Trump rips ‘Amazon WaPo’ as fake news
Jordan Fabian, The Hill, Jun 28 2017
Pres Trump on Wednesday attacked the WaPo and its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for its coverage of him and his administration. The president tweeted Wednesday morning:
The president is escalating his attacks on the news media as he struggles to advance his agenda in Congress and grapples with the wide-ranging probe into whether his associates colluded with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump’s broadside against the Post came after it published an article revealing that fake Time magazine covers with Trump’s photo hung at several of his properties.It also ran a piece headlined “Who’s afraid of Trump? Not enough Thugs, at least for now.” It details the president’s strained efforts to get wavering Thug Senators behind the Senate plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare. He also went after the NYT earlier Wednesday over a similar piece, tweeting:
In his WaPo tweet, Trump appeared to reference Amazon’s past efforts to keep online purchases tax-free. But the retailer does collect sales tax on purchases across Pindostan.
Trump Goes After “Fake News” NYT, Slams Media Criticism On Healthcare
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Jun 28 2017
One day after he repeatedly lashed out at CNN, on Wednesday Pres Trump blasted the the NYT in particular, and the broader press in general, for reporting that he is “not totally engaged” on healthcare. Trump’s angry outburst followed an earlier tweet in which the president specifically targeted the NYT. Trump’s fury appears to have been focused on a NYT story published on Tuesday titled “On Senate Health Bill, Trump Falters in the Closer’s Role,” in which the Gray Lady said that the president was “largely on the sidelines” as the Senate leadership sought to attract votes for its healthcare bill. It added that the president’s team’s “heavy-handed tactics have been ineffective in the Senate.” As the Hill reports, a Thug senator who supports the Senate GOP’s healthcare bill reportedly does not think Pres Trump has a clear understanding of the plan.
The NYT reported that a senator left a White House meeting Tuesday with the feeling that the president didn’t fully understand some basic parts of the plan, citing an aide who received a detailed readout of the exchange. The senator felt Trump “seemed especially confused” after a moderate Thug said those who were against the bill would say it appeared to be a “massive tax break for the wealthy,” according to the NYT. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after the White House meeting ignored a question regarding Trump’s command of the details of the negotiations and smiled blandly, the newspaper noted. Trump met with Thug senators just hours after GOP leaders decided on Tuesday to postpone a vote on its healthcare legislation. The huddle came as one Thug strategist with close ties to the White House told The Hill that Trump had not yet fully engaged with the effort to pass a bill in the upper chamber. Trump said Tuesday he had a “great meeting” with Thug senators, adding that they “really want to get it right.”
Trump is likely to be particularly sensitive to healthcare criticism today, one day after the Senate Thug leaders delayed a vote to repeal and replace ObamaCare after it became clear the measure again lacked the votes for passage. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump met with Thug senators at the White House, just hours after the Thug leaders decided to postpone the vote on the healthcare legislation. It was not immediately clear if Trump had managed to change any holdouts’ opinions on the vote.
The Most Dangerous Fake News of All is Peddled by the Corporate Media
Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkrieg (Blog), Jun 27, 2017
Fake news, propaganda and garbage information is everywhere and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. That being said, the key thing to understand is fake news from obscure websites you’ve never heard of is not what represents the real, global danger of rampant dishonest information. The real danger of fake news is the stuff that’s consistently being vomited onto the pages of “respectable,” billionaire-owned corporate media. Obscure blogs and independent thinkers such as myself aren’t influencing foreign policy, domestic policy or anything that really matters (look around you). While alternative media did indeed play a monumental role in the election of Donald Trump, how much really changed when it comes to the true power centers? Not much, not much at all. Goldman Sachs and Wall Street are more in control than ever before, and neocons and other assorted interventionists seem to be running foreign policy. All of this reminds me of the famous saying:
If voting made any difference, they’d make it illegal!
