About Putin's "false flag" claim.

[DanTex]

Is there any evidence at all to back this? I was under the impression that this was just a Paulite conspiracy theory.

I really don't have a problem with the NYT publishing a Putin editorial. Yes, he is a homophobic tyrant, but he is also a world leader. And he actually makes a number of good points.

But the false-flag accusation is a pretty big deal. It jumped out at me, and I would have thought that the NYT would have subjected this to some factchecking.

On edit: this is the paragraph I am talking about:

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

[cthulu2016]

1. It is utterly false, and credibility-destroying

[PDJane]

2. How do you fact check a conspiracy?

There are a number of reputable people who have become disreputable by the simple fact of believing that the 9/11 collapse (at free fall speed, which no pancake collapse has yet managed), involved demolitions. Doesn't mean that they aren't believable, just means that they don't fit the government narrative.

*shrug* It is what it is.

[leftstreet]

3. What did he say?

[geek tragedy]

5. That the rebels conducted that gas attack and that Israel is their next target.

I think Bill Kristol might have ghostwritten it.

[leftstreet]

8. Sounds like a prediction, not a 'false flag'

The US essentially said similar things:

Assad was responsible for the attack
US national interests were at risk


Did Putin claim the attack was staged?

[geek tragedy]

12. Here's the entire dishonest paragraph:

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

Note: every credible analysis has pointed the finger at the Syrian Army. Also, reports that militants are going to poison gas attack Israel? Hardy har har.

His op ed was an elegant way of saying "Terror terror terror!!!!"

[leftstreet]

15. There's still nothing that proves who did it

Regardless of the rhetoric (from both sides) I don't see any 'false flag' statements

[geek tragedy]

19. He's claiming it was a false flag operation by the rebel against their own supporters

in order to implicate the Assad regime.

I guess you missed HRW's report on this.

[leftstreet]

23. Okay n/t

[cthulu2016]

27. C'mon... He is stating it!

[ocpagu]

16. "every credible analysis has pointed the finger at the Syrian Army"

Really? When was that?

[geek tragedy]

25. Here's two:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/syria-chemical-weapons-not-assad-bild

The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.

Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.

But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57602150/human-rights-watch-says-evidence-strongly-suggests-assad-used-chemical-weapons/

"Two separate surface-to-surface rocket systems believed to be associated with the delivery of chemical agents were identified. The first type of rocket, found at the site of the Eastern Ghouta attacks, is a 330mm rocket that appears to have a warhead designed to be loaded with and deliver a large payload of liquid chemical agent. The second type, found in the Western Ghouta attack, is a Soviet-produced 140mm rocket that, according to reference guides, has the ability to be armed with one of three possible warheads, including one specifically designed to carry and deliver 2.2 kilograms of Sarin." - Human Rights Watch

[Barack_America]

11. If by "rebels" he means "Hezbollah", I believe him.

Though, of course, Hezbollah is in league with Syria and Russia.

I take his statement as a threat.

If there is a false flag, it's a false, false flag. Mighty interesting and convenient how quickly they found those tunnels where they say the rebels made the chemical weapons. And how quickly they found these so-called rebels to testify they made the weapons and the Saudis put them up to it.

[geek tragedy]

4. It's a blatant lie to provide cover for Assad nt

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Nope. No evidence at all.

He ruined his entire point when he made that baseless claim.

Of course the Putin swooners will say otherwise

[DanTex]

7. I agree.

He did make some good points, but saying something blatantly false like this pretty much shoots down the entire article. It's a very hefty accusation to just throw out like that.

[snappyturtle]

14. There have been scattered reports across the net that the

Saudis supplied the CW to the rebels as reported by the parents
of dead rebels killed by the CW not knowing what they were
dealing with. :

[DanTex]

18. Maybe it's premature for me to call this "blatantly false" then.

[maddezmom]

20. Have heard that mentioned on DU

Do you have any links?

[snappyturtle]

26. Oh boy! I will look...I've read soooo much lately you'll

have to give my old brain a moment to remember where
I read this....but I will ...eventually!

[snappyturtle]

30. Yep that's where I read it too....surprise, surprise!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014581935

In re-reading it...go to reply #19....there's a link in it
to the Jerusalem Post reporting Col.Wilkerson saying
that it could have been an Israeli false flag!

I don't have any idea whom to believe!

[maddezmom]

32. Except he was talking about the attack in March not the one in August

http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/former-bush-official-syria-chemical-weapons-could-be-israeli-false,5183c735da27f5d9d0b96813/3

As he couldn't have been talking about the event in May that hadn't happened yet.


http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/08/28/2539341/syria-chemical-weapons-saga/

[snappyturtle]

33. Thanks....guess that wasn't it then...I started here first.

Will look some more because I know that I was reading
about the August attack.

[maddezmom]

36. Here is another article about the March attack

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/05/201268/russia-releases-100-page-report.html#.UjITjsu9KSM

[snappyturtle]

42. Thanks for that and I found this...not really the 'one' yet

but it in its entirety compares different accounts of
the CW attack. The part i'm citing below is toward
the end of the article....

