Trump's Playing With His Military Toys!

[Sue U]

Well Sue, here's someone who agrees with you about the cruise missile attack

I may have to seriously rethink my life choices.

[RayThom]

https://www.facebook.com/berkeleybreath ... 04/?type=3

[Burning Petard]

Here is a viewpoint from Germany.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 41841.html

Remember, the CinC, POTUS, is the guy who said he knows more about ISIS than the generals. Our 'allies' see no logic, no plan, just continuation of the Obama strategy, but less effective.

snailgate.

[Econoline]

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

Trump Confident U.S. Military Strike On Syria Wiped Out Russian Scandal

• WASHINGTON—After ordering the first U.S. military attack against the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, President Donald Trump held a press conference Friday to express his full confidence that the airstrike had completely wiped out the lingering Russian scandal. “Based on intelligence we have received over the past several hours, the attack on the al-Shayrat air base in Homs has successfully eliminated all discussions and allegations about my administration’s ties to the Russian government,” said Trump, adding that at approximately 4:40 a.m. local time, 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from U.S. naval ships obliterated all traces of the widespread controversy in news outlets across the media. “Ordering this strike was not a decision I took lightly, but given that it was the only way to decisively eradicate any attention being paid to congressional investigations into possible collusion between key members of my staff and high-ranking Kremlin officials, I decided it was a necessary course of action. If we learn that any remnants of this scandal remain after this attack, I will not hesitate to order further strikes.” Trump went on to say that he is leaving the option open for a potential ground invasion of Syria if any troubling evidence emerges that the Russian government manipulated the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

http://www.theonion.com/article/trump-c ... -out-55722






ETA: Sorry, but I won't be able to take this seriously until we see what happens next, over the coming weeks or months.

[Lord Jim]

Here is a viewpoint from Germany.

Well that's the view of a German newspaper; it's not the view of the German government:

France and Germany

FRANCE AND GERMANY

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said in a joint statement: “President Assad alone bears responsibility for this development.” The statement issued by both their offices followed a phone call between the two leaders to discuss the U.S. strikes. “His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own population had to be sanctioned.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/wor ... 100161498/


Here are some more reactions:

GREAT BRITAIN

A government spokesperson said in a statement that it "fully supports the U.S. action, which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks.” The United Kingdom is a close military ally of the United States.

CANADA

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada “fully supports” the United States' “limited and focused action." "President Assad’s use of chemical weapons and the crimes the Syrian regime has committed against its own people cannot be ignored. These gruesome attacks cannot be permitted to continue with impunity,” he said in a statement.

ITALY

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that Trump's action "was a response motivated by a war crime," Italy's ANSA news agency reported. Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said the U.S. action "was proportionate in timing and methods, as a response to an unacceptable sense of impunity, as well as a signal of deterrent towards the risk of further use of chemical weapons by Assad, in addition to those ascertained by the U.N." ANSA reported.

NATO

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the Syrian regime bears “full responsibility” for the U.S. strike.

“NATO has consistently condemned Syria’s continued use of chemical weapons as a clear breach of international norms and agreements,” he said. “Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, cannot go unanswered, and those responsible must be held accountable.”

EUROPEAN UNION

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council of EU leaders, appeared to welcome Trump’s action. “US strikes show needed resolve against barbaric chemical attacks. EU will work with the US to end brutality in Syria,” he tweeted. A separate statement from the High Representative on behalf of the EU said: “The EU firmly believes that there can be no military solution to the conflict and is committed to the unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Syrian State.” It said only a political solution would defeat the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria, and reiterated its support for the U.N.-mediated peace talks in Geneva.


SAUDI ARABIA

The Saudi Foreign Ministry praised Trump’s “courageous decision” and blamed the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad for the chemical weapons attack. The ministry said the missile launch ordered by President Trump was the right response to “the crimes of this regime to its people in light of the failure of the international community to stop it,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

ISRAEL

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his support for the strike. "In words and actions, President Trump sent a strong and clear response: The use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. Israel fully and unequivocally supports the president's decision and hopes the clear message will reverberate not only in Damascus but also in Tehran, Pyongyang and other places," Netanyahu said Friday, according to the Jerusalem Post.

JORDAN

A staunch U.S. ally and proponent of ending the Syrian war, Jordan has been supportive of the move, with the Jordanian administration calling it “necessary and appropriate,” via state news agency Petra.

TURKEY

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government expressed support for the U.S. attack condemned the chemical attacks in Idlib.

“What happened in Idlib on Tuesday proved again that the bloody al-Assad regime shows complete disregard for the prospect of a political transition and efforts to enforce the ceasefire,” Turkish spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said.

“The destruction of Sharyat airbase marks an important step to ensure that chemical and conventional attacks against the civilian population do not go unpunished,” Kalin added.

JAPAN

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed support for the U.S. missile attack on Friday saying that the country understood and supported the strategy. Abe added that the strikes were "a means to prevent further deterioration of the situation" referring to the suspected chemical attack.

