17-Apr-18 World View -- As Syria's al-Assad attacks Idlib, he may consider chemical weapons essential

[John]

> What do you all think about the article at Zerohedge entitled:
> OPCW Investigators Reportedly Found "No Evidence" Of Chemical
> Weapons At Syrian Facilities Bombed By US
> https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04- ... -bombed-us

> GaryB

> I've expressed here my dubiousness when it comes to reports of
> Assad using chemical weapons and when doing so, have been attacked
> as a Putin supporting Trumpite. LoL It seems one must buy into
> the story or they're supporters of Assad and Putin.

People my age have wondered our whole lives about how Hitler was able
to so thoroughly fool the British. And I find it incredibly
astonishing to see the same thing happen today. Bashar al-Assad is
the worst genocidal monster so far this century, as I've written many
times, and yet there are Americans and Britons who say that the US is
lying, Britain is lying, France is lying, Human Rights Watch is lying,
Doctors Without Borders is lying, the World Health Organization is
lying, numerous Western media reporters from the BBC, al-Jazeera, RFI,
and others are all lying -- they're all lying, and all part of an
elaborate Broadway production, a staging, paid for by the UK
government, to villify al-Assad and Russia.

It's absolutely incredible, and something I can barely believe is
happening if I didn't see it with my own eyes. I can now see how
trolls of the day in 1939 were telling people that anyone pointing to
Germany's military buildup were warmongers, and anyone pointing to
signs of the Holocaust were hallucinating -- or perhaps that these
signs were all being staged by anti-German elements in Britain's
government.

As I said, people my age have wondered our whole lives what happened,
and now it's finally clear, and it's truly astonishing.

So just to be clear, I've written hundreds or perhaps thousands of
articles on Syria since 2011. To write those articles, I've copied
and pasted tens of thousands of articles into my personal archive. My
archive now has almost 100,000 articles in it, from media sources all
around the world. I've studied these articles carefully.

Furthermore, since I have no life, I work in front of my computer all
day with the tv on, and I listen and/or watch the BBC, al-Jazeera,
RFI, Fox, CNN, and other media sources. Even when I go shopping, I
listen to the BBC or RFI through bluetooth.

I've heard multiple doctors and victims interviewed on these media
reports, and read many more in the print media. It is literally
mathematically impossible for Britain or anyone to have paid off
hundreds, perhaps thousands of people to lie to support the
Russia/al-Assad narrative. It is 100% certain that al-Assad used
chlorine gas on civilians in Douma on April 7, and more likely than
not that Sarin gas was used as well.

Now I'll turn to that ZeroHedge article. The first thing it does is
reference a "famed journalist" Robert Fisk. I've read many things by
Fisk over the years. He lives in Beirut, and he's vitriolically
anti-Israel, anti-Britain and anti-American. He's pro-Hezbollah and
pro-terrorism. He got a lot of his "fame" after 9/11/2011 by loudly
proclaiming that America deserved to be attacked by bin Laden, whom
he'd interviewed in the past, and agreed with. In October of that
year, he went to Afghanistan to collect proof that American was the
cause of 9/11. In an ironic twist, he was mugged and beaten by
Taliban jihadists and guess what -- he said that he deserved it, and
if he were the Taliban running into a British journalist, then he
would have beaten the journalist as well.

So the fact that ZeroHedge references this "famed" journalist shows
right off the bat what a piece of garbage that article is.

But then I clicked through to the second ZH article, and then clicked
through again to Fisk's article in the Independent.

Reading the article, which is a rambling, incoherent rant, it's pretty
clear what happened. He went to Douma to "prove" that there was no
gas attack. He interviewed people, and learned that there WAS a gas
attack. "Horrors! What do I do now?" He manages to track down a
doctor who says that the gas attack wasn't gas but asphyxiation --
oxygen starvation -- because the wind stirred up a dust storm. Even
the Russians are not using this laughably ridiculous explanation. But
it's the quality of garbage you can expect from Fisk, from the
Russians, from the Syrians, and from ZeroHedge.

Another hilarious quote from Fisk's article is: "By bad luck, too, the
doctors who were on duty that night on 7 April were all in Damascus
giving evidence to a chemical weapons enquiry." Fisk, who may be
mentally deranged, apparently never considered the possibility that
the reason that al-Assad launched the chlorine/Sarin gas attack on
April 7 is because all the doctors were in Damascus.

So look, I don't give a shit what you believe. If you believe with
Robert Fisk that America deserved 9/11, well it's a free country. If
you believe that al-Assad is an innocent victim of malevolent staging
by the British, then why not also believe in the tooth fairy?

