it is of course in a sense very surprising because of course assad's forces have been doing quite well in two months and it's very very clear that in the context of this some kind of redress of some kind of curbing back of assad successes of course by russia needs to be done and that's one of the reasons why there was not a sense of waiting for confirmation as to whether there was in fact a chemical attack to begin with now and can't be strikes also make the investigation itself more difficult and possibly hamper it altogether. yes one of the things about these sorts of investigations of course is that they have to take place expeditiously and they of course chemical samples themselves corrode the time and of course the scene so to speak will be affected over time and the reality is that of course strikes that take place and hampering efforts and so forth further complicate the issue which demonstrates perhaps that the inclination here is not

necessarily to identify the results it's simply to take advantage of this in a broader political sense which is what we're seeing. do you think a lot of people are going to be asking big questions about the timing especially because the i.p.c. that you investigation is important we need to get to the both some of whether chemical weapons were used and why and it everything to do with this investigation and now these strikes come just hours before the investigates the jews who arrive surely this is a curious curious time in haiti. well a couple of things to keep in mind i think first and foremost the united states has found itself in a funny position on this because donald trump president donald trump has been making mutterings earlier this month above withdrawing u.s. forces and any connection with syria yet on the other hand wants to make sure that syria is still on the agenda in some way and of course one way of doing so is to launch these strikes so it's one way of kind of

a punitive gesture against the assad regime it's no secret of course that the united states and its allies would like to see regime change they call it something else and they claim that these strikes are not designed that way but it's a kind of a minimal efforts without necessarily putting direct troops on the ground directed against assad's forces it's one way of sort of doing things and robotically from a distance rather than actually confronting the assad regime directly and of course russia and the white house says that the decision to launch these strikes was made based on photos and videos media source is that enough is that sufficient evidence to bomb a country and what's it say about america's intelligence information if they're not using that. we know very well of course that the united states led a failed and terrible mission. of course to invade iraq in two thousand and three on the very basis in fact of evidence that was doctored on the basis of dubious dossiers so-called sexed up dossiers system would term and the reality of it is of

course that when it comes to claim and counterclaim in a murky conflict to start with syria we always have to exercise a degree of skepticism about reports that come out and as your political report also noted in terms of various activist groups and eight groups and so forth this no one in this particular campaign i suppose who can come to it with clean hands so for that reason we need to be very careful about any assertion of righteousness when it comes to a cause and effect the attacks supposedly or these particular assaults on syria are supposedly premised on up holding norms and international law but it's very hard to see how this will miss necessarily have any if not deterrent effect any effect whatsoever and i can't help but feel that it is just simply for self-serving reasons now if we go back to the beginning the end this will claims of the alleged chemical attack were made by the white helmet group who of course are surrounded by

questions themselves russia experts to the area and they found no evidence of a poison attack so why do you think that sort of information has been all but ignored. well it's because it's narratives we're talking about the power of it and whether controls the narrative itself so the issue is of course that the white hall months have a certain kind of romantic action the kind of sentimentality when it comes to certain media outlets in western countries so it's not surprising in a sense that what they do what they say supposedly how they conduct themselves is treated with a certain degree of high authority almost gospel if you like of the reality of course of study it's far more complicated than that if you want to do it properly to test samples to actually go through the evidence you may find something else but of course this is not what the game is this particular vicious game is got nothing to do with being judicious in assessing evidence and being careful in terms of this

it's a it's a brutal conflict and people are in to win and find in every single measure and that's what we're seeing. iran has a warned of regional consequences following these airstrikes in syria and also we're waiting to hear on a response from the russian defense ministry now a year ago we were in a similar position when trump ordered a strike on syria but after that i will ations did recover some what do you think they going to recover this time. well i don't see necessarily that things would have been impaired that much by the strike there is a lot of theater here but it's dangerous theater and i think that's the problem it's one thing to supposedly these particular precision attacks which is supposedly the u.s. led mission here did a bet it's another thing of course in terms of whether there's an accident whether for example iranian or of course russian soldiers as well might have been affected in this strike we have to see of course in the aftermath but you know when in the

last attack as it were that was initiated by president trump there was in fact warning given to russian leaders on offices on the ground about it it's not very clear in this particular case but i suppose there was enough given that this would be coming because of meetings that trump was having with his cabinet but the reality is that there is a lot of shadow play going on here about this but unfortunately behind the shadow plays the possible the very real sense of people being killed it might actually enlarge the conflict and that's always the problem with iran russia's interest of course this is a very real prospect what do you think iran is talking about when he says we need to know consequences. well it ron of course has its interests in terms of backing various. militant groups in its various conflicts in terms of for example combating islamic state and one of the interesting things about this of

