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Breaking: US Attacks Syria
President Donald Trump announced military operations against Syria as a response to their use of chemical weapons last week. In a 9 pm ET national address Friday, Trump said that the US is working in conjunction with the United Kingdom and France to strike targets associated with the Assad regime.
From the Washington Post:
President Trump ordered a military attack against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday, joining allies Britain and France in launching missile strikes in retaliation for what Western nations said was the deliberate gassing of Syrian civilians.
The coordinated strike marked the second time in a year that Trump has used force against Assad, who U.S. officials believe has continued to test the West’s willingness to accept gruesome chemical attacks.
Trump announced the strikes in an address to the nation Friday evening. He said, “The purpose of our action tonight is to establish a strong deterrent” against the production and use of chemical weapons, describing the issue as vital to national security. Trump added that the U.S. is prepared “to sustain this response” until its aims are met.
Trump asked both Russia and Iran, both Assad backers, “what kind of nation wants to be associated” with mass murder and suggested that some day the U.S. might be able to g”et along” with both if they change their policies.
A Pentagon briefing has been scheduled for 10 pm ET Friday.
https://twitter.com/passantino/status/984963247915851776
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Published in General
You and me both.
This Facebook page translates a list of targets, and their purposes. Sounds as if they had reasonable intel.
Judging from Twitter tonight, it’s AMAZING how Trump faked the gas attacks to push the Comey story off the front pages.
To be honest, I don’t understand the situation.
Have we not been fighting Assad, directly or indirectly, for years? Did President Obama not declare Assad an enemy of the United States? Though it has not always been clear who we are for in the wake of ISIS and civil war, it has at least been clear who we are against.
Why is this not merely a continuation of hostilities?
It’s all one long, long war. Sixty years from now the speculative fiction won’t ask the question “what if you could go back in time and kill Hitler,” but “what if you could go back in time to Paris and kill Khomeini to prevent WWIV.”
A tweet for every occasion:
Past Trump is no guarantee of future results. Here we are, now; what did people think of his speech?
I only heard part of if, but I think I could have done a better job when I was in 3rd grade.
You’d have to know me to fully appreciate the intensity of that insult.
Not that it matters much. A policy or action stands or falls on its own merits, as far as I’m concerned. As for people who are not me, our country is so polarized that very few people will be swayed by how well or poorly the POTUS reads from his teleprompter. Most will still love or hate the man just as much as they did before.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) is the usual fall-back for this stuff. It’s a thin reed, but it’s something. Obama used it several times.
It’s really not that amazing. I mean this is bush-league stuff compared to the 9/11 cover-up.
Bush-league. Get it?
What? OK, I’ll go to bed.
Dead people have a low rate of recidivism.
[EDIT: spelling.]
The ones he reads are much better than Trump-on-a-stump.
Not according to Jon Woo, who believes the Authorization of Use of Military Force after 9/11, established that a President may engage in perpetual war from now until the end of time without having to ever again seek Congressional authorization. Now we have a militarized administration, a national security chief named John “Bombs Away!” Bolton, and a military industry forever sucking up tax dollars, committing an act of war against a country that has not taken a single aggressive act against us. Oddly, too, a Syrian government fighting against the very enemy we’re fighting against.
And we are supposed to take the government’s word at face value?
This is a democracy. Before we start shooting up the Syrians, perhaps the fine folks who pay our taxes, send their sons and daughters to war, and vote in elections, actually do have an absolute right to the EVIDENCE. I don’t give a damn what the self-proc;aimed experts are telling us. I want to see the proof before we waltz our way into another costly and pointless war. Every Republican President in the last three decades has started a war without provocation. The cost in lives–including God only knows how many children (surely magnitudes more than those killed by Assad’s alleged chemical attack–cannot be counted.
The trend seems well established. Republican Presidents are Manly men must fight or be thought of as sissies.
Geez Jamie. What are you trying to do, hold Trump to his word? To his oath to defend the Constitution? For shame.
From Syria Deeply:
Or a more peaceful approach, never elect Jimmy Carter President.
Yes it was deterrence not regime change. It was not unreasonable, it was not political in a wag the dog sense because it simply won’t lead to favorable press as it did last time because the Chinese and Koreans were part of the purpose, and our press even understood it at the time. With proof of chemical weapons he had little choice and coordinating with Britain and France was wise. The Chinese and N K were also still watching.
So basically he can drop all the barrel bombs he wants on civilians but no chemical weapons.
Can someone explain to me why the difference?
It’s a civil war and they’re killing each other. For the families on either side there is no difference. If the rebels win, they’ll slaughter or drive out all non Sunnis. If Assad stays in power he’ll slaughter whoever threatens him. That’s one reason we’re not engaged in regime change, we’re out of our element and can’t control anything. But chemical weapons have been made illegal, we said we’d strike if he used them again, deterrence requires credibility. Our credibility is extremely important.
I didn’t realize that “fighting” included “purchasing oil from” and “allowing them to exist in his territory so he can focus on threats to their regime.”
Haven’t you been listening to the Russians? It was the Brits who faked the gas attacks.
Power is a function of Force and Authority. No question about the US having adequate Force, but this kind of random differentiation (barrel bombs okay, chemical weapons bad) undermines whatever authority you had.
Iow: it doesn’t build your credibility. Jmho.
No, not really. It is a pretty simple prohibition.
It was Maddow’s first remarks…
Once again, the message here is not addressed to Assad, but rather to Kim Jung Un. I don’t know whether chemical weapons are worse than bombs (it probably doesn’t matter that much to the people who die), but for better or worse that is the American policy that Trump inherited. Either our military stands behind American policy, or it loses any effect it has as a deterrent. I think there was an episode of Happy Days where Fonzie was advising Richie how to get a reputation for being tough, so he wouldn’t have to fight: “First, you have to hit someone.”
By the way, does this have any effect on the left’s narrative that Trump is a Putin stooge? Nah, facts don’t get in the way of the left’s narrative.
Why didn’t he get congressional authorization and why don’t conservatives seem to care?
Why haven’t past presidents been able to solve the enigma of Syria? Millions of Syrian citizens are now refugees under the care of other nations, with no country to speak of left, like the Jews once were. Russia now has a permanently large port there. Putin just met with Turkey and Iran – the other problems in the region. Is their goal to carve it up and take pieces of Syria to fuel their own fiendish plans? Would the other nations including Israel have a problem with that?
An oracle concerning Damascus: Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins. Her cities will be deserted forever, they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid. The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the glory of the children of Israel, said the Lord of Hosts.” Isaiah Chapter 17
I say we just help the Iranians build a six lane interstate from Iran to south Lebanon and get it over with.
None of these guys know what they’re doing.
Get your facts straight – Putin said England faked the gas attacks….and he would know.
It does, if we made a mistake it was a collective one making distinctions in the first place, but it’s an old mistake with a specific history. I don’t see how we avoid it and a blanket rule on big bad bombs is a path we don’t want to go down and in the case of Assad, means a policy of regime change which I think is unwise, but you know the region I don’t.