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/09/01/which-syrian-chemical-attack-account-is-more-credible/

Unlike the U.S. government, Mint does not have much of a track record, having been founded only about a year and a half ago (CJR, 3/28/12). The founder of the for-profit startup is Mnar Muhawesh, a 24-year-old Palestinian-American woman who believes, reasonably enough, that "our media has absolutely failed our country" (MinnPost, 1/18/12). One of its two reporters on its Syrian chemical weapons piece, Dale Gavlak, is a longtime Associated Press Mideast stringer who has also done work for NPR and the BBC. AP was one of the few US corporate media outlets to question official assertions about Iraqi WMDs, contrasting Powell's assertions with what could be discerned from on-the-ground reporting (Extra!, 3-4/06).

Mint takes a similar approach to the Syrian story, with a reporter in Ghouta–not Gavlak but Yahya Ababneh, a Jordanian freelancer and journalism grad student–who "spoke directly with the rebels, their family members, victims of the chemical weapons attacks and local residents." The article reports that "many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out" the chemical attack. The recipients of the chemical weapons are said to be Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-linked rebel faction that was caught possessing sarin nerve gas in Turkey, according to Turkish press reports (OE Watch, 7/13).

Mint quotes Abu Abdel-Moneim, described as the father of a rebel killed in the chemical weapons attacks, as saying that his son had described carrying unconventional weapons provided by Saudi Arabia to underground storage tunnels–a "tubelike structure" and a "huge gas bottle." A rebel leader identified as J describes the release of toxic weaponry as accidental, saying, "Some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions." Another rebel referred to as K complains, "When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them."

Of course, independent media accounts are not necessarily more credible than official reports–or vice versa. As with the government white paper, there are gaps in the Mint account; while Abdel-Moneim cites his late son's account of carrying chemical weapons, the rebels quoted do not indicate how they came to know what they say they know about the origin of the weapons. But unlike the government, Mint is honest about the limits of its knowledge: "Some information in this article could not be independently verified," the story admits. "Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates."

more...

[bunnies]

10. The other blatant lies didnt help much either.

"From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future."

[quinnox]

9. There is still no direct evidence linking the attack to Assad

If you do a google search, you will find several articles from mainstream sources saying this. All the evidence is circumstantial. Here is one that seems to lay it out pretty well -

----- With the possible exception of the intercepted phone calls, and the claim by Cameron on Thursday that regime soldiers had taken precautions typical of chemical weapons use, the vast majority of the evidence of Assad regime culpability presented by both Cameron, the Obama administration and their allies in France, Turkey and other nations, is circumstantial in nature.

It hinges largely on the argument, as Cameron put it Thursday, that there are simply "no plausible alternate scenarios."

Below is a look at some of the often-reiterated circumstantial evidence presented by the U.S. and U.K. governments, along with questions which remain unanswered pertaining to that evidence and which skeptics of the legal basis for a military intervention in both countries' legislatures will likely be seeking answers to in the coming days.

"No plausible alternate scenarios"

"There is no credible evidence that any opposition group has used CW (chemical weapons). A number continue to seek a CW capability, but none currently has the capability to conduct a CW attack on this scale."

That quote comes from the British JTI report published Thursday, but it echoes the most often-used argument to pin blame for the Ghouta attacks on Assad's government.

Chemical and biological weapons experts have been relatively consistent in their analysis, saying only a military force with access to and knowledge of missile delivery systems and the sarin gas suspected in Ghouta could have carried out an attack capable of killing hundreds of people. -----

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57600624/syria-chemical-weapons-attack-blamed-on-assad-but-wheres-the-evidence/

Another more recent news story - Lingering doubts over Syria gas attack

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the American public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence — no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people.

In the absence of such evidence, Damascus and its ally Russia have aggressively pushed another scenario: that rebels carried out the Aug. 21 chemical attack. Neither has produced evidence for that case, either. That's left more questions than answers as the U.S. threatens a possible military strike.

The early morning assault in a rebel-held Damascus suburb known as Ghouta was said to be the deadliest chemical weapons attack in Syria's 2½-year civil war. Survivors' accounts, photographs of many of the dead wrapped peacefully in white sheets and dozens of videos showing victims in spasms and gasping for breath shocked the world and moved President Barack Obama to call for action because the use of chemical weapons crossed the red line he had drawn a year earlier.

Yet one week after Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the case against Assad, Americans — at least those without access to classified reports — haven't seen a shred of his proof.

http://news.yahoo.com/lingering-doubts-over-syria-gas-attack-evidence-072755287.html

[DanTex]

17. Thanks, I'll look into those.

I'm actually asking because I don't know myself. I was under the impression that it was relatively certainly Assad, but I may easily be mistaken.

[quinnox]

28. no prob. Of course, it is possible that it was Assad, but in my opinion, the

evidence is not there yet. I think it is possible the rebels very well could have done this. My opinion.

