US government released photo of the bombing damage (via Reuters). Pretty much the same as the Russian footage – four damaged buildings, one destroyed building.
According to Reuters, Syrian aircraft were using the air base today to launch sorties.
The only way to effect major change from the outside is total war. Otherwise change will have to come from within. Based on the last 15 years, trying to change through strikes and half assed wars will only make it worse for everyone, including us.
I can only assume you are referring to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact of East Bloc nations, which collapsed not because of anything the West did to “make their elites understand that their only way forward is to release their grip on power”, but because their economy collapsed in the wake of military and industrial catastrophes (1979 Invasion of Afghanistan, 1986 drop in crude oil and refined petroleum prices, 1986 explosion and radioactivity release at Chernobyl #4 reactor).
Stranger
Russia was told in advance, therefore Assad was told in advance, therefore a multi-million dollar missile attack hit almost nothing of value except for some reinforced concrete. By design. At least this time (unlike the last time Dimwit-in-Chief noticed the military) we managed not to kill any noncombatant women and children. Meanwhile, we are still the largest, richest nation too afraid to admit desperate refugees, so the §residential tears over the murdered Syrians are even more false and worthless than this fake gesture of military strength.
Ok you are sitting in your house piss drunk, and you decide to slap the hell out of your wife.
I blow up all of your beer, with out setting a foot in your house, i reached out and touched you and there really was not a damned thing you could do about it, and now you know i will do it again, and maybe next time it’s you i will slap around the house and not your beer, and you wont even be able to reach me to take a swing back.
Do you really want to slap your wife again?
I’d say perhaps you need to take off your anti trump glasses, or you simply wont see anything objectively, wearing those the man could save 12 million children from execution and you’d somehow find him a pedophile for it.
I think there’s two separate questions here being discussed here. It’s like saying “Should we walk to the store or drive?” versus “Should we walk to the store or have six-year-old Bobby drive us there?” You can agree that driving in general is better than walking, while being vehemently against Bobby taking the wheel.
I don’t know whether a competent leader militarily intervening in Syria would make things better or worse. But we don’t have a competent leader at the moment. Og help us, we have the Orange One and his Bizarro-Midas Touch; whatever he gets his tiny fingers on turns to [del]golden showers[/del]… lead, let’s say, lead.
Dead people are all dead, right? Who mentioned smart bombs? Not me; no idea what you think you’re talking about there.
Again: as far as you’re concerned, Assad could drop regular old bombs all day and you’d not have a problem with that, right? That isn’t something that, to you, would “deserve a severe response”, right? I’m trying to understand your attitude about this and what you see as the difference between two methods of killing lots of people that makes one something you can turn your head away from and one something that requires an immediate and “severe” response.
Does this mean Trump isn’t Putin’s puppet?
For myself, I am really conflicted on this one. Was this the least bad option? I am not omniscient. I am impressed that Trudeau approves so far.
I would like to see many regime changes. North Korea, Russia, Syria, USA,…
How you die makes a difference.
I can shoot someone cleanly right between the eyes.
Or I can chase them around a room and methodically hack them into 14 pieces with a machete.
Which is more barbaric?
The major powers had extensive experience using chemical warfare throughout WWI. They observed first hand how the victims died. Their doctors treated the lifelong disabilities of the survivors.
The major powers were so appalled that they all came together to sign a treaty agreeing not to use them ever again. There’s something uniqully horrific about chemical weapons that sets them apart from conventional ones.
A few assholes like Assad didn’t get the memo.
Better analogy: you’re sitting in your house completely sober and decide to beat your wife and kids, who come to my house for help, but I keep my door locked and refuse to let them in, thus demonstrating my level of care about their situation. Then publicly I announce that it’s up to your wife and kids if they want you out of the house.
Then, after you’ve poisoned a couple of them with weed-killer, I decide to put on a show and spend a couple of thousand dollars blowing up your backyard shed. I manage to cause a few dollars worth of damage, but since I told our mutual best friend Vladimir before I did it, and he told you to get everything out of the shed (especially the weed killer he gave you), no real harm was done to you at all. I reached out and touched you – ineffectually, stupidly, and maybe next time I’ll do it again. Do you really want to slap your wife again? Of course not: she’s dead. And you’re in your La-Z-Boy watching TV, with Vladimir outside watching your house.
You need to read some more history. Gorbachev realized the Soviets could no longer compete with the West and tried to reform the USSR from within. Nothing you mention was of any real importance and far less catastrophic than WWII. Take off your political blinders.
Again, its the difference between using weapons of mass destruction and ordinary warfare. Its the difference between the Holocaust and the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Its the difference between willfully killing your wife and killing an armed burglar.
I am well read in history and economics, and despite your condescension I am neither befuddled by “political blinders” nor overstating the impact that thses events had on the already long-faltering Soviet economy. Gorbachev’s perestroika and uskoreniye reforms were an effort to shore up the public confidence in the government in the wake of falling standards of living (which were already abysmal by Western standards), shortages of basic goods, and an increasingly disaffected younger generation. The Communists hardliners were not convinced to “release their grip on power” and in fact attempted a famous military coup d’état in August 1991, a fact you would know if you had “read some more history”.
None of this bears any relation to the situation of the Assad regime, which has been beset by various forces both secular and religious with different agendas in open warfare with the regime and often each other. At this point, Assad would not be able (and likely not willing) to step down and hand over power to any other group. If and when he is defeated he will almost certainly either be prosecuted for war crimes or summarily executed along with his family, so at this point he has little choice but to continue to remain in control as long as possible.
Stranger
[ul]
[li]Actually, chemical weapons are notoriously ineffective against well-equipped military forces. Modern first-world militaries are especially well-protected against chemical weapons in a variety of ways.[/li]
[li]Even when used by surprise their record is poor and erratic. The deadly effects literally drift where the wind takes them. Precise use of them is largely a fantasy.[/li]
[li]They are very effective against unprotected civilian targets, however.[/li][/ul]
It is for all three reasons they’re generally reviled and banned. Not effective against armies, hard to control and unreliable, but likely to kill lots of civilians.
Are we to believe that Assad, who is winning the war, has squirreled away some chemical weapons in violation of the agreement to eliminate them and then decide completely without any reason to use them to hand the US, Turkey and the West in general a casus belli? A gift to those who want to bring down his government? Could he be that stupid? Of course not.
This was a false flag operation, as were the other sarin attacks of a couple of years ago. A Reichstag Fire. Unfortunately, the US people never fail to fall for this same old song, the most infamous, but no means unique, example were Saddam’s nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction.
As for the attack on the Syrian airfield, this is serious crime under international law. Simple as that. It is amazing that nobody even mentions this in the press. Tulsi Gabbard is the only member of Congress to make this point.
Congress is full of two-faced cunts were against action when Obama was president but fully support it with the turd in office. More partisan politics by people who don’t give two shits about dead Syrian children.