Chris Hedges's Blog, page 613

Michael Cohen Alone Cannot Stop Donald Trump

Keep calm and raise hell. The forces of truth and justice may be closing in on President Trump, but there is no reason to believe they can triumph without massive displays of outrage in the streets and at the polls.

Potentially the most serious threat Trump has ever faced came last week when FBI agents raided the office, home and hotel room of his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. By all accounts, Cohen’s role for the president and the Trump Organization has been that of a “fixer” who brings in deals and makes problems go away.

As everyone knows by now, Cohen “facilitated” payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about the sexual tryst she says she had with Trump. And according to a lawsuit filed by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Cohen was involved behind the scenes in cementing a $150,000 agreement that squelched her story of a 10-month affair she says she had with Trump.

But the president’s sex life may be the least of his worries on the Cohen front. For more than a decade, Cohen was in a better position than anyone—arguably, even Trump’s children Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, who also worked in the family firm—to know the intimate details of Trump’s business dealings.

Was the Trump Organization buoyed by an influx of Russian money, as Donald Jr. once claimed? Were there Russian contacts that have not yet been disclosed? Did Trump or his campaign collude with Russians to meddle in the election? In its real estate sales, did Trump’s firm take the required precautions against money laundering by shady characters? Did Trump’s swashbuckling business style, of which he so often boasts, ever cross the line into illegality?

Cohen can likely provide answers. If necessary, FBI agents may refresh his memory with the audio recordings they allegedly seized of Cohen’s phone conversations.

“Attorney-client privilege is dead!” Trump tweeted after learning of the raid. “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”

Touchy, touchy.

On the rare occasions when federal authorities raid an attorney’s office, they must go through elaborate and rigorous procedures. A judge has to approve the search warrant, which requires a showing that evidence of specific crimes will likely be found. Documents seized are examined by a special “taint team” of prosecutors who have had no previous involvement in the case and whose only role is to redact materials covered by attorney-client privilege before passing the rest to the principal investigators. The Cohen raid was authorized not by special counsel Robert Mueller but by the office of the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York. None of this is good news for Cohen—or for Trump.

The other development that reportedly has the president in a rage is the scathing verdict on his character delivered by former FBI director Jim Comey in a newly published book and an interview with ABC News.

All right, Comey does come off as something of a sanctimonious tool. But his book’s account of Trump’s repeated demands for a pledge of personal loyalty and wholly inappropriate attempts to interfere in the Russia investigation ring true. In the ABC interview, Comey charged that Trump was “morally unfit to be president.”

Comey compared Trump to a mafia boss—“It’s the family, the family, the family, the family”—and said there is “some evidence” that the president committed obstruction of justice. Asked by George Stephanopoulos whether he believes the Russians “have something” on Trump, Comey replied, “I think it’s possible.”

For those of us who agree with Comey’s judgments about the president and welcome the vise-like pressure on Cohen, all of this is emotionally satisfying. But so what?

The White House asserted last week that Trump has the power to fire Mueller, and clearly he would love to do so. Trump could also seek to neuter Mueller’s probe by firing his supervisor, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and installing someone more pliant.

If Trump took either of these actions, would Congress stand up to him? Not this Congress. Not unless millions protested across the nation to demand action. Massive demonstrations might work—but also might not.

The only sure way of guaranteeing that this aberrant administration is investigated, held accountable and properly restrained is to put Democrats in control of one or both houses of Congress. A new Washington Post poll shows that the Democratic edge over Republicans ahead of the midterm election has narrowed. Instead, it needs to grow.

Only you and I can stop Trump. It’s all about November.

Democrats Love Trump’s Wars, Too

American politicians on both sides of the aisle love war. On Monday, an In These Times survey found that 92 percent of U.S. Democratic and Independent senators did not mount meaningful opposition to Donald Trump’s April 13 air strikes against the Syrian government. The primary point of contention that Democrats—and most of the partisan Democratic media—leveled were vague legal or constitutional meta-objections that Trump did not have the “authority” or should consult Congress. But the bulk of the “resistance” did not raise meaningful objections to the strikes themselves.

Only a handful of Democrats—Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.—opposed the air strikes on substance. The vast majority, instead, relied on process demands that Trump get congressional approval—without saying if the strikes themselves were good or bad.

Process critiques over legality are useful as far as they go, but untethered to normative critiques on the substance of that which is being called to a vote, they amount to little more than busy work, a way of looking anti-Trump without the mess of opposing air strikes that the Democratic establishment—including former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her primary messaging apparatus, Center for American Progress—have been backing for years. It amounts to little more than vacuous hall monitor-ism: Bomb away, but make sure you follow the rules.

This is consistent with congressional Democrats’ total lack of substantive opposition to former President Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s so-called war on ISIS—a war that Trump has ratcheted up, matching Obama’s civilian death toll in only his first seven months in office. Just as with Trump’s manifestly illegal air strikes on the Syrian regime, Democrats in Congress and the broader liberal media have little to no substantive objection to Trump’s unsanctioned wars abroad against ISIS and al-Qaida, both still authorized by a one-page law passed three days after 9/11. (One notable exception is Barbara Lee, D-Calif., who opposes the “War on Terror” on both legal and substantive grounds, and was the only person in Congress to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force 17 years ago).

With the rise of ISIS and the broader war on terror, members of Congress have shown their “opposition” to war by “calling for a vote” on the war without addressing the underlying substance of said war or how one would vote, should one take place. Congressional Democrats like Tim Kaine, D-Va., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., took this posture last week, calling on Trump to hold Bashar Assad accountable for alleged chemical attacks in vague terms while posturing as anti-war by calling for a vote they, by all indications, would probably back in any event.

Kaine was one of the first high-profile Democrats to call Trump’s pending air strikes “unconstitutional” but when directly asked on Twitter, his spokesperson would not say how Kaine would vote if Trump did seek congressional approval. In other words, Kaine was politically peacocking over the right to, what was in effect, rubber-stamp a war he would likely support anyway.

This response is in stark contrast to what Sens. Murphy, Sanders and Mike Lee, R-Utah, did when they invoked their congressional authority via the War Powers Act to stop U.S. support of Saudi Arabia’s brutal siege and bombing of Yemen last month. They called for a congressional vote, but all the bill’s sponsors also made known how they would vote in the event one was held. It was clear the appeal to Congress’ authority was a means of stopping a war, not a public relations gesture meant to prevent them from taking a substantive stand against the war itself.