So believe what you want, but I'm telling you that it is 100% certain
that al-Assad used chlorine gas on civilians in Douma on April 7, and
more likely than not that Sarin gas was used as well.

[John]

> Zero Hedge? The paid troll website that blamed the Ebola outbreak
> in 2015 on American NGOs? ZH, the website that pushes every
> Anti-American conspiracy imaginable. ZH, the website operated out
> of Bulgaria by owners who openly admire Vladimir Putin? ZH, the
> website that has been predicting America will collapse, be
> defeated, or implode within days or weeks virtually every day for
> over a decade? You mean that Zero Hedge? Is that where you people
> get your news? Lol! Zero Hedge is a fake news mills rivaled only
> by RT Television. Why didn't you link to a story 'debunking' the
> chemical weapons attack on Russia Today Television?

This is very well put. Thank you. ZeroHedge should stick to
reporting stock prices, not geopolitical events about which they know
less than nothing.

I went back into my archives, and it turns out that I saved a number
of articles about Robert Fisk after 9/11. This is the time when he
really became a "famed journalist."

Here's the article where he described how he was attacked by the
Taliban, but deserved it:

> My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this
> filthy war Report by Robert Fisk in Kila Abdullah after Afghan
> border ordeal.

> 10 December 2001


> They started by shaking hands. We said "Salaam aleikum" -- peace
> be upon you -- then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small
> boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in
> the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones
> into my face and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down
> my forehead and swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I
> couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were
> the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan
> border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any
> other Westerner I could find.

> So why record my few minutes of terror and self-disgust under
> assault near the Afghan border, bleeding and crying like an
> animal, when hundreds -- let us be frank and say thousands -- of
> innocent civilians are dying under American air strikes in
> Afghanistan, when the "War of Civilisation" is burning and maiming
> the Pashtuns of Kandahar and destroying their homes because "good"
> must triumph over "evil"?

> Some of the Afghans in the little village had been there for
> years, others had arrived -- desperate and angry and mourning
> their slaughtered loved ones -- over the past two weeks. It was a
> bad place for a car to break down. A bad time, just before the
> Iftar, the end of the daily fast of Ramadan. But what happened to
> us was symbolic of the hatred and fury and hypocrisy of this
> filthy war, a growing band of destitute Afghan men, young and old,
> who saw foreigners -- enemies -- in their midst and tried to
> destroy at least one of them.

> Many of these Afghans, so we were to learn, were outraged by what
> they had seen on television of the Mazar-i-Sharif massacres, of
> the prisoners killed with their hands tied behind their backs. A
> villager later told one of our drivers that they had seen the
> videotape of CIA officers "Mike" and "Dave" threatening death to a
> kneeling prisoner at Mazar. They were uneducated -- I doubt if
> many could read -- but you don't have to have a schooling to
> respond to the death of loved ones under a B-52's bombs. At one
> point a screaming teenager had turned to my driver and asked, in
> all sincerity: "Is that Mr Bush?"

> It must have been about 4.30pm that we reached Kila Abdullah,
> halfway between the Pakistani city of Quetta and the border town
> of Chaman; Amanullah, our driver, Fayyaz Ahmed, our translator,
> Justin Huggler of The Independent -- fresh from covering the Mazar
> massacre -- and myself.

> The first we knew that something was wrong was when the car
> stopped in the middle of the narrow, crowded street. A film of
> white steam was rising from the bonnet of our jeep, a constant
> shriek of car horns and buses and trucks and rickshaws protesting
> at the road-block we had created. All four of us got out of the
> car and pushed it to the side of the road. I muttered something to
> Justin about this being "a bad place to break down". Kila Abdulla
> was home to thousands of Afghan refugees, the poor and huddled
> masses that the war has produced in Pakistan.

> Amanullah went off to find another car -- there is only one thing
> worse than a crowd of angry men and that's a crowd of angry men
> after dark -- and Justin and I smiled at the initially friendly
> crowd that had already gathered round our steaming vehicle. I
> shook a lot of hands -- perhaps I should have thought of Mr Bush
> -- and uttered a lot of "Salaam aleikums". I knew what could
> happen if the smiling stopped.

> The crowd grew larger and I suggested to Justin that we move away
> from the jeep, walk into the open road. A child had flicked his
> finger hard against my wrist and I persuaded myself that it was an
> accident, a childish moment of contempt. Then a pebble whisked
> past my head and bounced off Justin's shoulder. Justin turned
> round. His eyes spoke of concern and I remember how I breathed
> in. Please, I thought, it was just a prank. Then another kid tried
> to grab my bag. It contained my passport, credit cards, money,
> diary, contacts book, mobile phone. I yanked it back and put the
> strap round my shoulder. Justin and I crossed the road and someone
> punched me in the back.

> How do you walk out of a dream when the characters suddenly turn
> hostile? I saw one of the men who had been all smiles when we
> shook hands. He wasn't smiling now. Some of the smaller boys were
> still laughing but their grins were transforming into something
> else. The respected foreigner -- the man who had been all "salaam
> aleikum" a few minutes ago -- was upset, frightened, on the
> run. The West was being brought low. Justin was being pushed
> around and, in the middle of the road, we noticed a bus driver
> waving us to his vehicle. Fayyaz, still by the car, unable to
> understand why we had walked away, could no longer see us. Justin
> reached the bus and climbed aboard. As I put my foot on the step
> three men grabbed the strap of my bag and wrenched me back on to
> the road. Justin's hand shot out. "Hold on," he shouted. I did.

> That's when the first mighty crack descended on my head. I almost
> fell down under the blow, my ears singing with the impact. I had
> expected this, though not so painful or hard, not so
> immediate. Its message was awful. Someone hated me enough to hurt
> me. There were two more blows, one on the back of my shoulder, a
> powerful fist that sent me crashing against the side of the bus
> while still clutching Justin's hand. The passengers were looking
> out at me and then at Justin. But they did not move. No one wanted
> to help.

> I cried out "Help me Justin", and Justin -- who was doing more
> than any human could do by clinging to my ever loosening grip
> asked me -- over the screams of the crowd -- what I wanted him to
> do. Then I realised. I could only just hear him. Yes, they were
> shouting. Did I catch the word "kaffir" -- infidel? Perhaps I was
> was wrong. That's when I was dragged away from Justin.

> There were two more cracks on my head, one on each side and for
> some odd reason, part of my memory -- some small crack in my brain
> -- registered a moment at school, at a primary school called the
> Cedars in Maidstone more than 50 years ago when a tall boy
> building sandcastles in the playground had hit me on the head. I
> had a memory of the blow smelling, as if it had affected my
> nose. The next blow came from a man I saw carrying a big stone in
> his right hand. He brought it down on my forehead with tremendous
> force and something hot and liquid splashed down my face and lips
> and chin. I was kicked. On the back, on the shins, on my right
> thigh. Another teenager grabbed my bag yet again and I was left
> clinging to the strap, looking up suddenly and realising there
> must have been 60 men in front of me, howling. Oddly, it wasn't
> fear I felt but a kind of wonderment. So this is how it happens. I
> knew that I had to respond. Or, so I reasoned in my stunned state,
> I had to die.

> The only thing that shocked me was my own physical sense of
> collapse, my growing awareness of the liquid beginning to cover
> me. I don't think I've ever seen so much blood before. For a
> second, I caught a glimpse of something terrible, a nightmare face
> -- my own -- reflected in the window of the bus, streaked in
> blood, my hands drenched in the stuff like Lady Macbeth, slopping
> down my pullover and the collar of my shirt until my back was wet
> and my bag dripping with crimson and vague splashes suddenly
> appearing on my trousers.

> The more I bled, the more the crowd gathered and beat me with
> their fists. Pebbles and small stones began to bounce off my head
> and shoulders. How long, I remembered thinking, could this go on?

> My head was suddenly struck by stones on both sides at the same
> time -- not thrown stones but stones in the palms of men who were
> using them to try and crack my skull. Then a fist punched me in
> the face, splintering my glasses on my nose, another hand grabbed
> at the spare pair of spectacles round my neck and ripped the
> leather container from the cord.

> I guess at this point I should thank Lebanon. For 25 years, I
> have covered Lebanon's wars and the Lebanese used to teach me,
> over and over again, how to stay alive: take a decision -- any
> decision -- but don't do nothing.

> So I wrenched the bag back from the hands of the young man who
> was holding it. He stepped back. Then I turned on the man on my
> right, the one holding the bloody stone in his hand and I bashed
> my fist into his mouth. I couldn't see very much -- my eyes were
> not only short-sighted without my glasses but were misting over
> with a red haze -- but I saw the man sort of cough and a tooth
> fall from his lip and then he fell back on the road. For a second
> the crowd stopped. Then I went for the other man, clutching my bag
> under my arm and banging my fist into his nose. He roared in anger
> and it suddenly turned all red. I missed another man with a punch,
> hit one more in the face, and ran.

