USA Politics

649815, member: 26200"]That's very scary. Trump has betrayed a huge amount of people who voted him, and may have casted an unnecessary stone here.[/QUOTE]
I hope he throws more. Should have been done aeons ago. Could have prevented many bombings on civilians.
 
Russia can block any international agreement/condemnation related to this war.

They can't stop a single country from punishing bastard Assad. I know you guys hate me for this but I am cheering. FINALLY someone attacks Assad with force.
 
At this point in time, I can't see what good can come out of it. With Russian military supporting Assad, he won't leave anytime soon. There is no unified opposition ready to take over - you have ISIL who everyone is bent on eradicating, you have the Kurds who are obviously not trying to seize power in Damascus, and you have many small groups of rebels.

The US can't force Assad from power without a full-on confrontation, which would also mean direct conflict with Russia. It would be even more of a direct confrontation than Korea and Vietnam were, as Russia have a substantial number of personnel in Syria.

@Forostar - what results do you expect of the US missile strike? Assad personally surely will take no harm.
 
I expect less Assad government air force. Bye bye impunity.

I also hope this serves as a warning against future use of chemical weapons.

I do not fear Russia so much in this context (what will they do, you think, apart from protesting and voicing out loud that this is bad?). I can only hope they will scratch the back of its ugly head more often. If they are wise, they should change policies and/or at least move the positions of their military units. Further away from airfields.

Meanwhile:
Michael Fallon: UK fully supports US airstrike on Syria
@Dr. Eddies Wingman you may like to focus specifically on the last answer in this interview: click. There is a cost to be paid for not taking action... There is a price you pay for not intervening..


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Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, says Australia “strongly supports the swift and just response of the US” to the chemical attack in Idlib province, in a news conference in Sydney on Friday.

Turnbull says Syria “committed a shocking war crime” and the US response was “calibrated, proportionate, and targeted.”

It will “send a strong message to the Assad regime,” he added.

Turnbull said Australia was not involved in the military action but was informed by the US shortly before it was carried out.


From Department of Defense YouTube channel:
The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea. Porter, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe.

Trump speech on the attack:
 
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Some older footage from the USS Porter.

Last October, leaving Her Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport), west of Plymouth:

Later in the same month, departing from Cobh, Ireland:

Two months ago. USS Porter transits Bosphorus en route to the Black Sea.
 
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I wonder how bombing Syria is expected to bring peace to the country. It didn't exactly work in Iraq or Libya. Actually, things got a lot worse there from that point on.
 
I wonder how throwing chemical weapons on civilians is expected to bring peace to the country. That's a recipe for breeding terrorism out of civilians.


Hillary Clinton said this, hours before it happened:
"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."

 
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I thought Russia guaranteed these things were gone .... obviously not.

My understanding from what I read in the 20 minutes since I woke up this morning is the attack was against a military target in retaliation for the gas attack. If that is correct and this is a one time response for "going over the red line", the response seems appropriate. We will have to see what happens from here.
 
I wouldn't give Trump too much credit in this action. This is an area where I expect him to go with his advisors 100%, so credit to Mattis really.
 
probably and if so, that is good. Mattis is a guy he should be listening to. But ... he still has to make the call to do it or not. Same as any President
 
Well that was my point, I don't really see him not approving any military action brought to his desk.
 
Hard to tell and we really do not know ... Did Mattis come in and say "we should do this" ... was there more than one possible plan, will (or have there been) other strikes that he turns down. All stuff we will not know about for some time.

That said, like Trump or not, Mattis was a good pick for that post
 
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