Whoever grasps and holds onto the essential energy (shih) of a situation will control the outcome of any battle and the fate of any opponent, no matter how powerful they are. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Men always begin revolutions with their eyes fixed on the past. – Frederich Engels
What is nothing has been chosen to bring to nothing all the things that are. – 1 Corinthians 1:28
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Imagine for a moment the present global tyranny not simply as a visible system of corporatism, violence and corruption, but as a vast energy transfer, sucking the wealth, vitality and life from billions of people and the biosphere itself into one massive machine. Call that machine whatever you like; its nature and behavior is geared towards a single purpose, and that is the absorption of life into itself. It is one enormous feeder, and we are its morsels.
To first understand this simple truth equips us inwardly to stop this insatiable complex and our participation in it, far better than can mere political analysis. But understanding alone does not free us to act.
All interactions in our universe involve an essential energy that guides the movement of every particle, and determines every outcome. Sun Tzu called this energy “shih”; Plato saw it as a pre-existing essence behind the mask of appearances. Some like to call it God. Regardless of its nomenclature, this Source that binds our reality is like a mighty river that can either sweep us along helplessly, or be utilized by us to alter reality. Every ruler understands this simple fact, even while the rest of us have been trained not to grasp it, and thereby are kept eyeless in a harness held by a few.
Those who understand and utilize this “shih” are able to control the thoughts and actions of the multitudes of humanity only as long as the latter are devoid of their own access to shih. The primary means of stripping humanity of attaining its normally inherent shih power is by using fear and trauma based conditioning at a very young age to cause people to habitually surrender and defer at every level to some “higher” external power, and thereby transfer their own particle of shih to that power.
Such an unending energy transfer from the many to the few is the basis of all elite rule in our world. And yet such a system is inherently unstable, since following Natural Law, the nature of shih as with any energy system is to disseminate equally and be held in common, and not privately: a fact that invalidates as contrary to the natural order all individual rule, whether by kings, presidents, popes or corporate oligarchies.
We know from our own experience that the loss of shih from the many to the few is not simply unnatural and disharmonious; it is so constant and systemic that it cannot be resisted by individual effort alone, since our individuality has been conditioned to operate habitually rather than consciously. We think like we eat – automatically – and therefore without shih. For instance, when faced with political repression by the government, our first reflex is to surrender our shih once again to them by “pressuring” them to give us justice through ritualized protest and petitioning, relying on their courts and government.
We do not seem capable of shifting our attention away from the existing “authorities” simply because we have no working experience of self-government: of what our own shih actually is. And thus like any lost child, we cannot try to change our world without continually deferring to the “powers that be”, whether that be a sympathetic judge, or a “progressive” politician, or even a spiritual adviser. Our imprinted slavery makes it impossible for us to collectively reclaim ourselves, and our world.
Erasing a conditioned imprint may begin within the individual, but it is not manifested individualistically; for collectivity is the nature of universal shih, which binds all phenomena in a “mutual garment of destiny and interconnectedness”.
In any successful revolution, the personal awakening of individuals inexorably causes a collective ripple effect in many other hearts and minds that generates a new kind of “group shih”: one that is unalterably opposed to the shih of the rulers. This new energy system is a living and working counter-culture that draws energy and power away from the rulers and their system, and returns it to the multitude of people, provided the latter can hold onto it as a group by retaining their own new and separate identity.
The very nature and purpose of our struggle today is to achieve precisely such a new energy transfer, and allow all of humanity to reclaim their natural shih and the collective liberty that it bestows. This purpose must continually guide our thoughts, words and deeds.
Applying Shih Knowledge to our Present Situation
The Chinese general Sun Tzu, writing thousands of years ago, had the best practical understanding of how such an awareness of the essential energy behind reality can and must be used in concrete struggles, especially in war and politics. “Nothing is permanent in life except conflict and change” he wrote in his Art of War. “One either masters the shih of one’s opponent or is mastered by it.”
If we set aside our western philosophical bias that dualistically separates matter from spirit, we recognize that Sun Tzu is accurately describing the dance that occurs in any conflict with an adversary. As he writes,
“Enemies, like all opposites, are mutually dependent on one another, being part of a greater unity and purpose. Thus, enemies are defeated not by their destruction but by their absorption into that greater whole.”
Today, August 21st commemorates the East Ghouta False Flag Chemical Attacks (August 21, 2013), which were used to build up a pretext by the Obama administration and its NATO allies to launch a humanitarian war against Syria, on the grounds that the Syrian government was killing their own people. This event was part of the build up towards the launching of Obama’s bombing campaign against Syria and Iraq on the grounds that it was “going after the ISIS”.
