Read this report very carefully. It says the truth. It reveals how the lives of innocent children were used as part of a criminal staged event, which was subsequently used to justify a military agenda on humanitarian grounds.
The preliminary report of The International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria under the helm of Mother Agnes Mariam can be accessed in pdf (GR Editor, MCh)
“From the moment when some families of abducted children contacted us to inform us that they recognized the children among those who are presented in the videos as victims of the Chemical Attacks of East Ghouta, we decided to examine the videos thoroughly. …
Our first concern was the fate of the children we see in the footages. Those angels are always alone in the hands of adult males that seem to be elements of armed gangs. The children that trespassed remain without their families and unidentified all the way until they are wrapped in the white shrouds of the burial. Moreover our study highlights without any doubt that their little bodies were manipulated and disposed with theatrical arrangements to figure in the screening.
If the studied footages were edited and published to exhibit pieces of evidence to accuse the Syrian State of perpetrating the chemical attacks on East Ghouta, our discoveries incriminate the editors and actors of forged facts through a lethal manipulation of unidentified children.…
Thus we want to raise awareness toward the humanitarian case of this criminal use of children in the political propaganda of the East Ghouta Chemical Weapons Attack
We present this work to distinguished Spiritual Leaders, Heads of State, Members of Parliament Humanitarian actors and to any person who has heart for truth and justice and seeks to due accountability for evil deeds.“
Mother Agnes Mariam de La Croix,
President, International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria
As David Miller predicted, the influencers who’ve swarmed Syria to be coddled by al-Qaeda (and even ISIS) are re-inventing history now that al-Qaeda rules Syria.
But sure, they are credible ???????? By the way, this particular influencer just came from doing propaganda in Ukraine (jumped a sinking ship to go chill with al-Qaeda).
I do NOT retract what I wrote about the fake chemical attacks in Ghouta, when I went there shortly after the accusations.
Civilians there who were living in a town supposedly subjected to chemical attacks rejected the accusations and were instead eager to tell me how they’d been starved, tortured and witnessed public assassinations of civilians by the terrorists chumpy influencers are whitewashing.
Kindly note that for years civilians in Damascus & around were bombed by these same terrorists, maimed or killed. I started going to Syria in 2014 and experienced their constant shelling a lot over the years. The influencers & media presstitutes who’ve flooded Syria to talk about freedom while being escorted by al-Qaeda would have cried like babies & run away if they had been subjected to daily shelling by these terrorists which Syrian civilians endured.
Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos on East Ghouta – Sky News Australia
Anchor: Well, joining us now from London to discuss where this conflict is at is Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos. who is the publisher of Politics First and an international commentator on Syria and British politics. Dr. Papadopoulos thank you very much for joining us. As we heard there that despite this UN intervention there seems to be no let up, there seems to be no ceasefire. How do we work our way out of this international mess?
Dr. Papadopoulos: Well, first of all please allow me to clarify the nature of the people whom the Syrian army is targeting in East Ghouta. The Syrian army is targeting Islamist terrorists, al-Qaeda affiliates the same people, ideologically speaking, who carried out the horrendous Bali massacre, and I sincerely hope you are telling the Australian public that now- since 2012- the people of East Ghouta have lived under the occupation of al-Qaeda affiliates and they have been suffering tremendously every sin every single day for the last six years. The massacres of the terrorists in East Ghouta have been inflicting on the civilian population is so horrendous that I really shouldn’t talk about it on live television, and also as well I find it quite rich that western mainstream media is now talking about the suffering of the people in East Ghouta. Well, where was western mainstream media in the last six years when the inhabitants of that region have been suffering so terribly at the hands of terrorists, who have been backed by the Americans and the British. And let us not forget as well on a daily basis for the last six years the terrorists in East Ghouta have been mortaring and have been firing rockets into Damascus. They have been aiming at schools, hospitals nurseries. In the last week, they killed a large number of children. So, I think it is quite rich and frankly speaking disgraceful that western media is talking about a humanitarian concern in relation to East Ghouta.
Anchor: But would it not be naive to say that Syria’s treatment of its civilians is equally as bad. I mean we’ve only seen in this attack yesterday, the use of chemical, chlorine gas??
Dr. Papadopoulos: You are relying on the White Helmets, and no proper legitimate court of law in the world would rely on the White Helmets. Why? because the White Helmets are a propaganda weapon. They are a propaganda weapon of the terrorists and they are the brainchild of the British government, and at the same time -even worse than being a propaganda tool- the white helmets are actually is Islamist terrorist fighters themselves. We have independent witnesses, we have independent footage of White Helmet individuals standing over the bodies of dead Syrian soldiers of them firing ak-47s of them firing RPGs. You must not rely on the White Helmets. The White Helmets are a propaganda tool and they are terrorists themselves.
Anchor: You have recently tweeted that- and I think you touched on that a little earlier- that the terrorists occupying East Ghouta are the same people ideologically speaking, who carried out the London, Manchester, Madrid, Paris and Paoli bombings. They are murderers who are being backed by the US and the UK for geostrategic reasons. Can you expand on that for us?
Dr. Papadopoulos: Absolutely. For many decades now the Americans and the British have had a very close relationship with radical Islam. They backed the Mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, against the soviets in Afghanistan. They facilitated the arrival of the Mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden to Bosnia during the Bosnian civil war. They assisted the various al-Qaeda affiliates in Libya in 2011 in their attempt to topple colonel Gaddafi and they are supporting Islamist terrorist groups in Syria. And the Islamist terrorist groups in Syria are not just ISIS, not just al-Qaeda, but also the Free Syrian Army. And the Syrian army is actually comprised of the people of Syria. It is comprised of Sunnis, of Shia, of Christians, of Jews, of Kurds, of Armenia. The Syrian army does not target its own people. The Syrian army is targeting terrorists, the very people who want to massacre Australians in Sydney and Canberra.
Anchor: Well, the controversial comments are to say…
Dr. Papadopoulos: The are controversial in your opinion. They’re not controversial to people in east Aleppo. If you go to east Aleppo today, which is under the control of al-Qaeda, they won’t say my comments are controversial. They will say you are controversial.
Anchor: We are just looking at thousands, many thousands of civilians who have died at the hands of the Syrian government…..
Dr. Papadopoulos: Whose sources are you relying on when you say the many thousands of people who have died? The White Helmet? I’ve already explained to you. The White Helmets are not a genuine humanitarian organization. They are a propaganda weapon. They are Islamist terrorist fighters themselves.
Anchor: Donald Trump during his UN address says he’s quashed ISIS once and for all. What would be your response to those comments?
Dr. Papadopoulos: Well, I don’t think Donald trump has a clue about what’s happened in Syria. Indeed he hasn’t a clue about what’s happening in his own country. The reason why ISIS is on the verge of a total defeat in Syria is because of the combined military operations of the Syrian military, the Russian military and the Iranian military and quite frankly speaking the world should be grateful for what Syrian soldiers are doing every single day of the week. They are sacrificing their lives to defeat the scourge, the evil that is Islamist terrorism. Every single step the Syrian army advances in Syria makes the streets of Sydney, of London of Washington and Paris safer.
Anchor: So, will they support a ceasefire? Will they take part in the ceasefire?
Dr. Papadopoulos: Who would support the ceasefire?
Anchor: The Syrian army. Will they take part in the ceasefire? Will they abide by the UN commands?
Dr. Papadopoulos: The Syrian government has been participating in talks to bring about ceasefires all over Syria, and the Syrian government cares for one thing: its people. And if it can facilitate a ceasefire somewhere in Syria whereby the terrorists move to, for example Idlib, then the Syrian government will do that which I think is quite remarkable. But please let me remind you, the people, the Syrian army is fighting in East Ghouta are al-Qaeda affiliates, the same people, ideologically speaking, who massacred Australians in cold blood in Bali.
