Mr Trump imbibes Fake News like a drunk

One has to laugh.

All during his campaign Donald Trump railled - rightly - against the Fake News put out by the Kept Media.  And yet, when he needs information on foreign affairs, info with life or death consequences, where does he turn to?  The Fake News agents.  

Seymour Hersh puts it all into perspective in this important article:  [h/t Activist Post]

On June 25, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell article revealing a number of facets regarding the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria and the resulting volley of Tomahawk missiles fired by the United States at the al-Sha’aryat airbase in response. Hersh’s article provides the reader with what many of us already knew and wrote about at the time; i.e. that the Syrian military did not conduct a chemical weapons attack and that the United States was fully aware of that fact. Still, the U.S. government opted to use the attack as a justification for launching 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase that resulted in the deaths of Syrian soldiers, civilians, and children from the nearby village.

Hersh’s article shows that not all key personnel were on board with the decision to launch Tomahawk missiles at al-Sha’aryat or even of the whole Syria/Iraq mission. The article reveals real concerns amongst knowledgeable personnel that the Russians will not continue to act as the cooler heads and that Russia has long wanted peace in the region. Most notably, it reveals the fact that there is a “secret agenda” moving forward in regards to Syria, Iraq, and Russia. Hersh’s article also points to the President as the individual who made the decision to launch attacks in Syria, against the advice of the military and intelligence community.

While much of this information is already well known, it bears closer scrutiny to understand and unearth what is really going on behind the scenes in the American government.

In his article, “Trump’s Red Line,” Hersh writes,

On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.

The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.

Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. “None of this makes any sense,” one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.”

Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition.

Hersh goes on to lay the blame at the feet of President Trump, pointing out that the National Security team was dismayed at his insistence to launch the Tomahawk missiles. He writes,

To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4.

Hersh’s chat protocol between a security analyst and an American soldier, which was also published by Welt, does indeed show a major disagreement between the analyst and the soldier and the Trump policy to launch strikes. It also shows that both the analyst and the soldier disagree with the entire mission in both Iraq and Syria as well as the U.S. policy toward Russia.

Hersh presents a picture of Trump as a reactionary and narcissistic watcher of television news, anxiously awaiting the ability to be seen as a hero or at least the focus of attention. He writes essentially that Trump saw reports of the deaths of civilians in Khan Sheikhoun and made the decision right then and there to bomb Syria, a decision he stuck to even after all the intelligence surrounding the chemical attack had been shown to him and it was demonstrated that the Syrian government did not use chemical weapons. According to Hersh, the intelligence community, the military, and national security team were all frightened that the reckless Trump would push us into World War Three and thus sought to guide him into launching an attack that showed force but wasn’t enough to actually create the pretext for Armageddon. Hersh paints a picture that shows a military and intelligence community telling the Russians before the missiles were launched so that a confrontation could be avoided.

Hersh writes,

                                                       Read the whole article.