Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[Fife]

Honest question: How dumb is the Trump voting base? Is the same question: How dumb is the duopoly voting base?


What reasonable explanation is there for Assad gassing people in Syria?

[adwinistrator]

Tillerson: "Russia has failed on it's responsibility to get rid of Syria's chemical weapons. Either Russia has been complicit, or incompetent in it's ability to deliver"

They're directly antagonizing Russia, after probably killing some of their troops, while bombing a government that they back.

They notified the Russians before the strike, they cleared out in advance. It's all a PR stunt guys, I know you want it to be WWIII, but it isn't.

Have to agree... This seems much more akin to Clinton launching misses at Al Qaeda in '98, than Cheney/Rumsfeld years in the making shock and awe...

[Smitty-48]

WHO'S interest?

Trump's interest, it's an obvious ploy to change up the domestic narrative with an overseas military distraction, whenever an administration is feeling like they are in trouble, whether it's Monica Lewinski or Ryancare, whipping out the TLAM's is the go to play.

Just like an AUTHORITARIAN!! REEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

As long as no Russians were killed I would say this is a win.

Russia's response will likely be "not again" and Trump just put Putin in a tough spot. He can't walk away looking like a bitch.

The TLAMs were obviously not targeted at the heart of the matter, and deliberatley so, it's not like the Americans went downtown into the teeth of the Russian IADS to take Assad where he lives, they picked a peripheral target which wouldn't demand satisfaction, it's even plausible that the Russians would have been warned, just to make sure they didn't have their troops in the kill zone, really depends on whether and how many Russians are killed, if no Russian casualties, overt retaliation is not a must.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Again. There were Russians at the airbase.

[heydaralon]

In that Looming Tower book, the author talks about how some of the missiles fired in operation Infinite Reach did not explode. He said it is likely that AQ took these missiles and sold them for millions of dollars to Pakistan or China to reverse engineer. If that is true then they would have been a windfall for Bin Laden, who was pretty broke at the time. I wonder if ISIS does the same thing when it finds Russian or American hardware in the desert..

[StCapps]

Again. There were Russians at the airbase.

Again. They were warned beforehand.

[Smitty-48]

Well, if Russians were in the kill zone, there will have to be satisfaction, but still doesn't mean overt, again. the Russians aren't going to sink an aircraft carrier, although it will be fun to see what they do if Russians have been killed, because if Russians were killed, they're going to do something, and it will probably be nasty.

[adwinistrator]

Tillerson is saying regime change political process through "Geneva process"

[Speaker to Animals]

Fucking dumb.

[adwinistrator]

Tillerson: "We sought no approval from Russia". Military used channels of "deconfliction" with Russian military late in process.

"this one strike should not change how the US views Syria. It was in direct retaliation to CW strikes"

"100% US military operation"