50+ Cruise Missiles just launched and hit Syria

[ApatheticAustrian]

Any Dem 2020 potential candidate should be disqualified if they support this.

what exactly?

a limited strike as retaliation to scare a dictator from gassing his own people, after informing the local super-power to prevent a bigger war and including the promise, that this isn't a change of your general policy?

[publicunofficial]

Any Dem 2020 potential candidate should be disqualified if they support this.

Hillary Clinton supports it you know.

I am well aware.

Side note: MSNBC is a goddamn horror show right now.

[RI]

So no one died, some military infrastructure was destroyed, and a message was sent. Not seeing a downside here.

[henster]

So Russians and likely Syrians were warned before the attack and no casualties and little damage according to that tweet. Hmmm...

[Person Man]

From @SenSchumer: “Making sure Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price is the right thing to do."
https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/850176931920318464


Thank God, soldiers at Al-Shayrat said no casualties. No Russians hit. Most missiles struck the same area on the airfield.
https://twitter.com/leithfadel/status/850170441863966720

WHEW!!!

I don't want to get into conspiracies but I could imagine Putin/Trump having a talk and staging an attack.

[Sumner 1868]

So no one died, some military infrastructure was destroyed, and a message was sent. Not seeing a downside here.

The "message" being what exactly? The war on terror is borderline permanent? I think most of us suspected that already.

[Lincoln Republican]

I said a year or two ago to bomb Syria's air fields and fighter planes.

But no, Obama was too much of a wimp to take any action.

If they had listened to me, innocent children and babies would not have been attacked with chemical weapons by that monster Assad.

Good for Trump.  At least he has some guts, which is more than I can say for Obama.  

[Sumner 1868]

Any Dem 2020 potential candidate should be disqualified if they support this.

^^^^^

[Adam Griffin]

This is all about an approval bump - and judging by some of the spineless responses from anti-Trump posters in this thread, it's going to work.

What a bunch of suckers.

[swf541]

Should be noted al-masdar is not reputable and is a pro regime outlet

[ApatheticAustrian]

So no one died, some military infrastructure was destroyed, and a message was sent. Not seeing a downside here.

The "message" being what exactly?

kill your own people only with burning barrels and bullets.

[Antonio the Sixth]

For the record, I fully support this.

I hope my fellow leftists don't go back into full reflexive isolationist mode.

[Blue3]

So no one died, some military infrastructure was destroyed, and a message was sent. Not seeing a downside here.

The "message" being what exactly? The war on terror is borderline permanent? I think most of us suspected that already.

This wasn't against a terrorist group, unless that's how you label Assad's government.

The message is: this time, we mean it when we say "don't gas your own people," and there WILL be consequences.

[The Dowager Mod]

So they just lobbed 70.5 million dollars worth of missiles at Syria to put a hole in a runway.

[SteveRogers]

If we in any tangible way diminished the ability of the Syrian military to use chemical weapons against their citizens, then I support tonight's strike. But that doesn't mean there aren't reasons to have grave concerns about what this means for the United States going forward. What do we do next time Assad commits an atrocity? How many times can we dip a toe into this conflict before we get sucked all the way in? Do we have a plan going forward? You can support this strike in principle and still have serious reservations about the implications.

[Crumpets]

If we in any tangible way diminished the ability of the Syrian military to use chemical weapons against their citizens, then I support tonight's strike. But that doesn't mean there aren't reasons to have grave concerns about what this means for the United States going forward. What do we do next time Assad commits an atrocity? How many times can we dip a toe into this conflict before we get sucked all the way in? Do we have a plan going forward? You can support this strike in principle and still have serious reservations about the implications.

I agree with this. I'm trying to withhold judgement until the dust settles both literally and figuratively and we can find out 1) if we actually achieved any military goals and 2) whether this "warning shot" so-to-speak effectively hampered Assad's enthusiasm to use chemical weapons.

The wild card is Russia, and whether this changes their stances of "Assad must be defended pretty much regardless," and "meh, Trump's okay compared to these other guys." This is the first time those two mindsets have been at conflict with one another.

[Phony Moderate]

This is all about an approval bump - and judging by some of the spineless responses from anti-Trump posters in this thread, it's going to work.

What a bunch of suckers.

'Spineless' would be ditching your actual, genuine beliefs because Trump agrees with them.

[JA]

For the record, I fully support this.

I hope my fellow leftists don't go back into full reflexive isolationist mode.

Personally, I'm not opposed to this strike or even similar ones that send the message to al-Assad that chemical attacks are intolerable. However, I'd be adamantly opposed to a full-scale intervention.

[JohnCA246]

I don't really have a formed opinion on this yet. I certainly understand the arguments against doing this and am very troubled by the loss of life this can cause. My question though is, should there be an international ban on chemical warfare? If so, how else would it be enforced in cases like this other than a strike?

I ask this honestly because I am genuinely interested.

[Person Man]

For all we know, this was just a publicity stunt..especially if this was a one off thing.

[Foucaulf]

For the record, I fully support this.

I hope my fellow leftists don't go back into full reflexive isolationist mode.

I guess naive leftism really does devolve into neoconservatism in the end - empirical fact exists in the social sciences after all.

[Crumpets]

I don't really have a formed opinion on this yet. I certainly understand the arguments against doing this and am very troubled by the loss of life this can cause. My question though is, should there be an international ban on chemical warfare? If so, how else would it be enforced in cases like this other than a strike?

I ask that honestly because I am genuinely interested.

There is an international Chemical Weapons Convention which entered into force in 1997 and has been ratified by every country except Egypt, Israel, South Sudan, Palestine, and North Korea. (FTR, Israel has signed the treaty). Syria has both signed and ratified the convention.

The treaty is "administered" by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which can be thought of as a chemical weapons equivalent of the IAEA.

Syria is further legally compelled to eliminate its chemical stockpile by UNSC Resolution 2118, which all members of the UNSC voted for. This was supposed to be the "no-strike" option, and appeared to work for a while. The fact that it didn't work is pretty much what left us with the option of "missile strike or ignore."

Theoretically, if we wanted to "enforce" these resolutions, it would come down to the UNSC passing a resolution similar to UNSC Resolution 1973, which paved the way for NATO intervention in Libya. However, Russia would be extremely opposed to such a resolution, leading to the question of "at what point do we just ignore Russia and go in to save people's lives?"

If Russia were on board with foreign intervention, but we didn't want a missile strike, the only course of action left would be some sort of UN-administration of all Syrian missile sites, seeing as Russian oversight of weapons dismantlement evidently didn't work - fat chance of that happening

[Adam Griffin]

This is all about an approval bump - and judging by some of the spineless responses from anti-Trump posters in this thread, it's going to work.

What a bunch of suckers.

'Spineless' would be ditching your actual, genuine beliefs because Trump agrees with them.

Don't worry: they'll all be crying about how bad full-scale war is once again after their rah-rahing inevitably leads us into another one.

[pbrower2a]

May the Devil take the soul of Bashir Assad -- now.

I'm not going to predict how well this goes.

...What did we do to Satan Hussein when he gassed the Kurds? Nothing.  

[Person Man]

For the record, I fully support this.

I hope my fellow leftists don't go back into full reflexive isolationist mode.

I guess naive leftism really does devolve into neoconservatism in the end - empirical fact exists in the social sciences after all.

And naive rightism?