Another Kerry Rush to Judgment on Syria

Exclusive: The U.N. withdrew its claim that an airstrike hit its Syrian relief convoy but Secretary of State Kerry relied on the outdated claim in lashing out at Russia in a repeat of his earlier rushes to judgment, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Secretary of State John Kerry has engaged in another rush to judgment blaming the Russians for an attack on a United Nations relief convoy in Syria before any thorough investigation could be conducted and thus prejudicing whatever might follow, as he did with the Syrian sarin case in 2013 and the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.

Eager to go on the propaganda offensive – especially after a U.S. military airstrike last Saturday killed scores of Syrian soldiers who were battling the Islamic State in eastern Syria – Kerry pounced on an initial report that the attack on the convoy on Monday was an airstrike and then insisted that the Russians must have been responsible because one of their jets was supposedly in the area.

Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (U.N. photo)

Secretary of State John Kerry (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (U.N. photo)

But the United Nations – and I’m told CIA analysts – have not ruled out the possibility that the convoy was instead hit by a surface-to-surface missile. On Friday, a source briefed by U.S. intelligence said one fear is that the jihadist group, Ahrar al-Sham, which has fought alongside Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front but is deemed to be part of the “moderate” opposition, may have used a U.S.-supplied TOW missile in the attack.

Ahrar al-Sham, like some other jihadist groups seeking to overthrow the Syrian government, has objected to limited cease-fires arranged by the Russians and the Americans, which still allowed attacks on its ally, the recently rebranded Nusra Front. Ahrar al-Sham thus had a motive for destroying the aid convoy, an act which indeed has upended efforts to negotiate an end to the five-year-old conflict and led to bloody new attacks inside the embattled city of Aleppo on Friday.

Another possibility was that a Syrian government warplane was targeting a rebel artillery piece traveling alongside the convoy and struck the convoy by accident. But the assignment of blame required additional investigation, as other international officials acknowledged.

On Tuesday, a day before Kerry’s outburst, the U.N. revised its initial statement citing an airstrike, with Jens Laerke, a humanitarian affairs representative for the U.N., saying: “We are not in a position to determine whether these were in fact airstrikes. We are in a position to say that the convoy was attacked.” He called the earlier reference to an airstrike a drafting error.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, Kerry made his high-profile denunciation of the Russians at the U.N. Security Council, the same venue where Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2003 presented a false case against Iraq for possessing hidden stockpiles of WMD. In fiery comments, Kerry accused Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of living “in a parallel universe” in denying Russian responsibility.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presents a dummy vial of anthrax on Feb. 5, 2003, during a speech to the UN Security Council outlining the American case that Iraq possessed forbidden stockpiles of WMD.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell presents a dummy vial of anthrax on Feb. 5, 2003, during a speech to the UN Security Council outlining the American case that Iraq possessed forbidden stockpiles of WMD.

“The eyewitnesses will tell you what happened,” Kerry said. “The place turned into hell and fighter jets were in the sky.”

Yet, the two points don’t necessarily connect. Just because there are jets in the sky doesn’t mean they fired the rocket that struck the convoy. They might have, but to determine that – and if so, who was flying the jet that fired the missile – requires more thorough study.

Kerry also sought to excuse the U.S. airstrike near Deir ez-Zor last Saturday that killed some 62 Syrian soldiers, saying: We did it, a terrible accident. And within moments of it happening, we acknowledged it. … But I got to tell you, people running around with guns on the ground, from the air, is a very different thing from trucks in a convoy with big U.N. markings all over them.”

But what Kerry ignored was the fact that the United States has no legal authority to be conducting military operations inside Syria, attacks supposedly targeting the terrorist Islamic State but lacking the approval of the Syrian government. In other words, under international law, any such U.S. attacks are acts of aggression and thus war crimes.

The mainstream U.S. news media, however, has little regard for international law, at least when the U.S. government is violating it, nor particular care for factual details. Despite the U.N.’s uncertainty about what struck the convoy, The New York Times continued to report the airstrike as a flat fact.

On Thursday, the Times wrote, “a convoy of trucks taking aid to the besieged of Aleppo was destroyed in a deadly airstrike.” Strangely, later in the article, the Times does note that “the United Nations has not confirmed what struck its trucks.”

A History of Prejudgment

Kerry also has a history of jumping ahead of a story and then going silent when further information is developed.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2013. [State Department photo]

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2013. [State Department photo]

On Aug. 30, 2013, Kerry gave a thunderous speech virtually declaring war on Syria for supposedly launching a sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, that killed hundreds of people. On Aug. 31, however, President Obama pulled the rug out from under Kerry by shelving plans for a retaliatory bombing campaign, in part, because U.S. and British intelligence analysts expressed doubts that the Syrian government was responsible.

