Point of View

Now Trump wants to get tough on Syria?

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Donald Trump is the most obnoxious, immoral, perverse, reprehensible, unrepentant and inveterate liar to ever occupy the Oval Office.

His hypocritical reaction to last week’s attack in Syria is nothing but another one of his knee-jerk tantrums — a hissy fit over something that he is trying very hard to make us all believe he really cares. If he cares so much about the people killed and hitting back at the bad, bad guys, why hasn’t he reacted likewise to other situations where people have died as a consequence of actions of the United States?

For example:

“’About 200 persons are thought to have died in that strike alone,’ our correspondent added. ‘These reports of a high toll of civilian casualties were first given by the civilians who actually managed to get out of western Mosul.” — Al Jazeera, March 26.

And 10 days later, this from the Los Angeles Times:

“Iraqi officials said Wednesday that they had removed nearly 300 bodies from the site of an apparent airstrike in west Mosul, the largest civilian death toll since the last battle against the Islamic State began more than two years ago, and among the deadliest incidents in decades of modern warfare.”

A Physicians for Social Responsibilities study, “Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the ‘War on Terror’ Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan” in March 2015, reports the following:

“The best known initiative based on passive surveillance is the British Iraq Body Count … (that) tries to capture the casualties of the Iraq War by using a database that counts all killed civilians as reported in renowned western media outlets, or registered by hospitals and morgues. From March 2003 to September 2011 … IBC activists have identified approximately 108,000 killed Iraqi civilians.

“Conversely, results from statistical surveys conducted by the Johns Hopkins University, published in 2004 and 2006 in the medical journal The Lancet, as well as by the British polling institute Opinion Research Business in 2007, suggests that already by 2008 over 1 million Iraqis have died as a result of the war, occupation, and their indirect consequences.”

These reports have not elicited regret or sadness at our actions. Yet now, Trump wants us to believe he is outraged after receiving the report that on Tuesday, a sarin gas attack in Idlib Province killed dozens of civilians and injured hundreds more.

These are the same Syrian people to whom the new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. does not want to give solace and refuge. According to his Executive Order 13769:

“ … the number of refugees to be admitted to the United States in 2017 to 50,000, suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days, suspended the entry of Syrian refugees indefinitely, directed some cabinet secretaries to suspend entry of those whose countries do not meet adjudication standards under U.S. immigration law …”

Syria being among the counties that “do not meet adjudication standards.”

Enough! We are tired of the lies. But more than that, we are tired of perpetual wars fought against supposed terrorists whom we want to keep from coming over here to kill us.

Good! You keep believing that! Like those before him, does Trump want to show how tough he can be by killing the bad guys with drones? And if civilians get killed by our ordnance, well that is just collateral damage.

And if civilians die by others setting off explosives, do we again drop more bombs on these others even if, by doing so, we will incur more collateral damage?

And on it goes.

Finally, does Trump intend to send more young men to die, ostensibly to keep ISIS from proliferating and to protect the Syrian populace?

But really, are we not fighting a perpetual war so that the arms manufacturers (his supporters, of course) can laugh all the way to the bank?

The answers to all these questions are: yes, yes, yes, oh yes, war is so very profitable.

I would really like to see Eric and Junior in uniform. I’ll just bet that he would not dream of it.

Oh, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. Where are you?

Irene Diaz Reyes

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