It successfully distracted the press from Trump’s miserable poll ratings and ludicrously awful management of his administration for a few hours. That’s a big Mission Accomplished in Trump’s mind.
Speaking of, I didn’t check his tweets from yesterday.
It’s only very believable if you have a lot of preconceived ideas about Trump’s ties to the Russians, which are curious and concerning, but still lacking in any substantive proof. If Obama had bombed Syria, you would have nobody on the left thinking twice about his motives, but you have the right flipping out about some theory is very believable from their point of view.
It’s entirely possible that this is right on the money with what’s going on, but I just want people who buy into this to consider the effects of confirmation bias and the reality of the situation.
I think the goals behind the airstrike are pretty clear, and they had nothing to do with Syria.
Goal #1 : Reverse Trump’s downward plummet in the polls by making him look strong vs. known bad guy Assad. Republicans can tout that they were so much stronger on this than Obama, because Obama never lobbed cruise missiles into Syria. “'Murica, fuck yeah!!” Forget the fact that Obama and the Pentagon wanted to do this for real 4 years ago, and Republican Congress said nope, to which Obama replied “We don’t take military action in America without Congressional approval”. I guess it’s OK when you know Congress will approve after the fact…
Goal #2 : Plant the seed of public opinion that Trump just did something that would anger Russia, and therefore the whole Fake News Russia Conspiracy thing takes a huge hit. Why would Trump put Russian lives and Russian allies in danger if he was in bed with Russia? Nevermind that the Russians and Assad were given ample warning of the attack.
Goal #3 : Make America appear to have taken the first step in smacking down a rambunctious dictator just ahead of Trump’s meeting with China. Now China is on the world hot seat. Will they agree to smack down Kim Jong Un from their end now that Trump has smacked down Assad? This one is actually an admirable bit of strategy, probably designed by the military in conjunction with the State Department. Of course it would have worked a lot better had the smack down actually done any real damage to Assad’s regime.
So, all three major goals pretty much accomplished. $70 million in U.S. taxpayer money spent to lob missiles at an empty airfield in a show of force that Assad will laugh off knowing that his Russian and Iranian allies will prevent the U.S. from really hitting any targets of importance by virtue of their mere presence with his forces. It’s win-win for Trump really, as he got to see his domestic goals accomplished (everyone’s talking about Syria now, not the investigation into Trump and Russia), put a little pressure on China to step up, and he didn’t piss off anyone that wasn’t already unhappy with us, and even those hurt feelings can be easily assuaged (perhaps by lifting a few Russian sanctions down the road…).
I think that the tinfoil hatting and the tweetstorms that are happening with various “theories” are veering off into the infowars territory.
Trump’s Razor
Some military guy said this was the best plan, he got to look like a big boy shooting missiles.
Yes. Remember the picture of him sitting in the driver’s seat of that truck? It’s like that, but with cruise missiles.
This. Seriously, guys. You’re all trying too hard on this.
I’m all for ridiculing Trump and suspecting the worst about him and his cronies, but the way this strike happened sounds exactly the way the military would design a strike with limited political fallout - and that includes informing Russia (and by that proxy Syria) beforehand. You don’t want to take the risk of killing any Russians there, you’re really not interested in killing any Syrians, but you do want to hamper Syria’s ability to repeat their chemical attack and show the world that you’re ready to escalate. Cruise missiles on the airfield is the technique that fulfills all those restrictions.
I agree-- like most things Trump does, you can take it completely at face value.
Assad used some chemical weapons to test Trump after Trump said that he was OK with Assad winning the war. We basically said using chemical weapons is still not OK, but otherwise you are fine.
Eh… I would think the military would want to destroy hardware and kill soldiers. Making political points isn’t their mission or inclination. They DO NOT want chemical weapons being used. This was probably the weakest option they put on the table for Trump. It isn’t sending a very strong message at all. A strong message would be a massive crippling response. This is a wag of the finger at best, especially since they gave them a heads up to assure no real damage was done.
Honestly the thing annoying me the most about the whole thing is how apparently the War Powers Act evidently only applies to Democrats according to the internet (or no one if you ask the Pauls).