> I was back in the middle of the road but could not see. I brought
> my hands to my eyes and they were full of blood and with my
> fingers I tried to scrape the gooey stuff out. It made a kind of
> sucking sound but I began to see again and realised that I was
> crying and weeping and that the tears were cleaning my eyes of
> blood. What had I done, I kept asking myself? I had been punching
> and attacking Afghan refugees, the very people I had been writing
> about for so long, the very dispossessed, mutilated people whom my
> own country --among others -- was killing along, with the Taliban,
> just across the border. God spare me, I thought. I think I
> actually said it. The men whose families our bombers were killing
> were now my enemies too.

> Then something quite remarkable happened. A man walked up to me,
> very calmly, and took me by the arm. I couldn't see him very well
> for all the blood that was running into my eyes but he was dressed
> in a kind of robe and wore a turban and had a white-grey
> beard. And he led me away from the crowd. I looked over my
> shoulder. There were now a hundred men behind me and a few stones
> skittered along the road, but they were not aimed at me
> --presumably to avoid hitting the stranger. He was like an Old
> Testament figure or some Bible story, the Good Samaritan, a Muslim
> man -- perhaps a mullah in the village -- who was trying to save
> my life.

> He pushed me into the back of a police truck. But the policemen
> didn't move. They were terrified. "Help me," I kept shouting
> through the tiny window at the back of their cab, my hands leaving
> streams of blood down the glass. They drove a few metres and
> stopped until the tall man spoke to them again. Then they drove
> another 300 metres.

> And there, beside the road, was a Red Cross-Red Crescent
> convoy. The crowd was still behind us. But two of the medical
> attendants pulled me behind one of their vehicles, poured water
> over my hands and face and began pushing bandages on to my head
> and face and the back of my head. "Lie down and we'll cover you
> with a blanket so they can't see you," one of them said. They were
> both Muslims, Bangladeshis and their names should be recorded
> because they were good men and true: Mohamed Abdul Halim and
> Sikder Mokaddes Ahmed. I lay on the floor, groaning, aware that I
> might live.

> Within minutes, Justin arrived. He had been protected by a
> massive soldier from the Baluchistan Levies -- true ghost of the
> British Empire who, with a single rifle, kept the crowds away from
> the car in which Justin was now sitting. I fumbled with my
> bag. They never got the bag, I kept saying to myself, as if my
> passport and my credit cards were a kind of Holy Grail. But they
> had seized my final pair of spare glasses -- I was blind without
> all three -- and my mobile telephone was missing and so was my
> contacts book, containing 25 years of telephone numbers throughout
> the Middle East. What was I supposed to do? Ask everyone who ever
> knew me to re-send their telephone numbers?

> Goddamit, I said and tried to bang my fist on my side until I
> realised it was bleeding from a big gash on the wrist -- the mark
> of the tooth I had just knocked out of a man's jaw, a man who was
> truly innocent of any crime except that of being the victim of the
> world.

> I had spent more than two and a half decades reporting the
> humiliation and misery of the Muslim world and now their anger had
> embraced me too. Or had it? There were Mohamed and Sikder of the
> Red Crescent and Fayyaz who came panting back to the car
> incandescent at our treatment and Amanullah who invited us to his
> home for medical treatment. And there was the Muslim saint who had
> taken me by the arm.

> And -- I realised -- there were all the Afghan men and boys who
> had attacked me who should never have done so but whose brutality
> was entirely the product of others, of us -- of we who had armed
> their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and
> laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for
> the "War for Civilisation" just a few miles away and then bombed
> their homes and ripped up their families and called them
> "collateral damage".

> So I thought I should write about what happened to us in this
> fearful, silly, bloody, tiny incident. I feared other versions
> would produce a different narrative, of how a British journalist
> was "beaten up by a mob of Afghan refugees".

> And of course, that's the point. The people who were assaulted
> were the Afghans, the scars inflicted by us -- by B-52s, not by
> them. And I'll say it again. If I was an Afghan refugee in Kila
> Abdullah, I would have done just what they did. I would have
> attacked Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find.

> THE PATHOLOGY OF ROBERT FISK: His account of his ordeal at the
> hands of an Afghan mob -- a mob that apparently cried "Infidel!"

> as they attacked and tried to rob him -- is a classic piece of
> leftist pathology. You have to read it to believe it. Even when
> people are trying to murder Fisk, he adamantly refuses to see them
> as morally culpable or even responsible. I've heard of self-hatred
> but this is ridiculous: "They started by shaking hands. We said,
> 'Salaam aleikum' -- peace be upon you -- then the first pebbles
> flew past my face." That sentence alone deserves to go down as one
> of the defining quotes of the idiotic lefty. If it weren't so
> tragic, it would be downright hilarious. Who needs Evelyn Waugh
> when you have this kind of reality?

