What was it that George Bush said? “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me… can’t get fooled again.” :hehe:
UN Team Heard Claims of ‘Staged’ Chemical Attacks
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/0...mical-attacks/
Exclusive: A widely touted U.N. report accusing the Syrian government of two chlorine-gas attacks relied on shaky evidence and brushed aside witness testimony that claimed some incidents were staged, reports Robert Parry.
United Nations investigators encountered evidence that alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian military were staged by jihadist rebels and their supporters, but still decided to blame the government for two incidents in which chlorine was allegedly dispersed via improvised explosives dropped by helicopters.
In both cases, the Syrian government denied that it had any aircraft in the areas at the times of the purported attacks, but the U.N. team rejected that explanation with the curious argument that Syria failed to provide flight records to corroborate the absence of any flights. Yet, if there had been no flights, there would be no flight records.
Rewind back to 2013..
Before we Bomb Syria, Shouldn't we Seek Proof of Guilt?
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co....of-guilt-.html
The pathetic bleating flock of the British political media are helping to beat the drums for war. Yet again.
Late last week, the BBC began blasting the airwaves with stories about a chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus. Initially, its reporters and presenters were reasonably careful to point out that the videos on which this claim was based were
unverified - and in fact impossible to verify. As has since become quite clear, the site of the alleged atrocity is very difficult to reach. This fact would be well-known to those who released the films. Indeed, they are in a position to make the site hard to reach. This is by no means the first such allegation that has been made.
No reliable proof has ever been produced of any of them.
But bit by bit, this caution lessened. The more the claims were repeated, and the more the films were shown, the more commentators and reporters would say that it was
‘almost certain’ or ‘increasingly likely’ that the Syrian government’s armed forces were responsible for a huge chemical warfare attack on civilians, in the suburbs of the capital city.
In a slow news week, the unpopular papers and then the popular papers, joined in with their own coverage. Even some normally-sceptical writers and commentators were regrettably swept up in proclaiming the likelihood of the truth of the story. It is becoming increasingly risky to voice doubt. What if it’s true? How will the doubters look then? Well, when it's proved to be true, I’ll accept it is true. But until then, I won’t. I won't be frightened into abandoning the rules of evidence, and nor should you be.
:thumbup: