Douma witnesses speak at OPCW briefing at The Hague

 Laid bare in front of the world. However, it sadly won't make a difference. If they were sure it happened the way they say, they would be eager for an investigation by anyone qualified. Alleging the attack and naming the culprits while refusing to conduct a proper investigation look worse either way.

No attack, no victims, no chem weapons: Douma witnesses speak at OPCW briefing at The Hague RT : 26 Apr, 2018

Witnesses of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, including 11-year-old Hassan Diab and hospital staff, told reporters at The Hague that the White Helmets video used as a pretext for a US-led strike on Syria was, in fact, staged.

“We were at the basement and we heard people shouting that we needed to go to a hospital. We went through a tunnel. At the hospital they started pouring cold water on me,” the boy told the press conference, gathered by Russia’s mission at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.

Hassan was among the “victims” seen being washed by water hoses in a video released by the controversial White Helmets group on April 7. The boy and his family later spoke to the media and revealed that Hassan was hurried to the scene by men who claimed that a chemical attack had taken place. They started pouring cold water on the boy and others, filming the frightened children.

“There were people unknown to us who were filming the emergency care, they were filming the chaos taking place inside, and were filming people being doused with water. The instruments they used to douse them with water were originally used to clean the floors actually,” Ahmad Kashoi, an administrator of the emergency ward, recalled. “That happened for about an hour, we provided help to them and sent them home. No one has died. No one suffered from chemical exposure.”

Hassan was among the “victims” seen being washed by water hoses in a video released by the controversial White Helmets group on April 7. The boy and his family later spoke to the media and revealed that Hassan was hurried to the scene by men who claimed that a chemical attack had taken place. They started pouring cold water on the boy and others, filming the frightened children.

“There were people unknown to us who were filming the emergency care, they were filming the chaos taking place inside, and were filming people being doused with water. The instruments they used to douse them with water were originally used to clean the floors actually,” Ahmad Kashoi, an administrator of the emergency ward, recalled. “That happened for about an hour, we provided help to them and sent them home. No one has died. No one suffered from chemical exposure.”

Halil al-Jaish, a resuscitator who tended to people at the Douma hospital that day, told the press conference that some of the patients had indeed experienced respiratory problems. The symptoms, however, were caused by heavy dust, which engulfed the area due to recent airstrikes, and no one showed any signs of chemical warfare poisoning, al-Jaish said.

The hospital received people who suffered from smoke and dust asphyxiation on the day of the alleged attack, Muwaffak Nasrim, a paramedic who was working in emergency care, said. The panic seen in footage provided by the White Helmets was caused mainly by people shouting about the alleged use of chemical weapons, Nasrim, who witnessed the chaotic scenes, added. No patients, however, displayed symptoms of chemical weapons exposure, he said.

Ahmad Saur, an emergency paramedic with the Syrian Red Crescent, said that the ward he was working at did not receive any patients exposed to chemical weapons on the day of the alleged incident or after it. All the patients needed either general medical care or help with injuries, he said. Saur told journalists he came to speak at The Hague independently of the Red Crescent, and that he was testifying freely and without any pressure.

One reporter asked what would happen to the eyewitnesses and whether they would “stay in Europe to testify.”

“We’re going back home, and see no problem with that. The situation is a lot better now. We’re Douma residents, like many others,” Hassan Ayoun, a doctor with the emergency department, said.

Six of the Douma witnesses brought to The Hague have already been interviewed by the OPCW technical experts, Russia’s permanent representative to the OPCW, Aleksandr Shulgin, said.

“The others were ready too, but the experts are sticking to their own guidelines. They’ve picked six people, talked to them, and said they were 'completely satisfied' with their account and did not have any further questions,” Shulgin revealed. He added that the allegations by “certain Western
countries” ahead of the briefing that Moscow and Damascus were seeking to “hide” the witnesses from the OPCW experts did not hold water.

The alleged chemical incident was only supported by the White Helmets’ video and social media reports from militant-linked groups, but the US, the UK and France judged they had enough evidence that it actually took place and launched a series of punitive strikes against Syria on April 14. The US and its allies accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of carrying out the “attack,” without providing any proof of their claim. Notably, the strike came hours before the OPCW fact-finding team was set to arrive in Douma to determine whether chemical weapons had been used there.

Selected Comments:

* The west try to ignore the truth now. The lies of Wall Street and white house propaganda machine, that we call main stream media.

* Just like a giant snow ball rolling down a mountain the evil of the democracies will eventually smother them.

* The West blocked an investigation into an alleged crime. Is this how the Western judicial system works? They prefer to shoot first and ask questions later.

* In order to establish who carried out an attack, it must first be established the attack occurred.

* Since US, UK and France have declared that they don’t need UN resolution to do whatever they want, they therefore declared themselves outlaws in the eyes of international legislation. Which means, any aquatic equipment of those so called nations is now treated as a pirate vessel and is a subject to destruction. World, that’s the best hunting season ever recorded in human history - seek the outlaws and destroy on sight. They can’t run to UN for protection - they just unilaterally exited that union. Shoot at will and good hunting.

* UN was created by Washington & London in order to easily spread their imperialistic goals. In other hands, USA and UK have the upper hand at UN. The same thing is with other "international" organizations such as WADA, WHO, WTO, World Bank, IMF and others.

* It Is Amazing how America and Great Britain are now using Chemical Weapons in every Way Possible To Create Another Global Incineration War where your Body Turns Charcoal as it Roast to Black Cinders in Madness of Political Global Lunacy.!!!

* No white helmets are ever poisoned but they are always around when poisoning is even mentioned. Are these guys carrying the stuff with them?

* The CIA Director Mike Pompeo  has admitted that he fooled Trump into believing the chemical weapons attack in Syria (2017) was launched by the Syrian government. The U.S False flag attack, which actually originated from CIA rebel groups in the region, resulted in Trump launching Tomahawk missiles into Syria, killing 15 innocent civilians and 7 Syrian soldiers. So what Pompeo is admitting to is, at best, providing the President with faulty intelligence.

* Secretary Of Defence John Mattis admitted that there has been no evidence of any use of chemical weapons by Assad.......that was reported in Newsweek on the 8th of this month. Google it....it makes for stark reading but with propaganda being peddled as news, they get support and recognition in the
"court of public opinion" because their populations are predominately sheep.

Boxer Muhammad Ali & Vietnam War

Over 3 million Vietnamese killed in the Vietnam war by U.S. soldiers. The Vietnam U.S. vets who burned villages raped young woman after raping them they machine gun them and killed their children .

They carpeted bombed all Vietnam and used "Agent Orange" chemical millions got cancer ....crimes against humanity, done by the U.S. and two nuclear bombs in Japan .

April 28, 1967
"I ain't draft dodging. I ain't burning no flag. I ain't running to Canada. I'm staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead . I've in jail for 400 years. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain't going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I'll die right here, right now, fightin' you, if I want to die.

You 're my enemy , not no Chinese, ,,No Vietcong..... no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. 

You my opposer when I want justice.

You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won't even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won't even stand up for my rights here at home .

- Muhammad Ali.- April 28, 1967

On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying "I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong." On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.