Anchor: All right Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos, we do appreciate you joining us out this evening. Thank you very much for your time.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
Washington-led Empire’s criminal war on Syria is a war against civilization itself.
Empire, with its legacy media accomplices, hides behind veils of fabricated lies to commit crimes against children, women, men, Muslims, Christians, minorities, secularism, democracy, and the entire fabric of the sovereign nation of Syria itself.
Empire balkanizes, steals, loots, plunders, and supports terrorism of all kinds, even as it imposes colllective punishment in the form of unilateral coercive measures against those in government-secured areas.
“Crimes Against Syria” unmasks the war propaganda apparatus. It presents the evidence-based truth that the West and its agencies seek to obscure.
Big lies of “humanitarian warfare” and the “Global War on Terror” are exposed for all to see.
Watch the trailer below.
Watch the full documentary below.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.
Featured image is from Syria News
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
White Helmets have again been caught in yet another preparation for a false flag in Idlib, Syria, according to intelligence received through the Russian Coordination Center. The stethoscope-less, CPR-ignorant and incompetent baggers are being exposed in another plot to engage bombings of facilities and slaughter of civilians in the unilateral de-escalation zones.
Over the years, the Jabhat al Nusra fraud responders/kidnappers/organ thieves/killers/terrorists/looters have received tens of millions of dollars from NATO countries such as the US and UK — with the US reporting $33 million courtesy of the taxpayer, between 2013 and 2018 — yet they make no pretense of having the most rudimentary emergency care skills.
Query them on these lack of skills, the lack of a stethoscope, and expect a block in lieu of an answer, and then do not be surprised when they produce a video with scuba gear in the recovery of a drowned boy, with no explanation of how they came to look for the child’s body that was still on the bottom of the river bed.
The terrorist, armed insurrectionist Helmets have been the source of the criminal lies of the utterly corrupt OPCW, in all of their reports defaming Syria.
White Helmets humanitarians on the corpses of murdered Syrian soldiers whose boots have been stolen.
Exposing them pre-emptively is the most efficient way to possibly thwart them.
Active false flags slaughter civilians and then are used as cover for NATO countries to engage in humanitarian bombings of countries whose sovereignty they wish to annihilate. When the FSA terrorists killed Syrian civilians in al Ghouta, August 2013, Obama was preparing to bomb Syria.
Children victims of the alleged chemical attack near Damascus, Ghouta 2013.
Prior to the atrocity in Ghouta, warmongering stenography media had already primed the NATO public to accept the chemical hoax false flags, courtesy of war propagandists such as Le Monde‘s Jean-Philippe Remy — illegally embedded with FSA terrorists in the S.A.R. — and CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour, who shamelessly showed photos of shaving cream as uncorroborated evidence of chemical weapons use.
The impunity of the GB hoax.
On 4 April 2017, the Helmets slaughtered dozens of the more than 200 recently kidnapped Syrians, in Khan Sheikhoun, utilizing the quick acting poison developed in a ‘‘makeshift lab” in Turkey, 2012. Trump almost immediately, and single-handedly bombed Syria based on the heinous mass murder (and degenerate necrophiliac abuse of murdered children’s bodies) and on the lies of the al Qaeda Helmets.
One year later, Jaish al Islam, SAMS, and the al Qaeda Helmets were unified in their chemical lies in Douma, where hundreds of Syrians again had been kidnapped. Dozens were slaughtered, their bodies dumped like garbage. Dozens of kids were grabbed from their moms, tossed into makeshift ”hospitals” where their backs were thumped, where they were stripped and doused with cold water, or where some sadist ridiculously wrapped them in bandages and fake tubing, to stand for photo shoots — along with naked murdered babies.
Saudi-Sponsored Jaysh al-Islam Lock Women and Children in Cages in Pick-up Vehicles in Douma
Despite the massive, immediate, evidence provided by the White Helmets themselves, that there was no chemical attack — simply evidence of mass killings and necrophilia photo shoots — Trump, May, and Macron bombed Syria (and various newsmen three days older than dirt were able to leave their Viagra in their medicine cabinets), based on the lies of al Qaeda.
Syria News is a collaborative effort by two authors only, we end up most of the months paying from our pockets to maintain the site’s presence online, if you like our work and want us to remain online you can help by chipping in a couple of Euros/ Dollars, or any currency including Cryptocurrencies through our donate page. Thank you in advance.
The NATO/Nazi UNSC junta monthly meetings of the chemical hoax ‘Syria files’ are becoming repetitiously boring, and this gang of unindicted war criminals needs to have them more relevant, via another false flag attack against the Levantine Republic.
Nazi Kurt Waldheim became President of Austria before becoming 4th SG of the UN
Such an excuse would likely up their war profiteer portfolios. Such murderous greed makes the stakes higher.
Proper headline: Lots of Money in Genocide! Bomb Away!
Additionally, the fraud responder White Helmets have not been given a taxpayer-funded raise in some time, and have fallen from stenography media. The Guardian was forced to replace the ghastly, staged, rescue scene of the boy brutalized into unconsciousness when Syria News pointed out — several times — that this child was used in two photoshoots.
The hyenas rip apart this boy’s body, and AFP takes emotional war pornography photo of White Helmets fake rescue.
Details on the latest plot to use the White Helmets in another false flag attempt are scarce. This is of no matter; it must be exposed, and Syria News readers must be reminded of some previous atrocities of the contra White Helmets.
To help us continue, please visit the Donate page to donate or learn how to help us with no cost. Follow us on Telegram: http://t.me/syupdates link will open the Telegram app.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Follow her on Twitter @EvaKBartlett
A little over a decade ago, Syrians lived in safety and financial security. After ten years of war on Syria, while safety has largely returned, Syrians are struggling to exist under increasingly crippling Western sanctions.
As Syrian analyst Kevork Almassian noted, “Were it not for the CIA regime change war, arming & training tens of thousands of multinational terrorists, draconian sanctions, foreign occupation of North & East, looting the oil & burning the wheat, Syria would’ve now a brilliant economy & high standard of living.”
When I first visited Syria in 2014, and in the years following, mortars and missiles fired from terrorist groups occupying eastern Ghouta pummeled Damascus on a daily basis. Likewise in government-controlled areas of Aleppo, and elsewhere around Syria.
Parents never knew if their children would return from school, or be shelled while at school. Untold numbers of Syrian civilians have been maimed over the past decade by such shelling, untold numbers more killed.
So one might expect that in 2021, with most of the terrorism in Syria eradicated, Syrians would have begun returning to the normal lives they had ten years prior. But the brutal sanctions have truly wrought hell on Syrians over the years, and under the latest ones, life has gotten exponentially worse.
Last year, I was in Syria for half of the year, after the borders closed due to Covid confusion. With ample time on my hands, I walked for hours around Damascus daily. One afternoon, wanting to get a good view of the city, I walked along narrow lanes going up the side of Qasioun mountain, encountering locals who spoke of community and supporting one another in hard times.
https://youtu.be/LJOmbfRIKpY
I had stopped to take a photo of the vista when a young girl’s voice called out to me. Shortly after, I was seated in her family’s humble sitting room, drinking cold water and talking with the family.
Only by chance did I learn that the father was ill with prostate cancer and suffering greatly for a want of affordable medications, increasingly difficult to get a hold of due to the sanctions. And that was in April, before the sadistically-named Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act came into effect months later.
