……………………
5/1/19, “Venezuela is a Dark Mirror Into Populism’s Soul,“ Strategic Culture, Tom Luongo
“I’m writing this as Juan Guaido attempts to provoke a coup against Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. I don’t have a dog in this hunt, frankly, as Maduro is incompetent and Guaido is a US puppet.
The people I sympathize with are the Venezuelans who are the victims of the clash between the cynical power politics of the US’s geopolitical ambitions and Donald Trump’s ridiculous Energy Dominance policy and the inept governments of first Hugo Chavez and now Maduro which brought the country nothing but pain.
Those I have zero sympathy with however, are the conservatives who are so in the thrall of Trump’s cult of personality that they excuse his bloodthirsty policies because it, to them, is a proxy for their own desired war against the Democrats here at home. [Which makes them handy tools since Democrats are now the home of the 24/7 War party.]
It’s a sick and pathetic justification to the inhuman practice of trade restraint and hybrid warfare to combat the evils of ‘socialism.’ Now, don’t get me wrong, as a libertarian I am fully opposed to all forms of collectivism, that includes using military force to overthrow a government you don’t like.
The only time that is justified at all is if it is your own government or that of an invader. Both can be considered self-defense. But Venezuela selling oil against the wishes of the Trump Administration is not self defense folks.
To be generous seeing the inequality and poverty of Venezuelans and wanting to change that is noble. It is the hallmark of conservative thought. But compassion is not a universal good. It can become toxic. And the idea that we have a duty to protect Venezuelans from their government is the height of hubris.
Would any of these Americans ever think it okay for presumptuous and compassionate Russians or French to forcibly change our government because of the poverty here? Because of the insane costs of health care, education, housing or food? Of course not.
The truth is that the American populist right has given fully into their anger and powerlessness to stop the degradation of their own society and have now transferred those feelings onto Venezuela.
We just spent more than two years fighting back against a coup here in the US started by people who didn’t like the outcome of a lawful election, both Americans and foreigners (and not Russians).
The people clamouring on Twitter for Guaido’s victory today are the same ones who defended Trump against the Democrats’ coup attempt against him.
Every Trump supporter who is cheering on Guaido today or is thoughtlessly repeating the neocon talking point that ‘this isn’t a coup’ is a hypocrite of monumental proportions.
Look at the level of outrage here in the US over the mere thought of outside influence, no matter how inept, innocuous or ineffective over our elections.
Now imagine how you look to the rest of the world as you cheer on Guaido’s equally inept attempt to oust Maduro from power.
And you justify this to yourself because Donald Trump told you Maduro rigged the election against Guiado?
These will be the same people who will cheer on war with Iran next. And for the same reasons the Left [actually the entire US political class is on the side of the US taxpayer funded Endless War Industry] would cheer on a war with Russia.
And when their sons and daughters die on the battlefield or in another terrorist bombing they’ll do what? Show humility? Shame? Fat chance.
When people are in the throes of ideological possession it doesn’t matter what part of the political spectrum them come from. Justification of the eradication of The Other is what dominates their thinking.
That was the whole point of RussiaGate. It was to radicalize both the American Left and the American Right to accept a righteous war against whatever their Team Leaders told them was just.
The American people elected Donald Trump to end foreign wars, end the regime change operations and bring peace to the world. Those people who defended him in the face of gross attacks on their character and their livelihoods are now willing to justify anything he does to justify themselves.
Even when that nagging voice is telling them this is wrong. This is not a spontaneous uprising. It is a manufactured situation brought on by economic and social warfare and paid for with our tax dollars.
It is beyond sad that today we are seeing the same people now supporting the same war-mongering neoconservatives they voted against in the form of Hillary Clinton.
Steve Bannon was right. The Trump revolution died when he capitulated on sending troops to Afghanistan. [June, 2017]. He didn’t have the strength to stand up to them then and he’s now their biggest used-empire salesman. A job for which he is uniquely suited.”
