Monday night’s out-of-nowhere statement from the White House, claiming a Syrian chemical weapon attack was imminent and promising to make Syria pay a heavy price must’ve been successful, Secretary of Defense James Mattis reasoned, since no chemical attack happened after all.
The White House statement claimed there were signs of preparation, offering no evidence that was really the case, then claiming it would kill “innocent children” and threatening retaliation. The statement was made with no discussion with either the State Department or Pentagon, puzzling many top officials as to what they thought they were doing.
Russia criticized the US over the threat, and Syria said they’d never had any intention of carrying out such an attack in the first place, which only adds to the questions about the White House drawing the conclusion that such an attack was coming, and rushing out a content-light statement on it.
Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley concurred, claiming Trump had “saved many innocent lives” with the statement, though again offering no details.
Either way, Mattis and Haley seem happy enough with the results. Most days go by in Syria with no chemical weapons attacks, of course, but on this rare occasion US officials seem to feel like they can take credit for that fact, despite another idle US threat clearly being wholly unrelated to the result.
Remember JFK and Cuba? He had the photos.
This is a clear-cut case of saving an incompetent from public international ridicule. Or how a magician pulls a rabbit from a hat.
Mattis is covering up for his boneheaded COVFEFE boss.
Perhaps the only other* spelling error in history that will end up in the history books, never allowed to be forgotten, ever. The NYT and every other hostile MSM organ will probably honor anniversaries of the first occasion of the use of COVFEFE.
This is ironic, because every newspaper is replete with spelling errors, and any discussion of arithmetic or mathematics is automatically suspect.
*the first one was ‘potatoe’, by a now mostly forgotten Vice Presidential candidate, Dan Quale. But type ‘potatoe’ into Google and you get 151 thousand hits, the first one entitled ‘Never Forget …’.
Bonus: Check out left-wing flack site Snopes for an incoherent rationalization of Obama’s ’57 States’ goof. It doesn’t add up … even if they were correct in saying he really meant 40 …pause … 7, and he still had two more mainland states to go, that adds up to 49. But he’s still off the hook according to them, apparently because they (or Obama) can’t add.
Oh, and He spelled respect as r-s-p-e-c-t when introducing Aretha …
can’t find that on Snopes.
Of course this was one of the purposes for the White House statement. If an attack occurred – by the jihadists – they could blame Assad and launch another attack. If no attack occurred, they could claim their threat “worked”.
It’s like that old joke about how to keep tigers away by Nasreddin:
One of the neighbors found Nasreddin scattering crumbs all around his house.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked.
“I’m keeping the tigers away,” replied Nasreddin.
“But there aren’t any tigers around here,” said the neighbor.
“That’s right,” said Nasreddin. “You see how well it works?”
That’s the level on which Trump’s mind works.
But let’s not forget that by doing so he has – probably deliberately – goaded the jihadists to set up yet another false flag chemical attack. This incident was intended to lend credence to his NEXT attack on Syria.
I agree
White House threat to Alien Invaders to “stay the hell away from Earth” worked. Film at 11. After this message!
Insanity!
This is why it was leaked to the NYT and subsequently announced publicly by the WH?
This is not diplomacy it is theater.
That worked. Tomorrow announce the US has won, eat the cake, form a parade and go home.
I guess this would be White House Fake News.
if you believe the white house about anything, you are in serious mental difficulties
Comedians now? Whatever. As long as it keeps someone from ordering another moronic attack on Syria.
I also warned the General to cease showing up at my window in drag or face the consequences … oh, and that children were involved. How odd that he hasn’t … .
—-
Maybe someone other than the Syrian gov’t took-the-hint?
The “Trump Administration” seems to find politics a funny game with no danger to them (others do not matter, of course).
There’s this special powder I use in my garden to keep the elephants away. Very effective. I’m sure Mattis will want to buy some off me.
May I purchase some of your effective powder, please?
I want to spread it around the capital building in Washington, DC to keep those sycophantic politicians from making more inane legislation and resolutions of puffery to pretend they do useful work.
The U.S government supported Bib Laden and the KLA the worst Muslim terrorists in Yugoslavia and lied about everything with the Clinton administration . Bush also attacked and wrecked a couple of Muslim countries and lied about everything . Obama supported the Arab spring in several countries , bombed Libya to allow the same Islamic terrorists to take over while Hillary lied about everything Now Trump the change candidate for U.S. president is bombing Syria to protect the same AlQaedia ,Al Nusra terrorists our other presidents protected . Trump knows they are terrorists yet he wants to protect them . Trump is just not as smooth of a liar as these other presidents were . Nobody believes Trump not even his loyal base that would have still voted for him if he shot some body on national television Most Americans don’t even believe Assad used Gas on his own people even once , much less 2 or three times . We do believe the United States wants to attack Syria and is making up another lie to justify this illegal attack . Don’t do it . We will impeach you if you start another war with lies . And everyone knows this is another lie . Let Russia and Syria defeat our beloved terrorists .
Nikki Haley got in on the act: “I
can tell you that due to the president’s actions, we did not see an
incident… I would like to think that the president saved many innocent men, women and children,” Haley continued.
Yes, Nikki, we’d like you to think, too, but instead you spout this nonsense.
Wow, we just impressed the entire world with our stupidity! Well done!
I think it was just a misprint, text was supposed to read: “White House, claiming a Syrian chemical weapon FALSE FLAG attack was imminent and promising to make Syria pay a heavy price”
http://www.businessinsider.com/syria-warning-trump-bashar-al-assad-2017-6
Plenty of evidence. What a load this column is.
Rightio, mate! The WH said the initial leaks were wrong, so must be.
Meanwhile, we’re talking about this and not the Die Welt article.