This article was first published in September 2014.
The chemical attacks which took place in East Ghouta on August 21, 2013 could be the most horrific false flag operation in history.
To date, available evidence indicates that numerous children were killed by “opposition rebels”, their bodies manipulated and filmed with a view to blaming the Syrian government for the attacks, thus sparking outrage and galvanizing worldwide public opinion in favor of another bloody, imperial US-led war.
While confirming the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the UN report has failed to identify the authors of the attacks:
Instead of a non-politicized investigation and lab analysis, the UN investigation of alleged nerve-gas attacks inside Syria was led by Professor Ake Sellstrom, a man of mystery who keeps a veil of secrecy around his research and political-military relationships…
This cosmetic veneer of Swedish neutrality has been deftly exploited by Israel and NATO to perpetrate falsehoods throughout Sellstrom’s work for the UN, including denial of the chemical-and-biological causes for “Gulf War Syndrome” and the shipments of U.S. chemical weapons to the Saddam Hussein regime…
What is publicly known about Sellstrom is that the biochemist heads the European CBRNE Center [Center for advanced Studies of Societal Security and Vulnerability, in particular major incidents with (C)hemical, (B)iological, (R)adiological, (N)uclear and (E)xplosive substances], at Umea University in northern Sweden, which is sponsored by the Swedish Defense Ministry (FOI)…
Umea University is deeply involved in joint research with Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), the Haifa-based university that provides state-of-art technology to the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and its intelligence agencies. Several departments, which are involved in joint Israeli research, participate in multidisciplinary studies at Sellstrom’s CBRNE center…
American ambassador to the UN Samantha Power made emphatically clear that the “nerve gas used in Syria was more concentrated than the nerve gas in Iraq.” Her statement should be rephrased as: “Saddam may have trans-shipped U.S.-supplied nerve gas into Syria, but it wasn’t our nerve gas used against Syrian civilians.”
That is the essential point of the Sellstrom report: To take Washington off the hook for being the major supplier of nerve gas precursors, formulations, delivery technology and storage systems to the Middle East, including Israel, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and very possibly Syria (during the Clinton era of good will).
A day before the release of the UN Mission report, another carefully documented report by Mother Agnes Mariam de la Croix and the International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria (ISTEAMS) was released with minimal media coverage. (To read the full report in pdf click here large pdf slow download)
Its findings are unequivocal: the videos used by the US and its allies as evidence to blame the Syrian government were staged.
The study says:
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. (Mother Agnes Mariam de la Croix and the International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria (ISTEAMS), The Chemical Attacks in East Ghouta Used to Justify a Military Intervention in Syria)
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya who examined the report writes:
The independent ISTEAMS study contradicts the assertions of the Obama Administration and the entire US Intelligence Community […] through simple observations of the video material that has been put forward as evidence by the United States.
The ISTEAMS report does not deny that chemical weapons were used or that innocent Syrians have been killed. What the study does is logically point out through its observations that there is empirical evidence that the sample of videos that the US Intelligence Community has analyzed and nominated as authentic footage has been stage-managed. This is an important finding, because it refutes the assertions of the representatives of the US Intelligence agencies who testified that the videos they authenticated provide evidence that a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government took place in East Ghouda. (Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Look With Your Own Eyes: The Videos of the Chemical Attacks in Syria Show Tampered Scenes)
A lot of things do not add up in the footage presented by the US government.
The same little boy in red is in two different locations
At least nine of these children appear in different footage from different locations
A little boy that appears in two different videos with two different scenarios
Among a series of important findings, the ISTEAMS report notes that even though the attacks are said to have killed up to 1400 people, mostly children appear in the videos and several corpses are shown in different videos said to have been shot in various locations.
While this report seriously challenges the assertion that the Syrian government was behind the attacks, it was not covered by the Western mainstream media, toeing the imperial line and parroting Washington’s claims, which still lack evidence and credibility.
In addition, some controversy arose pertaining to allegations that the rebels were responsible for the attacks and used chemical weapons provided by Saudi intelligence. Dale Gavlak, the co-author of an article containing these allegations, now wants to dissociate herself from the article and is facing threats. Her career is in jeopardy:
The MintPress article, published on 29th August, through interviews with rebels, family members, and villagers in Eastern Ghouta, alleges that elements within the opposition were responsible for the alleged chemical weapons attack on 21st August, and that those chemical munitions had been supplied through Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan…
Dale is under mounting pressure for writing this article by third parties. She notified MintPress editors and myself on August 30th and 31st via email and phone call, that third parties were placing immense amounts of pressure on her over the article and were threatening to end her career over it. She went on to tell us that she believes this third party was under pressure from the head of the Saudi Intelligence Prince Bandar himself, who is alleged in the article of supplying the rebels with chemical weapons.
