Bunker
Buster Used Against Syrian Forces Near Aleppo
Israeli
News Live
Reports
coming out of Syria that a huge bomb has been dropped on the
international Airport in Aleppo Syria. Early accusations are pointing
the finger at Israel but its still to early to tell. Later at the end
of the broadcast that was live we do show the first images of the
attack. Links https://www.prikk.world/de/meinungen/... https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-n...
Scott
Ritter is arguably the most experienced American weapons inspector
and in this interview with Dennis J. Bernstein he levels a frank
assessment of U.S. government assertions about chemical weapons use.
In
the 1980’s, Scott Ritter was a commissioned officer in the United
States Marine Corps, specializing in intelligence. In 1987,
Ritter was assigned to the On-Site Inspection Agency, which was put
together to go into the Soviet Union and oversee the implementation
of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. This was the first
time that on-site inspection had been used as part of a disarmament
verification process.
Ritter
was one of the groundbreakers in developing on-site inspection
techniques and methodologies. With this unique experience behind him,
Ritter was asked in 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, to join the
United Nations Special Commission, which was tasked by the Security
Council to oversee the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass
destruction. From 1991 to 1998, Ritter served as a chief
weapons inspector and led a number of teams into Iraq.
According
to Ritter, in the following Flashpoints Radio interview with Dennis
Bernstein conducted on April 23rd, US, British and French claims that
the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians last
month appear to be totally bogus.
Dennis
Bernstein: You have been speaking out recently about the
use of chemical weapons in Syria. Could you outline your case?
Scott
Ritter: There are a lot of similarities between the Syrian
case and the Iraqi case. Both countries possess weapons of mass
destruction. Syria had a very large chemical weapons program.
In
2013 there was an incident in a suburb of Damascus called Ghouta, the
same suburb where the current controversy is taking place. The
allegations were that the Syrian government used sarin nerve agent
against the civilian population. The Syrian government denied that,
but as a result of that incident the international community got
together and compelled Syria into signing the Chemical Weapons
Convention, declaring the totality of its chemical weapons holdings,
and opening itself to be disarmed by inspections of the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Russia was chosen to
be the guarantor of Syria’s compliance. The bottom line is that
Syria had the weapons but was verified by 2016 as being in 100%
compliance. The totality of Syria’s chemical weapons program was
eliminated.
Ritter:
They just make it up.
At
the same time that this disarmament process was taking place, Syria
was being engulfed in a civil war which has resulted in a
humanitarian crisis. Over a half million people have died. It
is a war that pits the Syrian government against a variety of
anti-regime forces, many of which are Islamic in nature: the Islamic
State, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda. Some of these Islamic factions have
been in the vicinity of Ghouta since 2012.
Earlier
this year, the Syrian government initiated an offensive to liberate
that area of these factions. It was very heavy fighting,
thousands of civilians were killed, with massive aerial bombardment.
Government forces were prevailing and by April 6 it looked as if the
militants were preparing to surrender.
Suddenly
the allegations come out that there was this chemical weapons attack.
It wasn’t a massive chemical weapons attack,
it was dropping one or two so-
called “barrel bombs,” improvised
devices that contained chlorine gas canisters.
According to the
militants, between 40 and 70 people were killed and up to 500 people
were made ill. The United States and other nations picked up on this,
saying that this was proof positive that Syria has been lying about
its chemical weapons program and that Russia has been behind Syria’s
retention of chemical weapons. This is the case the US made to
launch its missile strike [on April 14].
There
are a lot of problems with this scenario. Again, why would the
Syrian government, at the moment of victory, use a pinprick chemical
attack with zero military value? It added nothing to the
military campaign and invited the wrath of the West at a critical
time, when the rebels were begging for Western intervention.
Many,
including the Russian government, believe that this was a staged
event. There has been no hard evidence put forward by anyone
that an attack took place. Shortly after allegations of the
attack came out, the entire town of Douma was taken over by the
Syrian Army while the rebels were evacuated.
The
places that were alleged to have been attacked were inspected by
Russian chemical weapons specialists, who found zero trace of any
chemicals weapons activity. The same inspectors who oversaw the
disarmament of Syria were mobilized to return to Syria and do an
investigation. They were supposed to start their work this past
weekend [April 21-22]. They arrived in Damascus the day after
the missile strikes occurred but they still haven’t been out to the
sites. The United States, France and Great Britain have all admitted
that the only evidence they have used to justify this attack were the
photographs and videotapes sent to them by the rebel forces.
