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You are here: Home / Politics / America / The President’s Address Regarding Syria Live Feed

Reader Interactions

202Comments

  4. 4.

    guachi

    I was going to post earlier that the chance of Trump not firing Rosenstein was the same as Trump not bombing Syria but I didn’t get my post in on time.

  15. 15.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    I assume this time he’s finally become presidential…

    Today was the day that Donald truly became Fuhrer.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    I like the pee-yellow and white roses over his left shoulder. Nice touch.

    Yellow’s his color. Major component of orange.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    I am here at the ED with SuzMom, who is behaving loopy AF and in significant pain. She had encephalitis in 2007 and was acting just the same as she did today. Apparently herpes simplex encephalitis can recur.

    Weird shit.

    I have spent too much time at this ED.

  21. 21.

    Cheryl Rofer

    The recent chemical strikes have been with chlorine. If he is targeting chlorine plants or stocks, that will be a humanitarian disaster, because chlorine is necessary for water purification.

  22. 22.

    Rob

    So has he actually announced anything?

    eta: I ask because I missed the beginning announcement, I am reading now, and all I heard was blather. So, never mind. Late to the party, again.

  23. 23.

    hilts

    @lamh36:

    Hey, there’s a first for everything. Hopefully, there’ll be enough evidence to dump this shit for brains President by November.

  24. 24.

    jl

    I’ll read the transcript later. Decision executed right now or already anyway. The idea of this vile crook making life-and-death decisions is disgusting.

    Josh Marshall has a twitter tweet saying Mattis went along because Trumps loose cannon tweets committed us to do something. On other hand, looks like France and UK cooperating, not that in an of itself means it is a wise or responsible action. News I see says ‘precision strikes’. Hope it is largely symbolic, like last time. I don’t want an complete incompetent ass like Trump making any important decisions.

    Edit: I’ll request AS give us an assessment of Matti’s ethics and competence after we see what happened and the fall out.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    Wheels up on AF 1 to Mar a Loco in 45 minutes. (I’m guessing.)

    And no Rosenstein firing, this hour.

  31. 31.

    chopper

    “I’m ordering rod rosenstein be stuck on the front of a cruise missile and fired into syria. two birds, amirite?”

  32. 32.

    TenguPhule

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    If he is targeting chlorine plants or stocks, that will be a humanitarian disaster, because chlorine is necessary for water purification.

    Trump’s constant is always the worst possible thing.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Suzanne:

    Oh Suze, so sorry. That just sucks. Big hugs, and a strong Adult Beverage of Your Choice when you eventually get home.

  34. 34.

    Waldo

    Don’t you guys know it’s wrong to criticize the commander in chief while our missles are in harm’s way?

  37. 37.

    debbie

    When this turns out to have been the wrong thing to do, it will of course be Obama’s fault.

  38. 38.

    germy

    This strike… Drumpf’s philosophy is to get in and get out real quick, right?

    Like with Stormy?

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    @DeanObeidallah
    2m2 minutes ago
    More
    This morning fox and friends LITERALLY said that if trump bombed Syria it would knock James comey’s book out of the headlines. Apparently the message was heard by trump

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    Here’s the twitter account for the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF OIR) Public Affairs Officer/Spokesperson:
    https://twitter.com/oirspox?lang=en

    Here’s the link to CJTF OIR’s strike summaries:
    http://www.inherentresolve.mil/News/Strike-Releases/

    Here’s US Air Force Central:
    https://twitter.com/USAFCENT

  42. 42.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    so hopefully the strike will be relatively sane.

    Baud, Baud, Baud.

    Remember who’s ordering all this shit.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: It’s creepy. She doesn’t know what year it is, what day it is, the pets’ names. And I’ve had to tell her at least 15 times that Trump is the president and she is horrified every time, which is simultaneously funny and really upsetting.

  53. 53.

    Spanky

    Haven’t seen any announcements from France or Britain. Do they know they’re involved in this?

    Aaand there we go. Cyprus is the logical staging point, at least for the Brits.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    I missed the part where Congress authorized this, as is their Constitutional duty.

  56. 56.

    jl

    @TenguPhule: Even if it turns out to be disgusting and corrupt Kabuki theater, it is not OK. GOP needs to be politically obliterated in this country, and Trumpsters out of office in disgrace, and those guilty of crime need to go to jail asap. Won’t happen soon though.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: Mattis’s job is to serve as one of the President’s two senior and principal military advisor. The other one is Gen Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Their job is to present the President with options and plans, argue for what they think is the best one or the one with the greatest likelihood of success and that best mitigates risk, and then execute the decision made by the President. So there isn’t really an ethical issue here unless the President issued orders that are illegal and/or unethical. Say the deliberate targeting of non-combatants and civilians.

    The Pentagon will be holding a 10 PM press conference. I’ll put up a live feed if I can find it. We should know more about the target set then.

  60. 60.

    TenguPhule

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I missed the part where Congress authorized this, as is their Constitutional duty.

    I’m so old I remember when Syria military action had to be called off because Congress wouldn’t authorize or fund the mission.

  62. 62.

    PhoenixRising

    @Suzanne: Oh dear. You’re in our thoughts.

    Telling my mom that Trump was still POTUS after her seizure was more than I had in me–had to stop a neurologist from asking her if she understood. In retrospect, I was probably too aggressive with the kid–she was just a resident–when I asked if she had lost her mind, why would you ask someone who’s ill a dangerous question like that?

  64. 64.

    guachi

    @lamh36:

    The plan to bomb Syria wouldn’t have been made in less than a day. This plan had to have been in the works for longer than that.

  69. 69.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Well, there may be an irreconcilable difference between us here. It’s come to the point that I think anyone doing anything that Trump decides is unethical, because that is evidence on its face that the decision is incompetent, unethical and corrupt.

    I suppose Mattis and Dunford telling Trump to shut up and do what they recommend is a high bar, and there is a conflict of laws issue there, wrt to Constitution. Not much room of a win-win deal in the making.

  76. 76.

    germy

    So Mattis doesn't want to strike Syria because it risks dragging U.S. into a broader war with Russia and Iran, but he has to do it anyway because Trump tweeted about it.

    Welcome to the Trump national security nightmare we've been waiting for.

    — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 13, 2018

  79. 79.

    mad citizen

    So I was reading TPM as my wife and I have the regular Fox network on–Masterchef Junior with kids cooking and Gordon Ramsey–no he doesn’t swear at them. I walked in the living room and told my wife Trumpov was going to speak at some point tonight to the nation. Then about 9:03 it just cut in and he was already talking. I had to laugh at the ineptness of Fox. Sean Hannity then appeared doing the post-talking, but our local affiliate cut in with their anchorwoman. I agree, it seemed like he was just seeing the words, like English is a second language. Terrible at giving these addresses. Just another Friday night in the sh1tshow in america.

  80. 80.

    PhoenixRising

    The targets include urban ones, based on the practice runs executed in Albuquerque yesterday and last night. The USAF is always training!

    (When we bought this house it was a major selling feature that it’s a 12 minute drive from my front door to the end of the security line at the commercial airport. However, it’s also adjacent to the military airfield.)

  82. 82.

    Marcopolo

    @guachi: Whelp, it is Trump and I have now read at least a couple accounts of senior staff being caught off-guard, including Pence in Peru.

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: You too?

    Attackerman at TheDailyBeast (from Tuesday):

    AUMFED UP

    Trump’s Military Strike on Syria Will Be Illegal

    The Commander in Chief is not a king who can go to war at will, and the Congressional authorization for the use of military force after 9/11 had nothing to do with ‘Animal Assad.’

    Spencer Ackerman
    04.10.18 1:04 PM ET

    With much of the world bracing for Donald Trump’s new missile strikes on Syria, the president’s legal authority to attack Bashar Assad is conspicuously AWOL.

    Assad isn’t subject to either of the two authorizations Congress passed after 9/11 to bless the use of military force. He’s not part of al Qaeda, nor a successor organization like the Islamic State—which is dubiously covered under the 2001 authorization as it is—nor is he part of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

    The closest Trump aides have come to providing a domestic legal justification for striking Assad, offered by his former secretary of state, is that Trump possesses the inherent authority to do so as commander-in-chief, a gigantic assertion last used—and ultimately abandoned—by George W. Bush’s administration.

    The implications are large and ominous, according to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “If [Trump] strikes Syria without our approval, what will stop him from bombing North Korea or Iran?” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

    […]

    (Via Attackerman on Twitter.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    Gravenstone

    @Cheryl Rofer: Not to mention the fact that any cylinders on site will be breached, releasing chlorine gas to the immediate area. If there is anything residential nearby – clusterfuck!

  86. 86.

    TS

    And the media is giving out all those positive vibes – the moron is being sainted – just as he wanted. Drop some bombs – forget the domestic scene.

  88. 88.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Looks like some of the known chemical weapons facilities and airfields are being hit. This is effective only because Obama chose disarmament of Syria’s cw rather than strikes.

  89. 89.

    lamh36

    @cmclymer
    2m2 minutes ago
    More
    A working national media not beholden to access privileges would be asking why Trump felt it necessary to give Russia a heads up that he was planning to strike Syria, an ally of Russia.

    Y’all… this is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

    #SyriaStrikes

  92. 92.

    lamh36

    @TAPSTRIMEDIA
    Follow Follow @TAPSTRIMEDIA
    More
    I’m old enough to remember when the rhetoric was that Hillary Clinton was going to get us into a war with Russia in Syria #irony

    8:20 PM – 13 Apr 2018

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    It’s early Saturday in Syria. Expect it may have been U.K. and France which common sense-wise balked at bombing a Muslim nation on a Friday.

  94. 94.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer: A radio commenter with a military background claims this is military theater. The location of the strike was so set that locals could protect their windows from blast vibration. Syrian and Russian military were allowed ample time to clear out.

    And Putin lets Trump look tough.

  95. 95.

    germy

    While Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable for his unlawful use of chemical weapons against civilians, the strikes that are being carried out are being done without an authorization from Congress, which is unacceptable

    — Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) April 14, 2018

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Yes. But he’s been doing it for years and too many others in the Senate don’t give a damn.

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Mandalay

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:

    Bolton wanted “ruinous” strike.

    He’s had the job for just a few days and already he has got a pardon for Libby and is bombing lots of brown people.

    I despise him, but from his perspective he’s having a terrific week.

  103. 103.

    Mary G

    Twitter says the president deleted the tweet issued earlier today that supposedly showed John Kelly at the end of the table with his face in his hand. You couldn’t make this up, except Dr. Strangelove, I guess.

  104. 104.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    Sounds positive, relatively speaking.

    So Trump endangers American and allied planes to attack empty targets and give Syria’s AA some badly needed practice?

  108. 108.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Sounds like Mattis is saving all our asses tonight. Remember to thank him later, folks.

  109. 109.

    Elizabelle

    I am still way more concerned with US domestic issues. Rosenstein, protecting Mueller, an exhaustive investigation into what Team Mueller finds. This octopus has a lot of tentacles.

    RE Syria: they gassed civilians. Obama probably would have done something too, only with Congress’s backing. This is theatre.

    It won’t work WRT knocking Comey’s book and Cohen raid off the front page. All that stuff still goes on. Tick tock.

  111. 111.

    PeakVT

    Thanks, Comey, for enabling this. The rate of senseless killing in the Middle East was at risk of being too low.

  113. 113.

    lamh36

    @TS: To her credit, Maddow is NOT…CNN has never seen a war missile they didn’t want to cover in an overboard manner tho…I quickly cut off AC360

  114. 114.

    Chet Murthy

    One says to oneself that here’s another reason refugees come to America: it’s the only goddam place where the US military doesn’t feel free to throw down at the slightest provocation. Here, it’s just the fuckin’ cops.

    ETA: and of course, every goddam testosterone-poisoned asshole. But they’re not exactly a military force, so there’s that.

  115. 115.

    lamh36

    @williamlegate
    17m17 minutes ago
    More
    It took Bolton just FIVE DAYS to get us into a war.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    Sorry about your mom, hope she gets better soon. Had encephalitis as a child, not from the same virus, from measles.
    @PhoenixRising:

    when I asked if she had lost her mind, why would you ask someone who’s ill a dangerous question like that?

    Sometimes the best learned lessons are the ones learned the hard way.

  120. 120.

    TenguPhule

    @lamh36:

    It took Bolton just FIVE DAYS to get us into a war.

    Slightly longer then expected. He must be losing his touch.

  121. 121.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Suzanne: I recently had a patient with the same diagnosis. Thank God for IV antivirals. Hope she gets well soon.

  122. 122.

