Trump launches missiles at Syria

[Matata]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/donald-trump-syria-military/index.html

 

[OreoRosies86]

Scary stuff.

 

[lovedogs]

Scary stuff.

Funny how he wanted Obama to get approval, but he doesn't need it. AWESOME JOB, TRUMP!

 

[AGBF]

Eliot wrote: "Scary stuff."

...and I am scared for the Syrian civilians. I am not saying that I am sure that this strike is wrong, but I worry that it wasn't planned carefully. It was executed so swiftly after Trump decided that he wished to become involved in the Syrian conflict. Every time I hear about how huge the number of missiles being sent over is, the more i worry about who, on the ground, is being hit. And will Trump, now, welcome Syrians into the United States?

 

[redwood66]

Deb they need to be safe to stay in their own country. Trump did tell us he would not telegraph what he was going to do. I am reading that Russia was notified ahead of time before the launch. Hopefully this will incline the Russians to do something about Assad.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Way to go Mr. Prez... none of those "line in the sand" BS.

 

[ruby59]

He also did it in the middle of the night to avoid casualties.

And he was careful that they did not hit any of the Sarin containers - just the ability to launch them.

Did you see those those children with their poor little bodies jerking and their inability to breathe. The president seemed very moved by that and his limited strike sent a very powerful message.

 

[redwood66]

Pentagon statement

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=99782

Statement from Pentagon Spokesman on U.S. Strike in Syria
Story Number: NNS170406-16Release Date: 4/6/2017 10:48:00 PM

From Department of Defense
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- At the direction of the president, U.S. forces conducted a cruise missile strike against a Syrian Air Force airfield today at about 8:40 p.m. EDT (4:40 a.m., April 7, in Syria).

The strike targeted Shayrat Airfield in Homs governorate, and were in response to the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun, which killed and injured hundreds of innocent Syrian people, including women and children.

The strike was conducted using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) launched from the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. A total of 59 TLAMs targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars. As always, the U.S. took extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties and to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict. Every precaution was taken to execute this strike with minimal risk to personnel at the airfield.

The strike was a proportional response to Assad's heinous act. Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that aircraft from Shayrat conducted the chemical weapons attack on April 4. The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again.

Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.

We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons. The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated.

 

[arkieb1]

I just posted in the other thread about this. We saw images of young children frothing at the mouth literally dying from the chemical attack, others having fits and unable to breathe, irrespective of who is your leader from a humanitarian POV we have moved past the point of sitting back and doing nothing.

 

[OreoRosies86]

I just posted in the other thread about this. We saw images of young children frothing at the mouth literally dying from the chemical attack, others having fits and unable to breathe, irrespective of who is your leader from a humanitarian POV we have moved past the point of sitting back and doing nothing.

I do not have a an issue with what was done, but I do have an issue with not going through the proper channels as seems to be the case. He slammed Obama in the press for years about Syria and he needs to proceed with caution. However. I can't say I disagree with the act itself. Those images were terrifying and heartbreaking.

 

[Tekate]

Deb they need to be safe to stay in their own country. Trump did tell us he would not telegraph what he was going to do. I am reading that Russia was notified ahead of time before the launch. Hopefully this will incline the Russians to do something about Assad.

Doesn't seem so, Russia has said they consider it an attack against an ally and they cannot guarantee safety for American planes flying over Syria. Great.

 

[Tekate]

I do not have a an issue with what was done, but I do have an issue with not going through the proper channels as seems to be the case. He slammed Obama in the press for years about Syria and he needs to proceed with caution. However. I can't say I disagree with the act itself. Those images were terrifying and heartbreaking.

Agreed Elliot totally, BUT we have seen over 2,500+ Syrian refugees die trying to leave their country and the right in the USA has banned refugees from coming to the USA. So we are elitist? we can bomb and sit and watch and shout Hooray for our team, BUT we can't take in a little child because they 'may be ISIS?" hypocrisy abounds on the right. (If Obama did this there would have been screaming)

 

[Tekate]

He also did it in the middle of the night to avoid casualties.