British 'war on terror' & strategic ties with radical Islam

British had been infamous since her colonial days of using "Dive & Rule" policy by even supporting Islamist militants to further her interest and inflict damage on the image of Islam.

Stench of hypocrisy: British 'war on terror' & strategic ties with radical Islam
John Wight
RT : 19 Apr, 2018


Britain's strategic relationship with radical Islam goes back decades and continues to this day.

There is no more foul a stench than the stench of hypocrisy, and there is no more foul a hypocrisy than the British government painting Bashar al-Assad as a monster when in truth he and the Syrian people have been grappling with a twin-headed monster in the shape of Salafi-jihadi terror and Western imperialism. Both are committed to destroying Syria as an independent, non-sectarian state, and both are inextricably linked.

Author and journalist Mark Curtis charts in detail the contours of this history in his book 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam':

"British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called 'national interest' abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organizations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain's global power in the face of increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is
intimately related to that of Britain's imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world."

As far back as the First World War, when the Middle East began to assume strategic importance in the capitals of Western imperial and colonial powers, the British ruling class went out of its way to identify and recruit loyal local proxies in pursuit of its regional objectives. Britain's relationship with the Arab tribal chief, Ibn Saud, who would go on to establish Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s, began in 1915 with the Darin Pact, demarcating the territory then controlled by Saud as a British protectorate.

The following year, the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans erupted. Begun and inspired by Saud's fierce rival, Sharif Hussein, head of the Hashemite Arab tribe, the revolt was heavily bankrolled and supported by the British – a period immortalized in the exploits of British military agent T E Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia.

But whereas Sharif Hussein was a follower of orthodox Sunni Islam, Ibn Saud adhered to the radical doctrine of Wahhabism, which Winston Churchill was moved to describe as "bloodthirsty" and "intolerant." Regardless, when it came to its imperial interests there was no tiger upon whose back the British ruling class was not willing to ride during this period, and which, as events have proved, it has not been willing to ride since.

The most egregious example of this policy, one that continues to have ramifications today, was the support provided by the UK to the Afghan mujahideen in the late 1970s and 1980s. The insurgency's objective was the overthrow of Kabul's secular and left-leaning government, whose crime in the eyes of the Islamist insurgency's US and UK sponsors was that it had embraced the social and economic model of Moscow rather than Washington during the first Cold War.

British support for the mujahideen, married to the huge support provided by Washington, was indispensable in the eventual success of these self-styled 'holy warriors' in taking control of a country that had embraced modernity and turning it into a failed state mired in religious oppression, brutality, backwardness and poverty.

Mark Curtis again:

"Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. Military, financial and diplomatic backing was given to Islamist forces which, while forcing a Soviet withdrawal, soon organized themselves into terrorist networks ready to strike Western targets."

While Washington's primary role in channeling military and financial support to the Afghan mujahideen, known as Operation Cyclone, may until have succeeded in overshadowing London's role in this dirty war, declassified British government cabinet papers which were made public in 2010 and reported in the UK media make grim reading.

They reveal that three weeks after Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government in Kabul, struggling to deal with an insurgency that had broken out in the countryside, the Thatcher government was planning to supply military aid to the "Islamic resistance." A confidential government memo provides a chilling insight into the insanity that passed for official policy: "We trust the Western leaders are prepared for the enormous beneficial possibilities that could just possibly open up if the Afghan rebellion were to succeed."

It will be recalled that out of the ensuing collapse of Afghanistan emerged the Taliban, under whose rule the country was turned into a vast militant jihadist school and training camp. Many of the most notorious Islamist terrorists began their careers there, fighting the Soviets and then later broadening out their activities to other parts of the region and wider world. In this regard, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda loom large.

Other notorious names from the world of Salafi-jihadism for whom Afghanistan proved indispensable include the Jordanian Abu al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) during the US-UK occupation, an organization that would over time morph into ISIS.

Abdelhakim Belhaj and other Libyan Islamists cut their jihadist teeth in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Returning to Libya, they formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in the eastern city of Benghazi. Though the group may have been disbanded in 2010, having failed to topple Gaddafi despite repeated attempts to assassinate the Libyan leader with, it's been claimed, the support of Britain's MI6, former members of the LIFG, including Belhaj, were important actors in the 2011 Libyan uprising.

By way of a reminder, the uprising in Libya started in Benghazi and would not have succeeded without the air support it received from NATO. Britain's then prime minister, David Cameron, was key in pushing for that air support and the sanction of the UN under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1973. Though protecting civilians was central in wording of this UNSC resolution, it was shamefully distorted to justify regime change, culminating in Gaddafi's murder by the 'rebels.'

Staying with the LIFG, in the wake of the Manchester suicide-bomb attack in May 2017, which left 23 people dead and 500 injured, the fact that the bomber, a young Libyan by the name of Salman Abedi, was the son of a former member of the LIFG, did not receive anything like the media attention it should have at the time.

Manchester, England is home to the largest Libyan community in Britain, and there is strong evidence to suggest that when the Libyan uprising broke out MI6 facilitated the ability of Libyan Islamists in Britain to travel to Libya to participate in the fighting. Among them was Salman Abedi, who it is thought received military training in the country before being allowed to return to the UK thereafter.

This brings us on to Syria and, as with Libya, the question of how so many British Muslims have been able to travel from the UK to Syria via Turkey to take part in the anti-Assad insurgency since 2011? It also brings into sharp focus a policy that has veered between the ludicrous and the reckless.

Emblematic of the former was ex-prime minister David Cameron's claim, which he made during a 2015 Commons debate over whether the Royal Air Force should engage in air strikes against ISIS in Syria, that fighting as part of the Syrian were 70,000 moderates.

As for the recklessness of Britain's actions in Syria, look no further than the country's recent participation in the illegal missile strikes that were carried out in conjunction with the US and France, justified on the basis of as yet unproven allegations that Syrian government forces had carried out a
chemical weapons attack on Douma, just outside Damascus. The only beneficiaries of such actions by the Western powers are Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS (whom it was later reported took advantage of the missile strike to mount a short-lived offensive), Al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam.

The latter of those groups, Jaysh al-Islam, is a Saudi proxy. It was the dominant group in Douma and throughout Eastern Ghouta until the district's liberation by the Syrian Army and its allies with Russian support.

Given the deep and longstanding ties between London and Riyadh; given the fact, reported towards the end of 2017, that British military personnel were embedded in a training role with Saudi forces in Yemen; given the news that a British special forces sergeant was killed in northern Syria at the end of March this year while embedded with the Kurds, revealing for the first time that British troops were operating in the country on the ground – given all that, the question of who else British special forces and military personnel may be embedded with in Syria is legitimate.

In the context of the British state's long and sordid history when it comes to riding the back of radical Islam in pursuit of its strategic objectives, readers will doubtless draw their own conclusions.

Selected Comments:

* The UK and its agencies such as MI6 are deeply complicit in the wave of takfiri terrorrism that has covered much ofvthe globe and created an era of tension that the police state has exploited to further erode people's basic civil and human rights. The UK and especially the City of London are at the
nexus of organized global criminality.

