VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas ‘door Assad’, ofwel: alweer ‘fake news’ van de massamedia doorgeprikt!

Eindelijk heeft de VS aangegeven dat het Syrische bewind geen gifgaswapens heeft gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking…… Oké, dit was al lang bekend, maar lullig genoeg werd en wordt deze leugen keer op keer herhaald door de reguliere westerse massamedia en het grootste deel van de westerse politici….. Dit geeft ten overvloede nog eens aan dat deze media en politici zich maar al te graag bedienen van ‘fake nieuws……’ (of: ‘nepnieuws, wat je wilt)

Benieuwd hoe lang men deze leugen nog langer in de lucht zal houden, nadat de VS minister van buitenlandse zaken, James ‘mad dog’ Mattis toegaf dat de VS regering totaal geen bewijs heeft dat Assad aanvallen heeft gepleegd met gifgas……. Ach, de grote gifgasaanval uit 2013 in Syrië wordt nog steeds toegeschreven aan Assad, terwijl na VN onderzoek o.l.v. Del Ponte bleek dat het gifgas van de ‘gematigde rebellen kwam…. ‘Gematigde rebellen’, zoals men in het westen de anti-Assad terreurgroepen noemt, groepen die zich naast het gebruik van gifgas schuldig maken aan het in het openbaar executeren van vermeende tegenstanders, verkrachting en marteling………

Hier het Anti-Media artikel over deze zaak:

The
US Now Admits There Is No Evidence Assad Used Sarin Gas in Syria

February
12, 2018 at 12:00 pm

Written
by 
Truth
In Media

(TIM) — U.S.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis confirmed that the U.S. government
has no evidence that the Syrian government used sarin gas on its
people— a claim that was used by the White House as justification
for an April 2017 
launch of
59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Al Shayrat airfield in Syria.

On
Friday, Mattis 
said that
reports of chemical weapon use by the Syrian government have come
from aid groups and others, but that the U.S. doesn’t have any
evidence to support these assertions.

We
have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s
been used,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not
have evidence of it.”

We’re
looking for evidence of it, since clearly we are dealing with the
Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw
actions,” Mattis continued. “We’re even more concerned about
the possibility of sarin use.”

Mattis
explained that he was not refuting the third-party reports of
chemical weapons used by the Syrian government led by President
Bashar Assad. Assad has steadfastly denied that his government has
used chemical weapons throughout the conflict.

In
2013, UN investigator Carla Del Ponte made note that Syrian rebels,
not the Assad regime, used chemical weapons in the two-year civil
war, contrary to assessments made by American officials.

According
to a 
report by
The Times of Israel:

Carla
Del Ponte, head of the independent UN commission investigating
reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, told a Swiss-Italian
television station that UN investigators gleaned testimony from
victims of Syria’s civil war and medical staff which indicated that
rebel forces used sarin gas — a deadly nerve agent.

Our
investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing
victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report
of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions
but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the
way the victims were treated,’ Del Ponte said in the interview,
translated by Reuters.

This
was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the
government authorities,’ she added.”

During
his comments on Friday, Mattis referred to the April 2017 cruise
missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, noting that the Syrian
government would “be ill-advised to go back to violating” the
chemical weapons prohibition.

In
addition to the UN investigation, one of the foremost academic
experts in the field of missile fired chemical weapons, Theodore
Postol, 
Professor of
Science, Technology and National Security Policy at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), came forward in a series of
reports to note his opposition to the official Trump administration’s
narrative in regards to the Khan Sheikhoun nerve agent 
attack in
Syria, blamed on the Assad government, which precipitated the cruise
missile strikes by the U.S., according to a 
report in
the International Business Times. According to Postol, the Syrian gas
attack was not carried out by the Syrian government.

In
one of his reports, Postol concluded that the US government’s
report does not provide any “concrete” evidence that Assad was
responsible, adding it was more likely that the attack was
perpetrated by players on the ground.

Postol
wrote in his 
report:

I
have reviewed the [White House’s] document carefully, and I
believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not
provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete
knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical
attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria at roughly 6am to 7am on 4 April,
2017.

In
fact, a main piece of evidence that is cited in the document point to
an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground, not from an
aircraft, on the morning of 4 April.

This
conclusion is based on an assumption made by the White House when it
cited the source of the sarin release and the photographs of that
source. My own assessment is that the source was very likely tampered
with or staged, so no serious conclusion could be made from the
photographs cited by the White House.”

