Making political predictions is easy. Here’s the rule of thumb: whatever is the worst possible outcome, that’s what they’ll do. The entire body of optimism I was able to muster for the Trump administration was, as I said many a time, predicated on the slim hope that maybe — maybe — he’d be less of a warmonger than his predecessor. There was some campaign rhetoric to that effect, and, while believing campaign rhetoric is a singularly silly idea, it was just enough to prop up a distant hope that the United States could indeed decide that not every event in every country is our business.
The U.S. military attacked a Syria-government airfield with 59 tomahawk missiles on Thursday evening…
"A total of 59 [Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles] targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars," the Pentagon said in a statement. "As always, the U.S. took extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties and to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict."
The Pentagon called the strike a "proportional response to Assad’s heinous act."
In any other context, I imagine the first thing that would leap out at me about this is the statement "as always, the U.S. took extraordinary measures," which is on the face of it logically impossible. I’d point out that the Pentagon spokesmen aren’t even intelligent enough to craft the most simple of declarative sentences without an internal contradiction, and we’d all have a good laugh. As it is, I’m compelled to say that the first thing that leaps out at me is the idea that, if the U.S. did indeed take its usual "extraordinary measures," that probably means they bombed yet another neutral hospital.
Assad’s "heinous act" that sets the scene is, of course, this week’s false flag chemical attack. You know, the exact same phony "heinous act" they’ve been staging to try to justify regime change for an outstanding number of years. As non-lunatics are aware, there is no possible way — no conceivable way — Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this gas attack:
Assad has won the war. The one and only thing that could change that at this point would be American intervention on the side of the "rebels" — oh hello!
So congratulations, Donald Trump. You are now officially as bad as the rest of them. You have disappointed me, you have disgusted me, but you have not, to be sure, surprised me.
That’s not what I came to talk about today. I came to talk about this bizarre idea that I’m hearing from lots of people who really ought to know better (which is to say: anybody) that exploding Syria with cruise missiles is exactly what "we" need to do to keep "ourselves" safe from the tide of Syrian refugees. This is the kind of laughable, first-thought tough-guy nonsense that Fry and Laurie lampooned all those years ago (ask your parents what "we kicked ass in Grenada" means, and why the "ozone layer" was once the leftie cause du jour). It is almost — but not quite! — astonishing to me that anybody could fail to make the connection between the refugee crisis and the US-led annihilation of civilization after civilization. What, pray tell, do you suppose those refugees are seeking refuge from?
And don’t say ISIS. Seriously, don’t say ISIS. You know why? We’ll skip the fact that ISIS was created by the United States government and is primarily funded by close US allies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Instead of that, we’ll focus on the fact that, if your goal is really to defeat ISIS, attacking the Assad regime is the absolute last thing you should do. Who on Earth do you think the Assad regime is fighting? No, sorry, there are no "moderate" rebels. So bang goes that answer.
You really can’t have it both ways, no matter how much the CIA wants you to try. There’s no way to fight ISIS by attacking Assad — if it’s ever been clearer that two teams are simply not on the same side, I cannot seem to recall when. On the other hand, there sure is a way to fight Russia by attacking Assad, and, while our brilliant lords and masters have assured us that they were super, super careful not to murder any Russians while they were murdering Syrians, that should be cold comfort.
Let’s remember again that the United States has not one single vital interest — even if we’re going to play pretend with the creeps and allow that the "interests" of the government can justify mass murder — in the missile destruction of Syria. This is a very cynical and very evil game of regime change being played for the benefit of American client states, as was made clear by announcements days before the alleged "gas attacks" that "The United States does not believe that the Syrian people want President Bashar al-Assad as their leader any longer." For people — especially people who once honored themselves with the title "libertarian" — to treat this with anything other than utter contempt is ludicrous. No, you goofs, the Trump administration is not keeping "us" safe from ISIS, or from refugees, or from terrorists. The Trump administration is too busy creating way more ISIS, refugees, and terrorists through its obnoxious, short-sighted policies. All of which is, of course, conducted in our names and on our dimes. How fitting that, on the one hundredth anniversary of the United States officially entering World War I, yet another president who was elected to keep the country out of foreign wars would declare the pressing need to make the world safe for democracy by murdering people he’ll never meet in a country Gary Johnson’s never heard of. That monster Wilson would be proud, mister president.
It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.
A hundred years ago, we got that. Now, we get this:
That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact. It was a horrible, horrible thing. It’s very, very possible that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.
Oh, and: shut up, Marco Rubio.