The Syrian ‘Nuke’ Hoax

As I said here — and, earlier, here — the whole Syrian “nuclear” facility that the Israelis supposedly took out, in a faux-replay of the Osirak narrative, turned out to be a hoax:

“According to current and former intelligence sources, the US intelligence community has seen no evidence of a nuclear facility being hit. US intelligence ‘found no radiation signatures after the bombing, so there was no uranium or plutonium present,’ said one official, wishing to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the subject. ‘We don’t have any independent intelligence that it was a nuclear facility — only the assertions by the Israelis and some ambiguous satellite photography from them that shows a building, which the Syrians admitted was a military facility.’”

Now that the IAEA is has the satellite photos, the truth is about to come out:

One of the diplomats indicated that the photos came from U.S intelligence. Two others said the images, which have been studied by experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency since being received on Thursday, do not at first examination appear to substantiate reports that the target was a nuclear installation, but emphasized that the images were still under examination.

The serial liars running our foreign policy don’t care if their deceptions are exposed: the value of lying is the impression it leaves. Many heard about the Syrian “nukes,” few will notice the debunking.

17 thoughts on “The Syrian ‘Nuke’ Hoax”

  1. The serial liars running our foreign policy don’t care if their deceptions are exposed: the value of lying is the impression it leaves. Many heard about the Syrian “nukes,” few will notice the debunking.

    That is it exactly. This administration has three primary means of disinformation.

    The first is the word parsed quote designed to leave a false impression but that is so gramatically designed that they are covered if called on it. Linking Iraq with 9/11 was done in this manner over and over by Bush, Cheney, and others in this administration. But if you broke down their statements they never explicitly linked Iraq to 9/11.

    The second tactic of dis-information (and the most effective) is the unnsourced and unnamed “leak”. By using compliant whore journalists (over and over and who know full well they are reporting lies)- all manner of lies can be floated- even ones contradicting one another. Sometimes they even cite their own unnamed leaks in the media as proof for their designs and goals.

    The third tactic is the use of the Third tier wing nutter press to distribute the really bizarre crap for the true believers (like the WMD are in Syria or Saddam was behind every attack in the US ever including spreading west nile virus (yes- WND was spreading that lie a few years ago).

    All of these stories get out- get play- and then when proved sketchy or utterly false- just disappear- with never any retraction. The result is a population that holds beliefs that are at best- only 20 percent true.

    One thing that I routinely encounter on reich wing discussion boards is their assumption that Iran has threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons over and over. In fact- there is little in the way of such rhetoric from Iran’s leaders and indeed- quite the oppossite- with explicit denials of having such programs in no uncertain words. But the reichwingers believe in this template so strongly that they get simply get mad and quite emotional- as if you attacked a chief tenet of their religious faith- when challenged to present actual quotes from Iranian leaders that “threaten” nuclear attack on Israel.

  2. When the tale of this stupid fraud is finally told, you watch, it will come to be known that the Israelis flew in over Jordan and into Iraq, of course with American complicity, and then flew into Syria from its eastern border. That’s the only way that makes sense that they got around Syria’s air defenses, which are most likely deployed in a direction towards Israel or Turkey.

  3. What if this was actually the end run? What if those F-15’s were hugging the Turkish border, trying to make it to Iraqi airspace, to see if it could be done- that the next step would have been the full deal: an attack on Iran? But that they were lit up by Syrian air defences, dropped tanks and whatever else they could spare, and beat it at 1500 mph? That would explain the early Syrian report that they “dumped ammunition”. And the drop tank that landed in Turkey. And the fact that the President wouldn’t talk about it at the press conference- he was furious about it. This was the end run. And it didn’t work.

    Or maybe this was in fact the attack on Iran. And it didn’t get through.

    Now that would be something they wouldn’t want to talk about- wouldn’t it.

  4. Unless the American public is made of an amalgam of idiots, nitwits , imbeciles and all around jackasses , I don’t see how they can believe this phantasmagoric fabrication of the Israelis. The latter, along with the pathological liars of the Bush inner circle, seem to be operating on the premise of Dr. Goebbels’ theorem that it is easier to have the world believe a humongous lie than a small fib. And as the incomparable Gore Vidal aptly remarks, we live in the United States of Amnesia; or speaking along the same vein but more bluntly, P T Barnum opined that one should never underestimate the stupidity of the American public. So perhaps I’m the one being delusional.

