On the news here at the moment it's all about a chemical attack (chlorine) barrel bombs delivered from helicopters by the "Regime" a war crime. I was hoping to see it mentioned here. The footage was victims arriving at hospitals.

Posted by: Nobody | Aug 12 2016 9:08 utc | 1

@Nobody, these reports of chlorine are rather odd. Firstly, experience from WW1 showed that it's not a very effective weapon, so they quickly moved on to sulphur mustard and phosgene. Secondly, chlorine is extremely easy to manufacture by any competent mechanic by electrolysing saline and using a refrigerant compressor, in other words it's a backyard process.
The exact symptoms of this 'attack' could be reproduced by dropping an conventional bomb on a production or storage facility. Considering earlier credible reports of Al-Zinki launching a chlorine attack on Western Aleppo, this isn't a far fetched notion.

Posted by: Mr Toad | Aug 12 2016 11:43 utc | 2

any media to care about toxic gas attacks by jihadis ?

Posted by: stranger | Aug 12 2016 12:21 utc | 3

Perfect American English these 'Syrian' 'Doctors' speak and write. Their letter is so 'on message' too with all the right narrative points covered.
And the entire world including Syria must surely use the terms OBGYN,ER,pEdiatrician, orthopEdics, and Resident....mustn't they ?
Err NOT, but that's what people use in the Exceptional Country.

Posted by: Thon | Aug 12 2016 13:16 utc | 4

The propaganda being fed to the West is so predictable anyone with more than two brain cells can see through it. The comments sections after similar propaganda articles above, show ordinary people are not being fooled. Meanwhile Sputnik News reports Deputy Head of the Russian Lower House Defence Committee during a recent session of the joint Russian-Turkish commission, Moscow specifically stressed the necessity of closing the Turkish-Syrian border. Among other things, discussed the peace settlement in Syria, which is why we decided to urge Ankara to close the Syrian-Turkish border in order to stop the flow of terrorists and weapons," Vodoloatsky said.
He added that the issue is of paramount importance in ensuring Russia's national security, and that Moscow pledged to provide the Turkish side with satellite images of those areas where it is shown that weapons and militants are being trafficked.

It is safe to say that Ankara will most likely give the green light to the closure of Syrian-Turkish border given the ongoing normalization of relations between Russia and Turkey, according to Izvestia, which cited relevant agreements clinched during the meeting between Putin and Erdogan.
"The Turkish negotiators actually have no room to maneuver, and they are poised and ready to arrive at a consensus on difficult issues. This is why they will most likely say "yes" to our proposal to close Turkey's border with Syria," he said.http://sputniknews.com/world/20160812/1044194779/russia-turkey-syria-border-closure.html

Posted by: harrylaw | Aug 12 2016 13:27 utc | 5

@5 hl

Hope you're right. I'll believe it when I see it.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 12 2016 13:49 utc | 6

This doctors should have written a letter to the Terrorists, Islamists rebels and ISIS's leaders in Aleppon to stop using the civilians as human shield, allow them to leave or simply surrender. They have lost, so why wait..
Maybe that should be Obama's message.

Posted by: virgile | Aug 12 2016 14:02 utc | 7

hl @5, jfl @6

Russia: Turkey must close the border.

Turkey: Assad must go! And Kurds must be stymied.

jfl noted yesterday that Turkey has offered to conduct joint attacks on ISIS with Russia.

The fix is in? If Putin's new "friend" Erdogan fails to convince Putin to abandon Assad, will Turkey claim that Putin refused to attack ISIS?

Such a claim would not be believable except in the West where the public has been led to believe that Putin is an evil mastermind that bombs hospitals.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 12 2016 14:21 utc | 8

The U.S. is pulling out all the stops in an attempt to save spooks and SF-types (Green Berets and SEALs) trapped in East Aleppo. They're in East Aleppo to relay U.S. intelligence to the head-choppers in JaF (= al Nusra = al Qaeda = U.S. soldier killers in Iraq/Afghanistan). Even with all the latest real-time intelligence, the U.S. is unable to coach the head-choppers into mounting an effective assault on East Aleppo to reopen a supply line. The trapped head-choppers and CIA/SF-types are running out of everything and can't really be evacuated by chopper (because of all the MANPADs the U.S. doled out over the years). The U.S. is so entirely screwed.

Aleppo: The Reality Is Not Good News for Americans

Even pediatricians are coming back from the dead out of desperation to save U.S. troops trapped in East Aleppo. Also news this week of UK SAS and MI5 running around in Syria. What a sad day for America and the SF lackeys/spooks there who are risking their lives in order to support U.S. troop-killing head-choppers.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 12 2016 14:30 utc | 9

@harrylaw @jackrabbit

As far as I understand there were no results of Erdogan-Putin talks. Both sides talked nice but no deal was made. Nothing changed.

Posted by: b | Aug 12 2016 14:33 utc | 10

Those signatories names are hilarious! A stupid joke / provocation / dumb-ass effort.

Nothing can be made of the likes of Dr. Khalid, Dr. Hamza, Dr. Ahmed - maybe 500K or a million in the world.

In the US, it would be Dr. J. Smith, Manager J. P. Doe, surgeon Mary Histmas, and paediatrician Jane Six-Peck.

Nobody ever signs an important letter like that.

Dr. Yahia might be... Dr. Yahia Abdul-Rahman (a banker in California, linkedin entry.) Muhammad bin Yahya al-Ninowy (Syrian Islamic scholar, wiki entry…), etc. Yeah I looked it up...as the names are just off the top of goog.

Moreover in this (1) list 9 are called ‘Abu’ with one ‘Abo’ meaning Uncle, like Abu Tareq. Not ‘terrorist’ names just generic spoof Arab names off the God-that-be- Goog.

As ‘Munther’ stands out, a Dr. Munther N. Soudi is an orthopedic surgeon in Jordan.

http://medicsorg.tripod.com/drmunthernsoudi.htm

The letter seems to be an echo to a previous one which was published in no less than the Lancet, 2013.

(Signatories are not listed in this version, and i couldn't turn them up.)

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61938-8/fulltext

1. I used a slightly different list, there are different ones hanging about, no matter.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 12 2016 14:35 utc | 11

We need a theme song for the West's MSM "journalists". Luckily, there's an oldie but goodie from the Connecticut Yankee musical languishing in the archives...

We're busy doin' nothin'
Workin' the whole day through
Dyin' to make lotsa shit up for you.
We're busy goin' nowhere
Isn't it just a crime?
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 12 2016 14:50 utc | 12

This is but one recent sample from Humanitarian-Military branch of MIC which is sufficiently active, and for sufficiently long that deserves its own specialty in political sciences, with specialized monographs, journals and conferences.

One of the front troopers of H-M is Nicholas Kristof who is active on the Manhattan front of the vast operation. Just today NYT has his Op-Ed "Obama's Worst Mistake". No, it was not the f...up on the roll-out of Obama care that politically disabled what should be the strongest electoral card of Democrats or any other mistake, some of which Kristof also called "Worst" (according to commenters, I do not read him regularly). So what is the mistake of Aug. 11, 2016, exceeding all past mistakes?

"I admire Obama for expanding health care and averting a nuclear crisis with Iran, but allowing Syria’s civil war and suffering to drag on unchallenged has been his worst mistake, casting a shadow over his legacy. It is also a stain on all of us, analogous to the indifference toward Jewish refugees in the 1930s, to the eyes averted from Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s, to Darfur in the 2000s."

It reminds me a cruel "mother-in-law" joke: "Daddy, why is grandma running a zigzag? Shut up and pass me more bullets." Far from indifference, "all of us" are supplying the bullets. The rebellion survives due to steady supplies of war material including rockets and missile weapons, heavy infantry vehicles and tanks. The nice part is that USA is selling the war material to Gulfies. so this venture is actually a plus on dollar and cent front. The calculus is different in Europe that suffers from "blow back", a flood of refugees, some of which are crazy and radicalized (who would suspect that years of bloody war could lead to that?), radicalization among their own Muslim. Some European get something in return: a balm on their fears of Russia, and they also managed to avoid the blowback by resolutely refusing to admit refugees, but convincing the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Spanish and the British requires some emotions -- hard to concoct a purely rational case here!

Three elements are needed in an emotional campaign in support of a bloody imperial project. First, name the victims: babies are best, of course, then the children. Second, name the horror in one phrase. It took a while but the current top on the horror list is "barrel bomb". Third, focus the perspective tightly to remove all distractions from the picture. (The last is perhaps most important, and it is the basic tool in the trade of illusionists). So what is outside the tightly focused picture?

The largest item is Yemen. Vast number of civilians under siege, lacking food, medicine etc.? Check. Civilians bombed, hospitals, schools etc. destroyed? Check. Vastly unpopular head of the "legitimate government"? Check. "Every solution must include Hadi as the legitimately elected President". But, one cannot compare horrors in Yemen to horrors in Syria! Why? Because Gulfies do not use barrel bombs but exquisitely precise munitions aimed with American assistance! It is another line of propaganda arguments, that cheap weapons are immoral. As Russia is modernizing Syrian airfare, barrel bombs are already hardly used.

