What’s wrong with gassing your own people? After all, California does it and Oklahoma plans it, and these are fine advanced states. I would not like the Russians to send their howling missiles to Sacramento: they gas their own people. While gassing someone’s else people may be considered a sort of interference in their affairs, gassing of one’s own people is clearly one’s own business. Mind your own business, sir, gas your own.

And if these are beautiful babies that you worry about, why, the US flushes them down the drain, a million beautiful babies a year are ripped out by abortionists. Would you like Vlad Putin to strafe the Planned Parenthood headquarters at 434 West 33rd Street, New York, NY as they kill beautiful babies?

Who are “your own people” is also open for interpretation. A few years ago I went to the funeral of a young Palestinian Christian girl who has been gassed to death by Israelis in her own bedroom in Beit Jalla near Jerusalem (they shot a tear gas bomb into her window). Was she “their own people”? If you say she wasn’t, then, by the same measure, the Jews of Germany weren’t “their own people” for the Germans, and then, Hitler did not “gas his own people” making him a great improvement on Bashar Assad, according to the ADL-authorised version.

Why it is so God-awful to gas people and/or beautiful babies, while frying them with napalm, pouring Agent Orange over them or starving them to death is a proper thing to do. Or nuking them, indeed. Would nuking Nagasaki count as a lesser crime than anything else? If it is a question of aesthetics, I think napalm makes the worst pictures of deep-fried babies as those made in Gaza after Israeli attack. They are so awful that I forbade my Italian publisher to place one of them on the cover of my book. In comparison to them, gas deaths are almost blissful.

For these reasons I do not intend to discuss whether Bashar Assad did, or he didn’t. The story is murky, and the Russians – and the alternative press – had a few mutually contradicting versions Rashomon-like. The whole thing was a false flag cautiously prepared by the rebels and/or Americans; or it was a freak accident, a result of Syrian air force hitting a rebel chemical weapons factory, like the US did a week later; or was it a combination of two, the rebels using the spill to raise hell. Washington is not Kurosawa, and the Trump administration immediately declared they knew what happened before the dust settled, just like Bush and Netanyahu all knew on 9/11. For me it is of little interest: in what way these eighty people died – out of hundreds of thousands who have died in the Middle East wars started by President Bush the Senior and continued by his worthy successors.

The verdict of official Washington is of very little value, after the Kuwaiti incubator baby hoax, the Iraqi WMD of Powell, Libyan atrocities and similar fake news. This boy has cried wolf too often for us to pay attention this time. I do not trust anything the mainstream media tells us, for they proved to be inveterate liars. But who cares even if it were true, when we have heard US State Secretary Madeleine Albright saying it was worth while to kill 500,000 beautiful babies to weaken Iraq?

I would advise you to dismiss this horror story of he-gassed-his-own-people and banish it out of your mind. Who cares? It is just a psy-war against his-own-people, meaning you. Rejecting such stories will restore your ability to judge right. Reject whatever they want you to discuss out of hand and you will regain freedom of mind.

However, the underlying story of Donald’s U-turn is one of the most entertaining and riveting stories that deserves to be looked at. Without unnecessary embellishments (“he saw dead babies”) it is even better. After years of twits against Middle Eastern wars and for friendship with Russia, after going against the establishment and winning, such full surrender is amazing.

It is less amazing if you think of his choice: to be removed from power and locked up in the cellars of Alcatraz or Guantanamo. The CIA and The New York Times with help of the judiciary and the ever-treacherous McCain had plotted to jail or kill Trump, and he saw no other way to save his skin but doing a full Canossa.

Trump had some ambitions, but becoming a martyr hasn’t been one of them. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day, he murmured to himself, dumped Bannon and bombed Syria.

It worked like magic. His avowed enemies in Congress and in the media greeted him like a young lad coming out of a cathouse: boy, now you became a man! Now you are a real president! Fareed Zakaria blessed him on CNN: “Donald Trump became President of the United States last night.” The Jews forgot their silly stuff of antisemitism and threw their yarmulkes high in his honour. Mme Clinton stopped sulking and said now she does not regret losing the elections to this fine man. A small deed, but a great reward, Donald could say. If Paris was worth a mass, Washington is worth a strike.

After all, America is an evolved Comanche and Apache tribal union, and the Great White Chief has to have the biggest string of scalps at his belt.

