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Assad Just Responded To Trump’s Strike By Gassing Innocent Civilians

Assad Just Responded To Trump’s Strike By Gassing Innocent Civilians

https://twitter.com/fqadi/status/850424014313066497

Last night, President Trump launched $70 million worth of Tomahawk missiles into a Syrian regime airfield, ostensibly in response to the Assad government’s April 4th sarin gas attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun which killed nearly a hundred people.

But it appears the message was lost on sadistic murderer Bashar al-Assad, who promptly dropped chlorine bombs on the al-Qaboun area of the East Ghouta suburbs of Damascus this morning. Two men suffered from suffocation but have been treated for their injuries.

The choice of East Ghouta is significant because that was the same suburb that Assad pounded with sarin rockets in 2013, killing 1400 and prompting Obama to plan his Syria strikes.

The alleged chlorine gas strikes were part of a ferocious bombing campaign carried out on rebel positions by Assadi and Russian jets, striking in Idlib, Hama, and Daraa. The message is clear: don’t get your hopes up. The United States will not save you.

Indeed, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last night that the strikes would not signal any substantial change in the administration’s policy on Syria, tacitly admitting that this was a one-off show of force.

Trump’s actions last night were all a charade. Trump cares nothing for the children of Syria or the struggle of the rebels against a leader who butchers his own people by the tens of thousands.

Trump wanted to flex his muscles in front of the Chinese premier, who was dining with him at Mar-a-Lago, and perhaps earn himself a little bump in the polls and praise from the media. He wanted to look like a decisive president, to revel in the power of the presidency, to remind himself of what a powerful leader he was.

But it was all a sham. The Pentagon informed the Russians about the strike at al-Shayrat so they could withdraw their military personnel from the base. Russia told the Syrians, who evacuated the al-Shayrat airbase. Trump gave the order and the missiles flew, killing nine civilians, including four children.

The next day, Trump goes back to golfing and Assad goes back to butchering. President Trump has done his fair share of shameless exploitation, but it is truly soul-wrenchingly repulsive to see him feign sorrow for the dead Syrian children he banned from entering our country and use their deaths as an excuse to massage his ego with a firework show.

For the record, Assad also dropped chlorine bombs on the village of al-Lataminah in Hama province the same morning Trump decided to strike. There were nine chemical attacks by the Syrian regime this year before the strike on Khan Sheikhoun, but Trump never had anything to say about those.

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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