On August 30th, Dale asked MintPress to remove her name completely from the byline because she stated that her career and reputation was at risk. She continued to say that these third parties were demanding her to disassociate herself from the article or these parties would end her career. On August 31st, I notified Dale through email that I would add a clarification that she was the writer and researcher for the article and that Yahya [Ababneh] was the reporter on the ground, but did let Gavlak know that we would not remove her name as this would violate the ethics of journalism. (Phil Greaves, Syria: Controversy surrounding MintPress Chemical Weapons Ghouta Report)
The information according to which Saudi intelligence was allegedly implicated in the Ghouta chemical attacks was mentioned by a UN official who wished to remain anonymous:
A senior United Nations official who deals directly with Syrian affairs has told Al-Akhbar that the Syrian government had no involvement in the alleged Ghouta chemical weapons attack: “Of course not, he (President Bashar al-Assad) would be committing suicide.”
When asked who he believed was responsible for the use of chemical munitions in Ghouta, the UN official, who would not permit disclosure of his identity, said:“Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.” The official claims that this information was provided by rebels in Ghouta…
The UN official’s accusations mirror statements made earlier this year by another senior UN figure Carla del Ponte, who last May told Swiss TV in the aftermath of alleged CW attacks in Khan al-Asal, Sheik Maqsood and Saraqeb that there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels had carried out the attack. Del Ponte also observed that UN inspectors had seen no evidence of the Syrian army using chemical weapons, but added that further investigation was necessary. (Sharmine Narwani and Radwan Mortada, Questions Plague UN Syria Report. Who was behind the East Ghouta Chemical Weapons Attack?)
All of the above leads us to believe that this attack was one of the most horrific crimes committed in modern history, a diabolical staged operation which consisted in killing small children, producing fake video footage and photo ops of the corpses, all of which was intended to fabricate a pretext for military intervention under a humanitarian mandate.
The mainstream media which has obfuscated these crimes bear a heavy burden of responsibility. The New York Times has smeared the findings of Mother Agnes and her team, accusing her of “defending the regime” and “playing the Christian card”. The NYT casually dismisses the evidence that the videos are fake. Read the ISTEAMS Report and then judge for yourself.
The war criminals who designed and launched this diabolical staged operation must face justice.
Procedures in the United Nations Security Council directed against the Syrian government must be suspended.
We invite our readers to consult the ISTEAMS Report, as well as the following GR articles and video production: Please share these articles and the ISTEAMS report!
»Hören Sie auf, immer neues Steuergeld zu verbrennen! BILD veröffentlicht das vollständige Schreiben an Angela Merkel
Von FRANZ SOLMS-LAUBACH
Die Griechen haben geliefert, jetzt ist die EU dran…
Griechenland hat eine neue Reform-Liste vorgelegt und bittet um ein Hilfspaket in Höhe von mehr als 53 Milliarden Euro bis Ende 2018. Die Entscheidung darüber soll jetzt schnell gefällt werden – spätestens bis zum Sonntagabend.
Dadurch wächst auch der Druck auf Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (60, CDU), sich für den Grexit oder für ein Hilfsprogramm für Athen zu entscheiden.
In diese Debatte mischt sich jetzt die stellvertretende Fraktionsvorsitzende der Linkspartei, Sahra Wagenknecht (45), ein.
Sie ergreift in einem offenen Brief an die Bundeskanzlerin, der BILD exklusiv vorliegt, Partei für die griechische Schwesterpartei der Linken und für Syriza-Chef Alexis Tsipras (40).
In ihrem Brandbrief wirft Wagenknecht Kanzlerin Merkel einen eklatanten Rechtsbruch bei der Schulden-Haftung für Griechenland vor.
BILD veröffentlicht das vollständige Schreiben an die Bundeskanzlerin:
„Sehr geehrte Frau Bundeskanzlerin,
Europa ist in schlechter Verfassung. Überall zahlen die fleißigen Normalverdiener die meisten Steuern und die wirklich Reichen drücken sich. Viele Arbeitnehmer können von ihrem Job nicht mehr gut leben. Auch in Deutschland. Nach einem harten Arbeitsleben droht oft eine dürftige Rente. Aber die Vermögen der Millionäre sind hoch wie nie. In ganz Europa haben die Staaten hohe Schulden, weil sie verantwortungslosen Bankern und Spekulanten die Verluste abgenommen haben.
