Originally Posted by
Azor
What happens when Russia ignores the No-Fly Zone? What happens when air defense systems are deployed around the zone and begin creeping in?
Are you referring to politics? Remember when Lincoln and Churchill had to politicize their war efforts? Remember when they needed victories? Remember the endless flak Obama received over his “red line”? Remember how no foreign government distinguished between “calculus” and action?
Do you think that Obama didn’t politicize defense and foreign policy? What else was he doing with regard to Egypt and Libya? Where was he when “spring” changed to “winter”?
3(a) CrowBat stated that the SyAAF received a “severe blow” and that Russia was embarrassed by its inability or unwillingness to contest the strike. He is no fan of Trump to be sure. Yet here you are referring to the strike as a “waste” and a “farce”.
3(b) The airstrike was clearly a punishment in response to Assad’s use of CWs, particularly of the Schedule I variety i.e. Sarin. It was neither a grounding of the SyAAF nor a punishment for the use of cluster munitions or incendiaries.
3(c) Tomahawks were clearly used in place of aircraft in order to respond quickly and effectively as well as to prevent the potential loss of American life. Would you have preferred an attack by F/A-18s? Or a roundtrip mission by B-2s?
I don’t disagree that Russia knew of their existence, but Sarin hasn’t been used since August 2013. Do you think that Russia approved the use of Sarin?
The only portion of the “Dossier” that was new and interesting was the allegation that Russia had evidence of Trump using the services of prostitutes and engaging in sexual acts that most people would find depraved i.e. a sex tape. The remainder of the “Dossier” was a rehash of prior allegations that had been made throughout the campaign. So where is the sex tape?
Again, Steele knew of a Russian plot so cunning and so secretive that it was run from the Presidential Administration rather than the SVR. It was so secret that only Putin, a handful of his aides, Estonian and Czech intelligence and dozens of low-level Russian businessmen knew about it. And now Trump has become a double-agent!
Yet you imply that Russia approved its use after almost four years. Why? Chlorine is troublesome because it is comparatively easy to produce, and has been used by Daesh and other Salafi Jihadi militant groups in Syria, making attribution difficult. The use of Sarin points to Assad, and indicates that either he held back some of his stockpile or began producing it again. If anything was going to provoke an American reaction, it was the use of Sarin.
Ever heard of the “30% solution”? It worked to defeat the ideas of a Europe united under the Habsburgs and the Papacy, separate American slave states, the House of Romanov and the Third Reich.
How else would it respond to accusations that the strike is part of regime change? The very fact that there is de-confliction between Coalition and Syrian forces is evidence of coordination.
Which they plan to do on European soil, rather than in the Muslim world.
Last time I visited the Sacré-Coeur, it was a no-go for European women, unless they wanted to be harassed ceaselessly. But at least you could visit it. By the end of the “long term state security and police effort”, I doubt that it will be left standing.
The Western Europeans have struggled so hard to avoid war, and yet they have invited it in whilst trying to be generous and peaceable. Oh well. Strip Europe of its “Others”, and it merely turns upon itself. I'm not sure which is worse...
Lastly, you refer to "second and third effects", during your discussion of the Shayrat airstrike as a waste, implying that the continued air operations targeting civilians and/or using indiscriminate weapons in civilian areas, demonstrates the failure of the mission i.e. that it did not make a difference.
But you personally know how frustrating this new Thirty Years War can be. After all, I doubt that you're worried about some Vietnamese or Russian agent darkening your doorstep. Few if any of your comrades do, which is why I am surprised that you bought into Chris Steele's story about having to flee without feeding his cat or what have you...
You made a great sacrifice, and continue to make it. For all of your care, you must still worry. I can't imagine what it is like to have undergone that and then seen Daesh grow from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand fighters, if the Peshmerga estimates can be believed.
But the U.S. leadership must be cold and calculating. I think of the 20th Century's strategic genius, and despite my admiration, I know personally, the lives he ground under: the exiles who found under the British flag, brilliant commanders such as Wavell, the unwitting young men at Crete and Dieppe, the people of Coventry and Singapore. Yet he won more than he lost, and he grasped the bigger picture, despite his bloody blunders. This is to say nothing of his pre-war fiascoes...
Like it or not, Obama didn't grasp it. Neither did Hillary. I don't know if Trump truly does, but he may. I do know that no American president has grasped it since the elder Bush. As Jack Ryan said in The Hunt for Red October: "give the man a chance".
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