Trump Fires Missiles on Syrian Airbase

And if Russia and Iran manage to contain the situation it’ll be in the teeth of what is already a massive American provocation.

Apparently its become a right of passage for U.S. Presidents to get blooded, much and early,
It started with Clinton (in earnest) and hasn’t moderated since.
Party affiliation has nothing to do with it; one just needs to be willing to be a murderer…
The Rubicon was crossed decades ago; and Usians are complicit; every one!
Usian’s are bat shit insane!

Giving the first comment more attention than it deserves:

Good grief. The Hillbot EstablishmentDem cheerleaders are omnipresent, even here, and must make it all about them, even now. Or, to quote a twitter argument I had earlier tonight (names of others deleted out of basic courtesy):

(Original tweet from journalist): It should scare the shit out of you that within about 20 minutes the Trump administration’s entire Syria policy shifted 180

(Name deleted): “But Hillary would’ve done the same!” Is the new “but her emails!”

MojaveWolf‏ @ThisWickedWorld 7h7 hours ago:
Hillary actually vocally urged US to do exactly this earlier in the day. There’s no argument. They are ALL evil, stupid & insane

(NameDeleted):
Replying to @ThisWickedWorld

The issue is Trump’s hypocrisy. Nothing more, nothing less.

7:06 PM – 6 Apr 2017
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like

MojaveWolf‏ @ThisWickedWorld 7h7 hours ago:

If more worried about snark points than destroying countries/risking war w/Russia, maybe so.

MojaveWolf‏ @ThisWickedWorld 7h7 hours ago:

To sane people, saying “Trump=asswipe” relatively unimportant compared to “Iraq Pt Deux w/added nuclear conflict risk”

Ian didn’t vote for Trump. I didn’t vote for Trump. I had a slightly preference for him in large part because Hillary clearly was absolutely desperate to go into Syria and either play chicken with or start a contained war w/Russia, and with him there was a hope he would do what he said. I admit, he was easier to roll or manipulate than I thought, but given her (and nearly every other establishment politician on both sides of the aisle) reaction to earlier tonight (all those people you want us to trust to be “more sane” than Trump, who no one liked, do you really not get that it was a case of the devil we knew being so awful we were willing to throw the dice with a different, more unpredictable devil on the off chance he’d be better on key issues like this, because nothing much to lose, long term? Or as case may be, short term), it’s certain she/they would have been much more eager to go in harder and faster. So please don’t act like Ian or most of us here were Trump cheerleaders just because we didn’t like your preferred brand of insanity.

Sorry for the rant, but I have, tonight, seen people on both sides of the aisle and nearly all the MSM cheer on this idiocy, whilst some of those not-cheering have been claiming that it is a plot between Putin and Trump to fool people into thinking Trump was not Putin’s puppet, or, alternately, that Syria needs to be bombed but we must still say Trump is bad because he didn’t follow proper procedures in launching the attack.

The cheerleaders for toppling a secular government and replacing him w/either a state of constant warfare or Taliban-West and the “Hillary wouldn’t have done it even tho she just said earlier tonight she’s been wanting to do it for years and we need to do it now” are all just completely insane.

For shame, Max! How dare you bring your nihilistic cynicism into Saint Mahatma Ian’s Holy Virtual Temple of Incorruptible Pure Pureness!

Seriously, Max…

We are all so screwed. And you are right, this was so incredibly stupid from any and every possible perspective.

First, there is no good reason to think Assad even did this. It makes no sense. The war wasn’t over yet but the end was certain, barring US intervention. Trump had just said a couple of days ago we were staying out of it. Peace talks were on the way. So why would Assad, who resisted using chemical weapons throughout a multi-year war, including when the IS were making huge gains, suddenly use them now, when there was no point to it whatsoever, it aided him not in the slightest from any conceivable angle, but it was just about the only thing he could do (if he even could, the only chemical weapons actually known to be in Iraq were in the hands of jihadi rebels) that could turn the tide against him? This makes no sense. Assad has shown no signs of severe dementia or having a death wish previously, and that’s what it would take to do this, from his point of view.

