Exclusive: After launching a missile strike on Syria, President Trump is basking in praise from his former critics – neocons, Democrats and mainstream media – who want to lure him into more Mideast wars, reports Daniel Lazare.
By Daniel Lazare
Donald Trump entered military terra incognita on Thursday by launching an illegal Tomahawk missile strike on an air base in eastern Syria. Beyond the clear violation of international law, the practical results are likely to be disastrous, drawing the U.S. deeper into the Syrian quagmire.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
But it would be a mistake to focus all the criticism on Trump. Not only are Democrats also at fault, but a good argument could be made that they bear even greater responsibility.
For years, near-total unanimity has reigned on Capitol Hill concerning America’s latest villains du jour, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Congressmen, senators, think-tank strategists, and op-ed analysts all have agreed that Putin and Assad are the prime enemies of “peace,” by which is meant global American hegemony, and that therefore the U.S. must stop at nothing to weaken or neutralize them or force them to exit the world stage.
Until recently, in fact, just about the only politically significant dissenter was Trump. Accusing reporters of twisting the news at a tumultuous press conference in late February, he told them, “Now tomorrow, you’ll say, ‘Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.’ It’s not terrible. It’s good.”
But since getting along with Russia was terrible for America’s perpetually bellicose foreign-policy establishment, Official Washington declared war on Trump, building on Hillary Clinton’s charge during the last presidential debate that he was Putin’s “puppet.” It became the conventional wisdom that Trump was a “Siberian candidate” being inserted in the White House by a satanic Kremlin determined to bend freedom-loving Americans to its will.
As Inauguration Day approached, President Obama’s intelligence chiefs pulled out all stops to persuade the public that (a) Russian intelligence had engineered Clinton’s defeat by hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and placing thousands of embarrassing emails in the hands of WikiLeaks and that (b) Trump was somehow complicit in the effort.
The campaign was highly effective. The alleged Putin-Trump relationship was a major feature at the anti-Trump protests surrounding his inauguration and the major U.S. news media pounded on the Russia “scandal” daily.
On Feb. 13, barely four weeks after taking office, Trump crumbled under a mounting barrage of political abuse and gave National Security Adviser Michael Flynn the boot after it was revealed that he had talked with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, supposedly in violation of the 1799 Logan Act, an absurd piece of ancient legislation that even The New York Times referred to as “a dusty, old law” that should have been repealed generations ago.
Under Media Pressure
A day later, the administration reeled again when the Times charged in a front-page exposé that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”
President Donald Trump delivering his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
The article provided no evidence and no names and said nothing about whether such contacts were knowing or unknowing, i.e., whether they involved a John le Carré-style midnight rendezvous or merely an exchange of pleasantries with someone who may or may not have been connected to the FSB, as Russia’s version of the CIA is known.
In a March 6 article entitled “Pause This Presidency,” Times columnist Charles M. Blow called for little less than a coup d’état: “The American people must immediately demand a cessation of all consequential actions by this ‘president’ until we can be assured that Russian efforts to hack our election … did not also include collusion with or cover-up by anyone involved in the Trump campaign and now administration.”
How “the American people” would demand such a cessation or who would provide such assurances was not specified.
On March 31, CNN quoted an unnamed senior administration official saying that Trump’s hopes of a rapprochement with Russia were fading because he “believes in the current atmosphere – with so much media scrutiny and ongoing probes into Trump-Russia ties and election meddling – that it won’t be possible to ‘make a deal.’”
Thus, Trump found himself increasingly boxed in by hostile forces. But he still tried to fulfill his promise to concentrate on defeating terrorists in Syria and Iraq. On March 30, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced that the U.S. administration “priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” but to concentrate on defeating Al Qaeda and ISIS instead.
But the more Trump contemplated his predicament in the following days, the more he realized how untenable it had come. Tuesday’s poison-gas incident in Idlib thus offered a way out regardless of who was actually responsible. The only way for Trump to make peace with the “deep state” in Washington was by waging war on Syria.
Finally, on Thursday, hours before Trump sent a volley of cruise missiles wafting towards Syria, Hillary Clinton taunted him by declaring that America “should take out his [Assad’s] airfields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people.” The effect was to all but force Trump to show that he was every bit as macho as the former First Lady.
Frog-Marching Trump
Trump is certainly a fool for going ahead with such an attack in clear contravention of international law and entangling the United States more deeply into the complicated Syrian conflict. But the blame also should go to the people who frog-marched him to the precipice and then all but commanded him to step over the edge.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York
Within hours, all the usual suspects were congratulating one of the most scorned U.S. presidents in history for taking the leap.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said: “Making sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi described Trump’s missile barrage as “a proportional response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons.”
Republican super-hawks Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, previously as anti-administration as any Democrat, issued a joint statement declaring that Trump “deserves the support of the American people,” while liberal heart-throb Sen. Elizabeth Warren also agreed that “the Syrian regime must be held accountable for this horrific act.”
The Guardian, as fiercely anti-Trump as it is anti-Putin and anti-Assad, conceded that “Donald Trump has made his point” and that the next step would be up to Russia. All in all, Trump had never gotten such good press. It’s clear that Official Washington was pleased with Trump’s handiwork and was eager to encourage him to do more.
But the missile barrage was not just an assault on Syria but on reason and good sense, too. Although the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor tried to make it seem that the only critics of the missile barrage are members of the alt-right “known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view,” the fact is that criticism flowed in from other quarters.
At Alternet, Vijay Prashad pointed out that there were few independent observers in Khan Shaykhun, the farming town where the April 4 incident occurred, to provide an accurate account. Eyewitnesses “with the densest relationship to the armed opposition,” he wrote, “are the first to claim that this attack was done by the government.”
Consortiumnews’ Robert Parry pointed out that rather than dropping the gas themselves, Syrian or Russian warplanes could well have triggered an outbreak by bombing a facility containing “chemicals that the rebels were planning to use in some future attack.” Parry also noted that Al Qaeda, which controls Idlib province, could have “staged the incident to elicit precisely the international outrage directed at Assad as has occurred.”
[Previously, United Nations investigators have received eyewitness testimony from Syrians about rebels staging an alleged chlorine-bomb attack so it would be pinned on the Assad regime.]
Something similar may well have occurred in August 2013, a sarin-gas missile attack on the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds and that appears to have been launched from a rebel-controlled area two kilometers away. The two incidents are curiously parallel.
The August 2013 incident, which horrified the world and brought the Obama administration to the brink of its own attack on the Syrian government, occurred just days after a U.N. team had arrived in Damascus to investigate an alleged chemical attack by rebels against Syrian government troops some four months earlier.
It made little sense for the Assad regime to have invited U.N. investigators in and then launch a more horrific chemical-weapons attack just miles from the investigators’ hotel. It would be a bit like someone inviting a police inspector to dinner and then committing a murder in full view.
Not Making Sense
As one independent analysis noted in 2013, the Assad regime would have to have decided to carry out a large-scale attack “despite (a) making steady gains against rebel positions, (b) receiving a direct threat from the US that the use of chemical weapons would trigger intervention, (c) having constantly assured their Russian allies that they will not use such weapons, (d) prior to the attack, only using non-lethal chemicals and only against military targets.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Assad government would also have had to decide “to (a) send forces into rebel-held area, where they are exposed to sniper fire from multiple directions, (b) use locally manufactured short-range rockets, instead of any of the long-range high quality chemical weapons in their arsenal, and (c) use low quality sarin.”
All of which seems supremely unlikely, but much of the mainstream U.S. media still treats the 2013 sarin-gas attack as the undeniable case of Assad crossing Obama’s “red line” against using chemical weapons. And the highly dubious 2013 incident is cited as a key reason to believe that Assad has done it again. [Recently, The New York Times has quietly backed off the 2013 claims although not explicitly retracting its earlier reporting blaming the attack on the Assad regime.]
Assad would have possibly even stronger reasons not to deploy sarin gas on April 4, 2017. He would have to make a conscious decision to court world opprobrium at a time when the tide of the war was finally turning in his favor with the liberation of Aleppo last December and with most world leaders having concluded that the Assad regime was here to stay.
