Here we go. Bombs Away.

Monahorns said:
... There have never been "moderate" rebels in Syria. ....
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I think the issue was that none or very few of these people who were actually willing to fight.

This was one of Obama/McCains' biggest problems. The people they were willing to arm were not willing to fight. So whatever arms we sent got divided up among the bad guys, and this is how Obama/McCain ended up arming the Syrian versions of Al Queda/ISIS.

It was no coincidence of timing that when the flow of those arms ceased was also when Assad began to retake territory. There were other factors to be sure, but this was one of them.
 
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bystander said:
I'd love to narrow this down Constitutionally. Is there anything short a declaration of war by Congress (Art. I, Sec. 8) that authorizes (legal according to our laws; then there's international law as if we care about that) our military to attack another nation?
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My argument would be, if I had to make it, that the War Powers Act (1973) allows a President 60 days to use military force until having to go in front of Congress. And, further, that every President has used this authority constitutionally over the past 40 years, including Obama.

But I agree with you that it is a discussion/debate worth having publicly.
 
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Monahorns said:
....It makes no sense for Assad to use chemical weapons in the context of how the war is going and it contradicts reports I hear from Syrian civilians. Not detailed civilian reports, but I mean how they have been more positive towards Assad than rebels. .....
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This gets to the heart of the current issue here, as I see it.

Why would Assad use chemical weapons at this time?

The best answer I have come up with is that because he has used them in the past and when he used them in the past, they "worked."
And he will continue to use them until the cost to him outweighs the benefit from using them.
Trump (+ the UK & France) just tried to alter his math.
 
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One Pundit on a Sunday morning news show claimed Assad has used chemical weapons over 50 times during the course of the Syrian war. If that is true, Assad wouldn't have any reason to stop using them until the Rebels are completely wiped out. Maybe they were "lucky" this atrack with a more effictive attack. One has to imagine nerve agent may be more effective at rooting bunkered down rebels than shelling.
 
Sat photos of suspected Syrian chem-weapons site

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Musburger1 said:
Russian military briefing.

The US alongside its allies conducted a missile strike by its air and naval carriers targeting military and civil facilities of the Syrian Arab Republic on April 14 in the period from 3.42 am till 5.10 am (MSK).

The Russian air defence systems at the Khmeimim and Tartus air base timely located and controlled all naval and air launches made by the USA and the UK.

Announced French aircraft have not been registered by the Russian air defence systems.

It is reported that the B-1B, F-15 and F-16 aircraft of the USAF as well as the Tornado airplanes of the UK RAF over the Mediterranean Sea, and the USS Laboon and USS Monterey located in the Red Sea were used during the operation.

The B-1B strategic bombers approached the facilities over the Syrian territory near al-Tanf illegally seized by the USA.

A number Syrian military airfields, industrial and research facilities suffered the missile-bomb strike.

As preliminary reported, there are no civilian casualties and losses among the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Information will be further specified and made public.

As evident by the available data, 103 cruise missiles have been launched, including Tomahawk naval-based missiles as well as GBU-38 guided air bombs fired from the B-1B; the F-15 and F-16 aircraft launched air-to-surface missiles.

The Tornado airplanes of the UK RAF launched eight Scalp EG missiles.

The Syrian air defence systems, which are primarily the USSR-made AD systems, have successfully countered the air and naval strikes.

In total, 71 cruise missiles have been intercepted. The S-125, S-200, Buk, Kvadrat, and Osa Syrian AD systems were involved in repelling the attack.

It proves high efficiency of the Syrian armament and professional skills of the Syrian servicemen trained by the Russian specialists.

Over the last eighteen months, Russia has completely recovered the Syrian air defence systems, and continues its development.

It is to be stressed that several years ago given the strong request by our western partners, Russia opted out of supplying the S-300 AD systems to Syria. Taking into account the recent incident, Russia believes it possible to reconsider this issue not only regarding Syria but other countries as well.

The strike targeted Syrian air bases as well. Russia has registered the following data.

Four missiles targeted the Damascus International Airport; 12 missiles – the Al-Dumayr airdrome, all the missiles have been shot down.

18 missiles targeted the Blai airdrome, all the missiles shot down.

12 missiles targeted the Shayrat air base, all the missiles shot down. Air bases were not affected by the strike.

Five out of nine missiles were shot down targeting the unoccupied Mazzeh airdrome.

Thirteen out of sixteen missiles were shot down targeting the Homs airdrome. There are no heavy destructions.

In total 30 missiles targeted facilities near Barzah and Jaramana. Seven of them have been shot down. These facilities allegedly relating to the so-called “Damascus military chemical programme” were partially destructed. However, the objects have not been used for a long time, so there were no people and equipment there.

The Russian air defence systems have been alerted. Fighter jets are on combat air patrol now.

There were no cruise missiles entering the Russian AD responsibility area. The Russian air defence systems were not applied.

Russia considers the strike to be a response to the success of the Syrian Armed Forces in fighting international terrorism and liberating its territory, rather than a response to the alleged chemical attack.

Besides, the attack took place on a day when the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) special mission was to start working on investigating incident in the city of Douma where chemical attack allegedly occurred.

It is to be stressed that there are no facilities on producing chemical weapons in Syria, and this has been documented by the OPCW.

The American aggression proves that the USA is not interested in objectivity of the ongoing investigation, seeks to wreck peaceful settlement in Syria and destabilize environment in the Middle East, and all these have nothing to do with declared objectives of countering international terrorism.

