Damascus Under Attack: President Trump Tempts World War III With Friday Strike in Syria, Failing to Stand Down and Stand Up to the Military Industrial Complex
Trump Strikes Syria
On this Friday, April the 13th, President Trump launched a direct attack against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on Syrian civilians last week. This strike on chemical weapons facilities and other targets (news still breaking as of this writing) was the second time in a year that Trump used force against the Assad regime. In an address to the nation Friday night, Trump said, “The purpose of our action tonight is to establish a strong deterrent” against the use of chemical weapons, making the case that this move is vital to ensure our national security, adding that the U.S. is prepared “to sustain this response” until its aims are met.
Secretary of Defense Mattis claimed later that this would be a one-off barrage of strikes. About 100 missiles courtesy of the US-UK-France coalition. We’ll see…
This reckless move by Trump threatens a direct conflict with Russia and/or Iran. Just breaking after 6PM on Friday night, the attack was met by news of a Russian Navy chief threatening a US warship with a torpedo attack, stating, “We have no fear.” Russia was given no advance warning of the strikes on Friday, according to the Russian ambassador to the US who later said the strike on Syria won’t remain without consequences.
“BREAKING: Trump has struck a civilian area in Damascus,” according to @Partisangirl on Twitter. We will wait for the dust to settle before determining the full extent of damage and casualties but there is a possibility that this was far from a “surgical” strike. Other reports state that Assad’s presidential palace and Assad’s elite guard was hit.
“I am hearing hundreds of Tomahawk missiles incoming. Also outgoing missile fire from #SAA. Indiscriminate bombing from enemy, not ‘targeted’, also hitting civilian areas. All unconfirmed, information feed is chaotic. #Syria #Damascus,” tweeted @VanessaBeeley.
As of this writing the facts are only just starting to roll in. What is true and what is not remains to be seen. This author is quite demoralized, devastated, and disappointed that our president did not wait for the facts on the ground to come out proving that the chemical weapons attack was perpetrated by Assad’s government. There is no proof that this is the case. There is no doubt that the neoconservative warhawks, the military industrial complex, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Deep State have overtaken the Trump administration.
God help us.
?| #فيديو من #دمشق لاحدى الضربات الجوية التي استهدفت مقر الحرس الجمهوري والفرقة الرابعة في جبل الإقناع .
.#امريكا_تضرب_الاسد pic.twitter.com/rWeiPBLEAG— عناد العتيبي?? (@ENAD_Alotaibi) April 14, 2018
The Disreputable White Helmets and the Staged Chemical Attack
The wholly discredited White Helmets, a group operating in rebel-held areas of Syria produced a video of a supposed chemical attack on April 7th, conveniently only a few days after Trump signaled he would be pulling the US out of Syria. The White Helmets are funded by the UK Foreign Office, the US, Canada, and other Western governments. Furthermore, a well-funded UK government media activist program full of Syrian journalists and activists reports on the White Helmets activities that are then blasted across social media, where the recent chemical attack story first popped up. “No wonder every seemingly staged ‘rescue’ always has a few convenient camera people,” wrote Felicity Arbuthnot, Associate Editor of Global Research.
We should have waited for an independent investigation to take place to confirm whether or not Assad was responsible for the alleged chemical attack. Instead, Trump did not listen to his gut and went ahead and attacked Syria at the behest of his new and hawkish national security team, putting us at risk of direct war with Iran and Russia.
In the videos of the victims of the supposed chemical attack, those dealing with those suffering the effects did not wear protective clothing. Pictures have surfaced showing people wearing jeans, t-shirts, and no gloves tending to the women and children hit by the “chemical attack.” This same revelation came out during the alleged chemical attack at Khan Sheikhun in April of last year showing the White Helmets in flip flops and casual clothes “gathering soil samples” from areas hit by the weapons, an “attack” that found no evidence of Assad being behind.
The Russian Embassy in South Africa tweeted out the results of their investigation that revealed the fact that “All soil test results from Douma, #Syria have shown NO trace of neither sarin nor chlorine nor any other chemical agent. Local hospitals have NOT received ANY patients with chemical poisoning symptoms.” And yet, America is rushing to war yet again on false pretenses.
Trump’s new right-hand man, John Bolton, arch-neoconservative and advocate of regime change in Iran, Syria, and North Korea and supporter of the toppling of leaders in Libya and Iraq, has taken the reigns and has infected his reckless foreign policy into the mind of the once non-interventionist president.
Tyler Durden confirmed in the always inquisitive and skeptical ZeroHedge earlier on Friday that Russia has evidence that the UK staged the Syrian chemical attack in Douma. On Friday morning, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said they had “irrefutable evidence” that the attack killing 40 people last weekend was staged with the help of the secret service of another government. “We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event,” Lavrov said during a press conference reported by the Agence France-Press (AFP).
Russia went on to accuse the British government of quickening the pressure on the perpetrators to speed up this provocation. “The Russian Defense Ministry also has evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in arranging this provocation in Eastern Ghouta,” added a Russian general. “We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were preparing.” The White Helmets, which provided the photographic “proof” of the chemical attack were informed of an artillery attack on Damascus planned by the Islamist rebel group, the Army of Islam, who controlled Douma at the time. Therefore, the White Helmets arranged the provocation after the retaliation by government forces.
This RT video below discusses the evidence Russia has about foreign intelligence agencies’ involvement in the staging of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria.
Assad Gassing His Own People Makes No Sense Whatsoever, Another False Flag? Caution Unheeded
Jay Syrmopoulos recently detailed former Congressman (and liberty-lover) Ron Paul’s argument about the Syrian government chemical attack being total nonsense in Truth In Media. The accusations of the Syrian government being behind the attack are not based on any facts whatsoever. This stinks of a false flag attack to Paul, “meant to provide justification for the U.S. military to maintain a presence in Syria.” No proof at all has been brought forward by the U.S., France, and the UK claims to have something substantial but without links to Assad, while Russia has done a thorough investigation on the ground proving that British intelligence agents via The White Helmets are behind the narrative of Assad gassing his own people.
Paul expounded, “The way the people that perpetuate these false flags say that Assad is gassing his own people, at the same time, he’s winning the war and the people are flocking back in to go to the territories that he has returned to the government of Syria,” And yet, “he’s out there gassing his own people, which makes no sense whatsoever and fewer and fewer people are believing this.” Why would Assad launch a chemical attack on his population risking increased American involvement in his country when he is on the verge of victory and driving the terrorist rebels completely out? It makes zero sense. It makes much more sense that The White Helmets staged this attack or that the rebels used chemical weapons in order to draw America further into the conflict in order to weaken Assad and strengthen their chances of survival.
Will Trump escalate in Syria? Ron Paul’s Liberty Report debated this very question on Monday and it turns out Trump will indeed escalate America’s military involvement in Syria …
In a special memo to the White House forwarded to Consortium News on Friday, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity’s 50-plus members urged President Trump to get the evidence first before deciding to strike Syria. Unfortunately, the Donald did not heed their sound advice.
The memo reads:
“We the undersigned Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity join a number of other credible experts including former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford (this recent interview on BBC Radio Scotland), former UN weapons inspectors and former military officers who are strongly recommending that you obtain and review actual evidence from the site of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, before ordering any military action. VIPS has previously reported credible evidence indicating that anti-government forces in Syria have themselves produced and used toxic chemical agents.
Contradictory indications exist given that the video and images of victims in the locations purportedly affected by chemical weapons came from rebel-affiliated entities known as the “Douma Revolution” and the “White Helmets” while Russian military units which later got physical access to the supposed sites and Syrian Red Crescent personnel working in the area reportedly found no indication of a chemical weapon attack.
A major question for us, as former intelligence officers with some knowledge of the operational use of misinformation and false flag actions, is what motive would the Syrian government have for making a chemical weapons attack on its own civilian population, especially at a time when it has growing popular support and is having increased military success. Why would it risk Western ire?”
Again, it makes no logical sense that Assad would risk this and draw the U.S., France, and the UK further into his civil war that he has nearly won. But in Trump’s America, facts do not seem to matter and he cannot let this supposed atrocity stand. Little does he know that he is only exacerbating the already tragic amount of suffering in Syria with this latest escalation.
local sources posted a video shows the #Syrian regime air defense trying to stop the #US missiles on #Syria #Damascus . pic.twitter.com/g5qzEcf7TC
— Abdalaziz Alhamza (@3z0ooz) April 14, 2018
The Neoconservative Warhawks and Mainstream Media Win Again
Paul Joseph Watson, English YouTube personality and editor-at-large of Infowars.com, published ANOTHER STUPID F**KIN WAR Thursday on YouTube decrying Trump’s rush to striking Syria, risking World War III with Russia and Iran. The Russian collusion hysteria has resulted in an unnecessarily dangerous action by the president.
“So I hope all you clowns are happy that your fevered hysteria about Russian collusion has brought us to the brink of war. Well done, idiots!” Watson exclaimed.
Watson continued:
“Oh and all this just happened to unfold when Mr. Regime Change, John Bolton, became Trump’s national security advisor. Just a coincidence. Also just a coincidence that China recently issued the gold-backed Yuan to compete against the Petrodollar. Russia and China are currently enjoying the best relations ever, meaning the U.S. Deep State now needs a pipeline through Syria to compete with Russia for European gas and oil. The last two countries to introduce a currency to compete with the Petrodollar: Iraq and Libya. And we all know what happened to them! Again, just a coincidence.”
The military industrial complex maintains its firm grip on power in Washington DC. Our nation-building, regime change-loving, trigger-happy neoconservative interventionists have won the day yet again with the help of a hapless and incurious mainstream media. Donald could not stand up to the Deep State and acquiesced to the media and the DC establishment pressure to retaliate against the alleged chemical attack. Our military might knows no bounds as we continue to pursue American Empire across the globe in an effort to continue being the world’s policeman.
Look at a map and mark all the US military bases and you will see a noticeable difference between the US and the big bad boogeyman, Russia. The United States maintains 800 active military bases in 80 countries. 1,000 bases if you include military personnel at embassies across the world.
In a June 2015 interview with Corriere della Sera, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared the grotesque military spending and obsession with world dominance of the US despite our mainstream media’s narrative of Russian aggression.
Putin stated:
“US military spending is higher than that of all countries in the world taken together. The aggregate military spending of NATO countries is 10 times, note – 10 times higher than that of the Russian Federation. Russia has virtually no bases abroad. We have the remnants of our armed forces (since Soviet times) in Tajikistan, on the border with Afghanistan, which is an area where the terrorist threat is particularly high. The same role is played by our airbase in Kyrgyzstan; it is also aimed at addressing the terrorist threat and was set up at the request of the Kyrgyz authorities after a terrorist attack perpetrated by terrorists from Afghanistan on Kyrgyzstan.
I invite you to publish the world map in your newspaper and to mark all the US military bases on it. You will see the difference.
Sometimes I am asked about our airplanes flying somewhere far, over the Atlantic Ocean. Patrolling by strategic airplanes in remote regions was carried out only by the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. In the early 1990s, we, the new, modern Russia, stopped these flights, but our American friends continued to fly along our borders. Why? Some years ago, we resumed these flights. And you want to say that we have been aggressive?
American submarines are on permanent alert off the Norwegian coast; they are equipped with missiles that can reach Moscow in 17 minutes. But we dismantled all of our bases in Cuba a long time ago, even the non-strategic ones. And you would call us aggressive?
Let me tell you something – there is no need to fear Russia. The world has changed so drastically that people with some common sense cannot even imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to think about, I assure you.”
Russia is the bad guy, so says essentially all major American media outlets. The US is given a pass since we are the “good guys.” The Israel lobby has taken control of America’s military actions in the Middle East. We are not in the right here. We are not standing up to a bully. We are perpetuating chaos in a region teeming with jihadists and refugees.
Trump’s anti-interventionist base, in this case, Alex Jones, reacts badly to Syria intervention: “Is no one pure in this world?…. F**k Trump!” pic.twitter.com/lBPVctVS1G
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 14, 2018
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis urged Trump to remain cautious on Syria, but he did not listen. Mattis rightly pointed out that an attack on the Syrian regime would “exact a price from two of its international patrons, Russia and Iran,” so said a White House official. Amazing that “Mad Dog” Mattis is now the voice of reason on Trump’s national security team.
We have no national security interest in Syria. We have no broader strategy for Syria. For these reasons, over the last few days, Mattis’ Pentagon has halted opportunities to attack Syria after the suspected chemical weapon attack.
The attack of Syria on Friday night is a catastrophic mistake by President Trump. He has brought on hawks such as soon-to-be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iraq War-lover John Bolton and this is what we get.
Pompeo appeared before the Senate on Thursday and declared, “The failed state of Syria poses a mounting threat to human rights, national security, and regional stability – and it deserves an increasingly severe response.” Pompeo and Bolton are exceedingly dangerous for our nation and risk a wider war with Russia and Iran.
Trump erred greatly and will lose a chunk of his base over this. World War III is on the horizon. Stay tuned for Russia and Iran’s retaliation. It’s gonna get ugly.
Follow me @BobShanahanMan
