This is not a completely agreed upon narrative. Again .. . . it is a matte of, "fog of war," and folks wanting to use incidents to further agendas, rather than sticking to facts.
NYT Retreats on 2013 Syria-Sarin Claims
Exclusive: Even as The New York Times leads the charge against the Syrian government for this week’s alleged chemical attack, it is quietly retreating on its earlier certainty about the 2013 Syria-sarin case, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The New York Times, which has never heard a
consortiumnews.com
Intel Behind Trump’s Syria Attack Questioned
Exclusive: The mainstream media is so hostile to challenges to its groupthinks that famed journalist Seymour Hersh had to take his take-down of President Trump’s April 6 attack on Syria to Germany, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. By Ray McGovern Legendary investigative reporter Seymour H
consortiumnews.com
". . . Hersh draws on the kind of inside sources from whom he has earned longstanding trust to dispute that there ever was a “chemical weapons attack” and to assert that Trump was told that no evidence existed against the Syrian government but ordered “his generals” to “retaliate” anyway.
Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Marine General, now Defense Secretary James “Mad-Dog” Mattis ordered the attacks apparently knowing that the reason given was what one of Hersh’s sources called a “fairy tale.”
They then left it to Trump’s national security adviser Army General H. R. McMaster to further the deceit with the help of a compliant mainstream media, which broke from its current tradition of distrusting whatever Trump says in favor of its older tradition of favoring “regime change” in Syria and trusting pretty much whatever the “rebels” claim.
According to Hersh’s sources, the normal “deconfliction” process was followed before the April 4 strike. In such procedures, U.S. and Russian officers supply one another with advance details of airstrikes, such as target coordinates, to avoid accidental confrontations among the warplanes crisscrossing Syria.
Russia and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the flight path to and from Khan Sheikhoun in English, Hersh reported. The target was a two-story cinderblock building in which senior leaders – “high-value targets” – of the two jihadist groups controlling the town were about to hold a meeting. Because of the perceived importance of the mission, the Russians took the unusual step of giving the Syrian air force a GPS-guided bomb to do the job, but the explosives were conventional, not chemical, Hersh reported.
The meeting place was on the floor above the basement of the building, where a source whom Hersh described as “a senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community,” told Hersh: “The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons, and ammunition … and also chlorine-based decontaminates for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial.”
A Bomb Damage Assessment
Hersh describes what happened when the building was struck on the morning of April 4: “A Bomb Damage Assessment by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of fertilizers, disinfectants, and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.
“According to intelligence estimates, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92.”
Due to the fog of war, which is made denser by the fact that jihadists associated with Al Qaeda control the area, many of the details of the incident were unclear on that day and remain so still. No independent on-the-ground investigation has taken place. . . . "
Exclusive: Amid Official Washington’s desire to censor non-official news on the Internet, it’s worth remembering how the lack of mainstream skepticism almost led the U.S. into a war on Syria, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. By Ray McGovern A review of events leading to the very edge of f
consortiumnews.com
Now. . . again, as I pointed out in the OP, I'm not really questing that it is, quite possible that the Russians used some sort of tear gas or smoke or obfuscation and disabling agent in the steel plant and city fighting assault . . . that is what is contended here. It is the nature of the chemicals that were used, and whether it is being used, in a black/white propaganda narrative.
Just as the US used depleted uranium to piece armor against heavy mobile units in Iraq. Some classify THAT is chemical warfare. . . I listed many other types that western allies use. If you had listened to that video Ringo posted, (if you don't have him on ignore,) it brought up a very good point, about how often tear gas was deployed against BLM rioters.
Do we really want to get more involved in this conflict over crowd control chemicals, and chemicals that disabled troops, so that a battle can be won, with as few causalities as possible, when the chemicals used are quite tame, and cause no permanent or lasting harm?
www.thelastamericanvagabond.com
www.newsweek.com
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