A close cousin of the process criticism is “strategy” trolling. This is when Democratic lawmakers or pundits support Trump’s air strikes, either expressly or implicitly, but hand-wring over a lack of a “strategy,” as Sens. Warren, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. and Michael Bennet, D-Colo. did, along with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “Strategy,” of course, almost always means putting the one-off bombing in the context of more bombing and building military bases in east Syria to fight the “Iranian” and Hezbollah presence. The “strategy” of not bombing Syria anymore or pulling out troops is an option center-left serious people never entertain, much less promote. Trump’s wanton warmongering is OK so long as it’s followed by a 10-point presentation on how he plans on carving up Syria to serve the U.S. and Israel’s interests. This is truly the type of anti-war rhetoric that will inspire the base come the 2018 mid-terms.

Reporters, pundits and activists need to push Democrats and leading liberal talking heads to make clear they oppose Trump’s wars on both substance and procedural grounds. The latter without the former falls flat—both morally and rhetorically. It’s a common refrain that “Congress has failed to exercise its authority” on matters of war, but this is an incomplete characterization of what’s going on. Congress hasn’t “failed.” It simply knows calling for a vote to approve the building of a train that is already chugging down the tracks at 80 mph is wholly pointless. The reason Congress hasn’t sanctioned America’s perma-war is because they’re captured, with some notable exceptions, by the same national security apparatus as the past three administrations. Any vote would likely just reaffirm the status quo.

Calling for a vote in Congress when it’s part of a broader strategy to end a war—as activists and senators did in the context of Yemen—is a careful, useful tactic. Calling for a vote when one is simply going to solidify Trump’s war powers anyway is at best pointless and, at worst, provides cover for his many possible war crimes.

The problem with Trump’s bombing against the Syrian government and ISIS, and the sprawling so-called war on terror, isn’t the lack of strategy or the legal box checking. It’s the bombing itself. Liberals should, at least every now and then, say so.

Who Gives a Damn About the First Black Woman President?

Do you know what literally repulses me these days? Hearing about the first so and so to get accepted into the exclusive club of the aristocracy. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about the latest first black president or first woman CEO. Who cares? I don’t know how we have arrived at this notion where we measure the wellness of humanity not based on the well being of the least of the citizenry who suffer in silence but based on the accumulation of the wealthiest among us. This annoyance of mine got revved up to full-blown peeve two days ago when I heard a report of how Kamala Harris has a chance to become the first black woman president.

I can’t believe I used to fall for this nonsense! It takes a stupendous level of cognitive dissonance to simultaneously celebrate the fortunes of someone from a specific identity while looking past the vast sea of people from said identity who are stuck in gut-wrenching poverty. We pop champagnes for the neo-gentry while disregarding our own tribulations. It’s the most stunning form of logical jujitsu establishment shills have successfully conditioned us to accept; instead of gauging the health of the economy and the vitality of our nation based on the collective whole, we have been hoodwinked to accept the elevation of a few as success for us all.

Diversity has become a scam and nothing more than a corporate bamboozle and a federated scheme that is used to hide the true nature of crony capitalism. We have become a Potemkin society where tokens are put on the stage to represent equality while the vast majority of Americans are enslaved by diminishing wages or kneecapped into dependency. The whole of our politics has been turned into an identity-driven hustle. On both sides of the aisle and at every corner of the social divide are grievance whisperers and demagogues who keep spewing fuel on the fire of tribalism. They use our pains and suffering to make millions only to turn their backs on us the minute they attain riches and status.

Sadly, too many of us keep falling for this breathtaking deception. Liberals swooned for “the first black president” the same way that conservatives fell for our current infantile chief executive. What is true of our politics is true of wider society; at every turn, we keep being inundated with the latest news of the first “black,” woman, Latino, gay, Muslim or transgender to soar to the upper strata of privilege while millions are mired in abject indigence. We are sliced and diced in a million different classifications; the more we are splintered, the easier it is to pit us against each other and make us think that others who struggle just like us are our enemies. All the while, a procession of diverse mannequins are paraded on media and displayed on corporate billboards to represent advancement.

This is mass propaganda that Joseph Goebbels would be awed by. A facade of equality and a veneer of freedom paints over the swelling numbers of Americans who have become a statistic of unbridled capitalism. In this ongoing economic terrorism that has been unleashed against the bottom 99 percent of humanity, the victims are just as responsible in perpetuating the crime as the victimizers. Too quick to bow before political idols and worship the rich and famous, we conflate the prosperity of few with progress for the rest of us. Far from defending our economic self-interests, we are now delirious enough to “donate” money to millionaires and billionaires. This is mental slavery on steroids.

This form of tribal affinity is perilous. My native land Ethiopia, and “Africa” as a whole, was shattered and plundered because foreign actors intervened and convinced us to focus on clan above humanity. Fixation on our differences superseded our commonalities; the price we paid for this imprudence is evident. Capital is hoarded by a few while suffering is socialized to the general population. This level of omnipresent greed and strife is not contained to developing nations; the same playbook of slice, colonize and brutalize is happening right here in America and globally. Four billionaires are worth more than 40 percent of Americans put together; this level of consolidated edacity is what gave birth to the French Revolution.

Alas, instead of saying enough, reclaiming our sovereignty and standing up for our dignity, too many of us keep fawning over stars and going gaga over media personalities. This is the tragedy of humanity. The oppressed have a way of deifying their oppressors. As the plutocracy and their paid puppets in the media-politico complex lead lives of royalty, the rest of us are being grounded into a pulp by economic anxieties.

It took a mean mugging by reality for me to realize this most insidious sham of our governance and corporate totalitarianism that are bleeding humanity. Away from the sterilized theatrics of politics and media-driven personalities are the harsh realities of shared suffering. There is an alternative narrative that is rarely mentioned by mainstream voices that more and more people are being sucked into. Pervasive economic hardship and heart-rending injustices are nullifying the hopes and dreams of tens of millions in America and billions globally. This reality traverses the countless constructs and identities that are erected to ghettoize humanity. While the rich are diversifying their portfolios, a diverse body of humanity are being made equal through scarcity.

Think about these things next time mainstream media broadcasts a story about the first so and so to accomplish a tremendous feat. Ask yourself if the fortunes of the 1 percent are more important than the misfortunes of humanity. But if you insist on waving pompoms for the newest member of the bourgeoisie, that is your right, but just know what they eat will not feed you. As for me, I won’t have none of it. I am done celebrating the lavish lives of the well to do; my heart and my attention is focused on the least among us who dwell in adversities. I don’t give a crap about the “first black CEO” or the “first woman president.” I want a world where we witness the last child going to bed at night hungry and work for a day where we replace exclusive wealth with inclusive opportunity.

