Ahoy there, Fake News alert!!

Fakerstan media has alerted us to the horrifying reality that the modern day Hitler, Bashar Al-Assad is burning his victims bodies in a crematorium at Saydnaya Prison. Mild mannered eye doctor by day, homicidal body incinerator by night.

Our friends in the United States of regime change have thrown another curve ball at us, this time by a fresh new face to the world of bare faced lying, Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary for the State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. (What a mouthful that is). Baked fresh in the oven is this new set of lies served up to you with lashings of cream by the ever trusting and unquestioning fakerstan media.

Now the story goes something like this: To dispose of the thousands and thousands of prisoners summarily executed in Assad’s concentration camp, otherwise known as Sadnaya Prison, Assad has ingeniously built a crematorium to burn the bodies of the victims. No evidence, no crime, no prosecution. Thank goodness though our US intelligence sleuths are on the case. The same people who bought you the WMD in Iraq, the Viagra fueled rampages by soldiers in Libya, the Russian hacking of the DNC and the Trump/Russia collusion in the 2016 election.

Their reasoning is flawless. It’s quite simple enough for any dunderhead working for the military industrial complex media, otherwise known as mainstream media, also known fondly as fakerstan media.

You need two vital ingredients:

It has to be a building The building has to be a crematorium.

The first part is easy enough. Even if they are grainy satellite images that would make Google Earth blush with embarrassment. Come to think of it deep state operatives, why don’t you just use Google Earth. Freely available, easy to use and no waiting for any declassification process before you can launch the latest withering assault on Bashar Al-Aassad.

So we established it is a building. The next step is that it is a crematorium. No don’t wait for more evidence; it is a crematorium because that is what US officials decided it is. Just like a truck in Iraq can be turned into a mobile chemical weapons lab on a US whim, so too a building in a Syrian prison can be turned into a crematorium if it suits the intentions of the US and its allies. Three months after Amnesty International released a report alleging starvation, torture and mass hangings at Saydnaya prison, the best the US intelligence agencies can come up with is images from afar. This is quite convenient actually. The fact that the building can’t be accurately identified gives the State Department the ambiguity it needs to make such wild allegations. It knows it has a fake media willing to swallow anything served up to it and a President who loves nothing better than finishing off a delicious cake with a spot of bombing, so why not throw caution to the wind and create a pretext for increased US intervention out of a nondescript image on a satellite photo

The Secret is in the Snow

Well if you insist that there has to be more, here it is. Satellite images appear to show snow melting on the roof of the facility. Obviously a crematorium will cause snow to melt. Of course, warming weather will do the same thing, but let’s not let plain common sense get in the way of a good story. Sure, you could view satellite pictures over a period of time where snow will melt due to rising temperatures, or if you have interminable patience or a penchant for all things tedious you could watch it happen on a roof for however long it takes.

You may also reference the actual temperature for 15 January 2017, the date the satellite image purports to show melting snow. On that day, Saydnaya had a temperature range of minimum 6 degrees Celsius, maximum 11 degrees Celsius. There are several atmospheric factors that help determine how fast snow and ice will melt, but generally the process begins once the temperature rises above 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). I won’t labor on this point any longer, other than to say it illustrates how preposterous the State Department claims are as it clutches at straws to reinvigorate the discredited Saydnaya prison campaign.

Not to be phased, the US released images from August 2013 and April 2016 which show the appearance on this building of what might be HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems) a discharge stack, a “probable” air intake, and a “probable” firewall.

Unbeknownst to the US some intrepid Twitter aficionados such as Ian Grant promptly provided a Terraserver image from 4 April 2013 which appears to show the same markings on the building which the US claimed appeared after August 2013 and before April 2016. Is Assad cooking the bodies, or is the US doctoring their own images?

Never mind, the US has reliable evidence of this large scale execution of prisoners after sham trials which last a matter of minutes. Naturally the bodies have to be exposed somehow and what better way than an improvised on site crematorium.

What About the Mass Graves?

But wait a minute; didn’t Amnesty say they were buried in mass graves? I quote from Page 6 of their February 2017 report, Human Slaughterhouse*: Mass Hangings And Extermination At Saydnaya Prison, “After the execution is carried out, the victims’ bodies are loaded into a truck, transferred to Tishreen Hospital for registration and buried in mass graves. These graves are located on military land near Damascus, including in Najha, a village on the main road between Sweida and Damascus, and in Qatana, a small town in the western suburbs of Damascus.”

