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Trump salutes as he disembarks Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House. Pool/ABACA

The Pentagon is briefing Donald Trump on military options for Syria

Rex Tillerson has meanwhile called on Bashar al-Assad to be removed.

THE PENTAGON IS presenting a range of possible military options the United States could take in response to the suspected chemical attack in Syria, a US official has said.

Options include strikes to ground the Syrian air force, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis is presenting the options to President Donald Trump and administration officials in response to White House requests, the official added.

Mattis had been communicating extensively with Trump’s National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, the official said, stressing that no decisions had been taken.

Trump yesterday  warned that Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime had crossed a line with its latest alleged chemical attack.

He called the strike that killed at least 86 an “affront to humanity” and suggested some sort of US response.

The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also this evening called for Assad to be ousted from power.

The Pentagon has long maintained a variety of military options for Syria, and the United States has been striking jihadist targets in the north since late 2014.

But any US military action targeting the Assad regime would mark a fundamental shift in Syria’s brutal six-year conflict.

Russia has been propping up Assad since late 2015, and any action to ground his air force could be subject to skirting Russian air defences and would carry the risk of inadvertently hitting Russian personnel.

But the drumbeat for military action has picked up in Washington.

Senior Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain said Assad was trying to test the Trump administration and that America must take swift action.

“Assad has crossed a line with his latest use of chemical weapons. The message from the United States must be that this will not stand,” the pair said in a statement.

“We must show that no foreign power can or will protect Assad now. He must pay a punitive cost for this horrific attack.”

© – AFP 2017 with reporting by Rónán Duffy

Read: ‘It crossed a lot of lines for me’: Trump says he’s changed attitude on Syria following alleged chemical attack >

Read: US points finger at Assad after suspected chemical attack kills dozens in Syria >

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    Mute Dick Durkin
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:42 PM

    Hacked emails from Pentagon defence contractors from 2013 stated that the US backed plans to use chemical weapons and blame it on the Assad regime https://in.news.yahoo.com/us-backed-plan-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-syria-045648224.html

    Why would the Syrian regime use chemical weapons when they are winning the war knowing full well that to use them would give the US and NATO the excuse to launch military action against them…this could get very ugly real quick and go global if people dont speak out against it.

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    Mute Watchful Axe
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:51 PM

    Interesting, I was thinking mislabelled bombs/Syrian fk up. But I am partial to anti American conspiracy​ theories.

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    Mute Malachi
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:52 PM

    @Dick Durkin: Already debunked this nonsense on another article earlier – those “emails” were forged and the Daily Mail were sued successfully (for over 100 grand) reporting on it. Check your facts and try your best not to use infowars as a source ever again.

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    Mute Seamus Og
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:03 PM

    Lets bomb syria and kill even more innocent civilians and kids. I doubt very much that Assad carried out the chemical attack in the first place. This attack hasnt been off the news. We are being prepared for a new campaign in syria much like iraq, afghanistan and libya by america and their partners.

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    Mute Trevor Beale
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:07 PM

    @Seamus Og: You might be on to something there Seamus. Thinking along those lines myself. Scary prospect.

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    Mute Brendan McGill
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    Apr 6th 2017, 11:30 PM

    @Seamus Og: yep and somehow they’ll end up hitting Iran too.. The US are absolute warhawk skum

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:36 PM

    So a bunch of rebels have a problem with handling their stocks of chemical weapons after a strike and now it’s back to regime change. The weapons were supplied by Saudi and sourced by the US. Trump is now being shafted.

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    Mute Kenneth Hewson
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:56 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: tell that to the man who buried his twin babies. Blame who dropped the bomb.

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:05 PM

    There was no chemical bomb. It was a standard attack on a rebel position. The chemical weapons were in rebel hands. . I only pass on information from a very old colleague and friend in Syria.

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    Mute cholly appleseed
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:18 PM

    @Kenneth Hewson: well assad dropped the bombs.

