UN Report on Ghouta Gas Incident Points to Evidence Tampering, not Syrian Culpability

[KamaAina]

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/un-report-on-ghouta-gas-incident-points-to-evidence-tampering-not-syrian-culpability/

The United Nations report on the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Ghouta area of Damascus on August 21 does not, as newspaper headlines have indicated, “point to Assad’s use of gas”; confirm that rockets were loaded with sarin; or “come closer to linking Assad to sarin attack”. Nor, as US officials and some journalists have declared, does it “reinforce the case that Mr. Assad’s forces were responsible”; “confirm Damascus’s responsibility”; or “undercut arguments by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria that rebel forces … had been responsible.”

This isn’t to say that Syrian forces didn’t use chemical weapons, only that the evidence adduced in the UN report doesn’t show, or even suggest, that they did. On the contrary, the report offers stronger evidence that attempts were made to manipulate evidence to attribute blame to the Syrian government....

US officials are reading far more into the evidence than the evidence allows, and US mass media are docilely following the officials’ lead. Anti-Syrian forces have adopted a ridiculously lax evidentiary standard to allow themselves to find the target of their hostility guilty of gassing non-combatants on, at best, flimsy evidence. One can only conclude that they’re motivated to discredit the Syrian government to facilitate the project of bringing about regime change in Damascus—a project these parties are overtly committed to....

In light of these motives, the most probable scenario is that a sarin attack was carried out by rebel forces to draw the United States more fully into the war and that Washington and its allies have set their evidentiary bar deliberately low to read Syrian culpability into the flimsiest of evidence. The objective is to achieve what US foreign policy has long set as its principal goal: to topple governments that stand in the way of the expansion of economic space for private ownership, market regulation and profit accumulation.

[ProSense]

1. "This isn’t to say that Syrian forces didn’t use chemical weapons"

Russia's evidence is from Assad. At this point, Russia is simply trying to cast doubt.

Syria gives Russia chemical weapons evidence
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-gives-russia-chemical-weapons-evidence-095511215.html

Russia Denounces U.N. Chemical Report on Syria
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023690377

Assad admitted to bombing area after chemical attack took place.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023637203

"US officials are reading far more into the evidence than the evidence allows, and US mass media are docilely following the officials’ lead. "

That claim is simply bogus. The only skeptic is Russia, aided by those trying to absolve Assad by blaming the rebels.

Denmark's Foreign Minister Søvndal’s remarks on UN report of chemical weapons use in Syria
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023678152

Iceland’s Foreign Minister Welcomes Syria Agreement
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023678152#post4

[dkf]

8. According to Thom Hartmann the author is a Canadian Socialist.

All the sources are NYT or some other legit org.

[The Magistrate]

2. He Is A Doctrinaire Marxist, Sir: He Pretty Much Has To Say This Sort Of Thing

Otherwise the rest will give him the business, and accuse him of revisionism and chauvinism and heaven knows what else....

[KamaAina]

3. This came from the Facebook page of a left-leaning ex-DUer

so I guess I'm not really that surprised.

[The Magistrate]

9. I Read Some Other Items There, Too, Sir

A very well done, very sound analysis of Krushchev in revolutionary terms, for instance.

But nothing to indicate the comments on Syria come from anything but prior ideological conviction.

[dkf]

11. He is Canadian.

Canadian-based writer and foreign policy analyst. His articles can be accessed on his blog.

http://www.voltairenet.org/auteur125234.html?lang=en

[geek tragedy]

13. I think we found Hannah Bell's real life name. Nt

[dkf]

15. Too funny. How in the world are you making that connection?

I haven't seen her name in ages

[geek tragedy]

18. Two articles from him whining about

how poor little innocent North Korea is being bullied.

[dkf]

19. Memories are long here.

I don't know how you all keep it straight.

[geek tragedy]

21. "You all"

Full disclosure time?

[dkf]

23. Oh I'm laughing at myself for not remembering who said what.

Because there are a lot of things going on between people that I am oblivious to.

[geek tragedy]

4. David Irving would approve of this post. nt

[KamaAina]

5. Wait a minute. You're seriously comparing this attack to the Holocaust?!

That's a little bit over the top, don't you think? Even if you take the inflated figure of 1400 casualties, it still falls a bit short of 6 million. Plus there's no attempt to eradicate the entire Arab race.

[geek tragedy]

12. I'm comparing ideologically motivated denials of

culpability for crimes against humanity that fly in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Here, the Assadapologists are pointing to the unremarkable observation that the site of a missile strike in a war zone had not been hermetically sealed as an excuse to dismiss the entire UN report and all other evidence pointing to the regime.

Instead, they argue from their own personal feelings--it makes sense to them that the rebels did it, thus so it must be.

[DURHAM D]

6. Isn't the owner of that website (Gowans) the same guy

who thinks North Korea should have nuclear weapons?

[geek tragedy]

14. Gowans is very Hannah Bell. nt

[DURHAM D]

16. Oh My GOD

[SidDithers]

20. Yup...

Lots of his stuff at wacko site globalresearch.ca.

Sid

[NCTraveler]

7. I need a shower after clicking your link. nt.

[sharp_stick]

10. God that was a load of crap

Too bad more self important wanna be experts aren't opining on this topic.

The only "evidence" of evidence tampering in here is that the UN inspectors were not in the area very fast and so there was a good chance that some brilliant rebel tampered with all the evidence and convinced the UN inspectors that they didn't do it themselves.

That's like two minutes I'll never get back, I wish I could charge for the time.

[dkf]

17. They also weren't there very long.

[leveymg]

22. My biggest critique is that his conclusions should have been stated as a theory but it wasn't proven

very convincingly by the body of the argument.

Here are Gowan's conclusions, which might better have been stated first as a thesis, with some more substantial evidence provided. Not to say that it doesn't exist, but I didn't see much factual evidence to refute either the US or UN reports. He needs to develop his arguments and lay out factual claims before anyone is going to be convinced that the official version was wrong or unsupported.

In summary, here’s what the UN report says: On August 21, people in Ghouta were exposed to sarin. We don’t know how they were exposed and who was responsible. But we do know that evidence in connection with rocket fragments was possibly manipulated.

Concluding that the UN report adds to the evidence linking Syrian forces to the August 21 incident, as US officials and some US mass media have indicated, is misleading. First, there was no hard evidence of Syrian culpability to which the UN report could be added. An earlier assessment by the US intelligence community was “thick with caveats.” [13] Second, the UN report, like the US intelligence community assessment, offers no evidence linking the Ghouta incident to Syrian forces.

The thesis isn't absurd or sinister in itself, merely that he didn't provide much substance in his argument.