Postol noted that
he has “unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence
Report (WHR) of April 11, 2017 contains false and misleading claims
that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review
by impartial intelligence experts.”

Postol
called for an independent investigation into the decision to launch
cruise missile strikes in Syria, concluding:

It
is now obvious that this incident produced by the WHR, while just as
serious in terms of the dangers it created for US security, was a
clumsy and outright fabrication of a report that was certainly not
supported by the intelligence community.

In
this case, the president, supported by his staff, made a decision to
launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. This action was
accompanied by serious risks of creating a confrontation with Russia,
and also undermining cooperative efforts to win the war against the
Islamic State.”

By Jay
Syrmopoulos
 /
Republished with permission / 
TruthInMedia.com / Report
a typo

===========================================

Zie ook: ‘Gifgasaanval Douma in elkaar gezet door ‘gematigde rebellen’

        en: ‘Gifgasaanval Douma: OPCW rapport maakt korte metten met de westerse beschuldiging aan adres Syrië, waar de NOS een meer dan levensgrote bok schoot

        en: ‘VS heeft opstand en daarmee de oorlog in Syrië georganiseerd, zo toont WikiLeaks ten overvloede nog eens aan…….

        en:  John Bolton geeft terreurgroepen in Syrië de opdracht een false flag gifgasaanval uit te voeren

        en: ‘VS aanval op Syrische basis, zoals gewoonlijk uitermate voorbarig en bijzonder gevaarlijk!!

       en: ‘Van Kappen (VVD) noemt ‘stapelaanwijzingen’ het bewijs en is blij met raketaanval VS op Syrische basis,  een aanval zonder enig echt bewijs voor Syrische schuld…….‘ (moet je nagaan wat er nu nog overblijft van de stelling die deze oorlogshitser maakte [of poneerde, wat je wilt] >> nul komma nada!)

        en: ‘Sico van der Meer (‘deskundige’ Clingendael) weet niet, dat Israël en Egypte grote hoeveelheden gifgas maken en op voorraad hebben……….

        en: ‘Koenders en SOHR melden gifgasaanval, reguliere media als NOS nemen bericht van SOHR (propaganda en ‘fake news’ orgaan) over

        en: ‘Rutte: raketaanval VS tegen Syrische basis was begrijpelijk en proportioneel, ook al is er geen bewijs voor Syrische schuld……..

        en: ‘Haley (VS ambassadeur bij VN) herhaalde in VN, voorafgaand aan raketaanval, het smerige spel van Powell in 2002, aanleiding tot illegale oorlog tegen Irak…….‘  

        en: ‘Koenders (PvdA BuZa): Assad is schuldig aan gifgasaanval en is een ‘criminele recidivist……’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

        en: ‘Sophie in ‘t Veld (D66): het afschieten door de VS van raketten op een Syrische basis ‘was even nodig………..’

        en: ‘De raketaanval van de VS op Syrische basis en de waarschuwingen van de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding……

        en: ‘Al Jazeera filmde een onderdeel van de ‘gifgasshow’ in Khan Sheikhoun………..

        en: ‘VS bereid tot militair ingrijpen tegen de regering Assad >> aanleiding: gifgas leugens van o.a. de VS zelf…….

        en: ‘‘False flag terror’ bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken……….

        en: ‘Vlaamse pater roept op niet langer de westerse anti-Syrië propaganda te geloven!

        en: ‘Rusland heeft geen aanval uitgevoerd op VS troepen in Syrië…..

        en: ‘Syrië: nieuwe gifgasaanval als ‘false flag’ operatie tegen Syrisch bewind in voorbereiding……..

        en: ‘Hondsdolle VS valt Russische tank aan in poging de Russen te provoceren……

        en: ‘Syrië: VS en Israëlische agressie dreigt de wereld in een oorlog te storten……

        en: ‘Oost-Ghouta, wat je niet wordt verteld

        en: ‘Ghouta: een gifgas false flag en VS chef Guterres eist staakt het vuren van pro-Syrische strijdgroepen op Oost-Ghouta……

       en: ‘Assad heeft geen gifgas gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking!

        en: ‘BBC World Service en BNR met ‘fake news’ over Ghouta……..

        en: ‘US Aggression in Syria – an Imperialist Blueprint

        en: ‘Foreign Ministry: Some Western officials are complicit in the crimes of terrorists against civilians in Damascus and its countryside

        en: ‘SOHR, het orgaan dat door de reguliere media wordt aangehaald i.z. Syrië, is gevestigd in Coventry

Raketwetenschappers over Noord-Korea’s kernraketten bluf en angstzaaierij in de VS……

Raketwetenschappers maken gehakt van de claim die de Defence Information Agency (DIA) maakte over Noord-Koreaanse kernraketten, aldus James Holbrooks op Creative Commons en Anti-media.

