Ep 66 (4/18/18) Did social media justify airstrikes in Syria? Guests: Colum Lynch, Elias Groll

TrumpWatch with Jesse Lent

Last year, when President Trump authorized the firing of 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for its role in an April 4, 2017 sarin attack, both British and French government agencies reportedly had soil samples confirming that chemical weapons had been used, violating international law. Yet, when US forces launched coordinated airstrikes with the UK and France on Friday to take out three facilities in Syria believed to be researching, developing and storing chemical weapons, the proof was a lot less solid. As Colum Lynch and Elias Groll report in their April 17 article for Foreign Policy “How Social Media Built the Case for Trump’s Strike on Syria,” in the absence of hard evidence gathered from the field as Syrian and Russian armed forces blocked access to the Damascus suburb of Douma where the alleged chemical attack took place, coalition forces instead relied on reporting from official news outlets and citizen journalists on social media. In this week’s “TrumpWatch” on WBAI, host Jesse Lent talks to Colum and Elias about the implications of this major shift in the way chemical weapons attacks are confirmed and examines what it means for the ongoing bloody conflict in Syria and the world at large.