Later, evidence built up supporting a counter thesis that the sarin attack was launched by Syrian rebels trying to draw the U.S. military into the conflict on their side. In other words, Kerry almost put the U.S. government in position of aiding Al Qaeda or the Islamic State overrunning Damascus under dubious if not false pretenses. [See Consortiunews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria Sarin Case.”]

But U.N. investigators have remained under intense pressure to give the U.S. government something so it can keep alive the theme of Syria’s government using chemical weapons, even after Syria agreed to surrender all its chemical weapons in 2013. The U.N. did so in late August in blaming the Syrian government for two thinly evidenced cases of jerry-rigged chlorine bombs, after brushing aside witness testimony that rebels were staging such attacks for propaganda purposes.

Regarding the sarin case, the U.S. government never formally recanted Kerry’s rush to judgment allowing the conventional wisdom inside Official Washington (and its compliant mainstream media) to remain that Obama failed to enforce his “red line” against use of chemical weapons.

Kerry was at it again just three days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, insisting that the U.S. government had radar and other conclusive evidence showing exactly where the missile was fired and making clear that Russian-backed rebels were responsible with the Russians also at fault for giving the rebels the anti-aircraft weapon.

However, after CIA and other Western intelligence analysts had more time to review what actually happened – and found that only Ukrainian government forces had anti-aircraft missiles in the area capable of shooting down a plane at 33,000 feet – the U.S. government went silent, refusing to make public its evidence but keeping alive the impression that the Russians were at fault.

A photograph of a Russian BUK missile system that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt published on Twitter in support of a claim about Russia placing BUK missiles in eastern Ukraine, except that the image appears to be an AP photo taken at an air show near Moscow two years earlier.

A photograph of a Russian BUK missile system that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt published on Twitter in support of a claim about Russia placing BUK missiles in eastern Ukraine, except that the image appears to be an AP photo taken at an air show near Moscow two years earlier.

With the U.S. government keeping its key evidence secret, the Dutch-led investigations into the crash have floundered. Last October, the Dutch Safety Board could only put the likely missile firing position within a 320-square-kilometer area including land held by both the rebels and the government. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Ever Curiouser MH-17 Case.”]

On Sept. 28, a Dutch-led-but-Ukrainian-dominated Joint Investigation Committee (JIT) is scheduled to release a report that is supposed to finally say where the missile was fired, more than two years after the tragedy. Given the influence of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service over JIT, the likelihood is that the report will try to keep alive the impression that the ethnic Russian rebels were responsible.

A source who’s been following the investigation said the Dutch have resisted the outright falsification of the findings because many of the 298 victims were Dutch citizens and the victims’ families have been pressing for all sides – the United States, Ukraine and Russia – to supply whatever evidence they can. But the Western demands for propaganda to support the New Cold War with Russia are strong.

Syria has become another battlefield in that information war with tragic events being used as propaganda clubs by the various sides to beat one another, rather than moments for careful review of the evidence and assessment of accountability.

Part of this propaganda overload results from the U.S. government and various Western non-governmental organizations funding and training activists in the art of using social media for propaganda purposes. While these activists report on some real events, they also slant their coverage to advance their agenda of “regime change” in Syria.

The problem is compounded because the Western mainstream media has taken up Syrian “regime change” as a beloved cause rather than a topic for objective reporting. The New York Times and other major news outlets rely credulously on anti-government activists, such as the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, for information about what’s happening on the ground with statements from the Syrian or Russian governments treated with open disdain.

The larger tragedy of exploiting these human tragedies for propaganda purposes – whether the sarin attack, the MH-17 shoot-down or now the convoy bombing – is that these deaths of innocents become just excuses to inflict more deaths and ultimately to push the world closer to a new world war.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

51 comments for “Another Kerry Rush to Judgment on Syria

  1. Lance Jobson
    September 25, 2016 at 08:12

    Skull & Bonesmen have helped lead America into World War from the beginning, Kerry is no different from other elite ruling class war makers, i.e., Stimson, Harriman, Bush I & II. Just go back to when Prescott Bush helped finance German rearmament in the build up of Hitler’s rise to power and World War II.

  2. Curious
    September 25, 2016 at 03:15

    Yes Mr Parry, thank you.

    I think Mr Lavrov was very concise and accurate in his statement at the UN, or shortly thereafter. I would rather listen to Lavrov any day instead of Kerry.

    Simply stated, the US is not interested in peace, and they are proving that over and over again.

    The core question remains: Why is the US even in a sovereign country with its military to begin with? Despite all of the “Assad must go” BS why is no-one calling them out on the fact the US has no right to be there at all, no right to decide a fate of a country, nor the right to verbally, and militarily take out a leader? It’s very simple really if one cares about international law, and the US has desecrated itself by showing to the world after WW2 they don’t care about international law at all. There is no valid reason for the US to even be the deciders in this conflict, nor even be there at all, unless they are just taking the money from the Sunni, Wahhabi network (Saudi Arabia) for its own personal gain, and another war centric, smaller country that holds many of the purse strings of our leaders.

