It was Gandhi who said:
"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor
does truth become error because nobody sees it."
A
hasty conclusion based on tenuous evidence from the April 4th incident
and the mainstream media, the neocons, the liberal interventionists, all
pile on. Ignore the fact that Bashar al-Assad had nothing to gain and
everything to lose by deploying chemical weapons in a war he is
winning. Ignore the denials, pooh pooh Russian claims, fire the
Tomahawks to escalate the situation -- perhaps gain a few points or stop
the constant decline in poll ratings. And send Tillerson to Moscow,
after consultation with NATO allies ... for this is so serious.
This
week Dr. Theodore Postol, a Professor Emeritus at MIT and a renowned
authority on weapons technology, took it upon himself to investigate the
incident and found gaping holes in the White House report (washingtonsblog.
It made no difference. After all, the mainstream media still blames Assad for 2013 when
the investigation's conclusions pointed to the rebels. So it was that
Secretary of State Tillerson found himself in Moscow and a frosty
reception. Putin kept him waiting ... and waiting, and Sergei Lavrov
wagged a very undiplomatic finger at him with the warning that if they
ever did this again, there would be serious consequences.
After keeping him dangling until just before his flight home, Putin agreed to meet with Tillerson . Then in a calculated snub, he refused to allow any pictures of the meeting. No doubt Mr. Tillerson received another stern lecture.
In contrast to Candidate Trump, President Trump is best buddies (according to him) with Chinese President Xi Jinping instead of holding him to account. And instead of allying with Russia against ISIS as he repeatedly averred, he now has a profound disagreement turning President Putin into an adversary. The establishment seems to have played Mr. Trump for the bad out-of-tune violin that he was. He's in concert now, and the Trump presidency, as he had envisioned, is dead.
To confirm the view Trump dropped a $16 million, 21,600 pound bomb on ISIS in Afghanistan. As if it that will defeat an insurgency. A cumbersome device dropped from a transport plane at relatively low altitude making it vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, it was the first time it had been used in the battlefield since its introduction in 2002. It also raises the specter of horrendous civilian casualties, and former Afghan president Hamid Karzai has already condemned its use.