Syria, Russia present witnesses of 'staged' gas attack at OPCW - Polidicks

PressTV Related to reaction: Britain, France slam 'obscene' Russian claims of staged chemical Russia offers Syria "witnesses" at OPCW used in "staged videos" ..

A question though; What exactly does this achieve? Like, the OPCW investigation team has been to Douma, they took samples, probably talked to the locals. Now it is up to them to find out whether there were any chemical weapons truly used or not. So, what is the point of going before the OPCW, presenting a bunch of Syrians and saying "Here, look, these are the witnesses and they say that nothing happened there, just like we've been saying all along!" What if the OPCW ends up finding traces of chemical weapons? Is that a "provocation" too? I mean, if they don't, then fair enough. I don't mind admitting my fault and I believe that many people will want to find out what really happened there. All I'm trying to say is that presenting possible witnesses before the scientists, that are actually studying the samples, seems a bit pointless because, at least, I personally am more inclided to believe a chemical analysis by scientists rather than a confession of a bunch of people.

Those aren't scientists only, foreign representatives were invited to participate aswell but declined for reasons illogical. As for event itself - it is supposed to highlight how incredibly amateur and unweighted was decision for retaliation BEFORE investigation conclusion, soo that maybe in future, people will think twice before jumping on bandwagon out of ignorance, not to mention that western media basically refuses most of oposing views regarding events that are in line with their narrative, something that is more than alwasy swept under a rug.

The thing is not many people would apply that same criticism to their own politicians, your points are extremely valid, but go through any FP thread from the Syria incident and 90% of posts fall right in line with the assumption, as likely or not as it may be, without any evidence to support. It's hypocritical, you wouldn't trust a scientific article without hard evidence to support it yet when news comes pointing a finger it goes unquestioned,unfortunately this goes to a national level and it needs to stop if we want to respect ourselves as a free educated region.

I didn't realize we had a blatant Russian propaganda megathread.

Well, I agree with you that it didn't make them look "very nice" to retaliate before the investigation even really started, however at the same time I think there are two problems that need to be addressed; A) The United Nations and specifically the United States have become (or in the past acted as) the world police and while their previous actions may not have been right and properly justified, I think that a lot of people now see them as that and when there is any sort of injustice or possible crimes against the humanity happening, people expect them to go in and help and they may think "wtf, they did this before even though it was completely unwarranted, now this shit happens and they do nothing?" B) I am pretty sure that world leaders get a lot more information than we do (including journalists), that's what intelligence agencies are for. So I like to think that there's a reason behind their decision to retaliate so soon. I am quite bad at explaining my thoughts, but my first point boils down to: People expect the US to be the world police and they are sort of forced into acting.

Nah, just 2 very special posters

This thread should have raining vodka bottles over it while playing bandit radio. If someone could make a script to do that when you hover over either's post I'd give them a diamond.

gotta balance out those facts with wild speculation after all

Resonant and Karimatrix are our fellow comrades guys, just sharing fascinating articles and opinions!

they're certainly not communist.

MediaBias/FactCheck doesn't pick up the site, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if presstv.com was a Russian state-sponsored news website considering this article in particular.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/press-tv/

I stand corrected, my apologies.

About your point A) The thing is, everybody bitches about international treaties when they see it fit, throwing tantrum at each other, but the "people expect world police" view means that the same politicians to whom you atribute capacity of making decisions based on intelligence and espionage, people you'd come ot expect being extreme rationalist, show tendency of ignoring same norms they'd be bashing other countries for. This was always and always will be my only and the most of important message - i am incredibly aware of situation within my own coutnry, and if somebody would have the nerve to actually read through my posts rather than jump on "hurr durr shill" vagon, they see a fuckton of my coverage in regards to rise of orthodox clerisim, state sponsored tv censorship that is kept up by media clans, CORRUPPTION AS FUCK police, ruined quality of universal healthcare and etc. But when it comes to international politics, i am horryfied that those who "appear" as nations of higher values, drop down soo low to play the card of paiting Russia as source of all evil, separating world to black and white and their population mostly follow presented narrative, going soo far as marking opposing views as propaganda without even digging in context. Yeah, there is alot of bias in russia's media coverage, but main reason why soo many news has to be interlinked as sources is because for most part, western media coverage simply ignores issues that contradict their statements.

Nope, sorry, still a shill, fuck you xdddd /s ^^Pretty much non sarcastically most of western posters

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43912739 I'll just leave the BBC article here as another source.

"OPCW inspectors are currently examining the site of the alleged attack in Douma, but were delayed by Russia in gaining access to the area two weeks" FUCK YOU BBC, nobody was preventing OPCW from getting in, we had all kinds of journalists parade in there all over for all weeks while OPCW sit their ass out out of fear of some shelling, people were visiting supposed sites, touched canisters, took photos of labs, how about you show any of that?

Hasn't there been lots of chemical attacks prior to this? Why's this one so important

It wasn't so much the attack but the retaliatory strikes from US, UK and France that has caused uproar. If no chemical weapons are found, it means that those strikes were done with bad or no intelligence and could have possibly escalated to war. Any attack on a sovereign nation (whether you like the leader or not) is a big deal and sets a standard to the rest of the world.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/chemical-weapons-watchdog-opcw-denied-access-douma-180420114921148.html Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from neighbouring Lebanon's capital Beirut, said the OPCW statement did not lay blame on anyone for the incident but added that both Syria and its main ally Russia "have been accused by Western powers of hampering the work" of the watchdog. "What we understand is that Douma is under the control of the Russian military and the Syrian government. Both of them claimed just a few days ago that the area had been 'fully liberated from terrorists'," she said. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-kremlin/kremlin-allegations-inspectors-denied-access-to-douma-groundless-idUSKBN1HN1NZ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/syria-chemical-attack-inspectors-unable-to-access-douma-site Russia and Syria had cited “pending security issues” before inspectors could deploy to the town outside Damascus, said Ahmet Üzümcü, the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at a meeting of its executive council.

I posted an article in an earlier thread that stated the UN wouldn't let the OPCW go ahead because of licensing or something like that, they needed the proper paperwork. Then of course this security team went in first, so even if there were blocks from the Russian/Syrian side the OPCW wouldn't have gone in earlier anyway most likely due to these things. The OPCW themselves have consistently stated that the Syrian government were very accommodating also.

in what context you post those? first headline says : Watchdog says any deployment will have to receive security clearance, a day after UN team comes under fire in Douma. And later it almost word to wrod cites what i posted in regard to BBC article Al jazerra is again, mostly about specualtions Reuters is as neutral as possble and guardian is tame but they all mention that OPCW was not "denied" entry like BBC says, but that their representatives fleed the scene for security concerne and were expecting clearance.

I simply posted several different articles related to that event and highlighted the parts that caught my eye. It wasn't meant to validate or invalidate your point. All I wanted to do was post different sources talking about it.

PressTV literally worked with Iranian authorities to torture a guy into doing a forced interview in which he confessed to conspiring against the Supreme Leader. He was told that if he didn't do the interview he would be executed. They're banned in the UK for serious breaches of the broadcasting code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_TV#Maziar_Bahari_and_UK_licence_revocation

PressTV IS literally Iranian state television. It should be in the list of ban worthy sources.

If you did not notice i provided multiple other sources

The stigma is 'ban sources that are duplicitous or who are controlled by a state, thereby making anything they say suspect at best and also ban sources that take extreme positions'. If you're not a credible or reasonable source, you don't belong in Polidicks.

Dude, your government is in the wrong here. It's okay. Everyones government does shady shit in brown countries. You aren't your government, and we aren't ours.

wait, in wrong of what, did you even read articles?