US Rattles Sabers in Syria: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday accused the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad of making preparations for a chemical attack.
The warning comes on the heels of the horrific April 4 tragedy in Khan Sheikhoun, in the northeast of the country. Approximately eighty people died, convulsing and suffocating, from what the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) subsequently determined was Sarin gas. Although government aircraft from the Shayrat airbase did conduct a strike in Khan Sheikhoun at the time, the Assad regime denied they deployed chemical weapons. The Russian Defense Ministry suggested that perhaps the airstrike had detonated Sarin weapons that the Islamists who controlled Khan Sheikhoun had stored on the ground.
Unconvinced, The US lobbed 59 cruise missiles at Shayrat, at a cost of somewhere around $60 million dollars. Despite the high price tag, they apparently had little effect, since now Mr. Spicer warns of this new attack in the wake of what he called “activities” at the airbase. Glad to see Mr. Trump is being a careful custodian of the taxpayers' dollars. Mr. Spicer threatened that if “Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”
When a few days later, no attack had occurred, the US declared victory. “It appears that they took the warning seriously,” Secretary of Defense Mattis said. I suppose that’s possible. Of course, it’s also possible that there never was a planned attack.
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Turkish Police Forcibly Shut Down Gay Pride Parade: This week marks the 48th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, generally considered the start of the gay rights movement. To commemorate the occasion, gay activists marched in pride parades in cities throughout the world.
But not in Istanbul.
For the third year in a row, city authorities banned the march. Some forty activists showed up anyway. Police arrested at least four of them and disbursed the rest by shooting them with rubber bullets.
Some observers see the ban as part of the Islamicization of Turkey under President Erdogan. That is certainly a concern, in light of Mr. Erdogan's Islamist roots. But as I've noted previously, so far Mr. Erdogan has been governing as an authoritarian, attacking freedom of the press and the independence of the judiciary, but not particularly an Islamist.
This week also marked the trials of the eleven activists arrested at last year’s abortive march. Ironically, they were all acquitted.
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ISIS will no doubt survive the loss of its territory, but in a different form, mutating into something more in the mold of al-Qaeda.
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Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092 and depicts the battle for the Muslim soul between those who embrace science and tolerance, and those who throw in their lot with mysticism and persecution.
Photo credits: NBC News
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