On top of that, the prime sources blaming Assad are all people who hate Assad and prefer the jihadis, or in some cases ARE the jihadi rebels. NBC is interviewing a doctor who seems likely to have been involved in kidnapping journalists for the Daesh to kill.

And the entire pattern of the story, right down to invoking murdered children and “chemical weapons” is strikingly reminiscent of the crap Bush I and later Bush II used to push the two Iraq invasions. Trump has made fun of this himself in the past. What gives?

Assad doesn’t benefit from doing what he supposedly did. Who does benefit from the gas attack? Anyone who wants to prolong the war and/or topple Assad. The Daesh and other jihadi rebels benefit. Turkey benefits (or thinks they do, at least)(the government, not all the people). Israel (the government, not all the people) thinks it benefits (the government is wrong, but the current leadership do seem to prefer that all around them is in a constant state of chaos). And the neocon/neolib war profiteers benefit, or, rather, think they do. These are the people for whom staging a gas attack in an effort to provoke an outside intervention would make sense. At least, in the “our short term gain trumps the death of hundreds of thousands plus the possibility of a nuclear war tween the US and Russia,” and assuming the person that makes this calculation is a sociopath who lacks the imagination and intelligence to see just how easily a “contained” confrontation between the US and Russia could escalate.

Second, ok, let’s say Assad used chemical weapons (I’m near certain he didn’t, to the point where I almost hesitate to make this argument, but it is important, so…) and there were civilian casualties, some of them children. Personally speaking, I’m missing why killing 70 people with chemical weapons is vastly worse than the THOUSANDS that get killed every year by, say, bombs and missiles, including our bombs and missiles. The US is one of the only countries that refuses to sign the treaty banning landmines. Kids wander into fields containing mines and get their limbs blown off and blinded. I’m not seeing the giant moral superiority of this to gassing someone.

But, whatever, let’s say Assad just killed 70 civilians by non-approved methods, and some were kids. We are going to make this situtation by going in and doing what we did in Iraq and Libya? I don’t see it. The parts of the country controlled by Assad are the only parts where things are still okay (the Kurdish controlled parts are quickly improving, as well, impressively so given that they were bombed into rubble and there are practically no resources for rebuilding, but, well, bombed into rubble and no resources for rebuiliding, so good government but not a great place to be yet). Is our goal to make ALL of Syria like the parts controlled by the Daesh? Or do we just want a permanent state of war so we’ll always have a scapegoat for any given issue and so various corporations can keep making weapons and getting paid to employ mercenaries? (yes, to that last, that’s exactly what the people in power pushing for war want, but they’re not likely to say it in public).

There is no good outcome here, unless you think they figure practice makes perfect and after horrifically screwing up our previous “humanitarian interventions” and making everything much worse for the people living in those countries, we finally figured out how to get it right. Even if Assad did it and even if you aren’t worried about the US and Russia taking shots at each other (in which case you are either delusional or insane), the most likely outcome of US intervention in Syria is to make things much worse.

Meanwhile, the same MSM and establishment pols who’ve been calling Trump an incompetent nutjob are suddenly mostly praising him (while saying or implying that they would have been the better party to handle the situation, at least they are now on board with him policy-wise). One almost wonders if their prime motivation behind going after him so much in the first place was because of his reluctance to start a war with Russia in Syria. That would explain why the policy critiques always took a distant second to McCarthyesque “Agent of Putin” claims when they went after him.

(for the mentally challenged–this is not a defense of Trump. His action earlier tonight was stupid and evil, as are a lot of his actions. I didn’t vote for him and didn’t want him)

This was not a real attack. Russia was warned and there are reports of Syrian troops getting out of the way of the attack. The airfield only suffered minor damage, and the attack resulted in just a few dead bodies.

It’s all optics. Fake chemical weapons attack, fake response. Russian story is that they hit a rebel chemical storage which seems a lot more plausible than Assad trying to commit suicide by Trump.

