The United States has launched missile strikes against government targets in Syria. This time Britain and France tossed in a few missiles of their own, brothers in arms sort of thing, I suppose.
Trump announced the strikes in an address to the nation Friday evening. “The purpose of our action tonight is to establish a strong deterrent,” he said, against the production and use of chemical weapons, describing the issue as vital to national security. Trump added that the United States is prepared “to sustain this response” until its aims are met.Details of the attack are still sketchy at best. There's no word on any action by the Russians either. They had threatened to use their S-400 systems to shoot down incoming American missiles. Russia had also warned it would retaliate against US installations should its bases in Syria be targeted.
Trump asked both Russia and Iran, backers of Assad, “what kind of nation wants to be associated” with mass murder and suggested that someday the United States might be able to “get along” with both if they change their policies.
Trump's remarks indicate that the US and perhaps the French and British are preparing for a sustained air and missile campaign.
11 comments:
I say this not only as an American citizen, but one who once served in its armed forces--I am ashamed of my country and am even more ashamed of its citizens who stand by and do nothing as our out of control government bombs, drones and invades anywhere it pleases on the flimsiest of provocations. The biggest threat to global peace and the future of humanity is not ISIS, not Al Queda, not Syria, not Russia, not China--it is the United States of America.
From the Seattle article.
Meanwhile, a team of investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrived in Syria to look for evidence.!!!!
The military industrial complex is winning the fight.
TB
Karl, you might be interested in this article in The Atlantic that claims two decades of war have eroded the morale of America's troops.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/left-behind/556844/
Another article explains that the war in Syria, like most of today's "new wars," is actually a complex mix of several wars: a civil war, a terrorist insurgency, a regional war, a war of theocracies, a proxy war pitting the US against Russia and a geopolitical conflict for control of the region's assets that brings Russia and China together with Turkey, Syria, Iran and, obliquely, Iraq as a counterfoil to the West's alliance with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni Arab world.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/the-syrian-war-is-many-wars/557990/
These are genuinely wars without end, in large part because of the number of players: state actors, quasi-state actors, rebels, insurgents, even criminal organizations; all of them pursuing their own agendas and entering alliances that can as quickly fall apart.
Indeed, TB. Indeed.
With the revelation of the Cohen Tapes and the Prague meeting, a "Wag the Dog" was a given.
May and Trump are fighting diversionary wars with innocent lives.
The Tony Blair's, GW Bushes and Dick Cheney's still move amongst us.
TB
Trump, May and Macron are all trying to divert attention from domestic problems. There is no evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons.
Meanwhile, the Rhohinga are being massacred.
UU
As others suggest here, these (illegal) US/UK/Fr. strikes are mainly just circus acts. The Russkies claim they shot down most of the missiles with 30 year old defence systems.
Apparently the (illegal) chlorine attack on Ghouta was very successful from a strategic point of view.
"While the focus of the Western press has been on the response from Trump, who considers chemical use a red line that requires a US military response, it has been little noted that al-Assad’s ploy worked.
The Army of Islam leaders abruptly surrendered, perhaps under severe pressure from Douma’s terrified civilian population, who did not want to be further gassed so that the Saudi-backed Salafis could go on trying to save face.
Late Wednesday, a Russian spokesman at Latakia announced that as they departed Douma, the 8,000 Army of Islam fighters surrendered four hundred pieces of military equipment, light and heavy."
Missing (warts-and-all) Jean Chretien more and more as time goes by...
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Says Canada Supports Attack On Syrian Targets"
"The war in Syria, like most of today's "new wars," is actually a complex mix of several wars..."
Somehow Golan Heights were missed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory
To the guilables
TB
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