politics for the 99%

Published on ZNet, by Ray McGovern, Dec 24, 2015.

One reason why Official Washington continues to insist that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go” is that he supposedly “gassed his own people” with sarin on Aug. 21, 2013, but the truth of that allegation has never been established and is in growing doubt, U.S. intelligence veterans point out. [Updated on Dec. 23 with new signers.]

MEMORANDUM FOR: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Sarin Attack at Ghouta on Aug. 21, 2013

In a Memorandum of Oct. 1, 2013, we asked each of you to make public the intelligence upon which you based your differing conclusions on who was responsible for the sarin chemical attack at Ghouta, outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. On Dec. 10, 2015, Eren Erdem, a member of parliament in Turkey, citing official documents, blamed Turkey for facilitating the delivery of sarin to rebels in Syria … //

… Claims and Counterclaims: … //
… Documentary Evidence: … //

… The Operation:

According to Erdem, the 13 suspects arrested in raids carried out against the plotters were released just a week after they were indicted, and the case was closed — shut down by higher authority. Erdem told RT that the sarin attack at Ghouta took place shortly after the criminal case was closed and that the attack probably was carried out by jihadists with sarin gas smuggled through Turkey.

Small wonder President Erdogan has accused Erdem of “treason.” It was not Erdem’s first “offense.” Earlier, he exposed corruption by Erdogan family members, for which a government newspaper branded him an “American puppet, Israeli agent, a supporter of the terrorist PKK and the instigator of a coup.”

In our Sept. 6, 2013 Memorandum for the President, we reported that coordination meetings had taken place just weeks before the sarin attack at a Turkish military garrison in Antakya – just 15 miles from the Syrian border with Syria and 55 miles from its largest city, Aleppo.

In Antakya, senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials were said to be coordinating plans with Western-sponsored rebels, who were told to expect an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development.” This, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria, and rebel commanders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Assad government.

A year before, the New York Times reported that the Antakya area had become a “magnet for foreign jihadis, who are flocking into Turkey to fight holy war in Syria.” The Times quoted a Syrian opposition member based in Antakya, saying the Turkish police were patrolling this border area “with their eyes closed.”

And, Mr. Lavrov, while the account given by Eren Erdem before the Turkish Parliament puts his charges on the official record, a simple Google search including “Antakya” shows that you were correct in stating the Internet contains a wealth of contemporaneous detail supporting Erdem’s disclosures.

Mr. Kerry, while in Moscow on Dec. 15, you said to a Russian interviewer that Syrian President Assad “has gassed his people – I mean, gas hasn’t been used in warfare formally for years – for – and gas is outlawed, but Assad used it.”

Three days later The Washington Post dutifully repeated the charge about Assad’s supposed killing “his own people with chemical weapons.” U.S. media have made this the conventional wisdom. The American people are not fully informed. There has been no mainstream media reporting on Turkish MP Erdem’s disclosures.

Renewed Appeal: … //

… (full text, links, signatories).

Links:

Plus jeune l’an prochain, dans Santé, Nature, Innovation, par Jean-Marc Dupuis, le 22 déc 2015: Être vieux n’est pas une excuse pour être paresseux, explique Klaus Obermeyer, qui est d’origine allemande mais vit dans les montagnes des Etats-Unis;

Stephan Grünewald im Dialog mit Moderator Michael Krons am 19.12.2015, 31.31 min, von phoenix;

Der satirische Jahresrückblick – ZDF, 29.57 min, von YAHYA J.B.S. am 19. Dez 2015;

Ethiopia: Lethal force against protesters in Oromia region, on farmlandgrab.org, Dec 18, 2015;

Syrienkonflikt: Andrew B. Denison zur Rede Obama am 18.12.2015, 4.16 min, von phoenix;

Augstein und Blome vom 18.12.2015: Siggi Flop- wozu noch SPD, 10.26 min, von phoenix;

Billiges Erdöl – Doku Makro 3sat, 28.20 min, von Intelligentes Investieren am 10. Dez 2015;

Governments don’t understand cyber warfare, we need hackers, on TED global London, 9.28 min, June 2015: the Internet has transformed the front lines of war, and it’s leaving governments behind …;

Der Verrat des Bildungssystems an unseren Kindern – Richard David Precht, 9.12 min, von Wisbeck am 9. März 2015.