Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[CountDeMoney]

Why would you "say yes" when asking "Would Obama have done the same thing as Trump in reaction to Assad's chemical attack?", when you already know the answer was "No' in 2013?  Survey says: derniggerhater is being a dick!

Which is why you need to have a crockpot full of all your favorite fat black wifefucking cock spill all over your face.

[derspiess]

Well, I would think that at the second (ish) occurrence, Obama would have said "enough" and would have taken action as Trump did.  But I do get a kick out of you putting Trump over Obama in this case. 

As far as I'm concerned, we should stay the hell out, whomever the prez may be.

[Tamas]

I did NOT expect to be waking up to the prelude of WW3. What the fuck

[The Brain]

We're all going to die

Garlic breath won't kill you. But it won't exactly make you stronger either.

[jimmy olsen]

My take.

I'm for bombing people who use chemical weapons on civilians.

However, this a stunning about face for Trump who campaigned on supporting Assad in the Civil War for more than a year.

Assad has committed countless atrocities over the last five years, but a flashy one while Trump is president is all that's needed to change his mind. Why? Why now, and not before? Probably because he's an easily influenced rube who listens to the last person he spoke to. The pathological need to look tough is also a factor. He's meeting Xi soon after all and wants to threaten unilateral action against North Korea.

Does Trump and his adminsitration have any plan on how to manage the fall out in Syria? Any plan on how to end this long drawn out war. It doesn't seem so.

[Tamas]

My take.

I'm for bombing people who use chemical weapons on civilians.

However, this a stunning about face for Trump who campaigned on supporting Assad in the Civil War for more than a year.

Assad has committed countless atrocities over the last five years, but a flashy one while Trump is president is all that's needed to change his mind. Why? Why now, and not before? Probably because he's an easily influenced rube who listens to the last person he spoke to. The pathological need to look tough is also a factor. He's meeting Xi soon after all and wants to threaten unilateral action against North Korea.

Does Trump and his adminsitration have any plan on how to manage the fall out in Syria? Any plan on how to end this long drawn out war. It doesn't seem so.

When was the last time an American administration had a more elaborate plan than 1. Bomb 2. ?????? 3. Democracy! , huh?

[garbon]

My take.

I'm for bombing people who use chemical weapons on civilians.

However, this a stunning about face for Trump who campaigned on supporting Assad in the Civil War for more than a year.

Assad has committed countless atrocities over the last five years, but a flashy one while Trump is president is all that's needed to change his mind. Why? Why now, and not before? Probably because he's an easily influenced rube who listens to the last person he spoke to. The pathological need to look tough is also a factor. He's meeting Xi soon after all and wants to threaten unilateral action against North Korea.

Does Trump and his adminsitration have any plan on how to manage the fall out in Syria? Any plan on how to end this long drawn out war. It doesn't seem so.

When was the last time an American administration had a more elaborate plan than 1. Bomb 2. ?????? 3. Democracy! , huh?

I don't think most American administrations have thought that.

[garbon]

I really like how even on this the Trump administration can't stick to one story. Pentagon has that they had several conversations with Russia in advance about this. Our new secretary of state says no conversations have been had with Russia before or after regarding the strike...

[Tamas]

I really like how even on this the Trump administration can't stick to one story. Pentagon has that they had several conversations with Russia in advance about this. Our new secretary of state says no conversations have been had with Russia before or after regarding the strike...

I really hope they had the common sense to warn the Russians before they showered one of the airfields used by them.

[CountDeMoney]

Well, I would think that at the second (ish) occurrence, Obama would have said "enough" and would have taken action as Trump did.  But I do get a kick out of you putting Trump over Obama in this case. 

It is not a matter of putting one over another; you even have to ask, after all these years and after all these deaths what exactly did last night prove, other than Donald needed to waive his dick around in front of Xi.

[grumbler]

No shit.  It was the previous guy's fault.

And Haig's.

Trump already opened that envelope.

[frunk]

Trump already opened that envelope.

I'll be thrilled when I see three brand new envelopes on Trump's desk.

[Valmy]

Question for the forum: Would Obama have done the same thing as Trump in reaction to Assad's chemical attack?  I say: yes.