I
have great concern about the United States carrying out an attack on
a sovereign nation based on no hard evidence. The longer we
wait, the longer it takes to get inspectors onto the site, the more
claims we are going to get that the Russians have sanitized it. I
believe that the last thing the United States wanted was inspectors
to get on-site and carry out a forensic investigation that would have
found that a chemical attack did not in fact take place.
DB: It
is sort of like cleaning up a police crime scene before you check for
evidence.
SR: The
United States didn’t actually bomb the site that was attacked.
They bombed three other facilities. One was in the suburbs of
Damascus, a major metropolitan area. The generals said that
they believed there were quantities of nerve agent there. So, in a
building in a densely populated area where we believe nerve agent is
stored, what do we do? We blow it up! If there had in fact been
nerve agent there, it would have resulted in hundreds or even
thousands of deaths. That fact that nobody died is the clearest
evidence yet that there was no nerve agent there. The United
States is just winging it, making it up.
One
of the tragedies is that we can no longer trust our military, our
intelligence services, our politicians. They will manufacture
whatever narrative they need to justify an action that they deem to
be politically expedient.
DB: Isn’t
it also the case that there were problems with the allegations
concerning Syria using chemical weapons in 2013 and then again in
2015? I believe The New York Times had to
retract their 2013 story.
SR: They
put out a story about thousands of people dying, claiming that it was
definitely done by the Syrian government. It turned out
later that the number of deaths was far lower and that the weapons
systems used were probably in the possession of the rebels. It
was a case of the rebels staging a chemical attack in order to get
the world to intervene on their behalf.
A
similar scenario unfolded last year when the Syrian government
dropped two or three bombs on a village and suddenly there were
reports that there was sarin nerve agent and chlorine gas wafting
through the village, killing scores of people. Videotapes were
taken of dead and dying and suffering people which prompted Trump to
intervene. Inspectors never went to the site. Instead they relied
upon evidence collected by the rebels.
As
a weapons inspector, I can tell you that chain of custody of any
samples that are to be used in the investigation is an absolute. You
have to be at the site when it is collected, it has to be certified
to be in your possession until the laboratory.
Any break in the chain
of custody makes that evidence useless for a legitimate
investigation. So we have evidence collected by the rebels.
They videotaped themselves carrying out the inspection, wearing
training suits that would not have protected them at all from
chemical weapons! Like almost everything having to do with these
rebels, this was a staged event, an act of theater.
DB: Who
has been supporting this particular group of rebels?
SR:
On the one hand, we have the actual fighters, the Army of
Islam, a Saudi-backed fundamentalist group who are extraordinarily
brutal. Embedded within the fighters are a variety of
Western-trained and Western-funded NGOs such as the White Helmets and
the Syrian-American Medical Society. But their primary focus
isn’t rescue, in the case of the White Helmets, or medical care in
the case of the Syrian-American Medical Society, but rather
anti-regime propaganda. Many of the reports that came out of
Douma originated with these two NGO’s.
DB: You
mentioned “chain of custody.” That’s what was most
ridiculous about sending in inspectors. The first thing you
would want to do is establish chain of custody and nail down the
crime scene.
SR: I
was a participant in the Gulf War and we spent the bulk of that war
conducting a massive aerial campaign against Iraq. I was one of
the people who helped come up with the target list that was used to
attack. Each target had to have a purpose.
Let’s
look what happened in Syria [on April 14]. We bombed three
targets, a research facility in Damascus and two bunker facilities in
western Syria. It was claimed that all three targets were
involved with a Syrian chemical weapons program. But the Syria
weapons program was verified to be disarmed. So what chemical
weapons program are we talking about? Then US officials said that one
of these sites stored sarin nerve agent and chemical production
equipment. That is a very specific statement. Now, if Syria was
verified to be disarmed last year, with all this material eliminated,
what are they talking about? What evidence do they have that any of
this material exists? They just make it up.
OPCW
inspectors in Syria 2013. (UN Photo)
If
I had been a member of that inspections team, I would have been able
to tell you with 100% certainty what took place at that site. It
wasn’t that long ago that the allegations took place, there are
very good forensic techniques that can be applied. We would be able
to reverse engineer that site and tell you exactly what happened
when. Let’s say an inspection team had gone in and we found
that there was sarin nerve agent. Now, the US government can say,
there is not supposed to be any sarin nerve agent in Syria, therefore
we can state that the Syrians have a covert sarin nerve agent
capability. But still you don’t know where it
is, so now you have to say we assess that it could be
in this bunker.
