Not long after Syria started dismantling its arsenal of chemical weapons in a deal brokered by Russia, reports started to emerge of chlorine bombs being dropped from helicopters. These reports usually originated with "activists" aligned with the "opposition" to the Syrian state, and they were summarily dismissed as crude propaganda by representatives of the Assad government. But the stories have remained a regular feature as the months roll along.
Today's offering is a fine example. In "Syria Is Using Chemical Weapons Again, Rescue Workers Say" Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta earn their pay as propagandists for the USG by filing another fallacious story about Syria's use of chemical weapons; fallacious because it is sourced to a "civilian defense" NGO called White Helmets. An inspection of the group's web site -- Barrel Bombs! -- linked to in the Barnard-Sengupta article, leaves one with the distinct impression that it is a CIA front. The allegations of White Helmets are then amplified by USG officials. This is the old familiar propaganda pattern. You have an "Astro-Turf" organization, an ersatz citizen group of some sort that has been mocked up by a foreign intelligence agency, make a specious charge, and then that charge is taken up by the United States in the United Nations Security Council:
Two years after President Bashar al-Assad agreed to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, there is mounting evidence that his government is flouting international law to drop jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. Lately, the pace of the bombardments in contested areas like Idlib Province has picked up, rescue workers say, as government forces have faced new threats from insurgents. The Assad government has so far evaded more formal scrutiny because of political, legal and technical obstacles to assigning blame for the attacks — a situation that feels surreal to many Syrians under the bombs, who say it is patently clear the government drops them.
“People are so used to it, they know from the sound,” said Hatem Abu Marwan, 29, a rescue worker with the White Helmets civil defense organization, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice when asked to explain. “We know the sound of a helicopter that goes to a low height and drops a barrel. Nobody has aircraft except the regime.”
Prodded by the United States, the United Nations Security Council is discussing a draft resolution that would create a panel, reporting to the secretary general, to determine which of the warring parties is responsible for using chlorine as a weapon, according to Council diplomats.
“The Security Council must address the need to determine who is responsible for using chlorine as weapons in Syria,” said an American official, who declined to offer specifics and requested anonymity to discuss continuing negotiations. “Doing so is critical to getting justice for the Syrian people and accountability for those who have repeatedly used chemical weapons in Syria.”
Syrian state media dismiss the allegations as propaganda, and the Council remains divided and hamstrung. That leaves people like Mr. Abu Marwan, who has responded to nine suspected chlorine attacks, feeling abandoned. “There is no law to defend us as human beings, this is what we understand from the Security Council,” said Mr. Abu Marwan, a law school graduate, weeping as he recalled holding a dying child in Sarmeen. “I didn’t see in humanitarian law anything that says ‘except for Syrians.’ ”You have the propaganda all there in a nutshell: the nefarious Assad; the hamstrung UNSC; the devoted, virtuous law-school graduate weeping with a dead gassed baby cradled in his arms. It is crass, and, at this point, tapped so often as it has been, it is ineffective. But the propaganda machine must extrude its product regardless of quality.
The "smoking gun" in the Barnard-Sengupta story is the helicopter. The chlorine gas is dropped in barrels by low-flying helicopters. We are supposed to baldly accept that only the Syrian government possesses helicopters. What the propagandists are attempting to capitalize on is the "barrel bombs" meme that the Western mainstream media has invested so robustly in. The reader has been conditioned to accept that the Syrian government and only the Syrian government bombs its people from the air by rolling barrels packed with explosives out of helicopters.
Hence, the conclusion to the Barnard-Sengupta piece:
A video taken Sunday in the town of Khansafra shows a barrel dropping from a helicopter and rescue workers holding up a portion of a canister labeled in English. The camera shakes, blurring all but a few words: “hazard,” “may cause irritation,” “caution,” “breathing.”The obvious question is, Whose helicopter is it? Are there any markings? If it is a black helicopter, is there evidence that the Syrian government uses such helicopters?
An obvious question is, Why couldn't one of the Islamist jihadi groups, which have captured much Iraqi and Syrian military equipment, have piloted the helicopter?
The fact that Barnard and Sengupta give hardly a hint of the Iraqi Kurd reports from March that Islamic State used chlorine gas in attacks against its peshmerga is a strong tell that the two Gray Lady reporters are singing for their supper. Any open-minded reporter would explore the possibility that Nusra or ISIS could stage chlorine attacks. There is only this pro forma mention:
Frustrated with the Security Council’s impasse over the issue, rescue workers and doctors are now working to bring evidence of chlorine gas attacks directly to the French, British and American governments for testing. The aim is to give states a solid basis for action against the attacks, in the Security Council or through quieter diplomatic pressure, said James Le Mesurier, the British director of a nonprofit group, Mayday Rescue, that trains and equips the White Helmets, Syrian volunteers supported by the British, Danish and Dutch governments.
Going directly to governments that have pushed for Mr. Assad’s ouster creates its own challenges. His allies may dismiss their evidence as politically tainted and can point to recent chlorine attacks in Iraq for which the government there blamed insurgents, not to mention the discredited American claims of an Iraqi chemical weapons program that were used to justify invading Iraq.All we need to know about the recent spate of chlorine bomb attacks is that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which set up a special mission last spring to look into the use of chlorine gas in Syria, won't endorse the claims that the Syrian government is to blame:
But investigators face difficulties. Chlorine dissipates quickly in the atmosphere and does not last in blood or urine, and residue stays in soil for just 48 hours, leaving little time to transport samples across borders. Also, Mr. Le Mesurier said, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons differentiates evidence it collects itself from evidence collected by rescue workers, categorizing the latter as circumstantial.
Emergency workers said they met recently with investigators from the organization, but Dr. Tennari called the body’s response “poor and slow.” Mr. Le Mesurier remarked, “No one showed up on a white steed.”
Three other Syrian doctors said the organization’s rules resulted in valuable evidence they collected going unexamined.
One, who protects his identity with the nickname “Chemical Hazem” for his safety, said he reached one of the April 2014 attack sites, Tal Minnes, within hours, smelling bleach in the air. He smuggled samples from two victims to Turkey without waiting for border clearances. But he said the O.P.C.W. refused to accept an unexploded canister, which remains in Syria.
“The ultimate evidence of the regime’s use of chemical weapons is gone,” he said, adding that no one seemed interested in getting samples out of Syria. “We can’t blame anyone who wants to follow the legal channels — but do any exist?”
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