Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Free Preview Clip
Robert Parry, independent Washington journalist and publisher of ConsortiumNews, returns to talk about Syria, and the lack of evidence behind the assertions from Obama and Kerry that they know it was Assad’s forces who used sarin gas. Click here for GoDaddy deal that benefits the PBC podcast!
Employing appropriate skepticism, Parry has carefully reviewed the statements from Obama and Kerry, including Obama’s UN speech on September 24, related to chemical weapons used in the Syrian civil war. Parry notes that the recent report from UN inspectors cast doubt on one reported use of gas from August 21, and suggested that evidence from the area around Ghouta may have been manipulated.
We talk about the history of US manipulation of information used to justify military action, from the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin to 2003 claims of WMD in Iraq. Parry relates the report on a Moscow meeting in late July of this year between Vladimir Putin and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, where Bandar brags about his control of Chechen fighters in Syria, and uses veiled threats that anger Putin.
Parry notes in this recent post that excess secrecy by the US, Russia and others prevent the public from seeing the evidence that leaders claim is so compelling. We also talk about the folly, promoted by some American leaders, that we can arm the “moderate opposition” in Syria.