The evidence for the burial in military cemeteries was that the cemeteries had greatly expanded over time. Now I leave it to you to decide which is the more dim witted logic; buildings which must be crematoriums because snow melts on them or cemeteries expanding in size to accommodate bodies of executed prisoners during a war which has killed close to 500,000 people. The cemetery in question is a martyrs cemetery, reserved for Syrian soldiers who have lost their lives battling internationally sponsored terrorism. The cemetery evidence is among the weakest in the entire report, proving nothing in its claim of expansion to accommodate the mass graves. The fact over 100,000 Syrian soldiers have died defending their country provides a very rational explanation for the expansion of what is the martyrs cemetery.

The 64 million dollar question is staring us in the face. Why didn’t the Amnesty report mention the crematorium? The building appears very large, and considering its alleged purpose, wouldn’t news of what it was filtered around the prison. Amnesty interviewed 84 people for their shambolic report, yet none of them personally or from the words of others ever mentioned anything remotely resembling a crematorium.

Stuart Jones said at the State Department press briefing, “What we’re assessing is that if you have that level of production of mass murder, then ­using the crematorium would . . . allow the regime to manage that number of corpses . . . without evidence.”

The allegations are that the crematorium destroys the evidence, which sabotages any prospective prosecution for crimes against humanity. I would say the crematorium fabrication more likely excuses the US from ever having to back up its claims with actual evidence. This is an all too familiar theme in US politics, where honesty died a lonely death many years ago.

Jones also said evidence of the crematorium hiding mass murders at the prison will be presented to the international community. These are empty words drifting down State Department hallways, destined to join other assertions of fact which have floated around desperate to attach to any actual evidence. The key point is that these accusations are forming a pretext for another potential US military strike on Syria.

Squash all Peace Plans

As for the motives, it is abundantly clear. The US is playing spoiler, saboteur, provocateur. As the deescalation zones in Syria continue and show some promise to produce the reduction in violence necessary for peace talks to bear fruit, the US and its French and British allies, all conspicuously absent from the deescalation zone negotiations, must produce a piece of shock value “news” which will sway opinion from acceptance of moves to peace, Syrian self-determination and a role for Assad in the future of Syria, to refocusing on escalating direct intervention and regime change.

The timing of the allegations, as always is aimed at derailing progress towards a political settlement and strengthening the US position at the negotiating table. As Brandon Turbeville writes:

Interestingly enough, the first time this report was published, it was on the eve of the Geneva talks, an obvious attempt to muddy the waters and provide the United States with more leverage in the negotiations. This time, we are yet again heading into a round of Geneva talks and the United States yet again has lost leverage in negotiations.

It also resembles revelation of the “Caesar” photos, sensationally splashed across the media on 20 January 2014, two days before peace talks negotiations were to commence in Switzerland.

The regular, predictable and increasingly discredited propaganda operations spun by the western powers have failed miserably to achieve the desired results. The Syrian Arab Army and its allies continue to make progress on the battlefield (bearing in mind the direct entry of Turkish and US forces along with British and French special forces resulting in the loss of Syrian land to outside invaders and occupiers) Russia and Iran continue to support Syria in its fight against terrorism, Assad remains popular with his people, safe zones have been implemented to the exclusion of western power involvement and no amount of vicious accusations, grandstanding at the UN, threats of sanctions, or any other form of psychological and political pressure brings regime change plans closer to realization.

France’s Chemical Weapons Attack Redux

The US is following the example of France, which only a couple of weeks earlier relied on previous unproven allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government as evidence to back up allegations the government used chemical weapons in an attack on Khan Shekhoun.

As Tony Cartalucci writes, the US has copied the script from this playbook.

The State Department distributed satellite photographs it said documented the gradual construction of the facility outside the main prison complex and its apparent use this year. Jones said that “newly declassified” information on this and other atrocities by the government of President Bashar al-Assad came from “intelligence community assessments,” as well as from nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and the media.

In other words, the US State Department is referencing a discredited report from Amnesty International which admittedly contained no physical evidence corroborating its claims, and additional photographs taken from outer space by imaging satellites.

