Trump, May, Macron Silent On OPCW Syria Scandal.

by Jerry Alatalo

*

“The essence of lying is in deception, not in words; a lie may be told in silence, by equivocation, by the accent of a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence; but all of these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded.”

– JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) British writer

 

While Trump, May and Macron have yet to even respond to the new, growing scandal at The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the United States Department of State is once again warning the government of Syria against using chemical weapons.

 scandal of historic and global proportions has surfaced after an omitted engineering report focused on an alleged April 2018 chemical weapons incident in Douma, Syria, – by experts associated with The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – has become leaked to the public.

Strangely, United States President Donald Trump, outgoing United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May, and President Emmanuel Macron of France are all silent on the rapidly growing scandal, especially mysterious because the omitted report clearly obliterates the basis for their controversial, combined April 2018 bombing of Syria.

The leaked OPCW engineering report strongly suggests the alleged April 2018 chemical attacks in Douma, Syria were staged.

In addition to the concerning and inexplicable silence of world leaders Trump, May and Macron and their governments to what is obviously a tremendous scandal involving the OPCW, the (non)reporting of the scandal from major Western corporate media organizations is equally silent and/or absent.

“Cover-up” might be the applicable term for the combined U.S./U.K./France government and media silence on this matter, seeing that acknowledgement of the now-revealed facts regarding the Syria bombing opens the flood gates wide open for discussions on corrupt manipulation of OPCW operations, and the committing of war crimes by leaders Trump, May and Macron.

Journalist Aaron Mate of the independent media organization The Grayzone talked to weapons expert and emeritus M.I.T. Professor Theodore Postol about the leaked report, as well as the extremely serious ramifications of the scandal with respect to international law prohibiting chemical weapons.

Emeritus M.I.T. Professor Theodore Postol is considered one of the world’s leading weapons experts.

Attention will now most likely turn to the arm of the organization responsible for managing the scandal, – the OPCW’s Office of Internal Oversight – described in the following from the OPCW website:

https://www.opcw.org/about-us/technical-secretariat/divisions/office-internal-oversight

The Office of Internal Oversight (OIO) assists the Director-General in the management of the OPCW’s resources through Audits, Evaluations, Quality audits, Inspections, Investigations and Monitoring.

OIO’s mission is to enhance and protect organisational value and improve OPCW’s operations by providing risk-based and objective assurance, advice, and insight. OIO helps OPCW achieve its objectives by applying a systematic approach to evaluating and enhancing the adequacy and effectiveness of risk management, internal control and governance processes, so as to add value by improving the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of operations.

The Office provides State Parties and the Director-General with reasonable assurance that financial, operational, confidentiality and security controls are adequate and complied with as well as that the management of resources and programmes is efficient and effective. In its work related to audits (both internal audits and confidentiality audits), the Office follows the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing (issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), United States of America).

The evaluation function of the OPCW is part of the internal oversight mechanism of the Organisation and is managed by the Office of Internal Oversight (OIO). Our mission is to promote accountability through independent, credible and useful evaluations of the OPCW programmes and activities. The Office follows the Evaluation Standards prescribed by the United Nations Evaluations Group (UNEG).

The OIO also reviews the Quality Assurance policy and strategy in order to maintain a comprehensive programme aimed at meeting the requirements of the following international standards, which are subject to the assessment of the RvA: ISO/IEC 17025:2005 (General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories); and ISO/IEC 17043:2010 (Conformity assessment—General requirements for proficiency testing).

As Oversight of QMS in the accredited parts of the Technical Secretariat has been entrusted to the Office of Internal Oversight, OIO is responsible for establishing and maintaining the accreditation of the quality assurance regime for the OIO itself, the OPCW Laboratory and on-site analytical procedures. Although the focus is on the OPCW Laboratory, OIO is responsible for managing two accredited processes: certification of OPCW Central Analytical Database and On-Site Databases and certification of preparation and testing of GC-MS inspection equipment

In addition, OIO carries out oversight audits covering quality assurance, conducted in accordance with current ISO auditing standards, and assess “the analytical network, including the OPCW quality assurance/quality control programme for on-site analysis, the OPCW Laboratory, together with the designated and other laboratories performances”.

In addition, by placing the responsibilities of the Quality Manager (currently SEQAO) in the Oversight Function, the OIO is the process owner for the set of processes related to the daily management of QMS.

