One
proposal, from the United States, would have sidelined the existing
official investigative agency for chemical weapons, the Organisation for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and set up a brand new “independent mechanism of investigation to determinate accountability” for
the chemical-weapon attack that the U.S. and its allies allege to have
happened but for which no evidence had been presented (other than
alleged videos of it that were taken and spread by the White Helmets branch of Al Qaeda in Syria and
which group the U.S. and its allies praise for helping injured ‘rebels’
and their associates). Russia vetoed the U.S. proposal because by the
time such a new organization would be set up and officially accuse the
Syrian and Russian Governments for the presumed chemical attack, the war
between the U.S. and Russia would probably already be long past, and so
the U.S. proposal couldn’t possibly prevent the U.S.-led invasion of
Syria, anyway. Russia had been hoping to prevent an attack for long
enough so that the OPCW, which was due to leave for Syria on April 10th,
could get to Douma in order to examine to find any residues of a
chemical weapons attack there, if such even existed, but the U.S. and
its allies wanted to invade without there being any such investigation
preceding the invasion.
After that vote on the American draft, came the vote on the alternative draft-resolution:
“The Council then failed to adopt the draft resolution submitted by the Russian Federation by a recorded vote of 6 in favour (Bolivia, China, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation) to 7 against (France, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States), with 2 abstentions (Côte d’Ivoire, Kuwait).”
As regards whether
or not there had actually been a chemical attack in Douma, the only
public information (other than the video that was produced by the White
Helmets), was a news report published on April 9th by Russia, which is
likely to be as much ignored by Americans as news-reports by the U.S.
are ignored by Russians, and it was headlined “No trace of chemical weapons at alleged attack site in Douma – Russian military”, and it stated:
The Russian military has found no trace of chemical weapons use after searching parts of Syria’s Douma allegedly targeted by an “attack.” Photos of victims posted by the White Helmets are fake, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.Experts in radiological, chemical and biological warfare, as well as medics, on Monday inspected the parts of the Eastern Ghouta city of Douma, where an alleged chemical attack supposedly took place on Saturday, the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria said in a statement.The specialists “found no traces of the use of chemical agents” after searching the sites, the statement said. The center’s medical specialists also visited a local hospital but found no patients that showed signs of chemical weapons poisoning. “All these facts show… that no chemical weapons were used in the town of Douma, as it was claimed by the White Helmets,” the statement said, referring to the controversial “civil defense” group that was among the first to report about the alleged attack.
Then, late on April 10th, Russian Television headlined “Europe air traffic control issues alert over ‘possible air strikes on Syria within 72 hours’”, and the U.S. and France were set for a full-force invasion, which was expected to target especially “Damascus,
Homs, Tartus, Hama, Deir ez Zor, and Rakka. In particular, it is
planned to strike the area of the Russian military base in Tartus.”
Some people expect
these attacks to be met by counterattacks from Syria, Russia, Hezbollah,
and Iran, but some expect them to be so defeated in Syria, as to
surrender, and for Russia also not to launch nuclear attacks against the
invaders for having started WW III on the basis of unexamined
accusations.
In any case, the question can be considered, even before the outcome is known (and if the world still exists after that), as to whether the U.S. and its allies are invading upon even shabbier ‘evidence’ than it had invaded Iraq in 2003.
In domestic matters, the comparable situation exists when a lynch mob
seeks to kill a seized person without any investigatory process at all,
but only upon the allegation by the mob saying that the person who is
being lynched is ‘guilty’. However, when this is done in international
matters, and the attackers are calling themselves ‘democracies’, the
situation is even worse than merely a domestic lynching. And this could
factor into the Russian Government’s decision as to how to respond to
these invasions of its ally.
The present situation could be even more dangerous than was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
*
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from NationalTurk.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Eric Zuesse, Global Research, 2018