To have produced and deployed a sarin bomb would have meant deliberately risking military intervention more than three years after Syria reached an agreement with the United Nations to destroy its entire chemical-weapons stockpile so as to avoid … military intervention.
All of which seems supremely unlikely as well. It would be an act of suicide – and after holding off a combined U.S., Saudi, Qatari, and Turkish assault for half a decade or more, one thing that Assad does not appear to be is suicidal.
Although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “there is no doubt in our mind that the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this horrific attack,” in reality there is plenty of doubt.
Nevertheless, Trump decided to fire away before the facts were in because the enemy he is most worried about is not the one half a world away in Syria, but the Democratic-neocon alliance in his own backyard. The political warfare in Washington is now generating more agony from real wars in the Middle East.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
When Obama was first elected, Republican leaders met in a DC restaurant to map out a strategy to block anything and everything Obama might want to do. They didn’t care if that strategy would seriously damage the welfare of the nation.
Now Democrats are using McCarthyist tactics to smear and paralyze Trump, even though they seem to be pushing the nation closer to a war with Russia that could destroy most of the world. Neither of these parties deserves our support.
” Not only are Democrats also at fault, but a good argument could be made that they bear even greater responsibility.”
Oh yes they do. They are the sell out party of the ruling elite. They set the stage for all of this by never objecting and in fact supporting war.
They are corporate demos and should all be thrown out of office
That pic of Hillary Clinton puts me in mind of the Venus Fly Trap.
New York Times front page
whut?
Susan – they’re either trying to put to bed the idea that Trump is Putin’s puppet by getting all tough with the Russians – or – they’ve lost it. Maybe the neocons wanted Tillerson to cancel his meeting with Russia and this was the only way they could keep it, by feigning toughness. Who knows what’s going on.
Men,Women, Children, Babies die.
Raytheon Prospers …
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/04/08/and-the-winner-is-raytheon/
Start making more money weekly… This is a valuable part time work for everyone… The best part ,work from comfort of your house and get paid from $100-$2k each week
…•••••••??/
Come on, guys! Wasn’t there already an excess of evidence, BEFORE these latest incidents, showing quite clearly that the ludicrous narrative about the Trump administration having a genuine intention to cooperate with Russia was a charade from the word go? He didn’t need to be lured or coerced into this, it was a foregone conclusion that the transnational deep state agenda would continue in much the same seamless trajectory as was seen in the transition from Bush to Obama, and this was evident from the choice of various neocon deep state players to fill key positions before he was even inaugurated. If that wasn’t evidence enough, their words and actions since then should spell it out in braille for those who are visually impaired!
Consider the following examples: the continuing build up of US and NATO forces in Poland and the Baltic states on Russia’s doorstep, the proposal for a huge multi-billion dollar increase in the already bloated Pentagon budget, the endorsement of plans for building a new generation of nuclear warheads, the extreme rhetoric of Trump officials regarding Russia and Ukraine and the western fomenting of further violence there vial their Ukrainian coup regime puppets, the threats of war against Iran, a key Russian ally, the open introduction of US ground forces into Syria, and now this latest cruise missile attack using the pretext of what was almost certainly another deep state orchestrated chemical weapons false flag attack.
All of these events, especially the threats against Iran and the escalation of violence in Syria, are extreme provocations aimed directly at Russia which could very easily spiral out of control and result in a full scale nuclear war. It is long past time to call bullshit on this entire premise that Trump ever had any intention of carrying out his professed desire to get along with Russia, he is every bit as much of a con man in this regard as Obama was in his purported desire to be a “peace president” and end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It will be very interesting to see how Trump reacts when the buzz of killing people and blowing stuff up wears off … and he has to deal with the reality of the end of the deconfliction agreement/pact and the fallout in the anti-ISIS coalition, not to mention NATO and the UN.
I’ll be watching Erdogan to see which way the wind blows for the Kurds, amongst other things. Oh, and fwiw, since I saw some guffaws wrt the Russia / Syria claiming that Syria rebels were exporting chemical weapons to Iraq … apparently quite plausible (particular with the Hersh reports mentioned above/elsewhere in this thread), but for those whose friends ONLY accept MSM sources, there’s this
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-iraq-mosul.html?_r=0
suggesting, among other things that our darling al Nusra / Al-Qa’eda may well have a sideline manufacturing “poorly secured” chemical weapons to use against their varied and sundry (but overlapping) enemies.
This may be approaching embarrassment as Syrian/Russian strikes on ISIS keep (somehow) hitting our pet rebels, or in this case, “someone’s” chemical storehouse and possible chemical warfare laboratory/kitchen facility.
Reminiscent of all that blackmarket oil that was filling ISIS’ coffers
All staged, planned and orchestrated, Susan Sunflower. As someone else said, the White Helmets were on the chemical attack right away. What the heck were the White Helmets doing in a remote farming community? Just hanging around, waiting for it to happen, maybe because they knew it was going to happen? Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been there. There aren’t a million White Helmets!
Trump had better get back to letting other countries fight their own battles and concentrate on domestic policy. He must not let these neocons force him into more war.
And how many of some random group of White Helmets would be expected to speak perfect English ? Close to zero I’d guess , but when the film rolls at an important breaking event they’re always right there.
Waiting for orders from their fascist masters
The Left, who not long ago denounced Trump as the next Hitler, a Nazi, a dictator, are now cheering him because he bombed a country that’s been fighting for its very survival. Rachel Maddow, Chuck Schumer, the major media outlets, the intelligence community are all ecstatic.
When did this happen? Right is left and left is right, up is down and down is up. It’s an upside down world. Left is war and Right is peace? What?
What’s going on?
Please, there is no ‘left’ in America and when you try to call liberals leftists your argument falls apart. Look the words up. There has not been a liberal in the White House since FR.
What I find interesting too is when Lindsay Graham in the above post mentions Europe. I’ve often wondered why they allowed the Syrian refugees into Europe. They could have stopped them dead in their tracks if they had wanted to (using any justification), but they let them pour in. Why? Only a small percentage of the Syrians were in refugee camps; the great majority were living and working in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. I’ve always been puzzled by this.
Yet, a few times I’ve heard people say, “Look what’s happened in Europe with the terrorists. Look what’s happened in the U.S. We’ve got to stomp out these radicals in Syria before they do more damage to us.” It’s almost as if, in their ridiculous thinking, they allowed radicals to enter Europe and the U.S., knowing full well there’d be some blow back (false flags or otherwise) in order to justify going to war in the Middle East.
Choose your false flag (some would include 9/11) as justification for getting into more war. So they destroy Europe in order to – what – show us that we must fight these terrorists (who they themselves are training, arming and feeding)? Like a bunch of mini-9/11’s?
A few days ago there was another attack in Sweden by a so-called radical jihadi. Tucker Carlson interviews a Swedish journalist here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJoqXh8uZac
Is the plan to destroy countries in order to justify war?
And notice: lights out in sympathy immediately throughout Europe. Still waiting for condolences on St. Petersburg.
I watched the video.
I have watched so many video’s like this one.
Q:
Who is trying to scare who ?
Oh, wait .. this was an Islamic terror attack.
Was it .. for what purpose ?
Money is the root of all bullshit.
So I wonder .. what money & who is trying to get it ?
It is just too easy to rev up come crackhead Muslim to run a truck into a crowd .. but why would you get him to do it ?
What’s in it for you ?
Who the hell are you !/?
The refugees have been weaponized by Western imperialism. They have been le into Europe so that more chaos will ensue and then guess what: police crackdown on civil rights and soon, martial law.
One would have to be a morn to think otherwise.
Remember: Sadaam had WMD? Right. Americans are asleep
One of the few voices on the MSM who actually does ask serious questions is Tucker Carlson. I watch that guy every night now because he goes after these congressmen and senators, actually confronts them, argues with them. Here he is with Lindsay Graham (who is all pro-Trump now!), who is calling for 6,000 to 8,000 boots on the ground in Syria. Now, he doesn’t go after Graham as much as I’ve seen him go after others (perhaps because he hasn’t had time yet to gather conflicting information), but he does ask him some pointed questions (Lindsay Graham is up first):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMfYSWBRPxE
After Graham is finished, at 9:47 Tucker gives a short commentary about the fake news everywhere, how the media, McCain, Graham, Democrats in Congress who were denouncing the President as a Nazi and a Russian agent simultaneously, just 20 minutes ago, now think he’s wonderful. Politico says the skeptics are “Trump’s Troll Army,” racists and conspiracy mongers. The New York Times said that the strongest opposition to bombing in Syria came from a “small, but influential white nationalist movement”. Washington Post said, “The war’s critics hold racist, anti-semitic and sexist views.”
