President Bashar al-Assad

As all becomes ever more rapidly surreal it seems that, barring a miracle, Draft Dodger in Chief, Donald Trump might trigger a world war, over an incident in Syria which is entirely evidence free.
The discredited White Helmets – a “rescue” group only operating in areas held by “rebels” who routinely decapitate, including children, set fire to people and commit numerous unspeakable acts – have produced a video of an apparent chemical attack on 7th April.

Monday morning. Joe Scarborough (on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which I watch with embarrassing habitualness) seems absolutely certain that the Syrian military backed by Russia and Iran has “again” used chemical weapons against the Syrian people. He thus agitates for an appropriate U.S. reaction, even though the provenance of the material used in the Damascus suburb of Douma has not been investigated and determined. (Any more than the last episode in April 2017, after which Trump ordered a missile hit on a Syrian air force base, never ascertaining or caring about the facts.)

Introduction
Western neoconservatives and hawks are driving the international situation to increasing tension and danger. Not content with the destruction of Iraq and Libya based on false claims, they are now pressing for a direct US attack on Syria.
As a dangerous prelude, Israeli jets flying over Lebanese airspace fired missiles against the T4/Tiyas Airbase west of Palmyra.
This was Predicted

Here is a good example of pure, unadulterated western propaganda from the Guardian, written by one of their most senior journalists, Julian Borger. This could be straight out of of the old Soviet mouth-piece Pravda.
According to the Guardian:

China and Russia are leading a stealthy and increasingly successful effort at the United Nations to weaken UN efforts to protect human rights around the world, according to diplomats and activists.

[Author’s Note: This is Part Four of a multi-part expose direct from Istanbul and Lebanon. Please see Part One, Part Two, or Part Three for information not repeated here.]
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Why does nobody dare to pronounce the term “Genocide” in connection with the Washington-committed atrocities around the globe? If there is one nation that is guilty of mass-murder it is the United States of America and her Zionist handlers. But nobody seems to pay attention. Or, rather, nobody dares to say so. It has become the new normal. Enshrined in people’s brains.

It’s WMD all over again.
Anonymous “US officials” are once again accusing a targeted “regime” of using “chemical weapons” and threatening that the U.S. military may have to “hold it accountable”. Once again, western media is broadcasting these accusations and threats without skepticism or investigation.

Open a corporate media website on any given day and you will find someone, somewhere blaming social media for something. No claim is too absurd.
Last week, journalist Sean Williams, who writes for the New Yorker, New Republic and Wired, tweeted us in a state of high anxiety:

I just want you to know you’re ruining the national dialogue and pushing more people towards right wing populism. Really.

It is time for George Monbiot’s legion of supporters to call him out. Not only is he a hypocrite, but he is becoming an increasingly dangerous one.
Turning a blind eye to his behaviour, or worse excusing it, as too often happens, has only encouraged him to intensify his attacks on dissident writers, those who – whether right or wrong on any specific issue – are slowly helping us all to develop more critical perspectives on western foreign policy goals than has ever been possible before.

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter has published two exclusives whose import is far greater than may be immediately apparent. They concern Israel’s bombing in 2007 of a supposed nuclear plant secretly built, according to a self-serving US and Israeli narrative, by Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
Although the attack on the “nuclear reactor” occurred a decade ago, there are pressing lessons to be learnt for those analysing current events in Syria.