Trump launches military strike against Syria

[steve93]

And the military intervention also sets a precedent against the use of internationally proscribed weapons of an indiscriminate nature.

It upholds international order, law and security - including US security as you say - by demonstrating that chemical weapons use and proliferation, in violation of international conventions, has repercussions for offending states.

Chemical weapons are the same as any other weapon. The aggressor states just hate them because they can be made by poor nations who can’t or won’t make nukes. That’s why the colonialist states hate bio-chemical and flame weapons, because then their technology is no good and they can’t walk into whoever’s country they want without paying a price. India is a good example of a country that exposed the hypocrisy of NATO.

This US attack is an act of colonial terrorism, the same as the UK attack on Argentina. The neocons are more emboldened now though.

 

[J_Peterson]

Funny how the mess in Yemen didn’t lose Trump any of his nationalist friends. 30 civilians died, 9 were children. I guess the only chemical weapons that are “moral” are those that cause extreme heat and explosions. I can’t for the life of me figure out why killing a child with a conventional bomb is okay but use other chemical reactions and suddenly it crosses a line. I think they all cross the line.

To avoid the whole “But Obama!!” response. A hospital in Afghanistan was destroyed by us under Obama’s watch. Doctors Without Borders called it a war crime, I agree.

 

[Thomas_Ruin]

Here’s Why The World Banned Chemical Weapons In The First Place

Read more: dailycaller.com/2017/04/06/heres-why-the-world-banned-chemical-weapons-in-the-first-place/#ixzz4dZuRDW9B

… While gas casualties were only a small fraction of casualties in the war, doctors noted that troops were far more afraid of chemical weapons than conventional attacks.

The widespread horror at the effects of chemical weapons prompted an allied-wide effort to ban their use. Gas attacks were particularly psychologically scarring because the skin blistered, people asphyxiated, and respiratory systems were permanently damaged. Chemical weapons are also indiscriminate weapons, blowing back on those who deployed them and spreading to nearby civilian populations.

This led to a general consensus among the victorious countries of World War I to adopt the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The protocol banned the use of “poisonous gases” and “bacteriological warfare.”

Read more: dailycaller.com/2017/04/06/heres-why-the-world-banned-chemical-weapons-in-the-first-place/#ixzz4dZuNngb8

 

[exnihilo]

The President has authority to act militarily without Congress if he feels that the national security is at risk. A hostile nation with biochemical weapons and the capability to transport such weapons around the globe to other hostile nations certainly counts as a threat to the national security. The whole slaughtering children thing, while deserving of unequivocal condemnation and retribution, is simply secondary.

So basically every country is a threat to national security and can be bombed indiscriminately.

Chemical weapons are the same as any other weapon. The aggressor states just hate them because they can be made by poor nations who can’t or won’t make nukes. That’s why the colonialist states hate bio-chemical and flame weapons, because then their technology is no good and they can’t walk into whoever’s country they want without paying a price. India is a good example of a country that exposed the hypocrisy of NATO.

This US attack is an act of colonial terrorism, the same as the UK attack on Argentina. The neocons are more emboldened now though.

Precisely. This outrage over a few deaths from gas is from a nation that melted hundreds of thousands of people with nukes, still posses those same weapons, and still threatens to use them.

 

[Seamus_L]

I don’t know who’s suggesting that gas attacks are OK. What I find pretty frightening is how quickly all of this happened. Accusation to guilty verdict to military action in less than 3 days.
As for the future. If we see the ties to Russia investigations fizzle out while a number of the President's proposed core policies begin to change, we'll have a pretty good idea what's happened here.

 

[Saints_Alive]

If Trump hadn’t acted, it would have delivered the message to a global audience that chemical weapons can be used with impunity and without fear of just reprisal or punishment, whether against one’s own people or abroad, in violation of the common accord of the international community which has proscribed these weapons since the 1925, “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”.

This would have severe ramifications for global security, including the security of the United States, not to mention the idea of a rules-based world order.

Trump took the right course of action.

Now, any state thinking about following Syria - or indeed Assad himself thinking about repeating his use of sarin gas against his own people - will be cognizant of the fact that acting illegally and reprehensibly in this manner could carry grave consequences for them.