Tony, does that mean the ensuing nuclear armageddon will be optics as well? My skin melting will just be an illusion so Trump can distract from, and dispel the myth of, his Quislingness? If what you say is true, then war is no longer war (it hasn’t been for a while now), it’s stage-crafted blood sacrifice (it must be innocent blood, mind you) in service to Moloch, and that’s even more disturbing than randomness, imo.

We differ from The Aztecs how? Oh, that’s right, The Aztecs didn’t have Smart Phones. Silly me. Thanks Steve Jobs for foisting that delineation.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker,

Heh. Well, whataboutism (in this case Hillary) is all they have left now so expect more of it. The humiliation that Trump has been dealing them must be excruciating especially since their main point of pride is being cleared eyed observers of events and being right about such events. In less than 100 days in many way and on many issues Trump has rubbed their noses in the reality that they weren’t right but they can’t yet admit they were taken in by an obvious con and conman.

Its fine, Matt Tabbi explained it to me, small tangent griftopia is my basis for understanding the mechanics the financial meltdown, and he just finished insane clown president, Trump only got elected speaking at 6th grade level, he isn’t actually quite that stupid this falls under normal horrific status quo war racket- par for the course

P.S
big fan and actually you’re reciprocating; you saw and liked my work, even had a disinformation futurist novel spawned from a deadspin humor writer, my project is an attempt to expose what is going to define this century, and this century could determine the ultimate fate of our species- thats not hyperbole real actual permanent world domination is now up for grabs because DARPA built a preliminary version of the fountain of youth.

Actually, Hillary would have been better than Trump in one regard. She’s predictable. She never gave the impression she was Putin’s Bitch, quite the contrary, in fact. Trump, on the other hand, did give that impression and if someone thinks you’re their Bitch and you turn out not to be, well, the implication and repercussion could be, and most likely will be, equally unpredictable.

Putin knows Hillary and knows how to deal with her. He may not like her, and in fact probably hates her, but for him, she’s predictable — an Open Book that’s easy to read. Trump is proving the opposite and that’s many more times as dangerous, hence the Doomsday Clock being set closer to midnight than any time since the 1950’s.

Making America Great Again by destroying the world. I mean, why not? What do we have to lose?

I swear, some days I feel like I’m caught in a bad acid trip from which there is no escape. Today is one of those days.

realitychecker, please advise us of your most recently adjusted risk assessments. I, for one, am genuinely interested in what your actuarial charts, much like Tarot Cards, have to say.

The U.S. is always portrayed as being “the good guys”, the “guardians of the world”, when, in fact, they’re often just as guilty of killing a lot of their own citizens in cold blood.

It’s all about image and stereotype, not substance.
All governments are hypocritical
…and, essentially, all governments are pretty much the same. Always have been, always will be.
Been that way for thousands of years, and there’s still no sign of that phenomenon deviating anytime soon.

Wilson was inaugurated March 5, 1917. He went before congress on April 2, demanding a declaration of war against Germany. Congress complied on April 6, 1917.

A month from the inauguration was all it took.

The excuse? “Things change.”

Um-hum.

I would defer and give preference to MojaveWolf & Ian’s words above.

I think this missile attack is incredibly stupid from every angle…but one thing that strikes me odd. Having Hillary literally broadcasting an attack on airfields..purposefully queuing Assad & the Ruskies…what was that all about?

If Trump thinks he’s being clever here, he’s not, the National Security State; Corpocrats; MediaCorp will never be sated.

…although, as a friend in the market notes, there are a lot of people who made book on oil & gold positions.

To James Wheeler’s link

“our intelligence services traced the plane that allegedly dropped the gas back to a specific air base…I didn’t realize that our military knows what every aircraft in Syria is doing at all times. That’s impressive, bordering on hard-to-believe.” – Scott Adams

Oh, let’s set the WABAC machine to the MH-17 shootdown

“Rosaviatsia’s deputy head stressed that the Russian radar data was the only such data available to the Dutch investigators, as it appeared that Ukraine’s radar stations “for unknown reasons” were not functioning on July 17… US-NATO forces happened to be conducting an electronic warfare exercise in the Black Sea on July 17th (see ‘SEA BREEZE 2014’, below).

