2017 Apr 7^th

For those of you who don’t know what all the fuss is about, Trump authorized a Tomahawk Missile strike against Shayat Airbase in Syria. This airbase was the origin of the Sarin gas attack against the civilians in Khan Sheikhoun that killed 80 people. Some 59 missiles were sent into that base but care was taken to avoid hitting any Russian barracks or other Russian facilities. Targeting was apparently successful for although Russia is very unhappy at this outrageous act, they haven’t claimed any Russian casualties. This concern for Russian feelings and safety even extended to Russia getting a warning beforehand of our planned strike. You don’t suppose that the Russians having received this heads-up about the coming attack would tell their buddies, the Syrians, so that the Syrians could minimize the damage? It is obvious that this attack, with its warning beforehand, is one step more severe than Trump shaking his finger at Assad and saying, “Naughty, naughty.”

Now what? There are five more airbases in Syria that we could hit if Assad needs a stronger message; it is also the case that the Chinese leader Premier Xi is visiting and observing, North Korea’s premier can see the results as well and that might modify his belligerence.

So is this just a wonderful move that will boost Trump’s approval ratings to at least 45 percent? I doubt it. While there was bi-partisan approval of this air strike, Trump did not consult congress before he acted and some members are unhappy about that.

There are some who are very unhappy about Trump moving from “Making America great again” to acting to involve us in other countries’ problems. Back in 2013 Trump is on record as advising President Obama against any attack on Syria and this was after Assad had killed far more civilians with gas then than he has recently. Trump’s change may be the result of watching children choke to death on videos that bring their deaths “up close and personal.”  What do you suppose the effect of watching these Muslim children die will have on his attitude toward Syrian refugees entering this country? He has said, “I’ll look Syrian children in the face and say they can’t come.” I wonder if he’s changed his mind about that.

You may remember that there was a blogger who insisted that no children died at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut. Several of the alt-fact boys insisted that it was all an acting job instituted by those opposed to “gun rights.” That same mentality is alive and well right now: Those pictures of dead and dying children were all a hoax carried out by the “deep state” — what they believe to be a nebulous network of military officials working behind the scenes — to drag the United States into war. Scott Adams, the cartoonist who created Dilbert, wrote on his website on Thursday before the missile strike that the chemical weapons attack was a “manufactured event.”

A few hours before the missile strike, the far-right blogger Mike Cernovich warned his followers in a live video that the United States was going to attack Syria. “Remind Trump who supported him,” he told his viewers. “We got to stop him.” Cernovich is the very same guy who spread the alt-fact that Hillary Clinton was running a child porn site out of the basement of a pizza parlor, He has a law degree from Pepperdine University Law School; they must be so proud of him.