Jolly good.

Pretty much how I see it as well.

 

[Thomas_Ruin]

I don’t know who’s suggesting that gas attacks are OK. What I find pretty frightening is how quickly all of this happened. Accusation to guilty verdict to military action in less than 3 days. .

If you want to put people on notice, that is the way to do it I think. Otherwise they think they can continue to use chemical weapons while they send diplomats to negotiate… run out the clock, as they say.

 

[omgriley]

If Trump hadn’t acted, it would have delivered the message to a global audience that chemical weapons can be used with impunity and without fear of just reprisal or punishment, whether against one’s own people or abroad, in violation of the common accord of the international community which has proscribed these weapons since the 1925, “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”.

This would have severe ramifications for global security, including the security of the United States, not to mention the idea of a rules-based world order.

Trump took the right course of action.

Now, any state thinking about following Syria - or indeed Assad himself thinking about repeating his use of sarin gas against his own people - will be cognizant of the fact that acting illegally and reprehensibly in this manner could carry grave consequences for them.

Jolly good.

Agreed.

Chemical weapons are the same as any other weapon. The aggressor states just hate them because they can be made by poor nations who can’t or won’t make nukes. That’s why the colonialist states hate bio-chemical and flame weapons, because then their technology is no good and they can’t walk into whoever’s country they want without paying a price. India is a good example of a country that exposed the hypocrisy of NATO.

This US attack is an act of colonial terrorism, the same as the UK attack on Argentina. The neocons are more emboldened now though.

Get back on your rocker, steve93. You seemed to have fallen off.

Chemical weapons are indiscriminate and particularly inhumane in that they cause excruciatingly slow and painful deaths and they have a high likelihood of causing civilian causalities. They’re entirely different from conventional warfare.

 

[Vouthon]

Agreed.

Get back on your rocker, steve93. You seemed to have fallen off.

Chemical weapons are indiscriminate and particularly inhumane in that they cause excruciatingly slow and painful deaths and they have a high likelihood of causing civilian causalities. They’re entirely different from conventional warfare.

 

[omgriley]

So basically every country is a threat to national security and can be bombed indiscriminately.

Incorrect. Not every country is a totalitarian nightmare in which native citizens are being burned and suffocated with poisonous gas.

When these situations pop up, the world ought to act swiftly and decisively to end it.

Precisely. This outrage over a few deaths from gas is from a nation that melted hundreds of thousands of people with nukes, still posses those same weapons, and still threatens to use them.

That’s cute. I assume you’re referencing some liberal professor’s characterization of the United States ending of World War 2? Complete different situation. Japan and it’s civilian population were warned multiple times to surrender and evacuate. The Imperial Army of Japan refused to agree to unconditional surrender in the face of obvious defeat. They had sworn to fight until there were none left. The US ended the war and saved lives. There could have been nearly a million lives lost had we not dropped the bomb.

Besides, the United States has since committed to avoiding nuclear war at all costs. Right now it’s the thug in Syria who is using horrific weapons of war, not us.

 

[chero23]

Stay out of Syria’: What Donald Trump’s old tweets say

aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/syria-donald-trump-tweets-170407041106339.html

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
If Obama attacks Syria and innocent civilians are hurt and killed, he and the U.S. will look very bad

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING

Shows the hypocrisy of this president and the hypocrisy of republicans

 

[chero23]

Incorrect. Not every country is a totalitarian nightmare in which native citizens are being burned and suffocated with poisonous gas.

When these situations pop up, the world ought to act swiftly and decisively to end it.

That’s cute. I assume you’re referencing some liberal professor’s characterization of the United States ending of World War 2? Complete different situation. Japan and it’s civilian population were warned multiple times to surrender and evacuate. The Imperial Army of Japan refused to agree to unconditional surrender in the face of obvious defeat. They had sworn to fight until there were none left. The US ended the war and saved lives. There could have been nearly a million lives lost had we not dropped the bomb.

Besides, the United States has since committed to avoiding nuclear war at all costs. Right now it’s the thug in Syria who is using horrific weapons of war, not us.

You know there’s some horrible things going on in Africa as we speak; famine, civil war, torture. Why haven’t we bombed there?

 

[Thomas_Ruin]

Why Are Chemical Weapons So Bad?

Present-day opposition to chemical weapons is rooted in the experience of poison gas warfare in World War I. While poison has been considered a treacherous method of killing since ancient times, the unprecedented manufacture and use of chemical weapons during WWI contextualizes the present debate in the United States about the morality of chemical weapons. WWI-era proponents of chemical warfare argued that poison gasses were not inherently less moral than conventional weapons, but humanitarian concerns for the victims of chemical weapons have dominated public opinion and resulted in international agreements restricting their use.

Poison gas weapons were forbidden by the laws of war in the nineteenth century, because of preformed, negative opinions about chemical warfare. The Hague Declaration of 1899 required that nations “abstain from the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gasses.” As justification, it referenced the terms of the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration which acknowledged “the technical limits at which the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity,” and denounced “the employment of arms which uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men, or render their death inevitable.” Despite the Hague Declaration’s affirmation that poison gas projectiles were inhumane, however, such weapons were used by all of the belligerent nations in World War I.

• See more at: historynewsnetwork.org/article/153246#sthash.OOmI1vKs.dpuf

 

[Michael68]

shows the hypocrisy of this president and the hypocrisy of republicans

lol

 

[mary_bobo]

You know there’s some horrible things going on in Africa as we speak; famine, civil war, torture. Why haven’t we bombed there?

Maybe because we have bee told that Assad had destroyed his chemical weapons.

 

[exnihilo]

That’s cute. I assume you’re referencing some liberal professor’s characterization of the United States ending of World War 2? Complete different situation. Japan and it’s civilian population were warned multiple times to surrender and evacuate. The Imperial Army of Japan refused to agree to unconditional surrender in the face of obvious defeat. They had sworn to fight until there were none left. The US ended the war and saved lives. There could have been nearly a million lives lost had we not dropped the bomb.

Besides, the United States has since committed to avoiding nuclear war at all costs. Right now it’s the thug in Syria who is using horrific weapons of war, not us.

So basically when the US does it it is justified? What about napalm in Vietnam? Same thing? When the US does it then it is just? The US burned to death hundreds of thousand of men, women and children in Japan. Nothing you said is a moral justification for that. You just asserted some facts.

If there is a moral justication of weapons that kill all the men, women and children in an entire city I’d like to hear it. Maybe that same justification would apply in Syria, if there was an attack which I doubt.

By the way I’m no liberal. I just hate hypocrisy and the sanctimonious attitude of my countrymen.

 

[edwest2]

This was assuredly coordinated with Russia, just like airstrikes under Obama were coordinated with Russia and Russian airstrikes were coordinated with us.

Trump gets to look tough with no real damage to the Assad administration or Russian forces. Win-win for everyone, especially the contractors who built the $70 million-odd of cruise missiles used.

That’s right. This is a coordinated effort. The Russians know what we know. But the rest of the story? Who knows. It will bring more eyeballs to TV and the internet. And yes, defense contractors have got to move product… uh missiles. (Painted on side: “Note: One-time use only. For replacements, please contact ].”

Ed

 

[Michael68]

So basically when the US does it it is justified? What about napalm in Vietnam? Same thing? When the US does it then it is just? The US burned to death hundreds of thousand of men, women and children in Japan. Nothing you said is a moral justification for that. You just asserted some facts.

If there is a moral justication of weapons that kill all the men, women and children in an entire city I’d like to hear it. Maybe that same justification would apply in Syria, if there was an attack which I doubt.

By the way I’m no liberal. I just hate hypocrisy and the sanctimonious attitude of my countrymen.

You’re like arguing with an ex-wife!!!

 

[Thomas_Ruin]

It does not seem to be an attack that was coordinated with Russia. However Russia was warned it was coming.

 

[steve93]

You know there’s some horrible things going on in Africa as we speak; famine, civil war, torture. Why haven’t we bombed there?

Because there’s no oil there.