Tucker said, “Wait a minute. Why would white supremacists oppose the bombing of a non-white country? Wouldn’t they be for it? It makes no sense. It’s literally absurd.”
Listen to the insane Lindsay Graham speak, then Tucker’s short commentary.
America’s Double Standard, i.e., Israel vs. Syria:
Regarding Israel’s Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW):
Israel signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), but didn’t ratify it. It never signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Its policy is CBW ambiguity.
In 1993, the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment WMD proliferation assessment included Israel as a nation having undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities. In 1998, former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Bill Richardson said: “I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive things for a long time. There’s no doubt they’ve had stuff for years.”
To cite one of many examples:
During its 2008/09 “Operation Cast Lead” assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel illegally used white phosphorous, which burns flesh to the bone, in attacks against civilians along with flechettes, i.e., 4-cm metal darts fired from missiles, planes or tanks “that penetrate straight through human bone and can cause serious, often fatal, injuries.” (It has also used cluster bombs during its attacks against and invasions of Lebanon.)
In response to Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead,” the United Nations Goldstone Report charged Israel with using phosphorous incendiary shells on a UN compound sheltering more than 600 civilians, using phosphorous and high explosive artillery shells on Al-Quds hospital and it rejected Israel’s assertion that Hamas or other militants were using the hospital. Israel was also accused of attacking a crowded mosque during evening prayers (the panel rejected the contention that armed militants were inside), using flechettes and of using Palestinians as human shields during house searches, a “war crime under the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court.” No evidence was found that Hamas had used Palestinians as human shields.
In a report issued on 2 July 2009, Amnesty International states that “more than 3,000 homes were destroyed and some 20,000 damaged in Israeli attacks which reduced entire neighborhoods of Gaza to rubble and left an already dire economic situation in ruins. Much of the destruction was wanton and could not be justified on grounds of ‘military necessity.’” Amnesty also noted that “During Operation ‘Cast Lead’ Israeli forces made extensive use of white phosphorus, often launched from 155mm artillery shells, in residential areas, causing death and injuries to civilians. Homes, schools, medical facilities and UN buildings – all civilian objects – took direct hits.” Neither Amnesty nor Human Rights Watch accused Hamas of using “human shields.” Amnesty, however, accused Israel.
To quote eminent Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, “[Israel] has already used weapons prohibited by international law – white phosphorous and flechette rounds against a civilian population in Gaza, and cluster munitions in Lebanon – and the world did not raise a finger.” ( “‘Moral superpower’? Give me a break,” Haaretz, Sept. 1, 2013)
1,417 Palestinians were killed, including 926 civilians, of whom 313 were children and 121 were women. Israel suffered some damaged buildings and 13 dead, including three civilians from rocket fire and three soldiers killed in a friendly-fire incident. In short, Operation Cast Lead was a slaughter of imprisoned people, not a war.
Nor should be forget Israel’s other attacks against the Gaza Strip, including “Operation Protective Edge (8 July to 27 August 2014), during which 2,200 Palestinians, most of whom were non-combatants, including about 500 children, were killed. 40 Israelis died, mostly soldiers.
In response to these and countless other horrors it has inflicted on Palestinians and other Arabs, Israel receives over $10 million dollars per day in aid courtesy of American taxpayers and Netanyahu is received with open arms in Washington and the White House.
The way the events are building up, there is a real danger of “Nuclear Conflagration” looming on the Horizon. And public at large has absolutely no clue of it. It is time to ring the Alarm Bells.
I posted the following comments under the article “Trampling the U.S. Constitution for War”. I will post it here as well.
Constitution now, and for a long time, in reality is meant only for domestic issues: recently civil rights, gay rights, environment, and state rights , and so forth.
In the foreign policy of pursuing Imperial Agenda, Constitution has been constantly trespassed, for more than a century now.
Yes, there were furious debates during nineteenth century – those were real debates. Politicians had some principles what they believed in. Politics is a whole different ball game now. There are debates in the Congress to a certain extent these days too. But for some time now, these debates are mostly meant to deceive the public. It is true for all Western Imperial Nations.
Those of us who are unaware of or have not kept up with, since 1991, the ideology of “End of History”, and “full Spectrum Dominance”, it will be hard to comprehend what is coming now; may be very soon.
All Media, TV, newspapers, and all that (even small town newspapers) are essentially controlled by people such as Murdoch, a small group. With this, there is complete control of public mind (in just all Western Countries with varying degrees). With the exception of alternative Media (like this Site), there is no such thing as Journalists left. They are all highly paid Hacks to promote Imperial Agenda on the Official Media – a branch of the Imperial State.
Real control of Financial Institutions is in the hands of a few people.
Think Tanks are populated by NeoCons. There is not much of dissent in the Institutions of Higher Learning.
Then there is very powerful MIC, Pentagon, Intelligence Apparatus, all for waging Wars.
It seems to me that they are inching towards implementing this “Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine” right Now.
The rumblings coming out of Europe, and NATO are ominous.
With Country run by NeoCons, and Neutered, and belligerent Trump with them, and Congress, Media, MIC, Intelligence Apparatus, Masters of Financial Institutions all on board, there is a danger of Nuclear War become reality, accidental or otherwise.
Russia will probably yield in Syria. But they cannot afford to yield on Crimea, and South Eastern Ukraine where inhabitants are Russian speaking, and mostly Russians and Russian Ukrainian Mix. Gorbachev from Stavropol Region in Southern Russia himself is Russian Ukrainian mix – paternal grandparents Russians, maternal grandparents Ukrainians. Russia’s very physical existence is in danger.
Ukraine has to have a Federal Constitution With South East Ukraine as an Autonomous Region. West refuses to accept this.
Regarding History, eight or nine Oblasts, which constitutes South Eastern Ukraine were part of Russian Federation and transferred by Bolsheviks (Politburo) to Western Ukraine in 1922. Crimea was transferred to Ukraine by Khruschev (who was from Donetsk) in 1956.
In both cases it was done for political and administrative purposes.
Germany always coveted Ukraine and fought two Wars (World Wars I and II). Russia lost more than five million people in World War I and more than twenty five million people in World War II with European part of the Country utterly destroyed by the Germans with Scorched Earth Policy. Angela Merkel is very anti-Russian.
With NATO (Western) armies massed on their borders of Russia once again, they have very hard choice to make – To fight or yield and lose their sovereignty, and essentially become economic colony of Germany (and The West).
These are real perilous times in Human History.
The American public deserves to know how much that 60 Tom-a-Hawk missile strike cost us. Also who pocketed the winnings from the visual/political display of military strength.
Those in government like to do a cost benefit analysis on projects before giving approval for passing on the job.
Can we please see that cost benefit analysis on the Syrian warning strike of military airport? If not, why not?
Where will the money come from to pay for the strike? Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, PBS, environmental protections, school lunches, Pell grants, clean water and air? That’s a fair question.
Since Trump appears to be most worried about the Democratic-neocon alliance, does this mean that Hillary’s Hollywood hypocrites and co. have won?
It means there is no opposition in the US between parties. As Nadar stated and events show, they are both parties of the one percent and the one percent’s Pinkerton agents– the US military
Daniel Lazare, you should get this article on Global Research and Antiwar.com. I saw some articles that antiwar activists came out for demos in US cities and at least in London and I think Paris, so I believe we have to ratchet up our vocal opposition. I also saw articles stating that the US empire is failing and knows so, therefore deep state operatives including Congress are acting uncontrollably and flailing about, and judging from what we see, they do seem to be like a thrashing, wounded beast. So we have to drive the weapon of opposition in hard, no matter how resistant they get to hold on, no matter how long we have to oppose their murderous activities. We cannot be silent. Syria was actually at the top of the PNAC regime change to-do list and has turned out to be the hardest because of Russia and I think probably the Syrian people, as well as the fact that after nearly 15 years of these neocon atrocities, the whole world is onto them.