ORDER IT NOW

The Russians weren’t unduly upset. They have tolerated Israeli missile strikes and bombings of Syria all the time; so why would they object now? The Russian line is as follows: we fight the terrorists, we do not fight for Bashar Assad against other forces, be it Israel, Turkey, Kurds or the US or against moderate opposition. Yes, it is unfair to Assad, but this is the Russian attitude, like it or not. They do not intend to fight the whole West, Israel and the Sunni kingdoms. They fight against ISIS, Al Nusra and similar extreme factions of Islamic movement. So Trump’s strike annoyed them, but it did not cross the red line they drew.

The Western media stressed that the Syria strike has been aimed against Putin, first of all, that the intention was to humiliate the Russian ruler. The Russians did not think so. For them it was an affair between Trump and Assad. Putin did not feel humiliated, and that’s why he received State Secretary Rex Tillerson at the Kremlin. He and Mr Lavrov told Tillerson that the US has absolutely zero evidence for their claim; that this event should be investigated; that they do not believe Assad was behind it. Tillerson proposed that the Russians switch sides in Syria, and this proposal was been immediately rejected. Lavrov quickly recapped previous the causes of war in Iraq, Libya and Syria; he reminded them of the proven case of 2013 chemical weapons hoax. Still, they parted without acrimony. Russian-American relations are not worse than they were; mainly due to Putin’s dogged desire to avoid war with the US for as long as he can, preferably for another five or six years at least.

Trump managed the China angle well. He claimed that President Xi expressed his understanding or even approval of the strike. The Chinese deny that, but they did not make too much of it. They abstained at the Security Council vote on Syria, and Russia had to veto it alone. This is a big achievement for the American President, and an unexpected one.

The pundits thought Trump planned to befriend Russia in order to isolate China; surprisingly he used China to isolate Russia. The Russian and the Chinese Presidents should worry about this American gambit more than about the Syrian strike.

Israel has been happy about the strike; Israeli left and right were united on this point, though they offered differing explanations. But then, Israel is happy at any strike at an Arab target. American Jews were happy, too. I wrote of a chasm between liberal Jews and Zionists Donald Trump tried to exploit in his interests. This time he satisfied both factions.

If Trump will be satisfied with this great result, we can say he emerged a winner, and he didn’t even poison his relations with Russia or China. The problem is, he is tempted to repeat this trick with North Korea, and this will be a very costly mistake.

North Koreans, whom I visited last year, are not a soft target like Syria or Iraq. This is the hardest target on the planet. They are used to confrontation with the US. They were born into this confrontation; they grew at the Korean War of 1950s when their country had been devastated by American bombs. Their fathers lived through the Japanese colonisation, and they are determined – never again. They have little love for Americans and for Japanese, and they would like to mete their vengeance on them and on their South Korean stooges. The Japanese and the American soldiers and sailors’ mothers should pray to their gods to restore President Trump to his senses.

If Trump strikes Korea, the Koreans are likely to strike back at the US fleet, the US bases in South Korea and in Okinawa. Probably they will use their nuclear weapons. This is exactly the occasion they prepared their A- and H-bombs for. This is exactly the reason they refused the plans of denuclearisation, and they were right.

A problem with American planning is its repetiousness. They always do the same routine they borrowed from a spaghetti Western. You know, the vigilante calls upon his adversary: release your hostage and drop your gun or I’ll shoot! When the fool drops the gun, the vigilante smiles madly and shoots anyway. It is not a chivalrous approach, but then, American foreign policy is charted by businessmen, not by knights.

In September 2013 Obama threatened Bashar Assad into dropping his gun. Assad gave up his arsenal of chemical weapons, the only thing he could employ against nuclear-armed Israel next door. The Russians (willingly or not) supported this Israeli-American subterfuge. After Assad had voluntarily disarmed, Israel was safe; Assad couldn’t do anything to harm Israel or Americans. Then they accused him of using the chemical weapons he gave up, and attacked him.

The same routine happened in Libya. They threatened Muammar Gadhafi and he gave up his weaponry. He also opened his country for the TNC to buy and operate Libyan oil and gas. They privatised and bought everything they could, and at the end they attacked Libya anyway and killed Gadhafi.

You remember that Saddam Hussein agreed to all American demands, that he opened every door in his country for their inspection, and when they learned he had no WMD, they accused him of possessing WMD, attacked, destroyed his country for good and hanged him. You can’t even call the American foreign policy makers “treacherous”, like you can’t call a cyclone “strong wind”.

