Trump Caves to Putin *

[DemocratSinceBirth]

If Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s readout of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin is a preview of the Trump administration’s approach to Russia, it’s going to be a rough three and a half years. In a diplomatic depantsing that will have repercussions far beyond Russia, Tillerson’s comments did more to further Russia’s interests than Russian propaganda outlets could have possibly hoped to accomplish themselves.

Tillerson told reporters that Trump and Putin “acknowledged the challenges of cyber threats and interference in the democratic processes of the United States and other countries.” Well then.


....


On April 6, President Trump ordered strikes on the Shayrat Air Base in Syria in response to chemical weapons attacks conducted by the Syrian regime. In a statement from Mar-a-Lago that evening, Trump said: “Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

That same night, U.S. officials told me that Russia knew in advance of the chemical weapons attacks. The Russians were flying a drone over a hospital treating victims of the attack, a U.S. official later told the Associated Press: “Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons. The U.S. official said the presence of the surveillance drone over the hospital couldn’t have been a coincidence, and that Russia must have known the chemical weapons attack was coming and that victims were seeking treatment.” **

So in April the U.S. government accused Russia of complicity in an unprovoked chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. And on Friday, the secretary of State claimed that America and Russia have exactly the same objectives in Syria.



http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-caves-to-putin/article/2008751

* The genesis of the article is of no moment. To say it is is to commit an ecological fallacy.
** That's a war crime










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