{"id":303242,"date":"2017-04-11T15:48:22","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T14:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation\/"},"modified":"2017-04-11T15:48:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T14:48:22","slug":"trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back\u00a0from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>MEMORANDUM FOR:\u00a0The President<\/p>\n<p>FROM:\u00a0Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)*<\/p>\n<p>SUBJECT:\u00a0Syria: Was It Really \u201cA Chemical Weapons Attack\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>1 \u2013 We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia \u2013 with the risk of escalation to nuclear war.\u00a0The threat has grown after the cruise missile attack on Syria in retaliation for what you claimed was a \u201cchemical weapons attack\u201d on April 4 on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib Province.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_23221\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-300x244.png\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23221\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-300x244.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-160x130.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM.png 447w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23221\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-300x244.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-300x244.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM-160x130.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-11-at-7.50.16-AM.png 447w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Trump at a news conference with Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II on April 5, 2017, at which the President commented on crisis in Syria. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>2 \u2013 Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened.\u00a0There was no Syrian \u201cchemical weapons attack.\u201d\u00a0Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died.<\/p>\n<p>3 \u2013 This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and \u2013 more important \u2013what they appear to believe happened.<\/p>\n<p>4 \u2013 Do we conclude that the White House has been giving our generals dictation; that they are mouthing what they have been told to say?<\/p>\n<p>5 \u2013 After Putin persuaded Assad in 2013 to give up his chemical weapons, the U.S. Army destroyed 600 metric tons of Syria\u2019s CW stockpile in just six weeks.\u00a0The mandate of the U.N.\u2019s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW-UN) was to ensure that all were destroyed \u2013 like the mandate for the U.N. inspectors for Iraq regarding WMD.\u00a0The U.N. inspectors\u2019 findings on WMD were the truth. Rumsfeld and his generals lied and this seems to be happening again.\u00a0The stakes are even higher now; the importance of a relationship of trust with Russia\u2019s leaders cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n<p>6 \u2013 In September 2013, after Putin persuaded Assad to relinquish his&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/04\/11\/trump-should-rethink-syria-escalation\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back\u00a0from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia. MEMORANDUM FOR:\u00a0The President FROM:\u00a0Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)* SUBJECT:\u00a0Syria: Was It Really \u201cA Chemical Weapons Attack\u201d? 1 \u2013 We write to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-303242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}