Somehow forgotten is a wider humanitarian mission, bringing democracy to the Middle East. Now the paymasters are in Riyad, Doha, etc. and they do not stress that aspect.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 12 2016 14:59 utc | 13

Posted by: b | Aug 12, 2016 10:33:25 AM | 10

Yep. The most positive thing CCTV has said is WHEN Russian sanctions on Turkey are lifted, it will be gradual.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 12 2016 15:05 utc | 14

[email protected] That's nothing try this..
I’m pleased to announce that we have a winner of The Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition, and here it is:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

The author of this winning entry is former Mayor of London and chief Brexiteer, Boris Johnson MP.http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/05/boris-johnson-wins-the-spectators-president-erdogan-offensive-poetry-competition/

Posted by: harrylaw | Aug 12 2016 15:15 utc | 15

Isn't amazing --- after reading through the above comments, American Racism is alive and well!

I may be accused of being anti-white, but the above is over the top.

Thanks to B for the information ... and shame on the rest of you!

In the meantime, here is something about political correctness: https://williamblum.org/essays/read/political-correctness-demands-diversity-in-everything-but-thought

Diversity in everything but thought just about says it all does it not?

Must be a lot of US-philliac-minnions/bots out there!

Posted by: rg the lg | Aug 12 2016 15:42 utc | 16

@9 Paveway IV

That made me laugh way too hard

Posted by: Cresty | Aug 12 2016 15:43 utc | 17

@9 great intel! thx pw4

Posted by: xLemming | Aug 12 2016 15:44 utc | 18

@11 they might as well have used the list of names used by De Niro on a Saturday Night Live sketch

https://vimeo.com/44169145

Posted by: xLemming | Aug 12 2016 15:51 utc | 19

Posted by: harrylaw | Aug 12, 2016 11:15:25 AM | 15

Yes, that is good (given the context). But he spoilt the cadence in the last line...

"But was too busy panting to thankera." ...would have been bettera.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 12 2016 15:52 utc | 20

thanks b, for shining a light on this...

@ 13 piotr.. thanks as well for showing us here at moa that this shit is actually going on -> in yemen and that ksa, usa, msm and etc are A OKAY with it...

Posted by: james | Aug 12 2016 16:21 utc | 21

@b
Excellent piece, thanks. I really find it hard to believe that our (UK) press has fallen so low! Remember Orwell's rants against the British media during the Spanish Civil War! Has anything changed?

@b (10) @jackrabbit @Harrylaw
Turkish news channels are carrying the story that Turkey will be joining the Russian -Iranian Anti Terror coalition - but we should be wary as to whether this is anti-Isis/AQ etc. or anti-Kurds (!) and that Turkey is reviewing the possibility of closing its Syrian border.

Don't forget Rouhani is in Turkey now, I think, or was today, so there might well be more news coming out.

Posted by: AtaBrit | Aug 12 2016 16:33 utc | 22

The Fort-Russ website has some important translated items for us to read and view. Here's one about the Putin-Erdogan talks, and please note what Erdogan says about the EU: http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/08/that-surprising-alliance-between-putin.html This one's about Putin's speech after the Ukie's terrorist foray into Crimea that's clearly aimed at Obama and Kerry, http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/08/putin-throws-down-gauntlet-takes-aim-at.html And here we have an update on Aleppo, http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/08/aleppo-update-saa-regains-control.html The item provided by b asserts 300K civilians remain in East Aleppo whereas the reality is closer to 20K according to SyrPers assessment published earlier in the week. Here's Ziad's latest, http://syrianperspective.com/2016/08/aleppo-terrorists-trapped-inside-pincer-trapped-in-idlib-as-syrian-army-goes-on-savage-offensive.html The plan seems to be to clear West Aleppo and springboard into Idlib while leaving Raqqa to cruise missiles and long range bombers.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 12 2016 16:57 utc | 23

@15 - harrylaw. What was Johnson even thinking when he wrote that - a scandalous insult to a head of state. Not only did Theresa May anger the Chinese unnecessarily the other day through some very sloppy footwork (over the Hinckley Point reactor project), she also on becoming Prime Minister appointed Boris Johnson to be Foreign Secretary for the UK. How welcome will he be in Ankara?

Dignity seems to have evaporated from the west.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 12 2016 17:12 utc | 24

b... this is OT, but newsworthy

96% Of Clinton Donations Went To The Clinton Foundation

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-12/96-clinton-donations-went-clinton-foundation

Must be nice... get a million dollar tax deduction for contributing $1,000,000 to yourself

Posted by: crone | Aug 12 2016 17:19 utc | 25

@24 'What was Johnson even thinking when he wrote that..'

That's easy. He was thinking what fun everybody had in the dorms at Eton making fun of the wogs.

Posted by: dh | Aug 12 2016 17:39 utc | 26

I think the doctors all attended the University of Woollomoolloo. Substitute Abu for Bruce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_p0CgPeyA

Posted by: Les | Aug 12 2016 17:44 utc | 27

Putin, like most sane leaders that care about economic conditions of their citizens, is very much for separating conflicts on political and military planes from business. Within limits, of course. The pipeline deal is important, and it is opposed by USA and EU Russophobes. In a nutshell, Ukraine periodically tries to take hostage the pipeline capacity from Russia to Europe, and it used to be 2/3 of the total Russia-Europe capacity. Poland would be the most natural conduit, namely, expanding pipelines that go through Belarus and Poland, but in the strategic thinking of Polish and Western leaders this situation is just fine.

Strictly speaking, there is more than enough capacity, but since Ukraine controls about half, about one third of transit goes through Ukraine, and the government there is almost total loose cannon. For example, they demanded tripling of the transit fees. Germans usually can squash such flights of fancy, but Russia definitely needs a long term solution.

With oil prices low, Russia must take care of maintaining exports. The deal is less valuable to Turkey, but as intermediary they get transit fees, and additional insurance against disruption of the supplies. Erdogan also need to play very publicly the "Russian card" to minimize any material backlash to his purge plans that currently seem on top of his agenda. Would Turkey close the Marmara Straights to Russian military or invade Syria, I guess all safety valves would be overwritten. I guess that Putin and Erdogan had to discuss some red lines in private.

"Strangely enough", the only dent in the blockade of pipeline expansion was made to the favor of Germany. On very narrow economic grounds, German government can on occasion abandon puddle posture.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 12 2016 17:51 utc | 28

Looks like it's time to post a long shot that occurred to me during the confused discussion of the "Turkish coup attempt".
Here it is: US (CIA) offers Erdogan their entire Gulen network, perhaps minus Gulen himself in exchange for full cooperation in the conquest of Syria. The angles are all pretty obvious. Erdogan pivot to Putin would of course be fake. Blaming the US, though true, would also be disinformation op to help E secure his control. Would the full Turkish/NATO invasion which was supposed to have been launched to take Damascus back from ISIS, now commence, to rescue Aleppo from "Syrian occupation"??

Posted by: nationofbloodthirstysheep | Aug 12 2016 18:41 utc | 29

May be because these names are those of famous Jihadis? But if only the fake names were the problem ...

----

Let me see if I understand this. There was a letter that included the names of famous ISIS leaders that was deliberately issued with the likelihood that it would backfire? Or is it possible that some doctor in Aleppo had the same name as an ISIS leader? Or maybe none of this makes sense except that hospitals have been bombed. Maybe the best bet for Moon of Alabama is simply to deny that a single doctor, ambulance or hospital has been bombed. That would be consistent with the analysis here.

Posted by: Louis Proyect | Aug 12 2016 18:42 utc | 30

@30 Doesn't really make much difference if the hospital bombings are real or fake, or who did them. The point of reporting them is to provoke outrage in the American public and thereby put pressure on Obama to 'do something'. But we're to the point where the American public has become numb to hearing about Syria's problems ...and Obama knows it.

Posted by: dh | Aug 12 2016 18:58 utc | 31

@29 nobts... i am pretty sure putin is holding that thought as the possible next chess move gets played..

@30 yuk yuk... keep on sending your hard earned $ to those white helmet bullshite artists you help to propagate..

Posted by: james | Aug 12 2016 19:04 utc | 32

ot - i am getting this a lot.. https://www.rt.com/ gives me a page Server not found for the past 1 to 2 days..

Posted by: james | Aug 12 2016 19:06 utc | 33

@PavewayIV
The gritty article you posted 3rd last line runs with the summation: "at US$60,000 per TOW missile, enough to buy a homeless family a nice small home in America."

It's this type of clarity that needs to be repeatedly printed and televised for us to understand where we sit in our neoliberal order - collectively starved by austerity in order to afford missiles for peace.

Undead Arabian Paediatrics Society...? Haha good one, had to laugh.

Posted by: MadMax2 | Aug 12 2016 19:07 utc | 34

Let me see if I understand this. There is a feckless left whose trolling includes deliberately pissing down our backs and telling us it's raining? And they don't think there is any likelihood that it would backfire? Or is it possible that they fail to see how Neocon-Zionist-Wahabbi extremists are undermining peace and human rights? Or maybe none of this makes sense except that the're hypocritical scumbags. Maybe the best bet for Louis Proyect is simply to affirm that no single doctor, ambulance or hospital has been able to find his balls. That would be consistent with his analysis here.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 12 2016 19:29 utc | 35

Some people are doing OK in the missile business....

https://jobs.raytheon.com/

Posted by: dh | Aug 12 2016 19:29 utc | 36

James
RT today said under Ddos attack since yesterday
works fine here in europe

Posted by: Mina | Aug 12 2016 19:31 utc | 37

Since we get daily interviews of doctors in "rebel Aleppo" these days on the radio i was wondering why not a single journalist ask the guy whether many foreign djihadists are among the injured.
not a topic? but western readers have been told about the 1000+ foreign djihadists in Syria, so where are they supposed to be? safely in IS territory?
French MSM have been constantly using "Minjeb" to refer to Manbidj, you wonder if they try to prevent people to google it and discover it was once a flourishing Christian city.

Posted by: Mina | Aug 12 2016 19:33 utc | 38

BBC's propaganda to blur the perception on the nature of fighting forces in Syria is continuing. The Kurds are now "The Syria Rebels"...

Syria rebels 'cut off IS escape route' through Manbij

Kurdish and Arab fighters say they have liberated the north Syrian town of Manbij from so-called Islamic State, cutting off its route to Europe.

I guess the 'quotes' are misplaced

'Syria rebels' cut off IS escape route through Manbij

Posted by: virgile | Aug 12 2016 19:50 utc | 39

Courtesy Angry Arab
http://fair.org/home/how-media-distorted-syrian-ceasefires-breakdown/

Posted by: Mina | Aug 12 2016 19:52 utc | 40

Erdo and Gulen need a French newspaper as a middleman to engage in dialogue; Erdo blaming the EU, Gulen condemning the putsch...
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/08/08/recep-tayyip-erdogan-les-occidentaux-ont-laisse-les-turcs-seuls_4979765_3214.html
(paywall)
http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2016/08/12/fethullah-gulen-je-demande-une-enquete-internationale-sur-le-putsch-rate-en-turquie_4981883_3210.html
(extracts or paywall)

Strange that nothing of the 1st interview was related by international newspapers

Posted by: Mina | Aug 12 2016 20:36 utc | 41

Thanks to Pave Way IV for great stuff as usual.

b. said: “As far as I understand there were no results of Erdogan-Putin talks. Both sides talked nice but no deal was made. Nothing changed.”

One thing we know about Vladimir Putin is that he is very cautious about revealing the content of decisive talks. For example, about his many talks with Netanyahu we know next to nothing,

Reading a psychological profile of Erdogan by Abdullah Bozkurt I found the following: “But he is also capable of reversing his course of action, not directly but with more subtle approaches.”

To assume that nothing definite arose regarding Syria in the conversation between the two men may be true but Putin would not have been expecting a volte face. However, that does not mean that highly significant exchanges did not take place that have the potential to impact on the situation in Syria. I have little doubt that the Russians did indeed tip off Erdogan about the coup. It can be seen in the speed with which the Moscow trip was arranged and the warm words for Putin Erdogan used in public.

Erdogan reminds me of Haile Selassie as portrayed in the wonderful book by Ryszard Kapuscinski entitled The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat. In particular the following from Bozkurt’s piece: “Since he is not receptive to criticism and takes dissenting views as a sign of disloyalty and rebellion, all of them (his advisors) parrot exactly what he would like to hear, and he therefore suffers from poor counseling.

Putin, in contrast seems to seek out the opinions of the sharpest people.

Bozkurt’s article can be found here: http://factsonturkey.org/1952/a-psychological-profile-of-erdogan/

Posted by: Lochearn | Aug 12 2016 21:19 utc | 42

nationofbloodthirstysheep @29:

Looks like it's time to post a long shot that occurred to me . . .

There are several who have expressed cynicism about the "coup" - especially with the lack of any result from Putin-Erdogan talks. See MoA comments since the psyop "coup".

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 12 2016 21:25 utc | 43

very interesting to see the u turn on the BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37063857
such pictures won't be displayed in french msm i suspect,
on the french gov radio, to diminish the importance of the 2000 captives taken by IS when they fled, the speaker talked about "an old habit ni the area, with shiite militias having done the same recently when they liberated ** with the kurds a couple of months ago"

Posted by: Mina | Aug 12 2016 21:28 utc | 44

[email protected] You can use isitdownrightnow.com to query the status of RT's site at www.rt.com. It is showing it up at times and down at others if you keep re-querying it.

Comcast (for one) is having problems with the rt.com entry on its Domain Name Servers (DNS) - probably a CIA rat bastard hack to keep you from looking at dangerous, non-U.S. government-approved news sites. It's for your own protection. We wouldn't want you to get radicalized, so I would just obey them if I were you. We torture Canadians here in the states, you know...

See if you can get to RT usign their actual IP address 207.244.80.166 It isn't working on a secure https:// link - likely more CIA shenanigans from their evil elf director John O. Brennan.

Comcast (or whatever ISP you use) should eventually have the DNS entry fixed. Did you know they are consistently rated #1 in customer satisfaction? If you're having problems with other sites as well (many are dangerous to the U.S. narrative), you can use an OpenDNS server like the CIA's Google ones at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 - there's directions for how to change your ISP provided default DNS servers on the isitdownrightnow page or on various Windows/Mac IOS help pages.

OK, the Comcast rating thing was a lie. I blame the scopolamine.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 12 2016 21:30 utc | 45

@38, 39 Mina, Virgile
Propagandists earning their keep right now.

Let's wait and see if a civillian death via air strikes / human shields in Manbij is less than or equal to a civillian death via air strike / human shield in Aleppo.

Posted by: MadMax2 | Aug 12 2016 21:33 utc | 46

@30 l project
"to deny that a single doctor, ambulance or hospital has been bombed." why aren't you at NPR or PBS Newshour?

Posted by: jason | Aug 12 2016 21:49 utc | 47

You may have been wondering when nukes would come up in relation to Syria, that happened today.

http://observer.com/2016/08/russia-hints-it-might-hide-nukes-in-syria/

Posted by: wwinsti | Aug 12 2016 21:55 utc | 48

https://www.rt.com/

Posted by: okie farmer | Aug 12 2016 22:08 utc | 49

Posted by: dh | Aug 12, 2016 1:39:15 PM | 26

Actually it was a solidarity event for the right to be stupidly outrageous. Bad taste stuff like that was done by comedians in Germany, too, and Erdogan did go to German courts about it, and is still pursuing it.

It is the soft version of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations. Somethng like Pussy Riot.

All the stuff is completely tasteless but for me, the right to ridicule any authority is worth fighting for.

However, you are right, is is easy to poke fun abroad but more difficult in your own country. So Johnson would not dream of writing like that about the Queen.

I'd prefer having Turkish comedians fighting back with outrageous stuff about European taboos.

Posted by: somebody | Aug 12 2016 22:12 utc | 50

Insect-sized ‘dragonfly drones’ for urban warfare among new £800mn UK tech projects
Published time: 12 Aug, 2016
https://youtu.be/UC7JuvCjVLc

Posted by: okie farmer | Aug 12 2016 22:14 utc | 51

Posted by: Lochearn | Aug 12, 2016 5:19:05 PM | 42:

I have little doubt that the Russians did indeed tip off Erdogan about the coup. It can be seen in the speed with which the Moscow trip was arranged ...

>> Could the speed just be Russia's desire to capture a propaganda victory?

>> Wasn't it convenient that an effort to renormalize relations had begun just before the coup? Why didn't Turkey apologize when the ceasefire took hold back in March?

>> Wasn't it convenient that there was a coup to justify a deep purge? Otherwise there may have been much resistance.

>> Why would Russia help Erdogan? Why would the West want him out? Which side benefits from the turmoil and inward focus that a Turkish military overthrow would entail? Hasn't Erdogan been a good partner to the Assad must go! effort?

>> If Russia saved Erdogan (and the West is gunning for him), why so little progress in the Putin-Erdogan talks?

>> Did the coup have any real chance to succeed? They seem to have failed in fundamental ways (didn't lock down media/internet, did capture Erdogan, etc.). Was Erdogan sufficiently weak? It seems that if the coup had succeeded, a civil war would be likely. Was discontent sufficiently high? Why were there so few senior officers involved? Does the excuse that the coup was hurried make any sense?

>> Do you also believe that democracy prevailed in Turkey? Isn't it strange how some critics of Erdogan have rushed to defend him against the evil machinations of the West?

<> <> <> <> <> <>

Hey, I don't know any more than anyone else, but after following events closely for many years, I am more cynical than most.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 12 2016 22:23 utc | 52

Turkey: No joint strikes with Russia in Syria

Turkey's foreign minister has clarified comments on conducting joint operations with Russia against the Islamic State group in Syria, saying Turkey wanted greater cooperation with Moscow, not joint strikes.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 12 2016 22:35 utc | 53

@50 Nobody takes Boris very seriously. He's seen as a bit of a card. Of course he now has an important job so he could be a serious menace.

At first I thought he would be a good one to deal with Brexit. Lately I'm not so sure. He's backtracking on border control and he's done a complete u-turn on Syria.

Posted by: dh | Aug 12 2016 23:09 utc | 54

Always good to get a reaction, and an intelligent one that has made me think. Let me take them out of order:

Why would Russia help Erdogan? Why would the West want him out? Which side benefits from the turmoil and inward focus that a Turkish military overthrow would entail? Hasn't Erdogan been a good partner to the Assad must go! effort?

Russia would help Erdogan because of Black Sea control/Dardanelles, South Stream, protection of underbelly, another in the club, hugely important geopolitically. Also remember that the downing of the SU-24 led to the installation of the S-400 so all may not be as seems there…

The West wants him out because Israel wants him out. He’s a loose cannon, especially since the episode with Mavi Marmara and Gaza. He’s getting into Saddam territory and that is just not allowed, regardless of Syria.

If Russia saved Erdogan (and the West is gunning for him), why so little progress in the Putin-Erdogan talks?

How do you know there has been no progress? Turkey’s biggest trading partner is the EU. If Turkey takes a radical position the Western media has its taps all waiting to gush out the usual, sanctions are imposed and Turkey is in a perilous economic position. So it has to be subtle, gradual.

As I have tried to indicate it is also in Erdogan’s psychological makeup not to admit mistakes readily.

Did the coup have any real chance to succeed?

America is not the force it once was. It cannot even make a decent military aircraft (F-35). Its latest commercial product the Boeing 787 is feared by pilots because it is not a Boeing aircraft (almost totally outsourced without any design blueprints, albeit patched together in Seattle by brilliant Boeing engineers and machinists). For the first time a Boeing plane was grounded for months in 2014. Just as U.S, manufacturing is failing on so many fronts so the U.S cannot even organize a proper coup now.

Do you also believe that democracy prevailed in Turkey? No. I did not say it did.

Could the speed just be Russia's desire to capture a propaganda victory? Silly question.

Posted by: Lochearn | Aug 12 2016 23:27 utc | 55

@ PavewayIV

I agree with your analysis that the reason folks are having trouble getting to RT is because the US is making it difficult to do so. I suspect that if there is really war that the international internet will be the first thing to go dark. All countries led by elites are watching China to see how they control the internet.

The US is at war with Eurasia but restricted access, propaganda and brainwashing are the current weapons for the masses not getting outright killed.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 13 2016 0:28 utc | 56

I doubt if it is fear of EU that prevents Erdogan from cutting off jihadists from supplies etc. Number one, it is hard to find more toothless creature than EU, and few know it as intimately as Erdogan himself. Number two, it is a bit hard to see who in Europe would be enraged by such a turn of events.

In my estimate, this project is driven by "Sunni supremacist" part of AKP followers and personal beliefs of Erdogan himself, and also by support, and thus the ability to curtail it, from KSA and lesser Gulf countries. It is also a good project for neocons, but not as emotional as for the first two groups. There is also a schism between Western and Eastern backers of the rebellion: the West neither believes that the rebels will win, nor they want rebels to win (in party, because they are a scary bunch, in part, because they are scary for Israel). But victorious Assad and his Hezbollah allies are even more scary, at least for Israel. The elegant solution that was discussed openly is prevent the end of the conflict. Easterners want a jihad victory.

Importantly, dropping the support of jihadists presents Erdogan with a number of troubles. His own intelligence service is full of supporters of jihad, and supporters outside intelligence apparatus can resort to wide scale mayhem in Turkey. They have capabilities (after all, this is their current occupation) and a network of contacts inside Turkey. Detractors of Erdogan referred to those issues as "Pakistanization of Turkey". At times, "Pakistanization" is lethal to rulers themselves. And there are eastern sweets from the Gulf that can be lost.

In a longer term, Russia and Iran have more staying power than the Gulfies. They make money by selling hydrocarbons, but unlike the Gulfies, they can engage in import substitution during the lean times. In shorter term this gives more economic pain, but in longer term, budgets of Russia and Iran are more sustainable, while war efforts have a much lower cost structure. So in long run, Turkey may make a major policy switch, but right now, the sticks and carrots that Russia can assemble are not compelling enough.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 13 2016 0:32 utc | 57

@23 karlof1 & @57 PB - the Flores report at Fort Russ on Aleppo makes a good point about Erdogan's ability to seal the border.

Background: western-trained terrorist elite forces were sent to reinforce ISIS in the attempt to break the SAA encirclement. They led the charge in a strategy that called for breaking the SAA hold - they were destroyed, perhaps 3,000 of the "best" fighters, in a plan that failed. The remainder are still being crushed and SAA hasn't even made its counter-attack yet (which will be fierce). Border or not, Syria was all along far better supplied with materiel and manpower than the rats, who have had to break cover in their attempts to resupply, exposing ratlines and tunnels not formerly known, which Russian and Syrian planes have destroyed.

Flores points to the pressure there must have been on Turkey to allow these forces to launch across the Turkish border for this all-important battle. Perhaps this was not the time to face down the US on this one matter. Let the terrorists got to Aleppo and be destroyed - perhaps reasons Erdogan - and then afterwards might be a better time to close the border.

Even if he can. There's a lot of enmeshed internal alliances, including with Muslim Brotherhood, that suggest that Erdogan even now may not simply be able to order a thing to happen.

I argued sevral days ago - wrongly - that the border was sealed. But I'm not trying to be an apologist for Erdogan or that position. I just don't believe that Erdogan can bullshit the Russians. The rapprochement, to whatever degree it reaches today, has to be real. All of the tide of history says it must. However, most analysts say that the sealing of the border is a point of discussion still between Russia and Turkey, so on that score I await events.

I do give great thanks that, fortunately, the results of Aleppo, with the mounting victory for Syria, suggest that at least the border was not a deciding factor.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 13 2016 1:20 utc | 58

At this point I don't think the propaganda means a whole lot. Putin is past caring about our government's lies. I think the terrorists shooting down that helicopter, just after it delivered humanitarian aid, was about the last the straw for U.S. propaganda in Syria. I think the terrorist acts in Crimea (and the continued shelling in Eastern Ukraine by the neo-Nazi thugs from Kiev) is about the last straw in Ukraine as well.

Posted by: rcentros | Aug 13 2016 1:29 utc | 59

...
America is not the force it once was. It cannot even make a decent military aircraft (F-35). Its latest commercial product the Boeing 787 is feared by pilots because it is not a Boeing aircraft (almost totally outsourced without any design blueprints, albeit patched together in Seattle by brilliant Boeing engineers and machinists)
...
Posted by: Lochearn | Aug 12, 2016 7:27:52 PM | 55

The only person losing any sleep over Boeing's 787 seems to be Lochearn. When b published an opinion on it a few years ago, Boeing had circa 800 orders in hand. According to this Wiki overview, total order to date stand at 1161 and total deliveries stand at 445.
An additional 300+ orders suggests that the airline industry is still scrambling to get on the waiting list...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_787_orders_and_deliveries

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 13 2016 1:31 utc | 60

Lochearn @55

Russia would help Erdogan because ...

Isn't a Turkey that is sidelined by internal squabbles better for Russia than an ally that is untrustworthy?

The West wants him out because Israel wants him out.

But he recently normalized Turkish relations with Israel. And Israel's priority is Assad must go! In fact, they recently said that they don't want to see ISIS defeated!!!

How do you know there has been no progress?

Well, I can't know for certain but John Helmer and Smoothie (ht james) - both of whom are close observers and have sources in Russia - see no progress.

America is not the force it once was.... the U.S cannot even organize a proper coup now.

Tell that to Qaddafi, Morsi, and Yanukovych.

Whatever the failings of the military may be, the US Deep State (CIA, NSA, etc.) is as powerful as ever. And other key Assad must go! Coalition allies would've help to ensure success of the coup if they saw Erdogan as joining with their opponents (Russia, Iran, Syria).

I hope you can better see why I am cynical.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 13 2016 1:37 utc | 61

@13 pb

The nice part is that USA is selling the war material to Gulfies. so this venture is actually a plus on dollar and cent front ... cheap weapons are immoral.

The calculus is different in Europe ...

With the advent of the Hillary campaign it seems clear that the US is ready for the short ride all the way down ... how can the Europeans continue to go along with this? They are at ground zero.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 2:12 utc | 62

I apologize to b in advance for the long post, but I just can't resist tearing the good doctor's letter apart.

We are 15 of the last doctors serving the remaining 300,000 citizens of eastern Aleppo.

Aren't doctors suppose to be smart? Then why would you believe CNN's preposterous population estimates instead of reality. I assume you can clearly see the difference because you supposedly LIVE and WORK there, right? Do head-choppers force you to watch CNN? Oh God... that's just... inhumane!

Regime troops have sought to surround and blockade the entire east of the city.

That's probably because the east of Aleppo (as well as all the rest of it) has always belonged to the Syrian people, Doc - not to Wahhabi head-choppers. I think the Syrian people and their 'regime' intend to take it back.

Their losses have meant that a trickle of food has made its way into eastern Aleppo for the first time in weeks.

And their humanity means entire convoys of food and aid will be allowed into the head-chopper controlled east. Why don't you school your Wahhabi pals on similar kinds of humanity and empathy, Doc? Yeah - sorry that the convoys won't include TOW-2As, bulk explosives and MANPADs to kill Syrians. You should be happy about that part, right?

Whether we live or die seems to be dependent on the ebbs and flows of the battlefield.

Jesus... did you just figure that out, Snowflake? You live in a damn war zone that your head-chopper buddies created by occupying Syrian-populated east Aleppo. If you choose to live in a head-chopper infested part of town that Syrians want back, then your life is at risk. Ever think that maybe you should move to a safer neighborhood?

We have seen no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians.

The U.S. killed a MILLION IRAQIS to 'save' them from Hussein. The U.S. turned Libya into a lunatic, poverty-stricken third world hell-hole to 'save' them from Ghadaffi. What on God's earth makes you think the U.S. has the interests of civilians - ANY civilians - in mind? The U.S. imposes it's will on people or kills them. Why do you think you are any different? Did CNN tell you that?

For five years, we have faced death from above on a daily basis. But we now face death from all around.

Whaaa...?? You write worse than I do, dude. But I applaud you on your situational awareness of death's attack direction - it's one sneaky bastard all right!

For five years, we have borne witness as countless patients, friends and colleagues suffered violent, tormented deaths.

For five years, I have borne witness the U.S. sado-neocons intentionally causing that death in the name of installing a U.S. puppet government in Syria. I'm kind of tormented about the slow, painful moral death of the United States. I hear it use to be a nice place with good people. That's what CNN told me.

For five years, the world has stood by and remarked how ‘complicated’ Syria is, while doing little to protect us.

Psychopathic imperialism and hegemony are complicated schemes, Doc. And what did I tell you about the U.S. and civilians? We protect oil pipeline routes - Syrian people are not oil pipeline routes. But you're a doctor so you probably already know that.

Last month, there were 42 attacks on medical facilities in Syria, 15 of which were hospitals in which we work.

Wait - ALL the hospitals except al Quds are gone, right? Did you build a few dozen new ones recently? More importantly, did you tell Russia precisely where they are? Syria and Russia do not knowingly bomb medical facilities, regardless of what CNN, the NYT or HRW claim. They don't have X-ray vision. If your 'hospital' has TOW-armed head-choppers on the roof and snipers in the top floors, then the Syrians and Russians are probably not going to know you have incubators in the basement. How about asking the head-choppers to leave and painting a huge red cross on the roof like most civilized non-Wahhabi nations? Kind of like a little clue so they DON'T unintentionally bomb you.

Right now, there is an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours.

Invisible medical facilities or ones in the basement that Russian pilots with X-ray vision can see from 20,000 ft? So every 17 hours - instead of picking up a phone and telling the Russians where your medical facilities are - you're hoping your luck simply changes? Lay off the Captagon, Doc - it's doing bad things to your brain. And you don't sound particularly lucky, either. Think of the children.

At this rate, our medical services in Aleppo could be completely destroyed in a month, leaving 300,000 people to die.

That's not true. There's plenty of functional medical services in Aleppo. Oh - you mean head-chopper occupied east Aleppo. Maybe you should move your facilities and sick people to the much safer west side of town. Wouldn't that be the humane thing to do?

What pains us most, as doctors, is choosing who will live and who will die.

I feel your pain, doc. I hate being from the nation that chooses which other (smaller, weaker) nation's citizens live and die. Why can't other nations pitch in and help decide? Who needs any more stress in their lives. I sure don't!

Young children are sometimes brought into our emergency rooms so badly injured that we have to prioritize those with better chances, or simply don’t have the equipment to help them.

Wait - you 'prioritize' children when you don't have the equipment to help them? Don't you mean just the opposite? I hope you don't write instruction manuals for brain surgery or anything like that. And what you're doing is triage - that's an ER doctor's job. Move your damn 'medical facility' and customers out of an active war zone and your triage experiences will be a little less traumatic.

Two weeks ago, four newborn babies gasping for air suffocated to death after a blast cut the oxygen supply to their incubators.

OK - I'm no doctor - but newborn babies are not suppose to be gasping for air in an incubator if the oxygen supply gets cut off. That's not how they're built anywhere on earth. Every doctor should know that. Are you even a doctor or did you learn about incubators from comic books? Why are you putting newborns in sealed suffocation chambers that REQUIRE a constant oxygen supply, Dr. Mengele? Is that some special head-chopper torture incubator or did you repurpose one meant for chickens? Stop using them, you God damn butcher. They're not safe.

Gasping for air, their lives ended before they had really begun.

Oh my God! Did you take Language as Drama lessons from ABC World News Tonight with David Muir? And 'gasping for air' loses its dramatic impact when you just used it thirteen words ago. How did you miss that? And 15 doctors signed this letter without proofreading it? Now I AM starting to get worried about their victims... er, patients.

Despite the horror, we choose to be here. We took a pledge to help those in need. Our dedication to this pledge is absolute.

I certainly hope so - you're a freaking DOCTOR. Do you expect a medal for helping people? And were you hoping for some kind of a horror-free war zone?

Some of us were visiting our families when we heard the city was being besieged.

The city? Oh - you mean your head-chopper enclave in east Aleppo, not the city - was being cut off from fresh head-chopper, Captagon and ammunition resupply. Doc: you are not in Aleppo city proper. You are in the slowly-shrinking Wahhabi-occupied paradise the Saudis carved out of the east side of Aleppo. It will be part of Aleppo again some day, but don't confuse it with the Syrians in free, government-controlled Aleppo. You're not in that part.

So we rushed back - some on foot because the roads were too dangerous.

Let me get this straight: the roads were too dangerous to drive on, so some of you ran down those same roads on foot? Did they teach you that kind of special logic in medical school or is that a strategy you came up with all on your own?

Because without us even more of our friends and neighbors will die. We have a duty to remain and help.

You kind of have a moral obligation to discourage people from supporting a failing U.S.-led revolt to overthrow the Syrian government. You have an ethical obligation to Syrian citizens to restore a stable, peaceful country. You have NO obligation to Saudi Wahhabi head-choppers or agents of the U.S. government who seek to kill more Syrains. You have a duty to avoid creating a constant stream of new customers for your medical facilities. Your side lost - get over it.

Continued US inaction to protect the civilians of Syria means that our plight is being wilfully tolerated by those in the international corridors of power

The U.S. 'protected' a million Iraqis by killing them. Trust me - you don't want ANY help from the U.S. or you and your friends will surely die. Read that again. Do you understand that at all? Move your lips if it will help. U.S. 'help' = more dead Syrian babies. How can I be any clearer?

The burden of responsibility for the crimes of the Syrian government and its Russian ally must therefore be shared by those, including the United States, who allow them to continue.

Sorry - the U.S. is already guilty for fomenting a failed revolution that has cost the lives of 300,000 Syrian citizens and displaced several millions internally and externally. We're guilty of destroying most of Syria's infrastructure, stealing its land and natural resources and impoverishing nearly all of its remaining people. We're guilty of creating, aiding and abetting two major head-chopper terrorist organizations and enlisting them to help us overthrow the Syrian government. We're guilty of the destruction and ruin of one of the oldest and longest continually-inhabited cities on the planet - Aleppo. Your imagined 'crimes' of the Syrian government and Russia pale in comparison. You are going to have to park your accusations way, way in back of the U.S. guilt line - there's many, many real crimes the U.S. has committed ahead of you.

Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry

You forgot to mention the fresh head-choppers, Captagon and bulk explosive resupply lines. All of them are kind of the reason you are in the jam you're in now. How the hell is FOOD going to end the head-chopper occupation of Aleppo? You should be helping people evacuate.

Death has seemed increasingly inescapable.

You're not very bright for a supposed doctor, are you?

We do not need to tell you that the systematic targeting of hospitals by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes is a war crime. We do not need to tell you that they are committing atrocities in Aleppo. 

No - creating those lies are the job of western MSM. If Syria and Russia were actually doing this, then yes - it would be a war crime. They're not, and your lying about it isn't convincing anybody. Leave the lying to the real pros in the MSM and the humanitarian NGOs. You're an amateur. Frankly, it's kind of embarrassing.

We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action.

Yet you wrote an overly-dramatic letter designed specifically to appeal to our emotions. Is this some nutty passive-aggressive control technique? I feel like I want to kick my dog now, you bastard!

Prove that you are the friend of Syrians.

Listen, Doc. You are appealing to my president - a man who has overseen the death of 300,000 Syrians in order to kill Assad, install a U.S.-led puppet government and build pipelines over their fresh graves. A man who wants to give the Golan to Israel and carve out an independent Kurdish state (along with the oil wells) in northern Syria. I'll humbly suggest you are asking the wrong damn person to be (much less 'prove') their friendship to Syria. Exactly how naive can you possibly be?

The U.S. is the ENEMY of the Syrian people and is directly responsible for the deaths of over a quarter of a million of them (and counting). Pop a few Captagon and contemplate the way normal people treat friends. The U.S. is not your friend and is not going to help any insignificant 'little people'. The U.S. only seeks to own you and your country.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 13 2016 2:17 utc | 63

@53 jr, 'Turkey wanted greater cooperation with Moscow, not joint strikes.'

Ah, they want the Russians to bomb the Kurds.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 2:33 utc | 64

@ PavewayIV

Nicely done! Thanks for the effort.

Again let me state that we are the 'little people' in America not doing the killing. The killing is being done at the behest of the global plutocratic families that run most of the world including America. America is just their current tool of financial control and military power.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 13 2016 2:37 utc | 65

@58 grieved, 'at least the border was not a deciding factor'

Meaning that al-CIAduh has not prevailed in Aleppo. But the death, devastation, destruction, and deceit continue and will continue. They are the 'end' which the US/EU seek. Turkey has been and looks to continue to help 'maintain' that end. Certainly Putin must leave no stone unturned, bu the one he picked up to expose Erdogan will never be anything but the source of trouble and woe of : death, devastation, destruction, and deceit.

Surely 'the tide of history' seems to us to be floating Turkey to the East. But Erdogan is a rogue captain who thinks the ship of state is his property, and sails to meet his ends, playing the rest of the world fleet off against each other. That's how it seems to me at any rate. If the tide of history flows in our anticipated direction it will be because of Russia and Putin and in spite of Erdogan.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 3:08 utc | 66

[email protected] - "...Again let me state that we are the 'little people' in America not doing the killing..."

Most Americans feel the same way, ph. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I have said before: I am personally responsible for anything done anywhere on Earth in the name of the U.S.A. I simply choose to own it and all of it's sins, no matter how far removed I am personally from the lunatics (domestically or globally) that have usurped my government. I am responsible for the deaths of 3.5 million southeast Asians. I didn't consent to killing a million Iraqis, but I did nothing to prevent their deaths. The U.S. government is a thing - a golem. It has no soul, morals or innate responsibility. Evil individuals have taken control of it and I failed to prevent them from slaughtering 300,000 Syrians. I will probably fail to prevent them from killing millions of innocent Iranians.

It's my problem as a U.S. citizen to fix, and nobody elses. Voting and 'the law' have both been rendered useless by the powers that be as any kind of useful remedy. Most U.S. citizens complain but seem to have little will or desire to actually fix anything. I honestly believe they assume the U.S. government will miraculously fix itself. Moral decay in government, corruption and bribery loopholes - all of them existing without active dissent of U.S. citizens equates to an insidious form of passive consent. It only took something like 15% of the U.S. colonial population to actively revolt against British rule. I doubt that anything close to 15% of the current U.S. population would fight to get their country back from the psychopaths that rule it today. And ignorance of the nature of psychopaths means they would simply re-infest whatever government emerged. Americans are to lazy and dumb to make American great again (but I do appreciate Trump's comical theatre).

Nobody is holding a gun to my head to stay here - I can leave at any time and say it's no longer my country or my problem. Sadly, it may get to that point someday.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 13 2016 3:31 utc | 67

Paveway IV @ 63

You might have added also that the letter looks like a cut-n-paste job, it jumps from one topic to another with each new paragraph.

Also I have to wonder, with a number of paediatricians represented among those doctors who signed the letter (and presumably representing the last children's hospital in Aleppo that keeps on resurrecting each time it is bombed), how on earth a urologist ended up among them. Is it very common for small children to have chronic kidney diseases more typical of people in their middle age and beyond?

Posted by: Jen | Aug 13 2016 3:50 utc | 68

COPYEDIT

But the yesterday released and very well propagandized Open Letter of Aleppo Doctors takes the crown of warmongering anti-Syrian fakes:

...SHOULD READ:

But the Open Letter of Aleppo Doctors released and adroitly propagandized yesterday takes the crown of warmongering anti-Syrian fakes:

Posted by: Ronald | Aug 13 2016 3:59 utc | 69

The US is in such a bad state that it actually NEEDS a revolution to change but why isnt it happening or will it come November?

Posted by: Lozion | Aug 13 2016 4:00 utc | 70

@ PavewayIV

I guess I have been feeling your pain for 40+ years and have become jaded. I have been ostracized from many friendships over the years because of my strident opinions about the ruling class in our world and what they have done to the country I once loved.

Leaving the country will not remove you from the influence of TPTB. Their influence and control will just come at you from a different context.

It has taken me quite a while to ferret out the significance of private finance through history and understand its effect on our form of social organization. I truly believe now that private finance and ongoing accumulation of private property through inheritance are the underpinnings to most of our social ills. If, as a society, we undertook to eliminate private finance from the world and neuter inheritance, I believe that all the negative incentives that the private finance/Gawd of Mammon would go away.

I will continue with my attempt at "educating" the public about private finance and unfettered inheritance until unable to do so. I want the next OCCUPY movement to stand up and say, 'End private finance and neuter inheritance" as their only demand.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 13 2016 4:00 utc | 71

@67 pv

I am responsible for the deaths of 3.5 million southeast Asians. I didn't consent to killing a million Iraqis, but I did nothing to prevent their deaths. ...

I'm with you there. It's inescapable.

It only took something like 15% of the U.S. colonial population to actively revolt against British rule.

That was the 1% of the settlers of the time and %14 wannabes ... An Economic Interpretation of
The Constitution of The United States

I doubt that anything close to 15% of the current U.S. population would fight to get their country back from the psychopaths that rule it today.

I'm definitely with you on personal responsibility ... but we are responsible to join with others and effect the solution ... 'what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, but in union we are strong'.

I think that what's missing is polymerization. We have close to 15%, we're just invisible to ourselves. We need some atomic act that will seed our crystallization, cause us to precipitate out of solution. To refract and reflect our own light, to become visible to ourselves.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 4:15 utc | 72

@68 jen

I have to wonder why there is no such letter from the physicians of Gaza, the physicians of the West Bank, the physicians of Yemen, the physicians of Donbass making the rounds ... it's nothing but Yet Another Shameful Act by Samantha Power & Co. of the USA, Inc.

"If it were in my power to forgive you, Samantha Power, for your reckless cruelty, I could not do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me. ... Have you no sense of decency, Ma'am, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 4:25 utc | 73

[email protected] - The 'Urologic Resident', Dr. Abd Al Rahman, happens to share a surname with the Reuters photographer, Abdalrahman Ismail, that is often credited on photos of 'bombed hospitals', white helmets and (as of late) chlorine gas attacks. He just had a byline on a Reuters article a couple of days ago: a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-gas-idUSKCN10L2QW">Suspected gas attack on Aleppo causes deaths, injuries: hospital, rescuers. Abd Al Rahman is a fairly common Arabic given and surname, so it may mean nothing. The Blind Sheik's name is Omar Abdel-Rahman. It's kind of like signing a letter as Dr. Bill or Dr. Smith - who would do that?

I agree with the scatter-brained writing and cut-and-paste choppiness. It does not sound like well-reasoned, non-native English writing, but a hack attempt at a dramatic letter one imagines some foreign doctors might write to the president.

Even if one is forgiving of the writing style, I question why any doctor would sign a public letter as 'Dr.'. They all suffix their professional signature with their degree: Bill Smith, M.D. Yet another oddity is the supposed position affixed to the signature. From the Reuters link above, one assumes that Dr. Hamza is, in fact, Dr. Hamza Khatib, Director of Aleppo Al Quds Hospital. Bizzare that he would just sign it 'Manager' as if anyone would know where that position was held. Aleppo Kentucky Friend Chicken Manager? Oh - Al Quds. The hospital that was completely destroyed three separate times according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Al Quds 'hospital' is a story in itself. It isn't and never was a registered hospital. It was an MSF-staffed medical facility set up in al Nusra-controlled east Aleppo right after they took it over. It was unmarked and set up in the lower floors of an already bombed multi-story residential building with no indication of such. It is inconceivable that this was ever 'solely' a civilian hospital anyway, but rather a dual-use militarized hospital to treat al Nusra militants along with civilians. Not that Syria or Russia would have known because al Nusra doesn't publish a list of their medical facilities - they're kept secret.

The Al Quds bombing (actually, ALL of them) were always conveniently timed to cover up much more destructive and deadly FSA/al NUsra truck bombings of Aleppo's well-known, government-controlled hospitals - bombings simply ignored by western media. See Prof. Tim Anderson's The ‘Aleppo Hospital’ Smokescreen: Covering up Al Qaeda Massacres in Syria, Once Again on GlobalResearch. I have to wonder what Syrian government-controlled medical facility was just secretly truck-bombed that they need to publish this hack plea from the usual MSF suspects as a distraction.

