The Untiring Work of the Internet

So the Syrian government has used chemical weapons.  Don’t believe me?  Ask John Kerry:

What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity.

He doesn’t say which party is guilty.

This is about the large-scale, indiscriminate use of weapons that the civilized world long ago decided must never be used at all, a conviction shared even by countries that agree on little else.

He doesn’t say which party is guilty.

There is a reason why President Obama has made clear to the Assad regime that this international norm cannot be violated without consequences.

He doesn’t say which party is guilty.

And there is a reason why, no matter what you believe about Syria, all peoples and all nations who believe in the cause of our common humanity must stand up to assure that there is accountability for the use of chemical weapons so that it never happens again.

He doesn’t say which party is guilty.

So I also want to underscore that while investigators are gathering additional evidence on the ground, our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts, informed by conscience, and guided by common sense.

But he hasn’t said which party is guilty.

President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people.

He still hasn’t said which party is guilty.

Moreover, we know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets. We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses.

WHICH PARTY IS GUILTY? 

(I am certain at some point the USG will come out with real evidence against the Syrian government on this.  But it isn’t in this statement.)

There are some rather obvious points to make.  First, on the international stage, the US will not shake the stigma of Colin Powell’s false statements about Iraq and Saddam Hussein.  No one with measurable brain activity believes the US Government on such issues.  Perhaps Kerry doesn’t want to come out and make a definitive statement to avoid later be accused of lying?

Second, the world has a much more heinous weapon, and the US government has used it, unnecessarily, twice.  No other regime has ever used it.

Third, and to me the most notable:

…I went back and I watched the videos, the videos that anybody can watch in the social media, and I watched them one more gut-wrenching time.

Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass. What is before us today is real, and it is compelling. (emphasis added)

It seems Kerry is reading Justin Raimondo:

Those rollicking jihadists, the Syrian rebels, love a joke: although they can be deadly serious – such as when they’re eating the internal organs of their enemies – what they enjoy more than anything is a really good prank. There was the time they claimed the Assad regime was killing babies in incubators – not very original, but hey, it worked for the Kuwaitis! Then there was the "massacre" at Houla, which was alleged to have killed 32 children and over 60 adults: a photo started appearing in the mainstream media, documenting the slaughter. The state-supported BBC was first to run with it – until it was discovered the supposedly incriminating photo was taken in Iraq during the recent war. The photographer was justifiably furious, the story was withdrawn, and the Syrian rebels went back to the drawing board.

I could go on for quite a while about the various Syrian hoaxes we’ve been subjected to, but let’s get down to the latest one – a claim Syrian government forces used nerve gas at the Syrian village known as Ghouta.

The internet is creating cracks in the armor.  When in the past has such a high-ranking government official made a statement in anticipation of the claims, certain to come on the internet, that the statements are “contrived” and “fabricated”?  In the past, with the controlled media, the official story would have been pounded into the heads of an audience with little ability to go elsewhere for news.

These statements demonstrate that a) the state knows it is losing the battle for the narrative, and b) the audience is increasingly skeptical of every word coming out of the mouth of political leaders.

The Daily Bell would always say that the internet was a process not an episode.  This statement from Kerry demonstrates the wisdom of that view.