VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas 'door Assad', ofwel: alweer 'fake news' van de massamedia doorgeprikt!

Eindelijk heeft de VS aangegeven dat het Syrische bewind geen gifgaswapens heeft gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking...... Oké, dit was al lang bekend, maar lullig genoeg werd en wordt deze leugen keer op keer herhaald door de reguliere westerse massamedia en het grootste deel van de westerse politici..... Dit geeft ten overvloede nog eens aan dat deze media en politici zich maar al te graag bedienen van 'fake nieuws......' (of: 'nepnieuws, wat je wilt)

Benieuwd hoe lang men deze leugen nog langer in de lucht zal houden, nadat de VS minister van buitenlandse zaken, James 'mad dog' Mattis toegaf dat de VS regering totaal geen bewijs heeft dat Assad aanvallen heeft gepleegd met gifgas....... Ach, de grote gifgasaanval uit 2013 in Syrië wordt nog steeds toegeschreven aan Assad, terwijl na VN onderzoek o.l.v. Del Ponte bleek dat het gifgas van de 'gematigde rebellen kwam.... 'Gematigde rebellen', zoals men in het westen de anti-Assad terreurgroepen noemt, groepen die zich naast het gebruik van gifgas schuldig maken aan het in het openbaar executeren van vermeende tegenstanders, verkrachting en marteling.........

Hier het Anti-Media artikel over deze zaak:

The US Now Admits There Is No Evidence Assad Used Sarin Gas in Syria

February 12, 2018 at 12:00 pm

Written by Truth In Media

(TIM) — U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis confirmed that the U.S. government has no evidence that the Syrian government used sarin gas on its people— a claim that was used by the White House as justification for an April 2017 launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Al Shayrat airfield in Syria.

On Friday, Mattis said that reports of chemical weapon use by the Syrian government have come from aid groups and others, but that the U.S. doesn’t have any evidence to support these assertions.

“We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not have evidence of it.”

“We’re looking for evidence of it, since clearly we are dealing with the Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions,” Mattis continued. “We’re even more concerned about the possibility of sarin use.”

Mattis explained that he was not refuting the third-party reports of chemical weapons used by the Syrian government led by President Bashar Assad. Assad has steadfastly denied that his government has used chemical weapons throughout the conflict.

In 2013, UN investigator Carla Del Ponte made note that Syrian rebels, not the Assad regime, used chemical weapons in the two-year civil war, contrary to assessments made by American officials.

According to a report by The Times of Israel:

“Carla Del Ponte, head of the independent UN commission investigating reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, told a Swiss-Italian television station that UN investigators gleaned testimony from victims of Syria’s civil war and medical staff which indicated that rebel forces used sarin gas — a deadly nerve agent.

‘Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,’ Del Ponte said in the interview, translated by Reuters.

‘This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,’ she added.”

During his comments on Friday, Mattis referred to the April 2017 cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, noting that the Syrian government would “be ill-advised to go back to violating” the chemical weapons prohibition.

In addition to the UN investigation, one of the foremost academic experts in the field of missile fired chemical weapons, Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), came forward in a series of reports to note his opposition to the official Trump administration’s narrative in regards to the Khan Sheikhoun nerve agent attack in Syria, blamed on the Assad government, which precipitated the cruise missile strikes by the U.S., according to a report in the International Business Times. According to Postol, the Syrian gas attack was not carried out by the Syrian government.

In one of his reports, Postol concluded that the US government’s report does not provide any “concrete” evidence that Assad was responsible, adding it was more likely that the attack was perpetrated by players on the ground.

Postol wrote in his report:

“I have reviewed the [White House’s] document carefully, and I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria at roughly 6am to 7am on 4 April, 2017.

In fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document point to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft, on the morning of 4 April.

This conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that source. My own assessment is that the source was very likely tampered with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the photographs cited by the White House.”

Postol noted that he has “unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) of April 11, 2017 contains false and misleading claims that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review by impartial intelligence experts.”

