The NYT Supports Escalated War and Regime Change in Syria by Stephen Lendman
Trump’s Friday aggression was likely prelude to escalated war, a high-risk strategy. Confrontation with Russia could follow.
The Times tried justifying the unjustifiable, using weasel arguments, not explaining Security Council members alone may authorize an attack on one nation by another - only in self-defense, never preemptively for any reason.
Asking if Trump had legal authority to attack Syria, The Times said “(t)he answer is murky… (P)residents of both parties (waged war) without (congressional or Security Council) authorization,” adding:
“(E)xecutive branch lawyers have argued that the president, as commander in chief, may use military force unilaterally if he decides a strike would be in the national interest.”
In other words, according to The Times, might makes right! International and constitutional law don’t matter.
A same-day Times article headlined “Trump Was Right to Strike Syria,” saying:
Regardless of “dubious legality,” attacking Syria was “right,” adding it’s “unnerving that (Trump) came to the right decision in an impulsive way” - praising and bashing him at the same time.
The Times and other media scoundrels falsely accused Assad of attacking Khan Sheikhoun with CWs - despite no evidence proving it, plenty suggesting the incident was a false flag, used as justification for planned US aggression on Syria, based on Big Lies.
The Times urged more US aggression to destroy Syria’s warplanes. It called for the “de facto partition of” the country and regime change.
Asking what’s next, Times editors expressed “emotional satisfaction, and justice done,” supporting Trump’s unjustifiable naked aggression - showing their usual contempt for rule of law principles and truth-telling.
Assad “needed to understand that (there’s) a cost for his brutality, in this case the use of chemical weapons with sarin, a banned nerve agent, that killed scores of civilians earlier this week in one of the worst atrocities of the Syrian civil war,” they said.
Fact: At no time throughout over six years of war, did credible evidence prove him responsible for using CWs or other banned weapons.
Fact: Syria was invaded by US-supported terrorists. Claiming anti-government “moderate rebels” involved is a useful fiction. None exist. All elements opposing Assad are cold-blooded killers, guilty of appalling atrocities, elements largely imported from scores of countries, used as imperial foot soldiers.
Times editors: “…Assad still has his chemical weapons, and the civil war endures.”
Fact: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. No evidence suggests any remain.
Fact: Syria is Obama’s war, now Trump’s. Calling it “civil” is one of many Big Lies, covering for US aggression against a sovereign independent state.
Times editors called for “congressional authorization for…further military action.”
Neither Congress or presidents may authorize war on other countries without Security Council approval - only in self-defense, never for any other reason.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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