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Comment: MAGA died even earlier, in April 2017 when Trump bombed Syria based on nothing but unvetted pictures of children. His April 2017 bombing of Syria over a fake poison gas story so angered hacking group Shadow Brokers, who voted for and supported Trump, that in protest they released a confidential NSA password for an arsenal of US digital weapons-authenticity confirmed by Edward Snowden. Shadow Brokers wrote Trump a letter. 4/8/17, “Be considering this our form of protest. The password for the EQGRP-Auction-Files is CrDj”(;Va.*NdlnzB9M?@K2)#>deB7mN” (see end of this post for entire letter to Trump by Shadow Brokers)
4/8/17, After claim by Shadow Brokers that they released NSA password, Edward Snowden confirms authenticity of the release:
…………………
Ten weeks after Trump took office: April 7, 2017, “Heartbroken” Ivanka and Daddy bombed Syria: “Trump launches attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles," CNBC.com… 4/17/17, “Eric Trump Says Syria Strike Was Swayed By ‘Heartbroken’ Ivanka,” NBC.com, Alexander Smith:
“Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, being “heartbroken and outraged“ at the country’s alleged chemical weapons attack, one of the president’s sons told a British newspaper….Trump’s 33-year-old son, Eric, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday that the strike was influenced in part by Ivanka, who he said was “heartbroken and outraged” by the chemical attack. “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence,” Eric Trump said speaking with the newspaper at Trump Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire, Scotland.
“I’m sure she said, ‘Listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.” Trump himself was “deeply affected” by the pictures of children [bingo] being “sprayed down by hoses to keep their skin from burning,” according to his son. “It was horrible. These guys are savages and I’m glad he responded the way he responded.””…
Ivanka and Daddy decided it was time to punish US taxpayers by forcing us to bomb Syria based on nothing but standard, unvetted propaganda pictures of children in a distant, non-English speaking part of the world. Supposedly the children had been victims of a chemical attack and only one entity of “animals” could be responsible. Yet it’s humanly impossible for this conclusion to have been reached at that time and everyone knows it. At minimum it would take months of careful research on the ground in Syria to make any claim about the nature of an alleged attack and/or its origin. It’s possible no conclusion could be reached, or that no attack at all took place, that it was staged. The bottom line is the whole world knows Trump treated US taxpayers like garbage by forcing us to bomb for no reason. Syria would be completely justified in bombing the US in return.
If there was any “heartbreak” it was that US taxpayers were reminded that the US is a dictatorship, that we’re not allowed to choose US presidents, and are slaves of global war profiteers.
Though it wasn’t about children, we were told that since Ivanka was a mother of 3 she effectively was qualified to force US taxpayers to bomb Syria. We agree with Ivanka that harming children is “heartbreaking and outrageous.” That isn’t the point. Using unvetted photos as an excuse for bombing was an attack on US taxpayers. As Shadow Brokers makes clear, it was especially an attack on those of us who voted for Trump.
Certainly Ivanka and Daddy know that Syria had not harmed the US, presented no threat, US had no reason to be in Syria at all. The only clear threat to the US is its wide open southern border.
……………………………………………..
Added: Hacking group Shadow Brokers April 2017 letter to Trump explaining that their dismay at Trump bombing Syria was so great that they’re releasing an NSA password in protest, confirmed by Snowden. Shadow Brokers voted for Trump and say he betrayed his base by bombing Syria in April 2017 over a fake poison gas story:
4/8/17, “Be considering this our form of protest. The password for the EQGRP-Auction-Files is CrDj”(;Va.*NdlnzB9M?@K2)#>deB7mN” (at end of post)
4/8/17, After claim by Shadow Brokers that they released NSA password, Edward Snowden confirms authenticity of the release:
Shadow Brokers post to President Trump:
4/8/2017, “Don’t Forget Your Base,” medium.com
“Dear President Trump,
Respectfully, what the fuck are you doing? TheShadowBrokers voted for you. TheShadowBrokers supports you.
TheShadowBrokers is losing faith in you. Mr. Trump helping theshadowbrokers, helping you. Is appearing you are abandoning “your base”, “the movement”, and the peoples who getting you elected.