De Duitse raketwetenschappers  Markus Schiller en Robert Schmucker stellen dat de door N-K gebruikte raketten niet in staat zijn een kernkop te vervoeren en daarmee de VS te treffen…….

Uiteraard is dit bekend bij het Pentagon, de DIA en andere VS geheime diensten als de CIA. De top van deze instellingen zijn zonder uitzondering lobbyisten van het militair-industrieel complex en het is dan ook hun taak het volk angst aan te praten, zodat dit complex topwinsten kan blijven maken…… ‘Vandaar’ dat men het volk bang maakt met deze doortrapte leugens……

De Noord-Koreaanse legertop en Kim Yung-un danken de DIA voor haar angstzaaierij, immers met de bewering van de DIA zijn ze plots toegetreden tot de landen die kernraketten hebben…….

Jammer dat professor Theodore Postol (MIT) geen onderzoek heeft gedaan naar de claim dat Noord-Korea een atoombom bezit, daar is tot op heden nooit enig bewijs voor geleverd en als met de zogenaamde Noord-Koreaanse kernraketten, is het bewind van Kim Yung-un blij met deze claim van het westen.

Nooit is er radioactieve straling aangetoond boven de plek waar N-K haar atoomproeven heeft gehouden, terwijl dit in de dagen na zo’n proef zelfs middels satellieten is aan te tonen (en reken maar dat er dagelijks wel ‘een paar’ satellieten van de VS hun baan trekken over Noord-Koreaans grondgebied!). Een ondergrondse kernproef genereert een kleine aardbeving, die middels de Schaal van Richter is aan te tonen, echter deze aardbeving kan worden gesimuleerd door een enorme hoeveelheid springstof ondergronds te laten exploderen……

Atomic
Scientists: North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Claims Are a Hoax

August
14, 2017 at 7:43 am

Written
by 
James
Holbrooks

(ANTIMEDIA)  — President
Donald Trump continued his blustery North Korea rhetoric on
Friday, 
tweeting that
the U.S. military was 
locked
and loaded”
 and
later
 telling reporters
that Kim Jong-un had better not make any 
overt
threats”
 against
the United States.

This
man will not get away with what he is doing,”
 Trump told reporters
from his golf club in New Jersey, adding that if Kim makes a move
against the U.S. or its allies “
he
will truly regret it and he will regret it fast.”

In
the midst of this spike in tension between the United States and the
Hermit Kingdom, a team of independent rocket experts published
a
 paper Friday
asserting that North Korea’s two July test firings of supposed
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were, in fact, “
a
carefully choreographed deception by North Korea to create a false
impression”
 that
the country has missiles capable of striking the continental U.S.

In
other words, it was “
a
hoax,”
 as
one of the experts 
explained to Newsweek.

The
team consisted of Theodore Postol,
 professor of
science, technology, and national security policy at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and German missile
engineers Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker of
 Schmucker
Technologie
.
Postol has previously 
disputed official
reports on the parties responsible for chemical weapons attacks in
Syria.

They
opened their
 paper,
 published in the 
Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists
 and
titled “North Korea’s ‘not quite’ ICBM can’t hit the lower
48 states,”  by highlighting that the July 3 launch
was “
trumpeted
by the US mainstream press”
 as
proof that the United States was vulnerable to an attack from North
Korea.

But
the Western press jumped the gun, the team argues in their paper:

The
rocket carried a reduced payload and, therefore, was able to reach a
much higher altitude than would have been possible if it had instead
carried the weight associated with the type of first-generation
atomic bomb North Korea might possess. Experts quoted by the press
apparently assumed that the rocket had carried a payload large enough
to simulate the weight of such an atomic bomb, in the process
incorrectly assigning a near-ICBM status to a rocket that was in
reality far less capable.”

All
these assumptions worked out great for the Kim regime, the
researchers write:

From
the point of view of North Korean political leadership, the general
reaction to the July 4 and July 28 launches could not have been
better. The world suddenly believed that the North Koreans had an
ICBM that could reach the West Coast of the United States and
beyond.”

But
these beliefs aren’t based in truth, Postol and his colleagues
write:

In
reality, the North Korean rocket fired twice last month — the
Hwasong-14 — is a ‘sub-level’ ICBM that will not be able to
deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States.”