And he was careful that they did not hit any of the Sarin containers - just the ability to launch them.

Did you see those those children with their poor little bodies jerking and their inability to breathe. The president seemed very moved by that and his limited strike sent a very powerful message.

So? are you open to little children and their families coming here for sanctuary against these kinds of attacks? I sincerely and truly hope your empathy and sympathy for those little babies allows you to see that these people need sanctuary.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Agreed Elliot totally, BUT we have seen over 2,500+ Syrian refugees die trying to leave their country and the right in the USA has banned refugees from coming to the USA. So we are elitist? we can bomb and sit and watch and shout Hooray for our team, BUT we can't take in a little child because they 'may be ISIS?" hypocrisy abounds on the right. (If Obama did this there would have been screaming)

Woah, I completely agree with that Tekate, and I never said otherwise. Turning away refugees is disgusting, and Trump is disgusting. He did this in the way he does everything, backwards and completely misguided.

Did it need to happen? Yes. Did he go through the proper process before and during? 1000% NO.

 

[Tekate]

Pentagon statement

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=99782

Statement from Pentagon Spokesman on U.S. Strike in Syria
Story Number: NNS170406-16Release Date: 4/6/2017 10:48:00 PM

From Department of Defense
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- At the direction of the president, U.S. forces conducted a cruise missile strike against a Syrian Air Force airfield today at about 8:40 p.m. EDT (4:40 a.m., April 7, in Syria).

The strike targeted Shayrat Airfield in Homs governorate, and were in response to the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun, which killed and injured hundreds of innocent Syrian people, including women and children.

The strike was conducted using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) launched from the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. A total of 59 TLAMs targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars. As always, the U.S. took extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties and to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict. Every precaution was taken to execute this strike with minimal risk to personnel at the airfield.

The strike was a proportional response to Assad's heinous act. Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that aircraft from Shayrat conducted the chemical weapons attack on April 4. The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again.

Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.

We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons. The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated.

Putin reply:

“President Putin considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law, and under a far-fetched pretext,” Peskov told reporters. “This step by Washington is causing significant damage to Russian-American relations, which are already in a deplorable state.”

Europe
Russia condemns U.S. missile strike on Syria, suspends key air agreement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...top-table-main_russiasyria-3am:homepage/story

 

[Tekate]

Woah, I completely agree with that Tekate, and I never said otherwise. Turning away refugees is disgusting, and Trump is disgusting. He did this in the way he does everything, backwards and completely misguided.

Did it need to happen? Yes. Did he go through the proper process before and during? 1000% NO.

Sorry Elliot I didn't mean to imply you thought otherwise, I was making a statement in 'friendly territory' sort of.. again sorry about that

 

[OreoRosies86]

Sorry Elliot I didn't mean to imply you thought otherwise, I was making a statement in 'friendly territory' sort of.. again sorry about that

No, no issues (it's early here haha). I think my frustration today is heightened by logging onto Facebook this morning and seeing a bunch of "Yeeeeeeeeeahhhhhhh go Trump USA is #1 wooooooooooo!"

When Alan Kurdi washed up on a beach I began trying to help Syrian refugees. That was the moment it clicked for me. Where the hell were these people when it mattered? NOW it's so great that action was taken?

I don't disagree, the world cannot tolerate a country which would gas it's own people, but this isn't just something that happened.

 

[Arcadian]

I guess 45 will get the war he said he wanted.

 

[jaaron]

I have to say that while there are no easy answers to any of this, the cynic in me wonders if 45's pal Putin wanted to hand him a lifeline- an international Reichstag Fire, so to speak. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility for them. And it looks like others are concerned along the same lines.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...re_how_modern_authoritarians_consolidate.html

How Modern Tyrants Use Terror Management to Consolidate Power
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Be ready for an American Reichstag fire when it comes.
By Timothy Snyder

Adapted from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Published by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on—this is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it. Modern tyrants are terror managers. Do not allow your shock to be turned against your freedom. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that aspiring tyrants exploit such events in order to change regimes and to consolidate power.