Besonders hoch sind die Schulden des griechischen Staates. Eine korrupte politische Klasse hat sich hier gemeinsam mit griechischen Oligarchen und den internationalen Banken über viele Jahre schamlos bereichert. Besonders seit Einführung des Euro wurde Party gefeiert. Viele kleinere und mittlere Unternehmen dagegen hat die neue Währung, die für Griechenland viel zu hart war, vom Markt gefegt.
2010 war Griechenland pleite. Es war schon damals klar, dass es seine Schulden nicht zurückzahlen kann. Trotzdem haben Sie, Frau Bundeskanzlerin, 2010 die Weichen dafür gestellt, dass Deutschland und die anderen Euroländer die Haftung für die griechischen Schulden übernommen haben. Sie haben damit Banken und Hedge Fonds vor Milliardenverlusten bewahrt. Für die europäischen Steuerzahler dagegen, die nie gefragt wurden, war diese Entscheidung ein fataler Fehler. Es war von vornherein klar, dass ein großer Teil unseres Geldes verloren sein wird. Zusammen mit anderen Abgeordneten der Linken habe ich Sie damals im Bundestag darauf hingewiesen. Sie wollten das nicht hören.
Mittlerweile hat Deutschland in Griechenland über 60 Milliarden Euro im Feuer. Weil Sie, Frau Bundeskanzlerin, ihren Fehler nicht eingestehen wollten, wurden immer neue Kredite vergeben, um Griechenland zu ermöglichen, damit alte Schulden zu bezahlen. So wurde der Schein der Zahlungsfähigkeit aufrechterhalten. Bei einem Unternehmen würde man so etwas Konkursverschleppung nennen. Verbunden wurden die Kredite mit Auflagen, die Griechenland noch tiefer in die Krise geführt haben. Die kleinen Leute haben gelitten, die griechischen Oligarchen wurden noch reicher.
Heute wird in Griechenland 25 Prozent weniger produziert als im Jahr 2010. Es wird nicht mehr investiert, die junge Generation hat keine Perspektive. Obwohl der griechische Staat seine Ausgaben um fast ein Viertel gekürzt hat, mehr als jedes andere europäische Land, sind die Schulden nicht gesunken. Sie sind höher denn je.
Trotzdem wollten Sie, Frau Bundeskanzlerin, vor dem griechischen Referendum noch einmal 15 Milliarden Euro europäischer Steuergelder dafür einsetzen, dass Athen alte Schulden bezahlen kann. Mit neuen Schulden. Ihre einzige Auflage war, dass die griechische Regierung sich verpflichtet, die Politik der letzten Jahre fortzusetzen.
Auch die Steuerzahler in Deutschland können den Griechen dankbar sein, dass sie diesen Vorschlag mit ihrem souveränen „Nein“ vom Tisch gefegt haben. Es ist an der Zeit, dass Sie den Menschen reinen Wein einschenken. Hören Sie auf, immer neues Steuergeld zu verbrennen, um zu verschleiern, dass ein Großteil unseres bereits ausgegebenen Geldes weg ist. Irgendwann kommt die Wahrheit doch auf den Tisch. Je später, desto teurer wird es für uns alle.
Griechenland braucht kein neues „Hilfspaket“, um wieder nur alte Schulden mit neuen Schulden zu bezahlen. Griechenland braucht einen Schuldenschnitt. Es muss zumindest für die nächsten drei bis fünf Jahre von dem Druck befreit werden, Zinsen und Tilgungen zu bezahlen, die es aus eigener Kraft ohnehin nicht zahlen kann. Griechenland braucht auch nicht noch mehr soziale Einschnitte, sondern Investitionen und eine kräftige Vermögensabgabe zulasten seiner Oligarchen. Notwendig ist eine Entflechtung der griechischen Wirtschaft, in der heute etwa 800 steinreiche Familienclans über handfeste Monopole verfügen und die Preise diktieren. Das wären Reformen, die das Land voranbringen würden, aber nicht weitere Rentenkürzungen, Mehrwertsteuererhöhungen und Privatisierungen.