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:34 PM

    @Kenneth Hewson: Also who started all this. There has been so much pain of all sides because a collection of Islamist groups want to run the country under their depraved and medieval Sharia Law. For me the image that summed up the nature of the problem was the horrifying image of a Syrian woman hugging the headless body of her 12 year old daughter and the father holding her head in his hands. All because the girl refused to be a bride to a Jihadi. War is disgusting and the Syrian people have been dealing with it for years now, thanks to the interference of the US and Saudi. One thing you may not know is that Assad is an eye surgeon who works in hospitals himself dealing with the carnage. He never wanted to be a president. He spends more time in hospitals than he does in the office. My colleague is of the same profession and he sees him occasionally. I’m no fan of any party in the conflict but in my book radical political Islam has to be stopped wherever it rears it’s head. That’s why the Syrian forces have the support of the Syrian people. The US needs to understand that.

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    Mute Malachi
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:46 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: “I only pass on information from a very old colleague and friend in Syria.”

    Lies. You’re being fed lies.

    You bomb sarin in storage and you don’t get what we saw in Khan Sheikhoun this week.
    https://www.newscientist.com/article/2126905-syria-chemical-attack-looks-like-nerve-gas-and-was-no-accident/

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:00 PM

    @Malachi: Excuse me. I am not being fed lies. I have know my colleague for 40 years with him being a doctor in Syria he has had to deal with all this carnage. He was in contact with his colleagues in Khan Shaykhun city because of them seeking medical advice and reference as that is his speciality. They have been told of what happened by rebels themselves. It’s you that is being lied to. I have many old friends and colleagues in Syria and have fond memories of the country myself. What I am told by them always comes out as the truth later but rarely figures at all in the media. At the end of the day I will always take their word over the MSM.

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    Mute cholly appleseed
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:17 PM

    @Patrick J. O’Rourke: I agree,I still think assad is the best man for the job.

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:27 PM

    @cholly appleseed: Well, there are the bottom line things that we know.
    1.Will the Syrian people accept a radical Islamic government? No.
    2.Will the Syrian people accept a US-Puppet government? No.
    3.Will the Syrian people elect Assad if given free and fair elections?..probably.
    The first two would result in a Civil War that would make the current situation look like a bun fight. The Syrian people all have members of their family in the Syrian forces and hence have a vested interest in supporting them. The US and Saudi are the people ordinary Syrians see as the enemy. US action in this will only result in something horrendous. If the US care about the plight of the Syrian people they should just stop arming and supporting the Islamists and Saudi. Simple.

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    Mute Keith Healy
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:40 PM

    Scary where this could lead. If it’s full on action against Assad then he’s on a collision course with Putin.

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    Mute Noel James Doherty
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:47 PM

    @Keith Healy not even Putin can stand over wiping out children by chemical means. If the yanks go in Russia might be supportive. The relationship Syria has with Russia is not unconditional

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    Mute Keith Healy
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:50 PM

    @Noel James Doherty: so Russia said but who can trust what Russia says?

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    Mute Noel James Doherty
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:03 PM

    No one

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    Mute Paddy Ryan
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:19 PM

    @Keith Healy: Who can trust what the US or the UK say? Remember these are the same people who said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ready to launch in a matter of minutes. 14 years later and hundreds of thousands dead and they’re nowhere to be found. Neither the Assad regime nor the Russians have any reason to use chemical weapons. 1) They’re wining the war and 2) they’ve access to other weapons like vacuum bombs etc that are just as effective if not more so. Something really doesn’t seem right about all of this. It just seems “off”…

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    Mute Malachi
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:38 PM

    @Noel James Doherty:

    “not even Putin can stand over wiping out children by chemical means”

    They just did with the Russian MOD’s lies about a SAF warplane bombing a rebel munitions depot that caused a chemical leak – neglecting to realise that bombing a sarin depot would destroy the sarin (not that sarin gas is even stored as sarin – the components are stored separately and mixed before an attack).

