Syria

[KeithE]

I would not have launched this attack especially without Congressional approval as Constitutional law requires - time to end our role as the world's policemen.

That said, the attack last night was not that bad - it was directed at chemical/biological sites as a deterrent, they were limited - only three sites, and we coordinated with France and the UK. I’d guess Mattis won the debate and Bolton lost it (but that is only supposition).

[KeithE]

Trump just tweeted “....... Mission Accomplished”. I hope he is right but far more likely that tweet will come back and haunt him just like it did with Bush Jr.

[Haruo]

Nothing in the Middle East is "Mission Accomplished"; it's all, from Abraham's day to the present situation in Syria (or situations, since there are multiple situations we keep trying to address), more like Mission Impossible. I would think by now we would have got a clue.

[Dave Roberts]

I get a sinking feeling that we have been here before with other Middle Eastern countries where we try to set things right by an American bombing. (Need I make a list?) I don't think that this will make any real difference in Syria. Barrels of chlorine are easily accessible anywhere from pool supplies to water treatment plants, to laundries.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

You acknowledge the use of chemical weapons?

[Haruo]

I'm not competent to assess the use of chemical weapons. But chemical weapons are a dime a dozen. I don't think the UK and France joined this mission because we forced them to, nor that they did so to distract American voters from other matters, though I have little doubt that the latter goal played quite a role in the way Trump went about his part in it. But the UK and France (and many other countries) have their own reasons to want to stick it to the Russians. So they may have seen flying along with US as a convenient excuse for something they might otherwise have had a hard time doing.

I don't think "Mission accomplished" means any more than his bragging about the never-ending rise of "his" stock market indexes did a few months ago.

[Sandy]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... for-Syrian

Deja vu?

As long as the middle east is loaded with regimes led by puppets backed by foreign governments, civil wars will rip countries apart, insurgencies will rise (two major ones now since the mission was allegedly accomplished in Iraq during the Bush administration) and all kinds of atrocities will result as the low level puppets work to help their foreign masters "protect their country's interests in the Middle East."

So we see television pictures of a "chemical weapons attack" on Syrian civilians in a city held by the anti-Assad faction and it prompts another air strike, this one including the UK and France. What about the chemical weapons attacks that have occurred that didn't get on television? I don't see that the stated ends are being accomplished, though it did cause a pause in the news cycle about Trump's sex scandals with porns stars and the criminal activity in which he was involved with the Russians.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

What I heard Pence say made it sound like he thought chlorine was a forbidden chemical weapon. I wonder if this means a generation of Syrians will have to drink bottled water courtesy (at a cost) of Nestlé or other oligarchical outfits.

[Haruo]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

Trump is definitely a cheerleader for a team where he's also trying to be the quarterback. Hard to do both well at the same time. Poor guy.

[Sandy]

After the fact, it appears the purpose of the missile attack was to support the drawing of a "red line" when it came to Syria's use of chemical weapons. A couple of warehouses and a research facility were hit, according to most news reports I've seen, not much in the way of making a dent in the ability of Assad to use chemical weapons. Coupled with tough talk about sanctioning the Russians, I'd say the attack really did nothing except distract the media from all of the scandals and investigations going on in the swamp Trump has created in Washington. Had it not been for the involvement of the British and French, I might think that was all there was to it.

Syria has been bombed to smithereens all through this civil war, a hundred missiles on a couple of desert warehouses and a research lab in the side of a hill aren't going to make much of a bang. It's going to take genuine diplomacy, not missiles, to end the violence in Syria, and that means a major change in the way both the US and Russia are approaching their own "national interests" in the middle east.

Apparently, though, we have a much better way of scaring Assad in to submission, and that is the ability for the Vice President to be in two places at the same time. According to the descriptions of a photograph shown by White House Press Secretary Sarah Pinnochio, Pence was with Trump during the missile attack, while he was also delivering a speech in Peru.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

[Sandy]

And then, maybe I spoke too soon. Trump threw his UN ambassador under the bus when it came to remarks about Russian sanctions. There aren't going to be any.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

I was wondering how Trump was going to enforce sanctions against Russia over their involvement in Syria when he hasn't enforced any of the existing sanctions for their invasion of Ukraine and their stealing of the Crimea. Kinda makes you wonder what Putin's got on him, huh?

Russia has a large military presence in Syria, which is, in fact, the reason why Assad is still in power, after coming to the brink of being militarily defeated. Kind of makes you wonder, with the air cover they provide, and the military presence, how it was that a hundred or so missiles got through the air defenses and hit targets in the Assad regime controlled areas of Syria without any Russian anti-aircraft support, or anti-missile defenses being engaged.

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

I was unaware of the Pence-can-be-in-two-places-at-once photo until I read more of this thread just now. That really is a tactical miracle, one that the Russians would do well to fear. And maybe it can be used in the Cohen investigation, too.