Investigative
journalist Robert Parry raises troubling questions about the UN's new
report into the presumed chemical weapons attacks on the al Qaeda-held
town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria last April - the one that was blamed by pretty much everyone on the Syrian government.
Although the report does its best to prop up that narrative, Parry
notes that evidence in one of the annexes - the place where inconvenient
facts are often buried in such reports - appears to blow a large hole
in the official story.
Parry points out that the time recorded
by the UN of the photo of the supposed chemical weapons attack is more
than half an hour *after* some 100 victims had already been admitted to
five different hospitals, some of them lengthy drives from the alleged
impact site.
The times, he observes, are simply incompatible with
the official story. Which would seem to require some serious
explanation from those who cling to it. Let's not hold our breath
waiting for answers.
And if we were lied to about this grave
matter, which led to Trump illegally bombing Syria, what other lies are
we being told?
Parry:
To establish when the supposed
sarin attack occurred on April 4, the JIM [Joint Investigative
Mechanism] report relied on witnesses in the Al Qaeda-controlled town
and a curious video showing three plumes of smoke but no airplanes.
Based on the video’s metadata, the JIM said the scene was recorded
between 0642 and 0652 hours. The JIM thus puts the timing of the sarin
release at between 0630 and 0700 hours.
But the first admissions
of victims to area hospitals began as early as 0600 hours, the JIM
found, meaning that these victims could not have been poisoned by the
alleged aerial bombing (even if the airstrike really did occur).
According to the report’s Annex II, “The admission times of the records
range between 0600 and 1600 hours.” And these early cases – arriving
before the alleged airstrike – were not isolated ones.
“Analysis
of the … medical records revealed that in 57 cases, patients were
admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun,” Annex
II said.
Plus, this timing discrepancy was not limited to a few
hospitals in and around Khan Sheikhoun, but was recorded as well at
hospitals that were scattered across the area and included one hospital
that would have taken an hour or so to reach. ...
In other words,
more than 100 patients would appear to have been exposed to sarin
before the alleged Syrian warplane could have dropped the alleged bomb
and the victims could be evacuated, a finding that alone would have
destroyed the JIM’s case against the Syrian government.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ross fires a
tomahawk land attack missile from the Mediterranean Sea at Syria, April
7, 2017. (Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert S. Price)