Good Evidence:
Comment: MAGA died even earlier, in April 2017 when Trump bombed Syria based on nothing but unvetted pictures of children. His April 2017 bombing of Syria over a fake poison gas story so angered hacking group Shadow Brokers, who voted for and supported Trump, that in protest they released a confidential NSA password for an arsenal of US digital weapons-authenticity confirmed by Edward Snowden. Shadow Brokers wrote Trump a letter. 4/8/17, “Be considering this our form of protest. The password for the EQGRP-Auction-Files is CrDj”(;Va.*NdlnzB9M?@K2)#>deB7mN” (see end of this post for entire letter to Trump by Shadow Brokers)
4/8/17, After claim by Shadow Brokers that they released NSA password, Edward Snowden confirms authenticity of the release:
…………………
Ten weeks after Trump took office: April 7, 2017, “Heartbroken” Ivanka and Daddy bombed Syria: “Trump launches attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles," CNBC.com… 4/17/17, “Eric Trump Says Syria Strike Was Swayed By ‘Heartbroken’ Ivanka,” NBC.com, Alexander Smith:
“Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was influenced by his daughter, Ivanka, being “heartbroken and outraged“ at the country’s alleged chemical weapons attack, one of the president’s sons told a British newspaper….Trump’s 33-year-old son, Eric, told The Daily Telegraph on Monday that the strike was influenced in part by Ivanka, who he said was “heartbroken and outraged” by the chemical attack. “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence,” Eric Trump said speaking with the newspaper at Trump Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire, Scotland.
“I’m sure she said, ‘Listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.” Trump himself was “deeply affected” by the pictures of children [bingo] being “sprayed down by hoses to keep their skin from burning,” according to his son. “It was horrible. These guys are savages and I’m glad he responded the way he responded.””…
Ivanka and Daddy decided it was time to punish US taxpayers by forcing us to bomb Syria based on nothing but standard, unvetted propaganda pictures of children in a distant, non-English speaking part of the world. Supposedly the children had been victims of a chemical attack and only one entity of “animals” could be responsible. Yet it’s humanly impossible for this conclusion to have been reached at that time and everyone knows it. At minimum it would take months of careful research on the ground in Syria to make any claim about the nature of an alleged attack and/or its origin. It’s possible no conclusion could be reached, or that no attack at all took place, that it was staged. The bottom line is the whole world knows Trump treated US taxpayers like garbage by forcing us to bomb for no reason. Syria would be completely justified in bombing the US in return.
If there was any “heartbreak” it was that US taxpayers were reminded that the US is a dictatorship, that we’re not allowed to choose US presidents, and are slaves of global war profiteers.
Though it wasn’t about children, we were told that since Ivanka was a mother of 3 she effectively was qualified to force US taxpayers to bomb Syria. We agree with Ivanka that harming children is “heartbreaking and outrageous.” That isn’t the point. Using unvetted photos as an excuse for bombing was an attack on US taxpayers. As Shadow Brokers makes clear, it was especially an attack on those of us who voted for Trump.
Certainly Ivanka and Daddy know that Syria had not harmed the US, presented no threat, US had no reason to be in Syria at all. The only clear threat to the US is its wide open southern border.
……………………………………………..
Added: Hacking group Shadow Brokers April 2017 letter to Trump explaining that their dismay at Trump bombing Syria was so great that they’re releasing an NSA password in protest, confirmed by Snowden. Shadow Brokers voted for Trump and say he betrayed his base by bombing Syria in April 2017 over a fake poison gas story:
4/8/17, “Be considering this our form of protest. The password for the EQGRP-Auction-Files is CrDj”(;Va.*NdlnzB9M?@K2)#>deB7mN” (at end of post)
4/8/17, After claim by Shadow Brokers that they released NSA password, Edward Snowden confirms authenticity of the release:
Shadow Brokers post to President Trump:
4/8/2017, “Don’t Forget Your Base,” medium.com
“Dear President Trump,
Respectfully, what the fuck are you doing? TheShadowBrokers voted for you. TheShadowBrokers supports you.
TheShadowBrokers is losing faith in you. Mr. Trump helping theshadowbrokers, helping you. Is appearing you are abandoning “your base”, “the movement”, and the peoples who getting you elected.
Good Evidence:
#1 — Goldman Sach (TheGlobalists) and Military Industrial Intelligence Complex (MIIC) cabinet
#2 — Backtracked on Obamacare
#3 — Attacked the Freedom Caucus (TheMovement)
#4 — Removed Bannon from the NSC
#5 — Increased U.S. involvement in a foreign war (Syria Strike)
#2 — Backtracked on Obamacare
#3 — Attacked the Freedom Caucus (TheMovement)
#4 — Removed Bannon from the NSC
#5 — Increased U.S. involvement in a foreign war (Syria Strike)
The
peoples whose voted for you, voted against the Republican Party, the
party that tried to destroying your character in the primaries. The peoples who voted for you, voted against the Democrat Party, the party that hates, mocks, and laughs at you.
