Day: April 8, 2017

 IMPETUOUS, PRECIPITOUS OR WISE?

President Trump Weekly Address 4/7/17

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Citing a chemical attack blamed on Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad
that increasingly appears to be a “false flag,” President Donald Trump
ordered military strikes on government targets in Syria. According to
media reports, Trump launched more than 50 missiles at Assad’s forces in
Syria, backpedaling on repeated vows to stay out and seek congressional
approval for war made during his presidential campaign. Because
Congress has not declared war on Syria, multiple legal experts and
lawmakers have noted that the newly started war is illegal and
unconstitutional. Former Trump supporters across America and worldwide
were horrified by the news, suggesting the president had either been
misled or even co-opted by the “deep state.” Despite Trump’s repeated
calls for the United States to stay out of Syria over the years, regime
change now appears to be the goal.
Before launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles on April 6, Trump told
reporters that a Sarin gas attack in Syria’s northern region blamed on
Assad had caused him to change his views on the conflict and the Syrian
strongman. “I will tell you that attack on children yesterday had a big
impact on me, big impact,” Trump said about the attack, which reportedly
killed over 100 people. “My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed
very much…. You’re now talking about a whole different level.”
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, Trump called on other
governments to join him. “Assad choked out the lives of helpless men,
women and children,” he claimed in an assertion that has been widely
disputed by analysts and foreign powers. “It is in this vital national
security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread
and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
Prior to becoming president, though, Trump was adamant in lambasting
Obama for his illegal warmongering in Syria. “What will we get for
bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict?”
Trump asked on Twitter in August of 2013. “Obama needs Congressional
approval.” Ironically, in October of 2012, Trump suggested Obama would
attack Libya or Iran because his “poll numbers are in a tailspin.” “He
is desperate,” Trump said. The Trump administration and the
establishment media — which Trump has long ridiculed, correctly, as a
dishonest enemy of the American people — claim to have “intelligence”
showing that the attack was perpetrated by Assad. That was cited as the
reason for Trump’s change of heart. But a similar chemical attack during
Obama’s term was almost certainly a false flag perpetrated by jihadist
rebels.

According to news reports, the U.S. missiles were launched from two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Ross and the USS Porter,
operating in the Mediterranean Sea. The target was Syria’s Shayrat
Airfield, from which U.S. government officials claim to believe the
Syrian military launched the Sarin gas attack. U.S. officials cited in
media reports said all but one of the missiles hit their targets,
destroying a runway, airplanes, fuel pumps, and infrastructure. Russian
officials claimed that less than half of the missiles hit their targets.
And Assad said the attack was a violation of “all international laws
and customs” and had made the U.S. government a partner of the savage
terror group ISIS. Islamist rebels praised Trump’s intervention against
Assad.
Regime change appears to be the goal, at least of certain globalists
in key positions within the administration. When asked whether the Trump
administration was planning to bring together a “coalition” to remove
Assad from power, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “steps”
were already “underway” to do that. “Assad’s role in the future is
uncertain clearly, and with the acts that he has taken it would seem
that there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people,”
Tillerson said at a Florida news conference, claiming the supposed
“intelligence” leaves “no doubt” that Assad, who denied any role, was
behind the chemical attack. “And we think it’s time that the Russians
really need to think carefully about their continued support of the
Assad regime.”  
By contrast, the Russian government, which has supported the Assad
regime in its war against ISIS and al-Qaeda, suggested that deposing
Assad would be a huge mistake. Shortly before Trump began illegally
launching missiles without a congressional declaration of war, a top
Russian official at the UN Security Council said there would be
“negative consequences” if the U.S. government launched military strikes
on Syria over the chemical attack. “We have to think about negative
consequences, and all the responsibility,” Vladimir Putin’s Deputy UN
ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told reporters when the UN failed to agree
on what to do. “If military action occurred, [it] will be on shoulders
of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise.” He pointed
to Iraq and Libya as warnings.
Just last month, before the war drums were beating as loudly as this
week, another top Kremlin official made a similar argument. “Saddam
Hussein, hanged. Is Iraq a better place, a safer place?” asked Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked rhetorically at UN headquarters in
New York in March. “Gadhafi murdered — you know in front of viewers. Is
Libya a better place? Now we are demonizing Assad. Can we try to draw
lessons?” Indeed, if Assad does end up being removed from power, it is
not clear who or what may replace him. But more than a few analysts have
said it would almost certainly result in a full-blown jihadist takeover
of Syria.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), among the leading liberty-oriented
pro-Constitution lawmakers, blasted Trump’s military strikes and
suggested that regime change may well lead to an Islamist takeover. “I
think it’s also important to note that on the rebel side that [Senator
John] McCain wants to support, are radical Islamists who hate America
and hate Israel,” he said. “And I don’t want to support people who hate
our country. I don’t want to support people who say when they’re done
with Assad they are going to attack Israel and not ISIS. So it’s a
complicated situation. And it may be — may well be a war that has no
friends in it. And that makes it a difficult position to watch. But I
think also we have actually allowed the situation by pushing Assad back
and being part of that. We allowed a vacuum to let ISIS fill that —
that’s been a mistake.”
Failed Democrat candidate and relentless warmonger Hillary Clinton,
by contrast, celebrated the move and called for even deeper U.S.
intervention on behalf of jihadist rebels. “I still believe we should
have done a no-fly zone,” Clinton said during an interview at the Women
of the World Summit in New York on April 6. “We should have been more
willing to confront Assad. Assad has an air force, and that air force is
the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the
years and as we saw again in the last few days. And I really believe
that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent
him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin
gas on them.”
Of course, regardless of what neocons, Trump, and Clinton may claim
to believe, the U.S. Constitution very clearly grants Congress — and
only Congress — the power to declare war. Launching missiles at another
country is an act of war. That means, even leaving the wisdom of it
aside, Trump’s military intervention is unconstitutional and illegal, by
definition. Separately, there is a very strong possibility that this
sarin gas attack was a false flag operation, just as the last one was shown to be.
Few credible analysts outside the warmongering establishment in
Washington, D.C., believe Assad would be dumb enough to risk it all by
using chemical weapons — especially when he was already reportedly on
the verge of crushing the globalist-backed jihadist rebels waging war on his regime.

