Article snippet: Posted at 10:38 pm on June 28, 2017 by streiff Monday evening the administration issued a warning to Syria. In essence, it said ‘we know you are planning a chemical strike and it will be painful if you carry through on that idea.’ Now, Secretary of Defense James Mattis has said that not only was the evidence real but the attack was cancelled because of the warning. (This is the same Mattis who BuzzFeed was claiming was blindsided by the warning to Syria.) But naturally there are the unnamed backbiters who could have done a better job: Whoever said this is someone who should be hunted down and shot along with his pet gerbil. What kind of self-serving and disloyal f*** says such a thing? If you really believe it, resign and go public with your charge of duplicity and match your record and your integrity with Mattis. We will never know for sure if Assad was planning another chemical attack. But you can bet that national intelligence resources have been dedicated to identifying the indicators we retrospectively identified as predicting the April attack. The administration had a choice of doing nothing and being dragged into the real possibility of a military conflict with Russian forces or to make a warning and try to freeze things. They made the right call and if Mattis was convinced the Syrians were going to launch a strike, and sufficiently convinced to make this announcement, then I believe him. ========= Like what you see? Then visit my story archive.Follow... Link to the full article to read more