My searching today leads to a lot of smoke still blowing on both the chemical issue and the missile strike. The fog is still thick, investigation still direly needed, with a lot of people popping off on what they “know.”
That is, tho the Russians claim only 23 missiles actually hit the Ash Sha’irat base, the pentagon claims all but one hit. Also disputed is that the air base was lightly damaged, versus claims it is out of operation.
I’m summarizing for search on how many missiles hit the Ash Sha’irat base and how much damage. It is not yet clear. If you have clear and authoritative answers on all this, by all means lay it out and suggestions of the link to take me there.
Also surfacing out of the search is a common view that all of this has been pretext. The bombing of the warehouse was known and tweeted ahead of time, gas masks were on hand ahead of time, and all of it was the false flag set-up for the attempt to make Donald look muscular with his response. Also, Russians were warned at the air base ahead of time.
On the original incident of the supposed gas bombing, this is still not clear, disputed, with Assad as doing it highly unlikely, and what seems stronger the chem attack faked as with vids of washing down victims with hoses as ridiculous etc.
Russia has scrapped the de-conflict agreement, which means trying to avoid violence re US-Russia forces, which means that could happen for more opportunities for Trump to “look presidential.” (Gee, folks, I just couldn’t help change my mind on that.”)
We might as well be looking at a bunch of chickens in the barnyard running around and squawking in terms of getting at what we really need to know on what has happened, as we look at Trump, MSM, and “experts” etc. etc.
What you’re seeing is gaslighting on steroids. Reams of authoritative-sounding factoids and pronouncements are made , much of which contradicts both documented facts and common sense , but which is nonetheless assembled in a way so as to point to the desired conclusion , while confusing the hell out of skeptics.
Example :
The CW ( sarin ) had to be delivered by air. The rebels don’t have an air force. We have the radar tracks of the Syrian jets going to and from the gas attack sites at the correct times. Therefore , clearly , Assad is a war criminal who gassed his own people.
You’re not given the chance to say : ” Why must it be by air ? Why couldn’t the rebels pay a little boy to use his red wagon to haul a jug of sarin upwind of a bunch of other kids , which the rebels then dispense remotely ? Or , if you want air , the rebels can look on the internet to find out how to build – using junkyard materials – a catapult that’ll chuck a watermelon – or a sarin melon – a mile. Not to mention that the rebels have been using hell cannons to launch gas canister bombs for years , many times with chlorine gas payloads. There’s your air delivery , take your pick. ”
If you insisted on saying this , the gaslighters would wave their arms around and say ” No no no no ” to drown you out , and then would say ” But you see , witnesses on the ground actually HEARD the gas bombs being dropped from Assad’s planes. ”
And you say ” That’s crazy “. And they say ” But you see , the rebels don’t have the capability to cook up sarin on the spot , on such short notice. And sarin is unstable. And it leaks because it’s corrosive. And , and , and……”
You see. This is what’s happening , and it’s because they’re lying and are desperately trying to conceal that fact.
Filter the noise and trust your gut because , in reality , this case is a freakin’ no-brainer.
My gut goes with Tony Cartalucci at the site below, New Eastern Outlook–
i.e. that we have a repeat of the previous as with 03, and (IMV here) the likelihood the build up of troops in Syria over the last few weeks toward “autonomous zones” was coordinated with the current set of provocations (chemical attack followed by missile strikes), with objective the same/similar as with invasion of Iraq.
On nature of the chemicals involved April 4:
From same site, here is Jean Perier April 6: New Eastern Outlook April 6 “Who has committed the gas attack in Syria?”
In conflict with Tillerson, the pentagon has acknowledged it cannot assign blame for the chemical deaths event, according to head of the US Mobility Command, General Carlton D. Everhart.
Also: “events – April 4 – turned out [that the] warehouse was used as a workshop for the production of landmines filled with poisonous substances. Once produced in large numbers these munitions would be used by militants against Syrian and Iraqi forces.”
This would explain the discrepancies in accounts of the chemical damage as not coming from sarin but something of a lower order, used to create landmines.
Yes , I agree that the presence of sarin is not firmly established. I only used it as I did in my example to illustrate that even if sarin WAS involved , that fact would in no way absolve the rebels.
According to accounts, the Syrians apprised the United States military of the fact that it was making that bombing run. Does any rational person believe they would use it to deliver sarin gas? Either the U.S. or its al Qaeda proxies took that information and used it to frame Syria. THAT is the logical explanation. Are Americans so gullible they cannot see that? This is beyond the bounds of absurdity.
It is beyond absurd.
I think the bulk of the population in the U.S. may actually be , for lack of a better word , zombies. I’m not kidding , either. I’d prefer a more scientific and rational-sounding term to use , but I don’t think that anything in the DSM-IV covers it. It’s an emerging epidemic or something.
I think I’m done with shaking hands. I’m definitely done with exchanging bodily fluids. I may just go full biohazard.
An example from another time. When the US Army invaded Grenada in the 80’s, Ronald Reagan said that there were 5,000 well-armed, crack Cuban soldiers in Grenada. Cuban president Fidel Castro said that there were only 500 Cuban soldiers in Grenada and they were an engineering battalion, not combat troops. When the island had been searched and scoured, the number of Cuban soldiers found were 500 and they were construction engineers aiding in the construction of an airport, just as Castro had said. We can go through our history and find countless similar examples. (Tonkin Gulf “attack”; Soviet Migs Bound for Nicaragua; Iraqi tanks massing at the Saudi border; WMDs in Iraq.) Its almost always the OTHER guys that are telling the truth.
Fake “chemical weapons expert” Dan Kaszeta and fake “citizen investigative journalist” Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat are key deception operatives driving Western conspiracy theories about “chemical attacks” in Syria.
In the past four days, Kaszeta has been cited as a go-to “expert” by the BBC, UK Guardian, CNN, Time magazine, NPR, Germany’s Die Welt and Deutsche Welle, Business Insider, Popular Science, Asia Times and other media outlets.
For the past several days, Kaszeta, Higgins, Bellingcat and their fanboys have been hurling a desperate barrage of Twitter Tomahawks, predictably agreeing with themselves that Syria and Russia were somehow responsible for the incident. Higgins continues to spew his “the Russians are lying” froth.
Even Joshua Frank, managing editor of Counterpunch, joined the fray. Frank cited leading conspiracy theorist Kaszeta, demonstrating the serious lack of discernment among of “progressive” journalism outlets.
Not content with merely quoting Kaszeta, BBC News online went so far as to publish an essay authored by Kaszeta titled “Syria ‘chemical attack’: What can forensics tell us?”
At the end of his BBC News essay, in a furtive effort to quickly “tie the whole narrative together”, Kaszata mentioned that “In 2013, the chemical hexamine, used as an additive, was a critical piece of information linking the Ghouta attack to the government of President Assad.” This intriguing tidbit links to a December 2013 New York Times article quoting Kaszeta’s own claims about the “very damning evidence” of hexamine.
However, Kaszeta’s claims about hexamine were already debunked in 2014.
http://whoghouta.blogspot.com/2014/04/hexamine-again.html
Kaszeta continues to claim that Hexamine was used in the 2013 Ghouta attack, despite the evidence that Hexamine is not soluble in alcohols, making it ineffective for this purpose.
Accurate analysis of all primary and secondary evidence relating to the 21 August 2013 chemical attack at Ghouta indicate it was carried out by Western-backed forces supplied via NATO-member Turkey.
Higgins and Kaszeta also never mention the fact that both the state of Israel and the US Department of Defense possess advanced chemical warfare capabilities and are known to support Al Qaeda terrorist forces (primarily Al Nusra) in Syria.
The self-referential nature of Higgins and Kaszeta’s signature “Bellingcat method” of propaganda is well established. Higgins and collaborators concoct fake “analysis” of online images and videos from the internet. Then they manufacture “investigation reports” based on their own “analysis”.
Bellingcat’s “online investigation” scams are broadcast via social media and regime change think tanks like the Atlantic Council. Mainstream media cite these self-appointed “experts”. Government officials then cite the mainstream media and these internet “experts”.