AUSTRALIA

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters that the Australian government supported the “swift and just response” of the U.S. airstrikes.

"This was a calibrated, proportionate and targeted response. It sends a strong message to the Assad regime, and ... has been struck at the very airfield from which the chemical attack was delivered,” Turnbull said.

That of course is just a partial list of the countries that have expressed support for the raid...

And then on the "opposed side" we have Russia, Iran and North Korea...(and obviously Syria)

And, oh yeah, Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen have also condemned the attack:

You could not find a bigger fan of Donald Trump in Europe than Nigel Farage, the poster boy of Brexit and ex-leader of the U.K. Independence Party.

But the U.S. president’s decision overnight to launch cruise missiles at Syria has put him, and other right-wing populists, at odds with a man whose vision -- until only yesterday -- they celebrated as very much in line with their own.

Farage, who Trump had tweeted would make a great British ambassador to Washington, fired a message to his 750,000 Twitter followers expressing concern about the U.S. action: “Many Trump voters will be worried about this military intervention. Where will it end?”

His successor, Paul Nuttall, was more blunt: “The U.S. bombing of Syria last night was rash, trigger happy, nonsensical and will achieve nothing. I hoped for better.”

Le Pen had nothing but warm words for Trump’s controversial travel ban targeting majority Muslim countries. But she objects to the U.S. now acting like “the world’s policeman.”

“I’m a little surprised because he indicated on several occasions that he didn’t want to make the U.S. the world’s policeman, and yet, that’s exactly what he has done,” she told France 2 television. “Is it too much to ask for to wait for the results of an international investigation before doing such strikes? What I want is to avoid the same scenario as the one we saw in Iraq, in Libya, which led to chaos.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/arti ... gainst-him

(So Sue, in addition to Ann Coulter, you can count Farage and Le Pen as kindred souls... )

[BoSoxGal]

Why am I not surprised that it took dropping bombs to bring LJ around to becoming a Trump fan?

[Lord Jim]

Why am I not surprised that it took dropping bombs to bring LJ around to becoming a Trump fan?

Wow, is that ever a gross misstatement of my attitude towards Trump...

Here's what I said at the outset of this discussion:

I take second place to no one in my condemnation of, and criticism for, Donald Trump...

But on this one, I applaud his actions, and the only criticism I have is that he didn't go far enough...

My views about Donald Trump have in no way changed...

I want him out, the sooner the better...

But I'm not going to mindlessly and reflexively condemn him for every single thing he does, just because he is The Loathsome Donald Trump, (especially if he happens to do something that I agree with, and would support if any other President had done it)...

It seems bizarre to me to characterize that as my somehow becoming a "Trump fan"...

If Obama had done the same thing, my reaction would have been exactly the same:

"I'm glad he did it, but he should have done more"...

Would that have made me an "Obama Fan"?

ETA:

Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi both expressed approval of the attack. Are they "Trump fans"?

[Burning Petard]

LJ posted above a long list of official government announcements 'supporting' the actions of our president.

Cheap words. They are all 'lines in the sand' just as potent and the line(s) announce by the previous POTUS. Which of them are offering to put boots on the ground in Syria? What did they say when the US Ambassador to the UN declared last week the chemical bombs in Syria demanded action by the international community? LJ has listed the diplomatic version of the middle school side-line shout of "lets you and him fight."

snailgate

[oldr_n_wsr]

Why am I not surprised that it took dropping bombs to bring LJ around to becoming a Trump fan?

Wow, is that ever a gross misstatement of my attitude towards Trump...

Here's what I said at the outset of this discussion:

I take second place to no one in my condemnation of, and criticism for, Donald Trump...

But on this one, I applaud his actions, and the only criticism I have is that he didn't go far enough...

My views about Donald Trump have in no way changed...

I want him out, the sooner the better...

But I'm not going to mindlessly and reflexively condemn him for every single thing he does, just because he is The Loathsome Donald Trump, (especially if he happens to do something that I agree with, and would support if any other President had done it)...

It seems bizarre to me to characterize that as my somehow becoming a "Trump fan"...

If Obama had done the same thing, my reaction would have been exactly the same:

"I'm glad he did it, but he should have done more"...

Would that have made me an "Obama Fan"?

ETA:

Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi both expressed approval of the attack. Are they "Trump fans"?

LJ, you should know by now that everything must be either black or white. There is no room for "shades of gray".

[dales]

LJ, you should know by now that everything must be either black or white. There is no room for "shades of gray".

Several posters here have trouble with that concept.

[rubato]

Republicans lie secure in the belief that 9/10 Republican voters will never notice:

Paul Ryan 2013: Syrian strikes would look weak.

Paul Ryan 2017: Assad must be held accountable.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

I wonder how this will make wes feel about his girlfriend:

Gabbard takes heat from Dems for skepticism of Syria chemical attack



Powerful liberal voices are calling for the ouster of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard over the Hawaii Democrat’s vocal criticism of last week’s U.S. strike against the Syrian government.

Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Neera Tanden, head of the Center for American Progress, both took to Twitter to bash Gabbard for what they see as a shameful defense of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president long accused of brutal attacks on his own people in the country's ongoing civil war.

They’re urging Hawaii voters to replace the third-term Democrat in 2018.

“People of Hawaii’s 2nd district — was it not enough for you that your rep met with a murderous dictator? Will this move you?” Tanden tweeted.

“This is a disgrace,” Dean echoed. “Gabbard should not be in Congress.”

In January, Gabbard met with Assad as part of a seven-day swing through Syria and Lebanon, a trip designed to examine the state of Syria's yearslong civil war.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran and a prominent member of both the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, has been a loud critic of President Trump’s decision to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last Thursday. The surprise offensive was a direct response to chemical attacks on a western Syria town days earlier that killed scores of civilians and injured hundreds more.

Video footage of the victims, many of them children, sparked an outcry from U.S. allies across the globe, who cheered Trump’s retaliatory measures.

While Gabbard is far from the only U.S. politician to criticize the attacks, she is perhaps the only U.S. lawmaker who has questioned whether Assad was behind the chemical attack.[She may be the only member of Congress, but this is a theme that has also been taken up by some on the Alt-right...Ann Coulter has even gone so far as to suggest that the pictures of the gassed children were faked...]

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/32812 ... cal-attack

[ex-khobar Andy]

I do not know the truth of the matter; but I do remember when the US War College, no less, was certain that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the gassing of the Kurds at Halabjah. This was often cited as one of the basic reasons for going into Iraq by GWB.

[Lord Jim]

I thought this quote from Trump a couple of days ago was funny...

Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person. And I think it's very bad for Russia. I think it's very bad for mankind. It's very bad for this world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... s:11656833

"Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person. "

Wow...

Who would ever have thought Putin would do a thing like that? ...Those intelligence briefings are really paying off for Donald...

Maybe he's expecting to get a call from Vlad now, telling him:

"Gee, thanks for the heads up Don. I had no idea that Bashir was truly an evil person. Now that you've wised me up, I'm going to stop backing him, right now!"

Dude:

The reason "Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person" is because Putin is a "truly an evil person" himself...

That's what truly evil people do; they back other truly evil people...

They have no moral compunction about it because they themselves are, well, truly evil...

I don't want to have explain this again...

ETA:

Oh, and the other type of person that truly evil people back are narcissistic know-nothings that they believe they can manipulate...

[Big RR]

I just heard we dropped a massive (21000 lb) bomb in eastern Afghanistan; no word from the White House, and we won't hear from Trump because he is, surprise--surprise--flying to Florida for the "weekend"--I guess he never heard the weekend starts Saturday.

I sincerly hope this was a plan designed by the generals and something which was planned and reasonably calculated to lead to a desirable result, but with Trump, who knows?

I guess we'll hear from Spicer at the press briefing, for all htat's worth.

[Lord Jim]

More on the bomb drop...

(It looks like a purely military command planned attack...It's not clear whether Trump even signed off on it...)

U.S. drops 21,000 pound bomb on ISIS complexes in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The US military has dropped an enormous bomb in Afghanistan, according to four US military officials with direct knowledge of the mission.

A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB, was dropped at 7 p.m. local time Thursday, the sources said.

The MOAB is also known as the “mother of all bombs.” A MOAB is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is America’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb.

The bomb was dropped by an MC-130 aircraft, operated by Air Force Special Operations Command, according to the military sources.

They said the target was an ISIS tunnel and cave complex as well as personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province.

The military is currently assessing the damage. Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to the sources. Authority had to be sought from Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command.

This is the first time a MOAB has been used in the battlefield, according to the US officials. This munition was developed during the Iraq War.

http://cbs4indy.com/2017/04/13/us-drops ... ghanistan/

I'm also hearing that it was a very thinly populated remote area...(so there shouldn't be a lot of civilian casualties)

Given the target; a large underground tunnel and cave complex...

It seems like a perfectly reasonable kind of weapon to use...

[Big RR]

Maybe you're right Jim, but I'll wait and see.

[RayThom]

The MOAB. Scroll down to "Operational History":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_ ... _Air_Blast

[Burning Petard]

A quote from Ray's link above.: The MOAB is not a penetrator weapon and is primarily intended for soft to medium surface targets covering extended areas and targets in a contained environment such as a deep canyon or within a cave system.[citation needed] However, multiple strikes with lower yield ordnance may be more effective and can be delivered by fighter/bombers such as the F-16 with greater stand-off capability than the C-130 and C-17.

But what is the point of having such a bomb and never using it? Never mind that something else is cheaper and fits the mission better. "Mother Of All Bombs" makes for better sound bites.

snailgate

[Gob]

Test drop for future use?