Oh yeah, Putin gives literally zero fucks about syrians getting killed.
The only thing that Putin would care about would be something that makes him look weak.
Call me the cynic, but this is why we bombed Syria? Because Assad used chemicals? Okay Assad, you can go ahead and use regular bombs and artillery and gunfire and starvation to kill hundreds of thousands in months-long sieges. Go ahead and send millions fleeing to other countries. But god forbid that you use chemical weapons. That’s going too far.
To be fair it’s a special case of murder. The Geneva Protocol came about for a reason.
There is a general consensus that chemical weapons are worse than conventional ones. That’s why they are specifically prohibited.
But we’re okay with everything else.
You gave to draw a line somewhere. You probably don’t want to comit to attacking anyone who gets a lot of civilians killed or blows up cities. IIRC Mosul was pretty wrecked quite recently.
Then do something about the problem. Don’t give us a symbolic airstrike and beat your chest about the civilized world stepping in.
We can’t/shouldn’t be the world’s police. This isn’t about getting into the middle of a war in Syria. This is about prohibiting the use of chemical weapons because we don’t want them used against us.
What something do you want? Invade Syria for real?
Yeah I’m totally fine and see no conflict with the statements that we shouldn’t be intervening in civil wars in other countries on other continents and we should be participating in joint airstrikes with other nations against people who start committing Geneva Convention violations.
There’s LOTS of reasons to criticize Trump. Or heck to point and laugh at Trump. I don’t feel this is one of them. It’s a reasonable step.
Neither does our own government.
Attacking civilians is against Geneva Conventions in the first place. We’re just being selective about what violations we’re caring about.
Yup, this is about normalisation of use of chemical weapons. The world has to understand that use will bring retaliation. That way those prepared to use them can’t murder entire towns with a cheap truckload of shells if and when they please.
Yep. No disagreement here. We have to make choices. One choice is to just not ever intervene ever, no matter what any other country does. One choice is to always intervene. Can we agree that neither of those are good choices and you’re going to have to be selective?
I think it is more about a distraction from other happenings and looking weak if they do nothing.
It’s a very cynical take on the matter. These factors could have played into the decision, but there were plenty of other good reasons to take action here. This isn’t the first administration that wanted to respond to chemical weapons attacks with force.
I did not remotely say there were not good reasons. I agree with those reasons and was glad that, at the least, that it was a joint action with UK and France (I don’t like being the world’s police force). I’m referring to why THIS administration took action. If the President weren’t under assault by the special counsel and all the other nuttiness, Trump would probably be praising Assad for being such a strong leader.
I think it’s clear that this attack was related to a desire by Trump to distract from other things.
I mean, the chemical attack it was in response to want the only one Assad did. There’s evidence that he has done this like a dozen times in the past year.
From initial reports, I figured this was going to a much larger and sustained attack favored by Bolton. Turns out that (I) was wrong. That said, I agree with David Frum here:
It’s a clever analogy but I’m not sure that Trump is driving the car.
I think we can make educated guess that of course John Bolton is pushing for military, action. So is Nikkii Healy and likely Pompeo. Now Bolton is a nut, but the other two aren’t.
I’m not sure where Mattis and Gen. Dunsford came down on the advocating a strike… My guess is they probably favored it but who knows. But when we look at the process that was used to include allies, carefully select targets, wait until there was confirmation which chemical agents were involved and making sure the strike was proportional, didn’t hurt the Russian etc. This has all the earmarks of being run by Gen. Mattis.
I’d happily let Gen. Mattis run military operation in any administration in my lifetime (even under Ike). In this administration, it is miracle that a man of Mattis talents, and temperament is still around and simultaneously still has his integrity and Trump’s trust. The less running of the government, Trump does the better.
It is good thing,that Trump punished Assad for the use of Chemical weapon, it is an even better thing he let Mattisrun the show. If we treat Trump like a 6 year old than we should praise him when he is a good boy, as disgusting as feels to say anything good about the guy. The world will be a much safer place with Gen. Mattis running the defense department.