WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?! As events in the Middle East spiral out of control, and the prospect of a shooting war between the United States and Russia moves from possible to probable, that’s the question more and more people are asking.
For the love of all that is holy, Pentagon backed factions in Syria are currently fighting CIA back factions in Syria…
The mouthpiece of the President is as braindead as the hairpiece of the President.
There are two reasons Trump decided to go 180 degrees on bis position on Syria, and neither of them are safe.
The rapidity with which Bill English fell in behind Trump’s unilateral strike on Syria shows how little the NZ government values the UN Security Council, despite just having completed two years on it. New Zealand sidelined the Security Council and supported a US strike contravening the UN Charter. Article 51 of the Charter allows one nation to strike another only in “self-defence”. America wasn’t being attacked by Syria.
In reply to Chris Trotter and other New Zealand Leftists and Liberals rushing to excuse, or explain away, the Syrian Regime’s aerial gas attack on the liberated Syrian province of Idlib.
The world now waits and watches with amply baited breath to see what Putin and Russia will say or do in response. Not for the first time, the hopes for continued (broad) peace in our time rest upon burly Russian shoulders and pragmatic Slavic restraint.
What has also become clear, since the missile launch, is that the American congress was not consulted or advised before the order to attack Syria was given. President Trump decided to make war upon another sovereign state unilaterally – apparently unconcerned that his decision was in clear contravention of Article One, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution which states that “[The Congress shall have Power…] To declare War” – not the President.
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Late last week, the abysmal healthcare ‘reform’ proposal of Paul Ryan’s which Trump had inexplicably chosen to support … failed fairly unequivocally. How badly did it flounder? It didn’t even make it to First Reading, on grounds that even other Republicans could not bring themselves to vote for it.