God's will for Syria

• Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched
• No child of god should ever suffer such horror 
• End terrorism of all kinds and all types 
• We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and the souls of those who have passed. America stands for justice. 
• God bless America and the entire world.

These comments are all from He-Man Trump when he sent 59 Tomahawk missiles to blow up a bit of Syria. Trump referred to the almighty throughout his speech. He certainly knew where God stood as his US film unit captured the fireworks when their country's rockets flashed and roared their way through the Mediterranean night sky on the way to distribute US justice. Godly shock and awe? Justice from God, via America (and Donald)  - to a dozen Syrian technicians, drafted soldiers and maintenance workers.

It is completely understandable when the Western World's media focusses on the terrible deaths of children in war that people want 'something done'. More queasy is the use of this horror by, among others, British Labour MPs like Alison McGovern. She said she now regrets 'every day' voting against taking military action in Syria, in the 2013 Parliamentary vote. Every day! Poor thing. If only she had voted for British missiles as well as American ones, then she too would be sitting at the right hand of .. well, maybe Trump. Politicians making hay from war and death on the basis of their staunch voting record - or lack of one - is not the natural reaction to the insult to humanity of a massacre. It is just another self-important, hand wringing gesture, designed to inflate one's own moral (read political) stature. And is contemptible.

Leaving aside the healthy doubt that Western media, now 'embedded' inside Western and other allied military machines, is able anymore to rinse out the truth from the torrent of tricks and lies that now stand in for 'news'. Accepting that Assad's military did use poison gas (again) to destroy its opposition, what should people in the West do?

In the first instance insist and make clear that Western military action in Syria will only make things worse. Russia, Assad's main military ally, has been bombing and financing on behalf of Assad's war since September 2015. Their goal was to accelerate the peace process they knew will have to come, with Russia as the broker. They were going to 'control' Assad. Now they are further away from both of those objectives than ever. When the West moved in militarily in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Syria, they increased the power of the reactionary Jihadis, they left civil wars behind them and turned the Middle East into a cauldron of war.

Second, do not accept that the US will limit its 'intervention' to singeing the King of Syria's beard - or even more ridiculous, that Trump's intention is to look after Syrian children. The £40 million that Trump spent on the night of 6 April, is a tiny percentage of the US kit and 'manpower' already 'involved' in the Syrian war. And the 6 April will embolden its military apparatus as they 'discover' more and more of Assad's hideous behaviour that entitles them to send more deadly 'messages'. That £40 million Trump spent on missiles could have built a new UN children's hospital in Khan Sheikhun, something that really would help Syrians. Anti-war political and mass action across the globe could have forced a neutral zone around it.

Third, join the anti-war movements. Stopping wars; opposing wars; especially those that have their roots in Western avarice, are the greatest means by which children and their parents can survive and even prosper today in the Middle east, or in Northern Africa. The horrible fate of the victims of Khan Sheikhun will not vanish from Syrian history as a result of a US global power play. Trump did 'something' right enough. He ratcheted up US military power as a factor in the Syrian disaster. He pushed back the chances of early peace talks. He set a precedent for remote, unchallenged warfare. Together with his anti-Syrian refugee policy, he made Syrian's lives harder and more dangerous.