Sie sollten sich erinnern: auch der deutsche Wiederaufbau wurde durch einen großzügigen Schuldenschnitt ermöglicht. Nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg wurden Deutschland zwei Drittel seiner alten Schulden erlassen. Erst dadurch konnte das Wirtschaftswunder durchstarten. Auch bei den Griechen hatten wir damals Schulden, die nie zurückgezahlt wurden.
Frau Bundeskanzlerin, ändern Sie Ihre Politik. Bevor es zu spät ist.
Europe is in a bad condition. All over Europe it is the hard-working people with ordinary wages who pay most taxes while the rich people duck away. Many wage-earners are not able to live off their job income. Also in Germany. After a life of hard work, often enough, a miserable pension looms. The wealth of millionaires, however, has reached new peaks. In all of Europe the states are highly indebted because they have taken over the losses of irresponsible bankers and speculators. Greece´s debt is particularly high. Here, a corrupt political class together with Greek oligarchs and the international banks has shamelessly accumulated wealth for years and years. Since the introduction of the Euro especially, the party was on. Many small and medium-sized enterprises on the other hand were swept from the market by the new currency which was way too hard for Greece.
In the year 2010 Greece was bankrupt. It was clear already then that it would not be able to repay its debt. Yet despite that, Madam Chancellor, in 2010 you set the course for Germany and the other Euro countries to accept the liability for the Greek debt. By so doing you protected banks and hedge funds from losses in the billions. For the European tax payer who was never asked, however, this decision was a fatal error. It was clear from the beginning that a high amount of our money would be lost. Together with other parliamentarians of the Left I pointed this out to you in the Bundestag. You would not listen to it.
In the meantime Germany has more than 60 billion Euros at stake in Greece. Ever more credits were handed out in order to enable Greece to pay old debts – only because you, Madam Chancellor, did not want to acknowledge your mistake. That way the illusion of Greek solvency was upheld. In an enterprise this would be called delaying bankruptcy. The credits were given on conditions that led Greece even deeper into the crisis. The small people suffered, the Greek oligarchs became even richer. Today production in Greece is 25 per cent less as compared to 2010. There are no investments, the young generation has no perspective. Even though the Greek state has cut its expenses by almost a quarter which is more than any other European country has done, the debt has not shrunk. It is higher than it ever was. Still, Madam Chancellor, before the Greek referendum you wanted to spend another 15 billion Euro of European taxpayers´ money to have Athens pay for old debt. By taking on a new debt. The only condition you had was to oblige the Greek government to continue with the policy of the last years. The taxpayers in Germany, too, can be grateful to the Greek people that this proposal was swept from the table by their sovereign “No”.
It is time to come clean with the people. Stop burning more and more taxpayers´ money in order to disguise that a major part of the money we have already spent is gone. One day the truth will come out. The later it is the more expensive it is going to be for all of us.
Greece does not need a new “aid package” only in order to pay off old debt with new debt. Greece needs a haircut. It must be relieved, at least for three to five years, from the pressure to pay interest and repayment which it cannot shoulder by its own means anyway. Greece also does not need more social cuts but investments and a hefty levy on wealth at the expense of its oligarchs. What is necessary is an unbundling of the Greek economy in which today roundabout 800 immensely rich family clans hold solid monopolies and dictate the prices. Those are the reforms that would set the country on track, and not more pension cuts, VAT increase and privatizations.
You ought to remember: also the German reconstruction became possible by means of a generous debt haircut. After the Second World War Germany was granted a reduction of two thirds of its old debt. Only that way the economic miracle could have a full start. At that time we were indebted also to the Greeks, a debt that was never repaid. Madam Chancellor, change your policy. Before it is too late.
August 21, 2013: Obama’s insidious and criminal objective in August 2013 was to use these attacks with a view to justifying a humanitarian war against Syria.
This GRTV report was first broadcast in September 2013 in the month following the East Ghouta Chemical Attacks
In the wake of the Syrian chemical weapons attack, shocking footage of the victims of that attack were widely circulated in an effort to raise the ire of the public and spur support for military intervention.
Now, a new report on that footage finds troubling inconsistencies and manipulation with the video that calls the official narrative of the attack and its victims into question.
This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.
Earlier this week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon submitted the findings of the UN chemical weapons inspection team dispatched to Syria last month to gather evidence on the August 21st chemical weapons attack in Ghouta.
The report has been used as justification for the US and UK’s allegations that the attack originated from the Syrian government, but it does not in fact reach this conclusion. The inspection team’s mandate was limited to determining if an attack took place, not where it originated from, limiting their findings to a simple statement of fact:
“On the basis of the evidence obtained during our investigation of the Ghouta incident, the conclusion is that, on 21st August 2013, chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale.”