* UK sponsoring of radical Islam goes back to the “great game” of the 19th century. Wahhabis, Salafis, taqfiris, Muslim Brotherhood are all British created and managed tools to suppress nationalism and democracy in Islamic countries. They never attack western client states.The UK government is a disgrace, complicit in the murder of countless Christians and Muslims.

* Since the west especially as represented by US , UK and France were  practically denied the opportunity to steal from weak states from late 90s, they have resorted to disaster capitalism. The idea is to create perpetual war and conflict  so that they can sell more arms to the warring factions and kill as many people as possible to justify huge military budgets. It has paid handsomely .They will continue an this route until new powers or coalitions are able to stop them, otherwise the world will never know peace.

The evolution of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

SpaceX has tinkered with its Falcon 9 rocket for a decade. Now, it says it's done with Block 5 (i.e. 9 Merlin engine boosters) which was used successfully on May 12, 2018 to launch a satellite for the Govt of Bangladesh.

Block 5 rocket launch marks the end of the beginning for SpaceX

Eric Berger - 5/3/2018

Less than eight years after its maiden launch, the Falcon 9 booster has become the most dominant rocket in the world. Modern and efficient, no rocket launched more than the 70m Falcon 9 booster launched last year. Barring catastrophe, no rocket seems likely to launch more this year.

In part, SpaceX has achieved this level of efficiency by bringing a Silicon Valley mindset to the aerospace industry. The company seeks to disrupt, take chances, and, like so many relentless start-up companies, drive employees to work long hours to meet demanding engineering goals.

While founder Elon Musk’s ambitions to settle Mars get most of the public’s attention, the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which almost never leaves Earth orbit, is the reason SpaceX has soared to date. And on this vehicle, Musk’s company has imprinted its ethos of disruption and innovation by seeking every opportunity to improve the rocket.

Although this has caused headaches for customers like NASA and some suppliers, constant tinkering has allowed SpaceX to maximize performance of this rocket. By regularly upgrading the Merlin engines, shedding weight with lighter materials, and using super-chilled rocket fuel to maximize density, the Falcon 9 rocket now is about twice as powerful as it was during its initial flight. Rarely during its more than 50 launches since June 2010 has a Falcon 9 rocket not had a handful or more changes from the previous edition.

All the while, SpaceX has had a singular goal for the Falcon 9 rocket: to build the most perfect and efficient orbital rocket it could. Now, finally, the company seems close to taking a final step toward that goal by closing the loop on first-stage reusability. As soon as next Monday, but more likely a bit later this month, SpaceX intends to launch the “Block 5” variant of the Falcon 9 rocket for the first time. Musk has said this fifth revision of the Falcon 9 should mark the final major change for the booster.

The company has a lot riding on the revamped booster. SpaceX intends to fly each Block 5 first stage it builds a minimum of 10 times and—depending on your willingness to accept Musk’s enthusiastic outlook—perhaps many more. Ten flights would be hugely significant, as SpaceX has thus far only ever reused each of its Falcon 9 rockets a single time. Additionally, the company hopes to reduce the turnaround time between launches of a Falcon 9 booster, now several months, to a matter of weeks.

Achieving such a nirvana of low-cost, rapid access to space would represent a tremendous feat for SpaceX. For a company that aspires to one day land humans on Mars, this is the essential first step. Moreover, by freezing the design of the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX can free up its engineering talent to focus on the “Big Falcon Rocket” and its upper stage spaceship. And by flying each Block 5 booster multiple times, it can release its skilled workers to assemble that much, much larger booster.

The upcoming launch of the Block 5 rocket, therefore, marks the end of the beginning for SpaceX.

Close calls

To find a Falcon 9 launch of comparable magnitude to the forthcoming Block 5 launch, one probably has to go back to December 2015. The stakes were incredibly high then, too. Six months before, in June, SpaceX had suffered the first failure of the Falcon 9 booster, a catastrophic break-up of the second stage at about 150 seconds into the flight. The Dragon spacecraft ascending into space, laden with NASA cargo valued at more than $100 million, was lost.

SpaceX spent nearly half a year assessing and fixing the problem before returning to the launch pad. For that December flight, SpaceX doubled-down on its philosophy of taking risks. The Falcon 9 booster standing at the pad three days before Christmas was the first one using a much more powerful variant of the rocket, known as the Falcon 9 Full Thrust, or Block 3.

This ambitious booster had about 30 percent more capability than its predecessor, with more powerful engines and slightly larger tanks that accommodated super-cooled liquid oxygen and highly refined kerosene. Other modifications included upgraded grid fins to steer the rocket on its return through Earth’s atmosphere and landing legs.

But with this return to flight mission, it was not enough to debut an entirely revamped rocket. For the first time, SpaceX would also attempt to return a booster to Earth for a vertical landing along the Florida coast. Always be innovating, pushing.

Later that night, after the successful flight and landing, Musk held a teleconference with reporters. Ars asked Musk how confident he had been in success of the mission, both launching the new booster and sticking the landing.

"I wasn't at all confident that we would succeed, but I'm really glad of it," he replied. "It's been 13 years since SpaceX was started. We've had a lot of close calls. I think people here are overjoyed."

Musk has since told confidants that it was this Block 3 version of the Falcon 9 rocket that put SpaceX on top of the commercial satellite launch competition, elbowing out Russia, China, and Europe’s state-run rocket companies for a lot of this business. The more powerful Block 3 rocket also allowed SpaceX to begin launching heavier payloads for the US military. With Block 3, Musk felt as though he had the best rocket in the world.

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And now, the Block 5

Musk wasn't wrong. It is true that SpaceX suffered another serious setback in September 2016 with the loss of a Falcon 9 during a launch pad test. Within the industry, there were murmurs that SpaceX was all hype, that it played too fast and loose to ever build a safe and reliable rocket. What good were low prices, competitors said, if the rocket had a non-trivial chance of blowing up, and customers had to wait years to get into space?

But then, the Block 3 rocket and its successor, the Block 4, began to shine. In 2017, SpaceX finally unleashed the “steamroller”—an industry buzzword for the company's ability to fly the low-cost Falcon 9 rocket more frequently. SpaceX flew 18 missions last year with the Block 3 and Block 4 versions of its rocket, and the company has completed seven flights of the Falcon 9 rocket through April of this year.

Now comes the Block 5. This new version includes myriad changes and upgrades that SpaceX anticipates will optimize the Falcon 9 for reusability. (Although the company has not released any official information, the reddit community has created a list based upon various statements made by Musk and the company’s president, Gwynne Shotwell).

The changes reflect what SpaceX has learned after that fateful December 2015 landing. The company has since recovered more than 20 rockets by land and sea, meticulously studying the wear and tear on the first stage booster structure, engines, and fuel tanks. The Block 5 version will therefore include modifications such as improved thermal shielding around the Merlin engines, unpainted components to save mass, and changes to the octaweb structure that holds the engines so they can be inspected, refurbished, and tested more quickly.

Shotwell and other company officials have said their initial goal with the Block 5 rocket is to fly each booster 10 times before significant refurbishment and to bring down the time between a rocket launch from months to weeks. In the aerospace industry, such rapid reusability of a rocket’s first stage is unheard of. But it is not a stretch to say that SpaceX may well pull this off.

