Off Topic Didn't take him long to start a war

US strikes Syrian airfield in first direct military action against Assad
Dozens of Tomahawk missiles have been launched at a government airfield in the wake of the Syrian leader’s use of chemical weapons against civilians

• Syria: US launches missile strikes near Homs – live updates

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‘Assad choked out lives’: Donald Trump announces US strikes in Syria

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Spencer Ackerman and Ed Pilkington in New York, Ben Jacobs and Julian Borger in Washington

Friday 7 April 2017 04.06 BSTFirst published on Friday 7 April 2017 02.35 BST

The US military has launched a heavy cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield, in retaliation against Bashar al-Assad’s latest indiscriminate use of chemical weapons.

Donald Trump, who for years signaled his comfort with leaving Assad in power, abruptly switched course after seeing images of children gassed to death in Idlib province after Assad unleashed sarin gas on civilians.

The strike, which comprised 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the guided-missile destroyers USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean, marked the first time the US has become a direct combatant against the Syrian regime.

An airfield at al-Shayrat near Homs was targeted, signaling a limited initial engagement on a target the military said was used to launch the sarin attack.

Though the US did target some of Syria’s formidable air defenses, it did not do so largely beyond al-Shayrat or in a sustained barrage, as it would typically do before launching a concerted airpower campaign. Instead, the Pentagon said, it attacked “aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars” at the airfield.

Though Trump lacked both congressional and international authorization for the strike, prominent US politicians immediately lent him political cover.

Trump said Thursday night at his Mar-a-Lago resort that he had ordered a “targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched”.

After a frantic day of consultation with his military advisers, including defense secretary James Mattis and national security adviser HR McMaster, Trump said it was a “vital national security interest” of the US to prevent “the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons” after previous efforts at changing Assad’s behavior “had failed, and failed very dramatically”.

Yet Trump also called on the international community to “join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types”, leaving it unclear whether the US objective was retaliation for the sarin gas assault, destruction of Assad’s chemical stockpiles, or a push to oust Assad from power.

For its part, the Pentagon said the strike “was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again”.

On Tuesday, dozens of civilians, including 10 children, were killed, apparently by a nerve agent attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun, in a region held by the rebels who oppose Assad’s regime.

Trump had already warned that his view had been changed by the shocking television images of children. And the attack came – even while he was hosting the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

The attack was apparently launched at about 8.40pm eastern standard time – 4.40am in Syria.



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Trump: Syria chemical attack ‘crosses many, many lines’
In 2013 Assad’s forces used chemical weapons, including sarin and chlorine, killing more than 1,000 people. Barack Obama threatened military action over Assad’s use of sarin, an illegal weapon, but the US congress balked and Russia intervened to make a deal in which Assad handed over stockpiles of weapons.

The Tomahawks used are sophisticated missiles with the ability to shift course in the air, making them analogous to drones on a one-way mission. Syria’s formidable, Russian-supplied air defenses, largely along the Mediterranean coast, have long prompted warnings from US military officials against attacking Assad.

Since Russia sent aircraft, troops and personnel to bolster Assad in late 2015, the Syrian president’s fortunes have improved dramatically, and has retaken territory from the beleaguered and fractious armed opposition. The Russian presence has raised the stakes dramatically for US military planners, as the prospect of accidentally killing Russian personnel and sparking a larger war with a nuclear power reduces the US room for maneuver.

But the military, according to Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis, notified Russian forces before the strike, using a communications channel set up to ensure US pilots who attack Islamic State targets in eastern Syria do not accidentally come into conflict with their Russian counterparts.

It is likely that Russia would have passed the warning onto their Syrian allies. The US has roughly 1,000 troops in Syria, who may be placed at risk as the result of the strike.

“We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat airfield, reducing the Syrian government’s ability to deliver chemical weapons”, Davis said.

Davis said the Shayrat base had been used to store chemical weapons used by the regime until 2013, when a deal was struck with the US and Russia to remove its declared arsenal. He said it was used to deliver the chemical weapons dropped on Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday, but could not confirm whether any chemical weapons were still at the site. However, he stressed that the targets were chosen carefully to avoid the risk of hitting those weapons.

“The places we targeted were the things that made the airfield operate. It’s the petroleum facilities, it’s the aircraft radar, what they use for take-off and landing, as well as air-defence radar,” Davis said. “It’s the sites that are specific to making it operate, as well as hangars and aircraft themselves.”

US defense analysts have warned for years of attacking Assad without a plan for what it seeks to achieve or what a post-Assad Syria might look like.

Davis emphasized precautions the US military took to avoid killing Russian personnel occupying their own compound at Shayrat, citing the early-morning time of the attack and the choice of targets unlikely to have people inside. All the aircraft attacked were Syrian, Davis said, with Russian aircraft unharmed.

Neither the US Congress nor the United Nations have authorized war against Assad, who has brutalized his people but not the US. Mary Ellen O’Connell, an international-law scholar at the University of Notre Dame, said the US did not have a legal basis for military action.