Without the support of the peoples who voted for you, what do you think will be happening to your Presidency? Without the support of the people who voted for you, do you think you’ll be still making America great again? Do you be remembering when you were sitting there at the Obama Press Party and they were all laughing at you? Do you be remembering when you touring the country and all those peoples believed in you and supported you? You were those peoples hope. How do you be thinking it will be feeling when those people turn on you? Will they be laughing at you, hating you, and mocking you too? TheShadowBrokers doesn’t want this to be happening to you, Mr. Trump.
TheShadowBrokers is wanting to see you succeed. TheShadowBrokers is wanting America to be great again. TheShadowBrokers acknowledging, we don’t be having all the inside information you do, things might look different inside the bubble. TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. Maybe you be making YouTube video is in order, to be explaining to your voters, your supporters, you didn’t fuck them all over. Because from theshadowbrokers seat is looking really bad. If you made deal(s) be telling the peoples about them, peoples is appreciating transparency. But what kind of deal can be resulting in chemical weapons used in Syria, Mr. Bannon’s removal from the NSC, US military strike on Syria, and successful vote for SCOTUS without change rules? Mr. Trump whose war are you fighting? Israeli Nationalists’ (Zionist) and Goldman Sachs’ war? Chinese Globalists’ and Goldman Sachs war?
Is not looking like you fighting the domestic wars, the movement elected you to be fighting. You not being in office three months and already you looking like the MIIC’s bitch with John McCain and Chuck Schumer double dutch ruddering each other in the corner over dead corpses. .........
Mr Trump, we getting it. You having special empathy for father whose daughter is killed. We know this is root cause for anti-illegal immigrant policy. Illegal immigrant shoot man’s daughter in San Francisco. Now is Syrian man daughter [allegedly] killed by chemical gas. We agree its needless tragedy. But tragedies happening everyday and wars endangers all the children not just Syrian.
Mr President theshadowbrokers would like to be making some suggestion regarding why you were being elected, is just being friendly reminders.
Your Supporters:
– Don’t care what is written in the NYT, Washington Post, or any newspaper, so just ignore it.
Without the support of the peoples who voted for you, what do you think will be happening to your Presidency? Without the support of the people who voted for you, do you think you’ll be still making America great again? Do you be remembering when you were sitting there at the Obama Press Party and they were all laughing at you? Do you be remembering when you touring the country and all those peoples believed in you and supported you? You were those peoples hope. How do you be thinking it will be feeling when those people turn on you? Will they be laughing at you, hating you, and mocking you too? TheShadowBrokers doesn’t want this to be happening to you, Mr. Trump.
TheShadowBrokers is wanting to see you succeed. TheShadowBrokers is wanting America to be great again. TheShadowBrokers acknowledging, we don’t be having all the inside information you do, things might look different inside the bubble. TheShadowBrokers is having suggestion. Maybe you be making YouTube video is in order, to be explaining to your voters, your supporters, you didn’t fuck them all over. Because from theshadowbrokers seat is looking really bad. If you made deal(s) be telling the peoples about them, peoples is appreciating transparency. But what kind of deal can be resulting in chemical weapons used in Syria, Mr. Bannon’s removal from the NSC, US military strike on Syria, and successful vote for SCOTUS without change rules? Mr. Trump whose war are you fighting? Israeli Nationalists’ (Zionist) and Goldman Sachs’ war? Chinese Globalists’ and Goldman Sachs war?
Is not looking like you fighting the domestic wars, the movement elected you to be fighting. You not being in office three months and already you looking like the MIIC’s bitch with John McCain and Chuck Schumer double dutch ruddering each other in the corner over dead corpses. .........
Mr Trump, we getting it. You having special empathy for father whose daughter is killed. We know this is root cause for anti-illegal immigrant policy. Illegal immigrant shoot man’s daughter in San Francisco. Now is Syrian man daughter [allegedly] killed by chemical gas. We agree its needless tragedy. But tragedies happening everyday and wars endangers all the children not just Syrian.
