"Does this airstrike make it more or less likely that civilians will die from a chemical attack sometime in the future?"
If they have no planes to drop them from - then less likely.
Something doesn't quite add up about the chemical weapons attack. A war he's winning. Olive branches coming from all over the international community - "oh, I dunno lads, let's do something completely outrageous."
As an argument, it has some weight, However the counter-argument that it takes serious amounts of pretty expensive kit and supplies to make these chemicals and that inconveniently for the "rebels" each time they get blown up by Assad's forces accidentally harming innocent civilians, seems equally implausible.
@nickc, I wasn't making any such counter argument. Just making the point that a chemical weapons attack at this stage by government forces seems pretty bizarre. Of course, it's a crazy bizarre conflict, and who knows what can happen next at any given time.
Something doesn't quite add up about the chemical weapons attack. A war he's winning.
It's a war he's won, with Russian assistance. We're onto the customary next stage where he feels he can dish out punishment to the communities hew views as supporting rebel groups during the conflict.
Assad will only look to Moscow for approval/disapproval of his activities. And if he can't punish these communities from the air, he will do it by other means.
the counter-argument that it takes serious amounts of pretty expensive kit and supplies to make these chemicals
[url= https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/world/middleeast/isis-chemical-weapons-syria-iraq-mosul.html ]The rebels have chemical weapons[/url].
Trump doesn't give a F about the Syrian kids but he (his advisors) knew this action would appeal to certain sort of person. Logically the whole thing stinks.
Its like having petulant child in charge of the red button.
Just to confirm....
America is now bombing both 'sides' involved in this conflict, right?
"America is now bombing both 'sides' involved in this conflict, right?"
Both sides? Aren't there about 5 sides?
America is now bombing both 'sides' involved in this conflict, right?
Trump would bomb downtown Seattle if it would boost his approvals.
Repeating history again. Seems we've forgotten about Iraq.
Proof first, no matter how horrid Assad is, need proof. Proof that there are chemical weapons involved yes, but not who fired them, if anyone fired them at all. Russians claim Syrian strike hit a weapons dump containing chemical weapons and former UK ambassador to Syria agrees with this. Sounds rubbish and it's easy to scoff and claim BS of anything Russia and Syria say, but again... remember Iraq?
Anyway, proof or not, all this succeeds in doing is pissing off more people and making them hate the west, which leads to more terrorist attacks.
A massive distraction which brings the media into line, stopping them from attacking Trump and researching his links to Russia, bringing about a public breakdown in relations between Trump and Putin.
All very convenient.
Still, probably a good time to invest in the arms trade...
"all this succeeds in doing is pissing off more people and making them hate the west, which leads to more terrorist attacks."
Does it? Bombing an airfield with prior warning strikes me as a very good way of making the point, without killing a load of people and pissing off a load more.
stopping them from attacking Drumpf and researching his links to Russia,
I doubt it will, but if it gets his redneck core vote chanting 'USA!USA!' as their federal aid programmes and medicaid are slashed, it's a win for the Donald.
I just hope he's pissed off Russia enough for them to start thinking about pulling the plug.
[url= https://www.instagram.com/evgeny.poddubny/ ]pics from the airbase[/url]
What concerns me is the way America keeps changing it's mind..
I remember the old days when a country had to go to the UN and get permission for military action...Americas gone rogue.
I'm glad I live in the countryside for when this all kicks off globally.
Having said that there's a Rolls Royce factory 20 mins away in Barnoldswick which might get a pounding when the bombs start dropping. 😥
I just hope he's pissed off Russia enough for them to start thinking about pulling the plug.
Russia still reeling from their own subway bombing last week, strong man Putin has a domestic audience to consider,
he's almost as unpredictable as Trump, But considerably smarter.
USA claiming they know what place dropped sarin and follow up hit on hospital, the day Russians were present at airbase at the time- putting out an image of detailed knowledge of the situation.
It's got McCain backing Trump for the first time ever!
Worst SNL video to date.
Agree that the chemical attack makes little strategic sense for Assad and we're being asked to believe that his 'evilness' is greater than his 'stupidity', and he doesn't strike me as stupid...
