General News US with the help of the UK and France are dropping bombs on Assad's regime

They always say its going to be contained. They always say their bombs are ‘precision strikes’. For how much longer will we continue to believe this garbage?

That the The Banker in Paris has joined in on this little escapade should be no comfort to the USA.

For now, maybe it is time to reflect on why, no matter who you elect, the USA is so intent on non-stop war?

 

I fully understand Mrs May's stance. Perhaps she really does have more evidence than we do. I'm not in the position of having that evidence - if indeed it exists. But if I did have that evidence and if I was in her position I'd do the same as her. But if they are jumping to conclusions with no more evidence than we see then I'm with Corbyn.

As for France joining in, it's far better than just the US to be acting alone or just the US and Britain. We know full well that the US could act alone, but it's better that they have support from notable others. We know that Israel could do it alone but Israel is keeping out of it all of course.

Although it's easy to say that bombs are bombs, the addition of a chemical or even biological element to bombs does have intent to cause further harm and mayhem for survivors and medics. So, I can see why a thin red line is drawn regarding the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

If Assad's regime did add chemicals to those bombs then it would have been a calculated decision - showing a wish and a will to cause more casualties, extra damage and of cause more suffering. Assad is weak. Proof of that is that he needs Russia, and that even with Russia his regime has failed to win yet. This war has been going on for 8 years now hasn't it? Perhaps he is getting desperate... Anyway, who is backing those rebels - it surely has to be big money or maybe a State...

As for Russia using tactical chemical compounds on the Skripals, again I don't have the evidence. Perhaps they have evidence I don't see...

So, if the US bombed Syria last night because they had extra evidence, then fine. If they bombed Syria but don't have more evidence than we can see then not fine.

So, this bombing is to deter both Russia and Syria and anyone else from using chemicals in the future. And if no line is drawn here then they / others might well use chemicals, etc, against their enemies in the future. But I bet that little consideration was given to what chemicals might be released on Damascus from bombing supposed chemical manufacturing and storage sites...

 

Your use of "apparently" is nice. Are we just being fed a story? Interesting.

 

What surprises me is that it's okay to kill Syrian people with other weapons but not with chemical weapons, wtf logic. Humanity is a joke!

 

At face value, their thinking would be that bombing Syria is necessary to stop future use of chemical weapons by Syria and by anyone else. Things aren't black and white. Yes, all bombing is very destructive, but adding chemicals to the bombs is worse.

 

I understand that they want to send a clear message to not use chemical weapons, but we have to admit that Syrians lives are less important than other countries' economic and political interests, be it allies or enemies.

 

Mission creep is not so much a secret conspiracy as a messy unfolding of policy (eg. the NATO intervention in Libya). Precision strikes will often be ordered in order to stop a particular harm, such as chemical attacks. Then it becomes clear that it's insufficient to stop the harm, so the mission extends into other objectives incidental to the primary reason the attack was ordered. So the targeting of chemical weapons storage sites can become attacks on the supply chain of chemical weapons and so on. The failure to fulfil the terms of

This does not create new war. There is an appalling war in Syria whose origin is domestic, backed by an aggressive, interventionist Russian foreign policy. In the weigh-up, it is unlikely more Syrians will die by US-UK-French hands than by doing nothing.

There is a problem though. It isn't hyperbolic fears about Western warmongering. It is why the West has failed to articulate a clear or adequate response to what is clearly a situation of continuing atrocities. Assad will not stop brutalising his people because a few chemical weapons are taken out of action. If, as looks likely, he ultimately wins the war, the brutality will cease to take a military character but will be equally as repressive, violent and culturally destrictive as shelling suburbs. This doesn't stop that seemingly inevitable outcome, so it's almost impossible to see how it won't be either a failure or turn into mission creep.

My concern with this strike is that it's not enough to shape the course of the war, nor has a coherent case for intervention been put to Western publics. On top of that, the failure to observe the 'red line' regarding Assad's use of chemical weapons in 2013 means the US response isn't as coherent as it could be in setting a normative statement. When it first happened, no significant military response followed when Assad was not as strong as he is now. Now that it's happening, it feels belated and somewhat ineffectual against a regime which has regained a great deal of territory.

 

It's a mess I agree, but if the strikes are contained to targeting chemical weapons facilities and those tactical points which deliver them (command posts, air units) then I support it. It's not black and white and I wouldn't want to be the one making the call as there is always the chance of getting it wrong but sometimes a line must be drawn and the evidence (what we have seen and of course we have not seen it all) seems to support it. Entering into any armed conflict is never to be taken lightly but unfortunately in the world we live sometimes it's necessary. I just hope we don't decide to put troops on the ground as we all saw what a cock up Iraq turned into (a war that to my mind was not justified and should not have been fought).
I'm not too concerned about Russia to be honest. I think the most they will do is thier usual tactic of supplying equipment and advisers. I don't believe we are in danger of a nuclear conflict (I grew up through the cold war and we are not at that point yet) even with the Orange moron in the White House and another nut job in the Kremlin. Russia will bluster and threaten but it is really a paper tiger.