I say sadistically, because these sanctions, while ostensibly intended to target the Syrian government and its allies in order to punish and discourage supposed “war crimes” against civilians, in reality inflict endless misery on those same Syrian civilians. This is, as I wrote, something former US envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, boasted about, reportedly saying that the sanctions “contributed to the collapse of the value of the Syrian pound.”
It’s a pattern we’ve already seen with Western sanctions – in Venezuela, they have not only made people’s lives hell, but as I also wrote, have killed up to 40,000 Venezuelans in the span of one year, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
A recent guest article in the Financial Times addressed Syria’s ongoing (and orchestrated) economic crisis, with particular attention to the sanctions, noting that 60% of Syrians are suffering from food insecurity.
That number might actually be significantly higher, as in a July 2020 article detailing the illegality of the sanctions, the author cited 83% of the population living below the poverty line. That article noted, of the Caesar sanctions:
“Unlike the pre-existing sanctions, they apply to transactions anywhere in the world that engage the Syrian Government or certain sectors of the Syrian economy, even when those transactions have no connection to the United States.
“Such sanctions cripple a state’s economy; disrupt the availability of food, medicines, drinking water, and sanitation supplies; interfere with the functioning of health and education systems; and undermine people’s ability to work.”
These are not unintended effects – they are the whole idea.
The FT article notes that after the Caesar Act came into effect, the Syrian pound, “lost almost 70% of its value against the dollar in the following months. This spurred an inflationary spiral affecting food prices, which more than tripled in 2020.”
And, in contrast to how the US pretends to “protect” Syrians with these sanctions, the Caesar Act is, “severely affecting the local economy especially in the construction, energy, and financial sectors, blocking any possibility of reconstruction in this phase of lower-intensity conflict.”
Although I continued to follow events in Syria after leaving in late September 2020, when I returned in the last week of May this year, even I was surprised at the skyrocketed cost of basic things. About half a kilo of hummus that was 400 Syrian pounds last year is 2,200 now. At the current official exchange rate of 2,500 that’s slightly less than a dollar – but the average salary in Syria is around 50-60,000 Syrian pounds/month.
The FT article noted a kilogram of beef “costs about a quarter of a public employee’s average monthly salary. For perspective, in Italy this translates as €700 per kg. In the UK? £300 per lb.”
I chatted with a friend who has just one child. He described spending 15,000 (about $6) on vegetables, that would last several days. That’s a quarter of his salary gone, and many expenses still to pay.
In the Midan district of Damascus—an area usually brimming with shoppers coming for the famous sweet shops there, but not crowded the day I went—a cigarette vendor I spoke with described how he struggles to provide food for his wife and two sons. Like the majority of Syrians, selling cigarettes is a second job for him. Some are working three jobs, morning to late evening, and still can’t make ends meet.
He spoke of the self-sufficiency Syria had prior to the war, how everyone had work, but now, people are suffocating.
“We are rationing! I used to buy a kilo of meat every month, but now I buy 200 grams. My salary is 55,000, and if I can earn 50,000 from this second work, I will have 100,000 Syrian pounds. But, this amount is still not enough.”
“Yesterday, I bought some yogurt, cheese, a box of mortadella (meat), and a box of tissues. I paid 11,000 Syrian pounds. This is for one day, and just breakfast.”
He said a dearth of fertilizers and insecticides, due to sanctions, is directly impacting the agricultural sector.
While in Damascus, I also met with French humanitarian, Pierre Le Corf, who has lived in Syria for six years, most of that time in Aleppo. Le Corf, working and living with some of the poorest and most affected Syrians in Aleppo, spoke of how the sanctions are designed to kill hope, in addition to killing civilians.
“You might not see people starving in the street, but that’s not what suffering is. People are suffering in silence. More and more, the youth are leaving the country, not because they want to leave Syria or feel oppressed, but because they feel that they have no hope anymore.
The currency went from 50 Syrian pounds [for a dollar, before the war] to 4,000 Syrian pounds. People work from morning to night, and at the end of the day, their kids might ask for a banana. One kilogram of bananas is 5,000 Syrian pounds. When you earn 60,000 a month…”
https://youtu.be/cCWOtmkTBj8
He spoke of the pressure the US puts on every company and person who deals with Syria, that they can be imprisoned, fined. “They are forcing companies to not work with Syria,” to isolate Syria.
“I know families for who I’m trying to figure out how to bring them medicines that they can’t find any more. A week ago, I went to bury a guy who we had been bringing medicine, because we couldn’t find it any more. It became 90,000 pounds a box, he needed four boxes a month. He needed more medicine and better treatment that we can’t have, because it’s forbidden. Forbidden why? Because they pretend it’s ‘double use’, maybe it could be used for the army. The people are paying the price, no one else.”
In an interview on Syria Insider, British journalist Vanessa Beeley condemned the sanctions against Syria, saying:
“Western governments are starving the Syrian people. They are depriving them of their right to return home, because the rebuilding process is being delayed. They are punishing the Syrian people for the resistance of the Syrian people against what they want to impose upon them. It’s nothing to do with the Syrian government or President Assad.”
Sanctions are never ever non-lethal practises. They are almost the most lethal of all weapons used in the hybrid war against the people of a targeted nation.
“At the same time as the sanctions are in place, the West is stealing the oil, burning the food resources, selling the food resources outside of Syria, all to deprive the Syrian people of their own resources, of the abundance of their own country.”
In a recent, detailed, presentation focussing on the sanctions, Beeley highlighted their effects not only on incomes, food, medicines, but also on fuel, industry, agriculture, health care and hospitals, electricity and water.
She aptly noted: “One could argue that the US Coalition is responsible for genocide in Syria under Genocide Convention article II (e) – deliberately inflicting on the group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
In US President Joe Biden’s meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin today, perhaps among the scripted talking points there was tut tutting of Syria and Russia’s alleged preventing of humanitarian aid, a tired old trope debunked but still trumpeted by hypocrites in the West.
And while such integrity-devoid Western representatives launch accusation after accusation at Syria and Russia, it is abundantly clear that the suffering of Syrians is a product of the illegal war on Syria and the deadly, criminal, sanctions against the Syrian people.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
The picture below is a frame from a smug Western documentary on the Syrian War. I wrote the caption in 2020, after viewing the documentary, which was a piece of propaganda filled with lies—a romanticized fairy tale about heroes in a self-made field hospital run by groups that the documentary, and most of Western media, benignly referred to as “the opposition” or sometimes “the democratic opposition,” but most often “the freedom fighters.”
I would more accurately call them paid mercenaries—some of them passionate Muslim fundamentalists, but many just there for the money, which is generously doled out by the CIA and its sister intelligence services in various other Western nations. They fight is to overthrow the government of Assad, who in 2014 won the Presidency by a landslide victory (which the two losing candidates claim was “manipulated”). They claim to want to liberate and democratize the Syrian people but are paid by Western countries to divide and conquer, as we saw happen in Afghanistan.
The U.S. and its proxies have devastated large parts of the Arab world, leaving many thousands dead and displaced.
Now they are doing the same in Afghanistan, which may have suffered even more than Syria.
In August 2015, I visited Syria at the height of the war.
Syria was losing and DAESH was close to taking over government-controlled western Damascus; they were, so to speak, at the door of the gate!
I was there, with a Dutch and Belgian delegation consisting of writers, journalists and politicians, to visit Syrian government members, delegates and hospitals.
At that time, I was a member of the Dutch Socialist Party (SP) and full of aspirations and hope about modern-day socialism.
Unfortunately, I came to see that the SP does not promote socialism anymore, but turned out to be another part of the social-democratic system, or in many EU countries even liberals, with the same agenda as the neo-cons.
Our first shock was, and I dare to say made us, the delegation members’ “friends” for life, was the visit to a hospital in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus, which I knew very well.
The author visiting hospital in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus, filled with war victims. [Source: sana.sy]
I have visited Syria many times before the war and even stayed in Harasta for a few months.
Harasta was, before the war, a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Many natives of Harasta later joined DAESH (ISIS) together with natives of Hama, also a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, who were crushed during their uprising in 1982 by Bashar al-Assad’s father, the late Hafez al-Assad.
Western media and politicians still support the Muslim Brotherhood and do not see the facts (or don’t want to see), that they are an Islamist group that has infiltrated many Western governments.
Many of the Hama insurgents received asylum in Europe, like the Islamists from Algeria and Tunisia, in the 1990s, who became more and more radical as time passed.
The hospital that I visited in Harasta was full of young Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers, men aged 18 to 25. They were injured by the jihadist, without legs, arms, eyes and their heads ripped apart, their future, destroyed by the war games of the Western-sponsored mercenaries.
Since that day, I have lost my hopes, beliefs, and faith in Western society as a whole!
Author in Harasta hospital with a wounded soldier. [Source: sana.sy]
During my stay in Syria, I also visited a refugee camp, not a Western (UN) one but a center for war and homeless refugees.
It housed many government members, like the now-deceased Minister of Information, Omran al-Zoubi, who gave us all the information, names and places of deaths or births, for the foreign jihadists, who joined ISIS.
The majority of ISIS volunteers from Europe were from Moroccan, Turkish, Tunisian, or Algerian descent, the generation—or offspring—of the asylum seekers from the nineties.
They were the ones who went through Turkey to Syria to fight for the Caliphate, for which many lost their lives.
Currently many former jihadists, their wives and children are detained in al-Hawl camp, which is situated in northern Syria and controlled by the Kurds.
A potential hotspot for future jihadists, the al-Hawl camp is a mini-state inside Syria.
The jihadists ought to be tried under Syrian law, but the occupation of northern Syria by the Kurds makes this impossible because the Kurds are a Western-sponsored minority.
The Syrian government is seen, by the West, as an illegitimate government, even after ten years of bloody war and carnage, with Assad being considered a dictator who killed his own people.
Syrian Minister of Information Omran-al-Zoubi, in the middle. [Photo courtesy of Sonja Van den Ende]
While staying in the (empty) hotel, overlooking the city of Damascus, I could see people rushing over the streets, the jihadists attacking with rockets from the suburbs of eastern Ghouta and Douma, killing many innocent people who just went out to buy food or medicine or to visit a doctor or hospital.
This was awful to watch. The MIGs (Russian fighter aircraft) dropped bombs or fired on the jihadists.
The shooting of the jihadists was in the news in many Western countries under the headline: “Assad is killing his own people.”
But what I observed was the jihadists—and not Assad’s forces—killing civilians in cold blood as they walked down the street.
During my visit to Syria, my group paid a visit to the Grand Mufti of Syria,Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, who tragically lost a son in the war after he was shot by a Western-sponsored jihadist.
While we were visiting the mufti, two rockets hit the neighboring building.
For a moment, we thought it was all over—that we would not survive the day. Some men started praying, the lights went out and we smelled dust and smoke everywhere.
Luckily, no one was injured and we were able to get out and return to the hotel.
Along the way we saw many cars with bullet holes, destroyed buildings, injured people and Syrian civilians with a haunted look in their eyes—after all, every minute could be their last.
The experience we had was life-shaping for many of us, and will remain with us forever. There is a saying, or a song, in Dutch with the text: “Although you are out of war, will the war ever go out of you?” That’s exactly what people experienced who were in the war zone.
The delegation, visiting a TV station. [Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]
Coming Home
Going home was easy, the journey was easy, but leaving the people behind was difficult, knowing that many of them would not survive and that many more young men would be killed in the war.
But after a few days at home and trying to live a normal life again, it turned out to be even more difficult than expected.
This is because I was now seen by many in the Socialist Party as a pariah, a deranged woman who went to visit the “child murderer” Assad.
Suddenly, I was considered to be a right-wing radical and anti-semite.
I went around the country with the SP’s spokesman for Foreign Affairs and held information evenings about what was actually going on in Syria. This did not go down well with the party leadership. The spokesperson had to radically change his views, and stop giving these information evenings.
Logo of Dutch Socialist Party, whose leadership did not welcome anti-war views on Syria. [Source: wikipedia.org]
He was also forced to support the White Helmets—a “humanitarian” relief organization that provided a cover for propaganda and intelligence operations—and I had to step down.
The Socialist Party dramatically changed its course and now supported the White Helmets, which had their (financial) headquarters in Amsterdam.
That is until their leader, James LeMesurier, was found dead in Istanbul, Turkey, probably murdered by MI6 (British Secret Service).
His services were no longer needed, now that the West had lost the war in Syria.
Russia at the time became the new target to be demonized. After all, it had helped those stubborn Syrians defeat the jihadists and defend their country.
After Russia was blamed for the crash of a Malaysian jet over the Ukraine, a so-called citizen platform of journalists was created, called Bellingcat, which was actually a source of anti-Russian propaganda.
When I came home, I also had to report to the local police station and talk to totally ignorant police officers who asked me what I had been doing there in Syria and if I had carried out any terrorist activities!
Even my children were assigned a psychologist because they could suffer from their mother’s visit with a “child murderer.”
Naturally, I was myself monitored by the Dutch intelligence service; after all, I was now the enemy and the jihadists the friends of the kingdom!
Together with the (small) Communist Party and a large group of Christian Syrians, whose representatives were also with us on the trip to Syria, we still tried to draw attention to the matter, but life was made very difficult for us and we were practically ordered to keep silent.
Many of us were afraid for our jobs or families because, by that time in 2015, many “Syrian refugees” had already entered Germany and the Netherlands.
This is called a “refugee crisis” which could mean the downfall of the West, especially now that a Covid-19 crisis has arrived.
Most of the so-called refugees were radicalized ex-Muslim brothers from Harasta, Ghouta, Hama and eastern Aleppo.
As I wrote the above, the native jihadists lived in this region and also in Homs, the Baba Amr district. There, on my next trip to Syria in 2018, I saw the offer from the UN refugee office, written on the walls, to apply for asylum in Europe.
They came to Europe in large numbers—at least two million—the offer of “Mutti” Merkel eagerly accepted.
Many of the refugees have come illegally and not just from Syria, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Quite a few are former ISIS (DAESH) fighters with their families.
When we drove through the neighborhoods of Harasta in August 2015, in armored cars accompanied by soldiers, these neighborhoods were already completely empty, most of the civilians having already accepted the offer of the UN in 2015 and “fleeing” to Europe.
The jihadists had taken over these neighborhoods, native and ISIS.
Together they killed the Syrians who lived in the then government-controlled area, doing their daily shopping.
Some native families were still present (not many) in the above-mentioned neighborhoods, because they were probably too poor to flee or had joined the jihadists first. Many of them were later used as human shields.
A shock went through the Western media when it became known that many Alawite women in Ghouta and Aleppo had been held captive and put in cages and thus displayed by the jihadists as apostate Muslims.
But the images were old news, from 2014; I had forwarded these images a long time ago, but politicians and news outlets never responded.
Now, five years later and after many more deaths, it came as a news flash!
From everything I have witnessed, the main narrative promoted in the West about the Syrian war is a lie. Politicians and the media lie, and even the Socialist Party has been caught in the war fever and has used smear tactics to marginalize anti-war voices.
The only positive in the whole story is that Syria has stood up for itself and will not be destroyed by Western powers. Russia and China will not let it happen and, moreover, the Syrians themselves will not let it happen.
