“No competent analyst would assume that the crater cited as the source of the sarin attack was unambiguously an indication that the munition came from an aircraft.”

In the 1980s, Republicans, who had long tried but failed to cut government programs directly, discovered a new tactic. They realized that they could undermine government and eventually force cuts to spending by cutting taxes and, in their words, starve the beast. Now, Trump is making plans to use that same tactic against Social Security.

“Yemen is currently being ravaged by a brutal conflict, with injustices and atrocities on all sides. More than 10,000 people have been killed, including 1,564 children, and millions have been displaced from their homes. UNICEF estimates that more than 460,000 children in Yemen face severe malnutrition, while 3.3 million children and pregnant or lactating women…

A group of prominent former intelligence and other officials have released a statement warning President Trump: “We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia — with the risk of escalation to nuclear war. …

“This has been led by the ‘neocons’ who seek to remake the Mideast while turning it into a graveyard. Sadly, you have many still gullibly accepting propaganda, as with this latest gas attack. The president launched 59 missiles against a sovereign country without providing evidence.

“Destroying one Syrian airbase will not stop attacks on civilians by Assad and Russia. The U.S. currently has over 1,000 troops stationed in Syria, and Trump will have to escalate those numbers and their combat roles in order to fight Assad. Russia has already announced that it will cease exchanging intelligence and air coordinates with…

“There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the U.N. Security Council.”

“The death and suffering caused by poison gas in Syria emphasizes the urgency — not to escalate the war with more bombardment — but to end it through negotiation between the United States and Russia. Only they can impose a solution on their clients.”

“Disturbingly, the U.S. has been acting as a de facto co-belligerent since at least October 2015 when President Obama gave the green light to Lockheed Martin to sell the Saudis four ‘multi-mission’ warships totaling about $11.25 billion. This came only a month after the Saudi-led military coalition earned world-wide censure for its bombing of a…

“Being present in the city center at just this time, I was witness to the massive flow of people along the sidewalks as we were all involuntarily turned into pedestrians to get around town. The mood, nonetheless, was calm and good-natured. …”