What’s the next giant con going to be oh miserable US/UK/French imperialists. What outrageous atrocity can the intelligence agencies concoct to prove to us once and for all that Assad is Hitler, the embodiment of evil that made the world vow “never again.” This latest pathetic effort to demonize Assad and smear Russia and Iran by association is nothing more than old wine in new bottles. It is designed to give the US more leverage at the negotiating table, crucially needed with talks about to commence in Geneva.

Nowhere in the mainstream media reporting was the mention that Saydnaya has been used to imprison some of the most violent terrorists who wish to turn Syria into a sectarian nightmare, a failed state where lawlessness rules, Wahabbist ideology is imposed through fear and where life can be brutally short. For that matter, when the Saydnaya pack of lies first emerged there was very little acknowledgement of its role in housing terrorists. Just as there has been very little acknowledgement of the dominance of terrorists in opposition groups and that there never has been a moderate opposition in the entirety of the 6 year long war on Syria. In the mainstream media worldview the opposite is the case, the “rebels” are nearly all “moderate” apart from ISIS, who of course the western powers are taking the fight to.

The mainstream media/NATO/Gulf State/Israel version of events can be summed up by these 7 points spelled out in an article by Patrick Henningsen:

Syria’s peaceful ‘Arab Spring’ uprising happened in 2011, and was violently squashed by the government. Assad is a brutal dictator, and is illegitimate. The Syrian government and its armed forces are deliberately killing their own people. The US-NATO and Gulf-backed armed ‘rebel’ opposition is legitimate. Syrian and Russian Airforce are only killing civilians, and not militant and terrorists. Terrorists do not exist in Syria, only “moderate rebels” and Syrians ‘fighting for freedom’. Therefore, Assad must be removed from power and replaced with a US-approved government.

Out of the Way Proxies, It’s Time for Direct War

Meanwhile, we have a real threat in the south east of the country where US/UK/Jordanian Special Forces have set up a base to train the “moderate rebels” of the Free Syrian Army. Whenever a terrorist group wants to re-badge itself to perpetuate the myth of moderates in Syria it merely re-brands as FSA. To publicly justify support in this case it is essential that occurs.

This was presented by Josie Ensor, writing for the gutter press The Telegraph as “troops loyal to Assad” approaching a “UK base.” A very ominous threat by the Assad “regime,” against forces that are benevolent, there to train freedom loving rebels to fight and defeat the scourge of ISIS. No suggestion of the US forces being loyal to Trump, UK to May, or Jordan forces to King Abdullah ll. Reading Ensor, you could be forgiven for thinking Syrian troops “loyal to Assad” were about to invade the UK. But unfortunately Ensor is not alone in the inversion of reality in the war on Syria in the mainstream media. Such statements should be viewed as childish and invite ridicule. It is a measure of the full spectrum propaganda prevailing that this sort of comment is repeated ad nauseum in western media.

Scoff at this as I expect you might. But this is the clear message presented by the lying hounds of the government controlled western mainstream media. So if a clash results, it will be the dastardly loyalists attacking freedom loving rebels and the forces of the bastions of democracy.

Missing from this is that the Special Forces crossed at Al-Tanf from Jordan into Syria, not the other way around. It is not Assad loyalists approaching them, it is the SAA, much loved and admired by the people of Syria as they represent and defend them, not Assad. The SAA is moving to confront foreign invaders occupying their land.

As for the UK/US/Jordan being there to assist in the battle against ISIS, nothing could be further from the truth. We all know ISIS is a strategic asset, partially obscured by the fact it is fought depending on the location and specific political/military circumstances. The mainstream media tell us they are fought universally, a blatant lie. Over 100 dead Syrian soldiers at Deir Ezzor and their grieving families are testament to that.

The facade of involvement in Syria purely restricted to fighting ISIS allows the other version of events, that this is an invading force with its own objectives of taking, controlling and retaining land in the pursuit of balkanisation to be closed off from discussion. Given historical events in Syria, this interpretation is much more realistic and one which any serious analyst cannot fail to believe. The real dividing line is that some analysts are in favour of this. Having your cheque written in effect by the military industrial complex certainly helps in the formation of such an opinion.

The real danger of this invading force is not just clashes with Syrian soldiers, but that it may precipitate direct clashes between US and Iranian, or even US and Russian forces.

Russia has been extremely careful to avoid direct military conflict with the US, choosing not to respond to the chocolate cake inspired Tomahawk missile strikes launched by Donald Trump on the Shayrat airbase in April. Russia responds in an asymmetric manner, something which Vladimir Putin has long advocated for.

