So Assad Did Indeed Not Use Chemical Weapons In Douma.

[Spicerack]

https://goo.gl/pg9kE5

MSM kept that quiet, didn't they?

[jno]

interim report; "Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going." They're still looking into chlorine

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44746147

[Spicerack]

Should be plenty of AB humble pie eaten. (I know there won't be. ;-))

Big shout out to Gromit & AOG. Strange bedfellows but events have proved them right time and time again re Syria. (I've been reading all the 'back-issues'. Sad, I know) ^ Often facing scorn and ridicule, incidentally.
Watch Theresa 'brexit means brexit' May lying through her teeth again. Saying that, open source evidence, while sounding impressive, just means 'any old claptrap' you heard somewhere.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?444086-1/british-prime-minister-speaks-syria-airstrikes

[ichkeria]

The link posted by jno says chlorine may have been used. That’s a chemical weapon isn’t it?
Unfortunately the inspectors were denied access to the site for so long that it’s surprising they’ve even been able to come to that conclusion. A lot of scrubbing up I suspect was done by the culprits in the meantime

[dannyk13]

Did you actually read the report Spicerack.Nowhere does is say that chemical weapons were not used.It does say that there was no evidence of nerve gas, but there is evidence of chlorine(Chemical).

[ichkeria]

I think he's got confused about the types of deadly weapons Assad and his puppet master uses.
Chemical is for the masses in Syria, nerve agents are reserved for spies, British policemen, and anyone else unfortunate enough to come into contact with it.

[Peter Pedant]

the first sentence of the ref says

A chemical weapons watchdog says chlorine may have been used in April's attack on the Syrian city of Douma.

so.... how does this square with no the OP headline ?

[Peter Pedant]

spice rack doesnt mention nerve gas
chemical weapons

Chlorine - used in sewers etc is reckoned a chemical weapon. - sort of like Harpic

hey babies - why does Spicey think weapons werent used in Douma ? because he's clean round the bend !

sorry that was a ref to the old harpic joke ....

[jim360]

That also leaves out the dozen or so other places where it's accepted that chemical weapons were used, but who's counting those?

[Peter Pedant]

so how would you detect chlorine gas in an area where you've slooshed it, douched it, and then waited

well chlorine is an oxidising agent so you might find things chlorinated which is unepected - or find OCl radicals ( made from interaction of chlorine with water ) in nooks and crannies

I dont think there was any question that novichok agents were used- they werent. Spicey latterly reported that the British govt were ordered to give up samples at Salisbury to the KGB for verification didnt he? or am I having a pensioner's moment ?

[Peter Pedant]

// Watch Theresa 'brexit means brexit' May lying through her teeth again. //

can the poster stick to the subject he has posted on please?

[Gromit]

Even if chemical weapons were used in Syria, there is no evidence that Assad/Russians were responsible. Throughout the civil war, Saudi Arabia has been arming the Syrian rebels with whatever they wanted.

// The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. //

A couple of long reads here, but containing a lot more truth than the ‘official’ narrative on Syria.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

[ichkeria]

Don't get too carried away by the star rating our Kremlin blogger's given you ;-)

[Gromit]

I’m not. I did not refer to it, but you did.

The UK and US official stance on the Syrian Civil War is mostly a pack of lies. The Syrian one is too, but you expect that from a dictatorship.

[ichkeria]

They are not lying about Assad using chemical weapons which is what the op seemed to claim in his rather abject attempt to distort things.
Of that I am 100% sure. You of course may believe what you wish

[vulcan42]

Like everything else in this world you believe what you want to believe.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/11616730/Seymour-Hersh-conspiracy-theorist-or-ground-breaking-iconoclast.html

[Spicerack]

ichkeria
//The link posted by jno says chlorine may have been used. That’s a chemical weapon isn’t it? //
In the same way that a butter knife can be a tactical assault weapon, yes.
Danny,Danny, Danny, not very polite for an old chap, are you?
I did indeed read the report. Then I took the trouble to read what the AB Armchair Generals had to say. They said, ad nauseam, that they knew it was Assad wot done it because he was the only one capable of building and *delivering nerve gas, sarin, chemical weapons etc.
*Mrs May even made a little 'joke' about it in the video, 'After all, Daesh don't have helicopters, do they, tee-hee'.
I dare say the Syrian state had access to chlorine, I could pop out to B&Q and buy a tub. The question is, would they use it as a weapon? I don't know, neither do you.
But we do know who definitely had stockpiles and wasn't slow in using it. Our old friends, Islamic Terrorists.

[ToraToraTora]

I had no idea you were a fan spice!

[ichkeria]

Chlorine was the allegation all along and chlorine is now what the OPCW suspect.
Why don’t you admit the truth spice. Somehow or other you read ‘no evidence of nerve agent’ as ‘no evidence of illegal weapons’ - there was never any suggestion by anyone that nerve agents were used. Rather a chemical weapon such as, er chlorine :-)

[Gromit]

May: // After all, Daesh don't have helicopters //

That comment was to jusify air strikes on Syria (with US and French allis) in retaliation for chemical weapons attacks, blamed on Assad.
The line spun was that barrel bombs containing chemical weapons had been dropped from helicopters. Only Assad’s Government forces have helicopters and barrel bombs, so it had to be them that released the gases.
But chemical weapons are better deployed at ground level where the people to be poisoned are. The Russians (if it were they) did not need helicopters to poison the Skirpal’s in Salisbury. Likewise, just spraying the air from a tall building in Syria (which any rebel group could have done) would be a better delivery method. The US knew in 2013 that al-Nusra had a chemical weapons factory in Syria, so the UK Government had that information as well. So when May said Daesh didn’t have helicopters (so they must be innocent) was at best, highly misleading.