- BBC News showed footage of tour of destroyed Barza facility
- Barza said to be major chemical and bio weapon facility
- Barza hit by more missiles than any other during weekend’s strikes
- protective equipment conspicuous by its absence
The BBC does not often help expose government fiction these days, but with the help of a video clip provided by CBS News it did so today – although of course without drawing attention to what it had just revealed.
BBC News continued to cover the attacks on Syria extensively and its coverage included – as an example of the claims by Syrian officials that innocent facilities had been destroyed – a video of a US journalist visiting the Barza laboratory that was razed during the weekend’s missile strikes by American, British and French forces.
It was – perhaps inadvertently – extremely revealing:
The destroyed facility was supposedly a key centre for Syrian research, development and testing of chemical and biological weapons, which would have been blown into the surrounding environment by the multiple explosions – Barza took fifty-seven of the roughly one hundred missile strikes launched.
Remember – chemical and biological weapons, including potentially nerve agents that require only a tiny fraction of a gram to be lethal such as sarin, which Syria is alleged to have used previously.
Yet the rescuers and firefighters shown in the video – along with the journalist and the professor accompanying him – are wearing no protective equipment.
Not even a simple face-mask.
Both the Syrian scientist and the journalist blithely pick up debris around the site, when many toxins can be absorbed through the skin and weaponised biological agents would be just as easy to pick up.
The Skripals might have survived the Salisbury toxin absorbed through their hands, but it made them extremely ill – so it seems the CBS correspondent was just as confident as the locals that there were no toxic substances in the wreckage.
This BBC did not pick up on this obvious feature of the video.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Yes, I was thinking exactly the same when watching the news report.
On ‘Peston’ this morning Emily Thornberry struggled a little when trying to answer RP about the legitimacy of the attack and she said it would have been better to wait for the OPCW inspection.
Whether or not the OPCW had time to inspect is irrelevant. The point is that because the gas attack had already happened – if it happened at all, there was NO humanitarian imperative as May is trying to claim. Therefore Emily missed an ideal opportunity to say that what May has done is illegal and this is what we should be pushing.
If you want a genuine case for humanitarian intervention, it was the TWO WEEKS starting in 2008 when the Israelis rained down white burning phosphorous and tonnes of explosives on the captive inhabitants of Gaza during Cast Lead.
Too many Labour MPs tie themselves in knots on TV because when questioned, they fail to ask themselves ‘what would a Socialist say?’
Far from being the most important aspect but still – what would have been the cost of this fiasco?
120-odd missiles expended at £800k – £1.1m each plus the cost of delivering them. I’d guess close to half a billion total for US, UK & France and for what?
Russians had to be informed what to evacuate and when so Syrians will have known too. What capability they had will be only marginally affected if at all.
Just an exercise in public relations so our governments can pretend that without them we’d be all speaking Russian.
Good points.
Yes, it was nothing more than a face saving exercise for Trump, Macron and May, the three stooges, with the possibility of disastrous consequences for Syrians.
Good points and perhaps blowing up ‘chemical facilities’ would send toxic fumes out amongst local populations!
Was this part of the “wisdom” demonstrated by THE 3 RIGHT WING TWITS?
You worry too much, Skwawky. I remember them H-bomb tests where the soldiers were told to wear hawaiian shirts, bermuda shorts, flip-flops and cheap sunglasses – and they seemed alright.
(/sarcastic font)
No doubt the target was not particularly relevant to the act. West don’t know where chemical weapons are. Yes it was an agreement between Trump’s and Putin’s people to save face. Last night’s BBC Interview with child and mother, although separately seated (???) reveals convincingly there was a toxic substance dropped by helicopter on people in Douma -undoubtedly by Assad’s regime. Bowen has twice talked on air now about dead bodies and foam at the mouth as a consequence of the toxin attack. But he does not say if he has seen this footage nor is there any explanation of who has seen it and why we as general public can’t see it. Are we not grown up enough to see it, when we have seen plenty of dead bodies before on screen including Holocaust victims and victims of famines. Or does the footage not exist but was given as evidence on authority that Bowen trusts? Weird. Until they show it, there will be conspiracy theories on this blog.
Jeremy Bowen believes Assad will win this 8 year long war because of the West’s errors in 2013 and the confusion over who was a terrorist group and who wasn’t and the lack of commitment to any war post the Iraq horror. A lot comes back to Blair. But Putin himself has been badly handled. The Russians wanted respect, did not get it and now look at the mess we are in.
The same is true of the infamous White Helmets video. If it had been a nerve agent as claimed you might think the “rescuers” might at least put on a pair of gloves and stopped grabbing children’s clothes. They obviously knew there was no danger.
And MSM media lied by omission – there were deaths reported by locals, now confirmed on the Radio 5 phone-in today , 9am onwards
“Steve”, you should have made it a spot the deliberate mistake competition.
Highly toxic lung burning Chemical and Biological weapons can only be handled with special equipment.
Unlike, what the pictures depict, picking up rocks on the beach!
How far is she willing to go?
This “FIASCO”, is starting to look and sound more and more like WMDs!
My belief is, May, wants so much to stay as the leader of the right with help of course, from those like minded right wing thinkers on our back benches, to make JC so unpopular with the voting public!
They will do anything, to get rid of the best leader, the Socialist Labour Party has ever had!
I have news for them all.
“IT WON’T HAPPEN”!