The determination of where the attacks originated from is of course the key issue geopolitically speaking. If the attack originated with the Syrian government it would mark a serious escalation in the conflict, but if the weapons were launched by the terrorist insurgency it would mean the attack was a false flag provocation, designed to draw the US and its allies into armed military intervention in the country.
As analysts have been at pains to point out, the motive for such an attack has always suggested that it was more likely that the terrorists were the culprits in Ghouta, not the Syrian government. They have been losing the ground war against Syrian government forces for months, and they knew that the use of chemical weapons was the “red line” that Obama had set as the threshold for military intervention. Those who argue Assad’s culpability have to believe that not only did he suddenly and inexplicably resort to using chemical weapons on his own people for no strategic military reason, but that he waited until UN chemical weapons inspectors arrived in the country before doing so.
The background and history of the conflict also provide ample evidence that the terrorists have chemical weapons in their possession, and are trained and motivated to use them. Last December it was reported that US forces were training the terrorist forces in the the handling of chemical weapons. Also last December the insurgents released a video showing their chemical weapons operations and threatening to use them against government supporters. And in July of this year, Russia submitted an exhaustive 100-page report to the UN outlining how the terrorist insurgency was in fact to blame for the March 19th chemical weapons attack in Khan al-Asal on the outskirts of Aleppo.
But in the light of this latest chemical weapons attack, the UK, the US and France have all released their own intelligence studies blaming Assad for the incident and calling on the “international community” to increase pressure on the Syrian government. The reports, however, contradict each other in numerous places, with wildly different estimates of casualties in the events suggesting that the intelligence agencies that produced the report cannot even agree on the most basic details of the attack.
Now, new evidence is emerging that the attacks were used and manipulated by the terrorists in order to provoke the US and its allies into armed intervention in Syria. This evidence suggests that the videos used by the US and its allies to conclude what happened in Ghouta were in fact carefully stage managed to portray a narrative that would pin the blame for the attacks on Assad.
The first indications of this plot emerged early on, when expert analysis of the videos suggested inconsistencies in the footage itself.
That analysis was later expanded on by a report from ISTEAMS, a Syria-based human rights group working in conjunction with the International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights. In this thorough report, published on GlobalResearch.ca on September 16th, numerous discrepancies and inconsistencies in the footage are documented.
The report documents through eyewitness testimony and video evidence that the affected areas had been largely abandoned by local residents in the days prior to the attack. Yet in the footage of the aftermath, there are large numbers of child victims who are portrayed. There exists very little footage of parents with their children, and what little footage exists portrays some of the parents apparently “discovering” their children on multiple occasions in different locations. Other footage shows the same children arranged in different formations in geographically distant neighborhoods. The report concludes that the footage was carefully stage managed to create the greatest emotional impact on foreign audiences. These videos were then used by the Obama administration to convince the Senate of their case for military intervention.
ISTEAMS President and one of the key researchers on the report, Mother Agnes Mariam, joined The Corbett Report to discuss the problems with the official narrative of the chemical weapon attack emanating from Washington and its allies last month.
The ISTEAMS report raises many troubling questions about the scenes in the Ghouta videos. Were the victims of the attack local children? If so, why were they there after these areas had been largely abandoned? Where are their parents? In the days after the attack, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, an advisor to the Assad government, provided an equally troubling answer to these questions to Sky News.
These reports dovetail with videos posted by the Mujahedeen Press Office to YouTube just six days before the attack confirming that the terrorists had kidnapped hundreds of women and children from the rural villages of Alawite stronghold Lattakia to use as bargaining chips in the conflict. Were these kidnap victims moved to Ghouta to be killed in the chemical weapons attack? Is this why so many children were there in these largely-vacated areas, and why so few parents appear on video mourning their children?
Although further research and investigation is urgently needed by third-party organizations to establish the identity of the Ghouta attack victims and the whereabouts of the kidnapped Lattakian families, the reports, if true, are evidence of the most disgraceful war crimes imaginable and the most cold-blooded manipulations of evidence to suit an agenda. Earlier this month, Global Research Director Michel Chossudovsky appeared on GRTV to discuss the nature of the terrorist insurgency.
Now, the US and its allies are trying to use the UN’s new report in combination with the video “evidence” of the attack’s aftermaths to justify the use of military force to back up the Syrian chemical disarmament process. Some are even calling for Assad to face war crimes prosecution on the back of this and similarly manipulated evidence.
