Posted on 04/08/2017 12:16:30 PM PDT by ckinv368
On Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime launched a chemical weapon attack against his own people—many of whom were sleeping. Over 70 men, women, and many small children were killed by the nerve agent Sarin, which generally causes agonizing asphyxiation and death. According to CNN, Assad denied he had used the nerve agent on his own people, insisting, instead, that a routine bombing mission hit a rebel-operated nerve gas “factory.” Assad employed a similar excuse after a 2013 Sarin gas attack, arguing anyone could make Sarin, which he called the “kitchen gas.” Needless to say, chemical weapons experts find this explanation highly improbable. The fact that Sarin—especially the binary agent type used in the attack—is extremely difficult to manufacture outside of a controlled lab environment, is not lost on these individuals.
While the world universally condemned Assad for this attack, it was clear that Russia would not quickly or easily allow a UN action aimed at curbing Assad’s power. And, because Assad’s attack involved the use of a deadly Weapon of Mass Destruction that even the Nazis refused to utilize, Tuesday’s actions represented something much more sinister than even the indiscriminate slaughter of small children. Because Assad continues to possess WMDs, and has now used them twice, a response was warranted from the United States. President Trump acted decisively on Thursday night, sending 59 cruise missiles to completely destroy a large military installation and airfield that had been used by Assad to launch his nerve gas attack. While some cheered this act, others—especially those on the far Right—decried it as unnecessary, illegal, and further evidence that the US meddles in business where it should not be involved. I disagree with this line of reasoning, and think Trump got it exactly right with his response.
I certainly understand that Assad, like other madmen and dictators around the world, has been murdering his citizens for years. Approximately 500,000 civilians have been killed in Syria’s multi-year civil war, and we have largely left Syria and its people to figure out the conflict on their own. I do not applaud the doctrine suggesting the US should be the world’s policeman, nor do I believe it is the place of the US to punish the perpetrator of every atrocity. The world is a big place, and US resources cannot create universal peace and harmony. But, much more than a heinous war crime, Assad’s actions represent a dangerous precedent that is directly threatening to US interests at home and abroad. His use of WMDs in time of conflict represents a rare use of a weapon that is banned by over 175 nations, and has only been utilized in war four other times since WWI (once by him in 2013). If Assad was allowed to act with impunity—which is essentially what happened following his 2013 use of Sarin—every dictator the world over would rightly understand that the US turns a blind eye to the development and use of WMDs of all kinds and fashions. Even in the back yard of US allies. How can the US assert the moral right to call for the denuclearization of North Korea when we care little about the use of a different WMD in Syria? What do we do when a WMD isn’t merely used in our allies’ back yard, but is instead used in our own?
That’s why Trump’s actions were so important. Far from committing us as a participant in Syria’s civil war, or putting us on a collision course with Russia, Thursday’s precision strike sent a robust message. It was the strongest indication in years that the US does care about the development, possession, and use of WMDs. It demonstrated that the US has the ability to assert its power to protect allies and force change at any time, in any location around the world. It showed that when the US makes a demand, unfriendly regimes should take note and comply. It re-drew the red line that use of a WMD so strongly represents. And, finally, it reinforced in the mind of Assad and every other rouge dictator the world over that those 59 cruise missiles could just as easily have been sent to visit the Presidential Palace in Damascus, or in some other capital city.
The US is not the world’s policeman. But, the US is the leader of the free world. In that role, the US demands certain minimum standards of international comportment. The use of WMDs has been universally decried, and represents a direct threat to our interests in the Middle East and worldwide. Trump was right to assert those interests, and burnish our reputation as the shining city on the hill we’ve been for so long.
For more like this, please visit www.cameronkinvig.com
Did you see this?
Is it supposed to sound worse if he gasses his “own people”? His “own people” he’s accused of gassing are ISIS pretending to be freedom fighting rebels. Remember the ones McCain loves to pose with?
No UN resolutions.
No “Coalition of the Whatever”.
No red-lines.
No endless debate in the media.
No talking.
Just action, swift, measured, and proportional.
Perfect execution by a brand-new team.
Strength!
Trump!
Another author who gets it exactly right.
I sincerely hope so, but time will tell.
What if that is the case. Makes more sense than gassing a bunch of civilians.
