Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson joins Sven Longshanks for today’s edition of The Daily Traditionalist to talk about Trump’s response to the gas leak in Syria, Steve Bannon’s dismissal from the National Security Council and the reality of archaeo-paganism.
Many people appear to be upset at Trump blaming Assad for the gas leak, but the fact remains that it was the Syrian Air Force dropping bombs that caused the accident. The Syrians knew that it was a weapons depot they were targeting that likely contained chemicals and they knew that it was surrounded by ‘civilians’ so why didn’t they send ground troops in? This has handed the western establishment a propaganda coup on a plate. It is like dropping a cigarette in a fireworks factory and then when the fireworks go off, saying they were not my fireworks, it wasn’t my fault.
Trump is probably seeing this as blatantly taking advantage of the new administration to recklessly endanger civilian lives and he may be right. He probably knows the truth about the situation but also knows that if he wants to prevent any more accidental gassings then he will have to go into Syria and the only way to gain support for that is to blame Assad entirely for it. There is also the fact that the chemical weapons could only belong to one of two parties, the western backed rebels or Assad and the politically expedient choice of which one to blame is unfortunately Assad. Allowing the military to bomb that weapons depot could turn out to be the stupidest move the Syrian government has made since the start of the war.
As well as Trump’s flip-flopping on Syria people also seem very upset that Bannon is no longer on the security council, but he was never a military strategist anyway, he is a propagandist. He is still Trump’s right hand man, he is still chief of staff and we should not be disheartened by this re-shuffle.
After covering the escalation in tension over Syria, the two hosts return to discussing what they were talking about earlier in the week, the transition from a Pagan culture to a Christian one in Europe. Dr Johnson explains that Paganism was not a religion in the way we think of religion today, it was a way of explaining the forces of nature in much the same way science explains things for us now. The Roman emperors were gods, but they were not thought to be immortal as the concept of god was different back then. There should not be a conflict between Christians and Pagans, as both worldviews are a part of our rich European heritage and combined together they give us the understanding that we have of our world today.