From Trump's perspective, his only real strength is that people don't know how to handle him - he's too unpredictable / inconsistent / petulant. This is a perfect way to build that strength - a limited show of force to prove that he can and will take unilateral action, enhances his 'nutter' credentials.
Deciding on a negotiation strategy against him must be a nightmare. Xi Jinping might be a little unbalanced by this...
Something doesn't quite add up about the chemical weapons attack.
I wouldn't underestimate the possibility for cock-ups, especially given the fog of war. I'm sure Assad doesn't plan or even approve every mission, and he certainly doesn't supervise arming the aircraft. I suppose Its perfectly possibly that some local commander overstepped the mark.
UN can't do anything as Russia is a member and they would veto any action.
So the choice is do nothing, which is what's been happening, or countries go it alone like the Donald has.
I'm not saying how wise or not this is, but that's basically the situation.
We'll all be living in the countryside if it kicks off globally...(it won't)I'm glad I live in the countryside for when this all kicks off globally.
I wouldn't underestimate the possibility for cock-ups...
Would make more sense, and combined with the fact that they supposedly gave up all their chemical weapons, paints them into a corner...
Obama *should* have the deaths of very many people on his conscience for his utter lack of giving a damn when chemical weapons were first used against innocent civilians
Do you really think that? I suspect that actually he carefully weighed up all the evidence, took advice from people with expertise, and decided that, AT THAT TIME (<<< and this is the critical point) it was not a better to retaliate with force.
So Trump has knocked a couple of holes in some bits of concrete, maybe destroyed a couple of planes. Those can (and will) be replaced quickly, you cannot "WIN" a war remotely, no matter what the generals and arms dealers of the USA might tell you (hence we got mired in Iraq/Afgan for so long)
All this does, and it certainly doesn't prevent any further use of chemical weapons, is make a complex situation, even more complex and difficult to defuse......
For a President who's promised to massively increase spending on weapons, using $100M of cruise missiles to break up a bit of concrete is a very very good way indeed to get people supporting his call for more military spending.........
It is.. But chemical weapons.. More'happy' coincidence?
Mind you.. 60 odd tomahawkes.. There can't be much left of the airfield....
I wouldn't underestimate the possibility for cock-ups,
I'm coming round to thinking that whatever happened the Sarin came from Assad and that's why this 'punishment' attack happened.
So Asssad's side failed to destroy a shell and it got mixed up with other shells, or a local commanded went mad or maybe the rebels got hold of it to use it to provoke the USA.
Whatever happened, somehow Assad must have been careless with Sarin Gas to some degree.
So I'm starting to think it wasn't a punishment for deliberately attacking civilians with Sarin, it was a punishment for not destroying their Sarin or keeping it under lock and key. So, given the pre-warning, smashing up an airbase seems a reasonable response to me. (Whether a country should appoint itself as policeman and judge of these things is a different question!)
There can't be much left of the airfield....
On R4 this morning their expert said it could be up and running in 4 days.
Do you really think that? I suspect that actually he carefully weighed up all the evidence, took advice from people with expertise, and decided
Obama stated that the use of chemical weapons against civilians was a red line. He managed to get it right up to that point.
Then the weapons were used because Assad correctly judged that Obama was weak and more interested in taking selfies of himself than protecting Syrians from their government:
[img] 
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I consider that Obama's inaction means that each chemical attack from that ignored red line, whilst not perpetrated by him, is partly his responsibility.
All it takes for evil to triumph, is for [s]good[/s] narcissistic, vain, weak men to do nothing.
Are you really trying to conflate a change in immigration rules with a chemical warfare attack on a city ?
Not remotely. I am saying that Trump claims to care about Syrian children one minute, but the minute before he was trying to prevent them from getting to safety.
On R4 this morning their expert said it could be up and running in 4 days
Well I suppose if you just mean rebuilding a serviceable runway, it won't take long, i suppose the real question is how much hardware was taken out at the same time, jets, ordinance and other expensive assets.
The Redline. Someone else spoke about that they said:
"The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A."
"jets, ordinance and other expensive assets."
I'd hope they got the jets away given the pre-warning!
But I assume the idea was to punish, not to hand the balance of power to Militant Islam, so presumably an 'appropriate' amount of damage has been done.