Mr President theshadowbrokers would like to be making some suggestion regarding why you were being elected, is just being friendly reminders.
Your Supporters:
– Don’t care what is written in the NYT, Washington Post, or any newspaper, so just ignore it.
– Don’t care if you swapped wives with Mr Putin, double down on it, “Putin is not just my friend he is my BFF”.
– Don’t care if the election was hacked or rigged, celebrate it “so what if I did, what are you going to do about it”.
– Don’t care if your popular or nice, get er done, Obama’s fail, thinking he could create compromise. No compromise.
– Don’t want foreign wars, Do want domestic wars, “drain the swamp”, “destroy the nanny state”
– Don’t care about your faith, you sound like a smuck when you try to say god things
– DO support the ideologies and policies of Steve Bannon, Anti-Globalism, Anti-Socialism, Nationalism, Isolationism
TheShadowBrokers is having some other suggestions.
Globalism
If Globalism is being so cool and awesome, why all the peoples come to only one country, American? Isn’t that being opposite of globalism? If globalism shouldn’t all peoples be staying in own countries and America be exporting culture and ideas to them? If cultures, beliefs, and philosophies of Africa, Asia, and India is being so cool and awesome, why isn’t everyone immigrating there? Because its not and they aren’t. European or Western Culture has proven is being best and most dominant, nothing to do with skin colors, white, brown, yellow, but is having to do with being red. No not red communism, red as in blood. European ancestors did the work, the thinking, the rebelling, the fighting, the killing, and the dying. Sometimes they being on rite side of history and sometimes not, but result is being great culture and society. “But, America is nation of immigrants!” Yes, but until 30 years ago most immigrants being Europeans. Jeudeo-Christian Europeans minor cultural differences. Don’t bring the world to America, bring America to the world. America first. English first. American workers first. American students first. American culture first.
White Privilege
Dear Americans, do you seek black privileged, reparation, and free shit? TheShadowBrokers is having program for you, is calling it the “Obama Ticket.” The U.S. government will be setting aside 1 Trillion, made up, borrowed from ourselves, debased Federal Reserve dollars to be sending any American resident, who wishes, regardless of skin color, on an all expense paid, permanent trip to Africa. Be telling your friends. Be telling your family. Be taking as many of them (friends and family) with you. Some condition be applying, accepting an Obama Ticket automatically revokes your Unites States citizenship, your are not being allow to return, for one generation, no exceptions. Call 1–800–555–1212
Socialist Collectivism
– Don’t care if the election was hacked or rigged, celebrate it “so what if I did, what are you going to do about it”.
– Don’t care if your popular or nice, get er done, Obama’s fail, thinking he could create compromise. No compromise.
– Don’t want foreign wars, Do want domestic wars, “drain the swamp”, “destroy the nanny state”
– Don’t care about your faith, you sound like a smuck when you try to say god things
– DO support the ideologies and policies of Steve Bannon, Anti-Globalism, Anti-Socialism, Nationalism, Isolationism
TheShadowBrokers is having some other suggestions.
Globalism
If Globalism is being so cool and awesome, why all the peoples come to only one country, American? Isn’t that being opposite of globalism? If globalism shouldn’t all peoples be staying in own countries and America be exporting culture and ideas to them? If cultures, beliefs, and philosophies of Africa, Asia, and India is being so cool and awesome, why isn’t everyone immigrating there? Because its not and they aren’t. European or Western Culture has proven is being best and most dominant, nothing to do with skin colors, white, brown, yellow, but is having to do with being red. No not red communism, red as in blood. European ancestors did the work, the thinking, the rebelling, the fighting, the killing, and the dying. Sometimes they being on rite side of history and sometimes not, but result is being great culture and society. “But, America is nation of immigrants!” Yes, but until 30 years ago most immigrants being Europeans. Jeudeo-Christian Europeans minor cultural differences. Don’t bring the world to America, bring America to the world. America first. English first. American workers first. American students first. American culture first.
