This LawFare podcast was released before the attack but it’s a great discussion of the topic IMO:
The anti-case is basically: if you’re going to enforce an international norm against chemical weapons, you kind of need to go through international law and the UN or you just break another, arguably more important norm in the process.
International law maybe. But the UN seriously?? The UN charter has a many problems, but the fatal flaw is that permanent members have a veto over any actions. Saying we should operate through the UN is basically saying lets do nothing.
Yeah, we are not required, at all, to defer to the UN in order to take military action.
According to that podcast, we actually do it now for all our ISIS actions and pretty much every other military action we’ve taken except for these strikes against the Syria regime. Not that we go through the Security council but the US does present a legal defense of it’s action in terms of international law.
Again, though, one of the key points is effectiveness. Do actions like this actually reinforce the prohibitions on chemical weapons (something I agree is worth using force to do)? It sends a message of a sort, that we take it seriously, but if the actual military impact is so limited and so ephemeral, is that message really enough to justify the action, when it may just embolden someone like Assad by showing him that the consequences are purely rhetorical (and I can tell you how many fucks Assad gives about rhetorical consequences; its the same as Putin gives, that is, zero)?
And I also agree at least in part that by allowing Assad to pretty much kill as many people as he wants with anything except chemicals, we undercut the line we are trying to draw, especially if the consequences are so paltry. That being said, this may well be the best we can hope for, given how bad all the other options are.
Which wouldn’t be news if the White House wasn’t saying the exact opposite.
They have to lie. It’s a pathological need at this point.
Pretty sure they said they used deconfliction channels with the Russians.
The official US stance is that they were warned in general, but not given a target list.
Well sure, Twit in Chief told them via his official bluebird of happiness platform. That counts, right?
Fair points, but… If you look at from Assad’s viewpoint, the war is won. Why antagonize the west by continuing to use chemical weapons? There is no military need anymore for using chemical weapons and I think he has already terrorized the population to the maximum extent. This is one time that having two crazy folks in Trump and Bolton may be helpful. Make sure that word leaks through military channels that Bolton and Trump wanted to kill Assad but Mattis talked them out of it, but won’t be able to next time.
It is pointless at this time to try and weaken Assad, but reinforcing the taboo against chemical isn’t pointless.
That might be true in another context, but Assad isn’t interested in what we think or do. He knows there is zero chance that the US is going to get fully involved against him, and a yearly dosing of a few bombs and missiles is not going to affect his decision making process, I don’t think. And Putin simply will not let Assad fall, so there’s that.
Oh, I agree, in theory. I’m just arguing that our pinpricks are not reinforcing that taboo. Only something that fucking hurts is going to do that, and won’t or can’t mount such an attack.
Time will tell. If he doesn’t use chemical weapons for more than a year, I’d call it a success. Under that time, I’d say its a failure. The only way I see this being really bad is if, as an act of defiance Assad increases his use of chemical weapons, and then Bolton/Trump do something that triggers a Russian response.
That’s still a possibility, but one that’s lower than I would have guessed last week when Trump was spewing rhetoric.
Whether or not Assad uses chemicals in a year or less may or may not be linked to the fear of retaliation. It’s hard to know, though I’d agree that it might be a worthwhile assumption. But really, while I agree in principle that taking some sort of stand on the use of chemical weapons is worthwhile, I’m not sure at all that minor attacks on a minor player like Assad, retaliations that are in no way comparable, in his environment, to the impact of the chemical attacks on his opponents, really makes this case. Hell, if anything, it tells people, sure, go ahead and use nerve gas, just don’t do it too often, and don’t, like, target Americans. Other than that, knock yourself out; occasionally we might blow up some sheds but that’s about it.
Amazingly, this seems to be a turning point for the right.
Yeah, we’re out of money. We have no dough. It’s not 1995 anymore, Sebastian,” Ingraham said.
Conservative author and radio host Michael Savage also took to Twitter to express his disappointment: “We lost. War machine bombs syria. No evidence Assad did it. Sad warmongers hijacking our nation.”
Conservative Ann Coulter retweeted several people who were critical of the decision to strike Syria. In one tweet Coulter cites a news story in which former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe says he could beat Trump and she agrees: “You might—if you promised no more ‘stupid wars’.”
I know this instance is just a small thing, but it’s incredible to see an entire administration filled with compulsive liars. She could have opted to tweet a real photo or just not tweeted one at all.
I guess the aversion to the truth trickles down from the top.
Yes. This in a nutshell is the source of many, many of our national ills, from the scandals in the military, to corporate malfeasance, to political mendacity. We have legitimated lying, self-serving greed, and the acquisition of power above all else as virtues, at the top, and they are indeed trickling down.
Trump knows the value of a good promo photo, and most of us know the value of an iconic “historic” photo. Think of the staying power of the famous Obama situation room photo of him and his staff monitoring the OBL take-down in real time.
It’s no surprise that Trump would (retroactively) want to leave a similar impression that he made such a momentous decision in a grand fashion… instead of whatever really happened (my theory: he called Mattis from his bedroom during a Fox & Friends commercial break). Sadly for his legacy, there is practically no one in the White House with any capability for analyzing cause-and-effect.
Trump’s administration has embodied The Onion.
Any action which has France, Britain, NATO, sane members of Congress like Ryan, and Schumer on one side and Alex Jones, Ann Colter, Mark Levin and Michael Savage on the other, I think by definition is a good action.