“My experience with SpaceX has been that it has achieved its engineering goals,” said Carissa Christensen, an expert in commercial space analysis and founder and chief executive of Bryce Space and Technology. “They have set audacious, ambitious, and exciting goals before. And if SpaceX is saying that is the engineering goal, just based on past experience, it would be foolhardy to say they won’t get there.”

But given that SpaceX has already grabbed a significant chunk of the commercial launch industry with a booster that flies at most twice, what extra impact would an ultra-reusable rocket have?

How much it will cost

The answer depends on several questions. How much will SpaceX charge for launching on the Block 5 rocket over time? How much will it cost SpaceX to refurbish the Block 5 rocket? And if SpaceX reduces the price of launch, will demand over time increase?

In regard to price, SpaceX does not intend to discount the price of a Falcon 9 launch on the Block 5 rocket right away. “There’s no change,” company spokesman James Gleeson told Ars. There is speculation that eventually SpaceX may drop the price by 20 to 40 percent for Block 5 launches, from $62 million for a standard Falcon 9 launch down to around $40 million.

But for now, there is no immediate incentive for SpaceX to drop the price of a Falcon 9 launch. The company already has the lowest-cost orbital rocket in its class flying today. In dropping the price, Musk would be undercutting himself.

Down the line, one potential incentive for SpaceX to cut prices for the Falcon 9 rocket would be to increase the overall pool of customers. If it costs less to get into space, does that lower the barrier to more applications?

Dramatically cheaper launch costs may help close the business case for other ventures in space beyond traditional science, television, and observational satellites. Several companies, including SpaceX, are developing constellations of hundreds to thousands of satellites that could deliver Internet access from low-Earth orbit. Cheap launches might also help close the business case for space-based solar power, but that technology remains a ways off.

David Alexander, the director of the Rice Space Institute, noted that Japan has announced a nearly $1 billion space technology innovation fund and that countries such as China, the United Kingdom, and the rest of Europe are pushing for more data from remote sensing observations in low-Earth orbit.

“I think the biggest benefit is the broader access it would provide to a wide range of space entrepreneurs,” Alexander said of the potential for the Block 5 rocket to lower the cost of launch. “Cheaper access to space will only accelerate this.”

However, this seems unlikely to push demand for launches right away. Several experts Ars spoke to noted that the market for the launch of large satellites to low-Earth and geostationary orbit has remained fairly static. Because these satellites cost so much, saving $10 million or $20 million on launch costs probably won’t significantly increase the number of them being launched.

“I don’t think halving the launch cost makes a huge difference,” Christensen said. “Demand might be somewhat stimulated by lower prices, but space is expensive, and launch is a small part of it.”

Profit-taking, maybe

Several sources suggested SpaceX may reduce the price of the Falcon 9 rocket to further pressure its beleaguered competitors, including US-based United Launch Alliance as well as international providers in China, Russia, Europe, and elsewhere. However, none of these competitors is likely to go away, at least not soon. In the United States, United Launch Alliance remains a trusted partner of government agencies, and none of the other global space powers is likely to abandon its launch industries soon.

Despite these potential incentives, SpaceX will probably keep the Falcon 9 at more or less the same price point for a while and seek to profit from a decade of investing in innovations such as reusability. This makes sense, because it is not clear whether SpaceX is profitable at the current price point of a Falcon 9 rocket used once or twice.

The company now has in excess of 6,000 employees, and just meeting that payroll and keeping large facilities in California, Texas, Florida, and elsewhere operating probably costs on the order of $1 to $1.25 billion, experts told Ars. At a rate of $62 million per launch, it would take 20 launches a year just to cover these expenses. And this assumes that vehicle production costs are zero, which of course is not true.

This over-simplistic calculation suggests that the privately held SpaceX has been able to sustain its low launch prices to date thanks to development contracts from NASA for commercial cargo and crew services. It stands to reason therefore that, for a time at least, the company may just pocket any reuse “dividend.” Certainly, as SpaceX ramps up production of the Big Falcon Rocket—for which it has already acquired land for a manufacturing plant—it will need fistfuls of money.

Musk's madness

Every orbital rocket since the dawn of the Space Age, except for components of the space shuttle, has been thrown away after a single flight. The space shuttle mastered the art of re-flying a spacecraft, with Discovery launching and landing a record 39 times. However, NASA was never able to substantially cut the turnaround time between the landing and launch of an orbiter, a period that typically lasted six to 12 months. (The record is 54 days, between the first and second flight of Atlantis in 1985). More importantly, shuttle refurbishments were costly. Over the entire lifetime of the program, the incremental, per-flight cost of a space shuttle mission came to about $1 billion.

SpaceX has an opportunity to change this paradigm—to truly achieve rapid, reusable, low-cost spaceflight. And it has done so quickly. Should the Block 5 succeed in under a decade, SpaceX will have gone from a company that had never flown a rocket into space to having developed the most efficient orbital booster ever flown.

Because of this success, and its growing share of the commercial launch market, the Falcon 9 rocket has sent virtually all of SpaceX’s competitors scrambling to develop new boosters to try to compete. The Falcon 9 has pushed many of them to look into reusability, too.

For SpaceX, however, having caught and largely surpassed its orbital competitors, it is now time to move on. Sure, it will maintain a skeleton crew to continue fabricating a few Block 5 rockets. But if you really can fly a rocket like this 10 times, how many do you need to build a year?

So the company plans to turn its sights toward the larger Big Falcon Rocket that may one day enable human settlement elsewhere in the Solar System. In reporting this article, one source expressed amazement at this apparent madness. Why would SpaceX want to obsolete its own, dominant products?

A bit of history helps answer this. In the early 2000s, Musk was told he could never privately finance an orbital rocket. Then, he was told it was madness to try to land them on a boat. And then, he heard how foolhardy it was to try to strap three rockets together and light 27 engines at the same time. Elon Musk does not care all that much to hear about his madness.

Perhaps it is mad for SpaceX to work feverishly to obsolete its Falcon 9 rocket, which it has spent a decade perfecting. But this was not a company founded to appease shareholders, plural. It was founded to appease a single shareholder. And he wants to go to Mars, damn it.

West trashes international law in favor of ‘might is right’

# US used $144,000,000 worth of missiles, in an attempt to destroy alleged chemical sites,,, due to be inspected starting today....seems the US would want the inspectors to find traces.... Unless there was no evidence to be found........

US-led Syria strikes: West trashes international law in favor of ‘might is right’
Robert Bridge
RT : 14 Apr, 2018

Once again, Western nations have ganged up on a sovereign state, first accusing it of crimes without evidence before following up with a brazen attack. The reason for such behavior is diabolically simple: because they can.

On Saturday morning, the world awoke to the news that the US, the UK and France had followed through on their threat to punish President Bashar Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons against innocent people. These NATO states unleashed a massive missile strike near Homs and the capital Damascus with the stated purpose of destroying sites said to be connected to the production of chemical weapons. If the attack was intended for domestic consumption only, in typical ‘wag the dog’ fashion, it failed miserably on that score.

Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the military assault, saying it had not been sanctioned by the UN Security Council, and was carried out “in violation of the UN Charter and principles of international law.”

That was just the beginning of the serious legal issues regarding this brazen, cowardly attack on a sovereign nation. Not only did the Americans, British and French flaunt international law, exactly as they had done seven years ago in Libya, they arrogantly ignored the democratic will of their respective constituents, bypassing congressional and parliamentary procedure in a mad rush to war. In fact, the only thing ‘transparent’ and ‘accountable’ about Saturday’s attack was the flimsy foundation upon which it was advertised.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May, invoking the very same invalid argument that she used to accuse Russia in the Skripal poisoning mystery, said it was “highly likely” Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind the 'chemical attack'.

Echoing that subjective, fact-free assertion, the White House said it had a “high level of confidence” the Assad ‘regime’ was responsible for the alleged attack.

Not to be left behind by his peers, Emmanuel Macron, displaying early warning signs of Napoleon complex, told reporters that he had “proof” Assad was responsible for the attack. Yet the French makeup artist has yet to produce a shred of evidence to support his claim, and, we can safely assume, never will.

This brings us to the really disturbing part about Saturday’s attack: had Team Trump shown some restraint for just a few more days, they would have been able to make a much more accurate and measured assessment as to what really happened in the Damascus suburb one week ago. That’s because a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was scheduled to arrive in Syria on April 14 - the very same day the NATO members launched their assault - to carry out an investigation of the alleged chemical attack.

In other words, Trump, May and Macron could actually be charged with ‘tampering’ with a crime scene and destroying the evidence before investigators can carry out their forensic work.

"It's most probably an attempt to create difficulties for the OPCW mission that is just starting its work… or even to thwart it," the chair of Russia's Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev, said.

This rush to war brings to mind the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. With UN weapon inspectors on the ground in the country, reporting no trace of weapons of mass destruction, then Secretary of State Colin Powell saved the day by giving a performance worthy of an Academy Award at the UN General Assembly. As attendees stared on in wide-eyed disbelief, Powell shook a vial of ‘anthrax,’ inviting his audience to imagine what would happen if Saddam Hussein decided to unleash the deadly bacteria against their people. Only after the disastrous Iraq War was well underway did the Western mainstream media think to question the ‘bad intelligence’ and blatant deception that permitted the US and its allies to undertake the cruelest, most opportunistic attack on innocent people in recent memory.

The very same could be said about the disastrous NATO-backed regime change in Libya in 2011. In both cases, relatively stable and prosperous countries were turned into hotbeds of terrorism, violence and crime. In fact, the world would most likely never have heard of the terrorist organization ‘Islamic State’ had the West stayed out of Iraq. And here is the sick irony of the West attacking Syrian government forces: it could open the door to bona-fide terrorists coming to power in the event Damascus falls. Indeed, the US has made no secret that its goal is to remove Assad from power, yet – exactly as was the case with Iraq and Libya – they offer no realistic alternatives to his rule aside from ‘moderate rebels.’

Another irony from yesterday’s brazen attack: Trump used the phrase “mission accomplished” to describe the assault, like it was just another day at the golf course. The remark echoed former US President George W Bush’s premature speech on board the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in 2003 when he declared the end of combat operations in Iraq in front of a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.” Yet in reality that was just the beginning of the nightmare for Iraq.

America’s waning unipolar moment

At this point, the question must be asked: What sort of dire affliction has infected the Western mind to the point where it believes it can act with impunity against multiple sovereign states? My personal guess is that America and the West are struggling with the uncomfortable realization that their ‘unipolar moment’ is setting fast below the horizon.

Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States began to indulge itself in increasingly belligerent behavior across a wider and wider swath of the planet. The juggernaut was made all the more harrowing by America’s almost fanatical belief that it is the one and only ‘indispensable nation’ blessed by some higher authority with ‘exceptional’ qualities that are beyond question. This was America’s ‘unipolar moment.’

That open window of militaristic opportunity was applauded by neoconservatives, including Charles Krauthammer, who penned a 1990 article in Foreign Affairs (‘The Unipolar Moment’) where he boldly states: “The immediate post-Cold War world is not multipolar. It is unipolar. The center of world power is the unchallenged superpower, the United States, attended by its Western allies.”

This is pure unadulterated Machiavellian thinking, which substitutes liberty and equality before the law with a medieval ‘might is right’ philosophy. Yet, as has been proven time and again throughout history, whenever any single country sits astride the pinnacle of power, it is invariably proven, in the words of British politician Lord Acton that, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

This tendency towards the abuse of power was highlighted by a shocking comment made by General Wesley Clark during an interview with Democracy Now. Clark revealed that he had been shown a memo by one of his military superiors that outlined a classified plan to take out seven countries in a five-year period.

“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran,” Wesley said, repeating what he had been told and shown.

Coincidence or not, many of the names on that list have experienced the full wrath of the Western military in one way or another. However, given the rise of a multi-polar world, this diabolical shopping list has been put on hold, hopefully forever.

Whatever the case may be, it has become beyond clear that the West holds the claim to the title ‘protector of democratic principles’ only by the force of its lies, deception and outright aggression. How long it will be before the charade ends and the people openly proclaim that the emperor has no clothes is anybody’s guess.

- - -

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is author of the book, 'Midnight in the American Empire,' released in 2013. robertvbridge@yahoo.com

# They strike "chemical weapons factories and warehouses" with missiles and are not concerned about releasing the poisonous agents into the surrounding area and killing thousands of people? Are westerner sheeple so foolish to believe these blatant lies?

===
Caught in a lie, US & allies bomb Syria the night before international inspectors arrive
Eva Bartlett
RT : 15 Apr, 2018

The US, Britain and France trampled international law to launch missiles against Syria, claiming to have “evidence” of the government’s use of chemical weapons. That evidence is based on terrorist lies.

After a week of outrageous tweets and proclamations by POTUS Trump, which included continued accusations that Syria’s president ordered a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, east of Damascus, with Trump using grotesque and juvenile terminology, such as “animal Assad,” the very evening before chemical weapons inspectors of the OPCW were to visit Douma, America and allies launched illegal bombings against Syria. The illegal bombings included 103 missiles, 71 of which Russia states were intercepted.

For the past week, we were told that the US had ‘evidence’ and the UK had ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemicals. The ‘evidence’ largely relied on video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets (that “rescuer” group that somehow only operates in Al-Qaeda and co-terrorist occupied areas and participates in torture and executions), as well as by Yaser al-Doumani, a man whose allegiance to Jaysh al-Islam is clear from his own Facebook posts, for example of former Jaysh al-Islam leader, Zahran Alloush.

This, we were told, was ‘evidence.’ This and the words of the highly partial, USAID-funded, US State Department allied Syrian American Medical Society, which, like Al-Qaeda’s rescuers, only supports doctors in terrorist-occupied areas.

On April 12, even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US government does not have any evidence that sarin or chlorine was used, that he was still looking for evidence.

Syria, finding the claims to be lies and the sources tainted, requested that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) immediately come to Syria to investigate the claims. Accordingly, the OPCW agreed to send a team—the visas for which Syria granted immediately—which arrived in Damascus on April 14.

