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jllundqu
04-11-2017, 03:12 PM
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/donald-trump-bashar-assad-syria-chemical-weapons-237083


Trump vexed by Assad’s motivation for chemical weapons attack


In White House meetings, evening calls with friends and even throughout the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump asked a repeated question: Why did Syria’s president use nerve gas? Trump puzzled over the mystery —even as he ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles careening into a Syrian airfield last Thursday night.

Trump isn’t alone. U.S. officials and Syria experts are still debating what Syrian President Bashar Assad was thinking when he ordered a chemical attack sure to spark international outrage. Maybe Assad was hoping to terrorize his opponents. Perhaps he was testing Trump’s limits for his military planning. Trump officials even initially considered the possibility that Assad had not ordered the strike at all, according to one administration official, and that a military commander might have gone rogue without Assad’s knowledge.

Now several U.S. officials say they are reaching the consensus view that Assad was simply acting out of desperation. The embattled Syrian leader is facing a major rebel offensive in Idlib province, led by radical Islamic groups, that his depleted and exhausted army is ill-equipped to counter by conventional means. Chemical weapons were a response of cold-blooded convenience, they believe.

That Trump and his team couldn't initially decide what may have motivated the strike complicated the decision-making on how to move forward, one administration official said, but "not to the point of stopping us from doing anything.”

Still, the uncertainty and its effect on Trump provides a window into how the inexperienced commander in chief copes with major decisions. Aides and friends say the lack of clarity seemed to worry Trump, who is impatient and has sometimes expressed distrust of the intelligence community, while he faced his first military test.

"No one really knew exactly why," a senior administration official said Saturday. "And Trump wanted to know why.”

Trump continued to ask questions about Syria's motive even after the strike, mentioning the lack of a clear motivation to friends and aides at Mar-a-Lago, according to people who spoke to him.

Trump is hardly the only one wondering about Assad's motive. “It’s a good question,” said Paul Salem, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute. “Nobody really knows.”

While many Syria experts in Washington endorse the official consensus that Assad is desperate to fend off even a weakened rebel opposition, they are still entertaining other theories.

Some are complex and probably far-fetched. They include the possibility of a rogue military commander — perhaps loyal to Iran, which has sent troops and funding to prop up Assad — was trying to sabotage the possibility of a U.S.-Russia-Assad alliance that could isolate Tehran.

Another is that Assad was trying to psychologically terrorize his opposition through a so-called demonstration effect. This school of thought holds that “he’s showing the rebels, ‘I can get away with this,’” Salem said.


OR MAYBE HE DIDN'T FUCKING DO IT AND YOU ARE BEING PLAYED!

dannno
04-11-2017, 03:29 PM
lol.. the stooges just say, "Oh it is because he is a craaazyyy dictator!! Who knows? He probably puts ice cream on his spaghetti"

AuH20
04-11-2017, 03:34 PM
Assad trained to be an ophthalmologist. Very interesting.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/syria-peace-talks/how-syrias-geeky-president-assad-went-doctor-dictator-n453871


Bashar Assad grew up surrounded by power — his father took office when he was five years old — but he never planned to take over as Syria's leader. As the third of President Hafez Assad's five children — and the second-eldest son — the young Bashar chose instead to become a doctor.

After graduating as an ophthalmologist at Syria's University of Damascus in 1988, he worked at a local military hospital before moving to London to pursue an advanced degree. There, he met his future wife, British-Syrian Asma Akhras, and lived for two years out of the public eye.

"He was sort of seen as the geeky I.T. guy. He was the eye doctor, spent time in London, had the British-Syrian wife," said Neil Quilliam, a Middle East expert at the London-based Chatham House think tank. "He was by and large completely separate to the politics of the country. He had shown no interest, had not entered the military."

Jan2017
04-11-2017, 03:39 PM
Assad trained to be an ophthalmologist.

He could even work for Rand who works for Putin (?)

But yeah, Trump convinced into bombing where Syrians kept the sarin gas missiles to prevent further alleged gas attacks
from that joint airbase would somehow be a good idea anyway ?

social media reporting : "Teacher's union endorses Trump missile attack, because why not?"

AuH20
04-11-2017, 03:47 PM
He could even work for Rand who works for Putin (?)

But yeah, Trump convinced into bombing where Syrians kept the sarin gas missiles to prevent further alleged gas attacks
from that joint airbase would somehow be a good idea anyway ?

social media reporting : "Teacher's union endorses Trump missile attack, because why not?"

Trump sends Rand Paul to Syria for fact finding mission. Imagine that headline?

Jan2017
04-11-2017, 03:50 PM
Trump sends Rand Paul to Syria for fact finding mission. Imagine that headline?

Trump sends Marco Rubio and John McCain to Syria would be better.

AuH20
04-11-2017, 03:52 PM
Trump sends Marco Rubio and John McCain to Syria would be better.

But Assad would never talk to those two morons who are complicit in the ongoing civil war. He would likely take in Rand and talk to him.

Jan2017
04-11-2017, 04:00 PM
But Assad would never talk to those two morons who are complicit in the ongoing civil war. He would likely take in Rand and talk to him.
Really, I think it will be Putin asking for the UN to come in and investigate on a fact finding mission.

jllundqu
04-11-2017, 04:01 PM
The world is on seriously thin fucking ICE right now.... we will be lucky to survive the next 5 years.

Jan2017
04-11-2017, 06:19 PM
The world is on seriously thin fucking ICE right now.... we will be lucky to survive the next 5 years.

IT IS TWO AND A HALF MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT


http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_90px/public/DoomsdayClock_black_2.5mins_regmark%20%281%29.png? itok=oNgWuTJo


For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour,
the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s.

In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned:
“The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.”

In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent.

It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms.

Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.
See the full statement (http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf) (in pdf http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20Clock%20Statement.pdf)
from the Science and Security Board on the 2017 time of the Doomsday Clock.

I hope the debate engendered by the 2017 setting of the Clock raises the level of conversation, promotes calls to action,
and helps citizens around the world hold their leaders responsible for delivering a safer and healthier planet.

Rachel Bronson, PhD
Executive Director and Publisher
26 January, 2017
Chicago, IL

http://thebulletin.org/clock/2017

pao
04-11-2017, 09:25 PM
I've seen many, many interviews with Assad, with both friendly but mostly hostile interviewers, and I have never seen a more sincere, more restrained, more polite, or more intelligent leader of any country.