I’M ALWAYS A LITTLE CONCERNED when we have a knee-jerk reaction to something.
Example: Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is blamed for a chemical attack on some of his foes.
He may, indeed, have ordered the attack. It would not surprise this scrivener if someone had evidence that Al-Assad DID order the attack.
Maybe Russia’s Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ordered the attack. How about Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
I am absolutely certain there are many American leftists who blame President Trump or “the Israelis”.
As a former newspaper reporter and editor, I have to ask: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE.
Al-Assad claims the images displayed by the media are manipulated; not current. It’s hard to believe the media would lie to us, right? (If you believe that, I have a bridge in New York to sell you.)
But why are the world’s capitals silent about evidence.
Has anyone examined the chemicals used in the attack? Has anyone tried to trace the chemicals’ origins?
I am not against “punishing” whomever ordered the attack. If Al-Assad ordered the attack, he should be eliminated; he’s not fit to rule in his own home, let alone an entire country.
How were the chemicals disbursed?
Israel seems to believe that Al-Assad’s air force delivered the chemicals from their aircraft.
That probably is the thinking in Washington as well.
Both Israel and the U.S. are suspected of bombing Syrian air force bases. On the other hand, the U.S. and Israel are blamed for almost everything that discomforts the petty tyrants that control the Middle East.
Syria was, for many years, relatively quiet politically.
Then came Barack Obama’s “Arab Spring” that unleashed pretenders to thrones across the Middle East, from Libya to Syria. Obama’s intent might have been honorable – free the poor from their oppressive leaders – but what Obama failed to understand is that most of the Arabs had loyalties to their tribes, not their countries. In the case of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the states were artificially created by the “Great Powers” (England and France) after the Ottoman Empire was in ashes following WW 1. (The colonial powers, including Germany, The Netherlands, England, and France, and to a lesser extent, Italy, carved up the world willy-nilly, drawing borders where if was convenient for the colonizers while ignoring tribal land distribution. We still pay for their arrogance with “mini-wars” between tribes.)
Still, the question remains:
WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE?
Assuming that Al-Assad is wrong with his claim that the images are media manipulation, than someone ordered the recent chemical attack.
We know that Muslim leaders will murder their subjects without remorse – consider Hamas sending children to shied their “brave fighters” from Israeli soldiers. How about the Muslims who sent children from Iran into the Iraqi mine fields so that they, rather than Iran’s “brave solders,” would be blown to smithereens. (It’s “OK,” Iraq did the same thing.)
Too bad PITA is concerned only with animals and not children.
Would Putin be concerned about a few Muslims being assaulted with chemicals in far-away Syria? Given his background, probably not.
Maybe the anti-Al-Assad forces attacked themselves to garner media attention and to get more outsiders (e.g., U.S., Israel) to enter the fray on the rebel’s side. (Israel would be unwise to take sides in this civil war. It is enough that it treats injured Syrians, sans questions re political alliances, in an effort to show the Syrians that Israel is NOT the enemy.)
President Trump pontificates from the White House that he will “do” something in revenge for the inhuman attacks. But in order to “do” anything, he MUST know, beyond a reasonable doubt who is behind the attacks.
The U.S. State Department can’t provide reliable information; most “diplomats” in the Middle East don’t speak, read, or write the local variation on Arabic; likewise, the CIA is often no better. All information that President Trump will have before him will be second or third hand – or worse.
I have no problem with punishing whomever ordered the chemical attack, but I DO have a problem with attacking someone sans evidence, sans some proof - a “smoking gun” that points at this or that person or organization.
If President Trump decides that Putin and Company are behind the attacks and he orders attacks on Russian troops in the area, there might be war between the U.S. and Russia. If President Trump orders an attack on Russian forces and the Russians are NOT behind the chemical attacks, the likelihood of war between the U.S. and Russia is almost 100 percent.
Until there is reliable evidence, President Trump is between a rock and a hard spot (or between the hammer and the anvil): on the one hand, he is being urged to avenge the victims of a chemical attack while on the other hand, he doesn’t have – or at least does not share-- strong evidence of the perpetrator. No matter what he does, he will be castigated and disparaged.
As an old Wendy’s commercial went: ”Where’s the beef?”
For Americans, at least for this scrivener, the question is: “Where’s the evidence?”
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
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