Here We Go Again!

[JackLuis]

U.S. Launches Missiles at Syrian Base After Chemical Weapons Attack

The United States launched dozens of cruise missiles Thursday night at a Syrian airfield in response to what it believes was Syria's use of banned chemical weapons that killed at least 100 people, U.S. military officials told NBC News.

Two U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea fired 59 Tomahawk missiles intended for a single target — Ash Sha'irat in Homs province in western Syria, the officials said. That's the airfield from which the United States believes the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired the banned weapons.

There was no immediate word on casualties. U.S. officials told NBC News that people were not targeted and that aircraft and infrastructure at the site, including the runway, were hit.

Almost $95 Million in one strike for Syria? Crap!

 

[LincolnDuncan]

It's an interesting distinction we civilized humans make between blowing children up and killing them with gas.

 

[phrodeau]

It's an interesting distinction we civilized humans make between blowing children up and killing them with gas.

Apparently there aren't enough Syrian refugees yet.

 

[Hard_Rom]

They had it coming! 95 million! A drop in the bucket. Nerve gassing kids? You deserve everything you get. And the responsibility of bringing it back down on your head has to fall somewhere. Can't have tin pot fascist going around using nerve gas.

The privileged have a responsibility to the under or non privileged. Especially when they are innocent little children dying horribly from nerve gas. No matter where they are in the world or how much it costs.

Same can be said for starvation too.

 

[JackLuis]

Adam Schiff: ‘None of what we’re doing in Syria is authorized’

“I think we already know the answer to the question in terms of U.S. law and that is none of what we’re doing in Syria is authorized and this is an issue I took with the Obama administration. I introduced the AUMF that would authorize the use of force against ISIS and al Qaeda. I’m going to be reintroducing that after the recess. Even that authorization, even the argument the Obama administration used that the pre-existing authorizations were broad enough to go after ISIS in Syria, that rationale doesn’t hold up. Even if it did, it wouldn’t extend to attacks like this one on the regime.”

Hillary Clinton calls for US to bomb Syrian air fields hours before Trump does exactly that

Asked whether she now believes that failing to take a tougher stand against Syria was her worst foreign policy mistake as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, Clinton said she favored more aggressive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad,” Clinton said in the interview, conducted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.

“I really believe 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.”

We should have given her a M-16 and air dropped her into Syria.

 

[sr71plt]

Hillary Clinton calls for US to bomb Syrian air fields hours before Trump does exactly that
.

No, Trump didn't do "exactly" that. There are six airfields in Syria. Clinton called for "airfields" to be bombed. Trump bombed only one of them. But neither of those do much of anything to prevent chemical attacks, even from the air--and chemical attacks don't have to be launched from the air anyway. It's a meaningless response. It does, though, show Trump to be a hypocrite, as he counseled Obama not to do this back in 2013 for a much worse chemical attack than this one was.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Not meaningless! It does send a message. That T-Rump is an emotional, impulsive and basically unstable fuck so don't cross him. Not usually the message the leader of the free world wants to send but it is only Assad and Putin the message is going out to.

 

[JawnKarTurr]

So nice to see there are so many bothered by killing people who use chemical weapons on civilians. Everyone complains about the bully then some actually does something about the bully and they all cry and scream how they're the real brute and the bully wasn't so bad.

 

[JackLuis]

Just before this news broke, I had seen some stories about how Trump and Putin were agreeing that, "Assad isn't that bad, really."

Then boom! Probably ~$100 Million Dollars up in smoke!

I want to see the BDA before I comment on the use of Tomahawks at these ranges. How many airplanes were destroyed, The Syrian AF must be pretty short of planes? How many were Russian, you know, things like that. Some Tomahawks had cluster munitions for airport strikes.

What did we get for our $100 Mill?

 

[JackLuis]

Syrian military knew the US raid was coming and evacuated personnel and equipment: ABC News

Sec. of State Rex Tillerson revealed late Thursday that the U.S. warned Russia that they would be bombing the airfield in Homs, Syria since there was Russian military in the vicinity.

ABC News reported early Friday that the Syrian military seemed to know that something might happen. Eyewitnesses claim the military then evacuated personnel and moved equipment before the strike took place.

So $100 Million to bomb an empty airfield? The Art of the Deal?

 

[Carnal_Flower]

This is all making me think of the Intel laundering scheme with Nunes

Trump pretending to defy Russia.

Putin pretending to be offended.

See, no collusion! Not a puppet!

Syrian military knew the US raid was coming and evacuated personnel and equipment: ABC News



So $100 Million to bomb an empty airfield? The Art of the Deal?

 

[Hard_Rom]

All it would take for T-Rump to fuck over Putin would be for Ivanka to get all emotional over pics of dead babies. Baby girl cries, Daddy lashes out.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

It's entirely possible that the gassing and manipulation of American emotions was done by Russia. This Syria shit is a multi headed monster. We have a president who doesn't read and makes his decisions based on what he hears on cable news and how his actions or lack of impact his poll numbers.

It's so much more complicated that throwing tomahawks to punish bad behavior.

 

[raysallx]

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missile attack damaged over a dozen hangars, a fuel depot and an air defense base. About 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles hit the Shayrat air base, southeast of Homs, a small installation with two runways.

National Security Team All Agreed On Strike.

I'm no fan of Trump, but this does seem to be a proportionate response to the gas attack. US intel claims to have infrared video of helicopters flying from this airbase to the village that was attacked with sarin gas. Bottom line, Assad will certainly think twice before using gas again, which BTW was a problem that Obama agreed to let Russia take care of during the "red line" fiasco.

 

[JackLuis]

Trump Bombs Shit Out Of Syria, And Media CAN’T STOP HAPPY-JIZZING ABOUT IT
https://wonkette.com/615254/trump-bombs-shit-out-of-syria-and-media-cant-stop-happy-jizzing-about-it

The prize for the most OMG SHUT UP FOR THE REST OF TIME reaction to Trump throwing 59 of his biggest dick-missiles at Syria goes to Brian Williams on MSNBC, who just sat there in awe at how pretty our missiles were, as they flew through the sky to kill stuff. For Williams, apparently, it was like a cute kitten video and an Upworthy story about an anonymous lady who gave a server a 5,000 percent tip, all rolled into one!

OR IS IT? Let’s go visit Fareed Zarakia over at the CNN, who says he thinks “Donald Trump became president of the United States” when he stopped chewing on his fancy burned Mar-a-Lago steak and gave the very presidential order of “Do boom boom”:

Zakaria added that, with this experience, “there has been an interesting morphing and a kind of education of Donald Trump,” to which we reply OMG REALLY? PFFFFFFFFFFFT.

Of course, as you can imagine, “Morning Joe” was special Friday morning, as Joe and Mika temporarily forgot how they’ve been slamming Trump as the biggest gross idiot president EVER lately, and decided they were real excited about GO BOOM! They started off slow, like “we’re not saying we are FOR doing wars, it’s more that doing wars GIVES US ALL THE FEELS.”

OK, screw “Morning Joe,” let’s move on to something different. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who is ALWAYS getting thrills up his leg, is, for once, not fallin’ for it! Matthews says maybe he is being cynical, but he bets a side benefit to this is that it takes attention off Trump’s weird ties with Moscow, because after all, if we do bombs to Putin’s big pal Assad in Syria, then how can people accuse Trump of being in bed with the Russians? UNLESS, Matthews adds, Trump and Putin talked on the phone beforehand and it was just a “set piece” to give the appearance of some nice healthy tension between Trump’s America and Russia. WHOA IF TRUE!

… I thought if there was a way for him to kill the narrative that he’s in bed with Putin, it would be this. Take on Putin’s fresh water port, take on his ally, his satellite, his loyal ally Assad. That would be a way of saying, “I never was in bed with these guys. I never planned any kind of coalition with this guy in Moscow.” You’re right, I was thinking of it. Who knows? We’ll find out. It certainly isn’t going to go well with Putin, unless we find out they had a phone call this afternoon and worked this thing out, and it was a set piece that was not meant to be particularly antagonistic to Moscow.

Huh! Look at Chris Matthews thinking all the thoughts!

 

[sr71plt]

For openers, Trump didn't "bomb the shit out of Syria," and that's a major point of this. It was a signal. No more, no less. And that it was was a hopeful sign about Trump's reaction, which was restrained, and about the best to be expected by a man who knee-jerks his way through life. He also has some personal responsibility for the chemical attack he was reacting to, though.

It was one of six Syrian airfields that was hit and it didn't do all that much damage; it certainly didn't end Syria's capability to deliver chemical attacks several different ways, including from other airfields (or even by helicopter from that airfield, which apparently was how the chemical attack had been delivered).

What it is is an opportunity for both Trump and the rest of the world to bumble their way out of misunderstanding how the president of the United States is going to fit into the world equation as long as Trump is president.

For Trump, he should take the lesson of how dangerous it is to manage an unpredictable, untelegraphed response policy (which has some advantages as a policy). Although Syria can't escape full responsibility for their actions, Trump shares some of the blame for the chemical attack (and I think maybe his response indicates he might now understand that). In normal diplomatic terms he'd sanctioned Assad stepping up his attacks on a civil war by washing his hands of intervening in Syria's internal affairs last week. In normal terms, Assad assessed that as a U.S. hands-off policy for anything he wanted to do internally. He guessed wrong because the U.S. has a new, loosy-goosy president not following normal diplomatic signaling.

Where this could make an unpredictable, untelegraphed response policy advantageous is an example to world actors of how wham-bang response has to be taken into account before they act as Assad did with the chemical attacks.