    Personally I can’t watch the news in the US, but why do they feel justified in being Syria at all? There really is no valid reason although the pretense is strong. Assad killed his own people with chemical weapons, bombs, etc. Have we not heard this BS before with anyone the US wants to take out? WMD, mushroom clouds in our cities (thanks Condi), Anthrax etc.

    Please USA, get over yourself, and tell Kerry the no fly zone and/or safe zones are a myth and killing Assad is not the answer to the problem. The problem is to ask why is the US there to begin with? The world, USA, is not your playground! And really, the tv networks and the media should be putting up front page numbers on the people the US has killed. And the NYT should have a front page article on the killing in Yemen, for a current example. Until the jokers in the news cycle post real events and real news and the deaths caused by US elites, we should all not pay attention to what they say. At all.

    And Mr Parry. thank you for providing alternative ideas, and platform for the people searching for needed information in this conflict and the conflicts around the world, past and present. Most of the country is nibbling on fast, junk food as a news cycle with no depth, nor nutrition, and don’t even realize their lack of a balanced diet in most of these discussions.

    • Joe Tedesky
      September 25, 2016 at 11:22

      Curious, bringing up the sovereign nation quality is something that should be more the main focus of this Syrian war crime which we are watching evolve on a daily bases. For the U.S. to call itself a world leader, is but a shame considering the precedent we are setting towards invading other sovereign nations. The saddest part is we have people in power who feel quite right with being the bully, and pay no mine to international law, because they feel that superior. Our hubris maybe gaged by our country’s defense spending budget, but no one is paying any attention to the fact that this summer the IG of the DOD reported a missing 6.5 trillion dollars, and no one seems to care. This missing money to me says it all, and that’s a crying shame when you look at the deficit, which is nearly 20 trillion dollars in the hole. So Curious coming back around to what you wrote here, you are very correct to mention that Syria is a sovereign nation, and yes the U.S. shouldn’t be there.

      • Curious
        September 25, 2016 at 21:53

        Thanks Joe, I agree. My mention of Yemen was not meant to be a distraction, but more proof that the news cycle is being ‘handled’ and will not report the facts, which to me is part of the sadness here. There is too much death, and dying caused by the USA for the USA ever too be an example to the world.

        As you have remarked here and before, the very mention of a missing 6.2 trillion dollars seems “off the table” to use the elites nomenclature. And combine that with the 1.2-1.5 trillion spent on a non-working aircraft, the F-35, is amazingly unreported. I suppose a country that is 20 trillion is debt may think that nearly 8 trillion towards our military, who is always begging for more money, is merely a drop in old bucket. And spending 1/2 a million to train 5 soldiers to fight Assad is barely mentioned too.

        Perhaps the billionaires and the corporations who own the vital newspapers now are making some serious coin from the military aid and have a monetary motivation to not report this news?

        I’m starting to think that many people, not just here in the US, don’t have an idea what a sovereign nation is, and what rights it has in the world apart from US definitions. As soon as a country even thinks of drifting away from the Bretton Woods conference in ’44 they get bombed, or simply disappear.

        • Joe Tedesky
          September 25, 2016 at 23:27

          I think the people would care more if the news was properly reported. I also think that the Corporatocracy is so big, that it overwhelms the commons.

          If America would reverse the Project for the New American Century that could do wonders, for spreading peace. Think about it, America having a military which spends over what the next twenty five nation militaries spends, is an awl some military budget to have. This magnitude of military might that the U.S. maintains could be the best leveraging power that would be needed to disarm every nation towards acquiring a peaceful world through negotiation. Seriously, this is where America could do some good, instead of blowing everything up, as we are now doing. Imagine the world’s largest military power bringing every nation to the disarmament table. With the size of military America has, this could be the best power a nation could ask for.

          Although this would mean America’s corporations would need to go out and do some honest business to achieve some kind of worldly markets for themselves, and that my dear fellow is probably where my plan falls apart. And with all the peaceful fairy dust still floating around in my brain, I forgot this disarmament idea would never fly with our beloved Israeli’s. I guess most Americans don’t get it, that because we Americans decided to fight Israel’s wars, we ended up spending our grandchildrens future….tell me how this all could be worth destroying the entirety of the Middle East, all because the Zionist have a goal to reach.

          • Curious
            September 26, 2016 at 02:02

            There are too many educated people on this site to take up too much time. But I want to add Joe, in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, there was a line from the character playing the CIA (Philip Hoffman) who said he liked the sex scandal of Clintons’ bad behavior because if the attention of the people in the US are focused on this event, we can park an aircraft carrier somewhere and no one will know about it (very lose translation)

            This was striking in the sense that we see this over and over again. Try to give the world, and in particular the US, a distraction and they won’t examine the details. So for the attention span gnats of the current day, who listen to their favorite news or sports programs, the arguments are already built in.

