A senior Iranian official says the recent US-led missile attack against Syria proved the political bankruptcy of Washington and its allies.

The strikes against Syria were carried out under a pretext similar to that used by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, which led to Washington's invasion of Iraq in 2003, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, told reporters on Monday.

During his presentation to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, Powell claimed that Iraq might have tried to buy uranium from Niger in order to use it for non-peaceful purposes; however, after two years, it was proved that his documents were fake, Salehi added.

He noted that false US claims have made people all over the world vigilant and made them familiar with the "real nature of the aggressive countries."

It has become clear to people what an "unwise, cruel and savage policy" the US statesmen have applied to Syria, he emphasized.

Write down: I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander in chief.

We don’t belong to the same army, or to the same state. We hardly belong to the same human race.

Is my government committing "war crimes" along the border of the Gaza Strip?

I don’t know. I am not a jurist.

It seems that officials of the International Criminal Court believe that the acts of our soldiers do constitute war crimes. They demand an international investigation.

To prevent that, our army command proposes an Israeli military investigation. That is manifestly ridiculous – an army investigating itself about acts committed on direct orders of the Chief of Staff.

Israel will not accept limitations on its "actions" in Syria from Russia or any other country, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday, a week after a deadly raid attributed to the Jewish state.

"We will maintain total freedom of action. We will not accept any limitation when it comes to the defence of our security interests," Lieberman said in a video interview with the Walla news site in response to a question on Russia's criticism of the recent strike.

"But we do not want to provoke the Russians. We have an open line of communication at the level of senior officers. The Russians understand us and the fact is that for years we have managed to avoid friction with them" in Syria.

Lieberman again accused Israel's main enemy Iran of seeking to entrench itself militarily in neighbouring Syria and threaten his country.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..." This is the oath of enlistment that every American military service member or federal employee takes upon entry into government service (with slight variation for commissioned officers).

With the largest joint U.S.-Israeli air defense exercise ever conducted having recently concluded, which involved over 2,500 American service personnel, and in the midst of heightened Israeli involvement in the Syrian war, we find ourselves asking...

Are US troops ready to fight an

French President Emmanuel Macron is feverishly backpedaling Monday on his claims only a day prior that he had personally convinced President Trump to keep US troops in Syria. The White House has already denied this claim.

Now Macron is claiming he never meant to suggest he’d changed US policy, but rather that he and President Trump had seen eye-to-eye on Syria all along. He added that they both agree that US troops need to stay in Syria for “the long term.”

This isn’t a good story either. President Trump is still reported to want to withdraw the troops from Syria, even if he’s become resigned to keeping them in the country for the time being. Trump is said to have only agreed because of intense Pentagon pressure.

In his first overseas trip as president, Donald Trump sealed an arms deal with Saudi Arabia worth $350 billion over 10 years, with nearly $110 billion to take effect immediately. The agreement is said to bolster security “in the face of Iranian threats.”

"This package of defense equipment and services supports the long-term security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the face of malign Iranian influence and Iranian related threats. Additionally, it bolsters the Kingdom's ability to provide for its own security and continue contributing to counterterrorism operations across the region, reducing the burden on US military forces," the US Department of State said in a statement on Saturday.

Hundreds of Yemenis have become victims of reckless arms sales by the US and its allies to Saudi Arabia, whose coalition has indiscriminately used Western weapons in its 3-year bombing campaign, Amnesty International has warned.

The rights group has analyzed numerous instances in which Yemeni civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured by the Saudi-led coalition’s aircraft. In all known cases, US-made ammunition has been used against civilian targets, which potentially amounted to war crimes, the NGO advised.

“There is extensive evidence that irresponsible arms flows to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition have resulted in enormous harm to Yemeni civilians,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Director of Research for the Middle East. This, she posited, “has not deterred the USA, the UK and other states, including France, Spain and Italy, from continuing transfers of billions of dollars’ worth of such arms.”

