Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[DBTrek]

100 million dollars would have been a nice sum to hire more ICE agents to round up the Mexican illegals, especially those affiliated with criminal gangs who continue to murder our citizens. Thanks Donald. Maybe we can try winning next time.

The missiles were already built long before DT was prez.
The money was already spent.

So it's not like he pulled cash out of your pocket, threw it into a magician's hat, and pulled out a tomahawk missile instead of an ICE agent.

The only choice DT made was whether we had a hundred million dollars of paperweights, or a hundred million dollars of ACT RIGHT to drop on some serial murderer's infrastructure.

[Ex-California]

The reason for my doubt about Assad using Sarin is that it doesn't make any strategic sense at all.

Fair enough.

I actually dropped into the forums under the misguided hope that Smitty had something intelligent to say about the strike.
Love that guy's military analysis when he's on point, but today is not the day, eh?

Well, sorry to dissapoint, but, from a military analytical standpoint, it's farcical, blatantly a politcal stunt, entirely for domestic American consumption, entirely related to the partisan bun fight, Monica Lewinski drill, to the point of being cliche, I can't make it into a sound and operationally relevant military operation with any purpose other than that, when its clearly not. It's so silly, that trying to take it seriously would be silly in of itself. /shrugs

Thank god for you Smitty.

SO much for America First right boys?

[Speaker to Animals]

The money was spent when we used 59 missiles to create a hole on an abandoned tarmac, and 59 more missiles were requisitioned to replace them.

[DBTrek]

The money was spent when we used 59 missiles to create a hole on an abamoney tarmac, and 59 more missiles were requisitioned to replace them.

Pics or it didn't happen.
I'm betting the military contracts for tomahawks are still at current levels, not +59.
But all I need is evidence to change my mind.

[Smitty-48]

The inherent danger here does not require much in depth military analysis, you all know what it is, the danger is clearly that the ever escalating and utterly absurd American domestic partisan political bun fight, is now bleeding over into the realm of the nuclear Balance of Terror, first Obama and now Trump, are trucking out things like "RED LINE" and "WARNING SHOTS", not with some defenseless third world patsy who could not reach America to retaliate, but with the Russians, who could blow us all away in an afternoon, again, just by mistake, and not for any seriously considered nor operational purpose, but simply as talking point cudgels grasped frivolously without consideration of the consequences.

"RED LINE" and "WARNING SHOT", the very definition of brink of nuclear war, are now being reduced to nothing more than partisan political buns for Red Team and Blue Team to hurl at each other accross the dinner table, but not in a vacuum, in the field as well, with the Russians, and their 8,000 thermonuclear warheads.

It ain't rocket science to say, that this is playing with nuclear fire, inherently so.

[DBTrek]

Is this the same Smitty that was crowing abouthow cowardly we were for not vaporizing countless Russian soldiers with yesterday's strike?

Seems conflicted.

One minute the USA is a bunch of pansies for not attacking Russians directly, now we're a bunch of idiots playing dangerous games that might ultimately lead to us provoking the Russians.

Send a resume to the New York Times, Smitty. I think you're their kind of guy.

[Smitty-48]

Just to be clear, if this was the Cold War, say, 1983, and President Reagan had declared a "RED LINE", and had just, upon a Soviet proxy crossing it, issued "WARNING SHOTS", you would be well past time to be digging you bomb shelters, because it would 10 seconds to midnight at the brink.

Now, it's true, this is not the Cold War, this is not 1983, but at the same time, the associated Balance of Terror is still in effect, at 15 minutes notice to launch, hair trigger alert, thus, we have begun to mix the paradigms, the unseriousness of the Post Cold War partisan political bun fight, with the still utterly serious nuclear Balance of Terror, which, is a witches brew, which I actually don't know where it would go, because in fact, we've been never actually been here before, but one things for sure, goofing around with the Balance of Terror, for solely domestic partisan political consumption, with absolutely no seriousness of the consequences in the field with the nukes, is bad Ju-Ju on steroids, anyway you slice it.

[Smitty-48]

Is this the same Smitty that was crowing abouthow cowardly we were for not vaporizing countless Russian soldiers with yesterday's strike?

Seems conflicted.

One minute the USA is a bunch of pansies for not attacking Russians directly, now we're a bunch of idiots playing dangerous games that might ultimately lead to us provoking the Russians.

Send a resume to the New York Times, Smitty. I think you're their kind of guy.

The issue is that you have declared "RED LINE" and fired "WARNING SHOTS" when you are not in fact serious about it at all, purely for domestic partisan politcal consumption, projecting to the Russians and everyone else, that "RED LINE" and "WARNING SHOT" is now just the Americans playing their silly partisan poltical games and so it doesn't mean anything anymore and it's not to be taken seriously, and indeed, that is an exponentially reckless approach in a nuclear armed paradigm, but to be clear, I would prefer that the United States would have completely steered clear of issuing any "RED LINE" here at all, and have not in anyway have then issued "WARNING SHOTS" upon said line being crossed, because I well know that it is not serious and so do the Russians.

My position is simply this; if you're going to issue "RED LINE" followed by "WARNING SHOTS", you'd better be fucking serious about it, if you're going to go there, you have to go all the way, to the North Cape, flags flying, pipes skirling, sabres glinting in the sun, to force the adversary to back down in the face of your resolve, because if you don't, the all your "RED LINES" and "WARNING SHOTS" from here on out, will be viewed as being empty handed bluffs, which then opens up a grey area so wide, you could drive 3500 MIRVs through it, without ever intending to.

[Speaker to Animals]

The Russians are going to flip the script on Washington. You better believe that. Our government have been funding and arming groups who have been launching chemical weapons attacks on people, including civilians, for years now.

What happens exactly when the Russians show up at the Security Council floor with corroborated evidence that our proxies are launching chemical weapons attacks. Should we expect cruise missile attacks on our FOBs?

[DBTrek]

The Russians are going to flip the script on Washington. You better believe that. Our government have been funding and arming groups who have been launching chemical weapons attacks on people, including civilians, for years now.

What happens exactly when the Russians show up at the Security Council floor with corroborated evidence that our proxies are launching chemical weapons attacks. Should we expect cruise missile attacks on our FOBs?

Yeah.
That's what's going to happen.

Because this is preschool and the Security Council is the preschool teacher.
They don't need any SC approval.
If they want to launch they can launch.

But they aren't launching, are they?
They're doing exactly what I said they would.
Nothing.