The Pentagon and Administration say that they have surveillance imagery of a particular Syrian fighter-bomber firing on Khan Sheikoun. Apparently two rocket bombs were conventional explosives, but the third struck a building, raising a cloud of yellowish color. If such imagery exists, it requires neutral expert interpretation and still proves nothing without ground level investigation. Now Khan Sheikoun is an al Qaeda (HTS) controlled territory. There are no neutral observers. The only journalists are al Qaeda-approved. The former British physician who serves as the guide to the suffering of the hospitalized victims in the video that stirred the Trumps to action (ho-ho) lost his UK medical license because he lured two journalists into a kidnapping trap of ISIS! It seems the other ground evidence of Asad’s guilt is provided by the Turkish President, who has transformed himself into a dictator in the last year, jailing thousands of journalists and political opponents, and who has always suffered from Ottoman Irredentist Syndrome. Last week at the UN Russia and Syria were asking for investigations of the crime, while the enemies of Syria were baying for immediate retribution…based on that “evidence”.
Joshua Frank’s article on CounterPunch was seriously disappointing and troubling. CounterPunch SHOULD know better.
What needs to happen now is a twitter storm saying Trump duped by Hillary into launching strike. He will not be able to resist responding.
Supposedly Twitter is manipulated by management. Posts are deleted. Notifications are inactivated. The data is falsified. Scott Adams has written about this. He has collected evidence that his comments are sandbagged on Twitter. No movement gets a boost on Twitter that those in power don’t want to see spread. Twitter is as subservient to the Imperial State as Google and Facedbook.
More apologetics from the alt-left, for fascist Trump.
It is as if there is zero evidence that Trump has had extensive business ties with Russia worth investigating.
And typically authors from the pro-Trump alt-left ignore the fact that Trump has aligned himself with Neocons and Neocon positions for months and months.
Arguing that Trump ever represented obstacles to the Deep State, the establishment, neoliberal economics, Wall Street, and the MIC is complete and utter _______.
Just another day of apologizing for billionaire fascist Trump by the alt-left.
Interesting how the Deep State, according to this alt-left pro Trump logic, gets Trump off the hook on Russia. What? They threw away their 4 dimensional chess game? Heck, now the Deep State has given up their game in the MSM as well!
And the Deep State also made sure that Assad could still use the airbase!
This is more rubbish as tho this site is “alt-left.” Nobody’s apologizing for anything here.
There is no “pro-Trump alt-left.” And what do Trump’s purported business ties with Russia have to do with illegally bombing Syria? What are you on about??
Some people simply can’t grasp the concept that one can be on the anti-Hillary alt-left and not be pro-Trump.
The machinations of the court politicians in service of unbridled capitalism pretending to be democracy have giving us a proto fascist empire which seeks all in its conceived vision of the world as a zero sum game. Irrational behavior is not uncommon when power and wealth of proportions inconceivable by most on the planet are in play. War is only a means to profit. Thus the U.S. government is seeking to continue the profits of conflict instigation, war making, and weapons sales, as its primary product now. War is our business. And we let the world know once again with our 59 Tomahawks of peace that we don’t stand for aggression, just aggressiveness in promoting our policies of conflict.
Are the so-called White Helmets, all kitted out with their sexy and spick & span uniforms, by now so populous and even ubiquitous at least in certain parts of Syria that a posse of them — plus their attendant team of a cameraman, a soundman, and the like — can be counted upon to show up within less than half an hour, if not mere minutes, of any fracas, even in an obscure farming town like Khan Shaykuhn? I swear I got to see any number of these glorified hollywood heroes coming pretty much instantly to the rescue in much of the recent video footage aired on tv (here in the Middle East) of the recent chemical incident, Can anyone here corroborate this for me? Myself, I find this uncanny — and deeply sinister.
Yes , same here. I think it was essentially live-streamed , worldwide.
Soon you’ll be able to get the program schedules well in advance : ” Coming April 27 , 9 P.M. EST – Assad Gasses His Own People In Damascus ! – See Heroic White Helmets Work In Deadly Environment ! – Watch It Here , Live and Online ! “
I believe Donald fooled us:
Donald You Fooled Us
Donald, you were elected into a big White House
Now you are acting like a warmongering louse
Bombing other countries as you think and see fit
Yemen and Syria you have already hit
Donald You Fooled Us
People believed you, when you promoted peace
Now that you are elected the bombings don’t cease
The war criminals are now applauding your dangerous sorties
You sent “59” missiles into Syria: is this your forte?
Donald You Fooled Us…
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/04/donald-you-fooled-us.html
“America’s perpetually bellicose foreign-policy establishment” is certainly ecstatic at the moment. It is an intense conflict with Trump Derangement Syndrome, and they are short-circuiting.
We need an insightful exploration of America’s perpetually bellicose foreign-policy establishment. It goes beyond the usual suspect, like the military industrial complex. Our politicians and think tankers and “experts” have a more complex story.
Their capture is rather like the militarism of Wilhelmine Imperial Germany. It is dysfunctional outside its own bubble, and driven by its own internal dynamics.
Those internal dynamics need closer examination. It needs exposure.
The archetypal War meme has an ancient history, and does indeed have a life of it’s own and it’s unique dynamics and means for replicating itself, and contaminating other memes, structures and individuals. It’s very much like a cancer infecting what could be a healthy body except for it’s malign presence. Pursuing this line of thought can help us understand this disease, and perhaps ultimately cure ourselves of it – before it destroys all of us.
“…’peace,’ by which is meant global American hegemony…”
+1 for making that distinction! ;)
The Dictionary for the 21st Century Imperial Age. New entry, “Peace; noun, Global American hegemony. [Edit, remove previous definition; freedom from or the cessation of war or violence.]”
Yes another great article. I must admit to feeling hopeless about this American militaristic empire I live in, and imagining living in another country, where reading the morning paper would not turn my stomach at deeds my own country has done, as well as scare me about what future repercussions we are going to experience.
Daniel Lazare and the other writers on CN are true geniuses. Those our culture designates as genius level most often still live in the box our culture has erected in their brains. These CN brains operate outside those limiting parameters….
Trump made a mistake in opening up the prospect of a second war. That was one of the factors the sealed Hitler’s fate. Trump’s first war? The one he is waging against the American people.
Trump’s got a second war on his hands with the corporate war machine and it’s tools in congress and the intel agencies.
great article. Too bad such articles are not published in main stream media.
They can’t be. The corporate media is run for profit.
Great article. Too bad such articles and discussions are never allowed in the mainstream media.
mark K., Hillary has a brain like Kissinger, Eichmann,
and all the other War-Criminal Maniacs in History.
C’mon, man, have you been living under a rock ???????
Immediately upon being informed of the gang rape and murder of Moammar Qaddhafi –
the most progressive and commited of all Arab leaders on issues of female equality – Secretary Clinton’s unscripted reaction was to riff on a quotation of one of history’s great imperialists, Julius Caesar, and then to cackle, or crow, or or make whatever ornithologists name as the the mating call of the Greater Necrophile Harpy. Trump was always the worse choice in the realm of domestic policy, but offered a glimmer of hope (not enough that I would vote for him) regarding Russia and Syria stances, and now he has extinguished even that. Pray for Syria and yourselves.
If I didn’t spend the time I do surfing the web to get my news, and if I were to only get my news from our ‘Corporate Owned Media’, I would swear that Assad dropped sarin gas on the Syrian people. All day and all night coverage of this Syrian affair is being portrayed as an absolute fact that Assad did this dastardliy crime, and there is no counter claim otherwise.
Oh but wait, Rep Tulsi Gabbard is the one lone voice calling for a real investigation of this tragic event that took place in Syria, but Tulsi is battling back while the press drills down on her to admit that Assad is responsible for 450,000 deaths. Gabbard’s answer is to say how all these deaths are to be spread around, and yet the interviewer (Wolf Blitzer) acts like she didn’t answer the question. Apparently by Tulsi’s not saying what the CNN hack wants her to say, this is to be considered a no answer if Gabbard doesn’t say the right thing.
America is in trouble with all these lies. What kind of media would not allow differing opinions to be aired? What kind of respect is being shown to demonize the first person (Vladimir Putin) to respond and offer assistance to our country right after 911? Further more why hate the very person (Vladimir Putin) who convinced Assad back in 2013 to give up all of his country’s chemical weapons? More Americans would do them self some good to start reading Vladimir Putin’s speeches, instead of taking everything from the Corporate Owned Media as biblical fact.
Of course if a typical American were to glance at a Putin speech, she/he would say, “Why read this, it’s all lies. I prefer good old American made Truth, straight from the United States ministry of Truth – the Main Stream Media.”
For me, outsider that I have been in our ‘culture” since childhood, I find Putin’s speeches informative and revealing a thoughtful human being whom I would look forward to having an intelligent conversation with. Crazy me, eh!
I’m a little troubled by something that I came across last night, and due to my being pretty tired I was going to read it today, but now it’s gone. Last night I went on veteranstoday.com where Gordon Duff had posted an article with a few videos in it. The one video was of the Turkish politicians who went public back when the Ghouta chemical weapons strike was in the news. Apparently these Turkish politicians were showing proof to how Erdogan had slipped the chemical weapons into Syrian and that the Ghouta chemical weapons attack was a false flag instigated by Erdogan. I’ve heard of this news report before, but sadly it never got any air play in the U.S.. Now when I try to go on veteranstoday I get this ‘500 Internal Server Error’. Okay maybe the site is now down for maintenance, but I’m also curious to if veteranstoday was brought down on purpose as to hide this rare and important news.
These links might help:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/turkish-mp-who-claimed-sarin-gas-was-delivered-to-isis-in-syria-through-turkey-faces-treason-charges-34293333.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/23/hersh-vindicated-turkish-whistleblowers-corroborate-story-on-false-flag-sarin-attack-in-syria/
These links are related:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/turkish-mp-who-claimed-sarin-gas-was-delivered-to-isis-in-syria-through-turkey-faces-treason-charges-34293333.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/23/hersh-vindicated-turkish-whistleblowers-corroborate-story-on-false-flag-sarin-attack-in-syria/
Thank you RamboDave. I knew about this revelation by the Turkey Whistleblower, and like I said veteranstoday Gordon Duff posted an article where this news was being presented. It was rather late when I came across this Duff piece after midnight so I decided to read it in the morning, and then I discovered the veteranstoday site was down. As recently as 5 minutes ago I checked and it says that engineers are working on bringing the site back up. It will be interesting to see what occurred and why their site went down, but upon finding this site down it does make a mind wander. Thank you again RamboDave….Joe
Once the devils running the American state decide to launch a full scale war with Russia, you will not have any internet. It will be shut down long before the Russkies manage to respond with any EMP strikes to destroy our power grid. You will be left guessing in the dark about what’s happening until you see the mushroom cloud and feel the burn.
That’s not good. I hoped the internet would stay up until the end. I figured that once the nukes are launched , Wikileaks will dump the terabytes of data they’ve been sitting on , and we could spend our last ten minutes learning about all the stuff that could have helped save us from Armageddon , had we only known sooner.
Right, and you will be told it is for your security, as you are told every time a garment of civil rights is taken from you
You’re right , Joe. That report from Turkey was a literal smoking gun. It would have been exposed to all in Turkish court if it hadn’t been buried ( also literally , no doubt ) by Erdogan. Here’s an RT piece about it :
https://www.rt.com/news/325825-sarin-gas-syria-turkey/
Snips :
“For example the chemical attack in Ghouta. Remember. It was claimed that the regime forces were behind it. This attack was conducted just days before the sarin operation in Turkey. It’s a high probability that this attack was carried out with those basic materials shipped through Turkey. It is said the regime forces are responsible but the indictment says it’s ISIS. UN inspectors went to the site but they couldn’t find any evidence. But in this indictment, we’ve found the evidence. We know who used the sarin gas, and our government knows it too,” he said.
At the same time, Erdem also accused the West and Europe in particular for providing “basic materials” to create such a powerful chemical weapon.
“All basic materials are purchased from Europe. Western institutions should question themselves about these relations. Western sources know very well who carried out the sarin gas attack in Syria. They know these people, they know who these people are working with, they know that these people are working for Al-Qaeda. I think is Westerns are hypocrites about the situation,” he concluded.
…..
Then , a few months later , the Turkish journalists who reported on the matter were facing life sentences for doing so :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/25/turkish-journalists-can-dundar-erdem-gul-secret-trial-revealing-arms-deliveries-syria
Thanks for the links Marko, I really appreciate that. What I find most annoying is how this news never, at least to my knowledge, ever appeared in our American news. It’s stuff like this which should anger every American. I mean it is one thing that our Corporate Owned Media should lie to us, but what does it mean when even their lying isn’t good enough, so they just don’t print or televise a news story.
Besides that I decided to watch some of the cable news networks today, and I’m cringing on every lying description these media hacks use to explain what happened in Syria. Why these weasels that call themselves reporters are not only being objective they are being down right prosecutorial with their reporting of Assad and his relationship to the deaths of these people who may have died from some kind of chemical explosion. The media is actually at times saying how Assad dropped chemical agents on the town Idlib and then these scum who call themselves reporters go on to talk about how this isn’t the first time Assad did such a thing. Disgusting isn’t even enough of a good word to describe what the Corporate Fascist Liars are doing to prop up a lie.
You are right, Joe. The entire site seems to be off-line. Probably hacked by the CIA. This was their list of linked stories from early this AM. Certainly nothing the feds would want you to see here:
Larry Wilkerson on Syria: False Flag to Cover Trump’s Ass
Trump Brings Home the Bacon
Exposing InfoWars and Israel
Russia: US Attack Nearly Triggered Nuclear Holocaust
Trump Lied: Fmr. Ambassador Peter Ford Busts False Flag Gas Attack
Syria Attack: The New War Lobby, Bending Reality
Trump’s Dramatic Turnaround on Syria: Principles vs Pragmatism
Proof: Turkey Did 2013 Sarin Attack and Did This One Too <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Alex Jones Gets It Right, Sort of
Syrian War Report – April 6, 2017: US Launched Tomahawk Cruise Missiles At Military Airfield In Homs
Russia: Trump Lied, US Planned Missile Attack Before Idlib, US Planes Banned From Syria Air Space
In Defense of “Third World Country” Immigrants
Trump bombs Syria for ISIS – HUGE new false flag on the way?
Missiles rain on Syria: Trump pushes the world to the brink of ww3
Moscow insists chemical weapons were not used in Syria’s Idlib
Syrian Republican Guard: History And Capabilities
Putin rebukes Netanyahu over ‘groundless’ accusations on suspected chemical incident in Syria
You can’t make this stuff up: Putin is behind the terrorist attack in Russia!
2016: BOMBSHELL Revelation on the ACTUAL agents used to release the gas on Syrians!
Nukes for Saudi Arabia: Pakistan’s Military-Industrial Complex and the Gulf States
I marked the one you were probably referring to (<<<<<<<<<<<<)
I don’t know how you did that Realist, but I am impressed. I like to check in on veteranstoday, because Gordon Duff and Jim Dean often are a worthwhile read. Although often they will take a reader down a path of such hard to believe secret passage ways, and that is one reason I take what they write with a certain amount of caution. I mean if you can’t verify it, then where does that leave you. Plus veteranstoday has a format of sensationalizing every headline, and that throws up red flags for me. So I read it, but rarely do I post a link to this site for reference, because I have my own credibility to keep, if you know what I mean.
The reporting on Idlib chemical explosion, and Trump’s retaliation (if you can call his attack that) is all over the place. I thought it a bit bizarre when last night on MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell came up with a theory of how Putin, Assad, and Trump dreamed up the Thursday night attack on the Shayrat Air Base to make it look like they all aren’t in cahoots with each other. Okay I get it, it’s MSNBC at their game, but now after reading over at Voltairenet Thierry Meyssan who is basically saying the same thing I think to myself, self what in the world is going on.
I personally can’t buy that ‘theory’. I mean especially for Assad, why would he go along with such a brain dead scheme which leaves him looking like a chemical weapons murderer? And how would this help Putin in anyway being associated to a known killer? Trump, yes he could use some help distancing himself from Russians and Assad Syrians, but after that where would that leave the Russians and the Assad Syrians?