Postol called for an independent investigation into the decision to launch cruise missile strikes in Syria, concluding:

“It is now obvious that this incident produced by the WHR, while just as serious in terms of the dangers it created for US security, was a clumsy and outright fabrication of a report that was certainly not supported by the intelligence community.

In this case, the president, supported by his staff, made a decision to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. This action was accompanied by serious risks of creating a confrontation with Russia, and also undermining cooperative efforts to win the war against the Islamic State.”

By Jay Syrmopoulos / Republished with permission / TruthInMedia.com / Report a typo

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Zie ook: 'Gifgasaanval Douma in elkaar gezet door 'gematigde rebellen''

        en: 'Gifgasaanval Douma: OPCW rapport maakt korte metten met de westerse beschuldiging aan adres Syrië, waar de NOS een meer dan levensgrote bok schoot'

        en: 'VS heeft opstand en daarmee de oorlog in Syrië georganiseerd, zo toont WikiLeaks ten overvloede nog eens aan.......'

        en:  'John Bolton geeft terreurgroepen in Syrië de opdracht een false flag gifgasaanval uit te voeren'

        en: 'VS aanval op Syrische basis, zoals gewoonlijk uitermate voorbarig en bijzonder gevaarlijk!!'

       en: 'Van Kappen (VVD) noemt 'stapelaanwijzingen' het bewijs en is blij met raketaanval VS op Syrische basis,  een aanval zonder enig echt bewijs voor Syrische schuld.......' (moet je nagaan wat er nu nog overblijft van de stelling die deze oorlogshitser maakte [of poneerde, wat je wilt] >> nul komma nada!)

        en: 'Sico van der Meer ('deskundige' Clingendael) weet niet, dat Israël en Egypte grote hoeveelheden gifgas maken en op voorraad hebben..........'

        en: 'Koenders en SOHR melden gifgasaanval, reguliere media als NOS nemen bericht van SOHR (propaganda en 'fake news' orgaan) over'

        en: 'Rutte: raketaanval VS tegen Syrische basis was begrijpelijk en proportioneel, ook al is er geen bewijs voor Syrische schuld........'

        en: 'Haley (VS ambassadeur bij VN) herhaalde in VN, voorafgaand aan raketaanval, het smerige spel van Powell in 2002, aanleiding tot illegale oorlog tegen Irak.......'  

        en: 'Koenders (PvdA BuZa): Assad is schuldig aan gifgasaanval en is een 'criminele recidivist......' ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

        en: 'Sophie in 't Veld (D66): het afschieten door de VS van raketten op een Syrische basis 'was even nodig...........''

        en: 'De raketaanval van de VS op Syrische basis en de waarschuwingen van de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding......'

        en: 'Al Jazeera filmde een onderdeel van de 'gifgasshow' in Khan Sheikhoun...........'

        en: 'VS bereid tot militair ingrijpen tegen de regering Assad >> aanleiding: gifgas leugens van o.a. de VS zelf.......'

        en: ''False flag terror' bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken..........'

        en: 'Vlaamse pater roept op niet langer de westerse anti-Syrië propaganda te geloven!'

        en: 'Rusland heeft geen aanval uitgevoerd op VS troepen in Syrië.....'

        en: 'Syrië: nieuwe gifgasaanval als 'false flag' operatie tegen Syrisch bewind in voorbereiding........'

        en: 'Hondsdolle VS valt Russische tank aan in poging de Russen te provoceren......'

        en: 'Syrië: VS en Israëlische agressie dreigt de wereld in een oorlog te storten......'

        en: 'Oost-Ghouta, wat je niet wordt verteld'

        en: 'Ghouta: een gifgas false flag en VS chef Guterres eist staakt het vuren van pro-Syrische strijdgroepen op Oost-Ghouta......'

       en: 'Assad heeft geen gifgas gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking!'

        en: 'BBC World Service en BNR met 'fake news' over Ghouta........'

        en: 'US Aggression in Syria – an Imperialist Blueprint'

        en: 'Foreign Ministry: Some Western officials are complicit in the crimes of terrorists against civilians in Damascus and its countryside'

        en: 'SOHR, het orgaan dat door de reguliere media wordt aangehaald i.z. Syrië, is gevestigd in Coventry'

Raketwetenschappers over Noord-Korea's kernraketten bluf en angstzaaierij in de VS......

Raketwetenschappers maken gehakt van de claim die de Defence Information Agency (DIA) maakte over Noord-Koreaanse kernraketten, aldus James Holbrooks op Creative Commons en Anti-media.

De Duitse raketwetenschappers  Markus Schiller en Robert Schmucker stellen dat de door N-K gebruikte raketten niet in staat zijn een kernkop te vervoeren en daarmee de VS te treffen.......

Uiteraard is dit bekend bij het Pentagon, de DIA en andere VS geheime diensten als de CIA. De top van deze instellingen zijn zonder uitzondering lobbyisten van het militair-industrieel complex en het is dan ook hun taak het volk angst aan te praten, zodat dit complex topwinsten kan blijven maken...... 'Vandaar' dat men het volk bang maakt met deze doortrapte leugens......

De Noord-Koreaanse legertop en Kim Yung-un danken de DIA voor haar angstzaaierij, immers met de bewering van de DIA zijn ze plots toegetreden tot de landen die kernraketten hebben.......

Jammer dat professor Theodore Postol (MIT) geen onderzoek heeft gedaan naar de claim dat Noord-Korea een atoombom bezit, daar is tot op heden nooit enig bewijs voor geleverd en als met de zogenaamde Noord-Koreaanse kernraketten, is het bewind van Kim Yung-un blij met deze claim van het westen.

Nooit is er radioactieve straling aangetoond boven de plek waar N-K haar atoomproeven heeft gehouden, terwijl dit in de dagen na zo'n proef zelfs middels satellieten is aan te tonen (en reken maar dat er dagelijks wel 'een paar' satellieten van de VS hun baan trekken over Noord-Koreaans grondgebied!). Een ondergrondse kernproef genereert een kleine aardbeving, die middels de Schaal van Richter is aan te tonen, echter deze aardbeving kan worden gesimuleerd door een enorme hoeveelheid springstof ondergronds te laten exploderen......

Atomic Scientists: North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Claims Are a Hoax

August 14, 2017 at 7:43 am

Written by James Holbrooks

(ANTIMEDIA)  — President Donald Trump continued his blustery North Korea rhetoric on Friday, tweeting that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” and later telling reporters that Kim Jong-un had better not make any “overt threats” against the United States.

“This man will not get away with what he is doing,” Trump told reporters from his golf club in New Jersey, adding that if Kim makes a move against the U.S. or its allies “he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast.”

In the midst of this spike in tension between the United States and the Hermit Kingdom, a team of independent rocket experts published a paper Friday asserting that North Korea’s two July test firings of supposed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were, in fact, “a carefully choreographed deception by North Korea to create a false impression” that the country has missiles capable of striking the continental U.S.

In other words, it was “a hoax,” as one of the experts explained to Newsweek.

The team consisted of Theodore Postol, professor of science, technology, and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and German missile engineers Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker of Schmucker Technologie. Postol has previously disputed official reports on the parties responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

They opened their paper,  published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and titled “North Korea’s ‘not quite’ ICBM can’t hit the lower 48 states,”  by highlighting that the July 3 launch was “trumpeted by the US mainstream press” as proof that the United States was vulnerable to an attack from North Korea.

But the Western press jumped the gun, the team argues in their paper:

“The rocket carried a reduced payload and, therefore, was able to reach a much higher altitude than would have been possible if it had instead carried the weight associated with the type of first-generation atomic bomb North Korea might possess. Experts quoted by the press apparently assumed that the rocket had carried a payload large enough to simulate the weight of such an atomic bomb, in the process incorrectly assigning a near-ICBM status to a rocket that was in reality far less capable.”

All these assumptions worked out great for the Kim regime, the researchers write:

“From the point of view of North Korean political leadership, the general reaction to the July 4 and July 28 launches could not have been better. The world suddenly believed that the North Koreans had an ICBM that could reach the West Coast of the United States and beyond.”

But these beliefs aren’t based in truth, Postol and his colleagues write:

“In reality, the North Korean rocket fired twice last month — the Hwasong-14 — is a ‘sub-level’ ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States.”

The analysts concluded that North Korea is likely “years away from completion” of a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the continental United States. The team’s full report, containing the details of their scientific methods, can be found here.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

================================

Zie ook: 'North Korea: Killer Sanctions Imposed By The UN Security Council'

        en: 'North Korea Does Not Trust America for a Pretty Good Reason'

        en: 'Only Morons Believe What The US Government Says About North Korea'

       en: 'Noord-Korea een gevaar voor de VS? Daar is N-K niet voor nodig: de VS besmet haar eigen burgers met radioactieve straling!'

       en: 'VS dreigt Noord-Korea met wat je niet anders dan een nucleaire aanval kan noemen........'

       en: 'Noord-Korea verkeerd begrepen: het land wordt bedreigd door de VS, dat alleen deze eeuw al minstens 4 illegale oorlogen begon........'

       en: 'Noord-Koreaanse raket zorgt voor belachelijke massahysterie.......'

       en: 'Noord-Koreaanse raketten zijn waardeloos, aldus VS generaal Selva.......'

       en: 'Noord-Korea en de VS: de planning van de VS om Rusland en China aan te vallen met kernraketten........'

       en: 'Noord-Korea: VS negeert de waarschuwing van China niet door te gaan, met voorgenomen militaire oefening tegen N-K.......'

       en: 'NBC presentator geeft toe dat het de taak van NBC is de mensen doodsbang te maken voor Noord-Korea....... Ofwel: 'fake news' op en top!!'

VS ziet nu zelfs een gefantaseerde 'gifgasaanval van Assad' in de toekomst, nadat het zelf witte fosfor inzette tegen de bevolking van Mosul en Raqqa......

Met de dag wordt het gekker, de berichten uit de VS en dan m.n. die uit Washington. Zo meldden Radio1 en BNR vanmorgen, dat de VS heeft gezien, dat Syrië bezig is met de voorbereiding van een gifgasaanval, te vergelijken met die op Khan Sheikhoun in april dit jaar........

Die aanval met gifgas is niet door Syrië gedaan, dat is intussen overduidelijk, toevallig bracht Anti-Media daar gisteren weer een artikel over, een artikel dat u verderop terugvindt en dat uit en te na wijst op de belachelijkheid van de VS aanname dat Syrië dit zou hebben gedaan, er bestaat zelfs grote twijfel of er wel een gifgasaanval plaatsvond (zie het artikel....).....

Wel is intussen duidelijk dat de VS (deels toegegeven door de VS) witte fosfor heeft gebruikt bij bombardementen van dichtbevolkt stedelijk gebied namelijk in Mosul en Raqqa, respectievelijk in Irak en Syrië...... Ongelofelijk trouwens, dat de reguliere 'onafhankelijke' mediaorganen hier amper of geen aandacht aan hebben besteed, terwijl ze op de kop stonden door de zogenaamde Syrische gifgasaanval op Khan Sheikhoun.....

De laatste leugen van de VS, dat Syrië bezig is een gifgasaanval voor te bereiden, is een teken dat de VS weer bezig is een enorme oorlogsmisdaad te begaan, tegen het reguliere Syrische leger en daarmee zal testen of Rusland nu wel in zal grijpen (iets dat de VS op de plek van Rusland al lang had gedaan.....)....

Hoe is het mogelijk dat het westen de VS laat begaan, zeker in de EU zou men keihard aan de VS bel moeten trekken, immers wij zijn het eerste doel van Rusland, als er een kernoorlog uitbreekt tussen de VS en Rusland. Logisch daar wij zo ongelofelijk dom zijn, dat we de VS hebben toegestaan hier kernraketten/bommen op te slaan en zelfs lanceerinstallaties hebben laten inrichten.......... Uiteraard is de houding van de reguliere westerse (massa-) media helemaal een onbegrijpelijke, het lijkt godverdomme wel of men daar blij zal zijn, als er morgen een kernoorlog uitbreekt.......

Seymour Hersh: US Lied About Syrian Chemical Attack Then Bombed Them Anyway

June 26, 2017 at 11:12 am

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Never one to accept the U.S. government’s official explanation of events without question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has investigated Donald Trump’s decision to strike the al-Shayat Airbase in Syria in April of this year, which the president launched amid widespread allegations that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack.

In a report entitled “Trump’s Red Line,” published Sunday in the daily German newspaper Die Welt, Hersh asserts that President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he made the decision to attack Syria after pictures emerged of dying children in the war-torn country.

For those of us without goldfish memories, Hersh’s recent investigation is reminiscent of his previous examination of the alleged chemical weapons attacks in 2013, detailed in an article entitled “Whose Sarin?” That article was published in the London Review of Books.

The official White House explanation for the events in April of this year was that Donald Trump was moved by the suffering of “beautiful” Syrian babies – the same Syrian babies he doesn’t want to set foot in the United States – and decided to punish the Syrian government for the attack two days after it allegedly occurred. This punishment came in the form of an airstrike despite the lack of a thorough investigation regarding what took place that fateful day in April and who was ultimately culpable (though the Trump administration insisted they were certain that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to blame).

In that context, it should come as no surprise that Trump acted rashly without consideration of the facts on the ground. However, what is most disturbing about Hersh’s account is the fact that, according to his source, Trump was well aware that the U.S. had no solid intelligence linking the Syrian government to a chemical weapons attack — and that’s because, according to Hersh’s article, it’s doubtful a chemical weapons attack occurred at all.

Hersh reports:

“The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.”

“None of this makes any sense,” one officer reportedly told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb Syria, according to Hersh. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

According to Hersh, Trump “could not be swayed” by 48 hours worth of intense briefings and decision-making following the initial reports of the alleged chemical weapons attack. Hersh, who reportedly reviewed transcripts of real-time communications, explains that there is a “total disconnect” between the president and his military advisers and intelligence officials.

As is the case with Syrian military operations, Russia gave the U.S. details of the carefully planned attack on a meeting in Khan Sheikhoun, according to Hersh’s  admittedly anonymous sources. The Russians had employed a drone to the area days before the attack to develop the intelligence necessary to coordinate it.

According to Hersh’s sources, the United States and its Russian counterpart routinely share information regarding planned attacks in order to avoid collisions. However, they also permit “coordination,”  a practice that involves giving the other side a “hot tip about a command and control facility,” which then helps the other side carry out their attack.

Therefore, there was no surprise chemical weapons attack, as the Trump administration alleged. In fact, Russia had actually warned its American counterpart on the off-chance that there were any CIA assets on the ground who should have been forewarned of an impending attack.

“They [the Russians] were playing the game right,” a senior adviser told Hersh.

Hersh continues:

“Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. ‘It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,’ the senior adviser told me. ‘Every operations officer in the region’ – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – ‘had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.’ The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community.”

Hersh confirms Russia’s account of the incident, in which Russian authorities alleged that the Syrian Air Force bombed a “terrorist warehouse,” and that secondary bombings dispersed dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere. Strangely, if Hersh’s reporting is accurate, it is not clear why Russia didn’t give the detailed account at the time — and why the Russians didn’t emphasize that they had shared information with the U.S. military well in advance of the attack, as this would have cast further doubt on the official U.S. narrative. In that context, Russia could have provided proof of any prior communications that took place within the so-called deconfliction channel. It also doesn’t explain why Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, appeared to endorse two competing theories behind the events at Khan Sheikhoun.

However, Hersh continues:

“A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that ‘eight patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.’ MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there ‘smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.’ In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.”