The Reichstag fire was the moment when Hitler’s government, which came to power mainly through democratic means, became the menacingly permanent Nazi regime. It is the archetype of terror management.

On Feb. 27, 1933, at about 9 p.m., the building housing the German Parliament, the Reichstag, began to burn. Who set the fire that night in Berlin? We don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this spectacular act of terror initiated the politics of emergency. Gazing with pleasure at the flames that night, Hitler said: “This fire is just the beginning.” Whether or not the Nazis set the fire, Hitler saw the political opportunity: “There will be no mercy now. Anyone standing in our way will be cut down.” The next day, a decree suspended the basic rights of all German citizens, allowing them to be “preventively detained” by the police.

fOn the strength of Hitler’s claim that the fire was the work of Germany’s enemies, the Nazi Party won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections on March 5. The police and the Nazi paramilitaries began to round up members of left-wing political parties and place them in improvised concentration camps. On March 23 the new parliament passed an “enabling act,” which allowed Hitler to rule by decree. Germany then remained in a state of emergency for the next 12 years until the end of the Second World War. Hitler had used an act of terror, an event of limited inherent significance, to institute a regime of terror that killed millions of people and changed the world.

The authoritarians of today are also terror managers, and if anything they are rather more creative. Consider the current Russian regime so admired by the president. Vladimir Putin not only came to power in an incident that strikingly resembled the Reichstag fire, he then used a series of terror attacks—real, questionable, and fake—to remove obstacles to total power in Russia and to assault democratic neighbors.

When Putin was appointed prime minister by a failing Boris Yeltsin in August 1999, he was an unknown with a nugatory approval rating. The following month, a series of buildings were bombed in Russian cities, apparently by the Russian secret state police. Its officers were arrested by their own colleagues with evidence of their guilt; in another case, the speaker of the Russian Parliament announced an explosion a few days before it took place. Nonetheless, Putin declared a war of revenge against Russia’s Muslim population in Chechnya, promising to pursue the supposed perpetrators and “rub them out in the shithouse.”

The Russian nation rallied; Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed; the following March he won presidential elections. In 2002, after Russian security forces killed scores of Russian civilians while suppressing a real terrorist attack at a Moscow theater, Putin exploited the occasion to seize control of private television. After a school in Beslan was besieged by terrorists in 2004 (in strange circumstances that suggested a provocation), Putin did away with the position of elected regional governors. Thus, Putin’s rise to power and his elimination of two major institutions—private television and elected regional governorships—were enabled by the management of real, fake, and questionable terrorism.

After Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, Russia introduced terror management into its foreign policy. In its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Russia transformed units of its own regular army into a terrorist force, removing insignia from uniforms and denying all responsibility for the dreadful suffering they inflicted. In the campaign for the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine, Russia deployed Chechen irregulars and sent units of its regular army based in Muslim regions to join the invasion. Russia also tried (but failed) to hack the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election.

In April 2015, Russian hackers took over the transmission of a French television station, pretended to be ISIS, and then broadcast material designed to terrorize France. Russia impersonated a “cybercaliphate” so that the French would fear terror more than they already did. The aim was presumably to drive voters to the far-right National Front, a party financially supported by Russia. After 130 people were killed and 368 injured in the terrorist attacks on Paris of November 2015, the founder of a think tank close to the Kremlin rejoiced that terrorism would drive Europe toward fascism and Russia. Both fake and real Islamic terrorism in Western Europe, in other words, were thought to be in the Russian interest.

In early 2016, Russia manufactured a moment of fake terror in Germany. While bombing Syrian civilians, and thus driving Muslim refugees to Europe, Russia exploited a family drama to instruct Germans that Muslims were rapists of children. The aim, again, seems to have been to destabilize a democratic system and promote the parties of the extreme right.