*

It is worth noting that the April 2018 alleged chemical incident in Douma, Syria occurred shortly after the controversial March 2018 so-called Skripal-Novichok incident in Salisbury, United Kingdom. Besides an extremely brief scripted “interview” by Reuters of Yulia Skripal, featuring nothing by way of a detailed question-and-answer, in the (14) months since the incident millions are asking why virtually nobody has seen nor heard from Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal.

The events in Douma and Salisbury suggest a coordinated dual-aspect covert false flag operation intended to deceptively link Syria and Russia, namely Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin, in the public’s mind as “chemical weapons criminals”. The motivation for such a false flag operation, if that is indeed the truth of the matter, would be to ease the prospects for public acceptance of a military response from the U.S., U.K. and France leading to the overthrow of the Syrian government.

It is also worth noting and remembering that there was a certain sense of impatience on the part of Trump, May and Macron to give the orders for the April 2018 bombing strikes, ignoring the voices urgently calling for restraint from many quarters of the Earth, and particularly as many serious questions about the Douma incident were near immediately after the incident being raised worldwide.

The separate but arguably related weeks-apart incidents share a major subsequent similarity: the strange, puzzling non-response from Trump, May and Macron on the scandal involving the OPCW, and the effective father-daughter total silence of Yulia and Sergei Skripal.

Will the world’s people ever hear from Yulia and Sergei Skripal – ever again? Will the world’s people ever hear from Donald Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron on the OPCW scandal – ever … for the first time?

The Grayzone’s Aaron Mate and Professor Theodore Postol.

(Thank you to The Grayzone at YouTube)

Advertisements

Venezuelans Face Rising Threat Of War.

by Jerry Alatalo

omeone famously (and accurately) described the February 2014 U.S.-planned coup in Ukraine, – which overthrew the democratically elected government of Victor Yanukovich and led to civil war – as the most obvious, blatant coup in world history.

People might remember the January 2019 U.S.-planned coup attempt in Venezuela as even more obvious.

In 2014 and Ukraine, the Obama/Clinton State Department and Victoria Nuland appointed the new president “Yats”, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who shortly afterwards resigned and was replaced by Petro Poroshenko. Ms. Nuland, infamous for her “F@%k the EU!” and “Yats is the guy” unforgettable assertions – caught on an intercepted phone call which quickly went viral on the internet, spoke in front of a group of corporate energy bigs and noted the expenditure of $5,000,000,000 in U.S. taxpayer monies for Ukraine.

In 2019, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence named Juan Guaido the new president of Venezuela, Guaido swearing himself into office, and thus sharing with “Yats” the distinct achievement of appointment as leader of a government overthrown via illegal coup by the big boys from Washington, D.C.. Ukraine is, as the phrase goes, a “done deal”; Venezuelans can hopefully avoid repeating what happened in Ukraine: deadly, unnecessary civil war.

As yet, no Trump administration official has, like Ms. Nuland had done, shared the number of billions in taxpayers’ dollars spent on the effort to overthrow democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, – however, one might estimate much more than $5 billion, given Venezuela possesses the largest oil reserves on planet Earth.

Whatever the number of $billions, John Bolton seems confident in the investment. He went on Fox News business media casually talking about U.S. oil corporations taking over Venezuela’s oil production, as if it were already a “done deal”.

Similarly, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is referring to Venezuela’s elected top politician as “former President Maduro”, as if the over six million people who voted for him and lifted him into the highest office (for the second time) no longer exist.

That Venezuela has stopped taking $ as payment and has influence in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and considering the possibility that OPEC nations could accelerate the trend of decreased use of U.S. dollars for oil purchases, people might get a better sense of why Donald Trump and his administration are so anxious to place Juan Guaido in the Venezuela big chair.

OPEC consists of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Unfortunately for Americans, their governments have, – especially since the false flag of September 11, 2001 and intended over-17-year fraudulent “war of terror” – alienated much of the rest of the world, and severely tarnished America’s reputation, through implementing massively deadly war as the means of increasing business markets share and profits.

Like the alcohol-addicted men in small towns whose propensity for needlessly beating up others leads to their having to relocate … with reputation burnt up in the Middle East-North Africa region, Venezuela became the easily-predicted obvious next target for the Trump administration.

The people of Venezuela face the very real possibility of experiencing what the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen have become forced to endure since 9/11: the completely unnecessary nightmare of horrific war, violence, displacement, injury and destruction.

