“We’re Being Played”: Tucker Carlson Features Leaked Syria Chemical Attack Memo
On Thursday night Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” featured rare prime time coverage of the bombshell leaked OPCW report which refuted key events surrounding the April 2018 alleged chemical gas attack in Douma, Syria — which resulted in massive US and allied airstrikes on Damascus, nearly leading to a major war at the time. And now new allegations are looming which could once again lead to US airstrikes on Syria.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is the international chemical weapons watchdog group which has worked in tandem with the UN to investigation claimed Sarin and chlorine gas attack sites in Syria. The smoking gun document, Tucker said in opening remarks, vindicates his and others’ past skepticism. He said:
“Now a leaked document shows there was good reason to be skeptical.”
Mainstream media has ignored the leaked #OPCW report that sheds doubt on the Syrian govt’s involvement in the alleged chemical attack in Douma last year. Tucker Carlson is the exception. Here he discusses the leaked report w/#TulsiGabbard who also talks about #Iran. #Syria pic.twitter.com/2Id5BqxuXw
— Walid (@walid970721) May 24, 2019
But here we are again — one year later — with yet another chemical attack claim near Idlib on Sunday, which the US State Department says it is investigating, vowing to “respond quickly and appropriately” if Assad is found guilty of using the banned weapons, according to an official statement.
But crucially, as Tucker Carlson pointed out on his show Thursday evening in reference last year’s Douma events, “At the time that happened this program was pretty much the only show on mainstream television to show any skepticism about the official narrative of the attack.”
Introducing a segment with Democratic presidential contender Tulsi Gabbard, a known longtime skeptic on Syrian regime change, Carlson reviewed the prior two American attacks on the Syrian government, noting “Justification for both attacks was an alleged aerial chemical weapons attack on anti-Assad rebels in Douma, Syria.”
Congresswomen Gabbard told the Fox host during the interview that the leaked document presents major reasons to doubt the official narrative concerning both Douma and the most recent claims out of Idlib being advanced by the al-Qaeda groups Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP). She said she is reaching out to both the UN and OPCW for answers.
Referencing current and past Syria chemical attack claims, Tucker agreed that, “I’m beginning to suspect that we’re being played here.”
The document, whose authenticity the OPCW has confirmed, contends that the official story which was used to justify an air strike by the US, UK and France about poison gas being dropped on civilians from Syrian government helicopters is scientifically implausible, saying “In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.” — Establishment Narrative-Managers Struggling With New Syria Plot Holes
Since the leaked OPCW report surfaced over a week ago there’s predictably been mainstream silence, perhaps with the exception of two major UK outlets, The Independent and The Daily Mail.
Rocket scientist and MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol has also weighed in to say the new evidence reveals the “attacks were staged”.
Postol: Newly Revealed Documents Show Syrian Chemical “Attacks Were Staged”https://t.co/25lVDwpY09 #OPCW #UNSC pic.twitter.com/huLA9LLlNB
— accuracy.org (@accuracy) May 21, 2019
Writing for The Independent, world-renowned Middle East war correspondent Robert Fisk summarized the significance of the leaked report. This comes just as once again US war rhetoric against Damascus is looming.
Fisk wrote in his report:
The OPCW officially maintains that these canisters were probably dropped by an aircraft – probably a helicopter, presumably Syrian – over Douma on 7 April 2018. But the dissenting assessment, which the OPCW made no reference to in its published conclusions, finds there is a “higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft”.
It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat “is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document”.
Importantly, the OPCW has confirmed the authenticity of the report, authored by an expert that had spent most of his career as an on the ground technical investigator since the OPCW’s inception.
The leaked OPCW document can be accessed here.
Though there’s largely been a mainstream media blackout on the leaked document, it’s possible it could slowly trickle into media discourse following Fox’s prime time coverage on Tucker’s show.
Fisk further articulated that the document is a game-changer at the conclusion of his article, saying, “Put bluntly, the paper is suggesting that the location of the cylinders was a set-up, that someone inside Douma immediately after the bombings of 7 April 2018 – and no one, not even the Syrians or Russians, deny there was conventional bombing and shelling that night – placed the cylinders in the locations in which they were subsequently examined by the OPCW.”
With the potential for a new round of attacks by US forces against Assad based on fresh chemical attack claims out of Idlib, we wonder, did President Trump catch Tucker’s show on Thursday night?