Trump's generals
In reality the strikes were the work of "Mad Dog" Mattis, Votel and McMaster.
With Flynn pushed out and Bannon removed from his post on the National Security Council, Trump's inner foreign policy circle are all war-hardened veterans, establishment through and through. While Trump may have made moves to drain the swamp, the swamp turned around and refilled itself. The neocons are in charge now. Agitators like McCain, Graham and Rubio finally get to see American power pummel those who raise its ire. They have been yearning for this moment for several years. They no longer need to urge more direct US intervention in Syria; they may now revel in it.
An indication of the pro-interventionists is provided by Larry Chin who writes:
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Mattis pushed for the strike. White House advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump reportedly also pushed for the strike. White House advisor Steve Bannon advised against the strike, and was rebuked.McMaster is a loyalist of disgraced former CIA director and convicted criminal General David Petraeus, being a part of his inner circle during the disastrous occupation of Iraq. As Mike Cernovich says, it is now "Trump supporters out, pro-war Petraeus puppets in." Interestingly, Petraeus and Hillary Clinton are two peas in a pod in their embrace of military interventionism and American exceptionalism. Do we have Clinton in the White House by stealth?
What else apart from a security establishment coup driven by those in the service of the military industrial complex lies behind Trump's decision to strike Syria? I believe Trump, rocked by the losses of people like Flynn has lost the heart for the fight. He wants to settle the deep state civil war and get on with business. The main business for Trump is making America great again by focusing on the domestic agenda and the grand plans he announced of cutting taxes, bringing jobs back home, massive infrastructure projects, protecting the borders and deporting illegal immigrants. In return for being allowed to pursue these goals he must sacrifice his previous views and embrace NATO, abandon détente with Russia in favour of the prevailing hostility, embark on military adventurism with gay abandon and sign on to the regime change agenda in Syria. In other words, he has to assign foreign policy to the Generals in his administration, war hawks in Congress and war planners in the think tank community.
Another motivation is the ceaseless, relentless war staged on him by the media establishment. They are like a dog with a bone and they will not let go until he is impeached. The RussiaGate scandal, though it lost some momentum, will not be let go of by the media. While the real scandals are the surveillance on Trump which implicates Obama and the felony of leaking Flynn's surveilled conversations, the media remains fixated on RussiaGate and election interference - another groundless accusation that the media insists is an indisputable fact.
Now, after Trump's strike on Syria - purportedly as a humane reaction to the horrendous suffering of civilians at the hands of the "animal" Assad - voila, we have a media swooning over him like a love-struck teenager. All is forgiven and Trump gets a honeymoon ride...at least for a little while. He has adopted American exceptionalism and its manifest destiny to police the world and punish evildoers who offend the US-led world order. He has shown himself willing to be the figurehead of an empire desperately pushing back against the withering of its hegemony. This is what is demanded by the media: control of the world first, domestic concerns second.
The honeymoon won't last however. He has set the bar very high with his transformation into a gun-toting crazy. Any relaxing of his hyper aggression will be judged as losing his nerve and he will face the wrath of the ravenous war media. He will also not get much of a reprieve on the domestic front, criticized mercilessly in the media for his promise to get rid of Obamacare, the immigration ban, and allegations of racism and sexism. It will be interesting to see if RussiaGate picks up momentum again after being relegated to the back pages, or if the Russian hacking of the DNC continues to be used to batter Trump.
Trump was castigated for saying Assad didn't need to leave. The Neocons' shocked response was heightened by comments from Haley and Tillerson that implied it was up to the Syrian people to decide his future. Surrounded by war hawks who see diplomacy as something that happens after you have destroyed your enemy, Trump, being viewed as too soft, went on the offensive and showed how tough he can be. It worked like a charm. Media figures previously baying for his blood are now gushing with praise. Fareed Zakaria declared on CNN, "I think Donald Trump became president of the United States" last night. On MSNBC, Nicholas Kristof, an aggressive Trump critic, said he "did the right thing" by bombing Syria. But the one who really took the cake (perhaps the same delicious chocolate cake Trump ate while bombing Syria?) was Brian Williams of MSNBC who couldn't have been more glowing in expressing awe at the "beautiful" sight of Tomahawk missiles, invoking the words of Leonard Cohen, "I am guided by the beauty of our weapons."
