CNBC: US military has launched more than 50 missiles aimed at Syria: NBC News

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Seeing pictures of war is never easy, but when you put kids in the mix... it really hits home.

I am proud of us for stepping in. Those pictures were awful.
 
SymbiantXenos said:
Does that make what Russia does acceptable?

Because whataboutism
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Not at all. But I like to remind people of this because of selective outrage and hiding behind whataboutism as a means to stifle criticism of our own practices. Similarly which is what happened earlier when our airstrike killed over double the amount of people who died in this chemical attack according to latest death count - no media fixation, calls for investigation, no pictures of civilians in that strike shown at the an emergency security council... No mention of Yemen.

Always need to be mindful of this duplicity. Especially when what we're being told makes no sense.
 
pigeon said:
This is a fair question and all of your critiques here also strike me as valid and serious ones. I don't have a great answer. America has not been very successful in promoting democracy. Hell, it took us like forty years just to figure out that you can't shoot people until they become democratic.

At the same time, though, I think there's a strong argument that many aspects of the post-WWII global order depend on the assumption that America, and the UN, will act to stop genocide, oppression and conquest. Admittedly this assumption has not consistently held true, but it hasn't always failed. We know what the world looked like before WWII and it mostly sucked for everybody. Hard to know to what degree Pax Americana is keeping that from happening again.

I think the question is whether you think it is possible to ever have an effective and appropriate military intervention, and if so, what would be required. Your position can certainly be "no, never," but I don't think I agree with that. It's too easy to postulate situations where we probably should act. The problem is that real life is rarely like postulates.

Obviously in this particular case, at this moment, I don't think the US should militarily intervene in Syria, for the reasons I've given. Staging a fake reality TV intervention in Syria is, if anything, worse.
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Once again Pigeon saying basically my exact sort of thoughts on this. Military force, deployed by the US and others, in Syria and elsewhere, has been various shades of ineffective and downright murderous for long before Trump. But that doesn't change the fact that the actions Assad is engaged in are monstrous.

The things we have done, and continue to do, are ineffective and horrible, which is exactly why we should stop doing them. But we also can't not do anything. To be completely inactive is frankly to be complicit.

I'm not even interested in promoting democracy. I don't care how leaders are selected. I mean, in the abstract I do but in very concrete terms right now mostly I just want the guy who's killing children out
 
pigeon said:
Sure, but then what? Easy to imagine a situation where we've fired a few hundred cruise missiles into Syria, but Assad is still in power and massacring civilians.
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Oh, mine isn't a plan to stop the massacre of civilians or get Assad out of power. It's just a plan to criminalize the use of Chemical Weapons with military force. It only works if we strike when weapons are used. Whether we should expand our retaliations to include Assad bombing hospitals is a different matter entirely.

Either way, the US can effectively disable Syrian air power without setting a single foot in the country. The problem then would, of course, be Russia.
 
The Technomancer said:
Once again Pigeon saying basically my exact sort of thoughts on this. Military force, deployed by the US and others, in Syria and elsewhere, has been various shades of ineffective and downright murderous for long before Trump. But that doesn't change the fact that the actions Assad is engaged in are monstrous.

The things we have done, and continue to do, are ineffective and horrible, which is exactly why we should stop doing them. But we also can't not do anything. To be completely inactive is frankly to be complicit.
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if we want to stop military forces from murdering civilians en masse, the easiest place to start would be the shit we do all the time. once we are no longer bombing hospitals and funerals we can start talking about "doing something" when other people commit atrocities, not before.
 
This won't end well. Yes chemical weapons are awful, but I do not trust our President to handle this in a responsible manner.

This is 2003 all over again.

I can't believe how easy it was to get everyone on the "yea bomb bomb!!" train again

see! Already blaming Iran and Russia!
 
pigeon said:
I think it's either this or that the whole attack was basically reality television to make Trump look strong and compassionate. Which helps explain why we didn't care that the Syrians were warned. Neither seems particularly good to me, though.



This isn't a terrible argument either, really. The problem is that even if you assume that's true you still have to figure out for yourself which military engagements might actually be good ideas, unless your conclusion from that really is that all military action on the part of the United States is intrinsically illegitimate. As I said, I can understand that position but I don't know that I'm persuaded of it. Presumably you should want somebody who agrees with you to take over America and manage its military effectively, so they'll need a rationale on which to act.



Sure, but then what? Easy to imagine a situation where we've fired a few hundred cruise missiles into Syria, but Assad is still in power and massacring civilians.



Well, okay. I guess if you genuinely think a second Iraq War would be a good idea, then there's no particular reason to oppose this airstrike.

As somebody who lived through the first Iraq War this seems totally bonkers to me. Nothing did greater harm to the international order or to America's place in the world than the Iraq War, to say nothing of the countless Americans and Iraqis who died or were mutilated. We took a tinpot dictatorship and turned it into a failed state at massive cost to us and to the people of that country.

I can't imagine wanting to do that again in Syria. Neither can most Americans, I suspect.
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Third Iraq war.

Shit, just saying that is depressing.
 
Apparently, the attack was totally ineffective. Only about twenty something of the missiles reached their target. Some sources say the others were shot down by Russian supplied Syrian surface-to-air missile systems. Video exists of a Russian drone surveying the airfield with many planes, runways and hardened hangars intact.
 
Doc Holliday said:
This won't end well. Yes chemical weapons are awful, but I do not trust our President to handle this in a responsible manner.

This is 2003 all over again.

I can't believe how easy it was to get everyone on the "yea bomb bomb!!" train again
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I had some pretty bad flashbacks when I read Trump's statement last night about how we have to act to make sure Assad doesn't have access to chemical weapons and also to end terrorism everywhere.

We literally already did that war and it sucked, guys.
 
Doc Holliday said:
This won't end well. Yes chemical weapons are awful, but I do not trust our President to handle this in a responsible manner.

This is 2003 all over again.

I can't believe how easy it was to get everyone on the "yea bomb bomb!!" train again
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That train's been chuggin' along for a decade. We've been bombing people nonstop. Choo choo
 
MrPressStart said:
Seeing pictures of war is never easy, but when you put kids in the mix... it really hits home.

I am proud of us for stepping in. Those pictures were awful.
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Did we step in? Did we really? We can only judge that by Trump's actions over the next few days. If they don't follow up on this, then all Trump did was a glorified publicity stunt. Russia will just strengthen Syria's air defenses and Assad will be even more protected as he continues to kill his own people.
 
primasaurus said:
The US arming the opposition was the cause of armed conflict in the first place, why the hell did the US do that, so many have died
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robochimp said:
Syria was shelling peaceful protest marches in 2012.
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What are you referring to specifically?

From what I've read of the timeline, Assad was making concession after concession with laws despite large protests lasting for months, when the whole thing started.

When soldiers were being killed by snipers, the army went in to fight them and had their own snipers.

It was only when a significant amount of rebels were armed and killing soldiers did the government response become more severe.

Armed terrorists with human shields.
 
Beer Monkey said:
That would be consistent with the criticisms of Trump not having the temperament to be president.
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It does. At the same time, the footage of the doctor after a shell just hit asking why the world was just sitting by and letting this happen was incredibly effective. Obviously this has been happening, and it has been a lot worse, but that very moment captured ended up being very significant. If I was in the president's shoes I may have considered taking action after specifically seeing that as well.
 
Guys, we have to go into Iraq. Saddam's got the WMDs and we have to save those Iraqis. Don't you wanna support your country? We'll be done in 100 days tops.
 
commedieu said:
No, he really didn't. The only Intel is that rebels claim the Syrians did it. It's still being investigated as of the 4th. There are millions of atrocities that happen in Syria, chemical, while bad, not being the worst of it. So does he only intervene when it's chemicals and let the rest just go? While denying refugees. This isn't an effective message or a dangerous one. Why let Saudi Arabia use chemical weapons and not assad?

This is Bullshit, and hamfisted. It didn't even destroy the runway which is still operational.

If this was a chemical factory, or some strategic point. Great. But what we have is a emotional attack that did nothing. And is likely illegal without hard evidence.

This isn't anything to be proud of or count as a right action. It doesn't promote the safety or quality of life for Syrians. That is not the goal of this administration, as we know they ban refugees from there.
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Quoting for a new page because I agree with these sentiments pretty exactly.
 
Doc Holliday said:
This won't end well. Yes chemical weapons are awful, but I do not trust our President to handle this in a responsible manner.

This is 2003 all over again.

I can't believe how easy it was to get everyone on the "yea bomb bomb!!" train again

see! Already blaming Iran and Russia!
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We're not the smartest country
 
FreedomFighter said:
Not at all. But I like to remind people of this because of selective outrage and hiding behind whataboutism as a means to stifle criticism of our own practices. Similarly which is what happened earlier when our airstrike killed over double the amount of people who died in this chemical attack according to latest death count - no media fixation, calls for investigation, no pictures of civilians in that strike shown at the an emergency security council... No mention of Yemen.

