Pls can the US stop trying to end the world. Ok thx bye.
It’s like choose your own adventure
Or
Moar GOP hypocrisy:
More to the point:
Syrian military officials appeared to anticipate Thursday’s night raid on Syria’s Shayrat airbase, evacuating personnel and moving equipment ahead of the strike, according to an eyewitness to the strike.
Dozens of Tomahawk missiles struck the airbase near Homs damaging runways, towers and traffic control buildings, a local resident and human rights activist living near the airbase told ABC News via an interpreter.
U.S. officals believe the plane that dropped chemical weapons on civilians in Idlib Province on Tuesday, which according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights killed 86 people, took off from the Shayrat airbase.
The attack lasted approximately 35 minutes and its impact was felt across the city, shaking houses and sending those inside them fleeing from their windows. Both of the airport’s major runways were struck by missiles, and some of its 40 fortified bunkers were also damaged.
Local residents say the Russian military had used the airbase in early 2016 but have since withdrawn their officers, so the base is now mainly operated by Syrian and Iranian military officers. There is also a hotel near the airport where Iranian officers have been staying, though it was not clear whether it was damaged.
The eyewitness believes human casualties, at least within the civilian population, were minimal, as there was no traffic heading toward the local hospital.
The airstrike follows confirmation by the Turkish Health Ministry that autopsies on several victims of Tuesday’s attack confirmed the use of the nerve agent sarin in violation of international law.
Soon after the strike, President Donald Trump delivered a statement from his Mar-A-Lago retreat, where he was meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
“There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention and ignored the urging of the UN security council,” Trump said Thursday night. “Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically.”
Former National Security Adviser and ABC News contributor Richard Clarke said this attack, one of the quickest displays of force by a new president in recent history, is largely “symbolic.”
Following a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed more than 1400 people outside of Damascus which a U.S. government intelligence assessment concluded likely used a nerve agent, the Obama administration threatened retaliation but ultimately called off planned airstrikes after Assad agreed to turn over the majority of his chemical weapons arsenal to an international watchdog group. Trump has attempted to blame Obama’s “weakness” for the worsening violence in Syria.
“This attack on one air base seems more symbolic,” Clarke said. “I think Secretary of Defense [General] James Mattis gave the president a list of options, this being the smallest. It was a targeted attack not designed to overwhelm the Syrian military … I think the president was trying to differentiate himself from his predecessor.”
While the president reportedly consulted some members of Congress Thursday, that consultation did not meet the standards established by a Constitution that says “the Congress shall have [the] power… To declare War…”
Not the president. The Congress.
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, bluntly declared that Trump’s action was “unconstitutional.”
“Assad is a brutal dictator who must be held to account for atrocities,” argued Kaine. “But the president’s failure to seek congressional approval is unlawful.”
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a 2016 Republican presidential contender, agreed.
“The President needs Congressional authorization for military action, as required by the Constitution,” declared Paul in a Thursday-evening tweet.
“While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria,” added Paul, “the United States was not attacked.”
That’s an important distinction. Presidents have the authority to launch military actions to defend the United States. But even when the United States has been attacked, wise presidents have gone to Congress to seek declarations of war, as Franklin Roosevelt did after the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile his dad is saying it’s all a conspiracy by… Jews. Or something.
Remember the “Trump become our President” and other bullshit after he managed to not shit his pants for an hour?
It’s baaack.
And my SO just told me GMA is praising tRump:
“So much for the the Trump-Putin bromance” etc ad vomit.
I was half joking when I said this. I think Trump just stepped in doo-doo with this action. It clearly didn’t accomplish whatever goal it had. So now he either has to double down, or step away looking like an ineffective leader. “Oh you’re gonna gas people? Well … I’m gonna send some missiles your way, you aren’t going to believe it. Watch them rain down. No seriously, at that airport over there in a couple of hours.”
If he doubles down, he’s going after Assad, and if he is successful, then we’ll have an unstable Syria without a leader, aka Iraq all over again. There is no easy win here.
I’ve been pondering over the implications all day, and this is where I’ve ended up too. The action was ineffective - it’s not even clear what the goal was. I don’t know where this is going, but it’s no good place.
I dunno - even if the Syrians were warned by the Russians and even in the (less clean-cut) case that this was done with the Russian’s consent, it still sends a message to Syria that the Trump administration isn’t just going to roll over on this stuff. If they use chemical weapons again (or at least as blatantly again) then the US will have no choice but to do something even stronger. That puts the brakes on the Assad campaign against his own people, at least for a time.
It also might inadvertently help with the North Korea stuff. If China sees this as an indication that Trump may very well start something with the DPRK, maybe they’ll get off their asses and do something on their end.
It also help Trump a bit in that it makes it appear on the surface that he’s willing to piss off his BFF Vlad. That’s a good look for him.
Honestly, I’d be impressed if I could convince myself that this was all part of a grand, long-range plan by the administration. But I cannot do so.
I don’t think so. Hell, maybe you are right, but I can’t see it that way. Assad is a son of a bitch who has endured years of one of the most brutal civil wars in modern history. He has the Russians on his side. His faction and its allies have no choice but to fight to the death because if they lose, they end up against the wall for sure. The Israelis are not his friends by any means, but in many ways they prefer him and a modicum of stability to the chaos of anyone else in that clusterfuck. Ditto the Turks.
There is approximately zero leverage the US has on him. Nada. Escalation? Not feasible, or practical. Anything that would truly hurt him would incur the wrath of Moscow or even end up killing Russians possibly. It would also entail the sort of military commitment that would seriously strain if not overstrain our capacity at this point, politically, logistically, and perhaps even operationally. About the only thing striking Assad in this way does is highlight how day late and a dollar short the US is in trying to really affect stuff in Syria in any meaningful way.
I simply can’t see any “stronger” response, even it it was more feasible than I think it is, doing anything positive, either. All military action has to be with the intention of effecting political change. Otherwise it is random violence, and not only immoral, but ineffective. This strike does absolutely nothing to further any conceivable objective the US might have, unless that objective is to perpetuate strife and confusion in Syria. Further escalation would, I feel, be more of the same. People who use nerve gas on their own in a civil war, and who have survived the sort of brutality this regime has dished out and suffered, are not going to run in fear of airstrikes.
Look at this stuff from the perspective of someone not in the USA, too. We have America supporting people opposed to Assad in a civil war, supporting Assad and Russians, indirectly, against ISIL/ISIS/Daesh/whatever who are, themselves, opposed to Assad. We have the US working with its ally Turkey against the Islamists, but also the US is supporting the Kurds who the Turks are fighting at the same time. We’re also backing the Saudis in their war in Yemen, while the Saudis, arguably, are still at some level not exactly cutting all ties with the Islamists in Syria. From the perspective of non-Americans, the only clear US policy seems to be destabilization of the region.
I agree completely, @TheWombat.
I would add, a better response would have been to do a pivot on accepting refugees, but we know Trump was unlikely to do that. To make that even more absurd, if he presses more military action against Syria, it would only make sense to relax the issues with allowing Syrian refugees into the US. And he will be stuck in a policy rock vs. hard place.
Well there’s that bit about deceiving and tangled webs, but in this case, I doubt there’s enough intelligence at work to practice actual deception. We need a couplet about incompetence and idiocy I think.
Uh oh … gloves off on the Trump/Putin bromance?
And straight from the reddit thread discussing that article comes some strikingly sober speculation commentary:
[quote]The American and Russian governments will both talk this shit up and pretend that they are escalating the conflict. Then they will save the whole fucking world by agreeing on a tremendous deal. That deal will include the US removing sanctions on Russia, in return for Russia leaning on Assad to not use chemical weapons on his own people. Nobel Peace Prize for Trump and Putin for averting nuclear armageddon.
Winners: Trump, Putin, Exxon
Losers: Syria, America[/quote]
It also has the added benefit of de-escalating the russiagate discussion back at home for the Trump administration.
Great post, Mr Wombat. If you wouldn’t mind answering a (perhaps dumb) question I had: What’s the difference between logistically and operationally?
An interesting idea, but let’s be real, it’s nothing more than a conspiracy theory at this point. There were plenty of legitimate reasons to bomb Syria, and still no actual evidence that Trump is a Putin stooge.
Please.
And there are legitimate reasons to bomb Syria, but warning them ahead of time makes it pointless.
True, but that describes 75% of reddit posts. It’s just a very believable conspiracy theory. How could Trump make it look like he’s taking action, but behind the scenes spin this as a positive for Russia and future good relations with them?
Either something far out there like this, or perhaps just involving talks with Russia now, and taking joint action against Assad, something Russia has yet to do.