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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUN Report on Ghouta Gas Incident Points to Evidence Tampering, not Syrian Culpability
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/un-report-on-ghouta-gas-incident-points-to-evidence-tampering-not-syrian-culpability/This isnt to say that Syrian forces didnt use chemical weapons, only that the evidence adduced in the UN report doesnt 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 theyre motivated to discredit the Syrian government to facilitate the project of bringing about regime change in Damascusa 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
(116,464 posts)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 Søvndals remarks on UN report of chemical weapons use in Syria
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023678152
Icelands Foreign Minister Welcomes Syria Agreement
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023678152#post4
dkf
(37,305 posts)All the sources are NYT or some other legit org.
The Magistrate
(95,252 posts)Otherwise the rest will give him the business, and accuse him of revisionism and chauvinism and heaven knows what else....
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)so I guess I'm not really that surprised.
The Magistrate
(95,252 posts)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
(37,305 posts)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
(68,868 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)I haven't seen her name in ages
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)how poor little innocent North Korea is being bullied.
dkf
(37,305 posts)I don't know how you all keep it straight.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Full disclosure time?
dkf
(37,305 posts)Because there are a lot of things going on between people that I am oblivious to.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)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
(68,868 posts)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
(32,611 posts)who thinks North Korea should have nuclear weapons?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)DURHAM D
(32,611 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Lots of his stuff at wacko site globalresearch.ca.
Sid
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)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
(37,305 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)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.
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.