What’s in Those Seized Records? Trump’s Biggest New Worry

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his allies have hit a new level of anxiety after the raid on his personal attorney’s office, fearful of deeper exposure for Trump, his inner circle and his adult children — and more than concerned that they don’t know exactly what is in those records and electronic devices seized last week.

There is also some worry that Michael Cohen, the self-described legal fixer who helped make bad stories go away and took a leading role in Trump Organization projects in foreign outposts, may strike a deal with prosecutors out of concern about his own prospects.

“I think it’s a huge minefield for Donald Trump and the Trump Organization,” said trial attorney Joseph Cammarata, who represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. “I think this is on its own track and this train is coming down the track with brute force.”

The wild legal show continued to play out Monday, at a court hearing in New York before a federal judge who is considering what to do with the material that the FBI seized from Cohen. The scene was punctuated by dramatic entrances and revelations. Stormy Daniels — the porn actress who alleged she had a sexual affair with the president — made an appearance, stumbling on her high heels as she was swarmed by press. Cohen was forced to reveal that another one of his clients is Fox News host Sean Hannity, a high-profile confidant of the president.

Trump left the White House for Florida, for a two-day summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Advisers are hoping the meeting will draw attention from the legal tempest in Washington and New York.

On the trip south, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders sought to put distance between Trump and Cohen, saying: “I believe they’ve still got some ongoing things, but the president has a large number of attorneys, as you know.”

The federal raid, carried out a week ago in New York City, sought bank records, information on Cohen’s dealing in the taxi industry, Cohen’s communications with the Trump campaign and information on payments he made in 2016 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and to Daniels, both of whom allege relationships with Trump. The court proceedings Monday dealt with who gets to look at Cohen’s seized documents and devices before they are turned over to prosecutors.

Though Cohen once said he “would take a bullet” for Trump, he is aware of the possible outcome — including potential prison time — and has expressed worry about his family, said a person who has spoken to the lawyer in recent days but is not authorized to discuss private conversations. Cohen has not been charged with anything.

Trump’s moods have grown darker in recent days, as he lashes out at the “overreach” of the raid. Further angering the president is that the raid was triggered in part by a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The raid was authorized by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

On Twitter Sunday, Trump said that all lawyers are now “deflated and concerned” by the FBI raid on Cohen, adding that “Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past.” Trump has also taken to downplaying Cohen’s role.

The president also inveighed further against former FBI Director James Comey, who said Monday morning that Trump was morally unfit to be president. That was a few hours after Comey said the same and worse in a highly promoted ABC interview.

Many in the White House view the aftershocks of the Cohen raid as potentially more threatening than Mueller’s Russia probe, fearful of what skeletons may be in the lawyer’s closets, according to five officials and outside allies who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“I agree with the consensus forming that it’s very dangerous for the president, probably the most serious thing yet,” said Sol Wisenberg, a defense attorney who was a deputy independent counsel during the Starr special counsel investigation into Clinton. “Even if you shut Mueller down some way, how do you shut down the Southern District (federal court)?”

Trump’s anger at the probe has intensified, with him musing publicly about firing Mueller and the man who authorized the probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Those around Trump have hoped that this week’s visit to Mar-a-Lago, where he is generally happier, along with the tightly scheduled summit with Abe, would somewhat distract him from Cohen and from Comey’s ongoing publicity tour.

But White House aides have also expressed worry that they can control Trump less at his palatial Florida estate, where he is known to seek out counsel from club members and get revved up by their at-times provocative advice. One recent presidential dinner guest was Hannity, a longtime Trump ally whose connection to Cohen shed more light on the attorney who was more than just a lawyer for Trump.

Cohen has long been a key power center in the Trump Organization and a fixture along the edges of Trump’s nascent political life. In Cohen’s own estimation, he is Trump’s Ray Donovan, the bruising television character who takes whatever steps are needed to fix problems for the tycoon he serves.

He has regularly threatened lawsuits against those who pose a challenge to Trump. He has berated reporters for writing unflattering words about his boss. He has worked with tabloids, including the National Enquirer, to kill unfavorable stories about Trump. He has said he used a home-equity loan to finance a $130,000 payment to Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign and did so without Trump’s knowledge.

The president has consistently denied a relationship with Daniels, who claims the two had sex not long after first lady Melania Trump gave birth to the couple’s son Barron. He has also pushed back against other claims from women.

A recent Trump fundraising email praised Mrs. Trump, with the president calling her “my rock and foundation.”

Destruction, Traumatized Residents in Syrian Town of Douma

DOUMA, Syria — Two days after Syrian troops declared this town near the capital, Damascus, liberated from rebel fighters and 10 days since a suspected chemical attack, a tour on Monday revealed widespread destruction and traumatized residents who recalled months spent cowering in crowded underground shelters infested with lice, with barely any food or water.

Except for the Russian and Syrian troops patrolling the streets, few people could be seen in Douma, the majority of its residents now displaced to rebel-held areas to the north.

The main hospital, courthouse and municipal buildings were largely reduced to rubble, while the nearby Grand Mosque, famed for its towering arches, white dome and majestic palm trees was riddled with bullet and shell holes — testimony to the intense government assault the town was subjected to since being seized by the rebels six years ago.

Douma was one of the first areas to rise up against President Bashar Assad’s government and until a few weeks ago it was a major threat to his seat of power in Damascus, as rebels pelted it with shells, disrupting normal life. On Saturday, Syrian government forces entered Douma for the first time since 2012, marking the biggest victory for Assad’s forces since the conflict began in 2011.

On Monday, the few remaining residents were able to move around safely for the first time in months following the crushing government offensive and a yearslong siege, tightened even further last year, that had starved the town, once the bread basket of the capital, of food, medical supplies and other essentials.

On an Associated Press tour of the town, organized by the Assad government, hundreds of men, women and children could be seen standing in long lines waiting their turn to get pasta, vegetables and loaves of bread piled on government trucks and handed out for free.

“This is the first time I will eat wheat bread in years,” said Naim Saqour, an 18-year-old, after receiving a pack of nine Arab loaves from the government employees. Saqour said that he and his family had survived for months on olives and small amounts of barley bread.

“Our happiness is double now. We are eating wheat bread and we sleep without fear,” said tailor Alaa Khobiyeh. “Most importantly, we sleep above ground not underground.”

Many residents blamed the greed of some local businessmen and the main rebel group in Douma, the Saudi-backed Army of Islam, for much of their misery, by raising food prices to make more money and hiding the scant food supplies from people in need. After the Army of Islam left town, they said, they discovered the militants had stored large amounts of rice, flour, wheat, canned goods and other food — enough, they said to feed residents for months.

Residents also spoke of several local families who used to buy large amounts of food and hoard it to sell later at a far higher price, making most food products out of reach for most people.

Wafaa al-Seikh, 60, spoke wistfully of a time, years ago, when she used to cook a different dish for her family of six children and have a shower every day. For the past year, she said she could not afford to pay for staples like sugar, which shot up to 18,000 Syrian pounds ($40) a kilo (2.2 pounds), from its normal price of 500 Syrian pounds (about $1.10).

“A month could pass without having a shower,” said the woman, who had rice for the first time in years on Sunday. She described the past two months during the army’s offensive to capture Douma as terrifying, with time passing slowly in shelters with little food and lice spreading among residents.

Douma was the scene of a suspected chemical weapons attack on April 7 that killed more than 40 people and hastened the rebels’ surrender to government forces. During a government-organized trip on Saturday, survivors spoke to the AP of the horror they witnessed from a chlorine-like substance that killed their neighbors, but they blamed the rebels for the attack, without providing any evidence.

On Monday, the Abbas government was working on winning the hearts and minds of Douma residents, handing out the free food and pledging to restore services in a timely fashion.

At a meeting on Monday attended by Syrian Finance Minister Maamoun Hamdan, several local bankers and a number of Douma dignitaries, Hamdan promised that services would start improving in coming weeks and mobile bakeries would be deployed in neighborhoods to sell bread, the country’s main staple, at cost.

Hamdan said that initial funding of 5 billion Syrian pounds ($10.8 million) had been set aside “for different domains, and if it is not enough then we are ready to fund more.”

Maj. Gen. Issam Shehadeh Al-Hallaj, the chief police commander in the region, said that security forces were manning 15 checkpoints set up outside town to secure public properties and maintain order. He said 60,000 residents remained in the town after tens of thousands of rebels and their families left for rebel-held areas in northern Syria over the past two weeks. “We have deployed patrolling forces in all the squares to save the citizens and to spread security,” he said.

U.S. Brass Dismisses Constitution, Law in Missile Strike on Syria

The U.S. Constitution and international law suffered a stinging blow Friday night at the hands of an odd coalition that might be called Goldilocks and two moral dwarfs posing as Marine generals, together with a “Right Dishonorable” harridan and a young French poodle.

As was the case 15 years ago when the U.S. and UK launched a war of aggression against Iraq, the pretext was so-called “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD)—this time the claimed use on April 7 of chlorine (and maybe the nerve agent sarin—who knows?) in Duma a suburb of Damascus.  And this time French President Emmanuel Macron was allowed to join, as junior partner, the gang that can’t lie straight.

The attacks by the Gang of Three came hours before specialists from the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were to arrive in Syria to study soil and other samples in Duma. The question leaps out: Why could the Gang not wait until the OPCW had a chance to find out whether there was such an attack and, if so, what chemical(s) were used?

Sentence First, Verdict Later

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis could only say that he believes there was a chemical attack and that perhaps sarin, in addition to chlorine, was involved. Serving until now as the only available “evidence” are highly dubious reports from agenda-laden “social media.”  What is clear is that the U.S./UK/French Gang wanted to strike before the OPCW investigators had a chance to ascertain what happened. Hmm. All the earmarks of “Sentence first; verdict afterwards.”

Former Secretary of State John Kerry made a habit of advertising how “extraordinarily useful” social media can be.  He got that right.  Of the main alleged “chemical attacks” by Syria — on August 21, 2013; April 4,2017; and April 7, 2018—the primary, if not exclusive—source of information was the “extraordinarily useful,” but notoriously unreliable, “social media.”

Marine Martinets

Briefing the media last night, after Goldilocks had set the stage announcing “retaliation” for the (unproven) use of chemicals by the Syrian government, were two four-star Marine generals, one of them (Mattis) retired, who seem to have mistakenly thought that the Marine motto had been changed to “Semper Lie.” It was a very sad spectacle.

In 1961, when I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, I took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Also drummed into the heads of us newly minted officers was the obligation to tell the truth—always.

I had assumed—apparently naively—that Marines took the same oath and obligation. The attack on Iraq 15 years ago destroyed that assumption. I will cite just two examples that scandalized me.

Hear No Evil, Speak No Truth, Get Rich Quick

Marine Gen. Zinni was receiving an award at the Veterans for Foreign War convention on August 26, 2002, and decided to play Brer’ Rabbit as he listened to the main speaker, Vice President Dick Cheney, set the meretricious terms of reference for war with Iraq.

Zinni had been commander of CENTCOM and had retired two years before, but his continued role as fully cleared consultant had enabled him to stay up to date on key intelligence findings for Iraq.  Zinni later said he was shocked to hear Cheney’s depiction of intelligence (Iraq has WMD and is amassing them to use against us) that did not square with what he knew the accurate intelligence to be. “There was no solid proof that Saddam had WMD. … I heard a case being made to go to war,” Zinni told Meet the Press three and a half years later. (Emphasis mine.)

Earlier, Zinni enjoyed a reputation as a relatively straight shooter with a good bit of courage. And so, the question lingers: why did he not go public when he first heard Cheney’s lie? THAT might have stopped the war.  What seems operative here, I fear, is an all-too-familiar conundrum at senior levels where people have been conditioned not to rock the boat, not to risk their standing within the Washington Establishment or their prospects for lucrative spots on the corporate boards of arms manufacturers.

Semper Fraud

Without the full cooperation of former Marine, Senator Pat Roberts (R, Kansas), who was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee before, during, and after the attack on Iraq, Bush and Cheney would have had far more difficulty perpetrating that crime. Because of Roberts’s participation in what easily qualifies as a criminal conspiracy, Bush and Cheney were able to run amok—until, finally, the Senate changed hands in 2006.

On June 5, 2008 Roberts’s successor, Sen. Jay Rockefeller announced the completion of a five-year Senate Intelligence Committee investigation—a study that had been continually sidetracked by Roberts. Rockefeller introduced the study’s bipartisan findings with these words: “In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.”

Fellow Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter found Roberts’s behavior shameful.  Ritter was unable to resist writing: “Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts.”

Against that background, it was particularly painful last evening to watch two Marine four-star generals peddling at the Pentagon a bogus casus belli for another unprovoked armed attack—this time on Syria.

Media people favored with a Pentagon pass were too timid to ask pointed questions about the evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for some strange reason known only to him, picked a time of near victory to “use chemical weapons against his own people” on April 7.  No one asked why the rush to judgment; why the gang of three (the U.S., its aging British cousin, and its young French poodle) could not have waited just a day or two for UN inspectors to arrive and discover whether the so-called “chemical attack” amounted to a true casus belli, or a casus belly-laugh.