    Another Scott

    Via Attackerman on Twitter. ProtectDemocracy:

    Protect Democracy @protctdemocracy

    Replying to @protctdemocracy @CarltonHaelig and 2 others

    Later @attackerman got the “full document” — 3 sentences — that @timkaine received. You can read the other two there.

    What’s Inside Trump’s Secret War Powers Memo?

    The answer appears to be a strikingly broad legal argument to strike virtually anywhere — without Congressional say-so

    thedailybeast.com

    6:03 PM – 13 Apr 2018

    Grrr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    We’re now at war with Russia!

  136. 136.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I hope this report is not accurate.

  137. 137.

    Cheryl Rofer

  142. 142.

    Mandalay

    @Spanky:

    Haven’t seen any announcements from France or Britain. Do they know they’re involved in this?

    I have the very strong impression that Britain and France were far more determined than Trump to attack Syria.

    I would not be surprised to learn that Trump’s timetable was driven by them, in that they were going to proceed with or without Trump’s support. (I could be wildly incorrect on that of course – just speculation.)

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @lamh36:
    I’m wondering if not having a Sec of the VA is better than having a drumpf partisan running the VA. I know that some things are falling through the cracks as of a little over a year ago, I expect it to get a lot worse. I’m glad I don’t have any major long term healthcare needs as a user of the VA services. Oh fucking wait……….

  146. 146.

    Cheryl Rofer

  147. 147.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Maybe.
    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/american-fury-the-truth-about-the-russian-deaths-in-syria-a-1196074.html

    When it comes to cursing, the man doesn’t hold back. “Son of a bitch” is the mildest cuss word that comes out of the militia member’s mouth as he rants furiously about the inferno created by the hours-long American airstrike southeast of the city of Deir ez-Zor. Even as smoke continues to billow from burned out SUVs around them, he and five other men have come to remove the shattered body of one of their fellow fighters from the glowing embers of a bombed-out building.

    The scene comes from a two-minute video of the battlefield that one of the fighters took on the afternoon of Feb. 8, hours after the firestorm, and provided to DER SPIEGEL and the Euphrates Post, a news site providing coverage of the region. It’s the first photographic documentation of one of the most mysterious battles yet in this increasingly complex war.

    Initially, the United States military announced on Feb. 8 it had attacked “pro-regime forces” of Bashar Assad’s southeast of the city Deir ez-Zor to ward off an attack on a base belonging to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are allies of the Americans. The U.S. said the pro-Assad forces had attacked the SDF base with tanks and mortars. The U.S. fired back in response, claiming to have killed “more than 100” of the fighters in what was described as an act of self-defense.

    But who exactly were these attackers? And what really happened that night in the small, half-deserted villages on the east bank of the Euphrates River? Did American bombs decimate Russian troops? Could the attack even be a foreboding of coming skirmishes between the Americans and Russians?

    A Different Version of Events

    It was primarily the second night-time attack from the village of Tabiya that triggered the American paroxysm, said two men belonging to the al-Baqir militia of the Bekara tribe. Because in addition to the deconfliction line, there was also a second agreement which allowed up to 400 pro-Assad fighters, who remained on the east side of the Euphrates following the 2017 battle against Islamic State, to remain. At least as long as their weren’t more than 400 of them and they remained peaceful. But exactly that was no longer the case.

    Among those stationed in Tabiya was a small contingent of Russian mercenaries. But the two militia sources said they did not participate in the fighting. Still, they said, 10 to 20 of them did in fact lose their lives. They said a total of more than 200 of the attackers died, including around 80 Syrian soldiers with the 4th Division, around 100 Iraqis and Afghans and around 70 tribal fighters, mostly with the al-Baqir militia.

    It all happened at night, and the situation became extremely complicated when the fighters from Tabiya entered the fray. A staffer at the only major hospital in Deir ez-Zor would later say that around a dozen Russian bodies were delivered. An employee at the airport, meanwhile, later witnessed the delivery of the bodies in two Toyota pickup trucks to a waiting Russian transport aircraft that then flew to Qamishli, an airport near the Syrian border in the north.

    In the days that followed, the identities of the Russians killed would be revealed — first of six and ultimately nine. Eight had been verified by the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian investigative platform, and another was released by the radio station Echo Moscow. All were employees of the private mercenary company Evro Polis, which is often referred to by the nom du guerre of its head: “Wagner.”

