"The missile attack on an air base in Syria has put a spotlight on the way America's war machine sparks aggressive wars against sovereign states. US authorities have succeeded in using different pretexts to achieve this," he said. "The Vietnamese will never forget the Gulf of Tonkin incident … which the United States used to launch a deadly war that ended for them in defeat."
The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution enabled then President Lyndon B. Johnson to drastically escalate America's military presence in Southeast Asia, sending the US military to fight North Vietnam. The events which took place in August 1964 remain highly disputed, with historian largely doubting that Hanoi attacked the US Armed Forces.
This practice appears to be particularly widespread in the 21 century.
"In 2001, President George W. Bush launched a war in Afghanistan to 'fight terrorism.' In 2003, he carried out a military intervention in Iraq under the non-existent pretext of Baghdad storing chemical weapons. In 2011, Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama started a war in Libya to 'establish a no-fly zone.' He then got involved in the Syrian conflict 'to fight terrorism.' And now President Donald Trump, who has been in the White House less than three months, has committed aggression against Syria because the Syrian Army has ostensibly 'used chemical weapons against the opposition,'" Colonel Le The Mau said.
US officials have not provided any evidence proving that Damascus was complicit. For its part, Syrian leadership and the SAA command denied using chemical weapons against civilians.
Moscow and Damascus condemned the Pentagon's operation, which was not authorized by the UN Security Council.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to Washington's actions as an aggression against a sovereign state and a violation of international law. I fully agree with this assessment," Colonel Le The Mau said.
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