> "I WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME": But wait, there's more. "A small
> boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in
> the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones
> into my face and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down
> my forehead and swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I
> couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were
> the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan
> border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any
> other Westerner I could find." What does this mean, you might well
> ask? What it means is that someone -- anyone -- is either innocent
> or guilty purely by racial or cultural association. An average
> Westerner is to be taken as an emblem of an entire culture and
> treated as such. Any random Westerner will do. Individual notions
> of responsibility or morality are banished, as one group is
> labeled blameless and another irredeemably malign. There's a word
> for this: it's racism. And like many other members of the left,
> Fisk is himself a proud racist, someone who believes that the
> color of a person's skin condemns him automatically and justifies
> violence against him. So the two extremes touch and are, in fact,
> interchangeable. Rightist racism springs from the premise that
> some races are somehow morally superior. Leftist racism springs
> from the premise that some races are also morally superior. The
> only difference is the color of skin. Alleged "victimization"
> sanctifies any evil perpetrated by the oppressed race. Just as the
> Nazis and Communists claimed self-defense for the mass-murder of
> their "oppressors," so modern leftists claim the absolution of
> self-defense even for a mob attacking a carful of innocent,
> harmless journalists. Or a sky-scraper for that matter.

> THE VICTIM OF THE WORLD: You know the expression: you wouldn't
> understand a culture if it actually hit you in the head? Fisk has
> now officially retired that expression as a metaphor. He goes on:

> "There were all the Afghan men and boys who had attacked me who
> should never have done so but whose brutality was entirely the
> product of others." Notice that phrase -- "whose brutality was
> entirely the product of others." What can that possibly mean?

> We're not talking about extenuating circumstances -- things that
> might help us understand or contextualize the hatred of one people
> for another. We're talking about a priori moral absolution. Take
> this passage: "Goddamit, I said and tried to bang my fist on my
> side until I realised it was bleeding from a big gash on the wrist
> -- the mark of the tooth I had just knocked out of a man's jaw, a
> man who was truly innocent of any crime except that of being the
> victim of the world." No, Mr. Fisk, that man who attacked you was
> not truly innocent of any crime. You were. He was not the victim
> of the world. You were the victim of a thieving, violent mob. For
> those who believe that the left-wing intelligentsia is capable of
> critical thought or even a modification of their ideology in the
> face of evidence, this incident is a wonderful example of why it
> won't happen. They won't recognize reality, or abandon their
> racism, or moderate their spectacular condescension to the
> inhabitants of the developing world -- even when reality,
> literally, crushingly, punches them in the face.

> Couldn't Have Happened to a Nicer Guy

> Robert Fisk of London's Independent says he was set upon and
> beaten by a mob of Afghan refugees in the Pakistani town of Kila
> Abdullah. He says he was the victim of a hate crime, attacked
> simply because he was a Westerner. And he is in favor of hate
> crimes: "If I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to
> the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to
> Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find." Fisk claims
> that the people in the crowd were angry about America's bombing
> campaign in Afghanistan, though he offers no evidence and was
> scarcely in a position to conduct interviews.

> Does anyone else find this story a little fishy? Granted, Fisk is
> notoriously anti-American and has written a lot of stupid and
> obnoxious things since Sept. 11. But this just seems outside the
> realm of normal human experience. Can someone really be so blinded
> by hatred that he cheers on an assault on himself because the
> assailants are motivated by the same hatred that animates their
> victim? We suppose it's possible, but color us skeptical.

> Even granting Fisk the benefit of the doubt and assuming the
> attack actually happened as he describes it, Fisk's explanation
> still seems too convenient. Why should we believe that his
> attackers share his ideological outlook? Maybe someone in the
> crowd recognized Fisk as a reporter who's written sycophantic
> pieces about the Taliban , whose oppression the refugees had
> fled. Or maybe the attack had nothing to do with politics. Here's
> how Fisk describes the attack's onset, after he got out of his
> broken car:

>

Amanullah went off to find another car . . . and Justin
> [the translator] and I smiled at the initially friendly crowd that
> had already gathered round our steaming vehicle. I shook a lot of
> hands--perhaps I should have thought of Mr Bush--and uttered a lot
> of "Salaam aleikums". I knew what could happen if the smiling
> stopped.

> The crowd grew larger and I suggested to Justin that we move
> away from the jeep, walk into the open road. A child had flicked
> his finger hard against my wrist and I persuaded myself that it
> was an accident, a childish moment of contempt. Then a pebble
> whisked past my head and bounced off Justin's shoulder. Justin
> turned round. His eyes spoke of concern and I remember how I
> breathed in. Please, I thought, it was just a prank. Then another
> kid tried to grab my bag. It contained my passport, credit cards,
> money, diary, contacts book, mobile phone. I yanked it back and
> put the strap round my shoulder. Justin and I crossed the road and
> someone punched me in the back.