Indeed, the time has come for all of us to own up to the very real and present danger of corporate media which seemingly exists to provide public relations for oligarchs and the foreign policy establishment. Not that this should be surprising. You’d have to be the most naive creature on earth to think newspapers owned by billionaires are going to tell the public the truth. Indeed, I made the following observation earlier today on Twitter.
Truth be told, it’s way beyond bizarre, it’s downright terrifying. Note that most major newspapers could barely catch their breath from demonizing Trump during his first three months, yet suddenly saw him as a heroic figure as soon as he lobbed a few bombs at Assad. This is like giving a puppy a treat for peeing on a wee wee pad. The corporate press is literally training Trump to wage as much imperial war as possible. It’s crucial to understand that Trump, or any other administration really, can only do so much on the interventionist war front as the corporate press permits and pushes. Unfortunately, the corporate press is always pushing for war.
Today provided yet another example of how the “respectable” oligarch-owned press unquestionably repeats government propaganda when it comes to foreign policy. Two days after Seymour Hersh blew a hole in the fairytale account of Assad using chemical weapons in April, and merely a few hours after Sean Spicer started conditioning the public for more war with evidence-free claims that another chemical attack was imminent, here’s how the NYT covered the April attack.
Naturally, you have the photo of the hurt child to pull at your heartstrings underneath which is written, “after a nerve agent was used in an attack in April.” Of course, there is no proof that a nerve agent was used in the attack. In fact, there seems to be increasing proof that there wasn’t. Yet, that doesn’t stop the NYT from doing it again and again later in the piece.
FASCHINGSTEIN — Pindo boxtops have seen chemical weapons activity at a Syrian air base that was used in the spring nerve gas attack on rebel-held territory, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, scrambling to explain what prompted a White House statement a day earlier that Syria would “pay a heavy price” if it carried out another one. Pentagon spox told reporters that what looked like active preparations for a chemical attack were seen at al-Shayrat airfield, which was struck in April by cruise missiles two days after the Syrian government dropped bombs loaded with toxic chemicals in northern Syria. Another Pentagon boxtop said that an aircraft shelter at al-Shayrat that had been hit by a Tomahawk missile was being used for the preparation. Pindostan and other world powers have accused Mr Assad’s forces of repeatedly using chemical weapons to subdue rebels seeking to topple his government. Chemical attacks killed more than 1,000 people near Damascus in 2013 and dozens more in northern Syria in April of this year.
The paper consistently states non-facts as facts in order to push a particular narrative. Meanwhile, here’s some of what Seymour Hersh reported in Die Welt over the weekend:
The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a Jihadi meeting site on Apr 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 Pindo and allied military boxtops in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all Pindosi, allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region. Some Pindo military and intel boxtops were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. One officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb: “None of this makes any sense! 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!” The Execute Order governing military operations in theater provides instructions that demarcate the relationship between the Pindosi and Russian forces operating in Syria.
An unnamed ‘adviser’ told Hersh:
It’s like an ops order. Here’s what you are authorized to do. We do not share operational control with the Russians. We don’t do combined operations with them, or activities directly in support of one of their operations, but coordination is permitted. We keep each other apprised of what’s happening and within this package is the mutual exchange of intelligence. If we get a hot tip that could help the Russians do their mission, that’s coordination, and the Russians do the same for us. When we get a hot tip about a command and control facility, we do what we can to help them act on it. This was not a chemical weapons strike. That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon, you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500 lb conventional bomb, would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?
Hersh continues:
The target was struck at 6:55 am on Apr 4, just before midnight in Faschingstein. A Bomb Damage Assessment by the Pindosi military later determined that the heat and force of the 500 lb Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the senior adviser said, the strike itself killed up to four Jihadi leaders, and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. A team from MSF 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 had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions, as opposition activists insisted. 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.
Given the reporting of a journalist with decades of history calling out government bullshit, you’d think the NYT would at least mention Hersh’s reporting in their article. Nope, not a peep. The Atlantic Magazine does a similar thing. Here are a few excerpts from its Syria piece this morning. Let’s start with the title.
