During a press conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan on Wednesday, April 5, President Donald Trump conveyed sadness over the children who were hurt andkilled in a chemical assault in Syria on Tuesday.
According to The Washington Post, the president told,
I now have responsibility. It crossed a lot of lines for me.
When you kill innocent infants, innocent babies babies, little newborns with a chemical gas that is so lethal, that traverses many, many lines, beyond a red line.
President Trumpssentiments would be touching, if it werent for the fact these are the same infants hewants to ban from entering the US.
Syria is one of the countries targetedby Trumps proposed travel forbid against a number of predominately Muslim countries.
The infants Trump expressed sympathy for would not be allowed to enter the US if the president got his way.
Meanwhile, these childrencontinue to be at risk of being killed by military actions of the numerous actors currently involved in Syria including the US.
As of March 28, 2017, the US and coalition military forces have conducted over7, 000 airstrikes in Syria since August 2014.
Trumps concern for the children of Syria seemsincredibly shallow and hypocritical, dedicated he also essentially desires to see them locked in a country the US has bombed thousands of times.
The initial travelling prohibit Trump proposed in late January, which targeted seven predominately Muslim nations, indefinitely barred Syrian travelers from entering the US.
This travel ban failed due to legal problems, which led President Trump to sign a revised prohibition in March.
The revised banning, which was recently blocked by a federal judge in Hawaii, removed this stipulation. It also reduced the number of countries impacted by the ban to six, by removing Iraq from the list.
But the ban would still ban Syrian travelers, including refugees, from entering the US for 90 days.
A federal appeals court will hear debates on the legality of President Donald Trumps rewrote travel prohibition executive order in May, Time reports.
Beyond the travel ban, Trump has offered no specifics on what he intends to do regardingSyria and the ongoing conflict there.
Trump initially responded to the chemical assault in Syria by blaming President Obama for not doing enough and letting things escalate.
The president reiterated this stance on Wednesday.
But, in 2013, Trump told President Obama he should not intervene in Syria, which contradicts his latest statement.
The chemical attack is believed to have been carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia claims the chemical attack was not the defect of Assad, but caused by rebels.
Trump has made no mention of this.
In general, most of what Trump has said about Syriasince coming to office has been either discriminatory, hypocritical or nonsensical.
Its very unclear as to where he stands on this issue.
During Wednesdays press conference, the president told,
I do change and I am flexible.
That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact. It was a horrible, horrible thing.
Its very, very possible that my stance toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.
He added,
One of the things I think youve noticed about me is militarily I dont like to say where Im going and what Im doing.
Im not saying Im doing anything one style or the other.
But Im certainly not going to be telling you.
In short, the president wont publicly country any military actions he intends to take in Syria.
At the moment, one of the only things we can definitely tell Trump plans to do for the children of Syria, who he claims to feel sorry for, is bar them from entering the US.
