Kramatorsk Rail Station Massacre: Debunking Russia's Disinformation

April 10, 2022 (rough, incomplete)

More than 50 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded in a diabolical terrorist missile attack on a train station in Kramatorsk. Russia was obviously blamed for deliberately targeting the station, knowing it was crowded with civilians trying to flee the conflict in Ukraine's east.

I've been slow to start on this, but so far others have been doing quite well noting issues with this case, and widely. Key points that seem pretty well on-track to me: 

- Russia denies using the Tochka-U missile employed, while Ukraine openly uses it - Russian use is alleged prior to this, but doesn't seem to be clearly proven. Still possible, so turning to more specific evidence...

- the evident trajectory points back clearly to the southwest, all Ukrainian-held to 120km maximum range. Many, many people from both/all sides can only conclude the same. This is not even disputed, only fudged a bit hoping to connect to Russian areas almost due south. 

- the serial number on this one - ш91579 - fits with others used by Ukraine, like ш91565 used back in 2015. Just 14 units apart, these were almost certainly in the same batch sent to Ukraine many years ago.

- and other clues are well-noted, like the eerie inscription (translating "to/for [our?] children") that was probably meant to be seen, to remind Westerners of Russia's supposed fixation on killing Ukrainian children. They learned this word "ДЕТИ" recently with the Mariupol theater bombing, and will be eager to recognize it here.

My help hardly seems needed. So for now, I'll just offer this review of the responses, which I was curious about. Note the evident failure. There may well be a second layer to this story that will complicate things, but so far it seems the actual truth may be on the tip of almost everyone's tongue soon, if not already.

Scott Lucas "Debunk"

Among those "standing with Ukraine" over the Kramatorsk allegations is Professor Scott Lucas, a low-credibility propaganda-peddling British "academic" who runs the website EA Worldview. "EA" means Enduring America, the site's original name. It routinely recycles anti-Russia, pro-war and regime change fabrications fully in line with US-UK foreign policy. And he's worked with the terrorist Majdi Nema aka Islam Alloush of the Saudi-backed Syrian extremist group Jaysh al-Islam, together at the Turkish think tank "Toran Center." He smeared but failed to debunk some of my work, with others, on the Ghouta chemical massacre of 2013. That work showed pretty clearly that the same Jaysh al-Islam Lucas is affiliated with likely carried that out. Hundreds of civilians were killed. It remains extremely unsolved.

Anyway, his site's coverage of this missile massacre in Ukraine explains how Russia's motive was "to “sow panic and fear” and to kill as many people as possible." So it's right out of "the Russian playbook" and adds another page to it. It's always so obvious - you need only see damage and death and remember that only Russia can generate these things, or has the evil motive required. Yet they always think they can just deny it, and do so again, and so poor prof. Lucas is forced to again tackle "RUSSIA’S DISINFORMATION." Promoted here: "Analysts debunk #Russia disinfo trying to blame #Ukraine"

Firstly, "The Russian Defense Ministry tried to claim that Ukrainian forces struck their own civilians, saying only Ukraine has Tochka-U missiles." The Russian denial actually says: "We emphasize that the Tochka-U tactical missiles, the wreckage of which was found near the Kramatorsk railway station and published by eyewitnesses, are used only by the Ukrainian armed forces." (per CNN) They don't deny owning them. Lucas clearly misrepresents what they saw to make a straw man. No valid point raised yet. 

Next, "in mid-February the Russian Defense Ministry was boasting about the munition in exercises." It's also said the launchers are seen in Belarus in a more recent video, painted with V markings and likely headed to Ukraine. These points could be true, for all I know. What proof is there they have brought Tochka-Us in and used them at all, let alone on this drastic occasion? 

"Trying to escape responsibility, the Kremlin insisted that the Russian armed forces had no missions scheduled for Kramatorsk on Friday. " That hasn't been verified or disproven that I know of, but Lucas contrasts it with a contradictory or irrelevant note that "On Friday morning, before news broke of the mass casualties, the Russian Defense Ministry was celebrating attacks on railway stations in eastern Ukraine."

I hear they said "High-precision air-based missiles in Donetsk Region have destroyed weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian military reserves arriving in Donbass at Pokrovsk, Slavyansk and Barvenkovo railway stations." After news about a different station emerged, I bet their earlier story remained just the same. But Lucas cites Max Seddon with this word game he didn't quite feel up to replicating, but wanted his readers to see:

"Russia's defense ministry initially said it used high-precision rockets on three railway stations in the Donbas today.

But after the scale of the casualties in Kramatorsk became clear, it claimed the strike was a "provocation" that "has nothing to do with reality.""

Again, none of the three towns they named was ever Kramatorsk. THEN after this news, they blamed Ukraine for this further strike which they never claimed. That's not a story change. 

Story changes did come from some uninformed outsiders who just made bad initial guesses. Lucas cites Astra Press relating some of these: https://t.me/astrapress/2063

"The Novorossiya militia reports and power Z-channels reported that the Russian Armed Forces were firing at a “gathering of APU militants” at the Kramatorsk railway station," which messages were deleted or edited when news of mass civilian casualties emerged. "A message about this appeared in the Siloviki TV channel, it was reposted to his Russian Tarantass channel by Russian propagandist Dmitry Steshin." 

Steshin's post remains but was edited, to say (auto-translate): "How did they make a provocation with Kramatorsk? First, they threw in information through publics like "Typical Kramatorsk" about how the Russian Aerospace Forces hit the military echelon of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the station and the railway junction. They even screwed up an indistinct video with smoke. And by the way, I fell for it too. They waited until it sold out and hit "Tochka-U", which has not been in service in the Russian Federation for thirty years. In the LDNR, too, is not available and never was..." 

It sounds like "they tricked us into thinking it was Russia." Maybe they just tricked themselves. Russia claimed train station hits, this was a train station hit, but not one of those they claimed. Someone thought it was. Why is that evidence Russia was to blame? 

CIT and A Russian Use in March?

Lucas enthuses how "analysts quickly debunked the assertions" that Russia has no Tochka-U missiles. Besides clues cited above, he also gives an example - just one - of actual use: "The Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team documented Russia use of the Tochka-U in early March in northern Ukraine." Did they? No link given, but it wasn't hard to find. https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1500475853490343936

"Russia is now using older Tochka-U missile launchers against Ukraine, as seen in Desnyanka, 40 km from the border with Belarus. Videos and photos show a tell-tale 9M79M booster familiar from Syria and Karabakh. It typically remains intact when a cluster warhead is used."

Here's the photo I found around, always at this same resolution and no better. What "tale" does this engine tell?

Model number: 9M79M 

Serial number unclear: maybe ш89367 or ш89307 or ... all but the 7, really, can be seen different ways. 

catalogued Ukrainian uses: in the 5-digit M79M series: 89390, 89455, 89680, 89816, 89828, 89831, 91566, 91565. (see list widely posted around) The first three are model 9M79M, and all the rest with higher numbers are model 9M79-1. With most missiles that impacted the numbers weren't gotten, but likely fall in between and near these numbers. The one seen in Desnyanka might fit well at the head of that list, before the model switch.

Numbers aside, it seems the earliest postings of this footage claimed, with video: "Air defense of the Russian Armed Forces shot down the OTR "Tochka" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the wreckage that fell in the village of Desnyanka, Chernihiv region" https://twitter.com/Freedom_Slips/status/1500616469280792577

scene - geolocated early on: coordinayes 51.567148, 31.214945 https://twitter.com/5urpher/status/1500455104532652033

verified scene match - facing south at mid-day, this tail section is oriented and clearly traveled left to right. 

Wind will affect this tail section after it detaches, but that should only alter the trajectory a bit, not reverse it or anything drastic. Note the orientation matches with damage first to the road, then a skid to halted, all left to right. That's east to west. Here's how that maps out compared to the military situation at that time - purple = Russian-held. Inset is the area in question, pinned impact map superimposed so all roads match.

That's another clear Ukrainian forces use. Lucas had no other examples of anything but that. I asked Conflict Intelligence Team about their methodology and possibility of error - waiting for a response: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1513089322647388160

CIT may do better at tackling the trajectory and serial number problems ... but they haven't yet. They point out a SW trajectory could blame Russia, if we take "southwest" just verbally, as a random mix of "south" and "west" where we can look across a whole 1/4 of the compass to include due south. THEN it was probably the Russians, as CIT will have to conclude somehow. I haven't done my own analysis, but here is their illustration (upper left) compared with 3 other angle estimates that were presumably made according to the actual, observed evidence and providing a much narrower, but still fairly wide, range of possible angles. 

https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/1512425868815179778

What else they got? "The Russian MoD claims that Russia does not have "Tochka-U" missile systems. This is demonstrably untrue." It is untrue that they say that. They only claim to not be using them in Ukraine, not that they don't own any. CIT finds it "extremely unlikely Ukraine would risk disabling a strategic rail link in a "false flag" attack..." This rail link is likely to be Russia-controlled soon, so why leave it intact? As B at Moon of Alabama notes "As Russia has already interrupted the train lines west of Kramatorsk, and thereby stopped resupplies to it, it has no need to attack Kramatorsk station at all." The Russians will soon be taking it, and could use it. That actually gives Kiev motive to wreck it. 

