Definitely a dangerous game and lots of potential for errors in this entire scenario.
The US should not be contemplating attacking in the first place. There is absoilutely NO compelling intrest for us, and no compelling evidence that Assad did the chemcial attack in the first place...which in and of itself is no reason for us to attack.
There is at least as much physical and circumstantial evidence that it was the rebels themselves who did it.
One credible foreign journalist, known in the region who reports for the BBC and for AP in the region, and fluent in the dialects there in Syria, went into Damascus at the site of the incident and found rebel foot soldier who said that it was a botched attack attempt by them where their chemcial weapons detonated prematurely.
Either way, whichever side did it, it is still not a reason for us to involve the US military. War kills people. These two “bad guys” are killing each other and we ar now indicvating that we are going to go in and attack Syrians fpor attacking other Syrrians. It is ludicrous.
In fact, our best interest in the region, given who is fighting whom there and what the poutcome would be if either side won, would be to have Assad win because he would be more stable to our interests (even if unfriendly) than any fundamental Sunni government resulting from a branch of Al-Uuida prevailing.
As to the Iranina airliner. That was a long time ago when AEGIS was relatively new...and that aircraft did not respond to warnings, was not properly broadcasting IFF, and was on what could easily have been an attack profile against the US vessels, them not knowing it was a commercial airliner.
It was tragic, but in the duty of the CO and entire command chain to protect US lives in a zone where military activities were occurring to protect commericial shipping from the war there at the time, the vessel, IMHO, acted the only way they could given the circumstances. I place the blame for that at the feet of the Iranian crew on the aircraft.
If our forces do get an order to strike, I believe that as long as no mistakes are made, and as long as we do not attempt to bring about a strong destabilization of the forces Assad has arrayed against the rebels, that the baloons between ourselves and Russia will not go up.
Obama will walk around like a peacock indacting he “swoed Assad,” and he will be an abject lauching stock. Putin will moan and complain, and will use it all against the Obama and the US and to his interest benefit...and things will go on as they were.
I believe Putin can keep Assad under control if all of that happens.
The real loose cannon is Iran. If they go off and attack our base in Bahrain, or launch a major attack against Israel, everything could change quickly and get out of hand.
It's times like this that I'm so thankful you're a freeper. Jeff - thanks for sharing...
It’s amazing how fast our (politicized) intel services can conclude that Assad launched sarin gas, when a year after Benghazi they still don’t know nuttin’ about nuttin.’
There are so many ways these “limited” air attacks can go wrong. I think Obama will order these $$ Tomahawks to explode in the desert. Too much risk that somebody might intentionally place chemical warheads at the location of potential missile strikes. Any deaths caused by a release of chems after our missile strikes will be 100% blamed on the USA. That’s just one bad outcome possible.
Another is another “Vincennes” type error, but this time, it might end up with Russian and American warships on fire or sinking.