It’s just a matter of time before it’s coming, false flag pretexts easy to stage, more virtually certain to come. They’re a longstanding US tradition.

Washington and its imperial allies have been waging naked aggression on Syria for over seven years, terror-bombing for four years this September – the rape and destruction of Raqqa the most heinous example, massacring countless thousands of civilians.

Overnight Friday, Trump escalated things further, dangerously pushing the envelope, based on a Big Lie, likely a warmup for more of the same to come.

Trump’s tweet about U.S. missiles blasting past Russian defenses in Syria left many Russians thinking the Motherland might be next. Plus: oligarch sanctions and military exercises.

I'm old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis. For those few days in 1962, the family dinner table was tense and the air - the attitude - in the country was surreal. People lived and went to work, as before, but hanging over every waking moment was the full conscious realization, of every second of every day during the crisis, of the possibility that civilization could go up in mushroom clouds of radioactivity. Years later, as the full story of the Cuban missile crisis was finally known and told, it became clear that the world had made it through the crisis largely because two men - Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and American President John F Kennedy - had stood down their countries' respective "war hawks." The real life scenario had come uncomfortably close to Stanley Kubrick's black comedy, Dr. Strangelove.

With the very real prospect or war hanging over the world, the media has a special role to play in getting to the truth.

A properly functioning free press is there to speak that truth and be the backbone of a strong democracy.

But what happens when a partisan media stops holding power to account – can it still claim to serve the people or does it become a weapon of mass distraction?

TONY Blair looked utterly confused and struggled to answer an explosive question about whether the former Prime Minister if he was “embarrassed” that his time as Prime Minister has had such a negative impact on UK foreign policy.

I wonder how many people, not just Americans but those in other countries, have come to the conclusion that the United States today is a less free and less aware society than the societies in the dystopian novels of the 20th century or in movies such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta. Just as people in the dystopian novels had no idea of their real situation, few Americans do either.

What are we to make of the extraordinary war crimes committed by the United States in the 21st century that have destroyed in whole or part seven countries, resulting in millions of dead, maimed, orphaned, and displaced peoples? Consider, for example, the latest Washington war crime, the illegal attack on Syria. Instead of protesting this illegality, the American media egged it on, cheering impending death and destruction.

"Ten days ago, President Trump was saying ‘the United States should withdraw from Syria.’ We convinced him it was necessary to stay."

Thus boasted French President Emmanuel Macron Saturday, adding, "We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term."

Is the U.S. indeed in the Syrian civil war "for the long term"?

If so, who made that fateful decision for this republic?

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley confirmed Sunday there would be no drawdown of the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, until three objectives were reached. We must fully defeat ISIS, ensure chemical weapons would not again be used by Bashar Assad and maintain the ability to watch Iran.

Translation: Whatever Trump says, America is not coming out of Syria. We are going deeper in. Trump’s commitment to extricate us from these bankrupting and blood-soaked Middle East wars and to seek a new rapprochement with Russia is "inoperative."

The European Union failed to agree new sanctions against Iran on Monday amid Italy’s opposition and fears that punishing Tehran for its missile programme and regional role would not stop U.S. President Donald Trump from abandoning a separate nuclear deal.

Surely there has never been a presidential peroration as filled with contradictions – not to mention regrettable rhetoric – as President Donald J. Trump’s speech to the nation explaining why he backtracked on his campaign promise to get us out of Syria. Particularly striking was this bit of doubletalk:

“To Iran and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?

“The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep. No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants and murderous dictators.”

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations and one of the Trump administrations hawks, announced on Sunday that it had decided to shelve plans to pull US troops out of Syria. This means that it is changing current American policy, which had tacitly conceded defeat in Syria, and planning a new stage of escalation which could focus on overthrowing the regime.