            They won’t pay attention to the world until the world is at their doorstep, which is unfortunate and easily manipulated.

            Your “fairy dust” is actually education vs dreams. You have mentioned before how the Israelis are perceived as the good guys, just as the people killing the indigenous people in the US are examples of historical bravery. The Israel’s have coasted on the guilt perceived by the world, and especially Germany, and have distracted so many by the injustice which was dealt in the 30s-40s. We all agree that this event was awful and bad, but it is no excuse today anymore.

  3. ltr
    September 24, 2016 at 20:36

    Tragic and frightening.

  4. jaycee
    September 24, 2016 at 19:14

    re: recent UN claims that Syria has been using chlorine bombs

    Quoting a ubiquitous anonymous official in an approving article published by Daily Beast –

    ” ‘We weren’t getting enough political oomph when the chlorine attacks first came to light. So we figured the best option was to work through the slow UN process, get the Russians to a place where they’re cornered diplomatically,’ the intelligence official said… ‘You know the way the Russians treat anything Syria-related,’ the official said. ‘If we bring it forward, the Russians would reject it out of hand. So we helped OPCW [the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] uncover it on its own.’
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/25/u-s-plans-to-corner-russia-on-syria-s-chemical-weapons.html

    “So we helped OPCW uncover it on its own.” Maybe that should be the new inscription at the entrance to CIA HQ.

  5. Abe
    September 24, 2016 at 16:51

    A well-established pattern whereby Kerry’s rush to judgement rests on “analysis” by “independent journalists”

    https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/09/21/aleppo-un-aid-analysis/

  6. Abe
    September 24, 2016 at 16:41

    The main deception operatives “exploiting these human tragedies for propaganda purposes – whether the sarin attack, the MH-17 shoot-down or now the convoy bombing” are Eliot Higgins and the burgeoning team of fake “citizen investigative journalists” at Bellingcat

    https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/09/22/russian-bomb-remains-recovered-syrian-red-crescent-aid-convoy-attack/

  7. September 24, 2016 at 16:24

    One problem is that Kerry is not an honest US official. He is not an honest man.

    This has been true, and i know this, from the time Kerry was heading up Vietnam Vets Against [that] War…….when I was myself facing a court martial for refusing to serve in Vietnam and i reached out to him but got NO RESULT. I have watched him closely ever since and studied his history, Fortunately my small legal team beat the court-martial–avoiding 5 years in Leavenworth for my refusal–so i didn’t need any help from bonesman Kerry..

    Dennis Morrisseau
    USArmy Officer[Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
    FOR TRUMP
    Lieutenant Morrisseau’s Rebellion
    FIRECONGRESS.org
    POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775
    [email protected]
    802 645 9727

    • Erik
      September 24, 2016 at 18:35

      Thanks for your service to your country’s ideals rather than to its policies.
      And for the insight on Kerry. I would be interested to know more about how VVAW worked.

    • September 25, 2016 at 02:06

      The U.S. Citizen who has refused to leave the sovereign territory of the U.S.A. for the purposes of fighting for “our freedom,” deserves a national holiday.

      in response to the foreign war apologist who might say, “we gotta fight them over there, before they come here.”

      the wahabist militants known as isis, al-qaida, jabat al-nusra, what have you …
      would not have arms, training, and air cover were it not for washington.

  8. Joe B
    September 24, 2016 at 16:05

    While any power might have caused the attack through a rogue operative, Russia is the only party that cannot be said to have intended the strike from the top, because it did not blame anyone. The US is by far the most likely cause, whether by airstrike or rocket, because it not only blamed Russia without evidence, and had the motive to cover up its attack in Deir ez-Zor, and would have known of a nearby Russian aircraft so as to time the attack. If not an independent insurgent attack, it was most likely ordered and coordinated by the US. The fact that the US did not wait for evidence is rather conclusive.

    • Joe B
      September 24, 2016 at 19:20

      It appears that Russia and Syria wanted the aid to get through, opened the aid corridor by their own efforts, and presumably inspected the convoy before it left, so it makes no sense that they would attack the convoy, and they must have been too aware of it to hit it by mistake, and there is no clear motive if they had a rogue military element that might do that independently. Even if they wanted a false-flag to blame on the US or rebels, they would not attack a convoy to aid their own cause. They have no motive to attack the convoy, and blaming them makes no sense.
      But the US is hungry for something to counterbalance its Deir Ezzor attack, wants a false-flag attack to blame on Syria or Russia, does not want aid to reach Aleppo, can attack through its many surrogates surrounding the aid corridor, and can deny responsibility. It also can track Syrian or Russian aircraft so as to time a false-flag attack, and probably has captured Syrian or Russian munitions to use in such an attack. It seems most likely by far that the US, either from the high level or via a rogue, encouraged its rebel allies to attack the convoy, to distract attention from the US attack on Deir ez-Zor.