The
analysts concluded that North Korea is likely “
years
away from completion”
 of
a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the continental United
States. The team’s full report, containing the details of their
scientific methods, can be found
 here.

Creative
Commons
 / Anti-Media / Report
a typo

================================

Zie ook: ‘North Korea: Killer Sanctions Imposed By The UN Security Council

        en: ‘North Korea Does Not Trust America for a Pretty Good Reason

        en: ‘Only Morons Believe What The US Government Says About North Korea

       en: ‘Noord-Korea een gevaar voor de VS? Daar is N-K niet voor nodig: de VS besmet haar eigen burgers met radioactieve straling!

       en: ‘VS dreigt Noord-Korea met wat je niet anders dan een nucleaire aanval kan noemen……..

       en: ‘Noord-Korea verkeerd begrepen: het land wordt bedreigd door de VS, dat alleen deze eeuw al minstens 4 illegale oorlogen begon……..

       en: ‘Noord-Koreaanse raket zorgt voor belachelijke massahysterie…….

       en: ‘Noord-Koreaanse raketten zijn waardeloos, aldus VS generaal Selva…….

       en: ‘Noord-Korea en de VS: de planning van de VS om Rusland en China aan te vallen met kernraketten……..


       en: ‘Noord-Korea: VS negeert de waarschuwing van China niet door te gaan, met voorgenomen militaire oefening tegen N-K…….


       en: ‘NBC presentator geeft toe dat het de taak van NBC is de mensen doodsbang te maken voor Noord-Korea……. Ofwel: ‘fake news’ op en top!!

VS ziet nu zelfs een gefantaseerde ‘gifgasaanval van Assad’ in de toekomst, nadat het zelf witte fosfor inzette tegen de bevolking van Mosul en Raqqa……

Met de dag wordt het gekker, de berichten uit de VS en dan m.n. die uit Washington. Zo meldden Radio1 en BNR vanmorgen, dat de VS heeft gezien, dat Syrië bezig is met de voorbereiding van een gifgasaanval, te vergelijken met die op Khan Sheikhoun in april dit jaar……..

Die aanval met gifgas is niet door Syrië gedaan, dat is intussen overduidelijk, toevallig bracht Anti-Media daar gisteren weer een artikel over, een artikel dat u verderop terugvindt en dat uit en te na wijst op de belachelijkheid van de VS aanname dat Syrië dit zou hebben gedaan, er bestaat zelfs grote twijfel of er wel een gifgasaanval plaatsvond (zie het artikel….)…..

Wel is intussen duidelijk dat de VS (deels toegegeven door de VS) witte fosfor heeft gebruikt bij bombardementen van dichtbevolkt stedelijk gebied namelijk in Mosul en Raqqa, respectievelijk in Irak en Syrië…… Ongelofelijk trouwens, dat de reguliere ‘onafhankelijke’ mediaorganen hier amper of geen aandacht aan hebben besteed, terwijl ze op de kop stonden door de zogenaamde Syrische gifgasaanval op Khan Sheikhoun…..

De laatste leugen van de VS, dat Syrië bezig is een gifgasaanval voor te bereiden, is een teken dat de VS weer bezig is een enorme oorlogsmisdaad te begaan, tegen het reguliere Syrische leger en daarmee zal testen of Rusland nu wel in zal grijpen (iets dat de VS op de plek van Rusland al lang had gedaan…..)….

Hoe is het mogelijk dat het westen de VS laat begaan, zeker in de EU zou men keihard aan de VS bel moeten trekken, immers wij zijn het eerste doel van Rusland, als er een kernoorlog uitbreekt tussen de VS en Rusland. Logisch daar wij zo ongelofelijk dom zijn, dat we de VS hebben toegestaan hier kernraketten/bommen op te slaan en zelfs lanceerinstallaties hebben laten inrichten………. Uiteraard is de houding van de reguliere westerse (massa-) media helemaal een onbegrijpelijke, het lijkt godverdomme wel of men daar blij zal zijn, als er morgen een kernoorlog uitbreekt…….

Seymour
Hersh: US Lied About Syrian Chemical Attack Then Bombed Them Anyway

June
26, 2017 at 11:12 am

Written
by 
Darius
Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Never
one to accept the U.S. government’s
 official
explanation of events
 without
question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has
investigated Donald Trump’s decision to strike the al-Shayat
Airbase in Syria in April of this year, which the president launched
amid widespread allegations that the Syrian government committed a
chemical weapons attack.

