Yesterday, I published a blog entry about the situation in Syria, and how confusing it all seems. How difficult it is to truly know the truth of the situation.
Here is the link to an article that perfectly illustrates this. In this Newsweek piece (and Newsweek, to my understanding, is usually a fairly credible source of such news), Secretary of Defense James Mattis has admitted to having "no evidence" used the widely banned nerve agent Sarin on it's own people.
This would seem to call into question all of the seemingly verified news pouring in suggesting that there was definitive proof that Bashar al-Assad is this horrific criminal who uses poison gas on his own people, and needs to be removed. It also would seem to lend credibility to the denials on the part of the Syrians themselves, the Iranians, and especially the Russians, who appear to also be at the center of the controversy, and where tensions particularly exist between the West and Russia on this, and numerous other, issues. Trump even took a rare swipe at Putin, calling him out by name, on this particular issue.
Indeed, the West, and right now especially the United States, are absolutely insisting that it is Bashar al-Assad who is the monster behind these attacks. Yet, how can we fully believe this, when Trump's own head of the military is saying that we have no real proof that it is him?
Frankly, this sounds a little too similar to all of the hype surrounding the incredible arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) that led to the Iraq invasion, and the long military quagmire that followed there. American intelligence lost quite a bit of credibility with that one, so why should we take them at face value when they are, once again, sending mixed messages? The possibility that al-Assas is using chemical weapons against his own people is, frankly, not quite as unbelievable as Saddam Hussein's Iraq being a virtual world superpower back in 2003, presenting a dire and immediate threat to world peace with a 45-minute response time. But nevertheless, there seems be to a lot of doubts about exactly what in the hell is going on in Syria, which is why I, personally, am hesitant that a military solution by Western powers is what is needed to make the situation better. Frankly, it seems plausible that it might make things worse, once again.
In an article by Ian Wilkie of Newsweek, the recent statement by Mattis which has thrown still more ambiguity on an uncertain situation in Syria contradicts the official American government line that Assad is responsible, without any doubt:
Now its own military boss has said on the record that we have no evidence to support this conclusion. In so doing, Mattis tacitly impugned the interventionists who were responsible for pushing the “Assad is guilty” narrative twice without sufficient supporting evidence, at least in the eyes of the Pentagon.
This dissonance between the White House and the Department of Defense is especially troubling when viewed against the chorus of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) experts who have been questioning the (Obama and Trump) White House narratives concerning chemical weapons in Syria since practically the moment these “Assad-ordered events” occurred.
President Trump has assured us (if it's supposed to be reassuring) that he intends to have a military response for all of this, probably more or less on the model of the one that he had last year, over almost the same exact kinds of issues with Syria.
On top of all of that, Russia is, once again, threatening to possibly strike the US military, if the US military launches an attack on Syria.
Obviously, that is a situation that could potentially escalate into a much bigger conflict.
Unbelievable.
I do not know what is going to happen in Syria, if we're going to see a wider war than even what has existed there to this point break out, or what will happen. But I know that, once again, the American government is not exactly serving as an example of consistency and full truthfulness. We were lied to about Iraq by the Bush White House back in 2003 and, let's face it, the man and the team in the White House now is even less trustworthy. When a very high-ranking official with the military goes on record and states that there is no definitive proof that Assad is behind these attacks, then we might want to take a moment for pause.
It seems that this time, people are not so hungry for war as we Americans clearly and undeniably were as a nation the last two times in Iraq. Last time, it was seen almost as treasonous, almost as a sign of being a terrorist sympathizer, to be opposed to the Iraq invasion. This time, a lot more people seem reluctant to get the nation involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict.
Perhaps Americans have collectively finally learned some lessons and now approach this with a certain measure of skepticism from the ridiculous and unjustified Iraq invasion?
Let's see.
Indeed, the West, and right now especially the United States, are absolutely insisting that it is Bashar al-Assad who is the monster behind these attacks. Yet, how can we fully believe this, when Trump's own head of the military is saying that we have no real proof that it is him?
Frankly, this sounds a little too similar to all of the hype surrounding the incredible arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) that led to the Iraq invasion, and the long military quagmire that followed there. American intelligence lost quite a bit of credibility with that one, so why should we take them at face value when they are, once again, sending mixed messages? The possibility that al-Assas is using chemical weapons against his own people is, frankly, not quite as unbelievable as Saddam Hussein's Iraq being a virtual world superpower back in 2003, presenting a dire and immediate threat to world peace with a 45-minute response time. But nevertheless, there seems be to a lot of doubts about exactly what in the hell is going on in Syria, which is why I, personally, am hesitant that a military solution by Western powers is what is needed to make the situation better. Frankly, it seems plausible that it might make things worse, once again.
In an article by Ian Wilkie of Newsweek, the recent statement by Mattis which has thrown still more ambiguity on an uncertain situation in Syria contradicts the official American government line that Assad is responsible, without any doubt:
Now its own military boss has said on the record that we have no evidence to support this conclusion. In so doing, Mattis tacitly impugned the interventionists who were responsible for pushing the “Assad is guilty” narrative twice without sufficient supporting evidence, at least in the eyes of the Pentagon.
This dissonance between the White House and the Department of Defense is especially troubling when viewed against the chorus of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) experts who have been questioning the (Obama and Trump) White House narratives concerning chemical weapons in Syria since practically the moment these “Assad-ordered events” occurred.
President Trump has assured us (if it's supposed to be reassuring) that he intends to have a military response for all of this, probably more or less on the model of the one that he had last year, over almost the same exact kinds of issues with Syria.
On top of all of that, Russia is, once again, threatening to possibly strike the US military, if the US military launches an attack on Syria.
Obviously, that is a situation that could potentially escalate into a much bigger conflict.
Unbelievable.
I do not know what is going to happen in Syria, if we're going to see a wider war than even what has existed there to this point break out, or what will happen. But I know that, once again, the American government is not exactly serving as an example of consistency and full truthfulness. We were lied to about Iraq by the Bush White House back in 2003 and, let's face it, the man and the team in the White House now is even less trustworthy. When a very high-ranking official with the military goes on record and states that there is no definitive proof that Assad is behind these attacks, then we might want to take a moment for pause.
It seems that this time, people are not so hungry for war as we Americans clearly and undeniably were as a nation the last two times in Iraq. Last time, it was seen almost as treasonous, almost as a sign of being a terrorist sympathizer, to be opposed to the Iraq invasion. This time, a lot more people seem reluctant to get the nation involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict.
Perhaps Americans have collectively finally learned some lessons and now approach this with a certain measure of skepticism from the ridiculous and unjustified Iraq invasion?
Let's see.
Russia Says it Will Attack U.S. Military if Trump Strikes Syria Again Newsweek Tom O’Connor ,Newsweek•March 13, 2018:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says-attack-u-military-182702256.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb
This was the article that I took a snippet from to illustrate the conflicts between blindly believing what some government officials are saying, while seeming to beat the drums of war once again, while others (or at least one other, but very noteworthy, government official seems to be suggesting the exact opposite:
NOW MATTIS ADMITS THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE ASSAD USED POISON GAS ON HIS PEOPLE BY IAN WILKIE ON 2/8/18
http://www.newsweek.com/now-mattis-admits-there-was-no-evidence-assad-using-poison-gas-his-people-801542
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