    At the same time, however, a completely different version of events has gained traction — disseminated at first by Russian nationalists like Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, and then by others associated with the Wagner unit. According to those accounts, many more Russians had been killed in the battle — 100, 200, 300 or as many as 600. An entire unit, it was said, had been wiped out and the Kremlin wanted to cover it up. Recordings of alleged fighters even popped up apparently confirming these horrendous losses.

    It was a version that sounded so plausible that even Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg picked it up. The fact that the government in Moscow at first didn’t want to confirm any deaths and then spoke of five “Russian citizens” killed and later, nebulously, of “dozens of injured,” some of whom had died, only seemed to make the version of events seem more credible. It has generally been the case, after all, that when something in the Syrian war is denied by the Kremlin, or when the Russians admit to it bit by bit, then it is probably accurate. Besides, Russian losses in Syria are constantly played down.

    Relations between the Russian mercenaries in Syria — it is thought there are more than 2,000 of them — and the government in Moscow have been tense for some time. The fighters claim they are being used as cannon fodder, are being kept quiet and are poorly paid. For them to now accuse the Kremlin of trying to cover up the fact that Russians were killed — by the Americans, of all people — hits President Vladimir Putin’s government in a weak spot: its credibility.

    The only verifiable sources for the decimation of hundreds of Russians are the photos and videos circulating on the internet or from Russian sources that are passed on to Western journalists. Some of them show footage from eastern Ukraine that was later doctored or even the demo version of a video game that Putin personally showed to Hollywood director Oliver Stone as alleged proof of a Russian attack on an IS convoy.

    The situation on the ground between Khusham and Tabiya on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, described by a half dozen witnesses and people who were party to the events, does not confirm Russian mercenary participation in the attack or even that they joined the fighting at all. Ahmad Ramadan, the journalist who founded the Euphrates Post and has since emigrated to Turkey, comes from Tabiya. One of his contacts fights for the al-Baqir militia and took the video at the site of the bombings. “If it had been a Russian attack, with many Russian dead, we would have reported about it,” he said. “But it wasn’t. The Russians in Tabiya just had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

    Much more at the link.

  148. 148.

    hueyplong

    Mueller and his crew aren’t watching CNN.

    The airstrike footage makes it difficult to hear the tick tock, but it continues apace.

  149. 149.

    guachi

    @Marcopolo: I find it very surprising that Pence didn’t know. Seems like a breakdown in communication that they wouldn’t tell Pence. I’m sure they could get a secure channel to tell him.

  150. 150.

    Peale

    @lamh36: yep. We think your government mistreats you…so to help you out, we’re blowing off your children’s arms.

  153. 153.

    Cheryl Rofer

  154. 154.

    Steeplejack

    Not liking this “our noble warriors” trope, especially in a “business” rather than “inspirational” speech.

  155. 155.

    jl

    @Another Scott: if GOP Congress decides to turn on him to save a few seats after the primaries are over, just throw that one into the bill of impeachment.

  159. 159.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cheryl Rofer: The President as CINC has the right to take action in the absence of Congressional approval in an emergency.* If someone could point me at the emergency, I would appreciate it.

    *Vastly simplified.

  162. 162.

    jl

    @Cheryl Rofer: Scary thing is, during GOP primary season, GOPers in Congress will do absolutely nothing to reign in Trump. Just cheer him on until they get their tickets punched for the general, and then look to see how well or badly various strikes and war scares have gone down with the public, and then think about what to do.

    Very dangerous situation.

    Edit: I remind myself periodically that our federal government has become in many ways, completely depraved. But it’s kind of abstract, Times like these bring that feeling home with force.

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: The last reporting I saw was that we were striking in that area. So… Also, Assad’s brother is commander of the Republican Guard and we’ve been striking at them too.

  166. 166.

    danielx

    Trump told the nation in his address the US “cannot purge the world of evil or act everywhere there is tyranny.”

    Hell, we haven’t been able to do it here.

  171. 171.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: We’ve apparently hit their sites in Syria. So this doesn’t surprise me. Israel’s been itching for another go at them as well.

    Additionally: strikes on Hezbullah and Iranian targets in Syria are likely the result of Bolton’s recommendations.

  173. 173.