The action was fortuitous--probably in ways the neophyte Trump gang really doesn't realize--in coming while the Chinese delegation is here. It's a signal of "you don't have much time to see it coming" to the Chinese (at least the Chinese will consider it as such, whether the Trump people meant it as such or not), who are masters at the long signal of impending action (e.g., when they attacked Vietnam back in the late 70s when it wasn't militarily sensible to do so, they signaled for nearly a year they really were going to do it for political reasons by using, in their reporting exact, in detail, the moves, warnings, and casualty counts of their attack on India in 1963). That the Syrian raid happened will be taken by the Chinese that it could happen with North Korea and they likely are going to be more active in tamping down the North Koreans.

The question is whether or not Trump can skillfully use a unpredictable, untelegraphed response policy. Thus far, I've seen it more as a "I don't really have a policy or action plans" brainless/distracted reality with Trump.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

It's true. I am done with Morning Joe. David Ignatious that moron practically swooned. It "restored American power". What a joke.

Jizz fest is right.

Trump Bombs Shit Out Of Syria, And Media CAN’T STOP HAPPY-JIZZING ABOUT IT
https://wonkette.com/615254/trump-bombs-shit-out-of-syria-and-media-cant-stop-happy-jizzing-about-it

 

[JackLuis]

Trump's Syria Strike Was Unconstitutional and Unwise

Today, Trump is desperate. He is flailing from failure to failure in domestic policy, with dismal approval ratings and no clear way to increase them—except by trying to exploit the American public’s historic tendency to rally around a president at war. There has never been a stronger case for preemptively reining in a president’s ability to unilaterally launch military strikes on foreign countries that are not attacking us.

To allow a man of Trump’s character to retain that power, after its expansion by decades of presidents who pushed it beyond the bounds of the Constitution, would be folly.

Now will Mikey move on the Trumpster? Will Congress say, "Hold On Cowboy, we have to give your permission to bomb people."

Resist, Oppose Impeach!​

 

[Hard_Rom]

One good barrage of fire and forget missiles and America is great again!

 

[JackLuis]

Lindsey Graham: Trump agrees that Syrian airstrike was only ‘the first step’

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Friday offered effusive praise for President Donald Trump’s strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and hinted that the president believed more military action in Syria was on the way.

As reported by the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, Graham explained to reporters that he told Trump that the strike against Assad was only “the first step” in the fight against him, and Trump told the senator that “I believe you’re right.”

Trump now tastes the savory War and calls it good, or better than the poll numbers of yesterday!

 

[Hard_Rom]

Lindsey Graham: Trump agrees that Syrian airstrike was only ‘the first step’

Trump now tastes the savory War and calls it good, or better than the poll numbers of yesterday!

With any luck he can stretch it out for longer than he is in office and let the next guy deal with the withdrawal. Going in is easy, makes for good TV and generates good numbers. Getting out is the hard part. Get it wrong and the place is worse than you found it or you're using helicopters to ferry out personnel before last city falls.

 

[JackLuis]

Who advised President Trump to bomb Syria?

President Donald Trump’s decision to shower 59 Tomahawk missiles down on Bashar al-Assad’s Shayrat Airfield in Homs early Friday in response to the Syrian president's chemical weapons attack on civilians early this week was an about face from the White House's position on the Syrian leader just a week ago.

This is Trump's biggest foreign policy move to date. Some say it goes against international law, others are concerned congress wasn’t consulted, and the decision flew in the face of statements Trump made as a candidate that attacking Syria would "lead to World War Three."

What dumb shit conned Donald into dumping $100 Million in a few holes in Syria?

 

[Hard_Rom]

Who advised President Trump to bomb Syria?

What dumb shit conned Donald into dumping $100 Million in a few holes in Syria?

Maybe he gets a cut from the ones ordered to replace the ones he fired.

 

[someoneyouknow]

What the con artist had to say three+ years ago:

 

[JackLuis]

Donald Trump personally profited from missile-maker Raytheon’s stock jump after his Syria attack

While the world is dealing with both the implications and the fall-out from President Donald Trump’s missile attack on a Syrian airfield on Thursday, the manufacturer of the Tomahawk missile used in the attack is seeing their stock surge which is good news for their investors — including the president.

As noted by the Palmer Report, Trump owns stock in Raytheon, which was reported by Business Insider in 2015.

According to Trump’s financial disclosure reports filed with the FEC in 2015, his stock portfolio includes investments in technology firms, financial institutions and defense firms, including Raytheon.

On Thursday, Trump launched an attack on the al-Shayrat military airfield, used by both Syrian and Russian military forces, hitting it with 59 Tomahawk missiles manufactured by Raytheon. Trump’s attack on Syria was reportedly in response to a deadly gas attack launched by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against his own people earlier in the week.

While the Tomahawk attack did little damage to the airfield — with the Syrian air force continuing to launch assaults from the same base on Friday — investors, sensing an increasing escalation in tensions between two countries and the possibility of war , pushed Raytheon stock up.

At least one of the missiles failed to reach the target. Do we get a refund of the $1.59M for that one?