In order to prevent this war agenda from proceeding any further or these propaganda images from being used in the pursuit of military intervention, it is vital that this latest ISTEAMS report is downloaded from Global Research, widely disseminated, and thoroughly investigated.
The US has launched its first drone strikes on northern Syria from a Turkish airbase, the Pentagon reports. Earlier this week, the White House authorized airstrikes to protect “moderate” rebels in Syria, and included strikes against government forces.
Meanwhile on Thursday, the US State Department has pinned the blame for the chaos and the rise of jihadists in Syria on President Bashar Assad.
“The Assad regime frankly is the root of all evil here … and has been instrumental in creating the kind of lawless area to the north where ISIL has been able to get purchase and extend its roots.”
A spokesman for the Pentagon said on Wednesday that an unmanned drone was launched on Monday from Incirlik Air Base and that preparations were underway for strikes inside Syria by manned US warplanes, Reuters reported.
The American armed drone hit a number of targets near Raqqa, Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold in Syria, the Hurriyet Daily reported. Washington had previously only used the Incirlik airbase, which is near the southern city of Adana, for reconnaissance missions using drones.
“As part of our agreement with the US, we have made progress regarding the opening up of our bases, particularly Incirlik,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier told state broadcaster TRT, as cited by Reuters.
Turkey had been against the US and NATO using airbases in the country to conduct airstrikes against Islamic State. However, Ankara made a sudden U-turn. In return for Washington’s use of Incirlik, Ankara has asked the US to establish a no-fly zone over Syria and a “security zone” along the Turkish border, according to Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc who outlined the deal in July.
The attack by an Islamic State suicide bomber in July, which killed 32 people and injured more than 100, was the main reason for Ankara’s U-turn. It was the first time that IS had conducted an attack on Turkish soil. The group struck a cultural center in the mainly Kurdish border town of Suruc.
Turkish military has begun to deploy armed vehicles and tanks on the high hills in the southeastern province of Sirnak near the Syrian border, the Hurriyet daily reported on Thursday.
Earlier, it was revealed that the US would attack forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, should they target the ‘moderate’ rebel groups, while NATO and its allies would also provide more support for those opposing the Syrian government.
“Now we are training and equipping the moderate [Syrian] opposition together with the United States, and we will also start our fight against Daesh [Islamic State] very effectively soon,” Foreign Minister Cavusoglu told reporters in Kulua Lumpur on Wednesday, at the start of a meeting with John Kerry.
Syrian political analyst, Taleb Ibrahim told RT that he has suspicions about the decision by Ankara and Washington to support those fighting against the Syrian government.
“The United States is not serious in fighting ISIS. I am very suspicious about American acts and American behavior in both Syria and Iraq. I am also suspicious about the Turkish role, which is up until now, has not been clear,” he said.
Is the US program legal?
Since the US-backed rebel groups in Syria are operating in the “lawless area” of the country, they are under pressure from “a lot of different forces,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan, while trying to explain the legal basis for the change in US policy.
“I frankly don’t know what the legal authority is,” Toner said, adding that the situation in Syria remains “complex and fluid.”
He clarified that Washington did not authorize itself to “go after Assad government forces,” insisting that such bombings would take place only in the “hypothetical” case that the US-backed militants came under fire from Syrian forces.
His comments were condemned by Phyllis Bennis, from the Institute for Policy Studies, who was deeply skeptical of the US motives for widening their attack in Syria. She said Washington is heading down “a very slippery slope and they are halfway down that slope,” while the US was using these so-called ‘lawless areas’ as a smokescreen.
“There is no real legal basis for this. You know the UN charter, which is the document of international law that determines when is a law legal or when it is illegal, has a very narrow definition of when a war is legal. There are only two things that really make it legal. Either it is authorized by the UN Security Council – or if a country has been directly attacked, you have a qualified right to use self-defense, only until, the Security Council can meet to decide what to do,” she said.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said the efforts to fight Islamic State militants on Syrian territory should be coordinated with Damascus.
The Syrian government criticized Washington’s distinction between ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ rebel forces in Syria. According to the US, IS are extremists and need to be bombed, while moderate rebels should be trained and supported to overthrow the Syrian government.
“For us in Syria there is no moderate opposition and immoderate opposition. Whoever carries weapons against the state is a terrorist,” the Syrian minister said during a visit to Iran, which is Syria’s ally.
Drone civilian death toll
While the US hopes the air campaign will help to make the Turkish border harder to cross and stem the flow of militants wanting to join up with the terrorist organization, the new drone missions are an escalation in the US’s unmanned aircraft program.
