First, read yesterday’s editorial at Bloomberg:
It counts as progress that the president of the United States now acknowledges that he, not his predecessor, is responsible for the policy of the United States in Syria. Now the question is how Donald Trump will fulfill his responsibility after this week’s horrific chemical weapons attack.
For starters, Trump needs to be careful not to repeat one of his predecessor’s worst mistakes. In 2012, President Barack Obama warned Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad not to cross the “red line” of using chemical weapons — then failed to take action when he did. Trump has amped up Obama’s rhetoric, saying that this week’s attacks “crossed a lot of lines for me.” It was, he said, “beyond a red line.”
Worse, he made these remarks shortly after all but throwing an ultimatum at North Korea to stop its missile and nuclear programs, and putting Iran “on notice” for its missile tests. North Korea and Iran will take their cues from his response in Syria. So will China and Russia.
Now consider those remarks in the context of yesterday’s events, outlined here.
Would be nice to have better confirmation that it was Assad’s guys using the chemicals. Not sure where this leaves us. Also doubt it affects North Korea. What can Assad do in response? Kill more civilians? North Korea has Seoul in artillery range.
The follow up is key. Is he going to press to get rid of Assad? Who or what replaces him?
Steve
What can Assad do in response?
The correct question is what do Assad or Iran or Russia or Hezbollah do in response?
We didn’t attack someone with no friends (Iraq) or whose friends abandoned them (Libya, Taliban).
Good point, but I don’t really have the impression that those folks really like Assad that much either. They just want to maintain what they have in Syria. If the US wants to spend $100 million every now and then to kill 6 or 7 Syrian soldiers, I would expect them to make waves at the UN or wherever, but not do much else.
Steve
Put another way, how does this benefit the US? What do I get out of it?
Steve
This was stupidly rash on Trump’s part. There’s been no investigation and (far as I know) one reported eye witness.
Not to mention Assad has no motive to do this when he’s already winning. It’s possible he’s so malevolent he’s dumb but that wouldn’t be my first assumption.
I don’t know whether people are aware of this but it’s something that’s common knowledge in spook circles in the blogosphere. Both U. S. and U. K. government investigators found that the sarin used in the previous attack was not produced for military use. That sounds more like opposition forces than the Assad regime.
1) There is a crater in the middle of the street. Discoloration around the crater suggests gas.
2) We tracked the Syrian jet from the field, to the target and back.
3) So suggesting this was opposition forces is batshit.
4) Putin was warned via deconfliction, so Syria was probably also warned.
5) Russian reaction has been sotto voce. They did not end deconfliction, merely suspended it. Putin has stayed off-camera.
If you want a conspiracy theory here’s one: maybe this whole thing was cooked up by the Russians and the White House to give Trump a pretext for showing distance from Russia.
There is zero evidence for that, but there’s also zero evidence for the mystery gasser theory.
I’m not saying it was opposition. I’m saying I don’t know.
As I said in my post on the subject, I think that Trump acted prematurely.
Sputnik quotes Tillerson saying Russia was NOT warned.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/this-isnt-the-foreign-policy-trump-campaigned-on/
“This Isn’t the Foreign Policy Trump Campaigned On
He is proving more aggressive and adventuresome than Obama was.
It may be too early to tell for sure, but Donald Trump is looking more and more like a phony. He’s also looking like a weakling.”
michael-Assad has shown he is willing to kill civilians, but so is ISIS. Plus, it did not necessarily have to be staged, a bomb could have hit a local supply. The US was not being attacked. Why the rush? How does this benefit us?
Steve
Steve:
Oh of course it doesn’t benefit us, it’s nothing but missile theater. It changes nothing on the ground, and the only lasting effect will be that Russia will get to strut around the UN acting aggrieved at the violation of international law.
As for Trump acting too quickly, when you have the attention span of a toddler you’re going to act quickly. It’s not as if he was going to read briefing papers or familiarize himself with the conflict. He’s very busy golfing.
My guess is Ivanka said, “This is terrible, daddy, you have to do something!” And Jared – who BTW also lied about Russian contacts – said, “Yeah!” So Trump took the gentlest option the Pentagon served up, and ‘did something.’ Putin will pretend to be upset, the establishment will declare the whole thing ‘presidential’ and within 24 hours we’ll be told it was all Susan Rice’s fault.
I just saw a senator that was not McCain or Graham say Assad must go, Haley says the administration is prepared to do more, the Pentagon says they are investigating if Russia was involved in the alleged attack (hmm, I wonder what the result will be?).
That’s the problem, once the war hounds are unleashed — they don’t stop on command. The Russians sound like they won’t take actual action, but will they be so patient if they are accused of using WMD’s? And Trump has targeted the Iranians since the beginning; the Iranians have the means, the motive and the history to give an American President a bloody nose.
It seems one person in the WH appreciates the risk and is trying to CYA. Perhaps Bannon leaving the NSC was more of a mutual thing then first thought.
It was probably Syria. It’s illustrative that the Russian media and troll Army explanations are both very bad and contradictory. If they actually had something, or a coherent alternative, their “theories” wouldn’t be so laughable. That’s not to say that it’s certainly the Syrian government, but they are by far the most likely culprit. The 2013 Ghouta attack was definitely Syria despite all the misinformation and propaganda that still exists.
See this tweet storm from Dan Kaszeta, this is from yesterday (link is to the first tweet):
https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/850288010625245184
Oh, and this:
https://twitter.com/CITeam_en/status/850445267996479488
Not definitive, but….
We tracked the Syrian jet from the field, to the target and back.
“We” did not track anything. The military released a graphic and said “trust us.” Which one would be a fool to do.
“Would be nice to have better confirmation that it was Assad’s guys using the chemicals.”
Clearly it couldn’t have been, Obama, Rice and Kerry told us 100% – as in 100% – of Syria’s chemical weapons were removed. Rice even produced a YouTube video as evidence.
So there you have it.
The reports I’ve heard say that intelligence systems are now so “granular” in being able to precisely analyze data. This advanced technology gave military officials the ability to fully scope in their targets, where the chemical WMDs were stored, Russian personal on the ground etc. That’s apparently why a missile, with only a 85% accuracy, did so much better by hitting 59 of it’s 60 potential targets.
Also, autopsies revealed it was Serin neurotoxin that killed those people. Doctors without Borders further felt 2 lethal chemicals were used -. Serin and Clorine.
As for this operation being so knee-jerk and implusively engaged in……apparently Assad’s military sites, chemical storage areas, airports were mapped out years ago, and held in abeyance, so that if or when the day came Assad did something unthinkable the data was there to be acted upon. Yesterday, was that day.
Furthermore, there are said to be back up plans for different types of retaliation arising from Iran proxies, Russia or Assad himself. IOW, there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of ideas, planning or strategic minds nvolved in thinking out the details of this offensive. Also, many former Obama military strategists concur that the action taken was proportionate, appropriate, with reasoned and precise implementation.
Jan, the autopsy information is coming from the Turks, who have demonstrated they’ll do or say anything to advance their agenda. There’s been no even nominally independent investigation.
All that’s been accomplished is for Trump to bury “Make America Great Again” right alongside “Change You Can Believe In” as he betrays the very last of his campaign promises. Despite his bravado, the guy is a wimp who craves the approval of people who matter more than approval of his voting base.
It is amusing to see the Trump haters get their panties in a twist. You all are going to have a stroke before your nightmare is over, and it will not get any better. (For those keeping track, he has only been president for less than 3 months.)
A sarin gas attack by Assad is interesting. As @Drew points out, all the chemicals were removed because Barack “I’m not a crook” Obama tricked the Russians into forcing Assad to get rid of them. As soon as Trump won the election, leprechauns riding unicorns must have brought them back. Yeah, that’s it.
Also, sarin is nasty stuff, and you really do not want to get too close to it. I would suggest decontaminating the victims before pulling out the cameras. (Fun fact: In the Marine Corps, the lowest ranked Marine removes his gas mask first, and only if he does not start flopping around a fish, it is clear for everybody else.)