The last terrorist-held bastion of East Ghouta to the east of Damascus city center, Duma, has been devastated by a chemical weapons attack that has killed at least 70 people.
The majority of the victims were women and children.
However, characteristically and typically, the mainstream media have immediately blamed the Syrian military for the dreadful attack even before investigations can occur. Their sources?
The White Helmets and Jaish al-Islam.
Let’s first deal with Jaish al-Islam. The media have used Jaish al-Islam for information on the attacks, but how can a group who openly and proudly publish photos of them caging women to be used as human shields as they launch endless mortar and rocket attacks against civilians in Damascus be trusted?
Or how can this same media trust reports coming from a terrorist group whose founder and former leader openly praised Osama bin Laden, the same person blamed for the famous 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3000 US citizens?
So with it established that Jaish al-Islam are a radical terrorist group who praise Bin Laden and have no qualms in using women as human shields, why is the possibility that they could have been responsible for this latest chemical attack considered?
It was reported by journalist Sharmine Narwani who was on the ground in East Ghouta just last month that the Syrian Army liberated “Eastern Ghouta farmlands between Shifouniyeh and Douma and discovered a well-equipped chemical laboratory run by Saudi-backed Islamist terrorists. Not a single Western reporter showed up to investigate the facility.”
Her report goes into further details and provides photos of the laboratory. Why is it such a far fetched idea to the corporate media that the terrorists could have conducted this latest atrocity?
Then, the second and quoted source for the reports are the White Helmets. I am not going into detail why they are an unreliable source as this has already been done in great detail by other journalists such as Vanessa Beeley.
However, it must be questioned why the White Helmets who claim to be neutral only operate in areas controlled by terrorist organisations such as Jaish al-Islam and Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front, or why their members often change uniforms between the white helmet and militant uniforms.
So we come to the terrible conclusion that the corporate media are relying on two organizations which are ideologically inspired and/or aligned with Al-Qaeda. Yes, let us repeat that again, the main source for the corporate media are two organizations aligned with Al-Qaeda.
But does this prove the Syrian government did not conduct the chemical weapon attack? Of course it does not, but we must question why the Syrian military would resort to such a drastic measure. There was no clear strategic advantage to deploy such weapons.
The Syrian Army in a little more than a month liberated over 90% of the East Ghouta pocket with ease, so why at the final hurdle with every advantage in their favor, would they resort to chemical weapons. The corporate media portrays the Syrian authorities as acting irrationally without thought to consequences, but rather, there has been many examples where Syria could have deployed such weapons to preserve their own soldiers, but has opted not to and risked further casualties to ensure that civilians face minimal harm in any operation.
We must also question why the Syrian air force never put their alarm systems on red alert if they had conducted such an attack. US President Donald Trump has proven he is willing to conduct missile attacks against the Syrian military when mere accusations that it conducted chemical weapon attacks has occurred as the the raid on the Shayrat Airbase on April 6, 2017 just days after the Khan Sheikhoun incident demonstrates. This would be a careless move by the Syrian government, especially just days after Trump announced he wants to withdraw the US military from Syria.
It is known the deep state of the US does not want a military withdrawal from Syria; such an incident could force Trump to stay in Syria despite his openness that he does not want this.
In addition, we must also question why these attacks always seem to kill women and children and never terrorists. The Syrian military takes every precaution that civilians are not killed, so much so that the Syrian government for weeks has been trying to bring a peaceful resolution to Duma, even allowing terrorists to take up amnesty with zero repercussions for their crimes or to be transported to another part of Syria with guaranteed safety, just as their allies in Harasta and other parts of East Ghouta successfully took up.
This same terrorist group has kidnapped civilians from the nearby town of Adra, caged women to be used as human shields, openly praise Bin Laden and refused civilians to evacuate Duma, but all of a sudden we cannot think of the possibility that they gassed women and children to force an international intervention in Syria, especially after US officials have openly said they not tolerate such attacks and are willing to conduct strikes even before investigations have been conducted as the attack against the Shayrat Airbase demonstrates.
We also cannot forget that the Russian and Syrian governments in recent times have both said that terrorists in East Ghouta were preparing a chemical attack. This of course has been omitted from the corporate medias report on this latest incident.
Therefore, before blame can be assigned, we all must wait for investigations to be done. That is to say if investigators are willing to go into Duma under control of Jaish al-Islam to do their report. We know after Khan Sheikhoun, despite all the blame put on the Syrian government, investigators refused to go as it was controlled by Salafi terrorists, just as Duma is.
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All images in this article are from the author.
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