Following Orders

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford remind me of the generals of the Third Reich in “just following orders,” lying through their teeth about the pretext for attacking Poland—er, I mean Syria—as though the solemn oath they took was to the Fuehrer—er, I mean President—not the Constitution. It seemed, at first, that President George W. Bush’s dictum still reigned at the Pentagon; i. e., “The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper.”But President Donald Trump and Secretary Mattis did not go as far as Bush. No doubt under White House orders, Mattis dutifully recited the key tenet of constitutional scholar Dick Cheney’s dubious “unitary executive” theory; that is, that the President is somehow not bound by Article I (Section 8) of the Constitution. That Article I section may have been in mothballs since the attack on Pearl Harbor, but remains a very important part of the Constitution.  And the U.S. has gotten into a peck of trouble by those —administrations and members of congress, alike — who have chosen to circumvent this key provision, which reserves to Congress the power to declare war. Our Founders wanted this to apply, if a King — er, I mean President — got it into his head to attack another country.  Syria, for example.

At the beginning of his speech, Mattis employed this dubious variant, without the slightest demurral from those wishing to retain their Pentagon passes: “As our commander in chief, our President has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important U.S. national interests.”

Those interested should re-read Article II. They will look in vain for anything like the Cheney/Mattis variant. All that part of Article II says is: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”



A Common Error With Budding Officers Too

An experience I had teaching a class at the Naval Academy in Annapolis 12 years ago suggests that students at U.S. military academies are led to think that Article II supersedes Article I. Lecturing to a third-year class of about 50 students about political/military events, I referred innocently to the solemn oath required of military personnel and asked what that oath was all about. “Well, it is an oath to the President, of course,” said the first student who threw up his hand, with several others nodding assent. I said that was quite wrong.  And it turned out to be like pulling teeth to find one student who knew that the oath was to defend the Constitution.

Last evening I found myself wondering what Attorney General Jeff Sessions thought of Mattis’s messing with Article I, Section 8. For, not too long ago, there was one shining moment when Sen. Jeff Sessions did his best to challenge then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who pretended to be unfamiliar with the bedrock fact that the Constitution reserved to Congress the right to declare war.

Libya: Precedent for Syria

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 7, 2012, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, pursued this key issue with Panetta. Chafing ex post factoat the unauthorized nature of the war in Libya, Sessions asked repeatedly what “legal basis” would the Obama administration rely on to do in Syria what it did in Libya.

Watching that part of the testimony, it seemed to me that Sessions, a conservative Southern lawyer, was not at all faking when he pronounced himself “almost breathless,” as Panetta stonewalled time after time. Panetta made it explicitly clear that the administration does not believe it needs to seek congressional approval for wars like Libya. At times he seemed to be quoting verses from the Book of Cheney.

Sessions: “I am really baffled … The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the U.S. military [in combat] is the Congress and the President and the law and the Constitution.”

Panetta: “Let me just for the record be clear again, Senator, so there is no misunderstanding. When it comes to national defense, the President has the authority under the Constitution to act to defend this country, and we will, Sir.”

If you readers care about the Constitution and the rule of law, I strongly recommend that you view the entire 7-minute video clip.

Constitutionally, the craven Congress is a huge part of the problem. Only a few members of the House and Senate seem to care very much when presidents act like kings and send off troops drawn largely by a poverty draft to wars not authorized (or simply rubber-stamped) by Congress.

A Chill on the First Amendment

Secretary Mattis devoted his last minute last evening to a careful reading of the following warning:

“Based on recent experience, we fully expect a significant disinformation campaign over the coming days by those who have aligned themselves with the Assad regime. And, in an effort to maintain transparency and accuracy, my assistant for public affairs, Ms. Dana White, and Lt. Gen. McKenzie, Director General of the Joint Staff here in Washington, will provide a brief of known details tomorrow morning—we are anticipating at about 9:00 in this same location.” A warning not so sotto voce: Criticize the craven behavior of Mattis, Dunford, or the Gang of Three, and you will be “aligning” yourself “with the Assad regime.”

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years.

GAO: EPA Violated Spending Law on Pruitt’s Privacy Booth

WASHINGTON — An internal government watchdog says the Environmental Protection Agency violated federal spending laws when purchasing a $43,000 soundproof privacy booth for Administrator Scott Pruitt to make private phone calls in his office.

The Government Accountability Office issued its findings Monday in a letter to Senate Democrats who had requested a review of Pruitt’s spending.

GAO General Counsel Thomas Armstrong determined that EPA’s purchase of the booth violated federal law prohibiting agencies from spending more than $5,000 for redecorating, furnishings or other improvements to the offices of presidential appointees without informing Congress. Because EPA used federal money in a manner specifically prohibited by law, Armstrong said the agency also violated the Antideficiency Act, and is legally obligated to report that violation to Congress.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agency is “addressing GAO’s concern, with regard to congressional notification about this expense, and will be sending Congress the necessary information this week.”

EPA has said previously that Pruitt needed the privacy booth to make secure phone calls with President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials without fear of eavesdropping. It is among several unusual security precautions taken by Pruitt that are now under scrutiny, like his use frequent use of first-class flights to avoid unpleasant interactions with other travelers.

The Associated Press first reported in December that EPA also spent about $9,000 for an outside contractor to sweep Pruitt’s office for secret listening devices and installed biometric locks.

Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, who requested the GAO review, said the finding was yet another example of the embattled EPA administrator flouting federal spending rules.

“An illegal privacy booth to conduct secret discussions with his polluter friends does nothing to help our health or environment,” Udall said Monday. “Scott Pruitt is behaving like swamp emperor rather than EPA administrator — he has shown a shocking lack of regard for public health and safety, ethics and fairness. He has been a disaster, and it’s past time for him to go.”

Pruitt and those around him are under multiple investigations launched by government watchdogs and congressional committees. EPA’s inspector general has at least five ongoing Pruitt-related probes, while the House oversight panel on Friday demanded interviews with five of the EPA administrator’s closest aides.

Among the issues being probed by EPA’s inspector general is whether Pruitt’s office properly used authority granted to the EPA administrator under the Safe Drinking Water Act to hire and give raises to a limited number of employees.

Among those who have received massive raises under that authority are two young aides to Pruitt he brought with him to EPA from Oklahoma, where he previously served as state attorney general.

