Trump threatens "Animal Assad," Putin over alleged chemical attack in Syria - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14904107
Trump threatens "Animal Assad," Putin over alleged chemical attack in Syria
CBS/AP April 8, 2018, 9:32 AM

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-chem ... 018-04-08/

President Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House on April 3, 2018.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Last Updated Apr 8, 2018 10:15 AM EDT

WASHINGTON -- President Trump responded Sunday to reports of a suspected chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad and his international allies for the apparent attack that left dozens dead and hundreds injured. In some of his most critical comments directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin to date, Mr. Trump threatened that there's a "big price ... to pay" for those backing the Assad regime.

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
....to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
Syrian opposition activists and rescuers said Sunday that a poison gas attack on the rebel-held town of Douma near the capital of Damascus killed at least 40 people. The alleged attack has been denied by the Syrian and Russian governments. Russia is Syria's closest ally and has a major military presence in the country.

Reports of the latest attack which appeared to target civilians and young children could not be independently verified.

Mr. Trump called out Putin along with the leadership in Iran for backing Assad, who he referred to as "Animal Assad." Mr. Trump ordered missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to another chemical attack in 2017.

First responders said they found families suffocated in their homes and shelters, with foam on their mouths. The opposition-linked Syrian Civil Defense were able to document 42 fatalities but were impeded from searching further by strong odors that gave their rescuers difficulties breathing, said Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the group, which is known as the White Helmets.

"Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!" the president urged.

Mr. Trump later blamed his predecessor President Barack Obama for not taking action against the Assad regime earlier in the civil war.

If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
It's unclear what the administration's next steps are with regard to responding to the attack. In response to a similar chemical attack in April of last year, Mr. Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian military target in Shayrat, about 50 miles due south of the village that was hit in a gas attack.

With regards to a counter response, Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, "I wouldn't take anything off the table."

"The State Department put out a statement last night and the president's senior national security cabinet has been talking with him and each other all throughout the evening and this morning," Bossert added.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham told ABC in response to Mr. Trump's tweets on Sunday that this was a "defining moment" for the president.

"He has challenged Assad in the past not to use chemical weapons," said Graham. He added, "if it becomes a tweet without meaning then he's hurt himself in North Korea, if he doesn't follow through and live up to that tweet, he's going to look weak in the eyes of and Russia and Iran."

Graham urged Mr. Trump to "show a resolve that Obama never did to get this right


Hamas Assad Putin Iran axis

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#14904118
I would not bet a dollar on who did it and I will wait before I am even positive it was a chemical attack.
This is just one of those scenarios where “the public will expect us to be blamed so if we actually do it they won’t believe it” scenarios that could be true at any level of the reasoning.
#14904135
Ever since the false flag chemical attack in Damascus when UN envoys where conveniently right there (2013). I doubt any chemical attack is legitimate. One has to look at the context of what is happening. Trump recently has been announcing that he will withdraw from Syria. This chemical attack puts Syria again in the spot light and ties his hand. Forcing him to intervene or to do something about it. There are internal interests from the rebels to have USA involvement in Syria and international like Turkey, Israel and some EU countries.

Last time when there was a chemical attack (2017), France and Germany in particular were right in supporting retaliation against Syrian and pressuring Trump to act. He did by bombing an empty air base. They quickly shut up, it was so obvious they did not get what they wanted. As I remember watching Markel's and Hollande's faces after the fact. They were obviously disappointed that they did not get their intervention and insulted that they were outplayed.

I personally suspect there are the international warmongers who are staging all this horrible bullshit, I do not know why they want war, but they want conflict with Syria and Russia it seems. Hillary was going to provide that for them, Trump is trying to not do so. Yet it appears they are trying to wrestle his hand with these kind of stages incidents. It seems there is good portions of secret service that is used to accomplish their means.

I believe we see this all over again, with things like FBI investigation in Russian collusion, recent assassination in UK and now this. The sad part is that people are getting butchered for their games.
#14904245
Eight reasons why the latest Syria chemical weapons attack allegations are almost certainly complete nonsense
There is much ambiguity surrounding the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, said to have taken place late Saturday, but there are a few matters that are clear.

First, the reports are “unverified”, according to The Wall Street Journal [1] and British Foreign Office [2] and are unconfirmed, according to the US State Department [3]. What’s more, The New York Times noted that it “was not possible to independently verify the reports,” [4] while The Associated Press added that “the reports could not be independently verified.” [5]

Second, according to The Wall Street Journal, it isn’t “clear who carried out the attack” [6] assuming even that one was carried out.

Third, the “unverified photos and videos” [7] which form the body of (unverified) evidence, were produced by two groups which have an interest in fabricating atrocities to draw the United States more deeply into the Syrian conflict. Both groups, the White Helmets and Syrian American Medical Society, are funded by Western governments [8], which openly seek regime change in Syria and therefore have an interest in producing a humanitarian pretext to justify stepping up their intervention in the country. The Western government-funded White Helmets and Syrian American Medical Society are allied with anti-government jihadists and are active only “in opposition-controlled areas.” [9] They, too, are clearly interested parties.