Is there no other doctrine than the doctrine of force that’s being used by the government here? What about the doctrine of common interest, for example? Or the doctrine of negotiation, rather than confrontation? After the October 1973 war, a department was set up in Military Intelligence called Ipkha Mistabra (Aramaic for “on the contrary”), whose job was to put forward and explore ideas and directions that contradicted widely held assumptions.

Where is the Jewish mind that’s supposed to be so smart and creative? Does it only work in minor matters, while on fateful ones it is paralyzed by fear of the messianic right? For example, why not just talk to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas? But the leadership here is stuck on the doctrine of force. If it doesn’t want to talk to Mahmoud Abbas, it it going to talk with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh?

The US military is using more than 5,500 contractors in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, the Pentagon revealed in a quarterly report this week that acknowledges the use of contractors in the Syrian war zone for the first time.

The latest figures from US Central Command indicate that 5,508 US and foreign contractors are working alongside US troops in the two combat zones. That’s an increase of 581, or 12%, over January’s numbers, which did not include Syria. About half of the contractors are US citizens, while the rest are local or third-country hires.

In March 2003, Pat Buchanan wrote a groundbreaking article entitled “Whose War?” in opposition to the Bush Administration fueled growing hysteria over Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction which was producing demands for an armed intervention to disarm him. Buchanan rightly identified a number of prominent Jewish officials and journalists closely tied to the Israel Lobby as the principal driving force behind the rush to go to war.

Syrian air defense systems have been activated in response to a missile attack apparently targeting Shayrat Airbase in Homs province, state media SANA reports.

According to a SANA reporter, the Syrian air defenses managed to intercept some of the projectiles.

While it remains unclear who launched the attack, the reported strike comes just days after Washington, London and Paris carried out a coordinated strike in Syria in the early hours of Saturday morning. It also comes roughly a week after two Israeli F-15 fighters targeted another Syria’s airbase in Homs province, Tiyas (also known as T-4 Airbase).

The news is rife with the Syrian airstrikes and the theatrical narrative: the united coalition of brave allies against the despotic Assad to secure the blessings of liberty, etc., etc. The reality: The U.S. threw more than 100 missiles against soft Syrian targets with Britain firing rockets from four aircraft as France flew planes around and cruised the waters with a few ships. The target (a suspected but not verified chemical weapons facility) was destroyed…before chemical weapons use, or manufacture could be verified. Once again, the Western Hegemony “showed” that bad ‘ol puddy-tat, that anti-Saudi Arabian, anti-Petrodollar Assad…showed him that his “Clorox Bleach” assault on mannequins as verified by white hat “Light-Brite” technicians would not be tolerated! “Mission accomplished!” in the words of US President Donald Trump.

Yet the brave allies didn’t screw with the Russians directly, now, did they?

Is it insane to push for war with Russia, a major nuclear power?
Is it insane to threaten Russia and bring false charges against her?
Is it insane to brag about killing “hundreds of Russians”?

A normal person would answer “yes” to the three questions. So what does this tell us about Trump’s government as these insane actions are the principle practice of Trump’s government?

Does anyone doubt that Nikki Haley is insane?

Does anyone doubt that John Bolton is insane?

Does anyone doubt that Mike Pompeo is insane?

President Donald Trump's decision to carry out a series of airstrikes on Syrian government chemical weapons facilities on Friday, April 13, may signal a new front in the US wars in the Middle East. Although Democrats have largely opposed the strikes, too many in the Democratic Party continue to react to Trump through the lens of American exceptionalism -- a belief in the myth of the unique righteousness of the United States. This approach is destined to enact domestic and foreign policy based on oppression, rather than justice.

US officials and the presstitutes tell us that the illegal US missile attack on Syria destroyed chemical weapons sites where chlorine and sarin are stored/manufactured.

If this were true, would not a lethal cloud have been released that would have taken the lives of far more people than claimed in the alleged Syrian chemical attack on Douma?