"...especially given that there is ample evidence of Russian strikes on civilian areas as it is."  This March 6 strike where they incorrectly assumed Russian guilt is one of their examples to assume the same yet again. 

The Russia-based CIT excels at irrelevant wordplay, seems to fail at trajectory fudging, has no word on the serial number issue, - nothing but ideological hacks posing as investigators, feeding from and defecating back into the West's common propaganda trough. "We will still continue monitoring this situation closely," as they always say.

Conclusion

EA Worldview "debunk" in review - here's the whole thing:

RU denied attacks that day - not disproven

RU denied USING the Tochka-U at all - not disproven

CIT analysis flawed - 3/6 was UA use

February boasts - far from proof of active use 

Outside RU fans assumed Kramatorsk was a RU attack - not relevant

RU boasted of attacks on other rail stations - not relevant

Not addressed: forensic evidence, the most crucial: trajectory, serial number point to Ukrainian false-flaggers.

Motive, means, forensics, and precedent all point to Ukraine. Nothing points to Russia aside from Ukrainian and allied propaganda, and that "playbook" of prior accusations that, like this latest one, have been widely accepted and yet barely tested. "Our allies" most likely did this "to themselves" and still, as they say, it's a War Crime, an act of "pure evil." So what can "we" do about that? 

Why the OPCW Left Evidence Buried in Douma

Douma Chemical Massacre - Victim Analysis -  Why the OPCW Left Evidence Buried in Douma

November 29, 2021

last edits 11/30

On 1 March 2019, the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM)'s final report on the Douma incident, S/1731 (PDF link), was released . Its conclusions included that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe chlorine gas had been used in Douma on April 4, 2018 in an attack by Syrian military, "which witnesses said killed 43 people." 

This is generally read as saying the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) found proof the Syrian government dropped chlorine on Douma, actually causing the deaths of those 43 people. But there was never proof that it was an attack as opposed to the staged incident it seemed, and no plausible explanation has ever been offered as to how that chlorine could have killed those people as reported. They might well have been murdered in another way and arranged at the scene, just like the chlorine cylinder seemingly was. 

The final report did seek the advice of at least two sets of forensic toxicologists, trying to secure that link. But the experts refused to correlate the sudden immobilization or other observed signs and were unable to link the deaths to any specific chemical. The report tries - at least in spots - to make it sound like this was because the FFM was unable to examine the bodies of the deceased. Paragraph 2.11 states: "with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical." 2.10 explains: "the team did not have direct access to examine dead bodies, as it could not enter Douma until two weeks after the incident (see paragraph 2.2), by which time the bodies had been buried." And once they're under the dirt, apparently, it's just too late.

Exhuming the bodies isn't mentioned as an option there, but it was mentioned elsewhere in the report, and it was a possibility that was much talked about at the time. A month after the alleged attack, on 3 May, departing OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told the Financial Times they were looking into "ways to exhume and take some biomedical samples," to see if the suspected sarin could be confirmed. "It is a very sensitive process," Uzumcu said in the widely-reported interview. "That's why they are very cautious. Although our experts have been able to attend some autopsies in the past, this is going to be the first time we have exhumed bodies."  (via Taipei Times)

The OPCW had a chance to examine fatalities following on the Ghouta alleged attack in 2013 killed an "estimated" 1,429 people, but for dubious reason they had opted not to do it. UN disarmament chief Angela Kane was involved and spoke to this decision in an interview on RT: “there were so many victims who are still alive that there was really no need to exhume bodies.” Her bizarre and completely incorrect reasoning: “a dead body can’t tell how the person dies … a living person can tell you that.” (RT October 3, 2013. ‘No sarin detected in West Ghouta environment, only in human samples' - UN's Angela Kane. RT video, published October 3, 2013. (time-stamp: 12:29) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16udmn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcfIj6WLqRk ) 

And so, in 2013, the OPCW chose to extrapolate from insurgent-screened alleged survivors who claimed to be relatives of the dead. Many of these did test positive for sarin, but at what seems to be incongruously low levels, and their high rate of positives from Moadamiya wound up looking odd next to the almost total lack of sarin returns in the environment there. It seems likely these stand-ins had volunteered for token doses. Since 2004, tests can show sarin presence at concentrations as low as 5 picograms per milliliter of blood which - by my efforts to estimate it - is about 0.002% or 2/100,000 of a fatal dose at most - probably too little to even feel. And it seems the OPCW eschewed quantitative testing for that, just looking for presence at any level, allowing for such easy fakery. (See Sarin-faking in Syria)

As for the real reason to avoid confirmation: they might have been afraid of what they would find. As noted right away by Dr. Denis O'Brien, the fatalities in Ghouta did not appear to have died from sarin at all, especially the unusually pink ones in Kafr Batna, and especially the one whose neck the insurgents had to cut to finish the job. But without really checking, the OPCW decided sarin was to blame for, and that it came from the rockets widely believed to be fired by the Syrian military. (that belief has pretty well proven incorrect.)

From there, OPCW's second effort to even investigate on the ground in 2014 ended in disaster, but a fortunate one for the blaming of Damascus. A team from the newly-minted FFM set out to investigate some alleged chlorine attacks in Hama, but they were also given the locations where  insurgent allegedly assembled the "barrel bombs" and stored the chlorine associated with the claims. Perhaps learning of that, insurgents attacked and arrested the FFM team en route - maybe as "spies for Assad" - before sending them back to Damascus empty-handed. Soon a plan was arranged where the FFM would stay out of rebel areas and far away from any CW facilities they ran, and let insurgents and their closer allies like the "White Helmets" handle evidence collection for such investigation.

That was  always a gross violation of OPCW protocols. But after the attack and a "loss of trust," what choice was there but to go all-out trusting them or else sit out the whole regime-blaming exercise? That policy produced consistent results implicating the government time and again, mainly based on crediting any claims of aircraft involvement, however grounded they were in the evidence. This held until 2018 in Douma, where the establishment of government control made direct on-site examination of an alleged government attack possible, for the first time in nearly five years. Interestingly, this is where the blame machine ran into its biggest problems.

Uzumcu bragged this was "going to be the first time" bodies were exhumed and studied, but it hadn't been done yet by the 6 July Interim Report (S/1645/2018). All it said on the subject was the intention "was communicated to the Syrian Arab Republic" (some details given) and that "preliminary preparations were undertaken by the Secretariat for this eventuality." There was no word on progress, and three months after the event it was getting very late. 

In fact this heralded exhumation was never done and the reasons for that remain muddled. Three extremely different reasons have been proposed: 

1) Assad blocked the OPCW from finding the truth of his guilt

2) experts advised there was nothing to find, and so the FFM chose not to look 

3) the OPCW's investigators wanted to avoid an unacceptable and unclear "risk" related to reason 2 but predating it, perhaps concerned there was evidence of insurgent guilt they would rather not see.

Reason 1: Assad Kept OPCW From Finding the Evidence

It was on 26 April the OPCW communicated its interest in exhuming bodies, with a "note verbale NV/ODG/214827/18." On 3 May we heard those comments regarding that plan, and then the next day came the Syrian reply. Ten months later the final report would explain:

"The Syrian Arab Republic replied in Note Verbale No. 45 on 4 May 2018 and enumerated the conditions to be met in order to conduct the exhumation. With due consideration of the time elapsed since the alleged incident, the possibility was eventually not explored any further."

"Eventually" it had become too far out to bother. But the editing at least makes it sound like Damascus' conditions - which are never specified - had a part in this, perhaps in stalling it so long. In fact the Syrian government complained about this in another note verbale of 11 March, 2019, question 7:

"Paragraph 7.8 implicitly blames the Syrian Arab Republic for the fact that the bodies were not exhumed from their graves. The Technical Secretariat Sent Note Verbale NV/ODG/214827/18, dated 26 April 2018 and the Syrian Arab Republic replied, through Note Verbale 45, dated 4 May 2018, that it would continue to cooperate with the FFM and it was ready to provide all that is necessary to facilitate the work. However, the issue of exhumation is particularly sensitive and requires numerous procedures involving various entities (judicial, religious, medical). The Technical Secretariat, however, did not follow up on this issue with the Syrian National Authority, as mentioned in the same paragraph." 

