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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Trump just went to war with Syria |
| 2017-04-07 |
| IMO, Sensing makes a lot of sense The United States attacked Syria directly Thursday night with dozens of cruise missiles. ...As is the imperial habit of US presidents these days, there was no authority from the Congress asked for or received before initiating a new war with a country that has not attacked the United States, nor poses an imminent threat to US lives. On TV news reporting, President Trump stated that the strikes were "in vital national interests" of the United States. I would very much like him to explain in full just how. After all, in 2013 when President Obama was leaning toward the same action, Trump tweeted: ...What, exactly, changed on the ground when Assad used chemical weapons this week? The casualty count hardly budged - hundreds of thousands of people have already been killed. Chemical weapons are indiscriminate and cruel, but are they more so than barrel bombs, area shelling and area bombing? I find it hard to conclude other than this cruise-missile attack was mainly a signaling operation aimed mainly at Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose first face-to-face meeting with Trump was tonight and will continue tomorrow. Trump has said repeatedly that he wants China to rein in Kim Jong Un's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programs. The signaling was also undoubtedly directed at Teheran as well. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #12 I agree with Grins Snese's assessment. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2017-04-07 14:26 |
| #11 ..and those running Japan, who till after the second bomb were the military (who knew they probably would 'swing' if and when they capitulated). |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-04-07 13:45 |
| #10 I find it hard to conclude other than this cruise-missile attack was mainly a signaling operation aimed mainly at Chinese President Xi Jinping... Yes and I've heard the theory that Truman nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to send a message to Stalin. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-04-07 12:36 |
| #9 If you are not prepared to eradicate them, at least contain them and whack the 'squirters' (those who escape the effected area and are intent on doing you harm). Yep. Isolate and disengage. Check back in a thousand years to see if they have become a bit more reasonable. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-04-07 12:34 |
| #8 President Obama declared use of chemical weapons in Syria to be a red line. His response to that red line was to agree to a treaty under which the Government of Russia was to remove and destroy as such weapons in Syria. This action or lack of it caused most of the governments in the world to believe that guarantees made by our government can be ignored. According to reports from our intelligence as well as Israeli intelligence and that of several European countries, a chemical attack was made a few days ago by Syrian planes. This was probably meant as a test of the Trump administration, aimed at determining whether that administration would roll over and play dead or respond to this violation of the previous treaty. To do nothing would have renewed the irrelevance of the United States in international affairs previously propagated by the Obama administration under the direction of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kerry. It would have encouraged North Korea, and Iran and their allies to continue their efforts toward nuclear and rocket proliferation which represent threats to the entire world. The Syrian and Iranian governments will now attempt to convince Putin to escalate his reaction to their current mortification; his verbal comments so far seem appropriate to mollifying their chagrin without such escalation. One hopes that Putin has no intention of starting a world war. The reaction of North Korea to this unexpected willingness by the United States to take military action will be the most significant. |
| Posted by: Grins Snese4215 2017-04-07 12:34 |
| #7 So did he 'advise' or 'ask permission of' Abdullah? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2017-04-07 09:43 |
| #6 So were the Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, et al. By the way, we've had troops working with the Kurds now for quite a while, we're already at war in Syria. The media just refused to cover the fact while Obean was prez. ...As is the imperial habit of US presidents these days These days? When did Jefferson 'consult' Congress? That was part of the original rationale against a large standing Army, reducing the Executive's hand in engaging in military adventures. Something the post-WWII best and brightest threw out the window. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-04-07 09:16 |
| #5 Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima ...works/worked, the kak stopped! Nation states. Muslims are tribal. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-04-07 08:23 |
| #4 Whack-a-mole and drone zapping does not work, far, far too many targets. Dresden, Nagasaki, Hiroshima ...works/worked, the kak stopped! Migration of the problem (permitting them to come here or to Europe) only spreads and exacerbates the problem. If you are not prepared to eradicate them, at least contain them and whack the 'squirters' (those who escape the effected area and are intent on doing you harm). We can talk it to death, but eradication or containment (or some combination of the two) certainly appear to be the options. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-04-07 08:02 |
| #3 I agree with Beso with one caveat.... How do you keep these foks slaughtering contained to their own sandbox? Remember that this s#it got started for us big time when they brought their murdering ways here. Will ignoring them be possible? Is it better to fight them here or there? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-04-07 07:48 |
| #2 Sensing does make a lot of sense. These fok's have been slaughtering one another and 'skull piling' since the dawn of civilization. If Assad expired this morning, another thug was rise up to take his place. Where does it end. Please let these people exterminate each other and stay clear of it. Have we leaned absolutely nothing from the history of this region. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-04-07 06:45 |
| #1 Let's not forget Obama got the US involved in the Syrian war 4 years ago. Albeit in a muddled and half-assed way. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2017-04-07 04:04 |