Would not the US missile attack be identical to a chemical weapons attack and thus place the US and its vassals in the same category as Washington is attempting to place Assad and Putin?

What about it, you chemical weapons experts?

Do chemical weapons only release their elements when they explode from intended use but not when they explode from being militarily attacked?

There is no evidence in Syria of chemical residue from the chemical weapons facilities allegedly destroyed by US missiles.

No dead victims.

No reports of hospitals treating Syrian casualties of the American chemical attack.

The Russian envoy to the chemical weapons watchdog group, OPCW, said that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the UK and US carried out the April 7 chemical attack in the Damascus, Syria suburb of Douma.

Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, said Russia has irrefutable evidence that there was no chemical weapons incident in Douma.

"Therefore, we have not just a "high degree of confidence," as our Western partners claim, but we have incontrovertible evidence that there was no incident on April 7 in Douma and that all this was a planned provocation by the British intelligence services, probably, with the participation of their senior allies from Washington with the aim of misleading the international community and justifying aggression against Syria," he stated. -Sputnik

Two Russian warships laden with military vehicles have been spotted en route to Syria after Friday's US-led airstrikes obliterated three suspected chemical weapons sites.

An Alligator-landing ship was pictured cruising down The Bosphorus on Sunday as the world awaits Vladimir Putin's response to this week's co-ordinated military action against Syria.

The vessel was spotted on its way to the Russian naval base at Tartus on the north Syrian coast.

On its fourth deployment of Russian military equipment to the war-torn country the ship was seen laden with tanks, trucks, ambulances and an IED radar.

A yellow RoRo Alexandr Tkachenko was also pictured heading for Tartus carrying high-speed patrol boats, a temporary bridge structure and several trucks. The images were posted on social media by Bosphorus-based naval observer Yörük I??k.

The warning came via US ambassador Nikki Haley at an emergency UN Security Council meeting Saturday, a day after the US, UK and France struck three Syrian sites in response to an alleged chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma last week.

The UN meeting came with some heated exchanges between the American, Russian and Syrian envoys.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, read out a quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing the US, UK and France of “cynical disdain” in acting without waiting for the OPCW’s findings.

Nebenzia accused the West of “hooliganism” and demanded that it “immediately end its actions against Syria and refrain from them in the future.” “You are not only placing yourselves above international law, but you are trying to rewrite international law,” Nebenzia said.

Nikki Haley claimed the strikes were “justified, legitimate and proportionate.”

On April 14, the United States, supported by its allies, launched an airstrike against military and civilian targets in the Syrian Arab Republic. An act of aggression against a sovereign state that is on the frontline in the fight against terrorism was committed without a mandate from the UN Security Council and in violation of the UN Charter and norms and principles of international law.

Just as one year ago, when the Shayrat Airbase in Syria came under attack, the US used as a pretext a staged chemical attack against civilians, this time in Douma, a Damascus suburb. Having visited the site of the would-be chemical attack, Russian military experts did not find any traces of chlorine or any other toxic agent. Not a single local resident was able to confirm that a chemical attack had actually taken place.

The US Navy is under fire for allegedly stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property, including software and a high-speed ship design, but the sailing branch insisted that it respects intellectual property rights.

The Navy is entangled in two long-running federal court cases involving IP theft. In March, German software company Bitmanagement asked a federal court for a summary judgement after accusing the Navy of illegally installing $600 million in software on more than 500,000 computers.

In 2011, the company agreed to license to the Navy 38 copies of its virtual-reality software. The Navy was reportedly happy with the software and Bitmanagement began negotiating to sell additional copies. But then the company said it made a startling discovery.

