The Donald’s missile “attack” on Syria’s al-Shairat air base is surely the most impetuous, thoughtless, reckless and stupid act from the Oval Office that we can remember — and that covers 50 years at least. And we put “attack” in quotes because it’s now evident that virtually every one of those $1.4 million per copy Tomahawks amounted to a big fat nothing-burger.
To wit, 36 of the 59 missile were duds and landed somewhere that was not the al-Shairat air base, including a nearby village where apparently a number of civilians were killed. The 23 that did hit the base actually missed the main runway, which, by the way, was back in operation launching Syrian air force sorties within 24 hours. None of Assad’s operational warplanes were hit, either — just a handful of old MIG-23s that have apparently long been languishing in the base’s “repair” boneyard.
Yes, the Donald’s sharpshooters did annihilate several glorified Butler buildings, otherwise referred to as “hangars”, and a few fuel tanks — the better for some post-attack fireworks to be posted to the War Channels (CNN, MSNBC and Fox).
But what the Tomahawks surely did not hit was the chemical weapons storage facilities alleged by the Pentagon to be at the base. With Washington’s satellites monitoring al-Shairat like a cloud of bumble bees, there was not a whit of evidence of Syrian personnel running around with gas masks after the missiles hit.
Had there been, the War Channels would have been playing it in an endless loop all weekend. Naturally, the Pentagon says these apparently non-existent stores weren’t even targeted owing to humanitarian (?) reasons.
Right, copy that!
Read the rest at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
