In the old days, your opponents gave you the benefit of the doubt, your friends at least trusted your intentions even when they thought your actions or opinions were in doubt.
But look at what just happened to Trump with Syrian. His followers don't like his actions because it goes against his non interventionist policy he proclaimed on the campaign trail. His opponents don't trust his intentions and they are afraid of their own conjectures about what he might do next. There are very few giving him the benefit of the doubt. Should they?
Logically there is a lot to worry about ...and oh the stories we can tell about what could happen next. But, are the democrats willing to accept that decisive action driven from the heart (I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt) could have a positive effect? Could his prompt action cause North Korea and China to be a slower to act in their corner of the world? I don't know, nobody does. But, I’ll give Trump at least a maybe.
Here's another tidbit: there is no third party verification that the gas attack came from Assad. The rebels that are fighting him of course would have no motivation to pull us into the conflict would they? They wouldn't frame Assad, would they? And, of course, we can trust Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reilly to give us the facts with their opinions, of course. A favorite line of mine on Rachel’s show is “we were unable to confirm this story” but here it comes anyway. And by confirm, they mean they call the person in the story and ask them if it's true. Almost never is the story actually from Fox or MSNBC reports but third party newspapers struggling for survival. Does it remind you more of a theater product or Walter Cronkite?
Of course, there is the bigger picture: Assad has killed a half million of his own people. Of course, he would point out that they are trying to overthrow the government, which is true. Of course, as always in the middle east, the rebels are a different religious sect than Assad’s people. Does that mean it's a religious war?
So we have an atrocity committed by someone, perhaps Assad, avenged by Trump by blowing up some buildings on an airfield being used by one side in what might be called a religious war. Trump, the one offended by the death of the children, isn't he the one trying to block other Syrian children from coming to the U.S. for help? And how is it that our military chose not to take out Assad’s planes that were sitting on the runway or even the runways themselves. The runway was in use the next day. Raytheon which made the $60 million dollars worth of missiles had a good day in the stock market. Cuts in Meals on Wheels for the elderly proposed by the Republicans should cover most of this cost. And Rex Tillerson is off to see his Russians buddies this week.
Theater. Sound bites. Nonsense. Do you have doubts?