    Chris

    @lamh36:

    A working national media not beholden to access privileges would be asking why Trump felt it necessary to give Russia a heads up that he was planning to strike Syria, an ally of Russia.

    Doesn’t that make sense for once, though? Not wanting to kill the soldiers of a nuclear-armed superpower?

  174. 174.

    Corner Stone

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Looks like some of the known chemical weapons facilities and airfields are being hit. This is effective only because Obama chose disarmament of Syria’s cw rather than strikes.

    I don’t follow this logic?

  177. 177.

    jl

    @Chris: Yes, it does make sense. But it also is completely inconsistent with Trump’s stated approach to military action, and I think no problem in pointing that out. If Trump and Putin are running a cover, and this is deadly and vicious, and dangerous and deeply immoral Kabuki theater, we can be glad of that, given the fix that we are in. We don’t want this to devolve into a ‘Cruise Missiles of April’ situation.

    That doesn’t make Trump actions (I refuse to say policy or plan) wrt to Syria OK. Doesn’t make corrupt and illegal explicit or implicit cooperation with Russia in 2016 election OK. It doesn’t make fraudulent and dishonest foreign policy OK.

    I’m not buying into any bogus and weak ‘whataboutism’ on Trump or anything he says or does.

  178. 178.

    Ruckus

    @danielx:

    Hell, we haven’t been able to do it here.

    Seeing as how the person we need to be checking the closest is the most tyrannical one…….

  179. 179.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Israel’s been itching for another go at them as well.

    Didn’t Israel get their ass kicked through an asymmetric response last time that they were not prepared for?

  180. 180.

    cwmoss

    @Baud: It is so sad that this is what we’re saying. I had the same thought when I read of France/UK participation.

  183. 183.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: So, unless news reports are incorrect, UK and France will conduct another wave or two on their own? Won’t Donny fell unmanned and left out, out gunned by a girl and a French sissy man? Won’t Bolton’s ‘stache get into a hell of a war envy itch?

  184. 184.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: That is unclear. Until it is reported otherwise, this operation is done. Basically 2 hours or so and head for the barn.

  185. 185.

    Mike in NC

    If Trump decides it’s more fun to blow shit up than it is to play golf, things could get problematic.

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    This is good news:

    Also, from what Gen Dunford stated at the press briefing, this was a very limited set. So I think we’ll find that the reports of striking Hezbullah sites are erroneous. Pretty much this was a very minimalist targeting set. If what Gen Dunford has indicated is correct, then Bolton lost on this. Bigly!

  187. 187.

    Jay

    @Chris:

    As Adam pointed out, was it only two days ago, a heads up to Putin, is a head’s up to Assad, which is why the Syrian’s moved all their major assets into the shadow’s of Russian human shields.

  189. 189.

    Adam L Silverman

    @BroD: You really want me to end these types of posts with: “Run around like a headless chicken that’s on fire!”?

  190. 190.

    Adam L Silverman

    And now a word from the home office:

  191. 191.

    Another Scott

    @Corner Stone: Not Cheryl, but presumably we knew more about where Assad kept his chemical weapons as a result of Assad agreeing to give them up. So, Donnie and Jimmie [k]new the coordinates to plug into the Tomahawks guidance computers with better precision and accuracy than those based on just satellite images or Curveball’s reports.

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  192. 192.

    Jeffro

    @Peale:

    we really have elected the anti Christ.

    point of order: THEY elected* the anti Christ

    Ok, having said that…yes, there are certain parallels…

  193. 193.

    Corner Stone

    @Another Scott: That sounds like a prelude to an Apology Tour. We backed off the “Red Line” when RUS agreed to handle the removal/destruction of CW. If we knew where these CW manufacturing plants were then why weren’t there steps to enforce their removal? I guess we can keep responding each time they kill 40 kids.

  195. 195.

    Another Scott

    @Corner Stone: TheGuardian (from 2013):

    The deal, the result of three days of talks between the US and Russia in Geneva, requires Syria to provide a comprehensive list of its chemical weapons within a week and to allow inspectors into the country by November. Chemical weapons stockpiles are to be removed or destroyed by the middle of next year.

    “This framework provides the opportunity for the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons in a transparent, expeditious, and verifiable manner, which could end the threat these weapons pose not only to the Syrian people but to the region and the world,” the US president said. “The international community expects the Assad regime to live up to its public commitments.”