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/07/25/mh17-verdict-real-evidence-points-to-us-kiev-cover-up-of-failed-false-flag-attack/

@James Wheeler

Fun thought experiment: Try to imagine exactly what Trump would have to do to lose Scott Adams’s support.

Scott Adams is right.

It doesn’t make much rational sense why Assad will use chemical weapons when he is winning the civil war. The rebels are infested with extreme Islamist factions who are perfectly capable of gassing their own people if it means America militarily intervenes against the Assad regime (which they are losing to).

Lets say that Trump refused to attack Assad. The media would have gone ballistic and the Deep State factions would have exploded with the line that Trump is a secret Russian agent not prepared to go against Russian interests.

By blowing up an airfield (and ensure that the Russians got out hours before) Trump proves that he is not some kind of Manchurian candidate, builds his credibility with the military (a key power base as he knows he can’t trust the intelligence services) and the inevitable reaction by the Russians destroys the media driven narrative that President Trump is a Russian poodle.

President Trump appears to have ruled out any further action and has made it clear (it appears) that he has no interest in regime change, not drawing a red line on chemical weapons attacks. Whether Assad did it or not is not actually that important in political terms, because the media have created the overwhelming perception (and therefore political reality) that the Assad regime did it.

As Scott Adams says, its a win win for Trump.

I also think that by doing this, showing that he is his own man to the generals, Trump is building his credibility as a hawk which he needs if he does a grand strategic bargain with the President Putin down the line.

Trump CAN’T do a deal with Putin when the media are calling him Putin’s best mate/agent. What we are seeing is a long-term game.

Now, there is a small risk that Trump will go down the path of further attacks/regime change which would be a total disaster. But everything I have read indicates that Trump has no fundamental problem with secular dictators, has not interest in the nation-building/democracy promotion business in the middle east and realizes that ground wars are a political non-starter with the American public.

NR, I read Scott Adams for over a year and there were a number of times when he criticized Trump as a candidate for policies he advocated or statements he made/tweeted.

Adams was one of the few people who predicted Trump’s victory back in 2015(!) and was one of the most accurate in forecasting his rise to power.

Regarding Bannon, I again would not agree that he is out. The media are reporting that he has been sidelined but I would take these reports with a pinch of salt. President Trump likes to see a vigorous power contest (its how he ran his business) and a degree of Game of Thrones power struggle within the Trump administration should be taken for granted.

I suspect that Bannon is still very much part of the game. There are differences between Bannon, who leads the populist nationalists and the establishment Republicans, but my own reading is that Trump likes to keep both sides around while he straddles the divide and makes the ultimate decision.

President Trump is still settling in and understands that he needs to play the Washington D.C. power game. His enemies are the liberal media, powerful factions within the intelligence services and much of the federal bureaucracy.

For Trump to win, he needs to keep the military close, maintain cordial relations with the secret police (FBI) and ensure his populist base remains content. Starving the beast will sort out the federal bureaucracy and the Donald will take his revenge on the CIA/NSA and other agencies in due course once he has secured his grip on power.

Whilst the refugee ban, the border wall and the Supreme Court appointment has pleased his base, he also needs to work on the “economic” side as Ian points out. The healthcare was a bit of a disaster and the tax reform needs to benefit the middle classes rather then the 1%. Plus, Trump needs to get going on the infrastructure package and his protectionist trade reforms – this very much remains a big question mark. If Trump makes progress on these issues he will probably end up winning in 2020.

@MojaveWolf

Your thoughts coincide with mine. I doubt Assad authorized or even committed the chemical attack either. What “evidence” I’ve seen is not convincing:

Also, while I agree that nerve agents more likely to be in the arsenals of governments, it is easily conceivable that a state (Israel? Mossad?) could easily give such weapons to rebels who have every incentive to keep the fighting going.

Ron Paul:

“Before this episode of possible gas exposure and who did what, things were going along reasonably well for the conditions,” said Paul. “Trump said let the Syrians decide who should run their country, and peace talks were making out, and Al Qaeda and ISIS were on the run.”

