arsenic of sarin for instance. It is in swimming pool water essential and is powerful and useful biocide for microbes etc. They use it widely in various forms in the food industry eg as sodium hypochlorite. You learn what you need to know and not gas yourself from a medium level food industry COSHH  training course. The Germans have kicked off on it recently about washing fruit and vegetable products with it. More about the potentially carcinogenic chlorinated products it may or may not produce when it reacts with the stuff in foods.  https://www.food.gov.uk/science/research/chemical-safety-research/fs102077 I sent some more samples off for ‘perchlorate’ analysis a few weeks ago. I am more interested to see if my Swiss/German analytical chemistry peers at Spiez Laboratory and the OPCW are going to ‘man’ up, or do a “vee vere only obeying orders”. If they haven’t already. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49220.htm

[ALB]

Dave B wrote:

As to not wearing gloves and wearing face masks both are of absolutely no use if it was a chlorine gas attack.So it was either for theatrical effect or just ignorance.

That sounds like a good point. It will probably have been both.  Lucky we've got somebody here with more than 0 Level Chemistry ! Incidentally, would cholrine cause people to foam at the mouth?

[Dave B]

no not for me anyway. my grandfather was chhorine gassed in france which was why i did ir.

[ALB]

Journalist Robert Fisk has actually been to the clinic where the video was filmed and talked to the head doctor there who offers the following explanation of what was filmed:https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/robert-fisk-reports-head-of-douma-clinic-denies-chemical-weapons-attack/

[alanjjohnstone]

As visitors to this forum know, i have openly admired the reporting of Robert Fisk many times and once again he brings his war correspondence experience to bear. So it is from knowledge of his integrity that i believe the credibility of his report.If we take the article as evidence, there was no staged video of the gas attack but also there was no gas attack.The event was the fog of war, not gas clouds. The cause of the panic was conventional bombing, producing horrific side-effects. ( I am minded how it must have resembled Dresden when the fire-bombing sucked out the oxygen and suffocated the inhabitants.)I am sure if Fisk, a journalist, concluded this, the smart brains in the intelligence/military departments of the West also understood this very quickly. So it does appear that the governments of the US, UK, France used a lie to justify an intervention, knowing delay and further investigation would reveal the real truth.Can we now try to determine the reason why "shock and awe-lite" was thought necessary at this very moment in time of Assad's imminent victory. What was to be gained by the Western Bloc demonstrating their air-power?

[alanjjohnstone]

I also commend Richard Layton's weekly poem on the topic chemical warfare for the SOYMB blog which will shortly appear first thing morning.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

Marwan Jaber, a medicine student at the hospital, told reporters on the media tour that none of the patients that night had suffered chemical weapons injuries, but that they were asphyxiated by dust and smoke in the bombardment. Medical aid groups and the White Helmets rescue organisation have said such statements – already aired on state television in recent days – were made under duress.

http://news.trust.org/item/20180416162536-sncnu/Again from past posts on this forum folk will know i question the impartiality of the White Helmets, who according to the Fisk report have already abandoned Ghouma and fled.

[ALB]

The extent to which the bombing states relied on those videos can be seen from this extract from the declassified French "intelligence" report

French government wrote:

The French services analysed the testimonies, photos and videos that spontaneously appeared on specialized websites, in the press and on social media in the hours and days following the attack.Testimonies obtained by the French services were also analysed. After examining the videos and images of victims published online, they were able to conclude with a high degree of confidence that the vast majority are recent and not fabricated. The spontaneous circulation of these images across all social networks confirms that they were not video montages or recycled images. Lastly, some of the entities that published this information are generally considered reliable.French experts analysed the symptoms identifiable in the images and videos that were made public. These images and videos were taken either in enclosed areas in a building where around 15 people died, or in local hospitals that received contaminated patients. These symptoms can be described as follows:- Suffocation, asphyxia or breathing difficulties, – Mentions of a strong chlorine odour and presence of green smoke in affected areas, – Hypersalivation and hypersecretions (particularly oral and nasal), – Cyanosis, – Skin burns and corneal burns. No deaths from mechanical injuries were visible. All of these symptoms are characteristic of a chemical weapons attack, particularly choking agents and organophosphorus agents or hydrocyanic acid. Furthermore, the apparent use of bronchodilators by the medical services observed in videos reinforces the hypothesis of intoxication by choking agents. (https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/full-text-french-declassified-intelligence-report-on-syria-gas-attack-1.5995544)

Note that they admit that some or part of the videos were "video montages or recycled image" as they say that only the vast majority were not. Note also that some of those "entities" said to be "generally considered to be reliable" are financed by the bombing states themselves.The evidence is that most of the video (which also had a huge effect on public opinion) was filmed recently at an identifiable place. It's the interpretation of what they actually show that is the issue. To say "chemical attack" on the basis of a video seems a bit cavalier, especially when there are other possibilities such as smoke or dust  inhalation as a result of a conventional bomb and without interviewing or medically examining people who were actually there.We will be see what the OPCW inspectors come up with, though a media campaign to discredit their findings has already begun.p.s Dave, what is "hydrocyanic acid"? Would hosing down be a way of getting rid of it?

[Young Master Smeet]

Mild health warning, as some other journalists have noted, Fisk was allowed in (presumably by the Syrian authorities, or the Russians) before the OPCWE, possibly to muddy the waters: and his presence is tolerated when more critical commentators are chucked out.The presence of thetunnels does suggest a good reasom why chemical could have been used: and we can also what would happen to civilians had Assad's mob gone in to dig the insurgents out (remember, children starved to death in Mosul).

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