Editor’s note: firstly, the link to pfc manning’s contribution requires a login to the Murdoch press (i.e The New York Times).
Norman Solomon claims that the assault on whistle-blowers will ensue that ‘mainline media’ will tell the official spin.
Putting aside for the moment the fact that New York Times is ‘mainline media’ – the claim that Syria possesses stockpiles of chemical weapons comes from ‘American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records’ released by bradley/chelsea manning – these are hardly reliable sources.
The whistle-blowers themselves are caught in a web that is orientalist and racist in nature – their leaks not really capable of revealing anything ‘true’ about the nature of the conflict in Syria as these cables are seen solely through the eyes of US strategic interests. But readers may judge for themselves…
Ask yourself why would Assad use chemical weapons against his own people?
Isn’t it more likely that it is the opposition or rogue elements in the army? Israel, France, and the US have all used chemical weapons against people in the developing world to serve their own imperialist ambitions.
Where is the sign that the material released by whistleblowers Manning or Assange is an accurate depiction of what is going on in Syria?
Assange/Manning have distributed source material from the American military, how does that help us understand what is going on, given its history of lies and deceptions?
In the clip outside the British Foreign office, Ciaron O’Reilly claims that the civil war in Syria ‘is a sectarian war.’
No matter what is said about Assad – he is a secular leader and the war in Syria is not sectarian in nature – it is a civil war fueled by US, French, British, Israel and other interests.
The aim of the civil war in Syria is to destablise whole popultaions and to break the region up up into parts (to divide Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt & Syria) so that the people may be dominated militarily by Israel, serving US strategic interests in oil and gas.
O’Reilly also states that this war has been going on for decades. What exactly do you mean, Ciaron? The Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights? The Israeli invasion and occupation of Southern Lebanon? The Occupation of the West Bank by Israeli Settlers aided by the IDF? Israeli murder of hundreds of children in Gaza in 2009/2010? The ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel? I think the writers of the article below need to be clearer in what they say and do and why … especially when they are leaking dossiers compiled by Western intelligence.
Is there no end to Obama’s hypocrisy? To call out Assad and the Syrian army but not to call out Netanyahu and Israeli military?
In 2008, Hezbollah drove the Israeli military out of southern Lebanon and that country finally had some peace for 5 years – now all they have is refugees (from Syria, sic).
To Norman Solomon: Will the whistle blowers strip off the mask of lies by re-telling the lies, I think not.
Ian Curr
Editor, WBT.]
On 10/09/2013, at 10:24 PM, Ciaron OReilly wrote:
Syria: Manning Activists Resist as US Vice President Conspires with British Foreign Minister over War Plans.
Mon 9 Sept: Catholic Worker Ciaron O’Reilly provides a speed bump on Obama & Kerry’s Highway to Hell in Syria
As the New York Times comments on Pfc. Manning’s contribution to our understanding of how Syria acquired chemical weapons…Syria’s top leaders amassed one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records
…and Norman Solomon tells us What the Assault on Whistleblowers Has to Do With War on Syria…
Without whistleblowers, the mainline media outlets are more transfixed than ever with telling the official story. And at a time like this, the official story is all about spinning for war on Syria.
…London based Manning supporters from the Catholic Worker gather outside the Foreign Office in London to protest the visit of Vice President John Kerry.
If they come for the innocent without stepping over your body, cursed be your religion and your life - Phil Berrigan R.I.P., WW2 combat veteran, Plowshares movement founder & anti-Vietnam War resister.
REPORT/ PHOTOS/ VIDEO/ LINKS continued….
Ciaron O’Reilly
Blog http://ciaron.wordpress.com/“The poor tell us who we are,
The prophets tell us who we could be,
So we hide the poor,
And kill the prophets.”
Phil Berrigan
"I dream of snakes ... I kill one and a yet bigger one appears ..." - Cuban troubadour, Silvio RodriguezI now have access to the NYT article With the World Watching, Syria Amassed Nerve Gas which does not give any real detail of the material released by wikileaks however it does make the following statement:
This contradicts the UN weapons inspection team’s mission statement that says Sellstrom’s inspection team was charged with determining whether deadly agents were used in Syria, not who was responsible (my emphasis). All we have from the UN so far is the reports of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon statement on 13 Sept 2013 that a report on last month’s deadly attack in Syria would be “overwhelming” in showing that chemical weapons were used in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013.
No evidence has yet been produced that Sarin gas was used, nor that it was placed on rockets, nor that it was fired into ‘densely populated suburbs of Damascus,’ nor that 1,400 people were killed … unless you accept bald assertions made by unidentified sources curiously referred to in the NYT article as “the United States” [government?(sic)]
Did these events occur and are the perpetrators who the US says they are? Remember WMDs in Iraq.
No whistle blower has provided evidence of these claims by ‘the United States’ in the NYT article or anywhere else.
There are counter claims (equally specious?) that rebels are responsible for the chemical attack in Damascus. There is no mention of those counter-claims in the NYT article.
So what assistance do such articles about wikileaks give someone interested in finding out what is happening in Damascus?
All the Murdoch press wishes to do is find a basis for slagging off at Obama for failing to do what the United States does best – bomb civilian populations.
Nowhere in the Murdoch press do you see published the deadly use of phosphorus against the civilian population of Gaza by Israel nor do you read of the daily use of toxic water canon and tear gas used against the people of the West Bank (sometimes to deadly effect). No mention either of the cluster bombs Israel used against people in Southern Lebanon.
The supporters of WikiLeakes and Assange need to ask why they claim that the Syrian Civil War is a sectarian conflict when it is clearly a war for oil, gas and strategic interest.
We do not need leaks from the US military to tell us that.
I have a poem about WikiLeakes if you are interested; it is called the Last Train to Mirabad
Ian
15 Sept 2013
Reference
Last train to Mirabad, ode to lives lost
‘We Can Do Change’ features:
Music from: David Rovics (USA), Andy Paine (West End, Brisbane)
Kimbeaux Dawson (of The Great Shame & Run Pig Run/Brisbane)
Comedy by Corey White Art exhibition and auction
Date: 12 September (Thursday), 2013
Time: 7pm doors open 6:30
Place: Visions Gallery – Absoe Warehouse
Level 2, 51 Mollison Street,
Price: $10 suggested donation – fundraiser for Talisman Saber arrestees
More: Food and Drinks available
Re. Ed’s note…
I think it’s a link to the NYT, didn’t seem to require a log in. It’s clear from the link that it’s going to a NYT article. Having a link to an article wasn’t meant to imply endorsement.
The diplomatic cables have of course to be seen in the light of where they come from and what interests they represent. That doesn’t negate their value and it doesn’t make the act of whistleblowing any less significant imo. The cables and other documents released by Manning do contribute to our overall understanding – the point isn’t to claim that the cables contain an objective truth; rather that even given their US bias they indicate – in this instance – that Assad has been armed by the same nations now planning to wage war on Syria for possessing these arms. The WISE Up article reposted here doesn’t comment on the likelihood or otherwise that the weapons actually WERE used by Assad, nor does it comment on possession and use of chemical weapons by others in Syria.
Anyhow, my bit of this post was written in haste so could maybe have been worded more carefully. Apologies for that … see http://wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com