U.S. Launches over 50 Missiles at Syrian Military Base

Those at the top play games, those at the bottom die for it. It's all a way to strengthen the loyalty of voters.

So It will be interesting to see how his approval rating goes over the next few days.

I hope they are not rushing in without all the facts and that is my fear, and maybe they know something that is not public. Time will tell, as always.

So still reasonable doubt.

I really hope they do a forensics upon that impact sight of Chemical Weapons and get to the truth sooner rather than later.

The situation has changed though. His regime's prospects of surviving are the best they've been since the war started. Why risk upsetting the current situation for such a small gain?

They don't and afaik no one is claiming that they do. The Syrian government isn't denying a bombing. They're saying that they bombed using conventional munitions but hit a chemical weapon stockpile.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-t...

Anyone find this plausible or should I turn off the computer and go to sleep?

There's a conspiracy that's been floated for a few years and is resurfacing that the Saudis and Qataris have been pushing for a pipeline from Qatar to Turkey via Syria, and Assad has been a thorn in their side preventing diplomatic means to get it done. But there's also sound arguments against this [1], although the source I found suggests that this is directly tied to US access to bases in the area (possible) and thus aligning with SA, Qatar, and Turkey (perhaps in opposition to Russia/Iran/Syria). I'm not sure anyone really knows what's going on at this point. If I had to guess, it probably ties into everything from oil to archaic alliances dating to the Cold War and even military expenditures.

The Israelis may have a part to play in all this, too, but in my mind, I don't see what benefit they'd gain by continuing to destabilize the entire region. Then again, I guess you could argue the same point for every other actor, and perhaps there's an advantage behind encouraging your adversaries to go for each others' throats every few years (dangerous!).

Another protracted war in the Mideast is the last thing we need... sigh.

(Note: I'm just speculating here based on what I've read over the years and my own opinions and biases. This is probably entirely wrong.)

[1] http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37685-the-war-against-the...

Only Congress has the power to declare war. That's the actual check and balance. But if I understand correctly, in a situation like this[1], the President has authority to authorize military force. He just can't continue to use it for more than 90 days (in the same situation) without congressional approval[2].

But no, Republicans in Congress are not going to magically force Trump to un-fire the missiles. Nor are they going to impeach him over this. (If he violates the 90 day limit, it is somewhat more likely that there will be some kind of action, but still far from certain.)

[1] For some value of "like this" - a situation where, in the President's judgment, military action is urgently needed, where it can't wait for days or weeks while Congress debates and goes through all the procedural motions.

[2] The 90 day limit is there because the Vietnam War came out of a situation like this - a presidentially-authorized use of force that never was a declared war, that turned into nearly a decade of US involvement and 55,000 US dead.

2. Assad is also someone who uses chemical weapons on his own people. (All right, the other side of a civil war, but still citizens of his own nation.) He's a guy who turned protests into a civil war by his brutality in response. "Secularist and modernizer" isn't the same as "good guy".

Ron Paul is questioning the origin of the attack, but here we are.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia is moving forward as of earlier this week, and the Turkish stream pipeline can't move forward until the Syria question is settled. Add to that in late March Russia announced it was coming up with an alternative to the SWIFT banking system. Collision course.

Vlad doesn't seem like the kind to back down. Not looking forward to this one bit.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syrian-rebels...

But you know what, I come to this site for tech and science type things. But a large contingent appear to be bent on using it for a political platform. My opinion is they are badly damaging the site. I've tried to register my opinion on things or talk about topics in what I perceive to be an objective manner only to be trolled, flamed and down-voted into oblivion. At this point I'm not going to bother with anything remotely political. If people want to make another ideology bubble fine. It's just not worth the struggle at this point.

And see that Politico article linked to elsewhere in this thread: Putin responded to the missile strikes by suddenly discovering that he, too, had a problem with his ally using chemical weapons! He certainly didn't say that in 2013!

I agree with the "scum" part.

For the "step in", hmm ...? If are trying to civilize Assad and/or his enemies, then that looks hopeless.

If are trying to deter Assad from more use of ugly chemical weapons on babies, maybe that can work, a little, for a while.

If trying to replace Assad, then an early question has to be -- with whom that would be better? The replacement should be better, and in such situations that ain't nearly guaranteed.

I'm no expert, but it may be that Syria divides into people who (A) more or less like Assad, at least will let him get by with rigged elections without being really bitter about it, and (B) hate Assad and all the people in (A) and would eagerly torture and murder all of them by the most brutal methods they could implement. Yes, the people in (A) might be equally eager to murder all the people in (B).

That is, first-cut, we're talking a lot of people who still are back in essentially Medieval times, maybe as if they were still fighting over very limited water and grazing land, and still isolated from the lessons from the religious, etc. wars of Europe of the past 1000 years, e.g., separation of church and state, basic humanism, etc., lessons not well honored in Europe even as recently as Hitler.

Hitler was brutal, in Medieval terms, including with gas, likely also on children and babies. So, is it too surprising that maybe a lot of people in Syria are Medieval, brutal, inhumane, etc.?

To me, from about 1/4th the way around the world away, one of the big lessons needed in the Mideast is separation of church and state, and I can't believe that any significant separation will take place there for at least another, say, 200 years. E.g., apparently one of the main recruiting attractions of ISIS -- in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. -- is a closed, isolated, Medieval, brutal, sectarian dictatorship. So, that stuff still gets lots of people over there to vote with their feet, lives, etc.

Over there, maybe they were having wars and, there, killing babies, etc. going way back. Some of the situations and scenes in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, a side-show of WWI, seem to suggest so.

In such situations, there is an approach to peace, that of the grave.

I do suspect that with some well placed bombs from the US, it is possible to send a message that even the most dedicated sectarians can hear, the parties can understand the message, calm down for a while, sign a deal, get some strong geographical lines of separation, maybe monitored by the UN, and, then, live essentially in peace for some decades, say, until there is another ambitious, bloodthirsty, leader eager to take over territory and willing to exploit religion to do so.

I;m interested in how many ships actually fired. Whether one ship fires all/most of them, or whether the tasking was spread amongst the fleet, speaks to the potential timeline. If it all came from one ship, and that ship is now racing back to port to rearm, that says to me that they expect to do this again sooner rather than later as that would get the fleet back to full capacity more quickly than waiting for many ships to rotate out.