In the end there is one thing for certain, and that is our Corporatocracy Owned Media is spoon fed their narratives from the deepest depths of the Deep State. Listening to David Rohde, Bob Baer, and retired Colonel Cedric Leighton being interviewed on CNN it sounds to me like a lot of our country’s current focus is moving on to Iran and Russia.
Now I don’t consider myself to be any more exceptional than my next door neighbor, who is like me pretty average, but I do know I spend more time reading the news than most people I know will admit. So like many here who post comments I’m the odd man out when it comes to knowing about all these different events, but that’s what’s wrong with our American society. Our fellow Americans are being lied too daily, and for the most part our people don’t know it, or know what to do about it. This is our country’s weakest link, corrupted news information.
Here veteranstoday is back up, and read this……
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/04/08/trump-orders-vt-eliminated/
This will end my comments query.
One more thing about that last of the veteranstoday query….after reading the article I now wonder if the site being down wasn’t a publicity stunt?
Know what you mean, Joe. The content is often quite erratic, from one extreme position to the other. Always so hyperbolic it makes one question its credibility. That said, I have no doubt that the Deep State would like to see all independent news sites gone and only government-approved propaganda on tap. Obama signed such a law in December, but it hasn’t been implemented yet.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/26/under-cover-christmas-obama-establishes-controversial-anti-propaganda-agency
Try these while you wait for the web site to come back up. I would be surprised if it were not cracked.
http://theindicter.com/statement-by-swedish-doctors-for-human-rights-on-misrepresentations-referred-in-veterans-today/
http://www.shoah.org.uk/2017/04/07/swedish-medical-associations-says-white-helmets-murdered-kids-for-fake-gas-attack-videos/
John thank you. Boy, what to believe? That’s why I never know if I should post a link to that site. I mean their bizarre headlines don’t always hold up to how the news develops. Although somewhere within their reporting runs a thread of truth.
Erdogan’s hand in the Ghouta chemical attack being outed by the Turk Erderm has been reported widely, but just not in my neck of the woods.
Thanks for the links….Joe
Horrible to be accused of ” killing your own people” but virtuous to murder millions of various people other than your own. USA USA!
Your right BannanaBoat America should talk about atrocities.
Joe Tedesky: I have read most his important speeches and watched many of his interviews with the journalists. Not only he comes across a very well read person, with a calm, balanced, fair approach to the problems facing the World in matters concerning politics, economy, intergovernmental relations etc., but he also comes across as a deep thinker about the solutions for these problems.
Here, as you have been pointing out, we have only Tulsi Gabbard left on the political scene to challenge the Whole Corrupt Cabal in Washington, D.C. Used to be Dennis Kucinich, but they took care of him when they redrew the Congressional seat boundaries. Other is Rand Paul on Foreign Policy Issues.
Just two persons left in the entire Congress to oppose the the illegal bombing of other countries, and illegal Wars. And we still call it a Democracy!
No, not a simple democracy, but rather a “Representative Democracy”, a.k.a, a Republic, according to Ben Franklin, “If you can keep it.”, and we could not. So what is next?
Fascism if there is no anti imperialist, anti capitalist movement
Dave it does seem that the truth is out numbered by the lies. Between the phony portrayals of events, and the overly slanted news reporting that keeps us Americans separated and at odds with one another, it is an up hill battle, if ever we may turn any of this around.
I wish I could wave a magical wand and make it all better, but instead our elitist magicians would just rather saw us all in half with their propaganda. The magic our country could use is a simple trick when you come to think of it, because the magic we could use is nothing more than being honest, and telling the truth. You and us other readers here on this comment board can only press on, and when it becomes appropriate that we tell our friends and neighbors the truth of what we have learned.
This article shows how our media instantly and unquestioningly blamed Assad for the Gas attack.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/04/09/five-top-papers-run-18-opinion-pieces-praising-syria-strikes-zero-are-critical
All of the other western European presses also instantly concluded that Assad was responsible and had nothing but praise for Trumps unilateral missile attack on a nation we are not at war with.
There seems to be absolutely no counter opinion that Assad had nothing to gain and everything to lose by launching a chemical attack just as the USA was walking away from the fight in Syria. Trump spent years arguing that Syria’s civil war was not America’s problem. He Tweeted Obama to not attack Syria. Then he was embroiled in by the US press in Russia-Gate and was being slowly roasted on the rotisserie by the neocons over his Russian connections. Then he fired his pick to lead the NSC and was facing a national media which was spinning him as a Manchurian Candidate with secret ties to Russia and Putin. Then McMaster offered him a solution to his problems. Get Bannon off the NSC and allow the CIA to act out a false flag operation which was years in the making to use a Gas attack to blame Syrian President Assad for the deed and use that as an excuse to attack Syria and Assad.
It makes sense to those who orchestrated it. They have to turn Trump around and get him realigned with the ongoing effort to replace the Assad government with some other form of government. They have to align him against the Russians and convince him that Assad puled off the attack. They have to convince him that the Russians are responsible for allowing Assad to use chemical weapons while they broke their promise to destroy Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons.
The Europeans are worried about Putin. They see him as a threat and are more than wiling to blame Putin for the attack. They are also obviously not willing to consider that Assad had absolutely no motive for carrying out the attack in the time frame that Trump was walking away from Syria and was holding on to his years long doctrine that we had no business in Syria.
The critical observation here is that the Western Press is a much of a propagandist unquestioning tool of European and US interests as Pravda or any other state controlled media. In short, we are screwed by our press which holds us hostage to a one sided argument as much or even better than the Russian propaganda we all call a foul on every time.
Skepticism is dead. Critical reporting is dead. The lopsided coverage of this event reveals that there is a hegemony in the western press which excuses the illegal attack on Syria while also simultaneously blaming Assad without question as to his possible motives for the attack which there are none.
I get the basic assumption that crimes against humanity like chemical weapons attacks are to be dealt a swift blow. Nobody wants to see the videos of the results of that on their TVs. Everybody wants to see swift justice. Everyone wants to see the perpetrators swiftly punished. I get all of that. But what I do not get is the lack of basic journalism and detective work which would reveal that Assad was the last suspect.
Where are the counter arguments based on motive and opportunity which would suggest ISIS was likely responsible? Where are the stories which paint a desperate ISIS faced with the USA walking away from the fight and leaving them in the hands of the Russians to be dealt defeat but willing and capable of using an attack like this to draw America back into the fight? There are no such stories.
ISIS would like nothing more than to create tension between Russia and the USA and draw them into a conflict. That is exactly what is happening. The Neocons would also like nothing more than to give the USA an excuse to blame Russia for everything just as we blame the election of Trump on the Russians.
If you are asking the question why in the World would Assad give the USA an excuse to reverse Trump’s policy decision to walk away from the fight in Syria and leave it to the Russians who support Assad to allow Assad to conduct a chemical attack on babies and innocent civilians which implicate the Russians and Assad you would come up empty handed.
The Russians and Assad had nothing to gain but ISIS and the US Neocons had everything to gain.
This is nothing more than the what the media did in reporting the “attack” on the USS Maine in Havana Harbor which was blamed on Spain which led to the Spanish American War. This is the same kind of yellow journalism leaping to a false conclusion of convenience and leading to a war with Spain as is leading to a war with Syria and its ally Russia.
We may see advantage in launching a war against Syria and Russia just as we saw advantage in waging a war against Spain. But Spain did not have Nuclear weapons or a nation that spanned eleven time zones. Napoleon and Hitler similarly underestimated the might of Russia. They both lost. Russia is not some foreign power to be trifled with. They have the means and the ends to fight back. As I see it, they are trying to exterminate the threat of ISIS and radical Islamist’s who are a threat to the west. They have the means to accomplish that and we should follow Donald Trumps initial instinct to just let them do that.
The fact he has been squeezed into a predicament by our politicians and our media to save himself and his political career by reversing his former policy or face trial reveals just how badly our nation is controlled by war mongers.
If we continue on our course, we will just become the handmaidens for radical Islam as a way to embroil Russia in an endless cold war for the benefit of pro military forces in government and industry.
