That’s exactly what the POTUS wants to do. Exactly. Wait, that was last week. Now he want to bomb the shit out of them. What we really need is some focus. The two plans don’t work together.
I don’t think they’ll use planes. Russia has S-400s deployed in the country and now they’re threatening to use them. F-35s should be able to penetrate S-400 guarded areas, but it’s a gamble and not necessarily one we would like to take. Fourth generation aircraft do not have the capability to take on S-400s and there would be a very high probability of losing aircraft. So we can either call their bluff and raid hoping they don’t use them, we can attempt to raid with F-35s and hope they don’t get us or we can attempt to take out S-400 sites. In a typical war, we would do the last option, but that would mean literally attacking Russian troops and assets in a country that they are in legally and posing no threat to any other country which is probably a violation of international law and more importantly, could escalate to places we don’t want to go.
So really, that takes planes off the table. Missiles make more sense. They are expendable and while Russia can certainly shoot some down, it won’t get all of them, so the message would still be sent. Of course, the real danger is that we don’t really know where Russian assets are and if we kill Russian troops, we should expect that US troops in Syria will be targeted especially in the southern oil fields. The Deir Ez Zor area is a tinderbox since it is rich in oil and gas and is not within the traditional Kurdish homeland, but Kurds are occupying it. Russia is really the one keeping the lid on things, but if it decides to take off the gloves, there will be a lot of dead people before it’s all over with. What could make it even worse is that Turkey could take advantage of a shooting war in Deir to go after Manbij. Trump is playing a dangerous game and I’m not sure that he’s capable of understanding that.
F35 would result in a range and payload penalty.
Possibly the most idiotic president in history has tweeted that the missiles are coming, and that they will be ‘smart’ missiles…as opposed to our president…
The irony of him busting on Bush and Obama about ‘telegraphing’ attacks to our ‘enemies’ when he goes and does some dippy shit like this is pretty much off the charts. He manages to confuse our allies and piss off and confuse those opposed to us all at the same time. Frankly, no one knows what the hell he’ll do next. Last week we were supposedly going to pull out of Syria, this week we seem to be gearing up for a large scale attack with ‘smart’ missiles. Next week we might actually invade Sweden while China once again becomes our life ling friend.
It’s almost like some event may have happened in the last few days that altered our plans.
What was the event that put the thought of pulling out in his head last week? And thus far there has been no verification of the chemical attack. Why would he tweet such a stupid message before we even verify if anything has happened? For that matter, why tweet at all??
Yeah, Trump turned on the news. This was the third purported chemical attack this year. There’s usually about one a month, generally whenever the rebels start losing land in a major offensive, there’s a purported chemical attack.
Oh crap, just came over the wire that all 11 Russian ships in Tartus have left port. That means that Russia thinks they are targets and we have to assume is gearing up for a response. That Orange son of a something is gonna get a lot of people hurt. These are those interesting times your parents warned you about.
Places I don’t want to be tonight:
#1 - a Syrian base
No, Macron began those threats in February, well before Fox News got around to playing a segment on it for Trump. Macron’s policy did not change between last week and this week because Macron actually had a consistent policy rather than checking the tube to see how it plays at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.
“Possibly”?
Just how safe is the American nuclear arsenal? What are the chances that it could fall into the hands of a mad man? Just how close are religious extremists to control of the nuclear button.
There are a whole lot of jet fighter noises overhead here in Tel Aviv right now. That’s not usual.
The Russians, no doubt, are testing IDF. And sending a message.
So, for Cold War 2, Russkies Revenge, the sequel is at the stage of the Berlin Blockade of the original?
With Syria as Berlin. The Russians cannot let Assad fall, they will lose face. The US having invested so much on “principle” cannot withdaw without losing face either.
So like Korea and Berlin, two places which by all rights should have been on periphery and were far from the main area of contention, become flashpoints because…well the Great Powers can’t lose face.
The writers love to recylce plotlines in this series.
It’s all pretty alarming, but those forecasting World War 3 and nuclear war should really take a chill pill. The Soviet Union and China got into regular battles on their border and killed a lot of each others’ soldiers over the years and at times the fighting got very intense and lasted for long enough that you could almost call it a war. The worst clash was seven months long and was pretty much an undeclared war, but neither side was interested in going nuclear or even having a full scale conventional war.
Chances are, something bad is about to happen. But while both the US and Russia want to save face and achieve their policy objectives in Syria, if we come to blows, it will stay in Syria. and the more dangerous and intense it gets, the more interested both sides will be in calming things down.
Doesn’t this assume a rational person is in charge of the US Military?
Sorry, it was supposed to be ‘possibly the most idiot leader in history’, not President.
Not to mention, Trump’s too busy yelling about Sessions and Rosenstein to give any intelligible direction on Syria.
Memo to Congressional Republicans: this country needs a fucking President, not a 71-year old with the attention span of a toddler, and roughly the same ability to deal with complex concepts. Every day you don’t replace him with Pence (who is dogshit from a Dem POV, but who would at least let competent people run our foreign policy) is a day that you continue your betrayal of this country.
It assumes that Trump doesn’t want to die, or get his property blown up, and that while Trump’s advisors can’t keep him from saying the dumbest things, they have so far kept him from DOING the dumbest things.
We need a President, but let’s not hope for Trump to actually start taking charge. That would be very bad.