> Isn't it possible that the refugees took all those "Salaam
> aleikums" as mockery, coming as they did from a smug Brit? And
> what about the guy trying to rob Fisk? This sounds more like a
> band of common criminals than a political movement.

> Of course, we could be wrong. Maybe Fisk should go back to Kila
> Abdullah to do some more research.

[thomasglee]

> What do you all think about the article at Zerohedge entitled:
> OPCW Investigators Reportedly Found "No Evidence" Of Chemical
> Weapons At Syrian Facilities Bombed By US
> https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04- ... -bombed-us

> GaryB

> I've expressed here my dubiousness when it comes to reports of
> Assad using chemical weapons and when doing so, have been attacked
> as a Putin supporting Trumpite. LoL It seems one must buy into
> the story or they're supporters of Assad and Putin.

People my age have wondered our whole lives about how Hitler was able
to so thoroughly fool the British. And I find it incredibly
astonishing to see the same thing happen today. Bashar al-Assad is
the worst genocidal monster so far this century, as I've written many
times, and yet there are Americans and Britons who say that the US is
lying, Britain is lying, France is lying, Human Rights Watch is lying,
Doctors Without Borders is lying, the World Health Organization is
lying, numerous Western media reporters from the BBC, al-Jazeera, RFI,
and others are all lying -- they're all lying, and all part of an
elaborate Broadway production, a staging, paid for by the UK
government, to villify al-Assad and Russia.

It's absolutely incredible, and something I can barely believe is
happening if I didn't see it with my own eyes. I can now see how
trolls of the day in 1939 were telling people that anyone pointing to
Germany's military buildup were warmongers, and anyone pointing to
signs of the Holocaust were hallucinating -- or perhaps that these
signs were all being staged by anti-German elements in Britain's
government.

As I said, people my age have wondered our whole lives what happened,
and now it's finally clear, and it's truly astonishing.

So just to be clear, I've written hundreds or perhaps thousands of
articles on Syria since 2011. To write those articles, I've copied
and pasted tens of thousands of articles into my personal archive. My
archive now has almost 100,000 articles in it, from media sources all
around the world. I've studied these articles carefully.

Furthermore, since I have no life, I work in front of my computer all
day with the tv on, and I listen and/or watch the BBC, al-Jazeera,
RFI, Fox, CNN, and other media sources. Even when I go shopping, I
listen to the BBC or RFI through bluetooth.

I've heard multiple doctors and victims interviewed on these media
reports, and read many more in the print media. It is literally
mathematically impossible for Britain or anyone to have paid off
hundreds, perhaps thousands of people to lie to support the
Russia/al-Assad narrative. It is 100% certain that al-Assad used
chlorine gas on civilians in Douma on April 7, and more likely than
not that Sarin gas was used as well.

Now I'll turn to that ZeroHedge article. The first thing it does is
reference a "famed journalist" Robert Fisk. I've read many things by
Fisk over the years. He lives in Beirut, and he's vitriolically
anti-Israel, anti-Britain and anti-American. He's pro-Hezbollah and
pro-terrorism. He got a lot of his "fame" after 9/11/2011 by loudly
proclaiming that America deserved to be attacked by bin Laden, whom
he'd interviewed in the past, and agreed with. In October of that
year, he went to Afghanistan to collect proof that American was the
cause of 9/11. In an ironic twist, he was mugged and beaten by
Taliban jihadists and guess what -- he said that he deserved it, and
if he were the Taliban running into a British journalist, then he
would have beaten the journalist as well.

So the fact that ZeroHedge references this "famed" journalist shows
right off the bat what a piece of garbage that article is.

But then I clicked through to the second ZH article, and then clicked
through again to Fisk's article in the Independent.

Reading the article, which is a rambling, incoherent rant, it's pretty
clear what happened. He went to Douma to "prove" that there was no
gas attack. He interviewed people, and learned that there WAS a gas
attack. "Horrors! What do I do now?" He manages to track down a
doctor who says that the gas attack wasn't gas but asphyxiation --
oxygen starvation -- because the wind stirred up a dust storm. Even
the Russians are not using this laughably ridiculous explanation. But
it's the quality of garbage you can expect from Fisk, from the
Russians, from the Syrians, and from ZeroHedge.

Another hilarious quote from Fisk's article is: "By bad luck, too, the
doctors who were on duty that night on 7 April were all in Damascus
giving evidence to a chemical weapons enquiry." Fisk, who may be
mentally deranged, apparently never considered the possibility that
the reason that al-Assad launched the chlorine/Sarin gas attack on
April 7 is because all the doctors were in Damascus.