I have no love for the Assad regime. They are not the kind of government that we should support. But we also do support all kinds of governments which do not resemble our democratic ideals. In fact we try to destroy them.
I favor a US policy which seeks to preserve the peace between major powers much the way Nixon made peace with China after Vietnam and much the way Reagan forged a peace with Gorbachev and much the way the Marshall Plan created allies out of former enemies after WWII.
Forging economic alliances between Russia and the West while fighting a common foe of terrorism is a better strategy than blaming the Russians for everything.
Michael Krieger @LibertyBlitz
Since 9/11:
1) Non-stop war.
2) Destruction of U.S. middle class.
3) Banker bailouts
4) Death of civil liberties.
We showed ’em terrorists.
As simple and ruthless as that. And they say the Ivy Leaguers are the smartest. Nope; just the most ruthless. “We don’t need no education”! Gonna get it anyway.
I note the unnamed official leak to NYT of “high confidence” in the “assessment ” that Assad “regime ” gassed with Sarin.
ie, looks like a reasonable guess. Logic dictates that Assad had nothing to gain and the “activists” , the military forces formerly known as “rebels”, did have much to gain, viz. re open the rat supply lines from Langley.
Certainly, the McMaster shot ends the Trump-as -Russian -pawn problem.
I assume the Syrians flew the planes out as the Russians evacuated the base on 90 minute notice, ( leaving a few inoperable hulks for film at 11) so it’s a piece of Kabuki theatre.
Now the issue, if you assume that Assad launched a Sarin strike from the base, then the Russians must’ve known! Agreed. But, shouldn’t that lead one to doubt the premise?
Someone please enlighten me: Why does Hillary continue to push the Saudi/Turkey/Al-Nusra line? What is the point? She has a brain unlike Bomber McCain and Genghis Graham.
Maybe CNN can get a shot of Tomahawks searching for Air Malaysia 370
In a contest between McCain, Graham, and Hillary to see who has the most twisted brain, don’t count Hillary out!
What does that say about the people who voted for them?
Do you remember “Racak”, “Merkale” “Omarska” all reported by the “presstitutres” in Western Media at the time when the Serbs had the most to lose. Each one of these false flags was used to justify NATO bombing that followed.
Trump came with strings attached. You just have to know which one to pull to get him to react. His statements during the campaign about restoring torture to interrogation and his hair trigger ‘tweet’ reaction to any criticism clearly indicated an unstable belligerence that only needed right conditions and a little push.
It was Trump who wanted ‘his generals’ on his staff. Nuking North Korea will be next.
Jules M. – “Trump came with strings attached. You just have to know which one to pull…” Yes, unfortunately to get anything done on the domestic side, which is what Trump is really interested in, he has to throw a bone to the neocons.
We all have strings. Trump wants to end globalization, bring jobs back home, secure the borders, properly vet refugees, stop wars, build infrastructure, etc.
If Trump bends to these neocons in order to get what HE wants, then he will pay a heavy price because they’ll have seen that they can get Trump to bend to their will whenever they want.
Canada’s Foreign Minister has strings going back to her Nazi Ukrainian grandfather that she defended saying he had to be as he was fighting the soviets. She was on CBC yesterday dancing like Dervish on a pinhead. She lied through her teeth and avoided answering questions about evidence on responsibility. for this attack. She blamed the Russians but very cautiously as she was under lots of pressure of late on her Nazi past about which she lied and her support for the Kiev Nazis.
Trump started off as a wayward puppet seemingly out of control of the establishment and the neocon war machine. Now however, the puppet master has the strings attached to his arms, legs and mouth and he is compliant and saying and doing exactly as he’s told. Obama had all kinds of ideas as well, including closing Guantanamo Bay prison, but he was quickly brought under control and from then on did exactly what he was told. The old saying: “if voting ever changed anything they would do away with it” is as true today as it ever was.
You are so right. The only thing that changes is the intensity of the effort and the shamelessness of the display, particularly of the ‘Hillary group’ and the hijacked and ever more distorted ‘democratic party’.
Well, somebody sure wanted to create the IMPRESSION that he was at odds with the deep state agenda, they have played that skit up for all it’s worth, haven’t they? But I submit that the puppet strings were well anchored all along, before he was ever elected. Wasn’t there already an excess of evidence, BEFORE these latest incidents, showing quite clearly that the ludicrous narrative about the Trump administration having a genuine intention to cooperate with Russia was a charade from the word go? He didn’t need to be lured or coerced into this, it was a foregone conclusion that the transnational deep state agenda would continue in much the same seamless trajectory as was seen in the transition from Bush to Obama, and this was evident from the choice of various neocon deep state players to fill key positions before he was even inaugurated. If that wasn’t evidence enough, their words and actions since then should spell it out in braille for those who are visually impaired!
Consider the following examples: the continuing build up of US and NATO forces in Poland and the Baltic states on Russia’s doorstep, the proposal for a huge multi-billion dollar increase in the already bloated Pentagon budget, the endorsement of plans for building a new generation of nuclear warheads, the extreme rhetoric of Trump officials regarding Russia and Ukraine and the western fomenting of further violence there vial their Ukrainian coup regime puppets, the threats of war against Iran, a key Russian ally, the open introduction of US ground forces into Syria, and now this latest cruise missile attack using the pretext of what was almost certainly another deep state orchestrated chemical weapons false flag attack.
All of these events, especially the threats against Iran and the escalation of violence in Syria, are extreme provocations aimed directly at Russia which could very easily spiral out of control and result in a full scale nuclear war. It is long past time to call bullshit on this entire premise that Trump ever had any intention of carrying out his professed desire to get along with Russia, he is every bit as much of a con man in this regard as Obama was in his purported desire to be a “peace president” and end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump was selected for the sole purpose of doing as much damage as possible to conservative values such as free-speech, nationalism, capitalism, self-defense, and religious observation. Though he does try to represent these values – he is perhaps the worst representative on earth, of virtuous consistency. The reasonable conservatives in our society, those who try very hard to conduct their lives according to these traditional standards, will now be shamed by their association with Trump.
The long term goal is to use public humiliation as a tool to eliminate all opposition to the “One-World Agenda” that is the globalist’s dream……one world, one race, one religion, one gender, one language, one currency…and zero dissent.
I find it so much on point that you have a picture of a joyous Hillary Clinton included in this article. Even though photographed earlier, it could have easily been photographed the moment news of the US bombing of the Syrian airbase became public. She smiles because she knows a serious diversion has occurred. A diversion that gets the focus of mostly brain dead America off of the crimes committed by her and her husband. You could easily included a beaming Bibi and a squad of salaciously smiling Saudi princes.
The insane war makers in the US government and behind it know well that their flimsy lies to justify war would never hold up in any kind of just and impartial tribunal, so they preempt any such procedures by acts of violence. This is why the US avoids the International Court of Justice in The Hague like the plague. Criminals are understandably reluctant to appear before the bar of justice.
The Hague Tribunal is a kangaroo court. There is no justice in a court where the judges and the prosecutors know that the people they are holding and prosecuting are innocent. The court serves only one purpose to legitimize the crimes of the accusers. This court is an example of justice that Manning received in his trial in front of the US military tribunal which is a replica of the Nazi and Stalinist tribunals of the past.
Vuki: I agree with you. The Hague Tribunal is a court designed by the Western Colonial Powers to fool the rest of the World. They haul in the some of the insignificant African Dictators, and some leaders of the unfortunate weak Nations like Serbia (Milosevic) while giving Nobel Peace Prize to real Killers like Kissinger, and Obama. The whole thing is a joke
Can You get this article distributed over mainstream media and I have a follow up story that I would like to discuss
Thank you
Bruce Warren Margolese
Obviously not. The MSM won’t even look at anything that contradicts their script.
That’s not always true. Sometimes they publish dissenting views, but they usually make sure the readers know they think I ideas expressed are not “reasonable”. It might be worth trying to submit as version of this article as an op-ed.
It should be a news item in the corporate media but the problem is that we have a corporate media owned and operated by six cartels. Think they will cooperate and publish anything that is against their interests or that of the ruling class they work for?