In a recent broadcast, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes denounced the sordid attempts of 16 leading Democratic lawmakers who, under the influence of the Israeli lobby, are pushing to impose new economic sanctions on Iran, which is designed to sabotage Obama’s rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

Although this condemnation of the Zionist lobby’s implacable warmongering is admirable, in the strictly confined discourse we see on the mainstream media presenters of this caliber refuse to state the obvious, which is that the United States has no right whatsoever to tell any country what to do on any matter, either foreign or domestic. Economic sanctions are an act of war, yet the US has imposed crippling economic sanctions on dozens of countries around the world, strangling the life out of them like a deadly python suffocating its victims.

President Donald Trump reportedly favored bombing Russian and Iranian targets in Syria, before Pentagon chief James Mattis talked the US leader out of it.

Trump discussed three military options for Syria last week with his revamped national security team, led by Bush-era hawk John Bolton, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with White House decision-making.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons headlined on April 14th, in the wake of this U.S.-UK-France invasion of Syria that was allegedly punishing Syria’s Government for allegedly having used chemical weapons in its bombing in the town of Douma on April 7th, "OPCW Fact-Finding Mission Continues Deployment to Syria”, and reported that:

The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will continue its deployment to the Syrian Arab Republic to establish facts around the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma.

The OPCW has been working in close collaboration with the United Nations Department of Safety and Security to assess the situation and ensure the safety of the team.

A little over three weeks ago, we published a report on leaked images of U.S. military equipment arriving in Jordan’s Aqaba Industrial Port via the vehicle carrier vessel “Liberty pride” for the upcoming participation in the annual war drill “Eager Lion.”

Syria has eliminated its chemical weapons stockpiles and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed that, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Western states have accused forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad of an attack with the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian town of Duma earlier in the month. In response to the alleged incident, the United States, the United Kingdom and France hit a number of targets in Syria early on Saturday.

"Chemical weapons in Syria were destroyed. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has verified this fact… Chemical weapons in Syria are used by extremists and militants. This is a proven fact and every time, when yet another settlement, another town is liberated by the Syrian army, the servicemen find depots with chemicals there. This has been proven by life, this has been proven by facts," Zakharova told Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday.

The Syria attack reveals the hypocrisy of the West – which fuels the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen despite documented abuses – but relies on unverified claims to punish Syria, journalist and broadcaster Neil Clark told RT.

As Riyadh's campaign in Yemen enters its fourth year, it has been repeatedly accused by rights groups of civilian casualties during the bombardment. However, in Syria's case, reports of a chemical weapon attack in Douma that are yet to be independently corroborated became the trigger for a coordinated military action, Clark pointed out.

"On the one hand, they are rolling out the red carpet for Saudi leaders and they are supporting, either directly or indirectly, the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which is causing a great humanitarian catastrophe – and how many children has that conflict killed?

"On the other hand, they pose as moral paragons, as moral crusaders when they claim children have died in Syria's chemical weapons attack without evidence," he said.

Inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have begun inspections in Douma, in metro Damascus, related to an alleged chemical weapons attack earlier this month. It’s not the calm environment they might have hoped for.

The probe had been advocated from the start by Syria and Russia, who both maintain the chemical attack never took place. It comes just two days after the US and its allies attacked Syria, including Damascus, over the alleged incident.

The Western strikes did not hit Douma, so the site should still be intact for investigators. The attacking nations had objected to an investigation at the UN Security Council, however.

Russia’s Ambassador assured the OPCW last week that both Russia and Syria are committed to protecting the inspectors during the probe. Some officials speculated that to prevent the investigation the Douma site would be struck, so as to prevent the investigation.

Vice President Mike Pence, attending an international summit on Saturday, said he backs President Trump’s assertion earlier in the day that the U.S.-led airstrikes this weekend in Syria resulted in “mission accomplished,” And he warned Syrian ally Russia that it is “on the wrong side of history.”

Pence spoke while in Peru about 18 hours after the U.S., France and the United Kingdom launched 105 missiles at three facilities connected to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his purported April 7 chemical attack on civilians, in the country’s years-long civil war.