In
a report
 entitled “Trump’s
Red Line,” published Sunday in the daily German newspaper 
Die
Welt
,
Hersh asserts that President Donald Trump ignored important
intelligence reports when he made the decision to attack Syria after
pictures emerged of dying children in the war-torn country.

For
those of us without goldfish memories, Hersh’s recent investigation
is reminiscent of his previous examination of the alleged chemical
weapons attacks in 2013, detailed in an article entitled “Whose
Sarin?” That article was
 published in
the 
London
Review of Books
.

The
official White House explanation for the events in April of this year
was that Donald Trump was
 moved
by the suffering 
of
“beautiful” Syrian babies – the same Syrian babies he doesn’t
want to set foot in the United States – and decided to punish the
Syrian government for the attack two days after it allegedly
occurred. This punishment came in the form of an airstrike despite
the lack of a thorough investigation regarding what took place that
fateful day in April and who was ultimately culpable (though the
Trump administration 
insisted they
were certain that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to blame).

In
that context, it should come as no surprise that Trump acted rashly
without consideration of the facts on the ground. However, what is
most disturbing about Hersh’s account is the fact that, according
to his source, Trump was well aware that the U.S. had no solid
intelligence linking the Syrian government to a chemical weapons
attack — and that’s because, according to Hersh’s article, it’s
doubtful a chemical weapons attack occurred at all.

Hersh
reports:

The
available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a
jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb
equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had
been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied
military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S.,
allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.”

None
of this makes any sense,”
 one
officer reportedly told colleagues upon learning of the decision to
bomb Syria, according to Hersh. “We
KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious.
Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it
didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

According
to Hersh, Trump “could not be swayed” by 48 hours worth of
intense briefings and decision-making following the initial reports
of the alleged chemical weapons attack. Hersh, who reportedly
reviewed transcripts of real-time communications, explains that there
is a “total disconnect” between the president and his military
advisers and intelligence officials.

As
is the case with Syrian military operations, Russia gave the U.S.
details of the carefully planned attack on a meeting in Khan
Sheikhoun, according to Hersh’s  admittedly anonymous sources.
The Russians had employed a drone to the area days before the attack
to develop the intelligence necessary to coordinate it.

According
to Hersh’s sources, the United States and its Russian counterpart
routinely share information regarding planned attacks in order to
avoid collisions. However, they also permit “coordination,”  a
practice that involves giving the other side a “hot tip about a
command and control facility,” which then helps the other side
carry out their attack.

Therefore,
there was no surprise chemical weapons attack, as the Trump
administration alleged. In fact, Russia had actually warned its
American counterpart on the off-chance that there were any CIA assets
on the ground who should have been forewarned of an impending attack.

They
[the Russians] were playing the game right,”
 a
senior adviser told Hersh.

Hersh
continues:

Russian
and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely
with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned
strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value
target. ‘It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the
ordinary – scrub the sked,’ the senior adviser told me. ‘Every
operations officer in the region’ – in the Army, Marine Corps,
Air Force, CIA and NSA – ‘had to know there was something going
on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was
a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share
them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best
pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.’ The advance
intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given
the highest possible score inside the American community.

Hersh
confirms Russia’s
 account of
the incident, in which Russian authorities alleged that the Syrian
Air Force bombed a “terrorist warehouse,” and that secondary
bombings dispersed dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere.
Strangely, if Hersh’s reporting is accurate, it is not clear why
Russia didn’t give the detailed account at the time — and why the
Russians didn’t emphasize that they had shared information with the
U.S. military well in advance of the attack, as this would have cast
further doubt on the official U.S. narrative. In that context, Russia
could have provided proof of any prior communications that took place
within the so-called deconfliction channel. It also doesn’t explain
why Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, appeared to endorse 
two
competing theories
 behind
the events at Khan Sheikhoun.

However,
Hersh continues:

A
team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan
Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that ‘eight
patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle
spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with
exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar
compounds.’ MSF also visited other hospitals that had received
victims and found that patients there ‘smelled of bleach,
suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.’ In other words,
evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible
for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the
Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped
a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger
secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent
with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and
the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause
neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.

Hersh
is not the first high-profile investigator to cast major doubts on
the Trump administration’s official narrative regarding the events
at Khan Sheikhoun. MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol, who
previously worked as a 
former
scientific advisor
 to
the U.S. military’s Chief of Naval Operations, poked major holes in
the claims that the Syrian government had launched a chemical weapons
attack at Khan Sheikhoun, noting the “politicization” of
intelligence findings (you can access all of his reports
 here).