The sad part of the story is that 9/11 and all the human-tragedy, bogus “terrorist” wars of choice never needed to happen. Nations and corporations doing fair trade for reasonable profits while willing to follow international law and embracing non-intervention philosophy? …

Perhaps the United States of America can begin repairing with sincerity the self-inflicted damage to its global reputation. Perhaps not, but one thing is for certain.

The good people of Venezuela would greatly appreciate such a path in these days and nights of their overwhelming worry.

Peace.

(Thank you to The Real News Network at YouTube)

Donald Trump Silent On White Helmets Scandal.

by Jerry Alatalo

Among the participants and attendees of the December 20, 2018 United Nations meeting on the activities of the White Helmets were Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari and Russian Federation Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia

eople who watch the DECEMBER 20, 2018 United Nations meeting, which presented evidence of horrific crimes committed inside Syria by the so-called “rescue” organization and Academy Award-winning “White Helmets”, will come to a full understanding of the true reason U.S. President Donald Trump went on Twitter (Date: DECEMBER 19, 2018).

President Trump announced a major, surprise change in his administration’s foreign policy 24 hours before the U.N. meeting exposing the White Helmets international scandal – and wrote that, essentially: “We (U.S. military forces) are leaving Syria … immediately!”. Is it possible, or even probable, that Mr. Trump was aware of the U.N. meeting scheduled for the 20th of December, and that his no-cost Twitter foreign policy statement was delivered to place a global media roadblock in front of the White Helmets bombshell, set to explode the next day?

We sense the answer is “yes”. However, the only way of knowing for certain is hearing from Donald Trump himself for his opinion of the “extremely inconvenient, taboo…” details presented at the December 20 event. Trump’s 12/19/2018 action, a military psychological operation if the described theory becomes proved true, was put forward to soak up all global media attention, which indeed was the result. In other words, – Mr. Trump took a calculated public relations action to protect the diminishing reputation of the White Helmets, or to bury any chance of any appreciable amount of people worldwide learning details of the White Helmets criminal scandal revealed on 12/20/2018.

Developments in the near (3) weeks since Trump’s announcement seem to confirm the theory. Donald Trump and members of his administration have not said anything about the White Helmets in those (3) weeks, – most especially relaying nothing publicly whatsoever about, or since, the damning December 20 U.N. meeting.

Trump’s Twitter action could be described using Trump terminology as “fantastic, and very successful”; very few people worldwide heard news of the White Helmets scandal revealed at the December 20 United Nations meeting; Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton has issued, as more than once in the past, a warning to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about potential use of chemical weapons, and, once more, threatening the severest of military responses.

With the already-suffering reputation of the White Helmets terrorist group effectively “saved” thanks to Donald Trump’s Twitter psychological operation and public relations fix, the rising odds for another false flag chemical attack in Syria (possibly Israel due to growing Neocon desperation) becomes more plausible as a predictive. This creates legitimate worries that another deception-based military response from the United States (Trump), United Kingdom (May) and France (Macron) will bring much more unnecessary death,injury and harm than previous illegal bombing operations.

What public responses, if any, have the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron issued on this very serious matter?

Who will become the first courageous U.S. journalist submitting to the president of the United States of America the following question?

“With respect to extremely troubling revelations made on December 20 at the United Nations, President Trump, could you please share with Americans and people of the world your honest assessment of the White Helmets?”

Future history books may record, teach and describe the 2-hour December 20, 2018 meeting at the United Nations as a pivotal and important, world changing event

***

(Thank you to Nizar Abboud at YouTube)

Lecture in Girona on the Universal Right of Self-Determination of Peoples

Alfred de Zayas' Human Rights Corner

NOTES FOR THE ASSESSMENT

 OF ACTIVITIES AND ALLEGATIONS

 RELATED TO THE PEACEFUL AND DEMOCRATIC EXERCISE

OF THE UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION OF PEOPLES

Introduction: The “right of self-determination of peoples”, hereinafter the “right of self-determination”, is a fundamental right protected at the highest level by the international legal order. It is enshrined in the first article of the Charter of the United Nations, the founding treaty of the Organization, and in other international legal instruments, including the UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It is considered “jus cogens”, that is, fundamental norm of superior hierarchical rank, standing above any contradictory legal provision which would become automatically null, in accordance with the Charter and with Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

 

It is therefore a direct and legally binding right applicable to all United Nations Member States…

View original post 6,649 more words