President Trump, instead of waiting for an investigation to confirm his ‘evidence,’ chose the very night before this investigative team would arrive in Syria to inspect the allegations, to bomb Syria. The timing of the attacks is more than just a little timely. And the bombings were illegal.

General Mattis tried to dance around the legality, stating, “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important United States national interests.”

But he is wrong, this does not permit the US to illegally bomb a sovereign nation, and he knows it. So does Russia. In a statement on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the attacks as illegal, noting:

“Without the sanction of the Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, an act of aggression against a sovereign state that is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism has been committed.”
What if chemicals had been at targeted locations?

In the same Pentagon briefing, General Joseph Dunford specified the US and allies’ targets in Syria, alleging they were “specifically associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program.” One target, at which 76 missiles were fired, was the Barzeh scientific research centre in heavily-populated Damascus itself, which Dunford claimed was involved in the “development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology.”

This ‘target’ is in the middle of a densely-inhabited area of Damascus. According to Damascus resident Dr. (of business and economy) Mudar Barakat, who knows the area in question, “the establishment consists of a number of buildings. One of them is a teaching institute. They are very close to the homes of the people around.”

Of the strikes, Dunford claimed they “inflicted maximum damage, without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians.”

If one believed the claims to be accurate, would bombing them really save Syrian lives, or to the contrary cause mass deaths? Where is the logic in bombing facilities believed to contain hazardous, toxic chemicals in or near densely populated areas?

Regarding the actual nature of the buildings bombed, Syrian media, SANA, describes the Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries Research Institute as “centered on preparing the chemical compositions for cancer drugs.” The destruction of this institute is particularly bitter, as, under the criminal western sanctions, cancer medicines sales to Syria are prohibited.

Interviews with one of its employees, Said Said, corroborate SANA’s description of the facility making cancer treatment and other medicinal components. One article includes Said’s logical point: “If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here. I've been here since 5:30 am in full health – I'm not coughing.”

Of the facility, the same SANA article noted that its labs had been visited by the OPCW, which issued two reports negating claims of any chemical weapons activities. This is a point Syria’s Ambassador al-Ja’afari raised in the April 14 UN Security Council meeting, noting that the OPCW “handed to Syria an official document which confirmed that the Barzeh centre was not used for any type of chemical activity” that would be in contravention to Syria’s obligations regarding the OPCW.

Bombings based on Al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Islam Claims

The entire pretext of the US and allies’ illegal bombings of Syria is immoral and flawed. There is no evidence to the claims that Syria used chemicals in Douma. Numerous analysts have pointed out the obvious: that Syria would not benefit from having used chemical weapons. But America, Israel and allies would benefit from staged attacks.

The website Moon of Alabama noted discrepancies in the videos passed around on social media as “evidence” of Syria’s culpability, including the following:

"The 'treatment' by the 'rebels', dousing with water and administering some asthma spray, is unprofessional and many of the 'patients' seem to have no real problem. It is theater. The real medical personnel are seen in the background working on a real patient.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry has released interviews with two men who were included in the footage alleging a chemical attack has occurred. One of the men, Halil Ajij, said he worked in the hospital in question, they had treated people for smoke poisoning, saying: “We treated them, based on their suffocation," also noting: “We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.

In an April 14 interview on Sky News, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, argued that the most elementary stage in the accusations game is to allow the actual inspection to occur.

“The evidence that chemical weapons were dropped is non-existent. Let the inspectors go in and possibly within days we will have a verdict but the jury is still out. ...I'm totally confident that the inspectors will not produce one shred of evidence to back up the assertions of the Americans. If the Americans had proof, they’d have brought it forward. What they're saying and what Mrs. May is saying, is just ‘take our word for it, trust us’. There’s not even a dodgy dossier this time.”
Israel and America benefit from the attacks... and are guilty of chemical weapons use

While the world’s eyes have been glazed over by chemical weapons script-reading journalists of corporate media, little notice is given to the ongoing Israeli slaughter and maiming of Palestinian unarmed demonstrators, targeted assassinations that last re-began with the March 30 murders of at least 17 unarmed Palestinians protesting in Gaza’s eastern regions. Israel’s murder of these unarmed youths, women and men got only mild tut-tuts from the UN, and was relegated to “clashes” by slavish corporate media. Israel is literally getting away with murder, as eyes are turned elsewhere.

According to Secretary Mattis, the US-led illegal attack on Syria “demonstrates international resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstances in contravention of international law.”

The irony? Both America and its close ally Israel have used chemical weapons on civilians. The US has attacked civilians in Vietnam and Iraq, to name but two countries, with chemical weapons.

In 2009, I was living in Gaza and documenting Israel’s war crimes when Israel bombed civilians all over Gaza with white phosphorous. These were civilians with nowhere to run or hide, including civilians who had fled their homes and taken shelter in a UN-recognized school. I myself documented numerous instances of Israel’s use of white phosphorous.

If this doesn’t outrage American citizens, the billions of US taxpayers’ dollars sent to Israel and spent on the bombing of sovereign nations — and not on America’s impoverished, nor on affordable health care — should outrage.

However, as author Jonathan Cook noted, the issue is not merely Trump’s threats to Syria:

“There is bipartisan support for this madness. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership in the US, and much of the parliamentary Labour party in the UK, are fully on board with these actions. In fact, they have been goading Trump into launching attacks.”

By not attacking Russian forces in Syria this time, the US narrowly avoided a direct military confrontation with Russia, one which would have had global ramifications, to say the least.

The question now is: will the regime-change alliance be stupid and cruel enough to support yet another false flag chemical attack in their unending efforts to depose the Syrian president, or will they give up the game and allow Syria’s full return to peace? The US and allies claim their concern for Syrian civilians, but do everything in their power to ensure civilians suffer from terrorism and sanctions.

- - -

Eva Bartlett is a freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.

First a lie, then the strike and in the end ispectors found no evidence. Same story with Iraq nukes. History repeating as a tragic joke.

OPCW fail to include in its Skripal's poisoning report, that the BZ nerve-agent only produced by US & UK was identified in the samples.

 The full extent of the damage to international peace and security caused by the US-led Syrian strikes will take some time to become clear. But its impact on the very concept of legality in international affairs is already evident.

Simply put, the most powerful county in the world and its chief satellites, the UK and France, have thrown the rule of law into the trash can. The only "law" now is the law of the jungle. There is no going back.

Ironically, the attack itself was claimed by its perpetrators as enforcement of legality, not of its obliteration. For example, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces "a clear breach of international norms and agreements" that "calls for a collective and effective response by the international community."

Leaving aside for a moment the question of what really happened in the Syrian city of Douma, Stoltenberg knows very well what the mechanism is for a collective response by the international community. It is agreement by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression," and to take military or non-military joint action to "restore international peace and security" under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Such action is subject to veto by the permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France.