    But this is really too much. The spontaneous generation of a Syrian nuclear program is simply impossible, period! But even if we imagine that there was fissile material hidden at that site for future use, then it would have been scattered along a wide area by the bombing and carried by the wind way beyond Syria’s border (remember Chernobyl). Every country’s sensors would have been on full alert ready to warn their citizenry of a possible health threat. Yet not one country took that fabrication seriously. Only the American establishment, well aware of the abysmal ignorance of its public, tried to lend some credence to the Israeli cover story.

    Now comes the real challenge: what were the Israelis really up to? Is it a coincidence that this incidence was followed by a strange story of a mysterious widespread electronic jamming that interfered with television signals all along the Mediterranean littoral interrupting service in both Israel and Lebanon? A vague explanation that it was the result of intelligence monitoring by a Dutch ship of the NATO contingent was offered and the story buried. That puts my sensors on alert. Let us examine more closely:

    1)The idea of a NATO or Russian spying trawler causing this interference is a priori absurd. The USS Liberty was intercepting and deciphering Israeli sensitive military communications without emitting a damn thing. It is not in the nature of intelligence gathering to emit but to intercept. The reaction of the Israelis was brutal in the case of the Liberty.

    2)Such interference would come from massive scanning, an active effort to either experiment with such a tactic or to demonstrate to a foe one’s capability of doing so. If that were the case by one of Israel’s adversaries, we know from historical precedent that Israeli could easily determine its source and not hesitate to destroy it, since such an act is aggressive in nature and could be the prelude to an imminent attack. There would be extreme worry in Jerusalem and certainly not this laid back attitude we have been observing
    .
    3) The third and most likely explanation is that the disruption of Israeli and Lebanese airwaves was the result of Israeli Electronic Warfare experiments. This could be part of a modus operandi in any future Israeli attack on Syria and Iran which we know is a very real contingent. And Israel can get away with such grossly illegal and aggressive behavior knowing full well that Syria is in no position to carry out a preemptive strike. It would also explain this laid back and let the story go away attitude in Jerusalem.

    4)This widespread electronic disruption of airwaves along with the Israeli intrusion into Syrian territory seems like a repeat of an Israeli mission over the Bekaa valley in 1982 just prior to their full scale invasion of Lebanon. The Syrians quickly illuminated the intruders with their Sam-6 radars and they turned back, but not before cataloging the frequencies and wavelengths of the Syrian defenses. When they came back for the real thing, the Syrian defenses’ radar frequencies were known and used to home in Israeli air-to-ground missiles. All the feared SAM-6 batteries in the Bekaa were eliminated along with 82 Syrian aircraft with the lost of only 2 Israeli planes.

    The Syrians it seems can not be fooled twice. It is reported that they did not turn on their Pansyr radars and only used infrared homing devices to repulse the Israeli planes. So the mission in effect was a failure. Of course all of this is conjecture based on past history. But I have a feeling that we may soon find out how close it is to the truth.

    1. When you refer to Jerusalem are you referring to military headquarters? Is that where Israel’s military is based? I thought Tel Aviv was the capital of Israel so you weren’t referring to the civilian government were you? Just wondering.

      1. It is customary usage that when, in international affairs, one refers to a nation’s capital such as Paris, Moscow, Washington, Jerusalem or Damascus, it is the body politic and decision making apparatus that one is referring to.

        And yes, the Israelis have declared Jerusalem as their capital!

  5. Notice the misleading headline:

    “U.N. eyes images of possible Syrian nuke site”

    A more accurate headline would have been something like “Bombed Syrian site apparently not nuclear.”

    MSNBC’s headline here is “fair and balanced” – but the facts have an anti-Israel bias.

  6. One question that raises additional doubts about the story: Would Syrians have built a nuclear instllation close to Turkish border, and in a Kurdish area of their country to boot?

    The Syria-Turkey border is, however, on one of the most likely routes the Israelis would use to attack Iran. An effort to probe the defenses thus may be a more likely explanation.

  7. Could this attack have been made by rogue elements of the IAF without Olmert’s knowledge? Is Olmert in control of the IDF and IAF? For several days after the event occurred there was total silence – not one public statement about it from the US or from Israel. This suggests that the Israelis and their neocon allies in the US needed time to get their story right over an event whose occurrence or outcome was a surprise to them.