59, FFS. They must have been coming up to their best before date and due for decommissioning.
Pff, is but a drop in the ocean:
[url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/20/global-arms-weapons-trade-highest-point-since-cold-war-era ]Global arms trade reaches highest point since cold war era [/url]
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Still, I'm sure Rex Tillerson's oil interests will be getting good value for money for the $95,000,000ish those missiles cost.
A rare glimpse of somebody in the media providing a rational perspective:
There are things about these kind of stories that seem strange to me.
They appear at pivotal moments, usually based around limited footage taken by persons unknown in a hospital setting and provide emotive and distressing images of people suffering.
Here's another similar report from Syria that a journalist called Robert Stuart has been doggedly asking questions about: [url= https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/ ]Saving Syria's Children[/url]
Worrying times. Who's playing who?
Proxy wars seem to be a bit of a trend, why would a super power send thier own troops when you can simply sell arms to a faction or regime that will fight your angle and you make money.
Well, it wouldn't be the 1st time:
Not forgetting the tax-payer funded propaganda machine:[/url]
The British government is waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups, in the foreign front of what David Cameron has called “the propaganda war” against Islamic State.The campaign aims to boost the reputation of what the government calls the “moderate armed opposition”, a complex and shifting alliance of armed factions.
Deciding which factions to support is risky for the government because many groups have become increasingly extremist as the five-year civil war grinds on.
Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters.
Materials are circulated in the Arabic broadcast media and posted online with no indication of British government involvement.
Or the chemical weapons Saddam did have, [url= http://www.****/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html ]supplied by the UK and US[/url]:
[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10910868/Iraq-crisis-Obama-may-launch-air-strikes-without-Congress-amid-calls-for-Maliki-to-go-live.html ][b]Iraq crisis: Isis jihadists 'seize Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons stockpile'[/b][/url]
Taking a step back, I'm struggling to find a reason why Assad would suddenly use chemical weapons against his own people, especially in the middle of seemingly positive peace talks and when his regime were winning
Is it only me that thinks its a bit odd that a day or so after a terror attack in Russia a Russian backed leader uses chemical weapons on an area controlled by terrorists?
I'm coming round to thinking that whatever happened the Sarin came from Assad and that's why this 'punishment' attack happened.
Did it? or as someone above pointed out the poor old resistance is losing, gassing 100 or so of their own for the good of the cause blaming someone else and then getting the big hitters to step in on your behalf throwing tomahawks is another possible theory?
Its certainly more plausable than the Russians not using the right munitions to incenerate a rebel WMD dump, which also happened to be smack bang in the middle of someones downtown neighbourhood
you only have to look at the photo of the bloke with two dead kids to
either way its grim
That's a fair point... between that and investigation of Trump's ties to Russia which was just getting to revealing the sharp end of the wedge, it's all very handy. Russia ties negated, political crisis averted, Deep State lives to fight another day
There again, where do we go from here:
Take out Assad, ISIS get stronger, military intervention and ground troops become necessary...
Doubtless someone will profit, whatever the outcome
59, FFS. They must have been coming up to their best before date and due for decommissioning.
Perhaps a bit past that...
"According to Russian monitoring tools, only 23 missiles reached the Syrian airbase. It's not clear where the remaining 36 cruise missiles fell," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov is quoted as saying.
Is it only me that thinks its a bit odd that a day or so after a terror attack in Russia a Russian backed leader uses chemical weapons on an area controlled by terrorists?
They'd just use conventional weapons, and they'd choose an obviously 'Islamist military' target.
It's also a week after the yanks dropped their policy that Assad had to be removed. The only thing ISIS could to to reverse that would be to arrange a fake/real chemical attack on civilians, apparently by Assad. That's a more significant coincidence IMHO.
Attacks on civilians have been faked in this war. This all took place in a Islamist heartland so I find it hard to believe any impartial reporter has seen any evidence first hand - if a BBC journo walked in there he'd get his head chopped off. It feels to me like we're taking the militants word for this whole episode.
Did it?
I'm assuming the Militants can't make Sarin, so if they've got some they must nicked it from Assad somehow at some time.