The previous September, the German government had announced that it would take half a million refugees from the war in Syria. Russia then began a bombing campaign in Syria that targeted civilians. Having provided the refugees, Russia then supplied the narrative. In January 2016, the Russian mass media spread a story that a girl of Russian origin in Germany who had momentarily gone missing had been serially raped by Muslim immigrants. With suspicious alacrity, right-wing organizations in Germany organized protests against the government. When the local police informed the population that no such rape had taken place, Russian media accused them of a cover-up. Even Russian diplomats joined the spectacle.

When our sitting president and his national security adviser speak of fighting terrorism alongside Russia, what they are proposing to the American people is terror management: the exploitation of real, dubious, and simulated terror attacks to bring down democracy. The Russian recap of the first telephone call between the president and Vladimir Putin is telling: the two men “shared the opinion that it is necessary to join forces against the common enemy number one: international terrorism and extremism.”

James Madison nicely made the point that tyranny arises “on some favorable emergency.” For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. After the Reichstag fire, political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote that “I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.” Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.

Adapted from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth CenturyCopyright © 2017 by Timothy Snyder. Published by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and the author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.

 

[redwood66]

Well that is an interesting take. There is also the thought that had Neville Chamberlain and the US intervened much earlier tens of millions of people would have survived including hundreds of thousands of US soldiers. The likes of Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Mao, etc. cannot be allowed to exist in the world any longer and the civilized world is in agreement to this. The most worrisome situation today is Kim Jong Un and I hope this message is received in Pyongyang.

 

[telephone89]

It's boggling my mind how some people in this thread (and the other) are so "ra-ra, lets protect the Syrians!" but scoffed at them at the borders. Criticized them for fleeing their country. Mocked them for wanting a better life.
It's disgusting. It honestly makes me sick. I wonder how people can feel so altruistic while doing LITERALLY f*ck all and actively trying to keep them out. And yes, VOTING for a president who wants to close the border to them is actively keeping them out. SUPPORTING a president who wants to close the border to them is actively keeping them out.
You don't care about these people. You don't care about those children. Stop pretending like you give a f*ck and own your own feelings of moral superiority of being a citizen of a country that isn't going through a crisis right now.

 

[AGBF]

Well that is an interesting take. There is also the thought that had Neville Chamberlain and the US intervened much earlier tens of millions of people would have survived including hundreds of thousands of US soldiers.

The US was never going to intervene at the time of The Munich Conference, but Neville Chamberlain certainly did not have to give away the Sudetenland. The United States could , however, have allowed Jewish refugees from Germany to enter the United States even then in 1937 when it saw them being persecuted by Hitler and it could have started to its move towards involvement in the European conflict by signing on (as Great Britain had) to support France if it were attacked. It would not have given Germany pause, of course, but it would have gotten the United States involved in the war sooner.

Deb

PS-In case I was not being clear enough, Jewish refugees from Hitler's atrocities = Syrian refugees from Assad's atrocities. The US has a moral obligation to let them in!!!

 

[Matata]

Why did cheeto feel compelled to act -- other than attempting to increase his approval rating? It's ok for Syrian kids to die by bombing, lack of medical care, disease, starvation, and asylum refusal but gassing is where he draws the line? And what of the Chemical Weapons Convention? Allies are praising cheeto's actions but why didn't one of them act first? Why didn't cheeto act in accord with the Penalties for Noncompliance stated in the CWC? There was no immediate threat to the US by this action or by the Ghouta attack in 2013. It seems Assad is primarily concerned with killing his own people. If we are going to put America first, maybe we should start letting someone else fire the first shot over the bow?
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcglance

 

[redwood66]

Why did cheeto feel compelled to act -- other than attempting to increase his approval rating? It's ok for Syrian kids to die by bombing, lack of medical care, disease, starvation, and asylum refusal but gassing is where he draws the line? And what of the Chemical Weapons Convention? Allies are praising cheeto's actions but why didn't one of them act first? Why didn't cheeto act in accord with the Penalties for Noncompliance stated in the CWC? There was no immediate threat to the US by this action or by the Ghouta attack in 2013. It seems Assad is primarily concerned with killing his own people. If we are going to put America first, maybe we should start letting someone else fire the first shot over the bow?
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcglance

Because they "allow" us to lead rather than take it on themselves. No one else steps up but they all condemn the actions of despots. Isn't that what we pay so much to NATO and the UN for?

