So as I write, it’s just been announced by someone absolutely unworthy to have power over so many lives, that air strikes are taking or have taken place against Syria.
In response to the chemical attack? Hardly. This person doesn’t care in the slightest bit about Syrian civilians being gassed. He doesn’t do anything that is not for himself.
But he has many things he’d like to distract from, many reasons to want Americans to rally behind him as is typical in any war, many reasons to take on the appearance of gravitas that ordering military action produces. Cohen raid. Comey’s book. Mueller’s investigation. Stormy Daniels’ and other women’s revelations. Firing Rosenstein and others in the Justice Department.
We shouldn’t be fooled that it’s about anything but his own self-interest. Because everything is.
Interviewed by Vox, Sen. Martin Heinrich, who serves on Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, thinks it’s about Rosenstein.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), is one of those concerned. When Heinrich and I spoke by phone on Thursday, he described the moment as an impending crisis for the country. He also expressed fears that the president could use a military strike on Syria to divert news coverage from a Justice Department purge.
Toward the end of the interview:
Sen. Martin Heinrich
Are we really talking about Syria here, or are we talking about Syria because the White House doesn’t want to talk about the Department of Justice?
Zachary Fryer-Biggs [interviewer]
That would be a remarkable move — to strike and potentially put US troops at risk just to distract from the Justice Department.
Sen. Martin Heinrich
It sure would.
Zachary Fryer-Biggs
But you think that’s a real possibility?
Sen. Martin Heinrich
Yeah, I do.
Zachary Fryer-Biggs
You’ve generally stuck to pretty measured criticisms about President Trump in the past, but you’re making some pretty dramatic statements today. What’s changed?
Sen. Martin Heinrich
I fear we are at a moment in history that we certainly haven’t experienced in decades that has the potential to influence the future path of this country for 100 years. And we need to get it right.
Think Progress points out that Fox and Friends suggested going to war to distract from the release of Comey’s book this very morning… when Trump no doubt was watching.
On Friday morning, Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt suggested that military strikes in Syria could be useful to divert attention from the unflattering portrayal of President Trump contained in former FBI Director James Comey’s book.
“If the president, and France, and the U.K decide to strike Syria, don’t you think that story would be a bigger story than Comey’s book that’s released on Tuesday?” she said.
Video at the link.
Oh by the way, there’s someone else I wouldn’t put past getting into a war on someone else’s soil so as to get his people rallying around him rather than paying attention to his corruption. Vladimir Putin.
I’ll just leave this here.
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