No one can seriously believe that Trump gives a rat’s ass about the horrors at Khan Sheikhoun–any more than Assad or Putin do. He is the monster who said he’d bomb the shit out of Muslims because they’re all terrorists & the man trying to ban Muslim refugees. He looked like an ass at his press conference just pretending to care because human empathy is no part of his deranged character.

Many believe the US bombing of the airbase last night was an act of deterrence to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. The US Pentagon has the most sophisticated military surveillance equipment in the world & knows exactly what Assad & Putin have been using against Syrian civilians, including chemicals, gases, barrel, thermobaric, cluster, & bunker buster bombs. They could identify where Syria’s hidden sarin & VX gases are stored.

But the US is not at odds with Assad & Putin in destroying the Syrian popular revolution against dictatorship; the Pentagon functions in Syria as part of the counter-revolution, just as they do in Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, Palestine, & elsewhere.

The bombing of that airbase is an assertion of US military power not intended to deter Assad or Putin. Otherwise, why did the US warn Russia of the airstrike who then would have warned Syria? The sole purpose of those airstrikes was to scare the hell out of the Syrian revolution, to show them what they are up against–especially when the international antiwar movement is passive or up the ass of the Syrian regime.

The only response principled antiwar activists can make to this bombing of the airbase is to condemn it–even though Syria & Russia had probably cleared it of personnel & equipment in advance, thanks to the US warning.

But any denunciations of an empty airbase where Assad launches gas attacks cannot overshadow our denunciations of Assad’s gassing of civilians, of Russian, Syrian, & US bombing of civilians in Syria, & of US bombing of civilians in Mosul.