Another factor, commonplace for past presidents who used the glorification and rally-around-the-flag effect of war, may have been to boost Trump's very low approval ratings. If that is the case, it had minimal effect. Rasmussen approval polls show a rise from 43% on 4 April to 48% on 14 April, Real Clear Politics just a single percentage point from 40 to 41% between 4 and 15 April and Gallup actually shows a decline from 42% on 4 April, to 39% on 14 April. Though those figures are now up to 50%, 42.5%, and 41%, respectively.
The strikes sent the signal: we are crazy enough to flirt with conflict with Russia to exact a toll on Bashar Al-Assad. Next was the switch to the diplomatic campaign, and that has gone into full gear at breakneck speed. It is more accurate to call it an intense psychological assault on Russia, seeking to overwhelm it with accusations of collusion with Assad and that the only way to disentangle itself is to abandon him and allow for his departure.
Trump has done an about-turn from imperial light to imperial heavy duty at a speed which has critics and friends alike scratching their heads. Luckily for him, the heads belonging to the neocons and the mainstream media are nodding in approval. As Pepe Escobar writes:
NATO was "obsolete." Then it was "no longer obsolete." China was a currency manipulator. Then it was no longer a currency manipulator. There would be no more adventures in the Middle East. Then it's back to pulling a Hillary and bombing Syria. Russia was supposed to be a partner - basically in oil and gas deals, while a Kissingerian Divide and Rule remix would try to unravel the Russia-China strategic partnership. Then Russia is bad because supporting "animal" (sic) Assad.We can add to this list that support for Israel is like no previous administration and it will be heartened by the turn to war of Trump, eager to carve out more of the Golan Heights. As well as the support for Saudi Arabia decimating Yemen, Trump himself dramatically expanded the level of drone strikes. After being in office less than two weeks a strike, which resulted in the death of one navy seal, also killed over 30 civilians including more than 10 children.
Some (other) things never change. Iran will continue to be demonized. The NATO-GCC combo will continue to be bolstered. The House of Saud terrorizing Yemen will continue to be a close GWOT (Global War on Terror) ally.
Trump has an admiration for the military and is fawning over its prowess, which he believes leaves all adversaries lagging far behind. Trump told Fox News, "We are sending an armada. Very powerful. We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That I can tell you."
What is concerning is not just what Trump said, but how he said it. Like a kid with a brand new (war) toy. Or a grown man moved to war over a delicious chocolate cake.
As for Moscow, it has made it clear it does not trust Washington. As masters of diplomacy, it does not say it outright, unlike the belligerent hawks littering Congress. It has grown frustrated at the constant US sabotage in Syria, the baseless accusations of interfering in the election and the intransigence in Ukraine, which the Trump administration seems to have lost interest in.
Moscow will need time to absorb and analyse the rapid move to militarism and just who is driving the foreign policy of Trump. The meetings of Tillerson with both Lavrov and Putin will have been useful in gathering the information needed to respond wisely to the increased US aggression.
After reflecting on what drove Trump to strike Syria we mustn't forget that it was done before any solid evidence emerged. Inevitably, that is happening now, and what is being revealed is making the media's uniform opinion of Assad's guilt and the belligerence of Trump and his team look decidedly shaky.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have written a memo to Trump urging he pull back from the dangerous escalation with Russia. They agree with the Syrian Airforce statement that their aircraft bombed a weapons depot near Khan Shekhoun that turned out to be full of chemicals, which subsequently leaked into the atmosphere.
Leading chemical weapons expert Professor Theodore Postol of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who debunked the Ghouta claim of 2013 that Assad gassed his own civilians, reviewed a four-page intelligence brief from the White House, after which he said it "contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft."
Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq points out that Trump made a radical change in policy in directly confronting the Syrian armed forces and risking a confrontation with its Russian backers based on a "visceral" reaction to photos and videos from anti-government groups, including the notorious White Helmets. Trump ignored the rational, calm approach of evidence gathering and analysis, flipping it so that military action preceded any investigation. Before the election Trump said, "Now we're backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are." Well Mr. Trump you had no real idea of what happened at Khan Shekhoun, yet you still launched airstrikes which benefited rebels that you have no real idea of.
Vladimir Putin himself was forthright in calling the Khan Shekhoun attack a false flag and warned of more false flags to come around Damascus. The horrific bombing of the besieged residents of Foua and Kefraya may end up justifying another, to be blamed on Assad as revenge for the victims. Or perhaps there isn't any more to the airstrike than Trump crying at his daughter Ivanka crying over a White Helmets video.
In reality this is just the cherry on the top of an ongoing psyops war, tugging at the heartstrings of the public to win their support for a blatant violation of international law based on a blatant lie. If it were true, it would be no more comforting an explanation, as it shows an impulsive, reckless man risking large-scale military conflict on behalf of Al-Qaeda. Truth is most definitely stranger than fiction.
Reader Comments
There may have been several reasons for the strike. Including the point you make, as well as pressuring Russia to withdraw support for Assad, and to torpedo the Astana negotiations.
as a DEEP STATE, it's another meaningless term. All this was just another smoke and mirrors (diversion) attack. Wake up people, you are constantly being played and distracted by trivia so that you can forget your real problems.
[Link]
After having a look at the whole site in as much detail as Google earth could provide i could see the fact of a base without any military presence. After that is tried to see if there might be any other targets hiding near this area, Found none. A week or so later the Saker did a post about it and even he failed to fathom the base was a empty target or the REASON to attack it. I looked for days and found not one time where anyone was saying what would have been the reason to attack this dud of a target, all you saw was retaliation this and response that. Not one word about WHY. Don't believe me if you want to but i will tell you right here The American's are afraid of not being able to use their remote controlled weapons and guided missiles, any type of guided missiles, and are scrambling to figure out how to fix this problem of the EW suite the Russians have developed. All the systems the Yanks have become dependent are now looking like they may be far less effective in real combat, this includes all the strategic missiles too, ICBM,SLBM. This is going to cause the American military to do some outlandish things to test whatever new counter they might think up, just like firing 59 Cruse at an abandoned airbase in a country backed up by the adversary. Keep your eyes open for any of these fishing expeditions, i guess there will be plenty more as the boys in green try to get back into the game... And by the way World War 3 is postponed until further notice.
Maybe you have your own personally valid definition. -Mine, however, is based on the logically obvious situation whereby bureaucratic systems persist between elected administrations, interlinked with the CIA and similar agencies carrying a significant weight in that on-going momentum, having been around long enough to have established their own revenue channels and behind the scenes old-boy network command structure. -Populated from top to bottom by psychopathic personalities.
That's the Deep State. I think it is either delusional, or just plain ignorant to claim it doesn't exist.
Though like I said.., maybe you have your own definition which can be easily written off as unworthy of concern. But what use is that in our modern context where these old systems of shadow governance hold so much sway over world events?
An attentive read of Fletcher Prouty's work would be helpful for anybody experiencing doubt.
You commentary of the Libya attacked was like a good novel ... I was guessing whether the Russians would use their EW and demoralise the Americans some more or do nothing a give them some false security (probably not a good idea given the nutters that they are)
I hadn't realised how few missiles actually reached their destination, which may be a bit ignorant but this was such a pat false flag from the get go that I've not bothered to listen to MSM drivel about the events
Trump is in the tenuous situation of keeping the military on his side. That might be part of why he did what he did in this instance. Let them break a few things on a basically abandoned target, with expensive missiles, that show good on TV.
I have a Spy vs Spy counter (Is anyone old enough to remember the comics called "Spy vs Spy"?).