Postol
argued that there was no possible way U.S. government officials could
have been sure Assad was behind the attack before they launched their
strike, even though they claimed to be certain. Postol took the
conversation even further, asserting that the available evidence
pointed to an attack that was executed by individuals on the ground,
not from an aircraft. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter
 had
similar concerns
 regarding
the White House’s conclusions, as did former U.K. ambassador to
Syria
 Peter
Ford
.
The mainstream media paid almost zero attention to these reports, a
slight that exposes the media’s complicity in allowing these acts
of war to go ahead unquestioned.

According
to Hersh’s source, within hours of viewing the footage of the
‘attack’ and its aftermath, Trump ordered his national defense
apparatus to plan for retaliation against the Syrian government.
Hersh explains that despite the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence
Agency) having no evidence that Syria even had sarin, let alone that
they used it on the battlefield, Trump was not easily persuaded once
he had made up his mind.

Everyone
close to him knows his proclivity for 
acting
precipitously when he does not know the facts,” 
the
adviser told Hersh. “He doesn’t read
anything and has no real historical knowledge.
 He
wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can
accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he
will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there
will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses
wrong. 
He was told we did not have evidence of
Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: ‘Do it.”’
 [emphasis
added]

At
a meeting on April 6, 2017, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida,
Trump spoke with his national security officials regarding the best
way to move forward. The meeting was not to decide what to do, Hersh
explains, but how best to do it (and how to keep Trump as happy as
possible).

Trump
was given four options. The first one was dismissed at the outset
because it involved doing nothing. The second one was the one that
was decided upon: a minimal show of force (with advance warning to
Russia). The third option was the strike package that Obama was
unable to implement in 2013 in the face of
 mounting
public opposition
 and
Russia’s
 threats
of intervention
.
This plan was Hillary Clinton’s ultimate fantasy considering she
was
 encouraging it
moments before Trump’s lone strike actually took place. However,
this would have involved extensive air strikes on Assad’s airfields
and would have drawn in the Russian military to a point of no return.

The
fourth option involved the direct assassination of the Syrian
president by bombing his palaces, as well as his underground bunkers.
This was not considered, either.

As
we all witnessed in April, the second option was adopted, and the
airbase Trump struck was 
up
and running again
 in
less than 24 hours, making it a very symbolic and empty show of
force.

Hersh’s
insight into the way Trump is conducting his foreign policy does not
bode well for the future of the Syrian conflict (or anywhere else in
the world, for that matter). Trump was not interested in the
intelligence or the facts on the ground — if he had been, he would
have waited until an investigation had determined culpability before
ordering a strike.

Missing
from Hersh’s account, however, is the fact that it was newly
appointed national security advisor General H.R. McMaster who
 laid
out the military strike proposals
 to
the president at his resort on April 6. McMaster replaced former
national security advisor Michael Flynn after the latter was forced
to resign 
due
to leaks
 from
within the intelligence community. Due to Flynn’s alleged ties to
Russia, it seems unlikely he would have proposed such a strike on
Russia’s close ally to begin with.

It
is unclear whether McMaster proposed the strikes in order to appease
Trump or because McMaster ultimately wants Trump to adopt a tougher
stance against Syria and Russia; McMaster has a
 history
of pro-interventionism
 and anti-Russian
sentiment
.

Those
commentators who can review these startling revelations but still
condone Trump’s actions with a lazy ‘
Assad
is still a bad guy and must be overthrown

mindset argument are being intellectually dishonest, with themselves
and others. As 
was
the case in 2013
,
there is still 
very
little evidence
 that
Assad has 
ever
used chemical weapons — 
particularly
in the attacks that the U.S. has tried to pin on him — yet this is
the standard by which the corporate media and our respective
governments have instructed us to judge Assad. Even without this
conclusive evidence, shortly after the April events, U.S. ambassador
to the U.N. Nikki Haley 
stated Assad
will fall from power.

Hersh’s
investigation bolsters many 
claims that
the U.S. acted rashly without first conducting or ordering an
impartial inquiry regarding what happened in April of this year.
Hersh’s report also serves as a reminder to the world of
the
 warpath
we are continuing
 down,
spearheaded by an impulsive and reckless megalomaniac who has no
interest in ascertaining fact from fiction.

Remember
that Donald J. Trump has the nuclear codes; it is hard to
think of a worse candidate to be entrusted with the fate of humanity.

Creative
Commons
 / Anti-Media / Report
a typo