Down What Path Do We Wander

We have deployed missiles to a Syrian airstrip in retaliation for Assad dropping Sarin gas on his own citizens. What does it mean? What will it precipitate in the-near-future? These are substantial questions for us to ask.

Let’s back up a few days. On Thursday, Secretary of State Tillerson made the public statement that Assad and the future of the Assad regime should be decided by the Syrians. Did anyone else feel a finger of dread run down their spines when they heard this? I did. On Tuesday Assad dropped Sarin gas on civilians in Syria, killing men, women and children in a horrific fashion and showing the world that they had not destroyed the deadly gas, an act that Russia was supposed to have verified.

Trump made an emotional response 36 hours after the bombing, after Secretary Tillerson had condemned Assad, after UN Ambassador Haley condemned the killings and shamed Russia for its acceptance. His speech writer was great. The speech had the right amount of sorrow and horror and, except for the few times he went off-script, was almost believable. Except for this: “None of God’s children deserve this.” I really cannot believe that phrase has ever voluntarily crossed his lips before. I was surprised that he was so moved by these pictures, having apparently forgotten pictures from the previous similar attacks.

Right away some people were talking about his pivot. The refugee children he was willing to allow to wash up on the beaches had finally been replaced by the dead and dying ones from the gas attack, and had sparked his empathy.

Yesterday Trump surprised us all by sending Tomahawk missiles to the Syrian airfield where the gas strike originated, thus saving us all from … the great unknown. Today we are all trying to figure out if this strike was a good decision or not. It will probably take some time to sort it all out.

Let’s look at some facts. Assad is a brutal dictator who cares nothing about his subjects or anyone else. He is guilty of war crimes many times over and is a cruel and sadistic dictator who has been surprisingly tolerant of ISIS in his country. Putin supports Assad, his only ally in the middle east. Could this be another indicator that Trump is finally making that ever-anticipated pivot? Tillerson chastised Putin for not being sure the deadly gas had been destroyed. Haley called on Russia to get tough on Assad.

Is this an elaborate performance orchestrated to give the appearance that all those nasty rumors of an unhealthy alliance between dozens of Russians and dozens of Trump associates are really nothing at all?

Was Tillerson’s initial assessment that Assad’s future could be left up the Syrians a bit of a dog whistle, signaling him that he could now do what he wanted, like gassing civilians so Trump would have an excuse to get tough?

The costly and flamboyant attack on Syria came after Tillerson announced publicly, that steps were underway to remove Assad from power. The missiles used were not the kind that would cause damage to the airstrip. Russian and Turkish troops were warned before the air strike. The only real damage done was to several buildings on the air field. The gas is untouched and its whereabouts unknown. It is good that the missiles did not hit the gas and cause more people to be injured.

This will boost Trumps flagging approval rating because unfortunately so many people like the idea of war and showing our strength. It may (or may not) give the leader of North Korea a bit of a warning as well. It most certainly takes the attention away from the failed travel ban, the decreasing popularity of the border wall and that inconvenient investigation into the Russian connection.

I, for one, do not believe that Trump is a different person from the one on the campaign trail. I do not believe that at the ripe old age of 70, he has finally developed a sense of empathy. I do not know who writes his speeches and strokes his ego and keeps him upright and functioning without going off the rails. I believe he is the same narcissistic, mentally unstable person that can’t tell the difference between reality and falsehoods and doesn’t care. I believe that he and his crew are dismantling our government and destroying our nation and the republican party is complicit in all that he does. I believe that somewhere, there is a monetary reward for Trump or Putin or both. Keep your eyes on the money.  

What do you think?