The OPCW response: "No blame was understood or implied by the FFM in paragraph 7.8 of the report." Some people might read it that way, but they insist that wasn't their intention. (Source: S/1755/2019, 21 May 2019, Annex 1 pp 6-7 PDF link )

One especially vocal and diehard adherent to this reading is Scott Lucas, an English professor of American Studies and an affiliate of Jaish al-Islam, the Saudi-backed militants who are the prime alternate suspects for the Douma massacre.  Prof. Lucas has said "one of privileges of this job is meeting a lot of wonderful people on ground who, at risk to themselves, want to get story out. So that is why I have "facts", in and beyond OPCW report." (5/30/19) For example, as he posted on his EA Worldview page "Assad forces are digging up graves in a search for the bodies of victims, hoping to remove them before the OPCW inspectors can test for chemical exposure" - or at least that was claimed by "Mohammed Alloush, a senior official of the rebel faction Jaish al-Islam" (he was JAI's  political leader and a relative of founder Zahran Alloush) 

Along with representatives of US, UK, and France, the OPCW, and the United Nations, professor Lucas has suggested Syria and Russia had stalled the Douma probe in order to erase signs of sarin. The very possibility of that is debatable, and the only stalling anyone can identify was by the UN's security agency UNDSS, whose recon team was rushed into a grenade attack by militants, which stalled things a bit further (Monitor on Massacre Marketing: Swept Under the Rug, Part 1 and part 2 ) Lucas, for his part, has said "Evidence of an attack couldn't be completely scrubbed, but a lot of it could be put beyond inspectors, e.g., the bodies of the victims." (1/2/20 ) 

Lucas' extremist-linked sources have him unusually prone to believing sarin or similar was also involved: Early on he was firm: "From the multi-sources I have - Doctors, activists, Citizen Journalists - there was a stronger agent used, This was not just chlorine used in Douma." (video) He suggests this agent's total absence from the scene is because it was "scrubbed" away, and there was a similar effort to hide clues in those bodies. And while he's since accepted that chlorine alone could explain the deaths, at least with the help of a "funnel effect," as recently as September 6 (2021) he still suggests there was more to it that remains hidden: "So why were witnesses still speaking of "stronger agent" than chlorine in #Douma attack almost 3 weeks later? Because 43 victims had to buried quickly as #Russia-regime occupied city. So no one could verify actual agent." 

There was an effort to give the OPCW the location of the mass grave containing the bodies, but as Lucas explains, "Russia-regime control meant no way round talks w Damascus." (4/30/19) Those talks led to the airing of conditions, and "#Assad regime's blocking of exhumations came thru "conditions" which eventually brought OPCW withdrawal of attempt --- you can track this fm early May in other public sources." (4/30/19) This refers to the statements of intent followed immediately with the conditions and then by no exhumation, along with some "open-source" insinuations as to cause and effect. And so, he says, "OPCW never obtained “authorization” from #Assad regime to exhume bodies" (4/30/19) 

When the statement "No blame was understood or implied by the FFM"  was mentioned by Dr. Piers Robinson and Sander Hildenbrandt, Lucas replied "That's not what #OPCW final report on #Douma said so don't misrepresent it" and "That's very diplomatic language by OPCW about why they didn't go --- they refused #Assad regime conditions over further pursuit of bodies." Professor Lucas noted that the report sure read as blaming Damascus, and should be read that way, whatever they told the Syrians with tender diplomacy. Still no one can specify what these conditions were, but it's suggested they were so extreme they forced the OPCW to again abandon the study of actual fatalities in an alleged CW attack in Syria. 

And finally, Lucas asserts this is exactly why the OPCW could not prove that chlorine immobilized then killed all those people: "The reason why final #OPCW FFM report does not make definitive conclusion re chlorine is because inspectors were unable to examine bodies of victims." (12/20/19) He claims that was Assad's fault, and that the OPCW blames him for it, albeit with "diplomatic" language. And that alone suggests government guilt; after all, why block access if there's nothing to hide? It would seem like the bodies held the proof, and Assad just couldn't risk it being found. 

Reason 2: OPCW Told There Was No Evidence TO Find

Former Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker was a bit less rabid in addressing the issue of exhumation in his recent book, made available at his Al-Bab website: "The Syrians didn’t refuse but their reply was discouraging – it raised legal and other complications." (DENYING THE OBVIOUS: chapter 13 | al-bab.com)

 

Unlike Prof. Lucas, Whitaker doesn't claim these conditions were the reason for the OPCW's failure to examine the remains of those killed. As he writes in Denying the Obvious, there were initial plans to that effect, but "as time went on the OPCW began to have doubts about pursuing their request." And so "[t]wo months after the events in Douma, OPCW staff sought advice from a group of toxicologists in Germany" and this, Whitaker asserts, is where they got the idea to not bother digging up the bodies. The OPCW stopped themselves from looking, he argues, because there was simply no point to it. And they learned this on a trip to Germany in June.

This June 6 meeting has been the issue of some controversy. In the end, two groups of toxicology experts were consulted for the FFM's investigation. One set in September and October, 5-6 months after the incident, was cited in the final report in 2019, while this earlier visit in June was omitted from all public sources until the minutes of the meeting were leaked later in 2019. (WikiLeaks - actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted and see also my post from then: Douma Toxicology: Erasing-and-replacing the Correct Answers)

Just the other day, Aaron Maté at the Gray Zone published an e-mail by OPCW whistleblower Brendan Whelan to then-former colleagues at the OPCW protesting how that meeting was erased from the record, and urging them to help elevate these concerns so they might be addressed. In part, Whelan said: "I believe it is our professional and moral obligation to ensure the DG appreciates the gravity of the matter. There may be a justified reason for the omission – though I can’t imagine what. At a minimum a satisfactory explanation has to be provided." This was on August 23, 2019 and it doesn't seem to have been much help. Soon the minutes were leaked so the public could help raise the issue instead and, as the article notes, the OPCW started a process of investigation and punishments against Whelan. 

It's worth noting Whitaker's effort to minimize this hushed-up consultation. As he explains its purpose: "[The investigators] wanted to know what information might be gleaned from exhuming the bodies and, in particular, whether this might reveal any evidence of exposure to chlorine gas." That sounds like the entire purpose. "The toxicologists advised that for a variety of reasons, including the time since burial, “there would be little use in conducting exhumations, as the chances of gathering evidence would be almost impossible.” 

Their input on the subject was sound, but that question alone hardly seems worth a whole meeting, even in-country. Exposure to a caustic gas like chlorine leaves little to no identifying chemical trace, just non-specific damage to the lungs that can be observed as consistent. See Australia study: "the absence of biomarkers and non-specific findings at autopsy complicate the diagnosis [of chlorine poisoning], particularly as environmental levels are not stable." This applies from the moment of death, but two weeks of decay couldn't help matters. 

In fact, the German experts "were unaware of any such exhumations being done in the past to provide evidence of chlorine exposure," and they saw little reason to expect otherwise in Douma. Furthermore, the lung tissue where signs would be clearest "would likely have degraded" too badly by then to say anything at all. And so, as the summary phrases it, "the highly experimental nature of of the exercise in such a public forum would represent a risk to benefit ratio that was unacceptably high." We'll return to this phrase. 

"Following that, the plan for exhumations was abandoned," Whitaker writes, and "the FFM based its decision on the toxicologists' advice." Later on, the FFM would claim "with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical." In fact even with these things it seems unlikely, as they privately knew. But this "inability" to access the bodies was semantically pinned on Damascus elsewhere in the report, and so they had to keep highlighting that as something that mattered. Publicly.

So... expert advice said don't bother digging up the bodies, and that's exactly why the FFM never did so. This is certainly a more grounded explanation than prof. Lucas offers or than the FFM's final report would suggest, and seems to be at least part of the real answer. But this reading does gloss over at least one important issue; exhumation might NOT have been a waste of time. 

Assuming the bodies buried are the same ones we've seen, there was probably little value in confirming the non-specific lung damage behind the pulmonary edema that was already evident in the images. An April, 2019 briefing note of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) agreed, but explained:

"...it would still have been possible to obtain DNA samples, which might have allowed victims to be identified through matching with living relatives and with each other. Other identifying information might have been obtained from clothing, items in pockets or X-rays. Establishing the identity of the victims would have been critical in determining whether those who came forward to give interviews reporting that their relatives had died at Location 2 were telling the truth."

Noting bodies should be stripped, washed, and specially wrapped prior to burial - and some were seen so wrapped - the pockets clues would be unlikely (and of dubious value to begin with). But the rest all held some promise of shedding light on the mysterious circumstances of their deaths. I'll go into this in a little more detail below under reason 3, OPCW risk avoidance. 

Whitaker sums up the Working Group's thrust fairly enough before trying to rebut it (bolding mine): 

"Among those who defend the Assad regime against accusations of using chemical weapons, the quasi-academic Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media has previously criticised the OPCW for its "failure to proceed with exhumations". The Working Group suggests the bodies photographed in Douma were not local residents killed by the regime in a chemical attack but captives killed by rebels in a "managed massacre". It implies the OPCW didn't exhume them for fear of what might be revealed."

"However, the leaked minutes of the June meeting offer a far more straightforward explanation: that the FFM based its decision on the toxicologists' advice." 

They don't seem to have addressed DNA identification, or any other aspect aside from that of chemical exposure. Despite the limits, much could have been learned from a look at the fatalities. But the FFM tossed these clues aside without adequate explanation. There must be a reason, and we can guess it was "fear of what might be revealed."

Whitaker suggests exhumation was the only question raised in the June meeting, specifying "it appeared not to have been regarded as a full-scale “expert consultation” about the likely cause of deaths." This suggests it was always the plan to look into that central question only in September and October, at least 5 months after the incident. This is similar to the engineering study of how the cylinders came to be where they were seen, another important question officially un-addressed until October-November, but secretly addressed months before with an inconvenient and omitted engineering report. As such, the "on-going" work in these two areas that was mentioned in the public interim report of July (PDF) was allegedly still months away from even beginning. Or perhaps the reasonably-timed first tries had failed to produce the results they wanted.