(unrelated) Re: the chlorine bomb thing. Water in Aleppo is filthy and running water is sporadic to non-existent. Water trucks drive around and pump water into large red or blue plastic tanks often seen on roofs of buildings. When it is available, bulk chlorine in smaller tanks/canisters is used to disinfect the water in the tanks. The chlorine is stored near the tanks on the roof. Everyone who has a rooftop tank has chlorine for it that they continuously add. Many multi-resident buildings have separate tanks for each family. Every time a building gets bombed, the water and chlorine splash the top of the rubble as the building collapses. 10 liters of disinfectant liquid chlorine can cover an entire city block with a strong smell for a short time. The idea that Syrian helicopter crews would risk their lives throwing out barrels of chlorine to somehow 'terrorize' civilians is laughable. East Aleppo residents need bulk chlorine if and when they can get it for water disinfection of rooftop tanks.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 13 2016 5:39 utc | 74

I have been looking at the live Twitter feed for ‪#‎Aleppo‬ for the latest news. Hard to see the news for the propaganda. There are several well-funded PR campaigns going on at the same time. These PR machines eat incubator babies for breakfast. If a hospital was not bombed, they have to invent one.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Aug 13 2016 6:49 utc | 75

More bbc u turn

Http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37058411

A happy story showing the good communication lines and free circulation between 'rebel'areas and gov held ones

Posted by: Mina | Aug 13 2016 8:25 utc | 76

Charters of djihadists sent back by Turkey soon. Eu will finally have to sort out its own garbage

http://tinyurl.com/hhcmyu8

Posted by: Mina | Aug 13 2016 9:16 utc | 77

Terrific piece - blink and one missed another stunt. The above is a barnstormer, have sent everywhere. Here's a mild bit of hypocrisy by comparison: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-criminality-of-american-and-british-illegal-immigrants-in-syria/5540610

Posted by: Felicity | Aug 13 2016 9:42 utc | 78

@37 mina... thanks.. rt is back working for me now..

jackrabbit and paveway - and many others... thanks for the posts/info..

Posted by: james | Aug 13 2016 16:06 utc | 79

I think the doctors all attended the University of Woollomoolloo. Substitute Abu for Bruce.

Posted by: Les | Aug 12, 2016 1:44:07 PM | 27

:)

Posted by: DM | Aug 13 2016 16:09 utc | 80

The US is in such a bad state that it actually NEEDS a revolution to change but why isnt it happening or will it come November?

Posted by: Lozion | Aug 13, 2016 12:00:03 AM | 70

There are many people hoping/thinking that things will change, but the line of least resistance is 'no change'. Maybe in another 40 years? The decline of Rome took about 400 years.

Posted by: DM | Aug 13 2016 16:21 utc | 81

@PavewayIV

Moral responsibility is not the same as personal responsibility.

I understand that it is a personal choice for you, but IMO the culpability of an average citizen is very different than TPTB that is pulling the strings.

This is a pet peeve of mine. We are told that ISIS terr0rist attacks are "blow-back". But in my view, it is really 'collateral damage' because 'blow-back' involves unintended consequences to the initiator of an action.

I feel that part of the "answer" to our current predicament is that people wake up to how they are played and how little regard TPTB have for them. When they do, they will be motivated to effect change. Right now, there is too much deference to authority (similar to 1950's and early 1960's).

Promoting the view - even indirectly - that we share responsibility for terrible decisions of the TPTB lets them off the hook.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 13 2016 17:19 utc | 82

@34MadMax2 & dh. Weapons sales are big business. The US doesn't have to come up with all the money with allies like ours. But it shows the lie of this being a simple uprising against a dictator and the US being neck deep in it.

In 2013, a deal to sell the Saudis 15,000 TOW missiles.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/12/12/why-is-saudi-arabia-buying-15000-u-s-anti-tank-missiles-for-a-war-it-will-never-fight/

About a year ago the Saudis gave 500 TOW missiles to the FSA.
http://www.businessinsider.com/syria-rebels-and-tow-missiles-2015-10

Posted by: Curtis | Aug 13 2016 18:37 utc | 83

jfl & PavewayIV:

We are at least a club of 4, including myself and psychohistorian. It's very hard for people to be honest about the carnage they're responsible for allowing and to decouple in some manner or be driven insane via guilt. Unfortunately, the indoctrination the US populace is subjected to aims at desensitizing that guilt so it cannot be used as motivation to change the system, a fact very visible during this election cycle: How else can anyone of Principle and Good Conscience support a creature like Hillary Clinton?

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 13 2016 18:42 utc | 84

[email protected] - "...I think that what's missing is polymerization. We have close to 15%, we're just invisible to ourselves. We need some atomic act that will seed our crystallization, cause us to precipitate out of solution...

and

[email protected] - "...I feel that part of the "answer" to our current predicament is that people wake up to how they are played and how little regard TPTB have for them. When they do, they will be motivated to effect change..."

Never underestimate the people's ability to live in abject denial or be immobilized by fear and intimidation. Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) and the Kmehr Rouge were able to kill 1.5 million people - a quarter of Cambodia's population. At what point did the Cambodians 'wake up' or experience an atomic event causing them to rise up and overthrow their U.S.-created tyrannical, genocidal leader? Why, never. Outsiders - the Vietnamese - finally had enough of Pol Pot's nuttiness and invaded.

Now take a Clinton monarchy that marches 80 million Americans off to FEMA camps for slaughter - a quarter of the U.S. population - for the crime of not buying their Obamacare insurance, reading her leaked emails on the internet, refusing to bail out Goldman Sachs and the banks again or maybe for just not answering conscription orders to show up for military training to fight another war for Israel and Saudi Arabia. Impossible? Yeah - that's what one and a half million Cambodians thought, too. If roughly 40% of American voters are willing to vote for a moral and ethical train wreck for president, what chance does the right person really have? An atomic event rallying people around another psychopath is about ten thousand times more likely than something that causes people to rally around a truly good person for a new leader. The U.S. has no chance - we'll have to wait for Canada to invade and overthrow whatever tyrannical oligarch is running the place.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 13 2016 19:59 utc | 85

@85 Don't hold your breath. Justin is busy building pipelines and flooding the Peace River valley.

Posted by: dh | Aug 13 2016 20:11 utc | 86

PavewayIV @85--

"At what point did the Cambodians 'wake up' or experience an atomic event causing them to rise up and overthrow their U.S.-created tyrannical, genocidal leader? Why, never. Outsiders - the Vietnamese - finally had enough of Pol Pot's nuttiness and invaded."

That was a realization I had during the 1980s, that it would take the allied nations of the world to finally fasten defeat and discipline on the Outlaw US Empire. The counter to that was the implementation of Full Spectrum Dominance during Clinton's reign and escalated/enabled by implementing Operation Northwoods on 911. IMO, the immediate goal of the Resistance Nations is to contain the Empire to the North American continent, which will take some doing, but in no way aids internal resistors like ourselves.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 13 2016 20:32 utc | 87

@PavewayIV @jfl

Global Elites Foresake Their Countrymen

The larger point is that this is something we are seeing all over, the top detaching itself from the bottom, feeling little loyalty to it or affiliation with it.

It is a theme I see working its way throughout the West’s power centers.

At its heart it is not only a detachment from, but a lack of interest in, the lives of your countrymen, of those who are not at the table, and who understand that they’ve been abandoned by their leaders’ selfishness and mad virtue-signalling.

(ht ZeroHedge: German President Claims "People are the problem, not the elites")

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 13 2016 20:51 utc | 88

dhW86 - A Canadian invasion would never work. They would attack through a weak point like Minnesota, then the invasion forces would just disappear. Years later, we would find out that the Canadian Army was marching through northern Minnesota, but found the ice fishing to be to darn good to leave. Plus, the local beer was cheap and tasted good. The U.S. hockey teams sucked, but the stalled Canadian troops didn't care and remained fiercely loyal to Canadian hockey teams. In first summer after the attempted invasion, the mosquitoes drove most of the Canadian troops back north to their home country. Some would have become lost and would still be driving around northern Minnesota in rusty pickup trucks with Canadian plates. Minnesota and Canadian accents and manner of dress are similar, so nobody would really notice them. They eventually would die off from starvation because U.S. vending machines would not accept their Canadian coins. The end.

Posted by: PavewayIV | Aug 13 2016 21:03 utc | 89

Sure, the EU elites, to give but one example, are sinless. We've seen them ok with Turkey bombing the Kurds or shooting at Syrians trying to cross the border to flee fightings but very very upset when Erdo met Putin.
With the current level of daily violence European countries are each going to have their own version of Erdo very soon

Posted by: Mina | Aug 13 2016 21:39 utc | 90

@89 paveway.. lol! sounds about right except canucks have too many mosquitoes too, so they wouldn't notice... i have often thought of how similar canucks are to americans in some ways.. i think the real division isn't so much the 49th parallel as the zones that run north-south - coastal, mid continent, east coast and etc.. living on vancouver island - i relate well to coastal washington, oregon and northern california.. could be a country at some point as the attitudes are very similar..