    • col from oz
      September 24, 2016 at 19:35

      In anther story i shown how white hats propagandist. Remember the Little boy in dust in a ambulance.

      This pic and video is a setup. Made by white hats a US/UK fianced proganda unit. Its not a civil war as many combantants are not indigious. See the video and see blue shirt man mahmoud raslan.The man credited with taking the pic world wide in such publications NEW YORK TIMES Waginton post ect. Despite his denials he friends/ facebook, with a group of men who beheaded a Palistine boy.

      http://www.geopolmonitor.com/aleppo-boy-photographer-responds-to-allegations-of-beheading-involvment/

      You havent a clue. See link

      This shows the maniplation you are party too. The story is moderate headchoppers in a small non gov section of A bring this child out to propgandise. But this group who set up the pictures/video have beheaded a small plastine boy seeral weeks before.(i wont show you video)

      You can link this guy to the beheading of the .

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZw3VpGPqM4
      Finally all these people are funded and weaponised by Obomba.

      • Joe B
        September 24, 2016 at 21:57

        Not sure why you would think I am fooled by videos. The video of boy in ambulance would prove nothing whether it is true or false. There is always propaganda as well as real civilian casualties on both sides in every war. I had checked your linked story before and found it interesting although not certain because it associates people uncertainly by photos, and assumes that the reporter is complicit with those he has been with. Very possible of course.

        Let me know what you disagree with in my comment; I welcome corrections.

  9. Bob Loblaw
    September 24, 2016 at 15:09

    Preaching to the choir again?
    Apostles are expected to proceed forth to enlighten the masses, but good liberals are rewarded for ignorance, and attacks on truth sayers are inevitable. Conservatives even more entrenched in their ideological fantasies.

    How does a true believer explain why and how they are wrong to hate Putin without being condemned for conspiracy theories and being Putin’s stooge?

    We have a choice between the end of the world as we know it, and the literal end of the world, only the liberals see Hillary through rose lenses.

  10. Bill Bodden
    September 24, 2016 at 14:51

    Perhaps Kerry is building his resume to continue as the Secretary of Duplicity for the Queen of Chaos.

  11. F. G. Sanford
    September 24, 2016 at 14:05

    It’s all about who get’s the “meme” out there first. L. Fletcher Prouty recounted that Lee Harvey Oswald’s picture, wearing a jacket and tie, appeared in the Australian papers before the American papers hit the news stands. I still wonder how Dan Rather missed the memo in 2001.

    • Abe
      September 26, 2016 at 20:33

      The primary propaganda function of Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat is to get the “meme” out there first.

      Most recent case in point:
      https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2016/09/26/russian-defence-ministry-presents-evidence-faked-previous-mh17-evidence/

    • Abe
      September 27, 2016 at 11:43

      On 26 September 2016, The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation held a press conference concerning raw data picked up by a civilian radar station on the day of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in 2014.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8SHZriRbi8

      General Andrey Koban, the head of the Russian Air Forces’ radar troops, discussed data picked up by a Utyos-T civilian radar installation on located in the Ust-Donetsky District of Rostov Oblast, the Russian Federation region that borders Donetsk.

      The data indicates no sign of a missile present in the air approaching the MH17 from the south, which would be the case if it were shot from rebel-held areas in accordance with the scenario supported by Kiev. The missile could have not been picked up by the radar if it approached from the west or the east, along the line connecting the radar station and the airliner,

      The Utyos-T radar is produced at the Lianozovo Electromechanical Plant, which develops and manufactures air traffic control systems, which include terminal area radar systems, air-route systems, radar systems, secondary surveillance radar systems, air traffic control automated systems, ASMGCS, ADSB, and surveillance systems.

      Koban said, “The Ukrainian side has air situation data in the area of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 crash from both civilian and military sources. The fact that Ukraine has not published radar data leads us to the conjecture that the missile, if it was a Buk, was launched from territory under the control of the Ukrainian military.”

  12. Joe Tedesky
    September 24, 2016 at 12:15
    • Joe Tedesky
      September 24, 2016 at 22:37

      I’m leaving below a link to the most recent Paul Craig Roberts article where it talks about this Syrian conflict in a very provocative way.

      http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/09/24/he-who-hesitates-is-lost-and-russia-hesitated-paul-craig-roberts/

      Now that Erdogan has Turkish troops moving around in Northern Syria, and you have the U.S. along with it’s NATO allies, Syria is being partitioned off. The Neocon’s are stepping this operation up to the ‘next level’ (Where have I heard that phrase before?) which will make it hard for a President Trump to go on ahead and become friendly with Vladimir Putin. If Trump doesn’t win…well. It would appear that for all the good will which Russia has bestowed upon America, they are finding out the hard way what the word cruel deception really means. Kerry, and Obama maybe inconsequential to what makes Washington tick, or at least what makes it tick when it comes to the Pentagon, and more than likely the CIA as well.

