We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, June 26, 2017

Trump‘s Red Line

Click here to access article by Seymour M. Hersh from Welt (Germany).
On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.
First of all, I note that Hersh has gone from publishing his articles in The New Yorker (mostly read by upper income people) to the London Review of Books to this one which is the online version of the conservative German newspaper Die Welt. It seems that any well-known and reputable American news analyst must go abroad to have their views read by any public.

Once again Hersh brings information gleaned from his anonymous inside sources in an attempt to reveal the real story behind another criminal act by our military and/or CIA establishments--the April bombing of a Syrian airbase because of a concocted story of gas warfare. It appears from this report that the real estate magnate and elected president watches fake news produced by media corporations, and make decisions accordingly. 

On the other hand, maybe he just wants to get the Ziocons (Zionist conservatives) off his back by a largely fake display of a proper militancy toward Russia, Iran, and President Assad of Syria without really doing too much damage. Hersh's piece supports the former hypothesis, but I remain skeptical. It seems more likely that he deliberately went along with military intelligence officials to design a militarily deficient response that was wrapped in militant rhetoric. This Hersh piece makes one wonder if Deep State operatives are using Hersh for their own nefarious purposes by supplying him with deceptive information.