This article is a translation of "Met raketten kroont Trump zichzelf keizer"
Maybe because the well-educated have knowledge of the horrors of WWI and probably because of the nazi attempt to exterminate an entire people by using gas chambers, people in the west can never be appalled more than by acts of chemical warfare. And of course, footage of people victimized by a gas attack are horrific and spur instant anger against the perpetrators. That way the response president Trump pursued as an act of punishment for the alleged gas attack by Bashar al-Assad at Khan Shaykhun on April the 4th can rely on wide approval from target audiences.
Of course, Trump´s advisory board knew this would happen. Probably he needed it too. The first 100 days of incumbency would traditionally have to show at least one act that would stagger the country - and the people beyond. As nobody expected Trump to fire his punitive cruise missiles to send Assad and his Russian backers a message, one could easily observe this event was effective to the max. When Obama´s red line was crossed by the 2013 gas attack of Ghouta, it met no punitive actions. Trump showed he would be a president that could not be played around with. Not even by the Russians.
In its simplicity this move is brilliant. All accusations of Trump being soft on putinism can be swept of the table. The war the unorthodox president has fought with large segments of the mainstream media is forgotten as the missile attack is glorified through the entire circle of standard bipartisan punditry https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/the-spoils-of-war-trump-lavished-with-media-and-bipartisan-praise-for-bombing-syria/. As a matter of fact, actually Trump has managed to crown himself an Emperor and has also been endorsed by his former critics throughout the west. Its hard to come up with an event in recent world history in which the communis opinio turned so rapidly upside down.
That this was a planned reversal of affairs might be inferred from the fact that American use of power never arrives by missiles alone when it embarks on a concerted policy of intervention. Even Empire needs some sort of international political consent, moving multilateral institutions towards acceptance of the new policy. At home bipartisan praise was secured, so the administration´s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was ready to announce the US was poised to get rid of Assad and ¨Iranian influence¨ in Syria altogether http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/haley-us-planning-regime-change-syria/ri19511 In other words, regime change was back on the table and even Iran was threatened directly.
As the Security Council of the UN will be not be the tool that can be used to further US interests, because of the presence of Russia and China, other multilateral institutions stepped up. The G7, the 7 most industrialized (pro-)western countries, paved the way for international support for US actions by claiming, in the words of Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, the U.S. intervention had offered "a window of opportunity to construct a new positive condition for the political process in Syria." Remarkably both Haley and Alfano started from the axiom that acts of war are a preliminary condition for peace and politics, invoking a kind of reversed Von Clausewitz theorema: ¨Politics is regarded as nothing but continuation of war with other means.¨
There is a tiny thing that lurks behind the curtains though. That is the truth, the veracity of events that have led to all this. Most importantly there is mounting evidence there was no gas attack performed by the Syrian army. First, the Syrians would have destroyed all their stock of chemical weapons and furthermore would not have had any tactical advantage from using this kind of weaponry as winning was on the rise.
As happened with the 2013 Ghouta attack the standard narrative was confronted by award winning journalist Sy Hersh and MIT professor-emeritus Theodor Postal. Where the former asserted it was Hillary Clinton who provided her ¨moderate¨ rebels with Sarin gas when she ran the State Department http://linkis.com/www.inquisitr.com/30/7FI6u , Postal ripped apart the official US intelligence report that supposedly showed evidence Assad´s forces had been the perpetrators of the gas bombing. According to Postal: ¨The data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane.¨ This would mean the original gas cartridge was placed by ¨moderate¨ rebels themselves https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Vs2rjE9TdwR2F3NFFVWDExMnc/view.
Though the mass media is persisting in applauding the benign intentions the president would have had by launching his missiles, people with actual ability to assess the situation conclude otherwise. Former UN inspector of weapons of mass destruction Scott Ritter holds that the Trump administration ¨was played by Al-Qaida¨ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d and ¨is wagging the dog¨, now returning from its initial vow to fight Islamic terrorism and ISIS instead of Assad and Russia.
TNI fellow Phyllis Bennis explained on Democracy Now! Trump's cruise missiles do not in any way solve anything regarding the perpetuation of at least 11 wars that are being waged on and around Syrian soil. https://www.facebook.com/democracynow/videos/10155168745928279/
Both Ritter and Bennis utter the suspicion this act of war was not about victimized children at all, nor about fighting gas attacks, as the US has used itself white phosphorus all over the conflict in Iraq and has been engaged in indiscriminate killing of children labeled ¨collateral damage¨.
However, its not about truth. Its about managing the perception of truth. Though it could be established Trump was crowned an Emperor who has no cloths, many audiences in the west seem unable to see the naked truth. Building on this the administration embarks on a pretty dangerous policy in a 180 degree turn from the initial electoral platform Trump was running on, now confronting Russia and Iran.