Whitaker is also clear that the value of exhumation is what the FFM "wanted to know" in June. Maybe it was not the only thing they asked about, but "in particular" it was the meeting's "most immediate purpose" or (in an earlier piece) it was "the first topic raised" in Germany. Their meeting, he wrote, "lasted about an hour and after the discussion of exhumations it turned" - as conversations sometimes wander off course - "to the question of possible chlorine use" and whether it even could explain the observed fatalities. The experts offered a resounding NO. In fact, after seeing numerous images "the experts were also of the opinion that it was highly unlikely that victims would have gathered in piles at the centre of the respective apartments at such a short distance from an escape" to fresh air, and then just lay there and die, if they had simply been exposed to chlorine. Also: 

In the opinion of one employee who had been at the meeting and heard the fuller explanation, that suspicion was "fueled by" by how the deaths "do not match chlorine rather than corpses arranged for propaganda purposes." (WikiLeaks - correctly_redacted_emails_re_toxicology_minutes) 

These are notably astute observations, but luckily - as Whitaker tells it - those questions weren't really raised or relevant at the moment. A "full-scale “expert consultation” about the likely cause of deaths" was only slated for a few months later. These experts did chime in the point, but only the later opinions were actually sought and actually mattered.

However, it turns out cause of death was something they wanted to know already. The meeting minutes start by explaining "The purpose of the visit was two-fold:

1. To solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims...

2. To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims ...more specifically ... whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine ..."

The chief expert's "propaganda exercise" comments were in response to this less "particular," less "immediate" "second item" of discussion. Furthermore, as related in the summary, "the team gathered after the meeting" and it was "agreed by all present that the key "take-away message" from the meeting" (my bolding) "was that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine..." (underlined in original). The uselessness of exhuming bodies was also discussed, but it wasn't the only subject, nor even the "key" one. 

It remains odd how no one at the time took down a record of this official meeting that would later also go unmentioned, and it was down to whistleblower Whelan to assemble one from memory. But this belated record was reviewed by others (e-mails seen - Wikileaks) and none of this was contested. Some wording was tweaked, and then the expert advice was included in the draft interim report: 

"The rapid, and in some reported cases, immediate onset of frothing described by victims is not considered consistent with exposure to chlorine-based choking or blood agents. The opinion of a number of toxicologists, specialists in chemical-weapons-related intoxication supported this assessment."

...

"It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas, victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building, which was within a few metres away." ... etc.  (source: WikiLeaks - FirstdraftInterimReport)

Brian Whitaker had to realize the June meeting was in fact an “expert consultation” about cause of death. Note how he had to qualify his disputation by saying that "it appeared not to have been regarded as a full-scale" one - whatever that means. 

The offered opinions were actually sought, but then rejected and withheld from the public record. The draft interim report's timeline stops on June 3, just before this meeting, but it was probably meant to be updated to note the source of several cited points. Then the public interim report in July dropped all of that and skipped the timeline, and said only that work on toxicology was "on-going," like "in progress." But if so, the first part of it was never published; it was totally replaced in the final report with the second set of toxicologists, and the consultation in Germany is not on the final report's updated timeline of activities or noted anywhere therein. 

The final report should reflect the preferred toxicologists' input, but they're not cited with any specifics for or against chlorine death, just mentioned as being consulted. The report says "[A]n agent capable of  quickly killing or immobilising" was suspected, but chlorine is not particularly capable of that. A string of observed and reported symptoms were found mostly inconsistent with chlorine, with a few being debatable and/or extremely vague. Therefore, " determination of the aetiology from these observations can be related to a wide scope of chemicals" but "it is currently not possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical" - not even the only possibly relevant one they had found at the site. 

Whitaker writes "Alex’s supporters preferred the version set out in Whelan’s minutes of the June meeting and accused the OPCW of cherry-picking – listening to some toxicologists while ignoring others." ("Alex" apparently was Whelan, under a pseudonym Whitaker helped blow by doxxing this whistleblower.) But he offers no effective rebuttal; they clearly did pick one set and made the other vanish. The one they picked was a relative cherry compared to what they heard in Germany, although it seems far from ideal for their purposes (but we can guess the preferred set of experts refrained from theorizing about a staged "propaganda exercise" at least).

The FFM final report concludes it's "reasonable" to think a chlorine cylinder "impacted" the apartment building and that chlorine alone caused these deaths. But even with all this effort, they couldn't link it to any of the specific details OF those deaths. Maybe this is "why final #OPCW FFM report does not make definitive conclusion re chlorine." Even the B team wouldn't clearly say that, and they didn't want to drag it out looking for a C team. 

So ... "key" message aside, Whitaker credits the ignored German experts with the FFM's decision to leave the bodies out of the investigation. He says their reasoning was "straightforward," but if so, why did the FFM never publicly mention its basis, in fact ignoring or editing out all reference to the meeting it came from? And why did they instead lead people to read that Syria's "discouraging" but unspecified conditions were to blame? (and that was indeed implied)

While this all reflects a real aspect of the investigation, it may not be their full, true, or original reason.

Reason 3) OPCW "Risk" Avoidance

As we eventually learned, whistleblower Whelan was the main one drafting the FFM's interim report, which at one point cited a third reason never mentioned by OPCW leadership or their helpers in the media, like Lucas and Whitaker. By this, the decision to leave bodies unexamined hinged on the chemical analysis received two weeks before that Germany meeting and a resultant ... you could say "fear of what might be revealed." 

On 22 May,  the first laboratory results were received by the FFM team, and "no nerve agents or their decomposition products were detected" among them, just chlorine, a basic irritant or caustic agent. There should be nothing much to confirm, and this raised the question if that even could explain the deaths, and those are the two things they asked about in Germany. The draft report, circulating sometime in June, apparently after the Germany meeting, includes the same passage we've seen about intent to exhume, here as paragraph 6.8, followed by a second paragraph that was cut out of the public report, giving some follow-up we weren't supposed to see.

It's worth noting how Brendan Whelan primarily drafted this, perhaps as he was already forming his more "activist" views. As such, we can't be sure this is just what the FFM would otherwise be planning to say publicly. A passage like this can't show anyone's true and secret thinking, but this one... might include some "snark" or reveal more than usual. Otherwise, let's take it as what the interim report was planning to say. 

Here paragraph 6.9 says "the plans for exhumations were halted" as or because "proceeding with the exhumations presented a risk to benefit ration [sic] that was no longer acceptable." This was when they got back the samples in late May - NOT after hearing Assad's impossible "conditions" in early May, NOR after consulting with experts on June 6, as Brian Whitaker's book argues. 

The wording here does clearly recall the advice from the German exerts; as put in the summarized minutes, "the highly experimental nature" of digging for chlorine clues 2 months on "would represent a risk to benefit ratio that was unacceptably high." But it's not clear if that was the experts' own wording added to the pre-existing case against exhumation. It may also be an idea the Fact-Finding Mission had formed two weeks earlier, maybe tacked onto a prior consultation over cause of death, and the experts were just seen as confirming it. But either way, when the question was put to them, it may have been to secure a public reason for a decision the FFM had already made, perhaps for other reasons. 

It's not immediately clear what "risk" is referred to here. Again, no specific chemical signs were expected, which speaks to lacking the kind of "benefit" they had hoped for with sarin returns. And the same lack of specifics might be read by some as a lack of evidence that should exist, or as evidence against a chemical release. Although a solid case could still be made based on all evidence combined, a risk of confusion would be raised. The bit about it all being in "such a public forum" supports that.

Exhumation takes work and raises complications, but aside from misreading, it shouldn't pose any legitimate risk, although a few illegitimate kinds are possible. Consider that chlorine could hardly explain the deaths anyway, as the FFM had clarified by the same experts in Germany. The value of confirming something that doesn't even help the case might be low, and in fact it might be better left unconfirmed, to leave possibilities open. As Aaron Maté recently reported: 

"When the original report was being finalized, there were still dozens of samples remaining to be analyzed. Accordingly, the inspectors left it open that further analysis could in theory turn up new evidence and hypothesized that: "a. The victims were exposed to another highly toxic chemical agent that gave rise to the symptoms observed and has so far gone undetected." 

"This passage — with its mention of the toxicologists’ assessment and a hypothesis leaving open the possibility of a staged incident — was never published by the OPCW. And the team would never get the chance to continue this critical area of investigation."

Final lab results still showing no nerve agents at the scene would clarify that point only in February, 2019, allowing the final report in March. But until then hope was held out; in June, the toxicology minutes have team leader Sami Barrek pursuing this line of inquiry with little effect

Maybe the OPCW's investigation leaders didn't want to to risk their wiggle-room to hypothesize different agents to blame Syria with. Ruling that out with autopsies would end it. And then if it was found the victims died from sarin or similar after all - when environment samples didn't show the same thing - it could mean site-scrubbing if that were possible, OR probably that those Syrian people died somewhere else that the OPCW's insurgent partners were hiding. 