The vice president attended the Summit of the Americas after Trump earlier this week canceled plans to attend the event so he could craft a response to the chemical attack, for which U.S. officials say there's proof of Assad’s involvement.

Damascus. Saudi Arabia funds US coalition operations “The Saudi Crown Prince financed the attack against Syria,” said a Syrian official.

Vice President of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Syrian Parliament Ammar Assad said on Sunday (April 15th) that the missile attack launched by the United States, the United Kingdom and France had been paid for by the Crown Prince Saudi Mohammed bin Salman.

“US President Donald Trump has already announced on many occasions that Saudi Arabia should fund the coalition’s military operations. The US side has asked for four billion dollars. It is Saudi Arabia that finances all aggressive operations led by the US-led coalition in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Mohammed bin Salman went to France and the United States and paid all the expenses of a military aggression against Syria. The pleasure that Saudi Arabia has taken in this attack supports this assertion,” said Ammar Assad.*

Donald Trump's "Mission Accomplished!" tweeting following this morning's tripartite attack on Syria over a false flag 'chemical attack' in Eastern Ghouta has caused an angry response on social media, including among the president's former supporters.

Trump's tweets on the attack called it a "perfectly executed strike." The president thanked France and the UK for their help, and gloated that the US military was now being built up into the "the finest that our Country has ever had."

A FORMER Soviet spin doctor launched a scathing attack on US President Donald Trump, saying his administration is ‘ill equipped’ to deal with any threat of conflict.

Protesters from communist organisations in Cyprus gathered in front of the entrance gates of a British air base to denounce US-led airstrikes against alleged chemical weapons sites in Syria.

Protest leader Akis Poullos told the Associated Press that demonstrators are demanding the closure of RAF Akrotiri, from where four British Tornado warplanes took off to take part in Friday night's missile strike.

Poullos said Sunday's demonstration also wanted to send the message to the Cyprus government not to lend any assistance to "imperialist attacks" on Syria and to demand an end to the war in the country.

The U.S. is officially fighting wars in seven countries, including Libya and Niger, according to an unclassified White House report sent to Congress this week and obtained by the New York Times.

Known officially as the “Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Military Force and Related National Security Operations,” the document is part of a new requirement outlined in the 2018 defense spending bill. The White House is already required to update Congress every six months on where the U.S. is using military force.

Last August, shortly after John Kelly replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Steve Bannon was fired as the president’s chief strategist, John Bolton complained that he could no longer get a meeting with Donald Trump.

Just three months later, however, on the eve of Trump’s belligerent address to the United Nations, Bolton was once again in direct contact with the president. How did this turnabout take place? The reconnection was reportedly arranged by none other than Sheldon Adelson, the Trump campaign’s biggest donor.

Despite the vehement pleas and letter-writing campaigns by a significant portion of his political base including notable media personalities such as Tucker Carlson against military action in Syria, President Trump committed what looks like political suicide by ordering air strikes on Friday evening. The bombing, thankfully, appeared to have been thwarted by Syrian air defenses, nor, as of this date, has the insane American, British and French action led to a wider conflagration.

As of yet, no doubt due to Divine Intervention, WWIII has not erupted and although the ramifications of the attack will reverberate for weeks to come, what is clear is that President Trump is now firmly in the clutches of the neocons, Israel, and the American Deep State, all of who are the direct beneficiaries of the wanton attack on the Assad regime.

French president Emmanuel Macron has claimed that he convinced Donald Trump to keep troops in Syria for the long term and limit Saturday’s joint strikes to chemical weapons facilities.

Macron said in an interview on Sunday that restricting the missile strikes to specific targets was not necessarily Trump’s initial plan. “We also persuaded him that we needed to limit the strikes to chemical weapons [sites], after things got a little carried away over tweets,” he said.

The French president also said: “Ten days ago, President Trump was saying ‘the United States should withdraw from Syria’. We convinced him it was necessary to stay. We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term.”