 

[AGBF]

If Ivanka Trump wanted to help her father, she would persuade him to change the guidelines right now on his executive order and set up a special program for Syrian refugees. She and Jared would also find a legal way for the Trump family to set up a charity to help Syrian refugees, especially children, become integrated into the United States and their donation from Trump money would be generous. She would let it be known that her father had been so moved by the tragedy of the chemical gas that he both took military action and took decisive action to help refugees.

This is a completely cold hearted assessment of what I think a smart daughter would do. This would really raise Trump's numbers!

AGBF

 

[jaaron]

The US was never going to intervene at the time of The Munich Conference, but Neville Chamberlain certainly did not have to give away the Sudetenland. The United States could , however, have allowed Jewish refugees from Germany to enter the United States even then in 1937 when it saw them being persecuted by Hitler and it could have started to its move towards involvement in the European conflict by signing on (as Great Britain had) to support France if it were attacked. It would not have given Germany pause, of course, but it would have gotten the United States involved in the war sooner.

Deb

PS-In case I was not being clear enough, Jewish refugees from Hitler's atrocities = Syrian refugees from Assad's atrocities. The US has a moral obligation to let them in!!!

Deb- Thank you for saying that first, and much more concisely and eloquently than I would have managed.

 

[jaaron]

A thoughtful, and potentially thought provoking, piece from David Frum in The Atlantic

Seven Lessons From Trump's Syria Strike
The attack raises a series of questions about the president’s approach to America’s political processes and institutions.

DAVID FRUM

When the Electoral College elevated Donald Trump to the presidency, it conferred on him the awesome life-and-death powers that attend the office. It was inevitable that President Trump would use those powers sooner or later. Now he has. For the effects on the region, I refer you to the powerful piece by The Atlantic’s Andrew Exum. I’m concerned here with the effects on the U.S. political system. Seven seem most immediately relevant.

Trump’s Words Mean Nothing

If there was any one foreign policy position that Donald Trump stressed above all others, it was opposition to the use of force in Syria. Time has helpfully compiledTrump’s tweets on the subject dating back to 2013. For example:

These were not the idle thoughts of a distracted mind. Promises of no war in Syria were central to Donald Trump’s anti-Hillary Clinton messaging. Take, for example, to his interview with Reuters on October 26, 2016. "What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria," said Trump, as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. "You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right?”

That message—a vote for Clinton is a vote for World War III beginning in Syria—was pounded home by surrogates and by Trump’s social-media troll army.

Not even 100 days into his presidency, Trump has done exactly what he attacked Hillary Clinton for contemplating.

Some have described this reverse as “hypocritical.” This description is not accurate. A hypocrite says one thing while inwardly believing another. The situation with Donald Trump is much more alarming. On October 26, 2016, he surely meant what he said. It’s just that what he meant and said that day was no guide to what he would mean or say on October 27, 2016—much less April 6, 2017.

Voters and citizens can expect literally zero advance warning of what Donald Trump will do or won’t do. Campaign promises, solemn pledges—none are even slightly binding. If he can reverse himself on Syria, he can reverse himself on anything. If you feel betrayed by any of these reversals, you have no right to complain. As I wrote during the campaign:

When [Trump] issued a promise, he instantly contradicted it. If you chose to accept the promise anyway, you did so with abundant notice of its worthlessness. For all the times Trump said believe me and trust me in his salesman patter, he communicated constantly and in every medium that there was only thing you could believe and trust: If you voted for Donald Trump, you’d get Donald Trump, in all his Trumpery and Trumpiness.

The television networks that promoted Trump; the primary voters who elevated him; the politicians who eventually surrendered to him; the intellectuals who argued for him, and the donors who, however grudgingly, wrote checks to him—all of them knew, by the time they made their decisions, that Trump lied all the time, about everything.

Trump Does Not Give Reasons

From the Declaration of Independence onward, American statesmen have felt bound to offer reasons why they did things, and most especially why they resorted to force. Here’s the second paragraph of Bill Clinton’s December 1998 speech on his “Desert Fox” operation: "I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq, why we have acted now, and what we hope to accomplish.” Richard Nixon opened his speech announcing the entry of US forces into Cambodia in 1970 in a similar way: “Tonight, I shall describe the actions of the enemy, the actions I have ordered to deal with that situation, and the reasons for my decision.”

Donald Trump does not speak in that way. On the night of his Syria strike, he spoke directly to emotions. "Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” He then asserted: "It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." The obvious question is: what’s different this time from 2013, when Bashar al-Assad previously inflicted mass casualties with chemical weapons and Donald Trump and Republicans saw no such vital interest? Trump offers not even the semblance of a response. He sees; he feels; he acts. He makes no effort to persuade doubters or skeptics.

Reasons legitimate authority. Trump does not care about legitimation. In his vision of politics, the governors are to command; the governed, to defer.

Trump Does Not Care About Legality

In August 2013, Trump insisted that President Obama needed congressional approval before striking Syria. Obama came to agree. He sought approval and was refused. No strike followed.

On what basis did Donald Trump act in 2017? President Obama rested all his many military actions throughout the greater Middle East on the September 2001 authorization by Congress:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

That authorization has been stretched and stretched and stretched. It even supplied the legal basis for Obama’s overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya. But there’s a limit even to the most generous definition of authority, and in Syria, we reached it. To the extent al Qaida is present in Syria—it’s on the other side of the war from Bashar al-Assad. One could argue (and Trump has argued!) that by fighting Assad, the U.S. would help al-Qaida and its ideological successor, ISIS. Perhaps it is time for the U.S. to switch sides. But where’s the legal warrant? Trump disdains the very question.

Trump Disregards Government Processes

In the next hours, journalists will be told a story about the decision-making process that produced the Syria strike. The first reports are not confidence inspiring. Mike Allen in Axios:

The White House sees this as "leadership week": the decision to order a missile strike on Syria after its deadly nerve-agent attack on its own citizens, including children; a prime-time announcement to the nation from Mar-a-Lago last night, in which Trump said, "God bless America and the entire world"; his assertive stance on North Korea, with the rogue state testing him by firing a ballistic missile; and meetings with the heads of state of Egypt, Jordan and, continuing today, China.

But here’s one thing we already know: There can have been no proper interagency process before the strike, because none of the relevant agencies of government other than the Department of Defense is properly staffed to join such a process. You can’t have a deputies’ meeting without deputies.

Every decision presents risks and costs, and any responsible decision maker insists on a detailed itemization of those risks and those costs. That cannot have happened here. Trump has walked into a military confrontation that implicates regional and global security with only the haziest notion of what might go wrong. One friend of mine has warned: “If it were good foreign policy, Trump wouldn’t be doing it.” Foreign policy is hard, and even the best process does not guarantee good outcomes. Sometimes you get lucky, and can escape the consequences of a bad process. But the odds are the odds. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, bad processes lead to ugly results.

Trump Has No Allies

In his short term in office, Trump has stumbled into quarrels with Australia, Germany, and China. The list of general gaffes and embarrassments is long and painful.

Unsurprisingly, then, he did not trouble himself to gain allies or partners before the Syria strike. And while Trump has gained some after-the-fact backing from Canada and the United Kingdom, the French and German response has been notably tepid. Germany called the American act “understandable,” but withheld any endorsement, and France did not venture even so far as that. But even from Canada and Britain, there is no inkling of any substantial help. A go-it-alone foreign policy goes it alone.