So look, I don't give a shit what you believe. If you believe with
Robert Fisk that America deserved 9/11, well it's a free country. If
you believe that al-Assad is an innocent victim of malevolent staging
by the British, then why not also believe in the tooth fairy?

So believe what you want, but I'm telling you that it is 100% certain
that al-Assad used chlorine gas on civilians in Douma on April 7, and
more likely than not that Sarin gas was used as well.

Here's where you throw me off. Generational crisis wars, you say, are genocidal. Then you say Assad is waging a genocidal war as a genocidal monster, yet then turn around and say, "it's not a generational crisis war that he is waging". Those two divergent points don't compute with me.

Lastly, one can believe that Assad wasn't necessarily the one behind the attack (my dubious attitude isn't really whether there was an attack or not, it's more about who launched it) while also not believing he is an innocent victim of malevolent staging by the British. You put way too much belief in the radical Islamists within Syria. I believe they are just as bad as he is and it would not be beneath them to gas their own people if they thought it would turn the world more strongly against Assad.

As far as Fisk goes... I don't really give a shit what he thinks. I can look at events and come up with my own thoughts. I am not saying I am 100% sure it wasn't Assad, I am only stating I have questions about it all.

And John, when people come here and ask questions wanting to learn and understand, you shouldn't get so testy. If you are here to educate those of us whom you view as ignorant, then you should be a bit more reasonable in how you respond. You take the position that if people don't agree with you they're idiots and that's just unfair.

[John]

> Here's where you throw me off. Generational crisis wars, you say,
> are genocidal. Then you say Assad is waging a genocidal war as a
> genocidal monster, yet then turn around and say, "it's not a
> generational crisis war that he is waging". Those two divergent
> points don't compute with me.

> Lastly, one can believe that Assad wasn't necessarily the one
> behind the attack (my dubious attitude isn't really whether there
> was an attack or not, it's more about who launched it) while also
> not believing he is an innocent victim of malevolent staging by
> the British. You put way too much belief in the radical Islamists
> within Syria. I believe they are just as bad as he is and it
> would not be beneath them to gas their own people if they thought
> it would turn the world more strongly against Assad.

> As far as Fisk goes... I don't really give a shit what he thinks.
> I can look at events and come up with my own thoughts. I am not
> saying I am 100% sure it wasn't Assad, I am only stating I have
> questions about it all.

> And John, when people come here and ask questions wanting to learn
> and understand, you shouldn't get so testy. If you are here to
> educate those of us whom you view as ignorant, then you should be
> a bit more reasonable in how you respond. You take the position
> that if people don't agree with you they're idiots and that's just
> unfair.

Well, I'm just acting my age. And at my advanced Methuselean age, I
I'm perfectly justified in being grouchy, irritable, cantankerous,
sulky, truculent, surly, testy, bad-tempered, crusty, intemperate,
unsociable, ill-tempered, blunt, impolite, uncivil, harsh, snappish,
disagreeable, bad-humored, irascible, crotchety, curmudgeonly,
difficult, fretful, relentless, foreboding, stubborn, gloomy, morose,
scowling, and unyielding.

Being all of those things is my right, even my duty, because of my
age.

And as I go even farther into an ever more Methuselean age, following
the path of the Biblical Methuselah, I expect all the adjectives in
the above list to apply even more deeply, so I'll become even more
ill-tempered, stubborn, and so forth - until I'm granted the blessing
of death.

As for Syria, the war in Syria has led to some major theoretical
developments in generational theory in the last few years. The Syrian
civil war should have fizzled within a year because the people of
Syria should have been unwilling to pursue it in a generational
Awakening era. So this is not a generational crisis civil war, which
could only occur during a generational Crisis era, not an Awakening
era.

If this were a crisis civil war, then you would have the people of
both sides -- the Shia/Alawites and the Sunnis -- fighting each other
spontaneously. But they aren't. They're fighting only under the
direct orders of al-Assad, and in reaction to his orders. This is not
a civil war in the sense of Rwanda. It's a proxy war between fought
by al-Assad, Russia, Hezbollah and Iran against Sunni defenders who
are being funded by outsiders, probably Turks and Saudis.

This is a complicated subject, and one that I haven't been able to
explain well without getting deeply into the weeds. I tried to
explain it in the 2015 article that I referred you to last week.

