The Tripartite Attack on Syria: “Mission Accomplished” or “A Tale Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing?”

Naples’ mayor Luigi de Magistris said the U.S.S. John Warner, a nuclear submarine, is not welcome in the city. Cruise missiles from this ship were fired at Syria in response to false flag claim that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians.

(note: This interview on KGNU Boulder dealt with the U.S.-U.K-French missile attack on Syria in response to an alleged use of a chemical weapon attack by the Assad government on Syrian civilians. All the evidence up until now suggests that the whole incident was fabricated. If this was the case, and more and more evidence suggests it is, then why bomb Syria? These are the issues that were dealt with in this hour-long program. Because of the length of the interview, it will be posted in chunks.)

The 103 missile attack in protest to the Syrian chemical weapons attack that didn’t happen 

…all the evidence suggests that there was no gas attack. (Robert) Fisk went there (to Douma, Syria) as well as three or four other groups of reports, both European and from Russia. All of them, independent news sources, have unanimously reported that, after having gone over there, interviewed different people, gone to the hospital where supposed the victims are recovering, all of these reporters clearly state that there was no chemical weapon or gas attack at Douma. The whole incident was contrived. It didn’t happen.

Ibrahim Kazerooni on KGNU, Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues.

KGNU – Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues. April 24, 2018 – Transcript, Part One.

Jim Nelson: So let’s move onto this evening’s topic which many of our listeners would have guessed we’d cover tonight. It concerns the bombing that happened last week, on Friday, April 13, Friday the 13th! against Syria. After it was finished, Trump proclaimed “mission accomplished.”

So gentlemen, you are going to explore whether “that mission was accomplished..or was it `sound and fury’ or what?” Meanwhile look at the awful situation in Syria, Yemen. And I think Rob is going to open up

Rob Prince: Yes, it’s the case that after the bombing that President Trump declared “mission accomplished” – a term we’ve heard in the past; George W. Bush used the same expression after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

Jim: The way that Trump tweeted “Hey, this mission has been accomplished” suggests he was referring to the Bush statement.

Rob Prince: Our question is “What was the mission? And what was accomplished/” but we’ll address these questions later in the program.

Looking back on this mission ten days later and trying to put together what happened and what didn’t happen gets more and more interesting the deeper one digs. What can we say?

On April 13, – as you said Jim- the U.S., British and French launched a joint missile attack against Syria From what can be gleaned from various sources 103 missiles were fired, 59 of them cruise missiles. Keep in mind that cruise missile can hold both conventional and nuclear warhead, creating the specter of a nuclear attack, the implied threat that next time it could be nukes – whether it’s happening or not.

They were launched from the Mediterranean, from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, again for maximum psychological effect, the message being that the U.S. can attack Syria from almost anywhere, anytime it wants.

There were different reports as to how many were shot down by anti-aircraft missiles. The Russians claim that of the 103 missiles fired a full 71 were intercepted and destroyed. The Iranians claim that some 40 were shot down and the Trump Administration, predictably, virtually all hit their targets as planned.

One of the first consequences that became clear from this attack is virtually no strategic targets were hit. There were reports both in the European and American press that prior to the strike Washington had actually informed the Russians beforehand and promised not to hit sites with Russian military facilities. The Russians in turn informed both the Iranians and Syrians in such a way that the latter could minimize damage. By the time the strike took place there was hardly anything of any strategic value that was targeted.

At the same time there was no clear evidence that the Assad government had in fact used chemical weapons against his own people. We’ve seen this before – a claim of the use of chemical weapons made followed immediately by a missile strike without any kind of verification or justification. It’s reminiscent of “the weapons of mass destruction nonsense” that gave pretext to the 2003 U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

And of course even though the pretexts for this strike were based on very shaky evidence, once again, the pretext given was some kind of “humanitarian intervention.” Given its record it’s difficult to accept the Trump Administration basing this operation on that logic but it seems to work – and again and again and again. It should be added here that there was virtually no protest from the political class in this country – either Democrat or Republican – the exceptions being Bernie Sanders the left and Ron Paul from the right – to their credit. The Dems in power supported it. This was a bipartisan supported military offensive. European governments – especially those involved – the British and the French – supported the operations but their publics didn’t. There were large demonstrations against their country’s involvement in this shameful episode in Great Britain and France. In Naples Italy where U.S. submarines from the 6th Fleet are based, the mayor of the city said that one of the submarines that had launched missiles from the Eastern Mediterranean “was not welcome” back in the port city.

In most of the rest of the world, the strike was generally opposed, criticized.

Jim Nelson: Rob, I would just interject here that the national media – CNN, the main networks CBS, NBC, ABC, – the cable channels, left – right, whatever – supported the strike. They interviewed generals explaining the intricate technical details of tomahawk cruise missiles or what have you.

Ibrahim Kazerooni: Jim, to be honest, this is little more than a red herring. Who wants to know the details of tomahawk Cruise missiles? The issue is not how a missile functions. The issue is what is it being used for and what purpose, goal it was done and achieved. To avoid answering those questions people’s attention is deflected to intricate details of how they function, who makes them, etc. etc.

Jim Nelson: I would also add another point here. Certainly MSNBC is perceived as the anti-Trump news organization as is CNN to some extent. Except when there is an incident like this (the Syria bombing) there is no real alternative historical perspective. It’s the same old, same old.

Rob Prince: In general this is accurate. Still not everyone in the United States bought into the pretexts – or the results of the strike. Even the Brookings Institute referred to it as “an illusionary victory.”

At this point, Ibrahim here’s a question for Ibrahim: Was it “Mission Accomplished” or was it as Shakespeare put it in Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 2, was simply “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing?”

Ibrahim Kazerooni: To understand or give justice to any assessment of this bombing, we need to shed light on some of the background to the incident. For example, was there any chemical weapons or gas used by the Assad government, or wasn’t there? If we can deconstruct the information and as a result discover that in fact, gas was used, then some of these scenarios we are presenting would be useless.

However if there was no gas attack, that it didn’t happen in the first place, then all the scenarios to be discussed are relevant. Unfortunately virtually none of the media sources suggesting that there was no gas attack are U.S. based. Those that argue along these lines tend to all be Middle Eastern; some of them are European.

I tend to echo what both of you have commented upon concerning the reporting of the U.S. media on the incident. Unfortunately they swallowed the (Washington) narrative yet again as if we have not learned anything about the lies in Afghanistan, the lies in Libya, the lies in Iraq. Once again, in this latest bombing attack against Syria the media immediately jumped on the bandwagon and assumed that the Trump Administration narrative was accurate.

Rob Prince: Another thing, Ibrahim, is that Washington still gets away with “the humanitarian intervention” pretext. They still can squeeze that lemon despite the fact that it has been proven again and again to be little more than a cynical pretext rather than a legitimate reason.

Ibrahim Kazerooni: We’ve talked about the humanitarian intervention pretexts in the past. There was a seminar at Harvard (in which I participated) a few weeks ago in which the main issue was about how to desensitize and de-escalate the sectarian violence in the Middle East. Unfortunately all the evidence suggests that there was no gas attack. (Robert) Fisk went there (to Douma, Syria) as well as three or four other groups of reports, both European and from Russia. All of them, independent news sources, have unanimously reported that, after having gone over there, interviewed different people, gone to the hospital where supposed the victims are recovering, all of these reporters clearly state that there was no chemical weapon or gas attack at Douma. The whole incident was contrived. It didn’t happen.

As a matter of fact, the child that has been presented as the symbol of this so-called gas attack is in the hospital in Holland being questioned as to whether or not there was a gas attack.

With this in mind, once the official Washington narrative has been contradicted and rendered defunct, then the newspapers in the Middle East tend to begin to assess the more accurate rationales for this attack.

Jim Nelson: I’m just going to jump in and ask: if this chemical attack didn’t happen. In whose benefit is it to present such a false narrative. Who’s faking what?

Rob Prince: This is a classic example of what we have to deal with. First we have to deconstruct the main stream narrative. In this case, more and more the evidence leads to conclude that nothing happened. There was no chemical attack. That’s (Robert) Fisk’s argument. Then what did happen and why?

Ibrahim Kazerooni: Jim, if you what until we’ve exhausted all of these possibilities the picture will be clearer.This is not the first time that somehow that Washington created what amounts to a false flag operation. If you remember in 2013 or 2014 when Obama stepped back from attacking Syria after viewing the satellite pictures offered him from the Russians. These photos indicated that the trajectory of the chemical weapon did not originate from government positions directed into the civilian population as alleged. To the contrary the missile was fired from a rebel area into a rebel area. The Syrian Army had nothing to do with this attack. So Obama stepped back.

End Part One

Part Two

Link to Radio Interview