course is that it has been involved naturally trying to back the assad regime in combating islamic state and its various analogues as it were so obviously is very clear that we have to consider other powers in this like for example saudi arabia also a u.s. ally so the reality of it is is that when strikes like this happen they do tend to. trigger other consequences as well that might be seen or unforeseen but the reality of it is because iran is a very big player and because iran may push back you know other theaters with the shia militia it has all sort of course influence in iraq itself this could mean certain consequences for the u.s. led group and. something else i think it's important to note is made this decision without approval from from congress we have may on the same page doing this without approval from parliament you know the u.n. did not back of this the strike that took place how much backlash do you think is

going to take place in respective countries and internationally given that this was taken as a surprise decision. yes it's true this demonstrates more broadly the fact that the un in a sense has been marginalized and the security council bypassed in certain instances and this again demonstrates the problem in a sense of the form of the un security council on the one hand it is of course still very relevant and important in terms of deliberations and binding resolutions but then of course syria is a classic case in point where the security council is almost a sideshow and that powers of course reigning as it were quite industry minutely over the next attack and so forth and yes you're absolutely right to not simply the un security council not even the u.n. but also domestic legislation legislatures like congress and parliament in the u.k. these entities to be elected representatives are simply not being consulted it's

pure executive power. mark senior lecturer in the school of global urban and social studies thank you so much for making time to join us today and the time it's a pleasure. well for those of you just joining us we're going to recap our breaking news for you now the u.s. france and the u.k. have bombed targets in syria president trump announced the military action in a white house address late on friday as he spoke of explosions rocks damascus the air and missile strikes were launched in response to an alleged chemical attack in syria's town of duma last sunday washington says its confidence the assad government used chemical weapons against civilians however in the statements the white house admits the evidence they have is based on media and g.a.o. reports russia's foreign ministry slams the strikes saying they came when the war ravaged country finally have a chance for a peaceful future strikes also take place before investigators from the

international chemical weapons watchdog the o.p.c. w start their probe into alleged poison gas attack duma so far the experts are still expected at the scene later in the day. and here are live pictures now from the east excuse makes the latest pictures from the syrian capital damascus where people there of taken to the streets to denounce the u.s. led military action the crowd has been growing steadily in the past couple of hours and the government has condemned the attack the as brutal and barbaric as you can see some people waving syrian in support of that government. but we heard an announcement from u.s. president donald trump about the pending strike against the syrian government in coordination with the u.k. and france now he used the phrase strong deterrence to describe his motivation said he wanted to deter the syrian government from carrying out future chemical attacks he called out iran and russia saying what kind of nation would want to be aligned

with a mass murderer and from there he used some rather inflammatory language that's kind of almost trademark language of u.s. president donald trump but let's take a listen to how he how he justified in that the kind of rhetoric he used to spell out his intent to attack the syrian government very terrible regime these are not the actions of a man they are crimes of a monster instead so today the nations of britain france and the united states of america have martial their righteous power against barbarism and brutality. now after that we got a military update we heard from general joseph dunford as well as u.s. secretary of defense james mattis they spoke to the u.s. media and to the world basically giving the lowdown on what had happened now at that point the striking had already stopped they said it was fifteen minutes of

sustained airstrikes against the syrian government now it's they also indicated they said this is a one time event however we're seeing elsewhere being described as saying he would sustain these kind of actions if the syrian government were not to cease carrying out such chemical attacks furthermore it's important to note that when james madison was speaking not only after the attacks but also earlier in the week he wasn't willing to go into detail about the attack and was rather vague about the kind of information that he actually had i am confident to share in regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people. we are very confident that chlorine was used we are not ruling out sure and right now we have the intelligence level of put into that we needed to conduct the attack. i believe there was a chemical attack and we're looking for the actual evidence the o.p.c. w.

this you're going to station for the chemical weapons convention and we're trying to get those inspectors in if we get them and we will not know who did it they can only say that they found evidence or did not broader in the international community there is simply not consensus about what actually happened in the syrian town of duma we've seen the un security council meetings and we've seen a big disagreement between countries russia's representative has come forward before the u.n. security council and said that they have sent russian experts and russia chemical experts to do ima and in duma they have not found any traces of chemicals they have not found any vick. who have come forward and said they witnessed or that they themselves are victims of chemical attacks no one in hospitals being treated and we then heard nikki haley the representative of the united states before the u.n. security council we heard her coming out and saying in the aftermath of this this

allegation of an attack without any investigation having been done saying what she believes had taken place did a chemical weapons attack happen yes to us has analyzed yes it has happened to u.k. and to analyze to guest it has happened france has been analyzed yes it happened three separate analysis all coming back with that same thing there is proof that this happened. it's pretty clear that there is not a consensus around the world about this chemical attack and who's responsible and there certainly was not agreement with with trump's actions though he did it in alliance with the u.k. and france we know germany or was not in approval and was not cooperating other countries that have been aligned with the usa did not approve of this action so we're still waiting for a broader reaction to this this airstrike people are waiting to see what will happen next i know people were anticipating this strike because of donald trump's tweet saying telling russia to get ready for the missiles you know insulting the