EPA senior legal counsel Sarah Greenwalt, 30, got two raises totaling more than $66,000, bringing her salary to $164,200 a year. Scheduling director Millian Hupp, 26, saw her salary jump to $114,590, with raises totaling more than $48,000.

In a combative Fox News interview on April 4, Pruitt insisted he didn’t approve the big raises and didn’t know who did.

In an unusual management alert issued Monday, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins said his staff had reviewed personnel documents for six employees who were hired or had received raises under the Safe Drinking Water Act since Pruitt came to the agency last year.

The inspector general said some hiring documents were signed by Pruitt himself, while Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson signed off on forms approving big raises, adding the words “for Scott Pruitt” to his signature.

The names of the employees at issue were blacked out from the documents released to the public, though the hire dates and raises awarded to two of the redacted employees exactly matched information for Greenwalt and Hupp.

The inspector general’s audit into the raises is continuing, but Elkins’ letter said the interim alert was issued to notify Pruitt “of certain factual information.”

Democrats and a few Republicans have been calling on Pruitt either to resign or be fired since late last month, when media reports first disclosed that he had rented a Capitol Hill condo tied to an oil and gas lobbyist at the bargain rate of $50 a night.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and typically a staunch defender of Pruitt, agreed that EPA needs to follow the law.

“It is critical that EPA and all federal agencies comply with notification requirements to Congress before spending taxpayer dollars,” he said. “EPA must give a full public accounting of this expenditure and explain why the agency thinks it was complying with the law.”

Other Republicans have been more forceful in criticizing Pruitt.

In a Fox News interview over the weekend, House oversight chairman Trey Gowdy said he was especially troubled by Pruitt’s use of security concerns to justify spending on premium-class airfare.

“You need to go into another line of work if you don’t want people to be mean to you,” the South Carolina Republican quipped. “Like maybe a monk, where you don’t come in contact with anyone.”

 

Trump Lawyer Forced to Reveal Another Client: Sean Hannity

Update: 1:53 p.m. PDT: The Associated Press has posted news of Sean Hannity’s comments about his ties to President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen:

“Fox News host Sean Hannity says it’s no ‘big deal’ that he consulted with Donald Trump’s personal lawyer about his own legal affairs.

“In his regular broadcast Monday, Hannity says he had ‘brief discussions’ with Michael Cohen about ‘legal questions where I wanted his input and perspective.’

“But he said he never retained Cohen ‘in any traditional sense,’ never paid him and never got billed for a legal fee.”

NEW YORK — A legal fight over what should happen to records the FBI seized from President Trump’s personal attorney took a surprise twist Monday when the lawyer, Michael Cohen, was forced to reveal in court that he had also secretly done legal work for Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The disclosure came as Cohen’s attorneys tried to persuade a federal judge in New York to delay prosecutors from examining records and electronic devices seized in the raids on the grounds that many of them are protected by attorney-client privilege.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood said in hearings Friday and again on Monday that if Cohen wanted the court to declare that the some of his files were protected because of attorney confidentiality rules, he would have to divulge the names of his clients.

In a court filing Monday, Cohen’s attorneys said three people received legal help from Cohen in 2017 and 2018, after Trump became president.

One was Trump himself. Another was Elliot Broidy, a Trump fundraiser who resigned from the Republican National Committee on Friday after it was revealed that he paid $1.6 million to a Playboy Playmate with whom he had an extramarital affair. The Playmate became pregnant and elected to have an abortion.

But they initially declined to reveal the name of the third client.

The third legal client directed Mr. Cohen not to reveal the identity publicly, Cohen’s lawyers, Todd Harrison and Stephen Ryan, wrote. “It almost goes without saying, unfortunately, that none of Mr. Cohen’s clients want to be associated with the government raid on his home and law office, or want to be affiliated in any way with the proceedings here and the attendant media coverage.”

Wood, though, demanded the name.

“I understand he doesn’t want his name out there, but that’s not enough under the law,” she said.

An email sent to Fox News seeking comment from Hannity was not immediately returned.

The hearing was ongoing Monday afternoon.

It began with an appearance by porn actress Stormy Daniels, who was swarmed by photographers and nearly fell as she was hustled into the courthouse, a scene that captured the sensational atmosphere around a legal fight involving the president and an FBI investigation into his personal attorney.

The April 9 raid on Cohen sought information on a variety of matters, including a $130,000 payment made to Daniels, who alleges she had sex with a married Trump in 2006.

At issue is exactly who gets to look at Cohen’s seized documents and devices before they are turned over to prosecutors. Attorneys for Cohen say they want first crack. Trump’s lawyers say they also want some form of prior review. Another option is to set up a “special master” who will vet the material to determine what is protected and what isn’t; that is the Cohen team’s second choice.

Prosecutors, who say they raided Cohen’s office, home and hotel room as part of an undisclosed crime related to his personal business dealings, prefer the ordinary procedure of reviewing the documents with a panel of prosecutors unrelated to the investigation — a so-called “taint team.”

At stake is an investigation that could get at the heart of Trump’s longtime fixer and image protector. People familiar with the probe told The Associated Press that agents were seeking bank records, records on Cohen’s dealing in the taxi industry, Cohen’s communications with the Trump campaign and information on payments made in 2016 to two women who say they had affairs with Trump, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and the porn star Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Lawyers for Cohen filed papers Monday saying investigators “took everything” during the raids, including more than a dozen electronic devices. They said that prosecutors had already intercepted emails from Cohen and executed the search warrants only after discovering that there were no emails between Trump and Cohen.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Joanna Hendon, filed papers late Sunday asking a federal judge to block prosecutors from studying material seized in the raid until Cohen and the president have both had a chance to review those materials and argue which are subject to attorney-client privilege.

“Fairness and justice — as well as the appearance of fairness and justice — require that, before they are turned over to the Investigative Team, the seized materials relating to the President must be reviewed by the only person who is truly motivated to ensure that the privilege is properly invoked and applied: the privilege-holder himself, the President,” Hendon wrote.

Hendon proposed yet another level of protections, in which Cohen’s lawyers, after finishing their initial review, would then be required to “identify to the president all seized materials that relate to him in any way and provide a copy of those materials to him and his counsel.”

Cohen, who has denied wrongdoing, arrived early Monday afternoon. He did not attend Friday’s hearing and was then ordered by the judge to appear in court Monday to help answer questions about his law practice.

Trump said Sunday that all lawyers are now “deflated and concerned” by the FBI raid on Cohen.

“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past,” he tweeted. “I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!”

Kevin Cooper Fights for His Innocence From San Quentin’s Death Row

Not everyone on death row is guilty. According to the Registry of Exonerations—maintained at the University of California at Irvine Law School, where constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was the former dean—on average 4 percent of men on death row across the United States are innocent.