In trying to determine how much warning the U.S. military gave Russia and Syria prior to the attack on Sharyrat (Sha'erat), most people appear to be signaling that Russian convoys left the base on April 5 because of Quentin Sommerville's tweet: The tweet appears in The Intercept [Link] with the following analysis: Pres. Trump's announcement indicated the "retaliation" for a chemical attack occurring April 4 on Khan Sheikhoun, which actually occurred around 7:00 a.m. local time. (BTW, Global Research just released a preliminary analysis of this strike by evaluating photographic evidence in conjunction with time determination by sun position http://www.globalresearch.ca/khan-sheikhoun-syria-the-nerve-agent-attack-that-did-not-occur/5585818.) The missiles hit Sha'erat at 3:45 a.m. Friday, April 7 (or 8:40 p.m. here in U.S. EST).
So, we are to conclude that the strike on Khan Sheikhoun occurred Tue., April 4, at 7:00 a.m. Syrian time. Wed., April 5, Russian convoys left Sharyrat. Sharyrat was bombed by the U.S. Fri., April 7, at 3:45 a.m. Syrian time.
Two facts interest me.
(1) The U.S. decided, in my estimation, to attack and bomb Sharyrat by Wed., April 5, or earlier because we know the Russian troops pulled out on that day. That is, the U.S. military gathered intelligence, made a decision, and informed Russia the next day about the forthcoming attack on Sha'erat. A rather quick move, n'est-ce pas, mes amis?
(2) Because of the USS Donald Cook incident (another account is the Veterans Today [Link] one), wherein the U.S. accessed the Black Sea in This incident represents "radioelectronic jamming" in best form. Indeed, Voltaire Network indicated at one point that the U.S. had abandoned areas in Syria because their communications were so badly jammed.
Perhaps, Alan, Russia decided to withdraw their troops and use some but not full jamming on the missiles and destroyers? Perhaps they wanted to evaluate just how well they could individually target each missile? Maybe not just by radioelectronic jamming but another method like the laser one the U.S. has recently announced they've developed? Who knows? Evidently, the Aegis system is stablized to a greater degree with multiple vessels. Perhaps Russia was testing this idea? Maybe Russia seized the opportunity to evaluate their systems in a limited manner thereby giving the U.S. very little serviceable information.
BTW, Foxtrot Alpha (I just found) [Link] says that Tomahawks simply cannot do any real damage to runways. Foxtro t is pro-U.S. military, apparently, but they conclude: Who knows? You've brought up an interesting discussion!
I have begged SOTT for years for comments to be allowed to be made directly on thatt excelent column of pics, and I bet that they would soon get more comments than most articles. I repeat it here"
1. SOTT: Please allow comments on the Quirk!
2. SOTT: Please allow comments on the Quirk! (See, I 'repeated it.' )
Other folks, join in, the discussions would be interesting and generally less depressing than our latest exchanges of (non/anti-MSM/PTB) perspectives about the PTB / MSM lies and the absurd MSM'reasons -provided by the PTB ' to 'justify the West's actions. which are typically bought wholesale into by the unaware and disinformed masses; and of course it's nice to know that some few of our number really see through the big picture scam (though none see it perfectly) and here one will find. intelligent analysis of stupid actions by PTB Flunkies x y, zed, and yet this does get old which does get old, for the 'rationaLIEzations" are so patently untrue, it's like beating a brain dead horse.
The truth is most people/proles, masses are effectively had their logic taken away by (repetition of the "big lies"; and the hypnotic somnolence of idiocy which comes from being exposed the the MSM.
People, still haven't changed. The idiots who all goose stepped their way to minimum mandatories on the drug war, might now try some pot and realize: 'Why have we been jailing people for this???" etc. Thus the standard result about how great truths (like accepting the fact that government lies to us and acts in its own best interest and doesn't give a damn about ours; well, what we've started to see, (e.g., 911 or pot or whatever) is that we've long been past the phase where these truths are ridiculed; and now I pray we are maybe passing the point to where they are no longer violently opposed to such truths, and perhaps, it will soon be 'the modern hip conclusions that 'drugs' are not the evil our government has sold them to be; and then they will all agree that this was 'obvious' all along, and forget that they helped goosestp their neighbors into prison for no reason. (I HOPE that's right.)