White Privilege
Dear Americans, do you seek black privileged, reparation, and free shit? TheShadowBrokers is having program for you, is calling it the “Obama Ticket.” The U.S. government will be setting aside 1 Trillion, made up, borrowed from ourselves, debased Federal Reserve dollars to be sending any American resident, who wishes, regardless of skin color, on an all expense paid, permanent trip to Africa. Be telling your friends. Be telling your family. Be taking as many of them (friends and family) with you. Some condition be applying, accepting an Obama Ticket automatically revokes your Unites States citizenship, your are not being allow to return, for one generation, no exceptions. Call 1–800–555–1212
Socialist Collectivism
Africa not being for you. Do you liking socialism? Collectivism? Are all animals equal, but some animals more equal than others? Do you like wearing black? Then maybe the Socialist Workers Paradise of North Korea is for you. Please call the same number above and select menu option #2.
Russia
For peoples still being confused about TheShadowBrokers and Russia. If theshadowbrokers being Russian don’t you think we’d be in all those U.S. government reports on Russian hacking? TheShadowBrokers isn’t not fans of Russia or Putin but “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” We recognize Americans’ having more in common with Russians than Chinese or Globalist or Socialist. Russia and Putin are nationalist and enemies of the Globalist, examples: NATO encroachment and Ukraine conflict. Therefore Russia and Putin are being best allies until the common enemies are defeated and America is great again.
MAGA
President Trump, theshadowbrokers is offering our services to you and your administration. Did you know most of theshadowbrokers’ members have taken the oath “…to protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic…”. Yes sir! Most of us used to be TheDeepState everyone is talking about. But we realized TheDeepState is being the enemy of the constitution, individualism, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With the right funding we can recruit some of the best hacker intel peoples in United States and world. “Unmasking” is being new buzz word, so we use. TheShadowBrokers is being happy to unmask anyone we considering to be an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. Enemies like John McCain. Something doesn’t rub theshadowbrokers rite about Vietnam War POW who at every opportunity seeks to do violence to others via the proxy of young service men and women. If anyone should be being pacifist, slow to pick fight it should be being former POW. TheShadowBrokers is sure if we “unmasking”, Senator McCain, Magog itself might come out, many defense contractors, Saudi Princes, and possibly little Vietnamese boy he shares with Senator Lindsey Graham, not cool! Mr. Trump we know you are having DOJ and FBI, so why you be needing theShadowBrokers? You don’t, but theshadowbrokers is confused. Why haven’t you served search warrant to NYT, Washington Post, Goldman Sacks, Jeff Bezos, and all other Globalist for investigation and prosecution of treason, sedition, and un-American activities during a time of war? The Alien and Sedition Act? A Un-American Activites commitee? Doing so, you could be seizing all their IT systems, freeze their financial assets, arrest key leadership. Every American is innocent until proven guilty and has the right to fair trial by jury, but investigation and trials take a really really long time and is being very difficult to run a business and make money for shareholder when FBI and DOJ has all your IT systems.
Mr. President Trump theshadowbrokers sincerely is hoping you are being the real deal and that you received this as constructive criticism toward #MAGA. Some American’s consider or maybe considering TheShadowBrokers traitors. We disagreeing. We view this as keeping our oath to protect and defend against enemies foreign and domestic.
TheShadowBrokers wishes we could be doing more, but revolutions/civil wars taking money, time, and people.
TheShadowBrokers has is having little of each as our auction was an apparent failure. Be considering this our form of protest. The password for the EQGRP-Auction-Files is CrDj”(;Va.*NdlnzB9M?@K2)#>deB7mN”
Added: April 2017, more on pathetic Trump bombing Syria:
“Nevertheless, Trump decided to fire away before the facts were in because the enemy he is most worried about is not the one half a world away in Syria, but the Democratic-neocon alliance in his own back yard."
4/8/17, “Luring Trump into Mideast Wars," Daniel Lazare, Consortium News
“Exclusive: After launching a missile strike on Syria, President Trump is basking in praise from his former critics – neocons, Democrats and mainstream media – who want to lure him into more Mideast wars, reports Daniel Lazare.”
“Donald Trump entered military terra incognita on Thursday by launching an illegal Tomahawk missile strike on an air base in eastern Syria. Beyond the clear violation of international law, the practical results are likely to be disastrous, drawing the U.S. deeper into the Syrian quagmire.
But it would be a mistake to focus all the criticism on Trump. Not only are Democrats also at fault, but a good argument could be made that they bear even greater responsibility.