What we unfortunately have is a US president who can't keep his mouth shut and has zero capacity to think before tweeting, is a joke on the world stage and is easy to wind up (Lil Kim is playing this for all he is worth). However he can't "push the button" without going through a lot of hoops so as in the cold war I have to believe that cooler heads will prevail.

I sincerely hope that any strikes that continue only target specific points and will be a short run to disable Assads ability to use chemical weapons. One proposed solution is to get UN troops in there to "police it" (which could work but they would need a detailed operational plan) but Putin keeps vetoing this.

As an aside I am relieved that our pilots (British Tornadoes were used, not sure if French jets flew as well) are safe.

It's a mess as I said and it seems that humanity has an inability to learn from the past and create a peaceful world.

 

Aussie792: You have expertly articulated the situation better than I could.

 

A good concern but how do you know what was targeted and what was not? I have a saying for the news media. If they get facts 50% right they are doing well. There's a lot of "things" going on during an exercise of this nature.

I'm actually a little more hawkish now than in the past. Putin reminds me of a jerky bully kid in grade school. No body really likes him. Everyone fears him. No one wants to interact with him. One day the bully kid wrongly pics on a mild mannered fellow who no one really knows much about. (we've all seen this type in grade school) The bully kid gets right in the mild mannered kids face. The mild mannered kid steps back. The bully kid advances. All of sudden, within milliseconds the mild mannered kid hits the bully in the face breaking his nose. The bully kid falls to the ground in pain.

The bully kid has been publicly shamed. He is no longer the bad ass everyone fears. Life gets better for everyone at the school.

True story.

Did you know Indian people on average have a higher standard of living than average, Russian people? What does that say? This says everyday Russians and suffering from their bully kid.

 

It already is a long drawn out war. Those people have been enduring war there for 8 years. 8 years of war is incomprehensible to me.

 

An 8 year long war is terrible for sure, but it's not really that strange. the American revolutionary war was 8 years, World War II was 6 years, Iraq was 8 years, Afghanistan is up to 17 years from the American side of it. So Syria is pretty much par for the course of significant government toppling wars.

 

Agreed. And the outcome of wars is variable, too. Some outcomes seem to have been for the better, and some for the worse. Then there was the Iran-Iraqt that had no outcome change at all. They used chemical warfare on each other in that war I think - well, the Iraqis used it - but there wasn't the great furore back then. And it was much more blatantly used then, just not on civilians. Wasn't that as bad? Hmmm, was it having been in the Cold War era that made for no furore that time?

 

This is a very scary escalation with Russia. We already got a response from Russian officials: "U.S. ACTIONS WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES"
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/984981185796497408
The media is STILL pushing the "Putin's puppet" narrative (bombing Syria to cover up collusion? Really?), and many are arguing that the attack wasn't aggressive ENOUGH. These are from so-called liberal outlets like MSNBC. They have lost their minds.
The only good news is that this should be a one-time deal. I really hope so, because if this continues and becomes another Iraq, next year we can expect the doomsday clock to stand at one minute until midnight.

 

And if they find that no chemicals were used? Would they admit that?

It won't be possible for Russia and Syria to cover it all up. So if no proof of chemical bombing is found? I know chemicals dissipate but...

I mean, in Salisbury, where only a tiny amount of a nerve agent was used by whomever did it they are doing huge "clean ups".

So if nothing is found on that area in Syria being inspected now, then claims that it was cleaned up in the past 11 days or so won't wash with me. And they are likely to find leaked chemicals that conventional bombing hit anyway.

 

Having just taken an International Relations college class which had a large focus on Syria, it's really amazing to me how deep this war gets and how many sides there are. The media only really talks about the U.S., Russia, and Syria but there are tons of other nations involved too. Even small ones you'd never expect would care (Luxembourg for example has a large financial interest in it, and Ghana has soldiers there that are never talked about).

The drama and weird threats like Trump has been causing most likely have nothing to do with what he actually says, it appears to be a way to manipulate the other countries involved in a way that benefits him.

For example, Trump says something dumb like "look out Russia" but doesn't actually care if Russia even hears it. All the other countries maintaining silent interests in the conflict start picking sides expecting a bigger conflict though, which results in them trying to show the U.S. what good allies they'd be with gifts and political meetings, giving the U.S. more chances to expand their influence and accumulate power. Trump never has to actually do anything, just keep talking and keep getting more power thrown at him.

 

A good short video concisely explaining the background to all this and part of the complexity if anyone is interested: