I thought that same thing in the beginning. But after browsing the internet, this has seemed to piss off a lot of his supporters. So it might backfire in terms of approval rating.

Just swapping one part of the base for another. Too early to tell net effects.

The (((deep state))) people wont like it. The USA USA USA we are kicking ass now and no longer cucks will.

Never announce your plans early! Everyone knows that!

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=46641107

I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out that we warned the Russians to not have their ppl there.

That's already come out, I believe. I'm glad we did.

All else being equal, yes, but the reason behind it matters.

We're fine if they retreat on their own but we're gonna **** them up if they don't get out of our way is all that means.

I guess, but there's a difference between a strike where you know you can take out meaningful infrastructure and don't need to really kill anyone to make an impact on Assad's capabilities, a strike where you're conspiring with the Russians to hit a meaningless target to gain credibility for both parties, and a strike you just drew up ad hoc to try and change the narrative without starting a war.

There are two potentially big problems with this attack:

1. What are Russians doing at a target we decide to attack?
2. Will Russia treat Syria like we vow to treat NATO countries if they are attacked?

It seems like a pretty risky move overall. Even if we warned them were any Russians hurt in the attack? There has to be a reason this base was still intact in the first place to be able to do the chemical attacks. Did the Russians know that the chemical attacks were going to happen? If Syria is capable of killing children with gas what is to stop them from counter-attacking?

Is this uh bad ?

"What is al-Shayrat Air Field" (target of today's attack)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...rfield/522249/

It's russian equipment, that's why they are there, syrians can't read the russian how to manuals. There's backchannels given proximity so we don't do something stupid like shoot each other, that's how we told them, they prob told syria, then we blew up the airfield. Russia gonna complain to the UN and send their twitter bots at us.

Russia the winner here--get to sell syria some destroyed jets/equipment while getting to point at US being the bad guys and didn't get anyone on their end (syria lost a handful) I believe killed.

McMaster noted it doesn't stop syria from doing it more; hopefully it's just more or less a message. Still, if the pentagon is behind this they'll get trump to do whatever they want since in like 24 hours the president of the united states literally flipped a 180 on a world position and blasted stuff.

If the latter sentence isn't scary as hell to you, I don't know what to say.

No, it's good. I said it bec I thought it explained why the Syrian military said they expected the strike.

We're not quite here yet, but I expect we see one of these eventually regarding Assad.

"The first assaults on Baghdad begin shortly following the 01:00 UTC expiry of the United States' 48-hour deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq."

I don't think Russia wins when we make an offensive attack on land that belongs to one of their allies in the Middle East.

No one in the Western world is going to think the USA is the bad guy here, dude. Russia is the bad guy for supporting Assad.

This means there will be more assaults.

To me, it is less scary than Trump being truly in charge himself. Also Trumps knows how much **** they have on him - he is going to do whatever our military and intelligence tell him.

Russians are all over Syria. They are allies with Syria and supporting them in their war with Isis plus. Russia isn't going to do anything because of this. They essentially vouched that Assad would no longer use chemical weapons.

Who is Syria counter attacking, where are they counter attacking? The base is a military airfield in a country in the middle of a prolonged war with a bunch of sides. It didn't necessarily exist just to facilitate chemical attacks.

As for Russians being injured that was trump's weird bit about Hillary allegedly starting World War III by implementing a no fly zone there.

US military officials have been cited as saying the US warned both Russians and Syrians the attack was coming. Don't know if it was on a local basis or government basis.

Maybe tomorrow we will find out a day care popped up there at the last minute.

.

In shocking news both Russia and Iran condemn the attack.

So is this going to be some tit-for-tat type of thing we'll do in Syria for the next 3+ years or will this escalate into a boots-on-the-ground invasion?

Already boots on the ground, albeit fighting IS. Imo this and maybe a few more airstrikes will happen, but I doubt this will lead to a Libya type intervention that ousts Assad (especially with Russian troops everywhere and Syria being already a giant mess). That is as long as he doesnt gas anyone from now on, and sticks to normal bombs.

Somewhat surprises me how civilians get bombed for years and mostly people don't care, but that all changes when the weapon type is different.

Why did Assad even use chems in the first place?

Seems like a lose lose.

The only prism through which it makes sense is that this whole affair is orchestrated to give Comrade Trump a bump in the polls and reset the narrative on his relationship with Russia.

Is Trump the new favourite for peace nobel prize ?

Obama got one doing the exact same thing

It's true that it seems a spectacularly dumb decision by the Regime. When I first heard reports of a chemical attack I thought there had to be some chance it wasn't them given how idiotic it seemed. Some Jihadist militia have the capability and willingness to use chlorine based chemical weapons. However everything that's come out about the attack from neutral sources (MSF etc.) supports that it was sarin delivered by airstike. Thinking it was the US or Russia is Alex Jones territory, there's literally no reason to think so except invented 'false flag' narratives, and lots of reason to think it would be impossible - where would they source it, how do they carry out the attack in secret etc. etc.

In terms of the Regime forces it's very difficult to know how coherent they are. There's certainly lots of semi-autonomous units on the ground from different military organisations that are part of the Syrian Regime forces. From that perspective, then, you could maybe believe it's an idiotic or reckless mid-level commander making a big mistake. However it's unlikely those guys have the authority to order an air strike without oversight, especially a chemical attack.

In short, if all the explanations seem crazy you can't dismiss the least crazy just for being crazy.