Maybe it was the “weakest” plan of attack put forward, but it was also the most prudent. And no, the military generals and admirals in that region do not want to kill Syrian soldiers and risk killing a bunch of Russian advisers by throwing missiles into an airbase with no warning. Despite how hawkish you may think these guys are, they’re not stupid. A “massive crippling response” is crazy talk unless we’re prepared to go to war.
Frankly, I’m a little stunned that people here are criticizing the strike as not being good enough. What do you guys want? A ground war in Syria? Really? Maybe kill some Russians and dare them to respond? Is this where we’re at now?
Fuck and no.
I’m with you on this, for what its worth. I would hope there is enough people with two brain cells to rub together in our military who realize getting into a shooting war with Russia over Syria is a bad idea. While I’ve no doubt there are a few Buck Turgidson types, I imagine there is more than a few realists who hold control. Evidence: this course of action.
And before we go all ‘war powers’ in here, remember that Obama expanded the drone program. It’s not like Congress approved of drone strikes in Yemen either.
Damage to their ability to keep murdering people?
I’ll admit the Russian issue makes it tricky and it might be all they could do in this situation, but what they did was effectively nothing. “Don’t use gas to murder civilians, blow them up with thermobaric weapons like you were doing.”
That isn’t any better and it doesn’t really say that WMD’s are a line that can’t be crossed. You can totally cross it and we’ll basically do nothing about it. Just make sure you invite a few Russian or Chinese advisers into your country and you’ll be fine.
Okay, so what’s your suggestion? I’m assuming you think this was a failure, but you want/expect us to stop Assad. Given that we’re not at war, what would you propose as a military course of action that sends a message but doesn’t result in killing Russians, doesn’t incite the whole region, and makes it clear that the response is in retaliation for the chemical attack?
Significant damage to the target would be a nice start. We took out like… 6 planes and didn’t even really disable the airfield. With 60 cruise missiles.
I’m not a member of the Joint Chiefs so I don’t know what options were on the table, but this was pretty meh.
We missed the opportunity to make a difference back in 2013, but Obama refused to leverage his position and the GOP refused to act. Obama could have easily used War Powers to respond. Instead he went to a GOP Congress who decided that using nerve gas wasn’t a big deal because there was a Democrat in office.
I’m not well versed in the destructive power of your average Tomahawk missile, nor the specifics of the airfield in questions, but that’s like, a lot, right?
I think this was a proper and prudent response and serves the purpose of warning off any further gas attacks. The point wasn’t damage, it was just a little shot over the bow.
What I can’t figure is what the fuck Assad was thinking using gas. He had it all, support from Russia, hands off from America - what was possibly to be gained either militarily or diplomatically from killing 72 people with sarin? I’d chalk it up to him just being insane, but that seems too easy.
I’m sure Putin is more pissed at Assad than anyone else is right now.
That depends on which source you’re getting your battle damage assessments from. RT/Russian Defense Ministry and others say we hit six planes and the airfield is still operational. The Pentagon says the goal was met because we targeted targeted “aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars” which were destroyed “severely hampering” Syria’s ability to repeat the chemical attacks.
Each source has reason to paint the results in their favor, so I guess it’s up to you to decide which to trust. I tend to think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Hell no. I would have preferred, no military response, but assist with humanitarian AND refugee effort. Not that I don’t want Syria to be a better place, but I am very adverse to another military occupation and operation.
It depends on which loadout was used in the missiles. Commonly, there are two options. The Block III C-class cruise missile carries a single 1,000 pound explosive, while the Block III D-class carries 166 submunitions — weighing a total of 1,000 pounds — that are dispersed over a football field-sized area. The former is used for hitting defensive positions like bunkers or munitions sites. The latter is for light equipment denial or personnel damage. There is also a Block IV, that’s basically an improved version of Block C.
60 x 1000lb bombs essentially.
Skip to the 4:00 mark:
Edit to add here what a loaded F-18 might carry in comparison: 4 x 1000lb cluster bombs.