I am certainly no fan of Syrian dictator Assad but that is a very dangerous move to make. The Assad regime is backed by Putin. I thought one of the things Trump was serious about was more isolationism. This type of thing could blow up in our face literally and biggly. The early reports suggest that it was only military airfields that were targeted but what happens if Russian soldiers stationed there were collateral damage? OTOH, the targeted air base was used to launch chemical attacks on civilians. Sometimes you just can’t win.
Trump reacted as if he had never seen a news report of a Syrian atrocity before (which, I suppose, is possible). OMG, won’t someone think of the children! Views changed! Must attack!
I am only seeing two possibilities for this: either Trump truly is this volatile and unpredictable, and just made a 180 degree policy turn with little or no input or advice from experts; or this is some cynical plan to take attention off all the scandals and problems that are simmering around him, and to boost his popularity with his base. Or maybe both - maybe when he was considering what to do about Syria the beneficial side effect on the domestic front was another selling point.
Syria had already crossed the same red line under Obama, and nothing was done about it. I’m an Obama fan in general, but that was a mistake, I think, made only because all of the other possible reactions were worse mistakes. Like bombing them.
So anyway, is this an act of war? How many wars are we in at the moment? I’ve lost count. I was reading something about this being the anniversary of WWI, which (for America anyway) was less than 18 months.
Admittedly my knowledge of the situation in Syria is pretty superficial, I just know what I read in the news. Honestly I think it was a smart move, something needed to be done, and dropping nerve gas is kicking things way up a notch, freaking disgraceful. Obama certainly never seemed to take much direct action that I’m aware of other than verbal condemnation though I’m fine with being corrected on this point if not accurate.
The missles launched was an isolated response to this specific action of Assad. Russia and Putin will bitch and moan but I really doubt they or Syria will start WWIII over this one strike. I’m no Trump fanboy but it’s pretty obvious whether he took this action ordering the missle strike, or did nothing, or breathed, or did anything he will be criticized, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Personally I think this particular response to this particular event was justified, we will just have to see what further actions if any he will decide, maybe this will convince Assad to dial back a little bit.
Putin and Trump probably worked out some sideshow bullshit like this months ago.
Trump/America: “We’re doing something! The use of chemical weapons against brown people we don’t actually give a shit about has now crossed the SECOND red line!”
Putin: “We strongly condemn this unilateral US action…blah, blah, blah…”
Putin, later on phone to Trump: “We still on for 18 holes next Wednesday?”
Try reading. The entire Trump national security team agreed with this. And if you don’t think that the use of weapons of mass destruction deserve a severe response, what would?
I see no way this actually makes things better. The idea that ‘something needs to be done’ or ‘a message needs to be sent’ or whatever strikes me as dumb and old thinking. Unless a military strike makes the situation better, it shouldn’t be done. Now we have more death and destruction, with what benefit? Now there’s likely Syrians with dead relatives who can blame the US for their deaths. Who knows what those Syrians, and their children, will be doing over the next few decades… but I doubt it will be helping US interests.
I bear no love for the ignorant buffoon currently in the White House…but I’m sorta OK with this, use of nerve gas and other agents is a dark road we really don’t want to go down as a species (IHMO) and taking out an airfield (but for how long?) is something more than a few Presidents (from both sides of the aisle) have done in the past (see Iraq and Bosnia/Serbia for recent examples).
Where I do have concerns is ***if ***this was part of a planned, step-by-step campaign to seek some sort of identifiable goal in Syria, or if it was a one-shot, reaction-only move by an administration without a firm plan as to what happens next.
As the Spartans demonstrated millennia ago, the word “If” can mean a lot.
It was a mistake for Obama to call wmd a red line, then do nothing when Syria crossed it. I support the air strikes just as a way of letting the international community know that there are standards. In between this and North Korea using nerve agents to kill Kim’s half brother, bad regimes are getting ballsy with chemical weapons.
But really, is dying from wmd that bad compared to what Syria does anyway. Kidnapping and torturing children is worse than dying from sarin. But I guess creating some lines of human decency in war is laudable even if they are somewhat arbitrary.
OK, so the USA is supposed to be the world’s policeman after all? Fair enough if so, but I could have sworn that His Orangeness wanted to steer us in the opposite direction.
Exactly. Assad’s nerve gassing of “Babies, little babies!!!” may have served to remind our esteemed President that there are cases where US intervention may have a value of some sort, but I see no signs that there is any deeper strategy going on here other than “we’ve got lots of fancy weapons and we don’t mind expending a few of them on the heathens”.
Unconfirmed sources report that there were more stockpiles of chemical agents stored at the airbase. If, and yes I know that is a big if, these stockpiles were destroyed by the strike, then that is a significant deterrent to their future use. More agent will have to be created and transported to military bases, and if we send a message that anyone making, transporting, or storing such material is under threat of death at any time, the enthusiasm behind it will dry up pretty quick.
So now we’re bombing both sides (or at least 2 sides) in that Civil War? I wonder if HRC would have done something similar (I think so). If “something had to be done”, couldn’t someone else do it this time instead of us???
We gave advance warning of the strikes to Russia which means that, by default, we gave advance warning to Syria. I don’t know how much warning but, for it to be a warning and not a gotcha, it had to be enough time to move personnel and possibly equipment. Russia has a military installation adjacent to the air base we attacked which we were careful not to hit.
I would not be surprised if anything especially valuable or sensitive was either removed, protected (hardened underground bunkers, etc) or moved into the Russian “safe area” prior to the strikes.
The shells/bombs themselves may be destroyed but the chemicals themselves are now floating in the breeze, soaking into the ground toward the water table and generally contaminating the surrounding land.
A report I heard on NPR this morning said that they were aware of the location of a store of chemical weapons are the store was not targeted. I haven’t found a source for this online yet.