syrian president was certain language or people were kind of anticipating something taking place there was a lot of predictions of confusions as of now we understood that there were there was fifty minutes of airstrikes against the syrian arab republic by the united states we're waiting to see what the next move is and what will happen next in the international community for those of you just joining us with bringing you continuing coverage of our breaking news that the u.s. has launched strikes alongside its european allies the u.k. and france this evening i have authorized british armed forces to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the syrian regime's chemical weapons capability and deter they use with actors in accordance with the responsibility of the use of chemical weapons in syria is an acceptable because it's a violation of international law and basic human rights british and french fighter jets could be seen taking off and landing from their bases in the region and italy

france stressed it would not allow an escalation and britain's prime minister gave a green light to the u.s. led strikes without a vote in parliament opposition party leader jeremy corbin earlier said an intervention would only complicate the current situation in syria. america the european union all the neighboring countries iran saudi arabia have got to be involved in each show you there is a real ceasefire and a political post that does give hope to the people who see the future more bombings more killing more war will not save lives will just take more lives and spawn the war elsewhere i think military strikes in syria will help solve anything you know i don't know this whole mess at the moment well of this area and she said to her any kind of military intervention what would you actually achieve by really disagree with military action against anything happening in this syria there's already

enough fighting going on there as it is and there's a real danger war escalating way beyond what we expect to send there and the word targeted to send any sort of signal if we. push up you know the basic military intervention that outset that i think we have that and five to two where these countries have these problems have these civil wars and we try to go to fix it but we had our civil war when the americans had their civil war nobody went to bomb us we got this side we have now they need to go through this on their own early angela merkel said germany would not take part in any military strike in syria marcus for an mile from germany's alternative to germany party toters why he thinks his country is not eager for action against the assad government i guess the chairman people against conflict are to continue to conflict in syria because you cannot explain the truman mother why for example truman soldier is dying for

american interests in syria we have no interest to continue this confrontation and syria i guess uncle americal knolls that they will continue to conflict in syria that would mean that a lot of rich. the cheese would continue to come to term in the end. you know the people in sherman just suffer because of the situation it's not easy for us to handle it but we're close to have social conflicts because of that. the misawa air strikes on syria come before the international chemical watchdog start their probe into the alleged attack in duma last weekend o.p.c. w. experts are due to arrive at the scene later today we've requested a comment from the organization and we'll bring that to you as soon as we get it meanwhile washington says it's confident that the syrian government used chemical weapons against its own people according to a white house statement their confidence in that is based not on intelligence but

on media and geo reports this conclusion is based on descriptions of the attack in multiple media sources the reported symptoms experienced by victims videos and images showing to assess to barrel bombs from the attack and reliable information indicating coordination between syrian military officials before the attack russia's defense ministry has released a video in which witnesses say to the aftermath of an alleged chemical attack in syria's duma say there was no indication that those rushed to the hospital had been exposed to a chemical agent and it is thought that my name is. i am a medical student i work in the e.r. department of duma central hospital on april eighth a building in the city was bombed the upper floors were destroyed and the bottom floors caught fire all the injured from that building were brought to our hospital . that the residents from the upper floors were suffering from smoke

inhalation and that is what we treated them for based on the symptoms they exhibited but this is a bit of a dominating headlines over the past few days that incident in duma whatever took place has attracted very different versions of events from the russian side the syrian side and the u.s. u.k. and france something did happen in do on the seventh of april with the western nations on the white helmets group on the ground in syria claiming it was a chemical attack by the damascus government on civilians killing and injuring dozens the russian side the mask is saying this was a setup now today we've got that evidence allegedly from the russian mody saying they have identified an individual in the video you can see just being played bad that video was used as part of the evidence by the white helmets and western nations to prove that there was a chemical attack in duma as those rebels and civilians were being evacuated you can see the man highlighted the witness there on the video just for our viewers

they claim they've identified him subsequently asked of exactly what happened in that incident on the seventh of april in dubai let's take a listen to what exactly had to say about what took place in the hospital after. that during treatment some person came in i don't know who that was and said that it was a chemical attack. when the. people got scared a fight broke out the. relatives of the victims started pouring water on one another. then others began to give inhalers for asthma the children. even though these people were not medical professionals we did not see any patients exhibiting symptoms of chemical poisoning. so this video amongst others of course quite shocking disturbing images of civilian casualties was circulated on while social media and cited by their formation and organizations countries as evidence of that chemical attack and evidence of course is the key word here is the real crux of the issue of what o.p.c.

