Congressman Ron Paul of Texas at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
In a peculiar move, the White House announced Monday evening a chemical weapons attack in Syria will be carried out soon by the regime of Bashar al-Assad against civilians — the second government-launched attack on his own people in the past few months — and that the U.S. would pulverize Syrian forces as retribution.
If, that is, gargantuan holes in logic suit your fancy — because nearly every facet of the above ‘facts’ touted by the corporate press and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer depart so far from the truth as to be farcically unrecognizable.
Spicer tweeted,
“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.
“As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”
Prognostication this specific must only have graced only Spicer, as Assad’s nefarious plot utterly baffled top-level military officials — whom, one would surmise, should be made cognizant of the need to retaliate — as the New York Times reports,
“An official with the United States Central Command, which oversees combat operations in the Middle East, said Monday night that he had ‘no idea’ what the White House statement was referring to.”
Further, the as-yet unproven narrative Assad carried out a deadly chemical attack against his own people — for reasons never made apparent — crumbled nearly beyond repair on Sunday, with an article from journalist Seymour Hersh citing communications between an active duty U.S. soldier and a security adviser indicating Washington and the Pentagon knew all along the April gassing was not only not Assad’s doing, it wasn’t an attack, at all.
Addressing the numerous conundrums and logical Gordian knots emanating from Washington and its mouthpiece mainstream press, foreign policy expert Daniel McAdams discussed the embarrassing truth of the matter with government critic and former presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, for the Liberty Report. He writes,
“So President Trump is fighting against CNN’s ‘fake news’ while he is putting out fake news that the Syrian government is about to attack its citizens with gas? Trump has more in common with CNN than he would like us to believe.”
“Last night the White House released a shock statement that the Syrian government was about to use chemical weapons ‘again’ on its citizens and that the United States would launch a massive response. At the time, the AP reported that neither the State Department nor the Pentagon or intelligence agencies seemed to know anything about it. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley warned that any attack on citizens of Syria would be automatically blamed on Assad (as well as Russia and Iran). It seems Trump is ready for a massive attack on the Syrian government — coincidentally just a day after a major piece by Seymour Hersh showed that the US intelligence community knew that the April ‘chemical attack’ was no such thing but that Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles anyway.”
Without an impetus clear in purpose, the U.S. must enjoin support for its desired intervention in Syria through other channels, since aggressive military acts against a sovereign nation could be considered an act of war or war crime. Thus, to accomplish a goal of ousting Assad, an unpleasant narrative — such as his inexplicably gassing innocent civilians — must be proffered, no matter its veracity.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley pumped up the propagandic rhetoric Monday, as well, tweeting,
“Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”
Perhaps Haley made the statement unaware anyone with integrity would question why a ruler would choose to slay innocent civilians, knowing the U.S. military — which would swiftly respond — dwarfs all others on the planet by orders of magnitude in size and funding.
Of course, questioning that Assad would attack the people under his rulership — though verboten by a corporate press in bed with whatever agenda Washington throws its way — must be done, considering previous similar claims from other putative chemical attacks have collectively either been proven incorrect or inconclusive.
And as McAdams points out, the timing of this odd announcement Assad will be held responsible for any attacks against Syrians follows ridiculously close to Hersh’s earth-shattering report that the U.S. knew at the time the administration lobbed bombs into Syria, government forces did not, in fact, carry out any chemical attack, whatsoever.
Dr. Paul summoned the specter of former President George W. Bush’s elusive WMDs as a comparison, stating,
“Well, you remember the story about the Weapons of Mass Destruction that were about to ‘hit us’ back in the early part of this century, and the reason why we had to ‘protect’ the American people. We had to protect our freedoms and we had to protect our Constitution by going and killing a couple hundred thousand people […]
“This is really strong language … But, I’ll tell you one thing: There’s no evidence the people in Commerce or in the administration will sit down and think about it a little bit. You know, ‘What are the ramifications?’”
Dr. Paul notes not even the realists have paused to consider repercussions of pegging Assad responsible and then initiating retaliation.
In April, the U.S. blocked independent and U.N. investigations into the supposed chemical weapons use by Assad — a clear indicator truth did not comprise the central motivation for the claim. To believe that account of events, the public must compromise rationale, instead opting to surmise Assad acted in stupidity against innocents with no possible benefit to his regime.
Indeed, no logic exists in the idea Assad would pause conventional warfare pushing terrorists of various stripes out of Syria to kill his own people with chemical munitions, thereby alienating Syrian ally, Russia, and provoking the U.S. in the process, McAdams remarked.
While it’s still unclear how far the U.S. will go in pushing its pro-war agenda in Syria, Russia — Assad’s primary power ally — might not tolerate belligerent, obdurate posturing much longer. We could, as Dr. Paul opined, be heading into a far messier — if not detrimental — involvement than the empire can tenably sustain.
This article originally appeared on The Free Thought Project.
The post Ron Paul: Trump is Just Like CNN, Putting Out His Own Fake News to Start War in Syria appeared first on MintPress News.