>> An explosion in the Lebanese capital of Beirut has killed hundreds of people and the
death toll is expected to rise as rescue workers dig through the rubble and destruction in
search of more victims. Now at least 135 people were killed and more than 5,000 were wounded.
An official with the Lebanese Red Cross, George Kettaneh warned that the death toll could
further rise.
Which makes a lot of sense as again, they're still searching through the rubble to see
if there are any other victims. Around 5,000 people were injured in Tuesday's explosion
and up to a quarter million individuals were left without homes fit to live in. So there's
been a lot of devastation in Lebanon.
And please keep in mind that this is a country that was already grappling with a huge economic
downturn that was made worse. By Donald Trump's sanctions on Syria, Syria was an important
trade partner for Lebanon and they were still doing some trade with Syria, despite these
sanctions. But now with the destruction of that port, a lot of economic devastation is
going to follow this.
So the Trump administration has taken. What I would argue is not a surprising approach
in messaging about this explosion, what caused it? Well, Prime Minister Hassan Diab, he says
that the explosions were actually caused by negligence. Careless welding ignited 2,750
tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly combustible material used as fertilizer and for bomb making.
By comparison, just to show you how serious this is and how giant this is, Timothy McVeigh
used about 2.4 tons of the same chemical in the 1995 Oklahoma city bombing. So it kind
of gives you an idea of the scale of destruction. That was caused as a result of this accident.
But even though so far it's being reported as an accident, including by authorities in
Lebanon, Donald Trump wanted to change the narrative. And so let's take a listen to what
he had to say to reporters about this yesterday. >> Hundreds more were very badly wounded in
a large explosion in Beirut.
Our prayers go out to all the victims and their families. The United States stands ready
to assist Lebanon, have a very good relationship with the people of Lebanon and we will be
there to help. It looks like a terrible attack. >> He gave no evidence that this was a so
called terrible attack.
There's been no indication that Lebanon was attacked. And the Pentagon actually released
a statement indicating that they disagree with Donald Trump and they are not following
this narrative, luckily. One official said that if there were any indications, anyone
in the region pulled something off of this scale, it would trigger automatic increases
in force protection for US troops and assets in the region.
If for no reason, then worry about retribution attacks. The official noted that none of that
has happened so far. Also following Trump's comments Tuesday Lebanese officials raised
concerns that US diplomats or with US diplomats I should say, about the use of the word attack
at this point. But I wanna be clear.
The mainstream media narrative is that Donald Trump said that simply because he's an incompetent
buffoon. Don't get me wrong, he's an incompetent buffoon. However, there are political motivations
that you should be aware of. And I want to just turn to a quick snippet of an interview
on Democracy Now.
That gives you an idea of exactly why Donald Trump would try to push this type of narrative.
>> Then you have Pompeo, the Secretary of State calling not the current Prime Minister,
but the previous Prime Minister. >> Well, this is the ideological amateurism
and ignorance of the American government being exhibited at the level of the highest political
class in the White House.
And in the State Department. These people don't care about Lebanon or the Arab world.
They don't know anything about it. They're basically following a rule book that is dictated
by internal American politics linked heavily to fundamentalist Christian extremist skinheads
who are very, very linked. Close to Israeli settler colonialist.
And this is something that's been consistent for the last three and a half years and it
will continue to be there. They're campaigning against Iran and Hezbollah, anything that
happens in Lebanon, that's bad. They're gonna link it to Hezbollah and Iran. So I would
completely discard anything. That Trump or Pompeo says about this and the fact that they
call Hariri, not the Prime Minister.
The President is fascinating because they don't care about humanitarian suffering. 300,000
people have lost their homes, they don't care about that. All they wanna do is talk to somebody
in there who can. Link some say to this, these are the MRRT's are somebody who can help them
push against Hezbollah and Iran.
>> And in fact, some of the latest sanctions on Syria were intentionally meant to be indirect
sanctions on Lebanon. So, this is the geopolitical angle that I think people need to be aware
of and not just fall for this mainstream media angle of there are no political motivations.
Trump's just an idiot and that's why he said what he said. I think that he is an idiot.
There's no question, but there are political motivations behind referring to this as an
attack. >> Yeah and it could also be mixed. It could
be that those political motivations might be the main thing driving the response of
his administration, but not necessarily him individually.
I wouldn't put it past him that he was handed a paper that he didn't read. And he's heard
there's a big explosion and he thought, it's an explosion the Middle East? I know what
that is. I don't know, I have no doubt that whatever comes out of this situation by visa
v Lebanon with the United States government is going to be entirely driven by those long
standing political motivations.
But I do know that he doesn't care at all about what has happened or what will happen
to those people as they engage in the almost impossible task of recovering from something
as devastating as this. We're starting off at a point where they were about as ill equipped
to deal with this sort of tragedy as any
place in the world.