AP, Turkey's Anadolu Agency and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report that the same village that was hit in the chemical attack, Khan Shaykhun, was again struck with conventional bombs by regime aircraft taking off from the same base that Trump bombed just days before, al-Shayrat. Despite claims that planes were destroyed and an airstrip damaged in Trump's air-strikes, they appear not to have been very effective.

Nikki Haley now seems to be embracing "regime change" in Syria, telling CNN, "We don't see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there." (Haaretz) 

Meanwhile, at least 15 civilians are reported dead in a US-led air-strike near Raqqa. (Haaretz) Please note the failure of the ANSWER fascists to protest this. Killing civilians is OK. It's bombing Assad regime warplanes that is bad.

Award-winning Syrian journalist Hadi Abdullah provides on-the-scene video from Khan Shaykhun, showing pretty clearly that no warehouse was hit. Rather, the crater is in the middle of a road, and still reeks of toxic chemicals.

The London Times meanwhile identifies the pilot in the Khan Shaykhun attack as Gen. Mohammed Hasouri of Assad's air force, who had also flown on at least one other chemical attack mission, at Latamineh (Hama governorate). 

The Fulda Gap blog provides a breakdown of Assad's typically slippery response to the Khan Shaykhun attack. He griped to AFP:

Actually, no one has investigated what happened that day in Khan Sheikhun till the moment. As you know, Khan Sheikhun is under the control of Al-Nusra Front, which is a branch of Al-Qaeda, so the only information the world have had till this moment is published by Al-Qaeda branch. No one has any other information . We don't know if the whole pictures or videos that we’ve been seeing are true or fabricated. That's why we asked for investigation to what happened in Khan Sheikhun. This is first.

But a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an investigation into the attack was vetoed by Assad's ally and sponsor Russia. And indeed the reports have not come from the ex-Nusra forces, but from independent media activists who continue to function within the territory, and from Turkish authorities, who have identified the toxin used as sarin.

Amy Goodman's Democracy Now website sports her latest interview with Noam Chomsky, this one before an audience at a church in Cambridge, Mass. Disgracefully if predictably, they engage in detatched and smug theorizing that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a "false flag," although they do not actually use that ugly phrase. Chomsky concedes that it is "plausible it was the Syrian government," but immediately follows up that it is "not so obvious why the Assad regime would have carried out a chemical warfare attack at a moment when it's pretty much winnning the war, and the most serious danger it faces is that a counterforce will enter and undermine its progress."

The "winning the war" exclusion can simply be dismissed. To point out the obvious, the US was winning the war when it nuked Hiroshima. It also ignores that as recently as last month, Damascus itself was threatened by a surprise rebel advance. Assad is clearly bent on terrorizing the populace into submission—the logic of his war ever since March 2011.

Chomsky continues: "Maybe you can think of some reason why the Assad regime, which is a murderous brutal regime [note perfunctory lip service], might have done it, [but] there's even another question of why the Russians would have allowed it." This assumes both that Moscow directly controls Assad and that Putin himself would oppose this kind of thing.

Chomsky next cites MIT scholar Theodore Postol's "devastating critique" of the White House report blaming the attack on Assad. RT is (of course) avidly touting Postol's claim that the report "contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft."

This all sounds superficially good, until you actually think about the politics of the situation. Insurgent forces, which have to worry about the hearts and minds of the populace, never commit mass murder on their own people as a provocation. In contrast, counterinsurgency forces all too often resort to mass murder to terrorize targeted populations.  Assad is the only "plausible" suspect, and to cast the blame elsewhere in the absence of positive evidence is merely to legitimize "false flag" theorizing. Whether Chomsky and Postol are impolitic enough to use that phrase or not.

Implying that none of us really know anything about what is going on Syria, Chomsky adds: "Reporting from Syria is extremely difficult. If reporters go into rebel-held areas and don't do what they're told, you'll get your head cut off."

He doesn't mention any such putative journalist decapitations, of course. Actually, it is only ISIS that has done that kind of thing—and the Assad regime! (Local reporter Ahmed Assaad Al-Shahab was beheaded by regime forces in Homs governorate in January 2013, Reporters Without Borders finds.) We haven't heard of any such beheadings by the "rebels." Without giving details, Chomsky cites the writing of the extremely problematic Patrick Cockburn to back up his claim.

Writer and activist Idrees Ahmad addresses Chomsky's claim on Facebook: "[Y]ou surely cannot be unaware of the fact that AFP journalists had reported from the scene in Khan Sheikhoun and that the site was also visited by the Guardian's Kareem Shaheen. Beyond Idlib, journalists such as Clarissa Ward and Nagieb Khaja have done excellent reporting for CNN and Al Jazeera from inside rebel territory. Are you aware of their work? If not, then what were you basing your judgment on? I hope you weren't repeating claims from by the regime-embedded Patrick Cockburn..."

Chomsky also fails to note that our supposed ignorance about what really happened is first and foremost the fault of Russia, which vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called on Damascus to cooperate with an international investigation of the attack. (CNN, April 13) Odd behavior if they really have nothing to hide.

It does not occur to Goodman to challenge Chomsky on any of this. Of course. Indeed, just days earlier, she hosted Jonathan Steele—who openly floated the idea that the Khan Shaykhun massacre was "a dirty trick to try and discredit the Syrian government."

Almost exactly a year before the interview, Sam Hamad in Muftah wrote on "How Noam Chomsky Betrayed the Syrian People." First and foremost, by portraying the Syrian opposition as monolithically jihadist. This is why Chomsky's lip service about how Assad is bad ultimately comes down to a sleazy trick to lure the uninitiated. When push comes to shove, Chomsky's position is that Assad is the best thing going.

Amy Goodman's Democracy Now on May 3 featured an interview with journalist Anand Gopal, who refreshingly argues against the Syria "regime change" conspiracy theory, and for the notion that "the sheer brutality of the Assad regime has led people to join ISIS." Well, good. But she's got a lot of catching up to do for all the times she's had Sy Hersh or Noam Chomsky on to regurgitate the regime line. And she's still engaging in exactly the kind of bogus equivalism that the dreaded MSM does re. climate change... like support for a genocidal dictatorship and opposition to one are equally legit POVs....

Psuedo-left websites such as the oddly named Wrong Kind of Green and American Herald Tribune are already dissing Goodman for the interview, accusing her of joining the "anti-Syria propaganda campaign" and "run[ning] interference for imperialism in Syria." That's the audience you have cultivated, Amy.