We
bombed empty buildings. We didn’t degrade Syria’s chemical
weapons capability. They got rid of it. We were among the
nations that certified that they had been disarmed. We just
created this phantom threat out of nothing so that we could attack
Syria and our president could be seen as being presidential, as being
the commander in chief at a time when his credibility was being
attacked on the home front.
DB: Amazing.
That helps clarify the situation. Of course, it also
leaves us terrified because we are so far away from the truth.
SR: As
an American citizen who happens to be empowered with knowledge about
how weapons inspections work, how decisions are made regarding war, I
am disillusioned beyond belief.
This
isn’t the first time we have been lied to by the president. But
we have been lied to by military officers who are supposed to be
above that. Three top Marine Corps officers stood before the
American people and told bald-faced lies about what was going on. We
have been lied to by Congress, who are supposed to be the people’s
representatives who provide a check against executive overreach. And
we have been lied to by the corporate media, a bunch of paid
mouthpieces who repeat what the government tells them without
question.
So
Donald Trump can say there are chemical weapons in Syria, the
generals parrot his words, the Congress nods its head dumbly, and the
mass media repeats it over and over again to the American public.
DB: Are
you worried that we might end up in a shooting war with Russia at
this point?
SR: A
week ago I was very worried. If I am going to give kudos to Jim
Mattis it will be because he took the desire of Trump and Bolton to
create a major crisis with Russia over the allegations of Syrian
chemical weapons use and was able to water that down into putting on
a show for the American people. We warned the Russians in
advance, there were no casualties, we blew up three empty buildings.
We spent a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money and we got
to pat ourselves on the back and tell everybody how great we are. But
we avoided a needless confrontation with the Russians and I am a lot
calmer today about the potential of a shooting war with Russia than I
was a week ago.
'We're
doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare
mention
The
86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most
life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it By Patrick Barkham
“We’re
doomed,” says Mayer
Hillman with
such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in.
“The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the
planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels.
There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the
polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
Hillman,
an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the
Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the
consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is
his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public
life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing
more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a
stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year
From
Malthus to the Millennium Bug, apocalyptic thinking has a poor track
record. But when it issues from Hillman, it may be worth paying
attention. Over nearly 60 years, his research
has used factual data to challenge policymakers’ conventional
wisdom.
In 1972, he criticised out-of-town shopping centres more than 20
years before the government changed planning rules to stop their
spread. In 1980, he recommended halting the closure of branch line
railways – only now are some closed lines reopening. In 1984, he
proposed energy ratings for houses – finally adopted as government
policy in 2007. And, more than 40 years ago, he presciently
challenged society’s pursuit of economic growth.
When
we meet at his converted coach house in London, his classic Dawes
racer still parked hopefully in the hallway (a stroke and a triple
heart bypass mean he is – currently – forbidden from cycling),
Hillman is anxious we are not side-tracked by his best-known
research, which challenged the supremacy of the car.
“With
doom ahead, making a case for cycling as the primary mode of
transport is almost irrelevant,” he says. “We’ve got to stop
burning fossil fuels. So many aspects of life depend on fossil fuels,
except for music and love and education and happiness. These things,
which hardly use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”
While
the focus of Hillman’s thinking for the last quarter-century has
been on climate change, he is best known for his work on road safety.
He spotted the damaging impact of the car on the freedoms and safety
of those without one – most significantly, children – decades
ago. Some of his policy prescriptions have become commonplace –
such as 20mph speed limits – but we’ve failed to curb the car’s
crushing of children’s liberty. In 1971, 80% of British seven- and
eight-year-old children went to school on their own; today it’s
virtually unthinkable that a seven-year-old would walk to school
without an adult. As Hillman has pointed out, we’ve removed
children from danger rather than removing danger from children –
and filled roads with polluting cars on school runs. He calculated
that escorting children took 900m adult hours in 1990, costing the
economy £20bn each year. It will be even more expensive today.
Our
society’s failure to comprehend the true cost of cars has informed
Hillman’s view on the difficulty of combatting climate change. But
he insists that I must not present his thinking on climate change as
“an opinion”. The data is clear; the climate is warming
exponentially. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
predicts that the world on its current course will warm by 3C by
2100. Recent revised climate modelling suggested a best estimate of
2.8C but scientists struggle to predict the full impact of the
feedbacks from future events such as methane being released by the
melting of the permafrost.