“Under international law, he has zero right to attack Assad. It would be a reprisal attack. You won’t find any international law specialists who will find a legal right to carry out a reprisal”, O’Connell said.

It has been a dramatic about-face for Trump.

For years, Trump rejected any attack on Assad as a strategic folly, despite repeated chemical assaults of the sort that prompted Thursday’s missile strikes. Following Russia’s intervention in the conflict, Trump attacked rival Hillary Clinton’s openness to strikes against Assad’s forces as inviting a devastating conflict with Russia. Just days ago, his secretary of state and UN ambassador made statements indicating Trump was prepared to let Assad – who in November called Trump a “natural ally” – remain in power.

But earlier on Thursday, following Trump’s public anger at Assad for the sarin assault, secretary of state Rex Tillerson said “there is no role for [Assad] to govern the Syrian people” and called on Russia, where Tillerson will travel next week, to “consider carefully” its sponsorship of the Syrian dictator.

Tillerson suggested “steps are under way” to rally an international coalition to remove Assad diplomatically, a position long thwarted by Moscow and Beijing. Chinese president Xi Jinping is meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in what

Longtime Syria hawks – and Trump critics – John McCain and Lindsey Graham rallied behind Trump in the pursuit of an attack they have urged for years.

Trump and the military “sent an important message the United States will no longer stand idly by as Assad, aided and abetted by Putin’s Russia, slaughters innocent Syrians with chemical weapons and barrel bombs”, Graham and McCain said in a joint statement.

The senior Democrat on the Senate foreign-relations committee, Ben Cardin, joined in support, but warned Trump: “any longer-term or larger military operation in Syria by the Trump Administration will need to be done in consultation with the Congress. Furthermore, it is the President’s responsibility to inform the legislative branch and the American people about his larger policy in Syria, as well as the legal basis for this action and any additional military activities in that country.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...ria-response-donald-trump-assad-pentagon-live

 

@Home_and_Away Back to work now?

 

No doubt some will blame the Russians.

 

Classic move by a man under pressure, put on a show to distract attention from domestic problems. A better conduit would have been raising a UN resolution demanding backing otherewise he would take action. Stitch the Russians up there then do the necessary with the support of the world. Interesting to read that the Russians had warnings which could suggest they warn the Syrians also.

Done in the presence of the Chinese President as well could now become a circus if he doesn't have a follows up move.

He will revel in the glory until the body bags start coming home.

 

As much as I dislike DT, he has not started a war.

 

Or you could regard it as the moment the US stopped prevaricating and followed up their talk with action.

Obama talked and did nothing. From now on the Russians, the Iranians, the Turks and the SyrIan's themselves may stop and think twice before taking any other actions that may involve the Americans becoming more involved in that mess in the future.

They've just seen an American president take action after just 2 days. It'll make them pause for thought that this guy means what he says.

 

There is a fair few factions looking for a takeover of Syria so if/once Assad has gone what then? Trump can sit back and say he did something, but others will be picking up the tab for his actions. Slinging a few missiles in as a reaction to a chemical attack will achieve little except maybe stop future ones. While it maybe a result in itself he has missed an opportunity to have it taken it up by the UN to pressure both Assad and Russia.

As I said - what does he follow it up with?

 

On this particular issue, nothing.

But he has set a marker of consequences for future events.

As for the UN, the Russians and Chinese just vetoed the last vote a few days ago. The UN is toothless and impotent.

As for Trump, I'm no fan of his by any means. But it's good to see someone in authority say something and back it up with conviction.

 

Some folk are already blaming Israel

This is nothing but a warning shot, a statement to Assad from the Pentagon to say your closest ally will not deter us from stopping you using Chemical grade weapons.

FWIW Trump has been vocal in the past about former coalitions bringing down Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein, and how they were both grave mistakes, so I doubt his long term vision is to topple Assad, it's more likely to just disable him from posing an international threat.

Russia will re-arm Syria, in a money-spinner, so I don't see an awful lot of resistance from them unless Assad becomes a target.

 

Trump is very publicly urging countries to come form a coalition to topple him.

 

Where are these quotes?

 

He said it on camera. The video will be everywhere, I'd post it but can't listen to audio at the moment. The clip was on sky news.

 

Correction, Trump said he wants a cotillion to wipe out Syria's airforce. Tillerson has since confirmed the steps are underway to form a coalition to topple him.

 

Interesting, there'll be plenty of resistance so I doubt he'll get approval, but something tells me that might not stop him.

 

He didn't get approval for the first strike to be fair. Big questions over the legality. Oh he's a maverick. Bet May gets her tongue wedged right up his arse too. There's a need to trade after all.

 

Apparently Trump is looking to push through better trade terms for the UK than the EU and that's what's getting up the arse of so many leaders in the EU, such as Merkel and Hollande.

I'd be surprised if May isn't already so far up his arse that she's wearing him as a dress.

 

Go on Don. No ****ing about.


59 missiles.

 

To be honest if Obama had done somthinglike this when chemicals were used a few years ago this would not have happened
Trump did the right thing imo - a brave and strong stand

 

Corbyn being a complete fanny.

 

I wish they'd strap him to a Tomahawk.