Our involvement in Syria is a ‘disaster’
The unlawful missile strike on Syria ordered by President Trump has increased our involvement in Syria, a further disaster. Kentucky’s Republican Rep. Thomas Massie on CNN expressed doubt Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical attack.
Research on the previous attack in 2013 attributed to Assad revealed that an independent investigation by Massachusetts Institute of Technology disagreed, confirming earlier reports that the Syrian government could not have launched the sarin attack.
“Possible Implications of Faulty U.S. Technical Intelligence,” a report by Richard Lloyd, a former U.N. weapons inspector, and MIT professor Theodore Postol, states: “Could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the Eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on Aug. 30, 2013.
“Mistaken intelligence could have led to an unjustified U.S. military action based on false intelligence ... If the source of these errors is not identified, the procedures that led to this intelligence failure will go uncorrected, and the chances of a future policy disaster will grow with certainty.”
Just as the Iraq invasion was based on faulty intelligence, Syria’s guilt, not proven but accepted as fact, is today’s future policy disaster.
Elizabeth Sempadian, Fresno
This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Our involvement in Syria is a ‘disaster’."