Trumps bombs Syria, peace movement reacts

This video from England is called Don’t Bomb Syria Protest – London, 2015

By Moustafa Bayoumi in the USA on 07 April 2017:

Trump’s senseless Syria strikes accomplish nothing

It deepens a war which the US has no idea how to end

Donald Trump, the man who just over a month ago wanted to bar entry of all Syrian refugees into the United States, now wants us to think that he cares deeply about Syrian children. I don’t believe it.

What I do believe is that our president is a bad actor. He was a bad actor on his old television show, and he’s still a bad actor today. And he’s a bad actor in both senses of the term, which is to say his actions are poorly executed and morally questionable.

Addressing the nation from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president announced that he had authorized “a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.” Trump was referring to a chemical weapons attack on Tuesday that killed more than 80 people, including dozens of women and children, in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. The chemical attack had in all likelihood been carried out by the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But what will the US’s military strike – a barrage of at least 59 (offensively named) Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at a lone airfield – really accomplish?

According to reports, the missiles targeted only a single Syrian airfield and not Syria’s air defenses. In other words, the attack does not ground Syria’s air force. Nor did the attack strike any of the Russian aircraft currently bombing Syria. In fact, the Russians were alerted of the attack beforehand (who may, in turn, have also alerted the Syrians). The attack does not significantly degrade the military capabilities of Bashar al-Assad.

So why attack in the first place? Once again, we’re being told by military officials that their actions are intended “to send a message.” What nonsense this is. Will Bashar al-Assad now cease his murderous actions because he’s just been delivered “a message”? How are we supposed to believe there is any strategy to Trump’s actions anyway? Just last week, Nikki Haley, Trump’s UN ambassador, said of Assad: “Do we think he’s a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No.”

What the erratic flip-floppery of Trump’s foreign policy really means is that America’s foes can easily manipulate the Trump administration into greater and greater military quagmires.

Has the administration considered how Lebanon’s Hizbullah will react to the US bombing their close ally Bashar al-Assad? Is the Trump administration prepared to put large numbers of troops on the ground to accomplish its goals? Will it militarily challenge Russia if needed? Or does the US military now only “send messages”?

The administration seems to have no vision of what it wants to accomplish or what it can accomplish. Trump ended his announcement of Thursday’s strike with the modest goal of ending “terrorism of all kinds and all types.” Good luck with that. Meanwhile, the heart of the problem is that the United States seems always to have only one solution to war: make more war.

None of this exonerates the murderous, thuggish and brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. The moral and strategic imperatives of our world today demand that the Syrian civil war be brought to a swift and just conclusion. And we must recognize that the end of Syria’s civil war will not be found through military means but through careful deliberation between many different parties.

But we are moving farther away from those goals. At its best, Thursday’s reckless and largely ineffective bombing does little but make US lawmakers feel good about themselves. At its worst, it deepens a war which the US has no idea how to end.

By Jeremy Corbyn in Britain today:

The Labour leader‘s statement on the US missile strikes in Syria

The US missile attack on a Syrian government air base risks escalating the war in Syria still further.

Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.

But unilateral military action without legal authorisation or independent verification risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.

What is needed instead is to urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.

The terrible suffering of the Syrian people must be brought to an end as soon as possible and every intervention must be judged on what contribution it makes to that outcome.

The British government should urge restraint on the Trump administration and throw its weight behind peace negotiations and a comprehensive political settlement.

From the Stop the War coalition in Britain today:

Emergency Protest: No to Trump’s Attack on Syria

No to Trump’s attacks on Syria
No to British support
London protest tonight, Downing Street 5-7pm

The Stop the War Coalition​ condemn​s Donald Trump’s decision to launch attacks against Syrian targets. This action will only increase the level of killing in Syria, and inflame the terrible war that has already caused untold misery for the people of the country.

​​This is the worst possible way to respond to the indefensible attack at Khan Sheikhun. As well as ​deepening​ the tragedy of the Syrian people, ​this utterly​​ irresponsible act ​threatens to widen the war and lead the West into military confrontation with Russia. ​

​It is shameful that​ Theresa May​ has rushed to support this act by the most xenophobic and reactionary US president in history. ​

​Stop the War calls for protests today against this or any further attacks​ and against British support or participation. The protest in London will take place today at​ Downing Street​ from 5 to 7pm.

USA: MSNBC’s Brian Williams faced an immediate backlash late Thursday for repeatedly describing the U.S. military strike on Syria as “beautiful”: here.

With the cruise missile attack on Syria, the United States has opened up a new chapter in its war for global hegemony that it began more than a quarter century ago with the invasion of Iraq. The claim that this attack is a response to the Syrian government’s use of poison gas is a transparent lie. Once again, as in the air war against Serbia in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and the attack on Libya in 2011, the United States has concocted a pretext to justify the violation of another country’s sovereignty: here.

Oil price hits one-month high after US launches missile strike on Syria: here.

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