Having set themselves above international law by bombing Syria without UN authorization, the US, the UK and France are now going calling on other countries to unite behind their fait accompli and endorse their actions.

American, British and French ships and airplanes fired over 100 missiles at Syria Saturday morning, claiming it was in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Douma. The three countries did not wait for UN authorization, or even for evidence from the scene: the international team of experts from the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had just arrived in Syria to investigate when the missiles began to fly.

As US President Donald Trump triumphantly declared “mission accomplished,” his French colleague Emmanuel Macron called for the UN Security Council to step in and pick up the pieces.

Sebatian Gorka officially jumped the shark Friday night when he launched into an emotional, embarrassing tirade attacking decorated war veteran Colonel Douglas Macgregor for questioning the narrative on Trump's Syria strikes.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor said Friday on Laura Ingraham's show Assad launching a chemical attack when he's on the brink of victory "doesn't make any sense," and said he questions the claims he used "sarin and chlorine gas" together. "That's never happened before," Col. Macgregor said, "that's a first in the history of chemical warfare."

Col. Macgregor added that tonight's attack was a "cosmetic attack" which will amount to little because Russia and Iran are the real power in Syria.

Sebastian Gorka responded by screaming, "Shame on you for questioning General Mattis!"

Washington plans to slap Moscow with a new batch of sanctions as early as Monday, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said. The new measures are said to be a response to Russia’s alleged “aggressive actions.”
Haley blamed Moscow for the tense relations between the US and Russia and accused it of continuously engaging in aggressive behavior. She added that Washington would respond with a number of aggressive steps of its own.

“The sanctions [are] continuing to happen, which you will see again on Monday,” Haley told Fox News Sunday. “This lets them [Russia] know that this [is] not good behavior.”

The new restrictive measures would be announced by the head of the US Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin, on Monday, Haley told the CBS’s “Face the Nation.” She also added that the sanction “will have to do with chemical equipment used by [the Syrian President Bashar] Assad.”

Britain and her allies yesterday presented overwhelming evidence to nail Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime as the culprit in the horrific chemical attack on civilians which provoked yesterday's wave of air strikes.

Compelling new details emerged from Paris as the French government presented a declassified report from its DGSE overseas intelligence service, the equivalent of MI6.

It came as Prime Minister Theresa May said all evidence pointed to Assad being behind the attack in Douma because:

Two Mi-8 'Hip' helicopters from his regime were spotted above the city in the hours before the attack – none of the opposition forces has a helicopter.
A barrel bomb was used to deliver the chemicals – a weapon that the rebels do not use.
A yellow compressed-gas canister of a type known to have been used before by the Assad regime was photographed on the roof of a building where a large number of the dead were found.

Media scoundrels consistently support all US-led wars of aggression on nations threatening no one – attacked solely for their sovereign independence, refusing to bow to Washington’s will.

Following overnight US-led aggression on Syria, screaming headlines expressed support for what demands condemnation.

The NYT screamed “US Attacks Syria in Retaliatory Strike” – over nothing, the Times failed to explain.

Other Times headlines continued the self-styled newspaper of record’s assault on Syria, roaring “Britain and France Join Strikes to Show Western Resolve” – the Times way of explaining naked aggression.

Another headline roared “Tough Talk, but a Restrained Strike.” It could have been much more destructive and may be ahead in follow-up aggression.

The single most important thing that happened last night when the US military on President Trump’s orders launched a wave of over 100 cruise missiles against Syria was that once again the US violated the most profound international law of war: initiating a war of aggression against a nation that posed no threat, imminent or otherwise, to the US or its allies.

Called a “Crime against Peace,” this violation (whose perpetrators, under the precedent set in the Nuremberg Trials that followed World War II, can face capital punishment), is considered worse than any other war crime because, as US Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson explained in his argument at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals, a war of aggression is “not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

US President Donald Trump is pushing for a broader military offensive in Syria but Defense Secretary James Mattis has resisted for fear of sparking a clash with Russia, media reported citing White House officials.

