Wednesday 18 September 2013

Statement On Russia Today's Use Of My Blog's Credibility To Give Credence To Dubious Videos

Early yesterday morning I received an email pointing me to three videos that had been posted on LiveLeak, claiming to show the Syrian opposition group launching the August 21st sarin attack.  I posted the videos on my blog, and highlighted the dubious nature of the videos.  Having spent the last two years examining videos from the Syria conflict on a daily basis, these videos appear suspicious for a number of reasons I detail on my blog post, and are totally unverifiable.  

This has not stopped Russia Today using the credibility of my blog to give credence to this videos.  This is a transcript of their 10am BST broadcast
Thabang Motsei - ......Meanwhile a prominent Syrian blogger known as Black Moses has posted footage allegedly showing chemical weapons being used by rebels. Let's get the details from our correspondent Paul Scott here in the studio. "
Paul Scott - The blogger is a staunch critic of Damascus and a staunch critic of President Bashar al Assad's regime and in the past he has monitored all sorts of news sources and claims and counter claims emerging from the Syrian Civil War to use it as a stick to beat the Assad Government with and implicate Assad in all sorts of atrocities. But it is interesting now that he has posted a video on this blog that suggests that it actually could be the Syrian Opposition that had been using these chemical weapons. It represent a slight shift in focus from what the narrative that the blog has been taking in recent weeks.
Thabang Motsei - So this Brown Moses that we were talking about what are experts saying where the rebels could have obtained these chemicals from. 
The later 11am broadcast also uses my blog to give credence to these dubious videos


To be absolutely clear, I do not consider these videos to be reliable evidence of anything.  They came from irregular sources, and are filmed in a way not consistent with videos posted previously by Liwa al-Islam, among other issues.  I do not support Russia Today's use of the credibility of my work to prop up videos I consider to be highly dubious.  I believe all credible evidence points to the Syrian military being responsible for the August 21st attack, and have produced large amounts of work examining the evidence that supports that conclusion, which can be found here.

If you wish to contact me with further questions on this matter please email me at brownmoses@gmail.com

26 comments:

  1. I would say that the presence of large flags hanging off of all of the weapons is a pretty good indication that these videos were, in fact, fabricated. With that said, why is nobody considering that the August 21 attacks may have been perpetrated by Hezbollah?

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  2. Black Moses, Brown Moses. What's the difference. Lol Real credible source there.

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  3. RT is more propaganda than news. They did this on purpose.

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    1. There are very few sources in this world that are unbiased. Most people will selectively report or ignore things that help their case. RT's bias is very clearly pro-Russian.

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    2. Actually RT is not pro-russian. It IS Russian, moreover Russian STATE channel.

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  4. I wonder whether it wasn't a disguised part of the Russian propaganda machine which planted the amateur dramatic society's videos on you in the first place.

    What's Russian for "Hasbara" I wonder?

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  5. Russia Today sounds like a russian version of Fox News.

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    1. The Russian news reporting media is generally a lot better than what there is in the west. They have thousands of people on the ground in Syria. That gives them a big advantage. The west is just looking through a crack.

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  6. This is getting weird.

    If anything, the amount of traffic and references in other sources this blog receives demonstrates the impact it is having. The more "successful" (whatever that means) this blog is, the more recognition it will receive. For better or worse, Mr. Moses, your blog is making a difference.

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    1. I second that.
      Keep going, exactly as before. My opinions and those of other commentators may veer one way or the other, but the blog author has kept it straighter down the middle than Dean Martin.

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  7. I love the way this blog maintains a noticeably neutral position and yet people come in and accuse it of 'bias' when the facts don't support their narrative.

    Brown Moses, your insightful blog seems to have an unanticipated secondary effect: acting as a Rorschach for anyone pushing an actual agenda.

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    1. There is no evidence the regime ordered a chemical attack, the mistake this blog makes is to assume far too much. Prejudice isn't truth. The Russians are certain the regime didn't do it via a chain of command and possibly not at all. I think the smart money is on that being true.

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  8. Brown Moses,

    Inspired by your work, I opened my own blog which will focus on collecting all the evidence and trying to find the source of the attack.

    Would really appreciate your (and everyone else here) feedback and help in the process.

    My first post analyzes the UN report and finds some major flaws, including a significant discrepancy in the famous 285 azimuth calculation, which I don't think anyone noticed so far.

    Thanks for helping out!

    http://whoghouta.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/the-un-report.html

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    1. You have a very valid point in your post, the UMLACA must have poor aerodynamics and a limited range. In fact, the original SLUFAE - with its 45kg warhead only had an estimated range of 150 meters.

      source here:
      http://www.military-today.com/engineering/slufae.htm

      It seems unlikely that even an improved version could be fired from mount Quassion, 9km away.

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    2. I had also questions about the flying range from a 330mm non spinning rocket, with a 55 liter trashcan on top, 150 meters is nothing.