    The agreement effectively confirms that US military strikes against Syria, which just six days ago Washington was indicating were imminent, will not happen in the short term. The White House announced earlier in the week that it had put on hold an attempt to request authorisation for military force from Congress.

    However Obama, who has repeatedly shifted his position on Syria over the past fortnight, maintained on Saturday that punitive force might still be used against Syria in the future, saying there should be “consequences” for Bashar al-Assad’s government if it did not comply with the deal.

    Part of the problem with this agreement, as I understand it, is that chlorine isn’t included (it’s too important for disinfecting, etc., as Cheryl pointed out). And chlorine is very easy to make (compared to the other nasty stuff).

    The framing of this in the press was too often irresponsible, but Obama got a good deal and he didn’t take military strikes off the table. However, Trump has been doing nothing sensible to enforce the agreement – it’s all him playing soldier and Big Man for TV. I agree with you that at this point Assad is going to keep doing what he’s doing as long as the “punishment” is just an hour or two of bombing runs.

    Assad, like his father, is in a fight to the death. He will use every weapon he has if he thinks it will help him hold on to power (via accomplishing actual military objectives against fighters, or simply terrorizing the civilian population into giving up). I hope the people setting policy realize that and construct policy goals with that in mind… How far are we willing to go to “win” in Syria? How willing are we to confront Iran and Turkey there? What should our policy goals be? Dunno – that’s all above my pay grade. But perpetual annual bombing runs doesn’t seem like a reasonable way to achieve a negotiated settlement.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  196. 196.

    James E. Powell

    Have any of the Beltway Courtiers declared that Trump became president today? Should we expect the usual wave of op-eds praising Trump for his show of resolve, with the obligatory negative remarks about Obama?

  198. 198.

    Steeplejack

    @lamh36:

    Marc Thiessen, of course—“a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.” Fuck ’im.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:
    How long has thee white christian world been fighting/attacking/marginalizing the entire middle east? Considering that white conservatives from many parts of the world have been getting their war on there for a long time, it seems like the practice is not working. But then conservatives have not been known for their short/medium/long term strategic thinking concerning, well anything.

  201. 201.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Corner Stone: Another Scott’s answers are pretty much what I would have said if I hadn’t gone to bed. A few additional thoughts.

    Obama threatened strikes, and then Russia persuaded Assad to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and give up (most) of his chemical arsenal. At the time, there were many more facilities and weapons in Syria than there are today. It was not a Russian effort to remove and destroy those weapons, but an international one overseen by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Off the top of my head, it included UK, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. I may have left some out. Hundreds of tons of agents were removed and destroyed. Some of the facilities that produced them were disabled. We learned more about what facilities were there, and we knew that Assad hadn’t given everything up. But it’s hard to do all that during a civil war. In fact, I had an op-ed in the Globe and Mail in May 2013 saying that the cw was a danger in the civil war and that removing it would be extremely difficult.

    At that time, we didn’t know all of Assad’s facilities. There were enormous stocks of agents and precursors. So the numbers of strikes would have had to be much larger than last night’s, and releases of deadly material would have been likely. One of the precursors is fairly deadly itself, although not so much as Sarin. So it would have had to have been a much larger campaign, and probably a significant number of civilians would have died. Even with that, we wouldn’t have known that we had taken everything out, and Assad would have continued to use what he could.

    So the removal and destruction of hundreds of tons of agents and precursors, the disabling of facilities, left a few that could be hit in a strike like last night’s.

    As Scott noted, most of what Assad has been using lately is chlorine. It is in a different category under the CWC than the nerve agents, because it is dual-use: absolutely necessary for water purification. Its use in war is a war crime. I get really annoyed at the continuing complaints that it should have been removed along with the nerve agents and precursors, because those complaints indicate that the person complaining doesn’t know what s/he is talking about. Additionally, it’s fairly easy to rig up an electrolysis setup to produce chlorine from salt, and you don’t need anywhere near the safety precautions for producing nerve agents.

    As Scott noted, this is a fight for survival for Assad, and he will use what he feels he needs to. I think the whole deterrence argument is flawed, but I won’t go into that now except to say that Assad’s latest attack was in the same area as the attack in August 2013. Looks like Assad’s use of chemical weapons had maybe five years of deterrent effect, or maybe less than that.

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