The US regime doesn't give a flip about chem weapons. It doesn't give a flip about democracy, freedom, or terrorism either. These are just bumper sticker slogans to get the public behind their wars of aggression.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that it had detected 103 cruise and air-to-surface missiles, 71 of which had been intercepted by the SADF. The Russian military provided the following list of the targets with additional details on the strikes:

    Four missiles were launched at the area of the Damascus International Airport. All these missiles were intercepted.
    12 missiles were launched at the Al-Dumayr Military Airport. All these missiles were intercepted.
    18 missiles were launched  at the Baly Military Airport. All these missiles were intercepted.
    12 missiles were launched at the Shayarat Military Airport. All these missiles were intercepted.
    9 missiles were launched  at the Mezzeh Military Airport. Five of them were intercepted.
    16 missiles were launched at the Homs Military Airport. 13 of them were intercepted.
    30 missiles were launched at targets in the areas of Barzah and Jaramani. Seven missiles were intercepted.

According to the Russian Defense Minisry, the US and its allies fired cruise missiles, including seaborne Tomahawks and GBU-38 guided bombs from B-1B planes while F-15 and F-16 fighter jets launched air-to-surface missiles. The UK Air Force’s Tornado aircraft fired eight Scalp EG air-launched cruise missiles.

The Russian military added that Moscow will consider supplies of S-300 air defense systems to Syria and other countries in response to the US actions.

The Pentagon held a press briefing to provide own version of the events. The Pentagon said that the US and its allies had launched 105 missiles at the alleged “chemical weapons” facilities of the Assad government.

The US-led bloc used the following means and launchers:

    The USS Monterey CG61 fired 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Red Sea.
    The USS Laboon DDG58 launched 7 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Red Sea.
    The USS Higgins DDG76 launched 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Persian Gulf.
    The USS John Warner SSN785 launched 6 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean.
    The French frigate LANGUEDOC launched 3 Storm Shadow/SCALP EG (French naval variant is called “Missile de Croisière Naval”) cruise missiles from the Mediterranean.
    B-1B strategic bombers launched 19 AGM-158 JASSM [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile] air-launched cruise missiles.
    British Typhoon and Tornado fighter jets launched 8 Storm Shadow/SCALP EG air-launched cruise missiles.
    French Rafel and Mirage launched 9 Storm Shadow/SCALP EG air-launched cruise missiles.

The targets of the attack, according to the Pentagon:

    76 missiles – “Barzah Research and Development Center”
    22 missiles – “Him Shinshar Chemical Weapons Storage Site”
    7 missiles – “Him Shinshar CW Bunker”

US Secret Plan on Damascus Foiled...

US, along with its European puppets, wanted to topple Assad with a surprise attack on Damascus using GCC-funded terrorists...

The US Secret Plan on Damascus Foiled: The Russian Role Before and After the US-US-France Attack Revealed
Elijah J. Magnier 15 April 2018

Donald Trump has climbed down from the tree he climbed up a few days ago when he gathered a large military force and firepower similar to “operation desert storm” (but without ground forces).  “Plan A” consisted of a destructive attack on Syria to destroy its army, presidential palace, command and control bases, elite force, strategic military and ammunition warehouses, radar, defence systems and political leadership institutions.

Prior to the triple attack on Syria by the US – UK – France, intensive contacts were carried out by Russia and President Vladimir Putin himself – at around 04:00 am– to reduce the attack and go to a softer, less significant “Plan B”.

Russia, in its contact with several heads of state, rejected any hit that could cripple the Syrian Army and instructed the leadership in Damascus that the West would now think very carefully before radically changing the balance of power in the Levant.

But what is the real reason behind the US – UK – France’s attack? Is it the claim of the “chemical attack” on Duma? The Organisation for the prohibition of the chemical weapons is already in Damascus and its members visited Duma on April 5th to inspect the location where the claimed use of a chemical attack was alleged to have taken place. Why not wait for the results?

Sources in Damascus explain that the Syrian Army and its allies, supported by Russia, were carrying out a large attack on rural Idlib and had reached Abu al-Duhur airport when, all of a sudden, the military operation stopped. The entire spearhead force was moved to Ghouta. What happened?

Russia had informed the Syrian leadership of a large gathering of forces at Al-Tanf US-occupied military base on the Syrian-Iraqi borders, where tens of thousands of US proxies have received continuous military training. The Russians identified unusual military movements and understood that the US was preparing to push Syrian proxy forces to reach eastern Ghouta, linking itself with around 30,000 jihadists in Ghouta itself. This attack was planned to take place simultaneously with a diversion from Daraa, southern Syria, attacking south of Damascus so as to deceive the Syrian army and its allies into leaving smaller forces around the capital.

The US plan – said the sources – consisted in supporting its proxies and the Ghouta jihadists to reach Damascus and take full control of it. But the shifting of the military operation from rural Idlib to Ghouta spoiled the US plan to impose on Russia an enforced stay in Lattakia and Tartous confined to a limited place, and to finally change the Syrian regime. This “genius’s plan” would have spoiled all Russia’s efforts deployed through almost three years of heavy involvement in the war in Syria, and would have given the US the upper hand , just at the moment when Moscow and the Syrian Army were about to end the war, with only few more pockets left to liberate.

Russia’s hit in Ghouta broke the US plan into pieces, and imposed the withdrawal of tens of thousands of militants from Ghouta along with their families, to the north of Syria. The capital is now much safer, with the remaining area south of Damascus occupied by Al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State” group (ISIS) in Yarmouk camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad.

Today Russia rendered the US – UK – France strike meaningless, both in respect of its content and its objectives. Russia was able to impose that US – UK – France carry out only a “limited attack” of little value, and with not much chance of altering the reality on the ground in Syria.

When Russia vowed to shoot down missiles fired at Syria, Trump answered: “Get ready Russia because they will be coming, nice, new and smart”. Russia, after the hit, replied: “We have used the old Soviet anti-Air defence system against these smart, new and very expensive missiles fired by the Americans”. Not only that, the US-UK air strikes hit objectives which Israel bombards almost on a regular basis. By showing the capability to stop two thirds – as declared by Russia – of the incoming missiles, Syria is taking it as a kind of “training with live ammunition against any future Israeli attack on Syrian territory”. Israel is very disappointed and seems not at all pleased with this end result.

Showing restrain and control, the US Secretary of Defence James Mattis – he who said “the Pentagon still has no independent evidence to confirm that there was a chemical weapons attack in Syria last week”- contested any wide scale attack on Syria that could have triggered a direct Russian involvement and deadly return of fire against US objectives. Mattis accepted “an honourable strike” to save his boss’s inexperienced face. In point of fact, the trio’s strike on Syria seems have boosted the Syrian Bashar al-Assad’s reputation: the population celebrated in the streets of Damascus,  and mocked the western attack on their country!

The trio avoided at all times direct provocation of Russia, circumvented Russian bases and operational theatres instead of overflying. Russia imposed its presence and provoked the US and French navy by carrying out a simulated air attack, to show its willingness to hit back. The Russian navy was positioned opposite the Lebanese coast to cover that angle and avoid blind spots.