      If the attack on the humanitarian convoy was done from the air there would be craters in the ground, and flatten out trucks, and according to what I am reading this wasn’t the case on the ground, at all. The Russians have a drone video of a ‘rebel terrorist’ truck pulling an artillery gun on its hitch. According to the Russians this ‘rebel terrorist’ truck was escorting (I don’t think it was a welcome escort) the humanitarian convoy. From the bomb wreckage which was left after the attack, it would appear more likely that a ground artillery weapon destroyed the convoy, as opposed to a air to ground missile. (See my link on my original comment post)

      You could try as hard as you may like to seek out the truth to what happened here, or you could simply admit to yourself, when has the U.S. Government ever told us the truth when it comes to anything attached to the Neocon world we are forced to accept. elmerfudzie may have this right. I don’t know if we have thirty days or ninety, but I know this we are closer to a Russia U.S. confrontation than we were yesterday. God help the innocents!

      • Realist
        September 25, 2016 at 09:58

        Both Robert’s and the Saker’s latest columns are so shocking that I actually thought that I might have written them. Their narratives are exactly the way I see matters, exactly what I worry about. Apparently, most people in positions of power in Washington think that maneuvering NATO and the American military into a major war with Russia (especially if it looks like Hillary will not be elected) is a winning move. I would damn Barack Obama to Hell for not standing up to these people, but it seems like he was their stooge from day one. Like I said earlier, you don’t have to worry about Xmas shopping this year. I wonder what kind of ending they had planned for the Mr. Robot TV series. Now, we’ll never know.

        • Joe Tedesky
          September 25, 2016 at 10:46

          Only watch mini-series shows where you can binge watch. Oh, and don’t forget to stock up on duct tape.

    • Joe Tedesky
      September 24, 2016 at 23:04

      Here is a link which is interesting for the mere fact it shows how Michael Morell is a prophet of doom. Watch the video and you will see why I say this about Morell. The reason I am providing this link, is because it talks about a recent event which occurred close to Putin, and the results will tell you all you need to know…watch the video.

      http://daisyluther.com/heres-how-cia-puppet-masters-are-deliberately-picking-a-world-war-iii-level-fight/

      • September 25, 2016 at 01:37

        thanks for the link …

      • Joe B
        September 25, 2016 at 08:12

        The Russian drone report seems to solve the problem. It photographed the last intact minutes of the convoy showing it being flanked by a rebel truck towing a mortar, and then departed. Perhaps the rebel mortar unit was invited to leave for some reason or was insulted by a volunteer and retaliated. Or perhaps the rebel unit sought to deter an attack by other rebels but left too soon. Or perhaps they attracted an attack by making the convoy appear to be military aid. In all of those cases the attackers were rebels.

        The drone likely accounts for the Russian aircraft allegedly spotted in the area by the US. So the only question is which of the rebel units attacked the convoy, and were they directed by the US to do so.

        • Joe Tedesky
          September 25, 2016 at 10:58

          Who benefits the most? Is a question to be answered in regard to this humanitarian convoy attack. Also the first responders to come to the aid of the destroyed convoy were the White Helmets, and if what is said about them is true well there’s another clue to who did this war crime.

          See the link where I mentioned Mike Morell. The give away is Putin’s limousine driver was killed in a front on collision on his way to work. Although this could be simply an unfortunate accident, the suspicious part is Morell on Charlie Rose called out for killing people close to Putin, and Assasd. So it’s either Morell knew this would happen, or Morell has a big mouth, so now the U.S. will be suspect due to an act of God.

    • Realist
      September 25, 2016 at 10:34

      I wish someone would stand up during the presidential debate on Monday, be it a journalist, someone in the audience or Donald Trump, and directly ask Hillary Clinton just how is America’s national interest at risk in either Syria or Ukraine to the point where your administration-in-waiting openly talks of engaging in a major, perhaps a nuclear, war with Russia over the matter? Be specific, what exactly are the threats that Syria and/or Russia pose to America’s existence or vital interests? How does forcing out Assad and propping up Poroshenko as leaders of their countries help me as an American citizen and taxpayer in any way, shape or form? Why put civilisation at risk to force your will on countries half way around the globe that have never threatened or attacked the United States of America, or any NATO country, ever? What’s your logic? And please avoid evasive and nebulous terms like “strategic interests,” “existential threat,” or “security concerns” that are simply catch-all cop outs. If there’s an actual (not imagined or hypothetical) specific threat to America and its citizens, what is it? What’s the imperative to send my neighbor’s son to Syria to kill Arabs or to Ukraine to kill Russians? How many American cities are you willing to see turned to ash to enforce whatever principle you are purporting to stand for? These are reasonable questions, Mrs. Clinton. Do you have any sane answers?