R.C.
We have PLENTY to fear... but not on those obsolete terms.
We can fear the financial/economic metastasizing cancer-death of the system, which is already in stage 3....and pretty much inevitable, or if other countries that are technologically equipped to detonate a large scale EMP type device over 4 or 5 sensitive areas of the United States, it is very likely that the whole geographical US will become one gigantic "USS Donald Cook" incident..... and THAT is indeed something for every individual residing in the affected areas to fear.
I was reading over at The Duran and was directed to a TASS link where they talked about the "new" Russian technology. The USS Donald Cook incident was slightly more bizarre than I had pictured. Here's what they said [Link] Now...look at this site [Link] Really peculiar. Mismatched language, wording, and dating...is this meant to convey some truthful information with information which is or appears wrong? Look at the bottom of the page. They include a little video supposedly from the USS Donald Cook with the Russian jet flying very, very close. This is absolutely wild!! How could they get this? Is this true?? My mind is definitely boggled!!!
At the bottom of the page, they reveal: I realize the source is the persona "Sorcha Faal," whom many people disbelieve and dispute as a truthful source. But, folks, this is better than anything on TV!! Here's the link on the USS Theordore Roosevelt [Link]
The first Sorcha article refers to margrav technology as being a "torque" in the space-time fabric! I think that's what the Quantum Quirk photo is--a space-time torque! I'm getting silly now...and going to bed. Good night.
every single time he or his associates are ready to show a functional demo, there ends up being a "forgotten part" or some other stupid reason. Even if that story is true, I'd still not trust him for being that forgetful on such a critical thing.
it's great for making up stories about earth changes, and sorry sorcha but torque in that context shows how much bs it is
"In appearance, the Trump administration is roaring its power and throwing bombs around, but in reality, it is taking great care not to cause any irreparable damage. The worst and the best are therefore possible."....[Link]
I do not think this will blow up into a full blown military escalation, just more of the same sh*t. However, i may be wrong... The conflict i am mentioning is the war! The methods have "evolved" and changed. I am sure the same could be said for millions today.
My view is that hybrid warfare, culture wars, mind control, financial wars, corporate takeovers, via free trade and neoliberal policies, colour revolutions, terrorist armies is the way of war in the 21st century, with one or two exceptions. An army can occupy a country, but they will never have the people. This is a battle for hearts and minds. Far more dangerous!!! The reason for all the increase in tension, threats, posturing i reckon, is that the globalists have run into a brick wall. All of the above mentioned methods have been failing. But its still the same crap. Was it Gandhi who said " poverty is the worst form of violence"
Despite trying to ignore this, the U.S. and every other military see the evidence and know full what it means. Of course, the Russians will be quietly spreading the news. With big grins on their face. KRET just got a lot more budget!
I see Russian military trains are moving Tor M3 systems to near Korean border. China the same. Try firing something now.
yes, make america great again, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless..!!!!! WTF!!!
All very good questions that will have answers, Some of the unknown unknowns will play a role, Some known unknowns will also stage an appearance. Much of the plans of evil are printed in their logic and actions, Much can be seen to know the plans are afoot, Much can be fathomed as to the insanity of these plans. Forces of good on the counter will have a part in this show, That the men with the heights of human power are deluded into thinking they are the power absolute is obvious. Fact is they are never going to have that power. The wheel of war keeps roiling through human history ever onward. History is a guide to the future, Failure to follow the warning is has for your walk is the demise of many a soul. America might THINK it's dong right, Much is known that it is not. Will America survive the danger it is provoking? Will America be slaughtered? History has a bleak tail to tell the American, Few will her this tale, Many will deny the warning. What will be the end of the United States?
All empires fall from lofty heights.