Voice of the White House
April 8, 2017
Washington, D.C.: When Napoleon had a potential rival murdered, Talleyrand, his foreign minister said, 'It is worse than a crime; it is a mistake.'
This same aphorism can be applied to Trump's attack on a Syrian air base on the totally unproved claim that the Syrian government had launched a poison gas attack on its civilian population.
This act has branded the new American president as a man who shoots first and asks questions later.
Some have hinted that this apparently rash act was designed to terrify the North Koreans who are threatening the United States with long range rockets that keep falling into the ocean after being in flight for ten seconds.
Perhaps this is so but if it is, this is an example of shooting a butterfly with a rifle.
There are serious reports that the Sarin gas used in the civilian attack was the property of ISIS, who have no problem murdering civilians in large numbers.
On the other hand, neither the American military or the Israeli Defense Forces also have no problems killing as many unarmed civilians as they can, but preferably before lunch.
And what if some entity set off a bomb in Bangor, Maine on a school bus and the dim-witted media claimed it was a Muslim radical from Canada?
Would Trump order a missile attack on Ottawa in retaliation?
Diplomacy is not a dying art, but it is a dead one and he who lives by the sword will surely perish by the sword.