  8. I beg your pardon, sir.
    I, for one, am not an imbecile.
    I am an idiot. And I have the papers to prove it,namely the rceipt from my last donation to the Republican National Committee. Now, there! You elite eastern liberals can’t even move their lips when you read.

    I bet. I double dare you…

  9. Indeed, even though this ridiculous story has been debunked I heard it repeated on Faux News Sunday today.

  10. Hey folks, just look at the BS I awoke to this morning in my hometown newspaper;

    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ferguson22oct22,0,1458042.column?coll=la-opinion-center

    Niall Ferguson:
    One strike, Iran could be out

    What a WAR MONGERING POS!

    He is repeating the LIE that a NUKE facility was attacked by the Israelis in Syria!

    I have already fired off an ANGRY e-mail to this war mongering bas*ard !

    This is simply INFURIATING!

    As a 27 year old man, I am NOT going to Iran…even if there is a draft! They can just send me up to San Quentin prison I guess…

    I guess Niall Ferguson should be added to this compilation;

    http://foxattacks.com/blog/11968-the-best-compilation-of-bush-administration-lies-about-iraq-i-ve-ever-seen

    Or maybe this one…

    http://foxattacks.com/blog/10777-fox-attacks-iran

    I am simply at a loss to decipher a MOTIVE for launching another war of aggression on BS “evidence”….I just hope and pray that if they succeed…NUREMBURG TYPE WAR CRIMES TRIALS are their ultimate fate!

  11. Your all ignorant. There is now document’s with Assad’s signature on them striking a deal with N. Korea to bulid a reactor (wheat & concrete for technology). Maybe before you all jump down the administration’s throat you get all your facts straight and in order. Just because you don’t like the president don’t blind yourself to the truth. I suppose 9/11 never happened either…

  12. Although not totally related to your current post, I just wanted to let you know of a ground breaking new anti-war film that is opening this weekend in London.

    We need all the help we can to get this film out there and seen.

    IRAQ ‘S POST-SADDAM FEATURE AHLAAM TO BE RELEASED IN CINEMAS ACROSS THE UK FROM 2ND NOVEMBER 2007.

    AHLAAM (Dream, Mohamed Al-Daradji, UK/Iraq/Netherlands, 2006)

    Based on true stories, Ahlaam takes us on an incredible journey, following two psychiatric patients, who escape from their mental institution in Baghdad, and a young doctor on the night US forces start their ‘shock and awe’ campaign to “liberate” Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian regime.

    Ahlaam is Iraq’s second post-Saddam feature to hit the big screen. Al-Daradji’s debut feature was filmed under highly unstable conditions, with cast and crew encountering not only all kinds of technical restrictions, but being exposed to shooting, abductions, torture and imprisonment, both by insurgents and the American forces.

    After attending over 75 festivals around the world and winning many respected awards, the film was selected for consideration for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards 2007 and screened to an attentive audience at the BAFTA .

    For security reasons, Al-Daradji had been unable to screen the film in Baghdad. His dream to show it to his own people came true last April, with a screening at the National Theatre to over one thousand people, including cast and crew, members of Iraq’s beleaguered artistic community and government officials. They braved fears of terror attacks to attend and midway through the showing, a rumour that a minibus with explosives had been parked nearby swept the theatre. Luckily it was a false alarm. On the day of the screening, over 200 people were killed in Baghdad by insurgent attacks.

    Ahlaam will be screened in much safer circumstances in the UK starting from Friday 2 November at the ICA London when a special Q&A will be held. Film is being released through Human Film and will tour around the country.

    Other screenings…

    HAWKHURST
    KINO
    7
    02-Nov-07

    BRADFORD
    PICTUREVILLE
    7
    23-Nov-07

    CHICHESTER
    NEW PARK
    2
    01-Dec-07

    ABERYSTWYTH
    ARTS CENTRE
    3
    08-Dec-07

    INVERNESS
    EDEN COURT
    2
    20-Feb-08

    Edinburgh Filmhouse – Edinburgh for 4 days from 7th December with Q&A

    For further information on Ahlaam, please visit http://www.ahlaamthemovie.com or http://www.humanfilm.co.uk http://www.myspace.com/ahlaamthemovie or to view the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN7wAgQlsbk

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