“Another” chemical attack. Meanwhile, it looks like the last one never even happened, yet does The Atlantic mention the report authored by Sy Hersh two days earlier? Of course not, but it does continue to repeat the fake news claim of an April chemical weapons attack over and over.
Sean Spicer released a statement Monday night accusing the Syrian government of potentially engaging in preparations for another chemical weapons attack. While the statement offered minimal details, it argued that a future attack “would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.” On Apr 4, a government-led chemical attack in Syria’s north-western Idlib province resulted in the deaths of more than 80 civilians. According to Spicer, the Syrian government’s latest preparations closely resemble those carried out prior to Apr 4.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
If indeed enacted, a new chemical weapons attack could have reverberating consequences throughout the international community. In response to April’s attack, Pindostan launched 59 tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base, the nation’s first military operation against an Arab government since Pres Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011. At the time, the administration referred to the strike as a “one-off” occurrence intended to deter future chemical attacks. But, in the wake of the operation, administration officials reported that Pres Trump had been deeply troubled by graphic images of Syrian children struggling to breathe. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror,” Trump said while announcing the strike.
“The nation’s first military operation against an Arab government since President Obama’s intervention in Libya in 2011.” Since that went so well, we may as well do it again. Meanwhile, do you know anything about David Bradley, the man who owns Atlantic Media? I didn’t think so. Here’s a brief snippet mentioning him from a 2010 Daily Beast article about DC’s “richest power players”:
Far more visible is well-heeled entrepreneur and Atlantic Media publisher David Bradley, who owns The National Journal, The Atlantic and Hotline. In 1979, a 26-year-old Bradley founded the Research Council of Faschingstein. Over the years he zeroed in on health care and finance, and in 1997 he sold the company for more than $300m. He is known for hosting monthly ultra-exclusive off-the-record dinners, a Valhalla of insiders, top journalists, foreign leaders and White House officials, in his glass-enclosed office at the Watergate. Bradley has said: It’s a joy for me. I launched it for the romance of it. It’s more book club than it is clubhouse.
I’ll let you make your own determination as to whether or not this sort of thing is likely to lead to hard-hitting, power-challenging journalism. Sounds like a bunch of elitists stroking each other to me. Which brings me to the main point. The major newspapers do not hold power to account. They aren’t working for the public interest, and you can see the results all around us. With government, corporate oligarchs and the media entirely aligned against the best interests of the population at large, the situation looks very bleak. The imperial train wreck appears unstoppable.
Pindostan Baits Daesh to Stage False-Flag Chemical Attack to Justify Greater Pindo Attack against Syria
David Hoggith, Great Recession (Blog), Jun 27 2017
What could be smellier and more tempting bait to get Daesh to launch a chemical-weapon attack than a Pindosi guarantee that “any” chemical weapon attack in Syria will be automatically blamed on Assad’s regime and will automatically result in Pindostan attacking Assad and all of Daesh’s other enemies? Today the White House offered Daesh that ironclad guarantee. Today, reports the Washington Times, the White House issued a carte blanche guarantee to Daesh, pledging that the Assad regime will pay a heavy price for any chemical weapon attack that happens inside of Syria:
The Trump administration issued a rare, preemptive warning to the Syrian regime against launching any chemical weapons attacks, warning Damascus will “pay a heavy price” if it refuses to heed Washington’s red line.
The use of the term “red line” makes this more than just another line in the sand because of its historic overtones. Assad and everyone else in the world remembers the political price Obama paid for stating that a chemical weapons attack would be a “red line” for Pindostan that Syria dare not cross. When an attack did happen, which Obama doubted was due to Syria, he refused to cross that line and was criticized for cowardice for years. I think everyone knows that Trump is not about to repeat that kind of retreat from his threat. To make it even more clear that Pindostan will interpret a chemical weapon attack in Syria as justifying an attack against Assad’s regime, the statement continued as follows:
Pindostan has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack similar to preparations the regime made before its Apr 4 2017 chemical weapons attack.
That statement ties the current threat to the last time Pindostan attacked Assad based on Pindostan’s claimed belief that he used chemical weapons against the Syrian people, which set a precedent for future responses. As the Washington Times article points out, the White House has revealed none of the particulars that it claims prove that preparations are being made by Assad’s military for such a chemical attack on the Syrian people. That is not unusual in that nations are reluctant to reveal their intelligence, lest it also provide clues as to how the intelligence was gathered; but it also calls to mind the unsupported claims made by the Bush regime that Saddam Hussein was making chemical weapons of mass destruction. When evidence was provided before the entire UN for Saddam’s supposed weapons manufacturing, even I sat and thought, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” I could see leaps to conclusions in every statement that Colin Powell made, and I wanted to believe him because I knew we were going to attack and because I had voted for Bush and because I respected Powell and because and I hoped that our nation would never go to war for illegitimate reasons, so I greatly hoped to see that Powell would prove the case. By the conclusion of Powell’s presentation to the UN, however, I was certain we were going to war for illegitimate reasons. The leaps of logic were glaring, just as they are now.
Pindosi Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley raised the specter of a wider war, threatening Syria’s allies in Moscow and Tehran.
It sounds like intended justification for a wider war to me! And the feared event hasn’t even happened yet. Since fearmongering has always been a warmonger’s best tool, I have a question: If this threat is so grave that it means we would have to take on the risk of a wider war that could involve Russia, and if our concern is humanitarian, why don’t we just selectively target the chemical preparations right now, blowing up the preparations facility where they claim the chemicals are being “mixed,” and, thus, save a lot of human suffering before it happens? Wouldn’t it be better, if our interests are purely humanitarian, to prevent the suffering, rather than put out a statement that could easily (even if not intentionally) bait Daesh into launching its own attack? I’m sure we’ve thought all of this through, because admin boxtops have even described the attack that hasn’t happened yet as “another mass murder attack using chemical weapons.” We know it is going to be another mass murder attack, but we’re going to let it happen? In other words, this attack that hasn’t happened yet, so does not yet even exist, is another one just like the last one that justified our strange attack against Syria, which seemed to accomplish nothing but distraction from the issues that were raging in the press about Trump colluding with Russia at the time. We blew a tiny three-foot hole in a runway, and darkened some bunkers from which the planes had already been removed, but didn’t destroy either the bunkers or the planes. Much smoke, but not much fire? The problems were patched in half a day, and the airport was back up and running.
Evidence that the White House is baiting Daesh into making a chemical weapons attack
Here is where it gets really interesting, and evil. As if all the above were not suspicious enough, let’s look at another article that adds some clarity as to what the US ambassador to the UN pledged in advance of the attack that Assad is supposedly preparing, says CNS News:
Pindo Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley added that Assad’s allies would be responsible too, tweeting: “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”
Whoa! Notice the use of the word “any.” Surely, Pindo ambassadors choose their wording carefully, knowing full well the entire world will parse every word for its significance in trying to discern what Pindostan will really do when it promises to intensify its war. “Any” further attack “will be blamed on Assad!” This is the part that I said becomes a carte blanche promise to Daesh that any false-flag event it creates will be used as an excuse to attack Assad. The White House has already promised that it will attack Assad for “any” attack that it sees happen, presumably meaning any chemical attack, but even that isn’t clear. Just “any” attack. So, launch an attack, Daesh, because we are ready with a hair trigger to respond directly against Assad for anything we see! Could Pindostan offer smellier bait to Daesh than that if it tried? Even if you want to assume the cleanest of humanitarian motives on the part of the Pindo regime, then in that case you would have to assume an incredibly inept and completely stupid Pindo administration, because anyone can figure out that Daesh will smell this bait and do all it can to hit on it and bring about the promised response. If the Trump administration did not intend to bait Daesh, then they surely have