Moscow managed to avoid a direct confrontation with Washington outside its territory: US military bases surround Syria (Israel, Jordan, al-Tanf, al-Hasaka, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrein, Iraq, Turkey). Russia remembers how Leonid Brezhnev fell into the CIA’s trap in 1979, supporting  the Mujahedeen six months prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan- trap.  Zbigniew Brzezinski said the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was deliberately provoked by the US:

    “It was an excellent idea. It drew the Soviets into the Afghan war and we gave them Vietnam”.

Putin has avoided the same US trap almost 40 years later.

What is the next step?

All eyes are directed on the northern city of Idlib controlled by al-Qaeda now that the fate of Damascus is secured. But why Idlib?

The situation in Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus, seems directly linked to that of Fua and Kfarya. During the Zabadani negotiation, it was agreed between al-Qaeda and Damascus’s allies to keep away from al-Yarmouk, in exchange for the two besieged cities in the north of Syria. However, Damascus is now pushing to clean the capital completely, attempting to persuade its allies to bypass previous commitments.

As far as Daraa and Quneitra in the south are concerned, it seems no one in Syria seems willing to provoke the US and Israel at this tense moment; this will maybe be left to the end. In al-Badiyah, the Syrian steppes, ISIS is totally surrounded and can only wait to be exterminated in the coming months.

Idlib remains despite the Turkish-Russian-Iranian economical and financial agreement. There is no doubt about the existence of strong differences of an economic nature between partners over Syria.

Turkish President Erdogan expressed his support and later satisfaction with the US strikes on Syria. Russia answered by asking him to deliver the city of Afrin to the Syrian government. Iran’s special envoy for Syrian affairs Ali Akbar Velayati overtly stated that the next objective is Idlib. Therefore, it is now feasible for Turkey to pull out of its dozen observation bases around Idlib, even as Russia pulled out of Afrin prior to the Turkish attack. And Russia expects Erdogan to cancel the previously agreed sale of the S-400 missiles any day.

Thus, the compass points to Idlib, Rastan, Jisr al-Shoughour and the Syrian Army forces gathering in rural Lattakia, ready to divide Idlib after liberating the many villages around it.

This will bring the world to the next “chemical attack” appointment in the next operational theatre of the Syrian army and its allies. Would the US stand by al-Qaeda? Why not? It has never really been a question of the use of chemical weapons, since the US holds the largest stockpile of chemical weapons worldwide: the real issue is the defeat of the US faced with the dominance of Russia over the Levant.

White lie about Syrian White Helmets!

White helmets and Syrian Observatory for Human Rights are western backed terrorists. They are financed to produce fake photos and media so tha the U.S can spread propaganda through twitter and facebook.

The 'white helmets' tells us they are an independent organisation and do not accept money from Governments. Then British FM Borris Johnson comes along and says the British Government gave the 'white helmets' £32 million.

White Helmets: World’s most photogenic rescuers who ‘don’t care’ about civilians?
RT : 8 Apr, 2018

The notorious White Helmets group, claiming to be impartial first responders protecting Syrians – and filming themselves doing so – are again to the fore in Western media coverage, after they accused Damascus of a chemical attack.

The group, which emerged from ‘volunteer’ rescue teams operating in militant-controlled areas of Aleppo and Idlib in 2012, reached the peak of its worldwide fame during the Battle of Aleppo in 2016, becoming one of the most widely used sources of information and visual materials in Western media coverage of the Syrian conflict.

And, while a Netflix documentary about the White Helmets was praising courageous first responders and eventually won an Academy Award, people on the ground in Aleppo who spoke with RT’s Murad Gazdiev in 2017 were describing a much darker side to the ‘volunteers’ routine.

The self-proclaimed rescuers were working closely with the militants and operating under their protection, Aleppans told RT, describing how supposedly impartial humanitarian workers were saving only “their own.” White Helmets members were also accused of looting the very little aid that was coming into the city and of using the provisions to force starving locals to act on camera in return for a loaf of bread.

Further evidence of the Western-funded group’s close collaboration with militants was discovered by Gazdiev, as he toured several of their headquarters across the destroyed city. Watch Murad Gazdiev’s full report to relive the liberation of Aleppo and get a broader picture of the White Helmets’ daily routine.

Selected Comments:

# Who are those guys? Who pays their wages? Where are they from? Who trained them? Who feeds/suplies them? What passports do they hold? Who pays their insurance? Are they Arabs / Causicans / Blacks / Whites / Blue / Grey earthlings / Aliens / Martians / Moon men / Antarcticians? WHO is their leader / employer?

# You can find them only in areas where terrorists operate.

# I have seen a lot of investigative journalism on the white helmets. They claim impartiality like the Red Cross but a picture I saw of a man in "white helmet" dress one minute and the next armed with a Kalasnikov and magazine bandolier convinced me they are fighting for one side while spreading lies in their white helmets. They always seem to be "right there" to film an attack. Dressed in flip-flops and paper masks flushing nerve gas off the victims.

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The War on Syria: The Need to Amplify Voices of Truth, Peace and Justice
By Mark Taliano
Global Research, April 07, 2018

The White Helmets[1], accepted and embraced by Canadian politicians, seek to convey the illusion that Western-supported terrorists[2] are “humanitarian”.  Nothing could be further from the truth, but Canadian politicians propagate the lie.

Canadian politicians accept and amplify terrorist-supporting narratives despite the absence of corroborating evidence.

Consequently, the “humanitarian intervention” lie is reinforced with a view to increasing Canada’s criminal “intervention” in Syria, which will necessarily bring more war and terrorism to Syria.

With these words, MP Iqra Khalid extols the virtues of al Qaeda’s PR front, the White Helmets:

“Mr. Speaker, I watched footage of a small boy, covered in dust, face streaked with blood, eyes baring hopelessness, being pulled out of rubble and into an ambulance. The brave people who saved this boy’s life, along with tens of thousands like him, wore white helmets, and belonged to the Syrian

civil defence. It is a team of 3,700 civilian volunteers who devote their lives to helping vulnerable Syrians in conflict areas. Since 2013, 243 white helmets have lost their lives. They are in Ottawa today so MPs can learn first-hand the brave work they do in Syria, and what our Liberal government
support has meant for them on the ground. Support from our government has helped them increase women volunteers in their organization and provide more services for women and children, including access to first aid. I ask my colleagues to join me in commending their bravery, their dedication, and their commitment to saving lives. They are the heroes of our time.”[3]

Similarly, with these words, MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj[4] makes the case for increased Canadian “humanitarian intervention” in Syria, presumably based upon the testimonies of visiting White Helmets members:

Unfortunately, Canadian politicians are not interested in independent evidence, which includes testimonies from Syrians recently liberated (by the SAA and its allies) from the captivity and tyranny of Western-supported terrorists in East Ghouta Syria.  This is one such testimony[5]:

Prior to the West’s criminal, dirty war on Syria, Syria was one the world’s safest countries in terms of personal safety.[6]

Instead of amplifying al Qaeda narratives, Canadian politicians should be amplifying evidence-based narratives of truth, justice, and peace.

Independent investigative journalist Eva Bartlett[7], in an interview with Lee Camp, gives an evidence-based explanation of what is really happening in Syria.

We the people need to amplify voices of truth, justice, and peace.  Canadian politicians will not do so.