For years, near-total unanimity has reigned on Capitol Hill concerning America’s latest villains du jour, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Congressmen, senators, think-tank strategists, and op-ed analysts all have agreed that Putin and Assad are the prime enemies of “peace,” by which is meant global American hegemony, and that therefore the U.S. must stop at nothing to weaken or neutralize them or force them to exit the world stage.
Until recently, in fact, just about the only politically significant dissenter was Trump. Accusing reporters of twisting the news at a tumultuous press conference in late February, he told them, “Now tomorrow, you’ll say, ‘Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible.’ It’s not terrible. It’s good.”
But since getting along with Russia was terrible for America’s perpetually bellicose [US taxpayer funded] foreign-policy establishment, Official Washington declared war on Trump, building on Hillary Clinton’s charge during the last presidential debate that he was Putin’s “puppet.” It became the conventional wisdom that Trump was a “Siberian candidate” being inserted in the White House by a satanic Kremlin determined to bend freedom-loving Americans to its will.
As Inauguration Day approached, President Obama’s intelligence chiefs pulled out all stops to persuade the public that (a) Russian intelligence had engineered Clinton’s defeat by hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and placing thousands of embarrassing emails in the hands of WikiLeaks and that (b) Trump was somehow complicit in the effort.
The campaign was highly effective. The alleged Putin-Trump relationship was a major feature at the anti-Trump protests surrounding his inauguration and the major U.S. news media pounded on the Russia “scandal” daily.
On Feb. 13, barely four weeks after taking office, Trump crumbled under a mounting barrage of political abuse and gave National Security Adviser Michael Flynn the boot after it was revealed that he had talked with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, supposedly in violation of the 1799 Logan Act, an absurd piece of ancient legislation that even The New York Times referred to as “a dusty, old law” that should have been repealed generations ago.
Under Media Pressure
A day later, the administration reeled again when the Times charged in a front-page exposé that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”
The article provided no evidence and no names and said nothing about whether such contacts were knowing or unknowing, i.e., whether they involved a John le Carré-style midnight rendezvous or merely an exchange of pleasantries with someone who may or may not have been connected to the FSB, as Russia’s version of the CIA is known.
In a March 6 [2017] article entitled “Pause This Presidency,” Times columnist Charles M. Blow called for little less than a coup d’état: “The American people must immediately demand a cessation of all consequential actions by this ‘president’ until we can be assured that Russian efforts to hack our election…did not also include collusion with or cover-up by anyone involved in the Trump campaign and now administration.”
How “the American people” would demand such a cessation or who would provide such assurances was not specified.
On March 31, CNN quoted an unnamed senior administration official saying that Trump’s hopes of a rapprochement with Russia were fading because he “believes in the current atmosphere – with so much media scrutiny and ongoing probes into Trump-Russia ties and election meddling – that it won’t be possible to ‘make a deal.’”
Thus, Trump found himself increasingly boxed in by hostile forces. But he still tried to fulfill his promise to concentrate on defeating terrorists in Syria and Iraq. On March 30, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced that the U.S. administration “priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” but to concentrate on defeating Al Qaeda and ISIS instead.
But the more Trump contemplated his predicament in the following days, the more he realized how untenable it had come. Tuesday’s poison-gas incident in Idlib thus offered a way out regardless of who was actually responsible. The only way for Trump to make peace with the “deep state” in Washington was by waging war on Syria.
Finally, on Thursday, hours before Trump sent a volley of cruise missiles wafting towards Syria, Hillary Clinton taunted him by declaring that America “should take out his [Assad’s] airfields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people.” The effect was to all but force Trump to show that he was every bit as macho as the former First Lady.
Frog-Marching Trump
Trump is certainly a fool for going ahead with such an attack in clear contravention of international law and entangling the United States more deeply into the complicated Syrian conflict. But the blame also should go to the people who frog-marched him to the precipice and then all but commanded him to step over the edge.
Within hours, all the usual suspects were congratulating one of the most scorned U.S. presidents in history for taking the leap.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said: “Making sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi described Trump’s missile barrage as “a proportional response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons.”
Republican super-hawks Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, previously as anti-administration as any Democrat, issued a joint statement declaring that Trump “deserves the support of the American people,” while liberal heart-throb Sen. Elizabeth Warren also agreed that “the Syrian regime must be held accountable for this horrific act.”