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    3. New post on the US report.
      http://whoghouta.blogspot.co.il/2013/09/the-us-intelligence-assessment_19.html
      Again - feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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    4. Good analysis from poster 'Gresh' on Military Photos website on a possible closer launch site.

      'I believe the HRW report that says the rockets were fired from 104th Brigade base is wrong. According to the French declassified report, Unit 450 is responsible for filling the munitions and securing the stocks while the Center of Studies and Scientific Research (CERS) is responsible for producing the CW. Well, there's a CERS facility that's actually a bit closer to the site of the attack and in the alleged flight path from the HRW report. I've seen smaller (conventional) rockets fired from there in the past and there's an air defense site and artillery stationed above it on the side of the mountain. It would seem a lot more likely that the rocket we're talking about would be fired from that area, instead of being fired over the peak of a mountain with no line-of-sight.'

      http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?195615-Protests-in-Syria-Discussion-Thread&p=6854595&viewfull=1#post6854595

      See also analysis from Spacepope within that thread on analysis of the distances capability between the HE version and the CW version of the 330mm

      Some people seem fixated on the XM130 SLUFAE design and the small range.

      Another source of analysis is from serving and retired members of UK Armed Forces on the ARRSE wesbsite. For example see post from 'HectortheInspector'

      http://www.arrse.co.uk/syria-mali-libya-middle-east-north-africa/161743-syria-401.html#post5300547

      The general consensus from these members is that the 330mm with a CW warhead could indeed cover the distance.

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    5. The area where the rockets "landed", was a no mans land because the fightings.

      How the Syrian Chemical Weapons Videos Were Staged
      http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-syrian-chemical-weapons-videos-were-staged/5350471

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    6. The mine clearance system could go further than 150 metres. It even had a parachute .

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk5HS8nH6Po

      Not far but far enough. They are quite easy to make.

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  9. Just wait until RT finds out that your blog gets more traffic than a mainstream news site.

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  10. If it was the rebel side, then there would be no need for rockets, as the area was in rebel hands. Just explode some barrels of sarin (Iraqi rebels have used this in Iraq with chlorine).

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    1. Andy - I think that is exactly what happened! The rebels are sworn to get their own families, comrades, and friends, and will do anything to accomplish that. There are videos to this effect on RT, Global Research, and Counter Punch that BM is trying to suppress. Heck, they may have even gassed themselves to increase the count of the dead. Very clever indeed - these terroristas are very creative. In order to protest the dearth of shrimp cocktail in Assad's massive food airdrops, I am sure they went around with spray cans and called for volunteers to be sprayed. If no one showed up, then just round them up and spray them. Then spray each other. These rebels would not hesitate to do anything to slag our great Fuhrer - just shows the nature of the company that the West backs.

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    2. This war has had more fake film and videos than all the other wars in history combined.

      In a sense, the fakery has a blank check from Washington DC. It is the American end of things which is very off the wall or fabricated.

      For example, that the Secretary of State's Islamists are only a tiny part of the insurgency. That's not even a little true.

      It is not unusual for a scud attack to be a insurgent weapons factory exploding. The hours are long, the demands endless, people get tired, and they low up their part of town. It happens everywhere that insurgents or resistant fighters manufacture their own weapons.

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  11. It's important to note that in the videos they are claiming to be attacking Syrian government positions, not that it's a false flag. Obviously that's to imply they missed their targets (in two opposite directions).

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    1. I think the more the insurgents filmed themselves doing tattoo removal on captured Alawites and Armenians soldiers, the more the regime atrocities became real.

      This war has a saturation level of fake videos. The torture and murder of captured soldiers, that is virtually 100 percent an insurgent thing. The genuine videos from the opposition are often murder videos.

      They are basically wild savages, they may shout to God as they cut a pilot or a soldier's head off, ut they are sectarian monsters, it is as bad as the Congo.

      The regime on the other hand, keeps a few thousand alive at any one time.

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  12. Are we about to see a double whammy.
    1)The UN CW Inspectors, consisted of a handpicked team of OPCW and WHO personnel.ie Forensic and Medical professionals. Their normal function is to investigate claims of CW use, gather evidence and beyond reasonable doubt place blame.However in this case they where prohibited to place blame.For the Syrian government to be blamed for any chemical attacks the prosecutor(UN COUNTRY STATE) requires to have burden of proof they have to prove there is no reasonable doubt as who is to blame.
    2)The UN CW Inspectors report has been structured in a clever manner by containing clauses ie movement and tampering of evidence.
    3)Assads regime has joined the International Chemical Weapons Convention and today declared his chemical weapons inventory to the OPCW. The regime are also planning to call a ceasefire which the Western backed rebels will agree to and others that wont. These others will be the rebels that the burden of proof will be layed on ref use of chemical weapons.

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