Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Wag the
Dog? Offering No Proof, Trump Threatens New Attacks Against Syria
It could be, suggested one Russian lawmaker, that "the US
is trying to hoodwink the global public with another 'test tube containing some
white powder' to justify its own acts of aggression."
In the wake of new reporting suggesting that the Trump
administration's decision to target the Syrian government with cruise missiles
in early April was conducted without sufficient evidence and over the
objections of some in the U.S. intelligence community, the White House on
Monday night threatened President Bashar al-Assad's government with further
military action.
In a message that, according to the New York Times,
"appeared designed to set the stage for another possible military
strike," the White House statement made a claim (though it offered no
evidence to support it) that the Syrian military appeared to be planning a
chemical attack similar to one that took place in the village of Khan Sheikhoun
on April 4. If "another" such attack took place, said the tweeted statement, there would be a
"heavy price" for Assad to pay.
"Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun?
Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use
sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘'We have a problem and let's look
into it.' He wanted to bomb the ++++ out of Syria."
While the White House has yet to present verifiable evidence
proving Syria intentionally targeted its own civilian population with chemical
weapons in Khan Sheikhoun, the Assad government—though it acknowledges carrying
out airstrikes in the town that day—continues to deny it was behind the
horrific deaths. The Russian government, an ally of Assad and fighting on its
behalf against rebel factions and the Islamic State, has said that a
conventional weapon dropped by a Syrian warplane may have hit depots of
chemical agents, chlorine, or fertilizers which resulted in the toxic gas that
killed an estimated 60 people, including many children.
According the numerous outlets, Monday night's statement from
the White House caught much of the U.S. intelligence community off guard. As
the Independent reports, sources from within the U.S. State
Department, Pentagon and Central Command said that "they did not know what
had prompted the unprecedented threat to the Assad regime."
In his response, Russian President Vladimir Putin's
spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday morning said that "such threats to
Syria's legitimate leaders are unacceptable." Meanwhile, the Syrian
government dismissed the allegations as false.
During a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday
morning, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Trump's
warning—aimed not just at Syria, but also at Russia and Iran—should be taken
as, "If this happens again, we are pointing you on notice."
But in the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, Konstantin
Kosachev, Head of the Federation Council's International Affairs
Committee, pushed back by saying the White House
claims of a pending chemical attack by Syria smelled more like an orchestrated
ruse for a preemptive strike by the U.S. rather than a serious attempt to
prevent such an attack.
It could be, said Kosachev, as he made reference to the phony
intelligence that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "that the US is trying
to hoodwink the global public with another 'test tube containing some white
powder' to justify its own acts of aggression." Though stated as
plausible, not factual, Kosachev said, "America could... be preparing its
own preemptive strike against Syrian troops and play on the issue that has
already been promoted globally, and so, any preventive actions will be
justified."
Whatever the intelligence or motivations informing the White
House, Kosachev added, the threats by Trump should be considered
"extremely reprehensible" and "particularly frightening"
given the stakes involved. "[The U.S.] can be aware of the upcoming attack
and is not trying to prevent it," he said, "but pin the blame for it
on the Syrian leader in advance."
The latest developments come amid new reporting showing that
previous White House claims about what led to the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun,
often treated by officials and the U.S. press as certainties, should be met
with much more skepticism, especially given the administration's pattern of
making false and misleading statements to the public.
On Sunday, published in the German news outlet Welt,
U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Trump "ignored
important intelligence reports" when he ordered the launch of 59 cruise
missiles on a Syrian government airbase on April 6, two days after he saw
pictures of people dying, including children, from chemical exposure on April
4.
According to Hersh's reporting, Trump issued the order for the
attack "despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that
it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon."
Offering a precise timeline, and citing unnamed intelligence
sources and real-time transcripts he received detailing the military
"deconfliction line" between Russia and U.S. coalition forces ahead
of the April 4th attack, Hersh lays out a compelling case that Trump was
unconcerned about the reliability or certainty of the narrative of events the
led to the massacre in Khan Sheikhoun. According to Hersh's reporting, the
target was a building in the town believed to house a command-and-control
center and the crux of the attack was an airstrike carried out by the Syrians,
with intelligence—and a sophisticated guided missile—supplied by the Russian
military. Importantly, according to Hersh's account, the Russians had notified
the CIA through official channels before the airstrike as a way to prevent any
clandestine U.S. intelligence assets from being in the building at the time.
As reports and images began to emerge from the town on the day of
the attack, reports Hersh,
The
internet swung into action within hours, and gruesome photographs of the
victims flooded television networks and YouTube. U.S. intelligence was tasked
with establishing what had happened. Among the pieces of information received
was an intercept of Syrian communications collected before the attack by an
allied nation. The intercept, which had a particularly strong effect on some of
Trump’s aides, did not mention nerve gas or sarin, but it did quote a Syrian
general discussing a "special" weapon and the need for a highly
skilled pilot to man the attack plane. The reference, as those in the American
intelligence community understood, and many of the inexperienced aides and
family members close to Trump may not have, was to a Russian-supplied bomb with
its built-in guidance system. "If you’ve already decided it was a gas
attack, you will then inevitably read the talk about a special weapon as
involving a sarin bomb," the adviser said. "Did the Syrians plan the
attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it?
Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘'We
have a problem and let's look into it.' He wanted to bomb the ++++ out of
Syria."
Most striking as it relates to the events in Khan Sheikhoun on
April 4 and the current White House posture, is what one of Hersh's
sources—identified as "senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence
community"—told the veteran reporter.
"The issue is, what if there's another false flag sarin
attack credited to hated Syria?" said the adviser. "Trump has upped
the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do
not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no
choice but to bomb again, and harder. He's incapable of saying he made a
mistake."
"Trump's claim that he knows of a proposed chemical weapons
attack to be carried out by the Assad government, and that he will use military
action to prevent this, should also worry everyone who wants peace in the
Middle East."
In the U.K. on Monday, the Stop the War Coalition issued a warning against any further moves
by the Trump administration to escalate the war in Syria.
"There can be no justification for the use of chemical
weapons, and we condemn any use of them," the group said in a statement.
"Trump's claim that he knows of a proposed chemical weapons attack to be
carried out by the Assad government, and that he will use military action to
prevent this, should also worry everyone who wants peace in the Middle East. We
do not know what evidence he has, and it is clear that at least some US
military sources are skeptical of his claims. But we do know that Trump has
built up U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in recent months, and at the same time
increased his verbal attacks on Iran, one of Syria's main allies."
While condemning the bombing of civilian populations by all
sides—the U.S., Russia, Syria, the U.K., and others—Stop the War said ending
the war would not be "achieved through further intervention," but
only through " genuine attempts to win a peace which benefits the people
of the region who are suffering so much."
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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