Russia has run circles around the US on the diplomatic stage, illustrated nowhere better than in the master/servant style relationship between Sergey Lavrov and the previous US Secretary of State, John Kerry. With the advent of the new administration, Russia patiently watched to determine who were the key movers and shakers in the Trump administration. With the chaos plaguing his team, aided and abetted by Democrats suffering from a bad dose of sour grapes, a media determined to oust Trump and an ugly deep state internecine war; this has taken some time to ascertain. It certainly has been fun to watch it unfold.

The rise to preeminence on foreign policy of Generals McMaster and Mattis is apparent to almost all now. Knowing they have to contend with two die hard Russophobes who are fully committed to expanding US control over the Middle East and permanently stationing troops in the region, Russia is choosing the path of inflicting diplomatic point scoring on the US. Despite all the bluster of US officials like Niki Haley, who has turned the UN into a slanging hall, and the chorus of media condemnation which attempts to convince us of the pariah state status of Russia, the reality is far different.

The US and its allies are trying to shake off the exposure of their support for Al-Qaeda. This is a message constantly drummed home. It also sits by green with envy and red with rage while its new cold war rival negotiates the peace with its NATO ally Turkey and its avowed enemy Iran. This is the in crowd of Middle East geopolitics while the US sits snarling and growling in nerds corner. The ever increasing civilian death toll in both Syria and Iraq following the ascension of Donald Trump and his decision to loosen the rules of engagement by placing more power in the hands of commanders at the battlefront is another source of criticism and deflation of credibility. Even the mainstream media is providing coverage, albeit subdued. Lastly, the US faces wide criticism as it is caught between a rock and a hard place, Turkey and the Kurds. It treads a fine line, moving decisively toward the Kurds in backing it in the battle to defeat ISIS in Raqqa. The commitment became complete with the recent decision to arm the Kurds with heavy equipment. This has drawn the ire of the already agitated Turkish leadership. The US moves are in violation of the sovereignty of Syria, it has chosen one group, the Kurds, to the exclusion of all others, and it threatens the balkanization of Syria and the imposition of Kurdistan. It weakens itself diplomatically in its aggressive land and resource grab and Russia is more than capable of capitalizing on this.

So the propaganda campaign continues unabated, the US and its allies continue their creeping presence into Syria, and the US uses the Kurds as a weapon to divide Syria further and impede its ability to liberate the entire country. Syria and its allies however hold the upper hand militarily and diplomatically. The battle to cleanse the land of terrorists and their sponsors continues.

— Paul Mansfield

Editorial notes:

Mr. Mansfield is a new contributor to SyriaNews. His previous work has included analyses of what he has named Fakerstan media: “Democracy Now Launches Anti-Syria Propaganda Campaign,” “Trust in AlQaeda: Advice from Trump, WHO, & MSM,” and “BBC: Apologize for Your Vile Reporting of Terrorist Attack on Syrians from Foua and Kefraya.”

*Amnesty held no interest in reporting on the Mass Graves and Slaughterhouses discovered in December 2016, by the Syrian Arab Army in liberated Aleppo, except — perhaps — to steal part of the title. This NGO was founded in 1961, by Peter Benensen, a British ‘attorney’ whose intention was “to mobilize world opinion”:

The underlying purpose of this campaign…is to find a common base upon which the idealists of the world can cooperate…it matters more to harness the enthusiasm of the helpers than to bring people out of prison. With regard to the latter, as a friend pointed out to me, the real martyrs prefer to suffer, and, as I would add, the real saints are no worse off in prison than elsewhere on this earth, for they cannot be prevented by stone or bars from spiritual conversation. From this last point stems the motto of the campaign, ‘The Truth Will Set You Free.’ Those whom the Amnesty Appeal primarily aims to free are the men and women imprisoned by cynicism, and doubt.

Of interest, and ignored by Fakerstan media: Saydnaya prison was visited by a Belgian delegation in Syria, led by Parliamentarian Philipp de Winter.

On 30 April 2013, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, gave an extensive press briefing on the sabotage of Syria’s request for investigation into the fatal chemical attack in Khan al Asal, 19 March 2013. This press briefing was as ignored as was the request, and the requests to investigate threats by FSA terrorists on 5 December 2012 and 21 December 2012 (both of which originated in Erdoganstan).