Yes. He was dropping bombs and stuff in Syria anyway. Hell he was all ready to go in before Kerry accidentally gave Russia and Assad an out.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Eh, I think Trump basically listened to McMaster and Mattis and did what they said. Both are good dudes and neither is the raging warmonger that liberal press sometimes present upper level generals as being.

If you look at last night's strikes and are trying to figure out how they solve the Syrian war, in that context they make little sense. I'd go so far as to say if Trump pushes the thought that they somehow do that, then I'd say he's looking at the situation very stupidly.

There is no real play for the U.S. to fix Syria, and at the end of the day Assad winning that war is probably better than any of his opponents winning that war, because they're all crazy jihadists. But the U.S. has held the position for decades that we don't tolerate the use of chemical/biological/nuclear weapons, and various international bodies and treaties have also basically tried to establish that as an international norm. Part of why Clinton bombed Iraq during his Presidency was over stuff just like this (albeit in Saddam's case it was non-compliance with a chemical weapons disarmament programme.)

By striking a limited amount of Syrian assets we basically have established that we're willing to impose costs on Assad if he chooses to continue using chemical weapons. To be quite honest, that's the position Obama should have taken. I think Obama's core instinct that deep involvement, in terms of trying to pick winners and losers, commit ground troops and etc in Syria is a huge mistake was 100% correct, Obama did good to keep us from getting into that war anymore than we did. But I'd argue Obama was, in a sense, right to draw the famed 'red line', because he's basically just enforcing international norms the U.S. had been behind for decades. Where Obama went wrong is he wasn't willing to take action to punish Assad for violating those norms, I think Obama was basically afraid of where it might lead. Escalation with Russia, potentially drawing us into a ground conflict and etc. I don't think that was ever the required outcome, to be frank I think if Obama had done something like this there's a decent chance it'd play out much as it has: Russia would bitch and moan, Assad would be upset, but it probably doesn't long term change anything between America/Russia/Assad. It doesn't make us any more likely to invade Syria, it doesn't make Russia any more likely to say, start shooting our planes down (or trying to); particularly by giving a warning before the strike I think we basically set the tone "this is a fine for bad behavior", if we were trying to start a full war with any of the involved parties we could've done it a lot differently.

Was Trump trying to send a message to Xi? Maybe. Was Trump trying to do something to curry good ratings/press coverage? Maybe. But I think at the end of the day his response was limited and largely in line with U.S. foreign policy norms, at least on stuff like this Obama was a deviation. Obama was basically the lone guy in his administration that was 100% opposed to doing stuff like this, most of them had advocated limited actions like this. Hillary Clinton said in her first post-election interview we should be willing to bomb Assad's air force. In a sense Obama was so unwilling to risk even angering Russia and so paranoid that he'd end up in a George W. Bush style Iraq War that he was overly cautious, and he of course was the only one in his administration with a vote.

In a way you can see Russia was playing this out with the expectation the Obama Doctrine was a new norm for U.S. behavior. Syria does this chemical attack, then denies it. Russia supports this denial, says "we nee to do an investigation", then the U.S. attacks Syria basically ignoring this line of thought. Russia gets mad because they were hoping we'd behave like we did with Obama at the helm. It's a weird situation because Obama is a smart dude and Trump is an imbecile, and "deep engagement" in Syria is almost certainly a mistake; but in the specifics I think Trump's actions are superior than Obama's. Whether or not it was ultimately a mistake will come down to how we follow up. If we view it as the prelude to more, and Trump takes it too far it'll be really bad. If Trump is able to correctly view it as what it is: a slap on the wrist that basically should be intended solely to curtail the use of chemical weapons, then I think we'll be okay. Likewise if he uses chemical weapons again, a good response would be to blow up a little more of their air force. The risk is we do something crazy in response to more provocations, but if we can establish the norm of: use chemical weapons, lose military assets you need for the war; I think we'll be fine.

[CountDeMoney]

Trump already opened that envelope.

I'll be thrilled when I see three brand new envelopes on Trump's desk.

Subpoenas usally don't come in envelopes.