Currently the situation in Damascus and other settlements is assessed to be stable.The environment is being monitored.
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You haven’t heard this version.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article200905.html
One week after the allied attack against Syria, very many questions remain unanswered concerning the objectives of this operation and its implementation. And the few established facts contradict the official Western declarations.

The objectives of the bombing
According to the Western version of the story, these bombing attacks were not aimed at overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic (which they call « Bachar’s régime »), but to sanction the use of chemical weapons.

However, no proof of the use of such weapons has been published. Instead, the three allies each broadcast evaluations based on the original video published by the White Helmets [1] — a video which was itself later contradicted by many of the people who appear in it, as well as the personnel of the hospital where it was filmed [2].

On the contrary, we are justified in asking whether the real objective of these raids may indeed have been to overthrow the Republic. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that missiles were fired at the Presidential palace in Damascus. This is also the interpretation by Russia, for whom the real Allied objective was to counter the « success of the Syrian armed forces in the fight to liberate their territory from international terrorism ».

The destruction of the pharmaceutical research centre in Barzeh remains a mystery. This installation was in no way secret. It had been created with the help of France. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons inspected it five times and found nothing that could be linked to research on chemical weapons [3]. According to officials, in the context of international sanctions, the laboratory was carrying out research on anti-cancer products. It was not guarded, and there were no victims in the collapse of the buildings. Neither did the collapse cause the dispersion of chemical agents into the atmosphere. This situation can not help but remind us of the destruction by the United States of the Al-Shifa factory in Sudan. In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered its destruction, implemented by a salvo of four Tomahawk missiles, for a cost of one dead and ten wounded. The US intelligence services had assured that the laboratory was developing nerve gases for Oussama Ben Laden. It turned out later that it was Sudan’s main centre for the production of generic medicines [4]. In particular, it made anti-AIDS medicine without paying the license to Gilead Science, a company directed by Donald Rumsfeld and George Schultz [5].

The implementation of the operation
The Allies claim to have fired 105 missiles, while the Russians counted 103 [6]. The coordination between the different armies was handled by NATO, although it claimed no responsibility [7]. In conformity with its statutes, the Organisation acted with the approval of the North Atlantic Council, although this is not yet certain. Indeed, the Council had not been consulted before the bombing of Tripoli (Libya), in 2011, and no-one protested. The aim of this coordination was to ensure that all the missiles fired, whether from the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the air, would all hit their targets at the same moment. However, things did not go as planned – although the Allied operation was to have been finished within half an hour, in fact it took 1 hour and 46 minutes between the first and final shot.

Prior to the attack, Russia had announced that it would riposte if any of its soldiers were killed. The Allied armies were therefore tasked with the mission of being careful to spare them.

However, the Russian army observed the shots and transmitted the coordinates of the Allied missiles to the Syrian Arab Army in real time, in order to allow the Syrians to destroy them. Besides this, when the Syrians became swamped by the number of allied missiles, the Russian army deployed its system for inhibiting the commands and controls of NATO, which paralysed most of their launchers. This was the first time that the French were confronted with this system, which had already caused problems for the United States and the British in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Kaliningrad.

Besides this, two Russian ships left the port of Tartus to play cat and mouse with a British nuclear attack submarine. [8].

According to the Russian and Syrian staff, 73 missiles were destroyed in flight, a figure which is haughtily contested by the Allied staff. Yet, on the ground, everyone – including myself – could see the activity of the anti-aircraft defense, and no-one saw the impacts of the 105 allied missiles announced.

The Allies immediately specified that any more precise information was classified. However, the specialised forums proffered all sorts of unverifiable revelations about the massive failure of this operation. The most that we know for certain is that a French plane was unable to fire one of its missiles, and was obliged to jettison it out to sea without triggering it [9], and that two French multi-mission frigates suffered a computer failure and were unable to fire their naval Cruise missiles [10] — these are symptoms that are well known by anyone who has had to face up to the Russian inhibitor weapon.

The Syrian defence was over-run by the number of missiles which were fired from every direction. It therefore chose to defend in priority certain targets, like the Presidential palace, and to sacrifice others like the research centre in Bazeh. Since then, Russia has announced that it will be delivering new anti-missile batteries to Syria.

In any case, this operation is clearly the greatest military fiasco since the Second World War.

Western rhetoric
These bombings are certainly illegal from the point of view of international law – none of the three aggressors has been attacked by the Syrian Arab Republic, and their action was not authorised by the Security Council.

The Allies therefore communicated about the legality of their initiative. This was denied by the legal service of the German Bundestag. [11]. Indeed, apart from the fantastical character of the supposed attack in the Ghouta, this type of bombing in no way guarantees an end to the suffering of the civil population.

As for France, it continually stressed that it was not going to war against « Bachar’s regime » - comments that were immediately contradicted by Syria, which returned President el-Assad’s Grand Cross of the Légion d’Honneur to the Romanian ambassador, who represents French interests in Damascus. « There is no honour for President Assad in wearing a decoration attributed by a slave régime of the United States which supports terrorists », declared the Presidential spokesman.

Some authors close to NATO evoke the « responsibility of protection » (R2P) proclaimed by the UNO. Once again, that’s not the point. In fact, the R2P only applies in order to compensate failed states, which is clearly not the case of the Syrian Arab Republic, whose public services are still functioning after 7 years of war.

Finally, while the United States, France and the United Kingdom showed with this operation that they exist outside of international law, they also showed that their armies are not what they used to be.
 
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