There were several things to discuss this week, but honestly, they’ve all dwindled into triviality because of what happened yesterday.
It was nice knowing you–In response to Syrian President Assad’s gassing of Syrian citizens, Trump launched a missile strike against the Syrian airbase that fired on the people. Although the Syrian civil war has been going on for years, and the US has been endeavoring to help the rebels against Assad, Obama refrained from doing anything to attack him directly. The reason for this was simple: Russia is a firm ally of Syria, and Obama was reluctant to do something that would possibly trigger World War III.
But Trump, who has the self-control of an inebriated toddler, felt that launching a direct assault on a Russian ally was a fantastic idea.
Don’t get me wrong: I think what Assad did was horrific. If Seal Team Six went in and blew him away, I’d be fine with that. But unilaterally firing missiles at a Russian ally who did not attack us directly is quite simply a terrible idea, and one that could trigger global consequences.
For months we’ve been making fun of Trump’s alleged adoration of Putin. How they were secretly best buds, and that Putin was actually calling the shots. If Trump wanted to do something to put the lie to that, he certainly managed to accomplish it. Right now the Kremlin is likely sitting there saying, “THIS is who we wanted in the White House? Hillary wouldn’t have done this!” Which of course she wouldn’t have. Dealing with Syria requires the long game and patience, neither of which Trump has, and his precipitous actions may well indeed have set the dominos in motion for a military conflict involving Syria and one of the few other superpowers in the world. This from a man who swore that he would not get us involved in yet another Middle East situation, except this lie of his may be the one that ends everything.
PAD
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I think it’s too early to call with regards to Russia’s reaction. Much of their response depends on how fast Trump gets bored of the Syria mess and whether he continues to engage in that particular theatre or if he thinks he’s done enough to prove his manly, stronger-than-Obama bona fides and distract from the Trump/Russia investigations.
Although, judging by the way the media rushed to fellate Trump and have their own orgasmic experiences over watching the missiles fly (which was all as revolting to watch as that previous sentence is to read), Trump may be so thrilled with the positive press that he’ll keep the bombing campaign going.
Maybe come back to this one next week when we’ll have a clearer picture (assuming we’re able to).
Seal Team Six or Rick Jones…He’s done it before.
Yeah, this can’t end well.
Having said that… I still wanna hear your thoughts on the trivialities
Hillary wanted and wants to bomb more, not less: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/hillary-clinton-syria-assad/
She can say it all she wants in speeches. But she still wouldn’t have done it if she were in office. I’m certain of that. And in the unlikely event that she had, I very much doubt she wouldn’t have consulted congress on it.
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PAD
Well, if one is bound and determined to assume that her words are meaningless and her true intentions are whatever one wants them to be, sure, she can be assumed to have made the right call every time. Why anyone would go along with that assumption is beyond me. My experience tells me that politicians are way more likely to claim they will do the right thing and then when in power do the wrong thing than the exact opposite. But as long as you believe she would have done what you want, even in the face of her open claims to the contrary, she will forever be the best president ever, if only in some alternate reality, which is most likely the only place she will ever be president.
And Congress stopped Barack from bombing Syria earlier: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/obama-syria-airstrikes-trump/
Mike is correct. Unless you are willing to bend over backwards to excuse the words that literally come out of her mouth and call her a liar, she is, if anything, MORE hawkish than Trump.
“Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days,” Clinton said in a speech at the “Women in the World” summit in New York City. “And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them.”
Presumably this would have take us even CLOSER to the possible Armageddon that Trumps more moderate response has risked. Whew! Bullet dodged!
(I would rate the likelihood of Russia and the USA getting into a nuclear war over this at approximately 0% and, given the assurances from most of my more liberal friends that Trump is a puppet of Putin, maybe that should be reduced to negative numbers. The strike served it’s purpose– make him look like a leader, albeit a terrifying one, which might be useful since he’s talking right now to the leader of China regarding North Korea, which is a problem wayyyy more likely to lead to nuclear bombs going off than Syria ever will; make people who insist he is a Putin Puppet look foolish, though my facebook feed indicates they are mostly willing to instantly turn from “Trump’s a commie dupe!” to “Trump’s a Russia-baiting cold war maniac!” with breathtaking alacrity; pìšš øff a bunch of the alt-right folks, which seem to be falling out of favor judging from Bannon’s loss of status; make Israel happy, which seems to have become a priority since the administration change…hëll, maybe he really is appalled by the gas attacks.)
I didn’t know if any of this is WISE, mind you, but it’s way better than drawing imaginary red lines and then, when they are crossed, looking foolish and doing little. Not that these should be the only choices.
The conspiracy theorist in me thinks Putin and Trump are purposely orchestrating a war with each other.
As noted, Hillary called for bombing Syrian air bases mere hours before Trump did just that.
Also, back in 2014, John Kerry proudly announced that he’d brokered a deal with Assad and Russia that removed all of Assad’s weapons of mass destruction, including Sarin gas — the stuff that was used last week.
So, basically, Trump had to deal with the mess Obama and company left him, and dealt with it exactly how Hillary said she would have dealt with it.
And he notified Russia shortly before the strikes that we were going to hit that base, and hit it hard. He didn’t consult with Russia, he told them.
As you noted, he’s not exactly acting like Putin’s puppet. Will all those people who kept insisting that he was now retract those comments?
(I kid, I kid. Of course they won’t.)
So he tells Russia before hand so that they can pass the word down to Syria, who promptly move their troops & bunker their planes. This is your idea of strategic genius?
And oh yes indeed, Trump had the base hit so hard:
(UPDATE) Reuters confirms Syria has continued launching strikes from the base Trump hit. This was the most ineffectual US strike in decades.
You’re a sucker. You’ve bought into the con man’s con and aren’t capable of admitting that you’ve been had.
You really don’t know how to think strategically, do you?
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Trump doesn’t notify Russia — dámņëd good chance of killing Russians at that base, instant HUGE confrontation.
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Trump tells Russia, tells them to NOT tell Assad: instant test of Russia’s commitment to Assad after the Sarin gas attack. If Assad braces for the attack, then we know Russia is that committed to Assad, even willing to take on the responsibility for using WMDs.
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So Trump tells Russia JUST in time for them to get people to safety, but not enough time to counter the attack. If the Syrians also go to cover ahead of the attack, then we know Russia tipped them off.
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And Syria’s using the base again already? Thank you, Assad, for making our BDA that much easier.
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You talk as if you’ve reached the end point of everything, that this is the finish and you can draw all the conclusions you need. You seem incapable of stepping back, seeing things in the bigger picture. And you project your limitations on everyone else.
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Obama’s core philosophy was excuses. He’d make excuses for why he wouldn’t act. He’d make excuses for bad people acting badly. And his biggest action was in Libya, when he made a bad situation and made it infinitely worse.
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And he and Hillary are proud of that.
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Trump just did quite a few things. He gave the UN an opportunity to act, and when they didn’t, he did. So any of our enemies who were expecting the UN to put a check on us now won’t make that bad assumption.
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The attack was launched during his meeting with the head of China, and apparently didn’t tell him — just let him find out just like everyone else. And China is North Korea’s patron. North Korea, which is pulling very similar crap as to what Assad has been pulling. (Playing games with WMDs and threatening a lot of innocent people.) So China has to figure out if they want North Korea to get the same treatment, or if they want to sit on their hands and wait to see what Trump might do about North Korea.
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So maybe this base wasn’t totally wiped off the face of the earth last night. We used about 50 Tomahawk missiles.
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The US Navy still has over 3,400 more.
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Another interesting data point: Russia has dispatched a warship to… well, it’s heading towards the US ships that launched the missiles.
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One frigate, half the displacement of our destroyers, and woefully outclassed by one of our Burke-class destroyers. And it’s supposed to intimidate two of them.
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Easiest solution to that? Our ships split up. One Russian ship can’t annoy two ships a couple of hundred miles apart.
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Also, a further test of what Russia’s game is, and how seriously they want to play.
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This is chapter 1 of the story, and we don’t know the ending. Hëll, we don’t even know how long the story is, and if it even has an ending.
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To quote Dr. Jon Osterman, “Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.”
Oh, and at the UN, Bolivia wanted to discuss Syria in private. Trump’s representative, Ambassador Nikki Haley, said the following:
“The United States, as president of the Council this month, decided the session would be held in the open. Any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do so in full public view, for all the world to hear.”
She also ripped Russia a new one.