Bethania Palma writes for Snopes about Russian-promoted disinformation that up to 85 chemical attack victims in Douma, near Syria’s capital Damascus, really died from “dust” stirred up by shelling.
The denials by Russia and the Assad regime of any chemical assault have been aided by suspect journalism, including by Robert Fisk of the Independent, through interviews with people who did not witness the attacks and who are likely to have been pressured into their statements.
See UK Journalist Given Access to Douma to Deny Chemical Attacks
Analysts for the story include research Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has extensive contacts in Douma; journalist Patrick Hilsman; and EA’s Scott Lucas:
Almost no one picks up the [Russian State outlet] Sputnik pieces, but because Fisk is a Western journalist working for the Independent, people will run with it. Then the Russians will have an organized strategy to promote Fisk’s piece, and the network of [pro-Assad] activists will know this and will give it the amplification they need.
Journalists and area experts are calling into question widely-shared articles that cast doubt on reports of a chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma.
Many of the stories have been published by the Russian state-controlled propaganda network RT and conspiratorial sites such as ZeroHedge, regurgitating a report by storied war correspondent Robert Fisk writing for the Independent. The stories focus on a claim that first appeared in another Kremlin-controlled outlet, Sputnik, which featured two Syrian medical responders telling the Russian military that scores of people who convulsed and died on 7 April 2018 outside Damascus did so as a result of dust or smoke inhalation, not from a chemical attack, as is widely suspected.
These reports glaringly exclude evidence based on witness statements, photographs, and videos from the scene which have been widely reported on by international news media.
See also Fog of Trolls: Pro-Assad Misinformation Over Douma Chemical Attacks
Syria’s Disinformation Activists
At the center of criticism is an interview conducted by The Independent’s Fisk, who traveled as part of a convoy of foreign journalists escorted into Douma by agents of the Assad government. The contents of the story and the quote he published have been widely repeated by both Russian propaganda outlets and Assad regime supporters. In the newly-conquered, government-held city, Fisk spoke on the record with a doctor who experts say likely gave — in order to avoid arrest, torture, or death — a regime-friendly account of events. The doctor’s account rang eerily similar to comments made to Sputnik by the medical responders days earlier.
Russia: We told US where in Syria they could not bomb: https://news.sky.com/story/russia-we-told-us-where-in-syria-they-could-not-bomb-11338625
“They were informed about where our red lines are, including red lines on the ground, geographically. And the results show that they did not cross these red lines.”
Evidently slaughtering about 200 of their drunken mercs must not be a red line. The Russians are delusional, pathological liars.
“Evidently slaughtering about 200 of their drunken mercs must not be a red line“
Slaughtering 240 US troops in the Beirut barracks was clearly not a red line for the US.
That was almost 35 years ago. Your pathological obsession with incoherently maligning the US on long passed historical events just shows you ain’t no liberal or Australian. You carry a professional animosity against the US.
US still paying White Helmets despite $200mn-aid freeze for Syria recovery: https://www.rt.com/usa/424717-us-pay-white-helmets-syria/
Just shows that American as opposed to Iranians and Russians are decent people who help establish the peace and provide humanitarian aid. On the other hand Russians and Iranians shell, bomb, maim, and kill innocent people from far away.
[Headline corrected: Syrian government troops unearth mass grave near capital Damascus]
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/04/19/559041/Syrian-government-troops-unearth-mass-grave-near-capital-Damascus
Fake News site alert.
Maybe Assad should not have bombed, shelled, barreled, and gassed people’s homes, and instead had let them participate democratically in a democratic constitution? Just saying …
“Bethania Palma writes for Snopes about Russian-promoted disinformation that up to 85 chemical attack victims in Douma, near Syria’s capital Damascus, really died from “dust” stirred up by shelling.”
Totally false: The claim is that many of the breathing problems exhibited in the videos may be due to hypoxia, in part caused by a duststorm. Nobody has claimed that dust actually killed anyone. The claim was first made by a Syrian doctor, Assim Rahaibani, whom Robert Fisk interviewed on Monday: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html
There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”
You slipped up with this one — the “totally false” is on you. Here’s the part of the article you left out:
“The patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.”
Oxygen starvation is not the same as “being killed by dust”. There is no doubt that many of those who died were found in the basements of buildings.
Just quoting the journalist and the doctor whom you have been relying on as sources.
So comic. So it is just fine if people die from a dust storm created by massive amounts of bombs dropped on people (who somehow did not get killed by the bombs themselves, but just by the dust)? Do you think objective and empirical observers are this stupid to believe your story? If so, then go tell your superiors to construct a narrative that there has been no war in Syria in the first place, and everyone should stop fretting about Assad. Nothing here – move on.