It should be the headlines of all major newspaper but the news is only found on usual suspects: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published a new article – arguably his potentially most explosive[1]– about the alleged Sarin Gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun last April and US President Donald Trump’s military air strike following it in the German newspaper Die Welt.
Must read! Die Trump’s Read Line.
Hersh convincingly explains that the incident was most likely the result of a weapons depot and storage room hit by aerial bombing as “range of symptoms [are] consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals […] which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin”. But the article also points out that President Trump is “risking triggering a World War III with Russia based upon his own rash decision, over the objections and to the dismay of his own military and intelligence advisers”[2].
Apart that the “Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy”[3], the question remains if the attack – that was praised in all major newspapers – was part of a larger anti-Russian campaign as it portrayed Russian complicity: “How many more children have to die before Russia cares?”[4], asked Ambassador Nikki Haley at the UN a day after the incident and New York Times run an article headlined “White House Accuses Russia of Cover-Up in Syria Chemical Attack”[5].
If Trump was just responding to disturbing emotions ignoring fact-based intelligence reports[6]or if he was blackmailed by some power group that wanted Syria bombed for whatever reason, is one thing. Fact is that the US is acting irresponsible or with a hidden agenda – an agenda most likely not aimed at the benefit of the people in the region.
The alleged world policeman is rather an unpredictable world gangster that should not be trusted.
1 https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/29/sy-hersh-exposer-of-my-lai-and-abu-ghraib-strikes-again-exposing-us-lies-about-alleged-assad-sarin-attack/
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Even if you are deeply moved by dead children and feel an urge to retaliate, no sane person would ignore expert opinion about the perpetrator and just aim bombs at someone that was not responsible. If you want to punish the guilty, you don’t bomb a third-party – not even Trump. The explanation that Trump sent missiles because of some dead children is of little credibility.
thoughts and opinions 