U.S. Launches Missiles at Syrian Base

[RoyBatty]

Slightly older, but shows what is happening now. All the shilling in forums & news, even here, thinking their was a chem attack.

BBC News Caught Staging FAKE News Chemical Attack In Syria

Those rats (and ITV) produced similar nonsense in Yugoslavia when they faked stories about starving prisoners in concentration camps.

[The Horned God]

Let's clear up some facts:

Yes lets.

A Semite / Semitic person is generally held to be somebody with racial origins from certain parts of the Middle East. Palestinians such as Yasser Arafat are examples of Semites.

Irrelevant. Arabs are also semites of course, but that doesn't alter the fact that in common parlance the term semite generally refers to jews.

If you hate jews as a group, whether as an ethnic, religious or cultural group, then you will be described by 95% of people as an anti-semite. Period. That's what the word "generally" means.

[The Horned God]

What!? The source is the Pentagon. I just searched google for a quick reference so you could read it; these guys merely put a copy of it on their website. You can search the wikileaks database for yourself.

It is you who are making the claim so it is up to you to provide a reputable source.

But assuming the document is genuine it is still merely an analyst's report. It in no way proves that setting up a salafist state in Syria was U.S policy.

You're confusing different concepts. You were talking about whether it was reasonable. That's something else than moral responsibility. Of course they are morally responsible. the question is about the extent to which the context justifies it, this includes future developments that are caused by it.

Well I disagree. In my opinion the moral responsibility for those soldiers deaths rests solidly at the door of Assad because it he was he who was storing chemical weapons in that facility with the intention to commit war crimes.

As for ws it reasonable, yes it was reasonable. Asaad was told by Obama not to use chemical weapons and he used them and nothing was done. So that obviously emboldened him to use them again. It is obvious where that would lead.

The problem is that they don't make the best calculations, or perhaps they do, but it's exactly their aim (see the pentagon document).
It has almost become a general consensus that Iraq was a bad idea (that's why Hillary tried to distance herself from it), but the US just keeps doing the same. Everybody knows the consequences, not to mention the emerging conflict with Russia; whether you like Putin or not, it's downright evil to risk a world war or even a war between the two major superpowers just because 'we should do the right thing'. On behalf of the moralists it's selfish, because they sacrifice lives in order to feel good about themselves. At least american strategists are aware of their interests in destabilizing the rest of the world, they're not lying to themselves.

Moralists sacrifice lives simply in order to "feel good about themselves"? That seems a high price to pay for a warm and fuzzy feeling. As for risking war with Russia, that is not necessarily evil at all. And let's be honest, all it's ever going to be is a proxy war.

Risking (proxy) war with Russia might even be considered responsible and selfless rather than evil. Especially if Russia is propping up a vicious dictator who commits war crimes against his own people. Murdering civilians through torture, barrel bombs and poison gas, that's evil.

Good, now try to understand why this implies that you're black and white vision of killing with good intentions vs killing with bad intenstions doesn't apply in war. And, as a disclaimer, this doesn't at all exclude the possibility that some are morally less justifiable than others. Just that the difference is one of gradation, not of principle.

No I totally disagree. If intention didn't matter then killing people while trying to liberate a country from an invader would be the moral equivalent of killing people while invading the country in the first place. Nobody thinks that.

Using civilians as a means is not the same as ‘the end justifies the means’. The latter also applies to collateral damage.
So in the case of torture one would still have to ask why these people were arrested and whether there was any reason to suspect them of engaging in anti-government activities.

So it's acceptable in your view to torture people to death by the thousand for trying to overthrow a tyrannical regime?

Using civilians as a means would more apply to actions like those of ISIS who are claimed to use human shields.

Asaad is killing civilians in order to maintain his brutal dictatorship. If that's is not the worst possible means to the worst possible end I don't know what is.

Anyway, if torture is your criterium, should the US also attack Egypt, a country which the Trump administration has no problem with? Or perhaps themselves?

I don't have an opinion on what the U.S should do in Egypt. But if Egypt is torturing people to death by the thousand then yes they should probably be stopped one way or another. However I doubt that that is the case.

And if you are trying to compare Assad's brutal dictatorship torturing civilians to death by the thousand in order to hold on to power with the U.S's very limited use of waterboarding against a handful of known terrorists in order to protect it ow citizens, then your really have lost all perspective.

If you ‘think’ he cares about civilian lives for 0 percent, that’s okay. But I don’t consider such a wild guess reliable enough for policy. There are many things that even prove otherwise, like the evacuation of rebels (not just civilians) to safe areas under their own control after Assad defeated them in a specific area (Wadi Barada and al-Wa’ar district in Homs f.e.). If his power was al that mattered, it would have been better to just kill them all.

That doesn't prove Assad has humanitarian leanings. Slaughtering prisoners of war is a very clear war crime and would hasten American intervention all the more.

I’d take Saddam over endless amounts of terrorist attacks throughout the city.

I wouldn't. Saddam killed 500,000 Iraqis including at least 100,000 Kurds gassed to death. It will be a long time before terrorist bombs chalk up that kind of death toll in all of Iraq.

Consider also the fact that christians do not trust their muslim neighbours anymore, the amount of ISIS militants that blend into everyday life, the sectarian conflict that is emerging between shiites and sunni’s, the revenge actions taking place by shiite iraqi’s.

Nobody trusted anyone else under Saddam either. His secret police had spies everywhere.

The Shiites and Sunnis will ultimately have to learn to be pragmatic and share power in spite of their differences. They will hopefully come to see that eventually.

Yeah, the califate is such a nice place to live.

ISIS is on the way to being defeated in Iraq. Their main stronghold Mosul is about to fall.

The problem is that the US has proved over and over again not to be capable to replace someone’s rule with something better. At least, not for the people; only for themselves because they remove all strong powers that stand in the way of US global rule and local Wahabi rule. The latter is also bad for us, because they are the one’s behind the spread of Islam in Europe as well.

The name of the game in the middle east is protecting the worlds oil supply, and preventing rogue states from obtaining WMD's. Saddam once said that his only mistake was invading Kuwait before getting nukes rather than obtaining them first then invading with impunity. It seems to me that the world is far better off without a nuclear armed Saddam.

At least the Pentagon did in 2012, but that didn’t stop them from continuing their work.
It didn’t stop them from doing the same in Libya either.

How could the U.S have prevented ISIS in 2012?

This (http://www.mintpressnews.com/2007-ve...-syria/218083/) looks interesting as well.

The article claims that the reason the Saudi rulers are supporting Sunni extremists is to appease them in the hopes not to be overthrown. I must say I view that a lot more positively than the idea that they actually agree with the extremists which is what I had assumed up to now.

It also claims that bush intended to divide Iraq into 3 separate ethnic areas. Well that never happened, but it seems to me it might be not such a bad idea. It would offer the hope of long term stability.

As for what it says about Syria;

The alliance between the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel has more to do with attempts to control the region’s vast energy resources than religious differences or any perceived threat posed by Iran or Syria.

I don't think the U.S should have to apologise for seeking to ensure a steady oil supply to the world. Not at all. As for the threat from Iran though, that is very real at least to it's neighbours. When a Theocracy from the dark age obtains weapons from the nuclear age that poses an undeniable threat, and Asaad would be riding their coattails.

Those rebels were supported by Turkey as well, so this is nonsense. The only ‘rebels’ that are disliked by Turkey are the Kurds, and the US has never had a problem supporting them.

Turkey is bombing the Kurds far more than they are bombing Assad or ISIS and the U.S is doing nothing about that. That suggests that the U.S is wary of alienating its ally Turkey.

The Kurds might have a brighter future in Iraq, I agree, that’s the only positive development, one we still can’t say much about. The Shia-Sunni relations are terrible in Iraq though.

The Kurds have been the beneficiaries of a U.S no-fly zone since the early 90's. So it is hardly surprising that they have been the first to emerge as a successful autonomous region. The other regions may stabilise given time.

But even if there is sufficient reason to be optimistic now, your position does remind me a lot of Trotsky’s when confronted by the countless human lives that were being destroyed, answered that it was only a small price that had to be payed for the revolution.

The comparison with Trotsky notwithstanding there may be some merit in that statement as regards Iraq. Freedom has a high price. It always had, in every country. But don't forget the countless lives that were destroyed by Saddam. He killed 500,000 iraqi citizens which averages about 100 deaths per day over his 24 year reign and there was no end in sight to his dynasty.

So I'd say that while the death toll of the Iraq war was certainly no small price, it will I believe ultimately be proved a price worth paying in return for the freedom of the people of Iraq.

Sums it up alright, although your wording still assumes a dichotomy between ‘justified/accidental killing’ and ‘intentional killing’ which I have showed you to be invalid.

Well then that accusation is a false one. I do take the loss of life caused by regime change into account. But I think some loss of life is, for want of a better word "worthwhile". The French people were overjoyed to be liberated from the Nazies even though the liberation cost some lives, don't you agree? They didn't say to the Americans "go away we've suffered enough casualties when Germany invaded there is no point in suffering any more". They wanted to be liberated.

As for intentionality not being important, you've used a lot of abstract argumentation but you haven't come up with anything convincing in my opinion. Whatever you say the fact remains that accidental and intentional acts are recognised the world over as being quite distinct in character.

No one believes that accidental killing is morally the same thing as intentional killing. Neither in war or at any other time. Even someone who kills a pedestrian while driving drunk is not treated the same as a terrorist who mows people down intentionally.

The moral situation is no different with governments at war. When the U.S invaded Iraq in 2003 they had every reason to believe that after 24 years of Saddam the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms.

After Saddam, surely one might have been forgiven for thinking that the Iraqis would be more than ready to put their differences behind them in order to ensure a stable future. Afterall that would seem the rational thing for them to do.

The fact that it didn't happen that way and the insurgency went on for many more years is not something the U.S government could have predicted in my opinion.

I remember in 2003 George Bush didn't even know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite, let alone how deeply divided they were! So I think incompetence rather than malice is the most likely explanation for the mistakes the Bush administration made in Iraq. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt anyway.

As for Libya, well Libya isn't Iraq. Just because Iraq developed into a quagmire doesn't mean that Libya was necessarily going to. The situation in each country is unique and requires a unique analysis.

I never asked you to. You could’ve just ignored the last sentence and focus on what I was saying, but (like usual) you decide to focus on what isn’t essential so you can draw away the attention from your failing arguments.

My arguments are based on a recognition of how human beings think and operate in the real world. Yours are based on some sort of sterile and rather nihilistic calculations that it seems to me nobody but an adding machine could relate to.

I have tried to show that our emotional response to this alleged example of the use of chemical weapons is disproportionate to what distinguishes them from other weapons when you look at the casualties, to demonstrate that these humanitarian arguments are perfect to be exploited politically...

There is nothing disproportional about my response. The fact that this attack did not kill a particularly huge number of people not the point. It is still a chemical attack i.e a war crime and that by itself is accepted grounds for intervention. History shows that if no one intervenes when 100 people are gassed to death then the next time it will be 1000 and then 100,000. That is what happened under Saddam.

I have also pointed out that action and inaction do not posess the same moral value. Not intervening militarily doesn't mean I approve of it. I don't approve of child marriage either, just because I don't travel to Yemen to save little girls.

That is a false analogy. The difference between you and the U.S government is that you are (I presume) in no position to be able to prevent child marriage in Yemen! But if there were child marriages being conducted next door to you it would be a different story. Then you would be both morally and legally obliged to act by reporting it to the police, otherwise you would be an accessory after the fact.

Moral responsibility to take action increases with the power to act. It is considered immoral to stand by and allow an evil to take place when you are in a position to prevent it.

Putting the word ‘weapon’ in italics doesn’t make it mine. You’re doing this on purpose are you?

That's right it doesn't make it yours. Quotation marks would have made it yours. Italics are used for emphasis.

I only addressed the spraying of crops and yes, I reckon that they knew that the lack of food would be harmful to people. That’s probably also why they told their soldiers that it weren’t crops they were spraying. It’s all in your own source.

I thought you were referring to agent orange. You used the term agent orange.Agent orange does not kill food crops like rice or wheat, in fact it was still used by U.S farmers as a herbicide on rice crops up until 1985.

As you are referring to the destruction of crops then you should have referred to "agent blue". Agent blue that is a different chemical. Well at least that accusation is one that makes more sense as starvation did kill people in Vietnam. But it is still not the moral equivalent of using sarin gas because crop destruction was not prohibited at the time.

Crop destruction is now prohibited by the Geneva convention but it only became so in 1977. Prior to that time and for all of recorded history up to that point it was regarded as a fairly standard military strategy. That does not completely excuse the destruction of crops by the U.S, but it does mitigate it to some extent I think. In earlier times different rules or conduct were accepted.

That’s true. Everything I had to say was written down in my first post to you. You just keep making me explain it over and over again. It didn’t turn out as a rewarding endeavour though.

To tell you the truth some of your values are so alien to me that I had a hard time getting my head around what you were saying. This idea that the intentions that are behind a person's actions are of no consideration, I find particularly bizarre. I don't think I've ever met anyone who holds that view and certainly no one who uses it in daily life in their dealings with other people.

It seems to me that only someone with truly dreadful intentions who had committed awful acts would seek to make use of such an argument, and do so in order to seek protection from judgment. Was Carl Schmitt a proponent of this idea? It wouldn't surprise me considering he was a favourite of the Nazies.

You’re just lying on purpose. Again, all I said was that it caused a famine and malnourishment and that this was the result of deliberate spraying of crops. Read your own source and do it thoroughly, instead of thinking of lies with the sole objective of winning an argument.

How dare you accuse me of lying! I wasn't doing any such thing. I thought you were referring to agent orange, (which I think is understandable since you were using the name "agent orange"). Agent orange as I said is not poisonous to food crops certainly not rice or wheat anyway. Agent blue was used for that. I've addressed the use of agent blue above.

And I'm not "trying to win the argument" per se. I couldn't care less about winning the argument, the very idea is absurd to me. I'd be highly surprised if more than two dozen people actually read through this exchange over the next 20 years.

All I've been trying to do is understand your pov in contrast to my own. I think I am finally beginning to grasp it. I just find I disagree with it quite strongly. Particularly the low importance you give to intentionally when judging human actions. The notion that intention is unimportant might be popular on some other planet among some other species, but not here on earth among human beings. Never has, never will.

[Bernhard]

It is you who are making the claim so it is up to you to provide a reputable source.

But assuming the document is genuine it is still merely an analyst's report. It in no way proves that setting up a salafist state in Syria was U.S policy.

I gave you a scan of the document and the name of the database where you can find it; the rest is up to you. Would be great if academic journals followed your logic; they'd have to include all the books mentioned in the list of reference with every journal.
I have other sources to support what is written here as well, but since you go from "quite damning" when you don't buy the validity of the source to "merely an analyst's report" when you do, I'm not going to do any more work to find it for you. In one thing you're right; it doesn't prove that the U.S. has set up a salafist state. It does prove that they predicted it and found it to be welcome and within the scope of their general aim. That's enough.

Moralists sacrifice lives simply in order to "feel good about themselves"? That seems a high price to pay for a warm and fuzzy feeling. As for risking war with Russia, that is not necessarily evil at all. And let's be honest, all it's ever going to be is a proxy war.

Risking (proxy) war with Russia might even be considered responsible and selfless rather than evil. Especially if Russia is propping up a vicious dictator who commits war crimes against his own people. Murdering civilians through torture, barrel bombs and poison gas, that's evil.

It already is a proxy war. Most analists, on both sides, are aware of this and aware of what might happen if it escalates further. So, considering how much you care for "what everyone else thinks"-arguments, you're quite alone with your position.

That's right it doesn't make it yours. Quotation marks would have made it yours. Italics are used for emphasis.

You still inferred that this was my position, and continue to do so, which you had absolutely no grounds for doing.

As for intentionality not being important, you've used a lot of abstract argumentation but you haven't come up with anything convincing in my opinion. Whatever you say the fact remains that accidental and intentional acts are recognised the world over as being quite distinct in character.

My arguments are based on a recognition of how human beings think and operate in the real world. Yours are based on some sort of sterile and rather nihilistic calculations that it seems to me nobody but an adding machine could relate to.

To tell you the truth some of your values are so alien to me that I had a hard time getting my head around what you were saying. This idea that the intentions that are behind a person's actions are of no consideration, I find particularly bizarre. I don't think I've ever met anyone who holds that view and certainly no one who uses it in daily life in their dealings with other people.

It seems to me that only someone with truly dreadful intentions who had committed awful acts would seek to make use of such an argument, and do so in order to seek protection from judgment. Was Carl Schmitt a proponent of this idea? It wouldn't surprise me considering he was a favourite of the Nazies.

All I've been trying to do is understand your pov in contrast to my own. I think I am finally beginning to grasp it. I just find I disagree with it quite strongly. Particularly the low importance you give to intentionally when judging human actions. The notion that intention is unimportant might be popular on some other planet among some other species, but not here on earth among human beings. Never has, never will.

I didn't claim that intention doesn't matter. It's okay, I now get that you find these things hard to understand. It's a shame that this has given you such a bad opinion about me, but I think I'll get over it.

I thought you were referring to agent orange. You used the term agent orange.Agent orange does not kill food crops like rice or wheat, in fact it was still used by U.S farmers as a herbicide on rice crops up until 1985.

As you are referring to the destruction of crops then you should have referred to "agent blue". Agent blue that is a different chemical. Well at least that accusation is one that makes more sense as starvation did kill people in Vietnam. But it is still not the moral equivalent of using sarin gas because crop destruction was not prohibited at the time.

How dare you accuse me of lying! I wasn't doing any such thing. I thought you were referring to agent orange, (which I think is understandable since you were using the name "agent orange"). Agent orange as I said is not poisonous to food crops certainly not rice or wheat anyway. Agent blue was used for that. I've addressed the use of agent blue above.

I didn't use that name, so you're making things up again. But I was refering to agent orange, yes. And if you read your source you'll find that it only says that blue agent was mainly used, not solely, in the beginning (nothing is said about later spraying of crops. If you then read the sources the wiki article is refering to, you'll find that agent orange was used to spray crops as well.

But I'm done here. I like a good discussion, but this isn't one.

[The Horned God]

I gave you a scan of the document and the name of the database where you can find it; the rest is up to you. Would be great if academic journals followed your logic; they'd have to include all the books mentioned in the list of reference with every journal.

So you post a scan of a document to support a claim and then expect your reader to go trawling through databases to check if it is genuine. That's a bit lazy isn't it?

I have other sources to support what is written here as well, but since you go from "quite damning" when you don't buy the validity of the source to "merely an analyst's report" when you do, I'm not going to do any more work to find it for you.

Lol! Yeah and I have sources that prove beyond all doubt that I am the rightful aire to Trumps billions, but I'm going to bother showing them to anyone.

In one thing you're right; it doesn't prove that the U.S. has set up a salafist state. It does prove that they predicted it and found it to be welcome and within the scope of their general aim. That's enough.

If a Salafist state set itself up in Syria that is no responsibility of the U.S.

It already is a proxy war. Most analists, on both sides, are aware of this and aware of what might happen if it escalates further. So, considering how much you care for "what everyone else thinks"-arguments, you're quite alone with your position.

And a proxy war is all it's ever going to be. If your think a hot war will start between Russia and the U.S you are nuts.

You still inferred that this was my position, and continue to do so, which you had absolutely no grounds for doing.

I didn't claim that intention doesn't matter. It's okay, I now get that you find these things hard to understand. It's a shame that this has given you such a bad opinion about me, but I think I'll get over it.

Lol! You said that intentions don't matter in war! You're just trying to squirm your way out of having to admit that I am right in saying that intentions do matter in war. Because it's palpably obvious that they do.

I didn't use that name, so you're making things up again. But I was refering to agent orange, yes. And if you read your source you'll find that it only says that blue agent was mainly used, not solely, in the beginning (nothing is said about later spraying of crops. If you then read the sources the wiki article is refering to, you'll find that agent orange was used to spray crops as well.

Agent orange can't kill rice or wheat. So I don't know what crops it could be used to destroy.

But I'm done here. I like a good discussion, but this isn't one.

Suits me. You turned out to be ridiculously biased towards the U.S. Which considering they saved all our asses in WWII and continue to ensure our security through NATO now, seems a little paranoid and ungrateful to me.

[Eestlane]

Anyone know the effects of the use of depleted uranium warheads by the US in places like Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan?

In Afghanistan some of my coworkers witnessed us marines sticking fingers into the damaged areas of a Abrams M1M2 after it was strucked by RPG or grunts used to touch used shells from the tank.

The claimed that by doing it they can tick a box called "contact with radiation" in some specific form, thus they will receive extra financial compensation.

[Juthunge]

Agent orange can't kill rice or wheat. So I don't know what crops it could be used to destroy.

Well, that's flat out wrong:

The durable rice plant, that came into contact with Agent orange received a toxic overdose that caused the molecular structure of the rice plant to speed out of control.

The Routledge History of Food


Much more detailed here, too much to quote:
Riot Control and Herbicides in War: Their Humanitarian, Toxicological, Ecological, Military, Polemological, and Legal Aspects

Besides the simple fact, that there were and are more food crops grown in Vietnam than rice. Which are also much more susceptible to Agent Orange:

Orange was the general-purpose herbicide for defoliation and crop destruction[...]. According to military estimates[...] 8 percent was used in Ranch Hand crop destruction missions.
[...]
Annual crops were killed rapidly by one application of Agent Orange, root and tuber crops and perennial and woody tropical crops such as jackfruit, papaya and mango, were also susceptible to Agent Orange.

Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam (Scroll down one page for Agent Orange)

See also the source for it:

Annual crops; e.g., beans, gourd, jute, peanuts, and ramie, were rapidly killed by an application of Orange. Root or tuber crops; e.g., manioc, potatoes, taro, and yams, showed great reduction in yield when treated with Orange during early growth stages. Perennial and woody tropical crops; e.g., jackfruit, papaya, castor bean, and mango were susceptible to Herbicide Orange (14).
From August 1965 through February 1971, crop destruction missions with Orange accounted for 8 percent of the Herbicide Orange applied(11).

The Toxicology, Environmental Fate and Human Risk of Herbicide Orange and Its Associated Dioxin

[Eestlane]

I like many Trump fans was deeply dissappointed when first hearing news of Trump ordering a punitive Tomahawk employment against Shayrat airbase after the alleged chemical attack.

At first I was storming different ideas around the "just another globalist" concept, because the use of chemical weapons by the regime didn`t make any sense at all. Prior the gas attack Trump administration policy towards Assad was steadily shifting towards neutrality and from a military standpoint Assads forces were in the process of winning the conflict anyway. Not to mention Assad gave up all his chemical armament, this is confirmed by UN officials and US state dept. Neo-cons could not accept this new current in us foreign policy.

Link1: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/u...yria.html?_r=0
Link2: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...assad-can-stay
Link3: https://www.armscontrol.org/factshee...apons-Activity

Thus the gas attack occured, in reality it does not matter anymore who is to blame. IMO the most likely cause for the deadly agents release was due to collateral damage caused by the regime airstrikes in that sector or maybe it was a direct action operation by a proxy, with the intent to provoke.

This alleged chemical attack happened 5 days after Trump declared that there will be no violent regime change and just 20 something hours before Trump-Xi Jinping meeting.

The overall strategic situation for Trump at that time was:

1) His opponents were accusing him of being a Russian puppet.
2) He was pressuring China publicly to deal with North Korea.
3) Obamas highly flexible "red lining" and "restart" politics with russia, show US goverment as weak and spineless entity . Trump couldn`t allow himself becoming "obama 2.0".
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact...shield-gift-r/
4) Trumps overall „MAGA“ concept needs stronger reinforcement . Not by meddling with middle eastern secular dictatorships for saudis and israelis, but by showing Russia and China, that US leadership still possess the will and determination to play it dirty „cold war“ style.
5) A „Red line“ was given , but overthrowing Assad is costly and will catastrophically prolonge or worsen the Syrian conflict and the „refugee“ crisis.

The situation offered no time for deep inquiry.

Possibly few hours before joining Xi Jinping to dine at some Trump resort to discuss US-China relations and North Korea issues.The real estate shark manipulated by intel covering an obvious false flag attack(at this it did not matter anymore), quickly decided to give the syrians and russkies located at Shayrat a friendly reminder of „red lines“ and that within given time period 60 cruise missile will hit their military installation. Despite loosing a considerable amount of supporters base who are tired of pointless military involvements in middle-east, what did Trump achieve?

A rapid show of force, which is largely symbolic. With near zero tactical value(the damage done to syrian/possible russian hardware and infrastructure was minimal). Trump makes himself look highly decisive and formidable infront Xi Jinping, plus the attack serves as a demonstration for american military might to the whole world.

Now on to the neo-cons who constantly bombard Trump for being „Putins bitch“, the 59 times of Tomahawk strike against a Russian/Iran backed syrian Airbase should be a feasible counterargument in the eyes of the public against the russian connection theory.

Finally russians have claimed earlier that they are protecting Assads forces from any possible american attack from air with their s-300 and s-400 assets which should be the premier anti-air/counter cruise missile solution with no known counterpart. Yet Tomahawks still reached the target. https://www.rferl.org/a/weher-was-th.../28417014.html

Russia and Syria are still pretty much in the game of mopping up ISIS and those „moderates“ planted by saudis/CIA. On the ground the status quo remains unchanged.

[Sasa]

Not to mention Trump's open embrace of NATO now...he seems to be falling into place now

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/12/po...na-nato-syria/

[The Horned God]

Well, that's flat out wrong:

Your sources must be confusing agent orange with agent blue or some other of the so called "rainbow agents". Agent Orange won't kill rice because there is nothing in it toxic to rice.

Agent Orange consists of equal parts of two commercial herbicides. 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D

2,4-D's application was;

A wide variety of different sectors use products containing 2,4-D to kill weeds and unwanted vegetation. In agriculture, it was the first herbicide found to be capable of selectively killing weeds but not crops. It has been used since 1945[11] to control broad-leafed weeds in pastures, orchards, and cereal crops such as corn, oats, rice and wheat

2,4,5-T's application also included among other things the cultivation of rice;

In 1970, the United States Department of Agriculture halted the use of 2,4,5-T on all food crops except rice, and in 1985, the EPA terminated all remaining uses in the U.S. of this herbicide.

So you see agent orange cannot have been used to destroy rice. It contained no substance that would do that. In fact spraying paddy fields with agent orange would only kill the weeds and increase the rice yield!

And if we are talking about destroying vietnamese crops we are primarily talking about rice.It is the stable food.

Besides the simple fact, that there were and are more food crops grown in Vietnam than rice. Which are also much more susceptible to Agent Orange:

That is technically correct point but a bit nitpicky.

Vietnam primarily has a rice-based agricultural economy. Rice is cultivated on 82 percent of the arable land and provides 80 percent of carbohydrate, and 40 percent of the protein intake of the average Vietnamese.

http://factsanddetails.com/southeast...ntry-3482.html

So 82% of vietnamese arable land is used for rice. Rice is also the highest density food crop known in terms of calories produced per unit area of land. So If you kill everything but rice you don't starve the vietnamese you just put them on a bit of a diet and reduce their income from sale of cash crops.