Always need to be mindful of this duplicity. Especially when what we're being told makes no sense.
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^ This, the killing of 200 civilians by the US recently is now quickly fading, our eyes have been successfully averted
 
Let me be clear: think that literally anything Trump is going to do is going to be awful and ineffective and horrible and counterproductive. The man isn't smart enough and he doesn't care enough about the actual lives involved for it to be anything but. But the "lets just leave it all alone and let it sort itself out" approach isn't...acceptable to me. On a theoretical level we need to at least be able to say what we would like to do if we had the power to do so
 
Bubba_Sparks said:
Apparently, the attack was totally ineffective. Only about twenty something of the missiles reached their target. Some sources say the others were shot down by Russian supplied Syrian surface-to-air missile systems. Video exists of a Russian drone surveying the airfield with many planes, runways and hardened hangars intact.
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That was Russian propaganda. I think I saw bigfoot in that grainy drone footage.
 
The Technomancer said:
Let me be clear: think that literally anything Trump is going to do is going to be awful and ineffective and horrible and counterproductive. The man isn't smart enough and he doesn't care enough about the actual lives involved for it to be anything but. But the "lets just leave it all alone and let it sort itself out" approach isn't...acceptable to me. On a theoretical level we need to at least be able to say what we would like to do if we had the power to do so
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part of doing this is accepting the fact that the civil war dragging out is the primary cause of civil disruption and death, and that the reality of the situation is that assad is in a strong position and is likely to stay in power. start calling for regime change because of atrocities like this all you like but you need to realize that military intervention will end up killing far more people and stretching this out far longer than it would last otherwise.
 
aeolist said:
part of doing this is accepting the fact that the civil war dragging out is the primary cause of civil disruption and death, and that the reality of the situation is that assad is in a strong position and is likely to stay in power. start calling for regime change because of atrocities like this all you like but you need to realize that military intervention will end up killing far more people and stretching this out far longer than it would last otherwise.
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I want there to be a non military solution. The inactivity of the UN here is maddening
 
Syrian representative " The US Air strike killed women and children "

Umm what was children and women doing in the airbase?


So what I undeunderstood is that US, some EU countries, Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Tel Aviv and ISIS are targeting Syria as a whole

US, France and UK created Wahabism and created Saudia Arabia to fulfill their imperialistic trio agenda
 
DXB-KNIGHT said:
Syrian representative " The US Air strike killed women and children "

Umm what was children and women doing in the airbase?


So what I undeunderstood is that US, some EU countries, Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Tel Aviv and ISIS are targeting Syria as a whole

US, France and UK created Wahabism and pushed Saudia Arabia to fulfill their imperialistic trio agenda
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Chances are he was referring to Mosul.
 
I'll take the US position seriously when they take action against Saudi Arabia for using chlorine gas and Israel for using white phosphorus in densely populated urban areas.

While.they're at it, they can clarify why they killed 200 civilians less than 2 weeks ago in Mosul.
 
The Technomancer said:
I want there to be a non military solution. The inactivity of the UN here is maddening
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what is the UN going to do right now? russia and the US both have veto power on the security council and currently have contradictory objectives. we won't accept a solution with assad, russia won't accept one without him.

and frankly all of the russian hysteria that's been worked up among the american political and media class means that trump is going to get battered if he ever does anything that people think putin might like, while on the other hand he's getting blowjobs from basically everyone after some bombing. what kind of lesson do you think he's going to learn from that?
 
Sijil said:
There are pictures of the runway intact, a video of the Syrian minister of defense touring the base, and attack choppers using it. The base was not rendered inoperable.
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Cruise missiles aren't designed to take out runways, they were going for the planes and fuel I'm sure. But the idea that only 20 made it through was totally false and just russian propaganda.
 
darkziosj said:
so syria keeps saying they didn't do it
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There is no 'hard' evidence they did do it, and I'm not saying they didn't, but before you make the situation worse (looking at you alternative facts Trump) make sure you have your overwhelming evidence and not just hunches by the media and vested interests
 
TesUsa said:
Not France. They said it was a mistake.
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I thought they issued a joint statement with Germany?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39526089

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande issued a joint statement in response to the US air strike.

It said: "President Assad alone bears the responsibility for this development. His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own people demand sanctions which France and Germany already asked for in the summer of 2013 after the massacre at Ghouta."
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Tovarisc said:
9uZ0Gtt.png

https://twitter.com/AP/status/850385466570534913
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huh, the tin foil hat theory might not be so tin foil hat afterall?
 
Hari Seldon said:
Cruise missiles aren't designed to take out runways, they were going for the planes and fuel I'm sure. But the idea that only 20 made it through was totally false and just russian propaganda.
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Based on what? The Russians presented their proof, the US has yet to show 56 Tomahawks hitting their targets.
 
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