      • Joe Tedesky
        September 25, 2016 at 11:06

        Realist, you have some really great questions, but I think the media will be too focused on who’s sitting in the first row to ask the candidates anything that concrete. Having Gennifer Flowers, and Mark Cuban there will make for good TV. So what would you rather have, a well informed debate, or a tabloid laced good TV show? Now that I said that, the debates are really more of a TV show than a debate anyway, wouldn’t you agree?

        • Realist
          September 25, 2016 at 11:50

          By all means, these things are not debates. Really, they don’t need to be formal “debates,” as long as meaningful questions are asked and honestly answered. You could call these events press conferences wherein both candidates take turns answering the same questions. If you want some real drama, moreso than information, you could dispense with the journalists and have the candidates ask each other questions. Maybe it would develop into a genuine discussion or perhaps even a lively argument. I’d like to hear Trump ask Hillary why she’d rather fight the Russians than negotiate with them. As long as it didn’t degenerate into mere sniping at one another, as happened too often in the primary debates. I’d like somebody to ask why the two minor party candidates (Gary Johnson and Jill Stein) are not included in at least one of these wing-dings.

          • Joe Tedesky
            September 25, 2016 at 13:03

            I’d love to know how many viewers will be channel surfing between the debates and the Monday Night NFL game. In away I don’t blame them. In fact I may just end up watching the game, because in the end these debates always turn into becoming cable news sound bite conversation platforms. If Hillary should even come close to coughing, well that will be the theme of the debates. Although, never underestimate what Trump may do, or say, because that’s our Donald always good for a twenty four hour sound bite, where media pundits can go on pontificating until the wee hours of the morning. Welcome to ‘Reality America’. We should just elect Andy Cohen, and be done with it.

          • Realist
            September 25, 2016 at 18:01

            Ha! Good one, Joe. Old “Crazy Eyes” is going to be doped up on so much codeine to prevent coughing that she’ll think she’s been transported back to the “Summer of Love” and is now the peace candidate.

          • Joe Tedesky
            September 25, 2016 at 23:03

            Realist I think Hillary missed out on the Summer of Love, and rallied as a Goldwater girl instead…but I get your drift.

  13. Geoffrey de Galles
    September 24, 2016 at 11:50

    Myself, if I were a betting man, I’d wager — as prima facie unlikely as it might seem — that it was a US predator drone armed with hellfire missiles and operating in the dead of night that did the dirty work on that UN convoy. In other words, that a mutinous Pentagon, engaged in a de facto war against Obama and the State Department, was actually behind the attack, confident that in the fog of war all the blame could easily be dumped on the Syrians and/or Russians. As the proponent of such a false-flag scenario here, yes: call me cognitively paranoid if you will — these days, in the Middle East, no thanks to the US, my very sanity depends on it.

  14. elmerfudzie
    September 24, 2016 at 11:31

    We can skip that sarin gas story, that’s old stuff. To reiterate an earlier commentary I made to CONSORTIUMNEWS, as a nation we are less than sixty days from a nuclear confrontation with Russia. In support of this opinion, please make yourselves aware of an article published by Globalresearch.org. It alleges (from a third source, FARS News) that in talio for US Air Strikes against Syrian SAA forces at Deir Ezzor supporting ISIS-Daesh terrorists?..Permit me to paraphrase the article: ” Russian ships fired three Caliber missiles against foreign officers’ coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam’an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers,” I now make a correction to earlier prediction(s) and move down the time frame concerning all out war, to THIRTY DAYS. It’s less than one minute to midnight, ….still sleeping America?

    • Joe B
      September 24, 2016 at 16:22

      OK, elmerfudzie, in thirty days I expect you to revise your prediction system, unless you can explain why no one else would report an attack on a western operations center with 30 casualties, whether or not caused by a Russian missile, especially when the US is so hungry for something to counterbalance its Deir Ezzor attack.

      • elmerfudzie
        September 25, 2016 at 12:01

        Joe B, I just can’t wait to admit that my analysis was wrong. Far better that my words were wrong, than half the people dead or slowly dying in the middle east! Let’s hope for an open declaration by Russia and the NATO forces, mutually agreeing to an ACTUAL, abrupt, halt to all military actions and engagements. Of course you’d have to smoke opium to believe that one! Again, I reiterate what was said several times before, if not within thirty days, then very, very, soon. Putin is not the sort of leader or man to wait to the last moment (no Ronald Reagan like warning shot before a world war). Russians play the political game as if countries were chessboard pieces and Putin can see ten moves ahead! So, what must come will come, and NATO will concede defeat long before the chess master (Putin) says-checkmate! It’s the stupidity barrier built into WASP mentality that cannot understand nor perceive the Slavic, Russian one. I’m going to church now, I suggest you do the same…prayer brother, prayer!

