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.
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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.
Photo showing U.S. firing missile into Syria: Ford Williams/USN via AP
The New American will have more coverage of this issue in the hours and days ahead.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook. He can be reached at [email protected].
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