Who used gas in the two previous attacks in March and August of 2013? Assad denied those too. It has been reported that the gas used in those two attacks had the same hallmarks, and likely came from stockpiles of the Syrian military. Obama and Rice claimed that all gas was removed from Syria, but we can take what they say with a grain of salt. Since Obama and Rice are liars, why isn’t Assad a liar too? If Assad was responsible for those two other attacks, he didn’t face any consequences, so why wouldn’t he take the chance to use it again? I’m giving the President, and the intelligence claims that they tracked the plane that dropped it, the benefit of the doubt...not some muzzie tyrant.
Experts on chemical weapons believe that the nerve agents used in both the 2013 attack and the attack this past week were “binary” in nature. That means that the chemical precursors were mixed shortly before detonation in precise quantities. This is often done by a two-chamber shell or bomb, and is used to prolong shelf life (Sarin otherwise only has a shelf life of 5 years). It’s a very sophisticated effort to make a binary agent, and is likely not one that the Syrian rebels could pull off. The Japanese terrorists that made Sarin in the mid-1990s spent millions of dollars, and had a 3 story chemistry lab staffed with dozens of people and an enormous amount of sophisticated equipment, and they still only managed to make a couple gallons of the stuff. The Syrian rebels simply don’t have the sophistication to make that happen.
Women, children and babies are “freedom fighting rebels”?
I guess it’s ok then.
I am not impressed. If President Trump really wants to demonstrate his strength and humanity, he'll put a stop to Saudi atrocities against civilians in Yemen. After all, they have beautiful babies in Yemen too.
I agree, the Saudis are really evil bastards.
Sherlock Holmes would have asked, “Who benefits?”
Assad had every reason not to do this.
The rebels had every reason to falsely pin it on Assad...
The only thing that matters are US interests.
Then Assad is short a runway.
If he did it was in the ether, zotted.
I read the post to JimRob that got him blasted, but didn’t know until today he was goneskiis. thanks.
Atrocity propaganda or lies have been at the forefront of almost every war in the 20th century. Belgian babies bayoneted or hands cut off. The USS Maine sinking blamed on the Spanish. The Germans claimed the Poles attacked a radio station in Germany, provoking their invasion. Gulf of Tonkin. The CIA painted US planes in Cuban AF colors for Bay of Pigs to make it look like this was a Cuban internal revolt. The Kuwaiti babies thrown from incubators.
It’s more BS to morally justify a war they planned for other reasons. It makes the war they want magically transform into a moral crusade. We aren’t fighting for a neocon revision of the middle east to make the Saudis and Gulf States happy. No, we are fighting for poor little gassed children.
They always say “truth is the first casualty...”.
I agree, the Saudis are really evil bastards.
Good points...
Seems that it is OK what Saudis do because they are our ally.
Not OK what Assad does because he is Russia’s ally and Russia and Assad are more evil that Saudis (even tho they dkilled 3,000 and injured 6,000 on 9/11).
We don’t hear much about the Saudi Yemen atrocities...
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/human-rights-watch-report-identifies-saudi-atrocities-in-yemen/
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has slammed the Saudi regime for the thousands of innocent deaths its coalition air force has perpetrated against the Yemeni’s, as well as significant infrastructure destruction it has engaged in.
The annual report found that at least 4,125 civilians were killed and a further 7,207 injured between March 26, 2015 when the Saudi campaign began, and October 10, 2016.
HRW identified “six types of air-dropped and ground-launched cluster munitions in multiple locations in Yemen, including those produced in the US and Brazil. Amnesty International has further documented the use of UK-made cluster munitions.”
The report identified that the Saudi-led aggression “has been supported by the United States and the United Kingdom.”
The gas attack killed 70. The war killed half a million. If we are going to get worked up about the one, you'd think we'd get a little worked up about the other.
The war was launched by the Turks, Saudis, Qataris, and Obama's State Department. It has killed half a million people. Its purpose was to bring down Assad. To do that, they recruited jihadis from around the middle east and from muslim populations in the west. The result is that, aside from destroying Syria, they have committed genocide against non-muslim populations that have been there for 2 thousand years.
The rebels are Al Qaeda and ISIS.
There are probably good reasons to bring down Assad, but not when your replacement is Al Qaeda, ISIS, or Muslim Brotherhood. So, in other words, we have killed half a million people and had we won we'd have only made things worse. Is it better to have Assad pointing missiles at Israel, or Al Qaeda pointing missiles at Israel? Is the difference worth 500,000 Syrian lives and 3 million refugees unleashed on Europe?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.