Or they might have found some contradictory clue as to how the victims died, like that they weren't gassed at all. The draft report had mentioned a possibility that "The fatalities resulted from a non-chemical-related incident," suggesting the scene was staged with corpses from elsewhere. And again there was the risk of finding by DNA that the victims were not the people claimed. It could even be shown that they specifically were other people last seen being kidnapped by the Jaysh al-Islam militants occupying Douma and Eastern Ghouta at large. And the search might have found signs of bondage during the gassing, or some other clues of how they died the OPCW leadership and its sponsors didn't want to risk seeing. 

When there can be no good answer worth proceeding on, what's the motive to find which bad answer is true? Especially if one is able to use the flexibility of ignorance to further one's agenda? The course the OPCW's investigators chose has left the situation mysterious and malleable for the Lucasses and Whitakers of the world, and that may be the main reason they left that evidence buried in Douma.

Conclusion

In summary, the clinicopathologic evidence was seen as presenting a stated "risk," and perhaps other secret risks, which the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission wanted to avoid. The nature of that is still unclear, and may be innocent, as Brian Whitaker proposes; they risked finding nothing. But it seems the decision to leave the fatalities unexamined was internal to the OPCW and driven by a desire to actually avoid some of the evidence. 

This is what the WGSPM briefing note had suggested, and as it still seems was the case with Ghouta, as well as with all the incidents in between where the OPCW allowed the likely perpetrators to handle much of the investigation. Such avoidance would be in line with suppression or omission of engineering, toxicological, and other evidence that complicated the politically convenient findings for Syrian guilt. 

And whatever the true reason for neglecting this evidence, OPCW leadership saw fit to put forth unfounded suggestions of other reasons that would themselves implicate the government side. Altogether this suggests - as the global public is finally coming to realize - this corrupted organization's intent was never to ascertain the truth, but just to further the dirty information war against Syria on behalf of the corrupting powers that have seized it.

Ghouta 2013 reports: Scott Lucas Debunk Non-Efforts

Adam Larson

July 13, 2020 (rough, incomplete)

<< Ghouta 2013 Reports 

Compared to the first debunk efforts, this part 2 includes a far less substantive response: one baseless, a priori dismissal, out of 11 people and a group that were asked. And just look who it comes from...

1) Approach 1: Ignore the report

1.1) War crime denier, pants on fire

These rare words on our reports start from Aaron Maté's tweets of June 19 that started: 

"Well before OPCW's Douma cover-up, allegations of Syrian gov't chemical attacks made no sense. False-flags by sectarian death squad "rebels" did." 

Looking for mainstream media supports - and there aren't very many - he reaches for the generally credible veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. "In Ghouta 2013, Sy Hersh exposed that US intel knew the "rebels" did it. A new open-source study argues how:" https://rootclaim-media.s3.amazonaws.com/syria2013evidence.pdf

Aaron added links to Hersh's reporting on the attack at the London Review of Books (Whose sarin? - The red line and the rat line) and said "Obama later confirmed Hersh when he recalled that the US intel on Ghouta was not "slam dunk" -- a deliberate choice of words." (https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/)

Professor Scott Lucas responded June 19 : 

"Even by @AaronJMate's low standards, this is a dumpster fire of War Crimes denial.

1. Hersh was discredited, even before publication by misguided @LRB, for his poor sourcing, false claims, & conspiracy theory --- Which is why  @NYBooks  & others rejected piece

2. More dissection of Hersh's misinfo on #Syria sarin attack: https://eaworldview.com/2014/04/syria-special-dissecting-hershs-insurgents-chemical-weapons-attacks-sequel/ 

3. Only a buffoon would say "#Obama...confirmed Hersh" that #EastGhouta was "false flag"

#Obama said there was substantial evidence of #Assad regime responsibility 

3. What #Obama says in April 2016 is that as, of August 31, 2013, #Assad responsibility for #EastGhouta sarin attack had not been 100% established

That's 1 reason why he emphasized need for UN inspections, which were being hindered by Assad regime

And finally "4. Beyond @AaronJMate's disinfo, what is interesting is his move from denier of #Syria chemical attacks to position that chemical attacks were "false flags" by anti-#Assad forces"

In other words, he's now aligned w Assad regime, #Russia State, & fringe conspiracy theorists.

1.2) Conflicts of Interest 

First, understand a bit about Scott Lucas. Current Twitter bio: professor of American studies at the University of Birmingham, Founder @EA_WorldView . Co-Founder @AmericaUnfltrd / @Dive_Politics . Prof Emeritus @UniBirmingham . Associate, @Clinton_InstUCD . Political analyst on TV and radio. 

His strongly interventionist and propagandistic EA Worldview is a spin-off of Enduring America (The Guardian still notes Lucas is the "founder of the Enduring America website on US politics and foreign policy"). Originally, as I recall it seeming, Enduring America was a post-9/11 pro-war site with the Pentagon as its logo. A writer at the old EA, James Miller, had in 2013/14 denied the genocidal Adra Massacre by Jaysh al-Islam and Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra. For that I said Miller could endure my urine. 

And at one point, Enduring America's founder prof. Lucas would also be a scholar affiliated with a Turkey-based Toran Center, which was co-directed by Majdi Nema, the former spokesman for and and militant with the same Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jaysh al-Islam, whose massacres and crimes Lucas denies as possible to the present day (see Douma, Academics and Mass-Murder Coverup). In fact, one of those is under immediate discussion - August 21, 2013 in Eastern Ghouta. See these infographics, and some further details below.

And here's an excerpt from my 2nd report Lucas and the rest have even less to say about, on the motive and capabilities of Jaysh al-Islam (then called Liwa al-Islam),. From section 4.2.3 "What Does Nema Know?"

It’s not exactly clear who would be involved in something as huge as possibilities 3 or 4, but to launch 

these rockets in the identified area, they would include militants that were part of - or at least allied with - Liwa al-Islam (LI). In tacit partnership with Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra, LI had by mid-2013 positioned themselves to lead any march on Damascus, like if the 2011 Libya scenario were repeated. Therefore, it is they who arguably stood the most to gain from Obama’s “red line” being crossed like it was on August 21 2013.

And it is their leader Zahran Alloush (below, 2nd from right) who was excited, on August 13, that "the final steps in preparing a new surprise for the regime are about to be completed.” He was reportedly at a meeting of opposition forces in Turkey, which was held in Antakya, on August 13-14, as separately reported by Yosef Bodansky. He added that regional commanders were briefed there on “a war-changing development” which was “imminent” and would “lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria” and an “escalation of the fighting.” Bodansky heard that prediction came from senior commanders after a higher-level meeting in Istanbul, and that increased weapon shipments followed.

These reports could be a mix of truth, coincidence, and even fake news, and this part is just imagined; for all we know, this Istanbul meeting was real and discussed a bold prediction by commander Alloush,“a tip from his mole” that Assad was planning a huge sarin attack around the 21st likely to kill over 1,000. Consider that UN-OPCW inspectors were set to arrive 4-5 days later, and a week later came a surprise for some: that red line was crossed in a truly massive and undeniable way with hundreds dead and sarin quickly “confirmed” by those inspectors. U.S.-led military intervention was seriously threatened for the first time, and only averted under extraordinary circumstances.

LI had serious financial resources and enjoyed friendly relations with Jabhat al-Nusra, who were reportedly producing sarin right there in E. Ghouta. Therefore, Liwa al-Islam controlled both the area the sarin was made in and the spot the sarin rockets were seemingly fired from. It is Alloush’s LI who may have brazenly implicated themselves in a video launching that very attack. And it is they who have some 3,000-5,000 largely civilian prisoners left unaccounted-for.

It is therefore ironic that France already has a possible suspect in custody, even as they are to consider new punishments against Damascus over this crime.

And Scott Lucas in a sense works for that very suspect, or did. Majdi Nema's arrest likely ended that relationship, if nothing else before or after did. Operations may continue, but Toran Center activity on Facebook stopped soon after January 16, 2020, just before his arrest, and their Twitter account does about the same. And to be fair, it's not clear the Toran center ever did much. What's interesting is how Prof. Lucas was willing to be a part of it.

1.3) Assessing the Response

Lucas does have a point in his response to Aaron Maté, limited as it is. We can't be sure what Obama knew and thought, but he probably didn't mean to confirm Hersh's claims or implications, per se. That would mean admitting his "red line" threat/offer had sparked a terrorist massacre of innocents, which he nearly bombed a sovereign nation for. He would not likely admit to that ever. However if he knew the evidence was for Assad's guilt was super-weak and may fall apart some day, he might wisely allow for an 'outside chance' he was wrong. And the more we learn, the more it seems he should have had major doubts.

But Lucas makes it sound like Obama was about 99% sure he did not enable a mass murder, carried out by Prof. Lucas' Toran-AQ buddies. He makes it sounds like only Assad supposedly preventing inspection of ... something ... kept Obama from snagging that last one percent of certainty. And so it must that Assad did it, and everything to the contrary (including our forensic analysis - which again he didn't even address) must be wrong. 

