Talk:Attack on Red Crescent convoy in Urm al-Kubra/An answer to Bellingcat by PavewayIV

Hi, Paveway, looks great so far. An observation at this point (unsure where to put it, so on talk page for now).

Russian MoD at present lacks Western media sophistication; while BC uses some lawyerish/debatish tricks to exploit this. After watching Russian MoD presentation (awhile back) I recall them saying (at some early point) that the convoy has left their area of responsibility, and was not monitored after certain time (13.40). They also said that after that location of convoy was not known to them and only known to rebels. That may be true or false, in fact some initial reports could be that convoy was attacked en-route (I read it somewhere about it though not those reports directly); or it could be a misstatement/presentation error on their part,-- as although they did not have direct observation information, they knew or should have known at least what the planned location would be. Perhaps that part was the weakest in their presentation. It was than exploited by BC, making it, perhaps, into strongest part of their attack. The trick of finding the weakest part and making big meal out of it is well known to those who are good in debates or legal arguments: show that the weakest part is wrong; imply that your opponent should not be trusted and is guilty overall.

Also noted: At some point, as I recall, there was a web debate between Russian FM spokeswoman Zakharova, about MH17. She made some, quite reasonable, objections to BC allegations. Those came under rather sharp counter-attack, using mostly, in my opinion, a fair amount of demagoguery, but it came across, impressions-wise, as perhaps more impressive than Zakharova. Do not recall exact details.


 * TASS (Eng) '' "No airstrikes on the UN humanitarian convoy in the southwestern outskirt of Aleppo were carried out by the Russian or Syrian aviation," Konashenkov said. The Russian side did not monitor the movement of the UN truck convoy that came under attack near Aleppo after the humanitarian cargo was delivered to that city, he added. He explained that the Russian center for the reconciliation of warring factions in Syria kept watch on this convoy using drones, because the route lay across militants-controlled areas.


 * ''"At about 13:40 Moscow time all cargoes were safely delivered to the final destination. After that the center for the reconciliation of warring factions in Syria stopped monitoring the convoy. The Russian side did not follow the convoy’s further movements. All information about the convoy’s whereabouts was known only to the militants who control these areas," he said (...)
 * --Resup (talk) 07:36, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been working on this for a while and finished for the night. I just saw your comments here now, Resup. I tried to address that general 'MoD sez' issue throughout my critique before seeing your comment - good enough as is or do you think it still needs to be more explicit somewhere? We could have a 'Bellingcat Demagoguery Patterns' section - I think it's important enough to call out. I'll certainly add the Tass quote - thanks for that. --PavewayIV (talk) 08:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks very good overall, was looking before seeing main details. I think priority is on what happened, calling out BC and going into some polemics -perhaps, but it can wait too. --Resup (talk) 09:13, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Damaged truck-automatic weapon holes. Thought about that too, holes lined up as would be coming from an automatic weapon--Resup (talk) 09:07, 6 October 2016 (UTC)