Caitlin JOHNSTONE
In a recent meeting with the press, British ambassador to the United Nations Karen Pierce told reporters that it is absolutely unthinkable that the terrorist factions in the terrorist-held Syrian province of Idlib could possibly be planning a terrorist attack using chemical weapons with the intention of blaming it on the Syrian government.
Her reasoning? Since the Russian government has been warning of this possibility, the exact opposite must necessarily therefore be true.
“There are many terrorist organizations in Idlib,” a reporter asked as a follow-up to previous questions regarding Russia’s allegations that terrorist factions had received a large batch of chemical weapons which they intend to use in a false flag attack. “Why do you rule out that they would perpetrate such an attack?”
“Because this story is coming from the Russians,” Pierce responded, with a straight face, and without honking a novelty-sized bicycle horn and saying “Wocka wocka!”
“It is much more likely for this to be a smoke screen for things that the Syrian authorities are planning to do,” Pierce continued. “The way to deal with any terrorists who are in Idlib is to ask the UN to negotiate safe passage, such as has been done before.”
So let’s recap: it is the British government’s official public position that the extremist jihadist factions who have been holing up in their final stronghold preparing for the long-awaited military confrontation in Idlib would have no incentive whatsoever to stage a false flag chemical attack in order to rally western reinforcements against the Syrian government and thereby escape defeat. Far more likely, in the British government’s estimation, is that the warnings of such an attack are a “smoke screen” to cover for the Syrian government’s plan to perpetrate its own chemical attack in order to accomplish the key strategic goal of suffocating a few dozen children. Oh yeah, and terrorists should be given safe passage to areas where they can safely regroup, because that’s the thing that you do with terrorists now.
Never mind that those terrorist factions would stand everything to gain and nothing to lose in a last-ditch false flag attempt to recruit powerful allies to their cause. Never mind that these are actual, literal terrorists who have no qualms about killing civilians in order to advance their cause. Never mind that US National Security Advisor John Bolton has already effectively guaranteed those same terrorists that the US and its allies will join in their aggressions against the Syrian government by publicly announcing that any chemical attacks will be met with the strongest retaliation yet. All of that is invalidated by Russians having said something about it, because if Russians say something, the opposite of what they said must necessarily be true. Because God is drunk and everyone’s crazy.
We’re all familiar with the classic movie trope of the battle scene in which the protagonists have been beaten back and are surrounded by the enemy hordes, awaiting their certain doom, only to hear a trumpet blast and see reinforcements storming over the hills to save the day. The audience is relieved, and they watch with delight as the villains are attacked from both sides and driven off.
Well, the occupiers of Idlib are in that exact situation, except it isn’t heroes who’ve been beaten back and surrounded, and those reinforcements are not coming.
Unless they can arrange a miracle.
This past April the US, UK and France launched airstrikes against Damascus in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack allegedly perpetrated by the Syrian government against civilians in the city of Douma. The strike was launched with no investigation having taken place whatsoever into the nature of the civilian deaths, and subsequent investigation found no evidence implicating the Syrian government in a chemical attack. This is unsurprising, because the Syrian government had no incentive to use chemical weapons in a battle it had already won at that point and every incentive not to provoke the wrath of powerful western military forces just to suffocate some kids to death.
This is all public knowledge. We know with 100 percent certainty that the terrorist militants occupying Idlib have been made 100 percent aware that (A) the US, UK and its allies will launch an aggressive military assault against the Syrian government in response to any reports of chemical weapons use, (B) such a military assault would take place without any investigation into the nature of the chemical weapons use, which would instead be immediately blamed upon the Syrian government, and c) killing the civilians they are holding hostage with chemical weapons is literally their only hope of escaping the military onslaught that the Syrian government and its allies are preparing to launch.
We know all of these things for an absolute fact. Even if you dismiss the intelligence which Russia supplied to the US saying that a false flag chemical weapons attack is being prepared for in Idlib, it is self-evident that the jihadist militants would have every motive to stage one if given the opportunity.
Keep an eye on this one, please. Syria is a key strategic region that the western power alliance has been plotting to take control of for decades, and it is entirely possible that they will pounce on any opportunity to prevent the Syrian government and its allies from shoring up control of the nation and bringing stability to the region. Stay skeptical.