    An article in New Scientist from yesterday explains:

    “Sarin is unstable, and the Assad regime chose to stockpile its precursor chemical, which would be mixed with another chemical just before use to produce sarin. Any rebel-made agent would probably be handled similarly. Hitting a cache of this would release little sarin.

    Moreover, if Syrian air strikes released the agent by accidentally hitting an enemy cache, they were improbably lucky, as they managed to do the same thing at three separate locations in the area within 24 hours: SAMS reports two attacks on nearby villages the previous day that produced fewer casualties but with similar symptoms.”

    And of course the Syrian government say they weren’t even operating in the area – so the Russians and Syrians can’t even get their story straight.

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    Mute will stamp
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:09 PM

    Washington Post reports yesterday that U.N officials were ‘almost certain’ due to that the chemical attack had been been by rebels and not Assad. That doesnt fit the narrative though. So yeah oust Assad. Who was the head of one of the last secular middle eastern countries so a flucking oil pipeline can be built through it, which is the only reason russia and america are involved in this. Not a word about the saudis causing a famine in yemen. Complete and utter nonsense every last word of the majority of mainstream medias reporting on whats happening over there. A terrible atrocity on normal people just the same as you and I who id imagine just want to live a normal life

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    Mute Feargal A Hickey
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:14 PM

    Why would president Assad resort to chemical warfare when he and his allies clearly have the upper hand in the conflict ? Turkey and Israel are hardly reliable sources of Intel .

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    Mute Dj
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:43 PM

    U.S logic.Killing people with bombs is ok but chemical weapons is a step too far?. Em, ok so.

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    Mute John003
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:52 PM

    Hoped after 16 years US might have learned something …No more regime change in the Middle East…Lets hope Trump is bluffing…

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    Mute cholly appleseed
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:22 PM

    @Dj: eh yes!! Since 1993 chemical weapons have been deemed illegal so the world has deemed it a step to far. Only four countries haven’t signed north Korea, south Sudan, Egypt and Israel.

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    Mute Philip Gerard
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    Apr 7th 2017, 3:14 AM

    @John003: Looks like you’re wrong as usual.

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    Mute Lepanto
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:40 PM

    Some how I don’t think the Russians will tolerate this, and they don’t bluff.

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    Mute EdmundOrlando
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:23 PM

    @Lepanto: they haven’t been challenged yet. They could be bluffing too.

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    Mute PedroB
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:35 PM

    Here we go…

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    Mute Random_paddy
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:40 PM

    I was going to leave getting heating oil to Autumn but might be time to fill up if WW III is about to kick off

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    Mute Anne Marie Devlin
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:21 PM

    I thought they’d be far too busy bombing – oh, sorry, liberating Mosul. http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/besieged-residents-mosul-eat-cats-grass-survive/

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    Mute John003
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:24 PM

    Think most people would agree Mosul should be liberated…The alternative leave IS there to grow in Iraq and Syria would lead in long run to much more civilian deaths….

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    Mute raymond grehan
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:35 PM

    I hope trump doesn’t fall for this rubbish.
    Ron Paul says this attack is almost certainly a false flag/fake news story.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Giz5r9O0hk

    Cook up a story and use it to instigate more terror. It is absolutely absurd that Assad would do this deliberately at this time when ISIS is on the back foot..It is absurd. It had never been proved that Assad used chemical weapons ..except pushed by the western powers who seek his removal.

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    Mute Kevin McCarthy
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:50 PM

    Fake news.

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    Mute julie mcguckin
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:07 PM

    Time to build a bunker methinks

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    Mute Richard Sweeney
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:17 PM

    “He called the strike that killed at least 86 an “affront to humanity” and suggested some sort of US response.”

    “Senior Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain said Assad was trying to test the Trump administration and that America must take swift action.”

    Didn’t the Americans just kill 200 civilians in Mosul, and last year killed 73 in Northern Syria. In fact last year the Americans dropped 26,000 bombs. Hypocrites.

    Unfortunately the civilians of Syria are the victims in war games played by Russia, America, France, UK, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar. Some sick sh*t.