“It’s not so easy though is it? What happened four years ago in 2013, you know, this whole thing about crossing the red line?” Paul continued. “Ever since then, the neocons have been yelling and screaming, a part of the administration has been yelling and screaming about Assad using poison gas.”

(And no, this is not a defense of Assad. Being evil does not necessarily make one stupid).

@James Wheeler

Heh. Scott Adams thinks that pissing off your most fervent and loyal supporters is “smart politics”?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-alt-right-fans-bail-syria-strikes-130839954.html

Throughout the campaign and the early days of his presidency, President Trump garnered near lockstep support from a number of alt-right leaders and conservative media members. While there were moments of wavering — such as when Trump muddled his positions on immigration and Obamacare — they mostly remained on his side.

After Trump approved missile strikes in Syria on Thursday night, that opinion changed. In sharp contrast to a majority of Republican politicians and many media pundits, the group of alt-right figures criticized Trump after supporting him over Hillary Clinton, who they saw as the more interventionist candidate. (Clinton also supported the strikes.)

Well, I guess it’s in keeping with his all his other betrayals so far. Like Obama engaged in vaguely liberal speechifying yet governed as a neoliberal, Trump too is showing his governance is not terribly different than what Jeb!’s would have been. The swamp drains him.

Moreover, Adams misses the fact that if we are seeking a genuine realignment in the ME, we’d want to be seeking a rapprochement with Iran, not using Syria to hint that’d we bomb them too. His other points struck me as specious. Distraction with the ME might encourage North Korea, not discourage it (though really, I think that if Kim Jong-un decided to push the button their military might oust him, because just because he would be nuts doesn’t mean they are too).

Is “James Wheeler” really the vastly over-rated Scott Adams, using an alias?

It would be irresponsible not to speculate…

😉

@ks,

You are correct. I was taken in by Trump’s con. It turns out that Trump was just a Clintonite piece -of-shit Clintonite from the start.

And all the Clintonite filth in Washington are gathering around in support of Their President.
Mommy Wokest is proud and happy. Pelosi supports supports supports the attack.

It turns out Hugh was righter than anyone. Trump and Clinton were two turds in a toilet. At least on issues of War and Peace.

Ah well . . . at least Trump announced the rejection of TPP. So he isn’t the anti-American Free Trade Traitor that Clinton is. Unless he has conned us all about that too.

@Mallam,

The tragedy is not in your leaving. The tragedy is in your ever having been here. I hope you mean it when you say . . .”cheers”.

Was I talking to you? No, I was not. At least you’ve finally woken up to the fact that you fell for a conman. The rest of your fellow travelers have not.

Would love to see one of Ian’s classic takes on the latest imbroglio. It’s hard to fathom what Trump thinks he’s doing. Pushing Bannon out in favor of his shit-tier feminist daughter and her globalist Jew husband. Edging towards a neocon foreign policy. Was he really that cornered? Oh well … let it burn.

Here are some pertinent observations about the air strike:

https://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2017/trumps-syria-strike-what-theyre-not-telling-you

excerpt:

The air strikes were limited to an airfield, yet the runway was unharmed, meaning the air base is still operational. Six MiG-23s were destroyed along with a storage depot, a training building, a canteen and a radar station. Six people were killed and several others wounded.

The Syrian government called the strike “blatant aggression,” but stopped short of calling it an act of war.

Russia was warned about the strike beforehand… and Russian officials likely warned Syria as well. “Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis. “U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.”

The strike was the “most limited” military option presented to Trump, according to the New York Times.

If this strike didn’t happen, and Trump went to Russia to forge an coalition to fight ISIS, the neo-cons in Congress and his administration would undermine him while claiming publicly he’s a “Russian puppet.” But now, with the strike, he can “deescalate” tensions with Russia into a coalition to fight ISIS under the guise of stopping bloodshed in Syria… which is really targeting ISIS, not Assad.