Hillman
is amazed that our thinking rarely stretches beyond 2100. “This is
what I find so extraordinary when scientists warn that the
temperature could rise to 5C or 8C. What, and stop there? What
legacies are we leaving for future generations? In the early 21st
century, we did as good as nothing in response to climate change. Our
children and grandchildren are going to be extraordinarily critical.”
Global
emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the
highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were
up to 20m higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit
no carbon dioxide whatsoever, says Hillman. “Even if the world went
zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past
the point of no return.”
Although
Hillman has not flown for more than 20 years as part of a personal
commitment to reducing carbon emissions, he is now scornful of
individual action which he describes as “as good as futile”. By
the same logic, says Hillman, national action is also irrelevant
“because Britain’s contribution is minute. Even if the government
were to go to zero carbon it would make almost no difference.”
Instead,
says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero
emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes –
every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too.
Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think
so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy
volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the
population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to
restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman
doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no
evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt
to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music –
it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with
a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to
adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet
such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme
effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We
see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let
them drown.”
A
small band of artists and writers, such as Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark
Mountain project, have embraced the idea that “civilisation” will
soon end in environmental catastrophe but only a few scientists –
usually working beyond the patronage of funding bodies, and nearing
the end of their own lives – have suggested as much. Is Hillman’s
view a consequence of old age, and ill health? “I was saying these
sorts of things 30 years ago when I was hale and hearty,” he says.
Hillman
accuses all kinds of leaders – from religious leaders to scientists
to politicians – of failing to honestly discuss what we must do to
move to zero-carbon emissions. “I don’t think they can because
society isn’t organised to enable them to do so. Political parties’
focus is on jobs and GDP, depending on the burning of fossil fuels.”
Without
hope, goes the truism, we will give up. And yet optimism about the
future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting
that our civilisation is doomed could make humanity rather like an
individual who recognises he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go
on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their
lives.
Can
civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It
depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long
time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity.
“Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global
airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are
being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re
deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of
what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and
nobody’s batting an eyelid.”
Spokesperson
Graham Christian for waste company Smart Environmentalsaid
paper and plastic stocks had started to build up since the ban.
"The
paper's sitting under cover in big warehousing and the plastic
unfortunately is sitting out in the open environment," he said.
"We
do have to make some decisions soon about what we will do with it.
We'll need to talk to our partner councils about leasing space at a
shared cost to store the product."
Mr
Christian said the price for most recyclable goods had halved since
the ban, but some products were worth nothing or even a negative
figure.
"Let's
say the average long-run value of a tonne of paper is $150 -
currently it's at $60. Cardboard had historically gone up to $130 and
currently it's around the same value [$60] and mixed paper is at
zero, so each time we touch it we're adding cost."
He
said getting rid of rubbish in areas without a port cost more because
it had to be handled more times.
"Areas
like Grey, Buller, the West Coast and also in the East and Waikato
like Thames-Coromandel we received products from eight different
councils and we are sitting on a very significant stockpile there."
He
said other Asian countries were accepting waste, but New Zealand
was competing for space with larger countries like the US and
Australia.
"They're
being swamped by other countries and we're in a queue essentially."
WasteMINZ
chief executive Paul Evans said New Zealand needed to not rely so
heavily on exporting waste.
Mr
Evans said with a commitment from government the country could set up
its own internal systems.
"We
need to stop thinking about how we stop being prone to fickle
overseas markets with low commodity prices and how we actually use
more of this material in New Zealand," he said.
"That
requires a commitment from local government and government. If
you invest in a significant amount of plant to process this material,
if prices come back overseas and everyone runs away to those to get
the better price that puts the industry in a real challenging
position."
He
said harsher product stewardship regulation would help bring down the
amount sent to be recycled in the first place.
"Currently,
brand owners can make whatever the heck they like, put that out to
the market and say 'it doesn't matter to me how that's recycled - I'm
not going to bear the cost of it'."
Wellington
City Councillor Iona Pannett said increasing the waste disposal
levy from $10 per tonne of waste dumped at a landfill would
also be effective.
Ms
Pannett said it could go up eventually to $200 a tonne.
She
also said harsher regulations on selling products made with
unrecycled plastic would incentivise manufacturers to be mindful of
their waste production.
"The
government could mandate and say plastic packaging has to be
recycled. The problem is that virgin plastic is cheaper and much
easier to use."
She
said the issue with waste stockpiling, was a good problem to have.
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