Personally, I would make deliberate targeting of civilians the line. Weapons of mass destruction have typically been more strongly criticised because of their inherently more indiscriminate and widespread nature, and because of the risks of proliferation…
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Of course, targeting civilans is vile. The problem in a civil war is that everybody except the official amy is, by law, a civilian.
Don’t get me wrong, The Syrian war is a clusterfuck of epic proportions, with no innocent side. Assad is a major asshole, but so is everybody else. The solution? I don’t know. And now Trump puts oil on the fire.
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4 April: 70+ civilians killed in air strike by Syrian government forces on Khan Sheikhoun.
17 March: 130+ civilians killed in air strike by US forces on Mosul.
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On an important point of principle, it is not true that everyone not in the army is a civilian- there are lots of armed belligerents the targeting of who isn’t a war crime, and their are ordinary unarmed folks where it is. I appreciate it’s harder to tell them apart- but the distinction is important.
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Surely this was worth $88,000,000 of any tax payer’s money?
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NSC staffers were also kept out of the loop until after it had happened, per sources.
Give the highest security clearance to a bunch of boobs and foreign agents. Now the highest security clearance is no longer good enough. Surprise!
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I get your point. My point was that a civil war is messy as hell. If several regions fight against each other, there is no “official army” anymore (contradicts what i said, i know). It’s only about who has the biggest bomb anymore.
Think about WW2 - Dresden, Hamburg and Magdeburg were turned to slag just because Adi would’nt give up. Nothing about WMDs.
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No, actually, that is an issue. Sudden climate shifts can have very bad effects on people not acclimatized. Sort of like an acute Seasonal Affective Disorder. Especially if the number of sunlight hours gets screwy.
Happily, the US has all sorts of climates which can suit just about everyone in the world.
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I think that’s a fallacy promoted by a couple decades of security theatre. There are formal national rules with regards to state sovereignty and warfare, which of course are not always adhered to. Attacks against armed civilians don’t count as war crimes because nations can declare war only on other nations - not arbitrary groups of people they don’t like.
Since the US was not attacked by Syria in any way, they can be seen as violating the sovereignty of Syria, which can count as an act of war by the US, as the US had no right to do so. But the US is, as usual, simply counting upon not being called to it. Does anybody believe that when the US federal government kills some US citizens, we would be OK with being invaded or targeted with missiles upon the pretext of violating norms?
Hell, maybe some people in the US will declare war against the US for illegal bombings. Not everybody is willing to give them license to cause destructive international incidents.
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I don’t want to justify bombing Assad, whatever is happening in Syria is an internal power struggle and a better response from the US and Europe would be to let the Syrians sort it out and help the civilians (refugees) that don’t want to get involved.
Whatever the reasons behind Trump’s decision to bomb (my money is on him being very insecure and afraid to look weak) the cause was Assad’s use of chemical weapons, which seems to be true. In contrast to other US wars in the middle east (Iraq), whose official cause wasn’t actually true.
I just find it strange that people seem surprised about this bombing despite the fact that the US has bombed Syria since 2014. The only difference is that yesterday they bombed a military base instead of the probable house of some maybe future terrorist.
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Perhaps Trump should have had Melania hold up a hashtag sign instead. #PleaseDontGasOurKids
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It’s surprising to me because a “measured response” to atrocity feels old fashioned, like something out of the Bill Clinton and earlier eras (or Bartlet on West Wing). The impression from my hazy memory is that Bush II would just go to war in some unrelated country while Obama would be waffling and let his own “red line” be crossed. It makes sense that all the old-school politicians like McCain, Graham and Hillary Clinton are cheering, as are many world leaders: this is an odd, ironic return to norms for the US. I guess we’re past Middle Eastern War fatigue.
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Trump warned Putin. Putin warned Assad. We threw more than 70 million dollars worth of missiles at a mostly empty airfield, with some token damage done, to “prove” that Trump isn’t Putin’s Puppet. So the attack was a failure, and only proved that Trump IS Putin’s Puppet. But, just so long as #DonTheCon can think he’s a big man on the world stage, I guess it’s worth it. (sarcasm)
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Yeah, we’re back to playing checkers with unpiloted weapons in the Middle East again, after a three month break.
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The next time some poor black kid gets gunned down in the middle of the street for the high crime of existing near a cop, I dearly wish that Lavrov would start making noises about a humanitarian intervention into America. Maybe some bombing.
Sure, it might lead to WWIII, but that seems inevitable now, and it’d be quite funny. 
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Well, Trump’s work on climate change ought to take care of that little temperature problem. Just need to wait long enough.
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I have to admit this surprised me.
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Doesn’t even need a sauce!
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Perhaps the question should be, “What does Trump understand at all?”
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