I have no time to debate Assad apologists on a site which attracts white supremacists who defend Putin; people who will not be swayed by facts. After all, so many of you assholes voted for Trump and still defend him. I wasn’t supportive of bombing in 2013 and I’m not supportive of bombing now. Your ridiculous defense of genocide and gassing of civilians is what you’ll have to live with.

Cheers.

Apparently, Mallam lacks my taste for virtual slumming. 😛

Sorry about the immature verbiage, Webstir. I guess I can’t help myself and I guess I won’t even try. Unless Ian Welsh tells me to clean up my language or get myself banned. That would clean up my language right quick-like.

DC, you’re joking, right?

If the Mahatma sees fit to allow white supremacists, Jew-haters, and other assorted deodorant cakes in the urinal of Evolution to post on his site, why do you think he’d ban a mere potty-mouth?

The Stephen Miller Band “Actually, Hillary would have been better than Trump in one regard. She’s predictable. ”

Nailed it…..

Q: Did Assad really use Sarin on his own people?

Nope not chance, we will wait for the Seymour Hersh expose (or someone else’s) that will prove that, like after 2013.

Note: Am I the only person with a memory?

Minor little details, Syria gave up all its chemical weapons a couple of years ago…. And why would they want to use them? They are winning against the Al Qaeda led Sunni Wahabbi jihadists (that everyone seems to love so much) …plus there is NO way Russia would let them….especially given that there is a coordinated joint command structure there where all attacks (ground or air) are carefully controlled.

And all those people running around after the attack..without hazmat suits…sarin persists for a long time and it will kill you through skin contact.

Seymour Hersh prove last time it was the Jihadists that did the attack in 2013….and Obama didn’t back off from attacking Syria then because of politics…it was because he got incontrovertible proof it was not the Syrian Govt….via the US military no less.

From yet another brilliant investigative journalist Robert Parry (not many left now) .
“Even as The New York Times leads the charge against the Syrian government for this week’s alleged chemical attack, it is quietly retreating on its earlier certainty about the 2013 Syria-sarin case, reports Robert Parry.”

“Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh further demolished the Assad-sarin myth in an article that traced the chemicals back to Turkish intelligence, but the mainstream U.S. media was so hostile to any dissenting view on the Assad-did-it groupthink that Hersh had to publish his findings in the London Review of Books.

Later, Turkish police and opposition officials corroborated much of Hersh’s findings – and I’ve been told that U.S. intelligence analysts now agree, at least generally, with Hersh’s conclusions.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/06/nyt-retreats-on-2013-syria-sarin-claims/

—————————
The best available evidence at this moment was that an airstrike hit a chemical dump owned by the Jihadists.

One pretty knowledgeable US military commentator put up this scenario:
“Here is what happened:
-The Russians briefed the United States on the proposed target. This is a process that started more than two months ago. There is a dedicated phone line that is being used to coordinate and deconflict (i.e., prevent US and Russian air assets from shooting at each other) the upcoming operation.
-The United States was fully briefed on the fact that there was a target in Idlib that the Russians believes was a weapons/explosives depot for Islamic rebels.
-The Syrian Air Force hit the target with conventional weapons. All involved expected to see a massive secondary explosion. That did not happen. Instead, smoke, chemical smoke, began billowing from the site.
-It turns out that the Islamic rebels used that site to store chemicals, not sarin, that were deadly. The chemicals included organic phosphates and chlorine and they followed the wind and killed civilians.
-There was a strong wind blowing that day and the cloud was driven to a nearby village and caused casualties.

-We know it was not sarin. How? Very simple. The so-called “first responders” handled the victims without gloves. If this had been sarin they would have died. Sarin on the skin will kill you. How do I know? I went through “Live Agent” training at Fort McClellan in Alabama.

-There are members of the U.S. military who were aware this strike would occur and it was recorded. There is a film record. At least the Defense Intelligence Agency knows that this was not a chemical weapon attack. In fact, Syrian military chemical weapons were destroyed with the help of Russia.”

—————————–
It will take a few days to confirm what actually happened, maybe even through video evidence.