Kevin Cooper may be one of them.

Cooper, a 60-year-old African-American man, is a death row inmate at California’s San Quentin Prison. In 1985, he was convicted of a 1983 quadruple murder and sentenced to death for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, Calif.: Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and her 11-year-old friend Christopher Hughes. The Ryens’ 8-year-old son, Josh, survived the attack.

At Cooper’s trial, evidence that might have exonerated him was withheld from the defense. Since his conviction, Cooper has become active in writing from prison to assert his innocence, protest racism in the American criminal justice system, and oppose the death penalty. His case was scrutinized in a June 17, 2017, New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof.

The state of California intends to execute Cooper when it resumes executions in the coming months.

Cooper’s case is not just another case of a death row inmate claiming his innocence. Many legal experts and longtime human rights advocates say it is the most well-documented and well-supported matter of wrongful conviction they have ever seen. Having exhausted his appeals in the U.S. courts, Cooper’s lawyers want to raise public awareness to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case.

Here are some facts about Kevin Cooper and his case.

In 2009, referring to Cooper’s case, five federal judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals signed a dissenting opinion that begins: “The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man.” Six additional 9th Circuit judges have joined in the dissent, saying Cooper never has had a fair hearing to prove his innocence.

Read the unprecedented dissent by five federal judges below.

In February 2016, legal counsel for Cooper sent the following clemency petition to California Gov. Jerry Brown.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is a principal and autonomous body of the Organization of American States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., IACHR’s mission is to promote, protect and examine allegations of human rights violations in the American hemisphere.

On April 29, 2011, Cooper filed a petition with the IACHR alleging human rights violations in his prosecution, trial, sentencing and appeals. On Aug. 23, 2011, after reviewing the petition, the IACHR issued a letter to the United States that requested “precautionary measures” such that Cooper not be executed while the IACHR undertook its investigation of Cooper’s petition. The United States ignored the IACHR’s letter. Cooper’s attorneys then presented extensive evidence to the IACHR and briefing as to how Cooper’s human rights had been violated.

On Oct. 28, 2013, the IACHR convened a hearing on Cooper’s petition. Cooper appeared by a pre-recorded statement, and his attorneys presented their arguments on how Cooper’s human rights had been infringed. Representing the United States were attorneys from the U.S. State Department. After the hearing, the United States requested time to file a brief in opposition to the the evidence in Cooper’s petition and presented at the hearing. After the United States filed its opposition brief, Cooper filed a reply pointing out inaccuracies in the United States’ presentation.

In September 2015, the IACHR released its report on its findings with respect to Cooper’s clemency petition. That report found eight separate due process violations in Cooper’s prosecution, trial and sentencing. It also found that Cooper’s trial counsel had been ineffective and cited evidence that there had been racial bias in the proceedings that led to Cooper’s conviction and sentence. The report concluded with a list of recommendations for granting Kevin Cooper effective relief, including a review of his trial and sentence in accordance with the guarantees of due process of law.

As the report states:

In evaluating the information on the record, the Inter-American Commission concludes that the manner in which certain evidence pertinent to the basis for Mr. Cooper’s capital conviction was treated in the course of his criminal proceedings and the ineffective defense provided by a court-appointed counsel, failed to meet the rigorous standard of due process applicable in capital cases and amounted to a denial of justice contrary to the fair trial and due process standards.

Reach the full IACHR final report from September 2015 below.

Many people have written letters to Gov. Brown to voice their support for Cooper’s request for clemency and urge Brown to use the powers of his office to conduct a full and fair investigation into Cooper’s case.

Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, wrote in August 2016:

Based on my decades of experience representing condemned prisoners, Mr. Cooper’s case presents exactly the situation for which clemency is intended—to avoid the ultimate injustice of executing an innocent person whom the criminal justice system has failed. … I have represented scores of condemned men and women, all of whom are poor and who are disproportionately people of color. We now know that for every nine persons executed in the United States, one innocent person is exonerated and released from death row. This error rate in our capital system is unacceptable, yet it continues because so many people on death row were subjected to racial bias and did not have the means to defend themselves.

Read Stevenson’s full letter from the Equal Justice Initiative below.

In August 2016, the Innocence Project wrote:

Since 1973, American courts have released [161] death row inmates from prison after a finding of innocence. A recent study determined that, conservatively, 4.1% of all death row inmates in the United States are likely innocent.

Read the full letter from the Innocence Project below.

In May 2017, Sister Helen Prejean wrote:

This brings me to the case of Kevin Cooper, which is currently before you on his Petition for Executive Clemency. The law enforcement abuses and other misconduct by the San Bernardino sheriff’s department and prosecutors in the ’80’s and 90’s and mishandling of evidence subject to DNA testing in the early 2000s as well as the actions of a Republican appointed District Court Judge in San Diego that prevented Mr. Cooper from a fair opportunity to prove his innocence, are well set forth in detail in the Petition, the May, 2009 opinion of 9th Circuit Judge William Fletcher and the book “Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper” by J. Patrick O’Connor and articles and news videos by several others who have reviewed and studied the case.

These organizations and individuals include the most prominent and well respected civil rights and human rights observers, commentators and participants, both nationally and internationally. I join them, most of whom have written personally to you regarding Kevin Cooper’s wrongful conviction.

Read the full letter from Sr. Prejean below.

Cooper’s clemency petition 30 years after the slaying in Chino Hills has stirred many emotions. His last hope of avoiding execution is up to Gov. Brown. If evidence exists that could prove Cooper’s innocence, an investigation with current forensic testing methods should be conducted. Cooper is not asking for his release. All he wants is a fair hearing on his claims of innocence.

For more information about Kevin Cooper and his case, visit savekevincooper.org. To read Cooper’s writing on Truthdig, click here.

If you want to get involved, here are some actions you can take.

Sign Amnesty Internationals’ petition to commute Kevin Cooper’s death sentence.

Share information about Kevin Cooper’s case with your neighbors, coworkers, friends and family.

Join the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, and help them plan events and actions.

Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper about this injustice.

Invite the Defense Committee to present Cooper’s case to your house of worship, school, community group.

Contact the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee at info@freekevincooper.org to learn more or discuss other ways to help.

The Pandora’s Box of War

Editor’s note: Chris Hedges’ regular column will appear later this week. Here is a repost of his April 8, 2017, article, which appeared shortly after the first time President Trump fired missiles into Syria in reaction to reports of chemical warfare by the regime of President Bashar Assad. On Friday the United States again conducted a missile attack on Syria in the wake of reports that Assad’s forces had used chemicals against civilians.

