While there is no proof yet either way, there are good reasons to at least consider the prospect that the sarin gas attack on civilians in Syria this week could have been a “false flag” operation. The last time Syrian president Bashar al Assad supposedly used chemical weapons, the story quickly collapsed under scrutiny. The more likely scenario, according to United Nations investigators and virtually every credible analyst who looked at the 2013 crime, was that globalist-backed jihadist “rebels” used the chemicals in a “false-flag” scheme. The goal: Blame Syrian authorities in a bid to trigger U.S. government intervention against Assad.
Foreign officials and more than a few prominent analysts have suggested the same deception may have just played out once again, albeit more successfully this time. Former Congressman and longtime non-interventionist Ron Paul, for example, declared that there was “zero chance” that Assad had ordered the chemical attack. “It doesn’t make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poisonous gases,” he said, noting that the situation for Assad and his regime was looking better until the chemical attack this week. In a tweet that sparked headlines around the world, Paul called the attack a “false flag.”
Syrian officials were among the first to allege that a false-flag operation was underway in the chemical attack that killed over 100 civilians in northern Syria this week. In a statement released by the Assad regime’s Foreign Ministry, authorities denied responsibility for the deadly attack. Instead, the regime said the gruesome killings with banned weapons were actually a “premeditated action that aimed to justify the launching of a U.S. attack on the Syrian army.” The regime claims it destroyed all its WMDs under United Nations supervision years ago. Russian authorities, allied with Assad, agreed.
Of course, even if Damascus did use chemical weapons on civilians, it would be unlikely to admit that. But a simple analysis of motives — a basic first step in any serious investigation — would suggest that Assad had every reason to avoid the use of chemical weapons at all costs. On the other hand, jihadist rebels on the verge of annihilation had every reason to use them. After years of fighting globalist-backed jihadists and terrorists, the dictatorship in Damascus was reportedly close to victory — at least until Trump intervened by firing dozens of missiles at Syrian targets.
Russian authorities, which have stood by Assad in the war against jihadist groups backed by Western governments and Sunni dictatorships, echoed the claims of Syrian officials and blasted certain globalist governments for being “obsessed” with regime change in Syria. Kremlin officials suggested that a strike by Assad’s war planes in the rebel-held area hit a jihadist weapons-production depot that was manufacturing chemical weapons for terrorists in the region. That explanation would appear to make more sense, multiple analysts said.
Russian officials, also citing intelligence, were unequivocal in explaining what happened.
“Yesterday [Tuesday], from 11:30am to 12:30pm local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov was quoted as saying in media reports. “On the territory of the depot there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions.”
Western governments and supposed “experts” trotted out by establishment propaganda organs promptly ridiculed the claims. Instead, they claimed to have alleged “intelligence” that supposedly showed Assad was guilty. Despite the non-stop videos on TV of dying children likely played for emotional manipulation, the alleged intelligence proving Assad’s guilt was not released to the public. First, the attack had Assad’s “fingerprints” on it, alleged “anonymous” and potentially fake “U.S. intelligence” sources were quoted as saying. Then, there was “no doubt.”
However, when Obama cited alleged “intelligence” purporting to blame Assad for a similar 2013 attack, a very similar situation unfolded. Top Obama officials claimed with certainty that their “intelligence” proved Assad was guilty. But as the days, weeks, and months went on, it quickly became evident to virtually every credible analyst that it was, in fact, the Obama-backed jihadist rebels who had used chemical weapons in a bid to set up Assad’s regime for elimination via international intervention. Only a massive outcry by Americans and Congress stopped the plot.
But the evidence showing what really happened was clear. A 2014 MIT report and analysis on that attack the year prior, for example, offered evidence that the Obama administration almost certainly used deception and bogus “intelligence” in its failed bid to more deeply embroil the United States and its military in Syria’s ongoing war. Entitled “Possible Implications of Faulty U.S. Technical Intelligence,” the report found the nerve-agent attack in Syria “could not possibly” have come from the center or even the Eastern edge of regime-controlled territory. Other evidence also showed that the rebels, not the regime, deployed the chemical weapons.
Citing “egregious errors in the intelligence,” the explosive MIT report warned that the process by which those errors were made must be rectified to avoid future tragedy.
“If the source of these errors is not identified, the procedures that led to this intelligence failure will go uncorrected, and the chances of a future policy disaster will grow with certainty,” concluded the authors, former United Nations weapons inspector Richard Lloyd and MIT Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Professor Theodore Postol.
It seems likely that the warning went unheeded, and many of the same “Deep State” operatives behind the previous scam remain employed in the federal bureaucracy.
U.S. officials already knew that the jihadist “rebels” had access to chemical weapons at the time of that 2013 attack, too. A classified U.S. military document obtained by WND the month after the attack confirmed that al-Qaeda-led fighters with the “rebel” Jabhat al-Nusra Front in Syria, which top officials admitted was supported and armed by Obama’s “coalition,” were in possession of sarin gas. U.S. officials knew that because about five pounds of the toxic gas was confiscated from the terror group earlier that same year by authorities in Turkey.
And after the previous use of chemical weapons in Syria, which Obama claimed was perpetrated by Assad, even UN investigators concluded “rebels” were responsible.
“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of Sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” said Carla Del Ponte, the former attorney general of Switzerland and a member of the UN independent commission of inquiry on Syria. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”
According to a January 29, 2013, article published by leading British newspaper the Daily Mail, the Obama administration actually backed a scheme to have jihadist rebels use chemical weapons — and then blame it on Assad. The article, which received widespread publicity at the time but has since been deleted for reasons that remain unclear, pointed to an alleged leaked e-mail from defense contractor Britam. The December, 2012, document in question refers to chemical weapons and claims the scheme is “approved by Washington.”
Ironically, certain Western governments, as well as establishment and globalist war propaganda organs, pretended to be shocked at the mere mention of the term false flag following the latest attack. However, more than a few establishment sources suggested the recent terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, Russia, may have been just such an event. Putin‘s regime has previously been accused — credibly — of having staged such attacks as a pretext to advance certain policies. But the double standard is glaring. How establishment propaganda organs can be so sure that designated terror groups and jihadists — or rogue Western bureaucrats — would not perpetrate a false flag was not explained.
Just last month, though, left-wing extremist Noam Chomsky suggested President Trump might stage a false-flag terrorist attack to rally his supporters and distract from his failure to follow through on his promises.
“We shouldn’t put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly,” Chomsky declared, with establishment media voices dutifully reporting the remarks by the “left-wing intellectual” as if they were perfectly sane and reasonable.
A false-flag attack by an embattled jihadist terror group in Syria with nothing left to lose is almost certainly a more likely possibility than a false flag by Trump to rally supporters.
Already, smoking-gun evidence exists proving that the globalist establishment was willing to facilitate unspeakable crimes to remove Assad from power. In fact, the Obama administration, Sunni Muslim dictators, and others were so determined to achieve regime change that they were willing to support a rebellion that they knew was led by al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to a 2012 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document. That same document outlines an illegal plot to help create a “salafist principality” — known today as the Islamic State, or ISIS — in Eastern Syria to destabilize Assad. Trump is well aware of this scheme. And top Obama officials admitted it in public.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), among America’s most prominent lawmakers, has taken what may be the most sensible approach to the issue: Demanding to see the evidence. Speaking of Assad, Paul said
“he’s either the dumbest dictator in the world, or it may be more confusing.”
Speaking on The Laura Ingraham Show, the senator noted the obvious: It would not make sense for Assad to use such weapons when he was winning the war, had strong Russian support, and had already learned that the Trump administration was abandoning the Obama administration’s failed “regime change” scheming. “I would like to see the evidence,” Paul added, saying he did not dispute it but would like to see it.
To the horror of some of Trump’s most loyal and important supporters, many of the same establishment-globalist institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations that dominated Obama’s warmongering administration have burrowed their way into Trump’s administration, too. And that is despite Trump’s oft-repeated promise to fight against globalism, the warmongering establishment, and other evils. The Trump administration should present whatever evidence it has about the source of the latest attack to Congress and the public. That way, Americans and their representatives can judge the facts for themselves instead of relying on warmongering “deep state” bureaucrats and their discredited propagandists in the establishment media.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook. He can be reached at [email protected].