The Guardian, as fiercely anti-Trump as it is anti-Putin and anti-Assad, conceded that “Donald Trump has made his point” and that the next step would be up to Russia. All in all, Trump had never gotten such good press. It’s clear that Official Washington was pleased with Trump’s handiwork and was eager to encourage him to do more.
But the missile barrage was not just an assault on Syria but on reason and good sense, too. Although the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor tried to make it seem that the only critics of the missile barrage are members of the alt-right “known for espousing racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view,” the fact is that criticism flowed in from other quarters.
At Alternet, Vijay Prashad pointed out that there were few independent observers in Khan Shaykhun, the farming town where the April 4 [alleged] incident occurred, to provide an accurate account. Eyewitnesses “with the densest relationship to the armed opposition,” he wrote, “are the first to claim that this attack was done by the government.”
Consortium News’ Robert Parry pointed out that rather than dropping the gas themselves, Syrian or Russian warplanes could well have triggered an outbreak by bombing a facility containing “chemicals that the [terrorist] rebels were planning to use in some future attack.” Parry also noted that Al Qaeda, which controls Idlib province, could have “staged the incident to elicit precisely the international outrage directed at Assad as has occurred.”
[Previously, United Nations investigators have received eyewitness testimony from Syrians about [US supported Islamic] rebels staging an alleged chlorine-bomb attack so it would be pinned on the Assad regime. 9/8/2016, “UN Team Heard Claims of ‘Staged’ Chemical Attacks"]
Something similar may well have occurred in August 2013, a sarin-gas missile attack on the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds and that appears to have been launched from a rebel-controlled area two kilometers away. The two incidents are curiously parallel.
The August 2013 incident, which horrified the world and brought the Obama administration to the brink of its own attack on the Syrian government, occurred just days after a U.N. team had arrived in Damascus to investigate an alleged chemical attack by rebels against Syrian government troops some four months earlier.
It made little sense for the Assad regime to have invited U.N. investigators in and then launch a more horrific chemical-weapons attack just miles from the investigators’ hotel. It would be a bit like someone inviting a police inspector to dinner and then committing a murder in full view.
Not Making Sense
As one independent analysis noted in 2013, the Assad regime would have to have decided to carry out a large-scale attack “despite (a) making steady gains against rebel positions, (b) receiving a direct threat from the US that the use of chemical weapons would trigger intervention, (c) having constantly assured their Russian allies that they will not use such weapons, (d) prior to the attack, only using non-lethal chemicals and only against military targets.”
The Assad government would also have had to decide “to (a) send forces into rebel-held area, where they are exposed to sniper fire from multiple directions, (b) use locally manufactured short-range rockets, instead of any of the long-range high quality chemical weapons in their arsenal, and (c) use low quality sarin.”
All of which seems supremely unlikely, but much of the mainstream U.S. media still treats the 2013 sarin-gas attack as the undeniable case of Assad crossing Obama’s “red line” against using chemical weapons. And the highly dubious 2013 incident is cited as a key reason to believe that Assad has done it again. [Recently, The New York Times has quietly backed off the 2013 claims although not explicitly retracting its earlier reporting blaming the attack on the Assad regime.]
Assad would have possibly even stronger reasons not to deploy sarin gas on April 4, 2017. He would have to make a conscious decision to court world opprobrium at a time when the tide of the war was finally turning in his favor with the liberation of Aleppo last December [2016] and with most world leaders having concluded that the Assad regime was here to stay.
To have produced and deployed a sarin bomb would have meant deliberately risking military intervention more than three years after Syria reached an agreement with the United Nations to destroy its entire chemical-weapons stockpile so as to avoid … military intervention.
All of which seems supremely unlikely as well. It would be an act of suicide – and after holding off a combined U.S., Saudi, Qatari, and Turkish assault for half a decade or more, one thing that Assad does not appear to be is suicidal.
Although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “there is no doubt in our mind that the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this horrific attack,” in reality there is plenty of doubt.
Nevertheless, Trump decided to fire away before the facts were in because the enemy he is most worried about is not the one half a world away in Syria, but the Democratic-neocon alliance in his own back yard.
The political warfare in Washington is now generating more agony from real wars in the Middle East.”
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Note: Shadow Brokers April 2017 letter to Trump is posted immediately above the above Lazare article.
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