The Pentagon announced Saturday that after the U.S. and allies attacked Syria on Friday in response to chemical weapons attacks on its own people, there’s been a a huge upsurge in Russian trolls promoting fake news. Spokeswoman Dana White said in a press conference.
“As Secretary Mattis said last night, the Russian disinformation campaign has already begun. There has been a 2,000 percent increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours. Therefore, we will keep you all abreast of the facts moving forward.”
Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced the press briefing would be held Saturday for the specific reason of dispelling false information about the strike coming from Russia. Russian is a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Based on recent experience, we fully expect a significant disinformation campaign over the coming days by those who have aligned themselves with the Assad regime.“
Lieutenant General Kenneth F. McKenzie said the U.S. does not seek conflict with Syria but
“cannot allow such grievous violations of international law” and attacks on innocent Syrians. We will not stand by passively while Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, ignores international law. We call upon Russia to honor its commitment to ensure the Assad regime dismantles its chemical weapons program and never uses chemical weapons again.”
McKenzie said America had no coordination or agreements with Russians before the strike,
“We’re not cooperating with them in Syria. We don’t want to get into a fight with them, they don’t want to get in a fight with us.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called strike an “act of aggression against a sovereign state” and claimed they went against the United Nations charter.
Twitter’s @TheTweetofGod has a slightly different view of the reasoning behind the bombing…
(Photo, YouTube; via Newsweek)