Related articles:
Was Chemical Attack in Syria a “False Flag” to Trigger U.S. War?
MIT Report: Obama Used Bogus Intelligence to Push Syria War
U.S. Military Document: Syrian Rebels Had Chemical Weapons
Putin Bombs Obama’s Syrian Rebels; Obama Joins Putin Alliance
U.S. Defense Intel Chief: Obama Gave “Willful” Aid to Al-Qaeda
Globalists Using Muslim Terrorists as Pawns
U.S. Intel: Obama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria
ISIS: The Best Terror Threat U.S. Tax Money Can Buy
Doubts Grow About Perpetrators Behind Chemical Attack in Syria
Syria Tells Russia that Rebels Used Chemicals
Reports: U.S.-led Rebels Sent into Syria Before Chemical Attack
UN Investigator Claims Evidence Syrian Rebels Used Sarin Gas
Amid Syria Uproar, CIA Files Show U.S. Helped Saddam Gas Iranians
Rebel Atrocities in Syria Escalate, Sparking Alarm Over Obama Plan
U.S.-backed Syrian Opposition Linked to Bilderberg, CFR, Goldman Sachs & George Soros 
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republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

 There is no question that Assad is a scoundrel. That is not in dispute. 
The problem with this action is the same as it was when Obama wanted to 
strike Assad: who benefits? The Assad regime said this strike “can only 
be described as short-sighted.” Right. The Islamic State (ISIS), 
although weakened, is still there. The jihad groups that Obama trained 
and armed are still there. Who benefits from a weakened Assad? ISIS,  
that wants to destroy the United States and is sending jihadis here to 
mount attacks. Trump vowed to drain the swamp, but it looks as if the 
denizens of the swamp, those who proffer the same failed analyses time 
and time again, have captured his administration.

“Trump launches military strike against Syria,” by Barbara Starr and Jeremy Diamond, CNN, April 7, 2017:

(CNN)The United States launched a military strike
Thursday on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical
weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians earlier in the week.
On President Donald Trump’s orders, US warships launched 59 Tomahawk
cruise missiles at the airbase that was home to the warplanes that
carried out the chemical attacks, US officials said.
The strike is the first direct military action taken by the US
against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s
six-year civil war. It represents a substantial escalation of the US
military campaign in the region, and could be interpreted by the Syrian
government as an act of war.
Six people were killed in the airstrike, according to a televised
statement by the Syrian’s Armed Forces General Command. Russia condemned
the strike as an “act of aggression,” and Assad’s office Friday called
it “a disgraceful act” that “can only be described as short-sighted.”
“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in
Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” Trump said during
short remarks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, where he ordered the strike
just hours earlier. “It is in this vital national security of the United
States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical
weapons.”
He added: “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical
weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention
and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council. Years of previous
attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed and failed very
dramatically.”…

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republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

What “vital national interests” are we protecting in Syria?

Donald Trump won the presidency based on a number of issues, but it could all be summed up in two words – America First.

One of the tenets of an America First policy would be to stay out of
foreign entanglements that have no bearing on our national security.
During the campaign, Mr. Trump emphasized his support of such policy, in
fact specifically stating that out adventurism in Iraq was a huge
blunder and that we should not make the same mistake with respect to
Syria.

Now, as the president, Trump gave the go ahead to strike a Syrian air base with 59 Tomahawk missiles.

The attack was prompted by a reported chemical weapons attack by
Syria’s president Assad on his own people, including women and children.
It was a cowardly, horrific attack on innocents. It’s also not the
first time Assad has done this.

As horrific as those attacks were, was the United States attacked? In fact, what “vital interests” do we have in Syria?

We’ve been down this road before…have we learned nothing from recent history regarding Middle Eastern dictators?

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on the Kurds within his own
country. Like Assad, he was a terrible person – a brutal thug dictator,
but what did it gain us to take him out of power? Our orchestrated
“regime change” gave us a very divided Iraq that is now ruled by an
anti-west Islamic government. In addition, the vacuum created by our
invasion and subsequent withdrawal from the region led to the creation
of ISIS. In the Middle East, a brutal thug dictator seems to be what is
needed to keep the Muslim crazies in check.
Do we really want to go over that slippery slope again in an effort
to affect regime change? Especially considering that Bashar al-Assad is
an ally of Russia?

Make no mistake about it – this is very dangerous and has the potential to ignite a war that no sane person wants.

The usual neo-con suspects are very onboard with this. John McCain
and Lindsey Graham aren’t even trying to conceal their glee at the
prospect of war with Syria.
Why is President Trump doing a total 180 on this? Is it because of misguided emotions or bad advice from the wrong people?
Is it because by bombing Syria, it will also make him look tough on
Russia, and thereby “prove” there was no collusion as the left wing
loons keep insisting?
Whatever Trump’s rationale, it is certainly not the mark of an America First policy.
The President should take a step back in this case before proceeding into even more dangerous waters.

I suspect that I will take some flak from some readers for siding
against the President on this. Please remember though that I was an
early supporter of Donald Trump and still believe that as long as he
does everything he can to implement the policies on which he campaigned,
he will still be a great president.
I also ask you to consider this…if Barack Obama was the one bombing
Syria, would you oppose the action; and if so, why would you then
support the same action by a different president?