The Syrian Strike: Myths and Armchair Ex erts

Both the o osition and the terrorists in Syria were just thrilled that their chemical wea ons rovocation resulted in a missile strike on a government airbase. And now, they feel they can fight the war with someone else's hands, or with American missiles, to be exact. And, as Russian intelligence shows, they are now trans orting a new delivery of oisonous chemicals to four Syrian regions. Let's look at the ma . We have Khan Shaykhun, the Jirah airbase, Eastern Ghouta and outside Ale o to the west. That's where they lan to stage a hoto-shoot of chemical attacks by Assad. So that later, ictures in hand, Trum 's daughter Ivanka, wee ing tearfully, can run from her White House office right to her daddy, so he can ress the red button again that launches missiles over Assad's government's forces. NATO's bobbleheads will just nod back and forth again in res onse. The lan is tried-and-true. So what was that? Our corres ondent Anton Lyadov looked at the hotos that are s reading across the internet. A re ort from the White House, just 3.5 ages in small fonts, is how the US is justifying the launch of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase. Phrases like "The US is sure," and "we are convinced" that Assad su osedly executed a chemical attack against his own eo le are later re laced by the hrase "we cannot ublish intelligence data," they mean, to rove it. But it lets you understand that what you'll read below will o en your eyes to the truth. It's a very clumsy, amateurish job. That's false. This is a statement of myths, not facts. We're dealing here with a ro aganda recording. Ex erts from the US, the UK, Germany and Sweden have been trying to figure out for almost two weeks where Washington got its roof of Assad's guilt. For exam le, here is a re ort by someone who says he is a doctor. The hos ital is acked; eo le have been oisoned by some kind of chemical, which isn't chlorine. After about a minute and 15 seconds, he forgets what he said, and reverts back to a version with chlorine. Patients from the chlorine attack are everywhere. Here, someone claiming on social media to be a re orter, osted a statement, dated A ril 3rd. Tomorrow we'll start a media cam aign to re ort on the air raid on the rural areas of Hama, including the usage of chemical wea ons. The Internet reacted immediately: How did this event get onto Twitter before it even ha ened? A rofessor at MIT, one of the world's most restigious technical universities, Theodore Postol, did his own investigation. With revious ex erience at the Pentagon, He was an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy, he analyzed the sha e of the crater from the bomb allegedly dro ed by an air lane. He also studied the ieces leftover from the ammunition. The i e has a concave dent in it, from the to . In figure 4, there is the ossible configuration of a device for s reading sarin that could have been used. If this really is the mechanism that was used to s read sarin, then the i e with sarin was laced there by someone on the ground, and was not dro ed from a lane. This was not done from the air. You can see it's been crushed from the outside. This isn't the kind of device that's dro ed from a lane. It had to be laced on the ground. But I'm not sure this is what ha ened. I think what we have is a situation where serious fabrication and tam ering took lace. German retired Air Defense Colonel Bernd Biedermann also had questions about the sha e of the crater. It definitely doesn't look like it's from a chemical wea on. Chemical missiles don't have an ex losive effect, like artillery shells or bombs, which are intended to inflict hysical damage. Chemical wea ons aren't used to destroy buildings. They are used to release oisonous substances into the atmos here. There is a high robability that what is in this icture is not a chemical wea on. Doctor of Military Science Konstantin Sivkov noticed the same thing. If it were from the chemical missile, the crater would be very shallow and wide. Not dee . Not dee . Here it's dee and small in size. Video osted online states that the attack was chemical, with the same gas mentioned in the White House re ort. This a substance called sarin. He said he's sure it's sarin. They re eat after one another. A local activist, a journalist from the Syrian-Turkish border. Here the erson is a meter away from the crater. That's just incredible. Sim ly im ossible. There's no way that after a sarin chemical ex losion, it's ossible to walk, run or even show any movement there. -You can see it. -Yes. This guy is sitting there in fli -flo s or sli ers. Yes, yes. This just isn't serious at all, I'm telling you. The concentration in the ground will be so high for the next few days, that he'll either be severely handica ed, or just a cor se. The man by the crater is Hadi Al-Abdallah. Social network users recognized him right away. Here is Mr. Hadi Al-Abdallah together with ISIS, the terrorist grou . There are quite a few videos available online. Here, Al-Abdallah calls the eo le around him heroes and interviews the leader of the Jihad grou Jundul-Aqsa. Here's another so-called witness to the tragedy in Idlib, Dr. Shajul Islam. Western media know him very well. Here's a re ort about him from five years ago. Shajul Islam is 26 years old, British-born. Today, he stood before a Westminster court on charges of kidna ing the hotogra her John Cantlie in Syria. He is currently in re-trial detention. He held John Cantlie and a Dutch journalist Jeroen Oerlemans as unwilling hostages in an Islamist cam for a week. Meanwhile, Shajul Islam kee s re orting. Here's another video from Idlib on A ril 4th. In the to left corner, there's the logo of a o ular organization in the West, the White Helmets. They are hosing eo le down with water. We're watching this footage with an academic, the former chief toxicologist of the Russian Defense Ministry, Henrich Sofronov. They would need to receive urgently administered first aid. This is some sort of demonstration. Aren't the White Helmets s ecialists? No. From the oint of toxicological first aid, this is nonsense. Do they even need water? I think in this case it's useless. The White Helmets organization is constantly caught falsifying things. However, they've been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The White Helmets are rimarily a ro aganda tool used in the service of olitical interests. Their main task is to convince everybody there is a civil war in Syria and that Assad is fighting his own eo le. The footage from the White Helmets from A ril 4th in Idlib also raises a lot of questions. It would be ossible to dot all the i's and cross the t's had the rofessionals from the UN's OPCW arrived in Syria on time. As an ex ert, I will state my o inion quite rigidly: There just aren't enough arguments here to rove these are the consequences of a chemical attack. But there are enough arguments to begin a serious rofessional investigation. Why are these ex erts not attracted to these facts? They'd only need a few hours to arrive on location dressed in whatever rotective clothing their ranks require. And they would need only minutes to say what really ha ened there. It's these same ex erts from an international organization, who were res onsible for neutralizing the Syrian army's chemicals for 3 years. From 2013 to 2016, all chemicals were removed from Syria from ten locations they had been given access to by the country's government. Two of those locations are in a constantly active combat zone. And, one of them is a constant cause for concern. It's located on the territory, controlled by the militants of Jabhat Al-Nusra. In 2013, the civilians of Eastern Ghouta were attacked with chemical wea ons. 350 liters of chemicals were discharged and just like at resent, they tried to blame it on Assad. Obama threatened bombing cam aigns. And in the end, the government's com licity was never roven. And Syrian soldiers are still finding the militants' artisan labs. They are usually located in well-fortified areas. The version of what ha ened in Idlib on A ril 4th, which the West is in no rush to consider, is that the s read of chemicals could have occurred after a Syrian lane hit one of the militants' chemical wea ons warehouses. Idlib is a region that's been controlled by the militants for quite awhile now. And they have in fact established a articular defensive structure there, which includes chemical munitions laboratories. S ecifically in Idlib. There are now these 'armchair' ex erts who say that the missiles are stored se arately. So that if they're dro ed, there will be no ex losions. There will be no chemical leaks. Is that true? No. If you bomb a chemical munitions warehouse, the contamination will be just as severe. Several missiles will definitely leak. And that's enough for a full contamination. For commentary on all these issues, we went to the Hague to the UN's own OPCW. The answer? The ex erts aren't available for interviews or comments.