** 8-Apr-15 World View -- Bashar al-Assad's Syria army showing signs of collapse
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e150408

I also referenced another article:

** 9-Dec-17 World View -- United Nations stunned as peacekeepers are massacred in DR Congo
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e171209

This one is not specifically about Syria, but it's about the general
theory of genocide during Awakening era wars, which are the new
developments that I mentioned, and which are happening in Syria. The
core issue that is that when a generational crisis war is not an
external war, but is a civil war between two tribes or ethnic groups,
as happened in Syria in the 1980s, then after the war ends, the two
groups still have to live with each other in the same country, the
same villages, and even on the same streets. The bitterness and
desire for revenge does not go away after the war ends, and it emerges
again during the following Awakening era. I've illustrated this
theoretical development in a number of countries.

But al-Assad is by far the worst. This was shown by his use of
"industrial strength torture" over many years, and his many depraved
atrocities, as described in these two articles:

** 22-Jan-14 World View -- Western leaders sickened by Assad's 'industrial strength' torture in Syria
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e140122



** 8-Feb-17 World View -- Investigation reveals depraved new atrocities by Syria's Bashar al-Assad
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e170208


As I wrote in the latter article: "Throughout my lifetime, I've heard
people describe the Holocaust and say, "Never again!" But al-Assad is
a man who gets obvious pleasure from gouging out people's eyes or
pulling out their fingernails, or sending missiles into school
dormitories to kill children, or dropping barrel bombs laden with
metal, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons on civilian
neighborhoods, or using Sarin gas to kill large groups of people. He
considers all Sunni Muslims to be cockroaches to be exterminated.
Bashar al-Assad is the greatest genocidal monster in today's world,
comparable to Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Stalin from the last
century. There is no mass weapon of destruction, nor any gruesome
form of torture, that he won't use to satisfy his psychopathy."

[CH86]

Boomers wont be satisfied with any outcome in Syria unless Assad is either dead or in a prison cell.

[Guest]

Boomers wont be satisfied with any outcome in Syria unless Assad is either dead or in a prison cell.

I'm Gen X, and I won't be happy until Assad is dead; preferably beaten up, sodomized with a knife, and then lynched by a mob of his Sunni victims.

[GaryB]

John,

Thanks for the education. It is hard to know who to believe. I need to dive into your archived articles.

I do have another question about your prediction elsewhere that in WWIII that America will be on the same side as Russia. With the building blame/hate toward Russia, what would induce America and Russia to be allies against China? If you would rather me post this question in a different location for the benefit of others in the forum, where would that best place be? If you have already addressed that where can I find that?

Thanks,
Gary B

[John]

> John, Thanks for the education. It is hard to know who to believe.
> I need to dive into your archived articles.

> I do have another question about your prediction elsewhere that in
> WWIII that America will be on the same side as Russia. With the
> building blame/hate toward Russia, what would induce America and
> Russia to be allies against China? If you would rather me post
> this question in a different location for the benefit of others in
> the forum, where would that best place be? If you have already
> addressed that where can I find that? Thanks, Gary B

I've written many times that in the coming Clash of Civilizations
world war, the "allies" will be the United States, India, Russia and
Iran, while the "axis" will be China, Pakistan, and the Sunni Muslim
countries.

The summary behind the reasoning is as follows: China is very closely
allied with Pakistan, which is very closely allied with the Sunni
states. China and India are bitter enemies, as are Pakistan and
India. Russia and India are very closely allied, and India is very
closely allied with Iran, as Hindus have been allied with Shia Muslims
going back to the Battle of Karbala in 680. Iran's younger
generations are generally pro-Western and even pro-American.

If you go through all that and connect all the dots, the US is going
to be allied with India, Russia and Iran, versus China, Pakistan, and
the Sunni Muslim states. If that seems surprising, remember that
Russia was our bitter enemy before WW II, was our ally during WW II,
and was our bitter enemy after WW II, so you can't judge from today's
political alignments how nations will act when they're facing an
existential crisis in the form of a generational crisis war.

If you want to drill down into details, here's a list of articles you
can read:

** 21-May-17 World View -- Iran's younger generations propel Rouhani
to decisive presidential win

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e170521

** 21-Aug-16 World View -- Generational history of Shia Houthis in
Yemen

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e160821

** 25-May-16 World View -- Iran-India sign 'historic' Chabahar port
deal to counter Pakistan-China

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e160525

** 9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear
agreement

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e151109

** 15-Jul-15 World View -- Arab views of Iran nuclear deal

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e150715

** 12-Sep-15 World View -- Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque, site of huge
construction accident, has links to 9/11

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e150912

** 4-Apr-2008 China 'betrays' Iran, as internal problems in both
countries mount

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e080405

[GaryB]

John,

Wow! Thanks for the explanation and links. I will read those. Pointing out how America and Russia aligned before, during and after WWII was especially helpful.

GaryB