In the meantime a second threat was made in another ¨theater¨, when the US sent the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean peninsula, backing up strike forces present and building up tensions with North-Korea. At the end of his first 100 days on the presidential chair Trump made clear he can be trusted to proceed the project to attain ¨full specter dominance¨ in world affairs. The intelligence community and the bipartisan neoconservative circle of former critics can have a good night sleep again.
In its simplicity this move is brilliant. All accusations of Trump being soft on putinism can be swept of the table. The war the unorthodox president has fought with large segments of the mainstream media is forgotten as the missile attack is glorified through the entire circle of standard bipartisan punditry https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/the-spoils-of-war-trump-lavished-with-media-and-bipartisan-praise-for-bombing-syria/. As a matter of fact, actually Trump has managed to crown himself an Emperor and has also been endorsed by his former critics throughout the west. Its hard to come up with an event in recent world history in which the communis opinio turned so rapidly upside down.
That this was a planned reversal of affairs might be inferred from the fact that American use of power never arrives by missiles alone when it embarks on a concerted policy of intervention. Even Empire needs some sort of international political consent, moving multilateral institutions towards acceptance of the new policy. At home bipartisan praise was secured, so the administration´s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was ready to announce the US was poised to get rid of Assad and ¨Iranian influence¨ in Syria altogether http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/haley-us-planning-regime-change-syria/ri19511 In other words, regime change was back on the table and even Iran was threatened directly.
As the Security Council of the UN will be not be the tool that can be used to further US interests, because of the presence of Russia and China, other multilateral institutions stepped up. The G7, the 7 most industrialized (pro-)western countries, paved the way for international support for US actions by claiming, in the words of Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, the U.S. intervention had offered "a window of opportunity to construct a new positive condition for the political process in Syria." Remarkably both Haley and Alfano started from the axiom that acts of war are a preliminary condition for peace and politics, invoking a kind of reversed Von Clausewitz theorema: ¨Politics is regarded as nothing but continuation of war with other means.¨
There is a tiny thing that lurks behind the curtains though. That is the truth, the veracity of events that have led to all this. Most importantly there is mounting evidence there was no gas attack performed by the Syrian army. First, the Syrians would have destroyed all their stock of chemical weapons and furthermore would not have had any tactical advantage from using this kind of weaponry as winning was on the rise.
As happened with the 2013 Ghouta attack the standard narrative was confronted by award winning journalist Sy Hersh and MIT professor-emeritus Theodor Postal. Where the former asserted it was Hillary Clinton who provided her ¨moderate¨ rebels with Sarin gas when she ran the State Department http://linkis.com/www.inquisitr.com/30/7FI6u , Postal ripped apart the official US intelligence report that supposedly showed evidence Assad´s forces had been the perpetrators of the gas bombing. According to Postal: ¨The data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane.¨ This would mean the original gas cartridge was placed by ¨moderate¨ rebels themselves https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Vs2rjE9TdwR2F3NFFVWDExMnc/view.
Though the mass media is persisting in applauding the benign intentions the president would have had by launching his missiles, people with actual ability to assess the situation conclude otherwise. Former UN inspector of weapons of mass destruction Scott Ritter holds that the Trump administration ¨was played by Al-Qaida¨ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d and ¨is wagging the dog¨, now returning from its initial vow to fight Islamic terrorism and ISIS instead of Assad and Russia.
TNI fellow Phyllis Bennis explained on Democracy Now! Trump's cruise missiles do not in any way solve anything regarding the perpetuation of at least 11 wars that are being waged on and around Syrian soil. https://www.facebook.com/democracynow/videos/10155168745928279/
Both Ritter and Bennis utter the suspicion this act of war was not about victimized children at all, nor about fighting gas attacks, as the US has used itself white phosphorus all over the conflict in Iraq and has been engaged in indiscriminate killing of children labeled ¨collateral damage¨.
However, its not about truth. Its about managing the perception of truth. Though it could be established Trump was crowned an Emperor who has no cloths, many audiences in the west seem unable to see the naked truth. Building on this the administration embarks on a pretty dangerous policy in a 180 degree turn from the initial electoral platform Trump was running on, now confronting Russia and Iran.
In the meantime a second threat was made in another ¨theater¨, when the US sent the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean peninsula, backing up strike forces present and building up tensions with North-Korea. At the end of his first 100 days on the presidential chair Trump made clear he can be trusted to proceed the project to attain ¨full specter dominance¨ in world affairs. The intelligence community and the bipartisan neoconservative circle of former critics can have a good night sleep again.
Hector Reban
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