[ocpagu]

13. Responsability over the attacks has not been established.

The US blames Assad and offered no proof of that.

Russia blames the rebels and offered no proof of that.

We have no idea of who's right.

[quinnox]

21. And if you ask the question, who has more to gain from the US intervening, it is clearly the rebels

Assad would have no desire for the USA to strike him. That is common sense. But the rebels would have very good reasons to have the USA help them in their war against Assad. This is logical.

[geek tragedy]

29. Except that third parties who look at the evidence say it points to Syria's government

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57602150/human-rights-watch-says-evidence-strongly-suggests-assad-used-chemical-weapons/

As does Germany:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/syria-chemical-weapons-not-assad-bild

[jakeXT]

22. They only have presented evidence to the UN on an earlier incident

BERLIN — Russia says it has compiled a 100-page report detailing what it says is evidence that Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, were behind a deadly sarin gas attack in an Aleppo suburb earlier this year.

In a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website late Wednesday. Russia said the report had been delivered to the United Nations in July and includes detailed scientific analysis of samples that Russian technicians collected at the site of the alleged attack, Khan al Asal

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023602231

Some former intelligence officials have doubts

Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/18696-obama-warned-on-syrian-intel

There are many more articles, even on the recent attack, but I won't list them now.

[DanTex]

24. Interesting. Thanks for the links.

[pjt7]

31. For all the posters who think this is bs

& it may be, nobody here really knows..

I ask you to watch this clip of ex Joint Chief of Staff Wesley Clark.

He admits that our military had plans to go to war w/ Iraq,Libya,Sudan,Syria,Iran days after 911.

Obviously the Obama administration has followed thru w/ Libya & has been pushing to the max on Syria.

For the doubters in this link, you must remember we were lied into going to war w/ Iraq in 1990 w/ the "incubator" story.

Also lied into war by the MOST trusted man in our GOV. (Col. Powell) for Iraq 2.

Why would we not be lied to in Syria re: False Flag Chemical Weapons?

Again, I really don't know what is happening w/ Chemical Weapons inside Syria, but US Gov recent track record is completely untrustworthy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Here is the press report the Rusdians have partially hung

Their hat on

http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/

[maddezmom]

38. And again....Carla del Ponte was speaking about the incident in March not August

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/05/201268/russia-releases-100-page-report.html#.

He is a pretty good blog that debunks the MintPress article.

http://antoningregoire.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/debunked-syrian-rebels-admit-to-ap-reporter-they-mishandled-the-chemical-weapons-given-by-saudi-arabia/

[pjt7]

35. How about the 2 European journalists/writers that were

kidnapped for 4 months by Syrian rebels & say they overheard them talking about falsely blaming Syrian Gov for chemical weapons attack.

They were released last week!

Their first hand testimony can't be dismissed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418378/Syrian-hostage-Domenico-Quirico-overheard-rebels-blame-Damascus-chemical-attacks.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Seems to confirm this

http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/

[maddezmom]

39. Which one?

The one in March that killed 26 or the one in August? He doesn't say when he over heard the Skype conversation.

[pjt7]

40. Honestly, who really cares?

which one.

This is a good form of proof that rebels are framing Syrian Gov on Chemical Weapons.

[maddezmom]

41. I guess I care about the facts.

I guess I should just believe all the framing from the Syrian gov't that they haven't used them too! Nah!

[pjt7]

43. Maddezmom

I re-read the Dailymail article & it clearly says the Europen writers overheard the attacks were to be on Damascus.

That would have to be the August attacks.

[maddezmom]

44. You're right, I just read this

http://www.lastampa.it/2013/09/09/esteri/quirico-it-is-madness-to-say-i-knew-it-wasnt-assad-who-used-gas-FjJDJ8oeEI19AZbyKIVBHJ/pagina.html




“It’s madness to say I knew it wasn’t Assad who used gas,” Quirico said after hearing about a statement made by Pierre Piccinin - the Belgian teacher who was also kidnapped in Syria - and the interpretations that are being given.
Quirico was eager to give his version of what happened during his and Piccinin’s kidnapping, in order to specify what information he has at his disposal.

“During our kidnapping, we were kept completely in the dark about what was going on in Syria, including the gas attacks in Damascus”, Quirico said. “But one day, we heard a Skype conversation in English between three people whose names I do not know. We heard the conversation from the room in which we were being held captive, through a half-closed door. One of them had previously presented himself to us as a general of the Syrian Liberation Army. The other two we had never seen and knew nothing about”.

“During the Skype conversation, they said that the gas attack on the two neighbourhoods in Damascus had been carried out by rebels as a provocation, to push the West towards a military intervention. They also said they believed the death toll had been exaggerated,” Quirico said in his statement.

“I don’t know if any of this is true and I cannot say for sure that it is true because I have no means of confirming the truth of what was said. I don’t know how reliable this information is and cannot confirm the identity of these people. I am in no position to say for sure whether this conversation is based on real fact or just hearsay and I don’t usually call conversations I have heard through a door, true,” Quirico said.

[pjt7]

45. thanks

peace.