I didn't review the EA Worldview piece and I don't know offhand all the claims Hersh made in his Ghouta articles, or how they all panned out. I've seen some claims from his intelligence sources fail to even make sense (notably re:Khan Sheikhoun, 2017), and don't take any of it as gospel. But I don't just toss it aside either. One detail that still seems possibly relevant is the Iraqi chemist Hersh heard about, making sarin for Jabhat Al-Nusra in Eastern Ghouta, in mid-2013. I asked if that specific claim was specifically debunked, or "do we dismiss that possibility in a baby-bathwater sense?" He didn't answer. I don't think it's been debunked, and it might well be true. That might've been Ziyad Tariq Ahmad's sarin the inspectors found with the unique "chemical fingerprint." See Whose Hexamine? 

The first use of this particular sarin was against Syrian Arab Army troops and mostly Shia civilians in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, on March 19, 2013, just a few days after opposition forces had been driven out of the town. One soldier and 19 civilians were killed, but Jabhat al-Nusra was blamed, and it took a long time for Western powers to realize or admit that was sarin (as Syria and Russia had suspected or claimed from the start) When they finally checked the impurities that had the Russians calling it "cottage industry" stuff, these signs were known. They'd been confirmed in other cases including another sarin attack on SAA troops in Jobar on August 24, 3 days after the Ghouta sarin attack. And it happened about 400 meters from the opposition-controlled site from which - as we just proved - the sarin rockets were fired 3 days earlier. (see here or my new report for some details) And of course the sarin in the infamous 12 volcanos used to kill 1,000+ also matched the stuff used in Khan al-Assal and Jobar. Must be the regime! 

The same stuff had already turned up in Saraqeb at least, but after Ghouta failed to elicit a regime-change war that might let Jaysh al-Islam seize power in Damascus, there was a long and telling pause in its use. Finally that same telltale sarin would resurface in Al-Nusra administered al-Latiminah and Khan Sheikhoun in 2017, so "Assad" could find out if Trump had his own "Red Line." 

Having learned he did, almost exactly a year later on April 7, 2018, the same sarin was supposed to turn up in Douma, where Jaysh al-Islam was facing complete defeat even in their last bastion. Just before their inevitable surrender and the release of ~200 largely-civilian prisoners (out of an estimated 3,500-5,000 they once had) "Assad" attacked again. 35 piled bodies were found a few floors below a manually placed chlorine cylinder, as some kind of advance on early claims of 180-200 killed by sarin. Prof. Lucas seemed especially sure of that: to Turkish TRT World April 24, 2018 he said "From the multi-sources, I have Doctors, activists, Citizen Journalists there was a stronger agent used, this was not just chlorine used in Douma." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYOLXpzj0vw (props to Michael Martin). He doesn't mention any terrorist sources, but it's true that many others made claims pointing that way, including US officials saying they had sarin-positive urine samples. But something went wrong and it never did get released to be found at the only place where (it's now claimed) a significant number of people died. Only chlorine was found, and that at disputed levels, and only 43 died. 

Okay ... Lucas had no answer to the most relevant question over his general non-answer. He also had no word at all on the new study that really adds and "explains how" in fact the foreign-backed terrorists - most likely the same ones Lucas is affiliated with - were responsible (as they would be in Douma, 2018 and as they were in Adra, 2013, and beyond). He could only nitpick the supporting sources.

2) Approach 2: say random bad things about the report 

2.1) The little oxygen he could spare for our "scam"

Rootclaim tweet June 18 linked to the report and summary, asking "Does anyone have a response or rebuttal?" This was one of several bulk alerts sent out, addressed to these 12 accounts, mainly promoters of the establishment narratives on Syria:  

@bellingcat Bellingcat, the western-funded open-source investigators famously founded by...

@EliotHiggins Eliot Higgins, who would say in 2018: "The presence of hexamine at every confirmed Sarin attack shows the hexamine is part of the Syrian government’s manufacturing process."  

@Brian_Whit Brian Whitaker: Journalist, former Middle East editor of the Guardian newspaper. Author of 'Arabs Without God: Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Middle East'. Occasional expert expert on the OPCW coverup scandal for Democracy Now, doxxer of whistleblowers at the heart of the scandal, Bellingcat ally  

@ChrisDYork Chris York Journalist/Студент. Formerly senior editor and reporter @HuffPostUK. Formerly there he engaged in almost insanely frequent attacks on independent analysis, especially the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media

@Josiensor Josie Ensor US Correspondent @Telegraph . Previously in the Middle East. Recipient of Marie Colvin Award. Associate Fellow at @ICSR_Centre

@_RichardHall Richard Hall British journalist covering America for @Independent after a long stint in Beirut. Formerly with @AFP and @TheWorld

@KreaseChan Kristyan Benedict Amnesty International UK Campaigns Manager: Crisis & Tactical, Syria. 

@DanKaszeta - Dan Kaszeta: US Secret Service, supposed chemical weapons expert, Bellincat ally, 2nd person (after OPCW insider JP Zanders) to assert w/roughly zero reason that Syria used hexamine in its sarin production, implicating them for the many attacks where that was found, including Ghouta.

@tobiaschneider - Tobias Schneider: Peace & Security ∙ Research Fellow at @GPPi ∙ Edit @SyriaContext ∙ @SAISStrat alum

@gregkoblentz Gregory Koblentz Associate Professor and Director of Biodefense Graduate Program in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. supposed chemical weapons expert, Bellingcat ally

@MsJulieLenarz Director of Social Media at American Jewish Committee @AJCGlobal . Background in Islamist extremism and counter-terrorism. 

AND of special note is @ScottLucas_EA: Like the rest, he had nothing to say at first. But then a "Lex Brody" popped in 5 days later to note the complete lack of reply from all 12 addressed accounts. A gif declared it was so quiet you could "here a cricket fart in here." Lucas alone finally replied, to finally address the report itself: 

"12 accounts realized that this is a scam operation, combining grift and disinformation." 

LB: So you take time to call it a scam operation, but you can't include one link that discredits this analysis.

SL: There's no analysis to discredit and I don't intend to give any more oxygen for scammers to breathe. If you're interested in actual information, (spam-links own site)

That's all he had to say. No one else spoke up, except for Dan Kaszeta who had popped in to reply to Lex Brody in the middle of that exchange: 

Lex didn't seem sure either, but it's because he was tagged in by Rootclaim. And that was because ... well, I'm not sure exactly why, but again, Kaszeta was the second person (after OPCW insider JP Zanders) to assert with roughly zero reason that Syria used hexamine in its sarin production, implicating them for the many attacks where that was found, including Ghouta. He first told this to Eliot Higgins, and then it was picked up by the NEW YORK TIMES, and remains influential in convincing the masses of the establishment's regime-change line. His disinformation here has essentially been proven wrong. But he can't be bothered about it now. 

2.2) Follow-up? Nope.

I was curious how they had come to this realization. The only specific I've seen to declare "disinformation" was its being called "recycled disinformation" by a few people. That was due to a flawed impression of "recycling," caused by poor reading comprehension on the part of wheel-spinning KJohnson, and "disinformation" slapped on for no valid reason whatsoever. (see debunks post 1 - Saar meant what he had just said in our discussion in March was based on seeing Michael's 2020 report just then, and initially disagreeing with major points - he never said that Rootclaim's analysis from 2017 was based on Michael's 2020 report, because that's not true and makes no sense)

As I formalized my response to Lucas et al. in later tweets 

On "Grift": maybe Rootclaim is meant to [be] developed and sold, if that makes sense (?). If so, using flawed "disinformation" to corroborate their method would be unwise. Either way my interest is in the claim of "disinformation." ...

That takes MISinformation + deceptive intent. While the latter is SUGGESTED (the lies are for "grift"), it's not really shown, and - more to the point - the information has never been shown to be amiss in the first place, and it's seeming like it never will be.

My challenge to Lucas and the other 11 - completely unanswered.

Of course @ScottLucas_EA sees no "analysis" in our Ghouta reports - just "a scam operation, combining grift and disinformation." Nevermind the forensic analysis he can't address, can he even spare a breathe to explain that claim? Free platform ->

Of course he rejected that. Re-linking the report and Lucas' review I asked the other 11 accounts if they had anything to add (actually sent only 7/10 ): "a last call for any words before I add to my debunks post"  - "who realized what & how?" - "So far Prof. Lucas is here, basically defending his boss' boss. He's spoken for the rest of you. Anything to add?"

He was talking about the detailed, irrefutable research of people he generally accuses of dishonesty and distant loyalty to Bashar al-Assad, "deniers" of war crimes, detestable people. He says it's wrong and a con. Pointing to his gross conflict of interest and his total lack of reason to dismiss our work, I again asked the others. And they generally seemed happy with letting his few words speak for them. They're of roughly the same mind as  this disinformation-spewing "academic" just 2 people removed from the probable mastermind of the chemical massacre he insists on denying. Is that a good mind to be like? 

They all have stuck with a silent treatment of tacit denial - so far. But I think things will change on that account, and this story won't be so ignorable for much longer. There will surely be a part 3 - at least - in this series on debunk attempts, slurs, and the like. Stay tuned, or remember to tune back in.