Fourth, The New York Times indirectly revealed a possible motivation for the two groups to bring forward fabricated atrocity stories. “A new confirmed chemical attack in Syria,” the newspaper noted, “would pose a dilemma for President Trump, who … recently said he wants to get the United States out of Syria.” [10]

Trump’s recent musings about ending the US military occupation of nearly one-third of Syrian territory, including the country’s richest oil fields, was swiftly met by Pentagon opposition, led by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The US president reluctantly accepted a continued occupation, so long as it ends in a matter of months rather than years.

Fabricating an atrocity would pressure Trump to maintain the US occupation indefinitely and possibly escalate US military intervention in Syria, much to the pleasure of Islamist insurgents, their White Helmet and Syrian American Medical Society allies, and US war planners.


If that is the intention, the maneuver appears to have met with success. Trump reacted on Twitter to the unverified (and unverifiable) reports, by dehumanizing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as an “animal,” who the US president said was responsible for a “humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever.” That the US State Department acknowledged that the reports were unconfirmed failed to restrain the “shoot-from-the-hip” Trump.

Fifth, a chemical attack by the Syrian government would be manifestly self-defeating, and therefore would seem to be highly unlikely. The Syrian Arab Army is on the cusp of an all but inevitable victory in Eastern Ghouta. Why would it cancel its gains by handing the United States a pretext to continue its military intervention in Syria, in the aftermath of Trump signalling his intention to withdraw US troops?

Sixth, it is difficult to conceive of any military benefit to the Syrian Arab Army of deploying chemical weapons. The Syrian military has more lethal conventional ways of killing than using chemical agents, whose effects are unpredictable and typically small scale. In all the alleged chemical attack incidents in Syria, the claimed number of victims is always smaller than that which could easily be produced by air strikes and artillery. Why, then, would the Syrian government use relatively ineffective chemical weapons, creating a pretext for continued US intervention, when it could use more deadly conventional weapons, without a crossing a red line?

Seventh, much of the discourse about chemical weapons in Syria implicitly assumes the Syrian government has them, despite the country cooperating with the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons to eliminate them years ago.

Finally, allegations of chemical weapons use are routinely made against the Syrian government, and while, through repetition, have been transfigured into received truths, have all proved to be unverified. Jim Mattis acknowledged this at a February 2 news conference:

Q: Just make sure I heard you correctly, you’re saying you think it’s likely they have used it and you’re looking for the evidence? Is that what you said?

SEC. MATTIS: … We do not have evidence of it…we’re looking for evidence of it….

Q: So the likelihood was not what your — you’re not characterizing it as a likelihood? I thought I used — you used that word; I guess I misunderstood you.

SEC. MATTIS: Well, there’s certainly groups that say they’ve used it. And so they think there’s a likelihood, so we’re looking for the evidence.

Q: So there’s credible evidence out there that both sarin and chlorine —

SEC. MATTIS: No, I have not got the evidence, not specifically. I don’t have the evidence.

What I’m saying is that other — that groups on the ground, NGOs, fighters on the ground have said that sarin has been used. So we are looking for evidence. I don’t have evidence, credible or uncredible. [11]


Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but neither is it evidence of guilt. The complete lack of evidence, along with a political context that favors the production of spurious allegations, suggests that the latest chemical weapons claims are—like all that have preceded them—dubious at best.
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2018/04/08 ... -nonsense/
#14904252
This is just a president wearing neo-con clothes when it suits him.

America is weak, both economically, socially & politically.

When we have inept, selfish, ignorant politicians in the West making error after error in political judgement, the cost rises for everyone & virtually every country.
The people will have their payback, their memories are such that they will hold the idiots that run the show are held to account.

President PUTIN is 100% politically correct in his judgement on Syria, in spite of the sickening cost to civilians on all sides & on Syria itself.
TRUMP is BLAMING Mr PUTIN for AMERICA's FAILED ADVENTURISM in SYRIA, indeed, AMERICA even supplied $ BILLIONS in weaponry to ASSAD's father when he was running the show in Syria.

AMERICA should STOP it's stupidity, it's projection, it's interference in the affairs of other countries & it's RHETORICAL THREATS against RUSSIA.

President PUTIN is stronger than TRUMP, the fat, idle, bellicose buffoon, PUTIN is not N. Korea, TRUMP should butt out of things that do not concern America.

It's deeply regrettable what ASSAD is doing in SYRIA, the Syrian people will eventually make him pay, the Arab 'Spring' is KAPUT, that is the cause of Syria's problems, the immense human suffering & structural damage done there.

Syria's problems should be a warning to the Palestinians not to stir their neighbours to action.
#14904253
I agreed with everything up to this point:

Nonsense wrote:It's deeply regrettable what ASSAD is doing in SYRIA, the Syrian people will eventually make him pay,


The war on Syria didn't come from Syria's own governments, but those in charge in America, Britain, France, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and probably another few.


the Arab 'Spring' is KAPUT, that is the cause of Syria's problems


Nope, see above.

Syria's problems should be a warning to the Palestinians not to stir their neighbours to action.


The fight against regime change in Syria is the same fight for freedom for Palestinians, against foreign armies and occupation.
#14904275
noir wrote:You don't believe Assad can do it?



Rebels had lost and were about to pull out of the area, as the other rebels did earlier, onto buses and toward idlib. I don't believe logical inconsistency is logical. This happens EVERY time the rebels get their asses whooped. MUH Sarin. The horrific crimes of the CIA and Mossad in Syria will come to light in time.
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