War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The invasion of Afghanistan set out to defeat al-Qaida, and nearly 16 years later we are embroiled in a losing fight with the Taliban. We believed we could invade Iraq and create a Western-style democracy and weaken Iran’s power in the region. The fragmentation of Iraq among warring factions has left Iran the dominant Muslim nation in the Middle East and Iraq destroyed as a unified nation. We set out to topple President Bashar Assad in Syria but then began to bomb the Islamic insurgents trying to overthrow him. We spread the “war on terror” to Yemen, Libya and Syria in a desperate effort to crush regional resistance. Instead, we created new failed states and lawless enclaves where vacuums were filled by the jihadist forces we sought to defeat. We have wasted a staggering $4.79 trillion on death, destruction and folly as our nation is increasingly impoverished and climate change threatens us with extinction. The arms manufacturers, who have a vested interest in perpetuating these debacles, will work to make a few trillion more before this act of collective imperial suicide comes to a humiliating end.

In war, when you attack one force you implicitly aid another. And the forces we assist by striking the Assad regime are the forces we ironically are determined to eradicate—Nusra Front, al-Qaida and other Islamic radical groups. These are the same Islamic forces we, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait, largely created, armed and funded at the inception of the civil war in Syria. They are the forces that have responded to the chaos caused by our misguided military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. They are the forces that execute Western captives, slaughter religious minorities, carry out terrorism in Europe and the United States and collect billions of dollars from smuggling refugees into Europe. They are our sometime enemies and our sometime allies.

The jihadists’ savagery mirrors our own. The jihadists respond to our airstrikes and aerial drone attacks by using suicide vests and improvised explosive devices. They respond to our black sites and prisons such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo with basement cells that torture kidnapped captives. They respond to the ideology of Western secularism with an Islamic state. They respond to violence with violence.

The Islamic militants in Syria, after Russia intervened against them in September 2015, were losing territory, financial revenue and support in the six-year war. And they were the ones who rejoiced this week when the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria’s Shayrat airfield, reportedly the launching site for a chemical weapons attack that killed 86 people, including at least 30 children, on Tuesday in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government says six people died in the U.S. missile attack.

The selective moral outrage of the United States, among both Democrats and Republicans, over the alleged chemical attack—I know from two decades of covering war that the truth is very murky and easily manipulated in wartime—ignores America’s primary responsibility for the wholesale carnage that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions as refugees, including 4 million from Iraq and 5 million from Syria. It ignores the 12,197 bombs we dropped on Syria last year. It ignores our role in creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and our role in arming and funding these jihadists in Syria. We have made sure that the Syrians—400,000 of whom have died and half of whom have been forced from their homes during the war—have many options when it comes to dying.

Syria had, and may still have, chemical weapons. It appeared to use them in 2013 in the Damascus suburb Ghouta, leaving anywhere from 281 to 1,729 dead. But the Syrians, in an international accord brokered by then-Secretary of State John Kerry with the Russian government, agreed to turn over their chemical stockpiles to the Russians following the attack. And one has to ask why Syria, which is finally winning the war, would use chemical agents now and risk U.S. retaliation. Syria says the deadly nerve agent sarin and possibly chlorine gas were released when a rebel depot holding the chemicals was hit in an airstrike.

Why the moral outrage now among Americans? Why have we stood by as Syrians died daily from barrel bombs, bullets, famine, disease and drowning off the shores of Greece? Why have we been mute as schools, apartment blocks, mosques and hospitals have been bombed into rubble? Where is the outrage about the deaths of the thousands of other children, including those we killed recently in Mosul when a March 17 coalition airstrike took the lives of as many as 200 civilians? Why are we not enraged by the Trump administration’s flagrant violation of domestic law by carrying out an act of war without approval from Congress or the United Nations? Why do we lament these deaths yet bar Syrian war refugees from entering the United States? Is American foreign policy to be dictated by the fickle emotions of Donald Trump, whose perception of reality appears to be obtained exclusively from a television screen? The radical Islamists can always count on the West to intervene and resurrect them. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian radical, founded Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in Iraq with about 100 former fighters from al-Qaidi in Afghanistan. His goal was a sectarian conflict with the Shiites. A unified Shiite and Sunni state in Iraq was an anathema to the Sunni jihadists. Zarqawi’s group became al-Qaida in Iraq in 2004. It declared its loyalty to Osama bin Laden, who had initially opposed Zarqawi’s call for a war with Shiites. Zarqawi was killed in 2006.

By 2010 al-Qaida in Iraq was a spent force. Then came the civil war in Syria. The United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey pumped weapons, money and resources to various rebel factions in Syria to overthrow the Syrian regime. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who took over the leadership of Zarqawi’s organization, changed the name of the group to the Islamic State of Iraq. He soon decamped to Syria. His group, like all jihadist organizations in Syria, was showered with weapons and resources. Baghdadi devoted his energy to attacking other jihadist and rebel groups. He gradually took control of an area the size of Texas in Syria and Iraq. Al-Nusra, the al-Qaida-affiliated group in Syria, merged with the Islamic State of Iraq. The new group became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. It attracted an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters—some 4,000 of whom held European passports. The group was estimated by The Wall Street Journal to earn $2 million a day in oil exports alone. As a trafficker of humans, it has made billions from the desperate refugees attempting to flee to Europe. It has executed religious minority members or forced them out of its territory. The newly formed self-described caliphate has also terrorized the Sunnis in the name of religious purity, as Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton point out in the AlterNet article “Is Trump Rescuing Al-Qaeda’s ‘Heartland’ in Syria?”

The rise of Islamic State has instilled pride and self-empowerment for many Sunnis, humiliated by the U.S. occupation. It has exposed the weak and corrupt ruling elites who have sold themselves to Washington. It is proof that the Western military forces are not invincible. These groups will suffer reverses, but they will not go away.

There is no clean or easy way to exit from the morass we created in the region. None of the insurgents in the region will willingly lay down their weapons until the U.S. occupation of the Middle East ends. The wars we started are complicated. There is a myriad of proxy wars being fought beneath the surface, including our war with Russia, Turkey’s war with the Kurds, and Saudi Arabia’s war with Iran. The civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen are the human fodder. This slaughter has already lasted nearly 16 years. It will not cease until the United States is exhausted and withdraws its forces from the region. And before that happens, many, many more innocents will die. So save your tears. We are morally no different from the jihadists or the Syrians we fight. They reflect back to us our own repugnant visage. If we wanted this to stop, we could make it happen.