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    Mute Tommy_Bannon
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:51 PM

    Thank God there’s a political leader with morals still left in the western world.
    Bravo Donald.
    Mankind’s hopes are in your hands.

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    Mute Tony Daly
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:00 PM

    @Tommy_Bannon: do you actually believe that?

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    Mute Kieran Stafford
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:38 PM

    Trump may aswell be looking into a wynn bush as looking at war strategy

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:57 PM

    Isis had their own chemical weapon making factories as well?
    https://www.facebook.com/geopolmonitor/videos/909442839195392/

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    Mute Robbie Moles
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:07 PM

    This is getting dangerous!! If the US attack the syrian forces and the russians become collateral damage the whole thing could blow up further…every nation could get sucked in….y cant the UN intervene …at least with UN troops on the ground tryying to keep the peace the killing might stop and they can get around the peace table…

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    Mute Gary Keegan
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    Apr 6th 2017, 10:44 PM

    Now Donald let’s try this again. ‘Washington is near, but Syria is far away’

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    Mute Mick Paddy
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    Apr 7th 2017, 12:16 AM

    Wonder how meny children will Netanyahu kill in 2017 and so much for democracy. Putin We’ll recognize W Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when E Jerusalem becomes Palestine’s capital free Palestine Russian leader said.

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    Mute Tony Daly
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:40 PM

    Generalissimo Trumpissimo rides out. Saviour of the world.

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    Mute James O'leary
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    Apr 6th 2017, 8:51 PM

    Oh jaysis!!!!!

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    Mute Mick Paddy
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    Apr 7th 2017, 12:18 AM

    Wonder how many children will Netanyahu kill in 2017 and yet Europe and America does nothing child murder Netanyahu your no better than the rest.

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    Mute Mike Holmes
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:23 PM

    Doesn’t the British royal family still hold the title of Fidei Defensor or Defenseur da last Foi since October 1521 bestowed by Pope Leo X. As St John of Damascus was a Syrian and doctor of the Church then it seems fairly obvious whose responsibility it is and not the duty of the leader of the New World whom broke ties with such cultural forces associated with high antiquity following the formation of the American Republican Congress. Or are they brexiting that also?

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    Mute Dick Finger
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    Apr 7th 2017, 6:39 AM

    Iran is the prize here, Syria is just the gateway

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    Mute Mike Holmes
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    Apr 6th 2017, 9:14 PM

    Isn’t Saint John of Damascus a doctor of Mother church?

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    Mute Micheal S. O' Ceilleachair
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    Apr 7th 2017, 8:11 AM

    The fact is Syria is a total mishmash of competing entities. The country will never be a democracy because democratic government is alien to the mentality of the Middle East. People tend to be governed by a “strong man” who keeps a balance between the competing entities. The Americans and Europeans do not to understand this. The country now has the added complication of a proxy Cold War. Neither side will be allowed to win because it suits America and Russia to keep it that way. Assad is probably the only entity that might prevent the country from being dismembered. The other entities are hopelessly splintered and will not work together. Meanwhile Yemen, East Ukraine and the South China Sea are other proxy wars. It may take another lemming like world war to clear the air. Unfortunately….

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    Mute Anthony Byrne
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    Apr 7th 2017, 7:50 AM

    Not claiming to know the rights and wrongs of Syria, but what I do know is that – In war, as history has thought us time and time again, Things generally have to get a lot worse before they get better. So things are now getting worse…

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    Mute Stephen Healy
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    Apr 7th 2017, 8:06 AM

    The bomb was dropped by a jet. I would imagine the country to gain most from this is Israel. The silence from them is deafening. They’ve long wanted the country taken apart so they can have a direct attack on Iran. They ve been dropping bombs on Syria for months. The rally to action without an evidence is as bad as WMDs in Iraq. It stinks of conspiracy. Something is going on, another war being fought on behalf of Zionist Israel. For the Greater Israel!!!!!!!

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Apr 6th 2017, 11:33 PM

    But he wears boxers lol.

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