Douma, Academics, and Mass Murder Coverup

By Adam Larson 
aka Caustic Logic (as usual)
June 16, 2019
(same day edits - may include later updates)
last updates and edits June 18

So someone is covering for mass murder
A professor of International Politics at Birmingham University (UK), Scott Lucas, recently tweeted "So this UK ex-academic, to cover up #Assad mass murder of civilians in #Douma, is now accusing international inspectors of #OPCW of.... Covering up mass murder." He was referring to my friend Dr. Piers Robinson, founding member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media, of which I'm also a member.

update June 17 This term "ex-academic" is clearly a dig at Dr. Robinson ending his job as a professor at the University of Sheffield, back in April. (ex-academy/Univ. = "ex-academic") There had been pressure on the university to have him canned as a dangerous conspiracy theorist, aggravating some very fragile pursuits of "global justice" with some too-smart questions - there were smear pieces in the Huffington Post, etc. A gloating follow-up at HuffPost (amplified by others as here by cyber-thug academic Idrees Ahmad) seemed to hope they helped have Robinson canned, but he said no pressure, just circumstances and his own choice. It was right at that time, but whatever - he stands by that.

It's all gotten a bit political, really. Some misguided people or others dragged reality into dispute (and just who is disputed).

For what it's worth, Piers still directs an 'academic' organization (Organisation for Propaganda Studies) besides the Working Group, (semi-academic? including even current academics) And as he reminds me "I am a journal editor. At the very least I am accurately described as an Independent Researcher but most would see me still as an 'academic'" … besides between jobs as an actual academy-nested scholar. Also he says the move allows more time to work on the more important things he's doing now, and I think this is already paying off, so I guess … gloat away. Anyone curious also might compare the researchgate.net profiles of the public minds Scott Lucas vs. Piers Robinson for more context.
- - End update.

The WGSPM's case is strong, and this is where the evidence has always pointed. If the scene was staged (and this is getting clearer all the time), and considering all the mysteries surrounding the bodies' appearance, there would be - and likely WAS - a chemical mass murder, as in gas chambers. It would be even clearer in the intent than any remote killing with a dropped weapon, especially if it's just barely-fatal chlorine. That could almost be a fluke on top of an accident. But locals locking men, women, and children into poison-filled rooms until they were dead  … would be pretty darn clear.

 And it would almost certainly be done by Jaish Al-Islam, the Douma-based "Army of Islam" or "Islam Army." And in that likely scenario Prof. Lucas laughs off, this smug UK academic would be helping to cover it up, papering over the gaps in logic as he does with appeals to authority, distraction, and baseless smearing of his opponents.

For Prof. Scott Lucas, it's what the OPCW says and not, for example, what the Islam Army says. It's about the same thing, as it so happens, but note who he prefers to cite …

The Toran Center-Douma connection
It should also be noted Prof. Lucas works with the former spokesman, the public face, for that group, the prime culprits for this possible mass murder - he helped them deny crimes in the past, like professionally. As fellow Working Group member Vanessa Beeley wrote recently for UK Column, he does so as a consultant for something called the Toran Center for Strategic Studies, which "appears to have been established in early 2016, just after Russia had intervened" in Syria at the government's request. The center confirmed to her at time of writing that Lucas was still on staff as a consultant in 2019.

"Toran" is apparently Turkish, meaning "the mother nation of all Turks worldwide" as Beeley heard. They seem to be based in Istanbul, and claims are their largest source of funding is the rogue Erdogan regime in Turkey. But its operating languages are Arabic and English.

website: http://torancenter.org/ - many articles in Arabic

http://torancenter.org/en/ - maybe just the two articles on (it seems) understanding a couple of obscure Islamist formations in Syria?

https://twitter.com/ToranCenter (Arabic) and https://twitter.com/ToranCenterEN, a self-described "independent institution that aims to build an intellectual edifice based on scholarly foundations that places the reader at the heart of current policies." That sounds deep. They also claim a mission to:

"Approach reality through all its dimensions and contexts, analyze all possible steps and paths thereto, and come up with recommendations and mechanisms to put before stakeholders and decision-makers." 

And what a multi-faceted prism this is. Among the other sharp minds gathered were a few opposition luminaries, including a female - Dima Moussa, a Vice President of the Syrian National Council - and no one with a pro-government view. Some other Syrians involved include Capt. Rashid Al Hourani "most closely associated with the Homs Liberation Movement" (allied with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda franchise) and perhaps with "the splinter group, Tahrir Al Watan that has connections to Nour Al Din Zinki, beheaders of 12 year old Palestinian child, Abdullah Issa in 2016."

More to the point, another face at the Toran Center is Majdi Nema, ( مجدي نعمة ) formerly a spokesman for the mentioned suspects Jaish Al-Islam (JaI). Based then in Douma and backed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, JaI is also allied with Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda). From 2013 at least, Mr. Nema apparently took the group's mission and the founder's family name for the clever nom de guerre Islam Alloush, attaining the rank of captain, and helping keep their west-facing façade as shiny as possible. Here he is (right) with JaI founder Zahran Allouh (left - or is it Mohammed Zahran Alloush? I've heard both, but the former is more common and I'll keep using it for now). They're posing on a highway, I think, to Damascus International Airport south of Douma.

Beeley: "The Toran Center have informed me that Nema is the contact point for information on the administration and financial records of the centre. I have also been reliably informed, by sources on the ground, that Turkey is the primary source of funding for this organisation but have not been able to find accounts evidence to support that claim."

Website: http://www.majdinema.com/ still in June 2019 "coming soon." Twitter accounts (Arabic and English)  describe him as based in Istanbul, "a Researcher in Syrian Affairs" and "Vice President of @ToranCenter."

A Feb. 4 2018 Toran Center tweet maps "The Areas Lastly Targeted With Chemical Bombing By Assad Regime In The Eastern Ghouta" (right). This shows Douma and surrounding areas run primarily by JaI  ("revolution forces"). Attacks in Douma, Harasta, and Irbeen are shown. These feature partly in the earlier incidents lacking fatalities as I listed here. As that green area was whittled down and defeated Islamists lodged more shrill claims, the alleged chemical attacks turned deadly. This ran from late February up the big one in April.

Nema himself doesn't seem to be the social media warrior; his tweets and replies are sparse. He notably hasn't mentioned Douma in his own tweets since he was JaI spokesman in 2016; there's no talk of the April 2018 incident or OPCW issues. You'd think he would have something to say, and he probably does, but perhaps the arrangement is here to let Prof. Lucas speak, and mainly cite the OPCW; the Army of Islam cover story guy will NOT publicly be left in charge of deciding the narrative about a crime that could be by Army of Islam. Because...

Nema's record on truth re: Jaish al-Islam's crimes
Let's consider the fairly famous abduction, on December 9, 2013, of Razan Zaitouneh (Wikipedia), the Douma-based founder of the opposition VDC, and a co-founder of the Local Coordinating Committees. An exhaustive AP report from Bassem Mroue in 2017, where many witnesses were even to scattered or scared to talk, still found ample evidence Jaish al-Islam had almost certainly kidnapped Zaitouneh, her husband, and two other activists. A computer seized during the abduction was reportedly opened inside Tawbeh prison, run by JaI. Much evidence from eyewitnesses and scrawled messages on the walls has her held through 2016 and early 2017, when it seems likely she was finally killed.

None of these points is smoking-gun certain, in my estimation. But the collective clarity and lack of plausible alternatives leave this case relatively obvious to call. This was the main suspicion from the start, and it was denied from the start. As the Islamist opposition supporters at Zaman Al-Wasl reported at the time (December 12): "Islam Army denies kidnap accusations":

"Opposition Coalition member, Rima Flaihan, in a letter submitted to the coalition members has accused Islam Army leader of kidnapping Zaitouneh , according Zaman Alwasl source. Islam Army spokesman, captain Islam Alloush, denounced to Zaman Alwasl Flaihan's claims that Zaharn [sic] Alloush, Islam Army Leader had threatened Zaitouneh."

There was never any word from JaI about who did kidnap these folks in the heart of their control. There doesn't seem to have been any hunt to find out, or to rescue the activists. Despite the fairly obvious blame, Majdi Nema still doesn't buy it. Or does he now acknowledge the truth, as generally accepted? Whatever position - if any - he choses on that awkward subject, we can conclude he was willing to lie back then to help conceal the crimes of his compatriots, and it's unclear how hard that old habit would die.

Mr. Nema also - and I have to cite myself here - helped sow the false story for an August, 2015 massacre of over 100 civilians, which they blamed on a Syrian jet attack on three public markets at mid-day. Islam Alloush said of the Islam Army “We do not have any presence in the residential areas” and so couldn't themselves be the target -  the regime meant to kill civilians. As I gather, JaI had recently agreed to leave the city center under massive public protest. But one of their positions might be at the edge of town, about 820 meters south of the stricken markets. Someone there (at right: a pre-adjustment graphic showing 800m) fired 4 rockets in a perfect arc of attack, all evenly spaced 11 degrees apart and all frag patterns and other clues suggest (at least for impacts 1 and 3) they were fired from the south to southwest - all unlikely to happen from the described jet attack.