Note that the jihadists might not have been storing their own chemical weapons, a lot of the stuff often used to make explosives are very toxic.

Sarcasm: On the plus side a 30,000+ megaton nuclear exchange between the US and Russia will fix global warming ..permanently no less since it will end the human race. And wasn’t Armageddon supposed to be in Syria so all the ‘christian’ extremists will be happy…for a short, a very short time.

Great News, Folks!

From CNN Breaking News:

Russian warship armed with cruise missiles heads to area of Mediterranean from which US launched missiles at Syria cnn.it/2pcTYgD

Looks like the DNC/RNC GOP/Dem Neolib/Neocon political establishment might finally get the war they so desperately wanted.

Yay?

I had other things I was going to say, but saw this on my twitter feed, and, well, most of it pales into insignificance. Maybe tomorrow. Except I owe several of you thanks for the kind words and for generally writing comments that are informative and/or thought-provoking and/or interesting to read.

This is why I wrote in Bernie/Tulsi.

Hoping & praying the (entirely predictable and predicted) situation breaks the right way instead of the wrong way . . .

Very entertaining to see so much energy put into raging on about a situation where nobody knows yet what the essential facts actually are.

@RC

I think Trump produced the critical fact that Assad will pay a price now for his actions that were differed or even condoned in the past. I think Trump still wants Putin to deal with Assad and handle the civil part of the Syria conflict. The Russian’s imperial designs for Syria shouldn’t conflict with US plans for the IS so long as Assad is eased out somehow in the future.

The growing détente between Trump and Putin may have been what triggered Assad’s actions, driving a wedge between them being seen as a protection from being an expendable pawn in the Great Game. The other power that no one seems to mention, Iran, has deeply penetrated Assad’s Syria especially the military so they are definitely influencing events.

Congratulations, Ian. Seems your site has become notable enough to warrant infestation with Clintonite trolls. Perhaps if they don’t get overmuch attention, they’ll trundle back to riverdaughter’s site or similar environs where they can happily rub bullshit in each other’s hair. Unless of course they’re still on payroll and gearing up for the next round in 2020.

Anybody see any dead animals at the attack site or even an attack site?

If anyone deserves to be banned, it should be this H3llaryBot, substance-free, fact-free, ad-hominem attacker of other commenters here, Deplorable, hypocrite, moron, troll Ivory Bill Woodpecker.

I skimmed & commented on a H3llaryB0t blog occasionally during the 2016, to get a sense if of what the center-right Corp Dem H1llary “grass roots”, if it actually existed, was stating. I cited facts & logic, not stooping to the gutter IBW level of ad hominem attacks. Yet IBW stayed crying like a schoolgirl that I should be banned, which his Dear Leader blog author, who in turn follows Dear Leader H3llary in cult-like fashion, eventually did ban me. IBW, the lackey of a lackey, or actually a 3rd level lackey if one considers that H3llary herself is just a paid hack lackey of Wall $treet, the MIC, etc.

IBW keeps stating that Sanders social democratic positions, ala Canada-style MedicareForAll having 55% USians support, are “far-left” & equivalent to far-right fascists because “Horseshoe Theory”. Apparently to IBW the majority of USians are “far-left”, yet this these policies are unelectable.

Yes, I stooped to IBW’s level, in engaged in ad hominem attacks in this comment. I did it 1 time, IBW has done it 4,080+ times & counting.

@ Peter

If getting the facts straight before I pontificate with certainty makes me a “Sgt. Schultz” in your eyes, I guess I’ll have to live with that.

Waiting for clarity does not at all impede my ability to appreciate the ridiculous contortions of those who rage on without knowing the facts, or having any general comprehension about the situations they love to carry on about. And, lest you have any doubts, my enjoyment in this area exceeds any I might ever hope to get from the purchase of a movie ticket lol.

Not regretting my vote for Trump yet. I never expected him to be infallible, but I am getting a lot of what I hoped for. So far. 🙂

@RC

We will probably never have clarity about much of what happens in these war zones but the probability of who’s responsible can be increased or decreased with new evidence. The report of the drone surveillance of the gas attack scene and the following bombing attack on the hospital treating the victims kicks the probability meter into the red. I appreciate why you take a cautious approach but others especially politicians would have used this for their own hawkish agenda while other people tried to drag out the deliberations for their own self-interest.

Trump had to either act or submit there really wasn’t another option. This cruise missile attack was more than an attack it was a demonstration to show Assad he is personally vulnerable even with Russian air defenses. The fact that the air strip was untouched was another message that Trump and the US military want Assad and the Russians to continue their air war against the extremist groups that we have also bombed.

I’m impressed by Trump’s progress on his agendas so far, he seem to be a couple steps ahead of the resistance and not getting distracted. The media and the pundits only seem to have palace intrigues to carp about and I am prone to think they are their own creations or they are being fed a storyline by Trump’s people to keep them distracted.

@ Peter

I don’t mind waiting for more clarity re the essential Syria facts, or at least not as much as I would mind declaring an opinion and then learning I was wrong lol.

I am getting to where I am comfortable declaring my opinion that Trump is at least twice as smart as any of those who are putting all their energies into trying to trump up faux outrage against him vis a vis every single news items that comes along.

I keep seeing examples where he magically gets a resolution that suits his purpose and interest. Not that that means his purpose and interest always line up with my own–e.g. Witness how he just got the idiot Dems to ‘throw him into the briar patch’ where he can now appoint any caveman Supreme Court judge he chooses with a simple majority.

But I also see where he seems to move the big picture in good and necessary ways, e.g. political correctness continues to be discredited, gun control advocacy continues to be discredited, American over-passivity in foreign affairs continues to be discredited, the Democratic Party continues to be discredited.

‘Tis an ill wind that blows no good, and, I guess, a good wind that blows no ill lol. A concept which seems to be too difficult to grasp for those who refuse to rise above their accustomed binary thought framing.

IBW “logic”, not reading ALL comments, & thus not replying to a comment by a person IBW states is “Naz1″s, IBW states is supporting “Naz1s”.

I do not read ALL comments, I have no idea who you are referring to.

If anyone clearly does support “Naz1s”, it is IBW’s Cultist Dear Leader H3llary, whose supported, via her statements & her incompetent & warmongering appointments such as Victoria Nuland during H3llary’s failed incompetent role as Sec of State, the 2014 Ukraine Coup of the elected Ukraine government. The Ukraine Coup group had a strong faction which was Naz1, & paid homage to H1tl3r.

IBW, you could read award winning investigative journalist Robert Parry of ConstortiumNews for the details, if i am not overestimating your literacy level & you can read at a high school level.

As far IBW’s laughable statement that social democratic policy advocates being “far left” & equivalent to Naz1s, this puts the majority of USians, Sanders, FD Roosevelt, current Nordic nations which DOMINATE in the Top10 nations of all the global socioeconomic & social justice indicators like low poverty, life expectancy, etc, as “far left”.

ML King Jr, perhaps the best moral leader in USian history, a self-described democratic socialist, was more left than social democrats. Would IBW then state ML King Jr is even worse than Naz1s?

IBW, H3llaryB0t “logic”, perhaps even more moronic than C0nManD0n & his fans’ statements.

Actually, PND, I respect the Nordic social democracies, and I think I would like Scandinavian-style social democracy just fine.

However, I complete my 54th solar orbit in May, and I have seen my fellow non-elite white Murkans brainwashed, through skillful manipulation of their vacuum-skulled bigotries, into choosing plutocracy over and over again. They have repeatedly sacrificed their own self-interest to make sure those “unworthy” people don’t get any scraps of taxpayer-subsidized necessities, of life and of civilized life.

My Volk consists, by and large, of morons, or should I say “morans”? 😉

I suspect they will continue cutting off their noses to spite their faces, and so the only thing that will ever bring social democracy to the USA is a thumping majority of non-white voters.

You believe otherwise, because you have *POLLS* that say so.

I lack your faith in the reliability of *POLLS*–to name one of many reasons, did not *POLLS* tell us that Hillary would be Preznit now?