Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Breaking: US Navy Fires More Than 50 Tomahawk Missiles into Syria
NBC News: US military has launched more than 50 missile strikes on al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs, Syria
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) April 7, 2017
NBC News: Only tomahawks missiles fired, no fixed wing aircraft involved
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) April 7, 2017
Full story from the Washington Post:
The U.S. military launched approximately 50 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield late on Thursday, in the first direct American assault on the government of President Bashar al-Assad since that country’s civil war began six years ago.
The operation, which the Trump administration authorized in retaliation for a chemical attack killing scores of civilians this week, dramatically expands U.S. military involvement in Syria and exposes the United States to heightened risk of direct confrontation with Russia and Iran, both backing Assad in his attempt to crush his opposition.
The attack may put hundreds of American troops now stationed in Syria in greater danger. They are advising local forces in advance of a major assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
The decision to strike follows 48 hours of intense deliberations by U.S. officials, and represents a significant break with the previous administration’s reluctance to wade militarily into the Syrian civil war and shift any focus from the campaign against the Islamic State.
Senior White House officials met on the issue of Syria Wednesday evening in a session that lasted into early Thursday, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, have communicated repeatedly since Tuesday’s chemical attack, the officials said.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to make a statement tonight.
Update:
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) _ President Donald Trump says strike on Syria in the `vital national security interest' of the United States.
— Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) April 7, 2017
Published in Foreign Policy, Military, PoliticsBREAKING: Trump calls on 'civilized nations' to join U.S. in 'seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.'
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 7, 2017
Hmmm….how will this effect the Assad-Putin thing?
(Speaking of, why assume Putin didn’t tell Assad?)
The first point is entirely possible; sometimes I think the soundtrack inside his head is identical to a 1967 pinball machine. But even if he doesn’t keep focused, the strike won’t be meaningless. The message was sent: the United States could have retreated to the usual flummery of words and resolutions, but that was then; now, atrocities earn the hammer.
Maybe he did. Then Assad thinks, he knew, and couldn’t do anything about it. Boy things are just going great.
Maybe it would be even better if Putin did tell Assad.
“Friend the Americans are going to blow up one of your air bases. You can’t stop them and Russia won’t help you.”
Knowing that the USA can strike at any time and that there are actual limits to Russia’s willingness to support Assad might put an end to the use of chemical weapons.
I am of the opinion that follow through is important. Maybe more important than even the initial action. If we strike now but later Trump is too distracted or uninterested to keep up the precedent then we will just seem erratic. So if in 5 months Assad launches another gas attack and then Trump does nothing, it will retroactively blow any meaning from this strike. That is what I mean by follow through. With respect to focus we need to be ready to kick up the pressure on Assad, but especially on the Russians and Iranians through diplomatic means. Russia guaranteed us that Assad would not do this. They need to pay something too.
Heck, why assume Trump didn’t channel Billy Jack and tell Assad himself?
First off, I am a little skeptical that this was Assad as it was not beneficial to him and had guaranteed blow back. However, if this was Assad, then this is an amazing way to respond.
<100 deaths from a chemical attack gets 50k pounds of high explosive on a strategic airfield, that is a good response.
Plus, Trump has now shown how easy it is for him to order an attack like this. That is a very good political move. It should set a tone when dealing with other countries like N.Korea. Also, this is exactly the kind of action Trump promised in his campaign. I think he mentioned “bombing the [coc] out of them” several times and 50 missiles for one airfield is exactly that.
So, I see two possibilities.
If case 1, then Trump did a very good thing.
If case 2, Trump just made one of his biggest political blunders.
As a note, was just listening to Stefan Molyneux. He makes a good case why this wasn’t Assad purely based off of rational interests. How could Trump really trust his intelligence agencies?
Same here.
As so often happens, Joseph, I’m on the same page as you.
He could move some stuff too but. Like relatives more than broken down planes.
“President Trump, some say that Assad was not responsible for this attack. What do you say to that?”
(shrug) “Then it was for the previous one. Next question.”
…..and then what replaces Assad?
I don’t really have a strong opinion on this one. The fact that Trump talked tough and then acted tough is good from the standpoint of American credibility, but I don’t understand what our overall goal is in regards to what we’re doing in Syria.
I know the Russian goal is to maintain influence and access in the region. Keeping Assad in power is a strategy to achieve that goal. What are our goals in regards to Syria?
It could be that we’re still fuzzy on our goals in this area and we’ve just decided to carve out a specific rule going forward that using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons in an area where we are engaged militarily will result in lots of explosive sadness being visited upon you. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable.
But, yeah, interesting times, indeed.
Interesting comment. I have heard others say similar things. This move has so much power in the political capital against completely different political rivals like China, Iran and N. Korea, and to a lesser extant Russia.
I like the quote (I heard in Iron Man but I don’t know where it originates) “the best weapon isn’t one that you don’t have to fire, it is one that you only have to fire once.” I wonder if that is what Trump is going for. If so, and since Assad is bad anyways, then bombing his airbase is a very safe way to make a political statement since there is such a good excuse (with short timing to give the statement of how quick we will act) and few true allies.
If that is the true goal of Trump, then that is some chess moves that are beyond me for sure.
Interesting to note that the Chinese president (? not sure exactly ) may be meeting with Trump right now, just after this move.
Interesting isn’t it…
Really good point. This strike might turn out to be an ounce of prevention.
Nobody is mentioning that we already got the Syrians to permit us to destroy their chemical weapons. Evidentally, they only gave us the stuff that was past the use-by date. Since these people cannot be counted on to honor deals they made with the civilized world, they don’t get a chance to negotiate, IMO. Russia criticizes America for violation international law in attacking a sovereign country, as if using chemical weapons against civilians were not a violation of international law. Vladimir Putin’s position to support the right of Syria to gas its own citizens is untenable.
I expected to read in the comments some back and forth about whether Congress should have been consulted. I haven’t heard anyone make the case that this was in response to an imminent threat. Obama got a lot of criticism from our side for acting without congressional approval. Is there a different standard for Trump (or a Republican), or are these circumstances unambiguously different?
Pat Benatar for Songstress Laureate.
What I find interesting is that none of the S-300/400 missile systems the Russians have deployed in Syria shot down any of the Tomahawks. According to Wikipedia, anyway, they are designed to do that.
It begs the question – did the Russian crews stand down during this, were they asleep at the switch, or the missiles themselves not work as advertised?
Are there confirmed locations for S-300/400 batteries in or near Homs?
Wouldn’t the Russians have stood down once we told them? Why waste their missiles? That would have been a conflict that put the US against Russia and they wouldn’t want that either, else we might not tell them next time.
Oh wait, maybe this is the true proof of a Russian connection to Trump … /sarc
The view from Europe: May, Merkel, Hollande and Edogan (!) support the airstrike. Some variation of that is the lead headline over at the Frankfurter Allgemeine and Der Spiegel online.N24 and Die Welt are referring to it as a “Slap in the Face to Putin” with Die Welt calling it a surprising change in Trump’s “isolationist, ‘America First’ policies”. Die Zeit is actually calling the Sarin gas attack “alleged” and putting Trump’s words about the reasons for the missile strikes in scare quotes.
It seems the war hawks have won control of another Republican administration.
Does this mean that Obama didn’t need to go to Congress to take action when his red line was crossed? Was that just a cynical move to get cover for doing nothing?
The problem with this “rational interests” argument is that it ignores that Assad has already done this twice before, and faced no consequence whatsoever besides stern finger pointing from Obama. He obviously does not care about stern finger pointing from western powers, because his rational focus is ensuring the day-to-day survival of whatever is left of his regime. If the West does nothing (and let’s be honest, nobody thought Trump would order this strike) and his backers in Russia and Iran don’t care, then the only group he has to worry about is whoever could overthrow him in his inner circle. Every dictator has an inner circle of people who support the regime. It’s entirely possible that said inner circle supports the use of chemical weapons, and it’s in Assad’s rational interests to use them in order to keep these people as supporters of the regime.
What is this “Congress” of which you speak? Honestly, I’m so used to the executive branch blowing off the legislative branch when it comes to this sort of thing that it wasn’t even the fifth thing that came to mind when I heard we did this.
Plus, we’re already engaged their militarily so we crossed this particularly Rubicon awhile back. This is just a really impressive gust of ordnance from the US Navy surface warfare people.
I’m guessing this was covered under that profoundly broad authorization for Iraq awhile back, but I freely admit that I’m basically just a medium-information voter these days. I just can’t keep up with the news cycles anymore.
Strike on Syria: Strong support from a long list of the countries of the “free world”. For example:
It sounds like we might have told the Russians what was coming to avoid any issues. I can imagine the phone conversation the NSA captured (which will, of course, be promptly leaked to the media) went something like this…
United States military officer: Hey, Ivan, how are things on your end of this mess these days?
Russia military officer: Hey, Bob, it’s going okay. The boss seems happy enough so that’s always good.
USMO: So…Shayrat airbase. Ever heard of it?
RMO: Um, yeah, I’m actually taking this call from the officer’s club there right now. What’s up?
USMO: Wouldn’t get used to it. Say, no reason at all, but I hear anywhere other than anyplace within about ten square miles Shayrat airbase is positively lovely this time of year.
RMO: [unintelligible Russian yelling in the background] *sounds of tires squealing in the distance*
amen
James, you little warhawk, you.