Trump in meetings with Mattis has pushed for an attack that would also hurt Russia and Iran in addition to the Syrian government in response to an alleged chemical attack in Duma, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters earlier that the National Security Council would be meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss plans for responding to the incident in Syria.

CHINA will conducted in a number of navy drills in a show of support for Russia following the US, UK and French airstrikes in Syria, it has been claimed as World War 3 fears grow.

Friday night, April 13, in conjunction with Great Britain and France, President Donald Trump ordered an attack on Syria. And the unleashed war hawks were elated. Just to cite one example, Sebastian Gorka (who had been in the administration last year during the first Syrian “false flag” operation) literally proclaimed the coming of the Eschaton and America’s “divine role” to set right everything that is wrong in the world. Like an Abolitionist preacher of old, Gorka demanded a “moral cleansing” and, sounding like Osawatomie John Brown, proclaimed America’s destiny to go round the world, impose equality, and stamp out evil.

I don’t know about you, but for a couple of days there I expected to wake up to the sight of mushroom clouds billowing across the horizon, all our exceptional hopes, wishes, troubles, and cares as a nation gone up in a vapor of smoking plastic. I think it was the Defense Secretary, nickname “Mad Dog,” who put the kibosh on the latest neocon temper tantrum against Bashar “The Animal” al-Assad. General Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US was, er, “still looking for evidence” of an alleged poison gas attack against civilians in Douma, Syria.

The United Nations Security Council has convened after the US, the UK and France had launched airstrikes at Syria in a move described as "brutal aggression" by Damascus. Moscow stated that the attack had been carried out initially on the eve of the arrival of OPCW experts to the Syrian capital who aimed to probe the alleged Douma chemical attack.

Russia: Strike on Syria 'Act of Aggression' Against Sovereign State

Speaking on the missile strikes, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said Moscow condemns the attack, adding that Washington, London, and Paris disregarded calls for common sense and international laws by conducting airstrikes against Syria. He added that the US actions have lead to a deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

"Your aggression is a major threat to the possibility of continuing the political process under the UN auspices," he said.

History will set things straight on Syria for the US, which is already responsible for a chain of “bloody carnage” in other countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin said following the US-led attack on the country.
“History will set things right, and Washington already bears the heavy responsibility for the bloody carnage in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya,” Putin said in a statement. His disdain was triggered by the overnight attack on Syria launched by the US and its allies, who cited an alleged chemical incident in the town of Douma as a pretext.

President Trump has vowed to carry out further airstrikes on Syria if the regime dares to use chemical weapons again, as Nikki Haley lashed out at Russia during a fiery meeting of the UN Security Council.

Scores of fast jets, fighters and destroyers fired more than 100 missiles at three military targets in Syria on Friday night in retaliation for President Assad's chemical weapons attack on the rebel enclave of Douma on April 7.

While President Trump greeted the end of the attacks with a tweet saying 'mission accomplished', Ambassador Haley promised the US was ready for another strike if Assad crossed the chemical weapons 'red line' in the future.

'The time for talk ended last night,' Haley told an emergency meeting of the Security Council called by Russia. 'We are prepared to sustain this pressure, if the Syrian regime is foolish enough to test our will.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended U.S. strikes on Syria following a suspected chemical attack in the country, saying on Sunday that a similar attack could happen in the U.S. if precautions are not taken.

“This very easily could happen in the United States if we're not smart, and if we're not conscious of what's happening," Haley told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday."

“We have to be very conscious of the fact that we cannot allow even the smallest use of chemical weapons. That's why you saw the president strike this past weekend, that's why you saw him expel 60 Russian spies after the attack in Salisbury," she said, referring to the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter with a nerve agent on British soil last month.
Haley's comments come days after the U.S., in partnership with France and the U.K., launched over 100 missiles at three targets in Syria.