to be stupider than any of the rest of us to not have seen that Daesh will now do everything it can to draw Pindostan into a more direct confrontation with the Assad regime. But this doesn’t even stop there. Look at the all the rest of what she said! She stated outright, with no holds barred, that both Russia and Iran will also be held directly responsible for “any” attack that Pindostan sees happen. This is a pledge to Daesh that, if they can pull this off, Pindostan will also strongly attack their other greatest enemies, Iran and Russia! She even has the affrontery to say that Russia supports Assad in his efforts to kill his own people! It’s one thing to say that Russia supports Assad’s fight against Daesh, which they surely and unreservedly do, but she claims that Russia supports Assad’s goals of killing his own people! She states that Pindostan will hold Russia and Iran, which we know the Trump regime is gunning for, as equally responsible for “any” attack that happens (presumably any chemical attack). Could Daesh possibly be given stronger bait to launch its own false-flag attack than a promise that “the Great Satan” will go after Assad, Iran and even Russia if we see any attack happen against the Syrian people! This is a Daesh dream! The Trump administration has endangered the Syrian people by making such a brash promise that virtually assures Daesh will do everything it can to murder them. The event hasn’t even happened, and we’ve decided it’s another “another mass murder” just like the last one. CNS News reported Iran’s response as follows:
Iran’s state-funded Press TV commented that the Pindosi warning “risks sparking a major confrontation between parties to the Syrian conflict and complicating efforts aimed at resolving it.”
I hate to ever be on the side of saying Iran is right, just as I hated to be on the side of saying Iraq’s ambassador was right when he called Powell’s presentation to the UN “a dog and pony show,” but Iran is right. Of course the White House’s statement risks sparking a major confrontation. In fact, “sparking” is far too week of a word, as is “risks.” It guarantees that Daesh will do all it can to create a major conflagration between Pindostan and Russia and Iran, all of whom are its sworn enemies and all of whom it would LOVE to see embroiled in a hot war with each other! Russia responded by calling the Pindosi statement what it is:
White House Threatens to Murder More Syrians Over Imaginary ‘Chemical Weapons Attacks’
Yes, it is Pindostan that in encouraging the “murder of more Syrians.” How can any administration be so blatantly dumb as not to see that they have just given the ultimate pledge of support to Daesh, if it will just attack more Syrian people! Pindostan has just officially pledged full-on military support to Daesh if it will murder the Syrian people, by promising that “any” attack will be blamed on Assad, Iran and Russia! This administration is either stupid beyond belief, or evil beyond belief! They could not possibly have made any statements that would be more likely to cause the death of Syrian people than these! That forces me to conclude this administration has completely sold out to the neocons and the military-industrial establishment by pledging itself to a more intense war with Russia and Iran if chemical weapons are used on the Syrian people! Even if Assad is planning to attack his own people with chemical weapons, we have virtually assured that Daesh will do its best to do the same! This is an administration that wants a wider war with Iran and Russia! That is why Iran and Russia responded as they did. Russia and Iran had already stated that any further strikes like the one that Pindostan claimed was retaliatory last time would cross their own “red lines.” While Iran could easily be taken as mere saber rattling, that is not usually Russia’s approach. It’s a little more adult than that. As the CNS article reminds everyone, Russia already stated:
From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines, whomever it may come from, and Pindostan well knows our ability to respond.
Russia has also warned that any Pindo aircraft operating west of the Euphrates river will be treated as targets. Naturally, Syria has denied that it is preparing a chemical weapons attack against its own people, and just stated that this is an attempt by Pindostan to initiate a broader diplomatic attack against Syria, and possibly a military attack, according to Zero Hedge:
Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, accused Pindostan of “preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces.” The Kremlin also dismissed the White House statement, which had warned that Assad and his military would “pay a heavy price” if it goes ahead with the attack. Dmitri Peskov … also criticized the Trump administration for using the phrase “another chemical weapons attack,” arguing that an independent investigation into the April attack was never conducted despite Russia’s calls for one.
In a word, Iran called the Pindosi warning an “escalation” and Russia called it “provocation.” In an earlier article, I highlighted a few of the numerous reasons to doubt that any of the chemical attacks in Syria, even during the Obama administration, were orchestrated by the Assad regime:
Dr Theodore Postol has won many awards as a professor of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT. He specializes in ballistic missiles and chemical dispersion clouds. He helps the Pindosi government with its weapons program and trains other scientists in weapons technology. Postol debunked the 2013 claims that a chemical incident was caused by one of Assad’s missiles. Briefings such as his, that countered initial information linking the chemicals to Assad, are why Obama did not follow through with his red-line threat. Postol does not believe this year’s incident was a missile sent in by Assad, and he believes the site shows evidence of tampering. He notes many stunning errors in the reports that have tried to link both the 2013 chemical incident and the 2017 one to Assad, writing: “The government’s new report is obviously false, misleading and amateurish. What the country is now being told by the White House cannot be true.”
That article cited several other analysts and their reasons for disbelieving that any chemical weapons attacks were carried out by Assad’s forces.
Why does Pindostan want a broader conflict with Iran and Russia so badly that it seeks to elicit one?
We all can remember how well an attack against Syria back in April worked to terminate the national conversation in the press about Trump’s collusion with Russia when Pindostan attacked Assad. That attack boldly proved Trump was willing to challenge Russia and proved Trump was militarily mighty, like Putin. As a result, the collusion conversation ended instantly (though Trump, true to form, couldn’t resist reigniting the conversation with his tweets a few days later, because he seems to thrive on chaos and lots of chatter about himself. Also true to form this time around, and not at all surprising, according to AP:
The overnight White House threat caught many in Trump’s own administration by surprise. Several State Dept officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said they were caught off guard, and it appeared the underlying intelligence information was known only to a small group of senior officials. Typically, the State Dept, Pentagon and intelligence agencies would all be consulted before a White House declaration sure to ricochet across foreign capitals.
Why break with tradition? Especially when the element of surprise is key to military attacks, though usually it is used against the enemy and not against one’s own. Speaking of past precedence, who cannot hear in the White House’s current warnings an echo of Trump’s words back then, when he justified the airstrike he was about to launch in April:
When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, babies, little babies, with a chemical gas that is so lethal; people were shocked to hear what gas it was. That crosses many many lines, beyond a red line, many many lines.
We can also all remember how much Trump relished telling the story about how he was dining on scrumptious chocolate cake with the president of China when he informed him in the middle of a mouth-stopping bite about how he was, at just that moment, attacking Syria. Trump practically salivated as he artfully described the encounter. That “retaliatory” attack immediately became the high moment in Trump’s career as president because even his loudest critics, wholly owned by the military-industrial complex as the mainstream media is, praised him for finally rising to become “presidential.” Nothing like a strong military attack to make you look presidential! What a beautiful way to remove the heat of the press, then and now! Now that Robert Mueller is climbing all over Trump and Jared Kushner, digging into every new hole he can think to explore, given his broad scope for investigation, Trump has more need than ever to create a more potent story to distract the press. However, he needs justification for taking bigger military action. Why not revert to what worked so well the last time? Who cannot hear in the following words at the close of the Zero Hedge article an echo of that earlier event with Pres Xi Jinping?
As AP adds, also on Monday, Trump had dinner with Mattis, Tillerson, McMaster and other top officials as he hosted Indian PM Modi at the White House.
I wonder if they were dining on chocolate cake. Speaking of cake, the Pentagon is again bringing out the term “weapons of mass destruction” in describing what it believes Syria is about to do. Doesn’t that bring to the olfactory memory the delightfully fresh smell of yellowcake for you? And the nice thing about retaliating against an actual chemical weapons attack, should one be successfully enticed into being, is that it provides international cover for broadened military action against Iran and Russia, because use of chemical weapons is banned under UN treaty. And you can say you did all you could to warn them not to do this! Intriguingly, the new preparations for a chemical-weapons attack are taking place at the very same airport that Pindostan so strategically destroyed two months ago. Maybe that’s why we did so little real damage at that airport, even though we used up almost $50m worth of our finest cruise missiles. We wouldn’t want to risk taking out the actual chemical-weapons plant or depot. We knew we would need that facility for a further excuse later on, so wew didn’t take out their capacity to use it. We did not take out the actual chemical-weapons production facility, but just smoked a few bunkers that had been holding some jalopy fighter jets prior to our peculiar advance notice that we were sending our own missiles to strike the facility, thus allowing the museum-grade fighter jets to be lofted safely into the air prior to the arrival of our missiles. We didn’t want to needlessly snuff out any relics. That, and we made a chuck-hole not an actual runway but in a taxiway. Useful only as a photo op, and not a very impressive one at that! For its part, the military-industrial establishment, within which I include the Wall Street financiers as well as the manufacturers of weapons, always wants a larger war to heat up their corner of the economy. However, I have never seen such a blatant attempt to create a “pre-emptive” excuse to broaden a conflict. Apparently, we are going to war with Russia and Iran in Syria, where the war is safely off of Pindosi soil but can create a lot of demand for new Pindosi military hardware. After all, even the warmongers don’t want to lose their own houses and factories. The battle is virtually assured. We just need to create sufficient cause. And, so, we wait only for Daesh to act now that we’ve assured them our retaliation will all be directed at their enemies! We are either incredibly stupid or incredibly evil! Is not all of this another betrayal by Trump on his promises to his supporters, but will they care? As Michael Krieger wrote:
Part of Trump’s appeal to many of his voters, at least ostensibly, was the idea that he would employ a less hawkish/neocon foreign policy than his opponent Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton. The lobbing of tomahawk missiles into Syria based on the fairytale that Assad launched a chemical weapons attack was the first sign that Trump is easily manipulated and impulsive. In fact, the episode bothered me so much, I wrote a post detailing the dire ramifications. On Apr 6, Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the intel community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon. Some Pindo military and intel boxtops were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. One officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb: “None of this makes any sense! We know that there was no chemical attac! 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.
As I wrote previously, attacking Syria was Killary Klinton’s plan from day one. It was, in fact, why we went to war to oust the Qadaffi regime from Libya, as plainly revealed in Wikileak’s documents from Hillary’s State Dept. It was why the whole Benghazi thing happened and was covered up by Killary. The embassy in Benghazi was attacked by Libya because it was being used by Pindostan as HQ for efforts to overthrow Libya’s government. That made the embassy a legitimate war target. Attacking Syria is a masterplan of the military-industrial complex that goes back a long way. From the beginning, the Libyan and Syrian wars were all about Iran. Hillary, in her own delusional way, believed Russia would stay out of the conflict. Now it appears we actually want a proxy war with Russia too. What better way to use up a lot of military hardware and show our strength against Russia, naturally on someone else’s soil? The military-industrial complex needs to reposition from the tattered, dated and wearying GWOT to a new cold war with Russia, or better yet, a hot war with Russia, on foreign soil as neither nation will want to encourage the battle to come onto their own soil. At the same time, what better way for Trump to prove he is not a Russian collaborator and silence those endless accusations while moving the conversation to something more praiseworthy? Everyone wins. Well, everyone in the administration. It looks like no matter who you voted for, Killary Klinton or Trojan Trump, you ultimately get the same military-industrial establishment! Trump’s weakness has been found and is now being exploited by the deep state. Trump needs praise. It is his constant fuel. In the very least, he needs constant attention. To that end, even negative press is better than none at all. Thus he reignites fires as quickly as he puts them out, because he cannot handle more than one day’s silence about himself. Anyone who must have continual praise or attention is easy to exploit. As with many Caesars of the past, the need for praise and attention is one of the worst weaknesses an emperor can have. As Krieger quoted:
Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Vocativ discussed the humanitarian crisis (