"Islam Alloush" and others blamed regime jets, claimed the civilians were attacked for their support to JaI - not for the protests against them. They showed off dozens of bodies of men and older boys, long-dead and gathered by solar noon, meaning they were killed before those surface-fired rockets even hit. Just over 100 males of several families were listed as killed, and no females, in these three market attacks. That could mean they were actually gender-segregated captives, pulled from detention and killed on cue. Whatever the truth, it's not what they presented, and the current Toran Center Vice President Majdi Nema was there to help with the cover story.
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/08/douma-market-attack-masterlist.html
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/10/douma-market-attack-mapping-arc-of.html
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/jaish-al-islam-protecting-syrian-people.html

Other cases: what would Nema say?
The sectarian massacre and mass-kidnapping in Adra Omaliya near Douma was launched December 11, 2013, just after the kidnapping of the VDC activists (ACLOS). Even the pro-opposition Human Rights Watch and UN Commission of Inquiry had to admit "Jabhat al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam abducted hundreds of civilians, mostly Alawites, according to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria. The hostages, many of them women and children, are being held in unidentified locations in Eastern Ghouta." (HRW) Hundreds is a minimum; the SOHR would later report (in a possible mangling of the truth) there were 9,000 people taken in Adra (with 3,000 believed held near the end in 2018, and only about 200 finally released), and ISIS was involved in the raid.

I could find no statement from spokesman Islam about the alleged raid, massacre, and mass abductions in Adra. But by normal standards, he'd praise the raid, deny the massacre or blame the other side, and claim the civilians were taken "for their own protection" from "regime shelling." He would say they're treated well, and would be released later in exchanges - regardless of when that "shelling" ended.

Unknown numbers of others, especially captured soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army, were also held in al-Tawbah and other prisons across Eastern Ghouta, reportedly used as slave labor to dig tunnels under the area. Some of these, described as Alawites and probably from Adra, were put in cages and placed on rooftops, supposedly to deter airstrikes, in October 2015. A JaI spokesman and also their political leader Mohamed Alloush (but not Islam Alloush himself that I could find) spoke in defense of this "shields of protection" campaign, calling it necessary to protect the local (mostly Sunni) civilians, and also a "bargaining chip".
https://syriadirect.org/news/jaish-al-islam-calls-caged-prisoner-tactic-‘bargaining-chip’-amidst-ongoing-bombardment/

As for deterring airstrikes, the cages stunt was inadequate to prevent a Syrian bomb from killing JaI founder Zahran Alloush just a couple months later, on Christmas, 2015. Upon his belated passing, the genocidal fanatic (see Landis) was given a long and ultimately positive assessment from Prof. Lucas at EA Worldview as, for one thing, the main barrier keeping ISIS from getting a foothold in Eastern Ghouta. A little sectarian, perhaps ... controversial ... a different picture ... promised once to be nice to Christians ... blamed Assad-induced stress for earlier sectarian rants ... part of a proud tradition ...

I didn't find a statement from Islam Alloush on the Ghouta chemical massacre in August, 2013, but Jaish al-Islam are the likely culprits behind it. Of course the US and allies and compromised bodies at the UN, OPCW, etc. all tended to accuse the Syrian state, and claimed up to 1,429 were killed. We can verify several hundred at least were killed in the Eastern Ghouta area, and there are many clues for their captivity prior to death, and the execution of at least one that didn't die from the gas. The rockets blamed for delivering sarin can be traced back by impact damage to a firing spot 1.75 km NW, under control of JaI. (work by several involved, including initial readings by "Sasa Wawa" (WhoGhouta),  the late Richard Loyd, and Prof. Theordore Postol, working with others like Chris Kabusk - with later refinements by Michaels Kobs along with Kabusk and myself - partly explained here, also in tweets and other places...)

A mortar shell fired from the same area a few days later (August 24) reportedly released a paralytic gas on SAA troops who had cornered some militants here. None of the soldiers died but four of them tested positive for sarin in government tests. Considering a long delay, OPCW could only verify one of those four had been exposed, but they probably all were, from that shell, from the same area the Ghouta attack was launched from. (indicated spot above - too precisely as a pin, but with a question mark - compared to UN report placement of Aug. 24 incident locale).

JaI founder and supreme leader Zahran Alloush was seen in Turkey a week before the incident, amid meetings with regional opposition commanders and foreign backers, seeming visibly excited about a "new surprise" planned in the coming days, as some predicted "an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria." … and would have left JaI (then called Liwa al-Islam) leading an march on Damascus, should US airstrikes go far enough to assist. Weapons deliveries were agreed based on the unspecified surprise someone felt capable of delivering. What was that surprise? Why was ZA so excited? Nothing emerged in the following days to fit the description of that "surprise/event" - aside from the Ghouta incident itself.
https://nocheinparteibuch.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/zahran-alloush-prime-suspect-for-the-cw-attack-in-ghouta/

But considering even all of that … oh plus the murky video of apparent JaI men in gas masks firing the same kind of rockets on what they say is the day of the attack (see WhoGhouta and note JaI said it's an obvious frame-up). But even considering that too, we can still be sure "Assad" was behind this incident that nearly got him bombed for crossing Obama's red line so enormously at the perfectly wrong moment. Considering the UN-OPCW investigation, we can be sure this used the same impure sarin - with hexamine, caustic properties, yellow color, and a foul smell - that was used up in Khan al-Assal on March 19, 2013 (ACLOS), and in perhaps all cases since. And THAT has been linked to the "Assad regime" ... perhaps from a recipe similarity to their known and surrendered stocks, or just because it keeps getting used in incidents that keep getting blamed on "Assad." The exact reason was kind of opaque last I checked.

For much of that time, any cases of sarin usage in the Douma involving JaI (or LaI at the time) would be explained, at least partly, by their man Captain Islam Alloush.

Finally, I can't skip this one: Adra Omaliya was taken by JaI and allies, including the Al-Qaeda franchise Al-Nusra Front, in December 2013, as noted. It was held by the opposition side for about 9 months before Government forces pushed out the Islamic Front fighters then led by JaI and another allied faction, in late September, 2014. About one day before they folded and fled back towards Douma, they informed us Assad forces used chlorine gas to kill civilian men there, 7 in total, who happened to be "prisoners" of the militants. 4 or 5 of these are shown on video with no chlorine signs, (four dead and one still alive). They're described as prisoners - likely used for slave labor, but past their usefulness. One is elderly, one quite ill (emaciated and yellow-colored), one is crippled by prior hand injury (bandaged) and a fresh, bleeding leg wound. Three of these four men have small, lightly bleeding holes in the left sides of their chests, as if pierced or shot right in the heart. That's not a chlorine symptom. A day or two later the Islamists packed up valuables, including worthwhile "human resources" and fled, leaving some dead weight behind - this part thanks to "Assad's chlorine attack."
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/01/fall-2014-east-ghouta-cw-attacks.html

Spokesman "Islam" was around for all these incidents before he left the group in September 2016, for muddled reasons involving Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli interlocutor and ally of prof. Lucas (Beeley, Syrian Observer). Former-Captain Nema was soon using his real name and getting paid, working up in Istanbul with mid-to-high-level Westerners including still-UK-Academic Scott Lucas, to help with "strategic studies" and "approaching reality" through some mix of the many possible dimensions of that.

In his heart or mind - maybe even in the minds of others - Mr. Nema might still be a Jaish al-Islam spokesman, despite the public statements. After all, we know some of these are not trustworthy. But either way it's pretty likely he would continue sympathizing with JaI - privately at least - accepting their claims when possible. That would certainly include the April 7, 2018 murder with toxic gas of 43-187 people (counts differ) back in Douma. If that happened, he'd surely deny it, whether he knew the truth or not, and make the same case as the JaI activists at the poorly-staged scene. I mean, pretty much everyone else does, so why not?

What might he know and gloss over? For one thing, let's return to "the short-lived Jaish Al-Ummah rebellion" mentioned above. Meaning "Army of the Muslim People/Community," that ran for a few months in late 2014. Several group joined, but perhaps most central was the Douma Martyrs' Brigade, whose conflicts with JaI likely ran back to and before the death of its founder and commander Mohamed Diab Bakriyeh in April, 2014. He was said to die in clashes when JaI reinforcements were slow to arrive, but then a likely brother of his (Amjad Diab Bakriyeh) died in coincidental "shelling" the same day, suggesting more to that story. Commander Bakriyeh's DMB would lead the rebellion later that year, and his own family might become fair game for abduction. 12+ apparent relatives of his were among the 35 identified victims of this Douma massacre.
(rel. info here, about halfway down - should be summarized better somewhere fresh: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/05/bakriyeh-family-deaths.html )

This likely mass murder has its coverup aspect as well, seeking to shift the blame in a way the opposition nearly always can. Here, it was sloppier than usual. It includes placing those cylinders to give outsiders something to work with as they labored to implicate some helicopter, and thus Damascus. The outsiders' intent would not be to cover up for mass murder, but in the scenario, that would be the only way to blame it on the "Assad regime."

Some of that work, or related signal amplification - would be done via this Toran Center, likely by the 'former spokesman' for the possible killers. And just on the Toran end, some more can be done by - or just passed over to - supposed Syria expert Scott Lucas and EA Worldview, to further assist in that coverup, using especially his over-estimated rhetorical skills (sophistry, deflection and diversion - in Native English!) Maybe Charles Lister was asking too much, etc.?