The Syrian people have learned their lesson, a terrible lesson, with the loss of many lives and the partial destruction of their Motherland.
They will not be friends anymore with their invaders, too much has happened and too many deaths have occurred.
The West has gambled, but this time it went wrong for them as it underestimated the resolve of the Syrian people—much like that of the Vietnamese a generation earlier.
One thing I have learned from my experience is that the Syrians are not to be messed with.
They are tough—much more so than any European—they love their country, family and people above anything in this world and after ten years of destruction, it is clear that they are still united and will defeat any would-be foreign conqueror.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @crg_globalresearch. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Sonja is a freelance journalist from the Netherlands who has written about Syria, the Middle East, and Russia among other topics. Sonja can be reached at: sonjavandenende@gmail.com.
Featured image: [Cartoon courtesy of Steve Brown]
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
A Syrian documentary aired on June 9, and a June 7 report by Germany’s leading broadsheet provide more evidence. Both refute Western media misinformation. On May 10, suburban Damascus suicide bombings killed 55 and injured hundreds. The attack happened near Syria’s military intelligence complex. Children were killed. So were drivers and…
Hassan Diab (left) in a hospital in Douma after being hosed down with water, though allegedly a victim of chemical weapons, Hasan would later testify there was no chemical weapon attack
ay 20 marked the start of the 2021 Syrian presidential elections. Syrians around the world outside of Syria will cast their votes—if their embassies haven’t been closed, or voting prohibited, in the countries they reside in that is.
Western leaders hypocritically claimed concern for Syrians and wanted to ensure they live democratically – by funding and arming terrorists from around the world to slaughter them and destroy their homes, governmental buildings, and historic and cultural places–but continue to do everything in their power to make it difficult-to-impossible for Syrians to exercise their rights to vote for their president.
In closing Syrian embassies around the world, the regime-change alliance made very clear that they do not want the Syrian people to exercise their democratic right to vote in presidential elections past and future. They know that Syrians would come out in masses to vote for their president.
Otherwise, Syrians will, on May 26, vote in Syria. This is a historic moment: after 10 years of would-be regime change in Syria, ten bloody years of unnecessary war on Syria, Syrians voting, whether for Assad or not, are voting in defiance of the West’s attempts to install a puppet government.
In their attempts to overthrow President Assad, the West and allies have concocted accusation after accusation about alleged atrocities committed by Syria. Among the many fabrications, the more recent and perhaps notable was that of the April 2018, Douma “chemical attack” allegations.
THE DOUMA “CHEMICAL ATTACK”
Three years ago on April 7, France, the UK and the US (FUKUS) and their allies, along with the entirety of Western corporate media, alleged that the Syrian army had used chemical weapons on civilians in Douma, just northeast of Damascus.
The allegation was that a chemical agent airdropped onto the town had killed dozens of civilians.
As I wrote at the time, the West’s claims to have evidence to back these allegations was a transparent lie: what they had were dubious, unverified, video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets and other partial and non-credible sources with affiliations to, and admiration for, Jaysh al-Islam and co-terrorist groups in eastern Ghouta.
One week later, the night before Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors were due to visit Douma (at the request of the Syrian government), FUKUS launched 103 missiles at Syria. Bombing within Damascus itself and putting the lives of Syrian civilians at risk.
They carried out this attack without waiting for any evidence at all, much less a full investigation by the OPCW. Far from a concern for the truth, or wanting to “protect” Syrian lives, FUKUS’ response was clearly about applying both political and military pressure to the government they had been trying to change for almost a decade.
Indeed, the immediate attribution of guilt to the Syrian government, alongside the promptness of the retaliation, suggests at least foreknowledge of the “attack”, if not outright responsibility for it.
INDEPENDENT MEDIA ON THE GROUND IN SYRIA
In contrast to the propaganda put forth from outside of Syria – by dubious propaganda outlets like Bellingcat, as well as most of Western media – a number of journalists actually went to the area in question and spoke with medical personnel and residents.
These include Russian and Syrian media, followed by foreign journalists including One America News Network, Vanessa Beeley, Robert Fisk, Germany’s ZDF, and myself.
We learned: there was no indication that any of the people brought in to the medical point had been exposed to a chemical agent; they were, instead, treated for normal shelling injuries, as well as for breathing difficulties due to the combination of smoke, dust, and their having taken refuge for extended periods in basements; they were all sent home after treatment, no one died in the makeshift hospital.
We also heard of the horrific suffering of civilians in eastern Ghouta, under the savage rule of Jaysh al-Islam, Faylaq al-Rahman, and the other terrorist factions occupying the region. In fact, most residents I spoke with were more desperate to emphasize how awful life had been under their rule than talk about what they clearly viewed as lies, the chemical allegations.
In one particularly notable early report, RT interviewed the 11-year-old boy, Hassan Diab, starring in the clip that went around the world: a clip showing Diab being hosed down in a chaotic hospital room, allegedly being treated for exposure to a chemical agent.
The boy told RT:
We were outside, and they told all of us to go into the hospital. I was immediately taken upstairs, and they started pouring water on me. The doctors started filming us here [in the hospital], they were pouring water and taking videos.
THE HAGUE PRESS CONFERENCE
Diab and sixteen others — including a resuscitator, a paramedic who was working in emergency care, an emergency paramedic with the Syrian Red Crescent, a doctor with the emergency department — then spoke at The Hague.
Their testimonies dismantled the claims about a chemical attack in Douma.
But, as I recently wrote, instead of considering these Syrian sources, pundits and media sneered at the “obscene masquerade” regarding the testimonies.
Yes, the same media which uncritically endorsed the Twitter account of a seven-year-old English-illiterate Aleppo girl as gospel in the lead up to the liberation of Aleppo refused to consider the testimonies of seventeen civilians from Douma.
The same media refused the revelations of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whistleblowers who spoke out, damning the final OPCW report for its glaring omissions – omissions that completely changed the narrative around Douma.
In October 2020, the UN Security Council itself refused to allow Jose Bustani, former general director of the OPCW, to speak. I urge people to read Bustani’s words on the cover up of OPCW expert findings around the Douma allegations.
It should be noted that it was largely due to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media that OPCW whistle-blowers spoke out, and thus that the report has been questioned. You can read some of their diligent research here.
As for Jose Bustani, for the sake of brevity, I will include just some of his words below, again encouraging readers to read his words fully.
[S]erious questions are now being raised over whether the independence, impartiality, and professionalism of some of the Organisation’s work is being severely compromised, possibly under pressure from some Member States.
Of particular concern are the circumstances surrounding the OPCW’s investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, on 7 April 2018. These concerns are emanating from the very heart of the Organisation, from the very scientists and engineers involved in the Douma investigation. […] If the OPCW is confident in the robustness of its scientific work on Douma and in the integrity of the investigation, then it has little to fear in hearing out its inspectors.
If, however, the claims of evidence suppression, selective use of data, and exclusion of key investigators, among other allegations, are not unfounded, then it is even more imperative that the issue be dealt with openly and urgently.
For more nuance and details on the OPCW scandal, the suppressing of critical evidence in order to suit the regime changers’ narrative of a chemical attack having occurred in Douma, read Kit Klarenberg’s April 2021 article, in which notes:
The report released to the public was trimmed to just 34 pages, with all ballistic, forensic and witness evidence gathered by the Douma FFM, which completely dispelled the notion of a chemical attack, and pointed directly or indirectly to a staged incident, removed […] the West and allies continue to push the official, and incorrect, OPCW story, now going as far as ensuring Syria no longer has a seat at the OPCW table.
Clearly, no matter how much evidence against, and testimonies that counter, the West’s claims about a chemical attack in Douma, FUKUS is hell-bent on cramming this narrative down our throats. All in the name, of course, of concern for Syrian civilians. The same civilians the West is strangling under increasingly brutal sanctions against the Syrian people.
TESTIMONIES FROM ON THE GROUND IN DOUMA
While much is being made of the official OPCW report and the ensuing OPCW leaks which contradicted the chemical claims, it is important to also consider the many testimonies of Syrian civilians and medical personnel, not only on the issue of a chemical attack or not, but also on the details of their lives under the savage rule of terrorist groups.
Vanessa Beeley went to Douma in April 2018, going to the makeshift hospital where the dousing scene was filmed. “All said it was not a chemical attack. Civilians in area confirmed this also. Shops hve re-opened, rebuilding has started, nobody presented any symptoms of CW attack,” she tweeted at the time.
Her subsequent article included testimonies of medical personnel and civilians, including Dr Hassan Ouyoun, who noted that he had not issued any death certificates for the April 7 “chemical attack victims,” and raised a number of important points:
I didn’t give any death certificate as a result of a chemical poisoning incident. This is a point against the White Helmets. How was the death “evaluation” carried out? Who did the examination? Who identified the cause of death? How was the burial carried out without a certificate from a doctor?
Valid concerns. And yet, Western media and talking heads instead ran with the dubious footage and narratives supplied by the White Helmets and terrorist-affiliated allies.
I myself went by taxi to Douma in late April, 2018, also going to the by then infamous hospital room in question. I returned to the district in early May to visit neighbouring towns.
As I wrote after my visit, the man I spoke with, Marwan Jaber, said that while hospital staff were treating normal bombing injuries and breathing cases, “strangers” entered screaming about a chemical attack and started hosing people with water.
Patients’ symptoms were “not in line with the symptoms of a chemical attack. There wasn’t pupil constriction or Broncho-constrictions leading to death,” Jaber recalled. “The symptoms we received were all symptoms of choking, patients affected by the smoke and regular war injuries. They came here, we treated them, and dispatched them home,” Jaber said, noting that none, not one, had died.
Nor were any of the hospital staff affected, as one might expect they would be had a chemical agent been used. The staff, as seen in the video produced by the White Helmets, wore no protective clothing, as would have been necessary when dealing with a toxic chemical.
In Marwan Jaber’s opinion, the unfamiliar men who barged into the hospital screaming weren’t trained in medicine. He went so far as to doubt whether they’d finished high school.
LIFE UNDER TERRORIST OCCUPATION
Before walking around Douma and speaking with residents, I walked down some of the wide and very long, well-reinforced tunnels which Jaysh al-Islam terrorists used to move below ground, including in vehicles, to avoid detection from the Syrian army and allies.
Part of the labyrinth of tunnels Jaysh al Islam terrorists formerly occupying Douma used to evade detection and thus prolong the misery of civilians. Longer video here: https://t.co/gRFP9Xqktkpic.twitter.com/fNyvZ5Zg3Y
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) May 24, 2018
From my article:
As I walked around Douma, I asked residents about life there and especially about whether they believed there was a chemical attack in their town. Some replied they had no idea about an attack. But most replied decisively no, there hadn’t been any.
At a stand selling vegetables and fruits, Tawfeeq Zahran replied that he believed Jaysh al-Islam had spoken of a chemical attack to frighten them, to make them fear the Syrian army and government. Men around him nodded their agreement. They spoke more about their starvation under Jaysh al-Islam and about the public executions by sword that the terror group had routinely carried out.
A group of young men selling baked goods waved me over, handing me one. They also replied that they knew nothing of an attack. They were more concerned about the fact that, under Jaysh al-Islam, they couldn’t get the flour needed for their baked goods, much less food to live. This was a constant among every civilian I met: Their hunger and terror under Jaysh al-Islam’s rule.
Since most people I met in Douma and neighbouring villages wanted to speak about life under terrorist rule, I wrote a follow-up article focusing on that.
The chemical story was to them largely unimportant. But the terror they endured still haunted them, and likely will the rest of their lives.
Mahmoud Al Khaled, who spoke to Vanessa Beeley about the White Helmets’ involvement in organ theft, wasn’t the only Syrian civilian to speak about this. In December 2018, I wrote about a more than one-hour-long panel on the White Helmets at the United Nations on December 20.
That panel, along with the countless testimonies Vanessa Beeley and Maxim Grigoriev respectively collected, are essential listening and reading for those who want to understand the true nature of the White Helmets.
How any sensible person, much less any credible journalist or body, could rely on the White Helmets’ narratives regarding chemical attacks in Syria is truly baffling.
HOW THE WEST FORGOT KIDNAPPED CIVILIANS AND IGNORED EXECUTIONS
“Concern for Syrian civilians” has been the disingenuous rallying cry for all those pushing the Western war on Syria, from politicians to the press. But this “concern” only applies when it suits.
The Western media don’t actually care what civilians witnesses have to say about the so-called “chemical attacks”, the Western media don’t investigate what life is like for Syrian civilians living under terrorist occupation, or having their organs trafficked by Western-backed White Helmets.
And the Western media didn’t write about civilians kidnapped — used as slave labour, tortured, killed, and some freed when eastern Ghouta was liberated — because their scripts didn’t tell them to, or because they didn’t know: they weren’t in Syria, nor following Syrian media carefully.
Vanessa Beeley was, however, in Syria, and at the time tweeted:
As it turned out, although thousands were expected to be released, Jaysh al-Islam terrorists had apparently executed the vast majority.
With expectation to free up to 5 thousands captives, it turned out that only 200 of them remained alive throughout years of captivity.
Sources said that Jaysh al-Islam manipulated the Syrian government and Russian mediators by providing fake lists of the captives with the objective to secure a surrender deal whereby it militants can safely leave their bastion to the country’s north.
Thousands of the kidnapped were executed by their captors or died of illness, hunger or fatigue while forced to dig tunnels.
Hundreds of distressed families desperately waited for their kidnapped relatives at al-Fayhaa Stadium in Damascus as the last 2 buses carrying around 100 captives arrived at the overcrowded facility.
The day of their release, abductees spoke to Syrian media: they were kidnapped by Jaysh al-Islam and al-Nusra in December 2013 from the industrial area of Adra, north of Damascus. They were kept in cages and humiliated, tortured, forced to dig tunnels, including children. Children and adults were starved, children deprived of education and even of sunlight.
Thousands of kidnapped civilians, brutalized, tormented, starved, and the majority executed or died in inhumane, unlivable, circumstances, and not a peep from Western media. The same media that claimed to have sources all over eastern Ghouta.
A search from the period of March to August 2018 revealed only Syrian, Chinese, Russian, and Iranian news sites reporting on the issue. Deafening silence from Western media. Vanessa Beeley was one of the only Western journalists who cared enough to report on it, although at the time, waiting at the site where the kidnapped civilians would be brought, in order to speak with them and share their horrific experiences.
At the time of the abductees’ release, the Guardian’s Istanbul-based Shaheen devoted a scant few sentences to mentioning the matter, referring to them as “kidnapped individuals and prisoners of war” with no mention that they were civilians, including women and children, no mention of their numbers, and none of the outrage that would have filled days of Guardian articles were they “kidnapped individuals and prisoners of war” taken by the Syrian army.
Reuters also made scant mention of the abductees, also merely referring to them as prisoners, with no indication that they were Syrian civilians, including children.
TERRORISTS’ CHEMICAL CAPABILITIES
Some, while aware that the OPCW lied about Douma, still believe the corrupted body investigated honestly about previous chemical claims.
But there is much to indicate that is not the case, and much to indicate that, in fact, it has been terrorist factions that have many a time used chemicals against civilians and against the Syrian army.
Journalist Sharmine Narwani, in March 2018, exposed the likelihood that a chemical lab which she visited in Eastern Ghouta was used to manufacture chemicals which terrorists used in staged attacks.
This week, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) liberated some Eastern Ghouta farmlands between Shifouniyeh and Douma and discovered a well-equipped chemical laboratory run by Saudi-backed Islamist terrorists. Not a single Western reporter showed up to investigate the facility. […] It is now indisputable that Western-backed and Gulf-financed Islamist militants have the capabilities to produce the chemicals of war inside the battlefield – and not in the makeshift way that media suggests. This lab demonstrates that militants can amass foreign-made equipment, create production lines and procure difficult-to-obtain components.
When Vanessa Beeley went to Douma, she visited a chemical lab in an area controlled by Jaysh al-Islam, seeing a gas cylinder which looked similar to the famous Douma “chemical attack” cylinder.
Interestingly, a CNN journalist who was with the delegation Beeley was with chose to ignore the scene.
Presumably, it didn’t fit in with his scripted narrative on Douma.
When she interviewed civilians in Hamouri, eastern Ghouta, a month before the chemical allegations, Beeley learned that terrorist factions and their White Helmet accomplices had intended to stage an attack then, but it was derailed by Syrian civilians who came out demonstrating with Syrian flags.
On the 6th of March, in Hamouriya, we decided to protest against Failaq Al Rahman and we raised the Syrian flag. We marched against the terrorist occupation. They (Failaq Al Rahman) and the White Helmets were preparing a chemical attack which they intended to blame on the Syrian Arab Army as they closed in on the militants. They were furious with us for our march and for raising the Syrian flag, because it ruined their plans.
Very hard to present a “chemical attack” with scenes of cheering, flag-waving, Syrian civilians…
Fast forward to Saraqib, Idlib, February 2020, not long after it was liberated, where Beeley saw a former al-Nusra training centre containing another chemical lab.
#Idlib#Saraqeb – former Nusra Front military training center, suspected used by #WhiteHelmets also. Contains chemical lab where I saw boxes of ball bearings, nitric acid & other chem ingredients – alongside number of small rockets that could be packed wth materials. Report soon. pic.twitter.com/9WD7SLtCKM
Meanwhile, there are numerous instances of terrorist factions using chemicals against Syrian civilians.
Narwani’s Ghouta article also noted:
In Syria, the trouble began in December 2012 when the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front (a former IS ally), took over the country’s only chlorine manufacturing plant, a joint business venture with the Saudis located east of Aleppo. Damascus issued an immediate warning to the UN: “Terrorist groups may resort to using chemical weapons against the Syrian people… after having gained control of a toxic chlorine factory.”
Three months later, in what is viewed as the first real CW incident of the Syrian conflict, 26 people – the majority of them (16) Syrian soldiers – were killed in the village of Khan Assal in Aleppo in a reported chlorine attack. The next day, the Syrian government requested that the UN investigate the attack.
A few days later, there was another alleged chemical incident in Adra, northeast of Damascus, followed by a reported attack in Saraqeb, and then in Ghouta in August – the CW incident that almost triggered US military strikes. A Jordanian reporter on the ground in Ghouta interviewed witnesses who said the Saudis had provided militants with chemical weapons and that some had been detonated by accident.
Saudi-backed Jaysh al-Islam, publicly admitted in 2016 to using toxic agents in mortar attacks against Kurds in the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood. “During the clashes one of the Jaysh al-Islam brigades used [weapons] forbidden in this kind of confrontations,” the group said in a statement about the chemical attack, in which it claimed the perpetrator would be held accountable.
In November 2016, I spoke with the former director of al-Kindi hospital who told me of 65 casualties of what he and other doctors believed to be some sort of chemical attack, committed by terrorist factions.
In December 2018, Vanessa Beeley spoke with residents of the Khalidiyyah district of Aleppo where a week prior terrorists had committed a chemical attack, as well as in two other districts of the city.
Nusra Front (rebranded as HTS) embedded in the Layramoun industrial area were responsible for the shelling of these districts with a total of 5 or 6 modified munitions containing toxic substances believed to be related to Amonium Nitrate (usually used as a chemical fertilizer).
Within hours of the attack, more than 150 civilians, including many children were treated for the effects of the toxic gas in the Aleppo hospitals – according to Dr Zaher Batal, head of the Aleppo Medical Association. Symptoms were streaming eyes, respiratory difficulty and tightness of the chest.
In March 2019, Vanessa Beeley wrote of a suspected chemical attack northwest of Al Suqaylabiyah, writing:
I was in Al Suqaylabiyah when this attack took place and I was able to visit the local hospital that received the 34 victims which included three children, one severely affected with respiratory problems. Victims complained of breathing difficulties, skin blisters, eye sensitivity, nausea and shock syndrome after the attack. One victim, Nawfal Tawbar, described the 1m high dense white smoke that enveloped the area after the mortars had exploded.
Clearly, there are numerous incidents of terrorist groups both having the capability to commit chemical attacks and their having actually done so.
PREVIOUS “CHEMICAL ATTACK” ALLEGATIONS
Douma was not first “chemical attack” the West accused the Syrian government of carrying out. Over the years there have been many others, all of which were marked by the same inconsistencies of narrative and evidence of foreknowledge that mark the “official story” on Douma.
It is worth recalling that their report in the previous year, on the allegations of a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib, contained “irregularities,” to put it mildly. The most glaring irregularity (mentioned in the annex section of their report) was the admission of 57 “victims” to hospitalbefore any alleged attack even could have occurred. Another unexplained irregularity was sarin showing up in urine but not in blood tests from the same sample.
And at Ghouta, from the same article:
In 2013, the West and its media had accused the Syria government of a chemical attack in eastern Ghouta…These accusations were shot down by reports from investigative journalists, particularly Seymour Hersh, who concluded that terrorists possessed sarin and the workshops to manufacture rockets. Indeed, I saw one of these mortar and rocket workshops when in Saqba, eastern Ghouta. Massive amounts of missiles of varying sizes lay, as-yet unused, inside the workshop.
According to Mint Press News, Saudi Arabia also gave chemical weapons to terrorists in Ghouta for the 2013 attack. The Mint Press article cited anti-government fighters who said they’d been given chemical weapons which they didn’t know how to use, naming Saudi Prince Bandar as the source. So, in early May, I went to Kafr Batna where, in August 2013, hundreds of people had allegedly been treated at the Tuberculosis Hospital.
Mohammed al-Aghawani, administrator of the Tuberculosis Hospital which treated hundreds of alleged “chemical victims”, told me:
There was no chemical attack. I wasn’t at the hospital that night, but my staff told me what happened. Around 2am, there was suddenly noise, shouting, cars arriving at the hospital, bringing civilians. Some people, armed men, said there was a chemical attack. Some of them had foreign accents. They took people’s clothes off and started pouring water on them. They kept bringing people in till around 7am. Around 1,000 people, mostly children, alive, from nearby villages like Ein Terma, Hezze, Zamalka. Many people later said their children never came back.
Vanessa Beeley interviewed Ahmed Toumeh, a 42 year old from Hamouriya, about an alleged “chemical attack” in Zamalka in 2013:
Since the “chemical attack” in Zamalka in 2013 that supposedly killed 1300, people were fooled into not seeing it was an act between Nusra Front and their civil defence. When the chemicals were used, they had hospitals ready always two days before – they had information in advance of the supposed attacks. How could they know unless they were involved?
At that time (2013) there had been an earlier chemical attack by terrorist groups against the Syrian Army in Khan Al Asal. The Syrian government had invited UN investigators to Damascus. The same night the UN inspectors arrived, they (Nusra Front and White Helmets) prepared for the ‘chemical attack’ in Zamalka.
Everything was prepared. The video was filmed and produced, the water sprayers had been prepared two days in advance.
Many people were fooled by this act and from then on the White Helmets added to the image. They would film themselves rescuing children who were not hurt and they would take a wounded person and film him to change public opinion, to criminalise the Syrian government, portray the Army as destructive.
SHOOTING THE MESSENGERS
Those offering on-the-ground, substantive accounts countering the mainstream claims on Douma have been smeared and disregarded as Syrian or Russian propagandists. Ironically, most of those doing the smears have never set foot in Syria, much less Douma.
When Pearson Sharp, Vanessa Beeley, and myself shared our findings from Douma, we were predictably lambasted by Western corporate media like the BBC. And when others questioned the murky narrative, they too were smeared. As Vanessa Beeley wrote:
Academics, Professors Piers Robinson and Tim Hayward, came under concerted attack as did other members of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media when they analysed the events and questioned the veracity of it being a chemical attack. In the UK, the Times published no less than four articles labeling myself and the “rogue” academics as “Assad’s useful idiots,” timed to perfection on the day that the UK, US and France launched their unlawful bombing campaign against Syria. A bombing campaign that was fully enabled by the ignominious rush to judgement by corporate media in the West.
The Atlantic Council is a Washington DC-based think tank, which promulgates lies and propaganda to further imperialist wars and weapons sales, among other things.
They produced a whitewash article to discredit independent reporting on Syria, in which they dedicated a considerable segment to attacking both Vanessa Beeley and myself:
Many of the attacks on the White Helmets were both voiced and amplified by a group of pro-Assad bloggers, of whom the most prominent were British citizen Vanessa Beeley and Canadian citizen Eva Bartlett. These, in turn, were supported online by a group of Twitter users who have repeatedly targeted critics of the Assad regime. Neither Bartlett nor Beeley can be viewed as a credible or impartial commentator.”
A perhaps unintended result of their linking to articles we’ve written around Douma, and the White Helmets, is that open-minded readers might become informed instead of blindly believed the Atlantic Council’s nonsense.
There were more smears, but as usual they copy-pasted from prior ones, and don’t actually delve into the content of what we presented, which is testimonies of civilians — named civilians, even – in contrast to the “unnamed sources” or “media activists” Western corporate media so fondly make up.
An aspect of such character assassinations is implying that the reporting we do is effortless and we are essentially toured around by the Syrian government.
What the average reader may not realize is that even for ourselves, people known in Syria by now, there are the same bureaucratic procedures that all journalists must follow.
Further, unlike corporate journalists who have obscene funding and teams of people to help with research, translations, subtitling and even the logistics of planning a trip to Syria (visas, flights, travel from Lebanon, accommodation), we do everything on our own, with help from Syrian friends (accurate translations) and at our own expense.
Former producer Patrick Corbett elaborated on this to me a few years ago, saying:
If you’re working for a network like NBC, CBC, what people don’t realize is that behind the scenes you’ve got so much backup in every way. First of all, before you go out, you’ve got a team of researchers preparing things for you. You’ve got people who have contacts everywhere.
When you go to a place like Syria you have a fixer; a fixer is a local person who has contacts, can take you places..things like that. You go with things like a satellite phone, so you’re always in touch with your home base. If you have any problems, they’ll get people to you….
They’ve got somebody who will work with you doing your voice-over. When somebody stands in front of the camera, that’s not what’s coming out of their head, its what’s coming out of the corporate entity that is that news producing organization. They get paid six figure incomes to do what they do.
BBC PRODUCER ADMITS (THEN RETRACTS) THE TRUTH
While the BBC is guilty of some of the worst war propaganda against Syria in this 10 year war against the Syrian people, it is worth mentioning that one of the BBC’s producers vocally expressed his skepticism over the “evidence” provided after the alleged events of April 7, 2018.
Riam Dalati is on the BBC production team based in Beirut and describes himself, on his Twitter page, as an “esteemed colleague” of Quentin Sommerville, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent.
Dalati broke ranks with his UK Government-aligned media, on Twitter, to announce that“after almost 6 months of investigation, I can prove, without a doubt, that the Douma hospital scene was staged.”
…Almost immediately after the alleged incident in Douma, he tweeted out his frustration that “activists and rebels” had used “corpses of dead children to stage emotive scenes for Western consumption.”
The emotive wording of Dalati’s tweet, he was “sick and tired” of such manipulation of events, suggested that this was not the first time children had been used as props in a macabre war theatre designed to elicit public sympathy for escalated military intervention in Syria disguised as a necessary “humanitarian” crackdown on “Assad’s gassing of his own people.”
Dalati had been referring to the arranging of two children’s corpses into a “last hug” still life composition, a photo that went viral, rocketed into the social media sphere by activists who had collaborated with the brutal Jaish al-Islam regime while it tortured and abused the Syrian civilians under its control.
Whatever the reason for Dalati’s exasperation, the tweet was deleted before a watered down version appeared. Dalati claimed that a “breach of editorial policy” and lack of context was behind this alteration. Apparently BBC employees are not allowed to be “sick and tired” of the exploitation of children to promote a war that will inevitably kill more children. Simultaneously, Dalati’s account was protected, making tweets visible only to approved followers.
CRITICAL ISSUES BEYOND DOUMA AND THE OPCW
While the issue of the OPCW coverup and distortion of facts on the ground is important, there are many other issues sidelined by media, including well-intended media.
There’s the fact that countless hospitals have been attacked — severely damaged or destroyed — by terrorists, to the silence of Western media and politicians. This in turn means Syrians in areas where hospitals have been damaged or destroyed are denied medical care.
The suffering of civilians under terrorist rule is one. Thankfully, as most of Syria has been liberated from terrorist rule, there are now fewer civilians subject to their barbarism.
What has not been eradicated and has only gotten worse and worse are the criminal, brutal, sanctions against the Syrian people.
Electricity rationing in Syria has reached its highest levels due to the government’s inability to secure the fuel needed to generate electricity. This is mainly due to the damaging international economic sanctions led by the Western powers including the IIT protagonists France, UK and the US.
[…]The value of the Syrian pound has crumbled to almost nothing. Today it is about 3,660 pounds to one US dollar. An average wage is less than 2 US dollars a day.
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019…is credited with bringing about starvation, darkness, plague, misery, robbery, kidnappings, increased mortality rate and the certain destruction of a nation that was once a beacon of hope across the Middle East.
International aid no longer reaches Syria compared to pre-Caesar Act. Many agencies are scared of falling foul of the harsh Act, which in short makes life a living hell for millions of ordinary Syrians.
In his overview of the Douma chemical lies, Kevork Almassian, of Syriana Analysis, also spoke of the harsh realities Syrians endure now, thanks to the war and the brutal western sanctions against Syrians:
Just imagine that for a second, that you have to wait for two to three to four hours to buy one package of bread that can suffice you maybe for two days for you and your family. Just imagine that you have to wait 20 to 48 hours on a gas station to fill a little bit fuel for your car. It’s unimaginable, you cannot imagine that because you’re not living that, but it is happening now in 21st century.
It is high time to put the Douma hoax to rest. It’s also beyond time to acknowledge the huge sacrifices of the Syrian army (and allies) in fighting terrorism and restoring peace to Syria.
Meanwhile, while cynical Western war propagandists mock the Syrian presidential elections, Syrians in Syria and around the world hold massive demonstrations in support of their president, as they did in 2014.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Follow her on Twitter @EvaKBartlett