Hersh is not the first high-profile investigator to cast major doubts on the Trump administration’s official narrative regarding the events at Khan Sheikhoun. MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol, who previously worked as a former scientific advisor to the U.S. military’s Chief of Naval Operations, poked major holes in the claims that the Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhoun, noting the “politicization” of intelligence findings (you can access all of his reports here).

Postol argued that there was no possible way U.S. government officials could have been sure Assad was behind the attack before they launched their strike, even though they claimed to be certain. Postol took the conversation even further, asserting that the available evidence pointed to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an aircraft. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter had similar concerns regarding the White House’s conclusions, as did former U.K. ambassador to Syria Peter Ford. The mainstream media paid almost zero attention to these reports, a slight that exposes the media’s complicity in allowing these acts of war to go ahead unquestioned.

According to Hersh’s source, within hours of viewing the footage of the ‘attack’ and its aftermath, Trump ordered his national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against the Syrian government. Hersh explains that despite the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) having no evidence that Syria even had sarin, let alone that they used it on the battlefield, Trump was not easily persuaded once he had made up his mind.

“Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts,” the adviser told Hersh. “He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: ‘Do it.”’ [emphasis added]

At a meeting on April 6, 2017, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump spoke with his national security officials regarding the best way to move forward. The meeting was not to decide what to do, Hersh explains, but how best to do it (and how to keep Trump as happy as possible).

Trump was given four options. The first one was dismissed at the outset because it involved doing nothing. The second one was the one that was decided upon: a minimal show of force (with advance warning to Russia). The third option was the strike package that Obama was unable to implement in 2013 in the face of mounting public opposition and Russia’s threats of intervention. This plan was Hillary Clinton’s ultimate fantasy considering she was encouraging it moments before Trump’s lone strike actually took place. However, this would have involved extensive air strikes on Assad’s airfields and would have drawn in the Russian military to a point of no return.

The fourth option involved the direct assassination of the Syrian president by bombing his palaces, as well as his underground bunkers. This was not considered, either.

As we all witnessed in April, the second option was adopted, and the airbase Trump struck was up and running again in less than 24 hours, making it a very symbolic and empty show of force.

Hersh’s insight into the way Trump is conducting his foreign policy does not bode well for the future of the Syrian conflict (or anywhere else in the world, for that matter). Trump was not interested in the intelligence or the facts on the ground — if he had been, he would have waited until an investigation had determined culpability before ordering a strike.

Missing from Hersh’s account, however, is the fact that it was newly appointed national security advisor General H.R. McMaster who laid out the military strike proposals to the president at his resort on April 6. McMaster replaced former national security advisor Michael Flynn after the latter was forced to resign due to leaks from within the intelligence community. Due to Flynn’s alleged ties to Russia, it seems unlikely he would have proposed such a strike on Russia’s close ally to begin with.

It is unclear whether McMaster proposed the strikes in order to appease Trump or because McMaster ultimately wants Trump to adopt a tougher stance against Syria and Russia; McMaster has a history of pro-interventionism and anti-Russian sentiment.

Those commentators who can review these startling revelations but still condone Trump’s actions with a lazy ‘Assad is still a bad guy and must be overthrown’ mindset argument are being intellectually dishonest, with themselves and others. As was the case in 2013, there is still very little evidence that Assad has ever used chemical weapons — particularly in the attacks that the U.S. has tried to pin on him — yet this is the standard by which the corporate media and our respective governments have instructed us to judge Assad. Even without this conclusive evidence, shortly after the April events, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley stated Assad will fall from power.

Hersh’s investigation bolsters many claims that the U.S. acted rashly without first conducting or ordering an impartial inquiry regarding what happened in April of this year. Hersh’s report also serves as a reminder to the world of the warpath we are continuing down, spearheaded by an impulsive and reckless megalomaniac who has no interest in ascertaining fact from fiction.

Remember that Donald J. Trump has the nuclear codes; it is hard to think of a worse candidate to be entrusted with the fate of humanity.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo