Trump to address nation 4/13

[Thebobo]

Was a pointless raid designed mostly to make us feel better about ourselves.

 

[IronWing]

Was a pointless raid designed mostly to make us feel better about ourselves.

I felt a tingle in my loins.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I felt a tingle in my loins.

Sadly all I did was drop another turd into the toilet.

 

[Younigue]

Don't misunderstand, I don't put much beyond Trump but I have to be convinced by something more than seeing lawyers. Knowing what I know I'm going with Occam's Razor among other things.

Perhaps it will be informative to see foreign news sources once they have had time to make an assessment of their nation's involvement.

But what's the other option? Trump cared?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

But what's the other option? Trump cared?

I think the alternative is that the train was rolling out of the station, and Trump took advantage of it to look like the CEO who issued the successful order.

You know, what a CEO does to stay CEO.

 

[Younigue]

Was a pointless raid designed mostly to make us feel better about ourselves.

I had a sudden sense that America just fixed everything.

 

[Younigue]

I think the alternative is that the train was rolling out of the station, and Trump took advantage of it to look like the CEO who issued the successful order.

You know, what a CEO does to stay CEO.

Be a scumbag who makes scumbag decisions only to protect themselves regardless of the damage it does to the people. Right?

 

[Victorian Gray]

This was a multi-government action being planned for months, which coincides with the French findings of Syrian involvement in gas strikes. I believe you are ex-military? If so you know the greatest problem, logistics. Three nations would need to have been moved into position and fully briefed an prepped between the time Cohen was caught and the attack. I think Trump may have consulted with his lawyers because those are the only people he would trust. Going to our experts on legality of a strike would be against his nature.

Anyway, this isn't about trust of Trump on my part but even with assets on the move I cannot see how this level of coordination between three nations on such short notice could be carried out. Trump is an SOB but not psychic.

According to this the Brits made the decision just a few days ago.

"The conclusion that airstrikes would be carried out had been reached over several days of intense diplomatic activity between London, Washington and Paris. All three governments and their intelligence and military services had worked through several nights to agree a tripartite response to the killing of 75 people, including young children, in an apparent chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma a week before.

May’s cabinet had on Thursday unanimously backed the principle of airstrikes. But there were still crucial decisions to be made about their precise nature, purpose and scale, and, critically, about their timing.

For May, the need to act was beyond doubt – but the political risks were all too clear. Could a prime minister whose hold on power was so frail, in a country still traumatised by the decision, based on flawed intelligence, to go to war in Iraq in 2003, really authorise airstrikes without the backing of parliament? And without the support of the Labour party, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn was opposed?

Should she not wait until MPs returned to Westminster after the Easter break, which they do not do until Monday?

According to senior figures in Downing Street, it was at around 7pm on Friday evening, after the prime minister had been in a phone call with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that the die was finally cast and the timetable set."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...how-may-risked-leadership-by-ordering-strikes

 

[pmv]

I'm simply pointing out how western media is utterly blatant propaganda when covering anything Syria or Iran related. It is pretty obvious that Americans are being deceived into believing their military is some kind of all-powerful world police force when in fact we are bumbling about wasting millions of dollars while doing nothing but fomenting hate and looking like ridiculous warmongering idiots. Oh, and killing people... we do a whole lot of that too.

The US has a staggeringly powerful military. Few can stand up to it and hope to survive (till you get to the nuclear level). But bending the world to your will and remodelling it to suit you requires an awful lot more than a powerful military, as became clear with Iraq.

It just isn't the 19th century any more, the 'West' can't reorder the world to suit its wishes. We just don't have the capability (or the attention span).

Firing off missiles like this doesn't seem to change anything very much. It seems like a bit of a ritual or pantomime. I'll be honest, I was busy and wasn't paying attention in the run-up, I half-thought what was being talked about was a sustained military operation and that seemed a bit worrying. That would probably not have gone well in the long run. This seems to not be such a dangerous committment, but also seems a trifle futile.

Incidentally, with the previous retaliation for the previous chemical strike (which really did seem like a ritual, given the Russians were apparently forewarned and removed their aircraft and personel beforehand), I was curious what the cost of the cruise missiles expended was, compared with the cost of repairing the concrete hangers and filling in the holes in the runway of the airfield hit. It appeared that that airfield was up and running again fairly quickly. Anyone have the figures for the relative cost of cruise missles vs concrete?

 

[Sunburn74]

I've seen estimates ranging from 800k to 1.4 million USD per tomahawk cruise missile. Somewhere in that range.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Be a scumbag who makes scumbag decisions only to protect themselves regardless of the damage it does to the people. Right?

The American Dream!

 

[pcgeek11]

never mind.

 

[bshole]

According to this the Brits made the decision just a few days ago.

"The conclusion that airstrikes would be carried out had been reached over several days of intense diplomatic activity between London, Washington and Paris. All three governments and their intelligence and military services had worked through several nights to agree a tripartite response to the killing of 75 people, including young children, in an apparent chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma a week before.

May’s cabinet had on Thursday unanimously backed the principle of airstrikes. But there were still crucial decisions to be made about their precise nature, purpose and scale, and, critically, about their timing.

For May, the need to act was beyond doubt – but the political risks were all too clear. Could a prime minister whose hold on power was so frail, in a country still traumatised by the decision, based on flawed intelligence, to go to war in Iraq in 2003, really authorise airstrikes without the backing of parliament? And without the support of the Labour party, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn was opposed?

Should she not wait until MPs returned to Westminster after the Easter break, which they do not do until Monday?

According to senior figures in Downing Street, it was at around 7pm on Friday evening, after the prime minister had been in a phone call with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that the die was finally cast and the timetable set."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...how-may-risked-leadership-by-ordering-strikes

Yea and Britain did this against the will of its own people. As I posted in another thread, only 22% of its own citizens supported air strikes on Syria. LESS THAN 25%. That is a staggering number. Western governments have become completely unhinged form their own citizenry. All the people baying for bombing are a small minority but they have money, they have the media and they have power and in the end that is all that matters.

https://www.verdict.co.uk/uk-public-oppose-syria-strike-as-theresa-may-gets-battle-ready/

 

[pcgeek11]

Anyone else reminded of this from the fourteenth of April 2017?


Source: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/wapo-atp-n-exposes-pure-hypocrisy-of-gop-base.2503887/

That was in reference to Obama's line in the sand. That entire thread was taken out of context.

If you draw a line in the sand you should stand up for it.

 

[Younigue]

The American Dream!

Indeed! Win by the lowest means.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Was a pointless raid designed mostly to make us feel better about ourselves.

Have we done anything else in the last 15 years? Launch drones and missiles at people we don't like, kill a few enemies, make more enemies, oooh and aaah at our cool tech, accomplish nothing, lather, rinse, repeat. I honestly have no idea what America's foreign policy has been since 9/11 except to impotently meddle in almost everything without any tangible results or benefit.

 

[bshole]

Have we done anything else in the last 15 years? Launch drones and missiles at people we don't like, kill a few enemies, make more enemies, oooh and aaah at our cool tech, accomplish nothing, lather, rinse, repeat. I honestly have no idea what America's foreign policy has been since 9/11 except to impotently meddle in almost everything without any tangible results or benefit.

They don't even bother defining American policy anymore. Nobody knows.

The US-led military strikes in Syria raise a number of questions:

First, and most basic, what exactly is US policy in Syria? President Donald Trump said just two weeks ago in a speech in Ohio that the US would "be coming out of Syria like very soon." Now, Trump has presided over a large-scale bombing operation aimed at three chemical weapons production and storage targets in Syria, including in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

So what is the Trump administration policy? Is it that Syrian leader Bashar al Assad must go, which has been the stated policy of the United States going back to the early days of the Syrian civil war under President Barack Obama? Or is there simply just a red line on Assad's use of chemical weapons, but not much more?
The answer is far from clear. When President Trump announced the US-led strikes on Friday he emphasized the latter, while his own ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said earlier this week that there is no political solution in Syria with Assad still in power.

 

[theeedude]

I noticed they were sending tens of missiles per target. At $1.5M+ per pop, was more damage done to Syria or to the US in terms of cost of the missiles and operations?

 

[Puffnstuff]

They don't even bother defining American policy anymore. Nobody knows.

I have a plausible explanation. (begin satire) If we consider the behavioral patterns of the WH they probably get an intern drunk then blindfold them and after spinning them around a little while have them play pin the tail on the donkey. Whatever action they pick then becomes official policy which is why its all over the place. (end satire)

 

[Zorba]

I noticed they were sending tens of missiles per target. At $1.5M+ per pop, was more damage done to Syria or to the US in terms of cost of the missiles and operations?

Another way to look at it is that we have a ton of tomahawks sitting around, they are now out of production. So it is either use them or let them rot.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Another way to look at it is that we have a ton of tomahawks sitting around, they are now out of production. So it is either use them or let them rot.

Those will likely be replaced. If anything, usage of munitions will beget additional stockpiles, not less.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Those will likely be replaced. If anything, usage of munitions will beget additional stockpiles, not less.

But we both know that this isn't about cost or widespread damage. This is a case of military action being an extension of diplomacy, in that this is a message. Likely Trump doesn't understand any of that but others likely steered him into less damaging action. Not and endorsement BTW.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Tossing some missiles at them for using chemical warfare is pretty close to doing nothing. And it won't accomplish anything. This isn't the start of a major offensive or escalation on Trump's part, the Twit master himself declared mission accomplished, so as far as he's concerned its all over and done. Pretty much a win/win. Trump gets to distract the populace back home, blow some shit up and feel like a tough guy, while at the same time pretending to be tough on Russia. Putin gets to claim that the whole world is ganging up on Russia on phony charges and so distract his populace from the fact that he is stealing all their money. Assad loses a couple of empty buildings, but can still go on killing his populace the old fashioned way with bullets, barrel bombs and starvation. Biggest loss was several million dollars worth of US military hardware, but that just means more money for defense contractors.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Tossing some missiles at them for using chemical warfare is pretty close to doing nothing. And it won't accomplish anything. This isn't the start of a major offensive or escalation on Trump's part, the Twit master himself declared mission accomplished, so as far as he's concerned its all over and done. Pretty much a win/win. Trump gets to distract the populace back home, blow some shit up and feel like a tough guy, while at the same time pretending to be tough on Russia. Putin gets to claim that the whole world is ganging up on Russia on phony charges and so distract his populace from the fact that he is stealing all their money. Assad loses a couple of empty buildings, but can still go on killing his populace the old fashioned way with bullets, barrel bombs and starvation. Biggest loss was several million dollars worth of US military hardware, but that just means more money for defense contractors.

Don't forget: generating new enemies via youths watching the US launch missiles over their city. Gotta keep that war machine turning.

 

[bshole]

Don't forget: generating new enemies via youths watching the US launch missiles over their city. Gotta keep that war machine turning.

The Syrian people are ready to accept to Assad and a return to normalcy. The West should let it happen and not allow this civil war to keep meandering on. It appears we are aiding parties that are despised by the Syrian populace at large.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/19/syrians-are-ready-to-accept-bashar-al-assad-as-president/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...lies-after-trump-orders-airstrikes/516924002/

After so many hundreds of thousands of deaths, many Syrians are reconciled to whatever comes next, as long as it is not more war. The regime, however, is benefiting not from an upsurge of genuine support but from war weariness, the sins of the opposition, and the desperation of millions of people for the return of basic services. Hatred of war and contempt for the rebels are not the same thing as a permanent peace.

But Ghias Moussa, who heads the New Jersey and New York chapters of the Syrian American Forum, a group opposed to U.S. intervention, said the United States should stop trying to push for regime change.

“We don’t think that killing more innocent people in Syria by bombing them will rectify what has happened, whether it was done by the Assad regime or not,” said Moussa, who called for an investigation into the chemical attack.

“Americans should not change regimes around the world to get somebody we like and fight people we don’t like,” he said, calling for a peaceful resolution among fighting factions.

Moussa is among a faction of Syrian-Americans who supported Trump for president because he had previously said he was opposed to military intervention in the country.