Epstein Secrets

ed when I heard a week ago Thursda= evening that the US military launched 59 tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airfield to punish Syria's President Bashar Assad for allegedly usi=g chemical weapons to attack his own citizens. This act was a dramatic reversal from Trump's pledges to limit U.S. invo=vement in

g Syria's neighbors and =he Europeans to sort out the mess. For years President Obama had resisted growing calls to intervene militarily against the Assad regime. President Barack Obama's decision to refrain from engagement in 2013 was crit=cized as feckless at the time and is cited now as one of the r

ment at the airfield. But within hours of the missile attack, Syrian warplanes had taken off from that same =irfield and launched airstrikes against Khan Sheikhoun, the same town where at leas= 86 people had been killed in the sarin attack and dropped new conventional bom=s. As Comedian/Satirist John Oliver poi

et be a presidential game changer of the kind that everyone knew would surely come. Still, these were chemical weapons launched by a repeat offender, Bashar al-Assad. In any other presidency, such an atrocity would command a considered and, ideally, skillful response. Obama’s consideration had in fact been less th

ying international law, had used chemical weapons. There was video documenting the attack and substantial agreement among intelligence agencies about Assad’s responsibility. The politics were right: Barack Obama failed to act when confronted with a Syrian chemical attack, and now Trump could. The downsid

d Flynn to the president was that Flynn, quite the conspiracist and drama queen, had a vivid storytelling sense. By the time of the Syrian attack on Khan Sheikhoun, McMaster had been Trump’s National Security Advisor for only about six weeks. Yet his efforts to inform the president had already become an exercise

e, The (TV show), 30, 76, 92, 109, 200 Arif, Tevfik, 100 Armey, Dick, 81 Arthur Andersen, 278 Art of the Deal, The (Trump and Schwartz), 22 Assad, Bashar al-, 183, 190 Atlantic City, 30, 99, 210 Atwater, Lee, 57 Australia, 78 Ayers, Nick, 240 Azerbaijan, 254 Bahrain, 231 Baier, Bret, 159-60 Bak

prentice, The (TV show), 30, 76, 92, 109, 200 Arif, Tevfik, 100 Armey, Dick, 81 Arthur Andersen, 278 Art of the Deal, The (Trump and Schwartz), 22 Assad, Bashar al-, 183, 190 Atlantic City, 30, 99, 210 Atwater, Lee, 57 Australia, 78 Ayers, Nick, 240 Azerbaijan, 254 Bahrain, 231 Baier, Bret, 159

zakhstan, 281 Keaton, Alex P., 128 Kelly, John, 4, 63, 109, 188, 218, 285, 287-91, 294-97, 299-300, 304-7 Kennedy, John F., 53, 84 Kent, Phil, 92 Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack, 183-84, 188-93 Kim Jong-un, 293 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 50-51 Kirk, Russell, 127 Kislyak, Sergey, 95, 106, 151, 154-55, 218, 2