He isn’t kidding. They’re screaming for blood… mostly Kushner’s, because Jew.
On PBS Washington Week, a Pentagon reporter said that the missile strike destroyed 20 Syrian aircraft. Which is entirely possible since they went after their hangers (and would also account for the reports of the missile falling short of the runway).
If true losing 20 aircraft is a pretty significant loss for airforce that only had 400 planes to start the year with.
It is really challenging to get a jet flying that’s been in close proximity to a 1,000 lb Tomahawk warhead, and of far more value than closing the runaway temporarily.
The saddest thing I heard is that some, opposition leaders thought this meant that the US was their new ally. America is a regular dream crusher when it comes to folks fighting tyrannical regimes. Anyone who thinks they can depend on this clown to help them is in for a huuuge disappointment.
Therein lies the problem. Trump has made it so that I no longer trust the government’s statements on things.
No way man.
I mean, fine, you can destroy some planes if you want, but the runway is the actual valuable target.
You destroy the runway, and you have EFFECTIVELY destroyed all those planes, since they can’t take off until the runway is repaired, which can take weeks. Plus you have denied that location to every other aircraft.
Not hitting the runway is weird.
Not really repairing a runway isn’t particular hard. You need asphalt and concrete and some heavy equipment none of which is hard to come by. During WWII, even the heaviest hit airfields (example Guadalcanal after being shelled by Japanese battleship, English airfields during the blitz, or German airfields near Normandy were typically operational with 24-48 hour after the attack, a week at the outside.)
1:53
Oh wait that was in 2013.
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Not a word about banning Syrian refugees from the US
In Salem, NH during the campaign:
One man said he lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, where Mr Trump has a home, and there were plans to relocate Syrian refugee families there.
He asked Mr Trump if he could “look children aged five, eight, ten, in the face and tell them they can’t go to school here”.
Mr Trump did not hesitate and said he could, which brought applause from the crowd.
He said: "I can look in their faces and say ‘You can’t come’. I’ll look them in the face.
USA Today
Politico:
Ready for eight years of Trump and more Republican policies that shower us in love?
Ooh missiles, American Stronk!
Fuck this country.
Those runways could be made of dirt and often were. A jet fighter needs a lot more infrastructure than a Hellcat or even a B-17. Our weaponry is far more capable of doing lasting damage to a modern airfield. Cruise missiles generally aren’t the choice though since they aren’t penetrators.
Repairing isn’t all that easy, though with Russian know-how and technology they could probably do it fairly quickly, certainly faster than a 3rd world nation in the middle of a civil war would have been able to normally.
Here’s some Guadacanal footage, no modern fighters would be taking off in those conditions other than a Harrier.
Edit: This is the US using specialized people and it took them 3 weeks to fix an airfield that was damaged by ISIS, who doesn’t exactly have specialized anti-airfield munitions.
I’m sort of appalled by the idea that it’s ok to slaughter men, women, and children day in, day out, by means as diverse as barrel bombs, machine guns, starvation, artillery, disease, and torture, but it’s beyond the pale to kill them with sarin. Nerve gas is horrible, horrible stuff; my first job out of my first stint in grad school was actually researching Soviet CBW programs, in Russian mostly, in a somewhat convoluted project that was trying to blend classified and open source material to uncover the intricacies of Moscow’s petri dishes of doom. Ick, indeed. But let’s be realistic, here; I see these articles talking about how Russia could “stop” Assad and how strikes like this can seriously affect Assad’s ability to deliver nerve gas or what not, and I can’t help but think we’re approaching this like a referee. “Hey, you can stab 'em, shoot 'em, and blow them to hell, but put that damn nerve gas down!” “Ok, that’s fine, get back to rape and pillage the old fashioned way.”
The WMD thing is horrible, and yes, I do think there is a case to be made that reinforcing that these things are beyond the pale is a worthy endeavor. But if we let that obscure the real problem, we’re just perpetuating the killing in an even worse way, as we are then allowing ourselves to feel like we’re actually doing something when really we are not.
And Assad does not need nerve gas to win, or even survive. For that matter, if you want to get rid of his ability to deliver gas, you’re going to have to go in and take the gas away. You can deliver gas in, oh, about a zillion ways, some more or less effective than others. You don’t actually need planes.
Interesting article but I think it makes my point a team of 29 airmen repaired an airfield in 3 weeks, that the ISIS had spent 2 years destroying and filling with booby traps. They did so despite being under mortar attack, Now it is absolutely true the US has specialized equipment and well trained engineers that Syrian lack although they do have Russian advisors. We do have specialized runway denial ordinance, but since leaving little mines to explode later isn’t considered nice to children and other living things we tend not use them and they aren’t delivered via Tomahawks.
On the other hand the Syrian can easily throw ten, twenty or even 30 times more people. They also aren’t under mortar attack since that airport is under solid Assad control.
B17 actually need more runway 5,000’ vs 3,000’ for the Mig 23 and SU 22 which make up the bulk of Assad’s planes at the airfield.
I’m sure Assad is lot more pissed about losing 20 odd aircraft than he would have been losing the use of one his dozen airbase for even a month.
I mostly agree with you and I don’t want to overstate the importance of the attack Frankly, even if was done by President Hillary Clinton, with General Mattis by her side and top notch diplomat like Ryan Crocker acting as Sec. of State, it would make little difference in resolving the civil war. With the baby in chief at the White House. it will make no difference. It might make a difference in deterring the use of chemical weapons and that’s a good thing.
I reflexive agree with Senator McCain and Graham on the Right and my favorite liberal Nicholas Kristoff and Susan Rice that US military can be used to save a lot of lives when used wisely. Now using it wisely is really difficult with smart, informed people in charge, intelligent strategy, and consistent policy. There is zero chance Trump will do this.
So while I’m going to spend the next 4 years crying for all the people in the world who could have been saved if we had elected a better president. The less Trump bombs thing the less chance he’ll have of making the situation worse.
Doing stuff to feel better is awful reason for taking military action. So while Trump was right today, I hope he listens to his gut and remembers America first. In the case, of military action under Trump the less the better.
This should be something we can all agree on.
Just wait until he sees his poll numbers start to reverse a bit following the attack.
I can agree with most of this; I’m still not convinced this was a good option at this point in time, but assuming there isn’t any direct blowback I guess I can live with it.
Ultimately though we are going to have to figure out an actual foreign policy one day. Reaction and finger-pointing hardly counts.
And lets please have congress actually define what the president is allowed to do without their approval this time. I didn’t trust clinton or bush’s moral compass. I do trust obama’s. Pussy-grabber? Yeah, we need to limit his ability to strike other countries as much as possible without congressional approval. The war powers resolution does set limits - we need congress to stand up though. Good luck, I know.
So less than 24 hours from the attack, the syrians are already launching aircraft from the same site, and dropping bombs on the same civilians.
So literally nothing was achieved. Absolutely nothing. Amazing.
I don’t know, we all felt really good about ourselves for a few minutes there didn’t we?
Sounds like we pissed off the Russians though, as a trip is now planned there.It’s currently just Rex Tillerson, but there is also talk of Nikki Haley might be traveling with him. Strangely, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson just cancelled his planned trip.
That trip was already planned.
Adding Nikki to it wasn’t it seems. But planned or not, I’m sure the topic of Syria will be front and center.