Posted by: james | Aug 13 2016 22:01 utc | 91

@82 jr, 'Promoting the view - even indirectly - that we share responsibility for terrible decisions of the TPTB lets them off the hook.'

That's equivalent to the white supremacist 'law students' attack on the prof who showed up with his/her BLM tea shirt. She/he pointed out that focusing concern in one area in no way implies repudiating concern in another.

@85 pw, 'Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) and the Kmehr Rouge were able to kill 1.5 million people - a quarter of Cambodia's population.'

You're comparing the American population of 2016 to the Cambodoian population of the 1970s? subject to more bombs from US B-52's than Europe and Japan combined in WW II? I guess 9/11 was the equivalent for our exceptional populace?

'The U.S. has no chance - we'll have to wait for Canada to invade and overthrow whatever tyrannical oligarch is running the place.'

I guess if everyone had your attitude ... you'd be right. Personal despair is a 'solution', of sorts. Only for one's personal problem with the world, though, not with the larger problem that will persist after your personal game of Russian roulette.

@88, jr

More of the same ... focusing on one aspect of a problem does not negate all others. You can brand the 'elite' with the mark of Cain again and again. It accomplishes nothing. The 'elite' embody the problem. The people embody the solution. Maybe the Germans are ready to take control of Germany. A German NATOxit would certainly change the game. The challenge is to mobilize the solution. We are responsible for what our nation does ... if not us, whom? Focus on responsibility not guilt. Focusing on one aspect of a problem does not negate all others.

Have you got a link to Peggy Noonan that ordinary people can read? I found How global elites forsake their countrymen

In Manhattan, my little island off the continent, I see the children of the global business elite marry each other and settle in London or New York or Mumbai. They send their children to the same schools and are alert to all class markers. And those elites, of Mumbai and Manhattan, do not often identify with, or see a connection to or an obligation toward, the rough, struggling people who live at the bottom in their countries. In fact, they fear them, and often devise ways, when home, of not having their wealth and worldly success fully noticed.

Affluence detaches, power adds distance to experience. I don’t have it fully right in my mind but something big is happening here with this division between the leaders and the led. It is very much a feature of our age. But it is odd that our elites have abandoned or are abandoning the idea that they belong to a country, that they have ties that bring responsibilities, that they should feel loyalty to their people or, at the very least, a grounded respect.

I close with a story that I haven’t seen in the mainstream press. This week the Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson reported that recent Syrian refugees being resettled in Virginia, were sent to the state’s poorest communities. Data from the State Department showed that almost all Virginia’s refugees since October “have been placed in towns with lower incomes and higher poverty rates, hours away from the wealthy suburbs outside of Washington, D.C.” Of 121 refugees, 112 were placed in communities at least 100 miles from the nation’s capital. The suburban counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Arlington—among the wealthiest in the nation, and home to high concentrations of those who create, and populate, government and the media—have received only nine refugees.

Some of the detachment isn’t unconscious. Some of it is sheer and clever self-protection. At least on some level they can take care of their own.

This might be all of it.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 22:22 utc | 92

@ james.....I agree with your characterization of North American west coast and LOL to PavewayIV's invasion screed.

I grew up in Tacoma, WA and have been called Canadian in various parts of the world. Some of culture is very regional.....not so sure about all the attitudes. And making our region a country does not fix the private finance and inheritance problems plaguing the whole world.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 13 2016 22:27 utc | 93

@88 jr

It's not surprising that Peggy Noonan, 'a primary speech writer and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and has maintained a conservative leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan Administration', sees the 'blowback/collatera damage' of US/NATO DDD&D in Syria in terms of its effects on the German and not the Syrian population. “Master the flip side, the shadow side, of all the positive effects of globalization.” I guess the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Iraqism Iranians, and Russians are experiencing those positive effects while the Germans are stuck with the flip side?

“On Wall Street, where they used to make statesmen, they now barely make citizens.” I guess Allan and John Foster were statesmen? because due to America's magnificent isolation from WW II they were able to deliver the “positive effects of globalization” to the rest of the world and postpone the 'blowback/collatera damage' till now?

However delusional her reading of history, she is absolutely correct in noting the class differences. They've been there all the time, of course. It's just that now, as things fall apart, they've come home with a vengeance to the US/UK/NATO.

Posted by: jfl | Aug 13 2016 22:41 utc | 94

88

Interesting, which year could we expect a euro spring movement?

Posted by: Mann | Aug 13 2016 23:00 utc | 95

Guilt is not the burden of subjects of empire alone.

The empires vassal states, lackeys and brown noses are complicit - like the leadership of Erdogan, the U.S. surrounds itself with yes-men born by its 'my way or the highway' diplomatic style while parking an ageing nuclear carrier halfway up your rectal cavity.

Posted by: MadMax2 | Aug 14 2016 0:08 utc | 96

PavewayIV @85:

Never underestimate the people's ability to live in abject denial or be immobilized by fear and intimidation.

This is blaming the victim.

[email protected]:

That's equivalent to the white supremacist 'law students' attack on the prof who showed up with his/her BLM tea shirt.

No. Firstly because I am not accusing PavewayIV of of the same transgression and secondly because the "white supremacist" label doesn't describe me. Nor can we say with much certainty that "white supremacist" describes the students that signed that letter.

Lastly, I am not repudiating PavewayIV for his views. I am expressing a view that he and others might find to have merit. A view that is (pre ape) more enlightened and more likely to effect change.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 14 2016 6:26 utc | 97

IMO variants of the argument that "people get the government that deserve" fail to account for elite co-opting.

Nothing better illustrates this than the "best of all worlds" meme that was popular before this election cycle. Now that Sanders and Trump have highlighted how the game is 'rigged' 'this elite excuse has been discredited. Discontent does NOT get a proper hearing via a democratic process so remedies that balance interest for the common good are not made (at least not timely or sufficient).

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Aug 14 2016 14:53 utc | 98

@97 jr

Not claiming that you're a white supremacist, claiming that their argument is the argument employed by the 'law students'. Acknowledging the responsibility of the general US population for the habitual actions of its government does not imply that the portion of the American population which sits in the government is not acutely more responsible than the general population.

The degree of certainty on the white supremacist label is not 100%, but I'd bet the law school involved was in the South and that the professor was black. Maybe I'm wrong. Assumptions concerning their provenance in no way affects the argument that you share with them, whoever they are.

Neither am I repudiating you or Paveway for your views, hoping to encourage you not to start in your case or give up in Paveway's and move beyond them. I am certainly no further along on the road to self-realization than either of you.

Could you explain ...

'A view that is (pre ape) more enlightened and more likely to effect change. '

?

I guess Paveway and I are apes? Or are you an ape, and we not quite up to ape status?

Your view is that we the general US population are just victims with respect to the acts/policies of our government. Nothing can be done but observe/criticize? Victims remain victims.

Mine is that we are victims/beneficiaries, but more importantly that we have not done enough - whatever it takes - to change those actions/policies of our government which victimize not only ourselves but those outside our country and our world itself much more severely. To effect change in government requires taking responsibility for government.

That the alternative to actively changing US government actions/policies is to wait for the collapse of 'civilization' beneath the weight of endless warfare, environmental stress, and financial capitalism to change them.

Further I believe that every day that we put off active change adds to the proportion of those ill effects that are, perhaps, irreversible. That we may well be permanently degrading the possibilities of life on earth 'as we've known it'.

I do not make a 'moral' argument, because that envolves, too often, essentialist, religious belief. I make an 'aesthetic' argument: it doesn't have to be this way. Our society's organization and effects upon the world might be something to admire rather than to abhor. And we are society's artists. Wily-nily. We have painted the picture we see before us and we can scrape the canvas clean and repaint it. We ought to, because what we have is ugly and what we ought to have instead is something beautiful.

And please skip the fine print next time?

Posted by: jfl | Aug 15 2016 2:32 utc | 99

This "Letter to Obama" from supposed Syrian doctors is likely the handiwork of American psyops agents and spindoctors.

But you have to hand it to America for its humanitarian propaganda in general.

It's testament to a singular reality:

The American propaganda machine is the greatest in human history.

The self-styled "Land of the Free" has far surpassed Nazi Germany or any of the other "totalitarian" states that the USA loves to demonize and uphold itself as superior to in contrast.

America's propaganda is by far the most sinister, devious, and malign on the planet because it is able to disguise itself as a Free Press, Free Speech, Free Thought, etc.

Indeed, this is reflective of how America as a nation and people have successfully cloaked their malevolent nature in general behind the veneer of human "freedom" as a princple.

There is no greater crime than America's instinctual tendency to manipulate Freedom itself as propaganda cover to advance the USA's more predatory ambitions.

As Ron Paul has said, America is the Empire of Lies.

Posted by: USAma Bin Laden | Aug 17 2016 8:58 utc | 100