In an interview to journalist Humberto Alencar, at [the Brazilian news website] Portal Vermelho, this Monday (9/4/2017), the President of the World Peace Council, Socorro Gomes, speaks of the recent US aggression against Syria, on the 7th of April, when the US attacked an air base South-East of Homs, with 59 Tomahawk missiles, under the pretext of “punishing” the Arab country for an alleged use of Sarin gas against civilians on the 4th of April.

Humberto Alencar (Portal Vermelho): The US President Donald Trump has personally authorized the aggression against Syria. Trump, therefore, tries to distance himself from the criticism he got for announcing changes on Obamacare, the health care program left by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and also from the baseless accusations of Russian alliance at the US elections, hacking the process in his favor.

Socorro Gomes: In a simple analogy, Trump is a criminal running an outlaw state. He is distempered and had an issue with Obamacare and the investigations into the alleged Russian influence over the elections, which theoretically caused his unpopularity. However, in the US, either Republican or Democrat, the foreign policy is predefined, it already has a chart for what to do in the Middle East, which is to redraw the region so it satisfies the US plans. In this context, Syria and Iran are countries posed as great obstacles.

Syria has been under attack for six years. It is widely known that the US has been training the terrorists for a long time. Al-Qaeda members, who currently use another name in Syria, Al-Sham, as well as other “Islamic State” members, have not only been strengthened and helped by the US, but they were also militarily trained by it, through its intelligence agencies and military.

About the gas attack on the 4th of April, there are parallel pretexts in the recent history of US aggressions against other peoples. The US had avoided to militarily attack Syria in other occasions, but is there a similarity with the script for aggressions applied to other countries:

In 2014, the chemical weapons that Syria possessed were destroyed, under the UN supervision. It is important to emphasize that these weapons were destroyed in ships of the very US, just as Russia began participating in the process regarding the conflict in Syria, which avoided, in that moment, a US aggression. The pretext, then, was a gas attack in the region of Ghouta, after proven that it was not conducted by the Arab Syrian Army.

The recent attack, according to the media, could have been perpetrated with chemical weapons brought from outside the country by the terrorists that are in Syria to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad. UN Secretary General António Guterres has stated that the crime of the 4th of April must be investigated, so later actions might be taken.

It is important to remember what happened in Yugoslavia. In 1999, blame was thrown at the country and its leader, Slobodan Milosevic, for attacking the Albanian in Kosovo, for perpetrating “ethnic cleansing”. Milosevic was arrested and, during his trial, at The Hague, he passed away. Recently, the International Criminal Court declared that he was innocent of the crimes he was being accused of. In other words, they used a lie to attack the former Yugoslavia.

With Iraq something similar happened. In 2003, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the UN Security Council to prove that Saddam Hussein was threatening the world with his weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was invaded and such weapons were never found.

A new lie was also created to justify the aggression against Libya. Qaddafi was overthrown and then murdered because, according to the US and its satellites, he was massacring his people after demonstrations in Benghazi.

The same script was applied little afterwards to launch a new destabilization operation in the Middle East, against Syria. Assad was also accused of the same crime and, after Libya fell, the terrorists, supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – were moved to the new theater of operations in Syria.

With the promise of investing in weapons, Trump wants to show force. Him and the infamous establishment can't give up from removing Assad from government in Syria.

They want a full-spectrum dominance and, for that, they variate the tactics. At the moment, Trump wants to improve the domestic image, but he does not distances himself at all from the oppressive, warmongering and hegemonic nature of the US state. He is part of this nature. At the same time, for the outside, he wishes to show force, threatening nations such as Russia, China, the People's Korea and Iran.

This recent aggression against Syria is contrary to the laws and UN principles. To exist, it should have been authorized by the Security Council, which was not even informed of the operation. As for the attack using sarin gas, there was no investigation, which would be necessary to authorize the attack.

There was a cowardly attack against a sovereign nation member of the United Nations. And this will be one of the lines that the World Peace Council will use in the demonstrations to be held in May against NATO, during the military alliance's summit in Brussels.

During the Presidential campaign, Trump stated that he would revisit the military expenditure, suggesting an increase. Is this aggression part of this revisiting?

Trump has said that he would increase the military expenditure and the intention is clear, he will double it because he does not promote peace anywhere. It is clear that he was preparing for war. This is in accordance with the US foreign policy's script. There is nothing new about it.

Does the aggression benefit the terrorists?

If we ponder the operation itself, no. It was not decisive. According to information from Syria, less than half of the missiles launched has hit targets. But the terrible thing is that for the US to launch these missiles, sarin gas was used, a chemical weapon, against civilians, with the aim of causing uproar among the public opinion, to corner Assad, once again, right at a time when Syria was inflicting a grave defeat on terrorism.

An exhaustive investigation is needed into what happened on the 4th of April, in the Idlib province. It should be accompanied by the UN and by those involved. It has to ensure that international law determines the course of this conflict, and the the principle of the peoples' self-determination is defended. Only the Syrian people should decide who governs the country. There can be no one like the US representative to the Security Council saying that Assad must be overthrown. This is only for that country's people to say, and not the USA.

The USA has been decaying in every sense. It can still be strong in its military and economic aspects, but it has no commitment towards human rights or peace. When they employ those banners, they do so to attack other nations, cynically. The US never had any concerns for the women and children hit by their weapons. Evidences are dozens of aggressions that they have sponsored along the 20th century, against Korea, in the 1950s, against Vietnam, in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recently, against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

US leaders have maintained an abyssal distance from what we call human rights. They think only about their power, the financial oligarchies' and the weapons' power. Despite that, this domination will not be eternal, although the peoples continue to suffer. We must denounce these agressions and demand that the UN really takes actions. This is the commitment that the World Peace Council has. We express our broad solidarity with the peoples under aggression.