However, a report in 2014 by former US senior officials said the practice of using drones to strike targets is not as effective as Washington would hope.
The study, issued in June 2014, called on the Obama administration to come up with a cost-benefit analysis of drone strikes, while it also urged more transparency on the targeted killings.
Britain’s Reprieve human-rights group calculated that it takes about 28 innocent lives to take out a single terrorist leader, often with multiple drone strikes.
The statistics are striking. In the last 10 years, attempts to kill 41 terrorist leaders resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, the vast majority of them civilians and families.
The drone program began under President George W. Bush, but experienced rapid growth under the Obama administration. In Pakistan alone, 396 strikes have been conducted since 2002. In Yemen, where counterterror operations have also grown over the years, 126 have been conducted in the same time period.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 423-962 civilians have been killed in Pakistan as a result of drone strikes between 2004 and 2015. Last year, the outlet found that domestic buildings were the most common target. In Yemen, some 65-96 civilians have been killed.
The Ambassador of Latvia to NATO, Indulis Berzins announced the list of the biggest threats to the country on the program “900 seconds” on the channel LNT.
Indulis Berzins, who previously held various government posts, entered the position of Ambassador to NATO last week. He shared his perspective about the security of the state on a TV program. The greatest threat is a huge influx of refugees from Ukraine. As the diplomat noted, he was warned about such a scenario by the experts involved in the Ukrainian crisis. Additionally, Indulis Berzins said that a threat to Latvia is the pessimistic mood of its inhabitants, many of whom resent their country and move abroad.
“If the citizens of Latvia will not agree that we need this state, it will create the greatest threat to the security of the country,” – the Ambassador said.
He also noted that “a group of professional commentators appeared online, which rejects the transatlantic orientation of Latvia”.
Indulis Berzins added that “the most important thing now is to ensure the security of the entire region.” In his words, “the increased presence of allies in the Baltic States, including Latvia, would enhance security and would give a clear signal to any country, that would want to somehow interfere in our internal affairs”.
Speaking about the possible deployment of NATO bases in the Baltic States, the Ambassador said that “now we are working hard to implement the decisions of the Wales summit, not requiring a permanent presence of military forces of other countries of the Alliance in Latvia”.
At the same time, he said, “various military exercises and maneuvers conducted in Latvia, are the guarantor of the policy of containment”.
Indulis Berzins added: “This format does not involve the need for permanent bases. It involves provision of weapons, ammunition and arms, which is very significant — if the situation gets worse, the soldiers, coming over here, will not have to bring equipment.”
However, he stressed that “a permanent base of the Alliance was established in Latvia or the presence of allies was increased, it would only help its security”. At the same time a new envoy to NATO has recognized that there is no direct military threat to Latvia today.
DPR forensic analysis reveal how Ukrainian Tanks are able to shell the center of Donetsk from a distance of up to 20km.
Comment below video:
“Ukrainian” … Ukrainian you mean Americans or Knowledge from Americans !
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We all know Americans cannot function unless they are Killing / Murdering people of Other Countries … Over 200 Million Innocent Unarmed Civilians Since 1945 have been Murdered by Americans so that the American Flag can fly in another Country !
Yesterday J. Flores of our editorial management issued a public warning regarding a possible imminent dirty bomb threat.
It turns out that these suspicions were well founded.
The suspicion, according to Flores, was based on two stories – Poroshenko’s urgent calling of the war council, and a sudden western media propaganda news-cycle fixation that Novorossiya militias may use a ‘dirty bomb’ in the Ukraine conflict, which began over last weekend.
Security Service of Ukraine
Today RT reported that the Ukrainian SBU has apprehended a ring of Uranium smugglers who had a ‘Pringles’ chips canister containing uranium-238 which they had intended to sell.
The RT story ‘strangely’ combines this report with a story about the Right Sektor clashes with the Kiev Junta.
This is interesting for us also, without stating it outright, we are more free to draw the connection:
We are not unreasonable in speculating that the Right Sektor may have wanted to use a dirty bomb in the front on UAF forces, and blame the Novorossiyan side for it. Western media was clearly establishing the narrative that Novorossiya would be responsible for it. This would have established several simultaneous goals for both the US and the Pravy Sektor.
The United States has taken an “adaptive approach”, a common feature in 4th Generation Warfare and Hybrid Warfare, which allows them to shift support between the Kiev Junta and the Pravy Sektor related groups.
Free Ukraine Now 