British Conservatives, Trump’s Syria war poodles

This video from the USA says about itself:

Hersh: Trump Ignored Intel Before Bombing Syria

26 June 2017

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reports that President Trump bombed a Syrian military airfield in April despite warnings that U.S. intelligence had found no evidence that the Assad regime used a chemical weapon.

Correction: the German outlet that published Hersh’s story is [conservative daily] Die Welt, not Deutsche Welle.

Trump’s Syrian chemical weapons claims: A house of cards: here.

A full week has passed since the publication by a major German newspaper of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s thoroughgoing debunking of the false claim of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack on April 4. The supposed atrocity by the regime of Bashar al-Assad was used to justify the April 6 US cruise missile strike on the al-Shayat air base. At least nine civilians, including four children, died when 59 Tomahawk missiles rained down on the base in western Syria: here.

It has been over a week since the German daily Die Welt published Seymour Hersh’s exposé of the US missile strike against Syria in April. The main pseudo-left organizations and publications have maintained a stony silence on the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist’s most recent article: here.

By James Tweedie in Britain:

Fallon: We’ll Back Trump’s Syria War

Wednesday 28th June 2017

Defence Secretary rallies behind US as president threatens more military action against Assad

BRITAIN’S “weak and rotten” government must not march behind US President Donald Trump into another disastrous Middle Eastern war, the Stop the War Coalition warned yesterday.

Convener Lindsey German condemned Foreign Secretary Michael Fallon’s craven support for Mr Trump’s latest threat to intervene in Syria’s civil war — on the grounds that the Bashar al-Assad regime is allegedly planning a chemical attack.

Following a statement on Monday from White House spokesman Sean Spicer saying the US had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack” by Syrian forces, Mr Fallon said the government “will support” US bombing in Syria.

The White House statement alluded to the incident in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s southern Idlib province in early April, where al-Qaida affiliated insurgents claimed air force jets dropped nerve gas.

Mr Trump ordered air strikes on Syrian troops in response.

But the US narrative on what happened in Khan Sheikhoun is highly contentious, with Syria and Russia suggesting at the time that a rebel-controlled chemical weapons store could have been hit in a conventional air strike.

Syrian rebels have been caught trying to cross the Turkish border with sarin gas, the nerve agent said to have been used in the attack, and veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed in Die Welt newspaper that US intelligence was deeply sceptical of Syria’s responsibility — with one official calling it a “false flag” attack by al-Qaida.

Mr Spicer did not provide any evidence for his claims on Monday, although the Pentagon backed the White House yesterday, with spokesman Captain Jeff Davis claiming that the US had seen “activity” at a Syrian army base that “indicated active preparations for chemical weapons use.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme yesterday morning, Mr Fallon said: “As always in war, the military action you use must be justified, it must be legal, it must proportionate, it must be necessary.

“In the last case it was,” he claimed — although April’s attack and several on Syrian troops and aircraft since were conducted without the authorisation of the UN security council or a formal declaration of war.

“If the Americans take similar action again, I want to be very clear — we will support it,” Mr Fallon stated.

Ms German said: “While we oppose all chemical weapons attacks from whatever source, even some in the US military are sceptical about Trump’s evidence.

“The last thing the people of Syria need is more military intervention, which is taking the Middle East towards worse wars.”

Syrian National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar denied the US claims, saying the statement presaged a “diplomatic battle” against his country at the UN.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the US threat “unacceptable” and challenged the reference to “another attack,” as the April incident had not been “independently investigated.”

He pointed to several confirmed chemical weapons attacks by Isis and other extremist terror groups, adding: “There is a potential threat of the repeat of such provocations.”

WMD in Syria just like Iraq in 2003? Contradictions in the UN/OPCW Report on Khan Shaykhun: here.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has said that Britain will support any response by the US to the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons: here.

THE TERRIBLE consequences of the West’s air campaign in Iraq and Syria have dropped off the news agenda. No doubt the media would argue they have been preoccupied with the era-shaking general election and the Grenfell Tower disaster. But the unpalatable truth is our so-called fiercely independent and critical fourth estate have rarely shown much concern with the human cost of Western military intervention in the Middle East: here.

US warplanes and artillery batteries carried out an unprovoked massacre of up to 100 pro-government troops in the northeastern province of Deir Ezzor Wednesday, signaling the initiation of a new and far more dangerous stage in the more than three-year-old direct US military intervention in Syria: here.

IF TRUMP BOMBS SYRIA, IT’LL BE WITHOUT CONGRESS’ APPROVAL “Trump is in a position where he can use the Iraq War-era authorization to bomb Syria, if he can make the case that Islamic State or al Qaeda targets are there.” [HuffPost]

The Trump administration has asserted the power to expand the US war in Syria and effectively annex and occupy significant portions of the country without even the pretense of international authorization, congressional sanction or public debate: here.

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