      • Kiza
        September 25, 2016 at 15:55

        I doubt this Fars agency report myself, but your logic is totally wrong. If there was truly a secret Western war operations room assisting ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria (mind you, there were rumours of a similar control centre during the terrorist war on Libya), its destruction would be the last thing to be reported as the purspose of such operation would come into focus. But, I believe that this report is a kind of report one invents to boost the morale of own troops after a major war loss, such was caused by an open US/NATO killing of Syrian troops. The killing of the Syrians was a very similar to what often happened in Libya before, only there such bombings by US/NATO were supposedly authorised by UN Resolution, thus they did not have to be “accidental” (oops, we just helped our terrorists by mistake).

    • Andrew Nichols
      September 28, 2016 at 18:23

      I’m amazed at how few people are worried about this. Was it the same in 1914. “We’ll all be home by Christmas” optimism?
      Let’s hope it’s all over and settled in Syria before Clinton gets the WH. If not then we are ALL screwed.

  15. eole
    September 24, 2016 at 11:27

    once again US propaganda at work. When will it stop?

    • Realist
      September 24, 2016 at 19:46

      Short answer: it won’t.

      Seems that the entire “Arab Spring,” including the overthrow of governments in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya with an additional aim of toppling the Assad government in Syria, was masterminded by Hillary Clinton during the Bush/Obama transition. She trained all these head-chopping thugs in the art of deception by use of the media, including so-called “social media.” ( http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/09/23/hillary-clinton-sponsored-secretive-arab-spring-program-that-destabilized-middle-east/ ). Actually, I’m more concerned about how the American “mainstream” media has completely abandoned any pretense of serving truth and justice, opting solely for the interests of their corporate masters. Only lies are allowed to filter through to the American public who would turn on these tyrants in a moment if they knew the truth. I know that the “alternative media,” such as this site, is considered fallacious and treasonous by most uninformed citizens who have only the vaguest notion of its existence (probably mentally filed as “commie propaganda” if they do), but it will take a public figure like Trump to reveal its existence to the public and bolster its credibility, or the tyrants will easily win. Maybe he should start reading these blogs and quoting the facts therein, it wouldn’t hurt his chances as he is already demonized by the MSM as much as Putin.

      Now, I’m not saying that Trump is going to “fix” things if elected. I’m only saying that he might. He might also make things worse. But Killery will be the end of us all, guaranteed based on precedent. My thinking parallels that of Susan Sarandon. The system needs to fail, to collapse and be dismantled so we can start again. The collapse might as well start ASAP and under Trump, if that’s what it takes. Better an internal collapse than global thermonuclear war.

      • Bill Bodden
        September 24, 2016 at 21:10

        Only lies are allowed to filter through to the American public who would turn on these tyrants in a moment if they knew the truth.

        realist: I believe you are giving the American people more credit for gumption than they deserve. Only the most dimwitted of them can still believe the war on Iraq was justified, but the many culprits who were responsible for this on-going tragedy are still active promoting wars on Russia and Iran and millions of schmucks are buying into it. They elected Joe Biden to be VP and it looks likely they will elect the Queen of Chaos to the Evil Office.

        • Realist
          September 25, 2016 at 01:03

          I’ll grant you that Americans mostly want to just keep their heads down and not get involved. When was the last time that most of the public truly felt betrayed by their leadership and turned them out? Was it Nixon and really because of Watergate? Or was that merely an intramural struggle portrayed in the desired light by a subservient media that plays upon fear like Itzhak Perlman plays the fiddle? You could be right, maybe we never get the truth and wouldn’t do anything about it even if we did. There are a thousand euphemisms for our lassitude from “don’t make waves” to “you can’t fight city hall.”

          • Bill Bodden
            September 25, 2016 at 14:22

            The good news is that “you can fight city hall.” The good guys fighting city hall include Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, the first version of Bernie Sanders and other contemporaries that can’t get past my head cold. In history there were the founders of major unions that raised the standards for mainly white workers with trickle-down benefits for others followed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his associates. Then there are the others fighting the biggest “city hall” of them all – the US of A – the Taliban and Al Qaeda and its various franchises and offshoots.

            Of course, we should consider the many whistleblowers who have fought the big city hall while also reflecting on the penalties they have had and still have to pay.

      • Nancy
        September 24, 2016 at 23:32

        I’m thinking that only Wikileaks will save us and everyoneone else suffering from these neocons imperialists.

      • September 28, 2016 at 04:31

        The Wolfowitz doctrine by the Bush regime. Wesley Clarke 2007 spilled all beans . 7 countries in 5 years and Libya and Syria are on the list hence Hillary Hitler in drag is just continuing that doctrine.
        ‘P.S all verifiable facts Look up Youtube Wesley Clarke and u will hear him tell u where it comes from. Ex General of the US I might add and also was a presidential candidate for the DEM’s in 2004

    • Kiza
      September 25, 2016 at 15:40

      Is it not logical that whenever there is a “rush to judgement” on some event, this rush is only a small part of a false-flag operation? In other words, the USG officials know Whodunit before any investigation is even started because Theydunit! This is pure logic, is it not?

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