The North Koreans had learned this lesson by heart. They are not going to drop their guns, even if the Russians and the Chinese were to beg them on their knees to do it for their sake please. Once, Russia and China were reliable, but it was in the days of Stalin and Mao, they think. Koreans know that nowadays a country has to rely on its own nuclear forces and to be ready to deliver the payload wherever it hurts.

For Iraq and Syria, a nearby spot of enemy’s vulnerability (“the hostage”) was the Jewish state, but they allowed themselves to be convinced to surrender their weapons. For North Korea, the adversary’s vulnerable spots are the US bases, and Japan, an old enemy and the US ally.

ORDER IT NOW

Donald Trump had sent a formidable force to the Korean shores. There are tens of thousands of sailors and soldiers, there are ships, nuke-bearing submarines and air force. Just now the Americans exploded their Mother-Of-All-Bombs in Afghanistan, this poor land they ruined – first, by bringing there Osama bin Laden, then by conquering it, and after all, by turning it into biggest producer of drugs in the world, this ultimate source of CIA’s independent wealth. No doubt, the US can destroy Korea – second time within our lifespan. But they can’t scare the North Koreans into submission. The Koreans can’t be scared.

North Korea has no billionaires ready to serve as an American Fifth Column. They have no ethnic or gender minorities, no culture of critique. Stubborn folk, they will not surrender.

Trump will have to bomb them; kill a million; and perhaps a million Japanese and Americans will be killed by the Korean payback. Trump might have his Pacific Fleet sunk just at the time when the US might need it for future confrontation with China. The Koreans can’t harm the continental US in any case, but Trump’s attack and Korean response may undermine the US naval strength, and then the US will be overrun by the same Mexicans Trump hated so much. Ironic justice, of sorts. Nobody can cause so much damage to the Republic as the President, after all. Is it possible? Yes. Not a sure thing, but a possible one.

It will be an inglorious end for Trump’s career, and quite unnecessary one, too. North Korea threatens nobody; they live their own life in their far-away peninsula. They have nukes to make them a hard target, hard to swallow and digest, not in order to attack. It would be better to forget about them, and to return to the things Trump promised to his voters.

It is still possible; his Syrian strike will be forgotten; Trump has enough time left to eliminate his enemies in the Republican Party, to dismantle the CIA, to create his own militia and to proceed and save America.

However, there is a hitch. Why do so many Americans want to have the world war as they push upon Trump to start it? America is overpopulated, that’s why. There are too many people, and since the Trojan war, a war has been the solution for overcrowding. The forces that bring refugees and immigrants to your shores are the same forces that lead you to war.

My baby-boomer generation came to life after the WWII, and the world welcomed us. We grew in spacious places; we had countryside in which to frolic, and housing had been relatively inexpensive. We could have children, we had something to look for. Now it is crowded everywhere; nature has been destroyed or privatised, even the Dead Sea has been killed.

The US population doubled since 1960; Europe (as well as Russia) added 25%, mainly immigrants, some cities grew much faster: Moscow’s population tripled. Population growth brings war. The Middle East is at war, and it is not only America’s fault, but also of their preoccupation with fertility. The population of Israel, of Palestine, of Syria quadrupled, that of Jordan multiplied by factor of ten, while Lebanon has had it better than most by just doubling its population. Unhappy Aleppo’s population grew six times since 1950s, and naturally there was the civil war. Even after so much death and destruction, Syria today has more people than it ever had, while Israel has no place even to bury its dwellers. Israel is a thousand per cent more crowded (its population density is 1,000 per cent higher) than the OECD average.

Another, less discussed reason is that the means of production improved greatly and now Wall Street and other hard-core liberals think there are too many unneeded people who can’t be employed profitably. Instead of returning industries to the US, it is easier to kill a hundred million of America’s surplus population.

For these reasons the War Party wants to start World War Three, to free space for the coming generations and to get rid of surplus. Perhaps this man with orange hair is an unlikely avatar of Shiva the Destroyer, whose attack on Korea will lay our world waste, and bring in the new spacious world for our sons and daughters – if they will survive the war. And if Korea thing will fail, there are still Russia and China, and sooner or later they will oblige. Unless the liberals who want the world without us will be defeated.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review.