Photo by Billie Grace Ward | CC BY 2.0
An American friend of mine believes that when Donald Trump’s presidency ends – no matter how it ends – the best account will have to be in a comic strip book that would be the most hilarious in American history.
However, the disastrous effects in terms of deaths and misfortunes that the madness of this clown is leaving on people, peoples and nations throughout the world are not compatible with a festive approach to the suffering caused by this grotesque character and his gang of hawks.
In recent days, the US armed forces have made a huge fool of themselves in the name of satisfying the will of their mad president. In the process, they have made their counterparts in France and the United Kingdom look like foolish satellites.
On the night of 13 April, this disparate coalition of powers launched an attack on Syria. “I ordered the U.S. Armed Forces to launch precision attacks on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump. He wasn’t able to justify the aggression with the testimony of the U.N. experts charged with overseeing the prohibition of the use of chemical weapons. A few hours after the attack, they were to rule on the nature of the alleged attack by the Syrian government against its opponents.
The arrival of these specialists was scheduled for April 14, but the U.S. government decided to act earlier, showing its fear of the verdict of these specialists. Nearly a hundred Republican and Democratic congressmen had sent a message to Trump insisting that he seek congressional approval before attacking. “Engaging our military in Syria when there is no direct threat to the United States and without prior official authorization would violate the separation of powers clearly outlined in the Constitution,” they said.
However, Donald Trump, with his ears deaf to so many calls for sanity, self-rule and international law, launched his air strikes on military positions in Damascus, including a scientific research center in Barzeh and Al-Domair Airport on the outskirts of Damascus. There were also rocket attacks on Damascus International Airport and Mezzeh Military Airport, among other targets.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, regretted that the attack on Syria by the USA, the UK and France had taken place just when the Arab country had a magnificent opportunity to have a peaceful future.
“First they tried going against the Syrian people using the Arab Spring, then with the Islamic State, and now by launching their smart missiles at the capital of a sovereign country, which for many years has been trying to survive in the midst of terrorist aggression,” Zajárova said.
Both French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May made statements in support of Trump’s barbarism.
What is unique about these statements is that they all start from a hypothetical attribution to the United States and the two ancient former European colonial metropolises to intervene in the internal affairs of Syria, a nation that is a sovereign member of the United Nations.
The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, declared that the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Duma, which served as a pretext for the start of the military operation against Damascus, was a setup. He declared that he had irrefutable data that confirms it. As the first details about the effects of the unlawful aggression became known, thousands of people in the Syrian capital took to the streets to jubilantly to show their support for President Bashar al-Assad, who had quietly arrived shortly before in his offices in central Damascus.
Syrian television broadcast live the demonstrations of the population. With Syrian flags and clapping their hands, they spontaneously showed their national pride in the actions of the Syrian military. On their own, they had the latest generation of modern military equipment provided by the solidarity of Russian forces, and had been able to successfully carry out the defense of their country against the direct imperialist aggression of the United States. Washington, which possesses the largest arsenal of atomic, chemical and other prohibited weapons in the world, and therefore has no moral right to blame other countries.
It was a unilateral action, on the fringes of the United Nations Security Council, and a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and of the Charter of the world organisation. It was a rude outrage against a sovereign state that, although it left only three people injured, cannot be summed up in a simple cartoon of a comic book about the picturesque performance of an eccentric president.
A CubaNews translation by Walter Lippmann.