Trump Envisions No End State

“Every war must end,” according to the wise heads of foreign policy. Someday too the Syria war will end. As a candidate, Donald Trump insisted that the United States should never join a war without a clear vision of such an end. As he said in his speech to the Center for the National Interest in April 2016 (where the Russian ambassador sat in the front row untroubled by the company of any NATO ally except Italy):

I will not hesitate to deploy military force when there is no alternative. But if America fights, it must fight to win. I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary – and will only do so if we have a plan for victory.

Military force has been deployed. Whers’s the plan for victory? What’s even the definition of victory? Absent and absent. What Trump has done is the kind of military action famously derided by George W. Bush as firing a $2 million missile into a $10 tent and hitting a camel in the butt. Trump’s strike was symbolic and demonstrative, not decisive. It signaled, but did not compel. It leaves the Syrian and Russian leadership an array of options about how to respond—and it may well have committed the United States to potential next steps that the president did not imagine and does not intend.

Trump Is Lucky in His Opponents

“The secret of our success in government is that we did not have us in opposition.” That quip from a friend in an allied government applies with even greater force to the Republican Party of the United States. Trump’s action has gained support from Democrats that was never available to Obama from Republicans. In the fall of 2013, even the hawkish Marco Rubio—who had long called for action in Syria against Assad—nevertheless opposed Obama’s request for authorization to do just that. Rubio’s explanation focused on the flaws in Obama strategy and commitment. “I remain unconvinced that the use of force proposed here will work … I believe that U.S. military action of the type contemplated here will prove counterproductive.”

Rubio’s points surely had some validity. Surely they apply even more forcefully today—yet Democrats from Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi to even Elizabeth Warren have offered support for Trump’s actions. Pelosi praised the action as "proportional.” Schumer went further still: “Making sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do.”

Unlike Rubio, who understood that viability in the coming Republican presidential contest required absolute opposition to any action by Obama, Democrats operate in a more permissive environment—at least for now. If any further proof is required of the asymmetry of the two parties, here it is.

 

[ruby59]

So? are you open to little children and their families coming here for sanctuary against these kinds of attacks? I sincerely and truly hope your empathy and sympathy for those little babies allows you to see that these people need sanctuary.

I do not know how much plainer I can make it.

little children, women, innocent men.

But how do you keep out the terrorists who infiltrate and blend in with them from coming here?

 

[redwood66]

The US was never going to intervene at the time of The Munich Conference, but Neville Chamberlain certainly did not have to give away the Sudetenland. The United States could , however, have allowed Jewish refugees from Germany to enter the United States even then in 1937 when it saw them being persecuted by Hitler and it could have started to its move towards involvement in the European conflict by signing on (as Great Britain had) to support France if it were attacked. It would not have given Germany pause, of course, but it would have gotten the United States involved in the war sooner.

Deb

PS-In case I was not being clear enough, Jewish refugees from Hitler's atrocities = Syrian refugees from Assad's atrocities. The US has a moral obligation to let them in!!!

My point is the world learned from its mistakes which is what we all hope to do. It is a delicate balance that has to be maintained. Tactical strikes on a mostly empty base is a measured response that most of the world agrees with. If it gives pause to Kim Jong Un and Assad then it succeeded. We shall see.

As far as the hypocrisy, repubs in Congress did not have faith in Obama to handle anything militarily. Their views on it were diametrically opposed and also partisan. I have full faith in Mattis and his reasoning.

 

[redwood66]

Military force has been deployed. Whers’s the plan for victory? What’s even the definition of victory? Absent and absent. What Trump has done is the kind of military action famously derided by George W. Bush as firing a $2 million missile into a $10 tent and hitting a camel in the butt. Trump’s strike was symbolic and demonstrative, not decisive. It signaled, but did not compel. It leaves the Syrian and Russian leadership an array of options about how to respond—and it may well have committed the United States to potential next steps that the president did not imagine and does not intend.

This is BS because it was a large airport that planes carrying chemical weapons launched from. Hardly a tent and a camel.