[Peace-discuss] Who do we BLAME? Part 40517.

[Szoke, Ron]

Trump White House responds to Syrian gas attack by blaming the Obama administration<http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/4/1650118/-Trump-White-House-responds-to-Syrian-gas-attack-by-blaming-the-Obama-administration>

[Hunter.jpeg]
By Hunter<http://www.dailykos.com/user/Hunter>
Daily Kos, Tuesday Apr 04, 2017 · 12:22 PM CDT

Donald Trump repeatedly claimed, during the campaign, that the various bad actors on the world stage were only daring to commit aggressions and atrocities because our current leaders were "weak." Today's chemical weapons attack by Syrian forces against Syrian civilians will be one of his team's first true foreign policy tests: they quickly proved themselves to up to the task<http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/politics/syria-chemical-attack-donald-trump-obama/>.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Tuesday that a gas attack in a rebel-controlled area of Syria was perpetrated by the forces tied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and are a "consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution." [...]
"Today's chemical attack in Syria against innocent people including women and children is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world," Spicer said. "These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."
This may be the first official White House condemnation of the use of chemical weapons to be affixed to a direct political attack on a previous president. The move makes it appear that the White House is more concerned with dodging responsibility for responding to the Syrian attack than they are with the use of the weapons themselves.
It is likely that the Trump team has not mapped out an American response to the attacks—especially because of the Trump campaign and transition eagerness to pursue a Russia-friendly compromise in Syria despite Russia's backing of the regime that perpetrated these attacks. Actual Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for his part, is so far again absent from the discussion<https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/849302826111184896>.

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