w team heading over to do more on the way that they should be there over the next twenty four forty eight hours or so believe they have arrived in syria their findings will be key to establishing what really happened in duma whether there was some sort of chemical incident by the damascus government as the western nations are saying or as we heard from the russian. the russian military has gathered evidence that indicates the direct involvement of great britain organizing the provocation in eastern ukraine we know for a fact that london pressured the so-called white helmets to carry out their plans provocation as soon as possible they were told that from the third to the sixth of april rebels would carry out a series of heavy shelling is that damascus and that this would lead to a reaction from the government forces which the white helmets should use for their provocation and to allege the use of chemical weapons so these are obviously quite strong allegations from the russian ministry of defense or other counter allegations us to this alleged chemical incident in do something they will have to

obviously provide evidence for specific before for britain's involvement in this the key bit of evidence that as we said before is the arrival of the o.p.c. the team with the u.n. and that he would instructions on the ground to get those soil samples get those air solved was examined any victims if there are any and find out if any chemicals were used that's the key thing to do. groove what exactly happened to give some credibility to either of these two versions will find that out of course of the next twenty four to forty eight hours however the video featuring the medic who dismissed the chemical attack claims has been taken seriously and shown by a number of media outlets further questions are also hanging over the west narrative due to the dubious reputations of the groups that initially made the allegations explains. reports of a chemical attack first appeared strange enough it's almost the precise moment the battle had ended when the syrian government and rebels were negotiating on how to evacuate the latter reports first appeared on social media twitter facebook and

spread like wildfire while my colleague kendall anian and i have learned today that the u.s. now has blood and a year in samples from some of the victims of this attack in syria last weekend and that those samples according to u.s. officials tested positive for chemicals and sources the usuals wide helmets who serve as rescuers islamists and syrian rebels also the somewhat less known syrian american medical society sounds together with the white helmets they were cited by the washington post the new york times c.n.n. virtually every western media outlets reporting on this chemical attack saturday april seventh amidst continuous bombardment of residential neighborhoods in the city of duma more than five hundred cases the majority of whom are women and children were brought to local medical centers with symptoms indicative of exposure

to a chemical agent sams itself is funded by u.s. aid six million in two thousand and fifteen usaid is widely believed to be an arm of the state department and is banned in multiple countries accused of interfering in domestic policies and promoting regime change it even has an office of transition initiatives the management at sams also believe it or not former usaid stuff was was saddam's who reportedly provided the u.p.c. w. with samples of the alleged sarin gas that was used in hunchy houla site of a chemical attack last year after which. donald trump sent fifty seven cruise missiles at the syrian. o.p.c. w. is on its way to duma to investigate we've contacted various groups including the

world health organization they've cited saddam's but have refused to go into any details what comes next no one can say whether the u.s. will go ahead with a preemptive strike or where the cooler heads will prevail thank you for joining us on r.t. international we're going to be continuing our coverage on our breaking news in just a few minutes do you stay with us if you can. you never know what's around the corner you never know what's in the pub you can walk into excitement it's not knowing that's where the adrenalin much comes from. and you can use a nice blend definition and the extremes will support. the violence he's a punk and it's almost a schizophrenia. where you can do all these things and behave badly.

you're going to be full of hospital for all. so focused on the last. punishment and infirmed. roll and get on far less than we thought. i would roll or when the piper you really get a cold i don't want to get. meaning in reason is that at least if you don't involve these constantly evolving. american sanctions would be damaging but i mean is this justice is it fair is this all us should would use a country like a tissue paper and when it thinks it doesn't need it anymore it just costs the way i think it's very immoral.

pranking gave americans a lot of new job opportunities i needed to come up here to make some money i could make twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year and truck so i chose to drive truck people rush to a small town in north dakota was an unemployment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to gold but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here in the slowdown so much they lost their jobs that laid off the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. and it's a tough reality to deal with. something happens in this case it was the chemical attack on civilians in syria and then the public in the media are waiting for the response and i think it's very clear now

that if president trump said that there is going to be response then it will be i just think that our expectations in a way that this american response will be so severe that it will be a game changer i think this is not the case it will again be misadjusted very careful calculation by the americans not to deteriorate into a clash a direct confrontation with russia. but it looks. as if. i. am.

successful. of. america the u.k. and france are the bomb targets in syria after u.s. president trump all to strikes against assad's forces in response to an alleged chemical attack. strikes take place before investigators from the international chemical weapons watchdog the o.p.c. w. starts their probe into the alleged poison gas attack and do my last week at experts are due to arrive at the scene later today sunday. washington says it is confident the assad government was behind the chemical attack in duma and the evidence comes from various media outlets and n.g.o.s as we take a closer look at those sources.